Across the Zodiac Part 26

"I was threatened and I was tempted. I knew that death, speedy and painless, was the penalty of treason to the Order, that a death of prolonged torture might be the vengeance of the power that menaced me.

I hoped little in the far and dim future of the Serpent's promise, and I hoped and feared much in the life on this side of death."

"Do you know," asked the last inquirer again, "no name, and nothing that can enable us to trace those with whom you spoke or those who employed them?"

"Only this," was the answer, "that one of them has an especial hatred to one Initiate present," pointing to myself; "and seeks his life, not only as a child of the Star, not only as husband of the daughter of Clavelta, but for a reason that is not known to me."

"And," asked another Chief, "do you know what instrument that enemy seeks to use?"

"One who has over her intended victim such influence as few of her s.e.x ever have over their lords; one of whom his love will learn no distrust, against whom his heart has no guard and his manhood no wisdom."

A shiver of horror pa.s.sed over the forms of the Chiefs and of many who sat near them, incomprehensible to me till a sudden light was afforded by the indignant interruption of Kevima, who sat not far from myself.

"It cannot be," he cried, "or you can name her whom you accuse."

"Be silent!" Esmo said, in the cold, grave tone of a president rebuking disorder, mingled with the deeper displeasure of a priest repressing irreverence in the midst of the most solemn religious rite.

"None may speak here till the Chiefs have ceased to speak."

None of the latter, however, seemed disposed to ask another question.

The guilt of the accused was confessed. All that he could tell to guide their further inquiries had been told. To doubt that what was forced from him was to the best of his knowledge true, was to them, who understood the mysterious power that had compelled the spirit and the lips to an unwilling confession, impossible. And if it had seemed that further information might have been extracted relative to my own personal danger, a stronger tie, a deeper obligation, bound them to the supposed object of the last obscure imputation, and none was willing to elicit further charges or clearer evidence. Probably also they antic.i.p.ated that, when the word was extended to the Initiates, I should take up my own cause.

"Would any brother speak?" asked Esmo, when the silence of the Chiefs had lasted for a few moments.

But his rebuke had silenced Kevima, and no one else cared to interpose. The eyes of the a.s.sembly turned upon me so generally and so pointedly, that at last I felt myself forced, though against my own judgment, to rise.

"I have no question to ask the accused," I said.

"Then," replied Esmo calmly, "you have nothing now to say. Give to the brother accused before us the cup of rest."

A small goblet was handed by one of the sentries to the miserable creature, now half-insensible, who awaited our judgment. In a very few moments he had sunk into a slumber in which his face was comparatively calm, and his limbs had ceased to tremble. His fate was to be debated in the presence indeed of his body, but in the absence of consciousness and knowledge.

"Has any elder brother," inquired Esmo, "counsel to afford?"

No word was spoken.

"Has any brother counsel to afford?"

Again all were silent, till the glance which the Chief cast in order along the ranks of the a.s.sembly fell upon myself.

"One word," I said. "I claim permission to speak, because the matter touches closely and cruelly my own honour."

There was that inaudible, invisible, motionless "movement," as some French reporters call it, of surprise throughout the a.s.sembly which communicates itself instinctively to a speaker.

"My own honour," I continued, "in the honour dearer and nearer to me even than my own. What the accused has spoken may or may not be true."

"It is true," interposed a Chief, probably pitying my ignorance.

"May be true," I continued, "though I will not believe it, to whomsoever his words may apply. That no such treason as they have suggested ever for one moment entered, or could enter, the heart of her who knelt with me, in presence of many now here, before that Throne, I will vouch by all the symbols we revere in common, and with the life which it seems is alone threatened by the feminine domestic treason alleged, from whomsoever that treason may proceed. I will accuse none, as I suspect none; but I will say that the charge might be true to the letter, and yet not touch, as I know it does not justly touch, the daughter of our Chief."

A deep relief was visible in the faces which had so lately been clouded by a suspicion terrible to all. Esmo's alone remained impa.s.sive throughout my vindication, as throughout the apparent accusation and silent condemnation of his daughter.

"Has any brother," he said, "counsel to speak respecting the question actually before us?"

One and all were silent, till Esmo again put the formal question:--

"Has he who was our brother betrayed the brotherhood?"

From every member of the a.s.sembly came a clear unmistakable a.s.sent.

"Is he outcast?"

Silence rather than any distinct sign answered in the affirmative.

"Is it needful that his lips be sealed for ever?"

One or two of the Chiefs expressed in a single sentence an affirmative conviction, which was evidently shared by all present except myself.

Appealing by a look to Esmo, and encouraged by his eye, I spoke--

"The outcast has confessed treason worthy of death. That I cannot deny. But he has sinned from fear rather than from greed or malice; and to fear, courage should be indulgent. The coward is but what Allah has made him, and to punish cowardice is to punish the child for the heritage his parents have inflicted. Moreover, no example of punishment will make cowards brave. It seems to me, then, that there is neither justice nor wisdom in taking vengeance upon the crime of weakness."

In but two faces, those of Esmo and of his next colleague on the left, could I see the slightest sign of approval. One of the other chiefs answered briefly and decisively my plea for mercy.

"If," he said, "treason proceed from fear, the more cause that a greater fear should prevent the treason of cowardice for the future.

