The touch of the earth seemed strange to me after nearly a week spent at sea, and as I sprang from the launch on to the rough rocks, aided by Santoris, I was for a moment faint and giddy. The dark mountain summits seemed to swirl round me,—and the glittering water, shining like steel, had the weird effect of a great mirror in which a fluttering vision of something undefined and undeclared rose and passed like a breath. I recovered myself with an effort and stood still, trying to control the foolish throbbing of my heart, while my companion gave a few orders to his men in a language which I thought I knew, though I could not follow it.
"Are you speaking Gaelic?" I asked him, with a smile.
"No!—only something very like it—Phoenician."
He looked straight at me as he said this, and his eyes, darkly blue and brilliant, expressed a world of suggestion. He went on:—
"All this country was familiar ground to the Phoenician colonists of ages ago. I am sure you know that! The Gaelic tongue is the genuine dialect of the ancient Phoenician Celtic, and when I speak the original language to a Highlander who only knows his native Gaelic he understands me perfectly."
I was silent. We moved away from the shore, walking slowly side by side. Presently I paused, looking back at the launch we had just left.
"Your men are not Highlanders?"
"No—they are from Egypt."
"But surely,"—I said, with some hesitation—"Phoenician is no longer known or spoken?"
"Not by the world of ordinary men,"—he answered—"I know it and speak it,—and so do most of those who serve me. You have heard it before, only you do not quite remember." I looked at him, startled. He smiled, adding gently:—"Nothing dies—not even a language!"
We were not yet out of sight of the men. They had pushed the launch off shore again and were starting it back to the yacht, it being arranged that they should return for us in a couple of hours. We were following a path among slippery stones near a rushing torrent, but as we turned round a sharp bend we lost the view of Loch Scavaig itself and were for the first time truly alone. Huge mountains, crowned with jagged pinnacles, surrounded us on all sides,—here and there tufts of heather clinging to large masses of dark stone blazed rose-purple in the declining sunshine,—the hollow sound of the falling stream made a perpetual crooning music in our ears, and the warm, stirless air seemed breathless, as though hung in suspense above us waiting for the echo of some word or whisper that should betray a life's secret. Such a silence held us that it was almost unbearable,—every nerve in my body seemed like a strained harp-string ready to snap at a touch,—and yet I could not speak. I tried to get the mastery over the rising tide of thought, memory and emotion that surged in my soul like a tempest—swiftly and peremptorily I argued with myself that the extraordinary chaos of my mind was only due to my own imaginings,—nevertheless, despite my struggles, I remained caught as it were in a web that imprisoned every faculty and sense,—a web fine as gossamer, yet unbreakable as iron. In a kind of desperation I raised my eyes, burning with the heat of restrained tears, and saw Santoris watching me with patient, almost appealing tenderness. I felt that he could read my unexpressed trouble, and involuntarily I stretched out my hands to him.
"Tell me!" I half whispered-"What is it I must know? We are strangers—and yet—"
He caught my hands in his own.
"Not strangers!" he said, his voice trembling a little—"You cannot say that! Not strangers—but old friends!"
The strong gentleness of his clasp recalled the warm pressure of the invisible hands that had guided me out of darkness in my dream of a few nights past. I looked up into his face, and every line of it became suddenly, startlingly familiar. The deep-set blue eyes,—the broad brows and intellectual features were all as well known to me as might be the portrait of a beloved one to the lover, and my heart almost stood still with the wonder and terror of the recognition.
"Not strangers,"—he repeated, with quiet emphasis, as though to reassure me—"Only since we last met we have travelled far asunder. Have yet a little patience! You will presently remember me as well as I remember you!"
With the rush of startled recollection I found my voice.
"I remember you now!"—I said, in low, unsteady tones—"I have seen you often—often! But where? Tell me where? Oh, surely you know!"
He still held my hands with the tenderest force,—and seemed, like myself, to find speech difficult. If two deeply attached friends, parted for many years, were all unexpectedly to meet in some solitary place where neither had thought to see a living soul, their emotion could hardly be keener than ours,—and yet—there was an invisible barrier between us—a barrier erected either by him or by myself,—something that held us apart. The sudden and overpowering demand made upon our strength by the swift and subtle attraction which drew us together was held in check by ourselves,—and it was as if we were each separately surrounded by a circle across which neither of us dared to pass. I looked at him in mingled fear and questioning—his eyes were gravely thoughtful and full of light.
