Books: Ardath

M >> Marie Corelli >> Ardath

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* * * * * * *

Whither should he go! ... Down into the blazing area of the fast-
perishing Temple? Surely no safety could be found there, where the
fire was raging at its utmost height! ... yet he went on
mechanically, as though urged forward by some force superior to
his own, . . always clinging to the idea that his friend still lived
and that if he could only reach some place of temporary shelter he
might yet be able to restore him. It was possible the wound was
not fatal, . . far more possible to his mind than that so gloriously
famed a Poet should be dead!

So he dimly thought, while he stumbled dizzily along, . . his
forehead wet with clammy dews, . . his limbs trembling under the
weight he bore, . . his eyes half-blinded by the hot flying sparks
and drifting smoke, . . and his soul shaken and appalled by the
ghastly sights that met his view wheresoever he turned. Crushed
and writhing bodies of men, women, and children, half-living,
half-dead, . . heaps of corpses, fast blazing to ashes,--broken and
falling columns, . . yawning gaps in the ground, from which were
cast forth volleys of red cinders and streams of lava, ... all
these multitudinous horrors surrounded him, as with uncertain,
faltering steps he moved on like a sick man walking in sleep,
carrying his precious burden! He knew nothing of where he was
bound,--he saw no outlet anywhere--no corner wherein the Fire-
fiend had not set up devouring dominion, . . but nevertheless he
steadily continued his difficult progress, clasping Sah-luma's
corpse with a strange tenacity, and concentrating all his
attention on protecting it from the withering touch of the
ravenous flames. All at once,--as he strove to force his way over
a fallen altar from which the hideous presiding stone idol had
toppled headlong, killing in its descent some twenty or thirty
people whose bodies lay crushed beneath it,--a face horribly
disfigured and tortured into a mere burnt sketch of its former
likeness twisted itself up and peered at him, the face of
Zabastes, the Critic. His protruding eyes glistened with something
of their old malign expression as he perceived whose helpless form
it was that was being carried by.

"What! ... is the famous Sah-luma gone?" he gasped, his words half
choking him in their utterance as he stretched out a skinny hand
and caught at Theos's garments ... "Good youth, stay! ... Stay!
... Why burden thyself with a corpse when thou mightest rescue a
living man? Save ME! ... Save ME! ... I was the Poet's adverse
Critic, and who but I should write his Eulogy now that he is no
more! ... Pity! ... Pity, most courteous, gentle sir! ... Save me
if only for the sake of Sah-luma's future honor! Thou knowest not
how warmly, how generously, how nobly, I can praise the dead!"

Theos gazed down upon him in unspeakable, melancholy scorn, . . was
it only through time-serving creatures such as this miserable
Zabastes, that the after-glory of perished poets was proclaimed to
the world? ... What then was the actual worth of Fame?

Shuddering, he wrenched himself away, and passed on silently,
heedless of the savage curses the despairing scribe yelled after
him as he went, and he involuntarily pressed the dead corpse of
his beloved friend closer to his heart, as though he thought he
could re-animate it by this mute expression of tenderness!
Meanwhile the fire raged continuously,--the Temple was fast
becoming a pillared mass of flames, . . and presently,--choked and
giddy with the sulphurous vapors--he stopped abruptly, struggling
for breath. His time had come at last, he thought, . . he with Sah-
luma must die!

