Chapter V: Part 5

Féraz meanwhile was fast asleep in his own room. He had sought to be alone for the purpose of thinking quietly and connectedly over all he had heard,--but no sooner had he obtained the desired solitude than a sudden and heavy drowsiness overcame him, such as he was unable to resist, and, throwing himself on his bed, he dropped into a profound slumber, which deepened as the minutes crept on. The afternoon wore slowly away,--sunset came and passed,--the coming shadows lengthened, and just as the first faint star peeped out in the darkening skies he awoke, startled to find it so late. He sprang from his couch, bewildered and vexed with himself,--it was time for supper, he thought, and El-Râmi must be waiting. He hastened to the study, and there he found his brother conversing with a gentleman,--no other than Lord Melthorpe, who was talking in a loud cheerful voice, which contrasted oddly with El-Râmi’s slow musical accents, that ever had a note of sadness in them. When Féraz made his hurried entrance, his eyes humid with sleep, yet dewily brilliant,--his thick dark hair tangled in rough curls above his brows, Lord Melthorpe stared at him in honestly undisguised admiration, and then glanced at El-Râmi inquiringly.

“My brother, Féraz Zarânos”--said El-Râmi, readily performing the ceremony of introduction--“Féraz, this is Lord Melthorpe,--you have heard me speak of him.”

Féraz bowed with his usual perfect grace, and Lord Melthorpe shook hands with him.

“Upon my word!” he said good-humouredly, “this young gentleman reminds one of the _Arabian Nights_, El-Râmi! He looks like one of those amazing fellows who always had remarkable adventures; Prince Ahmed, or the son of a king, or something--don’t you know?”

El-Râmi smiled gravely.

“The Eastern dress is responsible for that idea in your mind, no doubt--” he replied--“Féraz wears it in the house, because he moves more easily and is more comfortable in it than in the regulation British attire, which really is the most hideous mode of garb in the world. Englishmen are among the finest types of the human race, but their dress does them scant justice.”

“You are right--we’re all on the same tailor’s pattern--and a frightful pattern it is!” and his lordship put up his eyeglass to survey Féraz once more, the while he thought--“Devilish handsome fellow!--would make quite a sensation in the room--new sort of craze for my lady.” Aloud he said--“Pray bring your brother with you on Tuesday evening--my wife will be charmed.”

“Féraz never goes into society--” replied El-Râmi--“But of course, if you insist----”

“Oh, I never insist--” declared Lord Melthorpe, laughing, “_You_ are the man for insisting, not I. But I shall take it as a favour if he will accompany you.”

“You hear, Féraz--” and El-Râmi looked at his brother inquiringly--“Lord Melthorpe invites you to a great reception next Tuesday evening. Would you like to go?”

Féraz glanced from one to the other half smilingly, half doubtfully.

“Yes, I should like it,” he said at last.

“Then we shall expect you,--” and Lord Melthorpe rose to take his leave,--“It’s a sort of diplomatic and official affair--fellows will look in either before or after the Foreign Office crush, which is on the same evening, and orders and decorations will be in full force, I believe. Oh, by the way, Lady Melthorpe begged me to ask you most particularly to wear Oriental dress.”

“I shall obey her ladyship;”--and El-Râmi smiled a little satirically--the character of the lady in question was one that always vaguely amused him.

“And your brother will do the same, I hope?”

“Assuredly!” and El-Râmi shook hands with his visitor, bidding Féraz escort him to the door. When he had gone, Féraz sprang into the study again with all the eager impetuosity of a boy.

“What is it like--a reception in England?” he asked--“And why does Lord Melthorpe ask me?”

“I cannot imagine!” returned his brother drily--“Why do you want to go?”

“I should like to see life;”--said Féraz.

“See life!” echoed El-Râmi somewhat disdainfully--“What do you mean? Don’t you ‘see life’ as it is?”

“No!” answered Féraz quickly--“I see men and women--but I don’t know how they live, and I don’t know what they do.”

“They live in a perpetual effort to out-reach and injure one another”--said El-Râmi, “and all their forces are concentrated on bringing themselves into notice. That is how they live,--that is what they do. It is not a dignified or noble way of living, but it is all they care about. You will see illustrations of this at Lord Melthorpe’s reception. You will find the woman with the most diamonds giving herself peacock-like airs over the woman who has fewest,--you will see the snob-millionaire treated with greater consideration by every one than the born gentleman who happens to have little of this world’s wealth. You will find that no one thinks of putting himself out to give personal pleasure to another,--you will hear the same commonplace observations from every mouth,--you will discover a lack of wit, a dearth of kindness, a scarcity of cheerfulness, and a most desperate want of tact in every member of the whole fashionable assemblage. And so you shall ‘see life’--if you think you can discern it there. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!--meanwhile let us have supper,--time flies, and I have work to do to-night that must be done.”

Féraz busied himself nimbly about his usual duties--the frugal meal was soon prepared and soon dispensed with, and, at its close, the brothers sat in silence, El-Râmi watching Féraz with a curious intentness, because he felt for the first time in his life that he was not quite master of the young man’s thoughts. Did he still remember the name of Lilith? El-Râmi had willed that every trace of it should vanish from his memory during that long afternoon sleep in which the lad had indulged himself unresistingly,--but the question was now--Had that force of will gained the victory? He, El-Râmi, could not tell--not yet--but he turned the problem over and over in his mind with sombre irritation and restlessness. Presently Féraz broke the silence. Drawing from his vest pocket a small manuscript book, and raising his eyes, he said--

“Do you mind hearing something I wrote last night? I don’t quite know how it came to me--I think I must have been dreaming----”

“Read on;”--said El-Râmi--“If it be poesy, then its origin cannot be explained. Were you able to explain it, it would become prose.”

