Chapter II: Part 2

Having once consented, turning back was an impossibility; therein they differed from those in the flesh. We easily slip from our effort after higher things, and when we fall, fall far; they, having once turned their spiritual gaze upward, could not turn away. As he floated on, side by side with the Beauteous One, her sweet magnetism enveloped him like the odor of wild wood flowers.

His amazement increased; what worth in all this if he possessed no free will? Compulsory virtue is of no avail. He wondered what purpose they served floating about like butterflies on a summer breeze; and if it was any particular pleasure to the Lord of All to behold them gyrate? Oh dear! And did He never tire of even the Great White Throne?

He thought, with a chill of repulsion, that the Perfect One, who did nothing but sit on a throne to be worshiped, was a less beautiful expression of the Deity than the flowers of the field, or the birds that wing their glad flight through the ether; also, that the incessant twanging of harps was not so sweet a music, or so filled with worship, as the babbling of the brook, or the whisper of the wind, to Him who created them.

He was so weary of it all, even to the vapory, melodious voices of the shadowy choir; he wondered if they never rested; also, if it was because of the taint of his humanity that he could not appreciate the beauty and sublimity of it.

He remembered that from childhood he had been taught that heaven was as he now saw it, and whenever he had been given a hard task it had appeared to him that the height of enjoyment would be in having nothing to do; and that heaven was a place of eternal rest, had ever been held out as an inducement to exalted virtue, and—excessive labor. He found the inactivity terribly irksome, it reminded him of worldly _ennui_; then, the unreality bewildered him—it was like pressing the fingers upon the eyelids—persons, places and things are vividly seen, and yet we know that it is but a chimera of the brain; a vision of the intelligence. So he grew to doubt the reality of everything. He could not keep his spirituality keyed up to the proper pitch; his intelligence would wander back to earth and mortal love. The purely spiritual seemed to him to be lacking. It is only given to humanity to burn hot and cold; to reach the heights of bliss and the depths of despair; even that which we call despair has its amelioration, for never yet was it so dark but, given a little time, humanity looks upward to where the sun is shining, and hopes and strives to reach the illuminated summit; but here—there could be but this endless sameness through all eternity, without even the pleasure of striving, “thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.”

He rebelled madly; he preferred the trials and the pains of the body, with the power to control his actions, to the spiritual and no will of his own. Eternal leisure has its unpleasant features, though many seem to suppose that eternal leisure and eternal felicity are synonymous.

He looked back with positive longing to the hard work, and consequent weariness; from bodily fatigue rest had been sweet; but the unending spiritual lassitude of eternity was terrible to contemplate. A sad, reproachful thought wave met his pessimistic, spiritual cry; with shame and terror, he felt that the Perfect One saw all his discontent and rebellion—still he could not but wonder. Had all these placid souls been as easily swayed while in the body, as they were in the spirit? Their very sweetness and complaisance exasperated him; he thought, with a very human perverseness, that he should like to see one of them get angry, so as to get up a little excitement; instead, they were as sweet as the dripping sap of the budding maple, and—as insipid. Things and persons can be too good. Better a thunderstorm and a purified atmosphere than a sultry, lifeless day.

The exasperation grew upon him. The thought wave from his companion was like a perpetual sigh; a curious blending of the wish to adore, and the desire to be loved. He felt the reproach of the myriad souls who brushed him with filmy wings. Sad reproof fell upon him from Him seated over all.

Waves of love and adoration rose and fell on the soft, enervating air, like strains of languid music, the perfect rhythm madly suggestive to him of the sweetness and longing of human love. This love of his companion spirit revolted him; it was like a draught of tepid water to the traveler dying of heat and thirst; her thought wave had the effect of clinging hands, which would not let him go, and he grew almost to hate her.

As they once more came around that endless circle he saw the door sliding noiselessly open, a spirit was for an instant outlined against the darkness without; the door had already commenced to close; he madly broke away from the compelling current of the She, who would have held him. His consciousness felt her despairing cry breaking the placidity of that spiritual atmosphere, as the tornado sweeps the ocean, lashing it into frightful waves.

The All Seeing looked at him with awful wrath and majesty. He but sped the faster. The door was closing rapidly; he forgot the terrors of the darkness without—he forgot the multitude of drifting souls, and their horrible contact—he forgot that he knew not where he should go in all that limitless gloom; he strove madly to reach the door ere it closed, to once more shut him into that horrible inactivity, and forced semblance of adoration.

He reached the door—yet a little space open; the guardian angel paused in amazement—it sufficed. He darted through; but instead of floating off on the magnetic current as he had expected, he plunged downward—down, down, down! Would he never reach a resting-place?

Oh, for a voice to cry aloud! Oh, for the company of even the gruesome shadows! Though he loathed and feared them, this absolute isolation held a greater terror, the fear that this state might be perpetual. One of the first principles of all life is resistance, and deprived of all motive—which is but another way of saying of all power of resistance—he felt as though in the throes of a spiritual vertigo.

He struggled frantically to cry aloud, he imagined that a ray of light pierced the gloom in the distance; with a mad effort he struggled upward, unseen hands caught and held him down, and still that tantalizing ray of light flickered and glowed like a beckoning ray of hope.

Within its radius grew a face—his swooning soul revived—it bore the lineaments of Aimee; she too must have passed over to the Beyond.

