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

the invisible organ-like instrument, whose sound resembled the roll and rush of huge billows breaking into foam. As the rich and solemn strains swept grandly through the spacious Temple, Niphrata stretched out her hands toward the High Priestess, a smile of wonderful beauty lighting up her fair child-face.

 

“Take me, O ye immortal gods!” she cried, her voice ringing in clear tune above all the other music.. “Take me and bear me away on your strong, swift wings to the Everlasting Palaces of Air, wherein all sorrows have end, and patient love meets at last its long-delayed reward! Take me.. for lo! I am ready to depart! My soul is wounded and weary of its prison,—it struggles to be free!

O Destiny, I thank thee for thy mercy! … I praise thee for the glory thou dost here unveil before mine eyes! Pardon my sins! …

accept my life! … sanctify my love!”

 

A murmur of relief and rejoicing ran rippling through the listening crowds,—a weight seemed lifted from their minds, . . the victim was willing to die after all! … the Sacrifice would be proceeded with. There was a slight pause,—during which the priests crossed and recrossed the Sanctuary many times, one of them descending the steps to tie Niphrata’s hands behind her back as before. In the immediate interest of the moment, Sahluma and his hot interference seemed to be almost forgotten, . . a few people, indeed, cast injured and indignant looks toward the corner where he dejectedly leaned, and once the wrinkled, malicious head of old Zabastes peered at him, with an expression of incredulous amazement,—but otherwise no sympathy was manifested by any one for the popular Laureate’s suffering and discomfiture. He was the nation’s puppet, . . its tame bird, whose business was to sing when bidden, . . but he was not expected to have any voice in matters of religion or policy,—and still less was he supposed to intrude any of his own personal griefs on the public notice. Let him sing!—

and sing well,—that was enough; but let him dare to be afflicted, and annoy others with his wants and troubles, why then he at once became uninteresting! … he might even die for all anybody cared!

This was the unspoken sullen thought that Theos, sensitive to the core on his friend’s behalf, instinctively felt to be smouldering in the heart of the mighty multitude,—and he resented the half-implied, latent ungratefulness of the people with all his soul.

 

“Fools!”.. he muttered under his breath,—“For you, and such as you, the wisest sages toil in vain! … on you Art wastes her treasures of suggestive loveliness! … low grovellers in earth, ye have no eyes for heaven! O ignorant, ungenerous, fickle hypocrites, whose ruling passion is the greed of gold!—Why should great men perish, that YE may live! … And yet.. your acclamations make up the thing called Fame! Fame? … Good God!—

‘tis a brief shout in the universal clamor, scarce heard and soon forgotten!”

 

And filled with strange bitterness, he gazed disconsolately at Niphrata, who stood like one in a trance of ecstasy, patiently awaiting her doom, her lovely, innocent blue eyes gladly upturned to the long, jewel-like head of Nagaya, which twined round the summit of the ebony staff, seemed to peer down at her in a sort of drowsy reflectiveness. Then, all suddenly, Lysia spoke, . . how enchanting was the exquisite modulation of that slow, languid, silvery voice!

 

“Come hither, O Maiden fair, pure, and faithful!

The desire of thy soul is granted!

Before thee are the Gates of the Unknown World!

Already they open to admit thee;

Through their golden bars gleams the glory of thy future!

Speak! … What seest thou?”

 

A moment of breathless silence ensued,—all present seemed to be straining their ears to catch the victim’s answer. It came,—soft and clear as a bell:

 

“I see a wondrous land o’er-canopied with skies of gold and azure: . . white flowers grow in the fragrant fields, . . there are many trees, . . I hear the warbling of many birds; . . I see fair faces that smile upon me and gentle hands that beckon! … Figures that wear glistening robes, and carry garlands of roses and myrtle, pass slowly, singing as they go! … How beautiful they are! How strange! … how sweet!”

 

And as she uttered these words, in accents of dreamy delight, she ascended the first step of the Shrine. Theos, looking, held his breath in wonder and fear, while Sahluma with a groan turned himself resolutely away, and, pressing his forehead against the great column where he stood, hid his eyes in his clasped hands.

 

The High Priestess continued:

 

“Come hither, O Maiden of chaste and patient life!

Rejoice greatly, for thy virtue hath pleased the gods: The undiscovered marvels of the Stars are thine, Earth has no more control over thee: Heaven is thine absolute Heritage! …

Behold! the Ship of the Sun awaits thee!

Speak! … What seest thou?”

 

A soft cry of rapture came from the girl’s lips.

 

“Oh, I see glory everywhere!”.. she exclaimed.. “Light everywhere!

… Peace everywhere! … O joy, joy! … The face of my beloved shines upon me,—he calls, . . he bids me come to him! … Ah! we shall be together at last, . . we twain shall be as one never to part, never to doubt, never to suffer more! O let me hasten to him! … Why should I linger thus, when I would fain, be gone!”

 

And she sprang eagerly up the second and third steps of the Sanctuary, and faced Lysia,—her head thrown back, her blue eyes ablaze with excitement, her bosom heaving, and her delicate features transfigured and illumined by unspeakable inward delirious bliss. Just then the Priest Zel lifted the long, jewel-hilted knife from the black cushion where it had lain till now, and, crouching stealthily in the shadow behind Lysia, held it in both bands, pointed straight forward in a level line with Niphrata’s breast. Thus armed, he waited, silent and immovable.