Just then a loud muttering and rolling of thunder swept in eddying
vibrations round him, followed by a sharp, splitting noise, . .
raising his aching eyes, he saw straight before him, a yawning
gloomy archway, like the solemn portal of a funeral vault.. dark,
yet with a white glimmer of steps leading outward, and a dim
sparkle as of stars in heaven. A rush of new vigor inspired him at
this sight, and he resumed his way, stumbling over countless
corpses strewn among fallen blocks of marble,--and every now and
then looking back in awful fascination to the fiery furnace of the
body of the Temple, where of all the vast numbers that had lately
crowded it from end to end, there were only a hundred or so
remaining alive,--and these were fast perishing in frightful
agony. The Shrine of Nagaya was enveloped in thick black smoke,
crossed here and there by flashes of flame,--the bare outline of
its Titanic architecture was scarcely discernible! Yet the thought
of the dreadful end of Lysia, the loveliest woman he had ever
seen, moved him now to no emotion whatever--save..gladness! Some
deadly evil seemed burnt out of his life, . . moreover her command
had slain Sah-luma! ... Enough! ... no fate however horrible,
could be more so than she in her wanton wickedness deserved! ...
But alas! her beauty! ... He dared not think of its subtle,
slumberous charm! ... and stung to a new sense of desperation, he
plunged recklessly toward the dusky aperture he had seen, which
appeared to enlarge itself mysteriously as he approached, like the
opening gateway of some magic cavern.

Suddenly a faint groan at his feet startled him,--and, looking
down hastily, he perceived an unfortunate man lying half crushed
under the ponderous fragment of a split column, which had fallen
across his body in such manner that any attempt to extricate him
would have been worse than useless. By the bright light of the
leaping flames, Theos had no difficulty in recognizing the pallid
countenance of his late acquaintance, the learned Professor of
Positivism, Mira-Khabur, who was evidently very near his woeful
and most positive end! Struck by an impulse of compassion he
paused, . . yet what could he say? ..In such a case, where rescue
was impossible, all comfort seemed mockery,--and while he stood
silent and irresolute, he fancied the Professor smiled! It was a
very ghastly smile,--nevertheless it hid in it a curious touch of
bland and scrupulous inquiry.

"Is not this...a very.. remarkable occurrence?" ... asked a voice
so feeble and far away that it was difficult to believe it came
from the lips of the suffering sage. "Of course...it arises
from...a volcanic eruption! ... and the mystery of the red river..
is.. solved!" Here an irrepressible moan of anguish broke through
his heroic effort at equanimity;--"It is NOT a phenomenon!".. and
a gleam of obstinate self-assertion lit up his poor glazing eyes,
"Nothing is phenonmenal! ... only I am not able...to explain. ...
I have no time...no time...to analyze.. my very ...
singular...sensations!"

A rush of blood choked his utterance--his throat rattled, ... he
was dead! ... and the dreary speculative smile froze on his mouth
in the likeness of a solemn sneer. At that moment, a terrific
swirling, surging noise, like the furious boiling of an
underground whirlpool, rumbled heavily through the air, . . and lo!
with a sudden, swift shock that sent Theos reeling forward and
almost falling, under the burdensome weight he carried, the earth
opened, . . disclosing a huge pit of black nothingness,--an enormous
chasm,--into which, with an appalling clamor as of a hundred
incessant peals of thunder, the whole main area of the Temple,
together with its mass of dead and dying human beings, sank in
less than five seconds!--the ground closing instantaneously over
its prey with a sullen roar, as though it were some gigantic beast
devouring food too long denied. And instead of the vanished fane
arose a mighty Pillar of Fire! ... a vast increasing volume of
scarlet and gold flame that spread outward and upward,--higher and
higher, in tapering lines and dome-like curves of living light, . .
while Theos, being hurled along resistlessly by the force of the
convulsion, had reached, though he knew not how, the dark and
quiet cell-like portal with its out-leading steps, . . the only
visible last hope and chance of safety, . . and he now leaned
against its cold stone arch, trembling in every limb, clasping the
dead Sah-luma close, and looking back in affrighted awe at the
tossing vortex of fury from which he had miraculously escaped.
And,--as he looked,--a host of spectral faces seemed to rise
whitely out of the flames and wonder at him! ... faces that were
solemn, wistful, warning, and beseeching by turns! ... they
drifted through the fire and smiled, and wept, and vanished, to
reappear again and yet again! ... and as, with painfully beating
heart, he strove to combat the terror that seized him at this
strange spectacular delusion, all suddenly the heavy wreaths of
smoke that had till now hung over the Inner Shrine of Nagaya
parted like drapery drawn aside from a picture.. and for a brief
breathing space of direst agony he saw Lysia once more,--Lysia, in
a torture as horrible as any ever depicted in a bigot's idea of
his enemy's Hell! Round and round her writhing form the sacred
Serpent was twined in all his many coils,--with both hands she had
grasped the creature's throat in her frenzy, striving to thrust
back its quivering fangs from her breast, whereon the evil "Eye of
Raphon" still gleamed distinctly with its adamantine chilly
stare, . . at her feet lay the body of the King her lover, dead and
wrapped in a ring of flames! ... Alone--all, all alone, she
confronted Death in its most appalling shape.. her countenance was
distorted, yet beautiful still with the beauty of a maddened
Medusa, . . white and glittering as a fair ghost invoked from some
deadly gulf of pain, she stood, a phantom-figure of mingled
loveliness and horror, circled on every side by fire!