Like sweetest music a sound reached him; sweeter than all the mythical harps are the tones of the human voice—and succeeding the deadly silence through which he had passed—it flooded his whole being with delight. Aimee was stooping over him caressingly, her words were very simple: “August, dear, are you better?”

His fingers closed feebly over her hand, as he whispered faintly, “Oh, I fell so far! How came you to catch me?”

She answered him soothingly, and held an invigorating drink to his lips; he drank obediently and immediately dropped into a refreshing slumber.

* * * * *

When through the rush and roar of the storm the frightened men bore August’s body to the farmhouse there was no disfiguring trace upon him except a slight blue line, like a faint pencil mark, extending from brow to chin; he lay like one asleep, that faint, sweet smile still upon his lips. In a state of mental collapse Aimee accompanied them, and for days her condition bordered upon insanity; when they made preparations to bury August, she cried so piteously that he was not dead, that they were forced to delay the final ceremonies; this was repeated until her persistence won a measure of unwilling belief, and a council of physicians was called, who decided that he was in a cataleptic condition.

Aimee scarcely left his bedside until he recovered consciousness.

About a week after this occurred, as he lay on a couch drawn up to the open window, languidly looking at the softly rustling leaves, the green grass, the glowing flowers, he sighed restlessly.

Aimee was at his side instantly: “What is it, August? Are you in pain?”

“Oh, no! I was only thinking how much nicer this is than heaven, and wondering why it is that people are not more content in this beautiful world; we have such infinite variety, such happy conditions, and yet humanity is so unsatisfied.” He paused a moment, then asked, “Didn’t you know that I was in heaven while I was dead?”

“I know that you are talking fearful nonsense!” answered Aimee severely.

“Do you think it nonsense that I think this world so beautiful?” he asked teasingly.

“You know that I do not mean that; but that is nonsense about your going to heaven.”

“But I did go there and it made me awful tired! I am glad that I returned to earth again,” said he.

“Oh, August! You are perfectly horrid!” was Aimee’s shocked rejoinder.

He smiled, but went on to relate his strange experience.

“But you were not really dead, you know,” she replied as he finished the recital.

“Do you think that?” he answered thoughtfully; “I should like to have some one—some person who really knows—explain the difference between that which is called trance, and death, except as to duration. Where was my soul during all that time? Not in the body of a certainty. I know that my spirit went to heaven; everything there was just as I had been taught from childhood that it would be; that teaching could not by any possibility be wrong!” he added conclusively, but with a merry twinkle in his eye.

Later on, sweetly and seriously he said, “I shall always love and appreciate nature so much more for that experience; of things infinite we know not the method; we behold the result, and we know that the Creator _is_. All nature unites into a rhythm of grandest praise to Him who is part and parcel of all things good. The leaf on the tree whispers of his abiding presence; the flower that springs from the mold lifts its face to the sun and air, and speaks of the Life, glorifying Him with its beauteous colors. God is the very principle of all life. He is not an Idle God; his work goes on forever, without haste, without cessation. We are created in his image; not as to the physical, which must change its form, and subserve in other ways, but as to the spiritual, which, if we will not pervert our higher natures—will grow to sublime heights of purity and goodness—the higher we place our standard the nearer we approach the Divine.

“We sin continually against our better selves, our physical bodies and our spiritual natures, we gorge the body and starve the mind; we overwork the perishable physical, and let the mental and spiritual rust, while we heap up a little gold and silver for those who shall come after us to squander and quarrel over. We strive after a heaven in the future, and neglect that which only is ours to-day. Why wait for an impossible time, and a mythical place? We had best take a share of it each day; it is here if we will accept it; for, dearest Aimee, what does heaven mean but _happiness_?”

THE TRAGEDY OF THE GNOMES.

Many, many ages ago this fair old world of ours wore a solemn and forbidding aspect; no carpet of thick, green grass eased the footfall of man as he climbed the hills; no human voice was heard amid the desolation—ice, ice everywhere—from the North Pole to the center of that which is now the temperate zone, and only such life peopled this region as could endure the rigor of a more than arctic condition. Vast sheets of ice, in depth immeasurable, covered the surface of the hills and valleys, broken toward the tropics into serrated edges—the verdure running up an occasional valley, as though in laughing derisions of its neighbors the ice-imprisoned mountains.

In those days there existed only hideous animals and reptiles of size great and awful; animals whose terrible voice shook the mountains like an earthquake; slimy or scaly reptiles who walked on many feet, or dragged a hideous length along the ice-covered rocks. It seemed as if the great Creator must have fashioned all existent things in an hour of wrath, or that man, having existed, had been for some sin exterminated by that icy inundation, and that animal creation had so displeased him that he had fashioned them in grotesque caricature upon all grace and beauty.

Man esteems himself higher than all other created things; who shall say that the great, buzzing bluebottle fly does not think the same of himself, and perhaps, with as much reason; it is at most but a grade of intelligence; and what do we understand of that Intelligence which is above _us_?

In one of the green valleys running up into the foothills of what is now called the Rocky Mountains, frisked and played a band of Gnomes. These were but a fairy people, differing only from the fairies of woodland glade and dell in this; those fairy folk were things of beauty like imprisoned sunbeams; lighter than gossamer, they floated hither and thither, always trending toward the tropics, where the sun shone radiantly warm, and the silvery moon lighted the verdant carpet of grass, and the sweet south wind rang the lily bells in merry chime; there they idled away each sunny day—creatures of light and frivolity.

