Books: Ardath

M >> Marie Corelli >> Ardath

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"Most venerable Seer!" he cried mockingly, his bright face radiant
with mirth and his dark eyes flashing a careless contempt as he
spoke--"Thou art as short-sighted as thine own auguries if thou
canst not at once comprehend the drift of my friend's humor! He
hath caught the infection of thy fanatic eloquence, and, like
thee, knows naught of what he says: moreover he hath good wine and
sunlight mingled in his blood, whereby he hath been doubtless
moved to play a jest upon thee. I pray thee heed him not! He is as
free to declare thy Prophecy is of the PAST, as thou art to insist
on its being of the FUTURE,--in both ways 'tis a most foolish
fallacy! Nevertheless, continue thy entertaining discourse, Sir
Graybeard! . . . and if thou must needs address thyself to any one
soul in particular, why let it be me,--for though, thanks to mine
own excellent good sense, I have no faith in angels nor crosses,
nor everlasting life, nor any of the strange riddles wherewith
thou seekest to perplex and bewilder the brains of the ignorant,
still am I Laureate of the realm, and ready to hold argument with
thee,--yea!--until such time as these dumfounded soldiers and
citizens of Al-Kyris shall remember their duty sufficiently to
seize and take thee captive in the King's great name!"

As he ceased a deep sigh ran, like the first sound of a rising
wind among trees, through the heretofore motionless multitude,--a
faint, dawning, yet doubtful smile reflected itself on their
faces,--and the old familiar shout broke feebly from their lips:

"Hail, Sah-luma! Let us hear Sah-luma!"

Sah-luma looked down upon them all in airy derision.

"O fickle, terror-stricken fools!" he exclaimed--"O thankless and
disloyal people! What!--ye WILL see me now? ... ye WILL hear me?
... Aye! but who shall answer for your obedience to my words! Nay,
is it possible that I, your country's chosen Chief Minstrel,
should have stood so long among ye disregarded! How comes it your
dull eyes and ears were fixed so fast upon yon dotard miscreant
whose days are numbered? Methought t'was but Sah-luma's voice that
could persuade ye to assemble thus in such locust-like swarms..
since when have the Poet and the People of Al-Kyris ceased to be
as one?"

A vague, muttering sound answered him, whether of shame or
dissatisfaction it was difficult to tell. Khosrul's vibrating
accent struck sharply across that muffled murmur.

"The Poet and the People of Al-Kyris are further asunder than
light and darkness!" he cried vehemently--"For the Poet has been
false to his high vocation, and the People trust in him no more!"

There was an instant's hush, ... a hush as it seemed of grieved
acquiescence on the part of the populace,--and during that brief
pause Theos's heart gave a fierce bound against his ribs as though
some one had suddenly shot at him with a poisoned arrow. He
glanced quickly at Sah-luma,--but Sah-luma stood calmly unmoved,
his handsome head thrown back, a cynical smile on his lips and his
eyes darker than ever with an intensity of unutterable scorn.