With wild, straining eyes Theos gazed upon her thus, ... for the
last time! ... For with a crash that seemed to rend the very
heavens, the great bronze columns surrounding her, which had, up
to the present, resisted the repeated onslaughts of the flames,
bent together all at once and fell in a melting ruin.. and the
victorious fire roared loudly above them, enveloping the whole
Shrine anew in dense clouds of smoke and jets of flame,--Lysia had
perished! All that proud loveliness, that dazzling supremacy, that
superb voluptuousness, that triumphant dominion, . . swept away into
a heap of undiscoverable ashes! And Zephoranim's haughty spirit
too had fled,--fled, stained with guilt and most unroyal dishonor,
all for the sake of one woman's fairness--the fairness of body
only--the brilliant mask of flesh that too often hides the
hideousness of a devil's nature!

For one moment Theos remained stupefied by the sheer horror of the
catastrophe,--then, recalling his bewildered wits to his aid, he
peered anxiously through the archway where he rested, . . there
seemed to be a dim red glow at the end of the downward-leading
steps, as well as a dusky azure tint, like a patch of midnight
sky. The Temple was now nothing but a hissing shrieking pyramid of
flames,--the hot and blinding glare was almost too intense for his
eyes to endure,--yet so fascinated was he by the sublime terror
and grandeur of the spectacle, that he could scarcely make up his
mind to turn away from it! The thought of Sah-luma, however, gave
the needful spur to his flagging energies, and without pausing to
consider where he might be going, he slowly and hesitatingly
descended the steps before him, and presently reached a sort of
small open court paved with black marble. Here he tenderly laid
his burden down,--a burden grown weightier with each moment of its
bearing,--and letting his aching arms drop listlessly at his
sides, he looked up dreamily,--not all at once comprehending the
cause of the vast lurid light that crimsoned the air like a wide
aurora borealis everywhere about him, . . then,--as the truth
suddenly flashed on his mind, he uttered a loud, irrepressible cry
of amazement and awe!

Far as his gaze could see,--east, west, north, south, the whole
city of Al-Kyris was in flames!--and the burning Temple of Nagaya
was but a mere spark in the enormous breadth of the general
conflagration! Palaces, domes, towers, and spires were tottering
to red destruction, . . fire...fire everywhere! ... nothing but
fire,--save when a furious gust of scorching wind blew aside the
masses of cindery smoke, and showed glimpses of sky and the
changeless shining of a few cold quiet stars. He cast one
desperate glance from earth to heaven, . . how was it possible to
escape from this kindling furnace of utter annihilation! ... Where
all were manifestly doomed, how could HE expect to be saved! And
moreover, if Sah-luma was indeed dead, what remained for him but
to die also!

* * * * * * *

Calming the frenzy of his thoughts by a strong effort, he began to
vaguely wonder why and how it happened that the place where he now
was, . . this small and insignificant court,--had so far escaped the
fire, and was as cool and sombre as a sacred tomb set apart for
some hero, ... or Poet? Poet!--The word acted as a stimulant to
his tired struggling brain, and he all at once remembered what
Sah-luma had said to him at their first meeting: "There is but one
Poet in Al-Kyris, and I am he!"