“I daresay the lines are not very good,”--went on Féraz diffidently--“yet they are the true expression of a thought that is in me. And whether I owe it to you, or to my own temperament, I have visions now and then--visions not only of love, but of fame--strange glories that I almost realise, yet cannot grasp. And there is a sadness and futility in it all that grieves me ... everything is so vague and swift and fleeting. Yet if love, as you say, be a mere chimera,--surely there is such a thing as Fame?”

“There is--” and El-Râmi’s eyes flashed, then darkened again--“There is the applause of this world, which may mean the derision of the next. Read on!”

Féraz obeyed. “I call it for the present ‘The Star of Destiny’”--he said; and then his mellifluous voice, rich and well modulated, gave flowing musical enunciation to the following lines:

“The soft low plash of waves upon the shore,
Mariners’ voices singing out at sea,
The sighing of the wind that evermore
Chants to my spirit mystic melody,--
These are the mingling sounds I vaguely hear
As o’er the darkening misty main I gaze,
Where one fair planet, warmly bright and clear,
Pours from its heart a rain of silver rays.

“O patient Star of Love! in yon pale sky
What absolute serenity is thine!
Beneath thy steadfast, half-reproachful eye
Large Ocean chafes,--and, white with bitter brine,
Heaves restlessly, and ripples from the light
To darker shadows,--ev’n as noble thought
Recoils from human passion, to a night
Of splendid gloom by its own mystery wrought.”

“What made you think of the sea?” interrupted El-Râmi.

Féraz looked up dreamily.

“I don’t know,”--he said.

“Well!--go on!”

Féraz continued,--

“O searching Star, I bring my grief to thee,--
Regard it, Thou, as pitying angels may
Regard a tortured saint,--and, down to me
Send one bright glance, one heart-assuring ray
From that high throne where thou in sheeny state
Dost hang, thought-pensive, ’twixt the heaven and earth;
Thou, sure, dost know the secret of my Fate,
For thou didst shine upon my hour of birth.

“O Star, from whom the clouds asunder roll,
Tell this poor spirit pent in dying flesh,
This fighting, working, praying, prisoned soul,
Why it is trapped and strangled in the mesh
Of foolish Life and Time? Its wild young voice
Calls for release, unanswered and unstilled,--
It sought not out this world,--it had no choice
Of other worlds where glory is fulfilled.

“How hard to live at all, if living be
The thing it seems to us!--the few brief years
Made up of toil and sorrow, where we see
No joy without companionship of tears,--
What is the artist’s fame?--the golden chords
Of rapt musician? or the poet’s themes?
All incomplete!--the nailed-down coffin boards
Are mocking sequels to the grandest dreams.”

“That is not your creed,”--said El-Râmi with a searching look.

Féraz sighed. “No--it is not my actual creed--but it is my frequent thought.”

“A thought unworthy of you,”--said his brother--“There is nothing left ‘incomplete’ in the whole Universe--and there is no sequel possible to Creation.”

“Perhaps not,--but again perhaps there may be a sequel beyond all imagination or comprehension. And surely you must admit that some things are left distressingly incomplete. Shelley’s ‘Fragments’ for instance, Keats’s ‘Hyperion’--Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony----”

“Incomplete _here_--yes--;” agreed El-Râmi--“But--finished elsewhere, as surely as day is day, and night is night. There is nothing lost,--no, not so much as the lightest flicker of a thought in a man’s brain,--nothing wasted or forgotten,--not even so much as an idle word. _We_ forget--but the forces of Nature are non-oblivious. All is chronicled and registered--all is scientifically set down in plain figures that no mistake may be made in the final reckoning.”

“You really think that?--you really believe that?” asked Féraz, his eyes dilating eagerly.

“I do, most positively;”--said El-Râmi--“It is a fact which Nature most potently sets forth, and insists upon. But is there no more of your verse?”

“Yes--” and Féraz read on--

“O, we are sorrowful, my Soul and I:
We war together fondly--yet we pray
For separate roads,--the Body fain would die
And sleep i’ the ground, low-hidden from the day--
The Soul erect, its large wings cramped for room,
Doth pantingly and passionately rebel,
Against this strange, uncomprehended doom
Called Life, where nothing is, or shall be well.”

“Good!”--murmured El-Râmi softly--“Good--and true!”

“Hear me, my Star!--star of my natal hour,
Thou calm unmovëd one amid all clouds!
Give me my birth-right,--the imperial sway
Of Thought supreme above the common crowds,--
O let me feel thy swift compelling beam
Drawing me upwards to a goal divine;
Fulfil thy promise, O thou glittering Dream,
And let one crown of victory be mine.

“Let me behold this world recede and pass
Like shifting mist upon a stormy coast
Or vision in a necromancer’s glass;--
For I, ’mid perishable earth can boast
Of proven Immortality,--can reach
Glories ungrasped by minds of lower tone;--
Thus, in a silence vaster than all speech,
I follow thee, my Star of Love, alone!”

He ceased. El-Râmi, who had listened attentively, resting his head on one hand, now lifted his eyes and looked at his young brother with an expression of mingled curiosity and compassion.

“The verses are good;”--he said at last--“good and perfectly rhythmical, but surely they have a touch of arrogance?--

“‘I, ’mid perishable earth can boast
Of proven Immortality.’

What do you mean by ‘proven’ Immortality? Where are your proofs?”

“I have them in my inner consciousness;” replied Féraz slowly--“But to put them into the limited language spoken by mortals is impossible. There are existing emotions--existing facts, which can never be rendered into common speech. God is a Fact--but He cannot be explained or described.”

El-Râmi was silent,--a slight frown contracted his dark even brows.

“You are beginning to think too much,”--he observed, rising from his chair as he spoke--“Do not analyse yourself, Féraz, ... self-analysis is the temper of the age, but it engenders distrust and sorrow. Your poem is excellent, but it breathes of sadness,--I prefer your ‘star’ songs which are so full of joy. To be wise is to be happy,--to be happy is to be wise----”

A loud rat-tat at the street door interrupted him. Féraz sprang up to answer the imperative summons, and returned with a telegram. El-Râmi opened and read it with astonished eyes, his face growing suddenly pale.

