reincarnation and the law of karma a study of the old-new world-doctrine of rebirth, and spiritual cause and effect by william walker atkinson published and sold by yogi publication society masonic temple, chicago, ill. london agents l.n. fowler & co., imperial arcade, ludgate circus. e.c. (reincarnation and the law of karma) copyright, , by yogi publication society all rights reserved notice.--this book is protected by copyright and simultaneous publication in great britain, france, germany, russia and other countries. all foreign rights reserved. table of contents page chapter i. the early races what is reincarnation?--transmigration of souls--the something that persists after death--the soul not a fresh creation, but a traveler on a long journey. chapter ii. the egyptians, chaldeans, druids, etc. the egyptian idea of the soul--forty centuries of occult history--the inner teachings of egypt--the ancient chinese teachings and doctrine--the ancient druids and their teachings. chapter iii. the romans and greeks the reasons of rome's backwardness in spiritual knowledge--why the greeks were advanced--pythagoras; orpheus; plato--the various grecian teachings regarding the soul and its future life--plato's wonderful teachings and philosophy. chapter iv. the jews, essenes, and early christians the inner teachings of the jewish priests--the jewish rabbins and their secret doctrines--the kaballah, the zahar, nichema; ronach; and nephesh--a mysterious brotherhood--the christian inner doctrine--the mysteries of jesus. chapter v. the hindus india the mother of reincarnation, past and present--the aryan teachings--the history of the belief among the hindus--fundamental hindu philosophy. chapter vi. the modern west reincarnation in the modern western world--the revival of interest and its cause--theosophical society--madame blavatsky--the western school of yogi philosophy: its fundamental teachings--the spiritists, and their doctrine--the teachings of the "elect few" in their secret societies--is earth a hell?--christian reincarnationists and their beliefs. chapter vii. between and beyond incarnations how long between incarnations?--necessity for mental and spiritual digestion and assimilation--the advanced teachings--earth-bound souls--advanced souls and their rest period--where does the soul dwell between incarnations?--what happens at death--the great astral world and its planes and sub-planes--where the soul goes after death and what it does there--rebirth and its laws--what is the final state of the soul?--the message of the illumined. chapter viii. the justice of reincarnation the contrasting theories of the soul and its future life--doctrine of reincarnation the only philosophical theory that reconciles facts with theory--the law of karma automatic and enforces itself--every one their own judge and the executor of their own destiny--the opinions of the world's great thinkers. chapter ix. the argument for reincarnation natural laws universal--if the soul is immortal, it must have always been so--a mortal thing cannot be made immortal any more than nothing can be made something--future life implies past life--varient experiences necessary for the soul's education--advancement necessary to enjoyment of the soul's higher states of being--the true teaching. chapter x. the proofs of reincarnation actual proofs of personal conscious experience demanded by science--such proofs possible and have occurred to many of the race--the remembrance of the details of past existence common to the race--interesting cases given on good authority--messages from the past. chapter xi. arguments against reincarnation why reincarnation is opposed by some--the answers to the objections--the proof of the existence of the soul--is reincarnation un-christian and derived from pagan and heathen sources? chapter xii. the law of karma what karma means--does karma punish or is it but the workings of a natural law?--the various kinds of karma--the advanced mystical doctrine--the end is absolute good--there is no devil but fear and unfaith. chapter i. the early races. by "reincarnation" we mean the repeated incarnation, or embodiment in flesh, of the soul or immaterial part of man's nature. the term "metempsychosis" is frequently employed in the same sense, the definition of the latter term being: "the passage of the soul, as an immortal essence, at the death of the body, into another living body." the term "transmigration of souls" is sometimes employed, the term being used in the sense of "passing from one body into another." but the term "transmigration" is often used in connection with the belief of certain undeveloped races who held that the soul of men sometimes passed into the bodies of the lower animals, as a punishment for their sins committed during the human life. but this belief is held in disrepute by the adherents of reincarnation or metempsychosis, and has no connection with their philosophy or beliefs, the ideas having sprung from an entirely different source, and having nothing in common. there are many forms of belief--many degrees of doctrine--regarding reincarnation, as we shall see as we proceed, but there is a fundamental and basic principle underlying all of the various shades of opinion, and divisions of the schools. this fundamental belief may be expressed as the doctrine that there is in man an immaterial something (called the soul, spirit, inner self, or many other names) which does not perish at the death or disintegration of the body, but which persists as an entity, and after a shorter or longer interval of rest reincarnates, or is re-born, into a new body--that of an unborn infant--from whence it proceeds to live a new life in the body, more or less unconscious of its past existences, but containing within itself the "essence" or results of its past lives, which experiences go to make up its new "character," or "personality." it is usually held that the rebirth is governed by the law of attraction, under one name or another, and which law operates in accordance with strict justice, in the direction of attracting the reincarnating soul to a body, and conditions, in accordance with the tendencies of the past life, the parents also attracting to them a soul bound to them by some ties in the past, the law being universal, uniform, and equitable to all concerned in the matter. this is a general statement of the doctrine as it is generally held by the most intelligent of its adherents. e. d. walker, a well-known english writer on the subject, gives the following beautiful idea of the general teachings: "reincarnation teaches that the soul enters this life, not as a fresh creation, but after a long course of previous existences on this earth and elsewhere, in which it acquired its present inhering peculiarities, and that it is on the way to future transformations which the soul is now shaping. it claims that infancy brings to earth, not a blank scroll for the beginning of an earthly record, nor a mere cohesion of atomic forces into a brief personality, soon to dissolve again into the elements, but that it is inscribed with ancestral histories, some like the present scene, most of them unlike it and stretching back into the remotest past. these inscriptions are generally undecipherable, save as revealed in their moulding influence upon the new career; but like the invisible photographic images made by the sun of all it sees, when they are properly developed in the laboratory of consciousness they will be distinctly displayed. the current phase of life will also be stored away in the secret vaults of memory, for its unconscious effects upon the ensuing lives. all the qualities we now possess, in body, mind and soul, result from our use of ancient opportunities. we are indeed 'the heir of all the ages,' and are alone responsible for our inheritances. for these conditions accrue from distant causes engendered by our older selves, and the future flows by the divine law of cause and effect from the gathered momentum of our past impetuses. there is no favoritism in the universe, but all have the same everlasting facilities for growth. those who are now elevated in worldly station may be sunk in humble surroundings in the future. only the inner traits of the soul are permanent companions. the wealthy sluggard may be the beggar of the next life; and the industrious worker of the present is sowing the seeds of future greatness. suffering bravely endured now will produce a treasure of patience and fortitude in another life; hardships will give rise to strength; self-denial must develop the will; tastes cultivated in this existence will somehow bear fruit in coming ones; and acquired energies will assert themselves whenever they can by the law of parsimony upon which the principles of physics are based. vice versa, the unconscious habits, the uncontrollable impulses, the peculiar tendencies, the favorite pursuits, and the soul-stirring friendships of the present descend from far-reaching previous activities." the doctrine of reincarnation--metempsychosis--rebirth--has always been held as truth by a large portion of the human race. following the invariable law of cyclic changes--the swing of the pendulum of thought--at times it has apparently died out in parts of the world, only to be again succeeded by a new birth and interest among the descendants of the same people. it is a light impossible to extinguish, and although its flickering flame may seem to die out for a moment, the shifting of the mental winds again allows it to rekindle from the hidden spark, and lo! again it bursts into new life and vigor. the reawakened interest in the subject in the western world, of which all keen observers have taken note, is but another instance of the operation of the cyclic law. it begins to look as if the occultists are right when they predict that before the dawn of another century the western world will once more have embraced the doctrines of rebirth--the old, discarded truth, once so dear to the race, will again be settled in popular favor, and again move toward the position of "orthodox" teaching, perhaps to be again crystallized by reason of its "orthodoxy" and again to lose favor and fade away, as the pendulum swings backward to the other extreme of thought. but the teaching of reincarnation never has passed away altogether from the race--in some parts of the world the lamp has been kept burning brightly--nay, more, at no time in human history has there been a period in which the majority of the race has not accepted the doctrine of rebirth, in some of its various forms. it was so one thousand years ago--two thousand--five thousand--and it is so to-day. in this twentieth century nearly if not quite two-thirds of the race hold firmly to the teaching, and the multitudes of hindus and other eastern peoples cling to it tenaciously. and, even outside of these people, there are to be found traces of the doctrine among other races in the east, and west. so reincarnation is not a "forgotten truth," or "discarded doctrine," but one fully alive and vigorous, and one which is destined to play a very important part in the history of western thought during the twentieth century. it is interesting to trace the history of the doctrine among the ancient peoples--away back into the dim recesses of the past. it is difficult to ascribe to any particular time, or any particular race, the credit of having "originated" reincarnation. in spite of the decided opinions, and the differing theories of the various writers on this subject, who would give egypt, or india, or the lost atlantis, as the birthplace of the doctrine, we feel that such ideas are but attempts to attribute a universal intuitive belief to some favored part of the race. we do not believe that the doctrine of reincarnation ever "originated" anywhere, as a new and distinct doctrine. we believe that it sprang into existence whenever and wherever man arrived at a stage of intellectual development sufficient to enable him to form a mental conception of a something that lived after death. no matter from what source this belief in a "ghost" originated, it must be admitted that it is found among all peoples, and is apparently an universal idea. and, running along with it in the primitive peoples, we find that there is, and always has been, an idea, more or less vague and indistinct, that somehow, someway, sometime, this "ghost" of the person returns to earthly existence and takes upon itself a new fleshly garment--a new body. here, then, is where the idea of reincarnation begins--everywhere, at a certain stage of human mental development. it runs parallel with the "ghost" idea, and seems bound up with that conception in nearly every case. when man evolves a little further, he begins to reason that if the "ghost" is immortal, and survives the death of the body, and returns to take upon itself a new body, then it must have lived before the last birth, and therefore must have a long chain of lives behind it. this is the second step. the third step is when man begins to reason that the next life is dependent upon something done or left undone in the present life. and upon these three fundamental ideas the doctrine of reincarnation has been built. the occultists claim that in addition to this universal idea, which is more or less intuitive, the race has received more or less instruction, from time to time, from certain advanced souls which have passed on to higher planes of existence, and who are now called the masters, adepts, teachers, race guides, etc., etc. but whatever may be the explanation, it remains a truth that man seems to have worked out for himself, in all times and in all places, first, an idea of a "ghost" which persists after the body dies; and second, that this "ghost" has lived before in other bodies, and will return again to take on a new body. there are various ideas regarding "heavens" and "hells," but underlying them all there persists this idea of re-birth in some of its phases. soldi, the archaeologist, has published an interesting series of works, dealing with the beliefs of primitive peoples, who have passed from the scene of human action. he shows by the fragments of carving and sculpture which have survived them that there was an universal idea among them of the "ghost" which lived after the body died; and a corresponding idea that some day this "ghost" would return to the scene of its former activities. this belief sometimes took the form of a return into the former body, which idea led to the preservation of the body by processes of mummifying, etc., but as a rule this belief developed into the more advanced one of a re-birth in a new body. the earlier travelers in africa have reported that here and there they found evidences and traces of what was to them "a strange belief" in the future return of the soul to a new body on earth. the early explorers of america found similar traditions and beliefs among the red indians, survivals of which exist even unto this day. it is related of a number of savage tribes, in different parts of the world, that they place the bodies of their dead children by the roadside, in order that their souls may be given a good chance to find new bodies by reason of the approaching of many traveling pregnant women who pass along the road. a number of these primitive people hold to the idea of a complex soul, composed of several parts, in which they resemble the egyptians, hindus, chinese, and in fact all mystical and occult philosophies. the figi islanders are said to believe in a black soul and a white soul, the former of which remains with the buried body and disintegrates with it, while the white soul leaves the body and wanders as a "ghost," and afterward, tiring of the wandering, returns to life in a new body. the natives of greenland are said to believe in an astral body, which leaves the body during sleep, but which perishes as the body disintegrates after death; and a second soul which leaves the body only at death, and which persists until it is reborn at a later time. in fact, the student finds that nearly all of the primitives races, and those semi-civilized, show traces of a belief in a complex soul, and a trace of doctrine of reincarnation in some form. the human mind seems to work along the same lines, among the different races--unless one holds to the theory that all sprang from the same root-race, and that the various beliefs are survivals of some ancient fundamental doctrine--the facts are not disturbed in either case. in the last mentioned connection, we might mention that the traditions concerning ancient atlantis--the lost continent--all hold to the effect that her people believed strongly in reincarnation, and to the ideas of the complex soul. as the survivors of atlantis are believed to have been the ancestors of the egyptians on the one hand, and of the ancient peruvians on the other--the two branches of survivors having maintained their original doctrines as modified by different environments--we might find here an explanation of the prevalence of the doctrine on both sides of the ocean. we mention this merely in passing, and as of general interest in the line of our subject. chapter ii. the egyptians, chaldeans, druids, etc. after considering the existence of the doctrines of reincarnation among the primitive peoples, and its traditional existence among the vanished peoples of the past, we find ourselves irresistibly borne toward that ancient land of mystery--the home of the mystics and occultists of the past--the land of isis--the home of the builders of the pyramids--the people of the sphinx. whether these people were the direct descendants of the people of destroyed atlantis, the home of the ancient wisdom--or whether they were a new people who had rediscovered the old doctrines--the fact remains that when tracing back any old occult or mystic doctrine we find ourselves gradually led toward the land of the sphinx as the source of that hidden truth. the sphinx is a fit emblem of that wonderful race--its sealed lips seem to invite the ultimate questions, and one feels that there may be a whispered answer wafted from those tightly closed lips toward the ear that is prepared to hear and receive it. and so, in our search for the origin of reincarnation, we find ourselves once more confronting the egyptian sphinx as we have done so often before in our search after truth. notwithstanding its obvious prehistoric origin, many have claimed that metempsychosis has its birthplace in old egypt, on the banks of the nile. india disputes this claim, holding that the ganges, not the nile, gave birth to the doctrine. be that as it may, we shall treat the egyptian conception at this place, among the ancient lands holding the doctrine, for in india it is not a thing of the past, but a doctrine which has its full flower at the present time, and which flower is sending forth its subtle odor to all parts of the civilized world. and so we shall defer our consideration of india's teachings until we reach the present stage of the history of reincarnation. herodotus, many centuries ago, said of the egyptians that: "the egyptians are the first who propounded the theory that the human soul is imperishable, and that where the body of any one dies it enters into some other body that may be ready to receive it; and that when it has gone the round of all created forms on land, in water, and in air, then it once more enters the human body born for it; and that this cycle of existence for the soul takes place in three thousand years." the doctrine of reincarnation is discernible though hidden away amidst the mass of esoteric doctrine back of the exoteric teachings of the egyptians, which latter were expounded to the common people, while the truth was reserved for the few who were ready for it. the inner circles of the egyptian mystics believed in and understood the inner truths of reincarnation, and although they guarded the esoteric teachings carefully, still fragments fell from the table and were greedily taken up by the masses, as we may see by an examination of the scraps of historical records which have been preserved, graven in the stone, and imprinted on the bricks. not only did these people accept the doctrine of reincarnation, but egypt was really the home of the highest occult teachings. the doctrines and teachings regarding several "sheaths" or "bodies" of man, which are taught by occultists of all times and races, are believed to have been fully taught in their original purity on the banks of the nile, and in the shadow of the pyramids--yes, even before the days of the pyramids. their forty centuries of history saw many modifications of the philosophical and religious beliefs, but the fundamental doctrine of reincarnation was held to during the entire period of history in ancient egypt, and was not discarded until the decadent descendants of the once mighty race were overwhelmed by stronger races, whose religions and beliefs superseded the vestiges of the ancient doctrine. the egyptians held that there was "ka," the divine spirit in man; "ab," the intellect or will; "hati," the vitality; "tet," the astral body; "sahu," the etheric double; and "xa," the physical body (some authorities forming a slightly different arrangement), which correspond to the various "bodies of man" as recognized by occultists to-day. the ancient chaldeans also taught the doctrine of rebirth. the body of persian and chaldean mystics and occultists, known as "the magi," who were masters of the hidden wisdom, held to the doctrine of reincarnation as one of their fundamental truths. in fact, they managed to educate the masses of their people to a much higher point than the masses of the egyptians, and, escaping the idolatrous tendencies of the egyptian populace, they manifested a very high degree of pure philosophical, occult, and religious knowledge. the magi taught that the soul was a complex being, and that certain portions of it perished, while certain other parts survived and passed on through a series of earth and "other-world" existences, until finally it attained such a degree of purity that it was relieved of the necessity for further incarnation, and thenceforth dwelt in the region of ineffable bliss--the region of light eternal. the teaching also held that just before entering into the state of bliss, the soul was able to review its previous incarnations, seeing distinctly the connection between them, and thus gaining a store of the wisdom of experience, which would aid it in its future work as a helper of future races which would appear on the face of the earth. the magi taught that as all living things--nay, all things having existence, organic or inorganic--were but varying manifestations of the one life and being, therefore the highest knowledge implied a feeling of conscious brotherhood and relationship toward and with all. even among the chinese there was an esoteric teaching concerning reincarnation, beneath the outer teaching of ages past. it may be discerned in the teachings of the early philosophers and seers of the race, notably in the work of lao-tze, the great chinese sage and teacher. lao-tze, whose great work, the "tao-teh-king," is a classic, taught reincarnation to his inner circle of students and adherents, at least so many authorities claim. he taught that there existed a fundamental principle called "tao," which is held to have been identical with the "primordial reason," a manifestation of which was the "teh," or the creative activity of the universe. from the union and action of the "tao" and the "teh" proceeded the universe, including the human soul, which he taught was composed of several parts, among them being the "huen," or spiritual principle; and the "phi," or semi-material vital principle, which together animate the body. lao-tze said: "to be ignorant that the true self is immortal, is to remain in a grievous state of error, and to experience many calamities by reason thereof. know ye, that there is a part of man which is subtle and spiritual, and which is the heaven-bound portion of himself; that which has to do with flesh, bones, and body, belongs to the earth; earthly to earth--heavenly to heaven. such is the law." some have held that lao-tze taught the immediate return of the "huen" to the "tao" after death, but from the writings of his early followers it may be seen that he really taught that the "huen" persisted in individual existence, throughout repeated incarnations, returning to the "tao" only when it had completed its round of experience-life. for instance, in the si haei, it is said that: "the vital essence is dispersed after death together with the body, bones and flesh; but the soul, or knowing principle of the self, is preserved and does not perish. there is no immediate absorption of the individuality into the tao, for individuality persists, and manifests itself according to the law." and chuang-tze said: "death is but the commencement of a new life." it was also taught by the early taoists, that the deeds, good and evil, of the present life would bear fruit in future existences; in addition to the orthodox heavens and hells, in which the chinese believed, and of which they had a great variety adapted to the requirements of the various grades of saints and sinners, the minute details of which places being described with that attention to minor details and particulars peculiar to the chinese mind. the teachings of a later date, that the soul of the ancestor abided in the hall of the ancestors, etc., were a corruption of the ancient teaching. other chinese teachers taught that the soul consists of three parts, the first being the "kuei," which had its seat in the belly, and which perished with the body; the second being the "ling," which had its seat in the heart or chest, and which persisted for some time after death, but which eventually disintegrated; and the third, or "huen," which had its seat in the brain, and which survived the disintegration of its companions, and then passed on to other existences. as strange as it may appear to many readers unfamiliar with the subject, the ancient druids, particularly those dwelling in ancient gaul, were familiar with the doctrine of reincarnation, and believed in its tenets. these people, generally regarded as ancient barbarians, really possessed a philosophy of a high order, which merged into a mystic form of religion. many of the romans, upon their conquest of gallia, were surprised at the degree and character of the philosophical knowledge possessed by the druids, and many of them have left written records of the same, notably in the case of aristotle, cæsar, lucan, and valerius maximus. the christian teachers who succeeded them also bore witness to these facts, as may be seen by reference to the works of st. clement, st. cyril, and other of the early christian fathers. these ancient "barbarians" entertained some of the highest spiritual conceptions of life and immortality--the mind and the soul. reynaud has written of them, basing his statements upon a careful study of the ancient beliefs of this race: "if judea represents in the world, with a tenacity of its own the idea of a personal and absolute god; if greece and rome represent the idea of society, gaul represents, just as particularly, the idea of immortality. nothing characterized it better, as all the ancients admit. that mysterious folk was looked upon as the privileged possessor of the secrets of death, and its unwavering instinctive faith in the persistence of life never ceased to be a cause of astonishment, and sometimes of fear, in the eyes of the heathen." the gauls possessed an occult philosophy, and a mystic religion, which were destroyed by the influences of the roman conquest. the philosophy of the druids bore a remarkable resemblance to the inner doctrine of the egyptians, and their successors, the grecian mystics. traces of hermeticism and pythagoreanism are clearly discernible, although the connecting link that bound them together has been lost to history. legends among the druids connected their order with the ancient aryan creeds and teachings, and there seems to have been a very close connection between these priests and those of ancient greece, for there are tales of offerings being sent to the temples of greece from the priests of gaul. and it is also related that on the island of delphos there was once a druidic tomb in the shape of a monument, believed to have been erected over the remains of druid priestesses. herodotus and others speak of a secret alliance between the priests of greece and those of the druids. some of the ancient legends hold that pythagoras was the instructor of the druidic priests, and that pythagoras himself was in close communication with the brahmins of india, and the hermetists of egypt. other legends have it that the druids received their first instruction from zamolais, who had been a slave and student of pythagoras. at any rate, the correspondence between the two schools of philosophy is remarkable. much of the druidic teachings has been lost, and it is difficult to piece together the fragments. but enough is known to indicate the above mentioned relationship to the pythagorean school, and of the firm hold of the doctrine of reincarnation upon the druids. the preserved fragments show that the druids taught that there was in man an immaterial, spiritual part, called "awen," which proceeded from an universal spiritual principle of life. they taught that this "awen" had animated the lower forms of life, mineral, vegetable and animal, before incarnating as man. in those conditions it was entangled and imprisoned in the state of "abysmal circling," called "anufu," from which it finally escaped and entered into the "circle of freedom," called "abred," or human incarnation and beyond. this state of "abred" includes life in the various human races on this and other planets, until finally there is a further liberation of the "awen," which then passes on to the "circle of bliss," or "gwynfid," where it abides for æons in a state of ecstatic being. but, beyond even this transcendent state, there is another, which is called the "circle of the infinite," or "ceugant," which is identical with the "union with god" of the persians and greek mystics, or the "nirvana" of the hindus. rather an advanced form of philosophy for "barbarians," is it not? particularly when contrasted with the crude mythology of the roman conquerors! the gauls were so advanced in the practical phases of occultism that they gave every condemned criminal a respite of five years, after sentence of death, before execution, in order that he might prepare himself for a future state by meditation, instruction and other preparation; and also to prevent ushering an unprepared and guilty soul into the plane of the departed--the advantages of which plan is apparent to every student of occultism who accepts the teaching regarding the astral planes. the reader will understand, of course, that the degree of advancement in spiritual and philosophical matters evidenced by the gauls was due not to the fact that these people were generally so far advanced beyond their neighbors, but rather to the fact that they had been instructed by the druid priests among them. tradition has it that the original druidic priests came to gaul and other countries from some far-off land, probably from egypt or greece. we have spoken of the connection between their teachings and that of the pythagoreans, and there was undoubtedly a strong bond of relationship between these priests and the occultists of other lands. the druidic priests were well versed in astronomy and astrology, and the planets had an important part in the teachings. a portion of their ritual is said to have correspondences with the early jewish rites and worship. their favorite symbol--the mistletoe--was used as indicating re-birth, the mistletoe being the new life springing forth from the old one, typified by the oak. the druids traveled into ancient britain and ireland, and many traces of their religious rites may still be found there, not only in the shape of the stone places-of-worship, but also in many curious local customs among the peasantry. many a bit of english folk-lore--many an odd irish fancy concerning fairies and the like; symbols of good-luck; banshees and "the little-folk"--came honestly to these people from the days of the druids. and from the same source came the many whispered tales among both races regarding the birth of children who seemed to have remembrances of former lives on earth, which memory faded away as they grew older. among these people there is always an undercurrent of mystic ideas about souls "coming back" in some mysterious way not fully understood. it is the inheritance from the druids. chapter iii. the romans and greeks. one unfamiliar with the subject would naturally expect to find the ancient romans well advanced along the lines of philosophy, religion, and spiritual speculation, judging from the all-powerful influence exerted by them over the affairs of the whole known world. particularly when one considers the relationship with and connection of rome with ancient greece, it would seem that the two peoples must have had much in common in the world of thought. but such is not the case. although the exoteric religions of the romans resembled that of the greeks, from whom it was borrowed or inherited, there was little or no original thought along metaphysics, religion or philosophy among the romans. this was probably due to the fact that the whole tendency of rome was toward material advancement and attainment, little or no attention being given to matters concerning the soul, future life, etc. some few of the philosophers of rome advanced theories regarding the future state, but beyond a vague sort of ancestor worship the masses of the people took but little interest in the subject. cicero, it is true, uttered words which indicate a belief in immortality, when he said in "scipio's dream": "know that it is not thou, but thy body alone, which is mortal. the individual in his entirety resides in the soul, and not in the outward form. learn, then, that thou art a god; thou, the immortal intelligence which gives movements to a perishable body, just as the eternal god animates an incorruptible body." pliny the younger left writings which seem to indicate his belief in the reality of phantoms, and ovid has written verses which would indicate his recognition of a part of man which survived the death of the body. but, on the whole, roman philosophy treated immortality as a thing perchance existing, but not proven, and to be viewed rather as a poetical expression of a longing, rather than as an established, or at least a well grounded, principle of philosophical thought. but lucretius and others of his time and country protested against the folly of belief in the survival of the soul held by the other nations. he said that: "the fear of eternal life should be banished from the universe; it disturbs the peace of mankind, for it prevents the enjoyment of any security or pleasure." and virgil praised and commended the philosophical attitude which was able to see the real cause of things, and was therefore able to reject the unworthy fear of a world beyond and all fears arising from such belief. but even many of the roman philosophers, while denying immortality, believed in supernatural powers and beings, and were very superstitious and childlike in many respects, so that their philosophy of non-survival was evidently rather the result of temperament and pursuit of material things than a height of philosophical reasoning or metaphysical thought. and so, the romans stand apart from the majority of the ancient peoples, in so far as the belief in reincarnation is concerned. while there were individual mystics and occultists among them, it still remains a fact that the majority of the people held no such belief, and in fact the masses had no clearly defined ideas regarding the survival of the soul. it is a strange exception to the general rule, and one that has occasioned much comment and attention among thinkers along these lines. there was a vague form of ancestor worship among the romans, but even this was along the lines of collective survival of the ancestors, and was free from the ordinary metaphysical speculations and religious dogmas. roughly stated, the roman belief may be expressed by an idea of a less material, or more subtle, part of man which escaped disintegration after death, and which in some mysterious way passed on to combine with the ancestral soul which composed the collective ancestral deity of the family, the peace and pleasure of which were held as sacred duties on the part of the descendants, sacrifices and offerings being made toward this end. nevertheless, here and there, among the romans, were eminent thinkers who seemingly held a vague, tentative belief in some form of reincarnation, as, for instance, ovid, who says: "nothing perishes, although everything changes here on earth; the souls come and go unendingly in visible forms; the animals which have acquired goodness will take upon them human form"; and virgil says: "after death, the souls come to the elysian fields, or to tartarus, and there meet with the reward or punishment of their deeds during life. later, on drinking of the waters of lethe, which takes away all memory of the past, they return to earth." but it must be admitted that rome was deficient in spiritual insight and beliefs, on the whole, her material successes having diverted her attention from the problems which had so engrossed the mind of her neighbor greece, and her older sisters persia, chaldea, and egypt. among the greeks, on the contrary, we find a marked degree of interest and speculation regarding the immortality of the soul, and much interest in the doctrines of metempsychosis or reincarnation. although the great masses of the grecian people were satisfied with their popular mythology and not disposed to question further, or to indulge in keen speculation on metaphysical subjects, still the intellectual portion of the race were most active in their search after truth, and their schools of philosophy, with their many followers and adherents, have left an indelible mark upon the thought of man unto this day. next to the hindus, the greeks were the great philosophers of the human race. and the occultists and mystics among them were equal to those of persia, india, chaldea or egypt. while the various theories regarding the soul were as the sands of the sea, so many were the teachers, schools and divisions of thought among these people--still the doctrine of reincarnation played a very important part in their philosophy. the prevailing idea was that the worthy souls pass on to a state of bliss, without rebirth, while the less worthy pass the waters of the river of lethe, quaffing of its waters of forgetfulness, and thus having the recollection of their earth-life, and of the period of punishment that they had undergone by reason of the same, obliterated and cleansed from their memories, when they pass on to re-birth. one of the old orphic hymns reads as follows: "the wise love light and not darkness. when you travel the journey of life, remember, always, the end of the journey. when souls return to the light, after their sojourn on earth, they wear upon their more subtle bodies, like searing, hideous scars, the marks of their earthly sins--these must be obliterated, and they go back to earth to be cleansed. but the pure, virtuous and strong proceed direct to the sun of dionysus." the teachings of the egyptians left a deep impression upon the grecian mind, and not only the common form of belief, but also the esoteric doctrines, were passed along to the newer people by the elder. pythagoras was the great occult teacher of greece, and his school and that of his followers accepted and taught the great doctrine of reincarnation. much of his teaching was reserved for the initiates of the mystic orders founded by himself and his followers, but still much of the doctrine was made public. both orpheus and pythagoras, although several centuries separated them, were students at the fount of knowledge in egypt, having traveled to that country in order to be initiated in the mystic orders of the ancient land, and returning they taught anew the old doctrine of rebirth. the pythagorean teaching resembles that of the hindus and egyptians, in so far as is concerned the nature of man--his several bodies or sheaths--and the survival of the higher part of his nature, while the lower part perishes. it was taught that after death this higher part of the soul passed on to a region of bliss, where it received knowledge and felt the beneficent influence of developed and advanced souls, thus becoming equipped for a new life, with incentives toward higher things. but, not having as yet reached the stage of development which will entitle it to dwell in the blissful regions for all eternity, it sooner or later reaches the limit of its term of probation, and then passes down toward another incarnation on earth--another step on the path of attainment. the teaching was, further, that the conditions, circumstances and environments of the new earth-life were determined by the actions, thoughts, and mental tendencies of the former life, and by the degree of development which the several previous earth-lives had manifested. in this respect the teaching agrees materially with the universal doctrine regarding reincarnation and karma. pythagoras taught that the doctrine of reincarnation accounted for the inequality observable in the lives of men on earth, giving a logical reason for the same, and establishing the fact of universal and ultimate justice, accountable for on no other grounds. he taught that although the material world was subject to the laws of destiny and fatality, yet there was another and higher state of being in which the soul would rise above the laws of the lower world. this higher state, he taught, had laws of its own, as yet unknown to man, which tended to work out the imperfect laws of the material world, establishing harmony, justice, and equality, to supply the apparent deficiencies manifested in the earth life. following pythagoras, plato, the great grecian philosopher, taught the old-new doctrine of rebirth. he taught that the souls of the dead must return to earth, where, in new lives, they must wear out the old earth deeds, receiving benefits for the worthy ones, and penalties for the unworthy ones, the soul profiting by these repeated experiences, and rising step by step toward the divine. plato taught that the reincarnated soul has flashes of remembrance of its former lives, and also instincts and intuitions gained by former experiences. he classed innate ideas among these inherited experiences of former lives. it has been well said that "everything can be found in plato," and therefore one who seeks for the ancient grecian ideas concerning reincarnation, and the problems of the soul, may find that which he seeks in the writings of the old sage and philosopher. plato was the past master of the inner teachings concerning the soul, and all who have followed him have drawn freely from his great store of wisdom. his influence on the early christian church was enormous, and in many forms it continues even unto this day. many of the early christian fathers taught that plato was really one of the many forerunners of christ, who had prepared the pagan world for the coming of the master. in "phaedo," plato describes the soul, and explains its immortality. he teaches that man has a material body which is subject to constant change, and subject to death and disintegration; and also an immaterial soul, unchangeable and indestructible, and akin to the divine. at death this soul was severed from its physical companion, and rose, purified, to the higher regions, where it rendered an account of itself, and had its future allotted to it. if it was found sufficiently untainted and unsullied by the mire of material life, it was considered fit to be admitted to the state of bliss, which was described as union with the supreme being, which latter is described as spirit, eternal and omniscient. the base and very guilty souls undergo a period of punishment, or purgation, to the end that they may be purged and purified of the guilt, before being allowed to make another trial for perfection. the souls which were not sufficiently pure for the state of bliss, nor yet so impure that they need the purging process, were returned to earth-life, there to take up new bodies, and endeavor to work out their salvation anew, to the end that they might in the future attain the blissful state. plato taught that in the rebirth, the soul was generally unconscious of its previous lives, although it may have flashes of recollection. besides this it has a form of intuition, and innate ideas, which was believed to be the result of the experiences gained in the past lives, and which knowledge had been stored up so as to benefit the soul in its reincarnated existence. plato taught that the immaterial part of man--the soul--was a complex thing, being composed of a number of differing, though related, elements. highest in the hierarchy of the soul elements he placed the spirit, which, he taught, comprised consciousness, intelligence, will, choice between good and evil, etc., and which was absolutely indestructible and immortal, and which had its seat in the head. then came two other parts of the soul, which survived the dissolution of the body, but which were only comparatively immortal, that is, they were subject to later dissolution and disintegration. of these semi-material elements, one was the seat of the affections, passions, etc., and was located in the heart; while the other, which was the seat of the sensual and lower desires, passions, etc., was located in the liver. these two mentioned lower elements were regarded as not possessed of reason, but still having certain powers of sensation, perception, and will. the neo-platonists, who followed plato, and who adapted his teachings to their many conflicting ideas, held firmly to the doctrine of reincarnation. the writings of plotinus, porphyry, and the other mystics, had much to say on this subject, and the teaching was much refined under their influence. the jewish philosophers were affected by the influence of the platonic thought, and the school of the essenes, which held firmly to the idea of rebirth, was a source from which christianity received much of its early influence. chapter iv. the jews, essenes and early christians. the early jewish people had an inner teaching which embraced certain ideas concerning reincarnation, although the masses of the people knew nothing of the doctrine which was reserved for the inner circles of the few. there is much dispute concerning the early beliefs of the jewish people regarding the immortality of the soul. the best authorities seem to agree that the early beliefs were very crude and indefinite, consisting principally of a general belief that after death the souls are gathered up together in a dark place, called sheol, where they dwell in an unconscious sleep. it will be noted that the earlier books in the old testament have very little to say on this subject. gradually, however, there may be noticed a dawning belief in certain states of the departed souls, and in this the jews were undoubtedly influenced by the conceptions of the people of other lands with whom they came in contact. the sojourn in egypt must have exerted an important influence on them, particularly the educated thinkers of the race, of which, however, there were but few, owing to the condition in which they were kept as bondsmen of the egyptians. moses, however, owing to his education and training among the egyptian priests, must have been fully initiated in the mysteries of that land, and the jewish legends would indicate that he formed an inner circle of the priesthood of his people, after they escaped from egypt, and doubtless instructed them fully in the occult doctrines, which, however, were too advanced and complicated for preaching to the mass of ignorant people of which the jewish race of that time was composed. the lamp of learning among the jews of that time was kept alight but by very few priests among them. there has always been much talk, and legend, concerning this inner teaching among the jews. the jewish rabbis have had so much to say regarding it, and some of the early fathers of the christian church were of the opinion that such secret doctrine existed. scholars have noted that in important passages in the jewish bible, three distinct terms are used in referring to the immaterial part, or "soul," of man. these terms are "nichema," "rouach," and "nephesh," respectively, and have been translated as "soul," "spirit" or "breath," in several senses of these terms. many good authorities have held that these three terms did not apply to one conception, but that on the contrary they referred to three distinct elements of the soul, akin to the conceptions of the egyptians and other early peoples, who held to the trinity of the soul, as we have shown a little further back. some hebrew scholars hold that "nichema" is the ego, or intelligent spirit; "rouach," the lower vehicle of the ego; and "nephesh," the vital force, vitality, or life. students of the kaballah, or secret writings of the jews, find therein many references to the complex nature of the soul, and its future states, as well as undoubted teachings regarding reincarnation, or future existence in the body. the kaballah was the book of the jewish mysteries, and was largely symbolical, so that to those unacquainted with the symbols employed, it read as if lacking sense or meaning. but those having the key, were able to read therefrom many bits of hidden doctrine. the kaballah is said to be veiled in seven coverings--that is, its symbology is sevenfold, so that none but those having the inner keys may know the full truth contained therein, although even the first key will unlock many doors. the zohar, another secret book of the jews, although of much later origin than the kaballah, also contains much of the inner teachings concerning the destiny of the soul. this book plainly recognizes and states the three-fold nature of the soul, above mentioned, and treats the nichema, rouach and nephesh as distinct elements thereof. it also teaches that when the soul leaves the body it goes through a long and tedious purifying process, whereby the effect of its vices is worn off by means of a series of transmigrations and reincarnations, wherein it develops several perfections, etc. this idea of attaining perfection through repeated rebirths, instead of the rebirths being in the nature of punishment as taught by plato, is also taught in the kaballah, showing the agreement of the jewish mind on this detail of the doctrine. the essence of the kaballic teaching on this subject is that the souls undergo repeated rebirth, after long intervals of rest and purification, in entire forgetfulness of their previous existences, and for the purpose of advancement, unfoldment, purification, development, and attainment. the zohar follows up this teaching strictly, although with amplifications. the following quotation from the zohar is interesting, inasmuch as it shows the teaching on the subject in a few words. it reads as follows: "all souls are subject to the trials of transmigration; and men do not know which are the ways of the most high in their regard. they do not know how many transformations and mysterious trials they must undergo; how many souls and spirits come to this world without returning to the palace of the divine king. the souls must re-enter the absolute substance whence they have emerged. but to accomplish this end they must develop all the perfections; the germ of which is planted in them; and if they have not fulfilled this condition during one life, they must commence another, a third, and so on, until they have acquired the condition which fits them for reunion with god." the mystic sect which sprung up among the jewish people during the century preceding the birth of christ, and which was in the height of its influence at the time of the birth--the sect, cult, or order of the essenes--was an important influence in the direction of spreading the truths of reincarnation among the jewish people. this order combined the earlier egyptian mysteries with the mystic doctrine of pythagoras and the philosophy of plato. it was closely connected with the jewish therapeutæ of egypt, and was the leading mystic order of the time. josephus, the eminent jewish historian, writing of the essenes, says: "the opinion obtains among them that bodies indeed are corrupted, and the matter of them not permanent, but that souls continue exempt from death forever; and that emanating from the most subtle ether they are unfolded in bodies as prisons to which they are drawn by some natural spell. but when loosed from the bonds of flesh, as if released from a long captivity, they rejoice and are borne upward." in the new international encyclopedia (vol. vii, page ) will be found an instructive article on "essenes," in which it is stated that among the essenes there was a certain "view entertained regarding the origin, present state, and future destiny of the soul, which was held to be pre-existent, being entrapped in the body as a prison," etc. and in the same article the following statement occurs: "it is an interesting question as to how much christianity owes to essenism. it would seem that there was room for definite contact between john the baptist and this brotherhood. his time of preparation was spent in the wilderness near the dead sea; his preaching of righteousness toward god, and justice toward one's fellow men, was in agreement with essenism; while his insistence upon baptism was in accordance with the essenic emphasis on lustrations." in this very conservative statement is shown the intimate connection between the essenes and early christianity, through john the baptist. some hold that jesus had a still closer relationship to the essenes and allied mystic orders, but we shall not insist upon this point, as it lies outside of the ordinary channels of historical information. there is no doubt, however, that the essenes, who had such a strong influence on the early christian church, were closely allied to other mystic organizations with whom they agreed in fundamental doctrines, notably that of reincarnation. and so we have brought the story down to the early christian church, at which point we will continue it. we have left the phase of the subject which pertains to india for separate consideration, for in india the doctrine has had its principal home in all ages, and the subject in that phase requires special treatment. that there was an inner doctrine in the early christian church seems to be well established, and that a part of that doctrine consisted in a teaching of pre-existence of the soul and some form of rebirth or reincarnation seems quite reasonable to those who have made a study of the subject. there is a constant reference to the "mysteries" and "inner teachings" throughout the epistles, particularly those of paul, and the writings of the early christian fathers are filled with references to the secret doctrines. in the earlier centuries of the christian era frequent references are found to have been made to "the mysteries of jesus," and that there was an inner circle of advanced christians devoted to mysticism and little known doctrines there can be no doubt. celsus attacked the early church, alleging that it was a secret organization which taught the truth to the select few, while it passed on to the multitude only the crumbs of half-truth, and popular teachings veiling the truth. origen, a pupil of st. clement, answered celsus, stating that while it was true that there were inner teachings in the christian church, that were not revealed to the populace, still the church in following that practice was but adhering to the established custom of all philosophies and religions, which gave the esoteric truths only to those who were ready to receive them, at the same time giving to the general mass of followers the exoteric or outer teachings, which were all they could understand or assimilate. among other things, in this reply, origen says: "that there should be certain doctrines, not made known to the multitude, which are divulged after the exoteric ones have been taught, is not a peculiarity of christianity alone, but also of philosophic systems in which certain truths are exoteric and others esoteric. some of the followers of pythagoras were content with his 'ipse dixit,' while others were taught in secret those doctrines which were not deemed fit to be communicated to profane and insufficiently prepared ears. moreover, all the mysteries that are celebrated everywhere through greece and barbarous countries, although held in secret, have no discredit thrown upon them, so that it is in vain he endeavors to calumniate the secret doctrines of christianity, seeing that he does not correctly understand its nature." in this quotation it will be noticed that not only does origen positively admit the existence of the inner teachings, but that he also mentions pythagoras and his school, and also the other mysteries of greece, showing his acquaintance with them, and his comparison of them with the christian mysteries, which latter he would not have been likely to have done were their teachings repugnant to, and at utter variance with, those of his own church. in the same writing origen says: "but on these subjects much, and that of a mystical kind, might be said, in keeping with which is the following: 'it is good to keep close to the secret of a king,' in order that the entrance of souls into bodies may not be thrown before the common understanding." scores of like quotations might be cited. the writings of the early fathers of the christian church are filled with many allusions to the current inner doctrine of the pre-existence and rebirth of souls. origen in particular has written at great length regarding these things. john the baptist was generally accepted as the reincarnation of elias, even by the populace, who regarded it as a miraculous occurrence, while the elect regarded it as merely another instance of rebirth under the law. the gnostics, a mystic order and school in the early church, taught reincarnation plainly and openly, bringing upon themselves much persecution at the hands of the more conservative. others held to some form of the teaching, the disputes among them being principally regarding points of doctrine and detail, the main teachings being admitted. origen taught that souls had fallen from a high estate and were working their way back toward their lost estate and glory, by means of repeated incarnations. justin martyr speaks of the soul inhabiting successive bodies, with loss of memory of past lives. for several centuries the early church held within its bosom many earnest advocates of reincarnation, and the teaching was recognized as vital even by those who combatted it. lactinus, at the end of the third century, held that the idea of the soul's immortality implied its pre-existence. st. augustine, in his "confessions," makes use of these remarkable words: "did i not live in another body before entering my mother's womb?" which expression is all the more remarkable because augustine opposed origen in many points of doctrine, and because it was written as late as a. d. . the various church councils, however, frowned upon these outcroppings of the doctrine of reincarnation, and the influence of those who rose to power in the church was directed against the "heresy." at several councils were the teachings rebuked, and condemned, until finally in a. d. , justinian had a law passed which declared that: "whoever shall support the mythical presentation of the pre-existence of the soul and the consequently wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema." speaking of the jewish kaballists, an authority states: "like origen and other church fathers, the kaballists used as their main argument in favor of the doctrine of metempsychosis, the justice of god." but the doctrine of reincarnation among christian races did not die at the orders and commands of the christian church councils. smouldering under the blanket of opposition and persecution, it kept alive until once more it could lift its flame toward heaven. and even during its suppression the careful student may see little flickers of the flame--little wreathings of smoke--escaping here and there. veiled in mystic phrasing, and trimmed with poetic figure, many allusions may be seen among the writings of the centuries. and during the past two hundred years the revival in the subject has been constant, until at the close of the nineteenth century, and the beginning of the twentieth century, we once more find the doctrine openly preached and taught to thousands of eager listeners and secretly held even by many orthodox christians. chapter v. the hindus. while reincarnation has been believed and taught in nearly every nation, and among all races, in former or present times, still we are justified in considering india as the natural mother of the doctrine, inasmuch as it has found an especially favorable spiritual and mental environment in that land and among its people, the date of its birth there being lost in the cloudiness of ancient history, but the tree of the teaching being still in full flower and still bearing an abundance of fruit. as the hindus proudly claim, while the present dominant race was still in the savage, cave-dwelling, stone-age stage of existence--and while even the ancient jewish people were beginning to place the foundation stones of their religion, of which the present christian religion is but an offshoot--the great hindu religious teachers and philosophers had long since firmly established their philosophies and religions with the doctrine of reincarnation and its accompanying teachings, which had been accepted as truth by the great aryan race in india. and, throughout forty centuries, or more, this race has held steadfastly to the original doctrine, until now the west is looking again to it for light on the great problems of human life and existence, and now, in the twentieth century, many careful thinkers consider that in the study and understanding of the great fundamental thoughts of the vedas and the upanishads, the west will find the only possible antidote to the virus of materialism that is poisoning the veins of western spiritual understanding. the idea of reincarnation is to be found in nearly all of the philosophies and religions of the race, at least in some period in their history--among all peoples and races--yet, in india do we find the doctrine in the fullest flower, not only in the past but in the present. from the earliest ages of the race in india, reincarnation in some of its various forms has been the accepted doctrine, and today it is accepted by the entire hindu people, with their many divisions and sub-races, with the exception of the hindu mohammedans. the teeming millions of india live and die in the full belief in reincarnation, and to them it is accepted without a question as the only rational doctrine concerning the past, present and future of the soul. nowhere on this planet is there to be found such an adherence to the idea of "soul" life--the thinking hindu always regarding himself as a soul occupying a body, rather than as a body "having a soul," as so many of the western people seem to regard themselves. and, to the hindus, the present life is truly regarded as but one step on the stairway of life, and not as the only material life preceding an eternity of spiritual existence. to the hindu mind, eternity is here with us now--we are in eternity as much this moment as we ever shall be--and the present life is but one of a number of fleeting moments in the eternal life. the early hindus did not possess the complicated forms of religion now existing among them, with their various creeds, ceremonials, rituals, cults, schools, and denominations. on the contrary, their original form of religion was an advanced form of what some have called "nature-worship," but which was rather more than that which the western mind usually means by the term. their "nature" was rather a "spirit of nature," or one life, of which all existing forms are but varying manifestations. even in this early stage of their religious development they held to a belief in reincarnation of the soul, from one form to another. while to them everything was but a manifestation of one life, still the soul was a differentiated unit, emanated from the one life, and destined to work its way back to unity and oneness with the divine life through many and varied incarnations, until finally it would be again merged with the one. from this early beginning arose the many and varied forms of religious philosophy known to the india of today; but clinging to all these modern forms is to be found the fundamental basis idea of reincarnation and final absorption with the one. brahmanism came first, starting from the simple and working to the complex, a great priesthood gradually arising and surrounding the original simple religious philosophy with ceremonial, ritual and theological and metaphysical abstractions and speculation. then arose buddhism, which, in a measure, was a return to the primitive idea, but which in turn developed a new priesthood and religious organization. but the fundamental doctrine of reincarnation permeated them all, and may be regarded as the great common centre of the hindu religious thought and philosophy. the hindu religious books are filled with references to the doctrine of reincarnation. the laws of manu, one of the oldest existing pieces of sanscrit writing, contains many mentions of it, and the upanishads and vedas contain countless reference to it. in the bhagavad gita, krishna says to arjuna: "know thou, o prince of pandu, that there never was a time when i, nor thou, nor any of these princes of earth was not; nor shall there ever come a time, hereafter, when any of us shall cease to be. as the soul, wearing this material body, experienceth the stages of infancy, youth, manhood, and old age, even so shall it, in due time, pass on to another body, and in other incarnations shall it again live, and move and play its part. * * * these bodies, which act as enveloping coverings for the souls occupying them, are but finite things--things of the moment--and not the real man at all. they perish as all finite things perish--let them perish. he who in his ignorance thinketh: 'i slay' or 'i am slain,' babbleth like an infant lacking knowledge. of a truth none can slay--none can be slain. take unto thy inner mind this truth, o prince! verily, the real man--the spirit of man--is neither born, nor doth it die. unborn, undying, ancient, perpetual and eternal, it hath endured, and will endure forever. the body may die; be slain; be destroyed completely--but he that hath occupied it remaineth unharmed. * * * as a man throweth away his old garments, replacing them with new and brighter ones, even so the dweller of the body, having quitted its old mortal frame, entereth into others which are new and freshly prepared for it. * * * many have been my births and rebirths, o prince--and many also have been thine own. but between us lies this difference--i am conscious of all my many lives, but thou lackest remembrance of thine." in the mahabarata is said: "even as when he casteth off an old garment, man clothes himself in new raiment, even so the soul, casting off the wornout body, takes on a new body, avoids the fatal paths leading to hell, works for its salvation, and proceeds toward heaven." the brhadaranyakopanishad, one of the old hindu writings, contains the following: "as the caterpillar, getting to the end of the straw, takes itself away after finding a resting place in advance, so the soul leaving this body, and finding another place in advance, takes himself off from his original abode. as the goldsmith taking little by little of the gold expands it into a new form, so, indeed, does this soul, leaving this body, make a new and happy abode for himself." but to attempt to quote passages relating to incarnation from the hindu books, would be akin to compiling a library of many volumes. the sacred writings of the east are filled with references to reincarnation, and if the latter were eliminated it would be "like the play of hamlet with hamlet omitted." we cannot enter into a description of the various schools of hindu religious thought and philosophy in this work, for to do so would be to expand this little volume in several of larger size, so extended is the subject. but underlying the many divisions and subdivisions of hindu thought may be found the fundamental idea of an original emanation from, or manifestation of, one divine being, power and energy, into countless differentiated units, atoms, or egos, which units, embodying in matter, are unconscious of the spiritual nature, and take on a consciousness corresponding with the form in which they are embodied. then follows a series of embodiments, or incarnations, from lower to higher, in which occurs an evolution or "unfoldment" of the nature of the soul, in which it rises to higher and higher planes of being, until finally, after æons of time, it enters in union with the divine nirvana and para-nirvana--the state of eternal bliss. the great difference between the hindu thought and the grecian is that while the greeks considered repeated life with joy as a means of greater and greater expression of life, the hindus, on the contrary, regard life as but a period of travail and sorrow, the only light to be perceived being the expectation and hope of eventually emerging from the region of materiality, and illusion, and regaining true existence in the spirit. the hindus nearly all agree that this material life is occasioned by "avidya" or ignorance on the part of the soul of its own real nature and being, whereby it fails to recognize that this material life is "maya" or illusion. they hold that wisdom consists in the soul recognizing its real nature, and perceiving the illusion of material life and things, and striving to liberate itself from the bondage of materiality and ignorance. the principal differences among the various hindu schools of religion and philosophical thought arise from their differing views regarding the nature and constitution of the soul on the one hand, and the means of attaining liberation and freedom from material embodiment on the other. the doctrine of "karma" of spiritual cause and effect, which we shall consider in another chapter, also runs along with all the varying hindu conceptions, doctrines, and theories. without considering the matter of differences of opinion between the various schools, concerning the nature and constitution of the soul, we may say that all the schools practically agree that the constitution of man is a complex thing, comprising a number of sheaths, bodies, coverings, or elements, from the grosser to the more spiritual, the various sheaths being discarded as the soul advances on its way toward perfection. there are disputes between the various schools regarding terminology and the precise arrangement of these "principles," but the following classification will answer for the purpose of giving a general idea of the hindu views on the subject, subject always to the conflicting claims of the various schools. the classification is as follows, passing from lower to higher: . physical or material body, or rupa. . vitality of vital force, or prana-jiva. . astral body, etheric double, or linga sharira. . animal soul, or kama rupa. . human soul, or manas. . spiritual soul, or buddhi. . divine spirit, or atma. from the beginning, the tendency of the hindu mind was in the direction of resolving the universe of forms, shapes, and change, back into some one underlying principle, from which all the phenomenal world emerged--some one infinite energy, from which all else emerged, emanated, or evolved. and the early hindu mind busied itself actively with the solution of the problem of this one being manifesting a becoming into many. just as is the western world of today actively engaged in solving many material problems, so was ancient india active in solving many spiritual problems--just as the modern west is straining every energy toward discovering the "how," so was ancient india straining every effort to discovering the "why." and from that struggle of the mind of india there arose countless schools of religious and philosophical thought, many of which have passed away, but many of which persist today. the problem of the relationship of the human soul to the one being, and the secondary problem of the life, present and future, of the individual soul, is a most vital one to all thinking hindus today as in the forty centuries or more of its philosophical history. to the hindu mind, all material research is of minor importance, the important truth being to discover that "which when once known, all else is understood." but, as we have said, in spite of the numerous religions, schools, and phases of teaching, among the hindus, the one fundamental conception of reincarnation is never lost sight of, nor is it ever doubted in any of the forms of the philosophies or religions. ignoring the subdivisions of hindu philosophical thought, we may say that the hindu philosophies may be divided into a few general classes, several of which we shall now hastily consider, that you may get a glimpse at the variety of hindu speculative philosophy in its relation to the soul and its destiny. you will, of course, understand that we can do no more than mention the leading features of each class, as a careful consideration would require volumes for each particular school. we will first consider the philosophy of kanada, generally known as the vaisheshika teaching, which inclines toward an atomic theory, akin to that formulated by the old greek philosopher democritus. according to this teaching the substance of the universe is composed of an infinite number of atoms, which are eternal, and which were not created by god, but which are co-eternal with him. these atoms, combining and forming shapes, forms, etc., are the basis of the material universe. it is held, however, that the power or energy whereby these atoms combine and thus form matter, comes from god. this teaching holds that god is a personal being, possessing omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. it is also held that there are two substances, or principles, higher, that the material energies or substance, namely, manas, or mind, and atman, or spirit. manas or mind is held to be something like a mind-stuff, from which all individual minds are built up--and which mind-stuff is held to be eternal. atman, or spirit, is held to be an eternal principle, from which the selves or souls are differentiated. the atman, or spirit, or self, is regarded as much higher than mind, which is its tool and instrument of expression. this philosophy teaches that through progression, by reincarnation, the soul advances from lower to higher states, on its road to freedom and perfection. another great school of hindu philosophy is the philosophy of kapila, generally known as the sankhya system. this teaching opposes the atomic theory of the vaisheshika system, and holds that the atoms are not indestructible nor eternal, but may be resolved back into a primal substance called prakriti. prakriti is held to be an universal, eternal energy or ethereal substance, something similar to certain western scientific conceptions of an universal ether. from this eternal, universal energy, kapila held that all the universe has been evolved--all material forms or manifestations of energy being but manifestations of prakriti. but, the sankhya system is not materialistic, as might be supposed at first glance, for side by side with prakriti it offers the principle of purusha, or soul, or spirit, of which all individual souls are atomic units--the principle of purusha being an unity of units, and not an undivided one. the purusha--that is, its units or individual souls--is regarded as eternal and immortal. prakriti is devoid of mind, but is possessed of active vital energy, and is capable of producing forms and material manifestations by reason of its inherent energy, and laws, and thus produces what the hindus call "maya," or material illusion, which they hold to be devoid of reality, inasmuch as the forms are constantly changing and have no permanence. this philosophy holds that prakriti, by means of the glamour of its manifestations of maya, entices the individual souls, or purushas, which when once in the centre of attraction of the maya are drawn into the vortex of material existence, losing a knowledge of their real nature. but the souls never lose entirely the glimmer of the light of the spirit, and, consequently, soon begin to feel that they have made a mistake, and consequently begin to strive to escape the bondage of prakriti and its maya--but such escape is possible only through a gradual rising up from the depths of maya, step by step, cycle by cycle, by a series of purification and cleansing of themselves, just as a fly cleanses itself of the sticky substance into which it has fallen. this escape is accomplished by spiritual unfoldment or evolution, by means of reincarnation--this evolution not being a "growth," but rather an "unfoldment" or "unwrapping" of the soul from its confining sheaths, one by one. another great school of hindu philosophy is the philosophy of patanjali, generally known as the yoga philosophy, but which differs from the yogi philosophy of the west, which is eclectic in nature. the yoga philosophy of patanjali bears some resemblance to the sankhya school of kapila, inasmuch as it recognizes the teachings regarding prakriti, from which universal energy the material universe has been evolved; and inasmuch as it also recognizes the countless individual purushas, or souls, which are eternal and immortal, and which are entrapped in the maya of prakriti. but it then takes a position widely divergent from the sankhya school, inasmuch as patanjali's yoga school holds that there also exists a supreme purusha, spirit, soul--or god--who is without form; infinite; eternal; and above all attributes and qualities common to man. in this respect, patanjali differs from kapila, and inclines rather toward agreement with kanada, of the first mentioned school of the vaisheshika system. all three philosophers, however, seem to generally agree in the main upon the mind principle, which they hold to be beneath soul or spirit, and to be in the nature of mind-stuff, which is of a semi-material nature--kapila and patanjali even going so far as to hold that it is a manifestation of prakriti or the universal energy, rather than a distinct principle. they hold that the purusha, or spirit, not the mind, is the real self, and the source of consciousness and the real intelligence. the practical teachings of the school of patanjali is a system by which the purusha may escape from and overcome the prakriti, and thus gain emancipation, freedom, and a return to its natural and original purity and power. this school, of course, teaches reincarnation, and progression through rebirth, in accordance with the principles mentioned above. another great school of hindu philosophy is that known as the vedanta philosophy, which many consider the most advanced of all the hindu systems, and which is rapidly growing in popularity among the educated hindus, and also among many very intelligent students of philosophical thought in the western world. its followers claim that the vedanta philosophy has reached the very highest point of philosophical thought, speculation and analysis possible to the human mind of today, and many western students have claimed that it contains the highest conceptions found in any and all of the great world philosophies. be this as it may, it certainly contains much that is the most subtle, refined and keen in the field of philosophical speculative thought of the world, and while, as some claim, it may lack the "appeal to the religious emotions" that some other forms of thought possess, still it proves very attractive to those in whom intellectual development and effort have superseded the "emotional" side of philosophy or religion. the vedanta system holds that the ultimate reality, or actual being, of the universe--the one absolute energy or substance from which all the universe proceeds--is that which may be called the absolute, which is eternal, infinite, indivisible, beyond attributes and qualities, and which is the source of intelligence. the absolute is held to be one, not many--unique and alone. it is identical with the sanscrit "brahman," and is held to be that which has been called "the unknowable"; the "father"; the "over-soul"; the "thing-in-itself"--in short, it is that which men mean, and have always meant, when they wished to express the absolute reality. the vedantists hold that this absolute brahman is the essence of "sat," or absolute existence; "chit," or absolute intelligence; and "ananda," or absolute bliss. without attempting to enter into an analysis, or close exposition, of the vedanta philosophy, or so far as concerns the soul, and its destiny, we may say that it holds that there do not exist the countless eternal, immortal souls or purushas of the sankhya philosophy, but instead that the individual souls are but the countless "images or reflections" of the absolute being, or brahman, and have their existence only by reason of the real existence of the one only being. consequently, the spirit within the soul of man, and which is "the soul of his soul," is divine. the vedantists admit the existence of a "logos," or ishwara, the lord of the universe, who is, however, but a manifestation of brahman--a great soul, as it were, and who presides over the evolution of universes from the prakriti, and who plays the part of the demiurge of the old grecian and gnostic philosophies. the vedantists admit the existence (relative) of prakriti, or universal energy, but hold that it is not eternal, or real-in-itself, but is practically identical with maya, and may be regarded as a form of the creative energy of the absolute, brahman. this maya (which while strictly speaking is illusion inasmuch as it has no real existence or eternal quality) is the source of time, space, and causation, and of the phenomenal universe, with its countless forms, shapes, and appearances. the vedantists teach that the evolution of the soul is accomplished by its escaping the folds of maya, or materiality, one by one, by means of rebirths, until it manifests more and more of its divine nature; and thus it goes on, and on, from higher to still higher, until at last it enters into the divine being and attains union with god, and is "one with the father." another great hindu philosophy is the philosophy of gautama, the buddha, which is generally known as the buddhistic philosophy, or as buddhism. it is difficult to give a clear idea of buddhism in a concise form, for there are so many schools, sects, and divisions among this general school of philosophy, differing upon the minor points and details of doctrine, that it requires a lengthy consideration in order to clear away the disputed points. speaking generally, however, it may be said that the buddhists start with the idea or conception of an unknowable reality, back of and under all forms and activity of the phenomenal universe. buddha refused to discuss the nature of this reality, practically holding it to be unknowable, and in the nature of an absolute nothing, rather than an absolute something in the sense of "thingness" as we understand the term; that is to say, it is a no-thing, rather than a thing--consequently it is beyond thought, understanding, or even imagination--all that can be said is that it is. buddha refused to discuss or teach of the manner in which this unknowable came to manifest upon the relative plane, for he held that man's proper study was of the world of things, and how to escape therefrom. in a vague way, however, buddhism holds that in some way this unknowable, or a part thereof, becomes entangled in maya or illusion, through avidya or ignorance, law, necessity, or perhaps something in the nature of a mistake. and arising from this mistaken activity, all the pain and sorrow of the universe arises, for the buddhist holds that the universe is a "world of woe," from which the soul is trying to escape. buddhism holds that the soul reincarnates often, because of its desires and attractions, which if nursed and encouraged will lead it into lives without number. consequently, to the buddhist, wisdom consists in acquiring a knowledge of the true state of affairs, just mentioned, and then upon that knowledge building up a new life in which desire and attraction for the material world shall be eliminated, to the end that the soul having "killed out desire" for material things--having cut off the dead branch of illusion--is enabled to escape from karma, and eventually be released from rebirth, thence passing back into the great ocean of the unknowable, or nirvana, and ceasing to be, so far as the phenomenal world is concerned, although of course it will exist in the unknowable, which is eternal. many western readers imagine the buddhistic nirvana to be an utter annihilation of existence and being, but the hindu mind is far more subtle, and sees a vast difference between utter annihilation on the one hand, and extinction of personality on the other. that which appears nothingness to the western mind, is seen as no-thingness to the oriental conception, and is considered more of a resumption of an original real existence, rather than an ending thereof. there is a great difference between the two great schools of buddhism, the northern and southern, respectively, regarding the nature of the soul. the northern school considers the soul as an entity, differentiated from the unknowable in some mysterious way not explained by buddha, and yet different from the individual purusha of the sankhya school, before mentioned. on the contrary, the southern school does not regard the soul as a differentiated or distinct entity, but rather as a centre of phenomenal activity saturated or charged with the results of its deeds, and that therefore the karma, or the essence of deeds, may be considered as the soul itself, rather than as something pertaining to it. the northern school holds that the soul, accompanied by its karma, reincarnates along the same lines as those taught by all the other hindu schools of reincarnation and karma. but the southern school, on the contrary, holds that it is not the soul-entity that re-incarnates (for there is no such entity), but that instead it is the karma, or essence of deeds, that reincarnates from life to life, according to its attractions, desires, and merits or demerits. in the last mentioned view of the case, the rebirth is compared to the lighting of one lamp from the flame of another, rather than in the transferring of the oil from one lamp to another. but, really, these distinctions are quite metaphysical, and when refined by analysis become hair-splitting. it is said that the two schools of buddhism are growing nearer together, and their differences reconciled. the orthodox hindus claim that buddhism is on the decline in india, being largely supplanted by the various forms of the vedanta. on the other hand, buddhism has spread to china, japan and other countries, where it has taken on new forms, and has grown into a religion of ritualism, creeds, and ceremonialism, with an accompanying loss of the original philosophy and a corresponding increase of detail of teaching, doctrine and disciple and general "churchiness," including a belief in several thousand different kind of hells. but even in the degenerated forms, buddhism still holds to reincarnation as a fundamental doctrine. in this consideration of the philosophies of india, we do not consider it necessary to go into an explanation of the various forms of religions, or church divisions, among the hindus. in india, religion is an important matter, and there seems to be some form of religion adapted to each one of that country's teeming millions. from the grossest form of religious superstition, and crudest form of ceremony and worship, up to the most refined idealism and beautiful symbolisms, runs the gamut of the hindu religions. many people are unable to conceive of an abstract, ideal universal being, such as the brahman of the hindu philosophy, and consequently that being has been personified as an anthropomorphic deity, and human attributes bestowed upon him to suit the popular fancy. in india, as in all other countries, the priesthood have given the people that which they asked for, and the result is that many forms of churchly ceremonialism, and forms of worship, maintain which are abhorrent and repulsive to western ideas. but we of the west are not entirely free from this fault, as one may see if he examines some of the religious conceptions and ceremonies common among ignorant people in remote parts of our land. certain conceptions, of an anthropomorphic deity held by some of the more ignorant people of the western world are but little advanced beyond the idea of the devil; and the belief in a horned, cloven-hoofed, spiked-tail, red-colored, satyr-like, leering devil, with his hell of eternal fire and brimstone, is not so uncommon as many imagine. it has not been so long since we were taught that "one of the chief pleasures of god and his angels, and the saved souls, will be the witnessing of the tortures of the damned in hell, from the walls of heaven." and the ceremonies of an old-time southern negro camp-meeting were not specially elevating or ideal. among the various forms of the religions of india we find some of the before mentioned forms of philosophy believed and taught among the educated people--often an eclectic policy of choosing and selecting being observed, a most liberal policy being observed, the liberty of choice and selection being freely accorded. but, there is always the belief in reincarnation and karma, no matter what the form of worship, or the name of the religion. there are two things that the hindu mind always accepts as fundamental truth, needing no proof--axiomic, in fact. and these two are ( ) the belief in a soul that survives the death of the body--the hindu mind seeming unable to differentiate between the consciousness of "i am," and "i always have been, and always shall be"--the knowledge of the present existence being accepted as a proof of past and future existence; and ( ) the doctrine of reincarnation and karma, which are accepted as fundamental and axiomic truths beyond the need of proof, and beyond doubt--as a writer has said: "the idea of reincarnation has become so firmly fixed and rooted in the hindu mind as a part of belief that it amounts to the dignity and force of a moral conviction." no matter what may be the theories regarding the nature of the universe--the character of the soul--or the conception concerning deity or the supreme being--you will always find the differing sects, schools, and individuals accepting reincarnation and karma as they accept the fact that they themselves are existent, or that twice one makes two. hindu philosophy cannot be divorced from reincarnation. to the hindu the only escape from the doctrine of reincarnation seems to be along the road of the materialism of the west. from the above statement we may except the hindu mohammedans and the native hindu christians, partially, although careful observers say that even these do not escape entirely the current belief of their country, and secretly entertain a "mental reservation" in their heterodox creeds. so, you see, we are justified in considering india as the mother land of reincarnation at the present time. chapter vi. the modern west. in the modern thought of the western world, we find reincarnation attracting much attention. the western philosophies for the past hundred years have been approaching the subject with a new degree of attention and consideration, and during the past twenty years there has been a marvellous awakening of western public interest in the doctrine. at the present time the american and european magazines contain poems and stories based upon reincarnation, and many novels have been written around it, and plays even have been based upon the general doctrine, and have received marked attention on the part of the public. the idea seems to have caught the public fancy, and the people are eager to know more of it. this present revival of attention has been brought about largely by the renewed interest on the part of the western world toward the general subject of occultism, mysticism, comparative religion, oriental philosophy, etc., in their many phases and forms. the world's parliament of religions, held at the world's fair in chicago, in , did much to attract the attention of the american public to the subject of the oriental philosophies in which reincarnation plays such a prominent part. but, perhaps, the prime factor in this reawakened western interest in the subject is the work and teachings of the theosophical society, founded by madame blavatsky some thirty years ago, and which has since been continued by her followers and several successors. but, whatever may be the cause, the idea of reincarnation seems destined to play an important part in the religious and philosophical thought of the west for some time to come. signs of it appear on every side--the subject cannot be ignored by the modern student of religion and philosophy. whether accepted or not, it must be recognized and examined. but the forms of the doctrine, or theory, regarding reincarnation, vary almost as much in the modern west as in the various eastern countries at present, and in the past. we find all phases of the subject attracting attention and drawing followers to its support. here we find the influence of the hindu thought, principally through the medium or channel of theosophy, or of the yogi philosophy--and there we find the influence of the grecian or egyptian philosophical conceptions manifesting principally through the medium of a number of occult orders and organizations, whose work is performed quietly and with little recognition on the part of the general public, the policy being to attract the "elect few" rather than the curious crowd--and again we find quite a number of persons in america and europe, believing in reincarnation because they are attracted by the philosophy of the neo-platonists, or the gnostics of the early christian church, and favoring reincarnation as a proper part of the christian religion, and who while remaining in the bosom of the church interpret the teachings by the light of the doctrine of rebirth, as did many of the early christians, as we have seen. the theosophical conception and interpretation appeals to a great number of the western reincarnationists, by reason of its wide circulation and dissemination, as well as by the fact that it has formulated a detailed theory and doctrine, and besides claims the benefit of authoritative instruction on the doctrine from adepts and masters who have passed to a higher plane of existence. we think it proper to give in some little detail an account of the general teachings of theosophy on this point, the reader being referred to the general theosophical literature for more extended information regarding this special teaching. theosophy teaches that the human soul is a composite entity, consisting of several principles, sheaths of vehicles, similar to those mentioned by us in our account of hindu reincarnation. the theosophical books state these principles as follows: ( ) the body, or rupa; ( ) vitality, or prana-jiva; ( ) astral body, or linga-sharira; ( ) animal soul, or kama-rupa; ( ) human soul, manas; ( ) spiritual soul, or buddhi; and ( ) spirit, or atma. of these seven principles, the last or higher three, namely, the atma, buddhi, and manas, compose the higher trinity of the soul--the part of man which persists; while the lower four principles, namely, rupa, prana-jiva, linga-sharira, and kama-rupa, respectively, are the lower principles, which perish after the passing out of the higher principles at death. at death the higher principles, or triad, lives on, while the lower principles of quarternary dissolve and separate from each other and finally disintegrate, along the lines of a process resembling chemical action. theosophy teaches that there is a great stream of egos, or monads, which originally emanated from a source of being, and which are pursuing a spiral journey around a chain of seven globes, including the earth, called the planetary chain. the life wave of monads reaches globe a, and goes through a series of evolutionary life on it, and then passes on to globe b, and so on until globe g is reached, when after a continued life there the life wave returns to globe a, but not in a circle, but rather in a spiral, that is, on a higher plane of activity, and the round begins once more. there are seven races to be lived through on each globe, many incarnations in each--each race having seven sub-races, and each sub-race having seven branches. the progress of the life wave is illustrated by the symbol of a seven-coil spiral, sweeping with a wider curve at each coil, each coil, however, being divided into a minor seven-coil spiral, and so on. it is taught that the human soul is now on its fourth great round-visit to the earth, and is in about the middle of the fifth race of that round. the total number of incarnations necessary for each round is quite large, and the teaching is that none can escape them except by special merit and development. between each incarnation there is a period of rest in the heaven world, or devachan, where the soul reaps the experiences of the past life, and prepares for the next step. the period of rest varies with the degree of attainment gained by the soul, the higher the degree the longer the rest. the average time between incarnations is estimated at about fifteen hundred years. devachan is thus a kind of temporary heaven, from whence the soul must again pass in time for a rebirth, according to its merits or demerits. thus, accordingly, each soul has lived in a variety of bodies, even during the present round--having successively incarnated as a savage, a barbarian, a semi-civilized man, a native of india, egypt, chaldea, rome, greece, and many other lands, in different ages, filling all kinds of positions and places in life, tasting of poverty and riches, of pleasure and pain--all ever leading toward higher things. the doctrine enunciated by theosophy is complicated and intricate, and we can do no more than to barely mention the same at this place. another western form of the oriental teachings, known as the "yogi philosophy," numbers quite a large number of earnest students in this country and in europe, and has a large circle of influence, although it has never crystallized into an organization, the work being done quietly and the teachings spread by the sale of popular books on the subject issued at nominal prices. it is based on the inner teachings of the hindu philosophy and is eclectic in nature, deriving its inspiration from the several great teachers, philosophies and schools, rather than implicitly following any one of them. briefly stated this western school of yogi philosophy teaches that the universe is an emanation from, or mental creation of, the absolute whose creative will flows out in an outpouring of mental energy, descending from a condition above mind, downward through mind, physical energy, and matter, in a grand involution or "infolding" of the divine energy into material forms and states. this involution is followed by an evolution, or unfoldment, the material forms advancing in the scale of evolution, accompanied by a corresponding spiritual evolution, or unfoldment of the individual centres or units of being, created or emanated as above stated. the course of evolution, or rather, that phase of it with which the present human race on earth is concerned, has now reached a point about midway in the scale of spiritual evolution, and the future will lead the race on, and on, to higher and still higher planes and states of being, on this earth and on other spheres, until it reaches a point incomprehensible to the mind of man of today, and then still on and on, until finally the souls will pass into the plane of the absolute, there to exist in a state impossible of present comprehension, and transcending not only the understanding but also the imagination of the mind of man as we know him. the yogi philosophy teaches that the soul will reincarnate on earth until it is fitted to pass on to higher planes of being, and that many people are now entering into a stage which will terminate the unconscious reincarnation, and which enables them to incarnate consciously in the future without loss of memory. it teaches that instead of a retributive karma, there is a law of spiritual cause and effect, operating largely along the lines of desire and what has been called the "law of attraction," by which "like attracts like," in persons, environments, conditions, etc. as we have stated, the yogi philosophy follows closely the lines of certain phases of the hindu philosophies from which it is derived, it being, however, rather an "eclectic" system rather than an exact reproduction of that branch of philosophy favored by certain schools of hindus and known by a similar name, as mentioned in our chapter on "the hindus"--that is to say, instead of accepting the teachings of any particular hindu school in their entirety, the western school of the yogi philosophy has adopted the policy of "eclecticism," that is, a system following the policy of selection, choosing from several sources or systems, rather than a blind following of some particular school, cult or teacher. the yogi philosophy teaches that man is a seven-fold entity, consisting of the following principles, or divisions: . the physical body. . the astral body. . prana, or vital force. . the instinctive mind. . the intellect. . the spiritual mind. . spirit. of these, the first four principles belong to the lower part of the being, while the latter three are the higher principles which persist and reincarnate. man, however, is gradually evolving on to the plane of the spiritual mind, and will in time pass beyond the plane of intellect, which he will then class along with instinct as a lower form of mentality, he then using his intuition habitually and ordinarily, just as the intelligent man now uses his intellect, and the ignorant man his instinct-intellect, and the animal its instinct alone. in many points the yogi philosophy resembles the vedanta, and in others it agrees with theosophy, although it departs from the latter in some of the details of doctrine regarding the process of reincarnation, and particularly in its conception of the meaning and operation of the law of karma. there are many persons in the west who hold firmly to reincarnation, to whom the hindu conceptions, even in the western form of their presentation, do not appeal, and who naturally incline toward the greek conception and form of the doctrine. a large number of these people are generally classed among the "spiritualists," although strictly speaking they do not fit into that classification, for they hold that the so-called "spirit world" is not a place of permanent abode, but rather a resting place between incarnations. these people prefer the name "spiritists," for they hold that man is essentially a spiritual being--that the spirit is the real man--and that that which we call man is but a temporary stage in the development and evolution of the individual spirit. the spiritists hold that the individual spirit emanated from the great spirit of the universe (called by one name or another) at some distant period in the past, and has risen to its present state of man, through and by a series of repeated incarnations, first in the form of the lowly forms of life, and then through the higher forms of animal life, until now it has reached the stage of human life, from whence it will pass on, and on, to higher and still higher planes--to forms and states as much higher than the human state than man is above the earthworm. the spiritists hold that man will reincarnate in earthly human bodies, only until the spirit learns its lessons and develops sufficiently to pass on to the next plane higher. they hold that the planets and the countless fixed stars or suns, are but stages of abode for the evolving spirit, and that beyond the universe as we know it there are millions of others--in fact, that the number of universes is infinite. the keynote of this doctrine may be stated as "eternal progression" toward the divine spirit. the spirits do not insist upon any particular theory regarding the constitution of the soul--some of them speak merely of "soul and body," while others hold to the seven-fold being--the general idea being that this is unimportant, as the essential spirit is after all the real self, and it matters little about the number or names of its temporary garments or vehicles of expression. still another class of reincarnationists in the western world incline rather more toward the grecian and egyptian forms of the doctrine, than the hindu--the ideas of the neo-platonists which had such a powerful effect upon the early christian church, or rather among the "elect few" among the early fathers of the church, seeming to have sprung into renewed activity among this class. these people, as we have said in the beginning of this chapter, are rather inclined to group themselves into small organizations or secret orders, rather than to form popular cults. they follow the examples of the ancients in this respect, preferring the "few elect" to the curious general public who merely wish to "taste or nibble" at the truth. many of these organizations are not known to the public, as they studiously avoid publicity or advertisement, and trust to the law of attraction to "bring their own to them--and them to their own." the teachings of this class vary in interpretation, and as many of them maintain secrecy by pledges or oaths, it is not possible to give their teachings in detail. but, generally speaking, they base their doctrines on the general principle that man's present condition is due to the "descent of spirit," in the nature of "the fall of man," occurring some time in the far distant past. they hold that man was originally "spirit pure and free," from which blissful state he was enticed by the glamour of material life, and he accordingly fell from his higher state, lower and lower until he was sunken deep into the mire of matter. from this lowly state he then began to work up, or evolve, having in the dim recesses of his soul a glimmer of remembrance of his former state, which dim light is constantly urging him on and on, toward his former estate, in spite of his frequent stumbling into the mire in his attempts to rise above it. this teaching holds to a theory and doctrine very similar to that of the "spiritists" just mentioned, except that while the latter, in common with the majority of reincarnationists, hold that the evolution of the soul is in the direction of advancement and greater expression, similar to the growth of a child, these "secret order" people hold forcibly and earnestly to the idea that the evolution is merely a "returning of the prodigal" to his "father's mansion"--the parable of the prodigal son, and that of the expulsion from eden, being held as veiled allegories of their teaching. in the above view, the present state of existence--this earthly life--is one of a series of hells, in the great hell of matter, from which man is creeping up slowly but surely. according to this idea, the earth is but midway in the scale, there being depths of materiality almost impossible of belief, and on the other hand, heights of heavenly bliss equally incapable of understanding. this is about all that we can say regarding this form of the doctrine, without violating certain confidences that have been reposed in us. we fear that we have said too much as it is, but inasmuch as one would have to be able to "read between the lines" to understand fully, we trust that those who have favored us with these confidences will pardon us. there is still another class of believers in reincarnation, of which even the general public is not fully aware, for this class does not have much to say regarding its beliefs. i allude to those in the ranks of the orthodox christian church, who have outgrown the ordinary doctrines, and who, while adhering firmly to the fundamental christian doctrines, and while clinging closely to the teachings of jesus the christ, still find in the idea of rebirth a doctrine that appeals to their souls and minds as closer to their "highest conceptions of immortality" than the ordinary teachings of "the resurrection of the body," or the vague doctrines that are taking its place. these christian reincarnationists find nothing in the doctrine of reincarnation antagonistic to their faith, and nothing in their faith antagonistic to the doctrine of reincarnation. they do not use the term reincarnation usually, but prefer the term "rebirth" as more closely expressing their thought; besides which the former term has a suggestion of "pagan and heathen" origin which is distasteful to them. these people are inclined toward rebirth for the reason that it "gives the soul another chance to redeem itself"--other chances to perfect itself to enter the heavenly realms. they do not hold to an idea of endless reincarnation, or even of continued earthly incarnation for all, their idea being that the soul that is prepared to enter heaven passes on there at once, having learned enough and earned enough merit in the few lives it has lived on earth--while the unprepared, undeveloped, and unfit, are bound to come back and back again until they have attained perfection sufficient to enable them to advance to the heaven world. a large number of the christian reincarnationists, if i may call them by that name, hold that heaven is a place or state of eternal progression, rather than a fixed state or place--that there is no standing still in heaven or earth--that "in my father's house are many mansions." to the majority, this idea of progression in the higher planes seems to be a natural accompaniment to the spiritual progression that leads to the higher planes, or heaven. at any rate, the two ideas seem always to have run together in the human mind when the general subject has been under consideration, whether in past time or present; whether among christians or "pagans and heathen." there seems to be an intuitive recognition of the connection of the two ideas. and on the other hand, there seems to be a close connection between the several views of "special creation" of the soul before both--the single earth-life--and the eternity of reward or punishment in a state or place lacking progression or change. human thought on the subject seems to divide itself into two distinct and opposing groups. there are quite a number of christian preachers, and members of orthodox churches, who are taking an earnest interest in this doctrine of rebirth, and eternal progression here and hereafter. it is being considered by many whose church associates do not suspect them of being other than strictly orthodox in their views. some day there will be a "breaking out" of this idea in the churches, when the believers in the doctrine grow in numbers and influence. it will not surprise careful observers to see the church once more accepting the doctrine of rebirth and reinstating the doctrine of pre-existence--returning to two of its original truths, long since discarded by order of the councils. prof. bowen has said: "it seems to me that a firm and well-grounded faith in the doctrine of christian metempsychosis might help to regenerate the world. for it would be a faith not hedged round with many of the difficulties and objections which beset other forms of doctrine, and it offers distinct and pungent motives for trying to lead a more christian life, and for loving and helping our brother-man." and as james freeman clarke has said: "it would be curious if we should find science and philosophy taking up again the old theory of metempsychosis, remodelling it to suit our present modes of religious and scientific thought, and launching it again on the wide ocean of human belief. but stranger things have happened in the history of human opinion." so, as we have said, there is a great variety of shades of belief in the western world regarding reincarnation today, and the student will have no difficulty in finding just the shade of opinion best suited to his taste, temperament and training or experience. vary as they do in detail, and theory, there is still the same fundamental and basic truth of the one source--the one life--and reincarnation, reaching ever toward perfection and divinity. it seems impossible to disguise the doctrine so as to change its basic qualities--it will always show its original shape. and, so it is with the varying opinions of the western thought regarding it--the various cults advocating some form of its doctrine--the original doctrine may be learned and understood in spite of the fanciful dressings bestowed upon it. "the truth is one--men call it by many names." it may be of interest to western readers to mention that some of the teachers of occultism and reincarnation hold that the present revival of interest on the subject in the western world is due to the fact that in europe and america, more particularly the latter, there is occurring a reincarnating of the souls of many persons who lived from fifteen hundred to two thousand years ago, and who were then believers in the doctrine. according to this view, those who are now attracted toward the hindu forms of the doctrine formerly lived as natives of india; those who favor the grecian idea, lived in ancient greece; others favor the egyptian idea, from similar reasons; while the revival of neo-platonism, gnosticism and general mysticism, among the present-day christians is accounted for by the fact that the early christians are now reincarnating in the western world, having been reborn as christians according to the law of karmic attraction. in this manner the advocates of the doctrine offer the present revival as another proof of their teachings. chapter vii. between and beyond incarnations. one of the first questions usually asked by students of the subject of reincarnation is: "where does the soul dwell between incarnations; does it incarnate immediately after death; and what is its final abode or state?" this question, or questions, have been asked from the beginning, and probably will be asked so long as the human mind dwells upon the subject. and many are the answers that have been given to the questioners by the teachers and "authorities" upon the subject. let us consider some of the leading and more "authoritative" answers. in the first place, let us consider that phase of the question which asks: "does the soul incarnate immediately after death?" some of the earlier reincarnationists believed and taught that the soul reincarnated shortly after death, the short period between incarnations being used by the soul in adjusting itself, striking a balance of character, and preparing for a new birth. others held that there was a period of waiting and rest between incarnations, in which the soul 'mentally digested' the experiences of the last life just completed, and then considered and meditated over the mistakes it had made, and determined to rectify the mistakes in the next life--it being held that when the soul was relieved of the necessities of material existence, it could think more clearly of the moral nature of its acts, and would be able to realize the spiritual side of itself more distinctly, in addition to having the benefit of the spiritual perspective occasioned by its distance from the active scenes of life, and thus being able to better gauge the respective "worth-whileness" of the things of material life. at the present time, the most advanced students of the subject hold that the average period of rest between incarnations is about fifteen hundred years, the less advanced souls hastening back to earth in a very short time, the more advanced preferring a long period of rest, meditation and preparation for a new life. it is held that the soul of a gross, material, animal-like person will incarnate very shortly after death, the period of rest and meditation being very short, for the reason that there is very little about which such a soul could meditate, as all of its attractions and desires are connected with material life. many souls are so "earth-bound" that they rush back at once into material embodiment if the conditions for rebirth are favorable, and they are generally favorable for there seems to be always an abundant supply of new bodies suitable for such souls in the families of people of the same character and nature, which afford congenial opportunities for such a soul to reincarnate. other souls which have progressed a little further along the path of attainment, have cultivated the higher part of themselves somewhat, and enjoy to a greater extent the period of meditation and spiritual life afforded them. and so, as the scale advances--as the attraction for material life grows less, the period of purely spiritual existence between incarnations grows longer, and it is said that the souls of persons who are highly developed spiritually sometimes dwell in the state of rest for ten thousand years or more, unless they voluntarily return sooner in order to take part in the work of uplifting the world. it must be remembered, in this connection, that the best teaching is to the effect that the advanced souls are rapidly unfolding into the state in which they are enabled to preserve consciousness in future births, instead of losing it as is the usual case, and thus they take a conscious part in the selection of the conditions for rebirth, which is wisely denied persons of a more material nature and less spiritual development. the next phase of the question: "where does the soul dwell between incarnations?" is one still more difficult of answer, owing to the various shades of opinion on the subject. still there is a fundamental agreement between the different schools, and we shall try to give you the essence or cream of the thought on the subject. in the first place, all occultists set aside any idea of there being a "place" in which the souls dwell--the existence of "states" or "planes of existence" being deemed sufficient for the purpose. it is held that there are many planes of existence in any and every portion of space, which planes interpenetrate each other, so that entities dwelling on one plane usually are not conscious of the presence of those on another plane. thus, an inhabitant of a high plane of being, in which the vibrations of substance are much higher than that which we occupy, would be able to pass through our material world without the slightest knowledge of its existence, just as the "x rays" pass through the most solid object, or as light passes through the air. it is held that there are many planes of existence much higher than the one we occupy, and upon which the disembodied souls dwell. there are many details regarding these planes, taught by the different schools of occultism, or spiritualism, but we have neither the time nor space to consider them at length, and must content ourselves with mentioning but a few leading or typical beliefs or teachings on the subject. the theosophists teach that just when the soul leaves the body, there occurs a process of psychic photography in which the past life, in all of its details, is indelibly imprinted on the inner substance of the soul, thus preserving a record independent of the brain, the latter being left behind in the physical body. then the astral body, or etheric double, detaches itself from the body, from which the vital force, or prana-jiva also departs at the same time, the astral body enfolding also the four other principles, and together the five surviving principles pass on to the plane of kama loka, or the astral plane of desire. kama loka is that part of the astral plane nearest to the material plane, and is very closely connected with the latter. if the soul is filled with hot and earnest desire for earth life, it may proceed no further, but may hasten back to material embodiment, as we said a moment ago. but if the soul has higher aspirations, and has developed the higher part of itself, it presses on further, in which case the astral body, and the animal soul which is the seat of the passions and grosser desires, disintegrate, and thus release the triad, or three-fold higher nature of the soul, namely the higher human soul, the spiritual soul, and the spirit--or as some term them, the intellect, the spiritual mind, and the spirit. the triad then passes on to what is known as the plane of devachan, where it rests divested of the lower parts of its nature, and in a state of bliss and in a condition in which it may make great progress by reason of meditation, reflection, etc. kama loka has been compared to the purgatory of the catholics, which it resembles in more ways than one, according to the theosophists. devachan is sometimes called the heaven world by theosophists, the word meaning "the state or plane of the gods." theosophy teaches that the soul triad dwells in devachan "for a period proportionate to the merit of the being," and from whence in the proper time "the being is drawn down again to be reborn in the world of mortals." the law of karma which rules the earth-life of man, and which regulates the details of his rebirth, is said to operate on the devachnic plane as well, thus deciding the time of his abode on that plane, and the time when the soul shall proceed to rebirth. the state of existence in devachan is described at length in the theosophical writings, but is too complex for full consideration here. briefly stated, it may be said that it is taught that the life on devachan is in the nature of a dream of the best that is in us--that is, a condition in which the highest that is in us is given a chance for expression and growth, and development. the state of the soul in devachan is said to be one of bliss, the degree depending upon the degree of spiritual development of the soul, as the bliss is of an entirely spiritual nature. it may be compared to a state of people listening to some beautiful music--the greater the musical development of the person, the greater will be his degree of enjoyment. it is also taught that just as the soul leaves devachan to be reincarnated, it is given a glimpse of its past lives, and its present character, that it may realize the karmic relations between the cause and effect, to the end that its new life may be improved upon--then it sinks into a state of unconsciousness and passes on to rebirth. the western school of the yogi philosophy gives an idea of the state between incarnations, somewhat eclectic in its origin, agreeing with the theosophical teaching in some respects, and differing from it in others. let us take a hasty glance at it. in the first place it does not use the terms "kama loca" and "devachan" respectively, but instead treats the whole series of planes as the great "astral world" containing many planes, divisions, and subdivisions--many sub-planes, and divisions of the same. the teaching is that the soul passes out of the body, leaving behind its physical form, together with its prana or vital energy, and taking with it the astral body, the instructive mind, and the higher principles. the "last vision" of the past life, in which the events of that life are impressed upon the soul just as it leaves the body, is held to be a fact--the soul sees the past life as a whole, and in all of its minutest details at the moment of death, and it is urged that the dying person should be left undisturbed in his last moments for this reason, and that the soul may become calm and peaceful when starting on its journey. on one of the astral planes the soul gradually discards its astral body and its instinctive mind, but retains its higher vehicles or sheaths. but it is taught that this discarding of the lower sheaths occurs after the soul has passed into a "soul-slumber" on a sub-plane of the astral world, from which it awakens to find itself clothed only in its higher mental and spiritual garments of being, and free from the grosser coverings and burdens. the teachings say: "when the soul has cast off the confining sheaths, and has reached the state for which it is prepared, it passes to the plane in the astral world for which it is fitted, and to which it is drawn by the law of attraction. the planes of the astral world interpenetrate, and souls dwelling on one plane are not conscious of those dwelling on another, nor can they pass from one plane to another, with this exception--that those dwelling on a higher plane are able to see (if they so desire) the planes below them in the order of development, and are also able to visit these lower planes if they so desire. but those on the lower planes are not able to either see or visit the planes above them--not that there is a 'watchman at the gate' to prevent them, but for the same reason that a fish is not able to pass from the water to the plane of air above that water." the same teachings tell us that the souls on the higher planes often visit friends and relatives on the lower, so that there is always the opportunity for loved ones, relatives and friends meeting in this way; and also many souls on the higher planes pass to the lower planes in order to instruct and advise those dwelling on the latter, the result that in some cases there may be a progression from a lower to a higher plane of the astral world by promotion earned by this instruction. regarding rebirth, from the astral world, the teachings say: "but sooner or later, the souls feel a desire to gain new experiences, and to manifest in earth-life some of the advancement which has come to them since 'death,' and for these reasons, and from the attraction of desires which have been smoldering there, not lived out or cast off, or, possibly influenced by the fact that some loved soul, on a lower plane, is ready to incarnate and wishing to be incarnated at the same time in order to be with it (which is also a desire) the souls fall into the current sweeping toward rebirth, and the selection of proper parents and advantageous circumstances and surrounding, and in consequence again fall into a soul-slumber, gradually, and so when their time comes they 'die' to the plane upon which they have been existing and are 'born' into a new physical life and body. a soul does not fully awaken from its sleep immediately at birth, but exists in a dream-like state during the days of infancy, its gradual awakening being evidenced by the growing intelligence of the babe, the brain of the child keeping pace with the demands made upon it. in some cases the awakening is premature, and we see cases of prodigies, child-genius, etc., but such cases are more or less abnormal, and unhealthy. occasionally the dreaming soul in the child half-wakes, and startles us by some profound observation, or mature remark or conduct." the third phase of the question: "what is the final state or abode of the soul?" is one that reaches to the very center or heart of philosophical and religious thought and teaching. each philosophy and religion has its own explanation, or interpretation of the truth, and it is not for us to attempt to select one teaching from the many in this work. the reader will find many references to these various explanations and teachings as he reads the several chapters of this book, and he may use his own discrimination and judgment in selecting that which appeals to him the most strongly. but he will notice that there is a fundamental agreement between all of the teachings and beliefs--the principle that the movement of the soul is ever upward and onward, and that there is no standing still in spiritual development and unfoldment. whether the end--if end there be--is the reaching of a state of bliss in the presence of the divine one--or whether the weary soul finds rest "in the bosom of the father," by what has been called "union with god"--the vital point for the evolving soul is that there is "a better day coming"--a haven of rest around the turn of the road. and whatever may be the details of the truth, the fact remains that whatever state awaits the soul finally, it must be good, and in accordance with divine wisdom and ultimate justice and universal love. the majority of occultists look forward to an end in the sense of being absorbed in the divine being, not in the sense of annihilation, but in the sense of reaching a consciousness "of the whole in the whole"--this is the true meaning of "nirvana." but whether this be true, or whether there is a place of final rest in the highest spiritual realms other than in the sense of absorption in the divine, or whether there is a state of eternal progression from plane to plane, from realm to realm, on and on forever godward, and more and more god-like--the end must be good, and there is nothing to fear, for "the power that rules here, rules there, and everywhere. and remember this, ye seekers after ultimate truths--the highest authorities inform us that even the few stages or planes just ahead of us in the journey are so far beyond our present powers of conception, that they are practically unknowable to us--this being so, it will be seen that states very much nearer to us than the end must be utterly beyond the powers not only of our understanding but also of our imagination, even when strained to its utmost. this being so, why should we attempt to speculate about the end? instead, why not say with newman: "i do not ask to see the distant scene. one step enough for me-- lead thou me on!" it is said that when thoreau was dying, a friend leaned over and taking him by the hand, said: "henry, you are so near to the border now, can you see anything on the other side?" and the dying thoreau replied: "one world at a time, parker!" and this seems to be the great lesson of life--one plane at a time! but though the veil of isis is impossible of being lifted entirely, still there is a something that enables one to see at least dimly the features of the goddess behind the veil. and that something is that intelligent faith that "knows," although it is unable to explain even to itself. and the voice of that something within informs him who has that faith: all is well, brother! for beyond planes, and states, and universes, and time, and space, and name, and form, and things--there must be that which transcends them all, and from which they all proceed. though we may not know what that is--the fact that it must exist--that it is, is a sufficient guarantee that the law is in constant operation on all planes, from the lowest to the highest, and that the cosmos is governed by law! and this being so, not even an atom may be destroyed, nor misplaced, nor suffer injustice; and all will attain the end rightly, and know the "sat-chit-ananda" of the hindus--the being-wisdom-bliss absolute that all philosophies and religions agree upon is the final state of the blessed. and to the occultist all are blessed, even to the last soul in the scale of life. and over all the tumult and strife of life there is always that something--that--silently brooding, and watching, and waiting--the life, light, and love of the all. such is the message of the illumined of all ages, races, and lands. is it not worthy of our attention and consideration? chapter viii. the justice of reincarnation. there are three views entertained by men who believe in the existence of the soul--there are many shades of belief and opinion on the subject, but they may be divided into three classes. these three views, respectively, are as follows: ( ) that the soul is specially created by the supreme power at the time of conception, or birth, and that its position on earth, its circumstances, its degree of intelligence, etc., are fixed arbitrarily by that power, for some inscrutable reason of its own; ( ) that the soul was pre-existent, that is, that it existed before conception and birth, in some higher state not understood by us, from whence it was thrust into human form and birth, its position on earth, its circumstances, its degree of intelligence, etc., being determined by causes unknown to us; ( ) that the soul is one of countless others which emanated from the source of being at some period in the past, and which souls were equal in power, intelligence, opportunity, etc., and which worked its way up by spiritual evolution from lowly forms of expression and life to its present state, from whence it is destined to move on and on, to higher and still higher forms and states of existence, until in the end, after millions of æons of existence in the highest planes of expressed life it will again return to the source of being from which it emanated, and becomes "one with the father," not in a state of annihilated consciousness, but in a condition of universal consciousness with all. this view holds that the present condition of each soul is due to its own progress, development, advancement, unfoldment, or the lack of the same--the soul being its own fate and destiny--the enforcer of the law upon itself, under the law of karma. considering the first named view, namely that the soul is newly created, and that its condition has been arbitrarily fixed by the divine power, the student free from prejudice or fear finds it difficult to escape the conclusion that under this plan of creation there is lacking a manifestation of divine justice. even admitting the inability of the finite mind to fully grasp infinite principles, man is still forced to the realization of the manifest inequality and injustice of the relative positions of human beings on earth, providing that the same is thrust arbitrarily upon them; and it would seem that no amount of future reward could possibly equalize or explain these conditions. unless there be "something back of it all," it would certainly seem that injustice was manifested. of course, many argue that the idea of justice has nothing to do with the universal processes, but all who think of a divine being, filled with love, and justice, are compelled to think that such qualities must manifest themselves in the creations of such a being. and, if there be nothing "back of it all," then the candid observer must confess that the scheme of justice manifested is most faulty according even to the human imperfect idea of justice. as figuier, a french writer said about forty years ago: "if there are a few men well organized, of good constitution and robust health, how many are infirm, idiotic, deaf-mute, blind from birth, maimed, foolish and insane? my brother is handsome and well-shaped: i am ugly, weakly, rickety, and a hunchback. yet we are sons of the same mother. some are born into opulence, others into the most dreadful want. why am i not a prince and a great lord, instead of a poor pilgrim on the earth, ungrateful and rebellious? why was i born in europe and at paris, whereby civilization and art life is rendered supportable and easy, instead of seeing the light under the burning skies of the tropics, where, dressed out in a beastly muzzle, a skin black and oily, and locks of wool, i should have been exposed to the double torments of a deadly climate and a barbarous society? why is not a wretched african negro in my place in paris, in conditions of comfort? we have, either of us, done nothing to entitle us to our assigned places: we have invited neither this favor nor that disgrace. why is the unequal distribution of the terrible evils that fall upon some men, and spare others? how have those deserved the partiality of fortune, who live in happy lands, while many of their brethren suffer and weep in other parts of the world?" figuier continues: "some men are endowed with all benefits of mind; others, on the contrary, are devoid of intelligence, penetration and memory. they stumble at every step in their rough life-paths. their limited intelligence and their imperfect faculties expose them to all possible mortifications and disasters. they can succeed in nothing, and fate seems to have chosen them for the constant objects of its most deadly blows. there are beings who, from the moment of their birth to the hour of their death, utter only cries of suffering and despair. what crime have they committed? why are they here on earth? they have not petitioned to be here; and if they could, they would have begged that this fatal cup might be taken from their lips. they are here in spite of themselves, against their will. god would be unjust and wicked if he imposed so miserable an existence upon beings who have done nothing to incur it, and have not asked for it. but god is not unjust or wicked: the opposite qualities belong to his perfect essence. therefore the presence of man on such or such parts of the earth, and the unequal distribution of evil on our globe, must remain unexplained. if you know a doctrine, a philosophy, or a religion that solves these difficulties, i will destroy this book, and confess myself vanquished." the orthodox theology answers figuier's question by the argument that "in our finite understanding, we cannot pretend to understand god's plans, purposes and designs, nor to criticize his form of justice." it holds that we must look beyond that mortal life for the evidence of god's love, and not attempt to judge it according to what we see here on earth of men's miseries and inequalities. it holds that the suffering and misery come to us as an inheritance from adam, and as a result of the sins of our first parents; but that if we are "good" it will all be evened up and recompensed in the next world. of course the extremists who hold to predestination have held that some were happy and some miserable, simply because god in the exercise of his will had elected and predestined them to those conditions, but it would scarcely be fair to quote this as the position of current theology, because the tendency of modern theological thought is away from that conception. we mention it merely as showing what some have thought of the subject. others have sought refuge in the idea that we suffer for the sins of our parents, according to the old doctrine that "the sins of the parents shall be visited upon the children," but even this is not in accordance with man's highest idea of justice and love. passing on to the second view, namely that the soul was pre-existent, that is, existed in some higher state not understood by us, from whence it was thrust into human form, etc., we note that the questions as to the cause of inequality, misery, etc., considered a moment ago, are still actively with us--this view does not straighten out the question at all. for whether the soul was pre-existent in a higher state, or whether it was freshly created, the fact remains that as souls they must be equal in the sense of being made by the same process, and from the same material, and that up to the point of their embodiment they had not sinned or merited any reward or punishment, nor had they earned anything one way or another. and yet, according to the theory, these equally innocent and inexperienced souls are born, some being thrust into the bodies of children to be born in environments conducive to advancement, development, etc., and gifted with natural advantages, while others are thrust into bodies of children to be born into the most wretched environments and surroundings, and devoid of many natural advantages--not to speak of the crippled, deformed, and pain-ridden ones in all walks of life. there is no more explanation of the problem in this view than there was in the first mentioned one. passing on to the third view, namely, that the soul is one of countless others which emanated from the source of being æons ago, equal in power, opportunities, etc., and which individual soul has worked its way up to its present position through many rebirths and lives, in which it has gained many experiences and lessons, which determine its present condition, and which in turn will profit by the experiences and lessons of the present life by which the next stage of its life will be determined--we find what many have considered to be the only logical and possible explanation of the problem of life's inequalities, providing there is an "answer" at all, and that there is any such thing as a "soul," and a loving, just god. figuier, the french writer, from whom we quoted that remarkable passage breathing the pessimism of the old view of life, a few moments ago, admitted that in rebirth was to be found a just explanation of the matter. he says: "if, on the contrary, we admit the plurality of human existences and reincarnation--that is, the passage of the same soul through several bodies--all this is made wonderfully clear. our presence on such or such a part of the earth is no longer the effect of a caprice of fate, or the result of chance; it is merely a station in the long journey that we make through the world. before our birth, we have already lived, and this life is the sequel and result of previous ones. we have a soul that we must purify, improve and ennoble during our stay upon earth; or having already completed an imperfect and wicked life, we are compelled to begin a new one, and thus strive to rise to the level of those who have passed on to higher planes." the advocates of reincarnation point out that the idea of justice is fully carried out in that view of life, inasmuch as what we are is determined by what we have been; and what we shall be is determined by what we are now; and that we are constantly urged on by the pressure of the unfolding spirit, and attracted upward by the divine one. under this conception there is no such thing as chance--all is according to law. as an ancient grecian philosopher once said: "without the doctrine of metempsychosis, it is not possible to justify the ways of god," and many other philosophers and theologians have followed him in this thought. if we enjoy, we have earned it; if we suffer, we have earned it; in both cases through our own endeavors and efforts, and not by "chance," nor by reason of the merits or demerits of our forefathers, nor because of "predestination" nor "election" to that fate. if this be true, then one is given the understanding to stoically bear the pains and miseries of this life without cursing fate or imputing injustice to the divine. and likewise he is given an incentive toward making the best of his opportunities now, in order to pass on to higher and more satisfactory conditions in future lives. reincarnationists claim that rewards and punishments are properly awarded only on the plane in which the deed, good or bad, was committed, "else their nature is changed, their effects impaired, and their collateral bearings lost." a writer on the subject has pointed out this fact in the following words: "physical outrage has to be checked by the infliction of physical pain, and not merely by the arousing of internal regret. honest lives find appropriate consequence in visible honor. but one career is too short for the precise balancing of accounts, and many are needed that every good or evil done in each may be requited on the earth where it took place." in reference to this mention of rewards and penalties, we would say that very many advanced reincarnationists do not regard the conditions of life as "rewards and punishments," but, on the contrary, look upon them as forming part of the lessons in the kindergarten of life, to be learned and profited by in future lives. we shall speak of this further in our consideration of the question of "karma"--the difference is vital, and should be closely observed in considering the subject. before we pass from the consideration of the question of justice, as exemplified by reincarnation, we would call your attention to the difference in the views of life and its rewards and punishments held by the orthodox theologians and the reincarnationists, respectively. on the one hand, the orthodox theologians hold that for the deeds, good or evil, performed by a man during his short lifetime of a few years, and then performed under conditions arbitrarily imposed upon him at birth by his creator, man is rewarded or punished by an eternity of happiness or misery--heaven or hell. perhaps the man has lived but one or two years of reasonable understanding--or full three-score and ten--and has violated certain moral, ethical or even religious laws, perhaps only to the extent of refusing to believe something that his reason absolutely refused to accept--for this he is doomed to an everlasting sojourn in a place of pain, misery or punishment, or a state equivalent thereto. or, on the other hand, he has done the things that he ought to have done, and left undone the things that he ought not to have done--even though this doing and not-doing was made very easy for him by reason of his environment and surroundings--and to crown his beautiful life he had accepted the orthodox creeds and beliefs of his fathers, as a matter of course--then this man is rewarded by an eternity of bliss, happiness and joy--without end. try to think of what eternity means--think of the æons upon æons of time, on and on, and on, forever--and the poor sinner is suffering exquisite torture all that time, and in all time to come, without limit, respite, without mercy! and all the same time, the "good" man is enjoying his blissful state, without limit, or end, or satiety! and the time of probation, during which the two worked out their future fate, was as a grain of sand as compared with the countless universes in space in all eternity--a relation which reduces the span of man's lifetime to almost absolutely nothing, mathematically considered. think of this--is this justice? and on the other hand, from the point of view of the reincarnationist, is not the measure of cause and effect more equitably adjusted, even if we regard it as a matter of "reward and punishment"--a crude view by the way--when we see that every infraction of the law is followed by a corresponding effect, and an adherence to the law by a proportionate effect. does not the "punishment fit the crime" better in this case--the rewards also. and looking at it from a reasonable point of view, devoid from theological bias, which plan seems to be the best exemplification of justice and natural law, not to speak of the higher divine justice and cosmic law? of course, we are not urging these ideas as "proofs" of reincarnation, for strictly speaking "proof" must lie outside of speculation of "what ought to be"--proof belongs to the region of "what is" and "facts in experience." but, nevertheless, while one is considering the matter, it should be viewed from every possible aspect, in order to see "how it works out." it is also urged along the lines of the justice of reincarnation, as opposed to the injustice of the contrary doctrine, that there are many cases of little infants who have only a few days, or minutes, of this life, before they pass out of the body in death. according to the anti-reincarnation doctrine, these little souls have been freshly created, and placed into physical bodies, and then without having had to taste of the experiences of life, are ushered into the higher planes, there to pass an eternal existence--while other souls have to live out their long lives of earth in order to reach the same higher states, and then, according to the prevailing doctrine, even then they may have earned eternal punishment instead of eternal bliss. according to this idea the happiest fate would be for all to die as infants (providing we were baptized, some good souls would add), and the death of an infant should be the occasion for the greatest rejoicing on the part of those who love it. but in spite of the doctrine, human nature does not so act. according to the doctrine of reincarnation, the little babe's soul was but pursuing the same path as the rest of the race--it had its past, as well as its future, according to law and justice. while, if the ordinary view be correct, no one would begrudge the infant its happy fate, still one would have good cause for complaint as the inequality and injustice of others having to live out long lives of pain, discomfort and misery, for no cause, instead of being at once translated into a higher life as was the infant. if the ordinary view be true, then why the need of earth-life at all--why not create a soul and then place it in the heavenly realms at once; if it is possible and proper in some cases, why not in all; if the experience is not indispensable, then why impose it on certain souls, when all are freshly created and equal in merit and deserts? if earthly life has any virtue, then the infant's soul is robbed of its right. if earthly life has no virtue, the adult souls are forced to live a useless existence on earth, running the risk of damnation if they fail, while the infant souls escape this. is this equality of opportunity and experience, or justice? there would seem to be something wrong with either the facts, or the theory. test the problem with the doctrine of reincarnation, and see how it works out! chapter ix. the argument for reincarnation. in addition to the consideration of justice, there are many other advantages claimed by the advocates of reincarnation which are worthy of the careful consideration of students of the problem of the soul. we shall give to each of these principal points a brief consideration in this chapter, that you may acquaint yourself with the several points of the argument. it is argued that the principle of analogy renders it more reasonable to believe that the present life of the soul is but one link in a great chain of existences, which chain stretches far back into the past on one side, and far out into the future on the other, than to suppose that it has been specially created for this petty term of a few years of earth life, and then projected for weal or woe into an eternity of spiritual existence. it is argued that the principle of evolution on the physical plane points to an analogy of evolution of the spiritual plane. it is reasoned that just as birth on the next plane of life follows death on the present one, so analogy would indicate that a death on past planes preceded birth on this, and so on. it is argued that every form of life that we know of has arisen from lower forms, which in turn arose from still lower forms, and so on; and that following the same analogy the soul has risen from lower to higher, and will mount on to still higher forms and planes. it is argued that "special creation" is unknown in the universe, and that it is far more reasonable to apply the principle of evolution to the soul than to consider it as an exception and violation of the universal law. it is also claimed by some thinkers that the idea of future-existence presupposes past-existence, for everything that is "begun" must "end" some time, and therefore if we are to suppose that the soul is to continue its existence in the future, we must think of it as having an existence in the past--being eternal at both ends of the earth-life, as it were. opponents of the idea of immortality are fond of arguing that there was no more reason for supposing that a soul would continue to exist after the death of the body, than there was for supposing that it had existed previously. a well-known man once was asked the question: "what becomes of a man's soul after death?" when he evaded the question by answering: "it goes back to where it came from." and to many this idea has seemed sufficient to make them doubt the idea of immortality. the ancient greek philosophers felt it logically necessary for them to assert the eternal pre-existence of the soul in order to justify their claim of future existence for it. they argued that if the soul is immortal, it must have always existed, for an immortal thing could not have been created--if it was not immortal by nature, it could never be made so, and if it was immortal by nature, then it had always existed. the argument usually employed is this: a thing is either mortal or immortal, one or the other; if it is mortal it has been born and must die; if it is immortal, it cannot have been born, neither can it die; mortality means subject to life and death--immortality means immunity from both. the greeks devoted much time and care to this argument, and attached great importance to it. they reasoned that nothing that possessed reality could have emerged from nothingness, nor could it pass into nothingness. if it were real it was eternal; if it was not eternal it was not real, and would pass away even as it was born. they also claimed that the sense of immortality possessed by the ego, was an indication of its having experienced life in the past, as well as anticipating life in the future--there is a sense of "oldness" pervading every thought of the soul regarding its own nature. it is claimed as an illogical assumption to hold that back of the present there extends an eternity of non-existence for the soul, while ahead of it there extends an eternity of being--it is held that it is far more logical to regard the present life as merely a single point in an eternity of existence. it is argued, further, that reincarnation fits in with the known scientific principle of conservation of energy--that is, that no energy is ever created or is lost, but that all energy is but a form of the universal energy, which flows on from form to form, from manifestation to manifestation, ever the same, and yet manifesting in myriad forms--never born, never dying, but always moving on, and on, and on to new manifestations. therefore it is thought that it is reasonable to suppose that the soul follows the same law of re-embodiment, rising higher and higher, throughout time, until finally it re-enters the universal spirit from which it emerged, and in which it will continue to exist, as it existed before it emerged for the cycle of manifestation. it is also argued that reincarnation brings life within the law of cause and effect, just as is everything else in the universe. the law of re-birth, according to the causes generated during past lives, would bring the existence of the soul within and in harmony with natural laws, instead of without and contrary to them. it is further argued that the feeling of "original sin" of which so many people assert a consciousness, may be explained better by the theory of reincarnation than by any theological doctrine. the orthodox doctrine is that "original sin" was something inherited from adam by reason of our forefather's transgression, but this jars upon the thought of today, as well it might, for what has the "soul" to do with adam--it did not descend from him, or from aught else but the source of being--there is no line of descent for souls, though there may be for bodies. what has adam to do with your soul, if it came fresh from the mint of the maker, pure and unsullied--how could his sin taint your new soul? theology here asserts either arrant nonsense, or else grave injustice. but if for "adam" we substitute our past existences and the thoughts and deeds thereof, we may understand that feeling of conscious recognition of past wrong-doing and remorse, which so many testify to, though they be reasonably free from the same in the present life. the butterfly dimly remembers its worm state, and although it now soars, it feels the slime of the mud in which it once crawled. it is also argued that in one life the soul would fail to acquire the varied experience which is necessary to form a well rounded mentality of understanding. dwarfed by its limited experience in the narrow sphere occupied by many human beings, it would be far from acquiring the knowledge which would seem to be necessary for a developed and advanced soul. besides this there would be as great an inequality on the part of souls after death, as there is before death--some would pass into the future state as ignorant beings, while others would possess a full nature of understanding. as a leading authority has said: "a perfected man must have experienced every type of earthly relation and duty, every phase of desire, affection and passion, every form of temptation and every variety of conflict. no one life can possibly furnish the material for more than a minute section of such experience." along this same line it is urged that the soul's development must come largely from contact and relationship with other souls, in a variety of phases and forms. it must experience pain and happiness, love, pity, failure, success--it must know the discipline of sympathy, toleration, patience, energy, fortitude, foresight, gratitude, pity, benevolence, and love in all of its phases. this, it is urged, is possible only through repeated incarnations, as the span of one life is too small and its limit too narrow to embrace but a small fraction of the necessary experiences of the soul on its journey toward development and attainment. one must feel the sorrows and joys of all forms of life before "understanding" may come. narrowness, lack of tolerance, prejudice, and similar forms of undeveloped consciousness must be wiped out by the broad understanding and sympathy that come only from experience. it is argued that only by repeated incarnations the soul is able to realize the futility of the search for happiness and satisfaction in material things. one, while dissatisfied and disappointed at his own condition, is apt to imagine that in some other earthly condition he would find satisfaction and happiness now denied him, and dying carries with him the subsconcious desire to enjoy those conditions, which desire attracts him back to earth-life in search of those conditions. so long as the soul desires anything that earth can offer, it is earth-bound and drawn back into the vortex. but after repeated incarnations the soul learns well its lesson that only in itself may be found happiness--and that only when it learns its real nature, source, and destiny--and then it passes on to higher planes. as an authority says: "in time, the soul sees that a spiritual being cannot be nourished on inferior food, and that any joy short of union with the divine must be illusionary." it is also argued that but few people, as we see them in earth-life, have realized the existence of a higher part of their being, and still fewer have asserted the supremacy of the higher, and subordinated the lower part of the self to that higher. were they to pass on to a final state of being after death, they would carry with them all of their lower propensities and attributes, and would be utterly incapable of manifesting the spiritual part of their nature which alone would be satisfied and happy in the spiritual realms. therefore, it needs repeated lives in order to evolve from the lower conditions and to develop and unfold the higher. touching upon the question of unextinguished desire, mentioned a moment ago, the following quotation from a writer on the subject, gives clearly and briefly the reincarnationist argument regarding this point. the writer says: "desire for other forms of earthly experience can only be extinguished by undergoing them. it is obvious that any one of us, if now translated to the unseen world, would feel regret that he had not tasted existence in some other situation or surroundings. he would wish to have known what it was to possess wealth and rank, or beauty, or to live in a different race or climate, or to see more of the world and society. no spiritual ascent could progress while earthly longings were dragging back the soul, and so it frees itself from them by successively securing them and dropping them. when the round of such knowledge has been traversed, regret for ignorance has died out." this idea of "living-out and out-living" is urged by a number of writers and thinkers on the subject. j. wm. lloyd says, in his "dawn thought," on this subject: "you rise and overcome simply by the natural process of living fully and thus outliving, as a child its milk-teeth, a serpent his slough. living and outliving, that expresses it. until you have learned the one lesson fully you are never ready for a new one." the same writer, in the same book, also says: "by sin, shame, joy, virtue and sorrow, action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, the soul, like a barbed arrow, ever goes on. it cannot go back, or return through the valves of its coming. but this must not be understood to be fulfilled in one and every earth-visit. it is true only of the whole circle-voyage of the soul. in one earth-trip, one 'life,' as we say, it may be that there would nothing be but a standing still or a turning back, nothing but sin. but the whole course of all is on." but there is the danger of a misunderstanding of this doctrine, and some have misinterpreted it, and read it to advise a plunging into all kinds of sinful experience in order to "live-out and out-live," which idea is wrong, and cannot be entertained by any true student of the subjects, however much it may be used by those who wish to avail themselves of an excuse for material dissipation. mabel collins, in her notes to "light on the path," says on this subject: "seek it by testing all experience, and remember that, when i say this, i do not say, 'yield to the seduction of sense, in order to know it.' before you have become an occultist, you may do this, but not afterwards. when you have chosen and entered the path, you cannot yield to these seductions without shame. yet you can experience them without horror; can weigh, observe and test them, and wait with the patience of confidence for the hour when they shall affect you no longer. but do not condemn a man that yields; stretch out your hand to him as a brother pilgrim whose feet have become heavy with mire. remember, o disciple! that great though the gulf may be between the good man and the sinner, it is greater between the good man and the man who has attained knowledge; it is immeasurable between the good man and the one on the threshold of divinity. therefore, be wary, lest too soon you fancy yourself a thing apart from the mass." and again, the same writer says: "before you can attain knowledge you must have passed through all places, foul and clean alike. therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. and if you turn with horror from it when it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling the more closely to you. the self-righteous man makes for himself a bed of mire. abstain because it is right to abstain, not that yourself shall be kept clean." it is also argued that reincarnation is necessary in order to give the evolving races a chance to perfect themselves--that is, not through their physical descendants, which would not affect the souls of those living in the bodies of the races to-day, but by perfection and growth of the souls themselves. it is pointed out that to usher a savage or barbarian to the spiritual planes after death, no matter how true to his duty and "his lights" the soul had been, would be to work an absurd translation. such a soul would not be fitted for the higher spiritual planes, and would be most unhappy and miserable there. it will be seen that reincarnationists make quite a distinction between "goodness" and "advancement"--while they recognize and urge the former, they regard it as only one side of the question, the other being "spiritual growth and unfoldment." it will be seen that reincarnation provides for a spiritual evolution with all of its advantages, as well as a material evolution such as science holds to be correct. concluding this chapter, let us quote once more from the authority on the subject before mentioned, who writes anonymously in the pamphlet from which the quotation is taken. he says: "nature does nothing by leaps. she does not, in this case, introduce into a region of spirit and spiritual life a being who has known little else than matter and material life, with small comprehension even of that. to do so would be analogous to transferring suddenly a ploughboy into a company of metaphysicians. the pursuit of any topic implies some preliminary acquaintance with its nature, aims, and mental requirements; and the more elevated the topic, the more copious the preparation for it. it is inevitable that a being who has before him an eternity of progress through zones of knowledge and spiritual experience ever nearing the central sun, should be fitted for it through long acquisition of the faculties which alone can deal with it. their delicacy, their vigor, their penetrativeness, their unlikeness to those called for on the material plane, show the contrast of the earth-life to the spirit-life. and they show, too, the inconceivability of a sudden transition from one to the other, of a policy unknown in any other department of nature's workings, of a break in the law of uplifting through evolution. a man, before he can become a 'god,' must first become a perfect man; and he can become a perfect man neither in seventy years of life on earth, nor in any number of years of life from which human conditions are absent. * * * re-birth and re-life must go on till their purposes are accomplished. if, indeed, we were mere victims of an evolutionary law, helpless atoms on which the machinery of nature pitilessly played, the prospect of a succession of incarnations, no one of which gave satisfaction, might drive us to mad despair. but we have thrust on us no such cheerless exposition. we are shown that reincarnations are the law for man, because they are the conditions of his progress, which is also a law, but he may mould them and better them and lessen them. he cannot rid himself of the machinery, but neither should wish to. endowed with the power to guide it for the best, prompted with the motive to use that power, he may harmonize both his aspirations and his efforts with the system that expressed the infinite wisdom of the supreme, and through the journey from the temporal to the eternal tread the way with steady feet, braced with the consciousness that he is one of an innumerable multitude, and with the certainty that he and they alike, if they so will it, may attain finally to that sphere where birth and death are but memories of the past." in this chapter we have given you a number of the arguments favorable to the doctrine of reincarnation, from a number of sources. some of these arguments do not specially appeal to us, personally, for the reason that they are rather more theological than scientific, but we have included them that the argument may appear as generally presented, and because we feel that in a work of this kind we must not omit an argument which is used by many of the best authorities, simply because it may not appeal to our particular temperament or habit of thought. to some, the theological argument may appeal more strongly than would the scientific, and it very properly is given here. the proper way to present any subject is to give it in its many aspects, and as it may appear from varied viewpoints. chapter x. the proofs of reincarnation. to many minds the "proof" of a doctrine is its reasonableness and its adaptability as an answer to existing problems. and, accordingly, to such, the many arguments advanced in favor of the doctrine, of which we have given a few in the preceding chapters, together with the almost universal acceptance of the fundamental ideas on the part of the race, in at least some period of its development, would be considered as a very good "proof" of the doctrine, at least so far as it might be considered as the "most available working theory" of the soul's existence, past and future, and as better meeting the requirements of a doctrine or theory than any other idea advanced by metaphysical, theological, or philosophical thinkers. but to the scientific mind, or the minds of those who demand something in the nature of actual experience of facts, no amount of reasonable abstract theorizing and speculation is acceptable even in the way of a "working hypothesis," unless based upon some tangible "facts" or knowledge gained through human experience. while people possessing such minds will usually admit freely that the doctrine of reincarnation is more logical than the opposing theories, and that it fits better the requirements of the case, still they will maintain that all theories regarding the soul must be based upon premises that cannot be established by actual experience in human consciousness. they hold that in absence of proof in experience--actual "facts"--these premises are not established, and that all structures of reasoning based upon them must partake of their insecurity. these people are like the slangy "man from missouri" who "wants to be shown"--nay, more, they are like the companion of the above man--the man from texas, who not only says: "you've got to show me," but who also demands that the thing be "placed in my hand." and, after all, one has no right to criticize these people--they are but manifesting the scientific spirit of the age which demands facts as a basis for theories, rather than theories that need facts to prove them. and, unless reincarnation is able to satisfy the demands of this class of thinkers, the advocates of the doctrine need not complain if the scientific mind dismisses the doctrine as "not proven." after all, the best proof along the above mentioned lines--in fact, about the only possible strict proof--is the fragmentary recollections of former lives, which many people possess at times--these recollections often flashing across the mind, bringing with it a conviction that the place or thing "has been experienced before." nearly every person has had glimpses of something that appeared to be a recollection from the past life of the individual. we see places that we have never known, and they seem perfectly familiar; we meet strangers, and we are convinced that we have known them in the past; we read an old book and feel that we have seen it before, often so much so that we can anticipate the story or argument of the writer; we hear some strange philosophical doctrine, and we recognize it as an old friend. many people have had this experience in the matter of occultism--in the very matter of the doctrine of reincarnation itself--when they first heard it, although it struck them as strange and unusual, yet they felt an inner conviction that it was an old story to them--that they "had heard it all before." these experiences are by far too common to be dismissed as mere fancy or coincidence. nearly every living person has had some experience along this line. a recent writer along the lines of oriental philosophy has said regarding this common experience of the race: "many people have had 'peculiar experiences' that are accountable only upon the hypothesis of metempsychosis. who has not experienced the consciousness of having felt the thing before--having thought it some time in the dim past? who has not witnessed new scenes that appear old, very old? who has not met persons for the first time, whose presence awakened memories of a past lying far back in the misty ages of long ago? who has not been seized at times with the consciousness of a mighty 'oldness' of soul? who has not heard music, often entirely new compositions, which somehow awakened memories of similar strains, scenes, places, faces, voices, lands, associations, and events, sounding dimly on the strings of memory as the breezes of the harmony floats over them? who has not gazed at some old painting, or piece of statuary, with the sense of having seen it all before? who has not lived through events which brought with them a certainty of being merely a repetition of some shadowy occurrences away back in lives lived long ago? who has not felt the influence of the mountain, the sea, the desert, coming to them when they are far from such scenes--coming so vividly as to cause the actual scene of the present to fade into comparative unreality? who has not had these experiences?" we have been informed by hindus well advanced in the occult theory and practice that it is quite a common thing for people of their country to awaken to an almost complete recollection of their former lives; in some cases they have related details of former lives that have been fully verified by investigation in parts of the land very remote from their present residence. in one case, a hindu sage related to us an instance where a poor hindu, who had worked steadily in the village in which he had been born, without leaving it, ever since his childhood days. this man one day cried out that he had awakened to a recollection of having been a man of such and such a village, in a province hundreds of miles from his home. some wealthy people became interested in the matter, and after having taken down his statements in writing, and after careful examination and questioning, they took him to the town in question. upon entering the village the man seemed dazed, and cried out: "everything is changed--it is the same and yet not the same!" finally, however, he began to recognize some of the old landmarks of the place, and to call the places and roads by their names. then, coming to a familiar corner, he cried: "down there is my old home," and, rushing down the road for several hundred yards, he finally stopped before the ruins of an old cottage, and burst into tears, saying that the roof of his home had fallen in, and the walls were crumbling to pieces. inquiry among the oldest men of the place brought to light the fact that when these aged men were boys, the house had been occupied by an old man, bearing the same name first mentioned by the hindu as having been his own in his previous life. other facts about the former location of places in the village were verified by the old men. finally, while walking around the ruins, the man said: "there should be a pot of silver buried there--i hid it there when i lived here." the people rapidly uncovered the ground indicated, and brought to light an old pot containing a few pieces of silver coin of a date corresponding to the lifetime of the former occupant of the house. our informant told us that he had personal knowledge of a number of similar cases, none of which, however, were quite as complete in detail as the one mentioned. he also informed us that he himself, and a number of his acquaintances who had attained certain degrees of occult unfoldment, were fully aware of their past lives for several incarnations back. another instance came under our personal observation, in which an american who had never been to india, when taken into a room in which a hindu priest who was visiting america had erected a shrine or altar before which he performed his religious services, readily recognized the arrangement of the details of worship, ritual, ceremony, etc., and was conscious of having seen, or at least dreamed of seeing, a similar shrine at some time in the past, and as having had some connection with the same. the hindu priest, upon hearing the american's remarks, stated that his knowledge of the details of the shrine, as then expressed, indicated a knowledge possible only to one who had served at a hindu altar in some capacity. we know of another case in which an acquaintance, a prominent attorney in the west, told us that when undergoing his initiation in the masonic order he had a full recollection of having undergone the same before, and he actually anticipated each successive step. this knowledge, however, ceased after he had passed beyond the first three degrees which took him to the place where he was a full master mason, the higher degrees being entirely new to him, and having been apparently not experienced before. this man was not a believer in any doctrine of reincarnation, and related the incident merely as "one of those things that no man can explain." we know of another case, in which a student of hindu philosophy and oriental occultism found that he could anticipate each step of the teaching and doctrine, and each bit of knowledge gained by him seemed merely a recollection of something known long since. so true was this that he was able to supply the "missing links" of the teaching, where he had not access to the proper sources of information at the time, and in each case he afterward found that he had stated the same correctly. and this included many points of the inner teachings not generally taught to the general public, but reserved for the few. subsequent contact with native hindu teachers brought to light the fact that he had already unraveled many tangled skeins of doctrine deemed possible only to the "elect." many of these recollections of the past come as if they were memories of something experienced in dreams, but sometimes after the loose end of the thought is firmly grasped and mentally drawn out, other bits of recollection will follow. sir walter scott wrote in his diary in : "i was strangely haunted by what i would call the sense of pre-existence, viz., a confused idea that nothing that passed was said for the first time; that the same topics had been discussed, and the same persons had stated the same opinions on them." william home, an english writer, was instantly converted from materialism to a belief in a spiritual existence by an incident that occurred to him in a part of london utterly strange to him. he entered a waiting room, and to his surprise everything seemed familiar to him. as he says: "i seemed to recognize every object. i said to myself, what is this? i have never been here before, and yet i have seen all this, and if so, there is a very peculiar knot in that shutter." he then crossed the room, and opened the shutter, and after examination he saw the identical peculiar knot that he had felt sure was there. pythagoras is said to have distinctly remembered a number of his previous incarnations, and at one time pointed out a shield in a grecian temple as having been carried by him in a previous incarnation at the siege of troy. a well-known ancient hindu sage is said to have transcribed a lost sacred book of doctrine from memory of its study in a previous life. children often talk strangely of former lives, which ideas, however, are generally frightened out of them by reproof on the part of parents, and often punishment for untruthfulness and romancing. as they grow older these memories fade away. people traveling in strange places often experience emotion when viewing some particular scene, and memory seems to painfully struggle to bring into the field of consciousness the former connection between the scene and the individual. many persons have testified to these occurrences, many of them being matter-of-fact, unimaginative people, who had never even heard of the doctrine of reincarnation. charles dickens, in one of his books of foreign travel, tells of a bridge in italy which produced a peculiar effect upon him. he says: "if i had been murdered there in some former life, i could not have seemed to remember the place more thoroughly, or with more emphatic chilling of the blood; and the real remembrance of it acquired in that minute is so strengthened by the imaginary recollection that i hardly think i could forget it." another recorded instance is that of a person entering a foreign library for the first time. passing to the department of ancient books, he said that he had a dim idea that a certain rare book was to be found on such a shelf, in such a corner, describing at the same time certain peculiarities of the volume. a search failed to discover the volume in the stated place, but investigation showed that it was in another place in the library, and an old assistant stated that a generation back it had been moved from its former place (as stated by the visitor), where it had been previously located for very many years. an examination of the volume showed a perfect correspondence in every detail with the description of the strange visitor. and so the story proceeds. reference to the many works written on the subject of the future life of the soul will supply many more instances of the glimpses of recollection of past incarnations. but why spread these instances over more pages? the experience of other people, while of scientific interest and value as affording a basis for a theory or doctrine, will never supply the experience that the close and rigid investigator demands. only his own experiences will satisfy him--and perhaps not even those, for he may consider them delusions. these experiences of others have their principal value as corroborative proofs of one's own experiences, and thus serve to prove that the individual experience was not abnormal, unusual, or a delusion. to those who have not had these glimpses of recollection, the only proof that can be offered is the usual arguments in favor of the doctrine, and the account of the experiences of others--this may satisfy, and may not. but to those who have had these glimpses--particularly in a marked degree--there will come a feeling of certainty and conviction that in some cases is as real as the certainty and conviction of the present existence, and which will be proof against all argument to the contrary. to such people the knowledge of previous existences is as much a matter of consciousness as the fact of the existence of last year--yesterday--a moment ago--or even the present moment, which slips away while we attempt to consider it. and those who have this consciousness of past lives, even though the details may be vague, intuitively accept the teachings regarding the future lives of the soul. the soul that recognizes its "oldness" also feels its certainty of survival--not as a mere matter of faith, but as an item of consciousness, the boundaries of time being transcended. but there are other arguments advanced in favor of reincarnation, which its advocates consider so strong as to entitle them to be classed as "proofs." among these may be mentioned the difference in tastes, talents, predispositions, etc., noticeable among children and adults, and which can scarcely be attributed to heredity. this same idea carries one to the consideration of the question of "youthful genius," "prodigies," etc. it is a part of this argument to assume that if all souls were freshly created, by the same creator, and from the same material, they would resemble each other very closely, and in fact would be practically identical. and, it is urged, the fact that every child is different in tastes, temperament, qualities, nature, etc., independent of heredity and environment, then it must follow that the difference must be sought for further back. children of the same parents differ very materially in nature, disposition, etc.; in fact, strangers are often more alike than children of the same parents, born within a few years of each other, and reared in the same environment. those having much experience with young babies know that each infant has its own nature and disposition, and in which it differs from every other infant, although they may be classed into groups, of course. the infant a few hours born shows a gentleness, or a lack of it--a yielding or a struggle, a disposition to adjust itself, or a stubbornness, etc. and as the child grows, these traits show more plainly, and the nature of the individual asserts itself, subject, of course, to a moulding and shaping, but always asserting its original character in some way. not only in the matter of disposition but in the matter of tastes, tendencies, moral inclinations, etc., do the children differ. some like this, and dislike that, and the reverse; some are attracted toward this and repelled by that, and the reverse; some are kind while others are cruel; some manifest an innate sense of refinement, while others show coarseness and lack of delicate feeling. this among children of the same family, remember. and, when the child enters school, we find this one takes to mathematics as the duck does to water, while its brother loathes the subject; the anti-arithmetic child may excel in history or geography, or else grammar, which is the despair of others. some are at once attracted to music, and others to drawing, while both of these branches are most distasteful to others. and it will be noticed that in the studies to which the child is attracted, it seems to learn almost without effort, as if it were merely re-learning some favorite study, momentarily forgotten. and in the case of the disliked study, every step is attended with toil. in some cases the child seems to learn every branch with the minimum effort, and with practically no effort; while in other cases the child has to plod wearily over every branch, as if breaking entirely new ground. and this continues into after life, when the adult finds this thing or that thing into which he naturally fits as if it were made for him, the knowledge concerning it coming to him like the lesson of yesterday. we know of a case in which a man had proved a failure in everything he had undertaken up to the age of forty, when his father-in-law, in disgust, placed him at the head of an enterprise which he had had to "take over" for a bad debt. the "failure" immediately took the keenest interest in the work, and in a month knew more about it than many men who had been in the concern for years. his mind found itself perfectly at home, and he made improvement after improvement rapidly, and with uniform success. he had found his work, and in a few years stepped to the front rank in the country in that particular line of business. "blessed is he that hath found his work." reincarnationists would hold that that man had found his work in a line similar in its mental demands with that of his former life or lives--not necessarily identical in details, but similar in its mental requirement. instances of this thing are to be seen all around us. heredity does not seem to account for it--nor does environment answer the requirements. some other factor is there--is it reincarnation? allied to this phenomena is that of "youthful genius"--in fact, genius of any age, for that matter, for genius itself seems to be out of the category of the ordinary cause of heredity and environment, and to have its roots in some deeper, richer soil. it is a well-known fact that now and then a child is born which at a very early age shows an acquaintance with certain arts, or other branches of mental work, which is usually looked for only from those of advanced years, and after years of training. in many cases these children are born of parents and grandparents deficient in the particular branches of knowledge evidenced by the child. babes scarcely able to sit on the piano stool, or to hold the violin, have begun to play in a way that certainly indicated previous knowledge and technique, often composing original productions in an amazing manner. other young children have begun to draw and design without any instruction whatever. others have shown wonderful mathematical ability, there being several cases on record where such children have performed feats in mathematics impossible to advanced adults teaching the same lines. what are the cause of these phenomena? is it reincarnation? as figuier said, years ago: "we hear it said every day that one child has a mathematical, another a musical, another an artistic turn. in others we notice savage, violent, even criminal instincts. after the first years of life these dispositions break out. when these natural aptitudes are pushed beyond the usual limit, we find famous examples that history has cherished, and that we love to recall. there is pascal, mastering at the age of twelve years the greater part of plane geometry without any instruction, and not a figment of calculus, drawing on the floor of his chamber all the figures in the first book of euclid, estimating accurately the mathematical relations of them all--that is, reconstructing for himself a part of descriptive geometry; the herdsman mangia melo, manipulating figures, when five years old, as rapidly as a calculating machine; mozart, executing a sonata on the pianoforte with four-years-old fingers, and composing an opera at the age of eight; theresa milanollo, playing the violin at four years, with such eminent skill that baillot said she must have played it before she was born; rembrandt, drawing with masterly power before he could read." the same authority says, in reference to the fact that some of these prodigies do not become famous in their after years, and that their genius often seems to flicker out, leaving them as ordinary children: "that is easily understood. they come on earth with remarkable powers acquired in an anterior existence, but they have done nothing to develop their aptitudes; they have remained all their lives at the very point where they were at the moment of their birth. the real man of genius is he who cultivates and improves incessantly the great natural aptitudes that he brought into the world." there is an interesting field for study, thought and investigation, along the lines of the early development of traits, tendencies, and thought in young children. here evidently will be found the answer to many problems that have perplexed the race. it is true that heredity and environment plays an important part, but nevertheless, there seems to be another element working in the case, which science must have to reckon with in making up its final conclusions. is that "something" connected with the "soul" rather than the mind of the child? is that "something" that which men call metempsychosis--re-birth--reincarnation? along the same lines, or thought, lie the great questions of instinctive like and dislike--loves and hates--that we find among people meeting as strangers. from whence come those strange, unaccountable attractions and repulsions that many feel when meeting certain strangers, who could never have occasioned such feelings in the present life, and which heredity does not account for? is it merely an absurd, irrational, fancy or feeling; is it the result of natures inharmonious and discordant; is it remnants of inherited ancestral feelings toward similar individuals hated, loved or feared; is it a telepathic sensing of certain elements in the other; or is it a manifestation of the feelings experienced in a past existence? is this phenomena to be included in the proofs of reincarnation? many people think that in reincarnation the only answer may be found. chapter xi. arguments against reincarnation the honest consideration of any subject necessitates the examination of "the other side of the case," as well as the affirmative side. we have given much space to the presentation and consideration of the arguments advanced by those convinced of the truth of reincarnation, and before closing our work we think it well to give at least a little glimpse of "the other side" as it is presented by the opponents of the doctrine, together with the reply to the same usually made by the reincarnationists. the first adverse argument usually presented is that the advocates of reincarnation have not established the existence of a "soul" which may reincarnate; nor have they proven its nature, if it does exist. the natural reply to this is that the doctrine of reincarnation is not called upon to establish the proof of the existence of a "soul," as the idea of existence of the soul practically is universal, and, therefore, "axiomic"--that is, it is a truth that may be considered as an "axiom," or self-evident truth, worthy of being assumed as a principle, necessary to thought on the subject, a proposition which it is necessary to take for granted, an established principle of thought on the subject. strictly speaking, perhaps the fact of the existence of the soul is incapable of material proof, except to those who accept the fact of proven "spirit return," either in the shape of unmistakable manifestation of the disincarnate soul by materialization, or by equally unmistakable manifestation in the shape of communications of some sort from such discarnate soul. science does not admit that there are any real "proofs" of the existence of a "soul" which persists after the death of the body--but all religious, and at least the older philosophical thought, generally agrees that the existence of such a soul is a self-evident fact, needing no proofs. many regard the statement of descartes: "i think, therefore i am," as a logical proof of the existence of an immaterial soul, and others hold that the self-consciousness of every human being is sufficient proof that the ego, or "i," is a something immaterial, ruling the material body which it inhabits. and so the reincarnationists claim that this demand upon them for proof of the existence of the soul is not a fair one, because such discussion belongs to the more general field of thought; that they are justified in starting with the idea that the soul does exist, as an axiomic truth; and that their real task is to establish, not that the soul exists, but that it reincarnates after the death of the body. as figuier says, "the difficulty is not to prove that there is a spiritual principle in us that resists death, for to question the existence of this principle we must doubt thought. the true problem is to ascertain if the spiritual and immortal principle within us is going to live again after death, in ourselves or somebody else. the question is, will the immortal soul be born again in the same individual, physically transformed--into the same person?" as to the other objection, that the reincarnationists have not proven the nature of the soul, to which many of the advocates of the doctrine feel it necessary to reply at great length and with much subtle reasoning, we feel that the objection is not well taken. so far as reincarnation is concerned, if it be taken as an axiom that the soul really exists, that is sufficient as a beginning for the argument in favor of the doctrine, and the proof or disproof of any special theory regarding the nature of the soul is outside of the main question, so we shall not consider it here. it is possible to think of the soul as a reincarnating entity, whether it be a monad, duad, triad, or septenary being. the second objection usually made is that reincarnation cannot be true, else we would remember the incidents of our past lives, clearly and distinctly, the fact that the majority of persons have no such recollection, being held to be a disproof of the doctrine. the reply to this objection is ( ) that it is not true that people do not remember the events of their past lives, the instances quoted by us, and similar ones happening to others, together with the fact that nearly every one remembers something of the past, showing that the objection is not correctly stated. and ( ) that the fact that we have but a very cloudy and imperfect recollection is not an objection at all, for have we a clear recollection of the events of our infancy and childhood in this life? have we a clear recollection of the events of twenty years ago, outside of a few scattered instances, of which the majority are only recalled when some associated fact is mentioned? are not the great majority of the events of our present life completely forgotten? how many can recall the events of the youthful life? old companions and friends are completely forgotten or only recalled after much thought and assistance in the way of suggested associations. then again, do we not witness a complete forgetfulness in cases of very old people who relapse into a state of "second childhood," and who then live entirely in the present, the past having vanished for them. there are cases of people having grown old, and while retaining their reasoning faculties, were as children, so far as the past was concerned. a well-known writer, when in this state, was wont to read the books that he had written, enjoying them very much and not dreaming that he was their author. professor knight says of this matter: "memory of the details of the past is absolutely impossible." "the power of the conservative faculty, though relatively great, is extremely limited. we forget the larger portion of experience soon after we have passed through it, and we should be able to recall the particulars of our past years, filling all the missing links of consciousness since we entered on the present life, before we were in a position to remember our ante-natal experience. birth must necessarily be preceded by crossing the river of oblivion, while the capacity for fresh acquisition survives, and the garnered wealth of old experience determines the amount and characters of the new." loss of memory is not loss of being--or even loss of individuality or character. in this connection, we must mention the various instances of double personality, or lost personality, noted in the recent books on psychology. there are a number of well authenticated cases in which people, from severe mental strain, overwork, etc., have lost the thread of personality and forgotten even their own names and who have taken up life anew under new circumstances, which they would continue until something would occur to bring about a restoration of memory, when the past in all of its details would come back in a flash. the annals of the english society for psychical research contain quite a number of such cases, which are recognized as typical. now, would one be justified in asserting that such a person, while living in the secondary personality and consequently in entire ignorance of his past life, had really experienced no previous life? the same "i" was there--the same ego--and yet, the personality was entirely different! is it not perfectly fair and reasonable to consider these cases as similar to the absence of memory in cases of reincarnation? let the reader lay down this book, and then endeavor to remember what happened in his twelfth year. he will not remember more than one or two, or a half dozen, events in that year--perhaps not one, in the absence of a diary, or perhaps even with the aid of one. the majority of the happenings of the three hundred and sixty-five days of that year are as a blank--as if they never had happened, so far as the memory is concerned. and yet, the same "i," or ego, persists, and the person's character has certainly been affected and influenced by the experiences and lessons of that year. perhaps in that year, the person may have acquired certain knowledge that he uses in his everyday life. and so, in this case, as with reincarnation, the "essence" of the experiences are preserved, while the details are forgotten. for that is the reincarnationist contention. as a matter of fact, advanced occultists, and other reincarnationists, claim that nothing is really forgotten, but that every event is stored away in some of the recesses of the mind, below the level of consciousness--which idea agrees with that of modern psychologists. and reincarnationists claim that when man unfolds sufficiently on some higher plane, he will have a full recollection of his past experiences in all of his incarnations. some reincarnationists claim that as the soul passes from the body all the events of that particular life pass rapidly before its mind, in review, before the waters of lethe, or oblivion, causes forgetfulness. closely allied to the last mentioned argument against reincarnation is the one that as the memory of the past life is absent, or nearly so, the new personality is practically a new soul, instead of the old one reincarnated, and that it is unreasonable and unjust to have it enjoy or suffer by reasons of its experiences and acts in the previous life. we think that the answers to the last mentioned objection are answers to this one also. the "i," ego, or individuality, being the same, it matters not if the details of the old personality be forgotten. you are the same "i" that lived fifty years ago in the same body--or even ten years ago--and you are enjoying certain things, or suffering from certain things, done or left undone at the previous time, although you have forgotten the incidents. the impress of the thing is on your character, and you are today largely what you are by reason of what you have been in past years, though those years are forgotten by you. this you will readily admit, and yet the argument of the reincarnationists is merely an extension of the same idea. as figuier says: "the soul, in spite of its journeys, in the midst of its incarnations and divers metamorphoses remains always identical with itself; only at each metempsychosis, each metamorphosis of the external being, improving and purifying itself, growing in power and intellectual grasp." another argument against reincarnation is that it is not necessary, for the reason that heredity accounts for all of the facts claimed as corroborative of reincarnation. answering this the advocates of the doctrine insist that heredity does not account for all the facts, inasmuch as children are born with marked talents and genius, while none of their family for generations back have displayed any such tendencies. they also claim that if heredity were the only factor in the case, there would be no advance in the races, as the children would be precisely like their ancestors, no variety or improvement being possible. but it must be remembered that reincarnationists do not deny certain effects of heredity, particularly along physical lines, and to an extent along mental lines, in the way of perpetuating "tendencies," which, however, are and may be overcome by the individuality of the child. moreover, the doctrine holds that one of the laws of rebirth is that the reincarnating soul is attracted to parents harmonious to itself, and likely to afford the environments and association desirable to the soul. so in this way the characteristics likely to be transmitted to the offspring are those which are sought for and desired by the reincarnating soul. the law of rebirth is held to be as exact and certain as the laws of mathematics or chemistry, the parents, as well as the child, forming the combination which brings forth the rebirth. rebirth is held to be above the mere wish of the reincarnating soul--it is in accordance with an invariable natural law, which has justice and advancement as its basis. another argument against reincarnation is that it holds that human souls are reborn as animals, in some cases. this objection we shall not discuss, for the reason that the advanced ideas of reincarnation expressly forbid any such interpretation, and distinctly deny its legitimate place in the doctrine. among some of the primitive people this idea of transmigration in the bodies of animals has been held, but never among advanced occultists, or the leaders in philosophical thought favoring reincarnation. reincarnation teaches the evolution of the soul from lowly forms to higher, but never the devolution or going back into animal forms. a study of the doctrine of reincarnation will dispel this erroneous idea from the mind of an intelligent person. another favorite argument is that it is repulsive to the mind and soul of the average person. analysis of this objection will show that what is repugnant to the person is usually the fear that he will be born again without a memory of the present, which seems like a loss of the self. a moment's consideration will show that this objection is ill founded. no one objects to the idea of living in the same body for, say, ten years or twenty years more, in health. but at the end of that ten or twenty years he will be practically a different person, by reason of the new experiences he has undergone. persons change very much in twenty years, and yet they are the same individuals--the same "i" is there with them. and at the end of the twenty years they will have forgotten the majority of the events of the present year, but they do not object to that. when one realizes that the individual, or "i," is the real self instead of the personality, or the "john smith, grocer, aged ," part of them--then will they cease to fear the loss of the personality of the day or year. they will know that the "i" is the "self"--the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. be the doctrine of reincarnation true or false, the fact remains that so long as you exist, it will be the same "i" in you that you will know that "i am." it will always be "i am--here--now," with you, be it this moment, or a hundred years, or a million years hence. you can never be someone else, no matter what form you wear, nor by what name you are known, nor what personality you may be acting through, nor in what place you may have your abode, nor on what plane of existence you may be. you will always be yourself--and, as we have just said, it will always be "i am--here--now" with you. the body, and even the personality, are things akin to garments which you wear and take off without affecting your real self. then we must note another objection often made by people in discussing reincarnation. they say, "but i do not want to come back!" to this the reincarnationists answer that, if one has reached a stage in which he really has no desire for anything that the earth can offer him, then such a soul will not likely have to reincarnate again on earth, for it has passed beyond the need of earthly experiences, and has worn out its earth karma. but they hold that but few people really have reached this stage. what one really means is that he does not want any more of earth--life similar to that which he has been undergoing. but if he thought that he could have certain things--riches, position, fame, beauty, influence, and the rest of it, he would be perfectly willing to "come back." or else he might be so bound by links of karma, acting by reason of love or hate, attachment or repulsion, or by duties unperformed, or moral debts unpaid, that he might be brought back to work out the old problems until he had solved them. but even this is explained by those reincarnationists who hold to the idea of desire as the great motive power of karma, and who hold that if one has risen above all earthly desire or dislike, that soul is freed from the attraction of earth-life, and is prepared to go on higher at once, or else wait in realms of bliss until the race is ready to pass on, according to the various theories held by the various advocates of the doctrine. a little self-examination will show one whether he is free from all desire to "come back," or not. but, after all, if there is ultimate justice in the plan, working ever and ever for our good and advancements, as the reincarnationists claim--then it must follow that each of us is in just the best place for his own good at the present moment, and will always be in a like advantageous position and condition. and if that be so, then there is no cause for complaint or objection on our part, and our sole concern should be in the words of the persian sage, to "so live, that that which must come and will come, may come well," living on one day at a time, doing the best you know how, living always in the belief that "it is well with us now and evermore," and that "the power which has us in charge here will have us in charge there." there is a good philosophy for living and dying. and, this being true, though you may have to "come back," you will not have to "go back," or fall behind in the scale of advancement or spiritual evolution--for it must always be onward and upward on the ladder of life! such is the law! another objection very often urged against the doctrine of reincarnation is that "it is un-christian, and derived from pagan and heathen sources, and is not in accord with the highest conceptions of the immortality of the soul." answering this objection, it may be said that, insofar as reincarnation is not a generally accepted doctrine in the orthodox christian churches of today, it may be said to be non-christian (rather than un-christian), but when it is seen that pre-existence and rebirth was held as truth by many of the early fathers of the church, and that the doctrine was finally condemned by the dominant majority in church councils only by means of the most severe methods and the exercise of the most arbitrary authority, it may be seen that in the opinion of many of the most eminent early authorities there was nothing "un-christian" about it, but that it was a proper doctrine of the church. the doctrine was simply "voted down," just as were many important doctrines revered by some of the great minds of the early church, in some cases the decision being made by a majority of one vote. and, again, there have been many bright minds in the christian church who persisted in the belief that the doctrine was far more consistent with the inner teachings of christianity than the prevailing conception, and based upon quite as good authority. so far as the charge that it is "derived from pagan and heathen sources" is concerned, it must be answered that certainly the doctrine was accepted by the "pagan and heathen" world centuries before the dawn of christianity, but, for that matter, so was the doctrine regarding the soul's future generally accepted by orthodox christianity--in fact, nearly every doctrine or theory regarding the survival of the soul was "derived from pagan and heathen sources." the "pagan and heathen" mind had thought long and earnestly upon this great problem, and the field of thought had been pretty well covered before the advent of christianity. in fact, christianity added no new doctrine--invented no new theory--and is far from being clear and explicit in its teachings on the subject, the result being that the early christians were divided among themselves on the matter, different sects and schools favoring different doctrines, each and all of which had been "derived from pagan and heathen sources." if all the doctrines regarding the immortality of the soul are to be judged by the test of their having been, or not been, "derived from pagan and heathen sources," then the entire body of doctrine and thought on the subject must be thrown out of the christian mind, which must then endeavor to create or invent an entirely new doctrine which has never been thought of by a "pagan or heathen"--a very difficult task, by the way, considering the activity of the pagan and heathen mind in that respect. it must be remembered that there is no authoritative teaching on this subject--none coming direct from jesus. the christian doctrines on the subject come from the theologians, and represent simply the views of the "majority" of some church council--or of the most powerful faction. while the objection that reincarnation "is not in accord with the highest conceptions of the immortality of the soul" is one that must depend almost entirely upon the personal bias or opinion of the individual as to what constitutes "the highest conceptions," still a comparison of the conceptions is not out of the way at this place. do you know what was the doctrine favored by the dominant majority in the church councils, and for which pre-existence and re-birth finally was discarded? do you know the dogma of the church and the belief of masses of the orthodox christians of the early centuries? well, it was this: that at the death of the body, the person passes into a state of "coma," or unconsciousness, in which state he rests today, awaiting the sound of the trumpet of the great day of judgment, when the dead shall be raised and the righteous given eternal life in their former bodies, while the wicked in their bodies may pass into eternal torment. that is the doctrine. you doubt it? then look over the authorities and examine even the current creeds of today, many of which state practically the same thing. this belief passed into one of the christian creed, in the words: "i believe in the resurrection of the body." the great masses of christians today, in general thought on the subject, speak as if the accepted doctrine of the church was that the soul passed to judgment, and then eternal soul life in heaven or hell immediately after the death of the body, thus ignoring the dogmas of the church councils regarding the future day of judgment and the resurrection of the body at that time. a little questioning of the religious teachers, and a little examination of religious history, and the creeds and doctrines of their respective churches, would astonish many good church members who have been fondly thinking of their beloved ones, who have passed on, as even now dwelling in heaven as blessed angels. they would be astonished to find that the "angels" of the churches are not the souls of the good people who have been judged and awarded heavenly joys, but, rather, a body of supernatural beings who never inhabited the flesh; and that instead of their loved ones now enjoying the heavenly realms, the dogmas hold that they are now in a state of "coma" or unconsciousness, awaiting the great day of judgment, when their bodies will be resurrected and life everlasting given them. those who are interested in the matter, and who may doubt the above statement, are invited to examine the records for themselves. the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, which is of undoubted "pagan and heathen" origin, was a favorite theological dogma of the church in the first thousand years of its existence, and for many centuries after, and it still occupies a most important place in the church doctrines today, although it is not so often publicly preached or taught. david kay says: "the great distinguishing doctrine of christianity is not the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the body. that the soul of man is immortal was a common belief among the ancients, from whom it found its way at an early period into the christian church, but the most influential of the early fathers were strenuously opposed to it, holding that the human soul was not essentially immortal, but only, like the body, capable of immortality." vinet says: "the union of the soul and body appears to me essential and indissoluble. man without a body is, in my opinion, man no longer; and god has thought and willed him embodied, and not otherwise. according to passages in the scriptures, we can not doubt that the body, or a body, is essential to human personality and to the very idea of man." john milton said: "that the spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a perfect and intelligent existence independent of it, is nowhere said in scripture, and the doctrine is evidently at variance both with nature and reason." masson, commenting on milton's conception, says: "milton's conception is that at the last gasp of breath the whole man dies, soul and body together, and that not until the resurrection, when the body is revived, does the soul live again, does the man or woman live again, in any sense or way, whether for happiness or misery.... are the souls of the millions on millions of human beings who have died since adam, are those souls ready either with god and the angels in heaven, or down in the diabolic world waiting to be rejoined to their bodies on the resurrection day? they are not, says milton; but soul and bodies together, he says, are dead alike, sleeping alike, defunct alike, till that day comes." and many christian theologians have held firmly to this doctrine, as may be seen by reference to any standard encyclopedia, or work on theology. coleridge said: "some of the most influential of the early christian writers were materialists, not as holding the soul to be the mere result of bodily organization, but as holding the soul itself to be material--corporeal. it appears that in those days the vulgar held the soul to be incorporeal, according to the views of plato and others, but that the orthodox christian divines looked upon this as an impious, unscriptural opinion." dr. r. s. candlish said: "you live again in the body--in the very body, as to all essential properties, and to all practical intents and purposes in which you live now. i am to live not a ghost, a spectre, a spirit, i am to live then, as i live now, in the body." dr. arnold says: "i think that the christian doctrine of the resurrection meets the materialists so far as this--that it does imply that a body or an organization of some sort is necessary to the full development of man's nature." rev. r. j. campbell, the eminent english clergyman, in his recent work entitled, "the new theology," says, speaking of the popular evangelical views: "but they are even more chaotic on the subject of death and whatever follows death. it does not seem to be generally recognized that christian thought has never been really clear concerning the resurrection, especially in relation to future judgment. one view has been that the deceased saint lies sleeping in the grave until the archangel's trumpet shall sound and bid all mankind awake for the great assize. anyone who reads the new testament without prejudice will see that this was paul's earlier view, although later on he changed it for another. there is a good deal of our current, every-day religious phaseology which presumes it still--'father, in thy gracious keeping, leave we now thy servant sleeping.' but alongside this view, another which is a flagrant contradiction of it has come down to us, namely, that immediately after death the soul goes straight to heaven or hell, as the case may be, without waiting for the archangel's trumpet and the grand assize. on the whole, this is the dominant theory of the situation in the protestant circles, and is much less reasonable than the catholic doctrine of purgatory, however much the latter may have been abused. but under this view, what is the exact significance of the judgment day and the physical resurrection? one might think they might be accounted superfluous. what is the good of tormenting a soul in hell for ages, and then whirling it back to the body in order to rise again and receive a solemn public condemnation? better leave it in the inferno and save trouble, especially as the solemn trial is meaningless, seeing that a part of the sentence has already been undergone and that there is no hope that any portion of it will ever be remitted. truly the tender mercies with which the theologians have credited the almighty are cruel indeed!" but, by the irony of progress, the orthodox churches are gradually coming around to the one much-despised platonic conception of the naturally immortal immaterial soul--the "pagan and heathen" idea, so much at variance with the opposing doctrine of the resurrection of the body, which doctrine really did not teach the "immortality of the soul" at all. as prof. nathaniel schmidt says, in an article in a standard encyclopedia: "the doctrine of the natural immortality of the human soul became so important a part of christian thought that the resurrection naturally lost its vital significance, and it has practically held no place in the great systems of philosophy elaborated by the christian thinkers of modern times." but still, the letter of the old doctrine persists on the books of the church and in its creeds, although opposed to the enlightened spirit now manifesting in the churches which is moving more and more toward the "pagan and heathen" conception of a naturally immaterial and immortal soul, rather than in a resurrection of the body and an eternal life therein. it is scarcely worth while here to contrast the two doctrines--the immortal immaterial soul on the one hand, and the immortal body on the other. the latter conception is so primitively crude, and so foreign to modern thought, that it scarcely needs an argument against it. the thought of the necessity of the soul for a material body--the same old material body that it once cast off like a worn out garment--a body perhaps worn by disease, crippled by "accident" or "the slipping of the hand of the potter"--a body similar to those we see around us every day--the immortal soul needing such a garment in order to exist! better accept plain materialism, and say that there is no soul and that the body perishes and all else with it, than such a gross doctrine which is simply a materialistic immortality. so far as this doctrine being "the highest conception of the immortality of the soul," as contrasted with the "pagan and heathen" doctrine of reincarnation--it is not a "conception of the immortality of the soul" at all, but a flat contradiction of it. it is a doctrine of the "immortality of the body," which bears plain marks of a very lowly "pagan and heathen" origin. and as to the "later" christian conception, it may be seen that there is nothing in the idea of re-birth which is inconsistent therewith--in fact, the two ideas naturally blend into each other. in the above discussion our whole intent has been to answer the argument against reincarnation which charges that the latter is "derived from pagan and heathen sources, and is not in accord with the highest conceptions of the immortality of the soul." and in order to do this we have found it necessary to examine the opposing theological dogmas as we find them, and to show that they do not come up to the claims of being "the highest conception," etc. we think that the strongest point against the dogmas may be found in the claims of their advocates. that the church is now growing away from them only proves their unfitness as "the highest conception." and reincarnationists hold that as the church grows in favor of the immaterial immortal soul, so will it find itself inclining toward the companion-doctrine of pre-existence and re-birth, in some of its varied forms, probably that of the early fathers of the church, such as origen and his followers--that the church will again claim its own. chapter xii. the law of karma. "karma" is a term in general use among the hindus, and the western believers in reincarnation, the meaning of which is susceptible of various shades of definition and interpretation. it is most important to all students of the subject of reincarnation, for it is the companion doctrine--the twin-truth--to the doctrine of metempsychosis. strictly speaking, "karma" is the law of cause and effect as applied to the life of the soul--the law whereby it reaps the results of its own sowing, or suffers the reaction from its own action. to the majority of reincarnationists, however, it has a larger meaning, and is used in the sense of the law of justice, or the law of reward and punishment, operating along the lines of personal experience, personal life, and personal character. many authorities hold that the original idea of karma was that of a great natural law operating along exact lines, as do the laws of mathematics and chemistry, bringing forth the exact effect from every cause, and being, above all, questions of good or evil, reward or punishment, morality or immorality, etc., and acting as a great natural force above all such questions of human conduct. to those who still adhere to this conception, karma is like the law of gravitation, which operates without regard to persons, morals or questions of good and evil, just as does any other great natural law. in this view the only "right" or "wrong" would be the effect of an action--that is, whether it was conducive to one's welfare and that of the race, or the reverse. in this view, if a child places its hand on a hot stove, the action is "wrong," because it brings pain and unhappiness, although the act is neither moral or immoral. and another action is "right" because it brings happiness, well-being and satisfaction, present and future, although the act was neither moral nor immoral. in this view there can be neither reward nor punishment, in the common acceptation of the term, although in another sense there is a reward for such "right" doing, and a punishment for such "wrong" doing, as the child with the burnt hand may testify to. in this sense of the term, some of the older schools of reincarnation accepted karma as determining the re-birth, along the lines of desire and attraction, holding that the souls' character would attract it to re-birth along the lines of its strongest desires, and in such environment as would give it the greatest opportunity to work out those desires into action, taking the pains and pleasures of experience arising from such action, and thus moulding a new, or fuller character, which would create new karma, which would determine the future birth, etc., and so on, and on. those holding to this view believed that in this way the soul would learn its lesson, with many a crack over the knuckles, and with the pain of many an experience that would tend to turn it into the road most conducive to spiritual happiness and well-being; and lead it away from the road of material desires and pleasures, because the repeated experiences had shown that no true spiritual well-being was to be obtained therefrom. in other words, the soul, in its spiritual childhood, was just like a little child in the physical world, learning by experience that some things worked for its "good" and others for "bad." this view naturally carried with it the idea that true ethics would show that whatever tended toward the advancement of the soul was "good," and whatever retarded its advancement was "bad," in spite of any arbitrary standard of right or wrong erected by man during the ages, and which standard has constantly changed from time to time, is changing now, and always will change. but the hindu mind, especially, soon enlarged upon this original idea of karma, and the priests of india soon had the idea of karma working as a great rewarder of "good," and a great punisher of "evil." corresponding to the rewards and punishments in the future life, as taught by christian preachers, the hindu priests held over the sinner the terrors of karma; and the rewards promised the good people from the same source served to spur on the worshiper to actions in accordance with the ethics of the particular church preaching the doctrine. it was taught that the man's future state, in the next incarnation, and perhaps for many others, depended upon his state of "goodness," in accordance with the laws of the church and priestly teaching--surely as powerful an argument and as terrifying a threat as the orthodox "bribe of heaven, and threat of hell" of the western world. the effect of this teaching is seen among the masses of the but slightly educated hindu classes of today, who are very desirous of acquiring "merit" by performing some "good" deed, such as bestowing alms upon the wandering religious mendicant; making contributions to the temples, etc., as well as performing the acts of ordinary good will toward men; and who are as equally anxious to avoid acquiring "demerit" from the lack of proper observances, and the performance of improper actions. while the general effect of this may be in the direction of holding the ignorant masses in the ethical road most conducive to the public weal, it also has a tendency to foster credulity, superstition and imposition, just as do similar teachings in any land, time, under the cover of any religion. there is a strong family resemblance between these teachings among all the religions, and there are many men who hold that this "crack of the theological whip" is most necessary for the keeping of the masses of the people in the strait road of morality, they being held incapable of the practice of "doing good for good's sake, and avoiding evil because it is evil." we shall not discuss this question--decide it for yourself. one of the strongest applications of the above mentioned form of the doctrine in india is the teaching that the caste of the man in his next incarnation will be determined by his degree of "good conduct" in the present life--and that his present caste has been determined by his conduct in his previous lives. no one who has not studied the importance of "caste" in india can begin to understand how powerful a lever this teaching is upon the people of india. from the exalted brahman caste, the priestly caste--down to the sudra caste of unskilled laborers, or even still further down to the pariahs or outcasts, the caste lines are strongly marked; the higher caste person deeming it the greatest disgrace to be touched by one of an inferior caste, or to eat food prepared by a lower-caste person, and so on in every act of daily life. the only comparison possible to the american mind is the attitude of the old-time southerner toward the lowest class of negroes, and even in this case the prejudice does not extend so far as in the case of the hindus, for the southerner will eat food cooked by a negro servant, and will permit the latter to shave him, act as his valet, etc., something at which the high-caste hindu would be horrified on the part of one below him in caste. this being understood, it is easy to see how careful a high-caste hindu would be to avoid performing actions which might rob him of his caste in his next life, and how powerful an incentive it is to a low-caste hindu to strive for birth in a higher caste after many incarnations. to people holding such a view, birth in a low caste is the mark of crime and evil action performed in a previous life, and the low-born is accordingly felt to be worthy of no respect. we understand, from hindu acquaintances, that this idea is gradually being dispelled in india, and an era of common human brotherhood and common interest is beginning to manifest itself. in the western world, the reincarnationists, without doubt, have been greatly affected by the prevailing orthodox hindu conception of karma, rather than by the grecian and general occult conception. although there are many who regard karma as rather a moulder of character, and consequently a prime factor in the re-birth, rather than as a dispenser of rewards and punishments--still, there are many who, discarding the orthodox devil of their former faith, have found a worthy substitute for him in their conception of karma, and manifest the same terror and fear of the new devil as of the old one--and his name may be summed up as fear, in both cases. theosophists have discussed the matter of karma very thoroughly, and their leading authorities have written much about it, its various interpretations showing in the shades of opinion among the writers. generally speaking, however, it may be said that they have bridged over the chasm between the "natural law" idea and that of "the moral law," with its rewards and punishments, by an interpretation which places one foot on each conception, holding that there is truth in each. of course, justice requires the reference of that student to the theosophical writings themselves, for a detailed understanding of their views, but we feel that a brief summary of their general interpretation would be in order at this place. one of their leading authorities states that the law of karma is automatic in action, and that there is no possible escape from it. he likewise holds that absolute justice is manifested in its operations, the idea of mercy or wrath being absent from it; and that, consequently, every debt must be paid in full, to the last penny, and that there is no vicarious atonement or exceptions made in answer to supplications to a higher source. but he particularly states that this action of the law must not be confused with ordinary reward and punishment for "good deed or bad," but that the law acts just as does any other law of nature, just as if we put our hand in the fire we shall be burned as a natural consequence, and not as a punishment. in his statement of this view he says: "we hold that sorrow and suffering flow from sin just precisely in that way, under the direct working of natural law. it may be said, perhaps, that, obviously, the good man does not always reap his reward of good results, nor does the wicked man always suffer. not always immediately; not always within our ken; but assuredly, eventually and inexorably." the writer then goes on to define his conception of good and evil. he says: "we shall see more clearly that this must be so if we define exactly what we mean by good and evil. our religious brothers would tell us that that was good which was in accordance with god's will, and that that was evil which was in opposition to it. the scientific man would say that that was good which helped evolution, and whatever hindered it was evil. those two men are in reality saying exactly the same thing; for god's will for man is evolution, and when that is clearly realized all conflict between religion and science is at once ended. anything, therefore, which is against evolution of humanity as a whole is against the divine will. we see at once that when a man struggles to gain anything for himself at the expense of others he is distinctly doing evil, and it is evil because it is against the interest of the whole. therefore the only true gain is that which is a gain for the race as a whole, and the man who gains something without cost or wrong to anyone is raising the whole race somewhat in the process. he is moving in the direction of evolution, while the other man is moving against it." the same writer then gives the list of the three kinds of karma, according to the hindu teachings, namely: " . there is the samchita, or 'piled up' karma--the whole mass that still remains behind the man not yet worked out--the entire unpaid balance of the debit and credit account; . there is the prarabdha, or 'beginning' karma--the amount apportioned to the man at the commencement of each life--his destiny for that life, as it were; . there is the kriomana karma, that which we are now, by our actions in this present life, making for the future." he further states: "that second type, the prarabdha karma, is the only destiny which can be said to exist for man. that is what an astrologer might foretell for us--that we have apportioned to us so much good or evil fortune--so much the result of the good and evil actions of our past lives which will react on us in this. but we should remember always that this result of previous action can never compel us to action in the present. it may put us under conditions in which it will be difficult to avoid an act, but it can never compel us to commit it. the man of ordinary development would probably yield to the circumstances and commit the act; but he may assert his free will, rise superior to the circumstances, and gain a victory and a step in evolution. so with a good action, no man is forced into that either, but an opportunity is given to him. if he takes it certain results will follow--not necessarily a happy or a wealthy life next time, but certainly a life of wider opportunity. that seems to be one of the things that are quite certain--that the man who has done well in this life has always the opportunity of doing still better in the next. this is nature's reward for good work--the opportunity to do more work. of course, wealth is a great opportunity, so the reward often comes in that form, but the essence of the reward is the opportunity and not the pleasure which may be supposed to accompany the wealth." another theosophical writer says further on the subject of karma: "just as all these phases of karma have sway over the individual man, so they similarly operate upon races, nations and families. each race has its karma as a whole. if it be good, that race goes forward; if bad, it goes out--annihilated as a race--though the souls concerned take up their karma in other races and bodies. nations cannot escape their national karma, and any nation that has acted in a wicked manner must suffer some day, be it soon or late." the same writer sums up the idea of individual unhappiness in any life, as follows: "(a) it is punishment for evil done in past lives; or (b) it is discipline taken up by the ego for the purpose of eliminating defects or acquiring fortitude and sympathy. when defects are eliminated it is like removing the obstruction in an irrigating canal which then lets the water flow on. happiness is explained in the same way--the result of prior lives of goodness." the general idea of a number of writers on the subject of karma is that "as ye sow, so shall ye reap," brought down to a wonderful detail of arrangement, and effect flowing from causes. this conception, carried to its logical conclusion, would insist that every single bit of pain and unhappiness in this life is the result of some bad deed done either in the present life or in the past, and every bit of happiness, joy or pleasure, the result of some good action performed either in the present or past life. this conception of karma affords us the most intricate, complex and detailed idea of reward for good, and punishment for evil (even when called "the operation of natural law") possible to the mind of man. in its entirety, and carried to its last refinement of interpretation and analysis, it has a tendency to bewilder and terrify, for the chance of escape from its entangling machinery seems so slight. but still, the same authorities inform us that every soul will surmount these obstacles, and everyone will attain--so there is no need to be frightened, even if you accept the interpretation of doctrine in its completeness. but there are some thinkers who carry this idea of retributive karma to such an extreme that they hold that every instance of physical pain, disease, deformity, poverty, ill fortune, etc., that we see among people, is the inevitable result of some moral wrong or crime committed by that person in some past life, and that therefore every instance of poverty, want or physical suffering is the just result of some moral offense. some of the extremists have gone so far as to hesitate at relieving poverty, physical pain and suffering in others, lest by so doing they might possibly be "interfering with karma"--as if any great law could be "interfered with." while we, generally, have refrained from insisting upon our personal preference of interpretation in this work, we cannot refrain from so doing in this instance. we consider that such an interpretation of the law of karma is forced and unnatural, and results from the seeming natural tendency of the human mind to build up devils for itself--and hells of one kind or another. robbed of their devil, many people would attribute to their god certain devilish qualities, in order that they may not be robbed of the satisfaction of smugly thinking of the "just punishment" of others. and, if they have also discarded the idea of a personal god, their demand for a devil causes them to attribute certain devilish qualities to natural law. they are bound to find their devil somewhere--the primitive demand for the vengeful spirit must manifest itself in one form or another. these people confound the action of cause and effect on the material and physical plane, with cause and effect on the spiritual plane, whereas all true occultists teach that the cause operating on one plane manifests effects upon the same plane. in this connection, we would call your attention to the instance in the new testament (john ix., ), in which jesus was asked regarding the cause of the affliction of the man who was born blind. "and his disciples asked him, saying, 'master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?'" the question being asked in order that jesus might determine between the two prevailing theories: ( ) that the blindness was caused according to the operation of the law of moses, which held that the sins of the parents were visited on the children unto the third and fourth generation; or ( ) that it was caused according to the law of karma, along the lines of reincarnation, and because of some sin which the man had committed in some past incarnation (for no other interpretation of the passage is possible, and it shows the prevalence of the idea of reincarnation among the people of that time). but jesus promptly brushed away these two crude, primitive conceptions and interpretations, and in the light of his superior spiritual knowledge answered: "neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of god should be manifest in him," the explanation of the term "the works of god" being that jesus meant thereby the operation of the laws of nature imposed by god--something above punishment for "sins," and which operated according to invariable physical laws and which affected the just and the unjust alike, just as do any natural laws. it is now known that many infants are rendered blind by negligence of certain precautions at birth--this may have been a case of that kind. we consider any attempt to attribute physical infirmities to "sin" unconnected with the physical trouble to be a reversion to primitive theological dogmas, and smacking strongly of the "devil idea" of theology, of which we have spoken. and poverty results from economic conditions, and not as punishment for "sin." nor is wealth the reward of virtue--far from it. but before leaving this phase of the subject we would like to say that many careful thinkers have been able to discern certain spiritual benefits that have arisen from physical suffering, or poverty, and that the sufferers often manifest a high degree of spiritual development and growth, seemingly by reason of their pain. not only this, but the divine faculties of pity, help, and true sympathy, are brought out in others, by reason thereof. we think that this view of the matter is far more along the lines of true spirituality than that of want and disease as "the punishment of sins committed in past lives." even the human idea of justice revolts at this kind of "punishment," and, in fact, the highest human justice and human law eliminates the idea of "punishment" altogether, so far as reprisal or revenge is concerned, the penalty being regarded merely as a deterrent of others, and a warning to the criminal against further infractions of the law, and as a reformatory agent--this at least is the theory of human law--no matter how imperfectly it works out in practice--and we cannot think of divine law being less just and equitable, less merciful and loving. the "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" conception of human justice has been out-lived by the race in its evolution. after considering the above mentioned extreme ideas of "punishments," through the law of karma, we ask you to consider the following lines written by a writer having great insight, and published in a leading magazine several years ago. the idea of "the kindergarten of god" therein expressed, we think, is far nearer in accordance with the highest occult teachings, than the other idea of "divine wrath" and punishment for sin, along the lines of a misinterpretation of the law of karma, worthy of the worshipers of some ancient devil-god. read this little quotation carefully, and then determine which of the two views seems to fit in better with your highest spiritual conceptions: "a boy went to school. he was very little. all that he knew he had drawn in with his mother's milk. his teacher (who was god) placed him in the lowest class, and gave him these lessons to learn: thou shalt not kill. thou shalt do no hurt to any living thing. thou shalt not steal. so the man did not kill; but he was cruel, and he stole. at the end of the day (when his beard was gray--when the night was come), his teacher (who was god) said: thou hast learned not to kill. but the other lessons thou hast not learned. come back tomorrow. "on the morrow he came back, a little boy. and his teacher (who was god) put him in a class a little higher, and gave him these lessons to learn: thou shalt do no hurt to any living thing. thou shalt not steal. thou shalt not cheat. so the man did no hurt to any living thing; but he stole and he cheated. and at the end of the day (when his beard was gray--when the night was come), his teacher (who was god) said: thou hast learned to be merciful. but the other lessons thou hast not learned. come back tomorrow. "again, on the morrow, he came back, a little boy. and his teacher (who was god) put him in a class yet a little higher, and gave him these lessons to learn: thou shalt not steal. thou shalt not cheat. thou shalt not covet. so the man did not steal; but he cheated, and he coveted. and at the end of the day (when his beard was gray--when the night was come), his teacher (who was god) said: thou hast learned not to steal. but the other lessons thou hast not learned. come back, my child, tomorrow. "this is what i have read in the faces of men and women, in the book of the world, and in the scroll of the heavens, which is writ with stars."--_berry benson, in the century magazine, may, ._ but there is still another view of karma held by some western thinkers, who received it from the greek mystics and occultists, who in turn are thought to have received it from ancient egypt. these people hold that the law of karma has naught to do with man's theories of ethics, or religious dogmas or creeds, but has as the basis of its operations only universal and cosmic principles of action, applicable to the atom as well as man--to the beings above man as well. and that these universal principles of action have to do with the evolution of all things in nature, according to well established laws. and that the evolving soul is continually striving to find the path along the lines of evolution, being urged to by the unfolding spirit within it--and that that "path" is always along the lines of least spiritual friction, and therefore along the lines of the least ultimate spiritual pain. and that, accordingly, spiritual pain is an indication to the evolving thing that it is on the wrong path, and that it must find a better way onward--which message it heeds by reason of the pain, and accordingly seeks out for itself a better way, and one that will bring less spiritual pain and greater ultimate spiritual satisfaction. this teaching holds that all material things are a source of more or less pain to the growing and evolving soul, which tends to urge it along the line of the least spiritual resistence--the least spiritual friction. it may be that the soul does not recognize the direction of the urge, and insist in tasting this material pleasure (so-thought) and then that--only to find that neither satisfy--that both are dead sea fruit--that both have the thorn attached to the flower--that all bring pain, satiety and disgust--the consequence being that the tired and wearied soul, when rested by the lethal slumber, and then re-born has a horror and distaste for the things which disgusted it in its previous life, and is therefore urged toward opposite things. if the soul has not been satiated--has not yet been pricked by the hidden thorn--it wishes to go on further in the dream of material pleasure, and so it does, until it learns its lesson. finally, perceiving the folly and worthlessness of materiality, it emerges from its cocoon and, spreading out its newly found wings, takes its flight for higher planes of action and being--and so on, and on, and on, forever. under this view people are not punished "for" their sins, but "by" them--and "sin" is seen to be merely a "mistake," not a crime. and pain arises not as a punishment for something done wrongly, but as a warning sign of "hands off"; and consequently pain is something by which we may mount to higher things--to something better--and not a punishment. and this idea holds, also, that on the physical plane physical law governs, and physical effects follow physical causes; likewise on the mental plane; likewise on the spiritual plane. and, therefore, it is absurd to suppose that one suffers physical pain as a punishment for some moral offense committed on another plane. on the contrary, however, this idea holds that from the physical pain which was occasioned by the operation of physical law alone one may develop higher spiritual states by reason of a better understanding of the nature of pain in oneself and others. and this idea refuses to recognize material pleasures or profits as a reward for spiritual or moral actions. on the whole this last mentioned conception of karma refuses to use the terms "reward and punishment," or even to entertain those ideas, but instead sees in everything the working out of a great cosmic plan whereby everything rises from lower to higher, and still higher. to it karma is but one phase of the great law operating in all planes and forms of life and the universe. to it the idea that "the universe is governed by law" is an axiom. and while to it ultimate justice is also axiomic, it sees not in the operation of penalties and reward--merits and demerits--the proof of that ultimate justice; it looks for it and finds it in the conception and realizing that all works for good--that everything is tending upward--that everything is justified and just, because the end is absolute good, and that every tiny working of the great cosmic machinery is turning in the right direction and to that end. consequently, each of us is just where he should be at the present time--and our condition is exactly the very best to bring us to that divine consummation and end. and to such thinkers, indeed, there is no devil but fear and unfaith, and all other devils are illusions, whether they be called beelzebub, mortal-mind, or karma, if they produce fear and unfaith in the all-good. and such thinkers feel that the way to live according to the higher light, and without fear of a malevolent karma, is to feel one's relationship with the universal good, and then to "live one day at a time--doing the best you know how--and be kind"--knowing that in the all-good you live and move and have your being, and that outside of that all-good you cannot stray, for there is no outside--knowing that that which brought you here will be with you there--that death is but a phase of life--and above all that there is nothing to be afraid of--and that all is well with god; with the universe; and with you! finis. advertisement the hindu-yogi science of breath a complete manual of the oriental philosophy of physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual development by the intelligent control of the breath. by yogi ramacharaka synopsis:--chapter i. the hindu yogis--something about their teachings. chapter ii. "breath is life"--teachings of the orient and occident compared. chapter iii. the exoteric theory of breath. chapter iv. the esoteric theory of breath--prana. chapter v. the nervous system--yogi teachings concerning the solar plexus--the solar plexus a store-house of prana. chapter vi. how to breathe--oriental methods. chapter vii. four methods of respiration as classified by the yogis--the yogi complete breath. chapter viii. how to acquire the yogi complete breath. chapter ix. physiological effect of the complete breath. chapter x. yogi lore--the yogi cleansing breath--the yogi nerve vitalizing breath--the yogi vocal breath. chapter xi. seven yogi developing exercises. chapter xii. chapter xiii. vibration and yogi rhythmic breathing--how to ascertain the heart beat unit used by the yogis as the basis of rhythmic breathing. chapter xiv. phenomena of psychic breathing--directions for yogi psychic breathing--prana distributing--inhibiting pain--self-healing--healing others--distant healing. chapter xv. more phenomena of yogi psychic breathing--thought projection--forming an aura--recharging yourself--recharging others--charging water--acquiring mental qualities--controlling the emotions--transmutation of reproductive energy--brain stimulating--the grand yogi psychic breath. chapter xvi. yogi spiritual breathing--soul consciousness--how unfolded--the universal consciousness--how the yogi attain this consciousness--general directions. pages. price, paper $ . postpaid; cloth $ . postpaid. i received the copy of "science breath" promptly and i am very much pleased with it. the simple, clear, logical manner in which it is written will certainly be appreciated and will enhance its usefulness. please send me another copy.--h. w. a., pittsburg, pa. the hindu-yogi system of practical water cure by yogi ramacharaka chapter i. the hindu-yogi water cure--an important branch of hatha yoga--the underlying principle--prana in the water--how slow water loses prana--how water may be pranaized. chapter ii. nature's great remedy--water the basis of life--the important part played by water in the psychological mechanism of the system--what water does, and why. chapter iii. water drinking--why man needs water--how much water he needs--what he suffers from neglecting the normal amount of fluids--an important secret--surprising facts. chapter iv. the stomach and intestines--a plain, practical, scientific description of the organs of assimilation and elimination--something that everyone should know to be healthy. chapter v. the obstructed sewer--a scientific statement regarding the great sewer of the system, which when clogged, obstructed and choked with waste-matter, causes disease and weakness. chapter vi. the internal bath--the scientific method of keeping clean the great sewer of the system--a simple method of internal cleanliness, and resulting health. chapter vii. the skin--a plain scientific description of the skin, and the part it plays in health and disease--something that everyone should know, but few realize. chapter viii. scientific bathing--scientific methods of bathing--the cleansing bath--the non-drying bath--the hot bath--the cold bath--hardening baths--private information. chapter x. pack treatments--the wet sheet pack, and how to apply it--the half pack--the sweat pack--endosmose and exosmose--hydropathy in a nut shell. chapter x. other valuable methods--fomentations, or hot steam applications--water bandages and compresses--hot water compresses, and cold water bandages--special applications--sexual vitality treatments--special applications, etc. this book has just been published, although yogi ramacharaka wrote it some time ago. the kybalion a study of the hermetic philosophy of ancient egypt and greece by three initiates "the lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding." this new book is bound to attract the earnest attention of all students of the secret doctrines of the east. perhaps the better way to describe this work is to give you the following words from its authors: "from old egypt have come the fundamental esoteric and occult teachings which have so strongly influenced the philosophies of all races, nations and peoples, for several thousand years. egypt, the home of the pyramids and the sphinx, was the birthplace of the hidden wisdom and mystic teachings. from her secret doctrine all nations have borrowed. india, persia, chaldea, medea, china, japan, assyria, ancient greece and rome, and other ancient countries partook liberally at the feast of knowledge which the hierophants and masters of the land of isis so freely provided for those who came prepared to partake of the great store of mystic and occult lore which the master-minds of that ancient land had gathered together. in ancient egypt dwelt the great adepts and masters who have never been surpassed, and who seldom have been equaled during the centuries that have taken their processional flight since the days of the great hermes. in egypt was located the great lodge of lodges of the mystics. at the doors of her temples entered the neophytes who afterward, as hierophants, adepts, and masters, traveled to the four corners of the earth, carrying with them the precious knowledge which they were ready, anxious, and willing to pass on to those who were ready to receive the same. all students of the occult recognize the debt that they owe to these venerable masters of that ancient land." the kybalion the hermetic teachings are to be found in all lands, among all religions, but never identified with any particular country, nor with any particular religious sect. this because of the warning of the ancient teachers against allowing the secret doctrine to become crystallized into a creed. the wisdom of this caution is apparent to all students of history. the ancient occultism of india and persia a degenerated, and was largely lost, owing to the fact that the teachers became priests, and so mixed theology with the philosophy, the result being that much of the occultism of india and persia has been lost amidst the mass of religious superstition, cults, creeds and "gods." so it was with ancient greece and rome. so it was with the hermetic teachings of the gnostics and early christians, which were lost at the time of constantine, whose iron hand smothered philosophy with the blanket of theology. the hermetic philosophy "but there were always a few faithful souls who kept alive the flame, tending it carefully, and not allowing its light to become extinguished. and thanks to these staunch hearts, and fearless minds, we have the truth still with us. but it is not found in books, to any great extent. it has been passed along from master to student; from initiative to heirophant; from lip to ear. when it was written down at all, its meaning was veiled in terms of alchemy and astrology, so that only those possessing the key could read it aright. this was made necessary in order to avoid the persecutions of the theologians of the middle ages, who fought the secret doctrine with fire and sword; stake, gibbet and cross. even to this day there will be found but few reliable books on the hermetic philosophy. although there are countless references to it in many books written on various phases of occultism. and yet, the hermetic philosophy is the only master key which will open all the doors of the occult teachings! about the book "in this book we invite you to examine into the hermetic teachings as set forth in the kybalion. we therein give you many of the maxims and precepts of the kybalion, accompanied by explanations and illustrations which we deem likely to render the teachings more easily comprehended by the modern student, particularly as the original text is purposely veiled in obscure terms. the trust that the many students to whom we now offer this little work will derive as much benefit from the study of its pages as have the many who have gone on before, treading the same path to mastery throughout the centuries that have passed since the times of hermes trismegistus--the master of masters--the great-great. according to the teachings, this book will attract the attention of such as are prepared to receive its teaching. and, likewise, when the pupil is ready to receive the truth, then will this book come to him, or her, and not before. such is the law. the hermetic principle of cause and effect, in its aspect of the law of attraction, will bring lips and ear together--pupil and book in company. 'the principles of truth are seven; he who knows these, understandingly, possesses the magic key before whose touch all the doors of the temple fly open.'--the kybalion. the three initiates." bound in blue silk cloth, lettered in gold, pages. price $ . postpaid. yoga lessons for developing spiritual consciousness by swamie a. p. mukerji of india associate editor kalpaka magazine price $ . net. yoga is a subject which has enthralled the attention of the world from time out of mind. no one has hitherto done justice to such a grand system, though there have been, now and then, innumerable attempts. the present author, my esteemed friend, swamie mukerji, a yogi who comes out of a successive generation of yogis, is able and proper instrument to handle the subject. he, in these lessons, prepares the layman for an understanding of the yoga and through a series of wise and masterful sayings, impresses on the mind of the reader the necessity for rising above materialism, nay, solves the very problem "what am i?" every line is pregnant with mature thoughts and rivets on his attention, and makes him think, think, think. this is not a work for which an introduction, briefly setting forth the contents, could be written. i can but ask you to read, digest and improve. dr. t. r. sanjivi, ph. d., president the latent light culture tennevelley, india. books published and for sale by the yogi publication society chicago, illinois price, postpaid. fourteen lessons in yogi philosophy, and oriental occultism. by ramacharaka. bound in green silk cloth $ . advanced course in yogi philosophy, and oriental occultism. by ramacharaka. bound in brown silk cloth . raja yoga. by ramacharaka. bound in brown silk cloth . gnana yoga. by ramacharaka. bound in blue silk cloth . psychic healing. by ramacharaka. bound in maroon silk cloth . hatha yoga. by ramacharaka. bound in yellow silk cloth . science of breath. by ramacharaka. bound in paper, c; cloth . light on the path and illumined way. by m. c. cloth . a treatise on the light on the path. by m. c. paper . a visit to a gnani. by edward carpenter. paper . jesus: the last great initiate. by edouard schure. silk cloth . krishna and orpheus. by edouard schure. silk cloth . bhavagad gita. by ramacharaka . the spirit of the upanishads . mystery of being . karma. occult novel. by a. p. sinnett. cloth . practical mind reading. by w. w. atkinson. cloth . practical psychomancy and crystal gazing. by w. w. atkinson. cloth . mental influence. by w. w. atkinson. cloth . mystic christianity. by ramacharaka. pamphlet edition, $ . ; ready in book form, sept , ' . kybalion. by three initiates. cloth . inner consciousness. by w. w. atkinson . secret of success. by w. w. atkinson . the philosophies and religions of india, by ramacharaka. cloth . complete catalog on application. we will be pleased to send descriptive circulars to anyone that you think would be interested. transcriber's notes: "bhavagad gita" in the list of books published by the yogi publication society is a misprint for "bhagavad gita." "ronach" in the table of contents, chapter iv, is a misprint for "roauch." ardath the story of a dead self by marie corelli author of "thelma," etc. part i.--saint and sceptic "what merest whim seems all this poor endeavor after fame to one who keeps within his steadfast aim a love immortal, an immortal too! look not so 'wildered, for these things are true and never can be borne of atomics that buzz about our slumbers like brain-flies leaving us fancy-sick. no, i am sure my restless spirit never could endure to brood so long upon one luxury. unless it did, though fearfully, espy a hope beyond the shadow of a dream!" keats. chapter i. the monastery. deep in the heart of the caucasus mountains a wild storm was gathering. drear shadows drooped and thickened above the pass of dariel,--that terrific gorge which like a mere thread seems to hang between the toppling frost-bound heights above and the black abysmal depths below,--clouds, fringed ominously with lurid green and white, drifted heavily yet swiftly across the jagged peaks where, looming largely out of the mist, the snow-capped crest of mount kazbek rose coldly white against the darkness of the threatening sky. night was approaching, though away to the west a road gash of crimson, a seeming wound in the breast of heaven, showed where the sun had set an hour since. now and again the rising wind moaned sobbingly through the tall and spectral pines that, with knotted roots fast clenched in the reluctant earth, clung tenaciously to their stony vantageground; and mingling with its wailing murmur, there came a distant hoarse roaring as of tumbling torrents, while at far-off intervals could be heard the sweeping thud of an avalanche slipping from point to point on its disastrous downward way. through the wreathing vapors the steep, bare sides of the near mountains were pallidly visible, their icy pinnacles, like uplifted daggers, piercing with sharp glitter the density of the low-hanging haze, from which large drops of moisture began presently to ooze rather than fall. gradually the wind increased, and soon with sudden fierce gusts shook the pine-trees into shuddering anxiety,--the red slit in the sky closed, and a gleam of forked lightning leaped athwart the driving darkness. an appalling crash of thunder followed almost instantaneously, its deep boom vibrating in sullenly grand echoes on all sides of the pass, and then--with a swirling, hissing rush of rain--the unbound hurricane burst forth alive and furious. on, on! splitting huge boughs and flinging them aside like straws, swelling the rivers into riotous floods that swept hither and thither, carrying with them masses of rock and stone and tons of loosened snow--on, on! with pitiless force and destructive haste, the tempest rolled, thundered, and shrieked its way through dariel. as the night darkened and the clamor of the conflicting elements grew more sustained and violent, a sudden sweet sound floated softly through the turbulent air--the slow, measured tolling of a bell. to and fro, to and fro, the silvery chime swung with mild distinctness--it was the vesper-bell ringing in the monastery of lars far up among the crags crowning the ravine. there the wind roared and blustered its loudest; it whirled round and round the quaint castellated building, battering the gates and moving their heavy iron hinges to a most dolorous groaning; it flung rattling hailstones at the narrow windows, and raged and howled at every corner and through every crevice; while snaky twists of lightning played threateningly over the tall iron cross that surmounted the roof, as though bent on striking it down and splitting open the firm old walls it guarded. all was war and tumult without:--but within, a tranquil peace prevailed, enhanced by the grave murmur of organ music; men's voices mingling together in mellow unison chanted the magnificat, and the uplifted steady harmony of the grand old anthem rose triumphantly above the noise of the storm. the monks who inhabited this mountain eyrie, once a fortress, now a religious refuge, were assembled in their little chapel--a sort of grotto roughly hewn out of the natural rock. fifteen in number, they stood in rows of three abreast, their white woollen robes touching the ground, their white cowls thrown back, and their dark faces and flashing eyes turned devoutly toward the altar whereon blazed in strange and solitary brilliancy a cross of fire. at the first glance it was easy to see that they were a peculiar community devoted to some peculiar form of worship, for their costume was totally different in character and detail from any such as are worn by the various religious fraternities of the greek, roman, or armenian faith, and one especial feature of their outward appearance served as a distinctly marked sign of their severance from all known monastic orders--this was the absence of the disfiguring tonsure. they were all fine-looking men seemingly in the prime of life, and they intoned the magnificat not drowsily or droningly, but with a rich tunefulness and warmth of utterance that stirred to a faint surprise and contempt the jaded spirit of one reluctant listener present among them. this was a stranger who had arrived that evening at the monastery, and who intended remaining there for the night--a man of distinguished and somewhat haughty bearing, with a dark, sorrowful, poetic face, chiefly remarkable for its mingled expression of dreamy ardor and cold scorn, an expression such as the unknown sculptor of hadrian's era caught and fixed in the marble of his ivy-crowned bacchus-antinous, whose half-sweet, half-cruel smile suggests a perpetual doubt of all things and all men. he was clad in the rough-and-ready garb of the travelling englishman, and his athletic figure in its plain-cut modern attire looked curiously out of place in that mysterious grotto which, with its rocky walls and flaming symbol of salvation, seem suited only to the picturesque prophet-like forms of the white-gowned brethren whom he now surveyed, as he stood behind their ranks, with a gleam of something like mockery in his proud, weary eyes. "what sort of fellows are these?" he mused--"fools or knaves? they must be one or the other,--else they would not thus chant praises to a deity of whose existence there is, and can be, no proof. it is either sheer ignorance or hypocrisy,--or both combined. i can pardon ignorance, but not hypocrisy; for however dreary the results of truth, yet truth alone prevails; its killing bolt destroys the illusive beauty of the universe, but what then? is it not better so than that the universe should continue to seem beautiful only through the medium of a lie?" his straight brows drew together in a puzzled, frowning line as he asked himself this question, and he moved restlessly. he was becoming impatient; the chanting of the monks grew monotonous to his ears; the lighted cross on the altar dazzled him with its glare. moreover he disliked all forms of religious service, though as a lover of classic lore it is probable he would have witnessed a celebration in honor of apollo or diana with the liveliest interest. but the very name of christianity was obnoxious to him. like shelley, he considered that creed a vulgar and barbarous superstition. like shelley, he inquired, "if god has spoken, why is the world not convinced?" he began to wish he had never set foot inside this abode of what he deemed a pretended sanctity, although as a matter of fact he had a special purpose of his own in visiting the place-a purpose so utterly at variance with the professed tenets of his present life and character that the mere thought of it secretly irritated him, even while he was determined to accomplish it. as yet he had only made acquaintance with two of the monks, courteous, good-humored personages, who had received him on his arrival with the customary hospitality which it was the rule of the monastery to afford to all belated wayfarers journeying across the perilous pass of dariel. they had asked him no questions as to his name or nation, they had simply seen in him a stranger overtaken by the storm and in need of shelter, and had entertained him accordingly. they had conducted him to the refectory, where a well-piled log fire was cheerfully blazing, and there had set before him an excellent supper, flavored with equally excellent wine. he had, however, scarcely begun to converse with them when the vesper-bell had rung, and, obedient to its summons, they had hurried away, leaving him to enjoy his repast in solitude. when he had finished it, he had sat for a while dreamily listening to the solemn strains of the organ, which penetrated to every part of the building, and then moved by a vague curiosity to see how many men there were dwelling thus together in this lonely retreat, perched like an eagle's nest among the frozen heights of caucasus, he had managed to find his way, guided by the sound of the music, through various long corridors and narrow twisting passages, into the cavernous grot where he now stood, feeling infinitely bored and listlessly dissatisfied. his primary object in entering the chapel had been to get a good full view of the monks, and of their faces especially,--but at present this was impossible, as from the position he was obliged to occupy behind them their backs alone were visible. "and who knows," he thought moodily, "how long they will go on intoning their dreary latin doggerel? priestcraft and sham! there's no escape from it anywhere, not even in the wilds of caucasus! i wonder if the man i seek is really here, or whether after all i have been misled? there are so many contradictory stories told about him that one doesn't know what to believe. it seems incredible that he should be a monk; it is such an altogether foolish ending to an intellectual career. for whatever may be the form of faith professed by this particular fraternity, the absurdity of the whole system of religion remains the same. religion's day is done; the very sense of worship is a mere coward instinct--a relic of barbarism which is being gradually eradicated from our natures by the progress of civilization. the world knows by this time that creation is an empty jest; we are all beginning to understand its bathos! and if we must grant that there is some mischievous supreme farceur who, safely shrouded in invisibility, continues to perpetrate so poor and purposeless a joke for his own amusement and our torture, we need not, for that matter, admire his wit or flatter his ingenuity! for life is nothing but vexation and suffering; are we dogs that we should lick the hand that crushes us?" at that moment, the chanting suddenly ceased. the organ went on, as though musically meditating to itself in minor cords, through which soft upper notes, like touches of light on a dark landscape, flickered ripplingly,--one monk separated himself from the clustered group, and stepping slowly up to the altar, confronted the rest of his brethren. the fiery cross shone radiantly behind him, its beams seeming to gather in a lustrous halo round his tall, majestic figure,--his countenance, fully illumined and clearly visible, was one never to be forgotten for the striking force, sweetness, and dignity expressed in its every feature. the veriest scoffer that ever made mock of fine beliefs and fair virtues must have been momentarily awed and silenced in the presence of such a man as this,--a man upon whom the grace of a perfect life seemed to have fallen like a royal robe, investing even his outward appearance with spiritual authority and grandeur. at sight of him, the stranger's indifferent air rapidly changed to one of eager interest,--leaning forward, he regarded him intently with a look of mingled astonishment and unwilling admiration,--the monk meanwhile extended his hands as though in blessing and spoke aloud, his latin words echoing through the rocky temple with the measured utterance of poetical rhythm. translated they ran thus: "glory to god, the most high, the supreme and eternal!" and with one harmonious murmur of accord the brethren responded: "glory for ever and ever! amen!" "glory to god, the ruler of spirits and master of angels!" "glory for ever and ever! amen!" "glory to god who in love never wearies of loving!" "glory for ever and ever! amen!" "glory to god in the name of his christ our redeemer!" "glory for ever and ever! amen!" "glory to god for the joys of the past, the present and future!" "glory for ever and ever! amen!" "glory to god for the power of will and the working of wisdom!" "glory for ever and ever! amen!" "glory to god for the briefness of life, the gladness of death, and the promised immortal hereafter!" "glory for ever and ever! amen!" then came a pause, during which the thunder outside added a tumultuous gloria of its own to those already recited,--the organ music died away into silence, and the monk now turning so that he faced the altar, sank reverently on his knees. all present followed his example, with the exception of the stranger, who, as if in deliberate defiance, drew himself resolutely up to his full height, and, folding his arms, gazed at the scene before him with a perfectly unmoved demeanor,--he expected to hear some long prayer, but none came. there was an absolute stillness, unbroken save by the rattle of the rain-drops against the high oriel window, and the whistling rush of the wind. and as he looked, the fiery cross began to grow dim and pale,--little by little, its scintillating lustre decreased, till at last it disappeared altogether, leaving no trace of its former brilliancy but a small bright flame that gradually took the shape of a seven-pointed star which sparkled through the gloom like a suspended ruby. the chapel was left almost in complete darkness--he could scarcely discern even the white figures of the kneeling worshippers,--a haunting sense of the supernatural seemed to permeate that deep hush and dense shadow,--and notwithstanding his habitual tendency to despise all religious ceremonies, there was something novel and strange about this one which exercised a peculiar influence upon his imagination. a sudden odd fancy possessed him that there were others present besides himself and the brethren,--but who these "others" were, he could not determine. it was an altogether uncanny, uncomfortable impression--yet it was very strong upon him--and he breathed a sigh of intense relief when he heard the soft melody of the organ once more, and saw the oaken doors of the grotto swing wide open to admit a flood of cheerful light from the outer passage. the vespers were over,--the monks rose and paced forth two by two, not with bent heads and downcast eyes as though affecting an abased humility, but with the free and stately bearing of kings returning from some high conquest. drawing a little further back into his retired corner, he watched them pass, and was forced to admit to himself that he had seldom or never seen finer types of splendid, healthful, and vigorous manhood at its best and brightest. as noble specimens of the human race alone they were well worth looking at,--they might have been warriors, princes, emperors, he thought--anything but monks. yet monks they were, and followers of that christian creed he so specially condemned,--for each one wore on his breast a massive golden crucifix, hung to a chain and fastened with a jewelled star. "cross and star!" he mused, as he noticed this brilliant and singular decoration, "an emblem of the fraternity, i suppose, meaning ... what? salvation and immortality? alas, they are poor, witless builders on shifting sand if they place any hope or reliance on those two empty words, signifying nothing! do they, can they honestly believe in god, i wonder? or are they only acting the usual worn-out comedy of a feigned faith?" and he eyed them somewhat wistfully as their white apparelled figures went by--ten had already left the chapel. two more passed, then other two, and last of all came one alone--one who walked slowly, with a dreamy, meditative air, as though he were deeply absorbed in thought. the light from the open door streamed fully upon him as he advanced--it was the monk who had recited the seven glorias. the stranger no sooner beheld him than he instantly stepped forward and touched him on the arm. "pardon!" he said hastily in english, "i think i am not mistaken--your name is, or used to be heliobas?" the monk bent his handsome head in a slight yet graceful salutation, and smiled. "i have not changed it," he replied, "i am heliobas still." and his keen, steadfast, blue eyes rested half inquiringly, half compassionately, on the dark, weary, troubled face of his questioner who, avoiding his direct gaze, continued: "i should like to speak to you in private. can i do so now--to-night--at once?" "by all means!" assented the monk, showing no surprise at the request. "follow me to the library, we shall be quite alone there." he led the way immediately out of the chapel, and through a stone-paved vestibule, where they were met by the two brethren who had first received and entertained the unknown guest, and who, not finding him in the refectory where they had left him, were now coming in search of him. on seeing in whose company he was, however, they drew aside with a deep and reverential obeisance to the personage called heliobas--he, silently acknowledging it, passed on, closely attended by the stranger, till he reached a spacious, well-lighted apartment, the walls of which were entirely lined with books. here, entering and closing the door, he turned and confronted his visitor--his tall, imposing figure in its trailing white garments calling to mind the picture of some saint or evangelist--and with grave yet kindly courtesy, said: "now, my friend, i am at your disposal! in what way can heliobas, who is dead to the world, serve one for whom surely as yet the world is everything?" chapter ii. confession. his question was not very promptly answered. the stranger stood still, regarding him intently for two of three minutes with a look of peculiar pensiveness and abstraction, the heavy double fringe of his long dark lashes giving an almost drowsy pathos to his proud and earnest eyes. soon, however, this absorbed expression changed to one of sombre scorn. "the world!" he said slowly and bitterly. "you think _i_ care for the world? then you read me wrongly at the very outset of our interview, and your once reputed skill as a seer goes for naught! to me the world is a graveyard full of dead, worm-eaten things, and its supposititious creator, whom you have so be praised in your orisons to-night, is the sexton who entombs, and the ghoul who devours his own hapless creation! i myself am one of the tortured and dying, and i have sought you simply that you may trick me into a brief oblivion of my doom, and mock me with the mirage of a life that is not and can never be! how can you serve me? give me a few hours' respite from wretchedness! that is all i ask!" as he spoke his face grew blanched and haggard, as though he suffered from some painfully repressed inward agony. the monk heliobas heard him with an air of attentive patience, but said nothing; he therefore, after waiting for a reply and receiving none, went on in colder and more even tones: "i dare say my words seem strange to you--though they should not do so if, as reported, you have studied all the varying phases of that purely intellectual despair which, in this age of excessive over-culture, crushes men who learn too much and think too deeply. but before going further i had better introduce myself. my name is alwyn ..." "theos alwyn, the english author, i presume?" interposed the monk interrogatively. "why, yes!" this in accents of extreme surprise--"how did you know that!" "your celebrity," politely suggested heliobas, with a wave of the hand and an enigmatical smile that might have meant anything or nothing. alwyn colored a little. "your mistake," he said indifferently, "i have no celebrity. the celebrities of my country are few, and among them those most admired are jockeys and divorced women. i merely follow in the rear-line of the art or profession of literature--i am that always unluckiest and most undesirable kind of an author, a writer of verse--i lay no claim, not now at any rate, to the title of poet. while recently staying in paris i chanced to hear of you ..." the monk bowed ever so slightly--there was a dawning gleam of satire in his brilliant eyes. "you won special distinction and renown there, i believe, before you adopted this monastic life?" pursued alwyn, glancing at him curiously. "did i?" and heliobas looked cheerfully interested. "really i was not aware of it, i assure you! possibly my ways and doings may have occasionally furnished the parisians with something to talk about instead of the weather, and i know i made some few friends and an astonishing number of enemies, if that is what you mean by distinction and renown!" alwyn smiled--his smile was always reluctant, and had in it more of sadness than sweetness, yet it gave his features a singular softness and beauty, just as a ray of sunlight falling on a dark picture will brighten the tints into a momentary warmth of seeming life. "all reputation means that, i think," he said, "unless it be mediocre--then one is safe; one has scores of friends, and scarce a foe. mediocrity succeeds wonderfully well nowadays--nobody hates it, because every one feels how easily they themselves can attain to it. exceptional talent is aggressive--actual genius is offensive; people are insulted to have a thing held up for their admiration which is entirely out of their reach. they become like bears climbing a greased pole; they see a great name above them--a tempting sugary morsel which they would fain snatch and devour--and when their uncouth efforts fail, they huddle together on the ground beneath, look up with dull, peering eyes, and impotently snarl! but you,"--and here his gazed rested doubtfully, yet questioningly, on his companion's open, serene countenance--"you, if rumor speaks truly, should have been able to tame your bears and turn them into dogs, humble and couchant! your marvellous achievements as a mesmerist--" "excuse me!" returned heliobas quietly, "i never was a mesmerist." "well-as a spiritualist then; though i cannot admit the existence of any such thing as spiritualism." "neither can i," returned heliobas, with perfect good-humor, "according to the generally accepted meaning of the term. pray go on, mr. alwyn!" alwyn looked at him, a little puzzled and uncertain how to proceed. a curious sense of irritation was growing up in his mind against this monk with the grand head and flashing eyes--eyes that seemed to strip bare his innermost thoughts, as lightning strips bark from a tree. "i was told," he continued after a pause, during which he had apparently considered and prepared his words, "that you were chiefly known in paris as being the possessor of some mysterious internal force--call it magnetic, hypnotic, or spiritual, as you please--which, though perfectly inexplicable, was yet plainly manifested and evident to all who placed themselves under your influence. moreover, that by this force you were able to deal scientifically and practically with the active principle of intelligence in man, to such an extent that you could, in some miraculous way, disentangle the knots of toil and perplexity in an over-taxed brain, and restore to it its pristine vitality and vigor. is this true? if so, exert your power upon me,--for something, i know not what, has of late frozen up the once overflowing fountain of my thoughts, and i have lost all working ability. when a man can no longer work, it were best he should die, only unfortunately i cannot die unless i kill myself,--which it is possible i may do ere long. but in the meantime,"--he hesitated a moment, then went on, "in the meantime, i have a strong wish to be deluded--i use the word advisedly, and repeat it--deluded into an imaginary happiness, though i am aware that as an agnostic and searcher after truth--truth absolute, truth positive--such a desire on my part seems even to myself inconsistent and unreasonable. still i confess to having it; and therein, i know, i betray the weakness of my nature. it may be that i am tired "--and he passed his hand across his brow with a troubled gesture--"or puzzled by the infinite, incurable distress of all living things. perhaps i am growing mad!--who knows!--but whatever my condition, you,--if report be correct,--have the magic skill to ravish the mind away from its troubles and transport it to a radiant elysium of sweet illusions and ethereal ecstasies. do this for me, as you have done it for others, and whatever payment you demand, whether in gold or gratitude, shall be yours." he ceased; the wind howled furiously outside, flinging gusty dashes of rain against the one window of the room, a tall arched casement that clattered noisily with every blow inflicted upon it by the storm. heliobas gave him a swift, searching glance, half pitying, half disdainful. "haschisch or opium should serve your turn," he said curtly. "i know of no other means whereby to temporarily still the clamorings of conscience." alwyn flushed darkly. "conscience!" he began in rather a resentful tone, "aye, conscience!" repeated heliobas firmly. "there is such a thing. do you profess to be wholly without it?" alwyn deigned no reply--the ironical bluntness of the question annoyed him. "you have formed a very unjust opinion of me, mr. alwyn," continued heliobas, "an opinion which neither honors your courtesy nor your intellect--pardon me for saying so. you ask me to 'mock' and 'delude' you as if it were my custom and delight to make dupes of my suffering fellow-creatures! you come to me as though i were a mesmerist or magnetizer such as you can hire for a few guineas in any civilized city in europe--nay, i doubt not but that you consider me that kind of so-called 'spiritualist' whose enlightened intelligence and heaven-aspiring aims are demonstrated in the turning of tables and general furniture-gyration. i am, however, hopelessly deficient in such knowledge. i should make a most unsatisfactory conjurer! moreover, whatever you may have heard concerning me in paris, you must remember i am in paris no longer. i am a monk, as you see, devoted to my vocation; i am completely severed from the world, and my duties and occupations in the present are widely different to those which employed me in the past. then i gave what aid i could to those who honestly needed it and sought it without prejudice or personal distrust; but now my work among men is finished, and i practice my science, such as it is, on others no more, except in very rare and special cases." alwyn heard, and the lines of his face hardened into an expression of frigid hauteur. "i suppose i am to understand by this that you will do nothing for me?" he said stiffly. "why, what can i do?" returned heliobas, smiling a little. "all you want--so you say--is a brief forgetfulness of your troubles. well, that is easily obtainable through certain narcotics, if you choose to employ them and take the risk of their injurious action on your bodily system. you can drug your brain and thereby fill it with drowsy suggestions of ideas--of course they would only he suggestions, and very vague and indefinite ones too, still they might be pleasant enough to absorb and repress bitter memories for a time. as for me, my poor skill would scarcely avail you, as i could promise you neither self-oblivion nor visionary joy. i have a certain internal force, it is true--a spiritual force which when strongly exercised overpowers and subdues the material--and by exerting this i could, if i thought it well to do so, release your soul--that is, the inner intelligent spirit which is the actual you--from its house of clay, and allow it an interval of freedom. but what its experience might be in that unfettered condition, whether glad or sorrowful, i am totally unable to predict." alwyn looked at him steadfastly. "you believe in the soul?" he asked. "most certainly!" "as a separate personality that continues to live on when the body perishes?" "assuredly." "and you profess to be able to liberate it for a time from its mortal habitation--" "i do not profess," interposed heliobas quietly. "i can do so." "but with the success of the experiment your power ceases?--you cannot foretell whether the unimprisoned creature will take its course to an inferno of suffering or a heaven of delight?--is this what you mean?" heliobas bent his head in grave assent. alwyn broke into a harsh laugh--"come then!" he exclaimed with a reckless air,--"begin your incantations at once! send me hence, no matter where, so long as i am for a while escaped from this den of a world, this dungeon with one small window through which, with the death rattle in our throats, we stare vacantly at the blank unmeaning honor of the universe! prove to me that the soul exists--ye gods! prove it! and if mine can find its way straight to the mainspring of this revolving creation, it shall cling to the accused wheels and stop them, that they may grind out the tortures of life no more!" he flung up his hand with a wild gesture: his countenance, darkly threatening and defiant, was yet beautiful with the evil beauty of a rebellious and fallen angel. his breath came and went quickly,--he seemed to challenge some invisible opponent. heliobas meanwhile watched him much as a physician might watch in his patient the workings of a new disease, then he said in purposely cold and tranquil tones: "a bold idea! singularly blasphemous, arrogant, and--fortunately for us all--impracticable! allow me to remark that you are overexcited, mr. alwyn; you talk as madmen may, but as reasonable men should not. come," and he smiled,--a smile that was both grave and sweet, "come and sit down--you are worn out with the force of your own desperate emotions--rest a few minutes and recover your self." his voice thouqh gentle was distinctly authoritative, and alwyn meeting the full gaze of his calm eyes felt bound to obey the implied command. he therefore sank listlessly into an easy chair near the table, pushing back the short, thick curls from his brow with a wearied movement; he was very pale,--an uneasy sense of shame was upon him, and he sighed,--a quick sigh of exhausted passion. heliobas seated himself opposite and looked at him earnestly, he studied with sympathetic attention the lines of dejection and fatigue which marred the attractiveness of features otherwise frank, poetic, and noble. he had seen many such men. men in their prime who had begun life full of high faith, hope, and lofty aspiration, yet whose fair ideals once bruised in the mortar of modern atheistical opinion had perished forever, while they themselves, like golden eagles suddenly and cruelly shot while flying in mid-air, had fallen helplessly, broken-winged among the dust-heaps of the world, never to rise and soar sunwards again. thinking this, his accents were touched with a certain compassion when after a pause he said softly: "poor boy!--poor, puzzled, tired brain that would fain judge infinity by merely finite perception! you were a far truer poet, theos alwyn, when as a world-foolish, heaven-inspired lad you believed in god, and therefore, in godlike gladness, found all things good!" alwyn looked up--his lips quivered. "poet--poet!" he murmured--"why taunt me with the name?" he started upright in his chair--"let me tell you all," he said suddenly; "you may as well know what has made me the useless wreck i am; though perhaps i shall only weary you." "far from it," answered heliobas gently. "speak freely--but remember i do not compel your confidence." "on the contrary, i think you do!" and again that faint, half-mournful smile shone for an instant in his deep, dark eyes, "though you may not be conscious of it. anyhow i feel impelled to unburden my heart to you: i have kept silence so long! you know what it is in the world, ... one must always keep silence, always shut in one's grief and force a smile, in company with the rest of the tormented, forced-smiling crowd. we can never be ourselves--our veritable selves--for, if we were, the air would resound with our ceaseless lamentations! it is horrible to think of all the pent-up sufferings of humanity--all the inconceivably hideous agonies that remain forever dumb and unrevealed! when i was young,--how long ago that seems! yes, though my actual years are taut thirty, i feel an alder-elde of accumulated centuries upon me--when i was young, the dream of my life was poesy. perhaps i inherited the fatal love of it from my mother--she was a greek-and she had a subtle music in her that nothing could quell, not even my father's english coldness. she named me theos, little guessing what a dreary sarcasm that name would prove! it was well, i think, that she died early." "well for her, but perhaps not so well for you," said heliobas with a keen, kindly glance at him. alwyn sighed. "nay, well, for us both,--for i should have chafed at her loving restraint, and she would unquestionably have been disappointed in me. my father was a conscientious, methodical business man, who spent all his days up to almost the last moment of his life in amassing money, though it never gave him any joy so far as i could see, and when at his death i became sole possessor of his hardly-earned fortune, i felt far more sorrow than satisfaction. i wished he had spent his gold on himself and left me poor, for it seemed to me i had need of nothing save the little i earned by my pen--i was content to live an anchorite and dine off a crust for the sake of the divine muse i worshipped. fate, however, willed it otherwise,--and though i scarcely cared for the wealth i inherited, it gave me at least one blessing--that of perfect independence. i was free to follow my own chosen vocation, and for a brief wondering while i deemed myself happy, ... happy as keats must have been when the fragment of 'hyperion' broke from his frail life as thunder breaks from a summer-cloud. i was as a monarch swaying a sceptre that commanded both earth and heaven; a kingdom was mine-a kingdom of golden ether, peopled with shining shapes protean,--alas! its gates are shut upon me now, and i shall enter it no more!" "'no more' is a long time, my friend!" interposed heliobas gently. "you are too despondent,--perchance too diffident, concerning your own ability." "ability!" and he laughed wearily. "i have none,--i am as weak and inapt as an untaught child--the music of my heart is silenced! yet there is nothing i would not do to regain the ravishment of the past--when the sight of the sunset across the hills, or the moon's silver transfiguration of the sea filled me with deep and indescribable ecstasy--when the thought of love, like a full chord struck from a magic harp, set my pulses throbbing with delirious delight--fancies thick as leaves in summer crowded my brain--earth was a round charm hung on the breast of a smiling divinity--men were gods--women were angels'--the world seemed but a wide scroll for the signatures of poets, and mine, i swore, should be clearly written!" he paused, as though ashamed of his own fervor, and glanced at heliobas, who, leaning a little forward in his chair was regaling him with friendly, attentive interest; then he continued more calmly: "enough! i think i had something in me then,--something that was new and wild and, though it may seem self praise to say so, full of that witching glamour we name inspiration; but whatever that something was, call it genius, a trick of song, what you will,--it was soon crushed out of me. the world is fond of slaying its singing buds and devouring them for daily fare--one rough pressure of finger and thumb on the little melodious throats, and they are mute forever. so i found, when at last in mingled pride, hope, and fear i published my poems, seeking for them no other recompense save fair hearing and justice. they obtained neither--they were tossed carelessly by a few critics from hand to hand, jeered at for a while, and finally flung back to me as lies--lies all! the finely spun web of any fancy,--the delicate interwoven intricacies of thought,--these were torn to shreds with as little compunction as idle children feel when destroying for their own cruel sport the velvety wonder of a moth's wing, or the radiant rose and emerald pinions of a dragon-fly. i was a fool--so i was told with many a languid sneer and stale jest--to talk of hidden mysteries in the whisper of the wind and the dash of the waves--such sounds were but common cause and effect. the stars were merely conglomerated masses of heated vapor condensed by the work of ages into meteorites and from meteorites into worlds--and these went on rolling in their appointed orbits, for what reason nobody knew, but then nobody cared! and love--the key-note of the theme to which i had set my mistaken life in tune--love was only a graceful word used to politely define the low but very general sentiment of coarse animal attraction--in short, poetry such as mine was altogether absurd and out of date when confronted with the facts of every-day existence--facts which plainly taught us that man's chief business here below was simply to live, breed, and die--the life of a silk-worm or caterpillar on a slightly higher platform of ability; beyond this--nothing!" "nothing?" murmured heliobas, in a tone of suggestive inquiry--"really nothing?" "nothing!" repeated alwyn, with an air of resigned hopelessness; "for i learned that, according to the results arrived at by the most advanced thinkers of the day, there was no god, no soul, no hereafter--the loftiest efforts of the highest heaven--aspiring minds were doomed to end in non-fruition, failure, and annihilation. among all the desperately hard truths that came rattling down upon me like a shower of stones, i think this was the crowning one that killed whatever genius i had. i use the word 'genius' foolishly--though, after all, genius itself is nothing to boast of, since it is only a morbid and unhealthy condition of the intellectual faculties, or at least was demonstrated to me as such by a scientific friend of my own who, seeing i was miserable, took great pains to make me more so if possible. he proved,--to his own satisfaction if not altogether to mine,--that the abnormal position of certain molecules in the brain produced an eccentricity or peculiar bias in one direction which, practically viewed, might be described as an intelligent form of monomania, but which most people chose to term 'genius,' and that from a purely scientific standpoint it was evident that the poets, painters, musicians, sculptors, and all the widely renowned 'great ones' of the earth should be classified as so many brains more or less affected by abnormal molecular formation, which strictly speaking amounted to brain-deformity. he assured me, that to the properly balanced, healthily organized brain of the human animal, genius was an impossibility--it was a malady as unnatural as rare. 'and it is singular, very singular,' he added with a complacent smile, 'that the world should owe all its finest art and literature merely to a few varieties of molecular disease!' i thought it singular enough, too,--however, i did not care to argue with him; i only felt that if the illness of genius had at any time affected me, it was pretty well certain i should now suffer no more from its delicious pangs and honey-sweet fever. i was cured! the probing-knife of the world's cynicism had found its way to the musically throbbing centre of divine disquietude in my brain, and had there cut down the growth of fair imaginations for ever. i thrust aside the bright illusions that had once been my gladness; i forced myself to look with unflinching eyes at the wide waste of universal nothingness revealed to me by the rigid positivists and iconoclasts of the century; but my heart died within me; my whole being froze as it were into an icy apathy,--i wrote no more; i doubt whether i shall ever write again. of a truth, there is nothing to write about. all has been said. the days of the troubadours are past,--one cannot string canticles of love for men and women whose ruling passion is the greed of gold. yet i have sometimes thought life would be drearier even than it is, were the voices of poets altogether silent; and i wish--yes! i wish i had it in my power to brand my sign-manual on the brazen face of this coldly callous age-brand it deep in those letters of living lire called fame!" a look of baffled longing and un gratified ambition came into his musing eyes,-his strong, shapely white hand clenched nervously, as though it grasped some unseen yet perfectly tangible substance. just then the storm without, which had partially lulled during the last few minutes, began its wrath anew: a glare of lightning blazed against the uncurtained window, and a heavy clap of thunder burst overhead with the sudden crash of an exploding bomb. "you care for fame?" asked ileliobas abruptly, as soon as the terrific uproar had subsided into a distant, dull rumbling mingled with the pattering dash of hail. "i care for it--yes!" replied alwyn, and his voice was very low and dreamy. "for though the world is a graveyard, as i have said, full of unmarked tombs, still here and there we find graves, such as shelley's or byron's, whereon pale flowers, like sweet suggestions of ever-silenced music, break into continuous bloom. and shall i not win my own death-garland of asphodel?" there was an indescribable, almost heart-rending pathos in his manner of uttering these last words--a hopelessness of effort and a despairing sense of failure which he himself seemed conscious of, for, meeting the fixed and earnest gaze of ileliobas, he quickly relapsed into his usual tone of indolent indifference. "you see," he said, with a forced smile, "my story is not very interesting! no hairbreadth escapes, no thrilling adventures, no love intrigues--nothing but mental misery, for which few people have any sympathy. a child with a cut finger gets more universal commiseration than a man with a tortured brain and breaking heart, yet there can be no quotion as to which is the most intense duel long enduring anguish of the two. however, such as my troubles are i have told you all i have laid bare my 'wound of living'--a wound that throbs and burns, and aches, more intolerably with every pissing hour and day--it is not unnatural, i think, that i should seek for a little cessation of suffering; a brief dreaming space in which to rest for a while, and escape from the deathful truth--truth, that like the flaming sword placed east of the fabled garden of eden, turns ruthlessly every way, keeping us out of the forfeited paradise of imaginative aspiration, which made the men of old time great because they deemed themselves immortal. it was a glorious faith! that strong consciousness, that in the change and upheaval of whole universes the soul of man should forever over-ride disaster! but now that we know ourselves to be of no more importance, relatively speaking, than the animalculae in a drop of stagnant water, what great works can be done, what noble deeds accomplished, in the face of the declared and proved futility of everything? still, if you can, as you say, liberate me from this fleshly prison, and give me new sensations and different experiences, why then let me depart with all possible speed, for i am certain i shall find in the storm-swept areas of space nothing worse than life as lived in this present world. remember, i am quite incredulous as to your professed power--" he paused and glanced at the white-robed, priestly figure opposite, then added, lightly, "but i am curious to test it all the same. are you ready to being your spells?--and shall i say the nunc dimittis?" chapter iii. departure. heliobas was silent--he seemed engaged in deep and anxious thought,--and he kept his steadfast eyes fixed on alwyn's countenance, as though he sought there the clew to some difficult problem. "what do you know of the nunc dimittis?" he asked at last, with a half-smile. "you might as well say pater noster,--both canticle and prayer would be equally unmeaning to you! for poet as you are,--or let me say as you were,--inasmuch as no atheist was ever a poet at the same time--" "you are wrong," interrupted alwyn quickly. "shelley was an atheist." "shelley, my good friend, was not an atheist [footnote: see the last two verses of adonais]. he strove to be one,--nay, he made pretence to be one,--but throughout his poems we hear the voice of his inner and better self appealing to that divinity and eternity which, in spite of the material part of him, he instinctively felt existent in his own being. i repeat, poet as your were, and poet as you will be again when the clouds on your mind are cleared,--you present the strange, but not uncommon spectacle of an immortal spirit fighting to disprove its own immortality. in a word, you will not believe in the soul." "i cannot!" said alwyn, with a hopeless gesture. "why?" "science can give us no positive proof of its existence; it cannot be defined." "what do you mean by science?" demanded heliobas. "the foot of the mountain, at which men now stand, grovelling and uncertain how to climb? or the glittering summit itself which touches god's throne?" alwyn made no answer. "tell me," pursued heliobas, "how do you define the vital principle? what mysterious agency sets the heart beating and the blood flowing? by the small porter's lantern of to-day's so-called science, will you fling a light on the dark riddle of an apparently purposeless universe, and explain to me why we live at all?" "evolution," responded alwyn shortly, "and necessity." "evolution from what?" persisted heliobas. "from one atom? what atom? and from whence came the atom? and why the necessity of any atom?" "the human brain reels at such questions!" said alwyn, vexedly and with impatience. "i cannot answer them--no one can!" "no one?" heliobas smiled very tranquilly. "do not be too sure of that! and why should the human brain 'reel'?--the sagacious, calculating, clear human brain that never gets tired, or puzzled, or perplexed!--that settles everything in the most practical and common-sense manner, and disposes of god altogether as an extraneous sort of bargain not wanted in the general economy of our little solar system! aye, the human brain is a wonderful thing!--and yet by a sharp, well-directed knock with this"--and he took up from the table a paper-knife with a massive, silver-mounted, weighty horn-handle--"i could deaden it in such wise that the soul could no more hold any communication with it, and it would lie an inert mass in the cranium, of no more use to its owner than a paralyzed limb." "you mean to infer that the brain cannot act without the influence of the soul?" "precisely! if the hands on the telegraph dial will not respond to the electric battery, the telegram cannot be deciphered. but it would be foolish to deny the existence of the electric battery because the dial is unsatisfactory! in like manner, when, by physical incapacity, or inherited disease, the brain can no longer receive the impressions or electric messages of the spirit, it is practically useless. yet the spirit is there all the same, dumbly waiting for release and another chance of expansion." "is this the way you account for idiocy and mania?" asked alwyn incredulously. "most certainly; idiocy and mania always come from man's interference with the laws of health and of nature--never otherwise. the soul placed within us by the creator is meant to be fostered by man's unfettered will; if man chooses to employ that unfettered will in wrong directions, he has only himself to blame for the disastrous results that follow. you may perhaps ask why god has thus left our wills unfettered: the answer is simple--that we may serve him by choice and not by compulsion. among the myriad million worlds that acknowledge his goodness gladly and undoubtingly, why should he seek to force unwilling obedience from us castaways!" "as we are on this subject," said alwyn, with a tinge of satire in his tone, "if you grant a god, and make him out to be supreme love, why in the name of his supposed inexhaustible beneficence should we be castaways at all?" "because in our overweening pride and egotism we have elected to be such," replied heliobas. "as angels have fallen, so have we. but we are not altogether castaways now, since this signal," and he touched the cross on his breast, "shone in heaven." alwyn shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "pardon me," he murmured coldly, "with every desire to respect your religious scruples, i really cannot, personally speaking, accept the tenets of a worn-out faith, which all the most intellectual minds of the day reject as mere ignorant superstition. the carpenter's son of judea was no doubt a very estimable person,--a socialist teacher whose doctrines were very excellent in theory but impossible of practice. that there was anything divine about him i utterly deny; and i confess i am surprised that you, a man of evident culture, do not seem to see the hollow absurdity of christianity as a system of morals and civilization. it is an ever-sprouting seed of discord and hatred between nations; it has served as a casus belli of the most fanatical and merciless character; it is answerable for whole seas of cruel and unnecessary bloodshed ..." "have you nothing new to say on the subject?" interposed heliobas, with a slight smile. "i have heard all this so often before, from divers kinds of men both educated and ignorant, who have a willful habit of forgetting all that christ himself prophesied concerning his creed of self-renunciation, so difficult to selfish humanity: 'think not that i come to send peace on the earth. i come, not to send peace, but a sword.' again 'ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.' ... 'all ye shall be offended because of me.' such plain words as these seem utterly thrown away upon this present generation. and do you know i find a curious lack of originality among so-called 'freethinkers'; in fact their thoughts can hardly be designated as 'free' when they all run in such extremely narrow grooves of similitude--a flock of sheep mildly trotting under the guidance of the butcher to the slaughterhouse could not be more tamely alike in their bleating ignorance as to where they are going. your opinions, for instance, differ scarce a whit from those of the common boor who, reading his penny radical paper, thinks he can dispense with god, and talks of the 'carpenter's son of judea' with the same easy flippancy and scant reverence as yourself. the 'intellectual minds of the day' to which you allude, are extraordinarily limited of comprehension, and none of them, literary or otherwise, have such a grasp of knowledge as any of these dead and gone authors," and he waved his hand toward the surrounding loaded bookshelves, "who lived centuries ago, and are now, as far as the general public is concerned, forgotten. all the volumes you see here are vellum manuscripts copied from the original slabs of baked clay, stone tablets, and engraved sheets of ivory, and among them is an ingenious treatise by one remeni adranos, chief astronomer to the then king of babylonia, setting forth the atom and evolution theory with far more clearness and precision than any of your modern professors. all such propositions are old--old as the hills, i assure you; and these days in which you live are more suggestive of the second childhood of the world than its progressive prime. especially in your own country the general dotage seems to have reached a sort of climax, for there you have the people actually forgetting, deriding, or denying their greatest men who form the only lasting glories of their history; they have even done their futile best to tarnish the unsoilable fame of shakespeare. in that land you,--who, according to your own showing, started for the race of life full of high hopes and inspiration to still higher endeavor--you have been, poisoned by the tainted atmosphere of atheism which is slowly and insidiously spreading itself through all ranks, particularly among the upper classes, who, while becoming every day more lax in their morals and more dissolute of behavior, consider themselves far too wise and 'highly cultured' to believe in anything. it is a most unwholesome atmosphere, charged with the morbidities and microbes of national disease and downfall; it is difficult to breathe it without becoming fever-smitten; and in your denial of the divinity of christ, i do not blame you any more than i would blame a poor creature struck down by a plague. you have caught the negative, agnostic, and atheistical infection from others,--it is not the natural, healthy condition of your temperament." "on the contrary it is, so far as that point goes," said alwyn with sudden heat--"i tell you i am amazed,--utterly amazed, that you, with your intelligence, should uphold such a barbaric idea as the divinity of christ! human reason revolts at it,--and after all, make as light of it as you will, reason is the only thing that exalts us a little above the level of the beasts." "nay--the beasts share the gift of reason in common with us," replied heliobas, "and man only proves his ignorance if he denies the fact. often indeed the very insects show superior reasoning ability to ourselves, any thoroughly capable naturalist would bear me out in this assertion." "well, well!" and alwyn grew impatient--"reason or no reason, i again repeat that the legend on which christianity is founded is absurd and preposterous,--why, if there were a grain of truth in it, judas iscariot instead of being universally condemned, ought to be honored and canonized as the first of saints!" "must i remind you of your early lesson days?" asked heliobas mildly. "you will find it written in a book you appear to have forgotten, that christ expressly prophesied, 'woe to that man' by whom he was betrayed. i tell, you, little as you credit it, there is not a word that the sinless one uttered while on this earth, that has not been or shall not be in time fulfilled. but i do not wish to enter into any controversies with you; you have told me your story,--i have heard it with interest,--and i may add with sympathy. you are a poet, struck dumb by materialism because you lacked strength to resist the shock,--you would fain recover your singing-speech--and this is in truth the reason why you have come to me. you think that if you could gain some of the strange experiences which others have had while under my influence, you might win back your lost inspiration--though you do not know why you think this--neither do i--i can only guess." "and your guess is...?" demanded alwyn with an air of affected indifference. "that some higher influence is working for your rescue and safety," replied heliobas. "what influence i dare not presume to imagine, but--there are always angels near!" "angels!" alwyn laughed aloud. "how many more fairy tales are you going to weave for me out of your fertile oriental imagination? angels! ... see here, my good heliobas, i am perfectly willing to grant that you may be a very clever man with an odd prejudice in favor of christianity,--but i must request that you will not talk to me of angels and spirits or any such nonsense, as if i were a child waiting to be amused, instead of a full-grown man with ..." "with so full-grown an intellect that it has out-grown god!" finished heliobas serenely. "quite so! yet angels, after all, are only immortal souls such as yours or mine when set free of their earthly tenements. for instance, when i look at you thus," and he raised his eyes with a lustrous, piercing glance--"i see the proud, strong, and rebellious angel in you far more distinctly than your outward shape of man ... and you ... when you look at me--" he broke off, for alwyn at that moment sprang from his chair, and, staring fixedly at him, uttered a quick, fierce exclamation. "ah! i know you now!" he cried in sudden and extraordinary excitement--"i know you well! we have met before!--why,--after all that has passed,--do we meet again?" this singular speech was accompanied by a still more singular transfiguration of countenance--a dark, fiery glory burned in his eyes, and, in the stern, frowning wonder and defiance of his expression and attitude, there was something grand yet terrible,--menacing yet supernaturally sublime. he stood so for an instant's space, majestically sombre, like some haughty, discrowned emperor confronting his conqueror,--a rumbling, long-continued roll of thunder outside seemed to recall him to himself, and he pressed his hand tightly down over his eyelids, as though to shut out some overwhelming vision. after a pause he looked up again,--wildly, confusedly,--almost beseechingly,--and heliobas, observing this, rose and advanced toward him. "peace!" he said, in low, impressive tones,--"we have recognized each other,--but on earth such recognitions are brief and soon forgotten!" he waited for a few seconds,--then resumed lightly, "come, look at me now! ... what do you see?" "nothing ... but yourself!" he replied, sighing deeply as he spoke--"yet ... oddly enough, a moment ago i fancied you had altogether a different appearance,--and i thought i saw ... no matter what! ... i cannot describe it!" his brows contracted in a puzzled line. "it was a curious phenomenon--very curious ... and it affected me strangely..." he stopped abruptly,--then added, with a slight flush of annoyance on his face, "i perceive you are an adept in the art of optical illusion!" heliobas laughed softly. "of course! what else can you expect of a charlatan, a trickster, and a monk to boot! deception, deception throughout, my dear sir! ... and have you not asked to be deceived?" there was a fine, scarcely perceptible satire in his manner; he glanced at the tall oaken clock that stood in one corner of the room--its hands pointed to eleven. "now, mr. alwyn," he went on, "i think we have talked quite enough for this evening, and my advice is, that you retire to rest, and think over what i have said to you. i am willing to help you if i can,--but with your beliefs, or rather your non-beliefs, i do not hesitate to tell you frankly that the exertion of my internal force upon yours in your present condition might be fraught with extreme danger and suffering. you have spoken of truth, 'the deathful truth'; this being, however, nothing but truth according to the world's opinion, which changes with every passing generation, and therefore is not truth at all. there is another truth--the everlasting truth--the pivot of all life, which never changes; and it is with this alone that my science deals. were i to set you at liberty as you desire,--were your intelligence too suddenly awakened to the blinding awfulness of your mistaken notions of life, death, and futurity, the result might be more overpowering than either you or i can imagine! i have told you what i can do,--your incredulity does not alter the fact of my capacity. i can sever you,--that is, your soul, which you cannot define, but which nevertheless exists,--from your body, like a moth from its chrysalis; but i dare not even picture to myself what scorching flame the moth might not heedlessly fly into! you might in your temporary state of release find that new impetus to your thoughts you so ardently desire, or you might not,--in short, it is impossible to form a guess as to whether your experience might be one of supernal ecstasy or inconceivable horror." he paused a moment,--alwyn was watching him with a close intentness that bordered on fascination and presently he continued, "it is best from all points of view, that you should consider the matter more thoroughly than you have yet done; think it over well and carefully until this time to-morrow--then, if you are quite resolved--" "i am resolved now!" said alwyn slowly and determinately. "if you are so certain of your influence, come! ... unbar my chains! ... open the prison-door! let me go hence to-night; there is no time like the present!" "to night!" and heliobas turned his keen, bright eyes full upon him, with a look of amazement and reproach--"to night' without faith, preparation or prayer, you are willing to be tossed through the realms of space like a grain of dust in a whirling tempest? beyond the glittering gyration of unnumbered stars--through the sword-like flash of streaming comets--through darkness--through light--through depths of profoundest silence--over heights of vibrating sound--you--you will dare to wander in these god-invested regions--you a blasphemer and a doubter of god!" his voice thrilled with passion,--his aspect was so solemn, and earnest, and imposing that alwyn, awed and startled, remained for a moment mute--then, lifting his head proudly, answered-- "yes, i dare! if i am immortal i will test my immortality! i will face god and find these angels you talk about! what shall prevent me?" "find the angels!" heliobas surveyed him sadly as he spoke. "nay! ... pray rather that they may find thee!" he looked long and steadfastly at alwyn's countenance, on which there was just then the faint glimmer of a rather mocking smile,--and as he looked, his own face darkened suddenly into an expression of vague trouble and uneasiness--and a strange quiver passed visibly through him from head to foot. "you are bold, mr. alwyn,"--he said at last, moving a little away from his guest and speaking with some apparent effort--"bold to a fault, but at the same time you are ignorant of all that lies behind the veil of the unseen. i should be much to blame if i sent you hence to-night, utterly unguided--utterly uninstructed. i myself must think--and pray--before i venture to incur so terrible a responsibility. to-morrow perhaps--to-night, no! i cannot--moreover i will not!" alwyn flushed hotly with anger. "trickster!" he thought. "he feels he has no power over me, and he fears to run the risk of failure!" "did i hear you aright?" he said aloud in cold determined accents. "you cannot? you will not? ... by heaven!"--and his voice rose, "i say you shall!" as he uttered these words a rush of indescribable sensations overcame him,--he seemed all at once invested with some mysterious, invincible, supreme authority,--he felt twice a man and more than half a god, and moved by an irresistible impulse which he could neither explain nor control, he made two or three hasty steps forward,--when heliobas, swiftly retreating, waved him off with an eloquent gesture of mingled appeal and menace. "back! back!" he cried warningly. "if you come one inch nearer to me i cannot answer for your safety--back, i say! good god! you do not know your own power!" alwyn scarcely heeded him,--some fatal attraction drew him on, and he still advanced, when all suddenly he paused, trembling violently. his nerves began to throb acutely,--the blood in his veins was like fire,--there was a curious strangling tightness in his throat that interrupted and oppressed his breathing,--he stared straight before him with large, luminous, impassioned eyes. what--what was that dazzling something in the air that flashed and whirled and shone like glittering wheels of golden flame? his lips parted ... he stretched out his hands in the uncertain manner of a blind man feeling his way ... "oh god! ... god!" ... he muttered as though stricken by some sudden amazement,--then, with a smothered, gasping cry, he staggered and fell heavily forward on the floor--insensible! at the self-same instant the window blew open, with a loud crash--it swung backward and forward on its hinges, and a torrent of rain poured through it slantwise into the room. a remarkable change had taken place in the aspect and bearing of heliobas,--he stood as though rooted to the spot, trembling from head to foot,--he had lost all his usual composure,--he was deathly pale, and breathed with difficulty. presently recovering himself a little he strove to shut the swinging casement, but the wind was so boisterous, that he had to pause a moment to gain strength for the effort, and instinctively he glanced out at the tempestuous night. the clouds were scurrying over the sky like great black vessels on a foaming sea,--the lightning flashed incessantly, and the thunder reverberated over the mountains in tremendous volleys as of besieging cannon. stinging drops of icy sleet dashed his face and the front of his white garb as he inhaled the stormy freshness of the strong, upward-sweeping blast for a few seconds--and then, with the air of one gathering together all his scattered forces, he shut to the window firmly and barred it across. turning now to the unconscious alwyn, he lifted him from the floor to a low couch near at hand, and there laid him gently down. this done, he stood looking at him with an expression of the deepest anxiety, but made no attempt to rouse him from his death-like swoon. his own habitual serenity was completely broken through,--he had all the appearance of having received some unexpected and overwhelming shock,--his very lips were blanched and quivered nervously. he waited for several minutes, attentively watching the recumbent figure before him, till gradually,--very gradually,--that figure took upon itself the pale, stern beauty of a corpse from which life has but recently and painlessly departed. the limbs grew stiff and rigid--the features smoothed into that mysteriously wise placidity which is so often seen in the faces of the dead,--the closed eyelids looked purple and livid as though bruised ... there was not a breath, not a tremor, to offer any outward suggestion of returning animation,--and when, after some little time, heliobas bent down and listened, there was no pulsation of the heart ... it had ceased to beat! to all appearances alwyn was dead--any physician would have certified the fact, though how he had come by his death there was no evidence to show. and in that condition, ... stirless, breathless ... white as marble, cold and inanimate as stone, heliobas left him. not in indifference, but in sure knowledge--knowledge far beyond all mere medical science--that the senseless clay would in due time again arise to life and motion; that the casket was but temporarily bereft of its jewel,--and that the jewel itself, the soul of the poet, had by a superhuman access of will, managed to break its bonds and escape elsewhere. but whither? ... into what vast realms of translucent light or drear shadow? ... this was a question to which the mystic monk, gifted as he was with a powerful spiritual insight into "things unseen and eternal," could find no satisfactory answer, and in his anxious perplexity he betook himself to the chapel, and there, by the red glimmer of the crimson star that shone dimly above the altar, he knelt alone and prayed in silence till the heavy night had passed, and the storm had slain itself with the sword of its own fury on the dark slopes of the pass of dariel. chapter iv. "angelus domine." the next morning dawned pallidly over a sea of gray mist--not a glimpse of the landscape was visible--nothing but a shadowy vastness of floating vapor that moved slowly fold upon fold, wave upon wave, as though bent on blotting out the world. a very faint, chill light peered through the narrow arched window of the room where alwyn lay, still wrapped in that profound repose, so like the last long sleep from which some of our modern scientists tell us there can be no awakening. his condition was unchanged,--the wan beams of the early clay falling cross his features intensified their waxen stillness and pallor,--the awful majesty of death was on him,--the pathetic helplessness and perishableness of body without spirit. presently the monastery bell began to ring for matins, and as its clear chime struck through the deep silence, the door opened, and heliobas, accompanied by another monk, whose gentle countenance and fine, soft eyes betokened the serenity of his disposition, entered the apartment. together they approached the couch, and gazed long and earnestly at the supernaturally slumbering man. "he is still far away!" said heliobas at last, sighing as he spoke. "so far away that my mind misgives me.... alas, hilarion! how limited is our knowledge! ... even with all the spiritual aids of spiritual life how little can be accomplished! we learn one thing, and another presents itself--we conquer one difficulty, and another instantly springs up to obstruct our path. now if i had only had the innate perception required to foresee the possible flight of this released immortal creature, might i not have saved it from some incalculable misery and suffering?" "i think not," answered in rather musing accents the monk called hilarion--"i think not. such protection can never be exercised by mere human intelligence, if this soul is to be saved or shielded in its invisible journeying it will be by some means that not all the marvels of our science can calculate. you say he was without faith?" "entirely" "what was his leading principle?" "a desire for what he called truth," replied heliobas. "he, like many others of his class, never took the trouble to consider very deeply the inner meaning of pilate's famous question, 'what is truth?' we know what it is, as generally accepted--a few so called facts which in a thousand years will all be contradicted, mixed up with a few finite opinions propounded by unstable minded men. in brief, truth, according to the world, is simply whatever the world is pleased to consider as truth for the time being. 'tis a somewhat slight thing to stake one's immortal destinies upon!" hilarion raised one of alwyn's cold, pulseless hands--it was stiff, and white as marble. "i suppose," he said, "there is no doubt of his returning hither?" "none whatever," answered heliobas decisively. "his life on earth is assured for many years yet,--inasmuch as his penance is not finished, his recompense not won. thus far my knowledge of his fate is certain." "then you will bring him back to-day?" pursued hilarion. "bring him back? i? i cannot!" said heliobas, with a touch of sad humility in his tone. "and for this very reason i feared to send him hence,--and would not have done so,--not without preparation at any rate,--could i have had my way. his departure was more strange than any i have ever known--moreover, it was his own doing, not mine. i had positively refused to exert my influence upon him, because i felt he was not in my sphere, and that therefore neither i nor any of those higher intelligences with which i am in communication could control or guide his wanderings. he, however, was as positively determined that i should exert it--and to this end he suddenly concentrated all the pent up fire of his nature in one rapid effort of will, and advanced upon me.... i warned him, but in vain! quick as lightning flash meets lightning flash, the two invisible immortal forces within us sprang into instant opposition,--with this difference, that while he was ignorant and unconscious of his power, i was cognizant and fully conscious of mine. mine was focused, as it were, upon him,--his was untrained and scattered,--the result was that mine won the victory: yet understand me well, hilarion,--if i could have held myself in, i would have done so. it was he,--he who drew my force out of me as one would draw a sword out of its scabbard--the sword may be ever so stiffly fixed in its sheath, but the strong hand will wrench it forth somehow, and use it for battle when needed." "then," said hilarion wonderingly, "you admit this man possesses a power greater than your own?" "aye, if he knew it!" returned heliobas, quietly. "but he does not know. only an angel could teach him--and in angels he does not believe." "he may believe now.... !" "he may. he will--he must, ... if he has gone where i would have him go." "a poet, is he not!" queried hilarion softly, bending down to look more attentively at the beautiful antinous-like face colorless and cold as sculptured alabaster. "an uncrowned monarch of a world of song!" responded heliobas, with a tender inflection in his rich voice. "a genius such as the earth sees but once in a century! but he has been smitten with the disease of unbelief and deprived of hope,--and where there is no hope there is no lasting accomplishment." he paused, and with a touch as gentle as a woman's, rearranged the cushions under alwyn's heavy head, and laid his hand in grave benediction on the broad white brow shaded by its clustering waves of dark hair. "may the infinite love bring him out of danger into peace and safety!" he said solemnly,--then turning away, he took his companion by the arm, and they both left the room, closing the door quietly behind them. the chapel bell went on tolling slowly, slowly, sending muffled echoes through the fog for some minutes--then it ceased, and profound stillness reigned. the monastery was always a very silent habitation,--situated as it was on so lofty and barren a crag, it was far beyond the singing-reach of the smaller sweet-throated birds--now and then an eagle clove the mist with a whirr of wings and a discordant scream on his way toward some distant mountain eyrie--but no other sound of awakening life broke the hush of the slowly widening dawn. an hour passed--and alwyn still remained in the same position,--as pallidly quiescent as a corpse stretched out for burial. by and by a change begin to thrill mysteriously through the atmosphere, like the flowing of amber wine through crystal--the heavy vapors shuddered together as though suddenly lashed by a whip of flame,--they rose, swayed to and fro, and parted asunder.... then, dissolving into thin, milk-white veils of fleecy film, they floated away, disclosing as they vanished, the giant summits of the encircling mountains, that lifted themselves to the light, one above another, in the form of frozen billows. over these a delicate pink flush flitted in tremulous wavy lines--long arrows of gold began to pierce the tender shimmering blue of the sky--soft puffs of cloud tinged with vivid crimson and pale green were strewn along the eastern horizon like flowers in the path of an advancing hero,--and then all at once there was a slight cessation of movement in the heavens--an attentive pause as though the whole universe waited for some great splendor as yet unrevealed. that splendor came, in a red blaze of triumph the sun rose, pouring a shower of beamy brilliancy over the white vastness of the heights covered with perpetual snow,--jagged peaks, sharp as scimetars and sparkling with ice, caught fire, and seemed to melt away in an absorbing sea of radiance, ... the waiting clouds moved on, redecked in deeper hues of royal purple--and the full morning glory was declared. as the dazzling effulgence streamed through the window and flooded the couch where alwyn lay, a faint tinge of color returned to his face,--his lips moved,--his broad chest heaved with struggling sighs,--his eyelids quivered,--and his before rigid hands relaxed and folded themselves together in an attitude of peace and prayer. like a statue becoming slowly and magically flushed with life, the warm hues of the naturally flowing blood deepened through the whiteness of his skin,--his breathing grew more and more easy and regular,--his features gradually assumed their wonted appearance, and presently ... without any violent start or exclamation ... he awoke! but was it a real awakening? or rather a continuation of some strange impression received in slumber? he rose to his feet, pushing back the hair from his brow with an entranced look of listening wonderment--his eyes were humid yet brilliant--his whole aspect was that of one inspired. he paced once or twice up and down the room, but he was evidently unconscious of his surroundings--he seemed possessed by thoughts which absorbed his whole being. presently he seated himself at the table, and absently fingering the writing materials that were upon it, he appeared meditatively to question their use and meaning. then, drawing several sheets of paper toward him, he began to write with extraordinary rapidity and eagerness--his pen travelled on smoothly, uninterrupted by blot or erasure. sometimes he paused--but when he did it was always with an upraised, attentively listening expression. once he murmured aloud "ardath! nay, i shall not forget!--we will meet at ardath!" and again he resumed his occupation. page after page he covered with close writing-no weak, uncertain scrawl, but a firm bold, neat caligraphy,--his own peculiar, characteristic hand. the sun mounted higher and higher in the heavens, ... hour after hour passed, and still lie wrote on, apparently unaware of the flitting time. at mid-day the bell, which had not rung since early dawn, began to swing quickly to and fro in the chapel turret,--the deep bass of the organ breathed on the silence a thunderous monotone, and a bee-like murmur of distant voices proclaimed the words: "angelas domine nuntiavit mariae." at the first sound of this chant, the spell that enchained alwyn's mind was broken; drawing a quick dashing line under what he had written, he sprang up erect and dropped his pen. "heliobas!" he cried loudly, "heliobas! where is the field of ardath?" his voice seemed strange and unfamiliar to his own ears,--he waited, listening, and the chant went on--"et verbo caro factus est, et habitavit in nobis." suddenly, as if he could endure his solitude no longer, he rushed to the door and threw it open, thereby nearly flinging himself against heliobas, who was entering the room at the same moment. he drew back, ... stared wildly, and passing his hand across his forehead confusedly, forced a laugh. "i have been dreaming!" he said, ... then with a passionate gesture he added, "god! if the dream were true!" he was strongly excited, and heliobas, slipping one arm round him in a friendly manner, led him back to the chair he had vacated, observing him closely as he did so. "you call this dreaming," he inquired with a slight smile, pointing to the table strewn with manuscript on which the ink was not yet dry. "then dreams are more productive than active exertion! here is goodly matter for printers! ... a fair result it seems of one morning's labor!" alwyn started up, seized the written sheets, and scanned them eagerly. "it is my handwriting!" he muttered in a tone of stupefied amazement. "of course! whose handwriting should it be?" returned heliobas, watching him with scientifically keen, yet kindly interest. "then it is true!" he exclaimed. "true--by the sweetness of her eyes,--true, by the love-lit radiance of her smile!--true, o thou god whom i dared to doubt! true by the marvels of thy matchless, wisdom!" and with this strange outburst, he began to read in feverish haste what he had written. his breath came and went quickly,--his cheeks flushed, his eyes dilated,--line after line he perused with apparent wonder and rapture,--when suddenly interrupting himself he raised his head and recited in a half whisper: "with thundering notes of song sublime i cast my sins away from me--on stairs of sound i mount--i climb! the angels wait and pray for me! "i heard that stanza somewhere when i was a boy ... why do i think of it now? she has waited,--so she said,--these many thousand days!" he paused meditatively,--and then resumed his reading, heliobas touched his arm. "it will take you some time to read that, mr. alwyn," he gently observed. "you have written more than you know." alwyn roused himself and looked straight at the speaker. putting down his manuscript and resting one hand upon it, he gazed with an air of solemn inquiry into the noble face turned steadfastly toward his own. "tell me," he said wistfully, "how has it happened? this composition is mine and yet not mine. for it is a grand and perfect poem of which i dare not call myself the author! i might as well snatch her crown of starry flowers and call myself an angel!" he spoke with mingled fervor and humility. to any ordinary observer he would have seemed to be laboring under home strange hallucination,--but heliobas was more deeply instructed. "come, come! ... your thoughts are wide of this world," he said kindly. "try to recall them! i can tell you nothing, for i know nothing.... you have been absent many hours." "absent? yes!" and alwyn's voice thrilled with an infinite regret. "absent from earth.. ah! would to god i might hive stayed with her, in heaven! my love, my love! where shal i find her if not in the field of ardath?" chapter v. a mystic tryst. as he uttered the last words, his eyes darkened into a soft expression of musing tenderness, and he remained silent for many minutes, during which the entranced, almost unearthly beauty of his face underwent a gradual change ... the mystic light that had for a time transfigured it, faded and died away--and by degrees he recovered all his ordinary self possession. presently glancing at heliobas, who stood patiently waiting till he should have overcome whatever emotions were at work in his mind, he smiled. "you must think me mad!" he said. "perhaps i am,--but if so, it is the madness of love that has seized me. love! ... it is a passion i have never known before.. i have used it as a mere thread whereon to string madrigals, a background of uncertain tint serving to show off the brighter lines of poesy--but now! ... now i am enslaved and bound, conquered and utterly subdued by love! ... love for the sweetest, queenliest, most radiant creature that ever captured or commanded the worship of man! i may seem mad--but i know i am sane--i realize the actual things of this world about me mind is--my clear, my thoughts are collected, and yet i repeat, i love! ... aye! with all the force and fervor of this strongly beating human heart of mine;"--and he touched his breast as he spoke. "and it comes to this, most wise and worthy heliobas,--if your spells have conjured up this vision of immortal youth and grace and purity that has suddenly assumed such sovereignty over my life--then you must do something further, ... you must find, or teach me how to find, the living reality of my dream!" heliobas surveyed him with some wonder and commiseration. "a moment ago and you yourself declared your dream was true!" he observed. "this," and he pointed to the manuscript on the table, "seemed to you sufficient to prove it. now you have altered you opinion: . . why? i have worked no spells upon you, and i am entirely ignorant as to what your recent experience has been. moreover, what do you mean by a 'living reality'? the flesh and blood, bone and substance that perishes in a brief seventy years or so and crumbles into indistinguishable dust? surely, ... if, as i conjecture from your words, you have seen one of the fair inhabitants of higher spheres than ours, . . you would not drag her spiritual and death unconscious brightness down to the level of the 'reality of a merely human life? nay, if you would, you could not!" alwyn looked at him inquiringly and with a perplexed air. "you speak in enigmas," he said somewhat vexedly. "however, the whole thing is an enigma and would puzzle the most sagacious head. that the physicial workings of the brain, in a site of trance, should arouse in me a passion of love for an imaginary being, and, at the same time, enable to write a poem such as must make the fame of any man, is certainly a remarkable and noteworthy result of scientific mesmerism!" "now, my dear sir," interrupted heliobas in a tone of good-natured remonstrance,--"do not--if you have any respect for science at all--do not, i beg of you, talk to me of the 'physical workings' of a dead brain?" "a dead brain!" echoed alwyn. "what do you mean?" "what i say," returned heliobas, composedly. "'physical workings' of any kind are impossible unless the motive power of physical life be in action. you, regarded as a human creature merely, had during seven hours practically ceased to be,--the vital principle no longer existed in your body, having taken its departure together with its inseparable companion, the soul. when it returned, it set the clockwork of your material mechanism in motion again, obeying the sovereignty of the spirit that sought to express by material means, the utterance of heaven-inspired thought. thus your hand mechanically found its way to the pen--thus you wrote, unconscious of what you were writing, yielding yourself entirely to the guidance of the spiritual part of your nature, which at that particular juncture was absolutely predominant, though now weighted anew by earthy influences it has partially relaxed its supernal sway. all this i readily perceive and understand ... but what you did, and where you were conducted during the time of your complete severance from the tenement of clay in which you are again imprisoned, ... this i have yet to learn." while heliobas was speaking, alwyn's countenance had grown vaguely troubled, and now into his deep poetic eyes there came a look of sudden penitence. "true!" he said softly, almost humbly, "i will tell you everything while i remember it,--though it is not likely i shall ever forget! i believe there must be some truth after all in what you say concerning the soul, ... at any rate, i do not at present feel inclined to call your theories in question. to begin with, i find myself unable altogether to explain what it was that happened to me during my conversation with you last night. it was a very strange sensation! i recollect that i had expressed a wish to be placed under your magnetic or electric influence, and that you had refused my request. then an odd idea suggested itself to me--namely, that i could if i chose compel your assent,--and, filled with this notion, i think i addressed you, or was about to address you, in a rather peremptory manner, when--all at once--a flash of blinding light struck me fiercely across the eyes like a scourge! stung with the hot pain, and dazzled by the glare, i turned away from you and fled ... or so it seemed--fled on my own instinctive impulse ... into darkness!" he paused and drew a long, shuddering breath, like one who has narrowly escaped imminent destruction. "darkness!" he went on in low accents that thrilled with the memory of a past feat--"dense, horrible, frightful darkness!--darkness that palpitated heavily with the labored motion of unseen things!--darkness that clung and closed about me in masses of clammy, tangible thickness,--its advancing and resistless weight rolled over me like a huge waveless ocean--and, absorbed within it, i was drawn down--down--down toward some hidden, impalpable but all supreme agony, the dull unceasing throbs of which i felt, yet could not name. 'o god!' i cried aloud, abandoning myself to wild despair, 'o god! where are thou?' then i heard a great rushing sound as of a strong wind beaten through with wings, and a voice, grand and sweet as a golden trumpet blown suddenly in the silence of night, answered: 'here! ... and everywhere!' with that, a slanting stream of opaline radiance cleft the gloom with the sweep of a sword-blade, and i was caught up quickly ... i know not how ... for i saw nothing!" again he pushed and looked wistfully at heliobas, who in turn regarded him with gentle steadfastness. "it was wonderful--terrible!" ... he continued slowly--"yet beautiful! ... that invisible strength that rescued, surrounded, and uplifted me; and--" here he hesitated, and a faint flush colored his cheeks and stole up to the roots of his clustering hair--"dream or no dream, i feel i cannot now altogether reject the idea of an existing divinity. in brief ... i believe in god!" "why?" asked heliobas quietly. alwyn met his gaze frankly and with a soft brightening of his handsome features. "i cannot give you any logical reasons," he said. "moreover, logical reasoning would not now affect me in a matter which seems to me more full of conviction than any logic. i believe, ... simply because i believe!" heliobas smiled--a very warm and kindly smile--but said nothing, and alwyn resumed his narrative. "as i tell you, i was caught up,--snatched out of that black profundity with inconceivable swiftness,--and when the ascending movement ceased, i found myself floating lightly like a wind-blown leaf through twining arches of amber mist, colored here and there with rays of living flame ... i heard whispers, and fragments of song and speech, all sweeter than the sweetest of our known music, ... and still i saw nothing. presently some one called me by name--'theos! ... theos!' i strove to answer, but i had no words wherewith to match that silver-toned, far-reaching utterance; and once again the rich vibrating notes pealed through the vaporous fire-tinted air--'theos, my beloved! higher! ... higher! ... all my being thrilled and quivered to that call. i yearned to obey, ... i struggled to rise--my efforts were in vain; when, to my joy and wonder, a small, invisible hand, delicate yet strong, clasped mine, and i was borne aloft with breathless, indescribable, lightning-like rapidity--on ... on ... and ever upward, till at last, alighting on a smooth, fair turf, thick-grown with fragrant blossoms of strange loveliness and soft hues, i beheld her! ... and she bade me welcome." "and who," questioned heliobas, in tones of hushed reverence, "who was this being that thus enchants your memory?" "i know not!" replied alwyn, with a dreamy smile of rapture on his lips and in his eyes. "and yet her face ... oh! the entrancing beauty of that face! ... was not altogether unfamiliar. i felt that i must have loved and lost her ages upon ages ago! crowned with white flowers, and robed in a garb that seemed spun from midsummer moonbeams, she stood ... a smiling maiden-sweetness in a paradise of glad sights and sounds, ... ah! eve, with the first sunrise radiance on her brows, was not more divinely fair! ... venus, new-springing from the silver sea-foam, was not more queenly glorious! 'i will remind thee of all thou hast forgotten,' she said, and i understood her soft, half-reproachful accents. 'it is not yet too late! thou hast lost much and suffered much, and thou hast blindly erred, but notwithstanding all these things, thou art my beloved since these many thousand days!'" "days--which the world counts as years!" murmured heliobas. "you saw no one but her?" "no one--we were alone together. a vast woodland stretched before us, she took my hand and led me beneath broad-arching trees to where a lake, silvered by some strange radiance, glittered diamond-like in the stirring of a balmy wind. here she bade me rest--and sank gently on the flowery bank beside me. then viewing her more closely i greatly feared her beauty--for i saw a wondrous halo wide and dazzling--a golden aureole that spread itself around her in scintillating points of light--light that reflected itself also on me and bathed me in its luminous splendor. and as i gazed at her in speechless awe, she leaned toward me nearer and nearer, her deep, pure eyes burning softly into mine ... her hands touched me--her arms closed round me ... her bright head lay in all its shining loveliness on my breast! a tremulous ecstasy thrilled me as with fire ... i gazed upon her as one might gaze on some fluttering, rare-plumaged bird ... i dare not move or speak ... i drank her sweetness down into my soul! now and then a sound as of distant harps playing broke the love-weighted silence ... and thus we remained together a heavenly breathing-space of wordless rapture; till suddenly and swiftly, as though she had received an invisible summons, she arose, her looks expressing a saintly patience, and laying her two hands upon my brows--'write,' she said, 'write and proclaim a message of hope to the sorrowful star! write and let thine utterance be a true echo of the eternal music with which these spheres are filled! write to the rhythmic beat of the harmonies within thee ... for lo! once more as in aforetime my changeless love renews in thee the power of perfect song!' with that she moved away serenely and beckoned me to follow ... i obeyed in haste and trembling ... long rays of rosy light swept after her like trailing wings, and as she walked, the golden nimbus round her form glowed with a thousand brilliant and changeful hues like the rainbows seen in the spray of falling water! through lush green grass thick with blossom,--under groves heavy with fragrant leaves and laden with the songs of birds ... over meadows cool and mountain-sheltered, on we went--she, like the goddess of advancing spring, i eagerly treading in her radiant footsteps ... and presently we came to a place where two paths met, ... one all overgrown with azure and white flowers, that ascended away and away into undiscerned distance, ... the other sloping deeply downward, and full of shadows, yet dimly illumined by a pale, mysterious splendor like frosty moonlight streaming on sad-colored seas. here she turned and faced me, and i saw her divine eyes droop with the moisture of unshed tears. 'theos! ... theos!' ... she cried, and the passionate cadence of her voice was as the singing of a nightingale in lonely woodlands ... 'again ... again we must part! ... part! ... oh, my beloved! ... my beloved! how long wilt thou sever me from thy soul and leave me alone and sorrowful amid the joys of heaven?' as she thus spoke a sense of utter shame and loss and failure overwhelmed me, ... pierced to the very core of my being by an unexplained yet most bitter remorse, i cast myself down in deep abasement before her, ... i caught her glittering robe ... i strove to say 'forgive!' but i was speechless as a convicted traitor in the presence of a wronged queen! all at once the air about us was rent by a great noise of thunder intermingled with triumphal music,--she drew her sheeny garment from my touch in haste, and stooping to me where i knelt, she kissed my forehead ... 'thy road lies there'--she murmured in quick, soft tones, pointing to the vista of varying light and shadow,--'mine, yonder!' and she looked toward the flower-garlanded avenue--'hasten! ... it is time thou wert far hence! ... return to thine own star lest its portals be closed on thee forever and thou be plunged into deeper darkness! seek thou the field of ardath!--as christ lives, i will meet thee there! farewell!' with these words she left me, passing away, arrayed in glory, treading on flowers, and ever ascending till she disappeared! ... while i, stricken with a great repentance, went slowly, as she bade me, down into the shadow, and a rippling breeze-like melody, as of harps and lutes most tenderly attuned, followed me as i descended. and now," said alwyn, interrupting his narrative and speaking with emphatic decision, "surely there remains but one thing for me to do--that is, to find the 'field of ardath.'" heliobas smiled gravely. "nay, if you consider the whole episode a dream," he observed, "why trouble yourself? dreams are seldom realized, ... and as to the name of ardath, have you ever heard it before?" "never!" replied alwyn. "still--if there is such a place on this planet i will most certainly journey thither! maybe you know something of its whereabouts?" "finish your story," said heliobas, quietly evading the question. "i am curious to hear the end of your strange adventure." "there is not much more to tell," and alwyn sighed a little as he spoke. "i wandered further and further into the gloom, oppressed by many thoughts and troubled by vague fears, till presently it grew so dark that i could scarcely see where i was going, though i was able to guide myself in the path that stretched before me by means of the pale luminous rays that frequently pierced the deepening obscurity, and these rays i now noticed fell ever downwards in the form of a cross. as i went on i was pursued as it were by the sound of those delicate harmonies played on invisible, sweet strings; and after a while i perceived at the extreme end of the long, dim vista a door standing open, through which i entered and found myself alone in a quiet room. here i sat down to rest,--the melody of the distant harps and lutes still floated in soft echoes on the silence ... and presently words came breaking through the music, like buds breaking from their surrounding leaves.. words that i was compelled to write down as quickly as i heard them ... and i wrote on and on, obeying that symphonious and rhythmical dictation with a sense of growing ease and pleasure, ... when all suddenly a dense darkness overcame me, followed by a gradual dawning gray and golden light ... the words dispersed into fragmentary half-syllables ... the music died away, ... i started up amazed ... to find myself here! ... here in this monastery of lars, listening to the chanting of the angelus!" he ceased, and looked wistfully out through the window at the white encircling rim of the opposite snow-mountains, now bathed in the full splendor of noon. heliobas advanced and laid one hand kindly on his shoulder.... "and do not forget," he said, "that you have brought with you from the higher regions a poem that will in all probability make your fame! 'fame! fame! next grandest word to god!' ... so wrote one of your craft, and no doubt you echo the sentiment! have you not desired to blazon your name on the open scroll of the world? well! ... now you can have your wish--the world waits to receive your signature!" "that is all very well!" and alwyn smiled rather dubiously as he glanced at the manuscript on the table beside him. "but the question is,--considering how it was written,--can i, dare i call this poem mine?" "most assuredly you can," returned heliobas. "though your hesitation is a worthy one, and as rare as it is worthy. well would it be for all poets and artists were they to pause thus, and consider before rashly calling their work their own! self-appreciation is the death-blow of genius. the poem is as much yours as your life is yours--no more and no less. in brief, you have recovered your lost inspiration; the lately dumb oracle speaks again:--and are you not satisfied?" "no!" said alwyn quickly, with a sudden brightening of his eyes as he met the keenly searching glance that accompanied this question. "no! for i love! ... and the desire of love burns in me as ardently as the desire of fame!" he paused, and in quieter tones continued, "you see i speak freely and frankly to you as though--," and he laughed a little, "as though i were a good catholic, and you my father-confessor! good heavens! if some of the men i know in london were to hear me, they would think me utterly crazed! but craze or no craze, i feel i shall never be satisfied now till i find out whether there is anywhere is the world a place called ardath. can you, will you help me in the search? i am almost ashamed to ask you, for you have already done so much for me, and i really owe to your wonderful power my trance or soul-liberty, or whatever it may be called...." "you owe me nothing," interposed heliobas calmly, "not even thanks. your own will accomplished your freedom, and i am not responsible for either your departure or your return. it was a predestined occurrence, yet perfectly scientific and easy of explanation. your inward force attracted mine down upon you in one strong current, with the result that your spirit instantly parted asunder from your body, and in that released condition you experienced what you have described. but _i_ had no, more to do with that experience than i shall have with your journey to the 'field of ardath,' should you decide to go there." "there is an ardath then!" cried alwyn excitedly. heliobas eyed him with something of scorn. "naturally! are you still so much of a sceptic that you think an angel would have bidden you seek a place that had no existence? oh, yes! i see you are inclined to treat your ethereal adventure as a mere dream,--but _i_ know it was a reality, more real than anything in this present world." and turning to the loaded bookshelves he took down a large volume, and spread it open on the table. "you know this book?" he asked. alwyn glanced at it. "the bible! of course!" he replied indifferently. "everybody knows it!" "pardon!" and heliobas smiled. "it would be more correct to say nobody knows it. to read is not always to understand. there are meanings and mysteries in it which have never yet been penetrated, and which only the highest and most spiritually gifted intellects can ever hope to unravel. now" ... and he turned over the pages carefully till he came to the one he sought, "i think there is something here that will interest you--listen!" and he read aloud, "'the angel uriel came unto me and said: go into a field of flowers where no house is builded and eat only the flowers of the field--taste no flesh, drink no wine, but eat flowers only. and pray unto the highest continually, and then will i come and talk to thee. so i went my way into the field which is called ardath, ... '" "the very place!" exclaimed alwyn, eagerly bending over the sacred book; then drawing back with a gesture of disappointment he added, "but you are reading from esdras, the apocrypha! an utterly unreliable source of information!" "on the contrary, as reliable as any history ever written," rejoined heliobas calmly. "study it for yourself, ... you will see that the prophet was at that time resident in babylon; the field he mentions was near the city ..." "yes--was!" interrupted alwyn incredulously. "was and is," continued heliobas. "no earthquake has crumbled it, no sea has invaded it, and no house has been 'builded' thereon. it is, as it was then, a waste field, lying about four miles west of the babylonian ruins, and there is nothing whatever to hinder you from journeying thither when you please." alwyn's expression as he heard this was one of stupefied amazement. part of his so-called "dream" had already proved itself true--a "field of ardath" actually existed! "you are certain of what you say?" he demanded. "positively certain!" returned heliobas. there was a silence, during which a little tinkling bell resounded in the outer corridor, followed by the tread of sandaled feet on the stone pavement. heliobas closed the bible and returned it to its shelf. "that was the dinner-bell," he announced cheerfully. "will you accompany me to the refectory, mr. alwyn? ... we can talk further of this matter afterwards." alwyn roused himself from the fit of abstraction into which he had fallen, and gathering together the loose sheets of his so strangely written manuscript, he arranged them all in an orderly heap without speaking. then he looked up and met the earnest eyes of heliobas with an expression of settled resolve in his own. "i shall set out for babylon to-morrow," he said quietly. "as well go there as anywhere! ... and on the result of my journey i shall stake my future! in the mean time--" he hesitated, then suddenly extending his hand with a frank grace that became him well, "in spite of my brusquerie last night, i trust we are friends?" "why, most assuredly we are!" returned heliobas, heartily pressing the proffered palm. "you had your doubts of me and you have them still; but what of that! i take no offence at unbelief. i pity those who suffer from its destroying influence too profoundly to find room in my heart for anger. moreover, i never try to convert anybody.... it is so much more satisfactory when sceptics convert themselves, as you are unconsciously doing! come, ... shall we join the brethren?" over alwyn's face flitted a transient shade of uneasiness and hauteur. "i would rather they knew nothing about all this," he began. "make your mind quite easy on that score," rejoined heliobas. "none of my companions here are aware of your recent departure, except my very old personal friend hilarion, who, with myself, saw your body while in its state of temporary death. but he is one of those remarkably rare wise men who know when it is best to be silent; then again, he is ignorant as to the results of your soul-transmigration, and will, as far as i am concerned, remain in ignorance. your confidence i assure you is perfectly safe with me--as safe as though it had been received under the sacred seal of confession." with this understanding alwyn seemed relieved and satisfied, and thereupon they left the apartment together. chapter vi. "nourhalma" and the original esdras. later on in the afternoon of the same day, when the sun, poised above the western mountain-range, appeared to be lazily looking about him with a drowsy, golden smile of farewell before descending to his rest, alwyn was once more alone in the library. twilight shadows were already gathering in the corners of the long, low room, but he had moved the writing-table to the window, in order to enjoy the magnificence of the surrounding scenery, and sat where the light fell full upon his face as he leaned back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, in an attitude of pleased, half-meditative indolence. he had just finished reading from beginning to end the poem he had composed in his trance ... there was not a line in it he could have wished altered,--not a word that would have been better omitted,--the only thing it lacked was a title, and this was the question on which he now pondered. the subject of the poem itself was not new to him--it was a story he had known from boyhood, ... an old eastern love-legend, fantastically beautiful as many such legends are, full of grace and passionate fervor--a theme fitted for the nightingale-utterance of a singer like the persian hafiz--though even hafiz would have found it difficult to match the exquisitely choice language and delicately ringing rhythm in which this quaint idyll of long past ages was now most perfectly set like a jewel in fine gold. alwyn himself entirely realized the splendid literary value of the composition--he knew that nothing more artistic in conception or more finished in treatment had appeared since the st. agnes eve of keats--and as he thought of this, he yielded to a growing sense of self-complacent satisfaction which gradually destroyed all the deeply devout humility he had at first felt concerning the high and mysterious origin of his inspiration. the old inherent pride of his nature reasserted itself--he reviewed all the circumstances of his "trance" in the most practical manner--and calling to mind how the poet coleridge had improvised the delicious fragment of kubla khan in a dream, he began to see nothing so very remarkable in his own unconscious production of a complete poem while under mesmeric or magnetic influences. "after all," he mused, "the matter is simple enough when one reasons it out. i have been unable to write anything worth writing for a long time, and i told heliobas as much. he, knowing my apathetic condition of brain, employed his force accordingly, though he denies having done so, ... and this poem is evidently the result of my long pent-up thoughts that struggled for utterance yet could not before find vent in words. the only mysterious part of the affair is this 'field of ardath,' ... how its name haunts me! ... and how her face shines before the eyes of my memory! that she should be a phantom of my own creation seems impossible--for when have i, even in my wildest freaks of fancy, ever imagined a creature half so fair!" his gaze rested dreamily on the opposite snow-clad peaks, above which large fleecy clouds, themselves like moving mountains, were slowly passing, their edges glowing with purple and gold as they neared the sinking sun. presently rousing himself, he took up a pen and first of all addressing an envelope to "the honble. francis villiers, "constitutional club, "london" he rapidly wrote off the following letter: "monastery of lars, "pass of dariel, caucasus." "my dear villiers:--start not at the above address! i am not yet vowed to perpetual seclusion, silence or celibacy! that i of all men in the world should be in a monastery will seem to you, who know my prejudices, in the last degree absurd--nevertheless here i am,--though here i do not remain, as it is my fixed intention to-morrow at daybreak to depart straightway from hence en route for the supposed site and ruins of babylon. yes,--babylon! why not? perished greatness has always been a more interesting subject of contemplation to me than existing littleness--and i dare say i shall wander among the tumuli of the ancient fallen city with more satisfaction than in the hot, humanity-packed streets of london, paris, or vienna--all destined to become tumuli in their turn. moreover. i am on the track of an adventure,--on the search for a new sensation, having tried nearly all the old ones and found them nil. you know my nomadic and restless disposition ... perhaps there is something of the greek gipsy about me--a craving for constant change of scene and surroundings,--however, as my absence from you and england is likely to be somewhat prolonged, i send you in the mean time a poem--there! 'season your admiration for a while,' and hear me out patiently. i am perfectly aware of all you would say concerning the utter folly and uselessness of writing poetry at all in this present age of milk-and-watery-literature, shilling sensationals, and lascivious society dramas,--and i have a very keen recollection too of the way in which my last book was maltreated by the entire press--good heavens! how the critics yelped like dogs about my heels, snapping, sniffing, and snarling! i could have wept then like the sensitive fool i was.... i can laugh now! in brief, my friend--for you are my friend and the best of all possible good fellows--i have made up my mind to conquer those that have risen against me--to break through the ranks of pedantic and pre-conceived opinions--and to climb the heights of fame, regardless of the little popular pipers of tame verso that obstruct my path and blow their tin whistles in the public ears to drown, if possible, my song. i will be heard! ... and to this end i pin my faith on the work i now transmit to your care. have it published immediately and in the best style--i will cover all expenses. advertise sufficiently, yet with becoming modesty, for 'puffery' is a thing i heartily despise,--and were the whole press to turn round and applaud me as much as it has hitherto abused and ridiculed me, i would not have one of its penny lines of condescendingly ignorant approval quoted in connection with what must be a perfectly unostentatious and simple announcement of this new production from my pen. the manuscript is exceptionally clear, even for me who do not as a male write a very bad scrawl--so that you can scarcely have much bother with the proof-correcting--though even were this the case, and the printers turned out to be incorrigible blockheads and blunderers, i know you would grudge neither time nor trouble expended in my service. good frank villiers! how much i owe you!--and yet i willingly incur another debt of gratitude by placing this matter in your hands, and am content to borrow more of your friendship, but only believe me, in order to repay it again with the truest interest! by the way, do you remember when we visited the last paris salon together, how fascinated we were by one picture--the head of a monk whose eyes looked out like a veritable illumination from under the folds of a drooping white cowl? ... and on referring to our catalogues we found it described as the portrait of one 'heliobas,' an eastern mystic, a psychist formerly well known in paris, but since retired into monastic life? well! i have discovered him here; he is apparently the superior or chief of this order--though what order it is and when founded is more than i can tell. there are fifteen monks altogether, living contentedly in this old, half-ruined habitation among the barren steeps of the frozen caucasus,--splendid, princely looking fellows all of them, heliobas himself being an exceptionally fine specimen of his race. i have just dined with the whole community, and have been fairly astonished by the fluent brilliancy and wit of their conversation. they speak all languages. english included, and no subject comes amiss to them, for they are familiar with the latest political situations in all countries,--they know all about the newest scientific discoveries (which, by-the-by, they smile at blandly, as though these last were mere child's play), and they discuss our modern social problems and theories with a socratic-like incisiveness and composure such as our parliamentary howlers would do well to imitate. their doctrine is.. but i will not bore you by a theological disquisition,--enough to say it is founded on christianity, and that at present i don't quite know what to make of it! and now, my dear villiers, farewell! an answer to this is unnecessary; besides i can give you no address, as it is uncertain where i shall be for the next two or three months. if i don't get as much pleasure as i anticipate from the contemplation of the babylonian ruins, i shall probably take up my abode in bagdad for a time and try to fancy myself back in the days of 'good haroun alrascheed'. at any rate, whatever becomes of me, i know i have entrusted my poem to safe hands--and all i ask of you is that it may be brought out with the least possible delay,--for its immediate publication seems to me just now the most vitally important thing in the world, except ... except the adventure on which i am at present engaged, of which more hereafter, ... when we meet. until then think as well of me as you can, and believe me "ever and most truly your friend, "theos alwyn." this letter finished, folded, and sealed, alwyn once more took up his manuscript and meditated anew concerning its title. stay! ... why not call it by the name of the ideal heroine whose heart-passion and sorrow formed the nucleus of the legend? ... a name that he in very truth was all unconscious of having chosen, but which occurred frequently with musical persistence throughout the entire poem. "nourhalma!" ... it had a soft sound ... it seemed to breathe of eastern languor and love-singing,--it was surely the best title he could have. straightway deciding thereon, he wrote it clearly at the top of the first page, thus: "nourhalma; a love legend of the past," ... then turning to the end, he signed his own name with a bold flourish, thus attesting his indisputable right to the authorship of what was not only destined to be the most famous poetical masterpiece of the day, but was also to prove the most astonishing, complex, and humiliating problem ever suggested to his brain. carefully numbering the pages, he folded them in a neat packet, which he tied strongly and sealed--then addressing it to his friend, he put letter and packet together, and eyed them both somewhat wistfully, feeling that with them went his great chance of immortal fame. immortal fame!--what a grand vista of fair possibilities those words unveiled to his imagination! lost in pleasant musings, he looked out again on the landscape. the sun had sunk behind the mountains so far, that nothing was left of his glowing presence but a golden rim from which great glittering rays spread upward, like lifted lances poised against the purple and roseate clouds. a slight click caused by the opening of the door disturbed his reverie,--he turned round in his chair, and half rose from it as heliobas entered, carrying a small richly chased silver casket. "ah, good heliobas! here you are at last," he said with a smile. "i began to think you were never coming. my correspondence is finished,--and, as you see, my poem is addressed to england--where i pray it may meet with a better fate than has hitherto attended my efforts!" "you pray?" queried heliobas, meaningly, "or you hope? there is a difference between the two." "i suppose there is," he returned nonchalantly. "and certainly--to be correct--i should have said i hope, for i never pray. what have you there?"--this as heliobas set the casket he carried down on the table before him. "a reliquary? and is it supposed to contain a fragment of the true cross? alas! i cannot believe in these fragments,--there are too many of them!" heliobas laughed gently. "you are right! moreover, not a single splinter of the true cross is in existence. it was, like other crosses then in general use, thrown aside as lumber,--and had rotted away into the earth long before the empress helena started on her piously crazed wanderings. no, i have nothing of that sort in here,"--and taking a key from a small chain that hung at his girdle he unlocked the casket. "this has been in the possession of the various members of our order for ages,--it is our chief treasure, and is seldom, i may say never, shown to strangers,--but the mystic mandate you have received concerning the 'field of ardath' entitles you to see what i think must needs prove interesting to you under the circumstances." and opening the box he lifted out a small square volume bound in massive silver and double-clasped. "this," he went on, "is the original text of a portion of the 'visions of esdras,' and dates from the thirteenth year after the downfall of babylon's commercial prosperity." alwyn uttered an exclamation of incredulous amazement. "not possible!" he cried.... then he added eagerly, "may i look at it?" silently heliobas placed it in his outstretched hand. as he undid the clasps a faint odor like that of long dead rose-leaves came like a breath on the air, ... he opened it, and saw that its pages consisted of twelve moderately thick sheets of ivory, which were covered all over with curious small characters finely engraved thereon by some evidently sharp and well-pointed instrument. these letters were utterly unknown to alwyn: he had seen nothing like them in any of the ancient tongues, and he examined them perplexedly. "what language is this?" he asked at last, looking up. "it is not hebrew--nor yet sanskrit--nor does it resemble any of the discovered forms of hieroglyphic writing. can you understand it?" "perfectly!" returned heliobas. "if i could not, then much of the wisdom and science of past ages would be closed to my researches. it is the language once commonly spoken by certain great nations which existed long before the foundations of babylon were laid. little by little it fell into disuse, till it was only kept up among scholars and sages, and in time became known only as 'the language of prophecy.' when esdras wrote his visions they were originally divided into two hundred and four books,--and, as you will see by referring to what is now called the apocrypha,[footnote: vide esdras xiv. - .] he was commanded to publish them all openly to the 'worthy and unworthy' all except the 'seventy last,' which were to be delivered solely to such as were 'wise among the people.' thus one hundred and thirty-four were written in the vulgar tongue,--the remaining seventy in the 'language of prophecy,' for the use of deeply learned and scientific men alone. the volume you hold is one of those seventy." "how did you come by it?" asked alwyn, curiously turning the book over and over. "how did our order come by it, you mean," said heliobas. "very simply. chaldean fraternities existed in the time of esdras, and to the supreme chief of these, esdras himself delivered it. you look dubious, but i assure you it is quite authentic,--we have its entire history up to date." "then are you all chaldeans here?" "not all--but most of us. three of the brethren are egyptians, and two are natives of damascus. the rest are, like myself, descendants of a race supposed to have perished from off the face of the earth, yet still powerful to a degree undreamed of by the men of this puny age." alwyn gave an upward glance at the speaker's regal form--a glance of genuine admiration. "as far as that goes," he said, with a frank laugh, "i'm quite willing to believe you and your companions are kings in disguise,--you all have that appearance! but regarding this book,"--and again he turned over the silver-bound relic--"if its authenticity can be proved, as you say, why, the british museum would give, ah! ... let me see!--it would give ..." "nothing!" declared heliobas quietly, "believe me, nothing! the british government would no doubt accept it as a gift, just as it would with equal alacrity accept the veritable signature of homer, which we also possess in another retreat of ours on the isle of lemnos. but our treasures are neither for giving nor selling, and with respect to this original 'esdras,' it will certainly never pass out of our hands." "and what of the other missing sixty-nine books?" asked alwyn. "they may possibly be somewhere in the world,--two of them, i know, were buried in the coffin of one of the last princes of chaldea,--perhaps they will be unearthed some day. there is also a rumor to the effect that esdras engraved his 'last prophecy' on a small oval tablet of pure jasper, which he himself secreted, no one knows where. but to come to the point of immediate issue, ... shall i find out and translate for you the allusions to the 'field of ardath' contained in this present volume?" "do!" said alwyn, eagerly, at once returning the book to heliobas, who, seating himself at the table, began carefully looking over its ivory pages--"i am all impatience! even without the vision i have had, i should still feel a desire to see this mysterious field for its own sake,--it must have some very strange associations to be worth specifying in such a particular manner!" heliobas answered nothing--he was entirely occupied in examining the small, closely engraved characters in which the ancient record was written; the crimson afterglow of the now descended sun flared through the window and sent a straight, rosy ray on his bent head and white robes, lighting to a more lustrous brilliancy the golden cross and jeweled star on his breast, and flashing round the silver clasps of the time-honored relic before him. presently he looked up... "here we have it!" and he placed his finger on one especial passage--it reads as follows: "'and the angel bade me enter a waste field, and the field was barren and dry save of herbs, and the name of the field was ardath. "'and i wandered therein through the hours of the long night, and the silver eyes of the field did open before me and i saw signs and wonders: "'and i heard a voice crying aloud, esdras, esdras. "'and i arose and stood on my feet and listened and refrained not till i heard the voice again. "'which said unto me, behold the field thou thoughtest barren, how great a glory hath the moon unveiled! "'and i beheld and was sore amazed: for i was no longer myself but another. "'and the sword of death was in that other's soul, and yet that other was but myself in pain; "'and i knew not those things that were once familiar,--and my heart failed within me for very fear. "'and the voice cried aloud again saying: hide thee from the perils of the past and the perils of the future, for a great and terrible thing is come upon thee, against which thy strength is as a reed in the wind and thy thoughts as flying sand ... "' [footnote: see esdras x. - .] and, lo, i lay as one that had been dead and mine understanding was taken from me. and he (the angel) took me by the right hand and comforted me and set me upon my feet and said unto me: "'what aileth thee? and why art thou so disquieted? and why is thine understanding troubled and the thoughts of thine heart? "'and i said, because thou hast forsaken me and yet i did according to thy words, and i went into the field and lo! i have seen and yet see that i am not able to express.'" here heliobas paused, having read the last sentence with peculiarly impressive emphasis. "that is all"--he said--"i see no more allusions to the name of ardath. the last three verses are the same as those in the accepted apocrypha." chapter vii. an undesired blessing. alwyn had listened with an absorbed yet somewhat mystified air of attention. "the venerable esdras was certainly a poet in his own way!" he remarked lightly. "there is something very fascinating about the rhythm of his lines, though i confess i don't grasp their meaning. still, i should like to have them all the same,--will you let me write them out just as you have translated them?" willingly assenting to this, heliobas read the extract over again, alwyn taking down the words from his dictation. "perhaps," he then added musingly, "perhaps it would be as well to copy a few passages from the apocrypha also." whereupon the bible was brought into requisition, and the desired quotations made, consisting of verses xxiv. to xxvi. in the [footnote: the reader is requested to refer to the parts of "esdras" here indicated.] ninth chapter of the second book of esdras, and verses xxv. to xxvi. in the tenth chapter of the same. this done, heliobas closed and clasped the original text of the prophet's work and returned it to its casket; then addressing his guest in a kindly, yet serious tone, he said: "you are quite resolved to undertake this journey, mr. alwyn?" alwyn looked dreamily out of the window at the flame of the sunset hues reflected from the glowing sky on the white summit of the mountains. "yes, ... i ... i think so!" the answer had a touch of indecision in it. "in that case," resumed heliobas, "i have prepared a letter of introduction for you to one of our order known as elzear of melyana,--he is a recluse, and his hermitage is situated close to the babylonian ruins. you will find rest and shelter there after the fatigues of travel. i have also traced out a map of the district, and the exact position of the field you seek, . . here it is," and he laid a square piece of parchment on the table; "you can easily perceive at a glance how the land lies. there are a few directions written at the back, so i think you will have no difficulty. this is the letter to elzear,"--here he held out a folded paper--"will you take it now?" alwyn received it with a dubious smile, and eyed the donor as if he rather suspected the sincerity of his intentions. "thanks very much!" he murmured listlessly. "you are exceedingly good to make it all such plain sailing for me,--and yet ... to be quite frank with you, i can't help thinking i am going on a fool's errand!" "if that is your opinion, why go at all?" queried heliobas, with a slight disdain in his accents. "return to england instead--forget the name of 'ardath,' and forget also the one who bade you meet her there, and who has waited for you 'these many thousand days!'" alwyn started as if he had been stung. "ah!" he exclaimed. "if i could be certain of seeing her again! ... if ... good god! the idea seems absurd! ... if that flower-crowned wonder of my dream should actually fulfill her promise and keep her tryst ..." "well!" demanded heliobas--"if so, what then?" "well then i will believe in anything!" he cried--"no miracle will seem miraculous.. no impossibility impossible!" heliobas sighed, and regarded him thoughtfully. "you think you will believe!" he said somewhat sadly--"but doubts such as yours are not easily dispelled. angels have ere now descended to men, men have neither received nor recognized them. angels walk by our side through crowded cities and lonely woodlands,--they watch us when we sleep, they hear us when we pray, ... and yet the human eye sees nothing save the material objects within reach of its vision, and is not very sure of those, while it can no more discern the spiritual presences than it can without a microscope discern the lovely living creatures contained in a drop of dew or a ray of sunshine. our earthly sight is very limited--it can neither perceive the infinitely little nor the infinitely great. and it is possible,--nay, it is most probable, that even as peter of old denied his divine master, so you, if brought face to face with the angel of your last night's experience, would deny and endeavor to disprove her identity." "never!" declared alwyn, with a passionate gesture--"i should know her among a thousand!" for one instant heliobas bent upon him a sudden, searching, almost pitiful glance, then withdrawing his gaze he said gently: "well, well! let us hope for the best--god's ways are inscrutable--and you tell me that now--now after your strange so-called 'vision'--you believe in god?" "i did say so, certainly..." and alwyn's face flushed a little.. "but..." "ah! ... you hesitate! there is a 'but' in the case!" and heliobas turned upon him with a grand reproach in his brilliant eyes.. "already stepping backward on the road! ... already rushing once again into the darkness! ..." he paused, then laying one hand on the young man's shoulder, continued in mild yet impressive accents: "my friend, remember that the doubter and opposer of god, is also the doubter and opposer of his own well-being. let this unnatural and useless combat of human reason, against divine instinct cease within you--you, who as a poet are bound to equalize your nature that it may the more harmoniously fulfil its high commission. you know what one of your modern writers says of life? ... that it is a 'dream in which we clutch at shadows as though they were substances, and sleep deepest when fancying ourselves most awake.'[footnote: carlyle's sartor resartus.] believe me, you have slept long enough--it is time you awoke to the full realization of your destinies." alwyn heard in silence, feeling inwardly rebuked and half ashamed--the earnestly spoken words moved him more than he cared to show--his head drooped--he made no reply. after all, he thought, he had really no more substantial foundation for his unbelief than others had for their faith. with all his studies in the modern schools of science, he was not a whit more advanced in learning than democritus of old--democritus who based his system of morals on the severest mathematical lines, taking as his starting-point a vacuum and atoms, and who after stretching his intellect on a constant rack of searching inquiry for years, came at last to the unhappy conclusion that man is absolutely incapable of positive knowledge, and that even if truth is in his possession he can never be certain of it. was he, theos alwyn, wiser than democritus? ... or was this stately chaldean monk, with the clear, pathetic eyes and tender smile, and the symbol of christ on his breast, wiser than both? ... wiser in the wisdom of eternal things than any of the subtle-minded ancient greek philosophers or modern imitators of their theories? was there, could there be something not yet altogether understood or fathomed in the christian creed? ... as this idea occurred to him he looked up and met his companion's calm gaze fixed upon him with a watchful gentleness and patience. "are you reading my thoughts, heliobas?" he asked, with a forced laugh. "i assure you they are not worth the trouble." heliobas smiled, but made no answer. just then one of the monks entered the room with a large lighted lamp, which he set on the table, and the conversation thus interrupted was not again resumed. the evening shadows were now closing in rapidly, and already above the furthest visible snow-peak the first risen star sparkled faintly in the darkening sky. soon the vesper bell began ringing as it had rung on the previous night when alwyn, newly arrived, had sat alone in the refectory, listlessly wondering what manner of men he had come amongst, and what would be the final result of his adventure into the wilds of caucasus. his feelings had certainly undergone some change since then, inasmuch as he was no longer disposed to ridicule or condemn religious sentiment, though he was nearly as far from actually believing in religion itself as ever. the attitude of his mind was still distinctly skeptical--the immutable pride of what he considered his own firmly rooted convictions was only very slightly shaken--and he now even viewed the prospect of his journey to the "field of ardath" as a mere fantastic whim--a caprice of his own fancy which he chose to gratify just for the sake of curiosity. but notwithstanding the stubbornness of the materialistic principles with which he had become imbued, his higher instincts were, unconsciously to himself, beginning to be aroused--his memory involuntarily wandered back to the sweet, fresh days of his earliest manhood before the poison of doubt had filtered through his soul--his character, naturally of the lofty, imaginative, and ardent cast, re-asserted its native force over the blighting blow of blank atheism which had for a time paralyzed its efforts--and as he unwittingly yielded more and more to the mild persuasions of these genial influences, so the former timon-like bitterness of his humor gradually softened. there was no trace in him now of the dark, ironic, and reckless scorn that, before his recent visionary experience, had distinguished his whole manner and bearing--the smile came more readily to his lips--and he seemed content for the present to display the sunny side of his nature--a nature impassioned, frank, generous, and noble, in spite of the taint of overweening, ambitions egotism which somewhat warped its true quality and narrowed the range of its sympathies. in his then frame of mind, a curious, vague sense of half-pleasurable penitence was upon him,--delicate, undefined, almost devotional suggestions stirred his thoughts with the refreshment that a cool wind brings to parched and drooping flowers,--so that when heliobas, taking up the silver "esdras" reliquary and preparing to leave the apartment in response to the vesper summons, said gently, "will you attend our service, mr. alwyn?" he assented at once, with a pleased alacrity which somewhat astonished himself as he remembered how, on the previous evening, he had despised and inwardly resented all forms of religious observance. however, he did not stop to consider the reason of his altered mood, ... he followed the monks into chapel with an air of manly grace and quiet reverence that became him much better than the offensive and defensive demeanor he had erewhile chosen to assume in the same prayer-hallowed place,--he listened to the impressive ceremonial from beginning to end without the least fatigue or impatience,--and though when the brethren knelt, he could not humble himself so far as to kneel also, he still made a slight concession to appearances by sitting down and keeping his head in a bent posture--"out of respect for the good intentions of these worthy men," as he told himself, to silence the inner conflict of his own opposing and contradictory sensations. the service concluded, he waited as before to see the monks pass out, and was smitten with a sudden surprise, compunction, and regret, when heliobas, who walked last as usual, paused where he stood, and confronted him, saying: "i will bid you farewell here, my friend! ... i have many things to do this evening, and it is best i should see you no more before your departure." "why?" asked alwyn astonished--"i had hoped for another conversation with you." "to what purpose!" inquired heliobas mildly. "that i should assert ... and you deny ... facts that god himself will prove in his own way and at his own appointed time? nay, we should do no good by further arguments." "but," stammered alwyn hastily, flushing hotly as he spoke, "you give me no chance to thank you ... to express my gratitude." "gratitude?" questioned heliobas almost mournfully, with a tinge of reproach in his soft, mellow voice. "are you grateful for being, as you think, deluded by a trance? ... cheated, as it were, into a sort of semi-belief in the life to come by means of mesmerism? your first request to me, i know, was that you might be deceived by my influence into a state of imaginary happiness,--and now you fancy your last night's experience was merely the result of that pre-eminently foolish desire. you are wrong! ... and, as matters stand, no thanks are needed. if i had indeed mesmerized or hypnotized you, i might perhaps have deserved some reward for the exertion of my purely professional skill, but ... as i have told you already ... i have done absolutely nothing. your fate is, as it has always been, in your own hands. you sought me of your own accord ... you used me as an instrument, an unwilling instrument, remember! ... whereby to break open the prison doors of your chafed, and fretting spirit,--and the end of it all is that you depart from hence tomorrow of your own free-will and choice, to fulfill the appointed tryst made with you, as you believe, by a phantom in a vision. in brief"--here he spoke more slowly and with marked emphasis--"you go to the field of ardath to solve a puzzling problem ... namely, as to whether what we call life is not a dream--and whether a dream may not perchance be proved reality! in this enterprise of yours i have no share--nor will i say more than this ... god speed you on your errand!" he held out his hand--alwyn grasped it, looking earnestly meanwhile at the fine intellectual face, the clear pathetic eyes, the firm yet sensitive mouth, on which there just then rested a serious yet kindly smile. "what a strange man you are, heliobas!" he said impulsively ... "i wish i knew more about you!" heliobas gave him a friendly glance. "wish rather that you knew more about yourself"--he answered simply--"fathom your own mystery of being--you shall find none deeper, greater, or more difficult of comprehension!" alwyn still held his hand, reluctant to let it go. finally releasing it with a slight sigh, he said: "well, at any rate, though we part now it will not be for long. we must meet again!" "why, if we must, we shall!" rejoined heliobas cheerily. "must cannot be prevented! in the mean time ... farewell!" "farewell!" and as this word was spoken their eyes met. instinctively and on a sudden impulse, alwyn bowed his head in the lowest and most reverential salutation he had perhaps ever made to any creature of mortal mold, and as he did so heliobas paused in the act of turning away. "do you care for a blessing, gentle skeptic!" he asked in a soft tone that thrilled tenderly through the silence of the dimly-lit chapel,--then, receiving no reply, he laid one hand gently on the young man's dark, clustering curls, and with the other slowly traced the sign of the cross upon the smooth, broad fairness of his forehead.--"take it, my son! ... the only blessing i can give thee,--the blessing of the cross of christ, which in spite of thy desertion claims thee, redeems thee, and will yet possess thee for its own!" and before alwyn could recover from his astonishment sufficiently to interrupt and repudiate this, to him, undesired form of benediction, heliobas had gone, and he was left alone. lifting his head he stared out into the further corridor, down which he just perceived a distant glimmer of vanishing white robes,--and for a moment he was filled with speechless indignation. it seemed to him that the sign thus traced on his brow must be actually visible like a red brand burnt into his flesh,--and all his old and violent prejudices against christianity rushed back upon him with the resentful speed of once baffled foes returning anew to storm a citadel. almost as rapidly, however, his anger cooled,--he remembered that in his vision of the previous night, the light that had guided him through the long, shadowy vista had always preceded him in the form of a cross,--and in a softer mood he glanced at the ruby star shining steadily above the otherwise darkened altar. involuntarily the words "we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him"--occurred to his memory, but he dismissed them as instantly as they suggested themselves, and finding his own thoughts growing perplexing and troublesome he hastily left the chapel. joining some of the monks who were gathered in a picturesque group round the fire in the refectory he sat chatting with them for about half an hour or so, hoping to elicit from them in the course of conversation some particulars concerning the daily life, character, and professing aims of their superior,--but in this attempt he failed. they spoke of heliobas as believing men may speak of saints, with hushed reverence and admiring tenderness--but on any point connected with his faith, or the spiritual nature of his theories, they held their peace, evidently deeming the subject too sacred for discussion. baffled in all his inquiries alwyn at last said good-night, and retired to rest in the small sleeping-apartment prepared for his accommodation, where he enjoyed a sound, refreshing, and dreamless slumber. the next morning he was up at daybreak, and long before the sun had risen above the highest peak of caucasus, he had departed from the lars monastery, leaving a handsome donation in the poor-box toward the various charitable works in which the brethren were engaged, such as the rescue of travellers lost in the snow, or the burial of the many victims murdered on or near the pass of dariel by the bands of fierce mountain robbers and assassins, that at certain seasons infest that solitary region. making the best of his way to the fortress of passanaur, he there joined a party of adventurous russian climbers who had just successfully accomplished the assent of mount kazbek, and in their company proceeded through the rugged aragua valley to tiflis, which he reached that same evening. from this dark and dismal-looking town, shadowed on all sides by barren and cavernous hills, he dispatched the manuscript of his mysteriously composed poem, together with the letter concerning it, to his friend villiers in england,--and then, yielding to a burning sense of impatience within himself,--impatience that would brook no delay,--he set out resolutely, and at once, on his long pilgrimage to the "land of sand and ruin and gold"--the land of terrific prophecy and stern fulfilment,--the land of mighty and mournful memories, where the slow river euphrates clasps in its dusky yellow ring the ashes of great kingdoms fallen to rise no more. chapter viii. by the waters of babylon. it was no light or easy journey he had thus rashly undertaken on the faith of a dream,--for dream he still believed it to be. many weary days and nights were consumed in the comfortless tedium of travel, . . and though he constantly told himself what unheard-of folly it was to pursue an illusive chimera of his own imagination,--a mere phantasm which had somehow or other taken possession of his brain at a time when that brain must have been acted upon (so he continued to think) by strong mesmeric or magnetic influence, he went on his way all the same with a sort of dogged obstinacy which no fatigue could daunt or lessen. he never lay down to rest without the faint hope of seeing once again, if only in sleep, the radiant being whose haunting words had sent him on this quest of "ardath,"--but herein his expectations were not realized. no more flower-crowned angels floated before him--no sweet whisper of love, encouragement, or promise came mysteriously on his ears in the midnight silences,--his slumbers were always profound and placid as those of a child and utterly dreamless. one consolation he had however, ... he could write. not a day passed without his finding some new inspiration ... some fresh, quaint, and lovely thought, that flowed of itself into most perfect and rhythmical utterance,--glorious lines of verse glowing with fervor and beauty seemed to fall from his pencil without any effort on his part,--and if he had had reason in former times to doubt the strength of his poetical faculty, it was now very certain he could do so longer. his mind was as a fine harp newly strung, attuned, and quivering with the consciousness of the music pent-up within it,--and as he remembered the masterpiece of poesy he had written in his seeming trance, the manuscript of which would soon be in the hands of the london publishers, his heart swelled with a growing and irrepressible sense of pride. for he knew and felt--with an undefinable yet positive certainty--that however much the public or the critics might gainsay him, his fame as a poet of the very highest order would ere long be asserted and assured. a deep tranquillity was in his soul ... a tranquillity that seemed to increase the further he went onward,--the restless weariness that had once possessed him was past, and a vaguely sweet content pervade his being like the odor of early roses pervading warm air ... he felt, he hoped, he loved! ... and yet his feelings, hopes, and longings turned to something altogether undeclared and indefinite, as softly dim and distant as the first faint white cloud-signal wafted from the moon in heaven, when, on the point of rising, she makes her queenly purpose known to her waiting star-attendants. practically considered, his journey was tedious and for the most part dull and uninteresting. in these satan-like days of "going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it" travelling has lost much of its old romantic charm, . . the idea of traversing long distances no more fills the expectant adventurer with a pleasurable sense of uncertainty and mystery--he knows exactly what to anticipate.. it is all laid out for him plainly on the level lines of the commonplace, and nothing is left to his imagination. the continent of europe has been ransacked from end to end by tourists who have turned it into a sort of exhausted pleasure-garden, whereof the various entertainments are too familiarly known to arouse any fresh curiosity,--the east is nearly in the same condition,--hordes of british and american sight-seers scamper over the empire-strewn soil of persia and syria with the unconcerned indifference of beings to whom not only a portion of the world's territory, but the whole world itself, belongs,--and soon there will not be an inch of ground left on the narrow extent of our poor planet that has not been trodden by the hasty, scrambling, irreverent footsteps of some one or other of the ever-prolific, all-spreading english-speaking race. on his way alwyn met many of his countrymen,--travellers who, like himself, had visited the caucasus and armenia and were now en route, some for damascus, some for jerusalem and the holy land--others again for cairo and alexandria, to depart from thence homeward by the usual mediterranean line, . . but among these birds-of-passage acquaintance he chanced upon none who were going to the ruins of babylon. he was glad of this--for the peculiar nature of his enterprise rendered a companion altogether undesirable,--and though on one occasion he encountered a gentleman-novelist with a note-book, who was exceedingly anxious to fraternize with him and discover whither he vas bound, he succeeded in shaking off this would-be incubus at mosul, by taking him to a wonderful old library in that city where there were a number of french translations of turkish and syriac romances. here the gentleman-novelist straightway ascended to the seventh heaven of plagiarism, and began to copy energetically whole scenes and descriptive passages from dead-and-gone authors, unknown to english critics, for the purpose of inserting them hereafter into his own "original" work of fiction--and in this congenial occupation he forgot all about the "dark handsome man, with the wide brows of a marc antony and the lips of a catullus," as he had already described alwyn in the note-book before-mentioned. while in mosul, alwyn himself picked up a curiosity in the way of literature,--a small quaint volume entitled "the final philosophy of algazzali the arabian." it was printed in two languages--the original arabic on one page, and, facing it, the translation in very old french. the author, born a.d. , described himself as "a poor student striving to discern the truth of things"--and his work was a serious, incisive, patiently exhaustive inquiry into the workings of nature, the capabilities of human intelligence, and the deceptive results of human reason. reading it, alwyn was astonished to find that nearly all the ethical propositions offered for the world's consideration to-day by the most learned and cultured minds, had been already advanced and thoroughly discussed by this same algazzali. one passage in particular arrested his attention as being singularly applicable to his own immediate condition, . . it ran as follows,-- "i began to examine the objects of sensation and speculation to see if they could possibly admit of doubt. then, doubts crowded upon me in such numbers that my incertitude became complete. whence results the confidence i have in sensible things? the strongest of all our senses is sight,--yet if we look at the stars they seem to be as small as money-pieces--but mathematical proofs convince us that they are larger than the earth. these and other things are judged by the senses, but rejected by reason as false. i abandoned the senses therefore, having seen my confidence in their absolute truth shaken. perhaps, said i, there is no assurance but in the notions of reason? ... that is to say, first principles, as that ten is more than three? upon this the senses replied: what assurance have you that your confidence in reason is not of the same nature as your confidence in us? when you relied on us, reason stepped in and gave us the lie,--had not reason been there you would have continued to rely on us. well, nay there not exist some other judge superior to reason who, if he appeared, would refute the judgments of reason in the same way that reason refuted us? the non-appearance of such a judge is no proof of his non-existence.... i strove to answer this objection, and my difficulties increased when i came to reflect on sleep. i said to myself: during sleep you give to visions a reality and consistence, and on awakening you are made aware that they were nothing but visions. what assurance have you that all you feel and know does actually exist? it is all true as respects your condition at the moment,--but it is nevertheless possible that another condition should present itself which should be to your awakened state, that which your awakened state is now to your sleep,--so that, as respects this higher condition your waking is but sleep." over and over again alwyn read these words and pondered on the deep and difficult problems they suggested, and he was touched to an odd sense of shamed compunction, when at the close of the book he came upon algazzali's confession of utter vanquishment and humility thus simply recorded: "i examined my actions and found the best were those relating to instruction and education, and even there i saw myself given up to unimportant sciences all useless in another world. reflecting on the aim of my teaching, i found it was not pure in the sight of the lord. and that all my efforts were directed toward the acquisition of glory to myself. having therefore distributed my wealth i left bagdad and retired into syria, where i remained in solitary struggle with my soul, combating my passions and exercising myself in the purification of my heart and in preparation for the other world." this ancient philosophical treatise, together with the mystical passage from the original text of esdras and the selected verses from the apocrypha, formed all alwyn's stock of reading for the rest of his journey,--the rhapsodical lines of the prophet he knew by heart, as one knows a favorite poem, and he often caught himself unconsciously repeating the strange words: "behold the field thou thoughtest barren: how great a glory hath the moon unveiled! "and i beheld, and was sore amazed, for i was no longer myself but another. "and the sword of death was in that other's soul: and yet that other was but myself, in pain. "and i knew not the things that were once familiar and my heart failed within me for very fear..." what did they mean, he wondered? or had they any meaning at all beyond the faint, far-off suggestions of thought that may occasionally and with difficulty be discerned through obscure and reckless ecstasies of language which, "full of sound and fury, signify nothing"? was there, could there, be anything mysterious or sacred in this "wiste field" anciently known as "ardath"? these questions flitted hazily from time to time through his brain, but he made no attempt to answer them either by refutation or reason, ... indeed sober, matter-of-fact reason, he was well aware, played no part in his present undertaking. it was late in the afternoon of a sultry parching day when he at last arrived at hillah. this dull little town, built at the beginning of the twelfth century out of the then plentifully scattered fragments of babylon, has nothing to offer to the modern traveller save various annoyances in the shape of excessive heat, dust, or rather fine blown sand,--dirt, flies, bad food, and general discomfort; and finding the aspect of the place not only untempting, but positively depressing, alwyn left his surplus luggage at a small and unpretentious hostelry kept by a frenchman, who catered specially for archaeological tourists and explorers, and after an hour's rest, set out alone and on foot for the "eastern quarter" of the ruins,--namely those which are considered by investigators to begin about two miles above hillah. a little beyond them and close to the river-bank, according to the deductions he had received, dwelt the religious recluse for whom he brought the letter of introduction from heliobas,--a letter bearing on its cover a superscription in latin which translated ran thus:--"to the venerable and much esteemed elzear of melyana, at the hermitage, near hillah. in faith, peace, and good-will. greeting." anxious to reach elzear's abode before nightfall, he walked on as briskly as the heat and heaviness of the sandy soil would allow, keeping to the indistinctly traced path that crossed and re-crossed at intervals the various ridges of earth strewn with pulverized fragments of brick, bitumen, and pottery, which are now the sole remains of stately buildings once famous in babylon. a low red sun was sinking slowly on the edge of the horizon, when, pausing to look about him, he perceived in the near distance, the dark outline of the great mound known as birs-nimroud, and realized with a sort of shock that he was actually surrounded on all sides by the crumbled and almost indistinguishable ruins of the formerly superb all-dominant assyrian city that had been "as a golden cup in the lord's hand," and was now no more in very truth than a "broken and an empty vessel." for the words, "and babylon shall become heaps," have certainly been verified with startling exactitude--"heaps" indeed it has become,--nothing but heaps,--heaps of dull earth with here and there a few faded green tufts of wild tamarisk, which while faintly relieveing the blankness of the ground, at the same time intensify its monotonous dreaminess. alwyn, beholding the mournful desolation of the scene, felt a strong sense of disappointment,--he had expected something different,--his imagination had pictured these historical ruins as being of larger extent and more imposing character. his eyes rested rather wearily on the slow, dull gleam of the euphrates, as it wound past the deserted spaces where "the mighty city the astonishment of nations" had once stood, ... and poet though he was to the very core of his nature, he could see nothing poetical in these spectral mounds and stone heaps, save in the significant remembrance they offered of the old scriptual prophecy--"babylon is fallen--is fallen! her princes, her wise men, her captains, her rulers, and her mighty men shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, saith the king who is the lord of hosts." and truly it seemed as if the curse which had blighted the city's bygone splendor had doomed even its ruins to appear contemptible. just then the glow of the disappearing sun touched the upper edge of birs-nimroud, giving it for one instant a weird effect, as though the ghost of some babylonian watchman were waving a lit torch from its summit,--but the lurid glare soon faded and a dead gray twilight settled solemnly down over the melancholy landscape. with a sudden feeling of dejection and lassitude upon him, alwyn, heaving a deep sigh, went onward, and soon perceived, lying a little to the north of the river, a small, roughly erected tenement with a wooden cross on its roof. rightly concluding that this must be elzear of melyana's hermitage, he quickly made his way thither and knocked at the door. it was opened to him at once by a white-haired, picturesque old man, who received him with a mute sign of welcome, and who at the same time laid one hand lightly but expressively on his own lips to signify that he was dumb. this was elzear himself. he was attired in the same sort of flowing garb as that worn by the monks of dariel, and with his tall, spare figure, long, silvery beard and deep-sunken yet still brilliant dark eyes, he might have served as a perfect model for one of the inspired prophets of bygone ancient days. though nature had deprived him of speech, his serene countenance spoke eloquently in his favor, its mild benevolent expression betokening that inward peace of the heart which so often renders old age more beautiful than youth. he perused with careful slowness the letter alwyn presented to him,--and then, inclining his head gravely, he made a courteous and comprehensive gesture, to intimate that himself and all that his house contained were at the service of the newcomer. he proceeded to testify the sincerity of this assurance at once by setting a plentiful supply of food and wine before his guest, waiting upon him, moreover, while he ate and drank, with a respectful humility which somewhat embarrassed alwyn, who wished to spare him the trouble of such attendance and told him so many times with much earnestness. but all to no purpose--elzear only smiled gently and continued to perform the duties of hospitality in his own way ... it was evidently no use interfering with him. later on he showed his visitor a small cell-like apartment containing a neat bed, together with a table, a chair, and a large crucifix, which latter object was suspended against the wall, . . and indicating by eloquent signs that here the weariest traveller might find good repose, he made a low salutation and departed altogether for the night. what a still place the "hermitage" was, thought alwyn, as soon as elzear's retreating steps had died away into silence. there was not a sound to be heard anywhere, ... not even the faint rustle of leaves stirred by the wind. and what a haunting, grave, wistfully tender expression filled the face of that sculptured image on the cross, which in intimate companionship with himself seemed to possess the little room! he could not bear the down-drooping appealing, penetrating look in those heavenly-kind yet piteous eyes, ... turning abruptly away he opened the narrow window, and folding his arms on the sill surveyed the scene before him. the full moon was rising slowly, ... round and large, she hung like a yellow shield on the dark, dense wall of the sky. the rums of babylon were plainly visible.. the river shone like a golden ribbon,--the outline of birs-nimoud was faintly rimmed with light, and had little streaks of amber radiance wandering softly up and down its shadowy slopes. "'and i went into the field called ardath and there i sat among the flowers!'" mused alwyn half aloud, his dreamy gaze fixed on the gradually brightening heavens ... "why not go there at once ... now!" chapter ix. the field of flowers. this idea had no sooner entered his mind than he prepared to act upon it,--though only a short while previously, feeling thoroughly overcome by fatigue, he had resolved to wait till next day before setting out for the chief goal of his long pilgrimage. but now, strangely enough, all sense of weariness had suddenly left him,--a keen impatience burned in his veins,--and a compelling influence stronger than himself seemed to urge him on to the instant fulfillment of his purpose. the more he thought about it the more restless he became, and the more eagerly desirous to prove, with the least possible delay, the truth or the falsity of his mystic vision at danel. by the light of the small lamp left on the table he consulted his map,--the map heliobas had traced,--and also the written directions that accompanied it--though these he had read so often over and over again that he knew them by heart. they were simply and concisely worded thus: "on the east bank of the euphrates, nearly opposite the 'hermitage,' there is the sunken fragment of a bronze gate, formerly belonging to the palace of the babylonian kings. three miles and a half to the southwest of this fragment and in a direct line with it, straight across country, will be found a fallen pillar of red granite half buried in the earth. the square tract of land extending beyond this broken column is the field known to the prophet esdras as the 'field of ardath'" he was on the east bank of the euphrates already,--and a walk of three miles and a half could surely be accomplished in an hour or very little over that time. hesitating no longer he made his way out of the house, deciding that if he met elzear he would say he was going for a moonlight stroll before retiring to rest. that venerable recluse, however, was nowhere to be seen,--and as the door of the "hermitage" was only fastened with a light latch he had no difficulty in effecting a noiseless exit. once in the open air he stopped, . . startled by the sound of full, fresh, youthful voices singing in clear and harmonious unison ... "kyrie eleison! christe eleison! kyrie eleison!" he listened, . . looking everywhere about him in utter amazement. there was no habitation in sight save elzear's,--and the chorus certainly did not proceed from thence, but rather seemed to rise upward through the earth, floating in released sweet echoes to and fro upon the hushed air. "kyrie eleison! ... christe eleison!" how it swayed about him like a close chime of bells! he stood motionless, perplexed and wondering, ... was there a subterranean grotto near at hand where devotional chants were sung?--or, . . and a slight tremor ran through him at the thought, . . was there something supernatural in the music, notwithstanding its human-seeming speech and sound? just then it ceased, ... all was again silent as before, . . and angry with himself for his own foolish fancies, he set about the task of discovering the "sunken fragment" heliobas had mentioned. very soon he found it, driven deep into the soil and so blackened and defaced by time that it was impossible to trace any of the elaborate carvings that must have once adorned it. in fact it would not have been recognizable as a portion of a gate at all, had it not still possessed an enormous hinge which partly clung to it by means of one huge thickly rusted nail, dose beside it, grew a tree of weird and melancholy appearance--its trunk was split asunder and one half of it was withered. the other half leaning mournfully on one side bent down its branches to the ground, trailing a wealth of long, glossy green leaves in the dust of the ruined city. this was the famous tree called by the natives athel, of which old legends say that it used to be a favorite evergreen much cultivated and prized by the babylonian nobility, who loving its pleasant shade, spared no pains to make it grow in their hanging gardens and spacious courts, though its nature was altogether foreign to the soil. and now, with none to tend it or care whether it flourishes or decays, it faithfully clings to the deserted spot where it was once so tenderly fostered, showing its sympathy with the surrounding desolation, by growing always in split halves, one withered and one green--a broken-hearted creature, yet loyal to the memory of past love and joy. alwyn stood under its dark boughs, knowing nothing of its name or history,--every now and then a wailing whisper seemed to shudder through it, though there was no wind,--and he heard the eerie lamenting sigh with an involuntary sense of awe. the whole scene was far more impressive by night than by day,--the great earth mounds of babylon looked like giant graves inclosing a glittering ring of winding waters. again he examined the imbedded fragment of the ancient gate,--and then feeling quite certain of his starting-point he set his face steadily toward the southwest,--there the landscape before him lay flat and bare in the beamy lustre of the moon. the soil was sandy and heavy to the tread,--moreover it was an excessively hot night,--too hot to walk fast. he glanced at his watch,--it was a few minutes past ten o'clock. keeping up the moderate pace the heat enforced, it was possible he might reach the mysterious field about half-past eleven, . . perhaps earlier. and now his nerves began to quiver with strong excitement, . . had he yielded to the promptings of his own feverish impatience, he would most probably have run all the way in spite of the sultriness of the air,--but he restrained this impulse, and walked leisurely on purpose, reproaching himself as he went along for the utter absurdity of his expectations. "was ever madman more mad than i!" he murmured with some self-contempt--"what logical human being in his right mind would be guilty of such egregious folly! but am i logical? certainly not! am i in my right mind? i think i am,--yet i may be wrong. the question remains, ... what is logic? ... and what is being in one's right mind? no one can absolutely decide! let me see if i can review calmly my ridiculous position. it comes to this,--i insist on being mesmerized ... i have a dream, ... and i see a woman in the dream"--here he suddenly corrected himself ... "a woman did i say? no! ... she was something far more than that! a lovely phantom--a dazzling creature of my own imagination ... an exquisite ideal whom i will one day immortalize ... yes!--immortalize in song!" he raised his eyes as he spoke to the dusky firmament thickly studded with stars, and just then caught sight of a fleecy silver-rimmed cloud passing swiftly beneath the moon and floating downwards toward the earth,--it was shaped like a white-winged bird, and was here and there tenderly streaked with pink, as though it had just travelled from some distant land where the sun was rising. it was the only cloud in the sky,--and it had a peculiar, almost phenomenal effect by reason of its rapid motion, there being not the faintest breeze stirring. alwyn watched it gliding down the heavens till it had entirely disappeared, and then began his meditations anew. "any one,--even without magnetic influence being brought to bear upon him, might have visions such as mine! take an opium-eater, for instance, whose life is one long confused vista of visions,--suppose he were to accept all the wild suggestions offered to his drugged brain, and persist in following them out to some sort of definite conclusion,--the only place for that man would be a lunatic asylum. even the most ordinary persons, whose minds are never excited in any abnormal way, are subject to very curious and inexplicable dreams,--but for all that, they are not such fools as to believe in them. true, there is my poem,--i don't know how i wrote it, yet written it is, and complete from beginning to end--an actual tangible result of my vision, and strange enough in its way, to say the least of it. but what is stranger still is that i love the radiant phantom that i saw ... yes, actually love her with a love no mere woman, were she fair as troy's helen, could ever arouse in me! of course,--in spite of the contrary assertions made by that remarkably interesting chaldean monk heliobas,--i feel i am the victim of a brain-delusion,--therefore it is just as well i should see this 'field of ardath' and satisfy myself that nothing comes of it--in which case i shall be cured of my craze." he walked on for some time, and presently stopped a moment to examine his map by the light of the moon. as he did so, he became aware of the extraordinary, almost terrible, stillness surrounding him. he had thought the "hermitage" silent as a closed tomb--but it was nothing to the silence here. he felt it inclosing him like a thick wall on all sides,--he heard the regular pulsations of his own heart--even the rushing of his own blood--but no other sound was audible. earth and the air seemed breathless, as though with some pent-up mysterious excitement,--the stars were like so many large living eyes eagerly gazing down on the solitary human being who thus wandered at night in the land of the prophets of old--the moon itself appeared to stare at him in open wonderment. he grew uncomfortably conscious of this speechless watchfulness of nature,--he strained his ears to listen, as it were to the deepening dumbness of all existing things,--and to conquer the strange sensations that were overcoming him, he proceeded at a more rapid pace,--but in two or three minutes came again to an abrupt halt. for there in front of him, right across his path, lay the fallen pillar which, according to heliobas, marked the boundary to the field he sought! another glance at his map decided the position ... he had reached his journey's end at last! what was the time? he looked--it was just twenty minutes past eleven. a curious, unnatural calmness suddenly possessed him, ... he surveyed with a quiet, almost cold, unconcern the prospect before him,--a wide level square of land covered with tufts of coarse grass and clumps of wild tamarisk, ... nothing more. this was the field of ardath ... this bare, unlovely wilderness without so much as a tree to grace its outline! from where he stood he could view its whole extent,--and as he beheld its complete desolation he smiled,--a faint, half-bitter smile. he thought of the words in the ancient book of "esdras:" "and the angel bade me enter a waste field, and the field was barren and dry save of herbs, and the name of the field was ardath. and i wandered therein through the hours of the long night, and the silver eyes of the field did open before me and therein i saw signs and wonders." "yes,--the field is 'barren and dry' enough in all conscience!" he murmured listlessly--"but as for the 'silver eyes' and the 'signs and wonders,' they must have existed only in the venerable prophet's imagination, just as my flower-crowned angel-maiden exists in mine. well! ... now, theos alwyn" ... he continued, apostrophizing himself aloud,--"are you contented? are you quite convinced of your folly? ... and do you acknowledge that a fair dream is as much of a lie and a cheat as all the other fair-seeming things that puzzle and torture poor human nature? return to your former condition of reasoning and reasonable skepticism,--aye, even atheism if you will, for the materialists are right, ... you cannot prove a god or the possibility of any purely spiritual life. why thus hanker after a phantom loveliness? fame--fame! win fame! ... that is enough for you in this world, ... and as for a next world, who believes in it?--and who, believing, cares?" soliloquizing in this fashion, he set his foot on ardath itself, determining to walk across and around it from end to end. the grass was long and dry, yet it made no rustle beneath his tread ... he seemed to be shod with the magic shoes of silence. he walked on till he reached about the middle of the field, where perceiving a broad flat stone near him, he sat down to rest. there was a light mist rising,--a thin moonlit-colored vapor that crept slowly upward from the ground and remained hovering like a wide, suddenly-spun gossamer web, some two or three inches above it, thus giving a cool, luminous, watery effect to the hot and arid soil. "according to the apocrypha, esdras 'sat among the flowers,'" he idly mused--"well! ... perhaps there were flowers in those days,--but it is very evident there are none now. a more dreary, utterly desolate place than this famous 'ardath' i have never seen!" at that moment a subtle fragrance scented the still air, ... a fragrance deliciously sweet, as of violets mingled with myrtle. he inhaled the delicate odor, surprised and confounded. "flowers after all!" he exclaimed.... "or maybe some aromatic herb..." and he bent down to examine the turf at his feet. to his amazement he perceived a thick cluster of white blossoms, star-shaped and glossy-leaved, with deep golden centres, wherein bright drops of dew sparkled like brilliants, and from whence puffs of perfume rose like incense swung at unseen altars! he looked at them in doubt that was almost dread, ... were they real? ... were these the "silver eyes" in which esdras had seen "signs and wonders"? ... or was he hopelessly brain-sick with delusions, and dreaming again? he touched them hesitatingly ... they were actual living things, with creamy petals soft as velvet,--he was about to gather one of them,--when all at once his attention was caught and riveted by something like a faint shadow gliding across the plain. a smothered cry escaped his lips, ... he sprang erect and gazed eagerly forward, half in hope,--half in fear. what slight figure was that, pacing slowly, serenely, and all alone in the moonlight? ... without another instant's pause he rushed impetuously toward it,--heedless that as he went, he trod on thousands of those strange starry blossoms, which now, with sudden growth, covered and whitened every inch of the ground, thus marvellously fulfilling the words spoken of old: . . "behold the field thou thoughest barren; how great a glory hath the moon unveiled!" chapter x. god's maiden edris. he ran on swiftly for a few paces,--then coming more closely in view of the misty shape he pursued, he checked himself abruptly and stood still, his heart sinking with a bitter and irrepressible sense of disappointment. here surely was no angel wanderer from unseen spheres! ... only a girl, clad in floating gray draperies that clung softly to her slim figure, and trailed behind her as she moved sedately along through the snow-white blossoms that bent beneath her noiseless tread. he had no eyes for the strange flower-transfiguration of the lately barren land,--all his interest was centered on the slender, graceful form of the mysterious maiden. she, meanwhile, went on her way, till she reached the western boundary of the field,--there she turned, ... hesitated a moment, ... and then came back straight toward him. he watched her approach as though she were some invisible fate,--and a tremor shook his limbs as she drew nearer ... still nearer! he could see her distinctly now, all but her face,--that was in shadow, for her head was bent and her eyes were downcast. her long, fair hair flowed in a loose rippling mass over her shoulders ... she wore a wreath of the ardath flowers, and carried a cluster of them clasped between her small, daintily shaped hands. a few steps more, and she was close beside him--she stopped as if in expectation of some word or sign ... but he stood mute and motionless, not daring to speak or stir. then--without raising her eyes--she passed, ... passed like a flitting vapor,--and he remained as though rooted to the spot, in a sort of vague, dumb bewilderment! his stupefaction was brief however--rousing himself to swift resolution, he hastened, after her. "stay! stay!" he cried aloud. obedient to his call she paused, but did not turn. he came up with her. ... he caught at her robe, soft to the touch as silken gauze, and overwhelmed by a sudden emotion of awe and reverence, he sank on his knees. "who, and what are you?" he murmured in trembling tones--"tell me! if you are mortal maid i will not harm you, i swear! ... see! ... i am only a poor crazed fool that loves a dream, ... that stakes his life upon a chance of heaven, ... pity me as you are gentle! ... but do not fear me ... only speak!" no answer came. he looked up--and now in the rich radiance of the moon beheld her face ... how like, and yet how altogether unlike it was to the face of the angel in his vision! for that ethereal being had seemed dazzlingly, supremely beautiful beyond all mortal power of description,--whereas this girl was simply fair, small, and delicate, with something wistful and pathetic in the lines of her sweet mouth, and shadows as of remembered sorrows slumbering in the depths of her serene, dove-like eyes. her fragile figure drooped wearily as though she were exhausted by some long fatigue, ... yet, ... gazing down upon him, she smiled, ... and in that smile, the faint resemblance she bore to his spirit-ideal flashed out like a beam of sunlight, though it vanished again as quickly as it had shone. he waited eagerly to hear her voice, ... waited in a sort of breathless suspense,--but as she still kept silence, he sprang up from his kneeling attitude and seized her hands ... how soft they were and warm!--he folded them in his own and drew her closer to himself ... the flowers she held fell from her grasp, and lay in a tumbled fragrant heap between them. his brain was in a whirl--the past and the future--the real and the unreal--the finite and the infinite--seemed all merging into one another without any shade of difference or division! "we have met very strangely, you and i!"--he said, scarcely conscious of the words he uttered--"will you not tell me your name?" a faint sigh escaped her. "my name is edris," she answered, in low musical accents, that carried to his sense of hearing a suggestion, of something sweet and familiar. "edris!" he repeated--"edris!" and gazing at her dreamily he raised her hands to his lips and kissed them gently--"my fairest edris! from whence do you come?" she met his eyes with a mild look of reproach and wonderment. "from a far, far country, theos!" and he started as she thus addressed him--"a land where no love is wasted and no promise forgotten!" again that mystic light passed over her pale face--the blossom-coronal she wore seemed for a moment to glitter like a circlet of stars. his heart beat quickly--could he believe her? ... was she in very truth that shining peri whose aerial loveliness had so long haunted his imagination? nay!--it was impossible! ... for if she were, why should she veil her native glory in such simple maiden guise? searchingly he studied every feature of her countenance, and as he did so his doubts concerning her spirit-origin became more and more confirmed. she was a living, breathing woman--an actual creature of flesh and blood,--yet how account for her appearance on the field of ardath? this puzzled him ... till all at once a logical explanation of the whole mystery dawned upon his mind. heliobas had sent her hither on purpose to meet him! of course! how dense he had been not to see through so transparent a scheme before! the clever chaldean had resolved that he, theos alwyn, should somehow be brought to accept his trance as a real experience, so that henceforth his faith in "things unseen and eternal" might be assured. many psychological theorists would uphold such a deceit as not only permissible, but even praise-worthy, if practiced for the furtherance of a good cause. even the venerable hermit elzear might have shared in the conspiracy, and this "edris," as she called herself, was no doubt perfectly trained in the part she had to play! a plot for his conversion! ... well! ... he would enter into it himself, he resolved! ... why not? the girl was exquisitely fair,--a veritable psyche of soft charms!--and a little lovemaking by moonlight would do no harm, . .... here he suddenly became aware that while these thoughts were passing through his brain he had unconsciously allowed her hands to slip from his hold, and she now stood apart at some little distance, her eyes fixed full upon him with an expression of most plaintive piteousness. he made a hasty step or two toward her,--and as he did so, his pulses began to throb with an extraordinary sensation of pleasure,--pleasure so keen as to be almost pain. "edris!".. he whispered,--"edris..." and stopped irresolutely. she looked up at him with the appealing wistfulness of a lost and suffering child, and a slight shudder ran through all her delicate frame. "i am cold, theos!" she murmured half beseechingly, stretching out her hands to him once more,--hands as fine and fair as lily-leaves,--little white hands which he gazed at wonderingly, yet did not take.. "cold and very weary! the way has been long, and the earth is dark!" "dark?" repeated alwyn mechanically, still absorbed in the dubious contemplation of her lovely yielding form, her sweet upturned face and gold-glistening hair--"dark? ... here? ... beneath the brightness of the moon? nay,--i have seen many a full day look less radiant than this night of stars!" her eyes dwelt upon him with a certain pathetic bewilderment,--she let her extended arms drop wearily at her sides, and a shadow of pained recollection crossed the fairness of her features. "ah, i forgot! ..." and she sighed deeply--"this is that strange, sad world where darkness is called light." at these words uttered with so much sorrowful meaning, a quick thrill stirred alwyn's blood, an inexplicable sharp thrill, that was like the touch of scorching flame. he gazed at her perplexedly ... his pride resented what he imagined to be the deception practiced upon him, but at the same time he was not insensible to the weird romance of the situation. he began to consider that as this fair girl, trained so admirably in mystical speech and manner, had evidently been sent on purpose to meet him, he could scarcely be blamed for taking her as she presented herself, and enjoying to the full a thoroughly novel and picturesque adventure. his eyes flashed as he surveyed her standing there before him, utterly unprotected and at his mercy--his old, languid, skeptical smile played on his proud lips,--that smile of the marble antinous which says "bring me face to face with truth itself and i shall still doubt!".. an expression of reluctant admiration and awakening passion dawned on his countenance, ... he was about to speak,--when she whose looks were fastened on him with intense, powerful, watchful, anxious entreaty, suddenly wrung her hands together as though in despair, and gave vent to a desolate sobbing cry that smote him to the very heart. "theos! theos!" and her voice pealed out on the breathless air in sweet, melodious, broken echoes.. "oh, my unfaithful beloved, what can i do for thee! a love unseen thou wilt not understand,--a love made manifest thou wilt not recognize! alas!--my journey is in vain ... my errand hopeless! for while thine unbelief resists my pleading, how can i lead thee from danger into safety? ... how bridge the depths between our parted souls? ... how win for thee pardon and blessing from christ the king!" bright tears filled her eyes and fell fast and thick through her long, drooping lashes, and alwyn, smitten with remorse at the sight of such grief, sprang to her side overcome by shame, love, and penitence. "weeping? ... and for me?"--he exclaimed--"sweet edris! ... gentlest of maidens! ... weep not for one unworthy, . . but rather smile and speak again of love! ..." and now his words pouring forth impetuously, seemed to utter themselves independently of any previous thought,--"yes! speak only of love,--and the discourse of those tuneful lips shall be my gospel, . . the glance of those, soft eyes my creed, . . and as for pardon and blessing i crave none but thine! i sought a dream.. i have found a fair reality ... a living proof of love's divine omnipotence! love is the only god--who would doubt his sovereignty, or grudge him his full measure of worship? ... not i, believe me!"--and carried away by the force of a resistless inward fervor, he threw himself once more at her feet--"see!--here do i pay my vows at love's high altar!--heart's desire shall be the prayer--heart's ecstasy the praise! ... together we will celebrate our glad service of love, and heaven itself shall sanctify this eve of st. edris and all angels!" she listened,--looking down upon him with grave, half timid tenderness,--her tears dried, and a sudden hope irradiated her fair face with a soft, bright flush, as lovely as the light of morning falling on newly opened flowers. when he ceased, she spoke--her accents breaking through the silence like clear notes of music sweetly sung. "so be it!" she said ... "may heaven truly sanctify all pure thoughts, and free the soul of my beloved from sin!" and slowly bending forward, as a delicate iris-blossom bends to the sway of the wind, she laid her hands about his neck, and touched his lips with her own... ah! ... what divine ecstasy,--what wild and fiery transport filled him then! ... her kiss, like a penetrating lighting-flash, pierced to the very centre of his being,--the moonbeams swam round him in eddying circles of gold--the white field heaved to and fro, ... he caught her waist and clung to her, and in the burning marvel of that moment he forget everything, save that, whether spirit or mortal, she was in woman's witching shape, and that all the glamour of her beauty was his for this one night at least, . . this night which now in the speechless, glorious delirium of love that overwhelmed him, seemed like the mahometan's night of al-kadr, "better than a thousand months!" drawn to her by some subtle mysterious attraction which he could neither explain nor control, and absorbed in a rapture beyond all that his highest and most daring flights of poetical fancy had ever conceived, he felt as though his very life were ebbing out of him to become part of hers, and this thought was strangely sweet,--a perfect consummation of all his best desires! ... all at once a cold shudder ran freezingly through his veins,--a something chill and impalpable appeared to pass between him and her caressing arms--his limbs grew numb and heavy--his sight began to fail him ... he was sinking ... sinking, he knew not where, when suddenly she withdrew herself from his embrace. instantly his strength came back to him with a rush--he sprang to his feet and stood erect, breathless, dizzy, and confused--his pulses beating like hammer-strokes and every fiber in his frame quivering with excitement. entranced, impassioned, elated,--filled with unutterable incomprehensible joy, he would have clasped her again to his heart,--but she retreated swiftly from him, and standing several paces off, motioned him not to approach her more nearly. he scarcely heeded her warning gesture, ... plunging recklessly through the flowers he had almost reached her side, when to his amazement and fear, his eager progress was stopped! stopped by some invisible, intangible barrier, which despite all his efforts, forcibly prevented him from advancing one step further,--she was close within an arm's length of him--and yet he could not touch her! ... nothing apparently divided them, save a small breadth of the ardath blossoms gleaming ivory-soft in the moonlight ... nevertheless that invincible influence thrust him back and held him fast, as though he were chained to the ground with weights of iron! "edris!". he cried loudly, his former transport of delight changed into agony.. "edris! ... come to me! i cannot come to you! what is this that parts us?" "death!" she answered.. and the solemn word seemed to toll slowly through the still air like a knell. he stood bewildered and dismayed. death! what could she mean? what in the name of all her beautiful, delicate, glowing youth, had she to do with death? gazing at her in mute wonder, he saw her stoop and gather one flower from the clusters growing thickly around her--she held it shieldwise against her breast, where it shone like a large white jewel, and regarded him with sweet, wistful eyes full of a mournful longing. "death lies between us, my beloved!" she continued--"one line of shadow ... only one little line! but thou mayest not pass it, save when god commands,--and i--i cannot! for i know naught of death, . . save that it is a heavy dreamless sleep allotted to over-wearied mortals, wherein they gain brief rest 'twixt many lives,--lives that, like recurring dawns, rouse them anew to labor. how often hast thou slept thus, my theos, and forgotten me!" she paused, ... and alwyn met her clear, steadfast looks with a swift glance of something like defiance. for as she spoke, his previous idea concerning her came back upon him with redoubled force. he was keenly conscious of the vehement fever of love into which her presence had thrown him,--but all the same he was unable to dispossess himself of the notion that she was a pupil and an accomplice of heliobas, thoroughly trained and practiced in his mysterious doctrine, and that therefore she most probably had some magnetic power in herself that at her pleasure not only attracted him to her, but also held him thus motionless at a distance, from her. she talked, of course, in an indefinite mystic way either to intimidate or convince him ... but, . . and he smiled a little.. in any case it only rested with himself to unmask this graceful pretender to angelic honors! and while he thought thus, her soft tones trembled on the silence again, ... he listened as a dreaming mariner might listen to the fancied singing of the sea-fairies. "through long bright aeons of endless glory," she said--"i have waited and prayed for thee! i have pleaded thy cause before the blinding splendors of god's throne, i have sung the songs of thy native paradise, but thou, grown dull of hearing, hast caught but the echo of the music! life after life hast thou lived, and given no thought to me--yet i remember and am faithful! heaven is not all heaven to me without thee, my beloved, . . and now in this time of thy last probation, . . now, if thou lovest me indeed ..." "love thee?" suddenly exclaimed theos, half beside himself with the strange passion of yearning her words awakened in him--"love thee, edris?--aye! ... as the gods loved when earth was young! ... with the fullness of the heart and the vigor of glad life even so i love thee! what sayest thou of heaven? ... heaven is here--here on this bridal field of ardath, o'er-canopied with stars! come, sweet one, . . cease to play this mystic midnight fantasy--i have done with dreams! ... edris, be thyself! ... for them art woman, not angel--thy kiss was warm as wine! nay, why shrink from me? ." this, as she retreated still further away, her eyes flashing with unearthly brilliancy, . . "i will make thee a queen, fair edris, as poets ever make queens of the women they love,--my fame shall be a crown for thee to wear,--a crown that the whole world, gazing on, shall envy!" and in the heat and ardor of the moment, forgetful of the unseen barrier that divided her from him, he made a violent effort to spring forward--when lo! a wave of rippling light appeared to break from beneath her feet, . . it rolled toward him, and completely flooded the space between them like a glittering pool,--and in it the flowers of ardath swayed to and fro as water-lilies on a woodland lake sway to the measured dash of passing oars! starting back with a cry of terror, he gazed wildly on this miracle,--a voice richer than all music rang silvery clear across the liquid radiance. "fame!" said the voice ... "wouldst thou crown me, theos, with so perishable a diadem?" paralyzed and speechless, he lifted his straining, dazzled eyes--was that edris?--that lustrous figure, delicate as a sea-mist with the sun shining through? he stared upon her as a dying man might stare for the last time on the face of his nearest and dearest, ... he saw her soft gray garments change to glistening white, ... the wreath she wore sparkled as with a million dewdrops.. a roseate halo streamed above her and around her,--long streaks of crimson flared down the sky like threads of fire swung from the stars,--and in the deepening glory, her countenance, divinely beautiful, yet intensely sad, expressed the touching hope and fear of one who makes a final farewell appeal. ah god! ... he knew her now! ... too late, too late he knew her! ... the angel of his vision stood before him! ... and humbled to the very dust and ashes of despair he loathed himself for his unworthiness and lack of faith! "o doubting and unhappy one!" she went on, in accents sweeter than a chime of golden bells--"thou art lost in the gloom of the sorrowful star where naught is known of life save its shadow! lost.. and as yet i cannot rescue thee--ah! forlorn edris that i am, left lonely up in heaven! but prayers are heard, and god's great patience never tires,--learn therefore 'from the perils of the past, the perils of the future'--and weigh against an immortal destiny of love the worth of fame!" wider and more dazzling grew the brilliancy surrounding her--raising her eyes, she clasped her hands in an attitude of impassioned supplication ... . "o fair king christ!" she cried, and her voice seemed to strike a melodious passage through the air.. "thou canst prevail!" a burst of music answered her, . . music that rushed wind-like downwards and swept in strong vibrating chords over the land,--again the "kyrie eleison! christe eleison! kyrie eleison!" pealed forth in the same full youthful-toned chorus that had before sounded so mysteriously outside elzear's hermitage--and the separate crimson rays glittering aurora-wise about her radiant figure, suddenly melted all together in the form of a great cross, which, absorbing moon and stars in its fiery redness, blazed from end to end of the eastern horizon! then, like a fair white dove or delicate butterfly she rose ... she poised herself above the bowing ardath bloom ... anon, soaring aloft, she floated higher.... higher! ... and ever higher, serenely and with aerial slow ease,--till drawn into the glory of that wondrous flaming cross whose outstretched beams seemed waiting to receive her,--she drifted straight up wards through its very centre.... and so vanished! ... theos stared aghast at the glowing sky ... whither had she gone? her words still rang in his ears,--the warmth of her kiss still lingered on his lips,--he loved her! ... he worshipped her! ... why, why had she left him "lost" as she herself had said, in a world that was mere emptiness without her? he struggled for utterance... "edris ... !" he whispered hoarsely--"edris! ... my angel-love! ... come back! come back ... pity me! ... forgive! ... edris!" his voice died in a hard sob of imploring agony,--smitten to the very soul by a remorse greater than he could bear, his strength failed him, and he fell senseless, face forward among the flowers of the prophet's field; . . flowers that, circling snowily around his dark and prostrate form, looked like fairy garlands bordering a poet's grave! part ii.--in al-kyris. "that which hath been, is now: and that which is to be, hath already been: . . and god requireth that which is past." ecclesiastes. chapter xi. the marvellous city. profound silence,--profound unconsciousness,--oblivious rest! such are the soothing ministrations of kindly nature to the overburdened spirit; nature, who in her tender wisdom and maternal solicitude will not permit us to suffer beyond a certain limit. excessive pain, whether it be physical or mental, cannot last long,--and human anguish wound up to its utmost quivering-pitch finds at the very height of desolation, a strange hushing, lethean calm. even so it was with theos alwyn,--drowned in the deep stillness of a merciful swoon, he had sunk, as it were, out of life,--far out of the furthest reach or sense of time, in some vast unsounded gulf of shadows where earth and heaven were alike forgotten! ... how long he lay thus he never knew,--but he was roused at last.. roused by the pressure of something cold and sharp against his throat, . . and on languidly opening his eyes he found himself surrounded by a small body of men in armor, who, leaning on tall pikes which glistened brilliantly in the full sunlight, surveyed him with looks of derisive amusement. one of these, closer to him than the rest, and who seemed from his dress and bearing to be some officer in authority, held instead of a pike a short sword, the touch of whose pointed steel blade had been the effectual means of awakening him from his lethargy. "how now!" said this personage in a rough voice as he withdrew his weapon--"what idle fellow art thou? ... traitor or spy? fool thou must be, and breaker of the king's law, else thou hadst never dared to bask in such swine-like ease outside the gates of al-kyris the magnificent!" al-kyris the magnificent! what was the man talking about? uttering a hasty exclamation, alwyn staggered to his feet with an effort, and shading his eyes from the hot glare of the sun, stared bewilderedly at his interlocutor. "what..what is this?" he stammered dreamily--"i do not understand you! ... i.. i have slept on the field of ardath!" the soldiers burst into a loud laugh, in which their leader joined. "thou hast drunk deep, my friend!" he observed, putting up his sword with a sharp clatter into its shining sheath,--"what name sayst thou? ... ardath? we know it not, nor dost thou, i warrant, when sober! go to--make for thy home speedily! aye, aye! the flavor of good wine clings to thy mouth still,--'tis a pleasant sweetness that i myself am partial to, and i can pardon those who, like thee, love it somewhat too well! away!--and thank the gods thou hast fallen into the hands of the king's guard, rather then lysia's priestly patrol! see! the gates are open,--in with thee! and cool thy head at the first fountain?" "the gates?" ... what gates? removing his hand from his eyes alwyn gazed around confusedly. he was standing on an open stretch of level road, dustily-white, and dry, with long-continued heat,--and right in front of him was an enormously high wall, topped with rows of bristling iron spikes, and guarded by the gates alluded to,--huge massive portals seemingly made of finely molded brass, and embellished on either side by thick, round, stone watch towers, from whose summits scarlet pennons drooped idly in the windless air. amazed, and full of a vague, trembling terror, he fixed his wondering looks once more upon his strange companions, who in their turn regarded him with cool military indifference." "i must be mad or dreaming," he thought,--then growing suddenly desperate he stretched out his hands with a wild appealing gesture: "i swear to you i know nothing of this place!" he cried--"i never saw it before! some trick has been played on me ... who brought me here? where is elzear the hermit? ... the ruins of babylon? ... where is, ... good god! ... what fearful freak of fate is this!" the soldiers laughed again,--their commander looked at him a little curiously. "nay, art thou one of the escaped of lysia's lovers?" he asked, suspiciously--"and has the silver nectar failed of its usual action, and driven thy senses to the winds, that thou ravest thus? for if thou art a stranger and knowest naught of us, how speakest thou our language? ... why wearest thou the garb of our citizens?" alwyn shrank and shivered as though he had received a deadening blow,--an awful, inexplicable chill horror froze his blood. it was true! ... he understood the language spoken! ... it was perfectly familiar to him,--more so than his own native tongue,--stop! what was his native tongue? he tried to think--and, the sick fear at his heart grew stronger,--he could not remember a word of it! and his dress! ... he glanced at it dismayed and appalled,--he had not noticed it till now. it bore some resemblance to the costume of ancient greece, and consisted of a white linen tunic and loose upper vest, both garments being kept in place by a belt of silver. from this belt depended a sheathed dagger, a square writing tablet, and a pencil-shaped implement which he immediately recognized as the antique form of stylus. his feet were shod with sandals--his arms were bare to the shoulder, and clasped at the upper part by two broad silver armlets richly chased. noting all these details, the fantastic awfulness of his position smote him with redoubled force,--and he felt as a madman may feel when his impending doom has not entirely asserted itself,--when only grotesque and leering suggestions of madness cloud his brain,--when hideous faces, dimly discerned, loom out of the chaos of his nightly visions,--and when all the air seems solid darkness, with one white line of fire cracking it asunder in the midst, and that the fire of his own approaching frenzy. such a delirium of agony possessed alwyn at that moment,--he could have shrieked, laughed, groaned, wept, and fallen down in the dust before these bearded armed men, praying them to slay him with their weapons there where he stood, and put him mercifully and at once out of his mysterious misery. but an invisible influence stronger than himself, prevented him from becoming altogether the victim of his own torturing emotions, and he remained erect and still as a marble figure, with a wondering, white piteous face of such unutterable affliction that the officer who watched him seemed touched, and, advancing, clapped his shoulder in a friendly manner. "come, come!" he said--"thou need'st fear nothing,--we are not the men to blab of thy trespass against the city's edict,--for, of a truth, there is too much whispering away of young and goodly lives nowadays. what!--thou art not the first gay gallant, nor wilt thou be the last, that has seen the world turn upside down in a haze of love and late feasting! if thou hast not slept long enough, why sleep again an thou wilt,--but not here..." he broke off abruptly,--a distant clatter of horses' hoofs was heard, as of one galloping at full speed. the soldiers started, and assumed an attitude of attention,--their leader muttered something like an oath, and seizing alwyn by the arm, hurried him to the brass gates which, as he had said, stood open, and literally thrust him through. "in, in, my lad!" he urged with rough kindliness,--"thou hast a face fairer than that of the king's own minstrel, and why wouldst thou die for sake of an extra cup of wine? if lysia is to blame for this scattering of thy wits, take heed thou do not venture near her more--it is ill jesting with the serpent's sting! get thee hence quickly, and be glad of thy life,--thou hast many years before thee yet in which to play the lover and fool!" with this enigmatical speech he signed to his men to follow him,--they all filed through the gates, which closed after them with a jarring clang, ... a dark bearded face peered out of a narrow loophole in one of the watch-towers, and a deep voice called: "what of the hour?" the officer raised his gauntleted hand, and answered promptly: "peace and safety!" "salutation!" cried the voice again. "salutation!" responded the officer, and with a reassuring nod and smile to the bewildered alwyn, he gathered his little band around him, and they all marched off, the measured clink-clank of their footsteps making metallic music, as they wheeled round a corner and disappeared from sight. left to himself alwyn's first idea was to sit down in some quiet corner, and endeavor calmly to realize what strange and cruel thing had chanced to him. but happening to look up, he saw the bearded face in the watchtower observing him suspiciously,--he therefore roused himself sufficiently to walk away, on and on, scarce heeding whither he went, till he had completely lost sight of those great gold-glittering portals which had shut him, against his will, within the walls of a large, splendid, and populous city. yes! ... hopelessly perplexing and maddening as it was, there could be no doubt of this fact,--and though he again and again tried to convince himself that he was laboring under some wild and exceptional hallucination, his senses all gave evidence of the actual reality of his situation,--he felt, he moved, he heard, he saw, ... he was even beginning to be conscious of hunger, thirst, and fatigue. the further he went, the more gorgeous grew the surroundings, . . his unguided steps wandered as it seemed, of their own accord, into wide streets, paved entirely with mosaics, and lined on both sides with lofty, picturesque, and palace-like buildings,--he crossed and recrossed broad avenues, shaded by tall feathery palms, and masses of graceful flowering foliage,--he passed rows upon rows of brilliant shops, whose frontages glittered with the most costly and beautiful wares of every description,--and as he strolled about aimlessly, uncertain whither to go, he was constantly jostled by the pressing throngs of people that crowded the thoroughfares, all more or less apparently bent on pleasure, to judge from their animated countenances and frequent bursts of gay laughter. the men were for the most part arrayed like himself,--though here and there he met some few whose garments were of soft silk instead of linen, who wore gold belts in place of silver, and who carried their daggers in sheaths that were literally encrusted all over with flashing jewels. as he advanced more into the city's centre, the crowds increased,--so much so that the noise of traffic and clatter of tongues became quite deafening to his ears. richly ornamented chariots drawn by spirited horses, and driven by personages whose attire seemed to be a positive blaze of gold and gems, rolled past in a continuous procession,--fruit-sellers, carrying their lovely luscious merchandise in huge gilded moss-wreathed baskets, stood at almost every corner,--flower-girls, fair as flowers, bore aloft in their gracefully upraised arms wide wicker trays, overflowing with odorous blossoms tied into clusters and wreaths,--and there were countless numbers of curious little open square carts to which mules, wearing collars of bells, were harnessed, the tinkle-tinkle of their constant passage through the throng making incessant merry music. these vehicles bore the names of traders,--purveyors in wine and dealers in all sorts of provisions,--but with the exception of such necessary business caterers, the streets were full of elegant loungers of both sexes, who seemed to have nothing whatever to do but amuse themselves. the women were especially noticeable for their lazy grace of manner,--they glided to and fro with an indolent floating ease that was indescribably bewitching,--the more so as many of them were endowed with exquisite beauty of form and feature,--beauty greatly enhanced by the artistic simplicity of their costume. this was composed of a straight clinging gown, slightly gathered at the throat, and bound about the waist with a twisted girdle of silver, gold, and, in some cases, jewels,--their arms, like those of the men, were bare, and their small, delicate feet were protected by sandals fastened with crossed bands of ribbon coquettishly knotted. the arrangement of their hair was evidently a matter of personal taste, and not the slavish copying of any set fashion,--some allowed it to hang in loosely flowing abundance over their shoulders,--others had it closely braided, or coiled carelessly in a thick soft mass at the top of the head,--but all without exception wore white veils,--veils, long, transparent, and filmy as gossamer, which they flung back or draped about them at their pleasure ... and presently, after watching several of these fairy creatures pass by and listening to their low laughter and dulcet speech, a sudden memory leaped into alwyn's confused brain,--an old, old memory that seemed to have lain hidden among his thoughts for centuries,--the memory of a story called "lamia" told in verse as delicious as music aptly played. who wrote the story? ... he could not tell,--but he recollected that it was about a snake in the guise of a beautiful woman. and these women in this strange city looked as if they also had a snake-like origin,--there was something so soft and lithe and undulating about their movements and gestures. weary of walking, distracted by the ever-increasing clamor, and feeling lost among the crowd, he at last perceived a wide and splendid square, surrounded wild stately houses, and having in its centre a huge, white granite obelisk which towered like a pillar of snow against the dense blue of the sky. below it a massively sculptured lion, also of white granite, lay couchant, holding a shield between its paws,--and on either side two fine fountains were in full play, the delicate spiral columns of water being dashed up beyond the extreme point of the obelisk, so that its stone face was wet and glistening with the tossing rainbow shower. here he turned aside out of the main thoroughfare,--there were tall, shady trees all about, and fantastically carved benches underneath them, ... he determined to sit down and rest, and steadily think out his involved and peculiar condition of mind. as he passed the sculptured lion, he saw certain words engraved on the shield it held,--they were ... "through the lion and the serpent shall al-kyris flourish." there was no disorder in his intelligence concerning this sentence,--he was able to read it clearly and comprehensively, ... and yet ... what was the language in which it was written, and how did he come to know it so thoroughly? ... with a sigh that was almost a groan, he sank listlessly on a seat, and burying his head in his hands to shut out all the strange sights which so direfully perplexed his reason, he began to subject himself to a patient, serious cross-examination. in the first place ... who was he? part of the required answer came readily,--theos. theos what? his brain refused to clear up this point,--it repeated theos--theos,--over and over again, but no more! shuddering with a vague dread, he asked himself the next question, ... from whence had he come? the reply was direct and decisive--from ardath. but what was ardath? it was neither a country nor a city--it was a "waste field," where he had seen.... ah! whom had he seen? he struggled furiously with himself for some response to this, ... none came! total dumb blankness was the sole result of the inward rack to which he subjected his thoughts! and where had he been before he ever saw ardath? ... had he no recollection of any other place, any other surroundings?