Have yet a little patience! You will presently remember me as well as I remember you!"
With the rush of startled recollection I found my voice.
"I remember you now!"--I said, in low, unsteady tones--"I have seen you often--often! But where? Tell me where? Oh, surely you know!"
He still held my hands with the tenderest force,--and seemed, like myself, to find speech difficult. If two deeply attached friends, parted for many years, were all unexpectedly to meet in some solitary place where neither had thought to see a living soul, their emotion could hardly be keener than ours,--and yet--there was an invisible barrier between us--a barrier erected either by him or by myself,--something that held us apart. The sudden and overpowering demand made upon our strength by the swift and subtle attraction which drew us together was held in check by ourselves,--and it was as if we were each separately surrounded by a circle across which neither of us dared to pa.s.s. I looked at him in mingled fear and questioning--his eyes were gravely thoughtful and full of light.
"Yes, I know,"--he answered, at last, speaking very softly--while, gently releasing one of my hands, he held the other--"I know,--but we need not speak of that! As I have already said, you will remember all by gradual degrees. We are never permitted to entirely forget. But it is quite natural that now--at this immediate hour--we should find it strange--you, perhaps, more than I--that something impels us one to the other,--something that will not be gainsaid,--something that if all the powers of earth and heaven could intervene, which by simplest law they cannot, will take no denial!"
I trembled, not with fear, but with an exquisite delight I dared not pause to a.n.a.lyse. He pressed my hand more closely.
"We had better walk on,"--he continued, averting his gaze from mine for the moment--"If I say more just now I shall say too much--and you will be frightened,--perhaps offended. I have been guilty of so many errors in the past,--you must help me to avoid them in the future. Come!"--and he turned his eyes again upon me with a smile--"Let us see the sunset!"
We moved on for a few moments in absolute silence, he still holding my hand and guiding me up the rough path we followed. The noise of the rushing torrent sounded louder in my ears, sometimes with a clattering insistence as though it sought to match itself against the surging of my own quick blood in an endeavour to drown my thoughts. On we went and still onward,--the path seemed interminable, though it was in reality a very short journey. But there was such a weight of unutterable things pressing on my soul like a pent-up storm craving for outlet, that every step measured itself as almost a mile.
At last we paused; we were in full view of Loch Coruisk and its weird splendour. On all sides arose bare and lofty mountains, broken and furrowed here and there by deep hollows and corries,--supremely grand in their impressive desolation, uplifting their stony peaks around us like the walls and turrets of a gigantic fortress, and rising so abruptly and so impenetrably encompa.s.sing the black stretch of water below, that it seemed impossible for a sunbeam to force its shining entrance into such a circle of dense gloom. Yet there was a shower of golden light pouring aslant down one of the highest of the hills, brightening to vivid crimson stray clumps of heather, touching into pale green some patches of moss and lichen, and giving the dazzling flash of silver to the white wings of a sea-gull which soared above our heads uttering wild cries like a creature in pain. Pale blue mists were rising from the surface of the lake, and the fitful gusts of air that rushed over the rocky summits played with these impalpable vapours borne inland from the Atlantic, and tossed them to and fro into fantastic shapes--some like flying forms with long hair streaming behind them--some like armed warriors, hurtling their spears against each other,--and some like veiled ghosts hurrying past as though driven to their land of shadows by shuddering fear. We stood silently hand in hand, watching the uneasy flitting of these cloud phantoms, and waiting for the deepening glow, which, when it should spread upwards from the rays of the sinking sun, would transform the wild, dark scene to one of almost supernatural splendour. Suddenly Santoris spoke:
"Now shall I tell you where we last met?" he asked, very gently--"And may I show you the reasons why we meet again?"
I lifted my eyes to his. My heart beat with suffocating quickness, and thoughts were in my brain that threatened to overwhelm my small remaining stock of self-control and make of me nothing but a creature of tears and pa.s.sion. I moved my lips in an effort to speak, but no sound came from them.
"Do not be afraid,"--he continued, in the same quiet tone--"It is true that we must be careful now as in the past we were careless,--but perfect comprehension of each other rests with ourselves. May I go on?"
