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

“Ah! I know you now!” he cried in sudden and extraordinary excitement—“I know you well! We have met before!—Why,—after all that has passed,—do we meet again?”

This singular speech was accompanied by a still more singular transfiguration of countenance—a dark, fiery glory burned in his eyes, and, in the stern, frowning wonder and defiance of his expression and attitude, there was something grand yet terrible,—

menacing yet supernaturally sublime. He stood so for an instant’s space, majestically sombre, like some haughty, discrowned emperor confronting his conqueror,—a rumbling, long-continued roll of thunder outside seemed to recall him to himself, and he pressed his hand tightly down over his eyelids, as though to shut out some overwhelming vision. After a pause he looked up again,—wildly, confusedly,—almost beseechingly,—and Heliobas, observing this, rose and advanced toward him.

“Peace!” he said, in low, impressive tones,—“we have recognized each other,—but on earth such recognitions are brief and soon forgotten!” He waited for a few seconds,—then resumed lightly, “Come, look at me now! … what do you see?”

“Nothing … but yourself!” he replied, sighing deeply as he spoke—“yet … oddly enough, a moment ago I fancied you had altogether a different appearance,—and I thought I saw … no matter what! … I cannot describe it!” His brows contracted in a puzzled line. “It was a curious phenomenon—very curious … and it affected me strangely…” he stopped abruptly,—then added, with a slight flush of annoyance on his face, “I perceive you are an adept in the art of optical illusion!”

Heliobas laughed softly. “Of course! What else can you expect of a charlatan, a trickster, and a monk to boot! Deception, deception throughout, my dear sir! … and have you not ASKED to be deceived?”

There was a fine, scarcely perceptible satire in his manner; he glanced at the tall oaken clock that stood in one corner of the room—its hands pointed to eleven. “Now, Mr. Alwyn,” he went on, “I think we have talked quite enough for this evening, and my advice is, that you retire to rest, and think over what I have said to you. I am willing to help you if I can,—but with your beliefs, or rather your non-beliefs, I do not hesitate to tell you frankly that the exertion of MY internal force upon YOURS in your present condition might be fraught with extreme danger and suffering. You have spoken of Truth, ‘the deathful Truth’; this being, however, nothing but Truth according to the world’s opinion, which changes with every passing generation, and therefore is not Truth at all. There is another Truth—the everlasting Truth—the pivot of all life, which never changes; and it is with this alone that my science deals. Were I to set you at liberty as you desire,—were your intelligence too suddenly awakened to the blinding awfulness of your mistaken notions of life, death, and futurity, the result might be more overpowering than either you or I can imagine! I have told you what I can do,—

your incredulity does not alter the fact of my capacity. I can sever you,—that is, your Soul, which you cannot define, but which nevertheless exists,—from your body, like a moth from its chrysalis; but I dare not even picture to myself what scorching flame the moth might not heedlessly fly into! You might in your temporary state of release find that new impetus to your thoughts you so ardently desire, or you might not,—in short, it is impossible to form a guess as to whether your experience might be one of supernal ecstasy or inconceivable horror.” He paused a moment,—Alwyn was watching him with a close intentness that bordered on fascination and presently he continued, “It is best from all points of view, that you should consider the matter more thoroughly than you have yet done; think it over well and carefully until this time tomorrow—then, if you are quite resolved—”

“I am resolved NOW!” said Alwyn slowly and determinately. “If you are so certain of your influence, come! … unbar my chains! …

open the prison-door! Let me go hence tonight; there is no time like the present!”

“To night!” and Heliobas turned his keen, bright eyes full upon him, with a look of amazement and reproach—“To night’ without faith, preparation or prayer, you are willing to be tossed through the realms of space like a grain of dust in a whirling tempest?

Beyond the glittering gyration of unnumbered stars—through the sword-like flash of streaming comets—through darkness—through light—through depths of profoundest silence—over heights of vibrating sound—you—YOU will dare to wander in these God-invested regions—you a blasphemer and a doubter of God!”

His voice thrilled with passion,—his aspect was so solemn, and earnest, and imposing that Alwyn, awed and startled, remained for a moment mute—then, lifting his head proudly, answered—

“Yes, I DARE! If I am immortal I will test my immortality! I will face God and find these angels you talk about! What shall prevent me?”

“Find the angels!” Heliobas surveyed him sadly as he spoke. “Nay!

… pray rather that they may find THEE!” He looked long and steadfastly at Alwyn’s countenance, on which there was just then the faint glimmer of a rather mocking smile,—and as he looked, his own face darkened suddenly into an expression of vague trouble and uneasiness—and a strange quiver passed visibly through him from head to foot.

“You are bold, Mr. Alwyn,”—he said at last, moving a little away from his guest and speaking with some apparent effort—“bold to a fault, but at the same time you are ignorant of all that lies behind the veil of the Unseen. I should be much to blame if I sent you hence tonight, utterly unguided—utterly uninstructed. I myself must think—and pray—before I venture to incur so terrible a responsibility. Tomorrow perhaps—tonight, no! I cannot—

moreover I will not!”

