Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self Part 9

Obedient to his call she paused, but did not turn. He came up with her.

... he caught at her robe, soft to the touch as silken gauze, and overwhelmed by a sudden emotion of awe and reverence, he sank on his knees.

"Who, and what are you?" he murmured in trembling tones--"Tell me! If you are mortal maid I will not harm you, I swear! ... See! ... I am only a poor crazed fool that loves a Dream, ... that stakes his life upon a chance of Heaven, ... pity me as you are gentle! ... but do not fear me ... only speak!"

No answer came. He looked up--and now in the rich radiance of the moon beheld her face ... how like, and yet how altogether unlike it was to the face of the Angel in his vision! For that ethereal Being had seemed dazzlingly, supremely beautiful beyond all mortal power of description,--whereas this girl was simply fair, small, and delicate, with something wistful and pathetic in the lines of her sweet mouth, and shadows as of remembered sorrows slumbering in the depths of her serene, dove-like eyes. Her fragile figure drooped wearily as though she were exhausted by some long fatigue, ... yet, ... gazing down upon him, she smiled, ... and in that smile, the faint resemblance she bore to his Spirit-ideal flashed out like a beam of sunlight, though it vanished again as quickly as it had shone. He waited eagerly to hear her voice, ... waited in a sort of breathless suspense,--but as she still kept silence, he sprang up from his kneeling att.i.tude and seized her hands ... how soft they were and warm!--he folded them in his own and drew her closer to himself ... the flowers she held fell from her grasp, and lay in a tumbled fragrant heap between them. His brain was in a whirl--the Past and the Future--the Real and the Unreal--the Finite and the Infinite--seemed all merging into one another without any shade of difference or division!

"We have met very strangely, you and I!"--he said, scarcely conscious of the words he uttered--"Will you not tell me your name?"

A faint sigh escaped her.

"My name is Edris," she answered, in low musical accents, that carried to his sense of hearing a suggestion, of something sweet and familiar.

"Edris!" he repeated--"Edris!" and gazing at her dreamily he raised her hands to his lips and kissed them gently--"My fairest Edris! From whence do you come?"

She met his eyes with a mild look of reproach and wonderment.

"From a far, far country, Theos!" and he started as she thus addressed him--"A land where no love is wasted and no promise forgotten!"

Again that mystic light pa.s.sed over her pale face--the blossom-coronal she wore seemed for a moment to glitter like a circlet of stars. His heart beat quickly--could he believe her? ... was she in very truth that shining Peri whose aerial loveliness had so long haunted his imagination? Nay!--it was impossible! ... for if she were, why should she veil her native glory in such simple maiden guise?

Searchingly he studied every feature of her countenance, and as he did so his doubts concerning her spirit-origin became more and more confirmed. She was a living, breathing woman--an actual creature of flesh and blood,--yet how account for her appearance on the field of Ardath? This puzzled him ... till all at once a logical explanation of the whole mystery dawned upon his mind. Heliobas had sent her hither on purpose to meet him! Of course! how dense he had been not to see through so transparent a scheme before! The clever Chaldean had resolved that he, Theos Alwyn, should somehow be brought to accept his trance as a real experience, so that henceforth his faith in "things unseen and eternal" might be a.s.sured. Many psychological theorists would uphold such a deceit as not only permissible, but even praise-worthy, if practiced for the furtherance of a good cause. Even the venerable hermit Elzear might have shared in the conspiracy, and this "Edris," as she called herself, was no doubt perfectly trained in the part she had to play! A plot for his conversion! ... well! ... he would enter into it himself, he resolved! ... why not? The girl was exquisitely fair,--a veritable Psyche of soft charms!--and a little lovemaking by moonlight would do no harm, . .... here he suddenly became aware that while these thoughts were pa.s.sing through his brain he had unconsciously allowed her hands to slip from his hold, and she now stood apart at some little distance, her eyes fixed full upon him with an expression of most plaintive piteousness. He made a hasty step or two toward her,--and as he did so, his pulses began to throb with an extraordinary sensation of pleasure,--pleasure so keen as to be almost pain.

"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 pa.s.sion 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 G.o.d--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 pa.s.s 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, impa.s.sioned, 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 pa.s.s it, save when G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sion of yearning her words awakened in him--"Love thee, Edris?--Aye! ... as the G.o.ds 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sing 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 l.u.s.trous 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 G.o.d! ... 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 G.o.d'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 att.i.tude of impa.s.sioned supplication ... .

"O fair King Christ!" she cried, and her voice seemed to strike a melodious pa.s.sage 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 b.u.t.terfly 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!