I gave a mute sign of a.s.sent. There was a rough craig near us, curiously shaped like a sort of throne and canopy, the canopy being formed by a thickly overhanging ma.s.s of rock and heather, and here he made me sit down, placing himself beside me. From this point we commanded a view of the head of the lake and the great mountain which closes and dominates it,--and which now began to be illumined with a strange witch-like glow of orange and purple, while a thin mist moved slowly across it like the folds of a ghostly stage curtain preparing to rise and display the first scene of some great drama.
"Sometimes," he then said,--"it happens, even in the world of cold and artificial convention, that a man and woman are brought together who, to their own immediate consciousness, have had no previous acquaintance with each other, and yet with the lightest touch, the swiftest glance of an eye, a million vibrations are set quivering in them like harp-strings struck by the hand of a master and responding each to each in throbbing harmony and perfect tune. They do not know how it happens--they only feel it is. Then, nothing--I repeat this with emphasis--nothing can keep them apart. Soul rushes to soul,--heart leaps to heart,--and all form and ceremony, custom and usage crumble into dust before the power that overwhelms them. These sudden storms of etheric vibration occur every day among the most ordinary surroundings and with the most unlikely persons, and Society as at present const.i.tuted frowns and shakes its head, or jeers at what it cannot understand, calling such impetuosity folly, or worse, while remaining wilfully blind to the fact that in its strangest aspect it is nothing but the a.s.sertion of an Eternal Law. Moreover, it is a law that cannot be set aside or broken with impunity. Just as the one point of vibration sympathetically strikes the other in the system of wireless telegraphy, so, despite millions and millions of intervening currents and lines of divergence, the immortal soul-spark strikes its kindred fire across a waste of worlds until they meet in the compelling flash of that G.o.d"s Message called Love!"
He paused--then went on slowly:--
"No force can turn aside one from the other,--nothing can intervene--not because it is either romance or reality, but simply because it is a law. You understand?"
I bent my head silently.
"It may be thousands of years before such a meeting is consummated,"--he continued--"For thousands of years are but hours in the eternal countings. Yet in those thousands of years what lives must be lived!--what lessons must be learned!--what sins committed and expiated!--what precious time lost or found!--what happiness missed or wasted!"
His voice thrilled--and again he took my hand and held it gently clasped.
"You must believe in yourself alone,"--he said,--"if any lurking thought suggests a disbelief in me! It is quite natural that you should doubt me a little. You have studied long and deeply--you have worked hard at problems which puzzle the strongest man"s brain, and you have succeeded in many things because you have kept what most men manage to lose when grappling with Science,--Faith. You have always studied with an uplifted heart--uplifted towards the things unseen and eternal. But it has been a lonely heart, too,--as lonely as mine!"
A moment"s silence followed,--a silence that seemed heavy and dark, like a pa.s.sing cloud, and instinctively I looked up to see if indeed a brooding storm was not above us. A heaven of splendid colour met my gaze--the whole sky was lighted with a glory of gold and blue. But below this flaming radiance there was a motionless ma.s.s of grey vapour, hanging square as it seemed across the face of the lofty mountain at the head of the lake, like a great canvas set ready for an artist"s pencil and prepared to receive the creation of his thought. I watched this in a kind of absorbed fascination, conscious that the warm hand holding mine had strengthened its close grasp,--when suddenly something sharp and brilliant, like the glitter of a sword or a forked flash of lightning, pa.s.sed before my eyes with a dizzying sensation, and the lake, the mountains, the whole landscape, vanished like a fleeting mirage, and in all the visible air only the heavy curtain of mist remained. I made an effort to move--to speak--in vain! I thought some sudden illness must have seized me--yet no!--for the half-swooning feeling that had for a moment unsteadied my nerves had already pa.s.sed--and I was calm enough. Yet I saw more plainly than I have ever seen anything in visible Nature, a slowly moving, slowly pa.s.sing panorama of scenes and episodes that presented themselves in marvellous outline and colouring,--pictures that were gradually unrolled and spread out to my view on the grey background of that impalpable mist which like a Shadow hung between myself and impenetrable Mystery, and I realised to the full that an eternal record of every life is written not only in sound, but in light, in colour, in tune, in mathematical proportion and harmony,--and that not a word, not a thought, not an action is forgotten!