"Yes, I know,"—he answered, at last, speaking very softly—while, gently releasing one of my hands, he held the other—"I know,—but we need not speak of that! As I have already said, you will remember all by gradual degrees. We are never permitted to entirely forget. But it is quite natural that now—at this immediate hour—we should find it strange—you, perhaps, more than I—that something impels us one to the other,—something that will not be gainsaid,—something that if all the powers of earth and heaven could intervene, which by simplest law they cannot, will take no denial!"
I trembled, not with fear, but with an exquisite delight I dared not pause to analyse. He pressed my hand more closely.
"We had better walk on,"—he continued, averting his gaze from mine for the moment—"If I say more just now I shall say too much—and you will be frightened,—perhaps offended. I have been guilty of so many errors in the past,—you must help me to avoid them in the future. Come!"—and he turned his eyes again upon me with a smile—"Let us see the sunset!"
We moved on for a few moments in absolute silence, he still holding my hand and guiding me up the rough path we followed. The noise of the rushing torrent sounded louder in my ears, sometimes with a clattering insistence as though it sought to match itself against the surging of my own quick blood in an endeavour to drown my thoughts. On we went and still onward,—the path seemed interminable, though it was in reality a very short journey. But there was such a weight of unutterable things pressing on my soul like a pent-up storm craving for outlet, that every step measured itself as almost a mile.
At last we paused; we were in full view of Loch Coruisk and its weird splendour. On all sides arose bare and lofty mountains, broken and furrowed here and there by deep hollows and corries,—supremely grand in their impressive desolation, uplifting their stony peaks around us like the walls and turrets of a gigantic fortress, and rising so abruptly and so impenetrably encompassing the black stretch of water below, that it seemed impossible for a sunbeam to force its shining entrance into such a circle of dense gloom. Yet there was a shower of golden light pouring aslant down one of the highest of the hills, brightening to vivid crimson stray clumps of heather, touching into pale green some patches of moss and lichen, and giving the dazzling flash of silver to the white wings of a sea-gull which soared above our heads uttering wild cries like a creature in pain. Pale blue mists were rising from the surface of the lake, and the fitful gusts of air that rushed over the rocky summits played with these impalpable vapours borne inland from the Atlantic, and tossed them to and fro into fantastic shapes—some like flying forms with long hair streaming behind them—some like armed warriors, hurtling their spears against each other,—and some like veiled ghosts hurrying past as though driven to their land of shadows by shuddering fear. We stood silently hand in hand, watching the uneasy flitting of these cloud phantoms, and waiting for the deepening glow, which, when it should spread upwards from the rays of the sinking sun, would transform the wild, dark scene to one of almost supernatural splendour. Suddenly Santoris spoke:
"Now shall I tell you where we last met?" he asked, very gently—"And may I show you the reasons why we meet again?"
I lifted my eyes to his. My heart beat with suffocating quickness, and thoughts were in my brain that threatened to overwhelm my small remaining stock of self-control and make of me nothing but a creature of tears and passion. I moved my lips in an effort to speak, but no sound came from them.
"Do not be afraid,"—he continued, in the same quiet tone—"It is true that we must be careful now as in the past we were careless,—but perfect comprehension of each other rests with ourselves. May I go on?"
I gave a mute sign of assent. There was a rough craig near us, curiously shaped like a sort of throne and canopy, the canopy being formed by a thickly overhanging mass of rock and heather, and here he made me sit down, placing himself beside me. From this point we commanded a view of the head of the lake and the great mountain which closes and dominates it,—and which now began to be illumined with a strange witch-like glow of orange and purple, while a thin mist moved slowly across it like the folds of a ghostly stage curtain preparing to rise and display the first scene of some great drama.
