Books: Ardath

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"Edris!".. he whispered,--"Edris..." and stopped irresolutely.

She looked up at him with the appealing wistfulness of a lost and
suffering child, and a slight shudder ran through all her delicate
frame.

"I am cold, Theos!" she murmured half beseechingly, stretching out
her hands to him once more,--hands as fine and fair as lily-
leaves,--little white hands which he gazed at wonderingly, yet did
not take.. "Cold and very weary! The way has been long, and the
earth is dark!"

"Dark?" repeated Alwyn mechanically, still absorbed in the dubious
contemplation of her lovely yielding form, her sweet upturned face
and gold-glistening hair--"Dark? ... here? ... beneath the
brightness of the moon? Nay,--I have seen many a full day look
less radiant than this night of stars!"

Her eyes dwelt upon him with a certain pathetic bewilderment,--she
let her extended arms drop wearily at her sides, and a shadow of
pained recollection crossed the fairness of her features.

"Ah, I forgot! ..." and she sighed deeply--"This is that strange,
sad world where Darkness is called Light."

At these words uttered with so much sorrowful meaning, a quick
thrill stirred Alwyn's blood, an inexplicable sharp thrill, that
was like the touch of scorching flame. He gazed at her perplexedly
... his pride resented what he imagined to be the deception
practiced upon him, but at the same time he was not insensible to
the weird romance of the situation.

He began to consider that as this fair girl, trained so admirably
in mystical speech and manner, had evidently been sent on purpose
to meet him, he could scarcely be blamed for taking her as she
presented herself, and enjoying to the full a thoroughly novel and
picturesque adventure.

His eyes flashed as he surveyed her standing there before him,
utterly unprotected and at his mercy--his old, languid, skeptical
smile played on his proud lips,--that smile of the marble Antinous
which says "Bring me face to face with Truth itself and I shall
still doubt!".. An expression of reluctant admiration and
awakening passion dawned on his countenance, ... he was about to
speak,--when she whose looks were fastened on him with intense,
powerful, watchful, anxious entreaty, suddenly wrung her hands
together as though in despair, and gave vent to a desolate sobbing
cry that smote him to the very heart.

"Theos! Theos!" and her voice pealed out on the breathless air in
sweet, melodious, broken echoes.. "Oh, my unfaithful Beloved, what
can I do for thee! A love unseen thou wilt not understand,--a love
made manifest thou wilt not recognize! Alas!--my journey is in
vain ... my errand hopeless! For while thine unbelief resists my
pleading, how can I lead thee from danger into safety? ... how
bridge the depths between our parted souls? ... how win for thee
pardon and blessing from Christ the King!"

Bright tears filled her eyes and fell fast and thick through her
long, drooping lashes, and Alwyn, smitten with remorse at the
sight of such grief, sprang to her side overcome by shame, love,
and penitence.

"Weeping? ... and for me?"--he exclaimed--"Sweet Edris! ...
Gentlest of maidens! ... Weep not for one unworthy, . . but rather
smile and speak again of love! ..." and now his words pouring
forth impetuously, seemed to utter themselves independently of any
previous thought,--"Yes! speak only of love,--and the discourse of
those tuneful lips shall be my gospel, . . the glance of those, soft
eyes my creed, . . and as for pardon and blessing I crave none but
thine! I sought a Dream.. I have found a fair Reality ... a living
proof of Love's divine omnipotence! Love is the only god--who
would doubt his sovereignty, or grudge him his full measure of
worship? ... Not I, believe me!"--and carried away by the force of
a resistless inward fervor, he threw himself once more at her
feet--"See!--here do I pay my vows at Love's high altar!--heart's
desire shall be the prayer--heart's ecstasy the praise! ...
together we will celebrate our glad service of love, and heaven
itself shall sanctify this Eve of St. Edris and All Angels!"

She listened,--looking down upon him with grave, half timid
tenderness,--her tears dried, and a sudden hope irradiated her
fair face with a soft, bright flush, as lovely as the light of
morning falling on newly opened flowers. When he ceased, she
spoke--her accents breaking through the silence like clear notes
of music sweetly sung.

"So be it!" she said ... "May Heaven truly sanctify all pure
thoughts, and free the soul of my Beloved from sin!"

And slowly bending forward, as a delicate iris-blossom bends to
the sway of the wind, she laid her hands about his neck, and
touched his lips with her own...