--absolutely none!--torture his wits as he would,--absolutely none! ... this was frightful ... incredible! ... surely, surely, he mused piteously, there must have been something in his life before the name of "ardath" had swamped his intelligence! ... he lifted his head, ... his face had grown ashen gray and rigid in the deep extremity of his speechless trouble and terror,--there was a sick faintness at his heart, and rising, he moved unsteadily to one of the great fountains, and there dipping his hands in the spray, he dashed some drops on his brow and eyes. then, making a cup of the hollowed palms, he drank thirstily several draughts of the cool, sweet water,--it seemed to allay the fever in his blood.... he looked around him with a wild, vague smile,--al-kyris! ... of course! ... he was in al-kyris!--why was he so distressed about it? it was a pleasant city,--there was much to see,--and also much to learn! ... at that instant a loud blast of silver-toned trumpets split the air, followed by a storm-roar of distant acclamation surging up from thousands of throats,--crowds of men and women suddenly flocked into the square, across it, and out of it again, all pressing impetuously in one direction,--and urged forward by the general rush as well as by a corresponding impulse within himself, he flung all meditation to the winds, and plunged recklessly into the shouting, onsweeping throng. he was borne swiftly with it down a broad avenue lined with grand old trees and decked with flying flags and streamers, to the margin of a noble river, as still as liquid amber in the wide sheen and heat of the noonday sun. a splendid marble embankment, adorned with colossal statues, girdled it on both sides,--and here, under silken awnings of every color, pattern and design, an enormous multitude was assembled,--its white attired, closely packed ranks stretching far away into the blue distance on either hand. all the attention of this vast concourse appeared to be centered on the slow approach of a strange, gilded vessel, that with great curved prow and scarlet sails flapping idly in the faint breeze, was gliding leisurely yet majestically over the azure blaze of the smooth water. huge oars like golden fins projected from her sides and dipped lazily every now and then, apparently wielded by the hands of invisible rowers, whose united voices supplied the lack of the needful wind,--and as he caught sight of this cumbrously quaint galley, theos, moved by sudden interest, elbowed his way resolutely though the dense crowd till he gained the edge of the embankment, where leaning against the marble balustrade, he watched with a curious fascination its gradual advance. nearer and nearer it came, ... brighter and brighter glowed the vivid scarlet of its sails, ... a solemn sound of stringed music rippled enchantingly over the glassy river, mingling itself with the wild shouting of the populace,--shouting that seemed to rend the hollow vault of heaven! ... nearer ... nearer ... and now the vessel slid round and curtsied forward, ... its propelling fins moved more rapidly ... another graceful sweep,--and lo! it fronted the surging throng like a glittering, fantastic apparition drawn out of dreamland! ... theos stared at it, dazzled and stricken with a half-blind breathless wonder,--was ever a ship like this he thought?--a ship that sparkled all over as though it were carven out of one great burning jewel? ... golden hangings, falling in rich, loose folds, draped it gorgeously from stem to stern,--gold cordage looped the sails,--on the deck a band of young gals clad in white, and crowned with flowers, knelt, playing softly on quaintly shaped instruments,--and a cluster of tiny, semi-nude boys, fair as young cupids, were grouped in pretty reposeful attitudes along the edge of the gilded prow holding garlands of red and yellow blossoms which trailed down to the surface of the water beneath. as a half-slumbering man may note a sudden brilliant glare of sunshine flashing on the wall of his sleeping-chamber, so theos at first viewed this floating pageant in confused, uncomprehending bewilderment, ... when all at once his stupefied senses were roused to hot life and pulsing action,--with a smothered cry of ecstasy he fixed his straining, eager gaze on one supreme, fair figure,--the central glory of the marvellous picture! ... a woman or a goddess?--a rainbow flame in mortal shape?--a spirit of earth, air, fire, water? ... or a thought of beauty embodied into human sweetness and made perfect? ... clothed in gold attire, and girdled with gems, she stood, leaning indolently against the middle mast of the vessel, her great, sombre, dusky eyes resting drowsily on the swarming masses of people, whose frenzied roar of rapture and admiration sounded like the breaking of billows. presently, with a slow, solemn smile on her haughtily curved lips, she extended one hand and arm, snow-white and glittering with jewels, and made an imperious gesture to command silence. instantly a profound hush ensued. lifting a long, slender, white wand, at the end of which could be plainly seen the gleaming silver head of a serpent, she described three circles in the air with a perfectly even, majestic motion, and as she did this, her marvellous eyes turned toward theos, and dwelt steadily upon him. he met her gaze fully, absorbing into his inmost soul the mesmeric spell of her matchless loveliness,--he saw, without actually realizing the circumstance, that the whole vast multitude around him had fallen prostrate in an attitude of worship,--and still he stood erect, drinking in the warmth of those dark, witching, sleepy orbs that flashed at him half-resentfully, half-mockingly, . . and then, . . the beauty-burdened ship began to sway gently, and move onwards,--she, that wondrous siren-queen was vanishing,--vanishing!--she and her kneeling maidens, and music, and flowers,--vanishing ... where? with a start he sprang from his post of observation,--he felt he must go after her at all risks,--he must find out her place of abode,--her rank,--her title,--her name! ... all at once he was roughly seized by a dozen or more of hands,--loud, angry voices shouted on all sides.. "a traitor! ... a traitor!" ... "an infidel!" "a spy!" "a malcontent!" "into the river with him!" "he refuses worship!" "he denies the gods!" "bear him to the tribunal!".. and in a trice of time, he was completely surrounded and hemmed in by an exasperated, gesticulating crowd, whose ominous looks and indignant mutterings were plainly significant of prompt hostility. with a few agile movements he succeeded in wrenching himself free from the grasp of his assailants, and standing among them like a stag at bay he cried: "what have i done? how have i offended? speak! or is it the fashion of al-kyris to condemn a man unheard?" no one answered this appeal,--the very directness of it seemed to increase the irritation of the mob, that pressing closer and closer, began to jostle and hustle him in a threatening manner that boded ill for his safety,--he was again taken prisoner, and struggling in the grasp of his captors, he was preparing to fight for his life as best he could, against the general fury, when the sound of musical strings, swept carelessly upwards in the ascending scale, struck sweetly through the clamor. a youth, arrayed in crimson, and carrying a small golden harp, marched sedately between the serried ranks that parted right and left at his approach,--thus clearing the way for another personage who followed him,--a graceful, adonis-like personage in glistening white attire, who wore a myrtle-wreath on his dark, abundant locks, and whom the populace--forgetting for a moment the cause of their recent disturbance--greeted with a ringing and ecstatic shout of "hail! sah-luma!" again and again this cry was uplifted, till far away on the extreme outskirts of the throng the joyous echo of it was repeated faintly yet distinctly ... "hail! hail, sah-luma!" chapter xii. sah-luma. the new-comer thus enthusiastically welcomed bowed right and left, with a condescending air, in response to the general acclamation, and advancing to the spot where theos stood, an enforced prisoner in the close grip of three or four able-bodied citizens, he said: "what turbulence is here? by my faith! ... when i heard the noise of quarrelsome contention jarring the sweetness of this nectarous noon, methought i was no longer in al-kyris, but rather in some western city of barbarians where music is but an unvalued name!" and he smiled--a dazzling, child-like smile, half petulant, half-pleased--a smile of supreme self-consciousness as of one who knew his own resistless power to charm away all discord. several voices answered him in clamorous unison: "a traitor, sah-luma!" "a profane rebel!" ... "an unbeliever!" ... "a most insolent knave!"--"he refused homage to the high priestess!" ... "a renegade from the faith!" "now, by the sacred veil!" cried sah-luma impatiently--"think ye i can distinguish your jargon, when like ignorant boors ye talk all at once, tearing my ears to shreds with such unmelodious tongue-clatter! whom have ye seized thus roughly? ... let him stand forth!" at this command, the men who held theos relaxed their grasp, and he, breathless and burning with indignation at the treatment he had received, shook himself quickly free of all restraint, and sprang forward, confronting his rescuer. there was a brief pause, during which the two surveyed each other with looks of mutual amazement. what mysterious indication of affinity did they read in one another's faces? ... why did they stand motionless, spell-bound and dumb for a while, eying half-admiringly, half-enviously, each other's personal appearance and bearing? ... undoubtedly a curious, far-off resemblance existed between them,--yet it was a resemblance that had nothing whatever to do with the actual figure, mien, or countenance. it was that peculiar and often undefinable similarity of expression, which when noticed between two brothers who are otherwise totally unlike, instantly proclaims their relationship. theos realized his own superior height and superior muscular development,--but what were these physical advantages compared to the classic perfection of sah-luma's beauty?--beauty combining the delicate with the vigorous, such as is shadowed forth in the artist-conceptions of the god apollo. his features, faultlessly regular, were redeemed from all effeminacy by the ennobling impress of high thought and inward inspiration,--his eyes were dark, with a brilliant under-reflection of steel-gray in them, that at times flashed out like the soft glitter of summer-lightning in the dense purple of an august heaven,--his olive-tinted complexion was flushed warmly with the glow of health,--and he had broad, bold, intellectual brows over which the rich hair clustered in luxuriant waves,--hair that was almost black, with here and there a curious fleck of reddish gold brightening its curling masses, as though a stray sunbeam or two had been caught and entangled therein. he was arrayed in a costume of the finest silk,--his armlets, belt, and daggersheath were all of jewels,--and the general brilliancy of his attire was furthermore increased by a finely worked flexible collar of gold, set with diamonds. the first exchange of wondering glances over, he viewed theos with a critical, half supercilious air. "what art thou?" he demanded ... "what is thy calling?" "theos hesitated,--then spoke out boldly and unthinkingly-- "i am a poet!" he said. a murmur of irrepressible laughter and derision ran through the listening crowd. sah-luma's lip curled haughtily-- "a poet!" and his fingers played idly with the dagger at his belt --"nay, not so! there is but one poet in al-kyris, and i am he!" theos looked at him steadily,--a subtle sympathy attracted him toward this charming boaster,--involuntarily he smiled, and bent his head courteously. "i do not seek to figure as your rival ..." he began. "rival!" echoed sah-luma--"i have no rivals!" a burst of applause from those nearest to them in the throng declared the popular approval of this assertion, and the boy bearing the harp, who had loitered to listen to the conversation, swept the strings of his instrument with a triumphant force and fervor that showed how thoroughly his feelings were in harmony with the expression of his master's sentiments. sah-luma conquered, with an effort, his momentary irritation, and resumed coldly: "from whence do you come, fair sir? we should know your name,--poets are not so common!" this with an accent of irony. taken aback by the question, theos stood irresolute, and uncertain what to say. for he was afflicted with a strange and terrible malady such as he dimly remembered having heard of, but never expected to suffer from,--a malady in which his memory had become almost a blank as regarded the past events of his life--though every now and then shadowy images of by-gone things flitted across his brain, like the transient reflections of wind-swept clouds on still, translucent water. presently in the midst of his painful indecision, an answer suggested itself like a whispered hint from some invisible prompter: "poets like sah-luma are no doubt as rare as nightingales in snow!" he said with a soft deference, and an increasing sense of tenderness for his haughty, handsome interlocutor--"as for me, i am a singer of sad songs that are not worth the hearing! my name is theos,--i come from far beyond the seas, and am a stranger in al-kyris,--therefore if i have erred in aught, i must be blamed for ignorance, not malice!" as he spoke sah-luma regarded him intently,--theos met his gaze frankly and unflinchingly. surely there was some singular power of attraction between the two! ... for as their flashing eyes again dwelt earnestly on one another, they both smiled, and sah-luma, advancing, proffered his hand. theos at once accepted it, a curious sensation of pleasure tingling through his frame, as he pressed those slender blown fingers in his own cordial clasp. "a stranger in al-kyris?--and from beyond the seas? then by my life and honor, i insure thy safety and bid thee welcome! a singer of sad songs? ... sad or merry, that thou are a singer at all makes thee the guest of the king's laureate!" a look of conscious vanity illumined his face as he thus announced with proud emphasis his own title and claim to distinction. "the brotherhood of poets," he continued laughingly--"is a mystic and doubtful tie that hath oft been questioned,--but provided they do not, like ill-conditioned wolves, fight each other out of the arena, there should be joy in the relationship". here, turning full upon the crowd, he lifted his rich, melodious voice to higher and more ringing tones: "it is like you, o hasty and misjudging kyrisians, that finding a harmless wanderer from far off lands, present at the pageant of the midsummer benediction, ye should pounce upon him, even as kites on a straying sea-bird, and maul him with your ruthless talons! has he broken the law of worship! ye have broken the law of hospitality! has he failed to kneel to the passing ship of the sun? so have ye failed to handle him with due courtesy! what report shall he bear hence of your gentleness and culture to those dim and unjoyous shores beyond the gray green wall of ocean-billows, where the very name of al-kyris serves as a symbol for all that is great and wise and wondrous in the whole round circle of the world? moreover ye know full well that foreigners and sojourners in the city are exempt from worship,--and the king's command is that all such should be well and nobly entertained, to the end that when they depart they may carry with them a full store of pleasant memories. hence, scatterbrains, to your homes!--no festival can ye enjoy without a gust of contention!--ye are ill-made instruments all, whose jarring strings even i, crowned minstrel of the king, can scarce keep one day in happy tune! look you now! ... this stranger is my guest!--. is there a man in al-kyris who will treat as an enemy one whom sah-luma calls friend?" a storm of applause followed this little extempore speech,--applause accompanied by an odorous rain of flowers. there were many women in the crowd, and these had pressed eagerly forward to catch every word that dropped from the poet-laureate's mellifluous lips,--now, moved by one common impulse, they hastily snatched off their posies and garlands, and flung them in lavish abundance at his feet. some of the blossoms chancing to fall on theos and cling to his garments, he quickly shook them off, and gathering them together, presented them to the personage for whom they were intended. he, however, gayly rejected them, moving his small sandalled foot playfully among the thick wealth of red and white roses that lay waiting to be crushed beneath his tread. "keep thy share!" he said, with an amused flash of his glorious eyes. "such offerings are my daily lot! ... i can spare thee one handful from the overflowing harvest of my song!" it was impossible to be offended with such charming self-complacency,--the naive conceit of the man was as harmless as the delight of a fair girl who has made her first conquest, and theos smiling, kept the flowers. by this time the surrounding throng had broken up into little knots and groups,--all ill-humor on the part of the populace had completely vanished,--and large numbers were now leaving the embankment and dispersing in different directions to their several homes. all those who had been within hearing distance of sah-luma's voice appeared highly elated, as though they had enjoyed some special privilege and pleasure, ... to be reproved by the laureate was evidently considered better than being praised by any one else. many persons pressed up to theos, and shaking hands with him, offered their eager excuses and apologies for the misunderstanding that had lately taken place, explaining with much animation both of look and gesture, that the fact of his wearing the same style of dress as themselves had induced them to take it for granted that he must be one of their fellow-citizens, and therefore subject to the laws of the realm. theos was just beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed by the excessive politeness and cordiality, of his recent antagonists, when sah-luma, again interposing, cut all explanations short. "come, come! cease this useless prating!" he said imperatively yet good-naturedly--"in everything ye showed your dullard ignorance and lack of discernment. for, concerning the matter of attire, are not the fashions of al-kyris copied more or less badly in every quarter of the habitable globe?--even as our language and literature form the chief study and delight of all scholars and educated gentlemen? a truce to your discussions!--let us get hence and home;" here he turned to theos with a graceful salutation--"you, my good friend, will doubtless be glad to rest and recover from my countrymen's ungentle treatment of your person." thus saying, he made a slight commanding sign,--the clustering people drew back on either side,--and he, taking theos by the arm, passed through their ranks, talking, laughing, and nodding graciously here and there as he went, with the half-kindly, half-indifferent ease of an affable monarch who occasionally bows to some of his poorest subjects. as he trod over the flowers that lay heaped about his path, several girls rushed impetuously forward, struggling with each other for possession of those particularly favored blossoms that had received the pressure of his foot, and kissing them, they tied them in little knots, and pinned them proudly on the bosoms of their white gowns. one or two, more daring, stretched out their hands to touch the golden frame of the harp as it was carried past them by the youth in crimson,--a pretty fellow enough, who looked extremely haughty, and almost indignant at this effrontery on the part of the fair poet-worshippers, but he made no remonstrance, and merely held his head a little higher and walked with a more consequential air, as he followed his master at a respectful distance. another long ecstatic shout of "hail sah-luma!" arose on all sides, rippling away,--away,--down, as it seemed, to the very furthest edge of echoing resonance,--and then the remainder of the crowd quickly scattered right and left, leaving the spacious embankment almost deserted, save for the presence of several copper-colored, blue-shirted individuals who were commencing the work of taking down and rolling up the silken awnings, accompanying their labors by a sort of monotonous chant that, mingling with the slow, gliding plash of the river, sounded as weird and mournful as the sough of the wind through leafless trees. meanwhile theos, in the company of his new friend, began to express his thanks for the timely rescue he had received,--but sah-luma waived all such acknowledgments aside. "nay, i have only served thee as a crowned laureate should ever serve a lesser minstrel,"--he said, with that indescribably delicious air of self-flattery which was so whimsical, and yet so winning,--"and i tell thee in all good faith that, for a newly arrived visitor in al-kyris, thy first venture was a reckless one! to omit to kneel in the presence of the high priestess during her benediction, was a violation of our customs and ceremonies dangerous to life and limb! a religiously excited mob is merciless,--and if i had not chanced upon the scene of action, . ." "i should have been no longer the man i am!" smiled theos, looking down on his companion's light, lithe, elegant form as it moved gracefully by his side--"but that i failed in homage to the high priestess was a most unintentional lack of wit on my part,--for if that was the high priestess,--that dazzling wonder of beauty who lately passed in a glittering ship, on her triumphant way down the river, like a priceless pearl in a cup of gold..." "aye, aye!" and sah-luma's dark brows contracted in a slight frown--"not so many fine words, i pray thee! thou couldst not well mistake her,--there is only one lysia!" "lysia!" murmured theos dreamily, and the musical name slid off his lips with a soft, sibilant sound,--"lysia! and i forgot to kneel to that enchanting, that adorable being! oh unwise, benighted fool!--where were my thoughts? next time i see her i will atone! .--no matter what creed she represents,--i will kiss the dust at her feet, and so make reparation for my sin!" sah-luma glanced at him with a somewhat dubious expression. "what!--art thou already persuaded?" he queried lightly, "and wilt thou also be one of us? well, thou wilt need to kiss the dust in very truth, if thou servest lysia, . . no half-measures will suit where she, the untouched and immaculate, is concerned,"--and here there was a faint inflection of mingled mockery and sadness in his tone--"to love her is, for many men, an absolute necessity,--but the virgin priestess of the sun and the serpent receives love, as statues may receive it,--moving all others to frenzy, she is herself unmoved!" theos listened, scarcely hearing. he was studying every line in sah-luma's face and figure with fixed and wistful attention. almost unconsciously he pressed the arm he held, and sah-luma looked up at him with a half-smile. "i fancy we shall like each other!" he said--"thou art a western singing bird-of-passage, and i a nested nightingale amid the roses of the east,--our ways of making melody are different,--we shall not quarrel!" "quarrel!" echoed theos amazedly--"nay! ... i might quarrel with my nearest and dearest, but never with thee, sah-luma! for i know thee for a very prince of poets! ... and would as soon profane the sanctity of the muse herself, as violate thy proffered friendship!" "why, so!" returned sah-luma, his brilliant eyes flashing with undisguised pleasure,--"an' thou thinkest thus of me we shall be firm and fast companions! thou hast spoken well and not without good instruction--i perceive my fame hath reached thee in thine own ocean-girdled lands, where music is as rare as sunshine. right glad am i that chance has thrown us together, for now thou wilt be better able to judge of my unrivalled master-skill in sweet word-weaving! thou must abide with me for all the days of thy sojourn here.... art willing?" "willing? ... aye! more than willing!" exclaimed theos enthusiastically--"but,--if i burden hospitality.." "burden!" and sah-luma laughed--"talk not of burdens to me!--i, who have feasted kings, and made light of their entertaining! here," he added as he led the way through a broad alley, lined with magnificent palms--"here is the entrance to my poor dwelling!" and a sparkling, mischievous smile brightened his features.--"there is room enough in it, methinks to hold thee, even if thou hadst brought a retinue of slaves!" he pointed before him as he spoke, and theos stood for a moment stock-still and overcome with astonishment, at the size and splendor of the palace whose gates they were just approaching. it was a dome-shaped building of the purest white marble, surrounded on all sides by long, fluted colonnades, and fronted by spacious court paved with mosaics, where eight flower-bordered fountains dashed up to the hot, blue sky, incessant showers of refreshing spray. into this court and across it, sah-luma led his wondering guest, . . ascending a wide flight of steps, they entered a vast open hall, where the light poured in through rose-colored and pale blue glass, that gave a strange yet lovely effect of mingled sunset and moonlight to the scene. here--reclining about on cushions of silk and velvet--were several beautiful girls in various attitudes of indolence and ease,--one laughing, black-haired houri was amusing herself with a tame bird which flew to and from her uplifted finger,--another in a half-sitting posture, played cup-and-ball with much active and graceful dexterity,--some were working at gold and silver embroidery,--others, clustered in a semicircle round a large osier basket filled with myrtle, were busy weaving garlands of the fragrant leaves,--and one maiden, seemingly younger than the rest, and of lighter and more delicate complexion, leaned somewhat pensively against an ebony-framed harp, as though she were considering what sad or suggestive chords she should next awaken from its responsive strings. as sah-luma and theos appeared, these nymphs all rose from their different occupations and amusements, and stood with bent heads and folded hands in statuesque silence and humility. "these are my human rosebuds!" said sah-luma softly and gayly, as holding the dazzled theos by the arm he escorted him past these radiant and exquisite forms--"they bloom, and fade, and die, like the flowers thrown by the populace,--proud and happy to feel that their perishable loveliness has, even, for a brief while, been made more lasting by contact with my deathless poet-fame! ah, niphrata!" and he paused at the side of the girl standing by the harp--"hast thou sung many of my songs to-day? ... or is thy voice too weak for such impassioned cadence? thou art pale, . . i miss thy soft blush and dimpling smile,--what ails thee, my honey-throated oriole?" "nothing, my lord"--answered niphrata in a low tone, raising a pair of lovely, dusky, violet eyes, fringed with long black lashes,--"nothing,--save that my heart is always sad in thine absence!" sah-luma smiled, well pleased. "let it be sad no longer then!" he said, caressing her cheek with his hand,--and theos saw a wave of rich color mounting swiftly to her fair brows at his touch, as though she were a white poppy warming to crimson in the ardent heat of the sun--"i love to see thee merry,--mirth suits a young and beauteous face like thine! look you, sweet!--i bring with me here a stranger from far-off lands,--one to whom sah-luma's name is as a star in the desert!--i must needs have thy voice in all its full lusciousness of tune to warble for his pleasure those heart-entangling ditties of mine which thou hast learned to render with such matchless tenderness! ... thanks, gisenya," ... this as another maiden advanced, and, gently removing the myrtle-wreath he wore, placed one just freshly woven on his clustering curls, . . then, turning to theos, he inquired--"wilt thou also wear a minstrel-garland, my friend? niphrata or gisenya will crown thee!" "i am not worthy"--answered theos, bending his head in low salutation to the two lovely girls, who stood eying him with a certain wistful wonder--"one spray from sah-luma's discarded wreath will best suffice me!" sah-luma broke into a laugh of absolute delight. "i swear thou speakest well and like a true man!" he said joyously. "unfamous as thou art, thou deservest honor for the frank confession of thy lack of merit! believe me, there are some boastful rhymers in al-kyris who would benefit much by a share of thy becoming modesty! give him his wish, gisenya--" and gisenya, obediently detaching a sprig of myrtle from the wreath sah-luma had worn all day, handed it to theos with a graceful obeisance--"for who knows but the leaves may contain a certain witchery we wot not of, that shall endow him with a touch of the divine inspiration!" at that moment, a curious figure came shuffling across the splendid hall,--that of a little old man somewhat shabbily attired, upon whose wrinkled countenance there seemed to be a fixed, malign smile, like the smile of a mocking greek mask. he had small, bright, beady black eyes placed very near the bridge of his large hooked nose,--his thin, wispy gray locks streamed scantily over his bent shoulders, and he carried a tall staff to support his awkward steps,--a staff with which he made a most disagreeable tapping noise on the marble pavement as he came along. "ah, sir gad-about!" he exclaimed in a harsh, squeaky voice as he perceived sah-luma--"back again from your self-advertising in the city! is there any poor soul left in al-kyris whose ears have not been deafened by the parrot-cry of the name of sah-luma?--if there is,--at him, at him, my dainty warbler of tiresome trills!--at him, and storm his senses with a rhodomontade of rhymes without reason!--at him, immortal of the immortals!--bard of bards!--stuff him with quatrains and sextains!--beat him with blank verse, blank of all meaning!--lash him with ballad and sonnet-scourges, till the tortured wretch, howling for mercy, shall swear that no poet save sah-luma, ever lived before, or will ever live again, on the face of the shuddering and astonished earth!" and breathless with this extraordinary outburst, he struck his staff loudly on the floor, and straightway fell into such a violent fit of coughing that his whole lean body shook with the paroxysm. sah-luma laughed heartily,--laughter in which he was joined by all the assembled maidens, including the gentle, pensive-eyed niphrata. standing erect in his glistening princely attire, with one hand resting familiarly on theos's arm, and the sparkle of mirth lighting up his handsome features, he formed the greatest contrast imaginable to the little shrunken old personage, who, clinging convulsively to his staff, was entirely absorbed in his efforts to control and overcome his sudden and unpleasant attack of threatened suffocation. "theos, my friend,"--he said, still laughing--"thou must know the admirable zabastes,--a man of vast importance in his own opinion! have done with thy wheezing,"--he continued, vehemently thumping the struggling old gentleman on the back--"here is another one of the minstrel craft thou hatest,--hast aught of bitterness in thy barbed tongue wherewith to welcome him as guest to mine abode?" thus adjured, the old man peered up at theos inquisitively, wiping away the tears that coughing had brought into his eyes, and after a minute or two began also to laugh in a smothered, chuckling way,--a laugh that resembled the croaking of frogs in a marshy pool. "another one of the minstrel-craft," he echoed derisively--"aye, aye! ... like meets like, and fools consorts with fool. the guest of sah-luma, . . hearken, young man,--" and he drew closer, the malign grin widening on his furrowed face,--"thou shalt learn enough trash here to stock thee with idiot-songs for a century. thou shalt gather up such fragments of stupidity, as shall provide thee with food for all the puling love-sick girls of a nation! dost thou write follies also? ... thou shalt not write them here, thou shalt not even think them!--for here sah-luma,--the great, the unrivalled sah-luma,--is sole lord of the land of poesy. poesy,--by all the gods!--i would the accursed art had never been invented ... so might the world have been spared many long-drawn nothings, enwoofed in obscure and distracting phraseology! ... thou a would-be poet?--go to!--make brick, mend sandals, dig entrenchments, fight for thy country,--and leave the idle stringing of words, and the tinkling of rhyme, to children like sah-luma, who play with life instead of living it." and with this, he hobbled off uneasily, grunting and grumbling as he went, and waving his staff magisterially right and left to warn the smiling maidens out of his way,--and once more sah-luma's laughter, clear and joyous, pealed through the vaulted vestibule. "poor zabastes!" he said in a tone of good-humored tolerance--"he has the most caustic wit of any man in al-kyris! he is a positive marvel of perverseness and ill-humor, well worth the four hundred golden pieces i pay him yearly for his task of being my scribe and critic. like all of us he must live, eat and wear decent clothing,--and that his only literary skill lies in the abuse of better men than himself is his misfortune, rather than his fault. yes! ... he is my paid critic, paid to rail against me on all occasions public or private, for the merriment of those who care to listen to the mutterings of his discontent,--and, by the sacred veil! ... i cannot choose but laugh myself whenever i think of him. he deems his words carry weight with the people,--alas, poor soul! his scorn but adds to my glory,--his derision to my fame! nay, of a truth i need him,--even as the king needs the court fool,--to make mirth for me in vacant moments,--for there is something grotesque in the contemplation of his cankered clownishness, that sees nought in life but the eating, the sleeping, the building, and the bargaining. such men as he can never bear to know that there are others, gifted by heaven, for whom all common things take radiant shape and meaning,--for whom the flowers reveal their fragrant secrets,--for whom birds not only sing, but speak in most melodious utterance--for whose dreaming eyes, the very sunbeams spin bright fantasies in mid-air more lasting than the kingdoms of the world! blind and unhappy zabastes! ... he is ignorant as a stone, and for him the mysteries of nature are forever veiled. the triumphal hero-march of the stars,--the brief, bright rhyme of the flashing comet,--the canticle of the rose as she bears her crimson heart to the smile of the sun,--the chorus of green leaves chanting orisons to the wind--the never completed epic of heaven's lofty solitudes where the white moon paces, wandering like a maiden in search of love,--all these and other unnumbered joys he has lost--joys that sah-luma, child of the high gods and favorite of destiny drinks in with the light and the air." his eyes softened with a dreamy, intense lustre that gave them a new and almost pathetic beauty, while theos, listening to each word he uttered, wondered whether there were ever any sounds sweeter than the rise and fall of his exquisite voice,--a voice as deliciously clear and mellow as a golden flute tenderly played. "yes!--though we must laugh at zabastes we should also pity him,"--he resumed in gayer accents--"his fate is not enviable. he is nothing but a critic--he could not well be a lesser man,--one who, unable himself to do any great work, takes refuge in finding fault with the works of others. and those who abhor true poesy are in time themselves abhorred,--the balance of justice never errs in these things. the poet wins the whole world's love, and immortal fame,--his adverse critic, brief contempt, and measureless oblivion. come,"--he added, addressing theos--"we will leave these maidens to their duties and pastimes,--niphrata!" here his dazzling smile flashed like a beam of sunlight over his face--"thou wilt bring us fruit and wine yonder,--we shall pass the afternoon together within doors. bid my steward prepare the rose chamber for my guest, and let athazel and zimra attend there to wait upon him." all the maidens saluted, touching their heads with their hands in token of obedience, and sah-luma leading the way, courteously beckoned theos to follow. he did so, conscious as he went of two distinct impressions,--first, that the mysterious mental agitation he had suffered from when he had found himself so unexpectedly in a strange city, was not completely dispelled,--and secondly, that he felt as though he must have known sah-luma all his life! his memory still remained a blank as regarded his past career,--but this fact had ceased to trouble him, and he was perfectly tranquil, and altogether satisfied with his present surroundings. in short, to be in al-kyris, seemed to him quite in keeping with the necessary course of events,--while to be the friend and companion of sah-luma was more natural and familiar to his mind, than all once natural and familiar things. chapter xiii. a poet's palace. gliding along with that graceful, almost phantom-like swiftness of movement that was so much a part of his manner, sah-luma escorted his visitor to the further end of the great hall. there,--throwing aside a curtain of rich azure silk which partially draped two large folding-doors,--he ushered him into a magnificent apartment opening out upon the terrace and garden beyond,--a garden filled with such a marvellous profusion of foliage and flowers, that looking at it from between the glistening marble columns surrounding the palace, it seemed as though the very sky above rested edge-wise on towering pyramids of red and white bloom. awnings of pale blue stretched from the windows across the entire width of the spacious outer colonnade, and here two small boys, half nude, and black as polished ebony, were huddled together on the mosaic pavement, watching the arrogant deportment of a superb peacock that strutted majestically to and fro with boastfully spreading tail and glittering crest as brilliant as the gleam of the hot sun on the silver fringe of the azure canopies. "up, lazy rascals!" cried sah-luma imperiously, as with the extreme point of his sandaled foot he touched the dimpled, shiny back of the nearest boy--"up, and away! ... fetch rose-water and sweet perfumes hither! by the gods! ye have let the incense in yonder burner smoulder!"--and he pointed to a massive brazen vessel, gorgeously ornamented, from whence rose but the very faintest blue whiff of fragrant smoke--"off with ye both, ye basking blackamoors! bring fresh frankincense,--and palm-leaves wherewith to stir this heated air--hence and back again like a lightning-flash! ... or out of my sight forever!" while he spoke, the little fellows stood trembling and ducking their woolly heads, as though they half expected to be seized by their irate master and flung, like black balls, out into the wilderness of flowers, but glancing timidly up and perceiving that even in the midst of his petulance he smiled, they took courage, and as soon as he had ceased they darted off with the swiftness of flying arrows, each striving to outstrip the other in a race across the terrace and garden. sah-luma laughed as he watched them disappear,--and then stepping back into the interior of the apartment he turned to theos and bade him be seated. theos sank unresistingly into a low, velvet-cushioned chair richly carved and inlaid with ivory, and stretching his limbs indolently therein, surveyed with new and ever-growing admiration the supple, elegant figure of his host, who, throwing himself full length on a couch covered with leopard-skins, folded his arms behind his head, and eyed his guest with a complacent smile of vanity and self-approval. "'tis not an altogether unfitting retreat for a poet's musings"--he said, assuming an air of indifference, as he glanced round his luxurious, almost royally appointed room--"i have heard of worse!--but truly it needs the highest art of all known nations to worthily deck a habitation wherein the divine muse may daily dwell, ... nevertheless, air, light, and flowers are not lacking, and on these methinks i could subsist, were i deprived of all other things!" theos sat silent, looking about him wistfully. was ever poet, king, or even emperor, housed more sumptuously than this, he thought? ... as his eyes wandered to the domed ceiling, wreathed with carved clusters of grapes and pomegranates,--the walls, frescoed with glowing scenes of love and song-tournament,--the groups of superb statuary that gleamed whitely out of dusky, velvet-draped corners,--the quaintly shaped book-cases, overflowing with books, and made so as to revolve round and round at a touch, or move to and fro on noiseless wheels,--the grand busts, both in bronze and marble, that stood on tall pedestals or projecting bracket; and,--while he dimly noted all these splendid evidences of unlimited wealth and luxury,--the perfume and lustre of the place, the glitter of gold and azure, silver and scarlet, the oriental languor pervading the very air, and above all the rich amber and azure-tinted light that bathed every object in a dream-like and fairy radiance, plunged his senses into a delicious confusion,--a throbbing fever of delight to which he could give no name, but which permeated every fibre of his being. he felt half blinded with the brilliancy of the scene,--the dazzling glow of color,--the sheen of deep and delicate hues cunningly intermixed and contrasted,--the gorgeous lavishness of waving blossoms that seemed to surge up like a sea to the very windows,--and though many thoughts flitted hazily through his brain, he could not shape them into utterance. he stared vaguely at the floor,--it was paved with variegated mosaic and strewn with the soft, dark, furry skins of wild animals,--at a little distance from where he sat there was a huge bronze lectern supported by a sculptured griffin with horns,--horns which curving over at the top, turned upward again in the form of candelabra,--the harp-bearer had brought in the harp, and it now stood in a conspicuous position decked with myrtle, some of the garlands woven by the maidens being no doubt used for this purpose. yet there was something mirage-like and fantastic in the splendor that everywhere surrounded him,--he felt as though he were one of the spectators in a vast auditorium where the curtain had just risen on the first scene of the play he was dubiously considering in his own perplexed mind, whether such princely living were the privilege, or right, or custom of poets in general, when sah-luma spoke again, waving his hand toward one of the busts near him--a massive, frowning head, magnificently sculptured. "there is the glorious orazel!" he said--"the father, as we all must own, of the art of poesy, and indeed of all true literature! yet there be some who swear he never lived at all--aye! though his poems have come down to us,--and many are the arguments i have had with so-called wise men like zabastes, concerning his style and method of versification. everything he has written bears the impress of the same master-touch,--nevertheless garrulous controversialists hold that his famous work the 'ruva-kalama' descended by oral tradition from mouth to mouth till it came to us in its 'improved' present condition. 'improved!'" and sah-luma laughed disdainfully,--"as if the mumbling of an epic poem from grandsire to grandson could possibly improve it! ... it would rather be deteriorated, if not altogether changed into the merest doggerel! nay, nay!--the 'ruva-kalama,' is the achievement of one great mind,--not twenty oruzels were born in succession to write it,--there was, there could be only one, and he, by right supreme, is chief of the bards immortal! as well might fools hereafter wrangle together and say there were many sah-lumas! ... only i have taken good heed posterity shall know there was only one,--unmatched for love-impassioned singing throughout the length and breadth of the world!" he sprang up from his recumbent posture and attracted theos's attention to another bust even finer than the last,--it was placed on a pedestal wreathed at the summit and at the base with laurel. "the divine hyspiros!" he exclaimed pointing to it in a sort of ecstasy--"the master from whom it may be i have caught the perfect entrancement of my own verse-melody! his fame, as thou knowest, is unrivalled and universal--yet--canst thou believe it! ... there has been of late an ass found in al-kyris who hath chosen him as a subject for his braying--and other asses join in the uneuphonius chorus. the marvellous plays of hyspiros! ... the grandest tragedies, the airiest comedies, the tenderest fantasies, ever created by human brain, have been called in question by these thistle-eating animals!--and one most untractable mule-head hath made pretence to discover therein a passage of secret writing which shall, so the fool thinks, prove that hyspiros was not the author of his own works, but only a literary cheat, and forger of another and lesser man's inspiration! by the gods!--one's sides would split with laughter at the silly brute, were he not altogether too contemptible to provoke even derision! hyspiros a traitor to the art he served and glorified? ... hyspiros a literary juggler and trickster? ... by the serpent's head! they may as well seek to prove the fiery sun in heaven a common oil-lamp, as strive to lessen by one iota the transcendent glory of the noblest poet the centuries have ever seen!" warmed by enthusiasm, with his eyes flashing and the impetuous words coursing from his lips, his head thrown back, his hand uplifted, sah-luma looked magnificent,--and theos, to whose misty brain the names of oruzel and hyspiros carried no positively distinct meaning, was nevertheless struck by a certain suggestiveness in his remarks that seemed to bear on some discussion in the literary world that had taken place quite recently. he was puzzled and tried to fix the precise point round which his thoughts strayed so hesitatingly, but he could arrive at no definite conclusion. the brilliant, meteor-like sah-luma meantime flashed hither and thither about the room, selecting certain volumes from his loaded book-stands, and bringing them in a pile, he set them on a small table by his visitor's side. "these are some of the earliest editions of the plays of hyspiros"--he went on, talking in that rapid, fluent way of his that was as musical as a bird's song--"they are rare and curious. see you!--the names of the scribes and the dates of issue are all distinct. ah!--the treasures of poetry enshrined within these pages! ... was ever papyrus so gemmed with pearls of thought and wisdom?--if there were a next world, my friend,"--and here he placed his hand familiarly on his guest's shoulder, while the bright, steel-gray under-gleam sparkled in his splendid eyes--"'twould be worth dwelling in for the sake of hyspiros,--as grand a god as any of the thunderers in the empyrean!" "surely there is a next world"--murmured theos, scarcely knowing what he said--"a world where thou and i, sah-luma, and all the masters and servants of song shall meet and hold high festival!" sah-luma laughed again, a little sadly this time, and shrugged his shoulders. "believe it not!" he said, and there was a touch of melancholy in his rich voice--"we are midges in a sunbeam,--emmets on a sand-hill...no more! is there a next world, thinkest thou, for the bees who die of surfeit in the nilica-cups?--for the whirling drift of brilliant butterflies that sleepily float with the wind unknowing whither, till met by the icy blast of the north, they fall like broken and colorless leaves in the dust of the high-road? is there a next world for this?"--and he took from a tall vase near at hand a delicate flower, lily-shaped and deliciously odorous, . . "the expression of its soul or mind is in its fragrance,--even as the expression of ours finds vent in thought and aspiration,--have we more right to live again than this most innocently fair blossom, unsmirched by deeds of evil? nay!--i would more easily believe in a heaven for birds and flowers, than for women and men!" a shadow of pain darkened his handsome face as he spoke, . . and theos, gazing full at him, became suddenly filled with pity and anxiety,--he passionately longed to assure him that there was in very truth a future higher and happier existence,--he, theos, would vouch for the fact! but how? ... and why? ... what could he say? ... what could he prove? ... his throat ached,--his eyeballs burned, he was, as it were, forbidden to speak, notwithstanding the yearning desire he felt to impart to the soul of his new-found friend something of that indescribable sense of everlastingness which he himself was now conscious of, even as one set free of prison is conscious of liberty. mute, and with a feeling as of hot, unshed tears welling up from his very heart, he turned over the volumes of hyspiros almost mechanically,--they were formed of sheets of papyrus artistically bound in loose leather coverings and tied together with gold-colored ribbon. the kyrisian language was, as has been before stated, perfectly familiar to him, though he could not tell how he had acquired the knowledge of it,--and he was able to see at a glance that sah-luma had good cause to be enthusiastic in his praise of the author whose genius he so fervently admired. there was a ringing richness in the rush of the verse,--a wealth of simile combined with a simplicity and directness of utterance that charmed the ear while influencing the mind, and he was beginning to read in sotto-voce the opening lines of a spirited battle-challenge running thus: "i tell thee, o thou pride enthroned king that from these peaceful fields, these harvest lands, strange crops shall spring, not sown by thee or thine! arm'd millions, bristling weapons, helmed men dreadfully plum'd and eager for the fray, steel crested myrmidons, toss'd spears, wild steeds, uplifted flags and pennons, horrid swords, death gleaming eyes, stern hands to grasp and tear life from beseeching life, till all the heavens strike havoc to the terror-trembling stars"... when the two small, black pages lately dispatched in such haste by sah-luma returned, each one bearing a huge gilded bowl filled with rose water, together with fine cloths, lace-fringed, and soft as satin. kneeling humbly down, one before theos, the other before sah-luma, they lifted these great, shining bowls on their heads, and remained motionless. sah-luma dipped his face and hands in the cool, fragrant fluid,--theos followed his example,--and when these light ablutions were completed, the pages disappeared, coming back almost immediately with baskets of loose rose-leaves, white and red, which they scattered profusely about the room. a delightful odor subtly sweet, and yet not faint, began to freshen the already perfumed air,--and sah-luma, flinging himself again on his couch, motioned theos to take a similar resting-place opposite. he at once obeyed, yielding anew to the sense of indolent luxury and voluptuous ease his surroundings engendered,--and presently the aroma of rising incense mingled itself with the scent of the strewn rose-petals,--the pages had replenished the incense-burner, and now, these duties done so far, they brought each a broad, long stalked palm-leaf, and placing themselves in proper position, began to fan the two young men slowly and with measured gentleness, standing as mute as little black statues, the only movement about them being the occasional rolling of their white eyeballs and the swaying to and fro of their shiny arms as they wielded the graceful, bending leaves. "this is the way a poet should ever live!" murmured theos, glancing up from the soft cushions among which he reclined, to sah-luma, who lay with his eyes half-closed and a musing smile on his beautiful mouth--"self centered in a circle of beauty,--with naught but fair suggestions and sweet thoughts to break the charm of solitude. a kingdom of happy fancies should be his, with gates shut last against unwelcome intruders,--gates that should never open save to the conquering touch of woman's kiss! ... for the master-key of love must unlock all doors, even the doors of a minstrel's dreaming!" "thinkest thou so?" said sah-luma lazily, turning his dark, delicate head slightly round on his glistening, pale-rose satin pillow--"nay, of a truth there are times when i could bar out women from my thoughts as mere disturbers of the translucent element of poesy in which my spirit bathes. there is fatigue in love, . . whose pretty human butterflies too oft weary the flower whose honey they seek to drain. nevertheless the passion of love hath a certain tingling pleasure in it, . . i yield to it when it touches me, even as i yield to all other pleasant things,--but there are some who unwisely carry desire too far, and make of love a misery instead of a pastime. many will die for love,--fools are they all! to die for fame, . . for glory, . . that i can understand, . . but for love! ..." he laughed, and taking up a crushed rose-petal he flipped it into the air with his finger and thumb--"i would as soon die for sake of that perished leaf as for sake of a woman's transient beauty!" as he uttered these words niphrata entered, carrying a golden salver on which were placed a tall flagon, two goblets, and a basket of fruit. she approached theos first, and he, raising himself on his elbow, surveyed her with fresh admiration and interest while he poured out the wine from the flagon into one of those glistening cups, which he noticed were rough with the quantity of small gems used in their outer ornamentation. he was struck by her fair and melancholy style of loveliness, and as she stood before him with lowered eyes, the color alternately flushing and paling on her cheeks, and her bosom heaving restlessly beneath the loosely drawn folds of her prim rose-hued gown, an inexplicable emotion of pity smote him, as if he had suddenly been made aware of some inward sorrow of hers which he was utterly powerless to console. he would have spoken, but just then could find nothing appropriate to say, . . and when he had selected a fine peach from the heaped-up dainties offered for his choice, he still watched her as she turned to sah-luma, who smiled, and bade her set down her salver on a low, bronze stand at his side. she did so, and then with the warm blood burning in her cheeks, stood waiting and silent. sah-luma, with a lithe movement of his supple form, lifted himself into a half-sitting posture, and throwing one arm round her waist, drew her close to his breast and kissed her. "my fairest moonbeam!" he said gayly--"thou art as noiseless and placid as thy yet unembodied sisters that stream through heaven and dance on the river when the world is sleeping! myrtle! ..." and he detached a spray from the bosom of her dress--"what hast thou to do with the poet's garland? by my faith, thou art like theos yonder, and hast chosen to wear a sprig of my faded crown for thine adornment--is't not so?" a hot and painful blush crimsoned niphrata's face,--a softness as of suppressed tears glistened in her eyes,--she made no answer, but looked beseechingly at the little twig sah-luma held. "silly child!" he went on laughingly, replacing it himself against her bosom, where the breath seemed to struggle with such panting haste and fear--"thou art welcome to the dead leaves sanctified by song, if thou thinkest them of value, but i would rather see the rosebud of love nestled in that pretty white breast of thine, than the cast-off ornaments of fame!" and filling himself a cup of wine he raised it aloft, looking at theos smilingly as he did so. "to your health, my noble friend!" he cried, "and to the joys of the passing hour!" "a wise toast!" answered theos, placing his lips to his own goblet's rim,--"for the past is past,--'twill never return,--the future we know not,--and only the present can be called our own! to the health of the divine sah-luma, whose fame is my glory!--whose friendship is dear to me as life!" and with this, he drained off the wine to the last drop. scarcely had he done so, when the most curious sensation overcame him--a sensation of bewildering ecstasy as though he had drunk of some ambrosian nectar or magic drug which had suddenly wound up his nerves to an acute tension of indescribable delight. the blood coursed more swiftly through his veins,--he felt his face flush with the impulsive heat and ardor of the moment,--he laughed as he set the cup down empty, and throwing himself back on his luxurious couch, his eyes flashed on sah-luma's with a bright, comprehensive glance of complete confidence and affection. it was strange to note how quickly sah-luma returned that glance,--how thoroughly, in so short a space of time, their friendship had cemented itself into a more than fraternal bond of union! niphrata, meanwhile, stood a little aside, her wistful looks wandering from one to the other as though in something of doubt or wonder. presently she spoke, inclining her fair head toward sah-luma. "my lord goes to the palace to-night to make his valued voice heard in the presence of the king?" she inquired timidly. "even so, niphrata!" responded the laureate, passing his hand carelessly through his clustering curls--"i have been summoned thither by the royal command. but what of that, little one? thou knowest 'tis a common occurrence,--and that the court is bereft of all pleasure and sweetness when sah-luma is silent." "my lord's guest goes with him?" pursued niphrata gently. "aye, most assuredly?" and sah-luma smiled at theos as he spoke--"thou wilt accompany me to the king, my friend?" he went on--"he will give thee a welcome for my sake, and though of a truth his majesty is most potently ignorant of all things save the arts of love and warfare, nevertheless he is man as well as monarch, and thou wilt find him noble in his greeting and generous of hospitality." "i will go with thee, sah-luma, anywhere!" replied theos quickly--"for in following such a guide, i follow my own most perfect pleasure." niphrata looked at him meditatively, with a melancholy expression in her lovely eyes. "my lord sah-luma's presence indeed brings joy!" she said softly and tremulously--"but the joy is too sweet and brief--for when he departs, none can fill the place he leaves vacant!" she paused,--sah-luma's gaze rested on her intently, a half-amused, half-tender light leaping from under the drooping shade of his long, silky black lashes,--she caught the look, and a little shiver ran through her delicate frame,--she pressed one hand on her heart, and resumed in steadier and more even tones,--"my lord has perhaps not heard of the disturbances of the early morning in the city?"--she asked--"the riotous crowd in the marketplace--the ravings of the prophet khosrul? ... the sudden arrest and imprisonment of many,--and the consequent wrath of the king?" "no, by my faith!" returned sah-luma, yawning slightly and settling his head more comfortably on his pillows--"nor do i care to heed the turbulence of a mob that cannot guide itself and yet resists all guidance. arrests? ... imprisonments? ... they are common,--but why in the name of the sacred veil do they not arrest and imprison the actual disturbers of the peace,--the mystics and philosophers whose street orations filter through the mind of the disaffected, rousing them to foolish frenzy and disordered action?--why, above all men, do they not seize khosrul?--a veritable madman, for all his many years and seeming wisdom! hath he not denounced the faith of nagaya and foretold the destruction of the city times out of number? ... and are we not all weary to death of his bombastic mouthing? if the king deemed a poet's counsel worth the taking, he would long ago have shut this bearded ranter within the four walls of a dungeon, where only rats and spiders would attend his lectures on approaching doom!" "nay, but my lord--" niphrata ventured to say timidly--"the king dare not lay hands on khosrul ..." "dare not!" laughed sah-luma lazily stretching out his hand and helping himself to a luscious nectarine from the basket at his side--"sweet niphrata! ... settest thou a limit to the power of the king? as well draw a boundary-line for the imagination of the poet! khosrul may be loved and feared by a certain number of superstitious malcontents who look upon a madman as a sort of sacred wild animal,--but the actual population of al-kyris,--the people who are the blood, bone, and sinew of the city,--these are not in favor of change either in religion, laws, manners, or customs. but khosrul is old,--and that the king humors his vagaries is simply out of pity for his age and infirmity, niphrata,--not because of fear! our monarch knows no fear." "khosrul prophesies terrible things!" ... murmured the girl hesitatingly--"i have often thought ... if they should come true...." "thou timid dove!" and sah-luma, rising from his couch, kissed her neck lightly, thus causing a delicate flush of crimson to ripple through the whiteness of her skin--"think no more of such folly--thou wilt anger me. that a doting graybeard like khosrul should trouble the peace of al-kyris the magnificent, ... by the gods--the whole thing is absurd! let me hear no more of mobs or riots, or road-rhetoric,--my soul abhors even the suggestion of discord. tranquillity! ... divinest calm, disturbed only by the flutterings of winged thoughts hovering over the cloudless heaven of fancy! ... this, this alone is the sum and centre of my desires.--and to-day i find that even thou, niphrata--" here his voice took upon itself an injured tone,--"thou, who art usually so gentle, hast somewhat troubled the placidity of my mind by thy foolish talk concerning common and unpleasant circumstances, ... "he stopped short and a line of vexation and annoyance made its appearance between his broad, beautiful brows, while niphrata seeing this expression of almost baby-petulance in the face she adored threw herself suddenly at his feet, and raising her lovely eyes swimming in tears, she exclaimed: "my lord! sah-luma! singing-angel of niphrata's soul!--forgive me! it is true, ... thou shouldst never hear of strife or contention among the coarser tribe of men,--and i, ... i, poor niphrata, would give my life to shield thee from the faintest shadow of annoy! i would have thy path all woven sunbeams,--thou shouldst live like a fairy monarch embowered 'mid roses, sheltered from rough winds, and folded in loving arms, fairer maybe, but not more fond than mine!" ... her voice broke,--stooping, she kissed the silver fastening of his sandal, and springing up, rushed from the room before a word could be uttered to bid her stay. sah-luma looked after her with a pretty, half-pleased perplexity. "she is often thus!" he said in a tone of playful resignation,--"as i told thee, theos,--women are butterflies, hovering hither and thither on uneasy pinions, uncertain of their own desires. niphrata is a woman-riddle,--sometimes she angers me,--sometimes she soothes, ... now she prattles of things that concern me not,--and anon converses with such high and lofty earnestness of speech, that i listen amazed, and wonder where she hath gathered up her store of seeming wisdom." "love teaches her all she knows!" interrupted theos quickly and with a meaning glance. sah-luma laughed languidly, a faint color warming the clear olive pallor of his complexion. "aye,--poor tender little soul, she loves me,".. he said carelessly--"that is no secret! but then all women love me,--i am more like to die of a surfeit of love than of anything else" he moved towards the open window "come!--" he added--"it is the hour of sunset,--there is a green hillock in my garden yonder from whence we can behold the pomp and panoply of the golden god's departure. 'tis a sight i never miss,--i would have thee share its glory with me." "but art thou then indifferent to woman's tenderness?" asked theos half banteringly, as he took his arm--"dost thou love no one?" "my friend"--replied sah-luma seriously--"i love myself! i see naught that contents me more than my own personality,--and with all my heart i admire the miracle and beauty of my own existence! there is nothing even in the completest fairness of womanhood that satisfies me so much as the contemplation of my own genius,--realizing as i do its wondrous power and perfect charm! the life of a poet such as i am is a perpetual marvel!--the whole universe ministers to my needs,--humanity becomes the merest bound slave to the caprice of my imperial imagination,--with a thought i scale the stars,--with a wish i float in highest ether among spheres undiscovered yet familiar to my fancy--i converse with the spirits of flowers and fountains,--and the love of women is a mere drop in the deep ocean of my unfathomed delight! yes,--i adore my own identity! ... and of a truth self-worship is the only creed the world has ever followed faithfully to the end!" he glanced up with a bright, assured smile,--theos met his gaze wonderingly, doubtfully,--but made no reply,--and together they paced slowly across the marble terrace, and out into the glorious garden, rich with the riotous roses that clambered and clustered everywhere, their hues deepening to flame-like vividness in the burning radiance of the sinking sun. chapter xiv. the summons of the signet. they walked side by side for some little time without speaking, through winding paths of alternate light and shade, sheltered by the latticework of crossed and twisted green boughs where only the amorous chant of charming birds now and then broke the silence with fitful and tender sweetness. all the air about them was fragrant and delicate,--tiny rainbow-winged midges whirled round and danced in the warm sunset-glow like flecks of gold in amber wine,--while here and there the distant glimmer of tossing fountains, or the soft emerald sheen of a prattling brook that wound in and out the grounds, amongst banks of moss and drooping fern, gave a pleasant touch of coolness and refreshment to the brilliant verdure of the luxuriant landscape. "speaking of creeds, sah-luma"--said theos at last, looking down with a curious sense of compassion and protection at his companion's slight, graceful form--"what religion is it that dominates this city and people? to-day, through want of knowledge, it seems i committed a nearly unpardonable offence by gazing at the beauty of the virgin priestess when i should have knelt face-hidden to her benediction,--thou must tell me something of the common laws of worship, that i err not thus blindly again." sah-luma smiled. "the common laws of worship are the common laws of custom,"--he replied--"no more,--no less. and in this we are much like other nations. we believe in no actual creed,--who does? we accept a certain given definition of a supposititious divinity, together with the suitable maxims and code of morals accompanying that definition, ... we call this religion, . . and we wear it as we wear our clothing for the sake of necessity and decency, though truly we are not half so concerned about it as about the far more interesting details of taste in attire. still, we have grown used to our doctrine, and some of us will fight with each other for the difference of a word respecting it,--and as it contains within itself many seeds of discord and contradiction, such dissensions are frequent, especially among the priests, who, were they but true to their professed vocation, should be able to find ways of smoothing over all apparent inconsistencies and maintaining peace and order. of course we, in union with all civilized communities, worship the sun, even as thou must do,--in this one leading principle at least, our faith is universal!" theos bent his head in assent. he was scarcely conscious of the action, but at that moment he felt, with sah-luma, that there was no other form of divinity acknowledged in the world than the refulgent orb that gladdens and illumines earth, and visibly controls the seasons. "and yet--" went on sah-luma thoughtfully,--"the well-instructed know through our scientists and astronomers (many of whom are now languishing in prison for the boldness of their researches and discoveries) that the sun is no divinity at all, but simply a huge planet,--a dense body surrounded by a luminous, flame-darting atmosphere,--neither self-acting nor omnipotent, but only one of many similar orbs moving in strict obedience to fixed mathematical laws. nevertheless this knowledge is wisely kept back as much as possible from the multitude,--for, were science to unveil her marvels too openly to semi-educated and vulgarly constituted minds, the result would be, first atheism, next republicanism, and finally anarchy and ruin. if these evils,--which like birds of prey continually hover about all great kingdoms,--are to be averted, we must, for the welfare of the country and people, hold fast to some stated form and outward observance of religious belief." he paused. theos gave him a quick, searching glance. "even if such a belief should have no shadow of a true foundation?" he inquired--"can it be well for men to cling superstitiously to a false doctrine?" sah-luma appeared to consider this question in his own mind for some minutes before replying. "my friend, it is difficult to decide what is false and what is true--"he said at last with a little shrug of his shoulders--"but i think that even a false religion is better for the masses than none at all. men are closely allied to brutes, . . if the moral sense ceases to restrain them they at once leap the boundary line and give as much rein to their desires and appetites as the hyenas and tigers. and in some natures the moral sense is only kept alive by fear,--fear of offending some despotic, invisible force that pervades the universe, and whose chief and most terrible attribute is not so much creative as destructive power. to propitiate and pacify an unseen supreme destroyer is the aim of all religions,--and it is for this reason we add to our worship of the sun that of the white serpent, nagaya the mediator. nagaya is the favorite object of the people's adoration,--they may forget to pay their vows to the sun, but never to nagaya, who is looked upon as the emblem of eternal wisdom, the only pleader whose persuasions avail to soften the tyrannic humor of the invincible devourer of all things. we know how men hate wisdom and cannot endure to be instructed, and yet they prostrate themselves in abject crowds before wisdom's symbol every day in the sacred temple yonder,--though i much doubt whether such constant devotional attendance is not more for the sake of lysia than the deified worm!" he laughed with a little undercurrent of scorn in his laughter,--and theos saw as it were, the lightning of an angry or disdainful thought flashing through the sombre splendor of his eyes. "and lysia is..--?" began theos suggestively. "the high priestess of nagaya," responded sah-luma slowly--"charmer of the god, as well as of the hearts of men! the hot passion of love is to her a toy, clasped and unclasped so! in the pink hollow of her hand..." and as he spoke he closed his fingers softly on the air and unclosed them again with an expressive gesture--"and so long as she retains the magic of her beauty, so long will nagaya worship hold al-kyris in check. otherwise ... who knows!--there have been many disturbances of late,--the teachings of the philosophers have aroused a certain discontent,--and there are those who are weary of perpetual sacrifices and the shedding of innocent blood. moreover this mad khosrul of whom niphrata spoke lately, thunders angry denunciations of lysia and nagaya in the open streets, with so much fervid eloquence that they who pass by cannot choose but hear, . . he hath a strange craze,--a doctrine of the future which he most furiously proclaims in the language prophets use. he holds that far away in the centre of a circle of pure light, the true god exists,--a vast all glorious being who with exceeding marvellous love controls and guides creation toward some majestic end--even as a musician doth melodize his thought from small sweet notes to perfect chord-woven harmonies. furthermore, that thousands of years hence, this god will embody a portion of his own existence in human form and will send hither a wondrous creature, half-god, half-man, to live our life, die our death, and teach us by precept and example, the surest way to eternal happiness. 'tis a theory both strange and wild!--hast ever heard of it before?" he put the question indifferently, but theos was mute. that horrible sense of a straining desire to speak when speech was forbidden again oppressed him,--he felt as though he were being strangled with his own unfalling tears. what a crushing weight of unutterable thoughts burdened his brain!--he gazed up at the serenely glowing sky in aching, dumb despair,--till slowly ... very slowly, words came at last like dull throbs of pain beating between his lips ... "i think ... i fancy ... i have heard a rumor of such doctrine ... but i know as little of it as ... as thou, sah-luma! ... i can tell thee no more ... than thou hast said! ..." he paused and gaining more firmness of tone went on--"it seems to me a not altogether impossible conception of divine benevolence,--for if god lives at all, he must be capable of manifesting himself in many ways both small and great, common and miraculous, though of a truth there are no miracles beyond what appear as such to our limited sight and restricted intelligence. but tell me"--and here his voice had a ring of suppressed anxiety within it--"tell me, sah-luma, thine own thought concerning it!" "i?--i think naught of it!" replied sah-luma with airy contempt--"such a creed may find followers in time to come,--but now, of what avail to warn us of things that do not concern our present modes of life? moreover in the face of all religion, my own opinion should not alter,--i have studied science sufficiently well to know that there is no god!--and i am too honest to worship an unproved and merely supposititious identity!" a shudder, as of extreme cold, ran through theos's veins, and as if impelled on by some invisible monitor he said almost mournfully: "art thou sure, sah-luma, thou dost not instinctively feel that there is a higher power hidden behind the veil of visible nature?--and that in the far beyond there may be an eternity of joy where thou shalt find all thy grandest aspirations at last fulfilled?" sah-luma laughed,--a clear, vibrating laugh as mellow as the note of a thrush in spring-time. "thou solemn soul!" he exclaimed mirthfully--"my aspirations are fulfilled!--i aspire to no more than fame,--and that i hold,--that i shall keep so long as this world is lighted by the sun!" "and what use is fame to thee in death!" demanded theos with sudden and emphatic earnestness. sah-luma stood still,--over his beautiful face came a shadow of intense melancholy,--he raised his brilliant eyes full of wistful pathos and pleading. "i pray thee do not make me sad, my friend!" he murmured tremulously--"these thoughts are like muttering thunder in my heaven! death!".. and a quick sigh escaped him--"'twill be the breaking of my harp and heart! ... the last note of my failing voice and eversilenced song!" a moisture as of tears glistened on the silky fringe of his eyelids,--his lips quivered,--he had the look of a narcissus regretfully bewailing his own perishable loveliness. on a swift impulse of affection theos threw one arm round, his neck in the fashion of a confiding school-boy walking with his favorite companion. "nay, thou shalt never die, sah-luma!" he said with a sort of passionate eagerness,--"thy bright soul shall live forever in a sunshine sweeter than that of earth's fairest midsummer noon! thy song can never be silenced while heaven pulsates with the unwritten music of the spheres,--and even were the crown of immortality denied to lesser men, it is, it must be the heritage of the poet! for to him all crowns belong, all kingdoms are thrown open, all barriers broken down,--even those that divide us from the unseen,--and god himself has surely a smile to spare for his singers who have made the sad world joyful if only for an hour!" sah-luma looked up with a pleased yet wondering glance. "thou hast a silvery and persuasive tongue!" he said gently--"and thou speakest of god as if thou knewest one akin to him. would i could believe all thou sayest! ... but alas!--i cannot. we have progressed too far in knowledge, my friend, for faith.... yet..." he hesitated a moment, then with a touch of caressing entreaty in his tone went on. ... "thinkest thou in very truth that i shall live again? for i confess to thee, it seems beyond all things strange and terrible to feel that this genius of mine,--this spirit of melody which inhabits my frame, should perish utterly without further scope for its abilities. there have been moments when my soul, ravished by inspiration, has, as it were, seized earth like a full goblet of wine, and quaffed its beauties, its pleasures, its loves, its glories all in one burning draught of song! ... when i have stood in thought on the shadowy peaks of time, waiting for other worlds to string like beads on my thread of poesy,--when wondrous creatures habited in light and wreathed with stars have floated round and round me in rosy circles of fire,--and once, methought ... 'twas long ago now--i heard a voice distinct and sweet that called me upward, onward and away, i know not where,--save that a hidden love awaited me!" he broke off with a rapt almost angelic expression in his eyes, then sighing a little he resumed: "all dreams of course! ... vague phantoms,--creations of my own imaginative brain,--yet fair enough to fill my heart with speechless longings for ethereal raptures unseen, unknown! thou hast, methinks, a certain faith in the unsolved mysteries,--but i have none,--for sweet as the promise of a future life may seem, there is no proof that it shall ever be. if one died and rose again from the dead, then might we all believe and hope.. but otherwise ..." oh, miserable theos!--what would he not have given to utter aloud the burning knowledge that ate into his mind like slow-devouring fire! again mute! ... again oppressed by that strange swelling at the heart that threatened to break forth in stormy sobs of penitence and prayer! instinctively he drew sah-luma closer to his side--his breath came thick and fast.. he struggled with all his might to speak the words ... "one has died and risen from the dead!"--but not a syllable could he form of the desired sentence! "thou shalt live again, sah-luma!" was all he could say in low, half-smothered accents--"thou hast within thee a flame that cannot perish!" again sah-luma's eyes dwelt upon him with a curious, appealing tenderness. "thy words savor of sweet consolation! ..." he said half gayly, half sadly. "may they be fulfilled! and if indeed there is a brighter world than this beyond the skies, i fancy thou and i will know each other, there as here, and be somewhat close companions! see!"--and he pointed to a small green hillock that rose up like a shining emerald from the darker foliage of the surrounding trees--"yonder is my point of vantage whence we shall behold the sun go down like a warrior sinking on the red field of battle, the chimes are ringing even now for his departure,--listen!" they stood still for a space, while the measured, swinging cadence of bells came pealing through the stillness,--bells of every tone, that smote the air with soft or loud resonance as the faint wind wafted the sounds toward them,--and then they began to climb the little hill, sah-luma walking somewhat in advance, with a tread as light and elastic as that of a young fawn. theos, following, watched his movements with a strange affection, --every turn of his head, every gesture of his hand seemed fraught with meanings as yet inexplicable. the grass beneath their feet was soft as velvet and dotted with a myriad wild flowers,--the ascent was gradual and easy, and in a few minutes they had reached the summit, where sah-luma, throwing himself indolently on the smooth turf, pulled theos gently down by his side. there they rested in silence, gazing at the magnificent panorama laid out before them,--a panorama as lovely as a delicately pictured scene of fairy-land. above, the sky was of a dense yet misty rose-color,--the sun, low on the western horizon appeared to rest in a vast, deep, purple hollow, rifted here and there with broad gashes of gold,--long shafts of light streamed upwards in order like the waving pennons of an angel-army marching,--and beyond, far away from this blaze of splendid color, the wide ethereal expanse paled into tender blue, whereon light clouds of pink and white drifted like the fluttering blossoms that fall from apple-trees in spring. below, and seen through a haze of rose and amber, lay the city of al-kyris,--its white domes, towers and pinnacled palaces rising out of the mist like a glorious mirage afloat on the borders of a burning desert. al-kyris the magnificent!--it deserves its name, theos thought, as shading his eyes from the red glare he took a wondering and gradually comprehensive view of the enormous extent of the place. he soon perceived that it was defended by six strongly fortified walls, each placed within the other at long equal distances apart, so that it might have been justly described as six cities all merged together in one,--and from where he sat he could plainly discern the great square where he had rested in the morning, by reason of the white granite obelisk that lifted itself sheer up against the sky, undwarfed by any of the surrounding buildings. this gigantic monument was the most prominent object in sight, with the exception of the sacred temple, which sah-luma presently pointed out,--a round, fortress-like piece of architecture ornamented with twelve gilded towers from which bells were now clashing and jangling in a storm of melodious persistency. the hum of the city's traffic and pleasure surged on the air like the noise made by swarming bees, while every now and then the sweet, shrill tones of some more than usually clear girl's voice, crying out the sale of fruit or flowers, soared up song-wise through the luminous, semi-transparent vapor that half-veiled the clustering house-tops, tapering spires and cupolas in a delicate, nebulous film. completely fascinated by the wizard-like beauty of the scene, theos felt as though he could never look upon it long enough to master all its charms, but his eyes ached with the radiance in which everything seemed drenched as with flame, and turning his gaze once more toward the sun, he saw that it had nearly disappeared. only a blood-red rim peered spectrally above the gold and green horizon-and immediately overhead, a silver rift in the sky had widened slowly in the centre and narrowed at its end, thus taking the shape of a great outstretched sword that pointed directly downward at the busy, murmuring, glittering city beneath. it was a strange effect, and made on the mind of theos a strange impression,--he was about to call sah-luma's attention to it, when an uncomfortable consciousness that they were no longer alone came over him,--instinctively he turned round, uttered a hasty exclamation, and springing erect, found himself face to face with a huge black,--a man of some six feet in height and muscular in proportion, who, clad, in a vest and tunic of the most vivid scarlet hue, leered confidentially upon him as their eyes met. sah-luma rising also, but with less precipitation, surveyed the intruder languidly and with a certain haughtiness. "what now, gazra? always art thou like a worm in the grass, crawling on thine errand with less noise than the wind makes in summer, . . i would thy mistress kept a fairer messenger!" the black smiled,--if so hideous a contortion of his repulsive countenance might be called a smile, and slowly raising his jetty arms hung all over with strings of coral and amber, made a curious gesture, half of salutation, half of command. as he did this, the clear, olive cheek of sah-luma flushed darkly red,--his chest heaved, and linking his arm through that of theos, he bent his head slightly and stood like one in an enforced attitude of attention. then gazra spoke, his harsh, strong voice seeming to come from some devil in the ground rather than from a human throat. "the virgin priestess of the sun and the divine nagaya hath need of thee to-night, sah-luma!" he said, with a sort of suppressed derision underlying his words,--and taking from his breast a ring that glittered like a star, he held it out in the palm of one hand--"and also"--he added--"of thy friend the stranger, to whom she desires to accord a welcome. behold her signet!" theos, impelled by curiosity, would have taken the ring up to examine it, had not sah-luma restrained him by a warning pressure of his arm,--he was only just able to see that it was in the shape of a coiled-up serpent with ruby eyes, and a darting tongue tipped with small diamonds. what chiefly concerned him however was the peculiar change in sah-luma's demeanor,--something in the aspect or speech of gazra had surely exercised a remarkable influence upon him. his frame trembled through and through with scarcely controlled excitement, . . his eyes shot forth an almost evil fire, . . and a cold, calm, somewhat cruel smile played on the perfect outline of his delicate month. taking the signet from gazra's palm, he kissed it with a kind of angry tenderness, . . then replied.. "tell thy mistress we shall obey her behest! doubtless she knows, as she knows all things, that to-night. i am summoned by express command, to the palace of our sovereign lord the king.. i am bound thither first as is my duty, but afterwards ..." he broke off as if he found it impossible to say more, and waved his hand in a light sign of dismissal. but gazra did not at once depart. he again smiled that lowering smile of his which resembled nothing so much as a hung criminal's death-grin, and returned the jewelled signet to his breast. "afterwards! ... yes.. afterwards!" he said in emphatic yet mock solemn tones.. "even so!" advancing a little he laid his heavy, muscular hand on theos's chest, and appeared mentally to measure his height and breadth--"strong nerves! ... iron sinews! ... goodly flesh and blood! ..'twill serve!"--and his great, protruding eyes gleamed maliciously as he spoke,--then bowing profoundly he added, addressing both sah-luma and theos.. "noble sirs, to-night out of all men in al-kyris shall you be the most envied! farewell!"--and once more making that curious salutation which had in it so much imperiousness and so little obeisance, he walked backward a few paces in the full lustre of the set sun's after-glow, which intensified the vivid red of his costume and lit up all the ornaments of clear-cut amber that glittered against his swarthy skin,--then turning, he descended the hillock so swiftly that he seemed to have melted out of sight as utterly as a dark mist dissolving in air. "by my word, a most sooty and repellent bearer of a lady's greeting!" laughed theos lightly, as he sauntered arm in arm with his host on the downward path leading to the garden and palace--"and i have yet to learn the true meaning of his message!" "'tis plain enough!" replied sah-luma somewhat sulkily, with the deep flush still coming and going on his face--"it means that we are summoned, . . thou as well as i, . . to one of lysia's midnight banquets,--an honor that falls to few,--a mandate none dare disobey! she must have spied thee out this morning--the only unkneeling soul in all the abject multitude-hence, perhaps, her present desire for thy company." there was a touch of vexation in his voice, but theos heeded it not. his heart gave a great bound against his ribs as though pricked by a fire-tipped arrow,--something swift and ardent stirred in his blood like the flowing of quicksilver, . . the picture of the dusky-eyed, witchingly beautiful woman he had seen that morning in her gold-adorned ship, seemed to float between him and the light,--her face shone out like a growing glory-flower in the tangled wilderness of his thoughts, and his lips trembled a little as he replied: "she must be gracious and forgiving then, even as she is fair! for in my neglect of reverence due, i merited her scorn, . . not her courtesy. but tell me, sah-luma, how could she know i was a guest of thine?" sah-luma glanced at him half-pityingly, half disdainfully. "how could she know? easily!--inasmuch as she knows all things. 'twould have been strange indeed had she not known!" and he caught at a down-drooping rose and crushed its fragrant head in his hand with a sort of wanton petulance--"the king himself is less acquainted with his people's doings than the wearer of the all-reflecting eye! thou hast not yet seen that weird mirror and potent dazzler of human sight, . . no,--but thou wilt see it ere long,--the glittering fiend-guarding of the whitest breast that ever shut in passion!" his voice shook, and he paused,--then with some effort continued--"yes,--lysia has her secret commissioners everywhere throughout the length and breadth of the city, who report to her each circumstance that happens, no matter how trifling,--and doubtless we were followed home,--tracked step by step as we walked together, by one of her stealthy-footed servitors,--in this there would be naught unusual." "then there is no freedom in al-kyris,--" said theos wonderingly--"if the whole city thus lies under the circumspection of a woman?" sah-luma laughed rather harshly. "freedom! by the gods, 'tis a delusive word embodying a vain idea! where is there any freedom in life? all of us are bound in chains and restricted in one way or the other,--the man who deems himself politically free is a slave to the multitude and his own ambition --while he who shakes himself loose from the trammels of custom and creed, becomes the tortured bondsman of desire, tied fast with bruising cords to the rack of his own unbridled sense and appetite. there is no such thing as freedom, my friend, unless haply it may be found in death! come,--let us in to supper,--the hour grows late, and my heart aches with an unsought heaviness,--i must cheer me with a cup of wine, or my songs to-night will sadden rather than rouse the king. come,--and thou shalt speak to me again of the life that is to be lived hereafter,"--and he smiled with certain pathos in his smile,--"for there are times, believe me, when in spite of all my fame and the sweetness of existence, i weary of earth's days and nights, and find them far too brief and mean to satisfy my longings. not the world,--but worlds--should be the poet's heritage." theos looked at him, with a feeling of unutterable yearning affection, and regret, but said nothing, . . and together they ascended the steps of the stately marble terrace and paced slowly across it, keeping as near to each other as shadow to substance, and thus reentered the palace, where the sound of a distant harp alone penetrated the perfumed stillness. it must be niphrata who was playing, thought theos, ... and what strange and plaintive chords she swept from the vibrating strings! ... they seemed laden with the tears of broken-hearted women dead and buried ages upon ages ago! chapter xv sah-luma sings. as they left the garden the night fell, or appeared to fall, with almost startling suddenness, and at the same time, in swift defiance of the darkness, sah-luma's palace was illuminated from end to end by thousands of colored lamps, all apparently lit at once by a single flash of electricity. a magnificent repast was spread for the laureate and his guest, in a lofty, richly frescoed banqueting-hall,--a repast voluptuous enough to satisfy the most ardent votary that ever followed the doctrines of epicurus. wonderful dainties and still more wonderful wines were served in princely profusion--and while the strangely met and sympathetically united friends ate and drank, delicious music was played on stringed instruments by unseen performers. when, at intervals, these pleasing sounds ceased, sah-luma's conversation, brilliant, witty, refined, and sparkling with light anecdote and lighter jest, replaced with admirable sufficiency, the left-off harmonies,--and theos, keenly alive to the sensuous enemy of his own emotions, felt that he had never before enjoyed such an astonishing, delightful, and altogether fairy-like feast. its only fault was that it came to an end too soon, he thought, when, the last course of fruit and sweet comfits being removed, he rose reluctantly from the glittering board, and prepared to accompany his host, as agreed, to the presence of the king. in a very short time, so bewilderingly short as to seem a mere breathing-space,--he found himself passing through the broad avenues and crowded thoroughfares of al-kyris on his way to the royal abode. he occupied a place in sah-luma's chariot,--a gilded car, shaped somewhat like the curved half of a shell, deeply hollowed, and set on two high wheels that as they rolled made scarcely any sound; there was no seat, and both he and sah-luma stood erect, the latter using all the force of his slender brown hands to control the spirited prancing of the pair of jet-black steeds which, harnessed tandem-wise to the light-vehicle, seemed more than once disposed to break loose into furious gallop regardless of their master's curbing rein. the full moon was rising gradually in a sky as densely violet as purple pansy-leaves--but her mellow lustre was almost put to shame by the brilliancy of the streets, which were lit up on both sides by vari-colored lamps that diffused a peculiar, intense yet soft radiance, produced, as sah-luma explained, from stored-up electricity. on the twelve tall towers of the sacred temple shone twelve large, revolving stars, that as they turned emitted vivid flashes of blue, green, and amber flame like light-house signals seen from ships veering shorewards,--and the reflections thus cast on the mosaic pavement, mingling with the paler beams of the moon, gave a weird and most fantastic effect to the scene. straight ahead, a blazing arch raised like a bent bow against heaven, and having in its centre the word zephoranim, written in scintillating letters of fire, indicated to all beholders the name and abode of the powerful monarch under whose dominion, according to sah-luma, al-kyris had reached its present height of wealth and prosperity. theos looked everywhere about him, seeing yet scarcely realizing the wonders on which he gazed,--leaning one arm on the burnished edge of the car, he glanced now and then up at the dusky skies growing thick with swarming worlds, and meditated dreamily whether it might not be within the range of possibility to be lifted with sah-luma, chariot, steeds and all into that beautiful, fathomless empyrean, and drive among planets as though they were flowers, reining in at last before some great golden gate, which unbarred should open into a lustrous glory-land fairer than all fair regions ever pictured! how like a god sah-luma looked, he mused! ... his eyes resting tenderly on the light, glittering form he was never weary of contemplating. could there be a more perfect head than that dark one crowned with myrtle? ... could there be a more dazzling existence than that enjoyed by this child of happy fortune, this royal laureate of a mighty king? how many poets starving in garrets and waiting for a hearing, would not curse their unlucky destinies when comparing themselves with such a prince of poesy, each word of whose utterance was treasured and enshrined in the hearts of a grateful and admiring people! this was fame indeed, . . fame at its utmost best,--and theos sighed once or twice restlessly as he inwardly reflected how poor and unsatisfying were his own poetical powers, and how totally unfitted he was to cope with a rival so vastly his superior. not that he by any means desired to cross swords with sah-luma in a duel of song,-that was an idea that never entered his mind; he was simply conscious of a certain humiliated feeling,--an impression that it' he would be a poet at all, he must go back to the very first beginning of the art and re-learn all he had ever known, or thought he knew. many strange and complex emotions were at work within him, . . emotions which he could neither control nor analyze,--and though he felt himself fully alive,--alive to his very finger-tips, he was ever and anon aware of a curious sensation like that experienced by a suddenly startled somnambulist, who, just on the point of awaking, hesitates reluctantly on the threshold of dreamland, unwilling to leave one realm of shadows for another more seeming true, yet equally transient. entangled in perplexed reveries he scarcely noticed the brilliant crowds of people that were flocking hither and thither through the streets, many of whom recognizing sah-luma waved their hands or shouted some gay word of greeting,--he saw, as it were without seeing. the whirling pageant around him was both real and unreal,--there was always a deep sense of mystery that hung like a cloud over his mind,--a cloud that no resolution of his could lift,--and often he caught himself dimly speculating as to what lay behind that cloud. something, he felt sure,--something that like the clew to an intricate problem, would explain much that was now altogether incomprehensible,--moreover he remorsefully realized that he had formerly known that clew and had foolishly lost it, but how he could not tell. his gaze wandered from the figure of sah-luma to that of the attendant harp-bearer who, perched on a narrow foothold on the back of the chariot, held his master's golden instrument aloft as though it were a flag of song,--the signal of a poet's triumph, destined to float above the world forever! just then the equipage--arrived at the kings palace. turning the horses' heads with a sharp jerk so that the mettlesome creatures almost sprang erect on their haunches, sah-luma drove them swiftly into a spacious courtyard, lined with soldiers in full armor, and brilliantly illuminated, where two gigantic stone sphinxes, with lit stars ablaze between their enormous brows, guarded a flight of steps that led up to what seemed to be an endless avenue of white marble columns. here slaves in gorgeous attire rushed forward, and seizing the prancing coursers by the bridle rein, held them fast while the laureate and his companion alighted. as they did so, a mighty and resounding clash of weapons struck the tesselated pavement,--every soldier flung his drawn sword on the ground and doffed his helmet, and the cry of "hail, sah-luma!" rose in one brief, mellow, manly shout that echoed vibratingly through the heated air. sah-luma meanwhile ascended half-way up the steps, and there turning round, smiled and bowed with an exquisite grace and infinite condescension,--and again theos gazed at him yearningly, lovingly, and somewhat enviously too. what a picture he made standing between the great frowning sculptured sphinxes! ... contrasted with those cold and solemn visages of stone he looked like a dazzling butterfly or stray bird of paradise. his white garb glistened at every point with gems, and from his shoulders, where it was fastened with large sapphire elasps, depended a long mantle of cloth of gold, bordered thickly with swansdown,--this he held up negligently in one hand as ho remained for a moment in full view of the assembled soldiery, graciously acknowledging their enthusiastic greetings, . . then with easy and unhasting tread he mounted the rest of the stairway, followed by theos and his harp-bearer, and passed into the immense outer entrance hall of the royal palace, known, as he explained to his guest, as the hall of the two thousand columns. here among the massively carved pillars which looked like straight, tall, frosted trunks of trees, were assembled hundreds of men young and old,--evident aristocrats and nobles of high degree, to judge from the magnificence of their costumes, while in and out their brilliant ranks glided little pages in crimson and blue,--black slaves, semi-nude or clothed in vivid colors,--court officials with jewelled badges and insignias of authority,--military guards clad in steel armor and carrying short, drawn scimetars,--all talking, laughing, gesticulating and elbowing one another as they moved to and fro,--and so thickly were they pressed together that at first sight it seemed impossible to penetrate through so dense a crowd: but no sooner did sah-luma appear, than they all fell back in orderly rows, thus making an open avenue-like space for his admittance. he walked slowly, with proudly-assured mien and a confident smile,--bowing right and left in response to the respectful salutations he received from all assembled,--many persons glanced inquisitively at theos, but as he was the laureate's companion he was saluted with nearly equal courtesy. the old critic zabastes, squeezing his lean, bent body from out the throng, hobbled after sah-luma at some little distance behind the harp-bearer, muttering to himself as he went, and bestowing many a side-leer and malicious grin on those among his acquaintance whom he here and there recognized. theos noted his behavior with a vague sense of amusement,--the man took such evident delight in his own ill-humor, and seemed to be so thoroughly convinced that his opinion on all affairs was the only one worth having. "thou must check thy tongue today, zabastes!" said a handsome youth in dazzling blue and silver, who, just then detaching himself from the crowd, laid a hand on the critic's arm and laughed as he spoke--"i doubt me much whether the king is in humor for thy grim fooling! his majesty hath been seriously discomposed since his return from the royal tiger-hunt this morning, notwithstanding that his unerring spear slew two goodly and most furious animals. he is wondrous sullen,-and only the divine sah-luma is skilled in the art of soothing his troubled spirit. therefore,--if thou hast aught of crabbed or cantankerous to urge against thy master's genius, thou hadst best reserve it for another time, lest thy withered head roll on the market-place with as little reverence as a dried gourd flung from a fruiterer's stall!" "i thank thee for thy warning, young jackanapes!" retorted zabastes, pausing in his walk and leaning on his staff while he peered with his small, black, bad-tempered eyes at the speaker-"thou art methinks somewhat over well-informed for a little lacquey! what knowest thou of his majesty's humors? hast been his fly-i'-the-ear or cast-off sandal-string? i pray thee extend not thy range of learning beyond the proper temperature of the bath, and the choice of rare unguents for thy skin-greater knowledge than this would injure the tender texture of thy fragile brain! pah!"--and zabastes sniffed the air in disgust--"thou hast a most vile odor of jessamine about thee! ... i would thou wert clean of perfumes and less tawdry in attire!" chuckling hoarsely he ambled onward, and chancing to, catch the wondering backward glance of pheos, he made expressive signs with his fingers in derision of sah-luma's sweeping mantle, which now, allowed to fall to its full length, trailed along the marble floor with a rich, rustling sound, the varied light sparkling on it at every point and making it look like a veritable shower of gold. on through the seemingly endless colonnades they passed, till they came to a huge double door formed of two glittering, colossed winged figures holding enormous uplifted shields. here stood a personage clad in a silver coat-of-mail, so motionless that at first he appeared to be part of the door, .. but at the approach of sah-luma he stirred into life and action, and touching a spring beside him, the arms of the twin colossi moved, the great double shields were slowly lowered, and the portals slid asunder noiselessly, thus displaying the sumptuous splendor of the royal presence-chamber. it was a spacious and lofty saloon, completely lined with gilded columns, between which hung numerous golden lamps having long, pointed, amber pendants, that flashed down a million sparkles as of sunlight on the magnificent mosaic floor beneath. on the walls were rich tapestries storied with voluptuous scenes of love as well as ghastly glimpses of warfare, ... and languishing beauties reposing in the arms of their lovers, or listening to the songs of passion, were depicted side by side with warriors dead on the field of battle, or struggling hand to hand in grim and bleeding conflict. the corners of this wonderful apartment were decked with all sorts of flags and weapons, and in the middle of the painted ceiling was suspended a huge bird with the spread wings of an eagle and the head of an owl, that held in its curved talons a superb girandole formed of a hundred extended swords, each bare blade having at its point a bright lamp in the shape of a star, while the clustered hilts composed the centre. officers in full uniform were ranged on both sides of the room, and a number of other men richly attired stood about, conversing with each other in low tones, ... but though theos took in all these details rapidly at a glance, his gaze soon became fixed on the glittering pavilion that occupied the furthest end of the saloon, where on a massive throne of ivory and silver sat the chief object of attraction, ... zephoranim the king. the steps of the royal dais were strewn ankle-deep with flowers, ... . on either hand a bronze lion lay couchant, ... . and four gigantic black statues of men supported the monarch's gold-fringed canopy, their uplifted arms being decked with innumerable rows of large and small pearls. the king's features were not just then visible--he was leaning back in an indolent attitude, resting on his elbow, and half covering his face with one hand. the individual in the silver coat-of-mail whispered something in sah-luma's ear either by way of warning or advice, and then advanced, prostrating himself before the dais and touching the ground humbly with his forehead and hands. the king stirred slightly, but did not alter his position, ... he was evidently wrapped in a deep and seemingly unpleasant reverie. "dread my lord.... !" began the herald-in-waiting. a movement of decided impatience on the part of the monarch caused him to stop short. "by my soul!" said a rich, strong voice that made itself distinctly audible throughout the spacious hall--"thou art ever shivering on the edge of thy duty when thou shouldst plunge boldly into the midst thereof! how long wilt mouth thy words? ... canst never speak plain?" "most potent sovereign!" went on the stammering herald--"sah-luma waits thy royal pleasure!" "sah-luma!" and the monarch sprang erect, his eyes flashing fire--"nay, that he should wait, bodes ill for thee, thou knave! how darest thou bid him wait?--entreat him hither with all gentleness, as befits mine equal in the realm!" as he thus spoke, theos was able to observe him more attentively; indeed it seemed as though a sudden and impressive pause had occurred in the action of a drama in order to allow him as spectator, to thoroughly master the meaning of one special scene. therefore he took the opportunity offered, and, looking full at zephoranim, thought he had never beheld so magnificent a man. of stately height and herculean build, he was most truly royal in outward bearing,--though a physiognomist judging him from the expression of his countenance would at once have given him all the worst vices of a reckless voluptuary and utterly selfish sensualist. his straight, low brows indicated brute force rather than intellect,--his eyes, full, dark, and brilliant, had in them a suggestion of something sinister and cruel, despite their fine clearness and lustre, while the heavy lines of his mouth, only partly concealed by a short, thick black beard, plainly betokened that the monarch's tendencies were by no means toward the strict and narrow paths of virtue. nevertheless he was a splendid specimen of the human animal at its best physical development, and his attire, which was a mixture of the civilized and savage, suited him as it certainly would not have suited any less stalwart frame. his tunic was of the deepest purple broidered with gold,--his vest of pale amber silk was thrown open so as to display to the greatest advantage his broad muscular chest and throat glittering all over with gems,--and he wore, flung loosely across his left shoulder, a superb leopard skin, just kept in place by a clasp of diamonds. his feet were shod with gold-colored sandals,--his arms were bare and lavishly decked with jewelled armlets,--his rough, dark hair was tossed carelessly about his brow, whereon a circlet of gold studded with large rubies glittered in the light,--from his belt hung a great sheathed sword, together with all manner of hunting implements,--and beside him, on a velvet-covered stand, lay a short sceptre, having at its tip one huge egg-shaped pearl set in sapphires. noting the grand poise of his figure, and the statuesque grace of his attitude, a strange, hazy, far-off memory began to urge itself on theos's mind,--a memory that with every second grew more painfully distinct, ... he had seen zephoranim before! where, he could not tell,--but he was as positive of it as that he himself lived! ... and this inward conviction was accompanied by a certain undefinable dread,--a vague terror and foreboding, though he knew no actual cause for fear. he had however no time to analyze his emotion,--for just then the herald-in-waiting, having performed a backward evolution from the throne to the threshold of the audience-chamber, beckoned impatiently to sah-luma, who at once stepped forward, bidding theos keep close behind him. the harp-bearer followed, . . and thus all three approached the dais where the king still stood erect, awaiting them. zabastes the critic glided in also, almost unnoticed, and joined a group of courtiers at the furthest end of the long, gorgeously lighted room, while at sight of the laureate the assembled officers saluted, and all conversation ceased. at the foot of the throne sah-luma paused, but made no obeisance,--raising his glorious eyes to the monarch's face he smiled,--and theos beheld with amazement, that here it was not the poet who reverenced the king, but the king who reverenced the poet! what a strange state of things! he thought,--especially when the mighty zephoranim actually descended three steps of his flower-strewn dais, and grasping sah-luma's hands raised them to his lips with all the humility of a splendid savage paying homage to his intellectual conqueror! it was a scene theos was destined never to forget, and he gazed upon it as one gazes on a magnificently painted picture, wherein two central figures fascinate and most profoundly impress the beholder's imagination. he heard, with a vague sense of mingled pleasure and sadness, the deep, mellow tones of the monarch's voice vibrating through the silence, ... . "welcome, my sah-luma!--welcome at all times, but chiefly welcome when the heart is weighted by care! i have thought of thee all day, believe me! ... aye, since early dawn, when on my way to the chase i heard in the depths of the forest a happy nightingale singing, and deemed thy voice had taken bird-shape and followed me! and that i sent for thee in haste, blame me not!--as well blame the desert athirst for rain, or the hungry heart agape for love to come and fill it!" here his restless eye flashed on theos, who stood quietly behind sah-luma, passive, yet expectant of he knew not what. "whom hast thou there? ... a friend?" this as sah-luma apparently explained something in a low tone, ... "he is welcome also for thy sake"--and he extended one hand, on which a great ruby signet burned like a red star, to theos, who, bending over it, kissed it with the grave courtesy he fancied due to kings. zephoranim appeared good-naturedly surprised at this action, and eyed him somewhat scrutinizingly as he said: "thou art not of sah-luma's divine calling assuredly, fair sir, else thou wouldst hardly stoop to a mere crowned head like mine! soldiers and statesmen may bend the knee to their chosen rulers, but to whom shall poets bend? they, who with arrowy lines cause thrones to totter and fall,--they, who with deathless utterance brand with infamy or hallow with honor the most potent names of kings and emperors,--they by whom alone a nation lives in the annals of the future,--what homage do such elect gods owe to the passing holders of one or more earthly sceptres? thou art too humble, methinks, for the minstrel-vocation,--dost call thyself a minstrel? or a student of the art of song?" theos looked up, his eyes resting full on the monarch's countenance, as he replied in low, clear tones: "most noble zephoranim, i am no minstrel! ... nor do i deserve to be called even a student of that high, sweet music-wisdom in which sah-luma alone excels! all i dare hope for is that i may learn of him in some small degree the lessons he has mastered, that at some future time i may approach as nearly to his genius as a common flower on earth can approach to a fixed star in the furthest blue of heaven!" sah-luma smiled and gave him a pleased, appreciative glance,--zephoranim regarded him somewhat curiously. "by my faith, thou'rt a modest and gentle disciple of poesy!" he said--"we receive thee gladly to our court as suits sah-luma's pleasure and our own! stand thee near thy friend and master, and listen to the melody of his matchless voice,--thou shalt hear therein the mysteries of many things unravelled, and chiefly the mystery of love, in which all other passions centre and have power." re-ascending the steps of the dais, he flung himself indolently back in his throne,--whereupon two pages brought a magnificent chair of inlaid ivory and placed it near the foot of the dais at his right hand. in this sah-luma seated himself, the pages arranging his golden mantle around him in shining, picturesque folds,--while theos, withdrawing slightly into the background, stood leaning against a piece of tapestry on which the dead figure of a man was depicted lying prone on the sward with a great wound in his heart, and a bird of prey hovering above him expectant of its grim repast. kneeling on one knee close to sah-luma, the harp-bearer put the harp in tune, and swept his fingers lightly over the strings,--then came a pause. a clear, small bell chimed sweetly on the stillness, and the king, raising himself a little, signed to a black slave who carried a tall silver wand emblematic of some office. "let the women enter!" he commanded--"speak but sah-luma's name and they will gather like waves rising to the moon,--but bid them be silent as they come, lest they disturb thoughts more lasting than their loveliness." this with a significant glance toward the laureate, who, sunk in his ivory chair, seemed rapt in meditation. his beautiful face had grown grave, . . even sad, ... he played idly with the ornaments at his belt, ... and his eyes had a drowsy yet ardent light within them, as they flashed now and then from under the shade of his long curling lashes. the slave departed on his errand ... and zabastes edging himself out from the hushed and attentive throng of nobles stood as it were in the foreground of the picture, his thin lips twisted into a sneer, and his lean hands grasping his staff viciously as though he longed to strike somebody down with it. a moment or so passed, and then the slave returned, his silver rod uplifted, marshalling in a lovely double procession of white-veiled female figures that came gliding along as noiselessly as fair ghosts from forgotten tombs, each one carrying a garland of flowers. they floated, rather than walked, up to the royal dais, and there prostrated themselves two by two before the king, whose fiery glance rested upon them more carelessly than tenderly,--and as they rose, they threw back their veils, displaying to full view such exquisite faces, such languishing, brilliant eyes, such snow-white necks and arms, such graceful voluptuous forms, that theos caught at the tapestry near him in reeling dazzlement of sight and sense, and wondered how sah-luma seated tranquilly in the reflective attitude he had assumed, could maintain so unmoved and indifferent a demeanor. indifferent he was, however, even when the unveiled fair ones, turning from the king to the poet, laid all their garlands at his feet,--he scarcely noticed the piled-up flowers, and still less the lovely donors, who, retiring modestly backwards, took their places on low silken divans, provided for their accommodation, in a semicircle round the throne. again a silence ensued,--sah-luma was evidently centred like a spider in a web of his own thought-weaving,--and his attendant gently swept the strings of the harp again to recall his wandering fancies. suddenly he looked up, . . his eyes were sombre, and a musing trouble shadowed the brightness of his face. "strange it is, o king"--he said in low, suppressed tones that had in them a quiver of pathetic sweetness,--"strange it is that to-night the soul of my singing dwells on sorrow! like a stray bird flying 'mid falling leaves, or a ship drifting out from sunlight to storm, so does my fancy soar among drear, flitting images evolved from the downfall of kingdoms,--and i seem to behold in the distance the far-off shadow of death..." "talk not of death!" interrupted the king loudly and in haste,--"'tis a raven note that hath been croaked in mine ears too often and too harshly already! what! ... hast thou been met by the mad khosrul who lately sprang on me, even as a famished wolf on prey, and grasping my bridle-rein bade me prepare to die! 'twas an ill jest, and one not to be lightly forgiven! 'prepare to die, o zephoranim?' he cried--'for thy time of reckoning is come!' by my soul!" and the monarch broke into a boisterous laugh--"had he bade me prepare live 'twould have been more to the purpose! but yon frantic graybeard prates of naught but death, ... 'twere well he should be silenced." and as he spoke, he frowned, his hand involuntarily playing with the jewelled hilt of his sword. "aye,--death is an unpleasing suggestion!" suddenly said zabastes, who had gradually moved up nearer and nearer till he made one of the group immediately round sah-luma--"'tis a word that should never be mentioned in the presence of kings! yet, . . notwithstanding the incivility of the statement, . . it is most certain that his most potent majesty as well as his majesty's most potent laureate, must..die.. !" and he accompanied the words "must..die..." with two decisive taps of his staff, smacking his withered lips meanwhile as though he tasted something peculiarly savory. "and thou also, zabastes!" retorted the king with a dark smile, jestingly drawing his sword and pointing it full at him,--then, as the old critic shrank slightly at the gleam of the bare steel, replacing it dashingly in its sheath,--"thou also! ... and thine ashes shall be cast to the four winds of heaven as suits thy vocation, while those of thy master and thy master's king lie honorably urned in porphyry and gold!" zabastes bowed with a sort of mock humility. "it may be so, most mighty zephoranim," he returned composedly--"nevertheless ashes are always ashes,--and the scattering of them is but a question of time! for urns of gold and porphyry do but excite the cupidity of the vulgar-minded, and the ashes therein sealed, whether of king or poet, stand as little chance of reverent handling by future generations as those of many lesser men. and 'tis doubtful whether the winds will know any difference in the scent or quality of the various pinches of human dust tossed on their sweeping circles,--for the substance of a man reduced to earth-atoms is always the same,--and not a grain of him can prove whether he was once a monarch crowned, a minstrel pampered, or a critic contemned!" and he chuckled, as one having the best of the argument. the king deigned no answer, but turned his eyes again on sah-luma, who still sat pensively silent. "how long wilt thou be mute, my singing-emperor?" he demanded gently--"canst thou not improvise a canticle of love even in the midst of thy soul's sudden sadness?" at this, sah-luma roused himself,--signing to his attendant he took the harp from him, and resting it lightly on one knee, passed his hands over it once or twice, half musingly, half doubtfully. a ripple of music answered his delicate touch,--music as soft as the evening wind murmuring among willows. another instant and his voice thrilled on the silence,--a voice wonderful, far-reaching, mellow, and luscious as with suppressed tears, containing within it a passion that pierced to the heart of the listener, and a divine fullness such as surely was never before heard in human tones! theos leaned forward breathlessly, his pulses beating with unwonted rapidity, . . what.. what was it that sah-luma sang? ... a love-song! in those caressing vowel-sounds which composed the language of al-kyris, . . a love-song, burning as strong wine, tender as the murmur of the sea on mellow, moon-entranced evenings,--an arrowy shaft of rhyme tipped with fire and meant to strike home to the core of feeling and there inflict delicious wounds! ... but, as each well-chosen word echoed harmoniously on his ears, theos shrank back shuddering in every limb, . . a black, frozen numbness seemed to pervade his being, an awful, maddening terror possessed his brain and he felt as though he were suddenly thrown into a vast, dark chaos where no light should ever shine! for sah-luma's song was his song! ... his own, his very own! ... he knew it well? he had written it long ago in the hey-day of his youth when he had fancied all the world was waiting to be set to the music of his inspiration, . . he recognized every fancy, . . every couplet.. every rhyme! ... the delicate glowing ballad was his, . . his alone! ... and sah-luma had no right to it! he, theos, was the poet, . . not this royally favored laureate who had stolen his deas and filched his jewels of thought...aye! and he would tell him so to his face! ... he would speak! ... he would cry aloud his claims in the presence of the king and demand instant justice! ... . he strove for utterance,--his voice was gone! ... his lips were moveless as the lips of a stone image! stricken absolutely mute, but with his sense of hearing quickened to an almost painful acuteness, he stood erect and motionless,--rage and fear contending in his heart, enduring the torture of a truly terrific mystery of mind-despair, . . forced, in spite of himself, to listen passively to the love-thoughts of his own dead past revived anew in his rival's singing! chapter xvi. the prophet of doom. a few slow, dreadful minutes elapsed, . . and then,--then the first sharpness of his strange mental agony subsided. the strained tension of his nerves gave way, and a dull apathy of grief inconsolable settled upon him. he felt himself to be a man mysteriously accurst,--banished as it were out of life, and stripped of all he had once held dear and valuable. how had it happened? why was he set apart thus, solitary, poor, and empty of all worth, while another reaped the fruits of his genius? ... he heard the loud plaudits of the assembled court shaking the vast hall as the laureate ended his song--and, drooping his head, some stinging tears welled up in his eyes and fell scorchingly on his clasped hands--tears wrung from the very depth of his secretly tortured soul. at that moment the beautiful sah-luma turned toward him smiling, as one who looked for more sympathetic approbation than that offered by a mixed throng,--and meeting that happy self-conscious, bland, half-inquiring gaze, he strove his best to return the smile. just then zephoranim's fiery glance swept over him with a curious expression of wonder and commiseration. "by the gods, yon stranger weeps!" said the monarch in a half-bantering tone...then with more gentleness he added.. "yet 'tis not the first time sah-luma's voice hath unsealed a fountain of tears! no greater triumph can minstrel have than this,--to move the strong man's heart to woman's tenderness! we have heard tell of poets, who singing of death have persuaded many straightway to die,--but when they sing of sweeter themes, of lover's vows, of passion-frenzies, and languorous desires, cold is the blood that will not warm and thrill to their divinely eloquent allurements. come hither, fair sir!" and he beckoned to theos, who mechanically advanced in obedience to the command--"thou hast thoughts of thine own, doubtless, concerning love, and love's fervor of delight, . . hast aught new to tell us of its bewildering spells whereby the most dauntless heroes in every age have been caught, conquered, and bound by no stronger chain than a tress of hair, or a kiss more luscious than all the honey hidden in lotus-flowers?" theos looked up dreamily...his eyes wandered from the king to sah-luma as though in wistful search for some missing thing, . . his lips were parched and burning and his brows ached with a heavy weight of pain, ... but he made an effort to speak and succeeded, though his words came slowly and without any previous reflection on his own part. "alas, most potent sovereign!" he murmured.. "i am a man of sad memories, whose soul is like the desert, barren of all beauty! i may have sung of love in my time, but my songs were never new,--never worthy to last one little hour! and whatsoever of faith, passion, or heart-ecstasy my fancy could with devious dreams devise, sah-luma knows, . . and in sah-luma's song all my best thoughts are said!" there was a ring of intense pathos in his voice as he spoke,--and the king eyed him compassionately. "of a truth thou seemest to have suffered!" he observed in gentle accents.. "thou hast a look as of one bereft of joy. hast lost some maiden love of thine? ... and dost thou mourn her still?" a pang bitter as death shot through theos's heart, . . had the monarch suddenly pierced him with his great sword he could scarcely have endured more anguish! for the knowledge rushed upon him that he had indeed lost a love so faithful, so unfathomable, so pure and perfect, that all the world weighed in the balance against it would have seemed but a grain of dust compared to its inestimable value! ... but what that love was, and from whom it emanated, he could no more tell than the tide can tell in syllabled language the secret of its attraction to the moon. therefore he made no answer, . . only a deep, half-smothered sigh broke from him, and zephoranim apparently touched by his dejection continued good-naturedly: "nay, nay!--we will not seek to pry into the cause of thy spirit's heaviness...enough! think no more of our thoughtless question,--there is a sacredness in sorrow! nevertheless we shall strive to make thee in part forget thy grief ere thou leavest our court and city, . . meanwhile sit thou there"--and he pointed to the lower step of the dais, . . "and thou, sah-luma, sing again, and this time let thy song he set to a less plaintive key." he leaned hack in his throne, and theos sat wearily down among the flowers at the foot of the dais as commanded. he was possessed by a strange, inward dread,--the dread of altogether losing the consciousness of his own identity,--and while he strove to keep a firm grasp on his mental faculties he at the same time abandoned all hope of ever extricating himself from the perplexing enigma in which he was so darkly involved. forcing himself by degrees into comparative calmness, he determined to resign himself to his fate,--and the idea he had just had of boldly claiming the ballad sung by sah-luma as his own, completely passed out of his mind. how could he speak against this friend whom he loved, ..aye!--more than he had ever loved any living thing!--besides what could he prove? to begin with, in his present condition ho could give no satisfactory account of himself,--if he were asked questions concerning his nation or birth-place he could not answer them, . . he did not even know where he had come from, save that his memory persistently furnished him with the name of a place called "ardath." but what was this "ardath" to him, he mused?--what did it signify? ... what had it to do with his immediate position? nothing, so far as he could tell! his intellect seemed to be divided into two parts--one a total blank, . . the other filled with crowding images that while novel were yet curiously familiar. and how could he accuse sah-luma of literary theft, when he had none of his own dated manuscripts to bear out his case? of course he could easily repeat his boyhood's verses word for word, ... but what of that? he, a stranger in the city, befriended and protected by the laureate, would certainly be considered by the people of al-kyris as far more likely to steal sah-luma's thoughts than that sah-luma should steal his! no!--there was no help for it,--as matters stood he could say nothing,--he could only feel as though he were the sorrowful ghost of some long-ago dead author returned to earth to hear others claiming his works and passing them off as original compositions. and thus he was scarcely moved to any fresh surprise when sah-luma, giving back the harp to his attendant, rose up, and standing erect in an attitude unequalled for grace and dignity, began to recite a poem he remembered to have written when he was about twenty years of age,--a poem daringly planned, which when published had aroused the bitterest animosity of the press critics on account of what they called its "forced sublimity." the sublimity was by no means "forced"--it was the spontaneous outcome of a fresh and ardent nature full of enthusiasm and high-soaring aspiration, but the critics cared nothing for this, . . all they saw was a young man presuming to be original, and down they came upon him accordingly. he recollected all the heart-sore sufferings he had endured through that ill-fated and cruelly condemned composition,--and now he was listlessly amazed at the breathless rapture and excitement it evoked here in this marvellous city of al-kyris, where everything seemed more strange and weird than the strangest dream! it was a story of the gods before the world was made,--of love deep buried in far eternities of light, . . of vast celestial shapes whose wanderings through the blue deep of space were tracked by the birth of stars and suns and wonder-spheres of beauty, . . a fanciful legend of transcendent heavenly passion, telling how all created worlds throbbed amorously in the purple seas of pure ether, and how love and love alone was the dominant cloud of the triumphal march of the universe...and with what matchless eloquence sah-luma spoke the glowing lines! ..with what clear and rounded tenderness of accent! ... how exquisitely his voice rose and fell in a rhythmic rush like the wind surging through many leaves, ... while ever and anon in the very midst of the divinely entrancing joy that chiefly characterized the poem, his musicianly art infused a touch of minor pathos,--a suggestion of the eternal complaint of nature which even in the happiest moments asserts itself in mournful under-tones. the effect of his splendid declamation was heightened by a few soft, running passages dexterously played on the harp by his attendant harpist and introduced just at the right moments; and theos, notwithstanding the peculiar position in which he was placed, listened to every well-remembered word of his own work thus recited with a gradually deepening sense of peace,--he knew not why, for the verses, in themselves, were strangely passionate and wild. the various impressions produced on the hearers were curious to witness--the king moved restlessly, his bronzed cheeks alternately flushing and paling, his hand now grasping his sword, now toying with the innumerable jewels that blazed on his breast--the women's eyes at one moment sparkled with delight and at the next grew humid with tears,--the assembled courtiers pressed forward, awed, eager, and attentive,--the very soldiers on guard seemed entranced, and not even a small side-whisper disturbed the harmonious fall and flow of dulcet speech that rippled from the laureate's lips. when he ceased, there broke forth such a tremendous uproar of applause that the amber pendents of the lamps swung to and fro in the strong vibration of so many uplifted voices,--shouts of frenzied rapture echoed again and again through the vaulted roof like thuds of thunder,--shouts in which theos joined,--as why should he not? he had as good a right as any one to applaud his own poem! it had been sufficiently abused heretofore,--he was glad to find it now so well appreciated, at least in al-kyris,--though he had no intention of putting forward any claim to its authorship. no,--for it was evident he had in some inscrutable way been made an outcast from all literary honor,--and a sort of wild recklessness grew up within him,--a bitter mirth, arising from curiously mingled feelings of scorn for himself and tenderness for sah-luma,--and it was in this spirit that he loudly cheered the triumphant robber of his stores of poesy, and even kept up the plaudits long after they might possibly have been discontinued. never perhaps did any poet receive a grander ovation, . . but the exquisitely tranquil vanity of the laureate was not a whit moved by it, ... his dazzling smile dawned like a gleam of sunshine all over his beautiful face, but, save for this, he gave no sign of even hearing the deafening acclamations that resounded about him on all sides. "a new ilyspiros!" cried the king enthusiastically, and, detaching a magnificently cut ruby from among the gems he wore, he flung it toward his favored minstrel. it flashed through the air like a bright spark of flame and fell, glistening redly, on the pavement just half-way between theos and sah-luma...theos eyed it with faintly amused indifference, ... the laureate bowed gracefully, but did not stoop to raise it,--he left that task to his harp-bearer, who, taking it up, presented it to his master humbly on one knee. then, and only then sah-luma received it, kissed it lightly and placed it negligently among his other ornaments, smiling at the king as he did so with the air of one who graciously condescends to accept a gift out of kindly feeling for the donor. zabastes meanwhile had witnessed the scene with an expression of mingled impatience, malignity, and disgust written plainly on his furrowed features, and as soon as the hubbub of applause had subsided, he struck his staff on the ground with an angry clang, and exclaimed irritably: "now may the god shield us from a plague of fools! what means this throaty clamor? ye praise what ye do not understand, like all the rest of the discerning public! many is the time, as the weariness of my spirit witnesseth, that i have heard sah-luma rehearse,--but never in all my experience of his prolix multiloquence, hath he given utterance to such a senseless jingle-jangle of verse-jargon as to-night! strange it is that the so-called 'poetical' trick of confusedly heaping words together regardless of meaning, should so bewilder men and deprive them of all wise and sober judgment! by my faith! ... i would as soon listen to the gabble of geese in a farmyard as to the silly glibness of such inflated twaddle, such mawkish sentiment, such turgid garrulity, such ranting verbosity..." a burst of laughter interrupted and drowned his harsh voice,--laughter in which no one joined more heartily than sah-luma himself. he had resumed his seat in his ivory chair, and leaning back lazily, he surveyed his critic with tolerant good-humor and complete amusement, while the king's stentorian "ha, ha, ha!" resounded in ringing peals through the great audience-chamber. "thou droll knave!" cried zephoranim at last, dashing away the drops his merriment had brought into his eyes--"wilt kill me with thy bitter-mouthed jests? ... of a truth my sides ache at thee! what ails thee now? ... come,--we will have patience, if so be our mirth can be restrained,--speak!--what flaw canst thou find in our sah-luma's pearl of poesy?--what spots on the sun of his divine inspiration? as the serpent lives, thou art an excellent mountebank and well deservest thy master's pay!" he laughed again,--but zabastes seemed in nowise disconcerted. his withered countenance appeared to harden itself into lines of impenetrable obstinacy,--tucking his long staff under his arm he put his fingers together in the manner of one who inwardly counts up certain numbers, and with a preparatory smack of his lips he began: "free speech being permitted to me, o most mighty zephoranim, i would in the first place say that the poem so greatly admired by your majesty, is totally devoid of common sense. it is purely a caprice of the imagination,--and what is imagination? a mere aberration of the cerebral nerves,--a morbidity of brain in which the thoughts brood on the impossible,--on things that have never been, and never will be. thus, sah-luma's verse resembles the incoherent ravings of a moon-struck madman,--moreover, it hath a prevailing tone of forced sublimity..." here theos gave an involuntary start,--then, recollecting where he was, resumed his passive attitude--"which is in every way distasteful to the ears that love plain language. for instance, what warrant is there for this most foolish line: "'the solemn chanting of the midnight stars.' 'tis vile, 'tis vile! for who ever heard the midnight stars or any other stars chant? ... who can prove that the heavenly bodies are given to the study of music? hath sah-luma been present at their singing lesson?" here the old critic chuckled, and warming with his subject, advanced a step nearer to the throne as he went on: "hear yet another jarring simile: "'the wild winds moan for pity of the world.' was ever a more indiscreet lie? a brazen lie!--for the tales of shipwreck sufficiently prove the pitilessness of winds,--and however much a verse-weaver may pretend to be in the confidence of nature, he is after all but the dupe of his own frenetic dreams. one couplet hath most discordantly annoyed my senses--'tis the veriest doggerel: "'the sun with amorous clutch tears off the emerald girdle of the rose!' o monstrous piece of extravagance!--for how can the sun (his deity set apart) 'clutch' without hands?--and as for 'the emerald girdle of the rose'--i know not what it means, unless sah-luma considers the green calyx of the flower a 'girdle,' in which case his wits must be far gone, for no shape of girdle can any sane man descry in the common natural protection of a bud before it blooms! there was a phrase too concerning nightingales,--and the gods know we have heard enough and too much of those over-praised birds! ..." here he was interrupted by one of his frequent attacks of coughing, and again the laughter of the whole court broke forth in joyous echoes. "laugh--laugh!" said zabastes, recovering himself and eying the throng with a derisive smile--"laugh, ye witless bantlings born of folly!--and cling as you will to the unsubstantial dreams your laureate blows for you in the air like a child playing with soap-bubbles! empty and perishable are they all,--they shine for a moment, then break and vanish,--and the colors wherewith they sparkled, colors deemed immortal in their beauty, shall pass away like a breath and be renewed no more!" "not so!" interposed theos suddenly, unknowing why he spoke, but feeling inwardly compelled to take up sah-luma's defence-"for the colors are immortal, and permeate the universe, whether seen in the soap-bubble or the rainbow! seven tones of light exist, co-equal with the seven tones in music, and much of what we call art and poesy is but the constant reflex of these never-dying tints and sounds. can a critic enter more closely into the secrets of nature than a poet? ... nay!--for he would undo all creation were he able, and find fault with its fairest productions! the critical mind dwells too persistently on the mere surface of things, ever to comprehend or probe the central deeps and well-springs of thought. will a zabastes move us to tears and passion? ... will he make our pulses beat with any happier thrill, or stir our blood into a warmer glow? he may be able to sever the petals of a lily and name its different sections, its way of growth and habitude,--but can he raise it from the ground alive and fair, a perfect flower, full of sweet odors and still sweeter suggestions? no!--but sah-luma with entrancing art can make us see, not one lily but a thousand lilies, all waving in the light wind of his fancy,--not one world but a thousand worlds, circling through the empyrean of his rhythmic splendor,--not one joy but a thousand joys, all quivering song-wise through the radiance of his clear illumined inspiration. the heart,--the human heart alone is the final touchstone of a poet's genius,--and when that responds, who shall deny his deathless fame!" loud applause followed these words, and the king, leaning forward, clapped theos familiarly on the shoulder: "bravely spoken, sir stranger!" he exclaimed--"thou hast well vindicated thy friend's honor! and by my soul!--thou hast a musical tongue of thine own!--who knows but that thou also may be a poet yet in time to come!--and thou, zabastes--" here he turned upon the old critic, who, while theos spoke, had surveyed him with much cynical disdain--"get thee hence! thine arguments are all at fault, as usual! thou art thyself a disappointed author--hence thy spleen! thou art blind and deaf, selfish and obstinate,--for thee the very sun is a blot rather than a brightness,--thou couldst, in thine own opinion, have created a fairer luminary doubtless had the matter been left to thee! aye, aye!--we know thee for a beauty hating fool,--and though we laugh at thee, we find thee wearisome! stand thou aside and be straightway forgotten!--we will entreat sah-luma for another song." the discomfited zabastes retired, grumbling to himself in an undertone,--and the laureate, whose dreamy eyes had till now rested on theos, his self constituted advocate, with an appreciative and almost tender regard, once more took up his harp, and striking a few rich, soft chords was about to sing again, when a great noise as of clanking armor was heard outside, mingled with a steadily increasing, sonorous hum of many voices and the increased tramp, tramp of marching feet. the doors were flung open,--the herald-in-waiting entered in hot haste and excitement, and prostrating himself before the throne exclaimed: "o great king, may thy name live forever! khosrul is taken!" zephoranim's black brows drew together in a dark scowl and he set his lips hard. "so! for once thou art quick tongued in the utterance of news!" he said half-scornfully--"bring hither the captive,--an he chafes at his bonds we will ourselves release him..." and he touched his sword significantly--"to a wider freedom than is found on earth!" a thrill, ran through the courtly throng at these words, and the women shuddered and grew pale. sah-luma, irritated at the sudden interruption that had thus distracted the general attention from his own fair and flattered self, gave an expressively petulant glance toward theos, who smiled back at him soothingly as one who seeks to coax a spoilt child out of its ill-humor, and then all eyes were turned expectantly toward the entrance of the audience-chamber. a band of soldiers clad from head to foot in glittering steel armor, and carrying short drawn swords, appeared, and marched with quick, ringing steps, across the hall toward the throne--arrived at the dais, they halted, wheeled about, saluted, and parted asunder in two compact lines, thus displaying in their midst the bound and manacled figure of a tall, gaunt, wild-looking old man, with eyes that burned like bright flames beneath the cavernous shadow of his bent and shelving brows,--a man whose aspect was so grand, and withal so terrible, that an involuntary murmur of mingled admiration and affright broke from the lips of all assembled, like a low wind surging among leaf-laden branches. this was khosrul,--the prophet of a creed that was to revolutionize the world,--the fanatic for a faith as yet unrevealed to men,--the dauntless foreteller of the downfall of al-kyris and its king! theos stared wonderingly at him.. at his funereal, black garments which clung to him with the closeness of a shroud,--at his long, untrimmed beard and snow-white hair that fell in disordered, matted locks below his shoulders,--at his majestic form which in spite of cords and feathers he held firmly erect in an attitude of fearless and composed dignity. there was something supernaturally grand and awe-inspiring about him, ... something commanding as well as defiant in the straight and steady look with which he confronted the king,--and for a moment or so a deep silence reigned,--silence apparently born of superstitious dread inspired by the mere fact of his presence. zephoranim's glance rested upon him with cold and supercilious indifference,--seated haughtily upright in his throne, with one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, he showed no sign of anger against, or interest in, his prisoner, save that, to the observant eye of theos, the veins in his forehead seemed to become suddenly knotted and swollen, while the jewels on his bare chest heaved restlessly up and down with the unquiet panting of his quickened breath. "we give thee greeting, khosrul!" he said slowly and with a sinister smile--"the lion's paw has struck thee down at last! too long hast thou trifled with our patience,--thou must abjure thy heresies, or die! what sayest thou now of doom,--of judgment,--of the waning of glory? wilt prophesy? ... wilt denounce the faith? ... wilt mislead the people? ... wilt curse the king? ... thou mad sorcerer!--devil bewitched and blasphemous! ... what shall hinder me from at once slaying thee?" and he half drew his formidable sword from its sheath. khosrul met his threatening gaze unflinchingly. "nothing shall hinder thee, zephoranim," he replied, and his voice, deeply musical and resonant, struck to theos's heart with a strange, foreboding chill--"nothing--save thine own scorn of cowardice!" the monarch's hand fell from his sword-hilt,--a flush of shame reddened his dark face. he bent his fiery eyes full on the captive--and there was something in the sorrowful grandeur of the old man's bearing, coupled with his enfeebled and defenceless condition, that seemed to touch him with a sense of compassion, for, turning suddenly to the armed guard, he raised his hand with a gesture of authority ... "unloose his fetters!" he commanded. the men hesitated, apparently doubting whether they had heard aright. zephoranim stamped his foot impatiently. "unloose him, i say! ... by the gods! must i repeat the same thing twice? since when have soldiers grown deaf to the voice of their sovereign? ... and why have ye bound this aged fool with such many and tight bonds? his veins and sinews are not of iron,--methinks ye might have tied him with thread and met with small resistance! i have known many a muscular deserter from the army fastened less securely when captured! unloose him--and quickly too!--our pleasure is that, ere he dies, he shall speak an he will, in his own defence as a free man." in trembling haste and eagerness the guards at once set to work to obey this order. the twisted cords were untied, the heavy iron fetters wrenched asunder,--and in a very short space khosrul stood at comparative liberty. at first he did not seem to understand the king's generosity toward him in this respect, for he made no attempt to move,--his limbs were rigidly composed as though they were still bound,--and so stiff and motionless was his weird, attenuated figure that theos beholding him, began to wonder whether he were made of actual flesh and blood, or whether he might not more possibly be some gaunt spectre, forced back by mystic art from another world in order to testify, of things unknown, to living men. zephoranim meanwhile called for his cup-bearer, a beautiful youth radiant as ganymede, who at a sign from his royal master approached the prophet, and pouring wine from a jewelled flagon into a goblet of gold, offered it to him with a courteous salute and smile. khosrul started violently like one suddenly wakened from a deep dream,--shading his eyes with his lean and wrinkled hand he stared dubiously at the young and gayly attired servitor,--then pushed the goblet aside with a shuddering gesture of aversion. "away ... away!" he muttered in a thrilling whisper that penetrated to every part of the vast hall--"wilt force me to drink blood?" he paused,--and in the same low, horror-stricken tone, continued. "blood ... blood! it stains the earth and sky! ... its red, red waves swallow up the land! ... the heavens grow pale and tremble,--the silver stars blacken and decay, and the winds of the desert make lament for that which shall come to pass ere ever the grapes be pressed or the harvest gathered! blood ... blood! the blood of the innocent! ... 'tis a scarlet sea, wherein, like a broken and empty ship, al-kyris founders ... founders ... never to rise again!" these words, uttered with such hushed yet passionate intensity produced a most profound impression. several courtiers exchanged uneasy glances, and the women half rose from their seats, looking toward the king as though silently requesting permission to retire. but an imperious negative sign from zephoranim obliged them to resume their places, though they did so with obvious nervous reluctance. "thou art mad, khosrul"--then said the monarch in calmly measured accents--"and for thy madness, as also for thine age, we have till now retarded justice, out of pity. nevertheless, excess of pity in great kings too oft degenerates into weakness--and this we cannot suffer to be said of us, not even for the sake of sparing thy few poor remaining years. thou hast overstepped the limit of our leniency,--and madman as thou art, thou showest a madman's cunning,--thou dost break the laws and art dangerous to the realm,--thou art proved a traitor, and must straightway die. thou art accused..." "of honesty!" interrupt khosrul suddenly, with a touch of melancholy satire in his tone. "i have spoken truth in an age of lies! 'tis a most death-worthy deed!" he ceased, and again seemed to retire within himself as though he were a voice entering at will into the carven image of man. zephoranim frowned angrily, yet answered nothing--and a brief pause ensued. theos grew more and more painfully interested in the scene,--there was something in it that to his mind seemed fatefully suggestive and fraught with impending evil. suddenly sah-luma looked up, his bright face alit with laughter. "now by the sacred veil,"--he said gayly, addressing himself to the king--"your majesty considers this venerable gentleman with too much gravity! i recognize in him one of my craft,--a poet, tragic and taciturn of humor, and with a taste for melodramatic simile, . . marked you not the mixing of his word-colors in the picture he drew of al-kyris, foundering like a wrecked ship in a blood-red sea, whilst overhead trembled a white sky set thick with blackening stars? as i live, 'twas not ill-devised for a madman's brain! ... and so solemn a ranter should serve your majesty to make merriment withal, in place of my poor zabastes, whose peevish jests grow somewhat stale owing to the critic's chronic want of originality! nay, i myself shall be willing to enter into a rhyming joust with so disconsolately morose a contemporary, and who knows whether, betwixt us twain, the chords of the major and minor may not be harmonized in some new and altogether marvellous fashion of music such as we wot not of!" and turning to khosrul he added--"wilt break a lance of song with me, sir gray-beard? thou shalt croak of death, and i will chant of love,--and the king shall pronounce judgment as to which melody hath the most potent and lasting sweetness!" khosrul lifted his head and met the laureate's half-mirthful, half-mocking smile with a look of infinite compassion in his own deep, solemnly penetrating eyes. "thou poor deluded singer of a perishable day!" he said mournfully--"alas for thee, that thou must die so, soon, and be so soon forgotten! thy fame is worthless as a grain of sand blown by the breath of the sea! ... thy pride and thy triumph evanescent as the mists of the morning that vanish in the heat of the sun! great has been the measure of thine inspiration,--yet thou hast missed its true teaching,--and of all the golden threads of poesy placed freely in thy hands thou hast not woven one clew whereby thou shouldst find god! alas, sah-lum! bright soul unconscious of thy fate! ... thou shalt be suddenly and roughly slain, and there sits thy destroyer!" and as he spoke he raised his shrunken, skeleton-like hand and pointed steadfastly to--the king! there was a momentary hush...a stillness as of stupefied amazement and horror, . . then, to the apparent relief of all present, zephoranim burst out laughing. "by all the virtues of nagaya!" he cried--"this is most excellent fooling! i, zephoranim, the destroyer of my friend and first favorite in the realm? ... old man, thy frenzy exceeds belief and exhausts patience,--though of a truth i am sorry for the shattering of thy wits,--'tis sad that reason should be lacking to one so revered and grave of aspect. dear to me as my royal crown is the life of sah-luma, through whose inspired writings alone my name shall live in the annals of future history--for the glory of a great poet must ever surpass the renown of the greatest king. were al-kyris besieged by a thousand enemies, and these strong palace-walls razed to the ground by the engines of warfare, we would ourselves defend sah-luma!--aye, even cry aloud in the heat of combat that he, the chief minstrel of our land, should be sheltered from fury and spared from death, as the only one capable of chronicling our vanquishment of victory!" sah-luma smiled and bowed gracefully in response to this enthusiastic assurance of his sovereign's friendship,--but nevertheless there was a slight shadow of uneasiness on his bold, beautiful brows. he had evidently been uncomfortably impressed by khosrul's words, and the restless anxiety reflected in his face communicated itself by a sort of electric thrill to theos, whose heart began to beat heavily with a sense of vague alarm. "what is this khosrul?" he thought half resentfully--"and how dares he predict for the adored, the admired sah-luma so dark and unmerited an end? ... "hark! ... what was that low, far-off rumbling as of underground wheels rolling at full speed? ... he listened,--then glanced at those persons who stood nearest to him, . . no one seemed to hear anything unusual. moreover all eyes were fixed fearfully on khosrul, whose before rigidly sombre demeanor had suddenly changed, and who now with raised head, tossed hair, outstretched arms, and wild gestures looked like a flaming terror personified. "victory... victory!" he cried, catching at the king's last word ... "there shall be no more victory for thee, zephoranim! ... thy conquests are ended, and the flag of thy glory shall cease to wave on the towers of thy strong citadels! death stands behind thee! ... destruction clamors at thy palace-gates! ... and the enemy that cometh upon thee unawares is an enemy that none shall vanquish or subdue, not even they who are mightiest among the mighty! thy strong men of war shall be trodden down as wheat,--thy captains and rulers shall tremble and wail as children bewildered with fear:--thy great engines of battle shall be to thee as naught,--and the arrows of thy skilled archers shall be useless as straws in the gathering tempest of fire and fury! zephoranim! zephoranim! ..." and his voice shrilled with terrific emphasis through the vaulted chamber ... "the days of recompense are come upon thee,--swift and terrible as the desert-wind! ... the doom of al-kyris is spoken, and who shall avert its fulfilment! al-kyris the magnificent shall fall.. shall fall! ... its beauty, its greatness, its pleasantness, its power, shall be utterly destroyed.. and ere the waning of the midsummer moon not one stone of its glorious buildings shall be left to prove that here was once a city? fire! ... fire! ..." and here he ran abruptly to the foot of the royal dais, his dark garments brushing against theos as he passed,--and springing on the first step, stood boldly within hand-reach of the king, who, taken aback by the suddenness of his action, stared at him with a sort of amazed and angry fascination.. "to arms, zephoranim! ... to arms! ... take up thy sword and shield.. get thee forth and fight with fire! fire! ... how shall the king quench it? ... how shall the mighty monarch defend his people against it? see you not how it fills the air with red devouring tongues of flame! ... the thick smoke reeks of blood! ... al-kyris the magnificent, the pleasant city of sin, the idolatrous city, is broken in pieces and is become a waste of ashes! who will join with me in a lament for al-kyris? i will call upon the desert of the sea to hear my voice, . . i will pour forth my sorrows on the wind, and it shall carry the burden of grief to the four quarters of the earth,--all nations shall shudder and be astonished at the direful end of al-kyris, the city beautiful, the empress of kingdoms! woe unto al-kyris, for she hath suffered herself to be led astray by her rulers! ... she hath drunken deep of the innocent blood and hath followed after idols, . . her abominations are manifold and the hearts of her young men and maidens are full of evil! therefore because al-kyris delighteth in pride and despiseth repentance, so shall destruction descend furiously upon her, even as a sudden tempest in the mid-watches of the night,--she shall be swept away from the surface of the earth, ... wolves shall make their lair in her pleasant gardens, and the generations of men shall remember her no more! oh ye kings, princes, and warriors!--weep, weep for the doom of al-kyris!" and now his wild voice sank by degrees into a piteous plaintiveness--"weep!--for never again on earth shall be found a fairer dwelling-place for the lovers of joy! ... never again shall be builded a grander city for the glory and wealth of a people! al-kyris! al-kyris! thou that boastest of ancient days and long lineage! ... thou art become a forgotten heap of ruin! ... the sands of the desert shall cover thy temples and palaces, and none hereafter shall inquire concerning thee! none shall bemoan thee, . . none shall shed tears for the grievous manner of thy death, . . none shall know the names of thy mighty heroes and men of fame,--for thou shalt vanish utterly and be lost far out of memory even as though thou hadst never been!" here he stopped abruptly and caught his breath hard,--his blazing eyes preternaturally large and brilliant fixed themselves steadfastly on the sculptured ivory shield that surmounted the back of the king's throne, and over his drawn and wrinkled features came an expression of such ghastly horror that instinctively every one present turned their looks in the same direction. suddenly a shriek, piercing and terrible, broke from his lips,--a shriek that like a swiftly descending knife seemed to saw the air discordantly asunder. "see ... see!" he cried in fierce haste and eagerness ... "see how the crested head gleams! ... how the soft, shiny throat curves and glistens! ... how the lithe body twists and twines! ... hence!--hence, accursed snake! ..thou poisoner of peace! ... thou quivering sting in the flesh!--thou destroyer of the strength of manhood! what hast thou to do with zephoranim, that thou dost wind thy many coils about his heart? ... lysia ... lysia! ..." here the king started violently, his face flushing darkly red, "thou delicate abomination! ... thou tyrannous treachery.. what shall be done unto thee in the hour of darkness! put off, put off the ornaments of gold and the jewels wherewith thou adornest thy beauty, and crown thyself with the crown of an endless affliction! ... for thou shalt be girdled round about with flame, and fire shall be thy garment! ... thy lips that have drunken sweet wine shall be steeped in bitterness!--vainly shalt thou make thyself fair and call aloud on thy legion of lovers, . . they shall be as dead men, deaf to thine entreaties, and none shall answer thee,--no, not one! none shall hide thee from shame or offer thee comfort,--in the midst of thy lascivious delights shalt thou suddenly perish! ... and my soul shall be avenged on thy sins, thou unvirgined virgin!--thou queen-courtesan!" scarcely had he uttered the last word, when the king with a furious oath sprang upon him, grasped him by the throat, and thrusting him fiercely down on the steps of the dais, placed one foot on his prostrate body. then drawing his gigantic sword he lifted it on high, ... the blight blade glittered in air...an audible gasp of terror broke from the throng of spectators, ... another second and khosrul's life would have paid the forfeit for his temerity...when crash! ... a sudden and tremendous clap of thunder shook the hall, and every lamp was extinguished! impenetrable darkness reigned, . . thick, close, suffocating darkness, . . the thunder rolled away in sullen, vibrating echoes, and there was a short, impressive silence. then piercing through the profound gloom came the clamorous cries and shrieks of frightened women, . . the horrible, selfish scrambling, pushing and struggling of a bewildered, panic-stricken crowd, . . the helpless, nerveless, unreasoning distraction that human beings exhibit when striving together for escape from some imminent deadly peril,--and though the king's stentorian voice could be heard above all the tumult loudly commanding order, his alternate threats and persuasions were of no avail to calm the frenzy of fear into which the whole court was thrown. groans and sobs, . . wild entreaties to nagaya and the sun-god.. curses from the soldiery, who intent on saving themselves were brutally trying to force a passage to the door regardless of the wailing women, whose frantic appeals for rescue and assistance were heart-rending to hear, . . all these sounds increased the horror of the situation,--and theos, blind, giddy, and confused, listened to the uproar around him with something of the affrighted compassion that a stranger in hell might be supposed to feel when hearkening to the ceaseless plaints of the self-tortured wicked. he endeavored to grope his way to sah-luma's side,--and just then lights appeared, . . lights that were not of earth's kindling, . . strange, wandering flames that danced and flitted along the tapestried walls like will-o'-the-wisps on a dark morass, and flung a ghastly blue glare on the pale, uneasy faces of the scared people, till gathering in a sort of lurid ring round the throne, they outlined in strong relief the enraged, titanesque figure of zephoranim whose upraised sword looked in itself like an arrested flash of lightning. brighter and brighter grew the weird lustre, illumining the whole scene.. the vast length of the splendid hall, . . the shining armor of the soldiers...the white robes of the women...the flags and pennons that hung from the roof and swayed to and fro as though blown by a gust of wind.. every object near and distant was soon as visible as in broad day,--and then...a terrible cry of rage burst from the king,--the cry of a maddened wild beast. "death and fury!" he shouted, striking his sword with a fierce clang against the silver pedestal of the throne, . . "where is khosrul?" the silence of an absolute dismay answered him, ... khosrul had fled! like a cloud melting in air, or a ghost vanishing into the nether-world, he had mysteriously disappeared! ... he had escaped, no one knew how, from under the very feet and out of the very grasp of the irate monarch, whose baffled wrath now knew no bounds. "dolts, idiots, cowards!".. and he hurled these epithets at the timorous crowd with all the ferocity of a giant hurling stones at a swarm of pigmies.. "babes that are frighted by a summer thunder-storm! ... ye have let yon accursed heretic slip from my hands ere i had choked him with his own lie! o ye fools! ye puny villains! ... i take shame to myself that i am king of such a race of weaklings! lights! ... bring lights hither, ye whimpering slaves,--ye shivering poltroons! ... what! call yourselves men! nay, ye are feeble girls prankt out in men's attire, and your steel corselets cover the faintest hearts that ever failed for dastard fear! shut fast the palace-gates! ... close every barrier! ... search every court and corner, lest haply this base false prophet be still here in hiding,--he that blasphemed with ribald tongue the high priestess of our faith, the holy virgin lysia! ... are ye all turned renegades and traitors that ye will suffer him to go free and triumph in his lawless heresy? ye shameless knaves! ye milk-veined rascals! ... what abject terror makes ye thus quiver like aspen-leaves in a storm? ... this darkness is but a conjurer's trick to scare women, and khosrul's followers can so play with the strings of electricity that ye are duped into accepting the witch-glamour as heaven's own cloud-flame! by the gods! if al-kyris falls, as yon dotard pronounceth, her ruins shall bury but few heroes! o superstitious and degraded souls! ... i would ye were even as i am--a man dauntless,--a soldier unafraid." his powerful and indignant voice had the effect of partially checking the panic and restoring something like order,--the pushing and struggling for an immediate exit ceased,--the armed guards in shamed silence began to marshal themselves together in readiness to start on the search for the fugitive,--and several pages rushed in with flaring torches, which cast a wondrous fire-glow on the surging throng of eager and timid faces, the brilliant costumes, the flash of jewels, the glimmer of swords and the dark outlines of the fluttering tapestry,--all forming together a curious chiaroscuro, from which the massive figure of zephoranim stood out in bold and striking prominence against the white and silver background of his throne. vaguely bewildered and lost in a dim stupefaction of wonderment, theos looked upon everything with an odd sense of strained calmness, . . the glittering saloon whirled before his eyes like a passing picture in a magic glass...and then...an imperative knowledge forced itself upon his mind,--he had witnessed this self-same scene before! where? and when? ... impossible to say,--but he distinctly remembered each incident! this impression however left him as rapidly as it had come, before he had any time to puzzle himself about it, . . and just at that moment sah-luma's hand caught his own,--sah-luma's voice whispered in his ear: "let us away, my friend,--there will be naught now but mounting of guards and dire confusion,--the king is as a lion roused, and will not cease growling till his vengeance be satisfied! a plague on this shatter-pated prophet!--he hath broken through my music, and jarred poesy into discord!--by the sacred veil!--didst ever hear such a hideous clamor of contradictory tongues! ... all striving to explain what defies explanation, namely, khosrul's flight, for which, after all, no one is to blame so much as zephoranim himself,--but 'tis the privilege of monarchs to shift their own mistakes and follies on to the shoulders of their subjects! come! lysia awaits us, and will not easily pardon our tardy obedience to her summons,--let us hence ere the gates of the palace close." lysia! ... the "unvirgined virgin"--the "queen courtesan"! so had said khosrul. nevertheless her name, like a silver clarion, made the heart of theos bound with indescribable gladness and feverish expectation, and without an instant's pause he readily yielded to sah-luma's guidance through the gorgeously colored confusion of the swaying crowd. arm-in-arm, the twain,--one a poet renowned, the other a poet forgotten,--threaded their rapid way between the ranks of nobles, officers, slaves, and court-lacqueys, who were all excitedly discussing the recent scare, the prophet's escape, and the dread wrath of the king,--and hurrying along the vast hall of the two thousand columns, they passed together out into the night. chapter xvii. a virgin unshrined. under the cloudless, star-patterned sky, in the soft, warm air that brimmed with the fragrance of roses, they drove once more together through the spacious streets of al-kyris--streets that were now nearly deserted save for a few late passers-by whose figures were almost as indistinct and rapid in motion as pale, flitting shadows. there was not a sign of storm in the lovely heavens, though now and again a sullen roll as of a distant cannonade hinted of pent-up anger lurking somewhere behind that clear and exquisitely dark-blue ether, in which a million worlds blazed luminously like pendulous drops of white fire. sah-luma's chariot whirled along with incredible swiftness, the hoofs of the galloping horses occasionally striking sparks of flame from the smooth mosaic-pictured pavement; but theos now began to notice that there was a strange noiselessness in their movements--that the whole cortege appeared to be environed by a magic circle of silence--and that the very night itself seemed breathlessly listening in entranced awe to some unlanguaged warning from the gods invisible. compared with the turbulence and terror just left behind at the king's palace, this weird hush was uncomfortably impressive, and gave a sense of fantastic unreality to the scene. the sleepy, mesmeric radiance of the full moon, shining on the delicate traceries of the quaintly sculptured houses on either hand, made them look brittle and evanescent; the great heavy, hanging orange-boughs and the feathery frondage of the tall palms seemed outlined in mere mist against the sky; and the glimpses caught from time to time of the broad and quietly flowing river were like so many flashes of light seen through a veil of cloud. theos, standing beside his friend with one hand resting familiarly on his shoulder, dreamily admired the phantom-like beauty of the city thus transfigured in the moonbeams, and though he vaguely wondered a little at the deep, mysterious stillness that everywhere prevailed, he scarcely admitted to himself that there was or could be anything unusual in it. he took his position as he found it--indeed he could not well do otherwise, since he felt his fate was ruled by some resolute, unseen force, against which all resistance would be unavailing. moreover, his mind was now entirely possessed by the haunting vision of lysia--a vision half-human, half-divine--a beautiful, magical, irresistible sweetness that allured his soul, and roused within him a wordless passion of infinite desire. he exchanged not a syllable with sah-luma--an indefinable yet tacit understanding existed between them,--an intuitive foreknowledge and subtle perception of each other's character, intentions, and aims, that for the moment rendered speech unnecessary. and there was something, after all, in the profound silence of the night that, while strange, was also eloquent--eloquent of meanings, unutterable, such as lie hidden in the scented cups of flowers when lovers gather them on idle summer afternoons and weave them into posies for one another's wearing. how fleetly the gilded, shell-shaped car sped on its way!--trees, houses, bridges, domes, and cupolas, seemed to fly past in a varied whirl of glistening color! now and again a cluster of fire-flies broke from some thicket of shade and danced drowsily by in sparkling tangles of gold and green; here and there from great open squares and branch-shadowed gardens gleamed the stone face of an obelisk, or the white column of a fountain; while over all things streamed the long prismatic rays flung forth from the revolving lights in the twelve towers of the sacred temple, like flaming spears ranged lengthwise against the limitless depth of the midnight horizon. with straining necks, tossed manes, and foam flying from their nostrils, sah-luma's fiery coursers dashed onward at almost lightning speed, and the journey became a wild, headstrong rush through the dividing air--a rush toward some voluptuous end, dimly discerned, yet indefinite! at last they stopped. before them rose a lofty building, crested with fantastic pinnacles such as are formed by ice on the roof in times of intense cold; a great gate stood open, and pacing slowly up and down in front of it was a tall slave in white tunic and turban, who, turning his gleaming eyeballs on sah-luma, nodded by way of salutation, and then uttered a sharp, peculiar whistle. this summons brought out two curious, dwarfish figures of men, whose awkward misshapen limbs resembled the contorted branches of wind-blown trees, and whose coarse and repulsive countenances betokened that malignant delight in evil-doing which only demons are supposed to know. these ungainly servitors possessed themselves of the laureate's chafing steeds, and led them and the chariot away into some unseen courtyard; while the laureate himself, still saying no word, kept fast hold of his companion's arm, and hurried him along a dark avenue overshadowed with thick boughs that drooped heavily downward to the ground--a solitary place where the intense quiet was disturbed only by the occasional drip, drip of dewy moisture trickling tearfully from the leaves, or the sweet, faint, gurgling sound of fountains playing somewhere in the distance. on they went for several paces, till at a sharp bend in the moss-grown path, an amethystine light broke full between the arched green branches; directly in front of them glimmered a broad piece of water, and out of the purple-tinted depths rose the white, nude, lovely form of a woman, whose rounded, outstretched arms appeared to beckon them, . . whose mouth smiled in mingled malice and sweetness, . . and round whose looped-up tresses sparkled a diadem of sapphire flame. with a cry of astonishment and ecstacy theos sprang forward: sah-luma held him back in laughing remonstrance. "wilt drown for a statue's sake?" he inquired mirthfully. "by my soul, good theos, if thy wits thus wander at sight of a witching, marble nymph illumed by electric glamours, what will become of thee when thou art face to face with living, breathing loveliness! come, thou hotheaded neophyte! thou shalt not waste thy passion on images of stone, i warrant thee! come!" but theos stood still. his eyes roved from sah-luma to the glittering statue and from the statue back again to sah-luma in mingled doubt and dread. a vague foreboding filled his mind, he fancied that a bevy of mocking devils peered at him from out the wooded labyrinth, ... and that sin was the name of the white siren yonder, whose delicate body seemed to palpitate with every slow ripple of the surrounding waters. he hesitated,--with that often saving hesitation a noble spirit may feel ere willfully yielding to what it instinctively knows to be wrong,--and for the briefest possible space an imperceptible line was drawn between his own self-consciousness and the fascinating personality of his lately found friend--a line that parted them asunder as though by a gulf of centuries. "sah-luma," he said, in a tremulous, low tone, "tell me truly,--is it good for us to be here?" sah-luma regarded him in wide-eyed amazement. "good? good?" he repeated with a sort of impatient disdain. "what dost thou mean by 'good'? what is good? what is evil? canst thou tell? if so, thou art wiser than i! good to be here? if it is good to drown remembrance of the world in draughts of pleasure; if it is good to love and be beloved; if it is good to enjoy, aye! enjoy with burning zest every pulsation of the blood and every beat of the heart, and to feel that life is a fiery delight, an exquisite dream of drained-off rapture, then it is good to be here! if," and he caught theos's hand in his own warm palm and pressed it, while his voice sank to a soft and infinitely caressing sweetness, "if it is good to climb the dizzy heights of joy and drowse in the deep sunshine of amorous eyes, . . to slip away on elfin wings into the limitless freedom of love's summerland, ... to rifle rich kisses from warm lips even as rosebuds are rifled from the parent rose, and to forget! ...--to forget all bitter things that are best forgotten--" "enough, enough!" cried theos, fired with a reckless impulse of passionate ardor. "on, on, sah-luma! i follow thee! on! let us delay no more!" at that moment a far-off strain of music saluted his ears--music evidently played on stringed instruments. it was accompanied by a ringing clash of cymbals; he listened, and listening, saw a smile lighten sah-luma's features--a smile sweet, yet full of delicate mockery. their eyes met; a wanton impetuosity flashed like reflected flame from one face to the other, and then, without another instant's pause, they hurried on. across a broad, rose-marbled terrace garlanded with a golden wealth of orange-trees and odorous oleanders..... under a trellis-work covered with magnolias whose half-shut, ivory-tinted buds glistened in the moonlight like large suspended pearls, . . then through a low-roofed stone-corridor, close and dim, lit only by a few flickering oil-lamps placed at far intervals, . . then on they went, till at last, ascending three red granite steps on which were carved some curious hieroglyphs, they plunged into what seemed to be a vast jungle enclosed in some dense tropical forest. what a strange, unsightly thicket of rank verdure was here, thought theos! ... it was as though nature, grown tired of floral beauty, had, in a sudden malevolent mood, purposely torn and blurred the fair green frondage and twisted every bud awry! great, jagged leaves covered with prickles and stained all over with blotches as of spilt poison, . . thick brown stems glistening with slimy moisture and coiled up like the sleeping bodies of snakes, . . masses of purple and blue fungi, . . and blossoms seemingly of the orchid species, some like fleshy tongues, others like the waxen yellow fingers of a dead hand, protruded spectrally through the matted foliage,--while all manner of strange, overpowering odors increased the swooning oppressiveness of the sultry, languorous air. this uncouth botanical garden was apparently roofed in by a lofty glass dome, decorated with hangings of watery-green silk, but the grotesque trees and plants grew to so enormous a height that it was impossible to tell which were the falling draperies and which the straggling leaves. curious birds flew hither and thither, voiceless creatures, scarlet and amber winged; a huge gilded brazier stood in one corner from whence ascended the constant smoke of burning incense, and there were rose-shaded lamps all about, that shed a subdued mysterious lustre on the scene, and bestowed a pale glitter on a few fantastic clumps of arums and nodding lotus-flowers that lazily lifted themselves out of a greenish pool of stagnant water sunk deeply in on one side of the marble flooring. theos, holding sah-luma's arm, stepped eagerly across the threshold; he was brimful of expectation: . . and what mattered it to him whether the weed-like things that grew in this strange pavilion were pure or poisonous, provided he might look once more upon the witching face that long ago had so sweetly enticed him to his ruin! ... stay! what was he thinking of? long ago? nay, that was impossible,--since he had only seen the priestess lysia for the first time that very morning! how piteously perplexing it was to be thus tormented with these indistinct ideas!--these half-formed notions of previous intimate acquaintance with persons and places he never could have known before! all at once he drew back with a startled exclamation; an enormous tigress, sleek and jewel-eyed, bounded up from beneath a tangled mass of red and yellow creepers and advanced toward him with a low savage snarl. "peace, aizif, peace;" said sah-luma, carelessly patting the animal's head. "thou art wont to be wiser in distinguishing 'twixt thy friends and foes." then turning to theos he added--"she is harmless as a kitten, this poor aizif! call her, good theos, she will come to thy hand--see!" and he smiled, as theos, not to be outdone by his companion in physical courage, bent forward and stroked the cruel-looking beast, who, while submitting to his caress, never for a moment ceased her smothered snarling. presently, however, she was seized with a sudden fit of savage playfulness,--and throwing herself on the ground before him, she rolled her lithe body to and fro with brief thirsty roars of satisfaction, . . roars that echoed through the whole pavilion with terrific resonance: then rising, she shook herself vigorously and commenced a stealthy, velvet-footed pacing up and down, lashing her tail from side to side, and keeping those sly, emerald-like eyes of hers watchfully fixed on sah-luma, who merely laughed at her fierce antics. leaning against one of the dark, gnarled trees, he tapped his sandaled foot with some impatience on the marble pavement, while theos, standing close beside him, wondered whether the mysterious lysia knew of their arrival. sah-luma appeared to guess his thoughts, for he answered them as though they had been spoken aloud. "yes," he said, "she knows we are here--she knew the instant we entered her gates. nothing is or can be hidden from her! he who would have secrets must depart out of al-kyris and find some other city to dwell in, . . for here he shall be unable to keep even his own counsel. to lysia all things are made manifest; she reads human nature as one reads an open scroll, and with merciless analysis she judges men as being very poor creatures, limited in their capabilities, disappointing and monotonous in their passions, unproductive and circumscribed in their destinies. to her ironical humor and icy wit the wisest sages seem fools; she probes them to the core, and discovers all their weaknesses; . . she has no trust in virtue, no belief in honesty. and she is right! who but a madman would be honest in these days of competition and greed of gain? and as for virtue, 'tis a pretty icicle that melts at the first touch of a hot temptation! aye! the virgin priestess of nagaya hath a most profound comprehension of mankind's immeasurable brute stupidity; and, strong in this knowledge, she governs the multitude with iron will, intellectual force, and dictative firmness: . . when she dies i know not what will happen." here he interrupted himself, and a dark shadow crossed his brows. "by my soul!" he muttered, "how this thought of death haunts me like the unburied corpse of a slain foe! i would there were no such thing as death; 'tis a cruel and wanton sport of the gods to give us life at all if life must end so utterly and so soon!" he sighed deeply. theos echoed the sigh, but answered nothing. at that moment the restless aizif gave another appalling roar, and pounced swiftly toward the eastern side of the pavilion, where a large painted panel could be dimly discerned, the subject of the painting being a hideous idol, whose long, half-shut, inscrutable eyes leered through the surrounding foliage with an expression of hateful cunning and malevolence. in front of this panel the tigress lay down, licking the pavement thirstily from time to time and giving vent to short purring sounds of impatience: . . then all suddenly she rose with ears pricked, in an attitude of attention. the panel slowly moved, it glided back,--and the great brute leaped forward, flinging her two soft paws on the shoulders of the figure that appeared--the figure of a woman, who, clad in glistening gold from head to foot, shone in the dark aperture like a gilded image in a shrine of ebony. theos beheld the brilliant apparition in some doubt and wonder. was this lysia? he could not see her face, as she wore a thick white veil through which only the faintest sparkle of dark eyes glimmered like flickering sunbeams; nor was he able to discern the actual outline of her form, as it was completely enveloped and lost in the wide, shapeless folds of her stiff, golden gown. yet every nerve in his body thrilled at her presence! ... every drop of blood seemed to rush from his heart to his brain in a swift, scorching torrent that for a second blinded his eyes with a red glare and made him faint and giddy. woman and tigress! they looked strangely alike, he thought, as they stood mutually caressing each other under the great drooping masses of fantastic leaves. yet where was the resemblance? what possible similarity could there be between a tawny, treacherous brute of the forests, full of sly malice and voracious cruelty, and that dazzling, gold-garmented creature, whose small white hand, flashing with jewels, now tenderly smoothed the black, silken stripes on the sleek coat of her savage favorite? "down, sweet aizif, down!" she said, in a grave, dulcet voice as softly languorous as the last note of a love-song. "down, my gentle one! thou art too fond, down! so!" this as the tigress instantly removed its embracing paws from her neck, and, trembling in every limb, crouched on the ground in abjectly submissive obedience. another moment, and she advanced leisurely into the pavilion, aizif slinking stealthily along beside her and seeming to imitate her graceful gliding movements, till she stood within a few paces of theos and sah-luma, just near the spot where the lotus-flowers swayed over the grass-green, stagnant pool. there she paused, and apparently scrutinized her visitors intently through the folds of her snowy veil. sah-luma bent his head before her in a half haughty, half humble salutation. "the tardy sah-luma!" she said, with an undercurrent of laughter in her musical tones, "the poet who loves the flattery of a foolish king, and the applause of a still more foolish court! and so khosrul disturbed the flood of thine inspiration to-night, good minstrel? nay, for that he should die, if for no other crime! and this," here she turned her veiled features toward theos, whose heart beat furiously as he caught a luminous flash from those half-hidden, brilliant eyes, "this is the unwitting stranger who honored me by so daring a scrutiny this morning! verily, thou hast a singularly venturesome spirit of thine own, fair sir! still, we must honor courage, even though it border on rashness, and i rejoice to see that the wrathful mob of al-kyris hath yet left thee man enough to deserve my welcome! nevertheless thou were guilty of most heinous presumption!" here she extended her jewelled hand. "art thou repentant? and wilt thou sue for pardon?" scarcely conscious of what he did, theos approached her, and kneeling on one knee took that fair, soft hand in his own and kissed it with passionate fervor. "criminal as i am," he murmured tremulously, "i glory in my crime, nor will i seek forgiveness? nay, rather will i plead, with thee that i may sin so sweet a sin again, and blind myself with beauty unreproved!" slowly she withdrew her fingers from his clasp. "thou art bold!" she said, with a touch of indolent amusement in her accents. "but in thy boldness there is something of the hero. knowest thou not that i, lysia, high priestess of nagaya, could have thee straightway slain for that unwise speech of thine?--unwise because over-hasty and somewhat over-familiar. yes, i could have thee slain!" and she laughed,--a rippling little laugh like that of a pleased child. "howbeit thou shalt not die this time for thy foolhardiness--thy looks are too much in thy favor! thou art like sah-luma in his noblest moods, when tired of verse-stringing and sonnet-chanting he condescends to remember that he is not quite divine! see how he chafes at that!" and plucking a lotus-bud she threw it playfully at the laureate, whose handsome face flushed vexedly at her words. "and thou art prudent, sir theos--do i not pronounce thy name aptly?--thou wilt be less petulant than he, and less absorbed in self-adoration, for here men--even poets --are deemed no more than men, and their constant querulous claim to be considered as demi-gods meets with no acceptance! wilt 'blind thyself with beauty' as thou say'st? well then, lose thine eyes, but guard thy heart!" and with a careless movement she loosened her veil; it fell from her like a soft cloud, and theos, springing to his feet, gazed upon her with a sense of enraptured bewilderment and passionate pain. it was as though he saw the wraith of some fair, dead woman he had loved of old, risen anew to redemand from him his former allegiance. o, unfamiliar yet well-known face! ... o, slumbrous, starry eyes that seemed to hold the memory of a thousand love-thoughts! ... o, sweet curved lips whereon a delicious smile rested as softly as sunlight on young rose-petals! where, . . where, in god's name, had he seen all this marvelous, witching, maddening loveliness before? his heart beat with heavy, laboring thuds, . . his brain reeled, . . a dim, golden, suffused radiance seemed to hover like an aureole above that dazzling white brow, adorned with a clustering wealth of raven-black tresses, whose massive coils were crowned with the strangest sort of diadem--a wreath of small serpents' heads cunningly fashioned in rubies and rose brilliants, and set in such a manner that they appeared to lift themselves erect from out the dusky hair as though in darting readiness to sting. full of a vague, wild longing, he instinctively stretched out his arms, . . then on a sudden impulse turned swiftly away, in a dizzy effort to escape from the basilisk fire-gleam of those sombre, haunting eyes that plunged into his inmost soul, and there aroused such dark desires, such retrospective evil, such wild weakness as shamed the betterness of his nature! sah-luma's clear, mocking laugh just then rang sharply through the perfumed stillness. "thou mad theos! whither art thou bound?" cried the laureate mirthfully. "wilt leave our noble hostess ere the entertainment has begun? ungallant barbarian! what frenzy possesses thee?" these words recalled him to himself. he came back slowly step by step, and with bowed head, to where lysia stood--lysia, whose penetrating gaze still rested upon him with strangely fixed intensity. "forgive me," he said, in a low, unsteady voice that to his own ears sounded full of suppressed yet passionate appeal. "forgive me, lady, that for one moment i have seemed discourteous. i am not so, in very truth. sad fancies fret my brain at times, and--and there is that within thine unveiled beauty which sword-like wounds my soul! i am not joyous natured: ...unlike sah-luma, chosen favorite of fortune, i have lost all, all that made my life once seem fair. i am dead to those that loved me, ... forgotten by those that honored me, . . a wanderer in strange lands, a solitary wayfarer perplexed with many griefs to which i cannot give a name! nevertheless," and he drew a quick, hard breath, "if i may serve thee, fairest lysia,--as sah-luma serves thee,--subject to thy sovereign favor,--thou shalt not find me lacking in obedience! command me as thou wilt; let me efface myself to worship thee! let me, if it be possible, drown thought,--slay memory,--murder conscience,--so that i may once more, as in the old time, be glad with the gladness that only love can give and only death can take away!" as he finished this unpremeditated, uncontrollable outburst his eyes wistfully sought hers. she met his look with a languid indifference and a half-disdainful smile. "enough! restrain thine ardor!" she said coldly, her dark dilating orbs shining like steel beneath the velvet softness of her long lashes. "thou dost speak ignorantly, unknowing what thy words involve--words to which i well might bind thee, were i less forbearing to thine inconsiderate rashness. how like all men thou art! how keen to plunge into unfathomed deeps, merely to snatch the pearl of present pleasure! how martyr-seeming in thy fancied sufferings, as though thy little wave of personal sorrow swamped the world! o wondrous human egotism! that sees but one great absolute 'i' scrawled on the face of nature! 'i' am afflicted, let none dare to rejoice! 'i' would be glad, let none presume to grieve!" ... she laughed, a little low laugh of icy satire, and then resumed: "i thank thee for thy proffered service, sir stranger, albeit i need it not,--nor do i care to claim it at thy hands. thou art my guest--no more! whether thou wilt hereafter deserve to be enrolled my bondsman depends upon thy prowess and--my humor!" her beautiful eyes flashed scornfully, and there was something cruel in her glance. theos felt it sting him like a sharp blow. his nerves quivered,--his spirit rose in arms against the cynical hauteur of this woman whom he loved; yes,--loved, with a curious sense of revived passion--passion that seemed to have slept in a tomb for ages, and that now suddenly sprang into life and being, like a fire kindled anew on dead ashes! acting on a sudden proud impulse he raised his head and looked at her with a bold steadfastness,--a critical scrutiny,--a calmly discriminating valuation of her physical charms that for the moment certainly appeared to startle her self-possession, for a deep flush colored the fairness of her face and then faded, leaving her pale as marble. her emotion, whatever it was, lasted but a second,--yet in that second he had measured his mental strength against hers, and had become aware of his own supremacy! this consciousness filled him with peculiar satisfaction. he drew a long breath like one narrowly escaped from close peril. he had now no fear of her--only a great, all-absorbing, all-evil love, and to that he was recklessly content to yield. her eyes dwelt glitteringly first upon him and then on sah-luma, as the eyes of a falcon dwell on its prey, and her smile was touched with a little malice, as she said, addressing them both: "come, fair sirs! we will not linger in this wilderness of wild flowers. a feast awaits us yonder--a feast prepared for those who, like yourselves obey the creed of sweet self indulgence, ... the world-wide creed wherein men find no fault, no shadow of inconsistency! the truest wisdom is to enjoy,--the only philosophy that which teaches us how best to gratify our own desires! delight cannot satiate the soul, nor mirth engender weariness! follow me!--" and with a lithe movement she swept toward the door, her pet tigress creeping closely after her; then suddenly looking back she darted a lustiously caressing glance over her shoulder at sah-luma and stretched out her hand. he at once caught it in his own and kissed it with an almost brusque eagerness. "i thought you had forgotten me!" he murmured in a vexed, half-reproachful tone. "forgotten you? forgotten sah-luma? impossible!" and her silvery laughter shook the air into little throbs of music. "when the greatest poet of the age is forgotten, then fall al-kyris! ... for there shall be no more need of kingdoms!" laughing still and allowing her hand to remain in his, she passed out of the pavilion, and theos followed them both as a man might follow the beckoning sylphs in a fairy dream. a mellow, luminous, witch-like radiance seemed to surround them as they went--two dazzling figures gliding on before him with the slow, light grace of moonbeams flitting over a smooth ocean. they seemed made for each other, ... he could not separate them in his thoughts; but the strangest part of the matter was the feeling he had, that he himself somehow belonged to them and they to him. his ideas on the subject, however, were very indefinite; he was in a condition of more or less absolute passiveness, save when strong shudders of grief, memory, remorse or roused passion shook him with sudden force like a storm blast shaking some melancholy cypress whose roots are in the grave. he mused on lysia's scornful words with a perplexed pain. was he then so selfish? "the one great absolute 'i' scrawled on the face of nature!" could that apply to him? surely not! since in his present state of mind he could hardly lay claim to any distinct personality, seeing that that personality was forever merging itself and getting lost in the more clearly perfect identity of sah-luma, whom he regarded with a species of profound hero-worship such as one man seldom feels for another. to call himself a poet now seemed the acme of absurdity; how should such an one as he attempt to conquer fame with a rival like sah-luma already in the field and already supremely victorious? full of these fancies, he scarcely heeded the wonders through which he passed, as he followed his two radiant guides along. his eyes were tired, and rested almost indifferently on the magnificence that everywhere surrounded him, though here and there certain objects attracted his attention as being curiously familiar. these lofty corridors, gorgeously frescoed, . . these splendid groups of statuary, . . these palm-shaded nooks of verdure where imprisoned nightingales warbled plaintive songs that were all the sweeter for their sadness, ... these spacious marble loggias cooled by the rising and falling spray of myriad fountains--did he not dimly recognize all these things? he thought so, yet was not sure,--for he had arrived at a pass when he could neither rely on his reason nor his memory. naught of deeper humiliation could he have than this, to feel within himself that he was still an intellectual, thinking, sentient human being, and that yet at the same time, his intelligence could do nothing to extricate him from the terrific mystery which had engulfed him like a huge flood, and wherein he was now tossed to and fro as helplessly as a floating straw. on, still on he went, treading closely in sah-luma's footsteps and wistfully noting how often the myrtle-garlanded head of his friend drooped caressingly toward lysia's dusky perfumed locks, whence those jewelled serpents' fangs darted flashingly upward like light from darkness. on, still on, till at last he found himself in a grand vestibule, built entirely of sparkling red granite. here were ten sphinxes, so huge in form that a dozen men might have lounged at ease on each one of their enormous paws; they were ranged in rows of five on each side, and their coldly meditative eyes appeared to dwell steadfastly on the polished face of a large black disc placed conspicuously on a pedestal in the exact centre of the pavement. strange letters shone from time to time on this ebony tablet, . . letters that seemed to be written in quicksilver; they glittered for a second, then ran off like phosphorescent drops of water, and again reappeared, but the same signs were never repeated twice over. all were different, . . all were rapid in their coming and going as flashes of lightning. lysia, approaching the disc, turned it slightly; at her touch it revolved like a flying wheel, and for a brief space was literally covered with mysterious characters, which the beautiful priestess perused with an apparent air of satisfaction. all at once the fiery writing vanished, the disc was left black and bare,--and then a silver ball fell suddenly upon it, with a clang, from some unseen height, and rolling off again instantly disappeared. at the same moment a harsh voice, rising as it were from the deepest underground, chanted the following words in a monotonous recitative: "fall, o thou lost hour, into the dreadful past! sink, o thou pearl of time, into the dark and fathomless abyss! not all the glory of kings or the wealth of empires can purchase thee back again! not all the strength of warriors or the wisdom of sages can draw thee forth from the abode of silence whither thou art fled! farewell, lost hour!--and may the gods defend us from thy reproach at the day of doom! in the name of the sun and nagaya, ... peace!" the voice died away in a muffled echo, and the slow, solemn boom of a brazen-tongued bell struck midnight. then theos, raising his eyes, saw that all further progress was impeded by a great wall of solid rock that glistened at every point with flashes of pale and dark violet light--a wall composed entirely of adamantine spar, crusted thick with the rough growth of oriental amethyst. it rose sheer up from the ground to an altitude of about a hundred feet, and apparently closed in and completed the vestibule. surely there was no passing through such a barrier as this? ... he thought wonderingly; nevertheless lysia and sah-luma still went on, and he--as perforce he was compelled--still followed. arrived at the foot of the huge erection that towered above him like a steep cliff of molten gems, he fancied he heard a faint sound behind it as of clinking glasses and boisterous laughter, but before he had time to consider what this might mean, lysia laid her hand lightly on a small, protruding knob of crystal, pressed it, and lo! ... the whole massive structure yawned open suddenly without any noise, suspending itself as it were in sparkling festoons of purple stalactites over the voluptuously magnificent scene disclosed. at first it was difficult to discern more than a gorgeous maze of swaying light and color as though a great field of tulips in full bloom should be seen waving to and fro in the breath of a soft wind; but gradually this bewildering dazzle of gold and green, violet and crimson, resolved itself into definite form and substance; and theos, standing beside his two companions on the elevated threshold of the partition through which they had entered, was able to look down and survey with tolerable composure the wondrous details of the glittering picture--a picture that looked like a fairy-fantasy poised in a haze of jewel-like radiance as of vaporized sapphire. he saw beneath him a vast circular hall or amphitheatre, roofed in by a lofty dome of richest malachite, from the centre of which was suspended a huge globe of fire, that revolved with incredible swiftness, flinging vivid, blood-red rays on the amber-colored silken carpets and embroideries that strewed the floor below. the dome was supported by rows upon rows of tall, tapering crystal columns, clear as translucent water and green as the grass in spring, . . and between and beyond these columns on the left-hand side there were large, oval-shaped casements set wide open to the night, through which the gleam of a broad lake laden with water-lilies could be seen shimmering in the yellow moon. the middle of the hall was occupied by a round table covered with draperies of gold, white, and green, and heaped with all the costly accessories of a sumptuous banquet such as might have been spread before the gods of olympus in the full height of their legendary prime. here were the lovely hues of heaped-up fruit,--the tender bloom of scattered flowers,--the glisten of jewelled flagons and goblets, the flash of massive golden dishes carried aloft by black slaves attired in white and crimson,--the red glow of poured-out wine; and here, in the drowsy warmth, lounging on divans of velvet and embroidered satin, eating, drinking, idly gossiping, loudly laughing, and occasionally bursting into wild snatches of song, were a company of brilliant-looking personages,--all men, all young, all handsome, all richly clad, and all evidently bent on enjoying the pleasures offered by the immediate hour. suddenly, however, their noisy voices ceased--with one accord, as though drawn by some magnetic spell, they all turned their heads toward the platform where lysia had just silently made her appearance,--and springing from their seats they broke into a boisterous shout of acclamation and welcome. one young man whose flushed face had all the joyous, wanton, effeminate beauty of a pictured dionysius, reeled forward, goblet in hand, and tossing the wine in air so that it splashed down again at his feet, staining his white garments as it fell with a stain as of blood, he cried, tipsily: "all hail, lysia! where hast thou wandered so long, thou goddess of morn? we have been lost in the blackness of night, sunk in the depths of a hell-like gloom--but lo! now the clouds have broken in the east, and our hearts rejoice at the birth of day! vanish, dull moon, and be ashamed! ... for a fairer planet rules the sky! hence, ye stars! ... puny glow-worms lazily crawling in the fields of ether! lysia invests the heaven and earth, and in her smile we live! ha! art thou there, sah-luma? come, praise me for my improvised love-lines; they are as good as thine, i warrant thee! canst compose when thou art drunk, my dainty laureate? drain a cup then, and string me a stanza! where is thy fool zebastes? i would fain tickle his long ears with ribald rhyme, and hearken to the barbarous braying forth of his asinine reflections! lysia! what, lysia! ... dost thou frown at me? frown not, sweet queen, but rather laugh! ... thy laughter kills, 'tis true, but thy frown doth torture spirits after death! unbend thy brows! night looms between them like a chaos! ... we will have no more night, i say, but only noon! ... a long, languorous, lovely noon, flower-girdled and sunbeam-clad! "'with roses, roses, roses crown my head, for my days are few! and remember, sweet, when i am dead, that my heart was true!'" singing unsteadily, with the empty goblet upside-down in his hand, he looked up laughing,--his bright eyes flashing with a wild feverish fire, his fair hair tossed back from his brows and entangled in a half-crushed wreath of vine-leaves,--his rich garments disordered, his whole demeanor that of one possessed by a semi-delirium of sensuous pleasure...when all at once, meeting lysia's keen glance, he started as though he had been suddenly stabbed,--the goblet fell from his clasp, and a visible shudder ran through his strong, supple frame. the low, cold, merciless laughter of the beautiful priestess cut through the air hissingly like the sweep of a scimetar. "thou art wondrous merry, nir-jalis," she said, in languid, lazily enunciated accents. "knowest thou not that too much mirth engenders weeping, and that excessive rejoicing hath its fitting end in grievous lamentation? nay, even now already thou lookest more sadly! what sombre cloud has crossed thy wine-hued heaven? be happy while thou mayest, good fool! ... i blame thee not! sooner or later all things must end! ... in the mean time, make thou the most of life while life remains; 'tis at its best an uncertain heritage, that once rashly squandered can never be restored,--either here or hereafter." the words were gently, almost tenderly, spoken; but nir-jalis hearing them, grew white as death--his smile faded, leaving his lips set and stern as the lips of a marble mask. stooping, he raised his fallen goblet and held it out almost mechanically to a passing slave, who re-filled it with wine, which he drank off thirstily at a draught, though the generous liquid brought no color back to his drawn and ashy features. lysia paid no further heed to his evident discomfiture; bidding sah-luma and theos follow her, she descended the few steps that led from the raised platform into the body of the brilliant hall; the rocky screen of amethyst closed behind her as noiselessly as it had opened, and in another moment she stood among her assembled guests, who at once surrounded her with eager salutations and gracefully worded flatteries. smiling on them all with that strange smile of hers that was more scornful than sweet, and yet so infinitely bewitching, she said little in answer to their greetings, . . she moved as a queen moves through a crowd of courtiers, the varied light of crimson and green playing about her like so many sparkles of living flame, . . her dark head, wreathed with those jewelled serpents, lifting itself proudly erect from her muffling golden mantle, and her eyes shining with that frosty gleam of mockery which made them look so lustrous yet so cold. and now theos perceived that at one end of the splendid banquet table a dais was erected, draped richly in carnation-colored silk, and that on this dais a throne was placed--a throne composed entirely of black crystals, whose needle-like points sparkled with a dark flash as of bayonets seen through the smoke of battle. it was cushioned in black velvet, and above it was a bent arch of ivory on which glittered a twisted snake of clustered emeralds. with that slow, superb ease that distinguished all her actions, lysia, attended closely by her tigress, mounted the dais,--and as she did so a loud clash of brazen bells rang out from some invisible turret beyond the summit of the great dome. at the sound of the jangling chime four negresses appeared--goblin creatures that looked as though they had suddenly sprung from some sooty, subterranean region of gnomes--and humbly prostrating themselves before lysia, kissed the ground at her feet. this done, they rose, and began to undo the fastenings of her golden, domino-like garment; but either they were slow, or the fair priestess was impatient for she suddenly shook herself free of their hands, and, loosening the gorgeous mantle herself from its jewelled clasps, it fell slowly from her symmetrical form on the perfumed floor with a rustle as of falling leaves. a sigh quivered audibly through the room--whether of grief, joy, hope, relief, or despair it was difficult to tell. the pride and peril of a matchless loveliness was revealed in all its fatal seductiveness and invincible strength--the irresistible perfection of woman's beauty was openly displayed to bewilder the sight and rouse the reckless passions of man! who could look on such delicate, dangerous, witching charms unmoved? who could gaze on the exquisite outlines of a form fairer than that of any sculptured venus and refuse to acknowledge its powerfully sweet attraction? the virgin priestess of the sun had stepped out of her shrine; . . no longer a creature removed, impersonal, and sacred, she had become most absolutely human. moreover, she might now have been taken for a bacchante, a dancer, or any other unsexed example of womanhood inasmuch as with her golden mantle she had thrown off all disguise of modesty. her beautiful limbs, rounded and smooth as pearl, could be plainly discerned through the filmy garb of silvery tissue that clung like a pale mist about the voluptuous curves of her figure and floated behind her in shining gossamer folds; her dazzling white neck and arms were bare; and from slim wrist to snowy shoulder, little twining diamond snakes glistened in close coils against the velvety fairness of her flesh. a silver serpent with a head of sapphires girdled her waist, and just above the full wave of her bosom, that rose and fell visibly beneath the transparent gathers of her gauzy drapery, shone a large, fiery jewel, fashioned in the semblance of a human eye. this singular ornament was so life-like as to be absolutely repulsive, and as it moved to and fro with its wearer's breathing it seemed now to stare aghast,--anon to flash wickedly as with a thought of evil,--while more often still it assumed a restlessly watchful expression as though it were the eye of a fiend-inquisitor intent on the detection of some secret treachery. poised between those fair white breasts it glared forth a glittering menace; . . a warning of unimaginable horror; and theos, gazing at it fixedly, felt a curious thrill run through him, as if, so to speak, a hook of steel had been suddenly thrust into his quivering veins to draw him steadily and securely on toward some pitfall of unknown tortures. then he remembered what sah-luma had said about the "all-reflecting eye, the weird mirror and potent dazzler of human sight," and wondered whether its mystical properties were such as to compel men to involuntarily declare their inmost thoughts, for it seemed to him that its sinister glow penetrated into the very deepest recesses of his mind, and there discovered all the hidden weaknesses, follies, and passions of the worst side of his nature! he trembled and grew faint,--his dazed eyes wandered over the dainty grace and marvel of lysia's almost unclad loveliness with mingled emotions of allurement and repugnance. fascinated, yet at the same time repelled, his soul yearned toward her as the soul of the knight in the lore-lei legend yearned toward the singing rhine-siren, whose embrace was destruction; and then..... he became filled with a strange, sudden fear; fear, not for himself, but for sah-luma, whose ardent glance burned into her dark, languid-lidded, amorous orbs with the lustre of flame meeting flame--sah-luma, whose beautiful flushed face was as that of a god inspired, or lover triumphant. what could he do to shield and save this so idolized friend of his?--this dear familiar for whom he had such close and ever-increasing sympathy! might he not possibly guard him in some way and ward off impending danger? but what danger? what spectral shadow of dread hovered above this brilliant scene of high feasting and voluptuous revelry? none that he could imagine or define, and yet he was conscious, of an omimous, unuttered premonition of peril in the very air--peril for sah-luma, always for sah-luma, never for himself, ... self seemed dead and entombed forever! involuntarily lifting his eyes to the great green dome where the globe of fire twirled rapidly like a rolling star, he saw some words written round it in golden letters, they were large and distinct, and ran thus: "live in the now, but question not the afterwards!" a wise axiom! ... yet almost a platitude, for did not every one occupy themselves exclusively with the now, regardless of future consequences? of course! who but sages--or fools--would stop to question the afterwards! just then lysia ascended her black crystal throne in all her statuesque majesty, and sinking indolently amid its sable cushions, where she shone in her wonderful whiteness like a glistening pearl set in ebony, she signed to her guests to resume their places at table. she was instantly obeyed. sah-luma took what was evidently his accustomed post at her right hand, while theos found a vacant corner on her left, next to the picturesque, lounging figure of the young man nir jahs, who looked up at him with a half smile as he seated himself, and courteously made more room for him among the tumbled emerald silk diapers of the luxurious divan, they now shared together. nir jahs was by no means sober, but he had recovered a little of his self-possession since lysia's sleepy eyes had darted such cold contempt upon him, and he seemed for the present to be on his guard against giving any further possible cause of offence. "thou art a new comer,--a stranger, if i mistake not?" he inquired in a low, abrupt, yet kindly tone. "yes," replied theos in the same soft sotto-voce. "i am a mere sojourner in al-kyris for a few days only, ... the guest of the divine sah-luma." nir-jahs raised his eyebrows with an expression of amused wonder. "divine!" he ejaculated "by my faith! what neophyte have we here!" and supporting himself on one elbow he stared at his companion as though he saw in him some singular human phenomenon. "dost thou really believe," he went on jestingly, "in the divinity of poets? dost thou think they write what they mean, or practice what they preach? then art thou the veriest innocent that ever wore the muscular semblance of man! poets, my friend, are the most absolute impostors, . . they melodize their rhymed music on phases of emotion they have never experienced; as for instance our lameate yonder will string a pretty sonnet on the despair of love, he knowing nothing of despair, . . he will write of a broken heart, his own being unpricked by so much as a pin's point of trouble; and he will speak in his verso of dying for love when he would not let his little finger ache for the sake of a woman who worshipped him! look not so vaguely! 'tis so, indeed! and as for the divine part of him, wait but a little, and thou shalt see thy poet-god become a satyr!" he laughed maliciously, and theos felt an angry flush rising to his brows. he could not bear to hear sah-luma thus lightly maligned even by this half-drunken reveller, it stung him to the quick, as if he personally were included in the implied accusation of unworthiness. nir-jalis perceived his annoyance, and added good naturedly: "tush, man! vex not thy soul as to thy friend's virtues or vices--what are they to thee? and of truth sah-luma is no worse than the rest of us. all i maintain is that he is certainly no better. i have known many poets in my day, and they are all more or less alike--petulant as babes, peevish as women, selfish as misers, and conceited as peacocks. they should be different? oh, yes!--they should be the perpetual youth of mankind, the faithful singers of love idealized and made perfect. but then none of us are what we ought to be! besides, if we were all virtuous, . . by the gods! the world would become too dull a hole to live in! enough! wilt drink with me?" and beckoning a slave, he had his own goblet and that of theos filled to the brim with wine. "to our more intimate acquaintance!" he said smilingly, and theos, somewhat captivated by the easy courtesy of his manner, could do no less than respond cordially to the proffered toast. at that moment a triumphant burst of music, like the sound of mingled flutes, hautboys, and harps, pushed through the dome like a strong wind sweeping in from the sea, and with it the hum and buzz of conversation began in good earnest. theos, lifting his gaze toward lysia's seat, saw that she was now surrounded by the four attendant negresses, who, standing two on each side of her throne, held large fans of peacock plumes, which, as they were waved slowly to and fro, emitted a thousand scintillations of jewel-like splendor. a slave, attired in scarlet, knelt on one knee before her, proffering a golden salver loaded with the choicest fruits and wines; a lazy smile played on her lips--lips that outrivaled the dewy tint of half-opening roses; the serpents in her hair and on her rounded arms quivered in the light like living things; the great symbolic eye glanced wickedly out from the white beauty of her heaving breast; and as he surveyed her, thus resplendent in all the startling seductiveness of her dangerous charms, her loveliness entranced and intoxicated him like the faint perfume of some rare and powerful exotic, ... his senses seemed to sink drowningly in the whelming influence of her soft and dazzling grace; and though he still resented, he could not resist her mesmeric power. no wonder, he thought, that sah-luma's eyes darkened with passions as they dwelt on her! ... and no wonder that he, like sah-luma, was content to be gently but surely drawn within the glittering web of her magic spell--a spell fatal, yet too bewilderingly sweet for human strength to fight against. the mysterious sense he had of danger lurking somewhere for sah-luma applied, so he fancied, in no way to himself--it did not much matter what happened to him--he was a mere nobody. he could be of no use anywhere; he was as one banished into strange exile; his brain--that brain he had once deemed so clear, so subtle, so eminently reasoning and all-comprehensive--was now nothing but a chaotic confusion of vague suggestions, and only served to very slightly guide him in the immediate present, giving him no practical clue at all as to the past through which he had lived, or the circumstances he most wished to remember. he was a fool--a dreamer--ungifted--unfamous! ... were he to die, not a soul would regret his loss. his own fate therefore concerned him little--he could handle fire recklessly and not feel the flame; he could, so he believed, run any risk, and yet escape, comparatively free of harm. but with sah-luma it was different! sah-luma must be guarded and cherished; his was a valuable life--the life of a genius such as the world sees but once in a century--and it should not, so theos determined,--be emperilled or wasted; no! not even for the sake of the sensuous, exquisite, conquering beauty of this dazzling priestess of the sun--the fairest sorceress that ever triumphed over the frail yet immortal spirit of man! chapter xviii. the love that kills. how the time went he could not tell; in so gay and gorgeous a scene hours might easily pass with the swiftness of unmarked moments. peals of laughter echoed now and again through the vaulted dome, and excited voices were frequently raised in clamorous disputations and contentious arguments that only just sheered off the boundary-line of an actual quarrel. all sorts of topics were discussed--the laws, the existing mode of government, the latest discoveries in science, and the military prowess of the king--but the conversation chiefly turned on the spread of disloyalty, atheism, and republicanism among the population of al-kyris,--and the influence of khosrul on the minds of the lower classes. the episode of the prophet's late capture and fresh escape seemed to be perfectly well known to all present, though it had occurred so recently; one would have thought the detailed account of it had been received through some private telephone, communicating with the king's palace. as the banquet progressed and the wine flowed more lavishly, the assembled guests grew less and less circumspect in their general behavior; they flung themselves full length on their luxurious couches, in the laziest attitudes, now pulling out handfuls of flowers from the tall porcelain jars that stood near, and pelting one another with them for mere idle diversion, . . now summoning the attendant slaves to refill their wine-cups while they lay lounging at ease among their heaped-up cushions of silk and embroidery; and yet with all the voluptuous freedom of their manners, the picturesque grace that distinguished them was never wholly destroyed. these young men were dissolute, but not coarse; bold, but not vulgar; they took their pleasure in a delicately wanton fashion that was infinitely more dangerous in its influence on the mind than would have been the gross mirth and broad jesting of a similar number of uneducated plebeians. the rude licentiousness of an uncultivated boor has its safety-valve in disgust and satiety, . . but the soft, enervating sensualism of a trained and cultured epicurean aristocrat is a moral poison whose effects are so insidious as to be scarcely felt till all the native nobility of character has withered, and naught is left of a man but the shadow-wreck of his former self. there was nothing repulsive in the half-ironical, half-mischievous merriment of these patrician revellers; their witticisms were brilliant and pointed, but never indelicate; and if their darker passions were roused, and ready to run riot, they showed as yet no sign of it. they enjoyed--yes! with that selfish animal enjoyment and love of personal indulgence which all men, old and young without exception, take such delight in--unless indeed they be sworn and sorrowful anchorites, and even then you may be sure they are always regretting the easy license and libertinage of their bygone days of unbridled independence when they could foster their pet weaknesses, cherish their favorite vices, and laugh at all creeds and all morality as though divine justice were a mere empty name, and they themselves the super-essence of creation. ah, what a ridiculous spectacle is man! the two-legged pigmy of limited brain, and still more limited sympathies, that, standing arrogantly on his little grave the earth, coolly criticises the universe, settles law, and measures his puny stature against that awful unknown force, deeply hidden, but majestically existent, which for want of ampler designation we call god--god, whom some of us will scarcely recognize, save with the mixture of doubt, levity, and general reluctance; god, whom we never obey unless obedience is enforced by calamity; god, whom we never truly love, because so many of us prefer to stake our chances of the future on the possibility of his non-existence! strangely enough, thoughts of this god, this despised and forgotten creator, came wandering hazily over theos's mind at the present moment when, glancing round the splendid banquet-table, he studied the different faces of all assembled, and saw self, self, self, indelibly impressed on every one of them. not a single countenance was there that did not openly betray the complacent hauteur and tranquil vanity of absolute egotism, sah-luma's especially. but then sah-luma had something to be proud of--his genius; it was natural that he should be satisfied with himself--he was a great man! but was it well for even a great man to admire his own greatness? this was a pertinent question, and somewhat difficult to answer. a genius must surely be more or less conscious of his superiority to those who have no genius? yet why? may it not happen, on occasions, that the so-called fool shall teach a lesson to the so-called wise man? then where is the wise man's superiority if a fool can instruct him? theos found these suggestions curiously puzzling; they seemed simple enough, and yet they opened up a vista of intricate disquisition which he was in no humor to follow. to escape from his own reflections he began to pay close attention to the conversation going on around him, and listened with an eager, almost painful interest, whenever he heard lysia's sweet, languid voice chiming through the clatter of men's tongues like the silver stroke of a small bell ringing in a storm at sea. "and how hast thou left thy pale beauty niphrata?" she was asking sah-luma in half-cold, half-caressing accents. "does her singing still charm thee as of yore? i understand thou hast given her her freedom. is that prudent? was she not safer as thy slave?" sah-luma glanced up quickly in surprise. "safer? she is as safe as a rose in its green sheath," he replied. "what harm should come to her?" "i spoke not of harm," said lysia, with a lazy smile. "but the day may come, good minstrel, when thy sheathed rose may seek some newer sunshine than thy face! ... when thy much poesy may pall upon her spirit, and thy love-songs grow stale! ... and she may string her harp to a different tune than the perpetual adoration-hymn of sah-luma!" the handsome laureate looked amused. "let her do so then!" he laughed carelessly. "were she to leave me i should not miss her greatly; a thousand pieces of gold will purchase me another voice as sweet as hers,--another maid as fair! meanwhile the child is free to shape her own fate,--her own future. i bind her no longer to my service; nevertheless, like the jessamine-flower, she clings,--and will not easily unwind the tendrils of her heart from mine." "poor jessamine-flower!" murmured lysia negligently, with a touch of malice in her tone. "what a rock it doth embrace; how little vantage-ground it hath wherein to blossom!" and her drowsy eyes shot forth a fiery glance from under their heavily fringed drooping white lids. sah-luma met her look with one of mingled vexation and reproach; she smiled and raising a goblet of wine to her lips, kissed the brim, and gave it to him with an indescribably graceful, swaying gesture of her whole form that reminded one of a tall white lily bowing in the breeze. he seized the cup eagerly, drank from it and returned it,--his momentary annoyance, whatever it was, passed, and a joyous elation illumined his fine features. then lysia, refilling the cup, kissed it again and handed it to theos with so much soft animation and tenderness in her face as she turned to him, that his enforced calmness nearly gave way, and he had much ado to restrain himself from falling at her feet in a transport of passion, and crying out! ... "love me, o thou sorceress-sovereign of beauty! ... love me, if only for an hour, and then let me die! ... for i shall have lived out all the joys of life in one embrace of thine!" his hand trembled as he took the goblet, and he drank half its contents thirstily,--then imitating sah-luma's example, he returned it to her with a profound salutation. her eyes dwelt meditatively upon him. "what a dark, still, melancholy countenance is thine, sir theos!" she said abruptly--"thou art, for sure, a man of strongly repressed and concentrated passions, ... 'tis a nature i love! i would there were more of thy proud and chilly temperament in al-kyris! ... our men are like velvet-winged butterflies, drinking honey all day and drowsing in sunshine--full to the brows of folly,--frail and delicate as the little dancing maidens of the king's seraglio, . . nervous too, with weak heads, that art apt to ache on small provocation, and bodies that are apt to fail easily when but slightly fatigued. aye!--thou art a man clothed complete in manliness,--moreover..." she paused, and leaning forward so that the dark shower of her perfumed hair brushed his arm ... "hast ever heard travellers talk of volcanoes? ... those marvellous mountains that oft wear crowns of ice on their summits and yet hold unquenchable fire in their depths? ... methinks thou dost resemble these,--and that at a touch, the flames would leap forth uncontrolled!" her magical low voice, more melodious in tone than the sound of harps played by moonlight on the water, thrilled in his ears and set his pulses beating madly,--with an effort he checked the torrent of love-words that rushed to his lips, and looked at her in a sort of wildly wondering appeal. her laughter rang out in silvery sweet ripples, and throwing herself lazily back in her throne, she called.. "aizif! ... aizif!" the great tigress instantly bounded forward like an obedient hound, and placed its fore-paws on her knees, while she playfully held a sugared comfit high above its head. "up, aizif! up!" she cried mirthfully.. "up! and be like a man for once! ... snatch thy pleasure at all hazards!" with a roar, the savage brute leaped and sprang, its sharp white teeth fully displayed, its sly green eyes glisteningly prominent,--and again lysia's rich laughter pealed forth, mingling with the impatient snarls of her terrific favorite. still she held the tempting morsel in her little snowy hand that glittered all over with rare gems,--and still the tigress continued to make impotent attempts to reach it, growing more and more ferocious with every fresh effort,--till all at once she shut her palm upon the dainty so that it could not be seen, and lightly catching the irritated beast by the throat brought its eyes on a level with her own. the effect was instantaneous, ... a strong shudder passed through its frame--and it cowered and crouched lower and lower, in abject fear,--the sweat broke out, and stood in large drops on its sleek hide, and panting heavily, as the firm grasp its mistress slowly relaxed, it sank down prone, in trembling abasement on the second step of the dais, still looking up into those densely brilliant gazelle eyes that were full of such deadly fascination and merciless tyranny. "good aizif!" said lysia then, in that languid, soft voice, that while so sweet, suggested hidden treachery.. "gentle fondling! ... thou hast fairly earned thy reward! ... here! ... take it!"--and unclosing her roseate palm, she showed the desired bonne-bouche, and offered it with a pretty coaxing air,--but the tigress now refused to touch it, and lay as still as an animal of painted stone. "what a true philosopher she is, my sweet aizif!" she went on amusedly stroking the creature's head,--"her feminine wit teaches her what the dull brains of men can never grasp, . . namely, that pleasures, no matter how sweet, turn to ashes and wormwood when once obtained,--and that the only happiness in this world is the charm of desire! there is a subject for thee, sah-luma! ... write an immortal ode on the mysteries, the delights, the never-ending ravishment of desire! ... but carry not thy fancy on to desire's fulfilment, for there thou shalt find infinite bitterness! the soul that wilfully gratifies its dearest wish, has stripped life of its supremest joy, and stands thereafter in an emptied sphere, sorrowful and alone,--with nothing left to hope for, nothing to look forward to, save death, the end of all ambition!" "nay, fair lady,"--said theos suddenly,--"we who deem ourselves the children of the high gods, and the offspring of a spirit eternal, may surely aspire to something beyond this death, that, like a black seal, closes up the brief scroll of our merely human existence! and to us, therefore, ambition should be ceaseless,--for if we master the world, there are yet more worlds to win: and if we find one heaven, we do but accept it as a pledge of other heavens beyond it! the aspirations of man are limitless,--hence his best assurance of immortality, ... else why should he perpetually long for things that here are impossible of attainment? ... things that like faint, floating clouds rimmed with light, suggest without declaring a glory unperceived?" lysia looked at him steadfastly, an under-gleam of malice shining in her slumbrous eyes. "why? ... because, good sir, the gods love mirth! ... and the wanton immortals are never more thoroughly diverted, than, when leaning downward from their clear empyrean, they behold man, their insect-toy, arrogating to himself a share in their imperishable essence! to keep up the eternal jest, they torture him with vain delusions, and prick him on with hopes never to be realized; aye! and the whole vast heaven may well shake with thunderous laughter at the pride with which he doth put forth his puny claim to be elected to another and fairer state of existence! what hath he done? ... what does he do, to merit a future life? ... are his deeds so noble? ... is his wisdom so great? ... is his mind so stainless? he, the oppressor of all nature and of his brother man,--he, the insolent, self-opinionated tyrant, yet bound slave of the earth on which he dwells ... why should he live again and carry his ignoble presence into the splendors of an eternity too vast for him to comprehend? ..nay, nay! ... i perceive thou art one of the credulous, for whom a reasonless worship to an unproved deity is, for the sake of state-policy, maintained, . . i had thought thee wiser! ... but no matter! thou shalt pay thy vows to the shrine of nagaya to-morrow, and see with what glorious pomp and panoply we impose on the faithful, who like thee believe in their own deathless and divinely constituted natures, and enjoy to the full the grand conceit that persuades them of their right to immortality!" her words carried with them a certain practical positiveness of meaning, and theos was somewhat impressed by their seeming truth. after all, it was a curious and unfounded conceit of a man to imagine himself the possessor of an immortal soul,--and yet ... if all things were the outcome of a divine creative influence, was it not unjust of that creative influence to endow all humanity with such a belief if it had no foundation whatever? and could injustice be associated with divine law? ... he, theos, for instance, was certain of his own immortality,--so certain that, surrounded as he was by this brilliant company of evident atheists, he felt himself to be the only real and positive existing being among an assembly of shadow-figures,--but it was not the time or the place to enter into a theological discussion, especially with lysia, . . and for the moment at least, he allowed her assertions to remain uncontradicted. he sat, however, in a somewhat stern silence, now and then glancing wistfully and anxiously at sah-luma, on whom the potent wines were beginning to take effect, and who had just thrown himself down on the dais at lysia's feet, close to the tigress that still lay couched there in immovable quiet. it was a picture worthy of the grandest painter's brush, ... that glistening throne black as jet, with the fair form of lysia shining within it, like a white sea-nymph at rest in a grotto of ocean-stalactites, . . the fantastically attired negresses on each side, with their waving peacock-plumes,--the vivid carnation-color of the dais, against which the black and yellow stripes of the tigress showed up in strong and brilliant contrast, . . and the graceful, jewel-decked figure of the poet laureate, who, half sitting, half reclining on a black velvet cushion, leaned his handsome head indolently against the silvery folds of lysia's robe, and looked up at her with eyes in which burned the ardent admiration and scarcely restrained passion of a privileged lover. suddenly and quite involuntarily theos thought of niphrata, ... alas, poor maiden! how utterly her devotion to sah-luma was wasted! what did he care for her timid tenderness, . . her unselfish worship? nothing? ... less than nothing! he was entirely absorbed by the sovereign-peerless beauty of this wonderful high priestess,--this witch-like weaver of spells more potent than those of circe; and musing thereon, theos was sorry for niphrata, he knew not why. he felt that she had somehow been wronged,--that she suffered, ... and that he, as well as sah-luma, was in some mysterious way to blame for this, though he could by no means account for his own share in the dimly suggested reproach. this peculiar, remorseful emotion was transitory, like all the vaguely incomplete ideas that travelled mistily through his perplexed brain, and he soon forgot it in the increasing animation and interest of the scene that immediately surrounded him. the general conversation was becoming more and more noisy, and the laughter more and more boisterous,--several of the young men were now very much the worse for their frequent libations, and nir-jalis, particularly, began again to show marked symptoms of an inclination to break loose from all the bonds of prudent reserve. he lay full length on his silk divan, his feet touching theos, who sat upright,--and, singing little snatches of song to himself, he pulled the vine-wreath from his tumbled fair locks as though he found it too weighty, and flung it on the ground among the other debris of the feast. then folding his arms lazily behind his head, he stared straight and fixedly before him at lysia, seeming to note every jewel on her dress, every curve of her body, every slight gesture of her hand, every faint, cold smile that played on her lovely lips. one young man whom the others addressed as ormaz, a haughty, handsome fellow enough, though with rather a sneering mouth just visible under his black mustache, was talking somewhat excitedly on the subject of khosrul's cunningly devised flight, . . for it seemed to be universally understood that the venerable prophet was one of the circle of mystics,--persons whose knowledge of science, especially in matters connected with electricity, enabled them to perform astonishing juggleries, that were frequently accepted by the uninitiated vulgar as almost divine miracles. not very long ago, according to ormaz, who was animatedly recalling the circumstance for the benefit of the company, the words "fall, al-kyris!" had appeared emblazoned in letters of fire on the sky at midnight, and the phenomenon had been accompanied by two tremendous volleys of thunder, to the infinite consternation of the multitude, who received it as a supernatural manifestation. but a member of the king's privy council, a satirical skeptic and mistruster of everybody's word but his own, undertook to sift the matter,--and adopting the dress of the mystics, managed to introduce himself into one of their secret assemblies, where with considerable astonishment, he saw them make use of a small wire, by means of which they wrote in characters of azure flame on the whiteness of a blank wall,--moreover, he discovered that they possessed a lofty turret, built secretly and securely in a deep, unfrequented grove of trees, from whence, with the aid of various curious instruments and reflectors, they could fling out any pattern or device they chose on the sky, so that it should seem to be written by the finger of lightning. having elucidated these mysteries, and become highly edified thereby, the learned councillor returned to the king, and gave full information as to the result of his researches, whereupon forty mystics were at once arrested and flung into prison for life, and their nefarious practices were made publicly known to all the inhabitants of the city. since then, no so-called "spiritual" demonstrations had taken place till now, when on this very night zephoranim's presence-chamber had been suddenly enveloped in the thunderous and terrifying darkness which had so successfully covered khosrul's escape. "the king should have slain him at once--" declared ormaz emphatically, turning to lysia as he spoke.. "i am surprised that his majesty permitted so flagrant an impostor and trespasser of the law to speak one word, or live one moment in his royal presence." "thou art surprised, ormaz, at most things, especially those which savor of simple good-nature and forbearance..." responded lysia coldly. "thou art a wolfish, youth, and wouldst tear thine own brother to shreds if he thwarted thy pleasure! for myself i see little cause for astonishment, that a soldier-hero like zephoranim should take some pity on so frail and aged a wreck of human wit as khosrul. khosrul blasphemes the faith, . . what then? ... do ye not all blaspheme?" "not in the open streets!" said ormaz hastily. "no--ye have not the mettle for that!"--and lysia smiled darkly, while the great eye on her breast flashed forth a sardonic lustre--"strong as ye all are, and young, ye lack the bravery of the weak old man who, mad as he may be, has at least the courage of his opinions! who is there here that believes in the sun as a god, or in nagaya as a mediator? not one, . . but ye are cultured hypocrites all, and careful to keep your heresies secret!" "and thou, lysia!" suddenly cried nir-jalis, . . "why if thou canst so liberally admire the valor of thy sworn enemy khosrul, why dost not thou step boldly forth, and abjure the faith thou art priestess of, yet in thy heart deridest as a miserable superstition?" she turned her splendid flashing orbs slowly upon him, ... what an awful chill, steely glitter leaped forth from their velvet-soft depths! "prithee, be heedful of thy speech, good nirjalis!" she said, with a quiver in her voice curiously like the suppressed snarl of her pet tigress.. "the majority of men are fools, ... like thee! ... and need to be ruled according to their folly!" ormaz broke into a laugh. "and thou dost rule them, wise virgin, with a rod of iron!" he said satirically ... "the king himself is but a slave in thy hands!" "the king is a devout believer,"--remarked a dainty, effeminate-looking youth, arrayed in a wonderfully picturesque garb of glistening purple,--"he pays his vows to nagaya three times a day, at sunrise, noon, and sunset,--and 'tis said he hath oft been seen of late in silent meditation alone before the sacred veil, even after midnight. maybe he is there at this very moment, offering up a royal petition for those of his less pious subjects who, like ourselves, love good wine more than long prayers. ah!--he is a most austere and noble monarch,--a very anchorite and pattern of strict religious discipline! "and he shook his head to and fro with an air of mock solemn fervor. every one laughed, . . and ormaz playfully threw a cluster of half-crushed roses at the speaker. "hold thy foolish tongue, pharnim,--" he said,--"the king doth but show a fitting example to his people, . . there is a time to pray, and a time to feast, and our zephoranim can do both as becomes a man. but of his midnight meditations i have heard naught, . . since when hath he deserted his court of love for the colder chambers of the sacred temple?" "ask lysia!" muttered nir-jalis drowsily, under his breath--"she knows more of the king than she cares to confess!" his words were spoken in a low voice, and yet they were distinct enough for all present to hear. a glance of absolute dismay went round the table, and a breathless silence followed like the ominous hush of a heated atmosphere before a thunder-clap. nir-jalis, apparently struck by the sudden stillness, looked lazily round from among the tumbled cushions where he reclined,--a vacant, tipsy smile on his lips. "what a company of mutes ye are!" he said thickly.. "did ye not hear me? i bade ye ask lysia, . ." and all at once he sat bolt upright, his face crimsoning as with an access of passion.. "ask lysia!" he repeated loudly.. "ask her why the mighty zephoranim creeps in and out the sacred temple at midnight like a skulking slave instead of a king! ... at midnight, when he should be shut within his palace walls, playing the fool among his women! i warrant 'tis not piety that persuades him to wander through the underground passage of the tombs alone and in disguise! sah-luma! ... pretty pampered hound as thou art! ... thou art near enough to our lady of witcheries,--ask her, ... ask her! ... she knows, . . "and his voice sank into an incoherent murmur, . . "she knows more than she cares to confess!" another deep and death like pause ensued, ... and then lysia's silvery cold tones smote the profound silence with calm, clear resonance. "friend nir-jalis," she said, . . how tuneful were her accents, . . how chilly sweet her smile! ... "methinks thou art grown altogether too wise for this world! ... 'tis pity thou shouldest continue to linger in so narrow and incomplete a sphere! ... depart hence therefore! ... i shall frely excuse thine absence, since thy hour has come! ..." and, taking from the table at her side a tall crystal chalice fashioned in the form of a lily set on a golden stem, she held it up toward him. starting wildly from his couch he looked at her, as though doubting whether he had heard her words aright, . . a strong shudder shook him from head to foot, . . his hands clenched themselves convulsively together,--and then slowly, slowly, he staggered to his feet and stood upright. he was suddenly but effectually sobered--the flush of intoxication died off his cheeks--and his eyes grew strained and piteous. theos, watching him in wonder and fear, saw his broad chest heave with the rapid-drawn gasping of his breath, ..he advanced a step or two--then all at once stretched out his hands in imploring agony. "lysia!" he murmured huskily. "lysia! ... pardon! ... spare me! ... for the sake of past love have pity!" at this sah-luma sprang up from his lounging posture on the dais, his hand on the hilt of his dagger, his whole face flaming with wrath. "by my soul!" he cried, "what doth this fellow prate of? ... past love? ... thou profane boaster! ... how darest thou speak of love to the priestess of the faith?" nir-jalis heeded him not. his eyes were fixed on lysia, like the eyes of a tortured animal who vainly seeks for mercy at the hand of its destroyer. step by step he came hesitatingly to the foot of her throne, . . and it was then that theos perceived rear at hand a personage he immediately recognized,--the black scarlet-clad slave gazia, who had brought lysia's message to sah-luma that same afternoon. he had made his appearance now so swiftly and silently, that it was impossible to tell where he had come from,--and he stood close to nir-jalis, his muscular firms folded tightly across his chest, and his hideous mouth contorted into a grin of cruel amusement and expectancy. absolute quiet reigned within the magnificent banquet hall, . . the music had ceased,--and not a sound could be heard, save the delicate murmur of the wind outside swaying the water-lilies on the moonlit lake. every one's attention was centred on the unhappy young man, who with lifted head and rigidly clasped hands, faced lysia as a criminal faces a judge, . . lysia, whose dazzling smile beamed upon him with the brightness of summer sunbeams,--lysia, whose exquisite voice lost none of its richness as she spoke his doom. "by the vow which thou hast vowed to me, nir-jalis--" she said slowly.. "and by thine oath sworn on the symbolic eye of raphon".. here she touched the dreadful jewel on her breast--"which bound thy life to my keeping, and thy death to my day of choice, i herewith bestow on thee the chalice of oblivion--the silver nectar of peace! sleep, and wake no more!--drink and die! the gateways of the kingdom of silence stand open to receive thee! ... thy service is finished! ...... fare-thee-well!" with the utterance of the last word, she gave him the glittering cup she held. he took it mechanically,--and for one instant glared about him on all sides, scanning the faces of the attentive guests as though in the faint hope of some pity, some attempt at rescue. but not a single look of compassion was bestowed upon him save by theos, who, full of struggling amazement and horror, would have broken out into indignant remonstrance, had not an imperative glance from sah-luma warned him that any interference on his part would only make matters worse. he therefore, sorely against his will, and only for sah-luma's sake, kept silence, watching nir-jalis meanwhile in a sort of horrible fascination. there was something truly awful in the radiant unquenchable laughter that lurked in lysia's lovely eyes, . . something positively devilish in the grace of her manner, as with a negligent movement, she reseated herself in her crystal throne, and taking a knot of magnolia-flowers that lay beside her, idly toyed with their creamy buds, all the while keeping her basilisk gaze fixed immovably and relentlessly on her sentenced victim. he, grasping the lily-shaped chalice convulsively in his right hand, looked up despairingly to the polished dome of malachite, with its revolving globe of fire that shed a solemn blood-red glow upon his agonized young face, . . a smile was on his lips,--the dreadful smile of desperate, maddened misery. "oh, ye malignant gods!" he cried fiercely--"ye immortal furies that made woman for man's torture, ... bear witness to my death! ... bear witness to my parting spirit's malediction! cursed be they who love unwisely and too well! ... cursed be all the wiles of desire and the haunts of dear passion!--cursed he all fair faces whose fairness lures men to destruction! ... cursed be the warmth of caresses, the beating of heart against heart, the kisses that color midnight with fire! cursed be love from birth unto death!--may its sweetness be brief, and its bitterness endless!--its delight a snare, and its promise treachery! o ye mad lovers!--fools all!" ... and he turned his splendid wild eyes round on the hushed assemblage,--"despise me and my words as ye will, throughout ages to come, the curse of the dead nir-jalis shall cling!" he lifted the goblet to his lips, and just then his delirious glanced lighted on sah-luma. "i drink to thee, sir laureate!" he said hoarsely, and with a ghastly attempt at levity--"sing as sweetly as thou wilt, thou must drain the same cup ere long!" and without another second's hesitation he drank off the entire contents of the chalice at a draught. scarcely had he done so, when with a savage scream he fell prone on the ground, his limbs twisted in acute agony,--his features hideously contorted,--his hands beating the air wildly, as though in contention with some invisible foe, ..while in strange and terrible dissonance with his tortured cries, lysia's laughter, musically mellow, broke out in little quick peals, like the laughter of a very young child. "ah, ah, nir-jalis!" she exclaimed. "thou dost suffer! that is well! ... i do rejoice to see thee fighting for life in the very jaws of death! fain would i have all men thus tortured out of their proud and tyrannous existence! ... their strength made strengthless, their arrogance brought to naught, their egotism and vain-glory beaten to the dust! ah, ah! thou that wert the complacent braggart of love,--the self-sufficient proclaimer of thine own prowess, where is thy boasted vigor now? ... writhe on, good fool! ... thy little day is done! ... all honor to the silver nectar whose venom never fails!" leaning forward eagerly, she clapped her hands in a sort of fierce ecstasy--and apparently startled by the sound, the tigress rose up from its couchant posture, and shaking itself with a snarling yawn, glared watchfully at the convulsed human wretch whose struggles became with each moment more and more frightful to witness. the impassive, cold-blooded calmness with which all the men present, even sah-luma, looked on at the revolting spectacle of their late comrade's torture, filled theos with shuddering abhorrence, ... sick at heart, he strove to turn away his eyes from the straining throat and upturned face of the miserable nir-jalis,--a face that had a moment or two before been beautiful, but was now so disfigured as to be almost beyond recognition. presently as the anguish of the poisoned victim increased, shriek after shriek broke from his pallid lips, . . rolling himself on the ground like a wild beast, he bit his hands and arms in his frenzy till he was covered with blood, ... and again and yet again the dulcet laughter of the high priestess echoed through the length and breadth of the splendid hall,--and even sah-luma, the poet sah-luma, condescended to smile! that smile, so cold, so cruel, so unpitying, made theos for a moment hate him, . . of what use, he thought, was it, to be a writer of soft and delicate verse, if the inner nature of the man was merciless, selfish, and utterly regardless of the woes of others? ... the rest of the guests were profoundly indifferent,--they kept silence, it is true, ... but they went on drinking their wine with perfectly unabated enjoyment.. they were evidently accustomed to such scenes. the attendant slaves stood all mute and motionless, with the exception of gazra, who surveyed the torments of nir-jalis with an air of professional interest, and appeared to be waiting till they should have reached that pitch of excruciating agony when nature, exhausted, gives up the conflict and welcomes death as a release from pain. but this desirable end was not yet. suddenly springing to his feet, nir-jalis tore open his richly jewelled vest, and pressed his two hands hard upon his heart, ... the veins in his flesh were swollen and blue,--his labored breath seemed as though it must break his ribs in its terrible, panting struggle,--his face, livid and lined with purple marks like heavy bruises, bore not a single trace of its former fairness, ... and his eyes, rolled up and fixed glassily in their quivering sockets, seemed to be dreadfully filled with the speechless memory of his lately spoken curse. he staggered toward theos, and dropped heavily on his knees, . . "kill me!" he moaned piteously, feebly pointing to the sheathed dagger in the other's belt. "in mercy! ... kill me! ... one thrust! ... release me! ... this agony is more than i can bear, ... kill ... kill. ... !" his voice died away in an inarticulate, gasping cry,--and theos stared down upon him in dizzy fear and horror! for...he had seen this same nir-jalis dying thus cruelly before! oh god! ... where,--where had this tragedy been previously enacted? bewildered and overcome with unspeakable dread, he drew his dagger--he would at least, he thought, put the tortured sufferer out of his misery, ... but scarcely had his weapon left the sheath, when lysia's clear, cold voice exclaimed: "disarm him!" and with the silent rapidity of a lightning-flash, gazra glided to his side, and the steel was snatched from his hand. full of outraged pride and wrath, he sprang up, a torrent of words rushing to his lips, but before he could utter one, two slaves pounced upon him, and holding his arms, dexterously wound a silk scarf tight about his mouth. "be silent!" whispered some one in his ear,--"as you value your life and the life of sah-luma,--be silent!" but he cared nothing for this warning, . . reckless of consequences, he tore the scarf away and breaking loose from the hands that held him, made a bound toward lysia ... here he paused. her eyes met his languidly, shedding a sombre, mysterious light upon him through the black shower of her abundant hair, ... the evil glitter of the great symbolic gem she wore fixed him with its stony yet mesmeric luster ... a delicious smile parted her roseate lips,--and breaking off a magnolia-bud from the cluster she held, she kissed and gave it to him... "be at peace, good theos!" she said in a low, tender tone, . . "beware of taking up arms in the defence of the unworthy, . . rather reserve thy courage for those who know how best to reward thy service!" as one in a trance he took the flower she offered,--its fragrance, subtle and sweet, seemed to steal into his veins, and rob his manhood of all strength, ... sinking submissively at her feet he gazed up at her in wondering wistfulness and ardent admiration, . . never was there a woman so bewilderingly beautiful as she! what were the sufferings of nir-jalis now? ... what was anything compared to the strangely enervating ecstasy he felt in letting his eyes dwell fondly on the fairness of her face, the whiteness of her half-veiled bosom, the delicate, sheeny dazzle of her polished skin, the soft and supple curves of her whole exquisite form, . . and spell-bound by the witchery of her loveliness, he almost forgot the very presence of her dying victim. occasionally indeed, he glanced at the agonized creature where he lay huddled on the ground in the convulsive throes of his dreadful death-struggle,--but it was now with precisely the same quiet and disdainful smile as that for which he had momentarily hated sah-luma! there was a sound of singing somewhere,--singing that had a mirthful under-throbbing in it, as though a thousand light-footed fairies were dancing to its sweet refrain! and nir-jalis heard it! ... dying inch by inch as he was, he heard it, and with a last superhuman effort forced himself up once more to his feet, ... his arms stiffly outstretched, . . his anguished eyes full of a softened, strangely piteous glory. "to die!" he whispered in awed accents that penetrated the air with singular clearness--"to die! ... nay...not so! ... there is no death! ... i see it all! ... i know! ... .to die is to live! ... to live again.. and to remember...to remember,--and repent, . . the past!" and with the last word he fell heavily, face forward, a corpse. at the same moment a terrific roar resounded through the dome, and the tigress aizif sprang stealthily down from the dais, and pounced upon the warm, lifeless body, mounting guard over it in an ominously significant attitude, with glistening eyes, lashing tail and nervously quivering claws. a slight thrill of horror ran through the company, but not a man moved. "aizif!--aizif!" called lysia imperiously. the animal looked round with an angry snarl, and seemed for once disposed to disobey the summons of its mistress. she therefore rose from her throne, and stepping forward with a swift, agile grace, caught the savage beast by the neck, and dragged it from its desired prey. then, with the point of her little, silver-sandaled foot, she turned the fallen face of the dead man slightly round, so that she might observe it more attentively, and noting its livid disfigurement, smiled. "so much for the beauty and dignity of manhood!" she said with a contemptuous shrug of her snowy shoulders,--"all perished in the space of a few brief moments! look you, ye fair sirs that take pride in your strength and muscular attainments! ... ye shall not find in all al-kyris a fairer face or more nobly knit frame than was possessed by this dead fool, nir-jalis, and yet, lo!--how the silver nectar doth make havoc on the sinews of adamant, the nerves of steel, the stalwart limbs! tried by the touchstone of death, ye are, with all your vaunted intelligence, your domineering audacity and self-love, no better than the slain dogs that serve vultures for carrion! ...--moreover, ye are less than dogs in honesty, and vastly shamed by them in fidelity!" she laughed scornfully as she spoke, still grasping the tigress by the neck in one slight hand,--and her glorious eyes flashed a mocking defiance on all the men assembled. their countenances exhibited various expressions of uneasiness amounting to fear, . . some few smiled forcedly, others feigned a careless indifference, . . sah-luma flushed an angry red, and theos, though he knew not why, felt a sudden pricking sense of shame. she marked all these signs of disquietude with apparently increasing amusement, for her lovely face grew warm and radiant with suppressed, malicious mirth. she made a slight imperative gesture of command to gazra, who at once approached, and, bending over the dead nir-jalis, proceeded to strip off all the gold clasps and valuable jewels that had so lavishly adorned the ill-fated young man's attire,--then beckoning another slave nearly as tall and muscular as himself, they attached to the neck and feet of the corpse round, leaden, bullet-shaped weights, fastened by means of heavy iron chains. this done, they raised the body from the floor and carried it between them to the central and largest casement of all that stood open to the midnight air, and with a dexterous movement flung it out into the waters of the lake beneath. it fell with a sullen splash, the pale lilies on the surface rocking stormily to and fro as though blown by a gust of wind, while great circling ripples shone softly in the yellow gleam of the moonlight, as the dead man sank down, down, down like a stone into his crystal-quiet grave. lysia returned to her throne with a serene step and unruffled brow, followed by the sulky and disappointed aizif, . . smiling gently on theos and sah-luma she reseated herself, and touched a small bell at her side. it gave a sharp kling-klang like a suddenly struck cymbal--and lo! ... the marble floor yawned asunder, and the banquet-table with all its costly fruits and flowers vanished underground with the swiftness of lightning! the floor closed again, . . the broad, circular centre-space of the hall was now clear from all obstruction,--and the company of revellers roused themselves a little from their drowsy postures of half-inebriated languor. the singing voices that had stirred nir-jalis to sudden animation even in his dying agony, sounded nearer and nearer, and the globe of fire overhead changed its hue from that of crimson to a delicate pink. at the extreme end of the glittering vista of pale-green, transparent columns, a door suddenly opened, and a flock of doves came speeding forth, their white, spread wings colored softly in the clear rose-radiance,--they circled round and round the dome three times, then fluttered in a palpitating arch over lysia's head, and finally sped straight across the hall to the other end, where they streamed snowily through another aperture and disappeared. still nearer rippled the sound of singing, . . and all at once a troop of girls came dancing noiselessly as fire-flies into the full, quivering pinkness of the jewel-like light that floated about them, . . girls as lovely, as delicate, as dainty as cyclamens that wave in the woods in the early days of an italian spring. their garments were so white, so transparent, so filmy and clinging, that they looked like elves robed in mountain-vapor rather than human creatures, . . there were fifty of them in all, and as they tripped forward, they, like the doves that had heralded their approach, surrounded lysia flutteringly, saluting her with gestures of exquisite grace and devout humility, while she, enthroned in supreme fairness, with her tigress crouched beside her, looked down on them like a goddess calmly surveying a crowd of vestal worshippers. their salutations done, they rushed pell-mell, like a shower of white rose-leaves drifting before a gale, into the exact centre of the hall, and there poising bird-like, with their snowy arms upraised as though about to fly, they waited, . . their lovely faces radiant with laughter, their eyes flashing dangerous allurement, their limbs glistening like polished alabaster through the gauzy attire that betrayed rather than concealed their exquisite forms. then came the soft pizzicato of pulled strings, ... and a tinkling jangle of silver bells beating out a measured, languorous rhythm,--and with one accord, they all merged together in the voluptuous grace of a dance more ravishing, more wild and wondrous than ever poet pictured in his word-fantasies of fairy-land! theos drank in the intoxicating delight of the scene with eager, dazzled eyes and heavily beating heart, ..the mysterious passion of mingled love and hatred he felt for lysia stole over him more strongly than ever in the sultry air of this strange night, . . this night of sweet delirium, in which all that was most dangerous and erring in his nature woke into life and mastered his better will! a curious, instinctive knowledge swept across his mind,--namely that sah-luma's emotions were the faithful reflex of his own,--but as he had felt no anger against his rival in fame, so now he had no jealousy of his possible rival in love. their sympathies were too closely united for distrust to mar the friendship so ardently begun, ... nevertheless, as he fell resistlessly deeper and deeper into the glittering snares that were spread for his destruction, he was conscious of evil though he lacked force to overcome it. at any rate, he would save sah-luma from harm, he resolved, if he could not save himself! meantime he watched the bewildering evolutions and witching entanglements of the gliding maze of fair faces, snowy bosoms and twining limbs, that palpitated to and fro under the soft rose-light of the dome like white flowers colored by the sunset, and, glancing ever and again at lysia's imperial sorceress-beauty, he thought dreamily ... "better the love that kills than no love at all!" and he thereupon gave himself up a voluntary captive to the sway of his own passions, determining to enjoy the immediate present, no matter what the future might have in store. outside, the water-lilies nodded themselves to sleep in their shrouding, dark leaves, . . and the unbroken smoothness of the lake spread itself out in the moon like a sheet of molten gold over the spot where nir-jalis had found his chilly rest. "the curse of the dead nir-jalis shall cling!" yes,--possibly!--in the hereafter! ... but now his parting malison seemed but a foolish clamor against destiny, ... he was gone! ... none of his late companions missed him, ... none regretted him--like all dead men, once dead he was soon forgotten! chapter xix. a strange temptation. on went the dance, ... faster, faster, and ever faster! only the pen of some mirth-loving, rose-crowned greek bard could adequately describe the dazzling, wild beauty and fantastic grace of those whirling fairy forms, that now inspired to a bacchante-like ardor, urged one another to fresh speed with brief soft cries of musical rapture! now advancing,--now retreating ... now intermingling all together in an undulating garland of living loveliness, ... now parting asunder with an air of sweet coquettishness and caprice, ...--anon meeting again, and winding arm within arm,--till bending forward in attitudes of the tenderest entreaty, they seemed, with their languid, praying eyes and clasped hands, to be waiting for love to soothe the breathless sweetness of their parted lips with kisses! the light in the dome again changed its hue,--from pale rose-pink it flickered to delicate amber-green, flooding the floor with a radiance as of watery moonbeams, and softening the daintily draped outlines of that exquisite group of human blossoms, till they looked like the dimly imagined shapes of nereids floating on the glistening width of the sea. and now the extreme end of the vast hall began to waver to and fro as though shaken at its foundation by subterranean forces,--a flaring shaft of flame struck through it like the sweeping blade of a titan's sword,--and presently with a thunderous noise the whole wall split asunder, and recoiling backwards on either side, disclosed a garden, golden with the sleepy glory of the late moon, and peacefully fair in all the dreamy attractiveness of drooping foliage, soft turf, and star-sprinkled, violet sky. in full view, and lit up by the reflected radiance flung out from the dome, a rushing waterfall made sonorous surgy music of its own as it tumbled headlong into a rocky recess overgrown with lotus-lilies and plumy fern,--here and there, small, white and gold tents or pavilions glimmered invitingly through the shadows cast by the great magnolia trees, from whose lovely half-shut buds balmy odors crept deliciously through the warm air. the sound of sweet pipes and faintly tinkling cymbals echoed from distant shady nooks, as though elfin shepherds were guarding their fairy flocks in some hidden corner of this ambrosial pasturage, and ever by degrees the light grew warmer and more mellow in tint, till it resembled the deep hue of an autumn, yellow sunset, flecked through with emerald haze. another clash of cymbals! ... this time stormily persistent and convincing! ... another! ... yet another! ... and then, a chime of bells,--a steady ringing, persuasive chime, such as brings tears to the eyes of many a wanderer, who, hearing a similar sound when far away from home, straightway thinks of the village church of his earlier years, . . those years of the best happiness we ever know on earth, because we enjoy in them the bliss of ignorance, the glory of youth! a curious stifling sensation began to oppress theos's heart as he listened to those bells, . . they reminded him of such strange things, ... things to which he could not give a name,--things foolish, yet sweet, . . odd suggestions of fair women who were wont to pray for those they loved, and who believed, . . alas, the pity of it!--that their prayers would be heard ... and granted! what was it that these dear, loving, credulous ones said, when in the silence of the night they offered up their patient supplications to an irresponsive heaven? "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!" yes! ... he remembered,--those were the words,--the simple-wise words that for positive-practical minds had neither meaning nor reason,--and that yet were so infinitely pathetic in their perfect humility and absolute trust! "lead us not into temptation!" ... he murmured the phrase under his breath as he gazed with straining eyes out into the languorous beauty of that garden-scene that spread its dewy, emerald glamour before him,--and--"deliver us from evil!" broke from his lips in a half-sobbing sigh, as the peal of the chiming bells softened by degrees into a subdued tunefulness of indistinct and tremulous semitones, and the clarion-clearness of the cymbals again smote the still air with forceful and jarring clangor. then...like a rainbow-garmented peri floating easefully out of some far-off sphere of sky-wonders,--an aerial maiden-shape glided into the full lustre of the varying light,--a dancer, nude save for the pearly glistening veil that was carelessly cast about her dainty limbs, her white arms and delicate ankles being adorned with circlets of tiny, golden bells, which kept up a melodious jingle-jangle as she moved. and now began the strangest music,--music that seemed to hover capriciously between luscious melody and harsh discord,--a wild and curious medley of fantastic, minor suggestions in which the imaginative soul might discover hints of tears and folly, love and madness. to this uncertain yet voluptuous measure the glittering girl-dancer leaped forward with a startlingly beautiful abruptness,--and halting, as it were, on the boundary-line between the dome and the garden beyond, raised her rounded arms in a snowy arch above her head, and so for one brief instant, looked like an exquisite angel ready to soar upward to her native realm. her pause was a mere breathing space in duration, ... dropping her arms again with a swift decision that set all the little bells on them clashing stormily, she straightway hurled herself, so to speak, into the giddy paces of a dance that was more like an enigma than an exercise. round and round she floated wildly, like an opal-winged butterfly in a net of sunbeams,--now seemingly shaken by delicate tremors as aspen leaves are shaken by the faintest wind, ..now assuming the most voluptuous eccentricities of posture, . . sometimes bending wistfully toward the velvet turf on which she trod, as though she listened to the chanting of demon voices underground, . . and again, with her waving white hands, appearing to summon spirits downward from their wanderings in upper air. her figure was in perfect harmony with the seductive grace of her gestures,--not only her twinkling feet, but her whole body danced,--her very features bespoke entire abandonment to the frenzy of rapid movement,--her large black eyes flashed with something of fierceness as well as languor; her raven hair streamed behind her like a dark spread wing, . . her parted lips pouted and quivered with excitement and ardor while ever and anon she turned her beautiful head toward the eagerly attentive group of revelers who watched her performance, with an air of indescribable sweetness, malice, and mockery. again and again she whirled,--she flew, she sprang,--and wild cries of "hail, nelida!" "triumph to nelida!" resounded uproariously through the dome. suddenly the character of the music changed, ... from an appealing murmurous complaint and persuasion, it rose to a martial and almost menacing fervor; the roll of drums and the shrill, reedy warbling of pipes and other fluty minstrelsy crossed the silvery thread of strung harps and viols, ... the light from the fiery globe shot forth a new effulgence, this time in two broad rays, one a dazzling, pale azure, the other a clear, pearly white. nelida's graceful movements grew slower and slower, till she merely seemed to sway indolently to and fro like a mermaid rocking herself to sleep on the summit of a wave, ... and then,--from among the veiling shadows of the trees, there stepped forth a man,--beautiful as a sculptured god, of magnificently moulded form and noble stature, clothed from chest to knee in a close fitting garb of what seemed to be a thick network of massively linked gold. his dark hair was crowned with ivy, and at his belt gleamed an unsheathed dagger. slowly and with courtly grace he approached the panting nelida, who now, with half-closed eyes and slackening steps, looked as though she were drowsily footing her way into dreamland. he touched her snowy shoulder,--she started with an inimitable gesture of surprise, ... a smile, brilliant as morning, dawned on her face,--withdrawing herself slightly, she assumed an air of haughtily sweet disdain and refusal, ... then capriciously relenting, she gave him her hand, and in another instant, to the sound of a joyous melody that seemed to tumble through the air as billows tumble on the beach, the dazzling pair whirled away in a giddy waltz like two bright flames blown suddenly together by the wind. no language could give an adequate idea of the marvelous bewitchment and beauty of their united movements, and as they flew over the dark smooth turf, with the flower-laden trees drooping dewily about them, and the yellow moonbeams like melted amber beneath their noiseless feet, ... while the pale sapphire and white radiations from the dome, sparkling upon them aureole-wise, gave them the appearance of glittering birds circling through a limitless space of luminous and never-clouded ether. on, on! ... and they scarcely touched the earth as they spun dizzily round and round, their gracefully entwined limbs shining like polished ivory in the light, ... on, on!--with ever-increasing swiftness they sped, till their two forms seemed to merge into one, ... when as though oppressed by their own abandonment of joy they paused hoveringly, their embracing arms closing round one another, their lips almost touching, ... their eyes reflecting each other's ardent looks, ... then, ... their figures grew less and less distinct, ... they appeared to melt mysteriously into the azure, pearly light that surrounded them, and finally, like faint clouds fading on the edge of a sea-horizon, they vanished! the effect of this brief voluptuous dance, and its equally voluptuous end, was simply indescribable,--the young men, who had watched it through in silence and flushed ecstasy, now sprang from their couches with shouts of rapture and unrestrained excitement, and seizing the other dancing-maidens who had till now remained in clustered, half-hidden groups behind the crystalline columns of the hall, whirled them off into the inviting pleasaunce beyond, where the little white and gold pavilions peeped through the heavy foliage,--and before theos, in the picturesque hurry and confusion of the scene, could quite realize what had happened, the great globe in the dome was suddenly extinguished, ... a firm hand closed imperiously on his own, and he was drawn along swiftly, he knew not whither! a slight tremor shook him as he discovered that sah-luma was no longer by his side ... the friend whom he so ardently desired to protect had gone,--and he could not tell where. he glanced about him,--in the semi-obscurity he was able to discern the sheen of the lake with its white burden of water-lilies, and the branchy outlines of the moonlit garden, ... and ... yes! it was lysia whose grasp lay so warmly on his arm, ... lysia whose lovely, tempting face was so perilously near his own,--lysia whose smile colored the soft gloom with such alluring lustre! ... his heart beat,--his blood burned,--he strove in vain to imagine what fate was now in store for him. he was conscious of the beauty of the night that spread its star-embroidered splendors about him,--conscious too of the vital youth and passion that throbbed amorously in his veins, endowing him with that keenly sweet, headstrong rapture which is said to come but once in a lifetime, and which in the very excess of its fond folly is too often apt to bring sorrow and endless remorse in its train. one moment more and he found himself in an exquisitely adorned pavilion of painted silk, faintly lit by one lamp of tenderest rose lustre, and carpeted with gold-spangled tissue. it was surrounded by a thicket of orange trees in full bloom, and the fragrance of the waxen-white flowers clung heavily to the air, breathing forth delicate suggestions of languor and sleep. the measured rush of the near waterfall alone disturbed the deep silence, with now and then the subdued and plaintive trill of a nightingale soothing itself to rest with its own song in some deep shadowed copse. here, on a couch of heaped-up, stemless roses, such as might have been prepared for the repose of titania, lysia seated herself, while theos stood gazing at her in fascinated wonderment and gradually increasing masterfulness of passion. she looked lovelier than ever in that dim, soft, mingled light of rosy lamp and silver moonbeams,--her smile was no longer cold but warmly sweet,--her eyes had lost their mocking glitter, and swam in a soft languor that was strangely bewitching,--even the orbed symbol on her white bosom seemed for once to drowse. her lips parted in a faint sigh,--a glance like fire flashed from beneath her black, silken lashes, ... "theos!" she said tremulously. "theos!" and waited. he, mute and oppressed by indistinct, hovering recollections, fed his gaze on her seductive fairness for one earnest moment longer,--then suddenly advancing he knelt before her, and took her unresisting hands in his. "lysia!"--and his voice, even to his own ears, had a solemn as well as passionate thrill,--"lysia, what wouldst thou have with me? speak! ... for my heart aches with a burden of dark memories,--memories conjured up by the wizard spell of thine eyes,--those eyes so cruel-sweet that seem to lure me to my soul's ruin! tell me--have we not met before? ... loved before? ... wronged each other and god before? ... parted before? ... maybe 'tis but a brain sick fancy,--nevertheless my spirit knows thee,--feels thee,--clings to thee,--and yet recoils from thee as one whom i did love in by-gone days of old! my thoughts of thee are strange, fair lysia!"--and he pressed her warm, delicate fingers with unconscious fierceness,--"i would have sworn that in the past thou didst betray me!" her low laugh stirred the silence into a faint, tuneful echo. "thou foolish dreamer!" she murmured half mockingly, half tenderly ... "thou art dazed with wine, steeped in song, bewitched with beauty, and knowest nothing of what thou sayest! methinks thou art a crazed poet, and more fervid than sah-luma in the mystic nature of thine utterance,--thou shouldst be laureate, not he! what if thou wert offered his place? ... his fame?" he looked at her, surprised and perplexed, and paused an instant before replying. then he said slowly: "so strange a thing could never be ... for sah-luma's place, once empty, could not again be filled! i grudge him not his glory-laurels,--moreover, ... what is fame compared to love!" he uttered the last words in a low tone as though he spoke them to himself, ... she heard,--and a flash of triumph brightened her beautiful face. "ah! ..." and she drooped her head lower and lower till her dark, fragrant tresses touched his brow ... "then, ... thou dost love me?" he started. a dull pang ached in his heart,--a chill of vague uncertainty and dread. love! ... was it love indeed that he felt? ... love, ... or ... base desire? love ... the word rang in his ears with the same sacred suggestiveness as that conveyed by the chime of bells,--surely, love was a holy thing, ... a passion pure, impersonal, divine, and deathless,--and it seemed to him that somewhere it had been written or said ... "wheresoever a man seeketh himself, there he falleth from love" and he, ... did he not seek himself, and the gratification of his own immediate pleasure? painfully he considered, ... it was a supreme moment with him,--a moment when he felt himself to be positively held within the grasp of some great archangel, who, turning grandly reproachful eyes upon him, demanded ... "art thou the servant of love or the slave of self?" and while he remained silent, the silken sweet voice of the fairest woman he had ever seen once more sent its musical cadence through his brain in that fateful question: "thou dost love me?" a deep sigh broke from him, ... he moved nearer to her, ... he entwined her warm waist with his arms, and stared upon her as though he drank her beauty in with his eyes. up to the crowning masses of her dusky hair where the little serpents' heads darted forth glisteningly,--over the dainty curve of her white shoulders and bosom where the symbolic eye seemed to regard him with a sleepy weirdness,--down to the blue-veined, small feet in the silvery sandals, and up again to the red witchery of her mouth and black splendor of those twin fire-jewels that flashed beneath her heavy lashes--his gaze wandered hungrily, searchingly, passionately,--his heart beat with a loud, impatient eagerness like a wild thing struggling in its cage, but though his lips moved, he said no word,--she too was silent. so passed or seemed to pass some minutes,--minutes that were almost terrible in the weight of mysterious meaning they held unuttered. then, with a half-smothered cry, he suddenly released her and sprang erect. "love!" he cried, ... "nay!--'tis a word for children and angels!--not for me! what have i to do with love? ... what hast thou? ... thou, lysia, who dost make the lives of men thy sport and their torments thy mockery! there is no name for this fever that consumes me when i look upon thee, ... no name for this unquiet ravishment that draws me to thee in mingled bliss and agony! if i must perish of mine own bitter-sweet frenzy, let me be slain now and most utterly, ... but love has no abiding-place 'twixt me and thee, lysia! ... love! ... ah, no, no! ... speak no more of love ... it hath a charmed sound, recalling to my soul some glory i have lost!" he spoke wildly, incoherently, scarcely knowing what he said, and she, half lying on her couch of roses, looked at him curiously, with somber, meditative eyes. a smile of delicate derision parted her lips. "of a truth, our late feasting hath roused in thee a most singular delirium!" she murmured indolently with a touch of cold amusement in her accents--"thou dost seem to dwell in the past rather than the present! what ails thee? ... come hither--closer!"--and she stretched out her lovely arms on which the twisted diamond snakes glittered in such flashing coils,--"come! ... or is thy manful guise mere feigning, and dost thou fear me?" "fear thee!"--and stung to a sudden heat theos made one bound to her side and seizing her slim wrists, held them in a vise-like grip--"so little do i fear thee, lysia, so well do i know thee, that in my very caresses i would slay thee, couldst thou thus be slain! thou art to me the living presence of an unforgotten sin,--a sin most deadly sweet and unrepented of, . . ah! why dost thou tempt me!"--and he bent over her more ardently--"must i not meet my death at thy hands? i must,--and more than death!--yet for thy kiss i will risk hell,--for one embrace of thine i will brave perdition! ah, cruel enchantress!"--and winding his arms about her, he drew her close against his breast and looked down on the dreamy fairness of her face,--"would there were such a thing as death for souls like mine and thine! would we might die most absolutely thus, heart against heart, never to wake again and loathe eathtypo or archaism? other! who speaks of the cool sweetness of the grave,--the quiet ending of all strife,--the unbreaking seal of fate, the deep and stirless rest? ... these things are not, and never were, . . for the grave gives up its dead,--the strife is forever and ever resumed,--the seal is broken, and in all the laboring universe there shall be found no rest, and no forgetfulness, . . ah, god! ... no forgetfulness!" a shudder ran through his frame,--and clasping her almost roughly, he stooped toward her till his lips nearly touched hers, . . "thou art accursed, lysia,--and i share thy curse! speak--how shall we cheer each other in the shadow-realm of fiends? thou shall be queen there, and i thy servitor,--we will make us merry with the griefs of others,--our music shall be the dropping of lost women's tears, and the groans of betrayed and tortured men,--and the light around us shall be quenchless fire! shall it not be so, lysia? ... and thinkest thou that we shall ever regret the loss of heaven?" the words rushed impetuously from his lips; he thought little and cared less what he said, so long as he could, by speech, no matter how incoherent, relieve in part, the terrible oppression of vague memories that burdened his brain. but she, listening, drew herself swiftly from his embrace and stood up,--her large eyes fixed full upon him with an expression of wondering scorn and fear. "thou art mad!" she said, a quiver of alarm in her voice ... "mad as khosrul, and all his evil-croaking brethren! i offer thee love,--and thou pratest of death,--life is here in all the fulness of the now, for thy delight, and thou ravest of an immortal hereafter which is not, and can never be! why talk thus wildly? ... why gaze on me with so distraught a countenance? but an hour agone, thou wert the model of a cold discretion and quiet valor,--thus i had judged thee worthy of my favor--favor sought by many, and granted to few, . . but an thou dost wander amid such chaotic and unreasoning fancies, thou canst not serve me,--nor therefore canst thou win the reward that would otherwise have awaited thee."... here she paused,--a questioning, keen under-glance flashed from beneath her dark lashes, . . he, however, with pained, wistful eyes raised steadfastly to hers, gave no sign of apology or contrition for the disconnected strangeness of his recent outburst. only he became gradually conscious of an inward, growing calm,--as though the divine voice that had once soothed the angry waves of galilee were now hushing his turbulent emotions with a soft "peace be still!" she watched him closely, . .and all at once apparently rendered impatient by his impassive attitude, she came coaxingly toward him, and laid one soft hand on his shoulder. "canst thou not be happy, theos?" she whispered gently--"happy as other men are, when loved as thou art loved?" his upturned gaze rested on the glittering serpents' heads that crowned her dusky tresses,--then on the great eye that stared watchfully between her white breasts. a strong tremor shook him, and he sighed. "happy as other men are, when they love and are deceived in love!"--he said.. "yes, even so, lysia,--i can be happy!" she threw one arm about him. "thou shalt not be deceived"--she murmured quickly,--"thou shalt be honored above the noblest in the realm, . . thy dearest hopes shall be fulfilled, . . thy utmost desires shall be granted, . . riches, power, fame,--all shall be thine,--if thou wilt do my bidding!" she uttered the last words with slow and meaning emphasis. he met her eager, burning looks quietly, almost coldly,--the curious numb apathy of his spirit increased, and when he spoke, his voice was low and faint like the voice of one who speaks unconsciously in his sleep. "what canst thou ask that i will not grant?" he said listlessly.. "is it not as it was in the old time,--thou to command, and i to obey? ... speak, fair queen!--how can i serve thee?" her answer came, swift and fierce as the hiss of a snake: "kill sah-luma!" the brief sentence leaped into his brain with the swift, fiery action of some burning drug,--a red mist rose to his eyes,--pushing her fiercely from him, he started to his feet in a bewildered, sick horror. kill sah-luma! ... kill the gracious, smiling, happy creature whose every minute of existence was a joy,--kill the friend he loved,--the poet he worshipped! ... kill him! ... ah god! ... never! ... never! ... he staggered backward dizzily,--and lysia with a sudden stealthy spring, like that of her favorite tigress, threw herself against his breast and looked up at him, her splendid eyes ablaze with passion, her black hair streaming, her lips curved in a cruel smile, and the hateful jewel on her breast seeming to flash with ferocious vindictiveness. "kill him!" she repeated eagerly--"now--in his sottish slumber,--now when he hath lost sight of his poetmission in the hot fumes of wine,--now, when, despite his genius, he hath made of himself a thing lower than the beasts! kill him! ...--i will keep good council, and none shall ever know who did the deed! he loves me, and i weary of his love, . . i would have him dead--dead as nir-jalis! ... but were he to drain the silver nectar, the whole city would cry out upon me for his loss,--therefore he may not perish so. but an thou wilt slay him, . . see!" and she clung to theos with the fierce tenacity of some wild animal--"all this beauty of mine, is thine!--thy days and nights shall be dreams of rapture,--thou shalt be second to none in al-kyris,--thou shalt rule with me over king and people,--and we will make the land a pleasure-garden for our love and joy! here is thy weapon.."--and she thrust into his hand a dagger,--the very dagger her slave gazra, had deprived him of, when by its prompt use he might have mercifully ended the cruel torments of nir-jalis,--"let thy stroke be strong and unfaltering, . . stab him to the heart,--the cold, cold, selfish heart that has never ached with a throb of pity! ... kill him!--'tis an easy task,--for lo! how fast he sleeps!" and suddenly throwing back a rich gold curtain that depended from one side of the painted pavilion, she disclosed a small interior chamber hung with amber and crimson, where, on a low, much-tumbled couch covered with crumpled glistening draperies, lay the king's chief minstrel,--the dainty darling of women,--the laureate of the realm, sunk in a heavy, drunken stupor, so deep as to be almost death-like. theos stared upon him amazed and bewildered, . . how came he there? had he heard any of the conversation that had just passed between lysia and himself? ... apparently not, . . he seemed bound as by chains in a stirless lethargy. his posture was careless, yet uneasy,--his brilliant attire was torn and otherwise disordered,--and some of his priceless jewels had fallen on the couch, and gleamed here and there like big stray dewdrops. his face was deeply flushed, and his straight dark brows were knit frowningly, his breathing was hurried and irregular, . . one arm was thrown above his head,--the other hung down nervelessly, the relaxed fingers hovering immediately above a costly jewelled cup that had dropped from his clasp,--two emptied wine flagons lay cast on the ground beside him, and he had evidently experienced the discomfort and feverous heat arising from intoxication, for his silken vest was loosened as though for greater ease and coolness, thus leaving the smooth breadth of his chest bare and fully exposed. to this lysia pointed with a fiendish glee, as she pulled theos forward. "strike now!" she whispered.. "quick.. why dost thou hesitate?" he looked at her fixedly, . . the previous hot passion he had felt for her froze like ice within his veins, ... her fairness seemed no longer so distinctly fair, . . the witching radiance of her eyes had lost its charm, . .... and he motioned her from him with a silent gesture of stern repugnance. catching sight of the sheeny glimmer of the lake through the curtained entrance of the tent, he made a sudden spring thither--dashed aside the draperies, and flung the dagger he held, far out towards the watery mirror. it whirled glittering through the air, and fell with a quick splash into the silver-rippled depths,--and, gravely contented, he turned upon her, dauntless and serene in the consciousness of power. "thus do i obey thee!" he said, in firm tones that thrilled through and through with scorn and indignation,--"thou evil beauty! ... thou fallen fairness! ... kill sah-luma? ... nay, sooner would i kill myself...or thee! his life is a glory to the world, . . his death shall never profit thee!"... for one instant a lurid anger blazed in her face,--the next her features hardened themselves into a rigidly cold expression of disdain, though her eyes widened with wrathful wonder. a low laugh broke from her lips. "ah!" she cried--"art thou angel or demon that thou darest defy me? thou shouldst be either or both, to array thyself in opposition against the high priestess of nagaya, whose relentless will hath caused empires to totter and thrones to fall! his life a glory to the world? ..." and she pointed to sah-luma's recumbent figure with a gesture of loathing and contempt, . . "his? ... the life of a drunken voluptuary? ... a sensual egotist? ... a poet who sees no genius save his own, and who condemns all vice, save that which he himself indulges in! a laurelled swine! ... a false god of art! ... and for him thou dost reject me! ... ah, thou fool!" and her splendid eyes shot forth resentful fire.. "thou rash, unthinking, headstrong fool! thou knowest not what thou hast lost! aye, guard thy friend as thou wilt,--thou dost guard him at thine own peril! ... think not that he, . . or thou, ... shall escape my vengeance! what!--dost thou play the heroic with me? ... thou who art man, and therefore no hero? ... for men are cowards all, except when in the heat of battle they follow the pursuit of their own brief glory! ... poltroons and knaves in spirit, incapable of resisting their own passions! ... and wilt thou pretend to be stronger than the rest? ... wilt thou take up arms against thyself and destiny? thou madman!"--and her lithe form quivered with concentrated rage--"thou puny wretch that dost first clutch at, and then refuse my love!--thou who dost oppose thy miserable force to the fate that hunts thee down!--thou who dost gaze at me with such grave, child-foolish eyes! ... beware, . . beware of me! i hate thee as i hate all men! ... i will humble thee as i have humbled the proudest of thy sex! ..--wheresoever thou goest i will track thee out and torture thee! ... and thou shalt die--miserably, lingeringly, horribly,--as i would have every man die could i fulfil my utmost heart's desire! to-night, be free! ... but to-morrow as thou livest, i will claim thee!" like an enraged queen she stood,--one white, jewelled arm stretched forth menacingly,--her bosom heaving, and her face aflame with wrath, but theos, leaning against sah-luma's couch, heard her with as much impassiveness as though her threatening voice were but the sound of an idle wind. only, when she ceased, he turned his untroubled gaze calmly and full upon her,--and then,--to his own infinite surprise she shivered and shrank backwards, while over her countenance flitted a vague, undefinable, almost spectral expression of terror. he saw it, and swift words came at once to his lips,--words that uttered themselves without premeditation. "to-morrow, lysia, thou shalt claim nothing!" he said in a still, composed voice that to himself had something strange and unearthly in its tone ... "not even a grave! get thee hence! ... pray to thy gods if thou hast any,--for truly there is need of prayer! thou shalt not harm sah-luma, . . his love for thee may be his present curse,--but it shall not work his future ruin! as for me, . . though canst not slay me, lysia,--seeing that to myself i am dead already! ... dead, yet alive in thought, . . and thou dost now seem to my soul but the shadow of a past crime, . . the ghost of a temptation overcome and baffled! ah, thou sweet sin!" here he suddenly moved toward her and caught her hands hard, looking fearlessly the while at her flushed half-troubled face,--"i do confess that i have loved thee, . . i do own that i have found thee fair! ... but now--now that i see thee as thou art, in all the nameless horror of thy beauty, i do entreat,".. and his accents sank to a low yet fervent supplication--"i do entreat the most high god that i may be released from thee forever!" she gazed upon him with dilated, terrified eyes, ... and he dimly wondered, as he looked, why she should seem to fear him?--not a word did she utter in reply, . . step by step she retreated from him, . . her glittering, exquisite form grew paler and more indistinct in outline--and presently, catching at the gold curtain that divided the two pavilions, she paused...still regarding him steadfastly. an evil smile curved her lips, . . a smile of cold menace and derisive scorn, . . the iris-colored jewel on her breast darted forth vivid flashes of azure, and green and gray, . . the snakes in her hair seemed to rise and hiss at him, . . and then,--with an awful unspoken threat written resolvedly on every line of her fair features, . . she let the gold draperies fall softly,--and so disappeared, . . leaving him alone with sah-luma! he stood for a moment half amazed, half perplexed,--then, drawing a deep breath, he pushed the clustering hair off his forehead with an unconscious gesture of relief. she was gone! ... and he felt as though he had gained a victory over something, though he knew not what. the cold air from the lake blew refreshingly on his heated brow, . . and a thousand odors from orange-flowers and jessamine floated caressingly about him. the night was very still,--and approaching the opening of the tent, he looked out. there, in the soft sky gloom, moved the majestic procession of the undiscovered worlds seeming to be no more than bright dots on the measureless expanse of pure ether, . . there, low on the horizon, the yellow moon swooned languidly downwards in a bed of fleecy cloud,--the drowsy chirrup of a dreaming bird came softly now and again from the deep-branched shadows of the heavy foliage,--and the lilies on the surface of the lake nodded mysteriously among the slow ripples, like wise, white elves whispering to one another some secret of fairyland. and sah-luma still slept, . . and still that puzzled and weary frown darkened the fairness of his broad brow, . . and, coming back to his side, theos stood watching him with a yearning and sorrowful wistfulness. gathering up the jewels that had fallen out of his dress, he replaced them one by one,--and strove to re-arrange the tossed and tumbled garb as best he might. while he was thus occupied his hand happened to touch the tablet that hung by a silver chain from the laureate's belt,--he glanced at it, . . it was covered with fine writing, and turning it more toward the light, he soon made out four stanzas, perfectly rhymed and smoothly flowing as a well-modulated harmony. he read them slowly with a faint smile,--he recognized them as his own!--they were part of a poem he had long ago begun, yet have never finished! and now sah-luma had the same idea! ... moreover he had chosen the same rhythm, the same words! ... well! ... after all, what did it matter? nothing, he felt, so far as he was concerned,--he had ceased to care for his own personality or interests,--sah-luma had become dearer to him than himself! his immediate anxiety was centered in the question of how to rouse his friend from the torpor in which he lay, and get him out of this voluptuous garden of delights, before any lurking danger could overtake him. full of this intention, he presently ventured to draw aside the curtain that concealed lysia's pavilion, . . and looking in, he saw to his great relief, that she was no longer there. her couch of crushed roses scented the place with heavy fragrance, and the ruby lamp was still burning, . . but she herself had departed. now was the time for escape!--thought theos--now,--while she was absent,--now, if sah-luma could be persuaded to come away, he might reach his own palace in safety, and once there, he could be warned of the death that threatened him through the treachery of the woman he loved. but would he believe in, or accept, the warning? at any rate some effort must be made to rescue him, and theos, without more ado, bent above him and called aloud: "sah-luma! ... wake! sah-luma!" chapter xx. the passage of the tombs. sah-luma stirred uneasily and smiled in his sleep. "more wine!" he muttered thickly--"more, . . more i say! what! wilt thou stint the generous juice that warms my soul to song? pour, . . pour out lavishly! i will mix the honey of thy luscious lips with the crimson bubbles on this goblet's brim, and the taste thereof shall be as nectar dropped from paradise! nay, nay! i will drink to none but myself,--to the immortal bard sah-luma,--poet of poets,--named first and greatest on the scroll of fame! ... aye, 'tis a worthy toast and merits a deeper draught of mellow vintage! fill...fill again!--the world is but the drunken dream of a god poet and we but the mad revellers of a shadow day! 'twill pass--'twill pass, . . let us enjoy ere all is done,--drown thought in wine, and love, and music, . . wine and music..." his voice broke in a short, smothered sigh,--theos surveyed him with mingled impatience, pity, and something of repulsion, and there was a warm touch of indignant remonstrance in his tone when he called again: "sah-luma! rouse thee, man, for very shame's sake! art thou dead to the honor of thy calling, that thou dost wilfully consent to be the victim of wine-bibbing and debauchery? o thou frail soul! how hast thou quenched the heavenly essence within thee! ... why wilt thou be thus self-disgraced and all inglorious? sah-luma! sah-luma!"--and he shook him violently by the arm--"up,--up, thou truant to the faith of art! i will not let thee drowse the hours away in such unseemliness, . . wake! for the night is almost past,--the morning is at hand, and danger threatens thee,--wouldst thou be found here drunk at sunrise?" this time sah-luma was thoroughly disturbed, and with a half uttered oath he sat up, pushed his tumbled hair from his brows, and stared at his companion in blinking, sleepy wonderment. "now, by my soul! ... thou art a most unmannerly ruffian!" he said pettishly, yet with a vacant smile,--"what question didst thou bawl unmusically in mine ear? will i be drunk at sunrise? aye! ... and at sunset too, sir malapert, if that will satisfy thee! hast thou been grudged sufficient wine that thou dost envy me my slumber? what dost thou here? ... where hast thou been?".. and, becoming more conscious of his surroundings he suddenly stood up, and catching hold of theos to support himself, gazed upon him suspiciously with very dim and bloodshot eyes ... "art thou fresh from the arms of the ravishing nelida? ... is she not fair? a choice morsel for a lover's banquet? ... doth she not dance a madness into the veins? ... aye, aye!--she was reserved for thee, my jolly roysterer! but thou art not the first nor wilt thou be the last that hath revelled in her store of charms! no matter!"--and he laughed foolishly ... "better a wild dancer than a tame prude!" here he looked about him in confused bewilderment.. "where is lysia? was she not here a moment since? ..." and he staggered toward the neighboring pavilion, and dashed the dividing curtain aside ... "lysia! ... lysia! ..." he shouted noisily,--then, receiving no answer, he flung himself down on the vacant couch of roses, and gathering up a handful of the crumpled flowers, kissed them passionately,--"the witch has flown!" he said, laughing again that mirthless, stupid laugh as he spoke--"she doth love to tantalize me thus! ... tell me! what dost thou think of her? is she not a peerless moon of womanhood? ... doth she not eclipse all known or imaginable beauty? ... aye! ... and i will tell thee a secret,--she is mine!--mine from the dark tresses down to the dainty feet! ... mine, all mine, so long as i shall please to call her so! ...--notwithstanding that the foolish people of al-kyris think she is impervious to love, self-centered, holy and 'immaculate'! bah! ... as if a woman ever was 'immaculate'! but mark you! ... though she loves me,--me, crowned laureate of the realm, she loves no other man! and why? because no other man is found half so worthy of love! all men must love her, . . nirjalis loved her, and he is dead because of overmuch presumption, . . and many there be who shall still die likewise, for love of her, but _i_ am her chosen and elected one,--her faith is mine!--her heart is mine,--her very soul is mine!--mine i would swear though all the gods of the past, present, and future denied her constancy!" here his uncertain, wandering gaze met the grave, pained, and almost stern regard of theos. "why dost thou stare thus owl-like upon me?"--he demanded irritably.. "art thou not my friend and worshipper? wilt preach? wilt moralize on the folly of the time,--the vices of the age? thou lookest it,--but prithee hold thy peace an thou lovest me!--we can but live and die and there's an end, . . all's over with the best and wisest of us soon,--let us be merry while we may!" and he tossed a cluster of roses playfully in the air, catching them as they fell again in a soft shower of severed fluttering pink and white petals. theos listened to his rambling, unguarded words with a sense of acute personal sorrow. here was a man, young, handsome, and endowed with the rarest gift of nature, a great poetic genius,--a man who had attained in early manhood the highest worldly fame together with the friendship of a king, and the love of a people, . . yet what was he in himself? a mere petty egoist, . . a poor deluded fool, the unresisting prey of his own passions, . . the besotted slave of a treacherous woman and the voluntary degrader of his own life! what was the use of genius, then, if it could not aid one to overcome self, . . what the worth of fame, if it were not made to serve as a bright incentive and noble example to others of less renown? as this thought passed across his mind, theos sighed, . . he felt curiously conscience-stricken, ashamed, and humiliated, through sah-luma, and solely for sah-luma's sake! at present, however, his chief anxiety was to get his friend safely out of lysia'a pavilion before she should return to it, and his spirit chafed within him at each moment of enforced delay. "come, come, sah-luma!" he said at last, gently, yet with persuasive earnestness.. "come away from this place, . . the feast is over,--the fair ones are gone, . . why should we linger? thou art half-asleep,--believe me 'tis time thou wert home and at rest. lean upon me, ... so! that is well!"--this, as the other rose unsteadily to his feet and lurched heavily against him, . . "now let me guide thee,--though of a truth i know not the way through this wondrous woodland maze, . . canst tell me whither we should turn? ... or hast thou no remembrance of the nearest road to thine own dwelling?"-- thus speaking, he managed to lead his stupefied companion out of the tent into the cool, dewy garden, where, feeling somewhat refreshed by the breath of the night wind blowing on his face, sah-luma straightened himself, and made an absurd attempt to look exceedingly dignified. "nay, an thou wilt depart with such scant ceremony"--he grumbled peevishly--"get thee thence and find out the road as best thou mayest! ... why should i aid thee? for myself i am well contented here to remain and sleep,--no better couch can the poet have than this violet-scented moss"--and he waved his arm with a grandiloquent gesture,--"no grander canopy than this star-besprinkled heaven! leave me,--for my eyes are wondrous heavy, and i would fain slumber undisturbed till the break of day! by my soul, thou art a rough companion! ..." and he struggled violently to release himself from theos's resolute and compelling grasp.. "where wouldst thou drag me?" "out of danger and the shadow of death!" replied theos firmly.. "thy life is threatened, sah-luma, and i will not see thee slain! if thou canst not guard thyself, then i must guard thee! ... come, delay no longer, i beseech thee!--do i not love thee, friend?--and would i urge thee thus without good reason? o thou misguided soul! thou dost most ignorantly court destruction, but if my strength can shield thee, thou shalt not die before thy time!" and he hurried his pace, half leading, half carrying the reluctant poet, who, however, was too drowsy and lethargic to do more than feebly resent his action,--and thus they went together along a broad path that seemed to extend itself in a direct line straight across the grounds, but which in reality turned and twisted about through all manner of perplexing nooks and corners,--now under trees so closely interwoven that not a glimpse of the sky could be seen through the dense darkness of the crossed boughs,--now by gorgeous banks of roses, pale yellow and white, that looked like frozen foam in the dying glitter of the moon,--now beneath fairy-light trellis work, overgrown with jasamine, and peopled by thousands of dancing fire-flies,--while at every undulating bend or sharp angle in the road, theos's heart beat quickly in fear lest they should meet some armed retainer or spy of lysia's, who might interrupt their progress, or perhaps peremptorily forbid their departure. nothing of the kind happened, or seemed likely to happen,--the splendid gardens were all apparently deserted,--and not a living soul was anywhere to be seen. presently through an archway of twisted magnolia stems, theos caught a glimpse of the illuminated pool with the marble nymph in its centre which had so greatly fascinated him on his first arrival,--and he pressed forward eagerly, knowing that now they could not be very far from the gates of exit. all at once the tall figure of a man clad in complete armor came into sudden view between some heavily drooping boughs,--it stood out for a second, and then hurriedly disappeared, muffling its face in a black mantle as it fled. not, however, before theos had recognized those dark, haughty features, those relentless brows, and that, stern almost lurid smile! ... and with a quick convulsive movement he grasped his companion's arm. "hist, sah-luma!" he whispered ... "saw you not the king?" sah-luma started as though he had received a dagger thrust, . . his very lips turned pale in the moonlight. "the king?" he echoed, with an accent of incredulous amazement ... "the king? ... thou art mad! ... it could not be! where didst thou see him?" in silence theos pointed to the dark shrubbery. sahluma shook himself free of his friend's hold, and, standing erect, gazed in the direction indicated, with an expression of mingled fear, distrust, bewilderment, and wrath on his features, . . he was suddenly but effectually sobered, and all the delicate beauty of his face came back like the rich tone of a fine picture restored. his hand fell instinctively toward the jewelled hilt of the poniard at his belt. "the king?" he muttered under his breath, ... "the king? ... then.. is khosrul right after all, and must one learn wisdom from a madman? ... by my soul! ... if i thought..." here he checked himself abruptly and turned upon theos ... "nay, thou art deceived!" he said with a forced smile.. "'twas not the king! ... 'twas some rash, unknown intruder whose worthless life must pay the penalty of trespass!"--and he drew his flashing weapon from his sheath.. "this shall unmask him! ... and thou, my friend, get thee away and home, . . fear nothing for my safety! ... go hence and quickly; i'll follow thee anon!" and before theos could utter a word of warning, he plunged impetuously into the innermost recess of the dense foliage behind which the mysterious armed figure had just vanished, and was instantly lost to sight. "sah-luma! ... sah-luma!"--called theos passionately ... "come back! whether wilt thou go? ... sah-luma!" only silence answered him,--silence rendered even more profound by the subdued, faint rustling of the wind among the leaves,--and agitated by all manner of vague alarms and dreary forebodings, he stood still for a moment hesitating as to whether he should follow his friend or no. some instinct stronger than himself, however, persuaded him that it would be best to continue his road,--he therefore went on slowly, hoping against hope that sah-luma might still rejoin him,--but herein he was disappointed. he waited a little while near the illuminated water, dreamily eying the beautiful marble nymph crowned with her wreath of amethystine flame, . . she resembled lysia somewhat, he thought,--only this was a frozen fairness, while the peerless charms of the cruel high priestess were those of living flesh and blood. yet the remembrance of all the tenderly witching loveliness that might have been his, had he slain sah-luma at her bidding, now moved him neither to regret nor lover's passion, but only touched his spirit with a sense of bitter repulsion, . . while a strange pity for the poet laureate's infatuation awoke in him,--pity that any man could be so reckless, blind, and desperate as to love a woman for her mere perishable beauty of body, and never care to know whether the graces of her mind were equal to the graces of her form. "we men have yet to learn the true meaning of love,"--he mused rather sadly--"we consider it from the selfish standpoint of our own unbridled passions,--we willingly accept a fair face as the visible reflex of a fair soul, and nine times out of ten, we are utterly mistaken! we begin wrongly, and we therefore end miserably,--we should love a woman for what she is, and not for what she appears to be. yet, how are we to fathom her nature? how shall we guess, . . how can we decide? are we fooled by an evil fate?--or do we in our loves and marriages deliberately fool ourselves?" he pondered the question hazily without arriving at any satisfactory answer, . . and as sah-luma still did not return, he resumed his slow, unguided, and solitary way. he presently found himself in a close boscage of tall trees straight as pines, and covered with very large, thick leaves that exhaled a peculiarly faint odor,--and here, pausing abruptly, he looked anxiously about him. this was certainly not the avenue through which he had previously come with sah-luma, . . and he soon felt uncomfortably convinced that he had somehow taken the wrong path. perceiving a low iron gate standing open in front of him, he went thither and discovered a steep stone staircase leading down, down into what seemed to be a vast well, black and empty as a starless midnight. peering doubtfully into this gloomy pit, he fancied he saw a small, blue flame wavering to and fro at the bottom, and, pricked by a sudden impulse of curiosity, he made up his mind to descend. he went down slowly and cautiously, counting each step as he placed his foot upon it, . . there were a hundred steps in all, and at the end the light he had seen completely vanished, leaving him in the most profound darkness. confused and startled, he stretched out his hands instinctively as a blind man might do, and thus came in contact with something sharp, pointed, and icy cold like the frozen talon of a dead bird. shuddering at the touch, he recoiled,--and was about to try and grope his way up the stairs again, when the light once more appeared, this time casting a thin, slanting, azure blaze through the dense shadows,--and he was able gradually to realize the horrors of the place into which he had unwittingly adventured. one faint cry escaped his lips,--and then he was mute and motionless,--chilled to the very heart. a great awe and speechless dread overwhelmed him, . . for he--a living man and fully conscious of life--stood alone, surrounded by a ghastly multitude of skeletons, skeletons bleached white as ivory and glistening with a smooth, moist polish as of pearl. shoulder to shoulder, arm against arm, they stood, placed upright, and as close together as possible,--every bony hand held a rusty spear,--and on every skull gleamed a small metal casque inscribed with hieroglyphic characters. thousands of eyeless sockets seemed to turn toward him in blank yet questioning wonder, suggesting awfully to his mind that the eyes might still be there, fallen far back into the head from whence they yet saw, themselves unseen,--thousands of grinning jaws seemed to mock at him, as he leaned half-fainting against the damp, weed-grown portal,--he fancied he could hear the derisive laugh of death echoing horribly through those dimly distant arches! this, . . this, he thought wildly, was the sequel to his brief and wretched history! ... for this one end he had wandered out of the ways of his former life, and forgotten almost all he had ever known,--here was the only poor finale an all-wise and all-potent god could contrive for the close of his marvelous symphony of creative love and light! ... ah, cruel, cruel! then there was no justice, no pity, no compensation in all the width and breadth of the universe, if death indeed was the end of everything!--and god or the great force called by that name was nothing but a tyrant and torturer of his helpless creature, man! so thinking, dully and feebly, he pressed his hand on his aching eyes, to shut out the sight of that grim crowd of fleshless, rigid shapes that everywhere confronted him, . . the darkness of the place seemed to descend upon him crushingly, and, reeling forward, he would have fallen in a swoon, had not a strong hand suddenly grasped his arm and supported him firmly upright. "how now, my son!"--said a grave, musical voice that had in it a certain touch of compassion, . . "what ails thee? ... and why art thou here? art thou condemned to die! ... or dost thou seek an escape from death?" making an effort to overcome the sick giddiness that confused his brain, he looked up,--a bright lamp flared in his eyes, contrasting so dazzlingly with the surrounding gloom that for a moment he was half-blinded by its brilliancy, but presently steadying his gaze he was able to discern the dark outline of a tall, black-garmented figure standing beside him,--the figure of an old man, whose severe and dignified aspect at first reminded him somewhat of the prophet khosrul. only that khosrul's rugged features had borne the impress of patient, long-endured, bitter suffering, and the personage who now confronted him had a face so calm and seriously impassive that it might have been taken for that of one newly dead, from whose lineaments all traces of earthly passion had forever been smoothed away. "art thou condemned to die, or dost thou seek an escape from death?" the question had, or seemed to have, a curious significance,--it reiterated itself almost noisily in his ears,--his mind was troubled by vague surmises and dreary forebodings,--speech was difficult to him, and his lips quivered pathetically, when he at last found force to frame his struggling thoughts into language. "escape from death!" he murmured, gazing wildly around as he spoke, on the vast skeleton crowd that encircled him.. "old man, dost thou also talk of dream-like impossibilities? wilt thou also maintain a creed of hope when naught awaits us but despair? art thou fooled likewise with the glimmering soul-mirage of a never-to-be-realized future? ... escape from death? ... how?--and where! art not these dry and vacant forms sufficiently eloquent of the all-omnipotence of decay?" ... and he caught his unknown companion almost fiercely by the long robe, while a sound that was half a sob and half a sigh came from his aching throat.. "lo you, how emptily they stare upon us! ... how frozen-piteous is their smile! ... poor, poor frail shapes! ... nay!--who would think these hollow shells of bone had once been men! men with strong hearts, warm-flowing blood, and throbbing pulses, . . men of thought and action, who maybe did most nobly bear themselves in life upon the earth, and yet are now forgotten, . . men--ah, great heaven! can it be that these most rueful, loathly things have loved, and hoped, and labored through all their days for such an end as this! escape from death! ... alas, there is no escape, . . 'tis evident we all must die, . . die, and with dust-quenched eyes unlearn our knowledge of the sun, the stars, the marvels of the universe,--for us no more shall the flowers bloom or the sweet birds sing; the poem of the world will write itself anew in every roseate flushing of the dawn,--but we,--we who have joyed therein,--we who have sung the praises of the light, the harmonies of wind and sea, the tunefulness of woods and fields,--we whose ambitious thoughts have soared archangel-like through unseen empyreans of space, there to drink in a honeyed hope of heaven,--we shall be but dead! ... mute, cold, and stirless as deep, undug stones, . . dead! ... ah god, thou utmost cruelty!"--and in a sudden access of grief and passion he raised one hand and shook it aloft with a menacing gesture--"would i might look upon thee face to face, and rebuke thee for thy merciless injustice!" he spoke wildly as though possessed by a sort of frenzy,--his unknown companion heard him with an air of mild and pitying patience. "peace--peace! blaspheme not the most high, my son!" he said gently, yet reproachfully. "distraught as thou dost seem with some strange misery, and sick with fears, forbear thine ignorant fury against him who hath for love's dear sake alone created thee. control thy soul in patience!--surely thou art afflicted by thine own vain and false imaginings, which for a time contort and darken the clear light of truth. why dost thou thus disquiet thyself concerning the end of life, seeing that verily it hath no end? ... and that what we men call death is not a conclusion but merely a new beginning? waste not thy pity on these skeleton forms,--the empty dwellings of martial spirits long since fled, . . as well weep over fallen husks of corn from which the blossoms have sprung right joyously upward! this world is but our roadside hostelry, wherein we heaven-bound sojourners tarry for one brief, restless night,--why regret the loss of the poor refreshment offered thee here, when there are a thousand better feasts awaiting thee elsewhere on thy way? come,--let me lead thee hence, . . this place is known as the passage of the tombs,--and communicates with the inner court of the sacred temple,--and if, as i fear, thou art a stray fugitive from the accursed lysia's band of lovers, thou mayest be tracked hither and quickly slain. come,--i will show thee a secret labyrinth by which thou canst gain the embankment of the river, and from thence betake thyself speedily home, . . if thou hast a home..." here he paused, and a keen, questioning glance flashed in his dark eyes. "but,--notwithstanding thy fluency of speech and fashion of attire, methinks thou hast the lost and solitary air of one who is a stranger in the city of al-kyris?" theos sighed. "a stranger i am indeed!" he said drearily--"a stranger to my very self and all my former belongings! ask me no questions, good father, for, as i live, i cannot answer them! i am oppressed by a nameless and mysterious suffering, . . my brain is darkened,--my thoughts but half-formed and never wholly uttered, and i,--i who once deemed human intelligence and reason all-supreme, all-clear, all-absolute, am now compelled to use that reason reasonlessly, and to work with that intelligence in helpless ignorance as to what end my mental toil shall serve! woeful and strange it is!--yet true; . . i am as a broken straw in a whirlwind,--or the pale ghost of my own identity groping for things forgotten in a land of shadows; . . i know not whence i came, nor whither i go! nay, do not fear me,--i am not mad: i am conscious of my life, my strength, and physical well-being,--and though i may speak wildly, i harbor no ill-intent toward any man--my quarrel is with god alone!" he paused,--then resumed in calmer accents,--"you judge rightly, reverend sir,--i am a stranger in al-kyris. i entered the city-gates this morning when the sun was high,--and ere noon i found courteous welcome and princely shelter,--i am the guest of the poet sah-luma." the old man looked at him half compassionately. "ah, sah-luma is thine host?" he said with a touch of melancholy surprise in his tone--"then wherefore art thou here? ... here in this dark abode where none may linger and escape with life? ... how earnest thou within the bounds of lysid's fatal pleasaunce! ... has the laureate's friendship thus misguided thee?" theos hesitated before replying. he was again moved by that curious instinctive dread of hearing sah-luma's name associated with any sort of reproach,--and his voice had a somewhat defiant ring as he answered: "nay, surely i am neither child nor woman that i should weakly yield to guidance or misleading! some trifling matter of free-will remains to me in spite of mine affliction,--and that i have supped with sah-luma at the palace of the high priestess, has been as much my choice as his example. who among men would turn aside from high feasting and mirthful company? ... not i, believe me! ... and sah-luma's desires herein were but the reflex of mine own. we came together through the woodland, and parted but a moment since..." he stopped abruptly, startled by a sudden clash as of steel and the tramp-tramp of approaching feet. his aged companion caught him by the arm... "hush!" he whispered.. "not a word more.. not a breath! ... or thy life must pay the penalty! quick,--follow me close! ... step softly! ... there is a hiding-place near at hand where we may couch unseen till these dread visitants pass by." moving stealthily and with anxious precaution, he led the way to a niche hollowed deeply out in the thickness of the wall, and turning his lamp aside so that not the faintest glimmer of it could be perceived, he took theos by the hand, and drew him into what seemed to be a huge cavernous recess, utterly dark and icy cold. here, crouching low in the furthest gloom, they both waited silently,--theos ignorant as to the cause of the sudden alarm, and wondering vaguely what strange new circumstance was about to happen. the measured tramp-tramp of feet came nearer and nearer, and in another moment the flare of smoking torches illumined the vaulted passage, casting many a ruddy flicker and flash on the ivory-gleaming whiteness of the vast skeleton army that stood with such grim and pallid patience as though waiting for a marching signal. presently there appeared a number of half-naked men, carrying short axes stained with blood,--coarse, savage, cruel-looking brutes all, whose lowering faces bore the marks of a thousand unrepented crimes,--these were followed by four tall personages clad in flowing white robes and closely masked,--and finally there came a band of black slaves clothed in vivid scarlet, dragging between them two writhing, bleeding creatures,--one a man, the other a girl in her earliest youth, both convulsed by the evident last agonies of death. arrived at the centre of that part of the vault where the skeleton crowd was thickest, this horrible cortege halted, while one of the masked personages undid from his girdle a large bunch of keys. and now theos, watching everything with dreadful interest from the obscure corner where he was, thanks to his unknown friend, successfully concealed, perceived for the first time a low, iron door, heavily barred, and surmounted by sharp spikes as long as drawn daggers. when this dreary portal was, with many a jarring groan and clang, slowly opened, such an awful cry broke from the lips of the tortured man as might have wrung compassion from the most hardened tyrant. wresting himself fiercely out of the grasp of the slaves who held him, he struggled to his feet, while the blood poured from the cruel wounds that were inflicted all over his body, and raising his manacled hands aloft he cried.. "mercy! ... mercy! ... not for me, but for her! ... for her, my love, my life, my tenderest little one! ... what is her crime, ye fiends? ... why do ye deem love a sin and passion a dishonor? ... shall there be no more heart-longings because ye are cold? ... spare her! ... she is so young, so fond, so innocent of all reproach save one, the shame of loving me! spare her! ... or, if ye will not spare, slay her at once! ... now!--now, with swift compassionate sword, . . but cast her not alive into yon hideous serpent's den! ... not alive! ... ah no, no,--ye gods have pity! ..." here his voice broke and a sudden light passed over his agonized countenance. gazing steadfastly at the girl, whose beautiful, white body now lay motionless on the cold stone, with a cloud of fair hair falling veil-like over it, his eyes seemed to strain themselves out of their sockets in the intensity of his eager regard, when all at once he gave vent to a wild peal of delirious laughter and exclaimed.. "dead.. dead! ... thanks be to the merciless gods for this one gift of grace at the last! dead.. dead! ... o the blessed favor and freedom of death! ... sweetheart, they can torture thee no more.. no more! ... ah, devils that ye are!" and his voice grown frantically loud, pierced the gloomy arches with terrible resonance, as he saw the red-garmented slaves vainly endeavoring to rouse, with ferocious blows and thrusts, new life in the fair, stiffening corpse before them.. "this time ye are baffled! ... baffled!--and i live to see your vanquishment! give her to me!" and he stretched out his trembling arms ... "give her...she is dead--and ye cannot offer to nagaya any lifeless thing! i will weave her a shroud of her own gold hair--i will bury her softly away in the darkness--i will sing to her as i used to sing in the silent summer evenings, when we fancied our secret of forbidden love unknown,--and with my lips on hers, i will pray.. pray for the pardon of passion grown stronger...than...life! ..." he ceased, and swaying forward, fell, . . a shiver ran through his limbs...one deep, gasping sigh...and all was over. the band of torturers gathered round the body, uttering fierce oaths and exclamations of dismay. "both dead!" said one of the individuals in white.. "'tis a most fatal augury!" "fatal indeed!" said another, and turning to the men with the blood stained axes, he added angrily--"ye were too swift and lavish of your weapons--ye should have let these criminals suffer slowly inch by inch, and yet have left them life enough wherewith to linger on in anguish many hours." the wretches thus addressed looked sullen and humiliated, and approaching the two corpses, would have brutally inflicted fresh wounds on them, had not the seeming chief of the party interfered. "let be.. let be!" he said austerely--"ye cannot cause the dead to feel, . . would that it were possible! then might the glorious and god like thirst of vengeance in our great high priestess be somewhat more appeased in this matter. for the unlawful communion of love between a vestal virgin and an anointed priest cannot be too utterly abhorred and condemned,--and these twain, who thus did foully violate their vows, have perished far too easily. the sanctity of the temple has been outraged, . . lysia will not be satisfied, . . and how shall we pacify her righteous wrath, concerning this too tranquil death of the undeserving and impure?" drawing all together in a close group they held a whispered consultation, and finally, appearing to have come to some sort of decision, they took up the dead bodies one after another, and flung them carelessly into the dark aperture lately unclosed. as they did this, a stealthy, rustling sound was heard, as of some great creature moving to and fro in the far interior, but they soon locked and barred the iron portal once more, and then took their departure rather hurriedly, leaving the vault by the way theos had entered it--namely, up the stone stairway that led into lysia's palace-gardens. as the last echo of their retreating steps died away and the last glimmer of their lurid torches vanished, theos sprang out from his hiding-place,--his venerable companion slowly followed. "oh, god! can such things be!" he cried loudly, reckless of all possible risk for himself as his voice rang penetratingly through the deep silence--"were these brute-murderers actual men?--or but the wandering, grim shadows of some long past crime? ... nay,--surely i do but dream!--and ghouls and demons born out of nightmare-sleep do vex my troubled spirit! justice! ... justice for the innocent! ... is there none in all al-kyris?" "none!" replied the old man who stood beside him, lamp in hand, fixing his dark, melancholy eyes upon him as he spoke--"none! ... neither in al-kyris nor in any other great city on the peopled earth! justice? ... i who am named zuriel the mystic, because of my tireless searching into things that are hidden from the unstudious and unthinking,--i know that justice is an idle name,--an empty braggart-word forever on the mouths of kings and judges, but never in their hearts! moreover,--what is guilt? ... what is innocence? both must be defined according to the law of the realm wherein we dwell,--and from that law there can be no appeal. these men we lately saw were the chief priests and executioners of the sacred temple,--they have done no wrong--they have simply fulfilled their duty. the culprits slain deserved their fate,--they loved where loving was forbidden,--torture and death was the strictly ordained punishment, and herein was justice,--justice as portioned out by the penal code of the high court of council." theos heard, and gave an expressive gesture of loathing and contempt. "o narrow jurisdiction! ... o short-sighted, false equity!" he exclaimed passionately. "are there different laws for high and low? ... must the weak and defenceless be condemned to death for the self-same sin committed openly by their more powerful brethren who yet escape scot-free? what of the high priestess then? ... if these poor lover-victims merited their doom, why is not lysia slain? ... is not she a willingly violated vestal? ... doth she not count her lovers by the score? ... are not her vows long since broken? ... is not her life a life of wanton luxury and open shame? ... why doth the law, beholding these things, remain in her case dumb and ineffectual?" "hush, hush, my son!" said the aged zuriel anxiously--"these stone walls hear thee far too loudly,--who knows but they may echo forth thy words to unsuspected listeners! peace--peace! ... lysia is as much queen, as zephoranim is king of al-kyris; and surely thou knowest that the sins of tyrants are accounted virtues, so long as they retain their ruling powers? the public voice pronounces lysia chaste, and zephoranim faithful; who then shall dare to disprove the verdict?--'tis the same in all countries, near and far,--the law serves the strong, while professing to defend the weak. the rich man gains his cause,--the beggar loses it,--how can it be otherwise, while lust of gold prevails? gold is the moving-force of this our era,--without it kings and ministers are impotent, and armies starve, . . with it, all things can be accomplished even to the concealment of the foulest crimes. come, come! ..." and he laid one hand kindly on theos's arm, "thou hast a generous and fiery spirit, but thou shouldst never have been born into this planet if thou seekest such a thing as justice! no man will ever deal true justice to his fellow man on earth, unless perhaps in ages to come, when the old creeds are swept away for a new, and a grander, wider, purer form of faith is accepted by the people. for religion in al-kyris to-day is a hollow mockery,--a sham, kept up partly from fear,--partly from motives of policy,--but every thinker is an atheist at heart, . . our splendid civilization is tottering towards its fall, . . and should the fore-doomed destruction of this city come to pass, vast ages of progress, discovery, and invention will be swept away as though they had never been!" he paused and sighed,--then continued sorrowfully--"there is, there must be something wrong in the mechanism of life,--some little hitch that stops the even wheels,--some curious perpetual mischance that crosses us at every turn,--but i doubt not all is for the best, and will prove most truly so hereafter!" "hereafter!" echoes theos bitterly ... "thinkest thou that even god, repenting of the evil he hath done, will ever be able to compensate us by any future bliss, for all the needless anguish of the present?" zuriel looked at him with a strange, almost spectral expression of mingled pity, fear, and misgiving, but he offered no reply to this home-thrust of a question. in grave silence and with slow, majestic tread he began to lead the way along through the dismal labyrinth of black, winding arches, holding his blue lamp aloft as he went, the better to lighten the dense gloom. theos followed him, silent also, and wrapped in stern, and mournful musings of his own, . . musings through which faint threads of pale recollection connected with his past glimmered hazily from time to time, perplexing rather than enlightening his bewildered brain. presently he found himself in a low, narrow vestibule illumined by the bright yet soft radiance of a suspended star,--and here, coming close up with his guide and observing his dress and manner more attentively, he suddenly perceived a shining something which the old man wore hanging from his neck and which flashed against the sable hue of his garment like a wandering moonbeam. stopping abruptly, he examined this ornament with straining, wistful gaze, . . and slowly, very slowly, recognized its fashion of construction,--it was a plain silver cross--nothing more. yet at sight of the sacred, strange, yet familiar symbol, a chord seemed to snap in his brain,--tears rushed to his tired eyes, and with a sharp cry he fell on his knees, grasping his companion's robe wildly, as a drowning man grasps at a floating spar,--while the venerable zuriel, startled at his action, stared down upon him in evident amazement and terror. "rescue! ... rescue!" he cried, ... "o thou blessed among men!--thou dost wear the sign of eternal safety! ... the sign of the way, the truth, and the life! ... 'without the way, there is no going, without the truth there is no knowing, without the life there is no living'! now do i know thee for a saint in al-kyris,--for thou dost openly avow thyself a follower of the divine faith that fools despise, and selfish souls repudiate, . . ah, i do beseech thee, thou good and holy man, absolve me of my sin of unbelief! teach me! ... help me! ... and i will hear thy counsels with the meekness of a listening child! ..see you, i kneel! ... i pray! ... i, even i, am humiliated to the very dust of shame! i have no pride, . . i seek no glory, ... i do entreat, even as i once rejected the blessing of the cross, whereby i shall regain my lost love,--my despised pardon,--my vanished peace!" and, with pathetic earnestness, he raised his hands toward the silver emblem, and touched it tenderly, reverently, ... then as though unworthy, he bent his head low, and waited eagerly for a name, . . a name that he himself could not remember, . . a name suggested by the cross, but not declared. if that name were once spoken in the form of a benediction, he felt instinctively that he would straightway be released from the mysterious spell of misery that bound his intelligence in such a grievous thrall. but not a word of consolation did his companion utter, . . on the contrary, he seemed agitated by the strangest surprise and alarm. "now may all the gods in heaven defend thee, thou unhappy, desperate, distracted soul!" he said in trembling, affrighted accents. "thou dost implore the blessing of a faith unknown! ... a mystery predicted but not yet fulfilled...a creed that shall not be declared to men for full five thousand years!" chapter xxi. the crimson river. at these unexpected words theos sprang wildly to his feet. an awful darkness seemed to close in upon him,--and a chaotic confusion of memories began to whirl and drift through his mind like flotsam and jetsam tossed upon a storm-swept sea. the aged and shadowy-looking zuriel stood motionless, watching him with something of timid pity and mild patience. "five thousand years!" he muttered hoarsely, pressing his hands into his aching brows, while his eyes again fixed themselves yearningly on the cross.. "five thousand years before.... before what?" he caught the old man's arm, and in spite of himself, a laugh, wild, discordant, and out of all keeping with his inward emotions, broke from his parched lips,--"thou doting fool!" he cried almost furiously,--"why dost thou mock me then with this false image of a hope unrealized? ... who gave thee leave to add more fuel to my flame of torment? ... what means this symbol to thine eyes? speak.. speak! what admonition does it hold for thee? ... what promise? ... what menace? ... what warning? ... what love? ... speak.. speak! o, shall i force confession from thy throat, or must i die unsatisfied and slain by speechless longing! what didst thou say? ... five thousand years? ... nay, by the gods, thou liest!"--and he pointed excitedly to the sacred emblem,--"i tell thee that holy sign is as familiar to my suffering soul as the chiming of bells at sunset! ... as well known to my sight as the unfolding of flowers in the fields of spring! ... what shall be done or said of it, in five thousand years, that has not already been said and done?" zuriel regarded him more compassionately than ever, with a penetrating, mournful expression in his serious dark eyes. "alas, alas, my son! thou art most grievously distraught!" he said in troubled tones. "thy words but prove the dark disorder of thy wits,--may heaven soon heal thee of thy mental wound! restrain thy wild and wandering fancies? ... for surely thou canst not be familiar, as thou sayest with this silver symbol, seeing that it is but the talisman [footnote: the cross was held in singular veneration in the temple of serapis, and by many tribes in the east, ages before the coming of christ] or badge of the mystic brethren of al-kyris, and has no signification whatsoever save for the elect. it was designed some twenty years ago by the inspired chief of our order, khosrul, and such as are still his faithful disciples wear it as a record and constant reminder of his famous prophecy." theos heard, and a dull apathy stole over him,--his recent excitement died out under a chilling weight of vague yet bitter disappointment. "and this prophecy?" he asked listlessly.. "what is its nature and whom doth it concern?" "nay, in very truth it is a strange and marvellous thing!" replied zuriel, his calm voice thrilling with a mellow touch of fervor.. "khosrul, 'tis said, has heard the angels whispering in heaven, and his attentive ears have caught the echo of their distant speech. "thus spiritually instructed, he doth powerfully predict salvation for the human race,--and doth announce, that in five thousand years or more, a god shall be moved by wondrous mercy to descend from heaven, and take the form of man, wherein, unknown, despised, rejected, he will live our life from commencement to finish, teaching, praying, and sanctifying by his divine presence the whole sin-burdened earth. this done, he will consent to suffer a most cruel death, . . and the manner of his death will be that he shall hang, nailed hands and feet to a cross, as though he were a common criminal, . . his holy brows shall be bound about with thorns,--and after hours of agony he, innocent of every sin, shall perish miserably--friendless, unpitied, and alone. but afterward, ... and mark you! this is the chiefest glory of all! ... he will rise again triumphant from the grave to prove his god-head, and to convince mankind beyond all doubt an question, that there is indeed an immortal hereafter,--an actual, free eternity of life, compared with which this our transient existence is a mere brief breathing-space of pause and probation, . . and then for evermore his sacred name shall dominate and civilize the world..." "what name?".. interrupted theos, with eager abruptness ... "canst thou pronounce it?" zuriel shook his head. "not i, my son"--he answered gravely.. "not even khosrul can penetrate thus far! the name of him who is to come, is hidden deep among god's unfathomed silences! it should suffice thee that thou knowest now the sum and substance of the prophecy. would i might live to see the days when all shall be fulfilled! ... but alas, my remaining years are few upon the earth, and heaven's time is not ours!" he sighed,--and resumed his slow pacing onwards,--theos walked beside him as a man may walk in sleep, uncertainly and with unseeing eyes, his heart beating loudly, and a sick sense of suffocation in his throat. what did it all mean? ... had his life gone back in some strange way? ... or had he merely dreamed of a former existence different to this one? he remembered now what sah-luma had told him respecting khosrul's "new" theory of a future religion,--a theory that to him had seemed so old, so old!--so utterly exhausted and worn threadbare! in what a cruel problem was he hopelessly involved!--what a useless, perplexed, confused being he had become! ... he who would once to have staked his life on the unflinching strength and capabilities of human reason! after a pause, . . "forgive me!" he said in a low tone, and speaking with some effort.. "forgive me and have patience with my laggard comprehension, . . i am perplexed at heart and slow of thought; wilt thou assure me faithfully, that this god-man thou speakest of is not yet born on earth?" the faintest shadow of a wondering smile flickered over the old man's wrinkled countenance, like the reflection of a passing taper-flame on a faded picture. "my son, my son!" he murmured with compassionate tolerance--"have i not told thee that five thousand years and more must pass away ere the prediction be accomplished? ... i marvel that so plain a truth should thus disquiet thee! now, by my soul, thou lookest pallid as the dead! ... come, let us hasten on more rapidly,--thy fainting spirits will revive in fresher air." he hurried his pace as he spoke, and glided along with such a curious, stealthy noiselessness that by and by theos began dubiously to wonder whether after all he were a real personage or a phantom? he noticed that his own figure seemed to possess much more substantiality and distinctness of outline than that of this mysterious zuriel, whose very garments resembled floating cloud rather than actual, woven fabric. was his companion then a fitting spectre? ... he smiled at the absurdity of the idea, and to change the drift of his own foolish fancies he asked suddenly,--"concerning this wondrous city of al-kyris...is it of very ancient days, and long lineage?" "the annals of its recorded history reach over a period of twelve thousand years"--replied zuriel, . . "but 'tis the present fashion to count from the deification of nagaya or the snake,--and, according to this, we are now in the nine hundred and eighty-ninth year of so-called grace and knowledge,--rather say dishonor and crime! ... for a crueler, more bloodthirsty creed than the worship of nagaya never debased a people! who shall number up the innocent victims that have been sacrificed in the great temple of the sacred python!--and even on this very day which has just dawned, another holocaust is to be offered on the veiled shrine,--or so it hath been publicly proclaimed throughout the city,--and the crowd will flock to see a virgin's blood spilt on the accursed altars where lysia, in all the potency of triumphant wickedness, presides. but if the auguries of the stars prevail, 'twill be for the last time!" here he paused and looked fixedly at theos. "thou dost return straightway to sah-luma ... is it not so?" theos bent his head in assent. "art thou true friend, or mere flatterer to that spoilt child of fair fame and fortune?" "friend!"--cried theos with eager enthusiasm, ... "i would give my life to save his!" "aye, verily? ... is it so?" ... and zuriel's melancholy eyes dwelt upon him with a strange and sombre wistfulness, ... "then, as thou art a man, persuade him out of evil into good! ... rouse him to noble shame and nobler penitence for all those faults which mar his poet-genus and deprive it of immortal worth! ... urge him to depart from al-kyris while there is yet time ere the bolt of destruction falls! ... and, ... mark you well this final warning! ... bid him to-day avoid the temple, and beware the king!"-- as he said this he stopped and extinguished the lamp he carried. there was no longer any need of it, for a broad patch of gray light fell through an aperture in the wall, showing a few rough, broken steps that led upwards,--and pointing to these he bade the bewildered theos a kindly farewell. "thou wilt find sah-luma's palace easily,"--he said--"not a child in the streets but knows the way thither. guard thy friend and be thyself also on guard against coming disaster,--and if thou art not yet resolved to die, escape from the city ere to-night's sun-setting. soothe thy distempered fancies with thoughts of god, and cease not to pray for thy soul's salvation! peace be with thee!"-- he raised his hands with an expressive gesture of benediction, and turning round abruptly disappeared. where had he gone? ... how had he vanished? ... it was impossible to tell! ... he seemed to have melted away like a mist into utter nothingness! profoundly perplexed, theos ascended the steps before him, his mind anxiously revolving all the strange adventures of the night, while a dim sense of some unspeakable, coming calamity brooded darkly upon him. the solemn admonitions he had just heard affected him deeply, for the reason that they appeared to apply so specially to sah-luma,--and the idea that any evil fate was in store for the bright, beautiful creature, whom he had, oddly enough, learned to love more than himself, moved him to an almost womanish apprehension. in case of pressing necessity, could he exercise any authority over the capricious movements of the wilful laureate, whose egotism was so absolute, whose imperious ways were so charming, whose commands were never questioned? he doubted it! ... for sah-luma was accustomed to follow the lead of his own immediate pleasure, in reckless scorn of consequences,--and it was not likely he would listen to the persuasions or exhortations, however friendly, of any one presuming to run counter to his wishes. again and again theos asked himself--"if sah-luma of his own accord, and despite all warning, deliberately rushed into deadly peril, could i, even loving him as i do, rescue him?"--and as he pondered on this, a strange answer shaped itself unbidden in his brain--an answer that seemed as though it were spoken aloud by some interior voice.. "no,--no!--ten thousand times no! you could not save him any more than you could save yourself from the results of your own misdoing! if you voluntarily choose evil, not all the forces in the world can lift you into good,--if you voluntarily choose danger, not all the gods can bring you into safety! free will is the divine condition attached to human life, and each man by thought, word, and deed, determines his own fate, and decides his own future!" he sighed despondingly, ... a curious, vague contrition stirred within him, ... he felt as though he were in some mysterious way to blame for all his poet-friend's short-comings! in a few minutes he found himself on the broad marble embankment, close to the very spot from whence he had first beheld the beautiful high priestess sailing slowly by in all her golden pomp and splendor, and as he thought of her now, a shudder, half of aversion, half of desire, quivered through him, flushing his brows with the warm uprising blood that yet burned rebelliously at the remembrance of her witching, perfect loveliness! here too he had met sah-luma, . . ah heaven!--how many things had happened since then! ... how much he had seen and heard! ... enough, at any rate, to convince him, that the men and women of al-kyris were more or less the same as those of other great cities he seemed to have known in far-off, half-forgotten days,--that they plotted against each other, deceived each other, accused each other falsely, murdered each other, and were fools, traitors, and egotists generally, after the customary fashion of human pigmies,--that they set up a sham to serve as religion, gold being their only god,--that the rich wantoned in splendid luxury, and wilfully neglected the poor,--that the king was a showy profligate, ruled by a treacherous courtesan, just like many other famous kings and princes, who, because of their stalwart, martial bearing, and a certain surface good-nature, manage to conceal their vices from the too lenient eyes of the subjects they mislead,--and that finally all things were evidently tending toward some great convulsion and upheaval possibly arising from discontent and dissension among the citizens themselves,--or, likelier still, from the sudden invasion of a foreign foe,--for any more terrific termination of events did not just then suggest itself to his imagination. absorbed in thought, he walked some paces along the embankment, before he perceived that a number of people were already assembled there,--men, women, and children, who, crowding eagerly together to the very edge of the parapet, appeared to be anxiously watching the waters below. what unusual sight attracted them? ... and why were they all so silent as though struck dumb by some unutterable dismay? one or two, raising their heads, turned their pale, alarmed faces toward theos as he approached, their eyes seeming to mutely inquire his opinion, concerning the alarming phenomenon which held them thus spellbound and fear-stricken. he made his way quickly to where they stood, and looking where they looked, uttered a sharp, involuntary exclamation, ... the river, the clear, rippling river was red as blood. beneath the slowly breaking light of dawn, that streaked the heavens with delicate lines of silver-gray and daffodil, the whole visible length and breadth of the heaving waters shone with a darkly flickering crimson hue, deeper than the lustre of the deepest ruby, flowing sluggishly the while as though clogged with some thick and weedy slime. as the sky brightened gradually into a pale, ethereal blue, so the tide became ruddier and more pronounced in color,--and presently, as though seized by a resistless panic, the group of staring, terrified bystanders broke up suddenly, and rushed away in various directions, covering their faces as they fled and uttering loud cries of lamentation and despair. theos alone remained behind, . . resting his folded arms on the sculptured balustrade, he gazed down, down into those crimson depths till their strange tint dazzled and confused his sight,--looking up for relief to the eastern horizon where the sun was just bursting out in full splendor from a pavilion of violet cloud, the red reflection was still before his eyes, so much so, that the very air seemed flushed with spreading fire. and then like the sound of a tocsin ringing in his ears, the words of the prophet khosrul, as pronounced in the presence of the king, recurred to his memory with new and suggestive force. "blood--blood! 'tis a scarlet sea wherein like a broken and empty ship al-kyris founders,--founders never to rise again!" still painfully oppressed by an increasing sense of some swift-approaching disaster, his thoughts once more reverted anxiously to sah-luma. he must be warned,--yes!--even if he disdained all warning! yet, . . warn him against what? "bid him avoid the temple and beware the king!" so had said zuriel the mystic,--but to the laurelled favorite of the monarch, and idol of the people, such an admonition would seem more than absurd! it was useless to talk to him about the prophecies of khosrul,--he had heard them all, and laughed them to scorn. "how can i"--then mused theos disconsolately,--"how can i make him believe that some undeclared evil threatens him, when he is at the very pinnacle of fame and fortune with all al-kyris at his feet? ... he would never listen to me, ... nor would any persuasions of mine induce him to leave the city where his name is so glorious and his renown so firmly established. of lysia's treachery i may perhaps convince him, ... yet even in this attempt i may fail, and incur his hatred for my pains! if i had only myself to consider! ... "--and here his reflections suddenly took a strange, unbidden turn. if he had only himself to consider! ... well, what then! was it not just within the bounds of probability that, under the same circumstances, he might be precisely as self-willed and as haughtily opinionated as the friend whose arrogance he deplored, yet could not alter? so pointed a suggestion was not exactly suited to his immediate humor, and he felt curiously vexed with himself for indulging in such a foolish association of ideas! the positions were entirely different, he argued, angrily addressing the troublesome inward monitor that every now and then tormented him,--there was no resemblance whatever between himself, the unknown, unfamed wanderer in a strange land, and the brilliant sah-luma, chosen poet laureate of the realm! no resemblance, . . none at all! ... he reiterated over and over again in his own mind, . . except ... except, ... well! ... except in perhaps a few trifling touches of character and temper that were scarcely worth the noting! at this juncture, his uncomfortable reverie was interrupted by the sound of a harsh, metallic voice close behind him. "what fools there are in the world!" said the voice in emphatic accents of supreme contempt--"what braying asses!--what earth-snouting swine! saw you not yon crowd of whimpering idiots flying helter-skelter like chaff before the wind, weeping, wailing, and bemoaning their miserable little sins, scattering dust on their addled pates, and howling on their gods for mercy,--all forsooth! because for once in their unobserving lives they behold the river red instead of green! ay me! 'tis a thing to laugh at, this crass, and brutish ignorance of the multitude,--no teaching will ever cleanse their minds from the cobwebs of vulgar superstition,--and i, in common with every wise and worthy sage of sound repute and knowledge, must needs waste all my scientific labors on a perpetually ungrateful public!" turning hastily round theos confronted the speaker,--a tall, spare man with a pale, clean-shaven, intellectual face, small, shrewd, speculative eyes, and very straight, neatly parted locks,--a man on whose every lineament was expressed a profound belief in himself, and an equally profound scorn for the opinions of any one who might possibly presume to disagree with him. he smiled condescendingly as he met theos's half-surprised, half-inquiring look, and saluted him with a gravely pompous air, which however, was not without a saving touch of that indescribable, easy grace which seemed to distinguish the manners of all the inhabitants of al-kyris. theos returned the salutation with equal gravity, whereupon the new-comer waving his hand majestically, continued: "you sir, i see, are young, . . and probably you are enrolled among the advanced students of one or other of our great collegiate institutions,--therefore the peculiar, though not at all unnatural tint of the river this morning, is of course no mystery to you, if, as i presume, you follow the scientific classes of instruction in the physiology of nature, of manifestation of simple and complex motive force, and the perpetual evolution of atoms?" theos smiled,--the grandiloquent manner of this self-important individual amused him. "most worthy sir," he replied, "you form too favorable an opinion of my scholarly attainments! i am a stranger in al-kyris,--and know naught of its educational system, or the interior mechanism of its wondrous civilization! i come from far-off lands, where, if i remember rightly, much is taught and but little retained,--where petty pedagogues persist in dragging new generations of men through old and worn-out ruts of knowledge that future ages shall never have need of, . . and concerning even the progress of science, i confess to a certain incredulity, seeing that to my mind science somewhat resembles a straight line drawn clear across country but leading, alas! to an ocean wherein all landmarks are lost and swallowed up in blankness. over and over again the human race has trodden the same pathway of research,--over and over again has it stood bewildered and baffled on the shores of the same vast sea,--the most marvellous discoveries are after all mere child's play compared to the tremendous secrets that must remain forever unrevealed; and the poor and trifling comprehension of things that we, after a life-time of study, succeed in attaining, is only just sufficient to add to our already burdened existence the undesirable clogs of discontent and disappointed endeavor. we die,--in almost as much ignorance as we were born, . . and when we come face to face with the last dark mystery, what shall our little wisdom profit us?" with his arms folded in an attitude of enforced patience and complacent superiority, the other listened. "curious, . . curious!" he murmured in a mild sotto-voce,--"a would-be pessimist!--aye, aye,--'tis very greatly the fashion for young men in these days to assume the manner of elderly and exhausted cynics who have tried everything and approve of nothing! 'tis a strange craze!--but, my good sir, let us keep to the subject at present under discussion. like all unripe philosophers, you wander from the point. i did not ask you for your opinion concerning the uselessness or the efficiency of learning,--i merely sought to discover whether you, like the silly throng that lately scattered right and left of you, had any foolish forebodings respecting the transformed color of this river,--a color which, however seeming peculiar, arises, as all good scholars know, from causes that are perfectly simple and easily explainable." theos hesitated,--his eyes wandered involuntarily to the flowing tide, which now with the fully risen sun seemed more than ever brilliant and lurid in its sanguinary hue. "strange things have been said of late concerning al-kyris,--" he answered at last, slowly and after a thoughtful pause,--"things that, though wild and vague, are not without certain dark presages and ominous suggestions. this crimson flood may be, as you say, the natural effect of purely natural causes,--yet, notwithstanding this, it seems to me a singular phenomenon--nay, even a weird and almost fatal augury?" his companion laughed--a gentle, careless laugh of amused disdain. "phenomenon! ... augury! ..." he exclaimed shrugging his shoulders lightly ... "these words, my young friend, are terms that nowadays belong exclusively to the vocabulary of the uneducated masses; we,--and by we, i mean scientists, and men of the highest culture,--have long ago rejected them as unmeaning and therefore unnecessary. phenomenon is a particularly vile expression, serving merely to designate anything wonderful and uncommon,--whereas to the scientific eye, there is nothing left in the world that ought to excite so vulgar and barbarous an emotion as wonder, . . nothing so apparently rare that cannot be reduced at once from the ignorant exaggerations of enthusiasm to the sensible level of the commonplace? the so-called 'marvels' of nature have, thanks to the advancement of practical education, entirely ceased to affect by either surprise or admiration the carefully matured, mathematically adjusted, and technically balanced brain of the finished student or professor of organic evolution,--and as for the idea of 'auguries' or portents, nothing could well be more entirely at variance with our present system of progressive learning, whereby human reason is trained and taught to pulverize into indistinguishable atoms all supernatural propositions, and to gradually eradicate from the mind the absurd notion of a deity or deities, whom it is necessary to propitiate in order to live well. much time is of course required to elevate the multitude above all desire for a religion,--but the seed has been sown, and the harvest will be reaped, and a glorious era is fast approaching, when the free-thinking, free-speaking people of all nations shall govern themselves and rejoice in the grand and god-less light of universal liberty?" somewhat heated by the fervor of his declamatory utterance, he passed his hand among his straight locks, whether to cool his forehead, or to show off the numerous jewelled rings on his fingers, it was difficult to say, and continued more calmly: "no, young sir!--the color of this river,--a color which, i willingly admit, resembles the tint of flowing human blood,--has naught to do with foolish omens and forecasts of evil,--'tis simply caused by the influx of some foreign alluvial matter, probably washed down by storm from, the sides of the distant mountains whence these waters have their rising,--see you not how the tide is thick and heavy with an unfloatable cargo of red sand? some sudden disturbance of the soil,--or a volcanic movement underneath the ocean,--or even a distant earthquake, . . any of these may be the reason."... "may be?--why not say must be," observed theos half ironically, "since learning makes you sure!" his companion pressed the tips of his fingers delicately together, as though blandly deprecating this observation. "nay, nay!--none of us, however wise, can say 'must be'"--he argued suavely--"it is not,--strictly speaking,--possible in this world to pronounce an incontestable certainty." "not even that two and two are four?" suggested theos, smiling. "not even that!"...replied the other with perfect gravity--"inasmuch as in the kingdom of hypharus, whose borders touch ours, the inhabitants, also highly civilized, do count their quantities by a totally different method; and to them two and two are not four, the numbers two and four not being included in their system of figures. thus,--a professor from the colleges of hypharus could obstinately deny what to us seems the plainest fact known to common-sense,--yet, were i to argue against him i should never persuade him out of his theory,--nor could he move me one jot from mine. and viewed from our differing standpoints, therefore, the first simple multiplication of numbers could never be proved correct beyond all question!" theos glanced at him in wonder,--the man must be mad, he thought, since surely any one in his senses could see that two objects placed with other two must necessarily make four! "i confess you surprise me greatly, sir!"--he said, and, in spite of himself, a little quiver of laughter shook his voice.. "what i asked was by way of jest,--and i never thought to hear so simple a subject treated with so much profound and almost doubting seriousness! see!"--and he picked up four small stones from the roadway--"count these one by one, . . how many have you? surely even a professor from hypharus could find no more, and no less than four?" very deliberately, and with unruffled equanimity, the other took the pebbles in his hand, turned them over and over, and finally placed them in a row on the edge of the balustrade near which he stood. "there seem to be four, . ." he then observed placidly--"but i would not swear to it,--nor to anything else of which the actuality is only supported by the testimony of my own eyes and sense of touch." "good heavens, man!" cried theos, in amazement,--"but a moment since, you were praising the excellence of reason, and the progressive system of learning that was to educate human beings into a contempt for the supernatural and spiritual, and yet almost in the same breath you tell me you cannot rely on the evidence of your own senses! was there ever anything more utterly incoherent and irrational!" and he flung the pebbles into the redly flowing river with a gesture of irritation and impatience. the scientist,--if scientist he could be called,--gazed at him abstractedly, and stroked his well-shaven chin with a somewhat dejected air. presently heaving a deep sigh, he said: "alas, i have again betrayed myself! ... 'tis my fatal destiny! always, by some unlooked-for mischance, i am compelled to avow what most i desire to conceal! can you not understand, sir,"--and he laid his hand persuasively on theos's arm,--"that a theory may be one thing and one's own private opinion another? my theory is my profession,--i live by it! suppose i resigned it,--well, then i should also have to resign my present position in the royal institutional college,--my house, my servants, and my income. i advance the interests of pure human reason, because the age has a tendency to place reason as the first and highest attribute of man,--and it would not pay me to pronounce my personal preference for the natural and vastly superior gift of intellectual instinct. i advise my scholars to become atheists, because i perceive they have a positive passion for atheism, and it is not my business, nor would it be to my advantage to interfere with the declared predilections of my wealthiest patrons. concerning my own ideas on these matters, they are absolutely nil, ... i have no fixed principles,--because"--and his brows contracted in a puzzled line--"it is entirely out of my ability to fix anything! the whole world of manners and morals is in a state of perpetual ferment and consequent change,--equally restless and mutable is the world of nature, for at any moment mountains may become plains, and plains mountains,--the dry land may be converted into oceans, and oceans into dry land, and so on forever. in this incessant shifting of the various particles that make up the universe, how can you expect a man to hold fast to so unstable a thing as an idea! and, respecting the testimony offered by sight and sense, can you rely upon such slippery evidence?" theos moved uneasily,--a slight shiver ran through his veins, and a momentary dizziness seized him, as of one who gazing down from some lofty mountain-peak sees naught below but the white, deceptive blankness of a mist that veils the deeper deathful chasms from his eyes. could he rely on sight and sense...dared he take oath that these frail guides of his intelligence could never be deceived? ... doubtfully he mused on this, while his companion continued: "for example, i look an arm's length into space, . . my eyes assure me that i behold nothing save empty air,--my touch corroborates the assertion of my eyes,--and yet, . . science proves to me that every inch of that arm's length of supposed blank space is filled with thousands of minute living organisms that no human vision shall ever be able to note or examine! wonder not, therefore, that i decline to express absolute confidence in any fact, however seemingly obvious, such as that two and two are four, and that i prefer to say the blood-red color of this river may be caused by an earth-tremor or a land-slip, rather than positively assert that it must be so; though i confess that, as far as my knowledge guides me, i incline to the belief that 'must be' is in this instance the correct term." he sighed again, and rubbed his nose perplexedly. theos glanced at him curiously, uncertain whether to laugh at or pity him. "then the upshot of all your learning, sir, . ." he said, . . "is that one can never be quite certain of anything?" "exactly so!"--replied the pensive sage with a grave shake of his head,--"judged by the very finest lines of metaphysical argument, you cannot really be sure whether you behold in me a person or a phantasm! you think you see me,--i think i see you,--but after all it is only an impression mutually shared,--an impression which like many another, less distinct, may be entirely erroneous! ah, my dear young sir!--education is advancing at a very rapid rate, and the art of close analysis is reaching such a pitch of perfection that i believe we shall soon be able logically to prove, not only that we do not actually exist, but moreover that we never have existed! ... and herein, as i consider, will be the final triumph of philosophy!" "a poor triumph!"--murmured theos wearily. "what, in such a case, would become of all the nobler sentiments and passions of man,--love, hope, gratitude, duty, ambition?" "they would be precisely the same as before"--rejoined the other complacently--"only we should have learned to accept them merely as the means whereby to sustain the impression that we live,--an impression which would always be agreeable, however delusive!" theos shrugged his shoulders. "you possess a peculiarly constituted mind, sir!"--he said--"and i congratulate you on the skill you display in following out a somewhat puzzling investigation to almost its last hand's-breadth of a conclusion,--but.. pardon me,--i should scarcely think the discussion of such debatable theories conducive to happiness!" "happiness!".. and the scientist smiled scornfully,--"'tis a fool's term, and designates a state of being that can only pertain to foolishness! show me a perfectly happy man, and i will show you an ignorant witling, light-headed, hardhearted, and of a most powerfully good digestion! many such there be now wantoning among us, and the head and chief of them all is perhaps the most popular numskull in al-kyris, . . the poet,--bah! ... let us say the braying jack-ass in office,--the laurelled sah-luma!" theos gave an indignant start,--the hot color flushed his brows, . . then he restrained himself by an effort. "control the fashion of your speech, i pray you, sir!" he said, with excessive haughtiness--"the noble laureate is my friend and host,--i suffer no man to use his name unworthily in my presence!" the sage drew back, and spread out his hands in a pacifying manner. 'oh, i crave your pardon, good stranger!"--he murmured, with a kind of apologetic satire in his acrid voice,--"i crave it most abjectly! yet to somewhat excuse the hastiness of my words, i would explain that a contempt for poets and poetry is now universal among persons of profound enlightenment and practical knowledge..." "i am aware of it!" interrupted theos swiftly and with passion--"i am aware that so-called 'wise' men, rooted in narrow prejudice, with a smattering of even narrower logic, presume, out of their immeasurable littleness, to decry and make mock of the truly great, who, thanks to god's unpurchasable gift of inspiration, can do without the study of books or the teaching of pedants,--who flare through the world flame-winged and full of song, like angels passing heavenward,--and whose voices, rich with music, not only sanctify the by-gone ages, but penetrate with echoing, undying sweetness the ages still to come! contempt for poets!--aye, 'tis common!--the petty, boastful pedagogues of surface learning ever look askance on these kings in exile, these emperors masked, these gods disguised! ... but humiliated, condemned, or rejected, they are still the supreme rulers of the human heart,--and a love-ode chanted in the long-ago by one such fire-lipped minstrel outlasts the history of many kingdoms!" he spoke with rapid, almost unconscious fervor, and as he ended raised one hand with an enthusiastic gesture toward the now brilliant sapphire sky and glowing sun. the scientist looked at him furtively and smiled,--a bland, expostulatory smile. "oh, you are young!--you must be very young!" he said forbearingly.. "in a little time you will grow out of all this ill-judged fanaticism for an art, the pursuance of which is really only wasted labor! think of the absurdity of it!--what can be more foolish than the writing of verse to express or to encourage emotion in the human subject, when the great aim of education at the present day is to carefully eradicate emotion by degrees, till we succeed in completely suppressing it! an outburst of feeling is always vulgar,--the highest culture consists in being impassively equable of temperament, and absolutely indifferent to the attacks of either joy or sorrow. i should be inclined to ask you to consider this matter more seriously, and from the strictly common-sense point of view, did i not know that for you to undertake a course of useful meditation while you remain is sah-luma's companionship would be impossible, . . quite impossible! nevertheless our discourse has been so far interesting, that i shall be happy to meet you again and give you an opportunity for further converse should you desire it, . . ask for the head professor of scientific positivism, any day in the strangers' court of the royal institutional college, and i will at once receive you! my name is mira-khabur,--professor mira khabur...at your service!" and laying one hand on his breast he bowed profoundly. "a professor of positivism who is himself never positive!"--observed theos with a slight smile. "ah pardon!" returned the other gravely--"on the contrary, i am always positive! ... of the unpositiveness of positivism!" and with this final vindication of his theories he made another stately obeisance and went his way. theos looked after his tall, retreating figure half in sadness, half in scorn. this proudly incompetent, learned-ignorant mira-khabur was no uncommon character--surely there were many like him! somewhere in the world,--somewhere in far lands of which the memory was now as indistinct as the outline of receding shores blurred by a falling mist, theos seemed painfully to call to mind certain cold-blooded casuists he had known, who had attempted to explain away the mysteries of life and death by rule and line calculations, and who for no other reason than their mathematically argued denial of god's existence had gained for themselves a temporary, spurious celebrity. yes! ... surely he had met such men, . . but where? realizing, with a sort of shock, that he was quite as much in the dark as ever with regard to any real cognizance of his former place of abode and the manner of life he must have led before he entered this bewildering city of al-kyris, he roused himself abruptly, and resolutely banishing the heavy thoughts that threatened to oppress his soul, he began without further delay to direct his steps towards sah-luma's palace. he glanced once more at the river before leaving the embankment,--it was still blood red, and every now and then, between the sluggish ripples, multitudes of dead fish could be seen drifting along in shoals, and tangled in nets of slimy weed that at a little distance looked like the floating tresses of drowned women. it was an uncanny sight, and though it might certainly be as the wise mira khabur had stated, the purely natural effect of purely natural causes, still those natural causes were not as yet explained satisfactorily. an earthquake or land-slip would perhaps account sufficiently for everything,--but then an inquiring mind would desire to know where the earthquake or land-slip occurred,--and also why these supposed far-off disturbances should thus curiously affect the river surrounding al-kyris? answers to such questions as these were not forthcoming either from professor mira-khabur or any other sagacious pundit,--and theos was therefore still most illogically and unscientifically puzzled as well as superstitiously uneasy. turning up a side street, he quickened his pace, in order to overtake a young vendor of wines whom he perceived sauntering along in front of him, balancing a flat tray, loaded with thin crystal flasks, on his head. how gloriously the sunshine quivered through those delicately tinted glass bottles, lighting up the glittering liquid contained within them!--why, they look more like soap-bubbles than anything else! ... and the boy who carried them moved with such a lazy, noiseless grace that he might have been taken for a dream-sylph rather than a human being! "hola, my lad!" called theos, running after him.. "tell me,--is this the way to the palace of the king's laureate?" the youth looked up,--what a beautiful creature he was, with his brilliant, dark eyes and dusky, warm complexion! "why ask for the king's laureate?" he demanded with a pretty scorn,--"the people's sah-luma lives yonder!"--and he pointed to a mass of towering palms from whose close and graceful frondage a white dome rose glistening in the clear air,--"our poet's fame is not the outgrowth of a mere king's favor, 'tis the glad and willing tribute of the nation's love and praise! a truce to monarchs!--they will soon be at a discount in al-kyris!" and with a flashing glance of defiance, and a saucy smile, he passed on, easily sauntering as before. "a budding republican!" though theos amusedly, as he pursued his course in the direction indicated. "that is how the 'liberty, equality, fraternity' system always begins--first among street-boys who think they ought to be gentlemen,--then among shopkeepers who persuade themselves that they deserve to be peers,--then comes a time of topsey-turveydom and fierce contention and by and by everything gets shaken together again in the form of a republic, wherein the street-boys and shopkeepers are not a whit better off than they were under a monarchy--they become neither peers nor gentlemen, but stay exactly in their original places, with the disadvantage of finding their trade decidedly damaged by the change that has occurred in the national economy! strange that the inhabitants of this world should make such a fuss about resisting tyranny and oppression, when each particular individual man, by custom and usage, tyrannizes over and oppresses his fellow-man to an extent that would be simply impossible to the fiercest kings!" thus meditating a few steps more brought him to the entrance of sah-luma's princely abode,--the gates stood wide open, and a pleasant murmur of laughter and soft singing floated toward him across the splendid court where the great fountains were tossing up to the bright sky their straight, glistening columns of snowy spray. he listened,--and his heart leaped with an intense relief and joy,--sah-luma, the beloved sah-luma, was evidently at home and as yet unharmed,--these mirthful sounds betokened that all was well. the vague trouble and depression that had weighed upon his soul for hours now vanished completely, and hastening along, he sprang lightly up the marble stairs, and into the rainbow-colored, spacious hall, where the first person he saw was zabastes the critic. "ah, good zabastes!" he cried gayly,--"where is thy master sah-luma? has he returned in safety?" "in safety?" croaked zabastes with an accent of ironic surprise.. "to be sure! ... is he a baby in swaddling-clothes that he cannot be trusted out alone to take care of himself? in safety?--aye! i warrant you he is safe enough, and silly enough, and lazy enough to please any one of his idiot flatterers, . . moreover my 'master!"--and he emphasized this word with indescribable bitterness--"hath slept as soundly as a swine, and hath duly bathed with the punctiliousness of a conceited swan, and being suitably combed, perfumed, attired, and throned as becomes his dainty puppetship, is now condescending to partake of vulgar food in the seclusion of his own apartment. go thither and you shall find his verse-stringing mightiness nobly enshrined as a god among a worshipping crowd of witless maidens,--he hath inquired for you many times, which is somewhat of a wonder, seeing that as a rule he concerns his mind with naught save himself! furthermore, he is graciously pleased to be in a manner solicitous on behalf of the maiden niphrata, who hath suddenly disappeared from the household, leaving no message to explain the cause of her evanishment. hath seen her? ... no?"--and the old man thumped his stick petulantly on the floor as theos shook his head in the negative--"'tis the only feminine creature i ever had patience to speak with,--a modest wench and a gentle one, and were it not for her idolatrous adoration of sah-luma, she would be fairly sensible withal. no matter!--she has gone; everything goes, even good women, and nothing lasts save folly, of which there shall surely never be an end!" here apparently conscious that he had shown more feeling in speaking of niphrata than was usual with him, he looked up impatiently and waved his staff toward sah-luma's study; "in, in, boy! in, to, the chief of poets and prince of egotists! he waits your service,--he is all agape and thirsty for more flattery and delicate cajolement, ... stuff him with praise, good youth! ... and who knows but a portion of his mantle may descend on you hereafter and make of you as conceited and pretty a bantling bard for the glory of proud posterity!" and chuckling audibly, he hobbled down a side passage, while theos, half angry, half amused, crossed the hall quickly, and arrived at the door of the laureate's private sanctum, where, gently drawing aside the silken draperies, he looked in for a moment without being himself perceived. what a picture he beheld! ... how perfection every shade of color in every line of detail! sah-luma, reclining in a quaintly carved ebony chair, was toying with the fruit and wine set out before him on an ivory and gold stand,--his dress, simpler than it had been on the previous evening, was of fine white linen gathered loosely about his classic figure,--he wore neither myrtle-wreath nor jewels,--the expression of his face was serious, even noble, and his attitude was one of languid grace and unstudied ease that became him infinitely well. the maidens of his household waited near him,--some of them held flowers,--one, kneeling at a small lyre, seemed just about to strike a few chords, when sah-luma silenced her by a light gesture: "peace, zoralin!" he said softly.. "i cannot listen: thou hast not my niphrata's tenderness!" zoralin, a beautiful, dark girl, with hair as black as night, and eyes that looked as though they held suppressed yet ever burning fire, let her hands instantly drop from the instrument, and sighing, shrank back a little in abashed silence. at that moment theos advanced,--and the laureate sprang up delightedly: "ah, at last, my friend!" he cried, enthusiastically clasping him by both hands,--"where, in the name of all the gods, hast thou been roaming? how did we part?--by my soul i forget!--but no matter!--thou art here once more, and as i live, we will not separate again so easily! my noble theos!" and he threw one arm affectionately around his neck--"i have missed thee more than i can tell these past few hours,--thou dost seem so sympathetically conjoined with me, that verily i think i am but half myself in thine absence! come,--sit thee down and break thy fast! ... i almost feared thou hadst met with some mischance on thy way hither, and that i should have had to sally forth and rescue thee again even as i did yesternoon! say, hast thou occupied thyself with so much friendly consideration on my behalf, as i have on thine?" he laughed gayly as he spoke,--and theos, looking into his bright, beautiful face, was for a moment too deeply moved by his own strange inward emotions, to utter a word in reply. why did he love sah-luma so ardently, he wondered? why was it that every smile on that proud mouth, every glance of those flashing eyes, possessed such singular, overwhelming fascination for him? he could not tell,--but he readily yielded to the magic influence of his friend's extraordinary attractiveness, and sitting down beside him in the azure light and soft fragrance of his regal apartment, he experienced a sudden sense of rest, satisfaction, and completeness, such as may be felt by a man at one with himself, and with all the world! chapter xxii. wasted passion. the assembled maidens had retired modestly into the background, while the laureate had thus joyously greeted his returned guest; but now, at a signal from their lord, they again advanced, and taking up the glittering dishes of fruit and the flasks of wine, proffered them in turn to theos with much deferential grace and courtesy. he was by no means slow in responding to the humble attentions of these fair ones, . . there was a sort of deliciously dreamy enchantment in being waited upon by such exquisitely lovely creatures! the passing touch of their little white hands that supported the heavy golden salvers seemed to add new savor to the luscious fare,--the timorous fire of their downcast eyes, softly sparkling through the veil of their long lashes, gave extra warmth to the ambrosial wine,--and he could not refrain from occasionally whispering a tender flattery or delicate compliment in the ear of one or other of his sylph-like servitors, though they all appeared curiously unmoved by his choicely worded adulation. now and then a pale, flickering blush or sudden smile brightened their faces, but for the most part they maintained a demure and serious demeanor, as though possessed by the very spirit of invincible reserve. with sah-luma it was otherwise,--they hovered about him like butterflies round a rose,--a thousand wistful, passionate glances darted upon him, when he, unconscious or indifferent, apparently saw nothing,--many a deep, involuntary sigh was stifled quickly ere it could escape between the rosy lips whose duty it was to wreathe themselves with smiles, and theos noticing these things thought: "heavens! how this man is loved!--and yet ... he, out of all men, is perhaps the most ignorant of love's true meaning!" scarcely had this reflection entered his mind than he became bitterly angry with himself for having indulged in it. how recreant, how base an idea! ... how incompatible with the adoring homage he felt for his friend! what!--sah-luma,--a poet, whose songs of love were so perfect, so wildly sweet and soul-entrancing--he, to be ignorant of love's true meaning? ... oh, impossible!--and a burning flush of shame rose to theos's brow,--shame that he could have entertained such a blasphemy against his idol for a moment! then that curious, vague, soft contrition he had before experienced stole over him once again--a sudden moisture filled his eyes,--and turning abruptly toward his host he held out his own just filled goblet: "drink we the loving-cup together, sah-luma!" he said, and his voice trembled a little with its own deep tenderness, . . "pledge me thy faith as i do pledge thee mine! and for to-day at least let me enjoy thy boon companionship, . . who knows how soon we may be forced to part ... forever!" and he breathed the last word softly with a faint sigh. sah-luma looked at him with an expressive glance of bright surprise. "part?" he exclaimed joyously--"nay, not we, my friend! ... not till we find each other tiresome, . . not till we prove that our spirits, like over-mettlesome steeds, do chafe and fret one another too rudely in the harness of custom, . . wherefore then, and then only, 'twill be time to break loose at a gallop, and seek each one a wider pasture-land! meanwhile, here's to thee!"--and bending his handsome head he readily drank a deep draught of the proffered wine.. "may all the gods hold fast our bond of friendship!" and with a graceful salute he returned the jewelled cup half-empty. theos at once drained off what yet remained within it, and then, leaning more confidentially over the laureate's chair, he whispered: "hast thou in very truth forgotten thy rashness of last night, sah-luma? surely thou must guess how unquiet i have been concerning thee! tell me, . . was thy hot pursuit in vain? ... or.. didst thou discover the king?" "peace!" and a quick frown darkened the smooth beauty of sah-luma's face as he grasped theos's arm hard to warn him into silence,--then forcing a smile he answered in the same low tone.. "'twas not the king, . . it could not be! thou wert mistaken ..." "nay but," persisted theos gently--"convince me of mine error! didst thou overtake and steadily confront yon armed and muffled stranger?" "not i!"--and sah-luma shrugged his shoulders petulantly--"sleep fell upon me suddenly when i left thee,--and methinks i must have wandered home like a shadow in a dream! was i not drunk last night?--aye!--and so in all likelihood wert thou! ... little could we be trusted to recognize either king or clown!"--he laughed,--then added--"nevertheless i tell thee once again 'twas not the king, . . his majesty hath too much at stake, to risk so dangerous a pleasantry!" theos heard, but he was dissatisfied and ill at ease, . . sah-luma's careless contentment increased his own disquietude. just then a curious-looking personage entered the apartment,--a gray-haired, dwarfish negro, who carried slung across his back a large bundle, consisting of several neatly rolled-up pieces of linen, one of which he presently detached from the rest and set down before the laureate, who in return gave him a silver coin, at the same time asking jestingly: "is the news worth paying for to-day, zibya?--or is it the same ill-written, clumsy chronicle of trumpery, common-place events?" zibya, slipping the coin he had received into a wide leathern pouch which hung from his girdle, appeared to meditate a moment,--then he replied: "if the truth must be told, most illustrious, there is nothing whatever to interest the minds of the cultured. the cheap scribes of the daily circular cater chiefly for the mob, and do all in their power to foster morbid qualities of disposition and murderous tendencies among the lower orders; hence though there is nothing in the news-sheet pertaining to literature or the fine arts, there is much concerning the sudden death of the young sculptor nir-jalis, whose body was found flung on the banks of the river this morning." theos started, . . sah-luma listened with placid indifference. "'tis a case of self-slaughter"--pursued zibya chattily.. "or so say the wise writers who are supposed to know everything, . . self-slaughter committed during a state of temporary insanity! well, well! i myself would have had a different opinion." "and a sagacious one no doubt!" interrupted sah-luma coldly, and with a dangerous flash as of steel in his eyes.. "but.. be advised, good zibya! ... give thine opinion no utterance!" the old negro shrank back nervously, making numerous apologetic gestures, and waited in abashed silence till the laureate's features regained their wonted soft serenity. then he ventured to speak again,--though not without a little hesitation. "concerning the topics of the hour..." he murmured timorously.. "my lord is perhaps not aware that the river itself is a subject of much excited discussion,--the water having changed to a marvellous blood-color during the night, which singular circumstance hath caused a great panic among the populace. even now, as i passed by the embankment, the crowd there was thick as a hive of swarming bees!" he paused, but sah-luma made no remark, and he continued more glibly, "also, to-day's 'circular' contains the full statement of the king's reward for the capture of the prophet khosrul, and the formal programme of the sacrificial ceremonial announced to take place this evening in the temple of nagaya. all is set forth in the fine words of the petty public scribes, who needs must make as much as possible out of little,--and there is likewise a so-called facsimile of the king's signature, which will naturally be of supreme interest to the vulgar. furthermore it is proclaimed that a grand combat of wild beasts in the royal arena will follow immediately after the service in the temple is concluded,--methinks none will go to bed early, seeing there is so full a list of amusements!" he paused again, somewhat out of breath,--and sah-luma meanwhile unrolled the linen scroll he had purchased, which measured about twenty-four inches in length and twenty in width. carefully ruled black and red lines divided it into nearly the same number of columns as those on the page of an ordinary newspaper, and it was covered with close writing, here and there embellished by bold, profusely ornamented headings. one of these, "death of the sculptor, nir-jalis," seemed to burn into theos's brain like letters of fire,--how was it, he wondered, that the body of that unfortunate victim had been found on the shore of the river, when he himself had seen it loaded with iron weights, and cast into the lake that formed part of lysia's fatal garden? presently sah-luma passed the scroll to him with a smile, saying lightly: "there, my friend, is a specimen of the true mob-literature! ... written to-day, forgotten to-morrow! 'tis a droll thing to meditate upon, the ephemeral nature of all this pouring-out of unnecessary words and stale stock-phrases!--and, wouldst thou believe it, theos! each little paid scribe that adds his poor quota to this ill-assorted trash deems himself wiser and greater far than any poet or philosopher dead or living! why, in this very news-sheet i have seen the immortal works of the divine hyspiros so hacked by the blunt knives of ignorant and vulgar criticism that, by my faith! ... were it not for contempt, one would be disposed to nail the hands of such trumpery scribblers to a post, and scourge their bare backs with thorny rods to cure them of their insolence! nay, even my fool zabastes hath found place in these narrow columns, to write his carping diatribes against me,--me, the king's laureate! ... as i live, his cumbersome diction hath caused me infinite mirth, and i have laughed at his crabbed and feeble wit till my sides have ached most potently! now get thee gone, fellow!--thou and thy news!"--and he nodded a good-humored dismissal to the deferential zibya, who with his woolly gray head very much on one side stood listening gravely and approvingly to all that was said,--"yet stay! ... has gossip whispered thee the name of the poor virgin self-destined for this evening's sacrifice?" "no, my lord"--responded zibya promptly--"'tis veiled in deeper mystery than usual. i have inquired of many, but in vain,--and even the chief flamen of the outside court of the temple, always drunk and garrulous as he is, can tell me naught of the holy victim's title or parentage. 'tis a passing fair wench!' said he, with a chuckle.. 'that is all i know concerning her ... a passing fair wench!' ah!" and zibya rolled up the whites of his eyes and sighed in a comically contemplative manner.. "if ever a flamen deserved expulsion from his office, it is surely yon ancient, crafty, carnal-minded soul! ... so keen a glance for a woman's beauty is not a needful qualification for a servant of the snake divine! methinks we have fallen upon evil days! ... maybe the crazed prophet is right after all, and things are coming to an end!" "like thy discourse, i hope, zibya!" observed sah-luma, yawning and flinging himself lazily back on his velvet couch,--"get hence, and serve thy customers with their cheap news, . . depend upon it, some of them are cursing thee mightily for thy delay! and if thou shouldst chance to meet the singing-maiden of my household, niphrata, bid her make haste homeward,--she hath been absent since the break of morn,--too long for my contentment. maybe i did unwisely to give the child her freedom,--as slave she would not have presumed to gad abroad thus wantonly, without her lord's permission. say, if thou seest her, that i am wrathful,--the thought of mine anger will be as a swift wing to waft her hither like a trembling dove,--afraid, all penitent, and eager for my pardon! remember! ... be sure thou tell her of my deep displeasure!" zibya bowed profoundly, his outspread hands almost touching the floor in the servility of his obeisance, and backed out of the room as humbly as though he were leaving the presence of royalty. when he had gone, theos looked up from the news-scroll he was perusing: "is it not strange niphrata should have left thee thus, sah-luma?".. he said with a touch of anxiety in his tone ... "maybe".. and he hesitated, conscious of a strange, unbidden remorse that suddenly and without any apparent reason overwhelmed his conscience.. "maybe she was not happy?"... "not happy!" ejaculated sah-luma amazedly, "not happy with me? ... not happy in my house,--protected by my patronage? where then, if not here, could she find happiness?" and his beautiful flashing eyes betokened his entire and naive astonishment at the mere supposition. theos smiled involuntarily.. how, charming, after all was sah-luma's sublime egotism!--how almost child-like was his confidence in himself and his own ability to engender joy! all at once the young girl zoralin spoke,--her accents were low and timorous: "may it please my lord sah-luma to hear me..." she said and paused. "thy lord sah-luma hears thee with pleasure, zoralin," replied the laureate gently. "thou dost speak more sweetly than many a bird doth sing!" a rich, warm blush crimsoned the maiden's cheeks at these dulcet words,--she drew a quick, uneasy breath, and then went on,-- "i love niphrata!" she murmured in a soft tone of touching tenderness, . . "and i have watched her often when she deemed herself unseen, . . she has, methinks, shed many tears for sake of some deep, heart-buried sorrow! we have lived as sisters, sharing the same room, and the same couch of sleep, but alas! in spite of all my lord's most constant kindly favor, niphrata is not happy, ..and.. and i have sometimes thought--" here her mellow voice sank into a nervous indistinctness--"that it may be because she loves my lord sah-luma far too well!" and as she said this she looked up with a sudden affright in her dark, lovely eyes, as though she were alarmed at her own presumption. sah-luma met her troubled gaze calmly and with a bright smile of complacent vanity. "and dost thou plead for thine absent friend, zoralin?" ... he asked with just sufficient satire in his utterance to render it almost cruel.. "am i to blame for the foolish fancies of all the amorous maidens in al-kyris? ... many there be who love me, . . well,--what then?--must i love many in return? nay! not so! the poet is the worshiper of ideal beauty, and for him the brief passions of mortal men and women serve as mere pastime to while away an hour! but.. by my faith, thou hast gained wondrous boldness in thy speech to prate so glibly of the heart's emotion,--what knowest thou concerning such things.. thou, who hast counted scarcely fifteen summers! ... hast thou caught contagion from niphrata, and art thou too, sick of love?" oh, the dazzling smile with which he accompanied this poignant question! ... the pitiless, burning ardor he managed to convey into the sleeping brilliancy of his soft, poetic eyes! ... the beautiful languor of his attitude, as leaning his head back easily on one arm, he turned upon the shrinking girl a look that seemed intended to pierce into the very inmost recesses of her soul! the roseate color faded from her cheeks, . . white as a marble image she stood, her breath coming between her lips in quick, frightened gasps... "my lord! ..." she stammered ... "i ..." here her voice failed her, and suddenly covering her face with her hands, she broke into a passion of weeping. sah-luma's delicate brows darkened into a close frown,--and he waved his hand with a petulant gesture of impatience. "ye gods! what fools are women!" he said wearily. "ever hovering uncertainly on a narrow verge between silly smiles and sillier tears! as i live, they are most uncomfortable play-fellows!--and dwelling with them long would drive all the inspiration out of man, no matter how nobly he were gifted! ye butterflies--ye little fluttering souls!" and beginning to laugh as readily as he had frowned, he addressed the other maidens, who, though they did not dare to move or speak, were evidently affected by the grief of their companion--"go hence all!-and take this sensitive baby, zoralin, into your charge, and console her for her fancied troubles--'tis a mere frenzy of feminine weakness, and will pass like an april shower. but, ... by the sacred veil!--if i saw much of woman's weeping, i would discard forever woman's company, and dwell in peaceful hermit fashion alone among the treetops! ... so heed the warning, pretty ones! ... let me witness none of your tears if ye are wise,--or else say farewell to sah-luma, and seek some less easy and less pleasing service!" with this injunction he signed to them all to depart,--whereupon the awed and trembling girls noiselessly surrounded the still convulsively sobbing zoralin, and gently leading her away, they quickly withdrew, each one making a profound obeisance to their imperious master ere leaving his presence. when they had finally disappeared sah-luma heaved a sigh of relief. "can anything equal the perverseness of these frivolous feminine toys!" he murmured pettishly, turning his head round toward theos as he spoke--"was ever a more foolish child than zoralin? ... just as i would fain have consoled her for her pricking heartache, she must needs pour out a torrent of tear-drops to change my humor and quench her own delight! 'tis the most irksome inconsistency!" theos glanced at him with a vague emotion of wonder and self-reproachful sadness. "nay, wouldst thou indeed have consoled her, sah-luma?" he inquired gravely, "how?" "how?" and sah-luma laughed musically.. "my simple friend, dost thou ask me such a babe's question?"... he sprang from his couch, and standing erect, pushed his clustering dark hair off his wide, bold brows. . "am i disfigured, aged, lame, or crooked-limbed? ... cannot these arms embrace?--these lips engender kisses?--these eyes wax amorous? ... and shall not one brief hour of love with me console the weariest maid that ever pined for passion? ... now, by my faith, how solemn is thy countenance! ... art thou an anchorite, good theos, and wouldst thou have me scourge my flesh and groan, because the gods have given me youth and vigorous manhood?" he drew himself up with an inimitable gesture of pride,--his attitude was statuesque and noble,--and theos looked at him as he would have looked at a fine picture, with a sense of critically satisfied admiration. "most assuredly i am no anchorite, sah-luma!" he said smiling slightly, yet with a touch of sorrow in his voice. "but methinks the consolement thou wouldst offer to enamoured maids is far more dangerous than lasting! thy love to them means ruin,--thy embraces shame,--thy unthinking passion death! what!--wilt thou be a spendthrift of desire?--wilt thou drain the fond souls of women as a bee drains the sweetness of flowers?--wilt thou, being honey-cloyed, behold them droop and wither around thee, and wilt thou leave them utterly destroyed and desolate? hast thou no vestige of a heart, my friend? a poet-heart, to feel the misery of the world? ..the patient grief of all-appealing nature, commingled with the dreadful, yet majestic silence of an unknown god? ... oh, surely, thou hast this supremest gift of genius, . . this loving, enduring, faithful, sympathetic heart! ... for without it, how shall thy fame be held long in remembrance? ... how shall thy muse-grown laurels escape decay? tell me! ..." and leaning forward he caught his friend's hand in his eagerness.. "thou art not made of stone, . . thou art human, . . thou art not exempt from mortal suffering ..." "not exempt--no!" interposed sah-luma thoughtfully ... "but, as yet,--i have never really suffered!" "never really suffered!".. theos dropped the hand he held, and an invisible barrier seemed to rise slowly up between him and his beautiful companion. never really suffered! ... then he was no true poet after all, if he was ignorant of sorrow! if he could not spiritually enter into the pathos of speechless griefs and unshed tears,--if he could not absorb into his own being the prayers and plaints of all creation, and utter them aloud in burning and immortal language, his calling was in vain, his election futile! this thought smote theos with the strength of a sudden blow,--he sat silent, and weighed with a dreary feeling of disappointment to which he was unable to give any fitting expression. "i have never really suffered ..." repeated sah-luma slowly: . . "but--i have imagined suffering! that is enough for me! the passions, the tortures, the despairs of imagination are greater far than the seeming real, petty afflictions with which human beings daily perplex themselves; indeed, i have often wondered.. "here his eyes grew more earnest and reflective ..." whether this busy working of the brain called 'imagination' may not perhaps be a special phase or supreme effort of memory, and that therefore we do not imagine so much as we remember. for instance,--if we have ever lived before, our present recollection may, in certain exalted states of the mind, serve to bring back the shadow-pictures of things long gone by, . . good or evil deeds, . . scenes of love and strife, . . ethereal and divine events, in which we have possibly enacted each our different parts as unwittingly as we enact them here!".. he sighed and seemed somewhat troubled, but presently continued in a lighter tone.. "yet, after all, it is not necessary for the poet to personally experience the emotions whereof he writes. the divine hyspiros depicts murderers, cowards, and slaves in his sublime tragedies,--but thinkest thou it was essential for him to become a murderer, coward, and slave himself in order to delineate these characters? and i ... i write of love,--love spiritual, love eternal,--love fitted for the angels i have dreamt of--but not for such animals as men,--and what matters it that i know naught of such love, . . unless perchance i knew it years ago in some far-off fairer sphere! ... for me the only charm of worth in woman is beauty! ... beauty! ... to its entrancing sway my senses all make swift surrender ..." "oh, too swift and too degrading a surrender!" interrupted theos suddenly with reproachful vehemence ... "thy words do madden patience!--better a thousand times that thou shouldst perish, sah-lama, now in the full plenitude of thy poet-glory, than thus confess thyself a prey to thine own passions,--a credulous victim of lysia's treachery!" for one second the laureate stood amazed, . . the next, he sprang upon his guest and grasping him fiercely by the throat. "treachery?" he muttered with white lips.. "treachery? ... darest thou speak of treachery and lysia in the same breath? ... o thou rash fool! dost thou blaspheme my lady's name and yet not fear to die?" and his lithe brown fingers tightened their clutch. but theos cared nothing for his own life,--some inward excitation of feeling kept him resolute and perfectly controlled. "kill me, sah-luma!" he gasped--"kill me, friend whom i love! ... death will be easy at thy hands! deprive me of my sad existence, . . 'tis better so, than that _i_ should have slain thee last night at lysia's bidding!" at this, sah-luma suddenly released his hold and started backward with a sharp cry of anguish, . . his face was pale, and his beautiful eyes grew strained and piteous. "slain me! ... me! ... at lysia's bidding!" he murmured wildly.. "o ye gods, the world grows dark! is the sun quenched in heaven? ... at lysia's bidding! ..nay, . . by my soul, my sight is dimmed! ... i see naught but flaring red in the air, . . why! ..." and he laughed discordantly.. "thou poor theos, thou shalt use no dagger's point,--for lo! ... i am dead already! ... thy words have killed me! go, . . tell her how well her cruel mission hath sped,--my very soul is slain...at her bidding! hasten to her, wilt thou!".. and his accents trembled with pathetic plaintiveness! ... "say i am gone! ... lost! drawn into a night of everlasting blackness like a taper blown swiftly out by the wind, . . tell her that sah-luma,--the poet sah-luma, the foolish-credulous sah-luma who loved her so madly is no more!" his voice broke, . . his head drooped, . . while theos, whose every nerve throbbed in responsive sympathy with the passion of his despair, strove to think of some word of comfort, that like soothing balm might temper the bitterness of his chafed and wounded spirit, but could find none. for it was a case in which the truth must be told, . . and truth is always hard to bear if it destroys, or attempts to destroy, any one of our cherished self-delusions! "my friend, my friend!" he said presently with gentle earnestness,--"control this fury of thy heart! ... why such unmanly sorrow for one who is not worthy of thee?" sah-luma looked up,--his black, silky lashes were wet with tears. "not worthy! ... oh, the old poor consolation!" he exclaimed, quickly dashing the drops from his eyes, . . "not worthy?--no! ... what mortal woman is ever worthy of a poet's love?--not one in all the world! nevertheless, worthy or unworthy, true or treacherous, naught can make lysia otherwise than fair! fair beyond all fairness! ... and i--i was sole possessor of her beauty!--for me her eyes warmed into stars of fire,--for me her kisses ripened in their pearl and ruby nest, . . all--all for me!--and now! ..." he flung himself desolately on his couch, and fixed his wistful gaze on his companion's grave, pained countenance,--till all at once a hopeful light flashed across his features, . . a light that seemed to shine through him like an inwardly kindled flame. "ah! what a querulous fool am i!" he cried, joyously,--so joyously that theos knew not whether to be glad or sorry at his sudden and capricious change of mood.. "why should i thus bemoan myself for fancied wrong?--good, noble theos, thou hast been misled!--my lysia's words were but to try thy mettle! ... to test thee to the core, and prove thee truly faithful as sah-luma's friend! she bade thee slay me! ... even so!--but hadst thou rashly undertaken such a deed, thine own life would have paid the forfeit! now i begin to understand it all--'tis plain!"--and his face grew brighter and brighter, as he cheated himself into the pleasing idea his own fancy had suggested.. "she tried thee,--she tempted thee, . . she found thee true and incorruptible.. ah! 'twas a jest, my friend!"--and entirely recovering from his depression, he clapped his hand heartily on theos's shoulder--"'twas all a jest!--and she the fair inquisitor will herself prove it so ere long, and make merry with our ill-omened fears! why, i can laugh now at mine own despondency!--come, look thou also more cheerily, gentle theos,--and pardon these uncivil fingers that so nearly gripped thee into silence!"--and he laughed--"thou art the best and kindest of loyal comrades, and i will so assure lysia of thy merit, that she shall institute no more torture-trials upon thy frank and trusting nature. heigho!"--and stretching out his arms lazily, he heaved a sigh of tranquil satisfaction--"methought i was wounded into death! but 'twas the mere fancied prick of an arrow after all, and i am well again! what, art thou still melancholy! ... still sombre! ... nay, surely thou wilt not be a veritable kill-joy!" theos stood mute and sorely perplexed. he saw at once how useless it was now to try and convince sah luma of any danger threatening him through the instigation of the woman he loved,--he would never believe it! and yet ... something must be done to put him on his guard. taking up the scroll of the public news, where the account of the finding of the body of nir-jalis was written with all that exaggerated attention to repulsive details which seems to be a special gift of the cheap re-porters, theos pointed to it. "his was a cruel end!"--he said in a low, uncertain voice,--"sah-luma, canst thou expect mercy from a woman who has once been so merciless?" "bah!" returned the laureate lightly. "who and what was nir-jalis? a hewer of stone images--a no-body!--he will not be missed! besides, he is only one of many who have perished thus." "only one of many!" ejaculated theos with a shudder of aversion.. "and yet, . . o thou most reckless and misguided soul! ... thou dost love this wanton murderess!" a warm flush tinted sah-luma's olive skin,--his hands clenched and unclenched slowly as though he held some struggling, prisoned thing, and raising his head he looked at his companion full and steady with a singularly solemn and reproving expression in his luminous eyes. "hast thou not loved her also?" he demanded, a faint, serious smile curving his lips as he spoke, . . "if only for the space of some few passing moments, was not thy soul ravished, thy heart enslaved, thy manhood conquered by her spell? ... aye! ... thou dost shrink at that!" and his smile deepened as theos, suddenly conscience-stricken, avoided his friend's too-scrutinizing gaze.. "blame me not, therefore, for thine own weakness!" he paused.. then went on slowly with a meditative air.. "i love her, ... yes!--as a man must always love the woman that baffles him, ... the woman whose moods are complex and fluctuating as the winds on the sea,--and whose humor sways between the softness of the dove and the fierceness of the tiger. nothing is more fatally fascinating to the masculine sense than such a creature,--more especially if to this temperament is united rare physical grace, combined with keen intellectual power. 'tis vain to struggle against the irresistible witchery exercised over us by the commingling of beauty and ferocity,--we see it in the wild animals of the forest and the high-soaring birds of the air,--and we like nothing better than to hunt it, capture it, tame it.. or.. kill it--as suits our pleasure!" he paused again,--and again smiled, . . a grave, reluctant, doubting smile such as seemed to theos oddly familiar, suggesting to his bewildered fancy that he must have seen it before, on his own face, reflected in a mirror! "even thus do i love lysia!" continued sah-luma--"she perplexes me, . . she opposes her will to mine, ... the very irritation and ferment into which i am thrown by her presence adds fire to my genius, . . and but for the spur of this never-satiated passion, who knows whether i should sing so well!" he was silent for a little space--then he resumed in a more ordinary tone: "the wretched nir-jalis, whose fate thou dost so persistently deplore, deserved his end for his presumption, ... didst thou not hear his insolent insinuation concerning the king?" "i heard it--yes!" replied theos--"and i saw no harm in the manner of his utterance." "no harm!" exclaimed sah-luma excitedly--"no harm! nay, but i forget! ... thou art a stranger in al-kyris, and therefore thou art ignorant of the last words spoken by the sacred oracle some hundred years or more ago. they are these: "'when the high priestess is the king's mistress then fall al-kyris!' 'tis absolute doggerel, and senseless withal,--nevertheless, it has caused the enactment of a law, which is to the effect that the reigning monarch of al-kyris shall never, under any sort of pretext, confer with the high priestess of the temple on any business whatsoever,--and that, furthermore, he shall never be permitted to look upon her face except at times of public service and state ceremonials. now dost thou not at once perceive how vile were the suggestions of nir-jalis, . . and also how foolish was thy fancy last night with regard to the armed masquerader thou didst see in lysia's garden?" theos made no reply, but sat absorbed in his own reflections. he began now to understand much that had before seemed doubtful and mysterious,--no wonder, he thought, that zephoranim's fury against the audacious khosrul had been so excessive! for had not the crazed prophet called lysia an "unvirgined virgin and queen-courtesan"? ... and, according to sah-luma's present explanation, nothing more dire and offensive in the way of open blasphemy could be uttered! yet the question still remained--, was khosrul right or wrong? this was a problem which theos longed to investigate and yet recoiled from,--instinctively he felt that upon its answer hung the fate of al-kyris,--and also, what just then seemed more precious than anything else,--the life of sah-luma. he could not decide with himself why this was so,--he simply accepted his own inward assurance that so it was. presently he inquired: "how comes it, sah-luma, that the corpse of nir-jalis was found on the shores of the river? did we not see it weighted with iron and laid elsewhere...?" "o simpleton!" laughed sah-luma--"thinkest thou lysia's lake of lilies is a common grave for criminals? the body of nir-jalis sank therein, 'tis true, . . but was there no after-means of lifting it from thence, and placing it where best such carrion should be found? hath not the high priestess of nagaya slaves enough to work her will? ... verily thou dost trouble thyself overmuch concerning these trivial every-day occurences,--i marvel at thee!--hundreds have drained the silver nectar gladly for so fair a woman's sake,--hundreds will drain it gladly still for the mere privilege of living some brief days in the presence of such peerless beauty! ... but,--speaking of the river--didst thou remark it on thy way hither?" "aye!" responded theos dreamily--"'twas red as blood"!" "strange!" and sah-luma looked thoughtful for an instant, then rousing himself, said lightly, "'tis from some simple cause, no doubt--yet 'twill create a silly panic in the city--and all the fanatics for khosrul's new creed will creep forth, shouting afresh their prognostications of death and doom. by my faith, 'twill be a most desperate howling! ... and i'll not walk abroad till the terror hath abated. moreover, i have work to do,--some lately budded thoughts of mine have ripened into glorious conclusion,--and zabastes hath orders presently to attend me that he may take my lines down from mine own dictation. thou shalt hear a most choice legend of love an thou wilt listen--" here he laid his hand affectionately on theos's shoulder--"a legend set about, methinks, with wondrous jewels of poetic splendor! ... 'tis a rare privilege i offer thee, my friend, for as a rule zabastes is my only auditor,--but i would swear thou art no plagiarist, and wouldst not dishonor thine own intelligence so far as to filch pearls of fancy from another minstrel! as well steal my garments as my thoughts!--for verily the thoughts are the garments of the poet's soul,--and the common thief of things petty and material is no whit more contemptible than he who robs an author of ideas wherein to deck the bareness of his own poor wit! come, place thyself at ease upon this cushioned couch, and give me thy attention, ... i feel the fervor rising within me, ... i will summon zabastes, ..." here he pulled a small silken cord which at once set a clanging bell echoing loudly through the palace, ... "and thou shalt freely hear, and freely judge, the last offspring of my fertile genius,--my lyrical romance 'nourhalma!'" theos started violently, ... he had the greatest difficulty to restrain the anguished cry that arose to his lips. "nourhalma!" o memory! ... slow-filtering, reluctant memory! ... why, why was his brain thus tortured with these conflicting pang, of piteous recollection! little by little, like sharp deep stabs of nervous suffering, there came back to him a few faint, fragmentary suggestions which gradually formed themselves into a distinct and comprehensive certainty, . . "nourhalma" was the title of his own poem,--the poem he had written, surely not so very long ago, among the mountains of the pass of dariel! chapter xxiii. "nourhalma." his first emotion on making this new mental rediscovery was, as it had been before in the king's audience-hall, one of absolute terror, ... feverish, mad terror which for a few moments possessed him so utterly that, turning away, he buried his aching head among the cushion where he reclined, in order to hide from his companion's eyes any outward sign that might betray his desperate misery. clenching his hands convulsively, he silently, and with all his strength, combated the awful horror of himself that grew up spectrally within him,--the dreadful, distracting uncertainty of his own identity that again confused his brain and paralyzed his reason. at last, he thought wildly, at last he knew the meaning of hell! ... the frightful spiritual torment of a baffled intelligence set adrift among the wrecks and shadows of things that had formerly been its pride and glory! what was any physical suffering compared to such a frenzy of mind-agony? nothing! ... less than nothing! this was the everlasting thirst and fire spoken of so vaguely by prophets and preachers,--the thirst and fire of the soul's unquenchable longing to unravel the dismal tangle of its own bygone deeds, . . the striving forever in vain to steadfastly establish the wavering mystery of its own existence! "o god! ... god!--what hast thou made of me!" he groaned inwardly, as he endeavored to calm the tempest of his unutterable despair,--"who am i? ... who was i in that far past which, like the pale spirit of a murdered friend, haunts me so indistinctly yet so threateningly! surely the gift of poesy was mine! ... surely i too could weave the harmony of words and thoughts into a sweet and fitting music, . . how comes it then that all sah-luma's work is but the reflex of my own? o woeful, strange, and bitter enigma! ... when shall it be unraveled? 'nourhalma!' 'twas the name of what i deemed my masterpiece! ... o silly masterpiece, if it prove thus easy of imitation! ... yet stay.. let me be patient! ... titles are often copied unconsciously by different authors in different lands, . . and it may chance that sah-luma's poem is after all his own,--not mine. not mine, as were the ballads and the love-ode he chanted to the king last night! ... o destiny! ... inscrutable, pitiless destiny! ... rescue my tortured soul from chaos! ... declare unto me who,--who is the plagiarist and thief of song.. myself or sah-luma?" the more he perplexed his mind with such questions, the deeper grew the darkness of the inexplicable dilemma, to which a fresh obscurity was now added in his suddenly distinct and distressful remembrance of the "pass of dariel." where was this place, he wondered wearily?--when had he seen it? whom had he met there?--and how had he come to al-kyris from thence? no answer could his vexed brain shape to these demands, . . he recollected the "pass of dariel" just as he recollected the "field of ardath"--without the least idea as to what connection existed between them and his own personal adventures. presently controlling himself, he raised his head and ventured to look up,--sah-luma stood beside him, his fine face expressive of an amiable solicitude. "was the sunshine too strong, my friend, that thou didst thus bury thine eyes in thy pillow?" he inquired ... "pardon my discourteous lack of consideration for thy comfort! ... i love the sun myself so well that methinks i could meet his burning rays at full noon-day and yet take pleasure in the warmth of such a golden smile! but thou perchance art unaccustomed to the light of eastern lands,--wherefore thy brows must not be permitted to ache on, uncared for. see!--i have lowered the awnings, . . they give a pleasant shade,--and in very truth, the heat to-day is greater far than ordinary; one would think the gods had kindled some new fire in heaven!" and as he spoke he took up a long palm-leaf fan and waved it to and fro with an exquisitely graceful movement of wrist and arm, while theos gazing at him in mute admiration, forgot his own griefs for the time in the subtle, strange, and absorbing spell exercised upon him by his host's irresistible influence. just then, too, sah-luma appeared handsomer than ever in the half-subdued tints of radiance that flickered through the lowered pale-blue silken awnings: the effect of the room thus shadowed was as of a soft azure mountain mist lit sideways by the sun,--a mist through which the white-garmented, symmetrical figure of the laureate stood forth in curiously brilliant outlines, as though every curve of supple shoulder and proud throat was traced with a pencil of pure light. scarcely a breath of air made its way through the wide-open casements--the gentle dashing noise of the fountains in the court alone disturbed the deep, warm stillness of the morning, or the occasional sweeping rustle of peacocks' plumes as these stately birds strutted majestically up and down, up and down, on the marble terrace outside. soothed by the luxurious peace of his surroundings, the delirium of theos's bewildering affliction gradually abated,--his tempest-tossed mind regained to a certain extent its equilibrium,--and falling into easy converse with his fascinating companion, he was soon himself again,--that is, as much himself as his peculiar condition permitted him to be. yet he was not altogether free from a certain eager and decidedly painful suspense with regard to the "nourhalma" problem,--and he was conscious of what he in his own opinion considered an absurd and unnecessary degree of excitement, when the door of the apartment presently opened to admit zabastes, who entered, carrying several sheets of papyrus and other material for writing. the old critic's countenance was expressively glum and ironical,--he, however, was compelled, like all the other paid servants of the household, to make a low and respectful obeisance as soon as he found himself in sah-luma's presence,--an act of homage which, he performed awkwardly, and with evident ill-will. his master nodded condescendingly in response to his reluctant salute, and signed to him to take his place at a richly carved writing-table adorned with the climbing figures of winged cupids exquisitely wrought in ivory. he obeyed, shuffling thither uneasily, and sniffing the rose-fragrant air as he went like an ill-conditioned cur scenting a foe,--and seating himself in a high-backed chair, he arranged his garments fussily about him, rolled up his long embroidered sleeves to the elbow, and spread his writing implements all over the desk in front of him with much mock-solemn ostentation. then, rubbing his lean hands together, he gave a stealthy glance of covert derision round at sah-luma and theos,--a glance which theos saw and in his heart resented, but which sah-luma, absorbed in his own reflections, apparently failed to notice. "all is in readiness, my lord!" he announced in his disagreeable croaking tones,--"here are the clean and harmless slips of river-reed waiting to be soiled and spotted with my lord's indelible thoughts,--here also are the innocent quills of the white heron, as yet unstained by colored writing-fluid whether black, red, gold, silver, or purple! mark you, most illustrious bard, the touching helplessness and purity of these meek servants of a scribbler's fancy! ... blank papyrus and empty quills! bethink you seriously whether it were not better to leave them thus unblemished, the simple products of unfaulty nature, than use them to indite the wondrous things of my lord's imagination, whereof, all wondrous though they seem, no man shall ever be the wiser!" and he chuckled, stroking his stubbly gray beard the while with a blandly suggestive, yet malign look directed at sah-luma, who met it with a slight, cold smile of faintly amused contempt. "peace, fool!" he said,--"that barbarous tongue of thine is like the imperfect clapper of a broken bell that strikes forth harsh and undesired sounds suggesting nothing! thy present duty is to hear, and not to speak,--therefore listen discerningly and write with exactitude, so shall thy poor blank scrolls of reed grow rich with gems, . . gems of high poesy that the whole world shall hoard and cherish miser-like when the poet who created their bright splendor is no more!" he sighed--a short, troubled sigh,--and stood for a moment silent in an attitude of pensive thought. theos watched him yearningly,--waiting in almost breathless suspense till he should dictate aloud the first line of his poem. zabastes meanwhile settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and taking up one of the long quills with which he was provided, dipped it in a reddish-purple liquid which at once stained its point to a deep roseate hue, so that when the light flickered upon it from time to time, it appeared as though it were tipped with fire. how intense the heat was, thought theos!--as with one hand he pushed his clustering hair from his brow, not without noticing that his action was imitated almost at once by sah-luma, who also seemed to feel the oppressiveness of the atmosphere. and what a blaze of blue pervaded the room! ... delicate ethereal blue as of shimmering lakes and summer skies melted together into one luminous radiance, ... radiance that, while filmy, was yet perfectly transparent, and in which the laureate's classic form appeared to be gloriously enveloped like that of some new descended god! theos rubbed his eyes to cure them of their dazzled ache, . . what a marvellous scene it was to look upon, he mused! ... would he,--could he ever forget it? ah no!--never, never! not till his dying day would he be able to obliterate it from his memory,--and who could tell whether even after death he might not still recall it! just then sah-luma raised his hand by way of signal to zabastes, . . his face became earnest, pathetic, even grand in the fervent concentration of his thoughts, ... he was about to begin his dictation, ... now ... now! ... and theos leaned forward nervously, his heart beating with apprehensive expectation ... hush! ... the delicious, suave melody of his friend's voice penetrated the silence like the sweet harmonic of a harp-string.. "write--" said he slowly.. "write first the title of my poem thus: 'nourhalma: a love-legend of the past.'" there was a pause, during which the pen of zabastes traveled quickly over the papyrus for a moment, then stopped. theos, almost suffocated with anxiety, could hardly maintain even the appearance of calmness,--the title proclaimed, with its second appendage, was precisely the same as that of his own work--but this did not now affect him so much. what he waited for with such painfully strained attention was the first line of the poem. if it was his line he knew it already!--it ran thus: "a central sorrow dwells in perfect joy!--" scarcely had he repeated this to himself inwardly, than sah-luma, with majestic grace and sweetness of utterance, dictated aloud: "a central sorrow dwells in perfect joy!" "ah god!" the sharp cry, half fierce, half despairing, broke from theos's quivering lips in spite of all the efforts he made to control his agitation, and the laureate turned toward him with a surprised and somewhat irritated movement that plainly evinced annoyance at the interruption. "pardon, sah-luma!" he murmured hastily. "'twas a slight pang at the heart troubled me,--a mere nothing!--i take shame to myself to have cried out for such a pin's prick! speak on!--thy first line is as soft as honey dew,--as suggestive as the light of dawn on sleeping flowers!" and, leaning dizzily back on his couch, he closed his eyes to shut in the hot and bitter tears that welled up rebelliously and threatened to fall, notwithstanding his endeavor to restrain them. his head throbbed and burned as though a chaplet of fiery thorns encircled it, instead of the once desired crown of fame he had so fondly dreamed of winning! fame? ... alas! that bright, delusive vision had fled forever,--there were no glory-laurels left growing for him in the fields of poetic art and aspiration,--sah-luma, the fortunate sah-luma, had gathered and possessed them all! taking everything into serious consideration, he came at last to the deeply mortifying conclusion that it must be himself who was the plagiarist,--the unconscious imitator of sah-luma's ideas and methods, . . and the worst of it was that his imitation was so terribly exact! oh, how heartily he despised himself for his poor and pitiful lack of originality! down to the very depths of humiliation he sternly abased his complaining, struggling, wounded, and sorely resentful spirit, . . he then and there became the merciless executioner of his own claims to literary honor,--and deliberately crushing all his past ambition, mutinous discontent and uncompliant desires with a strong master-hand he lay quiet...as patiently unmoved as is a dead man to the wrongs inflicted on his memory...and forced himself to listen resignedly to every glowing line of his, . . no, not his, but sah-luma's poem, . . the lovely, gracious, delicate, entrancing poem he remembered so well! and by and by, as each mellifluous stanza sounded softly on his ears, a strangely solemn tranquillity swept over him,--a most soothing halcyon calm, as though some passing angel's hand had touched his brow in benediction. he looked at sah-luma, not enviously now but all admiringly,--it seemed to him that he had never heard a sweeter, tenderer music than the story of "nourhalma" as recited by his friend. and so to that friend he silently awarded his own wished-for glory, praise, and everlasting fame!--that glory, praise, and fame which had formerly allured his fancy as being the best of all the world could offer, but which he now entirely and willingly relinquished in favor of this more deserving and dear comrade, whose superior genius he submissively acknowledged! there was a great quietness everywhere,--the rising and falling inflections of sah-luma's soft, rich voice rather, deepened than disturbed the stillness,--the pen of zabastes glided noiselessly over the slips of papyrus,--and the small sounds of the outer air, such as the monotonous hum of bees among the masses of lily-bloom that towered in white clusters between the festooned awnings, the thirsty twitterimg of birds hiding under the long palm leaves to shelter themselves from the heat, and the incessant splash of the fountains, ... all seemed to be, as it were, mere appendages to enhance the breathless hush of nature. presently sah-luma paused,--and zabastes, heaving a sigh of relief, looked up from his writing, and laid down his pen. 'the work is finished, most illustrious?" he demanded, a curious smile playing on his thin, satirical lips. "finished?" echoed sah-luma disdainfully--"nay,--'tis but the end of the first canto" the scribe gave vent to a dismal groan. "ye gods!" he exclaimed--"is there more to come of this bombastic ranting and vile torturing of phrases unheard of and altogether unnatural! o sah-luma!--marvellous sah-luma! twaddler sah-luma! what a brain box is thine! ... how full of dislocated word-puzzles and similes gone mad! now, as i live, expect no mercy from me this time!".. and he shook his head threateningly,--"for if the public news sheet will serve me as mine anvil, i will so pound thee in pieces with the sledge-hammer of my criticism, that, by the ship of the sun! ... for once al-kyns shall be moved to laughter at thee! mark me, good tuner-up of tinkling foolishness! ... i will so choose out and handle thy feeblest lines that they shall seem but the doggerel of a street ballad monger! i will give so bald an epitome of this sickly love-tale that it shall appeal to all who read my commentary the veriest trash that ever poet penned! ... moreover, i can most admirably misquote thee, and distort thy meanings with such excellent bitter jesting, that thou thyself shall scarcely recognize thine own production! by nagaya's shrine! what a feast 'twill be for my delectation!"--and he rubbed his hands gleefully--"with what a weight of withering analysis i can pulverize this idol of 'nourhalma' into the dust and ashes of a common sense contempt!" while zabastes thus spoke, sah-luma had helped himself, by way of refreshment, to two ripe figs, in whose luscious crimson pulp his white teeth met, with all the enjoying zest of a child's healthy appetite. he now held up the rind and stalks of these devoured delicacies, and smiled. 'thus wilt thou swallow up my poem in thy glib clumsiness, zabastes!" he said lightly--"and thus wilt them hold up the most tasteless portions of the whole for the judgment of the public! 'tis the manner of thy craft,--yet see!"--and with a dexterous movement of his arm he threw the fruit-peel through the window far out into the garden beyond--"there goes thy famous criticism!" and he laughed.. "and those that taste the fruit itself at first hand will not soon forget its flavor! nevertheless i hope indeed that thou wilt strive to slaughter me with thy blunt paper sword! i do most mirthfully relish the one-sided combat, in which i stand in silence to receive thy blows, myself unhurt and tranquil as a marble god whom ruffians rail upon! do i not pay thee to abuse me? ... here, thou crusty soul!--drink and be content!"--and with a charming condescension he handed a full goblet of wine to his cantankerous critic, who accepted it ungraciously, muttering in his beard the necessary words of thanks for his master's consideration,--then, turning to theos, the laureate continued: "and thou, my friend, what dost thou think of 'nourhalma' so far? hath it not a certain exquisite smoothness of rhythm like the ripple of a woodland stream clear-winding through the reeds? ... and is there not a tender witchery in the delineation of my maiden-heroine, so warmly fair, so wildly passionate? methinks she doth resemble some rich flower of our tropic fields, blooming at sunset and dead at moonrise!" theos waited a moment before replying. truth to tell, he was inwardly overcome with shame to remember how wantonly he had copied the description of this same nourhalma! ... and plaintively he wondered how he could have unconsciously committed so flagrant a theft! summoning up all his self-possession, however, he answered bravely. "thy work, sah-luma, is worthy of thyself! ... need i say more? ... thou hast most aptly proved thy claim upon, the whole world's gratitude, ... such lofty thoughts, . . such noble discourse upon love,--such high philosophy, wherein the deepest, dearest dreams of life are grandly pictured in enduring colors,--these things are gifts to poor humanity whereby it must become enriched and proud! thy name, bright soul, shall be as a quenchless star on the dark brows of melancholy time, . . men gazing thereat shall wonder and adore,--and even _i_, the least among thy friends, may also win from thee a share of glory! for, simply to know thee,--to listen to thy heaven-inspired utterance, might bring the most renownless student some reflex of thine honor! yes, thou art great, sah-luma! ... great as the greatest of earth's gifted sons of song!--and with all my heart i offer thee my homage, and pride myself upon the splendor of thy fame!" and as the eager, enthusiastic words came from his lips, he beheld sah-luma's beautiful countenance brighten more and more, till it appeared mysteriously transfigured into a majestic angel-face that for one brief moment startled him by the divine tenderness of its compassionate smile! this expression, however, was transitory,--it passed, and the dark eyes of the laureate gleamed with a merely serene and affectionate complacency as he said: "i thank thee for thy praise, good theos!--thou art indeed the friendliest of critics! hadst thou thyself been the author of 'nourhalma' thou couldst not have spoken with more ardent feeling! were zabastes like thee, discerningly just and reasonable, he would be all unfit for his vocation,--for 'tis an odd circumstance that praise in the public news-sheet does a writer more harm than good, while ill-conditioned and malicious abuse doth very materially increase and strengthen his reputation. yet, after all, there is a certain sense in the argument,--for if much eulogy be penned by the cheap scribes, the reading populace at once imagine these fellows have been bribed to give their over-zealous approval, or that they are close friends and banquet-comrades of the author whom they arduously uphold, . . whereas, on the contrary, if they indulge in bitter invective, flippant gibing, or clumsy satire, like my amiable zabsastes here..." and he made an airy gesture toward the silent yet evidently chafing critic, .."(and, mark you!-he is not bribed, but merely paid fair wages to fulfil his chosen and professed calling)--why, thereupon the multitude exclaim--'what! this poet hath such enemies?--nay, then, how great a genius he must be!"--and forthwith they clamor for his work, which, if it speak not for itself, is then and only then to be deemed faulty, and meriting oblivion. 'tis the people's verdict which alone gives fame." "and yet the people are often ignorant of what is noblest and best in literature!" observed theos musingly. "ignorant in some ways, yes!" agreed sah-luma--"but in many others, no! they may be ignorant as to why they admire a certain thing, yet they admire it all the same, because their natural instinct leads them so to do. and this is the special gift which endows the uncultured masses with an occasional sweeping advantage over the cultured few,--the superiority of their instinct. as in cases of political revolution for example,--while the finely educated orator is endeavoring by all the force of artful rhetoric to prove that all is in order and as it should be, the mob, moved by one tremendous impulse, discover for themselves that everything is wrong, and moreover that nothing will come right, unless they rise up and take authority, . . accordingly, down go the thrones and the colleges, the palaces, the temples, and the law-assemblies, all like so many toys before the resistless instinct of the people, who revolt at injustice, and who feel and know when they are injured, though they are not clever enough to explain where their injury lies. and so, as they cannot talk about it coherently, any more than a lion struck by an arrow can give a learned dissertation on his wound, they act, . . and the heat and fury of their action upheaves dynasties! again,--reverting to the question of taste and literature,--the mob, untaught and untrained in the subtilties of art, will applaud to the echo certain grand and convincing home-truths set forth in the plays of the divine hyspiros,--simply because they instinctively feel them to be truths, no matter how far they themselves may be from acting up to the standard of morality therein contained. the more highly cultured will hear the same passages unmoved, because they, in the excess of artificially gained wisdom, have deadened their instincts so far, that while they listen to a truth pronounced, they already consider how best they can confute it, and prove the same a lie! honest enthusiasm is impossible to the over-punctilious and pedantic scholar,--but on the other hand, i would have it plainly understood that a mere brief local popularity is not fame, . . no! for the author who wins the first never secures the last. what i mean is, that a book or poem to be great, and keep its greatness hereafter, must be judged worthy by the natural instinct of peoples. their decision, i own, may be tardy,--their hesitation may be prolonged through a hundred or more years,--but their acceptance, whether it be declared in the author's life-time or ages after his death, must be considered final. i would add, moreover, that this world-wide decision has never yet been, and never will be, hastened by any amount of written criticism,--it is the responsive beat of the enormous pulse of life that thrills through all mankind, high and low, gentle and simple,--its great throbs are slow and solemnly measured,--yet if once it answers to a poet's touch, that poet's name is made glorious forever!" he spoke with a rush of earnestness and eloquence that was both persuasive and powerful, and he now stood silent and absorbed, his dreamy eyes resting meditatively on the massive bust of the immortal personage he called hyspiros, which smiled out in serene, cold whiteness from the velvet-shadowed shrine it occupied. theos watched him with fascinated and fraternal fondness, . . did ever man possess so dulcet a voice, he thought? ... so grave and rich and marvellously musical, yet thrilling with such heart-moving suggestions of mingled pride and plaintiveness? "thou art a most alluring orator, sah-luma!" he said suddenly--"methinks i could listen to thee all day and never tire!" "i' faith, so could not i!" interposed zabastes grimly. "for when a bard begins to gabble goose-like platitudes which merely concern his own vocation, the gods only know when he can be persuaded to stop! nay, 'tis more irksome far than the recitation of his professional jingle--for to that there must in time come a merciful fitting end, but, as i live, if 'twas my custom to say prayers, i would pray to be delivered from the accursed volubility of a versifier's tongue! and perchance it will not be considered out of my line of duty if i venture to remind my most illustrious and renowned master--" this with a withering sneer,--"that if he has any more remarkable nothings to dictate concerning this particularly inane creation of his fancy 'nourhalma,' 'twill be well that we should proceed therewith, for the hours wax late and the sun veereth toward his house of noon." and he spread out fresh slips of papyrus and again prepared his long quill. sah-luma smiled, as one who is tolerant of the whims of a hired buffoon,--and, this time seating himself in his ebony chair, was about to commence dictating his second canto when theos, yielding to his desire to speak aloud the idea that had just flashed across his brain said abruptly: "has it ever seemed to thee, sah-luma, as it now does to me, that there is a strange resemblance between thy imaginative description of the ideal 'nourhalma,' and the actual charms and virtues of thy strayed singing-maid niphrata?" sah-luma looked up, thoroughly astonished, and laughed. "no!--verily i have not traced, nor can i trace the smallest vestige of a similarity! why, good theos, there is none!--not the least in the world,--for this heroine of mine, nourhalma, loves in vain, and sacrifices all, even her innocent and radiant life, for love, as thou wilt hear in the second half of the poem,--moreover she loves one who is utterly unworthy of her faithful tenderness. now niphrata is a child of delicate caprice ... she loves me,--me, her lord,--and methinks i am not negligent or undeserving of her devotion! ... again, she has no strength of spirit,--her timorous blood would freeze at the mere thought of death,--she is more prone to play with flowers and sing for pure delight of heart than perish for the sake of love! 'tis an unequal simile, my friend!--as well compare a fiery planet with a twinkling dewdrop, as draw a parallel between the heroic ideal maid 'nourhalma'--and my fluttering singing-bird, niphrata!" theos sighed involuntarily,--but forcing a smile, let the subject drop and held his peace, while sah-luma, taking up the thread of his poetical narrative, went on reciting. when the story began to ripen toward its conclusion he grew more animated, ... rising, he paced the room as he declaimed the splendid lines that now rolled gloriously one upon another like deep-mouthed billows thundering on the shore,--his gestures were all indicative of the fervor of his inward ecstasy,--his eyes flashed,--his features glowed with that serene, proud light of conscious power and triumph that rests on the calm, wide brows of the sculptured apollo,--and theos, leaning one arm in a half-sitting posture, contemplated him with a curious sensation of wistful eagerness and passionate pain, such as might be felt by some forgotten artist mysteriously permitted to come out of his grave and wander back to earth, there to see his once-rejected pictures hung in places of honor among the world's chief treasures. a strange throb of melancholy satisfaction stirred his pulses as he reflected that he might now, without any self-conceit, at least admire the poem!--since he had decided that was no longer his, but another's, he was free to bestow on it as much as he would of unstinting praise! for it was very fine,--there could be no doubt of that, whatever zabastes might say to the contrary,--and it was not only fine, but intensely, humanly pathetic, seeming to strike a chord of passion such as had never before been sounded,--a chord to which the world would be compelled to listen,--yes,--compelled! thought theos exultingly,--as sah-luma drew nearer and nearer the close of his dictation ... the deep quiet all around was so heavy as to be almost uncomfortable in its oppressiveness,--it exercised a sort of strain upon the nerves ... hark! what was that? through the hot and silent air swept a sullen surging noise as of the angry shouting of a vast multitude,--then came the fast and furious gallop of many horses,--and again that fierce, resentful roar of indignation, swelling up as it seemed from thousands of throats. moved, all three at once, by the same instinctive desire to know what was going on, theos, sah-luma, and zabastes sprang from their different places in the room, and hurried out on the marble terrace, dashing aside the silken awnings as they went in order the better to see the open glimpses of the city thoroughfares that lay below. theos, leaning far out over the western half of the balustrade, was able to command a distant view of the great square in which the huge white granite obelisk occupied so prominent a position, and, fixing his eyes attentively on this spot, saw that it was filled to overflowing with a dense mass of people, whose white-raimented forms, pressed together in countless numbers, swayed restlessly to and fro like the rising waves of a stormy sea. lifted above this troubled throng, one tall, dark figure was distinctly outlined against the dazzling face of the obelisk--a figure that appeared to be standing on the back of the colossal lion that lay couchant beneath. and as theos strained his sight to distinguish the details of the scene more accurately, he suddenly beheld a glittering regiment of mounted men in armor, charging straightly and with cruelly determined speed, right into the centre of the crowd, apparently regardless of all havoc to life and limb that might ensue. involuntarily he uttered an exclamation of horror at what seemed to him so wanton and brutal an act, when just then sah-luma caught him eagerly by the arm,--sah-luma, whose soft, oval countenance was brilliant with excitement, and in whose eyes gleamed a mingled expression of mirth and ferocity. "come, come, my friend!" he said hastily--"yonder is a sight worth seeing! 'tis the mad khosrul who is thus entrenched and fortified by the mob,--as i live, that sweeping gallop of his majesty's royal guards is magnificent! they will seize the prophet this time without fail! aye, if they slay a thousand of the populace in the performance of their duty! come!--let us hasten to the scene of action--'twill be a struggle i would not miss for all the world!" he sprang down the steps of the loggia, accompanied by theos, who was equally excited,--when all at once zabastes, thrusting out his head through a screen of vine-leaves, cried after them: "sah-luma!--most illustrious! what of the poem? it is not finished!" "no matter!" returned sah-luma--"'twill be finished hereafter!" and he hastened on, theos treading close in his footsteps and thinking as he went of the new enigma thus proposed to puzzle afresh the weary workings of his mind. his poem of nourhalma--or rather the poem he had fancied was his--had been entirely completed down to the last line; now sah-luma's was left "to be finished hereafter." strange that he should find a pale glimmering of consolation in this!--a feeble hope that perhaps after all, at some future time, he might be able to produce a few, a very few lines of noble verse that should be deemed purely original! ... enough perchance, to endow him with a faint, far halo of diminished glory such as plodding students occasionally win, by following humbly yet ardently ... even as he now followed sah-luma ... in the paths of excellence marked out by greater men! chapter xxiv. the fall of the obelisk. in less time than he could have imagined possible, he found himself in the densely crowded square, buffeting and struggling against an angry and rebellious mob, who half resentful and half terrified, had evidently set themselves to resist the determined charge made by the mounted soldiery into their midst. for once sah-luma's appearance created no diversion,--he was pushed and knocked about as unceremoniously as if he were the commonest citizen of them all, he seemed carelessly surprised at this, but nevertheless took his hustling very good humoredly, and, keeping his shoulders well squared forced his way with theos by slow degrees through the serried ranks of people, many of whom, roused to a sort of frenzy threw themselves in front of the advancing horses of the guard, and seizing the reins held on to these like grim death, reckless of all danger. as yet no weapons were used either by the soldiers or the populace,--the former seemed for the present contented to simply ride down those who impeded their progress,--and that they had done so in terrible earnest was plainly evident from the numbers of wounded creatures that lay scattered about on every side in an apparently half dying condition. yet there was surely a strange insensibility to suffering among them all, inasmuch as in spite of the contention and confusion there were no violent shrieks of either pain or fury,--no exclamations of rage or despair,--no sound whatever indeed, save a steady, sullen, monotonous snarl of opposition, above which the resonant voice of the prophet khosrul rang out like a silver clarion. "o people doomed and made desolate!" he cried.. "o nation once mighty, brought low to the dust of destruction! hear me, ye strong men and fair women!--and you, ye poor little children who never again shall see the sun rise on the thousand domes of al-kyris! lift up the burden of bitter lamentation!--lift it up to the heaven of heavens, the throne of the all-seeing glory, the giver of law, the destroyer of evil! weep! ... weep for your sins and the sins of your sons and your daughters--cast off the jewels of pride,--rend the fine raiment, ... let your tears be abundant as the rain and dew! kneel down and cry aloud on the great and terrible unknown god--the god ye have denied and wronged,--the founder of worlds, who doth hold in his hand the sun as a torch, and scattereth stars with the fire of his breath! mourn and bend ye all beneath the iron stroke of destiny!--for know ye not how fierce a thing has come upon al-kyris? ... a thing that lips cannot utter nor words define,--a thing more horrible than strange sounds in thick darkness,--more deadly than the lightning when it leaps from heaven with intent to slay! o city stately beyond all cities! thy marble palaces are already ringed round with a river of blood!--the temples of thy knowledge wherein thy wise men have studied to exceed all wisdom, begin to totter to their fall,--thou shalt be swept away even as a light heap of ashes, and what shall all thy learning avail thee in that brief and fearful end! hear me, o people of al-kyris!--hear me and cease to strive among yourselves, ... resist not thus desperately the king's armed minions, for to them i also speak and say,--lo! the time approaches when a stronger hand than that of the mighty zephoranim shall take me prisoner and bear me hence where most i long to go! peace, i command you! ... in the name of that god whose truth i do proclaim ... peace!" as he uttered the last word an instantaneous hush fell upon the crowd,--every head was turned toward his grand, gaunt, almost spectral figure; and even the mounted soldiery reined up their plunging, chafing steeds and remained motionless as though suddenly fixed to the ground by some powerful magnetic spell. theos and sah-luma took immediate advantage of this lull in the conflict, to try and secure for themselves a better point of vantage, though there was much difficulty in pressing through the closely packed throng, inasmuch as not a man moved to give them passage-room. presently, however, sah-luma managed to reach the nearest one of the two great fountains, which adorned either side of the obelisk, and, springing as lightly as a bird on its marble edge, he stood erect there, his picturesque form presenting itself to the view like a fine statue set against the background of sun-tinted foaming water that dashed high above him and sprinkled his garments with drops of sparkling spray. theos at once joined him, and the two friends, holding each other fast by the arm, gazed down on the silent, mighty multitude around them,--a huge concourse of the citizens of al-kyris, who, strange as this part of their behavior seemed, still paid no heed to the presence of their laureate, but with pale, rapt faces and anxious, frightened eyes, riveted their attention entirely on the sombre, black-garmented prophet whose thin ghostly arms, outstretched above them, appeared to mutely invoke in their behalf some special miracle of mercy. "see you not".. whispered sah-luma to his companion,--"how yon aged fool wears upon his breast the symbol of his own prophecy? 'tis the maddest freak to thus display his death-warrant!--only a month ago the king issued a decree, warning all those whom it might concern, that any one of his born subjects presuming to carry the sign of khosrul's newly invented faith should surely die! and that the crazed reprobate carries it himself makes no exemption from the rule!" theos shuddered. his eyes were misty, but he could very well see the emblem to which sah-luma alluded,--it was the cross again! ... the same sacred prefigurement of things "to come," according to the perplexing explanation given by the mystic zuriel whom he had met in the passage of the tombs, though to his own mind it conveyed no such meaning. what was it then? ... if not a prototype of the future, was it a record of the past? he dared not pursue this question,--it seemed to send his brain reeling on the verge of madness! he made no answer to sah-luma's remark,--but fixed his gaze wistfully on the tall, melancholy shape that like a black shadow darkened the whiteness of the obelisk,--and his sense of hearing became acute almost to painfulness when once more khosrul's deep vibrating tones peeled solemnly through the heavy air. "god speaks to al-kyris!" and as the prophet enunciated these words with majestic emphasis a visible thrill ran through the hushed assemblage.. "god saith: get thee up, o thou city of pleasure, from thy couch of sweet wantonness,--get thee up, gird thee with fire, and flee into the desert of forgotten things! for thou art become a blot on the fairness of my world, and a shame to the brightness of my heaven!--thy rulers are corrupt,--thy teachers are proud of heart and narrow in judgment,--thy young men and maidens go astray and follow each after their own vain opinions,--in thy great temples and holy places falsehood abides, and vice holds court in thy glorious palaces. wherefore because thou hast neither sought nor served me, and because thou hast set up gold as thy god, and a multitude of riches as thy chief good, lo! now mine eyes have grown weary of beholding thee, and i will descend upon thee suddenly and destroy thee, even as a hill of sand is destroyed by the whirlwind,--and thou shalt be known in the land of my creatures no more! woe to thee that thou hast taken pride in thy wisdom and learning, for therein lies thy much wickedness! if thou wert truly wise thou wouldst have found me,--if thou wert nobly learned thou wouldst have understood my laws,--but thou art proved altogether gross, foolish, and incapable,--and the studies whereof thou hast boasted, the writings of thy wise men, the charts of sea and land, the maps of thy chief astronomers, the engraved tablets of learning, in gold, in silver, in ivory, in stone, thy chronicles of battle and conquest, the documents of thine explorers in far countries, the engines of thine invention whereby thou dost press the lightning into thy service, and make the air respond to the messages of thy kings and councillors,--all these shall be thrust away into an everlasting silence, and no man hereafter shall be able to declare that such things have ever been!" here the speaker paused,--and theos, surveying the vast listening crowds, fancied they looked like an audience of moveless ghosts rather than human beings,--so still, so pallid, so grave were they, one and all. khosrul continued in softer, more melancholy accents, that, while plaintive, were still singularly impressive. "o my ill-fated, my beloved fellow-countrymen!" he exclaimed, extending his arms with a vehemently pleading gesture as though in the excess of emotion he would have drawn all the people to his heart.