These Gnomes were a sturdier, darker folk, short in stature, but with a breadth of shoulder, a depth of chest, and muscles fit for giants. Though for an occasional frolic they danced and roughly tossed each other about in the valley, they better loved their homes in the heart of the ice-covered mountains, where they forged beautiful things from the yellow metal, or decked their cavern homes with softly glowing, or fiery-eyed jewels; thus from earnest labor their faces gained a look of firmness and determination; they were homely, but were good to look upon, lighted as their faces were by love and kindliness.

One among them was wondrously fair: Lilleela they called her. Her hair was like silk as it winds from the cocoon; her eyes were blue as the sky when it shows between the fleecy clouds of summer; her cheeks were as though they had been kissed by the wild rose blooms, which left their dainty stains upon the fair skin. She was as sweet and pure as the breath of the dawn.

Walado was her lover; a short, deep-chested giant, with a face like a ripe walnut—all seams and puckers; not with age, but with jolly laughter, and intent, hard work. Lilleela must have the finest of rubies, on strings of beaten gold; tiny silver bells must be made, to ring their sweet chimes with every joyous movement; dainty chains of gold—set with amethyst, rubies and diamonds—must be wrought to bind the floating cloud of hair. Away down in the heart of the mountain Walado plied his little hammer of polished stone—clink-clink-clink all day long like a refrain it accompanied his happy song.

One fair day the troop of Gnomes went down into the green valley for a holiday.

Walado objected: “No, no! You can go, but I must finish this golden girdle for my Lilleela, and then, there are sandals of gold to be set with precious stones for her feet—they are too sweet and fair to be bruised by the rocks,” he had answered, screwing up his face into a funny little smile.

“Oh, do come, Walado! The girdle and sandals can wait! The sun is so cold and sorrowful up here, but down in the valley it is so beautiful!” pleaded Lilleela.

Her blue eyes moulded his will like warm wax, and over the ice they sped away many, many miles, to where its broken edges lay like icicles flattened out with huge rollers; some having sharp, sword-like points, others rounded and scalloped, as though in fanciful adornment. All along the border of the valley, reaching in places high up on the mountain side—wherever there were breaks in the ice—hardy trees had planted their feet, and lifted their heads to catch a breath of the warmer air of the tropics; some few, essaying to climb still higher, or being less hardy—reached their dead arms abroad, or pointed with ghostly fingers toward the icy desolation in warning to their kind.

These happy, childlike beings, instead of walking, had a gliding movement which carried them over the ground very rapidly; laughing, tumbling, pushing one another in merry sport, they sped on as though wings were attached to their feet. Hand in hand went Walado and Lilleela; his nut-brown face drawing into a nest of comical wrinkles, which were so many happy smiles; her look was like the sun, bright and warm.

Of a sudden she stopped and shivered: “Oh, my Walado, what was that?” From off the mountain height had come a long, low wail, and a chill was borne with it which froze them with fear.

Walado gathered her in his embrace, and shading his eyes with one hand, looked back over the mountain: “Fear not, my Lilleela, ’tis but the voice of the storm on its way from the far north. See! We shall soon be in the beautiful valley, where he cannot come!”

“Let us hasten, then, for in my heart I feel a chill which is like death.”

Walado gathered her closer to him: “Little sun beam! Am I not able to shield you from the shadow of the dark cloud?”

She patted his brown face with her wee, rose-leaf palms, and kissed the wrinkles on his brown cheeks lovingly.

“Yes, my Walado; your arm is as strong as your heart is brave, but—” she broke off abruptly: “Let us fly!” she finished with a sound between a laugh and a sob as the wailing came borne from the mountain heights once more.

Turning their affrighted glance backward, they saw the tall pines at the foot of the hills swaying wildly; some which stood so tall and straight were snatched off like a brittle weed and tossed down the mountain side.

Lilleela shivered again, remembering the look the fearful Ice King had given her as he rode above the mountain height upon which she stood at twilight hour; he was seated upon a cloud of inky blackness; his eyes shot forth red and yellow flame, like the terrible light which streamed up from the far north; his lips were blue and hideous, and his matted hair, and long, tangled beard, were a mixture of frost and ice. He pointed a finger at her which looked as though belonging to the hand of one long since dead—so rigid and bloodless it appeared—the nails showed blue and ghastly. With a voice like the whistling north wind, he said, “You’ll make a bonny bride for the Ice King! Your youth will warm my old blood finely! o-We-ee, Y-e-ss!” The cloud passed on, and bore him from her view, but the deadly chill remained, for well Lilleela knew that his love meant death, as his hate meant destruction.

For this reason the wailing sound shook her with an awful fear, but she dared not tell Walado; she feared that he would turn and seek the terrible monarch whose simple touch was death; once more she caught Walado’s hand, crying gayly, “Come, come, before the storm god overtakes us!”

They romped and played through all that happy day; they climbed the steep inclines, and sitting on the glittering ice dashed down to the valley below, tumbling over and over, with laughter sweet as the tinkling of silver bells; it seemed strange to hear such sweet and musical sounds issuing from those queer little bodies, but the sound fitfully represented the sweet harmonious souls within.