"Sometimes," he then said,—"it happens, even in the world of cold and artificial convention, that a man and woman are brought together who, to their own immediate consciousness, have had no previous acquaintance with each other, and yet with the lightest touch, the swiftest glance of an eye, a million vibrations are set quivering in them like harp-strings struck by the hand of a master and responding each to each in throbbing harmony and perfect tune. They do not know how it happens—they only feel it is. Then, nothing—I repeat this with emphasis—nothing can keep them apart. Soul rushes to soul,—heart leaps to heart,—and all form and ceremony, custom and usage crumble into dust before the power that overwhelms them. These sudden storms of etheric vibration occur every day among the most ordinary surroundings and with the most unlikely persons, and Society as at present constituted frowns and shakes its head, or jeers at what it cannot understand, calling such impetuosity folly, or worse, while remaining wilfully blind to the fact that in its strangest aspect it is nothing but the assertion of an Eternal Law. Moreover, it is a law that cannot be set aside or broken with impunity. Just as the one point of vibration sympathetically strikes the other in the system of wireless telegraphy, so, despite millions and millions of intervening currents and lines of divergence, the immortal soul-spark strikes its kindred fire across a waste of worlds until they meet in the compelling flash of that God's Message called Love!"
He paused—then went on slowly:—
"No force can turn aside one from the other,—nothing can intervene—not because it is either romance or reality, but simply because it is a law. You understand?"
I bent my head silently.
"It may be thousands of years before such a meeting is consummated,"—he continued—"For thousands of years are but hours in the eternal countings. Yet in those thousands of years what lives must be lived!—what lessons must be learned!—what sins committed and expiated!—what precious time lost or found!—what happiness missed or wasted!"
His voice thrilled—and again he took my hand and held it gently clasped.
"You must believe in yourself alone,"—he said,—"if any lurking thought suggests a disbelief in me! It is quite natural that you should doubt me a little. You have studied long and deeply—you have worked hard at problems which puzzle the strongest man's brain, and you have succeeded in many things because you have kept what most men manage to lose when grappling with Science,—Faith. You have always studied with an uplifted heart—uplifted towards the things unseen and eternal. But it has been a lonely heart, too,—as lonely as mine!"
A moment's silence followed,—a silence that seemed heavy and dark, like a passing cloud, and instinctively I looked up to see if indeed a brooding storm was not above us. A heaven of splendid colour met my gaze—the whole sky was lighted with a glory of gold and blue. But below this flaming radiance there was a motionless mass of grey vapour, hanging square as it seemed across the face of the lofty mountain at the head of the lake, like a great canvas set ready for an artist's pencil and prepared to receive the creation of his thought. I watched this in a kind of absorbed fascination, conscious that the warm hand holding mine had strengthened its close grasp,—when suddenly something sharp and brilliant, like the glitter of a sword or a forked flash of lightning, passed before my eyes with a dizzying sensation, and the lake, the mountains, the whole landscape, vanished like a fleeting mirage, and in all the visible air only the heavy curtain of mist remained. I made an effort to move—to speak—in vain! I thought some sudden illness must have seized me—yet no!—for the half-swooning feeling that had for a moment unsteadied my nerves had already passed—and I was calm enough. Yet I saw more plainly than I have ever seen anything in visible Nature, a slowly moving, slowly passing panorama of scenes and episodes that presented themselves in marvellous outline and colouring,—pictures that were gradually unrolled and spread out to my view on the grey background of that impalpable mist which like a Shadow hung between myself and impenetrable Mystery, and I realised to the full that an eternal record of every life is written not only in sound, but in light, in colour, in tune, in mathematical proportion and harmony,—and that not a word, not a thought, not an action is forgotten!
A vast forest rose before me. I saw the long shadows of the leafy boughs flung thick upon the sward and the wild tropical vines hanging rope-like from the intertwisted stems. A golden moon looked warmly in between the giant branches, flooding the darkness of the scene with rippling radiance, and within its light two human beings walked,—a man and woman—their arms round each other,—their faces leaning close together. The man seemed pleading with his companion for some favour which she withheld, and presently she drew herself away from him altogether with a decided movement of haughty rejection. I could not see her face,—but her attire was regal and splendid, and on her head there shone a jewelled diadem. Her lover stood apart for a moment with bent head—then he threw himself on his knees before her and caught her hand in an evident outburst of passionate entreaty. And while they stood thus together, I saw the phantom-like figure of another woman moving towards them—she came directly into the foreground of the picture, her white garments clinging round her, her fair hair flung loosely over her shoulders, and her whole demeanour expressing eagerness and fear. As she approached, the man sprang up from his knees and, with a gesture of fury, drew a dagger from his belt and plunged it into her heart! I saw her reel back from the blow—I saw the red blood well up through the whiteness of her clothing, and as she turned towards her murderer, with a last look of appeal, I recognised MY OWN FACE IN HERS!—and in his THE FACE OF SANTORIS! I uttered a cry,—or thought I uttered it—a darkness swept over me—and the vision vanished!