A vast forest rose before me. I saw the long shadows of the leafy boughs flung thick upon the sward and the wild tropical vines hanging rope-like from the intertwisted stems. A golden moon looked warmly in between the giant branches, flooding the darkness of the scene with rippling radiance, and within its light two human beings walked,--a man and woman--their arms round each other,--their faces leaning close together. The man seemed pleading with his companion for some favour which she withheld, and presently she drew herself away from him altogether with a decided movement of haughty rejection. I could not see her face,--but her attire was regal and splendid, and on her head there shone a jewelled diadem. Her lover stood apart for a moment with bent head--then he threw himself on his knees before her and caught her hand in an evident outburst of pa.s.sionate entreaty. And while they stood thus together, I saw the phantom-like figure of another woman moving towards them--she came directly into the foreground of the picture, her white garments clinging round her, her fair hair flung loosely over her shoulders, and her whole demeanour expressing eagerness and fear. As she approached, the man sprang up from his knees and, with a gesture of fury, drew a dagger from his belt and plunged it into her heart! I saw her reel back from the blow--I saw the red blood well up through the whiteness of her clothing, and as she turned towards her murderer, with a last look of appeal, I recognised MY OWN FACE IN HERS!--and in his THE FACE OF SANTORIS! I uttered a cry,--or thought I uttered it--a darkness swept over me--and the vision vanished!
Another vivid flash struck my eyes, and I found myself looking upon the crowded thoroughfares of a great city. Towers and temples, palaces and bridges, presented themselves to my gaze in a network of interminable width and architectural splendour, moving and swaying before me like a wave glittering with a thousand sparkles uplifted to the light.
Presently this unsteadiness of movement resolved itself into form and order, and I became, as it were, one un.o.bserved spectator among thousands, of a scene of picturesque magnificence. It seemed that I stood in the enormous audience hall of a great palace, where there were crowds of slaves, attendants and armed men,--on all sides arose huge pillars of stone on which were carved the winged heads of monsters and fabulous G.o.ds,--and looming out of the shadows I saw the shapes of four giant Sphinxes which guarded a throne set high above the crowd. A lambent light played quiveringly on the gorgeous picture, growing more and more vivid as I looked, and throbbing with colour and motion,--and I saw that on the throne there sat a woman crowned and veiled,--her right hand held a sceptre blazing with gold and gems. Slaves clad in costumes of the richest workmanship and design abased themselves on either side of her, and I heard the clash of brazen cymbals and war-like music, as the crowd of people surged and swayed, and murmured and shouted, all apparently moved by some special excitement or interest. Suddenly I perceived the object on which the general attention was fixed--the swooning body of a man, heavily bound in chains and lying at the foot of the throne. Beside him stood a tall black slave, clad in vivid scarlet and masked,--this sinister-looking creature held a gleaming dagger uplifted ready to strike,--and as I saw this, a wild yearning arose in me to save the threatened life of the bound and helpless victim. If I could only rush to defend and drag him away from impending peril, I thought!--but no!--I was forced to stand helplessly watching the scene, with every fibre of my brain burning with pent-up anguish. At this moment, the crowned and veiled woman on the throne suddenly rose and stood upright,--with a commanding gesture she stretched out her glittering sceptre--the sign was given! Swiftly the dagger gleamed through the air and struck its deadly blow straight home! I turned away my eyes in shuddering horror,--but was compelled by some invincible power to raise them again,--and the scene before me glowed red as with the hue of blood--I saw the slain victim,--the tumultuous crowd--and above all, the relentless Queen who, with one movement of her little hand, had swept away a life,--and as I looked upon her loathingly, she threw back her shrouding golden veil. MY OWN FACE LOOKED FULL AT ME from under the jewelled arch of her sparkling diadem--ah, wicked soul!--I wildly cried--pitiless Queen!--then, as they lifted the body of the murdered man, his livid countenance was turned towards me, and I saw again the face of Santoris! Dumb and despairing I sank as it were within myself, chilled with inexplicable misery, and I heard for the first time in this singular pageant of vision a Voice--slow, calm, and thrilling with infinite sadness:
"A life for a life!"--it said--"The old eternal law!--a life for a life! There is nothing taken which shall not be returned again--nothing lost which shall not be found--a life for a life!"
Then came silence and utter darkness.