 

A slight shudder of morbid expectancy seemed to quiver through the vast congregation, . . but Theos’s nerves were strung up to such a high pitch of frenzied horror that he could neither speak nor sigh,—motionless as a statue, he could only watch, with freezing blood, each detail of the extraordinary scene. Once more the High Priestess spoke:

 

“Come hither, O happy Maiden whose griefs are ended: The day of thy triumph and reward has dawned!

For thee the Immortals unveiled the mysteries of being,—

To thee, they openly declare all secrets …

To thee the hidden things of Wisdom are made manifest: For the last time ere thou leavest us, hear, and answer, . .

Speak!—What seest thou?”

 

“LOVE!” replied Niphrata in a tone of thrilling and solemn tenderness.. “LOVE, the Eternal All, in which dark things are made light!—Love, that is never served in vain! … LOVE wherein lost happiness is rediscovered and perfected! … O DIVINE LOVE, by whom the passion of my heart is sanctified! Absorb me in the quenchless glory of thine Immortality! … Draw me to Thyself, and let me find in Thee my Soul’s completion!”

 

Her voice sank to a low prayerful emphasis, . . her look was as of a rapt angel waiting for wings. Lysia’s gaze dwelt upon her with slow-dilating wonder and contempt.. such a devout and earnest supplication was evidently not commonly heard from the lips of Nagaya’s victims. At that instant, too, Nagaya himself seemed curiously excited and disturbed,—his great glittering coils quivered so violently, as to shake the rod on which he was twined, . . and when his Priestess raised her mesmeric reproving eyes toward him, he bent back his head rebelliously, and sent a vehement hiss through the silence, like the noise made by the whirl of a scimitar.

 

Suddenly, and with deafening abruptness, a clap of thunder, short and sharp as a quick volley of musketry, crashed overhead,—

accompanied by a strange circular sweep of lightning that blazed through the windows of the Temple, illumining it from end to end with a brilliant blue glare. The superstitious crowd exchanged startled looks of terror, . . the King moved uneasily and glanced frowningly about him,—it was plainly manifest that no one had forgotten the disastrous downfall of the Obelisk, ..and there seemed to be a contagion of alarm in the very air. But Lysia was perfectly self-possessed, . . in fact she appeared to accept the threat of a storm as an imposing, and by no means undesirable, adjunct to the mysteries of the Sacrificial Rite, for riveting her basilisk eyes on Niphrata, she said in firm, clear, decisive accents:

 

“The gods grow impatient! … Wherefore, O Princess and People of Al-Kyris, let us hasten to appease their anger! Depart, O

stainless Maid! … depart hence, and betake thee to the Golden Throne of the Sun, our Lord and Ruler, . . and in the Name of Nagaya, may the shedding of thy virginal blood avert from us and ours the wrath of the Immortals! Linger no longer, . . Nagaya accepts thee! … and the Hour strikes Death!”

 

With the last word a sullen bell boomed heavily through and through the Temple.. and, at once, . . like a frenzied bird or butterfly winging its way into scorching flame, . . Niphrata rushed forward with swift, unhesitating, dreadful precision straight on the knife outheld by the untrembling ruthless hands of the Priest Zel! One second,—and Theos sick with horror, saw her speeding thus, . . the next,—and the whole place was enveloped in dense darkness!

 

CHAPTER XXIX.

 

THE CUP OF WRATH AND TREMBLING.

 

A flash of time, . . an instant of black, horrid eclipse, too brief for the utterance of even a word or cry, … and then,—with an appalling roar, as of the splitting of huge rocks and the tearing asunder of mighty mountains, the murky gloom was lifted, rent, devoured, and swept away on all sides by a sudden bursting forth of Fire! … Fire leaped up alive in twenty different parts of the building, springing aloft in spiral coils from the marble pavement that yawned crashingly open to give the impetuous flames their rapid egress, . . fire climbed lithely round and round the immense carven columns, and ran, nimbly dancing and crackling its way among the painted and begemmed decorations of the dome, … fire enwrapped the side-altars, and shrivelled the jewelled idols at a breath, . . fire unfastened and shook down the swinging-lamps, the garlands, the splendid draperies of silk and cloth-of-gold…fire —fire everywhere! … and the madly affrighted multitude, stunned by the abrupt shock of terror, stood for a moment paralyzed and inert, . . then, with one desperate yell of wild brute fear and ferocity, they rushed headlong in a struggling, shrieking, cursing, sweltering swarm toward the great closed portals of the central aisle. As they did so, a tremendous weight of thunder seemed to descend solidly on the roof with a thudding burst as though a thousand walls had been battered down at one blow, . . the whole edifice rocked and trembled in the terrific reverberation, and almost simultaneously, the doors were violently jerked open, wrenched from their hinges, and hurled, all burning and split with flame, against the forward-fighting crowds! Several hundred fell under the fiery mass, a charred heap of corpses,—the raging remainder pressed on in frenzied haste, clambering over piles of burning dead,—trampling on scorched, disfigured faces that perhaps but a moment since had been dear to them,—each and all bent on forcing a way out to the open air. In the midst of the overwhelming awfulness of the scene, Theos still retained sufficient presence of mind