--"ye unhappy ones? ... have i not given ye warning? have i not bidden ye beware of this great evil which should come to pass?--evil for which there is no remedy,--none,--neither in the earth, nor the sea, nor the invisible comforts of the air! ... for god hath spoken, and who shall contradict the thunder of his voice! behold the end is at hand of all the pleasant things of al-kyris,--the feasting and the musical assemblies, the cymbal-symphonies and the choir-dances, the labors of students and the triumphs of sages,--all these shall seem but the mockery of madness in the swift-descending night of overwhelming destruction! woe is me that ye would not listen when i called, but turned every man to his own devices and the following after idols? nay now, what will ye do in extremity?--will ye chant hymns to the sun? lo, he is deaf and blind for all his golden glory, and is but a taper set in the window of the sky, to be extinguished at god's good pleasure! will ye supplicate nagaya? o fools and desperate!--how shall a brute beast answer prayer!--vain, vain is all beseeching,--shut forever are the doors of escape,--therefore cover yourselves with the garments of burial,--prepare each one his grave and rich funeral things,--gather together the rosemary and myrrh, the precious ointments and essences, the strings of gold and the jewelled talismans whereby ye think to fight against corruption,--and fall down, every man in his own wrought hollow in the ground, face turned to earth and die--for death hath broken through the strong gates of al-kyris, and hath taken the city magnificent captive unknowingly! alas, alas! that ye would not follow whither i led,--that ye would not hearken to the vision of the future, dimly yet gloriously revealed! ... the future! ... the future!" ... he broke off suddenly, and raising his eyes to the deep blue sky above him, seemed for a moment as though he were caught up in the cloud of some wondrous dream. still the enormous throng of people stood hushed and motionless,--not a word, not a sound escaped them,--there was something positively appalling in such absolute immobility,--at least it appeared so to theos, who could not understand this dispassionate behavior on the part of so large and lately excited a multitude. all at once a voice marvellously tender, clear, and pathetic trembled on the silence,--was it, could it be the voice of khosrul? yes! but so changed, so solemn, so infinitely sweet, that it might have been some gentle angel speaking: "like a fountain of sweet water in the desert, or the rising of the moon in a gloomy midnight," he said slowly,--"even so is the hope and promise of the supremely beloved! through the veiling darkness of the coming ages his light already shines upon my soul! o blessed advent! ... o happy future! ... o days when privileged humanity shall bridge by love the gulf between this world and heaven! what shall be said of him who cometh to redeem us, o my foreseeing spirit! what shall be told concerning his most marvellous beauty? even as a dove that for pity of its helpless younglings doth battle soft-breasted with a storm, even so shall he descend from out his glory sempiternal, and teach us how to conquer sin and death,--aye, even with the meekness of a little child he shall approach, and choose his dwelling here among us. o heavenly child! o wisdom of god contained in innocence! ... happy the learning that shall learn from thee!--noble the pride that shall humble itself before thy gentleness! [footnote: the idea of a saviour who should be born as man to redeem the world was prevalent among all nations and dates from the remotest ages. coming down to what must be termed quite a modern period compared to that in which the city of al-kyris had its existence, we find that the romans under octavius caesar were wont to exclaim at their sacred meetings, "the times foretold by the sybil are arrived; may a new age soon restore that saturn? soon may the child be born who shall banish the age of iron?" tacitus and suetonius both mention the prophecies "in the sacred books of the priests" which declare that the "east shall be in commotion," and that "men from judea" shall subject "everything to their dominion."] o prince of manhood and divinity entwined! thou shalt acquaint thyself with human griefs, and patiently unravel the perplexities of human longings!--to prove thy sacred sympathy with suffering, thou shalt be content to suffer,--to explain the mystery of death, thou shalt even be content to die. o people of al-kyris, hear ye all the words that tell of this wonderful, inestimable king of peace,--mine aged eyes do see him now, far, far off in the rising mist of unformed future things!--the cross--the cross, on which his man's pure life dissolves itself in glory, stretches above me in spreading beams of light! ... ah! 'tis a glittering pathway in the skies whereon men and the angels meet and know each other! he is the strong and perfect spirit, that shall break loose from death and declare the insignificance of the grave,--he is the lingering star in the east that shall rise and lighten all spiritual darkness--the unknown, unnamed redeemer of the world, ... the man-god saviour that shall come?" "shall come?" cried theos, suddenly roused to the utmost pitch of frenzied excitement, and pronouncing each word with loud and involuntary vehemence ... "nay! ... for he has come! he died for us, and rose again from the dead more than eighteen hundred years ago!" * * * * * a frightful silence followed,--a breathless cessation of even the faintest quiver of sound. the mighty mass of people, apparently moved by one accord, turned with swift, stealthy noiselessness toward the audacious speaker, ... thousands of glittering eyes were fixed upon him in solemnly inquiring wonderment, while he himself, now altogether dismayed at the effect of his own rash utterance, thought he had never experienced a more awful moment! for it was as though all the skeletons he had lately seen in the passage of the tombs had suddenly clothed themselves with spectral flesh and hair and the shadowy garments of men, and had advanced into broad daylight to surround him in their terrible lifeless ranks, and wrench from him the secret of an after-existence concerning which they were ignorant! how ghostly and drear seemed that dense crowd in this new light of his delirious fancy! a clammy dew broke out on his forehead,--he saw the blue skies, the huge buildings in the square, the obelisk, the fountains, the trees, all whirling round him in a wild dance of the dizziest distraction, ... when sah-luma's rich voice close to his ear recalled his wandering senses: "why, man, art thou drunk or mad?" and the laureate's face expressed a kind of sarcastic astonishment,--"what a fool thou hast made of thyself, good comrade! ... by my soul, how shall thy condition be explained to these open-mouthed starers below! see how they gape upon thee! ... thou art most assuredly a noticeable spectacle! ... and yon maniac prophet doth evidently judge thee as one of his craft, a fellow professional howler of marvels, else he would scarcely deign to fix his eyes so obstinately on thy countenance! nay, verily thou dost outrival him in the strangeness of thy language! ... what moved thee to such frenzied utterance? surely thou hast a stroke of the sun!--thy words were most absolutely devoid of reason! ... as senseless as the jabber of an idiot to his own shadow on the wall!" theos was mute,--he had no defense to offer. the crowd still stared upon him,--and his heart beat fast with a mingled sense of fear and pride--fear of his present surroundings,--pride that he had spoken out his conviction boldly, reckless of all consequences. and this pride was a most curious thing to analyze, because it did not so much consist in the fact of his having openly confessed his inward thought, as that he felt he had gained some special victory in thus acknowledging his belief in the positive existence of the "saviour" who formed the subject of khosrul's prophecy. full of a singular sort of self-congratulation which yet had nothing to do with selfishness, he became so absorbed in his own reflections that he started like a man brusquely aroused from sleep when the prophet's strong grave voice apostrophized him personally over the heads of the throng: "who and what art thou, that dost speak of the future as though it were the past? hast thou held converse with the angels, and is past and future one with thee in the dream of the departing present? answer me, thou stranger to the city of al-kyris! ... has god taught thee the way to everlasting life?" again that awful silence made itself felt like a deadly chill on the sunlit air,--the quiet, patient crowds seemed waiting in hushed suspense for some reply which should be as a flash of spiritual enlightenment to leap from one to the other with kindling heat and radiance, and vivify them all into a new and happier existence. but now, when theos most strongly desired to speak, he remained dumb as stone! ... vainly he struggled against and contended with the invisible, mysterious, and relentless despotism that smote him on the mouth as it were, and deprived him of all power of utterance, ... his tongue was stiff and frozen, ... his very lips were sealed! trembling violently, he gazed beseechingly at sah-luma, who held his arm in a firm and friendly grasp, and who, apparently quickly perceiving that he was distressed and embarrassed, undertook himself to furnish forth what he evidently considered a fitting response to khosrul's adjuration. "most venerable seer!" he cried mockingly, his bright face radiant with mirth and his dark eyes flashing a careless contempt as he spoke--"thou art as short-sighted as thine own auguries if thou canst not at once comprehend the drift of my friend's humor! he hath caught the infection of thy fanatic eloquence, and, like thee, knows naught of what he says: moreover he hath good wine and sunlight mingled in his blood, whereby he hath been doubtless moved to play a jest upon thee. i pray thee heed him not! he is as free to declare thy prophecy is of the past, as thou art to insist on its being of the future,--in both ways 'tis a most foolish fallacy! nevertheless, continue thy entertaining discourse, sir graybeard! . . . and if thou must needs address thyself to any one soul in particular, why let it be me,--for though, thanks to mine own excellent good sense, i have no faith in angels nor crosses, nor everlasting life, nor any of the strange riddles wherewith thou seekest to perplex and bewilder the brains of the ignorant, still am i laureate of the realm, and ready to hold argument with thee,--yea!--until such time as these dumfounded soldiers and citizens of al-kyris shall remember their duty sufficiently to seize and take thee captive in the king's great name!" as he ceased a deep sigh ran, like the first sound of a rising wind among trees, through the heretofore motionless multitude,--a faint, dawning, yet doubtful smile reflected itself on their faces,--and the old familiar shout broke feebly from their lips: "hail, sah-luma! let us hear sah-luma!" sah-luma looked down upon them all in airy derision. "o fickle, terror-stricken fools!" he exclaimed--"o thankless and disloyal people! what!--ye will see me now? ... ye will hear me? ... aye! but who shall answer for your obedience to my words! nay, is it possible that i, your country's chosen chief minstrel, should have stood so long among ye disregarded! how comes it your dull eyes and ears were fixed so fast upon yon dotard miscreant whose days are numbered? methought t'was but sah-luma's voice that could persuade ye to assemble thus in such locust-like swarms.. since when have the poet and the people of al-kyris ceased to be as one?" a vague, muttering sound answered him, whether of shame or dissatisfaction it was difficult to tell. khosrul's vibrating accent struck sharply across that muffled murmur. "the poet and the people of al-kyris are further asunder than light and darkness!" he cried vehemently--"for the poet has been false to his high vocation, and the people trust in him no more!" there was an instant's hush, ... a hush as it seemed of grieved acquiescence on the part of the populace,--and during that brief pause theos's heart gave a fierce bound against his ribs as though some one had suddenly shot at him with a poisoned arrow. he glanced quickly at sah-luma,--but sah-luma stood calmly unmoved, his handsome head thrown back, a cynical smile on his lips and his eyes darker than ever with an intensity of unutterable scorn. "sah-luma! ... sah-luma!" and the piercing, reproachful voice of the prophet penetrated every part of the spacious square like a sonorous bell ringing over a still landscape: "o divine spirit of song pent up in gross clay, was ever mortal more gifted than thou! in thee was kindled the white fire of heaven,--to thee were confided the memories of vanished worlds, . . for thee god bade his nature wear a thousand shapes of varied meaning,--the sun, the moon, the stars were appointed as thy servants,--for thou wert born poet, the mystically chosen teacher and consoler of mankind! what hast thou done, sah-luma, . . what hast thou done with the treasures bestowed upon thee by the all-endowing angels? ... how hast thou used the talisman of thy genius? to comfort the afflicted? ... to dethrone and destroy the oppressor? ... to uphold the cause of justice? ... to rouse the noblest instincts of thy race? ... to elevate and purify the world? ... alas, alas!--thou hast made thyself the idol of thy muse, and thou being but perishable, thy fame shall perish with thee! thou hast drowsed away thy manhood in the lap of vice, . . thou hast slept and dreamed when thou should have been awake and vigilant! not i, but thou shouldst have warned the people of their coming doom! ... not i, but thou shouldst have marked the threatening signs of the pregnant hour,--not i, but thou shouldst have perceived the first faint glimmer of god's future scheme of glad salvation,--not i, but thou shouldst have taught and pleaded, and swayed by thy matchless sceptre of sweet song, the passions of thy countrymen! hadst thou been true to that first flame of thought within thee, o sah-luma, how thy glory would have dwarfed the power of kings! empires might have fallen, cities decayed, and nations been absorbed in ruin,--and yet thy clear-convincing voice, rendered imperishable by its faithfulness should have sounded forth in triumph above the foundering wrecks of time! o poet unworthy of thy calling! ... how thou hast wantoned with the sacred muse! ... how thou hast led her stainless feet into the mire of sensual hypocrisies, and decked her with the trumpery gew-gaws of a meaningless fair speech!--how thou hast caught her by the virginal hair and made her chastity the screen for all thine own licentiousness! ... thou shouldst have humbly sought her benediction,--thou shouldst have handled her with gentle reverence and patient ardor,--from her wise lips thou shouldst have learned how best to practice those virtues whose praise thou didst evasively proclaim, ... thou shouldst have shrined her, throned her, worshiped her, and served her, . . yea! ... even as a sinful man may serve an angel who loves him!" ah, what a strange, cold thrill ran through theos as he heard these last words! 'as a sinful man may serve an angel who loves him!' how happy the man thus loved! ... how fortunate the sinner thus permitted to serve! ... who was he? ... could there be any one so marvellously privileged? he wondered dimly,--and a dull, aching pain throbbed heavily in his brows. it was a very singular thing too, that he should find himself strongly and personally affected by khosrul's address to sah-luma, yet such was the case, ... so much so, indeed, that he accepted all the prophet's reproaches as though they applied solely to his own past life! he could not understand his emotion, ... nevertheless he kept on dreamily regretting that things were as khosrul had said, ... that he had not fulfilled his vocation,--and that he had neither been humble enough nor devout enough nor unselfish enough to deserve the high and imperial name of poet. round and round like a flying mote this troublesome idea circled in his brain, ... he must do better in future, he resolved, supposing that any future remained to him in which to work, . . he must redeem the past! ... here he roused his mental faculties with a start and forced himself to realize that it was sah-luma to whom the prophet spoke, . . sah-luma, only sah-luma,--not himself! then straightway he became indignant on his friend's behalf,--why should sah-luma be blamed? ... sah-luma was a glorious poet!--a master-singer of singers! ... his fume must and should endure forever! ... thus thinking, he regained his composure by degrees, and strove to assume the same air of easy indifference as that exhibited by his companion, when again khosrul's declamatory tones thundered forth with an absoluteness of emphasis that was both startling and convincing: "hear me, sah-luma, chief minstrel of al-kyris!--hear me, thou who hast willfully wasted the golden moments of never-returning time! thou art marked out for death!--death sudden and fierce as the leap of the desert panther on its prey! ... death that shall come to thee through the traitorous speech of the evil woman whose beauty has sapped thy strength and rendered thy glory inglorious!... death that for thee, alas! shall be mournful and utter oblivion! naught shall it avail to thee that thy musical weaving of words hath been graven seven times over, on tablets of stone and agate and ivory, of gold and white silex and porphyry, and the unbreakable rose-adamant,--none of these shall suffice to keep thy name in remembrance,--for what cannot be broken shall be melted with flame, and what cannot be erased shall be buried miles deep in the bosom of earth, whence it never again shall be lifted into the light of day! aye! thou shalt be forgotten!--forgotten as though thou hadst never sung,--other poets shall chant in the world, yet maybe none so well as thou!--other laurel and myrtle wreaths shall be given by countries and kings to bards unworthy, of whom none perchance shall have thy sweetness! ... but thou,--thou the most grandly gifted, gift-squandering poet the world has ever known, shalt be cast among the dust of unremembered nothings, and the name of sah-luma shall carry no meaning to any man born in the coming here-after! for thou hast cherished within thyself the poison that withers thee, ... the deadly poison of doubt, the denial of god's existence, ... the accursed blankness of disbelief in the things of the life eternal! ... wherefore, thy spirit is that of one lost and rebellious,--whose best works are futile,--whose days are void of example,--and whose carelessly grasped torch of song shall be suddenly snatched from thy hand and extinguished in darkness! god pardon thee, dying poet! ... god give thy parting soul a chance of penance and of sweet redemption! ... god comfort thee in that drear land of shadow whither thou art bound! ... god bring thee forth again from chaos to a nobler future! ... sin-burdened as thou art, my blessing follows thee in thy last agony! sah-luma! ... fallen angel, self-exiled from thy peers! ... farewell!" the effect of these strange words was so extraordinarily impressive, that for one instant the astonished and evidently affrighted crowds pressed round sah-luma eagerly, staring at him in morbid fear and wonder, as though they expected him to drop dead before them in immediate fulfillment of the prophet's solemn valediction. theos, oppressed by an inward sickening sense of terror, also regarded him with close and anxious solicitude, but was almost reassured at the first glance. never was a greater opposition offered to khosrul's gloomy prognostications, than that contained in the handsome laureate's aspect at that moment,--his supple, graceful figure alert with life, . . his glowing face flushed by the sun, and touched with that faintly amused look of serene scorn, . . his glorious eyes, brilliant as jewels under their drooping amorous lids, and the regal poise of his splendid shoulders and throat, as he lifted his head a little more haughtily than usual, and glanced indifferently down from his foothold on the edge of the fountain at the upturned, questioning faces of the throng, ... all even to the careless balance and ease of his attitude, betokened his perfect condition of health, and the entire satisfaction he had in the consciousness of his own strength and beauty. he seemed about to speak, and raised his hand with the graceful yet commanding gesture of one accustomed to the art of elegant rhetoric, ... when suddenly his expression changed, . . shrugging his shoulders lightly as who should say.. "here comes the conclusion of the matter,--no time for further argument"--he silently pointed across the square, while a smile dazzling yet cruel played on his delicately parted lips, . . a smile, the covert meaning of which was soon explained. for all at once a brazen roar of trumpets split the silence into torn and discordant echoes,--the crowd turned swiftly, and seeing who it was that approached, rushed hither and thither in the wildest confusion, making as though they would have fled, . . and in less than a minute, a gleaming cohort of mounted and armed spearmen galloped furiously into the thick of the melee. following these came a superb car drawn by six jet-black horses that plunged and pranced through the multitude with no more heed than if these groups of living beings had been mere sheafs of corn, . . a car flashing from end to end with gold and precious stones, in which towered the erect, massive form of zephoranim, the king. his dark face was ablaze with wrath, ... tightly grasping the reins of his reckless steeds, he drew himself haughtily upright and turned his rolling, fierce black eyes indignantly from side to side on the scared people, as he drove through their retreating ranks, smiting down and mangling with the sharp spikes of his tall chariot-wheels men, women, and children without care or remorse, till he forced his terrible passage straight to the foot of the obelisk. there he came to an abrupt standstill, and, lifting high his strong hand and brawny arm glittering with jewels, he cried: "soldiers! seize yon traitorous rebel! ten thousand pieces of gold for the capture of khosrul!" there was an instant of hesitation, ... not one of the populace stirred to obey the order. then suddenly, as though released by their monarch's command from some mesmeric spell, the before inactive mounted guards started into action, cantered sharply forward and surrounded the obelisk, while the armed spearsmen closed together and made a swift advance upon the venerable figure that stood alone and defenseless, tranquilly awaiting their approach. but there was evidently some unknown and mysterious force pent up within the prophet's feeble frame, for when the soldiers were just about an arm's length from him, they seemed all at once troubled and irresolute, and turned their looks away, as though fearing to gaze too steadfastly upon that grand, thought-furrowed countenance in which the eyes, made young by inward fervor, blazed forth with unearthly lustre beneath a silvery halo of tossed white hair. zephoranim perceived this touch of indecision on the part of his men, and his black brows contracted in an ominous frown. "halt!" he shouted fiercely, apparently to make it seem to the mob that the pause in the action of the soldiery was in compliance with his own behest, . . "halt! ... bind him, and bring him hither, . . i myself will slay him!" "halt!" echoed a voice, discordantly sharp and wild.. "halt thou also, great zephoranim! for death bars thy further progress!" and khosrul, manifestly possessed by some superhuman access of frenzy, leaped from his position on the back of the stone lion, and slipping agilely through the ranks of the startled spearmen and guards, who were all unprepared for the suddenness and rapidity of his movements, he sprang boldly on the edge of the royal chariot, and there clung to the jewelled wheel, looking like a gaunt aerial spectre, an ambassador of coming ruin. the king, speechless with amazement and fury, dragged at his huge sword till he wrenched it out of its sheath, . . raising it, he whirled it round his head so that it gave a murderous hiss in the air, ... and yet.. was his strong arm paralyzed that he forbore to strike! "zephoranim!" khosrul, in terms that were piercing and dolorous as the whistling of the wind among hollow reeds,--"zephoranim, thou shalt die to-night! art thou ready? art thou ready, proud king? ... ready to be made less than the lowest of the low? hush! ... hush!" and his aged face took upon itself a ghastly greenish pallor--"hear you not the muttering of the thunder underground? there are strange powers at work! ... powers of the undug earth and unfathomed sea! ... hark how they tear at the stately foundations of al-kyris! ... flame! flame! it is already kindled!--it shall enwrap thee with more closeness than thy coronation robe, o mighty sovereign! ... with more gloating fondness than the serpent-twining arms of thy beloved! listen, zephoranim, listen!" here he stretched out his skinny hand and pointed upwards,--his eyes grew fixed and glassy,--his throat rattled convulsively. at that moment the monarch, recovering his self-possession, once more lifted his sword with direct and deadly aim, but the prophet, uttering a wild shriek, caught at his descending wrist and gripped it fast. "see.. see!" he exclaimed.. "put up thy weapon! ... thou shalt never need it where thou art summoned! ... lo! how yon blood-red letters blaze against the blue of heaven! ... there! ... there it comes!--read.. read! 'tis written plain.. 'al-kyris shall fall, and the king shall die!'.. hist ... hist! ... dumb oracles speak and dead voices find tongue! ... hark how they chant together the old forgotten warning: 'when the high priestess is the king's mistress then fall al-kyris!' fall al-kyris! ... aye! ... the city of a thousand palaces shall fall to-night! ... to-night! ... o night of desperate horror! ... and thou, o king, shalt die!" and as he shrilled the last word on the air with terrific emphasis, he threw up his arms like a man suddenly shot, and reeling backward fell heavily on the ground,--a corpse. a great cry went up from the crowd, . . the king leaned eagerly out of his car. "is the fool dead, or feigning death?" he demanded, addressing one of a group of soldiers standing near. the officer stooped and felt the motionless body. "o great king, live forever! he is dead!" zephoranim hesitated. cruelty and clemency struggled for the mastery in the varying expression of his frowning face, but cruelty conquered. grasping his sword firmly, he bent still further forward out of his chariot, and with one swift, keen stroke, severed the lifeless prophet's head from its trunk, and taking it up on, the point of his weapon, showed it to the multitude. a smothered, shuddering sigh that was half a groan rippled through the dense throng--a sound that evidently added fresh irritation to the already heated temper of the haughty sovereign. with a savage laugh, he tossed his piteous trophy on the pavement, where it lay in a pool of its own blood, the white hair about it stained ruddily, and the still open eyes upturned as though in dumb appeal to heaven. then, without deigning to utter another word, or to bestow another look upon the surrounding crowd of his disconcerted subjects, he gathered up his coursers' reins and prepared to depart. just then the sun went behind a cloud, and only a side-beam of radiance shot forth, pouring itself straight down on the royally attired figure of the monarch and the headless body of khosrul, and at the same time bringing into sudden and prominent relief the silver cross that glittered on the breast of the bleeding corpse, and that seemed to mysteriously offer itself as the key to some unsolved enigma. as if drawn by one strangely mutual attraction, all eyes, even those of zephoranim himself, turned instinctively toward the flashing emblem, which appeared to burn like living fire on that perished mass of stiffening clay, . . and there was a brief silence,--a pause, during which theos, who had watched everything with curiously calm interest, such as may be felt by a spectator watching the progress of a finely acted tragedy, became conscious of the same singular sensation he had already several times experienced,--namely, that he had witnessed the whole of this scene before! he remembered it quite well,--particularly that apparently trifling incident of the sunlight happening to shine so brilliantly on the dead man and his cross while the rest of the vast assemblage were in comparative shadow. it was very odd! ... his memory was like a wonderful art-gallery in which some pictures were fresh of tint, while others were dim and faded, . . but this special "tableau" in the square of al-kyris was very distinctly painted in brilliant and vivid colors on the sombre background of his past recollections, and he found the circumstance so remarkable that he was on the point of saying something to sah-luma about it,--when the sun came out again in full splendor, and zephoranim's spirited steeds started forward at a canter. the king, controlling them easily with one hand, extended the other majestically by way of formal salutation to his people, . . his tall, muscular form was displayed to the best advantage,--the narrow jewelled fillet that bound his rough dark locks emitted a myriad scintillations of light, . . his close-fitting coat-of-mail, woven from thousands of small links of gold, set off his massive chest and shoulders to perfection,--and as he moved along royally in his sumptuous car, the effect of his striking presence was such, that a complete change took place in the before sullen humor of the populace. for seeing him thus alive and well in direct opposition to khosrul's ominous prediction,--even as sah-luma also stood unharmed in spite of his having been apostrophized as a "dying" poet,--the mob, always fickle and always dazzled by outward show, suddenly set up a deafening roar of cheering. the pallid hue of terror vanished from faces that had but lately looked spectrally thin with speechless dread, and crowds of servile petitioners and place-hunters began to press eagerly round their monarch's chariot, ... when all at once a woman in the throng gave a wild scream and rushed away shrieking "the obelisk! ... the obelisk!" every eye was instantly turned toward the stately pillar of white granite that sparkled in the sunlight like an immense carven jewel, ... great heaven! ... it was tottering to and fro like the unsteadied mast of a ship at sea! ... one look sufficed,--and a frightful panic ensued--a horrible, brutish stampede of creatures without faith in anything human or divine save their own wretched personalities,--the king, infected by the general scare, urged his horses into furious gallop, and dashed through the cursing, swearing, howling throng like an embodied whirlwind,--and for a few seconds nothing seemed distinctly visible but a surging mass of infuriated humanity, fighting with itself for life. theos alone remained singularly calm,--his sole consideration was for his friend sah-luma, whom he entwined with one arm as he sprang down from the position they had hitherto occupied on the brink of the fountain, and made straight for the nearest of the six broad avenues that opened directly into the square. sah-luma looked pale, but was apparently unafraid,--he said nothing, and passively allowed himself to be piloted by theos through the madly raging multitude, which, oddly enough, parted before them like mist before the wind, so that in a magically short interval they successfully reached a place of safety. and they reached it not a moment too soon. for the obelisk was now plainly to be seen lurching forward at an angle of several degrees, . . strange muffled, roaring sounds were heard at its base, as though demons were digging up its foundations, . . then, seemingly shaken by underground tremors, it began to oscillate violently,--a terrific explosion was heard as of the bursting of a giant bomb,--and immediately afterward the majestic monolith toppled over and fell!--with the crash of a colossal cannonade that sent its thunderous reverberations through and through the length and breadth of the city! hundreds of persons were killed and wounded,--many of the mounted guards and spearmen, who were striving to force a way of escape through the crowd, were struck down and crushed pell-mell with their horses as they rode,--the desperate people trampled each other to death in their frenzied efforts to reach the nearest outlet to the river embankment, . . but when once the obelisk had actually fallen, all this turmoil was for an instant checked, and the gasping, torn, and bleeding survivors of the struggle stopped, as it were to take breath, and stared in blank dismay upon the strange ruin before them. theos, still holding sah-luma by the arm, with the protecting fondness of an elder brother guarding a younger, gazed also at the scene with quiet, sorrowfully wondering eyes. for it meant something to him he was sure, because it was so familiar,--yet he found it impossible to grasp the comprehension of that meaning! it was a singular spectacle enough; the lofty four-sided white pillar, that had so lately been a monumental glory of al-kyris, had split itself with the violence of its fall into two huge desolate-looking fragments, which now lay one on each side of the square, as though flung thither by a titan's hand,--the great lion had been hurled from its position and overturned like a toy, while the shield it had supported between its paws had entirely disappeared in minutely scattered atoms, . . the fountains had altogether ceased playing. now and then a thin, vaporous stream of smoke appeared to issue between the crannies of the pavement,--otherwise there was no visible sign of the mysterious force that had wrought so swift and sudden a work of destruction,--the sun shone brilliantly, and over all the havoc beamed the placid brightness of a cloudless summer sky! the most prominent object of all amid the general devastation, and the one that fascinated theos more than the view of the destroyed monolith and the debased lion, was the uninjured head of the prophet khosrul. there it lay, exactly between the sundered halves of the obelisk, . . pale rays of light glimmered on its bloodstained silvery hair and open glazed eyes,--a solemn smile seemed graven on its waxen-pallid features. and at a little distance off, on the breast of the black-robed headless corpse that remained totally uncrushed in an open space by itself, among the surrounding heaps of slain and wounded, glistened the cross like a fiery gem, . . an all-significant talisman that, as he beheld it, filled theos's heart with a feverish craving,--an inexplicable desire mingled with remorse far greater than any fear! instinctively he drew sah-luma away.... away! ... still keeping his wistful gaze fixed on that uncomprehended, yet soul-recognized symbol, till gradually the drooping branches of trees interrupted and shadowed the vista, and, as he moved further and further backward, closed their soft network of green foliage like the closing curtain on the strange but awfully remembered scene, shutting it out from his bewildered sight.. forever! chapter xxv. a golden tress. once clear of the square the two friends apparently became mutually conscious of the peril they had just escaped, . . and coming to a sudden standstill they looked at each other in blank, stupefied silence. crowds of people streamed past them, wandering hither and thither in confused, cloudy masses,--some with groans and dire lamentations bearing away their dead and wounded,--others rushing frantically about, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, calling on the gods and lamenting khosrul, while not a few muttered curses on the king. and ever and anon the name of "lysia," coupled with heavy execrations, was hissed from mouth to mouth, which theos, overhearing, began to foresee might serve as a likely cause for sah-luma's taking offence and possibly resenting in his own person this public disparagement of the woman he loved,--therefore, without more ado he roused himself from his momentarily dazed condition, and urged his comrade on at a quick pace toward the safe shelter of his own palace, where at any rate he could be kept out of the reach of immediate harm. the twain walked side by side, exchanging scarcely a word,--sah-luma seemed in a manner stunned by the violence of the late catastrophe, and theos was too busy with his own thoughts to speak. on their way they were overtaken by the king's chariot,--it flew by with a glittering whirl and clatter, amid sweeping clouds of dust, through which the dark face of zephoranim loomed out upon them like an almost palpable shadow. as it vanished sah-luma stopped short, and stared at his companion in utter amazement. "by my soul!" he exclaimed indignantly.. "the whole world must be going mad! 'tis the first time in all my days of laureateship that zephoranim hath failed to reverently salute me as he passed!" and he looked far more perturbed than when the falling obelisk had threatened him with imminent destruction. theos caught his arm with a quick movement of vexed impatience. "tush, man, no matter!" he said hastily--"what are kings to thee? ... thou who art an emperor of song? these little potentates that wield earth's sceptres are as fickle in their moods as the very mob they are supposed to govern, . . moreover, thou knowest zephoranim hath had enough to-day to startle him out of all accustomed rules of courtesy. be assured of it, his mind is like a ship at sea, storm-tossed and at the mercy of the winds,--thou canst not surely blame him, that for once after so strange a turbulence, and unwonted a disaster, he hath no eyes for thee whose sole sweet mission, is to minister to pleasure." "to minister to pleasure!".. echoed sah-luma petulantly.. "nay, have i done nothing more than this? art thou already grown so disloyal a friend that thou wilt half repeat the jargon of yon dead fanatic khosrul who dared to tell me i had served my art unfittingly? have i not ministered to grief as well as joy? to hours of pain and bitterness, as well as to long days of ease and amorous dreaming? ... have i not..." here he paused and a warm flush crept through the olive pallor of his skin,--his eyes grew plaintive and wistful and he threw one arm round theos's neck as he continued: "no i.. after all 'tis vain to deny it...i have hated grief,--i have loathed the very suggestion of care,--i have thrust sorrow out of my sight as a thing vile and unwelcome,--and i have chosen to sing to the world of rapture more than pain,--inasmuch as methinks humanity suffers enough, without having its cureless anguish set to the music of a poet's rhythm to incessantly haunt and torture its already breaking heart." "say rather to soothe and tranquillize"--murmured theos, more to himself than to his friend--"for suppressed sorrow is hardest to endure, and when grief once finds apt utterance 'tis already half consoled! so should the world's great singers tenderly proclaim the world's most speechless miseries, and who knows but vexed creation being thus relieved of pent-up woe may not take new heart of grace and comfort?" the words were spoken in a soft sotto-voce, and sah-luma seemed not to hear. he leaned, however, very confidingly and affectionately against theos's shoulder as he walked along, and appeared to have speedily forgotten his annoyance at the recent slighting conduct of the king. "i marvel at the downfall of the obelisk!" he said presently ... "'twas rooted full ten feet deep in solid earth, . . maybe the foundations were ill-fitted,--nevertheless, if history speaks truly, it hath stood unshaken for two thousand years! strange that it should be now hurled forth thus desperately! ... i would i knew the hidden cause! many, alas! have met their death to-day, . . pushed out of life in haste, . . all unprepared.. one wonders where such souls have fled! something there is that troubles me, . . methinks i am more than half disposed to leave al-kyris for a time, and wander forth into a world of unknown things--" "with me!" cried theos impetuously--"come with me, sah-luma! ... come now, this very day! i too have been warned of evil.. evil undeclared, yet close at hand, ..let us escape from danger while time remains! ... let us depart!" "whither should we go?"...and sah-luma, pausing in his walk, fixed his large, soft eyes full on his companion as he put the question. theos was mute. covered with confusion, he asked himself the same thing. "whither should we go?" he had no knowledge of the country that lay outside al-kyris, . . he had no distinct remembrance of any other place than this in which he was. all his past existence was as blotted and blurred as a child's spoiled and discarded copybook, . . true, he retained two names in his thoughts,--namely "ardath" and "the pass of dariel" but he was hopelessly ignorant as to what these meant or how he had become connected with them! he was roused from his distressful cogitation by sah-luma's voice speaking again half gayly, half sadly: "nay, nay, my friend! ... we cannot leave the city, we two alone and unguided, for beyond the gates is the desert wide and bare, with scarce a spring of cool water in many weary miles,--and beyond the desert is a forest, gloomy and tiger haunted, wherein the footsteps of man have seldom penetrated. to travel thus far we should need much preparation, . . many servants, many beasts of burden, and many months' provision.. moreover, 'tis a foolish, fancy crossed my mind at best,--for what should i, the laureate of al-kyris, do in other lands? besides, my departure would indeed be the desolation of the city,--well may al-kyris fall when sah-luma no longer abides within it! seawards the way lies open,--maybe, in days to come, we twain may take ship and sail hence for a brief sojourn to those distant western shores, whence thou, though thou sayest naught of them, must assuredly have come; i have often dreamed idly of a gray coast washed with dull rain and swathed in sweeping mists, where ever and anon the sun shines through,--a country cheerless, where a poet's fame like mine might ring the darkness of the skies with light, and stir the sleepy silence into song!" still theos said nothing,--there were hot tears in his throat that choked his utterance. he gazed up at the glowing sky above him,--it was a burning vault of cloudless blue in which the sun glared forth witheringly like a scorching mass of flame, . . oh for the freshness of a "gray coast washed with dull rain and swathed in sweeping mists" ... such as sah-luma spoke of! ... and what a strange sickening yearning suddenly filled his soul for the unforgotten sonorous dash of the sea! he drew a quick breath and pressed his friend's arm with unconscious fervor, . . why, why could he not take this dear companion away out of possible peril? ... away to those far lands dimly remembered, yet now so completely lost sight of, that they seemed to him but as a delusive mirage faintly discerned above the rising waters of lethe! sighing deeply, he controlled his emotion and forced himself to speak calmly though his voice trembled.. "not now then, but hereafter, thou'lt be my fellow-traveller, sah-luma? ... 'twill be a joyous time when we, set free of present hindrance, may journey through a myriad glorious scenes together, sharing such new and mutual gladness that perchance we scarce shall miss the splendor of al-kyris left behind! meanwhile i would that thou couldst promise me one thing,".. here he paused, but, seeing sah-luma's inquiring look, went on in a low, eager tone! "go not to the temple to-night!--absent thyself from this sacrifice, which, though it be the law of the realm, is nevertheless mere murderous barbarity,--and--inasmuch as the king is wrathful--i pray thee avoid his presence!" sah-luma broke into a laugh.. "now by my faith, good comrade, as well ask me for my head as demand such impossibilities! absent myself from the temple to-night of all nights in the world, when owing to these late phenomenal occurrences in the city, every one who is of repute and personal distinction will be present to assist at the service and offer petitions to the fabulous gods that haply their supposititious indignation may be averted? my friend, if only for the sake of custom i must be there, . . moreover, i should be liable to banishment from the realm for so specially marked a breach of religious discipline! and as for the king, he is my puppet; were he savage as a starving bear my voice could tame him,--and concerning his late churlishness 'twas no doubt mere heat of humor, and thou shalt see him sue to me for pardon as only monarchs can sue to the bards who keep them in their thrones! knowest thou not that were i to string three stanzas of a fiery republican ditty, and set it floating on the lips of the people, that song would sing down zephoranim from his royal estate more surely than the fury of an armed conqueror! believe it!--we, the poets, rule the nation, . . a rhyme has oft had power to kill a king!" theos smiled at the proud boast, but made no reply, as by this time they had reached the laureate's palace, and were ascending the steps that led into the entrance-hall. a young page advanced to meet them, and, dropping on one knee before his master, held out a small scroll tied across and across with what appeared to be a thick strand of amber-colored floss silk. "for the most illustrious chief of poets, sah-luma" ... said the little lad, keeping his head bent humbly as he spoke ... "it was brought lately by one masked, who rode in haste and fear, and, ere he could be questioned, swift departed." sah-luma took the missive carelessly, scarcely glancing at it, and crossed the hall toward his own apartment, theos following him. on his way, however, he paused and turned round: "has niphrata yet come home?" he demanded of the page who still lingered. "no, my lord! ... naught hath been seen or heard concerning her." sah-luma gave a petulant gesture of annoyance and passed on. arrived in his study he seated himself, and allowed his eyes to rest more attentively on the packet just given him. as he looked he uttered a slight exclamation, . . theos hastened to his side. "what has happened, sah-luma? ... hast thou ill news?" "ill news?--nay, of a truth i know not".. and the laureate gazed up blankly into his friend's face.. "but this" ... and he touched the fair silken substance that tied the scroll he held, "this is niphrata's hair!" "niphrata's hair!".. theos was too much surprised to do more than repeat the words mechanically, while a strange pang shot through his heart as of inward shame or sorrow. "naught can deceive me in the color of that gold!" went on sah-luma dreamily, as with careful, somewhat tremulous fingers, he gently loosened the twisted shining threads that were so delicately knotted together, and smoothing them out to their full length, displayed what was indeed a lovely tress of hair bright as woven sunlight with a rippling wave in it that, like the tendril of a vine caught and wound about his hand as though it were a fond and feeling thing. "see you not, theos, how warm and soft and shuddering a curl it is? ... it clings to me as if it knew my touch!--as if it half remembered how many and many a time it had been drawn with its companions to my lips and kissed full tenderly! ... how sad and desolate it seems thus severed and alone!" he spoke gently, yet not without a touch of passion, and twined the fair tresses lingeringly round his fingers, ..then, with the air of one who is instinctively prepared for some unpleasing tidings, he opened the scroll and perused its contents in silence. as he read on, his face grew very grave, and full of pained and wondering regret.. quietly he passed the missive to theos, who took it from his hand with a tremor of something like fear. the delicately traced characters with which it was covered floated for a moment in a faint blur before his eyes,--then they resolved themselves into legible shape and meaning, as follows: "to the ever-worshiped and immortally renowned "sah-luma. "poet-laureate of the kingdom of al-kyris. "blame me not, o my beloved lord, that i have left thy dearest presence thus unwarnedly forever, staying no time to weary thee with my too fond and foolish tears and kisses of farewell! i owe to thee the gift of freedom, and while i thank thee for that gift, i do employ it now to serve me as a sacrifice to love,--an immolation of myself upon the altars of my own desire! for thou knowest i have loved thee, o sah-luma--not too well but most unwisely,--for what am i that thou shouldst stoop to cover my unworthiness with the royal purple of thy poet-passion? ... what could i ever be save the poor trembling slave-idolater, of whose endearments thou must needs most speedily tire! nevertheless i cannot still this hunger of my heart,--this love that stings me more than it consoles,--and out of the very transport of my burning thoughts i have learned many and strange things,--things whereby i, a woman feebled and unlessoned, have grasped the glimmering foreknowledge of events to come,--events wherein i do perceive for thee, thou chiefest among men, some dark and threatening disaster. when fore i have prayed unto the most high gods, that they will deign to accept me as thy hostage to misfortune, and set me as a bar between thy life and dawning peril, so that i, long valueless, may serve at least awhile to avert doom from thee who art unparagoned throughout the world! "thus i go forth alone to brave and pacify the wrath of the immortals,--call me not back nor weep for my departure, . . thou wilt not miss me long! to die for thee, sah-luma, is better than to live for thee, . . for living i must needs be conquered by my sin of love and lose myself and thee,--but in the quiet afterwards of death, no passion shall have strength to mar the peaceful, patient waiting of my soul on thine! farewell thou utmost heart of my weak heart! ..thou only life of my frail life! ... think of me sometimes if thou will, but only as of a flower thou didst gather once in some past half-forgotten spring-time.. a flower that, as it slowly withered, blessed the dear hand in whose warm clasp it died! "niphrata." tears rose to theos's eyes as he finished reading these evidently unpremeditated pathetic words that suggested so much more than they actually declared. he silently returned the scroll to sah-luma, who sat very still, thoughtfully stroking the long, bright curl that was twisted round his fingers like a glittering strand of spun glass,--and he felt all at once so unreasonably irritated with his friend, that he was even inclined to find fault with the very grace and beauty of his person, . . the mere indolence of his attitude was, for the moment, provoking. "why art thou so unmoved?" he demanded almost sternly. "what hast thou done to niphrata, to thus grieve her gentle spirit beyond remedy?" sah-luma looked up, like a surprised child. "done? ... nay, what should i do? ... i have let her love me!" o sublime permission! ... he had "let her love" him! ... he had condescendingly allowed her, as it were, to waste all the treasures of her soul upon him! theos stared at him in vague amazement,--while he, apparently tired of his own reflections, continued with some impatience: "what more could she desire? ... i never barred her from my presence, ... nor checked the fervor of her greetings! i wore the flowers she chose,--i listened to the songs she sang, and when she looked more fair than ordinary i stinted not the warmth of my caresses. she was too meek and loving for my fancy ... no will save mine--no happiness save in my company,--no thought beyond my pleasure--one wearies of such a fond excess of sweetness! nevertheless her sole delight was still to serve me,--could i debar her from that joy because i saw therein some danger for her peace? slave as she was, i made her free--and lo! how capriciously she plays with her late-given liberty! 'tis always the way with women,--no man shall ever learn how best to please them! she knew i loved her not as lovers love,--she knew my heart was elsewhere fixed and fated ... and if, notwithstanding this knowledge, she still chose to love me, then assuredly her grief is of her own creating! methinks 'tis i who am most injured in this matter! ... all the day long i have tormented myself concerning the silly maiden's absence, while she, seized by some crazed idea of new adventure, has gone forth heedlessly, scarce knowing whither. her letter is the exalted utterance of an overwrought, excited brain,--she has in all likelihood caught the contagion of superstitious alarm that seems just now to possess the whole city, and she knows naught of what she writes or what she means to do. to leave me forever, as she says, is out of her power,--for i will demand her back at the hands of lysia or the king,--and no demand of mine has ever been refused. moreover, with lysia's aid, her hiding-place is soon and easily discovered!" "how?" asked theos mechanically, still surveying the beautiful, calm features of the charming egotist whose nature seemed such a curious mixture of loftiness and littleness.. "she may have left the city!" "no one can leave the city without express permission,"--rejoined sah-luma tranquilly--"besides, . . didst thou not see the black disc last night in lysia's palace?" theos nodded assent. he at once remembered the strange revolving thing that had covered itself with brilliant letters at the approach of the high priestess, and he waited somewhat eagerly to hear the meaning of so singular an object explained. "the priest of the temple of nagaya,"--went on sah-luma--"are the greatest scientists in the world, with the exception of the lately formed circle of mystics, who it must be confessed exceed them in certain new lines of discovery. but setting aside the mystic school, which it behoves us not to speak of, seeing it is condemned by law,--there are no men living more subtly wise in matters pertaining to aerial force and light-phenomena, than the servants of the secret doctrine of the temple. all seeming-marvellous things are to them mere child's play,--and the miracles by which they keep the multitude in awe are not by any means vulgar, but most exquisitely scientific. as, for instance, at the great new year festival, called by us 'the sailing-forth of the ship of the sun,'--which takes place at the commencement of the spring solstice, a fire is kindled on the summit of the highest tower, and a ship of gold rises from the centre of the flames, carrying the body of a slain virgin eastwards, . . 'tis wondrously performed! ... and i, like others, have gaped upon the splendor of the scene half-credulous, and wholly dazzled! for the ship doth rise aloft with excellent stateliness, plowing the air with as much celerity as sailing-vessels plow the seas; departing straightway from the watching eyes of thousands of spectators, it plunges deep, or so it seems, into the very heart of the rising sun, which doth apparently absorb it in devouring flames of glory, for never again doth it return to earth, . . and none can solve the mystery of its vanishing! 'tis a graceful piece of jugglery and perfectly accomplished, . . while as for oracles [footnote: the phonograph was known and used for the utterance of oracles by one savan the asmounian, a priest-king of ancient egypt.] that command and repeat their commands in every shade of tone, from mild to wrathful, there are only too many of these, . . moreover the secret of their manufacture is well known to all students of acoustic science. but concerning the black disc in lysia's hall, it is a curiously elaborate piece of workmanship. it corresponds with an electric wheel in the interior chamber of the temple, where all the priests and flamens meet and sum up the entire events of the day, both public and private, condensing the same into brief hieroglyphs. setting their wheel in motion, they start a similar motion in the disc, and the bright characters that flash upon it and disappear like quicksilver, are the reflection of the working electric wires which write what only lysia is skilled to read. from sunset to midnight these messages keep coming without intermission,--and all the most carefully concealed affairs of al-kyris are discovered by the temple spies and conveyed to lysia by this means. whatever the news, it is repeated again and again on the disc, till she, by rapidly turning it with a peculiar movement of her own, causes a small bell to ring in the temple, which signifies to her informers that she has understood all their communications, and knows everything. her inquisitorial system is searching and elaborate, . . there is no secret so carefully guarded that the black disc will not in time reveal!" theos listened wonderingly and with a sense of repugnance and fear, ... he felt as though the beautiful priestess, with her glittering robes and the dreadful jewelled eye upon her breast, were just then entering the room stealthily and rustling hither and thither like a snake beneath covering leaves. she was an ever-present temptation,--a bewildering snare and distracting evil,--was it not possible to shake her trail off the life of his friend-and also to pluck from out his own heart the poison-sting of her fatal, terrible fascination? a red mist swam before his eyes--his lips were dry and feverish,--his voice sounded hoarse and faint in his own ears when he forced himself to speak again. "so thou dost think that, wheresoever niphrata hath strayed, lysia can find her?" he said. "assuredly!" returned sah-luma with easy complacency--"i would swear that, even at this very moment, lysia could restore her to my arms in safety." "then why" ... suggested theos anxiously--"why not go forth and seek her now?" "nay, there is time!" ... and sah-luma half closed his languid lids and stretched himself lazily. "i would not have the child imagine i vexed myself too greatly for her unkind departure, . . she must have space wherein to weep and repent her of her folly. she is the strangest maiden!" ... and he brushed his lips lightly against the golden curl he held,--she loves me, . . and yet repulses all attempted passion,--i remember" ... here his face grew more serious--"i remember one night in the beginning of summer,--the moon was round and high in heaven,--we were alone together in this room,--the lamps burned low,--and she.. niphrata, . . sang to me. her voice was full, and withal tremulous,--her form, bent to her ebony harp was soft and yielding as an iris stem, her eyes turned upon mine seemed wonderingly to question me as to the worth of love! ... or so i fancied. the worth of love! ... i would have taught it to her then in the rapture of an hour!--but seized with sudden foolish fear she fled, leaving me dissatisfied, indifferent, and weary! no matter! when she returns again her mood will alter, . . and though i love her not as she would fain be loved, i shall find means to make her happy." "nay, but she speaks of dying".. said theos quickly ... "wilt thou constrain her back from death?" "my friend, all women speak of dying when they are love-wearied" ... replied sah-luma with a slight smile ... "niphrata will not die, ... she is too young and fond of life, ... the world is as a garden wherein she has but lately entered, all ignorant of the pleasures that await her there. 'tis an odd notion that she has of danger threatening me,--thou also, good theos, art become full of omens,--and yet, . . there is naught of visible ill to trouble the fairness of the day." he stepped out as he spoke on the terrace and looked up at the intense calm of the lovely sky. theos followed him, and stood leaning on the balustrade among the clambering vines, watching him with earnest, half-regretful half-adoring eyes. he, meanwhile, gathered a scarcely opened white rosebud and loosening the tress of niphrata's hair from his fingers, allowed it to hang to its full rippling length,--then laying the flower against it, he appeared dreamily to admire the contrast between the snowy blossom and shining curl. "many strange men there are in the world," he said softly--"lovers and fools who set priceless store on a rose and a lock of woman's hair! i have heard of some who, dying, have held such trifles as chiefest of all their worldly goods, and have implored that whereas their gold and household stuff can be bestowed freely on him who first comes to claim it, the faded flower and senseless tress may be laid on their hearts to comfort them in the cold and dreamless sleep from which they shall not wake again!" he sighed and his eyes darkened into deep and musing tenderness. "poets there have been too and are, who would string many a canticle on this soft severed lock and gathered blossom,--and many a quaint conceit could i myself contrive concerning it, did i not feel more prone to tears to-day than minstrelsy. canst thou believe it, theos"--and he forced a laugh, though his lashes were wet, . . "i, the joyous sah-luma, am for once most truly sad! ... this tress of hair doth seem to catch my spirit in a chain that binds me fast and draws me onward.. onward.. to some mournful end i may not dare to see!" and as he spoke he mechanically wound the golden curl round and about the stem of the rosebud in the fashion of a ribbon, and placed the two entwined together in his breast. theos looked at him wistfully, but was silent, . . he himself was too full of dull and melancholy misgivings to be otherwise than sad also. instinctively he drew closer to his friend's side, and thus they remained for some minutes, exchanging no words, and gazing dreamily out on the luxurious foliage of the trees and the wealth of bright blossoms that adorned the landscape before them. "thou art confident niphrata will return?" questioned theos presently in a low tone. "she will return,".. rejoined sah-luma quietly--"because she will do anything for love of me." "for love's sake she may die!" said theos. sah-luma smiled. "not so, my friend! ... for love's sake she will live!" chapter xxvi. the priest zel. as he uttered the last word the sound of an approaching light step disturbed the silence. it was one of the young girls of the household, . . a dark, haughty-looking beauty whom theos remembered to have seen in the palace-hall when he first arrived, lying indolently among cushions, and playing with a tame bird which flew to and fro at her beckoning. she advanced now with an almost imperial stateliness,--her salute to sah-luma was grateful, yet scarcely submissive,--while he, turning eagerly toward her, seemed gladdened and relieved at her appearance, his face assuming a gratified expression like that of a child who, having broken one toy, is easily consoled with another. "welcome, irenya!" he exclaimed gayly--"thou art the very bitter-sweetness i desire. thy naughty pout and coldly mutinous eyes are pleasing contrasts to the overlanguid heat and brightness of the day! what news hast thou, my sweet? ... is there fresh havoc in the city? ... more deaths? ... more troublous tidings? ... nay, then hold thy peace, for thou art not a fit messenger of woe--thou'rt much too fair!" irenya's red lips curled disdainfully, . . the "naughty pout" was plainly visible. "my lord is pleased to flatter his slave!" she said with a touch of scorn in her musical accents, . . "certes, of ill news there is more than enough,--and evil rumors have never been lacking these many months, as my lord would have known, had he deigned to listen to the common talk of those who are not poets but merely sad and suffering men. nevertheless, though i may think, i speak not at all of matters such as these,--and for my present errand 'tis but to say that a priest of the inner temple waits without, desirous of instant speech with the most illustrious sah-luma." "a priest of the inner temple!" echoed the laureate wonderingly, . . "by my faith, a most unwelcome visitor! ... what business can he have with me?" "nay, that i know not"--responded irenya calmly--"he hath come hither, so he bade me say, by command of the absolute authority." sah-luma's face flushed and he looked annoyed. then taking theos by the arm he turned away from the terrace, and re-entered his apartment, where he flung himself full length on his couch, pillowing his handsome head against a fold of glossy leopard skin which formed a most becoming background for the soft, dark oval beauty of his features. "sit thee down, my friend!" he said glancing smilingly at theos, and signing to him to take possession of a luxurious lounge-chair near him.. "if we must needs receive this sanctified professor of many hypocrisies, we will do it with suitable indifference and ease. wilt thou stay here with us, irenya," he added, stretching out one arm and catching the maiden round the waist in spite of her attempted resistance.. "or art thou in a froward mood, and wilt thou go thine own proud way without so much as a consoling kiss from sah-luma?" irenya looked full at him, a repressed anger blazing in her large black eyes. "let my lord save his kisses for those who value them!" she said contemptuously, "'twere pity he should waste them upon me, to whom they are unmeaning and therefore all unwelcome!" he laughed heartily, and instantly loosened her from his embrace. "off, off with thee, sweet virtue! ... fairest prude!" he cried, still laughing.. "live out thy life an thou wilt, empty of love or passion--count the years as they slip by, leaving thee each day less lovely and less fit for pleasure, ... grow old,--and on the brink of death, look back, poor child, and see the glory thou hast missed and left behind thee! ... the light of love and youth that, once departed, can dawn again no more!" and lifting himself slightly from his cushions he kissed his hand playfully to the girl, who, as though suddenly overcome by a sort of vague regret, still lingered, gazing at him, while a faint color crept through her cheeks like the deepening hue on the leaves of an opening rose. sah-luma saw her hesitation, and his face grew yet more radiant with malicious mirth. "hence.. hence, irenya!" he exclaimed--"escape temptation quickly while thou mayest! support thy virgin pride in peace! ... thou shalt never say again sah-luma's kisses are unwelcome! the poet's touch shall never wrong or sanctify thy name!--thou art safe from me as pillared icicles in everlasting snow! dear little one, be happy without love if that be possible! ... nevertheless take heed thou do not weakly clamor in the after-years for once rejected joy!--now bid yon waiting priest attend me,--tell him i can but spare a few brief moments audience." irenya's head drooped,--theos saw tears in her eyes,--but she managed to restrain them, and with something of a defiant air she made her formal obeisance and withdrew. she did not return again, but a page appeared instead, ushering in with ceremonious civility a tall personage, clad in flowing white robes and muffled up to the eyes in a mantle of silver tissue,--a majestic, mysterious, solemn-looking individual, who, pausing on the threshold of the apartment, described a circle in the air with a small staff he carried, and said in monotonous accents: "by the going-in and passing-out of the sun through the gates of the east and the gates of the west,--by the vulture of gold and white lotus and the countless virtues of nagaya, may peace dwell in this house forever!" "agreed to with all my heart!" responded sah-luma, carelessly looking up from his couch but making no attempt to rise, . . "peace is an excellent thing, most holy father!" "excellent!" returned the priest slowly advancing and undoing his mantle so that his face became fully visible,--"so truly excellent indeed, that at times it is needful to make war in order to insure it." he sat down, as he spoke, in a chair which was placed for him at sah-luma's bidding by the page who had ushered him in, and he maintained a grave silence till that youthful servitor had departed. theos meanwhile studied his countenance with some curiosity,--it was so strangely impassive, yet at the same time so full of distinctly marked intellectual power. the features were handsome but also singularly repulsive,--they were rendered in a certain degree dignified by a full, dark beard which, however, failed entirely to conceal the receding chin, and compressed, cruel mouth,--the eyes were keen and crafty and very clear,--the forehead was high and intelligent, and deeply furrowed with lines that seemed to be the result of much pondering over close and cunning calculation, rather than the marks of profound, unselfish, and ennobling thought. the page having left the room, sah-luma began the conversation: "to what unexpected cause, most righteous sir, am i indebted for the honor of this present visit? methinks i recognize the countenance of the famous zel, the high-priest of the sacrificial altar--if so, 'tis marvellous so great a man should venture forth alone and unattended, to the house of one who loves not priestly company, and who hath at best for all professors of religion a somewhat indifferent welcome!" the priest smiled coldly. "most rightly dost thou speak, sah-luma"--he answered, his measured, metallic voice seeming to strike a wave of chilling discord through the air, "and most frankly hast thou thus declared one of thy many deficiencies! atheist as thou art and to that manner born, thou art in very deed outside the pale of all religious teaching and consolement, . . nevertheless there is much gentle mercy shown thee by the virgin priestess of nagaya".. here he solemnly bent his head and made the rapid sign of a circle on his breast, . . "who, knowing thy great genius, doth ever strive with thoughtful zeal to draw thee closely within the saving silver veil! yet it is possible that even her patience with thy sins may tire at last,--wherefore while there is time, offer due penance to the offended gods and humble thy stiff heart before the holy maid, lest she expel thee from her sight forever." he paused, . . a satirical, half-amused smile hovered round sah-luma's delicate mouth--his eyes flashed. "all this is the mere common rhetoric of the temple craft"--he said indolently.. "why not, good zel, give plainer utterance to thine errand?--we know each other's follies well enough to spare formalities! lysia has sent thee hither, . . what then? ... what says the beauteous virgin to her willing slave?" an undertone of mockery rang through the languid silvery sweetness of his accents, and the priest's dark brows knitted in an irritated frown. "thou art over-flippant of speech, sah-luma!" he observed austerely. "take heed thou be not snared into misfortune by the glibness of thy tongue! thou dost speak of the chaste lysia with unseemly lightness.--learn to be reverent, and so shalt thou be wiser!" sah-luma laughed and settled himself more easily on his couch, turning in such a manner as to look the stately zel full in the face. they exchanged one glance, expressive as it seemed of some mutual secret understanding,--for the priest coughed as though he were embarrassed, and stroked his beard deliberately with one hand in an endeavor to hide the strange smile that, despite his efforts to conceal it, visibly lightened his cold eyes to a sudden tigerish brilliancy. "the mission with which i am charged," he resumed presently,--"is to thee, chief laureate of the realm, and runs as followeth: whereas thou hast of late avoided many days of public service in the temple, so that those among the people who admire thee follow thine ill example, and absent themselves also with equal readiness,--the priestess undefiled, the noble lysia, doth to-night command thy presence as a duty not to be foregone. therefore come thou and take thy part in the great sacrifice, for these late tumults and disaster in the city, notably the perplexing downfall of the obelisk, have caused all hearts to fail and sink for very fear. the river darkens in its crimson hue each hour by passing hour,--strange noises have been heard athwart the sky and in the deeper underground, . . and all these drear unwonted things are so many cogent reasons why we should in solemn unison implore the favor of nagaya and the gods whereby further catastrophes may be perchance averted. moreover for motives of most urgent state-policy it is advisable that all who hold place, dignity, and renown within the city should this night be seen as fervent supplicants before the sacred shrine,--so may much threatening rebellion be appeased, and order be restored out of impending confusion. such is the message i am bidden to convey to thee,--furthermore i am required to bear back again to the high priestess thy faithful promise that her orders shall be surely and entirely obeyed. thou art not wont".. and a pale sneer flitted over his features.. "to set her mandate at defiance." sah-luma bit his lips angrily, and folded his arms above his head with a lazy yet impatient movement. "assuredly i shall be present at the service," he said curtly.. "there needed no such weighty summoning! 'twas my intention to join the ranks of worshippers to-night, though for myself i have no faith in worship, . . the gods i ween are deaf, and care not a jot whether we mortals weep or sing. nevertheless i shall look on with fitting gravity, and deport myself with due decorum throughout the ceremonious ritual, though verily i tell thee, reverend zel, 'tis tedious and monotonous at best, . . and concerning the poor maiden-sacrifice, it is a shuddering horror we could well dispense with." "i think not so,".. replied the priest calmly. "thou, who art well instructed in the capricious humors of men, must surely know how dearly the majority of them love the shedding of blood,--'tis a clamorous brute-instinct in them which must be satisfied. better therefore that we, the anointed priests, should slay one willing victim for the purposes of religion, than that they, the ignorant mob, should kill a thousand to gratify their lust of murder. an unresentful, all-loving deity would be impossible of comprehension to a mutually hating and malignant race of beings,--all creeds must be accommodated to the dispositions of the million." "pardon me..." suddenly interrupted theos, "i am a stranger, and in a great measure ignorant of this city's customs, . . but i confess i am amazed to hear a priest uphold so specious an argument! what! ... must divine religion be dragged down from its pure throne to pander to the selfish passions of the multitude? ... because men are vile, must a vile god be invented to suit their savage caprices? ... because men are so cruel, must the unseen creator of things be delineated as even more barbarous than they, in order to give them some pietistical excuse for wickedness?--i ask these questions not out of wanton curiosity, but for the sake of instruction!" the haughty zel turned upon him in severe astonishment. "sir," he said--"stranger undoubtedly thou art,--and so bold a manner of speech most truly savors of the utterly uneducated western barbarian! all wise and prudent governments have learned that a god fit for the adoration of men must be depicted as much like men as possible,--any absolutely superhuman attributes are unnecessary to the character of a useful deity, inasmuch as no man ever will, or ever can, understand the worth of superhuman qualities. humanity is only capable of worshipping self--thus, it is necessary, that when people are persuaded to pay honor to an elected divinity, they should be well and comfortably assured in their own minds that they are but offering homage to an image of self placed before them in a deified or heroic form. this satisfies the natural idolatrous cravings of egotism, and this is all that priests or teachers desire. now in the worship of nagaya, we have the natures of man and woman conjoined, . . the snake is the emblem of male wisdom united with female subtilty--and the two essences, mingled in one, make as near an approach to what we may imagine the positive divine capacity as can be devised on earth by earthly intelligences. if, on the other hand, such an absurd doctrine as that formulated in the fanatic madman khosrul's 'prophecy' could be imagined as actually admitted, and proclaimed to the nations, it would have very few followers, and the sincerity of those few might well be open to doubt. for the deity it speaks of is supposed to be an immortal god disguised as man,--a god who voluntarily rejects and sets aside his own glory to serve and save his perishable creatures,--thus the root of that religion would consist in self-abnegation, and self-abnegation is, as experience proves, utterly impossible to the human being." "why is it impossible?" asked theos with a quiver of passionate earnestness in his voice,--"are there none in all the world who would sacrifice their own interests to further another's welfare and happiness?" the priest smiled,--a delicately derisive smile. "certainly not!" he replied blandly.. "the very question strikes me as singularly foolish, inasmuch as we live in a planet where, if we do not serve ourselves and look after our own personal advantage, we may as well die the minute we are born, or, better still, never be born at all. there is no one living, . . at least not in the wide realm of al-kyris,--who would put himself to the smallest inconvenience for the sake of another, were that other his nearest and dearest blood-relation. and in matters of love and friendship, 'tis the same as in business,--each man eagerly pursues his own chance of enjoyment,--even when he loves, or fancies he loves, a woman, it is solely because her beauty or attractiveness gives him temporary pleasure, not because he has any tenderness or after-regard for the nature of her feelings. how can it be otherwise? ... we elect friends that are useful to us personally,--we care little for their intrinsic merit, and we only tolerate them as long as they happen to suit our taste. for generally, on the first occasion of a disagreement or difference of opinion, we shake ourselves free of them without either regret or remorse, and seek others who will be meek enough not to offer us any open contradiction. it is, and it must be always so: self is the first person we are bound to consider, and all religions, if they are intended to last, must prudently recognize and silently acquiesce in this, the chief dogma of man's constitution." sah-luma laughed. "excellently argued, most politic zel!" he exclaimed.. "yet methinks it is easy to worship self without either consecrated altars or priestly assistance!" "thou shouldst know better than any one with what facility such devotion can be practiced!" returned zel ironically, rising as he spoke, and beginning to wrap his mantle round him preparatory to departure--"thou hast a wider range of perpetual adoration than most men, seeing thou dost so fully estimate the value of thine own genius! some heretics there are in the city, who say thy merit is but a trick of song shared by thee in common with the birds, . . who truly seem to take no pride in the particular sweetness of their unsyllabled language, . . but thou thyself art better instructed, and who shall blame thee for the veneration with which thou dost daily contemplate thine own intellectual powers? not i, believe me!".. and his crafty eyes glittered mockingly, as he arranged his silver gauze muffler so that it entirely veiled the lower part of his features, . . "and though i do somewhat regret to learn that thou, among other noblemen of fashion, hast of late taken part in the atheistic discussions encouraged by the positivist school of thought, still, as a priest, my duty is not so much to reproach as to call thee to repentance. therefore i inwardly rejoice to know thou wilt present thyself before the shrine to-night, if only for the sake of custom ..." "'only' for the sake of custom!" repeated sah-luma amusedly--"nay, good zel, custom should be surely classified as an exceeding powerful god, inasmuch as it rules all things, from the cut of our clothes to the form of our creeds!" "true!" replied zel imperturbably. "and he who despises custom becomes an alien from his kind,--a moral leper among the pure and clean." "oh, say rather a lion among sheep, a giant among pigmies!" laughed the laureate,--"for by my soul, a man who had the courage to scorn custom, and set the small hypocrisies of society at defiance, would be a glorious hero! a warrior of strange integrity whom it would be well worth travelling miles to see!" "khosrul was such an one!" interposed theos suddenly. "tush, man! khosrul was mad!" retorted sah-luma. "are not all men thought mad who speak the truth?" queried theos gently. the priest zel looked at him with proud and supercilious eyes. "thou hast strange notions for one still young," he said ... "what art thou? ... a new disciple of the mystics? ... or a student of the positive doctrines?" theos met his gaze unflinchingly. "what am i?" he murmured sadly, and his voice trembled, ... "reverend priest, i am nothing! ... great are the sufferings of men who have lost their wealth, their home, their friends, ... but i ... i have lost myself! were i anything ... could i ever hope to be anything, i would pray to be accepted a servant of the cross, ... that far-off unknown faith to which my tired spirit clings!" as he uttered these words, he raised his eyes, ... how dim and misty at the moment seemed the tall white figure of the majestic zel! and in contrast to it, how brilliantly distinct sah-luma's radiant face appeared, turned toward him in inquiring wonderment! ... he felt a swooning dizziness upon him, but the sensation swiftly passed, and he saw the haughty priest's dark brows bent upon him in a frown of ominous disapproval. "'tis well thou art not a citizen of al-kyris"--he said scornfully--"to strangers we accord a certain license of opinion,--but if thou wert a native of these realms, thy speech would cost thee dear! as it is, i warn thee! ... dare not to make public mention of the cross, the accursed emblem of the dead khosrul's idolatry, ... guard thy tongue heedfully!--and thou, sah-luma if thou dost bring this rashling with thee to the temple, thou must take upon thyself all measures for his safety. for in these days, some words are like firebrands, and he who casts them forth incautiously may kindle flames that only the forfeit of his life can quench." there was a quiver of suppressed fury in his tone, and sah-luma lifted his lazy lids, and looked at him with an air of tranquil indifference. "prithee, trouble not thyself, most eminent zel!" he answered nonchalantly ... "i will answer for my friend's discretion! thou dost mistake his temperament,--he is a budding poet, and utters many a disconnected thought which hath no meaning save to his own fancy-swarming brain,--he saw the frantic khosrul die, and the picture hath impressed him for the moment--nothing more! i pledge my word for his demurest prudence at the service to-night--i would not have him absent for the world, ... 'twere pity he should miss the splendor of a scene which doubtless hath been admirably contrived, by priestly art and skill, to play upon the passions of the multitude. tell me, good zel, what is the name of the self-offered victim?" the priest flashed a strangely malevolent glance at him. "'tis not to be divulged," he replied curtly--"the virgin is no longer counted among the living ... she is as one already departed--the name she bore hath been erased from the city registers, and she wears instead the prouder title of 'bride of the sun and nagaya.' restrain thy curiosity until night hath fallen,--it may be that thou, who hast a wide acquaintance among fair maidens, wilt recognize her countenance." "nay, i trust i know her not"--said sah-luma carelessly--"for, though all women die for me when once their beauty fades, still am i loth to see them perish ere their prime. "yet many are doomed to perish so"--rejoined the priest impassively--"men as well as women,--and methinks those who are best beloved of the gods are chosen first to die. death is not difficult, ... but to live long enough for life to lose all savor, and love all charm, ... this is a bitterness that comes with years and cannot be consoled." and retreating slowly toward the door, he paused as he had previously done on the threshold. "farewell, sah-luma!" he said ... "beware that nothing hinders thee from the fulfillment of thy promise! ... and let thy homage to the holy maid be reverent at the parting of the silver veil!" he waited, but sah-luma made no answer--he therefore raised his staff and described a circle with it in the same solemn fashion that had distinguished his entrance. "by the coming-forth of the moon through the ways of darkness, . . by the shining of stars, . . by the sleeping sun and the silence of night, . . by the all-seeing eye of raphon and the wisdom of nagaya may the protection of the gods abide in this house forever!" as he pronounced these words he noiselessly departed, without any salutation whatever to sah-luma, who heaved a sigh of relief when he had gone, and, rising from his couch came and placed one hand affectionately on theos's shoulder. "thou foolish, yet dear comrade!" he murmured.. "what moves thee to blurt forth such strange and unwarrantable sayings? ... why wouldst thou pray to be a servant of the cross? ... or why, at any rate, if thou hast taken a fancy for the dead khosrul's new doctrine, wert thou so rash as to proclaim thy sentiment to yon unprincipled, bloodthirsty zel, who would not scruple to poison the king himself, if his majesty gave sufficient cause of offence! dost thou desire to be straightway slain?--nay, i will not have thee run thus furiously into danger,--thou wilt be offered the silver nectar like nir-jahs, and not even the intercession of my friendship would avail to save thee then!" theos smiled rather sadly. "and thus would end for ever my mistakes and follies, . ." he answered softly.. "and i should perchance discover the small hidden secret of things--the little, simple unguessed clue, that would unravel the mystery and meaning of existence! for can it be that the majestic marvel of created nature is purposeless in its design?--that we are doomed to think thoughts which can never be realized?--to dream dreams that perish in the dreaming? ... to build up hopes without foundation? ... to call upon god when there is no god? ... to long for heaven when there is no heaven? ... ah no, sah-luma!--surely we are not the mere fools and dupes of time, ... surely there is some eternal beyond which is not annihilation, . . some greater, vaster sphere of soul-development where we shall find all that we have missed on earth!" sah-luma's face clouded, and a sigh escaped him. "i would my thoughts were similar to thine!" he said sorrowfully.. "i would i could believe in an immortal destiny, ... but alas, my friend! there is no shadow of ground for such a happy faith,--none neither in sense nor science. i have reflected on it many a time till i have wearied myself with mournful musing, and the end of all my meditation has been a useless protest against the great inevitable, . . a clamor of disdain hurled at the huge, blind, indifferent force that poisons the deep sea of space with an ever-productive spawn of wasted life! anon i have flouted my own despair, and have consoled myself with the old wise maxim that was found inscribed on the statue of a smiling god some centuries ago.. 'enjoy your lives, ye passing tribes of men ... take pleasure in folly, for this is the only wisdom that avails! happy is he whose days are filled with the delight of love and laughter, for there is nothing better found on earth, and whatsoever ye do, whether wise or foolish, the same end comes to all!'.. is not this true philosophy, my theos? ... what can a man do better than enjoy?" "much depends on the particular form of enjoyment..." responded theos thoughtfully. "some there are, for example, who might find their greatest satisfaction in the pleasures of the table,--others in the gratification of sensual desires and gross appetites,--are these to be left to follow their own devices, without any effort being made to raise them from the brute-level where they lie?" "why, in the name of all the gods, should they be raised?" demanded sah-luma impatiently--"if their choice is to grovel in mire, why ask them to dwell in a palace?--they would not appreciate the change!" "again," went on theos--"there are others who are only happy in the pursuit of wisdom, and the more they learn, the more they seek to know. one wonders, . . one cannot help wondering.. are their aspirations all in vain? ... and will the grave seal down their hopes forever?" sah-luma paused a moment before replying. "it seems so ..." he said at last slowly and hesitatingly ... "and herein i find the injustice of the matter,--because however great may be the imagination and fervor of a poet for instance, he never is able wholly to utter his thoughts. half of them remain in embryo, like buds of flowers that never come to bloom, . . yet they are there, burning in the brain and seeming too vast of conception to syllable themselves into the common speech of mortals! i have often marvelled why such ideas suggest themselves at all, as they can neither be written nor spoken, unless..." and here his voice sank into a dreamy softness, "unless indeed they are to be received as hints, . . foreshadowings.. of greater works destined for our accomplishment, hereafter!" he was silent a minute's space, and theos, watching him wistfully, suddenly asked: "wouldst thou be willing to live again, sah-luma, if such a thing could be?" "friend, i would rather never die!"--responded the laureate, half playfully, half seriously.. "but.. if i were certain that death was no more than a sleep, from which i should assuredly awaken to another phase of existence, ..i know well enough what i would do!" "what?" questioned theos, his heart beginning to beat with an almost insufferable anxiety. "i would live a different life now!" answered sah-luma steadily, looking his companion full in the eyes as he spoke, while a grave smile shadowed rather than lightened his features. "i would begin at once, . . so that when the new future dawned for me, i might not be haunted or tortured by the remembrance of a misspent past! for if we are to believe in any everlasting things at all, we cannot shut out the fatal everlastingness of memory!" his words sounded unlike himself...his voice was as the voice of some reproving angel speaking,--and theos, listening, shuddered, he knew not why, and held his peace. "never to be able to forget!" continued sah-luma in the same grave, sweet tone ... "never to lose sight of one's own bygone wilful sins, . . this would be an immortal destiny too terrible to endure! for then, inexorable retrospection would forever show us where we had missed the way, and how we had failed to use the chances given us, . . moreover, we might haply find ourselves surrounded..." and his accents grew slower and more emphatic.. "by strange phantoms of our own creating, who would act anew the drama of our obstinate past follies, perplexing us thereby into an anguish greater than mortal fancy can depict. thus if we indeed possessed the positive foreknowledge of the eternal regeneration of our lives, 'twould be well to free them from all hindrance to perfection here,--here, while we are still conscious of time and opportunity." he paused, then went on in his customary gay manner: "but fortunately we are not positive, nothing is certain, no truth is so satisfactorily demonstrated that some wiseacre cannot be found to disprove it, . . hence it happens my friend..." and his face assumed its wonted careless expression ... "that we men whose common-sense is offended by priestly hypocrisy and occult necromantic jugglery,--we, who perhaps in our innermost heart of hearts ardently desire to believe in a supreme divinity and the grandly progressive sublime intention of the universe, but who, discovering naught but ignoble cant and imposture everywhere, are incontinently thrown back on our own resources, . . hence it comes, i say, that we are satisfied to accept ourselves, each man in his own personality, as the beginning and end of existence, and to minister to that absolute self which after all concerns us most, and which will continue to engage our best service until...well!--until history can show us a perfectly selfless example, which, if human nature remains consistent with its own traditions, will assuredly never be!" this was almost more than theos could bear, . . there was a tightening agony at his heart that made him long to cry out, to weep, or, better still, to fling himself on his knees and pray, . . pray to that far-removed mild presence, that "selfless example" who he knew had hallowed and dignified the world, and yet whose holy and beloved name, he, miserable sinner, was unworthy to even remember! his suffering at the moment was so intense that he fancied some reflection of it must be visible in his face. sah-luma, however, apparently saw nothing,--he stepped across the room, and out to the vine-shaded loggia, where he turned and beckoned his companion to his side. "come!" he said, pushing his hair off his brows with a languid gesture, . . "the afternoon wears onward, and the very heavens seem to smoke with heat,--let us seek cooler air beneath the shade of yonder cypresses, whose dark-green boughs shut out the glaring sky. we'll talk of love and poesy and tender things till sunset, . . i will recite to thee a ballad of mine that niphrata loved,--'tis called 'an idyl of roses,'...and it will lighten this hot and heavy silence, when even birds sleep, and butterflies drowse in the hollowed shelter of the arum-leaves. come, wilt thou? ... to-night perchance we shall have little time for pleasant discourse!" as he spoke, theos obediently went toward him with the dazed sensations of one under the influence of mesmerism, ... the dazzling face and luminous eyes of the laureate exercised over him an indescribable yet resistless authority,--and it was certain that, wherever sah-luma led the way, he was bound to follow. only, as he mechanically descended from the terrace into the garden, and linked his arm within that of his companion, he was conscious of a vague feeling of pity for himself...pity that he should have dwindled into such a nonentity, when sah-luma was so renowned a celebrity, . . pity too that he should have somehow never been able to devise anything original in the art of poetry! this last was evident, . . for he knew already that the "idyl of roses" sah-luma purposed reciting could be no other than what he had fancied was his "idyl of roses" ... a poem he had composed, or rather had plagiarized in some mysterious fashion before he had even dreamt of the design of "nourhalma"...however he had become in part resigned to the peculiar position he occupied,--he was just a little sorry for himself, and that was all. even as the parted spirit of a dead man might hover ruthfully above the grave of its perished mortal body, so he compassionated his own forlorn estate, and heaved a passing sigh of regret, not only for all he once had been, but also for all he could never be! chapter xxvii. in the temple of nagaya. the hours wore on with stealthy rapidity,--but the two friends, reclining together under a deep-branched canopy of cypress-boughs, paid little or no heed to the flight of time. the heat in the garden was intense--the grass was dry and brittle as though it had been scorched by passing flames,--and a singularly profound stillness reigned everywhere, there being no wind to stir the faintest rustle among the foliage. lying lazily upon his back, with his arms clasped above his head, theos looked dreamily up at the patches of blue sky seen between the dark-green gnarled stems and listened to the measured cadence of the laureate's mellow voice as he recited with much tenderness the promised poem. of course it was perfectly familiar,--the lines were precisely the same as those which he, theos, remembered to have written out, thinking them his own, in an old manuscript book he had left at home. "at-home!" ... where was that? it must be a very long way off! ... he half-closed his eyes,--a sense of delightful drowsiness was upon him, . . the rise and fall of his friend's rhythmic utterance soothed him into a languid peace, . . the "idyl of roses" was very sweet and musical, and, though he knew it of old, he heard it now with special satisfaction, inasmuch as, it being no longer his, he was at liberty to bestow upon it that full measure of admiration which he felt it deserved! yet every now and then his thoughts wandered,--and though he anxiously strove to concentrate his attention on the lovely stanzas that murmured past his ears like the gentle sound of waves flowing beneath the mesmerism of the moon, his brain was in a continual state of ferment, and busied itself with all manner of vague suggestions to which he could give no name. a great weariness weighed down his spirit--a dim consciousness of the futility of all ambition and all endeavor--he was haunted, too, by the sharp hiss of lysia's voice when she had said, "kill sah-luma!"...her look, her attitude, her murderous smile, troubled his memory and made him ill at ease,--the thing she had thus demanded at his hands seemed more monstrous than if she had bidden him kill himself! for there had been one moment, when, mastered by her beauty and the force of his own passion, he would have killed himself had she requested it...but to kill his adored, his beloved friend! ... ah no! not for a thousand sorceress-queens as fair as she! he drew a long breath, . . an irresistible desire for rest came over him, . . the air was heavy and warm and fragrant,--his companion's dulcet accents served as a lullaby to his tired mind,--it seemed a long time since he had enjoyed a pleasant slumber, for the previous night he had not slept at all. lower and lower drooped his aching lids, . . he was almost beginning to slip away slowly into a blissful unconsciousness, . . when all at once sah-luma ceased reciting, and a harsh, brazen clang of bells echoed through the silence, storming to and fro with a violent, hurried uproar suggestive of some sudden alarm. he sprang to his feet, rubbing his eyes,--sah-luma rose also, a slightly petulant expression on his face. "canst thou do no better than sleep"--he queried complainingly, "when thou art privileged to listen to an immortal poem?" impulsively theos caught his hand and pressed it fervently. "nay, dost thou deem me so indifferent, my noble friend?" he cried ... "thou art mistaken, for though perchance mine eyes were closed, my ears were open; i heard thy every word,--i loved thy every line! what dost thou need of praise? ... thou, who canst do naught but work which, being perfect, is beyond all criticism!" sah-luma smiled, well satisfied, and the little lines of threatening ill-humor vanished from his countenance. "enough!" he said.. "i know that thou dost truly honor me above all poets, and that thou wouldst not willingly offend. hearest thou how great a clamor the ringers of the temple make to-night?--'tis but the sunset chime, . . yet one would think they were pealing forth an angry summons to battle." "already sunset!" exclaimed theos, surprised.. "why, it seems scarce a minute since, that we came hither!" "aye!--such is the magic charm of poesy!" rejoined sah-luma complacently.. "it makes the hours flit like moments, and long days seemed but short hours! ... nevertheless 'tis time we were within doors and at supper,--for if we start not soon for the temple, 'twill be difficult to gain an entrance, and i, at any rate, must be early in my place beside the king." he heaved a short, impatient sigh,--and as he spoke, all theos's old misgivings came rushing back upon him and in full force, filling him with vague sorrow, uneasiness, fear. but he knew how useless it was to try and impart any of his inward forebodings to sah-luma,--sah-luma, who had so lightly explained lysia's treacherous conduct to his own entire satisfaction, . . sah-luma, on whom neither the prophecies of khosrul nor the various disastrous events of the day had taken any permanent effect, . . while no attempt could now be made to deter him from attending the sacrificial service in the temple, seeing he had been so positively commanded thither by lysia, through the medium of the priest zel. feeling bitterly his own incompetency to exercise any protective influence on the fate of his companion, theos said nothing, but silently followed him, as he thrust aside the drooping cypress boughs and made his way out to more open ground, his lithe, graceful figure looking even more brilliant and phantom-like than ever, contrasted with the deep green gloom spread about him by the hoary moss-covered trees that were as twisted and grotesque in shape as a group of fetich idols. as he bent back the last branchy barrier however, and stepped into the full light, he stopped short,--and, uttering a loud exclamation, lifted his hand and pointed westward, his dark eyes dilating with amazement and awe. theos at once came swiftly up beside him, and looked where he looked, . . what a scene of terrific splendor he beheld! ... right across the horizon, that glistened with a pale green hue like newly frozen water, a cloud, black as the blackest midnight, lay heavy and motionless, in form resembling an enormous leaf, fringed at the edges with tremulous lines of gold. this nebulous mass was absolutely stirless, . . it appeared as though it had been thrown, a ponderous weight, into the vault of heaven, and having fallen, there purposed to remain. ever and anon beamy threads of lightning played through it luridly, veining it with long, arrowy flashes of orange and silver,--while poised immediately above it was the sun, looking like a dull scarlet seal, ... a ball of dim fire destitute of rays. on all sides the sky was crossed by wavy flecks of pearl and sudden glimpses as of burning topaz,--and down toward the earth drooped a thin azure fog,--filmy curtain, through which the landscape took the strangest tints and unearthly flushes of color. a moment,--and the spectral sun dropped suddenly into the lower darkness, leaving behind it a glare of gold and green,--lowering purple shadows crept over across the heavens, darkening them as smoke darkens flame,--but the huge cloud, palpitating with lightning, moved not at all nor changed its shape by so much as a hair's breadth, . . it appeared like a vast pall spread out in readiness for the solemn state-burial of the world. fascinated by the aspect of the weird sky-phenomenon, theos was at the same time curiously impressed by a sense of its unreality, . . indeed he found himself considering it with the calm attentiveness of one who is brought face to face with a remarkable picture effectively painted. this peculiar sensation, however, was, like many others of his experience, very transitory, . . it passed, and he watched the lightnings come and go with a certain hesitating fear mingled with wonder. sah-luma was the first to speak. "storm at last!" ... he said, forcing a smile though his face was unusually pale,--"it has threatened us all day...'twill break before the night is over. how sullenly yonder heavens frown! ... they have quenched the sun in their sable darkness as though it were a beaten foe! this will seem an ill sign to those who worship him as a god,--for truly he doth appear to have withdrawn himself in haste and anger. by my soul! 'tis a dull and ominous eve!" ... and a slight shudder ran through his delicate frame, as he turned toward the white-pillared loggia garlanded with its climbing vines, roses, and passion-flowers, through which there now floated a dim golden, suffused radiance reflected from lamps lit within, . . "i would the night were past and that the new day had come!" with these words, he entered the house, theos accompanying him, and together they went at once to the banqueting-hall. there they supped royally, served by silent and attentive slaves,--they themselves, feeling mutually depressed, yet apparently not wishing to communicate their depression one to the other, conversed but little. after the repast was finished, they set forth on foot to the temple, sah-luma informing his companion, as they went, that it was against the law to use any chariot or other sort of conveyance to go to the place of worship, the king himself being obliged to dispense with his sumptuous car on such occasions, and to walk thither as unostentatiously as any one of his poorest subjects. "an excellent rule!" ... observed theos reflectively,--"for the pomp and glitter of an earthly potentate's display assorts ill with the homage he intends to offer to the immortals,--and kings are no more than commoners in the sight of an all-supreme divinity." "true, if there were an all-supreme divinity!" rejoined sah-luma dryly,--"but in the present state of well-founded doubt regarding the existence of any such omnipotent personage, thinkest thou there is a monarch living, who is sincerely willing to admit the possibility of any power superior to himself? not zephoranim, believe me! ... his enforced humility on all occasions of public religious observance serves him merely as a new channel wherein to proclaim his pride. certes, in obedience to the priests, or rather let us say in obedience to the high priestess, he paces the common foot-path in company with the common folk, uncrowned and simply clad,--but what avails this affectation of meekness? all know him for the king--all make servile way for him,--all flatter him! ... and his progress to the temple resembles as much a triumphal procession as though he were mounted in his chariot and returning from some wondrous victory. besides, humility in my opinion is more a weakness than a virtue, . . and even granting it were a virtue, it is not possible to kings,--not as long as people continue to fawn on royalty like grovelling curs, and lick the sceptred hand that often loathes their abject touch." he spoke with a certain bitterness and impatience as though he were suffering from some inward nervous irritation, and theos, observing this, prudently made no attempt to continue the conversation. they were just then passing down a narrow, rather dark street, lined on both sides by lofty buildings of quaint and elaborate architecture. long, gloomy shadows had gathered in this particular spot, where for a short space the silence was so intense that one could almost hear one's own heart beat. suddenly a yellowish-green ray of light flashed across the pavement, and lo! the upper rim of the moon peered above the house-tops, looking strangely large and rosily brilliant, . . the air seemed all at once to grow suffocating and sulphurous, and between whiles there came the faint plashing sound of water lapping against stone with a monotonous murmur as of continuous soft whispers. the vast silence, the vast night, were full of a solemn weirdness,--the moon, curiously magnified to twice her ordinary size, soared higher and higher, firing the lofty solitudes of heaven with long, shooting radiations of rose and green, while still in the purple hollow of the horizon lay that immense, immovable cloud, nerved as it were with living lightning which leaped incessantly from its centre like a thousand swords drawn and re-drawn from as many scabbards. presently the deep booming noise of a great bell smote heavily on the stillness, . . a sound that theos, oppressed by the weight of unutterable forebodings, welcomed with a vague sense of relief, while sah-luma, hearing it, quickened his pace. they soon reached the end of the street, which terminated in a spacious quadrangular court guarded on all sides by gigantic black statues, and quickly crossing this place, which was entirely deserted, they came out at once into a dazzling blaze of light, . . the temple of nagaya in all its stately magnificence towered before them, a stupendous pile of marvellously delicate architecture so fine as to seem like lace-work rather than stone. it was lit up from base to summit with glittering lamps of all colors, . . the twelve revolving stars on its twelve tall turrets cast forth wide beams of penetrating radiance into the deepening darkness of the night, . . aloft in its topmost crown of pinnacles swung the prayer-commanding bell, . . while the enormous crowds swarming thick about it gave it the appearance of a brilliant pharos set in the midst of a surging sea. the steps leading up to it were strewn ankle-deep with flowers, . . the doors stood open, and a thunderous hum of solemn music vibrated in wave-like pulsations through the heavy, heated air. half blinded by the extreme effulgence, and confused by the jostling to and fro of a multitude immeasurably greater than any he had ever seen or imagined, theos instinctively stretched out his hand in the helpless fashion of one not knowing whither next to turn, . . sah-luma immediately caught it in his own, and hurried him along without saying a word. how they managed to glide through the close ranks of pushing, pressing people, and effect an entrance he never knew,--but when he recovered from his momentary dazed bewilderment, he found himself inside the temple, standing near a pillar of finely fluted white marble that shot up like the stem of a palm-tree and lost its final point in the dim yet sparkling splendor of the immense dome above. lights twinkled everywhere,--there was the odor of faint perfumes mingled with the fresher fragrance of flowers,--there were distant glimpses of jewelled shrines, and the leering faces of grotesque idols clothed in draperies of amber, purple, and green,--and between the multitudinous columns that ringed the superb fane with snowy circles, one within the other, hung glittering lamps, set with rare gems and swinging by long chains of gold. but the crowning splendor of the whole was concentrated on the place of the secret inner shrine. there an arch of pale-blue fire spanned the dome from left to right, . . there, from huge bronze vessels mounted on tall tripods the smoke of burning incense arose in thick and odorous clouds,--there children clad in white, and wearing garlands of vivid scarlet blossoms, stood about in little groups as still as exquisitely modelled statuettes, their small hands folded, and their eyes downcast, . . there, the steps were strewn with branches of palm, flowering oleander, rose-laurel, and olive-sprays,--but the sanctuary itself was not visible. before that holy of holies hung the dazzling folds of the "silver veil," a curtain of the most wonderfully woven silver tissue, that seen in the flashing azure light of the luminous arch above it, resembled nothing so much as a suddenly frozen sheet of foam. across it was emblazoned in large characters: i am the past, the present, the future, the might-have-been, and the shall-not-be, the ever, and the never, no mortal knoweth my name. as theos with some difficulty, owing to the intense brilliancy of the veil, managed to decipher these words, he heard a solitary trumpet sounded,--a clear-blown note that echoed itself many times among the lofty arches before it finally floated into silence. recognizing this as an evident signal for some new and important phase in the proceedings, he turned his eyes away from the place of the shrine, and looking round the building was surprised to see how completely the vast area was filled with crowds upon crowds of silent and expectant people. it seemed as though not the smallest wedge could have been inserted between the shoulders of one man and another, yet where he stood with sah-luma there was plenty of room. the reason of this however was soon apparent,--they were in the place reserved for the king and the immediate officers of the royal household,--and scarcely had the sweet vibration of that clear trumpet-blast died away, when zephoranim himself appeared, walking slowly and majestically in the midst of a select company of his nobles and courtiers. he wore the simple white garb of an ordinary citizen of al-kyris, together with a silver belt and plain-sheathed dagger, . . not a jewel relieved the classic severity of his costume, and not even the merest fillet of gold in his rough dark hair denoted his royal rank. but the pride of precedence spoke in his flashing eyes,--the arrogance of authority in the self-conscious poise of his figure and haughtiness of his step,--his brows were knitted in something of a frown, and his face looked pale and slightly careworn. he spied out sah-luma at once and smiled kindly,--there was not a trace of coldness in his manner toward his favored minstrel, and theos noted this with a curious sense of sudden consolation and encouragement. "why should i have feared zephoranim?" he thought. "sah-luma has no greater friend, . . except myself! the king would be the last person in the world to do him any injury!" just then a magnificent burst of triumphal music rolled through the temple,--the music of some mighty instrument, organ-like in sound, but several tones deeper than the grandest organ ever made, mingled with children's voices singing. the king seated himself on a cushioned chair directly in front of the silver veil, . . sah-luma took a place at his right hand, giving theos a low bench close beside him, while the various distinguished personages who had attended zephoranim disposed themselves indifferently wherever they could find standing-room, only keeping as near to their monarch as they were able to do in the extreme pressure of so vast a congregation. for now every available inch of space was occupied,--as far as eye could see there were rows upon rows of men and white-veiled women, . . theos imagined there must have been more then five thousand people present. on went the huge pulsations of melody, surging through the incense-laden air like waves thudding incessantly on a rocky shore, and presently out of a side archway near the sanctuary-steps came with slow and gliding noiselessness a band of priests, walking two by two, and carrying branches of palm. these were all clad in purple and crowned with ivy-wreaths,--they marched sedately, keeping their eyes lowered, while their lips moved constantly, as though they muttered inaudible incantations. waving their palm-boughs to and fro, they paced along past the king and down the centre aisle of the temple,--then turning, they came back again to the lowest step of the shrine and there they all prostrated themselves, while the children who stood near the incense-burners flung fresh perfumes on the glowing embers and chanted the following recitative: "o nagaya, great, everlasting and terrible! thou who dost wind thy coils of wisdom into the heart! thou, whose eyes, waking and sleeping, do behold all things! thou who art the joy of the sun and the master of virgins! hear us, we beseech thee, when we call upon thy name!" their young treble voices were clear and piercing, and pealed up to the dome to fall again like the drops of distinct round melody from a lark's singing-throat,--and when they ceased there came a short impressive pause. the silver veil quivered from end to end as though swayed by a faint wind, and the flaming arch above turned from pale blue to a strange shimmering green. then, in mellow unison, the kneeling priests intoned: "o thou who givest words of power to the dumb mouth of the soul in hades; hear us, nagaya! o thou who openest the grave and givest peace to the heart; plead for us, nagaya! o thou who art companion of the sun and controller of the east and of the west; comfort us, nagaya! here they ended, and the children began again, not to chant but to sing.. a strange and tristful tune, wilder than any that vragrant winds could play on the strings of an aeolian lyre: "o virgin of virgins, holy maid, to what shall we resemble thee? chaste daughter of the sun, how shall we praise thy peerless beauty! thou art the gate of the house of stars!--thou art the first of the seven jewels of nagaya! thou dost wield the sceptre of ebony, and the eye of raphon beholds thee with love and contentment! thou art the chiefest of women, ... thou hast the secrets of earth and heaven, thou knowest the dark mysteries! hail, lysia! queen of the hall of judgment! hail, pure pearl in the sea of the sun's glory! declare unto us, we beseech thee, the will of nagaya!" they closed this canticle softly and slowly, . . then flinging themselves prone, they pressed their faces to the earth, . . and again the glittering veil waved to and fro suggestively, while theos, his heart beating fast, watched its shining woof with straining eyes and a sense of suffocation in his throat, . . what ignorant fools, what mad barbarians, what blind blasphemers were these people, he indignantly thought, who could thus patiently hear the praise of an evil woman like lysia publicly proclaimed with almost divine honors! did they actually intend to worship her, he wondered? if so, he at any rate would never bend the knee to one so vile! he might have done so once, perhaps, ... but now ...! at that instant a flute like murmur of melody crept upward as it seemed from the ground, with a plaintive whispering sweetness like the lament of some exiled fairy,--so exquisitely tender and pathetic, and yet withal so heart-stirring and passionate, that, despite himself, he listened with a strange, swooning sense of languor stealing insidiously over him,--a dreamy lassitude, that while it made him feel enervated and deprived of strength, was still not altogether unpleasing, . . a faint sigh escaped his lips,--and he kept his gaze fixed on the silver veil as pertinaciously as though behind it lay the mystery of his soul's ruin or salvation. how the light flashed on its shimmering folds like the rippling phosphorescence on southern seas! ... as green and clear and brilliant as rays reflected from thousands and thousands of glistening emeralds! ... and that haunting, sorrowful, weird music! ... how it seemed to eat into his heart and there waken a bitter remorse combined with an equally bitter despair! once more the veil moved, and this time it appeared to inflate itself in the fashion of a sail caught by a sudden breeze,--then it began to part in the middle very slowly and without sound. further and further back on each side it gradually receded, and ... like a lily disclosed between folding leaves--a figure, white, wonderful and angelically fair, shone out, the centre jewel of the stately shrine,--a shrine whose immense carven pillars, grotesque idols, bronze and gold ornaments, jewelled lamps and dazzling embroideries, only served as a sort of neutral-tinted background to intensify with a more lustrous charm the statuesque loveliness revealed! o lysia, unvirgined priestess of the sun and nagaya, how gloriously art thou arrayed in sin! ... o singular sweetness whose end must needs be destruction, was ever woman fairer than thou! ... o love, love, lost in the dead long-ago, and drowned in the uttermost darkness of things evil, wilt thou drag my soul with thee again into everlasting night! thus theos inwardly raved, without any real comprehension of his own thoughts, but only stricken anew by a feverish passion of mingled love and hatred as he stared on the witching sorceress whose marvellous beauty was such wonder and torture to his eyes, . . what mattered it to him that king, laureate, and people had all prostrated themselves before her in reverent humility? ... he knew her nature, . . he had fathomed her inborn wickedness, . . and though his senses were attracted by her, his spirit loathingly repelled her, . . he therefore remained seated stiffly upright, watching her with a sort of passive, immovable intentness. as she now appeared before him, her loveliness was absolutely and ideally perfect,--she looked the embodiment of all grace,--the model of all chastity. she stood quite still, . . her hands folded on her breast, . . her head slightly lifted, her dark eyes upturned, . . her unbound black hair streamed over her shoulders in loose glossy waves, and above her brows her diadem of serpents' heads sparkled like a coronal of flame. her robe was white, made of some silky shining stuff that glistened with soft pearly hues; it was gathered about her waist by a twisted golden girdle. her arms were bare, decked as before with the small jewelled snakes that coiled upward from wrist to shoulder,--and when after a brief pause she unfolded her hands and raised them with a slow, majestic movement above her head, the great symbolic eye flared from her bosom like a darting coal, seeming to turn sinister glances on all sides as though on the search for some suspected foe. fortunately no one appeared to notice theos's deliberate non-observance of the homage due to her,--no one except.. lysia, herself. she met the open defiance, scorn, and reluctant admiration of his glance, . . and a cold smile dawned on her features, . . a smile more dreadful in its very sweetness than any frown, . . then, turning away her beautiful, fathomless, slumberous eyes and still keeping her arms raised, she lifted up her voice, a voice mellow as a golden flute, that pierced the silence with a straight arrow of pure sound, and chanted: "give glory to the sun, o ye people! for his light doth illumine your darkness!" and the murmur of the mighty crowd surged back in answer: "we give him glory!" here came a brief clash of brazen bells, and when the clamor ceased, lysia continued: "give glory to the moon, o ye people! ... for she is the servant of the sun and the ruler of the house of sleep!" again the people responded; "we give her glory!'.. and again the bells jangled tempestuously. "give glory to nagaya, o ye people! for he alone can turn aside the wrath of the immortals!" "we give him glory!".. rejoined the multitude,--and "we give him glory! seemed to be shouted high among the arches of the temple with a strange sound as of the mocking laughter of devils." this preliminary over, there came out of unseen doors on both sides of the sanctuary twenty priests in companies of ten each; ten advancing from the left, ten from the right. these were clad in flowing garments of carnation-colored silk, heavily bordered with gold, and the leader of the right-hand group was the priest zel. his demeanor was austere and dignified, . . he carried a square cushion covered in black, on which lay a long, thin cruel-looking knife with a jewelled hilt. the chief of the priests, who stood on the left, bore a very tall and massive staff of polished ebony, which he solemnly presented to the high priestess, who grasped it firmly in one slight hand and allowed it to rest steadily on the ground, while its uppermost point reached far above her head. then followed the strangest, weirdest scene that even the pen of poets or brush of painter devised, . . a march round and round the temple of all the priests, bearing lighted flambeaux and singing in chorus a wild litany,--a confused medley of supplications to the sun and nagaya, which, accompanied as it was by the discordant beating drums and the clanging of bells, had an evidently powerful effect on the minds of the assembled populace, for presently they also joined in the maddening chant, and growing more and more possessed by the contagious fever of fanaticism, began to howl and shriek and clap their hands furiously, creating a frightful din suggestive of some fiendish clamor in hell. theos, half deafened by the horrible uproar, as well as roused to an abnormal pitch of restless excitement, looked round to see how sah-luma comported himself. he was sitting quite still, in a perfectly composed attitude,--a faint, derisive smile played on his lips, . . his profile, as it just then appeared, had the firmness and the pure soft outline of a delicately finished cameo, . . his splendid eyes now darkened, now lightened with passion, as he gazed at lysia, who, all alone in the centre of the shrine, held her ebony staff as perpendicularly erect as though it were a tree rooted fathoms deep in earth, keeping herself too as motionless as a figure of frozen snow. and the king? ... what of him? ... glancing at that bronze-like brooding countenance, theos was startled and at the same time half fascinated by its expression. such a mixture of tigerish tenderness, servile idolatry, intemperate desire, and craven fear he had never seen delineated on the face of any human being. in the black thirsty eyes there was a look that spoke volumes,--a look that betrayed what the heart concealed,--and reading that featured emblazonment of hidden guilt, theos knew beyond all doubt that the rumors concerning the high priestess and the king were true, . . that the dead khosrul had spoken rightly, . . that zephoranim loved lysia! ... love? ... it seemed too tame a word for the pent-up fury of passion that visibly and violently consumed the man! what would be the result? ... "when the high priestess is the king's mistress then fall al-kyris!" these foolish doggerel lines! ... why did they suggest themselves? ... they meant nothing. the question did not concern al-kyris at all,--let the city stand or fall as it list, who cared, so long as sah-luma escaped injury! such, at least, was the tenor of theos's thoughts, as he rapidly began to calculate certain contingencies that now seemed likely to occur. if, for instance, the king were made aware of sah-luma's intrigue with lysia, would not his rage and jealousy exceed all bounds? ... and if, on the other hand, sah-luma were convinced of the king's passion for the same fatally fair traitress, would not his wrath and injured self-love overbear all loyalty and prudence? and between the two powerful rivals who thus by stealth enjoyed her capricious favors, what would lysia's own decision be?--like a loud hissing in his ears, he heard again the murderous command,--a command which was half a menace: "kill sah-luma!" faint shudders as of icy cold ran through him,--he nerved himself to meet some deadly evil, though he could not guess what that evil might be,--he was willing to throw away all the past that haunted him, and cut off all hope of a future, provided he could only baffle the snares of the pitiless beauty to whom the torture of men was an evident joy, and rescue his beloved and gifted friend from her perilous attraction! making a strong effort to master the inward conflict of fear and pain that tormented him, he turned his attention anew to the gorgeous ceremony that was going on, . . the march of the priests had come to an abrupt end. they stood now on each side of the shrine, divided in groups of equal numbers, tossing their flambeaux around and above them to the measured ringing of bells. at every upward wave of these flaring torches, a tongue of fire leaped aloft, to instantly break and descend in a sparkling shower of gold,--the effect of this was wonderful in the extreme, as by the dexterous way in which the flames were flung forth, it appeared to the spectator's eyes as though a luminous snake were twisting and coiling itself to and fro in mid-air. all loud music ceased, . . the multitude calmed down by degrees and left off their delirious cries of frenzy or rapture, . . there was nothing heard but a monotonous chanting in undertone, of which not a syllable was distinctly intelligible. then from out a dark portal unperceived in the shadowed gloom of a curtained niche, there advanced a procession of young girls,--fifty in all, clad in pure white and closely veiled. they carried small citherns, and arriving in front of the shrine, they knelt down in a semicircle, and very gently began to strike the short, responsive strings. the murmur of a lazy rivulet among whispering reeds, . . the sighing suggestions of leaves ready to fall in autumn,--the low, languid trilling of nightingales just learning to sing,--any or all these might be said to resemble the dulcet melody they played; while every delicate arpeggio, every rippling chord was muffled with a soft pressure of their hands ere the sound had time to become vehement. this elf-like harping continued for a short interval, during which the priests, gathering in a ring round a huge bronze font-shaped vessel hard by, dipped their flambeaux therein and suddenly extinguished them. at the same moment the lights in the body of the temple were all lowered, . . only the arch spanning the shrine blazed in undiminished brilliancy, its green tint appearing more intense in contrast with the surrounding deepening shadow. and now with a harsh clanging noise as of the turning of heavy bolts and keys, the back of the sanctuary parted asunder in the fashion of a revolving double doorway,--and a golden grating was disclosed, its strong glistening bars welded together like knotted ropes and wrought with marvellous finish and solidity. turning toward this semblance of a prison-cell lysia spoke aloud--her clear tones floating with mellifluous slowness above the half-hushed quiverings of the cithern-choir: "come forth, o nagaya, thou who didst slumber in the bosom of space ere ever the world was made! "come forth, o nagaya, thou who didst behold the sun born out of chaos, and the earth enriched with ever-producing life! "come forth, o nagaya, friend of the gods and the people, and comfort us with the divine silence of thy wisdom supernal!" while she pronounced these words, the golden grating ascended gradually inch by inch, with the steady clank as of the upward winding of a chain,--and when she ceased, there came a mysterious, rustling, slippery sound, suggestive of some creeping thing forcing its way through wet and tangled grass, or over dead leaves, . . one instant more, and a huge serpent--a species of python some ten feet in length--glided through the round aperture made by the lifted bars, and writhed itself slowly along the marble pavement straight to where lysia stood. once it stopped, curving back its glistening body in a strange loop as though in readiness to spring--but it soon resumed its course, and arrived at the high priestess's feet. there, its whole frame trembled and glowed with extraordinary radiance, . . the prevailing color of its skin was creamy white, marked with countless rings and scaly bright spots of silver, purple, and a peculiar livid blue,--and all these tints came into brilliant prominence, as it crouched before lysia and twisted its sinuous neck to and fro with an evidently fawning and supplicatory gesture; while she, keeping her sombre dark eyes fixed full upon it, moved not an inch from her position, but, majestically serene, continued to hold the tall staff of ebony straight and erect as a growing palm. the cithern-playing had now the soothing softness of a mother's lullaby to a tired child, and as the liquid notes quavered delicately on the otherwise deep stillness, the formidable reptile began to coil itself ascendingly round and round the ebony rod, . . higher and higher,--one glistening ring after another,--higher still, till its eyes were on a level with the "eye of raphon" that flamed on lysia's breast, . . there it paused in apparent reflectiveness, and seemed to listen to the slumberous strains that floated toward it in wind-like breaths of sound, . . then, starting afresh on its upward way, it carefully, and with almost human tenderness, avoided touching lysia's hand, which now rested on the staff between two thick twists of its body, . . and finally it reached the top, where fully raising its crested head, it displayed the prismatic tints of its soft, restless, wavy throat, which was adorned furthermore by a flexible circlet of magnificent diamonds. nothing more striking or more singular could theos imagine than the scene now before him, . . the beautiful woman, still as sculptured marble, and the palpitating snake coiled on that mast-like rod and uplifted above her,--while round the twain knelt the priests, their faces covered in their robes, and from all parts of the temple the loud shout arose: "all hail, nagaya!" "praise, honor, and glory be unto thee forever and ever!" then it was that the proud king flung himself to earth and kissed the dust in abject submission,--then sah-luma, carelessly complaisant, bent the knee and smiled to himself mockingly as he performed the act of veneration, ... then the enormous multitude with clasped hands and beseeching looks fell down and worshipped the glittering beast of the field, whose shining, emerald-like, curiously sad eyes roved hither and thither with a darting yet melancholy eagerness over all the people who called it lord! to theos's imagination it looked a creature more sorrowful than fierce,--a poor charmed brute, that while netted in the drowsy woofs of its mistress lysia's magnetic spell, seemed as though it dimly wondered why it should thus be raised aloft for the adoration of infatuated humankind. its brilliant crest quivered and emitted little arrowy scintillations of lustre--the "god" was ill at ease in the midst of all his splendor, and two or three times bent back his gleaming neck as though desirous of descending to the level ground. but when these hints of rebellion declared themselves in the tremors running through the scaly twists of his body, lysia looked up, and at once, compelled as it were by involuntary attraction, "nagaya the divine" looked down. the strange, subtle, mesmeric, sleepy eyes of the woman met the glittering green, mournful eyes of the snake,--and thus the two beautiful creatures regarded each other steadfastly and with an apparent vague sympathy, till the "deity," evidently overcome by a stronger will than his own, and resigning himself to the inevitable, twisted his radiant head back again to the top of the ebony staff, and again surveyed the kneeling crowds of worshippers. presently his glistening jaws opened,--his tongue darted forth vibratingly,--and he gave vent to a low hissing sound, erecting and depressing his crest with extraordinary rapidity, so that it flashed like an aigrette of rare gems. then, with slow and solemn step, the priest zel advanced to the front of the shrine, and spreading out his hands in the manner of one pronouncing a benediction, said loudly and with emphasis: "nagaya the divine doth hear the prayers of his people! "nagaya the supreme doth accept the offered sacrifice! "bring forth the victim!" the last words were spoken with stern authoritativeness, and scarcely had they been uttered when the great entrance doors of the temple flew open, and a procession of children appeared, strewing flowers and singing: "o happy bride, we bring thee unto joy and peace! "to thee are opened the palaces of the air, "the beautiful silent palaces where the bright stars dwell "o happy bride of nagaya! how fair a fate is thine!" pausing, they flung wreaths and garlands among the people, and continued: "o happy bride! for thee are past all sorrows and sin, "thou shalt never know shame, or pain or grief or the weariness of tears; "for thee no husband shall prove false, no children prove ungrateful; "o happy bride of nagaya! how glad a fate is thine. "o happy bride! when thou art wedded to the beautiful god, the god of rest,-- "thou shalt forget all trouble and dwell among sweet dreams for ever! "thou art the blessed one, chosen for the love-embraces of nagaya! "o happy bride! ... how glorious a fate is thine!" thus they sang in the soft, strange vowel-language of al-kyris, and tripped along with that innocent, unthinking gayety usual to such young creatures, up to the centre aisle toward the sanctuary. they were followed by four priests in scarlet robes and closely masked, . . and walking steadfastly between these, came a slim girl clad in white, veiled from head to foot and crowned with a wreath of lotus lilies. all the congregation, as though moved by an impulse, turned to look at her as she passed,--but her features were not as yet discernible through the mist-like draperies that enfolded her. the singing children, always preceding her and scattering flowers, having arrived at the steps of the shrine, grouped themselves on either side,--and the red garmented priests, after having made several genuflections to the glittering python that now, with reared neck and quivering fangs, seemed to watch everything that was going on with absorbed and crafty vigilance, proceeded to unveil the maiden martyr, and also to tie her slight hands behind her back by means of a knotted silver cord. then in a firm voice the priest zel proclaimed: "behold the elected bride of the sun and the divine nagaya! "she bears away from the city the burden of your sins, o ye people, and by her death the gods are satisfied! "rejoice greatly, for ye are absolved,--and by the silver veil and the eye of raphon we pronounce upon all here present the blessing of pardon and peace!" as he spoke the girl turned round as though in obedience to some mechanical impulse, and fully confronted the multitude, . . her pale, pure face, framed in a shining aureole of rippling fair hair, floated before theos's bewildered eyes like a vision seen indistinctly in a magic crystal, and he was for a moment uncertain of her identity; but quick as a flash sah-luma's glance lighted upon her, and, with a cry of horror that sent desolate echoes through and through the arches of the temple, he started from his seat, his arms outstretched, his whole frame convulsed and quivering. "niphrata! ... niphrata! ..." and his rich voice shook with a passion of appeal, "o ye gods! ... what mad, blind, murderous cruelty! zephoranim!" ... and he turned impetuously on the astonished monarch: "as thou livest crowned king i say this maid is mine! ... and in the very presence of nagaya, i swear she shall not die!" chapter xxviii. the sacrifice. a solemn silence ensued. consternation and wrath were depicted on every countenance. the sacred service was interrupted! ... a defiance had been hurled as it were in the very teeth of the god nagaya! ... and this horrible outrage to religion and law had been actually committed by the laureate of the realm! it was preposterous, ... incredible! ... and the gaping crowds reached over each other's shoulders to stare at the offender, pressing forward eager, wondering, startled faces, which to theos looked far more spectral than real, seen in the shimmering green radiance that was thrown flickering upon them from the luminous arch above the altar. the priests stood still in speechless indignation, . . lysia moved not at all, nor raised her eyes; only her lips parted in a very slight cold smile. seized with mortal dread, theos gazed helplessly at his reckless, beautiful poet friend, who with head erect and visage white as a waning moon, haughtily confronted his sovereign and audaciously asserted his right to be heard, even in the holy place of worship! the king was the first to break the breathless stillness: his words came harshly from his throat, . . and the great muscles in his neck seemed to swell visibly with his hardly controlled anger. "peace! ... thou art suddenly distraught, sah-luma! ..." he said, in half-smothered, fierce accents--"how darest thou uplift thy clamorous tongue thus wantonly before nagaya, and interrupt the progress of his sacred ritual? ... check thy mad speech! ... if ever yonder maid were thine, 'tis certain she is thine no longer; ... she hath offered herself, a voluntary sacrifice, and the gods are pleased to claim what thou perchance hast failed to value!" for all answer, sah-luma flung himself desperately at the monarch's feet. "zephoranim!" he cried again ... "i tell thee she is mine! ... mine, as truly mine as love can make her! oh, she is chaster than lily-buds in her sweet body! ... but in her spirit she is wedded--wedded to me, sah-luma, whom thou, o king, hast ever delighted to honor! and now must i kneel to thee in vain?--thou whose victories i have sung, whose praises i have chanted in burning words that shall carry thy name forever with triumph, down to unborn generations? ... wilt thou become inglorious? ... a warrior stricken strengthless by the mummeries of priestcraft,--the juggleries of a perishing creed? thou art the ruler of al-kyris,--thou and thou only! restore to me this innocent virgin-life that has scarcely yet begun to bloom! ... speak but the word and she is saved! ... and her timely rescue shall add lustre to the record of thy noblest deeds!" his matchless voice, full of passionate pulsations, exercised for a moment a resistless influence and magnetic charm. the king's lowering brows relaxed,--and a gleam of pity passed like light across his countenance. instinctively he extended his hand to raise sah-luma from his humble attitude, as though, even in his wrath, he were conscious of the immense intellectual superiority of a great poet to ever so great a king; and a thrill of involuntary compassion seemed at the same time to run sympathetically through the vast congregation. theos drew a quick breath of relief, and glanced at niphrata, ... how cold and unconcerned was her demeanor! ... did she not hear sah-luma's pleading in her behalf? ... no matter!--she would be saved, he thought, and all would yet be well! and truly it now appeared as if mercy, and not cruelty, were to be the order of the hour, . . for just then the priest zel, after having exchanged a few inaudible words with lysia, advanced again to the front of the shrine and spoke in distinct tones of forced gentleness and bland forbearance: "hear me, o king, princes and people! ... whereas it has unhappily occurred, to the wonder and sorrow of many, that the holy spouse of the divine nagaya is delayed in her desired departure, by the unforeseen opposition and unedifying contumacy of sah-luma, poet laureate of this realm; and lest it may be perchance imagined by the uninitiated, that the maiden is in any way unwilling to fulfil her glorious destiny, the high and immaculate priestess of the shrine doth bid me here pronounce a respite; a brief interval wherein, if the king and the people be willing, he who is named sah-luma shall, by virtue of his high renown, be permitted to address the virgin-victim and ascertain her own wishes from her own lips. injustice cannot dwell within this sacred temple,--and if, on trial, the maiden chooses the transitory joys of earth in preference to the everlasting joys of the palaces of the sun, then in nagaya's name shall she go free!--inasmuch as the god loves not a reluctant bride, and better no sacrifice at all, than one that is grudgingly consummated!" he ceased,--and sah-luma sprang erect, his eyes sparkling, his whole demeanor that of a man unexpectedly disburdened from some crushing grief. "thanks be unto the benevolent destinies!" he exclaimed, flashing a quick glance of gratitude toward lysia, . . the statuesque lysia, on whose delicately curved lips the faintly derisive smile still lingered ... "and in return for the life of my niphrata i will give a thousand jewels rare beyond all price to deck nagaya's tabernacle!--and i will pour libations to the sun for twenty days and nights, in token of my heart's requital for mercy well bestowed!" stooping he kissed the king's hand,--whereupon at a sign from zel, one of the priests attired in scarlet unfastened niphrata's bound hands, and led her, as one leads a blind child, straight up to where sah-luma and theos stood, close beside the king, who, together with many others, stared curiously upon her. how fixed and feverishly brilliant were her large dark-blue eyes! ... how set were the sensitive lines of her mouth!--how indifferent she seemed, how totally unaware of the laureate's presence! the priest who brought her retired into the background, and she remained where he left her, quite mute and motionless. oh, how every nerve in theos's body throbbed with inexpressible agony as he beheld her thus! the wildest remorse possessed him, . . it was as though he looked on the dim picture of a ruin which he himself had recklessly wrought, . . and he could have groaned aloud in the horrible vagueness of his incomprehensible despair! sah-luma caught the girl's hand, and peered into her white, still face. "niphrata! .. .niphrata!" he said in a tremulous half-whisper, "i am here,--sah-luma! ... dost thou not know me!" she sighed, . . a long, shivering sigh,--and smiled, . . what a strange, wistful, dying smile it was! ... but she made no answer. "niphrata!"--continued the laureate, passionately pressing the little, cold fingers that lay so passively in his grasp.. "look at me! ... i have come to save thee! ... to take thee home again, . . home to thy flowers, thy birds, thy harp, . . thy pretty chamber with its curtained nook, where thy friend zoralin waits and weeps all day for thee! ... o ye gods!--how weak am i!".. and he fiercely dashed away the drops that glistened on his black silky lashes, . . "come with me, sweet one! ..." he resumed tenderly--"come!--why art thou thus silent? ... thou whose voice hath many a time outrivalled the music of the nightingales! hast thou no word for me, thy lord?--come!".. and theos, struggling to repress his own rising tears, heard his friend's accents sink into a still lower, more caressing cadence ... "thou shalt never again have cause for grief, my niphrata, never! ... we will never part! ... listen! ... am i not he whom thou lovest?" the poor child's set mouth trembled,--her beautiful sad eyes gazed at him uncomprehendingly. "he whom i love is not here!".. she said in tired, soft tones; "i left him, but he followed me; and now, he waits for me...yonder!".. and she turned resolutely toward the sanctuary, as though compelled to do so by some powerful mesmeric attraction, . . "see you not how fair he is!"...and she pointed with her disengaged hand to the formidable python, through whose huge coils ran the tremors of impatient and eager breathing, . . "how tenderly his eyes behold me! ... those eyes that i have worshipped so patiently, so faithfully, and yet that never lightened into love for me till now! o thou more than beloved!--how beautiful thou art, my adored one, my heart's idol!" and a look of pale exaltation lightened her features, as she fixed her wistful gaze, like a fascinated bird, on the shadowy recess whence the serpent had emerged--"there,--there thou dost rest on a couch of fadeless roses!--how softly the moonlight enfolds thee with a radiance as of outspread wings!--i hear thy voice charming the silence! ... thou dost call me by my name, . . o once poor name made rich by thy sweet utterance! yes, my beloved, i am ready! ... i come! i shall die in thy embraces, . . nay, i shall not die but sleep! ... and dream a dream of love that shall last forever and ever! no more sorrow ... no more tears, . . no more heartsick longings ..." here she stopped in her incoherent speech, and strove to release her hand from sah-luma's, her blue eyes filling with infinite anxiety and distress. "i pray thee, good stranger," she entreated with touching mildness,--"whosoever thou art, delay me not, but let me go! ... i am but a poor love-sorrowful maid on whom love hath at last taken pity!--be gentle therefore, and hinder me not on my way to sah-luma. i have waited for happiness so long! ... so long!" her young, plaintive voice quavered into a half sob,--and again she endeavored to break away from the laureate's hold. but he, overcome by the excess of his own grief and agitation, seized her other hand, and drew her close up to him. "niphrata, niphrata!" he cried despairingly. "what evil hath befallen thee? where is thy sight.. thy memory? ... look! ... look straight in these eyes of mine, and read there my truth and tenderness! ... _i_ am sah-luma, thine own sah-luma! ... thy poet, thy lover, thy master, thy slave, . . all that thou wouldst have me be, i am! whither wouldst thou wander in search of me? thou hast no further to go, dear heart, than these arms, . . thou art safe with me, my singing bird, . . come! ..let me lead thee hence, and home!" she watched him while he spoke, with a strange expression of distrust and uneasiness. then, by a violent effort, she wrenched her hands from his clasp, and stood aloof, waving him back with an eloquent gesture of amazed reproach. "away!" she said, in firm accents of sweet severity,--"thou art a demon that dost seek to tempt my soul to ruin! thou sah-luma!".. and she lifted her lily-crowned head with a movement of proud rejection.. "nay! ... thou mayst wear his look, his smile, . . thou mayst even borrow the clear heaven-lustre of his eyes,--but i tell thee thou art fiend, not angel, and i will not follow thee into the tangled ways of sin! oh, thou knowest not the meaning of true love, thou! ... there is treachery on thy lips, and thy tongue is trained to utter honeyed falsehood! methinks thou hast wantonly broken many a faithful heart!--and made light jest of many a betrayed virgin's sorrow! and thou darest to call thyself my poet, . . my sah-luma, in whom there is no guile, and who would die a thousand deaths rather than wound the frailest soul that trusted him! ... depart from me, thou hypocrite in poet's guise! ... thou cruel phantom of my love! ... back to that darkness where thou dost belong, and trouble not my peace!" sah-luma recoiled from her, amazed and stupefied. theos clenched his hands together in a sort of physical effort to keep down the storm of emotions working within him,--for niphrata's words burnt into his brain like fire, ..too well, too well he understood their full intensity of meaning! she loved the ideal sah-luma, . . the sah-luma of her own pure fancies and desires, . . not the real man as he was, with all his haughty egotism, vainglory, and vice,--vice in which he took more pride than shame. perhaps she had never known him in his actual character,--she, like other women of her lofty and ardent type, had no doubt set up the hero of her life as a god in the shrine of her own holy and enthusiastic imagination, and had there endowed him with resplendent virtues, which he had never once deemed it worth his while to practise. oh the loving hearts of women!--how much men have to answer for, when they voluntarily break these clear mirrors of affection, wherein they, all unworthy, have been for a time reflected angel-wise, with all the warmth and color of an innocently adoring passion shining about them like the prismatic rays in a vase of polished crystal! to niphrata, sah-luma remained as a sort of splendid divinity, for whom no devotion was too vast, too high, or too complete, . . better, oh surely far better that she should die in her beautiful self-deception, than live to see her elected idol descend to his true level, and openly display all the weaknesses of his volatile, flippant, godless, sensual, yet, alas! most fascinating and genius-gifted nature, . . a nature, which, overflowing as it was with potentialities of noble deeds, yet lacked sufficient intrinsic faith and force to accomplish them! this thought stung theos like a sharp arrow-prick, and filled him with a strange, indescribable penitence; and he stood in dumb misery, remorsefully eyeing his friend's consternation, disappointment, and pained bewilderment, without being able to offer him the slightest consolation. sah-luma was indeed the very picture of dismay, . . if he had never suffered in his life before, surely he suffered now! niphrata, the tender, the humbly adoring niphrata, positively rejected him!--refused to recognize his actual presence, and turned insanely away from him toward some dream-ideal sah-luma whom she fancied could only be found in that unexplored country bordered by the cold river of death! meanwhile, the silence in the temple was intense,--the priests were like so many wax figures fastened in fixed positions; the king, leaning slightly forward in his chair, had the appearance of a massively moulded image of bronze,--and to theos's overwrought condition of mind, the only actually living things present seemed to be the monster serpent whose scaly folds palpitated visibly in the strong light, . . and the hideous "eye of raphon," that blazed on lysia's breast with a menacing stare, as of a wrathful ghoul. all at once a flash of comprehension lightened the laureate's sternly perplexed face,--a bitter laugh broke from his lips. "she has been drugged!" he cried fiercely, pointing to niphrata's white and rigid form, . . "poisoned by some deadly potion devised of devils, to twist and torture the quivering centres of the brain! accursed work!--will none undo it?" and springing forward nearer the shrine, he raised his angry, impassioned eyes to the dark, inscrutable ones of the high priestess, who met his troubled look with serene and irresponsive gravity ... "is there no touch of human pity in things divine? ... no mercy in the icy fate that rules our destinies? ... this child knows naught of what she does; she hath been led astray in a moment of excitement and religious exaltation, . . her mind hath lost its balance,--her thoughts float disconnectedly on a sea of vague illusions, ... ah! ... by the gods! ... i understand it all now!" and he suddenly threw himself on his knees, his appealing gaze resting, not on the snake-deity, but on the lovely countenance of lysia, fair and brilliant as a summer morn, with a certain waving light of triumph about it, like the reflected radiance of sunbeams, ... "she is under the influence of raphon! ... o withering madness! ... o cureless misery.. she is ruled by that most horrible secret force, unknown as yet to the outer world of men! ... and she hears things that are not, and sees what has no existence! o lysia, daughter of the sun! ... i do beseech thee, by all the inborn gentleness of womanhood, unwind the mystic spell!" a serious smile of feigned, sorrowful compassion parted the beautiful lips of the priestess; but she gave no word or sign in answer,--and the weird jewel on her breast at that moment shot forth a myriad scintillations as of pointed sharp steel. some extraordinary power in it, or in lysia herself, was manifestly at work,--for with a violent start sah-luma rose from his knees, and staggered helplessly backward, . . one hand pressed to his eyes as though to shut out some blinding blaze of lightning! he seemed to be vaguely groping his way to his former place beside the king, and theos, seeing this, quickly caught him by the arm and drew him thither, whispering anxiously the while: "sah-luma!-sah-luma! ... what ails thee?" the laureate turned upon him a bewildered, piteous face, white with an intensity of speechless anguish. "nothing!"...he faltered,--"nothing! ... 'tis over, . . the child must die!"...then all suddenly the hard, drawn lines of his countenance relaxed,--great tears gathered in his eyes, and fell slowly one by one, . . and moving aside, he shrank away as far as possible into the shadow cast by a huge column close by.. "o niphrata! ... niphrata!".. theos heard him say in a voice broken by despair.. "why do i love thee only now, . . now, when thou art lost to me forever!" the king looked after him half-compassionately, half-sullenly; but presently paid no further heed to his distress. theos, however, kept near him, whispering whatever poor suggestions of comfort he could, in the extremity of his own grief, devise, . . a hopeless task,--for to all his offered solace sah-luma made but the one reply: "oh let me weep! ... let me weep for the untimely death of innocence!" and now the cithern-playing, which had ceased, commenced again, accompanied by the mysterious thrilling bass notes of the invisible organ-like instrument, whose sound resembled the roll and rush of huge billows breaking into foam. as the rich and solemn strains swept grandly through the spacious temple, niphrata stretched out her hands toward the high priestess, a smile of wonderful beauty lighting up her fair child-face. "take me, o ye immortal gods!" she cried, her voice ringing in clear tune above all the other music.. "take me and bear me away on your strong, swift wings to the everlasting palaces of air, wherein all sorrows have end, and patient love meets at last its long-delayed reward! take me.. for lo! i am ready to depart! my soul is wounded and weary of its prison,--it struggles to be free! o destiny, i thank thee for thy mercy! ... i praise thee for the glory thou dost here unveil before mine eyes! pardon my sins! ... accept my life! ... sanctify my love!" a murmur of relief and rejoicing ran rippling through the listening crowds,--a weight seemed lifted from their minds, . . the victim was willing to die after all! ... the sacrifice would be proceeded with. there was a slight pause,--during which the priests crossed and re-crossed the sanctuary many times, one of them descending the steps to tie niphrata's hands behind her back as before. in the immediate interest of the moment, sah-luma and his hot interference seemed to be almost forgotten, . . a few people, indeed, cast injured and indignant looks toward the corner where he dejectedly leaned, and once the wrinkled, malicious head of old zabastes peered at him, with an expression of incredulous amazement,--but otherwise no sympathy was manifested by any one for the popular laureate's suffering and discomfiture. he was the nation's puppet, . . its tame bird, whose business was to sing when bidden, . . but he was not expected to have any voice in matters of religion or policy,--and still less was he supposed to intrude any of his own personal griefs on the public notice. let him sing!--and sing well,--that was enough; but let him dare to be afflicted, and annoy others with his wants and troubles, why then he at once became uninteresting! ... he might even die for all anybody cared! this was the unspoken sullen thought that theos, sensitive to the core on his friend's behalf, instinctively felt to be smouldering in the heart of the mighty multitude,--and he resented the half-implied, latent ungratefulness of the people with all his soul. "fools!".. he muttered under his breath,--"for you, and such as you, the wisest sages toil in vain! ... on you art wastes her treasures of suggestive loveliness! ... low grovellers in earth, ye have no eyes for heaven! o ignorant, ungenerous, fickle hypocrites, whose ruling passion is the greed of gold!--why should great men perish, that ye may live! ... and yet.. your acclamations make up the thing called fame! fame? ... good god!--'tis a brief shout in the universal clamor, scarce heard and soon forgotten!" and filled with strange bitterness, he gazed disconsolately at niphrata, who stood like one in a trance of ecstasy, patiently awaiting her doom, her lovely, innocent blue eyes gladly upturned to the long, jewel-like head of nagaya, which twined round the summit of the ebony staff, seemed to peer down at her in a sort of drowsy reflectiveness. then, all suddenly, lysia spoke, . . how enchanting was the exquisite modulation of that slow, languid, silvery voice! "come hither, o maiden fair, pure, and faithful! the desire of thy soul is granted! before thee are the gates of the unknown world! already they open to admit thee; through their golden bars gleams the glory of thy future! speak! ... what seest thou?" a moment of breathless silence ensued,--all present seemed to be straining their ears to catch the victim's answer. it came,--soft and clear as a bell: "i see a wondrous land o'er-canopied with skies of gold and azure: . . white flowers grow in the fragrant fields, . . there are many trees, . . i hear the warbling of many birds; . . i see fair faces that smile upon me and gentle hands that beckon! ... figures that wear glistening robes, and carry garlands of roses and myrtle, pass slowly, singing as they go! ... how beautiful they are! how strange! ... how sweet!" and as she uttered these words, in accents of dreamy delight, she ascended the first step of the shrine. theos, looking, held his breath in wonder and fear, while sah-luma with a groan turned himself resolutely away, and, pressing his forehead against the great column where he stood, hid his eyes in his clasped hands. the high priestess continued: "come hither, o maiden of chaste and patient life! rejoice greatly, for thy virtue hath pleased the gods: the undiscovered marvels of the stars are thine, earth has no more control over thee: heaven is thine absolute heritage! ... behold! the ship of the sun awaits thee! speak! ... what seest thou?" a soft cry of rapture came from the girl's lips. "oh, i see glory everywhere!".. she exclaimed.. "light everywhere! ... peace everywhere! ... o joy, joy! ... the face of my beloved shines upon me,--he calls, . . he bids me come to him! ... ah! we shall be together at last, . . we twain shall be as one never to part, never to doubt, never to suffer more! o let me hasten to him! ... why should i linger thus, when i would fain, be gone!" and she sprang eagerly up the second and third steps of the sanctuary, and faced lysia,--her head thrown back, her blue eyes ablaze with excitement, her bosom heaving, and her delicate features transfigured and illumined by unspeakable inward delirious bliss. just then the priest zel lifted the long, jewel-hilted knife from the black cushion where it had lain till now, and, crouching stealthily in the shadow behind lysia, held it in both bands, pointed straight forward in a level line with niphrata's breast. thus armed, he waited, silent and immovable. a slight shudder of morbid expectancy seemed to quiver through the vast congregation, . . but theos's nerves were strung up to such a high pitch of frenzied horror that he could neither speak nor sigh,--motionless as a statue, he could only watch, with freezing blood, each detail of the extraordinary scene. once more the high priestess spoke: "come hither, o happy maiden whose griefs are ended: the day of thy triumph and reward has dawned! for thee the immortals unveiled the mysteries of being,-- to thee, they openly declare all secrets ... to thee the hidden things of wisdom are made manifest: for the last time ere thou leavest us, hear, and answer, . . speak!--what seest thou?" "love!" replied niphrata in a tone of thrilling and solemn tenderness.. "love, the eternal all, in which dark things are made light!--love, that is never served in vain! ... love wherein lost happiness is rediscovered and perfected! ... o divine love, by whom the passion of my heart is sanctified! absorb me in the quenchless glory of thine immortality! ... draw me to thyself, and let me find in thee my soul's completion!" her voice sank to a low prayerful emphasis, . . her look was as of a rapt angel waiting for wings. lysia's gaze dwelt upon her with slow-dilating wonder and contempt.. such a devout and earnest supplication was evidently not commonly heard from the lips of nagaya's victims. at that instant, too, nagaya himself seemed curiously excited and disturbed,--his great glittering coils quivered so violently, as to shake the rod on which he was twined, . . and when his priestess raised her mesmeric reproving eyes toward him, he bent back his head rebelliously, and sent a vehement hiss through the silence, like the noise made by the whirl of a scimitar. suddenly, and with deafening abruptness, a clap of thunder, short and sharp as a quick volley of musketry, crashed overhead,--accompanied by a strange circular sweep of lightning that blazed through the windows of the temple, illumining it from end to end with a brilliant blue glare. the superstitious crowd exchanged startled looks of terror, . . the king moved uneasily and glanced frowningly about him,--it was plainly manifest that no one had forgotten the disastrous downfall of the obelisk, ..and there seemed to be a contagion of alarm in the very air. but lysia was perfectly self-possessed, . . in fact she appeared to accept the threat of a storm as an imposing, and by no means undesirable, adjunct to the mysteries of the sacrificial rite, for riveting her basilisk eyes on niphrata, she said in firm, clear, decisive accents: "the gods grow impatient! ... wherefore, o princess and people of al-kyris, let us hasten to appease their anger! depart, o stainless maid! ... depart hence, and betake thee to the golden throne of the sun, our lord and ruler, . . and in the name of nagaya, may the shedding of thy virginal blood avert from us and ours the wrath of the immortals! linger no longer, . . nagaya accepts thee! ... and the hour strikes death!" with the last word a sullen bell boomed heavily through and through the temple.. and, at once, . . like a frenzied bird or butterfly winging its way into scorching flame, . . niphrata rushed forward with swift, unhesitating, dreadful precision straight on the knife outheld by the untrembling ruthless hands of the priest zel! one second,--and theos sick with horror, saw her speeding thus, . . the next,--and the whole place was enveloped in dense darkness! chapter xxix. the cup of wrath and trembling. a flash of time, . . an instant of black, horrid eclipse, too brief for the utterance of even a word or cry, ... and then,--with an appalling roar, as of the splitting of huge rocks and the tearing asunder of mighty mountains, the murky gloom was lifted, rent, devoured, and swept away on all sides by a sudden bursting forth of fire! ... fire leaped up alive in twenty different parts of the building, springing aloft in spiral coils from the marble pavement that yawned crashingly open to give the impetuous flames their rapid egress, . . fire climbed lithely round and round the immense carven columns, and ran, nimbly dancing and crackling its way among the painted and begemmed decorations of the dome, ... fire enwrapped the side-altars, and shrivelled the jewelled idols at a breath, . . fire unfastened and shook down the swinging-lamps, the garlands, the splendid draperies of silk and cloth-of-gold...fire--fire everywhere! ... and the madly affrighted multitude, stunned by the abrupt shock of terror, stood for a moment paralyzed and inert, . . then, with one desperate yell of wild brute fear and ferocity, they rushed headlong in a struggling, shrieking, cursing, sweltering swarm toward the great closed portals of the central aisle. as they did so, a tremendous weight of thunder seemed to descend solidly on the roof with a thudding burst as though a thousand walls had been battered down at one blow, . . the whole edifice rocked and trembled in the terrific reverberation, and almost simultaneously, the doors were violently jerked open, wrenched from their hinges, and hurled, all burning and split with flame, against the forward-fighting crowds! several hundred fell under the fiery mass, a charred heap of corpses,--the raging remainder pressed on in frenzied haste, clambering over piles of burning dead,--trampling on scorched, disfigured faces that perhaps but a moment since had been dear to them,--each and all bent on forcing a way out to the open air. in the midst of the overwhelming awfulness of the scene, theos still retained sufficient presence of mind to remember that, whatever happened, his first care must be for sah-luma, . . always for sah-luma, no matter who else perished! ... and he now held that beloved comrade closely clasped by the arm, while he eagerly glanced about him on every side for some outlet through which to make a good and swift escape. the most immediate place of safety seemed to be the inner sanctuary of nagaya, . . it was untouched by the flames, and its titanic pillars of brass and bronze suggested, in their very massiveness, a nearly impregnable harbor of refuge. the king had fled thither, and now stood, like a statue of undaunted gloomy amazement, beside lysia, who on her part appeared literally frozen with terror. her large, startled eyes, roving here and there in helpless anxiety, alone gave any animation to the deathly, rigid whiteness of her face, and she still mechanically supported the sacred ebony staff, without apparently being aware of the fact that the snake deity, convulsed through all his coils with fright, had begun to make there-from his rapid descent. the priests, the virgins,--the poor, unhappy little singing children,--flocked hurriedly together, and darted to the back of the great shrine, in the manifest intention of reaching some private way of egress known only to themselves,--but their attempts were evidently frustrated, for no sooner had they gone than they sped back again, their faces scorched and blackened, and uttering cries and woeful lamentations they flung themselves wildly among the struggling crowds in the main body of the temple, and fought for life in the jaws of death, every one for self, and no one for another! volumes of smoke rolled up from the ground, in thick and suffocating clouds, accompanied by incessant sharp reports like the close firing of guns, . . jets of flame and showers of cinders broke forth fountain-like, scattering hot destruction on every hand, . . while a few flying sparks caught the end of the "silver veil"--and withered it into nothingness with one bright resolute flare! half maddened by the shrieks and dying groans that resounded everywhere about him, and yet all the time feeling as though he were some spectator set apart, and condemned to watch the progress of a ghastly phantasmagoria in hell, theos was just revolving in his mind whether it would or would not be possible to make a determined climb for escape through one of the tall painted windows, some of which were not yet reached by the fire, when, with a sudden passionate exclamation, sah-luma broke from his hold and rushed to the sanctuary. quick as lightning, theos followed him, . . followed him close, as he sprang up the steps and confronted lysia with eager, outstretched arms. the dead niphrita lay near him, . . fair as a sculptured saint, with the cruel wound of sacrifice in her breast,--but he seemed not to see that piteous corpse of faithfulness! his grief for her death had been a mere transient emotion, . . his stronger earthly passions re-asserted their tempestuous sway,--and for sweet things perished and gone to heaven he had no further care. on lysia, and on lysia's living beauty alone, his eyes flamed their ardent glory. "come! ... come!" he cried.. "come, my love--my life! ... let me save thee! ... or if i cannot save thee, let us die together!" scarcely had the words left his lips, when the king, with a swift forward movement like the pounce of some desert-panther, turned fiercely upon him, . . amazement, jealousy, distrust, revenge, all gathering stormily in the black frown of his bent vindictive brows. his great chest heaved pantingly--his teeth glittered wolfishly through his jetty beard, . . and in the terrible nerve-tension of the moment, the fury of the spreading conflagration was forgotten, at any rate, by theos, who, stricken numb and rigid by a shock of alarm too poignant for expression, stared aghast at the three figures before him...sah-luma, lysia, zephoranim, . . especially zephoranim, whose bursting wrath threatened to choke his utterance. "what sayest thou, sah-luma?" he demanded in a sort of ferocious gasping whisper ... "repeat thy words! ... repeat them!" ... and his hand clutched at his dagger-hilt, while his restless, lowering glance flashed from lysia to the laureate and from the laureate back to lysia again.. "death encompasses us, . . this is no time for trifling! ... speak!".. and his voice suddenly rose to a frantic shout of rage, "speak! what is this woman to thee?" "everything!".. returned sah-luma with prompt and passionate fearlessness, his glorious eyes blazing a proud defiance as he spoke.. "everything that woman can be, or ever shall be, unto man! call her by whatsoever name a foolish creed enjoins, . . virgin-daughter of the sun, or high-priestess of nagaya,--she is nevertheless mine!--and mine only! i am her lover!" "thou!" and with a hoarse cry, zephoranim sprang upon, and seized him by the throat.. "thou liest! i,--i, crowned king of al-kyris, i am her lover!--chosen by her out of all men! ... and dost thou dare to pretend that she hath preferred thee, a mere singer of mad songs, to me? ... thou unscrupulous knave! ... i tell thee she is mine! .. dost hear me?--mine.. mine.. mine!" and he shrieked the last word out in a perfect hurricane of passion,--"my queen.. my mistress!--heart of my heart!--soul of my soul! ... let the city burn to ashes, and the whole land be utterly consumed, in death as in life lysia is mine! ... and the gods themselves shall never part her from me!" and suddenly releasing his grasp he hurled sah-luma away as he might have hurled aside a toy figure,--and a peal of reckless musical laughter echoed mockingly through the vaulted shrine. it was lysia's laughter! ... and theos's blood grew cold as he heard its cruel, silvery ring ... even so had she laughed when nir-jalis died! sah-luma reeled backward from the king's thrust, but did not fall,--white and trembling, with his sad and splendid features, frozen as it were into a sculptured mask of agonized beauty, he turned upon the treacherous woman he loved the silent challenge of his eloquent eyes. oh, that look of piteous pain and wonder! a whole lifetime's wasted opportunities seemed concentrated in its unspeakable reproach! she met it with a sort of triumphant, tranquil indifference, . . an uncontrollable wicked smile curved the corners of her red lips, . . the sacred ebony staff had somehow slipped from her hands, and it now lay on the ground, the half-uncoiled serpent still clinging to it, in glittering lengths that appeared to be quite motionless. "ah, lysia, hast thou played me false?".. cried the unhappy laureate at last, as with a quick, impulsive movement, he caught her round jewelled arm in a resolute grip.. "after all thy vows, thy endearments, thy embraces, hast thou betrayed me? speak truly! ... art thou not all in all to me? ... hast thou not given thyself body and soul into my keeping? to this braggart king i deign no answer--one word of thine will suffice! ... be brave.. be faithful! ... declare thy love for me, even as thou hast oft declared it a thousand remembered times!" over the face of the beautiful priestess swept a strange expression of mingled fear, antagonism, loathing, and exultation. her eyes wandered to the red tongued leaping flames that tossed in eddying rings round the temple, running every second nearer to the place where she stood, and in that one glance she seemed to recognize the hopelessness of rescue and certainty of death. a careless, haughty acceptance of her fate manifested itself in the pallid resolve of her drawn features, . . but as she allowed her gaze to return and dwell on sah-luma, the old, malicious mirth flushed and gave lustre to her loveliness, and she laughed again...a laugh of uttermost bitter scorn. "declare my love for thee!" she said in thrilling accents.. "thou boaster! let the gods, who have kindled this fiery end for us, bear witness to my hatred! i hate thee! ... aye, even thee!".. and she pointed at him jeeringly, as he recoiled from her in wide eyed anguish and amazement:--"no man have i ever loved, but thee have i hated most of all! all men have i despised for their folly, greed and vain-glory,--i have fought them with their own weapons of avarice, cunning, cruelty, and falsehood,--but thou hast been even beneath my contempt! 'twas scarcely worth my while to fool thee, thou wert so easily fooled! ... 'twas idle sport to rouse thy passions, they were so easily roused! poet and perjurer, . . singer and sophist! thou to whom the genius of poesy was as a pearl set in a swine's snout! ... thou wert not worthy to be my dupe, seeing that thou camest to me already in bonds, the dupe of thine own self! niphrata loved thee,--and thou didst play with and torture her more unmercifully than wild beasts play with and torture their prey; . . but thou couldst never trifle with me! o thou who hast taken so much pride in the breaking of many women's hearts, learn that thou hast never stirred one throb of passion in mine! ... that i have loathed thy beauty while caressing thee, and longed to slay thee while embracing thee! ... and that even now i would i saw thee dead before me, ere i myself am forced to die!" pausing in the swift torrent of her words, her white breast heaved violently with the rise and fall of her panting breath,--her dark, brilliant eyes dilated, while the symbolic jewel she wore, and the crown of serpents' heads in her streaming hair, seemed to glitter about her like so many points of lightning. at that instant one side of the sanctuary split asunder, giving way to a bursting wreath of flames. seeing this, she uttered a piercing cry, and stretched out her arms. "zephoranim! ... save me!" in a second, the king sprang toward her, but not before sah-luma, wild with wrath, had interposed himself between them. "back!" he exclaimed passionately, addressing the infuriated monarch.. "while i live, lysia is mine!--let her hate and deny me as she will!--and sooner than see her in thine arms, o king, i will slay her where she stands!" his bold attitude was magnificent,--his countenance more than beautiful in its love betrayed despair, . . and for a moment the savage zephoranim paused irresolute, his scowling brows bent on his erstwhile favorite minstrel with an expression that hovered curiously between bitterest enmity and reluctant reverence. there seemed to be a struggling consciousness in his mind of the immortality of a poet as compared with the evanescent power of a king,--and also a quick realization of the truth that, let his anger be what it would, they twain were partakers in the same evil, and were mutually deceived by the same false woman! but ere his saving sense of justice could prevail, a ripple of discordant, delirious laughter broke once more from lysia's lips,--her eye shone vindictively,--her whole face became animated with a sudden glow of fiendish triumph. "zephoranim!" she cried, "hero! ... warrior! ... king! ... thou who hast risked thy crown and throne and life for my sake and the love of me! ... wilt lose me now? ... wilt let me perish in these raging flames, to satisfy this wanton liar and unbeliever in the gods, to whose disturbance of the holy ritual we surely owe this present fiery disaster! save me, o strong and noble zephoranim! ... save me, and with me save the city and the people! kill sah-luma!" o barbarous, inexorable words!--they rang like a desolating knell in the ears of the bewildered, fear-stricken theos, and startled him from his rigid trance of speechless misery. uttering an inarticulate dull groan, he made a violent effort to rush forward--to serve as a living shield of defence to his adored friend, . . to ward off the imminent blow! too late! too late! ... zephoranim's dagger glittered in the air, and rapidly descended ... one gasping cry! ... and sah-luma lay prone,--beautiful as a slain adonis, . . the rich red blood pouring from his heart, and a faint, stern smile frozen on the proud lips whose dulcet singing-speech was now struck dumb forever! with a shriek of agony, theos threw himself beside his murdered comrade, . . heedless of king, priestess, flames, and all the out-breaking fury of earth and heaven, he bent above that motionless form, and gazed yearningly into the fair colorless face. "sah-luma! ... sah-luma!" no sign! ... no tremulous stir of breath! dead--dead,--dead in his prime of years--dead in the zenith of his glory!--all the delicate, dreaming genius turned to dust and ashes! ... all the ardent light of inspiration quenched in the never-lifting darkness of the grave! ... and in the first delirious paroxysm of his grief theos felt as though life, time, and the world were ended for him also, with this one suddenly destroyed existence! "o thou mad king!" he cried fiercely, "thou hast slain the chief wonder of thy realm and reign! die now when thou wilt, thou shalt only he remembered as the murderer of sah-luma! ... sah-luma, whose name shall live when thine is covered in shameful oblivion!" zephoranim frowned,--and threw the blood-stained dagger from him. "peace, clamorous fool!" he said, "sah-luma hath gone but a moment before me, . . as poet he hath received precedence even in death! when the last hour comes for all of us, it matters not how we die, . . and whether i am hereafter remembered or forgotten i care not! i have lived as a man should live,--fearing nothing and conquered by none,--except perchance by love, that hath brought many kings ere now to untimely ruin!" here his moody eyes lighted on lysia. "how many lovers hast thou had, fair soul?".. he demanded in a stern yet tremulous voice ... "a thousand? ... i would swear this dead minstrel of mine was one,--for though i slew him at thy bidding i saw the truth in his dying eyes! ... no matter!--we shall meet in hades,--and there we shall have ample time to urge our rival claims upon thy favor! ah!".. and he suddenly laid his two strong hands on her white uncovered shoulders, and gazed at her reproachfully as she shrank a little beneath his close scrutiny, . . "thou divine traitress! have i not challenged the very heavens for thy sake? ... and lo! the prophecy is fulfilled and al-kyris must fall! how many men would have loved thee as i have loved? ... none! not even this dead sah-luma, slain like a dog to give thee pleasure! come! ... let me kiss thee once again ere death makes cold our lips! false or true, thou art nevertheless fair!--and the wrathful gods know best how i worship thy fairness!" and folding his arms about her, he kissed her passionately. she clung to him like a lithe serpentine thing,--her eyes ablaze, her mouth quivering with suppressed hysterical laughter. pointing to sah-luma's body, she said in a strange excited whisper: "nay, hast thou slain him in very truth, zephoranim! ... slain him utterly? for i have heard that poets cannot die,--they live when the whole world deems them dead,--they rise from their shut graves and re-invest the earth with all the secrets of past time, . . oh! my brain reels! ... i talk mere madness! ... there is no afterwards of death!--no, no! no gods, no anything but blankness.. forgetfulness.. and silence! ... for us, and for all men! ... how good it is!--how excellently devised a jest! ... that the whole wide universe should be but a cheat of time! ... a bubble blown into space, to float, break, and perish,--all for the idle sport of some unknown and shapeless devil-mystery!" shuddering, half-laughing, half-weeping, she clasped her hands round the monarch's throat, and hid her wild eyes in his breast, while he, unnerved by her distraction and his own inward torture, glared about him on all sides for some glimmering chance of rescue, but could see none. the flames were now attacking the shrine on every side like a besieging army,--their leaping darts of blue and crimson gleaming here and there with indescribable velocity, . . and still theos knelt by sah-luma's corpse in dry-eyed despair, endeavoring with feverish zeal to stanch the oozing blood with a strip torn from his own garments, and listening anxiously for the feeblest heart-throb, or smaller pulsation of smouldering life in the senseless stiffening clay. all at once a hideous scream assailed his ears,--another, and yet another rang above the crackling roar of the gradually conquering fire, . . and half-lifting sah-luma's body in his arms, he looked up...o horror, horror! his nerves contracted,--his blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins, . . his head swam giddily, . . and he thought the moment of his own death had come, for surely no man could behold the sight he saw and yet continue to live on! lysia the captor was made captive at last! ..bound, helpless, imprisoned, and hopelessly doomed, ..nagaya had claimed his own! the huge snake, terrified beyond all control at the bursting breadth of fire environing the shrine, had turned in its brute fear to the mistress it had for years been accustomed to obey, and had now, with one stealthy noiseless spring, twisted its uppermost coil close about her waist, where its restless head, alarmed eyes, and darting fangs all glistened together like a blazing cluster of gems! the more she struggled to release herself from its deathful embrace, the tighter its body contracted and the more maddened with fright it became. shriek upon shriek broke from her lips and pierced the suffocating air, . . while with all his great muscular force zephoranim the king strove in desperate agony to tear her from the awful clutch of the monster he had but lately knelt to as divine! in vain, ..in vain! ... the strongest efforts were useless, ... the cruel, beautiful, pitiless priestess of nagaya was condemned to suffer the same frightful death she had so often mercilessly decreed for others! closer and closer grew the fearful python's constricting clasp, . . nearer and nearer swept the dancing battalion of destroying flames! ... for one fleeting breath of time theos stared aghast at the horrid scene, . . then making a superhuman effort he raised sah-luma's corpse entirely from the ground and staggered with his burden away, . . away from the burning shrine, . . the funeral pyre, as it vaguely seemed to him, of a wasted love and a dead passion! * * * * * * * whither should he go! ... down into the blazing area of the fast-perishing temple? surely no safety could be found there, where the fire was raging at its utmost height! ... yet he went on mechanically, as though urged forward by some force superior to his own, . . always clinging to the idea that his friend still lived and that if he could only reach some place of temporary shelter he might yet be able to restore him. it was possible the wound was not fatal, . . far more possible to his mind than that so gloriously famed a poet should be dead! so he dimly thought, while he stumbled dizzily along, . . his forehead wet with clammy dews, . . his limbs trembling under the weight he bore, . . his eyes half-blinded by the hot flying sparks and drifting smoke, . . and his soul shaken and appalled by the ghastly sights that met his view wheresoever he turned. crushed and writhing bodies of men, women, and children, half-living, half-dead, . . heaps of corpses, fast blazing to ashes,--broken and falling columns, . . yawning gaps in the ground, from which were cast forth volleys of red cinders and streams of lava, ... all these multitudinous horrors surrounded him, as with uncertain, faltering steps he moved on like a sick man walking in sleep, carrying his precious burden! he knew nothing of where he was bound,--he saw no outlet anywhere--no corner wherein the fire-fiend had not set up devouring dominion, . . but nevertheless he steadily continued his difficult progress, clasping sah-luma's corpse with a strange tenacity, and concentrating all his attention on protecting it from the withering touch of the ravenous flames. all at once,--as he strove to force his way over a fallen altar from which the hideous presiding stone idol had toppled headlong, killing in its descent some twenty or thirty people whose bodies lay crushed beneath it,--a face horribly disfigured and tortured into a mere burnt sketch of its former likeness twisted itself up and peered at him, the face of zabastes, the critic. his protruding eyes glistened with something of their old malign expression as he perceived whose helpless form it was that was being carried by. "what! ... is the famous sah-luma gone?" he gasped, his words half choking him in their utterance as he stretched out a skinny hand and caught at theos's garments ... "good youth, stay! ... stay! ... why burden thyself with a corpse when thou mightest rescue a living man? save me! ... save me! ... i was the poet's adverse critic, and who but i should write his eulogy now that he is no more! ... pity! ... pity, most courteous, gentle sir! ... save me if only for the sake of sah-luma's future honor! thou knowest not how warmly, how generously, how nobly, i can praise the dead!" theos gazed down upon him in unspeakable, melancholy scorn, . . was it only through time-serving creatures such as this miserable zabastes, that the after-glory of perished poets was proclaimed to the world? ... what then was the actual worth of fame? shuddering, he wrenched himself away, and passed on silently, heedless of the savage curses the despairing scribe yelled after him as he went, and he involuntarily pressed the dead corpse of his beloved friend closer to his heart, as though he thought he could re-animate it by this mute expression of tenderness! meanwhile the fire raged continuously,--the temple was fast becoming a pillared mass of flames, . . and presently,--choked and giddy with the sulphurous vapors--he stopped abruptly, struggling for breath. his time had come at last, he thought, . . he with sah-luma must die! just then a loud muttering and rolling of thunder swept in eddying vibrations round him, followed by a sharp, splitting noise, . . raising his aching eyes, he saw straight before him, a yawning gloomy archway, like the solemn portal of a funeral vault.. dark, yet with a white glimmer of steps leading outward, and a dim sparkle as of stars in heaven. a rush of new vigor inspired him at this sight, and he resumed his way, stumbling over countless corpses strewn among fallen blocks of marble,--and every now and then looking back in awful fascination to the fiery furnace of the body of the temple, where of all the vast numbers that had lately crowded it from end to end, there were only a hundred or so remaining alive,--and these were fast perishing in frightful agony. the shrine of nagaya was enveloped in thick black smoke, crossed here and there by flashes of flame,--the bare outline of its titanic architecture was scarcely discernible! yet the thought of the dreadful end of lysia, the loveliest woman he had ever seen, moved him now to no emotion whatever--save..gladness! some deadly evil seemed burnt out of his life, . . moreover her command had slain sah-luma! ... enough! ... no fate however horrible, could be more so than she in her wanton wickedness deserved! ... but alas! her beauty! ... he dared not think of its subtle, slumberous charm! ... and stung to a new sense of desperation, he plunged recklessly toward the dusky aperture he had seen, which appeared to enlarge itself mysteriously as he approached, like the opening gateway of some magic cavern. suddenly a faint groan at his feet startled him,--and, looking down hastily, he perceived an unfortunate man lying half crushed under the ponderous fragment of a split column, which had fallen across his body in such manner that any attempt to extricate him would have been worse than useless. by the bright light of the leaping flames, theos had no difficulty in recognizing the pallid countenance of his late acquaintance, the learned professor of positivism, mira-khabur, who was evidently very near his woeful and most positive end! struck by an impulse of compassion he paused, . . yet what could he say? ..in such a case, where rescue was impossible, all comfort seemed mockery,--and while he stood silent and irresolute, he fancied the professor smiled! it was a very ghastly smile,--nevertheless it hid in it a curious touch of bland and scrupulous inquiry. "is not this...a very.. remarkable occurrence?" ... asked a voice so feeble and far away that it was difficult to believe it came from the lips of the suffering sage. "of course...it arises from...a volcanic eruption! ... and the mystery of the red river.. is.. solved!" here an irrepressible moan of anguish broke through his heroic effort at equanimity;--"it is not a phenomenon!".. and a gleam of obstinate self-assertion lit up his poor glazing eyes, "nothing is phenonmenal! ... only i am not able...to explain.... i have no time...no time...to analyze.. my very ... singular...sensations!" a rush of blood choked his utterance--his throat rattled, ... he was dead! ... and the dreary speculative smile froze on his mouth in the likeness of a solemn sneer. at that moment, a terrific swirling, surging noise, like the furious boiling of an underground whirlpool, rumbled heavily through the air, . . and lo! with a sudden, swift shock that sent theos reeling forward and almost falling, under the burdensome weight he carried, the earth opened, . . disclosing a huge pit of black nothingness,--an enormous chasm,--into which, with an appalling clamor as of a hundred incessant peals of thunder, the whole main area of the temple, together with its mass of dead and dying human beings, sank in less than five seconds!--the ground closing instantaneously over its prey with a sullen roar, as though it were some gigantic beast devouring food too long denied. and instead of the vanished fane arose a mighty pillar of fire! ... a vast increasing volume of scarlet and gold flame that spread outward and upward,--higher and higher, in tapering lines and dome-like curves of living light, . . while theos, being hurled along resistlessly by the force of the convulsion, had reached, though he knew not how, the dark and quiet cell-like portal with its out-leading steps, . . the only visible last hope and chance of safety, . . and he now leaned against its cold stone arch, trembling in every limb, clasping the dead sah-luma close, and looking back in affrighted awe at the tossing vortex of fury from which he had miraculously escaped. and,--as he looked,--a host of spectral faces seemed to rise whitely out of the flames and wonder at him! ... faces that were solemn, wistful, warning, and beseeching by turns! ... they drifted through the fire and smiled, and wept, and vanished, to reappear again and yet again! ... and as, with painfully beating heart, he strove to combat the terror that seized him at this strange spectacular delusion, all suddenly the heavy wreaths of smoke that had till now hung over the inner shrine of nagaya parted like drapery drawn aside from a picture.. and for a brief breathing space of direst agony he saw lysia once more,--lysia, in a torture as horrible as any ever depicted in a bigot's idea of his enemy's hell! round and round her writhing form the sacred serpent was twined in all his many coils,--with both hands she had grasped the creature's throat in her frenzy, striving to thrust back its quivering fangs from her breast, whereon the evil "eye of raphon" still gleamed distinctly with its adamantine chilly stare, . . at her feet lay the body of the king her lover, dead and wrapped in a ring of flames! ... alone--all, all alone, she confronted death in its most appalling shape.. her countenance was distorted, yet beautiful still with the beauty of a maddened medusa, . . white and glittering as a fair ghost invoked from some deadly gulf of pain, she stood, a phantom-figure of mingled loveliness and horror, circled on every side by fire! with wild, straining eyes theos gazed upon her thus, ... for the last time! ... for with a crash that seemed to rend the very heavens, the great bronze columns surrounding her, which had, up to the present, resisted the repeated onslaughts of the flames, bent together all at once and fell in a melting ruin.. and the victorious fire roared loudly above them, enveloping the whole shrine anew in dense clouds of smoke and jets of flame,--lysia had perished! all that proud loveliness, that dazzling supremacy, that superb voluptuousness, that triumphant dominion, . . swept away into a heap of undiscoverable ashes! and zephoranim's haughty spirit too had fled,--fled, stained with guilt and most unroyal dishonor, all for the sake of one woman's fairness--the fairness of body only--the brilliant mask of flesh that too often hides the hideousness of a devil's nature! for one moment theos remained stupefied by the sheer horror of the catastrophe,--then, recalling his bewildered wits to his aid, he peered anxiously through the archway where he rested, . . there seemed to be a dim red glow at the end of the downward-leading steps, as well as a dusky azure tint, like a patch of midnight sky. the temple was now nothing but a hissing shrieking pyramid of flames,--the hot and blinding glare was almost too intense for his eyes to endure,--yet so fascinated was he by the sublime terror and grandeur of the spectacle, that he could scarcely make up his mind to turn away from it! the thought of sah-luma, however, gave the needful spur to his flagging energies, and without pausing to consider where he might be going, he slowly and hesitatingly descended the steps before him, and presently reached a sort of small open court paved with black marble. here he tenderly laid his burden down,--a burden grown weightier with each moment of its bearing,--and letting his aching arms drop listlessly at his sides, he looked up dreamily,--not all at once comprehending the cause of the vast lurid light that crimsoned the air like a wide aurora borealis everywhere about him, . . then,--as the truth suddenly flashed on his mind, he uttered a loud, irrepressible cry of amazement and awe! far as his gaze could see,--east, west, north, south, the whole city of al-kyris was in flames!--and the burning temple of nagaya was but a mere spark in the enormous breadth of the general conflagration! palaces, domes, towers, and spires were tottering to red destruction, . . fire...fire everywhere! ... nothing but fire,--save when a furious gust of scorching wind blew aside the masses of cindery smoke, and showed glimpses of sky and the changeless shining of a few cold quiet stars. he cast one desperate glance from earth to heaven, . . how was it possible to escape from this kindling furnace of utter annihilation! ... where all were manifestly doomed, how could he expect to be saved! and moreover, if sah-luma was indeed dead, what remained for him but to die also! * * * * * * * calming the frenzy of his thoughts by a strong effort, he began to vaguely wonder why and how it happened that the place where he now was, . . this small and insignificant court,--had so far escaped the fire, and was as cool and sombre as a sacred tomb set apart for some hero, ... or poet? poet!--the word acted as a stimulant to his tired struggling brain, and he all at once remembered what sah-luma had said to him at their first meeting: "there is but one poet in al-kyris, and i am he!" o true, true! only one poet! ... only one glory of the great city, that now served him as funeral pyre!--only one name worth remembering in all its perishing history.. the name of sah-luma! sah-luma, the beautiful, the gifted, the famous, the beloved, . . he was dead! this thought, in its absorbing painfulness, straightway drove out all others,--and theos, who had carried his comrade's corpse bravely and unshrinkingly through a fiery vortex of imminent peril, now sank on his knees all desolate and unnerved, his hot tears dropping fast on that fair, still, white face that he knew would never flush to the warmth of life again! "sah-luma! sah-luma!" he whispered, "my friend ... my more than brother! would i could have died for thee! ... would thou couldst have lived to fulfil the nobler promise of thy genius! ... better far thou hadst been spared to the world than i! ... for i am nothing, . . but thou wert everything!" and taking the clay-cold hands in his own, he kissed them reverently, and, with an unconscious memory not born of his recent adventures, folded them on the dead laureate's breast in the fashion of a cross. as he did this an icy spasm seemed to contract his heart, . . seized by a sudden insufferable anxiety, he stared like one spell-bound into sah-luma's wide-open, fixed, and glassy eyes. dead eyes! ... yet how full of mysterious significance! ... what--what was their weird secret, their imminent meaning! ... why did their dark and frozen depths appear to retain a strange, living undergleam of melting, sorrowful, beseeching sweetness? ... like the eyes of one who prays to be remembered, though changed after long absence! what hot and terrible delirium was this that snatched at his whirling brain as he bent closer and closer over the marble quiet countenance, and studied with a sort of fierce intentness every line of those delicate, classic features, on which high thought had left so marked an impress of dignity and power! what a marvellous, half-reproachful, half-appealing smile lingered on the finely-curved set lips! ... how wonderful, how beautiful, how beloved beyond all words was this fair dead god of poesy on whom he gazed with such a passion of yearning! stooping more and more, he threw his arms round the senseless form, and partly lifting it from the ground, brought the wax-pallid face nearer to his own.. so near that the cold mouth almost touched his, . . then filled with an awful, unnamable misgiving, he scanned his murdered comrade's perished beauty in puzzled, vague bewilderment, much as an ignorant dullard might perplexedly scan the incomprehensible characters of some hieroglyphic scroll. and, as he looked, a sharp pang shot through him like a whizzing ball of fire, . . a convulsion of mental agony shook his limbs,--he could have shrieked aloud in the extremity of his torture, but the struggling cry died gasping in his throat. still as stone he kept his strained, steadfast gaze fixed on sah-luma's corpse, slowly absorbing the full horror of a tremendous suggestion, that like a scorching lava-flood swept into every subtle channel of his brain. for the dead sah-luma's eyes grew into the semblance of his own eyes! ... the dead sah-luma's face smiled spectrally back at him in the image of his own face! ... it was as though he beheld the picture of himself, slain and reflected in a magician's mirror! round him the very heavens seemed given up to fire,--but he heeded it not,--the world might be at an end and the day of judgment, proclaimed,--nothing would have stirred him from where he knelt, in that dreadful stillness of mystic martyrdom, drinking in the gradual, glimmering consciousness of a terrific truth, . . the amazing, yet scarcely graspable solution of a supernatural enigma, ... an enigma through which, like a man lost in the depths of a dark forest, he had wandered up and down, seeking light, yet finding none! "o god!" he dumbly prayed. "thou, with whom all things are possible, give eyes to this blind trouble of my heart! i am but as a grain of dust before thee, . . a poor perishable atom, devoid of simplest comprehension! ... do thou of thy supernal pity teach me what i must know!" as he thought out this unuttered petition, a tense cord seemed to snap suddenly in his brain, . . a rush of tears came to his relief, and through their salt and bitter haze the face of sah-luma appeared to melt into a thin and spiritual brightness,--a mere aerial outline of what it had once been, . . the glazed dark eyes seemed to flash living lightning into his, . . the whole lost personality of the dead poet seemed to environ him with a mysterious, potent, incorporeal influence.. an influence that he felt he must now or never repel, reject, and utterly resist! ... with a shuddering cry, he tore his reluctant arms away from the beloved corpse, . . with trembling, tender fingers he closed and pressed down the white eyelids of those love-expressive eyes, and kissed the broad poetic brow! "whatever thou wert or art to me, sah-luma," he murmured in sobbing haste,--"thou knowest that i loved thee, though now i leave thee! farewell!"--and his voice broke in its strong agony--"o how much easier to divide body from soul than part myself from thee! sah-luma, beloved sah-luma! god give thee rest! ... god pardon thy sins,--and mine!" and he pressed his lips once more on the folded rigid hands; . . as he did so, he inadvertently touched the writing-tablet that hung from the dead laureate's girdle. the red glow of the fire around him enabled him to see distinctly what was written on it, . . there were about twenty lines of verse, in exquisitely clear and fine caligraphy, ... and, as he read, he knew them well, . . they were the last lines of the poem "nourhalma"! he dared trust his own strength no longer, . . one wild, adoring, lingering, parting look at his dead rival in song, whom he had loved better than himself,--and then,--full of a nameless fear, he fled! ... fled recklessly, and with swift, mad fury as though demons followed in pursuit, . . fled through the burning city, as a lost and frenzied spirit might speed through the deserts of hell! everywhere about him resounded the crackling hiss of the flames, and the crash of falling buildings, . . mighty pinnacles and lofty domes melted and vanished before is eyes in a blaze of brilliant destruction! ... on--on he went, meeting confused, scattered crowds of people, whose rushing, white-garmented figures looked like ghosts flying before a storm, . . the cries and shrieks of women and children, and the groans of men were mingled with the restless roaring of lions and other wild beasts burnt out of their dens in the royal arena, the distant circle of which could be dimly seen, surrounded by fountain-like jets of fire. some of these maddened animals ran against him, as he sped along the blazing thoroughfares,--but he made no attempt to avoid them, nor was he sensible of any other terror than that which was within himself and was purely mental. on! ... on!--still on he went,--a desperate, lonely man, lost in a hideous nightmare of flame and fury, . . seeing nothing but one vast flying rout of molten red and gold, . . speaking to none, . . utterly reckless as to his own fate, . . only impelled on and on, but whither he knew not, nor cared to know! all at once his, strength gave way...his nerves seemed to break asunder like so many over-wound harp-strings, . . a sudden silvery clanging of bells rang in his ears, and with them came a sound of multitudinous soft, small voices: "kyrie eleison! kyrie eleison!" hush! ... what was that? ... what did it mean? ... halting abruptly, he gave a wild glance round him,--up to the sky, where the flaring flames spread in tangled lengths and webs of light, . . then, straight before him to the city of al-kyris, now a wondrous vision of redly luminous columns and cupolas, with the wet gleam of the river enfolding its blazing streets and towers: . . and while he yet beheld it, lo! it receded from his view! further, . . further!--further away, till it seemed nothing but the toppling and smoldering of heavy clouds after the conflagration of the sunset! hark, hark again! ... "kyrie, eleison! ... kyrie, eleison!" with a sense of reeling rapture and awe he listened, . . he understood! ... he found the name he had so long forgotten! "christ, have mercy upon me!"...he cried, and in that one urgent supplication he uttered all the pent-up anguish of his soul! blind and dizzy with the fevered whirl of his own emotions, he stumbled forward and fell! ... fell heavily over a block of stone, . . stunned by the shock, he lost consciousness, but only for a moment; . . a dull aching in his temples roused him,--and making a faint effort to rise, he turned slowly and languidly on his arm, . . and with a long, deep, shuddering sigh...awoke! he was on the field of ardath. dawn had just broken. the east was one wide, shimmering stretch of warm gold, and over it lay strips of blue and gray, like fragments of torn battle-banners. above him sparkled the morning star, white and glittering as a silver lamp, among the delicate spreading tints of saffron and green, . . and beside him,--her clear, pure features flushed by the roseate splendor of the sky, her hands clasped on her breast, and her sweet eyes full of an infinite tenderness and yearning, knelt edris!--edris, his flower-crowned angel, whom last he had seen drifting upward and away like a dove through the glory of the cross in heaven! chapter xxx. sunrise. entranced in amazed ecstasy he lay quite quiet, . . afraid to speak or stir! this gentle presence,--this fair, beseeching face, might vanish if he moved! so he dimly fancied, as he gazed up at her in mute wonder and worship, his devout eyes drinking in her saintly loveliness, from the deep burnished gold of her hair to the soft, white slimness of her prayerfully folded hands. and while he looked, old thoughts like home-returning birds began to hover round his soul,--sweet and dear remembrances, like the sunset lighting up the windows of an empty house, began to shine on the before semi-darkened nooks and crannies of his brain. clearer and clearer grew the reflecting mirror of his consciousness,--trouble and perplexity seemed passing away forever from his mind, . . a great and solemn peace environed him, . . and he began to believe he had crossed the boundary of death and had entered at last into the kingdom of heaven! o let him not break this holy silence! ... let him rest so, with all the glory of that angel-visage shed like summer sunbeams over him! ... let him absorb into his innermost being the exquisite tenderness of those innocent, hopeful, watchful, starry eyes whose radiance seemed to steal into the golden morning and give it a sacred poetry and infinite marvel of meaning! so he mused, gravely contented, ... while all through the brightening skies overhead, came the pale, pink flushing of the dawn, like a far fluttering and scattering of rose-leaves. everything was so still that he could hear his own heart beating forth healthful and regular pulsations, . . but he was scarcely conscious of his own existence,--he was only aware of the vast, beautiful, halcyon calm that encircled him shelteringly and soothed all care away. gradually, however, this deep and delicious tranquillity began to yield to a sweeping rush of memory and comprehension, ... he knew who he was and where he was,--though he did not as yet feel absolutely certain of life and life's so-called realities. for if the city of al-kyris, with all its vivid wonders, its distinct experiences, its brilliant pageantry, had been indeed a dream, then sorely it was possible he might be dreaming still! ... nevertheless he was able to gather up the fragments of lost recollection consecutively enough to realize, by gentle degrees, his actual identity and position in the world, . . he was theos alwyn, . . a man of the nineteenth century after christ. ah! thank god for that! ... after christ! ... not one who had lived five thousand years before christ's birth! ... and this quiet, patient maiden at his side, . . who was she? a vision? ... or an actually existent being? unable to resist the craving desire of his heart, he spoke her name as he now remembered it, . . spoke it in a faint, awed whisper. "edris!" "theos, my beloved!" o sweet and thrilling voice! more musical than the singing of birds in a sun-filled spring! he raised himself a little, and looked at her more intently:--she smiled,--and that smile, so marvellous in its pensive peace and lofty devotion, was as though all the light of an unguessed paradise had suddenly flashed upon his soul! "edris!" he said again, trembling in the excess of mingled hope and fear ... "hast thou then returned again from heaven, to lift me out of darkness? ... tell me, fair angel, do i wake or sleep? ... are my senses deceived? is this land a dream? ... am i myself a dream, and thou the only manifest sweet truth in a world of drifting shadows! ... speak to me, gentle saint! ... in what vast mystery have i been engulfed? ... in what timeless trance of soul-bewilderment? ... in what blind uncertainty and pain? ... o sweet! ... resolve my wordless wonder! where have i strayed? ... what have i seen? ... ah, let not my rough speech fright thee back to paradise! ... stay with me! ... comfort me! ... i have lost thee so long! let me not lose thee now!" smiling still, she bent over him, and pressed her warm, delicate ringers lightly on his brow and lips. then softly she rose and stood erect. "fear nothing, my beloved!" she answered, her silvery accents sending a throb of holy triumph through the air.. "let no trouble disquiet thee, and no shadow of misgiving dim the brightness of thy waking moments! thou hast slept one night on the field of ardath, in the valley of vision!--but lo! the night is past!".. and she pointed toward the eastern horizon now breaking into waves of rosy gold, "rise! and behold the dawning of thy new day!" roused by her touch, and fired by her tone and the grand, unworldly dignity of her look and bearing, he sprang up, . . but as he met the full, pure splendor of her divine eyes, and saw, wavering round her hair, a shining aureole of amber radiance like a wreath of woven sunbeams, his spirit quailed within him, . . he remembered all his doubts of her,--his disbelief, . . and falling at her feet, he hid his face in a shame that was better than all glory,--a humiliation that was sweeter than all pride. "edris! immortal edris!".. he passionately prayed, "as thou art a crowned saint in heaven, shed light on the chaos of my soul! from the depths of a penitence past thought and speech i plead with thee! hear me, my edris, thou who art so maiden-meek, so tender-patient! ... hear me, help me, guide me...i am all thine! say, didst thou not summon me to meet thee here upon this wondrous field of ardath?--did i not come hither according to thy words?--and have i not seen things that i am not able to express or understand? teach me, wise and beloved one! ... i doubt no more! i know myself and thee:--thou art an angel,--but i! ... alas, what am i? a grain of sand in thy sight and in god's, . . a mere nothing, comprehending nothing,--unable even to realize the extent of my own nothingness! edris, o edris! ... thou canst not love me! ... thou mayst pity me perchance, and pardon, and bless me gently in christ's dear name! ... but love! ... thy love! ... oh let me not aspire to such heights of joy, where i have no place, no right, no worthiness!" "no worthiness!" echoed edris! ... what a rapture trembled through her sweet caressing voice!--"my theos, who is so worthy to win back what is thine own, as thou? all heaven has wondered at thy voluntary exile,--thy place in god's supernal sphere has long been vacant, . . thy right to dwell there, none have questioned, ... thy throne is empty--thy crown unclaimed! thou art an angel even as i! ... but thou art in bonds while i am free! ah, how sad and strange it is to me to see thee here thus fettered to the sorrowful star, when, countless aeons since, thou mightest have enjoyed full liberty in the eternal light of the everlasting paradise!" he listened, ... a strong, sweet hope began to kindle in him like flame, . . but he made no answer. only he caught and kissed the edge of her garment, . . its soft gray cloudy texture brushed his lips with the odorous coolness of a furled roseleaf. she seemed to tremble at his action, ... but he dared not look up. presently he felt the pulsing pressure of her hands upon his head! and a rush of strange, warm vigor thrilled through his veins like an electric flash of new and never-ending life. "thou wouldst seek after and know the truth!" she said, "truth celestial,--truth unchangeable, . . truth that permeates and underlies all the mystic inward workings of the universe, . . workings and secret laws unguessed by man! vast as eternity is this truth,--ungraspable in all its manifestations by the merely mortal intelligence, ... nevertheless thy spirit, being chastened to noble humility and repentance, hath risen to new heights of comprehension, whence thou canst partly penetrate into the wonders of worlds unseen. did i not tell thee to 'learn from the perils of the past, the perils of the future'--and understandest thou not the lesson of the vision of al-kyris? thou hast seen the dream-reflection of thy former poet-fame and glory in old time,--thou wert sah-luma!" an agony of shame possessed him as he heard. his soul at once seized the solution of the mystery, . . his quickened thought plunged plummet-like straight through the depths of the bewildering phantasmagoria, in which mere reason had been of no practical avail, and straightway sounded its whole seemingly complex, but actually simple meaning! he was sah-luma! ... or rather, he had been sah-luma in some far stretch of long-receded time, ... and in his dream of a single night, he had loved the brilliant phantom of his former self more than his own present identity! not less remarkable was the fact that, in this strange sleep-mirage, he had imagined himself to be perfectly unselfish, whereas all the while he had honored, flattered, and admired the more appearance of himself more than anything or everything in the world! ay!--even his occasional reluctant reproaches to himself in the ghostly impersonation of sah-luma had been far more tender than severe! o deep and bitter ingloriousness! ... o speechless degradation of all the higher capabilities of man! to love one's own ephemeral shadow-existence so utterly as to exclude from thought and sympathy all other things whether human or divine! and was it not possible that this spectre of self might still be clinging to him? was it dead with the dream of sah-luma? ... or had sah-luma never truly died at all? ... and was the fine, fire-spun essence that had formed the spirit of the laureate of al-kyris yet part of the living substance of his present nature, ... he, a world-unrecognized english poet of the nineteenth century? did all sah-luma's light follies, idle passions, and careless cruelties remain inherent in him? had he the same pride of intellect, the same vain-glory, the same indifference to god and man? oh, no, no! ... he shuddered at the thought! ... and his head sank lower and lower beneath the benediction touch of her whose tenderness revived his noblest energies, and lit anew in his heart the pure, bright fire of heaven-encompassing aspiration. "thou wert sah-luma!" went on the mildly earnest voice, "and all the wide, ungrudging fame given to earth's great poets in ancient days, was thine! thy name was on all men's mouths, ... thou wert honored by kings, ... thou wert the chief glory of a great people, ... great though misled by their own false opinions, ... and the city of al-kyris, of which thou wert the enshrined jewel, was mightier far than any now built upon the earth! christ had not come to thee, save by dim types and vague prefigurements which only praying prophets could discern, ... but god had spoken to thy soul in quiet moments, and thou wouldst neither hear him nor believe in him! i had called thee, but thou wouldst not listen, ... thou didst foolishly prefer to hearken to the clamorous tempting of thine own beguiling human passions, and wert altogether deaf to an angel's whisper! things of the earth earthly gained dominion over thee ... by them thou wert led astray, deceived, and at last forsaken, ... the genius god gave thee thou didst misuse and indolently waste, ... thy brief life came, as thou hast seen, to sudden-piteous end,--and the proud city of thy dwelling was destroyed by fire! not a trace of it was left to mark the spot where once it stood. the foundations of babylon were laid above it, and no man guessed that it had ever been. and thy poems, ... the fruit of thy heaven-sent but carelessly accepted inspiration,--who is there that remembers them? ... no one! ... save thou! thou hast recovered them like sunken pearls from the profound ocean of limitless memory, ... and to the world of to-day thou dost repeat the self-same music to which al-kyris listened entranced so many thousands of generations ago!" a deep sigh, that was half a groan, broke from his lips, ... he could now take the measurement of his own utter littleness and incompetency! he could create nothing new! everything he had written, as he fancied only just lately, had been written by himself before! the problem of the poem "nourhalma" ... was explained, ... he had designed it when he had played his part on the stage of life as sah-luma,--and perhaps not even then for the first time! in this pride-crushing knowledge there was only one consolation, ... namely, that if his dream was a true reflection of his past, and exact in details as he felt it must be, then "nourhalma," had not been given to al-kyris, ... it had been composed, but not made public. hence, so far, it was new to the world, though not new to himself. yet he had considered it wondrously new! a "perfectly original" idea! ... ah! who dares to boast of any idea as humanly "original" ... seeing that all ideas whatsoever must be referred back to god and admitted as his and his only! what is the wisest man that ever lived, but a small, pale, ill-reflecting mirror of the eternal thought that controls and dominates all things! ... he remembered with conscience-stricken confusion what pleasure he had felt, what placid satisfaction, what unqualified admiration, when listening to his own works recited by the ghost-presentment of his former self! ... pleasure that had certainly exceeded whatever pain he had suffered by the then enigmatical and perplexing nature of the incident. o what a foolish atom he now seemed, viewed by the standard of his newly aroused higher consciousness! ... how poor and passive a slave to the glittering, beckoning phantasm of his own perishable fame! thus on the field of ardath he drained the cup of humility to the dregs,--the cup which like that offered to the prophet of holy writ was "full as it were with water, but the color of it was like fire"--the water of tears.. the fire of faith, . . and with that prophet he might have said.. "when i had drunk of it, my heart uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for my spirit strengthened my memory." meanwhile edris, still keeping her gentle hands on his bent head, went on: "in such wise didst thou, my beloved, as the famous sah-luma, mournfully perish.. and the nations remembered thee no more! but thy spiritual, indestructible essence lived on, and wandered dismayed and forlorn through a myriad forms of existence in the depths of perpetual darkness which must be, even as the everlasting light is. thy immortal but perverted will bore thee always further from god, . . further from him, and so far from me, that thou wert at times beyond even an angel's ken! ages upon ages rolled away, . . the centuries between earth and earths purposed redemption passed, ... and, . . though in heaven these measured spaces of time that appear so great to men are as a mere world's month of summer, . . still, to me, for once god's golden days seemed long! i had lost thee! thou wert my soul's other soul, my king!--my immortality's completion! ... and though thou wert, alas! a fallen brightness, yet i held fast to my one hope, . . the hope in thy diviner nature, which, though sorely overcome, was not, and could not be wholly destroyed. i knew the fate in store for thee, . . i knew that thou with other erring spirits wert bound to live again on earth when christ had built his holy way therefrom to heaven,--and never did i cease for thy dear sake to wait and watch and pray! at last i found thee, ... but ah! how i trembled for thy destiny! to thee had been delivered, as to all the children of men, the final message of salvation.. the message of love and pardon which made all the angels wonder! ... but thou didst utterly reject it--and with the same willful arrogance of thy former self, sah-luma, thou wert blindly and desperately turning anew into darkness! o my beloved, that darkness might have been eternal! ... and crowded with memories dating from the very beginning of life! ... nay, let me not speak of that supernal agony, since christ hath died to quench its terrors! ... enough!--by happy chance, through my desire, thine own roused better will, and the strength of one who hath many friends in heaven, thy spirit was released to temporary liberty, . . and in thy vision at dariel, which was no vision, but a truth, i bade thee meet me here. and why? ... solely to test thy power of obedience to a divine impulse unexplainable by human reason,--and i rejoiced as only angels can rejoice, when of thine own free-will thou didst keep the tryst i made with thee! yet thou knewest me not! ... or rather thou wouldst not know me, . . till i left thee! ... 'tis ever the way of mortals, to doubt their angels in disguise!" her sweet accents shook with a liquid thrill suggestive of tears,--but he was silent. it seemed to him that he would be well content to hold his place forever, if forever he might hear her thus melodiously speak on! had she not called him her "other soul, her king, her immortality's completion!"--and on those wondrous words of hers his spirit hung, impassioned, dazzled, and entranced beyond all time and space and nature and experience! after a brief pause, during which his ravished mind floated among the thousand images and vague feelings of a whole past and future merged in one splendid and celestial present, she resumed, always softly and with the same exquisite tenderness of tone: "i left thee, dearest, but a moment, ... and in that moment, he who hath himself shared in human sorrows and sympathies,--he who is the embodiment of the essence of god's love,--came to my aid. plunging thy senses in deep sleep, as hath been done before to many a saint and prophet of old time here on this very field of ardath,--he summoned up before thee the phantoms of a portion of thy past, ... phantoms which, to thee, seemed far more real than the living presence of thy faithful edris! ... alas, my beloved! ... thou art not the only one on the sorrowful star who accepts a dream for reality and rejects reality as a dream!" she paused again,--and again continued: "nevertheless, in some degree thy vision of al-kyris was true, inasmuch as thou wert shown therein as in a mirror, one phase, one only of thy former existence upon earth. the final episode was chosen,--as by the end of a man's days alone shall he be judged! as much as thy dreaming-sight was able to see,--as much as thy brain was able to bear, appeared before thee, ... but that thou, slumbering, wert yet a conscious personality among phantoms, and that these phantoms spoke to thee, charmed thee, bewildered thee, tempted thee, and swayed thee, . . this was the divine master's work upon thine own retrospective thought and memory. he gave the shadows of thy bygone life, seeming color, sense, motion, and speech,--he blotted out from thy remembrance his own most holy name, . . and, shutting up the present from thy gaze, he sent thy spirit back into the past. there, thou, perplexed and sorrowful, didst painfully re-weave the last fragments of thy former history, . . and not till thou hadst abandoned the shadow of thyself, didst thou escape from the fear of destruction! then, when apparently all alone, and utterly forsaken, a cloud of angels circled round thee, . . then, at thy first repentant cry for help, he who has never left an earnest prayer unanswered bade me descend hither, to waken and comfort thee! ... oh, never was his bidding more joyously obeyed! now i have plainly shown thee the interpretation of thy dream, . . and dost thou not comprehend the intention of the highest in manifesting it unto thee? remember the words of god's prophet of old: "'behold the field thou thoughtest barren, how great a glory hath the moon unveiled! "'and i beheld and was sore amazed, for i was no longer myself, but another "'and the sword of death was in that other's soul,--and yet that other was but myself in pain "'and i knew not the things which were once familiar, and my heart failed within me for very fear!'" she spoke the quaint and mystic lines with a grave, pure, rhythmic utterance that was like the far-off singing of sweet psalmody;--and when she ceased, the stillness that followed seemed quivering with the rich vibrations of her voice, ... the very air was surely rendered softer and more delicate by such soul-moving sound! but theos, who had listened dumbly until now, began to feel a sudden sorrowful aching at his heart, a sense of coming desolation, . . a consciousness that she would soon depart again, and leave him and, with a mingled reverence and passion, he ventured to draw one of the fair hands that rested on his brows, down into his own clasp. he met with no resistance, and half-happy, half-agonized, he pressed his lips upon its soft and dazzling whiteness, while the longing of his soul broke forth in words of fervid, irrepressible appeal. "edris!" he implored.. "if thou dost love me give me my death! here,--now, at thy feet where i kneel! ... of what avail is it for me to struggle in this dark and difficult world? ... o deprive me of this fluctuating breath called life and let me live indeed! i understand.. i know all thou hast said,--i have learned my own sins as in a glass darkly,--i have lived on earth before, and as it seems, made no good use of life, ... and now: now i have found thee! then why must i lose thee? ... thou who camest to me so sweetly at the first? ... nay, i cannot part from thee--i will not! ... if thou leavest me, i have no strength to follow thee; i shall but miss the way to thine abode!" "thou canst not miss the way!"--responded edris softly, . . "look up, my theos,--be of good cheer, thou poet to whom heaven's greatest gifts of song are now accorded! look up and tell me, . . is not the way made plain?" slowly and in reverential fear, he obeyed, and raised his eyes, still holding her by the hand,--and saw behind her a distinctly marked shadow that seemed flung downward by the reflection of some brilliant light above, . . the shadow of a cross, against which her delicate figure stood forth in shining outlines. seeing, he understood,--but nevertheless his mind grew more and more disquieted. a thousand misgivings crowded upon him,--he thought of the world, . . he remembered what it was, . . he was living in an age of heresy and wanton unbelief, where not only christ's divinity was made blasphemous mock of, but where even god's existence was itself called in question.. and as for angels! ... a sort of shock ran through his nerves as he reflected that though preachers preached concerning these supernatural beings,--though the very birth of christ rested on angels' testimony,--though poets wrote of them, and painters strove to delineate them on their most famous canvases, each and all thus practically demonstrating the secret instinctive intuition of humanity that such celestial forms are,--yet it was most absolutely certain that not a man in the prosaic nineteenth century would, if asked, admit, to any actual belief in their existence! inconsistent? ... yes!--but are not men more inconsistent than the very beasts of the field their tyranny controls? what, as a rule, do men believe in? ... themselves! ... only themselves! they are, in their own opinion, the be-all and the end-all of everything! ... as if the supreme creative force called god were incapable of designing any higher form of thinking-life than their pigmy bodies which strut on two legs and, with two eyes and a small, quickly staggered brain, profess to understand and weigh the whole foundation and plan of the universe! growing swiftly conscious of all that in the purgatory of the present awaited him, theos felt as though the earth-chasm that had swallowed up al-kyris in his dream had opened again before him, affrighting him with its black depth of nothingness and annihilation,--and in a sudden agony of self-distrust he gazed yearningly at the fair, wistful face above him, . . the divine beauty that was his after all, if he only knew how to claim it!--something, he knew not what, filled him with a fiery restlessness,--a passion of protest and aspiration, which for a moment was so strong that it seemed to him he must, with one fierce effort, wrench himself free from the trammels of mortality, and straightway take upon him the majesty of immortal nature, and so bear his angel love company whithersoever she went! never had the fetters of flesh weighed upon him with such-heaviness! ... but, in spite of his feverish longing to escape, some authoritative yet gentle force held him prisoner. "god!" he muttered ... "why am i thus bound?--why can i not be free?" "because thy time for freedom has not come!" said edris, quickly answering his thought ... "because thou hast work to do that is not yet done! thy poet labors have, up till now, been merely repetition, ... the repetition of thy former self, ... go! the tired world waits for a new gospel of poesy, ... a new song that shall rouse it from its apathy, and bring it closer unto god and all things high and fair! write!--for the nations wait for a trumpet-voice of truth! ... the great poets are dead, . . their spirits are in heaven, . . and there is none to replace them on the sorrowful star save thou! not for fame do thy work--nor for wealth, . . but for love and the glory of god!--for love of humanity, for love of the beautiful, the pure, the holy! ... let the race of men hear one more faithful apostle of the divine unseen, ere earth is lost in the withering light of a larger creation! go! ... perform thy long-neglected mission,--that mission of all poets worthy the name.. to raise the world! thou shalt not lack strength nor fervor, so long as thou dost write for the benefit of others. serve god and live!--serve self and die! such is the eternal law of spheres invisible, . . the less thou seest of self, the more thou seest of heaven! ... thrust self away, and lo! god invests thee with his presence! go forth into the world, . . a king uncrowned, . . a master of song, . . and fear not that i, edris, will forsake thee,--i, who have loved thee since the birth of time!" he met her beautiful, luminous, inspired eyes, with a sad interrogativeness in his own. what a hard fate was meted out to him! ... to teach the world that scoffed at teaching!--to rouse the gold-thirsting mass of men to a new sense of things divine! o vain task!--o dreary impossibility! ... enough surely, to guide his own will aright, without making any attempt to guide the wills of others! her mandate seemed to him almost cruel,--it was like driving him into a howling wilderness, when with one touch, one kiss, she might transport him into paradise! if she were in the world, . . if she were always with him.. ah! then how different, how easy life would be! again he thought of those strange entrancing words of hers.. "my other soul, . . my king.. my immortality's completion!"--and a sudden wild idea took swift possession of his brain. "edris!" he cried.. "if i may not yet come to thee, then come thou to me! ... dwell thou with me! ... o by the force of my love, which god knoweth, let me draw thee, thou fair light, into my heart's gloom! hear me while i swear my faith to thee as at some holy shrine! ... as i live, with all my soul i do accept thy master christ, as mine utmost good, and his cross as my proudest glory! ... but yet, bethink thee, edris, bethink thee of this world,--its wilful sin, its scorn of god, and all the evil that like a spreading thunder-cloud darkens it day by day! oh, wilt thou leave me desolate and alone? ... fight as i will, i shall often sink under blows, . . conquer as i may, i shall suffer the solitude of conquest, unless thou art with me! oh, speak!--is there no deeper divine intention in the marvellous destiny that has brought us together?--thou, pure spirit, and i, weak mortal? has love, the primal mover of all things, no hold upon thee? ... if i am, as thou sayest, thy beloved, loved by thee so long, even while forgetful of and unworthy of thy love, can i not now,--now when i am all thine,--persuade thee to compassionate the rest of my brief life on earth? ... thou art in woman's shape here on this field of ardath,--and yet thou art not woman! oh, could my love constrain thee in god's name, to wear the mask of mortal body for my sake, would not our union even now make the sorrowful star seem fair? ... love, love, love! come to mine aid, and teach me how to shut the wings of this sweet bird of paradise in mine own breast! ... god! spare her to me for one of thy sweet moments which are our mortal years! ... christ, who became a mere child for pity of us, let me learn from thee the mystic spell that makes thine angel mine!" carried away by his own forceful emotion he hardly knew what he said, . . but an unspeakable, dizzy joy flooded his soul, as he caught the look she gave him! ... a wild, sweet, amazed, half-tender, half-agonized, wholly human look, suggestive of the most marvellous possibilities! one effort and she released her hand from his, and moved a little apart, her eyes kindling with celestial sympathy in which there was the very faintest touch of self-surrender. self-surrender? ... what! from an angel to a mortal? ... ah no! ... it could not be,--yet he felt filled all at once with a terrible sense of power that at the same time was mingled with the deepest humility and fear. "hush!"--she said, and her lovely, low voice was tremulous,--"hush!--thou dost speak as if we were already in god's world! i love thee, theos! ... and truly, because thou art prisoned here, i love the sad earth also! ... but dost thou think to what thou wouldst so eagerly persuade me? to live a mortal life? ... to die? ... to pass through the darkest phase of world-existence known in all the teeming spheres? nay!".. and a look of pathetic sorrow came over her face.. "how could i, even for thee, my theos, forsake my home in heaven?" her last words were half-questioning, half-hesitating, ... her manner was as of one in doubt.. and theos, kneeling still, surveyed her in worshipping silence. then he suddenly remembered what the monk and mystic, heliobas, had said to him at dariel on the morning after his trance of soul-liberty: . . "if, as i conjecture, you have seen one of the fair inhabitants of higher spheres than ours, you would not drag her spiritual and death-unconscious brightness down to the level of the 'reality' of a mere human life? ... nay, if you would you could not!" and now, strange to say, he felt that he could but would not; and he was overcome with remorse and penitence for the egotistical nature of his own appeal. "my love--my life!" he said brokenly,--"forgive me,--forgive my selfish prayer! ... self spoke,--not i, . . yet i had thought self dead, and buried forever!" a faint sigh escaped him ... "believe me, sweet, i would not have thee lose one hour of heaven's ecstasies, . . i would not have thee saddened by earth's wilful miseries, ... no! not even for that lightning-moment which numbers up man's mortal days! speed back to angel-land, my edris!--i will love thee till i die, and leave the afterward to christ. be glad, thou fairest, dearest one! ... unfurl thy rainbow wings and fly from me! ... and wander singing through the groves of heaven, making all heaven musical, . . perchance in the silence of the night i may catch the echo of thy voice and fancy thou art near! and trust me, edris! ... trust me! ... for my faith will not falter, ... my hope shall not waver, ... and though in the world i may, i must have tribulation, yet will i believe in him who hath by simple love overcome the world!" he ceased, . . a great quiet seemed to fall upon him,--the quiet of a deep and passive resignation. edris drew nearer to him,--timidly as a shy bird, yet with a wonderful smile quivering on her lips, and in the clear depths of her starry eyes. very gently she placed her arms about his neck and looked down at him with divinely compassionate tenderness. "thou beloved one!" she said, "thou whose spirit was formerly equal to mine, and to all angels, in god's sight though through pride it fell! learn that thou art nearer to me now than thou hast been for a myriad ages! ... between us are renewed the strong, sweet ties that shall nevermore be broken, unless ..." and her voice faltered,--"unless thou, of thine own free will, break them again in spite of all my prayers! for, because thou art immortal even as i, though thou art pent up in mortality, even so must thy will remain immortally unfettered, and what thou dost firmly elect to do, god will not prevent. the dream of thy past was a lesson, not a command,--thou art free to forget or remember it as thou wilt while on earth, since it is only after death that memory is ineffaceable, and, with its companion remorse, constitutes hell. obey god, or disobey him,--he will not force thee either way, . . constrained love hath no value! only this is the universal law,--that whosoever disobeys, his disobedience recoils on his own head as of necessity it must,--whereas obedience is the working in perfect harmony with all nature, and of equal necessity brings its own reward. cling to the cross for one moment.. the moment called by mortals, life, ... and it shall lift thee straightway into highest heaven! there will i wait for thee,--and there thou shalt make me thine own forever!" he sighed and gazed at her wistfully. "alas, my edris! ... not till then?" he murmured. she bent over him and kissed his forehead,--a caress as brief and light as the passing flutter of a bird's wing. "not till then!"--she whispered--"unless the longing of thy love compels!" he started. what did she mean? ... his eyes flashed eager inquiry into hers, so soft and brilliantly clear, with the light of an eternal peace dwelling in their liquid, mysterious loveliness,--and meeting his questioning look, the angelic smile brightened more gloriously round her lips. but there was now something altogether unearthly in her beauty, ... a wondrous inward luminousness began to transfigure her face and form, . . he saw her garments whiten to a sparkling radiance as of sunbeams on snow, ... the halo round her bright hair deepened into flame-like glory--her stature grew loftier, and became as it were endowed with supreme and splendid majesty, . . and the exquisite fairness of her countenance waxed warmly transparent, with the delicate hue of a white rose, through which the pink color faintly flushes soft suggestions of ruddier life. his gaze dwelt upon her in unspeakable wondering adoration, mingled with a sense of irrepressible sorrow and heaviness of heart, ... he felt she was about to leave him, . . and was it not a parting of soul from soul? just then the sun stepped royally forth from between the red and gold curtains of the east,--and in that blaze of earth's life-radiance her figure became resplendently invested with vivid rays of roseate lustre that far surpassed the amber shining of the orb of day! awed, dazzled, and utterly overcome, he yet strove to keep his straining eyes steadily upon her,--conscious that her smile still blessed him with its tenderness, ... he made a wild effort to drag himself nearer to her, . . to touch once more the glittering edge of her robe ... to detain her one little, little moment longer! ah! how wistfully, how fondly she looked upon him! ... almost it seemed as if she might, after all, consent to stay! ... he stretched out his arms with a pathetic gesture of love, fear, and soul-passionate supplication. "edris! ... edris!".. he cried half despairingly. "oh, by the strength of thine angelhood have pity on the weakness of my manhood!" surely she heard, or seemed to hear! ... and yet she gave no answer! ... no sign! ... no promise!--no gesture of farewell! ... only a look of divine, compassionating, perfect love, . . a look so pure, so penetrating, so true, so rapturous, that flesh and blood could bear the glory of her transfigured presence no longer,--and blind with the burning effulgence of her beauty, he shut his eyes and covered his face. he knew now, if he had never known it before, what was meant by "an angel standing in the sun!" [footnote: revelation, chap, xix., .] moreover, he also knew that what humanity calls "miracles" are possible, and do happen,--and that instead of being violations of the law of nature as we understand it, they are but confirmations of that law in its deeper depths,--depths which, controlled by spiritual force alone, have not as yet been sounded by the most searching scientists. and what is material force but the visible manifestation of the spiritual behind it? ... he who accepts the material and denies the spiritual, is in the untenable position of one who admits an effect and denies a cause! and if both spiritual and material be accepted, then how can we reasonably dare to set a limit to the manifestations of either the one or the other? * * * * * * * when he at last looked up, edris had vanished! he was alone, . . alone on the field of ardath, ... the field that was "barren" in very truth, now she, his angel, had been drawn away, as it seemed, into the sunlight, . . absorbed like a paradise-pearl into those rays of life-giving gold that lit and warmed the reddening earth and heaven! slowly and dizzily he rose to his feet, and gazed about him in vague bewilderment. he had passed one night on the field! one night only! ... and he felt as though he had lived through years of experience! now, the vision was ended, . . edris, the reality, had fled, . . and the world was before him, . . the world, with all the unsatisfying things it grudgingly offers, . . the world in which al-kyris had been a "city magnificent" in the centuries gone,--and in which he, too, had played his part before, and had won fame, to be forgotten as soon as dead! fame! ... how he had longed and thirsted for it! ... and what a foolish, undesirable distinction it seemed to him now! steadying his thoughts by a few moments of calm reflection, he remembered what he had in charge to do, . . to redeem his past. to use and expend whatever force was in him for the good, the help, the consolement, and the love of others, ... not to benefit himself! this was his task, . . and the very comprehension of it gave him a rush of vigor and virile energy that at once lifted the cloud of love-loneliness from his soul. "my edris!" he whispered.. "thou shalt have no cause to weep for me in heaven again! ... with god's help i will win back my lost heritage!" as he spoke the words his eyes caught a glimpse of something white on the turf where, but a moment since, his angel-love had stood,--he stooped toward it, . . it was one half-opened bud of the wonderful "ardath-flowers" that had covered the field in such singular profusion on the previous night when she first appeared. one only! ... might he not gather it? he hesitated, . . then very gently and reverently broke it off, and tenderly bore it to his lips. what a beautiful blossom it was! ... its fragrance was unlike that of any other flower,--its whiteness was more pure and soft than that of the rarest edelweiss on alpine snows, and its partially disclosed golden centre had an almost luminous brightness. as he held it in his hand, all sorts of vague, delicious thoughts came sweeping across his brain, ... thoughts that seemed to set themselves to music wild and strange and new, and suggestive of the sweetest, noblest influences! a thrill of expectation stirred in him, as of great and good things to be done,--grand changes to be wrought in the complex web of human destiny, brought about by the quickening and development of a pure, unselfish, spiritual force, that might with saving benefit flow into the perplexed and weary intelligence of man; . . and cheered, invigorated, and conscious of a circling, widening, ever-present supreme power that with all-surrounding love was ever on the side of work done for love's sake, he gently shut the flower within his breast, resolving to carry it with him wheresoever he went as a token and proof of the "signs and wonders" of the prophet's field. and now he prepared to quit the scene of his mystic vision, in which he had followed with prescient pain the brief, bright career, the useless fame, the evil love-passion, and final fate of his former self,--and crossing the field with lingering tread, he looked back many times to the fallen block of stone where he had sat when he had first perceived god's maiden edris, stepping softly through the bloom. when should he again meet her? alas! ... not till death, the beautiful and beneficent herald of true liberty, summoned him to those lofty heights of paradise where she had habitation. not till then, unless, ... unless, ... and his heart beat with a sudden tumult as he recollected her last words, . . "unless the longing of thy love compels!" could love compel her, he wondered, to come to him once more while yet he lived on earth? perhaps! ... and yet if he indeed had such power of love, would it be generous or just to exert it? no! ... for to draw her down from heaven to earth seemed to him now a sort of sacrilege,--dearer to him was her joy than his own! but suppose the possibility of her being actually happy with him in mortal existence, ... suppose that love, when absolutely pure, unselfishly mutual, helpful, and steadfast, had it in its gift to make even the sorrowful star a heaven in miniature, what then? he would not trust himself to think of this! ... the mere shadowy suggestion of such supreme delight filled him with a strong passion of yearning, to which in his accepted creed of self-abnegation he dared not yield! firmly restraining, resisting, and renouncing his own desires, he mentally raised a holy shrine for her in his soul, ... a shrine of pure faith, warm with eternal aspirations and bright with truth, wherein he hallowed the memory of her beauty with a sense of devout, love-like gladness. she was safe.. she was content, . . she blossomed flower-like in the highest gardens of god where all things fared well;--enough for him to worship her at a distance, . . to keep the clear reflection of her loveliness in his mind, ... and to live, so that he might deserve to follow and find her when his work on earth was done. moreover, heaven to him was no longer a vague, mythical realm, ill-defined by the prosy descriptions of church-preachers,--it was an actual world to which he was linked,--in which he had possessions, of which he was a native, and for the perpetuation and enlargement of whose splendor all worlds existed! arrived at the boundary of the field, the spot marked by the broken half-buried pillar of red granite heliobas had mentioned, he paused--thinking dreamily of the words of esdras, who in answer to his angel-visitant's inquiry: "why art thou disquieted?" had replied: "because thou hast forsaken me, and yet i did according to thy words, and i went into the field, and lo! i have seen and yet see, that i am not able to express." whereupon the angel had said, "stand up manfully and i will advise thee!" "stand up manfully!" yes! ... this is what he, theos alwyn, meant to do. he would "stand up manfully" against the howling iconoclasm and atheism of the age,--he would be poet henceforth in the true meaning of the word, namely maker, . . he would make not break the grand ideal hopes and heaven-climbing ambitions of humanity! ... he would endeavor his utmost best to be that "hierarch and pontiff of the world"--as a modern rugged apostle of truth has nobly said,--"who prometheus-like can shape new symbols and bring new fire from heaven to fix them into the deep, infinite faculties of man." with a brief silent prayer, he turned away at last, and walked slowly, in the lovely silence of the early eastern morning, back to the place from whence he had last night wandered,--the hermitage of elzear, near the ruins of babylon. he soon came in sight of it, and also perceived elzear himself, stooping over a small plot of ground in front of his dwelling, apparently gathering herbs. when he approached, the old man looked up and smiled, giving him a silent, expressively courteous morning greeting,--by his manner it was evident that he thought his guest had merely been out for an early stroll ere the heat of the day set in. and yet al-kyris! ... how real had seemed that dream-existence in that dream-city! the figure of elzear looked scarcely more substantial than the phantom-forms of sah-luma, zephoranim, khosrul, zuriel, or zabastes,--while lysia's exquisite face and seductive form, niphrata's pensive beauty, and all the local characteristics of the place, were stamped on the dreamer's memory as faithfully as scenes flashed by the sun on the plates of photography! true, the pictures were perhaps now slightly fading into the similitude of pale negatives, . . but still, would not everything that happened in the actual world merge into that same undecided dimness with the lapse of time? he thought so, . . and smiled at the thought, ... the transitory nature of earthly things was a subject for joy to him now,--not regret. with a kindly word or two to his venerable host, he went through the open door of the hermitage, and entered the little room he had left only a few hours previously. it appeared to him as familiar and unfamiliar as al-kyris itself! ... till raising his eyes he saw the great crucifix against the wall,--the sacred symbol whose meaning he had forgotten and hopelessly longed for in his dream,--and from which, before his visit to the field of ardath, he had turned with a sense of bitter scorn and proud rejection. but now! ... now he gazed upon it in unspeakable remorse,--in tenderest desire to atone, ... the sweet, grave, patient eyes of the holy figure seemed to meet his with a wondrous challenge of love, longing, and most fraternal, sympathetic comprehension of his nature.... he paused, looking, ... and the pre-eminently false words of george herbert suddenly occurred to him, "thy saviour sentenced joy!" o blasphemy! ... sentenced joy? nay!--rather re-created it, and invested it with divine certainties, beyond all temporal change or evanishment! ... yielding to a swift impulse, he threw himself on his knees, and with clasped hands, leaned his brows against the feet of the sculptured christ. there he rested in wordless peace,--his whole soul entranced in a divine passion of faith, hope, and love ... there with the "ardath flower" in his breast, he consecrated his life to the highest good,--and there in absolute humility, and pure, child-like devotion, he crucified self forever! part iii.--poet and angel. "o golden hair! ... o gladness of an hour made flesh and blood!" * * * * * "who speaks of glory and the force of love and thou not near, my maiden-minded dove! with all the coyness, all the beauty sheen of thy rapt face? a fearless virgin-queen, a queen of peace art thou,--and on thy head the golden light of all thy hair is shed most nimbus-like, and most suggestive too of youthful saints enshrined and garlanded." * * * * * "our thoughts are free,--and mine have found at last their apt solution; and from out the past there seems to shine as 'twere a beacon-fire: and all the land is lit with large desire of lambent glory; all the quivering sea is big with waves that wait the morn's decree as i, thy vassal, wait thy beckoning smile athwart the splendors of my dreams of thee!" --"a lover's litanies."--eric mackay. chapter xxxi. fresh laurels. it was a dismal march evening. london lay swathed in a melancholy fog,--a fog too dense to be more than temporarily disturbed even by the sudden gusts of the bitter east wind. rain fell steadily, sometimes changing to sleet, that drove in sharp showers on the slippery roads and pavements, bewildering the tired horses, and stirring up much irritation in the minds of those ill-fated foot-passengers whom business, certainly not pleasure, forced to encounter the inconveniences of the weather. against one house in particular--an old-fashioned, irregular building situated in a somewhat out-of-the-way but picturesque part of kensington--the cold, wet blast blew with specially keen ferocity, as though it were angered by the sounds within,--sounds that in truth rather resembled its own cross groaning. curious short grunts and plaintive cries, interspersed with an occasional pathetic long-drawn whine, suggested dimly the idea that somebody was playing, or trying to play, on a refractory stringed instrument, the well-worn composition known as raff's "cavatina." and, in fact, had the vexed wind been able to break through the wall and embody itself into a substantial being, it would have discovered the producer of the half-fierce, half-mournful noise, in the person of the honorable frank villiers, who, with that amazingly serious ardor so often displayed by amateur lovers of music, was persistently endeavoring to combat the difficulties of the violoncello. he adored his big instrument,--the more unmanageable it became in his hands, the more he loved it. its grumbling complaints at his unskilful touch delighted him,--when he could succeed in awakening a peevish dull sob from its troubled depths, he felt a positive thrill of almost professional triumph,--and he refused to be daunted in his efforts by the frequently barbaric clamor his awkward bowing wrung from the tortured strings. he tried every sort of music, easy and intricate--and his happiest hours were those when, with glass in eye and brow knitted in anxious scrutiny, he could peer his way through the labyrinth of a sonata or fantasia much too complex for any one but a trained artist, enjoying to the full the mental excitement of the discordant struggle, and comfortably conscious that as his residence was "detached," no obtrusive neighbor could either warn him to desist, or set up an opposition nuisance next door by constant practice on the distressingly over-popular piano. one thing very much in his favor was, that he never manifested any desire to perform in public. no one had ever heard him play, . . he pursued his favorite amusement in solitude, and was amply satisfied, if when questioned on the subject of music, he could find an opportunity to say with a conscious-modest air, "my instrument is the 'cello." that was quite enough self-assertion for him, . . and if any one ever urged him to display his talent, he would elude the request with such charming grace and diffidence, that many people imagined he must really be a great musical genius who only lacked the necessary insolence and aplomb to make that genius known. the 'cello apart, villiers was very generally recognized as a discerning dilettante in most matters artistic. he was an excellent judge of literature, painting, and sculpture, . . his house, though small, was a perfect model of taste in design and adornment, . . he knew where to pick up choice bits of antique furniture, dainty porcelain, bronzes, and wood-carvings, while in the acquisition of rare books he was justly considered a notable connoisseur. his delicate and fastidious instincts were displayed in the very arrangement of his numerous volumes, ... none were placed on such high shelves as to be out of hand reach, . . all were within close touch and ready to command, ranged in low, carved oak cases or on revolving stands, ... while a few particularly rare editions and first folios were shut in curious little side niches with locked glass-doors, somewhat resembling small shrines such as are used for the reception of sacred relics. the apartment he called his "den"--where he now sat practising the "cavatina" for about the two-hundredth time--was perhaps the most fascinating nook in the whole house, inasmuch as it contained a little bit of everything, arranged with that perfect attention to detail which makes each object, small and great, appear not only ornamental, but positively necessary. in one corner a quaint old jar overflowed with the brightness of fresh yellow daffodils; in another a long, tapering venetian vase held feathery clusters of african grass and fern, . . here the medallion of a greek philosopher or roman emperor gleamed whitely against the sombrely painted wall; there a rembrandt portrait flashed out from the semi-obscure background of some rich, carefully disposed fold of drapery,--while a few admirable casts from the antique lit up the deeper shadows of the room, such as the immortally youthful head of the apollo belvedere, the wisely serene countenance of the pallas athene that goethe loved, and the cupid of praxiteles. judging from his outward appearance only, few would have given villiers credit for being the man of penetrative and almost classic refinement he really was,--he looked far more athletic than aesthetic. broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a round, blunt head firmly set on a full, strong throat, he had, on the whole, a somewhat obstinate and pugilistic air which totally belied his nature. his features, open and ruddy, were, without being handsome, decidedly attractive--the mouth was rather large, yet good-tempered; the eyes bright, blue, and sparklingly suggestive of a native inborn love of humor. there was something fresh and piquant in the very expression of naive bewilderment with which he now adjusted his eyeglass--a wholly unnecessary appendage--and set himself strenuously to examine anew the chords of that extraordinary piece of music which others thought so easy and which he found so puzzling, . . he could manage the simple melody fairly well, but the chords! "they are the very devil!".. he murmured plaintively, staring at the score, and hitching up his unruly instrument more securely against his knee, . . "perhaps the bow wants a little rosin." this was one of his minor weaknesses,--he would never quite admit that false notes were his own fault. "they couldn't be, you know!" he mildly argued, addressing the obtrusive neck of the 'cello, which had a curious, stubborn way of poking itself into his chin, and causing him to wonder how it got there, . . surely the manner in which he held it had nothing to do with this awkward occurrence! "i'm not such a fool as not to understand how to find the right notes, after all my practice! there's something wrong with the strings,--or the bridge has gone awry,--or"--and this was his last resource--"the bow wants more rosin!" thus he hugged himself in deliciously wilful ignorance of his own shortcomings, and shut his ears to the whispered reproaches of musical conscience. had he been married his wife would no doubt have lost no time in enlightening him,--she would have told him he was a wretched player, that his scrapings on the 'cello were enough to drive one mad, and sundry other assurances of the perfectly conjugal type of frankness,--but as it chanced he was a happy bachelor, a free and independent man with more than sufficient means to gratify his particular tastes and whims. he was partner in a steadily prosperous banking concern, and had just enough to do to keep him pleasantly and profitably occupied. asked why he did not marry, he replied with blunt and almost brutal honesty, that he had never yet met a woman whose conversation he could stand for more than an hour. "silly or clever," he said, "they are all possessed of the same infinite tedium. either they say nothing, or they say everything; they are always at the two extremes, and announce themselves as dunces or blue-stockings. one wants the just medium,--the dainty commingling of simplicity and wisdom that shall yet be pure womanly,--and this is precisely the jewel 'far above rubies' that one cannot find. i've given up the search long ago, and am entirely resigned to my lot. i like women very well--i may say very much--as friends, but to take one on chance as a comrade for life! ... no, thank you!" such was his fixed opinion and consequent rejection of matrimony; and for the rest, he studied art and literature and became an authority on both; so much so that on one occasion he kept a goodly number of people away from visiting the royal academy exhibition, he having voted it a "disgrace to art." "english artists occupy the last grade in the whole school of painting," he had said indignantly, with that decisive manner of his which somehow or other carried conviction, . . "the very dutch surpass them; and instead of trying to raise their standard, each year sees them grovelling in lower depths. the academy is becoming a mere gallery of portraits, painted to please the caprices of vain men and women, at a thousand or two thousand guineas apiece; ugly portraits, too, woodeny portraits, utterly uninteresting portraits of prosaic nobodies. who cares to see 'no. . mrs. flummery in her presentation-dress'.. except mrs. flummery's own particular friends? ... or ' . miss smox, eldest daughter of professor a. t. smox,' or ' . baines bryce, esq.'? ... who is baines bryce? ... nobody ever heard of him before. he may be a retired pork-butcher for all any one knows! portraits, even of celebrities, are a mistake. take algernon charles swinburne, for instance, the man who, when left to himself, writes some of the grandest lines in the english language, he had his portrait in the academy, and everybody ran away from it, it was such an unutterable hideous disappointment. it was a positive libel of course, . . swinburne has fine eyes and a still finer brow, but instead of idealizing the poet in him, the silly artist painted him as if he had no more intellectual distinction than a bill-sticker! ... english art! ... pooh! ... don't speak to me about it! go to spain, italy, bavaria--see what they can do, and then say a miserere for the sins of the r a's!" thus he would talk, and his criticisms carried weight with a tolerably large circle of influential and wealthy persons, who when they called upon him, and saw the perfection of his house and the rarity of his art collections, came at once to the conclusion that it would be wise, as well as advantageous to themselves, to consult him before purchasing pictures, books, statues, or china, so that he occupied the powerful position of being able with a word to start an artist's reputation or depreciate it, as he chose,--a distinction he had not desired, and which was often a source of trouble to him, because there were so few, so very few, whose work he felt he could conscientiously approve and encourage. he was eminently good-natured and sympathetic; he would not give pain to others without being infinitely more pained himself; and yet, for all his amiability, there was a stubborn instinct in him which forbade him to promote, by word or look, the fatal nineteenth century spread of mediocrity. either a thing must be truly great and capable of being measured by the highest standards, or for him it had no value. this rule he carried out in all branches of art,--except his own 'cello-playing. that was not great,--that would never be great,--but it was his pet pastime; he chose it in preference to the billiards, betting, and bar-lounging that make up the amusements of the majority of the hopeful manhood of london, and, as has already been said, he never inflicted it upon others. he rubbed the rosin now thoughtfully up and down his bow, and glanced at the quaint old clock--an importation from nurnberg--that ticked solemnly in one corner near the deep bay-window, across which the heavy olive green plush curtains were drawn, to shut out the penetrating chill of the wind. it wanted ten minutes to nine. he had given orders to his man servant that he was on no account to be disturbed that evening, . . no matter what visitors called for him, none were to be admitted. he had made up his mind to have a long and energetic practice, and he felt a secret satisfaction as he heard the steady patter of the rain outside, . . the very weather favored his desire for solitude,--no one was likely to venture forth on such a night. still gravely rubbing his brow, his eyes travelled from the clock in the corner to a photograph on the mantel-shelf--the photograph of a man's face, dark, haughty, beautiful, yet repellent in its beauty, and with a certain hard sternness in its outline--the face of theos alwyn. from this portrait his glance wandered to the table, where, amid a picturesque litter of books and papers, lay a square, simply bound volume, with an ivory leaf-cutter thrust in it to mark the place where the reader left off, and its title plainly lettered in gold at the back--"nourhalma." "i wonder where he is!" ... he mused, his thoughts naturally reverting to the author of the book.. "he cannot know what all london knows, or surely he would be back here like a shot! it is six months ago now since i received his letter and that poem in manuscript from tiflis in armenia,--and not another line has he sent to tell me of his whereabouts! curious fellow he is! ... but, by jove, what a genius! no wonder he has besieged fame and taken it by storm! i don't remember any similar instance, except that of byron, in which such an unprecedented reputation was made so suddenly! and in byron's case it was more the domestic scandal about him than his actual merit that made him the rage, . . now the world knows literally nothing about alwyn's private life or character--there's no woman in his history that i know of--no vice, ... he hasn't outraged the law, upset morals, flouted at decency, or done anything that according to modern fashions ought to have made him famous--no! ... he has simply produced a perfect poem, stately, grand, pure, and pathetic,--and all of a sudden some secret spring in the human heart is touched, some long-closed valve opened, and lo and behold, all intellectual society is raving about him,--his name is in everybody's mouth, his book in every one's hands. i don't altogether like his being made the subject of a 'craze';--experience shows me it's a kind of thing that doesn't last. in fact, it can't last.. the reaction invariably sets in. and the english public is, of all publics, the most insane in its periodical frenzies, and the most capricious. now, it is all agog for a 'shilling sensational'--then it discusses itself hoarse over a one-sided theological novel made up out of theories long ago propounded and exhaustively set forth by voltaire, and others of his school,--anon it revels in the gross descriptions of shameless vice depicted in an 'accurately translated' romance of the paris slums,--now it writes thousands of letters to a black man, to sympathize with him because he has been called black!--could anything be more absurd! ... it has even followed the departure of an elephant from the zoo in weeping crowds! however, i wish all the crazes to which it is subject were as harmless and wholesome as the one that has seized it for alwyn's book,--for if true poetry were brought to the front, instead of being, as it often is, sneered at and kept in the background, we should have a chance of regaining the lost divine art, that, wherever it has been worthily followed, has proved the glory of the greatest nations. and then we should not have to put up with such detestable inanities as are produced every day by persons calling themselves poets, who are scarcely fit to write mottoes for dessert crackers, . . and we might escape for good and all from the infliction of 'magazine-verse,' which is emphatically a positive affront to the human intelligence. ah me! what wretched upholders we are of shakespeare's standard! ... keats was our last splendor,--then there is an unfilled gap, bridged in part by tennyson..... and now comes alwyn blazing abroad like a veritable meteor,--only i believe he will do more than merely flare across the heavens,--he promises to become a notable fixed star." here he smiled, somewhat pleased with his own skill in metaphor, and having rubbed his bow enough, he drew it lingeringly across the 'cello strings. a long, sweet, shuddering sound rewarded him, like the upward wave of a wind among high trees, and he heard it with much gratification. he would try the cavatina again now, he decided, and bringing his music-stand closer, he settled himself in readiness to begin. just then the nurnberg clock commenced striking the hour, accompanying each stroke with a very soft and mellow little chime of bells that sent fairy-like echoes through the quiet room. a bright flame started up from the glowing fire in the grate, flinging ruddy flashes along the walls,--a rattling gust of rain dashed once at the windows,--the tuneful clock ceased, and all was still. villiers waited a moment; then with heedful earnestness, started the first bar of raff's oft-murdered composition, when a knock at the door disturbed him and considerably ruffled his equanimity. "come in!" he called testily. his man-servant appeared, a half-pleased, half-guilty look on his staid countenance. "please, sir, a gentleman called--" "well!--you said i was out?" "no, sir! leastways i thought you might be at home to him, sir!" "confound you!" exclaimed villiers petulantly, throwing down his bow in disgust,--"what business had you to think anything about it? ... didn't i tell you i wasn't at home to anybody?" "come, come, villiers!".. said a mellow voice outside, with a ripple of suppressed laughter in its tone, . . "don't be inhospitable! i'm sure you are at home to me!" and passing by the servant, who at once retired, the speaker entered the apartment, lifted his hat, and smiled. villiers sprang from his chair in delighted astonishment. "alwyn!" he cried; and the two friends--whose friendship dated from boyhood--clasped each other's hands heartily, and were for a moment both silent,--half-ashamed of those affectionate emotions to which impulsive women may freely give vent, but to which men may not yield without being supposed to lose somewhat of the dignity of manhood. "by jove!" said villiers at last, drawing a deep breath. "this is a surprise! only a few minutes ago i was considering whether we should not have to note you down in the newspaper as one of the 'mysterious disappearances' grown common of late! where do you come from, old fellow?" "from paris just directly," responded alwyn, divesting himself of his overcoat, and stepping outside the door to hang it on an evidently familiar nail in the passage, and then re-entering,--"but from bagdad in the first instance. i visited that city, sacred to fairy-lore, and from thence journeyed to damascus like one of our favorite merchants in the arabian nights,--then i went to beyrout, and alexandria, from which latter place i took ship homeward, stopping at delicious venice while on my way." "then you did the holy land, i suppose?" queried villiers, regarding him with sudden and growing inquisitiveness. "my dear fellow, certainly not! the holy land, invested by touts, and overrun by tourists, would neither appeal to my imagination nor my sentiments--and in its present state of vulgar abuse and unchristian sacrilege, it is better left unseen by those who wish to revere its associations, . . don't you think so?" he smiled as he put the question, and drawing up an old-fashioned oak chair to the fire, seated himself. villiers meanwhile stared at him in unmitigated amazement, . . what had come to the fellow, he wondered? how had he managed to invest himself with such an overpowering distinction of look and grace of bearing? he had always been a handsome man,--yes, but there was certainly something more than handsome about him now. there was a singular magnetism in the flash of the fine soft eyes, a marvellous sweetness in the firm lines of the perfect mouth, a royal grandeur and freedom in the very poise of his well-knit figure and noble head, that certainly had not before been apparent in him. moreover, that was an odd remark for him to make about "wishing to revere" the associations of the holy land,--very odd, considering his formerly skeptical theories! rousing himself from his momentary bewilderment, villiers remembered the duties of hospitality. "have you dined, alwyn?" he asked, with his hand on the bell. "excellently!" was the response, accompanied by a bright upward glance; "i went to that big hotel opposite the park, had dinner, left the surplus of my luggage in charge, selected one small portmanteau, took a hansom and came on here, resolved to pass one night at least under your roof ..." "one night!" interrupted villiers; "you're very much mistaken, if you think you are going to get off so easily! you'll not escape from me for a month, i tell you! consider yourself a prisoner!" "good! send for the luggage to-morrow!" laughed alwyn, flinging himself back in his chair in an attitude of lazy comfort, "i give in!--i resign myself to my fate! but what of the 'cello?" and he pointed to the bulgy-looking casket of sweet sleeping sounds--sleeping generally so far as villiers was concerned, but ready to wake at the first touch of the master-hand. villiers glanced at it with a comical air of admiring vanquishment. "oh, never mind the 'cello!" he said indifferently, "that can bear being put by for a while. it's a most curious instrument,--sometimes it seems to sound better when i have let it rest a little. just like a human thing, you know--it gets occasionally tired of me, i suppose! but i say, why didn't you come straight here, bag, baggage, and all? ... what business had you to stop on the way at any hotel? ... do you call that friendship?" alwyn laughed at his mock injured tone. "i apologize, villiers! ... i really do! but i felt it would be scarcely civil of me to come down upon you for bed, board, and lodging, without giving you previous notice, and at the same time i wanted to take you by surprise, as i did. besides i wasn't sure whether i should find you in town--of course i knew i should be welcome if you were!" "rather!" assented villiers shortly and with affected gruffness.. "if you were sure of nothing else in this world, you might be sure of that!".. he paused squared his shoulders, and put up his eyeglass, through which he scanned his friend with such a persistently scrutinizing air, that alwyn was somewhat amused. "what are you staring at me for?" he demanded gayly,--"am i so bronzed?" "well--you are rather brown," admitted villiers slowly ... "but that doesn't surprise me. the fact is, it's very odd and i can't altogether explain it, but somehow i find you changed, . . positively very much changed too!" "changed? in appearance, do you mean? how?" "'look here upon this picture and on this,'" quoted villiers dramatically, taking down alwyn's portrait from the mantleshelf, and mentally comparing it with the smiling original. "no two heads were ever more alike, and yet more distinctly unlike. here"--and he tapped the photograph--"you have the appearance of a modern timon or orestes.. but now, as you actually are, i see more resemblance in your face to that"--and he pointed to the serene and splendid bust of the "apollo"--"than to this 'counterfeit presentment,' of your former self." alwyn flushed,--not so much at the implied compliment, as at the words "former self." but quickly shaking off his embarrassment, he glanced round at the "apollo" and lifted his eyebrows incredulously. "then all i can say, my dear boy, is, that that eyeglass of yours represents objects to your own view in a classic light which is entirely deceptive, for i fail to trace the faintest similitude between my own features and that of the sunborn lord of laurels." "oh, you may not trace it," said villiers calmly, "but nevertheless others will. some people say that no man knows what he really is like, and that even his own reflection in the glass deceives him. besides, it is not so much the actual contour for the features that impresses one, it is the look,--you have the look of the greek god, the look of conscious power and inward happiness." he spoke seriously, thoughtfully,--surveying his friend with a vague feeling of admiration akin to reverence. alwyn stooped, and stirred the fire into a brighter blaze. "well, so far, my looks do not belie me," he said gently, after a pause.. "i am conscious of both power and joy!" "why, naturally!" and villiers laid one hand affectionately on his shoulder.. "of course the face of the whole world has changed for you, now that you have won such tremendous fame!" "fame!"--alwyn sprang upright so suddenly that villiers was quite startled,--"fame! who says i am famous?" and his eyes flashed forth an amazed, almost haughty resentment. his friend stared--then laughed outright. "who says it? ... why, all london says it. do you mean to tell me, alwyn, that you've not seen the english papers and magazines, containing all the critical reviews and discussions on your poem of 'nourhalma?" alwyn winced at the title,--what a host of strange memories it recalled! "i have seen nothing," he replied hurriedly, "i have made it a point to look at no papers, lest i should chance on my own name coupled, as it has been before, with the languid abuse common to criticism in this country. not that i should have cared,--now! ..." and a slight smile played on his lips.. "in fact i have ceased to care. moreover, as i know modern success in literature is chiefly commanded by the praise of a 'clique,' or the services of 'log-rollers,' and as i am not included in any of the journalistic rings, i have neither hoped nor expected any particular favor or recognition from the public." "then," said villiers excitedly, seizing him by the hand, "let me be the first to congratulate you! it is often the way that when we no longer specially crave a thing, that thing is suddenly thrust upon us whether we will or no,--and so it has happened in your case. learn, therefore, my dear fellow, that your poem, which you sent to me from tiflis, and which was published under my supervision about four months ago, has already run through six editions, and is now in its seventh. seven editions of a poem,---a poem, mark you!--in four months, isn't bad, . . moreover, the demand continues, and the long and the short of it is, that your name is actually at the present moment the most celebrated in all london,--in fact, you are very generally acknowledged the greatest poet of the day! and," continued villiers, wringing his friend's hand with uncommon fervor.. "i say, god bless you, old boy! if ever a man deserved success, you do! 'nourhalma' is magnificent!--such a genius as yours will raise the literature of the age to a higher standard than it has known since the death of adonais [footnote: keats.] you can't imagine how sincerely i rejoice at your triumph!" alwyn was silent,--he returned his companion's cordial hand-pressure almost unconsciously. he stood, leaning against the mantelpiece, and looking gravely down into the fire. his first emotion was one of repugnance,--of rejection, . . what did he need of this will-o'-the-wisp called fame, dancing again across his path,--this transitory torch of world-approval! fame in london! ... what was it, what could it be, compared to the brilliancy of the fame he had once enjoyed as laureate of al-kyris! as this thought passed across his mind, he gave a quick interrogative glance at villiers, who was observing him with much wondering intentness, and his handsome face lighted with sudden laughter. "dear old boy!" he said, with a very tender inflection in his mellow, mirthful voice--"you are the best of good fellows, and i thank you heartily for your news, which, if it seems satisfactory to you, ought certainly to be satisfactory to me! but tell me frankly, if i am as famous as you say, how did i become so? ... how was it worked up?" "worked up!" villiers was completely taken back by the oddity of this question. "come!" continued alwyn persuasively, his fine eyes sparkling with mischievous good-humor.. "you can't make me believe that 'all england' took to me suddenly of its own accord,--it is not so romantic, so poetry-loving, so independent, or so generous as that! how was my 'celebrity' first started? if my book,--which has all the disadvantage of being a poem instead of a novel,--has so suddenly leaped into high favor and renown, why, then, some leading critic or other must have thought that i myself was dead!" the whimsical merriment of his face seemed to reflect itself on that of villiers. "you're too quick-witted, alwyn, positively you are!" he remonstrated with a frankly humorous smile.. "but as it happens, you're perfectly right! not one critic, but three,--three of our most influential men, too--thought you were dead!--and that 'nourhalma' was a posthumous work of perished genius!" chapter xxxii. zabastesism and paulism. the delighted air of triumphant conviction with which alwyn received this candid statement was irresistible, and villiers's attempt at equanimity entirely gave way before it. he broke into a roar of laughter,--laughter in which his friend joined,--and for a minute or two the room rang with the echoes of their mutual mirth. "it wasn't my doing," said villiers at last, when he could control himself a little,--"and even now i don't in the least know how the misconception arose! 'nourhalma' was published, according to your instructions, as rapidly as it could be got through the press, and i had no preliminary 'puffs' or announcements of any kind circulated in the papers. i merely advertised it with a notable simplicity, thus: 'nourhalma. a love-legend of the past. a poem. by theos alwyn.' that was all. well, when it came out, copies of it were sent, according to custom, round to all the leading newspaper offices, and for about three weeks after its publication i saw not a word concerning it anywhere. meanwhile i went on advertising. one day at the constitutional club, while glancing over the parthenon, i suddenly spied in it a long review, occupying four columns, and headed 'a wonder-poem'; and just out of curiosity, i began to read it. i remember--in fact i shall never forget,--its opening sentence, . . it was so original!" and he laughed again. "it commenced thus: 'it has been truly said that those whom the gods love die young!' and then on it went, dragging in memories of chatterton and shelley and keats, till i found myself yawning and wondering what the deuce the writer was driving at. presently, about the end of the second column, i came to the assertion that 'the posthumous poem of "nourhalma" must be admitted as one of the most glorious productions in the english language.' this woke me up considerably, and i read on, groping my way through all sorts of wordy phrases and used-up arguments, till my mind gradually grasped the fact that the critic of the parthenon had evidently never heard of theos alwyn before, and being astonished, and perhaps perplexed, by the original beauty and glowing style of 'nourhalma,' had jumped, without warrant, to the conclusion that its author must be dead. the wind-up of his lengthy dissertation was, as far as i can recollect, as follows: "'it is a thousand pities this gifted poet is no more. splendid as the work of his youthful genius is, there is no doubt but that, had he lived, he would have endowed the world anew with an inheritance of thought worthy of the grandest master-minds.' well, when i had fully realized the situation, i began to think to myself, shall i enlighten this sir oracle of the press, and tell him the 'dead' author he so enthusiastically eulogizes, is alive and well, or was so, at any rate, the last time i heard from him? i debated the question seriously, and, after much cogitation, decided to leave him, for the present, in ignorance. first of all, because critics like to consider themselves the wisest men in the world, and hate to be told anything,--secondly, because i rather enjoyed the fun. the publisher of 'nourhalma'--a very excellent fellow--sent me the critique, and wrote asking me whether it was true that the author of the poem was really dead, and if not, whether he should contradict the report. i waited a bit before answering that letter, and while i waited two more critiques appeared in two of the most assertively pompous and dictatorial journals of the day, echoing the eulogies of the parthenon, declaring 'this dead poet' worthy 'to rank with the highest of the immortals,' and a number of other similar grandiose declarations. one reviewer took an infinite deal of pains to prove 'that if the genius of theos alwyn had only been spared to england, he must have infallibly been elected poet laureate as soon as the post became vacant, and that too, without a single dissentient voice, save such as were raised in envy or malice. but, being dead '--continued this estimable scribe--'all we can say is that he yet speaketh, and that "nourhalma" is a poem of which the literary world cannot be otherwise than justly proud. let the tears that we shed for this gifted singer's untimely decease be mingled with gratitude for the priceless value of the work his creative genius has bequeathed to us!'" here villiers paused, his blue eyes sparkling with inward amusement, and looked at alwyn, whose face, though perfectly serene, had now the faintest, softest shadow of a grave pathos hovering about it. "by this time," he continued.. "i thought we had had about enough sport, so i wrote off to the publisher to at once contradict the erroneous rumor. but now that publisher had his story to tell. he called upon me, and with a blandly persuasive air, said, that as 'nourhalma' was having an extraordinary sale, was it worth while to deny the statement of your death just yet? ... he was very anxious, . . but i was firm, . . and lest he should waver, i wrote several letters myself to the leading journals, to establish the certainty, so far as i was aware, of your being in the land of the living. and then what do you think happened?" alwyn met his bright, satirical glance with a look that was half-questioning, half-wistful, but said nothing. "it was the most laughable, and at the same time the most beautifully instructive, lesson ever taught by the whole annals of journalism! the press turned round like a weathercock with the wind, and exhausted every epithet of abuse they could find in the dictionaries. 'nourhalma' was a 'poor, ill-conceived work,'--'an outrage to intellectual perception,'--'a good idea, spoilt in the treatment; an amazingly obscure attempt at sublimity'--et cetera, . . but there! you can yourself peruse all the criticisms, both favorable and adverse, for i have acted the part of the fond granny to you in the careful cutting out and pasting of everything i could find written concerning you and your work in a book devoted to the purpose, . . and i believe i've missed nothing. mark you, however, the parthenon never reversed its judgment, nor did the other two leading journals of literary opinion,--it wouldn't do for such bigwigs to confess they had blundered, you know! ... and the vituperation of the smaller fry was just the other weight in the balance which made the thing equal. the sale of 'nourhalma' grew fast and furious; all expenses were cleared three times over, and at the present moment the publisher is getting conscientiously anxious (for some publishers are more conscientious than some authors will admit!) to hand you over a nice little check for an amount which is not to be despised in this workaday world, i assure you!" "i did not write for money,"--interrupted alwyn quietly.. "nor shall i ever do so." "of course not," assented villiers promptly. "no poet, and indeed no author whatsoever, who lays claim to a fraction of conscience, writes for money only. those with whom money is the first consideration debase their art into a coarse huckstering trade, and are no better than contentious bakers and cheesemongers, who jostle each other in a vulgar struggle as to which shall sell perishable goods at the highest profit. none of the lasting works of the world were written so. nevertheless, if the public voluntarily choose to lavish what they can of their best on the author who imparts to them inspired thoughts and noble teachings, then that author must not be churlish, or slow to accept the gratitude implied. i think the most appropriate maxim for a poet to address to his readers is, 'freely ye have received, freely give.'" there was a moment's silence. alwyn resumed his seat in the chair near the fire, and villiers, leaning one arm on the mantelpiece, still stood, looking down upon him. "such, my dear fellow," he went on complacently.. "is the history of the success of 'nourhalma.' it certainly began with the belief that you were no longer able to benefit by the eulogy received.--but all the same that eulogy has been uttered and cannot be unuttered. it has led all the lovers of the highest literature to get the book for themselves, and to prove your actual worth, independently of press opinions,--and the result is an immense and steadily widening verdict in your favor. speaking personally, i have never read anything that gave me quite so much artistic pleasure as this poem of yours except 'hyperion,'--only 'hyperion' is distinctly classical, while 'nourhalma' takes us back into some hitherto unexplored world of antique paganism, which, though essentially pagan, is wonderfully full of pure and lofty sentiment. when did the idea first strike you?" "a long time ago!" returned alwyn with a slight, serious smile--"i assure you it is by no means original!" villiers gave him a quick, surprised glance. "no? well, it seems to me singularly original!" he said.. "in fact, one of your critics says you are too original! mind you, alwyn, that is a very serious fault in this imitative age!" alwyn laughed a little. his thoughts were very busy. again in imagination he beheld the burning "temple of nagaya" in his dream of al-kyris,--again he saw himself carrying the corpse of his former self through fire and flame,--and again he heard the last words of the dying zabastes--"i was the poet's adverse critic, and who but i should write his eulogy? save me, if only for the sake of sah-luma's future honor!--thou knowest not how warmly, how generously, how nobly, i can praise the dead!" true! ... how easy to praise the poor, deaf, stirless clay when sense and spirit have fled from it forever! no fear to spoil a corpse by flattery,--the heavily sealed-up eyes can never more unclose to lighten with glad hope or fond ambition; the quiet heart cannot leap with gratitude or joy at that "word spoken in due season" which aids its noblest aspirations to become realized! the dead poet?--press the cold clods of earth over him, and then rant above his grave,--tell him how great he was, what infinite possibilities were displayed in his work, what excellence, what merit, what subtlety of thought, what grace of style! rant and rave!--print reams of acclaiming verbosity, pronounce orations, raise up statues, mark the house he lived and starved in, with a laudatory medallion, and print his once-rejected stanzas in every sort of type and fashion, from the cheap to the costly,--teach the multitude how worthy he was to be loved, and honored,--and never fear that he will move from his rigid and chill repose to be happy for once in his life, and to learn with amazement that the world he toiled so patiently for is actually learning to be grateful for his existence! once dead and buried he can be safely made glorious,--he cannot affront us either with his superior intelligence, or make us envy the splendors of his fame! some such thoughts as these passed through alwyn's mind as he dreamily gazed into the red hollows of the fire, and reconsidered all that his friend had told him. he had no personal acquaintances on the press,--no literary club or clique to haul him up into the top-gallant mast of renown by persistent puffery; he was not related, even distantly, to any great personage, either statesman, professor, or divine--he had not the mysterious recommendation of being a "university man"; none of the many "wheels" within wheels which are nowadays so frequently set in motion to make up a momentary literary furore, were his to command,--and yet--the parthenon had praised him! ... wonder of wonders! the parthenon was a singularly obtuse journal, which glanced at the whole world of letters merely through the eyes of three or four men of distinctly narrow and egotistical opinions, and these three or four men kept it as much as possible to themselves, using its columns chiefly for the purpose of admiring one another. as a consequence of this restricted arrangement, very few outsiders could expect to be noticed for their work, unless they were in the "set," or at least had occasionally dined with one of the mystic three or four, . . and so it had chanced that alwyn's first venture into literature had been totally disregarded by the parthenon. in fact, that first venture, being a small and unobtrusive book, had, most probably, been thrown into the waste-paper basket, or sold for a few pence to the second-hand dealer. and now,--now because he had been imagined dead,--the parthenon's leading critic had singled him out and held him up for universal admiration! well, well! ... after all, nourhalma was a posthumous work,--it had been written before, ages since, when he, as sah-luma, had perished ere he had had time to give it to the world! he had merely remembered it.. drawn it forth again, as it were, from the dim, deep vistas of past deeds;--so those who had reviewed it as the production of one dead in youth, were right in their judgment, though they did not know it! ... it was old,--nothing but repetition,--but now he had something new and true and passionate to say, . . something that, if god pleased, it should be his to utter with the clearness and forcibleness common to the greek thunderers of yore, who spoke out what was in them, grandly, simply, and with the fearless majesty of thought that reeked nothing of opinions. oh, he would rouse the hearts of men from paltry greed and covetousness, . . from lust, and hatred, and all things evil,--no matter if he lost his own life in the effort, he would still do his utmost best to lift, if only in a small degree, the deepening weight of self-wrought agony from self-blinded mankind! yes! ... he must work to fulfil the commands and deserve the blessings of edris! edris! ... ah, the memory of her pure angel-loveliness rushed upon him like a flood of invigorating warmth and light, and when he looked up from his brief reverie, his countenance, beautiful, and kindling with inward ardor, affected villiers strangely,--almost as a very grand and perfect strain of music might affect and unsteady one's nerves. the attraction he had always felt for his poet-friend deepened to quite a fervent intensity of admiration, but he was not the man to betray his feelings outwardly, and to shake off his emotion he rushed into speech again. "by the by, alwyn, your old acquaintance, professor moxall, is very much 'down' on your book. you know he doesn't write reviews, except on matters connected with evolutionary phenomena, but i met him the other day, and he was quite upset about you. 'too transcendental'! he said, dismally shaking his bald pate to and fro--'the whole poem is a vaporous tissue of absurd impossibilities! ah dear, dear me! what a terrible falling-off in a young man of such hopeful ability! i thought he had done with poetry forever!--i took the greatest pains to prove to him what a ridiculous pastime it was, and how unworthy to be considered for a moment seriously as an art,--and he seemed to understand my reasoning thoroughly. indeed he promised to be one of our most powerful adherents, . . he had an excellent grasp of the material sciences, and a fine contempt for religion. why, with such a quick, analytical brain as his, he might have carried on darwin's researches to an extremer point of the origination of species than has yet been reached! all a ruin, sir! a positive ruin,--a man who will in cold blood write such lines as these ... '"grander is death than life, and sweeter far the splendors of the infinite future, than our eyes, weary with tearful watching, yet can see"-- condemns himself as a positive lunatic! and young alwyn too!--he who had so completely recognized the foolishness and futility of expecting any other life than this one! good heavens! ... "nourhalma," as i understand it, is a sort of pagan poem--but with such incredible ideas and sentiments as are expressed in it, the author might as well go and be a christian at once!' and with that he hobbled off, for it was sunday afternoon, and he was on his way to st. george's hall to delight the assembled skeptics, by telling them in an elaborate lecture what absurd animalculae they all were!" alwyn smiled. there was a soft light in his eyes, an expression of serene contentment on his face. "poor old moxall!" he said gently--"i am sorry for him! he makes life very desolate, both for himself and others who accept his theories. i'm afraid his disappointment in me will have to continue, . . for as it happens i am a christian,--that is, so far as i can, in my unworthiness, be a follower of a faith so grand, and pure, and true!" villiers started, . . his month opened in sheer astonishment, . . he could scarcely believe his own ears, and he uttered some sound between a gasp and an exclamation of incredulity. alwyn met his widely wondering gaze with a most sweet and unembarrassed calm. "how amazed you look!" he observed, half playfully,--"religion must be at a very low ebb, if in a so-called christian country you are surprised to hear a man openly acknowledge himself a disciple of the christian creed!" there was a brief pause, during which the chiming clock rang out the hour musically on the stillness. then villiers, still in a state of most profound bewilderment, sat down deliberately in a chair opposite alwyn's, and placed one hand familiarly on his knee. "look here, old fellow," he said impressively, "do you really mean it! ... are you 'going over' to some church or other?" alwyn laughed--his friend's anxiety was so genuine. "not i!"--he responded promptly.. "don't be alarmed, villiers,--i am not a 'convert' to any particular set form of faith,--what i care for is the faith itself. one can follow and serve christ without any church dogma. he has himself told us plainly, in words simple enough for a child to understand, what he would have us to do, . . and though i, like many others, must regret the absence of a true universal church where the servants of christ may meet altogether without a shadow of difference in opinion, and worship him as he should be worshipped, still that is no reason why i should refrain from endeavoring to fulfil, as far as in me lies, my personal duty toward him. the fact is, christianity has never yet been rightly taught, grasped or comprehended,--moreover, as long as men seek through it their own worldly advantage, it never will be,--so that the majority of the people are really as yet ignorant of its true spiritual meaning, thanks to the quarrels and differences of sects and preachers. but, notwithstanding the unhappy position of religion at the present day, i repeat, i am a christian, if love for christ, and implicit belief in him, can make me so." he spoke simply, and without the slightest affectation of reserve. villiers was still puzzled. "i thought, alwyn," he ventured to say presently with some little diffidence,--"that you entirely rejected the idea of christ's divinity, as a mere superstition?" "in dense ignorance of the extent of god's possibilities, i certainly did so," returned alwyn quietly,--"but i have had good reason to see that my own inability to comprehend supernatural causes was entirely to blame for that rejection. are we able to explain all the numerous and complex variations and manifestations of matter? no. then why do we dare to doubt the certainly conceivable variations and manifestations of spirit? ... the doctrine of a purely human christ is untenable,--a creed founded on that idea alone would make no way with the immortal aspirations of the soul, . . what link could there be between a mere man like ourselves and heaven? none whatever,--it needs the divine in christ to overleap the darkness of the grave, . . to serve us as the symbol of certain resurrection, to teach us that this life is not the all, but only one loop in the chain of existence, . . only one of the 'many mansions' in the father's house. human teachers of high morals there have always been in the world,--confucius, buddha, zoroaster, socrates, plato, . . there is no end to them, and their teachings have been valuable so far as they went, but even plato's majestic arguments in favor of the immortality of the soul fall short of anything sure and graspable. there were so many prefigurements of what was to come, . . just as the sign of the cross was used in the temple of serapis, and was held in singular mystic veneration by various tribes of egyptians, arabians, and indians, ages before christ came. and now that these prefigurements have resolved themselves into an actual divine symbol, the doubting world still hesitates, and by this hesitation paralyzes both its will and instinct--so that it fails to cut out the core of christianity's true solution, or to learn what christ really meant when he said 'i am the way, the truth, and the life,--no man cometh to the father but by me.' have you ever considered the particular weight of that word 'man' in that text? it is rightly specified that 'no man cometh '--for there are hosts of other beings, in other universes, who are not of our puny race, and who do not need to be taught either the way, truth, or life, as they know all three, and have never lost their knowledge from the beginning." his voice quivered a little, and he paused,--villiers watched him with a strange sense of ever-deepening fascination and wonder. "i have lately studied the whole thing carefully,".. he resumed presently, . . "and i see no reason why we, who call ourselves a progressive generation, should revert back to the old theory of corinthus, who, as early as sixty-seven years after christ, denied his divinity. there is nothing new in the hypothesis--it is no more original than the doctrine of evolution, which was skilfully enough handled by democritus, and probably by many another before him. voltaire certainly threshed out the subject exhaustively, . . and i think carlyle's address to him on the uselessness of his work is one of the finest of its kind. do you remember it?" villiers shook his head in the negative, whereupon alwyn rose, and glancing along an evidently well-remembered book-shelf, took from thence "sartor resartus"--and turned over the pages quickly. "here it is,"--and he read out the following passage.. "'cease, my much-respected herr von voltaire, . . shut thy sweet voice; for the task appointed thee seems finished. sufficiently hast thou demonstrated this proposition, considerable or otherwise: that the mythus of the christian religion looks not in the eighteenth century as it did in the eighth. alas, were thy six-and-thirty quartos, and the six-and-thirty thousand other quartos and folios and flying sheets or reams, printed before and since on the same subject, all needed to convince us of so little! but what next? wilt thou help us to embody the divine spirit of that religion in a new mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that our souls, otherwise too like perishing, may live? what! thou hast no faculty in that kind? only a torch for burning and no hammer for building? take our thanks then--and thyself away!'" villiers smiled, and straightened himself in military fashion, as was his habit when particularly gratified. "excellent old teufelsdrockh!" he murmured sotto-voce--"he had a rugged method of explaining himself, but it was decisive enough, in all conscience!" "decisive, and to the point,".. assented alwyn, putting the book back in its place, and then confronting his friend.--"and he states precisely what is wanted by the world to-day,--wanted pressingly, eagerly, . . namely that the 'divine spirit' of the christian religion should be set forth in a 'new vehicle and vesture' to keep pace with the advancing inquiry and scientific research of man. and truly for this, it need only be expounded according to its old, pure, primal, spiritual intention, and then, the more science progresses the more true will it be proved. christ distinctly claimed his divinity, and everywhere gave manifestations of it. of course it can be said that these manifestations rest on testimony,--and that the 'testimony' was drawn up afterward and is a spurious invention--but we have no more proof that it is spurious than we have of [footnote: see chapter xiii. "in al-kyris"--the allusion to "oruzel."] homer's iliad being a compilation of several writers and not the work of a homer at all. nothing--not even the events of the past week--can be safely rested on absolute, undiffering testimony, inasmuch as no two narrators tell the same story alike. but all the same we have the iliad,--it cannot be taken from us by any amount of argument, . . and we have the fruits of christ's gospel, half obscured as it is, visible among us. everywhere civilization of a high and aspiring order has followed christianity even at the cost of blood and tears, ..slavery has been abolished, and women lifted from unspeakable degradation to honor and reverence,--and had men been more reasonable and self-controlled, the purifying work would have been done peacefully and without persecution. it was st. paul's preaching that upset all the beautiful, pristine simplicity of the faith,--it is very evident he had no 'calling or election' such as he pretended, . . i wonder jeremy bentham's conclusive book on the subject is not more universally known. paul's sermonizing gave rise to a thousand different shades of opinion and argument,--and for a mere hair's-breadth of needless discussion, nation has fought against nation, and man against man, till the very name of religion has been made a ghastly mockery. that, however, is not the fault of christianity, but the fault of those who profess to follow it, like paul, while merely following a scheme of their own personal advantage or convenience, . . and the result of it all is that at this very moment, there is not a church in christendom where christ's actual commands are really and to the letter fulfilled." "strong!" ejaculated villiers with a slight smile.. "mustn't say that before a clergyman!" "why not?" demanded alwyn.. "why should not clerics be told, once and for all, how ill they perform their sacred mission? look at the wilderness of spreading atheism to-day! ... and look at the multitudes of men and women who are hungering and thirsting for a greater comprehension of spiritual things than they have hitherto had!--and yet the preachers trudge drowsily on in the old ruts they have made for themselves, and give neither sympathy nor heed to the increasing pain, feverish bewilderment, and positive want of those they profess to guide. concerning science, too, what is the good of telling a toiling, more or less suffering race, that there are eighteen millions of suns in the milky way, and that viewed by the immensity of the universe, man is nothing but a small, mean, and perishable insect? humanity hears the statement with dull, perplexed brain, and its weight of sorrow is doubled,--it demands at once, why, if an insect, its insect life should be at all, if nothing is to come of it but weariness and woe? the marvels of scientific discovery offer no solace to the huge majority of the afflicted, unless we point the lesson that the soul of man is destined to live through more than these wonders; and that the millions of planetary systems in the milky way are but the alpha beta of the sublime hereafter which is our natural heritage, if we will but set ourselves earnestly to win it. moreover, we should not foolishly imagine that we are to lead good lives merely for the sake of some suggested reward or wages,--no,--but simply because in practising progressive good we are equalizing ourselves and placing ourselves in active working harmony with the whole progressive good of the creator's plan. we have no more right to do a deliberately evil thing, than a musician has a right to spoil a melody by a false note on his instrument. why should we willfully jar god's music, of which we are a part? i tell you that religion, as taught to-day, is rather one of custom and fear than love and confidence,--men cower and propitiate, when they should be full of thankfulness and praise,--and as for any reserve on these matters, i have none,--in fact, i fail to see why truth, . . spiritual truth, . . should not be openly proclaimed now, even as it is sure to be proclaimed hereafter." his manner had warmed with his words, and he lifted his head with an involuntary gesture of eloquent resolve, his eyes flashing splendid scorn for all things hypocritical and mean. villiers looked at him, feeling curiously moved and impressed by his fervent earnestness. "well, i was right in one thing, at any rate, alwyn"--he said softly.. "you are changed,--there's not a doubt about it! but it seems to me the change is distinctly for the better. it does my heart good to hear you speak with such distinct and manly emphasis on a subject, which, though it is one of the burning questions of the day, is too often treated irreverently, or altogether dismissed with a few sentences of languid banter or cheap sarcasm. "as regards myself personally, i must say that a man without faith in anything but himself, has always seemed to me exactly in keeping with the description given of an atheist by lady ashburton to carlyle,--namely 'a person who robs himself, not only of clothes, but of flesh as well, and walks about the world in his bones.' and, oddly enough in spite of all the controversies going on about christianity, i have always really worshipped christ in my heart of hearts, . . and yet.. i can't go to church! i seem to lose the idea of him altogether there: . . but".. and his frank face took upon itself a dreamy light of deep feeling--"there are times when, walking alone in the fields, or through a very quiet grove of trees, or on the sea-shore, i begin to think of his majestic life and death, and the immense, unfailing sympathy he showed for every sort of human suffering, and then i can really believe in him as divine friend, comrade, teacher, and king, and i am scarcely able to decide which is the deepest emotion in my mind toward him--love, or reverence." he paused,--alwyn's eyes rested upon him with a quick, comprehensive friendliness,--in one exchange of looks the two men became mutually aware of the strong undercurrents of thought that lay beneath each other's individual surface history, and that perhaps had never been so clearly recognized before,--and a kind of swift, speechless, satisfactory agreement between their two separate natures seemed suddenly drawn up, ratified, and sealed in a glance. "i have often thought," continued villiers more lightly, and smiling as he spoke--"that we are all angels or devils,--angels in our best moments, devils in our worst. if we could only keep the best moments always uppermost! 'ah, poor deluded human nature!' as old moxall says,--while in the same breath he contradicts himself by asserting that human reason is the only infallible means of ascertaining anything! how it can be 'deluded' and 'infallible' at the same time, i can't quite understand! but, alwyn, you haven't told me how you like the 'get-up' of your book?" and he handed the volume in question to its author, who turned it over with the most curious air of careless recognition--in his fancy he again saw zabastes writing each line of it down to sah-luma's dictation! "it's very well printed"--he said at last,--"and very tastefully bound. you have superintended the work con amore, villiers, . . and i am as obliged to you as friendship will let me be. you know what that means?" "it means no obligation at all"--declared villiers gayly.. "because friends who are the least worthy the name take delight in furthering each other's interests and have no need to be thanked for doing what is particularly agreeable to them. you really like the appearance of it, then? but you've got the sixth edition. this is the first." and he took up from a side-table a quaint small quarto, bound is a very superb imitation of old embossed leather, which alwyn, beholding, was at once struck by the resemblance it bore to the elaborate designs that had adorned the covers of the papyrus volumes possessed by his shadow-self, sahluma! "this is very sumptuous!" he said with a dreamy smile--"it looks quite antique!" "doesn't it!" exclaimed villiers, delighted--"i had it copied from a first edition of petrarca which happens to be in my collection. this specimen of 'nourhalma' has become valuable and unique. it was published at ten-and-six, and can't be got anywhere under five or six guineas, if for that. of course a copy of each edition has been set aside for you." alwyn laid down the book with a gentle indifference. "my dear fellow, i've had enough of 'nourhalma,'" ... he said ... "i'll keep a copy of the first edition, if only as a souvenir of your good-will and energy in bringing it out so admirably--but for the rest! ... the book belongs to me no more, but to the public,--and so let the public do with it what they will!" villiers raised his eyebrows perplexedly. "i believe, after all, alwyn, you don't really care for your fame!" "not in the least!" replied alwyn, laughing. "why should i?" "you longed for it once as the utmost good!" "true!--but there are other utmost goods, my friend, that i desire more keenly." "but are they attainable?"--queried villiers. "men, and specially poets, often hanker after what is not possible to secure." "granted!" responded alwyn cheerfully--"but i do not crave for the impossible. i only seek to recover what i have lost." "and that is?" "what most men have lost, or are insanely doing their best to lose"--said alwyn meditatively.. "a grasp of things eternal, through the veil of things temporal." there was a short silence, during which villiers eyed his friend wistfully. "what was that 'adventure' you spoke about in your letter from the monastery on the pass of dariel?" he asked after a while--"you said you were on the search for a new sensation-did you experience it?" alwyn smiled. "i certainly did!" "did it arise from a contemplation of the site of the ruins of babylon?" "not exactly. babylon,--or rather the earth-mounds which are now called babylon,--had very little to do with it." "don't you want to tell me about it?" demanded tilliers abruptly. "not just yet"--answered alwyn, with good-humored frankness,--"not to-night, at any rate! but i will tell you, never fear! for the present we've talked enough, . . don't you think bed suggests itself as a fitting conclusion to our converse?" villiers laughed and acquiesced, and after pressing his friend to partake of something in the way of supper, which refreshment was declined, he preceded him to a small, pleasantly cosy room,--his "guest-chamber" as he called it, but which was really almost exclusively set apart for alwyn's use alone, and was always in readiness for him whenever he chose to occupy it. turning on the pretty electric lamp that lit the whole apartment with a soft and shaded lustre, villiers shook hands heartily with his old school-fellow and favorite comrade, and bidding him a brief but cordial good-night left him to repose. as soon as he was alone alwyn took out from his breast pocket a small velvet letter-case, from which he gently drew forth a slightly pressed but unfaded white flower. setting this in a glass of water he placed it near his bed, and watched it for a moment. delicately and gradually its pressed petals expanded, . . its golden corolla brightened in hue, . . a subtle, sweet odor permeated the air, . . and soon the angelic "immortelle" of the field of ardath shone wondrously as a white star in the quiet room. and when the lamp was extinguished and the poet slept, that strange, fair blossom seemed to watch him like a soft, luminous eye in the darkness,--a symbol of things divine and lasting,--a token of far and brilliant worlds where even flowers cannot fade! chapter xxxiii. realism. at the end of about a week or so, it became very generally known among the mystic "upper ten" of artistic and literary circles, that theos alwyn, the famous author of "nourhalma" was, to put it fashionably, "in town." according to the classic phrasing of a leading society journal, "mr. theos alwyn, the poet, whom some of our contemporaries erroneously reported as dead, has arrived in london from his tour in the east. he is for the present a guest of the honorable francis villiers." the consequence of this and other similar announcements was, that the postman seemed never to be away from villiers's door; and every time he came he was laden with letters and cards of invitation, addressed, for the most part, to villiers himself, who, with something of dismay, saw his study table getting gradually covered with accumulating piles of society litter, such as is comprised in the various formal notifications of dinners, dances, balls, soirees, "at homes," and all the divers sorts of entertainment with which the english "s'amusent moult tristement." some of these invitations, less ceremonious, were in form of pretty little notes from great ladies, who entreated their "dear mr. villiers" to give them the "extreme honor and pleasure" of his company at certain select and extra brilliant receptions where royalty itself would be represented, adding, as an earnest postscript--"and do bring the lion, you know, your very interesting friend, mr. alwyn, with you!"--a good many such billets-doux were addressed to alwyn personally, and as he opened and read them he was somewhat amused to see how many who had formerly been mere bowing acquaintances were now suddenly, almost magically, transformed into apparently eager, admiring, and devoted friends. "one would think these people really liked me for myself,"--he said one morning, tossing aside a particularly gushing, pressing note from a lady who was celebrated for the motley crowds she managed to squeeze into her rooms, regardless of any one's comfort or convenience,--"and yet, as the matter stands, they actually know nothing of me. i might be a villain of the deepest dye, a kickable cad, or a coarse ruffian, but so long as i have written a 'successful' book and am a 'somebody'--a literary 'notable'--what matter my tastes, my morals, or my disposition! if this sort of thing is fame, all i can say is, that it savors of very detestable vulgarity!" "of course it does!"--assented villiers-"but what else do you expect from modern society? ... what can you expect from a community which is chiefly ruled by moneyed parvenus, but vulgarity? if you go to this woman's place, for instance"--and he glanced at the note alwyn had thrown on the table,--"you will share the honors of the evening with the famous man-milliner of bond street, an 'artist' in gowns, the female upholsterer and house decorator, likewise an 'artist,'--the ladies who 'compose' sonnets in regent street, also 'artists,--' and chiefest among the motley crowd, perhaps, the so-called new 'apostle' of aestheticism, a ponderous gentleman who says nothing and does nothing, and who, by reason of his stupendous inertia and taciturnity, is considered the greatest 'gun' of all! ... it's no use your going among such people,--in fact, no one who has any reverence left in him for the truth of art can mix with those whose profession of it is a mere trade and hypocritical sham. such dunderheads would see no artistic difference between phidias and the man of to-day who hews out and sets up a common marble mantel-piece! i'm not a fellow to moan over the 'good old times,'--no, not a bit of it, for those good old times had much in them that was decidedly bad,--but i wish progress would not rob us altogether of refinement." "but society professes to be growing more and more cultured every day," observed alwyn. "oh, it professes! ... yes, that's just the mischief of it. its professions are not worth a groat. it professes to be one thing while anybody with eyes can see that it actually is another! the old style of aristocrat and gentleman is dying out,--the new style is the horsey lord, the betting duke, the coal-dealing earl, the stock-broking viscount! trade is a very excellent thing,--a very necessary and important thing,--but its influence is distinctly not refining. i have the greatest respect for my cheesemonger, for instance (and he has an equal respect for me, since he has found that i know the difference between real butter and butterine), but all the same i don't want to see him in parliament. i am arrogant enough to believe that i, even i, having studied somewhat, know more about the country's interest than he does. i view it by the light of ancient and modern historical evidence,--he views it according to the demand it makes on his cheese. we may both be narrow and limited in judgment,--nevertheless, i think, with all due modesty, that his judgment is likely to be more limited than mine. but it's no good talking about it,--this dear old land is given up to a sort of ignorant democracy, which only needs time to become anarchy, . . and we haven't got a strong man among us who dares speak out the truth of the inevitable disasters looming above us all. and society is not only vulgar, but demoralized,--moreover, what is worse is, that, aided by its preachers and teachers, it is sinking into deeper depths of demoralization with every passing month and year of time." alwyn leaned hack in his chair thoughtfully, a sorrowful expression clouding his face. "surely things are not so bad as they seem, villiers,"--he said gently--"are you not taking a pessimistic view of affairs?" "not at all!" and villiers, warming with his subject, walked up and down the room excitedly ... "nor am i judging by the narrow observation of any particular 'set' or circle. i look at the expressive visible outcome of the whole,--the plainly manifest signs of the threatening future. of course there are ever so many good people,--earnest people,--thinking people,--but they are a mere handful compared to the overpowering millions opposed to them, and whose motto is 'evil, be thou my good.' now you, for instance, are full of splendid ideas, and lucid plans of check and reform,--you are seized with a passionate desire to do something great for the world, and you are ready to speak the truth fearlessly on all occasions. but just think of the enormous task it would be to stir to even half an inch of aspiring nobleness, the frightful mass of corruption in london to-day! in all trades and professions it is the same story,--everything is a question of gain. to begin with, look at the church, the 'pillar of the state!' there, all sorts of worthless, incompetent men are hastily thrust into livings by wealthy patrons who care not a jot as to whether they are morally or intellectually fit for their sacred mission,--and a disgraceful universal muddle is the result. from this muddle, which resembles a sort of stagnant pool, emerge the strangest fungus-growths,--clergymen who take to acting a 'miracle-play,' ostensibly for the purposes of charity, but really to gratify their own tastes and leanings toward the mummer's art,--all the time utterly regardless of the effect their behavior is likely to have on the minds of the unthinking populace, who are led by the newspapers, and who read therein bantering inquiries as to whether the church is coquetting with the stage? whether the two are likely to become one? and whether religion will in the future occupy no more serious consideration than the drama? what is one to think, when one sees clerical notabilities seated in the stalls of a theatre complacently looking on at the representation of a 'society play' degrading in plot, repulsive in detail, and in nearly every case having to do with a married woman who indulges in a lover as a matter of course,--a play full of ambiguous side hits and equivocal jests, which, if the men of the church were staunch to their vocation, they would be the first to condemn. why, i saw the other day, in a fairly reliable journal, that some of these excellent 'divines' were going to start 'smoking sermons'--a sort of imitation of smoking concerts, i suppose, which are vile enough, in all conscience,--but to mix up religious matters with the selfish 'smoke mania' is viler still. i say that any clergyman who will allow men to smoke in his presence, while he is preaching sacred doctrine, is a coarse cad, and ought to be hounded out of the church!" he paused, his face flushing with vigorous, righteous wrath. alwyn's eyes grew dark with an infinite pain. his thoughts always fled back to his dream of al-kyris, with a tendency to draw comparisons between the past and the present. the religion of that long-buried city had been mere mummery and splendid outward show,--what was the religion of london? he moved restlessly. "how all the warnings of history repeat themselves!" he said suddenly.. "an age of mockery, sham sentiment, and irreverence has always preceded a downfall,--can it be possible that we are already receiving hints of the downfall of england?" "aye, not only of england, but of a good many other nations besides," said villiers--"or if not actual downfall, change and terrific upheaval. france and england particularly are the prey of the demon of realism,--and all the writers who should use their pens to inspire and elevate the people, assist in degrading them. when their books are not obscene, they are blasphemous. russia, too, joins in the cry of realism!--realism! ... let us have the filth of the gutters, the scourgings of dustholes, the corruption of graves, the odors of malaria, the howlings of drunkards, the revellings of sensualists, . . the worst side of the world in its vilest aspect, which is the only real aspect of those who are voluntarily vile! let us see to what a reeking depth of unutterable shameless brutality man can fall if he chooses--not as formerly, when it was shown to what glorious heights of noble supremacy he could rise! for in this age, the heights are called 'transcendental folly'--and the reeking depths are called realism!" "and yet what is realism really?" queried alwyn.--"does anybody know? ... it is supposed to be the actuality of everyday existence, without any touch of romance or pathos to soften its frequently hideous commonplace; but the fact is, the commonplace is not the real. the highest flights of imagination in the human being fail to grasp the reality of the splendors everywhere surrounding him,--and, viewed rightly, realism would become romance and romance realism. we see a ragged woman in the streets picking up scraps for her daily food, . . that is what we may call realistic,--but we are not looking at the actual woman, after all! we cannot see her inner self, or form any certain comprehension of the possible romance or tragedy which that inner self has experienced, or is experiencing. we see the outer appearance of the woman, but what of that? ... the realism of the suffering creature's hidden history lies beyond us,--so far beyond us that it is called romance, because it seems so impossible to fathom or understand." "true, most absolutely true!" said villiers emphatically--"but it is a truth you will get very few to admit! ... everything to-day is in a state of substantiality and sham;--we have even sham realism, as well as sham sentiment, sham religion, sham art, sham morality. we have a parliament that sits and jabbers lengthy platitudes that lead to nothing, while army and navy are slowly slipping into a state of helpless desuetude, and the mutterings of discontented millions are almost unregarded; the spectre of revolution, assuming somewhat of the shape in which it appalled the french in , is dimly approaching in the distance, . . even our london county council hears the far-off, faint shadow of a very prosaic resemblance to the national assembly of that era, . . and our weak efforts to cure cureless grievances, and to deafen our ears to crying evils, are very similar to the clumsy attempts made by louis xvi. and his partisans to botch up a terribly bad business. oh, the people, the people! ... they are unquestionably the flesh, blood, bone, and sinew of the country,--and the english people, say what sneerers will to the contrary, are a good people,--patient, plodding, forbearing, strong, and, on the whole, most equable-tempered,--but their teachers teach them wrongly, and confuse their brains instead of clearing them, and throw a weight of compulsory education at their heads, without caring how they may use it, or how such a blow from the clenched fist of knowledge may stupefy and bewilder them, . . and the consequence is that now, were a strong man to arise, with a lucid brain, an eloquent power of expressing truth, a great sympathy with his kind, and an immense indifference to his own fate in the contest, he could lead this vast, waiting, wandering, growling, hydra-headed london wheresoever he would!" "what an orator you are, villiers!".. said alwyn, with a half-smile. "i never heard you come out so strongly before!" "my dear fellow," replied villiers, in a calmer tone--"it's enough to make any man with warm blood in his veins feel! everywhere signs of weakness, cowardice, compromise, hesitation, vacillation, incompetency, and everywhere, in thoughtful minds, the keen sense of a fate advancing like the giant in the seven-leagued boots, at huge strides every day. the ponderous law and the solid police hem us in on each side, as though the nation were a helpless infant, toddling between two portly nurses,--we dare not denounce a scoundrel and liar, but must needs put up with him, lest we should be involved in an action for libel; and we dare not knock down a vulgar bully, lest we should be given in charge for assault. hence, liars, and scoundrels, and vulgar bullies abound, and men skulk and grin, and play the double-face, till they lose all manfulness. society sits smirking foolishly on the top of a smouldering volcano,--and the chief symbols of greatness among us, religion, poesy, art, are burning as feebly as tapers in the catacombs, . . the church resembles a drudge, who, tired of routine, is gradually sinking into laziness and inertia, . . and the press! ... ye gods! ... the press!" here speech seemed to fail him,--he threw himself into a chair, and, to relieve his mind, kicked away the advertisement sheet of the morning's newspaper with so much angry vehemence that alwyn laughed outright. "what ails you now, villiers?" he demanded mirthfully.. "you are a regular fire-eater--a would-be crusader against a modern saracen host! why are you choked with such seemingly unutterable wrath! ... what of the press? ... it is at any rate free." "free!" cried villiers, sitting bolt upright and shooting out the word like a bullet from a gun,--"free? ... the press? it is the veriest bound slave that was ever hampered by the chains of party prejudice,--and the only attempt at freedom it ever makes in its lower grades is an occasional outbreak into scurrility! and yet think what a majestic power for good the true, real liberty of the press might wield over the destinies of nations! broadly viewed, the press should be the strong, practical, helping right hand of civilization, dealing out equal justice, equal sympathy, equal instruction,--it should be the fosterer of the arts and sciences,--the everyday guide of the morals and culture of the people,--it should not specially advocate any cause save honor,--it should be as far as possible the unanimous voice of the nation. it should be,--but what is it? look round and judge for yourself. every daily paper panders more or less to the lowest tastes of the mob,--while if the higher sentiments of man are not actually sneered at, they are made a subject for feeble surprise, or vapid 'gush.' an act of heroic unselfishness meets with such a cackling chorus of amazed, half-bantering approval from the leading-article writers, that one is forced to accept the suggestion implied,--namely that to be heroic or unselfish is evidently an outbreak of noble instinct that is entirely unexpected and remarkable,--nay, even eccentric and inexplicable! the spirit of mockery pervades everything,--and while the story of a murder is allowed to occupy three and four columns of print, the account of some great scientific discovery, or the report of some famous literary or artistic achievement is squeezed into a few lukewarm and unsatisfactory lines. i have seen a female paragraphist's idiotic description of an actress's gown allowed to take more space in a journal than the review of a first-class book! moreover, if an honest man, desirous of giving vent to an honest opinion on some crying abuse of the day, were to set forth that opinion in letter form and try to get it published in a leading and important newspaper, the chances are ten to one that it would never he inserted, unless he happened to know the editor, or one of the staff, and perhaps not even then, because, mark you! his opinion must be in accordance with the literary editor's opinion, or it will be considered of no value to the world! consider that gigantic absurdity! ... consider, that when we read our newspapers we are not learning the views of europe on a certain point,--we are absorbing the ideas of the editor, to whom everything must be submitted before insertion in the oracular columns we pin our faith on! thus it is that criticism,--literary criticism, at any rate,--is a lost art,--you know that. a man must either be dead (or considered dead) or in a 'clique' to receive any open encouragement at all from the so-called 'crack' critics. and the cliquey men are generally such stupendous bigots for their own particular and restricted form of 'style.' anything new they hate,--anything daring they treat with ridicule. some of them have no hesitation in saying they prefer matthew arnold (remember he's dead!) to tennyson and swinburne (as yet living).. while, as a fact, if we are to go by the high standards of poetical art left us by shakespeare, keats, shelley, and byron, matthew arnold is about the very tamest, most unimaginative, bald bard that ever kindled a lucifer match of verse and fancied it the fire of apollo! it's utterly impossible to get either a just or broad view of literature out of cliques,--and the press, like many of our other 'magnificent' institutions, is working entirely on a wrong system. but who is going to be wise, or strong, or diplomatic enough to reform it? ... no one, at present,--and we shall jog along, and read up the details of vice in our dailies and weeklies, till we almost lose the savor of virtue, and till the last degraded end comes of it all, and blatant young america thrones herself on the shores of britain and sends her eagle screech of conquest echoing over old world and new." "don't think it, villiers!" exclaimed alwyn impetuously.. "there is a mettle in the english that will never be conquered!" villiers shrugged his shoulders. "we will hope so, my dear boy!" he said resignedly. "but the 'mettle' under bad government, with bad weapons, and more or less untried ships, can scarcely be blamed if it should not be able to resist a tremendous force majeure. besides, all the parliaments in the world cannot upset the laws of the universe. if things are false and corrupt, they must be swept away,--nature will not have them,--she will transmute and transform them somehow, no matter at what cost. it is the cry of the old prophets over again,--'because ye have not obeyed god's law, therefore shall ye meet with destruction.' egoism is certainly not god's law, and we shall have to return on our imagined progressive steps, and be beaten with rods of affliction, till we understand what his law is. it is, for one thing, the wheel that keeps this universe going--our laws are no use whatever in the management of his sublime cosmos! nations, like individuals, are punished for their own wilful misdeeds--the punishment may be tardy, but sure as death it comes. and i fancy america will be our 'scourge in the lord's hand'--as the bible hath it. that pretty, dollar-crusted young republican wants an aristocracy, . . she will engraft it on the old roots here,--in fact, she has already begun to engraft it. it is even on the cards that she may need a monarchy--if she does, she will plant it.. here! then it will be time for englishmen to adopt another country, and forget, if they can, their own disgraced nationality. and yet, if, as shakespeare says, england were to herself but true,--if she had great statesmen as of yore,--intellectual, earnest, self-abnegating, fearless, unhesitating workers, who would devote themselves heart and soul to her welfare, she might gather, not only her colonies, but america also, to her knee, as a mother gathers children, and the most magnificent christian empire the world has ever seen might rise up, a supreme marvel of civilization and union that would make all other nations wonder and revere. but the selfishness of the day, and the ruling passion of gain, are the fatal obstructions in the path of such a desirable millennium." he ended abruptly--he had unburdened his mind to one who he knew understood him and sympathized with him, and he turned to the perusal of some letters just received. the two friends were sitting that morning in the breakfast-room,--a charming little octagonal apartment, looking out on a small, very small garden, which, despite the london atmosphere, looked just now very bright with tastefully arranged parterres of white and yellow crocuses, mingled with the soft blue of the dainty hepatica,--that frank-faced little blossom which seems to express such an honest confidence in the goodness of god's sky. a few sparrows of dissipated appearance were bathing their sooty plumes in a pool of equally sooty water left in the garden as a token of last night's rain, and they splashed and twittered and debated and fussed with each other concerning their ablutions, with almost as much importance as could have been displayed by the effeminate romans of the augustan era when disporting themselves in their sumptuous thermae. alwyn's eyes rested on them unseeingly,--his thoughts were very far away from all his surroundings. before his imagination rose a gehenna-like picture of the world in which he had to live,--the world of fashion and form and usage,--the world he was to try and rouse to a sense of better things. a promethean task indeed! to fill human life with new symbols of hope,--to set up a white standard of faith amid the swift rushing on and reckless tramping down of desperate battle,--to pour out on all, rich or poor, worthy or unworthy, the divine-born balm of sympathy, which, when given freely and sincerely from man to man, serves often as a check to vice--a silent, yet all eloquent, rebuke to crime,--and can more easily instill into refractory intelligences things of god and desires for good, than any preacher's argument, no matter how finely worded. to touch the big, wayward, better heart of humanity! ... could he in very truth do it? ... or was the work too vast for his ability? tormented by various cross-currents of feeling, he gave vent to a troubled sigh and looked dubiously at his friend. "in such a state of things as you describe, villiers," he aid, "what a useless unit _i_ am! a poet!--who wants me in this age of sale and barter? ... is not a producer of poems always considered more or less of a fool nowadays, no matter how much his works may be in fashion for the moment? i am sure, in spite of the success of 'nourhalma,' that the era of poetry has passed; and, moreover, it certainly seems to have given place to the very baldest and most unbeauteous forms of prose! as, for instance, if a book is written which contains what is called 'poetic prose' the critics are all ready to denounce it as 'turgid,' 'overladen,' 'strained for effect,' and 'hysterical sublime.' heine's reisebilder, which is one of the most exquisite poems in prose ever given to the world, is nearly incomprehensible to the majority of english minds; so much so, indeed, that the english translators in their rendering of it have not only lost the delicate glamour of its fairy-like fancifulness, but have also blunted all the fine points of its dazzling sarcasm and wealth of imagery. it is evident enough that the larger mass of people prefer mediocrity to high excellence, else such a number of merely mediocre works of art would not, and could not, be tolerated. and as long as mediocrity is permitted to hold ground, it is almost an impossibility to do much toward raising the standard of literature. the few who love the best authors are as a mere drop in the ocean of those who not only choose the worst, but who also fail to see any difference between good and bad." "true enough!" assented villiers,--"still the 'few' you speak of are worth all the rest. for the 'few' homer wrote,--plato, marcus aurelius, epictetus,--and the 'few' are capable of teaching the majority, if they will only set about it rightly. but at present they are setting about it wrongly. all children are taught to read, but no child is guided in what to read. this is like giving a loaded gun to a boy and saying, 'shoot away! ... no matter in which direction you point your aim, . . shoot yourself if you like, and others too,--anyhow, you've got the gun!' of course there are a few fellows who have occasionally drawn up a list of books as suitable for everybody's perusal,--but then these lists cannot be taken as true criterions, as they all differ from one another as much as church sects. one would-be instructor in the art of reading says we ought all to study 'tom jones'--now i don't see the necessity of that! and, oddly enough, these lists scarcely ever include the name of a poet,--which is the absurdest mistake ever made. a liberal education in the highest works of poesy is absolutely necessary to the thinking abilities of man. but, alwyn, you need not trouble yourself about what is good for the million and what isn't, . . whatever you write is sure to be read now--you've got the ear of the public,--the 'fair, large ear' of the ass's head which disguises bottom the weaver, who frankly says of himself, 'i am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, i must scratch!'" alwyn smiled. he was thinking of what his shadow-self had said on this very subject--"a book or poem, to be great, and keep its greatness hereafter, must be judged by the natural instinct of peoples. this world-wide decision has never yet been, and never will be, hastened by any amount of written criticism,--it is the responsive beat of the enormous pulse of life that thrills through all mankind, high and low, gentle and simple,--its great throbs are slow and solemnly measured, yet if once it answers to a poet's touch, that poet's name is made glorious forever!" he.. in the character of sah-luma.. had seemed to utter these sentiments many ages ago,--and now the words repeated themselves in his thoughts with a new and deep intensity of meaning. "of course," added villiers suddenly--"you must expect plenty of adverse criticism now, as it is known beyond all doubt that you are alive and able to read what is written concerning you,--but if you once pay attention to critics, you may as well put aside pen altogether, as it is the business of these worthies never to be entirely satisfied with anything. even shelley and byron, in the critical capacity, abused keats, till the poor, suffering youth, who promised to be greater then either of them, died of a broken heart as much as disease. this sort of injustice will go on to the end of time, or till men become more christianized than paul's version of christianity has ever yet made them." here a knock at the door interrupted the conversation. the servant entered, bringing a note gorgeously crested and coroneted in gold. villiers, to whom it was addressed, opened and read it. "what shall we do about this?" he asked, when his man had retired. "it is an invitation from the duchess de la santoisie. she asks us to go and dine with her next week,--a party of twenty--reception afterward. i think we'd better accept,--what do you say?" alwyn roused himself from his reverie. "anything to please you, my dear boy!" he answered cheerfully--"but i haven't the faintest idea who the duchess de la santoisie is!" "no? ... well, she's an englishwoman who has married a french duke. he is a delightful old fellow, the pink of courtesy, and the model of perfect egotism. a true parisian, and of course an atheist,--a very polished atheist, too, with a most charming reliance on his own infallibility. his wife writes novels which have a slight leaning toward zolaism,--she is an extremely witty woman sarcastic, and cold-blooded enough to be a female robespierre, yet, on the whole, amusing as a study of what curious nondescript forms the feminine nature can adopt unto itself, if it chooses. she has an immense respect for genius,--mind, i say genius advisedly, because she really is one of those rare few who cannot endure mediocrity. everything at her house is the best of its kind, and the people she entertains are the best of theirs. her welcome of you will be at any rate a sincerely admiring one,--and as i think, in spite of your desire for quiet, you will have to show yourself somewhere, it may as well be there." alwyn looked dubious, and not at all resigned to the prospect of "showing himself." "your description of her does not strike me as particularly attractive,"--he said--"i cannot endure that nineteenth-century hermaphroditic production, a mannish woman." "oh but she isn't altogether mannish,"--declared villiers, . . "besides, i mustn't forget to add, that she is extremely beautiful." alwyn shrugged his shoulders indifferently. his friend noticed the gesture and laughed. "still impervious to beauty, old boy?"--he said gayly--"you always were, i remember!" alwyn flushed a little, and rose from his chair. "not always,"--he answered steadily,--"there have been times in my life when the beauty of women,--mere physical beauty--has exercised great influence over me. but i have lately learned how a fair face may sometimes mask a foul mind,--and unless i can see the substance of soul looking through the semblance of body, then i know that the beauty i seem to behold is mere appearance, and not reality. hence, unless your beautiful duchess be like the 'king's daughter' of david's psalm, 'all glorious within'--her apparent loveliness will have no charm for me!--now"--and he smiled, and spoke in a less serious tone.. "if you have no objection, i am off to my room to scribble for an hour or so. come for me if you want me--you know i don't in the least mind being disturbed." but villiers detained him a moment, and looked inquisitively at him full in the eyes. "you've got some singular new attraction about you, alwyn,"--he said, with a strange sense of keen inward excitement as he met his friend's calm yet flashing glance,--"something mysterious, . . something that compels! what is it? ... i believe that visit of yours to the ruins of babylon had a more important motive than you will admit, . . moreover.. i believe you are in love!" "in love!"--alwyn laughed a little as he repeated the words.. "what a foolish term that is when you come to think of it! for to be in love suggests the possibility of getting out again,--which, if love be true, can never happen. say that i love!--and you will be nearer the mark! now don't look so mystified, and don't ask me any more questions just now--to-night, when we are sitting together in the library, i'll tell you the whole story of my babylonian adventure!" and with a light parting wave of the hand he left the room, and villiers heard him humming a tune softly to himself as he ascended the stairs to his own apartments, where, ever since he arrived, he had made it his custom to do two or three hours' steady writing every morning. for a moment or so after he had gone villiers stood lost in thought, with knitted brows and meditative eyes, then, rousing himself, he went on to his study, and sitting down at his desk wrote an answer to the duchess de la santoisie accepting her invitation. chapter xxxiv. rewards of fame. an habitual resident in london who is gifted with a keen faculty of hearing and observation, will soon learn to know instinctively the various characteristics of the people who call upon him, by the particular manner in which each one handles his door-bell or knocker. he will recognize the timid from the bold, the modest from the arrogant, the meditative thinker from the bustling man of fashion, the familiar friend from the formal acquaintance. every individual's method of announcing his or her arrival to the household is distinctly different,--and villiers, who studied a little of everything, had not failed to take note of the curiously diversified degrees of single and double rapping by means of which his visitors sought admittance to his abode. in fact, he rather prided himself on being able to guess with almost invariable correctness what special type of man or woman was at his door, provided he could hear the whole diapason of their knock from beginning to end. when he was shut in his "den," however, the sounds were muffled by distance, and he could form no just judgment,--sometimes, indeed, he did not hear them at all, especially if he happened to be playing his 'cello at the time. so that this morning he was considerably startled, when, having finished his letter to the duchess de la santoisie, a long and persistent rat-tat-tatting echoed noisily through the house, like the smart, quick blows of a carpenter's hammer--a species of knock that was entirely unfamiliar to him, and that, while so emphatic in character, suggested to his mind neither friend nor foe. he laid down his pen, listened and waited. in a minute or two his servant entered the room. "if you please, sir, a lady to see mr. alwyn. shall i show her up?" villiers rose slowly out of his chair, and stood eyeing his man in blank bewilderment. "a lady! ... to see mr. alwyn!"--he repeated, his thoughts instantly reverting to his friend's vaguely hinted love-affair,--"what name?" "she gives no name, sir. she says it isn't needed,--mr. alwyn will know who she is." "mr. alwyn will know who she is, will he?" murmured villiers dubiously.--"what is she like? young and pretty?" over the man-servant's staid countenance came the glimmer of a demure, respectful smile. "oh no, sir,--not young, sir! a person about fifty, i should say." this was mystifying. a person about fifty! who could she be? villiers hastily considered,--there must be some mistake, he thought,--at any rate, he would see the unknown intruder himself first, and find out what her business was, before breaking in upon alwyn's peaceful studies upstairs. "show the lady in here"--he said--"i can't disturb mr. alwyn just now." the servant retired, and soon re-appeared, ushering in a tall, gaunt, black-robed female, who walked with the stride of a dragoon and the demeanor of a police-inspector, and who, merely nodding briskly in response to villiers's amazed bow, selected with one comprehensive glance the most comfortable chair in the room, and seated herself at ease therein. she then put up her veil, displaying a long, narrow face, cold, pale, arrogant eyes, a nose inclined to redness at the tip, and a thin, close-set mouth lined with little sarcastic wrinkles, which came into prominent and unbecoming play as soon as she began to speak, which she did almost immediately. "i suppose i had better introduce myself to you, mr. alwyn"--she said with a condescending and confident air--"though really we know each other so well by reputation that there seems scarcely any necessity for it! of course you have heard of 'tiger-lily!'" villiers gazed at her helplessly,--he had never felt so uncomfortable in all his life. here was a strange woman, who had actually taken bodily possession of his apartment as though it were her own,--who had settled herself down in his particular pet louis quatorze chair,--who stared at him with the scrutinizing complacency of a professional physiognomist,--and who seemed to think no explanation of her extraordinary conduct was necessary, inasmuch as "of course" he, villiers, had heard of "tiger-lily!" it was very singular! ... almost like madness! ... perhaps she was mad! how could he tell? she had a remarkably high, knobby brow,--a brow with an unpleasantly bald appearance, owing to the uncompromising way in which her hair was brushed well off it--he had seen such brows before in certain "spiritualists" who believed, or pretended to believe, in the suddenly willed dematerialization of matter, and they were mad, he knew, or else very foolishly feigning madness! endeavoring to compose his bewildered mind, he fixed glass in eye, and regarded her through it with an inquiring solemnity,--he would have spoken, but before he could utter a word, she went on rapidly: "you are not in the least like the person i imagined you to be! ... however, that doesn't matter. literary celebrities are always so different to what we expect!" "pardon me, madam,"--began villiers politely.. "you are making a slight error,--my servant probably did not explain. i am not mr. alwyn, . . my name is villiers. mr. alwyn is my guest,--but he is at present very much occupied,--and unless your business is extremely urgent..." "certainly it is urgent"--said the lady decisively.. "otherwise i should not have come. and so you are not mr. alwyn! well, i thought you couldn't be! now then, will you have the kindness to tell mr. alwyn i am here?" by this time villiers had recovered his customary self-possession, and he met her commanding glance with a somewhat defiant coolness. "i am not aware to whom i have the honor of speaking," he said frigidly. "perhaps you will oblige me with your name?" "my name doesn't in the least matter," she replied calmly--"though i will tell you afterward if you wish. but you don't seem to understand i..._i_ am 'tiger-lily'!" the situation was becoming ludicrous. villiers felt strongly disposed to laugh. "i'm afraid i am very ignorant!"--he said, with a humorous sparkle in his blue eyes,--"but really i am quite in the dark as to your meaning. will you explain?" the lady's nose grew deeper of tint, and the look she shot at him had quite a killing vindictiveness. with evident difficulty she forced a smile. "oh, you must have heard of me!"--she declared, with a ponderous attempt at playfulness--"you read the papers, don't you?" "some of them," returned villiers cautiously--"not all. not the sunday ones, for instance." "still, you can't possibly have helped seeing my descriptions of famous people 'at home,' you know! i write for ever so many journals. i think"--and she became complacently reflective--"i think i may say with perfect truth that i have interviewed everybody who has ever done anything worth noting, from our biggest provision dealer to our latest sensational novelist! and all my articles are signed 'tiger-lily.' now do you remember? oh, you must remember? ... i am so very well known!" there was a touch of genuine anxiety in her voice that was almost pathetic, but villiers made no attempt to soothe her wounded vanity. "i have no recollection whatever of the name," he said bluntly--"but that is easily accounted for, as i never read newspaper descriptions of celebrities. so you are an 'interviewer' for the press?" "exactly!" and the lady leaned back more comfortably in the louis quatorze fauteuil--"and of course i want to interview mr. alwyn. i want..." here drawing out a business looking note-book from her pocket she opened it and glanced at the different headings therein enumerated,--"i want to describe his personal appearance,--to know when he was born, and where he was educated,--whether his father or mother had literary tastes,--whether he had, or has, brothers or sisters, or both,--whether he is married, or likely to be, and how much money he has made by his book." she paused and gave an upward glance at villiers, who returned it with a blank and stony stare. "then,"--she resumed energetically--"i wish to know what are his methods of work;--where he gets his ideas and how he elaborates them,--how many hours he writes at a time, and whether he is an early riser,--also what he usually takes for dinner,--whether he drinks wine or is a total abstainer, and at what hour he retires to rest. all this is so intensely interesting to the public! perhaps he might be inclined to give me a few notes of his recent tour in the east, and of course i should be very glad if he will state his opinions on the climate, customs, and governments of the countries through which he has passed. it's a great pity this is not his own house,--it is a pretty place and a description of it would read well. let me see!"--and she meditated,--" i think i could manage to insert a few lines about this apartment, . . it would be easy to say 'the picturesque library in the house of the honble. francis villiers, where mr. alwyn received me,' etc.,--yes! that would do very well!--very well indeed! i should like to know whether he has a residence of his own anywhere, and if not, whether he intends to take one in london, because in the latter case it would be as well to ascertain by whom he intends to have it furnished. a little discussion on upholstery is so specially fascinating to my readers! then, naturally, i am desirous to learn how the erroneous rumor of his death was first started, . . whether in the course of his travels he met with some serious accident, or illness, which gave rise to the report. now,"--and she shut her note-book and folded her hands,--"i don't mind waiting an hour or more if necessary,--but i am sure if you will tell mr. alwyn who i am, and what i have come for, he will be only too delighted to see me with as little delay as possible." she ceased. villiers drew a long breath,--his compressed lips parted in a slightly sarcastic smile. squaring his shoulders with that peculiar pugnacious gesture of his which always indicated to those who knew him well that his mind was made up, and that nothing would induce him to alter it, he said in a tone of stiff civility: "i am sorry, madam, . . very sorry! ... but i am compelled to inform you that your visit here is entirely useless! were i to tell my friend of the purpose you have in view concerning him, he would not feel so much flattered as you seem to imagine, but rather insulted! excuse my frankness,--you have spoken plainly,--i must speak plainly too. provision dealers and sensational story writers may find that it serves their purpose to be interviewed, if only as a means of gaining extra advertisement, but a truly great and conscientious author like theos alwyn is quite above all that sort of thing." the lady raised her pale eyebrows with an expression of interrogative scorn. "above all that sort of thing!" she echoed incredulously--"dear me! how very extraordinary! i have always found all our celebrities so exceedingly pleased to be given a little additional notoriety! ... and i should have thought a poet," this with much depreciative emphasis--"would have been particularly glad of the chance! because, of course you know that unless a very astonishing success is made, as in the case of mr. alwyn's 'nourhalma,' people really take such slight interest in writers of verse, that it is hardly ever worth while interviewing them!" "precisely!" agreed villiers ironically,--"the private history of a prize-fighter would naturally be much more thrilling!" he paused,--his temper was fast rising, but, quickly reflecting that, after all, the indignation he felt was not so much against his visitor as against the system she represented, he resumed quietly, "may i ask you, madam, whether you have ever 'interviewed' her majesty the queen?" her glance swept slightingly over him. "certainly not! such a thing would be impossible!" "then you have never thought," went on villiers, with a thrill of earnestness in his manly, vibrating voice--"that it might be quite as impossible to 'interview' a great poet?--who, if great indeed, is in every way as royal as any sovereign that ever adorned a throne! i do not speak of petty verse-writers,--i say a great poet, by which term i imply a great creative genius who is honestly faithful to his high vocation. such an one could no more tell you his methods of work than a rainbow could prattle about the way it shines,--and as for his personal history, i should like to know by what right society is entitled to pry into the sacred matters of a man's private life, simply because he happens to be famous? i consider the modern love of prying and probing into other people's affairs a most degrading and abominable sign of the times,--it is morbid, unwholesome, and utterly contemptible. moreover, i think that writers who consent to be 'interviewed' condemn themselves as literary charlatans, unworthy of the profession they have wrongfully adopted. you see i have the courage of my opinions on this matter,--in fact, i believe, if every one were to speak their honest mind openly, a better state of things might be the result, and 'interviewing' would gradually come to be considered in its true light, namely, as a vulgar and illegitimate method of advertisement. i mean no disrespect to you, madam,"--this, as the lady suddenly put down her veil, thrust her note-book in her pocket, and rose somewhat bouncingly from her chair--"i am only sorry you should find such an occupation as that of the 'interviewer' open to you. i can scarcely imagine such work to be congenial to a lady's feelings, as, in the case of really distinguished personages, she must assuredly meet with many a rebuff! i hope i have not offended you by my bluntness, ... "--here he trailed off into inaudible polite murmurs, while the "tiger-lily" marched steadily toward the door. "oh dear, no, i am not in the least offended!" she retorted contemptuously,--"on the contrary, this has been a most amusing experience!--most amusing, i assure you! and quite unique! why--" and suddenly stopping short, she turned smartly round and gesticulated with one hand ... "i have interviewed all the favorite actors and actresses in london! the biggest brewers in great britain have received me at their country mansions, and have given me all the particulars of their lives from earliest childhood! the author of 'hugger mugger's curse' took the greatest pains to explain to me how he first collected the materials for his design. the author of that most popular story, 'darling's twins,' gave me a description of all the houses he has ever lived in,--he even told me where he purchased his writing-paper, pens, and ink! and to think that a poet should be too grand to be interrogated! oh, the idea is really very funny! ... quite too funny for anything! "she gave a short laugh,--then relapsing into severity, she added ... "you will, i hope, tell mr. alwyn i called?" villiers bowed. "assuredly!" "thank you! because it is possible he may have different opinions to yours,--in that case, if he writes me a line, fixing an appointment, i shall be very pleased to call again. i will leave my card,--and if mr. alwyn is a sensible man, he will certainly hold broader ideas on the subject of 'interviewing' than you appear to entertain. you are quite sure i cannot see him?" "quite!"--there was no mistake about the firm emphasis of this reply. "oh, very well!"--here she opened the door, rattling the handle with rather an unnecessary violence,--"i'm sorry to have taken up any of your time, mr. villiers. good-morning!" "good-morning!" ... returned villiers calmly, touching the bell that his servant might be in readiness to show her out. but the baffled "tiger-lily" was not altogether gone. she looked back, her face wrinkling into one of those strangely unbecoming expressions of grim playfulness. "i've half a mind to make an 'at home' out of you!" she said, nodding at him energetically. "only you're not important enough!" villiers burst out laughing. he was not proof against this touch of humor, and on a sudden good-natured impulse, sprang to the door and shook hands with her. "no, indeed, i am not!" he said, with a charming smile--"think of it!--i haven't even invented a new biscuit! come, let me see you into the hall,--i'm really sorry if i've spoken roughly, but i assure you alwyn's not at all the sort of man you want for interviewing,--he's far too modest and noble-hearted. believe me!--i'm not romancing a bit--i'm in earnest. there are some few fine, manly, gifted fellows left in the world, who do their work for the love of the work alone, and not for the sake of notoriety, and he is one of them. now i'm not certain, if you were quite candid with me, you'd admit that you yourself don't think much of the people who actually like to be interviewed?" his amiable glance, his kindly manner, took the gaunt female by surprise, and threw her quite off her guard. she laughed,--a natural, unforced laugh in which there was not a trace of bitterness. he was really a delightful young man, she thought, in spite of his old-fashioned, out-of-the-way notions! "well, perhaps i don't!" she replied frankly--"but you see it is not my business to think about them at all. i simply 'interview' them,--and i generally find they are very willing, and often eager, to tell me all about themselves, even to quite trifling and unnecessary details. and, of course, each one thinks himself or herself the only or the chief 'celebrity' in london, or, for that matter, in the world. i have always to tone down the egotistical part of it a little, especially with authors, for if i were to write out exactly what they separately say of their contemporaries, it would be simply frightful! they would be all at daggers drawn in no time! i assure you 'interviewing' is often a most delicate and difficult business!" "would it were altogether impossible!" said villiers heartily--"but as long as there is a plethora of little authors, and a scarcity of great ones, so long, i suppose, must it continue--for little men love notoriety, and great ones shrink from it, just in the same way that good women like flattery, while bad ones court it. i hope you don't bear me any grudge because i consider my friend alwyn both good and great, and resent the idea of his being placed, no matter with what excellent intention soever, on the level of the small and mean?" the lady surveyed him with a twinkle of latent approval in her pale-colored eyes. "not in the least!" she replied in a tone of perfect good-humor. "on the contrary, i rather admire your frankness! still, i think, that as matters stand nowadays, you are very odd,--and i suppose your friend is odd too,--but, of course, there must be exceptions to every rule. at the same time, you should recollect that, in many people's opinion, to be 'interviewed' is one of the chiefest rewards of fame!--" villiers shrugged his shoulders expressively. "oh, yes, it seems a poor reward to you, no doubt,"--she continued smilingly,--"but there are no end of authors who would do anything to secure the notoriety of it! now, suppose that, after all, mr. alwyn does care to submit to the operation, you will let me know, won't you?" "certainly i will!"--and villiers, accepting her card, on which was inscribed her own private name and address, shook hands once more, and bowed her courteously out. no sooner had the door closed upon her than he sprang upstairs, three steps at a time, and broke impetuously in upon alwyn, who, seated at a table covered with papers, looked up with a surprised smile at the abrupt fashion of his entrance. in a few minutes he had disburdened himself of the whole story of the "tiger-lily's" visit, telling it in a whimsical way of his own, much to the amusement of his friend, who listened, pen in hand, with a half-laughing, half-perplexed light in his fine, poetic eyes. "now did i express the proper opinion?" he demanded in conclusion. "was i not right in thinking you would never consent to be interviewed?" "right? why of course you were!"--responded alwyn quickly. "can you imagine me calmly stating the details of my personal life and history to a strange woman, and allowing her to turn it into a half-guinea article for some society journal! but, villiers, what an extraordinary state of things we are coming to, if the press can actually condescend to employ a sort of spy, or literary detective, to inquire into the private experience of each man or woman who comes honorably to the front!" "honorably or dishonorably,--it doesn't matter which,"--said villiers, "that is just the worst of it. one day it is an author who is 'interviewed,' the next it is a murderer,--now a statesman,--then a ballet dancer,--the same honor is paid to all who have won any distinct notoriety. and what is so absurd is, that the reading million don't seem able to distinguish between 'notoriety' and 'fame.' the two things are so widely, utterly apart! byron's reputation, for instance, was much more notoriety during his life than fame--while keats had actually laid hold on fame while as yet deeming himself unfamous. it's curious, but true, nevertheless, that very often the writers who thought least of themselves during their lifetime have become the most universally renowned after their deaths. shakespeare, i dare say, had no very exaggerated idea of the beauty of his own plays,--he seems to have written just the best that was in him, without caring what anybody thought of it. and i believe that is the only way to succeed in the end." "in the end!" repeated alwyn dreamily--"in the end, no worldly success is worth attaining,--a few thousand years and the greatest are forgotten!" "not the greatest,"--said villiers warmly--"the greatest must always be remembered." "no, my friend!--not even the greatest! do you not think there must have been great and wise and gifted men in tyre, in sidon, in carthage, in babylon?--there are five men mentioned in scripture, as being 'ready to write swiftly'--sarea, dabria, selemia, ecanus, and ariel--where is the no doubt admirable work done by these? perhaps ... who knows? ... one of them was as great as homer in genius,--we cannot tell!" "true,--we cannot tell!" responded villiers meditatively--"but, alwyn, if you persist in viewing things through such tremendous vistas of time, and in measuring the future by the past, then one may ask what is the use of anything?" "there is no use in anything, except in the making of a strong, persistent, steady effort after good," said alwyn earnestly ... "we men are cast, as it were, between two swift currents, wrong and right,--self and god,--and it seems more easy to shut our eyes and drift into self and wrong, than to strike out brave arms, and swim, despite all difficulty, toward god and right, yet if we once take the latter course, we shall find it the most natural and the least fatiguing. and with every separate stroke of high endeavor we carry others with us,--we raise our race,--we bear it onward,--upward! and the true reward, or best result of fame, is, that having succeeded in winning brief attention from the multitude, a man may be able to pronounce one of god's lightning messages of inspired truth plainly to them, while they are yet willing to stand and listen. this momentary hearing from the people is, as i take it, the sole reward any writer can dare to hope for,--and when he obtains it, he should remember that his audience remains with him but a very short while,--so that it is his duty to see that he employ his chance well, not to win applause for himself, but to cheer and lift others to noble thought, and still more noble fulfilment." villiers regarded him wistfully. "alwyn, my dear fellow, do you want to be the sisyphus of this era?--you will find the stone of evil heavy to roll upward,--moreover, it will exhibit the usually painful tendency to slip back and crush you!" "how can it crush me?" asked his friend with a serene smile. "my heart cannot be broken, or my spirit dismayed, and as for my body, it can but die,--and death comes to every man! i would rather try to roll up the stone, however fruitless the task, than sit idly looking at it, and doing nothing!" "your heart cannot be broken? ah! how do you know" ... and villiers shook his head dubiously--"what man can be certain of his own destiny?" "everyman can will his own destiny,"--returned alwyn firmly. "that is just it. but here we are getting into a serious discussion, and i had determined to talk no more on such subjects till to-night." "and to-night we are to go in for them thoroughly, i suppose?"--inquired villiers with a quick look. "to-night, my dear boy, you will have to decide whether you consider me mad or sane," said alwyn cheerfully--"i shall tell you truths that seem like romances--and facts that sound like fables,--moreover, i shall have to assure you that miracles do happen whenever god chooses, in spite of all human denial of their possibility. do you remember whately's clever skit--'historical doubts of napoleon i'?--showing how easy it was to logically prove that napoleon never existed?--that ought to enlighten people as to the very precise and convincing manner in which we can, if we choose, argue away what is nevertheless an incontestible fact. thus do skeptics deny miracles--yet we live surrounded by miracles! ... do you think me crazed for saying so?" villiers laughed. "crazed! no, indeed!--i wish every man in london were as sane and sound as you are!" "ah, but wait till to-night!" and alwyn's eyes sparkled mirthfully--"perhaps you will alter your opinion then!"--here, collecting his scattered manuscripts, he put them by--"i've done work for the present,"--he said--"shall we go for a walk somewhere?" villiers assented, and they left the room together. chapter xxxv. one against many. the beautiful and socially popular duchess de la santoisie sat her at brilliantly appointed dinner-table, and flashed her bright eyes comprehensively round the board,--her party was complete. she had secured twenty of the best-known men and women of letters in all london, and yet she was not quite satisfied with the result attained. one dark, splendid face on her right hand had taken the lustre out of all the rest,--one quiet, courteous smile on a mouth haughty, yet sweet, had somehow or other made the entertainment of little worth in her own estimation. she was very fair to look upon, very witty, very worldly-wise,--but for once her beauty seemed to herself defective and powerless to charm, while the graceful cloak of social hypocrisy she was always accustomed to wear would not adapt itself to her manner tonight so well as usual. the author of "nourhalma" the successful poet whose acquaintance she had very eagerly sought to make, was not at all the kind of man she had expected,--and now, when he was beside her as her guest, she did not quite know what to do with him. she had met plenty of poets, so called, before,--and had, for the most part, found them insignificant looking men with an enormous opinion of themselves, and a suave, condescending contempt for all others of their craft; but this being,--this stately, kingly creature with the noble head, and far-gazing, luminous eyes,--this man, whose every gesture was graceful, whose demeanor was more royal than that of many a crowned monarch,--whose voice had such a singular soft thrill of music in its tone,--he was a personage for whom she had not been prepared,--and in whose presence she felt curiously embarrassed and almost ill at ease. and she was not the only one present who experienced these odd sensations. alwyn's appearance, when, with his friend villiers, he had first entered the duchess's drawing-room that evening, and had there been introduced to his hostess, had been a sort of revelation to the languid, fashionable guests assembled; sudden quick whispers were exchanged--surprised glances,--how unlike he was to the general type of the nervous, fagged, dyspeptic "literary" man! and now that every one was seated at dinner, the same impression remained on all,--an impression that was to some disagreeable and humiliating, and that yet could not be got over,--namely, that this "poet," whom, in a way, the duchess and her friends had intended to patronize, was distinctly superior to them all. nature, as though proud of her handiwork, proclaimed him as such,--while he, quite unconscious of the effect he produced, wondered why this bevy of human beings, most of whom were more or less distinguished in the world of art and literature, had so little to say for themselves. their conversation was banal,--tame,--ordinary; they might have been well-behaved, elegantly dressed peasants for aught they said of wise, cheerful, or witty. the weather,--the parks,--the theatres,--the newest actress, and the newest remedies for indigestion,--these sort of subjects were bandied about from one to the other with a vaguely tame persistence that was really irritating,--the question of remedies for indigestion seemed to hold ground longest, owing to the variety of opinions expressed thereon. the duchess grew more and more inwardly vexed, and her little foot beat an impatient tattoo under the table, as she replied with careless brevity to a few of the commonplace observations addressed to her, and cast an occasional annoyed glance at her lord, m le duc, a thin, military-looking individual, with a well waxed and pointed mustache, whose countenance suggested an admirably executed mask. it was a face that said absolutely nothing,--yet beneath its cold impassiveness linked the satyr-like, complex, half civilized, half brutish mind of the born and bred parisian,--the goblin-creature with whom pure virtues, whether in man or woman, are no more sacred than nuts to a monkey. the suave charm of a polished civility sat on m le due's smooth brow, and beamed in his urbane smile,--his manners were exquisite, his courtesy irreproachable, his whole demeanor that of a very precise and elegant master of deportment. yet, notwithstanding his calm and perfectly self-possessed exterior, he was, oddly enough, the frequent prey of certain extraordinary and ungovernable passions; there were times when he became impossible to himself,--and when, to escape from his own horrible thoughts, he would plunge headlong into an orgie of wild riot and debauchery, such as might have made the hair of his respectable english acquaintances stand on end, had they known to what an extent he carried his excesses. but at these seasons of moral attack, he "went abroad for his health," as he said, delicately touching his chest in order to suggest some interesting latent weakness there, and in these migratory excursions his wife never accompanied him, nor did she complain of his absence. when he returned, after two or three months, he looked more the "chevalier sans peur et sans reproche" than ever; and neither he, nor the fair partner of his joys and sorrows, even committed such a breach of politeness as to inquire into each other's doings during the time of their separation. so they jogged on together, presenting the most delightful outward show of wedded harmony to the world,--and only a few were found to hazard the remark, that the "racy" novels madame la duchesse wrote to wile away her duller hours were singularly "bitter" in tone, for a woman whose lot in life was so extremely enviable! on this particular evening, the duke affected to be utterly unconscious of the meaning looks his beautiful spouse shot at him every now and then,--looks which plainly said--"why don't you start some interesting subject of conversation, and stop these people from talking such every-day twaddle?" he was a clever man in his way, and his present mood was malign and mischievous; therefore he went on eating daintily, and discussing mild platitudes in the most languidly amiable manner imaginable, enjoying to the full the mental confusion and discomfort of his guests,--confusion and discomfort which, as he very well knew, was the psychological result of their having one in their midst whose life and character were totally opposite to, and distinctly separate from, their own. as emerson truly says, "let the world beware when a thinker comes into it!".. and here was this thinker,--this type of the godlike in man,--this uncomfortably sincere personage, whose eyes were clear of falsehood, whose genius was incontestable, whose fame had taken society by assault, and who, therefore, was entitled to receive every attention and consideration. everybody had desired to see him, and here he was,--the great man, the new "celebrity"--and now that he was actually present, no one knew what to say to him; moreover, there was a very general tendency in the company to avoid his direct gaze. people fidgeted on their chairs and looked aside or downward, whenever his glance accidentally fell on them,--and to the analytical voltairean mind of m. le duc there was something grimly humorous in the whole situation. he was a great admirer of physical strength and beauty, and alwyn's noble face and fine figure had won his respect, though of the genius of the poet he knew nothing, and cared less. it was enough for all the purposes of social usage that the author of "nourhalma" was considered illustrious,--no matter whether he deserved the appellation or not. and so the duke, satirically amused at the obvious embarrassment of the other "notabilities" assembled, did nothing whatsoever to relieve or to lighten the conversation, which remained so utterly dull and inane that alwyn, who had been compelled, for politeness' sake, to appear interested in the account of a bicycle race detailed to him by a very masculine looking lady-doctor whose seat at table was next his own, began to feel a little weary, and to wonder dismally how long this "feast of reason and flow of soul" was going to last. villiers, too, whose easy, good-natured, and clever talk generally gave some sparkle and animation to the dreariest social gathering, was to-night unusually taciturn:--he was bored by his partner, a middle-aged woman with a mania for philology, and, moreover, his thoughts, like those of most of the persons present, were centered on alwyn, whom every now and then he regarded with a certain wistful wonder and reverence. he had heard the whole story of the field of ardath; and he knew not how much to accept of it as true, or how much to set down to his friend's ardent imagination. he had come to a fairly logical explanation of the whole matter,--namely, that as the city of al-kyris had been proved a dream, so surely the visit of the angel-maiden edris must have been a dream likewise,--that the trance at the monastery of dariel, followed by the constant reading of the passages from esdras, and the treatise of algazzali, had produced a vivid impression on alwyn's susceptible brain, which had resolved itself into the visionary result narrated. he found in this the most practical and probable view of what must otherwise be deemed by mortal minds incredible; and, being a frank and honest fellow, he had not scrupled to openly tell his friend what he thought. alwyn had received his remarks with the most perfect sweetness and equanimity,--but, all the same, had remained unchanged in his opinion as to the reality of his betrothal to his angel-love in heaven. and one or two points had certainly baffled villiers, and perplexed him in his would-be precise analysis of the circumstances: first, there was the remarkable change in alwyn's own nature. from an embittered, sarcastic, disappointed, violently ambitious man, he had become softened, gracious, kindly,--showing the greatest tenderness and forethought for others, even in small, every-day trifles; while for himself he took no care. he wore his fame as lightly as a child might wear a flower, just plucked and soon to fade,--his intelligence seemed to expand itself into a broad, loving, sympathetic comprehension of the wants and afflictions of human-kind; and he was writing a new poem, of which villiers had seen some lines that had fairly amazed him by their grandeur of conception and clear passion of utterance. thus it was evident there was no morbidness in him,--no obscurity,--nothing eccentric,--nothing that removed him in any way from his fellows, except that royal personality of his,--that strong, beautiful, well-balanced spirit in him, which exercised such a bewildering spell on all who came within its influence, he believed himself loved by an angel! well,--if there were angels, why not? villiers argued the proposition thus: "whether we are christians, jews, buddhists, or mahometans, we are supposed to accept angels as forming part of the system of our faith. if we are nothing,--then, of course, we believe in nothing. but granted we are something, then we are bound in honor, if consistent, to acknowledge that angels help to guide our destinies. and if, as we are assured by holy writ, such loftier beings do exist, why should they not communicate with, and even love, human creatures, provided those human creatures are worthy of their tenderness? certainly, viewed by all the chief religions of the world, there is nothing new or outrageous in the idea of an angel descending to the help of man." such thoughts as these were in his mind now, as he ever and anon glanced across the glittering table, with its profusion of lights and flowers, to where his poet-friend sat, slightly leaning back in his chair, with a certain half-perplexed, half-disappointed expression on his handsome features, though his eyes brightened into a smile as he caught villiers's look, and he gave the smallest, scarcely perceptible shrug, as who should say, "is this your brilliant duchess?--your witty and cultured society?" villiers flashed back an amused, responsive glance, and then conscientiously strove to pay more attention to the irrepressible feminine philologist beside him, determining to take her, as he said to himself, by way of penance for his unremembered sins. after a while there came one of those extraordinary, sudden rushes of gabble that often occur at even the stiffest dinner-party,--a galloping race of tongues, in which nothing really distinct is heard, but in which each talks to the other as though moved by an impulse of sheer desperation. this burst of noise was a relief after the strained murmurs of trite commonplaces that had hitherto been the order of the hour, and the fair duchess, somewhat easier in her mind, turned anew to alwyn, with greater grace and gentleness of manner than she had yet shown. "i am afraid," she said smilingly, "you must find us all very stupid after your travels abroad? in england we are dull,--our tristesse cannot be denied. but, really, the climate is responsible,--we want more sunshine. i suppose in the east, where the sun is so warm and bright, the people are always cheerful?" "on the contrary, i have found them rather serious and contemplative than otherwise," returned alwyn,--"yet their gravity is certainly of a pleasant, and not of a forbidding type. i don't myself think the sun has much to do with the disposition of man, after all,--i fancy his temperament is chiefly moulded by the life he leads. in the east, for instance, men accept their existence as a sort of divine command, which they obey cheerfully, yet with a consciousness of high responsibility:--on the continent they take it as a bagatelle, lightly won, lightly lost, hence their indifferent, almost childish, gayety;--but in great britain"--and he smiled,--"it looks nowadays as if it were viewed very generally as a personal injury and bore,--a kind of title bestowed without the necessary money to keep it up! and this money people set themselves steadily to obtain, with many a weary grunt and groan, while they are, for the most part, forgetful of anything else life may have to offer." "but what is life without plenty of money?" inquired the duchess carelessly--"surely, not worth the trouble of living!" alwyn looked at her steadily, and a swift flush colored her smooth cheek. she toyed with the magnificent diamond spray at her breast, and wondered what strange spell was in this man's brilliant gray-black eyes!--did he guess that she--even she--had sold herself to the duc de la santoisie for the sake of his money and title as easily and unresistingly as though she were a mere purchasable animal? "that is an argument i would rather not enter into," he said gently--"it would lead us too far. but i am convinced, that whether dire poverty or great riches be our portion, life, considered apart from its worldly appendages, is always worth living, if lived well." "pray, how can you separate life from its worldly appendages?"--inquired a satirical-looking gentleman opposite--"life is the world, and the things of the world; when we lose sight of the world, we lose ourselves,--in short, we die,--and the world is at an end, and we with it. that's plain practical philosophy." "possibly it may be called philosophy"--returned alwyn--"it is not christianity." "oh, christianity!"--and the gentleman gave a portentous sniff of contempt--"that is a system of faith that is rapidly dying out; fast falling into contempt!--in fact, with the scientific and cultured classes, it is already an exploded doctrine." "indeed!"--alwyn's glance swept over him with a faint, cold scorn --"and what religion do the scientific and cultured classes propose to invent as a substitute?" "there's no necessity for any substitute,"--said the gentleman rather impatiently.. for those who want to believe in something supernatural, there are plenty of different ideas afloat, esoteric buddhism for example,--and what is called scientific religion and natural religion,--any, or all, of these are sufficient to gratify the imaginative cravings of the majority, till they have been educated out of imagination altogether:--but, for advanced thinkers, religion is really not required at all." [footnote: the world is indebted to mr. andrew lang for the newest "logical" explanation of the religious instinct in man:--namely, that the very idea of god first arose from the terror and amazement of an ape at the sound of the thunder! so choice and soul-moving a definition of deity needs no comment!] "nay, i think we must worship something!" retorted alwyn, a fine satire in his rich voice, "if it be only self!--self is an excellent deity!--accommodating, and always ready to excuse sin,--why should we not build temples, raise altars, and institute services to the glory and honor of self?--perhaps the time is ripe for a public proclamation of this creed?--it will be easily propagated, for the beginnings of it are in the heart of every man, and need very little fostering!" his thrilling tone, together with the calm, half-ironical persuasiveness of his manner, sent a sudden hush down the table. every one turned eagerly toward him,--some amused, some wondering, some admiring, while villiers felt his heart beating with uncomfortable quickness,--he hated religious discussions, and always avoided them, and now here was alwyn beginning one, and he the centre of a company of persons who were for the most part avowed agnostics, to whose opinions his must necessarily be in direct and absolute opposition! at the same time, he remembered that those who were sure of their faith never lost their temper about it,--and as he glanced at his friend's perfectly serene and coldly smiling countenance, he saw there was no danger of his letting slip, even for a moment, his admirable power of self-command. the duc de la santoisie, meanwhile, settling his mustache, and gracefully waving one hand, on which sparkled a large diamond ring, bent forward a little with a courteous, deprecatory gesture. "i think"--he said, in soft, purring accents,--"that my friend, dr. mudley"--here he bowed toward the saturnine looking individual who had entered into conversation with alwyn--"takes a very proper, and indeed a very lofty, view of the whole question. the moral sense"--and he laid a severely weighty emphasis on these words,--"the moral sense of each man, if properly trained, is quite sufficient to guide him through existence, without any such weakness as reliance on a merely supposititious deity." the duke's french way of speaking english was charming; he gave an expressive roll to his r's, especially when he said "the moral sense," that of itself almost carried conviction. his wife smiled as she heard him, and her smile was not altogether pleasant. perhaps she wondered by what criterion of excellence he measured his own "moral sense," or whether, despite his education and culture, he had any "moral sense" at all, higher than that of the pig, who eats to be eaten! but alwyn spoke, and she listened intently, finding a singular fascination in the soft and quiet modulation of his voice, which gave a vaguely delicious suggestion of music underlying speech. "to guide people by their moral sense alone"--he said--"you must first prove plainly to them that the moral sense exists, together with moral responsibility. you will find this difficult,--as the virtue implied is intangible, unseeable;--one cannot say of it, lo here!--or lo there!--it is as complicated and subtle as any other of the manifestations of pure spirit. then you must decide on one universal standard, or reasonable conception of what 'morality' is. again, you are met by a crowd of perplexities,--as every nation, and every tribe, has a totally different idea of the same thing. in some countries it is 'moral' to have many wives; in others, to drown female children; in others, to solemnly roast one's grandparents for dinner! supposing, however, that you succeed, with the aid of all the philosophers, teachers, and scientists, in drawing up a practical code of morality--do you not think an enormous majority will be found to ask you by whose authority you set forth this code?--and by what right you deem it necessary to enforce it? you may say, 'by the authority of knowledge and by the right of morality'--but since you admit to there being no spiritual or divine inspiration for your law, you will be confronted by a legion of opponents who will assure you, and probably with perfect justice, that their idea of morality is as good as yours, and their knowledge as excellent,--that your code appears to them faulty in many respects, and that, therefore, they purpose making another one, more suited to their liking. thus, out of your one famous moral system would spring thousands of others, formed to gratify the various tastes of different individuals, precisely in the same manner as sects have sprung out of the wholly unnecessary and foolish human arguments on christianity;--only that there would lack the one indestructible, pure selfless example that even the most quarrelsome bigot must inwardly respect,--namely, christ himself. and 'morality' would remain exactly where it is:--neither better nor worse for all the trouble taken concerning it. it needs something more than the 'moral' sense to rightly ennoble man,--it needs the spiritual sense;--the fostering of the instinctive immortal aspiration of the creature, to make him comprehend the responsibility of his present life, as a preparation for his higher and better destiny. the cultured, the scholarly, the ultra-refined, may live well and uprightly by their 'moral sense,'--if they so choose, provided they have some great ideal to measure themselves by,--but even these, without faith in god, may sometimes slip, and fall into deeper depths of ruin than they dreamed of, when self-centred on those heights of virtue where they fancied themselves exempt from danger." he paused,--there was a curious stillness in the room,--many eyes were lowered, and m. le duc's composure was evidently not quite so absolute as usual. "taken at its best"--he continued--"the world alone is certainly not worth fighting for;--we see the fact exemplified every day in the cases of those who, surrounded by all that a fair fortune can bestow upon them, deliberately hurl themselves out of existence by their own free will and act,--indeed, suicide is a very general accompaniment of agnosticism. and self-slaughter, though it may be called madness, is far more often the result of intellectual misery." "of course, too much learning breeds brain disease"--remarked dr. mudley sententiously--"but only in weak subjects,--and in my opinion the weak are better out of the world. we've no room for them nowadays." "you say truly, sir,"--replied alwyn--"we have no room for them, and no patience! they show themselves feeble, and forthwith the strong oppress them;--they can hope for little comfort here, and less help. it is well, therefore, that some of these 'weak' should still believe in god, since they can certainly pin no faith on the justice of their fellow-man! but i cannot agree with you that much learning breeds brain disease. provided the learning be accompanied by a belief in the supreme wisdom,--provided every step of study be taken upward toward that source of all knowledge,--one cannot learn too much, since hope increases with discernment, and on such food the brain grows stronger, healthier, and more capable of high effort. but dispense with the spirit of the whole, and every movement, though it seem forward, is in truth backward;--study involves bewilderment,--science becomes a reeling infinitude of atoms, madly whirling together for no purpose save death, or, at the best, incessant change, in which mortal life is counted as nothing:--and nature frowns at us, a vast question, to which there is no answer,--an incomprehensible force, against which wretched man, gifted with all manner of splendid and godlike capacities, battles forever and forever in vain! this is the terrible material lesson you would have us learn to-day, the lesson that maddens pupil and teacher alike, and has not a glimmer of consolation to offer to any living soul! what a howling wilderness this world would be if given over entirely to materialism!--scarce a line of division could be drawn between men and the brute beasts of the field! i consider,--though possibly i am only one among many of widely differing opinion,--that if you take the hope of an after-joy and blessedness away from the weary, perpetually toiling million, you destroy at one wanton blow their best, purest, and noblest aspirations. as for the christian religion, i cannot believe that so grand and holy a symbol is perishing among us,--we have a monarch whose title is 'defender of the faith,'--we live in an age of civilization which is primarily the result of that faith,--and if, as this gentleman assures me,"--and he made a slight, courteous inclination toward his opposite neighbor--"christianity is exploded,--then certainly the greatness of this hitherto great nation is exploding with it! but i do not think that because a few skeptics uplift their wailing 'all is vanity' from their self-created desert of agnosticism, therefore the majority of men and women are turning renegades from the simplest, most humane, most unselfish creed that ever the world has known. it may be so,--but, at present, i prefer to trust in the higher spiritual instincts of man at his best, rather than accept the testimony of the lesser unbelieving against the greater many, whose strength, comfort, patience, and endurance, if these virtues come not from god, come not at all." his forcible, incisive manner of speaking, together with his perfect equanimity and concise clearness of argument, had an evident effect on those who listened. here was no rampant fanatic for particular forms of doctrine or pietism,--here was a man who stated his opinions calmly, frankly, and with an absolute setting-forth of facts which could scarcely be denied,--a man, who firmly grounded himself, made no attempt to force any one's belief, but who simply took a large view of the whole, and saw, as it were in a glance, what the world might become without faith in a divine cause and principle of creation. and once grant this divine cause and principle to be actually existent, then all other divine and spiritual things become possible, no matter how impossible they seem to dull mortal comprehension. a brief pause followed his words,--a pause of vague embarrassment. the duchess was the first to break it. "you have very noble ideas, mr. alwyn,"--she said with a faint, wavering smile--"but i am afraid your conception of things, both human and divine, is too exalted, and poetically imaginative, to be applied to our every-day life. we cannot close our ears to the thunders of science,--we cannot fail to perceive that we mortals are of as small account in the plan of the universe as grains of sand on the seashore. it is very sad that so it should be, and yet so it is! and concerning christianity, the poor system has been so belabored of late with hard blows, that it is almost a wonder it still breathes. there is no end to the books that have been written disproving and denouncing it,--moreover, we have had the subject recently treated in a novel which excites our sympathies in behalf of a clergyman, who, overwhelmed by scholarship, finds he can no longer believe in the religion he is required to teach, and who renounces his living in consequence. the story is in parts pathetic,--it has had a large circulation,--and numbers of people who never doubted their creed before, certainly doubt it now." alwyn shrugged his shoulders. "faith uprooted by a novel!" he said--"alas, poor faith! it could never have been well established at any time, to be so easy of destruction! no book in the world, whether of fact or fiction, could persuade me either to or from the consciousness of what my own individual spirit instinctively knows. faith cannot be taught or forced,--neither, if true, can it be really destroyed,--it is a god-born, god-fostered intuition, immortal as god himself. the ephemeral theories set forth in books should not be able to influence it by so much as a hair's breadth." "truth is, however, often conveyed through the medium of fiction,"--observed dr. mudley--"and the novel alluded to was calculated to disturb the mind, and arouse trouble in the heart of many an ardent believer. it was written by a woman." "nay, then"--said alwyn quickly, with a darkening flash in his eyes,--"if women give up faith, let the world prepare for strange disaster! good, god-loving women,--women who pray,--women who hope,--women who inspire men to do the best that is in them,--these are the safety and glory of nations! when women forget to kneel,--when women cease to teach their children the 'our father,' by whose grandly simple plea humanity claims divinity as its origin,--then shall we learn what is meant by 'men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.' a woman who denies christ repudiates him, who, above all others, made her sex as free and honored as everywhere in christendom it is. he never refused woman's prayer,--he had patience for her weakness,--pardon for her sins,--and any book written by woman's hand that does him the smallest shadow of wrong is to me as gross an act, as that of one who, loaded with benefits, scruples not to murder his benefactor!" the duchess de la santoisie moved uneasily,--there was a vibration in alwyn's voice that went to her very heart. strange thoughts swept cloud-like across her mind,--again she saw in fancy a little fair, dead child that she had loved,--her only one, on whom she had spent all the tenderness of which her nature was capable. it had died at the prettiest age of children,--the age of lisping speech and softly tottering feet, when a journey from the protecting background of a wall to outstretched maternal arms seems fraught with dire peril to the tiny adventurer, and is only undertaken with the help of much coaxing, sweet laughter, and still sweeter kisses. she remembered how, in spite of her "free" opinions, she had found it impossible not to teach her little one a prayer;--and a sudden mist of tears blurred her sight, as she recollected the child's last words,--words uttered plaintively in the death grasp of a cruel fever, "suffer me.. to come to thee!"--a quick sigh escaped her lips,--the diamonds on her breast heaved restlessly,--lifting her eyes, grown soft with gentle memory, she encountered those of alwyn, and again she asked herself, could he read her thoughts? his steadfast gaze seemed to encompass her, and absorb in a grave, compassionate earnestness the entire comprehension of her life. her husband's polite, mellifluous accents roused her from this half-reverie. "i confess i am surprised, mr. alwyn,"--he was saying--"that you, a man of such genius and ability, should be still in the leading strings of the church!" "there is no church"--returned alwyn quietly,--"the world is waiting for one! the alpha beta of christianity has been learned and recited more or less badly by the children of men for nearly two thousand years,--the actual grammar and meaning of the whole language has yet to be deciphered. there have been, and are, what are called churches,--one especially, which, if it would bravely discard mere vulgar superstition, and accept, absorb, and use the discoveries of science instead, might, and possibly will, blossom into the true, universal, and pure christian fabric. meanwhile, in the shaking to and fro of things,--the troublous sifting of the wheat from the chaff,--we must be content to follow by the way of the cross as best we can. christianity has fallen into disrepute, probably because of the self-renunciation it demands,--for, in this age, the primal object of each individual is manifestly to serve self only. it is a wrong road,--a side-lane that leads nowhere,--and we shall inevitably have to turn back upon it and recover the right path--if not now, why then hereafter!" his voice had a tremor of pain within it;--he was thinking of the millions of men and women who were voluntarily wandering astray into a darkness they did not dream of,--and his heart, the great, true heart of the poet, became filled with an indescribable passion of yearning. "no wonder," he mused--"no wonder that christ came hither for the sake of love! to rescue, to redeem, to save, to bless! ... o divine sympathy for sorrow! if i--a man--can feel such aching pity for the woes of others, how vast, how limitless, how tender, must be the pity of god!" and his eyes softened,--he almost forgot his surroundings. he was entirely unaware of the various deep and wistful emotions he had wakened in the hearts of his hearers. there was a great attractiveness in him that he was not conscious of,--and while all present certainly felt that he, though among them, was not of them, they were at the same time curiously moved by an impression that notwithstanding his being, as it were, set apart from their ways of existence, his sympathetic influence surrounded them as resistlessly as a pure atmosphere in which they drew long refreshing breaths of healthier life. "i should like,"--suddenly said a bearded individual who was seated half-way down the table, and who had listened attentively to everything--"i should like to tell you a few things about esoteric buddhism!--i am sure it is a faith that would suit you admirably!" alwyn smiled, courteously enough. "i shall be happy to hear your views on the subject, sir," he answered gently--"but i must tell you that before i left england for the east, i had studied that theory, together with many others that were offered as substitutes for christianity, and i found it totally inadequate to meet the highest demands of the spiritual intelligence. i may also add, that i have read carefully all the principal works against religion,--from the treatises of the earliest skeptics down to voltaire and others of our own day. moreover, i had, not so very long ago, rejected the christian faith; that i now accept and adhere to it, is not the result of my merit or attainment,--but simply the outcome of an undeserved blessing and singularly happy fortune." "pardon me, mr. alwyn"--said madame de la santoisie with a sweet smile--"by all the laws of nature i must contradict you there! your fame and fortune must needs be the reward of merit,--since true happiness never comes to the undeserving." alwyn made no reply,--inasmuch as to repudiate the idea of personal merit too warmly is, as such matters are judged nowadays, suggestive of more conceit than modesty. he skilfully changed the conversation, and it glided off by degrees into various other channels,--music, art, science, and the political situation of the hour. the men and women assembled, as though stimulated and inspired by some new interest, now strove to appear at their very best--and the friction of intellect with intellect resulted in more or less brilliancy of talk, which, for once, was totally free from the flippant and mocking spirit which usually pervaded the santoisie social circle. on all the subjects that came up for discussion alwyn proved himself thoroughly at home--and m. le duc, sitting in a silence that was most unwonted with him, became filled with amazement to think that this man, so full of fine qualities and intellectual abilities, should be actually a christian!--the thing was quite incongruous, or seemed so to the ironical wit of the born and bred parisian,--he tried to consider it absurd,--even laughable,--but his efforts merely resulted in a sense of uneasy personal shame. this poet was, at any rate, a man,--he might have posed for a coriolanus or marc antony;--and there was something supreme about him that could not be sneered down. the dinner, meanwhile, reached its dessert climax, and the duchess rose, giving the customary departing signal to her lady-guests. alwyn hastened to open the door for her, and she passed out, followed by a train of women in rich and rustling costumes, all of whom, as they swept past the kingly figure that with slightly bent head and courteous mien thus paid silent homage to their sex, were conscious of very unusual emotions of respect and reverence. how would it be, some of them thought, if they were more frequently brought into contact with such royal and gracious manhood? would not love then become indeed a hallowed glory, and marriage a true sacrament! was it not possible for men to be the gods of this world, rather than the devils they so often are? such were a few of the questions that flitted dimly through the minds of the society-fagged fair ones that clustered round the duchess de la santoisie, and eagerly discussed alwyn's personal beauty and extraordinary charm of manner. the gentlemen did not absent themselves long, and with their appearance from the dining-room the reception of the evening began. crowds of people arrived and crammed up the stairs, filling every corridor and corner, and alwyn, growing tired of the various introductions and shaking of hands to which he was submitted, managed presently to slip away into a conservatory adjoining the great drawing-room,--a cool, softly lighted place full of flowering azaleas and rare palms. here he sat for a while among the red and white blossoms, listening to the incessant hum of voices, and wondering what enjoyment human beings could find in thus herding together en masse, and chattering all at once as though life depended on chatter, when the rustling of a woman's dress disturbed his brief solitude. he rose directly, as he saw his fair hostess approaching him. "ah, you have fled away from us, mr. alwyn!" she said with a slight smile--"i do not wonder at it. these receptions are the bane of one's social existence." "then why do you give them?"--asked alwyn, half laughingly. "why? oh, because it is the fashion, i suppose!" she answered languidly, leaning against a marble column that supported the towering frondage of a tropical fern, and toying with her fan,--"and i, like others, am a slave to fashion. i have escaped for one moment, but i must go back directly. mr. alwyn ..." she hesitated,--then came straight up to him, and laid her hand upon his arm--"i want to thank you!" "to thank me?" he repeated in surprised accents. "yes!"--she said steadily--"to thank you for what you have said to-night. we live in a dreary age, when no one has much faith or hope, and still less charity,--death is set before us as the final end of all,--and life as lived by most, people is not only not worth living, but utterly contemptible! your clearly expressed opinions have made me think it is possible to do better,"--her lips quivered a little, and her breath came and went quickly,--"and i shall begin to try and find out how this 'better' can be consummated! pray do not think me foolish--" "_i_ think you foolish!" and with gravest courtesy alwyn raised her hand, and touched it gently with his lips, then as gently released it. his action was full of grace,--it implied reverence, trust, honor,--and the duchess looked at him with soft, wet eyes in which a smile still lingered. "if there were more men like you,"--she said suddenly--"what a difference it would make to us women! we should be proud to share the burdens of life with those on whose absolute integrity and strength we could rely,--but, in these days, we do not rely, so much as we despise,--we cannot love, so much as we condemn! you are a poet,--and for you the world takes ideal colors,--for you perchance the very heavens have opened;--but remember that the millions, who, in the present era, are ground down under the heels of the grimmest necessity, have no such glimpses of god as are vouchsafed to you! they are truly in the darkness and shadow of death,--they hear no angel music,--they sit in dungeons, howled at by preachers and teachers who make no actual attempt to lead them into light and liberty,--while we, the so-called 'upper' classes, are imprisoned as closely as they, and crushed by intolerable weights of learning, such as many of us are not fitted to bear. those who aspire heavenwards are hurled to earth,--those who of their own choice cling to death, become so fastened to it, that even if they wished, they could not rise. believe me, you will be sorely disheartened in your efforts toward the highest good,--you will find most people callous, careless, ignorant, and forever scoffing at what they do not, and will not, understand,--you had better leave us to our dust and ashes,"--and a little mirthless laugh escaped her lips,--"for to pluck us from thence now will almost need a second visitation of christ, in whom, if he came, we should probably not believe! moreover, you must not forget that we have read darwin,--and we are so charmed with our monkey ancestors, that we are doing our best to imitate them in every possible way,--in the hope that, with time and patience, we may resolve ourselves back into the original species!" with which bitter sarcasm, uttered half mockingly, half in good earnest, she left him and returned to her guests. not very long afterward, he having sought and found villiers, and suggested to him that it was time to make a move homeward, approached her in company with his friend, and bade her farewell. "i don't think we shall see you often in society, mr. alwyn"--she said, rather wistfully, as she gave him her hand,--"you are too much of a titan among pigmies!" he flushed and waved aside the remark with a few playful words; unlike his former self, if there was anything in the world he shrank from, it was flattery, or what seemed like flattery. once outside the house he drew a long breath of relief, and glanced gratefully up at the sky, bright with the glistening multitude of stars. thank god, there were worlds in that glorious expanse of ether peopled with loftier types of being than what is called humanity! villiers looked at him questioningly: "tired of your own celebrity, alwyn?" he asked, taking him by the arm,--"are the pleasures of fame already exhausted?" alwyn smiled,--he thought of the fame of sah-luma, laureate bard of al-kyris! "nay, if the dream that i told you of had any meaning at all"--he replied--"then i enjoyed and exhausted those pleasures long ago! perhaps that is the reason why my 'celebrity' seems such a poor and tame circumstance now. but i was not thinking of myself,--i was wondering whether, after all, the slight power i have attained can be of much use to others. i am only one against many." "nevertheless, there is an old maxim which says that one hero makes a thousand"--said villiers quietly--"and it is an undeniable fact that the vastest number ever counted, begins at the very beginning with one!" alwyn met his smiling, earnest eyes with a quick, responsive light in his own, and the two friends walked the rest of the way home in silence. chapter xxxvi. heliobas. some few days after the duchess's dinner-party, alwyn was strolling one morning through the park, enjoying to the full the keen, fresh odors of the spring,--odors that even in london cannot altogether lose their sweetness, so long as hyacinths and violets consent to bloom, and almond-trees to flower, beneath the too often unpropitious murkiness of city skies. it had been raining, but now the clouds had rolled off, and the sun shone as brightly as it ever can shine on the english capital, sending sparkles of gold among the still wet foliage, and reviving the little crocuses, that had lately tumbled down in heaps on the grass, like a frightened fairy army put to rout by the onslaught of the recent shower. a blackbird, whose cheery note suggested melodious memories drawn from the heart of the quiet country, was whistling a lively improvisation on the bough of a chestnut-tree, whereof the brown shining buds were just bursting into leaf,--and alwyn, whose every sense was pleasantly attuned to the small, as well as great, harmonies of nature, paused for a moment to listen to the luscious piping of the feathered minstrel, that in its own wild woodland way had as excellent an idea of musical variation as any mozart or chopin. leaning against one of the park benches, with his back turned to the main thoroughfare, he did not observe the approach of a man's tall, stately figure, that, with something of his own light, easy, swinging step, had followed him rapidly along for some little distance, and that now halted abruptly within a pace or two of where he stood,--a man whose fine face and singular distinction of bearing had caused many a passer-by to stare at him in vague admiration, and to wonder who such a regal-looking personage might possibly be. alwyn, however, absorbed in thought, saw no one, and was about to resume his onward walk, when suddenly, as though moved by some instinctive impulse, he turned sharply around, and in so doing confronted the stranger, who straightway advanced, lifting his hat and smiling. one amazed glance,--and then with an ejaculation of wonder, recognition, and delight, alwyn sprang forward and grasped his extended hand. "heliobas!" he exclaimed. "is it possible you are in london!--you, of all men in the world!" "even so!"--replied heliobas gayly--"and why not? am i incongruous, and out of keeping with the march of modern civilization?" alwyn looked at him half-bewildered, half-incredulous,--he could hardly believe his own eyes. it seemed such an altogether amazing thing to meet this devout and grave chaldean philosopher, this mystic monk of the caucasus, here in the very centre, as it were, of the world's business, traffic, and pleasure; one might as well have expected to find a haloed saint in the whirl of a carnival masquerade! incongruous? out of keeping?--yes, certainly he was,--for though clad in the plain, conventional garb to which the men of the present day are doomed by the fiat of commerce and custom, the splendid dignity and picturesqueness of his fine personal appearance was by no means abated, and it was just this that marked him out, and made of him as wonderful a figure in london as though some god or evangelist should suddenly pass through a wilderness of chattering apes and screaming vultures. "but how and when did you come?"--asked alwyn presently, recovering from his first glad shock of surprise--"you see how genuine is my astonishment,--why, i thought you were a perpetually vowed recluse,--that you never went into the world at all, ..." "neither i do"--rejoined heliobas--"save when strong necessity demands. but our order is not so 'inclosed' that, if duty calls, we cannot advance to its beckoning, and there are certain times when both i and those of my fraternity mingle with men in common, undistinguished from the ordinary inhabitants of cities either by dress, customs, or manners,--as you see!"--and he laughingly touched his overcoat, the dark rough cloth of which was relieved by a broad collar and revers of rich sealskin,--"would you not take me for a highly respectable brewer, par example, conscious that his prowess in the making of beer has entitled him, not only to an immediate seat in parliament, but also to a dukedom in prospective?" alwyn, smiled at the droll inapplicability of this comparison,--and heliobas cheerfully continued--"i am on the wing just now,--bound for mexico. i had business in london, and arrived here two days since,--two days more will see me again en voyage. i am glad to have met you thus by chance, for i did not know your address, and though i might have obtained that through your publishers, i hesitated about it, not being quite certain as to whether a letter or visit from me might be welcome." "surely,"--began alwyn, and then he paused, a flush rising to his brow as he remembered how obstinately he had doubted and suspected this man's good faith and intention toward him, and how he had even received his farewell benediction at dariel with more resentment than gratitude. "everywhere i hear great things of you, mr. alwyn,"--went on heliobas gently, taking no notice of his embarrassment--"your fame is now indeed unquestionable! with all my heart i congratulate you, and wish you long life and health to enjoy the triumph of your genius!" alwyn smiled, and turning, fixed his clear, soft eyes full on the speaker. "i thank you!" he said simply,--"but, ... you, who have such a quick instinctive comprehension of the minds and characters of men,--judge for yourself whether i attach any value to the poor renown i have won,--renown that i once would have given my very life to possess!" as he spoke, he stopped,--they were walking down a quiet side-path under the wavering shadow of newly bourgeoning beeches, and a bright shaft of sunshine struck through the delicate foliage straight on his serene and handsome countenance. heliobas gave him a swift, keen, observant glance,--in a moment he noticed what a marvellous change had been wrought in the man who, but a few months before, had come to him, a wreck of wasted life,--a wreck that was not only ready, but willing, to drift into downward currents and whirlpools of desperate, godless, blank, and hopeless misery. and now, how completely he was transformed!--health colored his cheeks and sparkled in his eyes; health, both of body and mind, gave that quick brilliancy to his smile, and that easy, yet powerful poise to his whole figure,--while the supreme consciousness of the immortal spirit within him surrounded him with the same indescribable fascination and magnetic attractiveness that distinguished heliobas himself, even as it distinguishes all who have in good earnest discovered and accepted the only true explanation of their individual mystery of being. one steady, flashing look,--and then heliobas silently held out his hand. as silently alwyn clasped it,--and the two men understood each other. all constraint was at an end,--and when they resumed their slow sauntering under the glistening green branches, they were mutually aware that they now held an almost equal rank in the hierarchy of spiritual knowledge, strength, and sympathy. "evidently your adventure to the ruins of babylon was not altogether without results!" said heliobas softly--"your appearance indicates happiness,--is your life at last complete?" "complete?--no!"--and alwyn sighed somewhat impatiently--"it cannot be complete, so long as its best and purest half is elsewhere! my fame is, as you can guess, a mere ephemera,--a small vanishing point, in comparison with the higher ambition i have now in view. listen,--you know nothing of what happened to me on the field of ardath,--i should have written to you perhaps, but it is better to speak--i will tell you all as briefly as i can." and talking in an undertone, with his arm linked through that of his companion, he related the whole strange story of the visitation of edris, the dream of al-kyris, his awakening on the prophet's field at sunrise, and his final renunciation of self at the cross of christ. heliobas listened to him in perfect silence, his eyes alone expressing with what eager interest and attention he followed every incident of the narrative. "and now," said alwyn in conclusion,--"i always try to remember for my own comfort that i left my dead self in the burning ruin of that dream built city of the past,--or seemed to leave it, . . and yet i feel sometimes as if its shadow presence clung to me still! i look in the mirror and see strange, faint reflections of the actual personal attributes of the slain sah-luma,--occasionally these are so strong and distinctly marked that i turn away in anger from my own image! why, i loved that phantasm of a poet in my dream as i must for ages have loved myself to my own utter undoing!--i admired his work with such extravagant fondness, that, thinking of it, i blush for shame at my own thus manifest conceit!--in truth there is only one thing in that pictured character of his, i can for the present judge myself free from,--namely, the careless rejection of true love for false,--the wanton misprisal of a faithful heart, such as niphrata's, whose fair child-face even now often flits before my remorseful memory,--and the evil, sensual passion for a woman whose wickedness was as evident as her beauty was paramount! i could never understand or explain this wilful, headstrong weakness in my shadow-self--it was the one circumstance in my vision that seemed to have little to do with the positive me in its application,--but now i thoroughly grasp the meaning of the lesson conveyed, which is that no man ever really knows himself, or fathoms the depths of his own possible inconsistencies. and as matters stand with me at the present time, i am hemmed in on all sides by difficulties,--for since the modern success of that very anciently composed poem, 'nourhalma'"--and he smiled--"my friends and acquaintances are doing their best to make me think as much of myself as if i were,--well! all that i am not. do what i will, i believe am still an egoist,--nay, i am sure of it,--for even as regards my heavenly saint, edris, i am selfish!" "how so?" asked heliobas, with a grave side-glance of admiration at the thoughtful face and meditative earnest eyes of this poet, this once bitter and blasphemous skeptic, grown up now to a majesty of faith that not all the scorn of men or devils could ever shake again. "i want her!"--he replied, and there was a thrill of pathetic yearning in his voice--"i long for her every moment of the day and night! it seems, too, as if everything combined to encourage this craving in me,--this fond, mad desire to draw her down from her own bright sphere of joy,--down to my arms, my heart, my life! see!"--and he stopped by a bed of white hyacinths, nodding softly in the faint breeze--"even those flowers remind me of her! when i look up at the blue sky i think of the radiance of her eyes,--they were the heaven's own color,--when i see light clouds floating together half gray, half tinted by the sun, they seem to me to resemble the soft and noiseless garb she wore,--the birds sing, only to recall to me the lute-like sweetness of her voice,--and at night, when i behold the millions upon millions of stars that are worlds, peopled as they must be with thousands of wonderful living creatures, perhaps as spiritually composed as she, i sometimes find it hard, that out of all the exhaustless types of being that love, serve, and praise god in heaven, this one fair spirit,--only this one angel-maiden should not be spared to help and comfort me! yes!--i am selfish to the heart's core, my friend!"--and his eyes darkened with a vague wistfulness and trouble,--"moreover, i have weakly striven to excuse my selfishness to my own conscience thus:--i have thought that if she were vouchsafed to me for the remainder of my days, i might then indeed do lasting good, and leave lasting consolation to the world,--such work might be performed as would stir the most callous souls to life and energy and aspiration,--with her sweet presence near me, visibly close and constant, there is no task so difficult that i would not essay and conquer in, for her sake, her service, her greater glory! but alone!"--and he gave a slight, hopeless gesture--"nay,--christ knows i will do the utmost best i can, but the solitary ways of life are hard!" heliobas regarded him fixedly. "you seem to be alone"--he said presently, after a pause,--"but truly you are not so. you think you are set apart to do your work in solitude,--nevertheless, she whom you love may be near you even while you speak! still i understand what you mean,--you long to see her again,--to realize her tangible form and presence,--well!--this cannot be until you pass from this earth and adopt her nature, . . unless,--unless she descends hither, and adopts yours!" the last words were uttered slowly and impressively, and alwyn's countenance brightened with a sudden irresistible rapture. "that would be impossible!" he said, but his voice trembled, and there was more interrogativeness than assertion in his tone. "impossible in most cases,--yes"--agreed heliobas--"but in your specially chosen and privileged estate, i cannot positively say that such a thing might not be." for one moment a strange, eager brilliancy shone in alwyn's eyes,--the next, he set his lips hard, and made a firm gesture of denial. "do not tempt me, good heliobas," he said, with a faint smile--"or, rather, do not let me tempt myself! i bear in constant mind what she, my edris, told me when she left me,--that we should not meet again till after death, unless the longing of my love compelled. now, if it be true, as i have often thought, that i could compel,--by what right dare i use such power, if power i have upon her? she loves me,--i love her,--and by the force of love, such love as ours, . . who knows!--i might perchance persuade her to adopt a while this mean, uneasy vesture of mere mortal life,--and the very innate perception that i might do so, is the sharpest trial i have to endure. because if i would thoroughly conquer myself, i must resist this feeling;--nay, i will resist it,--for let it cost me what it may, i have sworn that the selfishness of my own personal desire shall never cross or cloud the radiance of her perfect happiness!" "but suppose"--suggested heliobas quietly, "suppose she were to find an even more complete happiness in making you happy?" alwyn shook his head. "my friend do not let us talk of it!"--he answered--"no joy can be more complete than the joy of heaven,--and that in its full blessedness is hers." "that in its full blessedness is not hers,"--declared heliobas with emphasis--"and, moreover, it can never be hers, while you are still an exile and a wanderer! friend poet, do you think that even heaven is wholly happy to one who loves, and whose beloved is absent?" a tremor shook alwyn's nerves,--his eyes glowed as though the inward fire of his soul had lightened them, but his face grew very pale. "no more of this, for god's sake!" he said passionately. "i must not dream of it,--i dare not! i become the slave of my own imagined rapture,--the coward who falls conquered and trembling before his own desire of delight! rather let me strive to be glad that she, my angel-love, is so far removed from my unworthiness,--let her, if she be near me now, read my thoughts, and see in them how dear, how sacred is her fair and glorious memory,--how i would rather endure an eternity of anguish, than make her sad for one brief hour of mortal-counted time!" he was greatly moved,--his voice trembled with the fervor of its own music, and heliobas looked at him with a grave and very tender smile. "enough!"--he said gently--"i will speak no further on this subject, which i see affects you deeply. nevertheless, i would have you remember how, when the master whom we serve passed through his agony at gethsemane, and with all the knowledge of his own power and glory strong upon him, still in his vast self-abnegation said, 'not my will, but thine be done!' that then 'there appeared an angel unto him from heaven strengthening him!' think of this,--for every incident in that divine-human life is a hint for ours,--and often it chances that when we reject happiness for the sake of goodness, happiness is suddenly bestowed upon us. god's miracles are endless,--god's blessings exhaustless, . . and the marvels of this wondrous universe are as nothing, compared to the working of his sovereign will for good on the lives of those who serve him faithfully." alwyn flashed upon him a quick, half-questioning glance, but was silent,--and they walked on together for some minutes without exchanging a word. a few people passed and repassed them,--some little children were playing hide-and-seek behind the trunks of the largest trees,--the air was fresh and invigorating, and the incessant roar of busy traffic outside the park palings offered a perpetual noisy reminder of the great world that surged around them,--the world of petty aims and transitory pleasures, with which they, filled full of the knowledge of higher and eternal things, had so little in common save sympathy,--sympathy for the wilful wrong-doing of man, and pity for his self-imposed blindness. presently heliobas spoke again in his customary light and cheerful tone: "are you writing anything new just now?" he asked. "or are you resting from literary labor?" "well, rest and work are with me very nearly one and the same"--replied alwyn,--"i think the most absolutely tiring and exhausting thing in the world would be to have nothing to do. then i can imagine life becoming indeed a weighty burden! yes, i am engaged on a new poem, . . it gives me intense pleasure to write it--but whether it will give any one equal pleasure to read it is quite another question." "does 'zabastes' still loom on your horizon?" inquired his companion mirthfully--"or are you still inclined--as in the past--to treat him, whether he comes singly or in numbers, as the poet's court-jester, and paid fool?" alwyn laughed lightly. "perhaps!" he answered, with a sparkle of amusement in his eyes,--"but, really, so far as the wind of criticism goes, i don't think any author nowadays particularly cares whether it blows fair weather or foul. you see, we all know how it is done,--we can name the clubs and cliques from whence it emanates, and we are fully aware that if one leading man of a 'set' gives the starting signal of praise or blame, the rest follow like sheep, without either thought or personal discrimination. moreover, some of us have met and talked with certain of these magazine and newspaper oracles, and have tested for ourselves the limited extent of their knowledge and the shallowness of their wit. i assure you it often happens that a great author is tried, judged, and condemned by a little casual press-man who, in his very criticism, proves himself ignorant of grammar. of course, if the public choose to accept such a verdict, why, then, all the worse for the public,--but luckily the majority of men are beginning to learn the ins and outs of the modern critic's business,--they see his or her methods (it is a notable fact that women do a great deal of criticism now, they being willing to scribble oracular commonplaces at a cheaper rate of pay than men), so that if a book is condemned, people are dubious, and straight way read it for themselves to see what is in it that excites aversion,--if it is praised, they are still dubious, and generally decide that the critical eulogist must have some personal interest in its sale. it is difficult for an author to win his public,--but when won, the critics may applaud or deride as suits their humor, it makes no appreciable difference to his popularity. now i consider my own present fame was won by chance, --a misconception that, as _i_ know, had its ancient foundation in truth, but that, as far as everybody else is concerned, remains a misconception,--so that i estimate my success at its right value, or rather, let me say, at its proper worthlessness." and in a few words he related how the leaders of english journalism had judged him dead, and had praised his work chiefly because it was posthumous. "i believe"--he added good-humoredly--"that if this mistake had not arisen, i should scarcely have been heard of, since i advocate no particular 'cult' and belong to no mutual admiration alliance, offensive or defensive. but my supposed untimely decease served me better than the browning society serves browning!" again he laughed,--heliobas had listened with a keen and sarcastic enjoyment of the whole story. "undoubtedly your 'zabastes' was no phantom!"--he observed emphatically--"his was evidently a very real existence, and he must have divided himself from one into several, to sit in judgment again upon you in this present day! history repeats itself,--and unhappily all the injustice, hypocrisy, and inconsistency of man is repeated too,--and out of the multitudes that inhabit the earth, how few will succeed in fulfilling their highest destinies! this is the one bitter drop in the cup of our knowledge,--we can, if we choose, save ourselves,--but we can seldom, if ever, save others!" alwyn stopped short, his eyes darkening with a swift intensity of feeling. "why not?"--he asked earnestly--"must we look on, and see men rushing toward certain misery, without making an effort to turn them hack?--to warn them of the darkness whither they are bound?--to rescue them before it is too late?" "my friend, we can make the effort, certainly,--and we are bound to make it, because it is our duty,--but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred we shall fail of our persuasion. what can i, or you, or any one, do against the iron force of free-will? god himself will not constrain it,--how then shall we? in the books of esdras, which have already been of such use to you, you will find the following significant words: 'the most high hath made this world for many, but the world to come for few. as when thou askest the earth, it shall say unto thee that it giveth much mold wherein earthen vessels are made, and but little dust that gold cometh of, even so is the course of this present world. there be many created but few shall be saved.'--god elects to be served by choice--and not by compulsion; it is his law that man shall work out his own immortal destiny,--and nothing can alter this overwhelming fact. the sublime example of christ was given us as a means to assist us in forming our own conclusions,--but there is no coercion in it,--only a divine love. you, for instance, were, and are, still perfectly free to reject the whole of your experience on the field of ardath as a delusion,--nothing would be easier, and, from the world's point of view, nothing more natural. faith and doubt are equally voluntary acts,--the one is the instinct of the immortal soul, the other the tendency of the perishable body,--and the will decides which of the two shall conquer in the end. i know that you are firm in your high and true conviction,--i know also what thoughts are at work in your brain,--you are bending all your energies on the task of trying to instil into the minds of your fellow-men some comprehension of the enlightenment and hope you yourself possess. ah, you must prepare for disappointment!--for though the times are tending toward strange upheavals and terrors, when the trumpet-voice of an inspired poet may do enormous good,--still the name of the wilfully ignorant is legion,--the age is one of the grossest mammon worship, and coarsest atheism,--and the noblest teachings of the noblest teacher, were he even another shakespeare, must of necessity be but a casting of pearls before swine. still"--and his rare sweet smile brightened the serene dignity of his features--"fling out the pearls freely all the same,--the swine may grunt at, but cannot rend you,--and a poet's genius should be like the sunlight, that falls on rich and poor, good and bad, with glorious impartiality! if you can comfort one sorrow, check one sin, or rescue one soul from the widening quicksand of the atheist world, you have sufficient reason to be devoutly thankful." by this time their walk had led them imperceptibly to one of the gates of egress from the park, and heliobas, pointing to a huge square building opposite, said: "there is the hotel at which i am staying--one of the americanized monster fabrics in which tired travellers find much splendid show, and little rest! will you lunch with me?--i am quite alone." alwyn gladly assented,--he was most unwilling to part at once from this man, to whom in a measure he felt he owed his present happy and tranquil condition of body and mind; besides, he was curious to find out more about him--to obtain from him, if possible, an entire explanation of the actual tenets and chief characteristics of the system of religious worship he himself practiced and followed. heliobas seemed to guess his thoughts, for suddenly turning upon him with a quick glance, he observed: "you want to 'pluck out the heart of my mystery,' as hamlet says, do you not, my friend?"--and he smiled--"well, so you shall, if you can discover aught in me that is not already in yourself! i assure you there is nothing preternatural about me,--my peculiar 'eccentricity' consists in steadily adapting myself to the scientific spiritual, as well as scientific material, laws of the universe. the two sets of laws united make harmony,--hence i find my life harmonious and satisfactory,--this is my 'abnormal' condition of mind,--and you are now fully as 'abnormal' as i am. come, we will discuss our mutual strange non-conformity to the wild world's custom or caprice over a glass of good wine,--observe, please, that i am neither a 'total abstainer' nor a 'vegetarian,' and that i have a curious fashion of being temperate, and of using all the gifts of beneficent nature equally, and without prejudice!' while he spoke, they had crossed the road, and they now entered the vestibule of the hotel, where, declining the hall-porter's offer of the "lift," heliobas ascended the stairs leisurely to the second floor, and ushered his companion into a comfortable private sitting-room. "fancy men consenting to be drawn up to their apartments like babes in a basket!" he said laughingly, alluding to the "lift" process--"upon my word, when i think of the strong people of a past age and compare them with the enervated race of to-day, i feel not only pity, but shame, for the visible degeneration of mankind. frail nerves, weak hearts, uncertain limbs,--these are common characteristics of the young, nowadays, instead of being as formerly the natural failings of the old. wear and tear and worry of modern existence?--oh yes, i know!--but why the wear tear and worry at all? what is it for? simply for the over-getting of money. one must live? ... certainly,--but one is not bound to live in foolish luxury for the sake of out-flaunting one's neighbors. better to live simply and preserve health, than gain a fortune and be a moping dyspeptic for life. but unless one toils and moils like a beast of burden, one cannot even live simply, some will say! i don't believe that assertion. the peasants of france live simply, and save,--the peasants of england live wretchedly, and waste! voila la difference! as with nations, so with individuals,--it is all a question of will. 'where there's a will there's a way,' is a dreadfully trite copybook maxim, but it's amazingly true all the same. now let us to the acceptation of these good things,"--this, as a pallid, boyish-looking waiter just then entered the room with the luncheon, and in his bustling to and fro manifested unusual eagerness to make himself agreeable--"i have made excellent friends with this young ganymede,--he has sworn never to palm off raisin-wine upon me for chambertin!" the waiter blushed and chuckled as though he were conscious of having gained special new dignity and importance,--and having laid the table, and set the chairs, he departed with a flourishing bow worthy of a prince's maitre-d'hotel. "your name must seem a curious one to these fellows"--observed alwyn, when he had gone,--"unusual and even mysterious?" "why, yes!"--returned heliobas with a laugh--"it would be judged so, i suppose, if i ever gave it,--but i don't. it was only in england, and by an englishman, that i was once, to my utter amazement, addressed as 'he-ly-oh-bas'--and i was quite alarmed at the sound of it! one would think that most people in these educational days knew the greek word helios,--and one would also imagine it as easy to say heliobas as heliograph. but now to avoid mistakes, whenever i touch british territory and come into contact with british tongues, i give my christian name only, cassimir--the result of which arrangement is, that i am known in this hotel as mr. kasmer! oh, i don't mind in the least--why should i?--neither the english nor the americans ever pronounce foreign names properly. why i met a newly established young publisher yesterday, who assured me that most of his authors, the female ones especially, are so ignorant of foreign literature that he doubts whether any of them know whether cervantes was a writer or an ointment!" alwyn laughed. "i dare say the young publisher may be perfectly right,"--he said--"but all the same he has no business to publish the literary emanations of such ignorance." "perhaps not!--but what is he to do, if nothing else is offered to him? he has to keep his occupation going somehow,--from bad he must select the best. he cannot create a great genius--he has to wait till nature, in the course of events, evolves one from the elements. and in the present general dearth of high ability the publishers are really more sinned against than sinning. they spend large sums, and incur large risks, in launching new ventures on the fickle sea of popular favor, and often their trouble is taken all in vain. it is really the stupid egotism of authors that is the stumbling-block in the way of true literature,--each little scribbler that produces a shilling sensational thinks his or her own work a marvel of genius, and nothing can shake them from their obstinate conviction. if every man or woman, before putting pen to paper, would be sure they had something new, suggestive, symbolical, or beautiful to say, how greatly art might gain by their labors! authors who take up arms against publishers en masse, and in every transaction expect to be cheated, are doing themselves irreparable injury--they betray the cloven hoof,--namely a greed for money--and when once that passion dominates them, down goes their reputation and they with it. it is the old story over again--'ye cannot serve god and mammon,'--and all art is a portion of god,--a descending of the divine into humanity." alwyn sat for a minute silent and thoughtful. "a descending of the divine into humanity!" he repeated slowly--"it seems to me that 'miracle' is forever being enacted--and yet ... we doubt!" "we do not doubt--" said heliobas--"we know,--we have touched reality! but see yonder!"--and he pointed through the window to the crowded thoroughfare below--"there are the flying phantoms of life,--the men and women who are god-oblivious, and who are therefore no more actually living than the shadows of al-kyris! they shall pass as a breath and be no more,--and this roaring, trafficking metropolis, this immediate centre of civilization, shall ere long disappear off the surface of the earth, and leave not a stone to mark the spot where once it stood! so have thousands of such cities fallen since this planet was flung into space,--and even so shall thousands still fall. learning, civilization, science, progress,--these things exist merely for the training and education of a chosen few--and out of many earth centuries and generations of men, shall be won only a very small company of angels! be glad that you have fathomed the mystery of your own life's purpose,--for you are now as much a positive identity among vanishing spectres, as you were when, on the field of ardath, you witnessed and took part in the mirage of your past." chapter xxxvii. a missing record. he spoke the last words with deep feeling and earnestness, and alwyn, meeting his clear, grave, brilliant eyes, was more than ever impressed by the singular dignity and overpowering magnetism of his presence. remembering how insufficiently he had realized this man's true worth, when he had first sought him out in his monastic retreat, he was struck by a sudden sense of remorse, and leaning across the table, gently touched his hand. "how greatly i wronged you once, heliobas!" he said penitently, with a tremor of appeal in his voice--"forgive me, will you?--though i shall never forgive myself!" heliobas smiled, and cordially pressed the extended hand in his own. "nay, there is nothing to forgive, my friend," he answered cheerfully--"and nothing to regret. your doubts of me were very natural,--indeed, viewed by the world's standard of opinion, much more natural than your present faith, for faith is always a super-natural instinct. would you be practically sensible according to modern social theories?--then learn to suspect everybody and everything, even your best friend's good intentions!" he laughed, and the luncheon being concluded, he rose from the table, and taking an easy-chair nearer the window, motioned alwyn to do the same. "i want to talk to you"--he continued, "we may not meet again for years,--you are entering on a difficult career, and a few hints from one who knows and thoroughly understands your position may possibly be of use to you. in the first place, then, let me ask you, have you told any one, save me, the story of your ardath adventure?" "one friend only,--my old school comrade, frank villiers"--replied alwyn. "and what does he say about it?" "oh, he thinks it was a dream from beginning to end,"--and alwyn smiled a little,--"he believes that i set out on my journey with my brain already heated to an imaginative excess, and that the whole thing, even my angel's presence, was a pure delusion of my own overwrought fancy,--a curious and wonderful delusion, but always a delusion." "he is a very excellent fellow to judge you so leniently"--observed heliobas composedly, "most people would call you mad." "mad!" exclaimed alwyn hotly--"why, i am as sane as any man in london!" "saner, i should say,"--replied heliobas, smiling,--"compared with some of the eminently 'practical' speculating maniacs that howl and struggle among the fluctuating currents of the stock exchange, for instance, you are indeed a marvel of sound and wholesome mental capability! but let us view the matter coolly. you must not expect such an exceptional experience as yours to be believed in by ordinary persons. because the majority of people, being utterly unspiritual and worldly, have no such experiences, and they therefore deem them impossible;--they are the gold-fish born in a bowl, who have no consciousness of the existence of an ocean. moreover, you have no proofs of the truth of your narrative, beyond the change in your own life and disposition,--and that can be easily referred to various other causes. you spoke of having gathered one of the miracle-flowers on the prophet's field,--may i see it?" silently alwyn drew from his breast-pocket the velvet case in which he always kept the cherished blossom, and taking it tenderly out, placed it in his companion's hand. "an immortelle"--said heliobas softly, while the flower, uncurling its silvery petals in the warmth of his palm, opened star-like and white as snow. "an immortelle, rare and possibly unique!--that is all the world would say of it! it cannot be matched,--it will not fade,--true! but you will get no one to believe that! frown not, good poet!--i want you to consider me for the moment a practical worldling, bent on driving you from the spiritual position yon have taken up,--and you will see how necessary it is for you to keep the secret of your own enlightenment to yourself, or at least only hint at it through the parables of poesy." he gave back the ardath blossom to its owner with reverent care,--and when alwyn had as reverently put it by, he resumed: "your friend villiers has offered you a perfectly logical and common-sense solution of the mystery of ardath,--one which, if you chose to accept it, would drive you back into skepticism as easily as a strong wind blows a straw. only see how simple the intricate problem is unravelled by this means! you, a man of ardent and imaginative temperament, made more or less unhappy by the doctrines of materialism, come to me, heliobas, a chaldean student of the higher philosophies, an individual whose supposed mysterious power and inexplicably studious way of life entitle him to be considered by the world at large an imposter!--now don't look so indignant!"--and he laughed,--"i am merely discussing the question from the point of view that would be sure to be adopted by 'wise' modern society! thus--i, heliobas, the impostor, take advantage of your state of mind to throw you into a trance, in which, by occult means, you see the vision of an angel, who bids you meet her at a place called ardath,--and you, also, in your hypnotized condition, write a poem which you entitle 'nourhalma.' then i,--always playing my own little underhand game!--read you portions of 'esdras,' and prove to you that 'ardath' exists, while i delicately suggest, if i do not absolutely command, your going thither. you go,--but i, still by magnetic power, retain my influence over you. you visit elzear, a hermit, whom we will, for the sake of the present argument, call my accomplice,--he reads between the lines of the letter you deliver to him from me, and he understands its secret import. he continues, no matter how, your delusion. you broke your fast with him,--and surely it was easy for him to place some potent drug in the wine he gave you, which made you dream the rest;--nay, viewed from this standpoint, it is open to question whether you ever went to the field of ardath at all, but merely dreamed you did! you see how admirably i can, with little trouble, disprove the whole story, and make myself out to be the veriest charlatan and trickster that ever duped his credulous fellow-man! how do you like my practical dissection of your new-found joys?" alwyn was gazing at him with puzzled and anxious eyes. "i do not like it at all"--he murmured, in a pained tone--"it is an insidious semblance of truth;--but i know it is not the truth itself!" "why, how obstinate you are!" said heliobas, good-humoredly, with a quick, flashing glance at him. "you insist on seeing things in a directly reverse way to that in which the world sees them! how can you be so foolish! to the world your ardath adventure is the semblance of truth,--and only man's opinion thereon is worth trusting as the truth itself!" over the wistful, brooding thoughtfulness of alwyn's countenance swept a sudden light of magnificent resolution. "heliobas, do not jest with me!" he cried passionately--"i know, better perhaps than most men, how divine things can be argued away by the jargon of tongues, till heart and brain grow weary,--i know, god help me!--how the noblest ideals of the soul can be swept down and dispersed into blank ruin, by the specious arguments of cold-blooded casuists,--but i also know, by a supreme inner knowledge beyond all human proving, that god exists, and with his being exist likewise all splendors, great and small, spiritual and material,--splendors vaster than our intelligence can reach,--ideals loftier than imagination can depict! i want no proof of this save those that burn in my own individual consciousness,--i do not need a miserable taper of human reason to help me to discern the sun! i, of my own choice, prayer, and hope, voluntarily believe in god, in christ, in angels, in all things beautiful and pure and grand!--let the world and its ephemeral opinions wither, i will not be shaken down from the first step of the ladder whereon one climbs to heaven!" his features were radiant with fervor and feeling,--his eyes brilliant with the kindling inward light of noblest aspiration,--and heliobas, who had watched him intently, now bent toward him with a grave gesture of the gentlest homage. "how strong is he whom an angel's love makes glorious!" he said--"we are partners in the same destiny, my friend,--and i have but spoken to you as the world might speak, to prepare you for opposition. the specious arguments of men confront us at every turn, in every book, in every society,--and it is not always that we are ready to meet them. as a rule, silence on all matters of personal faith is best,--let your life bear witness for you;--it shall thunder loud oracles when your mortal limbs are dumb." he paused a moment--then went on: "you have desired to know the secret of the active and often miraculous power of the special form of religion i and my brethren follow; well, it is all contained in christ, and christ only. his is the only true spiritualism in the world--there was never any before he came. we obey christ in the simple rules he preached,--christ according to his own enunciated wish and will. moreover, we,--that is, our fraternity,--received our commission from christ himself in person." alwyn started,--his eyes dilated with amazement and awe. "from christ himself in person?"--he echoed incredulously. "even so"--returned heliobas calmly. "what do you suppose our divine master was about during the years between his appearance among the rabbis of the temple and the commencement of his public preaching? do you, can you, imagine with the rest of the purblind world, that he would have left his marvellous gospel in the charge of a few fishermen and common folk only." "i never thought,--i never inquired--" began alwyn hurriedly. "no!"--and heliobas smiled rather sadly, "few men do think or inquire very far on sacred subjects! listen,--for what i have to say to you will but strengthen you in your faith,--and you will need more than all the strength of the four evangelists to bear you stiffly up against the suicidal negation of this present disastrous epoch. ages ago,--ay, more than six or seven thousand years ago, there were certain communities of men in the east,--scholars, sages, poets, astronomers, and scientists, who, desiring to give themselves up entirely to study and research, withdrew from the world, and formed themselves into fraternities, dividing whatever goods they had in common, and living together under one roof as the brotherhoods of the catholic church do to this day. the primal object of these men's investigations was a search after the divine cause of creation; and as it was undertaken with prayer, penance, humility, and reverence, much enlightenment was vouchsafed to them, and secrets of science, both spiritual and material, were discovered by them,--secrets which the wisest of modern sages know nothing of as yet. out of these fraternities came many of the prophets and preachers of the old testament,--esdras for one,--isaiah for another. they were the chroniclers of many now forgotten events,--they kept the history of the times, as far is it was possible,--and in their ancient records your city of al-kyris is mentioned as a great and populous place, which was suddenly destroyed by the bursting out of a volcano beneath its foundations--yes!"