At last, worn out with play, they climbed the long, icy hills; they wound around the towering rocks, they clung to dizzy precipices; they crept by the lairs of horrible animals with noiseless tread; ever upward and onward toward the North Pole, where life had grown old and dead, while the new life had slipped down toward the equator.

“Oh, why do we journey so far to-night, Walado?” said Lilleela wearily.

“There is a mountain lying in the light of the northern star, which is filled with yellow gold; its caverns are lined with jewels; I seek them for you, my Lilleela.”

As he ceased speaking, again that wailing sound filled with awful menace smote their ears: “o-o-W-ee” a sound that rose from fretful discontent into fiercest anger, then died away like a long sigh of satisfied hate.

“I am afraid, Walado! Oh do return!” cried Lilleela in terror.

“’Tis but the wind, beloved one,” answered Walado stoutly, though he too shivered.

“Nay! nay! It is the Ice King passing by in his chariot of storm, and drawn by his slaves—the winds of the hurricane,” she cried frantically, fear making her pallid lips tremble.

Walado’s wrinkled visage grew stern—all the pleasant lines drawn out of it; he understood more than her words told him.

“Has he dared to look upon you, with a desire to possess you? Knows he not that you are mine? I am not worthy of you—except as love for you makes me worthy—” his voice dropping into tender cadence, “but he—the monarch of all cruelty—is not of our kind. His very kiss is death; let him find a bride in his own frozen empire—the North Pole!” He shook his clinched hand in the direction of the swift rushing shadow, which so depressed them all: “Haste! haste, men and maidens! Let us flee to our own mountain home, where we can defy the monster! Our Lilleela has just cause for fear, for none upon whom he has looked with the desire for possession ever escaped him; and it is only by speedily reaching our caverns that we may hope for safety.”

They turned about, and like a flock of frightened birds they flitted away, with no more noise than would be made by the rustle of a bat’s wing, and were lost in the gloom.

The moon shone out cold and pale, as though grieving over the dread desolation and lighted up the angry face of the Ice King with a pallid luster; he puffed out his gaunt cheeks menacingly; his eyes darted flame like the quick thrusts of a sword blade in deadly battle; as he saw that the Gnomes had fled he shrieked in wrath. He swayed the tall trees, and tossed their dead branches in every direction; he fiercely threw the rocks from the lofty mountain summits, and as they went crashing down, down, with thunderous noise, they splintered and tore up the ice like a silver foam, which glittered and flashed with pale prismatic glow as it caught the moon’s sad, cold ray.

Faster, faster flew the tiny band; closer clung Lilleela to Walado’s hand as that wrathful shriek reached their ears; dashing wildly past the brow of the darkly towering mountain, as the crashing of rocks smote them with wild affright; leaping across the roaring torrent, to slip and sprawl on the glassy ice of the further bank; up and away, bruised and sore; past lifeless trees, whose dead branches were falling all about them, until at last they reached a mountain home seldom used by them. Nothing was to be seen save a tiny crevice between the rocks; one after another they lay down, and silently slid through; then, and not until then, Walado spoke:

“We are safe! Even the Ice King cannot enter here! We are safe, quite safe!”

“Are you sure? Ah, my Walado, he is so vengeful!” sighed Lilleela. Walado laughed, all his funny little puckers laughing as well:

“He knows nothing of our hiding place, and he could not force his great rigid body through the narrow opening. Oh, we are quite safe!” he reiterated gleefully.

But Lilleela sighed.

Walado felt the hopelessness of that sound, and it grieved his tender heart; he passed his rugged, brown hand over her flossy hair, with a touch as soft as the brushing of a butterfly’s wing.

“My treasure, if ill befall us here in this our vaulted hall, there are still the lower caverns, where none can possibly come save ‘we who know’.”

They soon regained confidence, and joked and made merry; they were such trusting, childlike beings, taking the comfort and joy of each hour at its utmost worth.

Their enjoyment was at its height, when faintly heard came that long chilling wail. Two of their number had gone outside unnoticed by Walado; they came shooting in through the entrance, their brown faces bleached an ashen gray, their teeth chattering, their eyes protruding. All sprang up in wild affright.

“Where have you been? What is the matter?” cried Walado, as sternly as the gentle soul could speak.

“We but crept out for the birds we had snared! We thought to help out the feast!” said Tador, the hairy one.

“And I had a skin of berries that I gathered in the valley below; they were very sweet, Walado!” answered Sudana, the good.

“Tell me what you saw,” replied Walado sadly, his anger melted away by their deprecating looks and words.

Sudana answered: “We saw the Ice King; his cloud chariot so low that it touched the top of the mountain, he was so angry that the frost flew in great clouds from his nostrils; his breath reached us and chilled us through.”

Walado opened his lips to speak, when—“O-o-W-W-ee,” filling all that vaulted chamber with the dread sound, it came borne on a wind so chill that it pierced the hearts of each with cold and fear.

These loving souls had never felt the need of a ruler, each doing his utmost through love for all, thus there had been no dissensions; now all turned instinctively to Walado for guidance. They were growing benumbed with the chill of that icy breath.

Walado silently pointed to the narrow passage leading deep into the bowels of the earth. Each took his beloved by the hand and prepared for the descent; before they had taken so much as one step, there came a crash so awful that it shook the great mountain to its center; the falling of rocks resounded in deafening commotion; the Ice King’s snarling wail echoed and re-echoed throughout the cavern; bitter, bitter cold grew the air; crash—crash—crash, came the sound of falling mountains heaped upon them; covering them deeply beneath the _débris_.