“He will be here to-morrow night!” he ejaculated in a whisper--“To-morrow night! He, the saint--the king--here to-morrow night! Why should he come?--What would he have with me?”

His expression was one of dazed bewilderment, and Féraz looked at him inquiringly.

“Any bad news?” he asked--“Who is it that is coming?”

El-Râmi recollected himself, and, folding up the telegram, thrust it in his breast pocket.

“A poor monk who is travelling hither on a secret mission solicits my hospitality for the night”--he replied hurriedly--“That is all. He will be here to-morrow.”

Féraz stood silent, an incredulous smile in his fine eyes.

“Why should you stoop to deceive me, El-Râmi, my brother?” he said gently at last--“Surely it is not one of your ways to perfection? Why try to disguise the truth from me?--I am not of a treacherous nature. If I guess rightly, this ‘poor monk’ is the Supreme Head of the Brethren of the Cross, from whose mystic band you were dismissed for a breach of discipline. What harm is there in my knowing of this?”

El-Râmi’s hand clenched, and his eyes had that dark and terrible look in them that Féraz had learned to fear, but his voice was very calm.

“Who told you?” he asked.

“One of the monks at Cyprus long ago, when I went on your errand”--replied Féraz; “He spoke of your wisdom, your power, your brilliant faculties, in genuine regret that, all for some slight matter in which you would not bend your pride, you had lost touch with their various centres of action in all parts of the globe. He said no more than this,--and no more than this I know.”

“You know quite enough,”--said El-Râmi quietly--“If I _have_ lost touch with their modes of work, I have gained insight beyond their reach. And,--I am sorry I did not at once say the truth to you--it _is_ their chief leader who comes here to-morrow. No doubt,”--and he smiled with a sense of triumph--“no doubt he seeks for fresh knowledge, such as I alone can give him.”

“I thought,” said Féraz in a low half-awed tone,--“that he was one of those who are wise with the wisdom of the angels?”

“If there _are_ angels!” said El-Râmi with a touch of scorn, “He is wise in faith alone--he believes and he imagines,--and there is no question as to the strange power he has obtained through the simplest means,--but I--I have no faith!--I seek to _prove_--I work to _know_,--and my power is as great as his, though it is won in a different way.”

Féraz said nothing, but sat down to the piano, allowing his hands to wander over the keys in a dreamy fashion that sounded like the far-off echo of a rippling mountain stream. El-Râmi waited a moment, listening,--then glanced at his watch--it was growing late.

“Good-night, Féraz;”--he said in gentle accents--“I shall want nothing more this evening. I am going to my work.”

“Good-night,”--answered Féraz with equal gentleness, as he went on playing. His brother opened and closed the door softly;--he was gone.

As soon as he found himself alone, Féraz pressed the pedal of his instrument so that the music pealed through the room in rich salvos of sound--chord after chord rolled grandly forth, and sweet ringing notes came throbbing from under his agile finger-tips, the while he said aloud, with a mingling of triumph and tenderness--

“Forget! I shall never forget! Does one forget the flowers, the birds, the moonlight, the sound of a sweet song? Is the world so fair that I should blot from my mind the fairest thing in it? Not so! My memory may fail me in a thousand things--but let me be tortured, harassed, perplexed with dreams, persuaded by fantasies, I shall never forget the name of----”

He stopped abruptly--a look of pain and terror and effort flashed into his eyes,--his hands fell on the keys of the piano with a discordant jangle,--he stared about him, wondering and afraid.

“The name--the name!” he muttered hoarsely--“A flower’s name--an angel’s name--the sweetest name I ever heard! How is this?--Am I mad that my lips refuse to utter it? The name--the name of ... My God! my God! I _have_ forgotten it!”

And springing from his chair he stood for one instant in mute wrath, incredulity, and bewilderment,--then throwing himself down again, he buried his face in his hands, his whole frame trembling with mingled terror and awe at the mystic power of El-Râmi’s indomitable Will, which had, he knew, forced him to forget what most he desired to remember.

XVII.

Within the chamber of Lilith all was very still. Zaroba sat there, crouched down in what seemed to be her favourite and accustomed corner, busy with the intricate thread-work which she wove with so much celerity;--the lamp burned brightly,--there were odours of frankincense and roses in the air,--and not so much as the sound of a suppressed sigh or soft breath stirred the deep and almost sacred quiet of the room. The tranced Lilith herself, pale but beautiful, lay calm and still as ever among the glistening satin cushions of her costly couch, and, just above her, the purple draperies that covered the walls and ceiling were drawn aside to admit of the opening of a previously-concealed window, through which one or two stars could be seen dimly sparkling in the skies. A white moth, attracted by the light, had flown in by way of this aperture, and was now fluttering heedlessly and aimlessly round the lamp,--but by and by it took a lower and less hazardous course, and finally settled on a shining corner of the cushion that supported Lilith’s head. There the fragile insect rested,--now expanding its velvety white wings, now folding them close and extending its delicate feelers to touch and test the glittering fabric on which it found itself at ease,--but never moving from the spot it had evidently chosen for its night’s repose. Suddenly, and without sound, El-Râmi entered. He advanced close up to the couch, and looked upon the sleeping girl with an eager, almost passionate intentness. His heart beat quickly;--a singular excitement possessed him, and for once he was unable to analyse his own sensations. Closer and closer he bent over Lilith’s exquisite form,--doubtfully and with a certain scorn of himself, he took up a shining tress of her glorious hair and looked at it curiously as though it were something new, strange, or unnatural. The little moth, disturbed, flew off the pillow and fluttered about his head in wild alarm, and El-Râmi watched its reckless flight as it made off towards the fatally-attractive lamp again, with meditative eyes, still mechanically stroking that soft lock of Lilith’s hair which he held between his fingers.