O true, true! Only one Poet! ... Only one glory of the great city,
that now served him as funeral pyre!--only one name worth
remembering in all its perishing history.. the name of SAH-LUMA!
Sah-luma, the beautiful, the gifted, the famous, the beloved, . . he
was dead! This thought, in its absorbing painfulness, straightway
drove out all others,--and Theos, who had carried his comrade's
corpse bravely and unshrinkingly through a fiery vortex of
imminent peril, now sank on his knees all desolate and unnerved,
his hot tears dropping fast on that fair, still, white face that
he knew would never flush to the warmth of life again!

"Sah-luma! Sah-luma!" he whispered, "My friend ... My more than
brother! Would I could have died for thee! ... Would thou couldst
have lived to fulfil the nobler promise of thy genius! ... Better
far thou hadst been spared to the world than I! ... for I am
Nothing, . . but thou wert Everything!"

And taking the clay-cold hands in his own, he kissed them
reverently, and, with an unconscious memory not born of his recent
adventures, folded them on the dead Laureate's breast in the
fashion of a Cross.

As he did this an icy spasm seemed to contract his heart, . . seized
by a sudden insufferable anxiety, he stared like one spell-bound
into Sah-luma's wide-open, fixed, and glassy eyes. Dead eyes! ...
yet how full of mysterious significance! ... What--WHAT was their
weird secret, their imminent meaning! ... Why did their dark and
frozen depths appear to retain a strange, living undergleam of
melting, sorrowful, beseeching sweetness? ... like the eyes of one
who prays to be remembered, though changed after long absence!
What hot and terrible delirium was this that snatched at his
whirling brain as he bent closer and closer over the marble quiet
countenance, and studied with a sort of fierce intentness every
line of those delicate, classic features, on which high thought
had left so marked an impress of dignity and power! What a,
marvellous, half-reproachful, half-appealing smile lingered on the
finely-curved set lips! ... How wonderful, how beautiful, how
beloved beyond all words was this fair dead god of poesy on whom
he gazed with such a passion of yearning!

Stooping more and more, he threw his arms round the senseless
form, and partly lifting it from the ground, brought the wax-
pallid face nearer to his own.. so near that the cold mouth almost
touched his, . . then filled with an awful, unnamable misgiving, he
scanned his murdered comrade's perished beauty in puzzled, vague
bewilderment, much as an ignorant dullard might perplexedly scan
the incomprehensible characters of some hieroglyphic scroll. And,
as he looked, a sharp pang shot through him like a whizzing ball
of fire, . . a convulsion of mental agony shook his limbs,--he could
have shrieked aloud in the extremity of his torture, but the
struggling cry died gasping in his throat. Still as stone he kept
his strained, steadfast gaze fixed on Sah-luma's corpse, slowly
absorbing the full horror of a tremendous Suggestion, that like a
scorching lava-flood swept into every subtle channel of his brain.
For the dead Sah-luma's eyes grew into the semblance of his own
eyes! ... the dead Sah-luma's face smiled spectrally back at him
in the image of his own face! ... it was as though he beheld the
Picture of himself, slain and reflected in a magician's mirror!
Round him the very heavens seemed given up to fire,--but he heeded
it not,--the world might be at an end and the day of Judgment,
proclaimed,--nothing would have stirred him from where he knelt,
in that dreadful stillness of mystic martyrdom, drinking in the
gradual, glimmering consciousness of a terrific Truth, . . the
amazing, yet scarcely graspable solution of a supernatural Enigma,
... an enigma through which, like a man lost in the depths of a
dark forest, he had wandered up and down, seeking light, yet
finding none!