--this as alwyn uttered an eager exclamation,--"your vision was a perfectly faithful reflection of the manner in which it perished. i must tell you, however, that nothing concerning its kings or great men has been preserved,--only a few allusions to one hyspiros, a writer of tragedies, whose genius seems to have corresponded to that of our shakespeare of to-day. the name of sah-luma is nowhere extant." a burning wave of color flushed alwyn's face, but he was silent. heliobas went on gently: "at a very early period of their formation, these fraternities i tell you of were in possession of most of the material scientific facts of the present day,--such things as the electric wire and battery, the phonograph, the telephone, and other 'new' discoveries, being perfectly familiar to them. the spiritual manifestations of nature were more intricate and difficult to penetrate,--and though they knew that material effects could only be produced by spiritual causes, they worked in the dark, as it were, only groping toward the light. however, the wisdom and purity of the lives they led was not without its effect,--emperors and kings sought their advice, and gave them great stores of wealth, which they divided, according to rule, into equal portions, and used for the benefit of those in need, willing the remainder to their successors; so that, at the present time, the few brotherhoods that are left hold immense treasures accumulated through many centuries,--treasures which are theirs to share with one another in prosecution of discoveries and the carrying on of good works in secret. ages before the coming of christ, one aselzion, a man of austere and strict life, belonging to a fraternity stationed in syria, was engaged in working out a calculation of the average quantity of heat and light provided per minute by the sun's rays, when, glancing upward at the sky, the hour being clear noonday, he beheld a cross of crimson hue suspended in the sky, whereon hung the cloudy semblance of a human figure. believing himself to be the victim of some optical delusion, he hastened to fetch some of his brethren, who at a glance perceived the self-same marvel,--which presently was viewed with reverent wonder by the whole assembled community. for one entire hour the symbol stayed--then vanished suddenly, a noise like thunder accompanying its departure. within a few months of its appearance, messages came from all the other fraternities stationed in egypt, in spain, in greece, in etruria, stating that they also had seen this singular sight, and suggesting that from henceforth the cross should be adopted by the united brotherhoods as a holy sign of some deity unrevealed,--a proposition that was at once agreed to. this happened some five thousand years before christ,--and hence the sign of the cross became known in all, or nearly all, the ancient rites of worship, the multitude considering that because it was the emblem of the philosophical fraternities, it must have some sacred meaning. so it was used in the service of serapis and the adoration of the nile-god,--it has been found carved on egyptian disks and obelisks, and it was included among the numerous symbols of saturn." he paused. alwyn was listening with eager, almost breathless, attention. "after this"--went on heliobas--"came a long period of prefigurements; types and suggestions, that, running through all the various religions that sprang up swiftly and as swiftly decayed, hinted vaguely at the birth of a child,--offspring of a pure virgin--a miraculously generated god-in-man--an absolutely sinless one, who should be sent to remind humanity of its intended final high destiny, and who should, by precept and example, draw the earth nearer to heaven. i would here ask you to note what most people seem to forget,--namely, that since christ came, all these shadowy types and prefigurements have ceased; a notable fact, even to skeptical minds. the world waited dimly for something, it knew not what,--the various fraternities of the cross waited also, feeling conscious that some great era of hope and happiness was about to dawn for all men. when the star in the east arose announcing the redeemer's birth, there were some forty or fifty of these fraternities existing, three in the ancient province of chaldea, from whence a company of the wisest seers and sages were sent to acknowledge by their immediate homage the divinity born in bethlehem. these were the 'wise men out of the east' mentioned in the gospel. we knew--i say we, because i am descended directly from one of these men, and have always belonged to their brotherhood--we knew it was divinity that had come amongst us,--and in our parchment chronicles there is a long account of how the deserts of arabia rang with music that holy night--what wealth of flowers sprang up in places that had hither to lain waste and dry--how the sky blazed with rings of roseate radiance,--how fair and wondrous shapes were seen flitting across the heavens,--the road of communication between men and angels being opened at a touch by the saviour's advent." again he paused,--and after a little silence resumed: "then we added the star to our existing symbol, the cross, and became the brotherhood of the cross and star. as such, after the redeemer's birth, we put all other matters from us, and set ourselves to chronicle his life and actions, to pray and wait, unknowing what might be the course of his work or will. one day he came to us,--ah! happy those whom he found watching, and whose privilege it was to receive their divine guest!" his voice had a passionate thrill within it, as of tears,--and alwyn's heart beat fast,--what a wonderful new chapter was here revealed of the old, old story of the only perfect life on earth! "one of the fraternities," went on heliobas, "had its habitation in the wilderness where, some years later, the master wandered fasting forty days and forty nights. to that solitary abode of prayerful men he came, when he was about twenty-three earthly years of age; the record of his visit has been reverently penned and preserved, and from it we know how fair and strong he was,--how stately and like a king--how gracious and noble in bearing--how far exceeding in beauty all the sons of men! his speech was music that thrilled to the heart,--the wondrous glory of his eyes gave life to those who knelt and worshipped him--his touch was pardon--his smile was peace! from his own lips a store of wisdom was set down,--and prophecies concerning the fate of his own teaching, which then he uttered, are only now, at this very day, being fulfilled. therefore we know the time has come--" he broke off, and sighed deeply. "the time has come for what?" demanded alwyn eagerly. "for certain secrets to be made known to the world which till now have been kept sacred," returned heliobas,--"you must understand that the chief vow of the fraternity of the cross and star is secrecy,--a promise never to divulge the mysteries of god and nature to those who are unfitted to receive such high instruction. it is christ's own saying--'a faithless and perverse generation asketh for a sign, and no sign shall be given.' you surely are aware how, even in the simplest discoveries of material science, the world's attitude is at first one of jeering incredulity,--how much more so, then, in things which pertain solely to the spiritual side of existence! but god will not be mocked,--and it behooves us to think long, and pray much, before we unveil even one of the lesser mysteries to the eyes of the vulgar. christ knew the immutable condition of free-will,--he knew that faith, humility, and obedience are the hardest of all hard virtues to the self-sufficient arrogance of man; and we learned from him that his gospel, simple though it is, would be denied, disputed, quarrelled over, shamefully distorted, and almost lost sight of in a multitude of 'free' opinions,--that his life-giving truth would be obscured and rendered incomprehensible by the wilful obstinacy of human arguments concerning it. christ has no part whatever in the distinctly human atrocities that have been perpetrated under cover of his name,--such as the inquisition, the wars of the crusades, the slaughter of martyrs, and the degrading bitterness of sects; in all these things christ's teaching is entirely set aside and lost. he knew how the proud of this world would misread his words--that is why he came to men who for thousands of years in succession had steadily practised the qualities he most desired,--namely, faith, humility, and obedience,--and finding them ready to carry out his will, he left with them the mystic secrets of his doctrine, which he forbade them to give to the multitude till men's quarrels and disputations had called his very existence into doubt. then,--through pure channels and by slow degrees--we were to proclaim to the world his last message." alwyn's eyes rested on the speaker in reverent yet anxious inquiry. "surely"--he said--"you will begin to proclaim it now?" "yes, we shall begin," answered heliobas, his brow darkening as with a cloud of troubled thought--"but we are in a certain difficulty,--for we may not speak in public ourselves, nor write for publication,--our ancient vow binds us to this, and may not be broken. moreover, the master gave us a strange command,--namely, that when the hour came for the gradual declaration of the secret of his doctrine, we should intrust it, in the first place, to the hands of one who should be young,--in the world, yet not of it,--simple as a child, yet wise with the wisdom of faith,--of little or no estimation among men,--and who should have the distinctive quality of loving nothing in earth or heaven more dearly than his name and honor. for this unique being we have searched, and are searching still,--we can find many who are young and both wise and innocent, but, alas! one who loves the unseen christ actually more than all things,--this is indeed a perplexity! i have fancied of late that i have discovered in my own circle,--that is, among those who have been drawn to study god and nature according to my views,--one who makes swift and steady progress in the higher sciences, and who, so far as i have been able to trace, really loves our master with singular adoration above all joys on earth and hopes of heaven; but i cannot be sure--and there are many tests and trials to be gone through before we dare bid this little human lamp of love shine forth upon the raging storm." he was silent a moment,--then went on in a low tone, as though speaking to himself: "when the mechanism of this universe is explained in such wise that no discovery of science can ever disprove, but must rather support it, . . when the essence of the immortal soul in man is described in clear and concise language,--and when the marvellous action of spirit on matter is shown to be actually existent and never idle,--then, if the world still doubts and denies god, it will only have itself to blame!--but to you"--and he resumed his ordinary tone--"all things, through your angel's love, are made more or less plain,--and i have told you the history of our fraternity merely that you may understand how it is we know so much that the outer world is ignorant of. there are very few of us left nowadays,--only a dozen brotherhoods scattered far apart on different portions of the earth,--but, such as we are, we are all united, and have never, through these eighteen hundred years, had a shade of difference in opinion concerning the divinity of christ. through him we have learned true spiritualism, and all the miraculous power which is the result of it; and as there is a great deal of false spiritualism rampant just now, i may as well give you a few hints whereby you may distinguish it at once,--imprimis: if a so-called spiritualist tells you that he can summon spirits who will remove tables and chairs, write letters, play the piano, and rap on the walls, he is a charlatan. for spirits can touch nothing corporeal unless they take corporeal shape for the moment, as in the case of your angelic edris. but in this condition, they are only seen by the one person whom they visit,--never by several persons at once--remember that! nor can they keep their corporeal state long,--except, by their express wish and will, they should seek to enter absolutely into the life of humanity, which, i must tell you, has been done, but so seldom, that in all the history of christian spirituality there are only about four examples. here are six tests for all the 'spiritualists' you may chance to meet: "first. do they serve themselves more than others? if so, they are entirely lacking in spiritual attributes. "secondly. will they take money for their professed knowledge? if so, they condemn themselves as paid tricksters. "thirdly. are they men and women of commonplace and thoroughly material life? then, it is plain they cannot influence others to strive for a higher existence. "fourthly. do they love notoriety? if they do, the gates of the unseen world are shut upon them. "fifthly. do they disagree among themselves, and speak against one another? if so, they contradict by their own behavior all the laws of spiritual force and harmony. "sixthly and lastly.--do they reject christ! if they do, they know nothing whatever about spiritualism, there being none without him. again, when you observe professing psychists living in any eccentric way, so as to cause their trifling every-day actions to be remarked and commented upon, you may be sure the real power is not in them,--as, for instance, people who become vegetarians because they imagine that by so doing they will see spirits--people who adopt a singular mode of dress in order to appear different from their fellow-creatures--people who are lachrymose, dissatisfied, or in any way morbid. never forget that true spiritualism engenders health of body and mind, serenity and brightness of aspect, cheerfulness and perfect contentment,--and that its influence on those who are brought within its radius is distinctly marked and beneficial. the chief characteristic of a true, that is, christian, spiritualist is, that he or she cannot be shaken from faith, or thrown into despair by any earthly misfortune whatsoever. and while on this subject, i will show you where the existing forms of christianity depart from the teachings of christ: first, in lack of self abnegation,--secondly, in lack of unity,--thirdly, in failing to prove to the multitude that death is is not destruction, but simply change. nothing really dies; and the priests should make use of science to illustrate this fact to the people. each of these virtues has its miracle effect: unity is strength; self abnegation attracts the divine influences, and death, viewed as a glorious transformation, which it is, inspires the soul with a sense of larger life. sects are unchristian,--there should be only one vast, united church for all the christian world--a church, whose pure doctrines should include all the hints received from nature and the scientific working of the universe,--the marvels of the stars and the planetary systems,--the wonders of plants and minerals,--the magic of light and color and music; and the true miracles of spirit and matter should be inquired into reverently, prayerfully, and always with the deepest humility;--while the first act of worship performed every holy morn and eve should be gratitude! gratitude--gratitude! ay, even for a sorrow we should be thankful,--it may conceal a blessing we wot not of! for sight, for sense, for touch, for the natural beauty of this present world,--for the smile on a face we love--for the dignity and responsibility of our lives, and the immortality with which we are endowed,--oh my friend! would that every breath we drew could in some way express to the all loving creator our adoring recognition of his countless benefits!" carried away by his inward fervor, his eyes flashed with extraordinary brilliancy,--his countenance was grand, inspired, and beautiful, and alwyn gazed at him in wondering, fascinated silence. here was a man who had indeed made the best of his manhood!--what a life was his! how satisfying and serene! master of himself, he was, as it were, master of the world,--all nature ministered to him, and the pageant of passing history was as a mere brilliant picture painted for his instruction,--a picture on which he, looking, learned all that it was needful for him to know. and concerning this mystic brotherhood of the cross and star, what treasures of wisdom they must have secreted in their chronicles through so many thousands of years! what a privilege it would be to explore such world-forgotten tracks of time! yielding to a sudden impulse, alwyn spoke his thought aloud: "heliobas," he said, "tell me, could not i, too, become a member of your fraternity?" heliobas smiled kindly. "you could, assuredly"--he replied--"if you chose to submit to fifteen years' severe trial and study. but i think a different sphere of duty is designed for you. wait and see! the rules of our order forbid the disclosure of knowledge attained, save through the medium of others not connected with us; and we may not write out our discoveries for open publication. such a vow would be the death-blow to your poetical labors,--and the command your angel gave you points distinctly to a life lived in the world of men,--not out of it." "but you yourself are in the world of men at this moment"--argued alwyn--"and you are free; did you not tell me you were bound for mexico?" "does going to mexico constitute liberty?" laughed heliobas. "i assure you i am closely constrained by my vows wherever i am,--as closely as though i were shut in our turret among the heights of caucasus! i am going to mexico solely to receive some manuscripts from one of our brethren, who is dying there. he has lived as a recluse, like elzear of melyana, and to him have been confided certain important chronicles, which must be taken into trustworthy hands for preservation. such is the object of my journey. but now, tell me, have you thoroughly understood all i have said to you?" "perfectly!" rejoined alwyn. "my way seems very clear before me,--a happy way enough, too, if it were not quite so lonely!" and he sighed a little. heliobas rose and laid one hand kindly on his shoulder. "courage!"...he said softly. "bear with the loneliness a while, it may not last long!" a slight thrill ran through alwyn's nerves,--he felt as though he were on the giddy verge of some great and unexpected joy,--his heart beat quickly and his eyes grew dim. mastering the strange emotion with an effort, he was reluctantly beginning to think it was time to take his leave, when heliobas, who had been watching him intently, spoke in a cheerful, friendly tone: "now that we have had our serious talk out, mr. alwyn, suppose you come with me and hear the ange-demon of music at st. james's hall? will you? he can bestow upon you a perfect benediction of sweet sound,--a benediction not to be despised in this workaday world of clamor,--and out of all the exquisite symbols of heaven offered to us on earth, music, i think, is the grandest and best." "i will go with you wherever you please," replied alwyn, glad of any excuse that gave him more of the attractive chaldean's company,--"but what ange-demon are you speaking of?" "sarasate,--or 'sarah sayty,' as some of the clear britishers call him--" laughed heliobas, putting on his overcoat as he spoke; "the 'spanish fiddler,' as the crabbed musical critics define him when they want to be contemptuous, which they do pretty often. these, together with the literary 'oracles,' have their special cliques,--their little chalked out circles, in which they, like tranced geese, stand cackling, unable to move beyond the marked narrow limit. as there are fools to be found who have the ignorance, as well as the effrontery, to declare that the obfuscated, ill-expressed, and ephemeral productions of browning are equal, if not superior, to the clear, majestic, matchless, and immortal utterances of shakespeare,--ye gods! the force of asinine braying can no further go than this! ... even so there are similar fools who say that the cold, correct, student-like playing of joachim is superior to that of sarasate. but come and judge for yourself,--if you have never heard him, it will be a sort of musical revelation to you,--he is not so much a violinist, as a human violin played by some invisible sprite of song. london listens to him, but doesn't know quite what to make of him,--he is a riddle that only poets can read. if we start now, we shall be just in time,--i have two stalls. shall we go?" alwyn needed no second invitation,--he was passionately fond of music,--his interest was aroused, his curiosity excited,--moreover, whatever the fine taste of heliobas pronounced as good must, he felt sure, be super-excellent. in a few minutes they had left the hotel together, and were walking briskly toward piccadilly, their singularly handsome faces and stately figures causing many a passer-by to glance after them admiringly, and murmur sotto voce, "splendid-looking fellows! ... not english!" for though englishmen are second to none in mere muscular strength and symmetry of form, it is a fact worth noting, that if any one possessing poetic distinction of look, or picturesque and animated grace of bearing, be seen suddenly among the more or less monotonously uniform crowd in the streets of london, he or she is pretty sure to be set down, rightly or wrongly, as "not english." is not this rather a pity?--for england! chapter xxxviii. the wizard of the bow. when they entered the concert-hall, the orchestra had already begun the programme of the day with mendelssohn's "italian" symphony. the house was crowded to excess; numbers of people were standing, apparently willing to endure a whole afternoon's fatigue, rather than miss hearing the orpheus of andalusia,--the "endymion out of spain," as one of our latest and best poets has aptly called him. only a languidly tolerant interest was shown in the orchestral performance,--the "italian" symphony is not a really great or suggestive work, and this is probably the reason why it so often fails to arouse popular enthusiasm. for, be it understood by the critical elect, that the heart-whole appreciation of the million is by no means so "vulgar" as it is frequently considered,--it is the impulsive response of those who, not being bound hand and foot by any special fetters of thought or prejudice, express what they instinctively feel to be true. you cannot force these "vulgar," by any amount of "societies," to adopt browning as a household god,--but they will appropriate shakespeare, and glory in him, too, without any one's compulsion. if authors, painters, and musicians would probe more earnestly than they do to the core of this instinctive higher aspiration of peoples, it would be all the better for their future fame. for each human unit in a nation has its great, as well as base passions,--and it is the clear duty of all the votaries of art to appeal to and support the noblest side of nature only--moreover, to do so with a simple, unforced, yet graphic eloquence of meaning that can be grasped equally and at once by both the humble and exalted. "it is not in the least italian"--said heliobas, alluding to the symphony, when it was concluded, and the buzz of conversation surged through the hall like the noise that might be made by thousands of swarming bees,--"there is not a breath of italian air or a glimpse of italian light about it. the dreamy warmth of the south,--the radiant color that lies all day and all night on the lakes and mountains of dante's land,--the fragrance of flowers--the snatches of peasants' and fishermen's songs--the tunefulness of nightingales in the moonlight,--the tinkle of passing mandolins,--all these things should be hinted at in an 'italian' symphony--and all these are lacking. mendelssohn tried to do what was not in him,--i do not believe the half-phlegmatic, half-philosophical nature of a german could ever understand the impetuously passionate soul of italy." as he spoke, a fair girl, with gray eyes that were almost black, glanced round at him inquiringly,--a faint blush flitted over her cheeks, and she seemed about to speak, but, as though restrained by timidity, she looked away again and said nothing. heliobas smiled. "that pretty child is italian," he whispered to alwyn. "patriotism sparkled in those bright eyes of hers--love for the land of lilies, from which she is at present one transplanted!" alwyn smiled also, assentingly, and thought how gracious, kindly, and gentle were the look and voice of the speaker. he found it difficult to realize that this man, who now sat beside him in the stalls of a fashionable london concert-room, was precisely the same one who, clad in the long flowing white robes of his order, had stood before the altar in the chapel at dariel, a stately embodiment of evangelical authority, intoning the seven glorias! it seemed strange, and yet not strange, for heliobas was a personage who might be imagined anywhere,--by the bedside of a dying child, among the parliaments of the learned, in the most brilliant social assemblies, at the head of a church,--anything he chose to do would equally become him, inasmuch as it was utterly impossible to depict him engaged in otherwise than good and noble deeds. at that moment a tumultuous clamor of applause broke out on all sides,--applause that was joined in by the members of the orchestra as well as the audience,--a figure emerged from a side door on the left and ascended the platform--a slight, agile creature, with rough, dark hair and eager, passionate eyes--no other than the hero of the occasion, sarasate himself. sarasate e il suo violino!--there they were, the two companions; master and servant--king and subject. the one, a lithe, active looking man of handsome, somewhat serious countenance and absorbed expression,--the other, a mere frame of wood with four strings deftly knotted across it, in which cunningly contrived little bit of mechanism was imprisoned the intangible, yet living spirit of sound. a miracle in its way!--that out of such common and even vile materials as wood, catgut, and horsehair, the divinest music can be drawn forth by the hand of the master who knows how to use these rough implements! suggestive, too, is it not, my friends?--for if man can by his own poor skill and limited intelligence so invoke spiritual melody by material means,--shall not god contrive some wondrous tunefulness for himself even out of our common earthly discord? .... hush!--a sound sweet and far as the chime of angelic bells in some vast sky-tower, rang clearly through the hall over the heads of the now hushed and attentive audience--and alwyn, hearing the penetrating silveriness of those first notes that fell from sarasate's bow, gave a quick sigh of amazement and ecstasy,--such marvellous purity of tone was intoxicating to his senses, and set his nerves quivering for sheer delight in sympathetic tune. he glanced at the programme,--"concerto--beethoven"--and swift as a flash there came to his mind some lines he had lately read and learned to love: "it was the kaiser of the land of song, the giant singer who did storm the gates of heaven and hell--a man to whom the fates were fierce as furies,--and who suffered wrong, and ached and bore it, and was brave and strong and grand as ocean when its rage abates." beethoven! ... musical fullness of divine light! how the glorious nightingale notes of his unworded poesy came dropping through the air like pearls, rolling off the magic wand of the violin wizard, whose delicate dark face, now slightly flushed with the glow of inspiration, seemed to reflect by its very expression the various phases of the mighty composer's thought! alwyn half closed his eyes and listened entranced, allowing his soul to drift like an oarless boat on the sweeping waves of the music's will. he was under the supreme sway of two emperors of art,--beethoven and sarasate,--and he was content to follow such leaders through whatever sweet tangles and tall growths of melody they might devise for his wandering. at one mad passage of dancing semitones he started,--it was as though a sudden wind, dreaming an enraged dream, had leaped up to shake tall trees to and fro,--and the pass of dariel, with its frozen mountain-peaks, its tottering pines, and howling hurricanes, loomed back upon his imagination as he had seen it first on the night he had arrived at the monastery--but soon these wild notes sank and slept again in the dulcet harmony of an adagio softer than a lover's song at midnight. many strange suggestions began to glimmer ghost-like through this same adagio,--the fair, dead face of niphrata flitted past him, as a wandering moonbeam flits athwart a cloud,--then came flashing reflections of light and color,--the bewildering dazzlement of lysia's beauty shone before the eyes of his memory with a blinding lustre as of flame, . . the phantasmagoria of the city of al-kyris seemed to float in the air like a faintly discovered mirage ascending from the sea,--again he saw its picturesque streets, its domes and bell-towers, its courts and gardens.. again he heard the dreamy melody of the dance that had followed the death of nir-jalis, and saw the cruel lysia's wondrous garden lying white in the radiance of the moon; anon he beheld the great square, with its fallen obelisk and the prostrate, lifeless form of the prophet khosrul.. and... oh, most sad and dear remembrance of all! ... the cherished shadow of himself, the brilliant, the joyous sah-luma appeared to beckon him from the other side of some vast gulf of mist and darkness, with a smile that was sorrowful, yet persuasive; a smile that seemed to say--"o friend, why hast thou left me as though i were a dead thing and unworthy of regard?--lo, i have never died, --_i am_ here, an abandoned part of thee, ready to become thine inseparable comrade once more if thou make but the slightest sign!"--then it seemed as though voices whispered in his ear--"sah-luma! beloved sah-luma!"--and "theos! theos, my beloved!"--till, moved by a vague tremor of anxiety, he lifted his drooping eyelids and gazed full in a sort of half-incredulous, half-reproachful amaze at the musical necromancer who had conjured up all these apparitions,--what did this wonderful sarasate know of his past? nothing, indeed,--he had ceased, and was gravely bowing to the audience in response to the thunder of applause, that, like a sudden whirlwind, seemed to shake the building. but he had not quite finished his incantations,--the last part of the concerto was yet to come,--and as soon as the hubbub of excitement had calmed down, he dashed into it with the delicious speed and joy of a lark soaring into the springtide air. and now on all sides what clear showers and sparkling coruscations of melody!--what a broad, blue sky above!--what a fair, green earth below!--how warm and odorous this radiating space, made resonant with the ring of sweet bird-harmonies!--wild thrills of ecstasy and lover-like tenderness--snatches of song caught up from the flower-filled meadows and set to float in echoing liberty through the azure dome of heaven!--and in all and above all, the light and heat and lustre of the unclouded sun!--here there was no dreaming possible, . . nothing but glad life, glad youth, glad love! with an ambrosial rush of tune, like the lark descending, the dancing bow cast forth the final chord from the violin as though it were a diamond flung from the hand of a king, a flawless jewel of pure sound,--and the minstrel monarch of andalusia, serenely saluting the now wildly enthusiastic audience, left the platform. but he was not allowed to escape so soon,--again and again, and yet again, the enormous crowd summoned him before them, for the mere satisfaction of looking at his slight figure, his dark, poetic face, and soft, half-passionate, half-melancholy eyes, as though anxious to convince themselves that he was indeed human, and not a supernatural being, as his marvellous genius seemed to indicate. when at last he had retired for a breathing-while, heliobas turned to alwyn with the question: "what do you think of him?" "think of him!" echoed alwyn--"why, what can one think,--what can one say of such an artist!--he is like a grand sunrise,--baffling all description and all criticism!" heliobas smiled,--there was a little touch of satire in his smile. "do you see that gentleman?" he said, in a low tone, pointing out by a gesture a pale, flabby-looking young man who was lounging languidly in a stall not very far from where they themselves sat,--"he is the musical critic for one of the leading london daily papers. he has not stirred an inch, or moved an eyelash, during sarasate's performance,--and the violent applause of the audience was manifestly distasteful to him! he has merely written one line down in his note-book,--it is most probably to the effect that the 'spanish fiddler met with his usual success at the hands of the undiscriminating public!'" alwyn laughed. "not possible!"--and he eyed the impassive individual in question with a certain compassionate amusement,--"why, if he cannot admire such a magnificent artist as sarasate, what is there in the world that will rouse his admiration!" "nothing!" rejoined heliobas, his eyes twinkling humorously as he spoke--"nothing,--unless it is his own perspicuity! nil admirari is the critic's motto. the modern 'zabastes' must always be careful to impress his readers in the first place with his personal superiority to all men and all things,--and the musical oracle yonder will no doubt be clever enough to make his report of sarasate in such a manner as to suggest the idea that he could play the violin much better himself, if he only cared to try!" "ass!" said alwyn under his breath--"one would like to shake him out of his absurd self-complacency!" heliobas shrugged his shoulders expressively: "my dear fellow, he would only bray!--and the braying of an ass is not euphonious! no!--you might as well shake a dry clothes-prop and expect it to blossom into fruit and flower, as argue with a musical critic, and expect him to be enthusiastic! the worst of it is, these men are not really musical,--they perhaps know a little of the grammar and technique of the thing, but they cannot understand its full eloquence. in the presence of a genius like pablo de sarasate they are more or less perplexed,--it is as though you ask them to describe in set, cold terms the counterpoint and thoroughbass of the wind's symphony to the trees,--the great ocean's sonata to the shore, or the delicate madrigals sung almost inaudibly by little bell-blossoms to the tinkling fall of april rain. the man is too great for them--he is a blazing star that dazzles and confounds their sight--and, after the manner of their craft, they abuse what they can't understand. music is distinctly the language of the emotions,--and they have no emotion. they therefore generally prefer joachim,--the good, stolid joachim, who so delights all the dreary old spinsters and dowagers who nod over their knitting-needles at the 'monday popular' concerts, and fancy themselves lovers of the 'classical' in music. sarasate appeals to those who have loved, and thought, and suffered--those who have climbed the heights of passion and wrung out the depths of pain,--and therefore the people, taken en masse, as, for instance, in this crowded hall, instinctively respond to his magic touch. and why?--because the greater majority of human beings are full of the deepest and most passionate feelings, not as yet having been 'educated' out of them!" here the orchestra commenced liszt's "preludes"--and all conversation ceased. afterwards sarasate came again to bestow upon his eager admirers another saving grace of sound, in the shape of the famous mendelssohn concerto, which he performed with such fiery ardor, tenderness, purity of tone, and marvellous execution that many listeners held their breath for sheer amazement and delighted awe. anything approaching the beauty of his rendering of the final "allegro" alwyn had never heard,--and indeed it is probable none will ever hear a more poetical, more exquisite singing of thought than this matchless example of sarasate's genius and power. who would not warm to the brightness and delicacy of those delicious rippling tones, that seemed to leap from the strings alive like sparks of fire--the dainty, tripping ease of the arpeggi, that float from the bow with the grace of rainbow bubbles blown forth upon the air,--the brilliant runs, that glide and glitter up and down like chattering brooks sparkling among violets and meadow-sweet,--the lovely softer notes, that here and there sigh between the varied harmonies with the dreamy passion of lovers who part, only to meet again in a rush of eager joy!--alwyn sat absorbed and spellbound; he forgot the passing of time,--he forgot even the presence of heliobas,--he could only listen, and gratefully drink in every drop of sweetness that was so lavishly poured upon him from such a glorious sky of sunlit sound. presently, toward the end of the performance, a curious thing happened. sarasate had appeared to play the last piece set down for him,--a composition of his own, entitled "zigeunerweisen." a gypsy song, or medley of gypsy songs, it would be, thought alwyn, glancing at his programme,--then, looking towards the artist, who stood with lifted bow like another prospero, prepared to summon forth the ariel of music at a touch, he saw that the dark spanish eyes of the maestro were fixed full upon him, with, as he then fancied, a strange, penetrating smile in their fiery depths. one instant.. and a weird lament came sobbing from the smitten violin,--a wildly beautiful despair was wordlessly proclaimed, . . a melody that went straight to the heart and made it ache, and burn, and throb with a rising tumult of unlanguaged passion and desire! the solemn, yet unfettered, grace of its rhythmic respiration suggested to alwyn, first darkness,--then twilight--then the gradual far-glimmering of a silvery dawn,--till out of the shuddering notes there seemed to grow up a vague, vast, and cool whiteness, splendid and mystical,--a whiteness that from shapeless, fleecy mist took gradual form and substance, ... the great concert-hall, with its closely packed throng of people, appeared to fade away like vanishing smoke,--and lo!--before the poet's entranced gaze there rose up a wondrous vision of stately architectural grandeur,--a vision of snowy columns and lofty arches, upon which fell a shimmering play of radiant color flung by the beams of the sun through stained glass windows glistening jewel-wise,--a tremulous sound of voices floated aloft, singing, "kyrie eleison!--kyrie eleison!"--and the murmuring undertone of the organ shook the still air with deep vibrations of holy tune. everywhere peace,--everywhere purity! everywhere that spacious whiteness, flecked with side-gleams of royal purple, gold, and ardent crimson,--and in the midst of all,--o dearest tenderness!--o fairest glory!--a face, shining forth like a star in a cloud!--a face dazzlingly beautiful and sweet,--a golden head, above which the pale halo of a light ethereal hovered lovingly in a radiant ring! "edris!"--the chaste name breathed itself silently in alwyn's thoughts,--silently and yet with all the passion of a lover's prayer! how was it, he wondered dimly, that he saw her thus distinctly now,--now, when the violin-music wept its wildest tears--now when love, love, love, seemed to clamor in a tempestuous agony of appeal from the low, pulsating melody of the marvellous "zigeunerweisen," a melody which, despite its name, had revealed to one listener, at any rate, nothing concerning the wanderings of gypsies over forest and moorland,--but on the contrary had built up all these sublime cathedral arches, this lustrous light, this exquisite face, whose loveliness was his life! how had he found his way into such a dream sanctuary of frozen snow?--what was his mission there?--and why, when the picture slowly faded, did it still haunt his memory invitingly,--persuasively,--nay, almost commandingly? he could not tell,--but his mind was entirely ravished and possessed by an absorbing impression of white, sculptured calm,--and he was as startled as though he had been brusquely awakened from a deep sleep, when the loud plaudits of the people made him aware that sarasate had finished his programme, and was departing from the scene of his triumphs. the frenzied shouts and encores, however brought him once more before the excited public, to play a set of spanish dances, fanciful and delicate as the gamboling of a light breeze over rose-gardens and dashing fountains,--and when this wonder-music ceased, alwyn woke from tranced rapture into enthusiasm, and joined in the thunders of applause with fervent warmth and zeal. eight several times did the wearied, but ever affable, maestro ascend the platform to bow and smile his graceful acknowledgments, till the audience, satisfied with having thoroughly emphasized their hearty appreciation of his genius, permitted him to finally retire. then the people flocked out of the hall in crowds, talking, laughing, and delightedly commenting upon the afternoon's enjoyment, the brief remarks exchanged by two americans who were sauntering on immediately in front of heliobas and alwyn being perhaps the very pith and essence of the universal opinion concerning the great artist they had just heard. "i tell you what he is," said one, "he's a demi-god!" "oh, don't halve it!" rejoined the other wittily, "he's the whole thing anyway!" once outside the hall and in the busy street, now rendered doubly brilliant by the deep saffron light of a gloriously setting sun, heliobas prepared to take leave of his somewhat silent and preoccupied companion. "i see you are still under the sway of the ange-demon," he remarked cheerfully, as he shook hands, "is he not an amazing fellow? that bow of his is a veritable divining-rod, it finds out the fountain of elusidis [footnote: a miraculous fountain spoken of in old chronicles, whose waters rose to the sound of music, and, the music ceasing, sank again.] in each human heart,--it has but to pronounce a note, and straightway the hidden waters begin to bubble. but don't forget to read the newspaper accounts of this concert! you will see that the critics will make no allusion whatever to the enthusiasm of the audience, and that the numerous encores will not even be mentioned!" "that is unfair," said alwyn quickly. "the expression of the people's appreciation should always be chronicled." "of course!--but it never is, unless it suits the immediate taste of the cliques. clique-art, clique-literature, clique-criticism, keep all three things on a low ground that slopes daily more and more toward decadence. and the pity of it is, that the english get judged abroad chiefly by what their own journalists say of them,--thus, if sarasate is coldly criticised, foreigners laugh at the 'unmusical english,' whereas, the fact is that the nation itself is not unmusical, but its musical critics mostly are. they are very often picked out of the rank and file of the dullest academy students and contrapuntists, who are incapable of understanding anything original, and therefore are the persons most unfitted to form a correct estimate of genius. however, it has always been so, and i suppose it always will be so,--don't you remember that when beethoven began his grand innovations, a certain critic-ass-ter wrote of him, 'the absurdity of his effort is only equalled by the hideousness of its result'." he laughed lightly, and once more shook hands, while alwyn, looking at him wistfully, said: "i wonder when we shall meet again?" "oh, very soon, i dare say," he rejoined. "the world is a wonderfully small place, after all, as men find when they jostle up against each other unexpectedly in the most unlikely corners of far countries. you may, if you choose, correspond with me, and that is a privilege i accord to few, i assure you!" he smiled, and then went on in a more serious tone, "you are, of course, welcome at our monastery whenever you wish to come, but, take my advice, do not wilfully step out of the sphere in which you are placed. live in society, it needs men of your stamp and intellectual calibre; show it a high and consistent example--let no eccentricity mar your daily actions--work at your destiny steadily, cheerfully, serenely, and leave the rest to god, and--the angels!" there was a slight, tender inflection in his voice as he spoke the last words,--and alwyn gave him a quick, searching glance. but his blue, penetrating eyes were calm and steadfast, full of their usual luminous softness and pathos, and there was nothing expressed in them but the gentlest friendliness. "well! i'm glad i may write to you, at any rate," said alwyn at last, reluctantly releasing his hand. "it is possible i may not remain long in london; i want to finish my poem, and it gets on too slowly in the tumult of daily life in town." "then will you go abroad again?" inquired heliobas. "perhaps. i may. bonn, where i was once a student for a time. it is a peaceful, sleepy little place,--i shall probably complete my work easily there. moreover, it will be like going back to a bit of my youth. i remember i first began to entertain all my dreams of poesy at bonn." "inspired by the seven mountains and the drachenfels!" laughed heliobas. "no wonder you recalled the lost 'sah-luma' period in the sight of the entrancing rhine! ah, sir poet, you have had your fill of fame! and i fear the plaudits of london will never be like those of al-kyris! no monarchs will honor you now, but rather despise! for the kings and queens of this age prefer financiers to laureates! now, wherever you wander, let me hear of your well-being and progress in contentment; when you write, address to our dariel retreat, for though on my return from mexico i shall probably visit lemnos, my letters will always be forwarded. adieu!" "adieu!" and their eyes met. a grave sweet smile brightened the chaldean's handsome features. "god remain with you, my friend!" he said, in a low, thrillingly earnest tone. "believe me, you are elected to a strangely happy fate!--far happier than you at present know!" with these words he turned and was gone,--lost to sight in the surging throng of passers-by. alwyn looked eagerly after him, but saw him no more. his tall figure had vanished as utterly as any of the phantom shapes in al-kyris, only that, far from being spectre-like, he had seemed more actually a living personality than any of the people in the streets who were hurrying to and fro on their various errands of business or pleasure. that same night when alwyn related his day's adventure to villiers, who heard it with the most absorbed interest, he was describing the effect of sarasate's violin-playing, when all at once he was seized by the same curious, overpowering impression of white, lofty arches, stained windows, and jewel-like glimmerings of color, and he suddenly stopped short in the midst of his narrative. "what's the matter?" asked villiers, astonished. "go on!--you were saying,--" "that sarasate is one of the divinest of god's wandering melodies," went on alwyn, slowly and with a faint smile. "and that though, as a rule, musicians are forgotten when their music ceases, this andalusian orpheus in thrace will be remembered long after his violin is laid aside, and he himself has journeyed to a sunnier land than spain! but i am not master of my thoughts to-night, villiers; my chaldean friend has perhaps mesmerized me--who knows! and i have an odd fancy upon me. i should like to spend an hour in some great and beautiful cathedral, and see the light of the rising sun flashing through the stained windows across the altar!" "poet and dreamer!" laughed villiers. "you can't gratify that whim in london; there's no 'great and beautiful' edifice of the kind here,--only the unfinished oratory, westminster abbey, broken up into ugly pews and vile monuments, and the repellently grimy st. paul's--so go to bed, old boy, and indulge yourself in some more 'visions,' for i assure you you'll never find any reality come up to your ideal of things in general." "no?" and alwyn smiled. "strange that i see it in quite the reverse way! it seems to me, no ideal will ever come up to the splendor of reality!" "but remember," said villiers quickly, "your reality is heaven,--a 'reality' that is every one else's myth!" "true! terribly true!".. and alwyn's eyes darkened sorrowfully. "yet the world's myth is the only eternal real, and for the shadows of this present seeming we barter our immortal substance!" chapter xxxix. by the rhine. in the two or three weeks that followed his meeting with heliobas, alwyn made up his mind to leave london for a while. he was tired and restless,--tired of the routine society more or less imposed upon him,--restless because he had come to a standstill in his work--an invisible barrier, over which his creative fancy was unable to take its usual sweeping flight. he had an idea of seeking some quiet spot among mountains, as far remote as possible from the travelling world of men,--a peaceful place, where, with the majestic silence of nature all about him, he might plead in lover-like retirement with his refractory muse, and strive to coax her into a sweeter and more indulgent humor. it was not that thoughts were lacking to him,--what he complained of was the monotony of language and the difficulty of finding new, true, and choice forms of expression. a great thought leaps into the brain like a lightning flash; there it is, an indescribable mystery, warming the soul and pervading the intellect, but the proper expression of that thought is a matter of the deepest anxiety to the true poet, who, if he be worthy of his vocation, is bound not only to proclaim it to the world clearly, but also clad in such a perfection of wording that it shall chime on men's ears with a musical sound as of purest golden bells. there are very few faultless examples of this felicitous utterance in english or in any literature, so few, indeed, that they could almost all be included in one newspaper column of ordinary print. keats's exquisite line: "aeea's isle was wondering at the moon".. in which the word "wondering" paints a whole landscape of dreamy enchantment, and the couplet in the "ode to a nightingale," that speaks with a delicious vagueness of "magic casements opening on the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn,"-- are absolutely unique and unrivalled, as is the exquisite alliteration taken from a poet of our own day: "the holy lark, with fire from heaven and sunlight on his wing, who wakes the world with witcheries of the dark, renewed in rapture in the reddening air!" again from the same: "the chords of the lute are entranced with the weight of the wonder of things"; and "his skyward notes have drenched the summer with the dews of song! ..." this last line being certainly one of the most suggestive and beautiful in all poetical literature. such expressions have the intrinsic quality of completeness,--once said, we feel that they can never be said again;--they belong to the centuries, rather than the seasons, and any imitation of them we immediately and instinctively resent as an outrage. and theos alwyn was essentially, and above all things, faithful to the lofty purpose of his calling,--he dealt with his art reverently, and not in rough haste and scrambling carelessness,--if he worked out any idea in rhyme, the idea was distinct and the rhyme was perfect,--he was not content, like browning, to jumble together such hideous and ludicrous combinations as "high;--humph!" and "triumph,"--moreover, he knew that what he had to tell his public must be told comprehensively, yet grandly, with all the authority and persuasiveness of incisive rhetoric, yet also with all the sweetness and fascination of a passioned love-song. occupied with such work as this, london, with its myriad mad noises and vulgar distractions, became impossible to him,--and villiers, his fidus achates, who had read portions of his great poem and was impatient to see it finished, knowing, as he did, what an enormous sensation it would create when published, warmly seconded his own desire to gain a couple of months complete seclusion and tranquillity. he left town, therefore, about the middle of may and started across the channel, resolving to make for switzerland by the leisurely and delightful way of the rhine, in order to visit bonn, the scene of his old student days. what days they had been!--days of dreaming, more than action, for he had always regarded learning as a pastime rather than a drudgery, and so had easily distanced his comrades in the race for knowledge. while they were flirting with the lischen or gretchen of the hour, he had willingly absorbed himself in study--thus he had attained the head of his classes with scarce an effort, and, in fact, had often found time hanging heavily on his hands for want of something more to do. he had astonished the university professors--but he had not astonished himself, inasmuch as no special branch of learning presented any difficulties to him, and the more he mastered the more dissatisfied he became. it had seemed such a little thing to win the honors of scholarship! for at that time his ambition was always climbing up the apparently inaccessible heights of fame,--fame, that he then imagined was the greatest glory any human being could aspire to. he smiled as he recollected this, and thought how changed he was since then! what a difference between the former discontented mutability of his nature, and the deep, unswerving calm of patience that characterized it now! learning and scholarship? these were the mere child's alphabet of things,--and fame was a passing breath that ruffled for one brief moment the on-rushing flood of time--a bubble blown in the air to break into nothingness. thus much wisdom he had acquired,--and what more? a great deal more! he had won the difficult comprehension of himself; he had grasped the priceless knowledge that man has no enemy save that which is within him, and that the pride of a rebellious will is the parent sin from which all others are generated. the old scriptural saying is true for all time, that through pride the angels fell; and it is only through humility that they will ever rise again. pride! the proud will that is left free by divine law, to work for itself and answer for itself, and wreak upon its own head the punishment of its own errors,--the will that once voluntarily crushed down, in the dust at the cross of christ, with these words truly drawn from the depths of penitence, "lord, not as i will, but as thou wilt!" is straightway lifted up from its humiliation, a supreme, stately force, resistless, miraculous, world-commanding;--smoothing the way for all greatness and all goodness, and guiding the happy soul from joy to joy, from glory to glory, till heaven itself is reached and the perfection of all love and life begins. for true humility is not slavish, as some people imagine, but rather royal, since, while acknowledging the supremacy of god, it claims close kindred with him, and is at once invested with all the diviner virtues. fame and wealth, the two perishable prizes for which men struggle with one another in ceaseless and cruel combat, bring no absolute satisfaction in the end--they are toys that please for a time and then grow wearisome. but the conquering of self is a battle in which each fresh victory bestows a deeper content, a larger happiness, a more perfect peace,--and neither poverty, sickness, nor misfortune can quench the courage, or abate the ardor, of the warrior who is absorbed in a crusade against his own worser passions. egotism is the vice of this age,--the maxim of modern society is "each man for himself, and no one for his neighbor"--and in such a state of things, when personal interest or advantage is the chief boon desired, we cannot look for honesty in either religion, politics, or commerce. nor can we expect any grand work to be done in art or literature. when pictures are painted and books are written for money only,--when laborers take no pleasure in labor save for the wage it brings,--when no real enthusiasm is shown in anything except the accumulation of wealth,--and when all the finer sentiments and nobler instincts of men are made subject to mammon worship, is any one so mad and blind as to think that good can come of it? nothing but evil upon evil can accrue from such a system,--and those who have prophetic eyes to see through the veil of events can perceive, even now, the not far distant end--namely, the ruin of the country that has permitted itself to degenerate into a mere nation of shopkeepers,--and something worse than ruin,--degradation! it was past eight in the evening when alwyn, after having spent a couple of days in bright little brussels, arrived at cologne. most travelers know to their cost how noisy, narrow, and unattractive are the streets of this ancient colonia agrippina of the romans,--how persistent and wearying is the rattle of the vehicles over the rough, cobbly stones--how irritating to the nerves is the incessant shrieking whistle and clank of the rhine steamboats as they glide in, or glide out, from the cheerless and dirty pier. but at night, when these unpleasant sounds have partially subsided, and the lights twinkle in the shop-windows, and the majestic mass of the cathedral casts its broad shadow on the moonlit dom-platz, and a few soldiers, with clanking swords and glittering spurs, come marching out from some dark stone archway, and the green gleam of the river sparkles along in luminous ripples,--then it is that a something weird and mystical creeps over the town, and the glamour of ancient historical memories begins to cling about its irregular buildings,--one thinks of the legendary three kings, and believes in them, too,--of st. ursula and her company of virgins; of marie de medicis dying alone in that tumbled-down house in the stern-gasse,--of rubens, who, it is said, here first saw the light of this world,--of an angry satan flinging his teufelstein from the seven mountains in an impotent attempt to destroy the dom; and gradually, the indestructible romantic spell of the rhine steals into the spirit of common things that were unlovely by day, and makes the old city beautiful under the sacred glory of the stars. alwyn dined at his hotel, and then, finding it still too early to retire to rest, strolled slowly across the platz, looking up at the sublime god's temple above him, the stately cathedral, with its wondrously delicate carvings and flying buttresses, on which the moonlight glittered like little points of pale flame. he knew it of old; many and many a time had he taken train from bonn, for the sole pleasure of spending an hour in gazing on that splendid "sermon in stone,"--one of the grandest testimonies in the world of man's instinctive desire to acknowledge and honor, by his noblest design and work, the unseen but felt majesty of the creator. he had a great longing to enter it now, and ascended the steps with that intention; but, much to his vexation, the doors were shut. he walked from the side to the principal entrance; that superb western frontage which is so cruelly blocked in by a dwarfish street of the commonest shops and meanest houses,--and found that also closed against him. disappointed and sorry, he went back again to the side of the colossal structure, and stood on the top of the steps, close to the central barred doors, studying the sculptured saints in the niches, and feeling a sudden, singular impression of extreme loneliness,--a sense of being shut out, as it were, from some high festival in which he would gladly have taken part. not a cloud was in the sky, ... the evening was one of the most absolute calm, and a delicious warmth pervaded the air,--the warmth of a fully declared and balmy spring. the platz was almost deserted,--only a few persons crossed it now and then, like flitting shadows,--and somewhere down in one of the opposite streets a long way off, there was a sound of men's voices singing a part-song. presently, however, this distant music ceased, and a deep silence followed. alwyn still remained in the sombre shade of the cathedral archway, arguing with himself against the foolish and unaccountable depression that had seized him, and watching the brilliant may moon soar up higher and higher in the heavens; when,--all at once, the throbbing murmur of the great organ inside the dom startled him from pensive dreaminess into swift attention. he listened,--the rich, round notes thundered through the stillness with forceful and majestic harmony; anon, wierd tones, like the passionate lament of sarasate's "zigeunerweisen" floated around and above him: then, a silvery chorus of young voices broke forth in solemn unison: "kyrie eleison! christe eleison! kyrie eleison!" a faint cold tremor crept through his veins,--his heart beat violently,--again he vainly strove to open the great door. was there a choir practising inside at this hour of the night? surely not! then,--from whence had this music its origin? stooping, he bent his ear to the crevice of the closed portal,--but, as suddenly as they had begun, the harmonies ceased; and all was once more profoundly still. drawing a long, deep breath, he stood for a moment amazed and lost in thought--these sounds, he felt sure, were not of earth but of heaven! they had the same ringing sweetness as those he had heard on the field of ardath! what might they mean to him, here and now? quick as a flash the answer came--death! god had taken pity upon his solitary earth wanderings,--and the prayers of edris had shortened his world-exile and probation! he was to die! and that solemn singing was the warning,--or the promise,--of his approaching end! yes! it must be so, he decided, as, with a strange, half-sad peace at his heart, he quietly descended the steps of the dom,-he would perhaps be permitted to finish the work he was at present doing,--and then,--then, the poet-pen would be laid aside forever, chains would be undone, and he would be set at liberty! such was his fixed idea. was he glad of the prospect, he asked himself? yes, and no! for himself he was glad; but in these latter days he had come to understand the thousand wordless wants and aspirations of mankind,--wants and aspirations to which only the poet can give fitting speech; he had begun to see how much can be done to cheer and raise and ennoble the world by even one true, brave, earnest, and unselfish worker,--and he had attained to such a height in sympathetic comprehension of the difficulties and drawbacks of others, that he had ceased to consider himself at all in the question, either with regard to the present or the immortal future,--he was, without knowing it, in the simple, unconsciously perfect attitude of a soul that is absolutely at one with god, and that thus, in involuntary god-likeness, is only happy in the engendering of happiness. he believed that, with the divine help, he could do a lasting good for his fellow-men,--and to this cause he was willing to sacrifice everything that pertained to his own mere personal advantage. but now,--now,--or so he imagined,--he was not to be allowed to pursue his labors of love,--his trial was to end suddenly,--and he, so long banished from his higher heritage, was to be restored to it without delay,--restored and drawn back to the land of perfect loveliness where edris, his angel, waited for him, his saint, his queen, his bride! a thrill of ecstatic joy rushed through him,--joy intermingled with an almost supernal pain. for he had not as yet said enough to the world,--the world of many afflictions,--the little sorrowful star covered with toiling, anxious, deluded god-forgetting millions, in every unit of which was a spark of heavenly flame, a germ of the spiritual essence that makes the angel, if only fostered aright. lost in a deep reverie, his footsteps had led him unconsciously to the rhine bridge,--paying the customary fee, he walked about half-way across it, and stood for a while listening to the incessant swift rush of the river beneath him. lights twinkled from the boats moored on either side,--the moon poured down a wide shower of white beams on the rapid flood,--the city, dusky and dream-like, crowned with the majestic towers of the dom, looked picturesquely calm and grand--it was a night of perfect beauty and wondrous peace. and he was to die!--to die and leave all this, the present fairness of the world,--he was to depart, with, as he felt, his message half unspoken,--he was to be made eternally happy, while many of the thousands he left behind were, through ignorance, wilfully electing to be eternally miserable! a great, almost divine longing to save one,--only one downward drifting soul, possessed him,--and the comprehension of christ's sacrifice was no longer a mystery! yet he was so certain that death, sudden and speedy closely, awaited him that he seemed to feel it in the very air,--not like a coming chill of dread, but like the soft approach of some holy seraph bringing benediction. it mattered little to him that he was actually in the very plenitude of health and strength,--that perhaps in all his life he had never felt such a keen delight in the physical perfection of his manhood as now,--death, without warning and at a touch, could smite down the most vigorous, and to be so smitten, he believed, was his imminent destiny. and while he lingered on the bridge, fancy-perplexed between grief and joy, a small window opened in a quaint house that bent its bulging gables crookedly over the gleaming water, and a girl, holding a small lamp, looked out for a moment. her face, fresh and smiling, was fair to see against the background of dense shadow,--the light she carried flashed like a star,--and leaning down from the lattice she sang half-timidly, half mischievously, the first two or three bars of the old song.. "du, du, liegst in mein herzen ... !" "ah! gute nacht, liebchen!" said a man's voice below. "gute nacht! schlafen sie wohl!" a light laugh, and the window closed, "good-night! sleep well!" love's best wish!--and for some sad souls life's last hope,--a "good-night and sleep well!" poor tired world, for whose weary inhabitants oftentimes the greatest blessing is sleep! good-night! sleep well! but the sleep implies waking.--waking to a morning of pleasure or sorrow,--or labor that is only lightened by,--love! love!--love divine,--love human,--and, sweetest love of all for us, as christ has taught when both divine and human are mingled in one! alwyn, glancing up at the clustering stars, hanging like pendent fire-jewels above him, thought of this marvel-glory of love,--this celestial visitant who, on noiseless pinions, comes flying divinely into the poorest homes, transfiguring common life with ethereal radiance, making toil easy, giving beauty to the plainest faces and poetry to the dullest brains. love! its tremulous hand-clasp,--its rapturous kiss,--the speechless eloquence it gives to gentle eyes!--the grace it bestows on even the smallest gift from lover to beloved, were such gift but a handful of meadow blossoms tied with some silken threads of hair! not for the poet creator of "nourhulma" such love any more,--had he not drained the cup of passion to the dregs in the far past, and tasted its mixed sweetness and bitterness to no purpose save self-indulgence? all that was over;--and yet, as he walked away from the bridge, back to his hotel in the quiet moonlight, he thought what a transcendent thing love might be, even on earth, between two whose spirits were spiritually akin,--whose lives were like two notes played in tuneful concord,--whose hearts beat echoing faith and tenderness to one another,--and who held their love as a sacred bond of union--a gift from god, not to be despoiled by that rough familiarity which surely brings contempt. and then before his fancy appeared to float the radiant visage of edris, half-child, half-angel,--he seemed to see her beautiful eyes, so pure, so clear, so unshadowed by any knowledge of sin,--and the exquisite lines of a poet-contemporary, whose work he specially admired, occurred to him with singular suggestiveness: "oh, thou'lt confess that love from man to maid is more than kingdoms,--more than light and shade in sky-built gardens where the minstrels dwell, and more than ransom from the bonds of hell. thou wilt, i say, admit the truth of this, and half relent that, shrinking from a kiss, thou didst consign me to mine own disdain, athwart the raptures of a vision'd bliss. "i'll seek no joy that is not linked with thine, no touch of hope, no taste of holy wine, and after death, no home in any star, that is not shared by thee, supreme, afar as here thou'rt first and foremost of all things! glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings that wait on thought, when, in thy spirit-sway, thou dost invest a realm unknown to kings!" had not she, edris, consigned him to his "own disdain, athwart the raptures of a visioned bliss?" ay! truly and deservedly!--and this disdain of himself had now reached its culminating point,--namely, that he did not consider himself worthy of her love,--or worthy to do aught than sink again into far spaces of darkness and perpetually retrospective memory, there to explore the uttermost depths of anguish, and count up his errors one by one from the very beginning of life, in every separate phase he had passed through, till he had penitently striven his best to atone for them all! christ had atoned! yes,--but was it not almost base on his part to shield himself with that divine light and do nothing further? he could not yet thoroughly grasp the amazing truth that one absolutely pure act of faith in christ, blots out past sin forever,--it seemed too marvellous and great a boon! when he retired to rest that night he was fully and firmly prepared to die. with this expectation upon him he was nevertheless happy and tranquil. the line--"glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings" haunted him, and he repeated it over and over again without knowing why. wings! the brilliant shafts of radiance that part angels from mortals,--wings, that, after all, are not really wings, but lambent rays of living lightning, of which neither painter nor poet has any true conception, . . long, dazzling rays such as encircled god's maiden, edris, with an arch of roseate effulgence, so that the very air was sunset-colored in the splendor of her presence! how if she were a wingless angel,--made woman? "glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings!" and with the name of his angel-love upon his lips he closed his eyes and sank into a deep and dreamless slumber. chapter xl. in the cathedral. a booming, thunderous, yet mellow sound! a grand, solemn, sonorous swing of full and weighty rhythm, striking the air with deep, slowly measured resonance like the rolling of close cannon! awake, all ye people!--awake to prayer and praise! for the night is past and sweet morning reddens in the east, ... another day is born,--a day in which to win god's grace and pardon,--another wonder of light, movement, creation, beauty, love! awake, awake! be glad and grateful for the present joy of life,--this life, dear harbinger of life to come! open your eyes, ye drowsy mortals, to the divine blue of the beneficent sky, the golden beams of the sun, the color of flowers, the foliage of trees, the flash of sparkling waters!--open your ears to the singing of birds, the whispering of winds, the gay ripple of children's laughter, the soft murmurs of home affection,--for all these things are freely bestowed upon you with each breaking dawn, and will you offer unto god no thanksgiving?--awake! awake! the voice you have yourselves set in your high cathedral towers reproaches your lack of love with its iron tongue, and summons you all to worship him the ever-glorious, through whose mercy alone you live! to and fro,--to and fro,--gravely persistent, sublimely eloquent, the huge, sustained, and heavy monotone went thudding through the stillness,--till, startled from his profound sleep by such loud, lofty, and incessant clangor, alwyn turned on his pillow and listened, half-aroused, half-bewildered,--then, remembering where he was, he understood; it was the great bell of the dom pealing forth its first summons to the earliest mass. he lay quiet for a little while, dreamily counting the number of reverberations each separate stroke sent quivering on the air,--but presently, finding it impossible to sleep again, he got up, and drawing aside the curtain looked out of the window of his room, which fronted on the platz. though it was not yet six o'clock, the city was all astir,--the rhinelanders are an early working people, and to see the sun rise is not with them a mere fiction of poesy, but a daily fact. it was one of the loveliest of lovely spring mornings--the sky was clear as a pale, polished sapphire, and every little bib of delicate carving and sculpture on the dom stood out from its groundwork with microscopically beautiful distinctness. and as his gaze rested on the perfect fairness of the day, a strange and sudden sense of rapturous anticipation possessed his mind,--he felt as one prepared for some high and exquisite happiness,--some great and wondrous celebration or feast of joy! the thoughts of death, on which he had brooded so persistently during the past yester-eve, had fled, leaving no trace behind,--only a keen and vigorous delight in life absorbed him now. it was good to be alive, even on this present earth! it was good to see, to feel, to know! and there was much to be thankful for in the mere capability of easy and healthful breathing! full of a singular light-heartedness, he hummed a soft tune to himself as he moved about his room,--his desire to view the interior of the cathedral had not abated with sleep, but had rather augmented,--and he resolved to visit it now, while he had the chance of beholding it in all the impressive splendor of uncrowded tranquillity. for he knew that by the time he was dressed, the first mass would be over,--the priests and people would be gone,--and he would be alone to enjoy the magnificence of the place in full poet-luxury,--the luxury of silence and solitude. he attired himself quickly, and with a vaguely nervous eagerness,--he was in almost as great a hurry to enter the dom as he had been to arrive at the field of ardath! the same feverish impatience was upon him--impatience that he was conscious of, yet could not account for,--his fancy busied itself with a whole host of memories, and fragments of half-forgotten love-songs he had written in his youth, came back to him without his wish or will,--songs that he instinctively felt belonged to his past, when as "sah-luma" he had won golden opinions in al-kyris. and though they were but echoes, they seemed this morning to touch him with half-pleasing, half-tender suggestiveness,--two lines especially from the idyl of roses he had penned so long,--ah! so very long ago,--came floating through his brain like a message sent from some other world,-- "by the pureness of love shall our glory in loving increase, and the roses of passion for us are the lilies of peace." the "lilies of peace" and the flowers of ardath,--the "roses of passion" and the love of edris, these were all mingled almost unconsciously in his thoughts, as with an inexplicable, happy sense of tremulous expectation,--expectation of he knew not what-he went, walking as one in haste, across the broad platz and ascended the steps of the cathedral. but the side-entrance was fast shut, as on the previous night,--he therefore made his rapid way round to the great western door. that stood open,--the bell had long ago ceased,--mass was over,--and all was profoundly still. out of the warm sunlit air he stepped into the vast, cool, clear-obscure, white glory of the stately shrine,--with bared head and noiseless, reverent feet, he advanced a little way up the nave, and then stood motionless, every artistic perception in him satisfied, soothed, and entranced anew, as in his student-days, by the tranquil grandeur of the scene. what majestic silence! what hallowed peace! how jewel-like the radiance of the sun pouring through the rich stained glass on those superb carved pillars, that, like petrified stems of forest-trees, bear lightly up the lofty, vaulted roof to that vast height suggestive of a white sky rather than stone! moving on slowly further toward the altar, he was suddenly seized by an overpowering impression,--a memory that rushed upon him with a sort of shock, albeit it was only the memory of a tune!--a wild melody, haunting and passionate, rang in his eras,--the melody that sarasate, the orpheus of spain, had evoked from the heart of his speaking violin,--the sobbing love-lament of the "zigeunerweisen"--the weird minor-music that had so forcibly suggested--what? this very place!--these snowy columns,--this sculptured sanctity--this flashing light of rose and blue and amber,--this wondrous hush of consecrated calm! what next? dear god! sweet christ! what next? the face of edris?--would that heavenly countenance shine suddenly though those rainbow-colored beams that struck slantwise down toward him?--and should he presently hear her dulcet voice charming the silence into deeper ecstasy? overcome by a sensation that was something like fear, he stopped abruptly, and leaning against one of the quaint old oaken benches, strove to control the quick, excited throbbing of his heart,--then gradually, very gradually he become conscious that he was not alone,--another besides himself was in the church,--another, whom it was necessary for him to see! he could not tell how he first grew to be certain of this,--but he was soon so completely possessed by the idea, that for a moment he dared not raise his eyes, or move! some invincible force held him there spell-bound, yet trembling in every limb,--and while he thus waited hesitatingly, the great organ woke up in a glory of tuneful utterance,--wave after wave of richest harmony rolled through the stately aisles and ... "kyrie eleison! kyrie eleison!" rang forth in loud, full, and golden-toned chorus! lifting his head, he stared wonderingly around him; not a living creature was visible in all the spacious width and length of the cathedral! his lips parted,--he felt as though he could scarcely breathe,--strong shudders ran through him, and he was penetrated by a pleasing terror that was almost a physical pang,--an agonized entrancement, like death or the desire of love! presently, mastering himself by a determined effort, he advanced steadily with the absorbed air of one who is drawn along by magnetic power ... steadily and slowly up the nave, ... and as he went, the music surged more tumultuously among the vaulted arches,--there was a faint echo afar off, as of tinkling crystal bells; and at each onward step he gained a new access of courage, strength, firmness, and untrammelled ease, till every timorous doubt and fear had fled away, and he stood directly in front of the altar railing, gazing at the enshrined cross, and seeing for the moment nothing save that divine symbol alone. and still the organ played, and still the voices sang,--he knew these sounds were not of earth, and he also knew that they were intended to convey a meaning to him,--but what meaning? all at once, moved by a sudden impulse, he turned toward the right hand side of the altar, where the great statue of st. christopher stands, and where one of the loveliest windows in the world gleams like a great carven gem aloft, filtering the light through a myriad marvellous shades of color, and there he beheld, kneeling on the stone pavement, one solitary worshipper,--a girl. her hands were clasped, and her face was bent upon them so that her features were not visible,--but the radiance from the window fell on her uncovered golden hair, encircling it with the glistening splendor of a heavenly nimbus,--and round her slight, devotional figure, rays of azure and rose jasper and emerald, flickered in wide and lustrous patterns, like the glow of the setting sun on a translucent sea. how very still she was! ... how fervently absorbed in prayer! vaguely startled, and thrilled by an electric, indefinable instinct, alwyn went toward her with hushed and reverential tread, his eyes dwelling upon the drooping, delicate outline of her form with fascinated and eager attention. she was clad in gray,--a soft, silken, dove-like gray, that clung about her in picturesque, daintily draped folds,--he approached her still more nearly, and then could scarcely refrain from a loud cry of amazement! what flowers were those she wore at her breast!--so white, so star-like, so suggestive of paradise lilies new-gathered? were they not the flowers of ardath? dizzy with the sudden tumult of his own emotions, he dropped on his knees beside her,--she did not stir! was she real?--or a phantom? trembling violently, he touched her garment--it was of tangible, smooth texture, actual enough, if the sense of touch could be relied upon. in an agony of excitement and suspense he lost all remembrance of time, place, or custom,--her bewildering presence must be explained,--he must know who she was,--he must speak to her,--speak, if he died for it! "pardon me!" he whispered faintly, scarcely conscious of his own words; "i fancy,--i think,--we have met,--before! may i, . . dare i, . . ask your name?" slowly she unclasped her gently folded hands; slowly, very slowly, she lifted her bent head, and smiled at him! oh, the lovely light upon her face! oh, the angel glory of those strange, sweet eyes! "my name is edris!"--she said, and as the pure bell-like tone of her voice smote the air with its silvery sound, the mysterious music of the organ and the invisible singers throbbed away,--away,--away,--into softer and softer echoes, that died at last tremulously and with a sigh, as of farewell, into the deepest silence. "edris!"--in a trance of passionate awe and rapture he caught her hand,--the warm, delicate hand that yielded to his strong clasp in submissive tenderness,--pulsations of terror, pain, and wild joy, all commingled, rushed through him,--with adoring, wistful gaze he scanned every feature of that love-smiling countenance,--a countenance no longer lustrous with heaven's blinding glory, but only most maiden-like and innocently fair,--dazzled, perplexed, and half afraid, he could not at once grasp the true comprehension of his ineffable delight! he had no doubt of her identity--he knew her well! she was his own heartworshipped angel,--but on what errand had she wandered out of paradise? had she come once more, as on the field of ardath, to comfort him for a brief space with the beauty of her visible existence, or did she bring from heaven the warrant for his death? "edris!" he said, as softly as one may murmur a prayer, "edris, my life, my love! speak to me again! make me sure that i am not dreaming! tell me where i have failed in my sworn faith since we parted; teach me how i must still further atone! is this the hour appointed for my spirit's ransom?--has this dear and sacred hand i hold, brought me my quittance of earth?--and have i so soon won the privilege to die?" as he spoke, she rose and stood erect, with all the glistening light of the stained window falling royally about her,--and he obeying her mute gesture, rose also and faced her in wondering ecstasy, half expecting to see her vanish suddenly in the sun-rays that poured through the cathedral, even as she had vanished before like a white cloud absorbed in clear space. but no! she remained quiet as a tame bird,--her eyes met his with beautiful trust and tenderness,--and when she answered him, her low, sweet accents thrilled to his heart with a pathetic note of human affection, as well as of angelic sympathy! "theos, my beloved, i am all thine!" she said, a holy rapture vibrating through her exquisite voice.--"thine now, in mortal life as in immortal!--one with thee in nature and condition,--pent up in perishable clay, even as thou art,--subject to sorrow, and pain, and weariness,--willing to share with thee thine earthly lot,--ready to take my part in thy grief or joy! by mine own choice have i come hither,--sinless, yet not exempt from sin, but safe in christ! every time thou hast renounced the desire of thine own happiness, so much the nearer hast thou drawn me to thee; every time thou hast prayed god for my peace, rather than thine own, so much the closer has my existence been linked with thine! and now, o my poet, my lord, my king!--we are together forever more,--together in the brief present, as in the eternal future!--the solitary heaven-days of edris are past, and her mission is not death, but love!" oh, the transcendent beauty of that warm flush upon her face!--the splendid hope, faith, and triumph of her attitude! what strange miracle was here accomplished!--an angel had become human for the sake of love, even as light substantiates itself in the colors of flowers!--the eden lily had consented to be gathered,--the paradise dove had fluttered down to earth! breathless, bewildered, lifted to a height of transport beyond all words, alwyn gazed upon her in entranced, devout silence,--the vast cathedral seemed to swing round and round in great glittering circles, and nothing was real, nothing steadfast, but that slight, sweet maiden in her soft gray robes, with the ardath-blossoms gleaming white against her breast! angel she was,--angel she ever would be,--and yet--what did she seem? naught but: "a child-like woman, wise and very fair, crowned with the garland of her golden hair!" this, and no more,--and yet in this was all earth and all heaven comprised!--he gazed and gazed, overwhelmed by the amazement of his own bliss,--he could have gazed upon her so in speechless ravishment for hours, when, with a gesture of infinite grace and appeal, she stretched out her hands toward him: "speak to me, dearest one!" she murmured wistfully--"tell me,--am i welcome?" "o exquisite humility!--o beautiful maiden-timid hesitation! was she,--even she, god's angel, so far removed from pride, as to be uncertain of her lover's reception of such a gift of love? roused from his half-swooning sense of wonder, he caught those gentle hands, and laid them tenderly against his breast,--tremblingly, and all devoutly, he drew the lovely, yielding form into his arms, close to his heart,--with dazzled sight he gazed down into that pure, perfect face, those clear and holy eyes shining like new-created stars beneath the soft cloud of clustering fair hair! "welcome!" he echoed, in a tone that thrilled with passionate awe and ecstasy;--"my edris! my saint! my queen! welcome, more welcome than the first flowers seen after winter snows!--welcome, more welcome than swift rescue to one in dire peril!--welcome, my angel, into the darkness of mortal things, which haply so sweet a presence shall make bright! o sacred innocence that i am not worthy to shield! ... o sinless beauty that i am all unfitted to claim or possess! welcome to my life, my heart, my soul! welcome, sweet trust, sweet hope, sweet love, that as christ lives, i will never wrong, betray, or resign again through all the glory spaces of far eternity!" as he spoke, his arms closed more surely about her,--his lips met hers,--and in the mingled human and divine rapture of that moment, there came a rushing noise, as of thousands of wings beating the air, followed by a mighty wave of music that rolled approachingly and then departingly through and through the cathedral arches--and a voice, clear and resonant as a silver clarion, proclaimed aloud: "those whom god hath joined together, let no man put asunder!" then, with a surging, jubilant sound, like the sea in a storm, the music seemed to tread past in a measured march of stately harmony,--and presently there was silence once more,--the silence and sunshine of the morning pouring through the rose windows of the church and sparkling on the cross above the altar,--the silence of a love made perfect,--of twin souls made one! and then edris drew herself gently from her lover's embrace and raised her head,--putting her hand confidingly in his, a lovely smile played on her sweetly parted lips: "take me, theos," she said softly, "lead me,--into the world!" * * * * * * slowly the great side-doors of the cathedral swung back on their hinges,--and out on the steps in a glorious blaze of sunlight came poet and angel together. the one, a man in the full prime of splendid and vigorous manhood,--the other, a maiden, timid and sweet, robed in gray attire with a posy of white flowers at her throat. a simple girl, and most distinctly human,--the fresh, pure color reddened in her cheeks,--the soft springtide wind fanned her gold hair, and the sunbeams seemed to dance about her in a bright revel of amaze and curiosity. her lustrous eyes dwelt on the busy platz below with a vaguely compassionate wonder--a look that suggested some far foreknowledge of things, that at the same time were strangely unfamiliar. hand in hand with her companion she stood,--while he, holding her fast, drunk in the pureness of her beauty, the love-light of her glance, the holy radiance of her smile, till every sense in him was spiritualized anew by the passionate faith and reverence in his heart, the marvellous glory that had fallen upon his life, the nameless rapture that possessed his soul!--to have knelt at her feet, and bowed his head before her in worshipping silence, would have been to follow the strongest impulse in him,--but she had given him a higher duty than this. he was to "lead her,"--lead her "into the world!"--the dreary, dark world, so unfitted to receive such brightness,--she had come to him clad in all the sacred weakness of womanhood; and it was his proud privilege to guard and shelter her from evil,--from the evil in others, but chiefly from the evil in himself. no taint must touch that spotless life with which god had entrusted him!--sorrow might come--nay, must come, since, so long as humanity errs, so long must angels grieve,--sorrow, but not sin! a grand, awed sense of responsibility filled him,--a responsibility that he accepted with passionate gratitude and joy ... he had attained a vaster dignity than any king on any throne, ... and all the visible universe was transfigured into a golden pageant of loveliness and light, fairer than the fabled valley of avilion! yet still he kept her close beside him on the steps of the mighty dom, half-longing, half-hesitating to take her further, and ever and anon assailed by a dreamy doubt as to whether she might not even now pass away from him suddenly and swiftly, as a mist fading into heaven,--when all at once the sound of beating drums and martial trumpets struck loudly on the quiet morning air. a brilliant regiment of mounted uhlans emerged from an opposite street, and cantered sharply across the platz and over the rhine-bridge, with streaming pennons, burnished helmets and accoutrements glistening in a long compact line of silvery white, that vanished as speedily as it had appeared, like a winding flash of meteor flame. alwyn drew a deep, quick breath; the sight of those armed soldiers roused him to the fact that he was actually in the turmoil of present daily events,--that his supernal happiness was no vision, but reality,--that edris, his spirit-love, was with him in tangible human guise of flesh and blood,--though how such a mysterious marvel had been accomplished, he knew no more than scientists know how the lovely life of green leaf and perfect flower can still be existent in seeds that have lain dormant and dry in old tombs for thousands of years! and as he looked at her proudly,--adoringly,--she raised her beautiful, innocent, questioning eyes to his. "this is a city?" she asked--"a city of men who labor for good, and serve each other?" "alas, not so, my sweet!" he answered, his voice trembling with its own infinite tenderness; "there is no city on the sad earth where men do not labor for mere vanity's sake, and oppose each other!" her inquiring gaze softened into a celestial compassion. "come,--let us go!" she said gently. "we twain, made one in love and faith, must hasten to begin our work!--darkness gathers and deepens over the sorrowful star,--but we, perchance, with christ's most holy blessing, may help to lift the shadows into light!" * * * * * * * away in a sheltered mountainous retreat, apart from the louder clamor of the world, the poet and his heavenly companion dwell in peace together. their love, their wondrous happiness, no mortal language can define,--for spiritual love perfected as far exceeds material passion as the steadfast glory of the sun outshines the nickering of an earthly taper. few, very few, there are who recognize, or who attain, such joy,--for men chiefly occupy themselves with the semblances of things, and therefore fail to grasp all high realities. perishable beauty,--perishable fame,--these are mere appearances; imperishable worth is the only positive and lasting good, and in the search for imperishable worth alone, the seeker must needs encounter angels unawares! but for those whose pleasure it is to doubt and deny all spiritual life and being, the history of theos alwyn can be disposed of with much languid ease and cold logic, as a foolish chimera scarce worth narrating. practically viewed, there is nothing wonderful in it, since it can all be traced to a powerful exertion of magnetic skill. tranced into a dream bewilderment by the arts of the mystic chaldean, heliobas,--tricked into visiting the field of ardath, what more likely than that a real earth-born maiden, trained to her part, should have met the dreamer there, and, with the secret aid of the hermit elezar, continued his strange delusion? what more fitting as a sequel to the whole, than that the same maiden should have been sent to him again in the great rhine cathedral, to complete the deception and satisfy his imagination by linking her life finally with his?--it is a perfectly simple explanation of what some credulous souls might be inclined to consider a mystery,--and let the dear, wise, oracular people who cannot admit any mystery in anything, and who love to trace all seeming miracles to clever imposture, accept this elucidation by all means,--they will be able to fit every incident of the story into such an hypothesis, with most admirable and consecutive neatness! al-kyris was truly a vision,--the rest was,--what? merely the working of a poetic imagination under mesmeric influence! so be it! the poet knows the truth,--but what are poets? only the prophets and seers! only the eyes of time, which clearly behold heaven's fact beyond this world's fable. let them sing if they choose, and we will hear them in our idle hours,--we will give them a little of our gold,--a little of our grudging praise, together with much of our private practical contempt and misprisal! so say the unthinking and foolish--so will they ever say,--and hence it is, that though the fame of theos alwyn widens year by year, and his sweet clarion harp of song rings loud warning, promise, hope, and consolation above the noisy tumult of the whirling age, people listen to him merely in vague wonderment and awe, doubting his prophet utterance, and loth to put away their sin. but he, never weary in well-doing, works on, ... ever regardless of self, caring nothing for fame, but giving all the riches of his thought for love. clear, grand, pure, and musical, his writings fill the time with hope and passionate faith and courage,--his inspiration fails not, and can never fail, since edris is his fount of ecstasy,--his name, made glorious by god's blessing, shall never, as in his perished past, be again forgotten! and what of edris? what of the "flower-crowned wonder" of the field of ardath, strayed for a while out of her native heaven? does the world know her marvellous origin? perhaps the mystic heliobas knows,--perhaps even good frank villiers has hazarded a reverent guess at his friend's great secret--but to the uninstructed, what does she seem? nothing but a woman, most pure womanly; a woman whose influence on all is strangely sweet and lasting,--whose spirit overflows with tenderest sympathy for the many wants and sorrows of mankind,--whose voice charms away care,--whose smile engenders peace,--whose eyes, lustrous and thoughtful, are unclouded by any shadow of sin,--and on whose serene beauty the passing of years leaves no visible trace. that she is fair and wise, joyous, radiant, and holy is apparent to all,--but only the poet, her lover and lord, her subject and servant, can tell how truly his edris is not so much sweet woman as most perfect angel! a dream of heaven made human! ... let some of us hesitate ere we doubt the miracle; for we are sleepers and dreamers all,--and the hour is close at hand when--we shall wake. the end. ziska the problem of a wicked soul by marie corelli other books by the same author the sorrows of satan barabbas a romance of two worlds the mighty atom, etc., etc. to the present living re-incarnation of araxes ziska. the problem of a wicked soul. prologue. dark against the sky towered the great pyramid, and over its apex hung the moon. like a wreck cast ashore by some titanic storm, the sphinx, reposing amid the undulating waves of grayish sand surrounding it, seemed for once to drowse. its solemn visage that had impassively watched ages come and go, empires rise and fall, and generations of men live and die, appeared for the moment to have lost its usual expression of speculative wisdom and intense disdain--its cold eyes seemed to droop, its stern mouth almost smiled. the air was calm and sultry; and not a human foot disturbed the silence. but towards midnight a voice suddenly arose as it were like a wind in the desert, crying aloud: "araxes! araxes!" and wailing past, sank with a profound echo into the deep recesses of the vast egyptian tomb. moonlight and the hour wove their own mystery; the mystery of a shadow and a shape that flitted out like a thin vapor from the very portals of death's ancient temple, and drifting forward a few paces resolved itself into the visionary fairness of a woman's form--a woman whose dark hair fell about her heavily, like the black remnants of a long-buried corpse's wrappings; a woman whose eyes flashed with an unholy fire as she lifted her face to the white moon and waved her ghostly arms upon the air. and again the wild voice pulsated through the stillness. "araxes! ... araxes! thou art here, --and i pursue thee! through life into death; through death out into life again! i find thee and i follow! i follow! araxes!..." moonlight and the hour wove their own mystery; and ere the pale opal dawn flushed the sky with hues of rose and amber the shadow had vanished; the voice was heard no more. slowly the sun lifted the edge of its golden shield above the horizon, and the great sphinx awaking from its apparent brief slumber, stared in expressive and eternal scorn across the tracts of sand and tufted palm-trees towards the glittering dome of el-hazar--that abode of profound sanctity and learning, where men still knelt and worshipped, praying the unknown to deliver them from the unseen. and one would almost have deemed that the sculptured monster with the enigmatical woman-face and lion-form had strange thoughts in its huge granite brain; for when the full day sprang in glory over the desert and illumined its large features with a burning saffron radiance, its cruel lips still smiled as though yearning to speak and propound the terrible riddle of old time; the problem which killed! chapter i. it was the full "season" in cairo. the ubiquitous britisher and the no less ubiquitous american had planted their differing "society" standards on the sandy soil watered by the nile, and were busily engaged in the work of reducing the city, formerly called al kahira or the victorious, to a more deplorable condition of subjection and slavery than any old-world conqueror could ever have done. for the heavy yoke of modern fashion has been flung on the neck of al kahira, and the irresistible, tyrannic dominion of "swagger" vulgarity has laid the victorious low. the swarthy children of the desert might, and possibly would, be ready and willing to go forth and fight men with men's weapons for the freedom to live and die unmolested in their own native land; but against the blandly-smiling, white-helmeted, sun-spectacled, perspiring horde of cook's "cheap trippers," what can they do save remain inert and well-nigh speechless? for nothing like the cheap tripper was ever seen in the world till our present enlightened and glorious day of progress; he is a new-grafted type of nomad, like and yet unlike a man. the darwin theory asserts itself proudly and prominently in bristles of truth all over him--in his restlessness, his ape-like agility and curiosity, his shameless inquisitiveness, his careful cleansing of himself from foreign fleas, his general attention to minutiae, and his always voracious appetite; and where the ape ends and the man begins is somewhat difficult to discover. the "image of god" wherewith he, together with his fellows, was originally supposed to be impressed in the first fresh days of creation, seems fairly blotted out, for there is no touch of the divine in his mortal composition. nor does the second created phase-the copy of the divineo--namely, the heroic,--dignify his form or ennoble his countenance. there is nothing of the heroic in the wandering biped who swings through the streets of cairo in white flannels, laughing at the staid composure of the arabs, flicking thumb and finger at the patient noses of the small hireable donkeys and other beasts of burden, thrusting a warm red face of inquiry into the shadowy recesses of odoriferous bazaars, and sauntering at evening in the esbekiyeh gardens, cigar in mouth and hands in pockets, looking on the scene and behaving in it as if the whole place were but a reflex of earl's court exhibition. history affects the cheap tripper not at all; he regards the pyramids as "good building" merely, and the inscrutable sphinx itself as a fine target for empty soda-water bottles, while perhaps his chiefest regret is that the granite whereof the ancient monster is hewn is too hard for him to inscribe his distinguished name thereon. it is true that there is a punishment inflicted on any person or persons attempting such wanton work--a fine or the bastinado; yet neither fine nor bastinado would affect the "tripper" if he could only succeed in carving "'arry" on the sphinx's jaw. but he cannot, and herein is his own misery. otherwise he comports himself in egypt as he does at margate, with no more thought, reflection, or reverence than dignify the composition of his far-off simian ancestor. taking him all in all, he is, however, no worse, and in some respects better, than the "swagger" folk who "do" egypt, or rather, consent in a languid way to be "done" by egypt. these are the people who annually leave england on the plea of being unable to stand the cheery, frosty, and in every respect healthy winter of their native country--that winter, which with its wild winds, its sparkling frost and snow, its holly trees bright with scarlet berries, its merry hunters galloping over field and moor during daylight hours, and its great log fires roaring up the chimneys at evening, was sufficiently good for their forefathers to thrive upon and live through contentedly up to a hale and hearty old age in the times when the fever of travelling from place to place was an unknown disease, and home was indeed "sweet home." infected by strange maladies of the blood and nerves, to which even scientific physicians find it hard to give suitable names, they shudder at the first whiff of cold, and filling huge trunks with a thousand foolish things which have, through luxurious habit, become necessities to their pallid existences, they hastily depart to the land of the sun, carrying with them their nameless languors, discontents and incurable illnesses, for which heaven itself, much less egypt, could provide no remedy. it is not at all to be wondered at that these physically and morally sick tribes of human kind have ceased to give any serious attention as to what may possibly become of them after death, or whether there is any "after," for they are in the mentally comatose condition which precedes entire wreckage of brain-force; existence itself has become a "bore;" one place is like another, and they repeat the same monotonous round of living in every spot where they congregate, whether it be east, west, north, or south. on the riviera they find little to do except meet at rumpelmayer's at cannes, the london house at nice, or the casino at monte-carlo; and in cairo they inaugurate a miniature london "season" over again, worked in the same groove of dinners, dances, drives, picnics, flirtations, and matrimonial engagements. but the cairene season has perhaps some advantage over the london one so far as this particular set of "swagger" folk are concerned--it is less hampered by the proprieties. one can be more "free," you know! you may take a little walk into "old" cairo, and turning a corner you may catch glimpses of what mark twain calls "oriental simplicity," namely, picturesquely-composed groups of "dear delightful" arabs whose clothing is no more than primitive custom makes strictly necessary. these kind of "tableaux vivants" or "art studies" give quite a thrill of novelty to cairene-english society,--a touch of savagery,--a soupcon of peculiarity which is entirely lacking to fashionable london. then, it must be remembered that the "children of the desert" have been led by gentle degrees to understand that for harboring the strange locusts imported into their land by cook, and the still stranger specimens of unclassified insect called upper ten, which imports itself, they will receive "backsheesh." "backsheesh" is a certain source of comfort to all nations, and translates itself with sweetest euphony into all languages, and the desert-born tribes have justice on their side when they demand as much of it as they can get, rightfully or wrongfully. they deserve to gain some sort of advantage out of the odd-looking swarms of western invaders who amaze them by their dress and affront them by their manners. "backsheesh," therefore, has become the perpetual cry of the desert-born,--it is the only means of offence and defence left to them, and very naturally they cling to it with fervor and resolution. and who shall blame them? the tall, majestic, meditative arab--superb as mere man, and standing naked-footed on his sandy native soil, with his one rough garment flung round his loins and his great black eyes fronting, eagle-like, the sun--merits something considerable for condescending to act as guide and servant to the western moneyed civilian who clothes his lower limbs in straight, funnel-like cloth casings, shaped to the strict resemblance of an elephant's legs, and finishes the graceful design by enclosing the rest of his body in a stiff shirt wherein he can scarcely move, and a square-cut coat which divides him neatly in twain by a line immediately above the knee, with the effect of lessening his height by several inches. the desert-born surveys him gravely and in civil compassion, sometimes with a muttered prayer against the hideousness of him, but on the whole with patience and equanimity,--influenced by considerations of "backsheesh." and the english "season" whirls lightly and vaporously, like blown egg-froth, over the mystic land of the old gods,--the terrible land filled with dark secrets as yet unexplored,--the land "shadowing with wings," as the bible hath it,--the land in which are buried tremendous histories as yet unguessed,--profound enigmas of the supernatural,--labyrinths of wonder, terror and mystery,--all of which remain unrevealed to the giddy-pated, dancing, dining, gabbling throng of the fashionable travelling lunatics of the day,--the people who "never think because it is too much trouble," people whose one idea is to journey from hotel to hotel and compare notes with their acquaintances afterwards as to which house provided them with the best-cooked food. for it is a noticeable fact that with most visitors to the "show" places of europe and the east, food, bedding and selfish personal comfort are the first considerations,--the scenery and the associations come last. formerly the position was reversed. in the days when there were no railways, and the immortal byron wrote his childe harold, it was customary to rate personal inconvenience lightly; the beautiful or historic scene was the attraction for the traveller, and not the arrangements made for his special form of digestive apparatus. byron could sleep on the deck of a sailing vessel wrapped in his cloak and feel none the worse for it; his well-braced mind and aspiring spirit soared above all bodily discomforts; his thoughts were engrossed with the mighty teachings of time; he was able to lose himself in glorious reveries on the lessons of the past and the possibilities of the future; the attitude of the inspired thinker as well as poet was his, and a crust of bread and cheese served him as sufficiently on his journeyings among the then unspoilt valleys and mountains of switzerland as the warm, greasy, indigestible fare of the elaborate table-d'hotes at lucerne and interlaken serve us now. but we, in our "superior" condition, pooh-pooh the byronic spirit of indifference to events and scorn of trifles,--we say it is "melodramatic," completely forgetting that our attitude towards ourselves and things in general is one of most pitiable bathos. we cannot write childe harold, but we can grumble at both bed and board in every hotel under the sun; we can discover teasing midges in the air and questionable insects in the rooms; and we can discuss each bill presented to us with an industrious persistence which nearly drives landlords frantic and ourselves as well. in these kind of important matters we are indeed "superior" to byron and other ranting dreamers of his type, but we produce no childe harolds, and we have come to the strange pass of pretending that don juan is improper, while we pore over zola with avidity! to such a pitch has our culture brought us! and, like the pharisee in the testament, we thank god we are not as others are. we are glad we are not as the arab, as the african, as the hindoo; we are proud of our elephant-legs and our dividing coat-line; these things show we are civilized, and that god approves of us more than any other type of creature ever created. we take possession of nations, not by thunder of war, but by clatter of dinner-plates. we do not raise armies, we build hotels; and we settle ourselves in egypt as we do at homburg, to dress and dine and sleep and sniff contempt on all things but ourselves, to such an extent that we have actually got into the habit of calling the natives of the places we usurp "foreigners." we are the foreigners; but somehow we never can see it. wherever we condescend to build hotels, that spot we consider ours. we are surprised at the impertinence of frankfort people who presume to visit homburg while we are having our "season" there; we wonder how they dare do it! and, of a truth, they seem amazed at their own boldness, and creep shyly through the kur-garten as though fearing to be turned out by the custodians. the same thing occurs in egypt; we are frequently astounded at what we call "the impertinence of these foreigners," i.e. the natives. they ought to be proud to have us and our elephant-legs; glad to see such noble and beautiful types of civilization as the stout parvenu with his pendant paunch, and his family of gawky youths and maidens of the large-toothed, long-limbed genus; glad to see the english "mamma," who never grows old, but wears young hair in innocent curls, and has her wrinkles annually "massaged" out by a paris artiste in complexion. the desert-born, we say, should be happy and grateful to see such sights, and not demand so much "backsheesh." in fact, the desert-born should not get so much in our way as he does; he is a very good servant, of course, but as a man and a brother--pooh! egypt may be his country, and he may love it as much as we love england; but our feelings are more to be considered than his, and there is no connecting link of human sympathy between elephant-legs and sun-browned nudity! so at least thought sir chetwynd lyle, a stout gentleman of coarse build and coarser physiognomy, as he sat in a deep arm-chair in the great hall or lounge of the gezireh palace hotel, smoking after dinner in the company of two or three acquaintances with whom he had fraternized during his stay in cairo. sir chetwynd was fond of airing his opinions for the benefit of as many people who cared to listen to him, and sir chetwynd had some right to his opinions, inasmuch as he was the editor and proprietor of a large london newspaper. his knighthood was quite a recent distinction, and nobody knew exactly how he had managed to get it. he had originally been known in fleet street by the irreverent sobriquet of "greasy chetwynd," owing to his largeness, oiliness and general air of blandly-meaningless benevolence. he had a wife and two daughters, and one of his objects in wintering at cairo was to get his cherished children married. it was time, for the bloom was slightly off the fair girl-roses,--the dainty petals of the delicate buds were beginning to wither. and sir chetwynd had heard much of cairo; he understood that there was a great deal of liberty allowed there between men and maids,--that they went out together on driving excursions to the pyramids, that they rode on lilliputian donkeys over the sand at moonlight, that they floated about in boats at evening on the nile, and that, in short, there were more opportunities of marriage among the "flesh-pots of egypt" than in all the rush and crush of london. so here he was, portly and comfortable, and on the whole well satisfied with his expedition; there were a good many eligible bachelors about, and muriel and dolly were really doing their best. so was their mother, lady chetwynd lyle; she allowed no "eligible" to escape her hawk-like observation, and on this particular evening she was in all her glory, for there was to be a costume ball at the gezireh palace hotel,--a superb affair, organized by the proprietors for the amusement of their paying guests, who certainly paid well,--even stiffly. owing to the preparations that were going on for this festivity, the lounge, with its sumptuous egyptian decorations and luxurious modern fittings, was well-nigh deserted save for sir chetwynd and his particular group of friends, to whom he was holding forth, between slow cigar-puffs, on the squalor of the arabs, the frightful thievery of the sheiks, the incompetency of his own special dragoman, and the mistake people made in thinking the egyptians themselves a fine race. "they are tall, certainly," said sir chetwynd, surveying his paunch, which lolled comfortably, and as it were by itself, in front of him, like a kind of waistcoated air-balloon. "i grant you they are tall. that is, the majority of them are. but i have seen short men among them. the khedive is not taller than i am. and the egyptian face is very deceptive. the features are often fine,--occasionally classic,--but intelligent expression is totally lacking." here sir chetwynd waved his cigar descriptively, as though he would fain suggest that a heavy jaw, a fat nose with a pimple at the end, and a gross mouth with black teeth inside it, which were special points in his own physiognomy, went further to make up "intelligent expression" than any well-moulded, straight, eastern type of sun-browned countenance ever seen or imagined. "well, i don't quite agree with you there," said a man who was lying full length on one of the divans close by and smoking. "these brown chaps have deuced fine eyes. there doesn't seem to be any lack of expression in them. and that reminds me, there is at fellow arrived here to-day who looks for all the world like an egyptian, of the best form. he is a frenchman, though; a provencal,--every one knows him,--he is the famous painter, armand gervase." "indeed!"--and sir chetwynd roused himself at the name--"armand gervase! the armand gervase?" "the only one original," laughed the other. "he's come here to make studies of eastern women. a rare old time he'll have among them, i daresay! he's not famous for character. he ought to paint the princess ziska." "ah, by-the-bye, i wanted to ask you about that lady. does anyone know who she is? my wife is very anxious to find out whether she is--well--er--quite the proper person, you know! when one has young girls, one cannot be too careful." ross courtney, the man on the divan, got up slowly and stretched his long athletic limbs with a lazy enjoyment in the action. he was a sporting person with unhampered means and large estates in scotland and ireland; he lived a joyous, "don't-care" life of wandering about the world in search of adventures, and he had a scorn of civilized conventionalities--newspapers and their editors among them. and whenever sir chetwynd spoke of his "young girls" he was moved to irreverent smiling, as he knew the youngest of the twain was at least thirty. he also recognized and avoided the wily traps and pitfalls set for him by lady chetwynd lyle in the hope that he would yield himself up a captive to the charms of muriel or dolly; and as he thought of these two fair ones now and involuntarily compared them in his mind with the other woman just spoken of, the smile that had begun to hover on his lips deepened unconsciously till his handsome face was quite illumined with its mirth. "upon my word, i don't think it matters who anybody is in cairo!" he said with a fine carelessness. "the people whose families are all guaranteed respectable are more lax in their behavior than the people one knows nothing about. as for the princess ziska, her extraordinary beauty and intelligence would give her the entree anywhere--even if she hadn't money to back those qualities up." "she's enormously wealthy, i hear," said young lord fulkeward, another of the languid smokers, caressing his scarcely perceptible moustache. "my mother thinks she is a divorcee." sir chetwynd looked very serious, and shook his fat head solemnly. "well, there is nothing remarkable in being divorced, you know," laughed ross courtney. "nowadays it seems the natural and fitting end of marriage." sir chetwynd looked graver still. he refused to be drawn into this kind of flippant conversation. he, at any rate, was respectably married; he had no sympathy whatever with the larger majority of people whose marriages were a failure. "there is no prince ziska then?" he inquired. "the name sounds to me of russian origin, and i imagined--my wife also imagined,--that the husband of the lady might very easily be in russia while his wife's health might necessitate her wintering in egypt. the russian winter climate is inclement, i believe." "that would be a very neat arrangement," yawned lord fulkeward. "but my mother thinks not. my mother thinks there is not a husband at all,--that there never was a husband. in fact my mother has very strong convictions on the subject. but my mother intends to visit her all the same." "she does? lady fulkeward has decided on that? oh, well, in that case!"--and sir chetwynd expanded his lower-chest air-balloon. "of course, lady chetwynd lyle can no longer have any scruples on the subject. if lady fulkeward visits the princess there can be no doubt as to her actual status." "oh, i don't know!" murmured lord fulkeward, stroking his downy lip. "you see my mother's rather an exceptional person. when the governor was alive she hardly ever went out anywhere, you know, and all the people who came to our house in yorkshire had to bring their pedigrees with them, so to speak. it was beastly dull! but now my mother has taken to 'studying character,' don'cher know; she likes all sorts of people about her, and the more mixed they are the more she is delighted with them. fact, i assure you! quite a change has come over my mother since the poor old governor died!" ross courtney looked amused. a change indeed had come over lady fulkeward--a change, sudden, mysterious and amazing to many of her former distinguished friends with "pedigrees." in her husband's lifetime her hair had been a soft silver-gray; her face pale, refined and serious; her form full and matronly; her step sober and discreet; but two years after the death of the kindly and noble old lord who had cherished her as the apple of his eye and up to the last moment of his breath had thought her the most beautiful woman in england, she appeared with golden tresses, a peach-bloom complexion, and a figure which had been so massaged, rubbed, pressed and artistically corseted as to appear positively sylph-like. she danced like a fairy, she who had once been called "old" lady fulkeward; she smoked cigarettes; she laughed like a child at every trivial thing--any joke, however stale, flat and unprofitable, was sufficient to stir her light pulses to merriment; and she flirted--oh, heavens!--how she flirted!--with a skill and a grace and a knowledge and an aplomb that nearly drove muriel and dolly chetwynd lyle frantic. they, poor things, were beaten out of the field altogether by her superior tact and art of "fence," and they hated her accordingly and called her in private a "horrid old woman," which perhaps, when her maid undressed her, she was. but she was having a distinctly "good time" in cairo; she called her son, who was in delicate health, "my poor dear little boy!" and he, though twenty-eight on his last birthday, was reduced to such an abject condition of servitude by her assertiveness, impudent gayety and general freedom of manner, that he could not open his mouth without alluding to "my mother," and using "my mother" as a peg whereon to hang all his own opinions and emotions as well as the opinions and emotions of other people. "lady fulkeward admires the princess very much, i believe?" said another lounger who had not yet spoken. "oh, as to that!"--and lord fulkeward roused himself to some faint show of energy. "who wouldn't admire her? by jove! only, i tell you what--there's something i weird about her eyes. fact! i don't like her eyes." "shut up, fulke! she has beautiful eyes!" burst out courtney, hotly; then flushing suddenly he bit his lips and was silent. "who is this that has beautiful eyes?" suddenly demanded a slow, gruff voice, and a little thin gentleman, dressed in a kind of academic gown and cap, appeared on the scene. "hullo! here's our f.r.s.a.!" exclaimed lord fulkeward. "by jove! is that the style you have got yourself up in for tonight? it looks awfully smart, don'cher know!" the personage thus complimented adjusted his spectacles and surveyed his acquaintances with a very well-satisfied air. in truth, dr. maxwell dean had some reason for self-satisfaction, if the knowledge that he possessed one of the cleverest heads in europe could give a man cause for pride. he was apparently the only individual in the gezireh palace hotel who had come to egypt for any serious purpose. a purpose he had, though what it was he declined to explain. reticent, often brusque, and sometimes mysterious in his manner of speech, there was not the slightest doubt that he was at work on something, and that he also had a very trying habit of closely studying every object, small or great, that came under his observation. he studied the natives to such an extent that he knew every differing shade of color in their skins; he studied sir chetwynd lyle and knew that he occasionally took bribes to "put things" into his paper; he studied dolly and muriel chetwynd lyle, and knew that they would never succeed in getting husbands; he studied lady fulkeward, and thought her very well got up for sixty; he studied ross courtney, and knew he would never do anything but kill animals all his life; and he studied the working of the gezireh palace hotel, and saw a fortune rising out of it for the proprietors. but apart from these ordinary surface things, he studied other matters--"occult" peculiarities of temperament, "coincidences," strange occurrences generally. he could read the egyptian hieroglyphs perfectly, and he understood the difference between "royal cartouche" scarabei and birmingham-manufactured ones. he was never dull; he had plenty to do; and he took everything as it came in its turn. even the costume ball for which he had now attired himself did not present itself to him as a "bore," but as a new vein of information, opening to him fresh glimpses of the genus homo as seen in a state of eccentricity. "i think," he now said, complacently, "that the cap and gown look well for a man of my years. it is a simple garb, but cool, convenient and not unbecoming. i had thought at first of adopting the dress of an ancient egyptian priest, but i find it difficult to secure the complete outfit. i would never wear a costume of the kind that was not in every point historically correct." no one smiled. no one would have dared to smile at dr. maxwell dean when he spoke of "historically correct" things. he had studied them as he had studied everything, and he knew all about them. sir chetwynd murmured: "quite right--er--the ancient designs were very elaborate--" "and symbolic," finished dr. dean. "symbolic of very curious meanings, i assure you. but i fear i have interrupted your talk. mr. courtney was speaking about somebody's beautiful eyes; who is the fair one in question?" "the princess ziska," said lord fulkeward. "i was saying that i don't quite like the look of her eyes." "why not? why not?" demanded the doctor with sudden asperity. "what's the matter with them?" "everything's the matter with them!" replied ross courtney with a forced laugh. "they are too splendid and wild for fulke; he likes the english pale-blue better than the egyptian gazelle-black." "no, i don't," said lord fulkeward, speaking more animatedly than was customary with him. "i hate, pale-blue eyes. i prefer soft violet-gray ones, like miss murray's." "miss helen murray is a very charming young lady," said dr. dean. "but her beauty is quite of an ordinary type, while that of the princess ziska--" "is extra-ordinary--exactly! that's just what i say!" declared courtney. "i think she is the loveliest woman i have ever seen." there was a pause, during which the little doctor looked with a ferret-like curiosity from one man to the other. sir chetwynd lyle rose ponderously up from the depths of his arm-chair. "i think," said he, "i had better go and get into my uniform--the windsor, you know! i always have it with me wherever i go; it comes in very useful for fancy balls such as the one we are going to have tonight, when no particular period is observed in costume. isn't it about time we all got ready?" "upon my life, i think it is!" agreed lord fulkeward. "i am coming out as a neapolitan fisherman! i don't believe neapolitan fishermen ever really dress in the way i'm going to make up, but it's the accepted stage-type, don'cher know." "ah! i daresay you will look very well in it," murmured ross courtney, vaguely. "hullo! here comes denzil murray!" they all turned instinctively to watch the entrance of a handsome young man, attired in the picturesque garb worn by florentine nobles during the prosperous reign of the medicis. it was a costume admirably adapted to the wearer, who, being grave and almost stern of feature, needed the brightness of jewels and the gloss of velvet and satin to throw out the classic contour of his fine head and enhance the lustre of his brooding, darkly-passionate eyes. denzil murray was a pure-blooded highlander,--the level brows, the firm lips, the straight, fearless look, all bespoke him a son of the heather-crowned mountains and a descendant of the proud races that scorned the "sassenach," and retained sufficient of the material whereof their early phoenician ancestors were made to be capable of both the extremes of hate and love in their most potent forms. he moved slowly towards the group of men awaiting his approach with a reserved air of something like hauteur; it was possible he was conscious of his good looks, but it was equally evident that he did not desire to be made the object of impertinent remark. his friends silently recognized this, and only lord fulkeward, moved to a mild transport of admiration, ventured to comment on his appearance. "i say, denzil, you're awfully well got up! awfully well! magnificent!" denzil murray bowed with a somewhat wearied and sarcastic air. "when one is in rome, or egypt, one must do as rome, or egypt, does," he said, carelessly. "if hotel proprietors will give fancy balls, it is necessary to rise to the occasion. you look very well, doctor. why don't you other fellows go and get your toggeries on? it's past ten o'clock, and the princess ziska will be here by eleven." "there are other people coming besides the princess ziska, are there not, mr. murray?" inquired sir chetwynd lyle, with an obtrusively bantering air. denzil murray glanced him over disdainfully. "i believe there are," he answered coolly. "otherwise the ball would scarcely pay its expenses. but as the princess is admittedly the most beautiful woman in cairo this season, she will naturally be the centre of attraction. that's why i mentioned she would be here at eleven." "she told you that?" inquired ross courtney. "she did." courtney looked up, then down, and seemed about to speak again, but checked himself and finally strolled off, followed by lord fulkeward. "i hear," said dr. dean then, addressing denzil murray, "that a great celebrity has arrived at this hotel--the painter, armand gervase." denzil's face brightened instantly with a pleasant smile. "the dearest friend i have in the world!" he said. "yes, he is here. i met him outside the door this afternoon. we are very old chums. i have stayed with him in paris, and he has stayed with me in scotland. a charming fellow! he is very french in his ideas; but he knows england well, and speaks english perfectly." "french in his ideas!" echoed sir chetwynd lyle, who was just preparing to leave the lounge. "dear me! how is that?" "he is a frenchman," said dr. dean, suavely. "therefore that his ideas should be french ought not to be a matter of surprise to us, my dear sir chetwynd." sir chetwynd snorted. he had a suspicion that he--the editor and proprietor of the daily dial--was being laughed at, and he at once clambered on his high horse of british morality. "frenchman or no frenchman," he observed, "the ideas promulgated in france at the present day are distinctly profane and pernicious. there is a lack of principle--a want of rectitude in--er--the french press, for example, that is highly deplorable." "and is the english press immaculate?" asked denzil languidly. "we hope so," replied sir chetwynd. "we do our best to make it so." and with that remark he took his paunch and himself away into retirement, leaving dr. dean and young murray facing each other, a singular pair enough in the contrast of their appearance and dress,--the one small, lean and wiry, in plain-cut, loose-flowing academic gown; the other tall, broad and muscular, clad in the rich attire of mediaeval florence, and looking for all the world like a fine picture of that period stepped out from, its frame. there was a silence between them for a moment,--then the doctor spoke in a low tone: "it won't do, my dear boy,--i assure you it won't do! you will break your heart over a dream, and make yourself miserable for nothing. and you will break your sister's heart as well; perhaps you haven't thought of that?" denzil flung himself into the chair sir chetwynd had just vacated, and gave vent to a sigh that was almost a groan. "helen doesn't know anything--yet," he said hoarsely. "i know nothing myself; how can i? i haven't said a word to--to her. if i spoke all that was in my mind, i daresay she would laugh at me. you are the only one who has guessed my secret. you saw me last night when i--when i accompanied her home. but i never passed her palace gates,--she wouldn't let me. she bade me 'good-night' outside; a servant admitted her, and she vanished through the portal like a witch or a ghost. sometimes i fancy she is a ghost. she is so white, so light, so noiseless and so lovely!" he turned his eyes away, ashamed of the emotion that moved him. dr. maxwell dean took off his academic cap and examined its interior as though he considered it remarkable. "yes," he said slowly; "i have thought the same thing of her myself--sometimes." further conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the military band of the evening, which now crossed the "lounge," each man carrying his instrument with him; and these were followed by several groups of people in fancy dress, all ready and eager for the ball. pierrots and pierrettes, monks in drooping cowls, flower-girls, water-carriers, symbolic figures of "night" and "morning," mingled with the counterfeit presentments of dead-and-gone kings and queens, began to flock together, laughing and talking on their way to the ball-room; and presently among them came a man whose superior height and build, combined with his eminently picturesque, half-savage type of beauty, caused every one to turn and watch him as he passed, and murmur whispering comments on the various qualities wherein he differed from themselves. he was attired for the occasion as a bedouin chief, and his fierce black eyes, and close-curling, dark hair, combined with the natural olive tint of his complexion, were well set off by the snowy folds of his turban and the whiteness of his entire costume, which was unrelieved by any color save at the waist, where a gleam of scarlet was shown in the sash which helped to fasten a murderous-looking dagger and other "correct" weapons of attack to his belt. he entered the hall with a swift and singularly light step, and made straight for denzil murray. "ah! here you are!" he said, speaking english with a slight foreign accent, which was more agreeable to the ear than otherwise. "but, my excellent boy, what magnificence! a medici costume! never say to me that you are not vain; you are as conscious of your good looks as any pretty woman. behold me, how simple and unobtrusive i am!" he laughed, and murray sprang up from the chair where he had been despondently reclining. "oh, come, i like that!" he exclaimed. "simple and unobtrusive! why everybody is staring at you now as if you had dropped from the moon! you cannot be armand gervase and simple and unobtrusive at the same time!" "why not?" demanded gervase, lightly. "fame is capricious, and her trumpet is not loud enough to be heard all over the world at once. the venerable proprietor of the dirty bazaar where i managed to purchase these charming articles of bedouin costume had never heard of me in his life. miserable man! he does not know what he has missed!" here his flashing black eyes lit suddenly on dr. dean, who was "studying" him in the same sort of pertinacious way in which that learned little man studied everything. "a friend of yours, denzil?" he inquired. "yes," responded murray readily; "a very great friend--dr. maxwell dean. dr. dean, let me introduce to you armand gervase; i need not explain him further!" "you need not, indeed!" said the doctor, with a ceremonious bow. "the name is one of universal celebrity." "it is not always an advantage--this universal celebrity," replied gervase. "nor is it true that any celebrity is actually universal. perhaps the only living person that is universally known, by name at least, is zola. mankind are at one in their appreciation of vice." "i cannot altogether agree with you there," said dr. dean slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on the artist's bold, proud features with singular curiosity. "the french academy, i presume, are individually as appreciative of human weaknesses as most men; but taken collectively, some spirit higher and stronger than their own keeps them unanimous in their rejection of the notorious realist who sacrifices all the canons of art and beauty to the discussion of topics unmentionable in decent society." gervase laughed idly. "oh, he will get in some day, you may be sure," he answered. "there is no spirit higher and stronger than the spirit of naturalism in man; and in time, when a few prejudices have died away and mawkish sentiment has been worn threadbare, zola will be enrolled as the first of the french academicians, with even more honors than if he had succeeded in the beginning. that is the way of all those 'select' bodies. as napoleon said, 'le monde vient a celui qui sait attendre.'" the little doctor's countenance now showed the most lively and eager interest. "you quite believe that, monsieur gervase? you are entirely sure of what you said just now?" "what did i say? i forget!" smiled gervase, lighting a cigarette and beginning to smoke it leisurely. "you said, 'there is no spirit higher or stronger than the spirit of naturalism in man.' are you positive on this point?" "why, of course! most entirely positive!" and the great painter looked amused as he gave the reply. "naturalism is nature, or the things appertaining to nature, and there is nothing higher or stronger than nature everywhere and anywhere." "how about god?" inquired dr. dean with a curious air, as if he were propounding a remarkable conundrum. "god!" gervase laughed loudly. "pardon! are you a clergyman?" "by no means!" and the doctor gave a little bow and deprecating smile. "i am not in any way connected with the church. i am a doctor of laws and literature,--a humble student of philosophy and science generally..." "philosophy! science!" interrupted gervase. "and you ask about god! parbleu! science and philosophy have progressed beyond him!" "exactly!" and dr. dean rubbed his hands together pleasantly. "that is your opinion? yes, i thought so! science and philosophy, to put it comprehensively, have beaten poor god on his own ground! ha! ha! ha! very good--very good! and humorous as well! ha! ha!" and a very droll appearance just then had this "humble student of philosophy and science generally," for he bent himself to and fro with laughter, and his small eyes almost disappeared behind his shelving brows in the excess of his mirth. and two crosslines formed themselves near his thin mouth--such lines as are carven on the ancient greek masks which indicate satire. denzil murray flushed uncomfortably. "gervase doesn't believe in anything but art," he said, as though half apologizing for his friend: "art is the sole object of his existence; i don't believe he ever has time to think about anything else." "of what else should i think, mon ami?" exclaimed gervase mirthfully. "of life? it is all art to me; and by art i mean the idealization and transfiguration of nature." "oh. if you do that sort of thing you are a romancist," interposed dr. dean emphatically. "nature neither idealizes nor transfigures itself; it is simply nature and no more. matter uncontrolled by spirit is anything but ideal." "precisely," answered gervase quickly and with some warmth; "but my spirit idealizes it,--my imagination sees beyond it,--my soul grasps it." "oh, you have a soul?" exclaimed dr. dean, beginning to laugh again. "now, how did you find that out?" gervase looked at him in a sudden surprise. "every man has an inward self, naturally," he said. "we call it 'soul' as a figure of speech; it is really temperament merely." "oh, it is merely temperament? then you don't think it is likely to outlive you, this soul--to take new phases upon itself and go on existing, an immortal being, when your body is in a far worse condition (because less carefully preserved) than an egyptian mummy?" "certainly not!" and gervase flung away the end of his finished cigarette. "the immortality of the soul is quite an exploded theory. it was always a ridiculous one. we have quite enough to vex us in our present life, and why men ever set about inventing another is more than i am able to understand. it was a most foolish and barbaric superstition." the gay sound of music now floated towards them from the ball-room,--the strains of a graceful, joyous, half-commanding, half-pleading waltz came rhythmically beating on the air like the measured movement of wings,--and denzil murray, beginning to grow restless, walked to and fro, his eyes watching every figure that crossed and re-crossed the hall. but dr. dean's interest in armand gervase remained intense and unabated; and approaching him, he laid two lean fingers delicately on the white folds of the bedouin dress just where the heart of the man was hidden. "'a foolish and barbaric superstition!'" he echoed slowly and meditatively. "you do not believe in any possibility of there being a life--or several lives--after this present death through which we must all pass inevitably, sooner or later?" "not in the least! i leave such ideas to the ignorant and uneducated. i should be unworthy of the progressive teachings of my time if i believed such arrant nonsense." "death, you consider, finishes all? there is nothing further--no mysteries beyond? ..." and dr. dean's eyes glittered as he stretched forth one thin, slight hand and pointed into space with the word "beyond," an action which gave it a curious emphasis, and for a fleeting second left a weird impression on even the careless mind of gervase. but he laughed it off lightly. "nothing beyond? of course not! my dear sir, why ask such a question? nothing can be plainer or more positive than the fact that death, as you say, finishes all." a woman's laugh, low and exquisitely musical, rippled on the air as he spoke--delicious laughter, rarer than song; for women as a rule laugh too loudly, and the sound of their merriment partakes more of the nature of a goose's cackle than any other sort of natural melody. but this large, soft and silvery, was like a delicately subdued cadence played on a magic flute in the distance, and suggested nothing but sweetness; and at the sound of it gervase started violently and turned sharply round upon his friend murray with a look of wonderment and perplexity. "who is that?" he demanded. "i have heard that pretty laugh before; it must be some one i know." but denzil scarcely heard him. pale, and with eyes full of yearning and passion, he was watching the slow approach of a group of people in fancy dress, who were all eagerly pressing round one central figure--the figure of a woman clad in gleaming golden tissues and veiled in the old egyptian fashion up to the eyes, with jewels flashing about her waist, bosom and hair,--a woman who moved glidingly as if she floated rather than walked, and whose beauty, half hidden as it was by the exigencies of the costume she had chosen, was so unusual and brilliant that it seemed to create an atmosphere of bewilderment and rapture around her as she came. she was preceded by a small nubian boy in a costume of vivid scarlet, who, walking backwards humbly, fanned her slowly with a tall fan of peacock's plumes made after the quaint designs of ancient egypt. the lustre radiating from the peacock's feathers, the light of her golden garments, her jewels and the marvellous black splendor of her eyes, all flashed for a moment like sudden lightning on gervase; something--he knew not what--turned him giddy and blind; hardly knowing what he did, he sprang eagerly forward, when all at once he felt the lean, small hand of dr. dean on his arm and stopped short embarrassed. "pardon me!" said the little savant, with a delicate, half-supercilious lifting of his eyebrows. "but--do you know the princess ziska?" chapter ii. gervase stared at him, still dazzled and confused. "whom did you say? ... the princess ziska? ... no, i don't know her ... yet, stay! yes, i think i have seen her ... somewhere,--in paris, possibly. will you introduce me?" "i leave that duty to mr. denzil murray," said the doctor, folding his arms neatly behind his back ... "he knows her better than i do." and smiling his little grim, cynical smile, he settled his academic cap more firmly on his head and strolled off towards the ballroom. gervase stood irresolute, his eyes fixed on that wondrous golden figure that floated before his eyes like an aerial vision. denzil murray had gone forward to meet the princess and was now talking to her, his handsome face radiating with the admiration he made no attempt to conceal. after a little pause gervase moved towards him a step or two, and caught part of the conversation. "you look the very beau-ideal of an egyptian princess," murray was saying. "your costume is perfect." she laughed. again that sweet, rare laughter! gervase thrilled with the pulsation of it,--it beat in his ears and smote his brain with a strange echo of familiarity. "is it not?" she responded. "i am 'historically correct,' as your friend dr. dean would say. my ornaments are genuine,--they all came out of the same tomb." "i find one fault with your attire, princess," said one of the male admirers who had entered with her; "part of your face is veiled. that is a cruelty to us all!" she waived the compliment aside with a light gesture. "it was the fashion in ancient egypt," she said. "love in those old days was not what it is now,--one glance, one smile was sufficient to set the soul on fire and draw another soul towards it to consume together in the suddenly kindled flame! and women veiled their faces in youth, lest they should be deemed too prodigal of their charms; and in age they covered themselves still more closely, in order not to affront the sun-god's fairness by their wrinkles." she smiled, a dazzling smile that drew gervase yet a few steps closer unconsciously, as though he were being magnetized. "but i am not bound to keep the veil always up," and as she spoke she loosened it and let it fall, showing an exquisite face, fair as a lily, and of such perfect loveliness that the men who were gathered round her seemed to lose breath and speech at sight of it. "that pleases you better, mr. murray?" denzil grew very pale. bending down he murmured something to her in a low tone. she raised her lovely brows with a little touch of surprise that was half disdain, and looked at him straightly. "you say very pretty things; but they do not always please me," she observed. "however, that is my fault, no doubt." and she began to move onwards, her nubian page preceding her as before. gervase stood in her path and confronted her as she came. "introduce me," he said in a commanding tone to denzil. denzil looked at him, somewhat startled by the suppressed passion in his voice. "certainly. princess, permit me!" she paused, a figure of silent grace and attention. "allow me to present to you my friend, armand gervase, the most famous artist in france--gervase, the princess ziska." she raised her deep, dark eyes and fixed them on his face, and as he looked boldly at her in a kind of audacious admiration, he felt again that strange dizzying shock which had before thrilled him through and through. there was something strangely familiar about her; the faint odors that seemed exhaled from her garments,--the gleam of the jewel-winged scarabei on her breast,--the weird light of the emerald-studded serpent in her hair; and more, much more familiar than these trifles, was the sound of her voice--dulcet, penetrating, grave and haunting in its tone. "at last we meet, monsieur armand gervase!" she said slowly and with a graceful inclination of her head. "but i cannot look upon you as a stranger, for i have known you so long--in spirit!" she smiled--a strange smile, dazzling yet enigmatical--and something wild and voluptuous seemed to stir in gervase's pulses as he touched the small hand, loaded with quaint egyptian gems, which she graciously extended towards him. "i think i have known you, too!" he said. "possibly in a dream,--a dream of beauty never realized till now!" his voice sank to an amorous whisper; but she said nothing in reply, nor could her looks be construed into any expression of either pleasure or offence. yet through the heart of young denzil murray went a sudden pang of jealousy, and for the first time in his life he became conscious that even among men as well as women there may exist what is called the "petty envy" of a possible rival, and the uneasy desire to outshine such an one in all points of appearance, dress and manner. his gaze rested broodingly on the tall, muscular form of gervase, and he noted the symmetry and supple grace of the man with an irritation of which he was ashamed. he knew, despite his own undeniably handsome personality, which was set off to such advantage that night by the richness of the florentine costume he had adopted, that there was a certain fascination about gervase which was inborn, a trick of manner which made him seem picturesque at all times; and that even when the great french artist had stayed with him in scotland and got himself up for the occasion in more or less baggy tweeds, people were fond of remarking that the only man who ever succeeded in making tweeds look artistic was armand gervase. and in the white bedouin garb he now wore he was seen at his best; a certain restless passion betrayed in eyes and lips made him look the savage part he had "dressed" for, and as he bent his head over the princess ziska's hand and kissed it with an odd mingling of flippancy and reverence, denzil suddenly began to think how curiously alike they were, these two! strong man and fair woman, both had many physical points in common,--the same dark, level brows,--the same half wild, half tender eyes,--the same sinuous grace of form,--the same peculiar lightness of movement,--and yet both were different, while resembling each other. it was not what is called a "family likeness" which existed between them; it was the cast of countenance or "type" that exists between races or tribes, and had young murray not known his friend gervase to be a french provencal and equally understood the princess ziska to be of russian origin, he would have declared them both, natives of egypt, of the purest caste and highest breeding. he was so struck by this idea that he might have spoken his thought aloud had he not heard gervase boldly arranging dance after dance with the princess, and apparently preparing to write no name but hers down the entire length of his ball programme,--a piece of audacity which had the effect of rousing denzil to assert his own rights. "you promised me the first waltz, princess," he said, his face flushing as he spoke. "quite true! and you shall have it," she replied, smiling. "monsieur gervase will have the second. the music sounds very inviting; shall we not go in?" "we spoil the effect of your entree crowding about you like this," said denzil, glancing somewhat sullenly at gervase and the other men surrounding her; "and, by the way, you have never told us what character you represent to-night; some great queen of old time, no doubt?" "no, i lay no claim to sovereignty," she answered; "i am for to-night the living picture of a once famous and very improper person who bore half my name, a dancer of old time, known as 'ziska-charmazel,' the favorite of the harem of a great egyptian warrior, described in forgotten histories as 'the mighty araxes.'" she paused; her admirers, fascinated by the sound of her voice, were all silent. she fixed her eyes upon gervase; and addressing him only, continued: "yes, i am 'charmazel,'" she said. "she was, as i tell you, an 'improper' person, or would be so considered by the good english people. because, you know, she was never married to araxes!" this explanation, given with the demurest naivete, caused a laugh among her listeners. "that wouldn't make her 'improper' in france," said gervase gayly. "she would only seem more interesting." "ah! then modern france is like old egypt?" she queried, still smiling. "and frenchmen can be found perhaps who are like araxes in the number of their loves and infidelities?" "i should say my country is populated entirely with copies of him," replied gervase, mirthfully. "was he a very distinguished personage?" "he was. old legends say he was the greatest warrior of his time; as you, monsieur gervase, are the greatest artist." gervase bowed. "you flatter me, fair charmazel!" he said; then suddenly as the strange name passed his lips he recoiled as if he had been stung, and seemed for a moment dazed. the princess turned her dark eyes on him inquiringly. "something troubles you, monsieur gervase?" she asked. his brows knitted in a perplexed frown. "nothing ... the heat ... the air ... a trifle, i assure you? will you not join the dancers? denzil, the music calls you. when your waltz with the princess is ended i shall claim my turn. for the moment ... au revoir!" he stood aside and let the little group pass him by: the princess ziska moving with her floating, noiseless grace, denzil murray beside her, the little nubian boy waving the peacock-plumes in front of them both, and all the other enslaved admirers of this singularly attractive woman crowding together behind. he watched the little cortege with strained, dim sight, till just at the dividing portal between the lounge and the ballroom the princess turned and looked back at him with a smile. over all the intervening heads their eyes met in one flash of mutual comprehension! then, as the fair face vanished like a light absorbed into the lights beyond it, gervase, left alone, dropped heavily into a chair and stared vaguely at the elaborate pattern of the thick carpet at his feet. passing his hand across his forehead he withdrew it, wet with drops of perspiration. "what is wrong with me?" he muttered. "am i sickening for a fever before i have been forty-eight hours in cairo? what fool's notion is this in my brain? where have i seen her before? in paris? st. petersburg? london? charmazel! ... charmazel! ... what has the name to do with me? ziska-charmazel! it is like the name of a romance or a gypsy tune. bah! i must be dreaming! her face, her eyes, are perfectly familiar; where, where have i seen her and played the mad fool with her before? was she a model at one of the studios? have i seen her by chance thus in her days of poverty, and does her image recall itself vividly now despite her changed surroundings? i know the very perfume of her hair ... it seems to creep into my blood ... it intoxicates me ... it chokes me! ..." he sprang up with a fierce gesture, then after a minute's pause sat down again, and again stared at the floor. the gay music from the ball-room danced towards him on the air in sweet, broken echoes,--he heard nothing and saw nothing. "my god!" he said at last, under his breath. "can it be possible that i love this woman?" chapter iii. within the ball-room the tide of gayety was rising to its height. it may be a very trivial matter, yet it is certain that fancy dress gives a peculiar charm, freedom, and brightness to festivities of the kind; and men who in the ordinary mournful black evening-suit would be taciturn of speech and conventional in bearing, throw off their customary reserve when they find themselves in the brilliant and becoming attire of some picturesque period when dress was an art as well as a fashion; and not only do they look their best, but they somehow manage to put on "manner" with costume, and to become courteous, witty, and graceful to a degree that sometimes causes their own relatives to wonder at them and speculate as to why they have grown so suddenly interesting. few have read sartor resartus with either comprehension or profit, and are therefore unaware, as teufelsdrockh was, that "society is founded upon cloth"--i.e. that man does adapt his manners very much to suit his clothes; and that as the costume of the days of louis quinze or louis seize inspired graceful deportment and studied courtesy to women, so does the costume of our nineteenth century inspire brusque demeanor and curt forms of speech, which, however sincere, are not flattering to the fair sex. more love-making goes on at a fancy-dress ball than at an ordinary one; and numerous were the couples that strolled through the corridors and along the terraces of the gezireh palace hotel when, after the first dozen dances were ended, it was discovered that one of the most glorious of full moons had risen over the turrets and minarets of cairo, illumining every visible object with as clear a lustre as that of day. then it was that warriors and nobles of mediaeval days were seen strolling with mythological goddesses and out-of-date peasants of italy and spain; then audacious "toreadors" were perceived whispering in the ears of crowned queens, and clowns were caught lingering amorously by the side of impossible flower-girls of all nations. then it was that sir chetwynd lyle, with his paunch discreetly restrained within the limits of a windsor uniform which had been made for him some two or three years since, paced up and down complacently in the moonlight, watching his two "girls," muriel and dolly, doing business with certain "eligibles"; then it was that lady fulkeward, fearfully and wonderfully got up as the "duchess of gainsborough" sidled to and fro, flirted with this man, flouted that, giggled, shrugged her shoulders, waved her fan, and comported herself altogether as if she were a hoyden of seventeen just let loose from school for the holidays. and then the worthy dr. maxwell dean, somewhat exhausted by vigorous capering in the "lancers," strolled forth to inhale the air, fanning himself with his cap as he walked, and listening keenly to every chance word or sentence he could hear, whether it concerned himself or not. he had peculiar theories, and one of them was, as he would tell you, that if you overheard a remark apparently not intended for you, you were to make yourself quite easy, as it was "a point of predestination" that you should at that particular moment, consciously or unconsciously, play the eavesdropper. the reason of it would, he always averred, be explained to you later on in your career. the well-known saying "listeners never hear any good of themselves" was, he declared, a most ridiculous aphorism. "you overhear persons talking and you listen. very well. it may chance that you hear yourself abused. what then? nothing can be so good for you as such abuse; the instruction given is twofold; it warns you against foes whom you have perhaps considered friends, and it tones down any overweening conceit you may have had concerning your own importance or ability. listen to everything if you are wise--i always do. i am an old and practised listener. and i have never listened in vain. all the information i have gained through listening, though apparently at first disconnected and unclassified, has fitted into my work like the stray pieces of a puzzle, and has proved eminently useful. wherever i am i always keep my ears well open." with such views as he thus entertained, life was always enormously interesting to dr. dean--he found nothing tiresome, not even the conversation of the type known as noodle. the noodle was as curious a specimen of nature to him as the emu or the crocodile. and as he turned up his intellectual little physiognomy to the deep, warm egyptian sky and inhaled the air sniffingly, as though it were a monster scent-bottle just uncorked for his special gratification, he smiled as he observed muriel chetwynd lyle standing entirely alone at the end of the terrace, attired as a "boulogne fish-wife," and looking daggers after the hastily-retreating figure of a "white hussar,"--no other than ross courtney. "how extremely droll a 'boulogne fish-wife' looks in egypt," commented the doctor to his inward self. "remarkable! the incongruity is peculiarly typical of the chetwynd lyles. the costume of the young woman is like the knighthood of her father,--droll, droll, very droll!" aloud he said--"why are you not dancing, miss muriel?" "oh, i don't know--i'm tired," she said, petulantly. "besides, all the men are after that ziska woman,--they seem to have lost their heads about her!" "ah!" and dr. dean rubbed his hands. "yes--possibly! well, she is certainly very beautiful." "i cannot see it!" and muriel chetwynd lyle flushed with the inward rage which could not be spoken. "it's the way she dresses more than her looks. nobody knows who she is--but they do not seem to care about that. they are all raving like lunatics over her, and that man--that artist who arrived here to-day, armand gervase,--seems the maddest of the lot. haven't you noticed how often he has danced with her?" "i couldn't help noticing that," said the doctor, emphatically, "for i have never seen anything more exquisite than the way they waltz together. physically, they seem made for one another." muriel laughed disdainfully. "you had better tell mr. denzil murray that; he is in a bad enough humor now, and that remark of yours wouldn't improve it, i can tell you!" she broke off abruptly, as a slim, fair girl, dressed as a greek vestal in white, with a chaplet of silver myrtle-leaves round her hair, suddenly approached and touched dr. dean on the arm. "can i speak to you a moment?" she asked. "my dear miss murray! of course!" and the doctor turned to her at once. "what is it?" she paced with him a few steps in silence, while muriel chetwynd lyle moved languidly away from the terrace and re-entered the ball-room. "what is it?" repeated dr. dean. "you seem distressed; come, tell me all about it!" helen murray lifted her eyes--the soft, violet-gray eyes that lord fulkeward had said he admired--suffused with tears, and fixed them on the old man's face. "i wish," she said--"i wish we had never come to egypt! i feel as if some great misfortune were going to happen to us; i do, indeed! oh, dr. dean, have you watched my brother this evening?" "i have," he replied, and then was silent. "and what do you think?" she asked anxiously. "how can you account for his strangeness--his roughness--even to me?" and the tears brimmed over and fell, despite her efforts to restrain them. dr. dean stopped in his walk and took her two hands in his own. "my dear helen, it's no use worrying yourself like this," he said. "nothing can stop the progress of the inevitable. i have watched denzil, i have watched the new arrival, armand gervase, i have watched the mysterious ziska, and i have watched you! well, what is the result? the inevitable,--simply the unconquerable inevitable. denzil is in love, gervase is in love, everybody is in love, except me and one other! it is a whole network of mischief, and i am the unhappy fly that has unconsciously fallen into the very middle of it. but the spider, my dear,--the spider who wove the web in the first instance,--is the princess ziska, and she is not in love! she is the other one. she is not in love with anybody any more than i am. she's got something else on her mind--i don't know what it is exactly, but it isn't love. excluding her and myself, the whole hotel is in love--you are in love!" helen withdrew her hands from his grasp and a deep flush reddened her fair face. "i!" she stammered--"dr. dean, you are mistaken. ..." "dr. dean was never mistaken on love-matters in his life," said that self-satisfied sage complacently. "now, my dear, don't be offended. i have known both you and your brother ever since you were left little orphan children together; if i cannot speak plainly to you, who can? you are in love, little helen--and very unwisely, too--with the man gervase. i have heard of him often, but i never saw him before to-night. and i don't approve of him." helen grew as pale as she had been rosy, and her face as the moonlight fell upon it was very sorrowful. "he stayed with us in scotland two summers ago," she said softly. "he was very agreeable..." "ha! no doubt! he made a sort of love to you then, i suppose. i can imagine him doing it very well! there is a nice romantic glen near your house--just where the river runs, and where i caught a fifteen-pound salmon some five years ago. ha! catching salmon is healthy work; much better than falling in love. no, no, helen! gervase is not good enough for you; you want a far better man. has he spoken to you to-night?" "oh, yes! and he has danced with me." "ha! how often?" "once." "and how many times with the princess ziska?" helen's fair head drooped, and she answered nothing. all at once the little doctor's hand closed on her arm with a soft yet firm grip. "look!" he whispered. she raised her eyes and saw two figures step out on the terrace and stand in the full moonlight,--the white bedouin dress of the one and the glittering golden robe of the other made them easily recognizable,--they were gervase and the princess ziska. helen gave a faint, quick sigh. "let us go in," she said. "nonsense! why should we go in? on the contrary, let us join them." "oh, no!" and helen shrank visibly at the very idea. "i cannot; do not ask me! i have tried--you know i have tried--to like the princess; but something in her--i don't know what it is--repels me. to speak truthfully, i think i am afraid of her." "afraid! pooh! why should you be afraid? it is true one doesn't often see a woman with the eyes of a vampire-bat; but there is nothing to be frightened about. i have dissected the eyes of a vampire-bat--very interesting work, very. the princess has them--only, of course, hers are larger and finer; but there is exactly the same expression in them. i am fond of study, you know; i am studying her. what! are you determined to run away?" "i am engaged for this dance to mr. courtney," said helen, nervously. "well, well! we'll resume our conversation another time," and dr. dean took her hand and patted it pleasantly. "don't fret yourself about denzil; he'll be all right. and take my advice: don't marry a bedouin chief; marry an honest, straightforward, tender-hearted englishman who'll take care of you, not a nondescript savage who'll desert you!" and with a humorous and kindly smile, dr. dean moved off to join the two motionless and picturesque figures that stood side by side looking at the moon, while helen, like a frightened bird suddenly released, fled precipitately back to the ball-room, where ross courtney was already searching for her as his partner in the next waltz. "upon my word," mused the doctor, "this is a very pretty kettle of fish! the gezireh palace hotel is not a hotel at all, it seems to me; it is a lunatic asylum. what with lady fulkeward getting herself up as twenty at the age of sixty; and muriel and dolly chetwynd lyle man-hunting with more ferocity than sportsmen hunt tigers; helen in love, denzil in love, gervase in love--dear me! dear me! what a list of subjects for a student's consideration! and the princess ziska ..." he broke off his meditations abruptly, vaguely impressed by the strange solemnity of the night. an equal solemnity seemed to surround the two figures to which he now drew nigh, and as the princess ziska turned her eyes upon him as he came, he was, to his own vexation, aware that something indefinable disturbed his usual equanimity and gave him an unpleasant thrill. "you are enjoying a moonlight stroll, doctor?" she inquired. her veil was now cast aside in a careless fold of soft drapery over her shoulders, and her face in its ethereal delicacy of feature and brilliant coloring looked almost too beautiful to be human. dr. dean did not reply for a moment; he was thinking what a singular resemblance there was between armand gervase and one of the figures on a certain egyptian fresco in the british museum. "enjoying--er--er--a what?--a moonlight stroll? exactly--er--yes! pardon me, princess, my mind often wanders, and i am afraid i am getting a little deaf as well. yes, i find the night singularly conducive to meditation; one cannot be in a land like this under a sky like this"--and he pointed to the shining heaven--"without recalling the great histories of the past." "i daresay they were very much like the histories of the present," said gervase smiling. "i should doubt that. history is what man makes it; and the character of man in the early days of civilization was, i think, more forceful, more earnest, more strong of purpose, more bent on great achievements." "the principal achievement and glory being to kill as many of one's fellow-creatures as possible!" laughed gervase--"like the famous warrior, araxes, of whom the princess has just been telling me!" "araxes was great, but now araxes is a forgotten hero," said the princess slowly, each accent of her dulcet voice chiming on the ear like the stroke of a small silver bell. "none of the modern discoverers know anything about him yet. they have not even found his tomb; but he was buried in the pyramids with all the honors of a king. no doubt your clever men will excavate him some day." "i think the pyramids have been very thoroughly explored," said dr. dean. "nothing of any importance remains in them now." the princess arched her lovely eyebrows. "no? ah! i daresay you know them better than i do!" and she laughed, a laugh which was not mirthful so much as scornful. "i am very much interested in araxes," said gervase then, "partly, i suppose, because he is as yet in the happy condition of being an interred mummy. nobody has dug him up, unwound his cerements, or photographed him, and his ornaments have not been stolen. and in the second place i am interested in him because it appears he was in love with the famous dancer of his day whom the princess represents to-night,--charmazel. i wish i had heard the story before i came to cairo; i would have got myself up as araxes in person to-night." "in order to play the lover of charmazel?" queried the doctor. "exactly!" replied gervase with flashing eyes; "i daresay i could have acted the part." "i should imagine you could act any part," replied the doctor, blandly. "the role of love-making comes easily to most men." the princess looked at him as he spoke and smiled. the jewelled scarab, set as a brooch on her bosom, flashed luridly in the moon, and in her black eyes there was a similar lurid gleam. "come and talk to me," she said, laying her hand on his arm; "i am tired, and the conversation of one's ball-room partners is very banal. monsieur gervase would like me to dance all night, i imagine; but i am too lazy. i leave such energy to lady fulkeward and to all the english misses and madams. i love indolence." "most russian women do, i think," observed the doctor. she laughed. "but i am not russian!" "i know. i never thought you were," he returned composedly; "but everyone in the hotel has come to the conclusion that you are!" "they are all wrong! what can i do to put them right?" she inquired with a fascinating little upward movement of her eyebrows. "nothing! leave them in their ignorance. i shall not enlighten them, though i know your nationality." "you do?" and a curious shadow darkened her features. "but perhaps you are wrong also!" "i think not," said the doctor, with gentle obstinacy. "you are an egyptian. born in egypt; born of egypt. pure eastern! there is nothing western about you. is not it so?" she looked at him enigmatically. "you have made a near guess," she replied; "but you are not absolutely correct. originally, i am of egypt." dr. dean nodded pleasantly. "originally,--yes. that is precisely what i mean--originally! let me take you in to supper." he offered his arm, but gervase made a hasty step forward. "princess," he began-- she waved him off lightly. "my dear monsieur gervase, we are not in the desert, where bedouin chiefs do just as they like. we are in a modern hotel in cairo, and all the good english mammas will be dreadfully shocked if i am seen too much with you. i have danced with you five times, remember! and i will dance with you once more before i leave. when our waltz begins, come and find me in the upper-room." she moved away on dr. dean's arm, and gervase moodily drew back and let her pass. when she had gone, he lit a cigarette and walked impatiently up and down the terrace, a heavy frown wrinkling his brows. the shadow of a man suddenly darkened the moonlight in front of him, and denzil murray's hand fell on his shoulder. "gervase," he said, huskily, "i must speak to you." gervase glanced him up and down, taking note of his pale face and wild eyes with a certain good-humored regret and compassion. "say on, my friend." denzil looked straight at him, biting his lips hard and clenching his hands in the effort to keep down some evidently violent emotion. "the princess ziska," he began,-- gervase smiled, and flicked the ash off his cigarette. "the princess ziska," he echoed,--"yes? what of her? she seems to be the only person talked about in cairo. everybody in this hotel, at any rate, begins conversation with precisely the same words as you do,--'the princess ziska!' upon my life, it is very amusing!" "it is not amusing to me," said denzil, bitterly. "to me it is a matter of life and death." he paused, and gervase looked at him curiously. "we've always been such good friends, gervase," he continued, "that i should be sorry if anything came between us now, so i think it is better to make a clean breast of it and speak out plainly." again he hesitated, his face growing still paler, then with a sudden ardent light glowing in his eyes he said--"gervase, i love the princess ziska!" gervase threw away his cigarette and laughed aloud with a wild hilarity. "my good boy, i am very sorry for you! sorry, too, for myself! i deplore the position in which we are placed with all my heart and soul. it is unfortunate, but it seems inevitable. you love the princess ziska,--and by all the gods of egypt and christendom, so do i!" chapter iv. denzil recoiled a step backward, then with an impulsive movement strode close up to him, his face unnaturally flushed and his eyes glittering with an evil fire. "you--you love her! what!--in one short hour, you--who have often boasted to me of having no heart, no eyes for women except as models for your canvas,--you say now that you love a woman whom you have never seen before to-night!" "stop!" returned gervase somewhat moodily, "i am not so sure about that. i have seen her before, though where i cannot tell. but the fire that stirs my pulses now seems to spring from some old passion suddenly revived, and the eyes of the woman we are both mad for--well! they do not inspire holiness, my dear friend! no,--neither in you nor in me! let us be honest with each other. there is something vile in the composition of madame la princesse, and it responds to something equally vile in ourselves. we shall be dragged down by the force of it,--tant pis pour nous! i am sorrier for you than for myself, for you are a good fellow, au fond; you have what the world is learning to despise--sentiment. i have none; for as i told you before, i have no heart, but i have passions--tigerish ones--which must be humored; in fact, i make it my business in life to humor them." "do you intend to humor them in this instance?" "assuredly! if i can." "then,--friend as you have been, you can be friend no more," said denzil fiercely. "my god! do you not understand? my blood is as warm as yours,--i will not yield to you one smile, one look from ziska! no!--i will kill you first!" gervase looked at him calmly. "will you? pauvre garcon! you are such a boy still, denzil,--by-the-bye, how old are you? ah, i remember now,--twenty-two. only twenty-two, and i am thirty-eight! so in the measure of time alone, your life is more valuable to you than mine is to me. if you choose, therefore, you can kill me,--now, if you like! i have a very convenient dagger in my belt--i think it has a point--which you are welcome to use for the purpose; but, for heaven's sake, don't rant about it--do it! you can kill me--of course you can; but you cannot--mark this well, denzil!--you cannot prevent my loving the same woman whom you love. i think instead of raving about the matter here in the moonlight, which has the effect of making us look like two orthodox villains in a set stage-scene, we'd better make the best of it, and resolve to abide by the lady's choice in the matter. what say you? you have known her for many days,--i have known her for two hours. you have had the first innings, so you cannot complain." here he playfully unfastened the bedouin knife which hung at his belt and offered it to denzil, holding it delicately by the glittering blade. "one thrust, my brave boy!" he said. "and you will stop the ziska fever in my veins at once and forever. but, unless you deal the murderer's blow, the fever will go on increasing till it reaches its extremest height, and then ..." "and then?" echoed denzil. "then? oh--god only knows what then!" denzil thrust away the offered weapon with a movement of aversion. "you can jest," he said. "you are always jesting. but you do not know--you cannot read the horrible thoughts in my mind. i cannot resolve their meaning even to myself. there is some truth in your light words; i feel, i know instinctively, that the woman i love has an attraction about her which is not good, but evil; yet what does that matter? do not men sometimes love vile women?" "always!" replied gervase briefly. "gervase, i have suffered tortures ever since i saw her face!" exclaimed the unhappy lad, his self-control suddenly giving way. "you cannot imagine what my life has been! her eyes make me mad,--the merest touch of her hand seems to drag me away invisibly ..." "to perdition!" finished gervase. "that is the usual end of the journey we men take with beautiful women." "and now," went on denzil, hardly heeding him, "as if my own despair were not sufficient, you must needs add to it! what evil fate, i wonder, sent you to cairo! of course, i have no chance with her now; you are sure to win the day. and can you wonder then that i feel as if i could kill you?" "oh, i wonder at nothing," said gervase calmly, "except, perhaps, at myself. and i echo your words most feelingly,--what evil fate sent me to cairo? i cannot tell! but here i purpose to remain. my dear murray, don't let us quarrel if we can help it; it is such a waste of time. i am not angry with you for loving la belle ziska,--try, therefore, not to be angry with me. let the fair one herself decide as to our merits. my own opinion is that she cares for neither of us, and, moreover, that she never will care for any one except her fascinating self. and certainly her charms are quite enough to engross her whole attention. by the way, let me ask you, denzil, in this headstrong passion of yours,--for it is a headstrong passion, just as mine is,--do you actually intend to make the ziska your wife if she will have you?" "of course," replied murray, with some haughtiness. a fleeting expression of amusement flitted over gervase's features. "it is very honorable of you," he said, "very! my dear boy, you shall have your full chance. because i--i would not make the princess madame gervase for all the world! she is not formed for a life of domesticity--and pardon me--i cannot picture her as the contented chatelaine of your grand old scotch castle in ross-shire." "why not?" "from an artistic point of view the idea is incongruous," said gervase lazily. "nevertheless, i will not interfere with your wooing." denzil's face brightened. "you will not?" "i will not--i promise! but"--and here gervase paused, looking his young friend full in the eyes, "remember, if your chance falls to the ground--if madame gives you your conge--if she does not consent to be a scottish chatelaine and listen every day to the bagpipes at dinner,--you cannot expect me then to be indifferent to my own desires. she shall not be madame gervase,--oh, no! she shall not be asked to attend to the pot-au-feu; she shall act the role for which she has dressed to-night; she shall be another charmazel to another araxes, though the wild days of egypt are no more!" a sudden shiver ran through him as he spoke, and instinctively he drew the white folds of his picturesque garb closer about him. "there is a chill wind sweeping in from the desert," he said, "an evil, sandy breath tasting of mummy-dust blown through the crevices of the tombs of kings. let us go in." murray looked at him in a kind of dull despair. "and what is to be done?" he asked. "i cannot answer for myself--and--from what you say, neither can you." "my dear friend--or foe--whichever you determine to be, i can answer for myself in one particular at any rate, namely, that as i told you, i shall not ask the princess to marry me. you, on the contrary, will do so. bonne chance! i shall do nothing to prevent madame from accepting the honorable position you intend to offer her. and till the fiat has gone forth and the fair one has decided, we will not fly at each other's throats like wolves disputing possession of a lamb; we will assume composure, even if we have it not." he paused, and laid one hand kindly on the younger man's shoulder, "is it agreed?" denzil gave a mute sign of resigned acquiescence. "good! i like you, denzil; you are a charming boy! hot-tempered and a trifle melodramatic in your loves and hatreds,--yes!--for that you might have been a provencal instead of a scot. before i knew you i had a vague idea that all scotchmen were, or needs must be, ridiculous,--i don't know why. i associated them with bagpipes, short petticoats and whisky. i had no idea of the type you so well represent,--the dark, fine eyes, the strong physique, and the impetuous disposition which suggests the south rather than the north; and to-night you look so unlike the accepted cafe chantant picture of the ever-dancing highlander that you might in very truth be a florentine in more points than the dress which so well becomes you. yes,--i like you--and more than you, i like your sister. that is why i don't want to quarrel with you; i wouldn't grieve mademoiselle helen for the world." murray gave him a quick, half-angry side-glance. "you are a strange fellow, gervase. two summers ago you were almost in love with helen." gervase sighed. "true. almost. that's just it. 'almost' is a very uncomfortable word. i have been almost in love so many times. i have never been drawn by a woman's eyes and dragged down, down,--in a mad whirlpool of sweetness and poison intermixed. i have never had my soul strangled by the coils of a woman's hair--black hair, black as night,--in the perfumed meshes of which a jewelled serpent gleams ... i have never felt the insidious horror of a love like strong drink mounting through the blood to the brain, and there making inextricable confusion of time, space, eternity, everything, except the passion itself; never, never have i felt all this, denzil, till to-night! to-night! bah! it is a wild night of dancing and folly, and the princess ziska is to blame for it all! don't look so tragic, my good denzil,--what ails you now?" "what ails me? good heavens! can you ask it!" and murray gave a gesture of mingled despair and impatience. "if you love her in this wild, uncontrolled way ..." "it is the only way i know of," said gervase. "love must be wild and uncontrolled to save it from banalite. it must be a summer thunderstorm; the heavy brooding of the clouds of thought, the lightning of desire, then the crash, the downpour,--and the end, in which the bland sun smiles upon a bland world of dull but wholesome routine and tame conventionality, making believe that there never was such a thing known as the past storm! be consoled, denzil, and trust me,--you shall have time to make your honorable proposal, and madame had better accept you,--for your love would last,--mine could not!" he spoke with a strange fierceness and irritability, and his eyes were darkened by a sudden shadow of melancholy. denzil, bewildered at his words and manner, stared at him in a kind of helpless indignation. "then you admit yourself to be cruel and unprincipled?" he said. gervase smiled, with a little shrug of impatience. "do i? i was not aware of it. is inconstancy to women cruelty and want of principle? if so, all men must bear the brunt of the accusation with me. for men were originally barbarians, and always looked upon women as toys or slaves; the barbaric taint is not out of us yet, i assure you,--at any rate, it is not out of me. i am a pure savage; i consider the love of woman as my right; if i win it, i enjoy it as long as i please, but no longer,--and not all the forces of heaven and earth should bind me to any woman i had once grown weary of." "if that is your character," said murray stiffly, "it were well the princess ziska should know it." "true," and gervase laughed loudly. "tell her, man ami! tell her that armand gervase is an unprincipled villain, not worth a glance from her dazzling eyes! it will be the way to make her adore me! my good boy, do you not know that there is something very marvellous in the attraction we call love? it is a pre-ordained destiny,--and if one soul is so constituted that it must meet and mix with another, nothing can hinder the operation. so that, believe me, i am quite indifferent as to what you say of me to madame la princesse or to anyone else. it will not be for either my looks or my character that she will love me if, indeed, she ever does love me; it will be for something indistinct, indefinable but resistless in us both, which no one on earth can explain. and now i must go, denzil, and claim the fair one for this waltz. try and look less miserable, my dear fellow,--i will not quarrel with you on the princess's account, nor on any other pretext if i can help it,--for i don't want to kill you, and i am convinced your death and not mine would be the result of a fight between us!" his eyes flashed under his straight, fierce brows with a sudden touch of imperiousness, and his commanding presence became magnetic, almost over-powering. tormented with a dozen cross-currents of feeling, young denzil murray was mute;--only his breath came and went quickly, and there was a certain silently-declared antagonism in his very attitude. gervase saw it and smiled; then turning away with his peculiarly noiseless step and grace of bearing, he disappeared. chapter v. ten minutes later the larger number of dancers in the ball-room came to a sudden pause in their gyrations and stood looking on in open-mouthed, reluctantly-admiring wonderment at the exquisite waltz movements of the princess ziska as she floated past them in the arms of gervase, who, as a "bedouin chief," was perhaps only acting his part aright when he held her to him with so passionate and close a grip and gazed down upon her fair face with such a burning ardor in his eyes. nothing in the dancing world was ever seen like the dancing of these two--nothing so languorously beautiful as the swaying grace of their well-matched figures gliding to the music in as perfectly harmonious a measure as a bird's two wings beat to the pulsations of the air. people noticed that as the princess danced a tiny tinkling sound accompanied her every step; and the more curious observers, peeping downwards as she flew by, saw that she had kept to the details of ancient egyptian costume so exactly that she even wore sandals, and that her feet, perfectly shaped and lovely as perfectly shaped and lovely hands, were bare save for the sandal-ribbons which crossed them, and which were fastened with jewels. round the slim ankles were light bands of gold, also glittering with gems, and furthermore adorned by little golden bells which produced the pretty tinkling music that attracted attention. "what a delightful creature she is!" said lady fulkeward, settling her "duchess of gainsborough" hat on her powdered wig more becomingly and smiling up in the face of ross courtney, who happened to be standing close by. "so sweetly unconventional! everybody here thinks her improper; she may be, but i like her. i'm not a bit of a prude." courtney smiled irreverently at this. prudery and "old" lady fulkeward were indeed wide apart. aloud he said: "i think whenever a woman is exceptionally beautiful she generally gets reported as 'improper' by her own sex; especially if she has a fascinating manner and dresses well." "so true," and lady fulkeward simpered. "exactly what i find wherever i go! poor dear ziska! she has to pay the penalty for captivating all you men in the way she does. i'm sure you have lost your heart to her quite as much as anybody else, haven't you?" courtney reddened. "i don't think so," he answered; "i admire her very much, but i haven't lost my heart ..." "naughty boy! don't prevaricate!" and lady fulkeward smiled in the bewitching pearly manner her admirably-made artificial teeth allowed her to do. "every man in the hotel is in love with the princess, and i'm sure i don't blame them. if i belonged to your sex i should be in love with her too. as it is, i am in love with the new arrival, that glorious creature, gervase. he is superb! he looks like an untamed savage. i adore handsome barbarians!" "he's scarcely a barbarian, i think," said courtney, with some amusement; "he is the great french artist, the 'lion' of paris just now,--only secondary to sarah bernhardt." "artists are always barbarians," declared lady fulkeward enthusiastically. "they paint naughty people without any clothes on; they never have any idea of time; they never keep their appointments; and they are always falling in love with the wrong person and getting into trouble, which is so nice of them! that's why i worship them all. they are so refreshingly unlike our set!" courtney raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "you know what i mean by our set," went on the vivacious old "gainsborough," "the aristocrats whose conversation is limited to the weather and scandal, and who are so frightfully dull! dull! my dear ross you know how dull they are!" "well, upon my word, they are," admitted courtney. "you are right there. i certainly agree with you." "i'm sure you do! they have no ideas. now, artists have ideas,--they live on ideas and sentiment. sentiment is such a beautiful thing--so charming! i believe that fierce-looking gervase is a creature of sentiment--and how delightful that is! of course, he'll paint the princess ziska--he must paint her,--no one else could do it so well. by the way, have you been asked to her great party next week?" "yes." "and are you going?" "most assuredly." "so am i. that absurd chetwynd lyle woman came to me this evening and asked me if i really thought it would be proper to take her 'girls' there," and lady fulkeward laughed shrilly. "girls indeed! i should say those two long, ugly women could go anywhere with safety. 'do you consider the princess a proper woman?' she asked, and i said, 'certainly, as proper as you are.'" courtney laughed outright, and began to think there was some fun in lady fulkeward. "by jove! did you tell her that?" "i should think i did! oh, i know a thing or two about the chetwynd lyles, but i keep my mouth shut till it suits me to open it. i said i was going, and then, of course, she said she would." "naturally." and courtney gave the answer vaguely, for the waltz was ended, and the princess ziska, on the arm of gervase, was leaving the ball-room. "she's going," exclaimed lady fulkeward. "dear creature! excuse me--i must speak to her for a moment." and with a swish of her full skirts and a toss of her huge hat and feathers, the lively flirt of sixty tripped off with all the agility of sixteen, leaving courtney to follow her or remain where he was, just as he chose. he hesitated, and during that undecided pause was joined by dr. maxwell dean. "a very brilliant and interesting evening!" said that individual, smiling complacently. "i don't remember any time when i have enjoyed myself so thoroughly." "really! i shouldn't have thought you a man to care for fancy-dress balls," said courtney. "shouldn't you? ha! well, some fancy-dress balls i might not care for, but this one has been highly productive of entertainment in every way, and several incidents connected with it have opened up to me a new vista of research, the possibilities of which are--er--very interesting and remarkable." "indeed!" murmured courtney indifferently, his eyes fixed on the slim, supple figure of the princess ziska as she slowly moved amid her circle of admirers out of the ball-room, her golden skirts gleaming sun-like against the polished floor, and the jewels about her flashing in vivid points of light from the hem of her robe to the snake in her hair. "yes," continued the doctor, smiling and rubbing his hands, "i think i have got the clue to a very interesting problem. but i see you are absorbed--and no wonder! a charming woman, the princess ziska--charming! do you believe in ghosts?" this question was put with such unexpected abruptness that courtney was quite taken aback. "ghosts?" he echoed. "no, i cannot say i do. i have never seen one, and i have never heard of one that did not turn out a bogus." "oh! i don't mean the usual sort of ghost," said the doctor, drawing his shelving brows together in a meditative knot of criss-cross lines over his small, speculative eyes. "the ghost that is common to scotch castles and english manor-houses, and that appears in an orthodox night-gown, sighs, screams, rattles chains and bangs doors ad libitum. no, no! that kind of ghost is composed of indigestion, aided by rats and a gust of wind. no; when i say ghosts, i mean ghosts--ghosts that do not need the midnight hour to evolve themselves into being, and that by no means vanish at cock-crow. my ghosts are those that move about among us in social intercourse for days, months--sometimes years--according to their several missions; ghosts that talk to us, imitate our customs and ways, shake hands with us, laugh and dance with us, and altogether comport themselves like human beings. those are my kind of ghosts--'scientific' ghosts. there are hundreds, aye, perhaps thousands of them in the world at this very moment." an uncomfortable shudder ran through courtney's veins; the doctor's manner seemed peculiar and uncanny. "by jove! i hope not!" he involuntarily exclaimed. "the orthodox ghost is an infinitely better arrangement. one at least knows what to expect. but a 'scientific' ghost that moves about in society, resembling ourselves in every respect, appearing to be actually human and yet having no humanity at all in its composition, is a terrific notion indeed! you don't mean to say you believe in the possibility of such an appalling creature?" "i not only believe it," answered the doctor composedly, "i know it!" here the band crashed out "god save the queen," which, as a witty italian once remarked, is the de profundis of every english festivity. "but--god bless my soul!" began courtney ... "no, don't say that!" urged the doctor. "say 'god save the queen.' it's more british." "bother 'god save the queen,'" exclaimed courtney impatiently.--"look here, you don't mean it seriously, do you?" "i always mean everything seriously," said dr. dean,--"even my jokes." "now come, no nonsense, doctor," and courtney, taking his arm, led him towards one of the windows opening out to the moonlit garden,--"can you, as an honest man, assure me in sober earnest that there are 'scientific ghosts' of the nature you describe?" the little doctor surveyed the scenery, glanced up at the moon, and then at his companion's pleasant but not very intelligent face. "i would rather not discuss the matter," he said at last, with some brusqueness. "there are certain subjects connected with psychic phenomena on which it is best to be silent; besides, what interest can such things have for you? you are a sportsman,--keep to your big game, and leave ghost-hunting to me." "that is not a fair answer to my question," said courtney, "i'm sure i don't want to interfere with your researches in any way; i only want to know if it is a fact that ghosts exist, and that they are really of such a nature as to deserve the term 'scientific.'" dr. dean was silent a moment. then, stretching out his small, thin hand, he pointed to the clear sky, where the stars were almost lost to sight in the brilliance of the moon. "look out there!" he said, his voice thrilling with sudden and solemn fervor. "there in the limitless ether move millions of universes--vast creations which our finite brains cannot estimate without reeling,--enormous forces always at work, in the mighty movements of which our earth is nothing more than a grain of sand. yet far more marvellous than their size or number is the mathematical exactitude of their proportions,--the minute perfection of their balance,--the exquisite precision with which every one part is fitted to another part, not a pin's point awry, not a hair's breadth astray. well, the same exactitude which rules the formation and working of matter controls the formation and working of spirit; and this is why i know that ghosts exist, and, moreover, that we are compelled by the laws of the phenomena surrounding us to meet them every day." "i confess i do not follow you at all," said courtney bewildered. "no," and dr. dean smiled curiously. "i have perhaps expressed myself obscurely. yet i am generally considered a clear exponent. first of all, let me ask you, do you believe in the existence of matter?" "why, of course!" "you do. then you will no doubt admit that there is something--an intelligent principle or spiritual force--which creates and controls this matter?" courtney hesitated. "well, i suppose there must be," he said at last. "i'm not a church-goer, and i'm rather a free-thinker, but i certainly believe there is a mind at work behind the matter." "that being the case," proceeded the doctor, "i suppose you will not deny to this invisible mind the same exactitude of proportion and precise method of action already granted to visible matter?". "of course, i could not deny such a reasonable proposition," said courtney. "very good! pursuing the argument logically, and allowing for an exactly-moving mind behind exactly-working matter, it follows that there can be no such thing as injustice anywhere in the universe?" "my dear socrates redivivus," laughed courtney, "i fail to see what all this has to do with ghosts." "it has everything to do with them," declared the doctor emphatically, "i repeat that if we grant these already stated premises concerning the composition of mind and matter, there can be no such thing as injustice. yet seemingly unjust things are done every day, and seemingly go unpunished. i say 'seemingly' advisedly, because the punishment is always administered. and here the 'scientific ghosts' come in. 'vengeance is mine,' saith the lord,--and the ghosts i speak of are the lord's way of doing it." "you mean ..." began courtney. "i mean," continued the doctor with some excitement, "that the sinner who imagines his sins are undiscovered is a fool who deceives himself. i mean that the murderer who has secretly torn the life out of his shrieking victim in some unfrequented spot, and has succeeded in hiding his crime from what we call 'justice,' cannot escape the spiritual law of vengeance. what would you say," and dr. dean laid his thin fingers on courtney's coat-sleeve with a light pressure,--"if i told you that the soul of a murdered creature is often sent back to earth in human shape to dog its murderer down? and that many a criminal undiscovered by the police is haunted by a seeming person,--a man or a woman,--who is on terms of intimacy with him,--who eats at his table, drinks his wine, clasps his hand, smiles in his face, and yet is truly nothing but the ghost of his victim in human disguise, sent to drag him gradually to his well-deserved, miserable end; what would you say to such a thing?" "horrible!" exclaimed courtney, recoiling. "beyond everything monstrous and horrible!" the doctor smiled and withdrew his hand from his companion's arm. "there are a great many horrible things in the universe as well as pleasant ones," he observed dryly. "crime and its results are always of a disagreeable nature. but we cannot alter the psychic law of equity any more than we can alter the material law of gravitation. it is growing late; i think, if you will excuse me, i will go to bed." courtney look at him puzzled and baffled. "then your 'scientific ghosts' are positive realities?" he began; here he gave a violent start as a tall white figure suddenly moved out of the shadows in the garden and came slowly towards them. "upon my life, doctor, you have made me quite nervous!" "no, no, surely not," smiled the doctor pleasantly--"not nervous! not such a brave killer of game as you are! no, no! you don't take monsieur armand gervase for a ghost, do you? he is too substantial,--far too substantial! ha! ha! ha!" and he laughed quietly, the wrinkled smile still remaining on his face as gervase approached. "everybody is going to bed," said the great artist lazily. "with the departure of the princess ziska, the pleasures of the evening are ended." "she is certainly the belle of cairo this season," said courtney, "but i tell you what,--i am rather sorry to see young murray has lost his head about her." "parbleu! so am i," said gervase imperturbably; "it seems a pity." "he will get over it," interposed dr. dean placidly. "it's an illness,--like typhoid,--we must do all we can to keep down the temperature of the patient, and we shall pull him through." "keep him cool, in short!" laughed gervase. "exactly!" the little doctor smiled shrewdly. "you look feverish, monsieur gervase." gervase flushed red under his dark skin. "i daresay i am feverish," he replied irritably,--"i find this place hot as an oven. i think i should go away to-morrow if i had not asked the princess ziska to sit to me." "you are going to paint her picture?" exclaimed courtney. "by jove! i congratulate you. it will be the masterpiece of the next salon." gervase bowed. "you flatter me! the princess is undoubtedly an attractive subject. but, as i said before, this place stifles me. i think the hotel is too near the river,--there is an oozy smell from the nile that i hate, and the heat is perfectly sulphureous. don't you find it so, doctor?" "n-n-o! i cannot say that i do. let me feel your pulse; i am not a medical man--but i can easily recognize any premonitions of illness." gervase held out his long, brown, well-shaped hand, and the savant's small, cool fingers pressed lightly on his wrist. "you are quite well, monsieur gervase," he said after a pause,--"you have a little sur-excitation of the nerves, certainly,--but it is not curable by medicine." he dropped the hand he held, and looked up--"good-night!" "good-night!" responded gervase. "good-night!" added courtney. and with an amiable salutation the doctor went his way. the ball-room was now quite deserted, and the hotel servants were extinguishing the lights. "a curious little man, that doctor," observed gervase, addressing courtney, to whom as yet he had not been formally introduced. "very curious!" was the reply, "i have known him for some years,--he is a very clever man, but i have never been able quite to make him out. i think he is a bit eccentric. he's just been telling me he believes in ghosts." "ah, poor fellow!" and gervase yawned as, with his companion, he crossed the deserted ball-room. "then he has what you call a screw loose. i suppose it is that which makes him interesting. good-night!" "good-night!" and separating, they went their several ways to the small, cell-like bedrooms, which are the prime discomfort of the gezireh palace hotel, and soon a great silence reigned throughout the building. all cairo slept,--save where at an open lattice window the moon shone full on a face up-turned to her silver radiance,--the white, watchful face, and dark, sleepless eyes of the princess ziska. chapter vi. next day the ordinary course of things was resumed at the gezireh palace hotel, and the delights and flirtations of the fancy-ball began to vanish into what hans breitmann calls "the ewigkeit". men were lazier than usual and came down later to breakfast, and girls looked worn and haggard with over-much dancing, but otherwise there was no sign to indicate that the festivity of the past evening had left "tracks behind," or made a lasting impression of importance on any human life. lady chetwynd lyle, portly and pig-faced, sat on the terrace working at an elaborate piece of cross-stitch, talking scandal in the civilest tone imaginable, and damning all her "dear friends" with that peculiar air of entire politeness and good breeding which distinguishes certain ladies when they are saying nasty things about one another. her daughters, muriel and dolly, sat dutifully near her, one reading the daily dial, as befitted the offspring of the editor and proprietor thereof, the other knitting. lord fulkeward lounged on the balustrade close by, and his lovely mother, attired in quite a charming and girlish costume of white foulard exquisitely cut and fitting into a waist not measuring more than twenty-two inches, reclined in a long deck-chair, looking the very pink of painted and powdered perfection. "you are so very lenient," lady chetwynd lyle was saying, as she bent over her needlework. "so very lenient, my dear lady fulkeward, that i am afraid you do not read people's characters as correctly as i do. i have had, owing to my husband's position in journalism, a great deal of social experience, and i assure you i do not think the princess ziska a safe person. she may be perfectly proper--she may be--but she is not the style we are accustomed to in london." "i should rather think not!" interrupted lord fulkeward, hastily. "by jove! she wouldn't have a hair left on her head in london, don'cher know!" "what do you mean?" inquired muriel chetwynd lyle, simpering. "you really do say such funny things, lord fulkeward!" "do i?" and the young nobleman was so alarmed and embarrassed at the very idea of his ever saying funny things that he was rendered quite speechless for a moment. anon he took heart and resumed: "er--well--i mean that the society women would tear her to bits in no time. she'd get asked nowhere, but she'd get blackguarded everywhere; she couldn't help herself with that face and those eyes." his mother laughed. "dear fulke! you are such a naughty boy! you shouldn't make such remarks before lady lyle. she never says anything against anyone!" "dear fulke" stared. had he given vent to his feelings he would have exclaimed: "oh, lord!--isn't the old lady a deep one!" but as it was he attended to his young moustache anxiously and remained silent. lady chetwynd lyle meanwhile flushed with annoyance; she felt that lady fulkeward's remark was sarcastic, but she could not very well resent it, seeing that lady fulkeward was a peeress of the realm, and that she herself, by the strict laws of heraldry, was truly only "dame" chetwynd lyle, as wife of an ordinary knight, and had no business to be called "her ladyship" at all. "i should, indeed, be sorry," she said, primly, "if i were mistaken in my private estimate of the princess ziska's character, but i must believe my own eyes and the evidence of my own senses, and surely no one can condone the extremely fast way in which she behaved with that new man--that french artist, armand gervase--last night. why, she danced six times with him! and she actually allowed him to walk home with her through the streets of cairo! they went off together, in their fancy dresses, just as they were! i never heard of such a thing!" "oh, there was nothing remarkable at all in that," said lord fulkeward. "everybody went about the place in fancy costume last night. i went out in my neapolitan dress with a girl, and i met denzil murray coming down a street just behind here--took him for a florentine prince, upon my word! and i bet you gervase never got beyond the door of the princess's palace; for that blessed old nubian she keeps--the chap with a face like a mummy--bangs the gate in everybody's face, and says in guttural french: 'la princesse ne voit per-r-r-sonne!' i've tried it. i tell you it's no go!" "well, we shall all get inside the mysterious palace next wednesday evening," said lady fulkeward, closing her eyes with a graceful air of languor, "it will be charming, i am sure, and i daresay we shall find that there is no mystery at all about it." "two months ago," suddenly said a smooth voice behind them, "the ziska's house or palace was uninhabited." lady fulkeward gave a little scream and looked round. "good gracious, dr. dean! how you frightened me!" the doctor made an apologetic bow. "i am very sorry. i forgot you were so sensitive; pray pardon me! as i was saying, two months ago the palace of the princess ziska was a deserted barrack. formerly, so i hear, it used to be the house of some great personage; but it had been allowed to fall into decay, and nobody would rent it, even for the rush of the cairene season, till it was secured by the nubian you were speaking of just now--the interesting nubian with the face like a mummy; he took it and furnished it, and when it was ready madame la princesse appeared on the scene and has resided there every since." "i wonder what that nubian has to do with her?" said lady chetwynd lyle, severely. "nothing at all," replied the doctor, calmly. "he is the merest servant--the kind of person who is 'told off' to attend on the women of a harem." "ah, i see you have been making inquiries concerning the princess, doctor," said lady fulkeward, with a smile. "i have." "and have you found out anything about her?" "no; that is, nothing of social importance, except, perhaps, two items--first, that she is not a russian; secondly, that she has never been married." "never been married!" exclaimed lady chetwynd lyle, then suddenly turning to her daughters she said blandly: "muriel, dolly, go into the house, my dears. it is getting rather warm for you on this terrace. i will join you in a few minutes." the "girls" rose obediently with a delightfully innocent and juvenile air, and fortunately for them did not notice the irreverent smile that played on young lord fulkeward's face, which was immediately reflected on the artistically tinted countenance of his mother, at the manner of their dismissal. "there is surely nothing improper in never having been married," said dr. dean, with a mock serious air. "consider, my dear lady lyle, is there not something very chaste and beautiful in the aspect of an old maid?" lady lyle looked up sharply. she had an idea that both she and her daughters were being quizzed, and she had some difficulty to control her rising temper. "then do you call the princess an old maid?" she demanded. lady fulkeward looked amused; her son laughed outright. but the doctor's face was perfectly composed. "i don't know what else i can call her," he said, with a thoughtful air. "she is no longer in her teens, and she has too much voluptuous charm for an ingenue. still, i admit, you would scarcely call her 'old' except in the parlance of the modern matrimonial market. our present-day roues, you know, prefer their victims young, and i fancy the princess ziska would be too old and perhaps too clever for most of them. personally speaking, she does not impress me as being of any particular age, but as she is not married, and is, so to speak, a maid fully developed, i am perforce obliged to call her an old maid." "she wouldn't thank you for the compliment," said lady lyle with a spiteful grin. "i daresay not," responded the doctor blandly, "but i imagine she has very little personal vanity. her mind is too preoccupied with something more important than the consideration of her own good looks." "and what is that?" inquired lady fulkeward, with some curiosity. "ah! there is the difficulty! what is it that engrosses our fair friend more than the looking-glass? i should like to know--but i cannot find out. it is an enigma as profound as that of the sphinx. good-morning, monsieur gervase!"--and, turning round, he addressed the artist, who just then stepped out on the terrace carrying a paintbox and a large canvas strapped together in portable form. "are you going to sketch some picturesque corner of the city?" "no," replied gervase, listlessly raising his white sun-hat to the ladies present with a courteous, yet somewhat indifferent grace. "i'm going to the princess ziska's. i shall probably get the whole outline of her features this morning." "a full-length portrait?" inquired the doctor. "i fancy not. not the first attempt, at any rate--head and shoulders only." "do you know where her house is?" asked lord fulkeward. "if you don't, i'll walk with you and show you the way." "thanks--you are very good. i shall be obliged to you." and raising his hat again he sauntered slowly off, young fulkeward walking with him and chatting to him with more animation than that exhausted and somewhat vacant-minded aristocrat usually showed to anyone. "it is exceedingly warm," said lady lyle, rising then and putting away her cross-stitch apparatus, "i thought of driving to the pyramids this afternoon, but really ..." "there is shade all the way," suggested the doctor, "i said as much to a young woman this morning who has been in the hotel for nearly two months, and hasn't seen the pyramids yet." "what has she been doing with herself?" asked lady fulkeward, smiling. "dancing with officers," said dr. dean. "how can cheops compare with a moustached noodle in military uniform! good-bye for the present; i'm going to hunt for scarabei." "i thought you had such a collection of them already," said lady lyle. "so i have. but the princess had a remarkable one on last night, and i want to find another like it. it's blue--very blue--almost like a rare turquoise, and it appears it is the sign-manual of the warrior araxes, who was a kind of king in his way, or desert chief, which was about the same thing in those days. he fought for amenhotep, and seemed from all accounts to be a greater man than amenhotep himself. the princess ziska is a wonderful egyptologist; i had a most interesting conversation with her last night in the supper-room." "then she is really a woman of culture and intelligence?" queried lady lyle. the doctor smiled. "i should say she would be a great deal too much for the university of oxford, as far as oriental learning goes," he said. "she can read the egyptian papyri, she tells me, and she can decipher anything on any of the monuments. i only wish i could persuade her to accompany me to thebes and karnak." lady fulkeward unfurled her fan and swayed it to and fro with an elegant languor. "how delightful that would be!" she sighed. "so romantic and solemn--all those dear old cities with those marvellous figures of the egyptians carved and painted on the stones! and rameses--dear rameses! he really has good legs everywhere! haven't you noticed that? so many of these ancient sculptures represent the egyptians with such angular bodies and such frightfully thin legs, but rameses always has good legs wherever you find him. it's so refreshing! do make up a party, dr. dean!--we'll all go with you; and i'm sure the princess ziska will be the most charming companion possible. let us have a dahabeah! i'm good for half the expenses, if you will only arrange everything." the doctor stroked his chin and looked dubious, but he was evidently attracted by the idea. "i'll see about it," he said at last. "meanwhile i'll go and have a hunt for some traces of amenhotep and araxes." he strolled down the terrace, and lady chetwynd lyle, turning her back on "old" lady fulkeward, went after her "girls," while the fascinating fulkeward herself continued to recline comfortably in her chair, and presently smiled a welcome on a youngish-looking man with a fair moustache who came forward and sat down beside her, talking to her in low, tender and confidential tones. he was the very impecunious colonel of one of the regiments then stationed in cairo, and as he never wasted time on sentiment, he had been lately thinking that a marriage with a widowed peeress who had twenty thousand pounds a year in her own right might not be a "half bad" arrangement for him. so he determined to do the agreeable, and as he was a perfect adept in the art of making love without feeling it, he got on very well, and his prospects brightened steadily hour by hour. meanwhile young fulkeward was escorting armand gervase through several narrow by-streets, talking to him as well as he knew how and trying in his feeble way to "draw him out," in which task he met with but indifferent success. "it must be awfully jolly and--er--all that sort of thing to be so famous," he observed, glancing up at the strong, dark, brooding face above him. "they had a picture of yours over in london once; i went to see it with my mother. it was called 'le poignard,' do you remember it?" gervase shrugged his shoulders carelessly. "yes, i remember. a poor thing at its best. it was a woman with a dagger in her hand." "yes, awfully fine, don'cher know! she was a very dark woman--too dark for my taste,--and she'd got a poignard clasped in in her right hand. of course, she was going to murder somebody with it; that was plain enough. you meant it so, didn't you?" "i suppose i did." "she was in a sort of eastern get-up," pursued fulkeward, "one of your former studies in egypt, perhaps." gervase started, and passed his hand across his forehead with a bewildered air. "no, no! not a former study, by any means. how could it be? this is my first visit to egypt. i have never been here before." "haven't you? really! well, you'll find it awfully interesting and all that sort of thing. i don't see half as much of it as i should like. i'm a weak chap--got something wrong with my lungs,--awful bother, but can't be helped. my mother won't let me do too much. here we are; this is the princess ziska's." they were standing in a narrow street ending in a cul-de-sac, with tall houses on each side which cast long, black, melancholy shadows on the rough pavement below. a vague sense of gloom and oppression stole over gervase as he surveyed the outside of the particular dwelling fulkeward pointed out to him--a square, palatial building, which had no doubt once been magnificent in its exterior adornment, but which now, owing to long neglect, had fallen into somewhat melancholy decay. the sombre portal, fantastically ornamented with designs copied from some of the egyptian monuments, rather resembled the gateway of a tomb than an entrance to the private residence of a beautiful living woman, and fulkeward, noting his companion's silence, added: "not a very cheerful corner, is it? some of these places are regular holes, don'cher know; but i daresay it's all right inside." "you have never been inside?" "never." and fulkeward lowered his voice: "look up there; there's the beast that keeps everybody out!" gervase followed his glance, and perceived behind the projecting carved lattice-work of one of the windows a dark, wrinkled face and two gleaming eyes which, even at that distance, had, or appeared to have, a somewhat sinister expression. "he's the nastiest type of nubian i have ever seen," pursued fulkeward. "looks just like a galvanized corpse." gervase smiled, and perceiving a long bell-handle at the gateway, pulled it sharply. in another moment the nubian appeared, his aspect fully justifying lord fulkeward's description of him. the parchment-like skin on his face was yellowish-black, and wrinkled in a thousand places; his lips were of a livid blue, and were drawn up and down above and below the teeth in a kind of fixed grin, while the dense brilliance of his eyes was so fierce and fiery as to suggest those of some savage beast athirst for prey. "madame la princesse ziska" began gervase, addressing his unfascinating object with apparent indifference to his hideousness. the nubian's grinning lips stretched themselves wider apart as, in a thick, snarling voice he demanded: "votre nom?" "armand gervase." "entrez!" "et moi?" queried fulkeward, with a conciliatory smile. "non! pas vous. monsieur armand gervase, seul!" fulkeward gave a resigned shrug of his shoulders; gervase looked round at him ere he crossed the threshold of the mysterious habitation. "i'm sorry you have to walk back alone." "don't mention it," said fulkeward affably. "you see, you have come on business. you're going to paint the princess's picture; and i daresay this blessed old rascal knows that i want nothing except to look at his mistress and wonder what she's made of." "what she's made of?" echoed gervase in surprise. "don't you think she's made like other women?" "no; can't say i do. she seems all fire and vapor and eyes in the middle, don'cher know. oh, i'm an ass--always was--but that's the feeling she gives me. ta-ta! wish you a pleasant morning!" he nodded and strolled away, and gervase hesitated yet another moment, looking full at the nubian, who returned him stare for stare. "maintenant?" he began. "oui, maintenant," echoed the nubian. "la princesse, ou est elle?" "la!" and the nubian pointed down a long, dark passage beyond which there seemed to be the glimmer of green palms and other foliage. "elle vous attend, monsieur armand gervase! entrez! suivez!" slowly gervase passed in, and the great tomb-like door closed upon him with a heavy clang. the whole long, bright day passed, and he did not reappear; not a human foot crossed the lonely street and nothing was seen there all through the warm sunshiny hours save the long, black shadows on the pavement, which grew longer and darker as the evening fell. chapter vii. within the palace of the princess ziska a strange silence reigned. in whatever way the business of her household was carried on, it was evidently with the most absolute noiselessness, for not a sound disturbed the utter stillness environing her. she herself, clad in white garments that clung about her closely, displaying the perfect outlines of her form, stood waiting for her guest in a room that was fairly dazzling to the eye in its profusion of exquisitely assorted and harmonized colors, as well as impressive to the mind in its suggestions of the past rather than of the present. quaint musical instruments of the fashion of thousands of years ago hung on the walls or lay on brackets and tables, but no books such as our modern time produces were to be seen; only tied-up bundles of papyri and curious little tablets of clay inscribed with mysterious hieroglyphs. flowers adorned every corner--many of them strange blossoms which a connoisseur would have declared to be unknown in egypt,--palms and ferns and foliage of every description were banked up against the walls in graceful profusion, and from the latticed windows the light filtered through colored squares, giving a kind of rainbow-effect to the room, as though it were a scene in a dream rather than a reality. and even more dream-like than her surroundings was the woman who awaited the approach of her visitor, her eyes turned towards the door--fiery eyes filled with such ardent watchfulness as seemed to burn the very air. the eyes of a hawk gleaming on its prey,--the eyes of a famished tiger in the dark, were less fraught with terrific meaning than the eyes of ziska as she listened attentively to the on-coming footsteps through the outside corridor which told her that gervase was near. "at last!" she whispered, "at last!" the next moment the nubian flung the door wide open and announced "monsieur armand gervase!" she advanced with all the wonderful grace which distinguished her, holding out both her slim, soft hands. gervase caught them in his own and kissed them fervently, whereupon the nubian retired, closing the door after him. "you are very welcome, monsieur gervase," said the princess then, speaking with a measured slowness that was attractive as well as soothing to the ear. "you have left all the dear english people well at the gezireh palace? lady fulkeward was not too tired after her exertions at the ball? and you?" but gervase was gazing at her in a speechless confusion of mind too great for words. a sudden, inexplicable emotion took possession of him,--an emotion to which he could give no name, but which stupefied him and held him mute. was it her beauty which so dazzled his senses? was it some subtle perfume in the room that awoke a dim haunting memory? or what was it that seemed so strangely familiar? he struggled with himself, and finally spoke out his thought: "i have seen you before, princess; i am quite sure i have! i thought i had last night; but to-day i am positive about it. strange, isn't it? i wonder where we really met?" her dark eyes rested on him fully. "i wonder!" she echoed, smiling. "the world is so small, and so many people nowadays make the 'grand tour,' that it is not at all surprising we should have passed each other en route through our journey of life." gervase still hesitated, glancing about him with a singularly embarrassed air, while she continued to watch him intently. presently his sensations, whatever they were, passed off, and gradually recovering his equanimity, he became aware that he was quite alone with one of the most fascinating women he had ever seen. his eyes flashed, and he smiled. "i have come to paint your picture," he said softly. "shall i begin?" she had seated herself on a silken divan, and her head rested against a pile of richly-embroidered cushions. without waiting for her answer, he threw himself down beside her and caught her hand in his. "shall i paint your picture?" he whispered. "or shall i make love to you?" she laughed,--the sweet, low laugh that somehow chilled his blood while it charmed his hearing. "whichever you please," she answered. "both performances would no doubt be works of art!" "what do you mean?" "can you not understand? if you paint my picture it will be a work of art. if you make love to me it will equally be a work of art: that is, a composed thing--an elaborate study." "bah! love is not a composed thing," said gervase, leaning closer to her. "it is wild, and full of libertinage as the sea." "and equally as fickle," added the princess composedly, taking a fan of feathers near her and waving it to and fro. "man's idea of love is to take all he can get from a woman, and give her nothing in return but misery sometimes, and sometimes death." "you do not,--you cannot think that!" said gervase, looking at her dazzling face with a passion of admiration he made no attempt to conceal. "men on the whole are not as cruel or as treacherous as women. i would swear, looking at you, that, beautiful as you are, you are cruel, and that is perhaps why i love you! you are like a splendid tigress waiting to be tamed!" "and you think you could tame me?" interposed ziska, looking at him with an inscrutable disdain in her black eyes. "yes, if you loved me!" "ah, possibly! but then it happens that i do not love you. i love no one. i have had too much of love; it is a folly i have grown weary of!" gervase fixed his eyes on her with an audacious look which seemed to hint that he might possibly take advantage of being alone with her to enforce his ideas of love more eloquently than was in accordance with the proprieties. she perceived his humor, smiled, and coldly gave him back glance for glance. then, rising from the divan, she drew herself up to her full height and surveyed him with a kind of indulgent contempt. "you are an uprincipled man, armand gervase," she said; "and do you know i fear you always will be! a cleansing of your soul through centuries of fire will be necessary for you in the next world,--that next world which you do not believe in. but it is perhaps as well to warn you that i am not without protection in this place ... see!" and as she spoke she clapped her hands. a clanging noise as of brazen bells answered her,--and gervase, springing up from his seat, saw, to his utter amazement, the apparently solid walls of the room in which they were, divide rapidly and form themselves in several square openings which showed a much larger and vaster apartment beyond, resembling a great hall. here were assembled some twenty or thirty gorgeously-costumed arab attendants,--men of a dark and sinister type, who appeared to be fully armed, judging from the unpleasant-looking daggers and other weapons they carried at their belts. the princess clapped her hands again, and the walls closed in the same rapid fashion as they had opened, while the beautiful mistress of this strange habitation laughed mirthfully at the complete confusion of her visitor and would-be lover. "paint me now!" she said, flinging herself in a picturesque attitude on one of the sofas close by; "i am ready." "but _i_ am not ready!" retorted gervase, angrily. "do you take me for a child, or a fool?" "both in one," responded the princess, tranquilly; "being a man!" his breath came and went quickly. "take care, beautiful ziska!" he said. "take care how you defy me!" "and take care, monsieur gervase; take care how you defy me!" she responded, with a strange, quick glance at him. "do you not realize what folly you are talking? you are making love to me in the fashion of a brigand, rather than a nineteenth-century frenchman of good standing,--and i--i have to defend myself against you also brigand-wise, by showing you that i have armed servants within call! it is very strange,--it would frighten even lady fulkeward, and i think she is not easily frightened. pray commence your work, and leave such an out-of-date matter as love to dreamers and pretty sentimentalists, like miss helen murray." he was silent, and busied himself in unstrapping his canvas and paint-box with a great deal of almost vicious energy. in a few moments he had gained sufficient composure to look full at her, and taking his palette in hand, he began dabbing on the colors, talking between whiles. "do you suppose," he said, keeping his voice carefully subdued, "that you can intimidate me by showing me a score of wretched black rascals whom you have placed on guard to defend you out there? and why did you place them on guard? you must have been afraid of me! pardieu! i could snatch you out of their midst, if i chose! you do not know me; if you did, you would understand that not all the world, armed to the teeth should balk me of my desires! but i have been too hasty--that i own,--i can wait." he raised his eyes and saw that she was listening with an air of amused indifference. "i shall have to mix strange tints in your portrait, ma belle! it is difficult to find the exact hue of your skin--there is rose and brown in it; and there is yet another color which i must evolve while working,--and it is not the hue of health. it is something dark and suggestive of death; i hope you are not destined to an early grave! and yet, why not? it is better that a beautiful woman should die in her beauty than live to become old and tiresome ..." "you think that?" interrupted the ziska suddenly, smiling somewhat coldly. "i do, most honestly. had i lived in the early days of civilization, when men were allowed to have as many women as they could provide for, i would have mercifully killed any sweet favorite as soon as her beauty began to wane. a lovely woman, dead in her first exquisite youth,--how beautiful a subject for the mind to dwell upon! how it suggests all manner of poetic fancies and graceful threnodies! but a woman grown old, who has outlived all passion and is a mere bundle of fat, or a mummy of skin and bone,--what poetry does her existence suggest? how can she appeal to art or sentiment? she is a misery to herself and an eyesore to others. yes, princess, believe me,--love first, and death afterwards, are woman's best friends." "you believe in death?" ask the princess, looking steadily at him. "it is the only thing i do believe in," he answered lightly. "it is a fact that will bear examination, but not contradiction. may i ask you to turn your head slightly to the left--so! yes, that will do; if i can catch the look in your eyes that gleams there now,--the look of intense, burning, greedy cruelty which is so murderously fascinating, i shall be content." he seated himself opposite to her, and, putting down his palette, took up his canvas, and posing it on his knee, began drawing the first rough outline of his sketch in charcoal. she, meanwhile, leaning against heaped-up cushions of amber satin, remained silent. "you are not a vain woman," he pursued, "or you would resent my description of your eyes. 'greedy cruelty' is not a pretty expression, nor would it be considered complimentary by the majority of the fair sex. yet, from my point of view, it is the highest flattery i can pay you, for i adore the eyes of savage animals, and the beautiful eye of the forest-beast is in your head,--diableresse charmante comme vous etes! i wonder what gives you such an insatiate love of vengeance?" he looked up and saw her eyes glistening and narrowing at the corners, like the eyes of an angry snake. "if i have such a feeling," she replied slowly, "it is probably a question of heritage." "ah! your parents were perhaps barbaric in their notions of love and hatred?" he queried, lazily working at his charcoal sketch with growing admiration for its result. "my parents came of a race of kings!" she answered. "all my ancestors were proud, and of a temper unknown to this petty day. they resented a wrong, they punished falsehood and treachery, and they took a life for a life. your generation tolerates every sin known in the calendar with a smile and a shrug,--you have arrived at the end of your civilization, even to the denial of deity and a future life." "that is not the end of our civilization, princess," said gervase, working away intently, with eyes fixed on the canvas as he talked. "that is the triumphal apex, the glory, the culmination of everything that is great and supreme in manhood. in france, man now knows himself to be the only god; england--good, slow-pacing england--is approaching france in intelligence by degrees, and i rejoice to see that it is possible for a newspaper like the agnostic to exist in london. only the other day that excellent journal was discussing the possibility of teaching monkeys to read, and a witty writer, who adopts the nom de plume of 'saladin,' very cleverly remarked 'that supposing monkeys were able to read the new testament, they would still remain monkeys; in fact, they would probably be greater monkeys than ever.' the fact of such an expression being allowed to pass muster in once pious london is an excellent sign of the times and of our progress towards the pure age of reason. the name of christ is no longer one to conjure with." a dead silence followed his words, and the peculiar stillness and heaviness of the atmosphere struck him with a vague alarm. he lifted his eyes,--the princess ziska met his gaze steadily, but there was something in her aspect that moved him to wonderment and a curious touch of terror. the delicate rose-tint of her cheeks had faded to an ashy paleness, her lips were pressed together tightly and her eyes seemed to have gained a vivid and angry lustre which medusa herself might have envied. "did you ever try to conjure with that name?" she asked. "never," he replied, forcing a smile and remonstrating with himself for the inexplicable nature of his emotions. she went on slowly: "in my creed--for i have a creed--it is believed that those who have never taken the sacred name of christ to their hearts, as a talisman of comfort and support, are left as it were in the vortex of uncertainties, tossed to and fro among many whirling and mighty forces, and haunted forever by the phantoms of their own evil deeds. till they learn and accept the truth of their marvellous redemption, they are the prey of wicked spirits who tempt and lead them on to divers miseries. but when the great name of him who died upon the cross is acknowledged, then it is found to be of that transfiguring nature which turns evil to good, and sometimes makes angels out of fiends. nevertheless, for the hardened reprobate and unbeliever the old laws suffice." gervase had stopped the quick movement of his "fusin," and looked at her curiously. "what old laws?" he asked. "stern justice without mercy!" she answered; then in lighter accents she added: "have you finished your first outline?" in reply, he turned his canvas round to her, showing her a head and profile boldly presented in black and white. she smiled. "it is clever; but it is not like me," she said. "when you begin the coloring you will find that your picture and i have no resemblance to each other." he flushed with a sense of wounded amour propre. "pardon, madame!--i am no novice at the art of painting," he said; "and much as your charms dazzle and ensnare me, they do not disqualify my brain and hand from perfectly delineating them upon my canvas. i love you to distraction; but my passion shall not hinder me from making your picture a masterpiece." she laughed. "what an egoist you are, monsieur gervase!" she said. "even in your professed passion for me you count yourself first,--me afterwards!" "naturally!" he replied. "a man must always be first by natural creation. when he allows himself to play second fiddle, he is a fool!" "and when he is a fool--and he often is--he is the first of fools!" said the princess. "no ape--no baboon hanging by its tail to a tree--looks such a fool as a man-fool. for a man-fool has had all the opportunities of education and learning bestowed upon him; this great universe, with its daily lessons of the natural and the supernatural, is his book laid open for his reading, and when he will neither read it nor consider it, and, moreover, when he utterly denies the very maker of it, then there is no fool in all creation like him. for the ape-fool does at least admit that there may be a stronger beast somewhere,--a creature who may suddenly come upon him and end his joys of hanging by his tail to a tree and make havoc of his fruit-eating and chattering, while man thinks there is nothing anywhere superior to himself." gervase smiled tolerantly. "i am afraid i have ruffled you, princess," he said. "i see you have religious ideas: i have none." once again she laughed musically. "religious ideas! i! not at all. i have a creed as i told you, but it is an ugly one--not at all sentimental or agreeable. it is one i have adopted from ancient egypt." "explain it to me," said gervase; "i will adopt it also, for your sake." "it is too supernatural for you," she said, paying no heed to the amorous tone of his voice or the expressive tenderness of his eyes. "never mind! love will make me accept an army of ghosts, if necessary." "one of the chief tenets of my faith," she continued, "is the eternal immortality of each individual soul. will you accept that?" "for the moment, certainly!" her eyes glowed like great jewels as she proceeded: "the egyptian cult i follow is very briefly explained. the soul begins in protoplasm without conscious individuality. it progresses through various forms till individual consciousness is attained. once attained, it is never lost, but it lives on, pressing towards perfection, taking upon itself various phases of existence according to the passions which have most completely dominated it from the first. that is all. but according to this theory, you might have lived in the world long ago, and so might i: we might even have met; and for some reason or other we may have become re-incarnated now. a disciple of my creed would give you that as the reason why you sometimes imagine you have seen me before." as she spoke, the dazed and troubled sensation he had once previously experienced came upon him; he laid down the canvas he held and passed his hand across his forehead bewilderedly. "yes; very curious and fantastic. i've heard a great deal about the doctrine of reincarnation. i don't believe in it,--i can't believe in it! but if i could: if i could imagine i had ever met you in some bygone time, and you were like what you are at this moment, i should have loved you,--i must have loved you! you see i cannot leave the subject of love alone; and your re-incarnation idea gives my fancy something to work upon. so, beautiful ziska, if your soul ever took the form of a flower, i must have been its companion blossom; if it ever paced the forest as a beast of prey, i must have been its mate; if it ever was human before, then i must have been its lover! do you like such pretty follies? i will talk them by the hour." here he rose, and with a movement that was half fierce and half tender, he knelt beside her, taking her hands in his own. "i love you, ziska! i cannot help myself. i am drawn to you by some force stronger than my own will; but you need not be afraid of me--not yet! as i said, i can wait. i can endure the mingled torture and rapture of this sudden passion and make no sign, till my patience tires, and then--then i will win you if i die for it!" he sprang up before she could speak a word in answer, and seizing his canvas again, exclaimed gayly: "now for the hues of morning and evening combined, to paint the radiance of this wicked soul of love that so enthralls me! first, the raven-black of midnight for the hair,--the lustre of the coldest, brightest stars for eyes,--the blush-rose of early dawn for lips and cheeks. ah! how shall i make a real beginning of this marvel?" "it will be difficult, i fear," said ziska slowly, with a faint, cold smile; "and still more difficult, perchance, will be the end!" chapter viii. the table d'hote at the gezireh palace hotel had already begun when gervase entered the dining-room and sat down near lady fulkeward and dr. dean. "you have missed the soup," said her ladyship, looking up at him with a sweet smile. "all you artists are alike,--you have no idea whatever of time. and how have you succeeded with that charming mysterious person, the princess ziska?" gervase kept his gaze steadily fixed on the table-cloth. he was extremely pale, and had the air of one who has gone through some great mental exhaustion. "i have not succeeded as well as i expected," he answered slowly. "i think my hand must have lost its cunning. at any rate, whatever the reason may be, art has been defeated by nature." he crumbled up the piece of bread near his plate in small portions with a kind of involuntary violence in the action, and dr. dean, deliberately drawing out a pair of spectacles from their case, adjusted them, and surveyed him curiously. "you mean to say that you cannot paint the princess's picture?" gervase glanced up at him with a half-sullen, half-defiant expression. "i don't say that," he replied; "i can paint something--something which you can call a picture if you like,--but there is no resemblance to the princess ziska in it. she is beautiful, and i can get nothing of her beauty,--i can only get the reflection of a face which is not hers." "how very curious!" exclaimed lady fulkeward. "quite psychological, is it not, doctor? it is almost creepy!" and she managed to produce a delicate shudder of her white shoulders without cracking the blanc de perle enamel. "it will be something fresh for you to study." "possibly it will--possibly," said the doctor, still surveying gervase blandly through his round glasses; "but it isn't the first time i have heard of painters who unconsciously produce other faces than those of their sitters. i distinctly remember a case in point. a gentleman, famous for his charities and general benevolence, had his portrait painted by a great artist for presentation to the town-hall of his native place, and the artist was quite unable to avoid making him unto the likeness of a villain. it was quite a distressing affair; the painter was probably more distressed than anybody about it, and he tried by every possible means in his power to impart a truthful and noble aspect to the countenance of the man who was known and admitted to be a benefactor to his race. but it was all in vain: the portrait when finished was the portrait of a stranger and a scoundrel. the people for whom it was intended declared they would not have such a libel on their generous friend hung up in their town-hall. the painter was in despair, and there was going to be a general hubbub, when, lo and behold the 'noble' personage himself was suddenly arrested for a brutal murder committed twelve years back. he was found guilty and hanged, and the painter kept the portrait that had so remarkably betrayed the murderer's real nature, as a curiosity ever afterwards." "is that a fact?" inquired a man who was seated at the other side of the table, and who had listened with great interest to the story. "a positive fact," said the doctor. "one of those many singular circumstances which occur in life, and which are beyond all explanation." gervase moved restlessly; then filling for himself a glass of claret, drained it off thirstily. "something of the same kind has happened to me," he said with a hard, mirthless laugh, "for out of the most perfect beauty i have only succeeded in presenting an atrocity." "dear me!" exclaimed lady fulkeward. "what a disappointing day you must have had! but of course, you will try again; the princess will surely give you another sitting?" "oh, yes! i shall certainly try again and yet again, and ever so many times again," said gervase, with a kind of angry obstinacy in his tone, "the more so as she has told me i will never succeed in painting her." "she told you that, did she?" put in dr. dean, with an air of lively interest. "yes." just then the handing round of fresh dishes and the clatter of knives and forks effectually put a stop to the conversation for the time, and gervase presently glancing about him saw that denzil murray and his sister were dining apart at a smaller table with young lord fulkeward and ross courtney. helen was looking her fairest and best that evening--her sweet face, framed in its angel aureole of bright hair had a singular look of pureness and truth expressed upon it rare to find in any woman beyond her early teens. unconsciously to himself, gervase sighed as he caught a view of her delicate profile, and lady fulkeward's sharp ears heard the sound of that sigh. "isn't that a charming little party over there?" she asked. "young people, you know! they always like to be together! that very sweet girl, miss murray, was so much distressed about her brother to-day,--something was the matter with him--a touch of fever, i believe,--that she begged me to let fulke dine with them in order to distract mr. denzil's mind. fulke is a dear boy, you know--very consoling in his ways, though he says so little. then mr. courtney volunteered to join them, and there they are. the chetwynd lyles are gone to a big dinner at the continental this evening." "the chetwynd lyles--let me see. who are they?" mused gervase aloud, "do i know them?" "no,--that is, you have not been formally introduced," said dr. dean. "sir chetwynd lyle is the editor and proprietor of the london daily dial, lady chetwynd lyle is his wife, and the two elderly-youthful ladies who appeared as 'boulogne fishwives' last night at the ball are his daughters." "cruel man!" exclaimed lady fulkeward with a girlish giggle. "the idea of calling those sweet girls, muriel and dolly, 'elderly-youthful!'" "what are they, my dear madam, what are they?" demanded the imperturbable little savant. "'elderly-youthful' is a very convenient expression, and applies perfectly to people who refuse to be old and cannot possibly be young." "nonsense! i will not listen to you!" and her ladyship opened her jewelled fan and spread it before her eyes to completely screen the objectionable doctor from view. "don't you know your theories are quite out of date? nobody is old,--we all utterly refuse to be old! why," and she shut her fan with a sudden jerk, "i shall have you calling me old next." "never, madam!" said dr. dean gallantly laying his hand upon his heart. "you are quite an exception to the rule. you have passed through the furnace of marriage and come out unscathed. time has done its worst with you, and now retreats, baffled and powerless; it can touch you no more!" whether this was meant as a compliment or the reverse it would have been difficult to say, but lady fulkeward graciously accepted it as the choicest flattery, and bowed, smiling and gratified. dinner was now drawing to its end, and people were giving their orders for coffee to be served to them on the terrace and in the gardens, gervase among the rest. the doctor turned to him. "i should like to see your picture of the princess," he said,--"that is if you have no objection." "not the least in the world," replied gervase,--"only it isn't the princess, it is somebody else." a faint shudder passed over him. the doctor noticed it. "talking of curious things," went on that irrepressible savant, "i started hunting for a particular scarabeus to-day. i couldn't find it, of course,--it generally takes years to find even a trifle that one especially wants. but i came across a queer old man in one of the curiosity-shops who told me that over at karnak they had just discovered a large fresco in one of the tombs describing the exploits of the very man whose track i'm on--araxes ..." gervase started,--he knew not why. "what has araxes to do with you?" he demanded. "oh, nothing! but the princess ziska spoke of him as a great warrior in the days of amenhotep,--and she seems to be a great egyptologist, and to know many things of which we are ignorant. then you know last night she adopted the costume of a dancer of that period, named ziska-charmazel. well, now it appears that in one part of this fresco the scene depicted is this very ziska-charmazel dancing before araxes." gervase listened with strained attention,--his heart beat thickly, as though the doctor were telling him of some horrible circumstance in which he had an active part; whereas he had truly no interest at all in the matter, except in so far as events of history are more or less interesting to everyone. "well?" he said after a pause. "well," echoed dr. dean. "there is really nothing more to say beyond that i want to find out everything i can concerning this araxes, if only for the reason that the charming princess chose to impersonate his lady-love last night. one must amuse one's self in one's own fashion, even in egypt, and this amuses me." gervase rose, feeling in his pocket for his cigarette-case. "come," he said briefly, "i will show you my picture." he straightened his tall, fine figure and walked slowly across the room to the table where denzil murray sat with his sister and friends. "denzil," he said,--"i have made a strange portrait of the princess ziska, and i'm going to show it to dr. dean. i should like you to see it too. will you come?" denzil looked at him with a dark reproach in his eyes. "if you like," he answered shortly. "i do like!" and gervase laid his hand on the young fellow's shoulder with a kind pressure. "you will find it a piece of curious disenchantment, as well as a proof of my want of skill. you are all welcome to come and look at it except ..." here he hesitated,--"except miss murray. i think--yes, i think it might possibly frighten miss murray." helen raised her eyes to his, but said nothing. "oh, by jove!" murmured lord fulkeward, feeling his moustache as usual. "then don't you come, miss murray. we'll tell you all about it afterwards." "i have no curiosity on the subject," she said a trifle coldly. "denzil, you will find me in the drawing-room. i have a letter to write home." with a slight salute she left them, gervase watching the disappearance of her graceful figure with a tinge of melancholy regret in his eyes. "it is evident mademoiselle helen does not like the princess ziska," he observed. "oh, well, as to that," said fulkeward hastily, "you know you can't expect women to lose their heads about her as men do. beside, there's something rather strange in the princess's manner and appearance, and perhaps miss murray doesn't take to her any more than i do." "oh, then you are not one of her lovers?" queried dr. dean smiling. "no; are you?" "i? good heavens, my dear young sir, i was never in love with a woman in my life! that is, not what you would call in love. at the age of sixteen i wrote verses to a mature young damsel of forty,--a woman with a remarkably fine figure and plenty of it; she rejected my advances with scorn, and i have never loved since!" they all laughed,--even denzil murray's sullen features cleared for the moment into the brightness of a smile. "where did you paint the princess's picture?" inquired ross courtney suddenly. "in her own house," replied gervase. "but we were not alone, for the fascinating fair one had some twenty or more armed servants within call." there was a movement of surprise among his listeners, and he went on: "yes; madame is very well protected, i assure you,--as much so as if she were the first favorite in a harem. come now, and see my sketch." he led the way to a private sitting-room which he had secured for himself in the hotel at almost fabulous terms. it was a small apartment, but it had the advantage of a long french window which opened out into the garden. here, on an easel, was a canvas with its back turned towards the spectator. "sit down," said gervase abruptly addressing his guests, "and be prepared for a curiosity unlike anything you have ever seen before!" he paused a moment, looking steadily at dr. dean. "perhaps, doctor, as you are interested in psychic phenomena, you may be able to explain how i got such a face on my canvas, for i cannot explain it to myself." he slowly turned the canvas round, and, scarcely heeding the exclamation of amazement that broke simultaneously from all the men present, stared at it himself, fascinated by a singular magnetism more potent than either horror or fear. chapter ix. what a strange and awful face it was!--what a thing of distorted passion and pain! what an agony was expressed in every line of the features!--agony in which the traces of a divine beauty lingered only to render the whole countenance more repellent and terrific! a kind of sentient solemnity, mingled with wrath and terror, glared from the painted eyes,--the lips, slightly parted in a cruel upward curve, seemed about to utter a shriek of menace,--the hair, drooping in black, thick clusters low on the brow, looked wet as with the dews of the rigor mortis,--and to add to the mysterious horror of the whole conception, the distinct outline of a death's-head was seen plainly through the rose-brown flesh-tints. there was no real resemblance in this horrible picture to the radiant and glowing loveliness of the princess ziska, yet, at the same time, there was sufficient dim likeness to make an imaginative person think it might be possible for her to assume that appearance in death. several minutes passed in utter silence,--then lord fulkeward suddenly rose. "i'm going!" he said. "it's a beastly thing; it makes me sick!" "grand merci!" said gervase with a forced smile. "i really can't help it," declared the young man, turning his back to the picture. "if i am rude, you must excuse it. i'm not very strong--my mother will tell you i get put out very easily,--and i shall dream of this horrid face all night if i don't give it a wide berth." and, without any further remark he stepped out through the open window into the garden, and walked off. gervase made no comment on his departure; he turned his eyes towards dr. dean who, with spectacles on nose, was staring hard at the picture with every sign of the deepest interest. "well, doctor," he said, "you see it is not at all like the princess." "oh, yes it is!" returned the doctor placidly. "if you could imagine the princess's face in torture, it would be like her. it is the kind of expression she might wear if she suddenly met with a violent end." "but why should i paint her so?" demanded gervase. "she was perfectly tranquil; and her attitude was most picturesquely composed. i sketched her as i thought i saw her,--how did this tortured head come on my canvas?" the doctor scratched his chin thoughtfully. it was certainly a problem. he stared hard at gervase, as though searching for the clue to the mystery in the handsome artist's own face. then he turned to denzil murray, who had not stirred or spoken. "what do you think of it, eh, denzil?" he asked. the young man started as from a dream. "i don't know what to think of it." "and you?" said the doctor, addressing ross courtney. "i? oh, i am of the same opinion as fulkeward,--i think it is a horrible thing. and the curious part of the matter is that it is like the princess ziska, and yet totally unlike. upon my word, you know, it is a very unpleasant picture." dr. dean got up and paced the room two or three times, his brows knitted in a heavy frown. suddenly he stopped in front of gervase. "tell me," he said, "have you any recollection of ever having met the princess ziska before?" gervase looked puzzled, then answered slowly: "no, i have no actual recollection of the kind. at the same time, i admit to you that there is something about her which has always struck me as being familiar. the tone of her voice and the peculiar cadence of her laughter particularly affect me in this way. last night when i was dancing with her, i wondered whether i had ever come across her as a model in one of the studios in paris or rome." the doctor listened to him attentively, watching him narrowly the while. but he shook his head incredulously at the idea of the princess ever having posed as a model. "no, no, that won't do!" he said. "i do not believe she was ever in the model business. think again. you are now a man in the prime of life, monsieur gervase, but look back to your early youth,--the period when young men do wild, reckless, and often wicked things,--did you ever in that thoughtless time break a woman's heart?" gervase flushed, and shrugged his shoulders. "pardieu! i may have done! who can tell? but if i did, what would that have to do with this?" and he tapped the picture impatiently. the doctor sat down and smacked his lips with a peculiar air of enjoyment. "it would have a great deal to do with it," he answered, "that is, psychologically speaking. i have known of such cases. we will argue the point out systematically thus:--suppose that you, in your boyhood, had wronged some woman, and suppose that woman had died. you might imagine you had got rid of that woman. but if her love was very strong and her sense of outrage very bitter, i must tell you that you have not got rid of her by any means, moreover, you never will get rid of her. and why? because her soul, like all souls, is imperishable. now, putting it as a mere supposition, and for the sake of the argument, that you feel a certain admiration for the princess ziska, an admiration which might possibly deepen into something more than platonic, ... "--here denzil murray looked up, his eyes glowing with an angry pain as he fixed them on gervase,--"why then the soul of the other woman you once wronged might come between you and the face of the new attraction and cause you to unconsciously paint the tortured look of the injured and unforgiving spirit on the countenance of the lovely fascinator whose charms are just beginning to ensnare you. i repeat, i have known of such cases." and, unheeding the amazed and incredulous looks of his listeners, the little doctor folded both his short arms across his chest, and hugged himself in the exquisite delight of his own strange theories." the fact is," he continued," you cannot get rid of ghosts! they are all about us--everywhere! sometimes they take forms, sometimes they are content to remain invisible. but they never fail to make their presence felt. often during the performance of some great piece of music they drift between the air and the melody, making the sounds wilder and more haunting, and freezing the blood of the listener with a vague agony and chill. sometimes they come between us and our friends, mysteriously forbidding any further exchange of civilities or sympathies, and occasionally they meet us alone and walk and talk with us invisibly. generally they mean well, but sometimes they mean ill. and the only explanation i can offer you, monsieur gervase, as to the present picture problem is that a ghost must have come between you and your canvas!" gervase laughed loudly. "my good friend, you are an adept in the art of pleading the impossible! you must excuse me; i am a sceptic; and i hope i am also in possession of my sober reason,--therefore, you can hardly wonder at my entirely refusing to accept such preposterous theories as those you appear to believe in." dr. dean gave him a civil little bow. "i do not ask you to accept them, my dear sir! i state my facts, and you can take them or leave them, just as you please. you yourself can offer no explanation of the singular way in which this picture has been produced; i offer one which is perfectly tenable with the discoveries of psychic science,--and you dismiss it as preposterous. that being the case, i should recommend you to cut up this canvas and try your hand again on the same subject." "of course, i shall try again," retorted gervase. "but i do not think i shall destroy this first sketch. it is a curiosity in its way; and it has a peculiar fascination for me. do you notice how thoroughly egyptian the features are? they are the very contour of some of the faces on the recently-discovered frescoes." "oh, i noticed that at once," said the doctor; "but that is not remarkable, seeing that you yourself are quite of an egyptian type, though a frenchman,--so much so, in fact, that many people in this hotel have commented on it." gervase said nothing, but slowly turned the canvas round with its face to the wall. "you have seen enough of it, i suppose?" he inquired of denzil murray. "more than enough!" gervase smiled. "it ought to disenchant you," he said in a lower tone. "but it is a libel on her beauty,--it is not in the least like her," returned murray coldly. "not in the very least? are you sure? my dear denzil, you know as well as i do that there is a likeness, combined with a dreadful unlikeness; and it is that which troubles both of us. i assure you, my good boy, i am as sorry for you as i am for myself,--for i feel that this woman will be the death of one or both of us!" denzil made no reply, and presently they all strolled out in the garden and lit their cigars and cigarettes, with the exception of dr. dean who never smoked and never drank anything stronger than water. "i am going to get up a party for the nile," he said as he turned his sharp, ferret-like eyes upwards to the clear heavens; "and i shall take the princess into my confidence. in fact, i have written to her about it to-day. i hear she has a magnificent electric dahabeah, and if she will let us charter it. ..." "she won't," said denzil hastily, "unless she goes with it herself." "you seem to know a great deal about her," observed dr. dean indulgently, "and why should she not go herself? she is evidently well instructed in the ancient history of egypt, and, as she reads the hieroglyphs, she will be a delightful guide and a most valuable assistant to me in my researches." "what researches are you engaged upon now?" inquired courtney. "i am hunting down a man called araxes," answered the doctor. "he lived, so far as i can make out, some four or five thousand years ago, more or less; and i want to find out what he did and how he died, and when i know how he died, then i mean to discover where he is buried. if possible, i shall excavate him. i also want to find the remains of ziska-charmazel, the lady impersonated by our charming friend the princess last night,--the dancer, who, it appears from a recently-discovered fresco, occupied most of her time in dancing before this same araxes and making herself generally agreeable to him." "what an odd fancy!" exclaimed denzil. "how can a man and woman dead five thousand years ago be of any interest to you?" "what interest has rameses?" demanded the doctor politely, "or any of the ptolemies? araxes, like rameses, may lead to fresh discoveries in egypt, for all we know. one name is as good as another,--and each odoriferous mummy has its own mystery." they all came just then to a pause in their walk, gervase stopping to light a fresh cigarette. the rays of the rising moon fell upon him as he stood, a tall and stately figure, against a background of palms, and shone on his dark features with a touch of grayish-green luminance that gave him for the moment an almost spectral appearance. dr. dean glanced at him with a smile. "what a figure of an egyptian, is he not!" he said to courtney and denzil murray. "look at him! what height and symmetry! what a world of ferocity in those black, slumbrous eyes! yes, monsieur gervase, i am talking about you. i am admiring you!" "trop d'honneur!" murmured gervase, carefully shielding with one hand the match with which he was kindling his cigarette. "yes," continued the doctor, "i am admiring you. being a little man myself, i naturally like tall men, and as an investigator of psychic forms i am immensely interested when i see a finely-made body in which the soul lies torpid. that is why you unconsciously compose for me a wonderful subject of study. i wonder now, how long this torpidity in the psychic germ has lasted in you? it commenced, of course, originally in protoplasm; but it must have continued through various low forms and met with enormous difficulties in attaining to individual consciousness as man,--because even now it is scarcely conscious." gervase laughed. "why, that beginning of the soul in protoplasm is part of a creed which the princess ziska was trying to teach me to-day," he said lightly. "it's all no use. i don't believe in the soul; if i did, i should be a miserable man." "why?" asked murray. "why? because, my dear fellow, i should be rather afraid of my future. i should not like to live again; i might have to remember certain incidents which i would rather forget. there is your charming sister, mademoiselle helen! i must go and talk to her,--her conversation always does me good; and after that picture which i have been unfortunate enough to produce, her presence will be as soothing as the freshness of morning after an unpleasant nightmare." he moved away; denzil murray with courtney followed him. dr. dean remained behind, and presently sitting down in a retired corner of the garden alone, he took out a small pocket-book and stylographic pen and occupied himself for more than half an hour in busily writing till he had covered two or three pages with his small, neat caligraphy. "it is the most interesting problem i ever had the chance of studying!" he murmured half aloud when he had finished, "of course, if my researches into the psychic spheres of action are worth anything, it can only be one case out of thousands. thousands? aye, perhaps millions! great heavens! among what terrific unseen forces we live! and in exact proportion to every man's arrogant denial of the 'divinity that shapes our ends, so will be measured out to him the revelation of the invisible. strange that the human race has never entirely realized as yet the depth of meaning in the words describing hell: 'where the worm dieth not, and where the flame is never quenched. the 'worm' is retribution, the 'flame' is the immortal spirit,--and the two are forever striving to escape from the other. horrible! and yet there are men who believe in neither one thing nor the other, and reject the redemption that does away with both! god forgive us all our sins,--and especially the sins of pride and presumption!" and with a shade of profound melancholy on his features, the little doctor put by his note-book, and, avoiding all the hotel loungers on the terrace and elsewhere, retired to his own room and went to bed. chapter x. the next day when armand gervase went to call on the princess ziska he was refused admittance. the nubian attendant who kept watch and ward at her gates, hearing the door-bell ring, contented himself with thrusting his ugly head through an open upper window and shouting-- "madame est sortie!" "ou donc?" called gervase in answer. "a la campagne--le desert--les pyramides!" returned the nubian, at the same time banging the lattice to in order to prevent the possibility of any further conversation. and gervase, standing in the street irresolutely for a moment, fancied he heard a peal of malicious laughter in the distance. "beast!" he muttered, "i must try him with a money bribe next time i get hold of him. i wonder what i shall do with myself now?--haunted and brain-ridden as i am by this woman and her picture?" the hot sun glared in his eyes and made them ache,--the rough stones of the narrow street were scorching to his feet. he began to move slowly away with a curious faint sensation of giddiness and sickness upon him, when the sound of music floating from the direction of the princess ziska's palace brought him to a sudden standstill. it was a strange, wild melody, played on some instrument with seemingly muffled strings. a voice with a deep, throbbing thrill of sweetness in it began to sing: oh, for the passionless peace of the lotus-lily! it floats in a waking dream on the waters chilly, with its leaves unfurled to the wondering world, knowing naught of the sorrow and restless pain that burns and tortures the human brain; oh, for the passionless peace of the lotus-lily! oh, for the pure cold heart of the lotus-lily! bared to the moon on the waters dark and chilly. a star above is its only love, and one brief sigh of its scented breath is all it will ever know of death; oh, for the pure cold heart of the lotus-lily! when the song ceased, gervase raised his eyes from the ground on which he had fixed them in a kind of brooding stupor, and stared at the burning blue of the sky as vaguely and wildly as a sick man in the delirium of fever. "god! what ails me!" he muttered, supporting himself with one hand against the black and crumbling wall near which he stood. "why should that melody steal away my strength and make me think of things with which i have surely no connection! what tricks my imagination plays me in this city of the orient--i might as well be hypnotized! what have i to do with dreams of war and triumph and rapine and murder, and what is the name of ziska-charmazel to me?" he shook himself with the action of a fine brute that has been stung by some teasing insect, and, mastering his emotions by an effort, walked away. but he was so absorbed in strange thoughts, that he stumbled up against denzil murray in a side street on the way to the gezireh palace hotel without seeing him, and would have passed him altogether had not denzil somewhat fiercely said: "stop!" gervase looked at him bewilderedly. "why, denzil, is it you? my dear fellow, forgive me my brusquerie! i believe i have got a stroke of the sun, or something of the sort; i assure you i hardly know what i am doing or where i am going!" "i believe it!" said denzil, hoarsely. "you are as mad as i am--for love!" gervase smiled; a slight incredulous smile. "you think so? i am not sure! if love makes a man as thoroughly unstrung and nervous as i am to-day, then love is a very bad illness." "it is the worst illness in the world," said denzil, speaking hurriedly and wildly. "the most cruel and torturing! and there is no cure for it save death. my god, gervase! you were my friend but yesterday! i never should have thought it possible to hate you!" "yet you do hate me?" queried gervase, still smiling a little. "hate you? i could kill you! you have been with her!" quietly gervase took his arm. "my good denzil, you are mistaken! i confess to you frankly i should have been with her--you mean the princess ziska, of course--had it been possible. but she has fled the city for the moment--at least, according to the corpse-like nubian who acts as porter." "he lies!" exclaimed denzil, hotly. "i saw her this morning." "i hope you improved your opportunity," said gervase, imperturbably. "anyway, at the present moment she is not visible." a silence fell between them for some minutes; then denzil spoke again. "gervase, it is no use, i cannot stand this sort of thing. we must have it out. what does it all mean?" "it is difficult to explain, my dear boy," answered gervase, half seriously, half mockingly. "it means, i presume, that we are both in love with the same woman, and that we both intend to try our chances with her. but, as i told you the other night, i do not see why we should quarrel about it. your intentions towards the princess are honorable--mine are dishonorable, and i shall make no secret of them. if you win her, i shall ..." he paused, and there was a sudden look in his eyes which gave them a sombre darkness, darker than their own natural color. "you shall--what?" asked denzil. "do something desperate," replied gervase. "what the something will be depends on the humor of the moment. a tiger balked of his prey is not an agreeable beast; a strong man deprived of the woman he passionately desires is a little less agreeable even than the tiger. but let us adopt the policy of laissez-faire. nothing is decided; the fair one cares for neither of us; let us be friends until she makes her choice." "we cannot be friends," said denzil, sternly. "good! let us be foes then, but courteous, even in our quarrel, dear boy. if we must kill each other, let us do it civilly. to fly at each other's throats would be purely barbaric. we owe a certain duty to civilization; things have progressed since the days of araxes." denzil stared at him gloomily. "araxes is dr. dean's fad," he said. "i don't know anything about egyptian mummies, and don't want to know. my matter is with the present, and not with the past." they had reached the hotel by this time, and turned into the gardens side by side. "you understand?" repeated denzil. "we cannot be friends!" gervase gave him a profoundly courteous salute, and the two separated. later on in the afternoon, about an hour before dinner-time, gervase, strolling on the terrace of the hotel alone, saw helen murray seated at a little distance under some trees, with a book in her hand which she was not reading. there were tears in her eyes, but as he approached her she furtively dashed them away and greeted him with a poor attempt at a smile. "you have a moment to spare me?" he asked, sitting down beside her. she bent her head in acquiescence. "i am a very unhappy man, mademoiselle helen," he began, looking at her with a certain compassionate tenderness as he spoke. "i want your sympathy, but i know i do not deserve it." helen remained silent. a faint flush crimsoned her cheeks, but her eyes were veiled under the long lashes--she thought he could not see them. "you remember," he went on, "our pleasant times in scotland? ah, it is a restful place, your highland home, with the beautiful purple hills rolling away in the distance, and the glorious moors covered with fragrant heather, and the gurgling of the river that runs between birch and fir and willow, making music all day long for those who have the ears to listen, and the hearts to understand the pretty love tune it sings! you know frenchmen always have more or less sympathy with the scotch--some old association, perhaps, with the romantic times of mary queen of scots, when the light and changeful fancies of chastelard and his brother poets and lutists made havoc in the hearts of many a highland maiden. what is that bright drop on your hand, helen?--are you crying?" he waited a moment, and his voice was softer and more tremulous. "dear girl, i am not worthy of tears. i am not good enough for you." he gave her time to recover her momentary emotion and then went on, still softly and tenderly: "listen, helen. i want you to believe me and forgive me, if you can. i know--i remember those moonlight evenings in scotland--holy and happy evenings, as sweet as flower-scented pages in a young girl's missal; yes, and i did not mean to play with you, helen, or wound your gentle heart. i almost loved you!" he spoke the words passionately, and for a moment she raised her eyes and looked at him in something of fear as well as sorrow. "'yes,' i said to my self, 'this woman, so true and pure and fair, is a bride for a king; and if i can win her--if!' ah, there my musings stopped. but i came to egypt chiefly to meet you again, knowing that you and your brother were in cairo. how was i to know, how was i to guess that this horrible thing would happen?" helen gazed at him wonderingly. "what horrible thing?" she asked, falteringly, the rich color coming and going on her face, and her heart beating violently as she put the question. his eyes flashed. "this," he answered. "the close and pernicious enthralment of a woman i never met till the night before last; a woman whose face haunts me; a woman who drags me to her side with the force of a magnet, there to grovel like a brain-sick fool and plead with her for a love which i already know is poison to my soul! helen, helen! you do not understand--you will never understand! here, in the very air i breathe, i fancy i can trace the perfume she shakes from her garments as she moves; something indescribably fascinating yet terrible attracts me to her; it is an evil attraction, i know, but i cannot resist it. there is something wicked in every man's nature; i am conscious enough that there is something detestably wicked in mine, and i have not sufficient goodness to overbalance it. and this woman,--this silent, gliding, glittering-eyed creature that has suddenly taken possession of my fancy--she overcomes me in spite of myself; she makes havoc of all the good intentions of my life. i admit it--i confess it!" "you are speaking of the princess ziska?" asked helen, tremblingly. "of whom else should i speak?" he responded, dreamily. "there is no one like her; probably there never was anyone like her, except, perhaps, ziska-charmazel!" as the name passed his lips, he sprang hastily up and stood amazed, as though some sudden voice had called him. helen murray looked at him in alarm. "oh, what is it?" she exclaimed. he forced a laugh. "nothing--nothing--but a madness! i suppose it is all a part of my strange malady. your brother is stricken with the same fever. surely you know that?" "indeed i do know it," helen answered, "to my sorrow!" he regarded her intently. her face in its pure outline and quiet sadness of expression touched him more than he cared to own even to himself. "my dear helen," he said, with an effort at composure, "i have been talking wildly; you must forgive me! don't think about me at all; i am not worth it! denzil has taken it into his head to quarrel with me on account of the princess ziska, but i assure you i will not quarrel with him. he is infatuated, and so am i. the best thing for all of us to do would be to leave egypt instantly; i feel that instinctively, only we cannot do it. something holds us here. you will never persuade denzil to go, and i--i cannot persuade myself to go. there is a clinging sweetness in the air for me; and there are vague suggestions, memories, dreams, histories--wonderful things which hold me spell-bound! i wish i could analyze them, recognize them, or understand them. but i cannot, and there, perhaps, is their secret charm. only one thing grieves me, and that is, that i have, perhaps, unwittingly, in some thoughtless way, given you pain; is it so, helen?" she rose quickly, and with a quiet dignity held out her hand. "no, monsieur gervase," she said, "it is not so. i am not one of those women who take every little idle word said by men in jest au grand serieux! you have always been a kind and courteous friend, and if you ever fancied you had a warmer feeling for me, as you say, i am sure you were mistaken. we often delude ourselves in these matters. i wish, for your sake, i could think the princess ziska worthy of the love she so readily inspires. but,--i cannot! my brother's infatuation for her is to me terrible. i feel it will break his heart,--and mine!" a little half sob caught her breath and interrupted her; she paused, but presently went on with an effort at calmness: "you talk of our leaving egypt; how i wish that were possible! but i spoke to denzil about it on the night of the ball, and he was furious with me for the mere suggestion. it seems like an evil fate." "it is an evil fate," said gervase gloomily. "enfin, my dear helen, we cannot escape from it,--at least, _i_ cannot. but i never was intended for good things, not even for a lasting love. a lasting love i feel would bore me. you look amazed; you believe in lasting love? so do many sweet women. but do you know what symbol i, as an artist, would employ were i asked to give my idea of love on my canvas?" helen smiled sadly and shook her head. "i would paint a glowing flame," said gervase dreamily. "a flame leaping up from the pit of hell to the height of heaven, springing in darkness, lost in light; and flying into the centre of that flame should be a white moth--a blind, soft, mad thing with beating, tremulous wings,--that should be love! whirled into the very heart of the ravening fire,--crushed, shrivelled out of existence in one wild, rushing rapture--that is what love must be to me! one cannot prolong passion over fifty years, more or less, of commonplace routine, as marriage would have us do. the very notion is absurd. love is like a choice wine of exquisite bouquet and intoxicating flavor; it is the most maddening draught in the world, but you cannot drink it every day. no, my dear helen; i am not made for a quiet life,--nor for a long one, i fancy." his voice unconsciously sank into a melancholy tone, and for one moment helen's composure nearly gave way. she loved him as true women love, with that sublime self-sacrifice which only desires the happiness of the thing beloved; yet a kind of insensate rage stirred for once in her gentle soul to think that the mere sight of a strange woman with dark eyes,--a woman whom no one knew anything about, and who was by some people deemed a mere adventuress,--should have so overwhelmed this man whose genius she had deemed superior to fleeting impressions. controlling the tears that rose to her eyes and threatened to fall, she said gently, "good-bye, monsieur gervase!" he started as from a reverie. "good-bye, helen! some day you will think kindly of me again?" "i think kindly of you now," she answered tremulously; then, not trusting herself to say any more, she turned swiftly and left him. "the flame and the moth!" he mused, watching her slight figure till it had disappeared. "yes, it is the only fitting symbol. love must be always so. sudden, impetuous, ungovernable, and then--the end! to stretch out the divine passion over life-long breakfasts and dinners! it would be intolerable to me. lord fulkeward could do that sort of thing; his chest is narrow, and his sentiments are as limited as his chest. he would duly kiss his wife every morning and evening, and he would not analyze the fact that no special thrill of joy stirred in him at the action. what should he do with thrills of joy--this poor fulkeward? and yet it is likely he will marry helen. or will it be the courtney animal,--the type of man whose one idea is 'to arise, kill, and eat?' "ah, well!" and he sighed. "she is not for me, this maiden grace of womanhood. if i married her, i should make her miserable. i am made for passion, not for peace." he started as he heard a step behind him, and turning, saw dr. dean. the worthy little savant looked worried and preoccupied. "i have had a letter from the princess ziska," he said, without any preliminary. "she has gone to secures rooms at the mena house hotel, which is situated close to the pyramids. she regrets she cannot enter into the idea of taking a trip up the nile. she has no time, she says, as she is soon leaving cairo. but she suggests that we should make up a party for the mena house while she is staying there, as she can, so she tells me, make the pyramids much more interesting for us by her intimate knowledge of them. now, to me this is a very tempting offer, but i should not care to go alone." "the murrays will go, i am sure," murmured gervase lazily. "at any rate, denzil will." the doctor looked at him narrowly. "if denzil goes, so will you go," he said. "thus there are two already booked for company. and i fancy the fulkewards might like the idea." "the princess is leaving cairo?" queried gervase presently, as though it were an after thought. "so she informs me in her letter. the party which is to come off on wednesday night is her last reception." gervase was silent a moment. then he said: "have you told denzil?" "not yet." "better do so then," and gervase glanced up at the sky, now glowing red with a fiery sunset. "he wants to propose, you know." "good god!" cried the doctor, sharply, "if he proposes to that woman. ..." "why should he not?" demanded gervase. "is she not as ripe for love and fit for marriage as any other of her sex?" "her sex!" echoed the doctor grimly. "her sex!--there!--for heaven's sake don't talk to me!--leave me alone! the princess ziska is like no woman living; she has none of the sentiments of a woman,--and the notion of denzil's being such a fool as to think of proposing to her--oh, leave me alone, i tell you! let me worry this out!" and clapping his hat well down over his eyes, he began to walk away in a strange condition of excitement, which he evidently had some difficulty in suppressing. suddenly, however, he turned, came back and tapped gervase smartly on the chest. "you are the man for the princess," he said impressively. "there is a madness in you which you call love for her; you are her fitting mate, not that poor boy, denzil murray. in certain men and women spirit leaps to spirit,--note responds to note--and if all the world were to interpose its trumpery bulk, nothing could prevent such tumultuous forces rushing together. follow your destiny, monsieur gervase, but do not ruin another man's life on the way. follow your destiny,--complete it,--you are bound to do so,--but in the havoc and wildness to come, for god's sake, let the innocent go free!" he spoke with extraordinary solemnity, and gervase stared at him in utter bewilderment and perplexity, not understanding in the least what he meant. but before he could interpose a word or ask a question, dr. dean had gone. chapter xi. the next two or three days passed without any incident of interest occurring to move the languid calm and excite the fleeting interest of the fashionable english and european visitors who were congregated at the gezireh palace hotel. the anxious flirtations of dolly and muriel chetwynd lyle afforded subjects of mirth to the profane,--the wonderfully youthful toilettes of lady fulkeward provided several keynotes from which to strike frivolous conversation,--and when the great painter, armand gervase, actually made a sketch of her ladyship for his own amusement, and made her look about sixteen, and girlish at that, his popularity knew no bounds. everyone wanted to give him a commission, particularly the elderly fair, and he could have made a fortune had he chosen, after the example set him by the english academicians, by painting the portraits of ugly nobodies who were ready to pay any price to be turned out as handsome somebodies. but he was too restless and ill at ease to apply himself steadily to work,--the glowing skies of egypt, the picturesque groups of natives to be seen at every turn,--the curious corners of old cairo--these made no impression upon his mind at all, and when he was alone, he passed whole half hours staring at the strange picture he had made of the princess ziska, wherein the face of death seemed confronting him through a mask of life. and he welcomed with a strong sense of relief and expectation the long-looked-for evening of the princess's "reception," to which many of the visitors in cairo had been invited since a fortnight, and which those persons who always profess to be "in the know," even if they are wallowing in ignorance, declared would surpass any entertainment ever given during the cairene season. the night came at last. it was exceedingly sultry, but bright and clear, and the moon shone with effective brilliance on the gayly-attired groups of people that between nine and ten o'clock began to throng the narrow street in which the carved tomb-like portal of the princess ziska's residence was the most conspicuous object. lady chetwynd lyle, remarkable for bad taste in her dress and the disposal of her diamonds, stared in haughty amazement at the nubian, who saluted her and her daughters with the grin peculiar to his uninviting cast of countenance, and swept into the courtyard attended by her husband with an air as though she imagined her presence gave the necessary flavor of "good style" to the proceedings. she was followed by lady fulkeward, innocently clad in white and wearing a knot of lilies on her prettily-enamelled left shoulder, lord fulkeward, denzil murray and his sister. helen also wore white, but though she was in the twenties and lady fulkeward was in the sixties, the girl had so much sadness in her face and so much tragedy in her soft eyes that she looked, if anything, older than the old woman. gervase and dr. dean arrived together, and found themselves in a brilliant, crushing crowd of people, all of different nationalities and all manifesting a good deal of impatience because they were delayed a few minutes in an open court, where a couple of stone lions with wings were the only spectators of their costumes. "most singular behavior!" said lady chetwynd lyle, snorting and sniffing, "to keep us waiting outside like this! the princess has no idea of european manners!" as she spoke, a sudden blaze of light flamed on the scene, and twenty tall egyptian servants in white, with red turbans, carrying lighted torches and marching two by two crossed the court, and by mute yet stately gestures invited the company to follow. and the company did follow in haste, with scramble and rudeness, as is the way of "european manners" nowadays; and presently, having been relieved of their cloaks and wrappings, stood startled and confounded in a huge hall richly adorned with silk and cloth of gold hangings, where, between two bronze sphinxes, the princess ziska, attired wonderfully in a dim, pale rose color, with flecks of jewels flashing from her draperies here and there, waited to receive her guests. like a queen she stood,--behind her towered a giant palm, and at her feet were strewn roses and lotus-lilies. on either side of her, seated on the ground, were young girls gorgeously clad and veiled to the eyes in the egyptian fashion, and as the staring, heated and impetuous swarm of "travelling" english and americans came face to face with her in her marvellous beauty, they were for the moment stricken spellbound, and could scarcely summon up the necessary assurance to advance and take the hand she outstretched to them in welcome. she appeared not to see the general embarrassment, and greeted all who approached her with courteous ease and composure, speaking the few words which every graceful hostess deems adequate before "passing on" her visitors. and presently music began,--music wild and fantastic, of a character unknown to modern fashionable ears, yet strangely familiar to armand gervase, who started at the first sound of it, and seemed enthralled. "that is not an ordinary orchestra," said dr. dean in his ear. "the instruments are ancient, and the form of melody is barbaric." gervase answered nothing, for the princess ziska just then approached them. "come into the red saloon," she said. "i am persuading my guests to pass on there. i have an old bas-relief on the walls which i would like you to see,--you, especially, dr. dean!--for you are so learned in antiquities. i hear you are trying to discover traces of araxes?" "i am," replied the doctor. "you interested me very much in his history." "he was a great man," said the princess, slowly piloting them as she spoke, without hurry and with careful courtesy, through the serried ranks of the now freely chattering and animated company. "much greater than any of your modern heroes. but he had two faults; faults which frequently accompany the plentitude of power,--cruelty and selfishness. he betrayed and murdered the only woman that ever loved him, ziska-charmazel." "murdered her!" exclaimed dr. dean. "how?" "oh, it is only a legend!" and the princess smiled, turning her dark eyes with a bewitching languor on gervase, who, for some reason or other which he could not explain, felt as if he were walking in a dream on the edge of a deep chasm of nothingness, into which he must presently sink to utter destruction. "all these old histories happened so long ago that they are nothing but myths now to the present generation." "time does not rob any incident of its interest to me," said dr. dean. "ages hence queen victoria will be as much a doubtful potentate as king lud. to the wise student of things there is no time and no distance. all history from the very beginning is like a wonderful chain in which no link is ever really broken, and in which every part fits closely to the other part,--though why the chain should exist at all is a mystery we cannot solve. yet i am quite certain that even our late friend araxes has his connection with the present, if only for the reason that he lived in the past." "how do you argue out that theory!" asked gervase with sudden interest. "how do you argue it? the question is, how can you argue at all about anything that is so plain and demonstrated a fact? the doctrine of evolution proves it. everything that we were once has its part in us now. suppose, if you like, that we were originally no more than shells on the shore,--some remnant of the nature of the shell must be in us at this moment. nothing is lost,--nothing is wasted,--not even a thought. i carry my theories very far," pursued the doctor, looking keenly from one to the other of his silent companions as they walked beside him through a long corridor towards the red saloon, which could be seen, brilliantly lit up and thronged with people. "very far indeed, especially in regard to matters of love. i maintain that if it is decreed that the soul of a man and the soul of a woman must meet,--must rush together,--not all the forces of the universe can hinder them; aye, even if they were, for some conventional cause or circumstance themselves reluctant to consummate their destiny, it would nevertheless, despite them, be consummated. for mark you,--in some form or other they have rushed together before! whether as flames in the air, or twining leaves on a tree, or flowers in a field, they have felt the sweetness and fitness of each other's being in former lives,--and the craving sense of that sweetness and fitness can never be done away with,--never! not as long as this present universe lasts! it is a terrible thing," continued the doctor in a lower tone, "a terrible fatality,--the desire of love. in some cases it is a curse; in others, a divine and priceless blessing. the results depend entirely on the temperaments of the human creatures possessed by its fever. when it kindles, rises and burns towards heaven in a steady flame of ever-brightening purity and faith, then it makes marriage the most perfect union on earth,--the sweetest and most blessed companionship; but when it is a mere gust of fire, bright and fierce as the sudden leaping light of a volcano, then it withers everything at a touch,--faith, honor, truth,--and dies into dull ashes in which no spark remains to warm or inspire man's higher nature. better death than such a love,--for it works misery on earth; but who can tell what horrors it may not create hereafter!" the princess looked at him with a strange, weird gleam in her dark eyes. "you are right," she said. "it is just the hereafter that men never think of. i am glad you, at least, acknowledge the truth of the life beyond death." "i am bound to acknowledge it," returned the doctor; "inasmuch as i know it exists." gervase glanced at him with a smile, in which there was something of contempt. "you are very much behind the age, doctor," he remarked lightly. "very much behind indeed," agreed dr. dean composedly. "the age rushes on too rapidly for me, and gives no time to the consideration of things by the way. i stop,--i take breathing space in which to think; life without thought is madness, and i desire to have no part in a mad age." at that moment they entered the red saloon, a stately apartment, which was entirely modelled after the most ancient forms of egyptian architecture. the centre of the vast room was quite clear of furniture, so that the princess ziska's guests went wandering up and down, to and fro, entirely at their ease, without crush or inconvenience, and congregated in corners for conversation; though if they chose they could recline on low divans and gorgeously-cushioned benches ranged against the walls and sheltered by tall palms and flowering exotics. the music was heard to better advantage here than in the hall where the company had first been received; and as the princess moved to a seat under the pale green frondage of a huge tropical fern and bade her two companions sit beside her, sounds of the wildest, most melancholy and haunting character began to palpitate upon the air in the mournful, throbbing fashion in which a nightingale sings when its soul is burdened with love. the passionate tremor that shakes the bird's throat at mating-time seemed to shake the unseen instruments that now discoursed strange melody, and gervase, listening dreamily, felt a curious contraction and aching at his heart and a sense of suffocation in his throat, combined with an insatiate desire to seize in his arms the mysterious ziska, with her dark fathomless eyes and slight, yet voluptuous, form,--to drag her to his breast and crush her there, whispering: "mine!--mine! by all the gods of the past and present--mine! who shall tear her from me,--who dispute my right to love her--ruin her--murder her, if i choose? she is mine!" "the bas-relief i told you of is just above us," said the princess then, addressing herself to the doctor; "would you like to examine it? one of the servants shall bring you a lighted taper, and by passing it in front of the sculpture you will be able to see the design better. ah, mr. murray!" and she smiled as she greeted denzil, who just then approached. "you are in time to give us your opinion. i want dr. dean to see that very old piece of stone carving on the wall above us,--it will serve as a link for him in the history of araxes." "indeed!" murmured denzil, somewhat abstractedly. the princess glanced at his brooding face and laughed. "you, i know, are not interested at all in old history," she went on. "the past has no attraction for you." "no. the present is enough," he replied, with a glance of mingled hope and passion. she smiled, and signing to one of her egyptian attendants, bade him bring a lighted taper. he did so, and passed it slowly up and down and to the right and left of the large piece of ancient sculpture that occupied more than half the wall, while dr. dean stood by, spectacles on nose, to examine the carving as closely as possible. several other people, attracted by what was going on, paused to look also, and the princess undertook to explain the scene depicted. "this piece of carving is of the date of the king amenhotep or amenophis iii., of the eighteenth dynasty. it represents the return of the warrior araxes, a favorite servant of the king's, after some brilliant victory. you see, there is the triumphal car in which he rides, drawn by winged horses, and behind him are the solar deities--ra, sikar, tmu, and osiris. he is supposed to be approaching his palace in triumph; the gates are thrown open to receive him, and coming out to meet him is the chief favorite of his harem, the celebrated dancer of that period--ziska-charmazel." "whom he afterwards murdered, you say?" queried dr. dean meditatively. "yes. he murdered her simply because she loved him too well and was in the way of his ambition. there was nothing astonishing in his behavior, not even if you consider it in the light of modern times. men always murder--morally, if not physically--the women who love them too well." "you truly think that?" asked denzil murray in a low tone. "i not only truly think it, i truly know it!" she answered, with a disdainful flash of her eyes. "of course, i speak of strong men with strong passions; they are the only kind of men women ever worship. of course, a weak, good-natured man is different; he would probably not harm a woman for the world, or give her the least cause for pain if he could help it, but that sort of man never becomes either an adept or a master in love. araxes was probably both. no doubt he considered he had a perfect right to slay what he had grown weary of; he thought no more than men of his type think to-day, that the taking of a life demands a life in exchange, if not in this world, then in the next." the group of people near her were all silent, gazing with an odd fascination at the quaint and ancient-sculptured figures above them, when all at once dr. dean, taking the taper from the hands of the egyptian servant, held the flame close to the features of the warrior riding in the car of triumph, and said slowly: "do you not see a curious resemblance, princess, between this araxes and a friend of ours here present? monsieur armand gervase, will you kindly step forward? yes, that will do, turn your head slightly,--so! yes! now observe the outline of the features of araxes as carven in this sculpture thousands of years ago, and compare it with the outline of the features of our celebrated friend, the greatest french artist of his day. am i the only one who perceives the remarkable similarity of contour and expression?" the princess made no reply. a smile crossed her lips, but no word escaped them. several persons, however, pressed eagerly forward to look at and comment upon what was indeed a startling likeness. the same straight, fierce brows, the same proud, firm mouth, the same almond-shaped eyes were, as it seemed, copied from the ancient entablature and repeated in flesh and blood in the features of gervase. even denzil murray, absorbed though he was in conflicting thoughts of his own, was struck by the coincidence. "it is really very remarkable!" he said. "allowing for the peculiar style of drawing and design common to ancient egypt, the portrait of araxes might pass for gervase in egyptian costume." gervase himself was silent. some mysterious emotion held him mute, and he was only aware of a vague irritation that fretted him without any seemingly adequate cause. dr. dean meanwhile pursued his investigations with the lighted taper, and presently, turning round on the assembled little group of bystanders, he said: "i have just discovered another singular thing. the face of the woman here--the dancer and favorite--is the face of our charming hostess, the princess ziska!" exclamations of wonder greeted this announcement, and everybody craned their necks to see. and then the princess spoke, slowly and languidly. "yes," she murmured, "i was hoping you would perceive that. i myself noticed how very like me is the famous ziska-charmazel, and that is just why i dressed in her fashion for the fancy ball the other evening. it seemed to me the best thing to do, as i wanted to choose an ancient period, and then, you know, i bear half her name." dr. dean looked at her keenly, and a somewhat grim smile wrinkled his lips. "you could not have done better," he declared. "you and the dancing-girl of araxes might be twin sisters." he lowered the taper he held that it might more strongly illumine her face, and as the outline of her head and throat and bust was thrown into full relief, gervase, staring at her, was again conscious of that sudden, painful emotion of familiarity which had before overwhelmed him, and he felt that in all the world he had no such intimate knowledge of any woman as he had of ziska. he knew her! ah!--how did he not know her? every curve of that pliant form was to him the living memory of something once possessed and loved, and he pressed his hand heavily across his eyes for a moment to shut out the sight of all the exquisite voluptuous grace which shook his self-control and tempted him almost beyond man's mortal endurance. "are you not well, monsieur gervase?" said dr. dean, observing him closely, and handing back the lighted taper to the egyptian servant who waited to receive it. "the portraits on this old carving have perhaps affected you unpleasantly? yet there is really nothing of importance in such a coincidence." "nothing of importance, perhaps, but surely something of singularity," interrupted denzil murray, "especially in the resemblance between the princess and the dancing-girl of that ancient period,--their features are positively line for line alike." the princess laughed. "yes, is it not curious?" she said, and, taking the taper from her servant, she sprang lightly on one of the benches near the wall and leaned her beautiful head on the entablature, so that her profile stood out close against that of the once reputed ziska-charmazel. "we are, as dr. dean says, twins!" several of the guests had now gathered together in that particular part of the room, and they all looked up at her as she stood thus, in silent and somewhat superstitious wonderment. the fascinating dancer, famed in ages past, and the lovely, living charmeresse of the present were the image of each other, and so extraordinary was the resemblance that it was almost what some folks would term "uncanny." the fair ziska did not, however, give her acquaintances time for much meditation or surprise concerning the matter, for she soon came down from her elevation near the sculptured frieze and, extinguishing the taper she held, she said lightly: "as dr. dean has remarked, there is really nothing of importance in the coincidence. ages ago, in the time of araxes, roses must have bloomed; and who shall say that a rose in to-day's garden is not precisely the same in size, scent and color as one that araxes himself plucked at his palace gates? thus, if flowers are born alike in different ages, why not women and men?" "very well argued, princess," said the doctor. "i quite agree with you. nature is bound to repeat some of her choicest patterns, lest she should forget the art of making them." there was now a general movement among the guests, that particular kind of movement which means irritability and restlessness, and implies that either supper must be immediately served, or else some novel entertainment be brought in to distract attention and prevent tedium. the princess, turning to gervase, said smilingly: "apropos of the dancing-girl of araxes and the art of dancing generally, i am going to entertain the company presently by letting them see a real old dance of thebes. if you will excuse me a moment i must just prepare them and get the rooms slightly cleared. i will return to you presently." she glided away with her usual noiseless grace, and within a few minutes of her departure the gay crowds began to fall back against the walls and disperse themselves generally in expectant groups here and there, the egyptian servants moving in and out and evidently informing them of the entertainment in prospect. "well, i shall stay here," said dr. dean, "underneath this remarkable stone carving of your warrior-prototype, monsieur gervase. you seem very much abstracted. i asked you before if you were not well; but you never answered me." "i am perfectly well," replied gervase, with some irritation. "the heat is rather trying, that is all. but i attach no importance to that stone frieze. one can easily imagine likenesses where there are really none." "true!" and the doctor smiled to himself, and said no more. just then a wild burst of music sounded suddenly through the apartment, and he turned round in lively anticipation to watch the proceedings. the middle of the room was now quite clear, and presently, moving with the silent grace of swans on still water, came four girls closely veiled, carrying quaintly-shaped harps and lutes. a nubian servant followed them, and spread a gold-embroidered carpet upon the ground, whereon they all sat down and began to thrum the strings of their instruments in a muffled, dreamy manner, playing a music which had nothing of melody in it, and which yet vaguely suggested a passionate tune. this thrumming went on for some time when all at once from a side entrance in the hall a bright, apparently winged thing bounded from the outer darkness into the centre of the hall,--a woman clad in glistening cloth of gold and veiled entirely in misty folds of white, who, raising her arms gleaming with jewelled bangles high above her head, remained poised on tiptoe for a moment, as though about to fly. her bare feet, white and dimpled, sparkled with gems and glittering anklets; her skirts as she moved showed fluttering flecks of white and pink like the leaves of may-blossoms shaken by a summer breeze; the music grew louder and wilder, and a brazen clang from unseen cymbals prepared her as it seemed for flight. she began her dance slowly, gliding mysteriously from side to side, anon turning suddenly with her head lifted, as though listening for some word of love which should recall her or command; then, bending down again, she seemed to float lazily like a creature that was dancing in a dream without conscious knowledge of her actions. the brazen cymbals clashed again, and then, with a wild, beautiful movement, like that of a hunted stag leaping the brow of a hill, the dancer sprang forward, turned, pirouetted and tossed herself round and round giddily with a marvellous and exquisite celerity, as if she were nothing but a bright circle of gold spinning in clear ether. spontaneous applause broke forth from every part of the hall; the guests crowded forward, staring and almost breathless with amazement. dr. dean got up in a state of the greatest excitement, clapping his hands involuntarily; and gervase, every nerve in his body quivering, advanced one or two steps, feeling that he must stop this bright, wild, wanton thing in her incessant whirling, or else die in the hunger of love which consumed his soul. denzil murray glanced at him, and, after a pause, left his side and disappeared. suddenly, with a quick movement, the dancer loosened her golden dress and misty veil, and tossing them aside like falling leaves, she stood confessed--a marvellous, glowing vision in silvery white-no other than the princess ziska! shouts echoed from every part of the hall: "ziska! ziska!" and at the name lady chetwynd lyle rose in all her majesty from the seat she had occupied till then, and in tones of virtuous indignation said to lady fulkeward: "i told you the princess was not a proper person! now it is proved i am right! to think i should have brought dolly and muriel here! i shall really never forgive myself! come, sir chetwynd,--let us leave this place instantly!" and stout sir chetwynd, gloating on the exquisite beauty of the princess ziska's form as she still danced on in her snowy white attire, her lovely face alight with mirth at the surprise she had made for her guests, tried his best to look sanctimonious and signally failed in the attempt as he answered: "certainly! certainly, my dear! most improper ... most astonishing!" while lady fulkeward answered innocently: "is it? do you really think so? oh, dear! i suppose it is improper,--it must be, you know; but it is most delightful and original!" and while the chetwynd lyles thus moved to depart in a cloud of outraged propriety, followed by others who likewise thought it well to pretend to be shocked at the proceeding, gervase, dizzy, breathless, and torn by such conflicting passions as he could never express, was in a condition more mad than sane. "my god!" he muttered under his breath. "this--this is love! this is the beginning and end of life! to possess her,--to hold her in my arms--heart to heart, lips to lips ... this is what all the eternal forces of nature meant when they made me man!" and he watched with strained, passionate eyes the movements of the princess ziska as they grew slower and slower, till she seemed floating merely like a foam-bell on a wave, and then ... from some unseen quarter of the room a rich throbbing voice began to sing:-- "oh, for the passionless peace of the lotus-lily! it floats in a waking dream on the waters chilly, with its leaves unfurled to the wondering world, knowing naught of the sorrow and restless pain that burns and tortures the human brain; oh, for the passionless peace of the lotus-lily! oh, for the pure cold heart of the lotus-lily! bared to the moon on the waters dark and chilly. a star above is its only love, and one brief sigh of its scented breath is all it will ever know of death; oh, for the pure cold heart of the lotus-lily!" as the sound died away in a sigh rather than a note, the princess ziska's dancing ceased altogether. a shout of applause broke from all assembled, and in the midst of it there was a sudden commotion and excitement, and dr. dean was seen bending over a man's prostrate figure. the great french painter, armand gervase, had suddenly fainted. chapter xii. a curious yet very general feeling of superstitious uneasiness and discomfort pervaded the gezireh palace hotel the day after the princess ziska's reception. something had happened, and no one knew what. the proprieties had been outraged, but no one knew why. it was certainly not the custom for a hostess, and a princess to boot, to dance like a wild bacchante before a crowd of her invited guests, yet, as dr. dean blandly observed,-- "where was the harm? in london, ladies of good birth and breeding went in for 'skirt-dancing,' and no one presumed to breathe a word against their reputations; why in cairo should not a lady go in for a theban dance without being considered improper?" why, indeed? there seemed no adequate reason for being either surprised or offended; yet surprised and offended most people were, and scandal ran rife, and rumor wagged all its poisonous tongues to spread evil reports against the princess ziska's name and fame, till denzil murray, maddened and furious, rushed up to his sister in her room and swore that he would marry the princess if he died for it. "they are blackguarding her downstairs, the beasts!" he said hotly. "they are calling her by every bad name under the sun! but i will make everything straight for her; she shall be my wife! if she will have me, i will marry her to-morrow!" helen looked at him in speechless despair. "oh, denzil!" she faltered, and then could say no more, for the tears that blinded her eyes. "oh, yes, of course, i know what you mean!" he continued, marching up and down the room excitedly. "you are like all the others; you think her an adventuress. i think her the purest, the noblest of women! there is where we differ. i spoke to her last night,--i told her i loved her." "you did?" and helen gazed at him with wet, tragic eyes,--"and she ..." "she bade me be silent. she told me i must not speak--not yet. she said she would give me her answer when we were all together at the mena house hotel." "you intend to be one of the party there then?" said helen faintly. "of course i do. and so do you, i hope." "no, denzil, i cannot. don't ask me. i will stay here with lady fulkeward. she is not going, nor are the chetwynd lyles. i shall be quite safe with them. i would rather not go to the mena house,--i could not bear it ..." her voice gave way entirely, and she broke out crying bitterly. denzil stood still and regarded her with a kind of sullen shame and remorse. "what a very sympathetic sister you are!" he observed. "when you see me madly in love with a woman--a perfectly beautiful, adorable woman--you put yourself at once in the way and make out that my marriage with her will be a misery to you. you surely do not expect me to remain single all my life, do you?" "no, denzil," sobbed helen, "but i had hoped to see you marry some sweet girl of our own land who would be your dear and true companion,--who would be a sister to me,--who ... there! don't mind me! be happy in your own way, my dear brother. i have no business to interfere. i can only say that if the princess ziska consents to marry you, i will do my best to like her, for your sake." "well, that's something, at any rate," said denzil, with an air of relief. "don't cry, helen, it bothers me. as for the 'sweet girl' you have got in view for me, you will permit me to say that 'sweet girls' are becoming uncommonly scarce in britain. what with bicycle riders and great rough tomboys generally, with large hands and larger feet, i confess i do not care about them. i like a womanly woman,--a graceful woman,--a fascinating, bewitching woman, and the princess is all that and more. surely you consider her beautiful?" "very beautiful indeed!" sighed poor helen.--"too beautiful!" "nonsense! as if any woman can be too beautiful! i am sorry you won't come to the mena house. it would be a change for you,--and gervase is going." "is he better to-day?" inquired helen timidly. "oh, i believe he is quite well again. it was the heat or the scent of the flowers, or something of that sort, that made him faint last night. he is not acclimatized yet, you know. and he said that the princess's dancing made him giddy." "i don't wonder at that," murmured helen. "it was marvellous--glorious!" said denzil dreamily. "it was like nothing else ever seen or imagined!" "if she were your wife, would you care for her to dance before people?" inquired helen tremblingly. denzil turned upon her in haughty wrath. "how like a woman that is! to insinuate a nasty suggestion--to imply an innuendo without uttering it! if she were my wife, she would do nothing unbecoming that position." "then you did think it a little unbecoming?" persisted helen. "no, i did not!" said denzil sharply. "an independent woman may do many things that a married woman may not. marriage brings its own duties and responsibilities,--time enough to consider them when they come." he turned angrily on his heel and left her, and helen, burying her fair face in her hands, wept long and unrestrainedly. this "strange woman out of egypt" had turned her brother's heart against her, and stolen away her almost declared lover. it was no wonder that her tears fell fast, wrung from her with the pain of this double wound; for helen, though quiet and undemonstrative, had fine feelings and unsounded depths of passion in her nature, and the fatal attraction she felt for armand gervase was more powerful than she had herself known. now that he had openly confessed his infatuation for another woman, it seemed as though the earth had opened at her feet and shown her nothing but a grave in which to fall. life--empty and blank and bare of love and tenderness, stretched before her imagination; she saw herself toiling along the monotonously even road of duty till her hair became gray and her face thin and wan and wrinkled, and never a gleam again of the beautiful, glowing, romantic passion that for a short time had made her days splendid with the dreams that are sweeter than all realities. poor helen! it was little marvel that she wept as all women weep when their hearts are broken. it is so easy to break a heart; sometimes a mere word will do it. but the vanishing of the winged love-god from the soul is even more than heart-break,--it is utter and irretrievable loss,--complete and dominating chaos out of which no good thing can ever be designed or created. in our days we do our best to supply the place of a reluctant eros by the gilded, grinning mammon-figure which we try to consider as superior to any silver-pinioned god that ever descended in his rainbow car to sing heavenly songs to mortals; but it is an unlovely substitute,--a hideous idol at best; and grasp its golden knees and worship it as we will, it gives us little or no comfort in the hours of strong temptation or trouble. we have made a mistake--we, in our progressive generation,--we have banished the old sweetnesses, triumphs and delights of life, and we have got in exchange steam and electricity. but the heart of the age clamors on unsatisfied,--none of our "new" ideas content it--nothing pacifies its restless yearning; it feels--this great heart of human life--that it is losing more than it gains, hence the incessant, restless aching of the time, and the perpetual longing for something science cannot teach,--something vague, beautiful, indefinable, yet satisfying to every pulse of the soul; and the nearest emotion to that divine solace is what we in our higher and better moments recognize as love. and love was lost to helen murray; the choice pearl had fallen in the vast gulf of might-have-been, and not all the forces of nature would ever restore to her that priceless gem. and while she wept to herself in solitude, and her brother denzil wandered about in the gardens of the hotel, encouraging within himself hopes of winning the bewitching ziska for a wife, armand gervase, shut up in his room under plea of slight indisposition, reviewed the emotions of the past night and tired to analyze them. some men are born self-analysts, and are able to dissect their feelings by some peculiar form of mental surgery which finally leads them to cut out tenderness as though it were a cancer, love as a disease, and romantic aspirations as mere uncomfortable growths injurious to self-interest, but gervase was not one of these. outwardly he assumed more or less the composed and careless demeanor of the modern french cynic, but inwardly the man was a raging fire of fierce passions which were sometimes too strong to be held in check. at the present moment he was prepared to sacrifice everything, even life itself, to obtain possession of the woman he coveted, and he made no attempt whatever to resist the tempest of desire that was urging him on with an invincible force in a direction which, for some strange and altogether inexplicable reason, he dreaded. yes, there was a dim sense of terror lurking behind all the wild passion that filled his soul--a haunting, vague idea that this sudden love, with its glowing ardor and intoxicating delirium, was like the brilliant red sunset which frequently prognosticates a night of storm, ruin and death. yet, though he felt this presentiment like a creeping shudder of cold through his blood, it did not hold him back, or for a moment impress him with the idea that it might be better to yield no further to this desperate love-madness which enthralled him. once only, he thought, "what if i left egypt now--at once--and saw her no more?" and then he laughed scornfully at the impossibility proposed. "leave egypt!" he muttered, "i might as well leave the world altogether! she would draw me back with those sweet wild eyes of hers,--she would drag me from the uttermost parts of the earth to fall at her feet in a very agony of love. my god! she must have her way and do with me as she will, for i feel that she holds my life in her hands!" as he spoke these last words half aloud, he sprang up from the chair in which he had been reclining, and stood for a moment lost in frowning meditation. "my life in her hands!" he repeated musingly. "yes, it has come to that! my life!" a great sigh broke from him. "my life--my art--my work--my name! in all these things i have taken pride, and she--she can trample them under her feet and make of me nothing more than man clamoring for woman's love! what a wild world it is! what a strange force must that be which created it!--the force that some men call god and others devil! a strange, blind, brute force!--for it makes us aspire only to fall; it gives a man dreams of ambition and splendid attainment only to fling him like a mad fool on a woman's breast, and bid him find there, and there only, the bewildering sweetness which makes everything else in existence poor and tame in comparison. well, well--my life! what is it? a mere grain of sand dropped in the sea; let her do with it as she will. god! how i felt her power upon me last night,--last night when her lithe figure swaying in the dance reminded me ..." he paused, startled at the turn his own thoughts were taking. "of what? let me try and express to myself now what i could not express or realize last night. she--ziska--i thought was mine,--mine from her dimpled feet to her dusky hair,--and she danced for me alone. it seemed that the jewels she wore upon her rounded arms and slender ankles were all love-gifts from me--every circlet of gold, every starry, shining gem on her fair body was the symbol of some secret joy between us--joy so keen as to be almost pain. and as she danced, i thought i was in a vast hall of a majestic palace, where open colonnades revealed wide glimpses of a burning desert and deep blue sky. i heard the distant sound of rolling drums, and not far off i saw the sphinx--a creature not old but new--resting upon a giant pedestal and guarding the sculptured gate of some great temple which contained, as i then thought, all the treasures of the world. i could paint the picture as i saw it then! it was a fleeting impression merely, conjured up by the dance that dizzied my brain. and that song of the lotus-lily! that was strange--very strange, for i thought i had heard it often before,--and i saw myself in the vague dream, a prince, a warrior, almost a king, and far more famous in the world than i am now!" he looked about him uneasily, with a kind of nervous terror, and his eyes rested for a moment on the easel where the picture he had painted of the princess was placed, covered from view by a fold of dark cloth. "bah!" he exclaimed at last with a forced laugh, "what stupid fancies fool me! it is all the vague talk of that would-be learned ass, dr. dean, with his ridiculous theories about life and death. i shall be imagining i am his fad, araxes, next! this sort of thing will never do. let me reason out the matter calmly. i love this woman,--love her to absolute madness. it is not the best kind of love, maybe, but it is the only kind i am capable of, and such as it is, she possesses it all. what then? well! we go to-morrow to the pyramids, and we join her at the mena house, i and the poor boy denzil. he will try his chance--i mine. if he wins, i shall kill him as surely as i myself live,--yes, even though he is helen's brother. no man shall snatch ziska from my arms and continue to breathe. if i win, it is possible he may kill me, and i shall respect him for trying to do it. but i shall satisfy my love first; ziska will be mine--mine in every sense of possession,--before i die. yes, that must be--that will have to be. and afterwards,--why let denzil do his worst; a man can but die once." he drew the cloth off his easel and stared at the strange picture of the princess, which seemed almost sentient in its half-watchful, half-mocking expression. "there is a dead face and a living one on this canvas," he said, "and the dead face seems to enthral me as much as the living. both have the same cruel smile,--both the same compelling magnetism of eye. only it is a singular thing that i should know the dead face even more intimately than the living--that the tortured look upon it should be a kind of haunting memory--horrible--ghastly. ..." he flung the cloth over the easel again impatiently, and tried to laugh at his own morbid imagination. "i know who is responsible for all this nonsense," he said. "it is that ridiculous little half-mad faddist, dr. dean. he is going to the mena house, too. well!--he will be the witness of a comedy or a tragedy there,--and heaven alone knows which it will be!" and to distract his thoughts from dwelling any longer on the haunting ideas that perplexed him, he took up one of the latest and frothiest of french novels and began to read. some one in a room not far off was singing a french song,--a man with a rich baritone voice,--and unconsciously to himself gervase caught the words as they rang out full and clearly on the quiet, heated air-- o toi que j'ai tant aimee songes-tu que je t'aime encor? et dans ton ame alarmee, ne sens-tu pas quelque remord? viens avec moi, si tu m'aimes, habiter dans ces deserts; nous y vivrons pour nous memes, oublies de tout l'univers! and something like a mist of tears clouded his aching eyes as he repeated, half mechanically and dreamily-- o toi que j'ai tant aimee, songes-tu que je t'aime encor? chapter xiii. for the benefit of those among the untravelled english who have not yet broken a soda-water bottle against the sphinx, or eaten sandwiches to the immortal memory of cheops, it may be as well to explain that the mena house hotel is a long, rambling, roomy building, situated within five minutes' walk of the great pyramid, and happily possessed of a golfing-ground and a marble swimming-bath. that ubiquitous nuisance, the "amateur photographer," can there have his "dark room" for the development of his more or less imperfect "plates"; and there is a resident chaplain for the piously inclined. with a chaplain and a "dark room," what more can the aspiring soul of the modern tourist desire? some of the rooms at the mena house are small and stuffy; others large and furnished with sufficient elegance: and the princess ziska had secured a "suite" of the best that could be obtained, and was soon installed there with befitting luxury. she left cairo quite suddenly, and without any visible preparation, the morning after the reception in which she had astonished her guests by her dancing: and she did not call at the gezireh palace hotel to say good-bye to any of her acquaintances there. she was perhaps conscious that her somewhat "free" behavior had startled several worthy and sanctimonious persons; and possibly she also thought that to take rooms in an hotel which was only an hour's distance from cairo, could scarcely be considered as absenting herself from cairene society. she was followed to her desert retreat by dr. dean, armand gervase, and denzil murray, who drove to the mena house together in one carriage, and were more or less all three in a sober and meditative frame of mind. they arrived in time to see the sphinx bathed in the fierce glow of an ardent sunset, which turned the golden sands to crimson, and made the granite monster look like a cruel idol surrounded by a sea of blood. the brilliant red of the heavens flamed in its stony eyes, and gave them a sentient look as of contemplated murder,--and the same radiance fitfully playing on the half-scornful, half-sensual lips caused them to smile with a seeming voluptuous mockery. dr. dean stood transfixed for a while at the strange splendor of the spectacle, and turning to his two silent companions, said suddenly: "there is something, after all, in the unguessed riddle of the sphinx. it is not a fable; it is a truth. there is a problem to be solved, and that monstrous creature knows it! the woman's face, the brute's body--spiritualism and materialism in one! it is life, and more than life; it is love. forever and forever it teaches the same wonderful, terrible mystery. we aspire, yet we fall; love would fain give us wings wherewith to fly; but the wretched body lies prone--supine; it cannot soar to the light eternal." "what is the light eternal?" queried gervase, moodily. "how do we know it exists? we cannot prove it. this world is what we see; we have to do with it and ourselves. soul without body could not exist. ..." "could it not?" said the doctor. "how, then, does body exist without soul?" this was an unexpected but fair question, and gervase found himself curiously perplexed by it. he offered no reply, neither did denzil, and they all three slowly entered the mena house hotel, there to be met with deferential salutations by the urbane and affable landlord, and to be assured that they would find their rooms comfortable, and also that "madame la princesse ziska" expected them to dine with her that evening. at this message, denzil murray made a sign to gervase that he wished to speak to him alone. gervase move aside with him. "give me my chance!" said denzil, fiercely. "take it!" replied gervase listlessly. "let to-night witness the interchange of hearts between you and the princess; i shall not interfere." denzil stared at him in sullen astonishment. "you will not interfere? your fancy for her is at an end?" gervase raised his dark, glowing eyes and fixed them on his would-be rival with a strange and sombre expression. "my 'fancy' for her? my good boy, take care what you say! don't rouse me too far, for i am dangerous! my 'fancy' for her! what do you know of it? you are hot-blooded and young; but the chill of the north controls you in a fashion, while i--a man in the prime of manhood--am of the south, and the southern fire brooks no control. have you seen a quiet ocean, smooth as glass, with only a dimple in the deep blue to show that perhaps, should occasion serve, there might arise a little wave? and have you seen the wild storm breaking from a black cloud and suddenly making that quiet expanse nothing but a tourbillon of furious elements, in which the very sea-gull's cry is whelmed and lost in the thunder of the billows? such a storm as that may be compared to the 'fancy' you suppose i feel for the woman who has dragged us both here to die at her feet--for that, i believe, is what it will come to. life is not possible under the strain of emotion with which we two are living it. ..." he broke off, then resumed in quieter tones: "i say to you: use your opportunities while you have them. after dinner i will leave you alone with the princess. i will go out for a stroll with dr. dean. take your chance, denzil, for, as i live, it is your last! it will be my turn next! give me credit for to-night's patience!" he turned quickly away, and in a moment was gone. denzil murray stood still for a while, thinking deeply, and trying to review the position in which he found himself. he was madly in love with a woman for whom his only sister had the most violent antipathy; and that sister, who had once been all in all to him, had now become almost less than nothing in the headstrong passion which consumed him. no consideration for her peace and ultimate happiness affected him, though he was sensible of a certain remorseful pity when thinking of her gentle ways and docile yielding to his often impatient and impetuous humors; but, after all, she was only his sister,--she could not understand his present condition of mind. then there was gervase, whom he had for some years looked upon as one of his most admired and intimate friends; now he was nothing more or less than a rival and an enemy, notwithstanding his seeming courtesy and civil self-restraint. as a matter of fact, he, denzil, was left alone to face his fate: to dare the brilliant seduction of the witching eyes of ziska,--to win her or to lose her forever! and consider every point as he would, the weary conviction was borne in upon him that, whether he met with victory or defeat, the result would bring more misery than joy. when he entered the princess's salon that evening, he found dr. dean and gervase already there. the princess herself, attired in a dinner-dress made with quite a modern parisian elegance, received him in her usual graceful manner, and expressed with much sweetness her hope that the air of the desert would prove beneficial to him after the great heats that had prevailed in cairo. nothing but conventionalities were spoken. oh, those conventionalities! what a world of repressed emotions they sometimes cover! how difficult it is to conceive that the man and woman who are greeting each other with calm courtesy in a crowded drawing-room are the very two, who, standing face to face in the moonlit silence of some lonely grove of trees or shaded garden, once in their lives suddenly realized the wild passion that neither dared confess! tragedies lie deepest under conventionalities--such secrets are buried beneath them as sometimes might make the angels weep! they are safeguards, however, against stronger emotions; and the strange bathos of two human creatures talking politely about the weather when the soul of each is clamoring for the other, has sometimes, despite its absurdity, saved the situation. at dinner, the princess ziska devoted herself almost entirely to the entertainment of dr. dean, and awakened his interest very keenly on the subject of the great pyramid. "it has never really been explored," she said. "the excavators who imagine they have fathomed its secrets are completely in error. the upper chambers are mere deceits to the investigator; they were built and planned purposely to mislead, and the secrets they hide have never even been guessed at, much less discovered." "are you sure of that?" inquired the doctor, eagerly. "if so, would you not give your information. ..." "i neither give my information nor sell it," interrupted the princess, smiling coldly. "i am only a woman--and women are supposed to know nothing. with the rest of my sex, i am judged illogical and imaginative; you wise men would call my knowledge of history deficient, my facts not proven. but, if you like, i will tell you the story of the construction of the great pyramid, and why it is unlikely that anyone will ever find the treasures that are buried within it. you can receive the narrative with the usual incredulity common to men; i shall not attempt to argue the pros and cons with you, because i never argue. treat it as a fairy-tale--no woman is ever supposed to know anything for a fact,--she is too stupid. only men are wise!" her dark, disdainful glance flashed on gervase and denzil; anon she smiled bewitchingly, and added: "is it not so?" "wisdom is nothing compared to beauty," said gervase. "a beautiful woman can turn the wisest man into a fool." the princess laughed lightly. "yes, and a moment afterwards he regrets his folly," she said. "he clamors for the beautiful woman as a child might cry for the moon, and when he at last possesses her, he tires. satisfied with having compassed her degradation, he exclaims: 'what shall i do with this beauty, which, because it is mine, now palls upon me? let me kill it and forget it; i am aweary of love, and the world is full of women!' that is the way of your sex, monsieur gervase; it is a brutal way, but it is the one most of you follow." "there is such a thing as love!" said denzil, looking up quickly, a pained flush on his handsome face. "in the hearts of women, yes!" said ziska, her voice growing tremulous with strange and sudden passion. "women love--ah!--with what force and tenderness and utter abandonment of self! but their love is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred utterly wasted; it is a largesse flung to the ungrateful, a jewel tossed in the mire! if there were not some compensation in the next life for the ruin wrought on loving women, the eternal god himself would be a mockery and a jest." "and is he not?" queried gervase, ironically. "fair princess, i would not willingly shake your faith in things unseen, but what does the 'eternal god,' as you call him, care as to the destiny of any individual unit on this globe of matter? does he interfere when the murderer's knife descends upon the victim? and has he ever interfered? he it is who created the sexes and placed between them the strong attraction that often works more evil and misery than good; and what barrier has he ever interposed between woman and man, her natural destroyer? none!--save the trifling one of virtue, which is a flimsy thing, and often breaks down at the first temptation. no, my dear princess; the 'eternal god,' if there is one, does nothing but look on impassively at the universal havoc of creation. and in the blindness and silence of things, i cannot recognize an eternal god at all; we were evidently made to eat, drink, breed and die--and there an end." "what of ambition?" asked dr. dean. "what of the inspiration that lifts a man beyond himself and his material needs, and teaches him to strive after the highest?" "mere mad folly!" replied gervase impetuously. "take the arts. i, for example, dream of painting a picture that shall move the world to admiration,--but i seldom grasp the idea i have imagined. i paint something,--anything,--and the world gapes at it, and some rich fool buys it, leaving me free to paint another something; and so on and so on, to the end of my career. i ask you what satisfaction does it bring? what is it to raphael that thousands of human units, cultured and silly, have stared at his 'madonnas' and his famous cartoons?" "well, we do not exactly know what it may or may not be to raphael," said the doctor, meditatively. "according to my theories, raphael is not dead, but merely removed into another form, on another planet possibly, and is working elsewhere. you might as well ask what it is to araxes now that he was a famous warrior once?" gervase moved uneasily. "you have got araxes on the brain, doctor," he said, with a forced smile, "and in our conversation we are forgetting that the princess has promised to tell us a fairytale, the story of the great pyramid." the princess looked at him, then at denzil murray, and lastly at dr. dean. "would you really care to hear it?" she asked. "most certainly!" they all three answered. she rose from the dinner-table. "come here to the window," she said. "you can see the great structure now, in the dusky light,--look at it well and try, if you can, to realize that deep, deep down in the earth on which it stands is a connected gallery of rocky caves wherein no human foot has ever penetrated since the deluge swept over the land and made a desert of all the old-time civilization!" her slight figure appeared to dilate as she spoke, raising one slender hand and arm to point at the huge mass that towered up against the clear, starlit sky. her listeners were silent, awed and attentive. "one of the latest ideas concerning the pyramids is, as you know, that they were built as towers of defence against the deluge. that is correct. the wise men of the old days foretold the time when 'the waters should rise and cover the earth,' and these huge monuments were prepared and raised to a height which it was estimated would always appear above the level of the coming flood, to show where the treasures of egypt were hidden for safety. yes,--the treasures of egypt, the wisdom, the science of egypt! they are all down there still! and there, to all intents and purposes, they are likely to remain." "but archaeologists are of the opinion that the pyramids have been thoroughly explored," began dr. dean, with some excitement. the princess interrupted him by a slight gesture. "archaeologists, my dear doctor, are like the rest of this world's so-called 'learned' men; they work in one groove, and are generally content with it. sometimes an unusually brilliant brain conceives the erratic notion of working in several grooves, and is straightway judged as mad or fanatic. it is when these comet-like intelligences sweep across the world's horizon that we hear of a julius caesar, a napoleon, a shakespeare. but archaeologists are the narrowest and dryest of men,--they preconceive a certain system of work and follow it out by mathematical rule and plan, without one touch of imagination to help them to discover new channels of interest or historical information. as i told you before i began to speak, you are welcome to entirely disbelieve my story of the great pyramid,--but as i have begun it, you may as well hear it through." she paused a moment, then went on: "according to my information, the building of the pyramids was commenced three hundred years before the deluge, in the time of saurid, the son of sabaloc, who, it is said, was the first to receive a warning dream of the coming flood. saurid, being convinced by his priests, astrologers and soothsayers that the portent was a true one, became from that time possessed of one idea, which was that the vast learning of egypt, its sciences, discoveries and strange traditions should not be lost,--and that the exploits and achievements of those who were great and famous in the land should be so recorded as never to be forgotten. in those days, here where you see these measureless tracts of sand, there were great mountainous rocks and granite quarries, and saurid utilized these for the hollowing out of deep caverns in which to conceal treasure. when these caverns were prepared to his liking, he caused a floor to be made, portions of which were rendered movable by means of secret springs, and then leaving a hollow space of some four feet in height, he started foundations for another floor above it. this upper floor is what you nowadays see when you enter the pyramid,--and no one imagines that under it is an open space with room to walk in, and yet another floor below, where everything of value is secreted." dr. dean drew a long breath of wonderment. "astonishing, if true!" the princess smiled somewhat disdainfully, and went on: "saurid's work was carried on after his death by his successors, and with thousands of slaves toiling night and day the pyramids were in the course of years raised above the caverns which concealed egypt's mysteries. everything was gradually accumulated in these underground store-houses,--the engraved talismans, the slabs of stone on which were deeply carved the geometrical and astronomical sciences; indestructible glass chests containing papyri, on which were written the various discoveries made in beneficial drugs, swift poisons, and other medicines. and among these many things were thirty great jars full of precious stones, some of which were marvels of the earth. they are there still! and some of the great men who died were interred in these caves, every one in a separate chamber inlaid with gold and gems, and i think," here the princess turned her dark eyes full on dr. dean, "i think that if you knew the secret way of lifting the apparently immovable floor, which is like the solid ground, and descending through the winding galleries beneath, it is more than probable you would find in the great pyramid the tomb of araxes!" her eyes glistened strangely in the evening light with that peculiar fiery glow which had made dr. dean once describe them as being like the eyes of a vampire-bat, and there was something curiously impressive in her gesture as she once more pointed to the towering structure which loomed against the heavens, with one star flashing immediately above it. a sudden involuntary shudder shook gervase as with icy cold; he moved restlessly, and presently remarked: "well, it is a safe tomb, at any rate! whoever araxes was, he stands little chance of being exhumed if he lies two floors below the great pyramid in a sealed-up rocky cavern! princess, you look like an inspired prophetess!--so much talk of ancient and musty times makes me feel uncanny, and i will, with your permission, have a smoke with dr. dean in the garden to steady my nerves. the mere notion of thirty vases of unclaimed precious stones hidden down yonder is enough to upset any man's equanimity!" "the papyri would interest me more than the jewels," said dr. dean. "what do you say, denzil?" denzil murray woke up suddenly from a fit of abstraction. "oh, i don't know anything about it," he answered. "i never was very much interested in those old times,--they seem to me all myth. i could never link past, present and future together as some people can; they are to me all separate things. the past is done with,--the present is our own to enjoy or to detest, and the future no man can look into." "ah, denzil, you are young, and reflection has not been very hard at work in that headstrong brain of yours," said dr. dean with an indulgent smile, "otherwise you would see that past, present and future are one and indissoluble. the past is as much a part of your present identity as the present, and the future, too, lies in you in embryo. the mystery of one man's life contains all mysteries, and if we could only understand it from its very beginning we should find out the cause of all things, and the ultimate intention of creation." "well, now, you have all had enough serious talk," said the princess ziska lightly, "so let us adjourn to the drawing-room. one of my waiting-women shall sing to you by and by; she has a very sweet voice." "is it she who sings that song about the lotus-lily?" asked gervase, suddenly. the princess smiled strangely. "yes,--it is she." dr. dean chose a cigar from a silver box on the table; gervase did the same. "won't you smoke, denzil?" he asked carelessly. "no, thanks!" denzil spoke hurriedly and hoarsely. "i think--if the princess will permit me--i will stay and talk with her in the drawing-room while you two have your smoke together." the princess gave a charming bow of assent to this proposition. gervase took the doctor somewhat roughly by the arm and led him out through the open french window into the grounds beyond, remarking as he went: "you will excuse us, princess? we leave you in good company!" she smiled. "i will excuse you, certainly! but do not be long!" and she passed from the dining-room into the small saloon beyond, followed closely by denzil. once out in the grounds, gervase gave vent to a boisterous fit of wild laughter, so loud and fierce that little dr. dean came to an abrupt standstill, and stared at him in something of alarm as well as amazement. "are you going mad, gervase?" he asked. "yes!" cried gervase, "that is just it,--i am going mad,--mad for love, or whatever you please to call it! what do you think i am made of? flesh and blood, or cast-iron? heavens! do you think if all the elements were to combine in a war against me, they should cheat me out of this woman or rob me of her? no, no! a thousand times no! satisfy yourself, my excellent doctor, with your musty records of the past,--prate as you choose of the future,--but in the immediate, burning, active present my will is law! and the fool denzil thinks to thwart me,--i, who have never been thwarted since i knew the meaning of existence!" he paused in a kind of breathless agitation, and dr. dean grasped his arm firmly. "come, come, what is all this excitement for?" he said. "what are you saying about denzil?" gervase controlled himself with a violent effort and forced a smile. "he has got his chance,--i have given it to him! he is alone with the princess, and he is asking her to be his wife!" "nonsense!" said the doctor sharply. "if he does commit such a folly, it will be no use. the woman is not human!" "not human?" echoed gervase, his black eyes dilating with a sudden amazement--"what do you mean?" the little doctor rubbed his nose impatiently and seemed sorry he had spoken. "i mean--let me see! what do i mean?" he said at last meditatively--"oh, well, it is easy enough of explanation. there are plenty of people like the princess ziska to whom i would apply the words 'not human.' she is all beauty and no heart. again--if you follow me--she is all desire and no passion, which is a character 'like unto the beasts which perish.' a large majority of men are made so, and some women,--though the women are comparatively few. now, so far as the princess ziska is concerned," continued the doctor, fixing his keen, penetrative glance on gervase as he spoke, "i frankly admit to you that i find in her material for a very curious and complex study. that is why i have come after her here. i have said she is all desire and no passion. that of itself is inhuman; but what i am busy about now is to try and analyze the nature of the particular desire that moves her, controls her, keeps her alive,--in short. it is not love; of that i feel confident; and it is not hate,--though it is more like hate than love. it is something indefinable, something that is almost occult, so deep-seated and bewildering is the riddle. you look upon me as a madman--yes! i know you do! but mad or sane, i emphatically repeat, the princess is not human, and by this expression i wish to imply that though she has the outward appearance of a most beautiful and seductive human body, she has the soul of a fiend. now, do you understand me?" "it would take oedipus himself all his time to do that,"--said gervase, forcing a laugh which had no mirth in it, for he was conscious of a vaguely unpleasant sensation--a chill, as of some dark presentiment, which oppressed his mind. "when you know i do not believe in the soul, why do you talk to me about it? the soul of a fiend,--the soul of an angel,--what are they? mere empty terms to me, meaning nothing. i think i agree with you though, in one or two points concerning the princess; par exemple, i do not look upon her as one of those delicately embodied purities of womanhood before whom we men instinctively bend in reverence, but whom, at the same time, we generally avoid, ashamed of our vileness. no; she is certainly not one of the "'maiden roses left to die because they climb so near the sky, that not the boldest passer-by can pluck them from their vantage high.' and whether it is best to be a solitary 'maiden-rose' or a princess ziska, who shall say? and human or inhuman, whatever composition she is made of, you may make yourself positively certain that denzil murray is just now doing his best to persuade her to be a highland chatelaine in the future. heavens, what a strange fate it will be for la belle egyptienne!" "oh, you think she is egyptian then?" queried dr. dean, with an air of lively curiosity. "of course i do. she has the egyptian type of form and countenance. consider only the resemblance between her and the dancer she chose to represent the other night--the ziska-charmazel of the antique sculpture on her walls!" "ay, but if you grant one resemblance, you must also admit another," said the doctor quickly. "the likeness between yourself and the old-world warrior, araxes, is no less remarkable!" gervase moved uneasily, and a sudden pallor blanched his face, making it look wan and haggard in the light of the rising moon. "and it is rather singular," went on the imperturbable savant, "that according to the legend or history--whichever you please to consider it,--for in time, legends become histories and histories legends--araxes should have been the lover of this very ziska-charmazel, and that you, who are the living portrait of araxes, should suddenly become enamored of the equally living portrait of the dead woman! you must own, that to a mere onlooker and observer like myself, it seems a curious coincidence!" gervase smoked on in silence, his level brows contracted in a musing frown. "yes, it seems curious," he said at last, "but a great many curious coincidences happen in this world--so many that we, in our days of rush and turmoil, have not time to consider them as they come or go. perhaps of all the strange things in life, the sudden sympathies and the headstrong passions which spring up in a day or a night between certain men and certain women are the strangest. i look upon you, doctor, as a very clever fellow with just a little twist in his brain, or let us say a 'fad' about spiritual matters; but in one of your more or less fantastic and extravagant theories i am half disposed to believe, and that is the notion you have of the possibility of some natures, male and female, having met before in a previous state of existence and under different forms, such as birds, flowers, or forest animals, or even mere incorporeal breaths of air and flame. it is an idea which i confess fascinates me. it seems fairly reasonable too, for, as many scientists argue that you cannot destroy matter, but only transform it, there is really nothing impossible in the suggestion." he paused, then added slowly as he flung the end of his cigar away: "i have felt the force of this odd fancy of yours most strongly since i met the princess ziska." "indeed! then the impression she gave you first is still upon you--that of having known her before?" gervase waited a minute or two before replying; then he answered: "yes. and not only of having known her before, but of having loved her before. love!--mon dieu!--what a tame word it is! how poorly it expresses the actual emotion! fire in the veins--delirium in the brain--reason gone to chaos! and this madness is mildly described as 'love?'" "there are other words for it," said the doctor. "words that are not so poetic, but which, perhaps, are more fitting." "no!" interrupted gervase, almost fiercely. "there are no words which truly describe this one emotion which rules the world. i know what you mean, of course; you mean evil words, licentious words, and yet it has nothing whatever to do with these. you cannot call such an exalted state of the nerves and sensations by an evil name." dr. dean pondered the question for a few moments. "no, i am not sure that i can," he said, meditatively. "if i did, i should have to give an evil name to the creator who designed man and woman and ordained the law of attraction which draws, and often drags them together. i like to be fair to everybody, the creator included; yet to be fair to everybody i shall appear to sanction immorality. for the fact is that our civilization has upset all the original intentions of nature. nature evidently meant love, or the emotion we call love, to be the keynote of the universe. but apparently nature did not intend marriage. the flowers, the birds, the lower animals, mate afresh every spring, and this is the creed that the disciples of naturalism nowadays are anxious to force upon the attention of the world. it is only men and women, they say, that are so foolish as to take each other for better or worse till death do them part. now, i should like, from the physical scientist's point of view, to prove that the men and women are wrong, and that the lower animals are right; but spiritual science comes in and confutes me. for in spiritual science i find this truth, which will not be gainsaid--namely, that from time immemorial, certain immortal forms of nature have been created solely for one another; like two halves of a circle, they are intended to meet and form the perfect round, and all the elements of creation, spiritual and material, will work their hardest to pull them together. such natures, i consider, should absolutely and imperatively be joined in marriage. it then becomes a divine decree. even grant, if you like, that the natures so joined are evil, and that the sympathy between them is of a more or less reprehensible character, it is quite as well that they should unite, and that the result of such an union should be seen. the evil might come out of them in a family of criminals which the law could exterminate with advantage to the world in general. whereas on the other hand, given two fine and aspiring natures with perfect sympathy between them, as perfect as the two notes of a perfect chord, the children of such a marriage would probably be as near gods as humanity could bring them. i speak as a scientist merely. such consequences are not foreseen by the majority, and marriages as a rule take place between persons who are by no means made for each other. besides, a kind of devil comes into the business, and often prevents the two sympathetic natures conjoining. love-matters alone are quite sufficient to convince me that there is a devil as well as a divinity that 'shapes our ends.'" "you speak as if you yourself had loved, doctor," said gervase, with a half smile. "and so i have," replied the doctor, calmly. "i have loved to the full as passionately and ardently as even you can love. i thank god the woman i loved died,--i could never have possessed her, for she was already wedded,--and i would not have disgraced her by robbing her from her lawful husband. so death stepped in and gave her to me--forever!" and he raised his eyes to the solemn starlit sky. "yes, nothing can ever come between us now; no demon tears her white soul from me; she died innocent of evil, and she is mine--mine in every pulse of her being, as we shall both know hereafter!" his face, which was not remarkable for any beauty of feature, grew rapt and almost noble in its expression, and gervase looked at him with a faint touch of ironical wonder. "upon my word, your morality almost outreaches your mysticism!" he said. "i see you are one of those old-fashioned men who think marriage a sacred sort of thing and the only self-respecting form of love." "old-fashioned i may be," replied dr. dean; "but i certainly believe in marriage for the woman's sake. if the license of men were not restrained by some sort of barrier it would break all bounds. now i, had i chosen, could have taken the woman i loved to myself; it needed but a little skilful persuasion on my part, for her husband was a drink-sodden ruffian..." "and why, in the name of heaven, did you not do so?" demanded gervase impatiently. "because i know the end of all such liaisons," said the doctor sadly. "a month or two of delirious happiness, then years of remorse to follow. the man is lowered in his own secret estimation of himself, and the woman is hopelessly ruined, socially and morally. no, death is far better; and in my case death has proved a good friend, for it has given me the spotless soul of the woman i loved, which is far fairer than her body was." "but, unfortunately, intangible!" said gervase, satirically. the doctor looked at him keenly and coldly. "do not be too sure of that, my friend! never talk about what you do not understand; you only wander astray. the spiritual world is a blank to you, so do not presume to judge of what you will never realize till realization is forced upon you!" he uttered the last words with slow and singular emphasis. "forced upon me?" began gervase. "what do you mean? ..." he broke off abruptly, for at that moment denzil murray emerged from the doorway of the hotel, and came towards them with an unsteady, swaying step like that of a drunken man. "you had better go in to the princess," he said, staring at gervase with a wild smile; "she is waiting for you!" "what's the matter with you, denzil?" inquired dr. dean, catching him by the arm as he made a movement to go on and pass them. denzil stopped, frowning impatiently. "matter? nothing! what should be the matter?" "oh, no offence; no offence, my boy!" and dr. dean at once loosened his arm. "i only thought you looked as if you had had some upset or worry, that's all." "climate! climate!" said denzil, hoarsely. "egypt does not agree with me, i suppose!--the dryness of the soil breeds fever and a touch of madness! men are not blocks of wood or monoliths of stone; they are creatures of flesh and blood, of nerve and muscle; you cannot torture them so..." he interrupted himself with a kind of breathless irritation at his own speech. gervase regarded him steadily, slightly smiling. "torture them how, denzil?" asked the doctor, kindly. "dear lad, you are talking nonsense. come and stroll with me up and down; the air is quite balmy and delightful; it will cool your brain." "yes, it needs cooling!" retorted denzil, beginning to laugh with a sort of wild hilarity. "too much wine,--too much woman,--too much of these musty old-world records and ghastly pyramids!" here he broke off, adding quickly: "doctor, helen and i will go back to england next week, if all is well." "why, certainly, certainly!" said dr. dean, soothingly. "i think we are all beginning to feel we have had enough of egypt. i shall probably return home with you. meanwhile, come for a stroll and talk to me; monsieur armand gervase will perhaps go in and excuse us for a few minutes to the princess ziska." "with pleasure!" said gervase; then, beckoning denzil murray aside, he whispered: "tell me, have you won or lost?" "lost!" replied denzil, fiercely, through his set teeth. "it is your turn now! but, if you win, as sure as there is a god above us, i will kill you!" "soit! but not till i am ready for killing! after to-morrow night i shall be at your service, not till then!" and smiling coldly, his dark face looking singularly pale and stern in the moonlight, gervase turned away, and, walking with his usual light, swift, yet leisurely tread, entered the princess's apartment by the french window which was still open, and from which the sound of sweet music came floating deliciously on the air as he disappeared. chapter xiv. in a half-reclining attitude of indolently graceful ease, the princess ziska watched from beneath the slumbrous shadow of her long-fringed eyelids the approach of her now scarcely-to-be controlled lover. he came towards her with a certain impetuosity of movement which was so far removed from ordinary conventionality as to be wholly admirable from the purely picturesque point of view, despite the fact that it expressed more passion and impatience than were in keeping with nineteenth-century customs and manners. he had almost reached her side before he became aware that there were two other women in the room besides the princess,--silent, veiled figures that sat, or rather crouched, on the floor, holding quaintly carved and inlaid musical instruments of some antique date in their hands, the only sign of life about them being their large, dark, glistening almond-shaped eyes, which were every now and then raised and fixed on gervase with an intense and searching look of inquiry. strangely embarrassed by their glances, he addressed the princess in a low tone: "will you not send away your women?" she smiled. "yes, presently; if you wish it, i will. but you must hear some music first. sit down there," and she pointed with her small jewelled hand to a low chair near her own. "my lutist shall sing you something,--in english, of course!--for all the world is being anglicized by degrees, and there will soon be no separate nations left. something, too, of romantic southern passion is being gradually grafted on to english sentiment, so that english songs are not so stupid as they were once. i translated some stanzas from one of the old egyptian poets into english the other day, perhaps you will like them. myrmentis, sing us the 'song of darkness.'" an odd sensation of familiarity with the name of "myrmentis" startled gervase as he heard it pronounced, and he looked at the girl who was so called in a kind of dread. but she did not meet his questioning regard,--she was already bending over her lute and tuning its strings, while her companion likewise prepared to accompany her on a similar though larger instrument, and in an-other moment her voice, full and rich, with a sobbing passion in it which thrilled him to the inmost soul, rang out on the warm silence: in the darkness what deeds are done! what wild words spoken! what joys are tasted, what passion wasted! what hearts are broken! not a glimpse of the moon shall shine, not a star shall mark the passing of night,--or shed its light on my dream of the dark! on the scented and slumbrous air, strange thoughts are thronging; and a blind desire more fierce than fire fills the soul with longing; through the silence heavy and sweet comes the panting breath of a lover unseen from the might-have-been, whose loving is death! in the darkness a deed was done, a wild word spoken! a joy was tasted,--a passion wasted,-- a heart was broken! not a glimpse of the moon shall shine, not a star shall mark the passing of night,--or shed its light on my dream of the dark! the song died away in a shuddering echo, and before gervase had time to raise his eyes from their brooding study of the floor the singer and her companion had noiselessly disappeared, and he was left alone with the princess ziska. he drew along breath, and turning fully round in his chair, looked at her steadily. there was a faint smile on her lips--a smile of mingled mockery and triumph,--her beautiful witch-like eyes glittered. leaning towards her, he grasped her hands suddenly in his own. "now," he whispered, "shall i speak or be silent?" "whichever you please," she responded composedly, still smiling. "speech or silence rest equally with yourself. i compel neither." "that is false!" he said passionately. "you do compel! your eyes drag my very soul out of me--your touch drives me into frenzy! you temptress! you force me to speak, though you know already what i have to say! that i love you, love you! and that you love me! that your whole life leaps to mine as mine to yours! you know all this; if i were stricken dumb, you could read it in my face, but you will have it spoken--you will extort from me the whole secret of my madness!--yes, for you to take a cruel joy in knowing that i am mad--mad for the love of you! and you cannot be too often or too thoroughly assured that your own passion finds its reflex in me!" he paused, abruptly checked in his wild words by the sound of her low, sweet, chill laughter. she withdrew her hands from his burning grasp. "my dear friend," she said lightly, "you really have a very excellent opinion of yourself--excuse me for saying so! 'my own passion!' do you actually suppose i have a 'passion' for you?" and rising from her chair, she drew up her slim supple figure to its full height and looked at him with an amused and airy scorn. "you are totally mistaken! no one man living can move me to love; i know all men too well! their natures are uniformly composed of the same mixture of cruelty, lust and selfishness; and forever and forever, through all the ages of the world, they use the greater part of their intellectual abilities in devising new ways to condone and conceal their vices. you call me 'temptress';--why? the temptation, if any there be, emanates from yourself and your own unbridled desires; i do nothing. i am made as i am made; if my face or my form seems fair in your eyes, this is not my fault. your glance lights on me, as the hawk's lights on coveted prey; but think you the prey loves the hawk in response? it is the mistake all men make with all women,--to judge them always as being of the same base material as themselves. some women there are who shame their womanhood; but the majority, as a rule, preserve their self-respect till taught by men to lose it." gervase sprang up and faced her, his eyes flashing dangerously. "do not make any pretence with me!" he said half angrily. "never tell me you cannot love! ..." "i have loved!" she interrupted him. "as true women love,--once, and only once. it suffices; not for one lifetime, but many. i loved; and gave myself ungrudgingly and trustingly to the man my soul worshipped. i was betrayed, of course!--it is the usual story--quite old, quite commonplace! i can tell it to you without so much as a blush of pain! since then i have not loved,--i have hated; and i live but for one thing--revenge." her face paled as she spoke, and a something vague, dark, spectral and terrible seemed to enfold her like a cloud where she stood. anon she smiled sweetly, and with a bewitching provocativeness. "your 'passion,' you see, my friend awakens rather a singular 'reflex' in me!--not quite of the nature you imagined!" he remained for a moment inert; then, with an almost savage boldness, threw his arm about her. "have everything your own way, ziska!" he said in quick, fierce accents. "i will accept all your fancies, and humor all your caprices. i will grant that you do not love me--i will even suppose that i am repellent to you,--but that shall make no difference to my desire! you shall be mine!--willing or unwilling! if every kiss i take from your lips be torn from you with reluctance, yet those kisses i will have!--you shall not escape me! you--you, out of all women in the world, i choose..." "as your wife?" said ziska slowly, her dark eyes gleaming with a strange light as she dexterously withdrew herself from his embrace. he uttered an impatient exclamation. "my wife! dieu! what a banalite! you, with your exquisite, glowing beauty and voluptuous charm, you would be a 'wife'--that tiresome figure-head of utterly dull respectability? you, with your unmatched air of wild grace and freedom, would submit to be tied down in the bonds of marriage,--marriage, which to my thinking and that of many other men of my character, is one of the many curses of this idiotic nineteenth century! no, i offer you love, ziska!--ideal, passionate love!--the glowing, rapturous dream of ecstasy in which such a thing as marriage would be impossible, the merest vulgar commonplace--almost a profanity." "i understand!" and the princess ziska regarded him intently, her breath coming and going, and a strange smile quivering on her lips. "you would play the part of an araxes over again!" he smiled; and with all the audacity of a bold and determined nature, put his arms round her and drew her close up to his breast. "yes," he said, "i would play the part of an araxes over again!" as he uttered the words, an indescribable sensation of horror seized him--a mist darkened his sight, his blood grew cold, and a tremor shook him from head to foot. the fair woman's face that was lifted so close to his own seemed spectral and far off; and for a fleeting moment her very beauty grew into something like hideousness, as if the strange effect of the picture he had painted of her was now becoming actual and apparent--namely, the face of death looking through the mask of life. yet he did not loosen his arms from about her waist; on the contrary he clasped her even more closely, and kept his eyes fixed upon her with such pertinacity that it seemed as if he expected her to vanish from his sight while he still held her. "to play the part of an araxes aright," she murmured then in slow and dulcet accents, "you would need to be cruel and remorseless, and sacrifice my life--or any woman's life--to your own clamorous and selfish passion. but you,--armand gervase,--educated, civilized, intellectual, and totally unlike the barbaric araxes, could not do that, could you? the progress of the world, the increasing intelligence of humanity, the coming of the christ, these things are surely of some weight with you, are they not? or are you made of the same savage and impenitent stuff as composed the once famous yet brutal warrior of old time? do you admire the character and spirit of araxes?--he who, if history reports him truly, would snatch a woman's life as though it were a wayside flower, crush out all its sweetness and delicacy, and then fling it into the dust withered and dead? do you think that because a man is strong and famous, he has a right to the love of woman?--a charter to destroy her as he pleases? if you remember the story i told you, araxes murdered with his own hand ziska-charmazel the woman who loved him." "he had perhaps grown weary of her," said gervase, speaking with an effort, and still studying the exquisite loveliness of the bewitching face that was so close to his own, like a man in a dream. at this she laughed, and laid her two hands on his shoulders with a close and clinging clasp which thrilled him strangely. "ah, there is the difficulty!" she said. "what cure shall ever be found for love-weariness? men are all like children--they tire of their toys; hence the frequent trouble and discomfort of marriage. they grow weary of the same face, the same caressing arms, the same faithful heart! you, for instance, would grow weary of me!" "i think not," answered gervase. and now the vague sense of uncertainty and pain which had distressed him passed away, leaving him fully self-possessed once more. "i think you are one of those exceptional women whom a man never grows weary of: like a cleopatra, or any other old-world enchantress, you fascinate with a look, you fasten with a touch, and you have a singular freshness and wild attraction about you which makes you unlike any other of your sex. i know well enough that i shall never get the memory of you out of my brain; your face will haunt me till i die!" "and after death?" she queried, half-closing her eyes, and regarding him languorously through her silky black lashes. "ah, ma belle, after that there is nothing to be done even in the way of love. tout est fini! considering the brevity of life and the absolute certainty of death, i think that the men and women who are so foolish as to miss any opportunities of enjoyment while they are alive deserve more punishment than those who take all they can get, even in the line of what is called wickedness. wickedness is a curious thing: it takes different shapes in different lands, and what is called 'wicked' here, is virtue in, let us say, the fiji islands. there is really no strict rule of conduct in the world, no fixed law of morality." "there is honor!" said the princess, slowly;--"a code which even savages recognize." he was silent. for a moment he seemed to hesitate; but his indecision soon passed. his face flushed, and anon grew pale, as closing his arms more victoriously round the fair woman who just then appeared voluntarily to yield to his embrace, he bent down and whispered a few words in the tiny ear, white and delicate as a shell, which was half-hidden by the rich loose clusters of her luxuriant hair. she heard, and smiled; and her eyes flashed with a singular ferocity which he did not see, otherwise it might have startled him. "i will answer you to-morrow," she said. "be patient till then." and as she spoke, she released herself determinedly from the clasp of his arms and withdrew to a little distance, looking at him with a fixed and searching scrutiny. "do not preach patience to me!" he exclaimed with a laugh. "i never had that virtue, and i certainly cannot begin to cultivate it now." "had you ever any virtues?" she asked in a playful tone of something like satire. he shrugged his shoulders. "i do not know what you consider virtues," he answered lightly: "if honesty is one, i have that. i make no pretence to be what i am not. i would not pass off somebody else's picture as my own, for instance. but i cannot sham to be moral. i could not possibly love a woman without wanting her all to myself, and i have not the slightest belief in the sanctimonious humbug of a man who plays the platonic lover only. but i don't cheat, and i don't lie. i am what i am. ..." "a man!" said ziska, a lurid and vindictive light dilating and firing her wonderful eyes. "a man!--the essence of all that is evil, the possibility of all that is good! but the essence is strong and works; the possibility is a dream which dissolves in the dreaming!" "yes, you are right, ma chere!" he responded carelessly. "goodness--as the world understands goodness--never makes a career for itself worth anything. even christ, who has figured as a symbol of goodness for eighteen hundred years, was not devoid of the sin of ambition: he wanted to reign over all judaea." "you view him in that light?" inquired ziska with a keen look. "and as man only?" "why, of course! the idea of an incarnate god has long ago been discarded by all reasoning thinkers." "and what of an incarnate devil?" pursued ziska, her breath coming and going quickly. "as impossible as the other fancy!" he responded almost gayly. "there are no gods and no devils, ma belle! the world is ruled by ourselves alone, and it behoves us to make the best of it. how will you give me my answer to-morrow? when shall i see you? speak low and quickly,--dr. dean is coming in here from the garden: when--when?" "i will send for you," she answered. "at what hour?" "the moon rises at ten. and at ten my messenger shall come for you." "a trustworthy messenger, i hope? one who knows how to be silent?" "as silent as the grave!" she said, looking at him fixedly. "as secret as the great pyramid and the hidden tomb of araxes!" and smiling, she turned to greet dr. dean, who just then entered the saloon. "denzil has gone to bed," he announced. "he begged me to excuse him to you, princess. i think the boy is feverish. egypt doesn't agree with him." "i am sorry he is ill," said the princess with a charming air of sympathy. "oh, he isn't exactly ill," returned the doctor, looking sharply at her beautiful face as he spoke. "he is simply unnerved and restless. i am a little anxious about him. i think he ought to go back to england--or scotland." "i think so, too," agreed gervase. "and mademoiselle helen with him." "mademoiselle helen you consider very beautiful?" murmured the princess, unfurling her fan and waving it indolently to and fro. "no, not beautiful," answered the doctor quickly. "but very pretty, sweet and lovable--and good." "ah then, of course some one will break her heart!" said the princess calmly. "that is what always happens to good women." and she smiled as she saw gervase flush, half with anger, half with shame. the little doctor rubbed his nose crossly. "not always, princess," he said. "sometimes it does; in fact pretty often. it is an unfortunate truth that virtue is seldom rewarded in this world. virtue in a woman nowadays---" "means no lovers and no fun!" said gervase gayly. "and the possibility of a highly decorous marriage with a curate or a bankclerk, followed by the pleasing result of a family of little curates or little bank-clerks. it is not a dazzling prospect!" the doctor smiled grimly; then after a wavering moment of indecision, broke out into a chuckling laugh. "you have an odd way of putting things," he said. "but i'm afraid you may be right in your estimate of the position. quite as many women are as miserably sacrificed on the altar of virtue as of vice. it is 'a mad world,' as shakespeare says. i hope the next life we pass into after this one will at least be sane." "well, if you believe in heaven, you have testament authority for the fact that there will be 'neither marriage nor giving in marriage' there, at any rate," laughed gervase. "and if we wish to follow that text out truly in our present state of existence and become 'as the angels of god' we ought at once to abolish matrimony." "have done! have done!" exclaimed the doctor, still smiling, however, notwithstanding his protest. "you southern frenchmen are half barbarians,--you have neither religion nor morality." "dieu merci!" said gervase, irreverently; then turning to the princess ziska, he bowed low and with a courtly grace over the hand she extended towards him in farewell. "good-night, princess!"--then in a whisper he added: "to-morrow i shall await your summons." "it will come without fail, never fear!" she answered in equally soft tones. "i hope it may find you ready." he raised his eyes and gave her one long, lingering, passionate look; then with another "good-night," which included dr. dean, left the room. the doctor lingered a moment, studying the face and form of the princess with a curiously inquisitive air; while she in her turn confronted him haughtily, and with a touch of defiance in her aspect. "well," said the savant presently, after a pause: "now you have got him, what are you going to do with him?" she smiled coldly, but answered nothing. "you need not flash your beautiful eyes at me in that eminently unpleasant fashion," pursued the doctor, easily. "you see i know you, and i am not afraid of you. i only make a stand against you in one respect: you shall not kill the boy denzil." "he is nothing to me!" she said, with a gesture of contempt. "i know he is nothing to you; but you are something to him. he does not recognize your nature as i do. i must get him out of the reach of your spell--" "you need not trouble yourself," she interrupted him, a sombre melancholy darkening her face; "i shall be gone to-morrow." "gone altogether?" inquired the doctor calmly and without surprise,--"not to come back?" "not in this present generation!" she answered. still dr. dean evinced no surprise. "then you will have satisfied yourself?" he asked. she bent her head. "for the time being--yes! i shall have satisfied myself." there followed a silence, during which the little doctor looked at his beautiful companion with all the meditative interest of a scientist engaged in working out some intricate and deeply interesting problem. "i suppose i may not inquire how you propose to obtain this satisfaction?" he said. "you may inquire, but you will not be answered!" she retorted, smiling darkly. "your intentions are pitiless?" still smiling, she said not a word. "you are impenitent?" she remained silent. "and, worst of all, you do not desire redemption! you are one of those who forever and ever cry, 'evil, be thou my good!' thus for you, christ died in vain!" a faint tremor ran through her, but she was still mute. "so you and creatures like you, must have their way in the world until the end," concluded the doctor, thoughtfully. "and if all the philosophers that ever lived were to pronounce you what you are, they would be disbelieved and condemned as madmen! well, princess, i am glad i have never at any time crossed your path till now, or given you cause of offence against me. we part friends, i trust? good-night! farewell!" she held out her hand. he hesitated before taking it. "are you afraid?" she queried coldly. "it will not harm you!" "i am afraid of nothing," he said, at once clasping the white taper fingers in his own, "except a bad conscience." "that will never trouble you!" and the princess looked at him full and steadily. "there are no dark corners in your life--no mean side-alleys and trap-holes of deceit; you have walked on the open and straight road. you are a good man and a wise one. but though you, in your knowledge of spiritual things, recognize me for what i am, take my advice and be silent on the matter. the world would never believe the truth, even if you told it, for the time is not yet ripe for men and women to recognize the avengers of their wicked deeds. they are kept purposely in the dark lest the light should kill!" and with her sombre eyes darkening, yet glowing with the inward fire that always smouldered in their dazzling depths, she saluted him gravely and gracefully, watching him to the last as he slowly withdrew. chapter xv. the next day broke with a bright, hot glare over the wide desert, and the sky in its cloudless burning blue had more than its usual appearance of limitless and awful immensity. the sphinx and the pyramids alone gave a shadow and a substance to the dazzling and transparent air,--all the rest of the visible landscape seemed naught save a far-stretching ocean of glittering sand, scorched by the blazing sun. dr. maxwell dean rose early and went down to the hotel breakfast in a somewhat depressed frame of mind; he had slept badly, and his dreams had been unpleasant, when not actually ghastly, and he was considerably relieved, though he could not have told why, when he saw his young friend denzil murray, seated at the breakfast table, apparently enjoying an excellent meal. "hullo, denzil!" he exclaimed cheerily, "i hardly expected you down yet. are you better?" "thanks, i am perfectly well," said denzil, with a careless air. "i thought i would breakfast early in order to drive into cairo before the day gets too sultry." "into cairo!" echoed the doctor. "why, aren't you going to stay here a few days?" "no, not exactly," answered denzil, stirring his coffee quickly and beginning to swallow it in large gulps. "i shall be back to-night, though. i'm only going just to see my sister and tell her to prepare for our journey home. i shan't be absent more than a few hours." "i thought you might possibly like to go a little further up the nile?" suggested the doctor. "oh, no, i've had enough of it! you see, when a man proposes to a woman and gets refused, he can't keep on dangling round that woman as if he thought it possible she might change her mind." and he forced a smile. "i've got an appointment with gervase to-morrow morning, and i must come back to-night in order to keep it--but after that i'm off." "an appointment with gervase?" repeated the doctor, slowly. "what sort of an appointment?" denzil avoided his keen look. "really, doctor, you are getting awfully inquisitive!" he exclaimed with a hard laugh. "you want to know altogether too much!" "yes, i always do; it is a habit of mine," responded dr. dean, calmly. "but in the present case, it doesn't need much perspicuity to fathom your mystery. the dullest clod-hopper will tell you he can see through a millstone when there's a hole in it. and i was always a good hand at putting two and two together and making four out of them. you and gervase are in love with the same woman; the woman has rejected you and is encouraging gervase; gervase, you think, will on this very night be in the position of the accepted lover, for which successful fortune, attending him, you, the rejected one, propose to kill him to-morrow morning if you can, unless he kills you. and you are going to cairo to get your pistols or whatever weapons you have arranged to fight with, and also to say good-bye to your sister." denzil kept his eyes fixed studiously on the table-cloth and made no answer. "however," continued the doctor complacently, "you can have it all your own way as far as i am concerned. i never interfere in these sort of matters. i should do no good if i attempted it. besides, i haven't the slightest anxiety on your behalf--not the slightest. waiter, some more coffee, please?" "upon my word!" exclaimed denzil, with a fretful laugh, "you are a most extraordinary man, doctor!" "i hope i am!" retorted the doctor. "to be merely ordinary would not suit my line of ambition. this is very excellent coffee"--here he peered into the fresh pot of the fragrant beverage just set before him. "they make it better here than at the gezireh palace. well, denzil, my boy, when you get into cairo, give my love to helen and tell her we'll all go home to the old country together; i, myself, have got quite enough out of egypt this time to satisfy my fondness for new experiences. and let me assure you, my good fellow, that your proposed duel with gervase will not come off!" "it will come off!" said denzil, with sudden fierceness. "by heaven, it shall!--it must!" "more wills than one have the working out of our destinies," answered dr. dean with some gravity. "man is not by any means supreme. he imagines he is, but that is only one of his many little delusions. you think you will have your way; gervase thinks he will have his way; i think i will have my way; but as a matter of fact there is only one person in this affair whose 'way' will be absolute, and that person is the princess ziska. ce que femme veut dieu veut." "she has nothing whatever to do with the matter," declared denzil. "pardon! she has everything to do with it. she is the cause of it and she knows it. and as i have already told you, your proposed fight will not come off." and the little doctor smiled serenely. "there is your carriage at the door, i suppose. off with you, my boy!--be off like a whirlwind, and return here armed to the teeth if you like! you have heard the expression 'fighting the air'? that is what you will do tomorrow morning!" and apparently in the best of all possible humors, dr. dean accompanied his young friend to the portico of the hotel and watched him drive off down the stately avenue of palm-trees which now cast their refreshing shade on the entire route from the pyramids to cairo. when he had fairly gone, the thoughtful savant surveyed the different tourists who were preparing to ascend the pyramids under the escort of their arab guides, regardless of the risks they ran of dislocated arms and broken shoulder-bones,--and in the study of the various odd types thus presented to him, he found himself fairly well amused. "protoplasm--mere protoplasm!" he murmured. "the germ of soul has not yet attained to individual consciousness in any one of these strange bipeds. their thoughts are as jelly,--their reasoning powers in embryo,--their intellectual faculties barely perceptible. yet they are interesting, viewed in the same light and considered on the same scale as fish or insects merely. as men and women of course they are misnomers,--laughable impossibilities. well, well!--in the space of two or three thousand years, the protoplasm may start into form out of the void, and the fibres of a conscious intellectuality may sprout,--but it will have to be in some other phase of existence--certainly not in this one. and now to shut myself up and write my memoranda--for i must not lose a single detail of this singular egyptian psychic problem. the whole thing i perceive is rounding itself towards completion and catastrophe--but in what way? how will it--how can it end?" and with a meditative frown puckering his brows, dr. dean folded his hands behind his back and retired to his own room, from whence he did not emerge all day. armand gervase in the meanwhile was making himself the life and soul of everything at the mena house hotel. he struck up an easy acquaintance with several of the visitors staying there,--said pretty things to young women and pleasant things to old,--and in the course of a few hours succeeded in becoming the most popular personage in the place. he accepted invitations to parties, and agreed to share in various' excursions, till he engaged himself for every day in the coming week, and was so gay and gallant and fascinating in manner and bearing that fair ladies lost their hearts to him at a glance, and what amusement or pleasure there was at the mena house seemed to be doubly enhanced by the mere fact of his presence. in truth gervase was in a singular mood of elation and excitation; a strong inward triumph possessed him and filled his soul with an imperious pride and sense of conquest which, for the time being, made him feel as though he were a very king of men. there was nothing in his nature of the noble tenderness which makes the lover mentally exalt his beloved as a queen before whom he is content to submit his whole soul in worship; what he realized was merely this: that here was one of the most beautiful and seductive women ever created, in the person of the princess ziska, and that he, gervase, meant to possess that loveliest of women, whatever happened in the near or distant future. of her, and of the influence of his passion on her personally, he did not stop to think, except with the curiously blind egotism which is the heritage of most men, and which led him to judge that her happiness would in some way or other be enhanced by his brief and fickle love. for, as a rule, men do not understand love. they understand desire, amounting sometimes to merciless covetousness for what they cannot get,--this is a leading natural characteristic of the masculine nature--but love--love that endures silently and faithfully through the stress of trouble and the passing of years--love which sacrifices everything to the beloved and never changes or falters,--this is a divine passion which seldom or never sanctifies and inspires the life of a man. women are not made of such base material; their love invariably springs first from the ideal, not the sensual, and if afterwards it develops into the sensual, it is through the rough and coarsening touch of man alone. throughout the entire day the princess ziska herself never left her private apartments, and towards late afternoon gervase began to feel the hours drag along with unconscionable slowness and monotony. never did the sun seem so slow in sinking; never did the night appear so far off. when at last dinner was served in the hotel, both denzil murray and dr. dean sat next to him at table, and, judging from outward appearances, the most friendly relations existed between all three of them. at the close of the meal, however, denzil made a sign to gervase to follow him, and when they had reached a quiet corner, said: "i am aware of your victory; you have won where i have lost. but you know my intention?" "perfectly!" responded gervase, with a cool smile. "by heaven!" went on the younger man, in accents of suppressed fury, "if i yielded to the temptation which besets me when i see you standing there facing me, with your easy and self-satisfied demeanor,--when i know that you mean dishonor where i meant honor,--when you have had the effrontery to confess to me that you only intend to make the princess ziska your mistress when i would have made her my wife,--god! i could shoot you dead at this moment!" gervase looked at him steadily, still smiling slightly; then gradually the smile died away, leaving his countenance shadowed by an intense melancholy. "i can quite enter into your feelings, my dear boy!" he said. "and do you know, i'm not sure that it would not be a good thing if you were to shoot me dead! my life is of no particular value to anybody,--certainly not to myself; and i begin to think i've been always more or less of a failure. i have won fame, but i have missed--something--but upon my word, i don't quite know what!" he sighed heavily, then suddenly held out his hand. "denzil, the bitterest foes shake hands before fighting each other to the death, as we propose to do to-morrow; it is a civil custom and hurts no one, i should like to part kindly from you to-night!" denzil hesitated; then something stronger than himself made him yield to the impulsive note of strong emotion in his former friend's voice, and the two men's hands met in a momentary silent grasp. then denzil turned quickly away. "to-morrow morning at six," he said, briefly; "close to the sphinx." "good!" responded gervase. "the sphinx shall second us both and see fair play. good-night, denzil!" "good-night!" responded denzil, coldly, as he moved on and disappeared. a slight shiver ran through gervase's blood as he watched him depart. "odd that i should imagine i have seen the last of him!" he murmured. "there are strange portents in the air of the desert, i suppose! is he going to his death? or am i going to mine?" again the cold tremor shook him, and combating with his uneasy sensations, he went to his own apartment, there to await the expected summons of the princess. no triumph filled him now; no sense of joy elated him; a vague fear and dull foreboding were all the emotions he was conscious of. even his impatient desire of love had cooled, and he watched the darkening of night over the desert, and the stars shining out one by one in the black azure of the heavens, with a gradually deepening depression. a dreamy sense stole over him of remoteness or detachment from all visible things, as though he were suddenly and mysteriously separated from the rest of humankind by an invisible force which he was powerless to resist. he was still lost in this vague half-torpor or semi-conscious reverie, when a light tap startled him back to the realization of earth and his earthly surroundings. in response to his "entrez!" the tall nubian, whom he had seen in cairo as the guardian of the princess's household, appeared, his repulsive features looking, if anything, more ghastly and hideous than ever. "madame la princesse demande votre presence!" said this unlovely attendant of one of the fairest of women. "suivez-moi!" without a moment's hesitation or loss of time, gervase obeyed, and allowing his guide to precede him at a little distance, followed him through the corridors of the hotel, out at the hall door and beyond, through the garden. a clock struck ten as they passed into the warm evening air, and the mellow rays of the moon were beginning to whiten the sides of the great pyramid. a few of the people staying in the hotel were lounging about, but these paid no particular heed to gervase or his companion. at about two hundred yards from the entrance of the mena house, the nubian stopped and waited till gervase came up with him. "madame la princesse vous aime, monsieur gervase!" he said, with a sarcastic grin. "mais,--elle veut que l'amour soit toujours aveugle! oui, toujours! c'est le destin qui vous appelle,--il faut soumettre! l'amour sans yeux! oui!--en fin,--comme ca!" and before gervase could utter a word of protest, or demand the meaning of this strange proceeding, his arms was suddenly seized and pinioned behind his back, his mouth gagged, and his eyes blindfolded. "maintenant," continued the nubian. "nous irons ensemble!" choked and mad with rage, gervase for a few moments struggled furiously as well as he was able with his powerful captor. all sorts of ideas surged in his brain: the princess ziska might, with all her beauty and fascination, be nothing but the ruler of a band of robbers and murderers--who could tell? yet reason did not wholly desert him in extremity, for even while he tried to fight for his liberty he remembered that there was no good to be gained out of taking him prisoner; he had neither money nor valuables--nothing which could excite the cupidity of even a starving bedouin. as this thought crossed his brain, he ceased his struggles abruptly, and stood still, panting for breath, when suddenly a sound of singing floated towards him: "oh, for the pure cold heart of the lotus-lily! a star above is its only love, and one brief sigh of its scented breath is all it will ever know of death! oh, for the passionless heart of the lotus-lily!" he listened, and all power of resistance ebbed slowly away from him; he became perfectly passive--almost apathetic--and yielding to the somewhat rough handling of his guide, allowed himself to be urged with silent rapidity onward over the thick sand, till he presently became conscious that he was leaving the fresh open air and entering a building of some sort, for his feet pressed hard earth and stone instead of sand. all at once he was forcibly brought to a standstill, and a heavy rolling noise and clang, like distant muttered thunder, resounded in his ears, followed by dead silence. then his arm was closely grasped again, and he was led on, on and on, along what seemed to be an interminable distance, for not a glimmer of light could be seen under the tight folds of the bandage across his eyes. presently the earth shook under him,--some heavy substance was moved, and there was another booming thunderous noise, accompanied by the falling of chains. "c'est l'escalier de madame la princesse!" said the nubian. "pres de la chambre nuptiale! descendez! vite!" down--down! resistance was useless, even had he cared to resist, for he felt as though twenty pairs of hands instead of one were pushing him violently on all sides; down, still down he went, dumb, blind and helpless, till at last he was allowed to stop and breathe. his arms were released, the bandage was taken from his eyes, the gag from his mouth--he was free! free--yes! but where? thick darkness encompassed him; he stretched out his hands in the murky atmosphere and felt nothing. "ziska!" he cried. the name sprang up against the silence and struck out numberless echoes, and with the echoes came a shuddering sigh, that was not of them, whispering: "charmazel!" gervase heard it, and a deadly fear, born of the supernatural, possessed him. "ziska! ziska!" he called again wildly. "charmazel!" answered the penetrating unknown voice; and as it thrilled upon the air like a sob of pain, a dim light began to shine through the gloom, waveringly at first, then more steadily, till it gradually spread wide, illuminating with a pale and spectral light the place in which he found himself,--a place more weird and wondrous than any mystic scene in dream-land. he stumbled forward giddily, utterly bewildered, staring about him like a man in delirium, and speechless with mingled horror and amazement. he was alone--utterly alone in a vast square chamber, the walls and roof of which were thickly patterned and glistening with gold. squares of gold were set in the very pavement on which he trod, and at the furthest end of the chamber, a magnificent sarcophagus of solid gold, encrusted with thousands upon thousands of jewels, which were set upon it in marvellous and fantastic devices, glittered and flashed with the hues of living fire. golden cups, golden vases, a golden suit of armor, bracelets and chains of gold intermixed with gems, were heaped up against the walls and scattered on the floor; and a round shield of ivory inlaid with gold, together with a sword in a jewelled sheath, were placed in an upright position against the head of the sarcophagus, from whence all the spectral and mysterious light seemed to emerge. with thickly beating heart and faltering pulses gervase still advanced, gazing half entranced, half terrified at the extraordinary and sumptuous splendor surrounding him, muttering almost unconsciously as he moved along: "a king's sepulchre,--a warrior's tomb! how came i here?--and why? is this a trysting-place for love as well as death?--and will she come to me? ..." he recoiled suddenly with a violent start, for there, like a strange spirit of evil risen from the ground, leaning against the great gold sarcophagus, her exquisite form scarcely concealed by the misty white of her draperies, her dark hair hanging like a cloud over her shoulders, and her black eyes aflame with wrath, menace and passion, stood the mysterious ziska! chapter xvi. stricken dumb with a ghastly supernatural terror which far exceeded any ordinary sense of fear, he gazed at her, spellbound, his blood freezing, his very limbs stiffening, for now--now she looked like the picture he had painted of her; and death--death, livid, tortured and horrible, stared at him skull-wise from the transparent covering of her exquisitely tinted seeming-human flesh. larger and brighter and wilder grew her eyes as she fixed them on him, and her voice rang through the silence with an unearthly resonance as she spoke and said: "welcome, my lover, to this abode of love! welcome to these arms, for whose embraces your covetous soul has thirsted unappeased! take all of me, for i am yours!--aye, so truly yours that you can never escape me!--never separate from me--no! not through a thousand thousand centuries! life of my life! soul of my soul! possess me, as i possess you!--for our two unrepenting spirits form a dual flame in hell which must burn on and on to all eternity! leap to my arms, master and lord,--king and conqueror! here, here!" and she smote her white arms against her whiter bosom. "take all your fill of burning wickedness--of cursed joy! and then--sleep! as you have slept before, these many thousand years!" still mute and aghast he stared at her; his senses swam, his brain reeled, and then slowly, like the lifting of a curtain on the last scene of a dire tragedy, a lightning thought, a scorching memory, sprang into his mind and overwhelmed him like a rolling wave that brings death in its track. with a fierce oath he rushed towards her, and seized her hands in his--hands cold as ice and clammy as with the dews of the grave. "ziska! woman! devil! speak before you drive me to madness! what passion moves you thus--what mystic fooling? into what place have i been decoyed at your bidding? why am i brought hither? speak, speak!--or i shall murder you!" "nay!" she said, and her slight swaying form dilated and grew till she seemed to rise up from the very ground and to tower above him like an enraged demon evoked from mist or flame. "you have done that once! to murder me twice is beyond your power!" and as she spoke her hands slipped from his like the hands of a corpse newly dead. "never again can you hurl forth my anguished soul unprepared to the outer darkness of things invisible; never again! for i am free!--free with an immortal freedom--free to work out repentance or revenge,--even as man is free to shape his course for good or evil. he chooses evil; i choose revenge! what place is this, you ask?" and with a majestic gliding motion she advanced a little and pointed upward to the sparkling gold-patterned roof. "above us, the great pyramid lifts its summit to the stars; and here below,--here where you will presently lie, my lover and lord, asleep in the delicate bosom of love--here..." she paused, and a low laugh broke from her lips; then she added slowly and impressively: "here is the tomb of araxes!" as she spoke, a creeping sense of coldness and horror stole into his veins like the approach of death,--the strange impressions he had felt, the haunting and confusing memory he had always had of her face and voice, the supernatural theories he had lately heard discussed, all rushed at once upon his mind, and he uttered a loud involuntary cry. "my god! what frenzy is this! a woman's vain trick!--a fool's mad scheme! what is araxes to me?--or i to araxes?" "everything!" replied ziska, the vindictive demon light in her eyes blazing with a truly frightful intensity. "inasmuch as ye are one and the same! the same dark soul of sin--unpurged, uncleansed through ages of eternal fire! sensualist! voluptuary! accursed spirit of the man i loved, come forth from the present seeming-of-things! come forth and cling to me! cling!--for the whole forces of a million universes shall not separate us! o eternal spirits of the dead!" and she lifted her ghostly white arms with a wild gesture. "rend ye the veil! declare to the infidel and unbeliever the truth of the life beyond death; the life wherein ye and i dwell and work, clamoring for late justice!" here she sprang forward and caught the arm of gervase with all the fierce eagerness of some ravenous bird of prey; and as she did so he knew her grasp meant death. "remember the days of old, araxes! look back, look back from the present to the past, and remember the crimes that are still unavenged! remember the love sought and won!--remember the broken heart!--remember the ruined life! remember the triumphs of war!--the glories of conquest! remember the lust of ambition!--the treachery!--the slaughter!--the blasphemies against high heaven! remember the night of the feast of osiris--the feast of the sun! remember how ziska-charmazel awaited her lover, singing alone for joy, in blind faith and blinder love, his favorite song of the lotus-lily! the moon was high, as it is now!--the stars glittered above the pyramids, as they glitter now!--in the palace there was the sound of music and triumph and laughter, and a whisper on the air of the fickle heart and changeful mood of araxes; of another face which charmed him, though less fair than that of ziska-charmazel! remember, remember!" and she clung closer and closer as he staggered backward half suffocated by his own emotions and the horror of her touch. "remember the fierce word!--the quick and murderous blow!--the plunge of the jewelled knife up to the hilt in the passionate white bosom of charmazel!--the lonely anguish in which she died! died,--but to live again and pursue her murderer!--to track him down to his grave wherein the king strewed gold, and devils strewed curses!--down, down to the end of all his glory and conquest into the silence of yon gold-encrusted clay! and out of silence again into sound and light and fire, ever pursuing, i have followed--followed through a thousand phases of existence!--and i will follow still through limitless space and endless time, till the great maker of this terrible wheel of life himself shall say, 'stop! here ends even the law of vengeance!' oh, for ten thousand centuries more in which to work my passion and prove my wrong! all the treasure of love despised!--all the hope of a life betrayed!--all the salvation of heaven denied! tremble, soul of araxes!--for hate is eternal, as love is eternal!--the veil is down, and memory stings!" she turned her face, now spectral and pallid as a waning moon, up to him; her form grew thin and skeleton-like, while still retaining the transparent outline of its beauty; and he realized at last that no creature of flesh and blood was this that clung to him, but some mysterious bodiless horror of the supernatural, unguessed at by the outer world of men! the dews of death stood thick on his forehead; there was a straining agony at his heart, and his breath came in quick convulsive gasps; but worse than his physical torture was the overwhelming and convincing truth of the actual existence of the spiritual universe, now so suddenly and awfully revealed. what he had all his life denied was now declared a certainty; where he had been deaf and blind, he now heard and saw. ziska! ziska-charmazel! in very truth he knew he remembered her; in very truth he knew he had loved her; in very truth he knew he had murdered her! but another still stranger truth was forcing itself upon him now; and this was, that the old love of the old old days was arising within him in all its strength once more, and that he loved her still! unreal and terrible as it seemed, it was nevertheless a fact, that as he gazed upon her tortured face, her beautiful anguished eyes, her phantom form, he felt that he would give his own soul to rescue hers and lift her from the coils of vengeance into love again! her words awoke vibrating pulsations of thought, long dormant in the innermost recesses of his spirit, which, like so many dagger-thrusts, stabbed him with a myriad recollections; and as a disguising cloak may fall from the figure of a friend in a masquerade, so his present-seeming personality dropped from him and no longer had any substance. he recognized himself as araxes--always the same soul passing through a myriad changes,--and all the links of his past and present were suddenly welded together in one unbroken chain, stretching over thousands of years, every link of which he was able to count, mark, and recognize. by the dreadful light of that dumb comprehension which flashes on all parting souls at the moment of dissolution, he perceived at last that not the body but the spirit is the central secret of life,--not deeds, but thoughts evolve creation. death? that was a name merely; there was no death,--only a change into some other form of existence. what change--what form would be his now? this thought startled him--roused him,--and once again the low spirit-voice of his long-ago betrayed and murdered love thrilled in his ears: "soul of araxes, cling to my soul!--for this present life is swiftly passing! no more scorn of the divine can stand whither we are speeding, for the terrible and eternal truth overshadows us and our destinies! closed are the gates of heaven,--open wide are the portals of hell! enter with me, my lover araxes!--die as i died, unprepared and alone! die, and pass out into new life again--such life as mine--such torture as mine--such despair as mine--such hate as mine! ..." she ceased abruptly, for he, convinced now of the certainty of immortality, was suddenly moved to a strange access of courage and resolution. something sweet and subtle stirred in him,--a sense of power,--a hint of joy, which completely overcame all dread of death. old love revived, grew stronger in his soul, and his gaze rested on the shadowy form beside him, no longer with horror but with tenderness. she was ziska-charmazel,--she had been his love--the dearest portion of his life--once in the far-off time; she had been the fairest of women--and more than fair, she had been faithful! yes, he remembered that, as he remembered her! every curve in her beautiful body had been a joy for him alone; and for him alone her lips, sweet and fresh as rosebuds, had kept their kisses. she had loved him as few women have either heart or strength to love, and he had rewarded her fidelity by death and eternal torment! a struggling cry escaped him, and he stretched out his arms: "ziska! forgive--forgive!" as he uttered the words, he saw her wan face suddenly change,--all the terror and torture passed from it like a passing cloud,--beautiful as an angel's, it smiled upon him,--the eyes softened and flashed with love, the lips trembled, the spectral form glowed with a living luminance, and a mystic glory glittered above the dusky hair! filled with ecstasy at the sight of her wondrous loveliness, he felt nothing of the coldness of death at his heart,--a divine passion inspired him, and with the last effort of his failing strength he strove to gather all the spirit-like beauty of her being into his embrace. "love--love!" he cried. "not hate, but love! come back out of the darkness, soul of the woman i wronged! forgive me! come back to me! hell or heaven, what matters it if we are together! come to me,--come! love is stronger than hate!" speech failed him; the cold agony of death gripped at his heart and struck him mute, but still he saw the beautiful passionate eyes of a forgiving love turned gloriously upon him like stars in the black chaos whither he now seemed rushing. then came a solemn surging sound as of great wings beating on a tempestuous air, and all the light in the tomb was suddenly extinguished. one instant more he stood upright in the thick darkness; then a burning knife seemed plunged into his breast, and he reeled forward and fell, his last hold on life being the consciousness that soft arms were clasping him and drawing him away--away--he knew not whither--and that warm lips, sweet and tender, were closely pressed on his. and presently, out of the heavy gloom came a voice which said: "peace! the old gods are best, and the law is made perfect. a life demands a life. love's debt must be paid by love! the woman's soul forgives; the man's repents,--wherefore they are both released from bondage and the memory of sin. let them go hence, the curse is lifted!" * * * * once more the wavering ghostly light gave luminance to the splendor of the tomb, and showed where, fallen sideways among the golden treasures and mementoes of the past, lay the dead body of armand gervase. above him gleamed the great jewelled sarcophagus; and within touch of his passive hand was the ivory shield and gold-hilted sword of araxes. the spectral radiance gleamed, wandered and flitted over all things,--now feebly, now brilliantly,--till finally flashing with a pale glare on the dark dead face, with the proud closed lips and black level brows, it flickered out; and one of the many countless mysteries of the great pyramid was again hidden in impenetrable darkness. * * * * vainly denzil marray waited next morning for his rival to appear. he paced up and down impatiently, watching the rosy hues of sunrise spreading over the wide desert and lighting up the massive features of the sphinx, till as hour after hour passed and still gervase did not come, he hurried back to the mena house hotel, and meeting dr. maxwell dean on the way, to him poured out his rage and perplexity. "i never thought gervase was a coward!" he said hotly. "nor should you think so now," returned the doctor, with a grave and preoccupied air. "whatever his faults, cowardice was not one of them. you see, i speak of him in the past tense. i told you your intended duel would not come off, and i was right. denzil, i don't think you will ever see either armand gervase or the princess ziska again." denzil started violently. "what do you mean? the princess is here,--here in this very house." "is she?" and dr. dean sighed somewhat impatiently. "well, let us see!" then, turning to a passing waiter, he inquired: "is the princess ziska here still?" "no, sir. she left quite suddenly late last night; going on to thebes, i believe, sir." the doctor looked meaningly at denzil. "you hear?" but denzil in his turn was interrogating the waiter. "is mr. gervase in his room?" "no, sir. he went out about ten o'clock yesterday evening, and i don't think he is coming back. one of the princess ziska's servants--the tall nubian whom you may have noticed, sir--brought a message from him to say that his luggage was to be sent to paris, and that the money for his bill would be found on his dressing-table. it was all right, of course, but we thought it rather curious." and glancing deferentially from one to the other of his questioners with a smile, the waiter went on his way. "they have fled together!" said denzil then, in choked accents of fury. "by heaven, if i had guessed the plan already formed in his treacherous mind, i would never have shaken hands with gervase last night!" "oh, you did shake hands?" queried dr. dean, meditatively. "well, there was no harm in that. you were right. you and gervase will meet no more in this life, believe me! he and the princess ziska have undoubtedly, as you say, fled together--but not to thebes!" he paused a moment, then laid his hand kindly on denzil's shoulder. "let us go back to cairo, my boy, and from thence as soon as possible to england. we shall all be better away from this terrible land, where the dead have far more power than the living!" denzil stared at him uncomprehendingly. "you talk in riddles!" he said, irritably. "do you think i shall let gervase escape me? i will track him wherever he has gone,--i daresay i shall find him in paris." dr. dean took one or two slow turns up and down the corridor where they were conversing, then stopping abruptly, looked his young friend full and steadily in the eyes. "come, come, denzil. no more of this folly," he said, gently. "why should you entertain these ideas of vengeance against gervase? he has really done you no harm. he was the natural mate of the woman you imagined you loved,--the response to her query,--the other half of her being; and that she was and is his destiny, and he hers, should not excite your envy or hatred. i say you imagined you loved the princess ziska,--it was a young man's hot freak of passion for an almost matchless beauty, but no more than that. and if you would be frank with yourself, you know that passion has already cooled. i repeat, you will never see gervase or the princess ziska again in this life; so make the best of it." "perhaps you have assisted him to escape me!" said denzil frigidly. dr. dean smiled. "that's rather a rough speech, denzil! but never mind!" he returned. "your pride is wounded, and you are still sore. suspect me as you please,--make me out a new pandarus, if you like--i shall not be offended. but you know--for i have often told you--that i never interfere in love matters. they are too explosive, too vitally dangerous; outsiders ought never to meddle with them. and i never do. come back with me to cairo. and when we are once more safely established on the solid and unromantic isles of britain, you will forget all about the princess ziska; or if you do remember her, it will only be as a dream in the night, a kind of vague shadow and uncertainty, which will never seriously trouble your mind. you look incredulous. i tell you at your age love is little more than a vision; you must wait a few years yet before it becomes a reality, and then heaven help you, denzil!--for you will be a troublesome fellow to deal with! meanwhile, let us get back to cairo and see helen." somewhat soothed by the doctor's good-nature, and a trifle ashamed of his wrath, denzil yielded, and the evening saw them both back at the gezireh palace hotel, where of course the news of the sudden disappearance of armand gervase with the princess ziska created the utmost excitement. helen murray shivered and grew pale as death when she heard it; lively old lady fulkeward simpered and giggled, and declared it was "the most delightful thing she had ever heard of!"--an elopement in the desert was "so exquisitely romantic!" sir chetwynd lyle wrote a conventional and stilted account of it for his paper, and ponderously opined that the immorality of frenchmen was absolutely beyond any decent journalist's powers of description. lady chetwynd lyle, on the contrary, said that the "scandal" was not the fault of gervase; it was all "that horrid woman," who had thrown herself at his head. ross courtney thought the whole thing was "queer;" and young lord fulkeward said there was something about it he didn't quite understand,--something "deep," which his aristocratic quality of intelligence could not fathom. and society talked and gossiped till paris and london caught the rumor, and the name of the famous french artist, who had so strangely vanished from the scene of his triumphs with a beautiful woman whom no one had ever heard of before, was soon in everybody's mouth. no trace of him or of the princess ziska could be discovered; his portmanteau contained no letters or papers,--nothing but a few clothes; his paint-box and easel were sent on to his deserted studio in paris, and also a blank square of canvas, on which, as dr. dean and others knew, had once been the curiously-horrible portrait of the princess. but that appalling "first sketch" was wiped out and clean gone as though it had never been painted, and dr. dean called denzil's attention to the fact. but denzil thought nothing of it, as he imagined that gervase himself had obliterated it before leaving cairo. a few of the curious among the gossips went to see the house the princess had lately occupied, where she had "received" society and managed to shock it as well. it was shut up, and looked as if it had not been inhabited for years. and the gossips said it was "strange, very strange!" and confessed themselves utterly mystified. but the fact remained that gervase had disappeared and the princess ziska with him. "however," said society, "they can't possibly hide themselves for long. two such remarkable personalities are bound to appear again somewhere. i daresay we shall come across them in paris or on the riviera. the world is much too small for the holding of a secret." and presently, with the approach of spring, and the gradual break-up of the cairo "season," denzil murray and his sister sailed from alexandria en route for venice. dr. dean accompanied them; so did the fulkewards and ross courtney. the chetwynd-lyles went by a different steamer, "old" lady fulkeward being quite too much for the patience of those sweet but still unengaged "girls" muriel and dolly. one night when the great ship was speeding swiftly over a calm sea, and denzil, lost in sorrowful meditation, was gazing out over the trackless ocean with pained and passionate eyes which could see nothing but the witching and exquisite beauty of the princess ziska, now possessed and enjoyed by gervase, dr. dean touched him on the arm and said: "denzil, have you ever read shakespeare?" denzil started and forced a smile. "why, yes, of course!" "then you know the lines-- 'there are more things in heaven and earth, horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy?' the princess ziska was one of those 'things.'" denzil regarded him in wonderment. "what do you mean?" "oh, of course, you will think me insane," said the doctor, resignedly. "people always take refuge in thinking that those who tell them uncomfortable truths are lunatics. you've heard me talk of ghosts?--ghosts that walk and move about us like human beings?--and they are generally very brilliant and clever impersonations of humanity, too--and that nevertheless are not human?" denzil assented. "the princess ziska was a ghost!" concluded the doctor, folding his arms very tightly across his chest and nodding defiantly. "nonsense!" cried denzil. "you are mad!" "precisely the remark i thought you would make!" and dr. dean unfolded his arms again and smiled triumphantly. "therefore, my dear boy, let us for the future avoid this subject. i know what i know; i can distinguish phantoms from reality, and i am not deceived by appearances. but the world prefers ignorance to knowledge, and even so let it be. next time i meet a ghost i'll keep my own counsel!" he paused a moment,--then added: "you remember i told you i was hunting down that warrior of old time, araxes?" denzil nodded, a trifle impatiently. "well," resumed the doctor slowly,--"before we left egypt i found him! but how i found him, and where, is my secret!" society still speaks occasionally of armand gervase, and wonders in its feeble way when he will be "tired" of the egyptian beauty he ran away with, or she of him. society never thinks very far or cares very much for anything long, but it does certainly expect to see the once famous french artist "turn up" suddenly, either in his old quarters in paris, or in one or the other of the fashionable resorts of the riviera. that he should be dead has never occurred to anyone, except perhaps dr. maxwell dean. but dr. dean has grown extremely reticent--almost surly; and never answers any questions concerning his scientific theory of ghosts, a work which, when published, created a great deal of excitement, owing to its singularity and novelty of treatment. there was the usual "hee-hawing" from the donkeys in the literary pasture, who fondly imagined their brayings deserved to be considered in the light of serious opinion;--and then after a while the book fell into the hands of scientists only,--men who are beginning to understand the discretion of silence, and to hold their tongues as closely as the egyptian priests of old did, aware that the great majority of men are never ripe for knowledge. quite lately dr. dean attended two weddings,--one being that of "old" lady fulkeward, who has married a very pretty young fellow of five-and-twenty, whose dearest consideration in life is the shape of his shirt-collar; the other, that of denzil murray, who has wedded the perfectly well-born, well-bred and virtuous, if somewhat cold-blooded, daughter of his next-door neighbor in the highlands. concerning his egyptian experience he never speaks,--he lives the ordinary life of the scottish land-owner, looking after his tenantry, considering the crops, preserving the game, and clearing fallen timber;--and if the glowing face of the beautiful ziska ever floats before his memory, it is only in a vague dream from which he quickly rouses himself with a troubled sigh. his sister helen has never married. lord fulkeward proposed to her but was gently rejected, whereupon the disconsolate young nobleman took a journey to the states and married the daughter of a millionaire oil-merchant instead. sir chetwynd lyle and his pig-faced spouse still thrive and grow fat on the proceeds of the daily dial, and there is faint hope that one of their "girls" will wed an aspiring journalist,--a bold adventurer who wants "a share in the paper" somehow, even if he has to marry muriel or dolly in order to get it. ross courtney is the only man of the party once assembled at the gezireh palace hotel who still goes to cairo every winter, fascinated thither by an annually recurring dim notion that he may "discover traces" of the lost armand gervase and the princess ziska. and he frequently accompanies the numerous sight-seers who season after season drive from cairo to the pyramids, and take pleasure in staring at the sphinx with all the impertinence common to pigmies when contemplating greatness. but more riddles than that of the sphinx are lost in the depths of the sandy desert; and more unsolved problems lie in the recesses of the past than even the restless and inquiring spirit of modern times will ever discover;--and if it should ever chance that in days to come, the secret of the movable floor of the great pyramid should be found, and the lost treasures of egypt brought to light, there will probably be much discussion and marvel concerning the golden tomb of araxes. for the hieroglyphs on the jewelled sarcophagus speak of him thus and say:-- "araxes was a man of might, far exceeding in strength and beauty the common sons of men. great in war, invincible in love, he did excel in deeds of courage and of conquest,--and for whatsoever sins he did in the secret weakness of humanity commit, the gods must judge him. but in all that may befit a warrior, amenhotep the king doth give him honor,--and to the spirits of darkness and of light his soul is here commended to its rest." thus much of the fierce dead hero of old time,--but of the mouldering corpse that lies on the golden floor of the same tomb, its skeleton hand touching, almost grasping, the sword of araxes, what shall be said? nothing--since the old and the new, the past and the present, are but as one moment in the countings of eternity, and even with a late repentance love pardons all. finis. oriental translation fund. new series. ii. the kadambari of bana. translated, with occasional omissions, and accompanied by a full abstract of the continuation of the romance by the author's son bhushanabhatta, by c. m. ridding, formerly scholar of girton college, cambridge. printed and published under the patronage of the royal asiatic society, and sold at , albemarle street, london. . to mrs. cowell, who first told me the story of kadambari, this translation is affectionately dedicated. 'anenakaranavishkritavatsalyena caritena kasya na bandhutvam adhyaropayasi.' introduction. [ ] the story of kadambari is interesting for several reasons. it is a standard example of classical prose; it has enjoyed a long popularity as a romance; and it is one of the comparatively few sanskrit works which can be assigned to a certain date, and so it can serve as a landmark in the history of indian literature and indian thought. the author. banabhatta, its author, lived in the reign of harshavardhana of thaneçar, the great king mentioned in many inscriptions, [ ] who extended his rule over the whole of northern india, and from whose reign (a.d. ) dates the harsha era, used in nepal. bana, as he tells us, both in the 'harsha-carita' and in the introductory verses of 'kadambari,' was a vatsyayana brahman. his mother died while he was yet young, and his father's tender care of him, recorded in the 'harsha-carita,' [ ] was doubtless in his memory as he recorded the unselfish love of vaiçampayana's father in 'kadambari' (p. ). in his youth he travelled much, and for a time 'came into reproach,' by reason of his unsettled life; but the experience gained in foreign lands turned his thoughts homewards, and he returned to his kin, and lived a life of quiet study in their midst. from this he was summoned to the court of king harsha, who at first received him coldly, but afterwards attached him to his service; and bana in the 'harsha-carita' relates his own life as a prelude to that of his master. the other works attributed to him are the 'candikaçataka,' [ ] or verses in honour of candika; a drama, 'the parvatiparinaya'; and another, called 'mukutataditaka,' the existence of which is inferred from gunavinayagani's commentary on the 'nalacampu.' professor peterson also mentions that a verse of bana's ('subhashitavali,' ) is quoted by kshemendra in his 'aucityavicaracarca,' with a statement that it is part of a description of kadambari's sorrow in the absence of candrapida, whence, he adds, 'it would seem that bana wrote the story of kadambari in verse as well as in prose,' and he gives some verses which may have come from such a work. bana himself died, leaving 'kadambari' unfinished, and his son bhushanabhatta took it up in the midst of a speech in which kadambari's sorrows are told, and continued the speech without a break, save for a few introductory verses in honour of his father, and in apology for his having undertaken the task, 'as its unfinished state was a grief to the good.' he continued the story on the same plan, and with careful, and, indeed, exaggerated, imitation of his father's style. the plot of kadambari. the story of 'kadambari' is a very complex one, dealing as it does with the lives of two heroes, each of whom is reborn twice on earth. ( - ) a learned parrot, named vaiçampayana, was brought by a candala maiden to king Çudraka, and told him how it was carried from its birthplace in the vindhya forest to the hermitage of the sage jabali, from whom it learnt the story of its former life. ( - ) jabali's story was as follows: tarapida, king of ujjayini, won by penance a son, candrapida, who was brought up with vaiçampayana, son of his minister, Çukanasa. in due time candrapida was anointed as crown prince, and started on an expedition of world-conquest. at the end of it he reached kailasa, and, while resting there, was led one day in a vain chase of a pair of kinnaras to the shores of the acchoda lake. ( - ) there he beheld a young ascetic maiden, mahaçveta, who told him how she, being a gandharva princess, had seen and loved a young brahman pundarika; how he, returning her feeling, had died from the torments of a love at variance with his vow; how a divine being had carried his body to the sky, and bidden her not to die, for she should be reunited with him; and how she awaited that time in a life of penance. ( - ) but her friend kadambari, another gandharva princess, had vowed not to marry while mahaçveta was in sorrow, and mahaçveta invited the prince to come to help her in dissuading kadambari from the rash vow. love sprang up between the prince and kadambari at first sight; but a sudden summons from his father took him to ujjayini without farewell, while kadambari, thinking herself deserted, almost died of grief. ( - ) meanwhile news came that his friend vaiçampayana, whom he had left in command of the army, had been strangely affected by the sight of the acchoda lake, and refused to leave it. the prince set out to find him, but in vain; and proceeding to the hermitage of mahaçveta, he found her in despair, because, in invoking on a young brahman, who had rashly approached her, a curse to the effect that he should become a parrot, she learnt that she had slain vaiçampayana. at her words the prince fell dead from grief, and at that moment kadambari came to the hermitage. ( - ) her resolve to follow him in death was broken by the promise of a voice from the sky that she and mahaçveta should both be reunited with their lovers, and she stayed to tend the prince's body, from which a divine radiance proceeded; while king tarapida gave up his kingdom, and lived as a hermit near his son. ( to end) such was jabali's tale; and the parrot went on to say how, hearing it, the memory of its former love for mahaçveta was reawakened, and, though bidden to stay in the hermitage, it flew away, only to be caught and taken to the candala princess. it was now brought by her to king Çudraka, but knew no more. the candala maiden thereupon declared to Çudraka that she was the goddess lakshmi, mother of pundarika or vaiçampayana, and announced that the curse for him and Çudraka was now over. then Çudraka suddenly remembered his love for kadambari, and wasted away in longing for her, while a sudden touch of kadambari restored to life the moon concealed in the body of candrapida, the form that he still kept, because in it he had won her love. now the moon, as candrapida and Çudraka, and pundarika, in the human and parrot shape of vaiçampayana, having both fulfilled the curse of an unsuccessful love in two births on earth, were at last set free, and, receiving respectively the hands of kadambari and mahaçveta, lived happily ever afterwards. the plot is involved, and consists of stories within each other after the fashion long familiar to europeans in the 'arabian nights'; but the author's skill in construction is shown by the fact that each of the minor stories is essential to the development of the plot, and it is not till quite the end that we see that Çudraka himself, the hearer of the story, is really the hero, and that his hearing the story is necessary to reawaken his love for kadambari, and so at the same time fulfil the terms of the curse that he should love in vain during two lives, and bring the second life to an end by his longing for reunion. it may help to make the plot clear if the threads of it are disentangled. the author in person tells all that happens to Çudraka (pp. - and pp. to end). the parrot's tale (pp. - ) includes that of jabali (pp. - ) concerning candrapida, and vaiçampayana the brahman, with the story told by mahaçveta (pp. - ) of her love for pundarika. the story as told in the katha-sarit-sagara. the story as told in the katha-sarit-sagara of somadeva [ ] differs in some respects from this. there a nishada princess brought to king sumanas a learned parrot, which told its life in the forest, ended by a hunt in which its father was killed, and the story of its past life narrated by the hermit agastya. in this story a prince, somaprabha, after an early life resembling that of candrapida, was led in his pursuit of kinnaras to an ascetic maiden, manorathaprabha, whose story is that of mahaçveta, and she took him, at his own request, to see the maiden makarandika, who had vowed not to marry while her friend was unwed. he was borne through the air by a vidyadhara, and beheld makarandika. they loved each other, and a marriage was arranged between them. the prince, however, was suddenly recalled by his father, and makarandika's wild grief brought on her from her parents a curse that she should be born as a nishada. too late they repented, and died of grief; and her father became a parrot, keeping from a former birth as a sage his memory of the Çastras, while her mother became a sow. pulastya added that the curse would be over when the story was told in a king's court. the parrot's tale reminded king sumanas of his former birth, and on the arrival of the ascetic maiden, sent by Çiva, 'who is merciful to all his worshippers,' he again became the young hermit she had loved. somaprabha, too, at Çiva's bidding, went to the king's court, and at the sight of him the nishada regained the shape of makarandika, and became his wife; while the parrot 'left the body of a bird, and went to the home earned by his asceticism.' 'thus,' the story ends, 'the appointed union of human beings certainly takes place in this world, though vast spaces intervene.' the main difference between the stories is in the persons affected by the curse; and here the artistic superiority of bana is shown in his not attaching the degrading forms of birth to kadambari or her parents. the horse is given as a present to the hero by indra, who sends him a message, saying: 'you are a vidyadhara, and i give you the horse in memory of our former friendship. when you mount it you will be invincible.' the hero's marriage is arranged before his sudden departure, so that the grief of the heroine is due only to their separation, and not to the doubts on which bana dwells so long. it appears possible that both this story and 'kadambari' are taken from a common original now lost, which may be the brihatkatha of gunadhya. [ ] in that case the greater refinement of bana's tale would be the result of genius giving grace to a story already familiar in a humbler guise. references to kadambari in the sahitya-darpana and elsewhere. the author of the sahitya-darpana [ ] speaks of the katha as follows: 'in the katha (tale), which is one of the species of poetical composition in prose, a poetical matter is represented in verse, and sometimes the arya, and sometimes the vaktra and apavaktraka are the metres employed in it. it begins with stanzas in salutation to some divinity, as also descriptive of the behaviour of bad men and others.' to this the commentary adds: 'the "kadambari" of banabhatta is an example.' professor peterson corrects the translation of the words 'kathayam sarasam vastu padyair eva vinirmitam,' giving as their sense, 'a narration in prose, with here and there a stray verse or two, of matter already existing in a metrical form.' [ ] according to his rendering, the katha is in its essence a story claiming to be based on previous works in verse, whether in this case the original were bana's own metrical version of 'kadambari,' [ ] or the work which was also the original of the katha-sarit-sagara story. the story of pundarika and mahaçveta receives mention, firstly, for the introduction of death, contrary to the canon; secondly, for the determination of the nature of their sorrow, and its poetic quality, and consequent appeal to the feelings of the reader. firstly: (§ ) 'death, which is a condition to which one may be brought by love, is not described in poetry and the drama, where the other conditions, such as anxiety, etc., are constantly described, because it, instead of enhancing, causes the destruction of "flavour." [ ] but it may be spoken of ( ) as having nearly taken place, or ( ) as being mentally wished for; and it is with propriety described ( ) if there is to be, at no distant date, a restoration to life.' the commentary takes the story of pundarika as an example of the third condition, and describes it as a 'case of pathetic separation.' secondly: (§ ) 'either of two young lovers being dead, and being yet to be regained through some supernatural interposition, when the one left behind is sorrowful, then let it be called the separation of tender sadness' (karunavipralamhha). the commentary gives mahaçveta as the instance, and continues: 'but if the lost one be not regainable, or regainable only after transmigration in another body, the flavour is called the "pathetic" simply, there being in this case no room for any admixture of the "erotic"; but in the case just mentioned--of pundarika and mahaçveta--immediately on sarasvati's declaration from the sky that the lovers should be reunited, there is the "erotic in its form of tender sadness," for desire arises on the expectation of reunion, but previously to sarasvati's promise there was the "pathetic"; such is the opinion of the competent authorities. and as for what some say in regard to the case of pundarika and mahaçveta, that "moreover after the expectation of reunion, excited by sarasvati's promise to that effect, there is merely your honour's variety of "love in absence," (§ ) the one which you call "being abroad" (§ )--others hold it to be distinct, because of the presence of that distinction, death, which is something else than merely being abroad.' these are the passages in which direct mention is made of 'kadambari,' and in § , which defines special mention (parisamkhya) as taking place 'when something is affirmed for the denial, expressed or understood, of something else similar to it,' the commentary adds: 'when founded upon a paronomasia, it is peculiarly striking, e.g., "when that king, the conqueror of the world, was protecting the earth, the mixture of colours (or castes) was in painting, etc.,"--a passage from the description of Çudraka in "kadambari" (p. ).' references to bana in other works are given by professor peterson, so that three only need be mentioned here. the first i owe to the kindness of professor c. bendall. in a collection of manuscripts at the british museum (or., - ) 'consisting chiefly of law-books transcribed (perhaps for some european) on european paper in the telugu-canarese character,' one, or., c., the kamandakiya-niti-Çastra, contains on folios - a passage from 'kadambari' (pp. - , infra) [ ] on the consecration of a crown-prince, and the duties and dangers of a king. it forms part of an introduction to the kamandakiya-niti-Çastra and occurs without any hint of its being a quotation from another work. the author of the nalacampu not only writes a verse in honour of bana, [ ] but models his whole style upon him. a curious instance of the long popularity of 'kadambari' is that in the 'durgeçanandini' by chattaji, an historical novel, published in , and treating of the time of akbar, the heroine is represented as reading in her boudoir the romance of 'kadambari.' [ ] the interest of 'kadambari.' it may be asked what is the value of 'kadambari' for european readers? and to different persons the answer will doubtless be different. historical interest, so far as that depends on the narration of historical facts, appears to be entirely lacking, though it may be that at some future time our knowledge from other sources may be so increased that we may recognise portraits and allusions in what seems now purely a work of romance. but in the wider sense in which history claims to deal with the social ideas that belong to any epoch, 'kadambari' will always have value as representing the ways of thinking and feeling which were either customary or welcome at its own time, and which have continued to charm indian readers. it is indeed true that it probably in many ways does not give a picture of contemporary manners, just as a mediæval illuminated manuscript often represents the dress and surroundings prior to the time of the illuminator, so as to gain the grace of remoteness bestowed by reverence for the past. in india, where change works but slowly, the description of the court and city life, where all the subjects show by outward tokens their sympathy with the joys and sorrows of their ruler, as in a greek chorus, is vivid in its fidelity. [ ] the quiet yet busy life of the hermits in the forest, where the day is spent in worship and in peaceful toils, where at eve the sunbeams 'linger like birds on the crest of hill and tree,' and where night 'darkens all save the hearts of the hermits,' is full of charm. [ ] the coronation of the crown prince, the penances performed by the queen to win a son, the reverence paid to mahakala, also belong to our picture of the time. the description of ujjayini, surrounded by the sipra, is too general in its terms to give a vivid notion of what it then was. the site of the temple of mahakala is still shown outside the ruins of the old town. a point of special interest is the argument against the custom of suicide on the death of a friend. candrapida consoles mahaçveta that she has not followed her lover in death by saying that one who kills himself at his friend's death makes that friend a sharer in the guilt, and can do no more for him in another world, whereas by living he can give help by sacrifices and offerings. those, too, who die may not be reunited for thousands of births. in the 'katha-koça' [ ] a prince is dissuaded from following his wife to death because 'even the idea of union with your beloved will be impossible when you are dead'; but the occurrence of the idea in a romance is more noteworthy than in a work which illustrates jain doctrines. the question of food as affected by caste is touched on also (p. ), when the candala maiden tells the parrot that a brahman may, in case of need, receive food of any kind, and that water poured on the ground, and fruit, are pure even when brought by the lowest. another point to be remarked is the mention of followers of many sects as being present at court. Çiva, especially under the name of mahakala at ujjayini, receives special worship, and agni and the matrikas (p. ) also receive reverence. the zenanas include aged ascetic women (p. ); followers of the arhat, krishna, viçravasa, avalokiteçvara, and viriñca (p. ); and the courtyard of Çukanasa has Çaivas and followers of Çakyamuni (p. ), also kshapanakas (explained by the commentary as digambaras). the king, [ ] however, is described as having an urna (the hair meeting between the brows), which is one of buddha's marks; but the commentary describes the urna as cakravartiprabhritinam eva nanyasya, so probably it only belongs to buddha as cakravarti, or universal ruler. this shows that the reign of harsha was one of religious tolerance. hiouen thsang, indeed, claims him as a buddhist at heart, and mentions his building buddhist stupas, [ ] but he describes himself as a Çaiva in the madhuban grant, [ ] and the preeminence yielded in 'kadambari' to Çiva certainly shows that his was then the popular worship. another source of interest in 'kadambari' lies in its contribution to folklore. it may perhaps contain nothing not found elsewhere, but the fact of its having a date gives it a value. the love of snakes for the breeze and for sandal-trees, the truth of dreams at the end of night, the magic circles, bathing in snake-ponds to gain a son, the mustard-seed and ghi put in a baby's mouth, may all be familiar ideas, but we have a date at which they were known and not despised. does the appeal to the truth of her heart by mahaçveta in invoking the curse (p. ) rest on the idea that fidelity to a husband confers supernatural power, [ ] or is it like the 'act of truth' by which buddha often performs miracles in the 'jataka'? the style of 'kadambari.' the unsettled chronology of indian literature makes it impossible to work out at present bana's relations with other sanskrit writers. professor peterson, [ ] indeed, makes some interesting conjectures as to his connection with other authors of his own country, and also suggests, from similarity of phrase, that he may have fallen indirectly under the influence of alexandrian literature. be that as it may, he has been for many centuries a model of style, and it is therefore worth while to consider briefly the characteristics of his style compared with european standards. the first thing that strikes the reader is that the sense of proportion, the very foundation of style as we know it, is entirely absent. no topic is let go till the author can squeeze no more from it. in descriptions every possible minor detail is given in all its fulness; then follows a series of similes, and then a firework of puns. in speeches, be they lamentations or exhortations, grief is not assuaged, nor advice ended, till the same thing has been uttered with every existing variety of synonym. this defect, though it springs from the author's richness of resource and readiness of wit, makes the task of rendering in english the merit of the sanskrit style an impossible one. it gives also a false impression; for to us a long description, if good, gives the effect of 'sweetness long drawn out,' and, if bad, brings drowsiness; whereas in sanskrit the unending compounds suggest the impetuous rush of a torrent, and the similes and puns are like the play of light and shade on its waters. bana, according to professor weber, [ ] 'passes for the special representative of the pañcali style,' [ ] which bhoja, quoted in the commentary of the 'sahitya-darpana,' defines as 'a sweet and soft style characterized by force (ojas) and elegance (kanti), containing compounds of five or six words.' but style, which is to poetic charm as the body to the soul, varies with the sense to be expressed, and bana in many of his speeches is perfectly simple and direct. owing to the peacefulness of 'kadambari,' there is little opportunity for observing the rule that in the 'katha' letters 'ought not to be too rough, even when the flavour is furious.' [ ] of the alliteration of initial consonants, the only long passage is in the description of Çukanasa (p. ), but in its subtler forms it constantly occurs. of shorter passages there are several examples--e.g., candra candala (infra, p. ); candrapida candalo (sanskrit text, p. ); utkantham sotkantham kanthe jagraha (ibid., p. ); kamam sakamam kuryam (ibid., p. ); candrapida pidanaya (ibid., p. ). the ornament of çlesha, or paronomasia, which seems to arise from the untrained philological instinct of mankind seeking the fundamental identity of like sounds with apparently unlike meaning, and which lends dramatic intensity when, as sometimes in shakespeare, [ ] a flash of passionate feeling reveals to the speaker an original sameness of meaning in words seemingly far apart, is by bana used purely as an adornment. he speaks of pleasant stories interwoven with puns 'as jasmine garlands with campak buds,' and they abound in his descriptions. the rasanopama, [ ] or girdle of similes, is exemplified (p. ), 'as youth to beauty, love to youth, spring to love' so was kapiñjala to pundarika. vishamam (incongruity) is the figure used in 'the brightness of his glory, free from heat, consumed his foes; constant, ever roamed' (p. ). it can scarcely be separated from virodha (contradiction)--often used, as in 'i will allay on the funeral pyre the fever which the moon, sandal, and all cool things have increased' (p. )--or from vicitram [ ] (strangeness), where an act is contrary to its apparent purpose: 'there lives not the man whom the virtues of the most courteous lady kadambari do not discourteously enslave' (p. ). arthapatti [ ] (a fortiori conclusion) is exemplified in 'even the senseless trees, robed in bark, seem like fellow-ascetics of this holy man. how much more, then, living beings endowed with sense!' (p. ). time and space would alike fail for analysis of bana's similes according to the rules of the 'sahitya-darpana.' [ ] the author of the 'raghavapandaviya' considers subandhu and bana as his only equals in vakrokti, or crooked speech, and the fault of a 'meaning to be guessed out' ('sahitya-darpana,' § ) is not rare. the 'kavya-prakaça,' in addition to the references given by professor peterson, quotes a stanza describing a horse in the 'harsha-carita' (chap. iii.) as an example of svabhavokti. the hero belongs to the division described as the high-spirited, but temperate and firm ('sahitya-darpana,' § ), i.e., he who is 'not given to boasting, placable, very profound, with great self-command, resolute, whose self-esteem is concealed, and faithful to his engagements,' and who has the 'eight manly qualities' of 'brilliancy, vivacity, sweetness of temper, depth of character, steadfastness, keen sense of honour, gallantry, and magnanimity' (ibid., § ). kadambari is the type of the youthful heroine who feels love for the first time, is shy, and gentle even in indignation (ibid., § ). the companions of each are also those declared in the books of rhetoric to be appropriate. literary parallels. the work which most invites comparison with 'kadambari' is one far removed from it in place and time--spenser's 'faerie queene.' both have in great measure the same faults and the same virtues. the lack of proportion,--due partly to too large a plan, partly to an imagination wandering at will--the absence of visualization--which in spenser produces sometimes a line like 'a lovely ladie rode him faire beside upon a lowly asse more white then snow, yet she much whiter,' and in bana many a description like that of mahaçveta's fairness (pp. - )--the undiscriminating praise bestowed on those whom they would fain honour, the shadowy nature of many of their personages, and the intricacies in which the story loses itself, are faults common to both. both, too, by a strange coincidence, died with their work unfinished. but if they have the same faults, they have also many of the same virtues. the love of what is beautiful and pure both in character and the world around, tenderness of heart, a gentle spirit troubled by the disquiet of life, [ ] grace and sweetness of style, and idyllic simplicity, are common to both. though, however, candrapida may have the chivalry and reverence of the red cross knight, and una share with kadambari or rohini 'nobility, tenderness, loftiness of soul, devotion and charm,' [ ] the english hero and heroine are more real and more strenuous. we are, indeed, told in one hurried sentence of the heroic deeds of candrapida in his world-conquest, and his self-control and firmness are often insisted on; but as he appears throughout the book, his self-control is constantly broken down by affection or grief, and his firmness destroyed by a timid balancing of conflicting duties, while his real virtue is his unfailing gentleness and courtesy. nor could kadambari, like una, bid him, in any conflict, 'add faith unto your force, and be not faint.' she is, perhaps, in youth and entire self-surrender, more like shakespeare's juliet, but she lacks her courage and resolve. the purpose of 'kadambari.' the likeness of spirit between these two leads to the question, had bana, like spenser, any purpose, ethical or political, underlying his story? on the surface it is pure romance, and it is hard to believe that he had any motive but the simple delight of self-expression and love for the children of his own imagination. he only claims to tell a story 'tender with the charm of gracious speech, that comes of itself, like a bride, to the possession of its lord'; [ ] but it may be that he gladly gathered up in old age the fruits of his life's experience, and that his own memory of his father's tenderness to his childhood, of the temptations of youth, and of the dangers of prosperity and flattery that assail the heart of kings, was not used only to adorn a tale, but to be a guide to others on the perilous path of life. be that as it may, the interest of 'kadambari,' like that of the 'faerie queene,' does not depend for us now on any underlying purpose, but on the picture it presents in itself of the life and thought of a world removed in time, but not in sympathy, from our own; on the fresh understanding it gives of those who are in the widest sense our fellow-countrymen; and on the charm, to quote the beautiful words of professor peterson, 'of a story of human sorrow and divine consolation, of death and the passionate longing for a union after death, that goes straight from the heart of one who had himself felt the pang, and nursed the hope, to us who are of like frame with him ... the story which from the beginning of time mortal ears have yearned to hear, but which mortal lips have never spoken.' the plan of the translation. the translation of bana presents much difficulty from the elaboration of his style, and it has been a specially hard task, and sometimes an impossible one, to give any rendering of the constant play on words in which he delights. i have sometimes endeavoured to give what might be an english equivalent, and in such cases i have added in a note the literal meaning of both alternatives; perhaps too much freedom may have been used, and sometimes also the best alternative may not have been chosen to place in the text; but those who have most experience will know how hard it is to do otherwise than fail. some long descriptions have been omitted, such, e.g., as a passage of several pages describing how the dust rose under the feet of candrapida's army, and others where there seemed no special interest or variety to redeem their tediousness. a list of these omissions [ ] is given at the end, together with an appendix, in which a few passages, chiefly interesting as mentioning religious sects, are added. i have acted on professor cowell's advice as to the principle on which omissions are made, as also in giving only a full abstract, and not a translation, of the continuation of 'kadambari' by bhushana. it is so entirely an imitation of his father's work in style, with all his faults, and without the originality that redeems them, that it would not reward translation. in my abstract i have kept the direct narration as more simple, but even when passages are given rather fully, it does not profess in any case to be more than a very free rendering; sometimes only the sense of a whole passage is summed up. i regret that the system of transliteration approved by the royal asiatic society came too late for adoption here. the edition of 'kadambari' to which the references in the text are given is that of the nirnaya-sagara press (bombay, ), which the full commentary makes indispensable, but i have also throughout made use of professor peterson's edition (bombay sanskrit series, no. xxiv.). for the last half of the second part [ ] i have referred to an anonymous literal translation, published by the new britannia press depository, , amherst street, calcutta. i have now to offer my grateful thanks to the secretary of state for india, without whose kind help the volume could not have been published. i have also to thank miss c. m. duff for allowing me to use the ms. of her 'indian chronology'; miss e. dale, of girton college, for botanical notes, which i regret that want of space prevented my printing in full; mr. c. tawney, librarian of the indian office, for information as to the sources of indian fiction; mr. f. f. arbuthnot and professor rhys-davids, for valuable advice; professor c. bendall, for his description of the kamandakiya-niti-Çastra, and his constant kindness about my work; mr. f. w. thomas, of trinity college, for letting me see the proof-sheets of the translation of the 'harsha carita'; and others for suggested renderings of difficult phrases, and for help of various kinds. but especially my thanks are due to professor cowell [ ] for a generosity and unwearied helpfulness which all his pupils know, and which perhaps few but they could imagine. i read through with him the whole of the first part before translating it myself, so that mistakes in the translation, many as they may be, can arise only from misunderstanding on my part, from too great freedom of rendering, or from failing to have recourse to the knowledge he so freely gives. 