“Into the light!” he murmured--“Into the very heart of the light!--into the very core of the fire! That is the end of all ambition--to take wings and plunge so--into the glowing, burning molten Creative Centre--and die for our foolhardiness? Is that all?--or is there more behind? It is a question,--who may answer it?”

He sighed heavily, and leaned more closely over the couch, till the soft scarcely perceptible breath from Lilith’s lips touched his cheek warmly like a caress. Observantly, as one might study the parts of a bird or a flower, he noted those lips, how delicately curved, how coral-red they were,--and what a soft rose-tint, like the flush of a pink sunrise on white flowers, was the hue which spread itself waveringly over her cheeks,--till there,--there where the long eyelashes curled upwards, there were fine shadows,--shadows which suggested light,--such light as must be burning in those sweetly-closed eyes. Then there was the pure, smooth brow, over which little vine-like tendrils of hair caught and clung amorously,--and then--that wondrous wealth of the hair itself which, like twin showers of gold, shed light on either side. It was all beautiful,--a wonderful gem of Nature’s handiwork,--a masterpiece of form and colour which, but for him, El-Râmi, would long ere this have mouldered away to unsightly ash and bone, in a lonely grave dug hurriedly among the sands of the Syrian desert. He was almost, if not quite, the author of that warm if unnatural vitality that flowed through those azure veins and branching arteries,--he, like the Christ of Galilee, had raised the dead to life,--ay, if he chose, he could say as the Master said to the daughter of Jairus, “Maiden, arise!” and she would obey him--would rise and walk, and smile and speak, and look upon the world,--if he chose! The arrogance of Will burned in his brain;--the pride of power, the majesty of conscious strength made his pulses beat high with triumph beyond that of any king or emperor,--and he gazed down upon the tranced fair form, himself entranced, and all unconscious that Zaroba had come out of her corner, and that she now stood beside him, watching his face with passionate and inquisitive eagerness. Just as he reluctantly lifted himself up from his leaning position he saw her staring at him, and a frown darkened his brows. He made his usual imperative sign to her to leave the room,--a sign she was accustomed to understand and to obey--but this time she remained motionless, fixing her eyes steadily upon him.

“The conqueror shall be conquered, El-Râmi Zarânos--” she said slowly, pointing to the sleeping Lilith--“The victorious master over the forces unutterable shall yet be overthrown! The work has begun,--the small seed has been sown--the great harvest shall be reaped. For in the history of Heaven itself certain proud angels rose up and fought for the possession of supreme majesty and power--and they fell,--downbeaten to the darkness,--unforgiven, and are they not in darkness still? Even so must the haughty spirit fall that contends against God and the Universal Law.”

She spoke impressively, and with a certain dignity of manner that gave an added force to her words,--but El-Râmi’s impassive countenance showed no sign of having either heard or understood her. He merely repeated his gesture of dismissal, and this time Zaroba obeyed it. Wrapping her flowing robe closely about her, she withdrew, but with evident reluctance, letting the velvet portière fall only by slow degrees behind her, and to the last keeping her dark deep-set eyes fixed on El-Râmi’s face. As soon as she had disappeared, he sprang to where the dividing-curtain hid a massive door between the one room and the ante-chamber,--this door he shut and locked,--then he returned to the couch, and proceeded, according to his usual method, to will the wandering spirit of his “subject” into speech.

“Lilith! Lilith!”

As before, he had to wait ere any reply was vouchsafed to him. Impatiently he glanced at the clock, and counted slowly a hundred beats.

“Lilith!”

She turned round towards him, smiled, and murmured something--her lips moved, but whatever they uttered did not reach his ear.

“Lilith! Where are you?”

This time, her voice, though soft, was perfectly distinct.

“Here. Close to you, with your hand on mine.”

El-Râmi was puzzled. True, he held her left hand in his own, but she had never described any actual sensation of human touch before.

“Then,--can you see me?” he asked somewhat anxiously.

The answer came sadly.

“No. Bright air surrounds me, and the colours of the air--nothing more.”

“You are alone, Lilith?”

Oh, what a sigh came heaving from her breast!

“I am always alone!”

Half remorseful, he heard her. She had complained of solitude before,--and it was a thought he did not wish her to dwell upon. He made haste to speak again.

“Tell me,”--he said--“Where have you been, Lilith, and what have you seen?”

There was silence for a minute or two, and she moved restlessly.

“You bade me seek out Hell for you”--she murmured at last--“I have searched, but I cannot find it.”

Another pause, and she went on.

“You spoke of a strange thing,” she said--“A place of punishment, of torture, of darkness, of horror and despair,--there is no such dreary blot on all God’s fair Creation. In all the golden spaces of the farthest stars I find no punishment, no pain, no darkness. I can discover nothing save beauty, light, and--Love!”

The last word was uttered softly, and sounded like a note of music, sweet but distant.

El-Râmi listened, bewildered, and in a manner disappointed.

“O Lilith, take heed what you say!” he exclaimed with some passion--“No pain?--no punishment? no darkness? Then this world is Hell and you know naught of it!”

As he said this, she moved uneasily among her pillows,--then, to his amazement, she suddenly sat up of her own accord, and went on speaking, enunciating her words with singular clearness and emphasis, always keeping her eyes closed and allowing her left hand to remain in his.

“I am bound to tell you what I know;”--she said--“But I am unable to tell you what is not true. In God’s design I find no evil--no punishment, no death. If there are such things, they must be in your world alone,--they must be Man’s work and Man’s imagining.”

“Man’s work--Man’s imagining?” repeated El-Râmi--“And what is man?”

“God’s angel,” replied Lilith quickly--“With God’s own attribute of Free-Will. He, like his Maker, doth create,--he also doth destroy,--what he elects to do, God will not prevent. Therefore, if Man makes Evil, Evil must exist till Man himself destroys it.”