"Sah-luma! ... Sah-luma!" and the piercing, reproachful voice of
the Prophet penetrated every part of the spacious square like a
sonorous bell ringing over a still landscape: "O divine Spirit of
Song pent up in gross clay, was ever mortal more gifted than thou!
In thee was kindled the white fire of Heaven,--to thee were
confided the memories of vanished worlds, . . for thee God bade His
Nature wear a thousand shapes of varied meaning,--the sun, the
moon, the stars were appointed as thy servants,--for thou wert
born POET, the mystically chosen Teacher and Consoler of Mankind!
What hast thou done, Sah-luma, . . what hast thou done with the
treasures bestowed upon thee by the all-endowing Angels? ... How
hast thou used the talisman of thy genius? To comfort the
afflicted? ... to dethrone and destroy the oppressor? ... to
uphold the cause of Justice? ... to rouse the noblest instincts of
thy race? ... to elevate and purify the world? ... Alas, alas!--
thou hast made Thyself the idol of thy muse, and thou being but
perishable, thy fame shall perish with thee! Thou hast drowsed
away thy manhood in the lap of vice, . . thou hast slept and dreamed
when thou should have been awake and vigilant! Not I, but THOU
shouldst have warned the people of their coming doom! ... not I,
but THOU shouldst have marked the threatening signs of the
pregnant hour,--not I, but THOU shouldst have perceived the first
faint glimmer of God's future scheme of glad salvation,--not I,
but THOU shouldst have taught and pleaded, and swayed by thy
matchless sceptre of sweet song, the passions of thy countrymen!
Hadst thou been true to that first flame of Thought within thee, O
Sah-luma, how thy glory would have dwarfed the power of kings!
Empires might have fallen, cities decayed, and nations been
absorbed in ruin,--and yet thy clear-convincing voice, rendered
imperishable by its faithfulness should have sounded forth in
triumph above the foundering wrecks of Time! O Poet unworthy of
thy calling! ... How thou hast wantoned with the sacred Muse! ...
how thou hast led her stainless feet into the mire of sensual
hypocrisies, and decked her with the trumpery gew-gaws of a
meaningless fair speech!--How thou hast caught her by the virginal
hair and made her chastity the screen for all thine own
licentiousness! ... Thou shouldst have humbly sought her
benediction,--thou shouldst have handled her with gentle reverence
and patient ardor,--from her wise lips thou shouldst have learned
how best to PRACTICE those virtues whose praise thou didst
evasively proclaim, ... thou shouldst have shrined her, throned
her, worshiped her, and served her, . . yea! ... even as a sinful man
may serve an Angel who loves him!"

Ah, what a strange, cold thrill ran through Theos as he heard
these last words! 'As a sinful man may serve an Angel who loves
him!' How happy the man thus loved! ... how fortunate the sinner
thus permitted to serve! ... WHO WAS HE? ... Could there be any
one so marvellously privileged? He wondered dimly,--and a dull,
aching pain throbbed heavily in his brows. It was a very singular
thing too, that he should find himself strongly and personally
affected by Khosrul's address to Sah-luma, yet such was the case,
... so much so, indeed, that he accepted all the Prophet's
reproaches as though they applied solely TO HIS OWN PAST LIFE! He
could not understand his emotion, ... nevertheless he kept on
dreamily regretting that things WERE as Khosrul had said, ... that
he had NOT fulfilled his vocation,--and that he had neither been
humble enough nor devout enough nor unselfish enough to deserve
the high and imperial name of POET.

Round and round like a flying mote this troublesome idea circled
in his brain, ... he must do better in future, he resolved,
supposing that any future remained to Him in which to work, . . HE
MUST REDEEM THE PAST! ... Here he roused his mental faculties with
a start and forced himself to realize that it was SAH-LUMA to whom
the Prophet spoke, . . Sah-luma, ONLY Sah-luma,--not himself!

Then straightway he became indignant on his friend's behalf,--why
should Sah-luma be blamed? ... Sah-luma was a glorious poet!--a
master-singer of singers! ... his fume must and should endure
forever! ... Thus thinking, he regained his composure by degrees,
and strove to assume the same air of easy indifference as that
exhibited by his companion, when again Khosrul's declamatory tones
thundered forth with an absoluteness of emphasis that was both
startling and convincing:

"Hear me, Sah-luma, Chief Minstrel of Al-Kyris!--hear me, thou who
hast willfully wasted the golden moments of never-returning time!
THOU ART MARKED OUT FOR DEATH!--death sudden and fierce as the
leap of the desert panther on its prey! ... death that shall come
to thee through the traitorous speech of the evil woman whose
beauty has sapped thy strength and rendered thy glory inglorious!...
death that for thee, alas! shall be mournful and utter oblivion!
Naught shall it avail to thee that thy musical weaving of words
hath been graven seven times over, on tablets of stone and agate
and ivory, of gold and white silex and porphyry, and the
unbreakable rose-adamant,--none of these shall suffice to keep thy
name in remembrance,--for what cannot be broken shall be melted
with flame, and what cannot be erased shall be buried miles deep
in the bosom of earth, whence it never again shall be lifted into
the light of day! Aye! thou shalt be FORGOTTEN!--forgotten as
though thou hadst never sung,--other poets shall chant in the
world, yet maybe none so well as thou!--other laurel and myrtle
wreaths shall be given by countries and kings to bards unworthy,
of whom none perchance shall have thy sweetness! ... but thou,--
thou the most grandly gifted, gift-squandering Poet the world has
ever known, shalt be cast among the dust of unremembered nothings,
and the name of Sah-luma shall carry no meaning to any man born in
the coming here-after! For thou hast cherished within Thyself the
poison that withers thee, ... the deadly poison of Doubt, the
Denial of God's existence, ... the accursed blankness of Disbelief
in the things of the Life Eternal! ... wherefore, thy spirit is
that of one lost and rebellious,--whose best works are futile,--
whose days are void of example,--and whose carelessly grasped
torch of song shall be suddenly snatched from thy hand and
extinguished in darkness! God pardon thee, dying Poet! ... God
give thy parting soul a chance of penance and of sweet redemption!
... God comfort thee in that drear Land of Shadow whither thou art
bound! ... God bring thee forth again from Chaos to a nobler Future!
... Sin-burdened as thou art, my blessing follows thee in thy last
agony! Sah-luma! ... FALLEN ANGEL, SELF-EXILED FROM THY PEERS! ...
FAREWELL!"

The effect of these strange words was so extraordinarily
impressive, that for one instant the astonished and evidently
affrighted crowds pressed round Sah-luma eagerly, staring at him
in morbid fear and wonder, as though they expected him to drop
dead before them in immediate fulfillment of the Prophet's solemn
valediction. Theos, oppressed by an inward sickening sense of
terror, also regarded him with close and anxious solicitude, but
was almost reassured at the first glance.

Never was a greater opposition offered to Khosrul's gloomy
prognostications, than that contained in the handsome Laureate's
aspect at that moment,--his supple, graceful figure alert with
life, . . his glowing face flushed by the sun, and touched with that
faintly amused look of serene scorn, . . his glorious eyes,
brilliant as jewels under their drooping amorous lids, and the
regal poise of his splendid shoulders and throat, as he lifted his
head a little more haughtily than usual, and glanced indifferently
down from his foothold on the edge of the fountain at the
upturned, questioning faces of the throng, ... all even to the
careless balance and ease of his attitude, betokened his perfect
condition of health, and the entire satisfaction he had in the
consciousness of his own strength and beauty.

He seemed about to speak, and raised his hand with the graceful
yet commanding gesture of one accustomed to the art of elegant
rhetoric, ... when suddenly his expression changed, . . shrugging
his shoulders lightly as who should say.. "Here comes the
conclusion of the matter,--no time for further argument"--he
silently pointed across the Square, while a smile dazzling yet
cruel played on his delicately parted lips, . . a smile, the covert
meaning of which was soon explained. For all at once a brazen roar
of trumpets split the silence into torn and discordant echoes,--
the crowd turned swiftly, and seeing who it was that approached,
rushed hither and thither in the wildest confusion, making as
though they would have fled, . . and in less than a minute, a
gleaming cohort of mounted and armed spearmen galloped furiously
into the thick of the melee.

Following these came a superb car drawn by six jet-black horses
that plunged and pranced through the multitude with no more heed
than if these groups of living beings had been mere sheafs of
corn, . . a car flashing from end to end with gold and precious
stones, in which towered the erect, massive form of Zephoranim,
the King. His dark face was ablaze with wrath, ... tightly
grasping the reins of his reckless steeds, he drew himself
haughtily upright and turned his rolling, fierce black eyes
indignantly from side to side on the scared people, as he drove
through their retreating ranks, smiting down and mangling with the
sharp spikes of his tall chariot-wheels men, women, and children
without care or remorse, till he forced his terrible passage
straight to the foot of the Obelisk. There he came to an abrupt
standstill, and, lifting high his strong hand and brawny arm
glittering with jewels, he cried:

"Soldiers! Seize yon traitorous rebel! Ten thousand pieces of gold
for the capture of Khosrul!"

