Ardath by Marie Corelli (best books to read in life .TXT) 📕

signification whatsoever save for the Elect. It was designed some twenty years ago by the inspired Chief of our Order, Khosrul, and such as are still his faithful disciples wear it as a record and constant reminder of his famous Prophecy.”

 

Theos heard, and a dull apathy stole over him,—his recent excitement died out under a chilling weight of vague yet bitter disappointment.

 

“And this Prophecy?” he asked listlessly.. “What is its nature and whom doth it concern?”

 

“Nay, in very truth it is a strange and marvellous thing!” replied Zuriel, his calm voice thrilling with a mellow touch of fervor..

“Khosrul, ‘tis said, has heard the angels whispering in Heaven, and his attentive ears have caught the echo of their distant speech.

 

“Thus spiritually instructed, he doth powerfully predict Salvation for the human race,—and doth announce, that in five thousand years or more, a God shall be moved by wondrous mercy to descend from Heaven, and take the form of Man, wherein, unknown, despised, rejected, he will live our life from commencement to finish, teaching, praying, and sanctifying by His Divine Presence the whole sin-burdened Earth. This done, He will consent to suffer a most cruel death, . . and the manner of His death will be that He shall hang, nailed hands and feet to a Cross, as though He were a common criminal, . . His holy brows shall be bound about with thorns,—and after hours of agony He, innocent of every sin, shall perish miserably—friendless, unpitied, and alone. But afterward, … and mark you! this is the chiefest glory of all! … He will rise again triumphant from the grave to prove his God-head, and to convince Mankind beyond all doubt an question, that there is indeed an immortal Hereafter,—an actual, free Eternity of Life, compared with which this our transient existence is a mere brief breathing-space of pause and probation, . . and then for evermore His sacred Name shall dominate and civilize the world…”

 

“What Name?”.. interrupted Theos, with eager abruptness … “Canst thou pronounce it?”

 

Zuriel shook his head.

 

“Not I, my son”—he answered gravely.. “Not even Khosrul can penetrate thus far! The Name of Him who is to come, is hidden deep among God’s unfathomed silences! It should suffice thee that thou knowest now the sum and substance of the Prophecy. Would I might live to see the days when all shall be fulfilled! … but alas, my remaining years are few upon the earth, and Heaven’s time is not ours!”

 

He sighed,—and resumed his slow pacing onwards,—Theos walked beside him as a man may walk in sleep, uncertainly and with unseeing eyes, his heart beating loudly, and a sick sense of suffocation in his throat. What did it all mean? … Had his life gone back in some strange way? … or had he merely DREAMED of a former existence different to this one? He remembered now what Sahluma had told him respecting Khosrul’s “new” theory of a future religion,—a theory that to him had seemed so old, so old!

—so utterly exhausted and worn threadbare! In what a cruel problem was he hopelessly involved!—what a useless, perplexed, confused being he had become! … he who would once to have staked his life on the unflinching strength and capabilities of human reason!

After a pause, . .

 

“Forgive me!” he said in a low tone, and speaking with some effort.. “forgive me and have patience with my laggard comprehension, . . I am perplexed at heart and slow of thought; wilt thou assure me faithfully, that this God-Man thou speakest of is not yet born on earth?”

 

The faintest shadow of a wondering smile flickered over the old man’s wrinkled countenance, like the reflection of a passing taper-flame on a faded picture.

 

“My son, my son!” he murmured with compassionate tolerance—“Have I not told thee that five thousand years and more must pass away ere the prediction be accomplished? … I marvel that so plain a truth should thus disquiet thee! Now, by my soul, thou lookest pallid as the dead! … Come, let us hasten on more rapidly,—thy fainting spirits will revive in fresher air.”

 

He hurried his pace as he spoke, and glided along with such a curious, stealthy noiselessness that by and by Theos began dubiously to wonder whether after all he were a real personage or a phantom? He noticed that his own figure seemed to possess much more substantiality and distinctness of outline than that of this mysterious Zuriel, whose very garments resembled floating cloud rather than actual, woven fabric. Was his companion then a fitting Spectre? …

 

He smiled at the absurdity of the idea, and to change the drift of his own foolish fancies he asked suddenly,—“Concerning this wondrous city of Al-Kyris…is it of very ancient days, and long lineage?”

 

“The annals of its recorded history reach over a period of twelve thousand years”—replied Zuriel, . . “But ‘tis the present fashion to count from the Deification of Nagaya or the Snake,—and, according to this, we are now in the nine hundred and eighty-ninth year of so-called Grace and Knowledge,—rather say Dishonor and Crime! … for a crueler, more bloodthirsty creed than the worship of Nagaya never debased a people! Who shall number up the innocent victims that have been sacrificed in the great Temple of the Sacred Python!—and even on this very day which has just dawned, another holocaust is to be offered on the Veiled Shrine,—or so it hath been publicly proclaimed throughout the city,—and the crowd will flock to see a virgin’s blood spilt on the accursed altars where Lysia, in all the potency of triumphant wickedness, presides. But if the auguries of the stars prevail, ‘twill be for the last time!” Here he paused and looked fixedly at Theos. “Thou dost return straightway to Sahluma … is it not so?”