"O God!" he dumbly prayed. "Thou, with whom all things are
possible, give eyes to this blind trouble of my heart! I am but as
a grain of dust before thee, . . a poor perishable atom, devoid of
simplest comprehension! ... Do Thou of Thy supernal pity teach me
what I must know!"

As he thought out this unuttered petition, a tense cord seemed to
snap suddenly in his brain, . . a rush of tears came to his relief,
and through their salt and bitter haze the face of Sah-luma
appeared to melt into a thin and spiritual brightness,--a mere
aerial outline of what it had once been, . . the glazed dark eyes
seemed to flash living lightning into his, . . the whole lost
Personality of the dead Poet seemed to environ him with a
mysterious, potent, incorporeal influence.. an influence that he
felt he must now or never repel, reject, and utterly RESIST! ...
With a shuddering cry, he tore his reluctant arms away from the
beloved corpse, . . with trembling, tender fingers he closed and
pressed down the white eyelids of those love-expressive eyes, and
kissed the broad poetic brow!

"Whatever thou WERT or ART to me, Sah-luma, "he murmured in
sobbing haste,--"thou knowest that I loved thee, though now I
leave thee! Farewell!"--and his voice broke in its strong agony--
"O how much easier to divide body from soul than part myself from
thee! Sah-luma, beloved Sah-luma! God give thee rest! ... God
pardon thy sins,--and mine!"

And he pressed his lips once more on the folded rigid hands; . . as
he did so, he inadvertently touched the writing-tablet that hung
from the dead Laureate's girdle. The red glow of the fire around
him enabled him to see distinctly what was written on it, . . there
were about twenty lines of verse, in exquisitely clear and fine
caligraphy, ... and, as he read, he knew them well, . . they were
the last lines of the poem "Nourhalma"!

He dared trust his own strength no longer, . . one wild, adoring,
lingering, parting look at his dead rival in song, whom he had
loved better than himself,--and then,--full of a nameless fear, he
fled! ... fled recklessly, and with swift, mad fury as though
demons followed in pursuit, . . fled through the burning city, as a
lost and frenzied spirit might speed through the deserts of Hell!
Everywhere about him resounded the crackling hiss of the flames,
and the crash of falling buildings, . . mighty pinnacles and lofty
domes melted and vanished before is eyes in a blaze of brilliant
destruction! ... on--on he went, meeting confused, scattered
crowds of people, whose rushing, white-garmented figures looked
like ghosts flying before a storm, . . the cries and shrieks of
women and children, and the groans of men were mingled with the
restless roaring of lions and other wild beasts burnt out of their
dens in the Royal Arena, the distant circle of which could be
dimly seen, surrounded by fountain-like jets of fire. Some of
these maddened animals ran against him, as he sped along the
blazing thoroughfares,--but he made no attempt to avoid them, nor
was he sensible of any other terror than that which was WITHIN
HIMSELF and was purely mental. On! ... On!--Still on he went,--a
desperate, lonely man, lost in a hideous nightmare of flame and
fury, . . seeing nothing but one vast flying rout of molten red and
gold, . . speaking to none, . . utterly reckless as to his own fate, . .
only impelled on and on, but whither he knew not, nor cared to
know!

All at once his, strength gave way...his nerves seemed to break
asunder like so many over-wound harp-strings, . . a sudden silvery
clanging of bells rang in his ears, and with them came a sound of
multitudinous soft, small voices: "Kyrie Eleison! Kyrie Eleison!"

Hush! ... What was that? ... What did it mean? ... Halting
abruptly, he gave a wild glance round him,--up to the sky, where
the flaring flames spread in tangled lengths and webs of light, . .
then, straight before him to the City of Al-Kyris, now a wondrous
vision of redly luminous columns and cupolas, with the wet gleam
of the river enfolding its blazing streets and towers: . . and while
he yet beheld it, lo! IT RECEDED FROM HIS VIEW! Further, . .
further!--further away, till it seemed nothing but the toppling
and smoldering of heavy clouds after the conflagration of the
sunset!