There was an instant of hesitation, ... not one of the populace
stirred to obey the order. Then suddenly, as though released by
their monarch's command from some mesmeric spell, the before
inactive mounted guards started into action, cantered sharply
forward and surrounded the Obelisk, while the armed spearsmen
closed together and made a swift advance upon the venerable figure
that stood alone and defenseless, tranquilly awaiting their
approach. But there was evidently some unknown and mysterious
force pent up within the Prophet's feeble frame, for when the
soldiers were just about an arm's length from him, they seemed all
at once troubled and irresolute, and turned their looks away, as
though fearing to gaze too steadfastly upon that grand, thought-
furrowed countenance in which the eyes, made young by inward
fervor, blazed forth with unearthly lustre beneath a silvery halo
of tossed white hair. Zephoranim perceived this touch of
indecision on the part of his men, and his black brows contracted
in an ominous frown.

"Halt!" he shouted fiercely, apparently to make it seem to the mob
that the pause in the action of the soldiery was in compliance
with his own behest, . . "Halt! ... Bind him, and bring him
hither, . . I myself will slay him!"

"Halt!" echoed a voice, discordantly sharp and wild.. "Halt thou
also, great Zephoranim! for Death bars thy further progress!"

And Khosrul, manifestly possessed by some superhuman access of
frenzy, leaped from his position on the back of the stone Lion,
and slipping agilely through the ranks of the startled spearmen
and guards, who were all unprepared for the suddenness and
rapidity of his movements, he sprang boldly on the edge of the
Royal chariot, and there clung to the jewelled wheel, looking like
a gaunt aerial spectre, an ambassador of coming ruin. The King,
speechless with amazement and fury, dragged at his huge sword till
he wrenched it out of its sheath, . . raising it, he whirled it
round his head so that it gave a murderous hiss in the air, ...
and yet.. was his strong arm paralyzed that he forbore to strike!

"Zephoranim!" Khosrul, in terms that were piercing and dolorous as
the whistling of the wind among hollow reeds,--"Zephoranim, THOU
SHALT DIE TO-NIGHT! ART THOU READY? Art thou ready, proud King? ...
ready to be made less than the lowest of the low? Hush! ... Hush!"
and his aged face took upon itself a ghastly greenish pallor--
"Hear you not the muttering of the thunder underground? There are
strange powers at work! ... powers of the undug earth and
unfathomed sea! ... hark how they tear at the stately foundations
of Al-Kyris! ... Flame! flame! it is already kindled!--it shall
enwrap thee with more closeness than thy coronation robe, O mighty
Sovereign! ... with more gloating fondness than the serpent-
twining arms of thy beloved! Listen, Zephoranim, listen!"

Here he stretched out his skinny hand and pointed upwards,--his
eyes grew fixed and glassy,--his throat rattled convulsively. At
that moment the monarch, recovering his self-possession, once more
lifted his sword with direct and deadly aim, but the Prophet,
uttering a wild shriek, caught at his descending wrist and gripped
it fast.

"See.. See!" he exclaimed.. "Put up thy weapon! ... Thou shalt
never need it where thou art summoned! ... Lo! how yon. blood-red
letters blaze against the blue of heaven! ... There! ... there it
comes!--Read.. read! 'tis written plain.. 'AL-KYRIS SHALL FALL,
AND THE KING SHALL DIE!'.. Hist ... hist! ... Dumb oracles speak
and dead voices find tongue! ... hark how they chant together the
old forgotten warning:

'When the High Priestess
Is the King's mistress
Then fall Al-Kyris!'