Ah! ... what divine ecstasy,--what wild and fiery transport filled
him then! ... Her kiss, like a penetrating lighting-flash, pierced
to the very centre of his being,--the moonbeams swam round him in
eddying circles of gold--the white field heaved to and fro, ... he
caught her waist and clung to her, and in the burning marvel of
that moment he forget everything, save that, whether spirit or
mortal, she was in woman's witching shape, and that all the
glamour of her beauty was his for this one night at least, . . this
night which now in the speechless, glorious delirium of love that
overwhelmed him, seemed like the Mahometan's night of Al-Kadr,
"better than a thousand months!"

Drawn to her by some subtle mysterious attraction which he could
neither explain nor control, and absorbed in a rapture beyond all
that his highest and most daring flights of poetical fancy had
ever conceived, he felt as though his very life were ebbing out of
him to become part of hers, and this thought was strangely sweet,
--a perfect consummation of all his best desires! ...

All at once a cold shudder ran freezingly through his veins,--a
something chill and impalpable appeared to pass between him and
her caressing arms--his limbs grew numb and heavy--his sight began
to fail him ... he was sinking ... sinking, he knew not
where, when suddenly she withdrew herself from his embrace.
Instantly his strength came back to him with a rush--he sprang to
his feet and stood erect, breathless, dizzy, and confused--his
pulses beating like hammer-strokes and every fiber in his frame
quivering with excitement.

Entranced, impassioned, elated,--filled with unutterable
incomprehensible joy, he would have clasped her again to his
heart,--but she retreated swiftly from him, and standing several
paces off, motioned him not to approach her more nearly. He
scarcely heeded her warning gesture, ... plunging recklessly
through the flowers he had almost reached her side, when to his
amazement and fear, his eager progress was stopped!

Stopped by some invisible, intangible barrier, which despite all
his efforts, forcibly prevented him from advancing one step
further,--she was close within an arm's length of him--and yet he
could not touch her! ... Nothing apparently divided them, save a
small breadth of the Ardath blossoms gleaming ivory-soft in the
moonlight ... nevertheless that invincible influence thrust him
back and held him fast, as though he were chained to the ground
with weights of iron!

"Edris!". he cried loudly, his former transport of delight changed
into agony.. "Edris! ... Come to me! I cannot come to you! What is
this that parts us?"

"Death!" she answered.. and the solemn word seemed to toll slowly
through the still air like a knell.

He stood bewildered and dismayed. Death! What could she mean? What
in the name of all her beautiful, delicate, glowing youth, had she
to do with death? Gazing at her in mute wonder, he saw her stoop
and gather one flower from the clusters growing thickly around
her--she held it shieldwise against her breast, where it shone
like a large white jewel, and regarded him with sweet, wistful
eyes full of a mournful longing.

"Death lies between us, my Beloved!" she continued--"One line of
shadow ... only one little line! But thou mayest not pass it, save
when God commands,--and I--I cannot! For I know naught of death, . .
save that it is a heavy dreamless sleep allotted to over-wearied
mortals, wherein they gain brief rest 'twixt many lives,--lives
that, like recurring dawns, rouse them anew to labor. How often
hast thou slept thus, my Theos, and forgotten me!"

She paused, ... and Alwyn met her clear, steadfast looks with a
swift glance of something like defiance. For as she spoke, his
previous idea concerning her came back upon him with redoubled
force. He was keenly conscious of the vehement fever of love into
which her presence had thrown him,--but all the same he was unable
to dispossess himself of the notion that she was a pupil and an
accomplice of Heliobas, thoroughly trained and practiced in his
mysterious doctrine, and that therefore she most probably had some
magnetic power in herself that at her pleasure not only attracted
him TO her, but also held him thus motionless at a distance, FROM
her.

She talked, of course, in an indefinite mystic way either to
intimidate or convince him ... but, . . and he smiled a little.. in
any case it only rested with himself to unmask this graceful
pretender to angelic honors! And while he thought thus, her soft
tones trembled on the silence again, ... he listened as a dreaming
mariner might listen to the fancied singing of the sea-fairies.

"Through long bright aeons of endless glory," she said--"I have
waited and prayed for thee! I have pleaded thy cause before the
blinding splendors of God's Throne, I have sung the songs of thy
native paradise, but thou, grown dull of hearing, hast caught but
the echo of the music! Life after life hast thou lived, and given
no thought to me--yet I remember and am faithful! Heaven is not
all Heaven to me without thee, my Beloved, . . and now in this time
of thy last probation, . . now, if thou lovest me indeed ..."