This was a deep and strange saying, and El-Râmi pondered over it without speaking.

“In the spaces where I roam,” went on Lilith softly--“there is no evil. Those who are the Makers of Life in yonder fair regions seek only what is pure. Why should pain exist, or sin be known? I do not understand.”

“No”--said El-Râmi bitterly--“You do not understand, because you are yourself too happy,--happiness sees no fault in anything. Oh, you have wandered too far from earth and you forget! The tie that binds you to this planet is over-fragile,--you have lost touch with pain. I would that I could make you feel my thoughts!--for, Lilith, God is cruel, not kind, ... upon God, and God alone, rests the weight of woe that burdens the universe, and for the eternal sorrow of things there is neither reason nor remedy.”

Lilith sank back again in a recumbent posture, a smile upon her lips.

“O poor blind eyes!” she murmured--“Sad eyes that are so tired--too tired to bear the light!”

Her voice was so exquisitely pathetic that he was startled by its very gentleness,--his heart gave one fierce bound against his side, and then seemed almost to stand still.

“You pity me?” he asked tremulously.

She sighed. “I pity you”--she answered--“I pity myself.”

Almost breathlessly he asked “Why?”

“Because I cannot see you--because you cannot see me. If I could see you--if you could see me as I am, you would know all--you would understand all.”

“I do see you, Lilith,” he said--“I hold your hand.”

“No--not my real hand”--she said--“Only its shadow.”

Instinctively he looked at the delicate fingers that lay in his palm--so rosy-tipped and warm. Only the “shadow” of a hand! Then where was its substance?

“It will pass away”--went on Lilith--“like all shadows--but _I_ shall remain--not here, not here,--but elsewhere. When will you let me go?”

“Where do you wish to go?” he asked.

“To my friends,” she answered swiftly and with eagerness--“They call me often--I hear their voices singing ‘Lilith! Lilith!’ and sometimes I see them beckoning me--but I cannot reach them. It is cruel, for they love me and you do not,--why will you keep me here unloved so long?”

He trembled and hesitated, fixing his dark eyes on the fair face, which, in spite of its beauty, was to him but as the image of a Sphinx that for ever refused to give up its riddle.

“Is love your craving, Lilith?” he asked slowly--“And what is your thought--or dream--of love?”

“Love is no dream;”--she responded--“Love is reality--Love is Life. I am not fully living yet--I hover in the Realms Between, where spirits wait in silence and alone.”

He sighed. “Then you are sad, Lilith?”

“No. I am never sad. There is light within my solitude, and the glory of God’s beauty everywhere.”

El-Râmi gazed down upon her, an expression very like despair shadowing his own features.

“Too far, too far she wends her flight;”--he muttered to himself wearily. “How can I argue on these vague and sublimated utterances! I cannot understand her joy--she cannot understand my pain. Evidently Heaven’s language is incomprehensible to mortal ears. And yet;--Lilith!” he called again almost imperiously. “You talk of God as if you knew Him. But I--I know Him not--I have not proved Him; tell me of His Shape, His Seeming,--if indeed you have the power.”

She was silent. He studied her tranquil face intently,--the smile upon it was in very truth divine.

“No answer!” he said with some derision. “Of course,--what answer should there be! What Shape or Seeming should there be to a mere huge blind Force that creates without reason, and destroys without necessity!”

As he thus soliloquised, Lilith stirred, and flung her white arms upward as though in ecstasy, letting them fall slowly afterwards in a folded position behind her head.

“To the seven declared tones of Music, add seventy million more,”--she said--“and let them ring their sweetest cadence, they shall make but a feeble echo of the music of God’s voice! To all the shades of radiant colour, to all the lines of noblest form, add the splendour of eternal youth, eternal goodness, eternal joy, eternal power, and yet we shall not render into speech or song the beauty of our God! From His glance flows Light--from His presence rushes Harmony,--as He moves through Space great worlds are born; and at His bidding planets grow within the air like flowers. Oh to see Him passing ’mid the stars!----”

She broke off suddenly and drew a long deep breath, as of sheer delight,--but the shadow on El-Râmi’s features darkened wearily.

“You teach me nothing, Lilith”--he said sadly and somewhat sternly--“You speak of what you see--or what you think you see--but you cannot convince me of its truth.”

Her face grew paler,--the smile vanished from her lips, and all her delicate beauty seemed to freeze into a cold and grave rigidity.

“Love begets faith;”--she said--“Where we do not love, we doubt. Doubt breeds Evil, and Evil knows not God.”

“Platitudes, upon my life!--mere platitudes!” exclaimed El-Râmi bitterly--“If this half-released spirit can do no more than prate of the same old laws and duties our preachers teach us, then indeed my service is vain. But she shall not baffle me thus;”--and, bending over Lilith’s figure, he unwound her arms from the indolent position in which they were folded, took her hands roughly in his own, and, sitting on the edge of her couch, fixed his burning eyes upon her as though he sought to pierce her to the heart’s core with their ardent, almost cruel lustre.

“Lilith!” he commanded--“Speak plainly, that I may fully understand your words. You say there is no hell?”

The answer came steadily.

“None.”

“Then must evil go unpunished?”

“Evil wreaks punishment upon itself. Evil destroys itself. That is the Law.”

“And the Prophets!” muttered El-Râmi scornfully--“Well! Go on, strange sprite! Why--for such things are known--why does goodness suffer for being good?”

“That never is. That is impossible.”

“Impossible?” queried El-Râmi incredulously.

“Impossible,”--repeated, the soft voice firmly. “Goodness _seems_ to suffer, but it does not. Evil _seems_ to prosper, but it does not.”

“And God exists?”

“God exists.”

“And what of Heaven?”

“Which heaven?” asked Lilith--“There are a million million heavens.”