Fall Al-Kyris! ... Aye! ... the City of a thousand palaces shall
fall to-night! ... TO-NIGHT! ... O night of desperate horror! ...
and thou, O King, SHALT DIE!"

And as he shrilled the last word on the air with terrific
emphasis, he threw up his arms like a man suddenly shot, and
reeling backward fell heavily on the ground,--a corpse.

A great cry went up from the crowd, . . the King leaned eagerly out
of his car.

"Is the fool dead, or feigning death?" he demanded, addressing one
of a group of soldiers standing near.

The officer stooped and felt the motionless body.

"O great King, live forever! He is dead!"

Zephoranim hesitated. Cruelty and clemency struggled for the
mastery in the varying expression of his frowning face, but
cruelty conquered. Grasping his sword firmly, he bent still
further forward out of his chariot, and with one swift, keen
stroke, severed the lifeless Prophet's head from its trunk, and
taking it up on, the point of his weapon, showed it to the
multitude. A smothered, shuddering sigh that was half a groan
rippled through the dense throng--a sound that evidently added
fresh irritation to the already heated temper of the haughty
sovereign. With a savage laugh, he tossed his piteous trophy on
the pavement, where it lay in a pool of its own blood, the white
hair about it stained ruddily, and the still open eyes upturned as
though in dumb appeal to heaven. Then, without deigning to utter
another word, or to bestow another look upon the surrounding crowd
of his disconcerted subjects, he gathered up his coursers' reins
and prepared to depart.

Just then the sun went behind a cloud, and only a side-beam of
radiance shot forth, pouring itself straight down on the royally
attired figure of the monarch and the headless body of Khosrul,
and at the same time bringing into sudden and prominent relief the
silver Cross that glittered on the breast of the bleeding corpse,
and that seemed to mysteriously offer itself as the Key to some
unsolved Enigma. As if drawn by one strangely mutual attraction,
all eyes, even those of Zephoranim himself, turned instinctively
toward the flashing Emblem, which appeared to burn like living
fire on that perished mass of stiffening clay, . . and there was a
brief silence,--a pause, during which Theos, who had watched
everything with curiously calm interest, such as may be felt by a
spectator watching the progress of a finely acted tragedy, became
conscious of the same singular sensation he had already several
times experienced,--namely, THAT HE HAD WITNESSED THE WHOLE OF
THIS SCENE BEFORE!

he remembered it quite well,--particularly that apparently
trifling incident of the sunlight happening to shine so
brilliantly on the dead man and his cross while the rest of the
vast assemblage were in comparative shadow. It was very odd! ...
his memory was like a wonderful art-gallery in which some pictures
were fresh of tint, while others were dim and faded, . . but this
special "tableau" in the Square of Al-Kyris was very distinctly
painted in brilliant and vivid colors on the sombre background of
his past recollections, and he found the circumstance so
remarkable that he was on the point of saying something to Sah-
luma about it,--when the sun came out again in full splendor, and
Zephoranim's spirited steeds started forward at a canter.

The King, controlling them easily with one hand, extended the
other majestically by way of formal salutation to his people, . .
his tall, muscular form was displayed to the best advantage,--the
narrow jewelled fillet that bound his rough dark locks emitted a
myriad scintillations of light, . . his close-fitting coat-of-mail,
woven from thousands of small links of gold, set off his massive
chest and shoulders to perfection,--and as he moved along royally
in his sumptuous car, the effect of his striking presence was
such, that a complete change took place in the before sullen humor
of the populace. For seeing him thus alive and well in direct
opposition to Khosrul's ominous prediction,--even as Sah-luma also
stood unharmed in spite of his having been apostrophized as a
"dying" Poet,--the mob, always fickle and always dazzled by
outward show, suddenly set up a deafening roar of cheering. The
pallid hue of terror vanished from faces that had but lately
looked spectrally thin with speechless dread, and crowds of
servile petitioners and place-hunters began to press eagerly round
their monarch's chariot, ... when all at once a woman in the
throng gave a wild scream and rushed away shrieking "THE OBELISK!
... THE OBELISK!"