Then was a new horror added; the roaring and growling of many horrible beasts, as they fought and struggled for entrance through the narrow passageway, to escape the falling ruins, and the deadly cold.

There was the shrieking and tumult of the tempest; the hiss and roar of the struggling reptiles, but higher and shriller than all else was the fierce wailing menace of the angry Ice King; it shrieked to them insolently: “You defy me, do you? We’ll see! We’ll s-e-e!”

Gray and pallid grew the little brown faces as they silently followed Walado down into the bowels of the earth until they came to a lofty room; here they huddled silently together.

Thus they remained day after day, night after night, no ray of light to distinguish the one from the other; but as time passed on the pangs of hunger assailed them fiercely. Tador’s birds were divided, and by morsels eaten; Sudana’s berries were parceled out by ones and by twos, Walado adding all his share to Lilleela’s, although she knew not that it was so; grayer grew his little, wrinkled face, but ever it smiled tenderly upon Lilleela, and with patient kindness he answered all questions in unselfish endeavor to comfort and cheer the others. For a time they could feel the earth quiver and vibrate as though in shuddering fear, then came a time of awful calm, when the sound of a voice smote the deadly silence with all the horror of thunder tones, until they shrank affrighted, and spoke only in awed whispers—afraid of the awful echo which answered sound. Paler and more spiritlike grew Lilleela; sadder, sadder grew Walado as he pillowed her head upon his broad breast. The sighs of all rose incessantly!

At last Tador whispered, “Shall I not descend further toward the center of the earth? It will be warmer than it is here—it grows so very cold!” shivering.

“As you wish, Tador,” replied Walado sadly.

Hearing Walado’s answer all clamored to accompany him—anything seemed preferable to this inaction.

As they prepared for the descent, Sudana said: “We do not know what we may find, Walado,” trying to speak hopefully.

“Gold and jewels in plenty, but all that lies hidden in the whole mountain range, are not worth as much as one juicy berry,” and he glanced at Lilleela’s wan face. She was far too weak to accompany the party, and all insisted that Walado must remain with her; he silently folded her in his arms; he would not have left her.

She raised her sad eyes to his face: “Better had I have given myself to the Ice King; then I only should have perished,” she said.

“No! no! no!” whispered they, as with one voice.

Wearily, wearily time passed on, but they did not return. Lilleela dozed and whispered fitfully, but Walado sat with staring eyes, and listened intently for sounds of his comrades, he was afraid to move lest he disturb his precious burden.

At last she raised herself up on her elbow, her eyes full of agony: “Oh, Walado, take me up above—I cannot breathe here! Oh, I must get one breath of air!” her chest heaving convulsively, her hollow cheeks palpitating with the struggle for inhalation.

One great tear rolled down Walado’s cheek, and fell splashing on the rocky floor.

Around his waist he wore a rope made of the hide of animals, which served to hold his stone hammer and ax; with this rope he bound Lilleela to him, passing it under her arms and around his neck.

“Dear one, put your arms about my neck to steady yourself all that you are able, and I will carry you safely up.”

Her chest rose and fell spasmodically; her heart fluttered faintly, or thumped with wild, irregular motion.

The walls of the shaft were covered with ice, rendering it almost impossible to obtain a foothold; inch by inch he made slow headway, every muscle strained to its utmost tension; his hands leaving stains of blood with every grasp. He could at last see a ray—scarcely of light, but a little less gloom; he was so exhausted that he was gasping for breath; he placed his hands upon a slight projection for one more effort—it may have been that his eagerness was too great, or that he grasped but brittle ice which broke off—for he fell. Down, down he slipped, with inconceivable rapidity; weak from want of food, and frightened lest he injure his beloved, he lost his presence of mind.

Lilleela recalled his wandering faculties; after one frantic scream, she made no outcry—indeed she had little breath for speech—but with her lips close to his ear she whispered: “Throw out your hands and feet against the wall, and I will do the same; we may at least break the fall!” Little by little the speed decreased, until as Walado’s foot touched another projection they stopped altogether. He waited long enough to recover breath and a little strength. Lilleela’s head fell over sidewise; she had fainted, and hung a dead weight about his neck; he dared not loose his hands, though he madly longed to caress the cheek which felt so cold to his trembling lips. Once more, nerved by desperation, he made an effort to reach the upper cave; slowly and carefully he climbed; resting often—a hand or foot slipping—clinging frantically as the ice became thicker, and the ascent more difficult. At last, just as his fingers were over the upper edge his foot slipped, and threw the other from its resting-place; for one breathless instant he hung suspended by his fingers—Lilleela’s lifeless weight dragging him down! Sparks of fire shot before his eyes! A noise as of rushing water sounded in his ears: His breathing became labored and stertorious! A bitter cry rose to his lips as Lilleela’s cold cheek touched his drooping face; he made one supreme effort, and half unconscious he lay upon the floor of the upper cavern, Lilleela’s cold form clasped in his embrace!

The chill at length restored him to consciousness; he sat up and unbound Lilleela; he struck two pieces of flint rapidly together, and ignited the punk which he carried in a bag about his neck. He observed that the cold wind had ceased blowing in, thus he knew that the Ice King must have departed, probably believing that all were dead. Well, so they were—all but himself—and—perhaps Lilleela!