El-Râmi stopped--thinking,--then finally said--

“God’s Heaven.”

“You would say God’s World;”--returned Lilith tranquilly--“Nay, you will not let me reach that centre. I see it; I feel it afar off--but your will binds me--you will not let me go.”

“If I were to let you go, what would you do?” asked El-Râmi--“Would you return to me?”

“Never! Those who enter the Perfect Glory return no more to an imperfect light.”

El-Râmi paused--he was arranging other questions to ask, when her next words startled him--

“Some one called me by my name,”--she said--“Tenderly and softly, as though it were a name beloved. I heard the voice--I could not answer--but I heard it--and I know that some one loves me. The sense of love is sweet, and makes your dreary world seem fair!”

El-Râmi’s heart began to beat violently--the voice of Féraz had reached her in her trance then after all! And she remembered it!--more than this--it had carried a vague emotion of love to that vagrant and ethereal essence which he called her “soul” but which he had his doubts of all the while. For he was unable to convince himself positively of any such thing as “Soul”;--all emotions, even of the most divinely transcendent nature, he was disposed to set down to the action of brain merely. But he was scientist enough to know that the brain must gather its ideas from _something_,--something either external or internal,--even such a vague thing as an Idea cannot spring out of blank Chaos. And this was what especially puzzled him in his experiment with the girl Lilith--for, ever since he had placed her in the “life-in-death” condition she was, he had been careful to avoid impressing any of his own thoughts or ideas upon her. And, as a matter of fact, all she said about God, or about a present or a future state, was precisely the reverse of what he himself argued;--the question therefore remained--From Where and How did she get her knowledge? She had been a mere pretty, ignorant, half-barbaric Arab child, when she _died_ (according to natural law), and, during the six years she had _lived_ (by scientific law) in her strange trance, her brain had been absolutely unconscious of all external impressions, while of internal she could have none, beyond the memories of her childhood. Yet,--she had grown beautiful beyond the beauty of mortals, and she spoke of things beyond all mortal comprehension. The riddle of her physical and mental development seemed unanswerable,--it was the wonder, the puzzle, the difficulty, the delight of all El-Râmi’s hours. But now there was mischief done. She spoke of love,--not divine impersonal love, as was her wont,--but love that touched her own existence with a vaguely pleasing emotion. A voice had reached her that never should have been allowed to penetrate her spiritual solitude, and realising this, a sullen anger smouldered in El-Râmi’s mind. He strove to consider Zaroba’s fault and Féraz’s folly with all the leniency, forbearance, and forgiveness possible, and yet the strange restlessness within him gave him no peace. What should be done? What could be answered to those wistful words--“The sense of love is sweet, and makes your dreary world seem fair”?

He pondered on the matter, vaguely uneasy and dissatisfied. He, and he alone, was the master of Lilith,--he commanded and she obeyed,--but would it be always thus? The doubt turned his blood cold,--suppose she escaped him now, after all his studies and calculations! He resolved he would ask her no more questions that night, and very gently he released the little slender hands he held.

“Go, Lilith!” he said softly--“This world, as you say, is dreary--I will not keep you longer in its gloom--go hence and rest.”

“Rest?” sighed Lilith inquiringly--“Where?”

He bent above her, and touched her loose gold locks almost caressingly.

“Where you choose!”

“Nay, that I may not!” murmured Lilith sadly. “I have no choice--I must obey the Master’s will.”

El-Râmi’s heart beat high with triumph at these words.

“_My_ will!” he said, more to himself than to her--“The force of it!--the marvel of it!--_my_ will!”

Lilith heard,--a strange glory seemed to shine round her, like a halo round a pictured saint, and the voice that came from her lips rang out with singularly sweet clearness.

“Your will!” she echoed--“Your will--and also--God’s will!”

He started, amazed and irresolute. The words were not what he expected, and he would have questioned their meaning, but that he saw on the girl’s lovely features a certain pale composed look which he recognised as the look that meant silence.

“Lilith!” he whispered.

No answer. He stood looking down upon her, his face seeming sterner and darker than usual by reason of the intense, passionate anxiety in his burning eyes.

“God’s will!” he echoed with some disdain--“God’s will would have annihilated her very existence long ago out in the desert;--what should God do with her now that I have not done?”

His arrogance seemed to be perfectly justifiable; and yet he very well knew that, strictly speaking, there was no such thing as “annihilation” possible to any atom in the universe. Moreover, he did not choose to analyse the mystical reasons as to _why_ he had been permitted by Fate or Chance to obtain such mastery over one human soul,--he preferred to attribute it all to his own discoveries in science,--his own patient and untiring skill,--his own studious comprehension of the forces of Nature,--and he was nearly, if not quite, oblivious of the fact that there is a Something behind natural forces, which knows and sees, controls and commands, and against which, if he places himself in opposition, Man is but the puniest, most wretched straw that was ever tossed or split by a whirlwind. As a rule, men of science work not for God so much as against Him,--wherefore their most brilliant researches stop short of the goal. Great intellects are seldom devout,--for brilliant culture begets pride--and pride is incompatible with faith or worship. Perfect science, combined with perfect selflessness, would give us what we need,--a purified and reasoning Religion. But El-Râmi’s chief characteristic was pride,--and he saw no mischief in it. Strong in his knowledge,--defiant of evil in the consciousness he possessed of his own extraordinary physical and mental endowments, he saw no reason why he should bow down in humiliated abasement before forces, either natural or spiritual, which he deemed himself able to control. And his brow cleared, as he once more bent over his tranced “subject” and, with all the methodical precaution of a physician, felt her pulse, took note of her temperature, and judged that for the present she needed no more of that strange Elixir which kept her veins aglow with such inexplicably beauteous vitality. Then--his examination done--he left the room; and as he drew the velvet portière behind him the little white moth that had flown in for a night’s shelter fluttered down from the golden lamp like a falling leaf, and dropped on the couch of Lilith, shrivelled and dead.