'vrihatsahayah karyantam kshodiyanapi gacchati; sambhuyambodhim abhyeti mahanadya nagapaga.' kadambari. ( ) hail to the birthless, the cause of creation, continuance, and destruction, triple [ ] in form and quality, who shows activity in the birth of things, goodness in their continuance, and darkness in their destruction. ( ) glory to the dust of tryambaka's feet, caressed by the diadem of the demon bana [ ]; even that dust that kisses the circle of ravana's ten crest-gems, that rests on the crests of the lords of gods and demons, and that destroys our transitory life. ( ) glory to vishnu, who, resolving to strike from afar, with but a moment's glance from his wrath-inflamed eye stained the breast of his enemy, as if it had burst of itself in terror. i salute the lotus feet of bhatsu, [ ] honoured by crowned maukharis: the feet which have their tawny toes rubbed on a footstool made by the united crowns of neighbouring kings. who is there that fears not the wicked, pitiless in causeless enmity; in whose mouth calumny hard to bear is always ready as the poison of a serpent? the wicked, like fetters, echo harshly, wound deeply, and leave a scar; while the good, like jewelled anklets, ever charm the mind with sweet sounds. ( ) in a bad man gentle words sink no deeper than the throat, like nectar swallowed by rahu. the good man bears them constantly on his heart, as hari his pure gem. a story tender with the charm of gracious speech, creates in the heart joy full of fresh interest [ ]; and it comes of itself, with native feeling, to its lord's possession, like a fresh bride. [ ] who is not carried captive by tales fashioned in freshness of speech, all alight with similes, and the lamps of glowing words [ ]: pleasant tales interwoven with many a contrast of words, [ ] as jasmine garlands with campak buds? there was once a brahman, kuvera by name, sprung from the race of vatsyayana, sung throughout the world for his virtue, a leader of the good: his lotus feet were worshipped by many a gupta, and he seemed a very portion of brahma. ( ) on his mouth sarasvati ever dwelt: for in it all evil was stilled by the veda; it had lips purified by sacrificial cake, and a palate bitter with soma, and it was pleasant with smriti and çastra. in his house frightened boys, as they repeated verses of the yajur and sama veda, were chidden at every word by caged parrots and mainas, who were thoroughly versed in everything belonging to words. from him was born arthapati, a lord of the twice-born, as hiranyagarbha from the world-egg, the moon from the milky ocean, or garuda from vinata. as he unfolded his spreading discourse day by day at dawn, new troops of pupils, intent on listening, [ ] gave him a new glory, like fresh sandal-shoots fixed on the ear. ( ) with countless sacrifices adorned with gifts duly offered, [ ] having glowing mahavira fires in their midst, [ ] and raising the sacrificial posts as their hands, [ ] he won easily, as if with a troop of elephants, the abode of the gods. he in due course obtained a son, citrabhanu, who amongst his other noble and glorious sons, all versed in çruti and çastra, shone as crystal, like kailasa among mountains. the virtues of that noble man, reaching far and gleaming bright as a digit of the moon, yet without its spot, pierced deep even into the hearts of his foes, like the budding claws of nrisimha (vishnu). the dark smoke of many a sacrifice rose like curls on the brow of the goddesses of the sky; or like shoots of tamala on the ear of the bride, the threefold veda, and only made his own glory shine more bright. from him was born a son, bana, when the drops that rose from the fatigue of the soma sacrifice were wiped from his brow by the folded lotus hands of sarasvati, and when the seven worlds had been illuminated by the rays of his glory. ( ) by that brahman, albeit with a mind keeping even in his unspoken words its original dullness blinded by the darkness of its own utter folly, and simple from having never gained the charm of ready wit, this tale, surpassing the other two, [ ] was fashioned, even kadambari. there was once upon a time a king named Çudraka. like a second indra, he had his commands honoured by the bent heads of all kings; he was lord of the earth girt in by the four oceans; he had an army of neighbouring chiefs bowed down in loyalty to his majesty; he had the signs of a universal emperor; ( ) like vishnu, his lotus-hand bore the sign of the conch and the quoit; like Çiva, he had overcome love; like kartikeya, he was unconquerable in might [ ]; like brahma, he had the circle of great kings humbled [ ]; like the ocean, he was the source of lakshmi; like the stream of ganges, he followed in the course of the pious king bhagiratha; like the sun, he rose daily in fresh splendour; like meru, the brightness of his foot was honoured by all the world; like the elephant of the quarters, [ ] he constantly poured forth a stream of generosity. he was a worker of wonders, an offerer of sacrifices, a mirror of moral law, a source of the arts, a native home of virtue; a spring of the ambrosial sweetness of poetry, a mountain of sunrise to all his friends, [ ] and a direful comet to all his foes. ( ) he was, moreover, a founder of literary societies, a refuge for men of taste, a rejecter of haughty bowholders, a leader among the bold, a chief among the wise. he was a cause of gladness to the humble, as vainateya [ ] was to vinata. he rooted up with the point of his bow the boundary-mountains of his foes as prithuraja did the noble mountains. he mocked krishna, also, for while the latter made his boast of his man-lion form, he himself smote down the hearts of his foes by his very name, and while krishna wearied the universe with his three steps, he subdued the whole world by one heroic effort. glory long dwelt on the watered edge of his sword, as if to wash off the stain of contact with a thousand base chieftains, which had clung to her too long. by the indwelling of dharma in his mind, yama in his wrath, kuvera in his kindness, agni in his splendour, earth in his arm, lakshmi in his glance, sarasvati in his eloquence, ( ) the moon in his face, the wind in his might, brihaspati in his knowledge, love in his beauty, the sun in his glory, he resembled holy narayana, whose nature manifests every form, and who is the very essence of deity. royal glory came to him once for all, like a woman coming to meet her lover, on the nights of battle stormy with the showers of ichor from the elephants' temples, and stood by him in the midst of the darkness of thousands of coats of mail, loosened from the doors of the breasts of warriors. she seemed to be drawn irresistibly by his sword, which was uneven in its edge, by reason of the drops of water forced out by the pressure of his strong hand, and which was decked with large pearls clinging to it when he clove the frontal bones of wild elephants. the flame of his majesty burnt day and night, as if it were a fire within his foes' fair wives, albeit reft of their lords, as if he would destroy the husbands now only enshrined in their hearts. ( ) while he, having subdued the earth, was guardian of the world, the only mixing of colour [ ] was in painting; the only pulling of hair in caresses; the only strict fetters in the laws of poetry; the only care was concerning moral law; the only deception was in dreams; the only golden rods [ ] were in umbrellas. banners alone trembled; songs alone showed variations [ ]; elephants alone were rampant; [ ] bows alone had severed cords; [ ] lattice windows alone had ensnaring network; lovers' disputes alone caused sending of messengers; dice and chessmen alone left empty squares; and his subjects had no deserted homes. under him, too, there was only fear of the next world, only twisting in the curls of the zenana women, only loquacity in anklets, only taking the hand [ ] in marriage, only shedding of tears from the smoke of ceaseless sacrificial fires; the only sound of the lash was for horses, while the only twang of the bow was love's. ( ) when the thousand-rayed sun, bursting open the young lotus-buds, had not long risen, though it had lost somewhat of the pinkness of dawn, a portress approached the king in his hall of audience, and humbly addressed him. her form was lovely, yet awe-inspiring, and with the scimitar (a weapon rarely worn by women) hanging at her left side, was like a sandal-tree girt by a snake. her bosom glistened with rich sandal ointment like the heavenly ganges when the frontal-bone of airavata rises from its waters. ( ) the chiefs bent before her seemed, by her reflection on their crests, to bear her on their foreheads as a royal command in human form. like autumn, [ ] she was robed in the whiteness of hamsas; like the blade of paraçurama she held the circle of kings in submission; like the forest land of the vindhyas, she bore her wand, [ ] and she seemed the very guardian-goddess of the realm. placing on the ground her lotus hand and knee, she thus spake: 'sire, there stands at the gate a candala maiden from the south, a royal glory of the race of that triçamku [ ] who climbed the sky, but fell from it at the murmur of wrathful indra. she bears a parrot in a cage, and bids me thus hail your majesty: "sire, thou, like the ocean, art alone worthy to receive the treasures of the whole earth. in the thought that this bird is a marvel, and the treasure of the whole earth, i bring it to lay at thy feet, and desire to behold thee." ( ) thou, king, hast heard her message, and must decide!' so saying, she ended her speech. the king, whose curiosity was aroused, looked at the chiefs around him, and with the words 'why not? bid her enter?' gave his permission. then the portress, immediately on the king's order, ushered in the candala maiden. and she entered and beheld the king in the midst of a thousand chiefs, like golden-peaked meru in the midst of the noble mountains crouching together in fear of indra's thunderbolt; or, in that the brightness of the jewels scattered on his dress almost concealed his form, like a day of storm, whereon the eight quarters of the globe are covered by indra's thousand bows. he was sitting on a couch studded with moon-stones, beneath a small silken canopy, white as the foam of the rivers of heaven, with its four jewel-encrusted pillars joined by golden chains, and enwreathed with a rope of large pearls. many cowries with golden handles waved around him; ( ) his left foot rested on a footstool of crystal that was like the moon bent in humiliation before the flashing beauty of his countenance, and was adorned by the brightness of his feet, which yet were tinged with blue from the light rays of the sapphire pavement, as though darkened by the sighs of his conquered foes. his breast, crimsoned by the rubies which shone on his throne, recalled krishna, red with blood from the fresh slaughter of madhukaitabha; his two silken garments, white as the foam of ambrosia, with pairs of hamsas painted in yellow on their hem, waved in the wind raised by the cowries; the fragrant sandal unguent with which his chest was whitened, besprinkled with saffron ointment, was like snowy kailasa with the early sunshine upon it; his face was encircled by pearls like stars mistaking it for the moon; the sapphire bracelets that clasped his arms were as a threat of chains to bind fickle fortune, or as snakes attracted by the smell of sandal-wood; ( ) the lotus in his ear hung down slightly; his nose was aquiline, his eyes were like lotuses in full blossom, the hair grew in a circle between his brows, and was purified by the waters that inaugurated his possession of universal rule; his forehead was like a piece of the eighth-day moon made into a block of pure gold, garlanded with sweet jasmine, like the western mountain in the dawn with the stars growing pale on its brow. he was like the god of love when struck by Çiva's fire, for his body was tawny from the colour of his ornaments. his hand-maidens surrounded him, as if they were the goddesses of the quarters of the globe come to worship him; the earth bore him, as on her heart, through loyalty, in the reflection of his image in her clear mosaic pavement; fortune seemed his alone, though by him she was given to all to enjoy. ( ) he was without a second, though his followers were without number; he trusted only to his own sword, though he had countless elephants and horses in his retinue; he filled the whole earth, though he stood in a small space of ground; he rested only on his bow, and yet was seated on his throne; he shone with the flame of majesty, though all the fuel of his enemies was uprooted; he had large eyes, and yet saw the smallest things; he was the home of all virtues, and yet was overreaching; [ ] he was beloved of his wives, and yet was a despotic lord; he was free from intoxication, though he had an unfailing stream of bounty; he was fair in nature, yet in conduct a krishna; [ ] he laid no heavy hand [ ] on his subjects, and yet the whole world rested in his grasp. such was this king. and she yet afar beholding him, with a hand soft as the petal of a red lotus, and surrounded by a tinkling bracelet, and clasping the bamboo with its end jagged, ( ) struck once on the mosaic floor to arouse the king; and at the sound, in a moment the whole assemblage of chiefs turned their eyes from the king to her, like a herd of wild elephants at the falling of the cocoanut. then the king, with the words, 'look yonder,' to his suite, gazed steadily upon the candala maiden, as she was pointed out by the portress. before her went a man, whose hair was hoary with age, whose eyes were the colour of the red lotus, whose joints, despite the loss of youth, were firm from incessant labour, whose form, though that of a matanga, was not to be despised, and who wore the white raiment meet for a court. behind her went a candala boy, with locks falling on either shoulder, bearing a cage, the bars of which, though of gold, shone like emerald from the reflection of the parrot's plumage. ( ) she herself seemed by the darkness of her hue to imitate krishna when he guilefully assumed a woman's attire to take away the amrita seized by the demons. she was, as it were, a doll of sapphire walking alone; and over the blue garment, which reached to her ankle, there fell a veil of red silk, like evening sunshine falling on blue lotuses. the circle of her cheek was whitened by the earring that hung from one ear, like the face of night inlaid with the rays of the rising moon; she had a tawny tilaka of gorocana, as if it were a third eye, like parvati in mountaineer's attire, after the fashion of the garb of Çiva. she was like Çri, darkened by the sapphire glory of narayana reflected on the robe on her breast; or like rati, stained by smoke which rose as madana was burnt by the fire of wrathful Çiva; or like yamuna, fleeing in fear of being drawn along by the ploughshare of wild balarama; or, from the rich lac that turned her lotus feet into budding shoots, like durga, with her feet crimsoned by the blood of the asura mahisha she had just trampled upon. ( ) her nails were rosy from the pink glow of her fingers; the mosaic pavement seemed too hard for her touch, and she came forward, placing her feet like tender twigs upon the ground. the rays of her anklets, rising in flame-colour, seemed to encircle her as with the arms of agni, as though, by his love for her beauty, he would purify the stain of her birth, and so set the creator at naught. her girdle was like the stars wreathed on the brow of the elephant of love; and her necklace was a rope of large bright pearls, like the stream of ganga just tinged by yamuna. like autumn, she opened her lotus eyes; like the rainy season, she had cloudy tresses; like the circle of the malaya hills, she was wreathed with sandal; ( ) like the zodiac, she was decked with starry gems; [ ] like Çri, she had the fairness of a lotus in her hand; like a swoon, she entranced the heart; like a forest, she was endowed with living [ ] beauty; like the child of a goddess, she was claimed by no tribe; [ ] like sleep, she charmed the eyes; as a lotus-pool in a wood is troubled by elephants, so was she dimmed by her matanga [ ] birth; like a spirit, she might not be touched; like a letter, she gladdened the eyes alone; like the blossoms of spring, she lacked the jati flower; [ ] her slender waist, like the line of love's bow, could be spanned by the hands; with her curly hair, she was like the lakshmi of the yaksha king in alaka. [ ] she had but reached the flower of her youth, and was beautiful exceedingly. and the king was amazed; and the thought arose in his mind, ( ) 'ill-placed was the labour of the creator in producing this beauty! for if she has been created as though in mockery of her candala form, such that all the world's wealth of loveliness is laughed to scorn by her own, why was she born in a race with which none can mate? surely by thought alone did prajapati create her, fearing the penalties of contact with the matanga race, else whence this unsullied radiance, a grace that belongs not to limbs sullied by touch? moreover, though fair in form, by the baseness of her birth, whereby she, like a lakshmi of the lower world, is a perpetual reproach to the gods, [ ] she, lovely as she is, causes fear in brahma, the maker of so strange a union.' while the king was thus thinking the maiden, garlanded with flowers, that fell over her ears, bowed herself before him with a confidence beyond her years. and when she had made her reverence and stepped on to the mosaic floor, her attendant, taking the parrot, which had just entered the cage, advanced a few steps, and, showing it to the king, said: 'sire, this parrot, by name vaiçampayana, knows the meaning of all the çastras, is expert in the practice of royal policy, ( ) skilled in tales, history, and puranas, and acquainted with songs and with musical intervals. he recites, and himself composes graceful and incomparable modern romances, love-stories, plays, and poems, and the like; he is versed in witticisms, and is an unrivalled disciple of the vina, flute, and drum. he is skilled in displaying the different movements of dancing, dextrous in painting, very bold in play, ready in resources to calm a maiden angered in a lover's quarrel, and familiar with the characteristics of elephants, horses, men, and women. he is the gem of the whole earth; and in the thought that treasures belong to thee, as pearls to the ocean, the daughter of my lord has brought him hither to thy feet, o king! let him be accepted as thine.' having thus said, he laid the cage before the king and retired. ( ) and when he was gone, the king of birds, standing before the king, and raising his right foot, having uttered the words, 'all hail!' recited to the king, in a song perfect in the enunciation of each syllable and accent, a verse [ ] to this effect: 'the bosoms of your foemen's queens now mourn, keeping a fast of widowed solitude, bathed in salt tears, of pearl-wreaths all forlorn, scorched by their sad hearts' too close neighbourhood.' and the king, having heard it, was amazed, and joyfully addressed his minister kumarapalita, who sat close to him on a costly golden throne, like brihaspati in his mastery of political philosophy, aged, of noble birth, first in the circle of wise councillors: 'thou hast heard the bird's clear enunciation of consonants, and the sweetness of his intonation. this, in the first place, is a great marvel, that he should raise a song in which the syllables are clearly separated; and there is a combination of correctness with clearness in the vowels and anunasikas. ( ) then, again, we had something more than that: for in him, though a lower creation, are found the accomplishments, as it were, of a man, in a pleasurable art, and the course of his song is inspired by knowledge. for it was he who, with the cry, "all hail!" straightened his right foot and sang this song concerning me, whereas, generally, birds and beasts are only skilled in the science of fearing, eating, pairing, and sleeping. this is most wonderful.' and when the king had said this, kumarapalita, with a slight smile, replied: 'where is the wonder? for all kinds of birds, beginning with the parrot and the maina, repeat a sound once heard, as thou, o king, knowest; so it is no wonder that exceeding skill is produced either by the efforts of men, or in consequence of perfection gained in a former birth. moreover, they formerly possessed a voice like that of men, with clear utterance. the indistinct speech of parrots, as well as the change in elephants' tongues, arose from a curse of agni.' hardly had he thus spoken when there arose the blast of the mid-day conch, following the roar of the drum distinctly struck at the completion of the hour, and announcing that the sun had reached the zenith. ( ) and, hearing this, the king dismissed his band of chiefs, as the hour for bathing was at hand, and arose from his hall of audience. then, as he started, the great chiefs thronged together as they rose, tearing their silk raiment with the leaf-work of their bracelets, as it fell from its place in the hurried movement. their necklaces were swinging with the shock; the quarters of space were made tawny by showers of fragrant sandal-powder and saffron scattered from their limbs in their restlessness; the bees arose in swarms from their garlands of malati flowers, all quivering; their cheeks were caressed by the lotuses in their ears, half hanging down; their strings of pearls were trembling on their bosoms--each longed in his self-consciousness to pay his respects to the king as he departed. the hall of audience was astir on all sides with the sound of the anklets of the cowrie bearers as they disappeared in all directions, bearing the cowries on their shoulders, their gems tinkling at every step, broken by the cry of the kalahamsas, eager to drink the lotus honey; ( ) with the pleasant music of the jewelled girdles and wreaths of the dancing-girls coming to pay their respects as they struck their breast and sides; with the cries of the kalahamsas of the palace lake, which, charmed by the sound of the anklets, whitened the broad steps of the hall of audience; with the voices of the tame cranes, eager for the sound of the girdles, screaming more and more with a prolonged outcry, like the scratching of bell-metal; with the heavy tramp on the floor of the hall of audience struck by the feet of a hundred neighbouring chiefs suddenly departing, which seemed to shake the earth like a hurricane; with the cry of 'look!' from the wand-bearing ushers, who were driving the people in confusion before them, and shouting loudly, yet good-naturedly, 'behold!' long and shrill, resounding far by its echo in the bowers of the palace; ( ) with the ringing of the pavement as it was scratched by the points of diadems with their projecting aigrettes, as the kings swiftly bent till their trembling crest-gems touched the ground; with the tinkling of the earrings as they rang on the hard mosaic in their owners' obeisance; with the space-pervading din of the bards reciting auspicious verses, and coming forward with the pleasant continuous cry, 'long life and victory to our king!'; with the hum of the bees as they rose up leaving the flowers, by reason of the turmoil of the hundreds of departing feet; with the clash of the jewelled pillars on which the gems were set jangling from being struck by the points of the bracelets as the chieftains fell hastily prostrate in their confusion. the king then dismissed the assembled chiefs, saying, 'rest awhile'; and after saying to the candala maiden, 'let vaiçampayana be taken into the inner apartments,' and giving the order to his betel-nut bearer, he went, accompanied by a few favourite princes, to his private apartments. there, laying aside his adornments, like the sun divested of his rays, or the sky bare of moon and stars, he entered the hall of exercise, where all was duly prepared. having taken pleasant exercise therein with the princes of his own age, ( ) he then entered the bathing-place, which was covered with a white canopy, surrounded by the verses of many a bard. it had a gold bath, filled with scented water in its midst, with a crystal bathing-seat placed by it, and was adorned with pitchers placed on one side, full of most fragrant waters, having their mouths darkened by bees attracted by the odour, as if they were covered with blue cloths, from fear of the heat. ( ) then the hand-maidens, some darkened by the reflection of their emerald jars, like embodied lotuses with their leafy cups, some holding silver pitchers, like night with a stream of light shed by the full moon, duly besprinkled the king. ( ) straightway there arose a blare of the trumpets sounded for bathing, penetrating all the hollows of the universe, accompanied by the din of song, lute, flute, drum, cymbal, and tabor, resounding shrilly in diverse tones, mingled with the uproar of a multitude of bards, and cleaving the path of hearing. then, in due order, the king put upon him two white garments, light as a shed snake-skin, and wearing a turban, with an edge of fine silk, pure as a fleck of white cloud, like himalaya with the stream of the heavenly river falling upon it, he made his libation to the pitris with a handful of water, consecrated by a hymn, and then, prostrating himself before the sun, proceeded to the temple. when he had worshipped Çiva, and made an offering to agni, ( ) his limbs were anointed in the perfuming-room with sandal-wood, sweetened with the fragrance of saffron, camphor, and musk, the scent of which was followed by murmuring bees; he put on a chaplet of scented malati flowers, changed his garb, and, with no adornment save his jewelled earrings, he, together with the kings, for whom a fitting meal was prepared, broke his fast, with the pleasure that arises from the enjoyment of viands of sweet savour. then, having drunk of a fragrant drug, rinsed his mouth, and taken his betel, he arose from his daïs, with its bright mosaic pavement. the portress, who was close by, hastened to him, and leaning on her arm, he went to the hall of audience, followed by the attendants worthy to enter the inner apartments, whose palms were like boughs, very hard from their firm grasp of their wands. the hall showed as though walled with crystal by reason of the white silk that draped its ends; the jewelled floor was watered to coolness with sandal-water, to which was added very fragrant musk; the pure mosaic was ceaselessly strewn with masses of blossoms, as the sky with its bevy of stars; ( ) many a golden pillar shone forth, purified with scented water, and decked with countless images, as though with the household gods in their niches; aloe spread its fragrance richly; the whole was dominated by an alcove, which held a couch white as a cloud after storm, with a flower-scented covering, a pillow of fine linen at the head, castors encrusted with gems, and a jewelled footstool by its side, like the peak of himalaya to behold. reclining on this couch, while a maiden, seated on the ground, having placed in her bosom the dagger she was wont to bear, gently rubbed his feet with a palm soft as the leaves of fresh lotuses, the king rested for a short time, and held converse on many a theme with the kings, ministers, and friends whose presence was meet for that hour. he then bade the portress, who was at hand, to fetch vaiçampayana from the women's apartments, for he had become curious to learn his story. and she, bending hand and knee to the ground, with the words 'thy will shall be done!' taking the command on her head, fulfilled his bidding. ( ) soon vaiçampayana approached the king, having his cage borne by the portress, under the escort of a herald, leaning on a gold staff, slightly bent, white robed, wearing a top-knot silvered with age, slow in gait, and tremulous in speech, like an aged flamingo in his love for the race of birds, who, placing his palm on the ground, thus delivered his message: 'sire, the queens send thee word that by thy command this vaiçampayana has been bathed and fed, and is now brought by the portress to thy feet.' thus speaking, he retired, and the king asked vaiçampayana: 'hast thou in the interval eaten food sufficient and to thy taste?' 'sire,' replied he, 'what have i not eaten? i have drunk my fill of the juice of the jambu fruit, aromatically sweet, pink and blue as a cuckoo's eye in the gladness of spring; i have cracked the pomegranate seeds, bright as pearls wet with blood, which lions' claws have torn from the frontal bones of elephants. i have torn at my will old myrobalans, green as lotus leaves, and sweet as grapes. ( ) but what need of further words? for everything brought by the queens with their own hands turns to ambrosia.' and the king, rebuking his talk, said: 'let all this cease for a while, and do thou remove our curiosity. tell us from the very beginning the whole history of thy birth--in what country, and how wert thou born, and by whom was thy name given? who were thy father and mother? how came thine attainment of the vedas, and thine acquaintance with the Çastras, and thy skill in the fine arts? what caused thy remembrance of a former birth? was it a special boon given thee? or dost thou dwell in disguise, wearing the form only of a bird, and where didst thou formerly dwell? how old art thou, and how came this bondage of a cage, and the falling into the hands of a candala maiden, and thy coming hither?' thus respectfully questioned by the king, whose curiosity was kindled, vaiçampayana thought a moment, and reverently replied, 'sire, the tale is long; but if it is thy pleasure, let it be heard.' 'there is a forest, by name vindhya, that embraces the shores of the eastern and western ocean, and decks the central region as though it were the earth's zone. ( ) it is beauteous with trees watered with the ichor of wild elephants, and bearing on their crests masses of white blossom that rise to the sky and vie with the stars; in it the pepper-trees, bitten by ospreys in their spring gladness, spread their boughs; tamala branches trampled by young elephants fill it with fragrance; shoots in hue like the wine-flushed cheeks of malabaris, as though roseate with lac from the feet of wandering wood-nymphs, overshadow it. bowers there are, too, wet with drippings from parrot-pierced pomegranates; bowers in which the ground is covered with torn fruit and leaves shaken down by restless monkeys from the kakkola trees, or sprinkled with pollen from ever-falling blossoms, or strewn with couches of clove-branches by travellers, or hemmed in by fine cocoanuts, ketakis, kariras, and bakulas; bowers so fair that with their areca trees girt about with betel vines, they make a fitting home for a woodland lakshmi. thickly growing elas make the wood dark and fragrant, as with the ichor of wild elephants; ( ) hundreds of lions, who meet their death from barbaric leaders eager to seize the pearls of the elephants' frontal-bones still clinging to their mouth and claws, roam therein; it is fearful as the haunt of death, like the citadel of yama, and filled with the buffaloes dear to him; like an army ready for battle, it has bees resting on its arrow-trees, as the points on arrows, and the roar of the lion is clear as the lion-cry of onset; it has rhinoceros tusks dreadful as the dagger of durga, and like her is adorned with red sandal-wood; like the story of karnisuta, it has its vipula, acala and Çaça in the wide mountains haunted by hares, [ ] that lie near it; as the twilight of the last eve of an aeon has the frantic dance of blue-necked Çiva, so has it the dances of blue-necked peacocks, and bursts into crimson; as the time of churning the ocean had the glory of Çri and the tree which grants all desires, and was surrounded by sweet draughts of varuna, [ ] so is it adorned by Çri trees and varuna trees. it is densely dark, as the rainy season with clouds, and decked with pools in countless hundreds; [ ] like the moon, it is always the haunt of the bears, and is the home of the deer. [ ] ( ) like a king's palace, it is adorned by the tails of cowrie deer, [ ] and protected by troops of fierce elephants. like durga, it is strong of nature, [ ] and haunted by the lion. like sita, it has its kuça, and is held by the wanderer of night. [ ] like a maiden in love, it wears the scent of sandal and musk, and is adorned with a tilaka of bright aloes; [ ] like a lady in her lover's absence, it is fanned with the wind of many a bough, and possessed of madana; [ ] like a child's neck, it is bright with rows of tiger's-claws, [ ] and adorned with a rhinoceros; [ ] like a hall of revelry with its honeyed draughts, it has hundreds of beehives [ ] visible, and is strewn with flowers. in parts it has a circle of earth torn up by the tusks of large boars, like the end of the world when the circle of the earth was lifted up by the tusks of mahavaraha; here, like the city of ravana, it is filled with lofty çalas [ ] inhabited by restless monkeys; ( ) here it is, like the scene of a recent wedding, bright with fresh kuça grass, fuel, flowers, acacia, and palaça; here, it seems to bristle in terror at the lions' roar; here, it is vocal with cuckoos wild for joy; here it is, as if in excitement, resonant with the sound of palms [ ] in the strong wind; here, it drops its palm-leaves like a widow giving up her earrings; here, like a field of battle, it is filled with arrowy reeds; [ ] here, like indra's body, it has a thousand netras; [ ] here, like vishnu's form, it has the darkness of tamalas; [ ] here, like the banner of arjuna's chariot, it is blazoned with monkeys; here, like the court of an earthly king, it is hard of access, through the bamboos; here, like the city of king virata, it is guarded by a kicaka; [ ] here, like the lakshmi of the sky, it has the tremulous eyes of its deer pursued by the hunter; [ ] here, like an ascetic, it has bark, bushes, and ragged strips and grass. [ ] ( ) though adorned with saptaparna, [ ] it yet possesses leaves innumerable; though honoured by ascetics, it is yet very savage; [ ] though in its season of blossom, it is yet most pure. 'in that forest there is a hermitage, famed throughout the world--a very birthplace of dharma. it is adorned with trees tended by lopamudra as her own children, fed with water sprinkled by her own hands, and trenched round by herself. she was the wife of the great ascetic agastya; he it was who at the prayer of indra drank up the waters of ocean, and who, when the vindhya mountains, by a thousand wide peaks stretching to the sky in rivalry of meru, were striving to stop the course of the sun's chariot, and were despising the prayers of all the gods, yet had his commands obeyed by them; who digested the demon vatapi by his inward fire; who had the dust of his feet kissed by the tips of the gold ornaments on the crests of gods and demons; who adorned the brow of the southern region; and who manifested his majesty by casting nahusha down from heaven by the mere force of his murmur. ( ) 'the hermitage is also hallowed by lopamudra's son dridhadasyu, an ascetic, bearing his staff of palaça, [ ] wearing a sectarial mark made of purifying ashes, clothed in strips of kuça grass, girt with muñja, holding a cup of green leaves in his roaming from hut to hut to ask alms. from the large supply of fuel he brought, he was surnamed by his father fuelbearer. 'the place is also darkened in many a spot by green parrots and by plantain groves, and is girt by the river godaveri, which, like a dutiful wife, followed the path of the ocean when drunk by agastya. 'there, too, rama, when he gave up his kingdom to keep his father's promise, dwelt happily for some time at pañcavati with sita, following the great ascetic agastya, living in a pleasant hut made by lakshmana, even rama, the vexer of the triumphs of ravana's glory. [ ] 'there, even now, the trees, though the hermitage has long been empty, show, as it were, in the lines of white doves softly nestling in the boughs, the hermits' pure lines of sacrificial smoke clinging to them; and there a glow bursts forth on the shoots of creepers, as if it had passed to them from sita's hand as she offered flowers of oblation; ( ) there the water of ocean drunk and sent forth by the ascetic seems to have been wholly distributed among the great lakes round the hermitage; there the wood, with its fresh foliage, shines as if its roots had been watered with the blood of countless hosts of demons struck down by rama's many keen shafts, and as if now its palaaças were stained with their crimson hue; there, even yet, the old deer nurtured by sita, when they hear the deep roar of fresh clouds in the rainy season, think on the twang of rama's bow penetrating all the hollows of the universe, and refuse their mouthfuls of fresh grass, while their eyes are dimmed by ceaseless tears, as they see a deserted world, and their own horns crumbling from age; there, too, the golden deer, as if it had been incited by the rest of the forest deer slain in the ceaseless chase, deceived sita, and led the son of raghu far astray; there, too, in their grief for the bitter loss of sita, rama and lakshmana seized by kabandha, like an eclipse of sun and moon heralding the death of ravana, filled the universe with a mighty dread; ( ) there, too, the arm of yojanabahu, struck off by rama's arrow, caused fear in the saints as it lay on the ground, lest it should be the serpent form of nahusha, brought back by agastya's curse; there, even now, foresters behold sita painted inside the hut by her husband to solace his bereavement, as if she were again rising from the ground in her longing to see her husband's home. 'not far from that hermitage of agastya, of which the ancient history is yet clearly to be seen, is a lotus lake called pampa. it stands near that hermitage, as if it were a second ocean made by the creator in rivalry with agastya, at the prompting of varuna, wrathful at the drinking of ocean; it is like the sky fallen on earth to bind together the fragments of the eight quarters when severed in the day of doom. [ ] ( ) it is, indeed, a peerless home of waters, and its depth and extent none can tell. there, even now, the wanderer may see pairs of cakravakas, with their wings turned to blue by the gleam of the blossoming lotuses, as if they were swallowed up by the impersonate curse of rama. 'on the left bank of that lake, and near a clump of palms broken by rama's arrows, was a large old çalmali tree. [ ] it shows as though it were enclosed in a large trench, because its roots are always encircled by an old snake, like the trunk of the elephants of the quarters; ( ) it seems to be mantled with the slough of serpents, which hangs on its lofty trunk and waves in the wind; it strives to compass the measurement of the circle of space by its many boughs spreading through the firmament, and so to imitate Çiva, whose thousand arms are outstretched in his wild dance at the day of doom, and who wears the moon on his crest. through its weight of years, it clings for support even to the shoulder of the wind; it is girt with creepers that cover its whole trunk, and stand out like the thick veins of old age. thorns have gathered on its surface like the moles of old age; not even the thick clouds by which its foliage is bedewed can behold its top, when, after drinking the waters of ocean, they return from all sides to the sky, and pause for a moment, weary with their load of water, like birds amongst its boughs. from its great height, it seems to be on tiptoe to look [ ] at the glory of the nandana [ ] wood; its topmost branches are whitened by cotton, which men might mistake for foam dropped from the corners of their mouths by the sun's steeds as, beset with weariness of their path through the sky, they come near it in their course overhead; ( ) it has a root that will last for an aeon, for, with the garland of drunken bees sticking to the ichor which clings to it where the cheeks of woodland elephants are rubbed against it, it seems to be held motionless by iron chains; it seems alive with swarms of bees, flashing in and out of its hollow trunk. it beholds the alighting of the wings of birds, as duryodhana receives proofs of Çakuni's [ ] partizanship; like krishna, it is encircled by a woodland chaplet; [ ] like a mass of fresh clouds its rising is seen in the sky. it is a temple whence woodland goddesses can look out upon the whole world. it is the king of the dandaka wood, the leader of the lordly trees, the friend of the vindhya mountains, and it seems to embrace with the arms of its boughs the whole vindhya forest. there, on the edge of the boughs, in the centre of the crevices, amongst the twigs, in the joints of the trunks, in the holes of the rotten bark, flocks of parrots have taken their abode. from its spaciousness, they have confidently built in it their thousand nests; from its steepness, they have come to it fearlessly from every quarter. though its leaves are thin with age, this lord of the forest still looks green with dense foliage, as they rest upon it day and night. ( ) in it they spend the nights in their own nests, and daily, as they rise, they form lines in the sky; they show in heaven like yamuna with her wide streams scattered by the tossing of bala's ploughshare in his passion; they suggest a lotus-bed of the heavenly ganges flowing away, uprooted by the elephant of heaven; they show forth a sky streaked, as it were, with the brightness of the steeds of the sun's chariot; they wear the semblance of a moving floor of emerald; they stretch out in the lake of heaven like long twines of vallisneria; they fan the faces of the quarters wearied with the mass of the sun's keen rays, with their wings spread against the sky like plantain leaves; they form a grassy path stretching through the heaven, and as they roam they grace the firmament with a rainbow. after their meal they return to the young birds which stay in the nest, and give them, from beaks pink as tiger's claws reddened with the blood of slain deer, the juice of fruits and many a dainty morsel of rice-clusters, for by their deep love to their children all their other likings are subdued; ( ) then they spend the night in this same tree with their young under their wings. 'now my father, who by reason of his great age barely dragged on his life, dwelt with my mother in a certain old hollow, and to him i was, by the decree of fate, born as his only son. my mother, overcome by the pains of child-birth when i was born, went to another world, and, in spite of his grief for the death of his loved wife, my father, from love to his child, checked the keen onrush of his sorrow, and devoted himself in his loneliness wholly to my nurture. from his great age, the wide wings he raised had lost their power of flight, and hung loose from his shoulders, so that when he shook them he seemed to be trying to shake off the painful old age that clung to his body, while his few remaining tail feathers were broken like a tatter of kuça grass; and yet, though he was unable to wander far, he gathered up bits of fruit torn down by parrots and fallen at the foot of the tree, and picked up grains of rice from rice-stalks that had fallen from other nests, with a beak the point of which was broken and the edge worn away and rubbed by breaking rice-clusters, and pink as the stalk of the sephalika flower when still hard, and he daily made his own meal on what i left. ( ) 'but one day i heard a sound of the tumult of the chase. the moon, reddened by the glow of dawn, was descending to the shore of the western ocean, from the island of the heavenly ganges, like an old hamsa with its wings reddened by the honey of the heavenly lotus-bed; the circle of space was widening, and was white as the hair of a ranku deer; the throng of stars, like flowers strewn on the pavement of heaven, were being cast away by the sun's long rays, as if they were brooms of rubies, for they were red as a lion's mane dyed in elephant's blood, or pink as sticks of burning lac; the cluster of the seven sages was, as it were, descending the bank of the manasa lake, and rested on the northern quarter to worship the dawn; the western ocean was lifting a mass of pearls, scattered from open shells on its shore, as though the stars, melted by the sun's rays, had fallen on it, whitening the surface of its alluvial islands. the wood was dropping dew; its peacocks were awake; its lions were yawning; ( ) its wild elephants were wakened by herds of she-elephants, and it, with its boughs raised like reverential hands, sent up towards the sun, as he rested on the peak of the eastern mountain, a mass of flowers, the filaments of which were heavy with the night dews. the lines of sacrificial smoke from the hermitages, gray as the hair of an ass, were gleaming like banners of holiness, and rested like doves on the tree-tops whereon the wood-nymphs dwelt. the morning breeze was blowing, and roamed softly, for it was weary at the end of night; it gladdened swarms of bees by the flowers' perfume; it rained showers of honey dew from the opened lotuses; it was eager to teach the dancing creepers with their waving boughs; it carried drops of foam from the rumination of woodland buffaloes; it removed the perspiration of the weary mountaineers; it shook the lotuses, and bore with it the dewdrops. the bees, who ought to be the drums on the elephant's frontal-bones to recite auspicious songs for the wakening of the day lotus-groves, now sent up their hum from the hearts of the night-lotuses, as their wings were clogged in the closing petals; ( ) the deer of the wood had the markings on their breast, gray with resting on the salt ground, and slowly opened eyes, the pupils of which were still squinting with the remains of sleep, and were caught by the cool morning breeze as if their eyelashes were held together by heated lac; foresters were hastening hither and thither; the din of the kalahamsas on the pampa lake, sweet to the ear, was now beginning; the pleasant flapping of the wild elephant's ears breaking forth caused the peacocks to dance; in time the sun himself slowly arose, and wandered among the tree-tops round the pampa lake, and haunted the mountain peaks, with rays of madder, like a mass of cowries bending downwards from the sun's elephant as he plunges into the sky; the fresh light sprung from the sun banished the stars, falling on the wood like the monkey king who had again lost tara; [ ] the morning twilight became visible quickly, occupying the eighth part of the day, and the sun's light became clear. 'the troops of parrots had all started to the places they desired; that tree seemed empty by reason of the great stillness, though it had all the young parrots resting quietly in their nests. ( ) my father was still in his own nest, and i, as from my youth my wings were hardly fledged and had no strength, was close to him in the hollow, when i suddenly heard in that forest the sound of the tumult of the chase. it terrified every woodland creature; it was drawn out by a sound of birds' wings flying hastily up; it was mingled with cries from the frightened young elephants; it was increased by the hum of drunken bees, disturbed on the shaken creepers; it was loud with the noise of wild boars roaming with raised snouts; it was swollen by the roar of lions wakened from their sleep in mountain caves; it seemed to shake the trees, and was great as the noise of the torrents of ganges, when brought down by bhagiratha; and the woodland nymphs listened to it in terror. 'when i heard this strange sound i began to tremble in my childishness; the cavity of my ear was almost broken; i shook for fear, and thinking that my father, who was close by, could help me, i crept within his wings, loosened as they were by age. 'straightway i heard an outcry of "hence comes the scent of the lotus beds the leaders of the elephants have trampled! hence the perfume of rushes the boars have chewed! hence the keen fragrance of gum-olibanum the young elephants have divided! hence the rustling of dry leaves shaken down! ( ) hence the dust of antheaps that the horns of wild buffaloes have cleft like thunderbolts! hence came a herd of deer! hence a troop of wild elephants! hence a band of wild boars! hence a multitude of wild buffaloes! hence the shriek of a circle of peacocks! hence the murmur of partridges! hence the cry of ospreys! hence the groan of elephants with their frontal bones torn by lion's claws! this is a boar's path stained with fresh mud! this a mass of foam from the rumination of deer, darkened by the juice of mouthfuls of grass just eaten! this the hum of bees garrulous as they cling to the scent left by the rubbing of elephants' foreheads with ichor flowing! that the path of the ruru deer pink with withered leaves bedewed with blood that has been shed. that is a mass of shoots on the trees crushed by the feet of elephants! those are the gambols of rhinoceroses; that is the lion's track jagged with pieces of the elephant's pearls, pink with blood, and engraved with a monstrous device by their claws; that is the earth crimsoned with the blood of the newly born offspring of the does; that is the path, like a widow's braid, darkened with the ichor of the lord of the herd wandering at his will! follow this row of yaks straight before us! quickly occupy this part of the wood where the dung of the deer is dried! ( ) climb the tree-top! look out in this direction! listen to this sound! take the bow! stand in your places! let slip the hounds!" the wood trembled at the tumult of the hosts of men intent on the chase shouting to each other and concealed in the hollows of the trees. 'then that wood was soon shaken on all sides by the roar of lions struck by the Çabaras' arrows, deepened by its echo rebounding from the hollows of the mountains, and strong as the sound of a drum newly oiled; by the roar from the throats of the elephants that led the herd, like the growl of thunder, and mixed with the ceaseless lashing of their trunks, as they came on alone, separated from the frightened herd; by the piteous cry of the deer, with their tremulous, terrified eyes, when the hounds suddenly tore their limbs; by the yell of she-elephants lengthening in grief for the death of their lord and leader, as they wandered every way with ears raised, ever pausing to listen to the din, bereft of their slain leaders and followed by their young; ( ) by the bellowing of she-rhinoceroses seeking with outstretched necks their young, only born a few days before, and now lost in the panic; by the outcry of birds flying from the tree-tops, and wandering in confusion; by the tramp of herds of deer with all the haste of limbs made for speed, seeming to make the earth quake as it was struck simultaneously by their hurrying feet; by the twang of bows drawn to the ear, mingled, as they rained their arrows, with the cry from the throats of the loving she-ospreys; by the clash of swords with their blades whizzing against the wind and falling on the strong shoulders of buffaloes; and by the baying of the hounds which, as it was suddenly sent forth, penetrated all the recesses of the wood. 'when soon afterwards the noise of the chase was stilled and the wood had become quiet, like the ocean when its water was stilled by the ceasing of the churning, or like a mass of clouds silent after the rainy season, i felt less of fear and became curious, and so, moving a little from my father's embrace, ( ) i stood in the hollow, stretched out my neck, and with eyes that, from my childishness, were yet tremulous with fear, in my eagerness to see what this thing was, i cast my glance in that direction. 'before me i saw the Çabara [ ] army come out from the wood like the stream of narmada tossed by arjuna's [ ] thousand arms; like a wood of tamalas stirred by the wind; like all the nights of the dark fortnight rolled into one; like a solid pillar of antimony shaken by an earthquake; like a grove of darkness disturbed by sunbeams; like the followers of death roaming; like the demon world that had burst open hell and risen up; like a crowd of evil deeds come together; like a caravan of curses of the many hermits dwelling in the dandaka forest; like all the hosts of dushana [ ] and khara struck by rama as he rained his ceaseless shafts, and they turned into demons for their hatred to him; like the whole confraternity of the iron age come together; like a band of buffaloes prepared for a plunge into the water; like a mass of black clouds broken by a blow from a lion's paw as he stands on the mountain peak; [ ] like a throng of meteors risen for the destruction of all form; it darkened the wood; it numbered many thousands; it inspired great dread; it was like a multitude of demons portending disasters. ( ) 'and in the midst of that great host of Çabaras i beheld the Çabara leader, matanga by name. he was yet in early youth; from his great hardness he seemed made of iron; he was like ekalavya [ ] in another birth; from his growing beard, he was like a young royal elephant with its temples encircled by its first line of ichor; he filled the wood with beauty that streamed from him sombre as dark lotuses, like the waters of yamuna; he had thick locks curled at the ends and hanging on his shoulders, like a lion with its mane stained by elephant's ichor; his brow was broad; his nose was stern and aquiline; his left side shone reddened by the faint pink rays of a jewelled snake's hood that was made the ornament for one of his ears, like the glow of shoots that had clung to him from his resting on a leafy couch; he was perfumed with fragrant ichor, bearing the scent of saptacchada blossoms torn from the cheeks of an elephant freshly slain, like a stain of black aloes; ( ) he had the heat warded off by a swarm of bees, like a peacock-feather parasol, flying about blinded by the scent, as if they were a branch of tamala; he was marked with lines of perspiration on his cheek rubbed by his hand, as if vindhya forest, being conquered by his strong arm, were timidly offering homage under the guise of its slender waving twigs, and he seemed to tinge space by his eye somewhat pink, as if it were bloodshot, and shedding a twilight of the night of doom for the deer; he had mighty arms reaching to his knees, as if the measure of an elephant's trunk had been taken in making them, and his shoulders were rough with scars from keen weapons often used to make an offering of blood to kali; the space round his eyes was bright and broad as the vindhya mountain, and with the drops of dried deer's blood clinging on it, and the marking of drops of perspiration, as if they were adorned by large pearls from an elephant's frontal bone mixed with guñja fruit; his chest was scarred by constant and ceaseless fatigue; he was clad in a silk dress red with cochineal, and with his strong legs he mocked a pair of elephants' posts stained with elephants' ichor; he seemed from his causeless fierceness to have been marked on his dread brow by a frown that formed three banners, as if durga, propitiated by his great devotion, had marked him with a trident to denote that he was her servant. ( ) he was accompanied by hounds of every colour, which were his familiar friends; they showed their weariness by tongues that, dry as they were, seemed by their natural pinkness to drip deer's blood, and which hung down far from tiredness; as their mouths were open they raised the corners of their lips and showed their flashing teeth clearly, like a lion's mane caught between the teeth; their throats were covered with strings of cowries, and they were hacked by blows from the large boars' tusks; though but small, from their great strength they were like lions' cubs with their manes ungrown; they were skilled in initiating the does in widowhood; with them came their wives, very large, like lionesses coming to beg an amnesty for the lions. he was surrounded by troops of Çabaras of all kinds: some had seized elephants' tusks and the long hair of yaks; some had vessels for honey made of leaves closely bound; some, like lions, had hands filled with many a pearl from the frontal bones of elephants; some, like demons, had pieces of raw flesh; some, like goblins, were carrying the skins of lions; some, like jain ascetics, held peacocks' tails; some, like children, wore crows' feathers; [ ] some represented krishna's [ ] exploits by bearing the elephants' tusks they had torn out; ( ) some, like the days of the rainy season, had garments dark as clouds. [ ] he had his sword-sheath, as a wood its rhinoceroses; [ ] like a fresh cloud, he held a bow [ ] bright as peacocks' tails; like the demon vaka, [ ] he possessed a peerless army; like garuda, he had torn out the teeth of many large nagas; [ ] he was hostile to peacocks, as bhishma to Çikhandi; [ ] like a summer day, he always showed a thirst for deer; [ ] like a heavenly genius, he was impetuous in pride; [ ] as vyasa followed yojanagandha, [ ] so did he follow the musk deer; like ghatotkaca, he was dreadful in form; [ ] as the locks of uma were decked with Çiva's moon, so was he adorned with the eyes in the peacocks' tails; [ ] as the demon hiranyakaçipu [ ] by mahavaraha, so he had his breast torn by the teeth of a great boar; ( ) like an ambitious man, [ ] he had a train of captives around him; like a demon, he loved [ ] the hunters; like the gamut of song, he was closed in by nishadas; [ ] like the trident of durga, he was wet with the blood of buffaloes; though quite young, he had seen many lives pass; [ ] though he had many hounds, [ ] he lived on roots and fruits; though of krishna's hue, [ ] he was not good to look on; though he wandered at will, his mountain fort [ ] was his only refuge; though he always lived at the foot of a lord of earth, [ ] he was unskilled in the service of a king. 'he was as the child of the vindhya mountains, the partial avatar of death; the born brother of wickedness, the essence of the iron age; horrible as he was, he yet inspired awe by reason of his natural greatness, [ ] and his form could not be surpassed. [ ] his name i afterwards learnt. in my mind was this thought: "ah, the life of these men is full of folly, and their career is blamed by the good. ( ) for their one religion is offering human flesh to durga; their meat, mead, and so forth, is a meal loathed by the good; their exercise is the chase; their çastra [ ] is the cry of the jackal; their teachers of good and evil are owls; [ ] their knowledge is skill in birds; [ ] their bosom friends are dogs; their kingdom is in deserted woods; their feast is a drinking bout; their friends are the bows that work their cruel deeds, and arrows, with their heads smeared, like snakes, with poison, are their helpers; their song is what draws on bewildered deer; their wives are the wives of others taken captive; their dwelling is with savage tigers; their worship of the gods is with the blood of beasts, their sacrifice with flesh, their livelihood by theft; the snakes' hood is their ornament; their cosmetic, elephants' ichor; and the very wood wherein they may dwell is utterly destroyed root and branch." 'as i was thus thinking, the Çabara leader, desiring to rest after his wandering through the forest, approached, and, laying his bow in the shade beneath that very cotton-tree, sat down on a seat of twigs gathered hastily by his suite. ( ) another youthful Çabara, coming down hastily, brought to him from the lake, when he had stirred its waters with his hand, some water aromatic with lotus-pollen, and freshly-plucked bright lotus-fibres with their mud washed off; the water was like liquid lapis lazuli, or showed as if it were painted with a piece of sky fallen from the heat of the sun's rays in the day of doom, or had dropped from the moon's orb, or were a mass of melted pearl, or as if in its great purity it was frozen into ice, and could only be distinguished from it by touch. after drinking it, the Çabara in turn devoured the lotus-fibres, as rahu does the moon's digits; when he was rested he rose, and, followed by all his host, who had satisfied their thirst, he went slowly to his desired goal. but one old Çabara from that barbarous troop had got no deer's flesh, and, with a demoniac [ ] expression coming into his face in his desire for meat, he lingered a short time by that tree. ( ) as soon as the Çabara leader had vanished, that old Çabara, with eyes pink as drops of blood and terrible with their overhanging tawny brows, drank in, as it were, our lives; he seemed to reckon up the number in the parrots' nests like a falcon eager to taste bird's flesh, and looked up the tree from its foot, wishing to climb it. the parrots seemed to have drawn their last breath at that very moment in their terror at the sight of him. for what is hard for the pitiless? so he climbed the tree easily and without effort, as if by ladders, though it was as high as many palms, and the tops of its boughs swept the clouds, and plucked the young parrots from among its boughs one by one, as if they were its fruit, for some were not yet strong for flight; some were only a few days old, and were pink with the down of their birth, so that they might almost be taken for cotton-flowers; [ ] some, with their wings just sprouting, were like fresh lotus-leaves; some were like the asclepias fruit; some, with their beaks growing red, had the grace of lotus-buds with their heads rising pink from slowly unfolding leaves; while some, under the guise of the ceaseless motion of their heads, seemed to try to forbid him, though they could not stop him, for he slew them and cast them on the ground. ( ) 'but my father, seeing on a sudden this great, destructive, remediless, overwhelming calamity that had come on us, trembled doubly, and, with pupils quivering and wandering from fear of death, cast all round a glance that grief had made vacant and tears had dimmed; his palate was dry, and he could not help himself, but he covered me with his wing, though its joints were relaxed by fear, and bethought himself of what help could avail at such a moment. swayed wholly by love, bewildered how to save me, and puzzled what to do, he stood, holding me to his breast. that miscreant, however, wandering among the boughs, came to the entrance of the hollow, and stretched out his left arm, dreadful as the body of an old black snake, with its hand redolent of the raw fat of many boars, and its forearm marked with weals from ceaseless drawing of the bowstrings, like the wand of death; and though my father gave many a blow with his beak, and moaned piteously, that murderous wretch dragged him down and slew him. ( ) me, however, he somehow did not notice, though i was within the wings, from my being small and curled into a ball from fear, and from my not having lived my fated life, but he wrung my father's neck and threw him dead upon the ground. meanwhile i, with my neck between my father's feet, clinging quietly to his breast, fell with him, and, from my having some fated life yet to live, i found that i had fallen on a large mass of dry leaves, heaped together by the wind, so that my limbs were not broken. while the Çabara was getting down from the tree-top, i left my father, like a heartless wretch, though i should have died with him; but, from my extreme youth, i knew not the love that belongs to a later age, and was wholly swayed by the fear that dwells in us from birth; i could hardly be seen from the likeness of my colour to the fallen leaves; i tottered along with the help of my wings, which were just beginning to grow, thinking that i had escaped from the jaws of death, and came to the foot of a very large tamala tree close by. its shoots were fitted to be the earrings of Çabara women, as if it mocked the beauty of vishnu's body by the colour of balarama's dark-blue robe, ( ) or as if it were clad in pure strips of the water of yamuna; its twigs were watered by the ichor of wild elephants; it bore the beauty of the tresses of the vindhya forest; the space between its boughs was dark even by day; [ ] the ground round its root was hollow, and unpierced by the sun's rays; and i entered it as if it were the bosom of my noble father. then the Çabara came down and gathered up the tiny parrots scattered on the ground; he bound them hastily in a basket of leaves with a coil of creepers, and going off with hasty steps by the path trodden by his leader, he made for that region. i meanwhile had begun to hope for life, but my heart was dried up with grief for my father's recent death; my body was in pain from my long fall, and i was possessed by a violent thirst, caused by fright, which tortured all my limbs. then i thought, "the villain has now gone some way," so i lifted my head a little and gazed around with eyes tremulous with fear, thinking even when a blade of grass moved that the wretch was coming back. i watched him go step by step, and then, leaving the root of the tamala tree, i made a great effort to creep near the water. ( ) my steps were feeble, because my wings were not yet grown, and again and again i fell on my face; i supported myself on one wing; i was weak with the weariness [ ] of creeping along the ground, and from my want of practice; after each step i always lifted my head and panted hard, and as i crept along i became gray with dust. "truly even in the hardest trials," i reflected, "living creatures never become careless of life. nothing in this world is dearer to all created beings than life, seeing that when my honoured father, of well-chosen name, is dead, i still live with senses unimpaired! shame on me that i should be so pitiless, cruel, and ungrateful! for my life goes on shamefully in that the grief of my father's death is so easily borne. i regard no kindness; truly my heart is vile! i have even forgotten how, when my mother died, my father restrained his bitter grief, and from the day of my birth, old as he was, reckoned lightly in his deep love the great toil of bringing me up with every care. and yet in a moment i have forgotten how i was watched over by him! ( ) most vile is this breath of mine which goes not straightway forth to follow my father on his path, my father, that was so good to me! surely there is none that thirst of life does not harden, if the longing for water can make me take trouble in my present plight. methinks this idea of drinking water is purely hardness of heart, because i think lightly of the grief of my father's death. even now the lake is still far off. for the cry of the kalahamsas, like the anklets of a water-nymph, is still far away; the cranes' notes are yet dim; the scent of the lotus-bed comes rarely through the space it creeps through, because the distance is great; noontide is hard to bear, for the sun is in the midst of heaven, and scatters with his rays a blazing heat, unceasing, like fiery dust, and makes my thirst worse; the earth with its hot thick dust is hard to tread; my limbs are unable to go even a little way, for they are weary with excessive thirst; i am not master of myself; ( ) my heart sinks; my eyes are darkened. o that pitiless fate would now bring that death which yet i desire not!" thus i thought; but a great ascetic named jabali dwelt in a hermitage not far from the lake, and his son harita, a youthful hermit, was coming down to the lotus-lake to bathe. he, like the son of brahma, had a mind purified with all knowledge; he was coming by the very path where i was with many holy youths of his own age; like a second sun, his form was hard to see from its great brightness; he seemed to have dropped [ ] from the rising sun, and to have limbs fashioned from lightning and a shape painted with molten gold; he showed the beauty of a wood on fire, or of day with its early sunlight, by reason of the clear tawny splendour of his form flashing out; he had thick matted locks hanging on his shoulders red as heated iron, and pure with sprinkling from many a sacred pool; his top-knot was bound as if he were agni in the false guise of a young brahman in his desire to burn the khandava wood; [ ] he carried a bright crystal rosary hanging from his right ear, like the anklets of the goddesses of the hermitage, and resembling the circle of dharma's commandments, made to turn aside all earthly joys; ( ) he adorned his brow with a tripundraka [ ] mark in ashes, as if with threefold truth; [ ] he laid his left hand on a crystal pitcher with its neck held ever upwards as if to look at the path to heaven, like a crane gazing upwards to the sky; he was covered by a black antelope skin hanging from his shoulders, like thick smoke that was coming out again after being swallowed [ ] in thirst for penance, with pale-blue [ ] lustre; he wore on his left shoulder a sacrificial thread, which seemed from its lightness to be fashioned from very young lotus-fibres, and wavered in the wind as if counting the framework of his fleshless ribs; he held in his right hand an ashadha [ ] staff, having on its top a leafy basket full of creeper-blossoms gathered for the worship of Çiva; he was followed by a deer from the hermitage, still bearing the clay of the bathing-place dug up by its horns, quite at home with the hermits, fed on mouthfuls of rice, and letting its eyes wander on all sides to the kuça grass flowers and creepers. like a tree, he was covered with soft bark; [ ] like a mountain, he was surrounded by a girdle; [ ] like rahu, he had often tasted soma; [ ] like a day lotus-bed, he drank the sun's rays; ( ) like a tree by the river's side, his tangled locks were pure with ceaseless washing; like a young elephant, his teeth were white as [ ] pieces of moon-lotus petals; like drauni, he had kripa [ ] ever with him; like the zodiac, he was adorned by having the hide [ ] of the dappled deer; like a summer day, he was free from darkness; [ ] like the rainy season, he had allayed the blinding dust of passion; [ ] like varuna, he dwelt on the waters; [ ] like krishna, he had banished the fear of hell; [ ] like the beginning of twilight, he had eyes tawny as the glow of dawn; [ ] like early morn, he was gilded with fresh sunlight; like the chariot of the sun, he was controlled in his course; [ ] like a good king, he brought to nought the secret guiles of the foe; [ ] ( ) like the ocean, his temples were cavernous with meditation; [ ] like bhagiratha, he had often beheld the descent of ganges; [ ] like a bee, he had often tasted life in a water-engirt wood; [ ] though a woodsman, he yet entered a great home; [ ] though unrestrained, he longed for release; [ ] though intent on works of peace, he bore the rod; [ ] though asleep, he was yet awake; [ ] though with two well-placed eyes, he had his sinister eye abolished. [ ] such was he who approached the lotus-lake to bathe. 'now the mind of the good is ever wont to be compassionate and kind instinctively. wherefore he, seeing my plight, was filled with pity, and said to another young ascetic standing near: ( ) "this little half-fledged parrot has somehow fallen from the top of that tree, or perhaps from a hawk's mouth. for, owing to his long fall, he has hardly any life left; his eyes are closed, and he ever falls on his face and pants violently, and opens his beak, nor can he hold up his neck. come, then, take him before his breath deserts him. carry him to the water." so saying, he had me taken to the edge of the lake; and, coming there, he laid down his staff and pitcher near the water, and, taking me himself, just when i had given up all effort, he lifted up my head, and with his finger made me drink a few drops of water; and when i had been sprinkled with water and had gained fresh breath, he placed me in the cool wet shade of a fresh lotus-leaf growing on the bank, and went through the wonted rites of bathing. after that, he purified himself by often holding his breath, and murmuring the cleansing aghamarshana [ ], and then he arose and, with upraised face, made an offering to the sun with freshly-plucked red lotuses in a cup of lotus-leaves. having taken a pure white robe, so that he was like the glow of evening sunlight accompanied by the moon's radiance, he rubbed his hair with his hands till it shone, and, ( ) followed by the band of ascetic youths, with their hair yet wet from recent bathing, he took me and went slowly towards the penance grove. 'and after going but a short way, i beheld the penance grove, hidden in thick woods rich in flowers and fruit. ( ) 'its precincts were filled by munis entering on all sides, followed by pupils murmuring the vedas, and bearing fuel, kuça grass, flowers, and earth. there the sound of the filling of the pitchers was eagerly heard by the peacocks; there appeared, as it were, a bridge to heaven under the guise of smoke waving to exalt to the gods the muni race while yet in the body by fires satisfied with the ceaseless offering of ghee; all round were tanks with their waves traversed by lines of sunbeams stainless as though from contact with the hermits they rested upon, plunged into by the circle of the seven rishis who had come to see their penance, and lifting by night an open moon-lotus-bed, like a cluster of constellations descending to honour the rishis; the hermitage received homage from woodland creepers with their tops bent by the wind, and from trees with their ever-falling blossoms, and was worshipped by trees with the añjali of interlaced boughs; parched grain was scattered in the yards round the huts, and the fruit of the myrobalan, lavali, jujube, banana, bread-tree, mango, panasa, [ ] and palm pressed on each other; ( ) the young brahmans were eloquent in reciting the vedas; the parrot-race was garrulous with the prayer of oblation that they learnt by hearing it incessantly; the subrahmanya [ ] was recited by many a maina; the balls of rice offered to the deities were devoured by the cocks of the forest, and the offering of wild rice was eaten by the young kalahamsas of the tanks close by. the eating-places of the sages were protected from pollution by ashes cast round them. ( ) the fire for the munis' homa sacrifice was fanned by the tails of their friends the peacocks; the sweet scent of the oblation prepared with nectar, the fragrance of the half-cooked sacrificial cake was spread around; the crackling of flames in the offering of a stream of unbroken libations made the place resonant; a host of guests was waited upon; the pitris were honoured; vishnu, Çiva, and brahma were worshipped. the performance of çraddha rites was taught; the science of sacrifice explained; the çastras of right conduct examined; good books of every kind recited; and the meaning of the çastras pondered. leafy huts were being begun; courts smeared with paste, and the inside of the huts scrubbed. meditation was being firmly grasped, mantras duly carried out, yoga practised, and offerings made to woodland deities. brahmanical girdles of muñja grass were being made, bark garments washed, fuel brought, deer-skins decked, grass gathered, lotus-seed dried, rosaries strung, and bamboos laid in order for future need. [ ] wandering ascetics received hospitality, and pitchers were filled. ( ) 'there defilement is found in the smoke of the oblations, not in evil conduct; redness of face in parrots, not in angry men; sharpness in blades of grass, not in dispositions; wavering in plantain-leaves, not in minds; red eyes [ ] in cuckoos alone; clasping of necks with pitchers only; binding of girdles in vows, not in quarrels; pakshapata [ ] in cocks, not in scientific discussions; wandering in making the sunwise turn round the soma fire, but not error in the çastras; mention of the vasus in legends, but not longing for wealth; counting of beads for rudra, but no account made of the body; loss of locks by the saints in the practice of sacrifice, but not loss of their children [ ] by death; propitiation of rama by reciting the ramayana, not of women [ ] by youth; wrinkles brought on by old age, not by pride of riches; the death of a Çakuni [ ] in the mahabharata only; only in the purana windy talk; [ ] in old age only loss of teeth; [ ] coldness only in the park sandal-trees; [ ] ( ) in fires only turning to ashes; [ ] only deer love to hear song; only peacocks care for dancing; only snakes wear hoods; [ ] only monkeys desire fruit; [ ] only roots have a downward tendency. ( - , condensed) 'there, beneath the shade of a red açoka-tree, beauteous with new oblations of flowers, purified with ointment of fresh gomaya, garlanded with kuça grass and strips of bark tied on by the hermitage maidens, i saw the holy jabali surrounded by most ascetic sages, like time by æons, the last day by suns, the sacrifice by bearers of the three fires, [ ] the golden mountain by the noble hills, or the earth by the oceans. ( ) 'and as i looked on him i thought: "ah! how great is the power of penance! his form, calm as it is, yet pure as molten gold, overpowers, like lightning, the brightness of the eye with its brilliance. though ever tranquil, it inspires fear at first approach by its inherent majesty. the splendour of even those ascetics who have practised but little asceticism is wont to be easily provoked, like fire swiftly falling on dry reeds, kaça grass, or flowers. ( ) how much more, then, that of holy men like these, whose feet are honoured by the whole world, whose stains are worn away by penance, who look with divine insight on the whole earth as if it were a myrobalan [ ] in the hand, and who purge away all sin. for even the mention of a great sage has its reward; much more, then, the sight of him! happy is the hermitage where dwells this king of brahmans! nay, rather, happy is the whole world in being trodden by him who is the very brahma of earth! truly these sages enjoy the reward of their good deeds in that they attend him day and night with no other duty, hearing holy stories and ever fixing on him their steady gaze, as if he were another brahma. happy is sarasvati, who, encircled by his shining teeth, and ever enjoying the nearness of his lotus-mouth, dwells in his serene mind, with its unfathomable depths and its full stream of tenderness, like a hamsa on the manasa lake. the four vedas, that have long dwelt in the four lotus-mouths of brahma, find here their best and most fitting home. ( ) all the sciences, which became turbid in the rainy season of the iron age, become pure when they reach him, as rivers coming to autumn. of a surety, holy dharma, having taken up his abode here after quelling the riot of the iron age, no longer cares to recall the golden age. heaven, seeing earth trodden by him, no longer takes pride in being dwelt in by the seven rishis. how bold is old age, which fears not to fall on his thick matted locks, moonbeam-pale as they are, and hard to gaze on as the rays of the sun of doom. [ ] for it falls on him as ganges, white with flecks of foam, on Çiva, or as an offering of milk on agni. even the sun's rays keep far from the penance-grove, as if terrified by the greatness of the saint whose hermitage is darkened by the thick smoke of many an oblation. these fires, too, for love of him, receive oblations purified by hymns, for their flames are pressed together by the wind, like hands reverently raised. ( ) the wind itself approaches him timidly, just stirring the linen and bark dresses, fragrant with the sweet creeper blossoms of the hermitage, and gentle in motion. yet the glorious might of the elements is wont to be beyond our resistance! but this man towers above [ ] the mightiest! the earth shines as if with two suns, being trodden by this noble man. in his support the world stands firm. he is the stream of sympathy, the bridge over the ocean of transient existence, and the home of the waters of patience; the axe for the glades of the creepers of desire, the ocean of the nectar of content, the guide in the path of perfection, the mountain behind which sets the planet of ill, [ ] the root of the tree of endurance, the nave of the wheel of wisdom, the staff of the banner of righteousness, the holy place for the descent of all knowledge, the submarine fire of the ocean of craving, the touch-stone of the jewels of the çastras, the consuming flame of the buds of passion, the charm against the snake of wrath, the sun to dispel the darkness of delusion, the binder of the bolts of hell's gates, the native home of noble deeds, the temple of propitious rites, the forbidden ground for the degradation of passion, the sign-post to the paths of good, the birthplace of holiness, the felly of the wheel of effort, the abode of strength, the foe of the iron age, the treasury of penance, the friend of truth, the native soil of sincerity, the source of the heaping up of merit, the closed gate for envy, the foe of calamity. ( ) truly he is one in whom disrespect can find no place; for he is averse from pride, unclaimed by meanness, unenslaved by wrath, and unattracted by pleasure. purely by the grace of this holy man the hermitage is free from envy and calm from enmity. great is the power of a noble soul. here, ceasing their constant feud, the very animals are quiet, and learn the joy of a hermitage life. for here a snake, wearied by the sun, fearlessly enters, as if into fresh grass, into the peacock's tail, like an interwoven grove of open lotuses, with its hundred beauteous eyes, changing in hue as the eyes of a deer. here a young antelope, leaving his mother, makes friends with the lion-cubs whose manes are not yet grown, and drinks at the bounteous breast of the lioness. here a lion closes his eyes, and is pleased to have his moon-white mane pulled by the young elephants that mistake it for lotus-fibres. here the monkey-tribe loses its capriciousness and brings fruit to the young munis after their bath. there the elephants, too, though excited, are tender-hearted, and do not drive away by their flapping the bees that dwell round their frontal bones, and stay motionless to drink their ichor. ( ) but what need of more? there even the senseless trees, with roots and fruits, clad in bark, and adorned with outer garments of black antelope skin perpetually made for them by the upward creeping lines of sacrificial smoke, seem like fellow ascetics of this holy man. how much more, then, living beings, endowed with sense!" 'and while i was thus thinking, harita placed me somewhere in the shade of the açoka tree, and embracing his father's feet and saluting him, sat down not far from him on a seat of kuça grass. 'but the hermits, looking on me, asked him as he rested: "whence was this little parrot brought?" "when i went hence to bathe," replied he, "i found this little parrot fallen from its nest in a tree on the bank of the lotus-lake, faint with the heat, lying in hot dust, and shaken by the fall, with little life left in him. and as i could not replace him in his nest (for that tree was too hard for an ascetic to climb), i brought him hither in pity. so, while his wings are not grown, and he cannot fly into the sky, let him live in the hollow of some hermitage tree, ( ) fed on the juice of fruits and on handfuls of rice brought to him by us and by the young hermits. for it is the law of our order to protect the weak. but when his wings are grown, and he can fly into the sky, he shall go where he likes. or perhaps, when he knows us well, he will stay here." the holy jabali, hearing this and other remarks about me, with some curiosity bent his head slightly, and, with a very calm glance that seemed to purify me with holy waters, he gazed long upon me, and then, looking again and again as if he were beginning to recognise me, said: "he is reaping the fruit of his own ill-conduct." for by the potency of penance the saint with divine insight beholds the past, present, and future, and sees the whole world as though placed on the palm of his hand. he knows past births. he tells things yet to come. he declares the length of days of beings within his sight. 'at these words the whole assemblage of hermits, aware of his power, became curious to know what was my crime, and why committed, and where, and who i was in a former birth; and implored the saint, saying: ( ) "vouchsafe, sir, to tell us of what kind of misconduct he is reaping the fruits. who was he in a former birth, and how was he born in the form of a bird? how is he named? do thou satisfy our curiosity, for thou art the fountain-head of all marvels." 'thus urged by the assemblage, the great saint replied: "the story of this wonder is very long, the day is almost spent, our bathing-time is near, while the hour for worshipping the gods is passing. arise, therefore; let each perform his duties as is meet. in the afternoon, after your meal of roots and fruits, when you are resting quietly, i will tell you the whole story from beginning to end--who he is, what he did in another birth, and how he was born in this world. meanwhile, let him be refreshed with food. he will certainly recall, as it were, the vision of a dream when i tell the whole story of his former birth." so saying, he arose, and with the hermits bathed and performed their other daily duties. ( ) 'the day was now drawing to a close. when the hermits rose from their bathing, and were offering a sacrifice, the sun in the sky seemed to bear upwards before our eyes the offering cast on the ground, with its unguent of red sandal-wood. then his glow faded and vanished; the effluence of his glory was drunk by the ushmapas [ ] with faces raised and eyes fixed on his orb, as if they were ascetics; and he glided from the sky pink as a dove's foot, drawing in his rays as though to avoid touching the seven rishis as they rose. his orb, with its network of crimson rays reflected on the western ocean, was like the lotus of vishnu on his couch of waters pouring forth nectar; his beams, forsaking the sky and deserting the lotus-groves, lingered at eve like birds on the crest of hill and tree; the splashes of crimson light seemed for a moment to deck the trees with the red bark garments hung up by the ascetics. and when the thousand-rayed sun had gone to rest, twilight sprang up like rosy coral from the western ocean. ( ) then the hermitage became the home of quiet thought, as the pleasant sound of milking the sacred cows arose in one quarter, and the fresh kuça grass was scattered on the altar of agni, and the rice and oblations to the goddesses of space were tossed hither and thither by the hermitage maidens. and red-starred eve seemed to the hermits as the red-eyed cow of the hermitage roaming about, tawny in the fall of day. and when the sun had vanished, the lotus-bed, in the grief of bereavement, seemed to perform a vow in the hopes of rejoining the lord of day, for she lifted the goblets of her buds, and wore the fine white vesture of her hamsas, and was girt with the sacrificial thread of white filaments, and bore a circle of bees as her rosary. and the starry host leapt up and filled the sky, like a splash of spray when the sun fell into the western ocean; and for a brief space the star-bespangled sky shone as though inlaid with flowers offered by the daughters of the siddhas [ ] in honour of twilight; but in a moment the whole glory of the gloaming vanished as though washed away by the libations which the hermits, with faces upraised, cast towards the sky; ( ) and at its departure, night, as sorrowing for its loss, wore a deeper darkness, like a black antelope's skin--a blackness which darkened all save the hearts of the hermits. 'learning that the sun had gone to rest, the lord of rays ambrosial, in pure severity of light, arrayed in the whiteness of clear gossamer, dwelling in the palace of his wives with tara, [ ] mounted the sky which, in that it was outlined with the darkness of tamala-trees, presided over by the circle of seven rishis, purified by the wanderings of arundhati, [ ] surrounded by ashadha, [ ] showing its mula [ ] with its soft-eyed white deer, [ ] was a very hermitage of heaven. white as a hamsa, moonlight fell on the earth, filling the seas; falling, as ganges from the head of Çiva, from the sky which was decked with the moon, and inlaid with the shattered potsherds of the stars. ( ) and in the moon-lake, white as an opening lotus, was seen the motionless deer, which went down in eagerness to drink the water of the moonbeams, and was caught, as it were, in the mud of ambrosia. the lakes of the night-lotus were fondly visited by the moonbeams, like hamsas, falling on the ocean white as sinduvara flowers in their fresh purity after the rains. at that moment the globe of the moon lost all the glow of its rising, like the frontal bone of the elephant airavata when its red lead is washed away by plunging into the heavenly stream; and his highness the cold-shedder had gradually risen high in the sky, and by his light had whitened the earth as with lime-dust; the breezes of early night were blowing, slackened in their course by the cold dew, aromatic with the scent of opening moon-lotuses, ( ) and gladly welcomed by the deer, who, with eyes weighed down by the approach of sleep, and eyelashes clinging together, were beginning to ruminate and rest in quiet. 'only half a watch of the night was spent, when harita took me after my meal and went with the other holy hermits to his father, who, in a moonlit spot of the hermitage, was sitting on a bamboo stool, gently fanned by a pupil named jalapada, who held a fan of antelope skin white as dharba grass, and he spake, saying: "father, the whole assemblage of hermits is in a circle round thee, with hearts eager to hear this wonder; the little bird, too, has rested. tell us, therefore, what he has done, who was he, and who will he be in another birth?" thus addressed, the great saint, looking at me, and seeing the hermits before him intently listening, slowly spake: "let the tale be told, if ye care to hear it. '"( ) there is a city named ujjayini, the proudest gem of earth, the very home of the golden age, created by mahakala, [ ] creator, preserver, and destroyer of the three worlds, and lord of pramathas, as a habitation meet for himself, as it were a second earth. there the sun is daily seen paying homage to mahakala, for his steeds vail their heads at the charm of the sweet chant of the women singing in concert in the lofty white palace, and his pennon droops before him. ( ) '"there darkness never falls, and the nights bring no separation to the pairs of cakravakas; nor need they any lamps, for they pass golden as with morning sunshine, from the bright jewels of women, as though the world were on fire with the flame of love. ( ) there the only unending life is in jewelled lamps, the only wavering in pearl necklaces, the only variations in the sound of drum and song, the only disunion of pairs in cakravakas, the only testing of colour [ ] in gold pieces, the only unsteadiness in banners, the only hatred of the sun [ ] in night-lotuses, the only concealment of metal in the sheathing of the sword. ( ) why should i say more? for he whose bright feet are kissed by the rays of the jewelled crests of gods and demons, who hath the river of heaven wandering lost in his locks tawny with a wreath of flame for the burning of the world; he the foe of andhaka; he the holy one; he who hath given up his love for his home on kailasa; even he whose name is mahakala hath there made a habitation for himself. and in this city was a king named tarapida. he was like unto the great kings nala, nahusha, yayati, dundhumara, bharata, bhagiratha, and daçaratha; by the might of his arm he conquered the whole world; he reaped the fruits of the three powers; [ ] wise and resolute, with an intellect unwearied in political science, and a deep study of the law books, he made in light and glory a third with the sun and moon. ( ) his form was purified by many a sacrifice; by him the calamities of the whole world were set at rest; to him lakshmi openly clung, deserting her lotus-woods and despising the happiness of her home in the breast of narayana, she the lotus-handed, who ever joys in the contest of heroes. he was the source of truth, ever honoured by the race of saints, as the foot of vishnu was of the stream of the heavenly ganges. '"from him arose glory, as from the ocean of the moon, for his brightness, free from heat, consumed his foes; constant, ever roamed; stainless, darkened the brightness of the lotus-faced widows of his foes; white, made all things gay. ( ) he was the incarnation of justice, the very representative of vishnu and the destroyer of all the sorrows of his people. ( ) '"when he approached the throne that blossomed with the rays of many gems and was hung with clusters of pearls, like the elephant of space approaching the tree of desire, all the wide quarters of space, like creepers weighed down by bees, bowed down before his majesty; and of him, i think, even indra was envious. from him, too, proceeded a host of virtues, like a flock of hamsas from mount krauñca, brightening the earth's surface, and gladdening the hearts of all mankind. his fame wandered, so that the world echoed with it throughout the ten regions, making fair the world of gods and demons, like a streak of foam of the stream of milk tossed by mandara, ambrosial sweet. his royal glory never for a moment laid aside the shade of her umbrella, as though scorched by the heat of a splendour hard to bear. ( ) his achievements were heard by the people like news of good fortune, were received like the teaching of a guru, were valued like a good omen, were murmured like a hymn, and were remembered like a sacred text. and while he was king, though the flight of the mountains was stayed, the flight of thought was free; suffixes alone were dependent, and the people feared no foe; nought dared to face him but his mirror; the pressure of durga [ ] was given to Çiva's image alone; the bow was only borne by the clouds; there was no uprising save of banners, no bending save of bows, no shaft sped home save the bee's on the bamboo, no enforced wandering save of the images of gods in a procession, no imprisonment save of flowers in their calyx, no restraint save of the senses; wild elephants entered the pale, but none paled before the water-ordeal; the only sharpness was in the edge of the sword; the only endurance of the flame [ ] was by ascetics; the only passing the balance [ ] was by the stars; the only clearing of baneful [ ] waters was in the rising of agastya; the only cutting short was of hair and nails; the only stained garb was of the sky on stormy days; the only laying bare was of gems, and not of secret counsels; the only mysteries [ ] were those of religion; ( ) none ceased to behold the light save slaughtered taraka [ ] in the praises of kumara; none dreaded eclipse save the sun; none passed over the first-born [ ] save the moon; none heard of the disobedient save in the mahabharata; none grasped the rod [ ] save in the decline of life; none clung to a sinister object save the sword-sheath; no stream of liberality was interrupted save the elephant's ichor; no squares were deserted save those on the dice-board. '"that king had a minister, by name Çukanasa, a brahman, whose intelligence was fixed on all the affairs of the kingdom, whose mind had plunged deeply into the arts and çastras, and whose strong affection for the king had grown up in him from childhood. skilled in the precepts of political science, pilot of the world's government, unshaken in resolve by the greatest difficulties, he was the castle of constancy, the station of steadfastness, the bridge of bright truth, the guide to all goodness, the conductor in conduct, the ordainer of all ordered life. like the serpent Çesha, enduring the weight of the world; like the ocean, full of life; like jarasandha, shaping war and peace; [ ] ( ) like Çiva, at home with durga [ ]; like yuddhishthira, a dayspring of dharma, he knew all the vedas and vedangas, and was the essence of the kingdom's prosperity. he was like brihaspati [ ] to sunasira; like Çukra to vrishaparvan; like vaçishtha to daçaratha; like viçvamitra to rama; like dhaumya to ajataçatru; like damanaka to nala. he, by the force of his knowledge, thought that lakshmi was not hard to win, resting though she were on the breast of narayana, terrible with the scars of the weapons of the demons of hell, and a strong shoulder hardened by the pitiless pressure of mount mandara as it moved to and fro. near him knowledge spread wide, thick with many a tendril, and showed the fruits gained from conquered realms like a creeper near a tree. ( ) to him throughout the earth's surface, measured by the circumference of the four oceans, and filled with the goings to and fro of many thousands of spies, every whisper of the kings was known as though uttered in his own palace. '"now, tarapida while yet a child had conquered the whole earth ringed by the seven dvipas by the might of his arm, thick as the trunk of indra's elephant, and he devolved the weight of the empire on that councillor named Çukanasa, and having made his subjects perfectly contented, he searched for anything else that remained to be done. '"and as he had crushed his enemies and had lost all cause for fear, and as the strain of the world's affairs had become a little relaxed, for the most part he began to pursue the ordinary pleasures of youth. ( ) '"and some time passed while the king pursued the pleasures of youth, and entrusted the affairs of state to his minister; and after a time he came to the end of all the other pleasures of life, and the only one he did not get was the sight of a son born to him; so that his zenana was like reeds showing only flowers without fruit; and as youth went by there arose in him a regret produced by childlessness, and his mind was turned away from the desire of the pleasures of sense, and he felt himself alone, though surrounded by a thousand princes; blind, though possessed of sight; without support, though supporting the world. ( ) '"but the fairest ornament of this king was his queen vilasavati; as the moon's digit to the braided hair of Çiva, as the splendour of the kaustubha gem to the breast of the foe [ ] of kaitabha, as the woodland garland to balarama, as the shore to the ocean, as the creeper to the tree, as the outburst of flowers to the spring, as the moonlight to the moon, as the lotus-bed to the lake, as the array of stars to the sky, as the circling of hamsas to lake manasa, as the line of sandal-woods to mount malaya, as the jewelled crest to Çesha, so was she to her lord; she reigned peerless in the zenana, and created wonder in the three worlds, as though she were the very source of all womanly grace. '"and it chanced once that, going to her dwelling, he beheld her seated on a stately [ ] couch, weeping bitterly, surrounded by her household mute in grief, their glances fixed in meditation, and attended by her chamberlains, who waited afar with eyes motionless in anxious thought, while the old women of the zenana were trying to console her. her silken robes were wet with ceaseless tears; her ornaments were laid aside; her lotus-face rested on her left hand; and her tresses were unbound and in disorder. as she arose to welcome him, the king placed her on the couch again, and sitting there himself, ignorant of the cause of her weeping, and in great alarm, wiped away with his hand the tears from her cheeks, saying: ( ) 'my queen, what means this weeping, voiceless and low with the weight of the heavy sorrow concealed in thy heart? for these eyelashes of thine are stringing, as it were, a network of pearls of dropping tears. why, slender one, art thou unadorned? and why has not the stream of lac fallen on thy feet like early sunlight on rosy lotus-buds? and why are thy jewelled anklets, with their murmur like teals on the lake of love, not graced with the touch of thy lotus-feet? and why is this waist of thine bereft of the music of the girdle thou hast laid aside? and why is there no device painted on thy breast like the deer on the moon? and why is that slender neck of thine, fair-limbed queen, not adorned with a rope of pearls as the crescent on Çiva's brow by the heavenly stream? and why dost thou, erst so gay, wear in vain a face whose adornment is washed away with flowing tears? and why is this hand, with its petal-like cluster of soft fingers, exalted into an ear-jewel, as though it were a rosy lotus? ( ) and why, froward lady, dost thou raise thy straight brow undecked with the mark of yellow pigment, and surrounded by the mass of thine unbound tresses? for these flowing locks of thine, bereft of flowers, grieve my eyes, like the loss of the moon in the dark fortnight, clouded in masses of thickest gloom. be kind, and tell me, my queen, the cause of thy grief. for this storm of sighs with which the robe on thy breast is quivering bows my loving heart like a ruddy tendril. has any wrong been done by me, or by any in thy service? closely as i examine myself, i can truly see no failure of mine towards thee. for my life and my kingdom are wholly thine. let the cause of thy woe, fair queen, be told.' but vilasavati, thus addressed, made no reply, and turning to her attendants, he asked the cause of her exceeding grief. then her betel-nut bearer, makarika, who was always near her, said to the king: 'my lord, how could any fault, however slight, be committed by thee? ( ) and how in thy presence could any of thy followers, or anyone else, offend? the sorrow of the queen is that her union with the king is fruitless, as though she were seized by rahu, and for a long time she has been suffering. for at first our lady was like one in heavy grief, was only occupied with difficulty by the persuasion of her attendants in the ordinary duties of the day, however fitting they might be, such as sleeping, bathing, eating, putting on of ornaments, and the like, and, like a lakshmi of the lower world, ceaselessly upbraided divine love. [ ] but in her longing to take away the grief of my lord's heart, she did not show her sad change. now, however, as it was the fourteenth day of the month, she went to worship holy mahakala, and heard in a recitation of the mahabharata, "no bright abodes await the childless, for a son is he who delivers from the sunless shades"; and when she heard this, she returned to her palace, and now, though reverently entreated thereto by her attendants, she takes no pleasure in food, nor does she busy herself in putting on her jewels, nor does she vouchsafe to answer us; ( ) she only weeps, and her face is clouded with a storm of ever-flowing tears. my lord has heard, and must judge.' so saying, she ceased; and, with a long and passionate sigh, the king spoke thus: '"'my queen, what can be done in a matter decreed by fate? enough of this weeping beyond measure! for it is not on us that the gods are wont to bestow their favours. in truth, our heart is not destined to hold the bliss of that ambrosial draught, the embrace of a child of our own. in a former life no glorious deed was done; for a deed done in a former life brings forth fruit in man's life on earth; even the wisest man cannot change destiny. let all be done that may be done in this mortal life. do more honour to the gurus; redouble thy worship of the gods; let thy good works be seen in thy reverence to the rishis; for the rishis are a powerful deity, and if we serve them with all our might, they will give boons that fulfil our heart's desire, hard though it be to gain. ( ) for the tale is an old one how king brihadratha in magadha won by the power of candakauçika a son jarasandha, victor of vishnu, peerless in prowess, fatal to his foes. daçaratha, too, when very old, received by the favour of rishyaçringa, son of the great saint vibhandaka, four sons, unconquerable as the arms of narayana, and unshaken as the depths of the oceans. [ ] and many other royal sages, having conciliated ascetics, have enjoyed the happiness of tasting the ambrosia of the sight of a son. for the honour paid to saints is never without its reward. '"'and for me, when shall i behold my queen ready to bear a child, pale as the fourteenth night when the rising of the full moon is at hand; and when will her attendants, hardly able to bear the joy of the great festival of the birth of my son, carry the full basket of gifts? when will my queen gladden me wearing yellow robes, and holding a son in her arms, like the sky with the newly-risen sun and the early sunlight; and when will a son give me joy of heart, with his curly hair yellow with many a plant, a few ashes mixed with mustard-seed on his palate, which has a drop of ghi on it as a talisman, ( ) and a thread bright with yellow dye round his neck, as he lies on his back and smiles with a little toothless mouth; when will this baby destroy all the darkness of sorrow in my eyes like an auspicious lamp welcomed by all the people, handed from one to another by the zenana attendants, shining tawny with yellow dye; and when will he adorn the courtyard, as he toddles round it, followed by my heart and my eyes, and gray with the dust of the court; and when will he walk from one place to another and the power of motion be formed in his knees, so that, like a young lion, he may try to catch the young tame deer screened behind the crystal walls? and when, running about at will in the courtyard, will he run after the tame geese, accompanied by the tinkling of the anklets of the zenana, and weary his nurse, who will hasten after him, following the sound of the bells of his golden girdle; ( ) and when will he imitate the antics of a wild elephant, and have his cheeks adorned with a line of ichor painted in black aloe, full of joy at the sound of the bell held in his mouth, gray with the dust of sandal-wood scattered by his uplifted hand, shaking his head at the beckoning of the hooked finger; and when will he disguise the faces of the old chamberlains with the juice of handfuls of lac left after being used to colour his mother's feet; and when, with eyes restless in curiosity, will he bend his glance on the inlaid floors, and with tottering steps pursue his own shadow; and when will he creep about during the audience in front of me as i stand in my audience-hall, with his eyes wandering bewildered by the rays of the gems, and have his coming welcomed by the outstretched arms of a thousand kings? thinking on a hundred such desires, i pass my nights in suffering. me, too, the grief arising from our want of children burns like a fire day and night. the world seems empty; i look on my kingdom as without fruit. but what can i do towards brahma, from whom there is no appeal? therefore, my queen, cease thy continual grief. let thy heart be devoted to endurance and to duty. for increase of blessings is ever nigh at hand for those who set their thoughts on duty.' ( ) thus saying, with a hand like a fresh tendril, he took water and wiped her tear-stained face, which showed as an opening lotus; and having comforted her again and again with many a speech sweet with a hundred endearments, skilled to drive away grief, and full of instruction about duty, he at last left her. and when he was gone, vilasavati's sorrow was a little soothed, and she went about her usual daily duties, such as putting on of her adornments. and from that time forth she was more and more devoted to propitiating the gods, honouring brahmans, and paying reverence to all holy persons; whatever recommendation she heard from any source she practised in her longing for a child, nor did she count the fatigue, however great; she slept within the temples of durga, dark with smoke of bdellium ceaselessly burnt, on a bed of clubs covered with green grass, fasting, her pure form clothed in white raiment; ( ) she bathed under cows endued with auspicious marks, adorned for the occasion by the wives of the old cowherds in the herd-stations, with golden pitchers laden with all sorts of jewels, decorated with branches of the pipal, decked with divers fruits and flowers and filled with holy water; every day she would rise and give to brahmans golden mustard-leaves adorned with every gem; she stood in the midst of a circle drawn by the king himself, in a place where four roads meet, on the fourteenth night of the dark fortnight, and performed auspicious rites of bathing, in which the gods of the quarters were gladdened by the various oblations offered; she honoured the shrines of the siddhas and sought the houses of neighbouring matrikas, [ ] in which faith was displayed by the people; she bathed in all the celebrated snake-ponds; with a sun-wise turn, she worshipped the pipal and other trees to which honour was wont to be shown; after bathing, with hands circled by swaying bracelets, she herself gave to the birds an offering of curds and boiled rice placed in a silver cup; she offered daily to the goddess durga a sacrifice consisting of parched grain of oblation, boiled rice, sesamum sweetmeats, cakes, unguents, incense, and flowers, in abundance; ( ) she besought, with a mind prostrate in adoration, the naked wandering ascetics, bearing the name of siddhas, and carrying their begging-bowls filled by her; she greatly honoured the directions of fortune-tellers; she frequented all the soothsayers learned in signs; she showed all respect to those who understood the omens of birds; she accepted all the secrets handed down in the tradition of a succession of venerable sages; in her longing for the sight of a son, she made the brahmans who came into her presence chant the veda; she heard sacred stories incessantly repeated; she carried about little caskets of mantras filled with birch-leaves written over in yellow letters; she tied strings of medicinal plants as amulets; even her attendants went out to hear passing sounds and grasped the omens arising from them; she daily threw out lumps of flesh in the evening for the jackals; she told the pandits the wonders of her dreams, and at the cross-roads she offered oblation to Çiva. '"and as time went on, it chanced once that near the end of night, when the sky was gray as an old pigeon's wing, and but few stars were left, the king saw in a dream the full moon entering the mouth of vilasavati, as she rested on the roof of her white palace, like a ball of lotus-fibres into the mouth of an elephant. ( ) thereupon he woke, and arising, shedding brightness through his dwelling by the joyous dilation of his eyes, he straightway called Çukanasa and told him the dream; whereto the latter, filled with sudden joy, replied: 'sire, our wishes and those of thy subjects are at length fulfilled. after a few days my lord will doubtless experience the happiness of beholding the lotus-face of a son; for i, too, this night in a dream saw a white-robed brahman, of godlike bearing and calm aspect, place in manorama's [ ] lap a lotus that rained drops of honey, with a hundred outspread white petals, like the moon's digits, and a thousand quivering stamens forming its matted locks. now, all auspicious omens which come to us foretell the near approach of joy; and what other cause of joy can there be than this? for dreams seen at the close of night are wont to bear fruit in truth. ( ) certainly ere long the queen shall bear a son that, like mandhatri, shall be a leader among all royal sages, and a cause of joy to all the world; and he shall gladden thy heart, o king, as the lotus-pool in autumn with its burst of fresh lotuses gladdens the royal elephant; by him thy kingly line shall become strong to bear the weight of the world, and shall be unbroken in its succession as the stream of a wild elephant's ichor.' as he thus spoke, the king, taking him by the hand, entered the inner apartments and gladdened the queen, with both their dreams. and after some days, by the grace of the gods, the hope of a child came to vilasavati, like the moon's image on a lake, and she became thereby yet more glorious, like the line of the nandana wood with the tree of paradise, or the breast of vishnu with the kaustubha gem. ( ) '"on one memorable day the king had gone at evening to an inner pavilion, where, encircled by a thousand lamps, burning bright with abundance of scented oil, he was like the full moon in the midst of stars, or like narayana seated among the thousand jewelled hoods of the king of snakes; he was surrounded only by a few great kings who had received the sprinkling of coronation; his own attendants stood at some distance; close by Çukanasa was sitting on a high stool, clad in white silk, with little adornment, a statesman profound as the depths of ocean; and with him the king was holding a conversation on many topics, full of the confidence that had grown with their growth, when he was approached by the handmaiden kulavardhana, the queen's chief attendant, always skilled in the ways of a court, well trained by nearness to royalty, and versed in all auspicious ceremonies, who whispered in his ear the news about vilasavati. ( ) at her words, so fresh to his ears, the king's limbs were bedewed as if with ambrosia, a thrill passed through his whole body, and he was bewildered with the draught of joy; his cheeks burst into a smile; under the guise of the bright flash of his teeth he scattered abroad the happiness that overflowed his heart, and his eye, with its pupil quivering, and its lashes wet with tears of gladness, fell on the face of Çukanasa. and when Çukanasa saw the king's exceeding joy, such as he had never seen before, and beheld the approach of kulavardhana with a radiant smile on her face, though he had not heard the tidings, yet, from constantly revolving the matter in his mind, he saw no other cause befitting the time of this excess of gladness; ( ) he saw all, and bringing his seat closer to the king, said in a low voice: 'my lord, there is some truth in that dream; for kulavardhana has her eyes radiant, and thy twin eyes announce a cause of great joy, for they are dilated, their pupils are tremulous, and they are bathed in tears of joy, and as they seem to creep to the lobes of thy ears in their eagerness to hear the good tidings, they produce, as it were, the beauty of an ear-pendant of blue lotuses. my longing heart yearns to hear the festival that has sprung up for it. therefore let my lord tell me what is this news.' when he had thus said, the king replied with a smile: 'if it is true as she says, then all our dream is true; but i cannot believe it. how should so great a happiness fall to our lot? for we are no fitting vessel for the bearing of such good tidings. kulavardhana is always truthful, and yet when i consider how unworthy i am of such joy, i look upon her as having changed her nature. rise, therefore; i myself will go and ask the queen if it is true, and then i shall know.' ( ) so saying, he dismissed all the kings, and taking off his ornaments, gave them to kulavardhana, and when, on his gracious dismissal of her with gifts, he received her homage paid with a deep reverence as she touched the earth with her straight brow, he rose with Çukanasa and went to the inner apartments, hurried on by a mind filled with exceeding happiness, and gladdened by the throbbing of his right eye, which seemed to mimic the play of a blue lotus-petal stirred by the wind. he was followed by a scanty retinue, as befitted so late a visit, and had the thick darkness of the courtyard dispelled by the brightness of the lamps of the women who went before him, though their steady flame flickered in the wind."' [bana then describes the birth of tarapida's son, who is named candrapida, from the king's dream about the moon, and also that of Çukanasa's son vaiçampayana. [ ]] ( ) '"and as candrapida underwent in due course all the circle of ceremonies, beginning with the tying of his top-knot, his childhood passed away; and to prevent distraction, tarapida had built for him a palace of learning outside the city, stretching half a league along the sipra river, surrounded by a wall of white bricks like the circle of peaks of a snow-mountain, girt with a great moat running along the walls, guarded by very strong gates, having one door kept open for ingress, with stables for horses and palanquins close by, and a gymnasium constructed beneath--a fit palace for the immortals. he took infinite pains in gathering there teachers of every science, and having placed the boy there, like a young lion in a cage, forbidding all egress, surrounding him with a suite composed mainly of the sons of his teachers, removing every allurement to the sports of boyhood, and keeping his mind free from distraction, on an auspicious day ( ) he entrusted him, together with vaiçampayana, to masters, that they might acquire all knowledge. every day when he rose, the king, with vilasavati and a small retinue, went to watch him, and candrapida, undisturbed in mind and kept to his work by the king, quickly grasped all the sciences taught him by teachers, whose efforts were quickened by his great powers, as they brought to light his natural abilities; the whole range of arts assembled in his mind as in a pure jewelled mirror. he gained the highest skill in word, sentence, proof, law, and royal policy; in gymnastics; in all kinds of weapons, such as the bow, quoit, shield, scimitar, dart, mace, battle-axe, and club; in driving and elephant-riding; in musical instruments, such as the lute, fife, drum, cymbal, and pipe; in the laws of dancing laid down by bharata and others, and the science of music, such as that of narada; in the management of elephants, the knowledge of a horse's age, and the marks of men; in painting, leaf-cutting, the use of books, and writing; in all the arts of gambling, knowledge of the cries of birds, and astronomy; in testing of jewels, ( ) carpentry, the working of ivory; in architecture, physic, mechanics, antidotes, mining, crossing of rivers, leaping and jumping, and sleight of hand; in stories, dramas, romances, poems; in the mahabharata, the puranas, the itihasas, and the ramayana; in all kinds of writing, all foreign languages, all technicalities, all mechanical arts; in metre, and in every other art. and while he ceaselessly studied, even in his childhood an inborn vigour like that of bhima shone forth in him and stirred the world to wonder. for when he was but in play the young elephants, who had attacked him as if he were a lion's whelp, had their limbs bowed down by his grasp on their ears, and could not move; with one stroke of his scimitar he cut down palm-trees as if they were lotus-stalks; his shafts, like those of paraçurama when he blazed to consume the forest of earth's royal stems, cleft only the loftiest peaks; he exercised himself with an iron club which ten men were needed to lift; and, except in bodily strength, he was followed close in all his accomplishments by vaiçampayana, ( ) who, by reason of the honour candrapida felt for his deep learning, and of his reverence due to Çukanasa, and because they had played in the dust and grown up together, was the prince's chief friend, and, as it were, his second heart, and the home of all his confidences. he would not be without vaiçampayana for a moment, while vaiçampayana never for an instant ceased to follow him, any more than the day would cease to follow the sun. '"and while candrapida was thus pursuing his acquaintance with all knowledge, the spring of youth, loved of the three worlds as the amrita draught of the ocean, gladdening the hearts of men as moonrise gladdens the gloaming; transient in change of iridescent glow, like the full arch of indra's bow to the rainy season; weapon of love, like the outburst of flowers to the tree of desire; beautiful in ever freshly revealed glow, like sunrise to the lotus-grove; ready for all play of graceful motion, like the plumes of the peacock, became manifest and brought to flower in him, fair as he was, a double beauty; love, lord of the hour, stood ever nigh, as if to do his bidding; his chest expanded like his beauty; his limbs won fulness, like the wishes of his friends; his waist became slender, like the host of his foes; ( ) his form broadened, like his liberality; his majesty grew, like his hair; his arms hung down more and more, like the plaits of his enemies' wives; his eyes became brighter, like his conduct; his shoulders broad, like his knowledge; and his heart deep, like his voice. '"and so in due course the king, learning that candrapida had grown to youth, and had completed his knowledge of all the arts, studied all the sciences, and won great praise from his teachers, summoned balahaka, a mighty warrior, and, with a large escort of cavalry and infantry, sent him on a very auspicious day to fetch the prince. and balahaka, going to the palace of learning, entered, announced by the porters, and bending his head till its crest-jewels rested on the ground, sat down, by the prince's permission, on a seat befitting his office, as reverently as though in the king's presence; after a short pause he approached candrapida and respectfully gave the king's message: 'prince, the king bids me say: "our desires are fulfilled; the çastras have been studied; all the arts have been learnt; thou hast gained the highest skill in all the martial sciences. ( ) all thy teachers give thee permission to leave the house of learning. let the people see that thou hast received thy training, like a young royal elephant come out from the enclosure, having in thy mind the whole orb of the arts, like the full moon newly risen. let the eyes of the world, long eager to behold thee, fulfil their true function; for all the zenanas are yearning for thy sight. this is now the tenth year of thine abode in the school, and thou didst enter it having reached the experience of thy sixth year. this year, then, so reckoned, is the sixteenth of thy life. now, therefore, when thou hast come forth and shown thyself to all the mothers longing to see thee, and hast saluted those who deserve thy honour, do thou lay aside thy early discipline, and experience at thy will the pleasures of the court and the delights of fresh youth. pay thy respects to the chiefs; honour the brahmans; protect thy people; gladden thy kinsfolk. there stands at the door, sent by the king, this horse, named indrayudha, swift as garuda or as the wind, the chief jewel of the three worlds; ( ) for in truth the monarch of persia, who esteemed him the wonder of the universe, sent him with this message: 'this noble steed, sprung straight from the waters of ocean, was found by me, and is worthy for thee, o king, to mount;' and when he was shown to those skilled in a horse's points, they said: 'he has all the marks of which men tell us as belonging to uccaihçravas; there never has been nor will be a steed like him.' therefore let him be honoured by thy mounting him. these thousand princes, all sons of anointed kings, highly-trained, heroic, wise, and accomplished, and of long descent, sent for thine escort, wait on horseback, all eager to salute thee."' having thus said, balahaka paused, and candrapida, laying his father's command on his head, in a voice deep as a new cloud gave the order, 'let indrayudha be brought,' for he desired to mount him. '"immediately on his command indrayudha was brought, and he beheld that wondrous steed, led by two men on each side grasping the circle of the bit, and using all their efforts to curb him. he was very large, his back being just within reach of a man's uplifted hand; he seemed to drink the sky, which was on a level with his mouth; with a neigh which shook the cavity of his belly, and filled the hollows of the three worlds, he, as it were, upbraided garuda for his vain trust in his fabled speed; ( ) with a nostril snorting in wrath at any hindrance to his course, he, in his pride, examined the three worlds, that he might leap over them; his body was variegated with streaks of black, yellow, green, and pink, like indra's bow; he was like a young elephant, with a many-hued rug spread over him; like Çiva's bull, pink with metallic dust from butting at kailasa's peaks; like parvati's lion, with his mane crimsoned with the red streak of the demon's clotted blood; and like the very incarnation of all energy, with a sound emitted from his ever-quivering nostrils, he seemed to pour forth the wind inhaled in his swift course; he scattered the foam-flakes that frothed from his lips from the champing of the points of the bit which rattled as he rolled it in his mouth, as if they were mouthfuls of ambrosia drunk in his ocean home. ( ) and, beholding this steed, whose like was never before seen, in form fit for the gods, meet for the kingdom of the whole universe, ( ) possessed of all the favourable marks, the perfection of a horse's shape, the heart of candrapida, though of a nature not easily moved, was touched with amazement, and the thought arose in his mind: 'what jewel, if not this wondrous horse, was brought up by the suras and asuras when they churned the waters of ocean and whirled round mount mandara with the serpent vasuki revolving in ceaseless gyration? and what has indra gained by his lordship of the three worlds if he did not mount this back, broad as mount meru? surely indra was cheated by the ocean when his heart was gladdened by uccaihçravas! and i think that so far he has not crossed the sight of holy narayana, who even now does not give up his infatuation for riding garuda. my father's royal glory surpasses the riches of the kingdom of heaven, in that treasures such as this, which can hardly be gained in the whole universe, come here into servitude. from its magnificence and energy, this form of his seems the shrine of a god, and the truth of this makes me fear to mount him. for forms like this, fit for the gods and the wonder of the universe, belong to no common horse. even deities, subject to a muni's curse, have been known to leave their own bodies and inhabit other bodies brought to them by the terms of the curse. ( ) for there is a story of old how sthulaçiras, a muni of great austerity, cursed an apsaras named rambha, the ornament of the three worlds; and she, leaving heaven, entered the heart of a horse, and thus, as the story goes, dwelt for a long time on earth as a mare, in the service of king Çatadhanvan, at mrittikavati; and many other great-souled beings, having had their glory destroyed by the curse of munis, have roamed the world in various forms. surely this must be some noble being subject to a curse! my heart declares his divinity.' thus thinking, he rose, wishing to mount; and in mind only approaching the steed, he prayed thus: 'noble charger, thou art that thou art! all hail to thee! yet let my audacity in mounting thee be forgiven! for even deities whose presence is unknown taste of a contumely all unmeet for them.' '"as if knowing his thought, indrayudha looked at him with eye askance, the pupil turned and partly closed by the lashing of his tossing mane, ( ) and repeatedly struck the ground with his right hoof, till the hair on his chest was gray with the dust it cast up, as though summoning the prince to mount, with a pleasant whinnying long drawn out into a gentle soft murmur blent with the snorting of his quivering nostrils. whereupon candrapida mounted indrayudha, as though invited thereunto by his pleasant neighing; and, having mounted, he passed out, thinking the whole universe but a span long, and beheld a cavalcade of which the furthest limits could not be seen; it deafened the hollows of the three worlds with the clatter of hoofs breaking up the earth, fierce as a shower of stones let fall from the clouds, and with a neighing sounding the fiercer from nostrils choked with dust; it decked the sky with a forest of lances all horrent, whose shafts gleamed bright when touched by the sun, like a lake half hidden in a grove of blue lotus-buds upborne on their stalks; from its darkening the eight quarters with its thousand umbrellas all raised, it was like a mass of clouds iridescent with the full arch of indra's bow shining on them; ( ) while from the horses' mouths being white with foam-flakes cast abroad, and from the undulating line of their ceaseless curvetting, it rose to sight like a mass of ocean billows in the flood of final destruction; all the horses were in motion at candrapida's approach, as the waves of ocean at the moon's rising; and the princes, each wishing to be first in their eagerness to pay their homage, having their heads unprotected by the hasty removal of their umbrellas, and weary with trying to curb their horses, which were wild with trampling on each other, drew around the prince. as balahaka presented each by name, they bowed, bending low their heads, which showed the glow of loyalty under the guise of the rays uprising from the rubies in their waving crests, and which, from their having buds held up in adoration, were like lotuses resting on the water in the pitchers of coronation. having saluted them, candrapida, accompanied by vaiçampayana, also mounted, straightway set out for the city. ( ) he was shaded by a very large umbrella with a gold stick, borne above him, formed like the lotus on which royal glory might dwell, like the moon's orb to the moon-lotus grove of royal races, like an island being formed by the flow of the cavalcade, in hue like the circle of vasuki's hood whitened by the sea of milk, garlanded with many a rope of pearls, bearing the device of a lion designed above. the flowers in his ears were set dancing by the wind of the cowries waved on either side, and his praises were sung by many thousands of retainers running before him, young, for the most part, and brave, and by the bards, who ceaselessly recited aloud auspicious verses, with a soft cry of 'long life and victory.' '"and as he passed on his way to the city, like a manifestation of the god of love no longer bodiless, [ ] all the people, like a lotus-grove awakened by the moon's rising, left their work and gathered to behold him. '"'kartikeya scorns the name of kumara, [ ] since his own form is looked on with scorn by the throng of lotus-faces when this prince is by. surely we reap the reward of great virtue in that we behold that godlike form with eyes wide with the overflow of love sprung up within us, and upraised in eager curiosity. ( ) our birth in this world has now brought forth its fruit. nevertheless, all hail to blessed krishna, who in the guise of candrapida has assumed a new form!' with such words the city folk folded their hands in adoration and bowed before him. and from the thousand windows which were unclosed from curiosity to behold candrapida, the city itself became as it were a mass of open eyes; for straightway on hearing that he had left the palace of learning filled with all knowledge, women eager to see him mounted the roofs hastily throughout the city, leaving their half-done work; some with mirrors in their left hand were like the nights of the full moon, when the moon's whole orb is gleaming; some, with feet roseate with fresh lac, were like lotus-buds whose flowers had drunk the early sunlight; some, with their tender feet enmeshed in the bells of their girdle, fallen to the ground in their haste, were like elephants moving very slowly, checked by their chain; some were robed in rainbow hues, like the beauty of a day in the rainy season; some raised feet that blossomed into the white rays of their nails, like tame kalahamsas drawn by the sound of the anklets; ( ) some held strings of large pearls in their hands, as if in imitation of rati with her crystal rosary grasped in grief for the death of love; some, with wreaths of pearls falling between their breasts, were like the glory of evening when the pairs of cakravakas are separated by a pure slender stream; some, with rainbow flashes rising from the gems of their anklets, shone as if lovingly accompanied by tame peacocks; some, with their jewelled cups half drunk, distilled, as it were, from their rosy flower-like lips a sweet nectar. others, too, with their orbed faces appearing at the interstices of the emerald lattices, presented to the eyes a lotus-grove with its opening buds traversing the sky, as they gazed on the prince. on a sudden there arose a tinkling of ornaments born of hasty motion, with many a sound of lutes struck sweetly on their chords, blended with the cry of cranes summoned by the clanging of the girdles, accompanied by the noise of peacocks shut up in the zenana and rejoicing in the thunder caused by the stairs being struck by stumbling feet, ( ) soft with the murmur of kalahamsas fluttering in fear of the clash of fresh clouds, imitating the triumphant cry of love, taking captive the ears of lovely women with their ropes of jewels resounding shrilly as they touched one another, and re-echoing through all the corners of the houses. in a moment the dense throng of maidens made the palaces seem walled with women; the ground seemed to blossom by the laying on it of their lac-strewn lotus-feet; the city seemed girt with grace by the stream of fair forms; the sky seemed all moon by the throng of orbed faces; the circle of space seemed a lotus-grove by reason of the hands all raised to ward off the heat; the sunshine seemed robed in rainbows by the mass of rays from the jewels, and the day seemed formed of blue lotus-petals by the long line of bright glances. as the women gazed on him with eyes fixed and widened in curiosity, the form of candrapida entered into their hearts as though they were mirrors or water or crystal; and as the glow of love manifested itself there, their graceful speech became straightway mirthful, confidential, confused, envious, scornful, derisive, coquettish, loving, or full of longing. ( ) as, for instance: 'hasty one, wait for me! drunk with gazing, hold thy mantle! simpleton, lift up the long tresses that hang about thy face! remove thy moon-digit ornament! blinded with love, thy feet are caught in the flowers of thine offering, and thou wilt fall! love-distraught, tie up thy hair! intent on the sight of candrapida, raise thy girdle! naughty one, lift up the ear-flower waving on thy cheek! heartless one, pick up thine earring! eager in youth, thou art being watched! cover thy bosom! shameless one, gather up thy loosened robe! artfully artless, go on quicker! inquisitive girl, take another look at the king! insatiable, how long wilt thou look? fickle-hearted, think of thine own people! impish girl, thy mantle has fallen, and thou art mocked! thou whose eyes art filled with love, seest thou not thy friends? maiden full of guile, thou wilt live in sorrow with thy heart in causeless torment! thou who feignest coyness, what mean thy crafty glances? ( ) look boldly! bright with youth, why rest thy weight against us? angry one, go in front! envious girl, why block up the window? slave of love, thou bringest my outer robe to utter ruin! drunk with love's breath, restrain thyself! devoid of self-control, why run before thine elders? bright in strength, why so confused? silly girl, hide the thrill of love's fever! ill-behaved girl, why thus weary thyself? changeful one, thy girdle presseth thee, and thou sufferest vainly! absent-minded, thou heedest not thyself, though outside thy house! lost in curiosity, thou hast forgotten how to breathe! thou whose eyes art closed in the happy imagination of union with thy beloved, open them! he is passing! bereft of sense by the stroke of love's arrow, place the end of thy silken robe on thy head to keep off the sun's rays! thou who hast taken the vow of sati, thou lettest thine eyes wander, not seeing what is to be seen! wretched one, thou art cast down by the vow not to gaze on other men! vouchsafe to rise, dear friend, and to look at the blessed fish-bannered god, [ ] without his banner and bereft of rati, visibly present. ( ) his crest of malati flowers under his umbrella looks like a mass of moonbeams fallen in under the idea that night has set in, on his head dark with swarms of bees. his cheek is fair as a garland of open çirisha flowers touched with green by the splendour of his emerald earring. our youthful glow of love, under the guise of rich ruby rays among the pearl necklaces, shines out eager to enter his heart. it is so seen by him among the cowries. moreover, what is he laughing at as he talks to vaiçampayana, so that the circle of space is whitened with his bright teeth? balahaka, with the edge of his silken mantle green as a parrot's plumage, is removing from the tips of his hair the dust raised by the horses' hoofs. his bough-like foot, soft as lakshmi's lotus-hand, is raised and sportively cast athwart his horse's shoulder. his hand, with tapering fingers and bright as pink lotus-buds, is outstretched to its full length to ask for betel-nut, just as an elephant's trunk in eagerness for mouthfuls of vallisneria. ( ) happy is she who, a fellow-bride with earth, shall, like lakshmi, win that hand outvying the lotus! happy, too, is queen vilasavati, by whom he who is able to bear the whole earth was nourished in birth, as the elephant of the quarters by space!' '"and as they uttered these and other sayings of the same kind, candrapida, drunk in by their eyes, summoned by the tinkling of their ornaments, followed by their hearts, bound by the ropes of the rays of their jewels, honoured with the offering of their fresh youth, bestrewn with flowers and rice in salutation like a marriage fire, advancing step by step on a mass of white bracelets slipping from their languid arms, reached the palace."' [dismounting and leaning on vaiçampayana, he entered the court, preceded by balahaka, and passing through the crowd of attendant kings, beheld his father seated on a white couch and attended by his guards. [ ]] '"( ) and on the chamberlain's saying 'behold him!' the prince, with his head bent low, and its crest shaking, while yet afar off made his salutation, and his father, crying from afar, 'come, come hither!' stretched forth both arms, raised himself slightly from his couch, while his eyes filled with tears of joy and a thrill passed over his body, and embraced his reverently-bent son as though he would bind him fast [ ] and absorb him, and drink him in. and after the embrace, candrapida sat down on the bare ground by his father's footstool, kicking away the cloak which had been rolled up and hastily made into a seat by his own betel-nut bearer, and softly bidding her take it away; ( ) and then vaiçampayana, being embraced by the king like his own son, sat down on a seat placed for him. when he had been there a short time, assailed, as it were, by glances from the women who stood motionless, with the waving of the cowries forgotten, glances of love, long as strings of lotus stirred by the wind, from fine eyes tremulous and askant, he was dismissed with the words, 'go, my son, salute thy loving mother, who longs to see thee, and then in turn gladden all who nurtured thee by thy sight.' respectfully rising, and stopping his suite from following him, he went with vaiçampayana to the zenana, led by the royal servants meet to enter therein, and approaching his mother, saluted her"' [as she sat surrounded by her attendants and by aged ascetic women, who read and recited legends to her [ ]]. '"( ) she raised him, while her attendants, skilled in doing her commands, stood around her, and, with a loving caress, held him in a long embrace, as though thinking inwardly of a hundred auspicious words to say, and straightway, when the claims of affection had been satisfied, and she had embraced vaiçampayana, she sat down, and drew candrapida, who was reverently seated on the ground, forcibly and against his will to rest in her arms; ( ) and when vaiçampayana was seated on a stool quickly brought by the attendants, she embraced candrapida again and again on brow, breast, and shoulders, and said, with many a caressing touch: 'hard-hearted, my child, was thy father, by whom so fair a form, meet to be cherished by the whole universe, was made to undergo great fatigue for so long! how didst thou endure the tedious restraint of thy gurus? indeed, young as thou art, thou hast a strong man's fortitude! thy heart, even in childhood, has lost all idle liking for childish amusement and play. ah well, all devotion to natural and spiritual parents is something apart; and as i now see thee endowed, by thy father's favour, with all knowledge, so i shall soon see thee endowed with worthy wives.' having thus said as he bent his head, smiling half in shame, she kissed him on the cheek, which was a full reflection of her own, and garlanded with open lotuses; and he, when he had stayed a short time, gladdened in turn by his presence the whole zenana. then, departing by the royal door, he mounted indrayudha, who was standing outside, and, followed by the princes, went to see Çukanasa,"' [and at the gate of an outer court, filled with priests of many sects, he dismounted [ ]] '"( ) and entered the palace of Çukanasa, which resembled a second royal court. on entering he saluted Çukanasa like a second father as he stood in the midst of thousands of kings, showing him all respect, with his crest bent low even from afar. Çukanasa, quickly rising, while the kings rose one after another, and respectfully advancing straight to him, with tears of joy falling from eyes wide with gladness, heartily, and with great affection, embraced him, together with vaiçampayana. then the prince, rejecting the jewelled seat respectfully brought, sat on the bare ground, and next to him sat vaiçampayana; and when he sat on the ground, the whole circle of kings, except Çukanasa, leaving their own seats, sat also on the ground. Çukanasa stood silent for a moment, showing his extreme joy by the thrill that passed over his limbs, and then said to the prince: 'truly, my child, now that king tarapida has seen thee grown to youth and possessed of knowledge, he has at length gained the fruit of his rule over the universe. now all the blessings of thy parents have been fulfilled. now the merit acquired in many other births has borne fruit. now the gods of thy race are content. ( ) for they who, like thee, astonish the three worlds, do not become the sons of the unworthy. for where is thy age? and where thy superhuman power and thy capacity of reaching boundless knowledge? yea, blessed are those subjects who have thee for their protector, one like unto bharata and bhagiratha. what bright deed of merit was done by earth that she has won thee as lord? surely, lakshmi is destroyed by persisting in the caprice of dwelling in vishnu's bosom, that she does not approach thee in mortal form! but, nevertheless, do thou with thine arm, as the great boar with his circle of tusks, bear up for myriads of ages the weight of the earth, helping thy father.' thus saying, and offering homage with ornaments, dresses, flowers, and unguents, he dismissed him. thereupon the prince, rising, and entering the zenana, visited vaiçampayana's mother, by name manorama, and, departing, mounted indrayudha, and went to his palace. it had been previously arranged by his father, and had white jars filled and placed on the gates, like an image of the royal palace; it had garlands of green sandal boughs, thousands of white flags flying, and filled the air with the sound of auspicious instruments of music; open lotuses were strewn in it. a sacrifice to agni had just been performed, every attendant was in bright apparel, every auspicious ceremony for entering a house had been prepared. on his arrival he sat for a short time on a couch placed in the hall, and then, together with his princely retinue, performed the day's duties, beginning with bathing and ending with a banquet; ( ) and meanwhile he arranged that indrayudha should dwell in his own chamber. '"and in these doings of his the day came to a close; the sun's orb fell with lifted rays like the ruby anklet--its interstices veiled in its own light--of the glory of day, as she hastens from the sky. ( ) and when evening had begun, candrapida, encircled by a fence of lighted lamps, went on foot to the king's palace, ( ) and having stayed a short time with his father, and seen vilasavati, he returned to his own house and lay down on a couch, many-hued with the radiance of various gems, like krishna on the circle of Çesha's hoods. '"and when night had turned to dawn, he, with his father's leave, rose before sunrise, in eagerness for the new delight of hunting, and, mounting indrayudha, went to the wood with a great retinue of runners, horses, and elephants. his eagerness was doubled by huntsmen leading in a golden leash hounds large as asses. with arrows whose shafts were bright as the leaves of a blossoming lotus, and fit to cleave the frontal bones of young wild elephants, he slew wild boars, lions, çarabhas, [ ] yaks, and many other kinds of deer by thousands, ( ) while the woodland goddesses looked at him with half-closed eyes, fluttered by fear of the twanging of his bow. other animals by his great energy he took alive. and when the sun reached the zenith, he rode home from the wood ( ) with but a few princes who were well mounted, going over the events of the chase, saying: 'thus i killed a lion, thus a bear, thus a buffalo, thus a çarabha, thus a stag.' '"on dismounting, he sat down on a seat brought hastily by his attendants, took off his corselet, and removed the rest of his riding apparel; he then rested a short time, till his weariness was removed by the wind of waving fans; having rested, he went to the bathroom, provided with a hundred pitchers of gold, silver, and jewels, and having a gold seat placed in its midst. and when the bath was over, and he had been rubbed in a separate room with cloths, his head was covered with a strip of pure linen, his raiment was put on, and he performed his homage to the gods; and when he entered the perfuming-room, there approached him the court women attendants, appointed by the grand chamberlain and sent by the king, slaves of vilasavati, with kulavardhana, and zenana women sent from the whole zenana, bearing in baskets different ornaments, wreaths, unguents, and robes, which they presented to him. having taken them in due order from the women, he first himself anointed vaiçampayana. when his own anointing was done, and giving to those around him flowers, perfumes, robes, and jewels, as was meet, ( ) he went to the banquet-hall, rich in a thousand jewelled vessels, like the autumn sky gleaming with stars. he there sat on a doubled rug, with vaiçampayana next him, eagerly employed, as was fitting, in praising his virtues, and the host of princes, placed each in order of seniority on the ground, felt the pleasure of their service increased by seeing the great courtesy with which the prince said: 'let this be given to him, and that to him!' and so he duly partook of his morning meal. '"after rinsing his mouth and taking betel, he stayed there a short time, and then went to indrayudha, and there, without sitting down, while his attendants stood behind him, with upraised faces, awaiting his commands, and talking mostly about indrayudha's points, he himself, with heart uplifted by indrayudha's merits, scattered the fodder before him, and departing, visited the court; and in the same order of routine he saw the king, and, returning home, spent the night there. next day, at dawn, he beheld approaching a chamberlain, by name kailasa, the chief of the zenana, greatly trusted by the king, accompanied by a maiden of noble form, in her first youth, from her life at court self-possessed, yet not devoid of modesty, ( ) growing to maidenhood, and in her veil of silk red with cochineal, resembling the eastern quarter clothed in early sunshine. ( ) and kailasa, bowing and approaching, with his right hand placed on the ground, spoke as follows: '"'prince, queen vilasavati bids me say: "this maiden, by name patralekha, daughter of the king of kuluta, was brought with the captives by the great king on his conquest of the royal city of kuluta while she was yet a little child, and was placed among the zenana women. and tenderness grew up in me towards her, seeing she was a king's daughter and without a protector, and she was long cared for and brought up by me just like a daughter. therefore, i now send her to thee, thinking her fit to be thy betel-bearer; but she must not be looked on by thee, great prince of many days, as thine other attendants. she must be cared for as a young maiden; she must be shielded from the thoughtless like thine own nature; she must be looked on as a pupil. ( ) like a friend, she must be admitted to all thy confidences. by reason of the love that has long grown up in me, my heart rests on her as on my own daughter; and being sprung from a great race, she is fitted for such duties; in truth, she herself will in a few days charm the prince by her perfect gentleness. my love for her is of long growth, and therefore strong; but as the prince does not yet know her character, this is told to him. thou must in all ways strive, happy prince, that she may long be thy fitting companion."' when kailasa had thus spoken and was silent, candrapida looked long and steadily at patralekha as she made a courteous obeisance, and with the words, 'as my mother wishes,' dismissed the chamberlain. and patralekha, from her first sight of him, was filled with devotion to him, and never left the prince's side either by night or day, whether he was sleeping, or sitting, or standing, or walking, or going to the court, just as if she were his shadow; while he felt for her a great affection, beginning from his first glance at her, and constantly growing; he daily showed more favour to her, and counted her in all his secrets as part of his own heart. '"as the days thus passed on, the king, eager for the anointing of candrapida as crown prince, ( ) appointed chamberlains to gather together all things needful for it; and when it was at hand, Çukanasa, desirous of increasing the prince's modesty, great as it already was, spoke to him at length during one of his visits: 'dear candrapida, though thou hast learnt what is to be known, and read all the çastras, no little remains for thee to learn. for truly the darkness arising from youth is by nature very thick, nor can it be pierced by the sun, nor cleft by the radiance of jewels, nor dispelled by the brightness of lamps. the intoxication of lakshmi is terrible, and does not cease even in old age. there is, too, another blindness of power, evil, not to be cured by any salve. the fever of pride runs very high, and no cooling appliances can allay it. the madness that rises from tasting the poison of the senses is violent, and not to be counteracted by roots or charms. the defilement of the stain of passion is never destroyed by bathing or purification. the sleep of the multitude of royal pleasures is ever terrible, and the end of night brings no waking. thus thou must often be told at length. lordship inherited even from birth, fresh youth, peerless beauty, superhuman talent, all this is a long succession of ills. ( ) each of these separately is a home of insolence; how much more the assemblage of them! for in early youth the mind often loses its purity, though it be cleansed with the pure waters of the çastras. the eyes of the young become inflamed, though their clearness is not quite lost. nature, too, when the whirlwind of passion arises, carries a man far in youth at its own will, like a dry leaf borne on the wind. this mirage of pleasure, which captivates the senses as if they were deer, always ends in sorrow. when the mind has its consciousness dulled by early youth, the characteristics of the outer world fall on it like water, all the more sweetly for being but just tasted. extreme clinging to the things of sense destroys a man, misleading him like ignorance of his bearings. but men such as thou art the fitting vessels for instruction. for on a mind free from stain the virtue of good counsel enters easily, as the moon's rays on a moon crystal. the words of a guru, though pure, yet cause great pain when they enter the ears of the bad, as water does; ( ) while in others they produce a nobler beauty, like the ear-jewel on an elephant. they remove the thick darkness of many sins, like the moon in the gloaming. [ ] the teaching of a guru is calming, and brings to an end the faults of youth by turning them to virtue, just as old age takes away the dark stain of the locks by turning them to gray. this is the time to teach thee, while thou hast not yet tasted the pleasures of sense. for teaching pours away like water in a heart shattered by the stroke of love's arrow. family and sacred tradition are unavailing to the froward and undisciplined. does a fire not burn when fed on sandal-wood? is not the submarine fire the fiercer in the water that is wont to quench fire? but the words of a guru are a bathing without water, able to cleanse all the stains of man; they are a maturity that changes not the locks to gray; they give weight without increase of bulk; though not wrought of gold, they are an ear-jewel of no common order; without light they shine; without startling they awaken. they are specially needed for kings, for the admonishers of kings are few. ( ) for from fear, men follow like an echo the words of kings, and so, being unbridled in their pride, and having the cavity of their ears wholly stopped, they do not hear good advice even when offered; and when they do hear, by closing their eyes like an elephant, they show their contempt, and pain the teachers who offer them good counsel. for the nature of kings, being darkened by the madness of pride's fever, is perturbed; their wealth causes arrogance and false self-esteem; their royal glory causes the torpor brought about by the poison of kingly power. first, let one who strives after happiness look at lakshmi. for this lakshmi, who now rests like a bee on the lotus-grove of a circle of naked swords, has risen from the milk ocean, has taken her glow from the buds of the coral-tree, her crookedness from the moon's digit, her restlessness from the steed uccaihçrava, her witchery from kalakuta poison, her intoxication from nectar, and from the kaustubha gem her hardness. ( ) all these she has taken as keepsakes to relieve her longing with memory of her companions' friendship. there is nothing so little understood here in the world as this base lakshmi. when won, she is hard to keep; when bound fast by the firm cords of heroism, she vanishes; when held by a cage of swords brandished by a thousand fierce champions, she yet escapes; when guarded by a thick band of elephants, dark with a storm of ichor, she yet flees away. she keeps not friendships; she regards not race; she recks not of beauty; she follows not the fortunes of a family; she looks not on character; she counts not cleverness; she hears not sacred learning; she courts not righteousness; she honours not liberality; she values not discrimination; she guards not conduct; she understands not truth; she makes not auspicious marks her guide; like the outline of an aërial city, she vanishes even as we look on her. she is still dizzy with the feeling produced by the eddying of the whirlpool made by mount mandara. as if she were the tip of a lotus-stalk bound to the varying motion of a lotus-bed, she gives no firm foothold anywhere. even when held fast with great effort in palaces, she totters as if drunk with the ichor of their many wild elephants. ( ) she dwells on the sword's edge as if to learn cruelty. she clings to the form of narayana as if to learn constant change of form. full of fickleness, she leaves even a king, richly endowed with friends, judicial power, treasure, and territory, as she leaves a lotus at the end of day, though it have root, stalk, bud, and wide-spreading petals. like a creeper, she is ever a parasite. [ ] like ganga, though producing wealth, she is all astir with bubbles; like the sun's ray, she alights on one thing after another; like the cavity of hell, she is full of dense darkness. like the demon hidamba, her heart is only won by the courage of a bhima; like the rainy season, she sends forth but a momentary flash; like an evil demon, she, with the height of many men, [ ] crazes the feeble mind. as if jealous, she embraces not him whom learning has favoured; she touches not the virtuous man, as being impure; she despises a lofty nature as unpropitious; she regards not the gently-born, as useless. she leaps over a courteous man as a snake; ( ) she avoids a hero as a thorn; she forgets a giver as a nightmare; she keeps far from a temperate man as a villain; she mocks at the wise as a fool; she manifests her ways in the world as if in a jugglery that unites contradictions. for, though creating constant fever, [ ] she produces a chill; [ ] though exalting men, she shows lowness of soul; though rising from water, she augments thirst; though bestowing lordship, [ ] she shows an unlordly [ ] nature; though loading men with power, she deprives them of weight; [ ] though sister of nectar, she leaves a bitter taste; though of earthly mould, [ ] she is invisible; though attached to the highest, [ ] she loves the base; like a creature of dust, she soils even the pure. moreover, let this wavering one shine as she may, she yet, like lamplight, only sends forth lamp-black. for she is the fostering rain of the poison-plants of desire, the hunter's luring song to the deer of the senses, the polluting smoke to the pictures of virtue, the luxurious couch of infatuation's long sleep, the ancient watch-tower of the demons of pride and wealth. ( ) she is the cataract gathering over eyes lighted by the çastras, the banner of the reckless, the native stream of the alligators of wrath, the tavern of the mead of the senses, the music-hall of alluring dances, the lair of the serpents of sin, the rod to drive out good practices. she is the untimely rain to the kalahamsas [ ] of the virtues, the hotbed of the pustules of scandal, the prologue of the drama of fraud, the roar of the elephant of passion, the slaughter-house of goodness, the tongue of rahu for the moon of holiness. nor see i any who has not been violently embraced by her while she was yet unknown to him, and whom she has not deceived. truly, even in a picture she moves; even in a book she practises magic; even cut in a gem she deceives; even when heard she misleads; even when thought on she betrays. '"'when this wretched evil creature wins kings after great toil by the will of destiny, they become helpless, and the abode of every shameful deed. for at the very moment of coronation their graciousness is washed away as if by the auspicious water-jars; ( ) their heart is darkened as by the smoke of the sacrificial fire; their patience is swept away as by the kuça brooms of the priest; their remembrance of advancing age is concealed as by the donning of the turban; the sight of the next world is kept afar as by the umbrella's circle; truth is removed as by the wind of the cowries; virtue is driven out as by the wands of office; the voices of the good are drowned as by cries of "all hail!" and glory is flouted as by the streamers of the banners. '"'for some kings are deceived by successes which are uncertain as the tremulous beaks of birds when loose from weariness, and which, though pleasant for a moment as a firefly's flash, are contemned by the wise; they forget their origin in the pride of amassing a little wealth, and are troubled by the onrush of passion as by a blood-poisoning brought on by accumulated diseases; they are tortured by the senses, which though but five, in their eagerness to taste every pleasure, turn to a thousand; they are bewildered by the mind, which, in native fickleness, follows its own impulses, and, being but one, gets the force of a hundred thousand in its changes. thus they fall into utter helplessness. they are seized by demons, conquered by imps, ( ) possessed by enchantments, held by monsters, mocked by the wind, swallowed by ogres. pierced by the arrows of kama, they make a thousand contortions; scorched by covetousness, they writhe; struck down by fierce blows, they sink down. [ ] like crabs, they sidle; like cripples, with steps broken by sin, they are led helpless by others; like stammerers from former sins of falsehood, they can scarce babble; like saptacchada [ ] trees, they produce headache in those near them; like dying men, they know not even their kin; like purblind [ ] men, they cannot see the brightest virtue; like men bitten in a fatal hour, they are not waked even by mighty charms; like lac-ornaments, they cannot endure strong heat; [ ] like rogue elephants, being firmly fixed to the pillar of self-conceit, they refuse teaching; bewildered by the poison of covetousness, they see everything as golden; like arrows sharpened by polishing, [ ] when in the hands of others they cause destruction; ( ) with their rods [ ] they strike down great families, like high-growing fruit; like untimely blossoms, though fair outwardly, they cause destruction; they are terrible of nature, like the ashes of a funeral pyre; like men with cataract, they can see no distance; like men possessed, they have their houses ruled by court jesters; when but heard of, they terrify, like funeral drums; when but thought of, like a resolve to commit mortal sin, they bring about great calamity; being daily filled with sin, they become wholly puffed up. in this state, having allied themselves to a hundred sins, they are like drops of water hanging on the tip of the grass on an anthill, and have fallen without perceiving it. '"'but others are deceived by rogues intent on their own ends, greedy of the flesh-pots of wealth, cranes of the palace lotus-beds! "gambling," say these, "is a relaxation; adultery a sign of cleverness; hunting, exercise; drinking, delight; recklessness, heroism; neglect of a wife, freedom from infatuation; ( ) contempt of a guru's words, a claim to others' submission; unruliness of servants, the ensuring of pleasant service; devotion to dance, song, music, and bad company, is knowledge of the world; hearkening to shameful crimes is greatness of mind; tame endurance of contempt is patience; self-will is lordship; disregard of the gods is high spirit; the praise of bards is glory; restlessness is enterprise; lack of discernment is impartiality." thus are kings deceived with more than mortal praises by men ready to raise faults to the grade of virtues, practised in deception, laughing in their hearts, utterly villainous; and thus these monarchs, by reason of their senselessness, have their minds intoxicated by the pride of wealth, and have a settled false conceit in them that these things are really so; though subject to mortal conditions, they look on themselves as having alighted on earth as divine beings with a superhuman destiny; they employ a pomp in their undertakings only fit for gods ( ) and win the contempt of all mankind. they welcome this deception of themselves by their followers. from the delusion as to their own divinity established in their minds, they are overthrown by false ideas, and they think their own pair of arms have received another pair; [ ] they imagine their forehead has a third eye buried in the skin. [ ] they consider the sight of themselves a favour; they esteem their glance a benefit; they regard their words as a present; they hold their command a glorious boon; they deem their touch a purification. weighed down by the pride of their false greatness, they neither do homage to the gods, nor reverence brahmans, nor honour the honourable, nor salute those to whom salutes are due, nor address those who should be addressed, nor rise to greet their gurus. they laugh at the learned as losing in useless labour all the enjoyment of pleasure; they look on the teaching of the old as the wandering talk of dotage; they abuse the advice of their councillors as an insult to their own wisdom; they are wroth with the giver of good counsel. '"'at all events, the man they welcome, with whom they converse, whom they place by their side, advance, ( ) take as companion of their pleasure and recipient of their gifts, choose as a friend, the man to whose voice they listen, on whom they rain favours, of whom they think highly, in whom they trust, is he who does nothing day and night but ceaselessly salute them, praise them as divine, and exalt their greatness. '"'what can we expect of those kings whose standard is a law of deceit, pitiless in the cruelty of its maxims; whose gurus are family priests, with natures made merciless by magic rites; whose teachers are councillors skilled to deceive others; whose hearts are set on a power that hundreds of kings before them have gained and lost; whose skill in weapons is only to inflict death; whose brothers, tender as their hearts may be with natural affection, are only to be slaughtered. '"'therefore, my prince, in this post of empire which is terrible in the hundreds of evil and perverse impulses which attend it, and in this season of youth which leads to utter infatuation, thou must strive earnestly not to be scorned by thy people, nor blamed by the good, nor cursed by thy gurus, nor reproached by thy friends, nor grieved over by the wise. strive, too, that thou be not exposed by knaves, ( ) deceived by sharpers, preyed upon by villains, torn to pieces by wolvish courtiers, misled by rascals, deluded by women, cheated by fortune, led a wild dance by pride, maddened by desire, assailed by the things of sense, dragged headlong by passion, carried away by pleasure. '"'granted that by nature thou art steadfast, and that by thy father's care thou art trained in goodness, and moreover, that wealth only intoxicates the light of nature, and the thoughtless, yet my very delight in thy virtues makes me speak thus at length. '"'let this saying be ever ringing in thine ears: there is none so wise, so prudent, so magnanimous, so gracious, so steadfast, and so earnest, that the shameless wretch fortune cannot grind him to powder. yet now mayest thou enjoy the consecration of thy youth to kinghood by thy father under happy auspices. bear the yoke handed down to thee that thy forefathers have borne. bow the heads of thy foes; raise the host of thy friends; after thy coronation wander round the world for conquest; and bring under thy sway the earth with its seven continents subdued of yore by thy father. '"'this is the time to crown thyself with glory. ( ) a glorious king has his commands fulfilled as swiftly as a great ascetic.' '"having said thus much, he was silent, and by his words candrapida was, as it were, washed, wakened, purified, brightened, bedewed, anointed, adorned, cleansed, and made radiant, and with glad heart he returned after a short time to his own palace. '"some days later, on an auspicious day, the king, surrounded by a thousand chiefs, raised aloft, with Çukanasa's help, the vessel of consecration, and himself anointed his son, while the rest of the rites were performed by the family priest. the water of consecration was brought from every sacred pool, river and ocean, encircled by every plant, fruit, earth, and gem, mingled with tears of joy, and purified by mantras. at that very moment, while the prince was yet wet with the water of consecration, royal glory passed on to him without leaving tarapida, as a creeper still clasping its own tree passes to another. ( ) straightway he was anointed from head to foot by vilasavati, attended by all the zenana, and full of tender love, with sweet sandal white as moonbeams. he was garlanded with fresh white flowers; decked [ ] with lines of gorocana; adorned with an earring of durva grass; clad in two new silken robes with long fringes, white as the moon; bound with an amulet round his hand, tied by the family priest; and had his breast encircled by a pearl-necklace, like the circle of the seven rishis come down to see his coronation, strung on filaments from the lotus-pool of the royal fortune of young royalty. '"from the complete concealment of his body by wreaths of white flowers interwoven and hanging to his knees, soft as moonbeams, and from his wearing snowy robes he was like narasimha, shaking his thick mane, [ ] or like kailasa, with its flowing streams, or airavata, rough with the tangled lotus-fibres of the heavenly ganges, or the milky ocean, all covered with flakes of bright foam. ( ) '"then his father himself for that time took the chamberlain's wand to make way for him, and he went to the hall of assembly and mounted the royal throne, like the moon on meru's peak. then, when he had received due homage from the kings, after a short pause the great drum that heralded his setting out on his triumphal course resounded deeply, under the stroke of golden drum-sticks. its sound was as the noise of clouds gathering at the day of doom; or the ocean struck by mandara; or the foundations of earth by the earthquakes that close an aeon; or a portent-cloud, with its flashes of lightning; or the hollow of hell by the blows of the snout of the great boar. and by its sound the spaces of the world were inflated, opened, separated, outspread, filled, turned sunwise, and deepened, and the bonds that held the sky were unloosed. the echo of it wandered through the three worlds; for it was embraced in the lower world by Çesha, with his thousand hoods raised and bristling in fear; it was challenged in space by the elephants of the quarters tossing their tusks in opposition; it was honoured with sunwise turns in the sky by the sun's steeds, tossing [ ] their heads in their snort of terror; ( ) it was wondrously answered on kailasa's peak by Çiva's bull, with a roar of joy in the belief that it was his master's loudest laugh; it was met in meru by airavata, with deep trumpeting; it was reverenced in the hall of the gods by yama's bull, with his curved horns turned sideways in wrath at so strange a sound; and it was heard in terror by the guardian gods of the world. '"then, at the roar of the drum, followed by an outcry of 'all hail!' from all sides, candrapida came down from the throne, and with him went the glory of his foes. he left the hall of assembly, followed by a thousand chiefs, who rose hastily around him, strewing on all sides the large pearls that fell from the strings of their necklaces as they struck against each other, like rice sportively thrown as a good omen for their setting off to conquer the world. he showed like the coral-tree amid the white buds of the kalpa-trees; [ ] or airavata amid the elephants of the quarters bedewing him with water from their trunks; or heaven, with the firmament showering stars; or the rainy season with clouds ever pouring heavy drops. ( ) '"then an elephant was hastily brought by the mahout, adorned with all auspicious signs for the journey, and on the inner seat patralekha was placed. the prince then mounted, and under the shade of an umbrella with a hundred wires enmeshed with pearls, beauteous as kailasa standing on the arms of ravana, and white as the whirlpools of the milky ocean under the tossing of the mountain, he started on his journey. and as he paused in his departure he saw the ten quarters tawny with the rich sunlight, surpassing molten lac, of the flashing crest-jewels of the kings who watched him with faces hidden behind the ramparts, as if the light were the fire of his own majesty, flashing forth after his coronation. he saw the earth bright as if with his own glow of loyalty when anointed as heir-apparent, and the sky crimson as with the flame that heralded the swift destruction of his foes, and daylight roseate as with lac-juice from the feet of the lakshmi of earth coming to greet him. '"on the way hosts of kings, with their thousand elephants swaying in confusion, their umbrellas broken by the pressure of the crowd, their crest-jewels falling low as their diadems bent in homage, ( ) their earrings hanging down, and the jewels falling on their cheeks, bowed low before him, as a trusted general recited their names. the elephant gandhamadana followed the prince, pink with much red lead, dangling to the ground his ear-ornaments of pearls, having his head outlined with many a wreath of white flowers, like meru with evening sunlight resting on it, the white stream of ganges falling across it, and the spangled roughness of a bevy of stars on its peak. before candrapida went indrayudha, led by his groom, perfumed with saffron and many-hued, with the flash of golden trappings on his limbs. and so the expedition slowly started towards the eastern quarter. [ ] '"then the whole army set forth with wondrous turmoil, with its forest of umbrellas stirred by the elephants' movements, like an ocean of destruction reflecting on its advancing waves a thousand moons, flooding the earth. ( ) '"when the prince left his palace vaiçampayana performed every auspicious rite, and then, clothed in white, anointed with an ointment of white flowers, accompanied by a great host of powerful kings, shaded by a white umbrella, followed close on the prince, mounted on a swift elephant, like a second crown prince, and drew near to him like the moon to the sun. straightway the earth heard on all sides the cry: 'the crown prince has started!' and shook with the weight of the advancing army. ( ) '"in an instant the earth seemed as it were made of horses; the horizon, of elephants; the atmosphere, of umbrellas; the sky, of forests of pennons; the wind, of the scent of ichor; the human race, of kings; the eye, of the rays of jewels; the day, of crests; the universe, of cries of 'all hail!' ( - condensed) '"the dust rose at the advance of the army like a herd of elephants to tear up the lotuses of the sunbeams, or a veil to cover the lakshmi of the three worlds. day became earthy; the quarters were modelled in clay; the sky was, as it were, resolved in dust, and the whole universe appeared to consist of but one element. ( ) '"when the horizon became clear again, vaiçampayana, looking at the mighty host which seemed to rise from the ocean, was filled with wonder, and, turning his glance on every side, said to candrapida: 'what, prince, has been left unconquered by the mighty king tarapida, for thee to conquer? what regions unsubdued, for thee to subdue? ( ) what fortresses untaken, for thee to take? what continents unappropriated, for thee to appropriate? what treasures ungained, for thee to gain? what kings have not been humbled? by whom have the raised hands of salutation, soft as young lotuses, not been placed on the head? by whose brows, encircled with golden bands, have the floors of his halls not been polished? whose crest-jewels have not scraped his footstool? who have not accepted his staff of office? who have not waved his cowries? who have not raised the cry of "hail!"? who have not drunk in with the crocodiles of their crests, the radiance of his feet, like pure streams? for all these princes, though they are imbued with the pride of armies, ready in their rough play to plunge into the four oceans; though they are the peers of the great kings daçaratha, bhagiratha, bharata, dilipa, alarka, and mandhatri; though they are anointed princes, soma-drinkers, haughty in the pride of birth, yet they bear on the sprays of crests purified with the shower of the water of consecration the dust of thy feet of happy omen, like an amulet of ashes. by them as by fresh noble mountains, the earth is upheld. these their armies that have entered the heart of the ten regions follow thee alone. ( ) for lo! wherever thy glance is cast, hell seems to vomit forth armies, the earth to bear them, the quarters to discharge them, the sky to rain them, the day to create them. and methinks the earth, trampled by the weight of boundless hosts, recalls to-day the confusion of the battles of the mahabharata. '"'here the sun wanders in the groves of pennons, with his orb stumbling over their tops, as if he were trying, out of curiosity, to count the banners. the earth is ceaselessly submerged under ichor sweet as cardamons, and flowing like a plait of hair, from the elephants who scatter it all round, and thick, too, with the murmur of the bees settling on it, so that it shines as if filled with the waves of yamuna. the lines of moon-white flags hide the horizon, like rivers that in fear of being made turbid by the heavy host have fled to the sky. it is a wonder that the earth has not to-day been split into a thousand pieces by the weight of the army; and that the bonds of its joints, the noble mountains, are not burst asunder; and that the hoods of Çesha, the lord of serpents, in distress at the burden of earth pressed down under the load of troops, do not give way.' ( ) '"while he was thus speaking, the prince reached his palace. it was adorned with many lofty triumphal arches; dotted with a thousand pavilions enclosed in grassy ramparts, and bright with many a tent of shining white cloth. here he dismounted, and performed in kingly wise all due rites; and though the kings and ministers who had come together sought to divert him with various tales, he spent the rest of the day in sorrow, for his heart was tortured with bitter grief for his fresh separation from his father. when day was brought to a close he passed the night, too, mostly in sleeplessness, with vaiçampayana resting on a couch not far from his own, and patralekha sleeping hard by on a blanket placed on the ground; his talk was now of his father, now of his mother, now of Çukanasa, and he rested but little. at dawn he arose, and with an army that grew at every march, as it advanced in unchanged order, he hollowed the earth, shook the mountains, dried the rivers, emptied the lakes, ( ) crushed the woods to powder, levelled the crooked places, tore down the fortresses, filled up the hollows, and hollowed the solid ground. '"by degrees, as he wandered at will, he bowed the haughty, exalted the humble, encouraged the fearful, protected the suppliant, rooted out the vicious, and drove out the hostile. he anointed princes in different places, gathered treasures, accepted gifts, took tribute, taught local regulations, established monuments of his visit, made hymns of worship, and inscribed edicts. he honoured brahmans, reverenced saints, protected hermitages, and showed a prowess that won his people's love. he exalted his majesty, heaped up his glory, showed his virtues far and wide, and won renown for his good deeds. thus trampling down the woods on the shore, and turning the whole expanse of ocean to gray with the dust of his army, he wandered over the earth. '"the east was his first conquest, then the southern quarter, marked by triçanku, then the western quarter, which has varuna for its sign, and immediately afterwards the northern quarter adorned by the seven rishis. within the three years that he roamed over the world he had subdued the whole earth, with its continents, bounded only by the moat of four oceans. ( ) '"he then, wandering sunwise, conquered and occupied suvarnapura, not far from the eastern ocean, the abode of those kiratas who dwell near kailasa, and are called hemajakutas, and as his army was weary from its worldwide wandering, he encamped there for a few days to rest. '"one day during his sojourn there he mounted indrayudha to hunt, and as he roamed through the wood he beheld a pair of kinnaras wandering down at will from the mountains. wondering at the strange sight, and eager to take them, he brought up his horse respectfully near them and approached them. but they hurried on, fearing the unknown sight of a man, and fleeing from him, while he pursued them, doubling indrayudha's speed by frequent pats on his neck, and went on alone, leaving his army far behind. led on by the idea that he was just catching them, he was borne in an instant fifteen leagues from his own quarters by indrayudha's speed as it were at one bound, and was left companionless. ( ) the pair of kinnaras he was pursuing were climbing a steep hill in front of him. he at length turned away his glance, which was following their progress, and, checked by the steepness of the ascent, reined in indrayudha. then, seeing that both his horse and himself were tired and heated by their toils, he considered for a moment, and laughed at himself as he thought: 'why have i thus wearied myself for nothing, like a child? what matters it whether i catch the pair of kinnaras or not? if caught, what is the good? if missed, what is the harm? what a folly this is of mine! what a love of busying myself in any trifle! what a passion for aimless toil! what a clinging to childish pleasure! the good work i was doing has been begun in vain. the needful rite i had begun has been rendered fruitless. the duty of friendship i undertook has not been performed. the royal office i was employed in has not been fulfilled. the great task i had entered on has not been completed. my earnest labour in a worthy ambition has been brought to nought. why have i been so mad as to leave my followers behind and come so far? ( ) and why have i earned for myself the ridicule i should bestow on another, when i think how aimlessly i have followed these monsters with their horses' heads? i know not how far off is the army that follows me. for the swiftness of indrayudha traverses a vast space in a moment, and his speed prevented my noticing as i came by what path i should turn back, for my eyes were fixed on the kinnaras; and now i am in a great forest, spread underfoot with dry leaves, with a dense growth of creepers, underwood, and branching trees. roam as i may here i cannot light on any mortal who can show me the way to suvarnapura. i have often heard that suvarnapura is the farthest bound of earth to the north, and that beyond it lies a supernatural forest, and beyond that again is kailasa. this then is kailasa; so i must turn back now, and resolutely seek to make my way unaided to the south. for a man must bear the fruit of his own faults.' '"with this purpose he shook the reins in his left hand, and turned the horse's head. then he again reflected: ( ) 'the blessed sun with glowing light now adorns the south, as if he were the zone-gem of the glory of day. indrayudha is tired; i will just let him eat a few mouthfuls of grass, and then let him bathe and drink in some mountain rill or river; and when he is refreshed i will myself drink some water, and after resting a short time under the shade of a tree, i will set out again.' '"so thinking, constantly turning his eyes on every side for water, he wandered till at length he saw a track wet with masses of mud raised by the feet of a large troop of mountain elephants, who had lately come up from bathing in a lotus-pool. ( ) inferring thence that there was water near, he went straight on along the slope of kailasa, the trees of which, closely crowded as they were, seemed, from their lack of boughs, to be far apart, for they were mostly pines, çal, and gum olibanum trees, and were lofty, and like a circle of umbrellas, to be gazed at with upraised head. there was thick yellow sand, and by reason of the stony soil the grass and shrubs were but scanty. ( ) '"at length he beheld, on the north-east of kailasa, a very lofty clump of trees, rising like a mass of clouds, heavy with its weight of rain, and massed as if with the darkness of a night in the dark fortnight. '"the wind from the waves, soft as sandal, dewy, cool from passing over the water, aromatic with flowers, met him, and seemed to woo him; and the cries of kalahamsas drunk with lotus-honey, charming his ear, summoned him to enter. so he went into that clump, and in its midst beheld the acchoda lake, as if it were the mirror of the lakshmi of the three worlds, the crystal chamber of the goddess of earth, the path by which the waters of ocean escape, the oozing of the quarters, the avatar of part of the sky, kailasa taught to flow, himavat liquefied, moonlight melted, Çiva's smile turned to water, ( ) the merit of the three worlds abiding in the shape of a lake, a range of hills of lapis lazuli changed into water, or a mass of autumn clouds poured down in one spot. from its clearness it might be varuna's mirror; it seemed to be fashioned of the hearts of ascetics, the virtues of good men, the bright eyes of deer, or the rays of pearls. ( ) '"like the person of a great man, it showed clearly the signs of fish, crocodile, tortoise, and cakra; [ ] like the story of kartikeya, the lamentations of the wives of krauñca [ ] resounded in it; it was shaken by the wings of white dhartarashtras, as the mahabharata by the rivalry of pandavas and dhartarashtras; and the drinking of poison by Çiva was represented by the drinking of its water by peacocks, as if it were the time of the churning of ocean. it was fair, like a god, with a gaze that never wavers. ( ) like a futile argument, it seemed to have no end; and was a lake most fair and gladdening to the eyes. '"the very sight of it seemed to remove candrapida's weariness, and as he gazed he thought: '"'though my pursuit of the horse-faced pair was fruitless, yet now that i see this lake it has gained its reward. my eyes' reward in beholding all that is to be seen has now been won, the furthest point of all fair things seen, the limit of all that gladdens us gazed upon, the boundary line of all that charms us descried, the perfection of all that causes joy made manifest, and the vanishing-point of all worthy of sight beheld. ( ) by creating this lake water, sweet as nectar, the creator has made his own labour of creation superfluous. for this, too, like the nectar that gladdens all the senses, produces joy to the eye by its purity, offers the pleasure of touch by its coolness, gladdens the sense of smell by the fragrance of its lotuses, pleases the ear with the ceaseless murmur of its hamsas, and delights the taste with its sweetness. truly it is from eagerness to behold this that Çiva leaves not his infatuation for dwelling on kailasa. surely krishna no longer follows his own natural desire as to a watery couch, for he sleeps on the ocean, with its water bitter with salt, and leaves this water sweet as nectar! nor is this, in sooth, the primæval lake; for the earth, when fearing the blows of the tusks of the boar of destruction, entered the ocean, all the waters of which were designed but to be a draught for agastya; whereas, if it had plunged into this mighty lake, deep as many deep hells, it could not have been reached, i say not by one, but not even by a thousand boars. ( ) verily it is from this lake that the clouds of doom at the seasons of final destruction draw little by little their water when they overwhelm the interstices of the universe, and darken all the quarters with their destroying storm. and methinks that the world, brahma's egg, which in the beginning of creation was made of water, was massed together and placed here under the guise of a lake.' so thinking, he reached the south bank, dismounted and took off indrayudha's harness; ( ) and the latter rolled on the ground, arose, ate some mouthfuls of grass, and then the prince took him down to the lake, and let him drink and bathe at will. after that, the prince took off his bridle, bound two of his feet by a golden chain to the lower bough of a tree hard by, and, cutting off with his dagger some durva grass from the bank of the lake, threw it before the horse, and went back himself to the water. he washed his hands, and feasted, like the cataka, on water; like the cakravaka, he tasted pieces of lotus-fibre; like the moon with its beams, he touched the moon-lotuses with his finger-tips; like a snake, he welcomed the breeze of the waves; [ ] like one wounded with love's arrows, he placed a covering of lotus-leaves on his breast; like a mountain elephant, when the tip of his trunk is wet with spray, he adorned his hands with spray-washed lotuses. then with dewy lotus-leaves, with freshly-broken fibres, he made a couch on a rock embowered in creepers, and rolling up his cloak for a pillow, lay down to sleep. after a short rest, he heard on the north bank of the lake a sweet sound of unearthly music, borne on the ear, and blent with the chords of the vina. ( ) indrayudha heard it first, and letting fall the grass he was eating, with ears fixed and neck arched, turned towards the voice. the prince, as he heard it, rose from his lotus-couch in curiosity to see whence this song could arise in a place deserted by men, and cast his glance towards the region; but, from the great distance, he was unable, though he strained his eyes to the utmost, to discern anything, although he ceaselessly heard the sound. desiring in his eagerness to know its source, he determined to depart, and saddling and mounting indrayudha, he set forth by the western forest path, making the song his goal; the deer, albeit unasked, were his guides, as they rushed on in front, delighting in the music. [ ] ( - condensed) '"welcomed by the breezes of kailasa, he went towards that spot, which was surrounded by trees on all sides, and at the foot of the slope of kailasa, on the left bank of the lake, called candraprabha, which whitened the whole region with a splendour as of moonlight, he beheld an empty temple of Çiva. ( ) '"as he entered the temple he was whitened by the falling on him of ketaki pollen, tossed by the wind, as if for the sake of seeing Çiva he had been forcibly made to perform a vow of putting on ashes, or as if he were robed in the pure merits of entering the temple; and, in a crystal shrine resting on four pillars, he beheld Çiva, the four-faced, teacher of the world, the god whose feet are honoured by the universe, with his emblem, the linga, made of pure pearl. homage had been paid to the deity by shining lotuses of the heavenly ganges, that might be mistaken for crests of pearls, freshly-plucked and wet, with drops falling from the ends of their leaves, like fragments of the moon's disc split and set upright, or like parts of Çiva's own smile, or scraps of Çesha's hood, or brothers of krishna's conch, or the heart of the milky ocean. ( ) '"but, seated in a posture of meditation, to the right of the god, facing him, candrapida beheld a maiden vowed to the service of Çiva, who turned the region with its mountains and woods to ivory by the brightness of her beauty. for its lustre shone far, spreading through space, white as the tide of the milky ocean, overwhelming all things at the day of doom, or like a store of penance gathered in long years and flowing out, streaming forth massed together like ganges between the trees, giving a fresh whiteness to kailasa, and purifying the gazer's soul, though it but entered his eye. the exceeding whiteness of her form concealed her limbs as though she had entered a crystal shrine, or had plunged into a sea of milk, or were hidden in spotless silk, or were caught on the surface of a mirror, or were veiled in autumn clouds. she seemed to be fashioned from the quintessence of whiteness, without the bevy of helps for the creation of the body that consist of matter formed of the five gross elements. ( ) she was like sacrifice impersonate, come to worship Çiva, in fear of being seized by the unworthy; or rati, undertaking a rite of propitiation to conciliate him, for the sake of kama's body; or lakshmi, goddess of the milky ocean, longing for a digit of Çiva's moon, her familiar friend of yore when they dwelt together in the deep; or the embodied moon seeking Çiva's protection from rahu; or the beauty of airavata, [ ] come to fulfil Çiva's wish to wear an elephant's skin; or the brightness of the smile on the right face of Çiva become manifest and taking a separate abode; or the white ash with which Çiva besprinkles himself, in bodily shape; or moonlight made manifest to dispel the darkness of Çiva's neck; or the embodied purity of gauri's mind; or the impersonate chastity of kartikeya; or the brightness of Çiva's bull, dwelling apart from his body; ( ) or the wealth of flowers on the temple trees come of themselves to worship Çiva; or the fulness of brahma's penance come down to earth; or the glory of the prajapatis of the golden age, resting after the fatigue of wandering through the seven worlds; or the three vedas, dwelling in the woods in grief at the overthrow of righteousness in the kali age; or the germ of a future golden age, in the form of a maiden; or the fulness of a muni's contemplation, in human shape; or a troop of heavenly elephants, falling into confusion on reaching the heavenly ganges; or the beauty of kailasa, fallen in dread of being uprooted by ravana; or the lakshmi of the Çvetadvipa [ ] come to behold another continent; or the grace of an opening kaça-blossom looking for the autumn; or the brightness of Çesha's body leaving hell and come to earth; or the brilliance of balarama, which had left him in weariness of his intoxication; or a succession of bright fortnights massed together. '"she seemed from her whiteness to have taken a share from all the hamsas; ( ) or to have come from the heart of righteousness; or to have been fashioned from a shell; or drawn from a pearl; or formed from lotus-fibres; or made of flakes of ivory; or purified by brushes of moonbeams; or inlaid with lime; or whitened with foam-balls of ambrosia; or laved in streams of quicksilver; or rubbed with melted silver; or dug out from the moon's orb; or decked with the hues of kutaja, jasmine, and sinduvara flowers. she seemed, in truth, to be the very furthest bound of whiteness. her head was bright with matted locks hanging on her shoulders, made, as it were, of the brightness of morning rays taken from the sun on the eastern mountain, tawny like the quivering splendour of flashing lightning, and, being wet from recent bathing, marked with the dust of Çiva's feet clasped in her devotion; she bore Çiva's feet marked with his name in jewels on her head, fastened with a band of hair; ( ) and her brow had a sectarial mark of ashes pure as the dust of stars ground by the heels of the sun's horses. ( ) she was a goddess, and her age could not be known by earthly reckoning, but she resembled a maiden of eighteen summers. '"having beheld her, candrapida dismounted, tied his horse to a bough, and then, reverently bowing before the blessed Çiva, gazed again on that heavenly maiden with a steady unswerving glance. and as her beauty, grace, and serenity stirred his wonder, the thought arose in him: 'how in this world each matter in its turn becomes of no value! for when i was pursuing the pair of kinnaras wantonly and vainly i beheld this most beautiful place, inaccessible to men, and haunted by the immortals. ( ) then in my search for water i saw this delightful lake sought by the siddhas. while i rested on its bank i heard a divine song; and as i followed the sound, this divine maiden, too fair for mortal sight, met my eyes. for i cannot doubt her divinity. her very beauty proclaims her a goddess. and whence in the world of men could there arise such harmonies of heavenly minstrelsy? if, therefore, she vanishes not from my sight, nor mounts the summit of kailasa, nor flies to the sky, i will draw near and ask her, "who art thou, and what is thy name, and why hast thou in the dawn of life undertaken this vow?" this is all full of wonder.' with this resolve he approached another pillar of the crystal shrine, and sat there, awaiting the end of the song. '"then when she had stilled her lute, like a moon-lotus bed when the pleasant hum of the bees is silenced, ( ) the maiden rose, made a sunwise turn and an obeisance to Çiva, and then turning round, with a glance by nature clear, and by the power of penance confident, she, as it were, gave courage to candrapida, as if thereby she were sprinkling him with merits, laving him with holy water, purifying him with penance, freeing him from stain, giving him his heart's desire, and leading him to purity. '"'hail to my guest!' said she. 'how has my lord reached this place? rise, draw near, and receive a guest's due welcome.' so she spake; and he, deeming himself honoured even by her deigning to speak with him, reverently arose and bowed before her. 'as thou biddest, lady,' he replied, and showed his courtesy by following in her steps like a pupil. and on the way he thought: 'lo, even when she beheld me she did not vanish! truly a hope of asking her questions has taken hold of my heart. and when i see the courteous welcome, rich in kindness, of this maiden, fair though she be with a beauty rare in ascetics, i surely trust that at my petition she will tell me all her story.' ( ) '"having gone about a hundred paces, he beheld a cave, with its entrance veiled by dense tamalas, showing even by day a night of their own; its edge was vocal with the glad bees' deep murmur on the bowers of creepers with their opening blossoms; it was bedewed with torrents that in their sheer descent fell in foam, dashing against the white rock, and cleft by the axe-like points of the jagged cliff, with a shrill crash as the cold spray rose up and broke; it was like a mass of waving cowries hanging from a door, from the cascades streaming down on either side, white as Çiva's smile, or as pearly frost. within was a circle of jewelled pitchers; on one side hung a veil worn in sacred meditation; a clean pair of shoes made of cocoanut matting hung on a peg; one corner held a bark bed gray with dust scattered by the ashes the maiden wore; the place of honour was filled by a bowl of shell carved with a chisel, like the orb of the moon; and close by there stood a gourd of ashes. '"on the rock at the entrance candrapida took his seat, and when the maiden, having laid her lute on the pillow of the bark bed, took in a leafy cup some water from the cascade to offer to her guest, and he said as she approached ( ): 'enough of these thy great toils. cease this excess of grace. be persuaded, lady. let this too great honour be abandoned. the very sight of thee, like the aghamarshana hymn, stills all evil and sufficeth for purification. deign to take thy seat!' yet being urged by her, he reverently, with head bent low, accepted all the homage she gave to her guest. when her cares for her guest were over, she sat down on another rock, and after a short silence he told, at her request, the whole story of his coming in pursuit of the pair of kinnaras, beginning with his expedition of conquest. the maiden then rose, and, taking a begging bowl, wandered among the trees round the temple; and ere long her bowl was filled with fruits that had fallen of their own accord. as she invited candrapida to the enjoyment of them, the thought arose in his heart: 'of a truth, there is nought beyond the power of penance. for it is a great marvel how the lords of the forest, albeit devoid of sense, yet, like beings endowed with sense, gain honour for themselves by casting down their fruits for this maiden. a wondrous sight is this, and one never seen before.' '"so, marvelling yet more, he brought indrayudha to that spot, unsaddled him, and tied him up hard by. ( ) then, having bathed in the torrent, he partook of the fruits, sweet as ambrosia, and drank the cool water of the cascade, and having rinsed his mouth, he waited apart while the maiden enjoyed her repast of water, roots, and fruit. '"when her meal was ended and she had said her evening prayer, and taken her seat fearlessly on the rock, the prince quietly approached her, and sitting down near her, paused awhile and then respectfully said: '"'lady, the folly that besets mankind impels me even against my will to question thee, for i am bewildered by a curiosity that has taken courage from thy kindness. for even the slightest grace of a lord emboldens a weak nature: even a short time spent together creates intimacy. even a slight acceptance of homage produces affection. therefore, if it weary thee not, i pray thee to honour me with thy story. for from my first sight of thee a great eagerness has possessed me as to this matter. is the race honoured by thy birth, lady, that of the maruts, or rishis, or gandharvas, or guhyakas, or apsarases? and wherefore in thy fresh youth, tender as a flower, has this vow been taken? ( ) for how far apart would seem thy youth, thy beauty, and thine exceeding grace, from this thy peace from all thoughts of earth! this is marvellous in mine eyes! and wherefore hast thou left the heavenly hermitages that gods may win, and that hold all things needful for the highest saints, to dwell alone in this deserted wood? and whereby hath thy body, though formed of the five gross elements, put on this pure whiteness? never have i heard or seen aught such as this. i pray thee dispel my curiosity, and tell me all i ask.' '"for a little time she pondered his request in silence, and then she began to weep noiselessly, and her eyes were blinded by tears which fell in large drops, carrying with them the purity of her heart, showering down the innocence of her senses, distilling the essence of asceticism, dropping in a liquid form the brightness of her eyes, most pure, falling on her white cheeks like a broken string of pearls, unceasing, splashing on her bosom covered by the bark robe. ( ) '"and as he beheld her weeping candrapida reflected: 'how hardly can misfortune be warded off, if it takes for its own a beauty like this, which one might have deemed beyond its might! of a truth there is none whom the sorrows of life in the body leave untouched. strong indeed is the working of the opposed powers of pleasure and pain. [ ] these her tears have created in me a further curiosity, even greater than before. it is no slight grief that can take its abode in a form like hers. for it is not a feeble blow that causes the earth to tremble.' '"while his curiosity was thus increased he felt himself guilty of recalling her grief, and rising, brought in his folded hand from the torrent some water to bathe her face. but she, though the torrent of her tears was in nowise checked by his gentleness, yet bathed her reddened eyes, and drying her face with the edge of her bark robe, slowly said with a long and bitter sigh: ( ) '"'wherefore, prince, wilt thou hear the story of my ascetic life, all unfit for thy ears? for cruel has been my heart, hard my destiny, and evil my condition, even from my birth. still, if thy desire to know be great, hearken. it has come within the range of our hearing, usually directed to auspicious knowledge, that there are in the abode of the gods maidens called apsarases. of these there are fourteen families: one sprung from the mind of brahma, another from the vedas, another from fire, another from the wind, another from nectar when it was churned, another from water, another from the sun's rays, another from the moon's beams, another from earth, and another from lightning; one was fashioned by death, and another created by love; besides, daksha, father of all, had among his many daughters two, muni and arishta, and from their union with the gandharvas were sprung the other two families. these are, in sum, the fourteen races. but from the gandharvas and the daughters of daksha sprang these two families. here muni bore a sixteenth son, by name citraratha, who excelled in virtues sena and all the rest of his fifteen brothers. for his heroism was famed through the three worlds; his dignity was increased by the name of friend, bestowed by indra, whose lotus feet are caressed by the crests of the gods cast down before him; and even in childhood he gained the sovereignty of all the gandharvas by a right arm tinged with the flashing of his sword. ( ) not far hence, north of the land of bharata, is his dwelling, hemakuta, a boundary mountain in the kimpurusha country. there, protected by his arm, dwell innumerable gandharvas. by him this pleasant wood, caitraratha, was made, this great lake acchoda was dug out, and this image of Çiva was fashioned. but the son of arishta, in the second gandharva family, was as a child anointed king by citraratha, lord of the gandharvas, and now holds royal rank, and with a countless retinue of gandharvas dwells likewise on this mountain. now, from that family of apsarases which sprang from the moon's nectar was born a maiden, fashioned as though by the grace of all the moon's digits poured in one stream, gladdening the eyes of the universe, moonbeam-fair, in name and nature a second gauri. [ ] ( ) her hamsa, lord of the second family, wooed, as the milky ocean the ganges; with him she was united, as rati with kama, or the lotus-bed with the autumn; and enjoying the great happiness of such a union she became the queen of his zenana. to this noble pair i was born as only daughter, ill-omened, a prey for grief, and a vessel for countless sorrows; my father, however, having no other child, greeted my birth with a great festival, surpassing that for a son, and on the tenth day, with the customary rites he gave me the fitting name of mahaçveta. in his palace i spent my childhood, passed from lap to lap of the gandharva dames, like a lute, as i murmured the prattle of babyhood, ignorant as yet of the sorrows of love; but in time fresh youth came to me as the honey-month to the spring, fresh shoots to the honey-month, flowers to the fresh shoots, bees to the flowers, and honey to the bees. '"' [ ]and one day in the month of honey i went down with my mother to the acchoda lake to bathe, when its beauties were spread wide in the spring, and all its lotuses were in flower. ( ) '"'i worshipped the pictures of Çiva, attended by bringiriti, which were carved on the rocks of the bank by parvati when she came down to bathe, and which had the reverential attendance of ascetics portrayed by the thin footprints left in the dust. "how beautiful!" i cried, "is this bower of creepers, with its clusters of flowers of which the bees' weight has broken the centre and bowed the filaments; this mango is fully in flower, and the honey pours through the holes in the stalks of its buds, which the cuckoo's sharp claws have pierced; how cool this sandal avenue, which the serpents, terrified at the murmur of hosts of wild peacocks, have deserted; how delightful the waving creepers, which betray by their fallen blossoms the swinging of the wood-nymphs upon them; how pleasant the foot of the trees on the bank where the kalahamsas have left the line of their steps imprinted in the pollen of many a flower!" drawn on thus by the ever-growing charms of the wood, i wandered with my companions. ( ) and at a certain spot i smelt the fragrance of a flower strongly borne on the wind, overpowering that of all the rest, though the wood was in full blossom; it drew near, and by its great sweetness seemed to anoint, to delight, and to fill the sense of smell. bees followed it, seeking to make it their own: it was truly a perfume unknown heretofore, and fit for the gods. i, too, eager to learn whence it came, with eyes turned into buds, and drawn on like a bee by that scent, and attracting to me the kalahamsas of the lake by the jangling of my anklets loudly clashed in the tremulous speed of my curiosity, advanced a few steps and beheld a graceful youthful ascetic coming down to bathe. he was like spring doing penance in grief for love made the fuel of Çiva's fire, or the crescent on Çiva's brow performing a vow to win a full orb, or love restrained in his eagerness to conquer Çiva: by his great splendour he appeared to be girt by a cage of quivering lightning, embosomed in the globe of the summer sun, or encircled in the flames of a furnace: ( ) by the brightness of his form, flashing forth ever more and more, yellow as lamplight, he made the grove a tawny gold; his locks were yellow and soft like an amulet dyed in gorocana. the line of ashes on his brow made him like ganges with the line of a fresh sandbank, as though it were a sandal-mark to win sarasvati, [ ] and played the part of a banner of holiness; his eyebrows were an arch rising high over the abode of men's curses; his eyes were so long that he seemed to wear them as a chaplet; he shared with the deer the beauty of their glance; his nose was long and aquiline; the citron of his lower lip was rosy as with the glow of youth, which was refused an entrance to his heart; with his beardless cheek he was like a fresh lotus, the filaments of which have not yet been tossed by the bees in their sport; he was adorned with a sacrificial thread like the bent string of love's bow, or a filament from the lotus grove of the pool of penance; in one hand he bore a pitcher like a kesara fruit with its stalk; in the other a crystal rosary, strung as it were with the tears of rati wailing in grief for love's death. ( ) his loins were girt with a muñja-grass girdle, as though he had assumed a halo, having outvied the sun by his innate splendour; the office of vesture was performed by the bark of the heavenly coral-tree, [ ] bright as the pink eyelid of an old partridge, and washed in the waves of the heavenly ganges; he was the ornament of ascetic life, the youthful grace of holiness, the delight of sarasvati, the chosen lord of all the sciences, and the meeting-place of all divine tradition. he had, like the summer season, [ ] his ashadha [ ]; he had, like a winter wood, the brightness of opening millet, and he had like the month of honey, a face adorned with white tilaka. [ ] with him there was a youthful ascetic gathering flowers to worship the gods, his equal in age and a friend worthy of himself. ( ) '"'then i saw a wondrous spray of flowers which decked his ear, like the bright smile of woodland Çri joying in the sight of spring, or the grain-offering of the honey-month welcoming the malaya winds, or the youth of the lakshmi of flowers, or the cowrie that adorns love's elephant; it was wooed by the bees; the pleiads lent it their grace; and its honey was nectar. "surely," i decided, "this is the fragrance which makes all other flowers scentless," and gazing at the youthful ascetic, the thought arose in my mind: "ah, how lavish is the creator who has skill [ ] to produce the highest perfection of form, for he has compounded kama of all miraculous beauty, excelling the universe, and yet has created this ascetic even more fair, surpassing him, like a second love-god, born of enchantment. ( ) methinks that when brahma [ ] made the moon's orb to gladden the world, and the lotuses to be lakshmi's palace of delight, he was but practising to gain skill for the creation of this ascetic's face; why else should such things be created? surely it is false that the sun with its ray sushumna [ ] drinks all the digits of the moon as it wanes in the dark fortnight, for their beams are cast down to enter this fair form. how otherwise could there be such grace in one who lives in weary penance, beauty's destroyer?" as i thus thought, love, beauty's firm adherent, who knows not good from ill, and who is ever at hand to the young, enthralled me, together with my sighs, as the madness of spring takes captive the bee. then with a right eye gazing steadily, the eyelashes half closed, the iris darkened by the pupil's tremulous sidelong glance, i looked long on him. with this glance i, as it were, drank him in, besought him, told him i was wholly his, offered my heart, tried to enter into him with my whole soul, sought to be absorbed in him, implored his protection to save love's victim, showed my suppliant state that asked for a place in his heart; ( ) and though i asked myself, "what is this shameful feeling that has arisen in me, unseemly and unworthy a noble maiden?" yet knowing this, i could not master myself, but with great difficulty stood firm, gazing at him. for i seemed to be paralyzed, or in a picture, or scattered abroad, or bound, or in a trance, and yet in wondrous wise upheld, as though when my limbs were failing, support was at the same moment given; for i know not how one can be certain in a matter that can neither be told nor taught, and that is not capable of being told, for it is only learnt from within. can it be ascertained as presented by his beauty, or by my own mind, or by love, or by youth or affection, or by any other causes? i cannot tell. lifted up and dragged towards him by my senses, led forward by my heart, urged from behind by love, i yet by a strong effort restrained my impulse. ( ) straightway a storm of sighs went forth unceasingly, prompted by love as he strove to find a place within me; and my bosom heaved as longing to speak earnestly to my heart, and then i thought to myself: "what an unworthy action is this of vile kama, who surrenders me to this cold ascetic free from all thoughts of love! truly, the heart of woman is foolish exceedingly, since it cannot weigh the fitness of that which it loves. for what has this bright home of glory and penance to do with the stirrings of love that meaner men welcome? surely in his heart he scorns me for being thus deceived by kama! strange it is that i who know this cannot restrain my feeling! ( ) other maidens, indeed, laying shame aside, have of their own accord gone to their lords; others have been maddened by that reckless love-god; but not as i am here alone! how in that one moment has my heart been thrown into turmoil by the mere sight of his form, and passed from my control! for time for knowledge and good qualities always make love invincible. it is best for me to leave this place while i yet have my senses, and while he does not clearly see this my hateful folly of love. perchance if he sees in me the effects of a love he cannot approve, he will in wrath make me feel his curse. for ascetics are ever prone to wrath." thus having resolved, i was eager to depart, but, remembering that holy men should be reverenced by all, i made an obeisance to him with eyes turned to his face, eyelashes motionless, not glancing downwards, my cheek uncaressed by the flowers dancing in my ears, my garland tossing on my waving hair, and my jewelled earrings swinging on my shoulders. '"'as i thus bent, the irresistible command of love, the inspiration of the spring, the charm of the place, the frowardness of youth, the unsteadiness of the senses, ( ) the impatient longing for earthly goods, the fickleness of the mind, the destiny that rules events--in a word, my own cruel fate, and the fact that all my trouble was caused by him, were the means by which love destroyed his firmness by the sight of my feeling, and made him waver towards me like a flame in the wind. he too was visibly thrilled, as if to welcome the newly-entering love; his sighs went before him to show the way to his mind which was hastening towards me; the rosary in his hand trembled and shook, fearing the breaking of his vow; drops rose on his cheek, like a second garland hanging from his ear; his eyes, as his pupils dilated and his glance widened in the joy of beholding me, turned the spot to a very lotus-grove, so that the ten regions were filled by the long rays coming forth like masses of open lotuses that had of their own accord left the acchoda lake and were rising to the sky. '"'by the manifest change in him my love was redoubled, and i fell that moment into a state i cannot describe, all unworthy of my caste. "surely," i reflected, "kama himself teaches this play of the eye, though generally after a long happy love, else whence comes this ascetic's gaze? ( ) for his mind is unversed in the mingled feelings of earthly joys, and yet his eyes, though they have never learnt the art, pour forth the stream of love's sweetness, rain nectar, are half closed by joy, are slow with distress, heavy with sleep, roaming with pupils tremulous and languid with the weight of gladness, and yet bright with the play of his eyebrows. whence comes this exceeding skill that tells the heart's longing wordlessly by a glance alone?" '"'impelled by these thoughts i advanced, and bowing to the second young ascetic, his companion, i asked: "what is the name of his reverence? of what ascetic is he the son? from what tree is this garland woven? for its scent, hitherto unknown, and of rare sweetness, kindles great curiosity in me." '"'with a slight smile, he replied: "maiden, what needs this question? but i will enlighten thy curiosity. listen! '"'"there dwells in the world of gods a great sage, Çvetaketu; his noble character is famed through the universe; his feet are honoured by bands of siddhas, gods, and demons; ( ) his beauty, exceeding that of nalakubara, [ ] is dear to the three worlds, and gladdens the hearts of goddesses. once upon a time, when seeking lotuses for the worship of the gods, he went down to the heavenly ganges, which lay white as Çiva's smile, while its water was studded as with peacocks' eyes by the ichor of airavata. straightway lakshmi, enthroned on a thousand-petalled white lotus close by, beheld him coming down among the flowers, and looking on him, she drank in his beauty with eyes half closed by love, and quivering with weight of joyous tears, and with her slender fingers laid on her softly-opening lips; and her heart was disturbed by love; by her glance alone she won his affection. a son was born, and taking him in her arms with the words, 'take him, for he is thine,' she gave him to Çvetaketu, who performed all the rites of a son's birth, and called him pundarika, because he was born in a pundarika lotus. moreover, after initiation, he led him through the whole circle of the arts. ( ) this is pundarika whom you see. and this spray comes from the parijata tree, [ ] which rose when the milky ocean was churned by gods and demons. how it gained a place in his ear contrary to his vow, i will now tell. this being the fourteenth day of the month, he started with me from heaven to worship Çiva, who had gone to kailasa. on the way, near the nandana wood, a nymph, drunk with the juice of flowers, wearing fresh mango shoots in her ear, veiled completely by garlands falling to the knees, girt with kesara flowers, and resting on the fair hand lent her by the lakshmi of spring, took this spray of parijata, and bending low, thus addressed pundarika: 'sir, let, i pray, this thy form, that gladdens the eyes of the universe, have this spray as its fitting adornment; let it be placed on the tip of thy ear, for it has but the playfulness that belongs to a garland; let the birth of the parijata now reap its full blessing!' at her words, his eyes were cast down in modesty at the praise he so well deserved, and he turned to depart without regarding her; but as i saw her following us, i said, 'what is the harm, friend. let her courteous gift be accepted!' and so by force, against his will, the spray adorns his ear. now all has been told: who he is, whose son, and what this flower is, and how it has been raised to his ear." ( ) when he had thus spoken, pundarika said to me with a slight smile: "ah, curious maiden, why didst thou take the trouble to ask this? if the flower, with its sweet scent, please thee, do thou accept it," and advancing, he took it from his own ear and placed it in mine, as though, with the soft murmur of the bees on it, it were a prayer for love. at once, in my eagerness to touch his hand, a thrill arose in me, like a second parijata flower, where the garland lay; while he, in the pleasure of touching my cheek, did not see that from his tremulous fingers he had dropped his rosary at the same time as his timidity; but before it reached the ground i seized it, and playfully placed it on my neck, where it wore the grace of a necklace unlike all others, while i learnt the joy of having my neck clasped, as it were, by his arm. '"'as our hearts were thus occupied with each other, my umbrella-bearer addressed me: "princess, the queen has bathed. it is nearly time to go home. do thou, therefore, also bathe." at her words, like a newly-caught elephant, rebellious at the first touch of the new hook, i was unwillingly dragged away, and as i went down to bathe, i could hardly withdraw my eyes, for they seemed to be drowned in the ambrosial beauty of his face, or caught in the thicket of my thrilling cheek, or pinned down by love's shafts, or sewn fast by the cords [ ] of his charms. ( ) '"'meanwhile, the second young ascetic, seeing that he was losing his self-control, gently upbraided him: "dear pundarika, this is unworthy of thee. this is the way trodden by common men. for the good are rich in self-control. why dost thou, like a man of low caste, fail to restrain the turmoil of thy soul? whence comes this hitherto unknown assault of the senses, which so transforms thee? where is thine old firmness? where thy conquest of the senses? where thy self-control? where thy calm of mind, thine inherited holiness, thy carelessness of earthly things? where the teaching of thy guru, thy learning of the vedas, thy resolves of asceticism, thy hatred of pleasure, thine aversion to vain delights, thy passion for penance, thy distaste for enjoyments, thy rule over the impulses of youth? verily all knowledge is fruitless, study of holy books is useless, initiation has lost its meaning, pondering the teaching of gurus avails not, proficiency is worthless, learning leads to nought, since even men like thee are stained by the touch of passion, and overcome by folly. ( ) thou dost not even see that thy rosary has fallen from thy hand, and has been carried away. alas! how good sense fails in men thus struck down. hold back this heart of thine, for this worthless girl is seeking to carry it away." '"'to these words he replied, with some shame: "dear kapiñjala, why dost thou thus misunderstand me? i am not one to endure this reckless girl's offence in taking my rosary!" and with his moonlike face beautiful in its feigned wrath, and adorned the more by the dread frown he tried to assume, while his lip trembled with longing to kiss me, he said to me, "playful maiden, thou shalt not move a step from this place without giving back my rosary." thereupon i loosed from my neck a single row of pearls as the flower-offering that begins a dance in kama's honour, and placed it in his outstretched hand, while his eyes were fixed on my face, and his mind was far away. i started to bathe, but how i started i know not, for my mother and my companions could hardly lead me away by force, like a river driven backwards, and i went home thinking only of him. ( ) '"'and entering the maidens' dwelling, i began straightway to ask myself in my grief at his loss: "am i really back, or still there? am i alone, or with my maidens? am i silent, or beginning to speak? am i awake or asleep? do i weep or hold back my tears? is this joy or sorrow, longing or despair, misfortune or gladness, day or night? are these things pleasures or pains?" all this i understood not. in my ignorance of love's course, i knew not whither to go, what to do, hear, see, or speak, whom to tell, nor what remedy to seek. entering the maidens' palace, i dismissed my friends at the door, and shut out my attendants, and then, putting aside all my occupations, i stood alone with my face against the jewelled window. i gazed at the region which, in its possession of him, was richly decked, endowed with great treasure, overflowed by the ocean of nectar, adorned with the rising of the full moon, and most fair to behold, i longed to ask his doings even of the breeze wafted from thence, or of the scent of the woodland flowers, or of the song of the birds. ( ) i envied even the toils of penance for his devotion to them. for his sake, in the blind adherence of love, i took a vow of silence. i attributed grace to the ascetic garb, because he accepted it, beauty to youth because he owned it, charm to the parijata flower because it touched his ear, delight to heaven because he dwelt there, and invincible power to love because he was so fair. though far away, i turned towards him as the lotus-bed to the sun, the tide to the moon, or the peacock to the cloud. i bore on my neck his rosary, like a charm against the loss of the life stricken by his absence. i stood motionless, though a thrill made the down on my cheek like a kadamba flower ear-ring, as it rose from the joy of being touched by his hand, and from the parijata spray in my ear, which spoke sweetly to me of him. '"'now my betel-bearer, taralika, had been with me to bathe; she came back after me rather late, and softly addressed me in my sadness: "princess, one of those godlike ascetics we saw on the bank of lake acchoda--( ) he by whom this spray of the heavenly tree was placed in thy ear--as i was following thee, eluded the glance of his other self, and approaching me with soft steps between the branches of a flowering creeper, asked me concerning thee, saying, 'damsel, who is this maiden? whose daughter is she? what is her name? and whither goes she?' i replied: 'she is sprung from gauri, an apsaras of the moon race, and her father hamsa is king of all the gandharvas; the nails of his feet are burnished by the tips of the jewelled aigrettes on the turbans of all the gandharvas; his tree-like arms are marked by the cosmetics on the cheeks of his gandharva wives, and the lotus-hand of lakshmi forms his footstool. the princess is named mahaçveta, and she has set out now for the hill of hemakuta, the abode of the gandharvas.' '"'"when this tale had been told by me, he thought silently for a moment, and then looking long at me with a steady gaze, as if gently entreating me, he said: 'damsel, thy form, young as thou art, is of fair promise, and augurs truth and steadfastness. grant me, therefore, one request.' courteously raising my hands, i reverently replied: ( ) 'wherefore say this? who am i? when great-souled men such as thou, meet for the honour of the whole universe, deign to cast even their sin-removing glance on one like me, their act wins merit--much more if they give a command. say, therefore, freely what is to be done. let me be honoured by thy bidding.' '"'"thus addressed, he saluted me with a kindly glance, as a friend, a helper, or a giver of life; and taking a shoot from a tamala-tree hard by, he crushed it on the stones of the bank, broke off a piece from his upper bark garment as a tablet, and with the tamala-juice, sweet as the ichor of a gandha elephant, wrote with the nail of the little finger of his lotus-hand, and placed it in my hand, saying, 'let this letter be secretly given by thee to that maiden when alone.'" with these words she drew it from the betel-box and showed it to me. '"'as i took from her hand that bark letter, i was filled with this talk about him, which, though but a sound, produced the joy of contact, and though for the ears alone, had its pervading presence in all my limbs manifested by a thrill, as if it were a spell to invoke love; and in his letter i beheld these lines: [ ] a hamsa on the manas lake, lured by a creeper's treacherous shine, my heart is led a weary chase, lured by that pearly wreath of thine. [ ] ( ) '"'by the reading of this, an even greater change for the worse was wrought in my lovesick mind, as in one who has lost his way, by also losing his bearings; as in a blind man, by a night of the dark fortnight; as in a dumb man, by cutting out the tongue; as in an ignorant man, by a conjuror's waving fan; as in a confused talker, by the delirium of fever; as in one poisoned, by the fatal sleep; as in a wicked man, by atheistic philosophy; as in one distraught, by strong drink; or as in one possessed, by the action of the possessing demon; so that in the turmoil it created in me, i was tossed like a river in flood. i honoured taralika for having seen him again, as one who had acquired great merit, or who had tasted the joys of heaven, or had been visited by a god, or had her highest boon granted, or had drunk nectar, or had been anointed queen of the three worlds. i spoke to her reverently, as if, though always by me, she were a rare visitant, and though my familiar friend, she were hitherto unknown. i looked on her, though behind me, as above the world; i tenderly caressed the curls on her cheek, and entirely set at nought the condition of mistress and maid, again and again asking, ( ) "how was he seen by thee? what did he say to thee? how long wert thou there? how far did he follow us?" and shutting out all my attendants, i spent the whole day with her in the palace, listening to that tale. the sun's orb hanging in the sky became crimson, sharing my heart's glow; the lakshmi of sunlight longing for the sight of the flushed sun, and preparing her lotus-couch, turned pale as though faint with love; the sunbeams, rosy as they fell on waters dyed with red chalk, rose from the lotus-beds clustering like herds of woodland elephants; the day, with an echo of the joyous neighing of the steeds of the sun's chariot longing to rest after their descent of the sky, entered the caves of mount meru; the lotus-beds, as the bees entered the folded leaves of the red lilies, seemed to close their eyes as though their hearts were darkened by a swoon at the sun's departure; the pairs of cakravakas, each taking the other's heart, safely hidden in the hollow lotus-stalks whereof they had eaten together, were now parted; and my umbrella-bearer approaching me, said as follows: ( ) "princess, one of those youthful hermits is at the door, and says he has come to beg for a rosary." at the hermit's name, though motionless, i seemed to approach the door, and suspecting the reason of his coming, i summoned another chamberlain, whom i sent, saying, "go and admit him." a moment later i beheld the young ascetic kapiñjala, who is to pundarika as youth to beauty, love to youth, spring to love, southern breezes to spring, and who is indeed a friend worthy of him; he followed the hoary chamberlain as sunlight after moonlight. as he drew near his appearance betrayed to me trouble, sadness, distraction, entreaty, and a yearning unfulfilled. with a reverence i rose and respectfully brought him a seat; and when he was reluctantly forced to accept it, i washed his feet and dried them on the silken edge of my upper robe; and then sat by him on the bare ground. for a moment he waited, as if eager to speak, when he cast his eyes on taralika close by. knowing his desire at a glance, i said, "sir, she is one with me. ( ) speak fearlessly." at my words kapiñjala replied: "princess, what can i say? for through shame my voice does not reach the sphere of utterance. how far is the passionless ascetic who lives on roots in the woods from the illusion of passion that finds its home in restless souls, and is stained with longing for earthly pleasures, and filled with the manifold sports of the love god. see how unseemly all this is! what has fate begun? god easily turns us into a laughing-stock! i know not if this be fitting with bark garments, or seemly for matted locks, or meet for penance, or consonant with the teaching of holiness! such a mockery was never known! i needs must tell you the story. no other course is visible; no other remedy is perceived; no other refuge is at hand; no other way is before me. if it remains untold, even greater trouble will arise. a friend's life must be saved even at the loss of our own; so i will tell the tale: '"'"it was in thy presence that i sternly rebuked pundarika, and after that speech i left him in anger and went to another place, leaving my task of gathering flowers. after thy departure, i remained apart a short time, ( ) and then, becoming anxious as to what he was doing, i turned back and examined the spot from behind a tree. as i did not see him there, the thought arose within me, 'his mind was enslaved by love, and perchance he followed her; and now that she is gone, he has regained his senses, and is ashamed to come within my sight; or he has gone from me in wrath, or departed hence to another place in search of me.' thus thinking, i waited some time, but, troubled by an absence i had never since my birth suffered for a moment, i again thought, 'it may be that, in shame at his failure in firmness, he will come to some harm; for shame makes everything possible; he must not, then, be left alone.' with this resolve, i earnestly made search for him. but as i could not see him, though i sought on all sides, made anxious by love for my friend, i pictured this or that misfortune, and wandered long, examining glades of trees, creeper bowers among the sandal avenues, and the banks of lakes, carefully glancing on every side. ( ) at length i beheld him in a thicket of creepers near a lake, a very birthplace for spring, most fair, and in its close growth appearing to be made wholly of flowers, of bees, of cuckoos, and of peacocks. from his entire absence of employment, he was as one painted, or engraved, or paralyzed, or dead, or asleep, or in a trance of meditation; he was motionless, yet wandering from his right course; alone, yet possessed by love; all aglow, yet raising a pallid face; absent-minded, yet giving his love a place within him; silent, and yet telling a tale of love's great woe; seated on a stone, yet standing in face of death. he was tormented by kama, who yet, in fear of many a curse, remained unseen. by his great stillness he appeared to be deserted by the senses which had entered into him to behold the love that dwelt in his heart, and had fainted in fear at its unbearable heat, or had left him in wrath at the tossing of his mind. from eyes steadily closed, and dimmed within by the smoke of love's keen fire, he ceaselessly poured forth a storm of tears trickling down through his eyelashes. ( ) the filaments of the creepers near trembled in the sighs which rushed out, bearing the redness of his lips like the upstarting ruddy flame of kama burning his heart. as his hand rested on his left cheek, his brow, from the clear rays of his nails rising upwards, seemed to have a fresh mark of sandal very pure; from the late removal of his earring, the parijata flower, his ear was endowed with a tamala shoot or a blue lotus by the bees that murmured a charm to bewitch love, under the guise of their soft hum as they crept up in longing for what remained of that fragrance. under the guise of his hair rising in a passionate thrill he seemed to bear on his limbs a mass of broken points of the flowery darts of love's arrows discharged into his pores. with his right hand he bore on his breast a string of pearls that, by being interlaced with the flashing rays of his nails, seemed bristling in joy at the pleasure of touching his palm, and that was, as it were, a banner of recklessness. he was pelted by the trees with pollen, like a powder to subdue love; he was caressed by açoka shoots tossed by the wind, and transferring to him their rosy glow; he was besprinkled by woodland lakshmi with honey-dew from clusters of fresh flowers, like waters to crown love; he was struck by love with campak buds, which, as their fragrance was drunk in by bees, were like fiery barbs all smoking; ( ) he was rebuked by the south wind, as if by the hum of the bees maddened by the many scents of the wood; he was bewildered by the honey-month, as by cries of 'all hail!' to spring raised by the cuckoos in their melodious ecstasy. like the risen moon, he was robed in paleness; like the stream of ganges in summer, he had dwindled to meagreness; like a sandal-tree with a fire at its heart, he was fading away. he seemed to have entered on another birth, and was as another man, strange and unfamiliar; he was changed into another shape. as one entered by an evil spirit, ruled by a great demon, possessed by a strong devil, drunk, deluded, blind, deaf, dumb, all merged in joy and love, he had reached the climax of the mind's slavery when possessed by love, and his old self could no longer be known. '"'"as with a steady glance i long examined his sad state, i became despondent, and thought in my trembling heart: 'this is of a truth that love whose force none can resist; for by him pundarika has been in a moment brought to a state for which there is no cure. for how else could such a storehouse of learning become straightway unavailing? ( ) it is, alas! a miracle in him who from childhood has been firm of nature and unswerving in conduct, and whose life was the envy of myself and the other young ascetics. here, like a mean man, despising knowledge, contemning the power of penance, he has rooted up his deep steadfastness, and is paralyzed by love. a youth which has never swerved is indeed rare!' i went forward, and sitting down by him on the same stone, with my hand resting on his shoulder, i asked him, though his eyes were still closed: 'dear pundarika, tell me what this means.' then with great difficulty and effort he opened his eyes, which seemed fastened together by their long closing, and which were red from incessant weeping and overflowing with tears as if shaken and in pain, while their colour was that of a red lotus-bed veiled in white silk. he looked at me long with a very languid glance, and then, deeply sighing, in accents broken by shame, he slowly and with pain murmured: 'dear kapiñjala, why ask me what thou knowest?' hearing this, and thinking that pundarika was suffering in this way a cureless ill, but that still, as far as possible, a friend who is entering a wrong course should be held back to the utmost by those who love him, i replied: 'dear pundarika, i know it well. ( ) i will only ask this question: is this course you have begun taught by your gurus, or read in the holy books? or is this a way of winning holiness, or a fresh form of penance, or a path to heaven, or a mystic vow, or a means of salvation, or any other kind of discipline? is this fitting for thee even to imagine, much less to see or tell? like a fool, thou seest not that thou art made a laughing-stock by that miscreant love. for it is the fool who is tormented by love. for what is thy hope of happiness in such things as are honoured by the base, but blamed by the good? he truly waters a poison tree under the idea of duty, or embraces the sword plant for a lotus-wreath, or lays hold on a black snake, taking it for a line of smoke of black aloes, or touches a burning coal for a jewel, or tries to pull out the club-like tusk of a wild elephant, thinking it a lotus-fibre; he is a fool who places happiness in the pleasures of sense which end in sorrow. and thou, though knowing the real nature of the senses, why dost thou carry thy knowledge as the firefly his light, [ ] only to be concealed, in that thou restrainest not thy senses when they start out of their course like streams turbid [ ] in their passionate onrush? nor dost thou curb thy tossing mind. ( ) who, forsooth, is this love-god? relying on thy firmness, do thou revile this miscreant.' '"'"as i thus spoke he wiped with his hand his eyes streaming with tears poured through his eyelashes, and while he yet leant on me, replied, rebuking my speech: 'friend, what need of many words? thou at least art untouched! thou hast not fallen within the range of love's shafts, cruel with the poison of snakes! it is easy to teach another! and when that other has his senses and his mind, and sees, hears, and knows what he has heard, and can discern good and evil, he is then fit for advice. but all this is far from me; all talk of stability, judgment, firmness, reflection, has come to an end. how do i even breathe but by strong effort? the time for advice is long past. the opportunity for firmness has been let slip; the hour for reflection is gone; the season for stability and judgment has passed away. who but thee could give advice at this time, or could attempt to restrain my wandering? to whom but thee should i listen? or who else in the world is a friend like thee? what ails me that i cannot restrain myself? thou sawest in a moment my wretched plight. the time, then, for advice is now past. ( ) while i breathe, i long for some cure for the fever of love, violent as the rays of twelve suns [ ] at the end of the world. my limbs are baked, my heart is seething, my eyes are burning, and my body on fire. do, therefore, what the time demands.' he then became silent, and after this speech i tried again and again to rouse him; but as he did not listen even when tenderly and affectionately exhorted in the words of the pure teaching of the çastras full of cases like his own, together with the legendary histories, i thought, 'he is gone too far; he cannot be turned back. advice is now useless, so i will make an effort just to preserve his life.' with this resolve i rose and went, and tore up some juicy lotus-fibres from the lake; then, taking some lotus-petals marked by water, i plucked lotuses of all kinds, sweet with the fragrance of the aromatic pollen within, and prepared a couch on that same rock in the bower. and as he rested there at ease ( ), i crushed soft twigs of the sandal-trees hard by, and with its juice, naturally sweet and cold as ice, made a mark on his brow, and anointed him from head to foot. i allayed the perspiration by camphor-dust powdered in my hand, broken from the interstices of the split bark of the trees near, and fanned him with a plantain-leaf dripping with pure water, while the bark robe he wore was moist with the sandal placed on his breast; and as i again and again strewed fresh lotus couches, and anointed him with sandal, and removed the perspiration, and constantly fanned him, the thought arose in my mind, 'surely nothing is too hard for love! for how far apart would seem pundarika, by nature simple and content with his woodland home, like a fawn, and mahaçveta, the gandharva princess, a galaxy of graces: surely there is nothing for love in the world hard, or difficult, or unsubdued, or impossible. he scornfully attempts the hardest tasks, nor can any resist him. for why speak of beings endowed with sense when, if it so please him, he can bring together even things without sense? for the night lotus-bed falls in love with the sun's ray, and the day-lotus leaves her hatred of the moon, and night is joined to day, ( ) and moonlight waits on darkness, and shade stands in the face of light, and lightning stays firm in the cloud, and old age accompanies youth; and what more difficult thing can there be than that one like pundarika, who is an ocean of unfathomable depth, should thus be brought to the lightness of grass? where is his former penance, and where his present state? truly it is a cureless ill that has befallen him! what must i now do or attempt, or whither go, or what refuge or resource, or help or remedy, or plan, or recourse, is there by which his life may be sustained? or by what skill, or device, or means, or support, or thought, or solace, may he yet live?' these and other such thoughts arose in my downcast heart. but again i thought, 'what avails dwelling on this useless thought? his life must be preserved by any means, good or bad, ( ) and there is no other way to save it but by her union with him; and as he is timid by reason of his youth, and moreover thinks the affairs of love contrary to his vow, unseemly, and a mockery in himself, he certainly, even at his last breath, will not gratify his longing by himself approaching her. this his disease of love admits no delay. good men always hold that a friend's life must be saved even by a blameworthy deed; so that though this is a shameful and wrong action, it has yet become imperative for me. what else can be done? what other course is there? i will certainly go to her. i will tell her his state.' thus thinking, i left the place on some pretext, and came hither without telling him, lest perchance he should feel that i was engaged in an unseemly employment, and should in shame hold me back. this being the state of affairs, thou, lady, art the judge of what action is needful for the time, worthy of so great a love, fitting for my coming, and right for thyself." with these words he became silent, fixing his eyes on my face to see what i should say. but i, having heard him, was plunged, as it were, into a lake of ambrosial joy, or immersed in an ocean of the sweets of love, floating above all joys, mounting to the pinnacle of all desires, resting at the utmost bound of gladness. i showed my happiness by joyful tears pouring clear, large, and heavy, because my eyelashes were not closed, strung like a garland by their unceasing succession, and not touching my cheek, because my face was somewhat bent in sudden shame; ( ) and i thought at once: " joy, that love entangles him as well as me, so that even while tormenting me, he has in part showed me kindness; and if pundarika is indeed in such a plight, what help has not love given me, or what has he not done for me, or what friend is like him, or how could a false tale, even in sleep, pass the lips of the calm-souled kapiñjala? and if this be so, what must i do, and what must i say in his presence?" while i was thus deliberating, a portress hastily entered, and said to me: "princess, the queen has learnt from her attendants that thou art ill, and is now coming." on hearing this, kapiñjala, fearing the contact of a great throng, quickly rose, saying: "princess, a cause of great delay has arisen. the sun, the crest-jewel of the three worlds, is now sinking, so i will depart. but i raise my hands in salutation as a slight offering for the saving of my dear friend's life; that is my greatest treasure." ( ) then, without awaiting my reply, he with difficulty departed, for the door was blocked by the entrance of the attendants that heralded my lady mother. there were the portresses bearing golden staves; the chamberlains with unguents, cosmetics, flowers, and betel, holding waving cowries; and in their train were humpbacks, barbarians, deaf men, eunuchs, dwarfs, and deaf mutes. '"'then the queen came to me, and after a long visit, went home; but i observed nothing of what she did, said, or attempted while with me, for my heart was far away. when she went the sun, with his steeds bright as haritala pigeons, lord of life to the lotuses, and friend of the cakravakas, had sunk to rest, and the face of the west was growing crimson, and the lotus-beds were turning green, and the east was darkening to blue; and the world of mortals was overcome by a blackness like a wave of the ocean of final destruction turbid with the mud of hell. i knew not what to do, and asked taralika, "seest thou not, taralika, how confused is my mind? my senses are bewildered with uncertainty, and i am unable myself to see in the least what i should do. ( ) do thou tell me what is right to do, for kapiñjala is now gone, and he told his tale in thy presence. what if, like a base-born maiden, i cast away shame, relinquish self-control, desert modesty, contemn the reproach of men, transgress good behaviour, trample on conduct, despise noble birth, accept the disgrace of a course blinded by love, and without my father's leave, or my mother's approval, i were to go to him myself and offer him my hand? this transgression against my parents would be a great wrong. but if, taking the other alternative, i follow duty, i shall in the first place accept death, and even so i shall break the heart of his reverence kapiñjala, who loved him first, and who came hither of his own accord. and again, if perchance that man's death is brought about by my deed in destroying his hopes, then causing the death of an ascetic would be a grave sin." while i thus considered, the east became gray with the glimmering light of moonrise, like a line of woods in spring with the pollen of flowers. and in the moonlight the eastern quarter showed white as if with the powdered pearls from the frontal bone of the elephant of darkness torn open by the lion-moon, ( ) or pale with sandal-dust falling from the breast of the nymphs of the eastern mountain, or light with the rising of sand in an island left by the tide, stirred by the wind on the waves of the ever-moving ocean. slowly the moonlight glided down, and made bright the face of night, as if it were the flash of her teeth as she softly smiled at the sight of the moon; then evening shone with the moon's orb, as if it were the circle of Çesha's hoods breaking through the earth as it rose from hell; after that, night became fair with the moon, the gladdener of the world of mortals, the delight of lovers, now leaving its childhood behind and becoming the ally of love, with a youthful glow arising within it, the only fitting light for the enjoyment of love's pleasures, ambrosial, climbing the sky like youth impersonate. then i beheld the risen moon as if flushed with the coral of the ocean it had just left, crimsoned with the blood of its deer struck by the paw of the lion of the eastern mountain, marked with the lac of rohini's [ ] feet, as she spurned her lord in a love quarrel, ( ) and ruddy with his newly-kindled glow. and i, though the fire of love burnt within me, had my heart darkened; though my body rested on the lap of taralika, i was a captive in the hands of love; though my eyes were fixed on the moon, i was looking on death, and i straightway thought, "there are the honey-month, the malaya winds, and all other such things brought together, and in the same place to have this evil miscreant moon cannot be endured. my heart cannot bear it. its rising now is like a shower of coals to one consumed by fever, or a fall of snow to one ill from cold, or the bite of a black snake to one faint with the swelling of poison." and as i thus thought, a swoon closed my eyes, like the sleep brought by moonlight that withers the lotuses of the day. soon, however, i regained consciousness by means of the fanning and sandal unguents of the bewildered taralika, and i saw her weeping, her face dimmed with ceaseless tears, pressing the point of a moist moonstone to my brow, and seeming possessed by despair impersonate. as i opened my eyes, she fell at my feet, and said, raising hands yet wet with the thick sandal ointment: "princess, why think of shame or disrespect to parents? be kind; send me, and i will fetch the beloved of thy heart; ( ) rise, or go thither thyself. henceforth thou canst not bear this love that is an ocean whose manifold passionate waves [ ] are swelling at the rise of a strong moon." to this speech i replied: "mad girl, what is love to me? the moon it is, even the lord of the night lotuses, who removes all scruples, undermines all search for means of escape, conceals all difficulties, takes away all doubts, contemns all fears, roots out all shame, veils the sinful levity of going myself to my lover, avoids all delay, and has come merely to lead me either to pundarika or to death. rise, therefore; for while i have life i will follow him and honour him who, dear as he is, tortures my heart." thus saying, i rose, leaning on her, for my limbs were yet unsteady with the weakness of the swoon caused by love, and as i rose my right eye throbbed, presaging ill, and in sudden terror i thought: "what new thing is this threatened by destiny?" ( ) '"'the firmament was now flooded with moonlight, as if the moon's orb, which had not yet risen far, was, like the waterpipe of the temple of the universe, discharging a thousand streams of the heavenly ganges, pouring forth the waves of an ambrosial ocean, shedding many a cascade of sandal-juice, and bearing floods of nectar; the world seemed to learn what life was in the white continent, and the pleasures of seeing the land of soma; the round earth was being poured out from the depths of a milky ocean by the moon, which was like the rounded tusk of the great boar; the moonrise offerings were being presented in every house by the women with sandal-water fragrant with open lotuses; the highways were crowded with thousands of women-messengers sent by fair ladies; girls going to meet their lovers ran hither and thither, veiled in blue silk and fluttered by the dread of the bright moonlight as if they were the nymphs of the white day lotus groves concealed in the splendours of the blue lotuses; the sky became an alluvial island in the river of night, with its centre whitened by the thick pollen of the groves of open night lotuses; while the night lotus-beds in the house-tanks were waking, encircled by bees which clung to every blossom; ( ) the world of mortals was, like the ocean, unable to contain the joy of moonrise, and seemed made of love, of festivity, of mirth, and of tenderness: evening was pleasant with the murmur of peacocks garrulous in gladness at the cascade that fell from the waterpipes of moonstone. '"'taralika accompanied me, holding powders, perfumes, unguents, betel, and various flowers, and i had also that napkin, wet with the sandal ointment which had been applied in my swoon, and which had its nap slightly disordered and gray with the partly-dried mark of sandalwood clinging to it; the rosary was on my neck; the parijata spray was kissing the tip of my ear; veiled in red silk that seemed fashioned from rays of rubies, i went down from the top of that palace, unseen by any of my devoted attendants. on my way i was pursued by a swarm of bees, which hastened, leaving lotus-beds and deserting gardens, drawn by the scent of the parijata spray, sportively forming a blue veil round me. i departed through the door of the pleasure-grove and set out to meet pundarika. ( ) as i went, i thought, seeing myself attended by taralika only: "what needs pomp of retinue when we seek our dearest! surely our servants then but play a mockery of attendance, for love follows me with shaft fitted to the strung bow; the moon, stretching out a long ray, [ ] draws me on like a hand; passion supports me at every step from fear of a fall; my heart rushes on with the senses, leaving shame behind; longing has gained certainty, and leads me on." aloud i said: "oh, taralika, would that this miscreant moon would with its beams seize him by the hair and draw him forward like myself!" as i thus spoke, she smilingly replied: "thou art foolish, my princess! what does the moon want with pundarika? nay, rather, he himself, as though wounded by love, does all these things for thee; for under the guise of his image he kisses thy cheeks marked with drops of perspiration; with trembling ray he falls on thy fair breast; he touches the gems of thy girdle; entangled in thy bright nails, he falls at thy feet; moreover, the form of this lovesick moon wears the pallor of a sandal unguent dried by fever; ( ) he stretches out his rays [ ] white as lotus-fibres; under the guise of his reflection he falls on crystal pavements; with rays [ ] gray as the dust from the filaments inside the ketaki, he plunges into lotus-pools; he touches with his beams [ ] the moonstones wet with spray; he hates the day lotus-groves with their pairs of cakravakas once severed." with such discourse fitting for the time i approached that spot in her company. i then bathed my feet, gray with pollen from the creeper flowers on our path, in a spot near kapiñjala's abode which had a stream of moonstone, liquefied by moonrise, flowing from kailasa's slope; and there, on the left bank of the lake, i heard the sound of a man's weeping, softened by distance. some fear had arisen within me at first, from the quivering of my right eye, and now that my heart was yet more torn by this cry, as if my downcast mind were telling some dreadful tidings within, i cried in terror: "taralika, what means this?" and with trembling limbs i breathlessly hastened on. '"'then i heard afar a bitter cry, clear in the calm of night: "alas, i am undone! i am consumed! i am deceived! what is this that has befallen me? what has happened? i am uprooted! ( ) cruel demon love, evil and pitiless, what shameful deed hast thou brought to pass? ah, wicked, evil, wanton mahaçveta, how had he harmed thee? ah, evil, wanton, monstrous [ ] moon, thou hast gained thy desire. cruel soft breeze of the south, thy softness is gone, and thy will is fulfilled. that which was to be done is done. go now as thou wilt! ah, venerable Çvetaketu, tender to thy son, thou knowest not that thy life is stolen from thee! dharma, thou art dispossessed! penance, thou art protectorless! eloquence, thou art widowed! truth, thou art lordless! heaven, thou art void! friend, protect me! yet i will follow thee! i cannot remain even a moment without thee, alone! how canst thou now suddenly leave me, and go thy way like a stranger on whom my eyes had never rested? whence comes this thy great hardness? say, whither, without thee, shall i go? whom shall i implore? what refuge shall i seek? i am blinded! for me space is empty! life is aimless, penance vain, the world void of joy! with whom shall i wander, to whom speak, with whom hold converse? do thou arise! grant me an answer. friend, where is thine old love to me? where that smiling welcome that never failed me?" ( ) '"'such were the words i heard kapiñjala utter; and as i heard them i uttered a loud cry, while yet far off, as if my life had fallen; and with my silk cloak torn as it clung to the creepers by the lake's bank, and my feet placed on the ground regardless of its being rough or even, and as hastily as i could, i went on to that place, stumbling at every step, and yet as if led on by one who lifted me up again. '"'there i beheld pundarika lying on a couch made on a slab of moonstone wet with showers of cool spray, close to the lake; it was made of lotus-fibres like a garland of tender flowers from all lilies, and seemed to be formed wholly of the points of love's arrows. pundarika seemed from his great stillness to be listening for the sound of my step. he seemed to have gained a moment's happiness in sleep, as if love's pain had been quenched by inward wrath; he seemed engaged in a yoga penance of holding his breath, as an atonement for his breach of ascetic duty; he seemed to murmur, with bright yet trembling lip: "by thy deed am i come to this pass." he seemed pierced by the moonbeams which, under the guise of his bright finger-nails placed on a heart throbbing with love's fire, fell on his back as he lay averted in hatred of the moon. ( ) he bore a mark on his brow of a line of sandal, which, by its being pale from dryness, was like a digit of love's waning moon portending his own destruction. life seemed to leave him in anger, saying: "fool, another is dearer to thee than i!" his eyes were not wholly closed; their pupils were slightly turned to look; they were red with ceaseless weeping; they seemed to drop blood, since by failure of breath his tears were exhausted; and they were partly curved in pain at love's darts. he now experienced the pain of unconsciousness, as if together with the torment of love he were also yielding life itself; he seemed to meditate a new version of love's mystery, and to practise an unwonted retention of breath. his life seemed to be carried off as a prize [ ] by love, who had in kindness arranged my coming. on his brow was a sandal tripundraka mark; he wore a sacrificial thread of juicy lotus-fibre; his dress clung to his shoulder beautiful as the leaf that ensheathes a plantain; his rosary had only the thickness of a single row; [ ] the ashes on his brow were of abundant white camphor-powder; he was fair with the string of lotus-fibre, bound on his arm as an amulet; he seemed to wear the garb of love's vow, as if completing a charm for my coming. with his eye he tenderly uttered the reproach: "hard-hearted! i was but followed by one glance, and never again received thy favour." ( ) his lips were slightly open, so that his form gleamed white in the rays of his teeth, which came forth as if they were moonbeams that had entered him to take away his life; with his left hand placed on a heart breaking with the pain of love, he seemed to say: "be kind, depart not with my life, thou that art dear as life!" and so to hold me firmly in his heart; his right hand, which from the uneven rays of his nails jutting forth seemed to drop sandal, was raised as if to ward off the moonlight; near him stood his pitcher, the friend of his penance, with neck upright, as if it gazed at the path by which his life was just rising; the garland of lotus-fibres which adorned his neck bound him as if with a rope of moonbeams to lead him to another world; and when, at the sight of me, kapiñjala, with a cry of "help, help!" raised his hands, and crying aloud with redoubled tears, fell on his neck, at that very moment i, wicked and ill-fated as i was, beheld that noble youth yield up his life. the darkness of a swoon came upon me, and i descended into hell; nor knew i anything of whither i then went, or what i did or said. neither knew i why my life did not at that moment leave me; ( ) whether from the utter hardness of my stupefied heart, or from the callousness to bear thousands of troubles of my wretched body, or from being fated to endure a long grief, or from being a vessel of evil earned in another birth, or from the skill of my cruel destiny in bestowing sorrow, or from the singular perversity of malign accursed love. only this i know: that when at length in my misery i regained consciousness, i found myself writhing on the ground, tortured, as if i had fallen on a fire, by a grief too hard to bear. i could not believe aught so impossible as that he should die and i yet live, and rising with a bitter cry of "alas, what is this--mother, father, friends?" i exclaimed: "ah, my lord, thou who upholdest my life, speak to me! whither goest thou, pitilessly leaving me alone and protectorless? ask taralika what i have suffered for thy sake. hardly have i been able to pass the day, drawn out into a thousand ages. be gracious! utter but one word! show tenderness to her that loves thee! look but a little on me! fulfil my longing! i am wretched! i am loyal! i am thine in heart! i am lordless! i am young! i am helpless! i am unhappy! i am bereft of other refuge! i am vanquished by love! why showest thou no pity? say what i have done or left undone, what command i have neglected, or in what thing pleasing to thee i have not shown affection, that thou art wroth. ( ) fearest thou not the reproach of men in that thou goest, deserting me, thy handmaid, without cause? yet why think of me, perverse and wicked, and skilled to deceive by false shows of love! alas, i yet live! alas, i am accursed and undone! for why? i have neither thee, nor honour, nor kinsfolk, nor heaven. shame on me, a worker of evil deeds, for whose sake this fate hath befallen thee. there is none of so murderous a heart as i who went home, leaving one so peerless as thou. what to me were home, mother, father, kinsfolk, followers? alas, to what refuge shall i flee? fate, show pity to me! i entreat thee. lady of destiny, give me a boon of mercy! show compassion! protect a lordless lady! ye woodland goddesses, be kind! give back his life! help, earth, that bringest favours to all! night, showest thou no mercy? father kailasa, thy protection i implore. show thy wonted pity!" such were my laments, so far as i remember, and i murmured incoherently as one held by a demon, or possessed or mad, or struck down by an evil spirit. in the tears that fell in torrents upon me i was turned to water, i melted away, i took upon me a shape of water; my laments, followed by the sharp rays of my teeth, fell as if with showers of tears; ( ) my hair, with its flowers ever falling, seemed to shed teardrops, and my very ornaments by the tears of pure gemlight that sprang from them seemed to raise their lament. i longed for my own death as for his life; i yearned to enter his heart with my whole soul, dead though he were; with my hand i touched his cheeks, and his brow with the roots of his hair, white with dry sandal, and his shoulders with the lotus-fibres on them, and his heart covered with lotus-leaves and flecks of sandal-juice. with the tender reproach, "thou art cruel, pundarika! thou carest nought that i am thus wretched!" i again sought to win him back. i again embraced him, i again clasped his neck, and wept aloud. then i rebuked that string of pearls, saying: "ah, wicked one, couldst not even thou have preserved his life till my coming?" then again i fell at kapiñjala's feet with the prayer, "be kind, my lord; restore him to life!" and again, clinging to taralika's neck, i wept. even now, when i think of it, i know not how these piteous, tender words came forth from my ill-fated heart--words all unthought, unlearnt, untaught, unseen before; nor whence these utterances arose; nor whence these heart-rending cries of despair. my whole being was changed. ( ) for there rose a deluge wave of inward tears, the springs of weeping were set loose, the buds of wailing came forth, the peaks of sorrow grew lofty and a long line of madness was begun.' and so, as she thus told her own tale, she seemed again to taste the bitterness of that former plight, so cruel, and so hardly endured, and a swoon bereft her of sense. in the force of her swoon she fell on the rock, and candrapida hastily stretched out his hand, like her servant, and supported her, full of sorrow. at length he brought her back to consciousness by fanning her with the edge of her own bark garment, wet with tears. filled with pity, and with his cheeks bathed in tears, he said to her, as she came to life: 'lady, it is by my fault that thy grief has been brought back to its first freshness, and that thou hast come to this pass. therefore no more of this tale. let it be ended. even i cannot bear to hear it. for the story even of past sorrow endured by a friend pains us as if we ourselves were living through it. [ ] thou wilt not therefore surely place on the fire of grief that life so precious and so hardly preserved?' ( ) thus addressed, with a long, hot sigh and eyes dissolved in tears, she despairingly replied: 'prince, even in that dreadful night my hated life did not desert me; [ ] it is not likely that it will leave me now. even blessed death turns away his eyes from one so ill-fated and wicked. whence could one so hard-hearted feel grief? all this can be but feigned in a nature so vile. but be that as it may, that shameless heart has made me chief among the shameless. for to one so adamantine as to have seen love in all his power, and yet to have lived through this, what can mere speaking of it matter? '"'or what could there be harder to tell than this very thing, which is supposed to be impossible to hear or say? i will at least briefly tell the marvel that followed on that thunderbolt, and i will tell, too, what came as a tiny dim cause of my prolonging my life, which by its mirage so deludes me that i bear about a hated body, almost dead, alien to me, burdensome, unfitted to my needs, and thankless for my care. that shall suffice. afterwards, in a sudden change [ ] of feeling, with resolve firmly set on death, lamenting bitterly, i cried to taralika: "rise, cruel-hearted girl; how long wilt thou weep? bring together wood and make a pile. i will follow the lord of my life." ( ) '"'straightway a being swiftly left the moon's orb and descended from the sky. behind him he trailed a silken vesture hanging from his crest, white as the foam of nectar, and waving in the wind; his cheeks were reddened with the bright gems that swayed in his ears; on his breast he bore a radiant necklace, from the size of its pearls like a cluster of stars; his turban was tied with strips of white silk; his head was thick with curling locks, and dark as bees; his earring was an open moon lotus; on his shoulder was the impress of the saffron lines that adorned his wives; he was white as a moon lotus, lofty in stature, endowed with all the marks of greatness, and godlike in form; he seemed to purify space by the light shed round him clear as pure water, and to anoint it as by a thick frost with a dewy ambrosial shower that created a chill as he shed it from his limbs, cool and fragrant, and to besprinkle it with a rich store of goçirsha [ ] sandal-juice. '"'with arms sturdy as the trunk of airavata, and fingers white as lotus-fibres and cool to the touch, he lifted my dead lord, ( ) and, in a voice deep as a drum, he said to me: "mahaçveta, my child, thou must not die; for thou shalt again be united with him!" and with these words, tender as a father's, he flew into the sky with pundarika. '"'but this sudden event filled me with fear, dismay, and eager anxiety, and with upraised face i asked kapiñjala what it might mean. he, however, started up hastily without replying, and with the cry, "monster, whither goest thou with my friend?" with uplifted eyes and sudden wrath he hastily girt up his loins, and following him in his flight, in hot pursuit he rose into the sky; and while i yet gazed they all entered amongst the stars. but the departure of kapiñjala was to me like a second death of my beloved, and it redoubled my grief, so that my heart was rent asunder. bewildered what to do, i cried to taralika: "knowest thou not? tell me what this means!" but she, with all a woman's timidity at the sight, was at that very moment trembling in all her limbs, overcome by a fear stronger than her grief, and was frightened, moreover, by the dread of my death; and so with downcast heart she piteously replied: "princess, wretch that i am, i know not! yet this is a great miracle. the man is of no mortal mould, and thou wert pityingly comforted by him in his flight as by a father. such godlike beings are not wont to deceive us, even in sleep, much less face to face; and when i think it over i cannot see the least cause for his speaking falsely. ( ) it is meet, therefore, that thou shouldst weigh it, and restrain thy longing for death. in thy present state it is in truth a great ground for comfort. moreover, kapiñjala has gone in pursuit of pundarika. from him thou canst learn whence and who this being is, and why pundarika on his death was by him raised and carried off, and whither he is carried, and wherefore thou wert consoled by him with the boon of a hope of reunion that exceeds thought; then thou canst devote thyself either to life or death. for when death is resolved upon, it is easy to compass. but this can wait; for kapiñjala, if he lives, will certainly not rest without seeing thee; therefore let thy life be preserved till his return." thus saying, she fell at my feet. and i, from the thirst for life that mortals find so hard to overcome, and from the weakness of woman's nature, and from the illusion his words had created, and from my anxiety for kapiñjala's return, thought that that plan was best for the time, and did not die. for what will not hope achieve? '"'that night i spent in taralika's company on the bank of the lake. to my wretchedness it was like a night of doom, [ ] drawn out to a thousand years, all torment, all grief, all hell, all fire. ( ) sleep was rooted out, and i tossed on the ground; my face was hidden by the loosened and dishevelled tresses that clung to my cheeks, wet with tears and gray with dust, and my throat was weak, for my voice failed, broken with piteous weeping. '"'at dawn i arose and bathed in the lake, and having formed my resolve, i took, for love of pundarika, his pitcher and his bark garments and his rosary; for i clearly knew the worthlessness of the world. i perceived my own lack of merit; i pictured to myself the remediless cruelty of the blows of fate; i pondered the inevitableness of grief; i beheld the harshness of destiny; i meditated the course of love, rich in sorrow; i learnt the inconstancy of earthly things; i considered the frailness of all joys. father and mother were disregarded; kinsfolk and followers abandoned; the joys of earth were banished from my mind; the senses held in firm restraint. '"'i took the ascetic vow, and sought the protection of Çiva, lord of the three worlds and helper of the helpless. next day my father came, having somehow learnt my story, bringing with him my mother and kinsfolk. long he wept, and strove with all his might and by every means--prayers, admonitions, and tender words of every kind--to lead me home. ( ) and when he understood my firm resolve, and knew that i could not be turned from that infatuation, he could not, even though without hope, part with his love for his child; and though i often bade him go, he stayed for some days, and went home at length full of grief, and with his heart hot within him. '"'after his going, it was only by empty tears that i could show my gratitude to my lord; by many a penance i wasted my hated body, worn away by love of him, rich in ill, devoid of shame, ill-omened, and the home of a thousand tortures of grief; i lived but on water and the roots and fruits of the wood; under the guise of telling my beads i counted his virtues; thrice a day i bathed in the lake; i daily worshipped Çiva, and in this cell i dwelt with taralika, tasting the bitterness of a long grief. such am i, evil, ill-omened, shameless, cruel, cold, murderous, contemptible, useless, fruitless, helpless, and joyless. ( ) why should one so noble as thou deign to look on or speak with me, the doer of that monstrous crime, the slaughter of a brahman?' thus saying, she covered her face with the white edge of her bark garment, as if veiling the moon with a fleck of autumn cloud, and, unable to quell the irresistible torrent of her tears, she gave way to her sobs, and began to weep loud and long. '"from the very first candrapida had been filled with reverence by her beauty, modesty, and courtesy; by the charm of her speech, her unselfishness and her austerity; and by her serenity, humility, dignity, and purity. but now he was carried away both by the story of her life, which showed her noble character, and by her devoted spirit, and a fresh tenderness arose in him. with softened heart he gently said: 'lady, those may weep who fear pain, and are devoid of gratitude, and love pleasure, for they are unable to do anything worthy of love, and show their affection merely by vain tears. but thou who hast done all rightly, what duty of love hast thou left undone, that thou weepest? for pundarika's sake, thy kinsfolk who from thy birth have been around thee, dear as they were, have been forsaken as if they were strangers. ( ) earthly pleasures, though at thy feet, have been despised and reckoned light as grass. the joys of power, though their riches excelled the empire of indra, have been resigned. thy form has been emaciated by dread penances, even though by nature it was slender as a lotus-stalk. thou hast taken the ascetic vow. thy soul has been devoted to great penance. thou hast dwelt in the woods, hard though it be for a woman. moreover, life is easily resigned by those whom sorrow has overwhelmed, but it needs a greater effort not to throw away life in heavy grief. this following another to death is most vain! it is a path followed by the ignorant! it is a mere freak of madness, a path of ignorance, an enterprise of recklessness, a view of baseness, a sign of utter thoughtlessness, and a blunder of folly, that one should resign life on the death of father, brother, friend, or husband. if life leaves us not of itself, we must not resign it. for this leaving of life, if we examine it, is merely for our own interest, because we cannot bear our own cureless pain. to the dead man it brings no good whatever. for it is no means of bringing him back to life, or heaping up merit, or gaining heaven for him, or saving him from hell, or seeing him again, or being reunited with him. ( ) for he is led helplessly, irresistibly to another state meet for the fruits of his own deeds. and yet he shares in the guilt of the friend who has killed himself. but a man who lives on can help greatly, by offerings of water and the like, both the dead man and himself; but by dying he helps neither. remember how rati, the sole and beloved wife of love, when her noble husband, who won the hearts of all women, was burnt up by the fire of Çiva, yet did not yield her life; and remember also kunti, of the race of vrishni, daughter of surasena, for her lord was pandu the wise; his seat was perfumed by the flowers in the crests of all the kings whom he had conquered without an effort, and he received the tribute of the whole earth, and yet when he was consumed by kindama's curse she still remained alive. uttara, too, the young daughter of virata, on the death of abhimanyu, gentle and heroic, and joyful to the eyes as the young moon, yet lived on. and duhçalya, too, daughter of dhritarashtra, tenderly cared for by her hundred brothers; when jayadratha, king of sindhu, was slain by arjuna, fair as he was and great as he had become by Çiva's [ ] gift, yet made no resignation of her life. ( ) and others are told of by thousands, daughters of rakshasas, gods, demons, ascetics, mortals, siddhas and gandharvas, who when bereft of their husbands yet preserved their lives. still, where reunion is doubtful, life might be yielded. but for thee, thou hast heard from that great being a promise of reunion. what doubt can there be in a matter of thine own experience, and how could falsehood find a place in the words of such noble truth-speaking saints, even when there might be greater cause? and what union could there be between the dead and the living? therefore of a surety that wondrous being was filled with pity and carried away pundarika to heaven solely to bring him back to life. for the power of great men transcends thought. life has many aspects. destiny is manifold. those skilled in penance are fitted for wondrous miracles. many are the forms of power gained by previous actions. moreover, however subtly we may consider the matter, what other cause can we imagine for pundarika's being taken away, but the gift of fresh life. and this, thou must know, is not impossible. it is a path often trodden. ( ) for pramadvara, daughter of viçvavasu, king of the gandharvas and menaka, lost her life through a poisonous snake at the hermitage of sthulakeça, and the young ascetic ruru, son of pramati and grandson of the bhrigu cyavana, provided her with half his own life. and when arjuna was following the açvamedha steed, he was pierced in the van of the battle by an arrow from his own son babhruvahana, and a naga maiden, ulupa, brought him back to life. when parikshit, abhimanyu's son, was consumed by açvatthama's fiery dart, though he had already died at birth, krishna, filled with pity by uttara's lament, restored his precious life. and at ujjayini, he whose steps are honoured by the three worlds, carried off from the city of death the son of sandipani the brahman, and brought him back. [ ] and in thy case, too, the same will somehow come to pass. for by thy present grief, what is effected or what won? fate is all-powerful. destiny is strong. we cannot even draw a breath at our own will. the freaks of that accursed and most harsh destiny are exceeding cruel. a love fair in its sincerity is not allowed long to endure; for joys are wont to be in their essence frail and unlasting, while sorrows by their nature are long-lived. ( ) for how hardly are mortals united in one life, while in a thousand lives they are separated. thou canst not surely then blame thyself, all undeserving of blame. for these things often happen to those who enter the tangled path of transmigration, and it is the brave who conquer misfortune.' with such gentle and soothing words he consoled her, and made her, albeit reluctantly, bathe her face with water brought in his joined hands from the cascade. '"straightway the sun began to sink, as if he were leaving the day's duties from grief at hearing mahaçveta's story. then day faded away; the sun hung shining red as the pollen of a cluster of priyangu in full blossom; the quarters of space were losing the glow of sunset soft as silk dyed in the juice of many lotuses; ( ) the sky was tinged with red, glowing like the pupils of a partridge, [ ] while its blue was hidden; twilight was reddening and lighting up the earth, tawny as a pigeon's eye; the clusters of stars shone forth, vying with each other; the darkness of night was deepening into black, and stealing away the broad path of the stars with its form dark as a forest buffalo; the woodland avenues seemed massed together as their green was hidden by deep gloom; the wind wandered cooled by night-dew, with its path tracked by the perfume of the wild flowers as it stirred the tangle of trees and creepers; and when night had its birds all still in sleep mahaçveta slowly rose, and saying her evening prayers, washed her feet with water from the pitcher and sat down with a hot, sorrowful sigh on her bark couch. candrapida, too, rose and poured a libation of water strewn with flowers, said his evening prayer, and made a couch on the other rock with soft creeper boughs. as he rested upon it he went over mahaçveta's story again in his mind. 'this evil love,' thought he, 'has a power hard alike to cure and to endure. for even great men, when overcome by him, regard not the course of time, but suddenly lose all courage and surrender life. yet all hail to love, whose rule is honoured throughout the three worlds!' ( ) and again he asked her: 'she that was thy handmaiden, thy friend in the resolve to dwell in the woods, and the sharer of the ascetic vow taken in thy sorrow--taralika, where is she?' 'noble sir,' she replied, 'from the race of apsarases sprung from ambrosia of which i told you, there was born a fair-eyed daughter named madira, [ ] who married king citraratha, the king whose footstool was formed of the buds in the crests of all the gandharvas. charmed by her countless virtues, he showed his favour by giving her the title of chief queen, bearing with it cowrie, sceptre and umbrella, marked by a golden throne, and placing all the zenana below her--a woman's rarest glory! and, as they pursued together the joys of youth in their utter devotion to each other, a priceless daughter was in due time born to them, by name kadambari, most wondrous, the very life of her parents, and of the whole gandharva race, and even of all living beings. from her birth she was the friend of my childhood, and shared with me seat, couch, meat and drink; on her my deepest love was set, and she was the home of all my confidence, and like my other heart. together we learnt to dance and sing, and our childhood passed away free from restraint in the sports that belong to it. ( ) from sorrow at my unhappy story she made a resolve that she would in nowise accept a husband while i was still in grief, and before her girl friends she took an oath, saying: "if my father should in anywise or at any time wish to marry me against my will and by force, i will end my life by hunger, fire, cord, or poison." citraratha himself heard all the resolution of his daughter, spoken of positively in the repeated gossip of her attendants, and as time went on, seeing that she was growing to full youth, he became prey to great vexation, and for a time took pleasure in nothing, and yet, as she was his only child and he dearly loved her, he could say nothing to her, though he saw no other resource. but as he deemed the time now ripe, he considered the matter with queen madira, and sent the herald kshiroda to me at early dawn with the message: "dear mahaçveta, our hearts were already burnt up by thy sad fate, and now this new thing has come upon us. to thee we look to win back kadambari." thereupon, in reverence to the words of one so respected, and in love to my friend, i sent taralika with kshiroda to bid kadambari not add grief to one already sad enough; ( ) for if she wished me to live she must fulfil her father's words; and ere taralika had been long gone, thou, noble sir, camest to this spot.' so saying she was silent. '"then the moon arose, simulating by his mark the heart of mahaçveta, burnt through by the fire of grief, bearing the great crime of the young ascetic's death, showing the long ingrained scar of the burning of daksha's curse, [ ] white with thick ashes, and half covered by black antelope skin, like the left breast of durga, the crest-jewel of Çiva's thick locks. ( ) then at length candrapida beheld mahaçveta asleep, and quietly lay down himself on his leafy couch and fell asleep while thinking what vaiçampayana and sorrowing patralekha and his princely compeers would then be imagining about him. '"then at dawn, when mahaçveta had honoured the twilight and was murmuring the aghamarshana, and candrapida had said his morning prayer, taralika was seen coming with a gandharva boy named keyuraka ( ). as she drew near, she looked long at candrapida, wondering who he might be, and approaching mahaçveta, she bowed low and sat respectfully by her. then keyuraka, with head low bent even from afar, took his place on a rock some way off, assigned to him by a glance from mahaçveta, and was filled with wonder at the sight of candrapida's marvellous beauty, rare, mocking that of gods, demons, gandharvas, and vidyadharas, and surpassing even the god of love. ( ) '"when she had finished her prayers, mahaçveta asked taralika, 'didst thou see my dear kadambari well? and will she do as i said?' 'princess,' said taralika, in a very sweet voice, with head respectfully inclined, 'i saw princess kadambari well in all respects, and told her all thine advice; and what was her reply, when with a continuous stream of thick tears she had heard it, that her lute-player keyuraka, whom she has sent, shall tell thee;' and as she ceased keyuraka said, 'princess mahaçveta, my lady kadambari, with a close embrace, sends this message, "is this, that taralika has been sent to tell me, said to please my parents or to test my feelings, or to subtly reproach me for my crime in dwelling at home; or is it a desire to break our friendship, or a device to desert one who loves her, or is it simply anger? thou knowest that my heart overflows with a love that was inborn in me. how wert thou not ashamed to send so cruel a message? thou, erst so soft of speech, from whom hast thou learnt to speak unkindness and utter reproach? who in his senses would, even if happy, make up his mind to undertake even a slight matter that would end in pain? how much less one like me, whose heart is struck down by deep grief? for in a heart worn by a friend's sorrow, what hope is there of joy, what contentment, what pleasures or what mirth? ( ) how should i fulfil the desire of love, poisonous, pitiless, unkind, who has brought my dear friend to so sad a plight? even the hen cakravaka, when the lotus-beds are widowed by the sun's setting, renounces from the friendship that arises from dwelling among them, the joys of union with her lord; how much more, then, should women! while my friend dwells day and night sorrowing for the loss of her lord and avoiding the sight of mankind, how could anyone else enter my heart; and while my friend in her sorrow tortures herself with penances and suffers great pain, how could i think so lightly of that as to seek my own happiness and accept a husband, or how could any happiness befall me? for from love of thee i have in this matter accepted disgrace by embracing an independent life contrary to the wont of maidens. i have despised noble breeding, transgressed my parent's commands, set at nought the gossip of mankind, thrown away modesty, a woman's inborn grace; how, tell me, should such a one go back? therefore i salute thee, i bow before thee, i embrace thy feet; be gracious to me. as thou hast gone hence into the forest, taking my life with thee, make not this request in thy mind, even in a dream."' ( ) thus having said, he became silent, and mahaçveta thought long, and then dismissed keyuraka, saying, 'do thou depart; i will go to her and do what is fitting.' on his departure she said to candrapida, 'prince, hemakuta is pleasant and the royal city of citraratha marvellous; the kinnara country is curious, the gandharva world beautiful, and kadambari is noble and generous of heart. if thou deemest not the journey too tedious, if no serious business is hindered, if thy mind is curious to behold rare sights, if thou art encouraged by my words, if the sight of wonders gives thee joy, if thou wilt deign to grant my request, if thou thinkest me worthy of not being denied, if any friendship has grown up between us, or if i am deserving of thy favour, then thou canst not disdain to fulfil this prayer. thou canst go hence with me, and see not only hemakuta, that treasure of beauty, but my second self, kadambari; and having removed this foolish freak of hers, thou canst rest for one day, and return hither the next morn. for by the sight of thy kindness so freely [ ] given, my grief has become bearable, since i have told thee my story, breathed out as it was from a heart long overwhelmed with the darkness of grief. ( ) for the presence of the good gives joy even to those who are sad at heart, and a virtue springs from such as thou art that wholly tends to make others happy.' '"'lady,' replied candrapida, 'from the first moment of seeing thee i have been devoted to thy service. let thy will be imposed without hesitation'; so saying, he started in her company. '"in due time he reached hemakuta, the royal city of the gandharvas, and passing through the seven inner courts with their golden arches, the prince approached the door of the maidens' dwelling. escorted by porters, who ran forward at the sight of mahaçveta, bowing while yet far off, and holding their golden staves, he entered and beheld the inside of the maidens' palace. it seemed a new woman's world, consisting wholly of women in countless numbers, as if the womankind of the three worlds had been gathered together to make such a total; or it might be a fresh manless creation, a yet unborn continent of girls, a fifth women's era, a fresh race created by prajapati out of hatred for men, or a treasury of women prepared for the making of many yugas. the wave of girlish beauty which surrounded it on all sides, which flooded space, sprinkled nectar on the day, rained splendour on the interstices of the world, and shone lustrous as an emerald, made the place all aglow as if with thousands of moons; ( ) it seemed modelled in moonlight; jewels made another sky; service was done by bright glances; every part was made for youthful pleasures; here was an assemblage for rati's sports, a material for love's practice; here the entrance of all was made smooth by love; here all was affection, beauty, the supreme deity of passion, the arrows of love, here all was wonder, marvel, and tenderness of youth. ( ) when he had gone a little way in he heard the pleasant talk of the maidens round kadambari as they wandered hither and thither. such as 'lavalika, deck the lavali trenches with ketaki pollen. sagarika, sprinkle jewelled dust in the tanks of scented water. mrinalika, inlay with saffron dust the pairs of toy [ ] cakravakas in the artificial lotus-beds. makarika, scent the pot-pourri with camphor-juice. rajanika, place jewelled lamps in the dark tamala avenues. kumudika, cover the pomegranates with pearly nets to keep off the birds. nipunika, draw saffron lines on the breasts of the jewelled dolls. utpalika, sweep with golden brooms the emerald arbour in the plaintain house. kesarika, sprinkle with wine the houses of bakul flowers. malatika, redden with red lead the ivory roof of kama's shrine. nalinika, give the tame kalahamsas lotus-honey to drink. kadalika, take the tame peacocks to the shower-bath. kamalinika, give some sap from the lotus-fibres to the young cakravakas. cutalatika, give the caged pigeons their meal of mango-buds. pallavika, distribute to the tame haritala pigeons some topmost leaves of the pepper-tree. lavangika, throw some pieces of pippali leaves into the partridges' cages. madhukarika, make some flowery ornaments. mayurika, dismiss the pairs of kinnaras in the singing-room. kandalika, bring up the pairs of partridges to the top of the playing hill. harinika, give the caged parrots and mainas their lesson.' ( ) '"then he beheld kadambari herself in the midst of her pavilion encircled by a bevy of maidens sitting by her, whose glittering gems made them like a cluster of kalpa trees. [ ] ( ) she was resting on her bent arms, which lay on a white pillow placed on a small couch covered with blue silk; she was fanned by cowrie-bearers, that in the motion of their waving arms were like swimmers in the wide-flowing stream of her beauty, as if it covered the earth, which was only held up by the tusks of mahavaraha. '"and as her reflection fell, she seemed on the jewelled pavement below to be borne away by serpents; on the walls hard by to be led by the guardians of space; on the roof above to be cast upwards by the gods; to be received by the pillars into their inmost heart; to be drunk in by the palace mirrors, to be lifted to the sky by the vidyadharas scattered in the pavilion, looking down from the roof; to be surrounded by the universe concealed in the guise of pictures, all thronging together to see her; to be gazed at by the palace itself, which had gained a thousand eyes to behold her, in that the eyes of its peacocks' tails were outspread as they danced to the clashing of her gems; and to be steadily looked on by her own attendants, who seemed in their eagerness to behold her to have gained a divine insight. '"her beauty bore the impress of awakening love, though but yet in promise, and she seemed to be casting childhood aside like a thing of no worth. ( ) '"such was kadambari as the prince beheld her. before her was seated keyuraka, loud in praise of candrapida's beauty, as kadambari questioned him, saying, 'who is he, and what are his parentage, name, appearance, and age? what did he say, and what didst thou reply? how long didst thou see him? how has he become so close a friend to mahaçveta? and why is he coming hither?' '"now, on beholding the moonlike beauty of kadambari's face, the prince's heart was stirred like the tide of ocean. 'why,' thought he, 'did not the creator make all my senses into sight, or what noble deed has my eye done that it may look on her unchecked? surely it is a wonder! the creator has here made a home for every charm! whence have the parts of this exceeding beauty been gathered? surely from the tears that fell from the creator's eyes in the labour of thought, as he gently moulded her with his hands, all the lotuses in the world have their birth.' ( ) '"and as he thus thought his eye met hers, and she, thinking, 'this is he of whom keyuraka spoke,' let her glance, widened by wonder at his exceeding beauty, dwell long and quietly on him. confused by the sight of kadambari, yet illumined by the brightness of her gaze, he stood for a moment like a rock, while at the sight of him a thrill rose in kadambari, her jewels clashed, and she half rose. then love caused a glow, but the excuse was the effort of hastily rising; trembling hindered her steps--the hamsas around, drawn by the sound of the anklets, got the blame; the heaving of a sigh stirred her robe--it was thought due to the wind of the cowries; her hand fell on her heart, as if to touch candrapida's image that had entered in--it pretended to cover her bosom; she let fall tears of joy--the excuse was the pollen falling from the flowers in her ear. shame choked her voice--the swarm of bees hastening to the lotus sweetness of her mouth was the cause; ( ) the pain of the first touch of love's arrow caused a sigh--the pain of the ketaki thorns amidst the flowers shared the guilt; a tremor shook her hand--keeping off the portress who had come with a message was her pretence; and while love was thus entering into kadambari, a second love, as it were, arose, who with her entered the heart of candrapida. for he thought the flash of her jewels but a veil, her entrance into his heart a favour, the tinkling of her gems a conversation, her capture of all his senses a grace, and contact with her bright beauty the fulfilment of all his wishes. meanwhile kadambari, advancing with difficulty a few steps, affectionately and with yearning embraced her friend, who also yearned for the sight of her so long delayed; and mahaçveta returned her embrace yet more closely, and said, 'dear kadambari, in the land of bharata there is a king named tarapida, who wards off all grief [ ] from his subjects, and who has impressed his seal on the four oceans by the edge of the hoofs of his noble steeds; and this his son, named candrapida, decked [ ] with the orb of earth resting on the support of his own rock-like arms, has, in pursuit of world conquest, approached this land; and he, from the moment i first beheld him, has instinctively become my friend, though there was nought to make him so; and, though my heart was cold from its resignation of all ties, yet he has attracted it by the rare and innate nobility of his character. ( ) for it is rare to find a man of keen mind who is at once true of heart, unselfish in friendship, and wholly swayed by courtesy. wherefore, having beheld him, i brought him hither by force. for i thought thou shouldst behold as i have done a wonder of brahma's workmanship, a peerless owner of beauty, a supplanter of lakshmi, earth's joy in a noble lord, the surpassing of gods by mortals, the full fruition of woman's eyes, the only meeting-place of all graces, the empire of nobility, and the mirror of courtesy for men. and my dear friend has often been spoken of to him by me. therefore dismiss shame on the ground of his being unseen before, lay aside diffidence as to his being a stranger, cast away suspicion rising from his character being unknown, and behave to him as to me. he is thy friend, thy kinsman, and thy servant.' at these words of hers candrapida bowed low before kadambari, and as she glanced sideways at him affectionately there fell from her eyes, with their beautiful pupils turned towards the corner of their long orbs, a flood of joyous tears, as though from weariness. the moonlight of a smile, white as nectar, darted forth, as if it were the dust raised by the heart as it hastily set out; one eyebrow was raised as if to bid the head honour with an answering reverence the guest so dear to the heart; ( ) her hand crept to her softly parting lips, and might seem, as the light of an emerald ring flashed between the fingers, to have taken some betel. she bowed diffidently, and then sat down on the couch with mahaçveta, and the attendants quickly brought a stool with gold feet and a covering of white silk, and placed it near the couch, and candrapida took his seat thereon. to please mahaçveta, the portresses, knowing kadambari's wishes, and having by a hand placed on closed lips received an order to stop all sounds, checked on every side the sound of pipe, lute and song, and the magadha women's cry of 'all hail!' ( ) when the servants had quickly brought water, kadambari herself washed mahaçveta's feet, and, drying them with her robe, sat on the couch again; and madalekha, a friend worthy of kadambari, dear as her own life and the home of all her confidence, insisted on washing candrapida's feet, unwilling though he were. mahaçveta meanwhile asked kadambari how she was, and lovingly touched with her hand the corner of her friend's eyes, which shone with the reflected light of her earrings; she lifted the flowers in kadambari's ear, all covered with bees, and softly stroked the coils of her hair, roughened by the wind of the cowries. and kadambari, ashamed, from love to her friend, of her own well-being, as though feeling that in still dwelling at home she had committed a crime, said with an effort that all was well with her. then, though filled with grief and intent on gazing at mahaçveta's face, yet her eye, with its pupil dark and quivering as it looked out sideways, was, under the influence of love, with bow fully bent, irresistibly drawn by candrapida's face, and she could not turn it away. at that same moment she felt jealousy [ ] of his being pictured on the cheek of her friend standing near--the pain of absence as his reflection faded away on her own breast, pierced by a thrill--the anger of a rival wife as the image of the statues fell on him--the sorrow of despair as he closed his eyes, and blindness as his image was veiled by tears of joy. ( ) '"at the end of a moment mahaçveta said to kadambari as she was intent on giving betel: 'dear kadambari, the moment has approached for us to show honour to our newly arrived guest, candrapida. therefore give him some.' but averting her bent face, kadambari replied slowly and indistinctly, 'dear friend, i am ashamed to do so, for i do not know him. do thou take it, for thou canst without the forwardness there would be in me, and give it him'; and it was only after many persuasions, that with difficulty, and like a village maiden, she resolved to give it. her eyes were never drawn from mahaçveta's face, her limbs trembled, her glance wavered, she sighed deeply, she was stunned by love with his shaft, and she seemed a prey to terror as she stretched forth her hand, holding the betel as if trying to cling to something under the idea she was falling. the hand candrapida stretched out, by nature pink, as if red lead had fallen upon it from the flapping of his triumphal elephant, was darkened by the scars of the bowstring, and seemed to have drops of collyrium clinging to it from touching the eyes of his enemies' lakshmi, weeping as he drew her by the hair; ( ) its fingers by the forth-flashing rays of his nails seemed to run up hastily, to grow long and to laugh, and the hand seemed to raise five other fingers in the five senses that, in desire to touch her, had just made their entry full of love. then contending feelings [ ] took possession of kadambari as if they had gathered together in curiosity to see the grace at that moment so easy of access. her hand, as she did not look whither it was going, was stretched vainly forth, and the rays of its nails seemed to hasten forward to seek candrapida's hand; and with the murmur of the line of bracelets stirred by her trembling, it seemed to say, as drops of moisture arose on it, 'let this slave offered by love be accepted,' [ ] as if she were offering herself, and 'henceforth it is in thy hand,' as if she were making it into a living being, and so she gave the betel. and in drawing back her hand she did not notice the fall of her bracelet, which had slipped down her arm in eagerness to touch him, like her heart pierced by love's shaft; and taking another piece of betel, she gave it to mahaçveta. ( ) '"then there came up with hasty steps a maina, a very flower, in that her feet were yellow as lotus filaments, her beak was like a campak bud, and her wings blue as a lotus petal. close behind her came a parrot, slow in gait, emerald-winged, with a beak like coral and neck bearing a curved, three-rayed rainbow. angrily the maina began: 'princess kadambari, why dost thou not restrain this wretched, ill-mannered, conceited bird from following me? if thou overlookest my being oppressed by him, i will certainly destroy myself. i swear it truly by thy lotus feet.' at these words kadambari smiled; but mahaçveta, not knowing the story, asked madalekha what she was saying, and she told the following tale: 'this maina, kalindi, is a friend of princess kadambari, and was given by her solemnly in marriage to parihasa, the parrot. and to-day, ever since she saw him reciting something at early dawn to kadambari's betel-bearer, tamalika, alone, she has been filled with jealousy, and in frowardness of wrath will not go near him, or speak, or touch, or look at him; and though we have all tried to soothe her, she will not be soothed.' ( ) thereat a smile spread over candrapida's face, and he softly laughed and said, 'this is the course of gossip. it is heard in the court; by a succession of ears the attendants pass it on; the outside world repeats it; the tale wanders to the ends of the earth, and we too hear how this parrot parihasa has fallen in love with princess kadambari's betel-bearer, and, enslaved by love, knows nothing of the past. away with this ill-behaved, shameless deserter of his wife, and away with her too! but is it fitting in the princess not to restrain her giddy slave? perhaps her cruelty, however, was shown at the first in giving poor kalindi to this ill-conducted bird. what can she do now? for women feel that a shared wifehood is the bitterest matter for indignation, the chief cause for estrangement, and the greatest possible insult. kalindi has been only too patient that in the aversion caused by this weight of grief she has not slain herself by poison, fire, or famine. for nothing makes a woman more despised; and if, after such a crime, she is willing to be reconciled and to live with him again, shame on her! enough of her! let her be banished and cast out in scorn! who will speak to her or look at her again, and who will mention her name?' a laugh arose among kadambari's women as they heard [ ] his mirthful words. ( ) but parihasa, hearing his jesting speech, said: 'cunning prince, she is clever. unsteady as she is, she is not to be taken in by thee or anyone else. she knows all these crooked speeches. she understands a jest. her mind is sharpened by contact with a court. cease thy jests. she is no subject for the talk of bold men. for, soft of speech as she is, she knows well the time, cause, measure, object, and topic for wrath and for peace.' meanwhile, a herald came up and said to mahaçveta: 'princess, king citraratha and queen madira send to see thee,' and she, eager to go, asked kadambari, 'friend, where should candrapida stay?' the latter, inwardly smiling at the thought that he had already found a place in the heart of thousands of women, said aloud, 'dear mahaçveta, why speak thus? since i beheld him i have not been mistress of myself, far less than of my palace and my servants. let him stay wherever it pleases him and my dear friend's heart.' thereon mahaçveta replied, "let him stay in the jewelled house on the playing hill of the royal garden near thy palace,' and went to see the king. ( ) '"candrapida went away at her departure, followed by maidens, sent for his amusement by the portress at kadambari's bidding, players on lute and pipe, singers, skilful dice and draught players, practised painters and reciters of graceful verses; he was led by his old acquaintance keyuraka to the jewelled hall on the playing hill. '"when he was gone the gandharva princess dismissed her girl-friends and attendants, and followed only by a few, went into the palace. there she fell on her couch, while her maidens stayed some way off, full of respect, and tried to comfort her. at length she came to herself, and remaining alone, she was filled with shame. for modesty censured her: 'light one, what hast thou begun?' self-respect reproached her: 'gandharva princess, how is this fitting for thee?' simplicity mocked her: 'where has thy childhood gone before its day was over?' youth warned her: 'wilful girl, do not carry out alone any wild plan of thine own!' dignity rebuked her: 'timid child, this is not the course of a high-born maiden.' conduct blamed her: 'reckless girl, avoid this unseemly behaviour!' high birth admonished her: 'foolish one, love hath led thee into lightness.' steadfastness cried shame on her: 'whence comes thine unsteadiness of nature?' nobility rebuked her: 'self-willed, my authority is set at nought by thee.' ( ) '"and she thought within herself, 'what shameful conduct is this of mine, in that i cast away all fear, and show my unsteadiness and am blinded by folly. in my audacity i never thought he was a stranger; in my shamelessness i did not consider that he would think me light of nature; i never examined his character; i never thought in my folly if i were worthy of his regard; i had no dread of an unexpected rebuff; i had no fear of my parents, no anxiety about gossip. nay, more, i did not in my unkindness [ ] remember that mahaçveta was in sorrow; in my stupidity i did not notice that my friends stood by and beheld me; in my utter dullness i did not see that my servants behind were observing me. even grave minds would mark such utter forgetfulness of seemliness; how much more mahaçveta, who knows the course of love; and my friends skilled in all its ways, and my attendants who know all its symptoms, and whose wits are sharpened by life at court. the slaves of a zenana have keen eyes in such matters. my evil fate has undone me! better were it for me now to die than live a shameful life. what will my father and mother and the gandharvas say when they hear this tale? what can i do? what remedy is there? how can i cover this error? to whom can i tell this folly of my undisciplined senses, ( ) and where shall i go, consumed by kama, the five-arrowed god? i had made a promise in mahaçveta's sorrow, i had announced it before my friends, i had sent a message of it by the hands of keyuraka, and how it has now come about that that beguiling candrapida has been brought hither, i know not, ill-fated that i am; whether it be by cruel fate or proud love, or nemesis of my former deeds, or accursed death, or anything else. but some power unseen, unknown, unheard of, unthought of and unimagined before, has come to delude me. at the mere sight of him i am a captive in bonds; i am cast into a cage and handed over by my senses; i am enslaved and led to him by love; i am sent away by affection; i am sold at a price by my feelings; i am made as a household chattel by my heart. i will have nothing to do with this worthless one!' thus for a moment she resolved. but having made this resolve, she was mocked by candrapida's image stirred by the trembling of her heart, 'if thou, in thy false reserve, will have nought to do with me, i will go.' she was asked by her life, which clung to her in a farewell embrace before starting at the moment of her determination to give up candrapida; ( ) she was addressed by a tear that rose at that moment, 'let him be seen once more with clearer eyes, whether he be worthy of rejection or no'; she was chidden by love, saying, 'i will take away thy pride together with thy life;' and so her heart was again turned to candrapida. overwhelmed, when the force of her meditation had collapsed, by the access of love, she rose, under its sway, and stood looking through the window at the playing hill. and there, as if bewildered by a veil of joyful tears, she saw with her memory, not her eyes; as if fearing to soil with a hot hand her picture, she painted with her fancy, not with her brush; dreading the intervention of a thrill, she offered an embrace with her heart, not her breast; unable to bear his delay in coming, she sent her mind, not her servants, to meet him. '"meanwhile, candrapida willingly entered the jewelled house, as if it were a second heart of kadambari. on the rock was strewn a blanket, with pillows piled on it at either end, and thereon he lay down, with his feet in keyuraka's lap, while the maidens sat round him in the places appointed for them. with a heart in turmoil he betook himself to reflection: 'are these graces of princess kadambari, that steal all men's hearts, innate in her, or has love, with kindness won by no service of mine, ordained them for me? ( ) for she gave me a sidelong glance with loving, reddened eyes half curved as if they were covered with the pollen of love's flowery darts as they fell on her heart. she modestly veiled herself with a bright smile fair as silk as i looked at her. she offered the mirror of her cheek to receive my image, as in shame at my gaze she averted her face. she sketched on the couch with her nail the first trace of wilfulness of a heart that was giving me entrance. her hand, moist with the fatigue of bringing me the betel, seemed in its trembling to fan her hot face, as if it were a tamala branch she had taken, for a swarm of bees hovered round it, mistaking it for a rosy lotus. perhaps,' he went on to reflect, 'the light readiness to hope so common among mortals is now deceiving me with a throng of vain desires; and the glow of youth, devoid of judgment, or love himself, makes my brain reel; whence the eyes of the young, as though struck by cataract, magnify even a small spot; and a tiny speck of affection is spread far by youthful ardour as by water. an excited heart like a poet's imagination is bewildered by the throng of fancies that it calls up of itself, and draws likenesses from everything; youthful feelings in the hand of cunning love are as a brush, and shrink from painting nothing; and imagination, proud of her suddenly gained beauty, turns in every direction. ( ) longing shows as in a dream what i have felt. hope, like a conjuror's wand, [ ] sets before us what can never be. why, then,' thought he again, 'should i thus weary my mind in vain? if this bright-eyed maiden is indeed thus inclined towards me, love, who is so kind without my asking, will ere long make it plain to me. he will be the decider of this doubt.' having at length come to this decision, he rose, then sat down, and merrily joined the damsels in gentle talk and graceful amusements--with dice, song, lute, tabor, concerts of mingled sound, and murmur of tender verse. after resting a short time he went out to see the park, and climbed to the top of the pleasure hill. '"kadambari saw him, and bade that the window should be opened to watch for mahaçveta's return, saying, 'she tarries long,' and, with a heart tossed by love, mounted to the roof of the palace. there she stayed with a few attendants, protected from the heat by a gold-handled umbrella, white as the full moon, and fanned by the waving of four yaks' tails pure as foam. she seemed to be practising an adornment fit for going to meet [ ] candrapida, by means of the bees which hovered round her head, eager for the scent of the flowers, which veiled her even by day in darkness. now she leaned on the point of the cowrie, now on the stick of the umbrella; now she laid her hands on tamalika's shoulder, ( ), now she clung to madalekha; now she hid herself amidst her maidens, looking with sidelong glance; now she turned herself round; now she laid her cheek on the tip of the portress's staff; now with a steady hand she placed betel on her fresh lips; now she laughingly ran a few steps in pursuit of her maidens scattered by the blows of the lotuses she threw at them. and in looking at the prince, and being gazed at by him, she knew not how long a time had passed. at last a portress announced mahaçveta's return, and she went down, and albeit unwilling, yet to please mahaçveta she bathed and performed the wonted duties of the day. '"but candrapida went down, and dismissing kadambari's followers, performed the rites of bathing, and worshipped the deity honoured throughout the mountain, and did all the duties of the day, including his meal, on the pleasure hill. there he sat on an emerald seat which commanded the front of the pleasure hill, pleasant, green as a pigeon, bedewed with foam from the chewing of fawns, shining like yamuna's waters standing still in fear of balarama's plough, glowing crimson with lac-juice from the girls' feet, sanded with flower-dust, hidden in a bower, a concert-house of peacocks. he suddenly beheld day eclipsed by a stream of white radiance, rich in glory, ( ) light drunk up as by a garland of lotus-fibres, earth flooded as by a milky ocean, space bedewed as by a storm of sandal-juice, and the sky painted as with white chunam. '"'what!' thought he, 'is our lord, the moon, king of plants, suddenly risen, or are a thousand shower-baths set going with their white streams let loose by a spring, or is it the heavenly ganges, whitening the earth with her wind-tossed spray, that has come down to earth in curiosity?' [ ]'"then, turning his eyes in the direction of the light, he beheld kadambari, and with her madalekha and taralika bearing a pearl necklace on a tray covered with white silk. ( ) thereupon candrapida decided that it was this necklace that eclipsed [ ] moonlight, and was the cause of the brightness, and by rising while she was yet far off, and by all wonted courtesies, he greeted the approach of madalekha. for a moment she rested on that emerald seat, and then, rising, anointed him with sandal perfume, put on him two white robes, ( ) crowned him with malati flowers, and then gave him the necklace, saying, 'this thy gentleness, my prince, so devoid of pride, must needs subjugate every heart. thy kindness gives an opening even to one like me; by thy form thou art lord of life to all; by that tenderness shown even where there is no claim on thee, thou throwest on all a bond of love; the innate sweetness of thy bearing makes every man thy friend; these thy virtues, manifested with such natural gentleness, give confidence to all. thy form must take the blame, for it inspires trust even at first sight; else words addressed to one of such dignity as thou would seem all unmeet. for to speak with thee would be an insult; our very respect would bring on us the charge of forwardness; our very praise would display our boldness; our subservience would manifest lightness, our love self-deception, our speech to thee audacity, our service impertinence, our gift an insult. nay, more, thou hast conquered our hearts; what is left for us to give thee? thou art lord of our life; what can we offer thee? thou hast already bestowed the great favour of thy presence; what return could we make? thou by thy sight hast made our life worth having; how can we reward thy coming? ( ) therefore kadambari with this excuse shows her affection rather than her dignity. noble hearts admit no question of mine and thine. away with the thought of dignity. even if she accepted slavery to one like thee, she would do no unworthy act; even if she gave herself to thee, she would not be deceived; if she gave her life, she would not repent. the generosity of a noble heart is always bent on kindness, and does not willingly reject affection, and askers are less shamefaced than givers. but it is true that kadambari knows she has offended thee in this matter. now, this necklace, called Çesha, [ ] because it was the only jewel left of all that rose at the churning of nectar, was for that reason greatly valued by the lord of ocean, and was given by him to varuna on his return home. by the latter it was given to the gandharva king, and by him to kadambari. and she, thinking thy form worthy of this ornament, in that not the earth, but the sky, is the home of the moon, hath sent it to thee. and though men like thee, who bear no ornament but a noble spirit, find it irksome to wear the gems honoured by meaner men, yet here kadambari's affection is a reason for thee to do so. ( ) did not vishnu show his reverence by wearing on his breast the kaustubha gem, because it rose with lakshmi; and yet he was not greater than thee, nor did the kaustubha gem in the least surpass the Çesha in worth; nor, indeed, does lakshmi approach in the slightest degree to imitating kadambari's beauty. and in truth, if her love is crushed by thee, she will grieve mahaçveta [ ] with a thousand reproaches, and will slay herself. mahaçveta therefore sends taralika with the necklace to thee, and bids me say thus: "let not kadambari's first impulse of love be crushed by thee, even in thought, most noble prince."' thus having said, she fastened on his breast the necklace that rested like a bevy of stars on the slope of the golden mountain. filled with amazement, candrapida replied: 'what means this, madalekha? thou art clever, and knowest how to win acceptance for thy gifts. by leaving me no chance of a reply, thou hast shown skill in oratory. nay, foolish maiden, what are we in respect of thee, or of acceptance and refusal; truly this talk is nought. having received kindness from ladies so rich in courtesy, let me be employed in any matter, whether pleasing or displeasing to me. but truly there lives not the man whom the virtues of the most courteous lady kadambari do not discourteously [ ] enslave.' ( ) thus saying, after some talk about kadambari, he dismissed madalekha, and ere she had long gone the daughter of citraratha dismissed her attendants, rejected the insignia of wand, umbrella, and cowrie, and accompanied only by tamalika, again mounted to the roof of her palace to behold candrapida, bright with pearls, silk raiment and sandal, go to the pleasure hill, like the moon to the mount of rising. there, with passionate glances imbued with every grace, she stole his heart. ( ) and when it became too dark to see, she descended from the roof, and candrapida, from the slope of the hill. '"then the moon, source of nectar, gladdener of all eyes, arose with his rays gathered in; he seemed to be worshipped by the night-lotuses, to calm the quarters whose faces were dark as if with anger, and to avoid the day-lotuses as if from fear of waking them; under the guise of his mark he wore night on his heart; he bore in the glow of rising the lac that had clung to him from the spurning of rohini's feet; he pursued the sky, in its dark blue veil, like a mistress; and by reason of his great goodwill, spread beauty everywhere. '"and when the moon, the umbrella of the supreme rule of kama, the lord of the lotuses, the ivory earring that decks the night, had risen, and when the world was turned to whiteness, as though overlaid with ivory, candrapida lay down on a cool moonlit slab, pearl white, pointed out by kadambari's servants. it was washed with fresh sandal, garlanded with pure sinduvara flowers, and carved round with a leafy tracery of lotus petals. it lay on the shore of a palace lotus tank, that seemed from the full moonlight to be made of night-lotuses, [ ] with steps white with bricks washed by the waves, as it wafted a breeze fanned by the ripples; ( ) pairs of hamsas lay there asleep, and pairs of cakravakas kept up their dirge of separation thereon. and while the prince yet rested there keyuraka approached him, and told him that princess kadambari had come to see him. then candrapida rose hastily, and beheld kadambari drawing near. few of her friends were with her; all her royal insignia were removed; she was as it were a new self, in the single necklace she wore; her slender form was white with the purest sandal-juice; an earring hung from one ear; she wore a lotus-petal in the ear, soft as a budding digit of the moon; she was clad in robes of the kalpa-tree, [ ] clear as moonlight; and in the garb that consorted with that hour she stood revealed like the very goddess of moonrise, as she rested on the hand offered by madalekha. drawing near, she showed a grace prompted by love, and took her seat on the ground, where servants are wont to sit, like a maiden of low degree; and candrapida, too, though often entreated by madalekha to sit on the rocky seat, took his place on the ground by madalekha; and when all the women were seated he made an effort to speak, saying, 'princess, to one who is thy slave, and whom even a glance gladdens, there needs not the favour of speech with thee, far less so great a grace as this. ( ) for, deeply as i think, i cannot see in myself any worth that this height of favour may befit. most noble and sweet in its laying aside of pride is this thy courtesy, in that such grace is shown to one but newly thy servant. perchance thou thinkest me a churl that must be won by gifts. blessed, truly, is the servant over whom is thy sway! how great honour is bestowed on the servants deemed worthy of the bestowal of thy commands. but the body is a gift at the service of any man, and life is light as grass, so that i am ashamed in my devotion to greet thy coming with such a gift. here am i, here my body, my life, my senses! do thou, by accepting one of them, raise it to honour.' '"madalekha smilingly replied to this speech of his: 'enough, prince. my friend kadambari is pained by thy too great ceremony. why speakest thou thus? she accepts thy words without further talk. and why, too, is she brought to suspense by these too flattering speeches?' and then, waiting a short time, she began afresh: 'how is king tarapida, how queen vilasavati, how the noble Çukanasa? what is ujjayini like, and how far off is it? what is the land of bharata? and is the world of mortals pleasant?' so she questioned him. ( ) after spending some time in such talk, kadambari rose, and summoning keyuraka, who was lying near candrapida, and her attendants, she went up to her sleeping-chamber. there she adorned a couch strewn with a coverlet of white silk. candrapida, however, on his rock passed the night like a moment in thinking, while his feet were rubbed by keyuraka, of the humility, beauty, and depth of kadambari's character, the causeless kindness of mahaçveta, the courtesy of madalekha, the dignity of the attendants, the great splendour of the gandharva world, and the charm of the kimpurusha land. '"then the moon, lord of stars, weary of being kept awake by the sight of kadambari, descended, as if to sleep, to the forest on the shore, with its palms and tamalas, talis, banyans, and kandalas, [ ] cool with the breeze from the hardly stirred [ ] ripples. as though with the feverish sighs of a woman grieving for her lover's approaching absence, the moonlight faded away. lakshmi, having passed the night on the moon lotuses, lay on the sun lotuses, as though love had sprung up in her at the sight of candrapida. at the close of night, when the palace lamps grew pale, as if dwindling in longing as they remembered the blows of the lotuses in maidens' ears, the breezes of dawn, fragrant with creeper-flowers, were wafted, sportive with the sighs of love weary from ceaselessly discharging his shafts; the stars were eclipsed by the rising dawn, and took their abode, as through fear, in the thick creeper bowers of mount mandara. [ ] ( ) then when the sun arose, with its orb crimson as if a glow remained from dwelling in the hearts of the cakravakas, candrapida, rising from the rock, bathed his lotus face, said his morning prayer, took his betel, and then bade keyuraka see whether princess kadambari was awake or no, and where she was; and when it was announced to him by the latter on his return that she was with mahaçveta in the bower of the courtyard below the mandara palace, he started to see the daughter of the gandharva king. there he beheld mahaçveta surrounded by wandering ascetic women like visible goddesses of prayer, with marks of white ash on their brow, and hands quickly moving as they turned their rosaries; bearing the vow of Çiva's followers, clad in robes tawny with mineral dyes, bound to wear red cloth, robed in the ruddy bark of ripe cocoanuts, or girdled with thick white cloth; with fans of white cloth; with staves, matted locks, deer-skins, and bark dresses; with the marks of male ascetics; reciting the pure praises of Çiva, durga, kartikeya, viçravasa, [ ] krishna, avalokiteçvara, the arhat, viriñca. [ ] mahaçveta herself was showing honour to the elder kinswomen of the king, the foremost of the zenana, by salutes, courteous speeches, by rising to meet them and placing reed seats for them. ( ) '"he beheld kadambari also giving her attention to the recitation of the mahabharata, that transcends all good omens, by narada's sweet-voiced daughter, with an accompaniment of flutes soft as the murmur of bees, played by a pair of kinnaras sitting behind her. she was looking in a mirror fixed before her at her lip, pale as beeswax when the honey is gone, bathed in the moonlight of her teeth, though within it was darkened by betel. she was being honoured by a sunwise turn in departing by a tame goose wandering like the moon in a fixed circle, with wide eyes raised to her sirisha earrings in its longing for vallisneria. here the prince approached, and, saluting her, sat down on a seat placed on the dais. after a short stay he looked at mahaçveta's face with a gentle smile that dimpled his cheek, and she, at once knowing his wish, said to kadambari: 'dear friend, candrapida is softened by thy virtues as the moonstone by the moon, and cannot speak for himself. he wishes to depart; for the court he has left behind is thrown into distress, not knowing what has happened. moreover, however far apart you may be from each other, this your love, like that of the sun and the day lotus, or the moon and the night lotus, will last till the day of doom. therefore let him go.' ( ) '"'dear mahaçveta,' replied kadambari, 'i and my retinue belong as wholly to the prince as his own soul. why, then, this ceremony?' so saying, and summoning the gandharva princes, she bade them escort the prince to his own place, and he, rising, bowed before mahaçveta first, and then kadambari, and was greeted by her with eyes and heart softened by affection; and with the words, 'lady, what shall i say? for men distrust the multitude of words. let me be remembered in the talk of thy retinue,' he went out of the zenana; and all the maidens but kadambari, drawn by reverence for candrapida's virtues, followed him on his way like his subjects to the outer gate. '"on their return, he mounted the steed brought by keyuraka, and, escorted by the gandharva princes, turned to leave hemakuta. his whole thoughts on the way were about kadambari in all things both within and without. with a mind wholly imbued with her, he beheld her behind him, dwelling within him in his bitter grief for the cruel separation; or before him, stopping him in his path; or cast on the sky, as if by the force of longing in his heart troubled by parting, so that he could perfectly see her face; he beheld her very self resting on his heart, as if her mind were wounded with his loss. when he reached mahaçveta's hermitage, he there beheld his own camp, which had followed the tracks of indrayudha. ( ) '"dismissing the gandharva princes, he entered his own abode amidst the salutations of his troops full of joy, curiosity, and wonder; and after greeting the rest of the court, he spent the day mostly in talk with vaiçampayana and patralekha, saying, 'thus said mahaçveta, thus kadambari, thus madalekha, thus tamalika, thus keyuraka.' no longer did royal glory, envious at the sight of kadambari's beauty, find in him her joy; for him night passed in wakefulness as he thought, with a mind in ceaseless longing, of that bright-eyed maiden. next morning, at sunrise, he went to his pavilion with his mind still fixed on her, and suddenly saw keyuraka entering with a doorkeeper; and as the latter, while yet far off, cast himself on the ground, so that his crest swept the floor, candrapida cried, 'come, come,' greeting him first with a sidelong glance, then with his heart, then with a thrill. then at last he hastened forward to give him a hearty and frank embrace, and made him sit down by himself. then, in words brightened by the nectar of a smile, and transfused with overflowing love, he reverently asked: 'say, keyuraka, is the lady kadambari well, and her friends, and her retinue, and the lady mahaçveta?' with a low bow, keyuraka, as though he had been bathed, anointed, and refreshed by the smile that the prince's deep affection had prompted, replied respectfully: '"'she is now well, in that my lord asks for her.' and then he showed a folded lotus-leaf, wrapped in wet cloth, with its opening closed by lotus filaments, and a seal of tender lotus filaments set in a paste of wet sandal. ( ) this he opened, and showed the tokens sent by kadambari, such as milky betel-nuts of emerald hue, with their shells removed and surrounded with fresh sprays, betel-leaves pale as the cheek of a hen-parrot, camphor like a solid piece of Çiva's moon, and sandal ointment pleasant with rich musk scent. 'the lady kadambari,' said he, 'salutes thee with folded hands that kiss her crest, and that are rosy with the rays of her tender fingers; mahaçveta with a greeting and embrace; madalekha with a reverence and a brow bathed in the moonlight of the crest-gem she has let fall; the maidens with the points of the fish-ornaments and the parting of their hair resting on the ground; and taralika, with a prostration to touch the dust of thy feet. mahaçveta sends thee this message: "happy truly are they from whose eyes thou art never absent. for in truth thy virtues, snowy, cold as the moon when thou art by, in thine absence burn like sunlight. truly all yearn for the past day as though it were that day whereon fate with such toil brought forth amrita. without thee the royal gandharva city is languid as at the end of a feast. ( ) thou knowest that i have surrendered all things; yet my heart, in my despite, desires to see thee who art so undeservedly kind. kadambari, moreover, is far from well. she recalls thee with thy smiling face like love himself. thou, by the honour of thy return, canst make her proud of having some virtues of her own. for respect shown by the noble must needs confer honour. and thou must forgive the trouble of knowing such as we. for thine own nobility gives this boldness to our address. and here is this Çesha necklace, which was left by thee on thy couch."' so saying, he loosed it from his band, where it was visible by reason of the long rays that shot through the interstices of the fine thread, and placed it in the fan-bearer's hand. '"'this, indeed, is the reward of doing homage at mahaçveta's feet, that the lady kadambari should lay so great a weight of honour on her slave as to remember him," said candrapida, as he placed all on his head [ ] and accepted it. the necklace he put round his neck, after anointing it with an ointment cool, pleasant, and fragrant, as it were with the beauty of kadambari's cheeks distilled, or the light of her smile liquefied, or her heart melted, or her virtues throbbing forth. ( ) taking some betel, he rose and stood, with his left arm on keyuraka's shoulder, and then dismissed the courtiers, who were gladly paying their wonted homage, and at length went to see his elephant gandhamadana. there he stayed a short time, and after he had himself given to the elephant a handful of grass, that, being jagged with the rays of his nails, was like lotus-fibre, he went to the stable of his favourite steed. on the way he turned his face now on this side, now on that, to glance at his retinue, and the porters, understanding his wish, forbade all to follow him, and dismissed the retinue, so that he entered the stable with keyuraka alone. the grooms bowed and departed, with eyes bewildered by terror at their dismissal, and the prince set straight indrayudha's cloth, which had fallen a little on one side, pushed back his mane, tawny as a lion's, which was falling on his eyes and half closing them, and then, negligently resting his foot on the peg of the tethering-rope, and leaning against the stable wall, he eagerly asked: '"'tell me, keyuraka, what has happened in the gandharva court since my departure? in what occupation has the gandharva princess spent the time? what were mahaçveta and madalekha doing? what talk was there? how were you and the retinue employed? and was there any talk about me?' then keyuraka told him all: 'listen, prince. on thy departure, the lady kadambari, with her retinue, climbed to the palace roof, making in the maidens' palace with the sound of anklets the beat of farewell drums that rose from a thousand hearts; ( ) and she gazed on thy path, gray with the dust of the cavalcade. when thou wert out of sight, she laid her face on mahaçveta's shoulder, and, in her love, sprinkled the region of thy journey with glances fair as the milky ocean, and, warding off the sun's touch, as it were, with the moon assuming in jealousy the guise of a white umbrella, she long remained there. thence she reluctantly tore herself away and came down, and after but a short rest in the pavilion, she arose and went to the pleasaunce where thou hadst been. she was guided by bees murmuring in the flowers of oblation; startled by the cry of the house peacocks, she checked their note as they looked up at the shower-like rays of her nails, by the circlets which lay loose round her throat; at every step she let her hand rest on creeper-twigs white with flowers, and her mind on thy virtues. when she reached the pleasaunce, her retinue needlessly told her: "here the prince stayed on the spray-washed rock, with its creeper-bower bedewed by the stream from a pipe that ends in an emerald fish-head; here he bathed in a place covered by bees absorbed in the fragrance of the scented water; here he worshipped Çiva on the bank of the mountain stream, sandy with flower-dust; here he ate on a crystal stone which eclipsed moonlight; and here he slept on a pearly slab with a mark of sandal-juice imprinted on it." ( ) and so she passed the day, gazing on the signs of thy presence; and at close of day mahaçveta prepared for her, though against her will, a meal in that crystal dwelling. and when the sun set and the moon rose, soon, as though she were a moonstone that moonlight would melt, and therefore dreaded the entrance of the moon's reflection, she laid her hands on her cheeks, and, as if in thought, remained for a few minutes with closed eyes; and then rising, went to her sleeping-chamber, scarcely raising her feet as they moved with graceful, languid gait, seemingly heavy with bearing the moon's reflection on their bright nails. throwing herself on her couch, she was racked by a severe headache, and overcome by a burning fever, and, in company with the palace-lamps, the moon-lotuses, and the cakravakas, she passed the night open-eyed in bitter grief. and at dawn she summoned me, and reproachfully bade me seek for tidings of thee.' '"at these words, candrapida, all eager to depart, shouted: 'a horse! a horse!' and left the palace. indrayudha was hastily saddled, and brought round by the grooms, and candrapida mounted, placing patralekha behind him, leaving vaiçampayana in charge of the camp, dismissing all his retinue, and followed by keyuraka on another steed, he went to hemakuta. ( ) on his arrival, he dismounted at the gate of kadambari's palace, giving his horse to the doorkeeper, and, followed by patralekha, eager for the first sight of kadambari, he entered, and asked a eunuch who came forward where the lady kadambari was. bending low, the latter informed him, that she was in the ice-bower on the bank of the lotus-tank below the mattamayura pleasaunce; and then the prince, guided by keyuraka, went some distance through the women's garden, and beheld day grow green, and the sunbeams turn into grass by the reflection of the plantain-groves with their emerald glow, and there he beheld kadambari. ( ) then she looked with tremulous glance at her retinue, as, coming in one after another, they announced candrapida's approach, and asked each by name: 'tell me, has he really come, and hast thou seen him? how far off is he?' she gazed with eyes gradually brightening as she saw him yet afar off, and rose from her couch of flowers, standing like a newly-caught elephant bound to her post, and trembling in every limb. she was veiled in bees drawn as vassals by the fragrance of her flowery couch, all murmuring; her upper garment was in confusion, and she sought to place on her bosom the shining necklace; ( ) she seemed to beg the support of a hand from her own shadow as she laid her left hand on the jewelled pavement; she seemed to receive herself as a gift by sprinkling [ ] with her right hand moist with the toil of binding together her falling locks; she poured forth tears of joy cool as though the sandal-juice of her sectarial mark had entered in and been united with them; she washed with a line of glad tears her smooth cheeks, that the pollen from her garland had tinged with gray, as if in eagerness that the image of her beloved might fall thereon; she seemed to be drawn forward by her long eyes fastened on candrapida's face, with its pupil fixed in a sidelong glance, and her head somewhat bent, as if from the weight of the sandal-mark on her brow. '"and candrapida, approaching, bowed first before mahaçveta, then courteously saluted kadambari, and when she had returned his obeisance, and seated herself again on the couch, and the portress had brought him a gold stool with legs gleaming with gems, he pushed it away with his foot, and sat down on the ground. then keyuraka presented patralekha, saying: 'this is prince candrapida's betel-box bearer and most favoured friend.' and kadambari, looking on her, thought: 'how great partiality does prajapati bestow on mortal women!' and as patralekha bowed respectfully, she bade her approach, and placed her close behind herself, amidst the curious glances of all her retinue. ( ) filled even at first sight with great love for her, kadambari often touched her caressingly with her slender hand. '"now, candrapida, having quickly performed all the courtesies of arrival, beheld the state of citraratha's daughter, and thought: 'surely my heart is dull, in that it cannot even now believe. be it so. i will, nevertheless, ask her with a skilfully-devised speech.' [ ] then he said aloud: 'princess, i know that this pain, with its unceasing torment, has come on thee from love. yet, slender maiden, it torments thee not as us. i would gladly, by the offering of myself, restore thee to health. for i pity thee as thou tremblest; and as i see thee fallen under the pain of love, my heart, too, falls prostrate. for thine arms are slender and unadorned, and thou bearest in thine eye a red lotus like a hybiscus [ ] from the deep wasting of fever. and all thy retinue weep ceaselessly for thy pain. accept thine ornaments. take of thine own accord thy richest adornments; for as the creeper shines hidden in bees and flowers, so shouldst thou.' '"then kadambari, though naturally simple by reason of her youth, yet, from a knowledge taught by love, understood all the meaning of this darkly-expressed speech. ( ) yet, not realizing that she had come to such a point in her desires, supported by her modesty, she remained silent. she sent forth, however, the radiance of a smile at that moment on some pretext, as though to see his face darkened by the bees which were gathered round its sweetness. madalekha therefore replied: 'prince, what shall i say? this pain is cruel beyond words. moreover, in one of so delicate a nature what does not tend to pain? even cool lotus-fibres turn to fire and moonlight burns. seest thou not the pain produced in her mind by the breezes of the fans? only her strength of mind keeps her alive.' but in heart alone did kadambari admit madalekha's words as an answer to the prince. his mind, however, was in suspense from the doubtfulness of her meaning, and after spending some time in affectionate talk with mahaçveta, at length with a great effort he withdrew himself, and left kadambari's palace to go to the camp. '"as he was about to mount his horse, keyuraka came up behind him, and said: 'prince, madalekha bids me say that princess kadambari, ever since she beheld patralekha, has been charmed by her, and wishes to keep her. she shall return later. ( ) having heard her message, thou must decide' 'happy,' replied the prince, 'and enviable is patralekha, in that she is honoured by so rare a favour by the princess. let her be taken in.' so saying, he went to the camp. '"at the moment of his arrival he beheld a letter-carrier well known to him, that had come from his father's presence, and, stopping his horse, he asked from afar, with eyes widened by affection: 'is my father well, and all his retinue? and my mother and all the zenana?' then the man, approaching with a reverence, saying, 'as thou sayest, prince,' gave him two letters. then the prince, placing them on his head, and himself opening them in order, read as follows: 'hail from ujjayini. king tarapida, king of kings, whose lotus-feet are made the crest on the head of all kings, greets candrapida, the home of all good fortune, kissing him on his head, which kisses the circle of the flashing rays of his crest jewels. our subjects are well. why has so long a time passed since we have seen thee? our heart longs eagerly for thee. the queen and the zenana pine for thee. therefore, let the cutting short of this letter be a cause of thy setting out.' and in the second letter, sent by Çukanasa, he read words of like import. vaiçampayana, too, at that moment came up, and showed another pair of letters of his own to the same effect. ( ) so with the words, 'as my father commands,' he at once mounted his horse, and caused the drum of departure to be sounded. he instructed meghanada, son of balahaka, the commander-in-chief, who stood near him surrounded by a large troop: 'thou must come with patralekha. keyuraka will surely bring her as far as here, and by his lips a message must be sent with a salutation to princess kadambari. truly the nature of mortals deserves the blame of the three worlds, for it is discourteous, unfriendly, and hard to grasp, in that, when the loves of men suddenly clash, they do not set its full value on spontaneous tenderness. thus, by my going, my love has become a cheating counterfeit; my faith has gained skill in false tones; my self-devotion has sunk into base deceit, having only a pretended sweetness; and the variance of voice and thought has been laid bare. but enough of myself. the princess, though a mate for the gods, has, by showing her favour to an unworthy object, [ ] incurred reproach. for the ambrosially kind glances of the great, when they fall in vain on unfitting objects, cause shame afterwards. and yet my heart is not so much weighed down by shame for her as for mahaçveta. for the princess will doubtless often blame her for her ill-placed partiality in having painted my virtues with a false imputation of qualities i did not possess. what, then, shall i do? my parents' command is the weightier. yet it controls my body alone. ( ) but my heart, in its yearning to dwell at hemakuta, has written a bond of slavery for a thousand births to princess kadambari, [ ] and her favour holds it fast [ ] as the dense thicket holds a forester. nevertheless, i go at my father's command. truly from this cause the infamous candrapida will be a byword to the people. yet, think not that candrapida, if he lives, will rest without again tasting the joy of worshipping the lotus-feet of the princess. salute with bent head and sunwise turn the feet of mahaçveta. tell madalekha that a hearty embrace, preceded by an obeisance, is offered her; salute tamalika, and inquire on my behalf after all kadambari's retinue. let blessed hemakuta be honoured by me with upraised hands.' after giving this message, he set vaiçampayana over the camp, instructing his friend to march [ ] slowly, without overtasking the army. then he mounted, accompanied by his cavalry, mostly mounted on young horses, wearing the grace of a forest of spears, breaking up the earth with their hoofs, and shaking kailasa with their joyful neighing as they set out; and though his heart was empty, in the fresh separation from kadambari, he asked the letter-carrier who clung to his saddle concerning the way to ujjayini. ( - condensed) '"and on the way he beheld in the forest a red flag, near which was a shrine of durga, guarded by an old dravidian hermit, who made his abode thereby. ( ) '"dismounting, he entered, and bent reverently before the goddess, and, bowing again after a sunwise turn, he wandered about, interested in the calm of the place, and beheld on one side the wrathful hermit, howling and shouting at him; and at the sight, tossed as he was by passionate longing in his absence from kadambari, he could not forbear smiling a moment; but he checked his soldiers, who were laughing and beginning a quarrel with the hermit; and at length, with great difficulty, he calmed him with many a soothing and courteous speech, and asked him about his birthplace, caste, knowledge, wife and children, wealth, age, and the cause of his ascetic vow. on being asked, the latter described himself, and the prince was greatly interested by him as he garrulously described his past heroism, beauty, and wealth, and thus diverted his mind in its soreness of bereavement; and, having become friendly with him, he caused betel to be offered to him. ( ) when the sun set, the princes encamped under the trees that chanced [ ] to be near; the golden saddles of the steeds were hung on boughs; the steeds showed the exertions they had gone through, from the tossing of their manes dusty with rolling on the earth, and after they had taken some handfuls of grass and been watered, and were refreshed, they were tethered, with the spears dug into the ground before them; the soldiery, wearied [ ] with the day's march, appointed a watch, and gladly went to sleep on heaps of leaves near the horses; the encampment was bright as day, for the darkness was drunk up by the light of many a bivouac fire, and candrapida went to a couch prepared for him by his retinue, and pointed out to him by his porters, in front of the place where indrayudha was tethered. but the very moment he lay down restlessness seized his heart, and, overcome by pain, he dismissed the princes, and said nothing even to the special favourites who stood behind him. with closed eyes he again and again went in heart to the kimpurusha land. with fixed thought he recalled hemakuta. he thought on the spontaneous kindness of mahaçveta's favours. [ ] he constantly longed for the sight of kadambari as his life's highest fruit. he continually desired the converse of madalekha, so charming in its absence of pride. he wished to see tamalika. he looked forward to keyuraka's coming. he beheld in fancy the winter palace. he often sighed a long, feverish sigh. he bestowed on the Çesha necklace a kindness beyond that for his kin. ( ) he thought he saw fortunate patralekha standing behind him. thus he passed the night without sleep; and, rising at dawn, he fulfilled the hermit's wish by wealth poured out at his desire, and, sojourning at pleasant spots on the way, in a few days he reached ujjayini. a thousand hands, like lotuses of offering to a guest raised in reverent salutation, were raised by the citizens in their confusion and joy at his sudden coming, as he then unexpectedly entered the city. the king heard from the retinue [ ] hastening to be first to tell him that candrapida was at the gate, and bewildered by sudden gladness, with steps slow from the weight of joy, he went to meet his son. like mandara, he drew to himself as a milky ocean his spotless silk mantle that was slipping down; like the kalpa-tree, with its shower of choice pearls, he rained tears of gladness; he was followed by a thousand chiefs that were round him--chiefs with topknots white with age, anointed with sandal, wearing untorn [ ] linen robes, bracelets, turbans, crests and wreaths, bearing swords, staves, umbrellas and cowries, making the earth appear rich in kailasas and milky oceans. the prince, seeing his father from afar, dismounted, and touched the ground with a head garlanded by the rays of his crest-jewels. then his father stretched out his arms, bidding him approach, and embraced him closely; and when he had paid his respects to all the honourable persons who were there, he was led by the king to vilasavati's palace. ( ) his coming was greeted by her and her retinue, and when he had performed all the auspicious ceremonies of arrival, he stayed some time in talk about his expedition of conquest, and then went to see Çukanasa. having duly stayed there some time, he told him that vaiçampayana was at the camp and well, and saw manorama; and then returning, he mechanically [ ] performed the ceremonies of bathing, and so forth, in vilasavati's palace. on the morrow he went to his own palace, and there, with a mind tossed by anxiety, he deemed that not only himself, but his palace and the city, and, indeed, the whole world, was but a void without kadambari, and so, in his longing to hear news of her, he awaited the return of patralekha, as though it were a festival, or the winning of a boon, or the time of the rising of amrita. '"a few days later meghanada came with patralekha, and led her in; and as she made obeisance from afar, candrapida smiled affectionately, and, rising reverently, embraced her; for though she was naturally dear to him, she was now yet dearer as having won a fresh splendour from kadambari's presence. he laid his slender hand on meghanada's back as he bent before him, and then, sitting down, he said: 'tell me, patralekha, is all well with mahaçveta and madalekha, and the lady kadambari? ( ) and are all her retinue well, with tamalika and keyuraka?' 'prince,' she replied, 'all is well, as thou sayest. the lady kadambari, with her friends and retinue, do thee homage by making their raised hands into a wreath for their brows.' at these words the prince dismissed his royal retinue, and went with patralekha into the palace. then, with a tortured heart, no longer able from its intense love to overcome his eagerness to hear, he sent his retinue far away and entered the house. with his lotus-feet he pushed away the pair of hamsas that were sleeping happily on the slope beneath a leafy bower that made an emerald banner; and, resting in the midst of a fresh bed of hybiscus, that made a sunshade with its broad, long-stalked leaves, he sat down, and asked: 'tell me, patralekha, how thou hast fared. how many days wert thou there? what favour did the princess show thee? what talk was there, and what conversation arose? who most remembers us, and whose affection is greatest?' [ ] thus questioned, she told him: 'give thy mind and hear all. when thou wert gone, i returned with keyuraka, and sat down near the couch of flowers; and there i gladly remained, receiving ever fresh marks of kindness from the princess. what need of words? ( ) the whole of that day her eye, her form, her hand, were on mine; her speech dwelt on my name and her heart on my love. on the morrow, leaning on me, she left the winter palace, and, wandering at will, bade her retinue remain behind, and entered the maidens' garden. by a flight of emerald steps, that might have been formed from jamuna's [ ] waves, she ascended to a white summer-house, and in it she stayed some time, leaning against a jewelled pillar, deliberating with her heart, wishing to say something, and gazing on my face with fixed pupil and motionless eyelashes. as she looked she formed her resolve, and, as if longing to enter love's fire, she was bathed in perspiration; whereat a trembling came upon her, so that, shaking in every limb as though fearing to fall, she was seized by despair. '"'but when i, who knew her thoughts, fixed my mind on her, and, fastening my eyes on her face, bade her speak, she seemed to be restrained by her own trembling limbs; with a toe that marked the floor as if for retreat, she seemed to rub out her own image in shame that it should hear her secret; ( ) with her lotus foot--its anklets all set jingling by the scratching of the floor--she pushed aside the tame geese; with a strip of silk made into a fan for her hot face, she drove away the bees on her ear-lotuses; to the peacock she gave, like a bribe, a piece of betel broken by her teeth; and gazing often on every side lest a wood-goddess should listen, much as she longed to speak, she was checked in her utterance by shame, and could not speak a word. [ ] her voice, in spite of her greatest efforts, was wholly burnt up by love's fire, borne away by a ceaseless flow of tears, overwhelmed by onrushing griefs, broken by love's falling shafts, banished by invading sighs, restrained by the hundred cares that dwelt in her heart, and drunk by the bees that tasted her breath, so that it could not come forth. in brief, she made a pearl rosary to count her many griefs with the bright tears that fell without touching her cheeks, as with bent head she made the very image of a storm. then from her shame learnt its full grace; modesty, a transcendant modesty; simplicity, simplicity; courtesy, courtesy; ( ) fear, timidity; coquetry, its quintessence; despair, its own nature; and charm, a further charm. and so, when i asked her, "princess, what means this?" she wiped her reddened eyes, and, holding a garland woven by the flowers of the bower with arms which, soft as lotus-fibres, seemed meant to hold her firmly in the excess of her grief, she raised one eyebrow, as if gazing on the path of death, and sighed a long, fevered sigh. and as, in desire to know the cause of her sorrow, i pressed her to tell me, she seemed to write on the ketaki petals scratched by her nails in her shame, and so deliver her message. she moved her lower lip in eagerness to speak, and seemed to be whispering to the bees who drank her breath, and thus she remained some time with eyes fixed on the ground. '"'at last, often turning her glance to my face, she seemed to purify, with the tears that fell from her brimming eyes, the voice that the smoke of love's fire had dimmed. and, in the guise of tears, she bound up with the rays of her teeth, flashing in a forced smile, the strange syllables of what she had meant to say, but forgotten in her tremor, and with great difficulty betook herself to speech. "patralekha," she said to me, "by reason of my great favour for thee, neither father, mother, mahaçveta, madalekha, nor life itself is dear to me as thou hast been since i first beheld thee. ( ) i know not why my heart has cast off all my friends and trusts in thee alone. to whom else can i complain, or tell my humiliation, or give a share in my woe? when i have shown thee the unbearable burden of my woe, i will die. by my life i swear to thee i am put to shame by even my own heart's knowledge of my story; how much more by another's? how should such as i stain by ill report a race pure as moonbeams, and lose the honour which has descended from my sires, and turn my thoughts on unmaidenly levity, acting thus without my father's will, or my mother's bestowal, or my elders' congratulations, without any announcement, without sending of gifts, or showing of pictures? timidly, as one unprotected, have i been led to deserve my parents' blame by that overweening candrapida. is this, i pray, the conduct of noble men? is this the fruit of our meeting, that my heart, tender as a lotus filament, is now crushed? for maidens should not be lightly treated by youths; the fire of love is wont to consume first their reserve and then their heart; the arrows of love pierce first their dignity and then their life. therefore, i bid thee farewell till our meeting in another birth, for none is dearer to me than thou. ( ) by carrying out my resolve of death, i shall cleanse my own stain." so saying, she was silent. '"'not knowing the truth of her tale, i sorrowfully, as if ashamed, afraid, bewildered, and bereft of sense, adjured her, saying: "princess, i long to hear. tell me what prince candrapida has done. what offence has been committed? by what discourtesy has he vexed that lotus-soft heart of thine, that none should vex? when i have heard this, thou shalt die on my lifeless body." thus urged, she again began: "i will tell thee; listen carefully. in my dreams that cunning villain comes daily and employs in secret messages a caged parrot and a starling. in my dreams he, bewildered in mind with vain desires, writes in my earrings to appoint meetings. he sends love-letters with their syllables washed away, filled with mad hopes, most sweet, and showing his own state by the lines of tears stained with pigment falling on them. by the glow of his feelings he dyes my feet against my will. in his reckless insolence he prides himself on his own reflection in my nails. ( ) in his unwarranted boldness he embraces me against my will in the gardens when i am alone, and almost dead from fear of being caught, as the clinging of my silken skirts to the branches hinders my steps, and my friends the creepers seize and deliver me to him. naturally crooked, he teaches the very essence of crookedness to a heart by nature simple by the blazonry he paints on my breast. full of guileful flattery, he fans with his cool breath my cheeks all wet and shining as with a breeze from the waves of my heart's longing. he boldly places the rays of his nails like young barley-sheaves on my ear, though his hand is empty, because its lotus has fallen from his grasp relaxed in weariness. he audaciously draws me by the hair to quaff the sweet wine of his breath, inhaled by him when he watered his favourite bakul-flowers. mocked by his own folly, he demands on his head the touch of my foot, destined for the palace açoka-tree. [ ] in his utter love madness, he says: 'tell me, patralekha, how a madman can be rejected?' for he considers refusal a sign of jealousy; he deems abuse a gentle jest; he looks on silence as pettishness; he regards the mention of his faults as a device for thinking of him; he views contempt as the familiarity of love; he esteems the blame of mankind as renown." '"'a sweet joy filled me as i heard her say this, and i thought, ( ) "surely love has led her far in her feelings for candrapida. if this indeed be true, he shows in visible form, under the guise of kadambari, his tender feeling towards the prince, and he is met by the prince's innate and carefully-trained virtues. the quarters gleam with his glory; a rain of pearls is cast by his youth on the waves of the ocean of tenderness; his name is written by his youthful gaiety on the moon; his own fortune is proclaimed by his happy lot; and nectar is showered down by his grace as by the digits of the moon." '"'moreover, the malaya wind has at length its season; moonrise has gained its full chance; the luxuriance of spring flowers has won a fitting fruit; the sharpness of wine has mellowed to its full virtue, and the descent of love's era is now clearly manifest on earth. '"'then i smiled, and said aloud: "if it be so, princess, cease thy wrath. be appeased. thou canst not punish the prince for the faults of kama. these truly are the sports of love, the god of the flowery bow, not of a wanton candrapida." '"'as i said this, she eagerly asked me: "as for this kama, whoever he may be, tell me what forms he assumes." '"'"how can he have forms?" replied i. "he is a formless fire. for without flame he creates heat; without smoke he makes tears flow; without the dust of ashes he shows whiteness. nor is there a being in all the wide universe who is not, or has not been, or will not be, the victim of his shaft. who is there that fears him not? ( ) even a strong man is pierced by him when he takes in hand his flowery bow. '"'"moreover, when tender women are possessed by him, they gaze, and the sky is crowded with a thousand images of their beloved. they paint the loved form; the earth is a canvas all too small. they reckon the virtues of their hero; number itself fails them. they listen to talk about their dearest; the goddess of speech herself seems all too silent. they muse on the joys of union with him who is their life; and time itself is all too short to their heart." '"'she pondered a moment on this ere she replied: "as thou sayest, patralekha, love has led me into tenderness for the prince. for all these signs and more are found in me. thou art one with my own heart, and i ask thee to tell me what i should now do? i am all unversed in such matters. moreover, if i were forced to tell my parents, i should be so ashamed that my heart would choose death rather than life." '"'then again i answered; "enough, princess! why this needless talk of death as a necessary condition? [ ] surely, fair maiden, though thou hast not sought to please him, love has in kindness given thee this boon. why tell thy parents? love himself, like a parent, plans for thee; ( ) like a mother, he approves thee; like a father, he bestows thee; like a girl friend, he kindles thine affection; like a nurse, he teaches thy tender age the secrets of love. why should i tell thee of those who have themselves chosen their lords? for were it not so, the ordinance of the svayamvara in our law-books [ ] would be meaningless. be at rest, then, princess. enough of this talk of death. i conjure thee by touching thy lotus-foot to send me. i am ready to go. i will bring back to thee, princess, thy heart's beloved." '"'when i had said this, she seemed to drink me in with a tender glance; she was confused by an ardour of affection which, though restrained, found a path, and burst through the reserve that love's shafts had pierced. in her pleasure at my words, she cast off the silken outer robe which clung to her through her weariness, and left it suspended on her thrilling limbs. [ ] she loosened the moonbeam necklace on her neck, put there as a noose to hang herself, and entangled in the fish ornaments of her swinging earring. yet, though her whole soul was in a fever of joy, she supported herself by the modesty which is a maiden's natural dower, and said: "i know thy great love. but how could a woman, tender of nature as a young çirisha-blossom, show such boldness, especially one so young as i? ( ) bold, indeed, are they who themselves send messages, or themselves deliver a message. i, a young maiden, [ ] am ashamed to send a bold message. what, indeed, could i say? 'thou art very dear,' is superfluous. 'am i dear to thee?' is a senseless question. 'my love for thee is great,' is the speech of the shameless. 'without thee i cannot live,' is contrary to experience. 'love conquers me,' is a reproach of my own fault. 'i am given to thee by love,' is a bold offering of one's self. 'thou art my captive,' is the daring speech of immodesty. 'thou must needs come,' is the pride of fortune. 'i will come myself,' is a woman's weakness. 'i am wholly devoted to thee,' is the lightness of obtruded affection. 'i send no message from fear of a rebuff,' is to wake the sleeper. [ ] 'let me be a warning of the sorrow of a service that is despised,' is an excess of tenderness. 'thou shalt know my love by my death,' is a thought that may not enter the mind."'"' part ii. ( ) i hail, for the completion of the difficult toil of this unfinished tale, uma and Çiva, parents of earth, whose single body, formed from the union of two halves, shows neither point of union nor division. ( ) i salute narayana, creator of all, by whom the man-lion form was manifested happily, showing a face terrible with its tossing mane, and displaying in his hand quoit, sword, club and conch. i do homage to my father, that lord of speech, the creator by whom that story was made that none else could fashion, that noble man whom all honour in every house, and from whom i, in reward of a former life, received my being. ( ) when my father rose to the sky, on earth the stream of the story failed with his voice. and i, as i saw its unfinished state was a grief to the good, began it, but from no poetic pride. for that the words flow with such beauty is my father's special gift; a single touch of the ray of the moon, the one source of nectar, suffices to melt the moonstone. as other rivers at their full enter the ganges, and by being absorbed in it reach the ocean, so my speech is cast by me for the completion of this story on the ocean-flowing stream of my father's eloquence. reeling under the strong sweetness of kadambari [ ] as one intoxicated, i am bereft of sense, in that i fear not to compose an ending in my own speech devoid of sweetness and colour. ( ) the seeds that promise fruit and are destined to flower are forced by the sower with fitting toils; scattered in good ground, they grow to ripeness; but it is the sower's son who gathers them. [ ] '"moreover," kadambari continued, "if the prince were brought shame itself, put to shame by my weakness, would not allow a sight of him. ( ) fear itself, frightened at the crime of bringing him by force, would not enter his presence. then all would be over if my friend patralekha did her utmost from love to me, and yet could not induce him to come, even by falling at his feet, either perchance from his respect for his parents, or devotion to royal duty, or love of his native land, or reluctance towards me. nay, more. ( ) i am that kadambari whom he saw resting on a couch of flowers in the winter palace, and he is that candrapida, all ignorant of another's pain, who stayed but two days, and then departed. i had promised mahaçveta not to marry while she was in trouble, though she besought me not to promise, saying, that kama often takes our life by love even for one unseen. ( ) but this is not my case. for the prince, imaged by fancy, ever presents himself to my sight, and, sleeping or waking, in every place i behold him. therefore talk not of bringing him." '( ) thereupon i [ ] reflected, "truly the beloved, as shaped in the imagination, is a great support to women separated from their loves, especially to maidens of noble birth." ( ) and i promised kadambari that i would bring thee, o prince. ( ) then she, roused by my speech full of thy name, as by a charm to remove poison, suddenly opened her eyes, and said, "i say not that thy going pleases me, patralekha. ( ) it is only when i see thee that i can endure my life; yet if this desire possess thee, do what thou wilt!" so saying, she dismissed me with many presents. 'then with slightly downcast face patralekha continued: "the recent kindness of the princess has given me courage, my prince, and i am grieved for her, and so i say to thee, 'didst thou act worthily of thy tender nature in leaving her in this state?'" 'thus reproached by patralekha, and hearing the words of kadambari, so full of conflicting impulses, the prince became confused; ( ) and sharing in kadambari's feeling, he asked patralekha with tears, "what am i to do? love has made me a cause of sorrow to kadambari, and of reproach to thee. ( ) and methinks this was some curse that darkened my mind; else how was my mind deceived when clear signs were given, which would create no doubt even in a dull mind? all this my fault has arisen from a mistake. i will therefore now, by devoting myself to her, even with my life, act so that the princess may know me not to be of so hard a heart." '( ) while he thus spoke a portress hastened in and said: "prince, queen vilasavati sends a message saying, 'i hear from the talk of my attendants that patralekha, who had stayed behind, has now returned. and i love her equally with thyself. do thou therefore come, and bring her with thee. the sight of thy lotus face, won by a thousand longings, is rarely given.'" '"how my life now is tossed with doubts!" thought the prince. "my mother is sorrowful if even for a moment she sees me not. ( ) my subjects love me; but the gandharva princess loves me more. princess kadambari is worthy of my winning, and my mind is impatient of delay;" so thinking, he went to the queen, and spent the day in a longing of heart hard to bear; ( ) while the night he spent thinking of the beauty of kadambari, which was as a shrine of love. '( ) thenceforth pleasant talk found no entrance into him. his friends' words seemed harsh to him; the conversation of his kinsmen gave him no delight. ( ) his body was dried up by love's fire, but he did not yield up the tenderness of his heart. ( ) he despised happiness, but not self-control. 'while he was thus drawn forward by strong love, which had its life resting on the goodness and beauty of kadambari, and held backwards by his very deep affection for his parents, he beheld one day, when wandering on the banks of the sipra, a troop of horse approaching. ( ) he sent a man to inquire what this might be, and himself crossing the sipra where the water rose but to his thigh, he awaited his messenger's return in a shrine of kartikeya. drawing patralekha to him, he said, "look! that horse-man whose face can scarce be descried is keyuraka!" '( ) he then beheld keyuraka throw himself from his horse while yet far off, gray with dust from swift riding, while by his changed appearance, his lack of adornment, his despondent face, and his eyes that heralded his inward grief, he announced, even without words, the evil plight of kadambari. candrapida lovingly called him as he hastily bowed and drew near, and embraced him. and when he had drawn back and paid his homage, the prince, having gratified his followers by courteous inquiries, looked at him eagerly, and said, "by the sight of thee, keyuraka, the well-being of the lady kadambari and her attendants is proclaimed. when thou art rested and at ease, thou shalt tell me the cause of thy coming;" and he took keyuraka and patralekha home with him on his elephant. ( ) then he dismissed his followers, and only accompanied by patralekha, he called keyuraka to him, and said: "tell me the message of kadambari, madalekha and mahaçveta." '"what shall i say?" replied keyuraka; "i have no message from any of these. for when i had entrusted patralekha to meghanada, and returned, and had told of thy going to ujjayini, mahaçveta looked upwards, sighed a long, hot sigh, and saying sadly, 'it is so then,' returned to her own hermitage to her penance. kadambari, as though bereft of consciousness, ignorant of mahaçveta's departure, only opened her eyes after a long time, scornfully bidding me tell mahaçveta; and asking madalekha ( ) if anyone ever had done, or would do, such a deed as candrapida, she dismissed her attendants, threw herself on her couch, veiled her head, and spent the day without speaking even to madalekha, who wholly shared her grief. when early next morning i went to her, she gazed at me long with tearful eyes, as if blaming me. and i, when thus looked at by my sorrowing mistress, deemed myself ordered to go, and so, without telling the princess, i have approached my lord's feet. therefore vouchsafe to hear attentively the bidding of keyuraka, whose heart is anxious to save the life of one whose sole refuge is in thee. for, as by thy first coming that virgin [ ] forest was stirred as by the fragrant malaya wind, so when she beheld thee, the joy of the whole world, like the spring, love entered her as though she were a red açoka creeper. ( ) but now she endures great torture for thy sake." ( - ) then keyuraka told at length all her sufferings, till the prince, overcome by grief, could bear it no longer and swooned. 'then, awakening from his swoon, he lamented that he was thought too hard of heart to receive a message from kadambari or her friends, and blamed them for not telling him of her love while he was there. ( ) '"why should there be shame concerning one who is her servant, ever at her feet, that grief should have made its home in one so tender, and my desires be unfulfilled? ( ) now, what can i do when at some days' distance from her. her body cannot even endure the fall of a flower upon it, while even on adamantine hearts like mine the arrows of love are hard to bear. when i see the unstable works began by cruel fate, i know not where it will stop. ( ) else where was my approach to the land of the immortals, in my vain hunt for the kinnaras? where my journey to hemakuta with mahaçveta, or my sight of the princess there, or the birth of her love for me, or my father's command, that i could not transgress, for me to return, though my longing was yet unfulfilled? it is by evil destiny that we have been raised high, and then dashed to the ground. therefore let us do our utmost to console [ ] the princess." ( ) then in the evening he asked keyuraka, "what thinkest thou? will kadambari support life till we arrive? ( ) or shall i again behold her face, with its eyes like a timid fawn's?" "be firm, prince," he replied. "do thine utmost to go." the prince had himself begun plans for going; but what happiness or what content of heart would there be without his father's leave, and how after his long absence could that be gained? a friend's help was needed here, but vaiçampayana was away. '( ) but next morning he heard a report that his army had reached daçapura, and thinking with joy that he was now to receive the favour of fate, in that vaiçampayana was now at hand, he joyfully told the news to keyuraka. ( ) "this event," replied the latter, "surely announces thy going. doubtless thou wilt gain the princess. for when was the moon ever beheld by any without moonlight, or a lotus-pool without a lotus, or a garden without creeper? yet there must be delay in the arrival of vaiçampayana, and the settling with him of thy plans. but i have told thee the state of the princess, which admits of no delay. therefore, my heart, rendered insolent by the grace bestowed by thy affection, desires that favour may be shown me by a command to go at once to announce the joy of my lord's coming." ( ) whereat the prince, with a glance that showed his inward satisfaction, replied: "who else is there who so well knows time and place, or who else is so sincerely loyal? this, therefore, is a happy thought. go to support the life of the princess and to prepare for my return. but let patralekha go forward, too, with thee to the feet of the princess. for she is favoured by the princess." then he called meghanada, and bade him escort patralekha, ( ) while he himself would overtake them when he had seen vaiçampayana. then he bade patralekha tell kadambari that her noble sincerity and native tenderness preserved him, even though far away and burnt by love's fire, ( ) and requested her bidding to come. ( ) after their departure, he went to ask his father's leave to go to meet vaiçampayana. the king lovingly received him, and said to Çukanasa: ( ) "he has now come to the age for marriage. so, having entered upon the matter with queen vilasavati, let some fair maiden be chosen. for a face like my son's is not often to be seen. let us then gladden ourselves now by the sight of the lotus face of a bride." Çukanasa agreed that as the prince had gained all knowledge, made royal fortune firmly his own, and wed the earth, there remained nothing for him to do but to marry a wife. "how fitly," thought candrapida, "does my father's plan come for my thoughts of a union with kadambari! ( ) the proverb 'light to one in darkness,' or 'a shower of nectar to a dying man,' is coming true in me. after just seeing vaiçampayana, i shall win kadambari." then the king went to vilasavati, and playfully reproached her for giving no counsel as to a bride for her son. ( ) meanwhile the prince spent the day in awaiting vaiçampayana's return. and after spending over two watches of the night sleepless in yearning for him, ( ) the energy of his love was redoubled, and he ordered the conch to be sounded for his going. ( ) then he started on the road to daçapura, and after going some distance he beheld the camp, ( ) and rejoiced to think he would now see vaiçampayana; and going on alone, he asked where his friend was. but weeping women replied: "why ask? how should he be here?" and in utter bewilderment he hastened to the midst of the camp. ( ) there he was recognised, and on his question the chieftains besought him to rest under a tree while they related vaiçampayana's fate. he was, they said, yet alive, and they told what had happened. ( ) "when left by thee, he halted a day, and then gave the order for our march. 'yet,' said he, 'lake acchoda is mentioned in the purana as very holy. let us bathe and worship Çiva in the shrine on its bank. for who will ever, even in a dream, behold again this place haunted by the gods?' ( ) but beholding a bower on the bank he gazed at it like a brother long lost to sight, as if memories were awakened in him. and when we urged him to depart, he made as though he heard us not; but at last he bade us go, saying that he would not leave that spot. ( ) 'do i not know well' said he, 'all that you urge for my departure? but i have no power over myself, and i am, as it were, nailed to the spot, and cannot go with you.' ( ) so at length we left him, and came hither." 'amazed at this story, which he could not have even in a dream imagined, candrapida wondered: "what can be the cause of his resolve to leave all and dwell in the woods? i see no fault of my own. he shares everything with me. has anything been said that could hurt him by my father or Çukanasa?" ( ) he at length returned to ujjayini, thinking that where vaiçampayana was there was kadambari also, and resolved to fetch him back. ( ) he heard that the king and queen had gone to Çukanasa's house, and followed them thither. ( ) there he heard manorama lamenting the absence of the son without whose sight she could not live, and who had never before, even in his earliest years, shown neglect of her. ( ) on his entrance the king thus greeted him: "i know thy great love for him. yet when i hear thy story my heart suspects some fault of thine." but Çukanasa, his face darkened with grief and impatience, said reproachfully: "if, o king, there is heat in the moon or coolness in fire, then there may be fault in the prince. ( ) men such as vaiçampayana are portents of destruction, ( ) fire without fuel, polished mirrors that present everything the reverse way; ( ) for them the base are exalted, wrong is right, and ignorance wisdom. all in them makes for evil, and not for good. therefore vaiçampayana has not feared thy wrath, nor thought that his mother's life depends on him, nor that he was born to be a giver of offerings for the continuance of his race. ( ) surely the birth of one so evil and demoniac was but to cause us grief." ( ) to this the king replied: "surely for such as i to admonish thee were for a lamp to give light to fire, or daylight an equal splendour to the sun. yet the mind of the wisest is made turbid by grief as the manasa lake by the rainy season, and then sight is destroyed. who is there in this world who is not changed by youth? when youth shows itself, love for elders flows away with childhood. ( ) my heart grieves when i hear thee speak harshly of vaiçampayana. let him be brought hither. then we can do as is fitting." ( ) Çukanasa persisted in blaming his son; but candrapida implored leave to fetch him home, and Çukanasa at length yielded. ( ) then candrapida summoned the astrologers, and secretly bade them name the day for his departure, when asked by the king or Çukanasa, so as not to delay his departure. "the conjunction of the planets," they answered him, "is against thy going. ( ) yet a king is the determiner of time. on whatever time thy will is set, that is the time for every matter." then they announced the morrow as the time for his departure; and he spent that day and night intent on his journey, and deeming that he already beheld kadambari and vaiçampayana before him. '( ) and when the time came, vilasavati bade him farewell in deep sorrow: "i grieved not so for thy first going as i do now. my heart is torn; my body is in torture; my mind is overwhelmed. ( ) i know not why my heart so suffers. stay not long away." he tried to console her, and then went to his father, who received him tenderly, ( ) and finally dismissed him, saying: "my desire is that thou shouldst take a wife and receive the burden of royalty, so that i may enter on the path followed by royal sages; but this matter of vaiçampayana is in the way of it, and i have misgivings that my longing is not to be fulfilled; else how could he have acted in so strange a way? therefore, though thou must go, my son, return soon, that my heart's desire may not fail." ( ) at length he started, and spent day and night on his journey in the thought of his friend and of the gandharva world. ( ) and when he had travelled far the rainy season came on, and all the workings of the storms found their counterpart in his own heart. ( ) yet he paused not on his way, nor did he heed the entreaties of his chieftains to bestow some care on himself, but rode on all day. ( ) but a third part of the way remained to traverse when he beheld meghanada, and, asking him eagerly concerning vaiçampayana, ( ) he learnt that patralekha, sure that the rains would delay his coming, had sent meghanada to meet him, and that the latter had not been to the acchoda lake. ( ) with redoubled grief the prince rode to the lake, and bade his followers guard it on all sides, lest vaiçampayana should in shame flee from them; but all his search found no traces of his friend. ( ) "my feet," thought he, "cannot leave this spot without him, and yet kadambari has not been seen. perchance mahaçveta may know about this matter; i will at least see her." so he mounted indrayudha, and went towards her hermitage. there dismounting, he entered; but in the entrance of the cave he beheld mahaçveta, with difficulty supported by taralika, weeping bitterly. ( ) "may no ill," thought he, "have befallen kadambari, that mahaçveta should be in this state, when my coming should be a cause of joy." eagerly and sorrowfully he questioned taralika, but she only gazed on mahaçveta's face. then the latter at last spoke falteringly: "what can one so wretched tell thee? yet the tale shall be told. when i heard from keyuraka of thy departure, my heart was torn by the thought that the wishes of kadambari's parents, my own longing, and the sight of kadambari's happiness in her union with thee had not been brought about, and, cleaving even the bond of my love to her, i returned home to yet harsher penance than before. ( ) here i beheld a young brahman, like unto thee, gazing hither and thither with vacant glance. but at the sight of me his eyes were fixed on me alone, as if, though unseen before, he recognised me, though a stranger, he had long known me, and gazing at me like one mad or possessed, he said at last: 'fair maiden, only they who do what is fitting for their birth, age, and form escape blame in this world. why toilest thou thus, like perverse fate, in so unmeet an employment, in that thou wastest in stern penance a body tender as a garland? ( ) the toil of penance is for those who have enjoyed the pleasures of life and have lost its graces, but not for one endowed with beauty. if thou turnest from the joys of earth, in vain does love bend his bow, or the moon rise. moonlight and the malaya wind serve for naught.'" '"but i, caring for nothing since the loss of pundarika, asked no questions about him, ( ) and bade taralika keep him away, for some evil would surely happen should he return. but in spite of being kept away, whether from the fault of love or the destiny of suffering that lay upon us, he did not give up his affection; and one night, while taralika slept, and i was thinking of pundarika, ( ) i beheld in the moonlight, clear as day, that youth approaching like one possessed. the utmost fear seized me at the sight. 'an evil thing,' i thought, 'has befallen me. if he draw near, and but touch me with his hand, this accursed life must be destroyed; and then that endurance of it, which i accepted in the hope of again beholding pundarika, will have been in vain.' while i thus thought he drew near, and said: 'moon-faced maiden, the moon, love's ally, is striving to slay me. therefore i come to ask protection. save me, who am without refuge, and cannot help myself, for my life is devoted to thee. ( ) it is the duty of ascetics to protect those who flee to them for protection. if, then, thou deign not to bestow thyself on me, the moon and love will slay me.' at these words, in a voice choked by wrath, i exclaimed: 'wretch, how has a thunderbolt failed to strike thy head in the utterance of these thy words? surely the five elements that give witness of right and wrong to mortals are lacking in thy frame, in that earth and air and fire and the rest have not utterly destroyed thee. thou hast learnt to speak like a parrot, without thought of what was right or wrong to say. why wert thou not born as a parrot? ( ) i lay on thee this fate, that thou mayest enter on a birth suited to thine own speech, and cease to make love to one such as i.' so saying, i turned towards the moon, and with raised hands prayed: 'blessed one, lord of all, guardian of the world, if since the sight of pundarika my heart has been free from the thought of any other man, may this false lover by the truth of this my saying, fall into the existence pronounced by me.' then straightway, i know not how, whether from the force of love, or of his own sin, or from the power of my words, he fell lifeless, like a tree torn up by the roots. and it was not till he was dead that i learnt from his weeping attendants that he was thy friend, noble prince." having thus said, she bent her face in shame and silently wept. but candrapida, with fixed glance and broken voice, replied: "lady, thou hast done thine utmost, and yet i am too ill-fated to have gained in this life the joy of honouring the feet of the lady kadambari. mayest thou in another life create this bliss for me." ( ) with these words his tender heart broke, as if from grief at failing to win kadambari, like a bud ready to open when pierced by a bee. 'then taralika burst into laments over his lifeless body and into reproaches to mahaçveta. and as the chieftains, too, raised their cry of grief and wonder, ( ) there entered, with but few followers, kadambari herself, attired as to meet her lover, though a visit to mahaçveta was the pretext of her coming, and while she leant on patralekha's hand, she expressed her doubts of the prince's promised return, ( ) and declared that if she again beheld him she would not speak to him, nor be reconciled either by his humility or her friend's endeavours. such were her words; but she counted all the toil of the journey light in her longing to behold him again. but when she beheld him dead, with a sudden cry she fell to the ground. and when she recovered from her swoon, she gazed at him with fixed eyes and quivering mouth, like a creeper trembling under the blow of a keen axe, and then stood still with a firmness foreign to her woman's nature. ( ) madalekha implored her to give her grief the relief of tears, lest her heart should break, and remember that on her rested the hopes of two races. "foolish girl," replied kadambari, with a smile, "how should my adamantine heart break if it has not broken at this sight? these thoughts of family and friends are for one who wills to live, not for me, who have chosen death; for i have won the body of my beloved, which is life to me, and which, whether living or dead, whether by an earthly union, or by my following it in death, suffices to calm every grief. it is for my sake that my lord came hither and lost his life; how, then, could i, by shedding tears, make light of the great honour to which he has raised me? or how bring an ill-omened mourning to his departure to heaven? or how weep at the joyous moment when, like the dust of his feet, i may follow him? now all sorrow is far away. ( ) for him i neglected all other ties; and now, when he is dead, how canst thou ask me to live? in dying now lies my life, and to live would be death to me. do thou take my place with my parents and my friends, and mayest thou be the mother of a son to offer libations of water for me when i am in another world. thou must wed the young mango in the courtyard, dear to me as my own child, to the madhavi creeper. let not a twig of the açoka-tree that my feet have caressed be broken, even to make an earring. let the flowers of the malati creeper i tended be plucked only to offer to the gods. let the picture of kama in my room near my pillow be torn in pieces. the mango-trees i planted must be tended so that they may come to fruit. ( ) set free from the misery of their cage the maina kalindi and the parrot parihasa. let the little mongoose that rested in my lap now rest in thine. let my child, the fawn taralaka, be given to a hermitage. let the partridges on the pleasure-hill that grew up in my hand be kept alive. see that the hamsa that followed my steps be not killed. let my poor ape be set free, for she is unhappy in the house. let the pleasure-hill be given to some calm-souled hermit, and let the things i use myself be given to brahmans. my lute thou must lovingly keep in thine own lap, and anything else that pleases thee must be thine own. but as for me, i will cling to my lord's neck, and so on the funeral pyre allay the fever which the moon, sandal, lotus-fibres, and all cool things have but increased." ( ) then she embraced mahaçveta, saying: "thou indeed hast some hope whereby to endure life, even though its pains be worse than death; but i have none, and so i bid thee farewell, dear friend, till we meet in another birth." 'as though she felt the joy of reunion, she honoured the feet of candrapida with bent head, and placed them in her lap. ( ) at her touch a strange bright light arose from candrapida's body, and straightway a voice was heard in the sky: "dear mahaçveta, i will again console thee. the body of thy pundarika, nourished in my world and by my light, free from death, awaits its reunion with thee. the other body, that of candrapida, is filled with my light, and so is not subject to death, both from its own nature, and because it is nourished by the touch of kadambari; it has been deserted by the soul by reason of a curse, like the body of a mystic whose spirit has passed into another form. let it rest here to console thee and kadambari till the curse be ended. let it not be burnt, nor cast into water, nor deserted. it must be kept with all care till its reunion." 'all but patralekha were astounded at this saying, and fixed their gaze on the sky; but she, recovering, at the cool touch of that light, from the swoon brought on by seeing the death of candrapida, rose, hastily seizing indrayudha from his groom, saying: "however it may be for us, thou must not for a moment leave thy master to go alone without a steed on his long journey;" and plunged, together with indrayudha, into the acchoda lake. ( ) straightway there rose from the lake a young ascetic, and approaching mahaçveta, said mournfully: "princess of the gandharvas, knowest thou me, now that i have passed through another birth?" divided between joy and grief, she paid homage to his feet, and replied: "blessed kapiñjala, am i so devoid of virtue that i could forget thee? and yet this thought of me is natural, since i am so strangely ignorant of myself and deluded by madness that when my lord pundarika is gone to heaven i yet live. ( ) tell me of pundarika." he then recalled how he had flown into the sky in pursuit of the being who carried off pundarika, and passing by the wondering gods in their heavenly cars, he had reached the world of the moon. "then that being," he continued, "placed pundarika's body on a couch in the hall called mahodaya, and said: 'know me to be the moon! ( ) when i was rising to help the world i was cursed by thy friend, because my beams were slaying him before he could meet his beloved; and he prayed that i, too, might die in the land of bharata, the home of all sacred rites, knowing myself the pains of love. but i, wrathful at being cursed for what was his own fault, uttered the curse that he should endure the same lot of joy or sorrow as myself. when, however, my anger passed away, i understood what had happened about mahaçveta. now, she is sprung from the race that had its origin in my beams, and she chose him for her lord. yet he and i must both be born twice in the world of mortals, else the due order of births will not be fulfilled. i have therefore carried the body hither, and i nourish it with my light lest it should perish before the curse is ended, and i have comforted mahaçveta. ( ) tell the whole matter to pundarika's father. his spiritual power is great, and he may find a remedy.' and i, rushing away in grief, leapt off another rider in a heavenly chariot, and in wrath he said to me: 'since in the wide path of heaven thou hast leapt over me like a horse in its wild course, do thou become a horse, and descend into the world of mortals.' to my tearful assurance that i had leapt over him in the blindness of grief, and not from contempt, he replied: 'the curse, once uttered, cannot be recalled. but when thy rider shall die, thou shalt bathe and be freed from the curse.' then i implored him that as my friend was about to be born with the moon-god, in the world of mortals, i might, as a horse, constantly dwell with him. ( ) softened by my affection, he told me that the moon would be born as a son to king tarapida at ujjayini, pundarika would be the son of his minister, Çukanasa, and that i should be the prince's steed. straightway i plunged into the ocean, and rose as a horse, but yet lost not consciousness of the past. i it was who purposely brought candrapida hither in pursuit of the kinnaras. and he who sought thee by reason of the love implanted in a former birth, and was consumed by a curse in thine ignorance, was my friend pundarika come down to earth." 'then mahaçveta beat her breast with a bitter cry, saying: "thou didst keep thy love for me through another birth, pundarika; i was all the world to thee; and yet, like a demon, born for thy destruction even in a fresh life, i have received length of years but to slay thee again and again. ( ) even in thee, methinks, coldness must now have sprung up towards one so ill-fated, in that thou answerest not my laments;" and she flung herself on the ground. but kapiñjala pityingly replied: "thou art blameless, princess, and joy is at hand. grieve not, therefore, but pursue the penance undertaken by thee; for to perfect penance naught is impossible, and by the power of thine austerities thou shalt soon be in the arms of my friend." '( ) then kadambari asked kapiñjala what had become of patralekha when she plunged with him into the tank. but he knew naught of what had happened since then, either to her, or his friend, or candrapida, and rose to the sky to ask the sage Çvetaketu, pundarika's father, to whom everything in the three worlds was visible. '( - ) then mahaçveta counselled kadambari, whose love to her was drawn the closer from the likeness of her sorrow, that she should spend her life in ministering to the body of candrapida, nothing doubting that while others, to gain good, worshipped shapes of wood and stone that were but images of invisible gods, she ought to worship the present deity, veiled under the name of candrapida. laying his body tenderly on a rock, kadambari put off the adornments with which she had come to meet her lover, keeping but one bracelet as a happy omen. she bathed, put on two white robes, rubbed off the deep stain of betel from her lips, ( ) and the very flowers, incense, and unguents she had brought to grace a happy love she now offered to candrapida in the worship due to a god. that day and night she spent motionless, holding the feet of the prince, and on the morrow she joyfully saw that his brightness was unchanged, ( ) and gladdened her friends and the prince's followers by the tidings. ( ) the next day she sent madalekha to console her parents, and they sent back an assurance that they had never thought to see her wed, and that now they rejoiced that she had chosen for her husband the incarnation of the moon-god himself. they hoped, when the curse was over, to behold again her lotus-face in the company of their son-in-law. ( ) so comforted, kadambari remained to tend and worship the prince's body. now, when the rainy season was over, meghanada came to kadambari, and told her that messengers had been sent by tarapida to ask the cause of the prince's delay, ( ) and that he, to spare her grief, had told them the whole story, and bade them hasten to tell all to the king. they, however, had replied that this might doubtless be so; yet, to say nothing of their hereditary love for the prince, the desire to see so great a marvel urged them to ask to be allowed to behold him; their long service deserved the favour; and what would the king say if they failed to see candrapida's body? ( ) sorrowfully picturing to herself what the grief of tarapida would be, kadambari admitted the messengers, ( ) and as they tearfully prostrated themselves, she consoled them, saying that this was a cause for joy rather than sorrow. "ye have seen the prince's face, and his body free from change; therefore hasten to the king's feet. yet do not spread abroad this story, but say that ye have seen the prince, and that he tarries by the acchoda lake. for death must come to all, and is easily believed; but this event, even when seen, can scarce win faith. it profits not now, therefore, by telling this to his parents, to create in them a suspicion of his death; but when he comes to life again, this wondrous tale will become clear to them." ( ) but they replied: "then we must either not return or keep silence. but neither course is possible; nor could we so greet the sorrowing king." she therefore sent candrapida's servant tvaritaka with them, to give credit to the story, for the prince's royal retinue had all taken a vow to live there, eating only roots and fruits, and not to return till the prince himself should do so. ( ) 'after many days, queen vilasavati, in her deep longing for news of her son, went to the temple of the divine mothers of avanti, [ ] the guardian goddesses of ujjayini, to pray for his return; and on a sudden a cry arose from the retinue: "thou art happy, o queen! the mothers have shown favour to thee! messengers from the prince are at hand." then she saw the messengers, with the city-folk crowding round them, asking news of the prince, or of sons, brothers, and other kinsfolk among his followers, ( ) but receiving no answers. she sent for them to the temple court, and cried: "tell me quickly of my son. ( ) have ye seen him?" and they, striving to hide their grief, replied: "o queen, he has been seen by us on the shore of the acchoda lake, and tvaritaka will tell thee the rest." "what more," said she, "can this unhappy man tell me? for your own sorrowful bearing has told the tale. alas, my child! wherefore hast thou not returned? when thou didst bid me farewell, i knew by my forebodings that i should not behold thy face again. ( ) this all comes from the evil deeds of my former birth. yet think not, my son, that i will live without thee, for how could i thus even face thy father? and yet, whether it be from love, or from the thought that one so fair must needs live, or from the native simplicity of a woman's mind, my heart cannot believe that ill has befallen thee." ( ) meanwhile, the news was told to the king, and he hastened to the temple with Çukanasa, and tried to rouse the queen from the stupor of grief, saying: ( ) "my queen, we dishonour ourselves by this show of grief. our good deeds in a former life have carried us thus far. we are not the vessel of further joys. that which we have not earned is not won at will by beating the breast. the creator does what he wills, and depends on none. we have had the joy of our son's babyhood and boyhood and youth. we have crowned him, and greeted his return from his world conquest. ( ) all that is lacking to our wishes is that we have not seen him wed, so that we might leave him in our place, and retire to a hermitage. but to gain every desire is the fruit of very rare merit. we must, however, question tvaritaka, for we know not all yet." ( ) but when he heard from tvaritaka how the prince's heart had broken, he interrupted him, and cried that a funeral pyre should be prepared for himself near the shrine of mahakala. ( ) all his treasure was to be given to brahmans, and the kings who followed him were to return to their own lands. then tvaritaka implored him to hear the rest of the story of vaiçampayana, and his grief was followed by wonder; while Çukanasa, showing the desire of a true friend to forget his own grief and offer consolation, said: ( ) "sire, in this wondrous transitory existence, wherein wander gods, demons, animals and men, filled with joy and grief, there is no event which is not possible. why then doubt concerning this? if from a search for reason, how many things rest only on tradition, and are yet seen to be true? as the use of meditation or certain postures to cure a poisoned man, the attraction of the loadstone, the efficacy of mantras, vedic or otherwise, in actions of all kinds, wherein sacred tradition is our authority. ( ) now there are many stories of curses in the puranas, the ramayana, the mahabharata, and the rest. for it was owing to a curse that nahusha [ ] became a serpent, saudasa [ ] a cannibal, yayati decrepit, triçamku [ ] a candala, the heaven-dwelling mahabhisha was born as Çantanu, while ganga became his wife, and the vasus, [ ] his sons. nay, even the supreme god, vishnu, was born as yamadagni's son, and, dividing himself into four, he was born to daçaratha, and also to vasudeva at mathura. therefore the birth of gods among mortals is not hard of belief. and thou, sire, art not behind the men of old in virtue, nor is the moon greater than the god from whom the lotus springs. our dreams at our sons' birth confirm the tale; the nectar that dwells in the moon preserves the prince's body, ( ) and his beauty that gladdens the world must be destined to dwell in the world. we shall therefore soon see his marriage with kadambari, and therein find all the past troubles of life more than repaid. do then thine utmost by worshipping gods, giving gifts to brahmans, and practising austerities, to secure this blessing." ( - ) the king assented, but expressed his resolve to go himself to behold the prince, and he and the queen, together with Çukanasa and his wife, went to the lake. ( ) comforted by the assurance of meghanada, who came to meet him, that the prince's body daily grew in brightness, he entered the hermitage; ( ) while, at the news of his coming, mahaçveta fled in shame within the cave, and kadambari swooned. and as he looked on his son, who seemed but to sleep, the queen rushed forward, and with fond reproaches entreated candrapida to speak to them. ( ) but the king reminded her that it was her part to comfort Çukanasa and his wife. "she also, to whom we shall owe the joy of again beholding our son alive, even the gandharva princess, is yet in a swoon; do thou take her in thine arms, and bring her back to consciousness." then she tenderly touched kadambari, saying "be comforted, my mother, [ ] for without thee, who could have preserved the body of my son candrapida? surely thou must be wholly made of amrita, that we are again able to behold his face." ( ) at the name of candrapida and the touch of the queen, so like his own, kadambari recovered her senses, and was helped by madalekha to pay due honour, though with face bent in shame, to his parents. she received their blessing--"mayest thou live long, and long enjoy an unwidowed life"--and was set close behind vilasavati. the king then bade her resume her care of the prince, and took up his abode in a leafy bower near the hermitage, provided with a cool stone slab, and meet for a hermit, ( ) and told his royal retinue that he would now carry out his long-cherished desire of an ascetic life, and that they must protect his subjects. "it is surely a gain if i hand over my place to one worthy of it, and by this enfeebled and useless body of mine win the joys of another world." 'so saying, he gave up all his wonted joys, and betook himself to the unwonted life in the woods; he found a palace beneath the trees; the delights of the zenana, in the creepers; the affection of friends, in the fawns; the pleasure of attire, in rags and bark garments. ( ) his weapons were rosaries; his ambition was for another world; his desire for wealth was in penance. he refused all the delicacies that kadambari and mahaçveta offered him, and so dwelt with his queen and Çukanasa, counting all pains light, so that every morning and evening he might have the joy of seeing candrapida.' having told this tale, [ ] the sage jabali said with a scornful smile to his son harita and the other ascetics: 'ye have seen how this story has had power to hold us long, and to charm our hearts. and this is the love-stricken being who by his own fault fell from heaven, and became on earth vaiçampayana, son of Çukanasa. he it is who, by the curse of his own wrathful father, and by mahaçveta's appeal to the truth of her heart, has been born as a parrot.' ( ) as he thus spoke, i awoke, as it were, out of sleep, and, young as i was, i had on the tip of my tongue all the knowledge gained in a former birth; i became skilled in all arts; i had a clear human voice, memory, and all but the shape of a man. my affection for the prince, my uncontrolled passion, my devotion to mahaçveta, all returned. a yearning arose in me to know about them and my other friends, and though in deepest shame, i faintly asked jabali: 'now, blessed saint, that thou hast brought back my knowledge, my heart breaks for the prince who died in grief for my death. ( ) vouchsafe to tell me of him, so that i may be near him; even my birth as an animal will not grieve me.' with mingled scorn and pity he replied: 'wilt thou not even now restrain thine old impatience? ask, when thy wings are grown.' then to his son's inquiry how one of saintly race should be so enslaved by love, he replied that this weak and unrestrained nature belonged to those born, like me, from a mother only. for the veda says, 'as a man's parents are, so is he,' ( ) and medical science, too, declares their weakness. and he said my life now would be but short, but that when the curse was over, i should win length of years. i humbly asked by what sacrifices i should gain a longer life, but he bade me wait, and as the whole night had passed unobserved in his story, ( ) he sent the ascetics to offer the morning oblation, while harita took me, and placed me in his own hut near his couch, and went to his morning duties. ( ) during his absence, i sorrowfully thought how hard it would be to rise from being a bird to being a brahman, not to say a saint, who has the bliss of heaven. yet if i could not be united to those i loved in past lives why should i yet live? but harita then returned, and told me that kapiñjala was there. ( - ) when i saw him weary, yet loving as ever, i strove to fly to him, and he, lifting me up, placed me in his bosom, and then on his head. ( ) then he told me, 'thy father Çvetaketu knew by divine insight of thy plight, and has begun a rite to help thee. as he began it i was set free from my horse's shape; ( ) but he kept me till jabali had recalled the past to thee, and now sends me to give thee his blessing, and say that thy mother lakshmi is also helping in the rite.' ( ) then, bidding me stay in the hermitage, he rose to the sky, to take part in the rite. ( ) after some days, however, my wings were grown, and i resolved to fly to mahaçveta, so i set off towards the north; ( ) but weariness soon overtook me, and i went to sleep in a tree, only to wake in the snare of a terrible candala. ( ) i besought him to free me, for i was on the way to my beloved, but he said he had captured me for the young candala princess, who had heard of my gifts. with horror i heard that i, the son of lakshmi and of a great saint, must dwell with a tribe shunned even by barbarians; ( ) but when i urged that he could set me free without danger, for none would see him, he laughed, and replied: 'he, for whom there exist not the five guardians of the world, [ ] witnesses of right and wrong, dwelling within his own body to behold his actions, will not do his duty for fear of any other being.' ( ) so he carried me off, and as i looked out in hope of getting free from him, i beheld the barbarian settlement, a very market-place of evil deeds. it was surrounded on all sides by boys engaged in the chase, unleashing their hounds, teaching their falcons, mending snares, carrying weapons, and fishing, horrible in their attire, like demoniacs. here and there the entrance to their dwellings, hidden by thick bamboo forests, was to be inferred, from the rising of smoke of orpiment. on all sides the enclosures were made with skulls; ( ) the dustheaps in the roads were filled with bones; the yards of the huts were miry with blood, fat, and meat chopped up. the life there consisted of hunting; the food, of flesh; the ointment, of fat; the garments, of coarse silk; the couches, of dried skins; the household attendants, of dogs; the animals for riding, of cows; the men's employment, of wine and women; the oblation to the gods, of blood; the sacrifice, of cattle. the place was the image of all hells. ( ) then the man brought me to the candala maiden, who received me gladly, and placed me in a cage, saying: 'i will take from thee all thy wilfulness.' what was i to do? were i to pray her to release me, it was my power of speech that had made her desire me; were i silent, anger might make her cruel; ( ) still, it was my want of self-restraint that had caused all my misery, and so i resolved to restrain all my senses, and i therefore kept entire silence and refused all food. next day, however, the maiden brought fruits and water, and when i did not touch them she said tenderly: 'it is unnatural for birds and beasts to refuse food when hungry. if thou, mindful of a former birth, makest distinction of what may or may not be eaten, yet thou art now born as an animal, and canst keep no such distinction. ( ) there is no sin in acting in accordance with the state to which thy past deeds have brought thee. nay, even for those who have a law concerning food, it is lawful, in a time of distress, to eat food not meet for them, in order to preserve life. much more, then, for thee. nor needst thou fear this food as coming from our caste; for fruit may be accepted even from us; and water, even from our vessels, is pure, so men say, when it falls on the ground.' i, wondering at her wisdom, partook of food, but still kept silence. 'after some time, when i had grown up, i woke one day to find myself in this golden cage, and beheld the candala maiden as thou, o king, hast seen her. ( ) the whole barbarian settlement shewed like a city of the gods, and before i could ask what it all meant, the maiden brought me to thy feet. but who she is and why she has become a candala, and why i am bound or brought hither, i am as eager as thou, o king, to learn.' thereupon the king, in great amazement, sent for the maiden, and she, entering, overawed the king with her majesty, and said with dignity: 'thou gem of earth, lord of rohini, joy of kadambari's eyes--thou, o moon, hast heard the story of thy past birth, and that of this foolish being. thou knowest from him how even in this birth he disregarded his father's command, and set off to seek his bride. now i am lakshmi, his mother, and his father, seeing by divine insight that he had started, bade me keep him in safety till the religious rite for him was completed, and lead him to repentance. ( ) the rite is now over. the end of the curse is at hand. i brought him to thee that thou mightest rejoice with him thereat. i became a candala to avoid contact with mankind. do ye both therefore, straightway leave bodies beset with the ills of birth, old age, pain, and death, and win the joy of union with your beloved.' so saying, she suddenly rose to the sky, followed by the gaze of all the people, while the firmament rang with her tinkling anklets. the king, at her words, remembered his former birth and said: 'dear pundarika, now called vaiçampayana, happy is it that the curse comes to an end at the same moment for us both'; but while he spoke, love drew his bow, taking kadambari as his best weapon, and entered into the king's heart to destroy his life. ( ) the flame of love wholly consumed him, and from longing for mahaçveta, vaiçampayana, who was in truth pundarika, endured the same sufferings as the king. now at this time there set in the fragrant season of spring, as if to burn him utterly, ( ) and while it intoxicated all living beings, it was used by love as his strongest shaft to bewilder the heart of kadambari. on kama's festival she passed the day with great difficulty, and at twilight, when the quarters were growing dark, she bathed, worshipped kama, and placed before him the body of candrapida, washed, anointed with musk-scented sandal, and decked with flowers. ( ) filled with a deep longing, she drew nigh, as if unconsciously and suddenly, bereft by love of a woman's native timidity, she could no longer restrain herself, and clasped candrapida's neck as though he were yet alive. at her ambrosial embrace the prince's life came back to him, and, clasping her closely, like one awakened from sleep ( ), he gladdened her by saying: 'timid one, away with fear! thine embrace hath brought me to life; for thou art born of the apsaras race sprung from nectar, and it was but the curse that prevented thy touch from reviving me before. i have now left the mortal shape of Çudraka, that caused the pain of separation from thee; but this body i kept, because it won thy love. now both this world and the moon are bound to thy feet. vaiçampayana, too, the beloved of thy friend mahaçveta, has been freed from the curse with me.' while the moon, hidden in the shape of candrapida, thus spoke, pundarika descended from the sky, pale, wearing still the row of pearls given by mahaçveta, and holding the hand of kapiñjala. ( ) gladly kadambari hastened to tell mahaçveta of her lover's return, while candrapida said: 'dear pundarika, though in an earlier birth thou wast my son-in-law, [ ] thou must now be my friend, as in our last birth.' meanwhile, keyuraka set off to hemakuta to tell hamsa and citraratha, and madalekha fell at the feet of tarapida, who was absorbed in prayer to Çiva, vanquisher of death, and vilasavati, and told them the glad tidings. ( ) then the aged king came, leaning on Çukanasa, with the queen and manorama, and great was the joy of all. kapiñjala too brought a message to Çukanasa from Çvetakatu, saying: 'pundarika was but brought up by me; but he is thy son, and loves thee; do thou therefore keep him from ill, and care for him as thine own. ( ) i have placed in him my own life, and he will live as long as the moon; so that my desires are fulfilled. the divine spirit of life in me now yearns to reach a region surpassing the world of gods.' that night passed in talk of their former birth; and next day the two gandharva kings came with their queens, and the festivities were increased a thousandfold. citraratha, however, said: 'why, when we have palaces of our own, do we feast in the forest? moreover, though marriage resting only on mutual love is lawful among us, [ ] yet let us follow the custom of the world.' 'nay,' replied tarapida. 'where a man hath known his greatest happiness, there is his home, even if it be the forest. ( ) and where else have i known such joy as here? [ ] all my palaces, too, have been given over to thy son-in-law; take my son, therefore, with his bride, and taste the joys of home.' then citraratha went with candrapida to hemakuta, and offered him his whole kingdom with the hand of kadambari. hamsa did the same to pundarika; but both refused to accept anything, for their longings were satisfied with winning the brides dear to their hearts. now, one day kadambari, though her joy was complete, asked her husband with tears: 'how is it that when we all have died and come to life, and have been united with each other, patralekha alone is not here, nor do we know what has become of her?' 'how could she be here, my beloved?' replied the prince tenderly. 'for she is my wife rohini, and, when she heard i was cursed, grieving for my grief, she refused to leave me alone in the world of mortals, and though i sought to dissuade her, she accepted birth in that world even before me, that she might wait upon me. ( ) when i entered on another birth, she again wished to descend to earth; but i sent her back to the world of the moon. there thou wilt again behold her.' but kadambari, in wonder at rohini's nobility, tenderness, loftiness of soul, devotion, and charm, was abashed, and could not utter a word. the ten nights that candrapida spent at hemakuta passed as swiftly as one day; and then, dismissed by citraratha and madira, who were wholly content with him, he approached the feet of his father. there he bestowed on the chieftains who had shared his sufferings a condition like his own, and laying on pundarika the burden of government, followed the steps of his parents, who had given up all earthly duties. sometimes from love of his native land, he would dwell in ujjayini, where the citizens gazed at him with wide, wondering eyes; sometimes, from respect to the gandharva king, at hemakuta, beautiful beyond compare; sometimes, from reverence to rohini, in the world of the moon, where every place was charming from the coolness and fragrance of nectar; sometimes, from love to pundarika, by the lake where lakshmi dwelt, on which the lotuses ever blossomed night and day, and often, to please kadambari, in many another fair spot. with kadambari he enjoyed many a pleasure, to which the yearning of two births gave an ever fresh [ ] and inexhaustible delight. nor did the moon rejoice alone with kadambari, nor she with mahaçveta, but mahaçveta with pundarika, and pundarika with the moon, all spent an eternity of joy in each other's company, and reached the very pinnacle of happiness. appendix. description of ujjayini. ( ) there is a town by name ujjayini, the proudest gem of the three worlds, the very birthplace of the golden age, created by the blessed mahakala, [ ] lord of pramathas, [ ] creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe, as a habitation meet for himself, like a second earth. it is encompassed by a moat deep as hell--as by the ocean, mistaking it for another earth--and surrounded by fenced walls, white with plaster, like kailasa, with its many points showing clear against the sky, through joy at being the dwelling of Çiva. it is adorned with large bazaars, like the oceans when their waters were drunk by agastya, stretching far, with gold-dust for sand, with conch and oyster pearls, coral and emeralds laid bare. the painted halls that deck it are filled with gods, demons, siddhas, [ ] gandharvas, genii, and snakes, ( ) and show like a row of heavenly chariots come down from the sky to behold fair women at ceaseless festivals. its crossways shine with temples like mandara whitened by the milk raised up by the churning stick, with spotless golden vases for peaks, and white banners stirred by the breeze like the peaks of himalaya with the heavenly ganges falling on them. commons gray with ketaki pollen, dark with green gardens, watered by buckets constantly at work, and having wells adorned with brick seats, lend their charm. its groves are darkened by bees vocal with honey draughts, its breeze laden with the sweetness of creeper flowers, all trembling. it pays open honour to kama, with banners marked with the fish on the house-poles, with bells ringing merrily, with crimson pennons of silk, and red cowries steady, made of coral, standing upright in every house. its sin is washed away by the perpetual recitation of sacred books. ( ) it resounds with the cry of the peacocks, intent on a wild dance with their tails outspread from excitement in the bathing-houses, wherein is the steady, deep sound of the drums, and a storm caused by the heavy showers of spray, and beautiful rainbows made by the sunbeams cast upon it. it glitters with lakes, fair with open blue water-lilies, with their centre white as unclosed moon-lotuses, beautiful in their unwavering gaze, [ ] like the thousand eyes of indra. it is whitened with ivory turrets on all sides, endowed with plantain groves, white as flecks of ambrosial foam. it is girt with the river sipra, which seems to purify the sky, with its waves forming a ceaseless frown, as though jealously beholding the river of heaven on the head of Çiva, while its waters sway over the rounded forms of the malavis, wild with the sweetness of youth. the light-hearted race that dwell there, like the moon on the locks of Çiva, spread their glory [ ] through all the earth, and have their horn filled with plenty; [ ] like mainaka, they have known no pakshapata; [ ] like the stream of the heavenly ganges, with its golden lotuses, their heaps of gold and rubies [ ] shine forth; like the law-books, they order the making of water-works, bridges, temples, pleasure-grounds, wells, hostels for novices, wayside sheds for watering cattle, and halls of assembly; like mandara, they have the best treasures of ocean drawn up for them; though they have charms against poison, [ ] yet they fear snakes; [ ] though they live on the wicked, [ ] they give their best to the good; though bold, they are very courteous; though pleasant of speech, they are truthful; though handsome, [ ] content with their wives; though they invite the entrance of guests, they know not how to ask a boon; though they seek love and wealth, they are strictly just; though virtuous, they fear another world. [ ] they are connoisseurs in all arts, pleasant [ ] and intelligent. they talk merrily, are charming in their humour, spotless in their attire, ( ) skilled in foreign languages, clever at subtleties of speech, [ ] versed in stories of all kinds, [ ] accomplished in letters, having a keen delight in the mahabharata, puranas, and ramayana, familiar with the brihatkatha, masters of the whole circle of arts, especially gambling, lovers of the çastras, devoted to light literature, calm as a fragrant spring breeze, constantly going to the south; [ ] upright, [ ] like the wood of himalaya; skilled in the worship of rama, [ ] like lakshmana; open lovers of bharata, like Çatrughna; [ ] like the day, following the sun; [ ] like a buddhist, bold in saying 'yes' about all kinds of gifts; [ ] like the doctrine of the samkhya philosophy, possessed of noble men; [ ] like jinadharma, pitiful to life. the city seems possessed of rocks, with its palaces; it stretches like a suburb with its long houses; it is like the tree that grants desires with its good citizens; it bears in its painted halls the mirror of all forms. like twilight, it shines with the redness of rubies; [ ] ( ) like the form of the lord of heaven, it is purified with the smoke of a hundred sacrifices; like the wild dance of Çiva, it has the smiles, which are its white markets; [ ] like an old woman, it has its beauty worn; [ ] like the form of garuda, it is pleasing in being the resting-place of vishnu; [ ] like the hour of dawn, it has its people all alert; like the home of a mountaineer, it has palaces in which ivory cowries [ ] are hanging; like the form of Çesha, [ ] it always bears the world; like the hour of churning the ocean, it fills the end of the earth with its hubbub; [ ] like the rite of inauguration, it has a thousand gold pitchers [ ] at hand; like gauri, it has a form fit to sit on the lion-throne; like aditi, honoured in a hundred houses of the gods; like the sports of mahavaraha, showing the casting down of hiranyaksha; [ ] like kadru, it is a joy to the race of reptiles; [ ] like the harivamça, it is charming with the games of many children. [ ] ( ) though its courts are open to all, its glory is uninjured; [ ] though it glows with colour, [ ] it is white as nectar; though it is hung with strings of pearls, yet when unadorned [ ] it is adorned the most; though composed of many elements, [ ] it is yet stable, and it surpasses in splendour the world of the immortals. there the sun is daily seen paying homage to mahakala, for his steeds vail their heads at the charm of the sweet chant of the women singing in concert in the lofty white palaces, and his pennon droops before him. there his rays fall on the vermeil floors like the crimson of eve; and on the emerald seats, as though busy in creating lotus beds; on the lapis-lazuli, as though scattered on the sky; on the circling aloe smoke, as though eager to break its dense gloom; on the wreaths of pearl, as though disdaining the clusters of stars; ( ) on the women's faces, as though kissing unfolding lotuses; on the splendour of crystal walls, as though falling amid the pale moonlight of morning; on the white silken banners, as though hanging on the waves of the heavenly ganges; on the sun-gems, as though blossoming from them; on the sapphire lattices, as though entering the jaws of rahu. there darkness never falls, and the nights bring no separation to the pairs of cakravakas; nor need they any lamps, for they pass golden as with morning sunshine, from the bright jewels of women, as though the world were on fire with the flame of love. there, though Çiva is at hand, the cry of the hamsas in the houses, arising sweet and ceaseless, at the kindling of love, fills the city with music, like the mourning of rati for the burning of the god of love. there the palaces stretch forth their flags, whose silken fringes gleam and flutter at night in the wind, like arms to remove the mark of the moon put to shame by the fair lotus-faced malavis. ( ) there the moon, deer-marked, moves, in the guise of his reflection, on the jewel pavement, cool with the sprinkling of much sandal-water, as though he had fallen captive to love at the sight of the faces of the fair city dames resting on the palace roofs. there the auspicious songs of dawn raised by the company of caged parrots and starlings, though they sing their shrillest, as they wake at night's close, are drowned and rendered vain by the tinkling of women's ornaments, reaching far, and outvying the ambrosial voices of the tame cranes. [ ] ( ) there dwells Çiva, who has pierced the demon andhaka with his sharp trident, who has a piece of the moon on his brow polished by the points of gauri's anklets, whose cosmetic is the dust of tripura, and whose feet are honoured by many bracelets fallen from rati's outstretched arms as she pacifies him when bereft of kama. description of tarapida. [ ] ( ) like hell, he was the refuge of the lords of earth, [ ] fearing when their soaring pride was shorn; [ ] like the stars, he was followed by the wise men; [ ] like love, he destroyed strife; [ ] like daçaratha, he had good friends; [ ] ( ) like Çiva, he was followed by a mighty host; [ ] like Çesha, he had the weight of the earth upon him; [ ] like the stream of narmada, his descent was from a noble tree. [ ] he was the incarnation of justice, the very representative of vishnu, the destroyer of all the sorrows of his people. he re-established justice, which had been shaken to its foundations by the kali age, set on iniquity, and mantled in gloom by the spread of darkness, just as Çiva re-established kailasa when carried off by ravana. he was honoured by the world as a second kama, created by Çiva when his heart was softened by the lamentations of rati. ( - ) before him bowed conquered kings with eyes whose pupils were tremulous and quivering from fear, with the bands of the wreaths on their crest ornaments caught by the rays of his feet, and with the line of their heads broken by the lotus-buds held up in adoration. they came from the mount of sunrise, [ ] which has its girdle washed by the ocean waves, where the flowers on the trees of its slopes are doubled by stars wandering among the leaves, where the sandal-wood is wet with the drops of ambrosia that fall from the moon as it rises, where the clove-trees [ ] blossom when pierced by the hoofs of the horses of the sun's chariot, where the leaves and shoots of the olibanum-trees are cut by the trunk of the elephant airavata; ( ) from setubandha, built with a thousand mountains seized by the hand of nala, [ ] where the fruit on the lavali-trees is carried off by monkeys, where the feet of rama are worshipped by the water-deities coming up from the sea, and where the rock is starred with pieces of shell broken by the fall of the mountain; from mandara, where the stars are washed by the waters of pure waterfalls, where the stones are polished by the rubbing of the edge of the fish ornament of krishna rising at the churning of ambrosia, where the slopes are torn by the weight of the feet moving in the effort of drawing hither and thither vasuki coiled in the struggles of gods and demons, where the peaks are sprinkled with ambrosial spray; from gandhamadana, beautiful with the hermitage of badarika marked with the footprints of nara and narayana, where the peaks are resonant with the tinkling of the ornaments of the fair dames of kuvera's city, where the water of the streams is purified by the evening worship of the seven rishis, and where the land around is perfumed by the fragments of lotuses torn up by bhima. candrapida's entry into the palace. ( ) preceded by groups of chamberlains, hastening up and bowing, he received the respectful homage of the kings, who had already taken their position there, who came forward on all sides, who had the ground kissed by the rays of the crest-jewels loosened from their crests and thrown afar, and who were introduced one by one by the chamberlains; at every step he had auspicious words for his dismounting uttered by old women of the zenana, who had come out from inside, and were skilled in old customs; having passed through the seven inner courts crowded with thousands of different living beings, as if they were different worlds, he beheld his father. the king was stationed within, surrounded by a body-guard whose hands were stained black by ceaseless grasping of weapons, who had their bodies, with the exception of hands, feet, and eyes, covered with dark iron coats of mail, ( ) like elephant-posts covered with swarms of bees ceaselessly attracted by desire of the scent of ichor, hereditary in their office, of noble birth, faithful; whose heroism might be inferred from their character and gestures, and who in their energy and fierceness were like demons. on either side he had white cowries ceaselessly waved by his women; and he sat on a couch white as a wild goose, and bright as a fair island, as if he were the heavenly elephant on the water of ganges. vilasavati's attendants. ( ) approaching his mother, he saluted her. she was surrounded by countless zenana attendants in white jackets, like Çri with the waves of milk, and was having her time wiled away by elderly ascetic women, very calm in aspect, wearing tawny robes, like twilight in its clouds, worthy of honour from all the world, with the lobes of their ears long, knowing many stories, relating holy tales of old, reciting legends, holding books, and giving instructions about righteousness. ( ) she was attended by eunuchs using the speech and dress of women, and wearing strange decorations; she had a mass of cowries constantly waved around her, and was waited upon by a bevy of women seated around her, bearing clothes, jewels, flowers, perfumes, betel, fans, unguents, and golden jars; she had strings of pearls resting on her bosom, as the earth has the stream of ganges flowing in the midst of mountains, and the reflection of her face fell on a mirror close by, like the sky when the moon's orb has entered into the sun. Çukanasa's palace. ( ) he reached Çukanasa's gate, which was crowded with a troop of elephants appointed for the watch, obstructed by thousands of horses, ( ) confused with the hustling of countless multitudes, visited day and night by brahmans, Çaivas, and red-robed men skilled in the teaching of Çakyamuni, clothed as it were in the garments of righteousness, sitting on one side by thousands, forming circles, coming for various purposes, eager to see Çukanasa, having their eyes opened by the ointment of their several çastras, and showing their respectful devotion by an appearance of humility. the gateway was filled with a hundred thousand she-elephants of the tributary kings who had entered the palace with double blankets drawn round the mahouts who sat on their shoulders, having their mahouts asleep from weariness of their long waiting, some saddled and some not, nodding their heads from their long standing motionless. the prince dismounted in the outer court, as though he were in a royal palace, though not stopped by the guards standing in the entrance and running up in haste; and having left his horse at the entrance, leaning on vaiçampayana, and having his way shown by circles of gatekeepers, who hastened up, pushing away the bystanders, he received the salutes of bands of chiefs who arose with waving crests to do him homage, and beheld the inner courts with all the attendants mute in fear of the scolding of cross porters, and having the ground shaken by hundreds of feet of the retinues of neighbouring kings frightened by the moving wands, ( ) and finally entered the palace of Çukanasa, bright inside with fresh plaster, as if it were a second royal court. description of night. ( ) the brightness of day approached the west, following the path of the sun's chariot-wheels, like a stream of water. day wiped away all the glow of the lotuses with the sun's orb hastening downwards like a hand roseate as fresh shoots. the pairs of cakravakas, whose necks were hidden in swarms of bees approaching from familiarity with the scent of lotuses, were separated as if drawn by the noose of destiny. the sun's orb poured forth, under the guise of a rosy glow, the lotus honey-draught, as it were, drunk in with its rays till the end of day, as if in weariness of its path through the heavens. and when in turn the blessed sun approached another world, and was a very red lotus-earring of the west, when twilight shone forth with its lotus-beds opening into the lake of heaven, ( ) when in the quarters of space lines of darkness showed clear like decorations of black aloes; when the glow of eve was driven out by darkness like a band of red lotuses by blue lotuses dark with bees; when bees slowly entered the hearts of red lotuses, as if they were shoots of darkness, to uproot the sunshine drunk in by the lotus-beds; when the evening glow had melted away, like the garland round the face of the lady of night; when the oblations in honour of the goddess of twilight were cast abroad in all quarters; when the peacock's poles seemed tenanted by peacocks, by reason of the darkness gathered round their summits, though no peacocks were there; when the doves, very ear-lotuses of the lakshmi of palaces, were roosting in the holes of the lattices; when the swings of the zenana had their bells dumb, and their gold seats motionless and bearing no fair dames; when the bands of parrots and mainas ceased chattering, and had their cages hung up on the branches of the palace mango-trees; when the lutes were banished, and their sound at rest in the ceasing of the concert; when the tame geese were quiet as the sound of the maidens' anklets was stilled; ( ) when the wild elephants had the clefts of their cheeks free from bees, and their ornaments of pearls, cowries, and shells taken away; when the lights were kindled in the stables of the king's favourite steeds; when the troops of elephants for the first watch were entering; when the family priests, having given their blessing, were departing; when the jewelled pavements, emptied almost of attendants on the dismissal of the king's suite, spread out wide, kissed by the reflection of a thousand lights shining in the inner apartments, like offerings of golden campak-blossoms; when the palace tanks, with the splendours of the lamps falling on them, seemed as if the fresh sunlight had approached to soothe the lotus-beds grieved by separation from the sun; when the caged lions were heavy with sleep; and when love had entered the zenana like a watchman, with arrows in hand and bow strung; when the words of love's messenger were uttered in the ear, bright in tone as the blossoms in a garland; when the hearts of froward dames, widowed by grief, were smouldering in the fire transmitted to them from the sun-crystals; and when evening had closed in, candrapida ... went to the king's palace.... the region of kailasa. ( ) the red arsenic-dust scattered by the elephants' tusks crimsoned the earth. the clefts of the rock were festooned with shoots of creepers, now separating and now uniting, hanging in twists, twining like leafage; the stones were wet with the ceaseless dripping of gum-trees; the boulders were slippery with the bitumen that oozed from the rocks. the slope was dusty with fragments of yellow orpiment broken by the mountain horses' hoofs; powdered with gold scattered from the holes dug out by the claws of rats; lined by the hoofs of musk-deer and yaks sunk in the sand and covered with the hair of rallakas and rankus fallen about; filled with pairs of partridges resting on the broken pieces of rock; with the mouths of its caves inhabited by pairs of orang-outangs; with the sweet scent of sulphur, and with bamboos that had grown to the length of wands of office. passages printed in the appendix. [ ] , -- , , - , -- , , -- , , -- , , -- , , -- , , - passages condensed or omitted. [ ] , -- , * , -- , , -- , , - , - , -- , , -- , , -- , , -- , , -- , , -- , * , -- , , -- , * , -- , , - * , -- , , - * , -- , , -- , , -- , , - * , -- , , -- , , - , -- , , - * , -- , , -- , , -- , , -- , notes [ ] it is needless to give here more than the few facts essential for the understanding of 'kadambari,' for the life and times of bana will probably be treated of in the translation of the 'harsha-carita' by professor cowell and mr. thomas in this series; and professor peterson's introduction to his edition of 'kadambari' (bombay sanskrit series, ) deals fully with bana's place in literature. the facts here given are, for the most part, taken from the latter work. [ ] e.g., the madhuban grant of sam , e. i. i., ff. for this and other chronological references i am indebted to miss c. m. duff, who has let me use the ms. of her 'chronology of india.' [ ] for bana's early life, v. 'harsha-carita,' chs. i., ii. i have to thank mr. f. w. thomas for allowing me to see the proof-sheets of his translation. [ ] peterson, 'kadambari,' pp. - ; and 'the subhashitavali,' edited by peterson (bombay sanskrit series, ), pp. - . [ ] translated by mr. c. tawney (calcutta, ), vol. ii., pp. - . somadeva's date is about a.d. . [ ] v. peterson, 'kadambari,' pp. - . [ ] translated by ballantyne and pramada-dasa-mitra (calcutta, ), § . the italics represent words supplied by the translators. [ ] kadambari,' p. . [ ] professor peterson does not, however, make this deduction in favour of bana's own version. [ ] i.e., rasa, poetic charm. [ ] 'kadambari,' nirnaya sagara press, bombay, pp. - . 'evam samatikramatsu--ajagama.' [ ] bombay edition, p. . [ ] professor cowells review of 'a bengali historical novel.' macmillan, april, . [ ] v. peterson, 'kadambari,' p. . [ ] indeed, this description is so like in spirit to that of clairvaux, that i cannot forbear quoting a few lines of the latter. the writer describes the workshops where the brethren labour, and the orchard used for rest and quiet thought, and goes on to say how the aube is raised by the toils of the brethren to the level of the abbey; it throws half its water into the abbey, 'as if to salute the brethren, and seems to excuse itself for not coming in its whole force.' then 'it returns with rapid current to the stream, and renders to it, in the name of clairvaux, thanks for all the services which it has performed.' the writer then goes on to tell of the fountain which, protected by a grassy pavilion, rises from the mountain, and is quickly engulfed in the valley, 'offering itself to charm the sight and supply the wants of the brethren, as if it were not willing to have communition with any others than saints.' this last is surely a touch worthy of bana. v. dr. eale's translation of 'st. bernard's works.' london, , vol. ii., pp. - . [ ] translated by mr. c. tawney. oriental translation fund series, p. . [ ] v. 'kadambari,' nirnaya sagara, p. , l. . [ ] 'hiouen thsang,' translated by st. julien, 'mémoires sur les contrées occidentals,' i., pp. - . cf. also 'harsha-carita,' ch. viii. (p. of the translation), where he pays great honour to a buddhist sage. [ ] e. i. i. . [ ] v. 'katha-sarit-sagara,' i. . [ ] v. 'kadambari,' pp. - . [ ] v. 'history of indian literature,' translation, london, , p. . [ ] v. 'sahitya-darpana,' § - . [ ] ibid., § . [ ] 'not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh jew, thou makest thy knife keen.' 'merchant of venice,' iv. , (globe edition). 'now is it rome indeed, and room enough, when there is in it but one only man.' 'julius cæsar,' i. , . [ ] v. 'sahitya-darpana,' § . [ ] ibid., § - . [ ] ibid., § . [ ] v. peterson, 'kadambari,' p. . [ ] cf. spenser's stanzas on mutability. [ ] v. infra, p. . [ ] v. infra, p. . [ ] the list looks long, but the pages in the 'nirnaya-sagara' edition contain frequently but few lines, and many of the omissions are a line or two of oft-repeated similes. [ ] beginning at p. of the 'nirnaya-sagara' edition. [ ] i here take the opportunity to acknowledge what by an oversight was omitted in its proper place, my indebtedness to professor cowell for the rendering into english verse of two couplets given on pp. and . [ ] as the three vedas, or the triad. [ ] vishnu purana, bk. v., ch. . [ ] his guru. [ ] rasa = (a) the eight rasas; (b) love. [ ] Çayya = (a) composition; (b) couch. [ ] (a) which sparkle with emphatic words and similes; (b) like flashing lamps. [ ] (a) pun; (b) proximity. [ ] hanging on his ear (as an ornament). [ ] in the case of elephants, 'having their ichor regulated by a proper regimen.' [ ] with renowned warriors on their backs. [ ] having trunks as thick as sacrificial posts. [ ] i.e., vasavadatta and the brihatkatha; or, r., advitiya, unrivalled. [ ] (a) unconquerable in might; (b) having unconquerable shafts. [ ] in the case of brahma, 'he made his chariot of flamingoes.' [ ] (a) his hand was wet with a stream of constant giving; (b) the trunk was wet with ichor. [ ] or, to the sun's orb. [ ] vinata = (a) mother of garuda; (b) humble. [ ] or, caste. [ ] or, fines of gold. [ ] or, fickle affections. [ ] had, mada = (a) pride; (b) ichor. [ ] or, breaking away from virtue. [ ] or, tribute. [ ] in autumn, the hamsas, or wild geese, return. [ ] or, bamboos. [ ] ram. i. . [ ] he had (a) great faults; (b) a long arm. [ ] dark. [ ] i.e., imposed no heavy tribute. [ ] or, 'with citra and çravana,' lunar mansions. [ ] or, living creatures. [ ] (a) of lowly birth; (b) not dwelling on earth. [ ] (a) candala; (b) elephant. [ ] or, ajati, without caste. [ ] alaka = (a) curls; (b) a city. [ ] or, whose love would be a reproach. [ ] a verse in the arya measure. [ ] vipula, acala, and Çaça, characters in the brihatkatha. or, broad mountains and hares. [ ] varuna, tree; varuna, wine. [ ] or, with lightning. [ ] constellations. the moon was supposed to have a deer dwelling in it. [ ] (a) the cowries held by the suite; (b) different kinds of deer. [ ] (a) rocky; (b) having Çiva. [ ] kuça: (a) sita's son; (b) grass. niçacara: (a) ravana; (b) owls. [ ] (a) mark of aloes on the brow; (b) tilaka trees and aloe trees all bright. [ ] (a) love; (b) madana trees. [ ] as an amulet. [ ] name of an ornament. [ ] wine-cups. [ ] (a) halls; (b) çal trees. [ ] (a) clapping of hands; (b) palm-trees. [ ] (a) arrows; (b) reeds. [ ] (a) trees; (b) eyes. [ ] (a) as tamala trees (very dark); (b) with tamala trees. [ ] virata, a king who befriended the pandavas. the chief of his army was named kicaka. f. mbh., bk. iv., . kicaka also means 'bamboo.' [ ] or, the twinkling stars of the deer constellation, pursued by the hunter (a constellation). [ ] bark garments, matted locks, and rags of grass. [ ] (a) seven leaves; (b) a tree. [ ] (a) of fierce disposition; (b) full of wild beasts. [ ] the sign of a vow. [ ] or perhaps, 'not caring for the fascination of the beauty of ravana,' i.e. his sister. he was loved by ravana's sister. [ ] does this refer to the reflection of the sky in its clear water? [ ] Çalmali = silk cotton-tree. [ ] lit., 'striving upwards to see.' [ ] indra's wood. [ ] Çakuni = (a) bird; (b) name of duryodhana's supporter. [ ] or, 'by vanamala,' krishna's chaplet. [ ] tara = (a) wife of sugriva, the monkey king; (b) star. [ ] mountaineer. [ ] arjuna, or karttavirya, was captured by ravana when sporting in the nerbuddha, and was killed by paraçurama. v. vishnu purana, bk. iv., ch. . [ ] dushana was one of ravana's generals; khara was ravana's brother, and was slain by rama. [ ] cf. uttararamacarita, act v. [ ] ekalavya, king of the nishadas, killed by krishna. mbh., i., . [ ] or, curls. [ ] v. harivamça, . [ ] or, with clouds. [ ] she-rhinoceros. [ ] or, rainbows. [ ] ekacakra = (a) a city possessed by vaka; (b) one army, or one quoit. [ ] naga = (a) elephant; (b) snake. [ ] or, Çikhandi, a son of drupada, a friend of the pandavas. [ ] or, mirage. [ ] or, eager for the manasa lake. the vidyadhara was a good or evil genius attending the gods. v. kulluka on manu, xii., . [ ] yojanagandha, mother of vyasa. [ ] or, 'bearing the form of bhima.' he was bhima's son. v. mbh., i., . [ ] (a) crescent moon of Çiva; (b) eyes of peacocks' tails. [ ] hiranyakaçipu. v. harivamça, . [ ] or, an ambitious man surrounded by bards (to sing his praises). [ ] or, loving blood. [ ] nishadas = (a) mountaineers; (b) the highest note of the scale. [ ] (a) had passed many ages; (b) had killed many birds. [ ] or, great wealth. [ ] black. [ ] or, durga. [ ] or, mountain. [ ] (a) magnanimity; (b) great strength. [ ] anabhibhavaniya°. [ ] (a) awakening cry; (b) moral law. [ ] owls are supposed to be descendants of the sage viçvamitra. [ ] as omens. [ ] piçitaçna, a demon, or, according to the commentary here, a tiger. [ ] lit., 'creating a doubt of.' [ ] cf. emerson's essay on experience: 'sleep lingers all our life-time about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir-tree.' [ ] read, Çrama. [ ] lit., 'to have been an extract from.' [ ] sacred to indra, and burnt by agni with the help of arjuna and krishna. [ ] three horizontal lines. [ ] truth in thought, word, and deed. [ ] read, nishpatata. [ ] nilapandu, mottled blue and white. the hindu penance is to be between five fires: four on earth and the sun above. v. manu, vi. . [ ] the sign of a vow. [ ] (a) bark garment; (b) bark of trees. [ ] (a) girdle. v. manu, ii. ; (b) mountain slope. [ ] or, the moon. [ ] or, with. [ ] (a) kripa = compassion; (b) kripa was the teacher of açvatthama, or drauni. [ ] or, virgo, cervus, the pleiads and draco. [ ] (a) having twilight drunk up; (b) having many faults eradicated. [ ] rajas = (a) dust; (b) passion. [ ] in performance of a vow. v. manu, vi. . [ ] or, 'of the demon naraka,' slain by krishna. harivamça­­, . [ ] or, had stars tawny at the junction of night and day. [ ] lit., (a) holding all his passions in firm restraint; (b) having the axle of its wheels firm. [ ] lit., (a) he had a body wasted by secret performance of penance; (b) he brought to nought the enemies' plans of battle by secret counsel and by his army. [ ] or, having caves with whirlpools and the circles of shells oblique. [ ] or, quays. [ ] (a) perhaps pushkara, the place of pilgrimage in ajmere; (b) lotus-grove. [ ] (a) having entrance into great halls; (b) being absorbed in brahma. [ ] or, salvation. [ ] or, inflicted punishment; or, though intent on the sama veda, he was yet a dandi; i.e., an ascetic who despises ritual. [ ] having beautiful matted locks. [ ] (a) having no left eye; (b) having no crooked glances. [ ] r. v., x. . [ ] another kind of bread-tree. [ ] the commentary explains it as 'veda.' [ ] the tridandaka or three staves of the mendicant brahman who has resigned the world. [ ] or, impassioned glances. [ ] (a) moulting; (b) partisanship. [ ] bala = (a) hair; (b) children. [ ] rama, woman. [ ] Çakuni = (a) a bird; (b) duryodhana's uncle. [ ] vayu = (a) wind; (b) breath. [ ] (a) teeth; (b) brahmans. [ ] or, dullness. [ ] or, seeking prosperity. [ ] or, seek enjoyment. [ ] or good fortune. [ ] the garhapatya, dakshina, and ahavaniya fires. [ ] proverbial phrase for clearness. [ ] vishnu purana, vi., ch. , 'the seven solar rays dilate to seven suns, and set the three worlds on fire.' [ ] lit., 'is leader of.' [ ] or, caprice. [ ] vishnu purana, i., . [ ] semi-divine beings dwelling between the earth and the sun. [ ] tara = (a) stars; (b) wife of brihaspati, carried away by the moon. [ ] (a) "wife of the sage vaçishtha; (b) the morning star. [ ] (a) constellation; (b) staff borne during a vow. [ ] (a) constellation; (b) roots for the hermits' food. [ ] or, constellation. [ ] Çiva. [ ] caste. [ ] friends. [ ] i.e., king, minister, and energy. [ ] or, misfortune. [ ] an ordeal. [ ] an ordeal. [ ] (a) clearing of the waters after the rainy season; (b) ordeal of poison. [ ] (a) magic; (b) practice of yoga. [ ] (a) lit., 'tearing out of eyes;' (b) slaughter of the demon taraka by kartikeya. [ ] a star in the scorpion's tail. [ ] seizing of tribute. [ ] or, having his body united. v. dowson, 'classical dictionary.' [ ] having fortresses subdued. [ ] these are teachers of the gods and heroes. [ ] vishnu. [ ] lit., 'firm.' [ ] (a) the gods; (b) love. [ ] four was the number of the oceans and of the arms of narayana. [ ] the divine mothers, or personified energies of the chief deities. [ ] wife of Çukanasa. [ ] summary of pp. - . [ ] or, ananga, name of kama. [ ] since he can only give it the name, not the substance or meaning. kumara = (a) name of kartikeya; (b) prince. [ ] kama. [ ] summary of pp. - . [ ] lit., 'sew him to himself.' [ ] summary of pp. , . [ ] summary of p. . [ ] Çarabha, a fabulous animal supposed to have eight legs, and to dwell in the snowy mountains. [ ] (a) many sins; (b) twilight. [ ] lit., (a) climbs trees; (b) protects parasites. [ ] (a) showing the elevation of many men; (b) rising in stature to the height of many men. [ ] or, arrogance. [ ] or, stupidity. [ ] or, wealth. [ ] or, ill-fortune. [ ] balam = (a) strength; (b) army. laghuma = (a) lightness; (b) triviality. [ ] vigrahavati = (a) having a body; (b) full of strife. [ ] purushottama, i.e., vishnu. [ ] the rainy season sends away the hamsas. [ ] lit., their limbs fail them. [ ] which have a strong scent. [ ] men having throbbing eyes. [ ] (a) a noble man; (b) fire. [ ] or, drink. [ ] or, taxes. [ ] like vishnu. [ ] like Çiva. [ ] lit., 'inlaid.' [ ] or, kesara flowers. [ ] recaka, so commentary. [ ] both trees of paradise. [ ] the quarter of Çatakratu or indra. [ ] all auspicious signs. cakra is (a) a quoit; (b) a cakravaka. [ ] (a) a demon; (b) the heron. [ ] for the love of snakes for the breeze, v. raghuvamça, xiii., , and buddhacarita, i., . snakes are sometimes called vayubaksha. [ ] the following reference to thomas bell's 'history of british quadrupeds' was given by mr. s. b. charlesworth. 'writing about the deer of our parks (p. ) he (bell) quotes playford's "introduction to music" as follows: "travelling some years since, i met on the road near royston a herd of about twenty deer following a bagpipe and violin, which while the music played went forward. when it ceased they all stood still, and in this manner they were brought out of yorkshire to hampton court."' v. supra, pp. , . [ ] meghaduta, . [ ] the dvipas are continents separated from each other by oceans. the Çvetadvipa, or white continent, is, according to weber, suggested by alexandria. v. 'indische studien,' i., ; ii., , . [ ] dvandva, a pair of opposites, as, e.g., pleasure and pain. [ ] (a) brilliant; (b) durga. [ ] summary of p. . [ ] the commentary says: 'a house is whitened to welcome anyone. the face (or mouth) is the dwelling of sarasvati.' [ ] mandara, one of the trees of paradise. [ ] the month june-july. [ ] staff. [ ] (a) a tilaka, or mark of ashes; (b) abundance of tilaka trees white with blossoms. [ ] read kauçalasya. [ ] cf. 'dulce rudimentum meditantis lilia quondam naturæ, cum sese opera ad majora pararet.'--rapin, on the convolvulus. v. hallam, 'hist. of lit.,' pt. iv., ch. v. [ ] vishnu purana, wilson, , vol. ii., p. . [ ] son of kuvera. [ ] the coral tree. [ ] or, virtue. [ ] 'in the arya metre,' in the sanskrit. [ ] manasijanma = (a) born in the manasa lake; (b) born in the mind, i.e., love. muktalata = (a) a white creeper; (b) a pearl necklace. [ ] scilicet, in the day. [ ] turbid with (a) dust; (b) passion. [ ] the vishnu purana, bk. vi., ch. iii., mentions seven suns. [ ] the asterism rohini. [ ] utkalika = (a) wave; (b) longing. [ ] or, hand. [ ] hands. [ ] feet. [ ] hands. [ ] candracandala (lit., 'base-born moon') is intended as an assonance. [ ] purnapatra, a basket of gifts to be scrambled for at a wedding. [ ] i.e., the row of pearls given by mahaçveta. [ ] omit, priyajanaviçvasavacanani. [ ] read, parityakta. [ ] read, antare. [ ] goçirsha, a kind of fragrant sandal. [ ] v. vishnu purana, bk. i., ch. iii. (for the description of brahma's night.) [ ] tatah saindhavako raja kshudras, tata, jayadrathah, varadanena rudrasya sarvan nah samavarayat. ('then the vile sindh kinglet, jayadratha, through the boon conferred by rudra, o my son, kept us all back.')--mahabharata, vii., . [ ] harivamça, . [ ] the cakora, or greek partridge, was said to have its eyes turned red in the presence of poison. [ ] madira, intoxicating, bewitching; so called because her eyes were madirah. [ ] daksha cursed the moon with consumption at the appeal of his forty-nine daughters, the moon's wives, who complained of his special favour to the fiftieth sister. [ ] lit., 'without cause.' [ ] lit., 'going by machinery.' [ ] trees of paradise. [ ] a pun on pida, grief. [ ] a pun on pida, a chaplet. [ ] read irshyam, vyatham, and rosham, as the calcutta edition. [ ] 'all the rasas,' the ten emotions of love, fear, etc., enumerated by writers on rhetoric. [ ] because water was poured out to ratify a gift. [ ] bhashita, literally, 'addressed by'; or read, bhavita, 'entering into the spirit of.' [ ] read nirdakshinyaya. [ ] a bundle of peacock feathers waved by the conjuror to bewilder the audience. [ ] the dark blue of the bees was like the blue veil worn by women going to meet their lovers. [ ] this passage is condensed. [ ] read musho. [ ] i.e., 'relic,' or 'remaining.' [ ] read mahaçvetam. [ ] cf. 'harsha carita' (bombay edition, p. ), 'parameçvarottamangapatadurlalitangam'. [ ] read kumudamayya. [ ] a tree of paradise. [ ] tali, a kind of palm; kandala, a plantain. [ ] or, reading avirala, thick coming. [ ] the vishnu purana, bk. ii., ch. ii., calls mandara the mountain of the east; gandhamadana, of the south; vipula, of the west; and suparçva, of the north. [ ] father of kuvera. [ ] brahma. [ ] a phrase denoting readiness to obey. v. supra, p. . [ ] pouring water into the hand was the confirmation of a gift. v. supra, p. . [ ] transpose iti. [ ] hybiscus mutabilis changes colour thrice a day. [ ] or, at a wrong time. [ ] remove the stop after asyah and candrapidah, and place one after gantum. [ ] 'it is not allowed by her favour to move.' [ ] read suhridapi gantavyam, 'his friend must go.' [ ] or, sampanna, 'full-grown, having fruit and flowers,' according to the commentary. [ ] read khinne. [ ] read prasadanam. [ ] read °janat, etc. [ ] v. supra, p. , where the robes of the chiefs are torn by their ornaments in their hasty movements. [ ] paravaça iva, or, 'with mind enslaved to other thoughts.' [ ] read garigasi. [ ] the jamuna is a common comparison for blue or green. [ ] placing a stop after gaditum instead of after nihçesham. [ ] an allusion to the idea that the açoka would bud when touched by the foot of a beautiful woman. [ ] anubandha, one of the four necessary conditions in writing. (a) subject-matter; (b) purpose; (c) relation between subject treated and its end; (d) competent person to hear it.-- v. 'vedanta sara.,' p. - ; 'vacaspatya dictionary.' [ ] 'manu,' ix., . [ ] i.e., the down on the body rises from joy (a common idea in sanskrit writers), and holds the robe on its points. [ ] read, samdiçanti, and place the stop after svayam instead of after samdiçanti. [ ] i.e., awake a sleeping lion. [ ] or, 'wine.' [ ] bhushanabhatta, after these introductory lines, continues patralekha's account of kadambari's speech, and completes the story. [ ] i.e., patralekha. [ ] literally, 'that forest of creepers, sc. maidens.' [ ] so commentary. [ ] avanti is the province of which ujjayini is the capital. for the divine mothers, v. supra, p. . [ ] v. supra, pp. , , . [ ] a king of the solar race. [ ] v. supra, p. . [ ] read ashtanam api vasunam. [ ] the commentary says 'mother' is said to a daughter-in-law, just as tata, 'father,' is said to a son. [ ] the parrot's own history is now continued from p. . [ ] the commentary explains these as indra, yama, varuna, soma and kuvera. the calcutta translation apparently translates a reading mahabhutani. [ ] as the betrothed of mahaçveta, who was of the moon-race of apsarases. [ ] for gandharva marriage, v. manu., iii. . [ ] cf. m. arnold: 'ah, where the spirit its highest life hath led, all spots, match'd with that spot, are less divine.' [ ] apunarukta, 'without tautology.' [ ] Çiva. [ ] fiends attendant on Çiva. [ ] vide p. . [ ] or, with fishes. [ ] or, light. [ ] literally (a) whose wealth is crores of rupees; (b) in the case of the moon, 'whose essence is in its horns.' [ ] (a) partizanship; (b) cutting of pinions. when the rest of the mountains lost their wings, mainaka escaped. [ ] or, padma, billions. [ ] or, emeralds. [ ] or, rogues. [ ] or, granaries. [ ] or, learned. [ ] or, though full of energy, they fear their enemies. [ ] or, liberal. [ ] v. sahitya-darpana, . [ ] ibid., . [ ] or, offering gifts. [ ] or, containing pine-trees. [ ] or, attentive to women. [ ] brother of rama and bharata. [ ] or, their friends. [ ] or, of the sarvastivadin school (a subdivision of the vaibhashika buddhists). [ ] or, matter and spirit. [ ] or, lotus-hued. [ ] in the case of Çiva, 'loud laughter, bright as nectar.' [ ] it has treasure vaults. [ ] or, keeping its covenants firm. [ ] or, houses whitened with ivory and cowries. [ ] or, having splendid mountains always at hand. [ ] or, false. [ ] or, gold pieces. [ ] (a) demon; (b) golden dice. [ ] or, rogues. [ ] or, the sporting of king bala. [ ] though the free intercourse with women is allowed, it is of irreproachable conduct. [ ] its castes are loved. [ ] vihara (a) without necklaces; (b) having temples. [ ] having many citizens. [ ] then follows: 'there--demons,' p. , l. . [ ] follows p. , l. , 'gay.' [ ] read °kulaih; (a) kings; (b) mountains. [ ] loss of dependencies; or, loss of wings. [ ] or, by the star budha. [ ] or, his body was destroyed. [ ] or, sumitra, wife of daçaratha. [ ] or, by the 'lord of battles,' i.e., kartikeya. [ ] or, was honoured for his patience. [ ] (a) a great family; (b) a great bamboo from which the river is said to rise. [ ] v. supra, p. . [ ] read lavanga. [ ] a monkey chief. [ ] the figures refer to the page and line of the nirnaya-sagara edition of kadambari. [ ] passages marked * are condensed, and only occasional phrases are translated. vedanta philosophy five lectures on reincarnation by swami abhedananda _author of "india and her people", "self-knowledge", "how to be a yogi", "divine heritage of man", etc._ contents i.--reincarnation ii.--heredity and reincarnation iii.--evolution and reincarnation iv.--which is scientific, resurrection or reincarnation? v.