 

Theos bent his head in assent.

 

“Art thou true friend, or mere flatterer to that spoilt child of fair fame and fortune?”

 

“Friend!”—cried Theos with eager enthusiasm, … “I would give my life to save his!”

 

“Aye, verily? … is it so?” … and Zuriel’s melancholy eyes dwelt upon him with a strange and sombre wistfulness, … “Then, as thou art a man, persuade him out of evil into good! …

rouse him to noble shame and nobler penitence for all those faults which mar his poet-genus and deprive it of immortal worth! …

urge him to depart from Al-Kyris while there is yet time ere the bolt of destruction falls! … and, … mark you well this final warning! … bid him to-day avoid the Temple, and beware the King!”—

 

As he said this he stopped and extinguished the lamp he carried.

There was no longer any need of it, for a broad patch of gray light fell through an aperture in the wall, showing a few rough, broken steps that led upwards,—and pointing to these he bade the bewildered Theos a kindly farewell.

 

“Thou wilt find Sahluma’s palace easily,”—he said—“Not a child in the streets but knows the way thither. Guard thy friend and be thyself also on guard against coming disaster,—and if thou art not yet resolved to die, escape from the city ere tonight’s sun-setting. Soothe thy distempered fancies with thoughts of God, and cease not to pray for thy soul’s salvation! Peace be with thee!”—

 

He raised his hands with an expressive gesture of benediction, and turning round abruptly disappeared. Where had he gone? … how had he vanished? … It was impossible to tell! … he seemed to have melted away like a mist into utter nothingness! Profoundly perplexed, Theos ascended the steps before him, his mind anxiously revolving all the strange adventures of the night, while a dim sense of some unspeakable, coming calamity brooded darkly upon him.

 

The solemn admonitions he had just heard affected him deeply, for the reason that they appeared to apply so specially to Sahluma,—

and the idea that any evil fate was in store for the bright, beautiful creature, whom he had, oddly enough, learned to love more than himself, moved him to an almost womanish apprehension.

In case of pressing necessity, could he exercise any authority over the capricious movements of the wilful Laureate, whose egotism was so absolute, whose imperious ways were so charming, whose commands were never questioned?

 

He doubted it! … for Sahluma was accustomed to follow the lead of his own immediate pleasure, in reckless scorn of consequences, —and it was not likely he would listen to the persuasions or exhortations, however friendly, of any one presuming to run counter to his wishes.

 

Again and again Theos asked himself—“If Sahluma of his own accord, and despite all warning, deliberately rushed into deadly peril, could I, even loving him as I do, rescue him?”—And as he pondered on this, a strange answer shaped itself unbidden in his brain—an answer that seemed as though it were spoken aloud by some interior voice.. “No,—no!—ten thousand times no! You could not save him any more than you could save yourself from the results of your own misdoing! If you voluntarily choose evil, not all the forces in the world can lift you into good,—if you voluntarily choose danger, not all the gods can bring you into safety! FREE WILL is the divine condition attached to human life, and each man by thought, word, and deed, determines his own fate, and decides his own future!”

 

He sighed despondingly, … a curious, vague contrition stirred within him, … he felt as though HE were in some mysterious way to blame for all his poet-friend’s shortcomings!

 

In a few minutes he found himself on the broad marble embankment, close to the very spot from whence he had first beheld the beautiful High Priestess sailing slowly by in all her golden pomp and splendor, and as he thought of her now, a shudder, half of aversion, half of desire, quivered through him, flushing his brows with the warm uprising blood that yet burned rebelliously at the remembrance of her witching, perfect loveliness!

 

Here too he had met Sahluma, . . ah Heaven!—how many things had happened since then! … how much he had seen and heard! …

Enough, at any rate, to convince him, that the men and women of Al-Kyris were more or less the same as those of other great cities he seemed to have known in far-off, half-forgotten days,—that they plotted against each other, deceived each other, accused each other falsely, murdered each other, and were fools, traitors, and egotists generally, after the customary fashion of human pigmies, —that they set up a Sham to serve as Religion, Gold being their only god,—that the rich wantoned in splendid luxury, and wilfully neglected the poor,—that the King was a showy profligate, ruled by a treacherous courtesan, just like many other famous Kings and Princes, who, because of their stalwart, martial bearing, and a certain surface good-nature, manage to conceal their vices from the too lenient eyes of the subjects they mislead,—and that finally all things were evidently tending toward some great convulsion and upheaval possibly arising from discontent and dissension among the citizens themselves,—or, likelier still, from the sudden invasion of a foreign foe,—for any more terrific termination of events did not just then suggest itself to his imagination.

 

Absorbed in thought, he walked some paces along the embankment, before he perceived that a number of people were already assembled there,—men, women, and children, who, crowding eagerly together to the very edge of the parapet, appeared to be anxiously watching the waters below.

 

What unusual sight attracted them? … and why were they all so silent as though struck dumb by some unutterable dismay? One or two, raising their heads, turned their pale, alarmed faces toward Theos as he