The same motives that have led the offender to betray so much would a.s.suredly lead him to betray more were he released; and to attempt lifelong confinement is to make the lives of all dependent on a chance in order to spare one unworthy life. The excuse which our brother has pleaded may, we hope, avail with a tribunal which can regard the conscience apart from the consequences. It ought not to avail with us."

But the law of the Zinta, as I now learned, will not allow sentence of death to be pa.s.sed save by an absolutely unanimous vote. It is held that if one judge educated in the ideas of the Order, appreciating to the full the priceless importance of its teaching and the guilt of treason against it, is unpersuaded that there exists sufficient cause for the supreme penalty, the doubt is such as should preclude the infliction of that penalty. It is, however, permitted and expected that the dissentients, if few in number, much more a single dissentient, shall listen attentively and give the most respectful and impartial consideration to the arguments of brethren, and especially of seniors. If a single mind remains unmoved, its dissent is decisive.

But it would be the gravest dereliction of duty to persist from wilfulness, obstinacy, or pride, in adhesion to a view perhaps hastily expressed in opposition to authority and argument. The debate to which my speech gave rise lasted for two hours. Each speaker spoke but a few terse expressive sentences; and after each speech came a pause allowing full time for the consideration of its reasoning. Two points were very soon made clear to all. The offender had justly forfeited his life; and if his death were necessary or greatly conducive to the safety of the rest, the mercy which for his sake imperilled worthier men and sacred truths would have been no less than a crime. The thought, however, that weighed most with me against my natural feeling was an experience to which none present could appeal. I had sat on many courts-martial where cowardice was the only charge imputed; and in every case in which that charge was proved, sentence of death had been pa.s.sed and carried out on a ground I could not refuse to consider sufficient:--namely, that the infection of terror can best be repressed by an example inspiring deeper terror than that to which the prisoner has yielded. Compelled by these precedents, though with intense reluctance, I submitted at last to the universal judgment.

Esmo having collected the will, I cannot say the voices, of the a.s.sembly, paused for a minute in silence.

"The Present has p.r.o.nounced," he said at last. "Are the voices of the Past a.s.sentient?"

He looked around as if to see whether, under real or supposed inspiration, any of those before him would give in another name a judgment opposite to that in which all had concurred. Instinctively I glanced towards the Throne, but it remained vacant as ever. Then, fixing his eyes for a few moments upon the culprit, who started and woke to full consciousness under his gaze--and receiving from the Chief nearest to him on the left a chain of small golden circles similar to that of the canopy, represented also on the Signet, while he on the right held a small roll, on the golden surface of which a long list of names was inscribed--our Superior p.r.o.nounced, amid deepest stillness, in a low clear tone, the form of excommunication; breaking at the appropriate moment one link from the chain, and, at a later point, drawing a broad crimson bar through one cipher on the roll:--

"Conscience-convict, tried in truth, Judged in justice, doomed in ruth; Ours no more--once ours in vain-- Falls the Veil and snaps the Chain, Drops the link and lies alone:-- Traitor to the Emerald Throne, Alien from the troth we plight, Kature native to the night; Trained in Light the Light to scorn, Soul apostate and forsworn, False to symbol, sense, and sign, To the Serpent's pledge divine, To the Wings that reach afar, To the Circle and the Star; Recreant to the mystic rule, Outlaw from the sacred school-- Backward is the Threshold crossed; Lost the Light, the Life is lost.

Go; the golden page we blot: Go; forgetting and forgot!

Go--by final sentence shriven, Be thy crime absolved in Heaven!"

Once more the Throne and the Emblems behind and above it had been veiled in impenetrable darkness. Instinctively, as it seemed, every one present had risen to his feet, and stood with bent head and downcast eyes as the Condemned, rising mechanically, turned without a word and pa.s.sed away.

CHAPTER XXVI - TWILIGHT.

I was, perhaps, the only member of the a.s.sembly to whom the doomed man was not personally known, and to all of us the tie which had been severed was one at least as close as that of natural brotherhood on Earth.

How long the pause lasted--how, or why, or when we resumed our seats, even I knew not. The Shrine was unveiled, and Esmo's next colleague spoke again--

"A seat among the elders has been three days vacant by the departure of one well known and dear to all. His colleagues have considered how best it may be filled. The member they have selected is of the youngest in experience here; but from the first moment of his initiation it was evident to us that more than half the learning of the Starlight had been his before. Nothing could so deeply confirm our joy and confidence in that lore, as to find that in another world the truths we hold dearest are held with equal faith, that many of our deepest secrets have there been sought and discovered by societies not unlike our own. For that reason, and because of that House, whereof now but two members are left us, he is by wedlock and adoption the third, the elder brethren have unanimously resolved to recommend to Clavelta, and to the Children of the Star, that this seat," and he pointed to the vacant place, "shall be filled by him who has but now expressed, with a warmth seldom shown in this place, his love and trust for the daughter of our Chief, the descendant of our Founder."

Certainly not on my own account, but from the earnest attachment and devotion they felt for Esmo, both personally as a long-tried and deservedly revered Chief, and as almost the last representative of a lineage so profoundly loved and honoured, the approval of all present was expressed with a sudden and eager warmth which deeply affected me; the more that it expressed an hereditary regard and esteem, not for myself but for Eveena, rarely or never, even among the Zveltau, paid to a woman. Es...o...b..nt his head in a.s.sent, and then, addressing me by name, called me to the foot of the platform.