Every eye was instantly turned toward the stately pillar of white
granite that sparkled in the sunlight like an immense carven
jewel, ... great Heaven! ... It was tottering to and fro like the
unsteadied mast of a ship at sea! ... One look sufficed,--and a
frightful panic ensued--a horrible, brutish stampede of creatures
without faith in anything human or divine save their own wretched
personalities,--the King, infected by the general scare, urged his
horses into furious gallop, and dashed through the cursing,
swearing, howling throng like an embodied whirlwind,--and for a
few seconds nothing seemed distinctly visible But a surging mass
of infuriated humanity, fighting with itself for life.

Theos alone remained singularly calm,--his sole consideration was
for his friend Sah-luma, whom he entwined with one arm as he
sprang down from the position they had hitherto occupied on the
brink of the fountain, and made straight for the nearest of the
six broad avenues that opened directly into the Square. Sah-luma
looked pale, but was apparently unafraid,--he said nothing, and
passively allowed himself to be piloted by Theos through the madly
raging multitude, which, oddly enough, parted before them like
mist before the wind, so that in a magically short interval they
successfully reached a place of safety.

And they reached it not a moment too soon. For the Obelisk was now
plainly to be seen lurching forward at an angle of several
degrees, . . strange muffled, roaring sounds were heard at its base,
as though demons were digging up its foundations, . . then,
seemingly shaken by underground tremors, it began to oscillate
violently,--a terrific explosion was heard as of the bursting of a
giant bomb,--and immediately afterward the majestic monolith
toppled over and fell!--with the crash of a colossal cannonade
that sent its thunderous reverberations through and through the
length and breadth of the city! Hundreds of persons were killed
and wounded,--many of the mounted guards and spearmen, who were
striving to force a way of escape through the crowd, were struck
down and crushed pell-mell with their horses as they rode,--the
desperate people trampled each other to death in their frenzied
efforts to reach the nearest outlet to the river embankment, . . but
when once the Obelisk had actually fallen, all this turmoil was
for an instant checked, and the gasping, torn, and bleeding
survivors of the struggle stopped, as it were to take breath, and
stared in blank dismay upon the strange ruin before them.

Theos, still holding Sah-luma by the arm, with the protecting
fondness of an elder brother guarding a younger, gazed also at the
scene with quiet, sorrowfully wondering eyes. For it meant
something to him he was sure, because it was so familiar,--yet he
found it impossible to grasp the comprehension of that meaning! It
was a singular spectacle enough; the lofty four-sided white
pillar, that had so lately been a monumental glory of Al-Kyris,
had split itself with the violence of its fall into two huge
desolate-looking fragments, which now lay one on each side of the
square, as though flung thither by a Titan's hand,--the great lion
had been hurled from its position and overturned like a toy, while
the shield it had supported between its paws had entirely
disappeared in minutely scattered atoms, . . the fountains had
altogether ceased playing. Now and then a thin, vaporous stream of
smoke appeared to issue between the crannies of the pavement,--
otherwise there was no visible sign of the mysterious force that
had wrought so swift and sudden a work of destruction,--the sun
shone brilliantly, and over all the havoc beamed the placid
brightness of a cloudless summer sky!

The most prominent object of all amid the general devastation, and
the one that fascinated Theos more than the view of the destroyed
monolith and the debased Lion, was the uninjured head of the
Prophet Khosrul. There it lay, exactly between the sundered halves
of the Obelisk, . . pale rays of light glimmered on its bloodstained
silvery hair and open glazed eyes,--a solemn smile seemed graven
on its waxen-pallid features. And at a little distance off, on the
breast of the black-robed headless corpse that remained totally
uncrushed in an open space by itself, among the surrounding heaps
of slain and wounded, glistened the CROSS like a fiery gem, . . an
all-significant talisman that, as he beheld it, filled Theos's
heart with a feverish craving,--an inexplicable desire mingled
with remorse far greater than any fear!