Idolatry Part 28

How was it with Manetho?--During the instant after the ladder had given way and he was rushing through the air and clutching vainly at the dark void, every faculty had violently expanded, so that he seemed to see and think at every pore. The next instant his rudely battered body refused to bear the soul's messages; light and knowledge sank into bottomless darkness!

By and by--for aught he knew it might have been an eternity--a brief gleam divided the night; then another, and others; he seemed to be moving through air, upborne on a cloud. He strove to open his eyes, and caught a glimpse of reeling walls,--of a figure,--figures. A deep rumbling sound was in his ears, as of the rolling together of chaotic rocks, gradually subsiding into stillness.

He felt no pain, only dreamy ease. He was resting softly on a bank of flowers, in the heart of a summer's day. He was filled with peace and love, and peace and love were around him. Some one was nestling beside him; was it not the woman,--the bright-eyed, smiling gypsy with whom he had plighted troth?--surely it was she.

"Salome,--Salome, are you here? Touch me,--lay your cheek by mine.

So,--give me your hand. I love you, my pretty pet,--your Manetho loves you!"

The slow sentences ended. Nurse had laid her unsightly head beside his on the pillow, and the two were happy in each other. O piteous, revolting, solemn sight! Those faces, grief-smitten, old; long ago, in pa.s.sionate and lawless youth, they had perchance lain thus and murmured loving words. And now for a moment they met and loved again,--while death knocked at their chamber door!

But Balder had perceived a startling significance in Manetho's words.

He took Gnulemah by the hand and led her to the eastern window. A flash greeted them, creating a momentary world, which started from the womb of night, and vanished again before one could say "It is there!"

Then followed a long-drawn, intermittent rumble, as if the fragments of the spectre world were tumbling avalanche-wise into chaos.

"I remember now about the dandelions," Balder said. "Was not Nurse with us then?"

"Yes," answered Gnulemah; "and it was she and Hiero who took me from you. But why does he call her Salome? and who is Manetho?"

Balder did not reply. He leant against the window-frame and gazed out into the black storm. Knowing what he now did, it required no great stretch of ingenuity to unravel Manetho's secret.--He turned to Gnulemah, and, taking her in his arms, kissed her with a defiant kind of ardor.

"What is it?" she whispered, clinging to him with a reflex of his own unspoken emotion.

"We are safe!--But that man shall not die without hearing the truth,"

he added, sternly.

Again there was a dazzling lightning-flash, and the thunder seemed to break at their very ears. By a quick, sinuous movement, Gnulemah freed herself from his arm and looked at him with her grand eyes,--night-black, lit each with a sparkling star. Her feminine intuition perceived a change in him, though she could not fathom its cause. It jarred the fineness of their mutual harmony.

"Our happiness should make others' greater," said she.

He looked into her eyes with a gaze so ardent that their lids drooped; and the tone of his answer, though lover-like, had more of masculine authority in it than she had yet heard from him.

"My darling, you do not know what wrong he has done you--and others.

It is only justice that he should learn how G.o.d punishes such as he!"

"Will not G.o.d teach him?" said Gnulemah, trembling to oppose the man she loved, yet by love compelled to do so.

Balder paused, and looked towards the bed. There was a flickering smile on Manetho's face; he seemed to be reviving. His injuries were perhaps not fatal after all. Should he recover, he must sooner or later receive his so-called punishment; meanwhile, Balder was inclined to regard himself as the chosen minister of Divine justice. Why not speak now?

This was the second occasion that he had held Manetho in his power, at a time when the Egyptian had been attempting his destruction. In the previous encounter he had retaliated in kind. Would the bitter issue of that self-indulgence not make him wary now? Here was again the murderous l.u.s.t of power, albeit disguised as love of justice. Had Balder's penitent suffering failed to teach him the truth of human brotherhood, and equality before G.o.d? Love, typified by Gnulemah, would fain dissuade him from his purpose: but love (as often happens when it stands in the way of harsh and ign.o.ble impulses) appeared foolishly merciful.

Once again his glance met Gnulemah's,--lingered a moment,--and then turned away. It was for the last time. At that moment he was less n.o.ble than ever before. But the expression of her eyes he never forgot; the love, the entreaty, the grandeur,--the sorrow!--

He turned away and approached the bedside, while Gnulemah went to kneel at her maiden altar. Manetho's eyes were closed; his features wore a singularly childlike expression. In truth, he was but half himself; the shock he had sustained had paralyzed one part of his nature. The subtle, evil-plotting Egyptian was dormant; his brain interpreted nothing save the messages of the heart; only the affectionate, emotional Manetho was awake. The evil he had done and the misery of it were forgotten.--All this Balder divined; yet his a.s.sumption of G.o.dlike censorship would not permit him to relent. It is when man deems himself most secure that he falls, in a worse way than ever.