"Love thee?" suddenly exclaimed Theos, half beside himself with
the strange passion of yearning her words awakened in him--"Love
thee, Edris?--Aye! ... as the gods loved when earth was young! ...
with the fullness of the heart and the vigor of glad life even so
I love thee! What sayest thou of Heaven? ... Heaven is here--here on
this bridal field of Ardath, o'er-canopied with stars! Come, sweet
one, . . cease to play this mystic midnight fantasy--I have done with
dreams! ... Edris, be thyself! ... for them art Woman, not Angel--
thy kiss was warm as wine! Nay, why shrink from me? ." this, as
she retreated still further away, her eyes flashing with unearthly
brilliancy, . . "I will make thee a queen, fair Edris, as poets ever
make queens of the women they love,--my fame shall be a crown for
thee to wear,--a crown that the whole world, gazing on, shall
envy!"

And in the heat and ardor of the moment, forgetful of the unseen
barrier that divided her from him, he made a violent effort to
spring forward--when lo! a wave of rippling light appeared to
break from beneath her feet, . . it rolled toward him, and
completely flooded the space between them like a glittering pool,
--and in it the flowers of Ardath swayed to and fro as water-lilies
on a woodland lake sway to the measured dash of passing oars!
Starting back with a cry of terror, he gazed wildly on this
miracle,--a voice richer than all music rang silvery clear across
the liquid radiance.

"Fame!" said the voice ... "Wouldst thou crown Me, Theos, with so
perishable a diadem?"

Paralyzed and speechless, he lifted his straining, dazzled eyes--
was THAT Edris?--that lustrous figure, delicate as a sea-mist with
the sun shining through? He stared upon her as a dying man might
stare for the last time on the face of his nearest and dearest,
... he saw her soft gray garments change to glistening white,
... the wreath she wore sparkled as with a million dewdrops.. a
roseate halo streamed above her and around her,--long streaks of
crimson flared down the sky like threads of fire swung from the
stars,--and in the deepening glory, her countenance, divinely
beautiful, yet intensely sad, expressed the touching hope and fear
of one who makes a final farewell appeal. Ah God! ... he knew her
now! ... too late, too late he knew her! ... the Angel of his
vision stood before him! ... and humbled to the very dust and
ashes of despair he loathed himself for his unworthiness and lack
of faith!

"O doubting and unhappy one!" she went on, in accents sweeter than
a chime of golden bells--"Thou art lost in the gloom of the
Sorrowful Star where naught is known of life save its shadow!
Lost.. and as yet I cannot rescue thee--ah! forlorn Edris that I
am, left lonely up in Heaven! But prayers are heard, and God's
great patience never tires,--learn therefore 'FROM THE PERILS OF
THE PAST, THE PERILS OF THE FUTURE'--and weigh against an immortal
destiny of love the worth of fame!"

Wider and more dazzling grew the brilliancy surrounding her--
raising her eyes, she clasped her hands in an attitude of
impassioned supplication ... .

"O fair King Christ!" she cried, and her voice seemed to strike a
melodious passage through the air.. "THOU canst prevail!" A burst
of music answered her, . . music that rushed wind-like downwards and
swept in strong vibrating chords over the land,--again the "KYRIE
ELEISON! CHRISTE ELEISON! KYRIE ELEISON!" pealed forth in the same
full youthful-toned chorus that had before sounded so mysteriously
outside Elzear's hermitage--and the separate crimson rays
glittering aurora-wise about her radiant figure, suddenly melted
all together in the form of a great cross, which, absorbing moon
and stars in its fiery redness, blazed from end to end of the
eastern horizon!

Then, like a fair white dove or delicate butterfly she rose ...
she poised herself above the bowing Ardath bloom ... anon,
soaring aloft, she floated higher. ... higher! ... and ever
higher, serenely and with aerial slow ease,--till drawn into the
glory of that wondrous flaming cross whose outstretched beams
seemed waiting to receive her,--she drifted straight up wards
through its very centre. ... and so vanished! ...

Theos stared aghast at the glowing sky ... whither had she gone?
Her words still rang in his ears,--the warmth of her kiss still
lingered on his lips,--he loved her! ... he worshipped her! ...
why, why had she left him "lost" as she herself had said, in a
world that was mere emptiness without her? He struggled for
utterance...

"Edris ... !" he whispered hoarsely--"Edris! ... My Angel-love! ...
come back! Come back ... pity me! ... forgive! ... Edris!"

His voice died in a hard sob of imploring agony,--smitten to the
very soul by a remorse greater than he could bear, his strength
failed him, and he fell senseless, face forward among the flowers
of the Prophet's field; . . flowers that, circling snowily around
his dark and prostrate form, looked like fairy garlands bordering
a Poet's Grave!