* * * * * *
Another vivid flash struck my eyes, and I found myself looking upon the crowded thoroughfares of a great city. Towers and temples, palaces and bridges, presented themselves to my gaze in a network of interminable width and architectural splendour, moving and swaying before me like a wave glittering with a thousand sparkles uplifted to the light. Presently this unsteadiness of movement resolved itself into form and order, and I became, as it were, one unobserved spectator among thousands, of a scene of picturesque magnificence. It seemed that I stood in the enormous audience hall of a great palace, where there were crowds of slaves, attendants and armed men,—on all sides arose huge pillars of stone on which were carved the winged heads of monsters and fabulous gods,—and looming out of the shadows I saw the shapes of four giant Sphinxes which guarded a throne set high above the crowd. A lambent light played quiveringly on the gorgeous picture, growing more and more vivid as I looked, and throbbing with colour and motion,—and I saw that on the throne there sat a woman crowned and veiled,—her right hand held a sceptre blazing with gold and gems. Slaves clad in costumes of the richest workmanship and design abased themselves on either side of her, and I heard the clash of brazen cymbals and war-like music, as the crowd of people surged and swayed, and murmured and shouted, all apparently moved by some special excitement or interest. Suddenly I perceived the object on which the general attention was fixed—the swooning body of a man, heavily bound in chains and lying at the foot of the throne. Beside him stood a tall black slave, clad in vivid scarlet and masked,—this sinister-looking creature held a gleaming dagger uplifted ready to strike,—and as I saw this, a wild yearning arose in me to save the threatened life of the bound and helpless victim. If I could only rush to defend and drag him away from impending peril, I thought!—but no!—I was forced to stand helplessly watching the scene, with every fibre of my brain burning with pent-up anguish. At this moment, the crowned and veiled woman on the throne suddenly rose and stood upright,—with a commanding gesture she stretched out her glittering sceptre—the sign was given! Swiftly the dagger gleamed through the air and struck its deadly blow straight home! I turned away my eyes in shuddering horror,—but was compelled by some invincible power to raise them again,—and the scene before me glowed red as with the hue of blood—I saw the slain victim,—the tumultuous crowd—and above all, the relentless Queen who, with one movement of her little hand, had swept away a life,—and as I looked upon her loathingly, she threw back her shrouding golden veil. MY OWN FACE LOOKED FULL AT ME from under the jewelled arch of her sparkling diadem—ah, wicked soul!—I wildly cried—pitiless Queen!—then, as they lifted the body of the murdered man, his livid countenance was turned towards me, and I saw again the face of Santoris! Dumb and despairing I sank as it were within myself, chilled with inexplicable misery, and I heard for the first time in this singular pageant of vision a Voice—slow, calm, and thrilling with infinite sadness:
"A life for a life!"—it said—"The old eternal law!—a life for a life! There is nothing taken which shall not be returned again—nothing lost which shall not be found—a life for a life!"
Then came silence and utter darkness.