He felt for her heart, but could find no pulsation; he kissed her cold cheeks, and blew his warm breath between her parted lips; at last the madness of despair took possession of him. He groveled on the icy floor! He shrieked aloud, to be answered only by a thousand hollow echoes! He ran to the opening through which they had entered, and found the passage barred by rocks and dirt; he tore at the rubbish with his hands as an animal digs with its claws, only to fall back in despair with the tears coursing down his cheeks.

“Oh, my Lilleela! If I could but reach the air! If I could only carry you into the sunshine and let it warm your cold face! Oh, my Lilleela. Oh, my Lilleela!” he cried, gathering her once more into his arms. All the cave was now lighted with a dim, red light, from a few slivers of wood ignited with the burning punk. Water had oozed through the rocks from above and formed long, glittering icicles, frozen by the fierce breath of the Ice King; the floors and walls were likewise of ice, cold and scintillating. The sighs which had arisen from the imprisoned Gnomes had congealed into forms of wonderful beauty, as pure as the white souls of the passing spirits; all over that arched ceiling hung fairy curtains of frost, wonderful jewels, each like a frozen tear, ornamented each jutting point. Walado sat down with his back against an angle of the wall, and clasped Lilleela in loving embrace; he smiled sadly yet lovingly as his eyes rested upon walls and dome: “It is a fitting tomb for thy fair body, my beloved! Thy spirit, not even the Ice King can imprison; and I—thine even in death—I go with thee, to serve thee still!”

He bowed his face against her fair hair, and as he so rested his spirit left his homely little body.

It seems almost a pity that they could not have known how fully their wrongs were avenged. Hot waves washed up from the tropic seas and melted the crust of ice with which the cruel monarch had encased all the hills; and he was driven by the south wind to his lair at the North Pole, there to remain in expiation forever. Thus the hills became fertile, and with the passing of those pure souls there sprang to life on the mountain side—the primrose, for Lilleela’s pink-white skin; the columbine, for the azure of her eyes; the gentian, for the crimson of her lips; and the tall, white lily, for the stately grace of her body; and always the brown-coated robin, with his warm breast, sings lovingly by day and sleeps in their midst by night, and thus Walado’s soul still faithfully serves his beloved.

AN UNFAIR EXCHANGE.

In and around the bank of “Lombard and Lombard” all was confusion.

Arthur Lombard, the senior member of the firm, had suddenly fallen to the floor as he was entering his office, to all appearance dead. Physicians were hastily summoned; policemen were called to keep out the ubiquitous small boy, and the omnipresent curiosity seeker. The great doors were closed with a crash as the grave physician gave his verdict: “He is dead; heart failure!” The truth which conveys a great grief, ever seems heartless, and in a degree, coarse.

Death shocks us ever, we think of it as connected with a sick bed and fit preparation; deep down in our inner consciousness we form plans; when the dark angel shall knock at our door, we will hastily don our robes of sanctity, and fly away to eternal bliss. We are horrified when he smites one of our number unaware—but we never think it might have been us instead.

The dead body was removed to his residence in the most fashionable part of the city; crape hung from the elegant portal; crape draped the closed doors of the bank, and lent adventitious aid to the gloom of the high walled, narrow street.

How many truly mourned I cannot say; a merchant in high standing exchanged views with an artisan, both equally interested, as both had all they possessed in the bark, albeit one had thousands of dollars deposited, the other but a few hundred.

“How will it affect the bank?” questioned the artisan.

“I really could not say, but I think not seriously,” was the guarded reply.

“As I understand, he was the head of the concern.”

“Y-e-s, but Gus Lombard is all right. It is a pity, though, that Arthur was taken off.”

Such is the sorrow of the world; a few who have known us intimately may feel a less selfish grief; our motives are so complex, and selfishness so much a part of human nature, that we seldom judge our own actions correctly. If but one or two can say with sincerity that our lives and our language were pure, then we shall not have lived in vain, as every living being—whether good or bad—will influence some other to follow his example. Lombard had been an unmarried man, who kept up a fine establishment, and lived in good style; but being very reticent few knew aught of his business affairs.

He was laid out in one of the parlors; windows were darkened; lamps were shaded; heavy carpets deadened the footfalls, until the silence and gloom became oppressive.

Late at night, three days after he was stricken down, a slight, fair girl entered the parlor noiselessly; Edith Herford had been his ward; she had also been his betrothed, although no one save his brother Gus was aware of the fact. Noiselessly she pushed aside the _portières_, and seeing the man on watch lying back in his chair, sleeping soundly, she crossed the room, and knelt beside the coffin.

Sobs shook her slight frame as she laid her face on his cold breast: “Oh, Arthur, my beloved!” she whispered, caressing his cold face, kissing the folded hands.

“To-morrow they will put you out of my sight, and I shall be indeed bereft. Oh, my love! my love!”

With bowed head she wept silently; the ticking of the clock sounded loud and awesome in the unnatural silence, “tick-tock, tick-tock; time-going, time-gone,” it seemed to say; the breathing of the sleeping watcher vibrated on the still air like an electric shock; a brooding mystery seemed to hang over the dead form, it appeared like sculptured marble, which at any moment might become instinct with life; it was hard to realize that the soul had gone from the body, the features were so placid, and were tinged with a roseate glow by the shades on the incandescent light.