PART II.--IN AL-KYRIS.

"That which hath been, is now: and that which is to be, hath
already been: . . and God requireth that which is past."
ECCLESIASTES.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MARVELLOUS CITY.

Profound silence,--profound unconsciousness,--oblivious rest! Such
are the soothing ministrations of kindly Nature to the
overburdened spirit; Nature, who in her tender wisdom and maternal
solicitude will not permit us to suffer beyond a certain limit.
Excessive pain, whether it be physical or mental, cannot last
long,--and human anguish wound up to its utmost quivering-pitch
finds at the very height of desolation, a strange hushing, Lethean
calm. Even so it was with Theos Alwyn,--drowned in the deep
stillness of a merciful swoon, he had sunk, as it were, out of
life,--far out of the furthest reach or sense of time, in some
vast unsounded gulf of shadows where earth and heaven were alike
forgotten! ...

How long he lay thus he never knew,--but he was roused at last..
roused by the pressure of something cold and sharp against his
throat, . . and on languidly opening his eyes he found himself
surrounded by a small body of men in armor, who, leaning on tall
pikes which glistened brilliantly in the full sunlight, surveyed
him with looks of derisive amusement. One of these, closer to him
than the rest, and who seemed from his dress and bearing to be
some officer in authority, held instead of a pike a short sword,
the touch of whose pointed steel blade had been the effectual
means of awakening him from his lethargy.

"How now!" said this personage in a rough voice as he withdrew his
weapon--"What idle fellow art thou? ... Traitor or spy? Fool thou
must be, and breaker of the King's law, else thou hadst never
dared to bask in such swine-like ease outside the gates of Al-
Kyris the Magnificent!"

Al-Kyris the Magnificent! What was the man talking about? Uttering
a hasty exclamation, Alwyn staggered to his feet with an effort,
and shading his eyes from the hot glare of the sun, stared
bewilderedly at his interlocutor.

"What..what is this?" he stammered dreamily--"I do not understand
you! ... I.. I have slept on the field of Ardath!"

The soldiers burst into a loud laugh, in which their leader
joined.

"Thou hast drunk deep, my friend!" he observed, putting up his
sword with a sharp clatter into its shining sheath,--"What name
sayst thou? ... ARDATH? We know it not, nor dost thou, I warrant,
when sober! Go to--make for thy home speedily! Aye, aye! the
flavor of good wine clings to thy mouth still,--'tis a pleasant
sweetness that I myself am partial to, and I can pardon those who,
like thee, love it somewhat too well! Away!--and thank the gods
thou hast fallen into the hands of the King's guard, rather then
Lysia's priestly patrol! See! the gates are open,--in with thee!
and cool thy head at the first fountain?"

"The gates?" ... What gates? Removing his hand from his eyes Alwyn
gazed around confusedly. He was standing on an open stretch of
level road, dustily-white, and dry, with long-continued heat,--and
right in front of him was an enormously high wall, topped with
rows of bristling iron spikes, and guarded by the gates alluded
to,--huge massive portals seemingly made of finely molded brass,
and embellished on either side by thick, round, stone watch
towers, from whose summits scarlet pennons drooped idly in the
windless air. Amazed, and full of a vague, trembling terror, he
fixed his wondering looks once more upon his strange companions,
who in their turn regarded him with cool military indifference."

"I must be mad or dreaming," he thought,--then growing suddenly
desperate he stretched out his hands with a wild appealing
gesture:

"I swear to you I know nothing of this place!" he cried--"I never
saw it before! Some trick has been played on me ... who brought me
here? Where is Elzear the hermit? ... the Ruins of Babylon? ...
where is, ... Good God! ... what fearful freak of fate is this!"

The soldiers laughed again,--their commander looked at him a
little curiously.

"Nay, art THOU one of the escaped of Lysia's lovers?" he asked,
suspiciously--"And has the Silver Nectar failed of its usual
action, and driven thy senses to the winds, that thou ravest thus?
For if thou art a stranger and knowest naught of us, how speakest
thou our language? ... Why wearest thou the garb of our citizens?"

Alwyn shrank and shivered as though he had received a deadening
blow,--an awful, inexplicable chill horror froze his blood. It was
true! ... he understood the language spoken! ... it was perfectly
familiar to him,--more so than his own native tongue,--stop! what
WAS his native tongue?