XVIII.

The next day was very wet and stormy. From morning to night the rain fell in torrents, and a cold wind blew. El-Râmi stayed indoors, reading, writing, and answering a few of his more urgent correspondents, a great number of whom were total strangers to him, and who nevertheless wrote to him out of the sheer curiosity excited in them by the perusal of a certain book to which his name was appended as author. This book was a very original literary production,--the critics were angry with it, because it was so unlike anything else that ever was written. According to the theories set forth in its pages, Man, the poor and finite, was proved to be a creature of superhuman and almost god-like attributes,--a “flattering unction” indeed, which when laid to the souls of commonplace egoists had the effect of making them consider El-Râmi Zarânos a very wonderful person, and themselves more wonderful still. Only the truly great mind is humble enough to appreciate greatness, and of great minds there is a great scarcity. Most of El-Râmi’s correspondents were of that lower order of intelligence which blandly accepts every fresh truth discovered as specially intended for themselves, and not at all for the world, as though indeed they were some particular and removed class of superior beings who alone were capable of understanding true wisdom. “Your work has appealed to _me_”--wrote one, “as it will not appeal to all, because I am able to enter into the divine spirit of things as the _vulgar herd_ cannot do!” This, as if the “vulgar herd” were not also part of the “divine spirit of things”!

“I have delighted in your book”--wrote another, “because I am a poet, and the world, with its low aims and lower desires, I abhor and despise!”

The absurdity of a man presuming to call himself a poet, and in the same breath declaring he “despises” the world,--the world which supports his life and provides him with all his needs,--never seems to occur to the minds of these poor boasters of a petty vanity. El-Râmi looked weary enough as he glanced quickly through a heap of such ill-judged and egotistical epistles, and threw them aside to be for ever left unanswered. To him there was something truly horrible and discouraging in the contemplation of the hopeless, helpless, absolute stupidity of the majority of mankind. The teachings of Mother Nature being always straight and plain, it _is_ remarkable what devious turnings and dark winding ways we prefer to stumble into rather than take the fair and open course. For example Nature says to us--“My children, Truth is simple,--and I am bound by all my forces to assist its manifestation. A Lie is difficult--I can have none of it--it needs other lies to keep it going,--its ways are full of complexity and puzzle,--why then, O foolish ones, will you choose the Lie and avoid the Truth? For, work as you may, the Truth must out, and not all the uproar of opposing multitudes can still its thunderous tongue.” Thus Nature;--but we heed her not,--we go on lying steadfastly, in a strange delusion that thereby we may deceive Eternal Justice. But Eternal Justice never is deceived,--never is obscured even, save for a moment, as a passing cloud obscures the sun.

“How easy after all to avoid mischief of any kind,” mused El-Râmi now, as he put by his papers and drew two or three old reference volumes towards him--“How easy to live happily, free from care, free from sickness, free from every external or internal wretchedness, if we could but practise the one rule--Self-abnegation. It is all there,--and the ethereal Lilith may be right in her assurance as to the non-existence of Evil unless we ourselves create it. At least one half the trouble in the world might be avoided if we chose. Debt, for example,--that carking trouble always arises from living beyond one’s means,--therefore _why_ live beyond one’s means? What for? Show? Vulgar ostentation? Luxury? Idleness? All these are things against which Heaven raises its eternal ban. Then take physical pain and sickness,--here Self is to blame again,--self-indulgence in the pleasures of the table,--sensual craving--the marriage of weakly or ill-conditioned persons,--all simple causes from which spring incalculable evils. Avoid the causes and we escape the evils. The arrangements of Nature are all so clear and explicit, and yet we are for ever going out of our way to find or invent difficulties. The farmer grumbles and writes letters to the newspapers if his turnip-fields are invaded by what he deems a ‘destructive pest’ in the way of moth or caterpillar, and utterly ignores the fact that these insects always appear for some wise reason or other, which he, absorbed in his own immediate petty interests, fails to appreciate. His turnips are eaten,--that is all he thinks or cares about,--but if he knew that those same turnips contain a particular microbe poisonous to human life, a germ of typhoid, cholera, or the like, drawn up from the soil and ready to fructify in the blood of cattle or of men, and that these insects of which he complains are the scavengers sent by Nature to utterly destroy the Plague in embryo, he might pause in his grumbling to wonder at so much precaution taken by the elements for the preservation of his unworthy and ignorant being. Perplexing and at times maddening is this our curse of Ignorance,--but that the ‘sins of the fathers are visited on the children’ is a true saying is evident--for the faults of generations are still bred in our blood and bone.”

He turned over the first volume before him listlessly,--his mind was not set upon study, and his attention wandered. He was thinking of Féraz, with whom he had scarcely exchanged a word all day. He had lacked nothing in the way of service, for swift and courteous obedience to his brother’s wishes had characterised Féraz in every simple action, but there was a constraint between the two that had not previously existed. Féraz bore himself with a stately yet sad hauteur,--he had the air of a proud prince in chains who, being captive, performed his prison work with exactitude and resignation as a matter of discipline and duty. It was curious that El-Râmi, who had steeled himself as he imagined against every tender sentiment, should now feel the want of the impetuous confidence and grace of manner with which his young brother had formerly treated him.

“Everything changes--” he mused gloomily, “Everything _must_ change, of course; and nothing is so fluctuating as the humour of a boy who is not yet a man, but is on the verge of manhood. And with Féraz my power has reached its limit,--I know exactly what I can do, and what I can _not_ do with him,--it is a case of ‘Thus far and no farther.’ Well,--he must choose his own way of life,--only let him not presume to set himself in _my_ way, or interfere in _my_ work! Ye gods!--there is nothing I would not do----”

He paused, ashamed; the blood flushed his face darkly and his hand clenched itself involuntarily. Conscious of the thought that had arisen within him, he felt a moment’s shuddering horror of himself. He knew that in the very depths of his nature there was enough untamed savagery to make him capable of crushing his young brother’s life out of him, should he dare to obstruct his path or oppose him in his labours. Realising this, a cold dew broke out on his forehead and he trembled.