Slowly brightening, slowly widening, a pale radiance like the earliest glimmer of dawn stole gently on my eyes when I again raised them. I saw the waving curve of a wide, sluggishly flowing river, and near it a temple of red granite stood surrounded with shadowing foliage and bright clumps of flowers. Huge palms lifted their fronded heads to the sky, and on the edge of the quiet stream there loitered a group of girls and women. One of these stood apart, sad and alone, the others looking at her with something of pity and scorn. Near her was a tall upright column of black basalt, as it seemed, bearing the sculptured head of a G.o.d. The features were calm and strong and reposeful, expressive of dignity, wisdom and power. And as I looked, more people gathered together--I heard strains of solemn music pealing from the temple close by--and I saw the solitary woman draw herself farther apart and almost disappear among the shadows. The light grew brighter in the east,--the sun shot a few advancing rays upward,--suddenly the door of the temple was thrown open, and a long procession of priests carrying flaming tapers and attended by boys in white garments and crowned with flowers made their slow and stately way towards the column with the G.o.d-like Head upon it and began to circle round it, chanting as they walked, while the flower-crowned boys swung golden censers to and fro, impregnating the air with rich perfume. The people all knelt--and still the priests paced round and round, chanting and murmuring prayers,--till at last the great sun lifted the edge of its glowing disc above the horizon, and its rays springing from the east like golden arrows, struck the brow of the Head set on its basalt pedestal. With the sudden glitter of this morning glory the chanting ceased,--the procession stopped; and one priest, tall and commanding of aspect, stepped forth from the rest, holding up his hands to enjoin silence. And then the Head quivered as with life,--its lips moved--there was a rippling sound like the chord of a harp smitten by the wind,--and a voice, full, sweet and resonant, spoke aloud the words:--
"I face the Sunrise!"
With a shout of joy priests and people responded:
"We face the Sunrise!"
And he who seemed the highest in authority, raising his arms invokingly towards heaven, exclaimed:
"Even so, O Mightiest among the Mighty, let us ever remember that Thy Shadow is but part of Thy Light,--that Sorrow is but the pa.s.sing humour of Joy--and that Death is but the night which dawns again into Life! We face the Sunrise!"
Then all who were a.s.sembled joined in singing a strange half-barbaric song and chorus of triumph, to the strains of which they slowly moved off and disappeared like shapes breathed on a mirror and melting away.
Only the tall high priest remained,--and he stood alone, waiting, as it were, for something eagerly expected and desired. And presently the woman who had till now remained hidden among the shadows of the surrounding trees, came swiftly forward. She was very pale--her eyes shone with tears--and again I saw MY OWN FACE IN HERS. The priest turned quickly to greet her, and I distinctly heard every word he spoke as he caught her hands in his own and drew her towards him.
"Everything in this world and the next I will resign," he said--"for love of thee! Honour, dignity and this poor earth"s renown I lay at thy feet, thou most beloved of women! What other thing created or imagined can be compared to the joy of thee?--to the sweetness of thy lips, the softness of thy bosom--the love that trembles into confession with thy smile! Imprison me but in thine arms and I will count my very soul well lost for an hour of love with thee! Ah, deny me not!--turn me not away from thee again!--love comes but once in life--such love as ours!--early or late, but once!"
She looked at him with tender pa.s.sion and pity--a look in which I thankfully saw there was no trace of pride, resentment or affected injury.
"Oh, my beloved!" she answered, and her voice, plaintive and sweet, thrilled on the silence like a sob of pain--"Why wilt thou rush on destruction for so poor a thing as I am? Knowest thou not, and wilt thou not remember that, to a priest of thy great Order, the love of woman is forbidden, and the punishment thereof is death? Already the people view thee with suspicion and me with scorn--forbear, O dearest, bravest soul!--be strong!"
"Strong?" he echoed--"Is it not strong to love?--ay, the very best of strength! For what avails the power of man if he may not bend a woman to his will? Child, wherever love is there can be no death, but only life! Love is as the ever-flowing torrent of eternity in my veins--the pulse of everlasting youth and victory! What are the foolish creeds of man compared with this one Truth of Nature--Love! Is not the Deity Himself the Supreme Lover?--and wouldst thou have me a castaway from His holiest ordinance? Ah no!--come to me, my beloved!--soul of my soul--inmost core of my heart! Come to me in the silence when no one sees and no one hears--come when--"
He broke off, checked by her sudden smile and look of rapture. Some thought had evidently, like a ray of light, cleared her doubts away.