--theory of transmigration i. reincarnation the visible phenomena of the universe are bound by the universal law of cause and effect. the effect is visible or perceptible, while the cause is invisible or imperceptible. the falling of an apple from a tree is the effect of a certain invisible force called gravitation. although the force cannot be perceived by the senses, its expression is visible. all perceptible phenomena are but the various expressions of different forces which act as invisible agents upon the subtle and imperceptible forms of matter. these invisible agents or forces together with the imperceptible particles of matter make up the subtle states of the phenomenal universe. when a subtle force becomes objectified, it appears as a gross object. therefore, we can say, that every gross form is an expression of some subtle force acting upon the subtle particles of matter. the minute particles of hydrogen and oxygen when combined by chemical force, appear in the gross form of water. water can never be separated from hydrogen and oxygen, which are its subtle component parts. its existence depends upon that of its component parts, or in other words, upon its subtle form. if the subtle state changes, the gross manifestation will also change. the peculiarity in the gross form of a plant depends upon the peculiar nature of its subtle form, the seed. the peculiar nature of the gross forms in the animal kingdom depends upon the subtle forms which manifest variously in each of the intermediate stages between the microscopic unit of living matter and the highest man. the gross human body is closely related to its subtle body. not only this, but every movement or change in the physical form is caused by the activity and change of the subtle body. if the subtle body be affected or changed a little, the gross body will also be affected similarly. the material body being the expression of the subtle body, its birth, growth, decay and death depend upon the changes of the subtle body. as long as the subtle body remains, it will continue to express itself in a corresponding gross form. now let us understand clearly what we mean by a subtle body. it is nothing but a minute germ of a living substance. it contains the invisible particles of matter which are held together by vital force, and it also possesses mind or thought-force in a potential state, just as the seed of a plant contains in it the life force and the power of growth. according to vedanta, the subtle body consists of _antahkaranam_, that is, the internal organ or the mind substance with its various modifications, mind, intellect, egoism, memory, the five instruments of perception: the powers of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching; the five instruments of action, such as the powers of seizing, moving, speaking, evacuating, and generating, and the five _prânas. prâna_ is a sanskrit word which means vital energy or the life-sustaining power in us. although _prâna_ is one, it takes five different names on account of the five different functions it performs. this word _prâna_ includes the five manifestations of the vital force: first, that power which moves the lungs and draws the atmospheric air from outside into the system. this is also called _prâna_. second, that power which throws out of the system such things as are not wanted. it is called in sanskrit _apâna_. third, it takes the name of _samâna_, as performing digestive functions and carrying the extract of food to every part of the body. it is called _udâna_ when it is the cause of bringing down food from the mouth through the alimentary canal to the stomach, and also when it is the cause of the power of speech. the fifth power of _prâna_ is that which works in every part of the nervous system from head to foot, through every canal, which keeps the shape of the body, preserves it from putrefaction, and gives health and life to every cell and organ. these are the various manifestations of the vital force or _prâna_. these subtle powers together with the non-composite elements of the gross body, or the ethereal particles of subtle matter, and also with the potentialities of all the impressions, ideas and tendencies which each individual gathers in one life, make up his subtle body. as a resultant of all the different actions of mind and body which an individual performs in his present life, will be the tendencies and desires in his future life; nothing will be lost. every action of body or mind which we do, every thought which we think, becomes fine, and is stored up in the form of a _samskâra_ or impression in our minds. it remains latent for some time, and then it rises up in the form of a mental wave and produces new desires. these desires are called in vedanta, _vâsanâs_. vâsanâs or strong desires are the manufacturers of new bodies. if vâsanâ or longing for worldly pleasures and objects remains in anybody, even after hundreds of births, that person will be born again. nothing can prevent the course of strong desires. desires must be fulfilled sooner or later. every voluntary or involuntary action of the body, sense or mind must correspond to the dormant impressions stored up in the subtle body. although growth, the process of nourishment and all the changes of the gross physical body take place according to the necessarily acting causes, yet the whole series of actions, and consequently every individual act, the condition of the body which accomplishes it, nay, the whole process in and through which the body exists, are nothing but the outward expressions of the latent impressions stored up in the subtle body. upon these rests the perfect suitableness of the animal or human body to the animal or human nature of one's impressions. the organs of the senses must therefore completely correspond to the principal desires which are the strongest and most ready to manifest. they are the visible expressions of these desires. if there be no hunger or desire to eat, teeth, throat and bowels will be of no use. if there be no desire for grasping and moving, hands and legs will be useless. similarly it can be shown that the desire for seeing, hearing, etc., has produced the eye, ear, etc. if i have no desire to use my hand, and if i do not use it at all, within a few months it will wither away and die. in india there are some religious fanatics who hold up their arms and do not use them at all; after a few months their arms wither and become stiff and dead. a person who lies on his back for six months loses the power of walking. there are many such instances which prove the injurious effects of the disuse of our limbs and organs. as the human form, generally, corresponds to the human will, generally, so the individual bodily structure corresponds to the character, desires, will and thought of the individual. therefore the outer nature is nothing but the expression of the inner nature. this inner nature of each individual is what re-incarnates or expresses itself successively in various forms, one after another. when a man dies the individual ego or _jîva_ (as it is called in sanskrit), which means the germ of life or the living soul of man, is not destroyed, but it continues to exist in an invisible form. it remains like a permanent thread stringing together the separate lives by the law of cause and effect. the subtle body is like a water-globule which sprang in the beginningless past from the eternal ocean of reality; and it contains the reflection of the unchangeable light of intelligence. as a water-globule remains sometimes in an invisible vapory state in a cloud, then in rain or snow or ice, and again as steam or in mud, but is never destroyed, so the subtle body sometimes remains unmanifested and sometimes expresses itself in gross forms of animal or human beings, according to the desires and tendencies that are ready to manifest. it may go to heaven, that is, to some other planet, or it may be born again on this earth. it depends on the nature and strength of one's life-long tendency and bent of mind. this idea is clearly expressed in vedanta. "the thought, will or desire which is extremely strong during lifetime, will become predominant at the time of death and will mould the inner nature of the dying person. the newly moulded inner nature will express in a new form." (bhagavad gîtâ.) the thought, will or desire which moulds the inner nature has the power of selecting or attracting such conditions or environments as will help it in its way of manifestation. this process corresponds in some respects to the law of "natural selection." we shall be better able to understand that process by studying how the seeds of different trees select from the common environments different materials, and absorb and assimilate different quantities of elements. suppose two seeds, one of an oak and the other of a chestnut, are planted in a pot. the power of growth in both the seeds is of the same nature. the environments, earth, water, heat and light are the same. but still there is some peculiarity in each of the seeds, which will absorb from the common environments different quantities of elements and other properties which are fit to help the growth of the peculiar nature and form of the fruit, flower, leaves of each tree. suppose the chestnut is a horse-chestnut. if, under different conditions, the peculiar nature of the horse-chestnut changes into that of a sweet chestnut, then, along with the changes in the seed, the whole nature of the tree, leaves, fruits will also be changed. it will no more attract, absorb or assimilate those substances and qualities of the environments which it did when it was a horse-chestnut. similarly, through the law of "natural selection" the newly moulded thought-body of the dying person will choose and attract such parts from the common environments as are helpful to its proper expression or manifestation. parents are nothing but the principal parts of the environment of the re-incarnating individual. the newly moulded inner nature or subtle body of the individual will by the law of "natural selection" involuntarily choose, or be unconsciously drawn to, as it were, its suitable parents and will be born of them. as, for instance, if i have a strong desire to become an artist, and if after a life-long struggle i do not succeed in being the greatest, after the death of the body i will be born of such parents and with such environments as will help me to become the best artist. the whole process is expressed in eastern philosophy by the doctrine of the reincarnation of the individual soul. although this doctrine is commonly rejected in the west, it is unreservedly accepted by the vast majority of mankind of the present day, as it was in past centuries. the scientific explanation of this theory we find nowhere except in the writings of the hindus; still we know that from very ancient times it was believed by the philosophers, sages and prophets of different countries. the ancient civilization of egypt was built upon a crude form of the doctrine of reincarnation. herodotus says: "the egyptians propounded the theory that the human soul is imperishable, and that where the body of any one dies it enters into some other creature that may be ready to receive it." pythagoras and his disciples spread it through greece and italy. pythagoras says: "all has soul; all is soul wandering in the organic world, and obeying eternal will or law." in dryden's ovid we read:-- "death has no power the immortal soul to slay, that, when its present body turns to clay, seeks a fresh home, and with unlessened might inspires another frame with life and light." it was the keynote of plato's philosophy. plato says: "soul is older than body. souls are continually born over again into this life." the idea of reincarnation was spread widely in greece and italy by pythagoras, empedocles, plato, virgil and ovid. it was known to the neo-platonists, plotinus and proclus. plotinus says: "the soul leaving the body becomes that power which it has most developed. let us fly then from here below and rise to the intellectual world, that we may not fall into a purely sensible life by allowing ourselves to follow sensible images...." it was the fundamental principle of the religion of the persian magi. alexander the great accepted this idea after coming in contact with the hindu philosophers. julius caesar found that the gauls had some belief regarding the pre-existence of the human soul. the druids of old gaul believed that the souls of men transmigrate into those bodies whose habits and characters they most resemble. celts and britons were impressed with this idea. it was a favorite theme of the arab philosophers and many mahomedan sufis. the jews adopted it after the babylonian captivity. philo of alexandria, who was a contemporary of christ, preached amongst the hebrews the platonic idea of the pre-existence and rebirth of human souls. philo says: "the company of disembodied souls is distributed in various orders. the law of some of them is to enter mortal bodies, and after certain prescribed periods be again set free." john the baptist was according to the jews a second elijah; jesus was believed by many to be the re-appearance of some other prophet. (see matt, xvi, , also xvii, .) solomon says in his book of wisdom: "i was a child of good nature and a good soul came to me, or rather because i was good i came into an undefiled body." the talmud and cabala teach the same thing. in the talmud it is said that abel's soul passed into the body of seth, and then into that of moses. along with the spread of the cabala this doctrine (which was known as transmigration and metempsychosis) "began to take root in judaism and then it gained believers even among men who were little inclined towards mysticism. juda ben asher (asheri) for instance, discussing this doctrine in a letter to his father endeavored to place it upon a philosophical basis." (jewish encyclopedia, vol. xii, p. .) we also read, "the cabalists eagerly adopted the doctrine on account of the vast field it offered to mystic speculations. moreover it was almost a necessary corollary of their psychological system. the absolute condition of the soul is, according to them, its return, after developing all those perfections, the germs of which are eternally implanted in it, to the infinite source from which it emanated. another term of life must therefore be vouchsafed to those souls which have not fulfilled their destiny here below, and have not been sufficiently purified for the state of union with the primordial cause. hence if the soul, on its first assumption of a human body and sojourn on earth, fails to acquire that experience for which it descended from heaven and becomes contaminated by that which is polluting, it must reinhabit a body till it is able to ascend in a purified state through repeated trials." this is the theory of the zohar, which says: "all souls are subject to transmigration; and men do not know the ways of the holy one, blessed be he! they do not know that they are brought before the tribunal both before they enter into this world and after they leave it; they are ignorant of the many transmigrations and secret probations which they have to undergo, and of the number of souls and spirits which enter into this world and which do not return to the palace of the heavenly king. men do not know how the souls revolve like a stone which is thrown from a sling. but the time is at hand when these mysteries will be disclosed." (zohar, ii, _b_.) like many of the church fathers the cabalists used as their main argument in favor of the doctrine of metempsychosis the justice of god. but for the belief in metempsychosis, they maintained, the question why god often permits the wicked to lead a happy life while many righteous are miserable would be unanswerable. then too the infliction of pain upon children would be an act of cruelty unless it is imposed in punishment of sin committed by the soul in a previous state. isaac abravanel sees in the commandment of the levirate a proof of the doctrine of metempsychosis for which he gives the following reasons: ( ) god in his mercy willed that another trial should be given to the soul, which having yielded to the sanguine temperament of the body had committed a capital sin, such as murder, adultery, etc.; ( ) it is only just that when a man dies young a chance should be given to his soul to execute in another body the good deeds which it had not time to perform in the first body; ( ) the soul of the wicked sometimes passes into another body in order to receive its deserved punishment here below instead of in the other world where it would be much more severe. (commentary on deuteronomy, xxv, .) christianity is not exempt from this idea. origen and other church fathers believed in it. origen says: "for god, justly disposing of his creatures according to their desert, united the diversities of minds in one congruous world, that he might, as it were, adorn his mansion (in which ought to be not only vases of gold and silver, but of wood also and clay, and some to honor and some to dishonor) with these diverse vases, minds or souls. to these causes the world owes its diversity, while divine providence disposes each according to his tendency, mind and disposition." he also says: "i think this is a question how it happens that the human mind is influenced now by the good, now by the evil. the causes of this i suspect to be more ancient than this corporeal birth." the idea of reincarnation spread so fast amongst the early christians that justinian was obliged to suppress it by passing a law in the council of constantinople in a.d. the law was this: "whoever shall support the mythical presentation of the pre-existence of the soul, and the consequently wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema." the gnostics and manichaeans propagated the tenets of reincarnation amongst the mediaeval sects such as the bogomiles and paulicians. some of the followers of this so-called erroneous belief were cruelly persecuted in a.d. in the seventeenth century some of the cambridge platonists, as dr. henry more and others, accepted the idea of rebirth. most of the german philosophers of the middle ages and of recent days have advocated and upheld this doctrine. many quotations can be given from the writings of great thinkers, like kant, scotus, schelling, fichte, leibnitz, schopenhauer, giardano bruno, goethe, lessing, herder and a host of others. the great skeptic hume says in his posthumous essay on "the immortality of the soul," "the metempsychosis is therefore the only system of this kind that philosophy can hearken to." scientists like flammarion and huxley have supported this doctrine of reincarnation. professor huxley says: "none but hasty thinkers will reject it on the ground of inherent absurdity. like the doctrine of evolution itself, that of transmigration has its roots in the world of reality." ("evolution and ethics," p. .) some of the theological leaders have preached it. the eminent german theologian dr. julius müller supports this theory in his work on "the christian doctrine of sin." prominent theologians, such as dr. dorner, ernesti, rückert, edward beecher, henry ward beecher, phillips brooks, preached many a time touching the question of the pre-existence and rebirth of the individual soul. swedenborg and emerson maintained it. emerson says in his essay on experience, "we wake and find ourselves on a stair. there are stairs below us which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight." almost all of the poets, ancient or modern, profess it. william wordsworth says in "intimations of immortality:"-- "the soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar." tennyson writes in the "two voices;" "or, if through lower lives i came-- tho' all experience past became, consolidate in mind and frame-- i might forget my weaker lot; for is not our first year forgot? the haunts of memory echo not." walt whitman says in "leaves of grass:" "as to you, life, i reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, no doubt i have died myself ten thousand times before." similar passages can be quoted from almost all the poets of different countries. even amongst the aboriginal tribes of africa, asia, north and south america, traces of this belief in the rebirth of souls is to be found. nearly three-fourths of the population of asia believe in the doctrine of reincarnation, and through it they find a satisfactory explanation of the problem of life. there is no religion which denies the continuity of the individual soul after death. those who do not believe in reincarnation try to explain the world of inequalities and diversities either by the one-birth theory or by the theory of hereditary transmission. neither of these theories, however, is sufficient to explain the inequalities that we meet with in our everyday life. those who believe in the one-birth theory, that we have come here for the first and last time, do not understand that the acquirement of wisdom and experience is the purpose of human life; nor can they explain why children who die young should come into existence and pass away without getting the opportunity to learn anything or what purpose is served by their coming thus for a few days, remaining in utter ignorance and then passing away without gaining anything whatever. the christian dogma, based on the one-birth theory, tells us that the child which dies soon after its birth is sure to be saved and will enjoy eternal life and everlasting happiness in heaven. the christians who really believe in this dogma ought to pray to their heavenly father for the death of their children immediately after their birth and ought to thank the merciful father when the grave closes over their little forms. thus the one-birth theory of christian theology does not remove any difficulty. two great religions, judaism with its two offspring--christianity and mahomedanism--and zoroastrianism, still uphold the one-birth theory. the followers of these, shutting their eyes to the absurdity and unreasonableness of such a theory, believe that human souls are created out of nothing at the time of the birth of their bodies and that they continue to exist throughout eternity either to suffer or to enjoy because of the deeds performed during the short period of their earthly existence. here the question arises why should a man be held responsible throughout eternity for the works which he was forced or predestined to perform by the will of the lord of the universe? the theory of predestination and grace, instead of explaining the difficulty, makes god partial and unjust. if the omnipotent personal god created human souls out of nothing, could he not make all souls equally good and happy? why does he make one to enjoy all the blessings of life and another to suffer all miseries throughout eternity? why is one born with good tendencies and another with evil ones? why is one man virtuous throughout his life and another bestial? why is one born intelligent and another idiotic? if god out of his own will made all these inequalities, or, in other words, if god created one man to suffer and another to enjoy, then how partial and unjust must he be! he must be worse than a tyrant. how can we worship him, how call him just and merciful? some people try to save god from this charge of partiality and injustice by saying that all good things of this universe are the work of god, and all evil things are the work of a demon or satan. god created everything good, but it was satan who brought evil into this world and made everything bad. now let us see how far such a statement is logically correct. good and evil are two relative terms; the existence of one depends upon that of the other. good cannot exist without evil, and evil cannot exist without being related to good. when god created what we call good, he must have created evil at the same time, otherwise he could not create good alone. if the creator of evil, call him by whatever name you like, had brought evil into this world, he must have created it simultaneously with god; otherwise it would have been impossible for god to create good, which can exist only as related to evil. as such they will have to admit that the creators of good and evil sat together at the same time to create this world, which is a mixture of good and evil. consequently, both of them are equally powerful, and limited by each other. therefore neither of them is infinite in powers or omnipotent. so we cannot say that the almighty god of the universe created good alone and not the evil. another argument which the vedantists advance in support of the theory of reincarnation is that "nothing is destroyed in the universe." destruction in the sense of the annihilation of a thing is unknown to the vedantic philosophers, just as it is unknown to the modern scientists. they say "non-existence can never become existence and existence can never become non-existence;" or, in other words, that which did not exist can never exist, and conversely that which exists in any form can never become non-existent. this is the law of nature. as such, the impressions or ideas which we now have, together with the powers which we possess, will not be destroyed but will remain with us in some form or other. our bodies may change, but the powers, karma, samskaras or impressions and the materials which manufactured our bodies must remain in us in an unmanifested form. they will never be destroyed. again science tells us that that which remains in an unmanifested or potential state must at some time or other be manifested in a kinetic or actual form. therefore we shall get other bodies, sooner or later. it is for this reason said in the "bhagavad gîtâ": "birth must be followed by death and death must be followed by birth." such a continuously recurring series of births and deaths each germ of life must go through. another consideration is that the beginning, ending and continuing are conceptions of the human mind; their significance depends entirely upon our conception of time. but we all know that time has no absolute existence. it is merely a form of our knowledge of our own existence in relation to that of nature. the conception of time vanishes at the sleep of death, just as it does every night when we are in sound sleep. death resembles the state of our sound sleep. the soul wakes up from the sleep of death just in the same manner as the insects awake in spring after sleeping the long and rigid winter-sleep, as a chrysalis in the bed of a cocoon spun by itself in autumn. nature teaches us the great lesson of rebirth and the similarity between sleep and death by the rejuvenation of the chrysalis in the spring. after death the soul wakes up and puts on or manufactures the garment of a new body, just in the same manner as we put on new clothes after throwing away the old and worn-out ones. thus the soul continues to manifest itself over and over again either on the human or any other plane of existence, being bound by the law of karma or of cause and sequence. "death, so called, is but older matter dressed in some new form. and in a varied vest, from tenement to tenement though tossed, the soul is still the same, the figure only lost." _poem on pythagoras, dryden's ovid._ here it may be asked, if we existed before our birth why do we not remember? this is one of the strongest objections often raised against the belief in pre-existence. some people deny the existence of the soul in the past simply because they cannot remember the events of their past. others, again, who hold memory as the standard of existence, say, if our memory of the present ceases to exist at the time of death, with it we shall also cease to be; we cannot be immortal; because they hold that memory is the standard of life, and if we do not remember then we are not the same beings. vedanta answers these questions by saying that it is possible for us to remember our previous existences. those who have read "raja yoga" will recall that in the th aphorism of the third chapter it is said: "by perceiving the samskâras one acquires the knowledge of past lives." here the samskâras mean the impressions of the past experience which lie dormant in our subliminal self, and are never lost. memory is nothing but the awakening and rising of latent impressions above the threshold of consciousness. a raja yogi, through powerful concentration upon these dormant impressions of the subconscious mind, can remember all the events of his past lives. there have been many instances in india of yogis who could know not only their own past lives but correctly tell those of others. it is said that buddha remembered five hundred of his previous births. our subliminal self, or the subconscious mind, is the storehouse of all the impressions that we gather through our experiences during our lifetime. they are stored up, pigeon-holed there, in the _chitta_, as it is called in vedanta. "chitta" means the same subconscious mind or subliminal self which is the storehouse of all impressions and experiences. and these impressions remain latent until favorable conditions rouse them and bring them out on the plane of consciousness. here let us take an illustration: in a dark room pictures are thrown on a screen by lantern-slides. the room is absolutely dark. we are looking at the pictures. suppose we open a window and allow the rays of the midday sun to fall upon the screen. would we be able to see those pictures? no. why? because the more powerful flood of light will subdue the light of the lantern and the pictures. but although they are invisible to our eyes we cannot deny their existence on the screen. similarly, the pictures of the events of our previous lives upon the screen of the subliminal self may be invisible to us at present, but they exist there. why are they invisible to us now? because the more powerful light of sense-consciousness has subdued them. if we close the windows and doors of our senses from outside contact and darken the inner chamber of our self, then by focusing the light of consciousness and concentrating the mental rays we shall be able to know and remember our past lives, and all the events and experiences thereof. those who wish therefore to develop their memory and remember their past should practice raja yoga and learn the method of acquiring the power of concentration by shutting the doors and windows of their senses. and that power of concentration must be helped by the power of self-control. that is, by controlling the doors and windows of our own senses. these dormant impressions, whether we remember them or not, are the chief factors in moulding our individual characters with which we are born, and they are the causes of the inequalities and diversities which we find around us. when we study the characters and powers of geniuses and prodigies we cannot deny the pre-existence of the soul. whatever the soul has mastered in a previous life manifests in the present. the memory of particular events is not so important. if we possess the wisdom and knowledge which we gathered in our previous lives, then it matters very little whether or not we remember the particular events, or the struggles which we went through in order to gain that knowledge. those particular things may not come to us in our memory, but we have not lost the wisdom. now, study your own present life and you will see that in this life you have gained some experience. the particular events and the struggles which you went through are passing out of your memory, but the experience, the knowledge which you have gained through that experience, has moulded your character, has shaped you in a different manner. you will not have to go through those different events again to remember; how you acquired that experience is not necessary; the wisdom gained is quite enough. then, again, we find among ourselves persons who are born with some wonderful powers. take, for instance, the power of self-control. one is born with the power of self-control highly developed, and that self-control may not be acquired by another after years of hard struggle. why is there this difference? bhagavan sri ramakrishna was born with god-consciousness, and he went into the highest state of samâdhi when he was four years old; but this state is very difficult for other yogis to acquire. there was a yogi who came to see ramakrishna. he was an old man and possessed wonderful powers, and he said: "i have struggled for forty years to acquire that state which is natural with you." there are many such instances which show that pre-existence is a fact, and that these latent or dormant impressions of previous lives are the chief factors in moulding the individual character without depending upon the memory of the past. because we cannot remember our past, because of the loss of memory of the particular events, the soul's progress is not arrested. the soul will continue to progress further and further, even though the memory may be weak. each individual soul possesses this storehouse of previous experiences in the background, in the subconscious mind. take the instance of two lovers. what is love? it is the attraction between two souls. this love does not die with the death of the body. true love survives death and continues to grow, to become stronger and stronger. eventually it brings the two souls together and makes them one. the theory of pre-existence alone can explain why two souls at first sight know each other and become attached to each other by the tie of friendship. this mutual love will continue to grow and will become stronger, and in the end will bring these lovers together, no matter where they go. therefore, vedanta does not say that the death of the body will end the attraction or the attachment of two souls; but as the souls are immortal so their relation will continue forever. the yogis know how to develop memory and how to read past lives. they say, time and space exist in relation to our present mental condition; if we can rise above this plane, our higher mind sees the past and future just as we see things before our eyes. those who wish to satisfy the idle curiosity of their minds may spend their energy by trying to recollect their past lives. but i think it will be much more helpful to us if we devote our time and energy in moulding our future and in trying to be better than we are now, because the recollection of our former condition would only force us to make a bad use of the present. how unhappy he must be who knows that the wicked deeds of his past life will surely react on him and will bring distress, misery, unhappiness or suffering within a few days or a few months. such a man would be so restless and unhappy that he would not be able to do any work properly; he would constantly think in what form misery would appear to him. he would not be able to eat or even sleep. he would be most miserable. therefore we ought to regard it as a great blessing that we do not recollect our past lives and past deeds. vedanta says, do not waste your valuable time in thinking of your past lives, do not look backward during the tiresome journey through the different stages of evolution, always look forward and try first to attain to the highest point of spiritual development; then if you want to know your past lives you will recollect them all. nothing will remain unknown to you, the knower of the universe. when the all-knowing divine self will manifest through you, time and space will vanish and past and future will be changed into the eternal present. then you will say as sri krishna said to arjuna, in the "bhagavad gita:" "both you and i have passed through many lives; you do not recollect any, but i know them all." (ch. iv., .) ii. heredity and reincarnation. those who accept the theory of heredity deny the existence of the human soul as an entity separable from the gross physical organism. consequently they do not discuss the question whether the individual soul existed in the past or will continue to exist after the death of the body. this kind of question does not disturb their minds. they generally maintain that the individual soul is inseparable from the body or the brain or nervous system; consequently what we call soul or the conscious entity or the thinker is produced along with the birth of the organism or brain, lasts as long as the body lasts and dies when the organism is dissolved into its elements. but those, on the other hand, who accept the theory of reincarnation admit the existence of soul as a conscious entity which is independent of the physical organism, that it continues to live after death and that it existed before the birth of the body. the theory of heredity has always been supported by the materialistic scientists, atheists and agnostics of all ages and also by those who believe in the special creation of the first man and woman at a certain definite time and that their qualities, character, life and soul have been transmitted to all humanity through successive generations. the commonly accepted meaning of the theory of heredity is that all the well-marked peculiarities, both physical and mental, in the parents are handed on to the children; or, in other words, heredity is that property of an organism by which its peculiar nature is transmitted to its descendants. in the whole history of humanity there has never been a time when this question of heredity has been discussed so minutely and in so many different ways as it has been in the present century. although this theory was known in the east by the ancient vedanta philosophers, by the buddhists of the pre-christian era and by the greek philosophers in the west, still it has received a new impetus and has grown with new strength since the introduction of the darwinian theory of the evolution of species. along with the latest discoveries in physiology, biology, embryology and other branches of modern science, the popular simple meaning of heredity--that the offspring not only resemble their parents among animals as well as among men, but inherit all the individual peculiarities, life and character of their parents--has taken the shape of the most complicated and difficult problem which it is almost impossible to solve. our minds are no longer satisfied with haeckel's definition that heredity is simply an overgrowth of the individual, a simple continuity of growth; but we want to know the particular method by which hereditary transmission takes place. we ask, how can a single cell reproduce the whole body of the offspring, its mind, character and all the peculiarities of an organism? out of the myriads of cells of which a body is composed, what kind of cell is that which possesses the power of reproducing the peculiarities, both mental and physical, which are to be found in the form of the new-born babe? this is the most puzzling of all the problems which the scientific mind has ever encountered. the fundamental question connected with the theory of heredity is: how can a single cell of the body contain within itself all the hereditary tendencies of the hypothesis of the continuity of the germ-plasm gives an identical starting-point to each successive generation, and thus explains how it is that an identical product arises from all of them. in other words, the hypothesis explains heredity as part of the underlying problems of assimilation and of the causes which act directly during ontogeny. (vol. i, p. .) according to weismann, all the peculiarities which we find in an organism are not inherited by the organism from that of the parents, but he says: "nothing can arise in an organism unless the predisposition to it is pre-existent, for every acquired character is simply the reaction of the organism upon a certain stimulus." (vol. i, p. .) therefore the germ-cells do not inherit all the peculiarities of the parents, but possess the predisposition or a potentiality of the tendencies which gradually develop into individual characters. we will be able to understand his theory better from the following quotations, which give his own words. he says: "i have called this substance 'germ-plasm,' and have assumed that it possesses a highly complex structure, conferring upon it the power of developing into a complex organism." ("heredity," vol. i, p. .) again he says: "there is, therefore, continuity of the germ-plasm from one generation to another. one might represent the germ-plasm by the metaphor of a long, creeping rootstock from which plants arise at intervals, these latter representing the individuals of successive generations. hence it follows that the transmission of acquired characters is an impossibility, for if the germ-plasm is not formed anew in each individual, but is derived from that which preceded it, its structure, and, above all, its molecular constitution, cannot depend upon the individual in which it happens to occur, but such an individual only forms, as it were, the nutritive soil at the expense of which the germ-plasm grows, while the latter possessed its characteristic structure from the beginning, viz., before the commencement of growth. but the tendencies of heredity, of which the germ-plasm is the bearer, depend upon this very molecular structure, and hence only those characters can be transmitted through successive generations which have been previously inherited, viz., those characters which were potentially contained in the structure of the germ-plasm. it also follows that those other characters which have been acquired by the influence of special external conditions, during the lifetime of the parent, cannot be transmitted at all." (vol. i, p. .) in conclusion, weismann writes: "but at all events we have gained this much, that the only facts which appear to directly prove a transmission of acquired characters have been refuted, and that the only firm foundation on which this hypothesis has been hitherto based has been destroyed."(vol. i, p. .) thus we see how far the theory of heredity has been pushed by the great scientific investigators of the present age. we have no longer any right to believe in the old oft-refuted hypothesis which assumes that each individual organism produces germ-cells afresh again and again and transmits all its powers developed and acquired by the parents; but, on the contrary, we have come to know to-day that parents are nothing but mere channels through which these germ-plasms or germ-cells manifest their peculiar tendencies and powers which existed in them from the very beginning. the main point is that the germs are not created by the parents, but that they existed in previous generations. now, what are those germs like? wherefrom do they acquire these tendencies, these peculiarities? that is another very difficult problem. dr. weismann and his followers say that these peculiarities are gained or inherited "from the common stock," but what that common stock is they do not explain. where is that common stock and why will certain germs acquire certain tendencies and other germs retain other peculiarities? what regulates them? these questions are not solved. so far we have gathered from dr. weismann's explanation that the parents are not the creators of the germs but, on the contrary, that the germs existed before the birth of the body, before the growth of the body, in previous generations, or in the common stock of the universe. the previous generations are dead and gone, so we may say that they existed in the universe. we cannot now believe the old, crude, often-refuted idea that god creates the germ at the time of birth and puts into it all the powers and peculiarities of the parents. this theory makes god unjust and partial, so it does not appeal to us any more. we need better and more rational explanations. the one-birth theory, which has been preached by christian ministers and other religionists for so many years, does not remove the difficulties, does not explain the cause of the inequalities and diversities, does not answer the question whether we acquire all the tendencies and peculiarities of the parents or whether acquired characters cannot be transmitted. we have already seen that these questions are left unsolved by the one-birth theory of christianity and of judaism. but this theory of "continuity of the germ-plasm" pushes the question of heredity to the door of reincarnation. if modern science can explain what that common stock is and why and how these germs retain those peculiarities and tendencies, then the answer will be complete and not until then. the vedanta philosophy, however, has already explained the cause of the potentiality in the germ of life or "germ-plasm" or germ-cell. vedanta solves this difficulty by saying that each of these germ-plasms or germ-cells is nothing but the subtle form of a reincarnating individual, containing potentially all the experiences, characters, tendencies, and desires which one had in one's previous life. it existed before the birth of the body and it will continue after the death of the body. this germ or subtle body is not the same as the astral body of the theosophists, or the double of the metaphysical thinkers or the disembodied spirit of the spiritualists; but it is an ethereal center of activity-physical, mental and organic. it is a center which possesses the tendency to manifest these powers on different planes of existence. it contains the minute particles of matter or ethereal substance and the life principle or vital energy by which we live and move. it also possesses the mental powers and sense powers; but all these remain latent, just as in a seed we see that the powers of growth, of assimilation and of producing flowers and fruits are latent. at the time of death the individual soul contracts and remains in the form of a germ of life. it is for this reason, vedanta teaches, that it is neither the will of god nor the fault of the parents that forms the characters of children, but each child is responsible for its tendencies, capacities, powers and character. it is its own "karma" or past actions that make a child a murderer or a saint, virtuous or sinful. the stored-up potentialities in a subtle body manifest in the character of an individual. the argument advanced by the supporters of the theory of hereditary transmission does not furnish a satisfactory explanation of the cause of the inequalities and diversities of the universe. why is it that the children of the same parents show a marked dissimilarity to their parents and to each other? why do twins develop into dissimilar characters and possess opposite qualities, although they are born of the same parents at the same time and brought up under similar conditions and environments? how can heredity explain such cases? suppose a man has five children; one is honest and saintly, another is an idiot, the third becomes a murderer, the fourth a genius or prodigy, and the fifth a cripple and diseased. who made these dissimilarities? they cannot be accidents. there is no such thing as an accident. every event of the universe is bound by the law of cause and effect. there must be some cause of these inequalities. who made one honest and saintly, another an idiot, and so forth? parents? that cannot be. they never dreamed that they would beget a murderer or a villain or an idiot. on the contrary, all parents wish their children to be the best and happiest. but in spite of such desires they get such children. why? what is the cause? does the theory of heredity explain it? no, not at all. suppose a man, twenty-four years old, who has certain traits, like musical or artistic talents, such as painting and so on, has a crooked nose and other peculiarities, like cross-eyes, which resemble those of his grandfather. suppose his grandfather died six years before he was born. now, those who believe in the theory of heredity will say that this young man inherited all these peculiarities from his grandfather. when did he inherit? his grandfather had died six years before he was born. he inherited, of course, in the form of that germ. what is that germ like? a minute protoplasm, a jelly-like substance, and if you examine it with a powerful microscope you will hardly find any difference between it and the proto-plasmic germ of a dog, or of a cat, or of a tree. it is smaller than a pin's head. and in that state this young man inherited all these peculiarities from his grandfather; or, in other words, before he had a nose, he got a crooked nose; before he had eyes, he inherited cross-eyes, and before he had any brain, he inherited all the wonderful powers-his musical and artistic talents. does it not seem absurd to you? even if we admit this theory of heredity, then what do we understand? that the whole of this young man existed in the form of a protoplasm before he was born. his cross-eyes, his crooked nose, his artistic talents--all these pre-existed in the form of a protoplasmic cell. this leads up to the same thing which is taught by the theory of reincarnation, or, in other words, if it be possible for this young man to remain in the form of a protoplasm and inherit all these things before his birth, why cannot we believe that the soul or the subtle body of this young man possessed them from the very beginning? according to vedanta this young man was not the creature of his grandfather, but he had his own independent existence; only by coming through the channel of his parents he had received certain characteristic impressions, just as a tree in its process of growth will receive from the environments certain peculiarities when it assimilates those properties. the doctrine of reincarnation alone can explain satisfactorily and rationally the diversities among children and the reason of the many instances of uncommon powers and genius displayed in childhood. the theory of heredity has up to this time failed to give any good reason for them. why is it that pascal, when twelve years old, succeeded in discovering for himself the greater part of plane geometry. how could the shepherd mangiamelo, when five years old, calculate like an arithmetical machine. think of the child zerah colburn: when he was under eight years of age he could solve the most tremendous mathematical problems instantly and without using any figures. "in one instance he took the number and raised it up progressively to the sixteenth power and instantly mentioned the result which contained figures-- l, , , , ." of course he was right in every figure. when asked the square root of numbers consisting of six figures, he would state the result instantly with perfect accuracy. he used to give the cube root of numbers in the hundreds of millions the very moment when it was asked. somebody asked him once how many minutes there were in years, he answered, , , . mozart, the great musician, wrote a sonata when he was four years old and an opera in his eighth year. theresa milanolla played the violin with such skill that many people thought that she must have played before her birth. there are many such instances of wonderful powers exhibited by artists and painters when they were quite young. sankarâcharya, the great commentator of the vedanta philosophy, finished his commentary when he was twelve years old. how can such cases be explained by the theory of hereditary transmission? many of you have heard of the wonderful musical talents of blind tom. this blind negro slave was born on his master's plantation and was brought up as a typical negro. he received no training in music or in any other line. one day when his master's family were at dinner he happened to come into his master's parlor and displayed his marvelous musical power for the first time by playing on his master's piano. afterwards he was exhibited in different states of this country. physically he was nothing but a typical negro. his intellect was very poor, but in music he was a master. his musical talents were so great that he composed music for himself and played his own compositions. sometimes after hearing a new piece of rapid music once, he could reproduce it note for note. where did he get all these powers? from whom did he inherit them? his parents perhaps never heard of a piano. he never had a lesson in his life, and he could not have understood even if he had had any. not long ago i saw a girl of about six years, who played the piano most beautifully and who could reproduce the most difficult music after hearing it once. it seems to me that she must have played the piano in her previous incarnation. this is the only explanation that we can give. does heredity explain such cases? no. these illustrations are sufficient to disprove the theory of "cumulative heredity". "cumulative" means gradualness. the believers in this theory say that a genius is the result of cumulative heredity, that is, it presents itself by degrees from less genius to greater and still greater and so on. in the whole history of the genealogy of geniuses, like homer, plato, shakespeare, goethe, raphael, there never was in their families almost plato, almost shakespeare, or almost goethe. neither is it possible to trace the extraordinary powers of any of these back to any member of their ancestral line. therefore we can say that no other theory than that of reincarnation can explain satisfactorily the causes which produce geniuses and prodigies in this world. those who accept the truth of reincarnation do not blame their parents for their poor talents, or for not possessing extraordinary powers, but they remain content with their own lot, knowing that they have made themselves as they are to-day by their own thoughts and deeds in their previous incarnations. they understand the meaning of the saying "what thou sowest thou must reap," and always endeavor to mould their future by better thoughts and better deeds. they explain all the inequalities and diversities of life and character by the law of "karma," which governs the process of reincarnation as well as the gradual evolution of the germs of life from lower to higher stages of existence. iii. evolution and reincarnation. the amazing achievements of modern science have been opening every day new gates of wisdom and slowly bringing human minds nearer and nearer to the ultimate reality of the universe. the fire of knowledge kindled by science has already burnt down many dogmas and beliefs, held sacred by the superstition of the past, which stood in the way of truth-seeking minds. in the first place science has disproved the theory of the creation of the universe out of nothing by the action of some supernatural power. it has shown that the universe did not appear in its present form or come into existence all of a sudden only a few thousand years ago, but that it has taken ages to pass through different stages before it could reach its present condition. each of these stages was directly related to a previous stage by the law of causation, which always operates in accordance with definite rules. the phenomena of the universe, according to science, are subject to evolution, or gradual change and progressive development from a relatively uniform condition to a relative complexity. from the greatest solar system down to the smallest blade of grass, everything in the universe has taken its present shape and form through this cosmic process of evolution. our planet earth has gradually evolved, perhaps out of a nebulous mass which existed at first in a gaseous state. the sun, moon, stars, satellites and other planets have come into existence by going through innumerable changes produced by the evolutionary process of the cosmos. through the same process plants, insects, fishes, reptiles, birds, animals, man, and all living matter that inhabit this earth have evolved from minute germs of life into their present forms. the theory of evolution says that man did not come into existence all of a sudden, but is related to lower animals and to plants, either directly or indirectly. the germ of life had passed through various stages of physical form before it could appear as a man. that branch of science which is called embryology has proved the fact that "man is the epitome of the whole creation." it tells that the human body before its birth passes through all the different stages of the animal kingdom--such as the polyp, fish, reptile, dog, ape, and at last, man. if we remember that nature is always consistent, that her laws are uniform and that whatever exists in the microcosm exists also in the macrocosm, and then study nature, we shall find that all the germs of life which exist in the universe are bound to pass through stages resembling the embryonic types before they can appear in the form of man. in explaining the theory of evolution, science says that there are two principal factors in the process of evolution; the first is the tendency to vary, which exists in all living forms whether vegetable or animal; the second is the tendency of environment to influence that variation, either favorably or unfavorably. without the first, evolution of any kind would be absolutely impossible. but the cause of that innate tendency to vary is still unknown to science. upon the second depends the law of natural selection. the variation must be adapted to favorable conditions of life; consequently either the germ of life will select suitable environments or vary itself in order to suit the surrounding conditions, if they are unfavorable. but the agent of this selective process is the struggle for existence, which is a no less important factor. thus evolution depends on these three laws: tendency to vary, or variation, natural selection, and struggle for existence. science tries to explain through these three laws the physical, mental, intellectual, moral and spiritual evolution of mankind. but the theory of evolution will remain unintelligible until science can trace the cause of that innate "tendency to vary" which exists in every stage of all living forms. if we study closely we find that man's "self" consists of two natures, one animal and the other moral or spiritual. animal nature includes all the animal propensities, desire for sense enjoyments, love of self, fear of death and struggle for existence. each of these is to be found in lower animals as well as in human beings, the difference being only in degree and not in kind. in a savage tribe the expression of this animal nature is simple and natural, while in a highly civilized nation it is expressed not in a simple and straightforward manner, but in an artful and refined way. in a civilized community the same nature working through varied device, policy and plan brings the same results in a more polished form. in the struggle for existence amongst lower animals and savage tribes, those who are physically strong survive and gain advantage over those who are physically weak; while in the civilized world the same result is obtained, not by displaying physical force, but by art, diplomacy, policy, strategy and skill. various kinds of defensive and offensive weapons have been invented to conquer those who are less skillful in using them, although they may be physically stronger. the simple expression of animal nature which we notice in savages and lower animals, by the natural process of evolution has gradually become more and more complex, as we find in the civilized nations of the world. the energy of the lower human nature is spent chiefly in the struggle for material existence. but there is another nature in man which is higher than this. it expresses itself in various ways, but on a higher plane. love of truth, mastery over passion, control of the senses, disinterested self-sacrifice, mercy and kindness to all creatures, desire to help the distressed, forgiveness, faith in a supreme being and devotion; all these are the expressions of that higher moral and spiritual nature. they cannot be explained as developed from animal nature by means of the struggle for material existence. for these qualities are not to be found in lower animals, although the struggle for existence is there. the moral and spiritual nature of human beings cannot be traced as the outgrowth or gradual development of the animal nature. there is a dispute among the evolutionists as to the method of explaining their cause. some say that these higher faculties have evolved out of the lower ones and have developed by variation and natural selection; while others hold that some other higher influence, law or agency is required to account for them. professor huxley says: "as i have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best--what we call goodness or virtue--involves a course of conduct which in all respects is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. in place of ruthless self-assertion, it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside or treading down all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed not so much to the survival of the fittest as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. it repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. it demands that each man who enters into the enjoyment of the advantages of a polity shall be mindful of his debt to those who have laboriously constructed it, and shall take heed that no act of his weakens the fabric in which he has been permitted to live. laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process, and reminding the individual of his duty to the community, to the protection and influence of which he owes, if not existence itself, at least the life of something better than a brutal savage." ("evolution and ethics," pp. - .) prof. calderwood says: "so far as human organism is concerned, there seem no overwhelming obstacles to be encountered by an evolution theory, but it seems impossible under such a theory to account for the appearance of the thinking, self-regulating life distinctly human." thus, according to some of the best thinkers, the explanation of the moral and spiritual nature of man as a development of the animal nature, is quite insufficient and unsatisfactory. the theory of natural selection in the struggle for existence cannot explain the cause of the higher nature of man. we cannot say that a theory is complete because it explains many facts. on the contrary, if it fails to explain a single fact, then it is proved to be incomplete. as such, the theory that cannot explain satisfactorily the cause of the moral and spiritual nature of man cannot be accepted as a complete theory. that explanation will be considered as complete which will explain most satisfactorily all the various manifestations of the animal, moral and spiritual nature. moreover, supposing the "tendency to vary" has evolved into the moral and spiritual nature of man, science does not explain the cause of that tendency to vary, nor how animal nature can be transformed into moral and spiritual nature. is that "tendency to vary" indefinite, or is it limited by any definite law? science does not say anything about it. the explanation of the theologians, that the spiritual nature has been superadded to the animal nature by some extra-cosmic spiritual agency is not scientific, nor does it appeal to our reason. now let us see what vedanta has to say on this point. vedanta accepts evolution and admits the laws of variation and natural selection, but goes a step beyond modern science by explaining the cause of that "tendency to vary." it says, "there is nothing in the end which was not also in the beginning." it is a law which governs the process of evolution as well as the law of causation. if we admit this grand truth of nature, then it will not be difficult to explain by the theory of evolution the gradual manifestation of the higher nature of man. the tendency of scientific monism is towards that end. some of the modern scientists who hold the monistic position have found out the same truth which was discovered long ago by the vedantic philosophers in india. j. arthur thomson, an eminent english scientist of the present day, in his book on "the study of animal life," says: "the world is one, not two-fold-, the spiritual influx is the primal reality and there is nothing in the end which was not also in the beginning." but the evolutionists do not accept this truth. let us understand it clearly. it means that that which existed potentially at the time of the beginning of evolution has gradually manifested in the various stages and grades of evolution. if we admit that a unicellular germ of life or a bioplasm, after passing through various stages of evolution, has ultimately manifested in the form of a highly developed human being, then we shall have to admit the potentiality of all the manifested powers in that germ or bioplasm, because the law is "that which exists in the end existed also in the beginning." the animal nature, higher nature, mind, intellect, spirit, all these exist potentially in the germ of life. if we do not admit this law then the problem will arise: how can non-existence become existent? how can something come out of nothing? how can that come into existence which did not exist before? each germ of life, according to vedanta, possesses infinite potentialities and infinite possibilities. the powers that remain latent have the natural tendency to manifest perfectly and to become actual. in their attempt they vary according to the surrounding environments, selecting suitable conditions or remaining latent as long as circumstances do not favor them. therefore variation, according to vedanta, is caused by this attempt of the potential powers to become actual. when life and mind began to evolve, the possibilities of action and reaction hitherto latent in the germ of life became real and all things became, in a sense, new. nobody can imagine the amount of latent power which a minute germ of life possesses until it expresses in gross form on the physical plane. by seeing the seed of a banyan tree, one who has never seen the tree cannot imagine what powers lie dormant in it. when a baby is born we cannot tell whether he will be a great saint, or a wonderful artist, or a philosopher, or an idiot, or a villain of the worst type. parents know nothing about his future. along with his growth certain latent powers gradually begin to manifest. those which are the strongest and most powerful will overcome others and check their course for some time; but when the powers that remain subdued by stronger ones get favorable conditions they will appear in manifested forms. as, for instance, chemical forces may slumber in matter for a thousand years, but when the contact with the re-agents sets them free, they appear again and produce certain results. for thousands of years galvanism slumbered in copper and zinc, which lay quietly beside silver. as soon as all three are brought together under the required conditions silver is consumed in flame. a dry seed of a plant may preserve the slumbering power of growth through two or three thousand years and then reappear under favorable conditions. sir g. wilkinson, the great archaeologist, found some grains of wheat in a hermetically sealed vase in a grave at thebes, which must have lain there for three thousand years. when mr. pettigrew sowed them they grew into plants. some vegetable roots found in the hands of an egyptian mummy, which must have been at least two thousand years old, were planted in a flower-pot, and they grew and flourished. thus, whenever the latent powers get favorable conditions, they manifest according to their nature, even after thousands of years. similarly, there are many instances of slumbering mental powers. after remaining dormant for a long period in our normal condition, they may, in certain abnormal states--such as madness, delirium, catalepsy, hypnotic sleep and so forth-flash out into luminous consciousness and throw into absolute oblivion the powers that are manifesting in the normal state. talents for eloquence, music, painting, and uncommon ingenuity in several mechanical arts, traces of which were never found in the ordinary normal condition, are often evolved in the state of madness. somnambulists in deep sleep have solved most difficult mathematical problems and performed various acts with results which have surprised them in their normal waking states. thus we can understand that each individual mind is the storehouse of many powers, various impressions and ideas, some of which manifest in our normal state, while others remain latent. our present condition of mind and body is nothing but the manifested form of certain dormant powers that exist in ourselves. if new powers are roused up and begin to manifest the whole nature will be changed into a new form. the manifestation of latent powers is at the bottom of the evolution of one species into another. this idea has been expressed in a few words by patanjali, the great hindu evolutionist who lived long before the christian era. [footnote: the reader ought to know that the doctrine of evolution was known in india long before the christian era. about the seventh century, b. c., kapila, the father of hindu evolutionists, explained this theory for the first time through logic and science. sir monier monier williams says: "indeed if i may be allowed the anachronism, the hindus were spinozites more than , years before the existence of spinoza; and darwinians many centuries before darwin; and evolutionists many centuries before the doctrine of evolution had been accepted by the scientists of our time and before any word like evolution existed in any language of the world." (p. , "hinduism and brahminism.") prof. huxley says: "to say nothing of indian sages to whom evolution was a familiar notion ages before paul of tarsus was born." (p. , "science and hebrew tradition.")] in the second aphorism of the fourth chapter (see "raja yoga," by swami vivekananda, p. ) it is said, "the evolution into another species is caused by the in-filling of nature." the nature is filled not from without but from within. nothing is superadded to the individual soul from outside. the germs are already there, but their development depends upon their coming in contact with the necessary conditions requisite for proper manifestation. we sometimes see a wicked man suddenly become saintlike. there are instances of murderers and robbers becoming saints. a religionist will explain the cause of their sudden change, by saying that the grace of the almighty has fallen upon them and transformed their whole nature. but vedanta says that the moral and spiritual powers that remained latent in them have been roused up, and the result is the sudden transformation. none can tell when or how the slumbering powers will wake up and begin to manifest. the germ of life, or the individual soul as it is ordinarily called, possesses infinite possibilities. each germ of life is studying, as it were, the book of its own nature by unfolding one page after another. when it has gone through all the pages, or, in other words, all the stages of evolution, perfect knowledge is acquired, and its course is finished. we have read our lower nature by turning each page, or, in other words, by passing through each stage of animal life from the minutest bioplasm up to the present stage of existence. now we are studying the pages which deal with moral and spiritual laws. if any one wants to read any page over again he will do it. just as in reading a book, if anybody feels particularly interested in any page or chapter he will read it over and over again and will not open a new page or a new chapter until he is perfectly satisfied with it. similarly, in reading the book of life, if the individual soul likes any particular stage, he will stay there until he is perfectly satisfied with it; after that he will go forward and study other pages. one may read very slowly, and another very fast; but whether we read slowly or rapidly each one of us is bound to read the whole book of nature and attain to perfection sooner or later. according to vedanta, the end and aim of evolution is the attainment of perfection. physical evolution of animal life reached its perfection in human form. there cannot be any other form higher than human on this earth under present conditions. it is the perfection of animal form. from this we can infer that the tendency of the law of evolution is to reach perfection. when it is attained to, the whole purpose is served. do we see in nature any other higher form evolved out of the human body? no. shall we not be justified if we say that the end of physical evolution is the attainment of the perfection of animal form? again as the purpose and method of natural laws are uniform throughout the universe, the end of intellectual, moral and spiritual evolution will be attained when intellectual, moral and spiritual perfection are acquired. intellectual perfection means perfection of intellect; and intellect is perfect when we understand the true nature of things and never mistake the unreal for the real, matter for spirit, non-eternal for eternal, or _vice versa_. moral perfection consists in the destruction of selfishness; and spiritual perfection is the manifestation of the true nature of spirit which is immortal, free, divine and one with the universal spirit or god. evolution attains to the highest fulfilment of its purpose when the spirit manifests perfectly. the tendency of nature is to have perfect manifestation of all her powers. when certain powers predominate they manifest first while the others remain dormant. as we find in the process of evolution, when animal nature manifests perfectly the moral and spiritual nature remain latent. again when moral and spiritual nature manifest fully, the animal is in abeyance. it is for this reason we do not find expressions of moral and spiritual nature in lower animals or in those human beings who live like them. man is the only animal in whom such perfect expressions of moral and spiritual nature are possible. when the individual soul begins to study its spiritual nature, its lower or animal nature is gradually eclipsed. as the higher nature becomes powerful the lower nature dwindles into insignificance; its energy is transformed into that of the higher nature, and ultimately it disappears altogether and rises no more. then the soul becomes free from the lower or animal nature. there are many stages in the higher nature, as well as in the lower. each of these stages binds the individual soul so long as it stays there. as it rises on a higher plane the lower stages disappear and cease to bind. but the moment that any individual, after passing through all the stages of the spiritual nature, reaches the ultimate point of perfection, he realizes his true nature which is immortal and divine. then his true individuality manifests. for lack of true knowledge, he identified himself with each stage successively and thought that his individuality was one with the powers which were manifested in each stage. consequently he thought by mistake that he was affected by the changes of each stage. but now he realizes that his real individuality always remained unaffected. he sees that his true individuality shines always in the same manner, although the limiting adjuncts may vary. as the light of a lamp appears of different colors, if it passes through glasses of different colors, so the light of the true individual appears as animal or human when it passes through the animal or human nature of the subtle body. the subtle body of an individual changes from animal nature through moral and spiritual into divine. as this gradual growth cannot be expected in one life we shall have to admit the truth of reincarnation, which teaches gradual evolution of the germ of life or the individual soul through many lives and various forms. otherwise the theory of evolution will remain imperfect, incomplete and purposeless. the doctrine of reincarnation differs from the accepted theory of evolution in admitting a gradual but continuous evolution of the subtle body through many gross forms. the gross body may appear or disappear, but the subtle body continues to exist even after the dissolution of the gross body and re-manifests itself in some other form. the theory of reincarnation when properly understood will appear as a supplement to the theory of evolution. without this most important supplement the evolution theory will never be complete and perfect. evolution explains the process of life, while reincarnation explains the purpose of life. therefore, both must go hand in hand to make the explanation satisfactory in every respect. james freeman clarke says: "that man has come up to his present state of development by passing through lower forms, is the popular doctrine of science to-day. what is called evolution teaches that we have reached our present state by a very long and gradual ascent from the lowest animal organizations. it is true that the darwinian theory takes no notice of the evolution of the soul, but only of the body. but it appears to me that a combination of the two views would remove many difficulties which still attach to the theory of natural selection and the survival of the fittest. if we are to believe in evolution let us have the assistance of the soul itself in this development of new species. thus science and philosophy will co-operate, nor will poetry hesitate to lend her aid." (p. , "ten great religions," ii.) evolution of the body depends upon the evolution of the germ of life or the individual soul. when these two are combined the explanation becomes perfect. the theory of reincarnation is a logical necessity for the completion of the theory of evolution. if we admit a continuous evolution of a unit of the germ of life through many gross manifestations then we unconsciously accept the teachings of the doctrine of reincarnation. in passing through different forms and manifestations the unit of life does not lose its identity or individuality. as an atom does not lose its identity or individuality (if you allow me to suppose an atom has a kind of individuality) although it passes from the mineral, through the vegetable, into the animal, so the germ of life always preserves its identity or individuality although it passes through the different stages of evolution. therefore it is said in the "bhagavad gîtâ," as in our ordinary life the individual soul passes from a baby body to a young one and from a young to an old, and carries with it all the impressions, ideas and experience that it has gathered in its former stage of existence and reproduces them in proper time, so when a man dies the individual soul passes from an old body into a new one, and takes with it the subtle body wherein are stored up all that it experienced and gathered during its past incarnations. knowing this, wise men are never afraid of death. they know that death is nothing but a mere change from one body into another. therefore, if any one does not succeed in conquering the lower nature by the higher, he will try again in his next incarnation, after starting from the point which he reached in his past life. he will not begin again from the very beginning, but from the last stage at which he arrived. thus we see that reincarnation is the logical sequence of evolution. it completes and makes perfect that theory and explains the cause of the moral and spiritual nature of man. iv. which is scientific--resurrection or reincarnation? the students of history are interested to know where the idea of resurrection first arose and how it was adopted by other nations. if we read carefully the writings ascribed to moses and other writers of the old testament we find that the ancient israelites did not believe in the christian heaven or hell, nor in reward or punishment after death. it is doubtful whether they had any clear conception of the existence of soul after the dissolution of the human body. they had no definite idea of the hereafter. they did not believe in the resurrection either of the soul or body. job longed for death thinking that it would end his mental agony. in psalms we read, "wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee?" (ps. lxxxviii, .) "in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" (ps. vi, .) again (ps. cxlvi, ) it is said about princes and the son of man,--"his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish." "the dead praise not the lord, neither any that go down into silence." (ps. cxv, .) solomon speaks boldly: "all things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good and to the clean and to the unclean... as is the good, so is the sinner." (eccl. ix, .) "go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart.... live joyfully with thy wife... for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest." (eccl. ix, , , .) again in verse it is said: "the dead know not anything, neither have they anymore a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten." solomon says: "for that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast." "all go into one place; all are of the dust and all turn to dust again." "who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" (eccl. iii, - .) there are many such passages which show clearly that before the babylonian captivity the israelites had no belief in reward or punishment, neither in heaven nor hell nor in the resurrection of the soul. some say that they had a belief in a sheol or pit where departed souls remained after death, but were never resurrected. but when the ancient jews were conquered by the persians, b.c., they came in contact with a nation which had developed a belief in one god, in a heaven and a hell, in the resurrection of the dead, in reward and punishment after death, and in the last day of judgment. under the dominion of persia, whose rule began with the capture of babylon and lasted from - b.c., the jews were greatly influenced by the persian religion. they gave up their idolatry, gradually developed social organization and had considerable liberty. about that time the jews were divided into two classes, the pharisees and sadducees. those who adopted the religious ideas of the parsees were called pharisees (according to some authorities the word pharisee was the hebrew form of parsee), and those who followed strictly the jewish ideas, ceremonies, rituals and beliefs were called sadducees. the former were sharply opposed to the latter in their doctrinal beliefs. they believed in angels and spirits, they expected the resurrection of the dead and believed in future reward and punishment and also in divine pre-ordination. the sadducees did not step beyond the bounds of ancient judaism. they were orthodox and very conservative in their views. they denied the existence of angels and spirits, the resurrection of the dead, and reward and punishment after death. in matt, xxii, , we read, "the same day came to him the sadducees which say that there is no resurrection." the sadducees were fewer in number than the pharisees. gradually the latter grew very powerful and after the death of jesus their doctrines of the resurrection of the dead, and of reward and punishment after death, and the belief in angels and spirits, became the cardinal principles of the new christian sect. thus we see that the idea of resurrection first arose in persia and afterwards took a prominent place in the writings of the new testament, and since then it has been largely accepted by the christians of the western countries. the zoroastrians believed that the soul of the dead hovers about the body for three nights and does not depart for the other world until the dawn after the third night. then the righteous go to heaven and the wicked to hell. there the wicked remain until the time of renovation of the universe, that is, the judgment day. after the renovation, when ahriman or satan is killed, the souls of the wicked will be purified and have everlasting progress. [footnote: "sacred books of the east," vol. xvii, pp. , , .] the question was asked, "how shall they produce resurrection?" ahura mazda says: "the reply is this, that the preparation and production of the resurrection are an achievement connected with miracle, a sublimity, and afterwards also a wondrous appearance unto the creatures uninformed. the secrets and affairs of the persistent creator are like every mystery and secret." [footnote: _ibid_., p. .] the zoroastrians believed in the resurrection, not of the physical body, but of the soul, and that it was an act of miracle. similarly miraculous was the resurrection of jesus. although jesus himself never mentioned what kind of resurrection, whether of body or of soul that he meant and believed in, the interpretation of the writers of the gospels shows that his disciples understood him to mean bodily resurrection and the re-appearance of his physical form. the three days remained, just as the zoroastrians believed. the miraculous and wondrous appearance of jesus before his disciples was preached most vigorously by paul. in his epistle to the corinthians, paul declares emphatically that the whole of the christian religion depends upon the miraculous resurrection and re-appearance of jesus. although paul said the spiritual body of the risen dead is not the same as flesh and blood body (i cor., xv), still that important point is generally overlooked, and the result is the belief which we find amongst some of the christian sects; that at the call of the angels, the body will rise from the grave and the mouldering dust of bones and flesh will be put together by the miraculous power of the almighty god. paul says: "but now is christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept" (i cor., xv, ). he preached that christ was the first born from the dead, that those who believe in christ would rise as he did and that those who would not believe in him or in his resurrection should not rise. we have already noticed that the parsees believed in a miraculous resurrection; that the same miracle became more definite in the case of jesus; and that the christian faith was afterwards founded upon that miraculous event. both the parsees and the followers of christ did not mean by resurrection any universal law, but a miracle done by certain supernatural powers. they did not give any scientific reasons for such a miracle. but modern science denies miracles. it teaches that this universe is guided, not by miracles as the old thinkers used to believe, but by definite laws which are always consistent and universal. there cannot be any exception to those laws which are uniform throughout. if resurrection be one of those laws, then it must have existed before the birth of jesus; as such, how could he be the first born from the dead, as described by paul. conversely, if jesus was the first who rose from the dead, then resurrection cannot be a universal law. scientists would not believe in anything which is not based upon universal laws. some of the agnostics and materialists have gone so far as to say that jesus did not die on the cross, but his animation was suspended when his body was taken down from the cross by joseph of arimathsea. when joseph went to pilate and craved the body of jesus, pilate marvelled if he were dead (mark xv, ), because it was only six hours after the crucifixion. some of the modern physiologists are of opinion that temperate and strong men might live for several days on the cross. these heretical agnostics and skeptical scientists say that the body of jesus revived after a few hours in the cool, rock-cut tomb, that he walked out of the tomb, went to galilee and appeared before his disciples. [footnote: vide "science and christian tradition," by prof. huxley, pp. - .] whatever the facts may be (nobody can now tell exactly what actually happened), it is clear that the scientists are not ready to take anything upon authority. they do not care to believe in anything because it is written in this book or that. they must have convincing proofs and a rational explanation of every phenomenon of nature. they want to penetrate into miracles in order to discover the universal laws that govern them. if they do not find any such laws, they will surely reject every event that is supposed to be caused by miraculous or supernatural powers. the theory of a miraculous resurrection is attended with the belief that the individual soul does not exist before birth. the supporters of this theory hold that at the time of birth, the individual, being created out of nothing, comes fresh into existence. but science tells us that sudden creation out of nothing and a total destruction of anything are both impossible. matter and force are indestructible. science teaches evolution and not creation, and denies the intervention of any supernatural being as the cause of phenomenal changes. the theory of resurrection ignores all these ultimate conclusions of modern science. on the contrary, the doctrine of reincarnation, after accepting all the truths and laws of nature that have been discovered by modern science, carries them to their proper logical conclusions. reincarnation is based upon evolution. it means a continuous evolution of an individual germ of life, and a gradual re-manifestation of all the powers and forces that exist in it potentially. moreover, the doctrine of reincarnation is founded on the law of cause and effect. it teaches that the cause is not outside of the effect, but lies in the effect. the cause is the potential or unmanifested state of the effect, and effect is the actual or manifested cause. there is one current of infinite force or power constantly flowing in the ocean of reality of the universe, and appearing in the innumerable forms of waves. we call one set of waves the cause of another set, but in fact that which is the cause is the potentiality of the future effect and the actuality of a previous potential cause. the underlying current is one and the same throughout. reincarnation denies the idea that the soul has come into existence all of a sudden or has been created for the first time, but it holds that it has been existing from the beginningless past, and will exist all through eternity. the individual soul enjoys or suffers according to the acts it performs. all enjoyment and suffering are but the reactions of our actions. actions are the causes and the reactions are the results. our present life is the result of our past actions, and our future will be the result of the present. the actions which we are now doing will not be lost. do you think that the thought-forces of one life-time will end suddenly after death? no. they will be conserved and remain potentially in the center and re-manifest under suitable conditions. each human soul is nothing but a center of thought-force. this center is called in sanskrit _sûkshma sarîra_ or the subtle body of an individual. the subtle germ of life or, in other words, the invisible center of thought-forces, will manufacture a physical vehicle for expressing the latent powers that are ready for manifestation. this process will continue until the germ can express most perfectly all the powers that are coiled up in its invisible form. as the doctrine of reincarnation is in agreement with all the physical laws, so it is based upon psychical, moral and ethical laws. as on the objective plane the law of action and reaction governs the objective phenomena, so on the subjective plane of consciousness, if the mental action or thought be good, the reaction will be good, and the reaction will be evil if the mental action be evil, because every action produces a similar reaction, a good reaction is one which makes us happy and brings pleasant sensations or peace of mind, while an evil reaction brings suffering, unpleasant sensations, and makes one miserable. thus reincarnation makes us free agents for action, as well as for reaping the results or reactions of those actions. in fact, we mould our own nature, according to our desires, tendencies and works. the theory of resurrection, as commonly understood, does not explain why one man is born with a sinful nature and another with a virtuous one. it contents itself with saying as luther said: "man is a beast of burden who only moves as his rider orders; sometimes god rides him and sometimes satan." but why god should allow satan to ride his own creature nobody can tell. at any rate, man must suffer eternally for the crimes which he is forced by satan to commit. moreover this theory pre-supposes predestination and that the individual soul is fore-doomed to go either to heaven or to hell. st. augustine first started this doctrine of predestination and grace to explain why one is born sinful and another sinless. according to this theory, god, the merciful, favors somebody with his grace at the time of his birth and then he comes into this world ready to be saved, but the mass of humanity is born sinful and destined for eternal damnation. very few indeed receive the gift of grace and are predestined to be saved. moreover, this doctrine tells us that god creates man out of nothing, forbids him something, but at the same time he does not give him the power to obey his commands. ultimately god punishes him with eternal torture on account of his weakness. the body and soul will not be separated. he will not be set free from his body, because, if it be so, there will be the end of his suffering, which god does not like. all these sufferings and punishments are predestined before his birth. thus, st. augustine's dogma of predestination and grace instead of explaining the difficulty satisfactorily brings horror and dread to human minds, while the doctrine of reincarnation teaches gradual progress from lower to higher, through ages until the individual reaches perfection. it holds that each individual will become perfect like jesus or buddha or like the father in heaven and manifest divinity either in this life or in some other. one span of life is too short for developing one's powers to perfection. if you should try to train an idiot to become a great artist or a philosopher, would you ever succeed in your attempt to make him so during his lifetime? no. and will you punish him because he cannot become so? can a man who possesses the slightest common sense be so unreasonable? similarly what would you think if god punishes a man because he cannot become perfect within a lifetime? it is a poor argument to say that god has given us free-will to choose between right and wrong, and we are responsible for our choice; if we choose wrongly we must be punished. the advocates of such an argument forget that at the same time god has let loose his powerful satan to corrupt his creatures. it reminds me of an old story. once on a time at a certain place a prisoner was released and set free through the kindness of a tyrant. the tyrant said to the prisoner "look here, wicked man, i give you freedom, you can go to any place; but there is one condition; if you are attacked by any wild animal you will be put in the dungeon and there will be no end to your torture." so saying he gave him freedom, but at the same time ordered his servants to let loose a hungry wolf to chase the man. you can imagine what became of the prisoner. can we call this an act of mercy! the doctrine of reincarnation says that each individual soul is potentially perfect and is gradually unfolding its powers and making them actual through the process of evolution. at every step of that process it is gaining different experiences which last only for a time. therefore neither god nor satan is responsible for our good or evil actions. good and evil are like the up and down or the crest and hollow of a wave in the sea. a wave cannot rise without making a hollow somewhere in the sea. so in the infinite ocean of reality innumerable waves are constantly rising. the summit of each wave is called good, while the hollow beside it is evil or misery and the current of each individual life is constantly flowing towards the ultimate destination which we call perfection. who can tell how long it will take to reach that goal? if anybody can attain to perfection in this life, he is no longer bound to reincarnate. if he fails he will continue to progress by taking some other body. reincarnation does not teach, as many people think, that in the next incarnation one will begin from the very beginning, but it says that one will start from that point which one reaches before death and will keep the thread of progress unbroken. it does not teach that we go back to animal bodies after death, but that we get our bodies according to our desires, tendencies and powers. if any person has no desire to come back to this world or to any other and does not want to enjoy any particular object of pleasure, and if he is perfectly free from selfishness that person will not have to come back. the theory of reincarnation is logical and satisfactory. while the theory of resurrection is neither based on scientific truths nor can it logically explain the cause of life and death, reincarnation solves all the problems of life and explains scientifically all the questions and doubts that arise in the human mind. "reincarnation is not easily understood by a thoughtless child deluded by the delusion of wealth, name or fame. everything ends with death, he thinks, and thus falls again and again under the sway of death." v. theory of transmigration. the theory of transmigration is one of the oldest theories accepted by the people of the orient to solve the problems concerning life and death as well as to explain the continuity of existence after death. this theory presupposes the existence of the soul as an entity which can live even when the gross material body is dead or dissolved into its elements. those who deny the existence of the soul, of the self-conscious thinker and actor, as an entity distinct from the gross material body, necessarily deny this theory of transmigration. the materialistic thinkers of all ages have refused to accept this theory, because they do not admit the existence of a soul or a self-conscious thinker and actor as an entity, separate from the gross material body. consequently they do not ask or discuss whether the soul will exist after death or not, whether it will continue to live or not. such materialists are not the creatures of the twentieth century, but they have lived in all ages, in all countries. in india and in other civilized countries of ancient times you will find that materialistic thinkers prevailed and they gave the same arguments which we hear now from the agnostics and scientists of to-day. their arguments are generally one-sided and unsatisfactory. they try to deduce the soul or self-conscious entity from the combination of matter or material forces, but they have not succeeded in giving a scientific proof of it. no arguments in favor of the existence of a soul as an entity will convince them, because they deny the existence of anything that cannot be perceived by sense powers. if we could bring the soul down on the sense plane and make it visible to these materialistic thinkers, and if they could make experiments upon it, then perhaps they would be convinced to a certain extent, but not until then. but how can we bring the soul down on the sense plane when it is ethereal and finer than anything that we can perceive with our senses? those who try to explain the cause of our earthly life by the theory of heredity do not believe in the truth of transmigration. the modern scientists, agnostics and materialists generally accept the theory of heredity and endeavor to explain everything by it; but if we examine their arguments for the theory of heredity, we shall find that the theory of transmigration is much more satisfactory, much more rational than that of heredity. among the followers of the great religions of the world, the majority of christians, jews, mohammedans and parsees deny the truth of transmigration. of course, there was a time when the christians believed in this transmigration theory. origen and other church fathers accepted it until the time of justinian, who anathematized all those who believed in reincarnation or the pre-existence of the soul. among the jews we find that in the cabala this idea of transmigration plays the most important part. in fact the cabalists accepted this theory to explain all the difficulties that could not be explained by any other theory. but those jews, christians, mohammedans and parsees who do not believe in the theory of transmigration accept the one-birth theory; that is, that god creates the souls at the time of birth out of nothing, and these souls, having come into existence out of nothing, continue to live forever; that this is our first and last birth that we receive; we did not exist before, we are suddenly created by god, and after death each one of us will continue to live either in heaven or hell to enjoy or to suffer throughout eternity. among the modern spiritualists we find that those who are born and brought up with this idea of one birth do not accept the theory of transmigration. still there are millions and millions of people all over the world who do believe in transmigration and who have found comfort and consolation in their lives as well as a satisfactory solution of the problems of life and death. the theory of transmigration, or metempsychosis, as it has been called by many philosophers, originally meant the passing of a soul from one body after death into another; or, in other words, it meant that the soul after dwelling in one particular body for a certain length of time leaves it at the time of death, and in order to gain experience enters into some other body, either human, animal or angelic, which is ready to receive it. it may migrate from the human body to an angelic body and then come down on the human plane, or to the animal plane and be born again as an animal. so the original meaning of transmigration or metempsychosis was the revolution of the soul from body to body whether animal, human, angelic or of the gods. the migrating substance being a fixed quantity, with fixed qualities, chooses its form according to its taste, desire and bent of character. this idea prevailed among the ancient egyptians, according to whom the soul, after leaving the dead body, would travel from one body to another for thousands and thousands of years in order to gain experiences in each of the different stages of life. among the greek philosophers we find that pythagoras, plato and their followers believed in this theory of metempsychosis or transmigration of souls. pythagoras says: "after death the rational mind, having been freed from the chains of the body, assumes an ethereal vehicle and passes into the region of the dead where it remains till it is sent back to this world to inhabit some other body human or animal. after undergoing successive purgations, when it is sufficiently purified, it is received among the gods and returns to the eternal source from which it first proceeded." plato also believed in this theory. of course we cannot tell exactly from whence pythagoras and plato got these ideas. some say that they learned these doctrines from egypt; others believed that, either directly or indirectly, they learned the theory of transmigration from india. plato describes in "phaedrus," in mythological language, why and how the souls take their birth upon this plane, either as human or animal. he says: "in the heaven zeus, the father and lord of all creatures, drives his winged car, ordering all things and superintending them. a host of deities and spirits follow him, each fulfilling his own function. whoever will and can follows them. after taking this round, they advance by a steep course along the inner circumference of the heavenly vault and proceed to a banquet. the chariots of the gods, being well balanced and well driven, advance easily; others with difficulty; for the vicious horse, unless the charioteer has thoroughly broken him, weighs down the car by his proclivity towards the earth, whereupon the soul is put to the extremity of toil and effort. the souls of gods reach the summit, go outside and stand upon the surface of heaven, and enjoy celestial bliss. such is the life of the gods; other souls which follow god best and are likest to him succeed in seeing the vision of truth and in entering into the outer world with great difficulty. the rest of the souls longing after the upper world all follow; but not being strong enough, they are carried round in the deep below, plunging, treading on one another, striving to be first, and there, in confusion and extremity of effort, many of them are lamed and have their wings broken. thus when the soul is unable to follow and fails to behold the vision of truth, sinks beneath the double load of forgetfulness and vice, her feathers fall from her and she drops to earth and is born again and again as human beings or as animals." plato says: "ten thousand years must elapse before the soul can return to the place from whence she came, for she cannot grow her wings in less." "at the end of the first thousand years, the souls of the good and of the evil kind come together to draw lots, and choose their bodies according to their tendencies and the bent of their characters. they may take any they like. instead of receiving the natural consequences of their deeds and misdeeds of their previous lives they are allowed to choose their own lot, according to their experience and bent of character. some, being disgusted with mankind, prefer to be born as animals, such as lions and eagles or some other animals. others delight in trying their luck as human beings." from this mythological description we gather what plato meant by transmigration. this platonic idea of transmigration or of successive lives of those who inhabit this earth has been criticized by various thinkers of modern times; and referring to this idea the late doctor myers, of the psychical research society of london, writes in his second volume of "human personality": "the simple fact that such was probably the opinion of both plato and virgil shows that there is nothing here which is alien to the best reason or to the highest instincts of men. nor, indeed, is it easy to realize any theory of the _direct creation_ of spirits at such different stages of advancement as those which enter upon the earth in the guise of mortal man. there _must_, one feels, be some kind of continuity--some form of spiritual past." (p. .) why does he not create all souls equal? why will one soul be highly advanced spiritually while another is entirely ignorant and idiotic? this question cannot be answered, this problem cannot be solved by the special creation theory, and therefore doctor myers says that there is no doubt that there was some previous continuity or spiritual past of each individual soul, and therefore he tacitly admits the theory of transmigration. although from a scientific viewpoint he could not give any direct proof regarding this idea of a pre-existence of the soul, still he could not deny it entirely when he said: "the shaping forces which have made our bodies and our minds what they are may always have been psychical forces--from the first living slime-speck to the complex intelligences of to-day." "the old transmigrationist's view would thus possess a share of truth and the actual man would be the resultant not only of intermingling heredities on father's and mother's sides, but of intermingling heredities, one of planetary and one of cosmic scope." ("human personality," vol. ii, p. .) but this theory of transmigration, as described by plato, is a little different from a similar theory which existed in india before his time. in the platonic idea of transmigration, as we have already seen, the souls were allowed to choose their own lot according to their experience or bent of character, but not to receive the natural consequence of their deeds and misdeeds. plato did not say anything about the law which governs souls; but in ancient india the great thinkers and philosophers explained that each individual soul is bound by the inexorable law of nature to receive its body as a natural consequence of its former deeds and misdeeds, and not to have free choice of its lot according to its bent of character. the great thinkers and philosophers of ancient india discovered the universal law of cause and effect, of action and reaction, and called it by the sanskrit term "karma," which means the law of cause and sequence; that every cause must be followed by an effect of a similar nature, that every action must produce similar reaction, and conversely every reaction or effect is the result of an action or cause of a similar character. thus there is always a balance and harmony between cause and effect, between action and reaction. this law of karma has now become a fundamental verity of modern science. it is called by different names: the scientists call it the law of causation, the law of compensation, the law of retribution, the law of action and reaction, but they all refer to the same idea,--that every cause must produce a similar result and every action must produce a similar reaction. now these ancient thinkers of india applied this law of karma to explain the destiny of human souls, and it was upon this law they based the theory of transmigration. they maintained that human souls are bound by this irresistible law and cannot get out of it; their thoughts and deeds are the causes which produce results of similar nature. so their future birth does not depend upon their whimsical, free choice, but it is limited by the thoughts and deeds or misdeeds of their previous lives. in the platonic idea we find that the souls go according to their choice. they may not take a human form if they prefer an animal form, but in the hindu idea of transmigration we find that it is not a result of free choice, but, if our thoughts and deeds force us to take a particular form, then we are subject to the law of karma, which governs our future birth and the evolution of our souls. consequently the hindu theory of transmigration differs fundamentally from the platonic as well as from the egyptian idea of transmigration. in the platonic and egyptian theories we see that the souls, after leaving the body, enter into another body which is waiting to receive the migrating soul, but in the hindu theory of transmigration the body is not waiting to receive the migrating soul, but on the contrary the soul, being subject to the laws of evolution, manufactures the gross material body according to its desires and tendencies. just as a germ of life will develop a grosser form by cellular subdivision, by growth, and by assimilation of the environmental conditions, so the germ of the human soul will manufacture the body by obeying the laws which govern the physical plane. parents are nothing but the channels through which the migrating souls receive their material forms. parents do not create the souls; they have no power to create. they can only give the suitable environments necessary for manufacturing a gross physical body. the souls come with their tendencies, with their desires, and they remain as germs of life. now these germs of life contain vital forces, sense powers, psychic powers, and ethereal particles of matter. at the time of death the soul contracts and withdraws all its powers from the sense organs to its innermost center, and in that contracted state it leaves the body. but these powers do not leave the soul. by the law of persistence of force and conservation of energy they remain latent in that center until environmental conditions become favorable for their remanifestation. rebirth means the manifestation of the latent powers which exist in the germ of life or in the individual soul. these germs of life are called by different names. leibnitz called them monads and modern scientists call them bioplasms or some such name, but the vedanta philosophers describe them as subtle bodies. these germs or subtle bodies are subject to evolution and growth; they arise from lower to higher stages of development, from the mineral through the vegetable to the animal kingdom and eventually they become human beings and then they go on progressing. in the platonic theory the idea of progress, growth or gradual evolution of the soul from the lower to higher stages of existence is entirely excluded, because, as i have already said, the migrating substance is of a fixed quantity with fixed qualities, that is, these qualities do not change and are not affected by either growth or evolution. they are constant quantities. in order to differentiate these two ideas we should call the hindu theory of transmigration by the term "reincarnation." the hindu or vedantic theory of reincarnation, however, is not the same as the buddhistic theory of rebirth, for the buddhists do not believe in the permanence of the soul entity. there is another point where the reincarnation theory differs from platonic transmigration. according to this theory of reincarnation there is growth and evolution of each individual soul from the lower to higher stages of development. the soul or germ of life, after passing through the lower stages, comes to the human plane and gains experience and knowledge; and after coming to the human plane, it does not retrograde to animal bodies. the platonic theory teaches that human souls migrate into animal bodies or angelic bodies and return from the angelic to the human or the animal, and that some of them prefer to become animals; while the theory of reincarnation, taking its stand upon the scientific truth of gradual evolution, teaches that the human souls have already passed through different grades of the animal, nay, of the vegetable kingdom, by the natural process of evolution. after having once received the human organism, why should a soul choose to go back to the lesser and more imperfect organism of an animal? how is it possible for a lesser manifestation to hold a greater one? why should a greater manifestation choose more limited forms in preference to those of others? this question arises in the platonic theory of transmigration. therefore, the reincarnation theory, or the theory of transmigration according to the hindus, rejects this idea of the going back of human souls to animal forms. we have already passed in the evolutionary process through the lower grade of animal organisms. now that we have outgrown them why should we go back to them? it is true, however, that in india there are many uneducated people among the hindus who believe that human souls do migrate into animal bodies after death to gain experience and reap the results of their wicked deeds, being bound by the law of karma; but in the platonic theory the law of karma plays no part in the transmigration of souls. the educated and thoughtful minds of india, however, accept the more rational and scientific theory of reincarnation. although there are passages in the scriptural writings of the hindus which apparently refer to the retrogression of the human soul into animal nature, still such passages do not necessarily mean that the souls will be obliged to take animal bodies. they may live like animals even when they have human bodies, as we may find among us many people like cats and dogs and snakes in human form and they are often more vicious than natural cats, dogs or snakes. they are reaping their own karma and manifesting their animal nature, though physically they look like human beings. this kind of retrogression is possible for one who after reaching the human plane goes backward on account of wicked thoughts and deeds on the animal plane. such a temporary retrogression brings knowledge and helps it in its onward progress toward the manifestation of higher powers on the higher plane of consciousness. all the wicked thoughts and wicked deeds are nothing but the results of our own mistakes. what is sin? sin is nothing but a mistake and it proceeds from ignorance. for instance, if i do not know that fire burns, i may put my finger into it and get burned. the result of this mistake is the burning of the finger and this has taught me once for all that fire burns; i shall never again put my finger into fire. so every mistake is a great teacher in the long run. no one is born so high and perfect as not to commit any mistake or any sin. every mistake like this opens our eyes to the laws of the universe by bringing to us such results as we do not desire. as one life is not enough to gain experience in all the stages of evolution, we must have to admit the doctrine of the reincarnation of the soul for the fulfillment of the ultimate purpose of earthly life. professor huxley says: "none but hasty thinkers will reject it on the ground of inherent absurdity. like the doctrine of evolution itself that of transmigration has its roots in the world of reality." (this file was produced from images generously made available by case western reserve university preservation department digital library) [illustration: docteur pascal] reincarnation a study in human evolution the resurrection of the body and the reincarnation of the soul by dr. th. pascal translated by fred rothwell "were an asiatic to ask me for a definition of europe, i should be forced to answer him:--it is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life."--schopenhauer. (_parerga and paralipomena_, vol. , chap. ) london the theosophical publishing society new bond street, w. * * * * * contents chap. sketch of the author's life author's preface i. the soul and the bodies ii. reincarnation and the moral law iii. reincarnation and science iv. reincarnation and the religious and philosophical consensus of the ages conclusion * * * * * sketch of the author's life. théophile pascal was born on the th of may, , at villecroze, a village in the south of france. his childhood was spent amid the pleasant surroundings of a country life. shortly after his sixteenth birthday, a relative of his, a catholic priest ministering in toulon, seeing that the youth showed considerable ability, sent for him and presided over his studies in this large maritime centre. before many years elapsed, he entered the naval medical school of the town, which he left at the age of twenty-two, with first-class honours. in his professional capacity, he took several trips on vessels belonging to the mediterranean squadron. four years afterwards he married, resigned active naval service, and devoted himself to building up a practice on land, becoming a homoeopathic physician in the great seaport itself. it was about this time that the young doctor became interested in theosophy, owing to the kindly services of a former patient, commander courmes. the closest friendship and sympathetic interest in theosophic thought thus began, and continued during their common labours subsequently in paris, dr. pascal entered the theosophical society in , and during the course of the following year wrote a series of articles for the _revue théosophique française_. these were continued year after year, and dealt with the most varied subjects: psychic powers; the fall of the angels; kâma-manasic elementals; thought forms; christianity, prehistoric races, and many others. the young doctor had previously made a deep study of human magnetism, which proved a most fertile ground for the sowing of the seed of the ancient wisdom. in attacks of serious nervous depression became frequent, forcing him to cease work of every kind. mrs. besant persuaded him to accompany her to india, where his general health was gradually restored, and he was enabled to return to france in the following year. he decided to leave toulon, where he had built up a considerable practice, and to settle in paris, hoping to provide for the needs of himself and his family--his wife and only daughter--by the exercise of his profession, and at the same time to fight the good fight for theosophy in the capital itself. the french section of the theosophical society was founded in , and dr. pascal was elected general secretary. throughout the next two years a number of thoughtful articles and publications appeared from his pen. the incessant labour and attention, however, which he bestowed on the spreading of theosophic instruction began to have its effect on a naturally delicate constitution, and in july, , when attending the meetings of the british convention in london, he was prostrated by an attack of congestion of the brain. the most devoted care was lavished on him, both in london and in paris, the result being that a rapid, though only temporary, recovery took place. had he relaxed his efforts somewhat, the cure might have been a permanent one, but dr. pascal, with the penetrating vision of the mystic, saw how pressing were the needs of the age, and how few the pioneers of this new presentation of the truth, so that, at whatever cost of personal sacrifice, he plunged once more into the midst of his arduous toil. in a series of very fine articles on the laws of destiny appeared in the _revue théosophique_, to be followed immediately by publication in volume form. two years afterwards appeared the present volume--reincarnation: a study in human evolution; a work considered the most complete of any that have so far appeared in france on this subject, and the most popular of dr. pascal's publications. in some of the nerve centres controlling the organs of speech became affected, but not sufficiently to compel him to remain absent from the international theosophical congress held that year in paris under the presidency of colonel olcott. it was on this occasion that dr. pascal received from the hands of the president-founder the subba rao medal, awarded to members of the society whose literary labours in the promulgation of the truths of theosophy have proved eminently useful. twelve months afterwards he attended the congress at munich, under the presidency of mrs. besant, but was obliged to leave before the termination of the meetings. this may be regarded as dr. pascal's last public appearance as an active theosophist, for his subsequent prolonged stay in the south of france effected no radical improvement in the state of his health. returning to paris in march, , and realising how impossible it was for him to fulfil the duties incumbent on a general secretary, he decided to resign his post. his colleagues, however, insisted on his continuing as honorary general secretary. from this time onward his health became gradually worse, and his physical life terminated on the th of april, , his body being cremated three days afterwards at the cemetery of père lachaise. what was most striking about dr. pascal, in both public and private life, was his intense earnestness--the index of a well-grounded habit of concentration--and the calm strength of his convictions. it was impossible to be in his presence for any length of time without feeling the power that emanated from him, and recognising that here was a mighty soul struggling for expression. other characteristics were his extreme modesty, and his continual endeavour to accord praise and merit to those working for the cause so dear to his own heart. when questioned on many of the intricate points raised in a lecture or in conversation on some abstruse theosophical subject, he made no pretence at knowledge he did not possess; on such occasions his confession of ignorance would be charming, even touching in its _naïveté_. but the qualities he seemed to feel it his special object to awaken in the minds of others--as will be acknowledged, i think, by those who knew him best--may be inferred from his continual insistence on the double duty, incumbent on students of theosophy, of practising on all occasions the utmost tolerance, refusing not only to condemn but even to judge harshly the opinions or actions of others, and of seizing every opportunity to help another because of the recognition of the one life throughout the world, may we who read the following pages catch somewhat of the deep earnestness and enthusiastic spirit breathing through them, and may the joy of service dissipate all meaner, motives, taking as our watchword also the only key to true growth, the very heart of altruism, that exhortation he never wearied of repeating: _aidez! aidez toujours!_ f. r. author's preface it will soon be: years since the decision of the council of a.d.[ ] condemned to oblivion sublime teachings which ought to have been carefully preserved and handed down to future generations as a beacon amid social reefs; teachings that would have uprooted that frightful egoism which threatens to annihilate the world, and instilled patience into the hearts of such as were being crushed beneath the wheel of the cosmic law, by showing them the scales of justice inclining to the side filled with their iniquities of bygone times; teachings which would have been welcomed by the masses, and the understanding of which would not have called for any lofty intellectual culture. it was one of the greatest misfortunes that could have befallen the races of the west, more especially the european, that they were thus deprived for centuries of this indispensable knowledge. we look upon it as a duty, following on so many others, to offer it anew, this time in the clear, logical, illuminating form presented in theosophic teachings. the necessity thereof is all the more imperative when we consider the growth of scepticism and materialism amongst the more intellectual classes, whilst the mass of the people have forsaken their blind faith only to succumb to religious indifference. to every awakened soul the question comes: why does evil exist? so long as the enigma remains unsolved, suffering remains a threatening sphinx, opposing god and ready to devour mankind. the key to the secret lies in evolution, which can be accomplished only by means of the continual return of souls to earth. when once man learns that suffering is the necessary result of divine manifestation; that inequalities of conditions are due to the different stages which beings have reached and the changeable action of their will; that the painful phase lasts only a moment in eternity, and that we have it in our power to hasten its disappearance; that though slaves of the past, we are masters of the future; that, finally, the same glorious goal awaits all beings--then, despair will be at an end; hatred, envy, and rebellion will have fled away, and peace will reign over a humanity made wise by knowledge. were this modest work to hasten forward this time by a few years, we should feel sufficiently rewarded. the subject will be divided into four chapters: ( ) the soul and the bodies. ( ) reincarnation and the moral law. ( ) reincarnation and science. ( ) reincarnation and the religious and philosophical concensus of the ages. footnotes: [footnote : this council came to the following decision:--_whosoever shall teach the pre-existence of the soul and the strange opinion of its returns to earth, let him be anathema!_] reincarnation a study in human evolution chapter i. the soul and the bodies. in a book dealing with the resurrection of bodies and the reincarnations of the soul, a chapter must be devoted to the fundamental elements of the question. we will give the name of _soul_ to abstract being, to the unknown, that unmanifested principle which cannot be defined, for it is above all definition. it is the absolute of western philosophers, the _parabrahm_ of the hindus, the _tao_ of the ancient sages of china, the causeless cause of all that has been or ever will be manifested in concrete time and space. some feeble idea of it may perhaps be obtained by comparing it with electricity, which, though the cause of various phenomena: heat, movement, chemical action, light, is not, _per se_, any one of these phenomena, undergoes no modification from their existence, and survives them when the apparatus through which they manifest disappears. we shall set up no distinction between this soul, which may be called the universal soul, and the individual soul, which has often been defined as a ray, a particle of the total soul, for logically one cannot imply parts to the absolute; it is illusion, limitation on our part, which shows us souls in the soul. _bodies_ are "aspects" of the soul, results of its activity--if, indeed, the infinite can be said to be either active or passive; words fail when we attempt to express the inexpressible. these bodies, or, more precisely, the varied forms assumed by force-matter[ ] are aspects of the soul, just as light or chemical action are aspects of electricity, for one cannot suppose anything outside of infinite being, nor can anything be imagined which is not a manifestation of the abstract whole. let us also define _consciousness_. taken absolutely, it is being, the soul, god; the uncaused cause of all the states which, in beings, we call states of consciousness. this limited consciousness may be defined as the faculty a "centre of life" possesses of receiving vibrations from its surroundings. when, in the course of evolution, a being is sufficiently developed to become conscious of a separation between its "i" and the object which sends it vibrations, consciousness becomes self-consciousness. this _self_-consciousness constitutes the _human_ stage; it appears in the higher animals, but as it descends the scale of being, gradually disappears in non-individualised consciousness. in a word, absolute consciousness is one, though, as in the above example, it is manifested differently, according to the differences in the vehicles which express it in the concrete world in which we live. the soul, _per se_, is beyond the reach of beings who have not finished the pilgrimage of evolution. to know it, one must have attained to the eternal centre, the unmanifested logos. up to that point, one can only, in proportion as one ascends, feel it in oneself, or acknowledge it by means of the logic which perceives it through all its manifestations as the universal mover of forms, the cause of all things, the unity that produces diversity by means of the various vehicles which serve it as methods of expression. science says that intelligence, or, to be more generic, consciousness, results from the action of matter. this is a mistake. consciousness does not change in proportion as the cells of the body are renewed; rather it increases with physical unconsciousness, as in somnambulism. thought is not the fruit of the brain; it offers itself to the latter, ready made, so to speak; the loftiest intellectual or artistic inspirations are flashes which strike down into the awaiting brain, when maintaining that passive expectant attitude which is the condition in which a higher message may be received. the senses are not the thinking-principle. they need to be controlled by consciousness; thus, people blind from birth, when suddenly made to see, cannot judge either distance or perspective; like animals and primitive men, they see nothing but colours on a surface. science says also: the organ is created for the function it has to perform; again a mistake. the eyes of the foetus are constructed in the darkness of the womb. the human germ, notwithstanding its unconsciousness and its simplicity of structure, develops a body that is complex and capable of a considerable degree of consciousness; though itself unintelligent, it produces prodigies of intelligence in this body; here, consequently, the effect would be greatly superior to the cause, which is absurd. outside of the body and the germ is a supreme intelligence which creates the models of forms and carries out their construction. this intelligence is the soul of the world. if consciousness _per se_, or the soul, is above all direct proof at the present stage of human evolution, the vehicles through which it functions are more or less apparent to us provided they are capable of affecting the brain. at the present stage of human evolution, this is the case only with the astral body; the other bodies are too fine to manifest through the nervous system such characteristics as are calculated to furnish scientists with a proof of their existence; they can only be felt and proved in and by _yoga_.[ ] it is not without importance, however, to set forth the proofs of the existence of a vehicle of consciousness immediately above the physical, for it affords us a wider horizon and throws far more light on the rest of the subject. proofs of the astral body. certain normal and abnormal or morbid phenomena in man have proved the existence of this vehicle, which we will call the _higher_ consciousness, for it is far greater than normal, waking consciousness, that of the brain. in the somewhat rare cases in which this consciousness is expressed in the physical world, it is forced to make use of the brain. now, in the majority of men, the latter is still incapable of vibrating harmoniously with the matter which forms the astral vehicle; this is because the density of the atoms of the brain cells which preside over thought is incapable of reproducing the rapid vibrations of the finer matter belonging to the body immediately above it. by special training (the _yoga_ of the hindus), by a particular constitution of body (_sensitiveness_), by certain special methods (_hypnotism_), or in certain maladies (_somnambulism_), the brain may become receptive to these vibrations, and receive from them an impression, though always an imperfect one. the rarity of this impression, its imperfection, and especially the necessity for the vibration of the physical brain that it may be manifested in our environment; all these have made it very difficult to prove the existence of this higher vehicle; still, there are certain considerations which show that it exists, and that it alone is capable of explaining the most characteristic phenomena of the higher consciousness. let us first define these two states of consciousness rather more completely, and fix their limits. normal consciousness is that which functions during waking hours, when the brain is in full physiological activity, freely and completely related to the outer physical world. this consciousness is more or less developed according to the individual, but its component parts--sensation, emotion, sentiment, reason, intelligence, will, intuition--do not exceed known limits; for instance, we do not find clairvoyance, the prophetic faculty, and certain other abnormal faculties, which we shall class under the higher consciousness. the higher consciousness works in the astral body, whether externalised or not; it seldom manifests itself, and then incompletely; it is accompanied by the more or less complete inhibition of the senses, and by a kind of sleep in which the relations of the subject with the physical world are wholly or partially suspended. the characteristics of this state are greater keenness of the normal faculties, and the appearance of new ones, which are often inexplicable and extraordinary and the more remarkable in proportion as sleep is more profound, the brain calmer, or the physiological state more abnormal. how can we explain the paradox that faculties shown by a brain in a state of inactivity cover an extent of ground which the brain in a state of activity cannot approach? the reason is that the brain, in this case, is not an instrument moved directly by the cause of consciousness, _the soul_, but a simple recipient, which the soul, then centred in the astral body, impresses _on returning to the physical body_ (if it has been far away) or impresses directly when, whilst acting in the finer vehicle, the latter has not left the body.[ ] in other words, the brain, by reason of its functional inactivity, vibrates little or not at all in its higher centres; it plays the part of a sounding-board at rest, capable of vibrating sympathetically under the influence of a similar board placed by its side. the necessity of cerebral quiet, if the higher consciousness is to make an impression, is now easy to understand; the finer vibration of the astral body cannot be impressed upon the brain when the latter is already strongly vibrating under the action of normal consciousness. for this reason also, the deeper the sleep of the physical body the better the higher consciousness manifests itself. in ordinary man, organic quiet is scarcely ever complete during sleep; the brain, as we shall see shortly, automatically repeats the vibrations which normal consciousness has called forth during the waking state; this, together with an habitual density of the nervous elements, too great to respond to the higher vibration, explains the rarity and the confused state of the impression of astral consciousness on the brain. the facts relating to the higher consciousness are as numerous as they are varied. we shall not enter into full details, but choose only a few phenomena quoted in well-known works. manifestations of the higher consciousness during the different kinds of sleep. _normal dream._ during normal sleep there exists a special consciousness which must not be confounded either with waking consciousness or with that of the astral body. it is due to the automatic, cerebral vibration which continues during sleep, and which the soul examines on its return to the body--when awake. this dream is generally an absurd one, and the reason the dreamer notices it only on awaking is that he is absent from the visible body during sleep. the proof of the departure of the astral body during sleep has been ascertained by a certain number of seers, but the absurdity of the commonplace dream is a rational proof thereof, one which must here be mentioned. as another rational proof of the existence of a second vehicle of consciousness, we must also notice the regular registering of the commonplace dream, because it takes place in the brain, and the habitual non-registering of the true dream experience, because this latter takes place in the externalised astral body. why does the astral body leave the physical during sleep? this question is beyond our power to answer, though a few considerations on this point may be advanced. sleep is characterised by the transfer of consciousness from the physical to the astral body; this transfer seems to take place normally under the influence of bodily fatigue. after the day's activity, the senses no longer afford keen sensations, and as it is the energy of these sensations that keeps the consciousness "centred" in the brain[ ]; this consciousness, when the senses are lulled to sleep, centres in the finer body, which then leaves the physical body with a slight shock. it is, however, of the real dream--which is at times so intelligent that it has been called lucid, and at all events is reasonable, logical, and co-ordinate--that we wish to speak. in most cases this dream consists of a series of thoughts due to the soul in action in the astral body; it is sometimes the result of seeing mental pictures of the future[ ] or else it represents quite another form of animistic activity, as circumstances and the degree of the dreamer's development permit. it is in the lucid dream--whether belonging to normal or to abnormal sleep--that occur those numerous and well-known cases of visions past or future to be found in so many of the books dealing with this special subject. to these same states of higher consciousness are due such productions as walter scott's _ivanhoe_. the author, suffering from fever, wrote this work whilst in a kind of delirious condition; _ivanhoe_ was printed before the recovery of the author, who, on reading it at a later date, had not the slightest recollection that it was his own production. (ribot's _maladies de la mémoire_, p. .) walter scott remembered nothing, because _ivanhoe_ was the fruit of the astral consciousness impressed upon a brain which fever had rendered temporarily receptive to the higher vibrations. there are certain peculiarities of the real dream which prove almost mathematically the superior nature of the vehicle which gives expression to it. this dream, for instance, is never of a fatiguing nature, however long it may appear to last, because it is only an instantaneous impression made upon the brain by the astral body, when the latter returns to the physical body, on awaking. on the other hand, the cerebral ideation of the waking state is fatiguing if intense or prolonged, or if the nervous system of the thinker is deprived of its normal power of resistance (_in neurasthenia_); the commonplace (_brain_) dream is also fatiguing if prolonged or at all vivid. another peculiarity is that a dream--the real dream--which would require several years of life on earth for its realisation, can take place in a second. the dream of maury (_le sommeil et le rève_, p. ), who in half a second lived through three years of the french revolution, and many other dreams of the same nature, are instances of this. now, fechner has proved, in his _elemente der psychophysik_, first, that a fraction of a second is needed for the sensorial contact to cause the brain to vibrate--this prevents our perceiving the growth of a plant and enables us to see a circle of fire when a piece of glowing coal is rapidly whirled round; secondly, that another fraction of a second is needed for the cerebral vibration to be transformed into sensation. we might add that a third fraction of a second is needed for sensation to be transformed into ideation, proving that in these special dreams there can have been no more than an instantaneous, mass impression of all the elements of the dream upon the brain,[ ] and that the dream itself has been produced by the imaginative action of the soul in the astral body, an extremely subtle one, whose vibratory power is such as to transform altogether our ordinary notions of time and space. _the death-bed dream._ in dying people, the bodily senses gradually lose their vitality, and by degrees the soul concentrates itself within the finer vehicle. from that time signs of the higher consciousness appear, time is inordinately prolonged, visions present themselves, the prophetic faculty is sometimes manifested, and verified cases are related of removal to a distance, like that of the alsatian woman dying on board ship. during the final coma she went to rio de janeiro and commended her child to the keeping of a fellow-countryman. (d'assier's _l'humanité posthume_, p. ) similar instances are found in _the night side of nature_, by c. crowe, as well as in other works of the same kind. _the dream of intoxication._ under the influence of soporifics the same transfer of consciousness is produced, and we meet with more or less remarkable phenomena due to the higher consciousness. opium smokers and eaters of hashish are able to form ideas with such rapidity that minutes seem to them to be years, and a few moments in dreamland delude them into the idea that they have lived through a whole life. (hervey's _les rêves et les moyens de les diriger_.) _the dream of asphyxia._ during asphyxia by submersion the higher consciousness enters into a minute study of the life now running to its close. in a few moments it sees the whole of it again in its smallest details. carl du prel (_philos. der mystik_) gives several instances of this; haddock (_somnolism and psychism_, p. ) quotes, among other cases, that of admiral beaufort. during two minutes' loss of consciousness in a drowning condition, he saw again every detail of his life, all his actions, including their causes, collateral circumstances, their effects, and the reflections of the victim on the good and evil that had resulted therefrom. perty's account (_die mystischen erscheinungen der menschlichen natur_) of catherine emmerich, the somnambulist nun, who, when dying, saw again the whole of her past life, would incline one to think that this strange phenomenon, which traditional catholicism appears to have called the "private judgment," and which theosophy defines with greater preciseness, is not limited to asphyxia by submersion, but is the regular accompaniment of life's ending. manifestation of the higher consciousness in various cases of mental faculties lost to normal consciousness. a rather large number of people born blind have images in dreams, and can see with the higher consciousness, when placed in a state of somnambulism. this proves that the higher consciousness possesses the power of vision on its own plane, and can impress images thereof on the brain. that this impression may be translated into the language of the physical plane,[ ] it must evidently take place in one of the physical centres of vision which make possible three-dimensional sight; these centres may be intact even when the external visual apparatus does not exist or is incapable of functioning. a deaf and dumb idiot became intelligent and spoke during spontaneous somnambulism (steinbach's _der dichter ein seher_). this is a case which appears to us difficult to explain fully; indeed, if the impression of the higher vibration on that portion of the brain which presides over intelligence and thought can be understood, it is not easy to see how tongue and lips could suddenly utter precise sounds which they had never produced before. another factor must have intervened here, as was the case with the child prophets of the camisards. (v. figuier's _hist. du merveilleux_, _etc._) young hébert, who had gone mad as the result of a wound, regained full consciousness, the higher consciousness, during somnambulism. (puysegur's _journal du traitement du jeune hébert_.) dr. teste (_manuel pratiq. du magnét. anim._) came across madmen who became sane just before death, _i.e._, when consciousness was passing into the astral body. he also mentions a servant girl, quite uneducated and of ordinary intelligence, who nevertheless became a veritable philosopher during mesmeric somnambulism and delivered learned discourses on lofty problems dealing with cosmogony. this proves that the vibratory scale of the finer vehicle extends far beyond that of the physical, and that the soul cannot impress on this latter vehicle all that it knows when functioning in the former. by this we do not mean that it is omniscient as soon as it has left the visible body; this opinion, a current one, is contrary to the law of evolution, and will not bear examination. manifestations of the higher consciousness under the form of memory. the memory that is lost by the brain is preserved in its entirety by the finer vehicle. a musician, a friend of hervey's, once heard a remarkable piece of music; he remembered it on awaking, and wrote it down, regarding it as his own inspiration. many years afterwards, he found it in an old parcel of music where he knew it had been long before; he had totally forgotten it in his normal consciousness. (hervey's _dreams_.) coleridge tells of a servant girl who, when in a state of delirium, would recite long passages of hebrew which she had formerly heard from the lips of a priest in whose service she had been. in the same way, she would repeat passages from latin and greek theological books, which she had heard under the same circumstances; in her normal state, she had no recollection whatever of all this. (dr. carpenter's _mental physiology_, p. , edition.) ricard (_physiol. et hygiène du magnét._, p. ) relates the case of a young man, possessed of an ordinary memory, but who, in somnambulism, could repeat almost word for word a sermon he had heard or a book he had read. mayo, the physiologist, states that an ignorant young girl, in a state of somnambulism, wrote whole pages of a treatise on astronomy, including figures and calculations, which she had probably read in the _encyclopædia britannica_, for the treatise was afterwards found in that work. (_truths in popular superstitions._) ladame (_la névrose hypnotique_, p. ) mentions a woman who, having only on one occasion been to the theatre, was able, during somnambulism, to sing the whole of the second act of meyerbeer's _l'africaine_, an opera of which she knew nothing whatever in her waking state. during experiments with the inhaling of protoxyde of azote, h. davy said that normal consciousness disappeared, and was followed by a wonderful power of recalling past events. (hibbert's _philosophy of apparitions_, p. .) manifestations of the higher consciousness in phenomena of double consciousness. the "strata of memory" met with in many cases also prove the existence of the second vehicle of consciousness which we are trying to demonstrate. certain dreams continue night after night, beginning again just where they stopped the previous night; this is noticed in the case of those who talk in their sleep and in spontaneous or forced somnambulism. the memory of one intoxicated, or in a state of fever delirium is lost when consciousness returns from the astral to the physical body; it comes back on the return of the delirium or the intoxication. the same thing takes place in madness; at the termination of a crisis, the patients take up the past just where they left it. (wienholt's _heilkraft_.) kerner relates that one of these unfortunate persons, after an illness lasting several years, remembered the last thing he did before the crisis happened, his first question being whether the tools with which he had been cutting up wood had been put away. during the whole of the interval he had been living in his higher consciousness. ribot (_maladies de la mémoire_ p. ) has noted the fact that the same thing happens with those who fall into a state of coma after having received a hurt or wound. manifestations of the higher consciousness, indicating not only that it extends farther than normal consciousness, but dominates, and is separated from it, recognising that its vehicle--the body--is nothing more than an instrument. the soul functioning in the finer body sees the physical body in a state of coma. dr. abercrombie relates the case of a child aged four, who was trepanned as the result of fracture of the skull, and whilst in a stale of coma. he never knew what happened. at the age of fifteen, during an attack of fever, the higher consciousness impressed itself upon the brain, and he remembered every detail of the accident; he described to his mother where he had felt the pain, the operation, the people present, their number, functions, the clothes they wore, the instruments used, etc. (kerner, _magikon_, vol. , p. .) the soul, in the finer body, during somnambulism, is separated both from the physical body and from normal consciousness, it calmly foresees the illness or the death of the denser body on which it sometimes imposes serious operations. such facts were numerous in the case of magnetisers in olden days. deleuze (_hist. crit. du magn. animal_, vol. , p. ) had a patient who, in a state of somnambulism, held moral, philosophical, and religious opinions quite contrary to those of his waking state. charpignon (_physiol., médecine et métaphys. du magnétisme_, p. ) tells of a patient who, when awake, wished to go to the theatre, but during somnambulism refused to do so, saying: "_she_ wants to go, but _i_ don't want." on charpignon recommending that she should try to turn _her_ aside from her purpose, she replied: "what can i do? _she_ is mad!" deleuze (_inst. pratiq. s. le magét. anim._, p. ) says that many somnambulists look into their body when the latter is ill; that they are often indifferent to its sufferings, and sometimes are not even willing to prescribe remedies to cure it. chardel (_esquisse de la nat. humaine expliq. p. le magn. anim._, p. ) relates that many somnambulists are unwilling to be awakened so as not to return to a body which is a hindrance to them. there are many madmen who speak of their body in the third person. (ladame, _la névrose_, p. ). they function in the non-externalised finer vehicle. some explain their use of the third person as follows:--"_it_ is the body; it is _i_ who am the spirit." manifestation of the higher consciousness in the phenomena of possession and materialisation. in these strange phenomena, not only manifestations of the higher consciousness, analogous with or similar to those just cited, have been noted, but also a number of facts which prove, to some extent, the casual presence in a normal human body or in materialised abnormal forms, of beings other than that which constitutes the personality of the one possessed, or of the medium who conditions these materialisations. on this point, we would mention the well-known investigations of sir w. crookes (_katie king_), those of colonel de rochas (vincent, _un cas de changement de personnalité, lotus bleu_ ), and similar experiments of other savants. "incarnation mediums" have often lent their physical bodies to disincarnated human entities, whose account of what happened or whose identity it has been possible to verify. here i will mention only one case amongst several others, i heard it from my friend, d. a. courmes, a retired naval captain, a man who is well-informed in these matters, thoroughly sincere, and of unquestioned veracity. in , he happened to be off algiers, on a training vessel. a boat had sunk in the harbour, and a man was drowned. his body had not been recovered. on the evening of the accident, my friend, accompanied by a doctor, a professor, and the vice-president of the court of algiers, attended a spiritualistic meeting in the town. one of these "incarnation mediums" happened to be present. m. courmes suggested that the drowned man should be called up. the latter answered to the call, entered the medium, whose voice and attitude immediately changed. he gave the following account of what had taken place: "when the boat sank, i was on the ladder. i was hurled down, my right leg passed between two bars, occasioning fracture of the leg, and preventing me from releasing myself. my body will be found caught in the ladder when the boat is brought to the surface. it is useless to seek elsewhere." this account was shortly afterwards confirmed. these phenomena are more frequent than one would imagine; a sufficient number might be given to show that, judging from the theory of probabilities, serious consideration should be given to them. manifestations of the higher consciousness in apparitions. a final group of phenomena to which i wish to call attention is the one which goes under the name of apparitions. a considerable number of these are to be found; we will confine ourselves, however, to referring the reader to a volume entitled _phantasms of the living_, due to the patient investigations of a distinguished body of foreign savants. here we find, first of all, proof of the transmission of thought to a distance. an examination into the conditions under which most of these cases took place has convinced several students of the existence of the finer body which we are here endeavouring to demonstrate, as well as of the possibility of its instantaneous transference to a great distance. as the proofs afforded by apparitions are not mathematical, _i.e._, indisputable, and as they give room for a variety of opinions, we will make no attempt to detail them, preferring to pass on to a final proof--the least important, perhaps, from a general point of view, since it is limited to the individual possessing it; the only absolute and mathematical one, however, to the man who has obtained it:--the personal proof. there are persons--few in number, true--who, under divers influences, have been able to leave the physical body and see it sleeping on a couch. they have freely moved in an environment--the astral world--similar to our physical one in some respects, though different in many others, and have returned again to the body, bringing back the memory of their wanderings. these accounts have been given by persons deserving of credence and not subject to hallucinations. there are other individuals, though not so numerous--of whom we have the pleasure of knowing some personally--who are able to leave their physical bodies and return at will. they travel to great distances with the utmost rapidity and bring back a complete memory of their journeyings. d'assier gives a typical case in his work. (_l'humanité posthume_, p. .) such is the proof we look upon as irrefutable, as complete and perfect. the man who can thus travel freely in his finer body knows that the physical body is only a vehicle adapted to the physical world and necessary for life in this world; he knows that consciousness does not cease to function, and that the universe by no means provides the conditions for a state of nothingness, once this body of flesh is laid aside. at this stage of his evolution man can, in addition, make use of his astral body at will, and obtain on the astral plane, first by reason and intuition, afterwards by personal experience, proof of another vehicle of consciousness--the mental body. at a further stage he obtains the certainty of possession of the causal body, then of higher bodies, and from that time he can no longer doubt the teachings of the elder brothers, those who have entered the higher evolution, the worlds that are divine. he knows, beyond all possibility of doubt, that what the ordinary man expresses in such childish language regarding these lofty problems, what he calls the absolute and the manifested, god and the universe, the soul and the body, are more vitally true than he imagined; he sees that these words are dense veils that conceal the supreme, ineffable, infinite being, of whom manifested beings are illusory "aspects," facets of the divine jewel.[ ] with this introduction, we will plunge at once into the heart of the subject. footnotes: [footnote : which is nothing but an unknown "aspect" of abstract divinity.] [footnote : present-day man possesses four bodies of increasing fineness, the elements of which interpenetrate. proceeding from the most dense, these are: the physical, the astral, the mental, and the causal body. in certain conditions they are capable of dissociation, and they last for a longer or a shorter time. the astral body, also called the body of desire, animal soul (kâmarûpa, in sanskrit) is the seat of sensation. evolution has in store for us higher bodies stilt--the buddhic body, the atmic body, &c.... but these need only be mentioned at this point. _yoga_--sanskrit, _union_--is a training of the different bodies of man by the will; its object is to make of those bodies complete and perfect instruments, capable of responding to the vibrations of the outer universe as well as to those of the individual soul. when this process is accomplished, man can receive, consciously and at will, in any one of his bodies, vibrations received by the soul primarily in one of the others; for instance, he may feel in the physical brain the direct action of his astral or higher bodies; he may also leave the physical, and feel directly in his astral body the action of the mental body, and so on. _yoga_ can be practised only under the guidance of a master, _i.e._, a highly developed being, capable of guiding the student safely through the dangers incidental to this training.] [footnote : when the astral body is externalised, the subject cannot speak; he must await its return; when only partially externalised or not at all, and consciousness is centred in it, the subject can speak and relate what he sees afar off, for astral vision is possible at enormous distances. such cases as these are frequently met with.] [footnote : in , in a leipzic hospital, there was a patient possessed of neither sensibility nor muscular sense. he had only sight in the right eye and hearing in the left ear. if this eye and ear were closed, the patient immediately fell asleep. neither by being touched nor shaken could he be awakened; to effect this, it was necessary to open his eye and unstop his ear. (_archiv. für die ges. physiologie_, vol. , p. ).] [footnote : these pictures are often visible in the astral world; they explain the prophetic faculty of ordinary seers.] [footnote : in such cases, by association of ideas or any other influence, the soul dramatises the physical impression which calls forth the dream, and creates the long phantasmagoria of this dream in so short a time as to be scarcely appreciable. between the sleeping physical body and the externalised astral body there is so close a degree of sympathy that the latter is conscious of everything that takes place in the former. this explains why the astral body returns so rapidly to the physical when a noise, light, or any other sensation impresses this latter.] [footnote : we say "language of the physical plane" because the soul, in the astral body, sees in four dimensions, _i.e._, all the parts of an object at once, as though these parts were spread out on a two-dimensional plane. consequently, the higher vision needs interpretation in order to be expressed on the physical plane.] [footnote : there are other proofs of the existence of the causal body, the reincarnating vehicle; the principal one is given in the middle of chapter . it is there shown that the physical germs explain only a very small portion of heredity, and that logic imperiously demands the existence of an invisible, durable body, capable of gathering up the germs which preserve the moral and intellectual qualities of man.] chapter ii. reincarnation and the moral law. the goodness, justice, and omnipotence of god are the guarantees of providence. it is absolutely impossible that the faintest breath of injustice should ever disturb the universe. every time the law appears to be violated, every time justice seems outraged, we may be certain that it is our ignorance alone that is at work, and that a deeper knowledge of the net-work of evolution and of the lines of action created by human free will, sooner or later, will dissipate our error. for all that, the whole universe appears to be the very incarnation of injustice. the constellations as they come into manifestation shatter the heavens with their titanic combats; it is the vampirism of the greatest among them that creates the suns, thus inaugurating egoism from the very beginning. everywhere on earth is heard the cry of pain, a never-ending struggle; sacrifice is everywhere, whether voluntary or forced, offered freely or taken unwillingly. the law of the strongest is the universal tyranny. the vegetable kingdom feeds upon the mineral, and in its turn forms nourishment for the animal; the giants of the forests spread ruin in every direction, beneath their destructive influence the spent, exhausted soil can nourish nothing but weeds and shrubs of no importance. in the animal kingdom a war to the death is ever being waged, a terrible destruction in which those best armed for the fray pitilessly devour the weak and defenceless. man piles up every kind and method of destruction, cruelty and barbarity of every sort; he tears away gold from the bowels of the earth, mutilates the mighty forests, exhausts the soil by intensive culture, harasses and tortures animals when unable to utilise their muscular strength, and, in addition, kills them when their flesh is eatable; his most careful calculations are the auxiliaries of his insatiable egoism, and, by might or cunning, he crushes everything that hinders or inconveniences him. finally, from time to time, the elements mingle their awful voice in this concert of pain and despair, and we find hurricanes and floods, fires and earthquakes pile up colossal wreck and ruin in a few hours, on which scenes of destruction the morrow's calm and glorious sun sheds his impassive beams. and so, before reaching individual evil and apparent injustice, there rises up before us at the very outset the threatening spectre of universal evil and injustice. this problem is so closely bound up with our subject that we are compelled to spend a short time in considering it. why does pain exist? to admit, as do certain ignorant fatalists, that the universe was created by the stroke of some magic wand, and that each planet, kingdom, and being is condemned, so to speak, to a definite crystallisation in the state in which it has pleased god to fix it; to admit that the mineral will remain a mineral throughout eternity, that the vegetable will ever reproduce the same types, that the animal will definitely be confined to his instincts and impulses, without the hope, some day, of developing the superior mentality of his torturers in human form; to admit that man will never be anything but man, _i.e._, a being in whom the passions have full play whereas the virtues are scarcely born; to admit that there is no final goal--perfection, the divine state--to crown man's labour; all this is to refuse to recognise evolution, to deny the progress everywhere apparent, to set divine below human justice; blasphemy, in a word. it has been said by unthinking christians that evidently god created human suffering, so that those might gain heaven who, but for this suffering, would have no right to it. to speak thus is to represent the supreme goodness in a very unworthy aspect and to attribute the most gratuitous cruelty to divine justice. when, too, we see that this absurd reasoning explains neither the sufferings of animals, which have no right to enjoy the felicity of heaven, they say, nor the fact[ ] that "there are many called but few chosen," nor the saying that "outside the church there is no salvation," although for ages past god has caused millions of men to be born in countries where the gospel has not been preached, we shall not be astonished to find that those who arrogate to themselves a monopoly of truth bring forward none but arguments of childish folly in support of their claims. generally, however, it is original sin that is advanced as the cause of suffering. the absurdity of this doctrine is so apparent that it has lost all credence by enlightened members of the christian faith. first of all, it does not explain the sufferings of animals, which have had no participation in this sin, nor does it account for the unequal distribution of pain amongst men themselves. this sin being the same for all at birth,[ ] punishment ought to have been equally severe for all, and we ought not to see such frightful disproportions as are to be found in the condition of children who have not attained to the age of reason, _i.e._, of responsibility. saint augustine felt the weight of this consideration; he reflected long on this torturing problem: "when i come to consider the sufferings of children," he says, "believe me, i am in a state of terrible perplexity. i have no wish whatever to speak only of the punishment inflicted on them after this life by eternal damnation to which they are of necessity condemned if they have left their bodies without receiving the sacrament of christ, but of the pains they endure in this present life, under our very eyes. did i wish to examine these sufferings, time would fail me rather than instances thereof; they languish in sickness, are torn by pain, tortured by hunger and thirst, weakened in their organs, deprived of their senses, and sometimes tormented by unclean beings. i should have to show how they can with justice be subjected to such things, at a time when they are yet without sin. it cannot be said that they suffer unknown to god or that god can do nothing against their tormentors, nor that he can create or allow unjust punishment. when men suffer, we say they are being punished for their crimes, but this can be applied only to adults. as children have in them no sin capable of meriting so terrible a punishment, tell me what answer can be given?" the answer, indeed, cannot be made that original sin is capable of explaining this unequal retribution; but then, ought not the very absurdity of the consequences due to such sin to justify one in refusing to examine this argument? what soul could admit that the innocent should be punished for the guilty? does human justice, in spite of its imperfection, punish the offspring of criminals? can the millions of descendants of the mythical adam have been chastised for a crime in which they have had no share? and would this chastisement, multiplied millions of times without the faintest reason, never have stirred the conscience of the church? saint augustine could not make up his mind to accuse god of injustice; so, to avoid disputing the truth of the christian teaching in which he wholly believed, he invented his famous theory of "generation," often called "translation." men suffer because of original sin, he says, but it would not be just of god to punish them for this, had they not shared therein[ ]; this, indeed, they have done, for the soul of a man was not created directly, by god, at the moment of the birth of the body; it is a branch taken from the soul of his father, as the latter's comes from that of his parents; thus, ascending the genealogical chain, we see that all souls issue from that of the common father of mankind: adam.[ ] so that saint augustine preferred to deny the creation of souls and to derive them from the soul of adam, through a successive progeny of human vehicles, rather than to allow god to be charged with injustice. we are not called upon to demonstrate the falsity of his hypothesis, which the church has been forced to condemn, though without replacing it with a better theory; all the same, if human souls suffer from a sin in which they have not individually and consciously participated--and such is the case, for even granting that translation be a fact, these souls existed in adam only potentially, as unconscious, undeveloped germs, when the sin took place--their punishment is none the less arbitrary and revolting. saint augustine believed he was justifying providence; he succeeded only in deceiving his own reason and revolted sense of justice, but he preferred by suggestion to deceive himself to such an extent as to believe in the reality of his desire rather than enrol himself against the church. in order to reconcile divine justice with the injustice of punishing all for the fault of one alone, the theologians also said: "adam sinned, his sin has been distributed over the whole of his race, but god, by sending down his son, instituted baptism; and the waters of the sacrament wash the stains of original sin from the souls of men." this reply is as childish as the former. as a matter of fact, according to the church, about four thousand years intervened between the sin of adam and the coming of the redeemer, and so only after that interval did the souls of the just, who were waiting in the life beyond for the coming of the messiah, enter paradise! would not this delay in itself be an injustice? ought not baptism to have been instituted immediately after the sin, and should it not have been placed within the reach of all? besides, do we not see that even in our days, two thousand years after the coming of the christ, millions of human beings are born and die without ever having heard of the existence of this sacrament. this part of the argument is too puerile to dwell upon at length, but we will spend a few moments on it to show definitely how powerless this theory is to explain evil. before teaching the doctrine of "limbo," the church accepted the idea of the damnation of children who died without being baptised, as we have just seen in the case of saint augustine.[ ] bossuet, with incredible blindness, also accepted it; and, sad to relate, his reason did not feel called upon to furnish an explanation which would justify providence, as was the case with saint augustine. he rejected "translation," and discovered nothing with which to veil the blasphemy. on this point the following is a faithful _résumé_ of his letter to pope innocent xii.: the damnation of children who have died without being baptised must be firmly believed by the church. they are guilty because they are born under the wrath of god and in the power of darkness. children of wrath by nature, objects of hatred and aversion, hurled into hell with the rest of the damned, they will remain there for all eternity punished by the horrible vengeance of the demon. such also are the decisions of the learned denis pétau, the most eminent bellarmin, the councils of lyons, of florence, and of trent; for these things are not decided by human considerations, but by the authority of tradition and of the scriptures. such logic makes one really doubt human reason, and reminds one of the spirit with which the courts of the holy inquisition were inspired. where in nature can there be found such lack of proportion between cause and effect, crime and punishment? have such arguments ever been justified by the voice of conscience? official christianity remains powerless to explain suffering. let us see what we can learn from the philosophies and religions of the past and the greatest of modern philosophers, as well as from the admirable _résumés_ of teachers of theosophy. the problem of suffering is one with that of life, _i.e._, with that of evolution in general. the object of the successive worlds is the creation of millions of centres of consciousness in the germinal state (_souls_) and the transformation of these germs into divinities similar to their father, god. this is the divine multiplication, creating innumerable "gods," in god. to produce divine germs, homogeneous unity must limit its immensity and create within itself the diversity of matter, of form. this can be obtained by the creation of "multiplicity" and by the "limitation" of what might be called a portion of divinity. now, limitation implies imperfection, both general and individual, _i.e._, suffering; and multiplicity implies diversity of needs and interests, forced submission to the general law _i.e._, suffering again. that the divine germs may evolve, their potentialities must be awakened by their surroundings; in other words, by the action of the "opposites," and sensation must come into being; the action of the opposites on sensation is also a cause of pain. outside of the unknown being--which will be known at the end of evolution--nothing can _be_. everything is in him. he is all; the worlds, time and space are "aspects" which he assumes from time to time[ ]; for this reason it has been said that the universe is an illusion, which may be expressed more clearly by saying that it is an illusion to believe that what exists is not one form of divine activity, an "aspect" of god. that anything may exist, or rather that aspects of god may appear, there must be manifested in him a special mode of being, to call forth what we designate as multiplicity. that multiplicity[ ] may be manifest, differences must be produced in unity; these differences in the world are the "pairs of opposites"--the contraries. these contraries are everywhere. matter is the fulcrum of force--both of these terms being "aspects" of god--and without a fulcrum no force can manifest itself; there is no heat without cold, and when it is summer in the northern hemisphere it is winter in the southern. there is no movement that does not depend upon a state of rest, no light without shadow, no pleasure without the faculty of pain, no freedom that is not founded upon necessity, no good that does not betoken an evil. the following are a few examples of duality taken from nature. the current of electricity is polarised into a positive and a negative current. it is the same with the magnet; though you break a bar into a hundred pieces, you bring into being a hundred small magnets, each possessing its positive and negative side; you will not have destroyed the "duality," the opposites. like the magnet, the solar spectrum forms two series, separated by a neutral point, the blue series and the red one, united by the violet.[ ] violet. indigo. yellow. blue. orange. green. red. the terms of the two series are respectively complimentary to each other; the violet dominates the two groups of opposites and is a visible member of the axis formed by the colours that might be called neutral. duality appears in every shape and form. symbolically, we may say with the hindus that the universe begins and ends with two opposite movements: an emanation from brahmâ, it is born when the breast of god sends forth the heavenly outbreathing, it dies, reabsorbed, when the universal inbreathing takes place. these movements produce attraction and repulsion, the aggregation and dissolution to be found everywhere. it is the attraction of a force-centre, the "laya centre" of theosophy, which permits of the atomic condensation that gives it the envelope whose soul it is; when its cycle of activity ends, attraction gives place to repulsion, the envelope is destroyed by the return of its constituent elements to the source from which they were drawn, and the soul is liberated until a future cycle of activity begins. even the rhythm of pulmonary respiration, the contraction and dilation (systole and diastole) of the heart, the ebb and flow of the tides, as also day and night, sleeping and waking, summer and winter, life and death, are all products of that law of contraries which rules creation. these "opposites" are the very essence of cosmic life, the twin pillars of universal equilibrium; they have been represented in solomon's symbolical temple--here, the universe--by jakin and boaz, the white and the black columns; they are also the interlaced triangles of "solomon's seal," the six-pointed star, the two old men of the kabbalah, the white jehovah and the black jehovah; eros and anteros, the serpents of mercury's caduceus, the two sphinxes of the car of osiris, adam and eve, cain and abel, jacob and esau, the chinese "yang" and "yin," the goblet and staff of tarot, man and woman. all these images represent the same law. multiplicity, the fruit of the contraries, makes its appearance in the forms born in infinite, homogeneous being; its goal is the goal of creation; the production, in infinite being, of centres which are developed by evolution and finally become gods in god. these centres, or "souls," these points in the supreme point, are divine in essence, though, so far, they have no share at all in the perfection "manifested" by god; they are all "centres," for god is a sphere, whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, but they have not developed consciousness which is as yet only potential in them. like cuttings of willow which reproduce the mother-tree, these points, veritable portions of god, are capable of germinating, growing up, and becoming "i's," self-conscious beings, intelligent and endowed with will-power, and finally gods, having developed the entire potentialities of the all by their repeated imprisonment in the series of forms that make up the visible and invisible kingdoms of nature. every form, _i.e._ aggregate of substance-force, reflects within itself one of these points of divinity. this point is its monad, its centre of consciousness, or soul; it is the cause which is manifested as qualities in the envelopes, and these give it the illusion of separateness for a certain period,[ ] just as a soap-bubble momentarily acquires a fictitious individuality and appears separate from the atmosphere--of which it forms part--so long as its illusory envelope endures. thus do men imagine themselves separate from one another, when all the time their soul is nothing more than a drop of the divine ocean, hidden momentarily in a perishable body. the "contraries" are the anvil and the hammer which slowly forge souls by producing what might be called sensation in general, and sensation is a fertile cause of suffering each time the vehicles of consciousness receive vibrations that greatly exceed their fundamental capacity of sensation. without sensation however--consequently without suffering--the body could neither walk,[ ] nor see, nor hear, nor show any disturbance brought to bear upon it; there would exist no possible relation between the universe and the "i," between the all and the parts, between bodies and souls; there would be no consciousness, or sensation of being, since no vibration from without would find an echo in the incarnated "centres" of life; no knowledge would be possible; man would be, as it were, in a state of nothingness; and, without suspecting it, his body might at any moment be crushed to the ground by the forces of nature. but these material necessities are not by any means the only ones that demand sensation; without it, one of the principal objects of evolution--the development of "egos"--would be impossible. as an example borrowed from the domain of physical sensation, we need only call to memory a well-known experience in childhood. all who have been at a boarding school know how heavy and fetid is the atmosphere of a dormitory in the early winter morning, when fifty boys have been breathing the same air again and again during the whole of the night. and yet, who suspected this until he had gone out for a few minutes and then returned to the bed-room? it needed the "contrary," the pure outside air, to make known the state of the atmosphere inside. the contrast produced sensation--that nauseous, suffocating impression of foul, mephitic air; suffering[ ] generated knowledge of the vitiated air; as the result of this influence, the "centre of consciousness" felt itself an "i" distinct from its surroundings, and its "self-consciousness" received a slight increase. what might be called passional sensibility--desire, emotion, impulse--is, like physical sensation, another indispensable factor in evolution; it is the special element in the development of the animal kingdom as well as of the less evolved portion of the human kingdom. the young souls of mankind must receive the comparatively simple lessons of sensation, desire, and passion, before beginning the far more complicated study of mentality. but for desire, a host of needs could not be manifested, numberless functions would remain inactive; the body would not feed itself, and would die, were it not for hunger; danger would not be fled from, but for the instinct of self-preservation; nor without this would there be any propagation of the species. none the less is this life of sensation the source of many evils; desire and passion amongst human beings create terrible misery, fill prisons and hospitals, and are at the root of all kinds of moral suffering. in its turn, intelligence--that sensation so characteristic of the human state--is both an indispensable necessity and the most fertile source of evil, so long as it has not experienced a yearning for that inner "divinity," deep in the heart of man, which calls to it. a powerful lever of progress, it might convert this earth into a paradise, whereas it is the weapon which the strong, in their egoism, use to crush the feeble, a terrible weapon which either creates or intensifies all the evils under which the people writhe in despair. once it becomes the instrument of a regenerate humanity, that is to say, when men have become compassionate, loving, and devoted, then the social question will cease to exist, and the old instrument of torture will become a pledge of general happiness. even spiritual sensibility is a cause of suffering to some noble souls who have developed it, for however deep the joy of loving and giving oneself, intense too is the pain of witnessing the cruel drama of life, that fratricidal struggle in which passion strikes without mercy, whilst illusion and ignorance deal blows even more terrible, for into the wounds they make they instil the poison of revolt and despair. the action of multiplicity, and of its creators, the "contraries," engenders still other causes of suffering. every being lives both for others and at their expense. for instance, physical bodies are obliged to replace with food and nourishment those particles which the various functions of life cause them to lose. the vegetable kingdom takes its constituent elements from the mineral kingdom, and itself serves as food for large portions of the animal kingdom; up to this point physical pain has not manifested itself, though there is a momentary arrest of evolution for the animistic essence which represents the individual in the destroyed vegetable. a portion of the animal kingdom feeds on its own members; man, too, extorts from this same kingdom a very heavy tribute; here, the arrested evolution of the victims is all the more important, inasmuch as their stage of evolution is higher, and the existence of a nervous system brings the possibility of suffering, suffering which certain influences[ ] either diminish or suppress altogether, when caused by animal destructiveness, but which may become intense when it is man who is the sacrificer. among the causes of pain, arising from multiplicity there is also the physical, mental, and moral action exercised by the solidarity of all beings. by exchanging, with those that come into contact with us, the products thrown off by our visible and invisible bodies, we are the dispensers of good or ill-health. everyone, for instance, is aware of the far-reaching effects of an evil intellectual and moral example; physical contagion, in spite of the torture it inflicts, is far less to be dreaded than moral contagion. the spiritual qualities alone do not form a leaven of evil; they are not the double-edged instruments we meet with elsewhere. the reason of this is that they belong to the plane of unity. but it is none the less true that, though the presence of a highly developed soul is a help to younger souls within its reach and influence, its powerful vibrations may, from certain points of view, prove fatiguing to those still at the foot of the ladder of evolution. this is one of the many reasons that have given rise to the saying that it is dangerous prematurely to enter the "circle of the ascetics." but the most powerful causes of pain, due to multiplicity, are the ignorance and the will of beings who have reached the human stage. man can employ his mental faculties for good or evil, and so long as he does not know definitely that he is the brother of all beings, _i.e._, until his divine faculties have been developed, and love and the spirit of sacrifice have taken possession of his heart, he remains a terrible egoist, more to be dreaded than the criminal dominated by a momentary burst of passion, for he acts in cold blood, he evades or refuses to recognise the law of humanity, he dominates and destroys. this man is at the stage of ingratitude; he no longer possesses the harmlessness of childhood, nor has he yet acquired the wisdom of advanced age. our western race has reached this critical stage, whereof the menacing demands of the suffering masses are a striking testimony. here, too, god could not do otherwise; he might create bodies blindly obedient to his law, mere automata, but it would be impossible for him to cause divine germs to evolve into "gods" without pulling them through the school of evolution which teaches them, first, of the "ego," the root of all egoism, then knowledge by ignorance, liberty by necessity, good by evil, and the perfect by the imperfect. it may at this point just be mentioned that though human egoism appears to have free play and to be unrestrained in its cruelty, divine law never allows innocence to suffer for the errors of evolving souls, it punishes only the guilty, whether their faults or misdeeds be known or unknown, belonging to the present life or to past ones. such, briefly, is the cause of pain and suffering in evolution; in the following pages we will set forth the causes of the unequal distribution of this suffering. the problem of the inequality of conditions. if suffering in general is the child of necessity--since it is born of multiplicity and the limitation of the infinite, without which the universe could not exist--it would seem that we ought to find it falling upon all beings without distinction, in uniform, regular, and impartial fashion. instead of this, it is every moment losing its character of impersonality; it respects those who are guilty on a large scale; and, without any visible cause, strikes fiercely the most innocent of persons; noble souls are born in the families of criminals, whilst criminals have fathers of the utmost respectability; we find parricides, and brothers hostile to each other; millionaires die of surfeiting alongside of paupers dying of hunger; we find giants by the side of dwarfs; the healthy and well-formed near the crippled or those wasted away by terrible diseases; apollos contrast with quasimodos; men of genius are met with, cheek by jowl with idiots; some children are stillborn, others blind or deaf and dumb from birth. extremely different races people the earth--on the one hand, unintelligent and cannibal negroes; on the other, the proud, handsome, and intelligent, though selfish and cruel white race. again, from a moral standpoint, who can explain congenital tendencies to crime, the vicious by birth, the wicked by nature, the persons with uncontrollable passions? wherefore are thrift and foresight lacking in so many men, who are consequently condemned to lifelong poverty and wretchedness? why this excess of intelligence, used mainly for the exploiting of folly? it is useless to multiply examples, one has only to look around at hospitals and prisons, night-shelters, palaces and garrets; everywhere suffering has taken up its abode. can no reply be given to this terrible charge brought against divinity? is man to remain in a state of dejection and discouragement, as though some irreparable catastrophe had befallen him? according to the church, all this is the work of the soul which god gives at the birth of a man--a soul that is good or bad, prudent or foolish, one which damns or saves itself according as its will can, or cannot, dominate its passions, its intelligence discover the way to heaven or not; according as grace or rejection predestine it to heaven or to hell. is it not the depth of profanity to represent god as watching over conceptions in order to create souls so unfairly endowed, most of whom will never hear the gospel message, and consequently cannot be saved, whilst the rest are destined to animate the bodies of savages and cannibals, devoid of moral consciousness? is it not an act of sacrilege thus to convert god, who is all wisdom and love, into a kind of accomplice of adulterers and lewd persons or the sport of malthusian insults. unconscious blasphemers are they who would offer this dead sea fruit as the true manna of life! there is also another theory, often advanced in certain quarters, on which we must say a few words, for though it contains only a minimum of truth, and consequently cannot withstand serious examination, it has led astray more than one earnest thinker. inequalities of suffering, it has been said, arise from inequalities of social conditions. intelligence, morality, will, in fact all human faculties, develop more or less according to their environment; men are born equal; they become unequal as the result of different environment; pay the same care and attention to all and they will remain equal, and if they are equal, the theory seems to imply, evil will disappear from the face of the earth. this is not so. inequality of suffering does not result from inequality of condition. many a poor tiller of the fields enjoys a degree of peace and happiness that those favoured by birth or fortune would envy. disease visits poor and rich alike; moral suffering is more especially the appanage of the so-called higher classes, and if obscurity and poverty render certain troubles specially severe, wealth and rank play the same _rôle_ in afflictions of another kind; there is a dark side to every picture. more than this, inequality of condition is one of the fundamental factors of social equilibrium; without it, many urgent and even indispensable functions would be neglected, numerous general needs would remain unsatisfied; so-called menial work, which, in a state of society that is still imperfect and consequently selfish, is performed only in the hope of remuneration, would never be done at all; every man would have to provide for the whole of his necessities; no one could find time for self-improvement or for flinging himself entirely into those divers branches of activity which, if personal interest were absent, would make life infinitely better and progress extremely rapid. the partisans of this theory rely on diversity of tastes to fill the diversity of functions that are necessary in social life: another illusion. the inferior, painful, or difficult tasks will never find sufficient workers, whilst easy or honourable posts will always be overcrowded. to believe the contrary would be to shut one's eyes to the present imperfection of men; it would mean the belief that they were noble and lofty beings, eager for self-sacrifice, demanding only to work for the happiness of all, without a single thought of their personal preferences; it would mean seeing, in present-day humanity, that of the future in which each individual has attained to such a degree of perfection that not a single idle, ill-disposed, or stupid person is to be found amongst them, for each one would regard himself as the brother and helper of all, and the universal standard of life would be: each for all and all for each! how ardently we desire that this were so; how eagerly we pray for that future, so far away, when we shall have grown to this nobler stature, and the present fratricidal struggle shall have given place to a lasting peace, the offspring of a higher, spiritual, universal love. anxiously do we await it; like lost travellers, we fix our eyes on the dark horizon to catch the first faint streaks of light, harbingers of the dawn. we greet with joy and gratitude all such as believe in that blessed future and endeavour to hasten its coming, all who impersonally and in sincerity aim at the social unity towards which the heart aspires, and especially those whose aim it is to advance in accordance with that continuous, progressive evolution based on the physical, moral, mental, and spiritual amelioration of men, for it is they who have learned the secret of nature. indeed, evolution shows us that, the more souls grow, the nearer they approach that perfection to which progress destines them, and happiness exists only in perfection. to return to other aspects of the subject. men are born equal, we are told. a single glance at the differences in the moral and intellectual qualities of races and individuals, at the differences between young children, even at the differences in the instincts of infants at the breast, is sufficient to prove the contrary. there are savages in whom no trace whatever of the moral sense can be discovered. charles darwin in one of his works relates a fact, which mrs. besant has quoted, in illustration of this. an english missionary reproached a tasmanian with having killed his wife in order to eat her. in that rudimentary intellect, the reproach aroused an idea quite different from that of a crime; the cannibal thought the missionary imagined that human flesh was of an unpleasant flavour, and so he replied: "but she was very good!" is it possible to attribute to the influence of surroundings alone a degree of moral poverty so profound as this? many a mother has been able to find out that souls are not equal, in other words, that they are of different ages, by the discovery of diametrically opposite qualities and tendencies in two children born under the same conditions; in twins, for instance. every schoolmaster has noticed the same fact in the pupils under his charge. mrs. besant says that amongst the , children who came under her inspection in the london schools she would often find side by side with gentle, affectionate little beings others who showed criminal tendencies from birth. looking at the question from another point of view, are we not continually finding in schools and educational establishments pupils who, for no explicable reason, show a disposition for one branch of instruction only? they shine in this, but are dunces in every other subject. as a final example, do not infant prodigies prove that men are not born equal? young, who discovered the undulatory theory of light, could read with wonderful rapidity at the age of two, whilst at eight he had a thorough knowledge of six languages. sir w. r. hamilton began to learn hebrew when he was three, and knew it perfectly four years later. at the age of thirteen he knew thirteen languages. gauss, of brunswick--the greatest mathematician in europe, according to laplace--solved problems in arithmetic when only three. no, men are not born equal. nor does environment cause the inequalities we find; it favours or checks the development of qualities, but has no part in their creation. still, its influence is sufficiently important for us to give it due consideration. we are linked to one another by the closest bonds of solidarity, whether we wish it and are conscious thereof or not. everything absorbs and throws off, breathes in and breathes out, and this universal exchange, if at times bad, is none the less a powerful factor in evolution. the atom of carbon, on entering into the combinations of the human body, is endowed with a far higher power of combining than the one which has just left the lump of ore; to obtain its new properties, this atom has had to pass through millions of vegetable, animal, and human molecules. animals brought into close contact with man develop mentally to a degree that is sometimes incredible, by reason of the intellectual food with which our thoughts supply them. the man who lives alone is, other things being equal, weaker physically, morally, and mentally than he who lives in a large social environment; it is for this reason that the mind develops far more rapidly in large centres of life than in the country. and what is true of good is, unfortunately, true also of evil qualities. consequently, environment has an undeniable influence, and it is perfectly true to say that the social conditions under which individuals are born favour or impede the development of their faculties. there its influence stops; it can intensify inequality, but does not create it. inequality of condition arises, above all else, from the continuity of what might be called creation. atoms are incessantly being formed in the womb of the virgin mother,[ ] by the might of the divine vortex perceived by seers in ecstatic vision, and which theosophy has named the great breath; ceaselessly are these atoms entering into multitudes of organisms, ceaselessly is the plan of evolution being worked--some ending, others beginning the great pilgrimage. it is the existence of this circuit which creates and keeps complete the hierarchy of beings, brings into existence and perpetuates the known and the unknown kingdoms of nature; souls ascend slowly from one kingdom to another, whilst the places they leave are filled by new-comers, by younger souls. a second cause of human inequality is the difference in effort and deed accomplished by the will of human beings who have reached a certain point in evolution. as soon as this will is guided by intelligence and the moral sense, it hastens or delays individual evolution, makes it easy when it acts in harmony with divine law--by doing what is called "good"--or disturbs evolution by pain, when it opposes this law, by doing "evil." by modifying the direction of the law, the soul engenders beneficent or maleficent forces, which, after having played in the universe within the limit the law has imposed on them, return to their starting point--man. from that time, one understands that the balance of the scales in different individuals becomes unequal. these effects of the will influence to a noticeable degree the life during which they have originated; they are preserved in a latent condition after death, and appear again in future returns to earth. thus are men born laden with the results of their past and in possession of the capacities they have developed in the course of their evolution. those whom the difficulties of life have filled with energy in the past return to existence on earth possessed of that might which the world admires; now it is perseverance or courage; now patient calm or violence, which is the stronger, according to the aspect of the energy developed. others, again, are born feeble and devoid of energy; their former lives have been too easy. men are philosophers or mathematicians, artists or _savants_, from the very cradle. objections have been brought against the doctrine of rebirth by opponents who have looked only on one side of the individual life, and so have been unable to explain apparent anomalies, especially in those cases where it is seen that the effect does not immediately follow the cause. in reality, every force that emerges from a centre of will[ ] describes an ellipse, so to speak, which travels through a net-work of other ellipses generated by thousands of other centres of energy, and is accelerated or retarded in its course, according to the direction and nature of the forces with which it is connected. it is for this reason that certain actions meet with their reward or their punishment almost immediately. then the people say: "it is the finger of god!" in other cases, again, and these are the most numerous, the reaction is postponed; the noble-hearted man, who has made sacrifices the whole of his life, seems to receive in exchange nothing but misfortune and pain, whilst close by the wicked, selfish man prospers and thrives exceedingly. thereupon the ignorant say: "there is no god, for there is no justice." not so! it is impossible to defeat justice; though, in the interests of evolving beings, it may allow the forces around to accelerate or retard its progress. nothing is ever lost; causes that have not fructified remain potential; and, like the grain of corn gathered thousands of years ago, grow and develop as soon as favourable soil and environment are offered them. debts are still recorded, when the perishable sheaths of our physical bodies have been cast off; they come up for future payment, often in the next life. but this next life may not wipe off the whole of the liabilities, so the process is continued for several successive existences, and this has given rise to the saying that the sins of the parents[ ] are visited upon the children[ ] unto the seventh generation.[ ] such is the truth. souls, equal in potentialities whilst dormant as germs in the womb of being, become unequal, as soon as they are born into existence in the manifested universe, for they find predecessors, elder souls in front of them; inequality is intensified when they have reached the human stage, where intelligence and will come into play, for henceforth, inequality in the actions of individuals, variations of what might be called merit and demerit, set up a second factor in the inequality of conditions. evolution treasures up the causes that have not been able to germinate in one existence, and, by successive returns to earth, realises the aims and ends of that justice which governs the universe, the designs of that love which makes for progress and leads to perfection. objection. an apparently serious objection to the doctrine of rebirth is constantly being made. it is unjust and useless, people say, to be punished for misdeeds that are forgotten. as this objection has reference to moral proofs, we must deal with it here. does forgetfulness efface faults or destroy their consequences? could the assassin, who has lost all memory of the crime committed the previous evening, change his deed or its results in the slightest degree? rebirths are nothing more than the morrows of former lives, and though the merciful waters of lethe have effaced their memory, the forces stored up in the soul, during the ages, perform their work all the same in the future. on the other hand, injustice would exist, and that under a very cruel aspect, were memory to continue; for the painful vision of a past always full of weaknesses, even when free from the stain of crime, would be a continual one. and if, too--as our opponents would prefer--man knew why he was punished, _i.e._, if he knew that each of these past errors and faults, ever present before his eyes, would carry with it a particular fruit, and that strict payment would be exacted at every step in his new life, would not the punishment be far greater than the sin? would there not rise from every human heart an outcry of blasphemy against a god who, by means of memory, transformed life into an endless torment, destroying all activity or initiative in the anxiety of expectancy, in a word, stifling the present beneath the heavy nightmare of the past? men, though so unjust and little disposed to pity, have always refused to inflict on a man condemned to death the torture of anticipation; only at the last moment is he informed of the rejection of his appeal for mercy. could divine law be less compassionate than human law? is it not rash for us, in our profound ignorance, to criticise the workings of a boundless wisdom? he who takes only a few steps along the pathway of knowledge, or enters, however slightly, into the secret of the works of god, obtains the proof that providence leaves no part of the cosmos, no being anywhere, deprived of its fatherly care and protection. when, in our blindness, we imagine injustice, a void or an imperfection of any kind, a radiant beam of light shows us the omnipresent life, bestowing love on all its children without distinction, from the slumbering atom to the glorious planetary spirit, whose consciousness is so vast as to enfold the universe. it is more especially after death that the soul, set free from its illusory sheaths, makes an impartial review of its recent incarnation, attentively following its actions and their consequences, noting its errors and failures, along with their motives and causes. in this school it grows in knowledge and power; and when, in a future incarnation, the same difficulties present themselves anew, it is better equipped for the struggle; what has been learned, is retained within the soul; it knows, where formerly it was ignorant, and by the "voice of conscience," tells the personality[ ] what its duty is. this wisdom, sifted from the panorama of a thousand past images, is the best of all memories, for on those numerous occasions when a decision must be arrived at on the spur of the moment it would not be possible to summon forth from the depths of the past such groups of memories as refer to the decision to be reached, to see the events over again, and deduce therefrom a line of conduct. the lesson must have been learnt and thoroughly assimilated during the enlightened peace and calm of the hereafter; then only is the soul ready to respond without delay, and its command is distinct; its judgment, sure; do this, avoid that. when a soul, in the course of evolution, has succeeded in impressing its vibration--its thought--on a brain which it has refined and made responsive by a training which purifies the entire nature of the man, it is able to transmit to the incarnated consciousness the memory of its past lives; but this memory then ceases to be painful or dangerous, for the soul has not only exhausted the greater part of its karma of suffering, it also possesses the strength necessary to sustain its personality, whenever a foreboding of what we call misfortune comes upon it. in the divine work everything comes in its own time, and we recognise the perfection of the creator by the perfect concatenation of all creation. reincarnation is so intimately bound up with the law of causality, and receives from it such powerful support, that this chapter would be left in a very incomplete form were we not to say a few words on karma. the law of causality (karma).[ ] karma is the law of the universe, the expression of divine will. its seemingly essential attributes are justice and love; it neither punishes nor rewards, but adjusts things, restores disturbed balance and harmony, brings back evolving souls to the right path and teaches them law. when a man acts against the law, he is like a swimmer, struggling against the current of a rapid river; his strength fails, and he is borne away. so does god bear away, in spite of all their efforts, those who, whether ignorantly or consciously, fight against the law, for it is his love that wills evolution, _i.e._, the making human beings divine; so he brings them back to the path, in spite of themselves, every time they wander astray. "god is patient because he is eternal," it has been said. the sentence is incomplete and must be changed, since it attributes to divinity a vindictive nature. the law is patient because it is perfect in wisdom, power, and love. this law is the divine will which moves all things and vibrates everywhere; it is the music of the spheres, the song of glory and harmony, which murmurs in the heart like the rippling of a waterfall, the chant of life and joy that eternally triumphs in its never-ending creation of beings, who, after revolving for a moment in the universe, have become perfect. its glorious strains resound in the heart of man, when the soul has found peace in the law, and we are told that, when once heard, its divine accents continue for ever, like an ineffable whisper which brings us back to hope and faith, when we are sunk in the depths of despair. god limited himself in order to become incarnate in the universe: he is the soul of the world. his will is exerted everywhere, it finds its reflection in every creature; and man, a portion of divinity in course of evolution, possesses a germ of will that is infinite in its essence, and consequently capable of limitless development; god respects this will in his creatures, and submits to violence, in order to teach them his will, which is supreme love. like a stone that falls into a tranquil lake, a human action creates, all round, concentric ripples which continue to the very shores or limits of the universe; then the wave is thrown back upon itself, returns to its starting-point, and the man who began the first movement receives a recoil exactly equivalent to the original impetus. reaction is equal to action; obstacles on the way may delay its return or break up its energy, but the time comes when the fractions return to the centre that generates the disturbance, which thus receives from the law a perfectly just retribution. the principal element in actions is thought. every thought is a form in a state of vibration--a ray of intelligence which unites itself with subtle matter[ ] and forms a being, of which this matter is the body, and thought, the soul. this being, often called a "thought-form," possesses form, duration, and strength that bear a strict relation to the energy of the thought that created it; if it embodies a soul of hatred, it will react on the man who harbours this thought, and on all who come into contact with him, as a leaven of destruction, but if it is guided by love it will be, as it were, the incarnation of some beneficent power. in certain cases its action is expressed visibly and rapidly; for instance, a venomous thought may[ ] cause the death of the person against whom it is directed--this is one aspect of the "evil eye"--as also it may[ ] return to its starting-point and kill the one who generated it, by the recoil. every mental projection of a criminal nature, however, by no means necessarily reaches the object aimed at; a sorcerer, for instance, could no more injure one who was positive, consciously and willingly good, than he could cause a grain of corn to sprout on a block of granite; favourable soil is needed to enable the seed of evil to take root in a man's heart; otherwise, the evil recoils with its full force upon the one who sent it forth and who is an irresistible magnet, for he is its very "life-centre." thoughts cling to their creator and attract towards this latter those of a similar nature floating about in the invisible world, for they instinctively come to vitalise and invigorate themselves by contact with him; they radiate around him a contagious atmosphere of good or evil, and when they have left him, hover about, at the caprice of the various currents, impelling those they touch towards the goal to which they are making. they even recoil on the visible form of their generator; it is for this reason that physical is closely connected with moral well-being, and most of our diseases are nothing else than the outer expression of the hidden leaven of passion. when the action of this latter is sudden and powerful, diseases may be the immediate consequence thereof; blinded by materialism, certain doctors seldom acknowledge their real cause; and yet instances of hair turning white in a single night are too numerous to be refuted, congestion of the brain brought on by a fit of anger, jaundice and other grave maladies caused by grief and trouble, are to be met with continually. when the mental forces which disturb the physical organs meet with obstacles which prevent their immediate outlet, they accumulate, like the electric fluid in a condenser, until an unexpected contact produces a discharge; this condensation often persists for a whole life in a latent condition, and is preserved intact for a future incarnation; this is the cause of original vices, which, incorporated in the etheric double, react upon the organic texture of the body. this also explains why each individual possesses an _ensemble_ of pathological predispositions often radically different from those heredity should have bequeathed to him; it is also, to some extent, the key to physiognomy, for every single feature bears either the stamp of our passions or the halo of our virtues. thought creates lasting bonds between human beings; love and hatred enchain certain individuals to one another for a whole series of incarnations; many a victim of the past is to be found again in those unnatural sons who send a thrill of horror through society when it hears of some heinous crime--they have become the torturers of their former oppressors. in other cases, it is love which attracts and unites in renewed affection those who formerly loved one another--they return to earth as brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, husbands or wives. but if we are the slaves of the past, if fate compels us to reap what we have sown, we yet have the future in our hands, for we can tear up the weeds, and in their place sow useful plants. just as, by means of physical hygiene, we can change within a few years the nature of the constituents that make up our bodies, so also, by a process of moral hygiene, we can purify our passions and then turn their strength in the direction of good. according as we will, so do we actually become, good or bad; every man who has taken his evolution in hand notices this rapid transformation of his personality, and sees his successive "egos" rise step by step, so to speak, throughout his whole life. speaking generally, the first part of life is the expression of the distant past--of former lives--the second is a mixture of the past and of the energies of the present incarnation; the end of life is nothing but a sinking into an ever-deepening rut for those who crystallise in only one direction; the force of habit sets up its reign, and man finds himself bound by the chains he himself has forged. this is the reason an old man does not like the present times; he has stopped whilst time has advanced, and he is now being carried along like the flotsam and jetsam of a wreck; the very tastes and habits of his contemporaries violently clashing with his beloved past. speak not to him of progress or evolution, he has brought himself into a state of complete immobility, and he will discover no favourable field of action nor will he acquire real energy until he has drunk of the waters of lethe in a rest-giving hereafter and a new body supplies his will with an instrument having the obedient suppleness of youth. h. p. blavatsky, in the _secret doctrine_, has well described this progressive enmeshing of man in the net he himself is weaving. "those who believe in karma have to believe in destiny, which, from birth to death, every man is weaving, thread by thread, around himself, as a spider his web; and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate _astral_ or inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied entity called man. both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and implacable _law of compensation_ steps in and takes its course, faithfully following the fluctuations of the fight. when the last strand is woven, the man is seemingly enwrapped in the net-work of his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire of this _self-made_ destiny...." she adds shortly afterwards: "an occultist or a philosopher will not speak of the goodness or cruelty of providence; but, identifying it with karma-nemesis, he will teach that nevertheless it guards the good and watches over them in this as in future lives; and that it punishes the evil-doer, aye, even to his seventh rebirth, so long, in short, as the effect of his having thrown into perturbation even the smallest atom in the infinite world of harmony, has not been finally readjusted. for the only decree of karma--an eternal and immutable decree--is absolute harmony in the world of matter as it is in the world of spirit. it is not, therefore, karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we who reward or punish ourselves, according to whether we work with, through, and along with nature, abiding by the laws on which that harmony depends, or--break them. "nor would the ways of karma be inscrutable, were men to work in union and harmony instead of disunion and strife. for our ignorance of those ways--which one portion of mankind calls the ways of providence, dark and intricate, while another sees in them the action of blind fatalism, and a third, simple chance, with neither gods nor devils to guide them--would surely disappear, if we would but attribute all these to their correct cause.... "we stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making, and the riddle of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the great sphinx of devouring us. but verily, there is not an accident in our lives, not a mis-shapen day or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life...." on the same subject, mrs. sinnett says in _the purpose of theosophy_: "every individual is making karma either good or bad in every action and thought of his daily round, and is at the same time working out in this life the karma brought about by the acts and desires of the last. when we see people afflicted by congenital ailments, it may be safely assumed that these ailments are the inevitable results of causes started by the same in a previous birth. it may be argued that, as these afflictions are hereditary, they can have nothing to do with a past incarnation; but it must be remembered that the ego, the real man, the individuality, has no spiritual origin in the parentage by which it is re-embodied, but is drawn by the affinities which its previous mode of life attracted round it into the current that carries it, when the time comes for re-birth, to the home best fitted for the development of those tendencies.... "this doctrine of karma, when properly understood, is well calculated to guide and assist those who realise its truth to a higher and better mode of life; for it must not be forgotten that not only our actions, but our thoughts also, are most assuredly followed by a crowd of circumstances that will influence for good or for evil our own future; and, what is still more important, the future of many of our fellow-creatures. if sins of omission and commission could in any case be only self-regarding, the effect on the sinner's karma would be a matter of minor consequence. the fact that every thought and act through life carries with it, for good or evil, a corresponding influence on the members of the human family renders a strict sense of justice, morality, and unselfishness so necessary to future happiness and progress. a crime once committed, an evil thought sent out from the mind, are past recall--no amount of repentance can wipe out their results on the future.... "repentance, if sincere, will deter a man from repeating errors; it cannot save him or others from the effects of those already produced, which will most unerringly overtake him either in this life or in the next rebirth." we will also quote a few lines from e. d. walker in _reincarnation_: "briefly, the doctrine of karma is that we have made ourselves what we are by former actions, and are building our future eternity by present actions. there is no destiny but what we ourselves determine. there is no salvation or condemnation except what we ourselves bring about.... because it offers no shelter for culpable actions and necessitates a sterling manliness, it is less welcome to weak natures than the easy religious tenets of vicarious atonement, intercessions, forgiveness, and death-bed conversions.... "in the domain of eternal justice, the offence and the punishment are inseparably connected as the same event, because there is no real distinction between the action and its outcome. "it is karma, or our old acts, that bring us back into earthly life. the spirit's abode changes according to its karma, and this karma forbids any long continuance in one condition, because it is always changing. so long as action is governed by material and selfish motives, just so long must the effect of that action be manifested in physical rebirths. only the perfectly selfless man can elude the gravitation of material life. few have attained this, but it is the goal of mankind." the danger of a too brief explanation of the law of causality consists in the possibility of being imperfectly understood, and consequently of favouring the doctrine of fatalism. "why act at all, the objection will be urged, if everything is foreseen by the law? why stretch out a hand to the man who falls into the water before our very eyes? is not the law strong enough to save him, if he is not to die; and if he is, have we any right to interfere?... "such reasoning arises from ignorance and egoism. "yes, the law is powerful enough to prevent the man from drowning, and also to prevent the possibility of his being saved by some passer-by, who has been moved to pity by the sight; to doubt this were to doubt the power of god. in the work of evolution, however, god does more than supply man with means of developing his intelligence; in order to enrich his heart, he offers him opportunities of sacrificing himself. again, the innumerable problems set by duty are far from being solved for us; with difficulty can we distinguish a crime from a noble action; very often we do wrong, thinking we are doing right, and it not unfrequently happens that good results from our evil deeds; this is why god sends us experiences which are to teach us our duty. "the soul learns not only during its incarnations, but even more after leaving the body,[ ] for life after death is largely spent in examining the consequences of deeds performed during life on earth. "whenever, then, an opportunity for action offers itself, let us follow the impulse of the heart, the cry of duty, and not the sophisms of the lower nature, the selfish "ego," the cold brain, which knows neither compassion nor devotion. do your duty, whatever happens, says the law, _i.e._, do not allege, as your excuse for being selfish, that god, if he thinks it best, will help your brother in his trouble; why do you not fling yourself into the fire, with the thought that, if your hour has not yet come, god will prevent the flames from burning you? does not the man, who commits suicide, himself push forward the hand on the dial of life, setting it at the fatal hour? "the threads of karmic action are so wonderfully interwoven, and god, in order to hasten evolution, makes such marvellous use of human forces, both good and bad, that the first few glances cast at the _mêlée_ of events are calculated to trouble the mind rather than reveal to it the marvels of adjustment effected by divine wisdom, but no sooner does one succeed in unravelling some of the entanglements of the karmic forces, and catching a glimpse of the harmony resulting from their surprising co-operation, than the mind is lost in amaze. then, one understands how the murderer is only an instrument whose passions are used by god in carrying out the karmic decree which condemned the victim long before the crime was committed; then, too, one knows that capital punishment is a legal crime of which divine justice makes use--yes, a crime, for none but god can judge; every being has a right to live, and does live, until god condemns him. "but man, by making himself, even ignorantly, the instrument of karma, acts against the universal law, and is preparing for himself that future suffering which results from every attack made on the harmony of the whole."[ ] on the other hand, destiny is not an immutable mass of forces; will can destroy what it has created, that is a question of time or energy; and when these are unable, within a given period, to bring about the total destruction of a barrier belonging to the past, none the less does this barrier lessen day by day, for the "resultant" of this system of opposing forces changes its direction every moment, and the final shock, when it cannot be avoided, is always diminished to a greater or less degree. in the case of those who have attained to a perfect reading of the past, their knowledge of the hostile forces is complete, and the neutralisation of these forces immensely facilitated. they can seek out, in this world or in the next, those they wronged in the past, and thus repair the harm done; they can see the source of those thoughts of hatred that are sent against them, and destroy them by the intervention of love;[ ] they can find out the weak points of their personal armour and strengthen them: it is this that in theosophical language is called the burning of karma in the fire of "wisdom." none the less, there are two points in the law of causality, which appear to favour the idea of fatalism, though in reality, they are merely corollaries of karma. according to the first, every force is fatal, in the sense that, if left to itself, it is indestructible. this is not fatality, for the force can be modified by meeting with forces differing in character, and if no such encounter takes place, it finally unites with the cosmic law, or else is broken to pieces upon it, according as it moves with evolution or against it.[ ] only in one sense, then, is it fatal; it cannot be destroyed save by an opposing force of the same momentum. for instance, in order to annihilate an obstructive force, created in the past, the soul must expend an amount of energy that is equal and opposite to that force; it meanwhile cannot devote itself to any other work, thus causing, in one sense, a useless production of energy; in other words, evolution will suffer delay,[ ] but, we must repeat, that is not fatality. now to the second point. thought, by repetition, gains ever-increasing energy, and when the forces which thoughts accumulate have become as powerful as those of the will of the ego which created them, a final addition of energy--another thought--alone is needed for the will to be overcome and the heavier scale of the balance to incline; then the thought is fatally realised in the action. but so long as dynamic equilibrium has not been reached, the will remains master, although its power is ever diminishing, in proportion as the difference in the forces becomes smaller. when equilibrium is reached, the will is neutralised; it becomes powerless, and feels that a fall is only a question of moments, and, with a fresh call of energy, the thought is fatally realised on the physical plane; the hour of freedom has gone and the fatal moment arrived. like some solution that has reached saturation point, obedient to the last impulse, this thought crystallises into an act. many a criminal thus meets, in a single moment, the fatality he has created in the course of several incarnations; he no longer sees anything, his reason disappears; in a condition of mental darkness his arm is raised, and, impelled by a blind force, he strikes automatically. "what have i done?" he immediately exclaims in horror. "what demon is this that has taken possession of me?" then only is the crime perpetrated, without there being time for the will to be consulted, without the "voice of conscience" having been invited to speak. the whole fatality of automatism is in the deed, which has been carried through without the man suspecting or being conscious of it; his physical machine has been the blind instrument of the force of evil he has himself slowly accumulated throughout the ages. but let there be no mistake; every time a man, who is tempted, has time to think, even in fleeting fashion, of the moral value of the impulse which is driving him onward, he has power to resist; and if he yields to this impulse, the entire responsibility of this final lapse is added on to that incurred by past thoughts. among the victims of these actions that have become fatal are often to be found those who are near the stage of initiation, for before being exposed to the dangers of the bewildering "path," which bridges the abyss--the abyss which separates the worlds of unity from the illusory and transitory regions of the universe--they are submitted to the most careful tests. there may even be found souls that tread this path,[ ] bearing within themselves[ ] some old surviving residue which has not yet been finally thrown into the physical plane, and must consequently appear for the last time before falling away and disappearing for ever.[ ] mankind, incapable of seeing the man--the divine fragment gloriously blossoming forth in these beings--often halts before these dark spots in the vesture of the great soul, these _excreta_ flung off from the "centre," belonging to the refuse of the vehicle, not to the soul, and in its blindness pretends to see, in its folly to judge, loftily condemning the sins of a brother more evolved than itself! the future will bring men greater wisdom, and teach them the greatness of their error.[ ] at the conclusion of this important chapter, let us repeat that karma--divine will in action--is love as well as justice, wisdom as well as power, and no one ought to dread it. if at times it uses us roughly and always brings us back to the strait way when folly leads us astray, it is only measuring its strength against our weakness, its delicate scales balance the load according to our strength, and when, in times of great anguish or terrible crisis, man is on the point of giving way, it suddenly lifts the weight, leaves the soul a moment's respite, and only when it has recovered breath is the burden replaced. the righteous will of god is always upon us, filling our hearts with its might; his love is ever about us, enabling us to grow and expand, even through the suffering he sends, for it is ourselves who have created this suffering. footnotes: [footnote : fortunately, this is a fact only in the imagination of those who are blinded by faith.] [footnote : before men had sinned individually on earth.] [footnote : _de corruptione et gratia_, chap. , no. ; _cont. jul. pelag._, book , chap. , no. , et _de peccat. merit. et remiss._, book , chap. , no. .] [footnote : "omnes illae unus homo fuerunt." _de peccat. merit. et remiss._, book , chap. , no. . theologians pass over st. augustine's adoption of this theory, giving one to understand that he abandoned his error shortly before his death. (_dictionnaire de théol._, by abbé berger; volume viii., article x., "_traduciens._")] [footnote : see also, on this subject, his letter to sixtus, before the latter became pope. chap. vii., no. , and chap. vi., no. .] [footnote : the movements of "creation" and "absorption," which are called in hindu symbolism the outbreathing and the inbreathing of brahmâ.] [footnote : creation.] [footnote : after violet and red there stretches quite another spectrum, invisible to the human eye; it is because violet is at the beginning of our known spectrum, that one might think it was not the neutral point thereof.] [footnote : the soul believes itself distinct from the all, because it is subjected to the illusion engendered by its body.] [footnote : without the aid of the eyes, walking is impossible to those suffering from plantar anæsthesia.] [footnote : pleasure, like every other form of sensation, produces the same results, though perhaps with less force.] [footnote : a magnetic effect or an emotion. all travellers who have escaped from the attacks of wild beasts mention this effect of inhibition, manifested by the absence of fear and pain at the moment of attack.] [footnote : primordial matter which has not yet entered into any combination and is not differentiated.] [footnote : a soul.] [footnote : in these cases, the soul.] [footnote : the personalities or new bodies created by the soul, on each return to earth.] [footnote : that is to say, the seventh incarnation.] [footnote : waking consciousness.] [footnote : see _karma_, by a. besant.] [footnote : those who have studied thought know that it is capable of being incorporated in diverse states of astral and mental matter.] [footnote : if the divine law allows it.] [footnote : if the divine law has not allowed the action to take place.] [footnote : man, after death, loses in succession his astral and mental bodies.] [footnote : _la théosophie en quelques chapitres_, by the author, pages to .] [footnote : "hatred is destroyed only by love," said the buddha. "return good for evil," said jesus.] [footnote : it is this that causes the universal force of opposition--_the enemy_ or _demon_--to become evil only when ignorance or the human will make use of it to oppose evolution: apart from such cases, it is only the second pillar necessary for the support of the temple, the stepping-stone of the good.] [footnote : perhaps this is only an apparent delay, for, on every plane, force is correlative, and knowledge is the fruit of many different kinds of energy. the only real cases in which there is delay of individual evolution are probably those in which _evil is done in return for evil_. of course, we are speaking in relative terms and from a relative standpoint.] [footnote : when human evolution is completed, man passes the "strait gate" leading to superhuman evolution, to the spiritual life, which develops the next higher principle, _buddhi_; this is _the path_. human evolution develops the mental principle, _manas_; super-human evolution develops the spiritual body, _buddhi._] [footnote : here we are dealing with faults of a more or less venial nature.] [footnote : for ever, in this case, for the soul is above these residues, and, so to speak, has given them no vitality for ages past.] [footnote : in completion of this chapter on the law of causality, we refer the reader to a. besant's book: _karma._] chapter iii. reincarnation and science. the secret of the universe lies in observation; it is for man to develop his senses and patiently to search into the hidden things of nature. all science proceeds thus, and the reason that savants have not unearthed the precious object for which they seek with such wonderful perseverance is that the physical senses, even when aided by the most delicate instruments, are able to cognise only a portion of the physical universe--the denser portion. this is proved by the fact that when man has succeeded in directing into a channel some subtle force, he remains as ignorant of its essence as he was before chaining it down, so to speak; he has not the slightest knowledge of it. he can utilise but he cannot dominate it, for he has not discovered its source. this source is not in the physical world, but on the finer planes of being, which will remain unknown to us, so long as our senses are incapable of responding to their vibrations. because physical observation reveals only the bark, the outer crust of the cosmos, man sees nothing but the surface of the world, and remains in ignorance of the heart and vital plexus that give it life; consequently, he calls the disintegration following upon disincarnation by the senseless name of "death." he who has lifted the veil of isis sees divine life everywhere, the life that animates forms, builds them up, uses them, and finally breaks them to pieces when they have ceased to be of use; and this life--god--thus spread about in numberless forms, by means of its many rays, develops in itself centres--souls--which gradually grow and awaken their infinite potentialities[ ] in the course of these successive incarnations. still, though the eye of the god-man alone can penetrate this wonderful mechanism and study it in all its astonishing details, the savant whose mind is unprejudiced can judge of the concealed mechanism by examining its outer manifestations, and it is on this ground we now place ourselves with the object of setting forth another series of proofs of reincarnation. the evolutionary series. if we look attentively at the totality of beings we perceive a progressive series of forms expressing a parallel series of qualities and states of consciousness. the portion of this scale we are able to compass extends from the amorphous state[ ]--which represents the minimum of consciousness--up to those organic complexities which have allowed of a terrestrial expression being given to the soul of the saviours of the world. in this glorious hierarchy each step forms so delicate a transition between the one preceding and the one following that on the borders of the different kingdoms it becomes impossible to trace a line of demarcation between different beings; thus one does not know whether such or such a family should be classed among minerals, or vegetables or animals. it is this that science has called the evolutionary series.[ ] the cyclic process of evolution. another fact strikes the observer: the cyclic march of evolution. after action comes reaction; after activity, rest; after winter, summer; after day, night; after inspiration--the breath of life during which universal movement works in a molecular aggregate and there condenses in the form of vitality--expiration--the breath of death, which causes the individualised life to flow back into the ocean of cosmic energy; after the systole, which drives the blood into every part of the body, comes the diastole, which breathes back the vital liquid into the central reservoir; after the waking state comes sleep; life here and life hereafter; the leaves sprout and fall away periodically, with the rising and descending of the sap; annual plants die at the end of the season, persisting in germinal state within a bulb, a rhizome, or a root before coming again to the light; in "metamorphoses," we find that the germ (_the egg_) becomes a larva (_a worm_), and then dies as a chrysalis, to be reborn as a butterfly. ideas also have their successive cycles of glory and decadence; is not the present theosophical movement the renaissance of the neoplatonic movement which brought the light to greece and egypt fifteen hundred years ago? in h. p. blavatsky restored it to life, whilst its previous birth look place in the time of ammonius saccas, the theosophist, in the schools of alexandria. those who have acquired the power to read the cosmic records[ ] will easily recognise amongst the present pioneers of theosophy many a champion who in a former age struggled and fought in the same sublime cause. races are born and grow up, die and are born again; pass through a state of childhood, of youth, of maturity, and of old age. they flourish in all their splendour when the vital movement which animates them is at its height; when it leaves them and passes to other portions of the globe, they gradually fall into old age; then the more developed egos--those incarnated in these races during their maturity--come down into the advanced nations, living on the continents animated by the "life-wave," whilst the less evolved go to form the so-called degenerate races vegetating in obscure parts of the world. look now at the adolescence of russia, the youth of america, the old age of france, and the decrepitude of turkey. look backwards at the glorious egypt of bygone ages; nothing remains but deserts of sand on which imperishable structures still testify to the greatness of her past; the race that witnessed the majesty of the hierophants and the divine dynasties is now inhabiting other lands. continents submit to the same law; history and science show how they pass through a series of immersions and emersions; after lemuria, which bore the third race, came atlantis, the mother of the fourth; europe and america now hold the various branches of the fifth; and later on, when this old land of ours is again sunk beneath the waters, new lands will have emerged from the ocean depths to bear the future race, the sixth. the very planets, too, come under this law; issuing as nebulæ from the great womb of the universe at the beginning of the evolution of a solar system they are absorbed back again when the hour of their dissolution strikes. finally, the very universes go forth from the breast of brahmâ when he out-breathes, and return to him when he in-breathes again. everything, then, in appearance is born and dies. in reality, each thing springs from its germ, makes an effort--the effort of the divine will incarnated in this germ--develops its potentialities up to a certain step in the ladder of evolution, then garners the acquired qualities and again returns to activity in continuous cycles of life until its full development is reached. progress. the observer of nature makes a third discovery. every fresh cycle of life is characterised by an advance on the preceding cycle; every stage brings the end nearer. this represents progress, and it is seen everywhere; when it does not appear, it is because our limited vision cannot pierce its veil. minerals slowly develop in the bowels of the earth, and miners well know when the ore is more or less "ripe,"[ ] and that certain portions, now in a transition stage, will in a certain number of centuries have become pure gold; experiments[ ] have proved that metals are liable to "fatigue" from excessive tension; and that, after a rest, they acquire greater power of resistance than before; magnets "are fed," _i.e._, they increase their power of attraction, by exercise; cultivation improves and sometimes altogether transforms certain species of vegetables; the rapid mental development of domestic animals by contact with man is a striking instance of the heights to which progress may attain when it is aided, whilst the influence of teaching and education on the development of individuals as well as of races is even more striking.[ ] the goal of evolution. _the formation of centres of consciousness that become "egos."_ through innumerable wanderings this general progress traces a clear, unwavering line. those capable of following evolution on the planes of finer matter at once perceive, as it were, wide-spreading centres forming in the sea of divine essence, which is projected by the logos into the universe. as the ages pass, these centres are sub-divided into more restricted centres, into clearer and clearer "blocks" in which consciousness, that is, the faculty of receiving vibrations from without, is gradually developed, and when this consciousness within them reaches its limit, they begin to differentiate from their surroundings, to feel the idea of the "i" spring up within them. from that time, there is added to the power of receiving vibrations consciously, that of generating them voluntarily; no longer are they passive centres, but rather beings that have become capable of receiving and giving freely, individualities recognising and affirming themselves more day by day; "i's," who henceforth regard themselves as separated from the rest of the universe; this stage is that of the heresy of separateness. regarding this heresy, however, one may well say: _felix culpa._ fortunate error, indeed, for it is the condition, _sine quâ non_ of future divinity, of salvation. it is self-consciousness; man is born; man, the centre of evolution, set midway between the divine fragment which is beginning and that which is ending its unfoldment, at the turning point of the arc which leads the most elementary of the various kingdoms of nature to the most divine of hierarchies. this stage is a terrible one, because it is that which represents egoism, _i.e._ combat, the cause of every evil that afflicts the world, but it is a necessary evil, for there can be no _individual_ wisdom, power, and immortality without the formation of an "i." this ego is nothing but the first shoot, or bud, of the individual soul; it is only one of its first faculties; the finest show themselves subsequently. this bud is to blossom into a sweet-smelling flower; love and compassion, devotion, and self-sacrifice will come into manifestation, and the "centre of consciousness," after passing through the primitive stages--often called the elemental kingdoms--after being sheathed in mineral, vegetable, and animal forms, after having thought, reasoned, and willed in human forms and looked upon itself as separated from its fellow-creatures, comes finally to understand that it is only a breath of the spirit, momentarily clad in a frail garment of matter, recognises its oneness with all and everything, passes into the angelic state, is born as christ and so ends as a finished, perfected soul--a world-saviour. such is the goal of life, the wherefore of the universes, the explanation of these startling evolutions of souls in the various worlds, the solution of the problem regarding the diversity in the development of beings, the justification of providence before the blasphemy of the inequality of conditions. a few deductions. _the germ._ from the facts established in the course of this comprehensive view of the universe, we are enabled to draw important deductions. for instance, as the basis of every "cycle of life" is found the egg or germ, that strange microcosm which appears to contain within itself the entire organism from which it proceeds and which seems capable of manifesting it in its entirety. the first embryologic discovery we make as the result of this study--a discovery of the utmost importance--is that germs are one in essence, and are all endowed with the same possibilities and potentialities. the only difference that can be found in them is that the more evolved have acquired the power of developing, in the same cycle, a greater number of links, so to speak, in the chain of forms that proceeds from the atom to the sheath, or envelope, of the gods-men. thus, the highest germ which the microscope enables us to follow--the human ovule--is first a kind of mineral represented by the nucleus (the point, unity) of its germinal cell; then it takes the vegetable form--a radicle, crowned by two cotyledons (duality); afterwards it becomes a fish (multiplicity), which is successively transformed into a batrachian, then a bird, afterwards assuming more and more complex animal forms, until, about the third month of foetal life, it appears in the human form. the process of transformation is more rapid when nature has repeated it a certain number of times; it then represents a more extensive portion of the ladder of evolution, but, be it noted, the process is the same for all, and for all the ladder is composed of the same number of steps; beings start from the same point, follow the same path and halt at the same stages; nothing but their age causes their inequalities. they are more than brothers, they are all representatives of the one, that which is at the root of the universe, divinity, supreme being. we also see that progress, the result of the conservation of qualities, offers us repeated instances of these stages in the reappearance, at each step of the ladder, of the forms preceding it in the natural series. in the course of its evolution, the germ of an animal passes through the mineral and vegetable forms; if the animal is a bird, its final embryological form will be preceded by the animal forms, which, in the evolutionary series, make their appearance before the avian type; if we are dealing with a mammifer, the animal will be the summit of all the lower types; when it is the human germ that we are following in its development, we see that it also has contained within itself and is successively reproducing the potentialities of the whole preceding series. the microscope is able to show only clearly marked stages and the most characteristic types, for evolution runs through its initial stages with a rapidity defying the closest physical observation. if only nature would slacken her pace in order to humour our incapacity, we should see in an even more striking fashion that she preserves everything she has attained and develops the power of reconstruction with ever-increasing rapidity and perfection. true, each cycle of incarnation realises only an infinitesimal fraction of the total progress made, each being advances only one step at a time along this interminable series; but then, are not these minor "cycles" in the course of which brings grow and advance towards the final goal, the visible, material expression, the tangible and indisputable proof of the strict, the inexorable law of rebirths? _what the germ contains._ now let us examine a little more carefully this process of physical germination and attempt to discover an important secret from it; let us see whether the material germ contains the whole being, or whether, as the ancient wisdom teaches, the vehicles of the divine spark in evolution are as numerous as the germs which respectively effect their development and preservation. although here, too, the doctrine of the christian churches is inadequate, we cannot altogether pass it by in silence. we will, therefore, state it, recommending the reader to compare it with the theory of science and the teachings of theosophy. the churches deny evolution. they say: one single body, one single state of development for each human being. for the lower kingdoms a state of nothingness before birth and after death, whatever may have been the fate of these beings during the short life imposed upon them; for man a single body for which god creates a single soul and to which he gives a single incarnation on a single planet,[ ] the earth. it is our ardent wish that the signs of the growing acceptance of the idea of evolution now manifesting themselves in christian teaching may increase, and that the church, whatever be the influence that induces her to take the step, will in the end loyally hold out her hand to science. instead of remaining hostile, the two will then help each other to mount the ladder of truth; and divine life, the light of all sciences, philosophies, and religions, will illumine the dark path they are treading, and guide their steps towards that one truth which is both without and within them. scientific materialism says: yes, everything is born again from its germ--thus is progress made, but that is the limit of my concessions. everything is matter; the soul has no existence. there is evolution of matter, for matter, and by matter. when a form is destroyed, its qualities, like its power of rebirth, are stored away in a latent condition, within the germs it has produced during its period of activity. along with the disappearance of matter, everything disappears--qualities, thoughts, "ego"--and passes into a latent slate within the germ; along with the return of the form, qualities and attributes gradually reappear without any hypothetical soul whatever having any concern in the matter. so long as the form is in its germ stage, the being is nothing more than a mass of potentialities; when fully developed its faculties reappear, but they remain strictly attached to the form, and if the latter changes, the faculties echo the change, so to speak, with the utmost fidelity. matter is the parent of intelligence, the brain manufactures thought, and the heart distills love, just as the liver secretes bile; such is the language of present-day science. this theory accepts the idea of universal injustice in its entirety; we shall shortly prove that, notwithstanding its apparent logic, it explains only one side of evolution, and that if matter is the condition _sine quâ non_ of the manifestation of spirit, it is at least curious that the latter acts so powerfully upon it, and is, beyond the possibility of a doubt, its real master.[ ] modern theosophy, as well as the wisdom of old, says in its turn: spirit is the all, the one being, the only being that exists. force-matter[ ] is nothing but the product of the spirit's activity; in it we find many and divers properties--density, weight, temperature, volume, elasticity, cohesion, &c., because we judge it from our sense perceptions; but in reality, we know it so little, that the greatest thinkers have called it "a state of consciousness," _i.e._, an impression produced by it within ourselves.[ ] it is the result of the will of the supreme spirit, which creates "differences" (forms) in unfathomable homogeneous unity, which is incarnated in them and produces the modifications necessary for the development of its powers, in other words, for the accomplishment of their evolution. as this evolution takes place in the finite--for the infinite can effect its "sacrifice," _i.e._ its incarnation,[ ] only by limiting itself--it is progressive, proceeding from the simple to the complex. each incarnate, divine "fragment"[ ] at first develops the simpler qualities and acquires the higher ones only by degrees; these qualities can appear only by means of a vehicle of matter, just as the colour-producing properties of a ray of light only become manifest with the aid of a prism. form plays the part of the revealer of the qualities latent in the divine germ (the soul); the more complex this form becomes, the more atomic divisions it has in a state of activity; the greater the number of senses it has awake, the greater the number of qualities it expresses. in this process, we see at work, three main factors; _spirit_,[ ] awakening within itself _vibrations_,[ ] which assume _divers appearances_.[ ] these three factors are one; force-matter and form cannot exist without the all-powerful, divine will (spirit), for this is the supreme being, who, by his will, creates force matter, by his intelligence gives it a form, and animates it with his love. force-matter is the blind giant, who, in the sankhya philosophy, carries on his shoulders the lame man who can see--a giant, for it is activity itself; and blind, because this activity is directed only by the intelligent will of the spirit. the latter is lame, because when it has not at its disposal an instrument of form-matter, it cannot act, it cannot appear, it is no longer manifested, having disappeared with the great periodical dissolution of things which the poetical east calls the inbreathing of brahmâ. form--all form--creates a germ which reproduces it. the germ is an aggregate containing, in a very high state of vitalisation, all the atomic types that will enter into the tissues of the form it has to build up. these types serve as centres of attraction for the atoms which are to collect round them when, under the influence of the "vital fire,"[ ] creative activity has been roused in the germ. each atomic type now attracts from the immediate surroundings the atoms that resemble it, the process of segmentation which constitutes germination begins, and the particular tissues represented by the different atomic types are formed; in this way the fibrous, osseous, muscular, nervous, epithelial, and other tissues are reproduced. the creative activity that builds up tissues, if left to itself, could create nothing but formless masses; it must have the help of the intelligence to organise the atoms into molecules, the molecules into tissues, and these again into organs capable of a corporate life as a single organism, supplied with centres of sensation and action. this intelligence cannot proceed from the mind bodies of the various beings, for the latter manifest their qualities only when they possess a fully-developed form--which is not the case with the germs; moreover, the lower kingdoms show nothing but instinct, and even the superior animals possess only a rudimentary form of mentality. the most skilful human anatomist knows nothing more than the eye can teach him regarding the forms he dissects, though even if he were acquainted with their whole structure, he would none the less be quite incapable of creating the simplest sense organ. the form is the expression of cosmic intelligence, of god incarnated in the universe, the soul of the world, which, after creating matter, aggregates it into divers types, to which it assigns a certain duration. the type of the form varies with the stage of development of the being (_the soul_) incarnated therein, for the instrument must be adapted to the artist's capacity; the latter could not use an instrument either too imperfect or too perfect for his degree of skill. what could the rudimentary musician of a savage tribe do if seated before the complex organ of one of our cathedrals; whilst, on the other hand, what kind of harmony could a wagner produce from a shepherd's pipe? the cosmic intelligence would appear to have created a single, radical form-type, which gradually develops and at each step produces an apparently new form, until its series has reached the finished type of evolution. it stops the evolutionary process of each germ at the requisite point in the scale; in the case of the most rudimentary souls it allows a single step to be taken, thus supplying an instrument that possesses the requisite simplicity; the process is continued longer for the more advanced souls, but stops just when the form has become a suitable instrument. when it does not furnish the fecundated germ with the "model" which is to serve as a ground-plan for atomic deposits, segmentation takes place in a formless mass, and in this the tissues are shown without organisation; it is then a môle, a false conception. it is the same cosmic intelligence that derides the period during which the form shall remain in a state of activity in the world. until a soul has learnt the lesson that incarnation in a form must teach it, this form is necessary, and is given to it again and again until the soul has assimilated the experience that form had to supply; when it has nothing more to learn from the form, on returning to incarnation it passes into one that is more complex. the soul learns only by degrees, beginning with the letters of the alphabet of wisdom, and gradually passing to more complex matter; thus the stages of evolution are innumerable and the transition from one to the other imperceptible; modern science states this fact, though without explaining it, when she says that "nature makes no leaps." the building up of forms is effected by numerous beings, forming an uninterrupted chain that descends from the mighty architect, god, to the humblest, tiniest, least conscious of the "builders."[ ] god, the universal spirit, directs evolution, and could accomplish every detail of it directly; but it is necessary, for their own development, that the souls, whatever stage they have reached, should work in the whole of creation, and therein play the part, whether consciously or unconsciously, that they are fitted to play. consequently they are employed at every stage; and, in order to avoid mistakes, their activity is guided by more advanced souls, themselves the agents of higher cosmic entities, right on up to god, the sovereign controller of the hierarchies. consequently there are no mistakes--if, indeed, there are any real ones at all--in nature, except those that are compatible with evolution and of which the results are necessary for the instruction of souls; but the law is continually correcting them in order to restore the balance. such, in general outline, is the reason for the intervention of beings in the evolutionary process. so far as man is concerned, the highest of these beings supply the ideal type of the form which is to give the soul, when reincarnated, the best means of expression; others take charge of these models and entrust them to entities whose sole mission is to keep them before their mental eyes and guide the thousands of "builders" who build round them the atoms which are to form the tabernacle of flesh in its minutest details; these liliputian builders may be seen at work by the inner eye; they are as real as the workmen who construct material edifices in accordance with an architect's plans. that everything may be faithfully reproduced in form the entity that controls the building must not lose sight of the model for a single moment. nor does it do so, generally speaking, for one may say that this being is, as it were, the soul of the model, being one with it and conscious only of the work it has to perform. in many cases, however, it receives certain impressions before birth from the mother's thoughts: an influence capable either of forwarding or hindering its work. the ancient greeks were well acquainted with this fact when they assisted nature to create beautiful forms by placing in the mother's room statues of rare plastic perfection, and removing from her sight every suggestion of ugliness. more than this; certain intense emotions of the pregnant woman are capable of momentarily effacing the image of the model which the builder has to reproduce, and replacing certain of its details with images arising from the mother's imagination. if these images are sufficiently vivid, the being follows them; and if they endure for a certain length of time they are definitely incorporated in the building of the body. in this fashion, many birth marks (_naevi materni_) are produced; strawberries or other fruit, eagerly desired at times when they cannot be procured, have appeared on the child's skin; divers objects that have left a vivid impression on the imagination may have the same effect. the clearness and perfection of the impression depend on the intensity and continuance of the mental image; the part where it is to appear depends on the sense impressions of the mother coinciding with the desire which forms the image--for instance, a spot on the body touched rather sharply at the moment. this has given rise to the idea that the "longing" is impressed on that part of the body which the mother is touching during her desire. when the image is particularly strong and persistent considerable modifications of the body have been obtained; in such cases, children are born with animal-like heads, and treatises on teratology relate the case of a foetus born with the head detached from the trunk, because the mother, after witnessing an execution, had been horribly impressed by the sight of the separated heads of the victims. malebranche, in his _recherche de la vérité_, tells of a child that was born with broken limbs because his mother had seen the torture of the wheel. in this case, the image must have been of enormous vibratory power and of considerable persistence.[ ] a general or even a local arrest of development is almost always due to the phenomenon of mental inhibition experienced by the same being; it definitely ceases to see the plan, evolution stops, and the embryo, expelled before the time takes on the form of the evolutionary stage it had reached at that moment; if it ceases to deal with a single detail only that detail remains in _statu quo_, and is often embedded in portions of the organism quite away from the point where it would have been found had it continued to evolve; certain cysts belong to this class. the third factor, the spirit, the soul--or, to be more exact, the incarnated divine ray--follows a line of evolution parallel to that of the matter which constitutes its form, its instrument; this parallelism is so complete that it has deceived observers insufficiently acquainted with the wonders of evolution. it is thus that scientific materialism has taken root. we will endeavour to set forth the mistake that has been made, and call to mind the correctness of the vedantin symbol, which represents the soul as lame, incapable of acting without the giant, force-matter; though the latter, without the guidance of the former, could not advance along the path of evolution. this soul is a "no-thing," which, in reality, is everything; a ray of the spiritual sun (_god_), a divine spark incarnated in the vibration (_matter_) produced by the supreme being, it is a "centre," capable of all its father's potentialities. these potentialities, which may be grouped together under three general heads--power, love, and wisdom--we may sum up in the one word: consciousness. it is, indeed, a "centre of consciousness" in the germinal state, that is about to blossom forth, realising all its possibilities and becoming a being fully aware of its unity with the being from which it comes and which it will then have become. in this development the vibrations of outer matter play the part of the steel, which, on striking flint, causes the life latent within the latter to dart forth. each vibration which strikes the soul arouses therein a dormant faculty, and when all the vibrations of the universe have touched it, this soul will have developed as many faculties as that universe admits of, until, in the course of successive worlds, it becomes increasingly divine in the one divine being. in order that all the vibrations of which a universe is capable may reach the soul the latter must surround itself with all the different types of atoms that exist in the world, for every vibration is an atomic movement, and the nature of the vibration depends on the quality of the atoms in motion. now, the first part of evolution consists in condensing round vital centres[ ] (_souls_) atoms aggregated in combinations of a progressively increasing density, on to those that make up the physical plane; when the soul has thus clothed itself with the elements of all the planes, the resulting form is called a "microcosm"--a small cosmos--for it contains, in reality, all the elements contained in the universe. during this progressive development, the soul, which thus effects its "fall" into matter, receives from all the planes through which it passes and from all the forms in which it incarnates, varied vibrations which awake within it correspondingly responsive powers and develop a non-centred, diffused, non-individualised consciousness. in the second phase of evolution, the forms are limited, the vibrations they receive are transmitted by specialised sensorial groups, and the soul, hitherto endowed with a diffused consciousness, begins to feel varieties of vibrations that grow ever more numerous, to be distinguished from the surrounding world, to separate itself, so to speak, from everything around; in a word, to develop self-consciousness. this separation first takes place on the physical plane; it is made easier by hard, violent contacts, and the forms, in their turn, become more complex, varied, and specialised in proportion as the soul is the more perfectly individualised. when it has developed all the self-conscious responsive powers in the physical body, it begins to develop those faculties which have as their organs of transmission the finer bodies, and as planes of vibration the invisible worlds. in our planetary system the number of the invisible planes is seven.[ ] each of them in turn supplies the soul with a form; thus, when evolution--which in its second phase successively dematerialises matter, _i.e._, disassociates the atoms from their combinations, beginning with the denser ones--has dissolved the physical plane, the human soul will utilise, as its normal body, a finer one which it is at present using as a link between the mental and the physical bodies. before this dissolution is effected, however, human beings will have developed, to some extent, several finer bodies, already existing, though hitherto not completely organised. the first of these bodies, the astral--a very inappropriate name, though here used because it is so well known--is a copy, more or less, of the physical form in its general aspect; the resemblance and clearness of the features are pronounced in proportion to the intellectual development of the person, for thought-vibration has great influence over the building up of the centres of force and of sensation in this body.[ ] the second is an even finer aggregate, composed of mental substance and assuming, during incarnation, the form of a smaller or larger ovoid--the causal body--surrounding the physical form.[ ] at its centre, and plunged in the astral body during incarnation, is another kind of ovoid not so large and composed of denser substance--the mental body.[ ] above these states of matter, at the present stage there appears no form to the consciousness of human beings, though perfect seers can perceive, within the causal body, still higher grades of matter, which will only subsequently become centres of self-consciousness. during incarnation, the soul, in the majority of men, is clearly conscious of itself and of its surroundings only when it is functioning through the nervous system (the brain); when it leaves the denser body, during sleep, its consciousness is in the astral body, and there it thinks,[ ] but without being conscious of what is taking place around it. after disincarnation, it generally becomes highly conscious in its astral body, where it passes its purgatorial life; and this latter endures until the soul leaves the astral body. as soon as the latter is thrown off, consciousness centres in the mental body; this is the period of _devachan_ or heaven. when the mental body is put off, paradise is at an end, and the soul, sheathed only in the causal body, finds itself on a very lofty plane, but here, consciousness is vague, when we are dealing with a man of average development. instead of laying aside this garment, as so far it has done with the rest, it recommences, after the lapse of a certain time, another descent into the matter of the lower planes and a new incarnation begins. to the centre of the causal body are drawn atoms from the inner mental plane; these represent a new mental body.[ ] when this latter has been formed, there are attracted to it atoms of the astral plane, and these form a new astral body; the soul, clothed in these two sheaths, if one may so express it, is brought into conscious or unconscious relation, according to its degree of development, with the two corresponding planes, lives there generally for a short time, and is directed to a mother's womb, in which is created the visible body of flesh within the centre of its astral body. this force of atomic attraction has its centre in the causal body, a kind of sensitive plate on which are registered all those vibrations which disturb or affect human vehicles during incarnation. this body is, in effect, the present abode of the soul, it represents the terminal point of human consciousness,[ ] the real centre of man.[ ] it receives all the impressions of the plane on which it finds itself, as well as those which come to it from the lower planes, and responds to them the more readily as it has now attained a fuller development. it possesses the power to attract and to repel; a microcosm, it has its outbreathing and inbreathing, as has the macrocosm; like brahmâ, it creates its bodies and destroys them, although in the vast majority of mankind it exercises this power more or less unconsciously and under the irresistible impulsion of the force of evolution--the divine will. when it attracts, it causes to recur within itself the vibrations it has received and registered--like a phonographic roll--during the past incarnations; these vibrations reverberate in the outer world, and certain of them attract from this world[ ]--in this case the mental world--the atoms capable of responding to them. when they have created the mental body, other vibrations can be transmitted through this body to the astral world and attract atoms which will form the body bearing the same name--the astral--and finally other vibrations, making use of these two bodies as a means of transmission, will affect the physical plane and attract atoms which will assist in the building up of the denser body. everywhere the formative power of vibration is guided by cosmic intelligence, but it is effected far more easily in the reconstruction of the higher bodies, that precedes incarnation properly so-called, than in the creation of the now physical body. indeed, in the astral and mental bodies, nothing is produced but an atomic mass, the many elements of which will be aggregated into complete organisms only during incarnation properly so-called, whilst the construction of the visible body admits of a mass of extremely delicate and important details. it is for this reason that we have seen this work of construction entrusted to special beings who prepare, control and watch over it unceasingly. it is because the causal body registers every vibration the personality[ ] has generated or received in the course of its series of incarnations, that the vices and virtues are preserved, as is the case with the faults or the good qualities of the physical body. the man who has created for himself a coarse astral body by feeding the passions and thoughts which specially vivify the coarser matter of this body will on returning to earth find a new astral body composed of the same elements, though then in a dormant state. he who, by the cultivation of a lofty intellect, has built up a refined mental body, will return to incarnation with a like mental body, whilst the one who, by meditation and the practice of devotion which bring into being the noblest qualities of the heart, has set vibrating the purest portions of the causal body and of the divine essence (Âtmâ-buddhi, as it is named in sanskrit), with which it is filled, will return to birth endowed with those qualities which make apostles and saints, the saviours of the world. in other words: matter has more remote boundaries than science recognises; the numberless grades of atoms of which it consists, their powers of aggregation, the multiplicity and duration of the bodies they form, are not even suspected by materialism. materialism sees nothing but the part played by matter; it denies that intelligence plays any part, and will by no means admit--in spite of evolution and progress--that above man there exists an almost endless chain of higher and higher beings, whilst below him are kingdoms of an increasingly restricted range of consciousness. by refusing to believe in the multiplicity of the vehicles which the human soul uses, it is unable to understand individual survival or to solve the problem of heredity. indeed, evolution is only partially explained by the physical germ; the latter, in order to act alone and of itself in the development of the human embryo should possess a degree of intelligence considerably superior to that of man. this is the opposite of what we find, however, and we are brought face to face with the absurd fact of a cause vastly inferior to its effect. indeed, the intelligence shown by the germ is not its own; it is that of the cosmic mind reflected by mighty beings, its willing servants. besides, this germ contains only the qualities that belong to physical matter, and, as we shall show, the moral, mental, and spiritual qualities are preserved by the finer--the causal--body, which represents the real man at the present time. the problem of human heredity. if materialism were the whole truth, it ought to explain the whole of heredity; instead of that it clashes with almost all the problems of life. physical substance offers for analysis none but physical phenomena: attraction, repulsion, heat, electricity, magnetism, vital movement; the anatomical constitution of the highest--the nerve--tissue, presents only the slightest differences in the animal series, if these differences are compared with the enormous distinctions in the qualities it expresses. differences of form, visible to the microscope, are at times important, we shall be told, and those that affect the atomic activity and groupings[ ] are perhaps even more important. that is true, especially in whatever concerns man. intelligence cannot always be explained by the complexity of the brain--though this complexity is the condition of faculty, as a rule--insects such as ants, bees, and spiders, whose brains are nothing but simple nerve ganglia, display prodigies of foresight, architectural ability and social qualities; whilst along with these dwarfs of the animal kingdom, we see giants that manifest only a rudimentary mind, in spite of their large, convoluted brains. among the higher animals, there is not one that could imitate the beaver--which, all the same, is far from being at the head of the animal series--in building for itself a house in a river and storing provisions therein. there is a vast gulf, in the zoological series, before and after these insects, as there is before and after the beaver; whilst an even wider gulf separates the highest specimens of the animal world from man himself. nor do the weight and volume of the brain afford any better explanation of the difference in intellect than does its structural complexity. the weight relations between the brain and the body of different animals have been estimated as follows by debierre (_la moëlle et l' encéphale_):-- rabbit of brain for of body. cat " " fox " " dog " " horse " " if matter were the only condition _sine quâ non_ of intelligence, we should have to admit that the rabbit was more intelligent than the cat, the fox, the dog, and even than the horse. in the same work the following figures express the average size of the brain in different races of men. pariahs of india cubic centimetres. australians " polynesians " ancient egyptians " merovingians " modern parisians " this would prove that the people who built karnac and the pyramids, who raised to an elevation of about feet blocks of granite, one of which would require fifteen horses to drag it along a level road, who placed these enormous stones side by side without mortar or cement of any kind and with almost invisible joints, who possessed the secret of malleable glass and of painting in colours that have not faded even after the lapse of centuries ... that such a race of men were inferior to the rude, uncultured merovingians, and scarcely the equals of the polynesians! science also tells us that in a child five years of age the human brain weighs, on an average, grammes--this, too, would bear no relation whatever with the intellectual and moral development of a child of that age and that of an adult man. though cuvier's brain weighed grammes, and cromwell's , that of tiedemann, the great anatomist, when placed on the scales, weighed no more than , and that of gambetta only . the physical body of itself can give no reason for a host of psychological phenomena on which, however, a flood of light is shed if one recognises the existence of other vehicles of consciousness possessing more far-reaching vibrations, and consequently capable of expressing higher faculties. during sleep, for instance, which is characterised by the ego having left his physical body, reason is absent, and what we call dreams are generally nothing but a tissue of nonsense, at which the dreamer feels astonishment only when returning to his body on awaking. on the other hand, as we have seen in chapter i., when the ego succeeds in imprinting on the brain the vibrations of the higher consciousness, it is able to regain the memory of facts long forgotten and to solve problems that could not be solved during the waking state. there are madmen who have ceased to be mad during somnambulism; persons of rudimentary intelligence have proved themselves to be profound thinkers during the mesmeric trance; when under somnambulism vision is possible to those born blind and certain people can see things that are happening a great distance away, and their reports have been proved correct; certain phenomena of double-consciousness cannot be explained without the plurality--the duality, at all events--of the vehicles of consciousness. to return to the _rôle_ played by the germ in the question of heredity, we repeat that the physical germ, of itself alone, explains only a portion of man; it throws light on the physical side of heredity, but leaves in as great darkness as ever the problem of intellectual and moral faculty. if it represented the whole man, one would expect to find in any individual the qualities manifested in his progenitors or parents--never any other; these qualities could not exceed the amount possessed by the parents, whereas we find criminals from birth in the most respectable families and saints born to parents who are the very scum of society. you may come across twins, _i.e._, beings born from the same germs, under the same conditions of time and environment, one of whom is an angel and the other a demon, though their physical forms closely resemble each other. child prodigies are sufficiently numerous to frequently trouble the thinker with the problem of heredity. whence came that irresistible impulse towards poetry in ovid which showed itself from his earliest youth and in the end overcame the vigorous opposition of his parents? pascal in his youth met with keen opposition from his parents, who forbade him to think of mathematics and geometry. he besought his father to tell him, at all events, "what was that science of which he was forbidden to think, and what it treated of." the answer was given to him that "it is the method of making correct figures and finding out the proportions they bear to each other." with nothing more than this information and the aid of reflection, he discovered for himself the first thirty-two propositions of euclid by means of "circles and lines" traced in secret. mozart, at the age of three, learnt the clavecin by watching his sister play; a year afterwards he composed admirably, at the age of seven he played the violin at first sight without having had any teacher, and proved himself a composer of genius before he reached his twelfth birthday. pepito ariola, the little spaniard, was only three years of age when, about ten years ago, he filled with astonishment the court of madrid by his wonderful playing on the piano. in the lineage of these prodigies has there been found a single ancestor capable of explaining these faculties, as astonishing as they are premature? if to the absence of a cause in their progenitors is added the fact that genius is not hereditary, that mozarts, beethovens, and dantes have left no children stamped from birth as prodigies of genius, we shall be forced to the conclusion that, within the limits it has taken up, materialism is unable to explain heredity. a few more words must be said on physical heredity to explain why moral qualities in men of average development are often on a par with the same in their parents. in reality, the physical germs only multiply the organic elements of the ovule, and as this latter contains the cell-types of all the tissues, it follows that these cell-types will possess the qualities of the tissues that exist in the parents. for instance, germs of sufferers from arterio-sclerosis will supply a vascular apparatus predisposed to arterio-sclerosis; tuberculous subjects will supply germs in which the vital vibrations and cellular solidity will be below the normal, and bring about those degenerate tendencies which characterise the tuberculous subject; those of sanguine constitution will transmit a faculty for vital assimilation and considerable corpuscular production, and so on.[ ] in this transmission there are two main factors: the male and the female germs. the former represents force, it imprints on the ovule the initial vital vibration which is to be that of each of the cells of the organism in course of construction. the function of this germ may be studied more easily in animals, because their heredity is not complicated by the individual differences due to the mental vehicle. the stallion supplies the vital qualities--the blood, _i.e._, the vivacity, _brio_, pace; physical resistance comes from the mare. to sum up, the modalities of matter are supplied by the feminine germ. peculiarities of form proceed from several causes. phrenology and physiognomy are sciences, though the studies hitherto known by these names are almost valueless because they have not been carried on with the necessary scientific precision. doubtless gall and lavater possessed the gift of penetrating both mind and heart, as was also the case with mlle. lenormand desbarolles and the genuine graphologists; but this gift was not the result of mathematical deduction, but rather a psychometric or prophetic faculty; for this reason neither they nor their books have produced pupils worthy of the name. the main features and lines only of the human form have a known meaning--and not always a very precise one--for every physical, passional, mental, or spiritual force possesses an organ of expression in the visible body, and the varieties of form of this organ enable one to judge of the degrees of force they express on the earth plane. on this basis, peculiarities of form mainly stand; and the intensity of certain defects or qualities is at times expressed so strongly that it completely modifies the tendencies it would seem that heredity ought to pass on. the similarity of form between parent and child is not exact, because it proceeds from the peculiarities of the individual in incarnation far more than from the collective tendencies of the embryonic cells in process of proliferation. the being charged with building the body can, in turn, considerably modify its form, copying specially striking features found in the mother's thought; certain characteristic family traits, the bourbon nose, for instance; those belonging to strangers in continual relationship with the mother, and those that a babe, fed and brought up away from home, takes from his nurse or from the surroundings amid which he lives; all these probably leave their impress in the same way. in this case, indeed, the "builder"--who, it must be added, ceases the work of construction only when it is on its way to completion, which happens about the age of seven--is influenced by the forms of the new surroundings, and at times copies them, more or less, and we may ask ourselves if the unexplained fact of negro children being born to a white woman--the widow of a negro--remarried to a white man is in no way connected with the reproduction of a mental image of the coloured children of a former marriage. another fact: observers have noticed that almost all great men have had as their mother a woman of lofty character. this preponderance of the maternal influence will be understood if we remember that the cellular mass that composes the child's body belongs to the mother, not only because this mass originates from the proliferation of the ovule, and, consequently, is only the multiplication of the maternal substance, but also because the materials that have formed it and have been transmuted into flesh have been supplied by her; indeed, everything comes from this cellular mass, the elements drawn from the amniotic fluid and the blood, the milk, which, after birth, continues for long months to build up the child's body and the magnetic fluid, the "atoms of life," which are continually escaping from it and which the babe absorbs whilst receiving incessant attention from his mother. this exchange of atoms is of the utmost importance, for these ultra-microscopic particles are charged with our mental and moral tendencies as well as with the physical qualities; personally, i have had many direct proofs of this, but the most striking came at a critical period of my life. one day, when nervous exhaustion, steadily increased by overwork, had reached an extreme stage, a great being--not a mahatma, but a soul at a very lofty stage of evolution--sent to me by destiny at the time, poured into my shattered body a portion of his physical life. shortly afterwards a real transformation took place, far more of a moral than of a physical nature, and for a few hours i felt myself the "copy" or counterpart of that great soul, and the divine influence lasted twenty-four hours before it gradually died away. i then understood, better than by any other demonstration, the influence of the physical upon the moral nature and the method of the subtle contagion often effected by mesmerism. _a man is known by the friends he keeps_ is an old proverb. if atoms of life can have so marked an influence upon a man nearly forty years of age, _i.e._, at a period when he is in full possession of himself, how much more powerful is this influence when exercised upon the child--a delicate, sensitive body, almost entirely lacking the control of the soul? this is the reason hired nurses often transmit to the child their own physical features and countless moral tendencies which last some time after weaning; orphans, too, morally, often resemble the strangers who have brought them up. like physical tendencies these moral propensities disappear only by degrees, according to change of environment, and especially to the degree in which the body is controlled by the reincarnated soul.[ ] the most important, however, of the moral influences at work on the being again brought into touch with earth-life is connected with the emotions, the passions and thoughts of those around. the child--and under this name must be included the embryo and the foetus--possesses bodies the subtle elements of which are in a dormant state; his mental and sense organisms are scarcely more than masses of substance that have not yet been vitalised--a sort of collection of germs of good or of evil, which will yield fruit when they awake. the passional and mental vibrations of the parents play on the matter capable of responding to them in the invisible bodies of the child; they vivify it, attract atoms of the same nature taken from the finer atmosphere around, and awake in it passional and mental centres which, but for them, might have remained latent, or, at all events, would only have developed at a later stage, when the ego, master of its vehicles, would be in a position to struggle against the outer evil influences and not permit them to have effect save within the limits imposed by will. in this way, it is possible to bring to birth evil instincts in a child, and intensify them to a considerable extent, before a single virtue has succeeded in expressing itself on the new instrument in course of development. this mental action is so strong that it colours vividly, if not altogether, the morality of the little ones living beneath its influence, and even older children are still so sensitive to it that whole classes are seen to reflect the moral character of the teacher who has charge of them. this influence, too, does not cease with childhood, it weighs--though far less heavily--on the man during the whole of his life; and families, nations, nay, even races, each see through the prism of their own special atmosphere. mighty and subtle is this illusion which man, in the course of his pilgrimage towards divine unity, must succeed in piercing and finally entirely dissipating. our responsibility towards children is all the more serious in that, to the deep impression which thought makes on the subtle, plastic, and defenceless mental bodies of the little ones, is added the fact that, could one prevent the development of the germs of evil in the course of one incarnation, these germs, not having fructified, would transmit nothing to the _causal body_ after death, and would disappear[ ] with the disintegration of the matter of which they were composed. consequently, with regard to children especially, we should cultivate none but noble emotions and lofty thoughts, so as to create centres of pure and worthy activity within their vehicles in course of reconstruction, and to turn their early impulses in the direction of good, their first actions towards duty and their first aspirations towards the lofty and luminous heights of spirituality. one may see from this rapid sketch how numerous and important are the influences added to and blended with those of physical heredity. this group of influences, some maleficent, some beneficent, is chosen by the beings who control destiny and give to each ego, on reincarnation, the body and environment it has merited, or rather that are needed, for the harmonious development of its faculties. a young soul[ ] still at the mercy of the animal impulses--necessary impulses at the outset of human development--of its kâmic, _i.e._, desire, vehicle, is sent to parents who will be able to supply its body with material elements of a particular density without which these impulses could not manifest themselves. an ego that is approaching maturity will be drawn to a family that is physically and morally pure, in which it will receive both the finer physical vehicle it needs and that lofty environment which, when it enters upon earth life, will develop the centres of expression for its nobler faculties. those who are named in the mystic phraseology of the east, the "lords of karma," in their choice of the race, the family, and the environment in which the reincarnated soul is to appear, seek to give this latter the most favourable conditions for its evolution. an ego whose artistic side needs to be developed will often be born in a family which will supply it with a nervous system accustomed to the kind of vibrations required, and an environment favourable to the early development of the physical centres of these faculties; to assist a being whose scientific, mystical, or metaphysical side needs to be developed, other environment and parentage will be chosen, and it is this relative parallelism existing between the moral qualities of the parents and those of the children which has deceived observers insufficiently instructed in the mystery of heredity, and made them believe in the influence of the physical germ alone. it is an easy matter to supply an ego of average development with a vehicle; an ordinary body is all that is needed. there may be extreme difficulty, however, when a new instrument has to be found for a lofty soul, and when we think that, in pressing instances when the fortune of humanity is at stake and the hour of destiny has struck, certain great souls accept very imperfect bodies for want of better ones, we shall no longer be astonished at finding that any particular messenger, in his compassion for the humanity he has to enlighten and to direct to the ancient, eternal source of truth, has clothed himself with a body of flesh the ancestry of which was far from being adapted to the expression of his lofty faculties; courageous souls are well able to put on the robe of pain and to submit to slander and calumny when the world's salvation can only be achieved at such a cost. we know scarcely anything of the conditions that control the return to earth of the avataras, the "sons of god," except that sometimes great initiates, after purifying their bodies, voluntarily hand them over to the "gods," who come down to earth--a sublime sacrifice which, like that of the saviours who consent to come amongst us, shows forth that supreme characteristic of divinity; the gift of oneself. nor is heredity always realised; many a physical characteristic is not reproduced; in families tainted with dangerous physiological defects, many children escape the evil, and the diseased tendencies of the tissues remain latent in them, although they often afflict their descendants. on the other hand, as already stated, extremely divergent mental types are often met with in the same family, and many a virtuous parent is torn with grief on seeing the vicious tendencies of his child. here, as elsewhere, the hand of providence, as christianity calls it--the intelligence that brings about evolution, the justice that controls and the love that animates it--the hand of god or of those who, having become divine, collaborate in the divine plan, comes to make up for the imperfection of the vehicles, and they permit only what is necessary to come to each one--only what he has deserved, as is generally said: this hand can create a physical or a psychic malady even where heredity and environment could not supply it, just as it can preserve a pure soul from the moral infection of the surroundings into which it is thrown.[ ] this is the reason we find that heredity and environment either fail to fulfil their promise or else give what was not their's to give. objection. reincarnation is not necessary, it has been alleged; the soul's evolution is continued after death in the invisible worlds in finer bodies; consequently it is needless to return to the denser bodies of earth. in our opinion, the trials of life, so exhausting to the will, must have given rise to this theory, for not only have those who advance it never given the slightest proof of its truth, but it is utterly opposed to the law of evolution. in a world which prefers the flights of imagination to logical reasoning we are too accustomed to regard man as a being apart in nature; we are only too prone to make exceptions on his behalf. the patient scientific researches of all ages have laid down this universally accepted axiom: _nature does not proceed by leaps_. it has not so far entered anyone's mind--we think not at all events--to teach that the development of the mineral, the vegetable, and even of the animal kingdom, comes to a sudden halt on this planet, once the forms in these kingdoms are dispersed, to be completed in finer worlds; but regarding man other thoughts have prevailed, as though his intelligence and his heart had learnt all the lessons this earth is capable of teaching! from the most undeveloped of savages up to those glorious spirits that have been the manu, the buddha, and the christ, we find every step occupied on the long ladder of humanity. in the lower kingdoms all the stages exist also and are utilised, each link receiving something from its neighbours and giving them something in return, thus expressing on the visible plane that gracious unity which is divine love: love that is instinctive and imperative in beings of a low degree of evolution; obeyed by those who, without loving it, understand its good services, and actually lived by such souls as have entered upon the path of sacrifice--souls that comprehend the unity of beings. if this earth has been capable of teaching the saviours of the world, why should divine wisdom send thereon only for one short life this mass of imperfect men, to hurl them afterwards on to other worlds, like careless butterflies flitting from flower to flower? can the evolutionary effort be so easy and simple; is divine energy of such slight value that it can thus be squandered to no purpose; is the process of creation the sport of an infant god; is the logos, sacrificing himself in order to give life to the universe, a prodigal, working without rhyme or reason, sending forth his intelligence and might in aimless sport and leaving evolution at the mercy of his caprice; did not brahmâ, by means of meditation, which, as the oriental scriptures tell us, preceded creation, practise the gentlest, the most rapid, and the easiest method of guiding beings to the goal? is it not sheer blasphemy to attribute such folly to the soul of the world? does not the study of nature, at each step, belie this insensate waste, of which no human being would be guilty? everywhere with the minimum of force, nature produces the maximum of effect; everywhere energy is consolidated with one end in view; and yet, amid the general order around, is the evolution of man to form a solitary, an incomprehensible exception? no, we cannot believe it for a moment. american spiritists,[ ] however--for it is they who have given out this hypothesis--are not in agreement with the school of allan kardec on this fundamental point, and this fact is by no means calculated to strengthen, the authority for this doctrine. did we not know that disincarnate beings are as ignorant in the life beyond as they were on earth; that they tend to group themselves, as they did here below, with those who think as they do, whilst remaining aloof from such as profess hostile opinions; that the hindu remains a hindu, the christian a christian, and the mussulman a mussulman; that sceptics are still sceptics; and atheists, atheists; we should think that spirit "communications" with their incessant contradictions were unparalleled nonsense, since the "spirits" are by no means agreed on the very things regarding which they pretend to pronounce a judgment from which there is no appeal. fortunately, there is a reason for these divergences. death neither lifts the veil of isis nor brings the soul into the presence of omniscient light; man remains what he was, with all his former beliefs, opinions, passions, qualities, sympathies, and antipathies. true, he knows a little more than he did upon earth; no more has he doubts as to the after-life, he regains a precise memory of the whole of his life here, and the recollection of many a forgotten fact comes back to him; he understands better, for his intelligence is being served by a much finer body--but that is all. therefore "spirits" reflect both the morality and the mentality of the nation to which they belonged on earth, and in the other life are to be found friends and enemies, believers and unbelievers, reincarnationists and non-reincarnationists. rebirths can be established only by personal proof, by memory; now, the soul that has entered the life beyond, after disincarnation, has not reached the end of its pilgrimage; it is learning that it must, by self-purification, pass from world to world until it attains to a state of supreme and final rest; but when this latter has been reached, it has lost its lower sheaths and the memory they gave it, and when the law brings it back to earth, it puts on new bodies, which, having had no participation in preceding events, are ignorant of the past. remembrance, we shall see later on, is preserved in the cosmic memory, but until the soul has readied a sufficient development, it cannot summon it forth, and even could it do so, it would succeed in leaving its impress on the brain only when the physical, the astral, and the mental bodies have submitted to a process of purification which harmonises[ ] them and binds them closely together. then only does man know that reincarnation is true, and takes place on earth until this latter passes into a slate of obscuration,[ ] or, at all events, until the development of the soul enables it to utilise for its evolution some environment on the planet, other than the physical one.[ ] we shall be told that we are now proving what we before denied. no, we are simply stating an exception which happens in very few cases and only then to the pioneers of the race--an exception which is nothing but an apparent one and finds its place in the progressive order which unifies all the beings in the planetary chain to which we belong. footnotes: [footnote : each part possesses in a potential state the properties of the whole.] [footnote : the kingdoms that are invisible to physical sight are as interesting as those we see, but we have no occasion to speak of them here. logic compels us to acknowledge them until the time comes when human development enables them to be discovered and affords direct proof of their existence.] [footnote : we do not mean to affirm that evolutionists have not committed serious errors in their theory of development. but the law they have set prominently forth is one of the fundamental expressions of the working of god in the universe.] [footnote : the vibratory impressions that constitute the memory of the universe. see in chapter , the final _objection._] [footnote : see _l'or et la transmutation des métaux_, by tiffereau.] [footnote : such as the one with the magnet which, if too great a weight is suspended to its armature, loses strength, and this it only regains by degrees when "fed" with successively stronger charges. a steel spring that has borne too great a weight loses strength, and may break if subjected anew to the same weight that "fatigued" it. pieces of iron break after being "fatigued" by a weight they easily carried before. professor kennedy made very useful experiments regarding the "fatigue" of metals at the time when metallic bridges were continually breaking, thus causing great perplexity in the engineering world.] [footnote : there has been much discussion as to the causes of evolution. in his _progress and poverty_, henry george endeavours to show that evolution is in no way brought about by individual or collective heredity. he says that the factors of progress are: first, the mind, which causes the advance of civilisation when not exercised solely in the "struggle for life," or in frequent conflicts between nation and nation; second, association or combination, which ensures all the benefits to be derived from division of work; third, justice, which harmonises the units of the social body, and without which civilisation decays and dies. h. george saw only these elements in evolution; consequently, he could neither solve the problem of progress nor explain the rise and fall of empires. indeed, egoism and war are in no way, as he says they are, the sole causes of the fall of races: the soil cannot feed a great nation for an indefinite period even if the country is prevented by emigration from becoming over-populated; the very nature itself of the civilisation of the time prevents it from continuing for ever. modern western races, for instance, have for centuries past been developing energy and intelligence; a limit must be fixed to that particular line of progress, under penalty of destroying equilibrium both in the individual and the race. if, indeed, man is to learn strength and intelligence, he must also develop love, or he will fail. the elder brothers behind evolution control the advance of the races in accordance with the plan of god, whose servants they are. the real cause of evolution does not lie in environment, as h. george and his school would have it: it is in the divine will, incarnate in the universe. it is god who creates the world, god who fills it with life, guides it and permits its development. all the laws of nature are the expression of the supreme intelligence; all progress is nothing but the realisation of the possibilities of the divine will. the evolutionary edifice is based on solidarity, and here environment is undoubtedly an indispensable factor in development; still, it only acts as the field or soil, and soil without seed remains barren. the mind is also a powerful lever in evolution, but it affects only one side of the matter. association or co-operation facilitates only the growth of certain faculties whilst checking the development of others. justice calls forth only certain individual and social forces, and leaves many of them in a state of stagnation. in a word, h. george forgets that there is no useless force in the whole of nature; that they all collaborate in the general task, and finally that there would be no progress, were it not for the existence of opposing forces. if, _e.g._, egoism were non-existent, those still incapable of working without the hope of personal gain would lack a powerful incentive to action. true is the saying that evil is the stepping-stone to good. were the law of rebirths known, it would prove to be an explanation of the problems of evolution.] [footnote : a few theologians have feebly affirmed the possibility of human life on other planets than the earth, but their voices have either been stifled or have met with no echo. at the congress of fribourg, in switzerland, august, , evolution was adopted by an assembly of eminent catholics--laymen and clergy. dr. zahn said that _although creation is possible a priori, it is a posteriori so very improbable that it ought to be rejected; that those who believe in this creation rely upon the literal interpretation of genesis, whilst the contemporary students of the bible affirm that the book is allegorical, that god, in the beginning created the elements and gave them power to evolve in all the forms that characterise the organic and inorganic worlds_. one voice alone was raised in protest, but it was drowned beneath the refutations of the rest. the question, however, might be asked: how is the transition made from one kingdom to another? what is the missing link? who is to interpret the bible if it is an allegorical book? is it the church which has always imposed _the letter_ of the bible and condemned all who have attempted to set forth _its spirit_?] [footnote : in hypnosis, indeed, the thought suggested is strong enough to modify organic life and bring about hematic extravasion (stigmata), burnings, vomiting, etc.... in certain ecstatic cases, fixity of thought produces analogous effects. no one who has studied these questions can have the slightest doubt that mind dominates matter.] [footnote : we say force-matter, for there is no force without matter, they are the two poles of the same thing. moreover, what is considered force in relation to dense matter plays the _rôle_ of matter to subtler forces; electricity, _e.g._, is force-matter, probably capable of serving as a vehicle for subtler force-matter, just as it plays the _rôle_ of force in relation to its conductors. force is born and dies with matter and _vice versâ_; both alike arise from the activity of god.] [footnote : the sensations it calls forth vary with the forms. that which burns us, gives life to other beings; water, which suffocates us, enables fishes to live; whilst air suffocates creatures that live in the water, etc.] [footnote : all this must be taken figuratively. god does not incarnate himself. he is the all. to our limited conceptions, he seems to limit himself, in order to be the life of a universe.] [footnote : here, too, we are speaking relatively; in reality, there are no fragments of the absolute. we describe the process as it seems to us in the world of illusion.] [footnote : being: divinity.] [footnote : force-matter.] [footnote : forms.] [footnote : the movement given to the germ by the union of its positive and negative forces.] [footnote : the "builders" are inferior beings utilised by nature in every process of germination and development. to certain readers, this will perhaps appear to be an aberration of the theosophic imagination, in which case we recommend them to supply us with a better theory and to believe in that, until the time comes when the functioning of the "inner senses" takes place in them, and enables them to perceive these beings in action.] [footnote : teratological phenomena attributable to the imagination of the mother are so numerous that they cannot be refuted. the case mentioned here is taken from van helmont's _de injectis materialibus_. the woman in question had been present at the decapitation of thirteen soldiers, condemned to death by the duc d'alva. in the same work are two other instances which occurred under similar circumstances: in the first, the foetus at birth was lacking a hand; and in the second, it was the whole arm that was missing; whilst, what is perhaps even stranger than this, neither arm, nor hand, nor head were found, they had been absorbed by the body of the mother.] [footnote : to be strictly logical, one should say round the only centre, the one being, but looked upon from the side of manifestation, evolution appears as stated.] [footnote : hellenbach, in his book, _magie der zahlen_, says regarding the number seven. "_the law governing the phenomena on which our knowledge is based decrees that the vibrations of sound and light regularly increase in number, that they are grouped in seven columns, and that the vibratory elements of each column have so close a relation to one another that not only can it be expressed in figures, but it is even confirmed by practice in music and chemistry._ "_the fact that this variation and periodicity are governed by the number seven cannot be disputed; it is not a matter of chance: there is a cause and we ought to discover it._" in his table of the elements grouped according to atomic weight, mendelejef also acknowledges that the number seven controls what he calls the _law of periodical function_. he reaches conclusions similar to those of hellenbach. dr. laycock, in his articles on the _periodicity of vital phenomena_ (_lancet_) , sums up as follows:-- "_it is, i think, impossible to come to any less general conclusion than this, that, in animals, changes occur every - / , , , or days, or at some definite period of weeks._"] [footnote : see _man and his bodies_, by a. besant.] [footnote : the size of the causal body varies according to its development. it has been named _causal_, because it contains within itself the causes or germs of all the other bodies, with the exception of the denser part of the physical. we say denser because the physical body is double: its etheric part belongs to the causal body, its visible part comes from the parents.] [footnote : the mental body, which is, as it were, an ephemeral flower of the causal, is born and developed in each incarnation, disintegrating after the _devachanic_ (heavenly) life.] [footnote : it moves more or less freely on the astral plane, according to the development of the astral body. in men of low development, this body cannot be separated from the physical, under penalty of a nightmare which brings about a waking condition.] [footnote : the atoms interpenetrate in consequence of their differences of tenuity.] [footnote : later on, the centre of consciousness passes from the human to the superhuman state and ascends unceasingly until it reaches the centre of the divinity incarnate in the world.] [footnote : when this centre is fixed in one of the higher bodies, the buddhic for instance, the man has passed into the superhuman stage.] [footnote : as sand, placed on a plate in a state of vibration, assumes varying forms.] [footnote : the soul acting in the mental, the astral, and more especially--in the average man--the physical body. the individuality is the soul acting in the causal body.] [footnote : see the diagram in the chapter on the atom in _the ancient wisdom_, by a. besant.] [footnote : we have seen that the organs formed by these tissues are the special work of a particular being controlled by lofty intelligences.] [footnote : as the building of the body is reaching completion, the ego (the soul) begins to make use of the new instrument. it is at about the age of seven years that the development of the nerve centres becomes sufficiently advanced to allow of the brain receiving the vibrations of the soul; up to this point, the real man has scarcely had any influence upon the body, although the mental projection (the mental body) which he has formed can express itself to a certain extent much earlier, from the seventh month of foetal life; up to this time, the instinctive energies of the astral body alone affect the embryo.] [footnote : in kâmaloka (purgatory). the desires, in purgatory, cannot be satisfied, because there is no physical body to express them, and this causes a state of suffering which has been compared to a burning fire. this fire burns up the passions and leaves behind only the "germs," which the causal body takes up and bequeaths to the future astral body. but for this providential burning away, the passions would exist from early childhood in the future incarnation, _i.e._, at a time when the ego has no hold whatever upon the new personality, and when the latter would be terribly affected by this influx of the forces of evil.] [footnote : souls are of different ages: the savage is not so old as the civilised man, while the latter is the younger brother of those strong and wise souls who compose the vanguard of humanity.] [footnote : it is impossible for heredity and environment to supply _all_ the conditions that a soul's evolution calls for, and _nothing but these conditions_; that is the reason providence intervenes in the interests of justice.] [footnote : it is in this great body, with which we are in sympathy, though we claim the right to dispute their theories when we regard them as erroneous, that this hypothesis is met with more especially. true, certain schools of lower occultism teach it also, but they form a minority, and are of no importance.] [footnote : harmony is established when there is vibratory synchronism of all the states of matter of the different bodies _i.e._, when each slate of matter in a body vibrates in unison with the analogous states of matter of all the other bodies.] [footnote : when the "life wave" has ended its cycle on this earth, it passes in succession over the other planets of our chain and leaves the earth in a state of slumber. this slumber ceases with the return of the "life wave"; it becomes death when the evolution of the chain is accomplished. see a. p. sinnett's _esoteric buddhism._] [footnote : at a certain stage on the _path_, return to earth is no longer obligatory.] chapter iv. reincarnation and the religious and philosophic consensus of the ages. in the rapid review we are now about to make of the religion and philosophy of the past, we shall find that, under many and divers names and veils, the doctrine of rebirths has been taught from the farthest antiquity right up to the present time. there is not a nation that has not preserved clear traces of this doctrine; not a religion that has not taught it, either openly or in secret, or, at all events, retained the germ of the teaching; and if we count only those peoples of whose national religion it forms part, _i.e._, hindus and buddhists, the number of believers in reincarnation may be summed up in round figures at millions of the present population of millions throughout the world. the greatest of philosophers, both ancient and modern, have regarded palingenesis as the basis of life, but whereas in the past the pledge of initiation prevented its details from being promulgated, in our days, along with the flood of light which this cycle has brought us, the veil of secrecy has been partially lifted, and theosophy has been privileged to set forth this glorious teaching in its main outlines and its most important details. india. northern india was the cradle of the present race--the fifth--the eden of our humanity, our physical, moral, mental, and spiritual mother.[ ] from her womb issued the emigrant hordes that peopled europe after spreading over egypt, asia minor, and siberia; it was her code of ethics that civilised chaldæa, greece, rome, and the whole of the east; our own code is full of traces of the laws of manu, whilst both the old and new testament are, in many respects, an abridged and often almost a literal copy of the sacred books of ancient aryavarta. the presence of the doctrine of reincarnation in the vedic hymns has been disputed; this proves nothing more than the present fragmentary condition of the vedas. nothing, indeed, could be more absurd than to find that the sacred scriptures of india had maintained silence on a doctrine which, along with that of karma, form the two main columns of the hindu temple; for the brâhman as well as for the buddhist--who is only a member of a powerful offshoot of hinduism--these two laws rule throughout the whole universe, from the primordial kingdoms up to the gods, including man; and the principal, nay, the only goal of human life is moksha--salvation, in christian terminology--liberation from the chain of rebirths. in this land, in which, along with strict obedience to the rules of conduct set forth by its great teachers, there existed the most complete freedom of opinion, and where the most divergent and numerous philosophic sects consequently developed, there has always been perfect unanimity regarding the doctrine of rebirth, and in that inextricable forest of metaphysical speculations two giant trees have always overtopped the rest: the tree of karma and the tree of reincarnation. in spite of the intentional obscurity in which we are left as to the teachings regarding rebirth from the time of the decadence of india, it is no difficult matter, with the aid of theosophy, to discover its main points. thus we find in them the return of the "life-atoms"[ ] and animal souls[ ] to existence in new physical bodies; the rebirths of the human egos are indicated in their main phases; but here, the deliberate omission of certain points which had long to remain incomprehensible--and consequently dangerous--to the masses, makes obscure, and at times absurd, certain aspects of transmigration. i have heard a great teacher clearly explain these points to some of the most enlightened of the hindu members of the theosophical society, but i do not feel authorised to repeat these explanations, and so will leave this portion of the subject under a veil, which the reader will, with the aid of intuition, be able to lift after reflecting on the following pages. the sages of ancient india, then, teach three distinct phases in the return-to-birth process: resurrection, transmigration or metempsychosis and reincarnation properly so-called. resurrection. the human body is a species of polyp colony, a kind of coral island like those that emerge above the waves of the pacific, by reason of the collective efforts of lower organisms. the most numerous of the compounds of the human aggregate are known to physiology as microbes, bacteria, and bacilli; but amongst them our microscopes discover only comparative monsters, "those that are to the ordinary infinitesimal organisms as the elephant is to the invisible infusorium."[ ] each cell is a complete being; its soul is a vital ray of the general life of our planet; its body consists of molecules that are attracted and then repelled, whilst the cellular soul remains immutable in the ceaseless fluctuations of its corporeal elements. the molecules, too, are animated by a vital soul, connected with the cellular soul, which, in turn, is subordinate to a higher[ ] unit of the collective life of the human body. the most infinitesimal of these beings--often called "lives"--penetrate the body freely; they circulate in the aura[ ] and in each plexus of the organism; there they are subjected to the incessant impact of the moral, menial, and spiritual forces, and become impregnated with a spirit of good or of evil, as the case may be. they enter the cells and leave them with intense rapidity, for their cycles of activity as well as of passivity are being incessantly repeated. we are all the time emanating millions of "lives," which are at once drawn into the different kingdoms of nature to which they carry the energies they have gathered in us; they impress on their new organisms the tendencies we have given them, and in this way become ferments of regeneration or of decay; they aid or retard, pollute or purify, and it is for this reason that it is not a matter of indifference whether one lives in town or country, with men or animals, the temperate or the intemperate, the wicked or the good. the animal gains from association with human beings, man loses from association with animals; the disciples of the great schools of initiation, at a certain stage of their discipline, are carefully isolated from any inferior contact. it is these subtle forces that are at play in the physical accomplishment of an action.[ ] "for material sins," says manu, "one[ ] passes into mineral and vegetable forms." when, at death, the outer sheath of man disintegrates, these "life atoms" are thrown back into the general surroundings of the earth, where they are subjected to the magnetic currents around; these currents either attract or repel them, and thus bring about that wise selection, which directs them to organisms in affinity with them. the doctrine of metempsychosis[ ] is true only for the atoms or emanations sent out by man after death or during the whole course of life. the hidden meaning of the passage from manu, where we read that "he who slays a brâhman enters into the body of a dog, a bear, an ass, a camel, &c.," does not apply to the human ego, but only to the atoms of his body, _i.e._, to the lower triad[ ] and its fluidic emanations, as h. p. blavatsky says, and she adds: "the hîna-yana, the lowest form of transmigration of the buddhist, is as little comprehended as the mahâ-yâna, its highest form, and, because sâkya muni--the buddha--is shown to have once remarked to his bhikkus--buddhist monks--while pointing out to them a broom, that it had formerly been a novice who neglected to sweep out the council room, hence was reborn as a broom,(!) therefore the wisest of all the world's sages stands accused of idiotic superstition. why not try and understand the true meaning of the figurative statement before criticising? is or is not that which is called magnetic effluvia a something, a stuff or a substance, invisible and imponderable though it be?... the mesmeric or magnetic fluid which emanates from man to man, or even from man to what is termed an inanimate object, is far greater. indeed, it is 'life atoms' that a man in a blind passion throws off unconsciously. let any man give way to any intense feeling such as anger, grief, &c., under or near a tree, or in direct contact with a stone, and many thousands of years after that any tolerable psychometrist will see the man and sense his feelings from one single fragment of that tree or stone that he has touched. why then should not a broom, made of a shrub, which grew most likely in the vicinity of the building where the lazy novice lived--a shrub, perhaps, repeatedly touched by him while in a state of anger, provoked by his laziness and distaste of his duty--why should not a quantity of his life atoms have passed into the materials of the future broom, and therein have been recognised by buddha owing to his superhuman (not supernatural) powers?"[ ] such is the meaning of the resurrection of the body, taught in the christian church in a form that is repellent to reason, for it kills the spirit of the doctrine and leaves this latter like a corpse from which the life has gone. metempsychosis. after the disintegration of the body, the kâmic[ ] elements continue for some time, us a "shade"[ ] or a "phantom,"[ ] in the finer and invisible atmosphere;[ ] then they, in turn, become disintegrated by the various forces of this environment,[ ] and are lost in the strata of matter from which they have been taken. like the physical elements (_life-atoms_), they whirl about in their environment and there submit to the same law of attraction and repulsion as that which controls universal selection; they are drawn towards the kâmic elements of men and animals, and it is here that we ought to place the list of those misdeeds, by reason of which these elements pass into bodies of animals or men of inferior development. "a drunken priest becomes a worm," says manu, "a stealer of corn, a rat; the murderer of a brâhman, a dog, a tiger, or a serpent"--and this means that those elements which, in man, serve as a basis for the passions, at death, pass over into the bodies of animals that possess the same passions or experience the same needs. the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of animals is still generally accepted amongst the less intelligent hindus; it has contributed, perhaps more than anything else, to that wonderful respect for life one meets with all over india. the thought that some ancestor or other might happen to be in the body of an animal prevents its destruction; even the sacrifice of his life offered by a man to one of his brothers in the animal world is regarded as a sublime virtue, and legend tells us of the buddha, the lord of compassion, giving himself up as food for a famishing tigress, that she and her cubs might not perish of hunger. reincarnation. the process of disintegration[ ] which, after disincarnation, destroys the physical, astral, and mental bodies of the man leaves the soul--or, to be more exact, the causal body, for the soul is not the causal body any more than it is any of the other human vehicles--intact. indeed, the causal body is at present the only vehicle that resists the cyclic dissolution of the human compound; this it will be subjected to only when the divine spark which constitutes the soul--an eternal spark in its essence, since it is a fragment of god, and immortal as an "ego," once it has attained to individualisation, the goal of evolution--has formed for itself a new and superior body with the substance of the finer planes above the mental; but ages will pass before the masses of mankind reach this point. after thus throwing off, one after the other, all its sheaths, the ego finds that it has ended a "life-cycle," and is preparing to put on new bodies, to return to reincarnation on earth. on reincarnation properly so called, the hindu scriptures are so precise and complete, so generally accepted, than it is unnecessary to quote from them in detail. a few extracts will suffice. these we will take from the _bhagavad gîtâ_, that glorious episode in the mighty civil war which shattered india, and left her defenceless against the successive invaders who were to complete her fall. this great epic poem introduces to us arjuna, a noble prince, about to take part in the strife. the two armies, arrayed for battle, are on the point of engaging, arrows have already begun to pierce the air. in the opposing ranks arjuna sees cherished relatives, dear friends, and revered teachers, whom destiny has placed in hostile array, thus giving to the battle all the horrors of parricide and fratricide. overwhelmed with grief and pity, his heart moved to its inmost depths, arjuna drops his bow on the ground and thus addresses his teacher, the divine krishna: "seeing these my kinsmen arrayed, o krishna, eager to fight, "my limbs fail and my mouth is parched, my body quivers and my hair stands on end. "gândîva (arjuna's bow) slips from my hand, and my skin burns all over; i am not able to stand, and my mind is whirling. "and i see adverse omens, o keshava (hairy one). nor do i foresee advantage by slaying kinsmen in battle. "for i desire not victory, o krishna, nor kingship nor pleasures; what is kingship to us, o govinda (thou who knowest all that is done by our senses and organs), what enjoyment or even life? "those for whose sake we desire kingship, enjoyments, and pleasures, they stand here in battle, abandoning life and riches. "teachers, fathers, sons, as well as grandfathers, mothers' brothers, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law, and other relatives. "these i do not wish to kill, though (myself) slain, o madhusûdana (slayer of madhu, a demon), even for the sake of the kingship of the three worlds (the habitations of men, gods, and semi-divine beings); how then for earth? ... "i will not do battle." the divine krishna then smiled upon his well-beloved disciple, and said to him: "thou grievest for those that should not be grieved for, and speakest words of wisdom (words that sound wise but miss the deeper sense of wisdom). the wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. "nor at any time verily was i not, nor thou, nor these princes of men, nor verily shall we ever cease to be hereafter. "as the dweller in the body seeketh in the body childhood, youth, and old age, so passeth he on to another body; the well-balanced grieve not thereat.... "these bodies of the embodied one, who is eternal, indestructible, and boundless, are known as finite. therefore fight, o bhârata. "he who regardeth this (the dweller in the body) as a slayer, and he who thinketh it is slain, both of them are ignorant. it slayeth not, nor is it slain.... "who knoweth it indestructible, perpetual, unborn, undiminishing; how can that man slay, o pârtha, or cause to be slain? "as a man casting off worn-out garments, taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, casting off worn-out bodies, entereth into others that are new. "weapons cleave it not, nor fire burneth it, nor waters wet it, nor wind drieth it away.... "further, looking upon thine own dharma,[ ] thou shouldst not tremble, for there is nothing more welcome to a kshattriya than righteous war." here are other extracts of this wonderful teaching: "many births have been left behind by me and by thee, o arjuna. i know them all, but thou knowest not thine, parantapa." "he who thus knoweth my divine birth and action, in its essence, is not born again, having abandoned the body, but he cometh unto me, o arjuna." "having attained to the worlds of the pure-doing, and having dwelt there for eternal years, he who fell from yoga is reborn in a pure and blessed house.... there he obtaineth the complete yogic wisdom belonging to his former body, and then again laboureth for perfection, o joy of the kurus!" "but the yogî, verily, labouring with assiduity, purified from sin, fully perfected through manifold births, he treadeth the supreme path.... he who cometh unto me, o kaunteya, verily he knoweth birth no more." the daily life of hindu and buddhist is so entirely based on reincarnation and on its foundation, the law of causality, that this faith gives them patience in the present and hope for the future; for it teaches that man, every moment he lives, is subject to the circumstances he has created, and that, though bound by the past, he is yet master of the future. why cannot we, in this troubled europe of ours, accept this belief as the solution of the distressing problem of the inequality of conditions, for to the weak in rebellion against oppression it would come as a soothing balm, whilst the strong would find in it a stimulus to devoted pity such as wealth owes to poverty and happiness to misfortune? herein lies the solution of the whole social problem. egypt. if we pass from india to egypt, the land of mystery, we again find the world-wide doctrine of palingenesis hidden beneath the same veil. according to egyptian teaching, the theory of the "fall of the angels" was accepted; the fallen angels were human souls[ ] who had to become reincarnated till they reached a state of purification; fallen into the flesh, subjected to its vicissitudes and passions, these souls had to evolve, in successive rebirths, until they had developed all their faculties, obtained complete control over the lower nature, and won back their original purity; then this latter would no longer be the unconscious purity of youthful innocence, but the conscious purity of mature age, _i.e._, of the soul that has known both good and evil in the course of its experiences, has overcome the serpent of matter, the tempter, and voluntarily chosen the life of virtue. the "judgment" of the after-life is determined by the degree of purity that has been attained; if insufficient, the soul returns to earth, there to inhabit a human, an animal, or a vegetable form, in accordance with its merits or demerits. these lines prove that egyptian teaching has come down to us, covered with gross dross and slag, as it were, which must be subjected to careful sifting; when this is done, we see that it also sets forth the transmigrations to which the elements of the various vehicles are subjected,[ ] the physical ternary[ ] rises from the dead, the animal man[ ] transmigrates; and man, properly so-called,[ ] reincarnates, but the details of these processes have been so confused in such fragments of egyptian palingenesis as we possess that it is no easy matter to find the traces of this classification. for instance. herodotus tells us: "the egyptians were the first to hold the opinion that the soul of man is immortal and that when the body dies it enters into the form of an animal which is born at the moment, thence, passing on from one animal into another until it has circled through the forms of all the creatures which tenant the earth, the water, and the air, after which it enters again into a human form and is born anew. the whole period of the transmigration is (they say) three thousand years."[ ] this passage evidently refers to the resurrection of the "life atoms." h. p. blavatsky, in the _theosophist_, vol. , pages , , confirms this in the following words: "we are taught that for years, at least, the 'mummy,' notwithstanding all the chemical preparations, goes on throwing off to the last invisible atoms, which, from the hour of death, re-entering the various vortices of being, go indeed 'through every variety of organised life forms.' but it is not the soul, the fifth,[ ] least of all, the sixth[ ] principle, but the life atoms of the jiva,[ ] the second principle. at the end of the three thousand years, sometimes more, sometimes less, after endless transmigrations, all these atoms are once more drawn together, and are made to form the new outer clothing or the body of the same monad (the real soul) which they had already been clothed with two or three thousands of years before. even in the worst case, that of the annihilation of the conscious personal principle,[ ] the monad, or individual soul,[ ] is ever the same, as are also the atoms of the lower principles,[ ] which, regenerated and renewed in this ever-flowing river of being, are magnetically drawn together owing to their affinity and are once more reincarnated together...." certain authors have stated that belief in resurrection was the origin of embalming, because it was thought that after three thousand years the soul returned to the same body, that it immediately rose again, when the body had been preserved, whereas if such had not been the case, it entered wherever it could, sometimes even into the body of a lower creature. herodotus, however, says that after the cycle of three thousand years the soul enters a new body, not the mummified one,[ ] and this would lead one to imagine that there were other reasons for the process of embalming. indeed, it became general only during the decline of egypt; at the beginning, it was reserved for the hierophants alone, with the object of allowing their physical molecular elements to pass into the still coarse bodies of the masses and help forward ordinary souls by the powerful influence of the magnetic potency with which they were charged. it is also for this reason that the body of a yogî, in india, is interred, whilst in the case of other men cremation is the rule. on the other hand, among the multitude of beliefs left in egypt by degenerate traditions, there were found some which hinted, more or less clearly, at occult truths, and which might have perpetuated or generalised this practice. it was supposed, according to servius, that the transmigrations[ ] began only when the magnetic bond between the soul and its remains had been broken by the complete disintegration of the corpse; consequently they did all in their power to preserve this latter. this belief may readily be connected with theosophic teaching which says that the affinity existing between the visible corpse and the soul clad in its kâmic (astral) body, the animal soul in kâmaloka (purgatory), is capable, in certain cases, of detaining this soul on earth, after its disincarnation, and thus delaying, for a longer or shorter period, the disintegration of the elements of the passional body. it is these elements, not the soul, that pass over into animal bodies, and, contrary to the opinions set forth in egyptian exotericism, it is to the interest of the soul to free itself from terrestrial attraction and from its kâmic (astral) vehicle, and not to remain bound down to earth. consequently, embalming was a mistaken action, the result of an error of doctrine, or at all events of teachings that were incomplete, imperfectly transmitted, and misunderstood. egypt multiplied her symbols of palingenesis. resurrection--in the sense of re-birth in general--was symbolised by the toad which then became the goddess hiquet. this animal was chosen because it lives in air and in water,[ ] because it can remain imprisoned a very great number of years without either air or food[ ] and afterwards come back to life. g. maspero, in his _guide du visiteur au musée de boulac_, tells us that the early christians in egypt had adopted this symbolism, and that the lamps in their churches were formed in the shape of a toad, and bore the inscription, "i am the resurrection," in the greek language. this goddess-toad may still be seen in the museum of boulac. the scarabeus, or beetle,[ ] symbolised the "personality," the expansion of the mental substance, projected, so to speak, by the higher mental body, at each incarnation, into the new kâmic (astral) body; a certain number of them were always deposited with the mummies, and the beetle was represented standing on an ear of corn, a symbol of the attainments acquired during the past earth life. indeed, the development of the ego is effected by that of the personality it sends on to the earth each incarnation; it is the new mental body which controls the new astral and physical bodies of each incarnation, and which is, in very truth, the flower and the fruit of the labour of life. sacred egyptology tells us that the scarabeus requires to be "osirified," united to its "living soul," or ego, which sent it forth. i will now give the reason for this emanation. when, after disincarnation, the purgatorial life begins, the ego endeavours to throw off the kâmic (astral) body, to pass into the higher world--the mental plane--which is its home, there to enjoy the delights of heaven. thereupon a veritable battle begins. on the one hand, the ego endeavours to withdraw the mental body, which, at the beginning of the incarnation, it sent into the kâmic body, and to take it to itself; on the other hand, the passional body[ ]--which instinctively feels its life bound to that of the mental element, which gives it its strength, vital activity, and personal characteristics--tries to keep back this centre of individual life, and generally succeeds in doing so up to a certain point. when desire, during incarnation, has regularly gained the victory over the will, the passional body, or kâma, maintains the supremacy beyond the grave, and the ego, in endeavouring to rescue its mental projection from the kâmic bonds, yields up a more or less considerable fragment thereof, and this fragment is restored to liberty only when the passional body of the deceased has become disintegrated by the forces of the astral world. this has been called the _fire_ of purgatory. on the other hand, when the ego, during life, has always refused the appeals of the lower nature, it easily withdraws, after death, from the net of passion, the substance it has infused therein, and passes with this substance into that part of the mental plane which is called "heaven." such is the struggle that egypt committed to her annals when she inscribed upon papyrus or engraved upon stone the journeyings of the soul into the world of shades. the soul--the mental personality--which demands "osirification," and invokes the ego, its god and projector, beseeching him to draw it to himself that it may live with him, is the lower "i." this "i" has not exhausted the "desire to live" on earth; its desire is impressed on the germs it has left in the causal body, and brings the ego back to incarnation; this is the reason it prays and desires the resurrection[ ] of its "living soul," the ego. denon, in his _journeyings in egypt_, has made known to us the sha-en (the book of metamorphoses), written in hieratic signs and republished in berlin, by brugsch, in the year . explicit mention is here made of reincarnations, and it is stated that they are very numerous. the third part of the _book of the dead_ sets forth a detailed account of the resurrection of an osiris; the identification of the departed one with osiris, god of light, and his sharing in the life, deeds, and power of the god; in a word, it is the final reintegration of the human soul with god. the loftiest and most suggestive of egyptian palingenetic symbols is unquestionably that of the egg. the deceased is "resplendent in the egg in the land of mysteries." in kircher's _oedipus egyptiacus_[ ] we have an egg--the ego freed from its vehicles--floating over the mummy; this is the symbol of hope and the promise of a new birth to the soul, after gestation in the egg of immortality.[ ] the "winged globe," so widely known in egypt, is egg-shaped, and has the same meaning; its wings indicate its divine nature and prevent it from being confused with the physical germ. "easter eggs" which are offered in spring, at the rebirth of nature, commemorate this ancient symbol of eternal life in its successive phases of disincarnation and rebirth. chaldÆa. it is said that the magi taught the immortality of the soul and its reincarnations, but that they considerably limited the number of these latter, in the belief that purification was effected after a restricted number of existences on the soul returning to its heavenly abode. unfortunately we know nothing definite on this special point in chaldæan teaching, for some of the most important sources of information were destroyed when the library of persepolis was burnt by the macedonian vandal, alexander the great, whilst eusebius--whom bunsen criticises so harshly[ ]--made such great alterations in the manuscripts of berosus, that we have nothing to proceed upon beyond a few disfigured fragments.[ ] and yet chaldæism comprises a great mass of teachings; he whom we know as "the divine zoroaster" had been preceded by twelve others, and esoteric doctrine was as well known in chaldæa as in egypt. the descendants of the chaldæans--fire-worshippers, mazdeans, magi, parsees--according to the names they received at different periods--have preserved the main points of palingenetic instruction up to the present, and, from time to time, have set them forth in the most charming style of oriental poetry. book of the great persian poem, _masnavi i ma'navi_, deals with evolution and its corollary, reincarnation, stating that there is one way of remembering past existences, and that is by attaining to spiritual illumination, which is the crown of human evolution and brings the soul to the threshold of divinity. "if your purified soul succeeds in escaping from the sea of ignorance, it will see, with eyes now opened, 'the beginning' and 'the end.' man first appeared in the order of inorganic things; next, he passed therefrom into that of plants, for years he lived as one of the plants, remembering naught of his inorganic state, so different from this, and when he passed from the vegetable to the animal state he had no remembrance of his state as a plant.... again the great creator, as you know, drew man out of the animal into the human state. thus man passed from one order of nature to another, till he became wise and intelligent and strong as he is now. of his first soul he has now no remembrance, and he will be again changed from his present soul. in order to escape from his present soul, full of lusts, he must rise to a thousand higher degrees of intelligence. "though man fell asleep and forgot his previous states, yet god will not leave him in this self-forgetfulness; and then he will laugh at his own former state, saying: 'what mattered my experiences when asleep, when i had forgotten the real state of things, and knew not that the grief and ills i experienced were the effect of sleep and illusion and fancy?'" these lines are concise, but they sum up the whole of evolution, and render it unnecessary to quote at greater length from chaldæan tradition on this point. still, those who desire other passages relating to the same doctrine may find them in the "desatir."[ ] the celts. sacerdotal india--and perhaps also atlantis--in early times sent pioneers into the west to spread religious teachings amongst their energetic inhabitants; those who settled in gaul and the british isles were the druids. "i am a serpent, a druid," they said. this sentence proves that they were priests, and also the atlantæan or indian origin of their doctrines; for the serpent was the symbol of initiation in the sacred mysteries of india, as also on the continent of atlantis. we know little of their teaching, which was entirely oral, though it covered so much ground that, according to cæsar, not less than thirty years of study were needed to become a druid. the roman conquest dispersed them by degrees; then it was that their disciples, the bards, committed to writing more or less imperfect and mutilated fragments of the teachings of their masters. their "triads"[ ] are undoubtedly akin to hindu teachings; evolution results from the manifestation of the absolute, it culminates in man, who possesses a maximum of individualisation, and terminates in the personal, conscious union of the beings thus created with the ineffable all. the absolute is "ceugant"; manifestation, or the universe, is "abred"; the divine state of freed souls is in "gwynvyd"; these are in the three circles.[ ] in "ceugant" there is only the unknowable, the rootless root. souls are born and develop in "abred," passing into the different kingdoms; "amwn" is the state through which beings pass only once, which means that the "i," when once gained, continues for ever. "gwynvyd" is the world of perfect and liberated souls, eternal heaven, great nirvâna. during this long pilgrimage, the monad--the divine fragment in a state of incarnation--undergoes an endless number of rebirths, in myriads of bodies. "i have been a viper in the lake," said taliesin, the bard[ ]; "a spotted adder on the mountain, a star, a priest. this was long, long ago; since then, i have slept in a hundred worlds, revolved in a hundred circles." it was their faith in rebirth that gave the gauls their indomitable courage and extraordinary contempt of death: "one of their principal teachings," said cæsar,[ ] "is that the soul does not die, but passes at death into another body--and this they regard as very favourable for the encouragement of valour and for inculcating scorn of death." up to a few years ago, belief in the return of the soul to earth was still prevalent in those parts of brittany in which civilisation had not yet exercised its sceptical, materialising influence; there even existed druids--probably degenerate ones--in great britain and france; in the saône-et-loire district, they seem to have been called the "adepts of the white religion"[ ]; both in them and in their ancestors, belief in rebirth remained unshakable. ancient greece (_magna græcia_). in greece, the doctrine of rebirths is met with in the orphic tradition, continued by pythagoras and plato. up to the present time, this tradition has probably found its best interpreter in mr. g. r. s. mead, an eminent theosophist and a scholar of the first rank. we recommend our readers to study his _orpheus_, if they desire a detailed account of this tradition. its origins are lost in antiquity, only a few obscure shreds remaining; pherecydes, however,[ ] when speaking of the immortality of the soul, refers to the doctrine of rebirths; it is also presented very clearly by both pythagoras and plato. according to the pythagorean teaching, the human soul emanates from the soul of the world, thus affirming, at the outset, the divine nature of the former. it teaches subsequently that this soul assumes successive bodies until it has fully evolved and completed the "cycle of necessity."[ ] pythagoras, according to diogenes of laertius,[ ] was the first in greece to teach the doctrine of the return of souls to earth. he gave his disciples various details of his past lives; he appears to have been the initiate oethalides, in the times of the argonauts; then, almost immediately afterwards, euphorbus, who was slain by menelaus at the siege of troy; again he was hermotimus of clazomenæ, who, in the temple of juno at argos,[ ] recognised the shield he was carrying when his body was slain as euphorbus, and which menelaus had given as an offering to the goddess[ ]; at a later date he was pyrrhus, a fisherman of delos, and, finally, pythagoras. in all likelihood this genealogy is not correct in every detail, it comes to us from the disciples of the sage of samos, who were not very trustworthy in their reports. empedocles, one of the early disciples of pythagoras, said that he inhabited a female body in his preceding existence. saint clement of alexandria quotes a few lines of his, in which we find the philosopher of agrigentum teaching the general evolution of forms. "i, too, have been a boy, a maiden, a star, a bird, a mute fish in the depths of the sea." iarchas, the brâhman chieftain, said to the great apollonius: "in bygone ages thou wert ganga, the famous monarch, and, at a later date, captain of an egyptian vessel."[ ] the emperor julian said that he had been alexander the great.[ ] proclus affirmed that he had been nichomachus the pythagorean.[ ] the works of plato are full of the idea of rebirth, and if the scattered fragments of the teaching are gathered together and illumined with the torch of theosophy, a very satisfactory _ensemble_ will be the result. souls are older than bodies, he says in _phædo_; they are ever being born again from _hades_ and returning to life on earth; each man has his daimon,[ ] who follows him throughout his existences, and at death takes him to the lower world[ ] for judgment.[ ] many souls enter acheron,[ ] and, after a longer or shorter period, return to earth to be incarnated in new bodies. unpardonable sins fling the soul into tartarus.[ ] "know that if you become worse you will go to the worse souls, or if better to the better, and in every succession of life and death you will do and suffer what like may fitly suffer at the hands of like...."[ ] according to plato, the period between two incarnations is about a thousand years.[ ] man has reminiscences of his past lives that are more or less distinct; they are manifested rather by an intuitive impression than by a definite memory, but they form part of the individual,[ ] and at times influence him strongly. "innate ideas" are only one aspect of memory, often it is impossible to explain them by heredity, education, or environment; they are attainments of the past, the store which the soul takes with it through its incarnations, which it adds to during each sojourn in heaven. there can be no doubt that plato would appear to have taught metempsychosis, _i.e._, the possibility of a human soul passing into the body of an animal: "men who have followed after gluttony and wantonness and drunkenness, and have had no thought of avoiding them, would pass into asses and animals of that sort. and those who have chosen the portion of injustice and tyranny and violence will pass into wolves or hawks or kites, and there is no difficulty in assigning to all of them places according to their several natures and propensities."[ ] under the heading of _neoplatonism_, we shall show that, beneath these coarse symbols, plato concealed truths which it was then necessary to keep profoundly secret; which, even nowadays, it is not permitted to reveal to all. old testament. h. p. blavatsky tells us that the _old testament_ is not a homogeneous composition; that _genesis_ alone is of immense antiquity; that it is prior to the time when the libra of the zodiac was invented by the greeks, for it has been noticed that the chapters containing the genealogies have been touched up so as to adapt them to the new zodiac, and this is the reason that the rabbis who compiled them twice repeated the names of enoch and lamech in the cain list. the other parts seem to be of a comparatively recent date and to have been completed about b.c. the first part of the _book of god_--as the scriptures were then called--was written by hilkiah, jointly with the prophetess huldah; this disappeared at a later date, and ezra had to begin a new one which was finished by judas maccabæus. this was recopied some time after, with the object of changing the pointed letters into square ones, and in this way was quite disfigured. the masoretes ended by mutilating it completely. the result is that the text we now possess is one not more than nine hundred years old, bristling with premeditated omissions, interpolations, and perverted interpretations.[ ] by the side of this initial difficulty we find another, quite as important. almost every page of the _old testament_ contains veiled meanings and allegories, as is frankly confessed by the rabbis themselves. "we ought not to take literally that which is written in the story of the creation, nor entertain the same ideas of it as are held by the vulgar. if it were otherwise, our ancient sages would not have taken so much pains to conceal the sense, and to keep before the eyes of the uninstructed the veil of allegory which conceals the truth it contains...."[ ] does not saint paul, speaking of the hidden meaning of the bible, say that agar is mount sinai?[ ] origen and saint augustine are of the opinion that the _old testament_ must be regarded as symbolical, as otherwise it would be immoral; the jewish law forbade anyone to read it who had not attained the age of thirty years; fénelon would have liked it to be thrust away in the recesses of the most secret libraries; the cardinal de noailles says that origen, so full of zeal on behalf of the holy scriptures, would not allow anyone to read the _old testament_, unless he were firmly anchored in the practice of a virtuous life; he affirms too that saint basilius, in a letter to chilon, the monk, stated that the reading of it often had a harmful influence; for the same reasons, the _index expurgatorius_ forbids the publication of the bible in the vulgar tongue, and orders that no one be allowed to read it without the written permission of his confessor.[ ] a third difficulty arises from the fact that the old testament--its dead "letter" and its commandments, at all events--is no longer suitable to our own race. it was intended for a nation that was composed of young souls, at a low stage of evolution, for whom nothing more than the rudiments of instruction were necessary, and on whom stern rules of morality, suitable for advanced souls, ought not to be imposed. this is why divorce,[ ] polygamy,[ ] slavery,[ ] retaliation, _lex talionis_,[ ] the blood of sacrifice[ ] are instituted; it is the reason god is represented as a being to be dreaded, punishing those who do not obey him, wicked, jealous, bloodthirsty.[ ] bossuet understood all this when he said that the primitive hebrew race was not sufficiently advanced to have the immortality of the soul taught to it. this, too, is the only explanation we can find for the sensual materialism of _ecclesiastes_.[ ] consequently one need not be astonished to find that the old testament nowhere deals--directly, at all events--with the doctrine of rebirth. all the same, here and there we come across a few passages that point in this direction. for instance, we read in _genesis_, chapter , regarding the birth of jacob and esau: "and the children (of rebecca) struggled together within her. "and the lord said unto her: two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger. "and when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold there were twins in her womb." this passage has been the occasion of lengthy commentaries on the part of certain fathers of the church--more especially of origen. indeed, either we must acknowledge divine injustice, creating, without any cause, two hostile brothers, one of whom must submit to the rule of the other, and who begin to strive together even before birth, or we must hark back to the pre-existence of the human soul and to a past karma which had created inequality in condition. david begins the ninetieth _psalm_ with a verse which only a belief in reincarnation can explain: "lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations...." the dwelling-place of the soul, at death, is in heaven, whence it returns to earth when the hour of rebirth has struck; thus, in all generations, that is, from life to life, "the lord is our dwelling-place." in chapter of the _book of wisdom_, solomon says in more explicit language: "for i was a witty child, and had a good spirit, yea, rather, being good, i came into a body undefiled." this clearly points to the pre-existence of the soul and the close relation that exists between the conditions of its rebirth and the merits or demerits of its past. verse of the first chapter of _jeremiah_ is similar to verse of the twenty-fifth chapter of _genesis_: "before i formed thee in the belly i knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb i sanctified thee, and i ordained thee a prophet unto the nations...." it is the deeds done in the past lives of jeremiah that accompany him on his return to earth; god could not, in an arbitrary fashion, have conferred on him the gift of prophecy had he not acquired it by his efforts in a past life; unless, here too, we altogether abandon reason and go back to a capricious or unjust--consequently altogether impossible--god. the kabala. contact with the babylonians, during the captivity, brought about a rapid development in the hebrews, who were at that time far more advanced souls than those that animated the bodies of their fathers,[ ] and taught them many important details of religious instruction. it was then that they learned the doctrine of rebirth and that the kabala came into being.[ ] in it the cycle of rebirths is called gil'gool'em[ ] or the "revolving of the incorporeal" in search of the "promised land." this promised land, the christian paradise, or buddhist nirvâna, was symbolised by palestine; the soul in its pilgrimage was brought to this abode of bliss,[ ] and, according to the allegory, "the bodies of hebrews buried in a foreign land contained an animistic principle which only found rest when, by the 'revolving of the incorporeal,' the immortal fragment had returned to the promised land."[ ] there are other aspects from which this "revolution of souls" may be regarded. certain kabalists speak of it as a kind of purgatory in which, by means of this "revolving," the purging of the soul is brought about before it enters paradise. in this connection, h. p. blavatsky states that in the language of the initiates the words "soul" (_âme_) and "atom" were synonyms, and were frequently used for each other. she says that the "revolution of souls" was in reality only the revolving of the atoms of the bodies which are continually transmigrating from one body to another throughout the various kingdoms of nature. from this point of view, it would seem that "gil'gool'em" is more especially the cycle of atomic transmigration: _resurrection_. the doctrine of the reincarnation of the human soul, however, is clearly set forth in the _zohar_: "all souls are subjected to the tests of transmigration; men know not the designs of the most high with regard to them; they know not how they are being at all times judged, both before coming into this world and when they leave it; they have no knowledge of the mysterious transformations and sufferings they must undergo, or how numerous are the spirits who coming; into this world never return to the palace of their divine king; they are ignorant of the revolutions to which they are subjected, revolutions similar to those of a stone when it is being hurled from a sling. and now the time has come when the veil shall be removed from all these mysteries.... souls must in the end be plunged back into the substance from which they came. but before this happens, they must have developed all the perfections the germs of which are implanted within them; if these conditions are not realised in one existence, they must be born again until they reach the stage that makes possible their absorption in god."[ ] according to the kabala, incarnations take place at long intervals; souls completely forget their past, and, far from being a punishment, rebirth is a blessing which enables men to develop and to attain to their final goal. the essenes taught reincarnation and the immortality of the soul. ernst von bunsen,[ ] speaking of this sect, says: "another marked peculiarity of the doctrine of the essenes was the doctrine concerning the pre-existence of souls. they exist originally in the purest ether, which is their celestial home. by a natural attraction they are drawn towards the earth and are enclosed in human bodies, as in a prison. the death of the body causes the return of the soul to its heavenly abode. the essenes can, therefore, not have believed in the resurrection of the body, but of the soul only, or, as paul says, of the 'spiritual body.' this is positively asserted by josephus."[ ] rome. although rome, above all else, was a warlike republic, and religion principally a state cult, that allowed but slight opportunity for the outer expression of spirituality, none the less did it inherit the beliefs of egypt, greece, and persia; the bacchic mysteries, previous to their degradation, were a copy of the orphic and eleusinian mysteries. in the reign of pompey, mithraism, a cult borrowed from persia, was spread throughout the empire. consequently, we need not be surprised at finding the doctrine of rebirth mentioned by the great latin writers. we will quote only from virgil and ovid. in the speech addressed by anchises to Æneas, his son, the trojan prince deals with the life beyond death, the tortures endured by souls in expiation of their misdeeds, their purification, their passing into tartarus,[ ] into the elysian fields,[ ] then their return to earth after having drunk of the river of forgetfulness. in book vi. of the _Æneid_, we find Æneas visiting the lower regions: "after having for a thousand years turned the wheel (of existence), these souls come forth in a mighty troop to the lethean stream to which god calls them that they may lose the memory of the past, see the higher regions,[ ] and begin to wish to return into bodies." ovid, in his _metamorphoses_ also deals with the teaching of pythagoras, his master, on the subject of palingenesis: "then death, so-called, is but old matter drest in some new figure, and a varied vest; thus all things are but alter'd, nothing dies, and here and there th' embodied spirit flies, by time, or force, or sickness dispossest, and lodges, when it lights, in man or beast. th' immortal soul flies out in empty space to seek her fortune in some other place." new testament. the _new testament_ is far more explicit than the _old_, even though we find the teachings of reincarnation indicated in only a vague, indirect fashion. all the same, it must not be forgotten that the canonical gospels have suffered numerous suppressions and interpolations. on the other hand, there can be no doubt that the early fathers of the church made use of gospels that are now either lost or have become apocryphal.[ ] it has been proved that neither jesus nor his disciples wrote a single word, and that no version of the gospels appeared earlier than the second century.[ ] it was at that time that religious quarrels gave birth to hundreds of gospels, the writers of which signed them with the name of an apostle or even with that of jesus, after forging them in more or less intelligent fashion. celsus, jortin, gibbons, and others have shown that christianity is directly descended from paganism; it was by combining the doctrines of egypt, persia, and greece with the teachings of jesus that the christian doctrine was built up. celsus silenced all the christian doctors of his time by supplying evidence of this plagiarism; origen, the most learned doctor of the age, was his opponent, but he was no more fortunate than the rest, and celsus came off victorious. thereupon recourse was had to the methods usual in those days; his books were burnt. and yet it is evident that the author of the _revelation_ was a kabalist; and the writer of the _gospel of saint john_ a gnostic or a neoplatonist. the _gospel of nicodemus_ is scarcely more than a copy of the _descent of hercules into the infernal regions_; the _epistle to the corinthians_ is a distinct reminiscence of the initiatory mysteries of eleusis; and the roman ritual, according to h. p. blavatsky, is the reproduction of the kabalistic ritual. one gospel only was authentic, the secret or hebrew _gospel of matthew_, which was used by the nazareans, and at a later date by saint justin and the ebionites. it contained the esoterism of the one-religion, and saint jerome, who found this gospel in the library of cæsarea about the end of the fourth century, says that he "received permission to translate it from the nazareans of beroea." these considerations prove that interested and narrow-minded writers selected from the mass of existing traditions whatever seemed to them of a nature to support their spiritual views as well as their material interests, and that they constructed therefrom not only what has come down to us as the four canonical gospels, but also the whole edifice of christian dogma. consequently, we need not be surprised to find in the _new testament_ only unimportant fragments dealing with reincarnation; but even these are not to be despised, for they prove that the doctrine was, to a certain extent at all events, known and accepted in palestine. _reincarnation in the gospels._ _saint mark_, chapter . v. . and king herod heard of him; and he said, that john the baptist was risen from the dead.... v. . others said, that it is elias; and others said, that it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets. v. . but when herod heard thereof, he said, it is john whom i beheaded; he is risen from the dead. _saint matthew_, chapter . v. . at that time, herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of jesus. v. . and said unto his servants, this is john the baptist; he is risen from the dead.... _saint luke_, chapter . v. . now herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him; and he was perplexed because it was said of some that john was risen from the dead. v. . and of some, that elias had appeared; and of others, that one of the old prophets was risen again. v. . but herod said, john have i beheaded; but who is this of whom i hear such things? the account here given proves that the people as well as herod believed in reincarnation, and that it applied, at all events, "to the prophets" and to those like them. _saint matthew_, chapter . v. . when jesus came into the coasts of cæsarea philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that i, the son of man, am? v. . and they said, some say that thou art john the baptist; some, elias; and others, jeremias, or one of the prophets. the same account is given in _saint luke_, chapter , verses , . _saint matthew_, chapter . v. . but i say unto you, that elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. likewise shall also the son of man suffer of them. v. . then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of john the baptist. he continued in _saint matthew_, chapter . v. . jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning john, what went ye out into the wilderness to see? a reed shaken with the wind? v. . but what went ye out for to see? a man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. v. . but what went ye out for to see? a prophet? yea, i say unto you, and more than a prophet. v. . and if ye will receive it, this is elias which was for to come. here we have a distinct declaration: reincarnation is a fact; john is the rebirth of elias.[ ] judging from these texts, one might be tempted to think that reincarnation was confined to the prophets or to people of importance, but saint john shows us that the jews, though perhaps ignorant that it was a law of universal application, recognised, at any rate, that it might happen in the case of any man. _saint john_, chapter . v. . and as jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. v. . and his disciples asked him, saying: master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? v. . jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned nor his parents; but that the works of god should be made manifest in him. here we are dealing with a man _blind from birth_, and the jews ask jesus if he was blind because he sinned; this clearly indicates that they were referring to sins committed in the course of a former existence[ ]; the thought is, therefore, quite a natural, straightforward one, referring to something well known to everyone and needing no explanation. as one well acquainted with this doctrine of rebirth, without combating it as an error or as something doubtful which his disciples ought not to believe, jesus simply replies: "neither hath this man sinned nor his parents; but that the works of god should be made manifest in him." and yet it appears as though this answer must have been distorted, as so many others have been, otherwise it would mean that the only reason for this man's blindness was the caprice of the deity. _reincarnation in the apocalypse._ the _apocalypse_, an esoteric book _par excellence_, confirms the doctrine of reincarnation, and throws considerable light on it: "him that overcometh will i make a pillar in the temple of my god, and he shall go no more out...."[ ] in another verse it is stated that to him who overcometh "i will give the morning star."[ ] in the language of theosophy, this means: he who has overcome the animal soul, shall, by mystic communion, be united to the divine soul, which, in the _apocalypse_, is the symbol of the christ: "i, jesus, am the bright and morning star."[ ] another verse clearly characterises the nature and the cost of victory: "to him that overcometh will i give to eat of the hidden manna, and i will give him a _white stone_, and in the stone a new _name_ written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."[ ] the hidden manna is the ambrosia of the greeks, the _kyteon_ of the mysteries of eleusis, the _soma_ of the hindus, the eucharist of the christians, the sacred drink offered to the disciples at initiation, which had the moon as its symbol, conferred the gift of divine clairvoyance and separated the soul from the body. the "white stone" is none other than the _alba petra_, the white cornelian, the chalcedony, or stone of initiation. it was given to the candidate who had successfully passed through all the preliminary tests.[ ] the "word" written on the stone is the _sacred word_, the "lost word" which swedenborg said was to be sought for amongst the hierophants of tartary and tibet, whom theosophists call the masters. "he who overcometh" is, therefore, the disciple ready for initiation; it is of him that "a pillar in the temple of god" will be made. in esoteric language, the column signifies man redeemed, made divine and free, who is no longer to revolve on the wheel of rebirths, who "shall no more go out," as the _apocalypse_ says, _i.e._, shall not again leave heaven. if we examine the text of both _old_ and _new testament_ by the light of esoteric teaching, the dead letter, often absurd and at tunes repellent and immoral, would receive unexpected illumination, and would fully justify the words of the great rabbi, maimonides, quoted a few pages back.[ ] origen, the most learned of the fathers of the church, adds in his turn: "if we had to limit ourselves to the letter, and understand after the fashion of the jews or the people, what is written in the law, i should be ashamed to proclaim aloud that it was god who gave us such laws; i should find more dignity and reason in human laws, as, for instance, in those of athens, rome, or sparta...." (_homil . in levit._) saint jerome, in his _epistle to paulinus_, continues in similar fashion: "listen, brother, learn the path you must follow in studying the holy scriptures. everything you read in the divine books is shining and light-giving without, but far sweeter is the heart thereof. he who would eat the nut must first break the shell." it is because they have lost the spirit of their scriptures that the christians--ever since their separation from the gnostics--have offered the world nothing more than the outer shell of the world religion. neoplatonism. the great philosophic body that formed a bridge, as it were, between the old world and the new was the famous school of alexandria, founded about the second century of our era by ammonius saccas and closed in the year a.d. through the intolerance of justinian. theosophical in its origin, this school had received from plato the esoteric teaching of egypt and the east, and the dogma of rebirth was secretly taught in its entirety, though its meaning may have been travestied by the ignorance of the masses to whom only the grosser aspects of the teaching were given. "it is a dogma recognised throughout antiquity," says plotinus,[ ] "that the soul expiates its sins in the darkness of the infernal regions, and that afterwards it passes into new bodies, there to undergo new trials." "when we have gone astray in multiplicity,[ ] we are first punished by our wandering away from the path, and afterwards by less favourable conditions, when we take on new bodies."[ ] "the gods are ever looking down upon us in this world, no reproach we bring against them can be justifiable, for their providence is never-ending; they allot to each individual his appropriate destiny, one that is in harmony with his past conduct, in conformity with his successive existences."[ ] the following is a quotation from the same philosopher, dealing with metempsychosis, and which, when compared with the foregoing sentences, appears strangely absurd. we make no comment here, as this obscure question will be dealt with a few pages farther on. "those who have exercised human faculties are reborn as men; those who have lived only the life of the senses pass into animals' bodies, especially into the bodies of wild beasts if they have given way to excesses of anger ... those who have sought only to satisfy their lust and gluttony, pass into the bodies of lascivious and gluttonous animals ... those who have allowed their senses to become atrophied, are sent to vegetate in trees ... those who have reigned tyranically become eagles, if they have no other vice."[ ] porphyry says: "the souls that are not destined for the tortures of hell (_tartarus_), and those that have passed through this expiation, are born again, and divine justice gives them a new body, in accordance with their merits and demerits."[ ] the following remarkable lines are from iamblichus: "what appears to us to be an accurate definition of justice does not also appear to be so to the gods. for we, looking at that which is most brief, direct our attention to things present, and to this momentary life, and the manner in which it subsists. but the powers that are superior to us know the whole life of the soul, and all its former lives; and, in consequence of this, if they inflict a certain punishment in obedience to the entreaties of those that invoke them, they do not inflict it without justice, but looking at the offences committed by souls in former lives: which men, not perceiving, think that they unjustly fall into the calamities which they suffer."[ ] proclus gave out the same teaching; he affirmed that he had been incarnated in nichomachus, the pythagorean. in his commentary on the _golden verses of pythagoras_, hierocles expresses himself thus: "the ways of the lord can be justified only by metempsychosis."[ ] damascius and hermias, as also their masters, proclaimed their belief in rebirth. here a short explanation must be given of what has been said regarding transmigration or metempsychosis, in order that all misunderstanding may be removed. neither pythagoras nor plotinus nor any of the great teachers of the past believed in metempsychosis, as it has been described; all their disciples have affirmed if, and these affirmations, set over against a line of teaching which seems to contradict them, because it is incomplete and intended for the less intelligent portion of society at that time, ought to have reminded its opponents that there might be hidden reasons capable of explaining the paradox. we must first remember that a veil of strictest secrecy was flung over the noblest and most sublime spiritual teachings of the day. according to bossuet, the teaching of the immortality of the soul seems not to have been deemed suitable for the hebrew race, and, indeed, it is easy to understand that no double-edged truth should be taught except under conditions that would safeguard it. ptolemy philadelphus exiled hegesias,[ ] whose eloquent fanaticism had caused some of his disciples to commit suicide, at cyrene, after a lesson on immortality. ptolemy ordered those schools of philosophy to be closed which continued teaching this doctrine, for in the case of a people insufficiently developed, the instinct which binds to physical life, and the dread of the torture that awaits guilty souls in the hereafter, are preferable to doctrines of immortality deprived of the safeguards with which they should be surrounded. the doctrine of rebirths called for even stricter secrecy than that of immortality, and this secrecy was accorded it in ancient times; after the coming of the christ, it grew less rigorous, and the neoplatonists, though obliged to keep the esoteric teaching to themselves, were permitted to throw light on certain points. timæus of locris, one of the masters of plotinus, hinted at the existence of a more profound doctrine in the following words: "just as by the threat of punishment imperfectly evolved souls are prevented from sinning, so the transmigration of the souls of murderers into the bodies of wild beasts, and of the souls of unchaste persons into the bodies of swine, was taught; and the previous punishment of these souls in the infernal regions was entrusted to nemesis (karma)." certain modern commentators--though imperfectly instructed in the teachings of palingenesis--have also seen that the masters of philosophy in the past could not possibly have made a mistake which less far-seeing minds would have avoided. dacier[ ] says: "a sure token that pythagoras never held the opinion attributed to him lies in the fact that there is not the faintest trace of it in the symbols we have left of him, or in the precepts his disciple, lysis, collected together and handed down as a summary of the master's teachings." jules simon also speaks as follows regarding plotinus:[ ] "here we have the doctrine of metempsychosis which plotinus found all around, among the egyptians, the jews, the neoplatonists, his predecessors, and finally in plato himself. does plato take metempsychosis seriously, as one would be tempted to believe after reading the _republic_? did he mention it only to ridicule the superstitions of his contemporaries, as seems evident from the _timæus_?[ ] "however important plato may have considered metempsychosis, it can scarcely be imagined that plotinus took it seriously.... even granting that this doctrine were literally accepted by plotinus, the question would still have to be asked whether the human soul really does dwell in the body of an animal, or simply enters a human body, which, in its passions and vices, recalls the nature of that particular animal." the reasons mentioned by dacier and jules simon form only a trifling portion of the whole explanation, but if they are added to the constant protests raised by the disciples of the masters of the pythagorean and platonic traditions, against those who said that their instructors taught metempsychosis in all its crudeness, they assume considerable importance, and show that, although the restrictions of esoteric teaching travestied by the ignorance of the masses may have caused it to be believed that the contrary was the case, none the less the initiates, from the very beginning, denied that human transmigration into the bodies of animals ever took place. on this question many of them have frequently said that it is the soul which, in such cases, changes its nature, and assumes the passions of animals into which, as is said exoterically, it transmigrates, though it does not enter into their bodies. "he who believes that he transmigrates, after death, into the body of a beast or a plant," says hierocles,[ ] "is grossly mistaken; he is ignorant of the fact that the essential form of the soul cannot change, that it is and it remains human, and only, metaphorically speaking, does virtue make of it a god, and vice an animal." "a human soul," adds hermes, "cannot go back into the body of an animal; it is preserved from such pollution, for all time, by the will of the gods."[ ] mrs. besant says as follows in a letter dealing with theosophy and reincarnation (_the theosophist_, april, ): "even with the wealth of detail given in the hindu shâstras, thousands of facts of the invisible world are omitted, because their statement would hopelessly bewilder the public mind. "if all the details are given, ere the main principles are grasped, hopeless confusion is caused to the beginner. "when an ego, a human soul, by vicious appetite or otherwise, forms a very strong link of attachment to any type of animal, the astral body (kâmarûpa) of such a person shows the corresponding animal characteristics, and in the astral world, where thoughts and passions are visible as forms, may take the animal shapes; thus, after death, in _pretaloka_, the soul would be embodied in an animal vesture, resembling or approximating to the animal whose qualities had been encouraged during earth-life. either at this stage, or when the soul is returning towards reincarnation, and is again in the astral world, it may, in extreme cases, be linked by magnetic affinity to the astral body of the animal it has approached in character, and will then, through the animal's astral body, be chained as a prisoner to that animal's physical body. thus chained, it cannot go onwards to _svarga_, if the tie be set up while it is a _preta_; nor go onwards to human birth, if it be descending towards physical life. it is truly undergoing penal servitude, chained to an animal; it is conscious in the astral world, has its human faculties, but it cannot control the brute body with which it is connected, nor express itself through that body on the physical plane. the animal organisation does not possess the mechanism needed by the human ego for self-expression; it can serve as a jailor, not as a vehicle. further, the "animal soul" is not ejected, but is the proper tenant and controller of its own body. s'rî shankarâchârya hints very clearly at the difference between this penal imprisonment and becoming a stone, a tree, or an animal. such an imprisonment is not "reincarnation," ... the human ego "cannot reincarnate as an animal," cannot "become an animal." "in cases where the ego is not degraded enough for absolute imprisonment, but in which the astral body has become very animal, it may pass on normally to human re-birth, but the animal characteristic will be largely reproduced in the physical body--as witness the "monsters" who in face are sometimes repulsively animal, pig-faced, dog-faced, &c. men, by yielding to the most bestial vices, entail on themselves penalties more terrible than they, for the most part, realise; for nature's laws work on unbrokenly and bring to every man the harvest of the seed he sows. the suffering entailed on the conscious human entity, thus cut off from progress and from self-expression, is very great, and is, of course, reformatory in its action; it is somewhat similar to that endured by other egos, who are linked to bodies human in form, but without normal brains--those we call idiots, lunatics, &c. idiocy and lunacy are the results of vices different in kind from those that bring about the animal servitude above explained, but the ego in these cases also is attached to a form through which he cannot express himself." "true reason," says proclus,[ ] "affirms that the human soul may at times find lodgment in brutes, but that it is possible for it to live its own life and rise above the lower nature whilst bound to it by the similarity of its tendencies and desires. we have never meant anything else, as has often been proved by the reasoning in our commentaries on _phædrus_." there is a note in the _vâhan_[ ] on a passage from _phædrus_ which sheds all the light that can be shed on the question of metempsychosis; in the space of a few lines everything is said that may be publicly revealed, without trespassing on forbidden ground. after stating that, on returning from the internal regions, the soul passes into the "life" of a beast, and that if it were human previously, it afterwards goes into another human body, the note continues: "we must not understand by this that the soul of a man becomes the soul of a brute, but that by way of punishment it is bound to the soul of a brute, or carried in it, just as dæmons used to reside in our souls. hence all the energies of the rational soul are absolutely impeded, and its intellectual eye beholds nothing but the dark and tumultuous phantasms of a brutal life."[ ] this passage contains the explanation of what might be called the metempsychosis of certain human souls at the present time; we once heard a great teacher fully reveal this mystery to a chosen group of hindus, but it must for some time to come remain a mystery to the western world. all that can be said on the matter is that it has nothing to do with the incarnation of a human soul in the body of an animal, but rather with a certain temporary karmic bond, in the life hereafter, between a human soul and an animal one, a bond intended to teach many a hard lesson to the one who has brought upon himself so unpleasant an experience. metempsychosis included many other facts in human evolution, facts that were plainly taught to the disciples in the "inner circles" of the ancient schools and passed out to the confused medley of public teaching. the astral body, for instance, of a man of an exceedingly passionate nature, when the soul leaves the physical body, sometimes assumes forms resembling those of the animals which represent these passions on the physical plane, and so the disincarnate soul of an assassin has been said to pass into the body of a wild beast. metempsychosis, properly so-called, that is to say, the passing of a human soul into the body of a brute, did however exist during the infancy of the human race, when highly developed animal souls were becoming fit to enter the human kingdom. the bodies of these newly-born human souls were coarse and rudimentary in their nature, showing scarcely any difference in form and organic function from the bodies of the higher animals of that period, for these instruments were very similar to one another. the improvements subsequently effected by human bodies did not then exist; the difference, or distinction, which has now widened into a gulf, was scarcely perceptible, and in the early incarnations of these rudimentary human souls back-slidings and falls were so frequent that some of them, thus enfeebled, might find it to their advantage[ ] to become incarnate, at times, in highly-developed animal bodies. but that was always an exception, and the exception has long ago become an impossibility. we think these explanations, along with those given in other portions of this work, will throw as much light as is permitted publicly on the subject of metempsychosis--a subject frequently discussed and one that has hitherto been so obscure. such illumination as is here given is due to the teachings of theosophy. the early christian church. the documents to which we have access, dealing with the philosophical and religious history of christianity in the first few centuries of our era, are so questionable, that we can place but faint reliance upon them, if we would really become acquainted with the thought of that period. we have already seen that the number of spurious or counterfeit productions was so great that a strange kind of sorting out, or selection, took place at the first council of nicæa, resulting in the choice of four so-called canonical gospels. it is evident, too, that the copyists, compilers, and translators of the period were anxious, above all else, to make facts and opinions agree with their preconceived ideas and personal sympathies or likings. each author worked _pro domo sua_, emphasising whatever fitted in with his personal views and carefully concealing what was calculated to weaken them; so that at the present time the only clues we have to guide us out of the labyrinth consist of the brief opinions expressed by a few historians, here and there, on whose honesty reliance may be placed. in the present chapter, for instance, it is no easy matter to unravel the truth from out of these tangled threads of personal opinions. some believe that the early christians and the fathers of the church were reincarnationists; others say they were not; the texts, we are in possession of, contradict one another. thus, whereas saint jerome brings against origen the reproach of having in his book _de principiis_ taught that, in certain cases, the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of animals, was possible--as, indeed, seems to be the case--certain writers deny that he ever said anything on the subject. these contradictory affirmations are easy to explain, once we know that ruffinus, when translating into latin the greek text of _de principiis_, omitted all that referred to this question, that the conspiracy of silence might be preserved on the matter of origenian transmigration. at the close of his article "_origen on reincarnation_," in the _theosophical review_, february, , g. r. s. mead says: "it therefore follows that those who have claimed origen as a believer in reincarnation--and many have done so, confounding reincarnation with pre-existence--have been mistaken. origen himself answers in no uncertain tones, and stigmatises the belief as a false doctrine, utterly opposed to scripture and the teaching of the church." others affirm that saint justin martyr believed in rebirths and even in the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies. in his book _against heresies_, volume , chapter , the _absurdity of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls_ is dealt with; and in the following chapter, the pre-existence of the soul is denied! is this another instance, like the one just mentioned, of tampering with the writings of this father of the church?[ ] at times an author gives two contradictory opinions on the same subject. in tertullian's _apology for the christians_, for instance, we find the following: "if you can find it reasonable to believe the transmigration of human souls from body to body, why should you think it incredible for the soul to return to the substance it first inhabited?[ ] for this is our notion of a resurrection, to be that again after death which we were before, for according to the pythagorean doctrine these souls now are not the same they were, because they cannot be what they were not without ceasing to be what they were.... i think it of more consequence to establish this doctrine of the resurrection; and we propose it as more consonant with reason and the dignity of human nature to believe that man will be remade man, each person the person he was, a human being a human being; in other words, that the soul shall be habited with the same qualities it was invested with in its former union, though the man may receive some alteration in his form.... the light which daily departs rises again with its original splendour, and darkness succeeds by equal turns; the stars which leave the world, revive; the seasons, when they have finished their course, renew it again; the fruits are consumed and bloom afresh; and that which we sow is not quickened except it die, and by that dissolution rises more fruitful. thus you see how all things are renewed by corruption and reformed by dying.... how, then, could you imagine that man, the lord of all these dying and reviving things, should himself die for ever?" after such a clear and noble profession of faith, we may well wonder if it were the same man who, in _de anima_, could have both refuted and pitilessly ridiculed the idea of rebirth, and denied the separation of the soul from the body as well as the influence of the former upon the latter. we prefer to believe that we are dealing with two writers, or else that some literary forger, anxious to create a diversion, deliberately made tertullian responsible for this strange contradiction. another reason for the difficulty in unravelling the tangled skein of the religious and philosophical teachings prevalent in the early centuries of christianity is the lack of precision in the language of the writers, the loss of the key to the special vocabulary they used, and the veils which writers who possessed some degree of initiation, deliberately threw over teachings which could only be given to the masses in general terms. there is one very important point to consider; and this is that in the earlier centuries, outside the circles of initiation, there was not that precision which the present-day teaching of theosophy has given to the doctrine of reincarnation; this latter, in the mind of the people, became confused with the doctrine of pre-existence, which affirms that the soul exists before coming into the present body, and will exist in other bodies after leaving this one. this confusion has continued up to the present time, and we find schools of spiritualism in england and america, as well as in other countries, teaching that existence on earth has been preceded and will be followed by a great number of existences on the invisible planes. in reality, this is the doctrine of rebirths, though there is nothing precise about the teaching. whether the soul has a single physical body, or takes several in succession, it is none the less continually evolving as it passes into material vehicles, however subtle the matter be; the difference is, therefore, insignificant, unless we wish to enter into details of the process involved, as was the case in the west in the early centuries of christianity. did the fathers of the church teach pre-existence? there can be no doubt on this point. in a letter to st. anastasius, rufinus said that "this belief was common amongst the early christian fathers." arnobius[ ] shows his sympathy with this teaching, and adds that st. clement, of alexandria, "wrote wonderful accounts of metempsychosis"; and afterwards, in other passages of the same book, he appears to criticise the idea of the plurality of lives. st. jerome affirms that "the doctrine of transmigration has been secretly taught from ancient times to small numbers of people, as a traditional truth which was not to be divulged."[ ] a. franck quotes this passage on page of his _kabbale_; huet, too, gives it in _origeniana_.[ ] the same father proves himself to be a believer in pre-existence, in his th _letter to avitus_, where he agrees with origen on the subject of the interpretation of a passage from st. paul,[ ] and says that this means "that a divine abode and true repose are to be found in heaven," and "that there dwell creatures endowed with reason in a state of bliss, before coming down to our visible world, before they fall into the grosser bodies of earth...." lactantius, whom st. jerome called the christian cicero, though he opposed pagan doctrines, maintained that the soul was capable of immortality and of bodily survival only on the hypothesis that it existed before the body.[ ] nemesius, bishop of emissa in syria, stoutly affirmed the doctrine of pre-existence, declaring that every greek who believed in immortality believed also in the pre-existence of the soul. st. augustine said: "did i not live in another body, or somewhere else, before entering my mother's womb?"[ ] in his _treatise, on dreams_, synesius states that "philosophy assures us that our past lives are a direct preparation for future lives...." when invited by the citizens of ptolemais to become their bishop, he at once refused, saying that "he cherished certain opinions of which they might not approve, as, after mature reflection, they had struck deep root in his mind. foremost among these, he mentioned the doctrine of pre-existence." dr. henry more, the famous platonist of the seventeenth century, quotes synesius as one of the masters who taught this doctrine,[ ] and beausobre reports a typical phrase of his,[ ] "father, grant that my soul may merge into light and be no more thrust back into the illusion of earth." st. gregory of nysa says it is absolutely necessary that the soul should be healed and purified, and if this does not take place during its life on earth, it must be accomplished in future lives. st. clement of alexandria says that, although man was created after other beings, "the human species is more ancient than all these things."[ ] in his _exhortations to the pagans_, he adds: "we were in being long before the foundation of the world; we existed in the eye of god, for it is our destiny to live in him. we are the reasonable creatures of the divine word; therefore, we have existed from the beginning, for in the beginning was the word.... not for the first time does he show pity on us in out wanderings. he pitied us from the very beginning." he also adds:[ ] "philolaus, the pythagorean, taught that the soul was flung into the body as a punishment for the misdeeds it had committed, and his opinion was confirmed by the most ancient of the prophets." as regards reincarnation, _i.e._, the descent of the human soul into successive physical bodies, and even its temporary association with the physical bodies of animals, more than one christian writer advocated this teaching. chalcidius, quoted by beausobre in the book just mentioned, says: "the souls, that are not able to unite with god, are destined to return to life until they repent of their misdeeds." in the _pistis sophia_, a christian treatise on the mysteries of the divine hierarchies and the evolution of souls in the three worlds, we find the doctrine of rebirth frequently mentioned: "if he is a man who (after passing out of his body)[ ] shall have come to the end of his cycles of transmigrations, without repenting, ... he is cast into outer darkness." a few pages earlier, in the same work, we find: "the disincarnate soul which has not solved the mystery of the breaking of the bonds and of the seals is brought before the virgin of light, who, after judging it, hands it over to her agents (_receivers_), who carry it into a new body." let us now see what origen says on the matter[ ]: "celsus, then, is altogether ignorant of the purpose of our writings, and it is therefore upon his own acceptation of them that he casts discredit and not upon their real meaning; whereas if he had reflected on what is appropriate[ ] to a soul which is to enjoy an everlasting life, and on the idea which we are to form of its essence and principles, he would not so have ridiculed the entrance of the immortal into a mortal body, which took place, not according to the metempsychosis of plato, but agreeably to another and higher order of things." the teaching of origen is not easy to set forth clearly, for he is very reticent about many things, and employs a language to which present-day philosophy cannot always find the key; still, the teaching seems full and complete. it comprises pre-existence and even those special associations of certain human souls with animal souls, which we have just spoken of and which form one of the chief mysteries of metempsychosis. in the following words he explains the existence of souls in previous worlds: "the soul has neither beginning nor end.... "rational creatures existed undoubtedly from the very beginning in those (ages) which are invisible and eternal. and if this is so, then there has been a descent from a higher to a lower condition on the part not only of those souls who have deserved the change, by the variety of their movements, but also on that of those who, in order to serve the whole world, were brought down from those higher and invisible spheres to these lower and visible ones, although against their will. 'for the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope' (_rom._, chap. , v. ); so that both sun and moon and stars and angels might discharge their duly to the world, and to those souls who, on account of their excessive mental defects, stood in need of bodies of a grosser and more solid nature; and for the sake of those for whom this arrangement was necessary, this visible world was also called into being. "this arrangement of things, then, which god afterwards appointed not being understood by some, who failed to perceive that it was owing to preceding causes originating in free will, that this variety of arrangement had been instituted by god, they have concluded that all things in this world are directed either by fortuitous movements or by a necessary fate, and that nothing is in the power of our own will."[ ] "is it not rational that souls should be introduced into bodies, in accordance with their merits and previous deeds, and that those who have used their bodies in doing the utmost possible good should have a right to bodies endowed with qualities superior to the bodies of others?"[ ] all souls will arrive at the same goal;[ ] it is the will of souls that makes of them angels, men or demons, and their fall can be of such a nature that they may be chained down to the bodies of animals.[ ] certain souls, on attaining to perfect peace, return to new worlds; some remain faithful, others degenerate to such a degree that they become demons.[ ] concerning bodies, he says: "the soul, which is immaterial and invisible in its nature, exists in no material place, without having a body suited to the nature of that place; accordingly, it at one time puts off one body which was necessary before, but which is no longer adequate in its changed state, and it exchanges it for a second."[ ] although _metensomatosis_ (re-embodiment of the soul), _i.e._, the true teaching of origen, was not clearly expounded, it considerably influenced the early christian philosophers, and was favourably received up to the time of its condemnation by the synod of constantinople. it appeared in most of the sects of that time and in those of the following centuries: simonians, basilidians, valentinians, marcionites, gnostics, manichæans, priscillianites, cathari, patarins, albigenses, bogomiles, &c.... chivalry, too, in these ages of darkness and persecution, was an instrument for the dissemination of esoteric doctrines, including reincarnation. the heart of this noble institution consisted of students of divine wisdom, pure devoted souls who communicated with one another by means of passwords. the troubadours were their messengers of the sacred teaching, which they skilfully concealed in their songs, carrying it from group to group, from sect to sect, in their wanderings. "sons of the teachings of the albigenses and of the manichæan-marcion tradition"[ ] they kept alive belief in the rebirths of the soul, "izarn the monk," in his book _historie d' un hérétique_,[ ] apostrophised an albigensian bishop in the following terms: "tell me what school it was in which you learnt that the spirit of man, after losing his body, passes into an ox, an ass, a sheep, or a fowl, and transmigrates from one animal to another, until a new human body is born for it?" izarn was acquainted with only so much of the teachings of the troubadours as had got abroad and been distorted and misrepresented by ignorant or evil-minded persons; still, his criticism plainly shows traces of the teachings of palingenesis in the darkest and most blood-stained periods of the middle ages. the inquisition put an end to the troubadours, though certain of them, dante and st. francis of assisi, for instance, by reason of their popularity or the special circumstances of the case, were left in peace. in europe the secret teaching was continued by the rosicrucians; the _roman de la rose_ is pure hermetic esotericism. the struggle of official christianity--that of the letter--against those who represented the spirit of the scriptures, raged ever more bitterly, and the idea of rebirth disappeared more and more from the church; its sole representatives during the middle ages were st. francis of assisi, the learned irish monk, johannes scotus erigena, and st. bonaventura, "the seraphic doctor." at the present time there remains nothing more than a disfigured and misunderstood fragment of this idea: the dogma of the _resurrection of the body_. islamism.[ ] it has been said that the arabs believed in reincarnation before mohammed forbade it. some, however, think that the koran was written only after the death of the prophet, and that the latter committed nothing to writing, but taught by word of mouth. besides, it is clear that mohammedanism is an offshoot of zoroastrianism and christianity. like these, it teaches the unity of the whole, the divine presence in all creatures and things (_ubiquity_), predestination, which is only one form of _karma_, and resurrection, which expresses one phase of palingenesis. mohammed, like all great mystics, had discovered or learnt many of the truths of esotericism. the verses of the koran that refer to the "companions of the cave"[ ] indicate that he knew more than he taught in public, and that there may be some ground for certain asiatic nations holding the exaggerated belief that he was an avâtâr,[ ] the tenth incarnation of the _aum_--the amed, the nations' desire.[ ] he was a disciple. had there not been in the heart of islamism a strong germ of esoteric teaching, sufism could never have sprung from it. the sufis are the saints of mohammedanism, they are those who aspire after the union of the individual "i" with the cosmic "i," of man with god; they are frequently endowed with wonderful powers, and their chiefs have almost always been thaumaturgists. the _new koran_, a modern exposition of part of the secret doctrine of islam, shows the correctness of this view. in it we find the following passages on the subject of palingenesis: "and when his body falleth off altogether, as an old fish-shell, his soul doeth welt by the releasing, and formeth a new one instead. "the disembodied spirits of man and beast return as the clouds to renew the young streamlets of infancy.... "when a man dieth or leaveth his body, he wendeth through the gate of oblivion and goeth to god, and when he is born again he cometh from god and in a new body maketh his dwelling; hence is this saying: "the body to the tomb and the spirit to the womb.... "this doctrine is none other than what god hath taught openly from the very beginning.... "for truly the soul of a man goeth not to the body of a beast, as some say.... "but the soul of the lower beast goeth to the body of the higher, and the soul of the higher beast to the body of the savage, and the soul of the savage to the man.... "and so a man shall be immortal in one body and one garment that neither can fade nor decay. "ye who now lament to go out of this body, wept also when ye were born into it...."[ ] "the person of man is only a mask which the soul putteth on for a season; it weareth its proper time and then is cast off, and another is worn in its stead.... "i tell you, of a truth, that the spirits which now have affinity shall be kindred together, although they all meet in new persons and names."[ ] in _asiatic researches_, colebrooke states that the present mohammedan sect of the _bohrahs_ believes in metempsychosis, as do the hindus, and, like the latter, abstains from flesh, for the same reason. thus we find the doctrine of reincarnation at the heart of all the great religions of antiquity. the reason it has remained in a germinal state in recent religions--christianity and islamism--is that in the latter mohammed did not attain to the degree of a hierophant, and in all likelihood the race to which he brought light did not greatly need to become acquainted with the law relating to the return to earth life; whereas in the former the real teachings of the christ were lost when the gnostics were exterminated, and eusebius and irenæus, the founders of exoteric christianity, unable to grasp the _spirit_, imposed the _letter_ throughout the religion. the doctrine of rebirth in modern philosophy. in antiquity, science and philosophy were scarcely anything else than parts of religion[ ]; the most eminent scientists and the greatest philosophers alike were all supporters of the established form of religion, whenever they did not happen to be its priests, for the temples were the common cradle of science and philosophy. no wonder, then, that we find these three great aspects of truth always hand in hand, never opposed to or in conflict with one another through the whole of antiquity. science was for the body, philosophy for the intellect, and religion for that divine spark which is destined to flash forth and finally become a "god" in the bosom of the world soul. every intelligent man knew that on this tripod lay the life of the individual, the life of society, and the life of the world. divorce between these took place only at a later date, when the divine teachers had disappeared, and mutilated traditions handed down to the nations nothing but disfigured and incomplete teachings buried beneath the ruins of temples that had been crumbling away ever since spiritual life had left them. then followed the era of separation; science and philosophy became debased and went their own ways, whilst a degenerate religion reflected nothing higher than the narrow mentality of fallen ministers. as this degradation continued, there sprang into being religious wars, monstrosities that were unknown in those times when divinity shed illumination and guidance on the nations by means of those mighty souls, the adept-kings: gods, demi-gods, and heroes. nevertheless, truth never remained without her guardians, and when apostleship had been destroyed by persecutions the sacred treasure which was to be handed down from age to age was secretly entrusted by the sages to faithful disciples. thus did esoterism pass through fire and bloodshed, and one of its greatest teachings, the doctrine of palingenesis, has left a stream of light in its wake. now we will give a rapid sketch of it in modern times, examining the philosophical teachings of the greatest of recent thinkers. we will borrow mainly from walker's work on this subject, quoting only the writers most deserving of mention, and making only short extracts, for all that is needed is to plant a few sign-posts to guide the student along the path. in the th verse of _lalla rookh_, thomas moore speaks of rebirths: "stranger, though new the frame thy soul inhabits now, i've traced its flame for many an age, in every chance and change of that existence, through whose varied range,-- as through a torch-race, where, from hand to hand the flying youths transmit their shining brand,-- from frame to frame the unextinguished soul rapidly passes, till it reach the goal!" paracelsus, like every initiate, was acquainted with it, and jacob böhme, the "nursling of the nirmânakâyas,"[ ] knew that it was a law of nature. giordano bruno--also a great soul--quotes from ovid's _metamorphoses_, book , line , &c., as follows: "o mortals! chilled by dreams of icy death, whom air-blown bubbles of a poet's breath, darkness and styx in error's gulph have hurl'd, with fabled terrors of a fabled world; think not, whene'er material forms expire, consumed by wasting age or funeral fire, aught else can die: souls, spurning death's decay, freed from their old, new tenements of clay forthwith assume, and wake to life again. ... all is change, nought perishes" ... _orger's translation_[ ] campanella, the dominican monk, was sent into exile on account of his belief in the successive returns of the soul to earth. the younger helmont, in his turn, was attacked by the inquisition for leaching this doctrine in his _de revolutione animarum_, in which he brings forward, in two hundred problems, all the arguments; that make reincarnation necessary. cudworth and dr. henry more, the platonists of cambridge, were faithful believers in palingenesis; whilst joseph glanvill, in _lux orientalis_, finds that there are "seven pillars" on which pre-existence rests. dr. edward beecher, in _the conflict of ages_ and _the concord of ages_, as well as julius muller, the well-known german theologian, in _the christian doctrine of sin_, warmly uphold it. schelling acknowledges it in his _dissertation on metempsychosis_. leibnitz, in his _monadology_, and more especially his _theodicy_, witnessed to his belief in this doctrine. had he dared to speak out his thoughts openly, he would more effectively have advocated his "optimism," by the teachings of evolution and rebirths, than by all the other arguments he advanced. chevalier ramsey, in _the philosophical principles of natural and revealed religion_, writes: "the holy oracles always represent paradise as our native country, and our present life as an exile. how can we be said to have been banished from a place in which we never were? this argument alone would suffice to convince us of pre-existence, if the prejudice of infancy inspired by the schoolmen had not accustomed us to look upon these expressions as metaphorical, and to believe, contrary to scripture and reason, that we were exiled from a happy state, only for the fault and personal disobedience of our first parents.... "our saviour seems to approve the doctrine of pre-existence in his answer to the disciples, when they interrogate him thus about the man born blind,[ ] 'master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' it is clear that this question would have been ridiculous and impertinent if the disciples had not believed that the man born blind had sinned before his corporal birth, and consequently that he had existed in another state long ere he was born on earth. our saviour's answer is remarkable, 'neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of god might be manifested in him.' jesus christ could not mean that neither this man nor his parents had ever committed any sin, for this can be said of no mortal; but the meaning is that it was neither for the sins committed by this man in a state of pre-existence, nor for those of his parents, that he was born blind; but that he was deprived of sight from his birth, by a particular dispensation of providence, in order to manifest, one day, the power of god in our saviour. our lord, therefore, far from blaming and redressing this error in his disciples, as he did those concerning his temporal kingdom, answers in a way that seems to suppose with them, and confirm them in the doctrine of pre-existence. if he had looked upon this opinion as a capital error, would it have been consonant or compatible with his eternal wisdom to have passed it over so lightly and thus tacitly authorised it by such silence? on the contrary, does not his silence manifestly indicate that he looked upon this doctrine, which was a received maxim of the jewish church, as the true explanation of original sin? "since god says that he loved jacob and detested esau ere they were born, and before they had done good or evil in this mortal life, since god's love and hatred depend upon the moral dispositions of the creature, ... it follows clearly that if god hated esau, type of the reprobate, and loved jacob, type of the elect, before their natural birth, they must have pre-existed in another state. "if it be said that all these texts are obscure, that pre-existence is largely drawn from them by induction, and that this belief is not revealed in scripture by express words, i answer that the doctrines of the immortality of the soul are nowhere revealed, least of all in the oracles of the _old_ and _new testament_. we may say the same of pre-existence. this doctrine is nowhere expressly revealed as an article of faith, but it is evidently implied in the _wisdom of solomon_, by the author of _ecclesiasticus_, by our saviour's silence, by st. paul's comparisons, and by the sacred doctrine of original sin, which becomes not only inexplicable, but absurd, repugnant, and impossible, if that of pre-existence be not true.... the fifth general council held at constantinople pronounces anathema against all those who maintain the fabulous doctrine of pre-existence in the origenian sense. it was not then the simple doctrine of pre-existence that was condemned by the council, but the fictitious mixtures and erroneous disguises by which this ancient tradition had been adulterated by the origenites." soame jenyns writes: "that mankind had existed in some state previous to the present was the opinion of the wisest sages of the most remote antiquity. it was held by the gymnosophists of egypt, the brâhmans of india, the magi of persia, and the greatest philosophers of greece and rome; it was likewise adopted by the _fathers of the christian church, and frequently enforced by her early writers_; why it has been so little noticed, so much overlooked rather than rejected, by the divines and metaphysicians of latter ages, i am at a loss to account for, as it is undoubtedly confirmed by reason, by all the appearances of nature and the doctrines of revelation. "in the first place, then, it is confirmed by reason, which teaches us that it is impossible that the conjunction of a male and female can create an immortal soul; they may prepare a material habitation for it; but there cannot be an immortal, pre-existent inhabitant ready to take possession. reason assures us that an immortal soul, which will exist eternally after the dissolution of the body, must have eternally existed before the formation of it; _for whatever has no end can never have had any beginning_.... "reason likewise tells us that an omnipotent and benevolent creator would never have formed such a world as this, and filled it with such inhabitants if the present was the only, or even the first, state of their existence; for this state which, if unconnected with the past and the future, would seem calculated for no purpose intelligible to our understanding, neither of good or evil, of happiness or misery, of virtue or vice, of reward or punishment; but a confused jumble of them all together, proceeding from no visible cause and tending to no end.... "pre-existence, although perhaps it is nowhere in the _new testament_ explicitly enforced, yet throughout the whole tenour of these writings is everywhere implied; in them, mankind is constantly represented as coming into the world under a load of guilt; as condemned criminals, the children of wrath and objects of divine indignation; placed in it for a time by the mercies of god to give them an opportunity of expiating this guilt by sufferings, and regaining, by a pious and virtuous conduct, their lost state of happiness and innocence.... "now if by all this a pre-existent state is not constantly supposed, that is, that mankind has existed in some state previous to the present, in which this guilt was incurred, and this depravity contracted, there can be no meaning at all or such a meaning as contradicts every principle of common sense, that guilt can be contracted without acting, or that we can act without existing...." the following is a quotation from hume, the great positivist philosopher: "reasoning from the common course of nature, what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. the soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth, and if the former existence in noway concerned us, neither will the latter.... metempsychosis is, therefore, the only system of this kind that philosophy can hearken to." (_the immortality of the soul_.) young, in his _night thoughts_ (night the sixth), has the following lines: "look nature through, 'tis revolution all; all change, no death. day follows night; and night the dying day; stars rise, and set, and rise; earth takes th' example ... ... all, to reflourish, fades; as in a wheel, all sinks, to re-ascend. emblems of man, who passes, not expires." "it is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection," said voltaire. delormel, descartes, and lavater were struck with the tremendous importance of the doctrine of palingenesis. _the philosophy of the universe_, of dupont de nemours, is full of the idea of successive lives, as a necessary corollary of the law of progress; whilst fontenelle strongly advocates it in his _entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes_. it is needless to state that these ideas formed part of the esoteric teachings of martinez pasqualis, claude saint-martin, and their followers. saint-martin lived in times that were too troubled for him to speak freely. in his works, however, not a few passages are found in which there can be no doubt that reincarnation is hinted at, to anyone able to read between the lines. (_tableau nat._, vol. i, p. ; _l'homme de désir_, p. .) in his _oeuvres posthumes_ (vol. i, p. ) appears this remarkable passage: "death ought to be looked upon only as one stage in our journey. we reach this stage with tired, worn-out horses, and we start again with horses that are fresh and able to take us farther on our road; all the same, we must pay what we owe for the portion of the journey that has been traversed, and until the account is settled, we are not allowed to continue our way." goethe writes as follows to his friend madame von stein: "tell me what destiny has in store for us? wherefore has it bound us so closely to each other? ah! in bygone times, thou must have been my sister or my wife ... and there remains, from the whole of those past ages, only one memory, hovering like a doubt above my heart, a memory of that truth of old that is ever present in me." ballanche, an orthodox christian mystic, says: "each one of us is a reincarnating being, ignorant both of his present and of his former transformations." (_pal. sociale_, book iii., p. .) "man is brought to perfection only by becoming a more perfect order of things, and even then he does nothing more than bring back, as plato said, a confused memory of the state that preceded his fall." (_essai sur les instit. sociales_, vol. ii., p. .) "this life we spend on earth, shut in between an apparent birth and an equally apparent death, is, in reality, only a portion of our existence, one manifestation of man in time." (_orphée_, vol. iv., p. .) "our former lives belong to astronomical cycles lost in the mighty bosom of previous ages; not yet has it been given to us to know them." (_orphée_, vol. iv., p. .) balzac's _seraphita_ abounds with references to the idea of successive lives: "all human beings spend their first life in the sphere of instincts, in which they endeavour to discover how useless are the treasures of earth." ".... how often we live in this first world...." "then we have other existences to wear out before we reach the path on which the light shines. death is one stage on this journey." constant savy[ ] describes as follows the conditions of immortality and a succession of lives by means of reincarnation: "in proportion as its soul is developed by successive lives, the body to which it is to be united will necessarily be superior to those it has worn out; otherwise there would be no harmony between these two elements of human existence; the means given to the soul would bear no relation to the development of its power. this body, gifted with more perfect and numerous senses, could not have an equal value for all.... "besides, these natural inequalities are also advantageous for individual progress in another way; the errors resulting therefrom cause truths to be discovered; vices laid bare almost form a reason for the practice of virtue by all men, or at all events they protect one from vice by reason of the horror they inspire; the ignorance of some arouses the love of science in others; the very idleness which dishonours some men inspires others with a love for work. "so that these inequalities, inevitable because they are necessary, are present in the successive lives we pass through. there is nothing in them contrary to universal harmony; rather, they are a means for effecting this harmony, and are the inevitable result of the difference in value that bodies possess. besides, no man remains stationary; all advance at a more or less rapid rate of progress.... "when faith is born, it is an illumination. since man's immortality is one progressive advance, and, to effect this, he prepares the life he enters by the life he is leaving; since, in short, there are necessarily two worlds, one material, the other intellectual, these two worlds, which make up the life to come, must be in harmonious relationship with our own. "man's work will, therefore, be a continuation of his past work.... "i would never believe that our intelligence, which begins to develop in this life, comes to a halt after such an imperfect growth, and is not exercised or perfected after death.... "... nature always advances, always labours, because god is life and he is eternal, and life is the progressive movement in the direction of the supreme good, which is god himself. could man alone in the whole of nature, man so imperfect and full of faults, stop in his onward course, either to be annihilated, or suddenly, without participating in it, though he was created free, find that he was as perfect as he could possibly be? this is more than i can understand. "no, when the time comes, man will not find that his life has been useless, a thing for mere contemplation; he will not find that he is improved without personal participation therein, without effort and toil on his part; above all, he will not be reduced to a state of nothingness. he will again have a life of toil; he will participate, to the extent god has permitted him, in the endless creations produced by divine omnipotence; he will again love, he will never cease to love; he will continue his eternal progress, because the distance between himself and god is infinite." pierre leroux says: "if god, after creating the world and all creation, were then to abandon them, instead of guiding them from life to life, from one state of progress to another, to a goal of real happiness, he would be an unjust god. it is unnecessary for st. paul to say; 'shall the thing formed say to him that formed it. why hast thou made me thus?' (_romans_, chap, , v. .) there is an inner voice, doubtless coming to us from god himself, which tells us that god cannot bring about evil, or create in order to cause suffering. now this is what would certainly happen were god to abandon his creatures after an imperfect, a truly unhappy life. "on the other hand, if we regard the world as a series of successive lives for each creature, we see very well how it comes about that god, to whom there is neither time nor space, and who perceives the final goal of all things, permits evil and suffering as being necessary phases through which creatures must pass, in order to reach a state of happiness which the creature does not see, and, consequently, cannot enjoy in so far as it is a creature, but which god sees, and which, therefore, the creature virtually enjoys in him, for the time will come when it will partake of that happiness."[ ] in fourier we find the following lines[ ]: "where is there an old man who would not like to feel certain that he would be born again and bring back into another life the experience he has gained in the present one? to affirm that this desire cannot be realised is to confess that god is capable of deceiving us. we must, therefore, recognise that we have already lived before being what we now are, and that many another life awaits us, some in this world, and the rest in a higher sphere, with a finer body and more delicate senses...." alphonse esquiros expresses himself as follows[ ]: "the question may well be asked whether the talents, the good and the evil tendencies man brings with him at birth may not be the fruit of acquired intelligence, of qualities and vices gained in one or many former existences. is there a previous life the elements of which have prepared the conditions of the life now being lived by each of us? people in ancient times thought so. inborn dispositions, so different in children, caused them to believe in impressions left by previous existences in the imperishable germ of man. from the time when intelligence begins to show itself in children we faintly discern a general attitude towards things, which is very like a memory thereof. it would appear that, according to this system, no one is unconnected with the elements he introduces into life at each birth. "all the same, rebirth in humanity constitutes no more than an initial circle of tests. when, after one or several incarnations, man has attained to the degree of perfection necessary to cause a change, he passes to another life, and, in another sphere, begins an existence of which we know nothing, though it is possible for us to regard it as linked to the present life by the closest of bonds.... "the limit to the progress man must have attained to, before entering upon another circle of tests in another sphere, is at present unknown to us; science and philosophy will doubtless succeed in determining this limit later on. "they alone are reborn to earthly flesh who have in no way raised the immortal principle of their nature to a degree of perfection that will enable them to be reborn in glory.... "i affirm the perpetual union of the soul to organic bodies; these bodies succeed each other, being born from one another, and fitting themselves for the constitutive forms of the worlds traversed by the immortal ego in its successive existences. the principle of life, extended to divers evolutions of rebirth, is ever for the creator nothing more than a continuation of one and the same state. god does not regard the duration of a being as limited to the interval between birth and death; he includes all possible segments of existence, the succession of which, after many interruptions and renewals, forms the real unity of life. must souls, when they leave our globe, put on, from sphere to sphere, an existence hidden from us, whose organic elements would continually be fitting themselves for the characters and natures of the different worlds? reason can come to no decision on this point. only let us not forget that the soul always carries off a material germ from one existence to the next, making itself anew, so to speak, several times, in that endless ascent of lives through the worlds, wherein it attains, heaven after heaven, a degree of perfection increasingly linked with the eternal elements of our growing personality. "it may be seen, from what is here stated, how vain is the hypothesis of perfect bliss following on the death of the righteous. "it is useless for the christian to soar beyond time, beyond some limit that separates him from infinite good; he cannot do this by a single effort. god proportions his intervention and aid to the totality of the states man must pass through in the course of an indefinitely long series of existences...." m. d'orient, an orthodox catholic, writes as follows[ ]: "in this doctrine, so evidently based on reason, everything is linked and held together: the foreknowledge of god and the agreement thereof with man's free-will. this problem, hitherto impossible to solve, no longer offers any difficulty, if by it is meant that god, knowing before birth, by reason of his previous deeds, what there is in the heart of man, brings man to life and removes him from it in circumstances that best fit in with the accomplishment of his purposes.... "we see in this way how it is that god is the controller of all the main events that take place in the world, for the knowledge he has of souls in former lives, and his power to dispose of each and all in the way he pleases, enable him to foresee events in his infinite knowledge and arrange the whole sequence of things in conformity with his plans, somewhat as an ingenious, skilful workman, by the aid of various colours, conceives of and arranges the life-like reproduction of a mosaic, a picture, or a piece of inlaid work. we understand all his forecasts of the future, how it was that daniel foretold so exactly the greatness of alexander and his conquests; how isaiah called cyrus by name many centuries before these mighty conquerors appeared to spread confusion and terror over the world; how god, in order to show forth his might before the nations and spread abroad the glory of his name, is said to have hardened pharaoh's heart and roused his obstinate will; for all that was needed in order to bring to pass these various results was for god to call back into existence certain souls he knew to be naturally suited to his purpose. this is distinctly pointed out in the passage from the apostle st. jude, which, if we accept the meaning that first offers itself to the mind, would seem positively to imply that certain souls had undergone a sentence of eternal reprobation: 'for there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, turning the grace of our god into lasciviousness....' "and so there falls away and disappears the greatest difficulty in the doctrine of grace, which consisted in explaining how it came about that god made some men pitiful and others hard-hearted, without there being in him either justice or acceptance of persons; showing pity, says st. augustine, only by grace that was unmerited, and hardening hearts only by judgment that was always just; since evidently according to this theory it is not (as origen has already said) apart from previous merit that some are formed for vessels of honour, and others for vessels of shame and wrath. that harsh sentence pronounced upon judas by the bishop of hippon, which so grievously scandalised most of the catholic theologians, although only the confirmation of the quotation from st. jude, viz., that the wretched man had been predestined to shed the saviour's blood, will seem to be a very just one in the sense that god causes that already lost soul to be born again, that demon, as jesus christ called him, for the very purpose of perpetrating the hateful crime. "consequently the most sublime mysteries of religion, the most wonderful facts regarding the destiny of the soul, find their natural explanation in a clear understanding of this doctrine of metempsychosis, however strange and extraordinary it may at first appear. what more striking proof can be asked for, what stronger and more convincing reason than such agreement, concerning matter wherein all positive proof will always, humanly speaking, be impossible? a doctrine which meets all the facts of the case so accurately, which explains, without difficulty, all the phenomena of our existence in this world, can, of necessity, be nothing else than true." jean reynaud expresses himself in these terms in _terre el ciel_: "how glorious the light that would be cast on the present order of things on earth by a knowledge of our former existences! and yet, not only is our memory helpless regarding the times that preceded birth, it is not even conscious of the whole of the intervening period, often playing us false in the course of a lifetime. it retains absolutely nothing of the period immediately preceding birth, and scarcely any trace of our education as children; we might even be altogether ignorant of the fact that we were children once, were there not around us witnesses of that time. on every hand we are wrapped in a veil of ignorance, as with a pall of darkness, we no more distinguish the light beyond the cradle than that beyond the tomb. so far as memory is concerned, it would seem that we might be compared with a rocket such as we sometimes see flashing through the sky in the night-time, leaving behind it a line of light, this light never shows anything more than a limited portion of the way. of like nature is memory, a trail of light left behind on our journey; we die, and everything is dark around us; we are born again, and the light begins to appear, like a star through the mist; we live, and it develops and grows, suddenly disappears again and reappears once more; from one eclipse to another we continue our way, and this way, interrupted by periods of darkness, is a continuous one, whose elements, only apparently separated, are linked to each other by the closest of bonds; we always bear within ourselves the principle of what we shall be later on, we are always rising higher. question us on our past, and, like the rocket, we reply that we are going forward, but that our path is illumined only in our immediate neighbourhood, and that the rest of the road is lost in the blackness of night; we no more know from where we came than we know our destination, but we do know that we came from below and are rising higher, and that is all that is necessary to interest us in ourselves and make us conscious of what we are. and who knows but what our soul, in the unknown secret of its essence, has power some day to throw light on its successive journeyings, like those streaks of flame to which we are comparing it? there are strong reasons for thinking that such is the case, since the entire restoration of memory appears, with good reason, to be one of the main conditions of our future happiness.... "in like manner the soul, passing from one abode to another, and leaving its first body for a new one, ever changing its appearance and its dwelling, guided by the creator's beams, from transmigration to transmigration, from metamorphosis to metamorphosis, pursues the palingenesic course of its eternal destiny.... "... let us, then, add the teachings of metempsychosis to those of the gospel, and place pythagoras by the side of jesus...." andré pezzani concludes in the following words his remarkable book on _the plurality of the soul's lives_: "apart from the belief in previous lives, nothing can be explained, neither the coming of a new soul into this evil world, the often incurable bodily infirmities, the disproportionate division of wealth, nor the inequality in intelligence and morality. the justice of god lies behind the monstrous phantom of chance. we understand neither what man is, whence he comes, nor whither he goes; original sin does not account for the particular fate of individuals, as it is the same for all. roughly speaking, it clears up no difficulties, but rather adds to them the most revolting injustice. once accept the theory of pre-existence, and a glorious light is thrown on the dogma of sin, for it becomes the result of personal faults from which the guilty soul must be purified. "pre-existence, once admitted as regards the past, logically implies a succession of future existences for all souls that have not yet attained to the goal and that have imperfections and defilements from which to be cleansed. in order to enter _the circle of happiness_ and leave _the circle of wanderings_, one must be pure. "we have opposed error, and proclaimed truth, and we firmly believe that the dogmas of pre-existence and the plurality of lives are true." thomas browne, in _religio medici_, section , hints at reincarnation: "heresies perish not with their authors, but, like the river arethusa, though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up again in another ... revolution of time will restore it, when it will flourish till it be condemned again. for as though there were a metempsychosis, and the soul of one man passed into another, opinions do find, after certain revolutions, men and minds like those that first begat them.... each man is not only himself, there hath been many diogenes and as many timons, though but few of that name; men are lived over again, the world is now as it was in ages past; there was none then but there hath been someone since that parallels him, and is, as it were, his revived self." lessing, in _the divine education of the human race_, vigorously opposes a lutheran divine who rejects reincarnation: "the very same way by which the race reaches its perfection must every individual man--one sooner, another later--have travelled over. have travelled over in one and the same life? can he have been in one and the self-same life a sensual jew and a spiritual christian? "surely not that! but why should not every individual man have existed more than once in this world? "is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest? because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the schools had disciplined and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once? why may not even i have already performed those steps of my perfecting which bring to men only temporal punishments and rewards? and once more, why not another time all those steps, to perform which the views of eternal rewards so powerfully assist us? why should i not come back as often as i am capable of acquiring fresh knowledge, fresh expertness? do i bring away so much from once that there is nothing to repay the trouble of coming back? "is this a reason against it? or because i forget that i have been here already? happy is it for me that i do forget. the recollection of my former condition would permit me to make only a bad use of the present. and that which even i must forget _now_, is that necessarily forgotten for ever?" schlosser gives expression to similar thoughts in a fine work of his: _Über die seelenwanderung_. lichtemberg says in his _seibstcharacteristik_: "i cannot get rid of the thought that i died before i was born, and that by this death i was led to this rebirth. i feel so many things that, were i to write them down, the world would regard me as a madman. consequently, i prefer to hold my peace." charles bonnet is the author of a splendid work, full of noble and lofty thoughts, on this subject. it is entitled _philosophic palingenesis_. emmanuel kant believes that our souls start imperfect from the sun, and travel through planetary stages farther and farther away to a paradise in the coldest and remotest star in our system. (_general history of nature_.) in _the destiny of man_, j. g. fichte says: "these two systems, the purely spiritual and the sensuous--which last may consist of an immeasurable series of particular lives--exist in me from the moment when my active reason is developed and pursue their parallel course.... "all death in nature is birth.... there is no death-bringing principle in nature, for nature is only life throughout.... even because nature puts me to death, she must quicken me anew...." herder, in his _dialogues on metempsychosis_, deals with this subject more fully: "do you not know great and rare men who cannot have been what they are in a single human existence; who must have often existed before in order to have attained that purity of feeling, that instinctive impulse for all that is true, beautiful, and good?... have you never had remembrances of a former state?... pythagoras, iarchas, apollonius, and others remembered distinctly what and how many times they had been in the world before. if we are blind or can see but two steps before our noses, ought we, therefore, to deny that others may see a hundred or a thousand degrees farther, even to the bottom of time ...?" "he who has not become ripe in one form of humanity is put into the experience again, and, some time or other, must be perfected." "i am not ashamed of my half-brothers the brutes; on the contrary, so far as i am concerned, i am a great advocate of metempsychosis. i believe for a certainty that they will ascend to a higher grade of being, and am unable to understand how anyone can object to this hypothesis, which seems to have the analogy of the whole creation in its favour." sir walter scott had such vivid memories of his past lives that they compelled a belief in pre-existence. instances of this belief may be found in _the life of scott_, by lockhart (vol. , p. , first edition). according to schlegel: "nature is nothing less than the ladder of resurrection, which, step by step, leads upward, or rather is carried from the abyss of eternal death up to the apex of life." (_Æsthetic and miscellaneous works_; and, _the philosophy of history_.) shelley held a firm belief in reincarnation: "it is not the less certain, notwithstanding the cunning attempts to conceal the truth, that all knowledge is reminiscence. the doctrine is far more ancient than the times of plato," (dowden's _life of shelley_, vol. , p. .) schopenhauer adopted the idea of reincarnation which he had found in the _upanishads_; regarding this portion of his teaching, his contemporaries and followers set up a kind of conspiracy of silence. in _parerga and paralipomena_, vol. , chap. , _essay on religions_, he says: "i have said that the combination of the _old testament_ with the _new_ gives rise to absurdities. as an example, i may cite the christian doctrine of predestination and grace as formulated by augustine and adopted from him by luther, according to which one man is endowed with grace and another is not. grace thus comes to be a privilege received at birth and brought ready into the world.... what is obnoxious and absurd in this doctrine may be traced to the idea contained in the _old testament_, that man is the creation of an external will which called him into existence out of nothing. it is quite true that genuine moral excellence is really innate; but the meaning of the christian doctrine is expressed in another and more rational way by the theory of metempsychosis, common to brâhmans and buddhists. according to this theory, the qualities which distinguish one man from another are received at birth, _i.e._, are brought from another world and a former life; these qualities are not an external gift of grace, but are the fruits of the acts committed in that other world.... "what is absurd and revolting in this dogma is, in the main, as i said, the simple outcome of jewish theism with its 'creation out of nothing,' and the really foolish and paradoxical denial of the doctrine of metempsychosis which is involved in that idea, a doctrine which is natural to a certain extent, self-evident, and, with the exception of the jews, accepted by nearly the whole human race at all times.... were an asiatic to ask me for a definition of europe, i should be forced to answer him: it is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life." in _the world as will and idea_, he also says: "what sleep is for the individual, death is for the will (character). "it flings off memory and individuality, and this is lethe; and through this sleep of death it reappears refreshed and fitted out with another intellect, as a new being." in _parerga and paralipomena_, vol. , chap. , he adds: "did we clearly understand the real nature of our inmost being, we should see how absurd it is to desire that individuality should exist eternally. this wish implies that we confuse real being with one of its innumerable manifestations. the individuality disappears at death, but we lose nothing thereby, for it is only the manifestation of quite a different being--a being ignorant of time, and, consequently, knowing neither life nor death. the loss of intellect is the lethe, but for which the will would remember the various manifestations it has caused. when we die, we throw off our individuality, like a worn-out garment, and rejoice because we are about to receive a new and a better one." edgar allen poe, speaking of the dim memories of bygone lives, says: "we walk about, amid the destinies of our world-existence, encompassed by divine but ever present memories of a destiny more vast--very distant in the bygone time and infinitely awful. "we live out a youth peculiarly haunted by such dreams, yet never mistaking them for dreams. as memories we _know_ them. during our _youth_ the distinction is too clear to deceive us even for a moment. "but now comes the period at which a conventional world-reason awakens us from the truth of our dream ... a mis-shapen day or a misfortune that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life...." (_eureka._) georges sand, in _consuelo_, sets forth the logic of reincarnation; and g. flammarion expounds this doctrine in most of his works: _uranie_; _les mondes imaginaires et les mondes réels_; _la pluralité des mondes habités_, etc. professor william knight wrote in the _fortnightly review_ for september, : "it seems surprising that in the discussions of contemporary philosophy on the origin and destiny of the soul there has been no explicit revival of the doctrines of pre-existence and metempsychosis.... they offer quite a remarkable solution of the mystery of creation, translation, and extinction.... "stripped of all extravagances and expressed in the modest terms of probability, the theory has immense speculative interest and great ethical value. it is much to have the puzzle of the origin of evil thrown back for an indefinite number of cycles of lives and to have a workable explanation of nemesis...." professor w. a. butler, in his _lectures on the history of ancient philosophy_, says: "there is internally no greater improbability that the present may be the result of a former state now almost wholly forgotten than that the present should be followed by a future form of existence in which, perhaps, or in some departments of which, the oblivion may be as complete." the rev. william r. alger, a unitarian minister, adds: "our present lack of recollection of past lives is no disproof of their actuality.... the most striking fact about the doctrine of the repeated incarnations of the soul ... is the constant reappearance of that faith in all parts of the world and its permanent hold on certain great nations.... "the advocates of the resurrection should not confine their attention to the repellent or ludicrous aspects of metempsychosis, ... but do justice to its claim and charm." (_a critical history of the doctrine of a future life_.) professor francis bowen, of harvard university, writes in the _princetown review_ for may, , when dealing with the subject of _christian metempsychosis_: "our life upon earth is rightly held to be a discipline and a preparation for a higher and eternal life hereafter. but if limited to the duration of a single mortal body, it is so brief as to seem hardly sufficient for so great a purpose.... why may not the probation of the soul be continued or repeated through a long series of successive generations, the same personality animating, one after another, an indefinite number of tenements of flesh, and carrying forward into each the training it has received, the character it has formed, the temper and dispositions it has indulged, in the stage of existence immediately preceding?... "every human being thus dwells successively in many bodies, even during one short life.[ ] if every birth were an act of absolute creation, the introduction to life of an entirely new creature, we might reasonably ask why different souls are so variously constituted at the outset.... one child seems a perverse goblin, while another has the early promise of a cowley or a pascal.... the birthplace of one is in central africa, and of another in the heart of civilised and christian europe. where lingers eternal justice then? how can such frightful inequalities be made to appear consistent with the infinite wisdom and goodness of god?... "if metempsychosis is included in the scheme of the divine government of the world, this difficulty disappears altogether. considered from this point of view, everyone is born into the state which he has fairly earned by his own previous history.... we submit with enforced resignation to the stern decree; ... that the iniquities of the fathers shall be visited upon the children even to the third and fourth generation. but no one can complain of the dispositions and endowments which he has inherited, so to speak, from himself, that is, from his former self in a previous stage of existence. "and it matters not, so far as the justice of the sentence is concerned, whether the former self from whom we receive this heritage bore the same name with our present self, or bore a different name...." professor f. h. hedge, in _ways of the spirit, and other essays_, p. , maintains that: "whatever had a beginning in time, it should seem, must end in time. the eternal destination which faith ascribes to the soul presupposes an eternal origin.... an obvious objection, and one often urged against this hypothesis, is the absence of any recollection of a previous life.... the new organisation with its new entries must necessarily efface the record of the old. for memory depends on continuity of association. when the thread of that continuity is broken, the knowledge of the past is gone.... "and a happy thing, if the soul pre-existed, it is for us that we remember nothing of its former life.... of all the theories respecting the origin of the soul this seems to me the most plausible, and therefore the one most likely to throw light on the question of a life to come." the spiritualists of europe--those belonging to the school of allan kardec, at all events--place reincarnation in the very forefront of their teaching. we may add that those of america do not acknowledge that the soul has more than one existence on earth, driven, however, by the logic of things, which insists on progress, they state that there are a series of lives passed in subtler bodies on invisible planets and worlds. all true philosophers have been attracted by the mystery of palingenesis, and have found that its acceptance has thrown a flood of light on the questions that perplexed them. in asia there are millions of believers in reincarnation, including the chinese, tartars, thibetans, hindus, siamese, mongolians, burmese, cambodians, koreans, and the people of japan. tradition has handed down this teaching even to the most savage tribes. in madagascar, when a man is on the point of death, a hole is made in the roof of his straw hut, through which his soul may pass out and enter the body of a woman in labour. this may be looked upon as a stupid superstition, still it is one which, in spite of its degenerate form, sets forth the doctrine of the return of souls back to evolution through earthly experiences. the sontals, somalis, and zulus, the dyaks of borneo and sumatra, and the powhatans of mexico have similar traditions. in central africa, slaves who are hunchbacked or maimed forestall the hour of death by voluntary self-immolation, in the hope of being reborn in the bodies of men who will be free and perfectly formed. to sum up: all tradition, whether popular, philosophical, or religious, is instinct with the teaching of rebirth. objection. _reincarnation and forgetfulness of the past._ sceptics are ever bringing forward against reincarnation the absence of all memory of past lives, convinced that there can be no answer to this argument. they do not reflect that human ignorance is a bottomless abyss, whilst the possibilities of life are endless. the schools of the future will smile at the claims made by those of the present, just as the latter doubtless regard with pitying indulgence that school which, only a few years ago, in the person of one of its most famous members, dr. bouillaud, mercilessly condemned the exponent of edison's invention, because the _savant_, listening to a phonograph for the first time, could not believe that it was anything else than ventriloquism! instances of this kind are sufficiently numerous and recent not to be forgotten, in spite of the shortness of human memory. in the present instance, there are many men of science who have not yet been made sufficiently wise by experience to see that the very mystery of memory itself might furnish an explanation of that general absence of all power of recollection, which now seems to them altogether incompatible with the doctrine of rebirth. so as not to appear to be running away from this objection, by dealing with it only on the surface, we will endeavour to develop the question somewhat, for we shall have to set forth to readers unacquainted with theosophical teachings--which alone, up to the present, have thrown light on these difficult subjects--certain doctrines which will be well understood by none but theosophists, since they are incapable of proof by a simple statement thereof, but form part, of a long chain of teachings. we will offer them simply as theories--though they are facts to us--theories that contain many an error, it may be, and are imperfectly stated, though capable of widening the horizon of thought and shedding a brilliant light upon many an obscure question. earnest seekers after truth, it is hoped, will not be disheartened by the difficulties of the subject, but will endeavour to grasp the meaning of the following pages, by reading them over again, if need be. first, a few words must be said on memory in general, next we will give a rapid sketch of what constitutes memory in atoms and molecules, in the varied forms of the many kingdoms of nature and in human forms; finally, we will speak of cosmic memory, that veritable _judgment book_ which takes account of all the vibrations of the universe. amongst beings capable of memory, a distinction must be made between those which have not reached the stage of self-consciousness, and those which have done so, for memory, properly so-called, takes for granted an "i." that which has not an "i" can only have a memory of which it is not conscious[ ]; the atom, for instance, of whose memory we shall speak later on; that which has only a rudimentary "i" possesses only a rudimentary memory from the point of view of its bearing on the individual--such is that possessed by the souls of the lower kingdoms, that which constitutes instinct; to the perfect "i" alone belongs an individual memory--the human memory, and that of beings who have attained to the superhuman stage. this memory may be defined as the faculty possessed by an individualised "centre of consciousness" voluntarily to reproduce the vibrations it has received or generated. a "centre of consciousness" is a form that serves, for the time being, as the instrument of an individualised ray of that indefinable principle called the soul. but for the presence of this individual soul in a form, this latter would remain inactive as a centre of consciousness--although active in its constituent parts[ ]--and could it not then, consciously, either generate or receive vibrations on the plane from which the soul is momentarily absent--it could only transmit them; for instance, when a man is in a brown study, he is not conscious in his brain, of what is taking place on the physical plane.[ ] the vehicles of consciousness are often numerous in a being, and the more numerous in proportion to the degree this latter has attained in the scale of evolution. the present day man possesses four bodies: the visible, the astral, the mental, and the causal. they are not all equally developed, and therefore not equally conscious, for the clearness and intensity of consciousness depend on the decree of perfection of its vehicles, just as the beauty of electric light depends on the perfection of the apparatus producing it. the ego--the man--is the consciousness that is called forth by the soul in the causal body. this consciousness varies in power with the development of the body that gives birth to it. at first it is dim and uncertain,[ ] and acquires some degree of intensity only when it receives, through the mental and astral vehicles, the simple and intense vibrations of the physical body.[ ] in savage races, for instance, man possesses a definite consciousness only in his waking condition; as soon as the soul is attached to the astral body, externalised by sleep, it experiences only a dim consciousness in this undeveloped vehicle. in advanced races, the astral body, being far more developed, brings about distinct consciousness during sleep. as man evolves, consciousness begins to function in the mental and the astral bodies, without the assistance of the vibrations of the lower vehicles, and when all the grades[ ] of matter which compose the human constitution are thus vitalised, man has become perfect; he knows the universe because he feels it within himself--he echoes it, so to speak, and possesses all its powers.[ ] in ordinary man, the memory of events that have taken place in his waking state can be brought back by that special effort of will which sets in motion the cerebral molecules that have previously been put into vibration by these events. sometimes the will, of itself, is powerless to recall this vibration, either because the brain is tired or in some unfavourable condition or other; it is then aided by bringing its automatism into play, by endeavouring, for instance, to call back one constituent element of the fact desired, a place, sound, scent, person, &c, and often in this way is brought about the vibration of the molecules that constituted the rest of the circuit, and the fact sought for presents itself; association of ideas is a phenomenon based on this mechanical process. a third method--a far more difficult one--is also used; the bringing of every mental effort, to a standstill. the suppression of thought, when sufficiently complete, brings the brain into a state of calm, allows of the soul concentrating on the astral body whose memory is keen and only slightly subject to obstruction, and then it often happens that the vibration of the astral memory repercusses on to the physical apparatus which suddenly remembers the thing desired. on the death of the physical, the soul acts in the astral body; there it retains a complete memory of life on earth, but the vibrations of the physical plane no longer reach it,[ ] these memories soon cease to occupy its attention, and it gives itself up wholly to the impressions received from the new world into which it has entered. in this first stage of the after-life, then, there is a kind of darkening of the memory of the past earth life--darkening, not oblivion. when the purgatorial life is at an end and the astral body disintegrates in its turn, the soul functions in the mental body, in the mental world.[ ] on this new plane, the memory of the worlds left behind continues, though far less clearly than the memory of the physical existed in the astral world; this is owing to the fact that, in ordinary man, the mental body is not sufficiently developed to constitute a complete vehicle of consciousness, capable of registering all the vibrations that come to it; everything in the past that has been _purely_ the work of the astral or the physical plane then disappears from his memory; there remain only memories that have been caused either by the mental qualities or qualities superior to these, all the highest elements concerned with affection, intelligence, or art. the mental world, generally speaking, is seen only to a small extent or not at all, because of the incomplete development of the mental body. besides, recollections assume a new character[ ]; every thought takes a concrete form--that of a friend, for instance, appears as the friend himself, speaking and thinking, more vivid than on the earth plane[ ]; everything is dramatised in marvellous fashion, and life is intense throughout the realms of paradise. the mental body, after exhausting the forces that make it up, also dies, and the soul is "centred" in the only vehicle it has left, the causal body, a body that is immortal, one may say, up to a certain point, since the soul retains it until the time comes when it can function in a still higher and more lasting vehicle,[ ] and this happens only after millions of years.[ ] here, another diminution of memory takes place, because the soul loses a large portion of its consciousness when it comes into contact with none but the vibrations of this body, which is even more incompletely developed than the former ones, though holding within itself all the germs of these latter. the ego then remains apparently sunk in sleep for a varying period, though never for very long; then the germs in the causal body become active, build up a new series of bodies in succession--the mental, the astral, and finally the physical--and the soul returns once more to incarnation. it will now be understood how it comes about that a soul of average development--on entering a new cycle, with the memory of the last cycle considerably obliterated by the loss of the physical, astral, and mental bodies, sheathed in new bodies on these planes, bodies that have nothing in common with the life of the past--is unable to impress its dim memories on to the brain; but it will also be seen that, with the progress of evolution, the soul acquires ever clearer consciousness in the causal body, in which it finally preserves the memory of the various life-cycles. since, at this stage, it has become capable of projecting its vibrations, voluntarily, through the lower bodies, it is able to transmit this memory first to the mental body, then to the astral, and lastly to the physical body; when this is possible, man, in waking consciousness, remembers his former lives. this transmission requires a purificatory process in the vehicles and a special training of the will. the matter of all the bodies--that of the brain in particular--must be refined, its constituent elements must be subtler, and its atoms must be fully awakened to activity[ ]; whereupon the cerebral cell becomes capable of responding to the thought of the ego, _i.e._, of vibrating in harmony with the higher matter. the second condition of the brain's receptivity is that this organ be brought into a state of complete rest. so long as the waking consciousness is active, the brain vibrates powerfully, and if, at this time, the soul sends the brain its thought, this latter can no more make an impression on the existing cerebral activity than a faint note could be heard amid the clash of an orchestra. consequently, man, by the training of his will, must have acquired the power to stop the thinking activity in the waking state, and to "centre" his attention on the causal body, the only vehicle in which he can know the facts of his past incarnations; this done he is able, at will, to project on to his brain the scenes of his former lives and to imprint them thereon with greater distinctness, in proportion to his development and training. in order to avoid continued explanations, we will deal with another side of the question, however incomprehensible it be to such as have not studied theosophy. a vehicle of consciousness is both a registering apparatus[ ] and a conductor of vibrations.[ ] the kinds of matter of which forms are made up are perfectly graduated; the finest atom of the physical body is built up of the densest atoms of the astral plane, the finest atom of the astral body is made of the densest atoms of the mental plane, and so on. each atom is linked to the one that precedes and to the one that follows it in that immense chain which stretches from the densest to the subtlest plane of the cosmos. every vibration follows this path, passes in all directions--in the seven[ ] dimensions of space-and terminates in the very centre of consciousness, the logos, god incarnate in the world. it is then comprehensible, even logical, that god should be both conscious, on his receptive side, of everything that takes place in the world (_omniscient_), and should produce, on his active side, all the forces of the world (_omnipotent_). it is likewise admissible that the human soul, when fully developed, should find in the causal body the memory of the facts that have echoed therein, from the time when it could function consciously in it. but, it will be asked, how could it find, in the causal body, memories of existences it has not been able to register individually, of which it has not been conscious, those, for instance, that form the early stages of its evolution at a time when it was conscious only in the lower vehicles? memory possesses many store-houses. the vibrations of which it is composed affect the whole universe, there is not a single local shock that is not felt throughout all the worlds. the eternal registering of things takes place in the great centre of consciousness, god, or rather, it exists in him, for to him there is neither future nor past, only one eternal present; evolution is unceasingly accomplished[ ]; but if we look upon ourselves as finite beings, living in the illusion of time and space, we find that vibrating matter preserves for a longer or a shorter period the movement imparted to it. the denser the substance, which forms the medium in which vibration takes place, the feebler the vibration; that is why it speedily ceases on the physical plane; it continues long, however, in the higher conditions of matter, and it is there we must look for it,[ ] if we would recall certain events at which we have not been present. when anything exciting, a murder, a battle, for instance, has happened anywhere, the subtler atoms of the surrounding objects receive a powerful shock and continue to vibrate for centuries. those who have developed their inner senses can thus witness the scene which is continually repeating itself, or rather, is happening all the time.[ ] thus, psychometrists,[ ] in presence of a portion of a fossil, are enabled to bring back scenes that this fragment has witnessed millions of years ago.[ ] in these cases, the memory of the facts is connected with that of the atoms which register it; this memory can only be recalled by coming into contact with these atoms.[ ] there is also another memory, midway between the unconscious memory of atoms and the conscious memory of the human soul; that of the forms of the various sub-human kingdoms. it is only slightly conscious, for it is not individualised; all the same, it is precise in its nature. it dwells in the vital essence of the form, an essence taken from a collective "block" which supplies a portion of its substance to the individuals of the same species; this incarnate portion of essence, when the form disintegrates at death, returns to the parent "block," to which it communicates the result of its experiences, and when the latter sends out a portion of itself, into a new form, this tentacle, which is, so to speak, the soul of the form, is in possession of the whole of the experiences of the "block."[ ] this explains how it is that the individual members of certain hostile species know one another from birth--the chicken, for instance, which, immediately it has left the egg, trembles before the hawk hovering above in the air; such is also the reason why a duckling plunges into water as soon as it comes to a pond, and the same instinct impels a bird to leave its nest and trust itself to the air when fully fledged. in these collective souls, belonging to the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, there can be recovered the past to which they bore witness, when the atoms of their bodies have been dispersed and entered into new combinations. when the elemental essence[ ] has definitely split up, and the "blocks" have become separate, individualised, human fragments,[ ] each of these fragments is a causal body, a definite, immortal _centre_ in the total centre. consequently there are in man three kinds of memory: atomic memory, that of the atoms of his bodies; instinctive memory of the special elemental essences which are the collective souls of his various vehicles; and finally, the individual memory of the centre,[ ] which is one with the total centre from which it comes. this element of unity, this human "i" in the divine "i," when sufficiently developed, is able to evoke the memory of all the events in which it has participated in the causal body, and also the memory of those it has witnessed as a collective soul (elemental "block") in bygone ages when active in various mineral, vegetable, and animal species. as a centre in the great centre, it can also call forth the memory of everything in the universe that its consciousness can grasp.