Alwyn flushed hotly with anger. “Trickster!” he thought. “He feels he has no power over me, and he fears to run the risk of failure!”

“Did I hear you aright?” he said aloud in cold determined accents.

“You cannot? you will not? … By Heaven!”—and his voice rose, “I say you SHALL!” As he uttered these words a rush of indescribable sensations overcame him,—he seemed all at once invested with some mysterious, invincible, supreme authority,—he felt twice a man and more than half a god, and moved by an irresistible impulse which he could neither explain nor control, he made two or three hasty steps forward,—when Heliobas, swiftly retreating, waved him off with an eloquent gesture of mingled appeal and menace.

“Back! back!” he cried warningly. “If you come one inch nearer to me I cannot answer for your safety—back, I say! Good God! you do not know your OWN power!”

Alwyn scarcely heeded him,—some fatal attraction drew him on, and he still advanced, when all suddenly he paused, trembling violently. His nerves began to throb acutely,—the blood in his veins was like fire,—there was a curious strangling tightness in his throat that interrupted and oppressed his breathing,—he stared straight before him with large, luminous, impassioned eyes.

What—WHAT was that dazzling something in the air that flashed and whirled and shone like glittering wheels of golden flame? His lips parted … he stretched out his hands in the uncertain manner of a blind man feeling his way … “Oh God! … God!” … he muttered as though stricken by some sudden amazement,—then, with a smothered, gasping cry, he staggered and fell heavily forward on the floor—insensible!

At the self-same instant the window blew open, with a loud crash—

it swung backward and forward on its hinges, and a torrent of rain poured through it slantwise into the room. A remarkable change had taken place in the aspect and bearing of Heliobas,—he stood as though rooted to the spot, trembling from head to foot,—he had lost all his usual composure,—he was deathly pale, and breathed with difficulty. Presently recovering himself a little he strove to shut the swinging casement, but the wind was so boisterous, that he had to pause a moment to gain strength for the effort, and instinctively he glanced out at the tempestuous night. The clouds were scurrying over the sky like great black vessels on a foaming sea,—the lightning flashed incessantly, and the thunder reverberated Over the mountains in tremendous volleys as of besieging cannon. Stinging drops of icy sleet dashed his face and the front of his white garb as he inhaled the stormy freshness of the strong, upward-sweeping blast for a few seconds—and then, with the air of one gathering together all his scattered forces, he shut to the window firmly and barred it across. Turning now to the unconscious Alwyn, he lifted him from the floor to a low couch near at hand, and there laid him gently down. This done, he stood looking at him with an expression of the deepest anxiety, but made no attempt to rouse him from his death-like swoon. His own habitual serenity was completely broken through,—he had all the appearance of having received some unexpected and overwhelming shock,—his very lips were blanched and quivered nervously.

He waited for several minutes, attentively watching the recumbent figure before him, till gradually,—very gradually,—that figure took upon itself the pale, stern beauty of a corpse from which life has but recently and painlessly departed. The limbs grew stiff and rigid—the features smoothed into that mysteriously wise placidity which is so often seen in the faces of the dead,—the closed eyelids looked purple and livid as though bruised … there was not a breath, not a tremor, to offer any outward suggestion of returning animation,—and when, after some little time, Heliobas bent down and listened, there was no pulsation of the heart … it had ceased to beat! To all appearances Alwyn was DEAD—any physician would have certified the fact, though how he had come by his death there was no evidence to show. And in that condition, … stirless, breathless … white as marble, cold and inanimate as stone, Heliobas left him. Not in indifference, but in sure knowledge—knowledge far beyond all mere medical science—that the senseless clay would in due time again arise to life and motion; that the casket was but temporarily bereft of its jewel,—and that the jewel itself, the Soul of the Poet, had by a superhuman access of will, managed to break its bonds and escape elsewhere. But whither? … Into what vast realms of translucent light or drear shadow? … This was a question to which the mystic monk, gifted as he was with a powerful spiritual insight into “things unseen and eternal,” could find no satisfactory answer, and in his anxious perplexity he betook himself to the chapel, and there, by the red glimmer of the crimson star that shone dimly above the altar, he knelt alone and prayed in silence till the heavy night had passed, and the storm had slain itself with the sword of its own fury on the dark slopes of the Pass of Dariel.

CHAPTER IV.

“ANGELUS DOMINE.”

The next morning dawned pallidly over a sea of gray mist—not a glimpse of the landscape was visible—nothing but a shadowy vastness of floating vapor that moved slowly fold upon fold, wave upon wave, as though bent on blotting out the world. A very faint, chill light peered through the narrow arched window of the room where Alwyn lay, still wrapped in that profound repose, so like the last long sleep from which some of our modern scientists tell us there can be no awakening. His condition was unchanged,—the wan beams of the early clay falling cross his features intensified their waxen stillness and pallor,—the awful majesty of death was on him,—the pathetic helplessness and perishableness of Body without Spirit. Presently the monastery bell began to ring