"So be it!" she said--"I give thee all myself from henceforth!--I will come!"
He uttered an exclamation of relief and joy, and drew her closer, till her head rested on his breast and her loosened hair fell in a shower across his arms.
"At last!" he murmured--"At last! Mine--all mine this tender soul, this pa.s.sionate heart!--mine this exquisite life to do with as I will! O crown of my best manhood!--when wilt thou come to me?"
She answered at once without hesitation.
"To-night!" she said--"To-night, when the moon rises, meet me here in this very place,--this sacred grove where Memnon hears thy vows to him broken, and my vows consecrated to thee!--and as I live I swear I will be all thine! But now--leave me to pray!"
She lifted her head and looked into his adoring eyes,--then kissed him with a strange, grave tenderness as though bidding him farewell, and with a gentle gesture motioned him away. Elated and flushed with joy, he obeyed her sign, and left her, disappearing in the same phantom-like way in which all the other figures in this weird dream-drama had made their exit. She watched him go with a wistful yearning gaze--then in apparent utter desperation she threw herself on her knees before the impa.s.sive Head on its rocky pedestal and prayed aloud:
"O hidden and unknown G.o.d whom we poor earthly creatures symbolise!--give me the strength to love unselfishly--the patience to endure uncomplainingly! Thou, Heart of Stone, temper with thy coldest wisdom my poor throbbing heart of flesh! Help me to quell the tempest in my soul, and let me be even as thou art--inflexible, immovable,--save when the sun strikes music from thy dreaming brows and tells thee it is day! Forgive, O great G.o.d, forgive the fault of my beloved!--a fault which is not his, but mine, merely because I live and he hath found me fair,--let all be well for him,--but for me let nothing evermore be either well or ill--and teach me--even me--to face the Sunrise!"
Her voice ceased--a mist came before me for a moment--and when this cleared, the same scene was presented to me under the glimmer of a ghostly moon. And she who looked so like myself, lay dead at the foot of the great Statue, her hands clasped on her breast, her eyes closed, her mouth smiling as in sleep, while beside her raved and wept her priestly lover, invoking her by every tender name, clasping her lifeless body in his arms, covering her face with useless pa.s.sionate kisses, and calling her back with wild grief from the silence into which her soul had fled. And I knew then that she had put all thought of self aside in a sense of devotion to duty,--she had chosen what she imagined to be the only way out of difficulty,--to save the honour of her lover she had slain herself. But--was it wise? Or foolish? This thought pressed itself insistently home to my mind. She had given her life to serve a mistaken creed,--she had bowed to the conventions of a temporary code of human law--yet--surely G.o.d was above all strange and unnatural systems built up by man for his own immediate convenience, vanity or advantage, and was not Love the nearest thing to G.o.d? And if those two souls were destined lovers, COULD they be divided, even by their own rashness? These questions were curiously urged upon my inward consciousness as I looked again upon the poor fragile corpse among the reeds and palms of the sluggishly flowing river, and heard the clamorous despair of the man to whom she might have been joy, inspiration and victory had not the world been then as it is not now--the man, who as the light of the moonbeams fell upon him, showed me in his haggard and miserable features the spectral likeness of Santoris. Was it right, I asked myself, that the two perfect lines of a mutual love should be swept asunder?--or if it was, as some might conceive it, right according to certain temporary and conventional views of "rightness." was it POSSIBLE to so sever them? Would it not be well if we all occasionally remembered that there is an eternal law of harmony between souls as between spheres?--and that if we ourselves bring about a divergence we also bring about discord? And again,--that if discord results by our inter-meddling, it is AGAINST THE LAW, and must by the working of natural forces be resolved into concord again, whether such resolvance take ten, a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand years? Of what use, then, is the struggle we are for ever making in our narrow and limited daily lives to resist the wise and holy teaching of Nature? Is it not best to yield to the insistence of the music of life while it sounds in our ears? For everything must come round to Nature"s way in the end--her way being G.o.d"s way, and G.o.d"s way the only way! So I thought, as in half-dreaming fashion I watched the vision of the dead woman and her despairing lover fade into the impenetrable shadows of mystery veiling the record of the light beyond.