"Do you know me, Manetho?" demanded the young man.

The priest opened his eyes dreamily, and smiled, but made no further answer.

"I am Balder Helwyse,--the son of Thor," continued the other, speaking with incisive deliberation, better to touch the stunned man's apprehension, "I once had a twin sister. You believe that Gnulemah is she."

The priest's features were getting a bewildered, plaintive expression.

Either he was beginning to comprehend the purport of Balder's words, or else the sternness of the latter's tone and glance agitated him.

Bader concentrated all his force into the utterance of the final sentences, vowing to himself that his fallen enemy should understand!

Did he think of Gnulemah then? or of Salome--partly for whose; sake, he feigned, he had a.s.sumed the scourge?

"My sister died,--was burned to death before she was a year old. In trying to save her, the nurse almost lost her own life. On that same night, this nurse gave birth to a daughter,--whose name you have called Gnulemah. Salome is her mother. Who her father is, Manetho, you best know!"

The words were spoken,--but had the culprit heard them? Salome (who from the first had shrunk back to the head of the bed, beyond the possible range Manetho's vision) burst into confused hysteric cries.

Gnulemah had risen from her altar and was looking at Balder: he felt her glance,--but though he told himself that he had done but justice, he dared not meet it!--He kept his eyes fastened on the pallid countenance of the Egyptian. The latter's breath came feebly and irregularly, but the anxious expression was gone, and there was again the flickering smile. All at once there was an odd, solemn change.--

The man was dying. Balder saw it,--saw that his enemy was escaping him unpunished! There yet remained one stimulant that might rouse him, and in the pa.s.sion of the moment this self-appointed lieutenant of the Almighty applied it.

"Come forward here, Salome!" cried he; "let him look on the face that his sins have given you. As there is a G.o.d in Heaven, your wrongs shall be set right!"

Salome moved to obey; but Gnulemah glided swiftly up and held her back. Balder stepped imperiously forward to enforce his will. Had he but answered his wife's eyes even then!--He came forward one step.

Then burst a thunder-clap like the crashing together of heaven and earth! At the same instant a blinding, hot glare shut out all sight.

Balder was hurled back against the wall, a shock like the touch of death in every nerve.

He staggered up, all unstrung, his teeth chattering. He saw,--not the lamp, flickering in the draught from the broken window,--not Manetho, lying motionless with the smile frozen on his lips,--not Salome, prostrate across the body of him she had worshipped.

He saw Gnulemah--his wife whom he loved--rise from the altar's step against which she had been thrown; stand with outstretched arms and blank, wide-open eyes; grope forwards with outstretched arms and uncertain feet; grope blindly this way and that, moaning,--

"Balder,--Balder,--where are you?"

Shivering and desperate,--not yet daring for his life to understand,--he came and stood before her, almost within reach of those groping hands.

"I am here,--look at me, Gnulemah!--I am here--your husband!"

There was a pause. The storm, having spent itself in that last burst, was rolling heavily away. There was silence in the nuptial chamber, infringed only by the breathing of the newly married lovers.

"I hear you, Balder," said Gnulemah at length, tremulously, while her blank eyes rested on his face, "but I cannot see you. My lamp must have gone out. Will not you light it for me?"--

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord: I will repay!

The storm-cloud moved eastward and was dispersed. Black though had been its shadow, it endured but for a moment; the echo of its fury pa.s.sed away, and its deadly thunderbolt left behind a purer atmosphere. So sweeps and rages over men's heads the storm of calamity; and so dissolves, though seeming for the time indissoluble.

But the distant planet comes forth serene from its brief eclipse, and as night deepens, bears its steady fire yet more aloft. Like G.o.d's love, its radiance embraces the world, yet forgets not the smallest flower nor grain of sand. From its high station it beholds the infinite day surround the night, and knows the good before and beyond the ill. Great is its hope, for causes are not hidden from its quiet eternal eye.

No journal of a life has been our tale; rather a glimpse of a beginning! We have traversed an alpine pa.s.s between the illimitable lands of Past and Future. We have felt the rock rugged beneath our feet; have seen the avalanche and mused beside the precipice, and have taken what relief we might in the scanty greensward, the few flowers, and the brief sunshine. Now, standing on the farewell promontory, let us question the magic mirror concerning the further road,--as, before, of that from the backward horizon hitherwards.

Mr. MacGentle's quiet little office: himself--more venerable by a year than when we saw him last--in his chair: opposite him, Dr. Balder Helwyse. The latter wears a thick yellow beard about six inches in length, is subdued in dress and manner, and his smile, though genial, has something of the sadness of autumn sunshine. The two have been conversing earnestly, and now there is a short silence.

"We must give up hoping it, then," says Mr. MacGentle at last, in a more than usually plaintive murmur. "It is hard,--very hard, dear Balder."