Edith’s nerves were keyed up to their highest pitch, it seemed to her that she must scream; as she pressed her lips to the cold hand, she fancied that there was a slight movement of the fingers; she thought the eyelids quivered; she pressed her handkerchief over her mouth, afraid she should cry out.

“Oh, Arthur! My Arthur! I know that you are gone from me forever, and this is but a delusive fancy, would it were true, that I might not be so lonely!” she whispered, gazing mournfully at him.

The watcher stirred in his sleep, muttering low and indistinctly. Edith started up in wild affright, her heart beating tumultuously; to her excited imagination the lights seemed to burn dimly, as though about to go out.

The watcher shifted uneasily in his chair, then slept quietly on.

Edith turned toward her dear dead; she would once more kiss the cold lips, a last farewell, then return to her room.

An appalled scream shivered through the gruesome silence.

The watcher started from his sleep in wild affright, and caught Edith as she fell fainting.

Arthur Lombard was sitting upright, staring about with wondering eyes. Dropping the fainting girl on the nearest sofa, the watcher rang a hurried peal, and hastily dispatched a servant for a physician. He tremblingly approached Arthur, shivering as he laid his hand upon his shoulder; but managed to say soothingly: “Hadn’t you best lie down?” Arthur looked at him in a bewildered way, seeming not in the least to understand him.

Though trembling in every limb, he gently pressed Arthur backward; who gave a tired sigh, muttered something which the man did not understand, and instantly sank into a refreshing slumber.

A moment later the physician hurried in, looked wise, felt his pulse, tested his temperature, and said, as though the circumstance was of ordinary occurrence:

“Suspended animation! He will be all right in a few days; get these things off him, and get him into bed as gently as possible; do not let a hint of the preparation for burial reach him; the shock of such knowledge would in all probability actually kill him.”

Edith had regained consciousness, and with timid hand touched his sleeve. “You think that he will recover?”

“Certainly! Certainly, Miss Herford! I see nothing to prevent it.”

“But he looked and acted so strangely,” said Edith tremblingly.

“No doubt! No doubt! So would you or I, placed in the same circumstances. There, there! Run along to bed, I’ll stay here the rest of the night, and see that he is all right,” gently pushing her through the door as he ceased speaking.

The next morning Arthur awoke feeling comfortably well, but very weak. The physician was sitting beside the bed when he opened his eyes; Arthur regarded him curiously, a puzzled look overspreading his countenance as his gaze wandered about the room. He murmured something strange; receiving no reply, he said slowly, like a child just beginning to talk: “Where am I?”

“In your own bed, of course; where should you be?”

He lay quiet, looking around curiously, as though everything were new to him. “Why am I here?” still with the same hesitation, as though not certain as to the meaning of his words.

“Where in the mischief would you wish, or expect to be, if not in your own home?” answered the doctor a trifle impatiently.

He looked troubled but asked no more questions; presently he lifted his long, white hand, adorned with a handsome ring, and examined it as though he had never before seen it; he seemed strangely unable to express his feelings.

“Jove!” said the doctor later, “I wonder if the fellow has lost his wits! It is a pity if so, for he was one of the shrewdest of men, and a sharp financier.”

If Edith hovered about him, or caressed him with gentle touch, or called him fond names, he looked at her in surprise, and gave not the slightest return.

She would look at him in grieved surprise, and on one occasion asked him with trembling lips: “Do you no longer love me, Arthur?”

“Love you? I—guess—so! I do not know what you mean!” looking helplessly at her.

She burst into tears which were quickly suppressed as she coldly left the room. From that time she offered him no caresses, but he seemed not to notice the omission.

As Edith left the room in anger he looked after her, his brow wrinkled in perplexity.

He was certainly in a strange condition; he appeared to enjoy his meals; he slept well; but he seemed to take no interest in anything more than that—he did not seem to understand that there was anything in which he ought to take an interest.

One day, as he sat languidly looking out of the window, Gus said to him: “You will soon be well enough to attend to business!”

“What business?” he asked vacantly.

“Why, your banking business of course!” answered Gus in a tone of disgust; he thought his brother must be making a pretence of not understanding. Arthur looked at him blankly but made no reply.

Edith asked the physician: “What do you think of him? Is he insane?”

“No! Neither insane nor idiotic, mental shock! He will recover, he is like a child with everything to learn.”

It is hard to tell what were Arthur’s sensations; everything seemed so strange. He was told that these were his rooms; he had no recollection of ever having seen them until the morning when he opened his eyes on the physician’s face. Even the language sounded strange to him, though in a hazy way he knew what was meant; it was as though the sounds had been imprinted upon the brain by some other intelligence; as a picture is sensitized upon the plate by one artist for another artist’s use. The business so often mentioned to him, seemed like a hazy dream; something of which some other person being cognizant, had conveyed to him in a far-off manner, an impression of his knowledge. In the same way he knew that he was expected to love Edith; but there was a vague, elusive intuition of some actual affinity, a feeling which he could not shake off, and by which he knew that whatever of feeling he possessed for Edith was as the shadow to the real. This hazy something, which was not knowledge, nor yet a dream, strained his mental capacity in a vain effort after solution. He restlessly tried to gather up the threads of that which seemed to him a new life.