He tried to think--and, the sick fear at his heart grew stronger,
--he could not remember a word of it! And his dress! ... he glanced
at it dismayed and appalled,--he had not noticed it till now. It
bore some resemblance to the costume of ancient Greece, and
consisted of a white linen tunic and loose upper vest, both
garments being kept in place by a belt of silver. From this belt
depended a sheathed dagger, a square writing tablet, and a pencil-
shaped implement which he immediately recognized as the antique
form of stylus. His feet were shod with sandals--his arms were
bare to the shoulder, and clasped at the upper part by two broad
silver armlets richly chased.

Noting all these details, the fantastic awfulness of his position
smote him with redoubled force,--and he felt as a madman may feel
when his impending doom has not entirely asserted itself,--when
only grotesque and leering suggestions of madness cloud his
brain,--when hideous faces, dimly discerned, loom out of the chaos
of his nightly visions,--and when all the air seems solid
darkness, with one white line of fire cracking it asunder in the
midst, and that the fire of his own approaching frenzy. Such a
delirium of agony possessed Alwyn at that moment,--he could have
shrieked, laughed, groaned, wept, and fallen down in the dust
before these bearded armed men, praying them to slay him with
their weapons there where he stood, and put him mercifully and at
once out of his mysterious misery. But an invisible influence
stronger than himself, prevented him from becoming altogether the
victim of his own torturing emotions, and he remained erect and
still as a marble figure, with a wondering, white piteous face of
such unutterable affliction that the officer who watched him
seemed touched, and, advancing, clapped his shoulder in a friendly
manner.

"Come, come!" he said--"Thou need'st fear nothing,--we are not the
men to blab of thy trespass against the city's edict,--for, of a
truth, there is too much whispering away of young and goodly lives
nowadays. What!--thou art not the first gay gallant, nor wilt thou
be the last, that has seen the world turn upside down in a haze of
love and late feasting! If thou hast not slept long enough, why
sleep again an thou wilt,--but not here..."

He broke off abruptly,--a distant clatter of horses' hoofs was
heard, as of one galloping at full speed. The soldiers started,
and assumed an attitude of attention,--their leader muttered
something like an oath, and seizing Alwyn by the arm, hurried him
to the brass gates which, as he had said, stood open, and
literally thrust him through.

"In, in, my lad!" he urged with rough kindliness,--"Thou hast a
face fairer than that of the King's own minstrel, and why wouldst
thou die for sake of an extra cup of wine? If Lysia is to blame
for this scattering of thy wits, take heed thou do not venture
near her more--it is ill jesting with the Serpent's sting! Get
thee hence quickly, and be glad of thy life,--thou hast many years
before thee yet in which to play the lover and fool!"

With this enigmatical speech he signed to his men to follow him,--
they all filed through the gates, which closed after them with a
jarring clang, ... a dark bearded face peered out of a narrow
loophole in one of the watch-towers, and a deep voice called:

"What of the hour?"

The officer raised his gauntleted hand, and answered promptly:

"Peace and safety!"

"Salutation!" cried the voice again.

"Salutation!" responded the officer, and with a reassuring nod and
smile to the bewildered Alwyn, he gathered his little band around
him, and they all marched off, the measured clink-clank of their
footsteps making metallic music, as they wheeled round a corner
and disappeared from sight.

Left to himself Alwyn's first idea was to sit down in some quiet
corner, and endeavor calmly to realize what strange and cruel
thing had chanced to him. But happening to look up, he saw the
bearded face in the watchtower observing him suspiciously,--he
therefore roused himself sufficiently to walk away, on and on,
scarce heeding whither he went, till he had completely lost sight
of those great gold-glittering portals which had shut him, against
his will, within the walls of a large, splendid, and populous
City. Yes! ... hopelessly perplexing and maddening as it was,
there could be no doubt of this fact,--and though he again and
again tried to convince himself that he was laboring under some
wild and exceptional hallucination, his senses all gave evidence
of the actual reality of his situation,--he felt, he moved, he
heard, he saw, ... he was even beginning to be conscious of
hunger, thirst, and fatigue.

The further he went, the more gorgeous grew the surroundings, . .
his unguided steps wandered as it seemed, of their own accord,
into wide streets, paved entirely with mosaics, and lined on both
sides with lofty, picturesque, and palace-like buildings,--he
crossed and recrossed broad avenues, shaded by tall feathery
palms, and masses of graceful flowering foliage,--he passed rows
upon rows of brilliant shops, whose frontages glittered with the
most costly and beautiful wares of every description,--and as he
strolled about aimlessly, uncertain whither to go, he was
constantly jostled by the pressing throngs of people that crowded
the thoroughfares, all more or less apparently bent on pleasure,
to judge from their animated countenances and frequent bursts of
gay laughter.