“O Soul of Lilith that cannot understand Evil!” he exclaimed--“Whence came this evil thought in me? Does the evil in myself engender it?--and does the same bitter gall that stirred the blood of Cain lurk in the depths of my being, till Opportunity strikes the wicked hour? _Retro me, Sathanas!_ After all, there was something in the old beliefs--the pious horror of a devil,--for a devil there is that walks the world, and his name is Man!”

He rose and paced the room impatiently,--what a long day it seemed, and with what dreary persistence the rain washed against the windows! He looked out into the street,--there was not a passenger to be seen,--a wet dingy grayness pervaded the atmosphere and made everything ugly and cheerless. He went back to his books, and presently began to turn over the pages of the quaint Arabic volume into which Féraz had unwisely dipped, gathering therefrom a crumb of knowledge, which, like all scrappy information, had only led him to discontent.

“All these old experiments of the Egyptian priests were simple enough--” he murmured as he read,--“They had one substratum of science,--the art of bringing the countless atoms that fill the air into temporary shape. The trick is so easy and natural that I fancy there must have been a certain condition of the atmosphere in earlier ages which _of itself_ shaped the atoms,--hence the ideas of nymphs, dryads, fauns, and water-sprites; these temporary shapes which dazzled for some fleeting moments the astonished human eye and so gave rise to all the legends. To shape the atoms as a sculptor shapes clay, is but a phase of chemistry,--a pretty experiment--yet what a miracle it would always seem to the uninstructed multitude!”

He unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took from it a box full of red powder, and two small flasks, one containing minute globules of a glittering green colour like tiny emeralds,--the other full of a pale amber liquid. He smiled as he looked at these ingredients,--and then he gave a glance out through the window at the dark and rainy afternoon.

“To pass the time, why not?” he queried half aloud. “One needs a little diversion sometimes even in science.”

Whereupon he placed some of the red powder in a small bronze vessel and set fire to it. A thick smoke arose at once and filled the room with cloud that emitted a pungent perfume, and in which his own figure was scarcely discernible. He cast five or six of the little green globules into this smoke; they dissolved in their course and melted within it,--and finally he threw aloft a few drops of the amber liquid. The effect was extraordinary, and would have seemed incredible to any onlooker, for through the cloud a roseate Shape made itself slowly visible,--a Shape that was surrounded with streaks of light and rainbow flame as with a garland. Vague at first, but soon growing more distinct, it gathered itself into seeming substance, and floated nearly to the ground,--then rising again, balanced itself lightly like a blown feather sideways upon the dense mist that filled the air. In form this “coruscation of atoms,” as El-Râmi called it, resembled a maiden in the bloom of youth,--her flowing hair, her sparkling eyes, her smiling lips, were all plainly discernible;--but, that she was a mere phantasm and creature of the cloud was soon made plain, for scarcely had she declared herself in all her rounded laughing loveliness than she melted away and passed into nothingness like a dream. The cloud of smoke grew thinner and thinner, till it vanished also so completely that there was no more left of it than a pale blue ring such as might have been puffed from a stray cigar. El-Râmi, leaning lazily back in his chair, had watched the whole development and finish of his “experiment” with indolent interest and amusement.

“How admirably the lines of beauty are always kept in these effects,”--he said to himself when it was over,--“and what a fortune I could make with that one example of the concentration of atoms if I chose to pass as a Miracle-maker. Moses was an adept at this kind of thing; so also was a certain Egyptian priest named Borsa of Memphis, who just for that same graceful piece of chemistry was judged by the people as divine,--made king,--and loaded with wealth and honour;--excellent and most cunning Borsa! But we--we do not judge any one “divine” in these days of ours, not even God,--for He is supposed to be simply the lump of leaven working through the loaf of matter,--though it will always remain a question as to why there is any leaven or any loaf at all existing.”

He fell into a train of meditation, which caused him presently to take up his pen and write busily many pages of close manuscript. Féraz came in at the usual hour with supper,--and then only he ceased working, and shared the meal with his young brother, talking cheerfully, though saying little but commonplaces, and skilfully steering off any allusion to subjects which might tend to increase Féraz’s evident melancholy. Once he asked him rather abruptly why he had not played any music that day.

“I do not know”--answered the young man coldly--“I seem to have forgotten music--with other things.”

He spoke meaningly;--El-Râmi laughed, relieved and light at heart. Those “other things” meant the name of Lilith, which his will had succeeded in erasing from his brother’s memory. His eyes sparkled, and his voice gathered new richness and warmth of feeling as he said kindly--

“I think not, Féraz,--I think you cannot have forgotten music. Surely it is no extraneous thing, but part of you,--a lovely portion of your life which you would be loath to miss. Here is your little neglected friend,”--and, rising, he took out of its case an exquisitely-shaped mandolin inlaid with pearl--“The dear old lute,--for lute it is, though modernised,--the same-shaped instrument on which the rose and fuchsia-crowned youths of old Pompeii played the accompaniment to their love songs; the same, the very same on which the long-haired, dusky-skinned maids of Thebes and Memphis thrummed their strange uncouth ditties to their black-browed warrior kings. I like it better than the violin--its form is far more pleasing--we can see Apollo with a lute, but it is difficult to fancy the Sun-god fitting his graceful arm to the contorted positions of a fiddle. Play something, Féraz”--and he smiled winningly as he gave the mandolin into his brother’s hands--“Here,”--and he detached the plectrum from its place under the strings--“With this little piece of oval tortoiseshell, you can set the nerves of music quivering,--those silver wires will answer to your touch like the fibres of the human heart struck by the _tremolo_ of passion.”