As Gus was vice-president of the bank everything went on smoothly; but he felt greatly annoyed at Arthur’s complete indifference when he wished to consult with him upon important business:

“You just manage everything, Gus, until I feel more like business.”

“You will have to pull yourself together, old man;” answered Gus, regarding him with troubled gaze.

No sooner had Gus left the room than all signs of languidness disappeared; he muttered angrily to himself; he paced up and down the floor; he tore the books from the shelves in frantic desire for something which would enlighten him on these things which seemed so hazy and bewildering; he threw the book he was holding from him in an excess of rage. Letters and words had a strangely familiar look, and yet—the mental strain was fearful—it was like hunting for faces whose lineaments were long since forgotten; like trying to decipher a faded picture imprinted in dim ink by some person unknown; and feeling, withal, that a perfect understanding of the dim lights and shadows was expected.

That which gave him a still more restless pain was that other tantalizing consciousness which eluded him, though almost touching his memory. Every hour when alone was feverishly employed in trying to recall that which seemed to him like a lost treasure. He listened to every scrap of conversation, he watched the expression of every face, the gestures of every person. A sentence which puzzled him he would repeat over and over again, until he had fixed it firmly in his mind; then the full meaning was hunted out as soon as he was alone.

Edith often looked at him in wondering surprise; he seemed not in the least like the man whom she had loved; it is true the features were the same, but—where was the cultivated ease of manner, where the grace which had been so attractive; the clear, open expression of countenance which had distinguished the man she loved above his fellows? This discontented, rebellious soul looked out from under frowning brows; the brilliant blue eyes had a wary, suspicious look; the movements were awkward, the speech uncouth.

“Oh, Gus, how changed he is!” cried Edith.

“Yes, I scarcely know what to do; if one could but wake him in some way!” said Gus, sadly.

A year or more passed by; as he regained strength he developed strange desires; he absented himself from home for days together.

Edith remonstrated: “Why do you do so, Arthur?”

He answered her coarsely, like an undisciplined youth: “I do not think I need a keeper!”

Edith burst into tears: “I did not mean that; but you know—that—that—I am lonely when you are away,” she faltered.

A half-frightened look passed over his face, and was gone instantly, to be succeeded by a perplexed scowl.

“You act as though you owned me!” he said brutally.

Edith regarded him in pained surprise: “Arthur!” The single word expressed much.

He left the house, slamming the door after himself.

He began about this time assuming control of the business; things seemed to go wrong from that hour, and he appeared to have lost all judgment; heavy losses followed in rapid succession. He angrily resented advice, and Gus became so annoyed that he took him to task.

“See here, old man! You are going it a bit wild—you had best check up!”

Arthur’s moody eyes lit up with an angry flame: “Any person would think that you had the whole say so,” he sneered.

“You know, Arthur, that I have no wish to control, except for the mutual good. Great heaven, Arthur! You are ruining us!” cried Gus, aggravated into speaking his mind.

Arthur looked moodily down, and like a child caught in some misdemeanor, grumbled out: “Any person is liable to make a mistake.”

Gus looked at him curiously: “I’ve a great notion to pull out; I do not propose getting caught under the wreck when the crash comes,” said he angrily.

“Oh, well, get some one to do the work in my place, if you feel so terribly worried,” quite as angrily retorted Arthur.

A couple of weeks later Gus did put another man into the office; Arthur seemed rather relieved than otherwise.

Gus was talking to Edith a few days later; they had been speaking of Arthur, and incidentally of Wilbur the new man:

“He seems to understand his business; he has a way of going at it, as though he had been in that office all his life; actually, as he sank into that big, green chair, he sighed with satisfaction.”

“Tell me how he looks,” said Edith.

“Oh, tall and muscular; his hair is as black as the proverbial crow’s wing; the most piercing black eyes that I ever saw; his looks are rather fierce and brigandish, but his manner is most gentle and courteous; his voice is very sweet, the words and tones of a cultured man.”

“You make me very curious to see him,” answered Edith.

“He interests me strangely; it seems as though I had known him at some former time, but I cannot place him.”

“How does Arthur take it?”

“That is strangest of all; he glowers at him as though he hated him mortally; yet he obeys every suggestion of Wilbur’s as though he were afraid of him.”

Edith did not reply; she was conscious of a feeling of repulsion toward Arthur, which had been growing in force for the last year; she no longer had the slightest affection for him; if he laid his hand upon her shoulder, even his near proximity would send a shudder through her whole being. She felt ashamed and guilty that such was the case, and tried to conceal the fact. A feverish longing possessed her to see Wilbur; she was also ashamed of this feeling, and mentally took herself to task for the unmaidenly desire.

As to Arthur, everything worried him; he was restless and unhappy; he seemed to have no care as to the success of the business; instead, he burned with a wild desire to throw the money away; anything, any way, so as to be free from care and thought. He had a passionate wish to roam, to get away from the haunts of men into the green woods; to lie on his back and look up at the blue skies, listening to the rustle of the leaves; it smoothed the frown from his moody brow, and seemed to bring that floating affinity nearer his mental vision; at times it came so near that with a cry he would start up and fling his arms wide with a hoarse cry of mad impotence, as it faded delusively. He hated the conventionalities of society; he longed to do something _outré_, to shock those with whom he came into contact out of their calm; he looked with hatred upon all the refinements of life, as so many limitations, so many bars to personal enjoyment.