[ ] and when, in this long pilgrimage, it has developed to the farthest limits of the universe it knows all that has been, is now, and is to be in this universe, consequently it knows both what it has and what it has not participated in, for everything in the universe has then become part of itself. thus it is seen that the memory of the past is everywhere registered, and that the difficulty a man has in bringing it back is caused by nothing more than his imperfect development. once he has entered the "strait gate,"[ ] and his consciousness is awake on the first plane of unity,[ ] he becomes able to read the great book of nature, in which all vibrations are kept in potentiality; he can revive them by an effort of will, similar to that he makes in a waking state, when he wishes to bring back past impressions to his brain. the difference lies in the fact that, in the latter case, being in the physical body, he calls up the memory retained in the astral body; whilst in the former case, being in the causal body, he brings memory within the influence of the buddhic body, or even at times of higher bodies still. the more the being grows, and becomes able to fix his consciousness on the higher planes, the wider extends his sphere of influence, approaching that of divine consciousness. it is ignorance that brings forward this objection regarding loss of memory, ignorance of life and of death, ignorance of the phenomena that follow the last breath of a dying man, as well as of those preceding the first faint cry of a new-born child. sceptics, however, might have shown a little more indulgence, for, as they are well aware, ordinary memory _is_ even now so unreliable that a man has great difficulty in recalling the whole of the thoughts that have entered his brain during the last few minutes; he has forgotten the details of the various events of the week; the facts of the past year have mostly vanished from his mind, and when he comes to the end of the journey, mere fragments of the story of his life are all that is left. for all that, he has all the time retained the notion of the identity of his "i"; he has the same body, the same senses, and the same brain; his environment is the same; everything is there to bring about association of ideas, to awaken memory. on the other hand, centuries have elapsed before rebirth takes place; the human being has undergone the most radical changes and modifications; everything in him that was perishable has disappeared, and is preserved only in a germinal state. the visible bodily sheath has had its atoms scattered to the four elements; the etheric body[ ] has become separated from the physical molecules whose vital support it formed; the body of passions and desires (_astral body_) has lived for a few years in what catholics call _purgatory_, greeks, _hades_, and hindus, _kâmaloka_; after which, only germs have been left behind; then the intelligence (_mental body_) has been dispersed in turn and endures only in a germinal state. almost everything that made up the man of bygone times has disappeared, and is now concentrated in a complex germ hidden away in the causal body and destined to develop a new personality later on,[ ] heir to the former one, though it will not be capable of remembering events in which it took no part. this is the explanation of the myth of lethe. the soul, in the causal body, drinks of the river of life, and from its sleep-giving draught forms the sheaths of the new incarnation, the new bodies that altogether blot out the memory of the past; it is, in very truth, a new-born babe who appears on earth. the root-being,[ ] however, survives the successive wrecks of fleeting personalities, remaining in the new man as a guide, as the "voice of conscience." he is the watcher who strings, as on a thread, the numberless pearls (_personalities_) which form the inevitable cycle of human evolution, and is able, when fully developed, to summon up the distant panorama of past lives. for him, nothing is lost. the pioneers of the race have obtained direct proof of successive incarnations, but apart from these rare and special instances, ordinary individuals frequently have reminiscences and distinct memories which are not investigated, either because they are fragmentary in their nature or are related by children. in india, where the natives believe in reincarnation, such cases are regarded without astonishment, and efforts are made to prove their truth by serious investigation, whenever possible. and such proof is often possible. when a child dies in infancy, before he is able to use his body intelligently and of his own free will--before being able to generate karma--the higher sheaths (_the astral and mental bodies_) are not separated into their component parts. return to earth quickly takes place, the memory of the past life exists in the astral body--which has not changed--and, more especially during the first few years of life, can be impressed on the new brain with tolerable ease, if this latter is at all delicately constituted. then if reincarnation takes place in the same country and in the neighbourhood of the past incarnation, it can be proved to be true. such instances do exist; the reason they are not mentioned here is that they would add nothing to the general proofs on which stress has been laid in this work. these proofs form part of universal law; they cannot be separated therefrom. footnotes: [footnote : the fifth, or aryan race, in theosophic nomenclature; the fourth was that of atlantis; the third lived on the great southern continent, lemuria; the two preceding ones were, so to speak, only the embryologic preparation for the following races.] [footnote : the "life-atoms," infinitesimal particles which by aggregation form the human body. certain of these atoms are preserved, on the death of the body, as germs which will facilitate the reconstruction of the physical body at the next rebirth.] [footnote : the divine essence which animates animals, and so, in another sense the astral bodies of men and animals, bodies whose particles _transmigrate_ as do the physical atoms.] [footnote : h. p. blavatsky, _secret doctrine._] [footnote : these words are relative; they express differences in the evolution of souls.] [footnote : the atmosphere of subtle physical elements radiating round the human body and acting in a defensive _rôle_ by preventing the penetration of unhealthy elements from the immediate surroundings.] [footnote : the "material sin" of manu.] [footnote : one, here means the "life atoms" of a man's body.] [footnote : the word is here used in a generic sense; in the present work, it would be more precise to replace it by the word resurrection.] [footnote : this "triad" comprises the visible matter of the body, the etheric substance, and the life (prâna) which the human ether absorbs and specialises for the vitalising of the body. see _man and his bodies_, by a. besant.] [footnote : h. p. blavatsky, _the theosophist_, vol. , pages , .] [footnote : the finer elements invisible to physical eye. their function is sensation, and by their association with the human mental body incarnated in them, they give birth to the emotions and passions, in a word, to the animal in man.] [footnote : the _umbra_ of the latin races.] [footnote : the _kâma rûpa_ of the hindus.] [footnote : the purgatory of christians, the astral plane of theosophists, and the _kâmaloka_ of hindus.] [footnote : by the _fire_ of purgatory, says the catholic metaphor.] [footnote : see a. besant's masterly work on _reincarnation._] [footnote : dharma is a wide word, primarily meaning the essential nature of a thing; hence the laws of its being, its duty; and it includes religious rites, appropriate to those laws. this definition, as also the extracts quoted, are taken from a. besant's translation of the _bhagavad gîtâ._] [footnote : human souls, not all of them, but only the pious ones, are daimonic and divine. once separated from the body, and after the struggle to acquire piety, which consists in knowing god and injuring none, such a soul becomes all intelligence. the impious soul, however, remains in its own essence and punishes itself by seeking a human body to enter into, for no other body can receive a human soul, it cannot enter the body of an animal devoid of reason: divine law preserves the human soul from such infamy. hermes trismegistus, book i, _laclé_: hermes to his son tat.] [footnote : bodies.] [footnote : the physical body with its etheric "double," and life (_prâna_).] [footnote : the kâmic body.] [footnote : the causal body.] [footnote : _history_. book , chap. .] [footnote : the causal body.] [footnote : the buddhic body, which, in ordinary man, is only in an embryonic stage.] [footnote : generally called _prâna_, in man. _jiva_ is the solar life which, on being transmuted by the physical body, becomes _prâna_, the human physical life. both _jiva_ and _prâna_ differ from each other in nature and in vibration.] [footnote : the mental body.] [footnote : the causal body. in annihilation--what has been called the loss of the soul--the kâmic principle (astral body) in the course of a rather long succession of lives, does not allow the mental body to become separated from it in purgatory; it keeps it imprisoned up to the time of its disintegration; the causal body reaps nothing from the incarnations, at each re-birth it loses the forces it is putting forth in order to form the new mental body. it gradually atrophies until the time comes when it is no longer fit to make use of the ordinary bodies of the race to which it belongs. then it remains at rest, whilst the mental body gradually disintegrates; afterwards it takes up once again its series of incarnations in the imperfectly evolved bodies of primitive races. this will be understood only by those who have studied theosophy.] [footnote : in this passage, h. p. blavatsky alludes to the few etheric, astral, and mental atoms which, at each disincarnation, are incorporated in the causal body and form the nuclei of the future bodies corresponding to them.] [footnote : _history._ vol. , book , chap. (already quoted).] [footnote : of the elements of the personality--of the astral body, in all probability.] [footnote : the ego (soul) also lives in the air (the symbol of heaven) and on the earth (whose symbol is water, dense matter)--in heaven, after disincarnation; on earth, during incarnation.] [footnote : the soul is immortal and needs no food.] [footnote : its name, khopiroo, comes from the root koproo, to become, to be born again (h. p. blavatsky). hartley says: "at the centre of the solar disk appears the scarabeus as the symbol of the soul re-uniting itself with the body. the scarabeus is called by pierret the synthesis of the egyptian religion--type of resurrection--of self-existence--of self-engendering like the gods. as tori, or chepi, the sun is the scarabeus, or self-engenderer, and the mystery of god."] [footnote : also called kâmic body, astral body, body of desire, etc.] [footnote : reincarnation.] [footnote : vol. , p. .] [footnote : the causal body illumined by the divine essence, which theosophy names Âtmâ-buddhi.] [footnote : he calls him "the prince of lying fathers and dishonest writers." (_egypt_, vol. , p. ).] [footnote : eusebius even confesses this himself: "i have set forth whatever is calculated to enhance the glory of our religion, and kept back everything likely to cast a stain upon it." (_proeparatio evangelica._ book , chap. ).] [footnote : _namae-sat vakhshûr-i-mahabad_, also in the fourth "journey" in chap. of _jam-i-kaikhoshru_ (see _the theosophist_, p. , vol. ).] [footnote : see _bardic triads_, by e. williams. translated from the original welsh.] [footnote : "'abred' is the circle of the migrations through which every animated being proceeds from death: man has passed through it." _triad_ . "transmigration is in 'abred.'" _triad_ . "there are three primitive calamities in 'abred': the necessity of evolution (of rebirths), the absence of memory (of past incarnations) and death (followed by rebirth)." _triad_ (the words in parentheses are our own). "by reason of three things man is subjected to 'abred' (or transmigration): by the absence of the effort to attain knowledge, by non-attachment to good, and by attachment to evil. as the result of these, he descends into 'abred,' to the stage corresponding to his development, and begins his transmigrations anew." _triad_ . "the three foundations of science are: complete transmigration through every state of being, the memory of the details of each transmigration, the power to pass again at will through any state, to acquire experience and judgment, (_a_) this comes to pass in the circle of gwynvyd." _triad_ . (_a_) the liberated being has power to call up the past, to tune his consciousness with that of every being, to feel everything that being feels, to be that being.] [footnote : in the poem _cad-godden_, quoted by pezzani in _la pluralité des existences de l'Âme_, p. . taliesin is a generic name indicating a function rather than the name of an individual.] [footnote : _gallic war_ (book , chap. ). valerius maximus relates that these nations lent one another money which was to be paid back in the other world, and that at marseilles a sweet-tasted poison was given to anyone who, wishing to commit suicide, offered the judges satisfactory reasons for leaving his body.] [footnote : _the mystery of the ages_, by the duchesse de pomar.] [footnote : in _theologia_ or the _seven adyta._] [footnote : the "cycle of necessity" extends from the time when the soul begins to evolve to the moment when it attains to liberation.] [footnote : _life of pythagoras._ book , chap. .] [footnote : ovid's _metamorphoses_. book .] [footnote : all that remained of the shield was the carved ivory ornamentation, the iron had been eaten away by rust.] [footnote : philostratus, _life of apollonius of tyana._] [footnote : philostratus, _life of apollonius of tyana._] [footnote : marinas, _vita procli._] [footnote : the ego, the human soul properly so-called, what egypt named the liberated intelligence which resumes its sheath of light, and again becomes a "daimon" (_maspero_). in antiquity the name of daimon was given to the human soul or to higher intelligences.] [footnote : _hades_; the purgatory of catholics; the _kâmalôka_ of hindus.] [footnote : allusion to the struggle which separates the mental from the astral body in purgatory.] [footnote : _kâmalôka_; purgatory.] [footnote : the subterranean hell, the lowest world in purgatory.] [footnote : plato's _laws_, book .] [footnote : plato's _republic_, book .] [footnote : they are in the causal body.] [footnote : _phædo._] [footnote : these considerations are taken from the writings of h. p. blavatsky, and are also confirmed by modern criticism of biblical texts.] [footnote : maimonides. quoted in _the perfect way_, by a. kingsford and e. maitland.] [footnote : _galatians_, chap. , verses , .] [footnote : _starli_, part , p. .] [footnote : _deuteronomy_, chap. , verses to .] [footnote : _deuteronomy_, chap. , verse .] [footnote : _exodus_, chap. , verses to .] [footnote : _exodus_, chap. , verses , , .] [footnote : _genesis_, chap. , verses , ; also _leviticus_, chap. .] [footnote : _exodus_, chapters , , , , ,] [footnote : _ecclesiastes_, chap. , verses , , , .] [footnote : the souls of a race in its maturity are of a more advanced type than those of its infancy or old age.] [footnote : the kabala is the secret teaching of the jews; in it lie hidden doctrines that are too profound to be taught in public.] [footnote : _zohar_, , , quoted in myer's _qabbalah_, p. .] [footnote : evolution develops the soul, enabling it to reach its goal: the divine state.] [footnote : the force of evolution comes from god and ceases only when the soul is fully developed, and has reached the "promised land" at the end of its pilgrimage: the divine state.] [footnote : franck, _la kabbale_, p. , etc.] [footnote : _the hidden wisdom of christ_, , vol. , p. .] [footnote : _de bell. jud._ , .] [footnote : one of the lowest sub-planes of _kâmaloka_ (purgatory).] [footnote : the christian heaven (_devachan_ of theosophy).] [footnote : the earth, which is above when compared with tartarus, but not so in relation to the elysian fields; versification imposes such strict limits on expression, that it must have the benefit of poetic licence.] [footnote : fréret, _examen crit. des apologistes de la relig. chrét._, pages and , paris, .] [footnote : faustus.] [footnote : and yet the _gospel of saint john_ denies this (chap. , v. ). the contradictions in the gospels are so numerous that they alone have created thousands of infidels.] [footnote : stolberg expresses himself as follows on this matter: "this question was evidently based on the opinion that the disciples of jesus had formed, that this man, whose punishment dated from his very birth, had sinned in a previous life." (_histoire de n. s. jésus-christ et de son siècle_, book , chap. ).] [footnote : _revelation_, chap. , v. .] [footnote : _revelation_, chap. , v. .] [footnote : _revelation_, chap. , v. .] [footnote : _revelation_, chap. , v. .] [footnote : h. p. blavatsky.] [footnote : "taken literally, the book of the creation gives us the most absurd and extravagant ideas of divinity."] [footnote : first _ennead_, chap. i.] [footnote : the universe, which can exist only through _multiplicity._] [footnote : second _ennead_, chap. .] [footnote : second _ennead_, chap. .] [footnote : third _ennead_, chap. .] [footnote : _concerning abstinence_; book .] [footnote : _egyptian mysteries_, book , chap. .] [footnote : here, _reincarnation_ is meant.] [footnote : this philosopher was surnamed _peisithanatos_ (the death-persuader).] [footnote : _vie de pythagore_, vol. i, p. .] [footnote : _hist. de l'ec. a'alex._, vol. i, p .] [footnote : in this work, he says: "the winged tribe, that has feathers instead of hair, is formed of innocent but superficial human beings, pompous and frivolous in speech, who, in their simplicity, imagine that the sense of vision is the best judge of the existence of things. those who take no interest whatever in philosophy become four-footed animals and wild beasts...."] [footnote : _commentaries on the golden verses of pythagoras._] [footnote : hermes, _commentaries of chalcidius on the timæus._] [footnote : _procli diadochi in platonis timæum commentaria._] [footnote : september, , p. .] [footnote : the life of the animal to which it is bound.] [footnote : the instrument must be suited to the development of the artist; too highly developed a body would be bad for a man very low down in the scale of humanity. this will, in some measure, explain the paradoxical word here used; the _advantage_ there may sometimes be in putting on a rudimentary body.] [footnote : g. r. s. mead tells us that justin believed in reincarnation only whilst he was a platonist; he opposed this teaching after his conversion to christianity (see _theosophical review_, april, ).] [footnote : does this obscure passage refer to the resurrection of the body?] [footnote : _adversus gentes_. "we die many times, and as often do we rise again from the dead."] [footnote : hyeronim., _epistola ad demetr...._] [footnote : book , quest. , no. .] [footnote : _ephesians_, ch. , v. ... he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.] [footnote : _instit. divin._, , .] [footnote : _confessions_, i, ch. .] [footnote : _on the immortality of the soul_, chap. .] [footnote : _hist. de manichée et du manichéisme_, vol. , p. .] [footnote : _stromata._, vol. , p. . edition des bénédictins.] [footnote : the words in parenthesis are by the author.] [footnote : _cont. cels._ book , chap. .] [footnote : [greek: ti akolouthei].] [footnote : _de principiis_, book , chap. .] [footnote : _contra celsum_, book .] [footnote : _contra celsum_, book , chap. .] [footnote : _de principiis_, book , chap. .] [footnote : _de principiis_, book , chap. .] [footnote : _contra celsum_, book , chap. .] [footnote : e. aroux. _les mystères de la chevalerie._] [footnote : quoted by i. cooper oakley in _traces of a hidden tradition in masonry and mediæval mysticism_, a very interesting work on the sects which connect the early centuries with modern times.] [footnote : see _l'islamisme et son enseignement Ésotérique_, by ed. bailly. _publications théosophiques_, paris, .] [footnote : chapter .] [footnote : islam is now awaiting the coming of the mahdi, its last prophet; prophecy says that he will be the reincarnation of mohammed (_borderland_, april, ).] [footnote : this is the reason afghans still undertake pilgrimages to mecca.] [footnote : chap. , verses , , , , , , , . quoted by lady caithness in _old truths in a new light._] [footnote : chap. , verses , , , etc.] [footnote : by religion is here understood the devotional aspect and the scientific side of the teaching of truth, _i.e._, the science of the divine soul.] [footnote : _nirmânakâyas_ are beings who have become perfect, and who, instead of entering the nirvâna their efforts have won, renounce peace and bliss in order to help forward their human brothers in their evolution.] [footnote : o! genus attonitum gelidæ formidine mortis, quid styga, quid tenebras, quid nomina vana timetis, materiam vatum, falsique piacula mundi? corpora sive rogus flammâ, seu tabe vetustas abstulerit, mala posse pati non ulla putetis morte carent animæ: semperque priore relictâ sede, novis domibus habitant vivuntque receptæ . . . . . . . . . omnia mutantur, nihil interit ... ] [footnote : _s. john's gospel_, chap. , verse .] [footnote : the following passages are taken from three of c. savy's works: _comment. du sermon sur la montagne_ ( ); _pensées et méditations_ ( ); _dieu et l'homme en cette vie et audelà_ ( ).] [footnote : _de l'humanité_, vol. ., p. .] [footnote : _théorie de l'unité universelle_, vol. , p. - .] [footnote : _vie future au point de vue socialiste_, and _confession d'un curé de village._] [footnote : _destinées de l'Âme._] [footnote : alluding to the complete renewing of the material molecules of the body, every seven years.] [footnote : whose consciousness, however (along with memory), is at the summit of the hierarchy which is its origin.] [footnote : molecules and atoms have a particular consciousness of their own which does not cease to function when, on the departure of the individual soul, the body, as such, ceases to function.] [footnote : if sufficiently developed, however, he can be made conscious of this in a higher vehicle.] [footnote : when man has barely entered the human stage--in primitive man.] [footnote : consciousness begins in the physical body, its simplest instrument.] [footnote : there are other vehicles above the causal body.] [footnote : all the powers of the universe are in the divine germ, as the tree is in its seed.] [footnote : because it no longer has a dense physical body. there are exceptions to this rule, but there is no necessity to mention them here.] [footnote : the christian heaven, the _devachan_ of theosophy.] [footnote : this character has already appeared on the astral plane, though not in so striking a fashion.] [footnote : unity exists on the plane of the ego, and the latter sends his thought into the forms made out of his vehicles; this will be understood only by the few, but an explanation cannot be given at this point, without writing a volume on the whole of theosophy.] [footnote : we are still dealing with the ordinary man.] [footnote : when liberation is attained. this can be effected rapidly by those who _will_ to attain it.] [footnote : only four of the seven atomic _spirillæ_ are active in this our fourth planetary round (one for each round). they can be rapidly vitalised by the will.] [footnote : when the soul is "centred" in it.] [footnote : the vibrations, whether registered as they pass or not registered, continue their course through the substance of the universe.] [footnote : science even now recognises four of these dimensions.] [footnote : this is said in order to satisfy such as are of a metaphysical turn of mind, and frequently prone to criticism.] [footnote : when the inner senses are developed.] [footnote : a question will doubtless at once rise to the minds of many readers; how can the same atoms produce, at once and almost eternally, millions of different facts? we will reply briefly. science has been able to conceive of an explanation of a fact apparently quite as absurd--the phenomenon of the balls of russian platinum mentioned by zöllner (_transcendental physics_, ch. ) which pass through hermetically sealed glass tubes, and that of the german copper coins dropping through the bottom of a sealed box on to a slate--by accepting a fourth dimension of space. who would affirm that the dimensions of space are limited to four? or that the science of the immediate future will not be brought face to face with facts, and find, in a fifth or sixth dimension of space, a possible explanation of the phenomenon here mentioned, one which initiated seers can test whenever they please, because it is a real fact? still, as these seers say, the coarsest atoms generally register only one image, others register fresh images, so that in many cases there is quite a superposition of images which must be carefully examined to avoid errors.] [footnote : a psychometrist is a person endowed with a very fine nervous system, capable of repeating the delicate vibrations which act upon the inmost atoms of a body. in this way, by placing himself in presence of an object that has been in contact with some individual, he can clearly describe the latter's physical, moral, and mental characteristics. hitherto, buchanan and professor denton have been the most remarkable psychometrists; the experiments related in their works have been made before witnesses and permit of no doubt whatever as to the reality of this strange faculty.] [footnote : instances of this are numerous in professor denton's _the soul of things._] [footnote : this memory is preserved in the first "life-wave."] [footnote : this is _instinct_, _i.e._, a semi-conscious memory, located in the "life-wave" of the second logos.] [footnote : the divine essence incarnated in the matter of the lower planes of the universe.] [footnote : when the "essence," after the destruction of the form to which it gives life, no more returns to the parent-block from which it came, it has become individualised, ready to enter into the _human kingdom._] [footnote : the memory of the third life-wave, of the first logos.] [footnote : everything, for instance, that concerns the planes of the planetary system, on which it has finished its evolution.] [footnote : the passing of consciousness from the causal body to the nascent buddhic body.] [footnote : the buddhic plane (the one immediately above the mental) is one in which the forms are so subtle that they no longer _limit_ the life (_the soul of the world_) animating them. this life comes directly into contact with the life which causes all forms to live; it then sees unity: it sees itself everywhere and in everything, the joys and sorrows of forms other than its own are its joys and sorrows, for it is universal life.] [footnote : this body is composed of physical matter, and therefore belongs to the physical plane. it has been given a special name, not only because it is made of ether, but because it can be separated from the physical body.] [footnote : the whole of the bodies: mental, astral, and physical.] [footnote : the ego (soul) in the causal body.] conclusion. we have now come to the end of our study: a task to which we have certainly not been equal, so far is it beyond our powers. as, however, we have drawn inspiration from our predecessors, so have we also, in our turn, endeavoured to shed a few more rays of light on certain points of this important subject, and indicate fresh paths that may be followed by such as enter upon this line of investigation in the future. it is our most ardent desire to see this fertile soil well tilled, for it will yield an abundant harvest. mankind is dying in strife and despair; the torrent of human activity is everywhere seething and foaming. here ignorance buries its victims in a noisome den of slime and filth; there, the strong and ruthless, veritable vampires, batten on the labour and drain away the very life of the weak and helpless; farther away, science stumbles against the wall of the unknown; philosophy takes up its stand on the cold barren glacier of intellectualism; religions are stifled and struggle for existence beneath the age-long accumulations of the "letter that killeth." more now than ever before do we need to find a reason for morality, a guide for science, an ariadne's thread for philosophy, a torch to throw light on religion, and love over all, for if mankind continues to devote the whole of its strength to the pursuit of material benefits, if its most glorious conquests become instruments to advance selfishness, if its progress merely increases physical wretchedness and makes moral decadence more terrible than before, if the head continues to silence the appeals of the heart, then divine compassion will have no alternative but to destroy beneath the waters of another flood this cruel, implacable civilisation, which has transformed earth into an inferno. amongst the most pressing and urgent truths, the most fruitful teachings, the most illuminating doctrines, the most comforting promises, we have no hesitation in placing the law of rebirths in the very front. it is supported by ethics, by reason, and by science; it offers an explanation of the enigma of life, it alone solves almost all the problems that have harassed the mind of man throughout the ages; and so we hope that, in spite of its many imperfections, this work of ours will induce many a reader to say: _reincarnation must be true, if could not be otherwise!_ the end * * * * * transcribed from the mills & boon edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk the jacket (the star-rover) chapter i all my life i have had an awareness of other times and places. i have been aware of other persons in me.--oh, and trust me, so have you, my reader that is to be. read back into your childhood, and this sense of awareness i speak of will be remembered as an experience of your childhood. you were then not fixed, not crystallized. you were plastic, a soul in flux, a consciousness and an identity in the process of forming--ay, of forming and forgetting. you have forgotten much, my reader, and yet, as you read these lines, you remember dimly the hazy vistas of other times and places into which your child eyes peered. they seem dreams to you to-day. yet, if they were dreams, dreamed then, whence the substance of them? our dreams are grotesquely compounded of the things we know. the stuff of our sheerest dreams is the stuff of our experience. as a child, a wee child, you dreamed you fell great heights; you dreamed you flew through the air as things of the air fly; you were vexed by crawling spiders and many-legged creatures of the slime; you heard other voices, saw other faces nightmarishly familiar, and gazed upon sunrises and sunsets other than you know now, looking back, you ever looked upon. very well. these child glimpses are of other-worldness, of other-lifeness, of things that you had never seen in this particular world of your particular life. then whence? other lives? other worlds? perhaps, when you have read all that i shall write, you will have received answers to the perplexities i have propounded to you, and that you yourself, ere you came to read me, propounded to yourself. * * * * * wordsworth knew. he was neither seer nor prophet, but just ordinary man like you or any man. what he knew, you know, any man knows. but he most aptly stated it in his passage that begins "not in utter nakedness, not in entire forgetfulness. . ." ah, truly, shades of the prison-house close about us, the new-born things, and all too soon do we forget. and yet, when we were new-born we did remember other times and places. we, helpless infants in arms or creeping quadruped-like on the floor, dreamed our dreams of air-flight. yes; and we endured the torment and torture of nightmare fears of dim and monstrous things. we new-born infants, without experience, were born with fear, with memory of fear; and _memory is experience_. as for myself, at the beginnings of my vocabulary, at so tender a period that i still made hunger noises and sleep noises, yet even then did i know that i had been a star-rover. yes, i, whose lips had never lisped the word "king," remembered that i had once been the son of a king. more--i remembered that once i had been a slave and a son of a slave, and worn an iron collar round my neck. still more. when i was three, and four, and five years of age, i was not yet i. i was a mere becoming, a flux of spirit not yet cooled solid in the mould of my particular flesh and time and place. in that period all that i had ever been in ten thousand lives before strove in me, and troubled the flux of me, in the effort to incorporate itself in me and become me. silly, isn't it? but remember, my reader, whom i hope to have travel far with me through time and space--remember, please, my reader, that i have thought much on these matters, that through bloody nights and sweats of dark that lasted years-long, i have been alone with my many selves to consult and contemplate my many selves. i have gone through the hells of all existences to bring you news which you will share with me in a casual comfortable hour over my printed page. so, to return, i say, during the ages of three and four and five, i was not yet i. i was merely becoming as i took form in the mould of my body, and all the mighty, indestructible past wrought in the mixture of me to determine what the form of that becoming would be. it was not my voice that cried out in the night in fear of things known, which i, forsooth, did not and could not know. the same with my childish angers, my loves, and my laughters. other voices screamed through my voice, the voices of men and women aforetime, of all shadowy hosts of progenitors. and the snarl of my anger was blended with the snarls of beasts more ancient than the mountains, and the vocal madness of my child hysteria, with all the red of its wrath, was chorded with the insensate, stupid cries of beasts pre-adamic and progeologic in time. and there the secret is out. the red wrath! it has undone me in this, my present life. because of it, a few short weeks hence, i shall be led from this cell to a high place with unstable flooring, graced above by a well-stretched rope; and there they will hang me by the neck until i am dead. the red wrath always has undone me in all my lives; for the red wrath is my disastrous catastrophic heritage from the time of the slimy things ere the world was prime. * * * * * it is time that i introduce myself. i am neither fool nor lunatic. i want you to know that, in order that you will believe the things i shall tell you. i am darrell standing. some few of you who read this will know me immediately. but to the majority, who are bound to be strangers, let me exposit myself. eight years ago i was professor of agronomics in the college of agriculture of the university of california. eight years ago the sleepy little university town of berkeley was shocked by the murder of professor haskell in one of the laboratories of the mining building. darrell standing was the murderer. i am darrell standing. i was caught red-handed. now the right and the wrong of this affair with professor haskell i shall not discuss. it was purely a private matter. the point is, that in a surge of anger, obsessed by that catastrophic red wrath that has cursed me down the ages, i killed my fellow professor. the court records show that i did; and, for once, i agree with the court records. no; i am not to be hanged for his murder. i received a life-sentence for my punishment. i was thirty-six years of age at the time. i am now forty-four years old. i have spent the eight intervening years in the california state prison of san quentin. five of these years i spent in the dark. solitary confinement, they call it. men who endure it, call it living death. but through these five years of death-in-life i managed to attain freedom such as few men have ever known. closest-confined of prisoners, not only did i range the world, but i ranged time. they who immured me for petty years gave to me, all unwittingly, the largess of centuries. truly, thanks to ed morrell, i have had five years of star- roving. but ed morrell is another story. i shall tell you about him a little later. i have so much to tell i scarce know how to begin. well, a beginning. i was born on a quarter-section in minnesota. my mother was the daughter of an immigrant swede. her name was hilda tonnesson. my father was chauncey standing, of old american stock. he traced back to alfred standing, an indentured servant, or slave if you please, who was transported from england to the virginia plantations in the days that were even old when the youthful washington went a-surveying in the pennsylvania wilderness. a son of alfred standing fought in the war of the revolution; a grandson, in the war of . there have been no wars since in which the standings have not been represented. i, the last of the standings, dying soon without issue, fought as a common soldier in the philippines, in our latest war, and to do so i resigned, in the full early ripeness of career, my professorship in the university of nebraska. good heavens, when i so resigned i was headed for the deanship of the college of agriculture in that university--i, the star-rover, the red-blooded adventurer, the vagabondish cain of the centuries, the militant priest of remotest times, the moon-dreaming poet of ages forgotten and to-day unrecorded in man's history of man! and here i am, my hands dyed red in murderers' row, in the state prison of folsom, awaiting the day decreed by the machinery of state when the servants of the state will lead me away into what they fondly believe is the dark--the dark they fear; the dark that gives them fearsome and superstitious fancies; the dark that drives them, drivelling and yammering, to the altars of their fear-created, anthropomorphic gods. no; i shall never be dean of any college of agriculture. and yet i knew agriculture. it was my profession. i was born to it, reared to it, trained to it; and i was a master of it. it was my genius. i can pick the high-percentage butter-fat cow with my eye and let the babcock tester prove the wisdom of my eye. i can look, not at land, but at landscape, and pronounce the virtues and the shortcomings of the soil. litmus paper is not necessary when i determine a soil to be acid or alkali. i repeat, farm-husbandry, in its highest scientific terms, was my genius, and is my genius. and yet the state, which includes all the citizens of the state, believes that it can blot out this wisdom of mine in the final dark by means of a rope about my neck and the abruptive jerk of gravitation--this wisdom of mine that was incubated through the millenniums, and that was well-hatched ere the farmed fields of troy were ever pastured by the flocks of nomad shepherds! corn? who else knows corn? there is my demonstration at wistar, whereby i increased the annual corn-yield of every county in iowa by half a million dollars. this is history. many a farmer, riding in his motor- car to-day, knows who made possible that motor-car. many a sweet-bosomed girl and bright-browed boy, poring over high-school text-books, little dreams that i made that higher education possible by my corn demonstration at wistar. and farm management! i know the waste of superfluous motion without studying a moving picture record of it, whether it be farm or farm-hand, the layout of buildings or the layout of the farm-hands' labour. there is my handbook and tables on the subject. beyond the shadow of any doubt, at this present moment, a hundred thousand farmers are knotting their brows over its spread pages ere they tap out their final pipe and go to bed. and yet, so far was i beyond my tables, that all i needed was a mere look at a man to know his predispositions, his co-ordinations, and the index fraction of his motion-wastage. and here i must close this first chapter of my narrative. it is nine o'clock, and in murderers' row that means lights out. even now, i hear the soft tread of the gum-shoed guard as he comes to censure me for my coal-oil lamp still burning. as if the mere living could censure the doomed to die! chapter ii i am darrell standing. they are going to take me out and hang me pretty soon. in the meantime i say my say, and write in these pages of the other times and places. after my sentence, i came to spend the rest of my "natural life" in the prison of san quentin. i proved incorrigible. an incorrigible is a terrible human being--at least such is the connotation of "incorrigible" in prison psychology. i became an incorrigible because i abhorred waste motion. the prison, like all prisons, was a scandal and an affront of waste motion. they put me in the jute-mill. the criminality of wastefulness irritated me. why should it not? elimination of waste motion was my speciality. before the invention of steam or steam-driven looms three thousand years before, i had rotted in prison in old babylon; and, trust me, i speak the truth when i say that in that ancient day we prisoners wove more efficiently on hand-looms than did the prisoners in the steam-powered loom-rooms of san quentin. the crime of waste was abhorrent. i rebelled. i tried to show the guards a score or so of more efficient ways. i was reported. i was given the dungeon and the starvation of light and food. i emerged and tried to work in the chaos of inefficiency of the loom-rooms. i rebelled. i was given the dungeon, plus the strait-jacket. i was spread- eagled, and thumbed-up, and privily beaten by the stupid guards whose totality of intelligence was only just sufficient to show them that i was different from them and not so stupid. two years of this witless persecution i endured. it is terrible for a man to be tied down and gnawed by rats. the stupid brutes of guards were rats, and they gnawed the intelligence of me, gnawed all the fine nerves of the quick of me and of the consciousness of me. and i, who in my past have been a most valiant fighter, in this present life was no fighter at all. i was a farmer, an agriculturist, a desk-tied professor, a laboratory slave, interested only in the soil and the increase of the productiveness of the soil. i fought in the philippines because it was the tradition of the standings to fight. i had no aptitude for fighting. it was all too ridiculous, the introducing of disruptive foreign substances into the bodies of little black men-folk. it was laughable to behold science prostituting all the might of its achievement and the wit of its inventors to the violent introducing of foreign substances into the bodies of black folk. as i say, in obedience to the tradition of the standings i went to war and found that i had no aptitude for war. so did my officers find me out, because they made me a quartermaster's clerk, and as a clerk, at a desk, i fought through the spanish-american war. so it was not because i was a fighter, but because i was a thinker, that i was enraged by the motion-wastage of the loom-rooms and was persecuted by the guards into becoming an "incorrigible." one's brain worked and i was punished for its working. as i told warden atherton, when my incorrigibility had become so notorious that he had me in on the carpet in his private office to plead with me; as i told him then: "it is so absurd, my dear warden, to think that your rat-throttlers of guards can shake out of my brain the things that are clear and definite in my brain. the whole organization of this prison is stupid. you are a politician. you can weave the political pull of san francisco saloon-men and ward heelers into a position of graft such as this one you occupy; but you can't weave jute. your loom-rooms are fifty years behind the times. . . ." but why continue the tirade?--for tirade it was. i showed him what a fool he was, and as a result he decided that i was a hopeless incorrigible. give a dog a bad name--you know the saw. very well. warden atherton gave the final sanction to the badness of my name. i was fair game. more than one convict's dereliction was shunted off on me, and was paid for by me in the dungeon on bread and water, or in being triced up by the thumbs on my tip-toes for long hours, each hour of which was longer than any life i have ever lived. intelligent men are cruel. stupid men are monstrously cruel. the guards and the men over me, from the warden down, were stupid monsters. listen, and you shall learn what they did to me. there was a poet in the prison, a convict, a weak-chinned, broad-browed, degenerate poet. he was a forger. he was a coward. he was a snitcher. he was a stool--strange words for a professor of agronomics to use in writing, but a professor of agronomics may well learn strange words when pent in prison for the term of his natural life. this poet-forger's name was cecil winwood. he had had prior convictions, and yet, because he was a snivelling cur of a yellow dog, his last sentence had been only for seven years. good credits would materially reduce this time. my time was life. yet this miserable degenerate, in order to gain several short years of liberty for himself, succeeded in adding a fair portion of eternity to my own lifetime term. i shall tell what happened the other way around, for it was only after a weary period that i learned. this cecil winwood, in order to curry favour with the captain of the yard, and thence the warden, the prison directors, the board of pardons, and the governor of california, framed up a prison-break. now note three things: (a) cecil winwood was so detested by his fellow-convicts that they would not have permitted him to bet an ounce of bull durham on a bed-bug race--and bed-bug racing was a great sport with the convicts; (b) i was the dog that had been given a bad name: (c) for his frame-up, cecil winwood needed the dogs with bad names, the lifetimers, the desperate ones, the incorrigibles. but the lifers detested cecil winwood, and, when he approached them with his plan of a wholesale prison-break, they laughed at him and turned away with curses for the stool that he was. but he fooled them in the end, forty of the bitterest-wise ones in the pen. he approached them again and again. he told of his power in the prison by virtue of his being trusty in the warden's office, and because of the fact that he had the run of the dispensary. "show me," said long bill hodge, a mountaineer doing life for train robbery, and whose whole soul for years had been bent on escaping in order to kill the companion in robbery who had turned state's evidence on him. cecil winwood accepted the test. he claimed that he could dope the guards the night of the break. "talk is cheap," said long bill hodge. "what we want is the goods. dope one of the guards to-night. there's barnum. he's no good. he beat up that crazy chink yesterday in bughouse alley--when he was off duty, too. he's on the night watch. dope him to-night an' make him lose his job. show me, and we'll talk business with you." all this long bill told me in the dungeons afterward. cecil winwood demurred against the immediacy of the demonstration. he claimed that he must have time in which to steal the dope from the dispensary. they gave him the time, and a week later he announced that he was ready. forty hard-bitten lifers waited for the guard barnum to go to sleep on his shift. and barnum did. he was found asleep, and he was discharged for sleeping on duty. of course, that convinced the lifers. but there was the captain of the yard to convince. to him, daily, cecil winwood was reporting the progress of the break--all fancied and fabricated in his own imagination. the captain of the yard demanded to be shown. winwood showed him, and the full details of the showing i did not learn until a year afterward, so slowly do the secrets of prison intrigue leak out. winwood said that the forty men in the break, in whose confidence he was, had already such power in the prison that they were about to begin smuggling in automatic pistols by means of the guards they had bought up. "show me," the captain of the yard must have demanded. and the forger-poet showed him. in the bakery, night work was a regular thing. one of the convicts, a baker, was on the first night-shift. he was a stool of the captain of the yard, and winwood knew it. "to-night," he told the captain, "summerface will bring in a dozen ' automatics. on his next time off he'll bring in the ammunition. but to- night he'll turn the automatics over to me in the bakery. you've got a good stool there. he'll make you his report to-morrow." now summerface was a strapping figure of a bucolic guard who hailed from humboldt county. he was a simple-minded, good-natured dolt and not above earning an honest dollar by smuggling in tobacco for the convicts. on that night, returning from a trip to san francisco, he brought in with him fifteen pounds of prime cigarette tobacco. he had done this before, and delivered the stuff to cecil winwood. so, on that particular night, he, all unwitting, turned the stuff over to winwood in the bakery. it was a big, solid, paper-wrapped bundle of innocent tobacco. the stool baker, from concealment, saw the package delivered to winwood and so reported to the captain of the yard next morning. but in the meantime the poet-forger's too-lively imagination ran away with him. he was guilty of a slip that gave me five years of solitary confinement and that placed me in this condemned cell in which i now write. and all the time i knew nothing about it. i did not even know of the break he had inveigled the forty lifers into planning. i knew nothing, absolutely nothing. and the rest knew little. the lifers did not know he was giving them the cross. the captain of the yard did not know that the cross know was being worked on him. summerface was the most innocent of all. at the worst, his conscience could have accused him only of smuggling in some harmless tobacco. and now to the stupid, silly, melodramatic slip of cecil winwood. next morning, when he encountered the captain of the yard, he was triumphant. his imagination took the bit in its teeth. "well, the stuff came in all right as you said," the captain of the yard remarked. "and enough of it to blow half the prison sky-high," winwood corroborated. "enough of what?" the captain demanded. "dynamite and detonators," the fool rattled on. "thirty-five pounds of it. your stool saw summerface pass it over to me." and right there the captain of the yard must have nearly died. i can actually sympathize with him--thirty-five pounds of dynamite loose in the prison. they say that captain jamie--that was his nickname--sat down and held his head in his hands. "where is it now?" he cried. "i want it. take me to it at once." and right there cecil winwood saw his mistake. "i planted it," he lied--for he was compelled to lie because, being merely tobacco in small packages, it was long since distributed among the convicts along the customary channels. "very well," said captain jamie, getting himself in hand. "lead me to it at once." but there was no plant of high explosives to lead him to. the thing did not exist, had never existed save in the imagination of the wretched winwood. in a large prison like san quentin there are always hiding-places for things. and as cecil winwood led captain jamie he must have done some rapid thinking. as captain jamie testified before the board of directors, and as winwood also so testified, on the way to the hiding-place winwood said that he and i had planted the powder together. and i, just released from five days in the dungeons and eighty hours in the jacket; i, whom even the stupid guards could see was too weak to work in the loom-room; i, who had been given the day off to recuperate--from too terrible punishment--i was named as the one who had helped hide the non-existent thirty-five pounds of high explosive! winwood led captain jamie to the alleged hiding-place. of course they found no dynamite in it. "my god!" winwood lied. "standing has given me the cross. he's lifted the plant and stowed it somewhere else." the captain of the yard said more emphatic things than "my god!" also, on the spur of the moment but cold-bloodedly, he took winwood into his own private office, looked the doors, and beat him up frightfully--all of which came out before the board of directors. but that was afterward. in the meantime, even while he took his beating, winwood swore by the truth of what he had told. what was captain jamie to do? he was convinced that thirty-five pounds of dynamite were loose in the prison and that forty desperate lifers were ready for a break. oh, he had summerface in on the carpet, and, although summerface insisted the package contained tobacco, winwood swore it was dynamite and was believed. at this stage i enter or, rather, i depart, for they took me away out of the sunshine and the light of day to the dungeons, and in the dungeons and in the solitary cells, out of the sunshine and the light of day, i rotted for five years. i was puzzled. i had only just been released from the dungeons, and was lying pain-racked in my customary cell, when they took me back to the dungeon. "now," said winwood to captain jamie, "though we don't know where it is, the dynamite is safe. standing is the only man who does know, and he can't pass the word out from the dungeon. the men are ready to make the break. we can catch them red-handed. it is up to me to set the time. i'll tell them two o'clock to-night and tell them that, with the guards doped, i'll unlock their cells and give them their automatics. if, at two o'clock to-night, you don't catch the forty i shall name with their clothes on and wide awake, then, captain, you can give me solitary for the rest of my sentence. and with standing and the forty tight in the dungeons, we'll have all the time in the world to locate the dynamite." "if we have to tear the prison down stone by stone," captain jamie added valiantly. that was six years ago. in all the intervening time they have never found that non-existent explosive, and they have turned the prison upside- down a thousand times in searching for it. nevertheless, to his last day in office warden atherton believed in the existence of that dynamite. captain jamie, who is still captain of the yard, believes to this day that the dynamite is somewhere in the prison. only yesterday, he came all the way up from san quentin to folsom to make one more effort to get me to reveal the hiding-place. i know he will never breathe easy until they swing me off. chapter iii all that day i lay in the dungeon cudgelling my brains for the reason of this new and inexplicable punishment. all i could conclude was that some stool had lied an infraction of the rules on me in order to curry favour with the guards. meanwhile captain jamie fretted his head off and prepared for the night, while winwood passed the word along to the forty lifers to be ready for the break. and two hours after midnight every guard in the prison was under orders. this included the day-shift which should have been asleep. when two o'clock came, they rushed the cells occupied by the forty. the rush was simultaneous. the cells were opened at the same moment, and without exception the men named by winwood were found out of their bunks, fully dressed, and crouching just inside their doors. of course, this was verification absolute of all the fabric of lies that the poet-forger had spun for captain jamie. the forty lifers were caught in red-handed readiness for the break. what if they did unite, afterward, in averring that the break had been planned by winwood? the prison board of directors believed, to a man, that the forty lied in an effort to save themselves. the board of pardons likewise believed, for, ere three months were up, cecil winwood, forger and poet, most despicable of men, was pardoned out. oh, well, the stir, or the pen, as they call it in convict argot, is a training school for philosophy. no inmate can survive years of it without having had burst for him his fondest illusions and fairest metaphysical bubbles. truth lives, we are taught; murder will out. well, this is a demonstration that murder does not always come out. the captain of the yard, the late warden atherton, the prison board of directors to a man--all believe, right now, in the existence of that dynamite that never existed save in the slippery-geared and all too-accelerated brain of the degenerate forger and poet, cecil winwood. and cecil winwood still lives, while i, of all men concerned, the utterest, absolutist, innocentest, go to the scaffold in a few short weeks. * * * * * and now i must tell how entered the forty lifers upon my dungeon stillness. i was asleep when the outer door to the corridor of dungeons clanged open and aroused me. "some poor devil," was my thought; and my next thought was that he was surely getting his, as i listened to the scuffling of feet, the dull impact of blows on flesh, the sudden cries of pain, the filth of curses, and the sounds of dragging bodies. for, you see, every man was man-handled all the length of the way. dungeon-door after dungeon-door clanged open, and body after body was thrust in, flung in, or dragged in. and continually more groups of guards arrived with more beaten convicts who still were being beaten, and more dungeon-doors were opened to receive the bleeding frames of men who were guilty of yearning after freedom. yes, as i look back upon it, a man must be greatly a philosopher to survive the continual impact of such brutish experiences through the years and years. i am such a philosopher. i have endured eight years of their torment, and now, in the end, failing to get rid of me in all other ways, they have invoked the machinery of state to put a rope around my neck and shut off my breath by the weight of my body. oh, i know how the experts give expert judgment that the fall through the trap breaks the victim's neck. and the victims, like shakespeare's traveller, never return to testify to the contrary. but we who have lived in the stir know of the cases that are hushed in the prison crypts, where the victim's necks are not broken. it is a funny thing, this hanging of a man. i have never seen a hanging, but i have been told by eye-witnesses the details of a dozen hangings so that i know what will happen to me. standing on the trap, leg-manacled and arm-manacled, the knot against the neck, the black cap drawn, they will drop me down until the momentum of my descending weight is fetched up abruptly short by the tautening of the rope. then the doctors will group around me, and one will relieve another in successive turns in standing on a stool, his arms passed around me to keep me from swinging like a pendulum, his ear pressed close to my chest, while he counts my fading heart-beats. sometimes twenty minutes elapse after the trap is sprung ere the heart stops beating. oh, trust me, they make most scientifically sure that a man is dead once they get him on a rope. i still wander aside from my narrative to ask a question or two of society. i have a right so to wander and so to question, for in a little while they are going to take me out and do this thing to me. if the neck of the victim be broken by the alleged shrewd arrangement of knot and noose, and by the alleged shrewd calculation of the weight of the victim and the length of slack, then why do they manacle the arms of the victim? society, as a whole, is unable to answer this question. but i know why; so does any amateur who ever engaged in a lynching bee and saw the victim throw up his hands, clutch the rope, and ease the throttle of the noose about his neck so that he might breathe. another question i will ask of the smug, cotton-wooled member of society, whose soul has never strayed to the red hells. why do they put the black cap over the head and the face of the victim ere they drop him through the trap? please remember that in a short while they will put that black cap over my head. so i have a right to ask. do they, your hang-dogs, o smug citizen, do these your hang-dogs fear to gaze upon the facial horror of the horror they perpetrate for you and ours and at your behest? please remember that i am not asking this question in the twelve-hundredth year after christ, nor in the time of christ, nor in the twelve-hundredth year before christ. i, who am to be hanged this year, the nineteen-hundred-and-thirteenth after christ, ask these questions of you who are assumably christ's followers, of you whose hang-dogs are going to take me out and hide my face under a black cloth because they dare not look upon the horror they do to me while i yet live. and now back to the situation in the dungeons. when the last guard departed and the outer door clanged shut, all the forty beaten, disappointed men began to talk and ask questions. but, almost immediately, roaring like a bull in order to be heard, skysail jack, a giant sailor of a lifer, ordered silence while a census could be taken. the dungeons were full, and dungeon by dungeon, in order of dungeons, shouted out its quota to the roll-call. thus, every dungeon was accounted for as occupied by trusted convicts, so that there was no opportunity for a stool to be hidden away and listening. of me, only, were the convicts dubious, for i was the one man who had not been in the plot. they put me through a searching examination. i could but tell them how i had just emerged from dungeon and jacket in the morning, and without rhyme or reason, so far as i could discover, had been put back in the dungeon after being out only several hours. my record as an incorrigible was in my favour, and soon they began to talk. as i lay there and listened, for the first time i learned of the break that had been a-hatching. "who had squealed?" was their one quest, and throughout the night the quest was pursued. the quest for cecil winwood was vain, and the suspicion against him was general. "there's only one thing, lads," skysail jack finally said. "it'll soon be morning, and then they'll take us out and give us bloody hell. we were caught dead to rights with our clothes on. winwood crossed us and squealed. they're going to get us out one by one and mess us up. there's forty of us. any lyin's bound to be found out. so each lad, when they sweat him, just tells the truth, the whole truth, so help him god." and there, in that dark hole of man's inhumanity, from dungeon cell to dungeon cell, their mouths against the gratings, the two-score lifers solemnly pledged themselves before god to tell the truth. little good did their truth-telling do them. at nine o'clock the guards, paid bravoes of the smug citizens who constitute the state, full of meat and sleep, were upon us. not only had we had no breakfast, but we had had no water. and beaten men are prone to feverishness. i wonder, my reader, if you can glimpse or guess the faintest connotation of a man beaten--"beat up," we prisoners call it. but no, i shall not tell you. let it suffice to know that these beaten, feverish men lay seven hours without water. at nine the guards arrived. there were not many of them. there was no need for many, because they unlocked only one dungeon at a time. they were equipped with pick-handles--a handy tool for the "disciplining" of a helpless man. one dungeon at a time, and dungeon by dungeon, they messed and pulped the lifers. they were impartial. i received the same pulping as the rest. and this was merely the beginning, the preliminary to the examination each man was to undergo alone in the presence of the paid brutes of the state. it was the forecast to each man of what each man might expect in inquisition hall. i have been through most of the red hells of prison life, but, worst of all, far worse than what they intend to do with me in a short while, was the particular hell of the dungeons in the days that followed. long bill hodge, the hard-bitten mountaineer, was the first man interrogated. he came back two hours later--or, rather, they conveyed him back, and threw him on the stone of his dungeon floor. they then took away luigi polazzo, a san francisco hoodlum, the first native generation of italian parentage, who jeered and sneered at them and challenged them to wreak their worst upon him. it was some time before long bill hodge mastered his pain sufficiently to be coherent. "what about this dynamite?" he demanded. "who knows anything about dynamite?" and of course nobody knew, although it had been the burden of the interrogation put to him. luigi polazzo came back in a little less than two hours, and he came back a wreck that babbled in delirium and could give no answer to the questions showered upon him along the echoing corridor of dungeons by the men who were yet to get what he had got, and who desired greatly to know what things had been done to him and what interrogations had been put to him. twice again in the next forty-eight hours luigi was taken out and interrogated. after that, a gibbering imbecile, he went to live in bughouse alley. he has a strong constitution. his shoulders are broad, his nostrils wide, his chest is deep, his blood is pure; he will continue to gibber in bughouse alley long after i have swung off and escaped the torment of the penitentiaries of california. man after man was taken away, one at a time, and the wrecks of men were brought back, one by one, to rave and howl in the darkness. and as i lay there and listened to the moaning and the groaning, and all the idle chattering of pain-addled wits, somehow, vaguely reminiscent, it seemed to me that somewhere, some time, i had sat in a high place, callous and proud, and listened to a similar chorus of moaning and groaning. afterwards, as you shall learn, i identified this reminiscence and knew that the moaning and the groaning was of the sweep-slaves manacled to their benches, which i heard from above, on the poop, a soldier passenger on a galley of old rome. that was when i sailed for alexandria, a captain of men, on my way to jerusalem . . . but that is a story i shall tell you later. in the meanwhile . . . . chapter iv in the meanwhile obtained the horror of the dungeons, after the discovery of the plot to break prison. and never, during those eternal hours of waiting, was it absent from my consciousness that i should follow these other convicts out, endure the hells of inquisition they endured, and be brought back a wreck and flung on the stone floor of my stone-walled, iron-doored dungeon. they came for me. ungraciously and ungently, with blow and curse, they haled me forth, and i faced captain jamie and warden atherton, themselves arrayed with the strength of half a dozen state-bought, tax-paid brutes of guards who lingered in the room to do any bidding. but they were not needed. "sit down," said warden atherton, indicating a stout arm-chair. i, beaten and sore, without water for a night long and a day long, faint with hunger, weak from a beating that had been added to five days in the dungeon and eighty hours in the jacket, oppressed by the calamity of human fate, apprehensive of what was to happen to me from what i had seen happen to the others--i, a wavering waif of a human man and an erstwhile professor of agronomy in a quiet college town, i hesitated to accept the invitation to sit down. warden atherton was a large man and a very powerful man. his hands flashed out to a grip on my shoulders. i was a straw in his strength. he lifted me clear of the floor and crashed me down in the chair. "now," he said, while i gasped and swallowed my pain, "tell me all about it, standing. spit it out--all of it, if you know what's healthy for you." "i don't know anything about what has happened . . .", i began. that was as far as i got. with a growl and a leap he was upon me. again he lifted me in the air and crashed me down into the chair. "no nonsense, standing," he warned. "make a clean breast of it. where is the dynamite?" "i don't know anything of any dynamite," i protested. once again i was lifted and smashed back into the chair. i have endured tortures of various sorts, but when i reflect upon them in the quietness of these my last days, i am confident that no other torture was quite the equal of that chair torture. by my body that stout chair was battered out of any semblance of a chair. another chair was brought, and in time that chair was demolished. but more chairs were brought, and the eternal questioning about the dynamite went on. when warden atherton grew tired, captain jamie relieved him; and then the guard monohan took captain jamie's place in smashing me down into the chair. and always it was dynamite, dynamite, "where is the dynamite?" and there was no dynamite. why, toward the last i would have given a large portion of my immortal soul for a few pounds of dynamite to which i could confess. i do not know how many chairs were broken by my body. i fainted times without number, and toward the last the whole thing became nightmarish. i was half-carried, half-shoved and dragged back to the dark. there, when i became conscious, i found a stool in my dungeon. he was a pallid-faced, little dope-fiend of a short-timer who would do anything to obtain the drug. as soon as i recognized him i crawled to the grating and shouted out along the corridor: "there is a stool in with me, fellows! he's ignatius irvine! watch out what you say!" the outburst of imprecations that went up would have shaken the fortitude of a braver man than ignatius irvine. he was pitiful in his terror, while all about him, roaring like beasts, the pain-racked lifers told him what awful things they would do to him in the years that were to come. had there been secrets, the presence of a stool in the dungeons would have kept the men quiet, as it was, having all sworn to tell the truth, they talked openly before ignatius irvine. the one great puzzle was the dynamite, of which they were as much in the dark as was i. they appealed to me. if i knew anything about the dynamite they begged me to confess it and save them all from further misery. and i could tell them only the truth, that i knew of no dynamite. one thing the stool told me, before the guards removed him, showed how serious was this matter of the dynamite. of course, i passed the word along, which was that not a wheel had turned in the prison all day. the thousands of convict-workers had remained locked in their cells, and the outlook was that not one of the various prison-factories would be operated again until after the discovery of some dynamite that somebody had hidden somewhere in the prison. and ever the examination went on. ever, one at a time, convicts were dragged away and dragged or carried back again. they reported that warden atherton and captain jamie, exhausted by their efforts, relieved each other every two hours. while one slept, the other examined. and they slept in their clothes in the very room in which strong man after strong man was being broken. and hour by hour, in the dark dungeons, our madness of torment grew. oh, trust me as one who knows, hanging is an easy thing compared with the way live men may be hurt in all the life of them and still live. i, too, suffered equally with them from pain and thirst; but added to my suffering was the fact that i remained conscious to the sufferings of the others. i had been an incorrigible for two years, and my nerves and brain were hardened to suffering. it is a frightful thing to see a strong man broken. about me, at the one time, were forty strong men being broken. ever the cry for water went up, and the place became lunatic with the crying, sobbing, babbling and raving of men in delirium. don't you see? our truth, the very truth we told, was our damnation. when forty men told the same things with such unanimity, warden atherton and captain jamie could only conclude that the testimony was a memorized lie which each of the forty rattled off parrot-like. from the standpoint of the authorities, their situation was as desperate as ours. as i learned afterward, the board of prison directors had been summoned by telegraph, and two companies of state militia were being rushed to the prison. it was winter weather, and the frost is sometimes shrewd even in a california winter. we had no blankets in the dungeons. please know that it is very cold to stretch bruised human flesh on frosty stone. in the end they did give us water. jeering and cursing us, the guards ran in the fire-hoses and played the fierce streams on us, dungeon by dungeon, hour after hour, until our bruised flesh was battered all anew by the violence with which the water smote us, until we stood knee-deep in the water which we had raved for and for which now we raved to cease. i shall skip the rest of what happened in the dungeons. in passing i shall merely state that no one of those forty lifers was ever the same again. luigi polazzo never recovered his reason. long bill hodge slowly lost his sanity, so that a year later, he, too, went to live in bughouse alley. oh, and others followed hodge and polazzo; and others, whose physical stamina had been impaired, fell victims to prison-tuberculosis. fully per cent. of the forty have died in the succeeding six years. after my five years in solitary, when they took me away from san quentin for my trial, i saw skysail jack. i could see little, for i was blinking in the sunshine like a bat, after five years of darkness; yet i saw enough of skysail jack to pain my heart. it was in crossing the prison yard that i saw him. his hair had turned white. he was prematurely old. his chest had caved in. his cheeks were sunken. his hands shook as with palsy. he tottered as he walked. and his eyes blurred with tears as he recognized me, for i, too, was a sad wreck of what had once been a man. i weighed eighty-seven pounds. my hair, streaked with gray, was a five- years' growth, as were my beard and moustache. and i, too, tottered as i walked, so that the guards helped to lead me across that sun-blinding patch of yard. and skysail jack and i peered and knew each other under the wreckage. men such as he are privileged, even in a prison, so that he dared an infraction of the rules by speaking to me in a cracked and quavering voice. "you're a good one, standing," he cackled. "you never squealed." "but i never knew, jack," i whispered back--i was compelled to whisper, for five years of disuse had well-nigh lost me my voice. "i don't think there ever was any dynamite." "that's right," he cackled, nodding his head childishly. "stick with it. don't ever let'm know. you're a good one. i take my hat off to you, standing. you never squealed." and the guards led me on, and that was the last i saw of skysail jack. it was plain that even he had become a believer in the dynamite myth. * * * * * twice they had me before the full board of directors. i was alternately bullied and cajoled. their attitude resolved itself into two propositions. if i delivered up the dynamite, they would give me a nominal punishment of thirty days in the dungeon and then make me a trusty in the prison library. if i persisted in my stubbornness and did not yield up the dynamite, then they would put me in solitary for the rest of my sentence. in my case, being a life prisoner, this was tantamount to condemning me to solitary confinement for life. oh, no; california is civilized. there is no such law on the statute books. it is a cruel and unusual punishment, and no modern state would be guilty of such a law. nevertheless, in the history of california i am the third man who has been condemned for life to solitary confinement. the other two were jake oppenheimer and ed morrell. i shall tell you about them soon, for i rotted with them for years in the cells of silence. oh, another thing. they are going to take me out and hang me in a little while--no, not for killing professor haskell. i got life-imprisonment for that. they are going to take me out and hang me because i was found guilty of assault and battery. and this is not prison discipline. it is law, and as law it will be found in the criminal statutes. i believe i made a man's nose bleed. i never saw it bleed, but that was the evidence. thurston, his name was. he was a guard at san quentin. he weighed one hundred and seventy pounds and was in good health. i weighed under ninety pounds, was blind as a bat from the long darkness, and had been so long pent in narrow walls that i was made dizzy by large open spaces. really, mime was a well-defined case of incipient agoraphobia, as i quickly learned that day i escaped from solitary and punched the guard thurston on the nose. i struck him on the nose and made it bleed when he got in my way and tried to catch hold of me. and so they are going to hang me. it is the written law of the state of california that a lifetimer like me is guilty of a capital crime when he strikes a prison guard like thurston. surely, he could not have been inconvenienced more than half an hour by that bleeding nose; and yet they are going to hang me for it. and, see! this law, in my case, is _ex post facto_. it was not a law at the time i killed professor haskell. it was not passed until after i received my life-sentence. and this is the very point: my life-sentence gave me my status under this law which had not yet been written on the books. and it is because of my status of lifetimer that i am to be hanged for battery committed on the guard thurston. it is clearly _ex post facto_, and, therefore, unconstitutional. but what bearing has the constitution on constitutional lawyers when they want to put the notorious professor darrell standing out of the way? nor do i even establish the precedent with my execution. a year ago, as everybody who reads the newspapers knows, they hanged jake oppenheimer, right here in folsom, for a precisely similar offence . . . only, in his case of battery, he was not guilty of making a guard's nose bleed. he cut a convict unintentionally with a bread-knife. it is strange--life and men's ways and laws and tangled paths. i am writing these lines in the very cell in murderers' row that jake oppenheimer occupied ere they took him out and did to him what they are going to do to me. i warned you i had many things to write about. i shall now return to my narrative. the board of prison directors gave me my choice: a prison trustyship and surcease from the jute-looms if i gave up the non-existent dynamite; life imprisonment in solitary if i refused to give up the non- existent dynamite. they gave me twenty-four hours in the jacket to think it over. then i was brought before the board a second time. what could i do? i could not lead them to the dynamite that was not. i told them so, and they told me i was a liar. they told me i was a hard case, a dangerous man, a moral degenerate, the criminal of the century. they told me many other things, and then they carried me away to the solitary cells. i was put into number one cell. in number five lay ed morrell. in number twelve lay jake oppenheimer. and he had been there for ten years. ed morrell had been in his cell only one year. he was serving a fifty-years' sentence. jake oppenheimer was a lifer. and so was i a lifer. wherefore the outlook was that the three of us would remain there for a long time. and yet, six years only are past, and not one of us is in solitary. jake oppenheimer was swung off. ed morrell was made head trusty of san quentin and then pardoned out only the other day. and here i am in folsom waiting the day duly set by judge morgan, which will be my last day. the fools! as if they could throttle my immortality with their clumsy device of rope and scaffold! i shall walk, and walk again, oh, countless times, this fair earth. and i shall walk in the flesh, be prince and peasant, savant and fool, sit in the high place and groan under the wheel. chapter v it was very lonely, at first, in solitary, and the hours were long. time was marked by the regular changing of the guards, and by the alternation of day and night. day was only a little light, but it was better than the all-dark of the night. in solitary the day was an ooze, a slimy seepage of light from the bright outer world. never was the light strong enough to read by. besides, there was nothing to read. one could only lie and think and think. and i was a lifer, and it seemed certain, if i did not do a miracle, make thirty-five pounds of dynamite out of nothing, that all the years of my life would be spent in the silent dark. my bed was a thin and rotten tick of straw spread on the cell floor. one thin and filthy blanket constituted the covering. there was no chair, no table--nothing but the tick of straw and the thin, aged blanket. i was ever a short sleeper and ever a busy-brained man. in solitary one grows sick of oneself in his thoughts, and the only way to escape oneself is to sleep. for years i had averaged five hours' sleep a night. i now cultivated sleep. i made a science of it. i became able to sleep ten hours, then twelve hours, and, at last, as high as fourteen and fifteen hours out of the twenty-four. but beyond that i could not go, and, perforce, was compelled to lie awake and think and think. and that way, for an active-brained man, lay madness. i sought devices to enable me mechanically to abide my waking hours. i squared and cubed long series of numbers, and by concentration and will carried on most astonishing geometric progressions. i even dallied with the squaring of the circle . . . until i found myself beginning to believe that that possibility could be accomplished. whereupon, realizing that there, too, lay madness, i forwent the squaring of the circle, although i assure you it required a considerable sacrifice on my part, for the mental exercise involved was a splendid time-killer. by sheer visualization under my eyelids i constructed chess-boards and played both sides of long games through to checkmate. but when i had become expert at this visualized game of memory the exercise palled on me. exercise it was, for there could be no real contest when the same player played both sides. i tried, and tried vainly, to split my personality into two personalities and to pit one against the other. but ever i remained the one player, with no planned ruse or strategy on one side that the other side did not immediately apprehend. and time was very heavy and very long. i played games with flies, with ordinary house-flies that oozed into solitary as did the dim gray light; and learned that they possessed a sense of play. for instance, lying on the cell floor, i established an arbitrary and imaginary line along the wall some three feet above the floor. when they rested on the wall above this line they were left in peace. the instant they lighted on the wall below the line i tried to catch them. i was careful never to hurt them, and, in time, they knew as precisely as did i where ran the imaginary line. when they desired to play, they lighted below the line, and often for an hour at a time a single fly would engage in the sport. when it grew tired, it would come to rest on the safe territory above. of the dozen or more flies that lived with me, there was only one who did not care for the game. he refused steadfastly to play, and, having learned the penalty of alighting below the line, very carefully avoided the unsafe territory. that fly was a sullen, disgruntled creature. as the convicts would say, it had a "grouch" against the world. he never played with the other flies either. he was strong and healthy, too; for i studied him long to find out. his indisposition for play was temperamental, not physical. believe me, i knew all my flies. it was surprising to me the multitude of differences i distinguished between them. oh, each was distinctly an individual--not merely in size and markings, strength, and speed of flight, and in the manner and fancy of flight and play, of dodge and dart, of wheel and swiftly repeat or wheel and reverse, of touch and go on the danger wall, or of feint the touch and alight elsewhere within the zone. they were likewise sharply differentiated in the minutest shades of mentality and temperament. i knew the nervous ones, the phlegmatic ones. there was a little undersized one that would fly into real rages, sometimes with me, sometimes with its fellows. have you ever seen a colt or a calf throw up its heels and dash madly about the pasture from sheer excess of vitality and spirits? well, there was one fly--the keenest player of them all, by the way--who, when it had alighted three or four times in rapid succession on my taboo wall and succeeded each time in eluding the velvet- careful swoop of my hand, would grow so excited and jubilant that it would dart around and around my head at top speed, wheeling, veering, reversing, and always keeping within the limits of the narrow circle in which it celebrated its triumph over me. why, i could tell well in advance when any particular fly was making up its mind to begin to play. there are a thousand details in this one matter alone that i shall not bore you with, although these details did serve to keep me from being bored too utterly during that first period in solitary. but one thing i must tell you. to me it is most memorable--the time when the one with a grouch, who never played, alighted in a moment of absent-mindedness within the taboo precinct and was immediately captured in my hand. do you know, he sulked for an hour afterward. and the hours were very long in solitary; nor could i sleep them all away; nor could i while them away with house-flies, no matter how intelligent. for house-flies are house-flies, and i was a man, with a man's brain; and my brain was trained and active, stuffed with culture and science, and always geared to a high tension of eagerness to do. and there was nothing to do, and my thoughts ran abominably on in vain speculations. there was my pentose and methyl-pentose determination in grapes and wines to which i had devoted my last summer vacation at the asti vineyards. i had all but completed the series of experiments. was anybody else going on with it, i wondered; and if so, with what success? you see, the world was dead to me. no news of it filtered in. the history of science was making fast, and i was interested in a thousand subjects. why, there was my theory of the hydrolysis of casein by trypsin, which professor walters had been carrying out in his laboratory. also, professor schleimer had similarly been collaborating with me in the detection of phytosterol in mixtures of animal and vegetable fats. the work surely was going on, but with what results? the very thought of all this activity just beyond the prison walls and in which i could take no part, of which i was never even to hear, was maddening. and in the meantime i lay there on my cell floor and played games with house-flies. and yet all was not silence in solitary. early in my confinement i used to hear, at irregular intervals, faint, low tappings. from farther away i also heard fainter and lower tappings. continually these tappings were interrupted by the snarling of the guard. on occasion, when the tapping went on too persistently, extra guards were summoned, and i knew by the sounds that men were being strait-jacketed. the matter was easy of explanation. i had known, as every prisoner in san quentin knew, that the two men in solitary were ed morrell and jake oppenheimer. and i knew that these were the two men who tapped knuckle- talk to each other and were punished for so doing. that the code they used was simple i had not the slightest doubt, yet i devoted many hours to a vain effort to work it out. heaven knows--it had to be simple, yet i could not make head nor tail of it. and simple it proved to be, when i learned it; and simplest of all proved the trick they employed which had so baffled me. not only each day did they change the point in the alphabet where the code initialled, but they changed it every conversation, and, often, in the midst of a conversation. thus, there came a day when i caught the code at the right initial, listened to two clear sentences of conversation, and, the next time they talked, failed to understand a word. but that first time! "say--ed--what--would-- you--give--right--now--for--brown--papers--and--a--sack--of--bull--durham!" asked the one who tapped from farther away. i nearly cried out in my joy. here was communication! here was companionship! i listened eagerly, and the nearer tapping, which i guessed must be ed morrell's, replied: "i--would--do--twenty--hours--strait--in--the--jacket--for--a--five--cent--sack--" then came the snarling interruption of the guard: "cut that out, morrell!" it may be thought by the layman that the worst has been done to men sentenced to solitary for life, and therefore that a mere guard has no way of compelling obedience to his order to cease tapping. but the jacket remains. starvation remains. thirst remains. man-handling remains. truly, a man pent in a narrow cell is very helpless. so the tapping ceased, and that night, when it was next resumed, i was all at sea again. by pre-arrangement they had changed the initial letter of the code. but i had caught the clue, and, in the matter of several days, occurred again the same initialment i had understood. i did not wait on courtesy. "hello," i tapped "hello, stranger," morrell tapped back; and, from oppenheimer, "welcome to our city." they were curious to know who i was, how long i was condemned to solitary, and why i had been so condemned. but all this i put to the side in order first to learn their system of changing the code initial. after i had this clear, we talked. it was a great day, for the two lifers had become three, although they accepted me only on probation. as they told me long after, they feared i might be a stool placed there to work a frame-up on them. it had been done before, to oppenheimer, and he had paid dearly for the confidence he reposed in warden atherton's tool. to my surprise--yes, to my elation be it said--both my fellow-prisoners knew me through my record as an incorrigible. even into the living grave oppenheimer had occupied for ten years had my fame, or notoriety, rather, penetrated. i had much to tell them of prison happenings and of the outside world. the conspiracy to escape of the forty lifers, the search for the alleged dynamite, and all the treacherous frame-up of cecil winwood was news to them. as they told me, news did occasionally dribble into solitary by way of the guards, but they had had nothing for a couple of months. the present guards on duty in solitary were a particularly bad and vindictive set. again and again that day we were cursed for our knuckle talking by whatever guard was on. but we could not refrain. the two of the living dead had become three, and we had so much to say, while the manner of saying it was exasperatingly slow and i was not so proficient as they at the knuckle game. "wait till pie-face comes on to-night," morrell rapped to me. "he sleeps most of his watch, and we can talk a streak." how we did talk that night! sleep was farthest from our eyes. pie-face jones was a mean and bitter man, despite his fatness; but we blessed that fatness because it persuaded to stolen snatches of slumber. nevertheless our incessant tapping bothered his sleep and irritated him so that he reprimanded us repeatedly. and by the other night guards we were roundly cursed. in the morning all reported much tapping during the night, and we paid for our little holiday; for, at nine, came captain jamie with several guards to lace us into the torment of the jacket. until nine the following morning, for twenty-four straight hours, laced and helpless on the floor, without food or water, we paid the price for speech. oh, our guards were brutes! and under their treatment we had to harden to brutes in order to live. hard work makes calloused hands. hard guards make hard prisoners. we continued to talk, and, on occasion, to be jacketed for punishment. night was the best time, and, when substitute guards chanced to be on, we often talked through a whole shift. night and day were one with us who lived in the dark. we could sleep any time, we could knuckle-talk only on occasion. we told one another much of the history of our lives, and for long hours morrell and i have lain silently, while steadily, with faint, far taps, oppenheimer slowly spelled out his life-story, from the early years in a san francisco slum, through his gang-training, through his initiation into all that was vicious, when as a lad of fourteen he served as night messenger in the red light district, through his first detected infraction of the laws, and on and on through thefts and robberies to the treachery of a comrade and to red slayings inside prison walls. they called jake oppenheimer the "human tiger." some cub reporter coined the phrase that will long outlive the man to whom it was applied. and yet i ever found in jake oppenheimer all the cardinal traits of right humanness. he was faithful and loyal. i know of the times he has taken punishment in preference to informing on a comrade. he was brave. he was patient. he was capable of self-sacrifice--i could tell a story of this, but shall not take the time. and justice, with him, was a passion. the prison-killings done by him were due entirely to this extreme sense of justice. and he had a splendid mind. a lifetime in prison, ten years of it in solitary, had not dimmed his brain. morrell, ever a true comrade, too had a splendid brain. in fact, and i who am about to die have the right to say it without incurring the charge of immodesty, the three best minds in san quentin from the warden down were the three that rotted there together in solitary. and here at the end of my days, reviewing all that i have known of life, i am compelled to the conclusion that strong minds are never docile. the stupid men, the fearful men, the men ungifted with passionate rightness and fearless championship--these are the men who make model prisoners. i thank all gods that jake oppenheimer, ed morrell, and i were not model prisoners. chapter vi there is more than the germ of truth in things erroneous in the child's definition of memory as the thing one forgets with. to be able to forget means sanity. incessantly to remember, means obsession, lunacy. so the problem i faced in solitary, where incessant remembering strove for possession of me, was the problem of forgetting. when i gamed with flies, or played chess with myself, or talked with my knuckles, i partially forgot. what i desired was entirely to forget. there were the boyhood memories of other times and places--the "trailing clouds of glory" of wordsworth. if a boy had had these memories, were they irretrievably lost when he had grown to manhood? could this particular content of his boy brain be utterly eliminated? or were these memories of other times and places still residual, asleep, immured in solitary in brain cells similarly to the way i was immured in a cell in san quentin? solitary life-prisoners have been known to resurrect and look upon the sun again. then why could not these other-world memories of the boy resurrect? but how? in my judgment, by attainment of complete forgetfulness of present and of manhood past. and again, how? hypnotism should do it. if by hypnotism the conscious mind were put to sleep, and the subconscious mind awakened, then was the thing accomplished, then would all the dungeon doors of the brain be thrown wide, then would the prisoners emerge into the sunshine. so i reasoned--with what result you shall learn. but first i must tell how, as a boy, i had had these other-world memories. i had glowed in the clouds of glory i trailed from lives aforetime. like any boy, i had been haunted by the other beings i had been at other times. this had been during my process of becoming, ere the flux of all that i had ever been had hardened in the mould of the one personality that was to be known by men for a few years as darrell standing. let me narrate just one incident. it was up in minnesota on the old farm. i was nearly six years old. a missionary to china, returned to the united states and sent out by the board of missions to raise funds from the farmers, spent the night in our house. it was in the kitchen just after supper, as my mother was helping me undress for bed, and the missionary was showing photographs of the holy land. and what i am about to tell you i should long since have forgotten had i not heard my father recite it to wondering listeners so many times during my childhood. i cried out at sight of one of the photographs and looked at it, first with eagerness, and then with disappointment. it had seemed of a sudden most familiar, in much the same way that my father's barn would have been in a photograph. then it had seemed altogether strange. but as i continued to look the haunting sense of familiarity came back. "the tower of david," the missionary said to my mother. "no!" i cried with great positiveness. "you mean that isn't its name?" the missionary asked. i nodded. "then what is its name, my boy?" "it's name is . . ." i began, then concluded lamely, "i, forget." "it don't look the same now," i went on after a pause. "they've ben fixin' it up awful." here the missionary handed to my mother another photograph he had sought out. "i was there myself six months ago, mrs. standing." he pointed with his finger. "that is the jaffa gate where i walked in and right up to the tower of david in the back of the picture where my finger is now. the authorities are pretty well agreed on such matters. el kul'ah, as it was known by--" but here i broke in again, pointing to rubbish piles of ruined masonry on the left edge of the photograph. "over there somewhere," i said. "that name you just spoke was what the jews called it. but we called it something else. we called it . . . i forget." "listen to the youngster," my father chuckled. "you'd think he'd ben there." i nodded my head, for in that moment i knew i had been there, though all seemed strangely different. my father laughed the harder, but the missionary thought i was making game of him. he handed me another photograph. it was just a bleak waste of a landscape, barren of trees and vegetation, a shallow canyon with easy-sloping walls of rubble. in the middle distance was a cluster of wretched, flat-roofed hovels. "now, my boy, where is that?" the missionary quizzed. and the name came to me! "samaria," i said instantly. my father clapped his hands with glee, my mother was perplexed at my antic conduct, while the missionary evinced irritation. "the boy is right," he said. "it is a village in samaria. i passed through it. that is why i bought it. and it goes to show that the boy has seen similar photographs before." this my father and mother denied. "but it's different in the picture," i volunteered, while all the time my memory was busy reconstructing the photograph. the general trend of the landscape and the line of the distant hills were the same. the differences i noted aloud and pointed out with my finger. "the houses was about right here, and there was more trees, lots of trees, and lots of grass, and lots of goats. i can see 'em now, an' two boys drivin' 'em. an' right here is a lot of men walkin' behind one man. an' over there"--i pointed to where i had placed my village--"is a lot of tramps. they ain't got nothin' on exceptin' rags. an' they're sick. their faces, an' hands, an' legs is all sores." "he's heard the story in church or somewhere--you remember, the healing of the lepers in luke," the missionary said with a smile of satisfaction. "how many sick tramps are there, my boy?" i had learned to count to a hundred when i was five years old, so i went over the group carefully and announced: "ten of 'em. they're all wavin' their arms an' yellin' at the other men." "but they don't come near them?" was the query. i shook my head. "they just stand right there an' keep a-yellin' like they was in trouble." "go on," urged the missionary. "what next? what's the man doing in the front of the other crowd you said was walking along?" "they've all stopped, an' he's sayin' something to the sick men. an' the boys with the goats 's stopped to look. everybody's lookin'." "and then?" "that's all. the sick men are headin' for the houses. they ain't yellin' any more, an' they don't look sick any more. an' i just keep settin' on my horse a-lookin' on." at this all three of my listeners broke into laughter. "an' i'm a big man!" i cried out angrily. "an' i got a big sword!" "the ten lepers christ healed before he passed through jericho on his way to jerusalem," the missionary explained to my parents. "the boy has seen slides of famous paintings in some magic lantern exhibition." but neither father nor mother could remember that i had ever seen a magic lantern. "try him with another picture," father suggested. "it's all different," i complained as i studied the photograph the missionary handed me. "ain't nothin' here except that hill and them other hills. this ought to be a country road along here. an' over there ought to be gardens, an' trees, an' houses behind big stone walls. an' over there, on the other side, in holes in the rocks ought to be where they buried dead folks. you see this place?--they used to throw stones at people there until they killed 'm. i never seen 'm do it. they just told me about it." "and the hill?" the missionary asked, pointing to the central part of the print, for which the photograph seemed to have been taken. "can you tell us the name of the hill?" i shook my head. "never had no name. they killed folks there. i've seem 'm more 'n once." "this time he agrees with the majority of the authorities," announced the missionary with huge satisfaction. "the hill is golgotha, the place of skulls, or, as you please, so named because it resembles a skull. notice the resemblance. that is where they crucified--" he broke off and turned to me. "whom did they crucify there, young scholar? tell us what else you see." oh, i saw--my father reported that my eyes were bulging; but i shook my head stubbornly and said: "i ain't a-goin' to tell you because you're laughin' at me. i seen lots an' lots of men killed there. they nailed 'em up, an' it took a long time. i seen--but i ain't a-goin' to tell. i don't tell lies. you ask dad an' ma if i tell lies. he'd whale the stuffin' out of me if i did. ask 'm." and thereat not another word could the missionary get from me, even though he baited me with more photographs that sent my head whirling with a rush of memory-pictures and that urged and tickled my tongue with spates of speech which i sullenly resisted and overcame. "he will certainly make a good bible scholar," the missionary told father and mother after i had kissed them good-night and departed for bed. "or else, with that imagination, he'll become a successful fiction-writer." which shows how prophecy can go agley. i sit here in murderers' row, writing these lines in my last days, or, rather, in darrell standing's last days ere they take him out and try to thrust him into the dark at the end of a rope, and i smile to myself. i became neither bible scholar nor novelist. on the contrary, until they buried me in the cells of silence for half a decade, i was everything that the missionary forecasted not--an agricultural expert, a professor of agronomy, a specialist in the science of the elimination of waste motion, a master of farm efficiency, a precise laboratory scientist where precision and adherence to microscopic fact are absolute requirements. and i sit here in the warm afternoon, in murderers' row, and cease from the writing of my memoirs to listen to the soothing buzz of flies in the drowsy air, and catch phrases of a low-voiced conversation between josephus jackson, the negro murderer on my right, and bambeccio, the italian murderer on my left, who are discussing, through grated door to grated door, back and forth past my grated door, the antiseptic virtues and excellences of chewing tobacco for flesh wounds. and in my suspended hand i hold my fountain pen, and as i remember that other hands of me, in long gone ages, wielded ink-brush, and quill, and stylus, i also find thought-space in time to wonder if that missionary, when he was a little lad, ever trailed clouds of glory and glimpsed the brightness of old star-roving days. well, back to solitary, after i had learned the code of knuckle-talk and still found the hours of consciousness too long to endure. by self-hypnosis, which i began successfully to practise, i became able to put my conscious mind to sleep and to awaken and loose my subconscious mind. but the latter was an undisciplined and lawless thing. it wandered through all nightmarish madness, without coherence, without continuity of scene, event, or person. my method of mechanical hypnosis was the soul of simplicity. sitting with folded legs on my straw-mattress, i gazed fixedly at a fragment of bright straw which i had attached to the wall of my cell near the door where the most light was. i gazed at the bright point, with my eyes close to it, and tilted upward till they strained to see. at the same time i relaxed all the will of me and gave myself to the swaying dizziness that always eventually came to me. and when i felt myself sway out of balance backward, i closed my eyes and permitted myself to fall supine and unconscious on the mattress. and then, for half-an-hour, ten minutes, or as long as an hour or so, i would wander erratically and foolishly through the stored memories of my eternal recurrence on earth. but times and places shifted too swiftly. i knew afterward, when i awoke, that i, darrell standing, was the linking personality that connected all bizarreness and grotesqueness. but that was all. i could never live out completely one full experience, one point of consciousness in time and space. my dreams, if dreams they may be called, were rhymeless and reasonless. thus, as a sample of my rovings: in a single interval of fifteen minutes of subconsciousness i have crawled and bellowed in the slime of the primeval world and sat beside haas--further and cleaved the twentieth century air in a gas-driven monoplane. awake, i remembered that i, darrell standing, in the flesh, during the year preceding my incarceration in san quentin, had flown with haas further over the pacific at santa monica. awake, i did not remember the crawling and the bellowing in the ancient slime. nevertheless, awake, i reasoned that somehow i had remembered that early adventure in the slime, and that it was a verity of long-previous experience, when i was not yet darrell standing but somebody else, or something else that crawled and bellowed. one experience was merely more remote than the other. both experiences were equally real--or else how did i remember them? oh, what a fluttering of luminous images and actions! in a few short minutes of loosed subconsciousness i have sat in the halls of kings, above the salt and below the salt, been fool and jester, man-at-arms, clerk and monk; and i have been ruler above all at the head of the table--temporal power in my own sword arm, in the thickness of my castle walls, and the numbers of my fighting men; spiritual power likewise mine by token of the fact that cowled priests and fat abbots sat beneath me and swigged my wine and swined my meat. i have worn the iron collar of the serf about my neck in cold climes; and i have loved princesses of royal houses in the tropic-warmed and sun-scented night, where black slaves fanned the sultry air with fans of peacock plumes, while from afar, across the palm and fountains, drifted the roaring of lions and the cries of jackals. i have crouched in chill desert places warming my hands at fires builded of camel's dung; and i have lain in the meagre shade of sun-parched sage-brush by dry water-holes and yearned dry-tongued for water, while about me, dismembered and scattered in the alkali, were the bones of men and beasts who had yearned and died. i have been sea-cuny and bravo, scholar and recluse. i have pored over hand-written pages of huge and musty tomes in the scholastic quietude and twilight of cliff-perched monasteries, while beneath on the lesser slopes, peasants still toiled beyond the end of day among the vines and olives and drove in from pastures the blatting goats and lowing kine; yes, and i have led shouting rabbles down the wheel-worn, chariot-rutted paves of ancient and forgotten cities; and, solemn-voiced and grave as death, i have enunciated the law, stated the gravity of the infraction, and imposed the due death on men, who, like darrell standing in folsom prison, had broken the law. aloft, at giddy mastheads oscillating above the decks of ships, i have gazed on sun-flashed water where coral-growths iridesced from profounds of turquoise deeps, and conned the ships into the safety of mirrored lagoons where the anchors rumbled down close to palm-fronded beaches of sea-pounded coral rock; and i have striven on forgotten battlefields of the elder days, when the sun went down on slaughter that did not cease and that continued through the night-hours with the stars shining down and with a cool night wind blowing from distant peaks of snow that failed to chill the sweat of battle; and again, i have been little darrell standing, bare-footed in the dew-lush grass of spring on the minnesota farm, chilblained when of frosty mornings i fed the cattle in their breath-steaming stalls, sobered to fear and awe of the splendour and terror of god when i sat on sundays under the rant and preachment of the new jerusalem and the agonies of hell-fire. now, the foregoing were the glimpses and glimmerings that came to me, when, in cell one of solitary in san quentin, i stared myself unconscious by means of a particle of bright, light-radiating straw. how did these things come to me? surely i could not have manufactured them out of nothing inside my pent walls any more than could i have manufactured out of nothing the thirty-five pounds of dynamite so ruthlessly demanded of me by captain jamie, warden atherton, and the prison board of directors. i am darrell standing, born and raised on a quarter section of land in minnesota, erstwhile professor of agronomy, a prisoner incorrigible in san quentin, and at present a death-sentenced man in folsom. i do not know, of darrell standing's experience, these things of which i write and which i have dug from out my store-houses of subconsciousness. i, darrell standing, born in minnesota and soon to die by the rope in california, surely never loved daughters of kings in the courts of kings; nor fought cutlass to cutlass on the swaying decks of ships; nor drowned in the spirit-rooms of ships, guzzling raw liquor to the wassail-shouting and death-singing of seamen, while the ship lifted and crashed on the black-toothed rocks and the water bubbled overhead, beneath, and all about. such things are not of darrell standing's experience in the world. yet i, darrell standing, found these things within myself in solitary in san quentin by means of mechanical self-hypnosis. no more were these experiences darrell standing's than was the word "samaria" darrell standing's when it leapt to his child lips at sight of a photograph. one cannot make anything out of nothing. in solitary i could not so make thirty-five pounds of dynamite. nor in solitary, out of nothing in darrell standing's experience, could i make these wide, far visions of time and space. these things were in the content of my mind, and in my mind i was just beginning to learn my way about. chapter vii so here was my predicament: i knew that within myself was a golconda of memories of other lives, yet i was unable to do more than flit like a madman through those memories. i had my golconda but could not mine it. i remembered the case of stainton moses, the clergyman who had been possessed by the personalities of st. hippolytus, plotinus, athenodorus, and of that friend of erasmus named grocyn. and when i considered the experiments of colonel de rochas, which i had read in tyro fashion in other and busier days, i was convinced that stainton moses had, in previous lives, been those personalities that on occasion seemed to possess him. in truth, they were he, they were the links of the chain of recurrence. but more especially did i dwell upon the experiments of colonel de rochas. by means of suitable hypnotic subjects he claimed that he had penetrated backwards through time to the ancestors of his subjects. thus, the case of josephine which he describes. she was eighteen years old and she lived at voiron, in the department of the isere. under hypnotism colonel de rochas sent her adventuring back through her adolescence, her girlhood, her childhood, breast-infancy, and the silent dark of her mother's womb, and, still back, through the silence and the dark of the time when she, josephine, was not yet born, to the light and life of a previous living, when she had been a churlish, suspicious, and embittered old man, by name jean-claude bourdon, who had served his time in the seventh artillery at besancon, and who died at the age of seventy, long bedridden. _yes_, and did not colonel de rochas in turn hypnotize this shade of jean-claude bourdon, so that he adventured farther back into time, through infancy and birth and the dark of the unborn, until he found again light and life when, as a wicked old woman, he had been philomene carteron? but try as i would with my bright bit of straw in the oozement of light into solitary, i failed to achieve any such definiteness of previous personality. i became convinced, through the failure of my experiments, that only through death could i clearly and coherently resurrect the memories of my previous selves. but the tides of life ran strong in me. i, darrell standing, was so strongly disinclined to die that i refused to let warden atherton and captain jamie kill me. i was always so innately urged to live that sometimes i think that is why i am still here, eating and sleeping, thinking and dreaming, writing this narrative of my various me's, and awaiting the incontestable rope that will put an ephemeral period in my long-linked existence. and then came death in life. i learned the trick, ed morrell taught it me, as you shall see. it began through warden atherton and captain jamie. they must have experienced a recrudescence of panic at thought of the dynamite they believed hidden. they came to me in my dark cell, and they told me plainly that they would jacket me to death if i did not confess where the dynamite was hidden. and they assured me that they would do it officially without any hurt to their own official skins. my death would appear on the prison register as due to natural causes. oh, dear, cotton-wool citizen, please believe me when i tell you that men are killed in prisons to-day as they have always been killed since the first prisons were built by men. i well knew the terror, the agony, and the danger of the jacket. oh, the men spirit-broken by the jacket! i have seen them. and i have seen men crippled for life by the jacket. i have seen men, strong men, men so strong that their physical stamina resisted all attacks of prison tuberculosis, after a prolonged bout with the jacket, their resistance broken down, fade away, and die of tuberculosis within six months. there was slant-eyed wilson, with an unguessed weak heart of fear, who died in the jacket within the first hour while the unconvinced inefficient of a prison doctor looked on and smiled. and i have seen a man confess, after half an hour in the jacket, truths and fictions that cost him years of credits. i had had my own experiences. at the present moment half a thousand scars mark my body. they go to the scaffold with me. did i live a hundred years to come those same scars in the end would go to the grave with me. perhaps, dear citizen who permits and pays his hang-dogs to lace the jacket for you--perhaps you are unacquainted with the jacket. let me describe, it, so that you will understand the method by which i achieved death in life, became a temporary master of time and space, and vaulted the prison walls to rove among the stars. have you ever seen canvas tarpaulins or rubber blankets with brass eyelets set in along the edges? then imagine a piece of stout canvas, some four and one-half feet in length, with large and heavy brass eyelets running down both edges. the width of this canvas is never the full girth of the human body it is to surround. the width is also irregular--broadest at the shoulders, next broadest at the hips, and narrowest at the waist. the jacket is spread on the floor. the man who is to be punished, or who is to be tortured for confession, is told to lie face-downward on the flat canvas. if he refuses, he is man-handled. after that he lays himself down with a will, which is the will of the hang-dogs, which is your will, dear citizen, who feeds and fees the hang-dogs for doing this thing for you. the man lies face-downward. the edges of the jacket are brought as nearly together as possible along the centre of the man's back. then a rope, on the principle of a shoe-lace, is run through the eyelets, and on the principle of a shoe-lacing the man is laced in the canvas. only he is laced more severely than any person ever laces his shoe. they call it "cinching" in prison lingo. on occasion, when the guards are cruel and vindictive, or when the command has come down from above, in order to insure the severity of the lacing the guards press with their feet into the man's back as they draw the lacing tight. have you ever laced your shoe too tightly, and, after half an hour, experienced that excruciating pain across the instep of the obstructed circulation? and do you remember that after a few minutes of such pain you simply could not walk another step and had to untie the shoe-lace and ease the pressure? very well. then try to imagine your whole body so laced, only much more tightly, and that the squeeze, instead of being merely on the instep of one foot, is on your entire trunk, compressing to the seeming of death your heart, your lungs, and all the rest of your vital and essential organs. i remember the first time they gave me the jacket down in the dungeons. it was at the beginning of my incorrigibility, shortly after my entrance to prison, when i was weaving my loom-task of a hundred yards a day in the jute-mill and finishing two hours ahead of the average day. yes, and my jute-sacking was far above the average demanded. i was sent to the jacket that first time, according to the prison books, because of "skips" and "breaks" in the cloth, in short, because my work was defective. of course this was ridiculous. in truth, i was sent to the jacket because i, a new convict, a master of efficiency, a trained expert in the elimination of waste motion, had elected to tell the stupid head weaver a few things he did not know about his business. and the head weaver, with captain jamie present, had me called to the table where atrocious weaving, such as could never have gone through my loom, was exhibited against me. three times was i thus called to the table. the third calling meant punishment according to the loom-room rules. my punishment was twenty-four hours in the jacket. they took me down into the dungeons. i was ordered to lie face-downward on the canvas spread flat upon the floor. i refused. one of the guards, morrison, gulletted me with his thumbs. mobins, the dungeon trusty, a convict himself, struck me repeatedly with his fists. in the end i lay down as directed. and, because of the struggle i had vexed them with, they laced me extra tight. then they rolled me over like a log upon my back. it did not seem so bad at first. when they closed my door, with clang and clash of levered boltage, and left me in the utter dark, it was eleven o'clock in the morning. for a few minutes i was aware merely of an uncomfortable constriction which i fondly believed would ease as i grew accustomed to it. on the contrary, my heart began to thump and my lungs seemed unable to draw sufficient air for my blood. this sense of suffocation was terrorizing, and every thump of the heart threatened to burst my already bursting lungs. after what seemed hours, and after what, out of my countless succeeding experiences in the jacket i can now fairly conclude to have been not more than half-an-hour, i began to cry out, to yell, to scream, to howl, in a very madness of dying. the trouble was the pain that had arisen in my heart. it was a sharp, definite pain, similar to that of pleurisy, except that it stabbed hotly through the heart itself. to die is not a difficult thing, but to die in such slow and horrible fashion was maddening. like a trapped beast of the wild, i experienced ecstasies of fear, and yelled and howled until i realized that such vocal exercise merely stabbed my heart more hotly and at the same time consumed much of the little air in my lungs. i gave over and lay quiet for a long time--an eternity it seemed then, though now i am confident that it could have been no longer than a quarter of an hour. i grew dizzy with semi-asphyxiation, and my heart thumped until it seemed surely it would burst the canvas that bound me. again i lost control of myself and set up a mad howling for help. in the midst of this i heard a voice from the next dungeon. "shut up," it shouted, though only faintly it percolated to me. "shut up. you make me tired." "i'm dying," i cried out. "pound your ear and forget it," was the reply. "but i _am_ dying," i insisted. "then why worry?" came the voice. "you'll be dead pretty quick an' out of it. go ahead and croak, but don't make so much noise about it. you're interruptin' my beauty sleep." so angered was i by this callous indifference that i recovered self-control and was guilty of no more than smothered groans. this endured an endless time--possibly ten minutes; and then a tingling numbness set up in all my body. it was like pins and needles, and for as long as it hurt like pins and needles i kept my head. but when the prickling of the multitudinous darts ceased to hurt and only the numbness remained and continued verging into greater numbness i once more grew frightened. "how am i goin' to get a wink of sleep?" my neighbour, complained. "i ain't any more happy than you. my jacket's just as tight as yourn, an' i want to sleep an' forget it." "how long have you been in?" i asked, thinking him a new-comer compared to the centuries i had already suffered. "since day before yesterday," was his answer. "i mean in the jacket," i amended. "since day before yesterday, brother." "my god!" i screamed. "yes, brother, fifty straight hours, an' you don't hear me raisin' a roar about it. they cinched me with their feet in my back. i am some tight, believe _me_. you ain't the only one that's got troubles. you ain't ben in an hour yet." "i've been in hours and hours," i protested. "brother, you may think so, but it don't make it so. i'm just tellin' you you ain't ben in an hour. i heard 'm lacin' you." the thing was incredible. already, in less than an hour, i had died a thousand deaths. and yet this neighbour, balanced and equable, calm-voiced and almost beneficent despite the harshness of his first remarks, had been in the jacket fifty hours! "how much longer are they going to keep you in?" i asked. "the lord only knows. captain jamie is real peeved with me, an' he won't let me out until i'm about croakin'. now, brother, i'm going to give you the tip. the only way is shut your face an' forget it. yellin' an' hollerin' don't win you no money in this joint. an' the way to forget is to forget. just get to rememberin' every girl you ever knew. that'll cat up hours for you. mebbe you'll feel yourself gettin' woozy. well, get woozy. you can't beat that for killin' time. an' when the girls won't hold you, get to thinkin' of the fellows you got it in for, an' what you'd do to 'em if you got a chance, an' what you're goin' to do to 'em when you get that same chance." that man was philadelphia red. because of prior conviction he was serving fifty years for highway robbery committed on the streets of alameda. he had already served a dozen of his years at the time he talked to me in the jacket, and that was seven years ago. he was one of the forty lifers who were double-crossed by cecil winwood. for that offence philadelphia red lost his credits. he is middle-aged now, and he is still in san quentin. if he survives he will be an old man when they let him out. i lived through my twenty-four hours, and i have never been the same man since. oh, i don't mean physically, although next morning, when they unlaced me, i was semi-paralyzed and in such a state of collapse that the guards had to kick me in the ribs to make me crawl to my feet. but i was a changed man mentally, morally. the brute physical torture of it was humiliation and affront to my spirit and to my sense of justice. such discipline does not sweeten a man. i emerged from that first jacketing filled with a bitterness and a passionate hatred that has only increased through the years. my god--when i think of the things men have done to me! twenty-four hours in the jacket! little i thought that morning when they kicked me to my feet that the time would come when twenty-four hours in the jacket meant nothing; when a hundred hours in the jacket found me smiling when they released me; when two hundred and forty hours in the jacket found the same smile on my lips. yes, two hundred and forty hours. dear cotton-woolly citizen, do you know what that means? it means ten days and ten nights in the jacket. of course, such things are not done anywhere in the christian world nineteen hundred years after christ. i don't ask you to believe me. i don't believe it myself. i merely know that it was done to me in san quentin, and that i lived to laugh at them and to compel them to get rid of me by swinging me off because i bloodied a guard's nose. i write these lines to-day in the year of our lord , and to-day, in the year of our lord , men are lying in the jacket in the dungeons of san quentin. i shall never forget, as long as further living and further lives be vouchsafed me, my parting from philadelphia red that morning. he had then been seventy-four hours in the jacket. "well, brother, you're still alive an' kickin'," he called to me, as i was totteringly dragged from my cell into the corridor of dungeons. "shut up, you, red," the sergeant snarled at him. "forget it," was the retort. "i'll get you yet, red," the sergeant threatened. "think so?" philadelphia red queried sweetly, ere his tones turned to savageness. "why, you old stiff, you couldn't get nothin'. you couldn't get a free lunch, much less the job you've got now, if it wasn't for your brother's pull. an' i guess we all ain't mistaken on the stink of the place where your brother's pull comes from." it was admirable--the spirit of man rising above its extremity, fearless of the hurt any brute of the system could inflict. "well, so long, brother," philadelphia red next called to me. "so long. be good, an' love the warden. an' if you see 'em, just tell 'em that you saw me but that you didn't see me saw." the sergeant was red with rage, and, by the receipt of various kicks and blows, i paid for red's pleasantry. chapter viii in solitary, in cell one, warden atherton and captain jamie proceeded to put me to the inquisition. as warden atherton said to me: "standing, you're going to come across with that dynamite, or i'll kill you in the jacket. harder cases than you have come across before i got done with them. you've got your choice--dynamite or curtains." "then i guess it is curtains," i answered, "because i don't know of any dynamite." this irritated the warden to immediate action. "lie down," he commanded. i obeyed, for i had learned the folly of fighting three or four strong men. they laced me tightly, and gave me a hundred hours. once each twenty-four hours i was permitted a drink of water. i had no desire for food, nor was food offered me. toward the end of the hundred hours jackson, the prison doctor, examined my physical condition several times. but i had grown too used to the jacket during my incorrigible days to let a single jacketing injure me. naturally, it weakened me, took the life out of me; but i had learned muscular tricks for stealing a little space while they were lacing me. at the end of the first hundred hours' bout i was worn and tired, but that was all. another bout of this duration they gave me, after a day and a night to recuperate. and then they gave one hundred and fifty hours. much of this time i was physically numb and mentally delirious. also, by an effort of will, i managed to sleep away long hours. next, warden atherton tried a variation. i was given irregular intervals of jacket and recuperation. i never knew when i was to go into the jacket. thus i would have ten hours' recuperation, and do twenty in the jacket; or i would receive only four hours' rest. at the most unexpected hours of the night my door would clang open and the changing guards would lace me. sometimes rhythms were instituted. thus, for three days and nights i alternated eight hours in the jacket and eight hours out. and then, just as i was growing accustomed to this rhythm, it was suddenly altered and i was given two days and nights straight. and ever the eternal question was propounded to me: where was the dynamite? sometimes warden atherton was furious with me. on occasion, when i had endured an extra severe jacketing, he almost pleaded with me to confess. once he even promised me three months in the hospital of absolute rest and good food, and then the trusty job in the library. dr. jackson, a weak stick of a creature with a smattering of medicine, grew sceptical. he insisted that jacketing, no matter how prolonged, could never kill me; and his insistence was a challenge to the warden to continue the attempt. "these lean college guys 'd fool the devil," he grumbled. "they're tougher 'n raw-hide. just the same we'll wear him down. standing, you hear me. what you've got ain't a caution to what you're going to get. you might as well come across now and save trouble. i'm a man of my word. you've heard me say dynamite or curtains. well, that stands. take your choice." "surely you don't think i'm holding out because i enjoy it?" i managed to gasp, for at the moment pie-face jones was forcing his foot into my back in order to cinch me tighter, while i was trying with my muscle to steal slack. "there is nothing to confess. why, i'd cut off my right hand right now to be able to lead you to any dynamite." "oh, i've seen your educated kind before," he sneered. "you get wheels in your head, some of you, that make you stick to any old idea. you get baulky, like horses. tighter, jones; that ain't half a cinch. standing, if you don't come across it's curtains. i stick by that." one compensation i learned. as one grows weaker one is less susceptible to suffering. there is less hurt because there is less to hurt. and the man already well weakened grows weaker more slowly. it is of common knowledge that unusually strong men suffer more severely from ordinary sicknesses than do women or invalids. as the reserves of strength are consumed there is less strength to lose. after all superfluous flesh is gone what is left is stringy and resistant. in fact, that was what i became--a sort of string-like organism that persisted in living. morrell and oppenheimer were sorry for me, and rapped me sympathy and advice. oppenheimer told me he had gone through it, and worse, and still lived. "don't let them beat you out," he spelled with his knuckles. "don't let them kill you, for that would suit them. and don't squeal on the plant." "but there isn't any plant," i rapped back with the edge of the sole of my shoe against the grating--i was in the jacket at the time and so could talk only with my feet. "i don't know anything about the damned dynamite." "that's right," oppenheimer praised. "he's the stuff, ain't he, ed?" which goes to show what chance i had of convincing warden atherton of my ignorance of the dynamite. his very persistence in the quest convinced a man like jake oppenheimer, who could only admire me for the fortitude with which i kept a close mouth. during this first period of the jacket-inquisition i managed to sleep a great deal. my dreams were remarkable. of course they were vivid and real, as most dreams are. what made them remarkable was their coherence and continuity. often i addressed bodies of scientists on abstruse subjects, reading aloud to them carefully prepared papers on my own researches or on my own deductions from the researches and experiments of others. when i awakened my voice would seem still ringing in my ears, while my eyes still could see typed on the white paper whole sentences and paragraphs that i could read again and marvel at ere the vision faded. in passing, i call attention to the fact that at the time i noted that the process of reasoning employed in these dream speeches was invariably deductive. then there was a great farming section, extending north and south for hundreds of miles in some part of the temperate regions, with a climate and flora and fauna largely resembling those of california. not once, nor twice, but thousands of different times i journeyed through this dream-region. the point i desire to call attention to was that it was always the same region. no essential feature of it ever differed in the different dreams. thus it was always an eight-hour drive behind mountain horses from the alfalfa meadows (where i kept many jersey cows) to the straggly village beside the big dry creek, where i caught the little narrow-gauge train. every land-mark in that eight-hour drive in the mountain buckboard, every tree, every mountain, every ford and bridge, every ridge and eroded hillside was ever the same. in this coherent, rational farm-region of my strait-jacket dreams the minor details, according to season and to the labour of men, did change. thus on the upland pastures behind my alfalfa meadows i developed a new farm with the aid of angora goats. here i marked the changes with every dream-visit, and the changes were in accordance with the time that elapsed between visits. oh, those brush-covered slopes! how i can see them now just as when the goats were first introduced. and how i remembered the consequent changes--the paths beginning to form as the goats literally ate their way through the dense thickets; the disappearance of the younger, smaller bushes that were not too tall for total browsing; the vistas that formed in all directions through the older, taller bushes, as the goats browsed as high as they could stand and reach on their hind legs; the driftage of the pasture grasses that followed in the wake of the clearing by the goats. yes, the continuity of such dreaming was its charm. came the day when the men with axes chopped down all the taller brush so as to give the goats access to the leaves and buds and bark. came the day, in winter weather, when the dry denuded skeletons of all these bushes were gathered into heaps and burned. came the day when i moved my goats on to other brush-impregnable hillsides, with following in their wake my cattle, pasturing knee-deep in the succulent grasses that grew where before had been only brush. and came the day when i moved my cattle on, and my plough-men went back and forth across the slopes' contour--ploughing the rich sod under to rot to live and crawling humous in which to bed my seeds of crops to be. yes, and in my dreams, often, i got off the little narrow-gauge train where the straggly village stood beside the big dry creek, and got into the buckboard behind my mountain horses, and drove hour by hour past all the old familiar landmarks of my alfalfa meadows, and on to my upland pastures where my rotated crops of corn and barley and clover were ripe for harvesting and where i watched my men engaged in the harvest, while beyond, ever climbing, my goats browsed the higher slopes of brush into cleared, tilled fields. but these were dreams, frank dreams, fancied adventures of my deductive subconscious mind. quite unlike them, as you shall see, were my other adventures when i passed through the gates of the living death and relived the reality of the other lives that had been mine in other days. in the long hours of waking in the jacket i found that i dwelt a great deal on cecil winwood, the poet-forger who had wantonly put all this torment on me, and who was even then at liberty out in the free world again. no; i did not hate him. the word is too weak. there is no word in the language strong enough to describe my feelings. i can say only that i knew the gnawing of a desire for vengeance on him that was a pain in itself and that exceeded all the bounds of language. i shall not tell you of the hours i devoted to plans of torture on him, nor of the diabolical means and devices of torture that i invented for him. just one example. i was enamoured of the ancient trick whereby an iron basin, containing a rat, is fastened to a man's body. the only way out for the rat is through the man himself. as i say, i was enamoured of this until i realized that such a death was too quick, whereupon i dwelt long and favourably on the moorish trick of--but no, i promised to relate no further of this matter. let it suffice that many of my pain-maddening waking hours were devoted to dreams of vengeance on cecil winwood. chapter ix one thing of great value i learned in the long, pain-weary hours of waking--namely, the mastery of the body by the mind. i learned to suffer passively, as, undoubtedly, all men have learned who have passed through the post-graduate courses of strait-jacketing. oh, it is no easy trick to keep the brain in such serene repose that it is quite oblivious to the throbbing, exquisite complaint of some tortured nerve. and it was this very mastery of the flesh by the spirit which i so acquired that enabled me easily to practise the secret ed morrell told to me. "think it is curtains?" ed morrell rapped to me one night. i had just been released from one hundred hours, and i was weaker than i had ever been before. so weak was i that though my whole body was one mass of bruise and misery, nevertheless i scarcely was aware that i had a body. "it looks like curtains," i rapped back. "they will get me if they keep it up much longer." "don't let them," he advised. "there is a way. i learned it myself, down in the dungeons, when massie and i got ours good and plenty. i pulled through. but massie croaked. if i hadn't learned the trick, i'd have croaked along with him. you've got to be pretty weak first, before you try it. if you try it when you are strong, you make a failure of it, and then that queers you for ever after. i made the mistake of telling jake the trick when he was strong. of course, he could not pull it off, and in the times since when he did need it, it was too late, for his first failure had queered it. he won't even believe it now. he thinks i am kidding him. ain't that right, jake?" and from cell thirteen jake rapped back, "don't swallow it, darrell. it's a sure fairy story." "go on and tell me," i rapped to morrell. "that is why i waited for you to get real weak," he continued. "now you need it, and i am going to tell you. it's up to you. if you have got the will you can do it. i've done it three times, and i know." "well, what is it?" i rapped eagerly. "the trick is to die in the jacket, to will yourself to die. i know you don't get me yet, but wait. you know how you get numb in the jacket--how your arm or your leg goes to sleep. now you can't help that, but you can take it for the idea and improve on it. don't wait for your legs or anything to go to sleep. you lie on your back as comfortable as you can get, and you begin to use your will. "and this is the idea you must think to yourself, and that you must believe all the time you're thinking it. if you don't believe, then there's nothing to it. the thing you must think and believe is that your body is one thing and your spirit is another thing. you are you, and your body is something else that don't amount to shucks. your body don't count. you're the boss. you don't need any body. and thinking and believing all this you proceed to prove it by using your will. you make your body die. "you begin with the toes, one at a time. you make your toes die. you will them to die. and if you've got the belief and the will your toes will die. that is the big job--to start the dying. once you've got the first toe dead, the rest is easy, for you don't have to do any more believing. you know. then you put all your will into making the rest of the body die. i tell you, darrell, i know. i've done it three times. "once you get the dying started, it goes right along. and the funny thing is that you are all there all the time. because your toes are dead don't make you in the least bit dead. by-and-by your legs are dead to the knees, and then to the thighs, and you are just the same as you always were. it is your body that is dropping out of the game a chunk at a time. and you are just you, the same you were before you began." "and then what happens?" i queried. "well, when your body is all dead, and you are all there yet, you just skin out and leave your body. and when you leave your body you leave the cell. stone walls and iron doors are to hold bodies in. they can't hold the spirit in. you see, you have proved it. you are spirit outside of your body. you can look at your body from outside of it. i tell you i know because i have done it three times--looked at my body lying there with me outside of it." "ha! ha! ha!" jake oppenheimer rapped his laughter thirteen cells away. "you see, that's jake's trouble," morrell went on. "he can't believe. that one time he tried it he was too strong and failed. and now he thinks i am kidding." "when you die you are dead, and dead men stay dead," oppenheimer retorted. "i tell you i've been dead three times," morrell argued. "and lived to tell us about it," oppenheimer jeered. "but don't forget one thing, darrell," morrell rapped to me. "the thing is ticklish. you have a feeling all the time that you are taking liberties. i can't explain it, but i always had a feeling if i was away when they came and let my body out of the jacket that i couldn't get back into my body again. i mean that my body would be dead for keeps. and i didn't want it to be dead. i didn't want to give captain jamie and the rest that satisfaction. but i tell you, darrell, if you can turn the trick you can laugh at the warden. once you make your body die that way it don't matter whether they keep you in the jacket a month on end. you don't suffer none, and your body don't suffer. you know there are cases of people who have slept a whole year at a time. that's the way it will be with your body. it just stays there in the jacket, not hurting or anything, just waiting for you to come back. "you try it. i am giving you the straight steer." "and if he don't come back?" oppenheimer, asked. "then the laugh will be on him, i guess, jake," morrell answered. "unless, maybe, it will be on us for sticking round this old dump when we could get away that easy." and here the conversation ended, for pie-face jones, waking crustily from stolen slumber, threatened morrell and oppenheimer with a report next morning that would mean the jacket for them. me he did not threaten, for he knew i was doomed for the jacket anyway. i lay long there in the silence, forgetting the misery of my body while i considered this proposition morrell had advanced. already, as i have explained, by mechanical self-hypnosis i had sought to penetrate back through time to my previous selves. that i had partly succeeded i knew; but all that i had experienced was a fluttering of apparitions that merged erratically and were without continuity. but morrell's method was so patently the reverse of my method of self- hypnosis that i was fascinated. by my method, my consciousness went first of all. by his method, consciousness persisted last of all, and, when the body was quite gone, passed into stages so sublimated that it left the body, left the prison of san quentin, and journeyed afar, and was still consciousness. it was worth a trial, anyway, i concluded. and, despite the sceptical attitude of the scientist that was mine, i believed. i had no doubt i could do what morrell said he had done three times. perhaps this faith that so easily possessed me was due to my extreme debility. perhaps i was not strong enough to be sceptical. this was the hypothesis already suggested by morrell. it was a conclusion of pure empiricism, and i, too, as you shall see, demonstrated it empirically. chapter x and above all things, next morning warden atherton came into my cell on murder intent. with him were captain jamie, doctor jackson, pie-face jones, and al hutchins. al hutchins was serving a forty-years' sentence, and was in hopes of being pardoned out. for four years he had been head trusty of san quentin. that this was a position of great power you will realize when i tell you that the graft alone of the head trusty was estimated at three thousand dollars a year. wherefore al hutchins, in possession of ten or twelve thousand dollars and of the promise of a pardon, could be depended upon to do the warden's bidding blind. i have just said that warden atherton came into my cell intent on murder. his face showed it. his actions proved it. "examine him," he ordered doctor jackson. that wretched apology of a creature stripped from me my dirt-encrusted shirt that i had worn since my entrance to solitary, and exposed my poor wasted body, the skin ridged like brown parchment over the ribs and sore- infested from the many bouts with the jacket. the examination was shamelessly perfunctory. "will he stand it?" the warden demanded. "yes," doctor jackson answered. "how's the heart?" "splendid." "you think he'll stand ten days of it, doc.?" "sure." "i don't believe it," the warden announced savagely. "but we'll try it just the same.--lie down, standing." i obeyed, stretching myself face-downward on the flat-spread jacket. the warden seemed to debate with himself for a moment. "roll over," he commanded. i made several efforts, but was too weak to succeed, and could only sprawl and squirm in my helplessness. "putting it on," was jackson's comment. "well, he won't have to put it on when i'm done with him," said the warden. "lend him a hand. i can't waste any more time on him." so they rolled me over on my back, where i stared up into warden atherton's face. "standing," he said slowly, "i've given you all the rope i am going to. i am sick and tired of your stubbornness. my patience is exhausted. doctor jackson says you are in condition to stand ten days in the jacket. you can figure your chances. but i am going to give you your last chance now. come across with the dynamite. the moment it is in my hands i'll take you out of here. you can bathe and shave and get clean clothes. i'll let you loaf for six months on hospital grub, and then i'll put you trusty in the library. you can't ask me to be fairer with you than that. besides, you're not squealing on anybody. you are the only person in san quentin who knows where the dynamite is. you won't hurt anybody's feelings by giving in, and you'll be all to the good from the moment you do give in. and if you don't--" he paused and shrugged his shoulders significantly. "well, if you don't, you start in the ten days right now." the prospect was terrifying. so weak was i that i was as certain as the warden was that it meant death in the jacket. and then i remembered morrell's trick. now, if ever, was the need of it; and now, if ever, was the time to practise the faith of it. i smiled up in the face of warden atherton. and i put faith in that smile, and faith in the proposition i made to him. "warden," i said, "do you see the way i am smiling? well, if, at the end of the ten days, when you unlace me, i smile up at you in the same way, will you give a sack of bull durham and a package of brown papers to morrell and oppenheimer?" "ain't they the crazy ginks, these college guys," captain jamie snorted. warden atherton was a choleric man, and he took my request for insulting braggadocio. "just for that you get an extra cinching," he informed me. "i made you a sporting proposition, warden," i said quietly. "you can cinch me as tight as you please, but if i smile ten days from now will you give the bull durham to morrell and oppenheimer?" "you are mighty sure of yourself," he retorted. "that's why i made the proposition," i replied. "getting religion, eh?" he sneered. "no," was my answer. "it merely happens that i possess more life than you can ever reach the end of. make it a hundred days if you want, and i'll smile at you when it's over." "i guess ten days will more than do you, standing." "that's your opinion," i said. "have you got faith in it? if you have you won't even lose the price of the two five-cents sacks of tobacco. anyway, what have you got to be afraid of?" "for two cents i'd kick the face off of you right now," he snarled. "don't let me stop you." i was impudently suave. "kick as hard as you please, and i'll still have enough face left with which to smile. in the meantime, while you are hesitating, suppose you accept my original proposition." a man must be terribly weak and profoundly desperate to be able, under such circumstances, to beard the warden in solitary. or he may be both, and, in addition, he may have faith. i know now that i had the faith and so acted on it. i believed what morrell had told me. i believed in the lordship of the mind over the body. i believed that not even a hundred days in the jacket could kill me. captain jamie must have sensed this faith that informed me, for he said: "i remember a swede that went crazy twenty years ago. that was before your time, warden. he'd killed a man in a quarrel over twenty-five cents and got life for it. he was a cook. he got religion. he said that a golden chariot was coming to take him to heaven, and he sat down on top the red-hot range and sang hymns and hosannahs while he cooked. they dragged him off, but he croaked two days afterward in hospital. he was cooked to the bone. and to the end he swore he'd never felt the heat. couldn't get a squeal out of him." "we'll make standing squeal," said the warden. "since you are so sure of it, why don't you accept my proposition?" i challenged. the warden was so angry that it would have been ludicrous to me had i not been in so desperate plight. his face was convulsed. he clenched his hands, and, for a moment, it seemed that he was about to fall upon me and give me a beating. then, with an effort, he controlled himself. "all right, standing," he snarled. "i'll go you. but you bet your sweet life you'll have to go some to smile ten days from now. roll him over, boys, and cinch him till you hear his ribs crack. hutchins, show him you know how to do it." and they rolled me over and laced me as i had never been laced before. the head trusty certainly demonstrated his ability. i tried to steal what little space i could. little it was, for i had long since shed my flesh, while my muscles were attenuated to mere strings. i had neither the strength nor bulk to steal more than a little, and the little i stole i swear i managed by sheer expansion at the joints of the bones of my frame. and of this little i was robbed by hutchins, who, in the old days before he was made head trusty, had learned all the tricks of the jacket from the inside of the jacket. you see, hutchins was a cur at heart, or a creature who had once been a man, but who had been broken on the wheel. he possessed ten or twelve thousand dollars, and his freedom was in sight if he obeyed orders. later, i learned that there was a girl who had remained true to him, and who was even then waiting for him. the woman factor explains many things of men. if ever a man deliberately committed murder, al hutchins did that morning in solitary at the warden's bidding. he robbed me of the little space i stole. and, having robbed me of that, my body was defenceless, and, with his foot in my back while he drew the lacing light, he constricted me as no man had ever before succeeded in doing. so severe was this constriction of my frail frame upon my vital organs that i felt, there and then, immediately, that death was upon me. and still the miracle of faith was mine. i did not believe that i was going to die. i knew--i say i _knew_--that i was not going to die. my head was swimming, and my heart was pounding from my toenails to the hair-roots in my scalp. "that's pretty tight," captain jamie urged reluctantly. "the hell it is," said doctor jackson. "i tell you nothing can hurt him. he's a wooz. he ought to have been dead long ago." warden atherton, after a hard struggle, managed to insert his forefinger between the lacing and my back. he brought his foot to bear upon me, with the weight of his body added to his foot, and pulled, but failed to get any fraction of an inch of slack. "i take my hat off to you, hutchins," he said. "you know your job. now roll him over and let's look at him." they rolled me over on my back. i stared up at them with bulging eyes. this i know: had they laced me in such fashion the first time i went into the jacket, i would surely have died in the first ten minutes. but i was well trained. i had behind me the thousands of hours in the jacket, and, plus that, i had faith in what morrell had told me. "now, laugh, damn you, laugh," said the warden to me. "start that smile you've been bragging about." so, while my lungs panted for a little air, while my heart threatened to burst, while my mind reeled, nevertheless i was able to smile up into the warden's face. chapter xi the door clanged, shutting out all but a little light, and i was left alone on my back. by the tricks i had long since learned in the jacket, i managed to writhe myself across the floor an inch at a time until the edge of the sole of my right shoe touched the door. there was an immense cheer in this. i was not utterly alone. if the need arose, i could at least rap knuckle talk to morrell. but warden atherton must have left strict injunctions on the guards, for, though i managed to call morrell and tell him i intended trying the experiment, he was prevented by the guards from replying. me they could only curse, for, in so far as i was in the jacket for a ten days' bout, i was beyond all threat of punishment. i remember remarking at the time my serenity of mind. the customary pain of the jacket was in my body, but my mind was so passive that i was no more aware of the pain than was i aware of the floor beneath me or the walls around me. never was a man in better mental and spiritual condition for such an experiment. of course, this was largely due to my extreme weakness. but there was more to it. i had long schooled myself to be oblivious to pain. i had neither doubts nor fears. all the content of my mind seemed to be an absolute faith in the over-lordship of the mind. this passivity was almost dream-like, and yet, in its way, it was positive almost to a pitch of exaltation. i began my concentration of will. even then my body was numbing and prickling through the loss of circulation. i directed my will to the little toe of my right foot, and i willed that toe to cease to be alive in my consciousness. i willed that toe to die--to die so far as i, its lord, and a different thing entirely from it, was concerned. there was the hard struggle. morrell had warned me that it would be so. but there was no flicker of doubt to disturb my faith. i knew that that toe would die, and i knew when it was dead. joint by joint it had died under the compulsion of my will. the rest was easy, but slow, i will admit. joint by joint, toe by toe, all the toes of both my feet ceased to be. and joint by joint, the process went on. came the time when my flesh below the ankles had ceased. came the time when all below my knees had ceased. such was the pitch of my perfect exaltation, that i knew not the slightest prod of rejoicing at my success. i knew nothing save that i was making my body die. all that was i was devoted to that sole task. i performed the work as thoroughly as any mason laying bricks, and i regarded the work as just about as commonplace as would a brick-mason regard his work. at the end of an hour my body was dead to the hips, and from the hips up, joint by joint, i continued to will the ascending death. it was when i reached the level of my heart that the first blurring and dizzying of my consciousness' occurred. for fear that i should lose consciousness, i willed to hold the death i had gained, and shifted my concentration to my fingers. my brain cleared again, and the death of my arms to the shoulders was most rapidly accomplished. at this stage my body was all dead, so far as i was concerned, save my head and a little patch of my chest. no longer did the pound and smash of my compressed heart echo in my brain. my heart was beating steadily but feebly. the joy of it, had i dared joy at such a moment, would have been the cessation of sensations. at this point my experience differs from morrell's. still willing automatically, i began to grow dreamy, as one does in that borderland between sleeping and waking. also, it seemed as if a prodigious enlargement of my brain was taking place within the skull itself that did not enlarge. there were occasional glintings and flashings of light as if even i, the overlord, had ceased for a moment and the next moment was again myself, still the tenant of the fleshly tenement that i was making to die. most perplexing was the seeming enlargement of brain. without having passed through the wall of skull, nevertheless it seemed to me that the periphery of my brain was already outside my skull and still expanding. along with this was one of the most remarkable sensations or experiences that i have ever encountered. time and space, in so far as they were the stuff of my consciousness, underwent an enormous extension. thus, without opening my eyes to verify, i knew that the walls of my narrow cell had receded until it was like a vast audience-chamber. and while i contemplated the matter, i knew that they continued to recede. the whim struck me for a moment that if a similar expansion were taking place with the whole prison, then the outer walls of san quentin must be far out in the pacific ocean on one side and on the other side must be encroaching on the nevada desert. a companion whim was that since matter could permeate matter, then the walls of my cell might well permeate the prison walls, pass through the prison walls, and thus put my cell outside the prison and put me at liberty. of course, this was pure fantastic whim, and i knew it at the time for what it was. the extension of time was equally remarkable. only at long intervals did my heart beat. again a whim came to me, and i counted the seconds, slow and sure, between my heart-beats. at first, as i clearly noted, over a hundred seconds intervened between beats. but as i continued to count the intervals extended so that i was made weary of counting. and while this illusion of the extension of time and space persisted and grew, i found myself dreamily considering a new and profound problem. morrell had told me that he had won freedom from his body by killing his body--or by eliminating his body from his consciousness, which, of course, was in effect the same thing. now, my body was so near to being entirely dead that i knew in all absoluteness that by a quick concentration of will on the yet-alive patch of my torso it, too, would cease to be. but--and here was the problem, and morrell had not warned me: should i also will my head to be dead? if i did so, no matter what befell the spirit of darrell standing, would not the body of darrell standing be for ever dead? i chanced the chest and the slow-beating heart. the quick compulsion of my will was rewarded. i no longer had chest nor heart. i was only a mind, a soul, a consciousness--call it what you will--incorporate in a nebulous brain that, while it still centred inside my skull, was expanded, and was continuing to expand, beyond my skull. and then, with flashings of light, i was off and away. at a bound i had vaulted prison roof and california sky, and was among the stars. i say "stars" advisedly. i walked among the stars. i was a child. i was clad in frail, fleece-like, delicate-coloured robes that shimmered in the cool starlight. these robes, of course, were based upon my boyhood observance of circus actors and my boyhood conception of the garb of young angels. nevertheless, thus clad, i trod interstellar space, exalted by the knowledge that i was bound on vast adventure, where, at the end, i would find all the cosmic formulae and have made clear to me the ultimate secret of the universe. in my hand i carried a long glass wand. it was borne in upon me that with the tip of this wand i must touch each star in passing. and i knew, in all absoluteness, that did i but miss one star i should be precipitated into some unplummeted abyss of unthinkable and eternal punishment and guilt. long i pursued my starry quest. when i say "long," you must bear in mind the enormous extension of time that had occurred in my brain. for centuries i trod space, with the tip of my wand and with unerring eye and hand tapping each star i passed. ever the way grew brighter. ever the ineffable goal of infinite wisdom grew nearer. and yet i made no mistake. this was no other self of mine. this was no experience that had once been mine. i was aware all the time that it was i, darrell standing, who walked among the stars and tapped them with a wand of glass. in short, i knew that here was nothing real, nothing that had ever been nor could ever be. i knew that it was nothing else than a ridiculous orgy of the imagination, such as men enjoy in drug dreams, in delirium, or in mere ordinary slumber. and then, as all went merry and well with me on my celestial quest, the tip of my wand missed a star, and on the instant i knew i had been guilty of a great crime. and on the instant a knock, vast and compulsive, inexorable and mandatory as the stamp of the iron hoof of doom, smote me and reverberated across the universe. the whole sidereal system coruscated, reeled and fell in flame. i was torn by an exquisite and disruptive agony. and on the instant i was darrell standing, the life-convict, lying in his strait-jacket in solitary. and i knew the immediate cause of that summons. it was a rap of the knuckle by ed morrell, in cell five, beginning the spelling of some message. and now, to give some comprehension of the extension of time and space that i was experiencing. many days afterwards i asked morrell what he had tried to convey to me. it was a simple message, namely: "standing, are you there?" he had tapped it rapidly, while the guard was at the far end of the corridor into which the solitary cells opened. as i say, he had tapped the message very rapidly. and now behold! between the first tap and the second i was off and away among the stars, clad in fleecy garments, touching each star as i passed in my pursuit of the formulae that would explain the last mystery of life. and, as before, i pursued the quest for centuries. then came the summons, the stamp of the hoof of doom, the exquisite disruptive agony, and again i was back in my cell in san quentin. it was the second tap of ed morrell's knuckle. the interval between it and the first tap could have been no more than a fifth of a second. and yet, so unthinkably enormous was the extension of time to me, that in the course of that fifth of a second i had been away star-roving for long ages. now i know, my reader, that the foregoing seems all a farrago. i agree with you. it is farrago. it was experience, however. it was just as real to me as is the snake beheld by a man in delirium tremens. possibly, by the most liberal estimate, it may have taken ed morrell two minutes to tap his question. yet, to me, aeons elapsed between the first tap of his knuckle and the last. no longer could i tread my starry path with that ineffable pristine joy, for my way was beset with dread of the inevitable summons that would rip and tear me as it jerked me back to my strait-jacket hell. thus my aeons of star-wandering were aeons of dread. and all the time i knew it was ed morrell's knuckle that thus cruelly held me earth-bound. i tried to speak to him, to ask him to cease. but so thoroughly had i eliminated my body from my consciousness that i was unable to resurrect it. my body lay dead in the jacket, though i still inhabited the skull. in vain i strove to will my foot to tap my message to morrell. i reasoned i had a foot. and yet, so thoroughly had i carried out the experiment, i had no foot. next--and i know now that it was because morrell had spelled his message quite out--i pursued my way among the stars and was not called back. after that, and in the course of it, i was aware, drowsily, that i was falling asleep, and that it was delicious sleep. from time to time, drowsily, i stirred--please, my reader, don't miss that verb--i stirred. i moved my legs, my arms. i was aware of clean, soft bed linen against my skin. i was aware of bodily well-being. oh, it was delicious! as thirsting men on the desert dream of splashing fountains and flowing wells, so dreamed i of easement from the constriction of the jacket, of cleanliness in the place of filth, of smooth velvety skin of health in place of my poor parchment-crinkled hide. but i dreamed with a difference, as you shall see. i awoke. oh, broad and wide awake i was, although i did not open my eyes. and please know that in all that follows i knew no surprise whatever. everything was the natural and the expected. i was i, be sure of that. _but i was not darrell standing_. darrell standing had no more to do with the being i was than did darrell standing's parchment-crinkled skin have aught to do with the cool, soft skin that was mine. nor was i aware of any darrell standing--as i could not well be, considering that darrell standing was as yet unborn and would not be born for centuries. but you shall see. i lay with closed eyes, lazily listening. from without came the clacking of many hoofs moving orderly on stone flags. from the accompanying jingle of metal bits of man-harness and steed-harness i knew some cavalcade was passing by on the street beneath my windows. also, i wondered idly who it was. from somewhere--and i knew where, for i knew it was from the inn yard--came the ring and stamp of hoofs and an impatient neigh that i recognized as belonging to my waiting horse. came steps and movements--steps openly advertised as suppressed with the intent of silence and that yet were deliberately noisy with the secret intent of rousing me if i still slept. i smiled inwardly at the rascal's trick. "pons," i ordered, without opening my eyes, "water, cold water, quick, a deluge. i drank over long last night, and now my gullet scorches." "and slept over long to-day," he scolded, as he passed me the water, ready in his hand. i sat up, opened my eyes, and carried the tankard to my lips with both my hands. and as i drank i looked at pons. now note two things. i spoke in french; i was not conscious that i spoke in french. not until afterward, back in solitary, when i remembered what i am narrating, did i know that i had spoken in french--ay, and spoken well. as for me, darrell standing, at present writing these lines in murderers' row of folsom prison, why, i know only high school french sufficient to enable me to read the language. as for my speaking it--impossible. i can scarcely intelligibly pronounce my way through a menu. but to return. pons was a little withered old man. he was born in our house--i know, for it chanced that mention was made of it this very day i am describing. pons was all of sixty years. he was mostly toothless, and, despite a pronounced limp that compelled him to go slippity-hop, he was very alert and spry in all his movements. also, he was impudently familiar. this was because he had been in my house sixty years. he had been my father's servant before i could toddle, and after my father's death (pons and i talked of it this day) he became my servant. the limp he had acquired on a stricken field in italy, when the horsemen charged across. he had just dragged my father clear of the hoofs when he was lanced through the thigh, overthrown, and trampled. my father, conscious but helpless from his own wounds, witnessed it all. and so, as i say, pons had earned such a right to impudent familiarity that at least there was no gainsaying him by my father's son. pons shook his head as i drained the huge draught. "did you hear it boil?" i laughed, as i handed back the empty tankard. "like your father," he said hopelessly. "but your father lived to learn better, which i doubt you will do." "he got a stomach affliction," i devilled, "so that one mouthful of spirits turned it outside in. it were wisdom not to drink when one's tank will not hold the drink." while we talked pons was gathering to my bedside my clothes for the day. "drink on, my master," he answered. "it won't hurt you. you'll die with a sound stomach." "you mean mine is an iron-lined stomach?" i wilfully misunderstood him. "i mean--" he began with a quick peevishness, then broke off as he realized my teasing and with a pout of his withered lips draped my new sable cloak upon a chair-back. "eight hundred ducats," he sneered. "a thousand goats and a hundred fat oxen in a coat to keep you warm. a score of farms on my gentleman's fine back." "and in that a hundred fine farms, with a castle or two thrown in, to say nothing, perhaps, of a palace," i said, reaching out my hand and touching the rapier which he was just in the act of depositing on the chair. "so your father won with his good right arm," pons retorted. "but what your father won he held." here pons paused to hold up to scorn my new scarlet satin doublet--a wondrous thing of which i had been extravagant. "sixty ducats for that," pons indicted. "your father'd have seen all the tailors and jews of christendom roasting in hell before he'd a-paid such a price." and while we dressed--that is, while pons helped me to dress--i continued to quip with him. "it is quite clear, pons, that you have not heard the news," i said slyly. whereat up pricked his ears like the old gossip he was. "late news?" he queried. "mayhap from the english court?" "nay," i shook my head. "but news perhaps to you, but old news for all of that. have you not heard? the philosophers of greece were whispering it nigh two thousand years ago. it is because of that news that i put twenty fat farms on my back, live at court, and am become a dandy. you see, pons, the world is a most evil place, life is most sad, all men die, and, being dead . . . well, are dead. wherefore, to escape the evil and the sadness, men in these days, like me, seek amazement, insensibility, and the madnesses of dalliance." "but the news, master? what did the philosophers whisper about so long ago?" "that god was dead, pons," i replied solemnly. "didn't you know that? god is dead, and i soon shall be, and i wear twenty fat farms on my back." "god lives," pons asserted fervently. "god lives, and his kingdom is at hand. i tell you, master, it is at hand. it may be no later than to- morrow that the earth shall pass away." "so said they in old rome, pons, when nero made torches of them to light his sports." pons regarded me pityingly. "too much learning is a sickness," he complained. "i was always opposed to it. but you must have your will and drag my old body about with you--a- studying astronomy and numbers in venice, poetry and all the italian _fol- de-rols_ in florence, and astrology in pisa, and god knows what in that madman country of germany. pish for the philosophers! i tell you, master, i, pons, your servant, a poor old man who knows not a letter from a pike-staff--i tell you god lives, and the time you shall appear before him is short." he paused with sudden recollection, and added: "he is here, the priest you spoke of." on the instant i remembered my engagement. "why did you not tell me before?" i demanded angrily. "what did it matter?" pons shrugged his shoulders. "has he not been waiting two hours as it is?" "why didn't you call me?" he regarded me with a thoughtful, censorious eye. "and you rolling to bed and shouting like chanticleer, 'sing cucu, sing cucu, cucu nu nu cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.'" he mocked me with the senseless refrain in an ear-jangling falsetto. without doubt i had bawled the nonsense out on my way to bed. "you have a good memory," i commented drily, as i essayed a moment to drape my shoulders with the new sable cloak ere i tossed it to pons to put aside. he shook his head sourly. "no need of memory when you roared it over and over for the thousandth time till half the inn was a-knock at the door to spit you for the sleep- killer you were. and when i had you decently in the bed, did you not call me to you and command, if the devil called, to tell him my lady slept? and did you not call me back again, and, with a grip on my arm that leaves it bruised and black this day, command me, as i loved life, fat meat, and the warm fire, to call you not of the morning save for one thing?" "which was?" i prompted, unable for the life of me to guess what i could have said. "which was the heart of one, a black buzzard, you said, by name martinelli--whoever he may be--for the heart of martinelli smoking on a gold platter. the platter must be gold, you said; and you said i must call you by singing, 'sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.' whereat you began to teach me how to sing, 'sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.'" and when pons had said the name, i knew it at once for the priest, martinelli, who had been knocking his heels two mortal hours in the room without. when martinelli was permitted to enter and as he saluted me by title and name, i knew at once my name and all of it. i was count guillaume de sainte-maure. (you see, only could i know then, and remember afterward, what was in my conscious mind.) the priest was italian, dark and small, lean as with fasting or with a wasting hunger not of this world, and his hands were as small and slender as a woman's. but his eyes! they were cunning and trustless, narrow- slitted and heavy-lidded, at one and the same time as sharp as a ferret's and as indolent as a basking lizard's. "there has been much delay, count de sainte-maure," he began promptly, when pons had left the room at a glance from me. "he whom i serve grows impatient." "change your tune, priest," i broke in angrily. "remember, you are not now in rome." "my august master--" he began. "rules augustly in rome, mayhap," i again interrupted. "this is france." martinelli shrugged his shoulders meekly and patiently, but his eyes, gleaming like a basilisk's, gave his shoulders the lie. "my august master has some concern with the doings of france," he said quietly. "the lady is not for you. my master has other plans. . ." he moistened his thin lips with his tongue. "other plans for the lady . . . and for you." of course, by the lady i knew he referred to the great duchess philippa, widow of geoffrey, last duke of aquitaine. but great duchess, widow, and all, philippa was a woman, and young, and gay, and beautiful, and, by my faith, fashioned for me. "what are his plans?" i demanded bluntly. "they are deep and wide, count sainte-maure--too deep and wide for me to presume to imagine, much less know or discuss with you or any man." "oh, i know big things are afoot and slimy worms squirming underground," i said. "they told me you were stubborn-necked, but i have obeyed commands." martinelli arose to leave, and i arose with him. "i said it was useless," he went on. "but the last chance to change your mind was accorded you. my august master deals more fairly than fair." "oh, well, i'll think the matter over," i said airily, as i bowed the priest to the door. he stopped abruptly at the threshold. "the time for thinking is past," he said. "it is decision i came for." "i will think the matter over," i repeated, then added, as afterthought: "if the lady's plans do not accord with mine, then mayhap the plans of your master may fruit as he desires. for remember, priest, he is no master of mine." "you do not know my master," he said solemnly. "nor do i wish to know him," i retorted. and i listened to the lithe, light step of the little intriguing priest go down the creaking stairs. did i go into the minutiae of detail of all that i saw this half a day and half a night that i was count guillaume de sainte-maure, not ten books the size of this i am writing could contain the totality of the matter. much i shall skip; in fact, i shall skip almost all; for never yet have i heard of a condemned man being reprieved in order that he might complete his memoirs--at least, not in california. when i rode out in paris that day it was the paris of centuries agone. the narrow streets were an unsanitary scandal of filth and slime. but i must skip. and skip i shall, all of the afternoon's events, all of the ride outside the walls, of the grand fete given by hugh de meung, of the feasting and the drinking in which i took little part. only of the end of the adventure will i write, which begins with where i stood jesting with philippa herself--ah, dear god, she was wondrous beautiful. a great lady--ay, but before that, and after that, and always, a woman. we laughed and jested lightly enough, as about us jostled the merry throng; but under our jesting was the deep earnestness of man and woman well advanced across the threshold of love and yet not too sure each of the other. i shall not describe her. she was small, exquisitely slender--but there, i am describing her. in brief, she was the one woman in the world for me, and little i recked the long arm of that gray old man in rome could reach out half across europe between my woman and me. and the italian, fortini, leaned to my shoulder and whispered: "one who desires to speak." "one who must wait my pleasure," i answered shortly. "i wait no man's pleasure," was his equally short reply. and, while my blood boiled, i remembered the priest, martinelli, and the gray old man at rome. the thing was clear. it was deliberate. it was the long arm. fortini smiled lazily at me while i thus paused for the moment to debate, but in his smile was the essence of all insolence. this, of all times, was the time i should have been cool. but the old red anger began to kindle in me. this was the work of the priest. this was the fortini, poverished of all save lineage, reckoned the best sword come up out of italy in half a score of years. to-night it was fortini. if he failed the gray old man's command to-morrow it would be another sword, the next day another. and, perchance still failing, then might i expect the common bravo's steel in my back or the common poisoner's philter in my wine, my meat, or bread. "i am busy," i said. "begone." "my business with you presses," was his reply. insensibly our voices had slightly risen, so that philippa heard. "begone, you italian hound," i said. "take your howling from my door. i shall attend to you presently." "the moon is up," he said. "the grass is dry and excellent. there is no dew. beyond the fish-pond, an arrow's flight to the left, is an open space, quiet and private." "presently you shall have your desire," i muttered impatiently. but still he persisted in waiting at my shoulder. "presently," i said. "presently i shall attend to you." then spoke philippa, in all the daring spirit and the iron of her. "satisfy the gentleman's desire, sainte-maure. attend to him now. and good fortune go with you." she paused to beckon to her her uncle, jean de joinville, who was passing--uncle on her mother's side, of the de joinvilles of anjou. "good fortune go with you," she repeated, and then leaned to me so that she could whisper: "and my heart goes with you, sainte-maure. do not be long. i shall await you in the big hall." i was in the seventh heaven. i trod on air. it was the first frank admittance of her love. and with such benediction i was made so strong that i knew i could kill a score of fortinis and snap my fingers at a score of gray old men in rome. jean de joinville bore philippa away in the press, and fortini and i settled our arrangements in a trice. we separated--he to find a friend or so, and i to find a friend or so, and all to meet at the appointed place beyond the fish-pond. first i found robert lanfranc, and, next, henry bohemond. but before i found them i encountered a windlestraw which showed which way blew the wind and gave promise of a very gale. i knew the windlestraw, guy de villehardouin, a raw young provincial, come up the first time to court, but a fiery little cockerel for all of that. he was red-haired. his blue eyes, small and pinched close to ether, were likewise red, at least in the whites of them; and his skin, of the sort that goes with such types, was red and freckled. he had quite a parboiled appearance. as i passed him by a sudden movement he jostled me. oh, of course, the thing was deliberate. and he flamed at me while his hand dropped to his rapier. "faith," thought i, "the gray old man has many and strange tools," while to the cockerel i bowed and murmured, "your pardon for my clumsiness. the fault was mine. your pardon, villehardouin." but he was not to be appeased thus easily. and while he fumed and strutted i glimpsed robert lanfranc, beckoned him to us, and explained the happening. "sainte-maure has accorded you satisfaction," was his judgment. "he has prayed your pardon." "in truth, yes," i interrupted in my suavest tones. "and i pray your pardon again, villehardouin, for my very great clumsiness. i pray your pardon a thousand times. the fault was mine, though unintentioned. in my haste to an engagement i was clumsy, most woful clumsy, but without intention." what could the dolt do but grudgingly accept the amends i so freely proffered him? yet i knew, as lanfranc and i hastened on, that ere many days, or hours, the flame-headed youth would see to it that we measured steel together on the grass. i explained no more to lanfranc than my need of him, and he was little interested to pry deeper into the matter. he was himself a lively youngster of no more than twenty, but he had been trained to arms, had fought in spain, and had an honourable record on the grass. merely his black eyes flashed when he learned what was toward, and such was his eagerness that it was he who gathered henry bohemond in to our number. when the three of us arrived in the open space beyond the fish-pond fortini and two friends were already waiting us. one was felix pasquini, nephew to the cardinal of that name, and as close in his uncle's confidence as was his uncle close in the confidence of the gray old man. the other was raoul de goncourt, whose presence surprised me, he being too good and noble a man for the company he kept. we saluted properly, and properly went about the business. it was nothing new to any of us. the footing was good, as promised. there was no dew. the moon shone fair, and fortini's blade and mine were out and at earnest play. this i knew: good swordsman as they reckoned me in france, fortini was a better. this, too, i knew: that i carried my lady's heart with me this night, and that this night, because of me, there would be one italian less in the world. i say i knew it. in my mind the issue could not be in doubt. and as our rapiers played i pondered the manner i should kill him. i was not minded for a long contest. quick and brilliant had always been my way. and further, what of my past gay months of carousal and of singing "sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu," at ungodly hours, i knew i was not conditioned for a long contest. quick and brilliant was my decision. but quick and brilliant was a difficult matter with so consummate a swordsman as fortini opposed to me. besides, as luck would have it, fortini, always the cold one, always the tireless-wristed, always sure and long, as report had it, in going about such business, on this night elected, too, the quick and brilliant. it was nervous, tingling work, for as surely as i sensed his intention of briefness, just as surely had he sensed mine. i doubt that i could have done the trick had it been broad day instead of moonlight. the dim light aided me. also was i aided by divining, the moment in advance, what he had in mind. it was the time attack, a common but perilous trick that every novice knows, that has laid on his back many a good man who attempted it, and that is so fraught with danger to the perpetrator that swordsmen are not enamoured of it. we had been at work barely a minute, when i knew under all his darting, flashing show of offence that fortini meditated this very time attack. he desired of me a thrust and lunge, not that he might parry it but that he might time it and deflect it by the customary slight turn of the wrist, his rapier point directed to meet me as my body followed in the lunge. a ticklish thing--ay, a ticklish thing in the best of light. did he deflect a fraction of a second too early, i should be warned and saved. did he deflect a fraction of a second too late, my thrust would go home to him. "quick and brilliant is it?" was my thought. "very well, my italian friend, quick and brilliant shall it be, and especially shall it be quick." in a way, it was time attack against time attack, but i would fool him on the time by being over-quick. and i was quick. as i said, we had been at work scarcely a minute when it happened. quick? that thrust and lunge of mine were one. a snap of action it was, an explosion, an instantaneousness. i swear my thrust and lunge were a fraction of a second quicker than any man is supposed to thrust and lunge. i won the fraction of a second. by that fraction of a second too late fortini attempted to deflect my blade and impale me on his. but it was his blade that was deflected. it flashed past my breast, and i was in--inside his weapon, which extended full length in the empty air behind me--and my blade was inside of him, and through him, heart-high, from right side of him to left side of him and outside of him beyond. it is a strange thing to do, to spit a live man on a length of steel. i sit here in my cell, and cease from writing a space, while i consider the matter. and i have considered it often, that moonlight night in france of long ago, when i taught the italian hound quick and brilliant. it was so easy a thing, that perforation of a torso. one would have expected more resistance. there would have been resistance had my rapier point touched bone. as it was, it encountered only the softness of flesh. still it perforated so easily. i have the sensation of it now, in my hand, my brain, as i write. a woman's hat-pin could go through a plum pudding not more easily than did my blade go through the italian. oh, there was nothing amazing about it at the time to guillaume de sainte- maure, but amazing it is to me, darrell standing, as i recollect and ponder it across the centuries. it is easy, most easy, to kill a strong, live, breathing man with so crude a weapon as a piece of steel. why, men are like soft-shell crabs, so tender, frail, and vulnerable are they. but to return to the moonlight on the grass. my thrust made home, there was a perceptible pause. not at once did fortini fall. not at once did i withdraw the blade. for a full second we stood in pause--i, with legs spread, and arched and tense, body thrown forward, right arm horizontal and straight out; fortini, his blade beyond me so far that hilt and hand just rested lightly against my left breast, his body rigid, his eyes open and shining. so statuesque were we for that second that i swear those about us were not immediately aware of what had happened. then fortini gasped and coughed slightly. the rigidity of his pose slackened. the hilt and hand against my breast wavered, then the arm drooped to his side till the rapier point rested on the lawn. by this time pasquini and de goncourt had sprung to him and he was sinking into their arms. in faith, it was harder for me to withdraw the steel than to drive it in. his flesh clung about it as if jealous to let it depart. oh, believe me, it required a distinct physical effort to get clear of what i had done. but the pang of the withdrawal must have stung him back to life and purpose, for he shook off his friends, straightened himself, and lifted his rapier into position. i, too, took position, marvelling that it was possible i had spitted him heart-high and yet missed any vital spot. then, and before his friends could catch him, his legs crumpled under him and he went heavily to grass. they laid him on his back, but he was already dead, his face ghastly still under the moon, his right hand still a-clutch of the rapier. yes; it is indeed a marvellous easy thing to kill a man. we saluted his friends and were about to depart, when felix pasquini detained me. "pardon me," i said. "let it be to-morrow." "we have but to move a step aside," he urged, "where the grass is still dry." "let me then wet it for you, sainte-maure," lanfranc asked of me, eager himself to do for an italian. i shook my head. "pasquini is mine," i answered. "he shall be first to-morrow." "are there others?" lanfranc demanded. "ask de goncourt," i grinned. "i imagine he is already laying claim to the honour of being the third." at this, de goncourt showed distressed acquiescence. lanfranc looked inquiry at him, and de goncourt nodded. "and after him i doubt not comes the cockerel," i went on. and even as i spoke the red-haired guy de villehardouin, alone, strode to us across the moonlit grass. "at least i shall have him," lanfranc cried, his voice almost wheedling, so great was his desire. "ask him," i laughed, then turned to pasquini. "to-morrow," i said. "do you name time and place, and i shall be there." "the grass is most excellent," he teased, "the place is most excellent, and i am minded that fortini has you for company this night." "'twere better he were accompanied by a friend," i quipped. "and now your pardon, for i must go." but he blocked my path. "whoever it be," he said, "let it be now." for the first time, with him, my anger began to rise. "you serve your master well," i sneered. "i serve but my pleasure," was his answer. "master i have none." "pardon me if i presume to tell you the truth," i said. "which is?" he queried softly. "that you are a liar, pasquini, a liar like all italians." he turned immediately to lanfranc and bohemond. "you heard," he said. "and after that you cannot deny me him." they hesitated and looked to me for counsel of my wishes. but pasquini did not wait. "and if you still have any scruples," he hurried on, "then allow me to remove them . . . thus." and he spat in the grass at my feet. then my anger seized me and was beyond me. the red wrath i call it--an overwhelming, all-mastering desire to kill and destroy. i forgot that philippa waited for me in the great hall. all i knew was my wrongs--the unpardonable interference in my affairs by the gray old man, the errand of the priest, the insolence of fortini, the impudence of villehardouin, and here pasquini standing in my way and spitting in the grass. i saw red. i thought red. i looked upon all these creatures as rank and noisome growths that must be hewn out of my path, out of the world. as a netted lion may rage against the meshes, so raged i against these creatures. they were all about me. in truth, i was in the trap. the one way out was to cut them down, to crush them into the earth and stamp upon them. "very well," i said, calmly enough, although my passion was such that my frame shook. "you first, pasquini. and you next, de goncourt? and at the end, de villehardouin?" each nodded in turn and pasquini and i prepared to step aside. "since you are in haste," henry bohemond proposed to me, "and since there are three of them and three of us, why not settle it at the one time?" "yes, yes," was lanfranc's eager cry. "do you take de goncourt. de villehardouin for mine." but i waved my good friends back. "they are here by command," i explained. "it is i they desire so strongly that by my faith i have caught the contagion of their desire, so that now i want them and will have them for myself." i had observed that pasquini fretted at my delay of speech-making, and i resolved to fret him further. "you, pasquini," i announced, "i shall settle with in short account. i would not that you tarried while fortini waits your companionship. you, raoul de goncourt, i shall punish as you deserve for being in such bad company. you are getting fat and wheezy. i shall take my time with you until your fat melts and your lungs pant and wheeze like leaky bellows. you, de villehardouin, i have not decided in what manner i shall kill." and then i saluted pasquini, and we were at it. oh, i was minded to be rarely devilish this night. quick and brilliant--that was the thing. nor was i unmindful of that deceptive moonlight. as with fortini would i settle with him if he dared the time attack. if he did not, and quickly, then i would dare it. despite the fret i had put him in, he was cautious. nevertheless i compelled the play to be rapid, and in the dim light, depending less than usual on sight and more than usual on feel, our blades were in continual touch. barely was the first minute of play past when i did the trick. i feigned a slight slip of the foot, and, in the recovery, feigned loss of touch with pasquini's blade. he thrust tentatively, and again i feigned, this time making a needlessly wide parry. the consequent exposure of myself was the bait i had purposely dangled to draw him on. and draw him on i did. like a flash he took advantage of what he deemed an involuntary exposure. straight and true was his thrust, and all his will and body were heartily in the weight of the lunge he made. and all had been feigned on my part and i was ready for him. just lightly did my steel meet his as our blades slithered. and just firmly enough and no more did my wrist twist and deflect his blade on my basket hilt. oh, such a slight deflection, a matter of inches, just barely sufficient to send his point past me so that it pierced a fold of my satin doublet in passing. of course, his body followed his rapier in the lunge, while, heart-high, right side, my rapier point met his body. and my outstretched arm was stiff and straight as the steel into which it elongated, and behind the arm and the steel my body was braced and solid. heart-high, i say, my rapier entered pasquini's side on the right, but it did not emerge, on the left, for, well-nigh through him, it met a rib (oh, man-killing is butcher's work!) with such a will that the forcing overbalanced him, so that he fell part backward and part sidewise to the ground. and even as he fell, and ere he struck, with jerk and wrench i cleared my weapon of him. de goncourt was to him, but he waved de goncourt to attend on me. not so swiftly as fortini did pasquini pass. he coughed and spat, and, helped by de villehardouin, propped his elbow under him, rested his head on hand, and coughed and spat again. "a pleasant journey, pasquini," i laughed to him in my red anger. "pray hasten, for the grass where you lie is become suddenly wet and if you linger you will catch your death of cold." when i made immediately to begin with de goncourt, bohemond protested that i should rest a space. "nay," i said. "i have not properly warmed up." and to de goncourt, "now will we have you dance and wheeze--salute!" de goncourt's heart was not in the work. it was patent that he fought under the compulsion of command. his play was old-fashioned, as any middle-aged man's is apt to be, but he was not an indifferent swordsman. he was cool, determined, dogged. but he was not brilliant, and he was oppressed with foreknowledge of defeat. a score of times, by quick and brilliant, he was mine. but i refrained. i have said that i was devilish-minded. indeed i was. i wore him down. i backed him away from the moon so that he could see little of me because i fought in my own shadow. and while i wore him down until he began to wheeze as i had predicted, pasquini, head on hand and watching, coughed and spat out his life. "now, de goncourt," i announced finally. "you see i have you quite helpless. you are mine in any of a dozen ways. be ready, brace yourself, for this is the way i will." and, so saying, i merely went from carte to tierce, and as he recovered wildly and parried widely i returned to carte, took the opening, and drove home heart-high and through and through. and at sight of the conclusion pasquini let go his hold on life, buried his face in the grass, quivered a moment, and lay still. "your master will be four servants short this night," i assured de villehardouin, in the moment just ere we engaged. and such an engagement! the boy was ridiculous. in what bucolic school of fence he had been taught was beyond imagining. he was downright clownish. "short work and simple" was my judgment, while his red hair seemed a-bristle with very rage and while he pressed me like a madman. alas! it was his clownishness that undid me. when i had played with him and laughed at him for a handful of seconds for the clumsy boor he was, he became so angered that he forgot the worse than little fence he knew. with an arm-wide sweep of his rapier, as though it bore heft and a cutting edge, he whistled it through the air and rapped it down on my crown. i was in amaze. never had so absurd a thing happened to me. he was wide open, and i could have run him through forthright. but, as i said, i was in amaze, and the next i knew was the pang of the entering steel as this clumsy provincial ran me through and charged forward, bull- like, till his hilt bruised my side and i was borne backward. as i fell i could see the concern on the faces of lanfranc and bohemond and the glut of satisfaction in the face of de villehardouin as he pressed me. i was falling, but i never reached the grass. came a blurr of flashing lights, a thunder in my ears, a darkness, a glimmering of dim light slowly dawning, a wrenching, racking pain beyond all describing, and then i heard the voice of one who said: "i can't feel anything." i knew the voice. it was warden atherton's. and i knew myself for darrell standing, just returned across the centuries to the jacket hell of san quentin. and i knew the touch of finger-tips on my neck was warden atherton's. and i knew the finger-tips that displaced his were doctor jackson's. and it was doctor jackson's voice that said: "you don't know how to take a man's pulse from the neck. there--right there--put your fingers where mine are. d'ye get it? ah, i thought so. heart weak, but steady as a chronometer." "it's only twenty-four hours," captain jamie said, "and he was never in like condition before." "putting it on, that's what he's doing, and you can stack on that," al hutchins, the head trusty, interjected. "i don't know," captain jamie insisted. "when a man's pulse is that low it takes an expert to find it--" "aw, i served my apprenticeship in the jacket," al hutchins sneered. "and i've made you unlace me, captain, when you thought i was croaking, and it was all i could do to keep from snickering in your face." "what do you think, doc?" warden atherton asked. "i tell you the heart action is splendid," was the answer. "of course it is weak. that is only to be expected. i tell you hutchins is right. the man is feigning." with his thumb he turned up one of my eyelids, whereat i opened my other eye and gazed up at the group bending over me. "what did i tell you?" was doctor jackson's cry of triumph. and then, although it seemed the effort must crack my face, i summoned all the will of me and smiled. they held water to my lips, and i drank greedily. it must be remembered that all this while i lay helpless on my back, my arms pinioned along with my body inside the jacket. when they offered me food--dry prison bread--i shook my head. i closed my eyes in advertisement that i was tired of their presence. the pain of my partial resuscitation was unbearable. i could feel my body coming to life. down the cords of my neck and into my patch of chest over the heart darting pains were making their way. and in my brain the memory was strong that philippa waited me in the big hall, and i was desirous to escape away back to the half a day and half a night i had just lived in old france. so it was, even as they stood about me, that i strove to eliminate the live portion of my body from my consciousness. i was in haste to depart, but warden atherton's voice held me back. "is there anything you want to complain about?" he asked. now i had but one fear, namely, that they would unlace me; so that it must be understood that my reply was not uttered in braggadocio but was meant to forestall any possible unlacing. "you might make the jacket a little tighter," i whispered. "it's too loose for comfort. i get lost in it. hutchins is stupid. he is also a fool. he doesn't know the first thing about lacing the jacket. warden, you ought to put him in charge of the loom-room. he is a more profound master of inefficiency than the present incumbent, who is merely stupid without being a fool as well. now get out, all of you, unless you can think of worse to do to me. in which case, by all means remain. i invite you heartily to remain, if you think in your feeble imaginings that you have devised fresh torture for me." "he's a wooz, a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool wooz," doctor jackson chanted, with the medico's delight in a novelty. "standing, you _are_ a wonder," the warden said. "you've got an iron will, but i'll break it as sure as god made little apples." "and you've the heart of a rabbit," i retorted. "one-tenth the jacketing i have received in san quentin would have squeezed your rabbit heart out of your long ears." oh, it was a touch, that, for the warden did have unusual ears. they would have interested lombroso, i am sure. "as for me," i went on, "i laugh at you, and i wish no worse fate to the loom-room than that you should take charge of it yourself. why, you've got me down and worked your wickedness on me, and still i live and laugh in your face. inefficient? you can't even kill me. inefficient? you couldn't kill a cornered rat with a stick of dynamite--_real_ dynamite, and not the sort you are deluded into believing i have hidden away." "anything more?" he demanded, when i had ceased from my diatribe. and into my mind flashed what i had told fortini when he pressed his insolence on me. "begone, you prison cur," i said. "take your yapping from my door." it must have been a terrible thing for a man of warden atherton's stripe to be thus bearded by a helpless prisoner. his face whitened with rage and his voice shook as he threatened: "by god, standing, i'll do for you yet." "there is only one thing you can do," i said. "you can tighten this distressingly loose jacket. if you won't, then get out. and i don't care if you fail to come back for a week or for the whole ten days." and what can even the warden of a great prison do in reprisal on a prisoner upon whom the ultimate reprisal has already been wreaked? it may be that warden atherton thought of some possible threat, for he began to speak. but my voice had strengthened with the exercise, and i began to sing, "sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu." and sing i did until my door clanged and the bolts and locks squeaked and grated fast. chapter xii now that i had learned the trick the way was easy. and i knew the way was bound to become easier the more i travelled it. once establish a line of least resistance, every succeeding journey along it will find still less resistance. and so, as you shall see, my journeys from san quentin life into other lives were achieved almost automatically as time went by. after warden atherton and his crew had left me it was a matter of minutes to will the resuscitated portion of my body back into the little death. death in life it was, but it was only the little death, similar to the temporary death produced by an anaesthetic. and so, from all that was sordid and vile, from brutal solitary and jacket hell, from acquainted flies and sweats of darkness and the knuckle- talk of the living dead, i was away at a bound into time and space. came the duration of darkness, and the slow-growing awareness of other things and of another self. first of all, in this awareness, was dust. it was in my nostrils, dry and acrid. it was on my lips. it coated my face, my hands, and especially was it noticeable on the finger-tips when touched by the ball of my thumb. next i was aware of ceaseless movement. all that was about me lurched and oscillated. there was jolt and jar, and i heard what i knew as a matter of course to be the grind of wheels on axles and the grate and clash of iron tyres against rock and sand. and there came to me the jaded voices of men, in curse and snarl of slow-plodding, jaded animals. i opened my eyes, that were inflamed with dust, and immediately fresh dust bit into them. on the coarse blankets on which i lay the dust was half an inch thick. above me, through sifting dust, i saw an arched roof of lurching, swaying canvas, and myriads of dust motes descended heavily in the shafts of sunshine that entered through holes in the canvas. i was a child, a boy of eight or nine, and i was weary, as was the woman, dusty-visaged and haggard, who sat up beside me and soothed a crying babe in her arms. she was my mother; that i knew as a matter of course, just as i knew, when i glanced along the canvas tunnel of the wagon-top, that the shoulders of the man on the driver's seat were the shoulders of my father. when i started to crawl along the packed gear with which the wagon was laden my mother said in a tired and querulous voice, "can't you ever be still a minute, jesse?" that was my name, jesse. i did not know my surname, though i heard my mother call my father john. i have a dim recollection of hearing, at one time or another, the other men address my father as captain. i knew that he was the leader of this company, and that his orders were obeyed by all. i crawled out through the opening in the canvas and sat down beside my father on the seat. the air was stifling with the dust that rose from the wagons and the many hoofs of the animals. so thick was the dust that it was like mist or fog in the air, and the low sun shone through it dimly and with a bloody light. not alone was the light of this setting sun ominous, but everything about me seemed ominous--the landscape, my father's face, the fret of the babe in my mother's arms that she could not still, the six horses my father drove that had continually to be urged and that were without any sign of colour, so heavily had the dust settled on them. the landscape was an aching, eye-hurting desolation. low hills stretched endlessly away on every hand. here and there only on their slopes were occasional scrub growths of heat-parched brush. for the most part the surface of the hills was naked-dry and composed of sand and rock. our way followed the sand-bottoms between the hills. and the sand-bottoms were bare, save for spots of scrub, with here and there short tufts of dry and withered grass. water there was none, nor sign of water, except for washed gullies that told of ancient and torrential rains. my father was the only one who had horses to his wagon. the wagons went in single file, and as the train wound and curved i saw that the other wagons were drawn by oxen. three or four yoke of oxen strained and pulled weakly at each wagon, and beside them, in the deep sand, walked men with ox-goads, who prodded the unwilling beasts along. on a curve i counted the wagons ahead and behind. i knew that there were forty of them, including our own; for often i had counted them before. and as i counted them now, as a child will to while away tedium, they were all there, forty of them, all canvas-topped, big and massive, crudely fashioned, pitching and lurching, grinding and jarring over sand and sage- brush and rock. to right and left of us, scattered along the train, rode a dozen or fifteen men and youths on horses. across their pommels were long-barrelled rifles. whenever any of them drew near to our wagon i could see that their faces, under the dust, were drawn and anxious like my father's. and my father, like them, had a long-barrelled rifle close to hand as he drove. also, to one side, limped a score or more of foot-sore, yoke-galled, skeleton oxen, that ever paused to nip at the occasional tufts of withered grass, and that ever were prodded on by the tired-faced youths who herded them. sometimes one or another of these oxen would pause and low, and such lowing seemed as ominous as all else about me. far, far away i have a memory of having lived, a smaller lad, by the tree- lined banks of a stream. and as the wagon jolts along, and i sway on the seat with my father, i continually return and dwell upon that pleasant water flowing between the trees. i have a sense that for an interminable period i have lived in a wagon and travelled on, ever on, with this present company. but strongest of all upon me is what is strong upon all the company, namely, a sense of drifting to doom. our way was like a funeral march. never did a laugh arise. never did i hear a happy tone of voice. neither peace nor ease marched with us. the faces of the men and youths who outrode the train were grim, set, hopeless. and as we toiled through the lurid dust of sunset often i scanned my father's face in vain quest of some message of cheer. i will not say that my father's face, in all its dusty haggardness, was hopeless. it was dogged, and oh! so grim and anxious, most anxious. a thrill seemed to run along the train. my father's head went up. so did mine. and our horses raised their weary heads, scented the air with long-drawn snorts, and for the nonce pulled willingly. the horses of the outriders quickened their pace. and as for the herd of scarecrow oxen, it broke into a forthright gallop. it was almost ludicrous. the poor brutes were so clumsy in their weakness and haste. they were galloping skeletons draped in mangy hide, and they out-distanced the boys who herded them. but this was only for a time. then they fell back to a walk, a quick, eager, shambling, sore-footed walk; and they no longer were lured aside by the dry bunch-grass. "what is it?" my mother asked from within the wagon. "water," was my father's reply. "it must be nephi." and my mother: "thank god! and perhaps they will sell us food." and into nephi, through blood-red dust, with grind and grate and jolt and jar, our great wagons rolled. a dozen scattered dwellings or shanties composed the place. the landscape was much the same as that through which we had passed. there were no trees, only scrub growths and sandy bareness. but here were signs of tilled fields, with here and there a fence. also there was water. down the stream ran no current. the bed, however, was damp, with now and again a water-hole into which the loose oxen and the saddle-horses stamped and plunged their muzzles to the eyes. here, too, grew an occasional small willow. "that must be bill black's mill they told us about," my father said, pointing out a building to my mother, whose anxiousness had drawn her to peer out over our shoulders. an old man, with buckskin shirt and long, matted, sunburnt hair, rode back to our wagon and talked with father. the signal was given, and the head wagons of the train began to deploy in a circle. the ground favoured the evolution, and, from long practice, it was accomplished without a hitch, so that when the forty wagons were finally halted they formed a circle. all was bustle and orderly confusion. many women, all tired-faced and dusty like my mother, emerged from the wagons. also poured forth a very horde of children. there must have been at least fifty children, and it seemed i knew them all of long time; and there were at least two score of women. these went about the preparations for cooking supper. while some of the men chopped sage-brush and we children carried it to the fires that were kindling, other men unyoked the oxen and let them stampede for water. next the men, in big squads, moved the wagons snugly into place. the tongue of each wagon was on the inside of the circle, and, front and rear, each wagon was in solid contact with the next wagon before and behind. the great brakes were locked fast; but, not content with this, the wheels of all the wagons were connected with chains. this was nothing new to us children. it was the trouble sign of a camp in hostile country. one wagon only was left out of the circle, so as to form a gate to the corral. later on, as we knew, ere the camp slept, the animals would be driven inside, and the gate-wagon would be chained like the others in place. in the meanwhile, and for hours, the animals would be herded by men and boys to what scant grass they could find. while the camp-making went on my father, with several others of the men, including the old man with the long, sunburnt hair, went away on foot in the direction of the mill. i remember that all of us, men, women, and even the children, paused to watch them depart; and it seemed their errand was of grave import. while they were away other men, strangers, inhabitants of desert nephi, came into camp and stalked about. they were white men, like us, but they were hard-faced, stern-faced, sombre, and they seemed angry with all our company. bad feeling was in the air, and they said things calculated to rouse the tempers of our men. but the warning went out from the women, and was passed on everywhere to our men and youths, that there must be no words. one of the strangers came to our fire, where my mother was alone, cooking. i had just come up with an armful of sage-brush, and i stopped to listen and to stare at the intruder, whom i hated, because it was in the air to hate, because i knew that every last person in our company hated these strangers who were white-skinned like us and because of whom we had been compelled to make our camp in a circle. this stranger at our fire had blue eyes, hard and cold and piercing. his hair was sandy. his face was shaven to the chin, and from under the chin, covering the neck and extending to the ears, sprouted a sandy fringe of whiskers well-streaked with gray. mother did not greet him, nor did he greet her. he stood and glowered at her for some time, he cleared his throat and said with a sneer: "wisht you was back in missouri right now i bet." i saw mother tighten her lips in self-control ere she answered: "we are from arkansas." "i guess you got good reasons to deny where you come from," he next said, "you that drove the lord's people from missouri." mother made no reply. ". . . seein'," he went on, after the pause accorded her, "as you're now comin' a-whinin' an' a-beggin' bread at our hands that you persecuted." whereupon, and instantly, child that i was, i knew anger, the old, red, intolerant wrath, ever unrestrainable and unsubduable. "you lie!" i piped up. "we ain't missourians. we ain't whinin'. an' we ain't beggars. we got the money to buy." "shut up, jesse!" my mother cried, landing the back of her hand stingingly on my mouth. and then, to the stranger, "go away and let the boy alone." "i'll shoot you full of lead, you damned mormon!" i screamed and sobbed at him, too quick for my mother this time, and dancing away around the fire from the back-sweep of her hand. as for the man himself, my conduct had not disturbed him in the slightest. i was prepared for i knew not what violent visitation from this terrible stranger, and i watched him warily while he considered me with the utmost gravity. at last he spoke, and he spoke solemnly, with solemn shaking of the head, as if delivering a judgment. "like fathers like sons," he said. "the young generation is as bad as the elder. the whole breed is unregenerate and damned. there is no saving it, the young or the old. there is no atonement. not even the blood of christ can wipe out its iniquities." "damned mormon!" was all i could sob at him. "damned mormon! damned mormon! damned mormon!" and i continued to damn him and to dance around the fire before my mother's avenging hand, until he strode away. when my father, and the men who had accompanied him, returned, camp-work ceased, while all crowded anxiously about him. he shook his head. "they will not sell?" some woman demanded. again he shook his head. a man spoke up, a blue-eyed, blond-whiskered giant of thirty, who abruptly pressed his way into the centre of the crowd. "they say they have flour and provisions for three years, captain," he said. "they have always sold to the immigration before. and now they won't sell. and it ain't our quarrel. their quarrel's with the government, an' they're takin' it out on us. it ain't right, captain. it ain't right, i say, us with our women an' children, an' california months away, winter comin' on, an' nothin' but desert in between. we ain't got the grub to face the desert." he broke off for a moment to address the whole crowd. "why, you-all don't know what desert is. this around here ain't desert. i tell you it's paradise, and heavenly pasture, an' flowin' with milk an' honey alongside what we're goin' to face." "i tell you, captain, we got to get flour first. if they won't sell it, then we must just up an' take it." many of the men and women began crying out in approval, but my father hushed them by holding up his hand. "i agree with everything you say, hamilton," he began. but the cries now drowned his voice, and he again held up his hand. "except one thing you forgot to take into account, hamilton--a thing that you and all of us must take into account. brigham young has declared martial law, and brigham young has an army. we could wipe out nephi in the shake of a lamb's tail and take all the provisions we can carry. but we wouldn't carry them very far. brigham's saints would be down upon us and we would be wiped out in another shake of a lamb's tail. you know it. i know it. we all know it." his words carried conviction to listeners already convinced. what he had told them was old news. they had merely forgotten it in a flurry of excitement and desperate need. "nobody will fight quicker for what is right than i will," father continued. "but it just happens we can't afford to fight now. if ever a ruction starts we haven't a chance. and we've all got our women and children to recollect. we've got to be peaceable at any price, and put up with whatever dirt is heaped on us." "but what will we do with the desert coming?" cried a woman who nursed a babe at her breast. "there's several settlements before we come to the desert," father answered. "fillmore's sixty miles south. then comes corn creek. and beaver's another fifty miles. next is parowan. then it's twenty miles to cedar city. the farther we get away from salt lake the more likely they'll sell us provisions." "and if they won't?" the same woman persisted. "then we're quit of them," said my father. "cedar city is the last settlement. we'll have to go on, that's all, and thank our stars we are quit of them. two days' journey beyond is good pasture, and water. they call it mountain meadows. nobody lives there, and that's the place we'll rest our cattle and feed them up before we tackle the desert. maybe we can shoot some meat. and if the worst comes to the worst, we'll keep going as long as we can, then abandon the wagons, pack what we can on our animals, and make the last stages on foot. we can eat our cattle as we go along. it would be better to arrive in california without a rag to our backs than to leave our bones here; and leave them we will if we start a ruction." with final reiterated warnings against violence of speech or act, the impromptu meeting broke up. i was slow in falling asleep that night. my rage against the mormon had left my brain in such a tingle that i was still awake when my father crawled into the wagon after a last round of the night-watch. they thought i slept, but i heard mother ask him if he thought that the mormons would let us depart peacefully from their land. his face was turned aside from her as he busied himself with pulling off a boot, while he answered her with hearty confidence that he was sure the mormons would let us go if none of our own company started trouble. but i saw his face at that moment in the light of a small tallow dip, and in it was none of the confidence that was in his voice. so it was that i fell asleep, oppressed by the dire fate that seemed to overhang us, and pondering upon brigham young who bulked in my child imagination as a fearful, malignant being, a very devil with horns and tail and all. * * * * * and i awoke to the old pain of the jacket in solitary. about me were the customary four: warden atherton, captain jamie, doctor jackson, and al hutchins. i cracked my face with my willed smile, and struggled not to lose control under the exquisite torment of returning circulation. i drank the water they held to me, waved aside the proffered bread, and refused to speak. i closed my eyes and strove to win back to the chain- locked wagon-circle at nephi. but so long as my visitors stood about me and talked i could not escape. one snatch of conversation i could not tear myself away from hearing. "just as yesterday," doctor jackson said. "no change one way or the other." "then he can go on standing it?" warden atherton queried. "without a quiver. the next twenty-four hours as easy as the last. he's a wooz, i tell you, a perfect wooz. if i didn't know it was impossible, i'd say he was doped." "i know his dope," said the warden. "it's that cursed will of his. i'd bet, if he made up his mind, that he could walk barefoot across red-hot stones, like those kanaka priests from the south seas." now perhaps it was the word "priests" that i carried away with me through the darkness of another flight in time. perhaps it was the cue. more probably it was a mere coincidence. at any rate i awoke, lying upon a rough rocky floor, and found myself on my back, my arms crossed in such fashion that each elbow rested in the palm of the opposite hand. as i lay there, eyes closed, half awake, i rubbed my elbows with my palms and found that i was rubbing prodigious calluses. there was no surprise in this. i accepted the calluses as of long time and a matter of course. i opened my eyes. my shelter was a small cave, no more than three feet in height and a dozen in length. it was very hot in the cave. perspiration noduled the entire surface of my body. now and again several nodules coalesced and formed tiny rivulets. i wore no clothing save a filthy rag about the middle. my skin was burned to a mahogany brown. i was very thin, and i contemplated my thinness with a strange sort of pride, as if it were an achievement to be so thin. especially was i enamoured of my painfully prominent ribs. the very sight of the hollows between them gave me a sense of solemn elation, or, rather, to use a better word, of sanctification. my knees were callused like my elbows. i was very dirty. my beard, evidently once blond, but now a dirt-stained and streaky brown, swept my midriff in a tangled mass. my long hair, similarly stained and tangled, was all about my shoulders, while wisps of it continually strayed in the way of my vision so that sometimes i was compelled to brush it aside with my hands. for the most part, however, i contented myself with peering through it like a wild animal from a thicket. just at the tunnel-like mouth of my dim cave the day reared itself in a wall of blinding sunshine. after a time i crawled to the entrance, and, for the sake of greater discomfort, lay down in the burning sunshine on a narrow ledge of rock. it positively baked me, that terrible sun, and the more it hurt me the more i delighted in it, or in myself rather, in that i was thus the master of my flesh and superior to its claims and remonstrances. when i found under me a particularly sharp, but not too sharp, rock-projection, i ground my body upon the point of it, rowelled my flesh in a very ecstasy of mastery and of purification. it was a stagnant day of heat. not a breath of air moved over the river valley on which i sometimes gazed. hundreds of feet beneath me the wide river ran sluggishly. the farther shore was flat and sandy and stretched away to the horizon. above the water were scattered clumps of palm-trees. on my side, eaten into a curve by the river, were lofty, crumbling cliffs. farther along the curve, in plain view from my eyrie, carved out of the living rock, were four colossal figures. it was the stature of a man to their ankle joints. the four colossi sat, with hands resting on knees, with arms crumbled quite away, and gazed out upon the river. at least three of them so gazed. of the fourth all that remained were the lower limbs to the knees and the huge hands resting on the knees. at the feet of this one, ridiculously small, crouched a sphinx; yet this sphinx was taller than i. i looked upon these carven images with contempt, and spat as i looked. i knew not what they were, whether forgotten gods or unremembered kings. but to me they were representative of the vanity of earth-men and earth- aspirations. and over all this curve of river and sweep of water and wide sands beyond arched a sky of aching brass unflecked by the tiniest cloud. the hours passed while i roasted in the sun. often, for quite decent intervals, i forgot my heat and pain in dreams and visions and in memories. all this i knew--crumbling colossi and river and sand and sun and brazen sky--was to pass away in the twinkling of an eye. at any moment the trumps of the archangels might sound, the stars fall out of the sky, the heavens roll up as a scroll, and the lord god of all come with his hosts for the final judgment. ah, i knew it so profoundly that i was ready for such sublime event. that was why i was here in rags and filth and wretchedness. i was meek and lowly, and i despised the frail needs and passions of the flesh. and i thought with contempt, and with a certain satisfaction, of the far cities of the plain i had known, all unheeding, in their pomp and lust, of the last day so near at hand. well, they would see soon enough, but too late for them. and i should see. but i was ready. and to their cries and lamentations would i arise, reborn and glorious, and take my well-earned and rightful place in the city of god. at times, between dreams and visions in which i was verily and before my time in the city of god, i conned over in my mind old discussions and controversies. yes, novatus was right in his contention that penitent apostates should never again be received into the churches. also, there was no doubt that sabellianism was conceived of the devil. so was constantine, the arch-fiend, the devil's right hand. continually i returned to contemplation of the nature of the unity of god, and went over and over the contentions of noetus, the syrian. better, however, did i like the contentions of my beloved teacher, arius. truly, if human reason could determine anything at all, there must have been a time, in the very nature of sonship, when the son did not exist. in the nature of sonship there must have been a time when the son commenced to exist. a father must be older than his son. to hold otherwise were a blasphemy and a belittlement of god. and i remembered back to my young days when i had sat at the feet of arius, who had been a presbyter of the city of alexandria, and who had been robbed of the bishopric by the blasphemous and heretical alexander. alexander the sabellianite, that is what he was, and his feet had fast hold of hell. yes, i had been to the council of nicea, and seen it avoid the issue. and i remembered when the emperor constantine had banished arius for his uprightness. and i remembered when constantine repented for reasons of state and policy and commanded alexander--the other alexander, thrice cursed, bishop of constantinople--to receive arius into communion on the morrow. and that very night did not arius die in the street? they said it was a violent sickness visited upon him in answer to alexander's prayer to god. but i said, and so said all we arians, that the violent sickness was due to a poison, and that the poison was due to alexander himself, bishop of constantinople and devil's poisoner. and here i ground my body back and forth on the sharp stones, and muttered aloud, drunk with conviction: "let the jews and pagans mock. let them triumph, for their time is short. and for them there will be no time after time." i talked to myself aloud a great deal on that rocky shelf overlooking the river. i was feverish, and on occasion i drank sparingly of water from a stinking goatskin. this goatskin i kept hanging in the sun that the stench of the skin might increase and that there might be no refreshment of coolness in the water. food there was, lying in the dirt on my cave- floor--a few roots and a chunk of mouldy barley-cake; and hungry i was, although i did not eat. all i did that blessed, livelong day was to sweat and swelter in the sun, mortify my lean flesh upon the rock, gaze out of the desolation, resurrect old memories, dream dreams, and mutter my convictions aloud. and when the sun set, in the swift twilight i took a last look at the world so soon to pass. about the feet of the colossi i could make out the creeping forms of beasts that laired in the once proud works of men. and to the snarls of the beasts i crawled into my hole, and, muttering and dozing, visioning fevered fancies and praying that the last day come quickly, i ebbed down into the darkness of sleep. * * * * * consciousness came back to me in solitary, with the quartet of torturers about me. "blasphemous and heretical warden of san quentin whose feet have fast hold of hell," i gibed, after i had drunk deep of the water they held to my lips. "let the jailers and the trusties triumph. their time is short, and for them there is no time after time." "he's out of his head," warden atherton affirmed. "he's putting it over on you," was doctor jackson's surer judgment. "but he refuses food," captain jamie protested. "huh, he could fast forty days and not hurt himself," the doctor answered. "and i have," i said, "and forty nights as well. do me the favour to tighten the jacket and then get out of here." the head trusty tried to insert his forefinger inside the lacing. "you couldn't get a quarter of an inch of slack with block and tackle," he assured them. "have you any complaint to make, standing?" the warden asked. "yes," was my reply. "on two counts." "what are they?" "first," i said, "the jacket is abominably loose. hutchins is an ass. he could get a foot of slack if he wanted." "what is the other count?" warden atherton asked. "that you are conceived of the devil, warden." captain jamie and doctor jackson tittered, and the warden, with a snort, led the way out of my cell. * * * * * left alone, i strove to go into the dark and gain back to the wagon circle at nephi. i was interested to know the outcome of that doomed drifting of our forty great wagons across a desolate and hostile land, and i was not at all interested in what came of the mangy hermit with his rock-roweled ribs and stinking water-skin. and i gained back, neither to nephi nor the nile, but to-- but here i must pause in the narrative, my reader, in order to explain a few things and make the whole matter easier to your comprehension. this is necessary, because my time is short in which to complete my jacket- memoirs. in a little while, in a very little while, they are going to take me out and hang me. did i have the full time of a thousand lifetimes, i could not complete the last details of my jacket experiences. wherefore i must briefen the narrative. first of all, bergson is right. life cannot be explained in intellectual terms. as confucius said long ago: "when we are so ignorant of life, can we know death?" and ignorant of life we truly are when we cannot explain it in terms of the understanding. we know life only phenomenally, as a savage may know a dynamo; but we know nothing of life noumenonally, nothing of the nature of the intrinsic stuff of life. secondly, marinetti is wrong when he claims that matter is the only mystery and the only reality. i say and as you, my reader, realize, i speak with authority--i say that matter is the only illusion. comte called the world, which is tantamount to matter, the great fetich, and i agree with comte. it is life that is the reality and the mystery. life is vastly different from mere chemic matter fluxing in high modes of notion. life persists. life is the thread of fire that persists through all the modes of matter. i know. i am life. i have lived ten thousand generations. i have lived millions of years. i have possessed many bodies. i, the possessor of these many bodies, have persisted. i am life. i am the unquenched spark ever flashing and astonishing the face of time, ever working my will and wreaking my passion on the cloddy aggregates of matter, called bodies, which i have transiently inhabited. for look you. this finger of mine, so quick with sensation, so subtle to feel, so delicate in its multifarious dexterities, so firm and strong to crook and bend or stiffen by means of cunning leverages--this finger is not i. cut it off. i live. the body is mutilated. i am not mutilated. the spirit that is i is whole. very well. cut off all my fingers. i am i. the spirit is entire. cut off both hands. cut off both arms at the shoulder-sockets. cut off both legs at the hip-sockets. and i, the unconquerable and indestructible i, survive. am i any the less for these mutilations, for these subtractions of the flesh? certainly not. clip my hair. shave from me with sharp razors my lips, my nose, my ears--ay, and tear out the eyes of me by the roots; and there, mewed in that featureless skull that is attached to a hacked and mangled torso, there in that cell of the chemic flesh, will still be i, unmutilated, undiminished. oh, the heart still beats. very well. cut out the heart, or, better, fling the flesh-remnant into a machine of a thousand blades and make mincemeat of it--and i, _i_, don't you understand, all the spirit and the mystery and the vital fire and life of me, am off and away. i have not perished. only the body has perished, and the body is not i. i believe colonel de rochas was correct when he asserted that under the compulsion of his will he sent the girl josephine, while she was in hypnotic trance, back through the eighteen years she had lived, back through the silence and the dark ere she had been born, back to the light of a previous living when she was a bedridden old man, the ex-artilleryman, jean-claude bourdon. and i believe that colonel de rochas did truly hypnotize this resurrected shade of the old man and, by compulsion of will, send him back through the seventy years of his life, back into the dark and through the dark into the light of day when he had been the wicked old woman, philomene carteron. already, have i not shown you, my reader, that in previous times, inhabiting various cloddy aggregates of matter, i have been count guillaume de sainte-maure, a mangy and nameless hermit of egypt, and the boy jesse, whose father was captain of forty wagons in the great westward emigration. and, also, am i not now, as i write these lines, darrell sanding, under sentence of death in folsom prison and one time professor of agronomy in the college of agriculture of the university of california? matter is the great illusion. that is, matter manifests itself in form, and form is apparitional. where, now, are the crumbling rock-cliffs of old egypt where once i laired me like a wild beast while i dreamed of the city of god? where, now, is the body of guillaume de sainte-maure that was thrust through on the moonlit grass so long ago by the flame-headed guy de villehardouin? where, now, are the forty great wagons in the circle at nephi, and all the men and women and children and lean cattle that sheltered inside that circle? all such things no longer are, for they were forms, manifestations of fluxing matter ere they melted into the flux again. they have passed and are not. and now my argument becomes plain. the spirit is the reality that endures. i am spirit, and i endure. i, darrell standing, the tenant of many fleshly tenements, shall write a few more lines of these memoirs and then pass on my way. the form of me that is my body will fall apart when it has been sufficiently hanged by the neck, and of it naught will remain in all the world of matter. in the world of spirit the memory of it will remain. matter has no memory, because its forms are evanescent, and what is engraved on its forms perishes with the forms. one word more ere i return to my narrative. in all my journeys through the dark into other lives that have been mine i have never been able to guide any journey to a particular destination. thus many new experiences of old lives were mine before ever i chanced to return to the boy jesse at nephi. possibly, all told, i have lived over jesse's experiences a score of times, sometimes taking up his career when he was quite small in the arkansas settlements, and at least a dozen times carrying on past the point where i left him at nephi. it were a waste of time to detail the whole of it; and so, without prejudice to the verity of my account, i shall skip much that is vague and tortuous and repetitional, and give the facts as i have assembled them out of the various times, in whole and part, as i relived them. chapter xiii long before daylight the camp at nephi was astir. the cattle were driven out to water and pasture. while the men unchained the wheels and drew the wagons apart and clear for yoking in, the women cooked forty breakfasts over forty fires. the children, in the chill of dawn, clustered about the fires, sharing places, here and there, with the last relief of the night-watch waiting sleepily for coffee. it requires time to get a large train such as ours under way, for its speed is the speed of the slowest. so the sun was an hour high and the day was already uncomfortably hot when we rolled out of nephi and on into the sandy barrens. no inhabitant of the place saw us off. all chose to remain indoors, thus making our departure as ominous as they had made our arrival the night before. again it was long hours of parching heat and biting dust, sage-brush and sand, and a land accursed. no dwellings of men, neither cattle nor fences, nor any sign of human kind, did we encounter all that day; and at night we made our wagon-circle beside an empty stream, in the damp sand of which we dug many holes that filled slowly with water seepage. our subsequent journey is always a broken experience to me. we made camp so many times, always with the wagons drawn in circle, that to my child mind a weary long time passed after nephi. but always, strong upon all of us, was that sense of drifting to an impending and certain doom. we averaged about fifteen miles a day. i know, for my father had said it was sixty miles to fillmore, the next mormon settlement, and we made three camps on the way. this meant four days of travel. from nephi to the last camp of which i have any memory we must have taken two weeks or a little less. at fillmore the inhabitants were hostile, as all had been since salt lake. they laughed at us when we tried to buy food, and were not above taunting us with being missourians. when we entered the place, hitched before the largest house of the dozen houses that composed the settlement were two saddle-horses, dusty, streaked with sweat, and drooping. the old man i have mentioned, the one with long, sunburnt hair and buckskin shirt and who seemed a sort of aide or lieutenant to father, rode close to our wagon and indicated the jaded saddle-animals with a cock of his head. "not sparin' horseflesh, captain," he muttered in a low voice. "an' what in the name of sam hill are they hard-riding for if it ain't for us?" but my father had already noted the condition of the two animals, and my eager eyes had seen him. and i had seen his eyes flash, his lips tighten, and haggard lines form for a moment on his dusty face. that was all. but i put two and two together, and knew that the two tired saddle- horses were just one more added touch of ominousness to the situation. "i guess they're keeping an eye on us, laban," was my father's sole comment. it was at fillmore that i saw a man that i was to see again. he was a tall, broad-shouldered man, well on in middle age, with all the evidence of good health and immense strength--strength not alone of body but of will. unlike most men i was accustomed to about me, he was smooth-shaven. several days' growth of beard showed that he was already well-grayed. his mouth was unusually wide, with thin lips tightly compressed as if he had lost many of his front teeth. his nose was large, square, and thick. so was his face square, wide between the cheekbones, underhung with massive jaws, and topped with a broad, intelligent forehead. and the eyes, rather small, a little more than the width of an eye apart, were the bluest blue i had ever seen. it was at the flour-mill at fillmore that i first saw this man. father, with several of our company, had gone there to try to buy flour, and i, disobeying my mother in my curiosity to see more of our enemies, had tagged along unperceived. this man was one of four or five who stood in a group with the miller during the interview. "you seen that smooth-faced old cuss?" laban said to father, after we had got outside and were returning to camp. father nodded. "well, that's lee," laban continued. "i seen'm in salt lake. he's a regular son-of-a-gun. got nineteen wives and fifty children, they all say. an' he's rank crazy on religion. now, what's he followin' us up for through this god-forsaken country?" our weary, doomed drifting went on. the little settlements, wherever water and soil permitted, were from twenty to fifty miles apart. between stretched the barrenness of sand and alkali and drought. and at every settlement our peaceful attempts to buy food were vain. they denied us harshly, and wanted to know who of us had sold them food when we drove them from missouri. it was useless on our part to tell them we were from arkansas. from arkansas we truly were, but they insisted on our being missourians. at beaver, five days' journey south from fillmore, we saw lee again. and again we saw hard-ridden horses tethered before the houses. but we did not see lee at parowan. cedar city was the last settlement. laban, who had ridden on ahead, came back and reported to father. his first news was significant. "i seen that lee skedaddling out as i rid in, captain. an' there's more men-folk an' horses in cedar city than the size of the place 'd warrant." but we had no trouble at the settlement. beyond refusing to sell us food, they left us to ourselves. the women and children stayed in the houses, and though some of the men appeared in sight they did not, as on former occasions, enter our camp and taunt us. it was at cedar city that the wainwright baby died. i remember mrs. wainwright weeping and pleading with laban to try to get some cow's milk. "it may save the baby's life," she said. "and they've got cow's milk. i saw fresh cows with my own eyes. go on, please, laban. it won't hurt you to try. they can only refuse. but they won't. tell them it's for a baby, a wee little baby. mormon women have mother's hearts. they couldn't refuse a cup of milk for a wee little baby." and laban tried. but, as he told father afterward, he did not get to see any mormon women. he saw only the mormon men, who turned him away. this was the last mormon outpost. beyond lay the vast desert, with, on the other side of it, the dream land, ay, the myth land, of california. as our wagons rolled out of the place in the early morning i, sitting beside my father on the driver's seat, saw laban give expression to his feelings. we had gone perhaps half a mile, and were topping a low rise that would sink cedar city from view, when laban turned his horse around, halted it, and stood up in the stirrups. where he had halted was a new- made grave, and i knew it for the wainwright baby's--not the first of our graves since we had crossed the wasatch mountains. he was a weird figure of a man. aged and lean, long-faced, hollow-checked, with matted, sunburnt hair that fell below the shoulders of his buckskin shirt, his face was distorted with hatred and helpless rage. holding his long rifle in his bridle-hand, he shook his free fist at cedar city. "god's curse on all of you!" he cried out. "on your children, and on your babes unborn. may drought destroy your crops. may you eat sand seasoned with the venom of rattlesnakes. may the sweet water of your springs turn to bitter alkali. may . . ." here his words became indistinct as our wagons rattled on; but his heaving shoulders and brandishing fist attested that he had only begun to lay the curse. that he expressed the general feeling in our train was evidenced by the many women who leaned from the wagons, thrusting out gaunt forearms and shaking bony, labour-malformed fists at the last of mormondom. a man, who walked in the sand and goaded the oxen of the wagon behind ours, laughed and waved his goad. it was unusual, that laugh, for there had been no laughter in our train for many days. "give 'm hell, laban," he encouraged. "them's my sentiments." and as our train rolled on i continued to look back at laban, standing in his stirrups by the baby's grave. truly he was a weird figure, with his long hair, his moccasins, and fringed leggings. so old and weather-beaten was his buckskin shirt that ragged filaments, here and there, showed where proud fringes once had been. he was a man of flying tatters. i remember, at his waist, dangled dirty tufts of hair that, far back in the journey, after a shower of rain, were wont to show glossy black. these i knew were indian scalps, and the sight of them always thrilled me. "it will do him good," father commended, more to himself than to me. "i've been looking for days for him to blow up." "i wish he'd go back and take a couple of scalps," i volunteered. my father regarded me quizzically. "don't like the mormons, eh, son?" i shook my head and felt myself swelling with the inarticulate hate that possessed me. "when i grow up," i said, after a minute, "i'm goin' gunning for them." "you, jesse!" came my mother's voice from inside the wagon. "shut your mouth instanter." and to my father: "you ought to be ashamed letting the boy talk on like that." two days' journey brought us to mountain meadows, and here, well beyond the last settlement, for the first time we did not form the wagon-circle. the wagons were roughly in a circle, but there were many gaps, and the wheels were not chained. preparations were made to stop a week. the cattle must be rested for the real desert, though this was desert enough in all seeming. the same low hills of sand were about us, but sparsely covered with scrub brush. the flat was sandy, but there was some grass--more than we had encountered in many days. not more than a hundred feet from camp was a weak spring that barely supplied human needs. but farther along the bottom various other weak springs emerged from the hillsides, and it was at these that the cattle watered. we made camp early that day, and, because of the programme to stay a week, there was a general overhauling of soiled clothes by the women, who planned to start washing on the morrow. everybody worked till nightfall. while some of the men mended harness others repaired the frames and ironwork of the wagons. them was much heating and hammering of iron and tightening of bolts and nuts. and i remember coming upon laban, sitting cross-legged in the shade of a wagon and sewing away till nightfall on a new pair of moccasins. he was the only man in our train who wore moccasins and buckskin, and i have an impression that he had not belonged to our company when it left arkansas. also, he had neither wife, nor family, nor wagon of his own. all he possessed was his horse, his rifle, the clothes he stood up in, and a couple of blankets that were hauled in the mason wagon. next morning it was that our doom fell. two days' journey beyond the last mormon outpost, knowing that no indians were about and apprehending nothing from the indians on any count, for the first time we had not chained our wagons in the solid circle, placed guards on the cattle, nor set a night-watch. my awakening was like a nightmare. it came as a sudden blast of sound. i was only stupidly awake for the first moments and did nothing except to try to analyze and identify the various noises that went to compose the blast that continued without let up. i could hear near and distant explosions of rifles, shouts and curses of men, women screaming, and children bawling. then i could make out the thuds and squeals of bullets that hit wood and iron in the wheels and under-construction of the wagon. whoever it was that was shooting, the aim was too low. when i started to rise, my mother, evidently just in the act of dressing, pressed me down with her hand. father, already up and about, at this stage erupted into the wagon. "out of it!" he shouted. "quick! to the ground!" he wasted no time. with a hook-like clutch that was almost a blow, so swift was it, he flung me bodily out of the rear end of the wagon. i had barely time to crawl out from under when father, mother, and the baby came down pell-mell where i had been. "here, jesse!" father shouted to me, and i joined him in scooping out sand behind the shelter of a wagon-wheel. we worked bare-handed and wildly. mother joined in. "go ahead and make it deeper, jesse," father ordered, he stood up and rushed away in the gray light, shouting commands as he ran. (i had learned by now my surname. i was jesse fancher. my father was captain fancher). "lie down!" i could hear him. "get behind the wagon wheels and burrow in the sand! family men, get the women and children out of the wagons! hold your fire! no more shooting! hold your fire and be ready for the rush when it comes! single men, join laban at the right, cochrane at the left, and me in the centre! don't stand up! crawl for it!" but no rush came. for a quarter of an hour the heavy and irregular firing continued. our damage had come in the first moments of surprise when a number of the early-rising men were caught exposed in the light of the campfires they were building. the indians--for indians laban declared them to be--had attacked us from the open, and were lying down and firing at us. in the growing light father made ready for them. his position was near to where i lay in the burrow with mother so that i heard him when he cried out: "now! all together!" from left, right, and centre our rifles loosed in a volley. i had popped my head up to see, and i could make out more than one stricken indian. their fire immediately ceased, and i could see them scampering back on foot across the open, dragging their dead and wounded with them. all was work with us on the instant. while the wagons were being dragged and chained into the circle with tongues inside--i saw women and little boys and girls flinging their strength on the wheel spokes to help--we took toll of our losses. first, and gravest of all, our last animal had been run off. next, lying about the fires they had been building, were seven of our men. four were dead, and three were dying. other men, wounded, were being cared for by the women. little rish hardacre had been struck in the arm by a heavy ball. he was no more than six, and i remember looking on with mouth agape while his mother held him on her lap and his father set about bandaging the wound. little rish had stopped crying. i could see the tears on his cheeks while he stared wonderingly at a sliver of broken bone sticking out of his forearm. granny white was found dead in the foxwell wagon. she was a fat and helpless old woman who never did anything but sit down all the time and smoke a pipe. she was the mother of abby foxwell. and mrs. grant had been killed. her husband sat beside her body. he was very quiet. there were no tears in his eyes. he just sat there, his rifle across his knees, and everybody left him alone. under father's directions the company was working like so many beavers. the men dug a big rifle pit in the centre of the corral, forming a breastwork out of the displaced sand. into this pit the women dragged bedding, food, and all sorts of necessaries from the wagons. all the children helped. there was no whimpering, and little or no excitement. there was work to be done, and all of us were folks born to work. the big rifle pit was for the women and children. under the wagons, completely around the circle, a shallow trench was dug and an earthwork thrown up. this was for the fighting men. laban returned from a scout. he reported that the indians had withdrawn the matter of half a mile, and were holding a powwow. also he had seen them carry six of their number off the field, three of which, he said, were deaders. from time to time, during the morning of that first day, we observed clouds of dust that advertised the movements of considerable bodies of mounted men. these clouds of dust came toward us, hemming us in on all sides. but we saw no living creature. one cloud of dirt only moved away from us. it was a large cloud, and everybody said it was our cattle being driven off. and our forty great wagons that had rolled over the rockies and half across the continent stood in a helpless circle. without cattle they could roll no farther. at noon laban came in from another scout. he had seen fresh indians arriving from the south, showing that we were being closed in. it was at this time that we saw a dozen white men ride out on the crest of a low hill to the east and look down on us. "that settles it," laban said to father. "the indians have been put up to it." "they're white like us," i heard abby foxwell complain to mother. "why don't they come in to us?" "they ain't whites," i piped up, with a wary eye for the swoop of mother's hand. "they're mormons." that night, after dark, three of our young men stole out of camp. i saw them go. they were will aden, abel milliken, and timothy grant. "they are heading for cedar city to get help," father told mother while he was snatching a hasty bite of supper. mother shook her head. "there's plenty of mormons within calling distance of camp," she said. "if they won't help, and they haven't shown any signs, then the cedar city ones won't either." "but there are good mormons and bad mormons--" father began. "we haven't found any good ones so far," she shut him off. not until morning did i hear of the return of abel milliken and timothy grant, but i was not long in learning. the whole camp was downcast by reason of their report. the three had gone only a few miles when they were challenged by white men. as soon as will aden spoke up, telling that they were from the fancher company, going to cedar city for help, he was shot down. milliken and grant escaped back with the news, and the news settled the last hope in the hearts of our company. the whites were behind the indians, and the doom so long apprehended was upon us. this morning of the second day our men, going for water, were fired upon. the spring was only a hundred feet outside our circle, but the way to it was commanded by the indians who now occupied the low hill to the east. it was close range, for the hill could not have been more than fifteen rods away. but the indians were not good shots, evidently, for our men brought in the water without being hit. beyond an occasional shot into camp the morning passed quietly. we had settled down in the rifle pit, and, being used to rough living, were comfortable enough. of course it was bad for the families of those who had been killed, and there was the taking care of the wounded. i was for ever stealing away from mother in my insatiable curiosity to see everything that was going on, and i managed to see pretty much of everything. inside the corral, to the south of the big rifle pit, the men dug a hole and buried the seven men and two women all together. only mrs. hastings, who had lost her husband and father, made much trouble. she cried and screamed out, and it took the other women a long time to quiet her. on the low hill to the east the indians kept up a tremendous powwowing and yelling. but beyond an occasional harmless shot they did nothing. "what's the matter with the ornery cusses?" laban impatiently wanted to know. "can't they make up their minds what they're goin' to do, an' then do it?" it was hot in the corral that afternoon. the sun blazed down out of a cloudless sky, and there was no wind. the men, lying with their rifles in the trench under the wagons, were partly shaded; but the big rifle pit, in which were over a hundred women and children, was exposed to the full power of the sun. here, too, were the wounded men, over whom we erected awnings of blankets. it was crowded and stifling in the pit, and i was for ever stealing out of it to the firing-line, and making a great to-do at carrying messages for father. our grave mistake had been in not forming the wagon-circle so as to inclose the spring. this had been due to the excitement of the first attack, when we did not know how quickly it might be followed by a second one. and now it was too late. at fifteen rods' distance from the indian position on the hill we did not dare unchain our wagons. inside the corral, south of the graves, we constructed a latrine, and, north of the rifle pit in the centre, a couple of men were told off by father to dig a well for water. in the mid-afternoon of that day, which was the second day, we saw lee again. he was on foot, crossing diagonally over the meadow to the north- west just out of rifle-shot from us. father hoisted one of mother's sheets on a couple of ox-goads lashed together. this was our white flag. but lee took no notice of it, continuing on his way. laban was for trying a long shot at him, but father stopped him, saying that it was evident the whites had not made up their minds what they were going to do with us, and that a shot at lee might hurry them into making up their minds the wrong way. "here, jesse," father said to me, tearing a strip from the sheet and fastening it to an ox-goad. "take this and go out and try to talk to that man. don't tell him anything about what's happened to us. just try to get him to come in and talk with us." as i started to obey, my chest swelling with pride in my mission, jed dunham cried out that he wanted to go with me. jed was about my own age. "dunham, can your boy go along with jesse?" father asked jed's father. "two's better than one. they'll keep each other out of mischief." so jed and i, two youngsters of nine, went out under the white flag to talk with the leader of our enemies. but lee would not talk. when he saw us coming he started to sneak away. we never got within calling distance of him, and after a while he must have hidden in the brush; for we never laid eyes on him again, and we knew he couldn't have got clear away. jed and i beat up the brush for hundreds of yards all around. they hadn't told us how long we were to be gone, and since the indians did not fire on us we kept on going. we were away over two hours, though had either of us been alone he would have been back in a quarter of the time. but jed was bound to outbrave me, and i was equally bound to outbrave him. our foolishness was not without profit. we walked, boldly about under our white flag, and learned how thoroughly our camp was beleaguered. to the south of our train, not more than half a mile away, we made out a large indian camp. beyond, on the meadow, we could see indian boys riding hard on their horses. then there was the indian position on the hill to the east. we managed to climb a low hill so as to look into this position. jed and i spent half an hour trying to count them, and concluded, with much guessing, that there must be at least a couple of hundred. also, we saw white men with them and doing a great deal of talking. north-east of our train, not more than four hundred yards from it, we discovered a large camp of whites behind a low rise of ground. and beyond we could see fifty or sixty saddle-horses grazing. and a mile or so away, to the north, we saw a tiny cloud of dust approaching. jed and i waited until we saw a single man, riding fast, gallop into the camp of the whites. when we got back into the corral the first thing that happened to me was a smack from mother for having stayed away so long; but father praised jed and me when we gave our report. "watch for an attack now maybe, captain," aaron cochrane said to father. "that man the boys seen has rid in for a purpose. the whites are holding the indians till they get orders from higher up. maybe that man brung the orders one way or the other. they ain't sparing horseflesh, that's one thing sure." half an hour after our return laban attempted a scout under a white flag. but he had not gone twenty feet outside the circle when the indians opened fire on him and sent him back on the run. just before sundown i was in the rifle pit holding the baby, while mother was spreading the blankets for a bed. there were so many of us that we were packed and jammed. so little room was there that many of the women the night before had sat up and slept with their heads bowed on their knees. right alongside of me, so near that when he tossed his arms about he struck me on the shoulder, silas dunlap was dying. he had been shot in the head in the first attack, and all the second day was out of his head and raving and singing doggerel. one of his songs, that he sang over and over, until it made mother frantic nervous, was: "said the first little devil to the second little devil, 'give me some tobaccy from your old tobaccy box.' said the second little devil to the first little devil, 'stick close to your money and close to your rocks, an' you'll always have tobaccy in your old tobaccy box.'" i was sitting directly alongside of him, holding the baby, when the attack burst on us. it was sundown, and i was staring with all my eyes at silas dunlap who was just in the final act of dying. his wife, sarah, had one hand resting on his forehead. both she and her aunt martha were crying softly. and then it came--explosions and bullets from hundreds of rifles. clear around from east to west, by way of the north, they had strung out in half a circle and were pumping lead in our position. everybody in the rifle pit flattened down. lots of the younger children set up a-squalling, and it kept the women busy hushing them. some of the women screamed at first, but not many. thousands of shots must haven rained in on us in the next few minutes. how i wanted to crawl out to the trench under the wagons where our men were keeping up a steady but irregular fire! each was shooting on his own whenever he saw a man to pull trigger on. but mother suspected me, for she made me crouch down and keep right on holding the baby. i was just taking a look at silas dunlap--he was still quivering--when the little castleton baby was killed. dorothy castleton, herself only about ten, was holding it, so that it was killed in her arms. she was not hurt at all. i heard them talking about it, and they conjectured that the bullet must have struck high on one of the wagons and been deflected down into the rifle pit. it was just an accident, they said, and that except for such accidents we were safe where we were. when i looked again silas dunlap was dead, and i suffered distinct disappointment in being cheated out of witnessing that particular event. i had never been lucky enough to see a man actually die before my eyes. dorothy castleton got hysterics over what had happened, and yelled and screamed for a long time and she set mrs. hastings going again. altogether such a row was raised that father sent watt cummings crawling back to us to find out what was the matter. well along into twilight the heavy firing ceased, although there were scattering shots during the night. two of our men were wounded in this second attack, and were brought into the rifle pit. bill tyler was killed instantly, and they buried him, silas dunlap, and the castleton baby, in the dark alongside of the others. all during the night men relieved one another at sinking the well deeper; but the only sign of water they got was damp sand. some of the men fetched a few pails of water from the spring, but were fired upon, and they gave it up when jeremy hopkins had his left hand shot off at the wrist. next morning, the third day, it was hotter and dryer than ever. we awoke thirsty, and there was no cooking. so dry were our mouths that we could not eat. i tried a piece of stale bread mother gave me, but had to give it up. the firing rose and fell. sometimes there were hundreds shooting into the camp. at other times came lulls in which not a shot was fired. father was continually cautioning our men not to waste shots because we were running short of ammunition. and all the time the men went on digging the well. it was so deep that they were hoisting the sand up in buckets. the men who hoisted were exposed, and one of them was wounded in the shoulder. he was peter bromley, who drove oxen for the bloodgood wagon, and he was engaged to marry jane bloodgood. she jumped out of the rifle pit and ran right to him while the bullets were flying and led him back into shelter. about midday the well caved in, and there was lively work digging out the couple who were buried in the sand. amos wentworth did not come to for an hour. after that they timbered the well with bottom boards from the wagons and wagon tongues, and the digging went on. but all they could get, and they were twenty feet down, was damp sand. the water would not seep. by this time the conditions in the rifle pit were terrible. the children were complaining for water, and the babies, hoarse from much crying, went on crying. robert carr, another wounded man, lay about ten feet from mother and me. he was out of his head, and kept thrashing his arms about and calling for water. and some of the women were almost as bad, and kept raving against the mormons and indians. some of the women prayed a great deal, and the three grown demdike sisters, with their mother, sang gospel hymns. other women got damp sand that was hoisted out of the bottom of the well, and packed it against the bare bodies of the babies to try to cool and soothe them. the two fairfax brothers couldn't stand it any longer, and, with pails in their hands, crawled out under a wagon and made a dash for the spring. giles never got half way, when he went down. roger made it there and back without being hit. he brought two pails part-full, for some splashed out when he ran. giles crawled back, and when they helped him into the rifle pit he was bleeding at the mouth and coughing. two part-pails of water could not go far among over a hundred of us, not counting the, men. only the babies, and the very little children, and the wounded men, got any. i did not get a sip, although mother dipped a bit of cloth into the several spoonfuls she got for the baby and wiped my mouth out. she did not even do that for herself, for she left me the bit of damp rag to chew. the situation grew unspeakably worse in the afternoon. the quiet sun blazed down through the clear windless air and made a furnace of our hole in the sand. and all about us were the explosions of rifles and yells of the indians. only once in a while did father permit a single shot from the trench, and at that only by our best marksmen, such as laban and timothy grant. but a steady stream of lead poured into our position all the time. there were no more disastrous ricochets, however; and our men in the trench, no longer firing, lay low and escaped damage. only four were wounded, and only one of them very badly. father came in from the trench during a lull in the firing. he sat for a few minutes alongside mother and me without speaking. he seemed to be listening to all the moaning and crying for water that was going up. once he climbed out of the rifle pit and went over to investigate the well. he brought back only damp sand, which he plastered thick on the chest and shoulders of robert carr. then he went to where jed dunham and his mother were, and sent for jed's father to come in from the trench. so closely packed were we that when anybody moved about inside the rifle pit he had to crawl carefully over the bodies of those lying down. after a time father came crawling back to us. "jesse," he asked, "are you afraid of the indians?" i shook my head emphatically, guessing that i was to be seat on another proud mission. "are you afraid of the damned mormons?" "not of any damned mormon," i answered, taking advantage of the opportunity to curse our enemies without fear of the avenging back of mother's hand. i noted the little smile that curled his tired lips for the moment when he heard my reply. "well, then, jesse," he said, "will you go with jed to the spring for water?" i was all eagerness. "we're going to dress the two of you up as girls," he continued, "so that maybe they won't fire on you." i insisted on going as i was, as a male human that wore pants; but i surrendered quickly enough when father suggested that he would find some other boy to dress up and go along with jed. a chest was fetched in from the chattox wagon. the chattox girls were twins and of about a size with jed and me. several of the women got around to help. they were the sunday dresses of the chattox twins, and had come in the chest all the way from arkansas. in her anxiety mother left the baby with sarah dunlap, and came as far as the trench with me. there, under a wagon and behind the little breastwork of sand, jed and i received our last instructions. then we crawled out and stood up in the open. we were dressed precisely alike--white stockings, white dresses, with big blue sashes, and white sunbonnets. jed's right and my left hand were clasped together. in each of our free hands we carried two small pails. "take it easy," father cautioned, as we began our advance. "go slow. walk like girls." not a shot was fired. we made the spring safely, filled our pails, and lay down and took a good drink ourselves. with a full pail in each hand we made the return trip. and still not a shot was fired. i cannot remember how many journeys we made--fully fifteen or twenty. we walked slowly, always going out with hands clasped, always coming back slowly with four pails of water. it was astonishing how thirsty we were. we lay down several times and took long drinks. but it was too much for our enemies. i cannot imagine that the indians would have withheld their fire for so long, girls or no girls, had they not obeyed instructions from the whites who were with them. at any rate jed and i were just starting on another trip when a rifle went off from the indian hill, and then another. "come back!" mother cried out. i looked at jed, and found him looking at me. i knew he was stubborn and had made up his mind to be the last one in. so i started to advance, and at the same instant he started. "you!--jesse!" cried my mother. and there was more than a smacking in the way she said it. jed offered to clasp hands, but i shook my head. "run for it," i said. and while we hotfooted it across the sand it seemed all the rifles on indian hill were turned loose on us. i got to the spring a little ahead, so that jed had to wait for me to fill my pails. "now run for it," he told me; and from the leisurely way he went about filling his own pails i knew he was determined to be in last. so i crouched down, and, while i waited, watched the puffs of dust raised by the bullets. we began the return side by side and running. "not so fast," i cautioned him, "or you'll spill half the water." that stung him, and he slacked back perceptibly. midway i stumbled and fell headlong. a bullet, striking directly in front of me, filled my eyes with sand. for the moment i thought i was shot. "done it a-purpose," jed sneered as i scrambled to my feet. he had stood and waited for me. i caught his idea. he thought i had fallen deliberately in order to spill my water and go back for more. this rivalry between us was a serious matter--so serious, indeed, that i immediately took advantage of what he had imputed and raced back to the spring. and jed dunham, scornful of the bullets that were puffing dust all around him, stood there upright in the open and waited for me. we came in side by side, with honours even in our boys' foolhardiness. but when we delivered the water jed had only one pailful. a bullet had gone through the other pail close to the bottom. mother took it out on me with a lecture on disobedience. she must have known, after what i had done, that father wouldn't let her smack me; for, while she was lecturing, father winked at me across her shoulder. it was the first time he had ever winked at me. back in the rifle pit jed and i were heroes. the women wept and blessed us, and kissed us and mauled us. and i confess i was proud of the demonstration, although, like jed, i let on that i did not like all such making-over. but jeremy hopkins, a great bandage about the stump of his left wrist, said we were the stuff white men were made out of--men like daniel boone, like kit carson, and davy crockett. i was prouder of that than all the rest. the remainder of the day i seem to have been bothered principally with the pain of my right eye caused by the sand that had been kicked into it by the bullet. the eye was bloodshot, mother said; and to me it seemed to hurt just as much whether i kept it open or closed. i tried both ways. things were quieter in the rifle pit, because all had had water, though strong upon us was the problem of how the next water was to be procured. coupled with this was the known fact that our ammunition was almost exhausted. a thorough overhauling of the wagons by father had resulted in finding five pounds of powder. a very little more was in the flasks of the men. i remembered the sundown attack of the night before, and anticipated it this time by crawling to the trench before sunset. i crept into a place alongside of laban. he was busy chewing tobacco, and did not notice me. for some time i watched him, fearing that when he discovered me he would order me back. he would take a long squint out between the wagon wheels, chew steadily a while, and then spit carefully into a little depression he had made in the sand. "how's tricks?" i asked finally. it was the way he always addressed me. "fine," he answered. "most remarkable fine, jesse, now that i can chew again. my mouth was that dry that i couldn't chew from sun-up to when you brung the water." here a man showed head and shoulders over the top of the little hill to the north-east occupied by the whites. laban sighted his rifle on him for a long minute. then he shook his head. "four hundred yards. nope, i don't risk it. i might get him, and then again i mightn't, an' your dad is mighty anxious about the powder." "what do you think our chances are?" i asked, man-fashion, for, after my water exploit, i was feeling very much the man. laban seemed to consider carefully for a space ere he replied. "jesse, i don't mind tellin' you we're in a damned bad hole. but we'll get out, oh, we'll get out, you can bet your bottom dollar." "some of us ain't going to get out," i objected. "who, for instance?" he queried. "why, bill tyler, and mrs. grant, and silas dunlap, and all the rest." "aw, shucks, jesse--they're in the ground already. don't you know everybody has to bury their dead as they traipse along? they've ben doin' it for thousands of years i reckon, and there's just as many alive as ever they was. you see, jesse, birth and death go hand-in-hand. and they're born as fast as they die--faster, i reckon, because they've increased and multiplied. now you, you might a-got killed this afternoon packin' water. but you're here, ain't you, a-gassin' with me an' likely to grow up an' be the father of a fine large family in californy. they say everything grows large in californy." this cheerful way of looking at the matter encouraged me to dare sudden expression of a long covetousness. "say, laban, supposin' you got killed here--" "who?--me?" he cried. "i'm just sayin' supposin'," i explained. "oh, all right then. go on. supposin' i am killed?" "will you give me your scalps?" "your ma'll smack you if she catches you a-wearin' them," he temporized. "i don't have to wear them when she's around. now if you got killed, laban, somebody'd have to get them scalps. why not me?" "why not?" he repeated. "that's correct, and why not you? all right, jesse. i like you, and your pa. the minute i'm killed the scalps is yourn, and the scalpin' knife, too. and there's timothy grant for witness. did you hear, timothy?" timothy said he had heard, and i lay there speechless in the stifling trench, too overcome by my greatness of good fortune to be able to utter a word of gratitude. i was rewarded for my foresight in going to the trench. another general attack was made at sundown, and thousands of shots were fired into us. nobody on our side was scratched. on the other hand, although we fired barely thirty shots, i saw laban and timothy grant each get an indian. laban told me that from the first only the indians had done the shooting. he was certain that no white had fired a shot. all of which sorely puzzled him. the whites neither offered us aid nor attacked us, and all the while were on visiting terms with the indians who were attacking us. next morning found the thirst harsh upon us. i was out at the first hint of light. there had been a heavy dew, and men, women, and children were lapping it up with their tongues from off the wagon-tongues, brake-blocks, and wheel-tyres. there was talk that laban had returned from a scout just before daylight; that he had crept close to the position of the whites; that they were already up; and that in the light of their campfires he had seen them praying in a large circle. also he reported from what few words he caught that they were praying about us and what was to be done with us. "may god send them the light then," i heard one of the demdike sisters say to abby foxwell. "and soon," said abby foxwell, "for i don't know what we'll do a whole day without water, and our powder is about gone." nothing happened all morning. not a shot was fired. only the sun blazed down through the quiet air. our thirst grew, and soon the babies were crying and the younger children whimpering and complaining. at noon will hamilton took two large pails and started for the spring. but before he could crawl under the wagon ann demdike ran and got her arms around him and tried to hold him back. but he talked to her, and kissed her, and went on. not a shot was fired, nor was any fired all the time he continued to go out and bring back water. "praise god!" cried old mrs. demdike. "it is a sign. they have relented." this was the opinion of many of the women. about two o'clock, after we had eaten and felt better, a white man appeared, carrying a white flag. will hamilton went out and talked to him, came back and talked with father and the rest of our men, and then went out to the stranger again. farther back we could see a man standing and looking on, whom we recognized as lee. with us all was excitement. the women were so relieved that they were crying and kissing one another, and old mrs. demdike and others were hallelujahing and blessing god. the proposal, which our men had accepted, was that we would put ourselves under the flag of truce and be protected from the indians. "we had to do it," i heard father tell mother. he was sitting, droop-shouldered and dejected, on a wagon-tongue. "but what if they intend treachery?" mother asked. he shrugged his shoulders. "we've got to take the chance that they don't," he said. "our ammunition is gone." some of our men were unchaining one of our wagons and rolling it out of the way. i ran across to see what was happening. in came lee himself, followed by two empty wagons, each driven by one man. everybody crowded around lee. he said that they had had a hard time with the indians keeping them off of us, and that major higbee, with fifty of the mormon militia, were ready to take us under their charge. but what made father and laban and some of the men suspicious was when lee said that we must put all our rifles into one of the wagons so as not to arouse the animosity of the indians. by so doing we would appear to be the prisoners of the mormon militia. father straightened up and was about to refuse when he glanced to laban, who replied in an undertone. "they ain't no more use in our hands than in the wagon, seein' as the powder's gone." two of our wounded men who could not walk were put into the wagons, and along with them were put all the little children. lee seemed to be picking them out over eight and under eight. jed and i were large for our age, and we were nine besides; so lee put us with the older bunch and told us we were to march with the women on foot. when he took our baby from mother and put it in a wagon she started to object. then i saw her lips draw tightly together, and she gave in. she was a gray-eyed, strong-featured, middle-aged woman, large-boned and fairly stout. but the long journey and hardship had told on her, so that she was hollow-cheeked and gaunt, and like all the women in the company she wore an expression of brooding, never-ceasing anxiety. it was when lee described the order of march that laban came to me. lee said that the women and the children that walked should go first in the line, following behind the two wagons. then the men, in single file, should follow the women. when laban heard this he came to me, untied the scalps from his belt, and fastened them to my waist. "but you ain't killed yet," i protested. "you bet your life i ain't," he answered lightly. "i've just reformed, that's all. this scalp-wearin' is a vain thing and heathen." he stopped a moment as if he had forgotten something, then, as he turned abruptly on his heel to regain the men of our company, he called over his shoulder, "well, so long, jesse." i was wondering why he should say good-bye when a white man came riding into the corral. he said major higbee had sent him to tell us to hurry up, because the indians might attack at any moment. so the march began, the two wagons first. lee kept along with the women and walking children. behind us, after waiting until we were a couple of hundred feet in advance, came our men. as we emerged from the corral we could see the militia just a short distance away. they were leaning on their rifles and standing in a long line about six feet apart. as we passed them i could not help noticing how solemn-faced they were. they looked like men at a funeral. so did the women notice this, and some of them began to cry. i walked right behind my mother. i had chosen this position so that she would not catch-sight of my scalps. behind me came the three demdike sisters, two of them helping the old mother. i could hear lee calling all the time to the men who drove the wagons not to go so fast. a man that one of the demdike girls said must be major higbee sat on a horse watching us go by. not an indian was in sight. by the time our men were just abreast of the militia--i had just looked back to try to see where jed dunham was--the thing happened. i heard major higbee cry out in a loud voice, "do your duty!" all the rifles of the militia seemed to go off at once, and our men were falling over and sinking down. all the demdike women went down at one time. i turned quickly to see how mother was, and she was down. right alongside of us, out of the bushes, came hundreds of indians, all shooting. i saw the two dunlap sisters start on the run across the sand, and took after them, for whites and indians were all killing us. and as i ran i saw the driver of one of the wagons shooting the two wounded men. the horses of the other wagon were plunging and rearing and their driver was trying to hold them. * * * * * it was when the little boy that was i was running after the dunlap girls that blackness came upon him. all memory there ceases, for jesse fancher there ceased, and, as jesse fancher, ceased for ever. the form that was jesse fancher, the body that was his, being matter and apparitional, like an apparition passed and was not. but the imperishable spirit did not cease. it continued to exist, and, in its next incarnation, became the residing spirit of that apparitional body known as darrell standing's which soon is to be taken out and hanged and sent into the nothingness whither all apparitions go. there is a lifer here in folsom, matthew davies, of old pioneer stock, who is trusty of the scaffold and execution chamber. he is an old man, and his folks crossed the plains in the early days. i have talked with him, and he has verified the massacre in which jesse fancher was killed. when this old lifer was a child there was much talk in his family of the mountain meadows massacre. the children in the wagons, he said, were saved, because they were too young to tell tales. all of which i submit. never, in my life of darrell standing, have i read a line or heard a word spoken of the fancher company that perished at mountain meadows. yet, in the jacket in san quentin prison, all this knowledge came to me. i could not create this knowledge out of nothing, any more than could i create dynamite out of nothing. this knowledge and these facts i have related have but one explanation. they are out of the spirit content of me--the spirit that, unlike matter, does not perish. in closing this chapter i must state that matthew davies also told me that some years after the massacre lee was taken by united states government officials to the mountain meadows and there executed on the site of our old corral. chapter xiv when, at the conclusion of my first ten days' term in the jacket, i was brought back to consciousness by doctor jackson's thumb pressing open an eyelid, i opened both eyes and smiled up into the face of warden atherton. "too cussed to live and too mean to die," was his comment. "the ten days are up, warden," i whispered. "well, we're going to unlace you," he growled. "it is not that," i said. "you observed my smile. you remember we had a little wager. don't bother to unlace me first. just give the bull durham and cigarette papers to morrell and oppenheimer. and for full measure here's another smile." "oh, i know your kind, standing," the warden lectured. "but it won't get you anything. if i don't break you, you'll break all strait-jacket records." "he's broken them already," doctor jackson said. "who ever heard of a man smiling after ten days of it?" "well and bluff," warden atherton answered. "unlace him, hutchins." "why such haste?" i queried, in a whisper, of course, for so low had life ebbed in me that it required all the little strength i possessed and all the will of me to be able to whisper even. "why such haste? i don't have to catch a train, and i am so confounded comfortable as i am that i prefer not to be disturbed." but unlace me they did, rolling me out of the fetid jacket and upon the floor, an inert, helpless thing. "no wonder he was comfortable," said captain jamie. "he didn't feel anything. he's paralysed." "paralysed your grandmother," sneered the warden. "get him up on his feat and you'll see him stand." hutchins and the doctor dragged me to my feet. "now let go!" the warden commanded. not all at once could life return into the body that had been practically dead for ten days, and as a result, with no power as yet over my flesh, i gave at the knees, crumpled, pitched sidewise, and gashed my forehead against the wall. "you see," said captain jamie. "good acting," retorted the warden. "that man's got nerve to do anything." "you're right, warden," i whispered from the floor. "i did it on purpose. it was a stage fall. lift me up again, and i'll repeat it. i promise you lots of fun." i shall not dwell upon the agony of returning circulation. it was to become an old story with me, and it bore its share in cutting the lines in my face that i shall carry to the scaffold. when they finally left me i lay for the rest of the day stupid and half- comatose. there is such a thing as anaesthesia of pain, engendered by pain too exquisite to be borne. and i have known that anaesthesia. by evening i was able to crawl about my cell, but not yet could i stand up. i drank much water, and cleansed myself as well as i could; but not until next day could i bring myself to eat, and then only by deliberate force of my will. the program me, as given me by warden atherton, was that i was to rest up and recuperate for a few days, and then, if in the meantime i had not confessed to the hiding-place of the dynamite, i should be given another ten days in the jacket. "sorry to cause you so much trouble, warden," i had said in reply. "it's a pity i don't die in the jacket and so put you out of your misery." at this time i doubt that i weighed an ounce over ninety pounds. yet, two years before, when the doors of san quentin first closed on me, i had weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds. it seems incredible that there was another ounce i could part with and still live. yet in the months that followed, ounce by ounce i was reduced until i know i must have weighed nearer eighty than ninety pounds. i do know, after i managed my escape from solitary and struck the guard thurston on the nose, that before they took me to san rafael for trial, while i was being cleaned and shaved i weighed eighty-nine pounds. there are those who wonder how men grow hard. warden atherton was a hard man. he made me hard, and my very hardness reacted on him and made him harder. and yet he never succeeded in killing me. it required the state law of california, a hanging judge, and an unpardoning governor to send me to the scaffold for striking a prison guard with my fist. i shall always contend that that guard had a nose most easily bleedable. i was a bat-eyed, tottery skeleton at the time. i sometimes wonder if his nose really did bleed. of course he swore it did, on the witness stand. but i have known prison guards take oath to worse perjuries than that. ed morrell was eager to know if i had succeeded with the experiment; but when he attempted to talk with me he was shut up by smith, the guard who happened to be on duty in solitary. "that's all right, ed," i rapped to him. "you and jake keep quiet, and i'll tell you about it. smith can't prevent you from listening, and he can't prevent me from talking. they have done their worst, and i am still here." "cut that out, standing!" smith bellowed at me from the corridor on which all the cells opened. smith was a peculiarly saturnine individual, by far the most cruel and vindictive of our guards. we used to canvass whether his wife bullied him or whether he had chronic indigestion. i continued rapping with my knuckles, and he came to the wicket to glare in at me. "i told you to out that out," he snarled. "sorry," i said suavely. "but i have a sort of premonition that i shall go right on rapping. and--er--excuse me for asking a personal question--what are you going to do about it?" "i'll--" he began explosively, proving, by his inability to conclude the remark, that he thought in henids. "yes?" i encouraged. "just what, pray?" "i'll have the warden here," he said lamely. "do, please. a most charming gentleman, to be sure. a shining example of the refining influences that are creeping into our prisons. bring him to me at once. i wish to report you to him." "me?" "yes, just precisely you," i continued. "you persist, in a rude and boorish manner, in interrupting my conversation with the other guests in this hostelry." and warden atherton came. the door was unlocked, and he blustered into my cell. but oh, i was so safe! he had done his worst. i was beyond his power. "i'll shut off your grub," he threatened. "as you please," i answered. "i'm used to it. i haven't eaten for ten days, and, do you know, trying to begin to eat again is a confounded nuisance. "oh, ho, you're threatening me, are you? a hunger strike, eh?" "pardon me," i said, my voice sulky with politeness. "the proposition was yours, not mine. do try and be logical on occasion. i trust you will believe me when i tell you that your illogic is far more painful for me to endure than all your tortures." "are you going to stop your knuckle-talking?" he demanded. "no; forgive me for vexing you--for i feel so strong a compulsion to talk with my knuckles that--" "for two cents i'll put you back in the jacket," he broke in. "do, please. i dote on the jacket. i am the jacket baby. i get fat in the jacket. look at that arm." i pulled up my sleeve and showed a biceps so attenuated that when i flexed it it had the appearance of a string. "a real blacksmith's biceps, eh, warden? cast your eyes on my swelling chest. sandow had better look out for his laurels. and my abdomen--why, man, i am growing so stout that my case will be a scandal of prison overfeeding. watch out, warden, or you'll have the taxpayers after you." "are you going to stop knuckle-talk?" he roared. "no, thanking you for your kind solicitude. on mature deliberation i have decided that i shall keep on knuckle-talking." he stared at me speechlessly for a moment, and then, out of sheer impotency, turned to go. "one question, please." "what is it?" he demanded over his shoulder. "what are you going to do about it?" from the choleric exhibition he gave there and then it has been an unceasing wonder with me to this day that he has not long since died of apoplexy. hour by hour, after the warden's discomfited departure, i rapped on and on the tale of my adventures. not until that night, when pie-face jones came on duty and proceeded to steal his customary naps, were morrell and oppenheimer able to do any talking. "pipe dreams," oppenheimer rapped his verdict. yes, was my thought; our experiences _are_ the stuff of our dreams. "when i was a night messenger i hit the hop once," oppenheimer continued. "and i want to tell you you haven't anything on me when it came to seeing things. i guess that is what all the novel-writers do--hit the hop so as to throw their imagination into the high gear." but ed morrell, who had travelled the same road as i, although with different results, believed my tale. he said that when his body died in the jacket, and he himself went forth from prison, he was never anybody but ed morrell. he never experienced previous existences. when his spirit wandered free, it wandered always in the present. as he told us, just as he was able to leave his body and gaze upon it lying in the jacket on the cell floor, so could he leave the prison, and, in the present, revisit san francisco and see what was occurring. in this manner he had visited his mother twice, both times finding her asleep. in this spirit-roving he said he had no power over material things. he could not open or close a door, move any object, make a noise, nor manifest his presence. on the other hand, material things had no power over him. walls and doors were not obstacles. the entity, or the real thing that was he, was thought, spirit. "the grocery store on the corner, half a block from where mother lived, changed hands," he told us. "i knew it by the different sign over the place. i had to wait six months after that before i could write my first letter, but when i did i asked mother about it. and she said yes, it had changed." "did you read that grocery sign?" jake oppenheimer asked. "sure thing i did," was morrell's response. "or how could i have known it?" "all right," rapped oppenheimer the unbelieving. "you can prove it easy. some time, when they shift some decent guards on us that will give us a peep at a newspaper, you get yourself thrown into the jacket, climb out of your body, and sashay down to little old 'frisco. slide up to third and market just about two or three a.m. when they are running the morning papers off the press. read the latest news. then make a swift sneak for san quentin, get here before the newspaper tug crosses the bay, and tell me what you read. then we'll wait and get a morning paper, when it comes in, from a guard. then, if what you told me is in that paper, i am with you to a fare-you-well." it was a good test. i could not but agree with oppenheimer that such a proof would be absolute. morrell said he would take it up some time, but that he disliked to such an extent the process of leaving his body that he would not make the attempt until such time that his suffering in the jacket became too extreme to be borne. "that is the way with all of them--won't come across with the goods," was oppenheimer's criticism. "my mother believed in spirits. when i was a kid she was always seeing them and talking with them and getting advice from them. but she never come across with any goods from them. the spirits couldn't tell her where the old man could nail a job or find a gold-mine or mark an eight-spot in chinese lottery. not on your life. the bunk they told her was that the old man's uncle had had a goitre, or that the old man's grandfather had died of galloping consumption, or that we were going to move house inside four months, which last was dead easy, seeing as we moved on an average of six times a year." i think, had oppenheimer had the opportunity for thorough education, he would have made a marinetti or a haeckel. he was an earth-man in his devotion to the irrefragable fact, and his logic was admirable though frosty. "you've got to show me," was the ground rule by which he considered all things. he lacked the slightest iota of faith. this was what morrell had pointed out. lack of faith had prevented oppenheimer from succeeding in achieving the little death in the jacket. you will see, my reader, that it was not all hopelessly bad in solitary. given three minds such as ours, there was much with which to while away the time. it might well be that we kept one another from insanity, although i must admit that oppenheimer rotted five years in solitary entirely by himself, ere morrell joined him, and yet had remained sane. on the other hand, do not make the mistake of thinking that life in solitary was one wild orgy of blithe communion and exhilarating psychological research. we had much and terrible pain. our guards were brutes--your hang-dogs, citizen. our surroundings were vile. our food was filthy, monotonous, innutritious. only men, by force of will, could live on so unbalanced a ration. i know that our prize cattle, pigs, and sheep on the university demonstration farm at davis would have faded away and died had they received no more scientifically balanced a ration than what we received. we had no books to read. our very knuckle-talk was a violation of the rules. the world, so far as we were concerned, practically did not exist. it was more a ghost-world. oppenheimer, for instance, had never seen an automobile or a motor-cycle. news did occasionally filter in--but such dim, long-after-the-event, unreal news. oppenheimer told me he had not learned of the russo-japanese war until two years after it was over. we were the buried alive, the living dead. solitary was our tomb, in which, on occasion, we talked with our knuckles like spirits rapping at a seance. news? such little things were news to us. a change of bakers--we could tell it by our bread. what made pie-face jones lay off a week? was it vacation or sickness? why was wilson, on the night shift for only ten days, transferred elsewhere? where did smith get that black eye? we would speculate for a week over so trivial a thing as the last. some convict given a month in solitary was an event. and yet we could learn nothing from such transient and ofttimes stupid dantes who would remain in our inferno too short a time to learn knuckle-talk ere they went forth again into the bright wide world of the living. still, again, all was not so trivial in our abode of shadows. as example, i taught oppenheimer to play chess. consider how tremendous such an achievement is--to teach a man, thirteen cells away, by means of knuckle-raps; to teach him to visualize a chessboard, to visualize all the pieces, pawns and positions, to know the various manners of moving; and to teach him it all so thoroughly that he and i, by pure visualization, were in the end able to play entire games of chess in our minds. in the end, did i say? another tribute to the magnificence of oppenheimer's mind: in the end he became my master at the game--he who had never seen a chessman in his life. what image of a bishop, for instance, could possibly form in his mind when i rapped our code-sign for _bishop_? in vain and often i asked him this very question. in vain he tried to describe in words that mental image of something he had never seen but which nevertheless he was able to handle in such masterly fashion as to bring confusion upon me countless times in the course of play. i can only contemplate such exhibitions of will and spirit and conclude, as i so often conclude, that precisely there resides reality. the spirit only is real. the flesh is phantasmagoria and apparitional. i ask you how--i repeat, i ask you _how_ matter or flesh in any form can play chess on an imaginary board with imaginary pieces, across a vacuum of thirteen cell spanned only with knuckle-taps? chapter xv i was once adam strang, an englishman. the period of my living, as near as i can guess it, was somewhere between and , and i lived to a ripe old age, as you shall see. it has been a great regret to me, ever since ed morrell taught me the way of the little death, that i had not been a more thorough student of history. i should have been able to identity and place much that is obscure to me. as it is, i am compelled to grope and guess my way to times and places of my earlier existences. a peculiar thing about my adam strang existence is that i recollect so little of the first thirty years of it. many times, in the jacket, has adam strang recrudesced, but always he springs into being full-statured, heavy-thewed, a full thirty years of age. i, adam strang, invariably assume my consciousness on a group of low, sandy islands somewhere under the equator in what must be the western pacific ocean. i am always at home there, and seem to have been there some time. there are thousands of people on these islands, although i am the only white man. the natives are a magnificent breed, big-muscled, broad-shouldered, tall. a six-foot man is a commonplace. the king, raa kook, is at least six inches above six feet, and though he would weigh fully three hundred pounds, is so equitably proportioned that one could not call him fat. many of his chiefs are as large, while the women are not much smaller than the men. there are numerous islands in the group, over all of which raa kook is king, although the cluster of islands to the south is restive and occasionally in revolt. these natives with whom i live are polynesian, i know, because their hair is straight and black. their skin is a sun-warm golden-brown. their speech, which i speak uncommonly easy, is round and rich and musical, possessing a paucity of consonants, being composed principally of vowels. they love flowers, music, dancing, and games, and are childishly simple and happy in their amusements, though cruelly savage in their angers and wars. i, adam strang, know my past, but do not seem to think much about it. i live in the present. i brood neither over past nor future. i am careless, improvident, uncautious, happy out of sheer well-being and overplus of physical energy. fish, fruits, vegetables, and seaweed--a full stomach--and i am content. i am high in place with raa kook, than whom none is higher, not even abba taak, who is highest over the priest. no man dare lift hand or weapon to me. i am taboo--sacred as the sacred canoe-house under the floor of which repose the bones of heaven alone knows how many previous kings of raa kook's line. i know all about how i happened to be wrecked and be there alone of all my ship's company--it was a great drowning and a great wind; but i do not moon over the catastrophe. when i think back at all, rather do i think far back to my childhood at the skirts of my milk-skinned, flaxen-haired, buxom english mother. it is a tiny village of a dozen straw-thatched cottages in which i lived. i hear again blackbirds and thrushes in the hedges, and see again bluebells spilling out from the oak woods and over the velvet turf like a creaming of blue water. and most of all i remember a great, hairy-fetlocked stallion, often led dancing, sidling, and nickering down the narrow street. i was frightened of the huge beast and always fled screaming to my mother, clutching her skirts and hiding in them wherever i might find her. but enough. the childhood of adam strang is not what i set out to write. i lived for several years on the islands which are nameless to me, and upon which i am confident i was the first white man. i was married to lei-lei, the king's sister, who was a fraction over six feet and only by that fraction topped me. i was a splendid figure of a man, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, well-set-up. women of any race, as you shall see, looked on me with a favouring eye. under my arms, sun-shielded, my skin was milk-white as my mother's. my eyes were blue. my moustache, beard and hair were that golden-yellow such as one sometimes sees in paintings of the northern sea-kings. ay--i must have come of that old stock, long-settled in england, and, though born in a countryside cottage, the sea still ran so salt in my blood that i early found my way to ships to become a sea-cuny. that is what i was--neither officer nor gentleman, but sea-cuny, hard-worked, hard-bitten, hard-enduring. i was of value to raa kook, hence his royal protection. i could work in iron, and our wrecked ship had brought the first iron to raa kook's land. on occasion, ten leagues to the north-west, we went in canoes to get iron from the wreck. the hull had slipped off the reef and lay in fifteen fathoms. and in fifteen fathoms we brought up the iron. wonderful divers and workers under water were these natives. i learned to do my fifteen fathoms, but never could i equal them in their fishy exploits. on the land, by virtue of my english training and my strength, i could throw any of them. also, i taught them quarter-staff, until the game became a very contagion and broken heads anything but novelties. brought up from the wreck was a journal, so torn and mushed and pulped by the sea-water, with ink so run about, that scarcely any of it was decipherable. however, in the hope that some antiquarian scholar may be able to place more definitely the date of the events i shall describe, i here give an extract. the peculiar spelling may give the clue. note that while the letter _s_ is used, it more commonly is replaced by the letter _f_. the wind being favourable, gave us an opportunity of examining and drying some of our provifion, particularly, fome chinefe hams and dry filh, which conftituted part of our victualling. divine service alfo was performed on deck. in the afternoon the wind was foutherly, with frefh gales, but dry, fo that we were able the following morning to clean between decks, and alfo to fumigate the fhip with gunpowder. but i must hasten, for my narrative is not of adam strang the shipwrecked sea-cuny on a coral isle, but of adam strang, later named yi yong-ik, the mighty one, who was one time favourite of the powerful yunsan, who was lover and husband of the lady om of the princely house of min, and who was long time beggar and pariah in all the villages of all the coasts and roads of cho-sen. (ah, ha, i have you there--cho-sen. it means the land of the morning calm. in modern speech it is called korea.) remember, it was between three and four centuries back that i lived, the first white man, on the coral isles of raa kook. in those waters, at that time, the keels of ships were rare. i might well have lived out my days there, in peace and fatness, under the sun where frost was not, had it not been for the _sparwehr_. the _sparwehr_ was a dutch merchantman daring the uncharted seas for indies beyond the indies. and she found me instead, and i was all she found. have i not said that i was a gay-hearted, golden, bearded giant of an irresponsible boy that had never grown up? with scarce a pang, when the _sparwehrs_' water-casks were filled, i left raa kook and his pleasant land, left lei-lei and all her flower-garlanded sisters, and with laughter on my lips and familiar ship-smells sweet in my nostrils, sailed away, sea-cuny once more, under captain johannes maartens. a marvellous wandering, that which followed on the old _sparwehr_. we were in quest of new lands of silk and spices. in truth, we found fevers, violent deaths, pestilential paradises where death and beauty kept charnel-house together. that old johannes maartens, with no hint of romance in that stolid face and grizzly square head of his, sought the islands of solomon, the mines of golconda--ay, he sought old lost atlantis which he hoped to find still afloat unscuppered. and he found head-hunting, tree-dwelling anthropophagi instead. we landed on strange islands, sea-pounded on their shores and smoking at their summits, where kinky-haired little animal-men made monkey-wailings in the jungle, planted their forest run-ways with thorns and stake-pits, and blew poisoned splinters into us from out the twilight jungle bush. and whatsoever man of us was wasp-stung by such a splinter died horribly and howling. and we encountered other men, fiercer, bigger, who faced us on the beaches in open fight, showering us with spears and arrows, while the great tree drums and the little tom-toms rumbled and rattled war across the tree-filled hollows, and all the hills were pillared with signal-smokes. hendrik hamel was supercargo and part owner of the _sparwehr_ adventure, and what he did not own was the property of captain johannes maartens. the latter spoke little english, hendrik hamel but little more. the sailors, with whom i gathered, spoke dutch only. but trust a sea-cuny to learn dutch--ay, and korean, as you shall see. toward the end we came to the charted country of japan. but the people would have no dealings with us, and two sworded officials, in sweeping robes of silk that made captain johannes maartens' mouth water, came aboard of us and politely requested us to begone. under their suave manners was the iron of a warlike race, and we knew, and went our way. we crossed the straits of japan and were entering the yellow sea on our way to china, when we laid the _sparwehr_ on the rocks. she was a crazy tub the old _sparwehr_, so clumsy and so dirty with whiskered marine-life on her bottom that she could not get out of her own way. close-hauled, the closest she could come was to six points of the wind; and then she bobbed up and down, without way, like a derelict turnip. galliots were clippers compared with her. to tack her about was undreamed of; to wear her required all hands and half a watch. so situated, we were caught on a lee shore in an eight-point shift of wind at the height of a hurricane that had beaten our souls sick for forty-eight hours. we drifted in upon the land in the chill light of a stormy dawn across a heartless cross-sea mountain high. it was dead of winter, and between smoking snow-squalls we could glimpse the forbidding coast, if coast it might be called, so broken was it. there were grim rock isles and islets beyond counting, dim snow-covered ranges beyond, and everywhere upstanding cliffs too steep for snow, outjuts of headlands, and pinnacles and slivers of rock upthrust from the boiling sea. there was no name to this country on which we drove, no record of it ever having been visited by navigators. its coast-line was only hinted at in our chart. from all of which we could argue that the inhabitants were as inhospitable as the little of their land we could see. the _sparwehr_ drove in bow-on upon a cliff. there was deep water to its sheer foot, so that our sky-aspiring bowsprit crumpled at the impact and snapped short off. the foremast went by the board, with a great snapping of rope-shrouds and stays, and fell forward against the cliff. i have always admired old johannes maartens. washed and rolled off the high poop by a burst of sea, we were left stranded in the waist of the ship, whence we fought our way for'ard to the steep-pitched forecastle- head. others joined us. we lashed ourselves fast and counted noses. we were eighteen. the rest had perished. johannes maartens touched me and pointed upward through cascading salt- water from the back-fling of the cliff. i saw what he desired. twenty feet below the truck the foremast ground and crunched against a boss of the cliff. above the boss was a cleft. he wanted to know if i would dare the leap from the mast-head into the cleft. sometimes the distance was a scant six feet. at other times it was a score, for the mast reeled drunkenly to the rolling and pounding of the hull on which rested its splintered butt. i began the climb. but they did not wait. one by one they unlashed themselves and followed me up the perilous mast. there was reason for haste, for at any moment the _sparwehr_ might slip off into deep water. i timed my leap, and made it, landing in the cleft in a scramble and ready to lend a hand to those who leaped after. it was slow work. we were wet and half freezing in the wind-drive. besides, the leaps had to be timed to the roll of the hull and the sway of the mast. the cook was the first to go. he was snapped off the mast-end, and his body performed cart-wheels in its fall. a fling of sea caught him and crushed him to a pulp against the cliff. the cabin boy, a bearded man of twenty-odd, lost hold, slipped, swung around the mast, and was pinched against the boss of rock. pinched? the life squeezed from him on the instant. two others followed the way of the cook. captain johannes maartens was the last, completing the fourteen of us that clung on in the cleft. an hour afterward the _sparwehr_ slipped off and sank in deep water. two days and nights saw us near to perishing on that cliff, for there was way neither up nor down. the third morning a fishing-boat found us. the men were clad entirely in dirt white, with their long hair done up in a curious knot on their pates--the marriage knot, as i was afterward to learn, and also, as i was to learn, a handy thing to clutch hold of with one hand whilst you clouted with the other when an argument went beyond words. the boat went back to the village for help, and most of the villagers, most of their gear, and most of the day were required to get us down. they were a poor and wretched folk, their food difficult even for the stomach of a sea-cuny to countenance. their rice was brown as chocolate. half the husks remained in it, along with bits of chaff, splinters, and unidentifiable dirt which made one pause often in the chewing in order to stick into his mouth thumb and forefinger and pluck out the offending stuff. also, they ate a sort of millet, and pickles of astounding variety and ungodly hot. their houses were earthen-walled and straw-thatched. under the floors ran flues through which the kitchen smoke escaped, warming the sleeping- room in its passage. here we lay and rested for days, soothing ourselves with their mild and tasteless tobacco, which we smoked in tiny bowls at the end of yard-long pipes. also, there was a warm, sourish, milky-looking drink, heady only when taken in enormous doses. after guzzling i swear gallons of it, i got singing drunk, which is the way of sea-cunies the world over. encouraged by my success, the others persisted, and soon we were all a-roaring, little reeking of the fresh snow gale piping up outside, and little worrying that we were cast away in an uncharted, god-forgotten land. old johannes maartens laughed and trumpeted and slapped his thighs with the best of us. hendrik hamel, a cold-blooded, chilly-poised dark brunette of a dutchman with beady black eyes, was as rarely devilish as the rest of us, and shelled out silver like any drunken sailor for the purchase of more of the milky brew. our carrying-on was a scandal; but the women fetched the drink while all the village that could crowd in jammed the room to witness our antics. the white man has gone around the world in mastery, i do believe, because of his unwise uncaringness. that has been the manner of his going, although, of course, he was driven on by restiveness and lust for booty. so it was that captain johannes maartens, hendrik hamel, and the twelve sea-cunies of us roystered and bawled in the fisher village while the winter gales whistled across the yellow sea. from the little we had seen of the land and the people we were not impressed by cho-sen. if these miserable fishers were a fair sample of the natives, we could understand why the land was unvisited of navigators. but we were to learn different. the village was on an in- lying island, and its headmen must have sent word across to the mainland; for one morning three big two-masted junks with lateens of rice-matting dropped anchor off the beach. when the sampans came ashore captain johannes maartens was all interest, for here were silks again. one strapping korean, all in pale-tinted silks of various colours, was surrounded by half a dozen obsequious attendants, also clad in silk. kwan yung-jin, as i came to know his name, was a _yang-ban_, or noble; also he was what might be called magistrate or governor of the district or province. this means that his office was appointive, and that he was a tithe-squeezer or tax-farmer. fully a hundred soldiers were also landed and marched into the village. they were armed with three-pronged spears, slicing spears, and chopping spears, with here and there a matchlock of so heroic mould that there were two soldiers to a matchlock, one to carry and set the tripod on which rested the muzzle, the other to carry and fire the gun. as i was to learn, sometimes the gun went off, sometimes it did not, all depending upon the adjustment of the fire-punk and the condition of the powder in the flash-pan. so it was that kwan-yung-jin travelled. the headmen of the village were cringingly afraid of him, and for good reason, as we were not overlong in finding out. i stepped forward as interpreter, for already i had the hang of several score of korean words. he scowled and waved me aside. but what did i reek? i was as tall as he, outweighed him by a full two stone, and my skin was white, my hair golden. he turned his back and addressed the head man of the village while his six silken satellites made a cordon between us. while he talked more soldiers from the ship carried up several shoulder-loads of inch-planking. these planks were about six feet long and two feet wide, and curiously split in half lengthwise. nearer one end than the other was a round hole larger than a man's neck. kwan yung-jin gave a command. several of the soldiers approached tromp, who was sitting on the ground nursing a felon. now tromp was a rather stupid, slow-thinking, slow-moving cuny, and before he knew what was doing one of the planks, with a scissors-like opening and closing, was about his neck and clamped. discovering his predicament, he set up a bull-roaring and dancing, till all had to back away to give him clear space for the flying ends of his plank. then the trouble began, for it was plainly kwan yung-jin's intention to plank all of us. oh, we fought, bare-fisted, with a hundred soldiers and as many villagers, while kwan yung-jin stood apart in his silks and lordly disdain. here was where i earned my name yi yong-ik, the mighty. long after our company was subdued and planked i fought on. my fists were of the hardness of topping-mauls, and i had the muscles and will to drive them. to my joy, i quickly learned that the koreans did not understand a fist- blow and were without the slightest notion of guarding. they went down like tenpins, fell over each other in heaps. but kwan yung-jin was my man, and all that saved him when i made my rush was the intervention of his satellites. they were flabby creatures. i made a mess of them and a muss and muck of their silks ere the multitude could return upon me. there were so many of them. they clogged my blows by the sneer numbers of them, those behind shoving the front ones upon me. and how i dropped them! toward the end they were squirming three-deep under my feet. but by the time the crews of the three junks and most of the village were on top of me i was fairly smothered. the planking was easy. "god in heaven, what now!" asked vandervoot, another cuny, when we had been bundled aboard a junk. we sat on the open deck, like so many trussed fowls, when he asked the question, and the next moment, as the junk heeled to the breeze, we shot down the deck, planks and all, fetching up in the lee-scuppers with skinned necks. and from the high poop kwan yung-jin gazed down at us as if he did not see us. for many years to come vandervoot was known amongst us as "what-now vandervoot." poor devil! he froze to death one night on the streets of keijo; with every door barred against him. to the mainland we were taken and thrown into a stinking, vermin-infested prison. such was our introduction to the officialdom of cho-sen. but i was to be revenged for all of us on kwan yung-jin, as you shall see, in the days when the lady om was kind and power was mine. in prison we lay for many days. we learned afterward the reason. kwan yung-jin had sent a dispatch to keijo, the capital, to find what royal disposition was to be made of us. in the meantime we were a menagerie. from dawn till dark our barred windows were besieged by the natives, for no member of our race had they ever seen before. nor was our audience mere rabble. ladies, borne in palanquins on the shoulders of coolies, came to see the strange devils cast up by the sea, and while their attendants drove back the common folk with whips, they would gaze long and timidly at us. of them we saw little, for their faces were covered, according to the custom of the country. only dancing girls, low women, and granddams ever were seen abroad with exposed faces. i have often thought that kwan yung-jin suffered from indigestion, and that when the attacks were acute he took it out on us. at any rate, without rhyme or reason, whenever the whim came to him, we were all taken out on the street before the prison and well beaten with sticks to the gleeful shouts of the multitude. the asiatic is a cruel beast, and delights in spectacles of human suffering. at any rate we were pleased when an end to our beatings came. this was caused by the arrival of kim. kim? all i can say, and the best i can say, is that he was the whitest man i ever encountered in cho-sen. he was a captain of fifty men when i met him. he was in command of the palace guards before i was done doing my best by him. and in the end he died for the lady om's sake and for mine. kim--well, kim was kim. immediately he arrived the planks were taken from our necks and we were lodged in the beet inn the place boasted. we were still prisoners, but honourable prisoners, with a guard of fifty mounted soldiers. the next day we were under way on the royal highroad, fourteen sailormen astride the dwarf horses that obtain in cho-sen, and bound for keijo itself. the emperor, so kim told me, had expressed a desire to gaze upon the strangeness of the sea devils. it was a journey of many days, half the length of cho-sen, north and south as it lies. it chanced, at the first off-saddling, that i strolled around to witness the feeding of the dwarf horses. and what i witnessed set me bawling, "what now, vandervoot?" till all our crew came running. as i am a living man what the horses were feeding on was bean soup, hot bean soup at that, and naught else did they have on all the journey but hot bean soup. it was the custom of the country. they were truly dwarf horses. on a wager with kim i lifted one, despite his squeals and struggles, squarely across my shoulders, so that kim's men, who had already heard my new name, called me yi yong-ik, the mighty one. kim was a large man as koreans go, and koreans are a tall muscular race, and kim fancied himself a bit. but, elbow to elbow and palm to palm, i put his arm down at will. and his soldiers and the gaping villagers would look on and murmur "yi yong-ik." in a way we were a travelling menagerie. the word went on ahead, so that all the country folk flocked to the roadside to see us pass. it was an unending circus procession. in the towns at night our inns were besieged by multitudes, so that we got no peace until the soldiers drove them off with lance-pricks and blows. but first kim would call for the village strong men and wrestlers for the fun of seeing me crumple them and put them in the dirt. bread there was none, but we ate white rice (the strength of which resides in one's muscles not long), a meat which we found to be dog (which animal is regularly butchered for food in cho-sen), and the pickles ungodly hot but which one learns to like exceeding well. and there was drink, real drink, not milky slush, but white, biting stuff distilled from rice, a pint of which would kill a weakling and make a strong man mad and merry. at the walled city of chong-ho i put kim and the city notables under the table with the stuff--or on the table, rather, for the table was the floor where we squatted to cramp-knots in my hams for the thousandth time. and again all muttered "yi yong-ik," and the word of my prowess passed on before even to keijo and the emperor's court. i was more an honoured guest than a prisoner, and invariably i rode by kim's side, my long legs near reaching the ground, and, where the going was deep, my feet scraping the muck. kim was young. kim was human. kim was universal. he was a man anywhere in any country. he and i talked and laughed and joked the day long and half the night. and i verify ate up the language. i had a gift that way anyway. even kim marvelled at the way i mastered the idiom. and i learned the korean points of view, the korean humour, the korean soft places, weak places, touchy places. kim taught me flower songs, love songs, drinking songs. one of the latter was his own, of the end of which i shall give you a crude attempt at translation. kim and pak, in their youth, swore a pact to abstain from drinking, which pact was speedily broken. in old age kim and pak sing: "no, no, begone! the merry bowl again shall bolster up my soul against itself. what, good man, hold! canst tell me where red wine is sold? nay, just beyond yon peach-tree? there? good luck be thine; i'll thither fare." hendrik hamel, scheming and crafty, ever encouraged and urged me in my antic course that brought kim's favour, not alone to me, but through me to hendrik hamel and all our company. i here mention hendrik hamel as my adviser, for it has a bearing on much that followed at keijo in the winning of yunsan's favour, the lady om's heart, and the emperor's tolerance. i had the will and the fearlessness for the game i played, and some of the wit; but most of the wit i freely admit was supplied me by hendrik hamel. and so we journeyed up to keijo, from walled city to walled city across a snowy mountain land that was hollowed with innumerable fat farming valleys. and every evening, at fall of day, beacon fires sprang from peak to peak and ran along the land. always kim watched for this nightly display. from all the coasts of cho-sen, kim told me, these chains of fire-speech ran to keijo to carry their message to the emperor. one beacon meant the land was in peace. two beacons meant revolt or invasion. we never saw but one beacon. and ever, as we rode, vandervoot brought up the rear, wondering, "god in heaven, what now?" keijo we found a vast city where all the population, with the exception of the nobles or yang-bans, dressed in the eternal white. this, kim explained, was an automatic determination and advertisement of caste. thus, at a glance, could one tell, the status of an individual by the degrees of cleanness or of filthiness of his garments. it stood to reason that a coolie, possessing but the clothes he stood up in, must be extremely dirty. and to reason it stood that the individual in immaculate white must possess many changes and command the labour of laundresses to keep his changes immaculate. as for the yang-bans who wore the pale, vari-coloured silks, they were beyond such common yardstick of place. after resting in an inn for several days, during which time we washed our garments and repaired the ravages of shipwreck and travel, we were summoned before the emperor. in the great open space before the palace wall were colossal stone dogs that looked more like tortoises. they crouched on massive stone pedestals of twice the height of a tall man. the walls of the palace were huge and of dressed stone. so thick were these walls that they could defy a breach from the mightiest of cannon in a year-long siege. the mere gateway was of the size of a palace in itself, rising pagoda-like, in many retreating stories, each story fringed with tile-roofing. a smart guard of soldiers turned out at the gateway. these, kim told me, were the tiger hunters of pyeng-yang, the fiercest and most terrible fighting men of which cho-sen could boast. but enough. on mere description of the emperor's palace a thousand pages of my narrative could be worthily expended. let it suffice that here we knew power in all its material expression. only a civilization deep and wide and old and strong could produce this far-walled, many-gabled roof of kings. to no audience-hall were we sea-cunies led, but, as we took it, to a feasting-hall. the feasting was at its end, and all the throng was in a merry mood. and such a throng! high dignitaries, princes of the blood, sworded nobles, pale priests, weather-tanned officers of high command, court ladies with faces exposed, painted _ki-sang_ or dancing girls who rested from entertaining, and duennas, waiting women, eunuchs, lackeys, and palace slaves a myriad of them. all fell away from us, however, when the emperor, with a following of intimates, advanced to look us over. he was a merry monarch, especially so for an asiatic. not more than forty, with a clear, pallid skin that had never known the sun, he was paunched and weak-legged. yet he had once been a fine man. the noble forehead attested that. but the eyes were bleared and weak-lidded, the lips twitching and trembling from the various excesses in which he indulged, which excesses, as i was to learn, were largely devised and pandered by yunsan, the buddhist priest, of whom more anon. in our sea-garments we mariners were a motley crew, and motley was the cue of our reception. exclamations of wonder at our strangeness gave way to laughter. the _ki-sang_ invaded us, dragging us about, making prisoners of us, two or three of them to one of us, leading us about like go many dancing boars and putting us through our antics. it was offensive, true, but what could poor sea-cunies do? what could old johannes maartens do, with a bevy of laughing girls about him, tweaking his nose, pinching his arms, tickling his ribs till he pranced? to escape such torment hans amden cleared a space and gave a clumsy-footed hollandish breakdown till all the court roared its laughter. it was offensive to me who had been equal and boon companion of kim for many days. i resisted the laughing _ki-sang_. i braced my legs and stood upright with folded arms; nor could pinch or tickle bring a quiver from me. thus they abandoned me for easier prey. "for god's sake, man, make an impression," hendrik hamel, who had struggled to me with three _ki-sang_ dragging behind, mumbled. well might he mumble, for whenever he opened his mouth to speak they crammed it with sweets. "save us from this folly," he persisted, ducking his head about to avoid their sweet-filled palms. "we must have dignity, understand, dignity. this will ruin us. they are making tame animals of us, playthings. when they grow tired of us they will throw us out. you're doing the right thing. stick to it. stand them off. command respect, respect for all of us--" the last was barely audible, for by this time the _ki-sang_ had stuffed his mouth to speechlessness. as i have said, i had the will and the fearlessness, and i racked my sea- cuny brains for the wit. a palace eunuch, tickling my neck with a feather from behind, gave me my start. i had already drawn attention by my aloofness and imperviousness to the attacks of the _ki-sang_, so that many were looking on at the eunuch's baiting of me. i gave no sign, made no move, until i had located him and distanced him. then, like a shot, without turning head or body, merely by my arm i fetched him an open, back-handed slap. my knuckles landed flat on his cheek and jaw. there was a crack like a spar parting in a gale. he was bowled clean over, landing in a heap on the floor a dozen feet away. there was no laughter, only cries of surprise and murmurings and whisperings of "yi yong-ik." again i folded my arms and stood with a fine assumption of haughtiness. i do believe that i, adam strang, had among other things the soul of an actor in me. for see what follows. i was now the most significant of our company. proud-eyed, disdainful, i met unwavering the eyes upon me and made them drop, or turn away--all eyes but one. these were the eyes of a young woman, whom i judged, by richness of dress and by the half-dozen women fluttering at her back, to be a court lady of distinction. in truth, she was the lady om, princess of the house of min. did i say young? she was fully my own age, thirty, and for all that and her ripeness and beauty a princess still unmarried, as i was to learn. she alone looked me in the eyes without wavering until it was i who turned away. she did not look me down, for there was neither challenge nor antagonism in her eyes--only fascination. i was loth to admit this defeat by one small woman, and my eyes, turning aside, lighted on the disgraceful rout of my comrades and the trailing _ki-sang_ and gave me the pretext. i clapped my hands in the asiatic fashion when one gives command. "let be!" i thundered in their own language, and in the form one addressee underlings. oh, i had a chest and a throat, and could bull-roar to the hurt of ear- drums. i warrant so loud a command had never before cracked the sacred air of the emperor's palace. the great room was aghast. the women were startled, and pressed toward one another as for safety. the _ki-sang_ released the cunies and shrank away giggling apprehensively. only the lady om made no sign nor motion but continued to gaze wide-eyed into my eyes which had returned to hers. then fell a great silence, as if all waited some word of doom. a multitude of eyes timidly stole back and forth from the emperor to me and from me to the emperor. and i had wit to keep the silence and to stand there, arms folded, haughty and remote. "he speaks our language," quoth the emperor at the last; and i swear there was such a relinquishment of held breaths that the whole room was one vast sigh. "i was born with this language," i replied, my cuny wits running rashly to the first madness that prompted. "i spoke it at my mother's breast. i was the marvel of my land. wise men journeyed far to see me and to hear. but no man knew the words i spoke. in the many years since i have forgotten much, but now, in cho-sen, the words come back like long-lost friends." an impression i certainly made. the emperor swallowed and his lips twitched ere he asked: "how explain you this?" "i am an accident," i answered, following the wayward lead my wit had opened. "the gods of birth were careless, and i was mislaid in a far land and nursed by an alien people. i am korean, and now, at last, i have come to my home." what an excited whispering and conferring took place. the emperor himself interrogated kim. "he was always thus, our speech in his mouth, from the time he came out of the sea," kim lied like the good fellow he was. "bring me _yang-ban's_ garments as befits me," i interrupted, "and you shall see." as i was led away in compliance, i turned on the _ki-sang_. "and leave my slaves alone. they have journeyed far and are weary. they are my faithful slaves." in another room kim helped me change, sending the lackeys away; and quick and to the point was the dress-rehearsal he gave me. he knew no more toward what i drove than did i, but he was a good fellow. the funny thing, once back in the crowd and spouting korean which i claimed was rusty from long disuse, was that hendrik hamel and the rest, too stubborn-tongued to learn new speech, did not know a word i uttered. "i am of the blood of the house of koryu," i told the emperor, "that ruled at songdo many a long year agone when my house arose on the ruins of silla." ancient history, all, told me by kim on the long ride, and he struggled with his face to hear me parrot his teaching. "these," i said, when the emperor had asked me about my company, "these are my slaves, all except that old churl there"--i indicated johannes maartens--"who is the son of a freed man." i told hendrik hamel to approach. "this one," i wantoned on, "was born in my father's house of a seed slave who was born there before him. he is very close to me. we are of an age, born on the same day, and on that day my father gave him me." afterwards, when hendrik hamel was eager to know all that i had said, and when i told him, he reproached me and was in a pretty rage. "the fat's in the fire, hendrik," quoth i. "what i have done has been out of witlessness and the need to be saying something. but done it is. nor you nor i can pluck forth the fat. we must act our parts and make the best of it." taiwun, the emperor's brother, was a sot of sots, and as the night wore on he challenged me to a drinking. the emperor was delighted, and commanded a dozen of the noblest sots to join in the bout. the women were dismissed, and we went to it, drink for drink, measure for measure. kim i kept by me, and midway along, despite hendrik hamel's warning scowls, dismissed him and the company, first requesting, and obtaining, palace lodgment instead of the inn. next day the palace was a-buzz with my feast, for i had put taiwun and all his champions snoring on the mats and walked unaided to my bed. never, in the days of vicissitude that came later, did taiwun doubt my claim of korean birth. only a korean, he averred, could possess so strong a head. the palace was a city in itself, and we were lodged in a sort of summer- house that stood apart. the princely quarters were mine, of course, and hamel and maartens, with the rest of the grumbling cunies, had to content themselves with what remained. i was summoned before yunsan, the buddhist priest i have mentioned. it was his first glimpse of me and my first of him. even kim he dismissed from me, and we sat alone on deep mats in a twilight room. lord, lord, what a man and a mind was yunsan! he made to probe my soul. he knew things of other lands and places that no one in cho-sen dreamed to know. did he believe my fabled birth? i could not guess, for his face was less changeful than a bowl of bronze. what yunsan's thoughts were only yunsan knew. but in him, this poor-clad, lean-bellied priest, i sensed the power behind power in all the palace and in all cho-sen. i sensed also, through the drift of speech, that he had use of me. now was this use suggested by the lady om?--a nut i gave hendrik hamel to crack. i little knew, and less i cared, for i lived always in the moment and let others forecast, forfend, and travail their anxiety. i answered, too, the summons of the lady om, following a sleek-faced, cat- footed eunuch through quiet palace byways to her apartments. she lodged as a princess of the blood should lodge. she, too, had a palace to herself, among lotus ponds where grow forests of trees centuries old but so dwarfed that they reached no higher than my middle. bronze bridges, so delicate and rare that they looked as if fashioned by jewel-smiths, spanned her lily ponds, and a bamboo grove screened her palace apart from all the palace. my head was awhirl. sea-cuny that i was, i was no dolt with women, and i sensed more than idle curiosity in her sending for me. i had heard love- tales of common men and queens, and was a-wondering if now it was my fortune to prove such tales true. the lady om wasted little time. there were women about her, but she regarded their presence no more than a carter his horses. i sat beside her on deep mats that made the room half a couch, and wine was given me and sweets to nibble, served on tiny, foot-high tables inlaid with pearl. lord, lord, i had but to look into her eyes--but wait. make no mistake. the lady om was no fool. i have said she was of my own age. all of thirty she was, with the poise of her years. she knew what she wanted. she knew what she did not want. it was because of this she had never married, although all pressure that an asiatic court could put upon a woman had been vainly put upon her to compel her to marry chong mong-ju. he was a lesser cousin of the great min family, himself no fool, and grasping so greedily for power as to perturb yunsan, who strove to retain all power himself and keep the palace and cho-sen in ordered balance. thus yunsan it was who in secret allied himself with the lady om, saved her from her cousin, used her to trim her cousin's wings. but enough of intrigue. it was long before i guessed a tithe of it, and then largely through the lady om's confidences and hendrik hamel's conclusions. the lady om was a very flower of woman. women such as she are born rarely, scarce twice a century the whole world over. she was unhampered by rule or convention. religion, with her, was a series of abstractions, partly learned from yunsan, partly worked out for herself. vulgar religion, the public religion, she held, was a device to keep the toiling millions to their toil. she had a will of her own, and she had a heart all womanly. she was a beauty--yes, a beauty by any set rule of the world. her large black eyes were neither slitted nor slanted in the asiatic way. they were long, true, but set squarely, and with just the slightest hint of obliqueness that was all for piquancy. i have said she was no fool. behold! as i palpitated to the situation, princess and sea-cuny and love not a little that threatened big, i racked my cuny's brains for wit to carry the thing off with manhood credit. it chanced, early in this first meeting, that i mentioned what i had told all the court, that i was in truth a korean of the blood of the ancient house of koryu. "let be," she said, tapping my lips with her peacock fan. "no child's tales here. know that with me you are better and greater than of any house of koryu. you are . . ." she paused, and i waited, watching the daring grow in her eyes. "you are a man," she completed. "not even in my sleep have i ever dreamed there was such a man as you on his two legs upstanding in the world." lord, lord! and what could a poor sea-cuny do? this particular sea-cuny, i admit, blushed through his sea tan till the lady om's eyes were twin pools of roguishness in their teasing deliciousness and my arms were all but about her. and she laughed tantalizingly and alluringly, and clapped her hands for her women, and i knew that the audience, for this once, was over. i knew, also, there would be other audiences, there must be other audiences. back to hamel, my head awhirl. "the woman," said he, after deep cogitation. he looked at me and sighed an envy i could not mistake. "it is your brawn, adam strang, that bull throat of yours, your yellow hair. well, it's the game, man. play her, and all will be well with us. play her, and i shall teach you how." i bristled. sea-cuny i was, but i was man, and to no man would i be beholden in my way with women. hendrik hamel might be one time part-owner of the old _sparwehr_, with a navigator's knowledge of the stars and deep versed in books, but with women, no, there i would not give him better. he smiled that thin-lipped smile of his, and queried: "how like you the lady om?" "in such matters a cuny is naught particular," i temporized. "how like you her?" he repeated, his beady eyes boring into me. "passing well, ay, and more than passing well, if you will have it." "then win to her," he commanded, "and some day we will get ship and escape from this cursed land. i'd give half the silks of the indies for a meal of christian food again." he regarded me intently. "do you think you can win to her?" he questioned. i was half in the air at the challenge. he smiled his satisfaction. "but not too quickly," he advised. "quick things are cheap things. put a prize upon yourself. be chary of your kindnesses. make a value of your bull throat and yellow hair, and thank god you have them, for they are of more worth in a woman's eyes than are the brains of a dozen philosophers." strange whirling days were those that followed, what of my audiences with the emperor, my drinking bouts with taiwun, my conferences with yunsan, and my hours with the lady om. besides, i sat up half the nights, by hamel's command, learning from kim all the minutiae of court etiquette and manners, the history of korea and of gods old and new, and the forms of polite speech, noble speech, and coolie speech. never was sea-cuny worked so hard. i was a puppet--puppet to yunsan, who had need of me; puppet to hamel, who schemed the wit of the affair that was so deep that alone i should have drowned. only with the lady om was i man, not puppet . . . and yet, and yet, as i look back and ponder across time, i have my doubts. i think the lady om, too, had her will with me, wanting me for her heart's desire. yet in this she was well met, for it was not long ere she was my heart's desire, and such was the immediacy of my will that not her will, nor hendrik hamel's, nor yunsan's, could hold back my arms from about her. in the meantime, however, i was caught up in a palace intrigue i could not fathom. i could catch the drift of it, no more, against chong mong- ju, the princely cousin of the lady om. beyond my guessing there were cliques and cliques within cliques that made a labyrinth of the palace and extended to all the seven coasts. but i did not worry. i left that to hendrik hamel. to him i reported every detail that occurred when he was not with me; and he, with furrowed brows, sitting darkling by the hour, like a patient spider unravelled the tangle and spun the web afresh. as my body slave he insisted upon attending me everywhere; being only barred on occasion by yunsan. of course i barred him from my moments with the lady om, but told him in general what passed, with exception of tenderer incidents that were not his business. i think hamel was content to sit back and play the secret part. he was too cold-blooded not to calculate that the risk was mine. if i prospered, he prospered. if i crashed to ruin, he might creep out like a ferret. i am convinced that he so reasoned, and yet it did not save him in the end, as you shall see. "stand by me," i told kim, "and whatsoever you wish shall be yours. have you a wish?" "i would command the tiger hunters of pyeng-yang, and so command the palace guards," he answered. "wait," said i, "and that will you do. i have said it." the how of the matter was beyond me. but he who has naught can dispense the world in largess; and i, who had naught, gave kim captaincy of the palace guards. the best of it is that i did fulfil my promise. kim did come to command the tiger hunters, although it brought him to a sad end. scheming and intriguing i left to hamel and yunsan, who were the politicians. i was mere man and lover, and merrier than theirs was the time i had. picture it to yourself--a hard-bitten, joy-loving sea-cuny, irresponsible, unaware ever of past or future, wining and dining with kings, the accepted lover of a princess, and with brains like hamel's and yunsan's to do all planning and executing for me. more than once yunsan almost divined the mind behind my mind; but when he probed hamel, hamel proved a stupid slave, a thousand times less interested in affairs of state and policy than was he interested in my health and comfort and garrulously anxious about my drinking contests with taiwun. i think the lady om guessed the truth and kept it to herself; wit was not her desire, but, as hamel had said, a bull throat and a man's yellow hair. much that pawed between us i shall not relate, though the lady om is dear dust these centuries. but she was not to be denied, nor was i; and when a man and woman will their hearts together heads may fall and kingdoms crash and yet they will not forgo. came the time when our marriage was mooted--oh, quietly, at first, most quietly, as mere palace gossip in dark corners between eunuchs and waiting-women. but in a palace the gossip of the kitchen scullions will creep to the throne. soon there was a pretty to-do. the palace was the pulse of cho-sen, and when the palace rocked, cho-sen trembled. and there was reason for the rocking. our marriage would be a blow straight between the eyes of chong mong-ju. he fought, with a show of strength for which yunsan was ready. chong mong-ju disaffected half the provincial priesthood, until they pilgrimaged in processions a mile long to the palace gates and frightened the emperor into a panic. but yunsan held like a rock. the other half of the provincial priesthood was his, with, in addition, all the priesthood of the great cities such as keijo, fusan, songdo, pyen-yang, chenampo, and chemulpo. yunsan and the lady om, between them, twisted the emperor right about. as she confessed to me afterward, she bullied him with tears and hysteria and threats of a scandal that would shake the throne. and to cap it all, at the psychological moment, yunsan pandered the emperor to novelties of excess that had been long preparing. "you must grow your hair for the marriage knot," yunsan warned me one day, with the ghost of a twinkle in his austere eyes, more nearly facetious and human than i had ever beheld him. now it is not meet that a princess espouse a sea-cuny, or even a claimant of the ancient blood of koryu, who is without power, or place, or visible symbols of rank. so it was promulgated by imperial decree that i was a prince of koryu. next, after breaking the bones and decapitating the then governor of the five provinces, himself an adherent of chong mong- ju, i was made governor of the seven home provinces of ancient koryu. in cho-sen seven is the magic number. to complete this number two of the provinces were taken over from the hands of two more of chong mong-ju's adherents. lord, lord, a sea-cuny . . . and dispatched north over the mandarin road with five hundred soldiers and a retinue at my back! i was a governor of seven provinces, where fifty thousand troops awaited me. life, death, and torture, i carried at my disposal. i had a treasury and a treasurer, to say nothing of a regiment of scribes. awaiting me also was a full thousand of tax-farmers; who squeezed the last coppers from the toiling people. the seven provinces constituted the northern march. beyond lay what is now manchuria, but which was known by us as the country of the hong-du, or "red heads." they were wild raiders, on occasion crossing the yalu in great masses and over-running northern cho-sen like locusts. it was said they were given to cannibal practices. i know of experience that they were terrible fighters, most difficult to convince of a beating. a whirlwind year it was. while yunsan and the lady om at keijo completed the disgrace of chong mong-ju, i proceeded to make a reputation for myself. of course it was really hendrik hamel at my back, but i was the fine figure-head that carried it off. through me hamel taught our soldiers drill and tactics and taught the red heads strategy. the fighting was grand, and though it took a year, the year's end saw peace on the northern border and no red heads but dead red heads on our side the yalu. i do not know if this invasion of the red heads is recorded in western history, but if so it will give a clue to the date of the times of which i write. another clue: when was hideyoshi the shogun of japan? in my time i heard the echoes of the two invasions, a generation before, driven by hideyoshi through the heart of cho-sen from fusan in the south to as far north as pyeng-yang. it was this hideyoshi who sent back to japan a myriad tubs of pickled ears and noses of koreans slain in battle. i talked with many old men and women who had seen the fighting and escaped the pickling. back to keijo and the lady om. lord, lord, she was a woman. for forty years she was my woman. i know. no dissenting voice was raised against the marriage. chong mong-ju, clipped of power, in disgrace, had retired to sulk somewhere on the far north-east coast. yunsan was absolute. nightly the single beacons flared their message of peace across the land. the emperor grew more weak-legged and blear-eyed what of the ingenious deviltries devised for him by yunsan. the lady om and i had won to our hearts' desires. kim was in command of the palace guards. kwan yung- jin, the provincial governor who had planked and beaten us when we were first cast away, i had shorn of power and banished for ever from appearing within the walls of keijo. oh, and johannes maartens. discipline is well hammered into a sea-cuny, and, despite my new greatness, i could never forget that he had been my captain in the days we sought new indies in the _sparwehr_. according to my tale first told in court, he was the only free man in my following. the rest of the cunies, being considered my slaves, could not aspire to office of any sort under the crown. but johannes could, and did. the sly old fox! i little guessed his intent when he asked me to make him governor of the paltry little province of kyong-ju. kyong-ju had no wealth of farms or fisheries. the taxes scarce paid the collecting, and the governorship was little more than an empty honour. the place was in truth a graveyard--a sacred graveyard, for on tabong mountain were shrined and sepultured the bones of the ancient kings of silla. better governor of kyong-ju than retainer of adam strang, was what i thought was in his mind; nor did i dream that it was except for fear of loneliness that caused him to take four of the cunies with him. gorgeous were the two years that followed. my seven provinces i governed mainly though needy _yang-bans_ selected for me by yunsan. an occasional inspection, done in state and accompanied by the lady om, was all that was required of me. she possessed a summer palace on the south coast, which we frequented much. then there were man's diversions. i became patron of the sport of wrestling, and revived archery among the yang-bans. also, there was tiger-hunting in the northern mountains. a remarkable thing was the tides of cho-sen. on our north-east coast there was scarce a rise and fall of a foot. on our west coast the neap tides ran as high as sixty feet. cho-sen had no commerce, no foreign traders. there was no voyaging beyond her coasts, and no voyaging of other peoples to her coasts. this was due to her immemorial policy of isolation. once in a decade or a score of years chinese ambassadors arrived, but they came overland, around the yellow sea, across the country of the hong-du, and down the mandarin road to keijo. the round trip was a year-long journey. their mission was to exact from our emperor the empty ceremonial of acknowledgment of china's ancient suzerainty. but hamel, from long brooding, was ripening for action. his plans grew apace. cho-sen was indies enough for him could he but work it right. little he confided, but when he began to play to have me made admiral of the cho-sen navy of junks, and to inquire more than casually of the details of the store-places of the imperial treasury, i could put two and two together. now i did not care to depart from cho-sen except with the lady om. when i broached the possibility of it she told me, warm in my arms, that i was her king and that wherever i led she would follow. as you shall see it was truth, full truth, that she uttered. it was yunsan's fault for letting chong mong-ju live. and yet it was not yunsan's fault. he had not dared otherwise. disgraced at court, nevertheless chong mong-ju had been too popular with the provincial priesthood. yunsan had been compelled to hold his hand, and chong mong- ju, apparently sulking on the north-east coast, had been anything but idle. his emissaries, chiefly buddhist priests, were everywhere, went everywhere, gathering in even the least of the provincial magistrates to allegiance to him. it takes the cold patience of the asiatic to conceive and execute huge and complicated conspiracies. the strength of chong mong-ju's palace clique grew beyond yunsan's wildest dreaming. chong mong-ju corrupted the very palace guards, the tiger hunters of pyeng-yang whom kim commanded. and while yunsan nodded, while i devoted myself to sport and to the lady om, while hendrik hamel perfected plans for the looting of the imperial treasury, and while johannes maartens schemed his own scheme among the tombs of tabong mountain, the volcano of chong mong- ju's devising gave no warning beneath us. lord, lord, when the storm broke! it was stand out from under, all hands, and save your necks. and there were necks that were not saved. the springing of the conspiracy was premature. johannes maartens really precipitated the catastrophe, and what he did was too favourable for chong mong-ju not to advantage by. for, see. the people of cho-sen are fanatical ancestor-worshippers, and that old pirate of a booty-lusting dutchman, with his four cunies, in far kyong-ju, did no less a thing than raid the tombs of the gold-coffined, long-buried kings of ancient silla. the work was done in the night, and for the rest of the night they travelled for the sea-coast. but the following day a dense fog lay over the land and they lost their way to the waiting junk which johannes maartens had privily outfitted. he and the cunies were rounded in by yi sun-sin, the local magistrate, one of chong mong-ju's adherents. only herman tromp escaped in the fog, and was able, long after, to tell me of the adventure. that night, although news of the sacrilege was spreading through cho-sen and half the northern provinces had risen on their officials, keijo and the court slept in ignorance. by chong mong-ju's orders the beacons flared their nightly message of peace. and night by night the peace-beacons flared, while day and night chong mong-ju's messengers killed horses on all the roads of cho-sen. it was my luck to see his messenger arrive at keijo. at twilight, as i rode out through the great gate of the capital, i saw the jaded horse fall and the exhausted rider stagger in on foot; and i little dreamed that that man carried my destiny with him into keijo. his message sprang the palace revolution. i was not due to return until midnight, and by midnight all was over. at nine in the evening the conspirators secured possession of the emperor in his own apartments. they compelled him to order the immediate attendance of the heads of all departments, and as they presented themselves, one by one, before his eyes, they were cut down. meantime the tiger hunters were up and out of hand. yunsan and hendrik hamel were badly beaten with the flats of swords and made prisoners. the seven other cunies escaped from the palace along with the lady om. they were enabled to do this by kim, who held the way, sword in hand, against his own tiger hunters. they cut him down and trod over him. unfortunately he did not die of his wounds. like a flaw of wind on a summer night the revolution, a palace revolution of course, blew and was past. chong mong-ju was in the saddle. the emperor ratified whatever chong mong-ju willed. beyond gasping at the sacrilege of the king's tombs and applauding chong mong-ju, cho-sen was unperturbed. heads of officials fell everywhere, being replaced by chong mong-ju's appointees; but there were no risings against the dynasty. and now to what befell us. johannes maartens and his three cunies, after being exhibited to be spat upon by the rabble of half the villages and walled cities of cho-sen, were buried to their necks in the ground of the open space before the palace gate. water was given them that they might live longer to yearn for the food, steaming hot and savoury and changed hourly, that was place temptingly before them. they say old johannes maartens lived longest, not giving up the ghost for a full fifteen days. kim was slowly crushed to death, bone by bone and joint by joint, by the torturers, and was a long time in dying. hamel, whom chong mong-ju divined as my brains, was executed by the paddle--in short, was promptly and expeditiously beaten to death to the delighted shouts of the keijo populace. yunsan was given a brave death. he was playing a game of chess with the jailer, when the emperor's, or, rather, chong mong-ju's, messenger arrived with the poison-cup. "wait a moment," said yunsan. "you should be better-mannered than to disturb a man in the midst of a game of chess. i shall drink directly the game is over." and while the messenger waited yunsan finished the game, winning it, then drained the cup. it takes an asiatic to temper his spleen to steady, persistent, life-long revenge. this chong mong-ju did with the lady om and me. he did not destroy us. we were not even imprisoned. the lady om was degraded of all rank and divested of all possessions. an imperial decree was promulgated and posted in the last least village of cho-sen to the effect that i was of the house of koryu and that no man might kill me. it was further declared that the eight sea-cunies who survived must not be killed. neither were they to be favoured. they were to be outcasts, beggars on the highways. and that is what the lady om and i became, beggars on the highways. forty long years of persecution followed, for chong mong-ju's hatred of the lady om and me was deathless. worse luck, he was favoured with long life as well as were we cursed with it. i have said the lady om was a wonder of a woman. beyond endlessly repeating that statement, words fail me, with which to give her just appreciation. somewhere i have heard that a great lady once said to her lover: "a tent and a crust of bread with you." in effect that is what the lady om said to me. more than to say it, she lived the last letter of it, when more often than not crusts were not plentiful and the sky itself was our tent. every effort i made to escape beggary was in the end frustrated by chong mong-ju. in songdo i became a fuel-carrier, and the lady om and i shared a hut that was vastly more comfortable than the open road in bitter winter weather. but chong mong-ju found me out, and i was beaten and planked and put out upon the road. that was a terrible winter, the winter poor "what-now" vandervoot froze to death on the streets of keijo. in pyeng-yang i became a water-carrier, for know that that old city, whose walls were ancient even in the time of david, was considered by the people to be a canoe, and that, therefore, to sink a well inside the walls would be to scupper the city. so all day long thousands of coolies, water-jars yoked to their shoulders, tramp out the river gate and back. i became one of these, until chong mong-ju sought me out, and i was beaten and planked and set upon the highway. ever it was the same. in far wiju i became a dog-butcher, killing the brutes publicly before my open stall, cutting and hanging the caresses for sale, tanning the hides under the filth of the feet of the passers-by by spreading the hides, raw-side up, in the muck of the street. but chong mong-ju found me out. i was a dyer's helper in pyonhan, a gold- miner in the placers of kang-wun, a rope-maker and twine-twister in chiksan. i plaited straw hats in padok, gathered grass in whang-hai, and in masenpo sold myself to a rice farmer to toil bent double in the flooded paddies for less than a coolie's pay. but there was never a time or place that the long arm of chong mong-ju did not reach out and punish and thrust me upon the beggar's way. the lady om and i searched two seasons and found a single root of the wild mountain ginseng, which is esteemed so rare and precious a thing by the doctors that the lady om and i could have lived a year in comfort from the sale of our one root. but in the selling of it i was apprehended, the root confiscated, and i was better beaten and longer planked than ordinarily. everywhere the wandering members of the great peddlers' guild carried word of me, of my comings and goings and doings, to chong mong-ju at keijo. only twice, in all the days after my downfall, did i meet chong mong-ju face to face. the first time was a wild winter night of storm in the high mountains of kang-wun. a few hoarded coppers had bought for the lady om and me sleeping space in the dirtiest and coldest corner of the one large room of the inn. we were just about to begin on our meagre supper of horse-beans and wild garlic cooked into a stew with a scrap of bullock that must have died of old age, when there was a tinkling of bronze pony bells and the stamp of hoofs without. the doors opened, and entered chong mong-ju, the personification of well-being, prosperity and power, shaking the snow from his priceless mongolian furs. place was made for him and his dozen retainers, and there was room for all without crowding, when his eyes chanced to light on the lady om and me. "the vermin there in the corner--clear it out," he commanded. and his horse-boys lashed us with their whips and drove us out into the storm. but there was to be another meeting, after long years, as you shall see. there was no escape. never was i permitted to cross the northern frontier. never was i permitted to put foot to a sampan on the sea. the peddlers' guild carried these commands of chong mong-ju to every village and every soul in all cho-sen. i was a marked man. lord, lord, cho-sen, i know your every highway and mountain path, all your walled cities and the least of your villages. for two-score years i wandered and starved over you, and the lady om ever wandered and starved with me. what we in extremity have eaten!--leavings of dog's flesh, putrid and unsaleable, flung to us by the mocking butchers; _minari_, a water-cress gathered from stagnant pools of slime; spoiled _kimchi_ that would revolt the stomachs of peasants and that could be smelled a mile. ay--i have stolen bones from curs, gleaned the public road for stray grains of rice, robbed ponies of their steaming bean-soup on frosty nights. it is not strange that i did not die. i knew and was upheld by two things: the first, the lady om by my side; the second, the certain faith that the time would come when my thumbs and fingers would fast-lock in the gullet of chong mong-ju. turned always away at the city gates of keijo, where i sought chong mong- ju, we wandered on, through seasons and decades of seasons, across cho- sen, whose every inch of road was an old story to our sandals. our history and identity were wide-scattered as the land was wide. no person breathed who did not know us and our punishment. there were coolies and peddlers who shouted insults at the lady om and who felt the wrath of my clutch in their topknots, the wrath of my knuckles in their faces. there were old women in far mountain villages who looked on the beggar woman by my side, the lost lady om, and sighed and shook their heads while their eyes dimmed with tears. and there were young women whose faces warmed with compassion as they gazed on the bulk of my shoulders, the blue of my eyes, and my long yellow hair--i who had once been a prince of koryu and the ruler of provinces. and there were rabbles of children that tagged at our heels, jeering and screeching, pelting us with filth of speech and of the common road. beyond the yalu, forty miles wide, was the strip of waste that constituted the northern frontier and that ran from sea to sea. it was not really waste land, but land that had been deliberately made waste in carrying out cho-sen's policy of isolation. on this forty-mile strip all farms, villages and cities had been destroyed. it was no man's land, infested with wild animals and traversed by companies of mounted tiger hunters whose business was to kill any human being they found. that way there was no escape for us, nor was there any escape for us by sea. as the years passed my seven fellow-cunies came more to frequent fusan. it was on the south-east coast where the climate was milder. but more than climate, it lay nearest of all cho-sen to japan. across the narrow straits, just farther than the eye can see, was the one hope of escape japan, where doubtless occasional ships of europe came. strong upon me is the vision of those seven ageing men on the cliffs of fusan yearning with all their souls across the sea they would never sail again. at times junks of japan were sighted, but never lifted a familiar topsail of old europe above the sea-rim. years came and went, and the seven cunies and myself and the lady om, passing through middle life into old age, more and more directed our footsteps to fusan. and as the years came and went, now one, now another failed to gather at the usual place. hans amden was the first to die. jacob brinker, who was his road-mate, brought the news. jacob brinker was the last of the seven, and he was nearly ninety when he died, outliving tromp a scant two years. i well remember the pair of them, toward the last, worn and feeble, in beggars' rags, with beggars' bowls, sunning themselves side by side on the cliffs, telling old stories and cackling shrill-voiced like children. and tromp would maunder over and over of how johannes maartens and the cunies robbed the kings on tabong mountain, each embalmed in his golden coffin with an embalmed maid on either side; and of how these ancient proud ones crumbled to dust within the hour while the cunies cursed and sweated at junking the coffins. as sure as loot is loot, old johannes maartens would have got away and across the yellow sea with his booty had it not been for the fog next day that lost him. that cursed fog! a song was made of it, that i heard and hated through all cho-sen to my dying day. here run two lines of it: "_yanggukeni chajin anga_ _wheanpong tora deunda_, the thick fog of the westerners broods over whean peak." for forty years i was a beggar of cho-sen. of the fourteen of us that were cast away only i survived. the lady om was of the same indomitable stuff, and we aged together. she was a little, weazened, toothless old woman toward the last; but ever she was the wonder woman, and she carried my heart in hers to the end. for an old man, three score and ten, i still retained great strength. my face was withered, my yellow hair turned white, my broad shoulders shrunken, and yet much of the strength of my sea-cuny days resided in the muscles left me. thus it was that i was able to do what i shall now relate. it was a spring morning on the cliffs of fusan, hard by the highway, that the lady om and i sat warming in the sun. we were in the rags of beggary, prideless in the dust, and yet i was laughing heartily at some mumbled merry quip of the lady om when a shadow fell upon us. it was the great litter of chong mong-ju, borne by eight coolies, with outriders before and behind and fluttering attendants on either side. two emperors, civil war, famine, and a dozen palace revolutions had come and gone; and chong mong-ju remained, even then the great power at keijo. he must have been nearly eighty that spring morning on the cliffs when he signalled with palsied hand for his litter to be rested down that he might gaze upon us whom he had punished for so long. "now, o my king," the lady om mumbled low to me, then turned to whine an alms of chong mong-ju, whom she affected not to recognize. and i knew what was her thought. had we not shared it for forty years? and the moment of its consummation had come at last. so i, too, affected not to recognize my enemy, and, putting on an idiotic senility, i, too, crawled in the dust toward the litter whining for mercy and charity. the attendants would have driven me back, but with age-quavering cackles chong mong-ju restrained them. he lifted himself on a shaking elbow, and with the other shaking hand drew wider apart the silken curtains. his withered old face was transfigured with delight as he gloated on us. "o my king," the lady om whined to me in her beggar's chant; and i knew all her long-tried love and faith in my emprise were in that chant. and the red wrath was up in me, ripping and tearing at my will to be free. small wonder that i shook with the effort to control. the shaking, happily, they took for the weakness of age. i held up my brass begging bowl, and whined more dolefully, and bleared my eyes to hide the blue fire i knew was in them, and calculated the distance and my strength for the leap. then i was swept away in a blaze of red. there was a crashing of curtains and curtain-poles and a squawking and squalling of attendants as my hands closed on chong mong-ju's throat. the litter overturned, and i scarce knew whether i was heads or heels, but my clutch never relaxed. in the confusion of cushions and quilts and curtains, at first few of the attendants' blows found me. but soon the horsemen were in, and their heavy whip-butts began to fall on my head, while a multitude of hands clawed and tore at me. i was dizzy, but not unconscious, and very blissful with my old fingers buried in that lean and scraggly old neck i had sought for so long. the blows continued to rain on my head, and i had whirling thoughts in which i likened myself to a bulldog with jaws fast-locked. chong mong-ju could not escape me, and i know he was well dead ere darkness, like that of an anaesthetic, descended upon me there on the cliffs of fusan by the yellow sea. chapter xvi warden atherton, when he thinks of me, must feel anything but pride. i have taught him what spirit is, humbled him with my own spirit that rose invulnerable, triumphant, above all his tortures. i sit here in folsom, in murderers' row, awaiting my execution; warden atherton still holds his political job and is king over san quentin and all the damned within its walls; and yet, in his heart of hearts, he knows that i am greater than he. in vain warden atherton tried to break my spirit. and there were times, beyond any shadow of doubt, when he would have been glad had i died in the jacket. so the long inquisition went on. as he had told me, and as he told me repeatedly, it was dynamite or curtains. captain jamie was a veteran in dungeon horrors, yet the time came when he broke down under the strain i put on him and on the rest of my torturers. so desperate did he become that he dared words with the warden and washed his hands of the affair. from that day until the end of my torturing he never set foot in solitary. yes, and the time came when warden atherton grew afraid, although he still persisted in trying to wring from me the hiding-place of the non- existent dynamite. toward the last he was badly shaken by jake oppenheimer. oppenheimer was fearless and outspoken. he had passed unbroken through all their prison hells, and out of superior will could beard them to their teeth. morrell rapped me a full account of the incident. i was unconscious in the jacket at the time. "warden," oppenheimer had said, "you've bitten off more than you can chew. it ain't a case of killing standing. it's a case of killing three men, for as sure as you kill him, sooner or later morrell and i will get the word out and what you have done will be known from one end of california to the other. you've got your choice. you've either got to let up on standing or kill all three of us. standing's got your goat. so have i. so has morrell. you are a stinking coward, and you haven't got the backbone and guts to carry out the dirty butcher's work you'd like to do." oppenheimer got a hundred hours in the jacket for it, and, when he was unlaced, spat in the warden's face and received a second hundred hours on end. when he was unlaced this time, the warden was careful not to be in solitary. that he was shaken by oppenheimer's words there is no doubt. but it was doctor jackson who was the arch-fiend. to him i was a novelty, and he was ever eager to see how much more i could stand before i broke. "he can stand twenty days off the bat," he bragged to the warden in my presence. "you are conservative," i broke in. "i can stand forty days. pshaw! i can stand a hundred when such as you administer it." and, remembering my sea-cuny's patience of forty years' waiting ere i got my hands on chong mong-ju's gullet, i added: "you prison curs, you don't know what a man is. you think a man is made in your own cowardly images. behold, i am a man. you are feeblings. i am your master. you can't bring a squeal out of me. you think it remarkable, for you know how easily you would squeal." oh, i abused them, called them sons of toads, hell's scullions, slime of the pit. for i was above them, beyond them. they were slaves. i was free spirit. my flesh only lay pent there in solitary. i was not pent. i had mastered the flesh, and the spaciousness of time was mine to wander in, while my poor flesh, not even suffering, lay in the little death in the jacket. much of my adventures i rapped to my two comrades. morrell believed, for he had himself tasted the little death. but oppenheimer, enraptured with my tales, remained a sceptic to the end. his regret was naive, and at times really pathetic, in that i had devoted my life to the science of agriculture instead of to fiction writing. "but, man," i reasoned with him, "what do i know of myself about this cho- sen? i am able to identify it with what is to-day called korea, and that is about all. that is as far as my reading goes. for instance, how possibly, out of my present life's experience, could i know anything about _kimchi_? yet i know _kimchi_. it is a sort of sauerkraut. when it is spoiled it stinks to heaven. i tell you, when i was adam strang, i ate _kimchi_ thousands of times. i know good _kimchi_, bad _kimchi_, rotten _kimchi_. i know the best _kimchi_ is made by the women of wosan. now how do i know that? it is not in the content of my mind, darrell standing's mind. it is in the content of adam strang's mind, who, through various births and deaths, bequeathed his experiences to me, darrell standing, along with the rest of the experiences of those various other lives that intervened. don't you see, jake? that is how men come to be, to grow, how spirit develops." "aw, come off," he rapped back with the quick imperative knuckles i knew so well. "listen to your uncle talk now. i am jake oppenheimer. i always have been jake oppenheimer. no other guy is in my makings. what i know i know as jake oppenheimer. now what do i know? i'll tell you one thing. i know _kimchi_. _kimchi_ is a sort of sauerkraut made in a country that used to be called cho-sen. the women of wosan make the best _kimchi_, and when _kimchi_ is spoiled it stinks to heaven. you keep out of this, ed. wait till i tie the professor up. "now, professor, how do i know all this stuff about _kimchi_? it is not in the content of my mind." "but it is," i exulted. "i put it there." "all right, old boss. then who put it into your mind?" "adam strang." "not on your tintype. adam strang is a pipe-dream. you read it somewhere." "never," i averred. "the little i read of korea was the war correspondence at the time of the japanese-russian war." "do you remember all you read?" oppenheimer queried. "no." "some you forget?" "yes, but--" "that's all, thank you," he interrupted, in the manner of a lawyer abruptly concluding a cross-examination after having extracted a fatal admission from a witness. it was impossible to convince oppenheimer of my sincerity. he insisted that i was making it up as i went along, although he applauded what he called my "to-be-continued-in-our-next," and, at the times they were resting me up from the jacket, was continually begging and urging me to run off a few more chapters. "now, professor, cut out that high-brow stuff," he would interrupt ed morrell's and my metaphysical discussions, "and tell us more about the _ki-sang_ and the cunies. and, say, while you're about it, tell us what happened to the lady om when that rough-neck husband of hers choked the old geezer and croaked." how often have i said that form perishes. let me repeat. form perishes. matter has no memory. spirit only remembers, as here, in prison cells, after the centuries, knowledge of the lady om and chong mong-ju persisted in my mind, was conveyed by me into jake oppenheimer's mind, and by him was reconveyed into my mind in the argot and jargon of the west. and now i have conveyed it into your mind, my reader. try to eliminate it from your mind. you cannot. as long as you live what i have told will tenant your mind. mind? there is nothing permanent but mind. matter fluxes, crystallizes, and fluxes again, and forms are never repeated. forms disintegrate into the eternal nothingness from which there is no return. form is apparitional and passes, as passed the physical forms of the lady om and chong mong-ju. but the memory of them remains, shall always remain as long as spirit endures, and spirit is indestructible. "one thing sticks out as big as a house," was oppenheimer's final criticism of my adam strang adventure. "and that is that you've done more hanging around chinatown dumps and hop-joints than was good for a respectable college professor. evil communications, you know. i guess that's what brought you here." before i return to my adventures i am compelled to tell one remarkable incident that occurred in solitary. it is remarkable in two ways. it shows the astounding mental power of that child of the gutters, jake oppenheimer; and it is in itself convincing proof of the verity of my experiences when in the jacket coma. "say, professor," oppenheimer tapped to me one day. "when you was spieling that adam strang yarn, i remember you mentioned playing chess with that royal souse of an emperor's brother. now is that chess like our kind of chess?" of course i had to reply that i did not know, that i did not remember the details after i returned to my normal state. and of course he laughed good-naturedly at what he called my foolery. yet i could distinctly remember that in my adam strang adventure i had frequently played chess. the trouble was that whenever i came back to consciousness in solitary, unessential and intricate details faded from my memory. it must be remembered that for convenience i have assembled my intermittent and repetitional jacket experiences into coherent and consecutive narratives. i never knew in advance where my journeys in time would take me. for instance, i have a score of different times returned to jesse fancher in the wagon-circle at mountain meadows. in a single ten-days' bout in the jacket i have gone back and back, from life to life, and often skipping whole series of lives that at other times i have covered, back to prehistoric time, and back of that to days ere civilization began. so i resolved, on my next return from adam strang's experiences, whenever it might be, that i should, immediately, i on resuming consciousness, concentrate upon what visions and memories. i had brought back of chess playing. as luck would have it, i had to endure oppenheimer's chaffing for a full month ere it happened. and then, no sooner out of jacket and circulation restored, than i started knuckle-rapping the information. further, i taught oppenheimer the chess adam strang had played in cho-sen centuries agone. it was different from western chess, and yet could not but be fundamentally the same, tracing back to a common origin, probably india. in place of our sixty-four squares there are eighty-one squares. we have eight pawns on a side; they have nine; and though limited similarly, the principle of moving is different. also, in the cho-sen game, there are twenty pieces and pawns against our sixteen, and they are arrayed in three rows instead of two. thus, the nine pawns are in the front row; in the middle row are two pieces resembling our castles; and in the back row, midway, stands the king, flanked in order on either side by "gold money," "silver money," "knight," and "spear." it will be observed that in the cho-sen game there is no queen. a further radical variation is that a captured piece or pawn is not removed from the board. it becomes the property of the captor and is thereafter played by him. well, i taught oppenheimer this game--a far more difficult achievement than our own game, as will be admitted, when the capturing and recapturing and continued playing of pawns and pieces is considered. solitary is not heated. it would be a wickedness to ease a convict from any spite of the elements. and many a dreary day of biting cold did oppenheimer and i forget that and the following winter in the absorption of cho-sen chess. but there was no convincing him that i had in truth brought this game back to san quentin across the centuries. he insisted that i had read about it somewhere, and, though i had forgotten the reading, the stuff of the reading was nevertheless in the content of my mind, ripe to be brought out in any pipe-dream. thus he turned the tenets and jargon of psychology back on me. "what's to prevent your inventing it right here in solitary?" was his next hypothesis. "didn't ed invent the knuckle-talk? and ain't you and me improving on it right along? i got you, bo. you invented it. say, get it patented. i remember when i was night-messenger some guy invented a fool thing called pigs in clover and made millions out of it." "there's no patenting this," i replied. "doubtlessly the asiatics have been playing it for thousands of years. won't you believe me when i tell you i didn't invent it?" "then you must have read about it, or seen the chinks playing it in some of those hop-joints you was always hanging around," was his last word. but i have a last word. there is a japanese murderer here in folsom--or was, for he was executed last week. i talked the matter over with him; and the game adam strang played, and which i taught oppenheimer, proved quite similar to the japanese game. they are far more alike than is either of them like the western game. chapter xvii you, my reader, will remember, far back at the beginning of this narrative, how, when a little lad on the minnesota farm, i looked at the photographs of the holy land and recognized places and pointed out changes in places. also you will remember, as i described the scene i had witnessed of the healing of the lepers, i told the missionary that i was a big man with a big sword, astride a horse and looking on. that childhood incident was merely a trailing cloud of glory, as wordsworth puts it. not in entire forgetfulness had i, little darrell standing, come into the world. but those memories of other times and places that glimmered up to the surface of my child consciousness soon failed and faded. in truth, as is the way with all children, the shades of the prison-house closed about me, and i remembered my mighty past no more. every man born of woman has a past mighty as mine. very few men born of women have been fortunate enough to suffer years of solitary and strait-jacketing. that was my good fortune. i was enabled to remember once again, and to remember, among other things, the time when i sat astride a horse and beheld the lepers healed. my name was ragnar lodbrog. i was in truth a large man. i stood half a head above the romans of my legion. but that was later, after the time of my journey from alexandria to jerusalem, that i came to command a legion. it was a crowded life, that. books and books, and years of writing could not record it all. so i shall briefen and no more than hint at the beginnings of it. now all is clear and sharp save the very beginning. i never knew my mother. i was told that i was tempest-born, on a beaked ship in the northern sea, of a captured woman, after a sea fight and a sack of a coastal stronghold. i never heard the name of my mother. she died at the height of the tempest. she was of the north danes, so old lingaard told me. he told me much that i was too young to remember, yet little could he tell. a sea fight and a sack, battle and plunder and torch, a flight seaward in the long ships to escape destruction upon the rocks, and a killing strain and struggle against the frosty, foundering seas--who, then, should know aught or mark a stranger woman in her hour with her feet fast set on the way of death? many died. men marked the living women, not the dead. sharp-bitten into my child imagination are the incidents immediately after my birth, as told me by old lingaard. lingaard, too old to labour at the sweeps, had been surgeon, undertaker, and midwife of the huddled captives in the open midships. so i was delivered in storm, with the spume of the cresting seas salt upon me. not many hours old was i when tostig lodbrog first laid eyes on me. his was the lean ship, and his the seven other lean ships that had made the foray, fled the rapine, and won through the storm. tostig lodbrog was also called muspell, meaning "the burning"; for he was ever aflame with wrath. brave he was, and cruel he was, with no heart of mercy in that great chest of his. ere the sweat of battle had dried on him, leaning on his axe, he ate the heart of ngrun after the fight at hasfarth. because of mad anger he sold his son, garulf, into slavery to the juts. i remember, under the smoky rafters of brunanbuhr, how he used to call for the skull of guthlaf for a drinking beaker. spiced wine he would have from no other cup than the skull of guthlaf. and to him, on the reeling deck after the storm was past, old lingaard brought me. i was only hours old, wrapped naked in a salt-crusted wolfskin. now it happens, being prematurely born, that i was very small. "ho! ho!--a dwarf!" cried tostig, lowering a pot of mead half-drained from his lips to stare at me. the day was bitter, but they say he swept me naked from the wolfskin, and by my foot, between thumb and forefinger, dangled me to the bite of the wind. "a roach!" he ho-ho'd. "a shrimp! a sea-louse!" and he made to squash me between huge forefinger and thumb, either of which, lingaard avers, was thicker than my leg or thigh. but another whim was upon him. "the youngling is a-thirst. let him drink." and therewith, head-downward, into the half-pot of mead he thrust me. and might well have drowned in this drink of men--i who had never known a mother's breast in the briefness of time i had lived--had it not been for lingaard. but when he plucked me forth from the brew, tostig lodbrog struck him down in a rage. we rolled on the deck, and the great bear hounds, captured in the fight with the north danes just past, sprang upon us. "ho! ho!" roared tostig lodbrog, as the old man and i and the wolfskin were mauled and worried by the dogs. but lingaard gained his feet, saving me but losing the wolfskin to the hounds. tostig lodbrog finished the mead and regarded me, while lingaard knew better than to beg for mercy where was no mercy. "hop o' my thumb," quoth tostig. "by odin, the women of the north danes are a scurvy breed. they birth dwarfs, not men. of what use is this thing? he will never make a man. listen you, lingaard, grow him to be a drink-boy at brunanbuhr. and have an eye on the dogs lest they slobber him down by mistake as a meat-crumb from the table." i knew no woman. old lingaard was midwife and nurse, and for nursery were reeling decks and the stamp and trample of men in battle or storm. how i survived puling infancy, god knows. i must have been born iron in a day of iron, for survive i did, to give the lie to tostig's promise of dwarf-hood. i outgrew all beakers and tankards, and not for long could he half-drown me in his mead pot. this last was a favourite feat of his. it was his raw humour, a sally esteemed by him delicious wit. my first memories are of tostig lodbrog's beaked ships and fighting men, and of the feast hall at brunanbuhr when our boats lay beached beside the frozen fjord. for i was made drink-boy, and amongst my earliest recollections are toddling with the wine-filled skull of guthlaf to the head of the table where tostig bellowed to the rafters. they were madmen, all of madness, but it seemed the common way of life to me who knew naught else. they were men of quick rages and quick battling. their thoughts were ferocious; so was their eating ferocious, and their drinking. and i grew like them. how else could i grow, when i served the drink to the bellowings of drunkards and to the skalds singing of hialli, and the bold hogni, and of the niflung's gold, and of gudrun's revenge on atli when she gave him the hearts of his children and hers to eat while battle swept the benches, tore down the hangings raped from southern coasts, and, littered the feasting board with swift corpses. oh, i, too, had a rage, well tutored in such school. i was but eight when i showed my teeth at a drinking between the men of brunanbuhr and the juts who came as friends with the jarl agard in his three long ships. i stood at tostig lodbrog's shoulder, holding the skull of guthlaf that steamed and stank with the hot, spiced wine. and i waited while tostig should complete his ravings against the north dane men. but still he raved and still i waited, till he caught breath of fury to assail the north dane woman. whereat i remembered my north dane mother, and saw my rage red in my eyes, and smote him with the skull of guthlaf, so that he was wine-drenched, and wine-blinded, and fire-burnt. and as he reeled unseeing, smashing his great groping clutches through the air at me, i was in and short-dirked him thrice in belly, thigh and buttock, than which i could reach no higher up the mighty frame of him. and the jarl agard's steel was out, and his juts joining him as he shouted: "a bear cub! a bear cub! by odin, let the cub fight!" and there, under that roaring roof of brunanbuhr, the babbling drink-boy of the north danes fought with mighty lodbrog. and when, with one stroke, i was flung, dazed and breathless, half the length of that great board, my flying body mowing down pots and tankards, lodbrog cried out command: "out with him! fling him to the hounds!" but the jarl would have it no, and clapped lodbrog on the shoulder, and asked me as a gift of friendship. and south i went, when the ice passed out of the fjord, in jarl agard's ships. i was made drink-boy and sword-bearer to him, and in lieu of other name was called ragnar lodbrog. agard's country was neighbour to the frisians, and a sad, flat country of fog and fen it was. i was with him for three years, to his death, always at his back, whether hunting swamp wolves or drinking in the great hall where elgiva, his young wife, often sat among her women. i was with agard in south foray with his ships along what would be now the coast of france, and there i learned that still south were warmer seasons and softer climes and women. but we brought back agard wounded to death and slow-dying. and we burned his body on a great pyre, with elgiva, in her golden corselet, beside him singing. and there were household slaves in golden collars that burned of a plenty there with her, and nine female thralls, and eight male slaves of the angles that were of gentle birth and battle-captured. and there were live hawks so burned, and the two hawk-boys with their birds. but i, the drink-boy, ragnar lodbrog, did not burn. i was eleven, and unafraid, and had never worn woven cloth on my body. and as the flames sprang up, and elgiva sang her death-song, and the thralls and slaves screeched their unwillingness to die, i tore away my fastenings, leaped, and gained the fens, the gold collar of my slavehood still on my neck, footing it with the hounds loosed to tear me down. in the fens were wild men, masterless men, fled slaves, and outlaws, who were hunted in sport as the wolves were hunted. for three years i knew never roof nor fire, and i grew hard as the frost, and would have stolen a woman from the juts but that the frisians by mischance, in a two days' hunt, ran me down. by them i was looted of my gold collar and traded for two wolf-hounds to edwy, of the saxons, who put an iron collar on me, and later made of me and five other slaves a present to athel of the east angles. i was thrall and fighting man, until, lost in an unlucky raid far to the east beyond our marches, i was sold among the huns, and was a swineherd until i escaped south into the great forests and was taken in as a freeman by the teutons, who were many, but who lived in small tribes and drifted southward before the hun advance. and up from the south into the great forests came the romans, fighting men all, who pressed us back upon the huns. it was a crushage of the peoples for lack of room; and we taught the romans what fighting was, although in truth we were no less well taught by them. but always i remembered the sun of the south-land that i had glimpsed in the ships of agard, and it was my fate, caught in this south drift of the teutons, to be captured by the romans and be brought back to the sea which i had not seen since i was lost away from the east angles. i was made a sweep-slave in the galleys, and it was as a sweep-slave that at last i came to rome. all the story is too long of how i became a freeman, a citizen, and a soldier, and of how, when i was thirty, i journeyed to alexandria, and from alexandria to jerusalem. yet what i have told from the time when i was baptized in the mead-pot of tostig lodbrog i have been compelled to tell in order that you may understand what manner of man rode in through the jaffa gate and drew all eyes upon him. well might they look. they were small breeds, lighter-boned and lighter- thewed, these romans and jews, and a blonde like me they had never gazed upon. all along the narrow streets they gave before me but stood to stare wide-eyed at this yellow man from the north, or from god knew where so far as they knew aught of the matter. practically all pilate's troops were auxiliaries, save for a handful of romans about the palace and the twenty romans who rode with me. often enough have i found the auxiliaries good soldiers, but never so steadily dependable as the romans. in truth they were better fighting men the year round than were we men of the north, who fought in great moods and sulked in great moods. the roman was invariably steady and dependable. there was a woman from the court of antipas, who was a friend of pilate's wife and whom i met at pilate's the night of my arrival. i shall call her miriam, for miriam was the name i loved her by. if it were merely difficult to describe the charm of women, i would describe miriam. but how describe emotion in words? the charm of woman is wordless. it is different from perception that culminates in reason, for it arises in sensation and culminates in emotion, which, be it admitted, is nothing else than super-sensation. in general, any woman has fundamental charm for any man. when this charm becomes particular, then we call it love. miriam had this particular charm for me. verily i was co-partner in her charm. half of it was my own man's life in me that leapt and met her wide-armed and made in me all that she was desirable plus all my desire of her. miriam was a grand woman. i use the term advisedly. she was fine-bodied, commanding, over and above the average jewish woman in stature and in line. she was an aristocrat in social caste; she was an aristocrat by nature. all her ways were large ways, generous ways. she had brain, she had wit, and, above all, she had womanliness. as you shall see, it was her womanliness that betrayed her and me in they end. brunette, olive-skinned, oval-faced, her hair was blue-black with its blackness and her eyes were twin wells of black. never were more pronounced types of blonde and brunette in man and woman met than in us. and we met on the instant. there was no self-discussion, no waiting, wavering, to make certain. she was mine the moment i looked upon her. and by the same token she knew that i belonged to her above all men. i strode to her. she half-lifted from her couch as if drawn upward to me. and then we looked with all our eyes, blue eyes and black, until pilate's wife, a thin, tense, overwrought woman, laughed nervously. and while i bowed to the wife and gave greeting, i thought i saw pilate give miriam a significant glance, as if to say, "is he not all i promised?" for he had had word of my coming from sulpicius quirinius, the legate of syria. as well had pilate and i been known to each other before ever he journeyed out to be procurator over the semitic volcano of jerusalem. much talk we had that night, especially pilate, who spoke in detail of the local situation, and who seemed lonely and desirous to share his anxieties with some one and even to bid for counsel. pilate was of the solid type of roman, with sufficient imagination intelligently to enforce the iron policy of rome, and not unduly excitable under stress. but on this night it was plain that he was worried. the jews had got on his nerves. they were too volcanic, spasmodic, eruptive. and further, they were subtle. the romans had a straight, forthright way of going about anything. the jews never approached anything directly, save backwards, when they were driven by compulsion. left to themselves, they always approached by indirection. pilate's irritation was due, as he explained, to the fact that the jews were ever intriguing to make him, and through him rome, the catspaw in the matter of their religious dissensions. as was well known to me, rome did not interfere with the religious notions of its conquered peoples; but the jews were for ever confusing the issues and giving a political cast to purely unpolitical events. pilate waxed eloquent over the diverse sects and the fanatic uprisings and riotings that were continually occurring. "lodbrog," he said, "one can never tell what little summer cloud of their hatching may turn into a thunderstorm roaring and rattling about one's ears. i am here to keep order and quiet. despite me they make the place a hornets' nest. far rather would i govern scythians or savage britons than these people who are never at peace about god. right now there is a man up to the north, a fisherman turned preacher, and miracle-worker, who as well as not may soon have all the country by the ears and my recall on its way from rome." this was the first i had heard of the man called jesus, and i little remarked it at the time. not until afterward did i remember him, when the little summer cloud had become a full-fledged thunderstorm. "i have had report of him," pilate went on. "he is not political. there is no doubt of that. but trust caiaphas, and hanan behind caiaphas, to make of this fisherman a political thorn with which to prick rome and ruin me." "this caiaphas, i have heard of him as high priest, then who is this hanan?" i asked. "the real high priest, a cunning fox," pilate explained. "caiaphas was appointed by gratus, but caiaphas is the shadow and the mouthpiece of hanan." "they have never forgiven you that little matter of the votive shields," miriam teased. whereupon, as a man will when his sore place is touched, pilate launched upon the episode, which had been an episode, no more, at the beginning, but which had nearly destroyed him. in all innocence before his palace he had affixed two shields with votive inscriptions. ere the consequent storm that burst on his head had passed the jews had written their complaints to tiberius, who approved them and reprimanded pilate. i was glad, a little later, when i could have talk with miriam. pilate's wife had found opportunity to tell me about her. she was of old royal stock. her sister was wife of philip, tetrarch of gaulonitis and batanaea. now this philip was brother to antipas, tetrarch of galilee and peraea, and both were sons of herod, called by the jews the "great." miriam, as i understood, was at home in the courts of both tetrarchs, being herself of the blood. also, when a girl, she had been betrothed to archelaus at the time he was ethnarch of jerusalem. she had a goodly fortune in her own right, so that marriage had not been compulsory. to boot, she had a will of her own, and was doubtless hard to please in so important a matter as husbands. it must have been in the very air we breathed, for in no time miriam and i were at it on the subject of religion. truly, the jews of that day battened on religion as did we on fighting and feasting. for all my stay in that country there was never a moment when my wits were not buzzing with the endless discussions of life and death, law, and god. now pilate believed neither in gods, nor devils, nor anything. death, to him, was the blackness of unbroken sleep; and yet, during his years in jerusalem, he was ever vexed with the inescapable fuss and fury of things religious. why, i had a horse-boy on my trip into idumaea, a wretched creature that could never learn to saddle and who yet could talk, and most learnedly, without breath, from nightfall to sunrise, on the hair-splitting differences in the teachings of all the rabbis from shemaiah to gamaliel. but to return to miriam. "you believe you are immortal," she was soon challenging me. "then why do you fear to talk about it?" "why burden my mind with thoughts about certainties?" i countered. "but are you certain?" she insisted. "tell me about it. what is it like--your immortality?" and when i had told her of niflheim and muspell, of the birth of the giant ymir from the snowflakes, of the cow andhumbla, and of fenrir and loki and the frozen jotuns--as i say, when i had told her of all this, and of thor and odin and our own valhalla, she clapped her hands and cried out, with sparkling eyes: "oh, you barbarian! you great child! you yellow giant-thing of the frost! you believer of old nurse tales and stomach satisfactions! but the spirit of you, that which cannot die, where will it go when your body is dead?" "as i have said, valhalla," i answered. "and my body shall be there, too." "eating?--drinking?--fighting?" "and loving," i added. "we must have our women in heaven, else what is heaven for?" "i do not like your heaven," she said. "it is a mad place, a beast place, a place of frost and storm and fury." "and your heaven?" i questioned. "is always unending summer, with the year at the ripe for the fruits and flowers and growing things." i shook my head and growled: "i do not like your heaven. it is a sad place, a soft place, a place for weaklings and eunuchs and fat, sobbing shadows of men." my remarks must have glamoured her mind, for her eyes continued to sparkle, and mine was half a guess that she was leading me on. "my heaven," she said, "is the abode of the blest." "valhalla is the abode of the blest," i asserted. "for look you, who cares for flowers where flowers always are? in my country, after the iron winter breaks and the sun drives away the long night, the first blossoms twinkling on the melting ice-edge are things of joy, and we look, and look again. "and fire!" i cried out. "great glorious fire! a fine heaven yours where a man cannot properly esteem a roaring fire under a tight roof with wind and snow a-drive outside." "a simple folk, you," she was back at me. "you build a roof and a fire in a snowbank and call it heaven. in my heaven we do not have to escape the wind and snow." "no," i objected. "we build roof and fire to go forth from into the frost and storm and to return to from the frost and storm. man's life is fashioned for battle with frost and storm. his very fire and roof he makes by his battling. i know. for three years, once, i knew never roof nor fire. i was sixteen, and a man, ere ever i wore woven cloth on my body. i was birthed in storm, after battle, and my swaddling cloth was a wolfskin. look at me and see what manner of man lives in valhalla." and look she did, all a-glamour, and cried out: "you great, yellow giant-thing of a man!" then she added pensively, "almost it saddens me that there may not be such men in my heaven." "it is a good world," i consoled her. "good is the plan and wide. there is room for many heavens. it would seem that to each is given the heaven that is his heart's desire. a good country, truly, there beyond the grave. i doubt not i shall leave our feast halls and raid your coasts of sun and flowers, and steal you away. my mother was so stolen." and in the pause i looked at her, and she looked at me, and dared to look. and my blood ran fire. by odin, this was a woman! what might have happened i know not, for pilate, who had ceased from his talk with ambivius and for some time had sat grinning, broke the pause. "a rabbi, a teutoberg rabbi!" he gibed. "a new preacher and a new doctrine come to jerusalem. now will there be more dissensions, and riotings, and stonings of prophets. the gods save us, it is a mad-house. lodbrog, i little thought it of you. yet here you are, spouting and fuming as wildly as any madman from the desert about what shall happen to you when you are dead. one life at a time, lodbrog. it saves trouble. it saves trouble." "go on, miriam, go on," his wife cried. she had sat entranced during the discussion, with hands tightly clasped, and the thought flickered up in my mind that she had already been corrupted by the religious folly of jerusalem. at any rate, as i was to learn in the days that followed, she was unduly bent upon such matters. she was a thin woman, as if wasted by fever. her skin was tight-stretched. almost it seemed i could look through her hands did she hold them between me and the light. she was a good woman, but highly nervous, and, at times, fancy-flighted about shades and signs and omens. nor was she above seeing visions and hearing voices. as for me, i had no patience with such weaknesses. yet was she a good woman with no heart of evil. * * * * * i was on a mission for tiberius, and it was my ill luck to see little of miriam. on my return from the court of antipas she had gone into batanaea to philip's court, where was her sister. once again i was back in jerusalem, and, though it was no necessity of my business to see philip, who, though weak, was faithful to roman will, i journeyed into batanaea in the hope of meeting with miriam. then there was my trip into idumaea. also, i travelled into syria in obedience to the command of sulpicius quirinius, who, as imperial legate, was curious of my first-hand report of affairs in jerusalem. thus, travelling wide and much, i had opportunity to observe the strangeness of the jews who were so madly interested in god. it was their peculiarity. not content with leaving such matters to their priests, they were themselves for ever turning priests and preaching wherever they could find a listener. and listeners they found a-plenty. they gave up their occupations to wander about the country like beggars, disputing and bickering with the rabbis and talmudists in the synagogues and temple porches. it was in galilee, a district of little repute, the inhabitants of which were looked upon as witless, that i crossed the track of the man jesus. it seems that he had been a carpenter, and after that a fisherman, and that his fellow-fishermen had ceased dragging their nets and followed him in his wandering life. some few looked upon him as a prophet, but the most contended that he was a madman. my wretched horse-boy, himself claiming talmudic knowledge second to none, sneered at jesus, calling him the king of the beggars, calling his doctrine ebionism, which, as he explained to me, was to the effect that only the poor should win to heaven, while the rich and powerful were to burn for ever in some lake of fire. it was my observation that it was the custom of the country for every man to call every other man a madman. in truth, in my judgment, they were all mad. there was a plague of them. they cast out devils by magic charms, cured diseases by the laying on of hands, drank deadly poisons unharmed, and unharmed played with deadly snakes--or so they claimed. they ran away to starve in the deserts. they emerged howling new doctrine, gathering crowds about them, forming new sects that split on doctrine and formed more sects. "by odin," i told pilate, "a trifle of our northern frost and snow would cool their wits. this climate is too soft. in place of building roofs and hunting meat, they are ever building doctrine." "and altering the nature of god," pilate corroborated sourly. "a curse on doctrine." "so say i," i agreed. "if ever i get away with unaddled wits from this mad land, i'll cleave through whatever man dares mention to me what may happen after i am dead." never were such trouble makers. everything under the sun was pious or impious to them. they, who were so clever in hair-splitting argument, seemed incapable of grasping the roman idea of the state. everything political was religious; everything religious was political. thus every procurator's hands were full. the roman eagles, the roman statues, even the votive shields of pilate, were deliberate insults to their religion. the roman taking of the census was an abomination. yet it had to be done, for it was the basis of taxation. but there it was again. taxation by the state was a crime against their law and god. oh, that law! it was not the roman law. it was their law, what they called god's law. there were the zealots, who murdered anybody who broke this law. and for a procurator to punish a zealot caught red-handed was to raise a riot or an insurrection. everything, with these strange people, was done in the name of god. there were what we romans called the _thaumaturgi_. they worked miracles to prove doctrine. ever has it seemed to me a witless thing to prove the multiplication table by turning a staff into a serpent, or even into two serpents. yet these things the _thaumaturgi_ did, and always to the excitement of the common people. heavens, what sects and sects! pharisees, essenes, sadducees--a legion of them! no sooner did they start with a new quirk when it turned political. coponius, procurator fourth before pilate, had a pretty time crushing the gaulonite sedition which arose in this fashion and spread down from gamala. in jerusalem, that last time i rode in, it was easy to note the increasing excitement of the jews. they ran about in crowds, chattering and spouting. some were proclaiming the end of the world. others satisfied themselves with the imminent destruction of the temple. and there were rank revolutionises who announced that roman rule was over and the new jewish kingdom about to begin. pilate, too, i noted, showed heavy anxiety. that they were giving him a hard time of it was patent. but i will say, as you shall see, that he matched their subtlety with equal subtlety; and from what i saw of him i have little doubt but what he would have confounded many a disputant in the synagogues. "but half a legion of romans," he regretted to me, "and i would take jerusalem by the throat . . . and then be recalled for my pains, i suppose." like me, he had not too much faith in the auxiliaries; and of roman soldiers we had but a scant handful. back again, i lodged in the palace, and to my great joy found miriam there. but little satisfaction was mine, for the talk ran long on the situation. there was reason for this, for the city buzzed like the angry hornets' nest it was. the fast called the passover--a religious affair, of course--was near, and thousands were pouring in from the country, according to custom, to celebrate the feast in jerusalem. these newcomers, naturally, were all excitable folk, else they would not be bent on such pilgrimage. the city was packed with them, so that many camped outside the walls. as for me, i could not distinguish how much of the ferment was due to the teachings of the wandering fisherman, and how much of it was due to jewish hatred for rome. "a tithe, no more, and maybe not so much, is due to this jesus," pilate answered my query. "look to caiaphas and hanan for the main cause of the excitement. they know what they are about. they are stirring it up, to what end who can tell, except to cause me trouble." "yes, it is certain that caiaphas and hanan are responsible," miriam said, "but you, pontius pilate, are only a roman and do not understand. were you a jew, you would realize that there is a greater seriousness at the bottom of it than mere dissension of the sectaries or trouble-making for you and rome. the high priests and pharisees, every jew of place or wealth, philip, antipas, myself--we are all fighting for very life. "this fisherman may be a madman. if so, there is a cunning in his madness. he preaches the doctrine of the poor. he threatens our law, and our law is our life, as you have learned ere this. we are jealous of our law, as you would be jealous of the air denied your body by a throttling hand on your throat. it is caiaphas and hanan and all they stand for, or it is the fisherman. they must destroy him, else he will destroy them." "is it not strange, so simple a man, a fisherman?" pilate's wife breathed forth. "what manner of man can he be to possess such power? i would that i could see him. i would that with my own eyes i could see so remarkable a man." pilate's brows corrugated at her words, and it was clear that to the burden on his nerves was added the overwrought state of his wife's nerves. "if you would see him, beat up the dens of the town," miriam laughed spitefully. "you will find him wine-bibbing or in the company of nameless women. never so strange a prophet came up to jerusalem." "and what harm in that?" i demanded, driven against my will to take the part of the fisherman. "have i not wine-guzzled a-plenty and passed strange nights in all the provinces? the man is a man, and his ways are men's ways, else am i a madman, which i here deny." miriam shook her head as she spoke. "he is not mad. worse, he is dangerous. all ebionism is dangerous. he would destroy all things that are fixed. he is a revolutionist. he would destroy what little is left to us of the jewish state and temple." here pilate shook his head. "he is not political. i have had report of him. he is a visionary. there is no sedition in him. he affirms the roman tax even." "still you do not understand," miriam persisted. "it is not what he plans; it is the effect, if his plans are achieved, that makes him a revolutionist. i doubt that he foresees the effect. yet is the man a plague, and, like any plague, should be stamped out." "from all that i have heard, he is a good-hearted, simple man with no evil in him," i stated. and thereat i told of the healing of the ten lepers i had witnessed in samaria on my way through jericho. pilate's wife sat entranced at what i told. came to our ears distant shoutings and cries of some street crowd, and we knew the soldiers were keeping the streets cleared. "and you believe this wonder, lodbrog?" pilate demanded. "you believe that in the flash of an eye the festering sores departed from the lepers?" "i saw them healed," i replied. "i followed them to make certain. there was no leprosy in them." "but did you see them sore?--before the healing?" pilate insisted. i shook my head. "i was only told so," i admitted. "when i saw them afterward, they had all the seeming of men who had once been lepers. they were in a daze. there was one who sat in the sun and ever searched his body and stared and stared at the smooth flesh as if unable to believe his eyes. he would not speak, nor look at aught else than his flesh, when i questioned him. he was in a maze. he sat there in the sun and stared and stated." pilate smiled contemptuously, and i noted the quiet smile on miriam's face was equally contemptuous. and pilate's wife sat as if a corpse, scarce breathing, her eyes wide and unseeing. spoke ambivius: "caiaphas holds--he told me but yesterday--that the fisherman claims that he will bring god down on earth and make here a new kingdom over which god will rule--" "which would mean the end of roman rule," i broke in. "that is where caiaphas and hanan plot to embroil rome," miriam explained. "it is not true. it is a lie they have made." pilate nodded and asked: "is there not somewhere in your ancient books a prophecy that the priests here twist into the intent of this fisherman's mind?" to this she agreed, and gave him the citation. i relate the incident to evidence the depth of pilate's study of this people he strove so hard to keep in order. "what i have heard," miriam continued, "is that this jesus preaches the end of the world and the beginning of god's kingdom, not here, but in heaven." "i have had report of that," pilate raid. "it is true. this jesus holds the justness of the roman tax. he holds that rome shall rule until all rule passes away with the passing of the world. i see more clearly the trick hanan is playing me." "it is even claimed by some of his followers," ambivius volunteered, "that he is god himself." "i have no report that he has so said," pilate replied. "why not?" his wife breathed. "why not? gods have descended to earth before." "look you," pilate said. "i have it by creditable report, that after this jesus had worked some wonder whereby a multitude was fed on several loaves and fishes, the foolish galileans were for making him a king. against his will they would make him a king. to escape them he fled into the mountains. no madness there. he was too wise to accept the fate they would have forced upon him." "yet that is the very trick hanan would force upon you," miriam reiterated. "they claim for him that he would be king of the jews--an offence against roman law, wherefore rome must deal with him." pilate shrugged his shoulders. "a king of the beggars, rather; or a king of the dreamers. he is no fool. he is visionary, but not visionary of this world's power. all luck go with him in the next world, for that is beyond rome's jurisdiction." "he holds that property is sin--that is what hits the pharisees," ambivius spoke up. pilate laughed heartily. "this king of the beggars and his fellow-beggars still do respect property," he explained. "for, look you, not long ago they had even a treasurer for their wealth. judas his name was, and there were words in that he stole from their common purse which he carried." "jesus did not steal?" pilate's wife asked. "no," pilate answered; "it was judas, the treasurer." "who was this john?" i questioned. "he was in trouble up tiberias way and antipas executed him." "another one," miriam answered. "he was born near hebron. he was an enthusiast and a desert-dweller. either he or his followers claimed that he was elijah raised from the dead. elijah, you see, was one of our old prophets." "was he seditious?" i asked. pilate grinned and shook his head, then said: "he fell out with antipas over the matter of herodias. john was a moralist. it is too long a story, but he paid for it with his head. no, there was nothing political in that affair." "it is also claimed by some that jesus is the son of david," miriam said. "but it is absurd. nobody at nazareth believes it. you see, his whole family, including his married sisters, lives there and is known to all of them. they are a simple folk, mere common people." "i wish it were as simple, the report of all this complexity that i must send to tiberius," pilate grumbled. "and now this fisherman is come to jerusalem, the place is packed with pilgrims ripe for any trouble, and hanan stirs and stirs the broth." "and before he is done he will have his way," miriam forecast. "he has laid the task for you, and you will perform it." "which is?" pilate queried. "the execution of this fisherman." pilate shook his head stubbornly, but his wife cried out: "no! no! it would be a shameful wrong. the man has done no evil. he has not offended against rome." she looked beseechingly to pilate, who continued to shake his head. "let them do their own beheading, as antipas did," he growled. "the fisherman counts for nothing; but i shall be no catspaw to their schemes. if they must destroy him, they must destroy him. that is their affair." "but you will not permit it," cried pilate's wife. "a pretty time would i have explaining to tiberius if i interfered," was his reply. "no matter what happens," said miriam, "i can see you writing explanations, and soon; for jesus is already come up to jerusalem and a number of his fishermen with him." pilate showed the irritation this information caused him. "i have no interest in his movements," he pronounced. "i hope never to see him." "trust hanan to find him for you," miriam replied, "and to bring him to your gate." pilate shrugged his shoulders, and there the talk ended. pilate's wife, nervous and overwrought, must claim miriam to her apartments, so that nothing remained for me but to go to bed and doze off to the buzz and murmur of the city of madmen. * * * * * events moved rapidly. over night the white heat of the city had scorched upon itself. by midday, when i rode forth with half a dozen of my men, the streets were packed, and more reluctant than ever were the folk to give way before me. if looks could kill i should have been a dead man that day. openly they spat at sight of me, and, everywhere arose snarls and cries. less was i a thing of wonder, and more was i the thing hated in that i wore the hated harness of rome. had it been any other city, i should have given command to my men to lay the flats of their swords on those snarling fanatics. but this was jerusalem, at fever heat, and these were a people unable in thought to divorce the idea of state from the idea of god. hanan the sadducee had done his work well. no matter what he and the sanhedrim believed of the true inwardness of the situation, it was clear this rabble had been well tutored to believe that rome was at the bottom of it. i encountered miriam in the press. she was on foot, attended only by a woman. it was no time in such turbulence for her to be abroad garbed as became her station. through her sister she was indeed sister-in-law to antipas for whom few bore love. so she was dressed discreetly, her face covered, so that she might pass as any jewish woman of the lower orders. but not to my eye could she hide that fine stature of her, that carriage and walk, so different from other women's, of which i had already dreamed more than once. few and quick were the words we were able to exchange, for the way jammed on the moment, and soon my men and horses were being pressed and jostled. miriam was sheltered in an angle of house-wall. "have they got the fisherman yet?" i asked. "no; but he is just outside the wall. he has ridden up to jerusalem on an ass, with a multitude before and behind; and some, poor dupes, have hailed him as he passed as king of israel. that finally is the pretext with which hanan will compel pilate. truly, though not yet taken, the sentence is already written. this fisherman is a dead man." "but pilate will not arrest him," i defended. miriam shook her head. "hanan will attend to that. they will bring him before the sanhedrim. the sentence will be death. they may stone him." "but the sanhedrim has not the right to execute," i contended. "jesus is not a roman," she replied. "he is a jew. by the law of the talmud he is guilty of death, for he has blasphemed against the law." still i shook my head. "the sanhedrim has not the right." "pilate is willing that it should take that right." "but it is a fine question of legality," i insisted. "you know what the romans are in such matters." "then will hanan avoid the question," she smiled, "by compelling pilate to crucify him. in either event it will be well." a surging of the mob was sweeping our horses along and grinding our knees together. some fanatic had fallen, and i could feel my horse recoil and half rear as it tramped on him, and i could hear the man screaming and the snarling menace from all about rising to a roar. but my head was over my shoulder as i called back to miriam: "you are hard on a man you have said yourself is without evil." "i am hard upon the evil that will come of him if he lives," she replied. scarcely did i catch her words, for a man sprang in, seizing my bridle- rein and leg and struggling to unhorse me. with my open palm, leaning forward, i smote him full upon cheek and jaw. my hand covered the face of him, and a hearty will of weight was in the blow. the dwellers in jerusalem are not used to man's buffets. i have often wondered since if i broke the fellow's neck. * * * * * next i saw miriam was the following day. i met her in the court of pilate's palace. she seemed in a dream. scarce her eyes saw me. scarce her wits embraced my identity. so strange was she, so in daze and amaze and far-seeing were her eyes, that i was reminded of the lepers i had seen healed in samaria. she became herself by an effort, but only her outward self. in her eyes was a message unreadable. never before had i seen woman's eyes so. she would have passed me ungreeted had i not confronted her way. she paused and murmured words mechanically, but all the while her eyes dreamed through me and beyond me with the largeness of the vision that filled them. "i have seen him, lodbrog," she whispered. "i have seen him." "the gods grant that he is not so ill-affected by the sight of you, whoever he may be," i laughed. she took no notice of my poor-timed jest, and her eyes remained full with vision, and she would have passed on had i not again blocked her way. "who is this he?" i demanded. "some man raised from the dead to put such strange light in your eyes?" "one who has raised others from the dead," she replied. "truly i believe that he, this jesus, has raised the dead. he is the prince of light, the son of god. i have seen him. truly i believe that he is the son of god." little could i glean from her words, save that she had met this wandering fisherman and been swept away by his folly. for surely this miriam was not the miriam who had branded him a plague and demanded that he be stamped out as any plague. "he has charmed you," i cried angrily. her eyes seemed to moisten and grow deeper as she gave confirmation. "oh, lodbrog, his is charm beyond all thinking, beyond all describing. but to look upon him is to know that here is the all-soul of goodness and of compassion. i have seen him. i have heard him. i shall give all i have to the poor, and i shall follow him." such was her certitude that i accepted it fully, as i had accepted the amazement of the lepers of samaria staring at their smooth flesh; and i was bitter that so great a woman should be so easily wit-addled by a vagrant wonder-worker. "follow him," i sneered. "doubtless you will wear a crown when he wins to his kingdom." she nodded affirmation, and i could have struck her in the face for her folly. i drew aside, and as she moved slowly on she murmured: "his kingdom is not here. he is the son of david. he is the son of god. he is whatever he has said, or whatever has been said of him that is good and great." * * * * * "a wise man of the east," i found pilate chuckling. "he is a thinker, this unlettered fisherman. i have sought more deeply into him. i have fresh report. he has no need of wonder-workings. he out-sophisticates the most sophistical of them. they have laid traps, and he has laughed at their traps. look you. listen to this." whereupon he told me how jesus had confounded his confounders when they brought to him for judgment a woman taken in adultery. "and the tax," pilate exulted on. "'to caesar what is caesar's, to god what is god's,' was his answer to them. that was hanan's trick, and hanan is confounded. at last has there appeared one jew who understands our roman conception of the state." * * * * * next i saw pilate's wife. looking into her eyes i knew, on the instant, after having seen miriam's eyes, that this tense, distraught woman had likewise seen the fisherman. "the divine is within him," she murmured to me. "there is within him a personal awareness of the indwelling of god." "is he god?" i queried, gently, for say something i must. she shook her head. "i do not know. he has not said. but this i know: of such stuff gods are made." * * * * * "a charmer of women," was my privy judgment, as i left pilate's wife walking in dreams and visions. the last days are known to all of you who read these lines, and it was in those last days that i learned that this jesus was equally a charmer of men. he charmed pilate. he charmed me. after hanan had sent jesus to caiaphas, and the sanhedrim, assembled in caiaphas's house, had condemned jesus to death, jesus, escorted by a howling mob, was sent to pilate for execution. now, for his own sake and for rome's sake, pilate did not want to execute him. pilate was little interested in the fisherman and greatly interested in peace and order. what cared pilate for a man's life?--for many men's lives? the school of rome was iron, and the governors sent out by rome to rule conquered peoples were likewise iron. pilate thought and acted in governmental abstractions. yet, look: when pilate went out scowling to meet the mob that had fetched the fisherman, he fell immediately under the charm of the man. i was present. i know. it was the first time pilate had ever seen him. pilate went out angry. our soldiers were in readiness to clear the court of its noisy vermin. and immediately pilate laid eyes on the fisherman pilate was subdued--nay, was solicitous. he disclaimed jurisdiction, demanded that they should judge the fisherman by their law and deal with him by their law, since the fisherman was a jew and not a roman. never were there jews so obedient to roman rule. they cried out that it was unlawful, under rome, for them to put any man to death. yet antipas had beheaded john and come to no grief of it. and pilate left them in the court, open under the sky, and took jesus alone into the judgment hall. what happened therein i know not, save that when pilate emerged he was changed. whereas before he had been disinclined to execute because he would not be made a catspaw to hanan, he was now disinclined to execute because of regard for the fisherman. his effort now was to save the fisherman. and all the while the mob cried: "crucify him! crucify him!" you, my reader, know the sincerity of pilate's effort. you know how he tried to befool the mob, first by mocking jesus as a harmless fool; and second by offering to release him according to the custom of releasing one prisoner at time of the passover. and you know how the priests' quick whisperings led the mob to cry out for the release of the murderer bar-abba. in vain pilate struggled against the fate being thrust upon him by the priests. by sneer and jibe he hoped to make a farce of the transaction. he laughingly called jesus the king of the jews and ordered him to be scourged. his hope was that all would end in laughter and in laugher be forgotten. i am glad to say that no roman soldiers took part in what followed. it was the soldiers of the auxiliaries who crowned and cloaked jesus, put the reed of sovereignty in his hand, and, kneeling, hailed him king of the jews. although it failed, it was a play to placate. and i, looking on, learned the charm of jesus. despite the cruel mockery of situation, he was regal. and i was quiet as i gazed. it was his own quiet that went into me. i was soothed and satisfied, and was without bewilderment. this thing had to be. all was well. the serenity of jesus in the heart of the tumult and pain became my serenity. i was scarce moved by any thought to save him. on the other hand, i had gazed on too many wonders of the human in my wild and varied years to be affected to foolish acts by this particular wonder. i was all serenity. i had no word to say. i had no judgment to pass. i knew that things were occurring beyond my comprehension, and that they must occur. still pilate struggled. the tumult increased. the cry for blood rang through the court, and all were clamouring for crucifixion. again pilate went back into the judgment hall. his effort at a farce having failed, he attempted to disclaim jurisdiction. jesus was not of jerusalem. he was a born subject of antipas, and to antipas pilate was for sending jesus. but the uproar was by now communicating itself to the city. our troops outside the palace were being swept away in the vast street mob. rioting had begun that in the flash of an eye could turn into civil war and revolution. my own twenty legionaries were close to hand and in readiness. they loved the fanatic jews no more than did i, and would have welcomed my command to clear the court with naked steel. when pilate came out again his words for antipas' jurisdiction could not be heard, for all the mob was shouting that pilate was a traitor, that if he let the fisherman go he was no friend of tiberius. close before me, as i leaned against the wall, a mangy, bearded, long-haired fanatic sprang up and down unceasingly, and unceasingly chanted: "tiberius is emperor; there is no king! tiberius is emperor; there is no king!" i lost patience. the man's near noise was an offence. lurching sidewise, as if by accident, i ground my foot on his to a terrible crushing. the fool seemed not to notice. he was too mad to be aware of the pain, and he continued to chant: "tiberius is emperor; there is no king!" i saw pilate hesitate. pilate, the roman governor, for the moment was pilate the man, with a man's anger against the miserable creatures clamouring for the blood of so sweet and simple, brave and good a spirit as this jesus. i saw pilate hesitate. his gaze roved to me, as if he were about to signal to me to let loose; and i half-started forward, releasing the mangled foot under my foot. i was for leaping to complete that half-formed wish of pilate and to sweep away in blood and cleanse the court of the wretched scum that howled in it. it was not pilate's indecision that decided me. it was this jesus that decided pilate and me. this jesus looked at me. he commanded me. i tell you this vagrant fisherman, this wandering preacher, this piece of driftage from galilee, commanded me. no word he uttered. yet his command was there, unmistakable as a trumpet call. and i stayed my foot, and held my hand, for who was i to thwart the will and way of so greatly serene and sweetly sure a man as this? and as i stayed i knew all the charm of him--all that in him had charmed miriam and pilate's wife, that had charmed pilate himself. you know the rest. pilate washed his hands of jesus' blood, and the rioters took his blood upon their own heads. pilate gave orders for the crucifixion. the mob was content, and content, behind the mob, were caiaphas, hanan, and the sanhedrim. not pilate, not tiberius, not roman soldiers crucified jesus. it was the priestly rulers and priestly politicians of jerusalem. i saw. i know. and against his own best interests pilate would have saved jesus, as i would have, had it not been that no other than jesus himself willed that he was not to be saved. yes, and pilate had his last sneer at this people he detested. in hebrew, greek, and latin he had a writing affixed to jesus' cross which read, "the king of the jews." in vain the priests complained. it was on this very pretext that they had forced pilate's hand; and by this pretext, a scorn and insult to the jewish race, pilate abided. pilate executed an abstraction that had never existed in the real. the abstraction was a cheat and a lie manufactured in the priestly mind. neither the priests nor pilate believed it. jesus denied it. that abstraction was "the king of the jews." * * * * * the storm was over in the courtyard. the excitement had simmered down. revolution had been averted. the priests were content, the mob was satisfied, and pilate and i were well disgusted and weary with the whole affair. and yet for him and me was more and most immediate storm. before jesus was taken away one of miriam's women called me to her. and i saw pilate, summoned by one of his wife's women, likewise obey. "oh, lodbrog, i have heard," miriam met me. we were alone, and she was close to me, seeking shelter and strength within my arms. "pilate has weakened. he is going to crucify him. but there is time. your own men are ready. ride with them. only a centurion and a handful of soldiers are with him. they have not yet started. as soon as they do start, follow. they must not reach golgotha. but wait until they are outside the city wall. then countermand the order. take an extra horse for him to ride. the rest is easy. ride away into syria with him, or into idumaea, or anywhere so long as he be saved." she concluded with her arms around my neck, her face upturned to mine and temptingly close, her eyes greatly solemn and greatly promising. small wonder i was slow of speech. for the moment there was but one thought in my brain. after all the strange play i had seen played out, to have this come upon me! i did not misunderstand. the thing was clear. a great woman was mine if . . . if i betrayed rome. for pilate was governor, his order had gone forth; and his voice was the voice of rome. as i have said, it was the woman of her, her sheer womanliness, that betrayed miriam and me in the end. always she had been so clear, so reasonable, so certain of herself and me, so that i had forgotten, or, rather, i there learned once again the eternal lesson learned in all lives, that woman is ever woman . . . that in great decisive moments woman does not reason but feels; that the last sanctuary and innermost pulse to conduct is in woman's heart and not in woman's head. miriam misunderstood my silence, for her body moved softly within my arms as she added, as if in afterthought: "take two spare horses, lodbrog. i shall ride the other . . . with you . . . with you, away over the world, wherever you may ride." it was a bribe of kings; it was an act, paltry and contemptible, that was demanded of me in return. still i did not speak. it was not that i was in confusion or in any doubt. i was merely sad--greatly and suddenly sad, in that i knew i held in my arms what i would never hold again. "there is but one man in jerusalem this day who can save him," she urged, "and that man is you, lodbrog." because i did not immediately reply she shook me, as if in impulse to clarify wits she considered addled. she shook me till my harness rattled. "speak, lodbrog, speak!" she commanded. "you are strong and unafraid. you are all man. i know you despise the vermin who would destroy him. you, you alone can save him. you have but to say the word and the thing is done; and i will well love you and always love you for the thing you have done." "i am a roman," i said slowly, knowing full well that with the words i gave up all hope of her. "you are a man-slave of tiberius, a hound of rome," she flamed, "but you owe rome nothing, for you are not a roman. you yellow giants of the north are not romans." "the romans are the elder brothers of us younglings of the north," i answered. "also, i wear the harness and i eat the bread of rome." gently i added: "but why all this fuss and fury for a mere man's life? all men must die. simple and easy it is to die. to-day, or a hundred years, it little matters. sure we are, all of us, of the same event in the end." quick she was, and alive with passion to save as she thrilled within my arms. "you do not understand, lodbrog. this is no mere man. i tell you this is a man beyond men--a living god, not of men, but over men." i held her closely and knew that i was renouncing all the sweet woman of her as i said: "we are man and woman, you and i. our life is of this world. of these other worlds is all a madness. let these mad dreamers go the way of their dreaming. deny them not what they desire above all things, above meat and wine, above song and battle, even above love of woman. deny them not their hearts' desires that draw them across the dark of the grave to their dreams of lives beyond this world. let them pass. but you and i abide here in all the sweet we have discovered of each other. quickly enough will come the dark, and you depart for your coasts of sun and flowers, and i for the roaring table of valhalla." "no! no!" she cried, half-tearing herself away. "you do not understand. all of greatness, all of goodness, all of god are in this man who is more than man; and it is a shameful death to die. only slaves and thieves so die. he is neither slave nor thief. he is an immortal. he is god. truly i tell you he is god." "he is immortal you say," i contended. "then to die to-day on golgotha will not shorten his immortality by a hair's breadth in the span of time. he is a god you say. gods cannot die. from all i have been told of them, it is certain that gods cannot die." "oh!" she cried. "you will not understand. you are only a great giant thing of flesh." "is it not said that this event was prophesied of old time?" i queried, for i had been learning from the jews what i deemed their subtleties of thinking. "yes, yes," she agreed, "the messianic prophecies. this is the messiah." "then who am i," i asked, "to make liars of the prophets? to make of the messiah a false messiah? is the prophecy of your people so feeble a thing that i, a stupid stranger, a yellow northling in the roman harness, can give the lie to prophecy and compel to be unfulfilled--the very thing willed by the gods and foretold by the wise men?" "you do not understand," she repeated. "i understand too well," i replied. "am i greater than the gods that i may thwart the will of the gods? then are gods vain things and the playthings of men. i am a man. i, too, bow to the gods, to all gods, for i do believe in all gods, else how came all gods to be?" she flung herself so that my hungry arms were empty of her, and we stood apart and listened to the uproar of the street as jesus and the soldiers emerged and started on their way. and my heart was sore in that so great a woman could be so foolish. she would save god. she would make herself greater than god. "you do not love me," she said slowly, and slowly grew in her eyes a promise of herself too deep and wide for any words. "i love you beyond your understanding, it seems," was my reply. "i am proud to love you, for i know i am worthy to love you and am worth all love you may give me. but rome is my foster-mother, and were i untrue to her, of little pride, of little worth would be my love for you." the uproar that followed about jesus and the soldiers died away along the street. and when there was no further sound of it miriam turned to go, with neither word nor look for me. i knew one last rush of mad hunger for her. i sprang and seized her. i would horse her and ride away with her and my men into syria away from this cursed city of folly. she struggled. i crushed her. she struck me on the face, and i continued to hold and crush her, for the blows were sweet. and there she ceased to struggle. she became cold and motionless, so that i knew there was no woman's love that my arms girdled. for me she was dead. slowly i let go of her. slowly she stepped back. as if she did not see me she turned and went away across the quiet room, and without looking back passed through the hangings and was gone. * * * * * i, ragnar lodbrog, never came to read nor write. but in my days i have listened to great talk. as i see it now, i never learned great talk, such as that of the jews, learned in their law, nor such as that of the romans, learned in their philosophy and in the philosophy of the greeks. yet have i talked in simplicity and straightness, as a man may well talk who has lived life from the ships of tostig lodbrog and the roof of brunanbuhr across the world to jerusalem and back again. and straight talk and simple i gave sulpicius quirinius, when i went away into syria to report to him of the various matters that had been at issue in jerusalem. chapter xviii suspended animation is nothing new, not alone in the vegetable world and in the lower forms of animal life, but in the highly evolved, complex organism of man himself. a cataleptic trance is a cataleptic trance, no matter how induced. from time immemorial the fakir of india has been able voluntarily to induce such states in himself. it is an old trick of the fakirs to have themselves buried alive. other men, in similar trances, have misled the physicians, who pronounced them dead and gave the orders that put them alive under the ground. as my jacket experiences in san quentin continued i dwelt not a little on this problem of suspended animation. i remembered having read that the far northern siberian peasants made a practice of hibernating through the long winters just as bears and other wild animals do. some scientist studied these peasants and found that during these periods of the "long sleep" respiration and digestion practically ceased, and that the heart was at so low tension as to defy detection by ordinary layman's examination. in such a trance the bodily processes are so near to absolute suspension that the air and food consumed are practically negligible. on this reasoning, partly, was based my defiance of warden atherton and doctor jackson. it was thus that i dared challenge them to give me a hundred days in the jacket. and they did not dare accept my challenge. nevertheless i did manage to do without water, as well as food, during my ten-days' bouts. i found it an intolerable nuisance, in the deeps of dream across space and time, to be haled back to the sordid present by a despicable prison doctor pressing water to my lips. so i warned doctor jackson, first, that i intended doing without water while in the jacket; and next, that i would resist any efforts to compel me to drink. of course we had our little struggle; but after several attempts doctor jackson gave it up. thereafter the space occupied in darrell standing's life by a jacket-bout was scarcely more than a few ticks of the clock. immediately i was laced i devoted myself to inducing the little death. from practice it became simple and easy. i suspended animation and consciousness so quickly that i escaped the really terrible suffering consequent upon suspending circulation. most quickly came the dark. and the next i, darrell standing, knew was the light again, the faces bending over me as i was unlaced, and the knowledge that ten days had passed in the twinkling of an eye. but oh, the wonder and the glory of those ten days spent by me elsewhere! the journeys through the long chain of existences! the long darks, the growings of nebulous lights, and the fluttering apparitional selves that dawned through the growing light! much have i pondered upon the relation of these other selves to me, and of the relation of the total experience to the modern doctrine of evolution. i can truly say that my experience is in complete accord with our conclusions of evolution. i, like any man, am a growth. i did not begin when i was born nor when i was conceived. i have been growing, developing, through incalculable myriads of millenniums. all these experiences of all these lives, and of countless other lives, have gone to the making of the soul-stuff or the spirit-stuff that is i. don't you see? they are the stuff of me. matter does not remember, for spirit is memory. i am this spirit compounded of the memories of my endless incarnations. whence came in me, darrell standing, the red pulse of wrath that has wrecked my life and put me in the condemned cells? surely it did not come into being, was not created, when the babe that was to be darrell standing was conceived. that old red wrath is far older than my mother, far older than the oldest and first mother of men. my mother, at my inception, did not create that passionate lack of fear that is mine. not all the mothers of the whole evolution of men manufactured fear or fearlessness in men. far back beyond the first men were fear and fearlessness, love, hatred, anger, all the emotions, growing, developing, becoming the stuff that was to become men. i am all of my past, as every protagonist of the mendelian law must agree. all my previous selves have their voices, echoes, promptings in me. my every mode of action, heat of passion, flicker of thought is shaded, toned, infinitesimally shaded and toned, by that vast array of other selves that preceded me and went into the making of me. the stuff of life is plastic. at the same time this stuff never forgets. mould it as you will, the old memories persist. all manner of horses, from ton shires to dwarf shetlands, have been bred up and down from those first wild ponies domesticated by primitive man. yet to this day man has not bred out the kick of the horse. and i, who am composed of those first horse-tamers, have not had their red anger bred out of me. i am man born of woman. my days are few, but the stuff of me is indestructible. i have been woman born of woman. i have been a woman and borne my children. and i shall be born again. oh, incalculable times again shall i be born; and yet the stupid dolts about me think that by stretching my neck with a rope they will make me cease. yes, i shall be hanged . . . soon. this is the end of june. in a little while they will try to befool me. they will take me from this cell to the bath, according to the prison custom of the weekly bath. but i shall not be brought back to this cell. i shall be dressed outright in fresh clothes and be taken to the death-cell. there they will place the death- watch on me. night or day, waking or sleeping, i shall be watched. i shall not be permitted to put my head under the blankets for fear i may anticipate the state by choking myself. always bright light will blaze upon me. and then, when they have well wearied me, they will lead me out one morning in a shirt without a collar and drop me through the trap. oh, i know. the rope they will do it with is well-stretched. for many a month now the hangman of folsom has been stretching it with heavy weights so as to take the spring out of it. yes, i shall drop far. they have cunning tables of calculations, like interest tables, that show the distance of the drop in relation to the victim's weight. i am so emaciated that they will have to drop me far in order to break my neck. and then the onlookers will take their hats off, and as i swing the doctors will press their ears to my chest to count my fading heart-beats, and at last they will say that i am dead. it is grotesque. it is the ridiculous effrontery of men-maggots who think they can kill me. i cannot die. i am immortal, as they are immortal; the difference is that i know it and they do not know it. pah! i was once a hangman, or an executioner, rather. well i remember it! i used the sword, not the rope. the sword is the braver way, although all ways are equally inefficacious. forsooth, as if spirit could be thrust through with steel or throttled by a rope! chapter xix next to oppenheimer and morrell, who rotted with me through the years of darkness, i was considered the most dangerous prisoner in san quentin. on the other hand i was considered the toughest--tougher even than oppenheimer and morrell. of course by toughness i mean enduringness. terrible as were the attempts to break them in body and in spirit, more terrible were the attempts to break me. and i endured. dynamite or curtains had been warden atherton's ultimatum. and in the end it was neither. i could not produce the dynamite, and warden atherton could not induce the curtains. it was not because my body was enduring, but because my spirit was enduring. and it was because, in earlier existences, my spirit had been wrought to steel-hardness by steel-hard experiences. there was one experience that for long was a sort of nightmare to me. it had neither beginning nor end. always i found myself on a rocky, surge-battered islet so low that in storms the salt spray swept over its highest point. it rained much. i lived in a lair and suffered greatly, for i was without fire and lived on uncooked meat. always i suffered. it was the middle of some experience to which i could get no clue. and since, when i went into the little death i had no power of directing my journeys, i often found myself reliving this particularly detestable experience. my only happy moments were when the sun shone, at which times i basked on the rocks and thawed out the almost perpetual chill i suffered. my one diversion was an oar and a jackknife. upon this oar i spent much time, carving minute letters and cutting a notch for each week that passed. there were many notches. i sharpened the knife on a flat piece of rock, and no barber was ever more careful of his favourite razor than was i of that knife. nor did ever a miser prize his treasure as did i prize the knife. it was as precious as my life. in truth, it was my life. by many repetitions, i managed to bring back out of the jacket the legend that was carved on the oar. at first i could bring but little. later, it grew easier, a matter of piecing portions together. and at last i had the thing complete. here it is: this is to acquaint the person into whose hands this oar may fall, that daniel foss, a native of elkton, in maryland, one of the united states of america, and who sailed from the port of philadelphia, in , on board the brig negociator, bound to the friendly islands, was cast upon this desolate island the february following, where he erected a hut and lived a number of years, subsisting on seals--he being the last who survived of the crew of said brig, which ran foul of an island of ice, and foundered on the th nov. . there it was, quite clear. by this means i learned a lot about myself. one vexed point, however, i never did succeed in clearing up. was this island situated in the far south pacific or the far south atlantic? i do not know enough of sailing-ship tracks to be certain whether the brig _negociator_ would sail for the friendly islands via cape horn or via the cape of good hope. to confess my own ignorance, not until after i was transferred to folsom did i learn in which ocean were the friendly islands. the japanese murderer, whom i have mentioned before, had been a sailmaker on board the arthur sewall ships, and he told me that the probable sailing course would be by way of the cape of good hope. if this were so, then the dates of sailing from philadelphia and of being wrecked would easily determine which ocean. unfortunately, the sailing date is merely . the wreck might as likely have occurred in one ocean as the other. only once did i, in my trances, get a hint of the period preceding the time spent on the island. this begins at the moment of the brig's collision with the iceberg, and i shall narrate it, if for no other reason, at least to give an account of my curiously cool and deliberate conduct. this conduct at this time, as you shall see, was what enabled me in the end to survive alone of all the ship's company. i was awakened, in my bunk in the forecastle, by a terrific crash. in fact, as was true of the other six sleeping men of the watch below, awaking and leaping from bunk to floor were simultaneous. we knew what had happened. the others waited for nothing, rushing only partly clad upon deck. but i knew what to expect, and i did wait. i knew that if we escaped at all, it would be by the longboat. no man could swim in so freezing a sea. and no man, thinly clad, could live long in the open boat. also, i knew just about how long it would take to launch the boat. so, by the light of the wildly swinging slush-lamp, to the tumult on deck and to cries of "she's sinking!" i proceeded to ransack my sea-chest for suitable garments. also, since they would never use them again, i ransacked the sea chests of my shipmates. working quickly but collectedly, i took nothing but the warmest and stoutest of clothes. i put on the four best woollen shirts the forecastle boasted, three pairs of pants, and three pairs of thick woollen socks. so large were my feet thus incased that i could not put on my own good boots. instead, i thrust on nicholas wilton's new boots, which were larger and even stouter than mine. also, i put on jeremy nalor's pea jacket over my own, and, outside of both, put on seth richard's thick canvas coat which i remembered he had fresh-oiled only a short while previous. two pairs of heavy mittens, john robert's muffler which his mother had knitted for him, and joseph dawes' beaver cap atop my own, both bearing ear-and neck-flaps, completed my outfitting. the shouts that the brig was sinking redoubled, but i took a minute longer to fill my pockets with all the plug tobacco i could lay hands on. then i climbed out on deck, and not a moment too soon. the moon, bursting through a crack of cloud, showed a bleak and savage picture. everywhere was wrecked gear, and everywhere was ice. the sails, ropes, and spars of the mainmast, which was still standing, were fringed with icicles; and there came over me a feeling almost of relief in that never again should i have to pull and haul on the stiff tackles and hammer ice so that the frozen ropes could run through the frozen shivs. the wind, blowing half a gale, cut with the sharpness that is a sign of the proximity of icebergs; and the big seas were bitter cold to look upon in the moonlight. the longboat was lowering away to larboard, and i saw men, struggling on the ice-sheeted deck with barrels of provisions, abandon the food in their haste to get away. in vain captain nicholl strove with them. a sea, breaching across from windward, settled the matter and sent them leaping over the rail in heaps. i gained the captain's shoulder, and, holding on to him, i shouted in his ear that if he would board the boat and prevent the men from casting off, i would attend to the provisioning. little time was given me, however. scarcely had i managed, helped by the second mate, aaron northrup, to lower away half-a-dozen barrels and kegs, when all cried from the boat that they were casting off. good reason they had. down upon us from windward was drifting a towering ice-mountain, while to leeward, close aboard, was another ice-mountain upon which we were driving. quicker in his leap was aaron northrup. i delayed a moment, even as the boat was shoving away, in order to select a spot amidships where the men were thickest, so that their bodies might break my fall. i was not minded to embark with a broken member on so hazardous a voyage in the longboat. that the men might have room at the oars, i worked my way quickly aft into the sternsheets. certainly, i had other and sufficient reasons. it would be more comfortable in the sternsheets than in the narrow bow. and further, it would be well to be near the afterguard in whatever troubles that were sure to arise under such circumstances in the days to come. in the sternsheets were the mate, walter drake, the surgeon, arnold bentham, aaron northrup, and captain nicholl, who was steering. the surgeon was bending over northrup, who lay in the bottom groaning. not so fortunate had he been in his ill-considered leap, for he had broken his right leg at the hip joint. there was little time for him then, however, for we were labouring in a heavy sea directly between the two ice islands that were rushing together. nicholas wilton, at the stroke oar, was cramped for room; so i better stowed the barrels, and, kneeling and facing him, was able to add my weight to the oar. for'ard, i could see john roberts straining at the bow oar. pulling on his shoulders from behind, arthur haskins and the boy, benny hardwater, added their weight to his. in fact, so eager were all hands to help that more than one was thus in the way and cluttered the movements of the rowers. it was close work, but we went clear by a matter of a hundred yards, so that i was able to turn my head and see the untimely end of the _negociator_. she was caught squarely in the pinch and she was squeezed between the ice as a sugar plum might be squeezed between thumb and forefinger of a boy. in the shouting of the wind and the roar of water we heard nothing, although the crack of the brig's stout ribs and deckbeams must have been enough to waken a hamlet on a peaceful night. silently, easily, the brig's sides squeezed together, the deck bulged up, and the crushed remnant dropped down and was gone, while where she had been was occupied by the grinding conflict of the ice-islands. i felt regret at the destruction of this haven against the elements, but at the same time was well pleased at thought of my snugness inside my four shirts and three coats. yet it proved a bitter night, even for me. i was the warmest clad in the boat. what the others must have suffered i did not care to dwell upon over much. for fear that we might meet up with more ice in the darkness, we bailed and held the boat bow-on to the seas. and continually, now with one mitten, now with the other, i rubbed my nose that it might not freeze. also, with memories lively in me of the home circle in elkton, i prayed to god. in the morning we took stock. to commence with, all but two or three had suffered frost-bite. aaron northrup, unable to move because of his broken hip, was very bad. it was the surgeon's opinion that both of northrup's feet were hopelessly frozen. the longboat was deep and heavy in the water, for it was burdened by the entire ship's company of twenty-one. two of these were boys. benny hardwater was a bare thirteen, and lish dickery, whose family was near neighbour to mine in elkton, was just turned sixteen. our provisions consisted of three hundred-weight of beef and two hundred-weight of pork. the half-dozen loaves of brine-pulped bread, which the cook had brought, did not count. then there were three small barrels of water and one small keg of beer. captain nicholl frankly admitted that in this uncharted ocean he had no knowledge of any near land. the one thing to do was to run for more clement climate, which we accordingly did, setting our small sail and steering quartering before the fresh wind to the north-east. the food problem was simple arithmetic. we did not count aaron northrup, for we knew he would soon be gone. at a pound per day, our five hundred pounds would last us twenty-five days; at half a pound, it would last fifty. so half a pound had it. i divided and issued the meat under the captain's eyes, and managed it fairly enough, god knows, although some of the men grumbled from the first. also, from time to time i made fair division among the men of the plug tobacco i had stowed in my many pockets--a thing which i could not but regret, especially when i knew it was being wasted on this man and that who i was certain could not live a day more, or, at best, two days or three. for we began to die soon in the open boat. not to starvation but to the killing cold and exposure were those earlier deaths due. it was a matter of the survival of the toughest and the luckiest. i was tough by constitution, and lucky inasmuch as i was warmly clad and had not broken my leg like aaron northrup. even so, so strong was he that, despite being the first to be severely frozen, he was days in passing. vance hathaway was the first. we found him in the gray of dawn crouched doubled in the bow and frozen stiff. the boy, lish dickery, was the second to go. the other boy, benny hardwater, lasted ten or a dozen days. so bitter was it in the boat that our water and beer froze solid, and it was a difficult task justly to apportion the pieces i broke off with northrup's claspknife. these pieces we put in our mouths and sucked till they melted. also, on occasion of snow-squalls, we had all the snow we desired. all of which was not good for us, causing a fever of inflammation to attack our mouths so that the membranes were continually dry and burning. and there was no allaying a thirst so generated. to suck more ice or snow was merely to aggravate the inflammation. more than anything else, i think it was this that caused the death of lish dickery. he was out of his head and raving for twenty-four hours before he died. he died babbling for water, and yet he did not die for need of water. i resisted as much as possible the temptation to suck ice, contenting myself with a shred of tobacco in my cheek, and made out with fair comfort. we stripped all clothing from our dead. stark they came into the world, and stark they passed out over the side of the longboat and down into the dark freezing ocean. lots were cast for the clothes. this was by captain nicholl's command, in order to prevent quarrelling. it was no time for the follies of sentiment. there was not one of us who did not know secret satisfaction at the occurrence of each death. luckiest of all was israel stickney in casting lots, so that in the end, when he passed, he was a veritable treasure trove of clothing. it gave a new lease of life to the survivors. we continued to run to the north-east before the fresh westerlies, but our quest for warmer weather seemed vain. ever the spray froze in the bottom of the boat, and i still chipped beer and drinking water with northrup's knife. my own knife i reserved. it was of good steel, with a keen edge and stoutly fashioned, and i did not care to peril it in such manner. by the time half our company was overboard, the boat had a reasonably high freeboard and was less ticklish to handle in the gusts. likewise there was more room for a man to stretch out comfortably. a source of continual grumbling was the food. the captain, the mate, the surgeon, and myself, talking it over, resolved not to increase the daily whack of half a pound of meat. the six sailors, for whom tobias snow made himself spokesman, contended that the death of half of us was equivalent to a doubling of our provisioning, and that therefore the ration should be increased to a pound. in reply, we of the afterguard pointed out that it was our chance for life that was doubled did we but bear with the half-pound ration. it is true that eight ounces of salt meat did not go far in enabling us to live and to resist the severe cold. we were quite weak, and, because of our weakness, we frosted easily. noses and cheeks were all black with frost-bite. it was impossible to be warm, although we now had double the garments we had started with. five weeks after the loss of the _negociator_ the trouble over the food came to a head. i was asleep at the time--it was night--when captain nicholl caught jud hetchkins stealing from the pork barrel. that he was abetted by the other five men was proved by their actions. immediately jud hetchkins was discovered, the whole six threw themselves upon us with their knives. it was close, sharp work in the dim light of the stars, and it was a mercy the boat was not overturned. i had reason to be thankful for my many shirts and coats which served me as an armour. the knife-thrusts scarcely more than drew blood through the so great thickness of cloth, although i was scratched to bleeding in a round dozen of places. the others were similarly protected, and the fight would have ended in no more than a mauling all around, had not the mate, walter dakon, a very powerful man, hit upon the idea of ending the matter by tossing the mutineers overboard. this was joined in by captain nicholl, the surgeon, and myself, and in a trice five of the six were in the water and clinging to the gunwale. captain nicholl and the surgeon were busy amidships with the sixth, jeremy nalor, and were in the act of throwing him overboard, while the mate was occupied with rapping the fingers along the gunwale with a boat-stretcher. for the moment i had nothing to do, and so was able to observe the tragic end of the mate. as he lifted the stretcher to rap seth richards' fingers, the latter, sinking down low in the water and then jerking himself up by both hands, sprang half into the boat, locked his arms about the mate and, falling backward and outboard, dragged the mate with him. doubtlessly he never relaxed his grip, and both drowned together. thus left alive of the entire ship's company were three of us: captain nicholl, arnold bentham (the surgeon), and myself. seven had gone in the twinkling of an eye, consequent on jud hetchkins' attempt to steal provisions. and to me it seemed a pity that so much good warm clothing had been wasted there in the sea. there was not one of us who could not have managed gratefully with more. captain nicholl and the surgeon were good men and honest. often enough, when two of us slept, the one awake and steering could have stolen from the meat. but this never happened. we trusted one another fully, and we would have died rather than betray that trust. we continued to content ourselves with half a pound of meat each per day, and we took advantage of every favouring breeze to work to the north'ard. not until january fourteenth, seven weeks since the wreck, did we come up with a warmer latitude. even then it was not really warm. it was merely not so bitterly cold. here the fresh westerlies forsook us and we bobbed and blobbed about in doldrummy weather for many days. mostly it was calm, or light contrary winds, though sometimes a burst of breeze, as like as not from dead ahead, would last for a few hours. in our weakened condition, with so large a boat, it was out of the question to row. we could merely hoard our food and wait for god to show a more kindly face. the three of us were faithful christians, and we made a practice of prayer each day before the apportionment of food. yes, and each of us prayed privately, often and long. by the end of january our food was near its end. the pork was entirely gone, and we used the barrel for catching and storing rainwater. not many pounds of beef remained. and in all the nine weeks in the open boat we had raised no sail and glimpsed no land. captain nicholl frankly admitted that after sixty-three days of dead reckoning he did not know where we were. the twentieth of february saw the last morsel of food eaten. i prefer to skip the details of much that happened in the next eight days. i shall touch only on the incidents that serve to show what manner of men were my companions. we had starved so long, that we had no reserves of strength on which to draw when the food utterly ceased, and we grew weaker with great rapidity. on february twenty-fourth we calmly talked the situation over. we were three stout-spirited men, full of life and toughness, and we did not want to die. no one of us would volunteer to sacrifice himself for the other two. but we agreed on three things: we must have food; we must decide the matter by casting lots; and we would cast the lots next morning if there were no wind. next morning there was wind, not much of it, but fair, so that we were able to log a sluggish two knots on our northerly course. the mornings of the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh found us with a similar breeze. we were fearfully weak, but we abided by our decision and continued to sail. but with the morning of the twenty-eighth we knew the time was come. the longboat rolled drearily on an empty, windless sea, and the stagnant, overcast sky gave no promise of any breeze. i cut three pieces of cloth, all of a size, from my jacket. in the ravel of one of these pieces was a bit of brown thread. whoever drew this lost. i then put the three lots into my hat, covering it with captain nicholl's hat. all was ready, but we delayed for a time while each prayed silently and long, for we knew that we were leaving the decision to god. i was not unaware of my own honesty and worth; but i was equally aware of the honesty and worth of my companions, so that it perplexed me how god could decide so fine-balanced and delicate a matter. the captain, as was his right and due, drew first. after his hand was in the hat he delayed for sometime with closed eyes, his lips moving a last prayer. and he drew a blank. this was right--a true decision i could not but admit to myself; for captain nicholl's life was largely known to me and i knew him to be honest, upright, and god-fearing. remained the surgeon and me. it was one or the other, and, according to ship's rating, it was his due to draw next. again we prayed. as i prayed i strove to quest back in my life and cast a hurried tally-sheet of my own worth and unworth. i held the hat on my knees with captain nicholl's hat over it. the surgeon thrust in his hand and fumbled about for some time, while i wondered whether the feel of that one brown thread could be detected from the rest of the ravel. at last he withdrew his hand. the brown thread was in his piece of cloth. i was instantly very humble and very grateful for god's blessing thus extended to me; and i resolved to keep more faithfully than ever all of his commandments. the next moment i could not help but feel that the surgeon and the captain were pledged to each other by closer ties of position and intercourse than with me, and that they were in a measure disappointed with the outcome. and close with that thought ran the conviction that they were such true men that the outcome would not interfere with the plan arranged. i was right. the surgeon bared arm and knife and prepared to open a great vein. first, however, he spoke a few words. "i am a native of norfolk in the virginias," he said, "where i expect i have now a wife and three children living. the only favour that i have to request of you is, that should it please god to deliver either of you from your perilous situation, and should you be so fortunate as to reach once more your native country, that you would acquaint my unfortunate family with my wretched fate." next he requested courteously of us a few minutes in which to arrange his affairs with god. neither captain nicholl nor i could utter a word, but with streaming eyes we nodded our consent. without doubt arnold bentham was the best collected of the three of us. my own anguish was prodigious, and i am confident that captain nicholl suffered equally. but what was one to do? the thing was fair and proper and had been decided by god. but when arnold bentham had completed his last arrangements and made ready to do the act, i could contain myself no longer, and cried out: "wait! we who have endured so much surely can endure a little more. it is now mid-morning. let us wait until twilight. then, if no event has appeared to change our dreadful destiny, do you arnold bentham, do as we have agreed." he looked to captain nicholl for confirmation of my suggestion, and captain nicholl could only nod. he could utter no word, but in his moist and frosty blue eyes was a wealth of acknowledgment i could not misread. i did not, i could not, deem it a crime, having so determined by fair drawing of lots, that captain nicholl and myself should profit by the death of arnold bentham. i could not believe that the love of life that actuated us had been implanted in our breasts by aught other than god. it was god's will, and we his poor creatures could only obey and fulfil his will. and yet, god was kind. in his all-kindness he saved us from so terrible, though so righteous, an act. scarce had a quarter of an hour passed, when a fan of air from the west, with a hint of frost and damp in it, crisped on our cheeks. in another five minutes we had steerage from the filled sail, and arnold bentham was at the steering sweep. "save what little strength you have," he had said. "let me consume the little strength left in me in order that it may increase your chance to survive." and so he steered to a freshening breeze, while captain nicholl and i lay sprawled in the boat's bottom and in our weakness dreamed dreams and glimpsed visions of the dear things of life far across the world from us. it was an ever-freshening breeze of wind that soon began to puff and gust. the cloud stuff flying across the sky foretold us of a gale. by midday arnold bentham fainted at the steering, and, ere the boat could broach in the tidy sea already running, captain nicholl and i were at the steering sweep with all the four of our weak hands upon it. we came to an agreement, and, just as captain nicholl had drawn the first lot by virtue of his office, so now he took the first spell at steering. thereafter the three of us spelled one another every fifteen minutes. we were very weak and we could not spell longer at a time. by mid-afternoon a dangerous sea was running. we should have rounded the boat to, had our situation not been so desperate, and let her drift bow- on to a sea-anchor extemporized of our mast and sail. had we broached in those great, over-topping seas, the boat would have been rolled over and over. time and again, that afternoon, arnold bentham, for our sakes, begged that we come to a sea-anchor. he knew that we continued to run only in the hope that the decree of the lots might not have to be carried out. he was a noble man. so was captain nicholl noble, whose frosty eyes had wizened to points of steel. and in such noble company how could i be less noble? i thanked god repeatedly, through that long afternoon of peril, for the privilege of having known two such men. god and the right dwelt in them and no matter what my poor fate might be, i could but feel well recompensed by such companionship. like them i did not want to die, yet was unafraid to die. the quick, early doubt i had had of these two men was long since dissipated. hard the school, and hard the men, but they were noble men, god's own men. i saw it first. arnold bentham, his own death accepted, and captain nicholl, well nigh accepting death, lay rolling like loose-bodied dead men in the boat's bottom, and i was steering when i saw it. the boat, foaming and surging with the swiftness of wind in its sail, was uplifted on a crest, when, close before me, i saw the sea-battered islet of rock. it was not half a mile off. i cried out, so that the other two, kneeling and reeling and clutching for support, were peering and staring at what i saw. "straight for it, daniel," captain nicholl mumbled command. "there may be a cove. there may be a cove. it is our only chance." once again he spoke, when we were atop that dreadful lee shore with no cove existent. "straight for it, daniel. if we go clear we are too weak ever to win back against sea and wind." he was right. i obeyed. he drew his watch and looked, and i asked the time. it was five o'clock. he stretched out his hand to arnold bentham, who met and shook it weakly; and both gazed at me, in their eyes extending that same hand-clasp. it was farewell, i knew; for what chance had creatures so feeble as we to win alive over those surf-battered rocks to the higher rocks beyond? twenty feet from shore the boat was snatched out of my control. in a trice it was overturned and i was strangling in the salt. i never saw my companions again. by good fortune i was buoyed by the steering-oar i still grasped, and by great good fortune a fling of sea, at the right instant, at the right spot, threw me far up the gentle slope of the one shelving rock on all that terrible shore. i was not hurt. i was not bruised. and with brain reeling from weakness i was able to crawl and scramble farther up beyond the clutching backwash of the sea. i stood upright, knowing myself saved, and thanking god, and staggering as i stood. already the boat was pounded to a thousand fragments. and though i saw them not, i could guess how grievously had been pounded the bodies of captain nicholl and arnold bentham. i saw an oar on the edge of the foam, and at certain risk i drew it clear. then i fell to my knees, knowing myself fainting. and yet, ere i fainted, with a sailor's instinct i dragged my body on and up among the cruel hurting rocks to faint finally beyond the reach of the sea. i was near a dead man myself, that night, mostly in stupor, only dimly aware at times of the extremity of cold and wet that i endured. morning brought me astonishment and terror. no plant, not a blade of grass, grew on that wretched projection of rock from the ocean's bottom. a quarter of a mile in width and a half mile in length, it was no more than a heap of rocks. naught could i discover to gratify the cravings of exhausted nature. i was consumed with thirst, yet was there no fresh water. in vain i tasted to my mouth's undoing every cavity and depression in the rocks. the spray of the gale so completely had enveloped every portion of the island that every depression was filled with water salt as the sea. of the boat remained nothing--not even a splinter to show that a boat had been. i stood possessed of my garments, a stout knife, and the one oar i had saved. the gale had abated, and all that day, staggering and falling, crawling till hands and knees bled, i vainly sought water. that night, nearer death than ever, i sheltered behind a rock from the wind. a heavy shower of rain made me miserable. i removed my various coats and spread them to soak up the rain; but, when i came to wring the moisture from them into my mouth, i was disappointed, because the cloth had been thoroughly impregnated with the salt of the ocean in which i had been immersed. i lay on my back, my mouth open to catch the few rain- drops that fell directly into it. it was tantalizing, but it kept my membranes moist and me from madness. the second day i was a very sick man. i, who had not eaten for so long, began to swell to a monstrous fatness--my legs, my arms, my whole body. with the slightest of pressures my fingers would sink in a full inch into my skin, and the depressions so made were long in going away. yet did i labour sore in order to fulfil god's will that i should live. carefully, with my hands, i cleaned out the salt water from every slight hole, in the hope that succeeding showers of rain might fill them with water that i could drink. my sad lot and the memories of the loved ones at elkton threw me into a melancholy, so that i often lost my recollection for hours at a time. this was a mercy, for it veiled me from my sufferings that else would have killed me. in the night i was roused by the beat of rain, and i crawled from hole to hole, lapping up the rain or licking it from the rocks. brackish it was, but drinkable. it was what saved me, for, toward morning, i awoke to find myself in a profuse perspiration and quite free of all delirium. then came the sun, the first time since my stay on the island, and i spread most of my garments to dry. of water i drank my careful fill, and i calculated there was ten days' supply if carefully husbanded. it was amazing how rich i felt with this vast wealth of brackish water. and no great merchant, with all his ships returned from prosperous voyages, his warehouses filled to the rafters, his strong-boxes overflowing, could have felt as wealthy as did i when i discovered, cast up on the rocks, the body of a seal that had been dead for many days. nor did i fail, first, to thank god on my knees for this manifestation of his ever-unfailing kindness. the thing was clear to me: god had not intended i should die. from the very first he had not so intended. i knew the debilitated state of my stomach, and i ate sparingly in the knowledge that my natural voracity would surely kill me did i yield myself to it. never had sweeter morsels passed my lips, and i make free to confess that i shed tears of joy, again and again, at contemplation of that putrefied carcass. my heart of hope beat strong in me once more. carefully i preserved the portions of the carcass remaining. carefully i covered my rock cisterns with flat stones so that the sun's rays might not evaporate the precious fluid and in precaution against some upspringing of wind in the night and the sudden flying of spray. also i gathered me tiny fragments of seaweed and dried them in the sun for an easement between my poor body and the rough rocks whereon i made my lodging. and my garments were dry--the first time in days; so that i slept the heavy sleep of exhaustion and of returning health. when i awoke to a new day i was another man. the absence of the sun did not depress me, and i was swiftly to learn that god, not forgetting me while i slumbered, had prepared other and wonderful blessings for me. i would have fain rubbed my eyes and looked again, for, as far as i could see, the rocks bordering upon the ocean were covered with seals. there were thousands of them, and in the water other thousands disported themselves, while the sound that went up from all their throats was prodigious and deafening. i knew it when: i saw it--meat lay there for the taking, meat sufficient for a score of ships' companies. i directly seized my oar--than which there was no other stick of wood on the island--and cautiously advanced upon all that immensity of provender. it was quickly guessed by me that these creatures of the sea were unacquainted with man. they betrayed no signals of timidity at my approach, and i found it a boy's task to rap them on the head with the oar. and when i had so killed my third and my fourth, i went immediately and strangely mad. indeed quite bereft was i of all judgment as i slew and slew and continued to slay. for the space of two hours i toiled unceasingly with the oar till i was ready to drop. what excess of slaughter i might have been guilty of i know not, for at the end of that time, as if by a signal, all the seals that still lived threw themselves into the water and swiftly disappeared. i found the number of slain seals to exceed two hundred, and i was shocked and frightened because of the madness of slaughter that had possessed me. i had sinned by wanton wastefulness, and after i had duly refreshed myself with this good wholesome food, i set about as well as i could to make amends. but first, ere the great task began, i returned thanks to that being through whose mercy i had been so miraculously preserved. thereupon i laboured until dark, and after dark, skinning the seals, cutting the meat into strips, and placing it upon the tops of rocks to dry in the sun. also, i found small deposits of salt in the nooks and crannies of the rocks on the weather side of the island. this i rubbed into the meat as a preservative. four days i so toiled, and in the end was foolishly proud before god in that no scrap of all that supply of meat had been wasted. the unremitting labour was good for my body, which built up rapidly by means of this wholesome diet in which i did not stint myself. another evidence of god's mercy; never, in the eight years i spent on that barren islet, was there so long a spell of clear weather and steady sunshine as in the period immediately following the slaughter of the seals. months were to pass ore ever the seals revisited my island. but in the meantime i was anything but idle. i built me a hut of stone, and, adjoining it, a storehouse for my cured meat. the hut i roofed with many sealskins, so that it was fairly water-proof. but i could never cease to marvel, when the rain beat on that roof, that no less than a king's ransom in the london fur market protected a castaway sailor from the elements. i was quickly aware of the importance of keeping some kind of reckoning of time, without which i was sensible that i should soon lose all knowledge of the day of the week, and be unable to distinguish one from the other, and not know which was the lord's day. i remembered back carefully to the reckoning of time kept in the longboat by captain nicholl; and carefully, again and again, to make sure beyond any shadow of uncertainty, i went over the tale of the days and nights i had spent on the island. then, by seven stones outside my hut, i kept my weekly calendar. in one place on the oar i cut a small notch for each week, and in another place on the oar i notched the months, being duly careful indeed, to reckon in the additional days to each month over and beyond the four weeks. thus i was enabled to pay due regard to the sabbath. as the only mode of worship i could adopt, i carved a short hymn, appropriate to my situation, on the oar, which i never failed to chant on the sabbath. god, in his all-mercy, had not forgotten me; nor did i, in those eight years, fail at all proper times to remember god. it was astonishing the work required, under such circumstances, to supply one's simple needs of food and shelter. indeed, i was rarely idle, that first year. the hut, itself a mere lair of rocks, nevertheless took six weeks of my time. the tardy curing and the endless scraping of the sealskins, so as to make them soft and pliable for garments, occupied my spare moments for months and months. then there was the matter of my water supply. after any heavy gale, the flying spray salted my saved rainwater, so that at times i was grievously put to live through till fresh rains fell unaccompanied by high winds. aware that a continual dropping will wear a stone, i selected a large stone, fine and tight of texture and, by means of smaller stones, i proceeded to pound it hollow. in five weeks of most arduous toil i managed thus to make a jar which i estimated to hold a gallon and a half. later, i similarly made a four-gallon jar. it took me nine weeks. other small ones i also made from time to time. one, that would have contained eight gallons, developed a flaw when i had worked seven weeks on it. but it was not until my fourth year on the island, when i had become reconciled to the possibility that i might continue to live there for the term of my natural life, that i created my masterpiece. it took me eight months, but it was tight, and it held upwards of thirty gallons. these stone vessels were a great gratification to me--so much so, that at times i forgot my humility and was unduly vain of them. truly, they were more elegant to me than was ever the costliest piece of furniture to any queen. also, i made me a small rock vessel, containing no more than a quart, with which to convey water from the catching-places to my large receptacles. when i say that this one-quart vessel weighed all of two stone, the reader will realize that the mere gathering of the rainwater was no light task. thus, i rendered my lonely situation as comfortable as could be expected. i had completed me a snug and secure shelter; and, as to provision, i had always on hand a six months' supply, preserved by salting and drying. for these things, so essential to preserve life, and which one could scarcely have expected to obtain upon a desert island, i was sensible that i could not be too thankful. although denied the privilege of enjoying the society of any human creature, not even of a dog or a cat, i was far more reconciled to my lot than thousands probably would have been. upon the desolate spot, where fate had placed me, i conceived myself far more happy than many, who, for ignominious crimes, were doomed to drag out their lives in solitary confinement with conscience ever biting as a corrosive canker. however dreary my prospects, i was not without hope that that providence, which, at the very moment when hunger threatened me with dissolution, and when i might easily have been engulfed in the maw of the sea, had cast me upon those barren rocks, would finally direct some one to my relief. if deprived of the society of my fellow creatures, and of the conveniences of life, i could not but reflect that my forlorn situation was yet attended with some advantages. of the whole island, though small, i had peaceable possession. no one, it was probable, would ever appear to dispute my claim, unless it were the amphibious animals of the ocean. since the island was almost inaccessible, at night my repose was not disturbed by continual apprehension of the approach of cannibals or of beasts of prey. again and again i thanked god on my knees for these various and many benefactions. yet is man ever a strange and unaccountable creature. i, who had asked of god's mercy no more than putrid meat to eat and a sufficiency of water not too brackish, was no sooner blessed with an abundance of cured meat and sweet water than i began to know discontent with my lot. i began to want fire, and the savour of cooked meat in my mouth. and continually i would discover myself longing for certain delicacies of the palate such as were part of the common daily fare on the home table at elkton. strive as i would, ever my fancy eluded my will and wantoned in day-dreaming of the good things i had eaten and of the good things i would eat if ever i were rescued from my lonely situation. it was the old adam in me, i suppose--the taint of that first father who was the first rebel against god's commandments. most strange is man, ever insatiable, ever unsatisfied, never at peace with god or himself, his days filled with restlessness and useless endeavour, his nights a glut of vain dreams of desires wilful and wrong. yes, and also i was much annoyed by my craving for tobacco. my sleep was often a torment to me, for it was then that my desires took licence to rove, so that a thousand times i dreamed myself possessed of hogsheads of tobacco--ay, and of warehouses of tobacco, and of shiploads and of entire plantations of tobacco. but i revenged myself upon myself. i prayed god unceasingly for a humble heart, and chastised my flesh with unremitting toil. unable to improve my mind, i determined to improve my barren island. i laboured four months at constructing a stone wall thirty feet long, including its wings, and a dozen feet high. this was as a protection to the hut in the periods of the great gales when all the island was as a tiny petrel in the maw of the hurricane. nor did i conceive the time misspent. thereafter i lay snug in the heart of calm while all the air for a hundred feet above my head was one stream of gust-driven water. in the third year i began me a pillar of rock. rather was it a pyramid, four-square, broad at the base, sloping upward not steeply to the apex. in this fashion i was compelled to build, for gear and timber there was none in all the island for the construction of scaffolding. not until the close of the fifth year was my pyramid complete. it stood on the summit of the island. now, when i state that the summit was but forty feet above the sea, and that the peak of my pyramid was forty feet above the summit, it will be conceived that i, without tools, had doubled the stature of the island. it might be urged by some unthinking ones that i interfered with god's plan in the creation of the world. not so, i hold. for was not i equally a part of god's plan, along with this heap of rocks upjutting in the solitude of ocean? my arms with which to work, my back with which to bend and lift, my hands cunning to clutch and hold--were not these parts too in god's plan? much i pondered the matter. i know that i was right. in the sixth year i increased the base of my pyramid, so that in eighteen months thereafter the height of my monument was fifty feet above the height of the island. this was no tower of babel. it served two right purposes. it gave me a lookout from which to scan the ocean for ships, and increased the likelihood of my island being sighted by the careless roving eye of any seaman. and it kept my body and mind in health. with hands never idle, there was small opportunity for satan on that island. only in my dreams did he torment me, principally with visions of varied foods and with imagined indulgence in the foul weed called tobacco. on the eighteenth day of the month of june, in the sixth year of my sojourn on the island, i descried a sail. but it passed far to leeward at too great a distance to discover me. rather than suffering disappointment, the very appearance of this sail afforded me the liveliest satisfaction. it convinced me of a fact that i had before in a degree doubted, to wit: that these seas were sometimes visited by navigators. among other things, where the seals hauled up out of the sea, i built wide-spreading wings of low rock walls that narrowed to a _cul de sac_, where i might conveniently kill such seals as entered without exciting their fellows outside and without permitting any wounded or frightening seal to escape and spread a contagion of alarm. seven months to this structure alone were devoted. as the time passed, i grew more contented with my lot, and the devil came less and less in my sleep to torment the old adam in me with lawless visions of tobacco and savoury foods. and i continued to eat my seal meat and call it good, and to drink the sweet rainwater of which always i had plenty, and to be grateful to god. and god heard me, i know, for during all my term on that island i knew never a moment of sickness, save two, both of which were due to my gluttony, as i shall later relate. in the fifth year, ere i had convinced myself that the keels of ships did on occasion plough these seas, i began carving on my oar minutes of the more remarkable incidents that had attended me since i quitted the peaceful shores of america. this i rendered as intelligible and permanent as possible, the letters being of the smallest size. six, and even five, letters were often a day's work for me, so painstaking was i. and, lest it should prove my hard fortune never to meet with the long- wished opportunity to return to my friends and to my family at elkton, i engraved, or nitched, on the broad end of the oar, the legend of my ill fate which i have already quoted near the beginning of this narrative. this oar, which had proved so serviceable to me in my destitute situation, and which now contained a record of my own fate and that of my shipmates, i spared no pains to preserve. no longer did i risk it in knocking seals on the head. instead, i equipped myself with a stone club, some three feet in length and of suitable diameter, which occupied an even month in the fashioning. also, to secure the oar from the weather (for i used it in mild breezes as a flagstaff on top of my pyramid from which to fly a flag i made me from one of my precious shirts) i contrived for it a covering of well-cured sealskins. in the month of march of the sixth year of my confinement i experienced one of the most tremendous storms that was perhaps ever witnessed by man. it commenced at about nine in the evening, with the approach of black clouds and a freshening wind from the south-west, which, by eleven, had become a hurricane, attended with incessant peals of thunder and the sharpest lightning i had ever witnessed. i was not without apprehension for the safety of the island. over every part the seas made a clean breach, except of the summit of my pyramid. there the life was nigh beaten and suffocated out of my body by the drive of the wind and spray. i could not but be sensible that my existence was spared solely because of my diligence in erecting the pyramid and so doubling the stature of the island. yet, in the morning, i had great reason for thankfulness. all my saved rainwater was turned brackish, save that in my largest vessel which was sheltered in the lee of the pyramid. by careful economy i knew i had drink sufficient until the next rain, no matter how delayed, should fall. my hut was quite washed out by the seas, and of my great store of seal meat only a wretched, pulpy modicum remained. nevertheless i was agreeably surprised to find the rocks plentifully distributed with a sort of fish more nearly like the mullet than any i had ever observed. of these i picked up no less than twelve hundred and nineteen, which i split and cured in the sun after the manner of cod. this welcome change of diet was not without its consequence. i was guilty of gluttony, and for all of the succeeding night i was near to death's door. in the seventh year of my stay on the island, in the very same month of march, occurred a similar storm of great violence. following upon it, to my astonishment, i found an enormous dead whale, quite fresh, which had been cast up high and dry by the waves. conceive my gratification when in the bowels of the great fish i found deeply imbedded a harpoon of the common sort with a few fathoms of new line attached thereto. thus were my hopes again revived that i should finally meet with an opportunity to quit the desolate island. beyond doubt these seas were frequented by whalemen, and, so long as i kept up a stout heart, sooner or later i should be saved. for seven years i had lived on seal meat, so that at sight of the enormous plentitude of different and succulent food i fell a victim to my weakness and ate of such quantities that once again i was well nigh to dying. and yet, after all, this, and the affair of the small fish, were mere indispositions due to the foreignness of the food to my stomach, which had learned to prosper on seal meat and on nothing but seal meat. of that one whale i preserved a full year's supply of provision. also, under the sun's rays, in the rock hollows, i tried out much of the oil, which, with the addition of salt, was a welcome thing in which to dip my strips of seal-meat whilst dining. out of my precious rags of shirts i could even have contrived a wick, so that, with the harpoon for steel and rock for flint, i might have had a light at night. but it was a vain thing, and i speedily forwent the thought of it. i had no need for light when god's darkness descended, for i had schooled myself to sleep from sundown to sunrise, winter and summer. i, darrell standing, cannot refrain from breaking in on this recital of an earlier existence in order to note a conclusion of my own. since human personality is a growth, a sum of all previous existences added together, what possibility was there for warden atherton to break down my spirit in the inquisition of solitary? i am life that survived, a structure builded up through the ages of the past--and such a past! what were ten days and nights in the jacket to me?