Hark, hark again! ... "Kyrie, Eleison! ... Kyrie, Eleison!" With a
sense of reeling rapture and awe he listened, . . he understood! ...
he found the NAME he had so long forgotten! "CHRIST, have mercy
upon me!"...he cried, and in that one urgent supplication he
uttered all the pent-up anguish of his soul! Blind and dizzy with
the fevered whirl of his own emotions, he stumbled forward and
fell! ... fell heavily over a block of stone, . . stunned by the
shock, he lost consciousness, but only for a moment; . . a dull
aching in his temples roused him,--and making a faint effort to
rise, he turned slowly and languidly on his arm, . . and with a
long, deep, shuddering sigh...AWOKE!

He was on the Field of Ardath. Dawn had just broken. The east was
one wide, shimmering stretch of warm gold, and over it lay strips
of blue and gray, like fragments of torn battle-banners. Above him
sparkled the morning star, white and glittering as a silver lamp,
among the delicate spreading tints of saffron and green, . . and
beside him,--her clear, pure features flushed by the roseate
splendor of the sky, her hands clasped on her breast, and her
sweet eyes full of an infinite tenderness and yearning, knelt
EDRIS!--Edris, his flower-crowned Angel, whom last he had seen
drifting upward and away like a dove through the glory of the
Cross in Heaven!

CHAPTER XXX.

SUNRISE.

Entranced in amazed ecstasy he lay quite quiet, . . afraid to speak
or stir! This gentle Presence,--this fair, beseeching face, might
vanish if he moved! So he dimly fancied, as he gazed up at her in
mute wonder and worship, his devout eyes drinking in her saintly
loveliness, from the deep burnished gold of her hair to the soft,
white slimness of her prayerfully folded hands. And while he
looked, old thoughts like home-returning birds began to hover
round his soul,--sweet and dear remembrances, like the sunset
lighting up the windows of an empty house, began to shine on the
before semi-darkened nooks and crannies of his brain. Clearer and
clearer grew the reflecting mirror of his consciousness,--trouble
and perplexity seemed passing away forever from his mind, . . a
great and solemn peace environed him, . . and he began to believe he
had crossed the boundary of death and had entered at last into the
Kingdom of Heaven! O let him not break this holy silence! ... Let
him rest so, with all the glory of that Angel-visage shed like
summer sunbeams over him! ... Let him absorb into his innermost
being the exquisite tenderness of those innocent, hopeful,
watchful, starry eyes whose radiance seemed to steal into the
golden morning and give it a sacred poetry and infinite marvel of
meaning! So he mused, gravely contented, ... while all through the
brightening skies overhead, came the pale, pink flushing of the
dawn, like a far fluttering and scattering of rose-leaves.
Everything was so still that he could hear his own heart beating
forth healthful and regular pulsations, . . but he was scarcely
conscious of his own existence,--he was only aware of the vast,
beautiful, halcyon calm that encircled him shelteringly and
soothed all care away.

Gradually, however, this deep and delicious tranquillity began to
yield to a sweeping rush of memory and comprehension, ... he knew
WHO he was and WHERE he was,--though he did not as yet feel
absolutely certain of life and life's so-called realities. For if
the City of Al-Kyris, with all its vivid wonders, its distinct
experiences, its brilliant pageantry, had been indeed a DREAM,
then sorely it was possible he might be dreaming still! ...
Nevertheless he was able to gather up the fragments of lost
recollection consecutively enough to realize, by gentle degrees,
his actual identity and position in the world, . . he was Theos
Alwyn, . . a man of the nineteenth century after Christ. Ah! thank
God for that! ... AFTER Christ! ... not one who had lived five
thousand years BEFORE Christ's birth! ... And this quiet, patient
Maiden at his side, . . who was she? A vision? ... or an actually
existent Being? Unable to resist the craving desire of his heart,
he spoke her name as he now remembered it, . . spoke it in a faint,
awed whisper.