--to me, who had once been daniel foss, and for eight years learned patience in that school of rocks in the far south ocean? * * * * * at the end of my eighth year on the island in the month of september, when i had just sketched most ambitious plans to raise my pyramid to sixty feet above the summit of the island, i awoke one morning to stare out upon a ship with topsails aback and nearly within hail. that i might be discovered, i swung my oar in the air, jumped from rock to rock, and was guilty of all manner of livelinesses of action, until i could see the officers on the quarter-deck looking at me through their spyglasses. they answered by pointing to the extreme westerly end of the island, whither i hastened and discovered their boat manned by half a dozen men. it seems, as i was to learn afterward, the ship had been attracted by my pyramid and had altered its course to make closer examination of so strange a structure that was greater of height than the wild island on which it stood. but the surf proved to be too great to permit the boat to land on my inhospitable shore. after divers unsuccessful attempts they signalled me that they must return to the ship. conceive my despair at thus being unable to quit the desolate island. i seized my oar (which i had long since determined to present to the philadelphia museum if ever i were preserved) and with it plunged headlong into the foaming surf. such was my good fortune, and my strength and agility, that i gained the boat. i cannot refrain from telling here a curious incident. the ship had by this time drifted so far away, that we were all of an hour in getting aboard. during this time i yielded to my propensities that had been baffled for eight long years, and begged of the second mate, who steered, a piece of tobacco to chew. this granted, the second mate also proffered me his pipe, filled with prime virginia leaf. scarce had ten minutes passed when i was taken violently sick. the reason for this was clear. my system was entirely purged of tobacco, and what i now suffered was tobacco poisoning such as afflicts any boy at the time of his first smoke. again i had reason to be grateful to god, and from that day to the day of my death, i neither used nor desired the foul weed. * * * * * i, darrell standing, must now complete the amazingness of the details of this existence which i relived while unconscious in the strait-jacket in san quentin prison. i often wondered if daniel foss had been true in his resolve and deposited the carved oar in the philadelphia museum. it is a difficult matter for a prisoner in solitary to communicate with the outside world. once, with a guard, and once with a short-timer in solitary, i entrusted, by memorization, a letter of inquiry addressed to the curator of the museum. although under the most solemn pledges, both these men failed me. it was not until after ed morrell, by a strange whirl of fate, was released from solitary and appointed head trusty of the entire prison, that i was able to have the letter sent. i now give the reply, sent me by the curator of the philadelphia museum, and smuggled to me by ed morrell: * * * * * "it is true there is such an oar here as you have described. but few persons can know of it, for it is not on exhibition in the public rooms. in fact, and i have held this position for eighteen years, i was unaware of its existence myself. "but upon consulting our old records i found that such an oar had been presented by one daniel foss, of elkton, maryland, in the year . not until after a long search did we find the oar in a disused attic lumber- room of odds and ends. the notches and the legend are carved on the oar just as you have described. "we have also on file a pamphlet presented at the same time, written by the said daniel foss, and published in boston by the firm of n. coverly, jr., in the year . this pamphlet describes eight years of a castaway's life on a desert island. it is evident that this mariner, in his old age and in want, hawked this pamphlet about among the charitable. "i am very curious to learn how you became aware of this oar, of the existence of which we of the museum were ignorant. am i correct in assuming that you have read an account in some diary published later by this daniel foss? i shall be glad for any information on the subject, and am proceeding at once to have the oar and the pamphlet put back on exhibition. "very truly yours, "hosea salsburty." { } chapter xx the time came when i humbled warden atherton to unconditional surrender, making a vain and empty mouthing of his ultimatum, "dynamite or curtains." he gave me up as one who could not be killed in a strait-jacket. he had had men die after several hours in the jacket. he had had men die after several days in the jacket, although, invariably, they were unlaced and carted into hospital ere they breathed their last . . . and received a death certificate from the doctor of pneumonia, or bright's disease, or valvular disease of the heart. but me warden atherton could never kill. never did the urgency arise of carting my maltreated and perishing carcass to the hospital. yet i will say that warden atherton tried his best and dared his worst. there was the time when he double-jacketed me. it is so rich an incident that i must tell it. it happened that one of the san francisco newspapers (seeking, as every newspaper and as every commercial enterprise seeks, a market that will enable it to realize a profit) tried to interest the radical portion of the working class in prison reform. as a result, union labour possessing an important political significance at the time, the time-serving politicians at sacramento appointed a senatorial committee of investigation of the state prisons. this state senate committee _investigated_ (pardon my italicized sneer) san quentin. never was there so model an institution of detention. the convicts themselves so testified. nor can one blame them. they had experienced similar investigations in the past. they knew on which side their bread was buttered. they knew that all their sides and most of their ribs would ache very quickly after the taking of their testimony . . . if said testimony were adverse to the prison administration. oh, believe me, my reader, it is a very ancient story. it was ancient in old babylon, many a thousand years ago, as i well remember of that old time when i rotted in prison while palace intrigues shook the court. as i have said, every convict testified to the humaneness of warden atherton's administration. in fact, so touching were their testimonials to the kindness of the warden, to the good and varied quality of the food and the cooking, to the gentleness of the guards, and to the general decency and ease and comfort of the prison domicile, that the opposition newspapers of san francisco raised an indignant cry for more rigour in the management of our prisons, in that, otherwise, honest but lazy citizens would be seduced into seeking enrolment as prison guests. the senate committee even invaded solitary, where the three of us had little to lose and nothing to gain. jake oppenheimer spat in its faces and told its members, all and sundry, to go to hell. ed morrell told them what a noisome stews the place was, insulted the warden to his face, and was recommended by the committee to be given a taste of the antiquated and obsolete punishments that, after all, must have been devised by previous wardens out of necessity for the right handling of hard characters like him. i was careful not to insult the warden. i testified craftily, and as a scientist, beginning with small beginnings, making an art of my exposition, step by step, by tiny steps, inveigling my senatorial auditors on into willingness and eagerness to listen to the next exposure, the whole fabric so woven that there was no natural halting place at which to drop a period or interpolate a query . . . in this fashion, thus, i got my tale across. alas! no whisper of what i divulged ever went outside the prison walls. the senate committee gave a beautiful whitewash to warden atherton and san quentin. the crusading san francisco newspaper assured its working- class readers that san quentin was whiter than snow, and further, that while it was true that the strait-jacket was still a recognized legal method of punishment for the refractory, that, nevertheless, at the present time, under the present humane and spiritually right-minded warden, the strait-jacket was never, under any circumstance, used. and while the poor asses of labourers read and believed, while the senate committee dined and wined with the warden at the expense of the state and the tax payer, ed morrell, jake oppenheimer, and i were lying in our jackets, laced just a trifle more tightly and more vindictively than we had ever been laced before. "it is to laugh," ed morrell tapped to me, with the edge of the sole of his shoe. "i should worry," tapped jake. and as for me, i too capped my bitter scorn and laughter, remembered the prison houses of old babylon, smiled to myself a huge cosmic smile, and drifted off and away into the largeness of the little death that made me heir of all the ages and the rider full-panoplied and astride of time. yea, dear brother of the outside world, while the whitewash was running off the press, while the august senators were wining and dining, we three of the living dead, buried alive in solidarity, were sweating our pain in the canvas torture. and after the dinner, warm with wine, warden atherton himself came to see how fared it with us. me, as usual, they found in coma. doctor jackson for the first time must have been alarmed. i was brought back across the dark to consciousness with the bite of ammonia in my nostrils. i smiled into the faces bent over me. "shamming," snorted the warden, and i knew by the flush on his face and the thickness in his tongue that he had been drinking. i licked my lips as a sign for water, for i desired to speak. "you are an ass," i at last managed to say with cold distinctness. "you are an ass, a coward, a cur, a pitiful thing so low that spittle would be wasted on your face. in such matter jake oppenheimer is over-generous with you. as for me, without shame i tell you the only reason i do not spit upon you is that i cannot demean myself nor so degrade my spittle." "i've reached the limit of my patience!" he bellowed. "i will kill you, standing!" "you've been drinking," i retorted. "and i would advise you, if you must say such things, not to take so many of your prison curs into your confidence. they will snitch on you some day, and you will lose your job." but the wine was up and master of him. "put another jacket on him," he commanded. "you are a dead man, standing. but you'll not die in the jacket. we'll bury you from the hospital." this time, over the previous jacket, the second jacket was put on from behind and laced up in front. "lord, lord, warden, it is bitter weather," i sneered. "the frost is sharp. wherefore i am indeed grateful for your giving me two jackets. i shall be almost comfortable." "tighter!" he urged to al hutchins, who was drawing the lacing. "throw your feet into the skunk. break his ribs." i must admit that hutchins did his best. "you _will_ lie about me," the warden raved, the flush of wine and wrath flooding ruddier into his face. "now see what you get for it. your number is taken at last, standing. this is your finish. do you hear? this is your finish." "a favour, warden," i whispered faintly. faint i was. perforce i was nearly unconscious from the fearful constriction. "make it a triple jacketing," i managed to continue, while the cell walls swayed and reeled about me and while i fought with all my will to hold to my consciousness that was being squeezed out of me by the jackets. "another jacket . . . warden . . . it . . . will . . . be . . . so . . . much . . . er . . . warmer." and my whisper faded away as i ebbed down into the little death. i was never the same man after that double-jacketing. never again, to this day, no matter what my food, was i properly nurtured. i suffered internal injuries to an extent i never cared to investigate. the old pain in my ribs and stomach is with me now as i write these lines. but the poor, maltreated machinery has served its purpose. it has enabled me to live thus far, and it will enable me to live the little longer to the day they take me out in the shirt without a collar and stretch my neck with the well-stretched rope. but the double-jacketing was the last straw. it broke down warden atherton. he surrendered to the demonstration that i was unkillable. as i told him once: "the only way you can get me, warden, is to sneak in here some night with a hatchet." jake oppenheimer was responsible for a good one on the warden which i must relate: "i say, warden, it must be straight hell for you to have to wake up every morning with yourself on your pillow." and ed morrell to the warden: "your mother must have been damn fond of children to have raised you." it was really an offence to me when the jacketing ceased. i sadly missed that dream world of mine. but not for long. i found that i could suspend animation by the exercise of my will, aided mechanically by constricting my chest and abdomen with the blanket. thus i induced physiological and psychological states similar to those caused by the jacket. so, at will, and without the old torment, i was free to roam through time. ed morrell believed all my adventures, but jake oppenheimer remained sceptical to the last. it was during my third year in solitary that i paid oppenheimer a visit. i was never able to do it but that once, and that one time was wholly unplanned and unexpected. it was merely after unconsciousness had come to me that i found myself in his cell. my body, i knew, lay in the jacket back in my own cell. although never before had i seen him, i knew that this man was jake oppenheimer. it was summer weather, and he lay without clothes on top his blanket. i was shocked by his cadaverous face and skeleton-like body. he was not even the shell of a man. he was merely the structure of a man, the bones of a man, still cohering, stripped practically of all flesh and covered with a parchment-like skin. not until back in my own cell and consciousness was i able to mull the thing over and realize that just as was jake oppenheimer, so was ed morrell, so was i. and i could not but thrill as i glimpsed the vastitude of spirit that inhabited these frail, perishing carcasses of us--the three incorrigibles of solitary. flesh is a cheap, vain thing. grass is flesh, and flesh becomes grass; but the spirit is the thing that abides and survives. i have no patience with these flesh-worshippers. a taste of solitary in san quentin would swiftly convert them to a due appreciation and worship of the spirit. but to return to my experience in oppenheimer's cell. his body was that of a man long dead and shrivelled by desert heat. the skin that covered it was of the colour of dry mud. his sharp, yellow-gray eyes seemed the only part of him that was alive. they were never at rest. he lay on his back, and the eyes darted hither and thither, following the flight of the several flies that disported in the gloomy air above him. i noted, too, a scar, just above his right elbow, and another scar on his right ankle. after a time he yawned, rolled over on his side, and inspected an angry- looking sore just above his hip. this he proceeded to cleanse and dress by the crude methods men in solitary must employ. i recognized the sore as one of the sort caused by the strait-jacket. on my body, at this moment of writing, are hundreds of scars of the jacket. next, oppenheimer rolled on his back, gingerly took one of his front upper tooth--an eye teeth--between thumb and forefinger, and consideratively moved it back and forth. again he yawned, stretched his arms, rolled over, and knocked the call to ed morrell. i read the code as a matter of course. "thought you might be awake," oppenheimer tapped. "how goes it with the professor?" then, dim and far, i could hear morrell's taps enunciating that they had put me in the jacket an hour before, and that, as usual, i was already deaf to all knuckle talk. "he is a good guy," oppenheimer rapped on. "i always was suspicious of educated mugs, but he ain't been hurt none by his education. he is sure square. got all the spunk in the world, and you could not get him to squeal or double cross in a million years." to all of which, and with amplification, ed morrell agreed. and i must, right here, ere i go a word further, say that i have lived many years and many lives, and that in those many lives i have known proud moments; but that the proudest moment i have ever known was the moment when my two comrades in solitary passed this appraisal of me. ed morrell and jake oppenheimer were great spirits, and in all time no greater honour was ever accorded me than this admission of me to their comradeship. kings have knighted me, emperors have ennobled me, and, as king myself, i have known stately moments. yet of it all nothing do i adjudge so splendid as this accolade delivered by two lifers in solitary deemed by the world as the very bottom-most of the human cesspool. afterwards, recuperating from this particular bout with the jacket, i brought up my visit to jake's cell as a proof that my spirit did leave my body. but jake was unshakable. "it is guessing that is more than guessing," was his reply, when i had described to him his successive particular actions at the time my spirit had been in his cell. "it is figuring. you have been close to three years in solitary yourself, professor, and you can come pretty near to figuring what any guy will do to be killing time. there ain't a thing you told me that you and ed ain't done thousands of times, from lying with your clothes off in hot weather to watching flies, tending sores, and rapping." morrell sided with me, but it was no use. "now don't take it hard, professor," jake tapped. "i ain't saying you lied. i just say you get to dreaming and figuring in the jacket without knowing you're doing it. i know you believe what you say, and that you think it happened; but it don't buy nothing with me. you figure it, but you don't know you figure it--that is something you know all the time, though you don't know you know it until you get into them dreamy, woozy states." "hold on, jake," i tapped. "you know i have never seen you with my own eyes. is that right?" "i got to take your word for it, professor. you might have seen me and not known it was me." "the point is," i continued, "not having seen you with your clothes off, nevertheless i am able to tell you about that scar above your right elbow, and that scar on your right ankle." "oh, shucks," was his reply. "you'll find all that in my prison description and along with my mug in the rogues' gallery. they is thousands of chiefs of police and detectives know all that stuff." "i never heard of it," i assured him. "you don't remember that you ever heard of it," he corrected. "but you must have just the same. though you have forgotten about it, the information is in your brain all right, stored away for reference, only you've forgot where it is stored. you've got to get woozy in order to remember." "did you ever forget a man's name you used to know as well as your own brother's? i have. there was a little juror that convicted me in oakland the time i got handed my fifty-years. and one day i found i'd forgotten his name. why, bo, i lay here for weeks puzzling for it. now, just because i could not dig it out of my memory box was no sign it was not there. it was mislaid, that was all. and to prove it, one day, when i was not even thinking about it, it popped right out of my brain to the tip of my tongue. 'stacy,' i said right out loud. 'joseph stacy.' that was it. get my drive? "you only tell me about them scars what thousands of men know. i don't know how you got the information, i guess you don't know yourself. that ain't my lookout. but there she is. telling me what many knows buys nothing with me. you got to deliver a whole lot more than that to make me swallow the rest of your whoppers." hamilton's law of parsimony in the weighing of evidence! so intrinsically was this slum-bred convict a scientist, that he had worked out hamilton's law and rigidly applied it. and yet--and the incident is delicious--jake oppenheimer was intellectually honest. that night, as i was dozing off, he called me with the customary signal. "say, professor, you said you saw me wiggling my loose tooth. that has got my goat. that is the one thing i can't figure out any way you could know. it only went loose three days ago, and i ain't whispered it to a soul." chapter xxi pascal somewhere says: "in viewing the march of human evolution, the philosophic mind should look upon humanity as one man, and not as a conglomeration of individuals." i sit here in murderers' row in folsom, the drowsy hum of flies in my ears as i ponder that thought of pascal. it is true. just as the human embryo, in its brief ten lunar months, with bewildering swiftness, in myriad forms and semblances a myriad times multiplied, rehearses the entire history of organic life from vegetable to man; just as the human boy, in his brief years of boyhood, rehearses the history of primitive man in acts of cruelty and savagery, from wantonness of inflicting pain on lesser creatures to tribal consciousness expressed by the desire to run in gangs; just so, i, darrell standing, have rehearsed and relived all that primitive man was, and did, and became until he became even you and me and the rest of our kind in a twentieth century civilization. truly do we carry in us, each human of us alive on the planet to-day, the incorruptible history of life from life's beginning. this history is written in our tissues and our bones, in our functions and our organs, in our brain cells and in our spirits, and in all sorts of physical and psychic atavistic urgencies and compulsions. once we were fish-like, you and i, my reader, and crawled up out of the sea to pioneer in the great, dry-land adventure in the thick of which we are now. the marks of the sea are still on us, as the marks of the serpent are still on us, ere the serpent became serpent and we became we, when pre-serpent and pre-we were one. once we flew in the air, and once we dwelt arboreally and were afraid of the dark. the vestiges remain, graven on you and me, and graven on our seed to come after us to the end of our time on earth. what pascal glimpsed with the vision of a seer, i have lived. i have seen myself that one man contemplated by pascal's philosophic eye. oh, i have a tale, most true, most wonderful, most real to me, although i doubt that i have wit to tell it, and that you, my reader, have wit to perceive it when told. i say that i have seen myself that one man hinted at by pascal. i have lain in the long trances of the jacket and glimpsed myself a thousand living men living the thousand lives that are themselves the history of the human man climbing upward through the ages. ah, what royal memories are mine, as i flutter through the aeons of the long ago. in single jacket trances i have lived the many lives involved in the thousand-years-long odysseys of the early drifts of men. heavens, before i was of the flaxen-haired aesir, who dwelt in asgard, and before i was of the red-haired vanir, who dwelt in vanaheim, long before those times i have memories (living memories) of earlier drifts, when, like thistledown before the breeze, we drifted south before the face of the descending polar ice-cap. i have died of frost and famine, fight and flood. i have picked berries on the bleak backbone of the world, and i have dug roots to eat from the fat-soiled fens and meadows. i have scratched the reindeer's semblance and the semblance of the hairy mammoth on ivory tusks gotten of the chase and on the rock walls of cave shelters when the winter storms moaned outside. i have cracked marrow-bones on the sites of kingly cities that had perished centuries before my time or that were destined to be builded centuries after my passing. and i have left the bones of my transient carcasses in pond bottoms, and glacial gravels, and asphaltum lakes. i have lived through the ages known to-day among the scientists as the paleolithic, the neolithic, and the bronze. i remember when with our domesticated wolves we herded our reindeer to pasture on the north shore of the mediterranean where now are france and italy and spain. this was before the ice-sheet melted backward toward the pole. many processions of the equinoxes have i lived through and died in, my reader . . . only that i remember and that you do not. i have been a son of the plough, a son of the fish, a son of the tree. all religions from the beginnings of man's religious time abide in me. and when the dominie, in the chapel, here in folsom of a sunday, worships god in his own good modern way, i know that in him, the dominie, still abide the worships of the plough, the fish, the tree--ay, and also all worships of astarte and the night. i have been an aryan master in old egypt, when my soldiers scrawled obscenities on the carven tombs of kings dead and gone and forgotten aforetime. and i, the aryan master in old egypt, have myself builded my two burial places--the one a false and mighty pyramid to which a generation of slaves could attest; the other humble, meagre, secret, rock- hewn in a desert valley by slaves who died immediately their work was done. . . . and i wonder me here in folsom, while democracy dreams its enchantments o'er the twentieth century world, whether there, in the rock- hewn crypt of that secret, desert valley, the bones still abide that once were mine and that stiffened my animated body when i was an aryan master high-stomached to command. and on the great drift, southward and eastward under the burning sun that perished all descendants of the houses of asgard and vanaheim, i have been a king in ceylon, a builder of aryan monuments under aryan kings in old java and old sumatra. and i have died a hundred deaths on the great south sea drift ere ever the rebirth of me came to plant monuments, that only aryans plant, on volcanic tropic islands that i, darrell standing, cannot name, being too little versed to-day in that far sea geography. if only i were articulate to paint in the frail medium of words what i see and know and possess incorporated in my consciousness of the mighty driftage of the races in the times before our present written history began! yes, we had our history even then. our old men, our priests, our wise ones, told our history into tales and wrote those tales in the stars so that our seed after us should not forget. from the sky came the life- giving rain and the sunlight. and we studied the sky, learned from the stars to calculate time and apportion the seasons; and we named the stars after our heroes and our foods and our devices for getting food; and after our wanderings, and drifts, and adventures; and after our functions and our furies of impulse and desire. and, alas! we thought the heavens unchanging on which we wrote all our humble yearnings and all the humble things we did or dreamed of doing. when i was a son of the bull, i remember me a lifetime i spent at star- gazing. and, later and earlier, there were other lives in which i sang with the priests and bards the taboo-songs of the stars wherein we believed was written our imperishable record. and here, at the end of it all, i pore over books of astronomy from the prison library, such as they allow condemned men to read, and learn that even the heavens are passing fluxes, vexed with star-driftage as the earth is by the drifts of men. equipped with this modern knowledge, i have, returning through the little death from my earlier lives, been able to compare the heavens then and now. and the stars do change. i have seen pole stars and pole stars and dynasties of pole stars. the pole star to-day is in ursa minor. yet, in those far days i have seen the pole star in draco, in hercules, in vega, in cygnus, and in cepheus. no; not even the stars abide, and yet the memory and the knowledge of them abides in me, in the spirit of me that is memory and that is eternal. only spirit abides. all else, being mere matter, passes, and must pass. oh, i do see myself to-day that one man who appeared in the elder world, blonde, ferocious, a killer and a lover, a meat-eater and a root-digger, a gypsy and a robber, who, club in hand, through millenniums of years wandered the world around seeking meat to devour and sheltered nests for his younglings and sucklings. i am that man, the sum of him, the all of him, the hairless biped who struggled upward from the slime and created love and law out of the anarchy of fecund life that screamed and squalled in the jungle. i am all that that man was and did become. i see myself, through the painful generations, snaring and killing the game and the fish, clearing the first fields from the forest, making rude tools of stone and bone, building houses of wood, thatching the roofs with leaves and straw, domesticating the wild grasses and meadow-roots, fathering them to become the progenitors of rice and millet and wheat and barley and all manner of succulent edibles, learning to scratch the soil, to sow, to reap, to store, beating out the fibres of plants to spin into thread and to weave into cloth, devising systems of irrigation, working in metals, making markets and trade-routes, building boats, and founding navigation--ay, and organizing village life, welding villages to villages till they became tribes, welding tribes together till they became nations, ever seeking the laws of things, ever making the laws of humans so that humans might live together in amity and by united effort beat down and destroy all manner of creeping, crawling, squalling things that might else destroy them. i was that man in all his births and endeavours. i am that man to-day, waiting my due death by the law that i helped to devise many a thousand years ago, and by which i have died many times before this, many times. and as i contemplate this vast past history of me, i find several great and splendid influences, and, chiefest of these, the love of woman, man's love for the woman of his kind. i see myself, the one man, the lover, always the lover. yes, also was i the great fighter, but somehow it seems to me as i sit here and evenly balance it all, that i was, more than aught else, the great lover. it was because i loved greatly that i was the great fighter. sometimes i think that the story of man is the story of the love of woman. this memory of all my past that i write now is the memory of my love of woman. ever, in the ten thousand lives and guises, i loved her. i love her now. my sleep is fraught with her; my waking fancies, no matter whence they start, lead me always to her. there is no escaping her, that eternal, splendid, ever-resplendent figure of woman. oh, make no mistake. i am no callow, ardent youth. i am an elderly man, broken in health and body, and soon to die. i am a scientist and a philosopher. i, as all the generations of philosophers before me, know woman for what she is--her weaknesses, and meannesses, and immodesties, and ignobilities, her earth-bound feet, and her eyes that have never seen the stars. but--and the everlasting, irrefragable fact remains: _her feet are beautiful, her eyes are beautiful, her arms and breasts are paradise, her charm is potent beyond all charm that has ever dazzled men; and, as the pole willy-nilly draws the needle, just so, willy-nilly, does she draw men_. woman has made me laugh at death and distance, scorn fatigue and sleep. i have slain men, many men, for love of woman, or in warm blood have baptized our nuptials or washed away the stain of her favour to another. i have gone down to death and dishonour, my betrayal of my comrades and of the stars black upon me, for woman's sake--for my sake, rather, i desired her so. and i have lain in the barley, sick with yearning for her, just to see her pass and glut my eyes with the swaying wonder of her and of her hair, black with the night, or brown or flaxen, or all golden- dusty with the sun. for woman _is_ beautiful . . . to man. she is sweet to his tongue, and fragrance in his nostrils. she is fire in his blood, and a thunder of trumpets; her voice is beyond all music in his ears; and she can shake his soul that else stands steadfast in the draughty presence of the titans of the light and of the dark. and beyond his star-gazing, in his far-imagined heavens, valkyrie or houri, man has fain made place for her, for he could see no heaven without her. and the sword, in battle, singing, sings not so sweet a song as the woman sings to man merely by her laugh in the moonlight, or her love-sob in the dark, or by her swaying on her way under the sun while he lies dizzy with longing in the grass. i have died of love. i have died for love, as you shall see. in a little while they will take me out, me, darrell standing, and make me die. and that death shall be for love. oh, not lightly was i stirred when i slew professor haskell in the laboratory at the university of california. he was a man. i was a man. and there was a woman beautiful. do you understand? she was a woman and i was a man and a lover, and all the heredity of love was mine up from the black and squalling jungle ere love was love and man was man. oh, ay, it is nothing new. often, often, in that long past have i given life and honour, place and power for love. man is different from woman. she is close to the immediate and knows only the need of instant things. we know honour above her honour, and pride beyond her wildest guess of pride. our eyes are far-visioned for star-gazing, while her eyes see no farther than the solid earth beneath her feet, the lover's breast upon her breast, the infant lusty in the hollow of her arm. and yet, such is our alchemy compounded of the ages, woman works magic in our dreams and in our veins, so that more than dreams and far visions and the blood of life itself is woman to us, who, as lovers truly say, is more than all the world. yet is this just, else would man not be man, the fighter and the conqueror, treading his red way on the face of all other and lesser life--for, had man not been the lover, the royal lover, he could never have become the kingly fighter. we fight best, and die best, and live best, for what we love. i am that one man. i see myself the many selves that have gone into the constituting of me. and ever i see the woman, the many women, who have made me and undone me, who have loved me and whom i have loved. i remember, oh, long ago when human kind was very young, that i made me a snare and a pit with a pointed stake upthrust in the middle thereof, for the taking of sabre-tooth. sabre-tooth, long-fanged and long-haired, was the chiefest peril to us of the squatting place, who crouched through the nights over our fires and by day increased the growing shell-bank beneath us by the clams we dug and devoured from the salt mud-flats beside us. and when the roar and the squall of sabre-tooth roused us where we squatted by our dying embers, and i was wild with far vision of the proof of the pit and the stake, it was the woman, arms about me, leg-twining, who fought with me and restrained me not to go out through the dark to my desire. she was part-clad, for warmth only, in skins of animals, mangy and fire-burnt, that i had slain; she was swart and dirty with camp smoke, unwashed since the spring rains, with nails gnarled and broken, and hands that were calloused like footpads and were more like claws than like hands; but her eyes were blue as the summer sky is, as the deep sea is, and there was that in her eyes, and in her clasped arms about me, and in her heart beating against mine, that withheld me . . . though through the dark until dawn, while sabre-tooth squalled his wrath and his agony, i could hear my comrades snickering and sniggling to their women in that i had not the faith in my emprise and invention to venture through the night to the pit and the stake i had devised for the undoing of sabre- tooth. but my woman, my savage mate held me, savage that i was, and her eyes drew me, and her arms chained me, and her twining legs and heart beating to mine seduced me from my far dream of things, my man's achievement, the goal beyond goals, the taking and the slaying of sabre- tooth on the stake in the pit. once i wan ushu, the archer. i remember it well. for i was lost from my own people, through the great forest, till i emerged on the flat lands and grass lands, and was taken in by a strange people, kin in that their skin was white, their hair yellow, their speech not too remote from mine. and she was igar, and i drew her as i sang in the twilight, for she was destined a race-mother, and she was broad-built and full-dugged, and she could not but draw to the man heavy-muscled, deep-chested, who sang of his prowess in man-slaying and in meat-getting, and so, promised food and protection to her in her weakness whilst she mothered the seed that was to hunt the meat and live after her. and these people knew not the wisdom of my people, in that they snared and pitted their meat and in battle used clubs and stone throwing-sticks and were unaware of the virtues of arrows swift-flying, notched on the end to fit the thong of deer-sinew, well-twisted, that sprang into straightness when released to the spring of the ask-stick bent in the middle. and while i sang, the stranger men laughed in the twilight. and only she, igar, believed and had faith in me. i took her alone to the hunting, where the deer sought the water-hole. and my bow twanged and sang in the covert, and the deer fell fast-stricken, and the warm meat was sweet to us, and she was mine there by the water-hole. and because of igar i remained with the strange men. and i taught them the making of bows from the red and sweet-smelling wood like unto cedar. and i taught them to keep both eyes open, and to aim with the left eye, and to make blunt shafts for small game, and pronged shafts of bone for the fish in the clear water, and to flake arrow-heads from obsidian for the deer and the wild horse, the elk and old sabre-tooth. but the flaking of stone they laughed at, till i shot an elk through and through, the flaked stone standing out and beyond, the feathered shaft sunk in its vitals, the whole tribe applauding. i was ushu, the archer, and igar was my woman and mate. we laughed under the sun in the morning, when our man-child and woman-child, yellowed like honey-bees, sprawled and rolled in the mustard, and at night she lay close in my arms, and loved me, and urged me, because of my skill at the seasoning of woods and the flaking of arrow-heads, that i should stay close by the camp and let the other men bring to me the meat from the perils of hunting. and i listened, and grew fat and short-breathed, and in the long nights, unsleeping, worried that the men of the stranger tribe brought me meat for my wisdom and honour, but laughed at my fatness and undesire for the hunting and fighting. and in my old age, when our sons were man-grown and our daughters were mothers, when up from the southland the dark men, flat-browed, kinky-headed, surged like waves of the sea upon us and we fled back before them to the hill-slopes, igar, like my mates far before and long after, leg-twining, arm-clasping, unseeing far visions, strove to hold me aloof from the battle. and i tore myself from her, fat and short-breathed, while she wept that no longer i loved her, and i went out to the night-fighting and dawn-fighting, where, to the singing of bowstrings and the shrilling of arrows, feathered, sharp-pointed, we showed them, the kinky-heads, the skill of the killing and taught them the wit and the willing of slaughter. and as i died them at the end of the fighting, there were death songs and singing about me, and the songs seemed to sing as these the words i have written when i was ushu, the archer, and igar, my mate-woman, leg-twining, arm-clasping, would have held me back from the battle. once, and heaven alone knows when, save that it was in the long ago when man was young, we lived beside great swamps, where the hills drew down close to the wide, sluggish river, and where our women gathered berries and roots, and there were herds of deer, of wild horses, of antelope, and of elk, that we men slew with arrows or trapped in the pits or hill-pockets. from the river we caught fish in nets twisted by the women of the bark of young trees. i was a man, eager and curious as the antelope when we lured it by waving grass clumps where we lay hidden in the thick of the grass. the wild rice grew in the swamp, rising sheer from the water on the edges of the channels. each morning the blackbirds awoke us with their chatter as they left their roosts to fly to the swamp. and through the long twilight the air was filled with their noise as they went back to their roosts. it was the time that the rice ripened. and there were ducks also, and ducks and blackbirds feasted to fatness on the ripe rice half unhusked by the sun. being a man, ever restless, ever questing, wondering always what lay beyond the hills and beyond the swamps and in the mud at the river's bottom, i watched the wild ducks and blackbirds and pondered till my pondering gave me vision and i saw. and this is what i saw, the reasoning of it: meat was good to eat. in the end, tracing it back, or at the first, rather, all meat came from grass. the meat of the duck and of the blackbird came from the seed of the swamp rice. to kill a duck with an arrow scarce paid for the labour of stalking and the long hours in hiding. the blackbirds were too small for arrow-killing save by the boys who were learning and preparing for the taking of larger game. and yet, in rice season, blackbirds and ducks were succulently fat. their fatness came from the rice. why should i and mine not be fat from the rice in the same way? and i thought it out in camp, silent, morose, while the children squabbled about me unnoticed, and while arunga, my mate-woman, vainly scolded me and urged me to go hunting for more meat for the many of us. arunga was the woman i had stolen from the hill-tribes. she and i had been a dozen moons in learning common speech after i captured her. ah, that day when i leaped upon her, down from the over-hanging tree-branch as she padded the runway! fairly upon her shoulders with the weight of my body i smote her, my fingers wide-spreading to clutch her. she squalled like a cat there in the runway. she fought me and bit me. the nails of her hands were like the claws of a tree-cat as they tore at me. but i held her and mastered her, and for two days beat her and forced her to travel with me down out of the canyons of the hill-men to the grass lands where the river flowed through the rice-swamps and the ducks and the blackbirds fed fat. i saw my vision when the rice was ripe. i put arunga in the bow of the fire-hollowed log that was most rudely a canoe. i bade her paddle. in the stern i spread a deerskin she had tanned. with two stout sticks i bent the stalks over the deerskin and threshed out the grain that else the blackbirds would have eaten. and when i had worked out the way of it, i gave the two stout sticks to arunga, and sat in the bow paddling and directing. in the past we had eaten the raw rice in passing and not been pleased with it. but now we parched it over our fire so that the grains puffed and exploded in whiteness and all the tribe came running to taste. after that we became known among men as the rice-eaters and as the sons of the rice. and long, long after, when we were driven by the sons of the river from the swamps into the uplands, we took the seed of the rice with us and planted it. we learned to select the largest grains for the seed, so that all the rice we thereafter ate was larger-grained and puffier in the parching and the boiling. but arunga. i have said she squalled and scratched like a cat when i stole her. yet i remember the time when her own kin of the hill-men caught me and carried me away into the hills. they were her father, his brother, and her two own blood-brothers. but she was mine, who had lived with me. and at night, where i lay bound like a wild pig for the slaying, and they slept weary by the fire, she crept upon them and brained them with the war-club that with my hands i had fashioned. and she wept over me, and loosed me, and fled with me, back to the wide sluggish river where the blackbirds and wild ducks fed in the rice swamps--for this was before the time of the coming of the sons of the river. for she was arunga, the one woman, the eternal woman. she has lived in all times and places. she will always live. she is immortal. once, in a far land, her name was ruth. also has her name been iseult, and helen, pocahontas, and unga. and no stranger man, from stranger tribes, but has found her and will find her in the tribes of all the earth. i remember so many women who have gone into the becoming of the one woman. there was the time that har, my brother, and i, sleeping and pursuing in turn, ever hounding the wild stallion through the daytime and night, and in a wide circle that met where the sleeping one lay, drove the stallion unresting through hunger and thirst to the meekness of weakness, so that in the end he could but stand and tremble while we bound him with ropes twisted of deer-hide. on our legs alone, without hardship, aided merely by wit--the plan was mine--my brother and i walked that fleet-footed creature into possession. and when all was ready for me to get on his back--for that had been my vision from the first--selpa, my woman, put her arms about me, and raised her voice and persisted that har, and not i, should ride, for har had neither wife nor young ones and could die without hurt. also, in the end she wept, so that i was raped of my vision, and it was har, naked and clinging, that bestrode the stallion when he vaulted away. it was sunset, and a time of great wailing, when they carried har in from the far rocks where they found him. his head was quite broken, and like honey from a fallen bee-tree his brains dripped on the ground. his mother strewed wood-ashes on her head and blackened her face. his father cut off half the fingers of one hand in token of sorrow. and all the women, especially the young and unwedded, screamed evil names at me; and the elders shook their wise heads and muttered and mumbled that not their fathers nor their fathers' fathers had betrayed such a madness. horse meat was good to eat; young colts were tender to old teeth; and only a fool would come to close grapples with any wild horse save when an arrow had pierced it, or when it struggled on the stake in the midst of the pit. and selpa scolded me to sleep, and in the morning woke me with her chatter, ever declaiming against my madness, ever pronouncing her claim upon me and the claims of our children, till in the end i grew weary, and forsook my far vision, and said never again would i dream of bestriding the wild horse to fly swift as its feet and the wind across the sands and the grass lands. and through the years the tale of my madness never ceased from being told over the camp-fire. yet was the very telling the source of my vengeance; for the dream did not die, and the young ones, listening to the laugh and the sneer, redreamed it, so that in the end it was othar, my eldest-born, himself a sheer stripling, that walked down a wild stallion, leapt on its back, and flew before all of us with the speed of the wind. thereafter, that they might keep up with him, all men were trapping and breaking wild horses. many horses were broken, and some men, but i lived at the last to the day when, at the changing of camp-sites in the pursuit of the meat in its seasons, our very babes, in baskets of willow-withes, were slung side and side on the backs of our horses that carried our camp-trappage and dunnage. i, a young man, had seen my vision, dreamed my dream; selpa, the woman, had held me from that far desire; but othar, the seed of us to live after, glimpsed my vision and won to it, so that our tribe became wealthy in the gains of the chase. there was a woman--on the great drift down out of europe, a weary drift of many generations, when we brought into india the shorthorn cattle and the planting of barley. but this woman was long before we reached india. we were still in the mid-most of that centuries-long drift, and no shrewdness of geography can now place for me that ancient valley. the woman was nuhila. the valley was narrow, not long, and the swift slope of its floor and the steep walls of its rim were terraced for the growing of rice and of millet--the first rice and millet we sons of the mountain had known. they were a meek people in that valley. they had become soft with the farming of fat land made fatter by water. theirs was the first irrigation we had seen, although we had little time to mark their ditches and channels by which all the hill waters flowed to the fields they had builded. we had little time to mark, for we sons of the mountain, who were few, were in flight before the sons of the snub-nose, who were many. we called them the noseless, and they called themselves the sons of the eagle. but they were many, and we fled before them with our shorthorn cattle, our goats, and our barleyseed, our women and children. while the snub-noses slew our youths at the rear, we slew at our fore the folk of the valley who opposed us and were weak. the village was mud- built and grass-thatched; the encircling wall was of mud, but quite tall. and when we had slain the people who had built the wall, and sheltered within it our herds and our women and children, we stood on the wall and shouted insult to the snub-noses. for we had found the mud granaries filled with rice and millet. our cattle could eat the thatches. and the time of the rains was at hand, so that we should not want for water. it was a long siege. near to the beginning, we gathered together the women, and elders, and children we had not slain, and forced them out through the wall they had builded. but the snub-noses slew them to the last one, so that there was more food in the village for us, more food in the valley for the snub-noses. it was a weary long siege. sickness smote us, and we died of the plague that arose from our buried ones. we emptied the mud-granaries of their rice and millet. our goats and shorthorns ate the thatch of the houses, and we, ere the end, ate the goats and the shorthorns. where there had been five men of us on the wall, there came a time when there was one; where there had been half a thousand babes and younglings of ours, there were none. it was nuhila, my woman, who cut off her hair and twisted it that i might have a strong string for my bow. the other women did likewise, and when the wall was attacked, stood shoulder to shoulder with us, in the midst of our spears and arrows raining down potsherds and cobblestones on the heads of the snub-noses. even the patient snub-noses we well-nigh out-patienced. came a time when of ten men of us, but one was alive on the wall, and of our women remained very few, and the snub-noses held parley. they told us we were a strong breed, and that our women were men-mothers, and that if we would let them have our women they would leave us alone in the valley to possess for ourselves and that we could get women from the valleys to the south. and nuhila said no. and the other women said no. and we sneered at the snub-noses and asked if they were weary of fighting. and we were as dead men then, as we sneered at our enemies, and there was little fight left in us we were so weak. one more attack on the wall would end us. we knew it. our women knew it. and nuhila said that we could end it first and outwit the snub-noses. and all our women agreed. and while the snub- noses prepared for the attack that would be final, there, on the wall, we slew our women. nuhila loved me, and leaned to meet the thrust of my sword, there on the wall. and we men, in the love of tribehood and tribesmen, slew one another till remained only horda and i alive in the red of the slaughter. and horda was my elder, and i leaned to his thrust. but not at once did i die. i was the last of the sons of the mountain, for i saw horda, himself fall on his blade and pass quickly. and dying with the shouts of the oncoming snub-noses growing dim in my ears, i was glad that the snub-noses would have no sons of us to bring up by our women. i do not know when this time was when i was a son of the mountain and when we died in the narrow valley where we had slain the sons of the rice and the millet. i do not know, save that it was centuries before the wide-spreading drift of all us sons of the mountain fetched into india, and that it was long before ever i was an aryan master in old egypt building my two burial places and defacing the tombs of kings before me. i should like to tell more of those far days, but time in the present is short. soon i shall pass. yet am i sorry that i cannot tell more of those early drifts, when there was crushage of peoples, or descending ice- sheets, or migrations of meat. also, i should like to tell of mystery. for always were we curious to solve the secrets of life, death, and decay. unlike the other animals, man was for ever gazing at the stars. many gods he created in his own image and in the images of his fancy. in those old times i have worshipped the sun and the dark. i have worshipped the husked grain as the parent of life. i have worshipped sar, the corn goddess. and i have worshipped sea gods, and river gods, and fish gods. yes, and i remember ishtar ere she was stolen from us by the babylonians, and ea, too, was ours, supreme in the under world, who enabled ishtar to conquer death. mitra, likewise, was a good old aryan god, ere he was filched from us or we discarded him. and i remember, on a time, long after the drift when we brought the barley into india, that i came down into india, a horse-trader, with many servants and a long caravan at my back, and that at that time they were worshipping bodhisatwa. truly, the worships of the mystery wandered as did men, and between filchings and borrowings the gods had as vagabond a time of it as did we. as the sumerians took the loan of shamashnapishtin from us, so did the sons of shem take him from the sumerians and call him noah. why, i smile me to-day, darrell standing, in murderers' row, in that i was found guilty and awarded death by twelve jurymen staunch and true. twelve has ever been a magic number of the mystery. nor did it originate with the twelve tribes of israel. star-gazers before them had placed the twelve signs of the zodiac in the sky. and i remember me, when i was of the assir, and of the vanir, that odin sat in judgment over men in the court of the twelve gods, and that their names were thor, baldur, niord, frey, tyr, bregi, heimdal, hoder, vidar, ull, forseti, and loki. even our valkyries were stolen from us and made into angels, and the wings of the valkyries' horses became attached to the shoulders of the angels. and our helheim of that day of ice and frost has become the hell of to-day, which is so hot an abode that the blood boils in one's veins, while with us, in our helheim, the place was so cold as to freeze the marrow inside the bones. and the very sky, that we dreamed enduring, eternal, has drifted and veered, so that we find to-day the scorpion in the place where of old we knew the goat, and the archer in the place of the crab. worships and worships! ever the pursuit of the mystery! i remember the lame god of the greeks, the master-smith. but their vulcan was the germanic wieland, the master-smith captured and hamstrung lame of a leg by nidung, the kind of the nids. but before that he was our master-smith, our forger and hammerer, whom we named il-marinen. and him we begat of our fancy, giving him the bearded sun-god for father, and nursing him by the stars of the bear. for, he, vulcan, or wieland, or il- marinen, was born under the pine tree, from the hair of the wolf, and was called also the bear-father ere ever the germans and greeks purloined and worshipped him. in that day we called ourselves the sons of the bear and the sons of the wolf, and the bear and the wolf were our totems. that was before our drift south on which we joined with the sons of the tree- grove and taught them our totems and tales. yes, and who was kashyapa, who was pururavas, but our lame master-smith, our iron-worker, carried by us in our drifts and re-named and worshipped by the south-dwellers and the east-dwellers, the sons of the pole and of the fire drill and fire socket. but the tale is too long, though i should like to tell of the three-leaved herb of life by which sigmund made sinfioti alive again. for this is the very soma-plant of india, the holy grail of king arthur, the--but enough! enough! and yet, as i calmly consider it all, i conclude that the greatest thing in life, in all lives, to me and to all men, has been woman, is woman, and will be woman so long as the stars drift in the sky and the heavens flux eternal change. greater than our toil and endeavour, the play of invention and fancy, battle and star-gazing and mystery--greatest of all has been woman. even though she has sung false music to me, and kept my feet solid on the ground, and drawn my star-roving eyes ever back to gaze upon her, she, the conserver of life, the earth-mother, has given me my great days and nights and fulness of years. even mystery have i imaged in the form of her, and in my star-charting have i placed her figure in the sky. all my toils and devices led to her; all my far visions saw her at the end. when i made the fire-drill and fire-socket, it was for her. it was for her, although i did not know it, that i put the stake in the pit for old sabre-tooth, tamed the horse, slew the mammoth, and herded my reindeer south in advance of the ice-sheet. for her i harvested the wild rice, tamed the barley, the wheat, and the corn. for her, and the seed to come after whose image she bore, i have died in tree-tops and stood long sieges in cave-mouths and on mud-walls. for her i put the twelve signs in the sky. it was she i worshipped when i bowed before the ten stones of jade and adored them as the moons of gestation. always has woman crouched close to earth like a partridge hen mothering her young; always has my wantonness of roving led me out on the shining ways; and always have my star-paths returned me to her, the figure everlasting, the woman, the one woman, for whose arms i had such need that clasped in them i have forgotten the stars. for her i accomplished odysseys, scaled mountains, crossed deserts; for her i led the hunt and was forward in battle; and for her and to her i sang my songs of the things i had done. all ecstasies of life and rhapsodies of delight have been mine because of her. and here, at the end, i can say that i have known no sweeter, deeper madness of being than to drown in the fragrant glory and forgetfulness of her hair. one word more. i remember me dorothy, just the other day, when i still lectured on agronomy to farmer-boy students. she was eleven years old. her father was dean of the college. she was a woman-child, and a woman, and she conceived that she loved me. and i smiled to myself, for my heart was untouched and lay elsewhere. yet was the smile tender, for in the child's eyes i saw the woman eternal, the woman of all times and appearances. in her eyes i saw the eyes of my mate of the jungle and tree-top, of the cave and the squatting- place. in her eyes i saw the eyes of igar when i was ushu the archer, the eyes of arunga when i was the rice-harvester, the eyes of selpa when i dreamed of bestriding the stallion, the eyes of nuhila who leaned to the thrust of my sword. yes, there was that in her eyes that made them the eyes of lei-lei whom i left with a laugh on my lips, the eyes of the lady om for forty years my beggar-mate on highway and byway, the eyes of philippa for whom i was slain on the grass in old france, the eyes of my mother when i was the lad jesse at the mountain meadows in the circle of our forty great wagons. she was a woman-child, but she was daughter of all women, as her mother before her, and she was the mother of all women to come after her. she was sar, the corn-goddess. she was isthar who conquered death. she was sheba and cleopatra; she was esther and herodias. she was mary the madonna, and mary the magdalene, and mary the sister of martha, also she was martha. and she was brunnhilde and guinevere, iseult and juliet, heloise and nicolette. yes, and she was eve, she was lilith, she was astarte. she was eleven years old, and she was all women that had been, all women to be. i sit in my cell now, while the flies hum in the drowsy summer afternoon, and i know that my time is short. soon they will apparel me in the shirt without a collar. . . . but hush, my heart. the spirit is immortal. after the dark i shall live again, and there will be women. the future holds the little women for me in the lives i am yet to live. and though the stars drift, and the heavens lie, ever remains woman, resplendent, eternal, the one woman, as i, under all my masquerades and misadventures, am the one man, her mate. chapter xxii my time grows very short. all the manuscript i have written is safely smuggled out of the prison. there is a man i can trust who will see that it is published. no longer am i in murderers row. i am writing these lines in the death cell, and the death-watch is set on me. night and day is this death-watch on me, and its paradoxical function is to see that i do not die. i must be kept alive for the hanging, or else will the public be cheated, the law blackened, and a mark of demerit placed against the time-serving warden who runs this prison and one of whose duties is to see that his condemned ones are duly and properly hanged. often i marvel at the strange way some men make their livings. this shall be my last writing. to-morrow morning the hour is set. the governor has declined to pardon or reprieve, despite the fact that the anti-capital-punishment league has raised quite a stir in california. the reporters are gathered like so many buzzards. i have seen them all. they are queer young fellows, most of them, and most queer is it that they will thus earn bread and butter, cocktails and tobacco, room-rent, and, if they are married, shoes and schoolbooks for their children, by witnessing the execution of professor darrell standing, and by describing for the public how professor darrell standing died at the end of a rope. ah, well, they will be sicker than i at the end of the affair. as i sit here and muse on it all, the footfalls of the death-watch going up and down outside my cage, the man's suspicious eyes ever peering in on me, almost i weary of eternal recurrence. i have lived so many lives. i weary of the endless struggle and pain and catastrophe that come to those who sit in the high places, tread the shining ways, and wander among the stars. almost i hope, when next i reinhabit form, that it shall be that of a peaceful farmer. there is my dream-farm. i should like to engage just for one whole life in that. oh, my dream-farm! my alfalfa meadows, my efficient jersey cattle, my upland pastures, my brush-covered slopes melting into tilled fields, while ever higher up the slopes my angora goats eat away brush to tillage! there is a basin there, a natural basin high up the slopes, with a generous watershed on three sides. i should like to throw a dam across the fourth side, which is surprisingly narrow. at a paltry price of labour i could impound twenty million gallons of water. for, see: one great drawback to farming in california is our long dry summer. this prevents the growing of cover crops, and the sensitive soil, naked, a mere surface dust-mulch, has its humus burned out of it by the sun. now with that dam i could grow three crops a year, observing due rotation, and be able to turn under a wealth of green manure. . . . * * * * * i have just endured a visit from the warden. i say "endured" advisedly. he is quite different from the warden of san quentin. he was very nervous, and perforce i had to entertain him. this is his first hanging. he told me so. and i, with a clumsy attempt at wit, did not reassure him when i explained that it was also my first hanging. he was unable to laugh. he has a girl in high school, and his boy is a freshman at stanford. he has no income outside his salary, his wife is an invalid, and he is worried in that he has been rejected by the life insurance doctors as an undesirable risk. really, the man told me almost all his troubles. had i not diplomatically terminated the interview he would still be here telling me the remainder of them. my last two years in san quentin were very gloomy and depressing. ed morrell, by one of the wildest freaks of chance, was taken out of solitary and made head trusty of the whole prison. this was al hutchins' old job, and it carried a graft of three thousand dollars a year. to my misfortune, jake oppenheimer, who had rotted in solitary for so many years, turned sour on the world, on everything. for eight months he refused to talk even to me. in prison, news will travel. give it time and it will reach dungeon and solitary cell. it reached me, at last, that cecil winwood, the poet-forger, the snitcher, the coward, and the stool, was returned for a fresh forgery. it will be remembered that it was this cecil winwood who concocted the fairy story that i had changed the plant of the non-existent dynamite and who was responsible for the five years i had then spent in solitary. i decided to kill cecil winwood. you see, morrell was gone, and oppenheimer, until the outbreak that finished him, had remained in the silence. solitary had grown monotonous for me. i had to do something. so i remembered back to the time when i was adam strang and patiently nursed revenge for forty years. what he had done i could do if once i locked my hands on cecil winwood's throat. it cannot be expected of me to divulge how i came into possession of the four needles. they were small cambric needles. emaciated as my body was, i had to saw four bars, each in two places, in order to make an aperture through which i could squirm. i did it. i used up one needle to each bar. this meant two cuts to a bar, and it took a month to a cut. thus i should have been eight months in cutting my way out. unfortunately, i broke my last needle on the last bar, and i had to wait three months before i could get another needle. but i got it, and i got out. i regret greatly that i did not get cecil winwood. i had calculated well on everything save one thing. the certain chance to find winwood would be in the dining-room at dinner hour. so i waited until pie-face jones, the sleepy guard, should be on shift at the noon hour. at that time i was the only inmate of solitary, so that pie-face jones was quickly snoring. i removed my bars, squeezed out, stole past him along the ward, opened the door and was free . . . to a portion of the inside of the prison. and here was the one thing i had not calculated on--myself. i had been five years in solitary. i was hideously weak. i weighed eighty-seven pounds. i was half blind. and i was immediately stricken with agoraphobia. i was affrighted by spaciousness. five years in narrow walls had unfitted me for the enormous declivity of the stairway, for the vastitude of the prison yard. the descent of that stairway i consider the most heroic exploit i ever accomplished. the yard was deserted. the blinding sun blazed down on it. thrice i essayed to cross it. but my senses reeled and i shrank back to the wall for protection. again, summoning all my courage, i attempted it. but my poor blear eyes, like a bat's, startled me at my shadow on the flagstones. i attempted to avoid my own shadow, tripped, fell over it, and like a drowning man struggling for shore crawled back on hands and knees to the wall. i leaned against the wall and cried. it was the first time in many years that i had cried. i remember noting, even in my extremity, the warmth of the tears on my cheeks and the salt taste when they reached my lips. then i had a chill, and for a time shook as with an ague. abandoning the openness of the yard as too impossible a feat for one in my condition, still shaking with the chill, crouching close to the protecting wall, my hands touching it, i started to skirt the yard. then it was, somewhere along, that the guard thurston espied me. i saw him, distorted by my bleared eyes, a huge, well-fed monster, rushing upon me with incredible speed out of the remote distance. possibly, at that moment, he was twenty feet away. he weighed one hundred and seventy pounds. the struggle between us can be easily imagined, but somewhere in that brief struggle it was claimed that i struck him on the nose with my fist to such purpose as to make that organ bleed. at any rate, being a lifer, and the penalty in california for battery by a lifer being death, i was so found guilty by a jury which could not ignore the asseverations of the guard thurston and the rest of the prison hang-dogs that testified, and i was so sentenced by a judge who could not ignore the law as spread plainly on the statute book. i was well pummelled by thurston, and all the way back up that prodigious stairway i was roundly kicked, punched, and cuffed by the horde of trusties and guards who got in one another's way in their zeal to assist him. heavens, if his nose did bleed, the probability is that some of his own kind were guilty of causing it in the confusion of the scuffle. i shouldn't care if i were responsible for it myself, save that it is so pitiful a thing for which to hang a man. . . . * * * * * i have just had a talk with the man on shift of my death-watch. a little less than a year ago, jake oppenheimer occupied this same death-cell on the road to the gallows which i will tread to-morrow. this man was one of the death-watch on jake. he is an old soldier. he chews tobacco constantly, and untidily, for his gray beard and moustache are stained yellow. he is a widower, with fourteen living children, all married, and is the grandfather of thirty-one living grandchildren, and the great-grandfather of four younglings, all girls. it was like pulling teeth to extract such information. he is a queer old codger, of a low order of intelligence. that is why, i fancy, he has lived so long and fathered so numerous a progeny. his mind must have crystallized thirty years ago. his ideas are none of them later than that vintage. he rarely says more than yes and no to me. it is not because he is surly. he has no ideas to utter. i don't know, when i live again, but what one incarnation such as his would be a nice vegetative existence in which to rest up ere i go star-roving again. . . . but to go back. i must take a line in which to tell, after i was hustled and bustled, kicked and punched, up that terrible stairway by thurston and the rest of the prison-dogs, of the infinite relief of my narrow cell when i found myself back in solitary. it was all so safe, so secure. i felt like a lost child returned home again. i loved those very walls that i had so hated for five years. all that kept the vastness of space, like a monster, from pouncing upon me were those good stout walls of mine, close to hand on every side. agoraphobia is a terrible affliction. i have had little opportunity to experience it, but from that little i can only conclude that hanging is a far easier matter. . . . i have just had a hearty laugh. the prison doctor, a likable chap, has just been in to have a yarn with me, incidentally to proffer me his good offices in the matter of dope. of course i declined his proposition to "shoot me" so full of morphine through the night that to-morrow i would not know, when i marched to the gallows, whether i was "coming or going." but the laugh. it was just like jake oppenheimer. i can see the lean keenness of the man as he strung the reporters with his deliberate bull which they thought involuntary. it seems, his last morning, breakfast finished, incased in the shirt without a collar, that the reporters, assembled for his last word in his cell, asked him for his views on capital punishment. --who says we have more than the slightest veneer of civilization coated over our raw savagery when a group of living men can ask such a question of a man about to die and whom they are to see die? but jake was ever game. "gentlemen," he said, "i hope to live to see the day when capital punishment is abolished." i have lived many lives through the long ages. man, the individual, has made no moral progress in the past ten thousand years. i affirm this absolutely. the difference between an unbroken colt and the patient draught-horse is purely a difference of training. training is the only moral difference between the man of to-day and the man of ten thousand years ago. under his thin skin of morality which he has had polished onto him, he is the same savage that he was ten thousand years ago. morality is a social fund, an accretion through the painful ages. the new-born child will become a savage unless it is trained, polished, by the abstract morality that has been so long accumulating. "thou shalt not kill"--piffle! they are going to kill me to-morrow morning. "thou shalt not kill"--piffle! in the shipyards of all civilized countries they are laying to-day the keels of dreadnoughts and of superdreadnoughts. dear friends, i who am about to die, salute you with--"piffle!" i ask you, what finer morality is preached to-day than was preached by christ, by buddha, by socrates and plato, by confucius and whoever was the author of the "mahabharata"? good lord, fifty thousand years ago, in our totem-families, our women were cleaner, our family and group relations more rigidly right. i must say that the morality we practised in those old days was a finer morality than is practised to-day. don't dismiss this thought hastily. think of our child labour, of our police graft and our political corruption, of our food adulteration and of our slavery of the daughters of the poor. when i was a son of the mountain and a son of the bull, prostitution had no meaning. we were clean, i tell you. we did not dream such depths of depravity. yea, so are all the lesser animals of to- day clean. it required man, with his imagination, aided by his mastery of matter, to invent the deadly sins. the lesser animals, the other animals, are incapable of sin. i read hastily back through the many lives of many times and many places. i have never known cruelty more terrible, nor so terrible, as the cruelty of our prison system of to-day. i have told you what i have endured in the jacket and in solitary in the first decade of this twentieth century after christ. in the old days we punished drastically and killed quickly. we did it because we so desired, because of whim, if you so please. but we were not hypocrites. we did not call upon press, and pulpit, and university to sanction us in our wilfulness of savagery. what we wanted to do we went and did, on our legs upstanding, and we faced all reproof and censure on our legs upstanding, and did not hide behind the skirts of classical economists and bourgeois philosophers, nor behind the skirts of subsidized preachers, professors, and editors. why, goodness me, a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, five years ago, in these united states, assault and battery was not a civil capital crime. but this year, the year of our lord , in the state of california, they hanged jake oppenheimer for such an offence, and to-morrow, for the civil capital crime of punching a man on the nose, they are going to take me out and hang me. query: doesn't it require a long time for the ape and the tiger to die when such statutes are spread on the statute book of california in the nineteen-hundred-and-thirteenth year after christ? lord, lord, they only crucified christ. they have done far worse to jake oppenheimer and me. . . . * * * * * as ed morrell once rapped to me with his knuckles: "the worst possible use you can put a man to is to hang him." no, i have little respect for capital punishment. not only is it a dirty game, degrading to the hang- dogs who personally perpetrate it for a wage, but it is degrading to the commonwealth that tolerates it, votes for it, and pays the taxes for its maintenance. capital punishment is so _silly_, so stupid, so horribly unscientific. "to be hanged by the neck until dead" is society's quaint phraseology . . . * * * * * morning is come--my last morning. i slept like a babe throughout the night. i slept so peacefully that once the death-watch got a fright. he thought i had suffocated myself in my blankets. the poor man's alarm was pitiful. his bread and butter was at stake. had it truly been so, it would have meant a black mark against him, perhaps discharge and the outlook for an unemployed man is bitter just at present. they tell me that europe began liquidating two years ago, and that now the united states has begun. that means either a business crisis or a quiet panic and that the armies of the unemployed will be large next winter, the bread-lines long. . . . i have had my breakfast. it seemed a silly thing to do, but i ate it heartily. the warden came with a quart of whiskey. i presented it to murderers row with my compliments. the warden, poor man, is afraid, if i be not drunk, that i shall make a mess of the function and cast reflection on his management . . . they have put on me the shirt without a collar. . . it seems i am a very important man this day. quite a lot of people are suddenly interested in me. . . . the doctor has just gone. he has taken my pulse. i asked him to. it is normal. . . . i write these random thoughts, and, a sheet at a time, they start on their secret way out beyond the walls. . . . i am the calmest man in the prison. i am like a child about to start on a journey. i am eager to be gone, curious for the new places i shall see. this fear of the lesser death is ridiculous to one who has gone into the dark so often and lived again. . . . the warden with a quart of champagne. i have dispatched it down murderers row. queer, isn't it, that i am so considered this last day. it must be that these men who are to kill me are themselves afraid of death. to quote jake oppenheimer: i, who am about to die, must seem to them something god-awful. . . . ed morrell has just sent word in to me. they tell me he has paced up and down all night outside the prison wall. being an ex-convict, they have red-taped him out of seeing me to say good-bye. savages? i don't know. possibly just children. i'll wager most of them will be afraid to be alone in the dark to-night after stretching my neck. but ed morrell's message: "my hand is in yours, old pal. i know you'll swing off game." . . . * * * * * the reporters have just left. i'll see them next, and last time, from the scaffold, ere the hangman hides my face in the black cap. they will be looking curiously sick. queer young fellows. some show that they have been drinking. two or three look sick with foreknowledge of what they have to witness. it seems easier to be hanged than to look on. . . . * * * * * my last lines. it seems i am delaying the procession. my cell is quite crowded with officials and dignitaries. they are all nervous. they want it over. without a doubt, some of them have dinner engagements. i am really offending them by writing these few words. the priest has again preferred his request to be with me to the end. the poor man--why should i deny him that solace? i have consented, and he now appears quite cheerful. such small things make some men happy! i could stop and laugh for a hearty five minutes, if they were not in such a hurry. here i close. i can only repeat myself. there is no death. life is spirit, and spirit cannot die. only the flesh dies and passes, ever a- crawl with the chemic ferment that informs it, ever plastic, ever crystallizing, only to melt into the flux and to crystallize into fresh and diverse forms that are ephemeral and that melt back into the flux. spirit alone endures and continues to build upon itself through successive and endless incarnations as it works upward toward the light. what shall i be when i live again? i wonder. i wonder. . . . footnotes { } since the execution of professor darrell standing, at which time the manuscript of his memoirs came into our hands, we have written to mr. hosea salsburty, curator of the philadelphia museum, and, in reply, have received confirmation of the existence of the oar and the pamphlet.--the editor. produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project.) the man with the black feather [illustration: in horror i recognized my own handwriting (see page )] the man with the black feather by gaston leroux author of "the mystery of the yellow room," "the phantom of the opera," etc. translated by edgar jepson illustrated by charles m. relyea [illustration] boston small, maynard & company publishers copyright, by small, maynard and company (incorporated) entered at stationer's hall the university press, cambridge, u.s.a. historical preface the sandalwood box one evening last year i perceived in the waiting-room of my newspaper, _le matin_, a man dressed in black, his face heavy with the darkest despair, whose dry, dead eyes seemed to receive the images of things like unmoving mirrors. he was seated; and there rested on his knees a sandalwood box inlaid with polished steel. an office-boy told me that he had sat there motionless, silent, awaiting my coming, for three mortal hours. i invited this figure of despair into my office and offered him a chair. he did not take it; he walked straight to my desk, and set down on it the sandalwood box. then he said to me in an expressionless, far-away voice: "monsieur, this box is yours. my friend, m. theophrastus longuet, charged me to bring it to you." he bowed and was going to the door, when i stopped him. "for goodness sake, don't run away like that!" i said sharply. "i can't receive this box without knowing what it contains." "i don't know what it contains myself," he said in the same dull, expressionless tone. "this box is locked; the key is lost. you will have to break it open to find out." "at any rate i should like to know the name of the bearer," i said firmly. "my friend, m. theophrastus longuet, called me 'adolphe,'" he said in the mournfullest tone. "if m. theophrastus longuet had brought me this box himself, he would certainly have told me what it contains," i said stiffly. "i regret that m. theophrastus longuet--" "so do i," said my visitor. "m. theophrastus longuet is dead; and i am his executor." with that he opened the door, went through it, and shut it behind him. i stared at the sandalwood box; i stared at the door; then i ran after the man. he had vanished. * * * * * i had the sandalwood box opened; and in it i found a bundle of manuscripts. in a newspaper office one is used to receiving bundles of manuscripts; and i began to look through them with considerable weariness. very soon it changed to the liveliest interest. as i went deeper and deeper into these posthumous documents i found the story related in them more and more extraordinary, more and more incredible. for a long while i disbelieved it. however, since the proofs of it exist, i ended, after a searching inquiry into them, by believing it to be true. m. theophrastus longuet's reason for bequeathing this strange legacy to me was itself strange. he did not know me; but he had read articles by me in _le matin_, "his favourite organ"; and among the many contributors to that journal he had chosen me, not for my superior knowledge, an allegation which would have made me blush, but because he had come to the conclusion that i possessed "a more solid intellect" than the others. gaston leroux contents chapter page historical preface--the sandalwood box v i m. theophrastus longuet desires to improve his mind and visits historical monuments ii the scrap of paper iii theophrastus longuet bursts into song iv adolphe lecamus is flabbergasted but frank v theophrastus shows the black feather vi the portrait vii the young cartouche viii the wax mask ix strange position of a little violet cat x the explanation of the strange attitude of a little violet cat xi theophrastus maintains that he did not die on the place de grÈve xii the house of strange words xiii the cure that missed xiv the operation begins xv the operation ends xvi the drawbacks of psychic surgery xvii theophrastus begins to take an interest in things xviii the evening paper xix the story of the calf xx the strange behaviour of an express train xxi the earless man with his head out of the window xxii in which the catastrophe which appears on the point of being explained, grows yet more inexplicable xxiii the melodious bricklayer xxiv the solution in the catacombs xxv m. mifroid takes the lead xxvi m. longuet fishes in the catacombs xxvii m. mifroid parts from theophrastus xxviii theophrastus goes into eternal exile illustrations page in horror i recognized my own handwriting. frontispiece (see page ) theophrastus still gazed in wonder. (see page ) "theophrastus longuet, awake!" the man with the black feather chapter i m. theophrastus longuet desires to improve his mind and visits historical monuments m. theophrastus longuet was not alone when he rang the bell of that old-time palace prison, the conciergerie: he was accompanied by his wife marceline, a very pretty woman, uncommonly fair for a frenchwoman, of an admirable figure, and by m. adolphe lecamus, his best friend. the door, pierced by a small barred peephole, turned heavily on its hinges, as a prison door should; the warder, who acts as guide to the prison, dangling a bunch of great old-fashioned keys in his hand, surveyed the party with official gloom, and asked theophrastus for his permit. theophrastus had procured it that very morning at the prefecture of police; he held it out with the air of a citizen assured of his rights, and regarded his friend adolphe with a look of triumph. he admired his friend almost as much as he admired his wife. not that adolphe was exactly a handsome man; but he wore an air of force and vigour; and there was nothing in the world which theophrastus, the timidest man in paris, rated more highly than force and vigour. that broad and bulging brow (whereas his own was narrow and high), those level and thick eyebrows, for the most part raised a trifle to express contempt of others and self-confidence, that piercing glance (whereas his own pale-blue eyes blinked behind the spectacles of the short-sighted), that big nose, haughtily arched, those lips surmounted by a brown, curving moustache, that strong, square chin; in a word, all that virile antithesis to his own grotesque, flabby-cheeked face, was the perpetual object of his silent admiration. besides, adolphe had been post-office inspector in tunis: he had "crossed the sea." theophrastus had only crossed the river seine. no one can pretend that that is a real crossing. the guide set the party in motion; then he said: "you are french?" theophrastus stopped short in the middle of the court. "do we look like germans?" he said with a confident smile, for he was quite sure that he was french. "it's the first time i ever remember french people coming to visit the conciergerie. as a rule french people don't visit anything," said the guide with his air of official gloom; and he went on. "it is wrong of them. the monuments of the past are the book of history," said theophrastus sententiously; and he stopped short to look proudly at his wife and adolphe, for he found the saying fine. they were not listening to him; and as he followed the guide, he went on in a confidential tone, "i am an old parisian myself; and if i have waited till to-day to visit the monuments of the past, it was because my business--i was a manufacturer of rubber stamps right up to last week--did not give me the leisure to do it till the hour i retired from it. that hour has struck; and i am going to improve my mind." and with an air of decision he struck the time-old pavement with the ferule of his green umbrella. they went through a little door and a large wicket, down some steps, and found themselves in the guard-room. they were silent, abandoning themselves entirely to their reflections. they were doing all they could to induce these old walls, which recalled so prodigious a history, to leave a lasting impression on their minds. they were not insensible brutes. while the guide conducted them over cæsar's tower, or silver tower, or bon bec tower, they told themselves vaguely that for more than a thousand years there had been in them illustrious prisoners whose very names they had forgotten. marceline thought of marie antoinette, the princess elizabeth, and the little dauphin, and also of the waxwork guards who watch over the royal family in museums. in spirit therefore she was in the temple while she was in body visiting the conciergerie. but she did not suspect this; so she was quite happy. as they descended the silver tower, where the only relict of the middle ages they had found was an old gentleman on a stool in front of a roll-top desk, classifying the documents relating to political prisoners under the third republic, they came once more into the guard-room on their way to bon bec tower. theophrastus, who took a pride in showing himself well-informed, said to the guide: "wasn't it here that the girondins had their last meal? you might show us exactly where the table was and where camille desmoulins sat. i always look upon camille desmoulins as a personal friend of mine." "so do i," said marceline with a somewhat superior air. adolphe jeered at them. he asserted that camille desmoulins was not a girondin. theophrastus was annoyed, and so was marceline. when adolphe went on to assert that camille desmoulins was a cordelier, a friend of danton, and one of the instigators of the september massacres, she denied it. "he was nothing of the kind," she said firmly. "if he had been, lucie would never have married him." adolphe did not press the point, but when they came into the torture-chamber in bon bec tower, he pretended to be immensely interested by the labels on the drawers round the walls, on which were printed "hops," "cinnamon," "senna." "this was the torture-chamber; they have turned it into a dispensary," said the guide in gruff explanation. "they have done right. it is more humane," said theophrastus sententiously. "no doubt; but it's very much less impressive," said adolphe coldly. at once marceline agreed with him... one was not impressed at all... they had been expecting something very different... this was not at all what they had looked for. but when they came on to the clock platform, their feelings underwent a change. the formidable aspect of those feudal towers, the last relics of the old frankish monarchy, troubles for awhile the spirit of even the most ignorant. this thousand-year-old prison has witnessed so many magnificent death-agonies and hidden such distant and such legendary despairs that it seems that one only has to penetrate its depths to find sitting in some obscure corner, damp and fatal, the tragic history of paris, as immortal as those walls. that is why, with a little plaster, flooring, and paint, they have made there the office of the director of the conciergerie and that of the recorder; they have put the ink-spiller in the place once occupied by the executioner. it is, as theophrastus says, more humane. none the less, since, as adolphe affirmed, it is less impressive, that visit of the th of last june threatened to leave on the minds of the three friends nothing but the passing memory of a complete disillusion when there happened an incident so unheard of and so curiously fantastic that i considered it absolutely necessary, after reading theophrastus longuet's account of it in his memoirs, to go to the conciergerie and cross-examine the guide himself. i found him a stolid fellow, officially gloomy, but with his memory of the events of theophrastus' visit perfectly clear. at my questions he lost his air of gloom, and said with some animation, "everything was going quite as usual, sir; and i had just shown the two gentlemen and the lady the kitchens of st. louis--where we keep the whitewash. we were on our way to the cell of marie antoinette, which is now a little chapel. the figure of christ before which she must have prayed is now in the director's office--" "yes, yes; let's get to the facts!" i interrupted. "we're just coming to them. i was telling the gentleman with the green umbrella that we had been compelled to put the queen's armchair in the director's office because the english were carrying away all the stuffing of it in their purses--" "oh, cut out the english!" i said with some impatience. he looked at me with an injured air and went on: "but i must tell you what i was saying to the gentleman with the green umbrella when he interrupted me in such a strange tone that the other gentleman and the lady cried out together, 'what's the matter, theophrastus? i never heard you speak like that before! _i shouldn't have recognised your voice!_'" "ah! and what was he saying to you?" "we had come just to the end of paris street--you know the passage we call paris street at the conciergerie?" "yes, yes: get on!" "we were at the top of that dreadful black passage where the grating is behind which they used to cut off the women's hair before guillotining them. it's the original grating, you know." "yes, yes: get on!" "it's a passage into which a ray of sunlight never penetrates. you know that marie antoinette went to her death down that passage?" "yes, yes: cut out marie antoinette!" "there you have the old conciergerie in all its horror... then the gentleman with the green umbrella said to me, '_zounds! it's straw alley!_'" "he said that? are you sure? did he really say '_zounds_'?" "yes, sir." "well, after all, there's nothing very remarkable in his saying, '_zounds! it's straw alley!_'" "but wait a bit, sir," said the guide with yet more animation. "i answered that he was wrong, that straw alley was what we to-day call 'paris street.' he replied in that strange voice: '_zounds! are you going to teach me about straw alley? why, i've slept on the straw there, like the others!_' i said laughing, though i felt a bit uncomfortable, that no one had slept in straw alley for more than two hundred years." "and what did he say to that?" "he was going to answer when his wife interfered and said: 'what are you talking about, theophrastus? are you going to teach the guide his business when you've never been to the conciergerie before in your life?' then he said, but in his natural voice, the voice in which he had been speaking since they came in: 'that's true. i've never been to the conciergerie in my life.'" "what did he do then?" "nothing. i could not explain the incident, and i thought it all over, when something stranger still happened. we had visited the queen's cell, and robespierre's cell, and the chapel of the girondins, and that little door through which the prisoners of september went to get massacred in the court; and we had come back into paris street. on the left-hand side of it there's a little staircase which no one ever goes down, because it leads to the cellars; and the only thing to see in the cellars is the eternal night which reigns there. the door at the bottom of this is made of iron bars, a grating--perhaps a thousand years old, or even more. the gentleman they called adolphe was walking with the lady towards the door of the guard-room, when without a word the gentleman with the green umbrella ran down the little staircase and called up from the bottom of it in that strange voice i was telling you about: "'hi! where are you going to? _it's this way!_' "the other gentleman, the lady, and myself stopped dead as if we had been turned to stone. i must tell you, sir, that his voice was perfectly awful; and there was nothing in his appearance to make one expect such a voice. i ran, in spite of myself as it were, to the top of the staircase. the man with the green umbrella gave me a withering glance. truly i was thunderstruck, turned to stone and thunderstruck; and when he shouted to me, 'open this grating!' i don't know how i found the strength to rush down the stairs and open it. then, when the grating was opened, he plunged into the night of the cellars. where did he go? how did he find his way? that basement of the conciergerie is plunged in a terrible darkness which nothing has broken for ages and ages." "didn't you try to stop him?" i said sharply. "he had gone too far; and i hadn't the strength to stop him. _the man with the green umbrella just gave me orders_; and i had to obey him. and we stood there for a quarter of an hour, half out of our wits: it was so odd. and his wife talked, and his friend talked, and i talked; and we said nothing of any use; and we stared into the darkness till our eyes ached. suddenly we heard his voice--not his first voice, but his second voice, the awful voice--and i was so overcome, i had to hang on to the bars of the door. "'is that you, _simon the auvergnat_?' he cried. "i didn't answer anything; and as he went past me, i fancied he put a scrap of paper into his breast pocket. he sprang up the staircase three steps at a time; and we went up after him. he did not offer any explanation; and i simply ran to open the door of the prison for them. i wanted to see their backs. when the wicket was opened and the man with the green umbrella was crossing the threshold, he said, for no reason that i could see: "'_we must avoid the wheel._' "there was no carriage passing." chapter ii the scrap of paper what did happen? the matter is very obscure. i cannot do better than give theophrastus longuet's account of it in the actual words of his memoirs in the sandalwood box. "i am a man with a healthy mind in a healthy body," he writes, "and a good citizen: that is, i have never transgressed the law. laws are necessary; and i have always kept them. at least i believe i have. "i have always hated the imagination; and by that i mean that in all circumstances, whether, for instance, it has been a case of conferring my friendship on anyone, or of having to decide on a line of conduct, i have always been careful to stick to common sense. the most simple always seemed to me the best. "i suffered deeply, for instance, when i discovered that my old college friend adolphe lecamus was addicted to the study of spiritualism. "the man who says spiritualism says rubbish. to try to question spirits by turning tables is utterly absurd. i know what i am talking about, for, wishing to prove the absurdities of his theories, i have taken part in séances with adolphe and my wife. we sat for hours round a little table which absolutely refused to turn. i laughed at him heartily; and that annoyed my wife, because women are always ready to put faith in the impossible and believe in the mysterious. "he used to bring her books which she read greedily; and sometimes he would amuse himself by trying to send her to sleep by making passes before her face. i have never seen anything sillier. i should not indeed have stood it from anyone else; but i have a strong liking for adolphe. he has a powerful face; and he has been a great traveller. "he and marceline called me a sceptic. i answered that i was not a sceptic in the sense of a man who believes in nothing or doubts everything. i believe in everything worthy of belief; for example, i believe in progress. i am not a sceptic; i am a philosopher. "during his travels adolphe read a great deal; i manufactured rubber stamps. i am what people call 'an earthy spirit.' i do not make a boast of it; i merely state it. "i thought it well to give this sketch of my character to make it clear that what happened yesterday is no fault of mine. i went to see the prison as i might have gone to buy a neck-tie at the louvre. i wished to improve my mind. i have plenty of spare time nowadays, since we have sold the business. i said, 'let us do as the english do and see the sights of paris.' it was a mere chance that we began with the conciergerie. "i am very sorry indeed that we did. "am i really very sorry? i am not sure. i am not sure of anything. at present i am quite calm. and i am going to write down what happened exactly as if it had happened to someone else. all the same, what a story it is! "while we were going through the towers nothing happened worth setting down here. i remember saying to myself in bon bec tower: "'what, was it here in this little chamber, which looks just like a grocery, that there were so many agonies and so many illustrious victims martyred?' "i tried honestly to picture to myself the horror of that chamber when the executioner and his assistants with their horrible instruments came to the prisoners with the intention of forcing them to confess crimes affecting the state. but owing to the little labels on the drawers, on which one reads 'senna,' 'hops,' i did not succeed. "that bon bec tower! they used also to call it _the prattler_ on account of the horrible cries which burst from it and made the quiet passer-by shudder and quicken his steps along the quay at the sound of the king's justice. "now bon bec tower is peaceful and very still. i am not complaining of it: it is progress. "but when we penetrated to that part of the conciergerie which has hardly changed for centuries and were walking quietly along between those bare stone walls which no fresh facing, no profane plaster has ever covered, an inexplicable fever began to fill my veins; and when we were in the gloom at the end of straw alley, i cried, '_zounds! it's straw alley!_' "at once i turned to see who had spoken those words. they were all staring at me; and i perceived plainly that i had spoken them myself. indeed, my throat was still quivering from their utterance. "the idiot of a guide asserted that we had passed straw alley. i contradicted him; and he shut up. i was sure of my facts, you understand, quite sure that it was straw alley. i told him that i had slept on the straw in it. but it is absurd. how do you suppose i could have slept on straw in straw alley when it was the first time i had ever been in the conciergerie? besides, was i sure? that is what worries me. i had an atrocious headache. "my brow was burning even while i felt it swept by a strong current of cold air. outside i was cool; inside i was a furnace. "what had we been doing? i had a moment before walked quietly through the chapel of the girondins; and while the guide was telling us the history of it, i played with my green umbrella. i was not in the least annoyed at having just behaved so oddly. i was my natural self. but as for that, i have never ceased to be my natural self. "that which befell me later was also quite natural, since it was not the result of any effort. the unnatural is exactly what did not befall me. "i remember finding myself at the bottom of a staircase in front of a grating. i was endowed with superhuman vigour; i shook the grating and shouted, 'this way!' the others, _who did not know_, were slow coming. i do not know what i should have done to the grating, if the guide had not unlocked it for me. for that matter, i do not know what i should have done to the guide. i was mad. no: i have no right to say that. i was not mad; and that's a great pity. it is worse than if i had been mad. "undoubtedly i was in a state of great nervous excitement; but my mind was quite lucid. i do not believe that i have ever seen so clearly; and yet i was in the dark. i do not believe that i have ever had clearer recollections; and yet i was in a place i did not know. heavens! i did not recognise it and _i did recognise it_! i did not hesitate about my way. my groping hands found the stones they reached out in the darkness to find; and my feet trod a soil which could not have been strange to them. "who will ever be able to tell the age of that soil; who will ever be able to tell you the age of those stones? _i do not know it myself._ they talk of the origin of the palace. what is the origin of the old frankish palace? they may be able to say when those stones will end; they will never be able to say when they began. and they are forgotten, those stones, in the thousand-year night of the cellars. the odd thing is that i remembered them. "i crept along the damp walls as if the way were well known to me. i expected certain rough places in the wall; and they came to the tips of my fingers; i counted the edges of the stones and i knew that at the end of a certain number i had only to turn to see at the far end of a passage _a ray which the sun had forgotten there since the beginning of the history of paris_. i turned and saw the ray; _and i felt my heart beat loudly from the bottom of the centuries_." m. longuet interrupts his narrative for a while to describe the whirl of his mind during this singular hour. he has the greatest difficulty in remaining master of his thought, the utmost difficulty in following it. it rushes on in front of him like a bolting horse whose reins he has let go. it leaves him behind and bounds ahead, leaving on the paper, as traces of its passage, words of such profundity that when he looks at them, he says, they make him giddy. and he adds, in a paroxysm of dread: "one must stop on the edge of these words as one stops on the edge of a precipice." and he guides the pen with a feverish hand, as he goes on burying himself in the depths of these subterranean galleries: "and that's the prattler! these are the walls which have heard! it was not up above, in the sunlight, that the prattler spoke; it was here, in this night of the underworld. here are the rings in the walls. is it the ring of ravaillac? _i no longer remember._ "but towards the ray, towards the unique ray, motionless and eternal, the faint, square ray, which from the beginning of ages took and preserved the form of the air-hole, i advance; i advance in a stumbling hurry, while the fever consumes me, blazes, and dizzies my brain. my feet stop, but with such a shock that one would believe them caught by invisible hands, risen from the soil; my fingers run over the wall, groping and fumbling that spot in the wall. what do my fingers want? what is the thought of my fingers? i had a pen-knife in my pocket; and all at once i let my green umbrella fall to the ground to take my pen-knife from my pocket. and i scraped, with certainty, between two stones. i cleared away the dust and mortar from between two stones. then my knife pierced a thing between the two stones and brought it out. "that is why i know i am not mad. that thing is under my eyes. in my quietest hours, i, theophrastus longuet, can look at it on my desk between my latest models of rubber stamps. it is not i who am mad; it is this thing that is mad. it is a scrap of paper, torn and stained--a document whose age there is no telling and which is in every way calculated to plunge a quiet manufacturer of rubber stamps into the wildest consternation. the paper, as you can guess, is rotted by the damp of the cellars. the damp has eaten away half the words, which seem from their red hue to have been written in blood. "but in these words before me, in this document which was certainly written two centuries ago, which i passed under the square ray from the air-hole and gazed at with my hair rising on end in horror, i recognised my own handwriting." here copied clearly out is this precious and mysterious document: "i rt uried my treasures after betrayal of april st go and take the air at the chopinettes look at the gall look at the cock dig on the spot and you will be rich." chapter iii theophrastus longuet bursts into song on leaving the prison, marceline and adolphe were, very naturally, full of curiosity to learn the reasons of theophrastus' extraordinary behaviour; and he had the greatest difficulty in getting them away from the subject. he treated the matter lightly, declaring that the whim had taken him to visit the cellars of the conciergerie; and he had visited them. they were even more impressed by his attitude to the guide than by his actual plunge into the cellars. that theophrastus, the timid theophrastus, should have browbeaten not a mere man, but an official, amazed them. theophrastus admits that he was as much amazed as they, and felt rather proud of himself. all the evening they kept recurring to the matter until their amazement and their interest began to weaken by mere continuance of expression. but theophrastus was glad indeed when sleep at last tied marceline's tongue. the next day he shut himself up in his study on the pretext of straightening out his accounts. its window looks down on to the little grass-plot in the middle of anvers square; and he leaned out over the sill, contemplating the prosaic reality of the scene as if he could not have enough of it. he was above all pleased by the nurses wheeling along their babies in perambulators and by the shouting of the children romping about the square. his thought was of a great unity and a great simplicity. it was entirely contained in the phrase: "the world has not changed." no: the world had not changed. there were the babies in the perambulators; and as the clock struck two the signora petito, wife of the professor of italian who occupied the flat above his, began to play _the carnival of venice_. no: nothing in the world had changed; yet when he turned round, he could see on his desk, among the models of rubber stamps, a scrap of paper. did that scrap of paper _really_ exist? he had passed a feverish night, almost a night of delirium; and at the end of it he had decided that his strange adventure must have been a bad dream. but in the morning he had found the scrap of paper in a drawer of his desk... even now he kept saying to himself, "i shall turn round presently; and the scrap of paper won't be there." he turned round; and the scrap of paper was there--_in his own handwriting_. he passed his hand over his perspiring brow and heaved the sigh of a grieved child. then he seemed to come to a definite resolve and carefully put the scrap of paper into his pocket-book. he had just remembered that signor petito had a great reputation as an expert in handwriting. his friend adolphe was also an expert in handwriting, but from the spiritualistic point of view. he told the character by it. theophrastus had no intention of calling adolphe into counsel. there was already too much mystery in the affair to entrust it to the overflowing imagination of a medium who boasted himself a pupil of a papus. he went slowly upstairs and was ushered into signor petito's study. he found himself in the presence of a man of middle age, whose chief characteristics were a mass of crinkly black hair, a piercing glance, and enormous ears. after they had exchanged greetings, theophrastus broached the subject of the scrap of paper. he drew it from his pocket-book and an unsigned letter which he had written a few days previously. "signor petito," he said, "i understand that you are a first-class expert in handwriting. i should be much obliged if you would examine this letter and this document, and inform me of the result of your examination. i assert myself that there is no connection--" he stopped short, as red as a peony, for he was not in the habit of lying. but signor petito had already scanned the letter and the scrap of paper with the eye of an expert; and with a smile which showed all his exceedingly white teeth, he said: "i won't keep you waiting for my answer, m. longuet. the document is in a very bad state; but the scraps of handwriting one can read are in every respect the same as the handwriting of the letter. before the courts, m. longuet, before god and before men, these two handwritings were traced _by the same hand_!" he laid his hand on his heart with a great air. he entered into particulars: a child, he declared, could not make a mistake about it. he became oracular. "the handwriting in both is equally angular," he said in a very pompous tone. "by angular, m. longuet, we describe a handwriting in which the thin strokes which join the strokes of the letters and the letters to one another are at an acute angle. you understand? look at this hook, and this one, and this thin stroke, and all these letters which increase progressively in equal proportions. but what an acute handwriting, m. longuet! i have never seen handwriting so acute: _it's as sharp as the blade of a knife_!" at these last words theophrastus turned so pale that signor petito thought that he was going to faint. none the less he took the letter and the document, thanked signor petito, and went out of the flat. he walked straight out of the house and wandered about the streets for a long while. at last he found himself in saint-andrew-des-arts place; then he took his way to suger street, and opened the latch of an old-fashioned door. he found himself in a dark and dirty passage. a man came down it to meet him, and recognising him, greeted him. "how are you, theophrastus? what good wind blows you here?" he said in affectionate tones. "how are you, ambrose?" said theophrastus gloomily. since they had not met for two years, they had a hundred inquiries to make of one another. ambrose was an engraver of visiting-cards by profession. he had been a printer in the provinces; but having put all his capital into a new invention in printing, it had not been long before he found himself a bankrupt. he was a cousin of marceline; and theophrastus, who was a good soul, had come to his aid in the hour of his gravest trouble. theophrastus sat down on a straw-seated chair in a little room which served as workshop, and was lighted by a large, dusty skylight in the ceiling. "you 're a scientific man, ambrose," he said, still gloomily. "nothing of the kind!" said ambrose quickly. "yes; you are. no one could teach you anything in the matter of paper." "oh, yes: that's true enough. i do know paper." "you know all papers," said theophrastus. "all," said ambrose with modest pride. "if one showed you a piece of paper you could tell the age of it?" "yes; i have published a monograph on the water-marks of the papers used in france during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. the academy crowned it." "i know it. and i have the fullest confidence in your knowledge of papers," said theophrastus with unrelieved gloom. "it's well-founded; but really it's a very simple matter. the oldest papers presented at first, when they were new, a smooth, glossy surface. but soon wire-marks appeared in them, crossed at regular intervals by perpendicular lines, both reproducing the impression of the metal trellis on which the paste was spread. in the fourteenth century they had the idea of utilising this reproduction by making it a mark of the source or mill which the paper came from. with this object in view, they embroidered in brass wire on the trellis mould, initials, words, and all kinds of emblems: these are the water-marks. every water-marked sheet of paper carries in itself its birth-certificate; but the difficulty is to decipher it. it requires a little practice: the pot, the eagle, the bell..." theophrastus opened his pocket-book and held out his scrap of paper with trembling fingers. "could you tell me the exact age of this document?" he said. ambrose put on his spectacles and held the paper up to the light. "there's a date," he said. " ... the last figure is missing. it would be a paper of the eighteenth century then. given the date within ten years, our task becomes very simple." "oh, i saw the date," said theophrastus quickly. "but is this really an eighteenth-century paper? isn't the date false? that's what i want to know." ambrose pointed to the middle of the scrap. "look," he said. theophrastus looked; but he saw nothing. then ambrose lighted a little lamp and threw its light on the document. in holding the scrap of paper between one's eyes and the lamp one distinguished in the middle of it a kind of crown. "this paper's extremely rare, theophrastus!" cried ambrose in considerable excitement. "this water-mark is almost unknown, for very little of it was manufactured. the water-mark is called 'the crown of thorns.' this paper, my dear theophrastus, is exactly of the year ." "you are sure of it?" "absolutely. but how comes it that this document, which is dated , is, in every part of it which is visible, in your handwriting?" cried ambrose in a tone of amazement. theophrastus rose, put the document back into his pocket-book, and went out on stumbling feet, without answering. i reproduce from the medley of documents of which his memoirs are composed the following passage: "so now," writes theophrastus, "i had the proof; i could no longer doubt; i had no longer the right to doubt. this scrap of paper which dated from the beginning of the eighteenth century, from the times of the regent, this sheet which i had found, or rather _had gone to seek_ in a prison, was truly in my own handwriting. i had written on this sheet, i, theophrastus longuet, late manufacturer of rubber stamps, who had only retired the week before, at the age of forty-one years, i had written on this sheet the still incomprehensible words which i read on it, in ! besides, i had not really any need of signor petito, or of ambrose, to assure me of it. all my being cried, 'it's your paper! it's your paper!'" "so before being theophrastus longuet, the son of jean longuet, market-gardener at ferté-sous-jouarre, i had been in the past someone whom i did not know, but who was re-born in me. yes: every now and then i 'foamed at the mouth' at remembering that i lived two hundred years ago! "who was i? what was then my name? i had a strange certainty that these questions would not remain unanswered for long. was it not a fact that already things of which in my present existence i was ignorant, were rising from my past? what did certain phrases i had uttered at the conciergerie mean? who was simon the auvergnat, whose name had risen twice to my burning lips? "yes, yes: the name of long ago, _my_ name, would also rise to my awakening brain; and knowing who i was, i should recall the whole of my reviving life in the past, and read the document at a glance." theophrastus longuet might well be troubled in mind. he was a simple, rather dense, self-satisfied soul who had never believed in anything but rubber stamps. a good-natured, strictly honest, narrow-minded and obstinate tradesman, like the bulk of his class in france he had considered religion only fit for women; and without declaring himself an unbeliever, he had been wont to say that when one died one was dead for a long time. he had just learned in the most convincing, palpable fashion that _one was never dead_. it was indeed a blow. but he took it very well. from the moment that he remembered having been alive at the beginning of the eighteenth century, he began to regret that it was not two thousand years earlier. that is the nature of the french tradesman; he is full of common sense; but when he does exaggerate, he passes all bounds. in his uncertainty about his previous existence he had two definite facts to start from: the date , and the conciergerie prison. these enabled him to affirm that in he had been confined in the conciergerie as a prisoner of state: he could not admit for an instant that even in the wicked times of louis xv he, theophrastus longuet, could possibly have been in prison for an offence against the common law. again the scrap of paper gave grounds for certain inferences. at some desperate conjuncture, possibly on the eve of his execution, he had written it and hidden it in the wall, to find it on a passing visit, two centuries later. there was nothing supernatural about that; it was merely the logical explanation of the facts of the case. he betook himself once more to the consideration of the document. two words in it seemed to him, naturally, of paramount importance. they were the words "betrayal" and "treasures." he hoped from these two words to reconstitute his earlier personality. in the first place, it was plain that he had been rich and powerful. only rich men bury treasures; only powerful men are betrayed. it seemed to him that it must have been a memorable, perhaps historic betrayal, of _the betrayal of the first of april_. whatever else was mysterious about the document, it was quite clear that he had been a great personage and had buried treasures. "by jove!" he said to himself. "provided that no one has touched them, those treasures belong to me! if need were, with this document in my own handwriting i could establish my claim to them." theophrastus was not a rich man. he had retired from business with a moderate competence: a cottage in the country, with its little garden, its fountain, and its lawn. it was not much, with marceline's occasional fits of extravagance. decidedly the treasures would come in very useful. at the same time we must give him the credit of being far more interested in the mystery of his personality than in the mystery of the treasures. he decided to postpone his search for them till he could definitely give a name to the personage who had been theophrastus in . to his mind this discovery, which was of chief interest to him, would be the key to all the rest. he was somewhat astonished by the sudden disappearance of what he called his "historical instinct." it had been lacking during the earlier part of his life; but it had revealed itself to him in the cellars of the conciergerie with the suddenness and emphasis of a clap of thunder. for a while the other (in his mind he called the great personage he had been in the eighteenth century the "other") had taken possession of him. the other had been so completely master of him that he had acted with the other's hands and spoken with his voice. it was the other who had found the document. it was the other who had cried, "_zounds! it's straw alley!_" it was the other who had called _simon the auvergnat_ and then had vanished. theophrastus did not know what had become of him. he sought in vain. he sounded himself, plumbing the depths of his being. nothing! theophrastus would not stand it. he had not been troubled all his life long by any unhealthy curiosity about the beginning or end of things; he had wasted no time on the mysteries of philosophy. he had shrugged his shoulders at their futility. but since the revelation of the extraordinary fact that a man sold rubber stamps in after burying treasures in , he swore to go to the end of the business. he would know. he would know everything. his "historical instinct" seemed to have left him for the time being, he would hunt for it in books. he would assuredly end by finding out who was the mysterious personage who had been shut up in the conciergerie in after having been betrayed on the first of april. which first of april? that remained to discover. little as the selling of rubber stamps fits man for historical research, he betook himself to libraries and hunted for that personage. he studied the lives of the chief men of the period. since he was at it, nothing was too grand for him: princes, peers, statesmen, and generals, he studied the lives of all. he paused for a while at the great financier law, but found him too dissipated; the same objection applied to the comte du barry; and he was positively horrified by the thought that he might have been the comte de charolais, renowned for his debaucheries, whose hobby was to shoot thatchers at work on the house-roofs. for forty-eight hours he was the cardinal de polignac before he was disgusted to learn that that great churchman had not been a man of stainless virtue. whenever he did find a person whom the historians painted in the most engaging colours and adorned with the most solid virtues, that personage invariably disobliged him by not having been shut up in the conciergerie or betrayed on the first of april. however he had just discovered, _in the journal de barbier_, a favourite of the regent who, strangely enough, was exactly the man he was looking for, when there came a development of his case which plunged him into a profound consternation. he had sent marceline down to his country cottage on the banks of the marne, to which it was their habit to betake themselves at the beginning of july; and adolphe had gone down to the village inn, to help her get it in order for their stay. their absence left him freer to prosecute his researches. then on the morning of the anniversary of his wedding-day he went down to join them at the cottage. he had called it "azure waves villa," in spite of the remonstrances of adolphe, who had urged that such a name was only suitable to a cottage by the sea. theophrastus had been firm in the matter because, he declared, he had often been to treport, and the sea was always green; whereas, fishing for gudgeon in the marne, he had frequently observed that its waves were blue. he found his wife and friend awaiting him eagerly on its threshold; and as with the air of a favourite of the regent, he complimented marceline on her charming appearance, he gracefully waved his green umbrella, from which he seldom allowed himself to be parted, in the fashion in which he believed the dandies waved their canes at the beginning of the eighteenth century. he found the household in the stress of the preparations for the anniversary dinner, to which several of his friends in the neighbourhood brought their wives to do honour to theophrastus and marceline. still the favourite of the regent, to the astonishment of marceline and adolphe, he found a few gracious words of compliment for each guest. neither of them had ever seen him so shine as host before. they dined in a tent in the garden; and the talk at once turned on fishing, a sport to which they were all devoted; and they did their best to be accurate about their exploits. m. lopard had caught a three-pound pike; old mlle. taburet complained bitterly that someone had been fishing in her favourite pool; a third declared that the fish were being overfed; and there was a long discussion on ground-bait. theophrastus said nothing: he suddenly found these good people too middle-class for him. he would have liked to raise the level of the conversation; and he would have preferred it to deal with the matters which filled his fevered imagination. towards the end of dinner he found a way to set adolphe talking of ghosts. then madame lopard told them of the extraordinary doings of a somnambulist who lived near; and at once adolphe explained the phenomena of somnambulism according to the spiritualistic theory, and quoted allan kardec. adolphe was never at a loss to explain "phenomena." then, at last, they came to the matter to which theophrastus was burning to bring them, the transmigration of souls. marceline observed that our reason rejected the hypothesis; and adolphe protested vigorously: "nothing is lost in nature," he said authoritatively. "everything is transformed, souls and bodies alike. the transmigration of souls with a view to their purification is a belief which goes back to the remotest antiquity; and the philosophers of all ages have been careful not to deny it." "but if one came back into a body, one would know it," said marceline. "not always, only sometimes," said adolphe confidently. "sometimes? is that so?" said theophrastus quickly; and his heart began to beat tumultuously. "oh, yes: there are instances--authentic instances," said adolphe emphatically. "ptolemy cæsarion, cleopatra's son and king of egypt thirty years before christ, recollected perfectly that he had been the philosopher pythagoras who lived six hundred years before him." "impossible!" cried the ladies; and the men smiled with an air of superior wisdom. "it's nothing to laugh at, gentlemen. it's the most serious subject in the world," said adolphe sternly. "the actual transformation of our bodies which is the last word in science, is in entire accord with the theory of reincarnation. what is this theory of transformation except that living beings _transform themselves into one another_? nature for ever presents herself to us as a creative flame unceasingly perfecting types, on her way to the attainment of an ideal which will be the final crown of the law of progress. since nature has only one aim, what she does for bodies, she does also for souls. i can assure you that this is the case, for i have studied this question, which is the very foundation of all sound science." none of the party understood adolphe's discourse, a fact which filled him with quiet pride; but they listened to him in an ecstasy; and he was pleased to see that theophrastus, as a rule so restive under such discussions, was listening with the liveliest interest. it was an attitude hardly to be wondered at in a man who was hearing that what seemed a wild imagining of his delirium rested on a firm scientific basis. "the transmigration of souls was taught in india, the cradle of the human race," adolphe continued in his most professorial tone, delighted to have caught the ear of the party. "then it was taught in egypt, then in greece by pythagoras. plato took the doctrine from him; and adduced irrefutable proofs in his phædo that souls do not pass into eternal exile but return to animate new bodies." "oh, if we could only have proofs of a fact like that!" cried madame sampic, the wife of the schoolmaster of pont-aux-dames, with enthusiasm. "if we had, i shouldn't mind dying one bit," said old mlle. taburet, who was in mortal fear of her approaching end. "there _are_ proofs--irrefutable proofs," said adolphe solemnly. "there are two: one drawn from the general order of nature, one from human consciousness. firstly, nature is governed by the law of contradictions, says plato, meaning by that that when we see in her bosom death succeed life we are compelled to believe that life succeeds death. is that clear to you?" "yes, yes," cried several of the guests, without understanding a word he was saying. "moreover, plato continues, since nothing can be born from nothing, if the beings we see die were never to return to life, everything would end by becoming absorbed in death, and nature would be moving towards an eternal sleep. have i made this first proof clear?" "yes, yes: the second!" cried his fellow guests, quite untruthfully. "secondly," said adolphe, growing absolutely pontifical, "when, after having observed the general laws of the universe, we descend into the depths of our own being, we find the same dogma confirmed by the fact of memory. 'to learn,' cries plato to the universe, 'to learn is nothing else but to remember.' since our soul learns, it is that it remembers. and what does it remember if not that it has lived before, and that it has lived in another body? 'why should we not believe that in quitting the body which it animates at the moment, it must animate several others in succession?' i am quoting plato word for word," said adolphe in a tone of ringing triumph. "and plato is a person to be reckoned with," said theophrastus warmly. "charles fourier says," said adolphe, moving on to the modern, "where is the old man who does not desire not to be certain of carrying into another life the experience he has acquired in this one? to assert that this desire can never be realised is to admit that the deity would deceive us. we must then recognise that we have lived already, before being what we are to-day, and that many more lives await us. all these lives--fourier adds with a precision for which we cannot be sufficiently thankful--to the number of a hundred and ten are distributed over five stages of unequal extent and cover a period of eighty-one thousand years." "eighty-one thousand years! that's pretty filling!" interrupted m. lopard. "we spend twenty-seven thousand of them on our planet and the other fifty-four thousand elsewhere," explained adolphe. "and how long is it before we come back into another body?" asked madame bache. "at least two or three thousand years, if we are to believe allan kardec, always supposing that we have not died a violent death. then, especially if one has been executed, one may be reincarnated at the end of two hundred years," said adolphe. "that's it! they must have hanged me," said theophrastus to himself. "or if they didn't hang a man of my quality, they beheaded me. all the same," he went on to think, with a natural pride, "if these people here knew that they were sitting with a favourite of the regent, or perhaps a prince of royal blood, how astonished and respectful they'd be! but not a bit of it: they are merely saying to themselves, 'it's theophrastus longuet, manufacturer of rubber stamps'; and that's enough for them." the advent of the two waiters with the champagne cut short the dissertation of adolphe; and though everyone had been deeply impressed by it, now they only wished to be amused. it was then that marceline turned to theophrastus and begged him to sing the song with which he was wont to delight their ears at dessert on each anniversary of their wedding-day. he had sung it on their wedding-day itself; and thanks to its charm and freshness, it had been a great success. it was beranger's _lisette_. but what was the amazement of marceline and all the guests, when theophrastus sprang to his feet, threw his napkin on the table, and bawled to the mistress of the house: "as you will, _marie-antoinette_! i can refuse you nothing!" "gracious goodness! _that voice of his has come back!_" gasped marceline. the guests had not recovered from the shock when theophrastus bawled to an old french air, in a voice which none of them recognised as his, his voice of the conciergerie, bawled to the most select society from crécy-en-brie to lagny-thorigny-pomponne: "bullies all! in our snug cribs we live like fighting-cocks: on dainties rich we splash the dibbs, and booze we never docks. then guzzle, cullies, and booze away till gabriel's trump on judgment day!" in spite of the richness of the rhyme, no applause followed the stanza. the ladies did not clink their glasses with their knives; they stared at theophrastus with their eyes starting out of their heads; and the eyes of marceline projected furthest of all. theophrastus did not need any applause; like one possessed of a devil, he bawled on: "bullies all! in our snug cribs dan cupid loves to dance. he brings to help us splash the dibbs the prettiest silk in france. then guzzle, cullies, and booze away till gabriel's trump on judgment day!" in a final triumphant roar he repeated the last couplet and prolonged the final note, his eyes on the sun, which was sinking over the edge of the horizon, laid one hand on his heart, embraced "nature" with a sweeping gesture of the other, and bellowed: "then guzzle, cullies, and booze away till gabriel's trump on judgment day!" he sat down with an air of supreme content, and said proudly: "_what do you think of that, marie-antoinette?_" "why do you call me marie-antoinette?" gasped the trembling marceline. "because you're the prettiest of them all!" roared theophrastus in that awful voice. "i appeal to madame la maréchale de boufflers, who's a woman of taste! i appeal to all of you! and there's not one of you, by the pope's gullet, who'll dare to deny it! neither the big picard, nor the bourbonnais, nor the burgundian, nor sheep's-head, nor the cracksman, nor parisian, nor the provincial, nor the little breton, nor the feather, nor patapon, nor pint-pot, nor st. james's gate, nor gastelard, nor iron-arm, nor black-mug, nor even fancy man!" since theophrastus had on his right old mlle. taburet, he prodded her in the ribs by way of emphasis, an action which nearly made her faint. no one dared budge; his flaming eye chained them to their chairs; and leaning affectionately towards mlle. taburet, he pointed to the gasping marceline, and said: "look, mlle. taburet, aren't i right? who can compare with her? pretty-milkmaid, of pussycat? or even blanche, the bustler? or belle-hélène who keeps the harp tavern?" he turned towards adolphe. "here--you--old easy-going!" he said with a terrifying energy. "let's have your opinion. look at marie-antoinette a moment! by the sucking-pig! there's not one to compare with her: not jenny venus, the flower-seller of the palais-royal, nor marie leroy, nor mother salomon, the pretty coffee-house-keeper of the temple, nor jenny bonnefoy _who's just married veunier who keeps the pont-marie café_. not one of them, i tell you! not one of them! the slapper, manon de versailles, fat-poulteress, the lock, cow-with-the-baskets, or the bastille!" with a bound theophrastus was on the table; and the crockery round him smashed into a thousand pieces. he caught up a glass and bellowed: "i drink to the queen of the nymphs! marie-antoinette neron!" he crushed the glass in his hands, cutting them in twenty places, and bowed to the company. but the company had fled. chapter iv adolphe lecamus is flabbergasted but frank theophrastus stood on the table and gazed sheepishly round the empty tent. his fine ardour was extinguished. but i take up the narrative in the words of his memoirs: "i found myself on the table," he writes, "in the middle of the broken crockery, and all the company fled. my guests' rough fashion of taking leave of me had confused me a little. i wished to get down, but by a singular phenomenon, i found as much difficulty in getting down from the table as i had displayed address in mounting it. i went down on my hands and knees; and by dint of the most careful precautions reached the ground safely. i called marceline, who did not answer; and presently i found her trembling in our bedroom. i shut the door carefully and set about explaining matters. her appealing eyes, full of tears, demanded an explanation; and i felt it my duty as a husband to hide from her no longer my great and amazing trouble of mind. "'my dear marceline,' i said, 'you must be entirely at a loss to understand what happened this evening; but never mind, i don't understand it myself. still, by putting our heads together, reinforced by our love for one another, i do not despair of arriving at the correct explanation of it.' "then i coaxed her to go to bed; and when at last her head rested peacefully on the pillow, i told her my story. i gave her a complete account of my visit to the cellars of the conciergerie, concealing nothing, and describing exactly the extraordinary feelings which troubled me and the unknown force which appeared to control me. at first she said nothing; in fact she seemed to shrink away from me as if she were frightened of me; but when i came to the document in the wall which revealed the existence of the treasures, at once she asked to see it. "i took it from my pocket-book, and showed it to her by the light of the moon, which was at its full. like myself, like all who had already seen it, she recognised my handwriting; and crossed herself for all the world as if she suspected something diabolical in it. "however the sight of the document seemed to relieve her; and at once she said that it was most fortunate that we had at hand an expert in spiritualism, that adolphe would be of the greatest service to us in this difficult matter. we had the paper on the bed before us in the moonlight; and in the presence of this unshakable witness, she was presently compelled to admit that i was a reincarnated soul dating from two hundred years before. "then, as i was once more asking who i could have been, she annoyed me for the first time since our marriage. "'poor theophrastus, you couldn't have been up to much,' she said. "'and why not?' i said sharply, for i was nettled. "'because, dear, this evening you sang a song in slang; and the ladies whose names you mentioned certainly couldn't have belonged to the aristocracy. when one associates with the slapper, the lock, and manon of versailles, one can't be up to much.' "she said this in a tone of contempt which i put down to jealousy. "'but i also spoke of la maréchale de boufflers,' i said again rather sharply. 'and you ought to know that in the time of the regent all the ladies of the court had some queer nickname. it's my belief, on the contrary, that i was a man of quality--what do you say to a favourite of the regent?' "i spoke rather huffily; and she gave me a kiss, and admitted that there was a good deal in what i said. "the next morning she repeated her suggestion that we should take adolphe into our confidence. she declared that his wide experience in these matters and his profound knowledge of metaphysics could not but be of the greatest help to a man who had buried treasures two hundred years ago and wished to recover them. "'you'll see, dear, that he's the man who'll tell you what your name was,' she said. "i yielded to her persuasion; and as we sat in the garden after lunch, i explained to him the inner meaning of the strange occurrence of the evening before. i took him back from the song to the document, from the document to the conciergerie, watching the effect of the astonishing revelation on the expression of his face. it was clear that he was utterly astounded; and it appeared to me very odd that a professed spiritualist should be so flabbergasted at finding himself face to face with a retired man of business, sound in mind and body, who claimed to have existed two hundred years before. he said that my behaviour at yesterday's dinner and the incomprehensible phrases to which i had given utterance at the conciergerie were indeed calculated to prepare him for such a confidence, but as a matter of fact he had not been expecting anything of the kind, and was entirely nonplussed. he would like to have actually in his hand the proofs of such a phenomenon. "i took out my document and handed it to him. he could not deny its authenticity; he recognised the handwriting. indeed that recognition drew a sharp explanation from him; and i asked him the reason of it. he answered that my handwriting on a document two hundred years old explained a heap of things. "'what things?' i said. "he confessed loyally that till that moment he had never understood my handwriting and that it had always been impossible for him to see any connection between it and my character. "'is that so?' i said. 'and what is your conception of my character, adolphe?' "'well, you won't be angry, if i'm frank with you?' he said, hesitating. "'of course not,' i said. "on this assurance he described my character: it was that of a worthy business man, an honest merchant, an excellent husband, but of a man incapable of displaying any firmness, strength of mind, or energy. he went on to say that my timidity was excessive, and that my kindness of heart, to which he was fully alive, was always apt to degenerate into sheer feebleness. "it was not a flattering portrait; and it made me blush for myself. "'and now,' said i, hiding my mortification, 'you've told me what you think of my character: what do you think of my handwriting?' "'it's the exact opposite of your character,' he said quickly. 'it expresses every sentiment utterly opposed to your nature as i know it. in fact, i can't think of a more direct antithesis than your character and your handwriting. it must be, then, that you haven't the handwriting which goes with your actual character, but the handwriting of the other.' "i might have been angry, if signor petito had not told me much the same thing; as it was, i exclaimed, 'oh, this is very interesting! the other, then, was a man of energy?' "i thought to myself that the other must have been some great leader. then adolphe went on; and as long as i live i shall never forget his words, so painful did i find them: "'everything shows, these thin strokes, the way they are joined to one another, their manner of rising, mounting, topping one another, energy, strength of will, pigheadedness, harshness, ardour, activity, ambition... for evil.' "i was dismayed; but in a flash of genius i cried: "'what is evil? what is good? if attila had known how to write, he might have had the handwriting of napoleon!' "'attila was called "the flail of god,"' he said. "'and napoleon was the flail of men,' i retorted on the instant. "i was hard put to it to restrain my anger; but i asserted that _theophrastus longuet could only be an honest man before this life, during this life, and after this life_. "my dear wife agreed with me, warmly. adolphe saw that he had gone too far, and apologised." chapter v theophrastus shows the black feather from that day the conversations of theophrastus, marceline, and adolphe were of fascinating interest to them. they pored and pored over the document; they discussed over and over again the "cock," the "gall," "chopinettes," and the "betrayal of april st" of the mysterious document. they soon left azure waves villa and returned to paris to ransack the libraries. adolphe, the great reader, was much better adapted to historical research than either marceline or theophrastus; and their patience was exhausted long before his. one sunday they were strolling along the champs-elysées; and both theophrastus and marceline had been complaining bitterly of their failure at the libraries, when adolphe said thoughtfully: "what use would it be to us to find approximately the spot in which the treasures are buried _unless theophrastus had his black feather_?" "what black feather? what do you mean?" said marceline and theophrastus with one voice. "let's stroll back towards the rond-pont; and i'll tell you what i mean," said adolphe. when they were under the trees, among the throng of careless strollers, adolphe said: "you've heard of the water-finders?" "of course," they said promptly. "well, owing to some phenomenon, of which the explanation has not yet been discovered, these water-finders, equipped with forked hazel-twigs which they hold over the ground they are crossing, are able to _see_, through the different strata of the soil, the position of the spring sought, and the spot where the well must be sunk. i don't despair of getting theophrastus to do for his treasures what the water-finders do for their springs. i shall take him to the place, and he will say, 'here's where you dig for the treasures.'" "but all this does not explain what you mean by my black feather," interrupted theophrastus. "i'm coming to it. i shall bring to this spot you, the treasure-seeker, as one brings the water-finder to the spot where one suspects the presence of water. i shall bring you there _when you have your black feather_." he paused, and then went on in his professorial tone: "i shall have to talk to you about darwin; but you needn't be uneasy: i shan't have to talk about him for long. you'll understand at once. you know that darwin devoted a great part of his life to some famous experiments of which the most famous were his experiments with pigeons. desirous of accounting for the phenomena of heredity, he studied closely the breeding of pigeons. he chose pigeons because the generations of pigeons follow one another so closely that one can draw conclusions from them in a comparatively short space of time. at the end of a certain number, call it x, of generations he found once more the same pigeon. you understand, the same pigeon, with the same defects and the same qualities, the same shape, the same structure, and _the same black feather_ in the very place where the first pigeon had a black feather. well, i, adolphe lecamus, maintain, and i will prove it to you, that to eyes opened by darwin it is the same with souls as with bodies. at the end of a number x of generations, one finds the same soul, exactly as it was originally, with the same defects and the same qualities, _with the same black feather_. do you understand?" "not quite," said theophrastus apologetically. "yet i'm lowering myself to the level of your intelligence," said adolphe, impatient but frank. "but it is necessary to distinguish between the soul which appears hereditarily and that which returns by reincarnation." "what do you mean?" said theophrastus rather faintly. "an hereditary soul which revives the ancestor _has always its black feather_, owing to the fact that it is the result of a unique combination, since it exists in the sheath, the body, which is hereditary to the same extent. is that clear?" "i notice that whenever you say, 'is that clear?' my dear adolphe, everything seems to go as dark as pitch," said marceline humbly. adolphe ground his teeth, and raised his voice: "whereas a soul which returns in the course of reincarnation finds itself in a body in which nothing has been prepared to receive it. the aggregate of the materials of this body have their origin in--i take theophrastus as example--several generations of cabbage-planters--" "gardeners--market-gardeners!" interjected theophrastus gently. "--at ferté-sous-jouarre. the aggregate of the materials of this body may for a while impose silence on this soul, originally perhaps--i am still taking theophrastus as an example--belonging to one of the first families in france. but there comes a time when the soul gets the upper hand; then it speaks, and shows itself in its entirety, exactly as it was originally, _with its black feather_." "i understand! i understand the whole business!" cried theophrastus joyfully. "then when this soul speaks in you," cried adolphe, warming to eloquence, "you're no longer yourself! theophrastus longuet has disappeared! it's the other who is there! the other who has the gestures, the air, the action, and _the black feather_ of the other! it's the other who will recall exactly the mystery of the treasures! it's the other who remembers the other!" "oh, this is wonderful!" cried theophrastus, almost in tears of joy. "i grasp now what you mean by my _black feather_. i shall have _my black feather_ when i'm the other!" "and we will help you in the matter, dear friend," said adolphe with unabated warmth. "but till we have disentangled the unknown who is hidden in theophrastus longuet, until he is alive before our very eyes with the right amount of force, daring, and energy, until, in a word, he appears with _his black feather_, let us calmly devote ourselves to the study of this interesting document which you brought back from the conciergerie. let us make it our pastime to penetrate its mystery, let us fix the limits of the space in which these treasures were buried. but let us wait before ransacking the bowels of the earth till the other, who is asleep in you, awakes and cries, 'it is here!'" "you speak like a book, adolphe!" cried marceline, overwhelmed with admiration. "but can we really expect the soil in which the treasures were buried to have remained undisturbed all these years--over two hundred?" "woman of little faith," said adolphe sternly, "they have been disturbing the sacred soil of the roman forum for over two thousand years as the soil of paris has never been disturbed; and it was only a few years ago that they brought to light the famous rostrum from which caius and tiberius poured forth their eloquence... ah, here's m. mifroid, my friend the commissary of police, whom i've so long wanted you to know. well, this is lucky!" a man of forty, dressed in the height of fashion and as neat as a new pin, with one white lock drawn carefully down on his unwrinkled brow, came up to them smiling, raised his hat, and shook adolphe warmly by the hand. "how are you?" said adolphe cordially. "let me introduce you to my friends. m. mifroid--madame longuet--m. longuet." from the glance of respectful admiration which he bestowed on her charming face marceline gathered that the commissary of police was also a squire of dames. "we have often heard our friend m. lecamus speak of you," she said with a gracious smile. "i feel that i have known you for a long time. every time i meet him, he talks about his friends of gerando street, and in such terms that the good fortune which this moment befalls me, this introduction, has been my most fervent desire," said m. mifroid gallantly. "i hear that you are an accomplished violinist," said marceline, delighted with his politeness. "accomplished? i don't know about accomplished: i _play_ the violin; and i am something of a sculptor and a student of philosophy--a taste which i owe to our friend m. lecamus here. and when i passed you just now, i heard you discussing the immortality of the soul," said m. mifroid, who wished to shine before the eyes of the pretty marceline. "adolphe and i love to discuss these serious questions; and just now we were discussing the body and soul and the relations between them," said theophrastus with a very fair imitation of the professorial air of adolphe. "haven't you got beyond that?" said m. mifroid, burning to shine. "in the eyes of science matter and spirit are one and the same thing, that is to say, they constitute the same unity in the same force, at once result and phenomenon, cause and effect, moving towards the same end: the progressive ascent of being. you two gentlemen are the only people left to make this distinction between matter and spirit." theophrastus was a trifle huffed: "we do the best we can," he said stiffly. the little party had come into the place de la concorde. at the top of the rue royale there was a large crowd of people, shouting and gesticulating. at once theophrastus, like a true parisian, was on fire to learn what was going on, and plunged into the heart of the crowd. "mind you don't get your pockets picked!" cried marceline after him. "oh, you needn't be afraid of getting your pocket picked when you're in the company of commissary mifroid," said that gentleman proudly. "that's true," said marceline with an amiable smile. "you are here; and we run no risk at all." "i don't know about that," said adolphe slyly. "my friend mifroid appears to me more dangerous than all the pickpockets on the face of the earth--to the heart." "ah, he will have his joke!" said m. mifroid laughing; but he assumed his most conquering air. theophrastus kept them standing there for fully ten minutes before he emerged from the crowd with his eyes shining very brightly. "it's a cab-driver who has locked his wheel with that of a motor car," he said. "and what has happened?" said marceline. "why, he can't unlock it," said theophrastus. "and all this crowd about a trifle like that! how silly people are!" said marceline. thereupon she invited m. mifroid to come home and dine with them. he needed but a little pressing to accept the invitation; and they strolled slowly back to gerando street. the dinner was very lively, for m. mifroid was still bent on shining; and his example spurred adolphe to splendid emulation. it was when they were taking their coffee at the end of dinner that m. mifroid suddenly seemed uneasy. he felt in all his pockets, trying to find his handkerchief. his search was vain; it was not there. after a final search in the pockets in the tails of his frock-coat, he ground his teeth, gave his moustache a despairing tug, and took a deep breath. two minutes later theophrastus blew his nose. marceline asked him where he had got that pretty handkerchief. m. mifroid looked at it and saw that it was his. he laughed somewhat awkwardly, declared that it was an excellent joke, took it from theophrastus, and put it in his pocket. theophrastus could not understand it at all. suddenly m. mifroid turned pale, and felt in his left-hand breast pocket. "goodness! what has become of my pocket-book?" he cried. the explanation of its absence was entirely simple: someone had picked the pocket of the commissary of police of his pocket-book with five hundred francs in it. m. mifroid did not so much regret the loss of the five hundred francs as he was furious to find himself ridiculous. marceline made fun of him gently as she condoled with him on its loss; she could not help it. he was furious indeed. "let me lend you any money you want for to-night, m. mifroid," said theophrastus amiably. he pulled out a pocket-book. m. mifroid uttered a sharp cry: it was his own pocket-book! theophrastus turned a rich scarlet. m. mifroid stared at him, took the pocket-book from his trembling fingers, recovered his five hundred francs, and put them in his pocket. then he forthwith began to make a hundred pressing occupations his excuse for taking a hurried leave of them, and said good-bye. as he was clattering down the staircase, he called back up it, with some heat, to his friend adolphe, who had hurried out of the flat after him: "whoever are these people you have introduced me to?" adolphe said nothing; he wiped his perspiring brow. the clattering footsteps of m. mifroid died away down the stairs; and he went slowly back into the dining-room. theophrastus had just finished turning out his pockets. on the table lay three watches, six handkerchiefs, four pocket-books, containing considerable sums of money, and eighteen purses! chapter vi the portrait the three friends stared at the three watches, the six handkerchiefs, the four pocket-books, and the eighteen purses in a blank and silent consternation. there was indeed nothing to be said. a dreadful despair rested on the face of theophrastus; but he was the first to break the heavy silence. "my pockets are _quite_ empty," he said. "oh, theophrastus--theophrastus!" moaned marceline reproachfully. "my poor friend," said adolphe; and he groaned. theophrastus wiped away the cold sweat from his brow with a handkerchief of which he did not know the owner. "i see what it is," he said in a despairing tone. "i've had my _black feather_." marceline and adolphe said nothing; they were utterly overwhelmed. theophrastus looked from one to the other and wiped the glasses of his spectacles. his face cleared a little; and then he said with a faint smile: "_perhaps after all, in those days, it was a parlour game._" he stuck the index finger of his right hand into his mouth, with him a sign of grave preoccupation of spirit. marceline heaved a deep sigh and said, "take your finger out of your mouth, dear, and tell us how it came about that you had on you three watches, six handkerchiefs, four pocket-books, and eighteen purses, without counting the handkerchief and pocket-book of commissary mifroid. i turned your pockets out this morning to brush the linings; and as usual there was nothing in them but a few scraps of tobacco." "there was a large gathering in the place de la concorde. i plunged into it; and i came out of it with all these things. it's quite simple," said theophrastus. "and what are we going to do with them?" said adolphe in solemn tones. "what do you want me to do with them?" said theophrastus sharply, for he was recovering a little from the shock. "you don't suppose i'm going to keep them! is it my habit to keep things which don't belong to me? i'm an honest man; and i have never wronged a soul. you'll take these things to your friend the commissary of police. it will be easy enough for him to find the owners." "and what am i to tell him?" said adolphe with a harried air. "anything you like!" cried theophrastus, beginning to lose his temper. "does an honest cabman who finds a pocket-book and fifty thousand francs in his cab and takes them to the police station, bother about what he is going to tell the inspector? he says, 'i've found this in my cab,' and that's enough. he even gets a reward. all you have to say is: 'my friend longuet asked me to bring you these things which he found in his pocket, and he doesn't ask for any reward.'" he spoke in a tone of impatient contempt for the intelligence of adolphe, a tone to which adolphe was quite unused. adolphe frowned with ruffled dignity and was about to retort sharply, when marceline kicked him gently under the table, a little kick which said plainly: "theophrastus is going off his head! come, friend, to his rescue!" adolphe understood the message of that little shoe: the frown faded from his face, leaving on it only an expression of supernal gloom; he looked at the eighteen purses, scratched his nose, and coughed. then he gazed at theophrastus and said in very solemn tones: "what has just happened, theophrastus, is not natural. we must try to find the explanation of it; we must force ourselves to find the explanation. it's no use shutting our eyes; we must open them, as wide as we can, to the misfortune, if it is misfortune, in order to battle with it." "what misfortune?" said theophrastus, suddenly becoming his timid self again, and catching distressfully at marceline's hand. "it's always a misfortune to have other people's property in one's pocket," said adolphe gloomily. "and what else is there in the pockets of conjurors?" cried theophrastus with fresh violence. "and conjurors are very honest men; and theophrastus longuet is a very honest man! _by the throttle of madame phalaris_, he is!" he shouted this out; then fell back exhausted in his chair. there was a gloomy silence. presently he sat up again, and with tears in his eyes said plaintively: "i feel that adolphe is right. i am threatened by some great misfortune and i don't know what it is--i don't know what it is!" he burst into tears; and marceline and adolphe strove in vain to comfort him. but after a while he dried his tears, grasped a hand of either, and said in a firmer voice: "swear--swear never to abandon me _whatever happens_." they promised in all good faith; and the assurance seemed to cheer him a little. then adolphe asked him to let him see the document again; and he fetched it. adolphe spread it out before him and studied it intently. presently he nodded his head sagely and said: "do you ever dream, theophrastus?" "do i ever dream? well, i suppose i do sometimes. but my digestion is so good that i hardly ever remember my dreams." "never?" persisted adolphe. "oh, i couldn't go so far as to say never," said theophrastus. "in fact, i remember having dreamt four or five times in my life. i remember it because i always woke up at the same point in the dream; and it was always the same dream. but how on earth does it affect this business which is worrying us?" "dreams have never been explained by science," said adolphe solemnly. "it fancies that it has said everything when it has ascribed them to the effect of the imagination. but it gives us no explanation of the quite clear and distinct visions we sometimes have which have nothing whatever to do with the events or preoccupations of the previous day. in particular how are we to account for those visions of actually existing things which one has never seen in the waking state, things of which one has never even thought? who will dare to say that they are not retrospective visions of events which have taken place before our present existence?" "as a matter of fact, adolphe, i can assure you that the things of which i dream--and i remember now that i have dreamt of them three times--are perhaps real in the past or future, but that i have never seen them in the present." "you understand my point," said adolphe in a gratified tone. "but what are these things you have dreamt of but never seen?" "that won't take long to tell and thank goodness for it, for they're not particularly pleasant. i dreamt that i was married to a wife whom i called marie-antoinette and who annoyed me extremely." "and then?" said adolphe, whose eyes never quitted the document. "and then i cut her up into little bits," said theophrastus, blushing faintly. "what a horrible thing to do!" cried marceline. "as a matter of fact it was rather horrible," said theophrastus. "and then i put the pieces into a basket and was going to throw them into the seine near the little bridge of the hôtel-de-ville. at that point i awoke; and i was jolly glad to awake, for it wasn't a pleasant dream." "it's awful!" cried adolphe; and he banged his fist down on the table. "isn't it?" said marceline. "not the dream! but i've just succeeded in reading the whole of the first line of the document! that's what's awful!" groaned adolphe. "what is it? what have you found out?" cried theophrastus in a panic-stricken tone as he sprang up to pore over the document. "it reads _i rt uried my treasures_. and you don't know what that _rt_ stands for? well, i'm not going to tell you till i have made absolutely sure. i shall be absolutely sure by to-morrow. to-morrow, theophrastus, at two o'clock, meet me at the corner of guénégaud and mazarine streets." he rose. "in the meantime i'll take these things along to my friend mifroid, who will restore them to their owners. good-night, and courage, theophrastus--above everything--courage!" he shook theophrastus' hand, with the lingering pressure with which one shakes the hand of a relation of the corpse at a funeral, and departed. that night theophrastus did not sleep. while marceline breathed peacefully by his side, he lay awake staring into the darkness. his own breathing was irregular and broken by deep sighs. a heavy oppression weighed on his heart. the day dawned on paris gloomily faint and dirty, throwing over its buildings a sinister veil. in vain did the summer sun strive to penetrate that thick and smoky air. noon, the hour of its triumph, showed only a dull ball, rolling ingloriously in a sulphurous mist. at six o'clock theophrastus suddenly jumped out of bed, and awoke marceline by a burst of insensate laughter. she asked the reason of his strange mirth; and he answered that nature had not given him a mouth large enough to laugh at the face commissary mifroid, who did not believe in pickpockets, would pull at the sight of adolphe emptying his pockets of the collection with which he had stuffed them. then he went on to say in the tone of an official instructor: "it's the work of a child to take a purse out of a pocket. if you can't get your hand in, insert a straw covered with bird-lime. that device is excellent in crowd-work." marceline sat up in bed and stared at him. theophrastus had never worn a more natural air. he was pulling on his pants. "there's a button off the waist-band," he grumbled. "you terrify me, theophrastus!" said marceline in a shaky voice. "and a good job too!" said her husband, going down on his hands and knees to recover his braces which had fallen under the bed. "one only does good work with a good woman. and i can't do anything with you. you will never be a good bustler." "a good--what?" "a good bustler. next time you go to the maison-dorée, buy me a pair of braces. these are rotten. you don't even know what a bustler is. you ought to be ashamed of yourself at your age. a bustler is a person of your sex who is clever at hiding anything one gets hold of in her frock. i never had a better bustler than jenny venus." "my poor child!" groaned marceline. an access of furious anger seized theophrastus. he dashed at the bed brandishing the button-hook, and cried: "you know--you know perfectly well that i've forbidden anyone to call me '_child_' ever since the death of jenny venus!" marceline promised that she would never do it again. but oh, how profoundly she regretted having become, along with her husband, the owner of a document which promised them treasures, but which brought into their home trouble, fear, violence, madness, and the inexplicable. after marie-antoinette came jenny venus. she was unacquainted with either lady; and she had no desire to make their acquaintance. but theophrastus spoke of them with a disquieting familiarity. in truth the unexpected phrases which fell from his lips, while filling her with a dread of the theophrastus of two hundred years ago, made her regret indeed the theophrastus, so easy to understand, of a few days before. she thought of the theory of reincarnation with the unkindest feelings. theophrastus had finished dressing. he complained bitterly that a tear in his flowered waistcoat had not been mended. then he said that he would not lunch at home, since he had an appointment to meet his _friend old easy-going_, at the corner of guénégaud and mazarine streets, _to play a trick on a monsieur de traneuse, an engineer officer for whom he had a strong dislike_; but since the appointment was after lunch, he thought he would go and _take the air at the chopinettes mill_ first. marceline was trembling pitiably. she hardly had the strength to say: "it's very bad weather to go to chopinettes mill." "bah! _i'll leave my green umbrella at home and take my black feather with me_," said theophrastus. with that he went out, putting the finishing touch to his cravat as he went. on the staircase he met signor petito; and they went down it together. signor petito greeted m. longuet with the most respectful politeness, complained of the state of the weather, and paid him a thousand compliments on his air of good health. theophrastus responded grumpily to these polite advances; and since, when they came out of the house, signor petito showed no intention of quitting him, he asked unpleasantly whether the signora petito could not be persuaded to learn some other infernal tune besides the _carnival of venice_. signor petito affected not to notice his carping tone and replied with an amiable smile that she was just going to begin to practise _the star of love_, and she would be charmed in the future to devote her talent to any piece which took m. longuet's fancy. then even more amiably he said: "and which way are you going, m. longuet?" theophrastus looked at him with suspicious disfavour and answered: "i was going to take a turn round chopinettes mill; but the weather is certainly too bad for that: so i am going down to the porkers." "to the porkers?" said signor petito quickly; and he was going to ask where the porkers was, when he thought better of it, and said, "so am i." "indeed? indeed?" said theophrastus, eyeing him strangely. "so you're going to the porkers too?" "there or elsewhere: it's all the same to me," said signor petito; and he laughed a most amiable laugh. they walked along side by side in silence for a while, till signor petito mustered up his courage to ask a question: "and how are you getting on with your treasures, m. longuet?" he said. theophrastus turned on him with a savage air, and cried, "what the deuce has it got to do with you?" "don't you remember bringing, a little while ago, for my opinion on the handwriting--" "i remember quite well! but you--you'd jolly well better forget!" interrupted theophrastus in a tone of dry menace; and he opened his green umbrella. signor petito, entirely unabashed, took shelter under it, saying amiably, "oh, i didn't ask the question to annoy you, m. longuet." they had reached the corner of martyrs' street in the trudaine avenue; and they turned down it, theophrastus glowering. then he said, "i've an appointment at the sucking-pig tavern next to the porkers' chapel, and here we are, signor petito." "but that's notre-dame-de-lorette and not porkers' chapel at all!" cried signor petito. "i don't like to be contradicted to my face!" snarled theophrastus, looking at him with a very evil eye and baring his teeth. signor petito protested that he had no intention in the world of doing anything of the kind. "to my face--i'm well aware that mine is a valuable head," said theophrastus, regarding signor petito with an air which grew stranger and stranger. "do you know how much it is worth, signor petito, the _child's_ head? no?... well, since an opportunity offers, i'm going to tell you. and while i'm about it, i'll tell you a little story which may be useful to you. come into the sucking-pig." "b--b--but this is the café b--b--boussets," stammered signor petito, who was growing frightened. "the mist has muddled you. you've missed your way among _all these ploughed fields_," said theophrastus, sitting down on a bench before one of the tables. then he laughed on a very sinister note, and went on: "so you wanted to annoy me, m. petito. so much the worse for you. what will you have to drink? a glass of ratafia? the excellent madame taconet[ ] who keeps this tavern has set aside a bottle for me which will warm your in'ards." [footnote : theophrastus was quite accurate in these historical details. i have discovered that a madame taconet did keep, two hundred years ago, the sucking-pig tavern, close to porkers' chapel which was pulled down in , and on its site the chapel of notre-dame-de-lorette was erected. all this district, north west of the boulevard des italiens, was covered, two hundred years ago, with ploughed fields, market-gardens, country houses, and porkers' village. the sucking-pig tavern had the worst of reputations, for madame taconet sheltered in it all the most abandoned ruffians in paris.] and as a waiter in his white apron came up to the table, without a change of tone theophrastus added, "two draught lagers; and we don't want them all froth." thus, without any transition, without even noticing it, did he join his present-day existence to his existence of two hundred years before. signor petito was already full of the liveliest regret at having insisted on accompanying a man who fancied he was in the sucking-pig tavern, when the waiter brought the beer and set it on the table. theophrastus said, "my head is worth twenty thousand francs; and well you know it!" he accompanied the "and well you know it!" with a bang of his fist on the table which made the glasses ring and signor petito jump. "don't be frightened, signor petito: your beer isn't spilt," theophrastus went on in a jeering tone. "you know then, my good sir, that my head is worth twenty thousand francs; but you'd better act as if you didn't, or some unpleasantness will befall you. i promised you a story. well, here it is: "_just about two hundred years ago_ i was walking along vaugirard street, with my hands in my pockets and without a weapon of any kind on me, not even a sword, when a man accosted me at the corner of the street, greeted me with all the politeness imaginable and declared that my face had taken his fancy--just as you said and did, signor petito!--that his name was bidel, and all his friends called him good old bidel, and he had a secret to confide to me. i encouraged him with a friendly tap on the shoulder." at this point theophrastus fetched signor petito such a thump on the shoulder that it drew a short howl from him; and he pulled out his money under the constraining desire to go out and see if the mist had dispersed. "put away your money, signor petito, i'm paying for the drinks!" said theophrastus sharply; and he went on in his easy, conversational tone. "well, good old bidel, encouraged by my friendly tap," signor petito slipped along the bench, "told me his secret. he whispered in my ear that the regent had offered twenty thousand francs to anyone who would arrest the _child_; that he, good old bidel, knew where the _child_ was hiding; that i looked to him to be a man of courage, and that with my help he ought to go pretty near getting that twenty thousand francs. we would share it." theophrastus paused to laugh a laugh which froze signor petito's blood. "good old bidel was not in luck's way, signor petito, for i too knew where the _child_ was hiding, since the _child_ was me!" signor petito did not believe a word of it. it was his firm opinion that m. longuet had ceased to be a child months ago. but he dared not say so. "i answered good old bidel that it was a regular windfall, and that i was thankful indeed that he had chanced on me; and i begged him to take me straight to the place where the _child_ was hiding. he said: "'to-night the _child_ will sleep at the capucins, at the inn of the golden cross.' "it was true, signor petito. good old bidel's information was o.k.; and i congratulated him on it. we were passing a cutler's shop; and i went in, and under the astonished eyes of good old bidel bought _a little penny knife_." the eyes of theophrastus blazed; and the eyes of signor petito blinked. "when we came out into the street, good old bidel asked me what on earth i was going to do with _a little penny knife_. i replied, 'with a little penny knife'"--m. longuet moved nearer to signor petito; signor petito moved further from m. longuet--"'one can always kill a _coppers' nark_!' and i jammed it into his ribs! he waved his arms round like a windmill and fell down dead!" he laughed his blood-freezing laugh again; but signor petito was not attending to it: he had slipped along the bench and under it. he crawled swiftly under bench after bench, to the astonishment of the staff of the café, gained the door, plunged through it, and bolted down the street. m. theophrastus longuet drained his glass and rose. he went to the desk, where mlle. bertha was counting the brass disks, and said to her: "madame taconet,"--mlle. bertha asked herself with some surprise why m. longuet called her madame taconet; but the question met with no response,--"if that little petito comes here again, tell him from me that the next time i come across him, _i'll clip his ears for him_." so saying, theophrastus stroked the handle of his green umbrella as one strokes the hilt of a dagger, and went out without paying. there can be no reasonable doubt that theophrastus had his _black feather_. the fog was still thick. he forgot all about lunching. he walked through the sulphurous mist as in a dream. he crossed the old quartier d'antin and what was formerly called bishop's town. when he saw dimly the towers of the trinité, he muttered, "ah, the towers of cock castle!" he was at st. lazare station when he fancied that he was in "little poland." but little by little, as the mist cleared, his dream vanished with it. he had a more accurate idea of things. when he crossed the seine at pont-royal, he had once more become honest theophrastus, and when he set foot on the left bank of the river he had but a vague memory of what had happened on the other side. but he had that memory. in fact, when he examined himself closely, he found that he was beginning to experience three different mental states: first, that which arose from his actual existence as an honest manufacturer of rubber stamps; second, that which arose from the sudden and passing resurrection of the _other_; third, that which arose from memory. while the resurrection of the _other_ was, while it lasted, a terrible business, the memory was a pleasant and melancholy frame of mind, calculated to induce in a sorrowful heart a feeling of gentle sadness and philosophic pity. as he turned his steps towards guénégaud street, he asked himself idly why adolphe had fixed the corner of guénégaud and mazarine streets as their meeting-place. he took a round-about way to that corner, for _he could not bring himself to walk along the strip of mazarine street_ where it runs along the palace of the institute, formerly the four nations. _he did not know the reason of this reluctance._ he went round by de la monnaie house, and so came into guénégaud street. adolphe was awaiting him, with a very gloomy face, at the corner, and slipped his arm into his. "have you ever heard anyone speak of someone called the _child_, adolphe?" said theophrastus, after they had greeted one another. "i have indeed," said adolphe in a tone as gloomy as his face. "and i know his name, his family name." "ah, what is it?" said theophrastus anxiously. for all reply adolphe pushed him along a little passage leading to an old house in guénégaud street, a few doors off de la monnaie house. they went into the house, up a shaky staircase, and into a room in which the window curtains were drawn. it had been darkened purposely. but on a little table in a corner a flickering candle threw its light on a portrait. it was the portrait of a man of thirty, of a powerful face, with "flashing" eyes. the brow was high, the nose big, the strong, square chin shaven; the large mouth was surmounted by a bristly moustache. on the bushy hair was a cap of wool or rough leather; and the dress appeared to be that of a convict. a coarse linen shirt was half open across the hairy chest. "goodness!" said theophrastus without raising his voice. "how did _my portrait_ get into this house?" "your portrait?" cried adolphe. "are you sure?" "_who could be surer than i?_" said theophrastus calmly. "well--well--" said adolphe lecamus in a choking voice, his face contorted by an expression of the most painful emotion. "this portrait, which is your portrait, is the portrait of that great eighteenth-century king of thieves, cartouche!" theophrastus stared at the portrait with eyes that opened and opened as a sickly pallor overspread his anguished face; a little grunt broke from his parted lips, and he dropped to the ground in a dead faint. adolphe dropped on his knees beside him, unfastened his collar, and slapped his hands vigorously. then he blew out the candle, turned the portrait with its face to the wall, and opened the window. theophrastus was a long time recovering his senses. when he did, his first words were: "on no account tell my wife, adolphe!" chapter vii the young cartouche on the morrow of this terrible discovery theophrastus and marceline sought once more the calm joys of azure waves villa. theophrastus had not said a word of the shocking business; and marceline had not dared question him about it so that she was still ignorant of their dreadful misfortune. a blank consternation reigned perpetually on his gentle face; and every now and then tears filled his kind eyes. adolphe, who had remained in paris to make researches into the life of the famous king of thieves, was to join them in a couple of days; and the hours till his coming passed gloomily indeed: marceline pottered about the house, busy with her household tasks; theophrastus silently prepared his fishing-tackle, and on the afternoon of the second day fished with very little luck. but the third day dawned bright and sunny; and theophrastus, who had passed a good night, showed an easier face of less dismayed expression; about his lips hovered a shadow of a smile. adolphe lecamus came to esbly station by the . train, and was welcomed with transports of joy. they went straight to déjeuner, and did not rise from the table till two o'clock. marceline once more breathed peacefully in the presence of their faithful friend; and theophrastus regaled him with a detailed account of his afternoon's impassioned, but unsuccessful, fishing. m. lecamus said little; but after his coffee he helped himself to a third glass of a curaçoa which he appreciated far more highly than it deserved. after lunch theophrastus loaded himself with rods, lines, and bait; adolphe took the landing-net; they bade marceline good-bye; and walked down to the marne with the quiet gait of men who have lunched well. "i have got everything ready for your afternoon's sport," said theophrastus, when they reached its banks. "while you fish i will listen to your news and amuse myself by trolling. it's all i'm fit for. i've a can full of minnows under the willows. i am prepared for the worst." adolphe said nothing; and when he was baiting his hook, theophrastus said, with a touch of impatience in his tone, "well?" "well, my news is good and bad," said adolphe. "but i must warn you that it's more bad than good: no doubt they have invented a good many stories about you; but the truth is bad enough for anything." "your information is correct?" said theophrastus with a sigh. "i went to the source, the original documents," said adolphe. "i'll tell you what i learned; _and you can set me right if i go wrong_." "go on," said theophrastus in a tone of patient resignation. "i must make the best of it." "in the first place _you were born in the month of october, , and you are named louis-dominique cartouche--_" "there's no point in calling me cartouche," interrupted theophrastus, pulling a minnow out of the bait-can. "there's no reason anyone should know it. you know what these country people are: they'd laugh at the idea. call me the _child_: i prefer it." "you agree that _cartouche_ is your real name and not a nickname?" persisted adolphe. "cut it out! cut it out! it's a vile name!" said theophrastus impatiently. "they relate that you were well educated at clermont college and were a pupil there at the same time as voltaire. but that's a mere legend: unless you learnt to read from the gipsies, you never learnt to read at all." "i like that!" cried theophrastus. "how could i have learnt to write unless i knew how to read? and if i didn't know how to write, how could i have written the document i hid in the cellars of the conciergerie?" "that's reasonable enough. but at your trial--" "did i have a trial?" interrupted theophrastus eagerly. "i should think you did--a very famous trial!" said adolphe. "and at your trial you declared that you did not know how to write. you signed all your depositions with a cross, and you never wrote a line to a single soul." "because one never should put anything in writing," said theophrastus firmly. "i was doubtless afraid to compromise myself. none the less the document exists." "that's true. but let us go back to your eleventh year. one day you went with some of your school-fellows to saint-laurent fair--" "look here, adolphe: couldn't you put it differently? you keep saying, '_you_ went with your school-fellows to saint-laurent fair' ... '_you_ were born in ' ... 'you were a school-fellow of voltaire.' after all, though i admit i was _car_--" he stopped short--"the _child_, i am also theophrastus longuet; and i can assure you that theophrastus longuet is not at all flattered at having been _car_--the _child_. give everyone his due. i should be much obliged if you'd put it that 'the _child_ went with his school-fellows.'" "certainly--certainly. at saint-laurent fair little cartouche--" "the _child_!" "but you weren't yet called the _child_--you weren't called the _child_ till you were a man--" "well, say, 'little louis-dominique.'" "louis-dominique fell among a troop of gipsies--" "that shows you that parents ought never to let their children go to fairs alone," said theophrastus solemnly. "the gipsies carried him off; they stole him--" "poor little louis-dominique: he deserves our pity," said theophrastus in a tone of warm compassion. "do they express pity for him in the books?" "they say that he made no difficulties about being stolen." "and what do they know about it!" cried theophrastus indignantly. "well, the gipsies taught him cudgel-play, fencing, pistol-shooting, the art of springing from roof to roof, juggling, tumbling--" "all very useful things," said theophrastus in a tone of approval. "they taught him to empty the pockets of tradesmen and gentlemen without their perceiving it. oh, he was a nice boy! no one could touch him at collaring handkerchiefs, snuff-boxes, watches, sword-knots--" "that was not at all nice!" cried theophrastus in scandalised tones. "oh! if that were all!" said adolphe gloomily. "the troop of gipsies was at rouen, when louis-dominique fell ill." "poor little boy! he was never meant for such a life," cried theophrastus compassionately. "he was sent to the rouen hospital; and there a brother of his father found him. he recognised him, embraced him with tears of joy, and swore to restore him to his parents." "a fine fellow that uncle! louis-dominique was saved!" cried theophrastus joyfully. m. lecamus lost patience, turned sharply on theophrastus and begged him to cease his continual interruptions, declaring that it would take him a good ten years to tell the story of cartouche, if he could not bring himself to listen without these comments. "it's all very well for you to say that!" said theophrastus with some heat. "but i should like to see _you_ in my place! however, i'll do as you want; but just tell me first if cartouche was as redoubtable as they say: was he a brigand chief?" "he was indeed." "of many brigands?" "at paris alone he commanded about three thousand men." "three thousand? goodness! that's a lot!" "you had more than fifty lieutenants; and there were always about a city twenty men dressed exactly like you--in a reddish brown coat, lined with amaranthine silk, and wearing a patch of black cloth over the left eye--to put the police off your track." "oh, ho! it was a household of some size!" said theophrastus, in a tone of irrepressible pride. "they attribute to you more than a hundred and fifty murders by your own hand." all this while theophrastus had been trolling with a minnow without having had the slightest reason to suspect the existence of any fish in the waters of the marne with the slightest appetite for his living bait. of a sudden, the float which the minnow was drawing gently along among the green hearts of the water-lilies seemed smitten with frenzy. it leapt out of the water and plunged into it again, with such an unexpected swiftness and in such a resolute haste that it disappeared in the depths, carrying with it all the line which united it to the rod which united it to the hand of theophrastus. the unfortunate thing was that after having taken after it all the line, it also took with it all the rod--with the result that nothing whatever united it any longer to the empty hand of theophrastus. "the blackguard!" cried theophrastus, with a gesture of despair, in such a manner that it is impossible to say whether he used that strong expression, so rare in his mouth, about the murderer of the past or the fish of the present. he added however: "it must have weighed a good four pounds!" taking everything into account, theophrastus appeared to regret the loss of his fish more bitterly than his hundred and fifty murders. adolphe condoled with him and went on with his story. "this good uncle," he said, "rescued little cartouche from his wretched condition, took him from the rouen hospital, and restored him to his parents. there was joy in cabbage-bridge street--it was at number nine cabbage-bridge street that little cartouche was born and his father followed the trade of cooper. louis-dominique, warned by his early misfortunes, swore that for the future there should not be a more obedient son or steadier apprentice than he in all paris. he helped his good father make casks; and it was a pleasure to see him ply the hammer and adze from early dawn to dewy eve. he seemed to be making it his first business to forget his disastrous truancy. the few months he had passed in the company of the gipsies had however been of some service to him in that they had taught him some of the arts of pleasing; and in the dinner hour he would amuse his fellow workmen by conjuring tricks, and on holidays there was a rush to invite his family to dinner in order that the company might be amused by his dexterity and humour. he was a great success in the neighbourhood; and his growing renown filled him with pride. "in these occupations he reached that happy age at which the least sensible of human beings feels his beating heart awake the tenderest sentiments in him; and louis-dominique fell in love. the object of his affections was charming. she was a little milliner of portefoin street, with blue eyes, golden hair, a slender figure, and coquettish in the extreme--" "but i see nothing wrong in all this," theophrastus interrupted. "it's all very natural, and shows no signs of depravity whatever. how he turned out so badly passes my comprehension." adolphe looked at him gloomily and said, "i've just told you that the little milliner was a coquette. she was fond of dress and finery and trinkets, and burned to outshine her friends. very soon the modest earnings of louis-dominique did not suffice to pay for her fancies--" "oh, these women!" cried theophrastus, clenching his fists. "you seem to forget that you have a wife who is your chief joy and pride," said adolphe with some severity. "that's true," said theophrastus. "but you forget that i am as deeply interested in the adventures of the _child_ as if they were my own; and i am naturally irritated to see him so seriously compromise his future for the sake of a little milliner of portefoin street." "well, presently he robbed his father; and his father was not long finding it out. he obtained an order of committal by which he could make his son enter the convent of the lazarists of the faubourg saint-denis, which was really a house of correction." "just like parents!" said theophrastus bitterly. "instead of combating the evil instincts of their children by kindness, they drive them to despair by shutting them up in these villainous reformatories, where they only find bad examples, and where the spirit of revolt ferments, gathers force, boils over, and suffocates every other sentiment in their innocent young souls. i'd bet anything that if they had not shut up louis-dominique in a house of correction, none of the rest would have followed!" "you needn't worry about that," said adolphe drily. "louis-dominique was not shut up in a house of correction." "how did that come about?" said theophrastus in a less eloquent tone. "his father did not inform him of his discovery of his thefts, but one sunday morning he invited him to come for a stroll. louis-dominique went with him with pleasure, for he was in a very good temper and had put on his best clothes with the intention of taking his sweetheart to the palais-royal in the afternoon. but when his father took the way to the faubourg saint-denis, louis-dominique began to prick up his ears. he knew that at the end of the faubourg were the lazarists; and he also knew that parents sometimes took their children to the lazarists. however, he showed none of the distrust which sprang from his uneasy conscience; but when they came to the corner of paradise street, and the buildings of saint-lazare rose before them, it seemed to louis-dominique that his father wore a strained air; and he took an instant dislike to the neighbourhood. he lagged a little behind. "when his father turned to look for him, louis-dominique had disappeared; and he was never to see him again." "and quite right too!" cried theophrastus hotly. "in his place i should have done exactly the same!" "_but you were in his place_," said adolphe. "ah, yes--yes--of course i was! i keep forgetting it," said theophrastus with less heat. [illustration: theophrastus still gazed in wonder (_see page _)] "well, you were next heard of in a disreputable house on the other side of the seine. your pretty manners were found pleasing by frequenters of the _three tuns_ tavern at the corner of rat street. but since there was no credit on that side of the seine, you were presently under the necessity of using the accomplishments you had learned from the gipsies and betook yourself to lightening the pockets of passers-by of everything that weighed them down: snuff-boxes, purses, handkerchiefs, bon-bon boxes, and patch-boxes. "after a while you became the confederate of a rascal of the name galichon, who had taken a great fancy to you. you married his wife's sister. marriage became quite a habit of yours; for, when at the end of six months galichon, his wife, and his wife's sister were condemned to the galleys, you married an uncommonly clever pickpocket of bucherie street, and with her pursued your trade in the palais-royal." "disgraceful!" cried theophrastus, overwhelmed with shame. "but presently you were blown upon, and compelled to put your cunning at the disposal of the recruiting sergeants. the method of recruiting in those days was quite simple: the recruiting sergeants, to whom one brought simple young fellows or ragged ne'er-do-wells without a home, made everybody drunk; and when they awoke next morning, sober, they found that they had enlisted; and off to the wars they had to go. you provided the recruiting sergeants with recruits at a fixed price. but you were caught in your own trap; for having brought two young fellows to a recruiting sergeant one evening, you made merry with them at a tavern called 'the sweethearts of montrueil,' and awoke next morning to find that you had signed on yourself, you were the recruiter recruited." "well, i don't complain of that," said theophrastus. "i always had a taste for the army. besides, if i signed on, it proves that i could write; and you can tell the historians so from me." a clock at esbly chimed half-past six, and warned them that it was time to go home to dinner. adolphe broke off his story and took his rod to pieces; and they started for home. on the way theophrastus said: "tell me, adolphe: what was i like? i'm curious to know. i was a fine man, wasn't i? big and well made?" "you are like that on the stage in that piece of ennery's. but, as a matter of fact, you were, according to the poet granval, a man who knew you well and chanted your glory--" "my what?" cried theophrastus. "your sanguinary glory--you were: 'brown, dried-up, thin, and small, by courage great, reckless and brisk, robust, alert, adroit.'" theophrastus frowned as if he would have preferred a more romantic picture; then he said, "you haven't told me how you got hold of that portrait in the house in guénégaud street." "it's a copy of a photograph by nadar." "but how on earth did nadar take my photograph?" cried theophrastus in extreme surprise. "he took it from a wax mask which must have been very like you, since it was moulded from your face by the order of the regent. nadar photographed this mask on the th of january, ." "and where is it to be found?" said theophrastus eagerly. "at the château de saint-germain." "i must see that mask!" cried theophrastus, "i must see it and touch it! we will go to saint-germain to-morrow." at that moment the smiling marceline opened the door of azure waves villa for them. chapter viii the wax mask at this point i let theophrastus once more take up the narrative. "i had the strongest desire," he writes, "to see and touch that wax which had been moulded on my own skin; and this desire grew, if possible, stronger when adolphe told me that the château of saint-germain-en-laye had contained the wax portrait of the famous cartouche since the th of april, . it had been presented to it by an abbé niallier, who had inherited it under the will of a monsieur richot, an officer of the household of louis xvi, who had had it for many years. it was all the more valuable for having belonged to the royal family. "this bust was moulded by a florentine artist a few days before my execution. on it is a cap of wool or rough leather; and it is dressed in a coarse linen shirt covered with soot, and a waistcoat and a jacket of black camlet. but the most extraordinary thing about it is, that my hair and moustache were cut off after i was executed, and glued on to my mask! the portrait is enclosed in a large, deep, gilded frame, a very pretty piece of work. a sheet of venetian glass protects the portrait; and one can still see on the frame faint traces of the arms of france. "i asked adolphe how he had obtained these exact details. he answered that they were the result of two days' work in the national library. "my hair! my moustache! my clothes! all as they were two hundred years ago! in spite of the horror with which the relics of a man who had committed so many crimes should have inspired me, i could hardly contain myself in my impatience to see and touch them. o mystery of nature! profound abyss of the soul! giddy precipice of the heart! i, theophrastus longuet, whose name is the synonym of honour, i who was always afraid of bloodshed, i already _cherished_ in my heart the relics of the greatest brigand in the world! "when i recovered my senses after the sight of the portrait in guénégaud street, i was at first amazed not to find myself in a state of despair bitter enough to disgust me with life, and plunge me once more into the tomb. no: i did not dream of suppressing this envelope, with the face of an honest man, which in the twentieth century was labelled 'theophrastus longuet,' which enclosed and bore about the world the soul of cartouche. undoubtedly at the first moment of such a revelation the least i could do was to faint; and i did so. but instead of finding despair in my heart i found a great compassion, which not only drew tears from me for the misfortune of myself, theophrastus, but also for cartouche. i asked myself in fact which was having the best time of it, the honest theophrastus dragging the brigand cartouche about inside him or the brigand cartouche shut up in the honest theophrastus. "'we must try and understand one another,' i said out loud. "the words had scarcely passed my lips when a dazzling light broke on me, as i recalled the theory of reincarnation which m. lecamus had revealed to me. "the whole object of evolution is the evolution of the reincarnate soul towards the better. it is the progressive ascent of being of which commissary mifroid had spoken to us with such delightful earnestness. it was quite plain that the powers who regulate the process of reincarnation had found nothing more honest on earth than the body of theophrastus longuet to enable the criminal soul of cartouche to evolve towards the better. "i must admit that when this idea took hold of me, instead of the childish despair which had caused me to faint, i felt myself filled with a sentiment more akin to pride. i was charged by the planetary logos, i, the humble, honest theophrastus, to regenerate in ideal splendour that soul of darkness and of blood, the soul of louis-dominique cartouche, known as the _child_. i accepted willingly, since i could not do otherwise, this unexpected mission and at once i was on my guard. i did not repeat the phrase, 'we must understand one another'; but i at once commanded cartouche to obey theophrastus; and i promised myself that i would give him such a time of it that i could not prevent myself from saying with a smile: 'poor old cartouche!' "i confided these reflections to adolphe, who received them with approval, but at the same time warned me against my tendency to separate theophrastus from cartouche. "'you must not forget,' he said, 'that they are one. you have the instincts of theophrastus, that is to say, of the cabbage-planters (gardeners, market-gardeners) of ferté-sous-jouarre. these instincts are good. but you have also the soul of cartouche, which is detestable. take care: war is declared. the question is, which will conquer, the soul of long ago or the instincts of to-day.' "i asked him if the soul of cartouche was truly altogether detestable, which would have grieved me. i was pleased to learn that it had its good points. "'cartouche,' said he, 'expressly forbade his men to kill, or even wound, wayfarers without some reason. when he was at work in paris with any of his bands, and his men brought him prisoners, he spoke to them with the utmost politeness and gentleness and made them restore a part of their spoil. sometimes the affair was confined to a mere exchange of clothes. when he found in the pockets of the coat thus exchanged letters of importance, he ran after its late owner to give them back to him, wished him a pleasant evening, and gave him the password. it was a maxim of this extraordinary man that no one ought to be robbed twice on the same night, or treated too harshly, in order that the parisians might not take a dislike to going out in the evening.' "since, then, he was opposed to unreasonable murder, it is clear that this man was not utterly wicked. i regret, however, that, as far as he himself was concerned, he should have had in the course of his life a hundred and fifty reasons for assassinating his contemporaries. "but to come back to the wax mask, my friend adolphe and myself had just descended from the train at saint-germain station when i fancied that i saw among a group of passengers a figure which i knew. moved by a sentiment which was not altogether under my control, i dashed towards the group, but the figure had disappeared. "'that form is essentially repugnant to me. where have i seen it?' said i to myself; and adolphe asked me the reason of my excitement. all at once i remembered. "'i could swear that it was signor petito, the professor of italian who lives in the flat above us!' i cried. 'what is signor petito up to at saint-germain? he had better not get in my way!' "'what is it he's done?' said adolphe, in some surprise at the emphasis with which i uttered the last sentence. "'oh, nothing--nothing. only if he gets in my way i swear to you _i'll clip his ears for him_!' "_and i would have done as i said, you know._ "we went on then, without bothering any more about signor petito, to the château, that wonderful château. we went into the museum; and i was extremely annoyed to find that those chambers which knew the whole history of france, and would have served as the frame of our past, even had they been empty, should be serving to-day as a bazaar for roman plaster casts, prehistoric arms, elephants' tusks, and bas-reliefs from the arch of constantine. but my annoyance turned to fury when i learnt that the mask of cartouche was not there. i had just stealthily thrust the ferule of my green umbrella into the eye of a plaster legionary and smashed it, when an old custodian came to us and said that he was sure there was a mask of cartouche at saint-germain and he thought it was in the library; but that had, for a week, been closed for repairs. "we decided that we would return at a more favourable opportunity; for the further the mask withdrew itself, the fiercer i burned to touch it. "we went out on to the terrace, for it was a glorious day, and plunged into the forest, down a magnificent aisle of it, which brought us to the lodges built in front of the château by the desire of queen anne of austria. "as we reached the left corner of the wall, i thought i once more recognised, slinking into a thicket, the abominable silhouette and repulsive face of signor petito. adolphe maintained that i was mistaken. "was it because i was treading this old soil which i knew, because i found myself in that friendly forest among those familiar trees, or was it the result of a long, suggestive conversation about old times and the people of long ago? of a sudden memory sprang to birth in me, a very pleasant memory, as sometimes a moving remembrance of one's youthful days comes back to one, days which one believed for ever lost, buried in the memory. and then i saw quite clearly that i was _the same_ soul, for i recalled cartouche as if we had not been separated _by two hundred years of death_. "yes, i had the same soul, a long same soul indeed: at one end was cartouche, at the other theophrastus. "i remembered the old days; and above all i remembered them when we had passed the northern wall, plunging always deeper into the forest. i threw myself down on the turf at the foot of an immemorial tree, my eyes sparkling with an amazing youthful fire, and looking round the spot i knew so well, i said: "'ah, adolphe! the last time i was here my fortune was at its height. i was feared and loved by all. i was even loved, adolphe, by my victims, i plundered them so gracefully that afterwards they went about paris singing my praises. i was not yet a prey to that dreadful thirst for blood which was some months later to drive me to commit the most atrocious crimes. everything went well with me, feared and loved by all, i was happy, light-hearted, of a splendid daring, magnificent in love, of the finest nature in the world, and _master of paris_. "'do you remember that glorious september night when we broke into the house of the ambassador of spain, made our way into his wife's bedroom, took all her embroidered robes of silk and velvet, a buckle set with twenty-seven large diamonds (one might almost fancy that it happened yesterday), a necklace of fine pearls, six gold plates, six gold knives and forks, and ten silver-gilt goblets (what a thing what a wonderful thing, my dear adolphe, the phenomenon of memory is!)? do you remember how we wrapped up the jewels and plate in napkins, and went off to supper (oh, what an evening it was!) at la belle hélène's, who, _you remember_, kept the heart tavern? "now why, i wonder, did i say '_you remember_'? it must be that i regard you as a friend i had in those days, as trusty as yourself, of whom i was just as fond--old easy-going--my favourite friend. _by the throttle of madame phalaris!_ he was a fine fellow--sergeant of the city guard and one of my lieutenants. what a lot of those city guards i did have among my men! why, when i was arrested, _a hundred and fifty of them, officers and men, fled to the colonies_ for fear i should split. they had no need to: torture never drew a word from me! "'do you remember the night you were on duty at the palais-royal and stole the regent's silver-gilt candlesticks?'" the voice of theophrastus died dreamily away down the vistas of the past; but m. adolphe lecamus said nothing: his face was flushed; and he was breathing heavily. presently theophrastus woke from his dream to tell his friend of yet another outrageous exploit, the theft of mississippi bonds to the value of a million and three hundred thousand francs from the great financier law. he ended the story by saying, "how two hundred years do change a man!" then he began to laugh at the phrase. he was joking, positively joking. that is the way with the parisian tradesman of to-day: he begins by being scared to death by a mere nothing, and ends by laughing at everything. theophrastus longuet had reached the point of laughing at himself. the preternatural and terrifying antithesis between cartouche and longuet, which had at first plunged him into the gloomiest terror, a few days later became a joke! the wretched man was insulting destiny! he was mocking the thunder! his excuse is that he did not realise the gravity of his case. adolphe showed but little appreciation of his humour. at dusk they returned to paris; and as they came out of saint-lazare station, he said to theophrastus: "tell me, theophrastus, when you're cartouche and are walking about paris and observing its life, what astonishes you most? is it the telephone, or the railway, or the motorcars, or the eiffel tower?" "no, no!" said theophrastus quickly. "it's the policemen!" chapter ix strange position of a little violet cat it would seem that the destiny which rules mankind takes a detestable pleasure in making the most serene joys come before the worst catastrophes. never had the three friends enjoyed a dinner more than the dinner which they had that night at the café des trois etoiles. they dined well, the coffee was excellent, and the cigars which adolphe had brought with him, and the russian cigarettes which marceline smoked, were excellent too. they lingered talking together for a long while after dinner; and their talk, which, under the guidance of adolphe, never wandered far from the sphere of the occult which now so practically concerned them, was interesting and fascinating, in spite of the fact that that inveterate parisian theophrastus would now and again jest about his dangerous plight. at half-past ten they left the restaurant and walked back to the flat in gerando street. adolphe bade them good-night at the bottom of the stairs. that flat consisted of a narrow hall, nearly filled, and certainly cramped, by a chest of polished oak. into this hall four doors opened, those of the kitchen and dining-room on the left, those of the drawing-room and bedroom, which looked out on to the street, on the right. there was a third window looking out on to the street, that of the tiny room which theophrastus had made his study. _this study had two doors; one of them opened into the bedroom, the other into the dining-room._ in this study was a bureau against the wall; and in it were drawers above and below its writing-table. this writing-table let down and shut up, and was fastened by a somewhat elaborate lock at the edge of the bureau's top. when it was locked, all the drawers were locked too. as a rule, theophrastus used to set a little violet cat on the keyhole of the lock, as much to hide it as for ornament. this little violet cat, which had glass eyes, was nothing but an ingenious silk ball which acted as a pen-wiper and pin-cushion. about four feet away from the desk was a very small _tea-table_. on entering their flat, theophrastus and marceline, as was their custom, made a careful search in every room for a hidden burglar. having, as usual, failed to find one, (heaven alone knows what they would have done with him if they had!) they went to bed with their minds at ease. as the more timid of the two, theophrastus slept next the wall. they were soon asleep, theophrastus snoring gently. night. not a carriage in the street. silence. the snoring of theophrastus ceased. was it that he had sunk into a deeper sleep? no: he sleeps no more. his throat is dry; he stares into the darkness with affrighted eyes; he grips with a cold hand, a hand which fear is freezing, the shoulder of marceline and awakens her. he says in a low voice, so low that she does not even hear him, "do you hear?" marceline holds her breath; she clutches her husband's icy hand. they strain their ears; and they undoubtedly do hear something--_in the flat_. in very truth it is nothing to laugh at. the man who can laugh at an inexplicable noise, at night, _in a flat_, has not yet been born! there are brave men, splendidly brave, who will stick at nothing, who will go anywhere at night, into the emptiest streets of the most disreputable quarters, who would not hesitate to venture, just for the pleasure of it, into lampless blind alleys. but i tell you, because it is the truth, and you know it is the truth, that the man who can laugh at an inexplicable noise, at night, _in a flat_, has not yet been born. we have already seen theophrastus sleepless on the night of the revelation of the dreadful secret which sprang from the stones of the conciergerie. the anxiety which weighed on his heart that night, terrible as it had been, was as nothing compared with that which was now strangling him, because there was at night, _in the flat_, an inexplicable noise. it was truly an odd noise, but beyond all doubting real; it was a long-drawn _pur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r_. it came from behind the wall of the next room. they sat up in bed noiselessly, with bristling hair, and beads of cold sweat standing out on their brows. from the other side of the wall came the strange _pur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r_. it was the purring of a cat; they recognised that purring: it was the purring of the little violet cat. marceline slipped down under the clothes and whispered: "it's the purring of the violet cat. go and see what's the matter with it, theophrastus." theophrastus did not budge; he would have given a hundred thousand rubber stamps to be walking along the boulevard at mid-day. "it's not natural that it should be purring like that," she added. "go and see what's the matter with it. you must, theophrastus! get your revolver out of the drawer." theophrastus found the strength to say faintly, "you know quite well that it's not loaded." they listened again; the purring had ceased; marceline began to hope they had been mistaken. then theophrastus groaned, got out of bed, took the revolver, and quietly opened the door leading into his study. it was bright in a sheet of moonlight; and what theophrastus saw made him recoil with a dull cry, shut the door, and set his back against it as if to bar what he saw from entering the bedroom. "what is it?" said marceline hoarsely. the teeth of theophrastus chattered as he said, "it has stopped purring; but it has moved!" "where is it?" "on the tea-table." "the violet cat is on the tea-table?" "yes." "are you quite sure it was in its place last night?" "quite sure. i stuck my scarf-pin in its head. it was on the bureau, as it always is." "you must have imagined it. suppose i lit the light?" said marceline. "no, no, we might escape in the darkness ... suppose i went and opened the door on to the landing, and called the porter?" "don't get so terrified," said marceline, who was little by little recovering her wits, since she no longer heard the violet cat. "the whole thing was an illusion. you changed its place last night; and it didn't purr." "after all, it's quite possible," said theophrastus, whose one desire was to get back into bed. "go and put it back in its place," said marceline. theophrastus braced himself to the effort, went into the study, and with a swift and trembling hand took the cat from the tea-table, set it back on the bureau, and hurried back into bed. the violet cat was no sooner back on the bureau than he began again his _pur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r_. that purring only made them smile: they knew what had set it going. a quarter of an hour had passed; they were almost asleep, when a second fright made them spring up in bed. a third purring struck on their ears. if the first purring had smitten them with terror, and the second made them smile, the third purring frightened them out of their lives. "it's impossible!" said marceline in a chattering whisper. "we're victims of an hallucination! b-b-b-besides, it's n-n-not really surprising after what happened to you at the conciergerie!" the purring once more ceased. this time it was marceline who rose. she opened the door of the study, turned sharply towards theophrastus, and said, but in what a faint and dying voice: "you didn't put the violet cat back on the bureau!" "but i did!" groaned theophrastus. "_but it's gone back to the tea-table!_" "good god!" cried poor theophrastus; and he buried his head under the bed-clothes. the violet cat no longer purred. marceline became persuaded that in his perturbation her husband had left it on the tea-table. she took it up, holding her breath, and set it back on the bureau. the violet cat made its purring heard for the fourth time. marceline and theophrastus heard it with the same equanimity with which they had heard the second purring. the fourth purring stopped. another quarter of an hour passed: they were not asleep or even sleepy; and then there came _a fifth purring_. then, incredible to relate, theophrastus leapt from the bed like a tiger, and cried: "_by the throttle of madame phalaris!_ this is too much of a good thing! what the deuce is that infernal violet cat up to?" chapter x the explanation of the strange attitude of a little violet cat it is necessary to mount to the floor above, to the flat occupied by signor and signora petito, to the room in which theophrastus, with never a thought of the imprudence he was committing, had asked for the needful information about the handwriting of the document. what imprudence indeed could there be in showing to an expert in handwriting a document so torn, stained, and obliterated that it was impossible, at a first glance, to discover any sense or meaning at all in it? yet by a truly strange chance it was that very document that signor petito and his wife were that night discussing. the signora petito was saying: "i don't understand it at all; and the behaviour of m. longuet at saint-germain throws no fresh light on it. the fact is, you do not remember the instructions--all the instructions. _go and take the air at the chopinettes, look at the cock, look at the gall_: it's all so vague. what can it mean?" "the first thing it means is that the treasure is to be found on the outskirts of paris, of the paris of that epoch. _go and take the air..._ my opinion is that we ought to search in the neighbourhood of montrouge, or montmartre, because of the cock. there was a château du coq at porkers village. look at this plan of old paris," said her husband. they pored over the plan on the table. "it's still very vague," said signor petito gloomily. "for my part, i think we ought to pay particular attention to the words 'the gall.'" "that's just the vaguest thing in the whole thing," said his wife. "still, i'm sure it's important," said her husband. "as i remember the document (and you know what a magnificent memory i have), there was a short space between the word 'the' and the word 'gall,' and after 'gall' a longer space. reach me the dictionary." the signora petito rose with the greatest precaution, she walked noiselessly and stealthily across the room (she was the conspirator to her finger-tips), and brought a small dictionary. they began to run down a column, writing down all the words which began with the syllable gall: gallantly, gallery, galley, and so forth. then the clock on the mantelpiece began to strike twelve. the signora petito paled and rose to her feet; signor petito rose to his feet paler still. "the hour has come!" said the signora petito. "you will find the information you want below." she pointed a rigid finger at the floor. "they cannot hear you in your list slippers. besides, there's no danger of it: they are at esbly." two minutes later a dark figure glided down to m. longuet's flat, slipped a key into the lock of his door, and entered his hall. the flat of theophrastus was of exactly the same construction as that of signor petito, and he found his way into the dining-room without a pause. he acted with the greater coolness because he believed that the flat was empty. he opened the door of the study, and saw the violet cat on the bureau. since it was evidently on the lock of the bureau in which he was interested, he took it up, and set it on the tea-table. then he hurried noiselessly back through the dining-room into the hall, for he fancied he heard voices on the staircase. he listened for a while at the door of the flat and heard nothing; doubtless his ears had deceived him. then he came back to the study. he found _the violet cat on the bureau, purring_. in spite of their crinkliness, the hairs of signor petito stood stiffly upright on his head, the horror which filled him can only be compared to that other horror on the other side of the wall. he stood motionless, panting, in the moonlight, even after the little violet cat had stopped purring. then he braced himself, and with a timid hand picked up the violet cat. as soon as he had moved it, it began to purr; and he became acquainted with the fact that in its cardboard interior there was a small marble which, as it rolled to and fro, produced an ingenious imitation of a natural purr. since he had been frightened to death, he called himself a perfect fool. it was all quite clear; had he not before slipping out of the study moved the cat? instead of having set it on the tea-table, as he thought, he had put it back on the bureau. of course, it was quite simple. he set it back, still purring, on the tea-table. it must not be forgotten that this purring, which did not terrify signor petito, terrified theophrastus and his wife afresh, while the second purring, which had taken the curl out of signor petito's hair with terror, had not terrified them at all. the cat was still purring, when there was another noise outside the flat. it was signora petito sneezing in the draught. signor petito hurried back into the hall and once more glued his ear to the door of the flat. when, reassured, he returned to the study, _the purring violet cat had gone back to the bureau_. he thought he was going to die of fright; he thought that a miraculous intervention was holding him back on the verge of a crime. he uttered a swift prayer in which he assured heaven that he would not go on with it. however a quarter of an hour passed in the recovery of his scattered wits; and since he heard nothing more, he attributed these surprising happenings to the perturbation of spirit induced by his exceptional occupation. he took up the violet cat, which began to purr again. but this time the door of the study was flung violently open; and signor petito fell swooning into the arms of m. longuet, _who expressed no surprise whatever_. m. longuet contemptuously flung signor petito on the floor, dashed at the violet cat, caught it up, opened the window, tore his scarf-pin out of its head, and threw it into the street. "you beastly cat!" he cried with inexpressible fury. "you'll never stop our sleeping again!" signor petito had dragged himself to his feet, entirely at a loss to know what face to put upon the matter, inasmuch as madame longuet, in her nightgown, was assiduously pointing at him a large, shining, nickel-plated revolver. he only found the phrase: "i beg your pardon: _i thought you were in the country_." but it was m. longuet who came to him, took between his thumb and first finger one of signor petito's long ears, and said: "and now, _my dear signor petito, we are going to have a little talk_!" marceline lowered the barrel of the revolver; and at the sight of his calm courage, gazed at her husband in an ecstasy of admiration. "you see, my dear signor petito, i am calm," said theophrastus. "just now, indeed, i was in a devil of a temper, but that was against that infernal cat which prevented us from sleeping. so i threw it out of the window. but cheer up, signor petito, i am not going to throw you out of the window. mine is a just nature. it wasn't you who prevented us from sleeping. you have taken the precaution of putting on list slippers. many thanks for it. why then, my dear signor petito, are you making that intolerable face? of course, it must be your ear. i've good news for you then, news which will set you quite at your ease about your ear: _you are not going to suffer from your ears any longer_, my dear signor petito!" then he bade his wife put on a dressing-gown, and begged signor petito come into the kitchen. "don't be surprised at my receiving you in my kitchen," he said. "_i am very careful of my carpets, and you will bleed like a pig._" he dragged a table of white wood from against the wall to the middle of the kitchen, and bade marceline spread a piece of oil-cloth on it, and fetch him the big bowl, and the carving-knife from the drawer of the dining-room sideboard. marceline tried to ask for an explanation; but her husband gave her such a look that she could only shiver and obey. signor petito shivered too, and as he shivered, he made for the door of the kitchen, in which, he told himself, there was nothing for him to do. m. longuet, unfortunately, refused absolutely to let his neighbour go. he bade him sit down, and sat down himself. "signor petito," he said in a tone of the most exquisite politeness, "i do not like your face. it is not your fault; but it is certainly not mine. there is no doubt that you are the most cowardly and contemptible of sneak-thieves. but what of that? it's no business of mine, but of some honest executioner of the king who will invite you next season _to go harvesting at the ladder_, where one fine day he will set you _floating gently in the breeze_ to the end that, like a fine fellow, _you may keep the sheep of the moon_. don't smile, signor petito." signor petito was not smiling. "you have absurd ears; and i am certain that with ears like those you never dare go near guilleri cross-roads."[ ] [footnote : at guilleri cross-roads there stood a pillory. it was there that they used to cut off the ears of thieves.] signor petito clasped his hands and said with chattering teeth, "my wife's waiting for me." "what are you doing, marceline?" cried theophrastus impatiently. "can't you see that signor petito is in a hurry? his wife's waiting for him! _have you got the carving-knife?_" "i can't find the fork," replied the trembling voice of marceline. the fact is, marceline did not know what she was saying. she thought that her husband had gone quite mad; and between signor petito burglar, and theophrastus mad, she was not in the mood for joking. she had instinctively hidden herself behind a cupboard door; and such was her agitation that in turning a little clumsily, at the moment at which theophrastus was bellowing a volley of abuse at her, she upset the dessert service, and the sarreguemines vase which was its chief ornament. the result was a loud crash and the utmost confusion. theophrastus appealed once more to the throttle of madame phalaris and called marceline to him in such a furious roar that in spite of herself she ran into the kitchen. a dreadful sight awaited her. the eyes of signor petito seemed to be starting from their sockets. was it from fear? fear had something to do with it, but also the suffocation produced by the handkerchief which theophrastus had thrust into his mouth. signor petito himself lay at full length on the table. theophrastus had had the time and strength to bind his wrists and ankles with string. the signor's head projected a little beyond the table's edge; and under his head was a bowl which m. longuet had placed there _not to make a mess_. theophrastus himself with twitching nostrils (that was what marceline chiefly noticed in the terrifying face of her husband) had hold of signor petito's right ear with the fingers of his left hand, and his right hand gripped a kitchen knife. he ground his teeth and said: "_strike the flag!_" with these words he sliced neatly off signor petito's left ear. he dropped the ear into a little basin which he had ready, caught hold of the right ear, sliced off that, then carried the little basin to the sink, and turned on the tap. he returned to the kitchen; and while he waited for signor petito's ears to stop bleeding, hummed an old and forgotten french air, with the most cheerful face in the world. when the bleeding ceased, he fastened a dish-cloth round signor petito's head, withdrew the handkerchief from his mouth, cut the string which bound him, and bade him get out of his flat at once if he did not wish to be arrested for burglary. as the groaning expert in handwriting was leaving the kitchen, theophrastus bethought himself, rushed to the sink, took the ears out of the basin, and slipped them into their owner's waistcoat pocket. "you go about forgetting everything!" he said indignantly. "what would the signora petito think, if you came home without your ears?" chapter xi theophrastus maintains that he did not die on the place de grÈve in his account, in his memoirs, of that terrible night, m. longuet appears to attach very little importance to clipping the ears of signor petito. he seems far more deeply concerned with the psychology of mme. longuet. "the soul of woman," he writes, "is a very delicate thing. i gathered this from the emotion of my dear marceline. she would not admit that i was obliged to clip the ears of signor petito; and her process of reasoning was incredible and indeed incomprehensible. but i forgave her on account of her excessive sensitiveness. she said then that i was not obliged to clip signor petito's ears. i answered that manifestly one was never obliged to clip any man's ears any more than one was obliged to kill him; and yet, ninety-nine men out of a hundred, i affirmed (and no one will contradict me) would have killed signor petito when they found him in their flat at night. she herself, who was after all only a woman, would have done all she could to kill signor petito with the revolver in her hand, had it been loaded. she did not deny it. well then, in clipping his ears, did i not demonstrate that there was no need to kill him? "a man prefers to live earless rather than die with his ears on; and signor petito found himself as thoroughly disgusted with night excursions into other people's flats as if he had been killed. "i acted for the best with great restraint and inconceivable humanity. "the logic of this reasoning calmed her a little; and what was left of the night would have passed comfortably, if i had not taken it into my head to reveal to her the whole mystery of my personality. it was her own fault. she insisted on knowing the reason of my sudden courage: which was natural enough, since up to that day i had hardly been a man of courage. it is not in selling rubber stamps that one learns to see the blood flow. thereupon i told her straight off that i was cartouche; and in a boastful vein which surprised me, i bragged of my hundred and fifty murders. she sprang out of bed, with every sign of extreme terror, took refuge behind the sofa, and informed me that she would have nothing more to do with cartouche and was going to divorce me. on hearing this, i was deeply moved and began to weep. at this she came a little nearer, and explained how difficult her position was, when she had believed herself married to an honest man, and all at once discovered that she was the wife of a horrible brigand; that henceforth there could be no peace for her. i dried my tears, and condoled with her on her misfortune. we resolved to consult adolphe. "adolphe came early next morning and had a long interview with marceline in the drawing-room. when they came out, adolphe regarded me sadly, asked me to go with him, for he had some shopping to do; and we strolled down into paris. on the way i asked him if the study of the document had revealed any new fact concerning our treasures; and he answered that all that could wait, that my health was the first consideration, and we would all three take the evening train to azure waves villa. "i turned the talk on to the subject of cartouche; but he shrank from it, until i was on the point of losing my temper at his reticence. then he began to talk about it, and presently warmed to the subject. he took up my story at the point of my enlistment, and informed me that at the end of the war the greater part of the troops were disbanded, and that i found myself in paris without any resources save those of my natural ingenuity and my special accomplishments. i employed these with such fortune and address that my comrades lost no time in electing me chief; and since we were successful, our band very quickly increased in numbers. "now, at that time, the police of paris was in such a wretched state that i resolved to make it my business. it was my intention that everyone, gentleman, tradesman, or churchman, should be able to walk at any hour in all tranquillity about the good city of paris. i divided up my troops very skilfully, appointed a district to each, and a leader who would remain my obedient lieutenant. when anyone went abroad after the curfew or even before it, he was accosted politely by a squad of my men, and invited to pay up a certain sum, or if he had no money on him, to part with his coat. in return for this he was furnished with the password, and could afterwards walk about paris, all night long if he wished, in perfect security, for i had become the chief of all the robbers. "i should be unworthy of the name of man, if i shrank from admitting that, to my shame, i admired myself for having risen to such a prodigious height of criminal enterprise. quite criminal, alas! for though my intention of policing paris might have been an admirable idea in itself, its execution drew us on to excesses that the original good faith of the plan could not excuse. the tradesfolk did not understand, and often resisted; and their resistance produced disaster. the clergy, however, were not against us, since we respected the churches. indeed an unfrocked priest, whom we called the ratlet, rendered us some services which presently led him to pronounce the benediction with his feet in the air, _in communi patibulo_. "here i stopped adolphe, to ask the meaning of the latin words. he said that if i had really been a fellow-pupil of voltaire at clermont college i ought to know latin, and that _in communi patibulo_ meant 'on the common gibbet.' "'ah! i know: we often passed it when we went to have a blow-out at chopinettes mill,' said i. "'oh, there were plenty of gibbets,' answered adolphe, giving me a look of which i did not catch the meaning. 'the good city was not lacking in gibbets, gallows, or pillories. and even here...' "again he gave me an odd look, and i saw that we had arrived at the place de l'hôtel-de-ville. 'do you want to cross the place de l'hôtel-de-ville?' he went on. "'of course i'll cross it, if that's the way you want to go,' i said. "'have you often crossed it?' he said. "'thousands of times.' "'and has nothing uncommon happened? have you experienced no odd feelings? have you remembered nothing?' "'nothing at all.' "'are there any spots in paris that you haven't been able to cross?' "his look was insistent. it seemed to speak to me, to bid me reflect. then i recalled several inexplicable aversions to places i had felt. more than once, on my way to odéon street, on finding myself in front of the institute, i had turned into mazarine street. i had no sooner set foot in it than i had turned right about face and gone round another way. i had been vaguely aware of these changes of route and had put them down to absent-mindedness. but the more i think of it the less i believe that it was anything of the kind. in fact, i have found myself at that point more than twenty times; and more than twenty times i have retraced my steps. never--never have i walked along that part of mazarine street which begins at the institute and continues to the corner of guénégaud street and to the foot of the pont-neuf. never! at the same time when i have gone along mazarine street on my way to the quays, i have stopped at guénégaud street and gone down it with a sense of pleasure. "i told adolphe all this; and he said, 'are there any other places from which you shrink?' "then i remembered on reflection that i had never crossed the pont-neuf or the petit-pont; and that there is, at the corner of vielle-du-temple street, a house with barred windows from which i have always recoiled. "'and why do you shrink from these places and from this house in vielle-du-temple street?' he said. "then i remembered exactly why; and the reason is the most natural in the world. i had thought i had no reason; but evidently i had, for it was because of the paving-stones. "'because of the paving-stones?' he said in a tone of surprise. "'yes: because the paving-stones in those streets are red. i don't mind red roofs or red-brick walls, but red paving-stones i cannot stand!' "'and the soil of this place de l'hôtel-de-ville? isn't it red?' said adolphe, leaning over me with the air of a doctor listening to the beating of a patient's heart. "'do you think i'm colour-blind?' "'don't you know that this was the place de grève?' "'zounds! it was here that the gibbet stood--and the pillory, and the platform on which the wheel was set up! on the days of execution! facing the entrance of vannerie street! i never crossed this place without saying to my comrades, to the burgundian, fancy man, gastelard, and sheep's-head, "_we must avoid the wheel._" and a lot of use it was to them!' "'_nor to you, either!_' retorted adolphe. 'it was here that you were executed! it was here that you were broken on the wheel!' "i burst out laughing in his face. "'who told you that piece of idiocy?' i said indignantly. "'all the historians are agreed...' "'the silly idiots! i know perfectly well that i died at the gallows of montfaucon!' i said with absolute assurance. "'you? you died at the gallows of montfaucon?' cried adolphe beside himself. 'you died in at the gallows of montfaucon? but it was years since they had executed anyone there!' "but i protested still louder than he, so that we became the centre of a little crowd. "'i didn't say that i was hanged at montfaucon! the gallows of montfaucon! i said that i died there!' i cried. "as i shouted it, i must have seemed to call to witness the truth of my words the forty persons who seemed interested in our altercation, of which indeed they can have understood nothing, with the exception of one gentleman who seemed to have caught its meaning, for he said to adolphe with the utmost calmness, and with extreme politeness: "'_surely you're not going to teach this gentleman how he died!_' "adolphe admitted himself worsted; and we walked along arm in arm towards the pont-neuf." chapter xii the house of strange words among all the papers i found in the sandalwood box, by theophrastus himself, by m. lecamus, or by commissary mifroid, those which relate to the death of cartouche are beyond doubt the most curious and the most interesting. they are indeed of great historical interest since they contradict history. moreover they contradict it with such force and with such irrefutable reasoning that one asks how men of such weight as barbier, who was in the best position of all not to be duped, since he lived at the time, could have been the victims of a very poor comedy, and how succeeding generations have failed to suspect the truth. history then, serious history, teaches us that cartouche, after having undergone the question in its cruellest form without revealing one single name or fact,--how cartouche, who had only to die and nothing to hope, was brought to the place de grève to be executed, and that there he decided to confess; that they took him to the hôtel-de-ville, and that he delivered to justice his chief accomplices; after which he was broken on the wheel. the papers of theophrastus longuet explain the fraud. cartouche was not only an object of terror, but also an object of admiration. his courage knew no limits; and he proved it under torture. from the moment that the pain of the boot failed to make him speak, it was morally impossible that he should speak. why should he have spoken? all that was left for him was to die game. the greatest ladies of the court and the city had hired boxes and windows to witness his execution. among the three hundred and sixty people who were arrested were men whom he loved as brothers, and his tenderest and most constant flames. some of them came to paris from the provinces, contemptuous of all danger, in the hope that, at the trial, the _child_ would have the consolation of seeing them for the last time. the account of the trial which describes these women as throwing themselves, after he had denounced them, into his arms at the hôtel-de-ville itself, is manifestly nonsense. i will not reproduce here all the protests of m. longuet against the dishonourable death ascribed to cartouche, but the few lines which precede this chapter seem, to me at any rate, to prove, _a priori_, that he is right. but at this moment all that m. longuet knew was that _he died at the gallows of montfaucon, but that he was not hanged there_. in the course of discussing this serious question theophrastus and his friend had reached petit-pont street without having crossed the petit-pont. theophrastus did not so much as look in the direction of the petit-pont. half-way down the street theophrastus, who was in a state half of memory, half of possession, said to his friend: "look at that house next to the hotel there, 'the market-gardeners' hotel.' do you notice anything remarkable about it?" adolphe looked across the street at the hotel, a little old house, low, narrow, and dirty, with "the market-gardeners' hotel" newly painted on it. it seemed to be propping itself up against a large eighteenth-century building to which theophrastus was pointing with his green umbrella. this building had a bulging balcony of wrought iron, of solid but delicate design. "i see a very fine balcony," said adolphe. "what else?" "the quiver of cupid carved above the door." "what else?" "nothing else." "don't you perceive the thick bars across the windows?" "of course i do." "at that time, my dear adolphe, people took the greatest care to have their windows barred; never did one see as many barred windows in paris as in the year . and i could swear that these bars here were fixed the day after the affairs of petits-augustins street. first the parisians garnished all their ground-floors with bars. but this precaution gave us no trouble at all since we had _simon the auvergnat_." adolphe thought the moment opportune to find out who simon the auvergnat, who was always appearing in their talk without any appreciable reason, exactly was. "he was a very useful object, he was _the base of my column_," said theophrastus. "and what's that--the base of your column?" "you don't understand? i'll just show you. suppose you're simon the auvergnat," said theophrastus with almost boyish eagerness. adolphe was quite willing, but not for long. theophrastus drew him across the road, set him against the wall of the market-gardeners' hotel, showed him the position he was to take: to set his legs apart, and lean, lowering his head and raising his crossed arms, against the wall. "i place you here," he said, "because of the little ledge on the left, _i remember that it is very convenient_." "and next?" said adolphe, leaning against the wall in the required position. "next, since you are the base of my column, i mount on that base..." before m. lecamus had the time so much as to imagine a movement even, theophrastus had climbed up on to his shoulders, sprung on to the ledge, leapt from it with one bound to the balcony of the house next door, and vanished through an open window into the room which opened on to it. m. lecamus in a dazed consternation was gazing into the air, and asked himself where his friend theophrastus could have vanished, when the street rang with piercing cries. a despairing voice howled, "help! thieves! murderers!" "i might have expected it!" cried m. lecamus; and he dashed into the house from which the screams issued, while the passers-by stood still, or hurried to the spot. he bounded up the great staircase with the swiftness of a young man, and reached the first floor at the very moment when a door opened, and theophrastus appeared, hat in hand. he was bowing low to an old lady with chattering teeth, and crowned with curl papers, and said: "my dear madame, if i had thought for an instant that i should give you such a shock by entering your drawing-room by the window, i should have stayed quietly in the street. i am not, my dear madame, either a thief or a murderer, but an honest manufacturer of rubber stamps." adolphe seized his arm and tried to drag him down the stairs. but theophrastus went on: "it is entirely adolphe's fault, my dear madame. he would have me show him how _simon the auvergnat acted as the base of my column_." adolphe, behind theophrastus, made signs to the lady of the curl papers that his friend was off his head. thereupon the lady fell fainting into the arms of her maid, who came running up. adolphe dragged theophrastus down the staircase just as the hall filled with people from the street. the crowd took them for fellow-rescuers; and they escaped from the house without difficulty. in the street theophrastus said cheerfully, "the most surprising thing about the whole matter, my dear adolphe, was that this simon the auvergnat served us as the base of our column for more than two years without ever suspecting anything. he thought that he lent his strong shoulders to a band of young gentlemen of quality, who were amusing themselves!"[ ] [footnote : this is authentic. it was proved at the trial of cartouche's accomplices; and simon the auvergnat was acquitted.] but adolphe was not listening to theophrastus. with one hand he was dragging him towards huchette street, and with the other he was wiping the sweat from his brow. "the time has come!" he muttered. "the time has come!" "where are you dragging me to?" said theophrastus. "to see one of my friends," said adolphe shortly, continuing to drag him along. in huchette street they passed through a red porch into a very old house. adolphe seemed to know his whereabouts, for he dragged theophrastus up a dozen worn stone steps and pushed open a heavy door. they found themselves in a large hall, lighted by a lamp hanging by iron chains from the stone ceiling. "wait for me here, i shan't be long," said adolphe, closing the door. theophrastus sat down in a large armchair, and gazed round him. the sight of the walls filled him with the wildest amazement. in the first place, there was an incredible quantity of words painted in black letters. they seemed to crawl about the wall without any order, like flies. he spelt some of them to himself: thabethnah, jakin, bohaz, theba, pic de la mirandole, paracelsus, jacque molay, nephesch-ruach-neschamah, ezechiel, aïsha, puysegur, cagliostro, wronski, fabre d'olivet, louis lucas, hiram, elias, plotinus, origen, gutman, swedenborg, giorgius, apollonius of tyana, cassidorus, eliphas levi, cardan, allan kardec, olympicodorus, spinoza, and scores besides; and, repeated a hundred times, the word ihoah. turning towards the other wall, he saw a sphinx and the pyramids, a huge rose, in the centre of which christ stretched out his arms in a circle of flame, and these words on the rose: _amphitheatrum sapientiæ æternæ solius veræ_. it was the rose of the rosicrucians. below it were these words: "of what use are brands, and torches, and spectacles to him who shuts his eyes that he may not see?" "i am not shutting my eyes," said theophrastus to himself, "and i am wearing spectacles, yet i'll be hanged if i know where i am!" his eyes fell on this inscription in letters of gold: "from the moment that you have performed an action, a single action, apply to it all the intelligence you have, seek its salient points, examine it in the light, _abandon yourself to hypotheses, fly in front of them, if need be_." he saw hawks, vultures, jackals, men with heads of birds, several scarabs, a god with an ass's head, then a sceptre, an ass, and an eye. finally he read these words in blue letters: "the more the soul shall be rooted in its instincts, the more it shall lie forgotten in the flesh, the less shall it have knowledge of its immortal life, _and the longer it shall remain prisoner in living carcasses_." growing impatient at the long absence of adolphe, after a while he rose to draw apart the curtains through which his friend had disappeared. as he was about to pass through them, his head struck against two feet hanging in the air which rattled with the noise of dry bones. he looked up: it was a skeleton. he gazed at it with a sincere and gentle compassion. "you would be much more at your ease in saint-chaumont cemetery," he said and went on with a sad smile. the corridor down which he walked had no windows. it was lighted from one end to the other by a crimson glow. at first theophrastus could not make out where it came from. then he perceived that he was walking on it. it came from the cellars, through the thick sheets of glass with which the corridor was paved. what were those crimson flames below, in whose glow he walked, doing? he did not know. he did not even ask. he did not even ask why he, theophrastus, found himself walking in this glow. he had ceased to ask, "why am i in this house in huchette street?" he had ceased to ask because nobody answered. _emmanuel, noun, samech, hain... sabaoth... adonai..._ still names on the stone walls. the only ornament on these walls about which names crawled was, at the height of a man, an endless line of stars formed by the two triangles of solomon's seal. between each star or seal, in green letters, was the word nirvana. the corridor did not run in a straight line. it had curves and angles. presently he came to a spot at which two other corridors ran into it at right angles, and prudently stopped. but soon he grew impatient again, and plunged down one of these side corridors. three minutes later, without knowing how it came about, he found himself back at the spot where the corridors crossed. then he went back down the first corridor, retracing his steps to the hall. but he did not find the hall. he was on the point of howling with distress, when adolphe appeared before him. his eyes were red as if he had been weeping. "where am i?" cried theophrastus tempestuously. "you are in the house of the mage--in the house of m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox!" chapter xiii the cure that missed at hearing that he was at the house of m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox, theophrastus was somewhat reassured, for he had heard both marceline and adolphe speak of him with reverence as a leading member of the pneumatic club. theophrastus had chanced to hear of the pneumatic club; and he had caused marceline to become a member of it (he was at the time too busy to join it himself) under the impression that it was the chief social club of the most prominent people in the rubber industry. but of course everybody knows that pneumatology is that part of metaphysics which deals with the soul, in greek _pneuma_; and the pneumatics are those versed in this science, which has nothing whatever to do with the elastic and resilient substance extracted by incision from a tree, which was named by the benighted savages who discovered it, the caoutchouc. marceline did not trouble the busy theophrastus with her discovery that the pneumatic club was a branch of spiritualism and not of the rubber industry. she contented herself with inviting m. adolphe lecamus to join it also; and both of them became devout admirers and disciples of that great expert in the occult, m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox. it is no wonder that, on learning from marceline of the painful affair of the ears of signor petito, m. lecamus should have urged instant recourse to that great expert, to learn the proper methods of dealing with a reincarnate soul of such unfortunate antecedents. adolphe looked at theophrastus with deep commiseration in his eyes, as if his conversation with the mage had given him reason for dismay. "come along, marceline is here; and we are going to introduce you to a good friend," he said sombrely. he led the way down the corridor, opened a door, and ushered theophrastus into a large, dim room. at once his eyes were attracted by a marvellous light which fell on the noblest, gentlest, and most beautiful face of a man he had ever seen. the light was marvellous because that striking figure did not seem to receive it, but to diffuse it. when it moved, the light moved with it; it was a figure and a torch. before this torch knelt marceline, her hands joined as if in supplication; and on her fell some of the rays from this gracious, almost divine figure. then theophrastus heard a friendly voice, a male voice, but sweeter far than the voice of any woman, which said, "come to me without fear." theophrastus still gazed in wonder at the kind of astral light which was diffused from the figure of the mage, the light which the painter james tissot has succeeded in reproducing, in an engraving of great beauty, from a photograph of a mediumistic apparition communicated to the congress of spiritualists of by doctor macnab. in this drawing, beside the materialised figure of a young girl, stands m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox and his light. theophrastus gazed silently upon the radiant visage of m. eliphas de la nox (it would be unfair on the ink of the printer to give him his full name every time i mention him). then, since he felt a sudden strong sympathy with this radiant being into whose presence he had been so suddenly introduced, in spite of having found him in a frame he thought almost diabolic, he plucked up courage and resolved to learn the meaning of all the strange things he had seen. "i don't know where i am," he said somewhat plaintively. "but since i see my friend adolphe and my wife marceline with you, i feel reassured. i should like very much to know your name." "my friend, i am called eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox." "you're really called all that?" said theophrastus, who was beginning to recover his spirits. the radiant being bowed his head gravely. "well, after all, there's nothing very astonishing in that," said theophrastus. "my name, my real name, my actual family name, is cartouche; and for a long time everybody has believed that it was a nickname." "your name is _not_ cartouche; it is theophrastus longuet," said m. eliphas de la nox with gentle firmness. "the one does not prevent the other," said theophrastus, who better than anyone else knew what he was talking about, quite logically. "i beg your pardon," said m. eliphas de la nox, with the same gentle firmness. "you must not cherish this confusion of mind. _once upon a time_ your name was cartouche, but _now_ it is theophrastus longuet. understand that: _you are_ theophrastus longuet. my friend, listen to me carefully, as you would listen to a physician who was going to heal you. for you are ill, my friend, very ill, exactly because you believe you are cartouche, when you are really theophrastus longuet. i appeal to all the simplicity of your soul." "that's all right," said theophrastus. "i like simple things myself; so i dislike very much, very much indeed, the way by which one comes to see you, through a labyrinth of passages, with skeletons hanging up in them. what's he doing in your house, by the way, that skeleton, instead of resting quietly on saint-chaumont hill? _i recognised him at once._ they were dragging him to the charnel-house at the gallows of montfaucon the very day of my marriage with my dear wife marie-antoinette neron, when we were having our wedding breakfast at the chopinettes. beaulieu and old easy-going were with us. at that epoch, my dear m. eliphas de taillepot--" "eliphas de taillebourg," corrected adolphe in a somewhat shocked tone. "at that epoch--my friend adolphe, who's as serious as a donkey, will tell you so--they no longer hung people at the gallows of montfaucon, but they used to throw into the charnel-house of those gallows the remains of people whom they hung elsewhere. that's how it was that this poor gastelard, whose skeleton i recognised just now, was dragged to the charnel-house after having been hung in the place de grève. gastelard, my dear m. st. elmo's-fire--" "de saint-elme," m. lecamus corrected him again. "my dear m. de saint-elme, gastelard wasn't up to much, a poor beggar full of imagination, who, having one day disguised himself as a king's deputy, demanded his sword from a gentleman, showing him at the same time an order of committal. the gentleman believed that he was being duly arrested, and handed over his sword, the hilt of which was gold and the most beautiful you ever saw. the story ended with gastelard at the end of a rope. but i'll be hanged, my dear m. de l'equinox--" "de la nox," insisted adolphe. "de la nose, my dear m. de la nose, i'll be hanged if i ever expected that i should one day find his skeleton in a house in huchette street!" the mage, motionless and silent, regarded theophrastus and his talk with an attention nothing could divert. "i have never laughed anywhere so much as at saint-chaumont hill, between chopinettes mill and cock mill," said theophrastus with the same garrulous cheerfulness. "chopinettes tavern was there; it had taken the place of the tavern françois villon was so fond of, where for centuries all the cullies and doxies of paris used to come on hanging-days to carouse. it was between chopinettes mill, cock mill and the gallows of montfaucon that i buried my treasures; and if you have a plan of old paris, my dear m. elephant de taillepot de st. elmo's fire de la nose--" theophrastus had not quite come to the end of his host's name, when, of a sudden, the darkness fled; and the room and all in it shone clear in the brilliant light of day. he looked round him with manifest satisfaction, at his wife, who was muttering a prayer, at his friend adolphe, who was on the verge of tears, at the bookshelves, which practically walled the room, and at m. eliphas de la nox, who smiled at him with gentle compassion. the mage had lost his supernatural air; his cloak of astral light had gone; and if his features had still their sublime and ineffable pallor, he none the less looked a man like anybody else. "i like this a good deal better," said theophrastus with a deep sigh of relief. the mage raised his hand. "no: i will not give you a map of old paris to look at, though i have them of every age," he said. "you have nothing to do with old paris. you are theophrastus longuet; and we are in the year ." "that's all very well. but it's a question of my treasure, treasures which belong to me," said theophrastus stubbornly. "and i have every right to look in a map of old paris at the place where i formerly buried my treasures, in order that i may see on a map of new paris where i shall have to hunt again. it's clear--" the mage interrupted him, saying to m. lecamus, "i have often seen here crises of karma; but it has never been my privilege to study one of such force." "oh, but so far you've seen nothing--nothing at all!" cried theophrastus. the mage reflected a moment; then he took theophrastus to a map of the paris of to-day which hung on the wall of this great library, and pointed out to him the exact spot on which had stood chopinettes mill, cock mill, and the gallows of montfaucon. then he laid his finger in the middle of the triangle they formed, and said: "here is where you must hunt, my friend, to recover your treasures. but all this quarter has been altered again and again; and i very much doubt whether your treasures will still be found where you buried them. i have shown you the spot on a modern map, to clear your mind of the matter. for, my friend, _you must clear your mind_. you must not dwell on your treasures. you must not live in the past. _it is a crime._ you must live in the present, that is to say, _for the future_. my friend, you must drive out cartouche, because cartouche is no more. it is theophrastus longuet _who is_." the mage pronounced these words in a tone of the most solemn earnestness. theophrastus smiled at him sadly, and said: "i'm very much obliged to you for your interest in me; and i will not hide from you the fact that i find you extremely sympathetic, in spite of your skeletons and the odd words which crawl about your walls. you must be very learned indeed, to judge from all these shelves full of books. and you must be very good-hearted, for you have certainly treated me with the greatest kindness; but i tell you--and sorry i am to say it--that you can do nothing for me. for unfortunately, my dear sir, you think that i'm ill; but i'm not ill at all. if i were ill, i've no doubt that you'd cure me, but one doesn't cure a man who's not ill. you say to me, you must drive out cartouche. it's a grand thing to say, splendid; but i don't believe it, my dear m. elephant de brandebourg de st. elmo's fire de la box." but the mage took his hand, and said with unchanged kindliness: "none the less cartouche must be _driven out, for if we do not succeed in driving him out_, we shall have to _kill him_; and i will not conceal from you, my dear m. longuet, the fact that that is an exceedingly difficult operation." "when the man of light," says theophrastus in his memoirs, "undertook to relieve me of this obsession by cartouche, which was not, alas! a matter of imagination but a very real thing, i could only smile pitifully at his vast conceit. but when i understood that he proposed to drive him out by the sole miracle of the reason, i thought it was time to serve the mage up hot at charenton lunatic asylum. "but presently, when he had explained the matter more fully to me, and i began to understand his theory and method, i found myself in full agreement with him and ready to serve his purpose of driving cartouche out of me by the sole miracle of the reason. indeed i came in the end to appreciate the vast abyss which separated the man of light from my friend adolphe, the vast abyss which will always separate the man of reason from the learned ape. "first of all, he assured me that i had been cartouche. he was assured of it. and furthermore it was the most natural thing in the world. he said he had scolded adolphe for having presented my case to him as exceptional, when my case was the case of everybody. of course, everybody has not been cartouche. but everybody has been, before their existence of to-day, a good many other people, among whom may very well have been found persons every whit as bad as cartouche. "you understand the man of light: mine was an every-day case. everybody has lived before living and will live again. he told me that it was 'the law of karma.' _one is being born all the time; one never dies. and when one dies, it is that one is being born again, and so on from the beginning of beginnings!_ "it is understood that at each birth the personality differs from the preceding and succeeding personalities, but each is only a modification of the divine and spiritual ego. these different personalities are in a way only the rings in the infinite chain of life which constitutes throughout the ages our immortal individuality. "and then the man of light told me that when one has grasped this immense truth, one should not be astonished that some of the events of _to-day_ recall some of the events of _long-ago_. but in order to live according to the law of wisdom one should live in the present and never look backward. i had looked backward too much. my spirit, badly guided by m. lecamus, had during the last few weeks been wholly occupied with the _long-ago_; and undoubtedly, if that had gone on, i should soon have been reduced to a state dangerously near to that of madness. i ought to be no more astonished at having had another state of soul two hundred years ago than i ought to be astonished at having had another state of soul twenty years ago. was it that the theophrastus of to-day had any connection with the theophrastus of twenty years ago? certainly not. the theophrastus of to-day ignored that young man; he even disapproved of him. would it not be stupid indeed to devote all my faculties to reviving the theophrastus of twenty years ago? therefore the great mistake i had made had been only to live for cartouche, because i had chanced to remember that i had once been cartouche. "i tell you that i found the words of m. elephant de la box indeed refreshing. they did me a world of good. "he also told me other things which i shall remember if i live to be a thousand years old. he told me that what are called 'vocations' in the men of to-day are only latent revelations of their past lives; that what is called 'facility' is only a retrospective sympathy for objects with which they are better acquainted than with anything else, because they made a more careful study of them before this actual life; and that is the only explanation of it. "thereupon he pressed me to his bosom, as a father embraces his child; he breathed upon my eyes and brow his healing breath; and he asked me if i was now persuaded of this truth, and realised that to live happily it was necessary to bear in mind our condition of perpetual change, and that by doing so we should learn to live in the present and to understand that the whole of time belonged to us. "i wept with joy, and my dear wife wept with joy, and adolphe wept with joy. i assured the man of light that i understood and believed, that i was no longer astonished that i had been cartouche, though i was somewhat distressed by the fact, but that it was, after all, so natural that i should never again give it a moment's thought. i cried: "'be at ease! let us all be at ease! let us live in _the present_! _cartouche is driven out!_' "thereupon marceline asked what time it was; and adolphe answered that it was eleven o'clock. i pulled out my onion and saw that it was half-past eleven. then, since my watch keeps perfect time, i declared that it was half-past eleven. "'no. i beg your pardon, but it's eleven o'clock,' said adolphe. "'you can cut off my finger if it isn't half-past eleven!" i cried; for i was sure of my watch. "but the man of light looked at his watch and assured me that it was only eleven o'clock. my friend adolphe was right; and i was sorry for it--on account of my finger. i am an honourable man and an honest manufacturer. i have always kept my word; and no bill of mine has ever been dishonoured. i did not hesitate. could i have done otherwise? "'very well,' i said to adolphe. 'i owe you a finger.' "and seizing a small stone tomahawk, which lay on the desk of the man of light and was evidently used as a paper-weight, i raised it in the air, and was bringing it down on the little finger of my left hand which i had stuck well out on the corner of the desk--i had the right to give adolphe the little finger of my left hand; for i had only said to him, 'you can cut off my finger,' without stipulating which finger; and i chose the finger the loss of which would inconvenience me the least. my little finger then would infallibly have been cut off, had not the man of light caught my wrist in a grip of steel and held it firmly. "he bade me put down the tomahawk. i answered that i would not put down the tomahawk till i had cut off my finger which belonged to adolphe. "adolphe exclaimed that my finger was of no use to him, and i could keep it. marceline joined her entreaties to his, and begged me to keep my finger, since adolphe made me a present of it. but i answered him that there was no reason for him to make me presents at this season of the year; and i answered her that she knew nothing at all about business. "then m. eliphraste de l'equinox pointed out that i was not observing the conditions of the contract: i had said, 'you can cut off my finger'; consequently it was the privilege of adolphe to cut off my finger. "i admired this exact logic, which indeed never failed him; and i put down my tomahawk. "i was wrong to put down my tomahawk in that house in huchette street; for they flung themselves upon me, and the man of light cried: "'_come on! it's too late! the only thing to do is to kill him!_'" chapter xiv the operation begins it is to m. lecamus that we owe the account of the operation which m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox thought it his duty to perform on theophrastus longuet. his account of it, apparently written for the pneumatic club, at the instance of theophrastus himself, is among the papers in the sandalwood box. it runs: "the scene of savagery which would have ended in my poor friend theophrastus losing the little finger of his left hand, but for the presence of mind of m. eliphas de la nox, proved to us that the bloodthirsty imagination of cartouche had absolutely filled the brain of that honest man, my best and trustiest friend. it seemed to us therefore that the sole cure for this terrible evil was _the death of cartouche_. "m. de la nox, indeed, did not hesitate; he had tried reason in vain, though for a moment we had believed it victorious: an operation was indicated. madame longuet made a few protests, so half-hearted that we ignored them. as for theophrastus, it was useless to ask his opinion. besides, m. de la nox had already fixed him with his gaze; and no one has ever resisted the gaze of m. de la nox. "theophrastus breathed several deep sighs, and began to tremble violently. but when m. de la nox cried: 'i order you to sleep, cartouche!' he fell back into the armchair behind him and never stirred. his breathing was so faint that we might almost have doubted that he was still living. "the operation of the death of cartouche was about to begin. i knew, from several famous instances, that it was an operation of great difficulty, for one always risks, in essaying to kill a reincarnate soul, that is to say, to cast back into nothingness that part of the individuality which has been someone in a previous existence, and pursues us into this with a violence which prevents us from living in the present--one always risks, i say, _killing along with the reincarnate soul the body in which it is reincarnate_. we were going to try to kill cartouche without killing theophrastus, _but we might kill theophrastus_. hence our anxiety. "it needed all the authority, all the science, and also the absolute calmness of m. de la nox to render me at all at ease in the extremity in which we found ourselves. but m. de la nox has the most powerful and dominating will the world has known since jacques molay, whom he has succeeded in the supreme command of the actual and secret order of the templars. "also i bore in mind the categorical demonstrations of his last treatise on psychical surgery, and the exact precision of his instructions in his monograph on the _astral scalpel_. my trust in m. de la nox, and the criminal eccentricity of poor theophrastus, of which the ears of the wretched signor petito had been the first victims and filled me with dread of irremediable catastrophes, led me to consider the operation of the death of cartouche, in spite of its danger, the best course in these painful circumstances. "we carried the sleeping theophrastus down into the basement, into the psychical laboratory of the mage, which is lighted night and day by great hissing flames of a crimson gas of the nature of which i am ignorant. "we laid theophrastus down on a camp-bed; and for more than a quarter of an hour m. de la nox gazed at him in a marvellous stillness. we were silent. at last an admirable melody was heard. it was the voice of m. de la nox praying. of what angelic music, of what empyrean vibrations, of what syllables of heavenly glory and triumphant love, was that prayer composed! who shall ever repeat it? who shall ever re-compose it? do you know the musician, incomparable master of sound, who shall re-compose, once they have passed, the elements of that fragrant breeze of spring which chants, for the first time, under the first leaves, its trembling song of hope and eternal life, on the threshold of the recurring seasons? "i only know that that prayer began somewhat like this: 'in the beginning, you were silence, Æon eternal, source of Æons! silent, as thou wert, was eunoia, and ye contemplated one another in an inexpressible embrace, Æon, source of Æons, eunoia, source of love, fruitful germ from which the abyss should bring forth life! in the beginning, you were the silence, source of Æons!'... "when the prayer came to an end, m. de la nox took the hand of theophrastus and commanded him. but since the lips of m. de la nox did not move, since he commanded without speaking, and questioned theophrastus through the sole interpreter of his dominating will, i only learnt what his commands and questions had been from the answers of the sleeping theophrastus. "theophrastus began without any apparent effort or suffering: "'yes; i see... yes; i am... "'....................... "'i'm theophrastus longuet... "'....................... "'in a flat in gerando street...' "m. de la nox turned towards us, and said in a low voice: 'the operation is not going well. i put cartouche to sleep; and it is theophrastus who is answering. he is asleep in the present. it would be dangerous to be abrupt. i am going to let him move about in _the present_ for a while.' "theophrastus began to speak again: "'i'm in gerando street, in the flat above my own. i see stretched on a bed an earless man. facing him is a woman--a dark woman--young and pretty--her name is regina--' "'....................... "'the pretty young woman ... whose name is regina ... is speaking to the earless man ... she is saying: "'"as sure as my name's regina, you'll see no more of me, and you'll never hear the 'carnival of venice' again, if in forty-eight hours from now you haven't found some way of making a big enough income to support me properly. when i married you, signor petito, you deceived me shamefully about the amount of your fortune and the character of your intelligence. a nice thing that fortune of yours, signor petito! we're two quarters behind with the rent; and unless we wish to lose our furniture, we must shoot the moon. and as for your intelligence! well, when a woman is young and pretty like i am, she wants a husband with enough intelligence to find the money to pay her dressmaker's bill. am i to go back to my mother, or are you going to do it?" "'the earless man is speaking... he says: "'"oh, shut up, regina, you're only making my head ache. can't you leave me in peace to discover the hiding-place of the treasures, which the silly fool downstairs is incapable of getting out of the earth?" "'the silly fool,' said the sleeping theophrastus, 'is cartouche!' "'i was waiting for that word,' said m. de la nox quickly. 'now i can make him quit _the present_! pray, madame! pray, my friend! the hour has come! _i am going to tempt providence!_' "then, raising his hand above the brow of my sleeping friend, he said in a voice of command impossible, utterly impossible, to disobey: 'cartouche, what were you doing at ten o'clock at night on the first of april, ?' "'at ten o'clock at night on the first of april, ,' said the sleeping theophrastus without a moment's hesitation, 'i tap sharply twice on the door of the queen margot tavern... after the row i should never have believed that i could have got so easily to ferronnerie street... but i did for the horse of the french guard, or rather he fell down near the pump at notre-dame... i have thrown my pursuers off my track... at the queen margot i find patapon, saint james's gate, and black-mug... pretty-milkmaid is with them... i tell them the story over a bottle of ratafia... i trusted them; and i tell them that i suspect old easy-going, and perhaps marie-antoinette herself, of having whispered something to the police... they all protested... but i shout louder than they; and they are quiet... i tell them that i have made up my mind to deal faithfully with all those who give me any reason to suspect them. i get into a fine rage... pretty-milkmaid says that there's no longer any living with me... it's true that there's no longer any living with me... but is it my fault?... everybody betrays me. i can't sleep two nights running in the same place... where are the days when i had all paris on my side? the day of my wedding with marie-antoinette? the day when at the little seal tavern in faubourg-saint-antoine street, we sang in chorus: "guzzle, cullies, and booze away, till gabriel's trump on judgment day!" we ate partridge that day--that was more than the king did--we drank champagne. my beautiful marie-antoinette loved me dearly. my uncle and aunt tanton were there. and all that happiness was only last may, the fifteenth of last may!... and now!... where is uncle tanton now? shut up in the châtelet... and his son?... i had to kill him last month to prevent him denouncing me!... i was quick about it... one pistol bullet at montparnasse, and the body in a ditch; and i was sure of his silence... but how many more to kill?... how many more to kill to be sure of the silence of all?... by the throttle of madame phalaris! i had to kill pepin, the archer, and huron the king's deputy who were in full cry after me one evening, and five archers besides whom i massacred, poor beggars! in mazarine street... _i see their five corpses still_... and yet i'm not at all bad-natured!... i don't want to hurt anybody... i only ask one thing, to be allowed to quietly police paris, for everybody's security... my chief councillor himself is grumbling. he doesn't forgive my executing jacques lefebvre... of course, there's no living with me any longer; but it's only because i wish to live! "'after that little talk i leave them... i look out of the door of the queen margot: ferronnerie street is empty. i hurry off; and near the cemetery of the innocents i meet madeline... but i don't tell her where i am going... as a matter of fact, i am going to spend the night in my hole in amelot street[ ] like a wretched thief!... it's pouring with rain.'" [footnote : in , when they were cleaning the great sewer under amelot street, they found near its principal mouth a recess, a cave, about nine feet square which they still called, in the official report, "cartouche's chamber," because that robber had often been obliged to spend the night in it. this is a long way from the legend which represents cartouche as living in the best society and on the eve of marrying the daughter of a rich nobleman, when he was arrested.] m. adolphe lecamus declares that he has given us the exact words which came from the lips of theophrastus in his hypnotic sleep, but that he has not been able to give us the modulation of these phrases, their strange tones, their sudden stops, their hurried starts, and their often dolorous endings. he makes no attempt to describe the physiognomy of theophrastus. at times it expressed anger, at times scorn, sometimes extravagant daring, sometimes terror. sometimes, he declares, at certain moving moments, _theophrastus was exactly like the portrait of cartouche_. m. de la nox was desirous of bringing cartouche to the hour of his death by slow degrees. he feared the shock of making him abruptly live it over again. therefore he had taken him back to the first of april, . the minutes which followed were exceedingly painful for us, as the wretched cartouche once more went through the agony of those last months amid the perpetual treachery of his lieutenants and the incredible, dogged animosity of the police. the narrative of m. lecamus, painful as it is, presents no new fact. it merely corroborates history. there is, indeed, nothing to be gained by descending to the laboratory of m. eliphas de la nox to acquire a knowledge of the sensational arrest and imprisonment in the grand-châtelet. we find in the register of the orders of committal of the king: "may , , order of the king to seize and arrest one cartouche, who has murdered sire huron, lieutenant of the short robe, and one tanton; and also cartouche cadet, called louison; the chevalier, called cracksman; and fortier, called mouchy, for complicity in the murders." on the margin against the name of cartouche is written the single word, "_broken._" that arrest was much easier to order than to effect. it was not till october , , that treachery bore its fruit, and we can read the report of jean de coustade, paymaster of the company of chabannes, forty-seven years old, twenty-seven years' service. m. de coustade took with him forty men and four sergeants, of whose trustworthiness he was assured by duchâtelet (lieutenant of cartouche, who was betraying him, himself a sergeant of the french guards; they had promised him a pardon), dressed as civilians, with their weapons hidden, and surrounded the house in which duchâtelet had informed him that cartouche was lying. it was a little after nine at night that they arrived at the pistol inn, kept by germain savard and his wife, at courtille, near high borne (trois-bornes street). savard was smoking his pipe on his door-step; and duchâtelet said to him, "is there anyone upstairs?" "no," said savard. "are the four ladies here?" "up you go!" said savard, who was waiting for these words. he stepped aside; and the whole troop dashed upstairs to attack cartouche. "when we entered the chamber upstairs," writes m. jean de coustade in his report, "we found balagny and limousin drinking wine in front of the fire. gaillard was in bed, and cartouche sitting on the side of the bed, mending his breeches. we threw ourselves on him. the stroke was so unexpected that he had no time to make any resistance. we bound him with thick ropes, took him first to the house of the secretary of state for war, and then, on foot, to the grand-châtelet, as soon as the order was given." as a matter of fact the affair was by no means as simple as m. de coustade relates, though it ended as he says. in spite of his short stature, cartouche was of exceptional strength; and they only overcame him and bound him to a pillar after a furious struggle. at last, after all precautions had been taken, they put him in a coach. he was in his shirt only; for he had not had time to put on the breeches he was mending. since they hustled him fiercely, he said: "look out, lads, you're ruffling my clothes!" he had retained all his usual calm; and he congratulated the lieutenant who had betrayed him on the fine clothes he was wearing that day. in truth, duchâtelet had come out dressed in a very fine new black suit, on account of the death of the duchess marguerite d'orleans, who had died a fortnight before. on the way, as the coach just missed crushing an unfortunate wayfarer, cartouche once more uttered the words of which he was so fond: "_we must avoid the wheel!_" from the house of the secretary of state for war he went on foot in the middle of a grand escort. half the people of paris rushed out of their houses to see him pass, crying, "it's cartouche!" without any strong belief that it was. they had been deceived so many times. but they perceived that it was true, when an officer of the escort struck the prisoner with his cane, and the prisoner turned quietly round and gave him a kick on the jaw with his left foot, which sent him head over heels into the gutter. the crowd applauded, for it has a great affection for robbers--when they are taken. in the grand-châtelet prison cartouche was visited by all the polite world. the regent went out of his way to express his personal regret at this sad event. "but," said he, "my sovereign duties impose this unpleasant duty on me." the ladies of the court vied with one another in their attentions to the prisoner. they refused him nothing. he had three pints of wine a day. he had never been so much the fashion. at once a play was produced entitled "cartouche." legrand, its author, and quinault, who took the principal part, came to ask him for information about details of the production. at last, when cartouche had sufficiently amused himself, he turned his attention to escape. in spite of the unceasing watch they kept on him, he was on the very point of success, having got out of his cell and by means of a rope twisted from the straw of his mattress, made his way down into a shop, when they caught him as he was drawing the last bolt of a door which separated him from the street. they found that the grand-châtelet was not safe enough for a man of such ingenuity; and he was secretly carried in chains to the conciergerie, and imprisoned in the most secure corner of montgomery tower.[ ] [footnote : this tower is no longer standing.] chapter xv the operation ends firm in his intention of bringing his subject to his death by slow degrees, m. eliphas de la nox took theophrastus slowly through the imprisonment, trial, and condemnation of cartouche. but i omit that part of the narrative of m. lecamus, since the historians have described that imprisonment and trial at length. i take it up at the point at which cartouche was on his way to the torture-chamber that they might force from him the names of his accomplices. "and now," says m. lecamus in his narrative, "we were approaching the crucial point of the operation: _to kill cartouche without killing theophrastus_. simple enough words, but the most difficult operation in psychic surgery. truly m. de la nox had been right when he said that he was about to tempt providence. truly, he had assumed the most appalling responsibility, the risk of killing theophrastus without killing cartouche, and consequently of letting that fiend in human form again become reincarnate in some unfortunate contemporary. "but then it was m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox who had assumed the responsibility, the greatest living expert in psychical surgery, the delicacy of whose astral scalpel is known to the initiates throughout the world, even to far thibet. he knew how to move the spirit, quietly and calmly, _round its own death_, so preparing it for the last moment. _he made his dead man live till the very moment at which he made his dead man die!_ "he had brought theophrastus-cartouche to the hour when his jailors took him from his cell to lead him to the torture-chamber. his next question was: "'and where are you now, cartouche?' "'i am going down a little staircase at the end of straw alley... they are opening a grating... i am in the darkness of the cellars... these cellars frighten me... i know them well... ah, yes: i was shut up in these cellars in the days of philippe-le-bel!' "m. de la nox raised his voice in a tone of awful command, and said: "'cartouche! you _are_ cartouche! you are in those cellars by order of the _regent_!' "then he muttered, 'philippe-le-bel! where in heaven's name are we going now? we must not stray. we must not! where are you now, cartouche?' "'i am going deeper into the night of the cellars, i am surrounded by guards--many guards. it is too dark to see how many... ah! i see at the end there, right at the end, a ray which i know well. _it is a square ray which the sun has forgotten there since the beginning of the history of france!_... my guards are not french guards, they distrust all the french guards. my guards are commanded by the military lieutenant of the châtelet.' "there was a pause as m. de la nox let cartouche continue on his painful way; then he said: 'and where are you now, cartouche?' "'i am in the torture-chamber... about me are men dressed in long robes... their faces are masked... they are binding me to the stool of question... they are thick ropes... well, they need them thick for me... but if they think they're going to get anything out of me, they're wrong--altogether wrong!' "the face of theophrastus was set in an expression of stubborn pride, almost ferocious. slowly it weakened in intensity as we stood waiting and watching him; then suddenly it changed to an expression of pain, and he uttered an ear-splitting yell. "m. de la nox and i started back; marceline uttered a cry. "plainly m. de la nox did not expect that yell, for he said in a tone of surprise, 'why did you yell like that, cartouche?' "'i yell because it's so awful _not to be able to denounce my accomplices_! their names are on the tip of my tongue; but they won't come off it! can't they see that if i don't denounce them, it's because i can't move the tip of my tongue? why didn't cartouche move the tip of his tongue? i can't; and it's most unfair!' "m. de la nox was silent for a while. there was no reason why he should harrow our sensibilities with the pangs of that old-world ruffian. it was bad enough to see the anguished face of theophrastus. after a while it grew serene again; and m. de la nox said: "'and what are you doing now, cartouche?' "'they are leaving me alone,' said theophrastus. 'only the doctor and the surgeon are feeling my pulse... they are congratulating themselves on having chosen the torture of the boot, because it is least dangerous to life, and the least liable to accidents.' "i observed that he spoke in his ordinary voice, that it was not weakened by the pain he had suffered. it seemed as if he only felt it at the moment of its actual infliction, that he did not feel the after pain. "there came another long pause; then suddenly theophrastus uttered another ear-splitting yell. "'what's the matter now, cartouche?' said m. de la nox anxiously. "'it's the tip of my tongue!' cried theophrastus furiously.' can't these silly fools see that the names are on the tip of my tongue, and won't come off it? why don't the idiots take them off it? is it my fault that cartouche didn't split?' "'but cartouche was silent: why are you yelling?' said m. de la nox. "'_they're torturing cartouche; but it's theophrastus longuet who yells!_' "m. de la nox seemed thunderstruck by this response. he turned and said to us in a trembling voice: 'then--then it's _he_ who suffers.' "it was the truth; one could not doubt it to see the anguish on the contorted face of theophrastus. it was cartouche who was tortured and theophrastus who suffered. that proved the _identity_ of the soul; _but it also proved that the pain had not ceased to be effective after two hundred years_. that was what dismayed m. de la nox. it was the first time that a case of this kind had come under his observation during his operations with the astral scalpel. the pain of cartouche found voice through two centuries; this cry of anguish which had not issued from his stubborn lips, _had waited two hundred years to burst from the lungs of theophrastus longuet_! "m. eliphas de la nox buried his head, his luminous head, in his hands and prayed ardently: 'in the beginning you were the silence! Æon eternal! source of Æons!...' "at the end of the prayer he felt theophrastus' pulse and listened carefully to the beating of his heart. then he said: "'m. longuet is plainly a man of strong constitution, and thoroughly sound. in fact, from that point of view there's scarcely anything to fear. _he will bury cartouche._ i think we ought to go through with the operation.' "i said that i was of his opinion. marceline hesitated a little, and then bade him continue. "'and now what are they doing, cartouche?' said m. de la nox. "'they keep asking me those useless questions; but i can't answer,' said theophrastus impatiently. 'and i keep asking myself what that man in the right-hand corner of the cell is doing. he has his back turned to me; and i can hear a _sound of clinking iron_... the executioner is at the moment taking it easily. he's leaning against the wall and yawning... there's a lamp on the table which lights up two men who keep on writing and writing. what they're writing i can't conceive, for i haven't said anything--i can't. it's the man in the corner that puzzles me. there's a red light on the wall as if he were between me and a brazier. i wonder what those irons are he's messing about with.' "'it must be the red-hot irons. they used them,' said m. de la nox; and he shivered. "we were silent; and presently there came a series of dreadful, ear-splitting yells from theophrastus. m. de la nox turned a very pale and troubled face to us, and declared that he had never come across, or even suspected that one could come across, pain so _effective_. he had no doubt that it must be owing to the fact that he had never before operated on souls reincarnate after an interval of less than five hundred years; that even those were very rare; and the bulk of his clientele was composed of souls at least two thousand years old. i fancied that he was somewhat out of his depth; and it surprised me beyond words. "again theophrastus yelled; then suddenly marceline cried: "'look! look, his hair!' "the most surprising sight met our eyes: _the hair of theophrastus was turning white_! "the whiteness spread over it as smoothly as the edge of the rising tide spreads over the sand, but more slowly. in five minutes all his hair had turned white except one lock on his brow. "we were silent; and i wiped the perspiration from my face. m. de la nox was panting; marceline was sobbing. somehow that slow whitening of the hair was more painful, more impressively dreadful than those piercing, ear-splitting yells. "m. de la nox seemed almost at his wits' end. twice i saw him open his lips to question theophrastus; twice he shut them without a word. then suddenly he stooped down and listened to the beating of theophrastus' heart. he stood upright again with an air of relief and said: "'what are you doing now, cartouche?' "'shamming dead. after the red-hot irons and the boiling water they poured into my ears i shammed dead. they have left me... i am slipping the paper i wrote in my cell this morning, with a splinter of wood, and my blood, into the crack in the wall above my head. it tells where i've hid my treasures.' "he was silent again; and again i saw the face of m. de la nox grow intent as once more he concentrated all his being on his astral work. how i wished i had attained a height of psychic development which would have enabled me to follow the wonderful, the miraculous movements of his astral scalpel. "it must have been nearly three-quarters of an hour later that he heaved a deep sigh and said, 'our work is nearly at an end. where are you now, cartouche?' "'i don't know quite what has happened,' said theophrastus. 'i hid the document; and i have not seen anyone since. when i open my eyes--it is rather an effort--i do not recognise the place to which they have brought me... i'm certainly not in the torture-chamber, nor in my cell in montgomery tower... there's a faint blue light falling through the bars of a grating in front of me... the moon is coming to visit me... the moonlight has descended two or three of the steps which lead up from the grating... i try to move... i can't... i'm a log. my will no longer commands my muscles or limbs... it's as if all relations between my will and my body had ceased... my brain is only master of my sight and understanding. it is no longer master of my actions... my poor limbs! i feel them _scattered_ round about me... i must have reached the point of suffering at which one suffers no more... but where am i?... the moonlight descends two more steps... and again two more steps... ah! what is that it lights up?... an eye--a big eye... the moonlight moves... a skull... the moonlight moves... a bony hand!... i understand! i understand! they have thrown me into a common grave!... the moonlight moves... there are two legs of a dead man lying across my body!... i recognise those steps now!... and that grating!... i am in the charnel-house of montfaucon!... _i am frightened!_ "'when i used to go up the street of the dead to carouse at the chopinettes, i often looked through that grating. i looked through it curiously because i saw that one day i should lie in the charnel-house. but never did it occur to me that when a body lay there, _it could look out from the other side of the grating_! and now my body looks out through it! they have thrown me into the charnel-house because they believed me dead! i am buried alive with the bodies of hanged men! my wretched fate surpasses anything that the imagination of men could invent! "'the saddest reflections assail me. i ask myself by what trick of fate i am reduced to such an extremity. i am forced to confess that fate played no part in the matter. it was my pride, nothing but my accursed pride. i could have quietly remained king of all the robbers, _if there had been any living with me_. pretty-milkmaid was right when she said at the queen margot _that there was no longer any living with me_. i would no longer listen to a word from anyone; and when i called together my grand council, i took no notice whatever of the resolutions it passed. i took a delight in playing the despot; and i ended with that mania for cutting up everyone i suspected into little bits. my lieutenants ran greater risks in serving me than in disobeying me. they betrayed me; and it was quite logical. _oh, it's quite time for these reflections, now that i'm in the charnel-house!_ "'i'm alive in this charnel-house, alive among the dead; and for the first time in my life _i am frightened_.' "theophrastus was silent for a minute; and we looked at one another with harried eyes. then in the same mournful, plaintive tones he took up his tale again. "'it's odd--very odd. now that i'm on the very boundary of life and death my senses perceive things which they could not perceive when i was in health. my ears hear no more--that boiling water destroyed my hearing--_yet they do hear_. there is a footfall, a slinking footfall on the steps leading down to the grating... suddenly the moon ceases to light the charnel-house... then i see between me and the moon on the steps of the charnel-house, a man! a living man!... maybe i am saved! i wanted to cry aloud with joy; and perhaps i should have cried aloud, if the horror of what i _feel_, of what i _know_, had not sealed my lips. i _feel_, i _know_ that this man has come to rob me of my hand... i read it, clearly, _in his brain_. a lady of the court has sent him for the charm--the charm to keep her husband's love--the hand of a murderer--the hand of cartouche! "'_i read it in his brain as clearly as if i read it written_... he is lighting a lantern... he has unlocked the grating and entered the charnel-house... he has found my body, and is stooping over it... he has taken my left hand in his left hand, and his knife gleams in the light of the lantern... he is cutting through my wrist... i do not feel the blade in my wrist; i see it... ah! i begin to feel the knife!... oh! my wrist! my wrist!... it is nearly severed... ah! ah! ah!... it is severed! "'what is this... the man howls... he is dancing about among the dead... i see! i see... my hand has come away in the left hand of the man who howls, but by a last miracle of the last life in my wrist, _as it was severed_, my hand gripped the hand of the man who howls!... ha! ha! he can't get rid of it!... it's gripped him!... how it grips him!... he is dragging at it with his right hand!... he can't stir it!... ah, it isn't easy to rid oneself of a _dead man's last grip_!... he is out of the charnel-house, howling!... he bounds up the steps, howling!... as he goes, howling, he is waving, like a madman, in the moonlight, _my gripping hand_!' "the voice of theophrastus died faintly away; and i heard the teeth of m. de la nox chatter. then he whispered: "'where are you now, cartouche?' "'i am entering the radiant darkness of death!' chapter xvi the drawbacks of psychic surgery "as soon as theophrastus had uttered the words: 'i am entering the radiant darkness of death,' m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox raised his right hand above his head with a splendid gesture, then bent over the face of my friend, breathed upon his eyelids, and said: "'theophrastus longuet, awake!' "theophrastus did not awake. his eyelids remained closed, and his stillness appeared to us stiller than ever. and now that he spoke no more, now that his lips were closed as tightly as his eyelids, it suddenly seemed to us, stricken with a horrible dread, that he had followed cartouche into the radiant darkness of death. "his corpse-like pallor, his hair grown suddenly white, showed him to us terribly old, old with the age suddenly acquired in the depths of the tomb. [illustration: "theophrastus longuet, awake!"] "m. de la nox breathed on his eyelids again and again; again and again he moved his arms in splendid gestures; again and again he cried: "'theophrastus longuet, awake! awake! theophrastus longuet, awake!' "theophrastus did not awake; and our hearts sank and sank; then, at the very moment at which we abandoned hope of his ever awaking, he uttered an appalling groan, opened his eyes, and said quietly: "'good-morning. cartouche is dead,' "m. de la nox gasped and said, 'thank god, the operation has succeeded!' "then he began his prayer again: 'in the beginning thou wert the silence! Æon eternal! source of Æons!...' marceline and i were shaking the hands of theophrastus, and laughing hysterically. in all conscience, the operation had been severe; but now that it was successful we congratulated theophrastus warmly. we congratulated him on having escaped from his terrible plight at the cost of a bottle of hair-dye. it was not much to pay for _the death of cartouche_. "then we bade him get up and come with us. we were in a hurry to get out of the house in huchette street. it seemed to us as if we had been in it a good deal more than two hundred years. "'come along, dear! come along!' said marceline. "'speak louder,' said theophrastus, 'i don't know what's the matter with my ears. i seem to be very deaf; and then i can't move.' "'you must be a little dazed, dear,' said marceline. 'and considering the time you've been stretched on this camp-bed without stirring, it isn't to be wondered at. but make an effort and come along.' "'speak louder, i tell you!' said theophrastus impatiently. 'i can move my arms, but i can't move my legs. i want to move them, but they don't stir; and then there's a pricking in my feet.' "'it's pins and needles, dear. bend your toes back quickly. i want to get home. we've had nothing to eat since this morning, and i'm dreadfully hungry,' said marceline. "'i don't know whether i've got any toes,' said theophrastus sadly. "'come on. it's time we were going,' said i. "'undoubtedly; but you'll have to carry me, for my legs are in such a state...' "m. de la nox uttered a deep groan. he had turned back the socks of theophrastus and seen his ankles. they were swollen and scarred and bleeding. in half a minute we had slit up the legs of his trousers and pants with a pair of scissors. what a dreadful sight met our eyes! _the legs of theophrastus were the legs of a man who has suffered the torture of the boot!_ "m. de la nox groaned again, and with his eyes full of tears, he said: 'incredible! incredible! who could have believed that pain would be so _effective_ at the end of two hundred years?' "'this phenomenon is analogous to the stigmata of the saints,' i said, suddenly realising its scientifically psychic significance. "but marceline burst into tears and flung herself upon the unhappy theophrastus. "i shook my fist in the face of destiny, and hurried out to fetch a cab. "when i returned, marceline was still weeping; theophrastus was still examining his legs with extreme curiosity and inquiring how it was that he could not move them, and how they came to be in this extraordinary condition. "m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox did not answer; he was kneeling, with his face buried in his hands, sobbing in utter despair. "he said, or rather sobbed, in a lamentable voice: 'my beloved! my beloved! i believed that i was thy son, o my beloved! i took my shadow for thy light! o my beloved! thou hast humbled my pride; i am only a little bit of the night, at the bottom of the obscure abyss, i, the man of light. and the night does not _will_! and i have willed, i: the night! i am only a dark son of the silence, Æon, source of Æons! and i have wished to _speak_! ah, life! life! to know life! to possess life! to equal life!... temptation! vertigo of the eternal abyss! mystery of the ternary! three! yes; the three worlds are _one_! and the world is three! it was the truth at tyre, at memphis! at babylon! one! two! three! active, passive, and reactive! one and one make two! two is neuter! but! but! but, o my beloved! one and two make twelve. one is god! two is matter! put matter beside god! pythagoras has said it, and you have twelve. that means union!... that means? that means? who then here below has dared to pronounce the words: _that means?_' "then he sobbed in the most heart-rending fashion, while theophrastus on his camp-bed said: "'i should like very much to get out of this.'" chapter xvii theophrastus begins to take an interest in things the unlucky theophrastus was more than six weeks recovering from his astral operation. m. lecamus describes his illness in a somewhat long-winded fashion. little by little he began to recover the use of his legs; but it seemed unlikely that his hearing would ever quite recover from the boiling water which had deafened cartouche two hundred years before; at intervals he was for a few moments stone deaf. during all this time he made no allusion to the past; i do not speak of that wretched past, bounded in the minds of all of us by the few years which have elapsed since our last terrestrial birth; he made no allusion to _his eighteenth-century past_. this fact assured marceline, m. lecamus, and m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox, who was a frequent visitor at the sick-bed, that cartouche was indeed dead; and m. de la nox was often heard to thank Æon, source of Æons, for this happy event. theophrastus, as his legs healed, had serious thoughts of returning to business. he had retired young, at the age of forty-one, owing to his invention of a superior rubber stamp which had ousted the rubber stamps of rival manufacturers from the market. his mind was full of yet another innovation which would revolutionise the whole rubber-stamp industry. there could be no stronger symptom of a complete cure, no stronger proof that the operation had not weakened his mind. and when he began to get about again, mme. longuet found that he had become so _natural_ that she, and m. lecamus along with her, believed that their misfortunes had at last tired out destiny. _theophrastus would never have his black feather again: it had been extirpated for the rest of time._ however, by the instructions of m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox, they kept a careful watch on him. it was his habit to rise at an early hour, and after having breakfasted on a cup of chocolate and buttered toast, go for a stroll on the outer boulevard. he was trying his legs. he began to find in them their pristine elasticity. he looked into the shops; he watched with a parisian's interest the moving panorama of the streets. m. lecamus, who followed him, observed nothing abnormal in his actions; and in his reports to m. de la nox he only laid stress on a single fact, truly unimportant, a somewhat prolonged halt before a butcher's stall. if this halt had not been a daily habit, even adolphe, on the look-out as he was, would have paid no attention to it. theophrastus, his hands behind his back playing with his green umbrella, would gaze with satisfaction at the red meat. he often had a talk with the butcher, a big, square-shouldered, cheery soul, always ready with some simple joke. one day adolphe found that theophrastus was prolonging his halt unduly. he walked up to the stall and found him engaged, with the butcher, in adorning the fresh meat with paper frills. it was a harmless occupation; and so m. de la nox thought, for there is a note of his on the margin of adolphe's report: "he can look at the red meat on the butcher's stall. it is just as well to let him 'see red' at times. it is the end of the psychic crisis, and hurts no one." now this butcher, m. houdry, was famous in his district for the whiteness and delicacy of his veal. his customers often wondered where the calves of m. houdry were fed. it was a mystery which was making his fortune. in the course of time, theophrastus won his heart and was admitted to his confidence. the secret of his success lay, not in the fact that his calves were specially fed, but in the fact that he killed them himself and in his method of killing them: he used to slice off their heads with a single stroke of a great cutlass. as their intimacy increased, theophrastus was admitted to witness the operation; and he spent many a happy hour in the slaughter-house of the butcher, observing him kill and cut up the calves which were bringing him wealth and fame. theophrastus was exceedingly interested in the whole process. he learnt the names of the different instruments with enthusiasm, and was presently allowed to help with the simpler parts of the process. it was a privilege. he came to feel even more than m. houdry's scorn for the methods of ordinary butchers. but every day as he left the stall he made the same little joke. he said: "you kill a calf every day. you must be careful, my dear m. houdry; or you will find that it will end in the calves getting to know about it." one day he said, "look at the calf's eyes, m. houdry! look at his eyes!" "well, what about them?" said m. houdry. "look how they're looking at you!" "but they're dead," said m. houdry, somewhat puzzled. "and you're not afraid of the eyes of a dead calf which look at you?" said theophrastus. "i congratulate you on your courage!" m. houdry went on with his work, thinking that his pupil had certainly some queer fancies. when he began to deal with the calf's ears, theophrastus cried, with angelic delight: "the ears? i understand all about ears! leave them to me!" and he bought the calf's head. m. houdry wished to have it sent to his house, but theophrastus would not let it out of his hands. he disposed it carefully in the bottom of his green umbrella. as he went out of the slaughter-house he said: "au revoir, m. houdry, i am taking my calf's head away with me; but i have left you the eyes. i should not like the eyes of a calf to look at me as those eyes looked at you just now. the eyes of a dead calf--a nasty thing--very nasty. you laugh, m. houdry? well, well, it's your business... my congratulations on your courage. but all the same it will end in the calves getting to know about it!" he returned home; and when he showed marceline and adolphe his calf's head in his green umbrella, they smiled at one another. "he is beginning to take pleasure in things," said marceline. "an innocent amusement," said adolphe indulgently. chapter xviii the evening paper it was the habit of the three friends to play a game of dominoes in the evening after dinner. m. lecamus, who was a norman, took a delight in using terms racy of the soil. when he set down the double-six, he would cry: "now for the double-nigger!" when he put down a five, he would cry: "the pup! that bites!" when he put down a one, he would cry: "the maggot! bait!" the three drew from him this phrase: "if you've the pluck, down with the pig's-tail!" he called the two "the beggar!" the unfortunate four was blasted by the name of "the whelp!" and he could not put down a blank without announcing: "the washerwoman!" marceline took the greatest delight in these exclamations, and she was always ready to play dominoes. theophrastus generally lost; and it was a pleasure to see him lose, for at this game he had displayed the most disagreeable nature in the world. whenever he lost, he sulked. one evening theophrastus had, as usual, lost; and with an angry frown on his brow, he had stopped playing, and buried himself in an evening paper. he was very fond of the political notes, and his opinions were limited. they were bounded on the north by "the despotism of tyrants," and on the south by "the socialist utopia." between the socialist utopia and the despotism of tyrants, he understood everything, he declared, except that one should attack the army. he often said, "the army must not be touched!" he was a worthy soul. that evening he read the political notes without, as usual, commenting aloud on them, because he was sulking. and then his eyes were caught by this headline: cartouche is not dead. he could not refrain from smiling, so absurd did this hypothesis seem to him. then he ran his eyes over the first lines of the article, and let escape him the word "strange!..." and then the word "odd..." and then the word "amazing..." but without any particular display of emotion. then he decided that it was time to stop sulking, and said: "you haven't read this article entitled: 'cartouche is not dead,' adolphe. it's a strange and amazing article." marceline and adolphe started violently and looked at one another in dismay. theophrastus read: "is cartouche, then, not dead? for some days the police, with the greatest mystery which we however have penetrated, have been solely occupied with a series of strange crimes of which they have been forced to conceal the most curious side from the public. these crimes and _the manner in which their author escapes from the police at the very moment at which they believe they have caught him_, recall point by point _the methods of the celebrated cartouche_. if it were not a question of an affair as reprehensible as a series of crimes, one could even admire the art with which the model is imitated. as an official of the prefecture of police, whose name we do not give since he insisted on secrecy, said to us yesterday, 'he's the very spit of cartouche!' so much so that the detectives no longer call the mysterious robber, on the track of whom they sometimes find themselves, anything but cartouche! moreover the authorities, with great secrecy but with considerable intelligence--for once we find no difficulty in admitting it--have placed in the hands of three of them a history of cartouche edited by the librarians of the national library. they have decided, quite subtly, that the history of cartouche should be useful to them, not only in the matter in hand, which consists in their preventing to-day the criminal eccentricities of the new cartouche and in arresting the new cartouche himself, but also that his story ought to form a part of the general instruction of all detectives. indeed a rumour has come to our ears that m. lepine, the prefect of police, has ordered several of the evening courses at the prefecture to be devoted to the authentic history of the illustrious robber." "what do you think of that?" said theophrastus with an air of amiable indulgence. "it's a regular farce. the journalists are queer beggars to try to stuff us with all this rubbish." neither adolphe nor marceline smiled. in a somewhat shaky voice marceline bade him go on reading. "the first crime of the new cartouche, the crime at least with which the police was first called on to occupy itself, does not present that aspect of horror which we find in some of the others. it is a romantic crime. let us say at once that all the crimes of which we have cognisance and which are attributed to the new cartouche, have been committed during the last fortnight and _always between eleven o'clock at night and four in the morning_." madame longuet started up, her face as white as a sheet. since the astral operation, theophrastus had been sleeping in the bedroom by himself, while she had slept in a small bed in the study. m. lecamus caught her wrist and swiftly drew her back into her seat. his eyes bade her be silent. theophrastus paused in his reading and said, "what on earth do they mean by their new cartouche? _myself, i only know the old one!_... well, let's hear about the romantic crime..." he read on, growing calmer and calmer at every line: "a lady, young and charming, and very well known in paris, where her salon is filled by all those who occupy themselves gracefully with spiritualism--the affair is, after all, somewhat compromising, therefore we do not publish her name--was in the middle of her toilet about one o'clock in the morning, preparing to enjoy her well-earned repose after a somewhat exhausting conference with the most illustrious of the pneumatics, when suddenly her window, which opens on to a balcony, was flung open violently, and a man of little more than middle height, still young, and extremely vigorous (this detail is in the police report), but with his hair entirely white, sprang into the room. he had in his hand a shining, nickel-plated revolver. "'do not be frightened, madame,' he said to the terrified lady. 'i am not going to harm you. regard me as your most humble servant. my name is louis-dominique cartouche; and my only ambition is to sup with you. by the throttle of madame phalaris! i've got a devil of a twist on me!' and he laughed. "mme. de b.... (we will call her mme. de b....) thought she had to do with a madman. but it was only a man resolved to sup with her, since, he said, he had been for a long time fascinated by her grace and charm. yet this man was far more dangerous than a madman. for it was necessary to give way to him, _owing to his nickel-plated revolver_. "'you are going to ring for your servants, and order them to bring an excellent supper,' said the man coolly. 'do not give them any explanation which might cause me trouble. if you do, you're a dead woman.' "mme. de b.... is a lady of courage. she rose at once to the occasion, rang for her maid, ordered supper to be brought to her boudoir, and a quarter of an hour later she and the man with the white hair were facing one another at table, _the best friends in the world_. we need hardly say that the man with the white hair made no haste over that delightful meal; and it was after two o'clock when he climbed down from the balcony. it was perhaps not unnatural that the beautiful mme. de b.... should not have informed the police of the adventure. it was necessity that compelled her to the avowal; for a few days later a commissary of police called on her, and informed her that the ring, containing a magnificent diamond, which she wore on the third finger of her right hand was the property of mlle. emilienne de besançon; that that lady had seen it on her finger at a charity bazaar the day before; that mme. de b.... was doubtless ignorant whose property it was; doubtless it had been given to her. mme. de b.... was beyond words surprised and annoyed. she told the story of the balcony, the unknown, and the supper; and said that in bidding her good-bye he had forced the ring on her, saying that he had had it from a lady of whom he had been very fond, mme. de phalaris, _but who had died a long while ago_. it was impossible to suspect mme. de b.... she furnished a proof: the shining, nickel-plated revolver, which the unknown had left on a small table in the boudoir. at the same time she begged the commissary of police to take away a hundred bottles of champagne of the finest brands, which the unknown had sent to her the day after that extraordinary night, on the pretext that the supper had been excellent, but the champagne alone had left something to be desired. she feared lest, like the ring, the champagne should have been stolen. "this adventure, which is the least of those we have to relate, is a faithful reproduction of an affair which took place on the night of july , , at the house of mme. la maréchale de boufflers. that lady also was at her toilet. the young man arrived by the balcony; he had not a shining, nickel-plated revolver in his hand, but he carried six english pistols in his belt. after having introduced himself as louis-dominique cartouche, he demanded supper. and the widow of louis-françois, duke de boufflers, peer and marshal of france, the hero of lille and malplaquet, supped with cartouche, and did not hurry over the supper. "cartouche only complained of the champagne; and next morning mme. de boufflers received a hundred bottles. he had had them taken from the cellars of a great financier by his butler patapon. "a few days later one of the bands of cartouche stopped a carriage in the street. cartouche looked in through the window and scanned the faces. it was mme. la maréchale de boufflers. "he turned to his men and said in ringing tones, 'let mme. la maréchale de boufflers pass freely to-night and always.' "he bowed low to mme. la maréchale, after having slipped on her finger a magnificent diamond which he had previously stolen from mme. de phalaris. mme. de phalaris never saw it again! "and now let us pass on to the crime in bac street." chapter xix the story of the calf marceline had risen and gone to her bedroom as much to hide her emotion as to ascertain whether the nickel-plated revolver was still in its drawer. when she came back into the dining-room, theophrastus asked her what was the matter with her. marceline replied that the revolver was no longer in its drawer. theophrastus begged her to compose herself, and declared, in a tone which admitted of no contradiction, that since the revolver was not in its drawer, it must be somewhere else, and it was a matter of no importance whatever. "we are now going to accompany this newspaper man to the crime in bac street," he went on. "his comments on the story of mme. de b...., who must of course be mme. de bithyinie, the lady of your pneumatic club who is such an intimate friend of m. de la box, show him to be a well-informed man. i am pleased to see that he does not follow those idiots of historians who try to make scandal out of my supper with mme. la maréchale de boufflers, forgetting that in she was more than sixty years of age. it's a mistake that i propose to set right. my reputation might suffer from it. she was a witty and delightful talker; but i should never have dreamed, for a moment, of making love to a woman of sixty!" as he said this, theophrastus raised the index finger of his right hand, and waved it in the air with an authoritative gesture; and it was not marceline or adolphe who would have dared to contradict him. he took up the evening paper again. "the story of the bac street crime is simpler and more rapid in movement," he read. "a few days after the adventure of mme. de b.... the prefect of police received the following note: 'if you have the pluck, come and find me. i am always at bernard's, at the café in bac street.' it was signed: 'cartouche.' the prefect pricked up his ears and laid his plans. the same evening at a quarter to twelve, half a dozen police officers dashed into the café in bac street. they were at once hammered with a chair by a man of extraordinary strength, still young, but with quite white hair. three men were stretched out on the floor, and the other three had barely time to drag the three bodies of their wounded companions into the street, to save them from being burnt alive, for the man with the white hair set fire to the first storey. then he made his escape over the roofs, springing from one roof to another over a little court, narrow indeed, but forming a kind of well more than fifty feet deep, deep enough in fact to break his neck ten times over." "i like that," said theophrastus, breaking off and smiling pleasantly. "three men on the floor! i wasn't nearly so lucky in bac street _the other century_; for i left there nine of my lieutenants, who were arrested in spite of the massacre of the police. i thought all was lost; but one must never despair of providence." he took up the paper again, amid the terrified silence of m. lecamus and marceline, and read on: "the new cartouche" ("what idiots they are to keep calling him 'the new cartouche'!") "has been also at his games in guénégaud street. there is in it a narrow passage crossed by a plank. some days ago, there was found under this plank the body of a student at the polytechnic school, m. de bardinoldi, the mystery of whose death has so puzzled the press. what the police has confided to no one is the fact, that, pinned to the jacket of the student, was a little card on which was written in pencil: 'we shall meet again in the other world, m. de traneuse.' there can be no doubt that this was a crime of the new cartouche for the old one" ("one must be as stupid as a journalist," cried theophrastus, "to suppose that there are two cartouches!") "for the old one did in fact murder an engineer officer named m. de traneuse on this very spot. cartouche killed him with a blow on the back of the head with his cane; and the student had the back of his skull fractured by a blow from some blunt object." theophrastus stopped reading and delivered himself of some comments. "they say to-day, 'blunt object.' blunt object! it sounds well! blunt object pleases me... you are pulling a mug," he said to marceline and adolphe. "and you're holding on to one another as if you expected some catastrophe. it's silly to lose your hair about a few practical jokes. i profit by the occasion, my dear adolphe, to explain to you the pleasure i take in frequenting guénégaud street. this business of m. de traneuse was the origin of one of the best tricks i ever played on m. d'argenson's police officers. after the execution of m. de traneuse, who had permitted himself to make some extremely disagreeable remarks about me, i was pursued by two patrols of the watch, who surrounded me and rendered resistance impossible. but they did not know that i was cartouche, and contented themselves with conducting me to fort-l'eveque, the least severe prison in paris, where they shut up debtors, disorderly actors, and people who had not paid fines. it was only on the th of january that they knew that they had captured cartouche; but on the evening of the th cartouche had escaped and resumed the direction of his police. it was time, for everything was topsy-turvy in the streets of paris. my dear marceline, and you too, adolphe, you look as if you were going to a funeral. and yet this article doesn't lack _a certain salt_. i thought at first it was a scribbler's joke, but i see that it is quite serious. it is really: take it from me. and wait for the story of the calf! we have only got to the affair of petits-augustins street... listen." theophrastus raised the evening paper again, adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and went on: "the most incredible thing in this extraordinary story is that several times during the last week the police have been on the very point of catching the modern cartouche, and that he has always escaped by the chimney, just like _the other_. history teaches us that that was the practice of the real cartouche. on the th of june, , he had formed the plan of robbing desmarets house, petits-augustins street. it was one of his men, the ratlet, who had suggested the coup to him. but the police had their eye on cartouche and the ratlet; and no sooner were they in desmarets house than the archers rushed to the spot, and the house was surrounded. cartouche had the doors of the rooms quietly locked and the lights put out. he undressed himself, climbed up the chimney, descended by another chimney into the kitchen, where he found a scullion. he killed the scullion, dressed himself in his clothes, and walked out of the house, shooting down with his pistols two archers, who asked him where cartouche was. well, what will you say when we tell you that yesterday our cartouche, having been tracked to a confectioner's in the augustins quarter, escaped by the chimney, after having put on over his own clothes, which doubtless he desired to keep clean, the over-alls of the confectioner, which were found on the roof? as for the confectioner he was found, half cooked, in his own oven. but before putting him into it, cartouche had taken the precaution of previously assassinating him." here theophrastus once more broke off his reading. "previously!" he cried. "previously! these journalists are marvellous!... i had _previously_ assassinated him!... but why have you gone into the corner? am i frightening you? come, come, my dear marceline; come, adolphe: a little coolness. you'll want it for the story of the calf!" "never," says theophrastus in his memoirs, which from this epoch become deeply tinged with a vast melancholy, "never before had either my wife or m. lecamus worn such expressions at the reading of a mere newspaper article. but if we let ourselves be frightened by everything the newspapers tell us, we should _be for ever on the rack_. the journalists describe the events of the day with a particularly surprising power of imagination in the matter of crime. they must have their daily blood. it is indeed laughable. a knife-thrust more or less costs them nothing; and they only make me shrug my shoulders. the knife-thrusts of these gentlemen do not trouble my digestion in the slightest; and, i repeat, i shrug my shoulders at them. "when i came to the place in the article at which cartouche put the baker's man in the oven, my wife groaned as heavily as if that baker's man had been her brother; and leaving her chair, she shrank back little by little into the left-hand corner of the dining-room, nearest the hall. m. lecamus was in a position quite as ridiculous. he had retired to the right-hand corner of the dining-room, nearest the hall. they were staring at me as if they were staring at a phenomenon at a fair, an eater of live rabbits, or something of that kind. i was displeased; i did not conceal from them my opinion that such childish behaviour was unworthy of two reasonable beings; and with some severity i begged them to return to their places by my side. but they did not do so. then i started on the story of 'the calf's revenge.' "i read: "'m. houdry is a butcher on the outer boulevard. his specialty is veal; and people come from all parts of the district to purchase it. his renown is explained by a fact so exceptional that we should have refused to believe it, except for the repeated declarations of the commissary of police, m. mifroid, who held the first inquiry into the circumstances of the crime. it is well known that the paris butchers receive their meat from public slaughter-houses, and are forbidden to have slaughter-houses of their own. but every day m. houdry killed a calf at home!' "'that's quite right,' i said. 'm. houdry explained it to me several times; and i was rather surprised at the confidence he showed in me when he told me about his mysterious slaughter-house. why should he have revealed to me a fact which was known only to his wife, his assistant, a foundling whom he reckoned as one of the family, and to his brother-in-law who every night brought the calf? why? there is no telling. perhaps it was stronger than he! you know well that _one never escapes one's destiny_. i used to say to him: "take care! it will end by the calves getting to know about it."' "i went on with my reading: "'this calf was brought to him _in silence_ every night by his brother-in-law; and since the little back-yard in which his slaughter-house is situated looks out on some waste land behind, no one ever saw a live calf at m. houdry's house. m. houdry attached so much importance to killing his calves himself because his veal owed its excellence to his manner of killing it.' "'as a matter of fact,' i broke off to say, 'he used to cut off their heads at a single blow, with a big cutlass.' "'early yesterday morning m. houdry shut himself up as usual in his slaughter-house, with his calf. his assistant helped him tie up the calf. as a rule, m. houdry took from twenty-five to thirty minutes preparing his veal for the stall. thirty-five minutes passed; and the double doors of the slaughter-house did not open. sometimes m. houdry called his assistant to help him finish the work. that morning he did not call him. forty minutes passed. then mme. houdry, the butcher's wife, came to the back door and said to the assistant: "what's your master doing this morning? he's a long time over his work." "'"yes; much longer than usual," said the assistant. "'then she called, "houdry! houdry!" there was no answer; and she walked across the back-yard, and opened the doors of the slaughter-house. at once the calf ran out and began to dance gracefully round her. (dear! dear! i begin to dread some great misfortune!) she looked at the calf with some surprise, for at that hour the calf should have been veal. then she opened the door wider, and called to her husband. he did not answer; she turned towards his assistant and said: "'"your master isn't here. are you sure he hasn't gone out?" "'"quite sure, mum. i've been in the back-yard all the time. i expect he's hiding behind the door to jump out and give you a fright, mum. you know what a joker the master is. but all the same, _he'd much better be hiding the calf_. if anybody sees it, he'll get into trouble." "'so saying, he sprang at the head of the calf and slipped a halter over it. "'"houdry! houdry!" cried his wife. "you're hiding to give me a fright! don't be silly!" "'there was no answer; and she went into the slaughter-house. then she screamed; she had found m. houdry. he was not hiding at all. "'_he was laid out, in neat joints of veal, on the table._' "'i told him so,' said i. 'i told him so more than once. my presentiments always come true. i expected some great misfortune! and here it is! every day, again and again, i told m. houdry to look out: that one does not kill so many calves without the calves getting to know about it. but he always laughed at me. yet the theory of chances always confronts us. it confronted him. he took no notice of it. he took no notice of anything: neither of the way the calf looked at him, nor of the theory of chances. but i said to him: "my dear m. houdry, if a butcher can kill more than a thousand calves in paris, when it is forbidden by the law, there will certainly be found one calf to kill the butcher!" and here you are! the calf has cut up the butcher! well, well, it's nobody's fault... let us continue this interesting article.' "'mme. houdry screamed and fainted. the butcher boy also screamed and fainted--he was a foundling. a few minutes later the drama was discovered. one can imagine the emotion of the neighbourhood...' (there was reason for it. poor m. houdry: he was a fine fellow. and now they will have to try the calf. the calf will be a great success in the dock. it's a strange, fantastic, inexorable, and courageous calf!) "the journalist was not of the opinion that the calf had cut up the butcher. and once more he dragged in the name of cartouche. (poor old cartouche!) once more i shrugged my shoulders. then, raising my eyes above the top of the paper, i looked into the two corners of the drawing-room for those two foolish creatures who had so childishly retired to them--my wife and m. lecamus. i looked in vain. they had disappeared. i called to them loudly. they did not answer. i hunted through the flat without finding them. then i tried to open the door on to the landing; but it would not open. they had locked me in. "that did not trouble me at all. when i am locked in, i go out by the chimneys, if they are big enough; if they are too small, i leave by the window. but my drawing-room chimney is a monumental chimney; there is not another like it in gerando street; and i climbed up it with the same ease with which i had climbed down the chimney of m. houdry on the very morning on which the calf cut up that excellent but unfortunate man! i soon came out on to the roof into a very cold and rainy night which filled me with a profound sadness." chapter xx the strange behaviour of an express train that profound sadness was destined to affect seriously the future of theophrastus. as he made his way over the roofs of gerando street, it increased to such a paralysing intensity that presently he sat down on the edge of a roof, with his legs dangling over the street, and plunged into the bitterest reflections. the result of this unwise action was that he caught a severe cold. as he sat reflecting, he slowly came to himself, his modern self. during the reading of the article which narrated the crimes of the new cartouche, he had displayed a carelessness airy to the point of callousness. now the sense of his responsibility, especially in the matter of cutting up the butcher houdry, weighed on him more and more heavily. the memory of many midnight outings, by way of the chimney he had just climbed, came into his mind; and several sanguinary crimes filled his blinking eyes with the too tardy tears of an ineffectual remorse. so, in spite of all the suffering he had endured, in spite of all the passionate prayers of m. de la nox to Æon, source of Æons, _cartouche was not dead; the black feather ever sprouted afresh_. this very night, as on so many other nights of crime, he was out on the roofs of paris with his familiar spirit and his black feather. he wept. he cursed that mysterious and irresistible force which, from the depth of the centuries, bade him slay. he cursed the gesture which slays. he thought of his wife and his friend. he recalled with bitter regret the hours of happiness passed with those dear ones. he forgave them their terror and their flight. he resolved never again henceforth to trouble their peaceful hours with his red vagaries. "let us vanish!" said he. "let us hide our shame and our original obliquity in the heart of the desert! they will forget me!... i shall forget myself! let us profit by these _moments of reason_ in which my brain, for the while free from the past, discusses, weighs, deduces, and forms conclusions in the _present_. it is no longer cartouche who speaks. to-night it is theophrastus who wills! theophrastus who cries to cartouche: 'let us fly! let us fly! since i love marceline, let us fly! since i love adolphe, let us fly! one day they will be happy without thee; with thee there is no longer any happiness!... farewell! farewell, marceline, beloved wife! farewell, adolphe, dear friend and comforter!... farewell! theophrastus bids you farewell!'" he wept and wept. then he said aloud: "come along, cartouche." he plunged into the night, springing from gutter to gutter, crawling from roof to roof, sliding from the tops of walls with the ease, the balance, and the sureness of a somnambulist. * * * * * and now, who is this man who, with bowed head and stooping back, his hands in his pockets, wanders like fortune's step-son through the bitter wind and the rain that falls all the dreary way? he moves along the road which runs beside the railway, a road dismally straight, bordered by dismal little stunted trees, the dismal ornaments of the departmental road, the road which runs beside the railway. whence does this man, or rather this shadow of a man, this sad shadow of a man, with his hands in his pockets, come? on his right and on his left stretches the plain, without an undulation, without the bulge of a hill, without the hollow of a river--stretches grey and gloomy under the grey and gloomy sky. now and again along the railway, so painfully straight, trains pass,--slow trains, express trains, freight trains. while they pass the railway snores; then it is silent, and one hears, borne on the wind, the ting-ting-ting-ting of the little electric bell in the little railway station in front. but what little railway station? there is one in front; there is one behind. they are three miles apart; and between them the double line of rails runs as straight as a die. between the two railway stations there are no viaducts, no tunnel, no bridge, not even a level-crossing. i dwell on these details on account of the strange behaviour of the express train. that sad shadow of a man is theophrastus. he has resolved to fly, to fly no matter where, from his wife--poor dear, unfortunate, heroic fellow! after a night passed on the roofs of paris, not knowing whither to direct his steps, yet not wishing to stay them, he went into a railway station--what railway station? shall we ever know?--and without a ticket he got on a train, and without a ticket somewhere he got off it and came out of another railway station. it may be that in this evasion of the duties of the passenger his black feather stood him in good stead. behold him then on the road... at the entrance to a village... on the road which runs beside the railway. whom does he perceive on the threshold of a cottage at the entrance to the village?... the signora petito herself! it was the first time the signora petito had seen m. longuet since he clipped her husband's ears. she fell into a fury. she ran down to the garden gate; and her anger found vent not only in abuse, but in the most imprudent revelations. had signor petito heard what his angry regina said, he would have smacked her for her incredible folly. after abusing theophrastus for his barbarity to signor petito, she told him with vindictive triumph that her husband had found the treasures of the chopinettes, and that those treasures were the richest in the world, treasures worth far more than a couple of ears, were they as big as the ears of signor petito. "they are quits!" in the course of this outburst, theophrastus with considerable difficulty interjected a few words; but he was not at all disturbed by it. indeed he was grateful to the fury of signora petito for having given him such important information. he said grimly: "_i shall find my treasures, for i shall find signor petito._" the signora petito burst into a satanic laugh, and cried: "signor petito is in the train!" "in what train?" "_in the train which is going to pass under your nose._" "what is the train which is going to pass under my nose?" "the train which is carrying my husband beyond the frontier! get into it, m. longuet! get into it if you want to speak to signor petito. but you'd better make haste, for it passes in less than an hour, and you can't buy a ticket for it at any of these little stations. _it doesn't stop at them!_" she laughed an even more satanic laugh, so satanic that theophrastus longed for the moments when he was deaf. he raised his hat, and went quickly down the road which runs beside the railway. when he was alone, between the little trees and the telegraph posts, he said to himself: "come, come! i must ask news of my treasures of signor petito himself... but how the deuce am i to do it? he is in the train _which is going to pass under my nose_." at this point it is necessary to give a map: station a d c station b. x------x----x----x it is unnecessary to give the names of the stations, for the demonstration is practically geometrical, and to geometry letters are more appropriate. let us go to station a. the signal-man of station a hears the _ting!_ of the bell which announces that the express he is expecting has passed station b, and is on that section of the block-system which begins at station a and ends at station b. the express goes from b to a. it is on the line b a. that is clear. the signal at a announces the train by lowering its little red arm with a _ting!_ the signal-man at station a waits for the train, and waits for the train, and waits for the train! it ought to be there. it is a train which goes sixty miles an hour, and, if it is late, it goes seventy or eighty. the distance between station a and station b is at the most three miles and a furlong. three minutes and a half is the longest an express takes to do the distance. the signal-man, frightened to death at not seeing the train appear, shouts to the station-master that the train ought to have gone through! the station-master dashes to the telegraph, and telegraphs station b: "train signalled not arrived!" station b answers: "joker!" station a: "it's serious. what are we to do? horrible anxiety." station b: "notify jericho!" station a: "there must have been an accident! we are hurrying along the line! come and meet us!" station b: "what can have happened? we are coming." then the station-master, the porters, and the ticket-clerks of stations a and b hurry along the line, the staff of station a going towards station b, the staff of station b going towards station a. they hurry along, in the full light of day, in the middle of a perfectly flat plain, a plain without a river, without ridge, and without hollow. they hurry along the line, and meet one another between a and b.... but they do not meet the train! the station-master of station a (i say particularly of station a), who suffered from heart disease, fell down dead. chapter xxi the earless man with his head out of the window let us state this geometrical problem in the simplest words: an express train has to cover the ground between two little stations three miles apart. it is announced at the second when it passes the first; and yet they wait for it at the second in vain. they hurry from both stations down the line to find the wreck; but they do not so much as find the train, an express train in which there are perhaps a hundred passengers. that the station-master of a should have fallen down dead at the shock of this unheard-of, bewildering, stupefying, absurd, diabolical, and yet how simple (as we shall learn later) disappearance of the train, is not greatly to be wondered at. the minds of all of them were shaken by the occurrence. the station-master of b was not in a much better condition than his colleague. everyone present uttered incoherent cries. they kept calling the train, as if the train could have answered! they did not hear it, and on that flat plain they did not see it! the ticket-clerk of station a knelt down beside the body of his chief, and presently said, "i am quite sure he is dead!" the rest gathered round the body of the dead man; and then, tearing up two of the little trees from the side of the road which runs beside the railway, they laid him on them. carrying the body on this rude litter, they returned towards station a. we must bear in mind that the express had passed station b, and that no one had seen it reach station a. but they had not yet reached station a when, on the line, _on the line along which they had just come_, they perceived a railway-carriage, or rather a railway-carriage and a guard's-van! they greeted the sight in their excitable french way with the howls of madmen. where did this end of a train come from? and what had become of the beginning of the train, that is to say, of the engine, the tender, the dining-car, and the three corridor carriages? look at the plan. c marks the point on the line at which the staffs of stations a and b met, when they were hunting for the train. it is also the point at which the station-master of a fell down dead. the two staffs then, in a body, were bringing back the dead station-master towards a, when at the point d, a point they had passed a few minutes before, and at which they had seen nothing, they find a railway-carriage and a guard's-van. these people greeted this sight with the cries of madmen; and then they perceived an odd-looking head looking out of one of the windows of the railway-carriage. it waggled. this head had no ears; and the earless man _had his head out of the carriage window_. they shouted to him. from the moment they caught sight of him they asked him what had happened. but the man did not answer. the odd thing was that his head waggled from left to right, as if it were moved by the wind which was blowing at the time with some force. it was a head with crinkly hair. it was bent downwards; and the cravat round a high collar, very white on that grey day, was untied and streaming in the wind. at last when they came quite near (they moved slowly owing to the fact that they were carrying the station-master) they saw clearly the shocking reality. the man not only had his head out of the window, he had also got it caught in the window. the unfortunate wretch must have opened the window and stuck his head out while the train was in motion; and the window must have been jerked up violently and cut his head half off! on seeing this, the two staffs howled afresh; then they set down the body of the station-master, ran round the guard's-van, _in which there was nobody_, and opening a door on the other side of the carriage, they found that it was empty, except for the man _whose head was caught in the window_, and that his body, inside the carriage, was _stripped of every rag of clothing_. the news of these fantastic horrors at once spread throughout the district. an enormous crowd thronged the platforms of station a all the rest of the day. the chief officials of the line came from paris. not only were they unable to explain, on that day and the days following, the death of the man who had had his head out of the carriage window, but they were still unable to find either the train or the passengers. they talked of nothing but this strange affair at the funeral of the station-master of a, which was celebrated with great solemnity, and also throughout europe and america. chapter xxii in which the catastrophe which appears on the point of being explained, grows yet more inexplicable so far i have only given the simplest plan of the line that i might get the basis of the affair as clear as possible. that plan is not quite complete, for though there was only this one line joining the stations a and b there was a short side-line, h i, which led to a sand-pit which had supplied a glass-factory. but since the glass-factory had failed, they no longer worked the sand-pit; and the side-line was practically abandoned. here is the complete plan: station a d c station b. x------x----x----x / h/ / k/ / i/ it will naturally be supposed that this side-line leading to the sand-pit is going to provide the explanation, the quite simple explanation of the disappearance of the express. but if the matter had been as simple as the side-line would appear to make it, i should hardly have omitted it from the first map. i could have said at once: "it is quite clear that, owing to a train of circumstances which it remains to determine, the express, instead of continuing to follow the line b a, must have turned off up the side-line h i, and buried itself in the vast mass of loose sand at the sand-pit i. rushing along at a speed of over sixty miles an hour, it evidently plunged into the mass of sand, which covered it up; and that is the stupid but actual reason of its disappearance." but, to say nothing of the fact that this does not explain the presence, at the point d, of the guard's-van and railway-carriage, out of the window of which signor petito had stuck his head, this explanation could not have failed to occur to the alert intelligence of the engineers of the company. moreover, there were points and a switch at the point h; this switch, in accordance with the rules, was padlocked; and the key had been taken away. i indeed attached no importance to the fact that _the padlock was locked_; for, it seemed to me quite probable that the key had been left in the padlock, _which had actually been the case_, and that theophrastus, who had good reasons for stopping the train in order to join signor petito, had profited by the presence of that key, to shift the points. it was only a matter of thrusting over the lever of the switch; and that would explain why the train was not seen by the signal-man at a, since, instead of continuing along the line b a, it had turned off up h i towards the sand-pit. i told myself all this; and if it had explained anything, i should have stated it at once, and instead of giving two maps i should have given merely the latter with the side-line h i on it. that i have not done so is owing to the fact that the side-line h i explains nothing. i also believed at first that it was going to make the disappearance of the express clear to us, but as a matter of fact _it complicates the catastrophe instead of explaining it_; for here is the story, the true story; and that too continues to explain nothing at all. wandering along the road which runs beside the railway, theophrastus had noticed the little side-line, and seen that the key had been left in the padlock of the switch. this fact, which had been of no importance to him before his brief but stormy interview with signora petito, assumed an enormous importance when he resolved to join, at any cost, signor petito, who was in the train _which was about to pass under his nose_. m. longuet said to himself: "i cannot board the express, rushing between the two stations a and b, in the usual way. but there is a little side-line h i, the key is in the padlock of the switch; i have only to turn the lever, and the express will dash up h i. since it is broad daylight the engine-driver will see what has happened, he will stop the train, and i shall take advantage of its stopping to board it." nothing could be more simple; and theophrastus did it. he dragged over the lever of the switch, walked up the side-line, and waited for the express. theophrastus, hidden behind a tree that none of the officials on the express might see him, awaited its coming at the point k, that is to say, rather more than half-way up the side-line, that is to say, _on this side of the sand-pit i_. he waited for the express coming from h, _with his eyes on the track_. if, as everyone must have been supposing ever since i mentioned the sand-pit, the train coming from h had buried itself in the sand at i, theophrastus, who was at k, between h and i, must have seen it. but theophrastus waited for the train and waited for the train and waited for the train. he waited for it as the signal-man at station a had waited for it; and he no more saw the express than did the signal-man at a and the rest of the officials of the line. _the express had disappeared for m. longuet as it had disappeared for the rest of the world._ so much so that, tired of waiting, m. longuet walked down as far as h to see what was happening. there he saw the staff of a, which was hurrying towards b in its search for the express. he asked himself sadly what could have become of the express; and finding no answer to the question, he walked up h i, and when he arrived at k, which he had just left, he found the empty guard's-van and the railway-carriage which a few minutes later the two staffs were to find at d! once more he swore by the throttle of mme. phalaris, and buried his brow in his hands, asking himself how that guard's-van and that carriage came to be there, since the express itself had not come. _it had not come, since he, theophrastus, had not quitted the track._ suddenly he saw the head of a man waggling out of the window of the railway-carriage; and since this head had no ears, he recognised signor petito. he sprang up into the railway-carriage, _and without troubling to let down the window and release the head_ of the unfortunate expert in handwriting, he stripped him of his clothes, and proceeded to put them on. theophrastus, who knew himself to be tracked by the police and in whom the astuteness of cartouche sprang to life again, was disguising himself. when he was dressed, he made a bundle of his own clothes, and descended from the carriage. he felt in signor petito's pockets, took out his pocket-book, sat down on the embankment, and plunged into the study of the papers it contained, hunting for the traces of his treasures. but signor petito had carried to the tomb the secret of the treasures of the chopinettes; never again were the gall, the cock, the chopinettes, or the treasures to be discussed: with the result that signora petito, who learnt a few minutes later of the extraordinary death of her husband, presently went mad, and was confined in a lunatic asylum for six months. but we are only concerned with the misfortune of theophrastus, which so surpasses all other human misfortunes, and which is so hard to believe that we need all the assistance that science can give us to credit it wholly. i cannot believe that the minds of my readers are so base, or their imaginations so poor, that the matter of the treasures could be of any genuine interest to them, when they are confronted by this phenomenon, of such surpassing interest, the soul of theophrastus. presently that unfortunate man, on failing to find anything of interest to him in the papers of signor petito, heaved a deep sigh. he raised his head; and lo! _the guard's-van and the railway-carriage of signor petito had disappeared_! chapter xxiii the melodious bricklayer theophrastus, though he had with good reason made up his mind never again to be astonished by anything, was nevertheless astonished by the disappearance of the railway-carriage, with the earless head of signor petito waggling in the wind. with a melancholy air he walked down the little side-line, asking himself whether he ought to be more astonished by the disappearance of the carriage than by its sudden appearance. in truth, the suppression of the express was troubling his spirit deeply. it seems to me that i, who know the secrets of the sandalwood box, have no right to give the explanation of this suppression before the hour at which theophrastus learnt it himself, from a quite commonplace observation which the commissary of police, m. mifroid, an earnest student of logic from his earliest years, made to him in the catacombs of paris. at the same time, it is only fair to say that all the points in the problem are already in the possession of the reader, who can solve it himself, if indeed he has not already done so, without further delay. theophrastus then, in a state of prostration, walked down the side-line, arrived at the bifurcation, examined the switch, thrust back the lever which he had thrust over, locked the padlock, and carried away, once and for all, the key which had been so carelessly left in it a few days before. he performed this action because he felt that it was only right; and he restored the switch to its place, because he felt that his reason could not stand another disappearance of the express. still melancholy, he reached the deserted station a. all the rest of the staff was absent on the search for the express; only the signal-man was on the look-out. theophrastus questioned the signal-man, who could only say, as he pointed to the red arm of the signal: "_the express is signalled, but it does not come!_" "was it really signalled from the last station?" said theophrastus. "yes, sir, the station-master and all the staff of the last station saw the express go through it. they telegraphed it to us. besides, sir, look at my little red arm! look at my little red arm! and it is quite impossible that there should have been a wreck between the last station and this one. there is no bridge, sir, no viaduct, no works of art. besides, just now i climbed to the top of that ladder against the big tank there. from it you can see the whole line right to the other station. i saw our people down the line, gesticulating, but i did not see the express!" "strange--very strange," said theophrastus mournfully. "strange isn't the word for it! look at my little red arm!" "inexplicable!" said theophrastus gloomily. "the most inexplicable thing in the world!" cried the signal-man. "not so: there is one thing even more inexplicable than an express which disappears with its engine and passengers without anyone being able to tell what has become of it," said theophrastus in the same gloomy tone. "what on earth's that?" said the signal-man, opening his astonished eyes wider than ever. "why, a railway-carriage without an engine which suddenly appears without one's being able to tell where it comes from." "what?" cried the signal-man. "and which disappeared as suddenly as it appeared... you haven't by any chance seen a railway-carriage with a man looking out of the window pass this way?" "you're laughing at me, sir!" said the signal-man with some heat. "_you're exaggerating!_ just because you don't believe the story of the express which has been signalled and does not come! but look, sir, look! look at my little red arm!" m. longuet replied: "if you haven't seen the express, no more have i!" he shrugged his shoulders bitterly and left the station. an idea had occurred to him: his misfortune was so utter and so irremediable that he was resolved to die... for others. with a little astuteness the thing is practicable, even easy. since he is dressed in the clothes of signor petito, nothing prevents him leaving his own clothes on the bank of the first river he comes to. this simple proceeding will constitute a formal act of suicide. behold marceline and adolphe once more at peace! on the bank of what river did m. longuet lay his clothes? how did he re-enter paris? these are matters of such little importance that he makes no mention of them in his memoirs. there is only one thing that is really important, _the explanation of the disappearance of the express_. in the dull november sunset a workman was bricking up a hole in the roadway of a paris square in the ancient quarter d'enfer. as he filled it he was singing the _internationale_, the hymn of the advanced labour parties throughout the world. this workman, a bricklayer, was with his comrades engaged in assisting in that perpetual occupation of modern municipalities, getting the streets up; and the street was up. the municipal engineers had been making a new sewer through the quarter d'enfer with a patient disregard of the fact that under that quarter the catacombs spread their innumerable tunnels. it was but natural that the bottom of the end of the excavation, in which they were laying the new sewer, should have fallen out, and that they should have been obliged to rest the pipes on railway sleepers cut in half. they were, however, at the end of their task: the hole at the bottom of the excavation, which ran right down to a passage of the catacombs, had been nearly bricked up; and the aperture which remained could not have been much more than three feet across. as the bricklayer bricked it up, he sang the _internationale_. at the same hour, a few yards down the side of the square, m. mifroid stood before the counter of a shop at which they sold electric lamps, and was buying half a dozen of them for his men. each lamp was guaranteed to give forty-eight hours' light, though they were not much larger than cigar-cases. his lamps had been packed up; and he had just put his fingers through the loop of the string of the packet, when a little way down the counter he perceived a man, still young but with quite white hair, slipping several examples of these electric lamps into his pocket without paying for them. they would doubtless be quite as useful to a thief as a policeman. m. mifroid, with his usual courage, sprang towards the man, crying, "it's cartouche!" he had recognised him owing to the fact that since the calf's revenge every commissary of police in paris carried a portrait of the new cartouche in his pocket. they owed them to mme. longuet herself and m. lecamus, who had fled from the article in the evening paper to the nearest police-station, since they felt themselves bound, in the interests of humanity, to inform the police, somewhat tardily, of the bicentenary mental condition of theophrastus. therefore m. mifroid, who had had the further advantage of a passing acquaintance with theophrastus in his home, recognised him at once. theophrastus, who had for some nights known the intentions of the police, when he saw m. mifroid and heard his cry, said to himself, "it's time i was off!" he bolted out of the shop; and the commissary of police bolted after him. to return to our bricklayer, he sang the _internationale_ all the time. he was alone, because his comrades had gone round the corner to refresh themselves. he was at the chorus of the song; and it was the seventy-ninth time he had sung it since two o'clock in the afternoon. he raised his head towards heaven and roared: "cellalutte finale groupppons-nous etddemain..." with his head turned to heaven he did not see two shadows flying headlong, which, one after the other, fell through the hole; their cries were drowned in the volume of sound which poured from his lungs. they were the shadows of theophrastus and of m. mifroid pursuing him through the dusk. in their careless haste they fell clean through the street which was up. the bricklayer turned his head a little to the right and roared enthusiastically: "l'lnterrrnationaaaaleu sera le genrrhummain!..." and he finished bricking up the hole. singing the _internationale_, he had performed the symbolic act of interring a policeman and a thief. chapter xxiv the solution in the catacombs "when one comes to oneself in the depth of the catacombs," says commissary mifroid in the admirable report of the matter which he drew up, "the first thought which steals into one's mind is a fearful one: the fear of being old-fashioned. i mean by that a sudden anxiety lest one should find oneself reproducing all the ridiculous behaviour of which writers of romance and melodrama never fail to make their unfortunate heroes guilty when they find themselves immured in caves, grottoes, excavations, caverns, or tombs. "at the moment of my fall, even while i was so rapidly covering the space which separated me from the soil of the catacombs, my presence of mind did not forsake me. i was aware that i was falling into those thousand-year-old subways which interlace their innumerable and capricious windings under the soil of paris. the next thing i was aware of was a slight and painful numbness which followed my recovery from the insensibility into which i had been plunged by the inevitable shock. i was, then, in the catacombs. at once i said to myself, 'above all things i must not be old-fashioned.' "it would have been old-fashioned, for example, to utter cries of despair, to appeal to providence, or to strike my brow against the wall of the passage. it would have been old-fashioned to find at the bottom of my pocket a bar of chocolate and at once divide it into eight pieces which would have represented assured sustenance for eight days. it would have been equally old-fashioned to find a candle-end in my pocket--a place in which no rational human being ever keeps candle-ends--and five or six matches, and so create the harrowing problem whether one ought to let the candle burn once it was lighted, or blow it out and rekindle it at the cost of another match, a problem which often interferes with the digestions of whole families who read romances. "i had nothing in my pocket. i assured myself of the fact with extreme satisfaction; and in the darkness of the catacombs i slapped my pockets, repeating: 'nothing! nothing! nothing!' "at the same moment it occurred to me that it would be quite up-to-date for a man in my situation to illuminate without further delay the opaque darkness which weighed so heavily on my eyes and tired them, with a sudden and radiant electric star. had i not, before falling into this hole, bought half a dozen electric lamps of the latest pattern? the parcel must have accompanied me in my fall. without stirring i groped about and laid my hand on it. by great good luck the lamps were unbroken; i took one of them and pressed the button. the excavation was lighted by a fairy glow; and i could not refrain from smiling at the unfortunate wretch who, shut up in some cavern, invariably crawls along, holding his breath, behind a miserable little flame which presently he hurriedly blows out. "i rose to my feet, and examined the ceiling. i had known that the streets were up, and that the work was nearly finished. i was the less surprised therefore, on looking up through the hole through which i had fallen, to see no spark of daylight, and to realise that it had been quite bricked up. now several yards of earth separated me from living creatures, without the slightest possibility of my boring through them, even if the ceiling had not been far too high for me to reach. i satisfied myself of this without any feeling of annoyance; then, having turned my electric ray on the floor, i perceived a body. "it was the body of m. theophrastus longuet, the body of the new cartouche. i examined it and perceived that it showed no signs of any serious injury. the man must be stunned, as i had been myself; and doubtless he would presently recover. i called to mind the fact that m. lecamus had introduced me to his friend one day in the champs-elysées; and here i was face to face with him as one of the most abandoned of assassins. "even as this flashed into my mind, m. longuet heaved a deep sigh, and stretched out his arms. he complained of pains about his body, bade me good-evening, and asked me where we were. i told him. he did not appear utterly dismayed by the information, but drawing a pocket-book from his pocket, he traced some lines which looked like a plan, showed them to me, and said: "'my dear m. mifroid, we are in the depths of the catacombs. it's an extraordinary event; and how we are to get out i do not know. but the matter which fills my mind at this moment is really far more interesting, believe me, than falling into the catacombs. i beg you to glance at this little plan.' "he handed me the leaf from his pocket-book, on which i saw the following: station a d c station b. x------x----x----x / h/ / k/ / i/ "he sneezed twice. "'oh, you have a cold,' said i, taking the paper. "'yes; i have had a bad cold since taking a somewhat long stroll one rainy night on the roofs of gerando street,' he said. "i advised him not to neglect it. i must say that this quiet and natural conversation between two men in the depths of the catacombs, a few minutes after their recovery from such an unexpected fall, gave me infinite pleasure. having considered the lines on the paper, i asked the explanation of them; and m. longuet told me the story of the disappearance of an express train and of the reappearance of a railway-carriage, which was by far the most fantastic i had ever heard. this man had desired to make an express disappear between a and b by sending it up a side-line h i, by shifting the points, _and he had waited for it at k_. but the train had neither appeared at a nor at k, that is to say, either to him or to anyone else. next a railway-carriage had appeared to him at k; and presently that railway-carriage itself had disappeared. i could well have believed that this man, considering his past (the past of cartouche!) and the story which he now told me, was mad, if he had not expressed himself so logically, and given me the most exact material details about the points, the switch, and all the facts of the case. "moreover, it is a matter of common experience that a madman always understands everything. but this man wanted to understand. i begged him to repeat the story. he said nothing. twice i reiterated the request and still he said nothing. i was about to lose patience, when, grasping the fact that i had asked him something, he told me that now and then he was deaf for a few minutes. "since he had recovered his hearing, we returned to the problem of the express. he assured me that he would rather die ten times in the depths of the catacombs than come out of them once without knowing what had become of this express. 'i do not wish,' he added, 'to lose the most precious thing in the world: my reason.' "'and when did this happen?' said i. 'for, as a matter of fact, i have heard nothing of the disappearance of an express; and it ought to be generally known.' "'it must be known by now,' he, said in a very melancholy tone. 'it only happened a few hours before our fall into the catacombs.' "i examined the paper once more for quite five minutes. i reflected deeply, asked for certain complementary details, and then burst out laughing: though in truth it was not a laughable matter, for the catastrophe was truly appalling. what made me laugh was the seeming difficulty of the problem and the delight of having solved it in five minutes. "'you believe yourself a rational human being,' i cried, 'because you have reason! but you're exactly like ninety-nine people out of a hundred, you don't know how to make use of it. you talk of reason; _but what use is reason in a brain which does not know by which end to take hold of it_? it's a wonderful instrument in the hands of a doll! don't turn away your head in that sulky way, m. longuet. i tell you: _you don't know by which end to take hold of your reason!_ come, m. longuet: let us reason with this paper in our hands.' "he tried, the duffer! he said: 'there were five men at a, and five men at b. the five men at b saw the train pass; the five men at a did not see it. i--i was at k; and i am sure that it did not pass at k... consequently...' "'consequently?... consequently, there's no longer any express? consequently your express has vanished--melted--flown away? hey, presto: vanish express! _you think perhaps that the express is in the english channel!_ you see clearly, m. longuet, that if you have reason, you don't know how to use it. allow me to tell you _that you took hold of your reason by the wrong end!_ the wrong end is that which begins by saying, 'we did not see the express,' and which ends by saying, 'then there is no longer any express!' but i am going _to show you how to take hold of your reason by the right end_. it is this: the truth is that the express exists, and that it exists between the points b, where it was seen to pass, a, where it was not seen to pass, and i, where it could not pass. since we are in a plain, your express is between a, b and i. that is certain...' "'but!' "'hush! be quiet! and since we are in a plain, and in that plain there is an immense mass of loose sand, the only place in which the train could have disappeared is in that mass of sand: _that is the eternal truth!_'... "'i swear it didn't! i was at k waiting for the express; and i did not quit the line h i.' "'by the immortal masterpieces of the italian renaissance i command you not to let go of the right end of your reason which i have put into your hand. we are discussing at this moment what _is_; we are not yet at the _how_. it is owing to the fact that you began with the _how_ that you have not been able to reach what _is_. _the express is in i, since it cannot be anywhere else._ i am sure that the five men could not have seen it pass b, as they assert, unless it had passed. i am as certain that five men could not have been unable to see it at a if it had passed a; and since the line a b was examined and found not to contain the express, it must be that it turned off up the line h i. there we are, then, with the train on the line h i.' "'but i was there too,' cried theophrastus, 'and i swear to you _that it wasn't_!' "'dear! dear! do hold on to the right end of your reason! you were at k; the express passed k; _it must pass k_; _it must go and plunge into i, since it cannot be anywhere else_. by a _necessary_ chance, while the beginning of the train is engulfed in the mass of sand (i take it for granted that the line h i is too short for the engine-driver, having perceived the error of direction half-way up it, to have had the time to ward off the catastrophe), the couplings of the last carriage broke, and the carriage and the guard's-van began to descend the line which was on a slope since it went to this mass of sand. there, after having gone down the line to h and back up it to k, you saw the carriage and signor petito at the window. (probably signor petito opened the window with the intention of jumping out, at the moment he grasped the imminent catastrophe, and as it happened the shock of it shut his head in the window.)' "'that i understand; but what i don't understand...' "'_let us first consider what we do understand_: that is the right end of reason. we will next consider what we do not understand. no one is found in the guard's-van. the shock undoubtedly hurled the guard into the sand. _all that is certain._ now, after having stripped signor petito of his clothes, you sat down on the embankment and read his papers. when you raised your head, the railway-carriage was no longer there. well, since there was a slope and since there was a wind, which waggled the head of m. petito at the window, the carriage, after having glided down to h, found itself once more on the line a b a little higher up than h on the side of b, where the staff of the station have by now certainly found it. _do you understand now? do you understand everything, except that you haven't seen the train pass k? since everything is thus explained, it must be that that was how things happened._ now i only seek how you were not able to see the train pass k. that which it is impossible to explain in the case of five persons at a or at b may very well be explained in the case of one at k.' "'i am waiting,' said m. longuet. "i chuckled--and truly there was reason to chuckle--and went on, 'there are moments when you are deaf, m. longuet?' "'there certainly are,' said m. longuet. "'suppose you were deaf during the moment you were waiting for the train at k, _then you would not have heard it_.' "'no, but i should have seen it.' "we have already arrived at the fact that you did not _hear it_. that is a considerable advance! god bless you, m. longuet! god bless you!' (m. longuet was sneezing.) "m. longuet thanked me for my pious wish, and since he continued to sneeze, i took out my watch from _his pocket_ (he had already stolen it from me), and i said to him: 'do you know, m. longuet, how long a single one of your sneezes lasts, that is to say, how long you remain with your head bent while you sneeze?... three seconds!... that is to say a second and two-fifths longer than is required to fail to see an express with four carriages pass in front of you, which is going sixty miles an hour. m. longuet, the express has disappeared, or rather seemed to disappear, _because you were deaf and had a cold_!' "m. longuet threw up his arms wildly towards the ceiling of the catacombs. chapter xxv m. mifroid takes the lead "when m. longuet had recovered from the emotion with which my explanation of the disappearance of the express had filled him, he embraced me and handed me a revolver which he had found in the pocket of signor petito. he did not wish to keep it on him. he was desirous that i should be able, at need, to defend myself against the eccentricities of which he feared, on grounds based, alas! on a too real experience, the dangerous return. for the same reason he entrusted to me a large knife which had also come from the pocket of signor petito. "we laughed; and then we set ourselves to consider our situation seriously. m. longuet went on emptying his pockets; and there came out of them seven little electric lamps similar to those i had myself bought before falling into this hole. he congratulated himself, saying that his instinct had been right in urging him to take plenty of them, for, adding my six to his seven, we now had thirteen lamps, guaranteed to give forty-eight hours' light each, which gave us six hundred and twenty-four hours of consecutive light. he added that since we should not need light for the ten hours a day, afternoon--he was an advocate of the; restful siesta--and night, during which we should sleep, we had light for forty-four days eight hours. "i said to him: 'you are altogether too old-fashioned, m. longuet. cartouche immured in the catacombs would have done exactly the same with electric lamps as you are doing. but i, m. longuet, i take your seven lamps and add three of mine to them; and this is what i do with them!' "i threw them carelessly down against the foot of the wall. "'there is no point in dragging about these _impedimenta_,' i said. 'are you hungry, m. longuet?' "'very, m. mifroid.' "'how long do you think you could be hungry?' "since he did not seem to understand, i explained that i meant to ask him how long he thought he could remain so hungry without eating. "'i am pretty sure,' said he, 'that if i had to stay forty-eight hours as hungry as this...' "'let us suppose that you stayed as hungry as this for seven days,' i interrupted. 'three lamps would be quite sufficient for us, for at the end of those three lamps we should have no need of light!' "he had understood. but he smiled amiably, groped about, produced from the floor a good-sized parcel, and said: "'but you see, m. mifroid, i need not endure this hunger a moment longer than i need. i have here a ham which weighs ten pounds, or a hundred and sixty ounces. i am assured that if a man chews it in the manner invented by m. fletcher of the united states, he can live for an unlimited period on four ounces of ham a day, and retain the full possession of his faculties and muscular power. we have therefore food for one man for forty days, food for two for twenty days. and then'--he paused, and a singular light came into his eyes--'i think, m. mifroid, that then--at the end of that twenty days, _one of us will fletcherise the other_!' "'nothing, m. longuet, nothing would induce me to preserve my life by the degrading practice of cannibalism!' i said warmly. "'it is a sentiment which does you much honour, m. mifroid,' said m. longuet. 'but there is no need, and indeed it would be impossible, that we should both become cannibals.' "i was extremely disgusted, naturally, that m. longuet should have been guilty of such an egregiously old-fashioned act as to be unable even to make an unexpected visit to the catacombs, through a hole in the street, without bringing a ham with him; but i picked up the other ten electric lamps. i did not let my natural annoyance find vent in words; i only said to him, 'how on earth do you come to be walking about paris with a ten-pound ham?' "'i am going to write my memoirs,' said m. longuet. 'and since quiet is necessary to the writing of one's memoirs, and i feared that you gentlemen of the police would do your best to rob me of that peace, if i gave you the chance, i was going to shut myself in a little hiding-place i know of with this ham, these electric lamps, and some more necessary provisions which i had not yet bought, in order to write uninterrupted. the paper and pens i have already purchased; and they are in my hiding-place.' "the excuse was valid, and there was nothing to be said. i set off down the passage. "'where are you going?' he said. "'it does not matter where,' said i. 'but it is necessary to go anywhere rather than stay here, since here there is no hope. we will consider our course as we walk. our only safety is in walking; and in walking for twenty days without taking any bearings we have every chance of arriving somewhere.' "'but why without taking our bearings?' he asked. "'because,' i replied, 'i have remarked that in all the stories of the catacombs it is always those bearings which have been the ruin of the unfortunate people who have got lost. they mixed up their bearings, were reduced to utter confusion, and fell into the exhaustion of despair. in our situation we must avoid every cause for despair. you are not in despair by any chance, m. longuet?' "'not at all, m. mifroid; i am only hungry. and i don't mind saying that if i were less hungry in your delightful society i should have no regrets whatever for the roofs of gerando street.' "'we will eat presently, m. longuet,' i said. 'an ounce of ham shall be our evening meal.' "m. longuet smiled hungrily; then he said, 'perhaps it would blunt the edge of my appetite a little if you were to tell me something about these catacombs.' "'i think i ought to begin by giving you a general notion of the catacombs,' i said. 'then you would better understand why it is absolutely necessary to walk for a long time before getting out of them.' "the road we followed was a long passage of from fifteen to twenty feet high. its walls were very dry; and the electric light showed us a stone free from any parasitic vegetation, free even from any mouldiness. it was a sight which caused me some disquiet, for if we were to subsist for twenty days on a diet of salt ham, without any vegetable food, i feared that we might fall a prey to scurvy. my mind was at ease about the matter of drink; for i knew that in the catacombs there were little streams of running water; and we had only to walk far enough to come across them. "m. longuet could not reconcile himself to the idea that we were walking _without caring where we were going_. i thought it wise to make him understand the necessity of not caring where we were going. i told him, as was the truth, that during the laying of the sewer the engineers, having descended into the catacombs through the hole, had tried in vain to find their way about them and a way out. they had had to give it up, and to content themselves with building three pillars to prop up the roof, along the top of which their sewer ran, with materials let down through the hole by which we had so hastily descended, and which had been so definitely and unfortunately bricked up over our heads. "not to discourage him, i informed him that to my certain knowledge we could reckon on at least _three hundred and ten miles_[ ] of catacombs, and that there was no reason that there should not be more. it was evident that if i did not at once make clear to him the difficulty of getting out, he would have yielded to despair at the end of a couple of days' journey. [footnote : these are the official figures.] "'bear in mind then,' i said, 'that they hollowed this soil from the third to the seventeenth century! yes; for fourteen hundred years man has raised from under the soil the materials which were necessary for building on the top of it! so much so that from time to time, since there is too much on the top, and in places nothing at all beneath, the things on top have returned beneath whence they came.' "since we found ourselves under the ancient quarter d'enfer, i recalled to his memory that in a house in d'enfer street was in that way engulfed. it was precipitated a hundred and twelve feet below the pavement of its own courtyard. some months later, in , seven persons were killed in a similar landslip, in the district of menilmontant. i quoted several examples of a later date, laying stress on the loss of life. "he understood me and said, 'in fact, it's often more dangerous to walk about on the top than underneath.' "i had gained his attention, and finding him so cheerful and interested, forgetting all about his hunger, i profited by it to quicken our steps; and i chanted the most spirited chorus i could remember. he took it up and we sang together: 'step out! step out, boys, with a will! the road is hard and hot; there's an inn beyond the hill and good liquor in a pot!' "that's the song that makes you step out! "when we were tired of singing (one soon grows tired of singing in the catacombs because the voice does not carry), m. longuet asked me a hundred questions. he asked me how many feet of soil there were between us and the surface; and i told him that according to the last report it varied between eleven and two hundred and sixty feet. "'sometimes,' i said, 'the crust of earth is so thin that it is necessary to prolong the foundations of public buildings to the bottom of the catacombs. therefore in the course of our peregrinations there is a chance of our coming across the pillars of saint-sulpice, of saint-etienne-du-mont, of the panthéon, of the val-de-grâce, and of the odéon. these buildings are, so to speak, raised on subterranean piles.' "'subterranean piles!' he cried joyfully. 'is there really a chance that in the course of our peregrinations we shall come across subterranean piles?' "then he returned to his fixed idea: "'and in the course of our peregrinations is there any chance of our coming across a way out? are there many ways out of the catacombs?' he said wistfully. "'plenty,' said i. 'in the first place, there are exits in the quarter--" "'so much the better!' he interrupted. "'and others which are unknown, openings by which no one ever enters, but which none the less exist: in the cellars of the panthéon, in those of henri iv college, the observatory, saint-sulpice seminary, the midi hospital, some houses in d'enfer, vaugirard, tombe-issoire streets; at passy, chaillot, saint-maur, charenton, and gentilly... more than sixty...' "'that's good!' "'it would have been better,' i replied, 'if colbert had not on july , --' "'wonderful!' interrupted m. longuet. 'you have as fine a memory as m. lecamus!' "'it needn't astonish you, m. longuet. i was formerly secretary of the commissary of the district; and it pleased me to take an interest in the catacombs, as it has since pleased me to practise the violin and sculpture. you have not got beyond the old-fashioned commissary of police, my dear m. longuet.' "he did not reply to that; he said, 'you were saying that colbert on july , --' "'in order to put a stop to the cupidity of the builders, issued an order to close the openings into the catacombs before paris was quite undermined. that ordinance of colbert's has, so to speak, walled us up.' "at this moment we were passing a pillar. i examined the structure and said: 'here is a pillar which was built by the architects of louis xvi in , in the course of the consolidation." "'that poor louis xvi!' said m. longuet. 'he would have done much better to consolidate the monarchy.' "'that would have been to consolidate a catacomb,' said i felicitously, though i believe that the word catacombs is only used in the plural. "m. longuet had taken the lamp from me, and without ceasing he turned its ray from right to left as though he were seeking something. i asked him the reason of this action which began to tire my eyes. "'i'm looking for corpses,' he said. "'corpses?' "'skeletons. i have always been told that the walls of the catacombs are lined with skeletons.' "'oh, that macabre tapestry, my friend (i already addressed him as 'my friend' because i was so pleased with his serenity in such serious circumstances), that macabre tapestry is barely three quarters of a mile long. that three quarters of a mile is very properly called the ossuary, because skulls, ribs, shin-bones, thigh-bones, collar-bones, shoulder-bones and breast-bones form its sole decoration. but what a decoration! it's a decoration composed of three million and fifty thousand skeletons, which have been taken from the cemeteries of saint-médard, cluny, saint-landry, the carmelites, the benedictines, and the innocents. all the bones, well sorted, arranged, classified, and ticketed, form along the walls of the passages, roses, parallelograms, triangles, rectangles, spirals and many other figures of a marvellous exactitude. let us desire, my friend, to reach this domain of death. it will mean life! for i do not know a spot in paris more agreeably frequented. you only meet there engaged couples, couples in the middle of their honeymoon, lovers, and, in fact, all the happy people. but we are not there yet. what is three quarters of a mile of bones out of three hundred and ten miles of catacombs?' "'not much,' he said with a deep sigh. 'how many miles do you think we have gone, m. mifroid?' "i begged him not to waste time in calculations which must be entirely futile; then, to cheer him up, i told him the story of the janitor and of the four soldiers. the first was very short: there was once a janitor of the catacombs who lost his way in them; they found his body a week later. the second tells of four soldiers of the val-de-grâce who, by the help of a rope, descended a well two hundred feet deep. they were in the catacombs. since they did not reappear, they let down drummers who made all the noise they could with their drums. but since in the catacombs _sound does not carry_, no one answered the roll-call. they searched for them. at the end of forty-eight hours they found them dying in a cul-de-sac. "'they had no moral force,' said theophrastus. "'they were idiots,' said i. 'when one is stupid enough to lose one's way in the catacombs, one is unworthy of pity, i will go so far as to say, of interest.' "thereupon he asked me how i should myself escape losing my way in the catacombs. since we reached a place where another passage crossed the one we were in, i could answer without delay. i said: "'here are two passages, which are you going to take?' "one of them ran directly away from our starting-point; the other almost certainly returned to it. since it was our purpose to get away from our starting-point, m. longuet pointed to the first. "'i was sure of it!' i exclaimed. 'are you quite ignorant of the experimental method? the experimental method in the depths of the catacombs has demonstrated for centuries that every individual who believes that he is returning to his starting-point (at the entrance to the catacombs) is moving away from it. therefore the logical thing to do to get away from one's starting-point is necessarily to take the road which seems to bring you back to it!' "we turned down the passage by which we appeared to be retracing our steps. in that way we were sure that we were not journeying in vain. "my two stories had carried us over another mile; then m. longuet said: 'i must really have my supper.' "we had our supper, an ounce of ham each. there was some difficulty in judging how much an ounce was; but we did the best we could. he instructed me in the method of eating one's food discovered by m. fletcher of the united states. we divided either ounce into four mouthfuls, not that they were by any means mouthfuls; and we chewed each patiently till we had extracted from it the last vestige of flavour. i could well believe him when he assured me that in this way we obtained from it the whole of the nourishment it contained. for my part, i should have been delighted to extract the last vestige of flavour from fifty more such mouthfuls. "after this meagre, but doubtless exceedingly nourishing supper, we continued our journey. we went another four miles, when i confessed that i began to feel tired. i was somewhat surprised to find a manufacturer of rubber stamps, a sedentary pursuit, like m. longuet to be endowed with such untiring vigour. on learning from my watch, which he still carried, because he said he found it a comfort to carry somebody else's watch, that it was eleven o'clock, i suggested that we should go to sleep. "his fixed idea, that we should find an exit from the catacombs, led him to display some reluctance. but i pointed out to him the extreme improbability of finding an exit in the first twenty miles of three hundred and ten; and we composed ourselves to rest. chapter xxvi m. longuet fishes in the catacombs "we awoke the next morning with the appetites of youth. in the middle of our exiguous breakfast it occurred to me that we were behaving in an extremely old-fashioned way. the heroes of romance invariably divide their bar of chocolate into a number of pieces. we, with our ham, were showing ourselves as commonplace as they. i imparted these reflections to m. longuet, and suggested that instead of making our hundred and fifty-eight ounces of ham last for twenty days, we should eat ten ounces each a day, and be content to let them last eight. "m. longuet objected firmly. he said: "'in the first place the admirable discovery of m. fletcher of the united states has proved that such a quantity of food is unnecessary for the sustenance of the human being.' (i learned later that this was a misstatement.) 'in the second place, it is our duty as french citizens to postpone the degrading practice of cannibalism to the last possible moment.' "he spoke with a vigorous emphasis there was no gainsaying. i admired his strength of character, and was silent. "immediately after breakfast we resumed our journey. "in about half an hour m. longuet complained of thirst; and i explained to him that in our circumstances all complaints were utterly futile: a statement which, for all its undeniable logic, seemed to afford him very little comfort. but fortunately at the end of another hour our ears were greeted by the agreeable sound of rippling water; and presently the ray of our electric lamp gleamed on a little stream which ran from some subterranean spring across the passage. m. longuet flung himself down and began to drink. i hesitated, for it appeared to me, as a logician, that since we could not carry water along with us, _to drink would only make us thirsty_. then i reflected that we should find other springs, and presently followed his example. "we went on our way; and presently m. longuet inquired of me whether there was no nourishment of any kind in the catacombs on which we might sustain life when we had exhausted the resources of ham and the survivor of cannibalism. fortunately i had visited the laboratory of the catacombs of m. milne-edwards; and i could entertain him with an account of the fauna and flora of these caverns, on which he would be able, at need, to keep himself alive. i am bound to say that, contrary to my usual habit, i took great pleasure in this conversation about edible things. i felt indeed that such a subject was extremely old-fashioned; doubtless my pleasure in it arose from the exiguity of my breakfast. "'my dear friend,' i said, 'it is always possible not to die of hunger, even if you never get out of the catacombs. the flora, the cryptogamic vegetation, the mushrooms, in a word, of the catacombs, will not suffice, i fear, to keep you alive. but fortunately wherever you find water in these caverns, you find food. you can always become an ichthyophagus." "'what on earth is that?' he said suspiciously. "'an ichthyophagus is a fish-eater.' "'ah!' he exclaimed with an immense satisfaction, 'there are fish in the waters of the catacombs! i am very fond of fish!' he paused; then he added in a musing tone, 'after all, it is better to be an ichthyophagus than a cannibal.' "'they are not large fish; but certain streams contain incalculable quantities of them.' "'really? incalculable quantities?... incalculable?... how large are they?' he said with great animation. "'oh, they are of different sizes. generally they are small. but they are not at all disagreeable to eat. i was told about them when i went down to visit the fountain of the samaritan, a very pretty, good-sized spring in the ossuary.' "'is it far from here?' he said eagerly. "'i cannot tell you at the moment. all i know is that this fountain was built in by m. héricourt de thury, engineer of subterranean passages. as a matter of fact, this fountain is frequented by copepodes (cyclops fimbriatus)...' "'ah! copepodes! are they fishes?' "'yes; and they present modifications of tissue and coloration peculiar to themselves. they have a beautiful red eye.' "'what? one eye?' "'yes; that is why they are called cyclops. but you need not be astonished that this fish has only one eye, for the asellus aquaticus, which also lives in the running streams of the catacombs, a little aquatic isopode, as its name indicates, often has no eyes at all.' "'impossible!' cried m. longuet. 'how do they see?' "'they have no need to see, since they live in darkness. nature is perfect. she is perfect in giving eyes to those who need them; she is perfect in taking away eyes from those who do not need them.' "m. longuet appeared to reflect a little; then he said: 'then, if we continued to live in the catacombs, we should end by no longer having eyes?' "'evidently: we should begin by losing the use of our sight and then our sight itself. our descendants would soon lose their eyes altogether.' "'our descendants!' he cried. "we laughed at this little slip; and then he pressed me to continue my description of the fishes of the catacombs. "i discussed at length the modification of organs, their excessive development or their atrophy, according to the environment in which the species lives. i described the different kinds of fishes also at length. "but at last he said: 'all this about their organs is very interesting. but how do you catch them?' "'i can only tell you that the catacombs which contain all these millions of bones cannot offer us a single maggot in the way of bait.' "'no matter,' said theophrastus. 'there are more ways of killing a dog than hanging him. an angler has more than one trick in his basket; and the asellus aquaticus had better look out.' "that day and the days which followed it were very much alike. whenever we came to a stream we stopped and drank. always m. longuet wanted to stop and fish. this was not wholly hunger; the sportsman's ardour burned in his soul. but i represented to him that, for anything we knew, we had the whole three hundred and ten miles of catacombs to traverse before we came to the exit, and that it was our first duty to walk and walk. we might have fallen into them at the furthest end. "by eleven o'clock, not only the sustaining but also the satisfying effect of the ounce of ham appeared to be exhausted; we were not only extremely hungry, but we were moving at a much slower pace. i represented to m. longuet that it would be wise to have our déjeuner at once. but his dreadful middle-class instincts were too strong for us. he had the habit of a regular life so ingrained in him that he would not hear of déjeuner before noon. also i marvelled at his power of endurance: i had never suspected that the manufacture of rubber stamps could endow a man with those muscles of steel. none the less we talked very little between eleven and noon. "that ounce of ham was one of the most delicious meals i have ever eaten. m. longuet, who seemed in the course of our conversation to have caught some of my scientific spirit, timed the meal by my watch. it was a source of great satisfaction to him that he took from nine to eleven seconds longer over each mouthful than i did. after it we proceeded on our way with renewed vigour; and since i found that he was of the truly receptive type of mind, i found our conversation very enjoyable. "the afternoon was exactly like the morning. we walked, conversing about a dozen different subjects. the next morning was exactly like the last afternoon; and the days which followed were exactly like one another. the second and third days were the least comfortable. on those days the satisfying effects of our ounces of ham appeared to exhaust themselves more quickly. but after the third day i began to realise the great value of the discovery of m. fletcher of the united states. our appetites had become quite normal; an ounce of ham blunted them till the next meal. we were losing weight indeed, especially m. longuet, whose waistcoat hung somewhat limply down in front. but the muscles of our legs appeared to have grown stronger; and undoubtedly our intellects had grown quicker and more alert. when we had exhausted my subjects, i learned from m. longuet the process of making rubber stamps, with a thoroughness which fits me to embark at any moment on that career. i found that he was even quicker to acquire the knowledge which goes to the making of an able commissary of police. "it would indeed have been a very pleasant walking tour, thanks to that unlikeness of our natures which produces the most harmonious companionship, had it not been for the monotony of the scenery through which our way lay. the subterranean passages, illumined by our lamps, were sometimes vast, sometimes narrow, sometimes rounded like the naves of the cathedrals, sometimes square, angular, and mean, like the corridors of workhouses. but they presented no spectacle of great variety. when he had said, 'look, stone! look, clay! look, sand!' we had said everything, because we had seen everything. "it was on the afternoon of the fourteenth day that m. longuet embarked on a subject of conversation extremely distasteful to me, the edible qualities of the human body. i tried gently to divert him from it; but it appeared to have become one of his fixed ideas; and he harped on it for two very tedious hours. that evening i halted for supper on the banks of a stream, nearly eighteen inches wide, which ran across the passage we were in; and after supper i suggested that, before retiring for the night, he should for once glut his sportsman's ardour. "though indeed he had no hooks, he fell to his angling with the liveliest eagerness. we turned the light of our lamp on to the waters of the stream, and presently out of the hole in the wall from which it issued, there came swimming a little fish. then we found that hooks were unnecessary in the sport of the catacombs. owing to the fact that the little fish had no eyes, m. longuet was able to lay his hand on the bed of the stream, which was, perhaps, at that point three inches deep, and when the little fish came swimming over it, to jerk up his hand and fling it on the bank. we examined his catch in the light of our lamp; but i was unable to say whether it was an asellus aquaticus or a cyclops fimbriatus. "in the course of the next quarter of an hour we caught three more of these little fishes (they were nearly four inches long); then, at the sight of fresh fish, a wolfish gleam came into m. longuet's eyes; and he suggested that we should repeat the supper we had only just finished. after his distasteful conversation of the afternoon, i made no objection. but with his ineradicable middle-class instinct he complained that we had no means of cooking our catch. i explained to him that our early ancestors, the cave-men, probably ate most of their food raw, and whatever else we were, we were, at the moment, undoubtedly cave-men. with this new intellectual alertness, acquired by following the method of m. fletcher of the united states, he saw my point. we cleaned the fish with the knife of signor petito and ate them. they were delicious. "but, as i should have foreseen, so much rich food coming suddenly after the rational diet on which we had subsisted during the last fortnight was too much for us, and for several hours we suffered the most acute pangs of indigestion. moreover, with the greedy haste of gourmands, we had not timed ourselves over the meal, and had eaten the fish far too quickly. however, no experience is wasted on a rational man; and i realised that one asellus aquaticus, after ham, is enough for the logical fletcherite. "after the passing of our indigestion, we slept soundly; and the next morning we resumed our journey entirely free from any anxiety: it might take us six months, or it might take us a year, but sooner or later we should find the ossuary and the exit from the catacombs, sustained in our task by the asellus aquaticus. indeed it was extremely improbable that it would take us more than a few days longer, for since i had never missed a chance of taking a passage which appeared to lead back to our starting-point, we must necessarily have drawn further and further from it. "this expectation was realised sooner than i expected, for on the night of the seventeenth day, just as, at the close of a very interesting discussion on the neglect of the logical faculty by the great majority of men, we had turned our thoughts to supper and sleep, we were suddenly confronted by two skeletons. "they were fastened against the wall on either side, and _an arm of either, like the arm of a finger-post, pointed down the passage ahead_. chapter xxvii m. mifroid parts from theophrastus "with a simultaneous cry of pleasure we quickened our steps, and presently we found ourselves between most interesting geometrical and ornamental figures composed entirely of bones. "i took off my hat to those bones, with a sense of profound relief and gratitude. my stay in the catacombs had been far from unpleasant, since i had passed the time in the company of such an agreeable and sympathetic companion; but i was glad that it had come to an end. i had had enough of it--possibly the monotony of the scenery had tired me of it. i had fallen into the way of instructing theophrastus; and at once i taught him to distinguish between the tibia, the cubitus, and the femur. a knowledge of anatomy harms no one. but i was sorry to observe that he listened to me with an air of gloom. he did not seem to share my joy at reaching our journey's end. "we had walked briskly for more than half an hour; and now and again i had paused to point out to theophrastus some unusually artistic arrangement of the bones, when suddenly we came upon a lighted candle in the left eye of a skull. i concluded that we had at last reached the realm of the living. then we came upon candles upon candles in the eyes of skulls, and then chandeliers full of twinkling candles. then we heard voices: the babbling tinkling laughter of women. we were reaching the end of our journey. "the first twentieth-century words we heard were: "'well, dear boy, this function isn't gay. i prefer the bullier...' "'thank goodness, i'm only eighteen years old--a good long way from replacing these tibias!' "we came into a big cavern to find ourselves in the middle of a fête. no one paid any attention to us; they took us for guests. "all along those funereal walls were ranged rows of chairs. the light was bright, the candles and the chandeliers of skulls gleamed. at the end of the cavern was a platform covered with lines of music-stands. the musicians were just coming on to the platform. the audience was taking possession of the chairs; people were arguing and joking about the macabre decoration of the walls. "all the cafés of the abyss, all the artistico-mystico-macabre scenes in which life is laughed at and death jeered at, all those boxes of the butte, in which skulls grin from the walls, and skeletons rattle on the floor, all the funereal carnival of montmartre were surpassed. "we had before us fifty musicians of the opera, of lamoureux, and of colonne, who had come down into the kingdom of bones to serenade the dead. and under the vaults of the catacombs, among their avenues and crossways, where stretch the tragic walls covered with the bony wrecks of men, the funeral march of chopin raised its lamentation before an audience of æsthetes, of artists, of bulgarians, of moldo-wallachians, of frequenters of first-nights, of m. mifroid, and m. theophrastus longuet, who sleeps peacefully on his chair as he always does at the theatre. "'perfect, that first violin! perfect!' i said under my breath. (i am a connoisseur.) "what gave me the greatest delight was the exquisite fashion in which the orchestra rendered the adagio of the third symphony of beethoven. finally we had 'the dance macabre' of saint-saëns. then i tapped theophrastus on the shoulder and said that it was time we went home. the concert after three weeks of the catacombs had done me a world of good. "we walked briskly, and ten minutes later we found ourselves on the surface of the earth. i breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction: with the exception of the ham, there had been nothing old-fashioned about our three weeks' journey through the catacombs. "'i told you that we should get out!' i said. 'my wife will indeed be pleased to see me!' "'so much the better for you and for her,' said theophrastus gloomily. "'i should never have believed that the catacombs were so pleasant,' said i. "'neither should i,' said theophrastus gloomily. "we walked on for a few minutes in silence. it was so pleasant to be walking under the open sky and the stars instead of under a roof in electric light, that i did not hurry to take a cab. "then theophrastus said, 'what are you waiting for?' "what am i waiting for? i'm not waiting for anything or anyone. i am being waited for. and i'm sure that mme. mifroid must be in a terrible state of anxiety.' "'but why don't you arrest me? when i asked what were you waiting for, i meant what are you waiting for to arrest me?' "'no, m. longuet, no. i shan't arrest you... it was my mission to arrest cartouche. but cartouche no longer exists! there is only m. longuet; and m. longuet is my friend!' "the eyes of theophrastus filled with tears. "'i have a strong feeling that i'm cured... if only i could be sure of it.' "'what would you do if you were?' said i. "'i should go back to my wife, my dear marceline,' he said wistfully. "'well, you must go back to your wife, m. longuet; you certainly must.' "'you advise me to?' "'of course i do.' "'no, m. mifroid, no. she no longer expects me. before falling through that hole in d'enfer street, i was careful to leave my clothes on the bank of a river. she believes me dead--drowned. she must be plunged in profound despair. my only satisfaction is that my dear friend, m. lecamus, whom you know, has done everything possible for her in her affliction.' "'that makes it all the more necessary for you to go back to her,' i said. "'i will,' said theophrastus; and his face brightened. "we were shaking hands with one another, with the reluctance to separate of bosom friends; and indeed our sojourn in the catacombs had made us bosom friends, when suddenly theophrastus smote his brow and said: "'_i must tell you a story of your youth!_' "now, if anyone, at such a time, with mme. mifroid in such a state of anxiety, had said to me, 'i must tell you a story of _my youth_,' i should have made some excuse and fled. but he said, '_i must tell you a story of your youth_.' it was extremely curious; i stopped and listened; and this was what he told me: "'the incident took place in this spot, the buci cross-roads,' said theophrastus. "'was i very young?' i asked, smiling. "'well, you must have been between fifty and fifty-five.' "i gave a little jump. i am not quite forty. and you can understand my astonishment when m. longuet spoke of an incident of my youth when i was between fifty and fifty-five. but he paid no heed to my movement, and went on: "'at that time you had a greyish beard, cut into two long broad points which flowed gracefully down to your belt; and you were mounted--i can see it now--on a fine spanish horse.' "'really? i was mounted on a spanish horse?' (i have never been mounted on anything but a bicycle.) "'a spanish horse, which you gave to one of your archers to hold.' "'ah, i was in command of archers, was i?' "'yes, of twenty mounted archers, and a hundred archers on foot. all this troop had come from the palais de justice; and when it reached the buci cross-roads, you dismounted, because you were thirsty, and wished before the ceremony to get outside a pint at the tavern kept by the smacker.' "'and for what ceremony had i come from the palais de justice with my hundred and twenty archers?' said i, wishing to humour him, for i only wanted to get home. "'it was the matter of summoning me by public proclamation for the murder of the workman mondelot. therefore on that day, march , , the clerks of court, trumpeters, drummers, archers on horseback, and archers on foot, issued from the palais de justice in an imposing procession, and after having made the proclamation first in the court de may, where everything passed quietly, and then again in croix-rouge place, they came back here to the buci cross-roads. you had drunk your pint, m. mifroid, and were mounting your spanish horse, when this remarkable incident took place. the clerk of court read very solemnly: 'in the name of the king, through the lords of parliament, the said louis-dominique cartouche...' when a voice, cried: 'present! here's cartouche! who wants cartouche?'... on the instant the clerks of court, archers on foot, and archers on horseback, drummers and trumpeters, the whole procession broke up and fled in every direction.... yes; there did not remain a single person at the buci cross-roads, _not a single person except myself and the spanish horse_, after i cried: "'here's cartouche!' "phenomenon more curious than all curious phenomena in the depths of the catacombs!... m. longuet had no sooner said, 'here's cartouche!' than i started to fly from the buci cross-roads as fast as my legs could carry me, _as if the fear of cartouche had dwelt in the calves of the police at the buci cross-roads for nearly two hundred years_!" chapter xxviii theophrastus goes into eternal exile at this point i leave the report of the commissary of police, m. mifroid. the conclusion of it indeed is filled with the most profound and philosophic reflections on the effect of companionship in misfortune on the human heart; but they are not relevant to the story of theophrastus. when the noise of the flying feet of m. mifroid no longer came echoing down the empty street, the heart of that unfortunate man filled with the deepest melancholy. here was that accursed black feather again! behold him in the flickering light of a street lamp. he shakes his head. ah! with what a lamentable air does he shake his miserable and dolorous head! of what is he dreaming, unhappy wretch, that again and again he shakes his luckless head? doubtless the idea he had had of going back to disturb the peace of his dear marceline no longer appears to him reasonable. plainly he rejects it, for his heavy, lagging feet do not carry him towards the heights of gerando street. some minutes later, he finds himself in saint-andrew-des-arts place, and plunges into the dark passage of suger street. he rings at a door. the door opens. in the passage a man in a blouse, with a paper cap on his head and a lantern in his hand, asks him what he wants. "good-evening, ambrose. you are still awake, are you--as late as this?" said theophrastus. "it's me. oh, a lot of things have happened since i last saw you!" it was true. a lot of things had happened to m. longuet since he had last seen ambrose, for he had not seen him since the day on which he had learned from him the date of the water-mark on the document found in the cellars of the conciergerie. "come in, and make yourself at home," said ambrose. "i will tell you all about it to-morrow," said theophrastus. "but to-night i want to sleep." ambrose took him up to bed, and he slept the dreamless sleep of a little child. during the next few days ambrose tried to induce theophrastus to speak; but, oddly enough, he preserved a complete silence. he spent his time writing and writing. once or twice he went out at night. once ambrose asked him where he was going. "a commissary of police, m. mifroid, is writing an account of a journey we took together," said theophrastus. "and i am going to ask him for a copy of it." i am inclined to believe that one of these nights he must also have returned to the flat in gerando street, by his favourite chimney, and taken away from it the report, which m. lecamus had written for the pneumatic club, of the operation of m. eliphas de saint-elme de taillebourg de la nox. also on one of those nights he must have acquired the sandalwood box inlaid with steel; and since ambrose believes that he had but little money, it is not improbable that when he acquired it he had his black feather. one evening he came downstairs carrying a box, the sandalwood box, under his arm; and with an air of gloomy satisfaction, he said to ambrose, "i have finished my literary labours; and i think i will go and see my wife." "i did not like to speak to you about her," said ambrose quickly. "your gloom and your inexplicable behaviour made me afraid that you had some domestic difficulties." "she is as fond of me as ever!" cried theophrastus with some heat. as he left the house, ambrose said to him, "be sure you remember me very kindly to marceline." theophrastus said that he would; but to himself he said: "marceline will never see me; she must never see me. not even the catacombs have torn out my fatal black feather. i must not trouble her peace. she _shall_ never see me. but i--i wish to see her once again, from afar, _to see if she is happy_." he sobbed in the street. * * * * * it is nine o'clock at night, a dark winter's night. theophrastus mounts the slope at the top of which rise the walls of azure waves villa. with a trembling hand he draws back the bolt of the little door of the garden behind the house. he crosses the garden gently, noiselessly, one hand pressed against his heart, which is beating even more furiously than on the night of the purring of the little violet cat--his good heart, his great heart, still overflowing with love for the wife he wishes to see happy. there is a light in the drawing-room; and the window is a few inches open, for the night is muggy. you advance slowly, noiselessly to a screening shrub, set down the sandalwood box, and peer through the leafless branches into the cosy drawing-room. ah! what have you seen in the drawing-room?... why that deep groan? why do you tear the white locks from your brow?... what have you seen?... after all, does it matter what you have seen, _since you are dead_? did you not wish to see your wife happy? well, you see her happy! she and m. lecamus are sitting on the sofa. they are holding one another's hand; they are gazing at one another with the eyes of lovers. he kisses her, with respect but with devotion. he is consoling her for the loss of you. you wished it. how can he better console her than by replacing you? theophrastus, the gentle, kind-hearted manufacturer of rubber stamps, perceives this. he drops on his knees on the cold, wet grass, weeping tears of bitter resignation. he is reconciling himself to the necessity of the cruel fact that they are sitting in his comfortable drawing-room, and he is kneeling on his cold, wet grass. he is almost reconciled to it; but not quite. what is that that is thrusting, thrusting forth? _the upward thrust of the past_--_the black feather_! the tears are drying in the eyes of theophrastus. his eyes are gleaming through the dim winter night with an evil gleam. he springs to his feet; he grinds his teeth; he cries hoarsely: "_by the throttle of madame phalaris!_" the past has him in its grip; he is racked by the pangs of the old-time jealousy, and the pangs of the new. in three seconds he is through the window and in the drawing-room. wild screams of terror greet his entrance; but in ten seconds more m. lecamus lies senseless in the big easy-chair, bound hand and foot with the bell-rope. when he recovers his senses, the hand of the clock has moved on ten minutes. torn by fears and suspense, he listens with all his ears. he hears faint movements on the floor above. the minutes pass; twenty minutes pass. then there is a sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. theophrastus enters, once more a changed theophrastus: his eyes no longer gleam with an evil light; they are full of unshed tears. his face is working with intense emotion; and on his shoulder is a portmanteau. _what does that portmanteau contain?_ theophrastus, his face working with intense emotion, crosses the room to his old friend. he wrings his hand, wrings it for the last time; and in a broken voice, a voice full of tears, he says: "good-bye, adolphe! good-bye, dear friend, for ever! i am going to the _seine near the town hall bridge. i have to leave this portmanteau._ and then i go into eternal exile!" he loosed his grip of his friend's hand and, his face still working with intense emotion, he went through the window, bearing the portmanteau with astonishing ease. m. lecamus has never seen him again; he has never seen marceline again; he has never seen the portmanteau again. does the unhappy theophrastus, luckless exile from the paris he loves, wander through the far east or the far west? does he in the old eighteenth-century fashion police bagdad, or does he build up a rubber stamp business in chicago? * * * * * a new novel by the author of "happy hawkins" the knight-errant by robert alexander wason author of "happy hawkins," etc., etc. illustrated by hanson booth $ . net; by mail, $ . a modern, city-bred "happy hawkins," one philip lytton by name, a young man with ample fortune and excellent ideas about enjoying the good things in life, takes to heart the taunts of his lady love and engages entertainingly in business. making a failure of it in his simple, blundering way he leaves new york to seek his fortunes in the far west. here mr. wason takes us over familiar ground in that country that he knows so well and has already written about so engagingly in _happy hawkins_, the country which dr. crothers so well names "the land of the large and charitable air." mr. wason knows men and women, their strength and weakness, their vices and virtues, and packed to the covers though it is with incident, with suspense, with the essence of story interest, his new book yet carries a strong moral. his fresh, spontaneous humor, which the nation has called "american humor in its best estate," flashes everywhere. someone has compared a wason book to the wildwood, with its lights and shadows, its lilting melodies, its sudden storms, its joyous freedom. editors, publishers, his friends, his critics, have all objected to an apparent lack of technique in mr. wason's writing; but he continues to mingle humor and pathos, the dramatic and the argumentative, the tender and the cynical, with all the prodigality and originality of old nature herself. of stories there is no end; but in addition to a real story, a wason book gives the reader the rare privilege of intimate association with a broad, sympathetic and discriminating personality. it is not necessary to agree with him--he fattens on controversy--and the reader who enters into the spirit of it can find much of what stevenson calls the joy of mental wrestling. small, maynard & company publishers, boston * * * * * an unusually powerful novel her husband the mystery of a man by julia magruder author of "princess sonia," "a heaven-kissing hill," etc., etc. illustrated by lucius wolcott hitchcock $ . net; by mail $ . this is miss magruder's most powerful novel; in fact, it is the novel on which, in her own opinion, her literary reputation will rest. in it she displays to the full her command of the arts of the storyteller, her ability to lead the reader breathlessly from climax to climax, her power as a delineator of character, her broad acquaintance with human nature and her knowledge of how to express human emotions to their last, tingling vibrations. the story centres around the puzzling character of egbert lothian. and here indeed is a man who is a mystery from the very beginning of the novel--in his wooing, in his courtship, in his marriage to the remarkable heroine of the story,--the charming young american girl whom this interesting, distinguished scotchman so captivates--in his married life--and who grows more and more remarkable and mystifying, even to his wife, as the romance goes on, until near the close of the story the wife and the reader are amazed and held breathless at a disclosure of which neither she nor any one else had the slightest hint or conception. through the whole gamut of human emotions the girl in this novel passes, and the reader follows her and the man at her side with wonder and fascination. during its publication in the columns of a current popular magazine this novel created a storm of discussion. for serial purposes the story was condensed to about half its length. in book form it is now for the first time presented in its entirety. small, maynard & company publishers, boston * * * * * an important american novel the marriage portion by h. a. mitchell keays author of "the road to damascus," "he that eateth bread with me," etc. $ . net; by mail, $ . in her new book, which is by far her most important, mrs. keays discusses her favorite theme--marriage. she lays the scene of her story in a modern university city which many readers will recognize, and she portrays the life there with an unsparing, but just, understanding. as usual, she develops her characters with unerring skill. in fact, she depicts all her people, both admirable and otherwise, so naturally, so truly, indeed so perfectly, that the delighted reader will be inclined to believe that she writes of real living, breathing, human beings, existing in the flesh in the shadow of a great american university. the story centers around adela cleave, a charming woman who, after a brief marriage and an early widowhood, has won a considerable reputation as an artist in paris. returning to her native land to be with her father, an old and honored professor, she is at first inclined to wonder whether life will offer in her new environment so wide a scope for her interest in humanity as had been offered to her delighted senses in paris. but she early discovers that almost without her knowing it her life is seemingly inextricably entangled with the lives of a homogeneous yet strangely diverse social structure. her father, "daddy mark," as she calls him, or professor kay, as he is known to his colleagues, is a most lovable character, and it is many years since we have had in fiction so keenly diverting a person as mrs. heming, adela cleave's aunt, and a woman with an infinite capacity for martyrdom. the interplay of interests in a university community is alertly realized in the development of the absorbing plot, which shows the gradual growth of as sweet, and tender a love-story as has been told by any american novelist. small, maynard & company publishers, boston * * * * * a bully good story! the incorrigible dukane by george c. shedd author of "the princess of forge," etc. illustrated by stanley l. wood $ . net; by mail, $ . if jimmy dukane hadn't been a "good fellow," he wouldn't have got into so much trouble and if he _hadn't_ been a good fellow he wouldn't have--but that's the story! he had been easily acquiring the record as perpetual holiday-maker for broadway, when--well, "james a. dukane, sr., had, so to speak, brought down his fist on the table with a bang. james a. dukane, _jr._, had been under the fist and his eyes popped open very wide indeed." dukane and company were in the concrete construction business and they were erecting a big dam clear out in nevada. the elder dukane decided that the way to solve the problem of what to do with jimmy was to set him to work, so he sent him out to "make a report" on the dam. he--dukane, sr.,--then vamoosed for europe and left young jimmy to work out his own salvation. "the green tail-lights of the train flickered, faded, then with a sudden mischievous wink altogether disappeared; the last puffing of the engine was like a hoarse chuckle. "'dumped in a puddle at eleven o'clock at night', jimmy dukane vociferated resentfully. "in the caravan just departed there was everything to comfort the soul, to cheer the mind and moisten the palate--bright lights, snug chairs, jolly companions, a well-stocked buffet. here?--what the deuce was here anyway except water? he faced about. a few miserable beams of light escaped through the dingy depot window out upon the wet platform and gleamed glassily along the rails; some distance away in front of him glowed half a dozen misty, luminous balls like swamp-lanterns, which he surmised to be windows. "'the governor stung his son and heir this time', he remarked in immense disgust." that was only the beginning of it. things started to happen at once and when jimmy woke up in the morning in this little sage-brush town of meldon and found his clothes and money gone and a tramp's raiment in their place--with no money--he was naturally indignant. but his indignation fell on deaf ears. nobody knew him; he knew nobody. he began to get hungry. what should he do? what would _you_ do? the story of what he _did_--and incidentally of how he met a charming girl by the name of enid--is one of the most delightful that have fallen to the lot of the novel-reader in many a day. youth--exuberant, unconquerable, "incorrigible" youth--is in, around and over it all. you will _enjoy_ "the incorrigible dukane." small, maynard & company publishers, boston * * * * * adventure-heroism-love the loser pays a story of the french revolution by mary openshaw author of "the cross of honour" $ . net; by mail, $ . in this, her second novel to be given to american readers, the author of "the cross of honour" tells a fine, brave story that will still further enhance the reputation won by her previous book. "the loser pays" is the story of the devotion to love and duty of no less a personage than rouget de lisle, the author of the "marseillaise." many other writers have already taken the french revolution as their theme but miss openshaw is one of the few who have made it vivid and human. in fact, it is not too much to say that no one else, since felix gras wrote "the reds of the midi," has given us a story of the french revolution of so fine a quality. "a stirring tale, capitally recounted."--_london times._ "the possibilities of the revolution in france as a subject of fiction are almost infinite, but they have seldom been used with so keen a dramatic perception and at the same time so just a regard for the main outlines of history as in miss openshaw's book."--_glasgow herald._ "the story is so fascinating that the reader closes the book only when he has reached the last page. 'the loser pays' will be successful because the author has a good story to tell. it may be recommended to all who like a dashing, romantic story full of incident."--_glasgow citizen._ "there is really fine description of the september massacres. the story deserves more than a transient place among recent fiction of the great revolution."--_the outlook (london)._ small, maynard & company publishers, boston * * * * * an american and an english novel of permanent importance the road to damascus by h. a. mitchell keays author of "he that eateth bread with me," etc. $ . postpaid the story of a young wife who, when it is proved to her that another woman's boy should call her own husband father, adopts the boy without ever letting her husband know. from, this basic theme mrs. keays develops a dramatic and powerful story, "the finest novel of social import," says mr. percival pollard, in his critical volume, "their day in court," "written by an american woman in recent times; one of those rare books proving that all is not hopelessly chaff in the field of american fiction. 'the road to damascus' is a book, and contains a character, worthy of long life. the character of _richarda_ in this book is one of the finest ever drawn by an american woman; the book itself has perhaps the broadest view of life that has been shown on our side of the water." "a novel of remarkable power. it grips the attention like an ibsen drama."--_new york times._ "it is all true," says dean hodges, "true to human nature and the laws of god." "i took up the 'road to damascus' after dinner," says ida m. tarbell, "and did not lay it down until the end. it is a fascinating handling of a difficult problem--a most successful handling, too." broke of covenden by j. c. snaith author of "araminta," "fortune," "mistress dorothy marvin," etc. $ . postpaid a remarkable novel, that makes ordinary fiction pale in comparison. mr. snaith has produced a book that holds its own among those of meredith, dickens, and thackeray. it is the story of an english country family of the present day. "there is no living writer in england or this country to whom it would not be a credit."--_springfield republican._ "almost alone of recent english fiction, it plays with equal mastery on all the stops of human emotion."--_new york times._ "from the first moment mr. snaith makes your attention his willing slave, you read with that rare vacillation which urges you to hurry forward for the story and to linger for the detail."--_atlantic monthly._ "an exceedingly lively and diverting tragic comedy of men and old, acres. mr. snaith has invention, energy, and ideas of his own. he has courage and sympathy and the sovereign faculty of interesting his readers in the fortunes of most of his dramatis personae. the author has given us a delightful heroine, a wholly original hero, and a great deal of entertainment, for which we offer him our hearty thanks."--_london spectator._ small, maynard & company publishers, boston * * * * * "a really notable brief for democracy that everybody ought to read."--_nation._ one way out a middle-class new-englander emigrates to america by william carleton $ . net; by mail, $ . in this remarkable narrative a man tells simply but with dynamic power how at thirty-eight he lost his position in the office of a big corporation; how he learned that the special training of his own office was of no value in getting him a position in any other office; how at thirty-eight he was already "too old" to get such a position as he had found easily enough at eighteen; how he and his wife and boy in their trim little suburban home were actually confronted with the fundamental problem of how to exist; how he met and solved that problem in a way unexpected and dramatic, though to him and his wonderful wife, ruth, obvious and natural, by "emigrating" to america; and how in all their struggle they found their lives enriched and inspired by the old adventurous, pioneer spirit of their forefathers. once in a while a book appears which so profoundly impresses the public mind that it wins its place as a force in public opinion. such a book _one way out_ has proved itself to be. "it is a simple story of a simple life, one of the most convincing and interesting of its kind that i have seen in many a long day, and, in my opinion, the book is one that is bound to be widely read and thoughtfully discussed."--james l. ford in the _new york herald_. "a rare volume: it has inspiration for the doubter, the man who fears he cannot strike out for himself."--_boston advertiser._ "you have done more good in publishing _one way out_ than you will ever know," writes dr. a. e. winship, editor of the _journal of education_. "will not some of the noble rich buy a million copies and see that they are given to those who need them?" "an engrossing, because a vitally human, story."--j. b. kerfoot, in _life_. "a great adventure that has most gripping appeal."--_new york times._ "a very genuine inspiration."--_outlook._ "there are some fine suggestions, much food for thought, and a dramatic story in the evolution of the theme."--_literary digest._ "a book worth forty novels."--william marion reedy in the _st. louis mirror_. small, maynard & company publishers, boston * * * * * "a novel which deserves serious attention as an important contribution to modern american fiction."--nation. the garden of the sun a story of army life in the philippines by captain t. j. powers, u. s. a. illustrated. $ . net; by mail, $ . the _nation_ says of _the garden of the sun_: "two things distinguish this story from the general run of military novels. one is the vivacity of the dialogue, the other is the beauty of its descriptive passages. not that it is lacking in action--there is battle, murder, and sudden death enough to stir the most jaded reader of romance. "the scene is laid in the philippine islands and the important male characters, with one exception, are officers of the american army. this exception is tom bennett, a rich _roué_, who is touring the world in his yacht with his unhappy young wife and her sister. bennett and his party are attacked by moro pirates in the sulu sea and rescued by capt ballard and his men. later they visit the island of jolo, where capt ballard is stationed. between him and barbara, bennett's wife, a strong friendship arises which develops into love. the story of the relations of these two attractive and well-drawn characters is varied by clever pictures of the island life, of dances, of flirtations, of drinking bouts, and of skirmishes with hostile natives. "many real and interesting types are introduced, among them a wandering dancing girl, who calls herself la belle syria, but is, in spirit and in language, redolent of new york's gay irresponsibility. she uses expressive slang and is a charming, amusing creature. but her place in the novel is not solely that of the comic relief. she is partly responsible for the drunken brawl in which bennett receives the wound which causes partial paralysis. his helpless condition brings back his wife, who had resolved to leave him. "but the story does not end here. new complications ensue, in which both bennett and ballard are severely tested and from which they emerge heroically. the final chapters of the book, containing a strong and unexpected dénouement, are admirable pieces of dramatic writing. they form a fitting climax to a novel which deserves serious attention as an important contribution to modern american fiction. "capt powers should be given especial credit for his resistance to two temptations. in the first place, although writing of anglo-saxon soldiers residing among orientals, he keeps absolutely clear of the kiplingesque. in the second place, he describes tropical nature without the sensuous extravagance beloved of robert hichens." small, maynard & company publishers, boston * * * * * transcriber's note: the following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected. in chapter iii, "as you will, _marie-antoniette_!" was changed to "as you will, _marie-antoinette_!", and "belle-helène who keeps the harp tavern" was changed to "belle-hélène who keeps the harp tavern". in chapter v, "the explantion of its absence" was changed to "the explanation of its absence". in chapter vi, "monsieur de traineuse" was changed to "monsieur de traneuse". in chapter vii, "these villianous reformatories" was changed to "these villainous reformatories", and a missing quotation mark was added before "he took it from a wax mask". in chapter x, a missing period was added after "he fancied he heard voices on the staircase". in chapter xv, "spread over it as smoothly, as the edge of the rising tide" was changed to "spread over it as smoothly as the edge of the rising tide". in the advertisement for _the loser pays_, "marsellaise" was changed to "marseillaise".