* * * * * *
Slowly brightening, slowly widening, a pale radiance like the earliest glimmer of dawn stole gently on my eyes when I again raised them. I saw the waving curve of a wide, sluggishly flowing river, and near it a temple of red granite stood surrounded with shadowing foliage and bright clumps of flowers. Huge palms lifted their fronded heads to the sky, and on the edge of the quiet stream there loitered a group of girls and women. One of these stood apart, sad and alone, the others looking at her with something of pity and scorn. Near her was a tall upright column of black basalt, as it seemed, bearing the sculptured head of a god. The features were calm and strong and reposeful, expressive of dignity, wisdom and power. And as I looked, more people gathered together—I heard strains of solemn music pealing from the temple close by—and I saw the solitary woman draw herself farther apart and almost disappear among the shadows. The light grew brighter in the east,—the sun shot a few advancing rays upward,—suddenly the door of the temple was thrown open, and a long procession of priests carrying flaming tapers and attended by boys in white garments and crowned with flowers made their slow and stately way towards the column with the god-like Head upon it and began to circle round it, chanting as they walked, while the flower-crowned boys swung golden censers to and fro, impregnating the air with rich perfume. The people all knelt—and still the priests paced round and round, chanting and murmuring prayers,—till at last the great sun lifted the edge of its glowing disc above the horizon, and its rays springing from the east like golden arrows, struck the brow of the Head set on its basalt pedestal. With the sudden glitter of this morning glory the chanting ceased,—the procession stopped; and one priest, tall and commanding of aspect, stepped forth from the rest, holding up his hands to enjoin silence. And then the Head quivered as with life,—its lips moved—there was a rippling sound like the chord of a harp smitten by the wind,—and a voice, full, sweet and resonant, spoke aloud the words:—
"I face the Sunrise!"
With a shout of joy priests and people responded:
"We face the Sunrise!"
And he who seemed the highest in authority, raising his arms invokingly towards heaven, exclaimed:
"Even so, O Mightiest among the Mighty, let us ever remember that Thy Shadow is but part of Thy Light,—that Sorrow is but the passing humour of Joy—and that Death is but the night which dawns again into Life! We face the Sunrise!"
Then all who were assembled joined in singing a strange half-barbaric song and chorus of triumph, to the strains of which they slowly moved off and disappeared like shapes breathed on a mirror and melting away. Only the tall high priest remained,—and he stood alone, waiting, as it were, for something eagerly expected and desired. And presently the woman who had till now remained hidden among the shadows of the surrounding trees, came swiftly forward. She was very pale—her eyes shone with tears—and again I saw MY OWN FACE IN HERS. The priest turned quickly to greet her, and I distinctly heard every word he spoke as he caught her hands in his own and drew her towards him.
"Everything in this world and the next I will resign," he said—"for love of thee! Honour, dignity and this poor earth's renown I lay at thy feet, thou most beloved of women! What other thing created or imagined can be compared to the joy of thee?—to the sweetness of thy lips, the softness of thy bosom—the love that trembles into confession with thy smile! Imprison me but in thine arms and I will count my very soul well lost for an hour of love with thee! Ah, deny me not!—turn me not away from thee again!—love comes but once in life—such love as ours!—early or late, but once!"
She looked at him with tender passion and pity—a look in which I thankfully saw there was no trace of pride, resentment or affected injury.
"Oh, my beloved!" she answered, and her voice, plaintive and sweet, thrilled on the silence like a sob of pain—"Why wilt thou rush on destruction for so poor a thing as I am? Knowest thou not, and wilt thou not remember that, to a priest of thy great Order, the love of woman is forbidden, and the punishment thereof is death? Already the people view thee with suspicion and me with scorn—forbear, O dearest, bravest soul!—be strong!"
"Strong?" he echoed—"Is it not strong to love?—ay, the very best of strength! For what avails the power of man if he may not bend a woman to his will? Child, wherever love is there can be no death, but only life! Love is as the ever-flowing torrent of eternity in my veins—the pulse of everlasting youth and victory! What are the foolish creeds of man compared with this one Truth of Nature—Love! Is not the Deity Himself the Supreme Lover?—and wouldst thou have me a castaway from His holiest ordinance? Ah no!—come to me, my beloved!—soul of my soul—inmost core of my heart! Come to me in the silence when no one sees and no one hears—come when—"
He broke off, checked by her sudden smile and look of rapture. Some thought had evidently, like a ray of light, cleared her doubts away.
"So be it!" she said—"I give thee all myself from henceforth!—I will come!"
He uttered an exclamation of relief and joy, and drew her closer, till her head rested on his breast and her loosened hair fell in a shower across his arms.
"At last!" he murmured—"At last! Mine—all mine this tender soul, this passionate heart!—mine this exquisite life to do with as I will! O crown of my best manhood!—when wilt thou come to me?"
She answered at once without hesitation.
"To-night!" she said—"To-night, when the moon rises, meet me here in this very place,—this sacred grove where Memnon hears thy vows to him broken, and my vows consecrated to thee!—and as I live I swear I will be all thine! But now—leave me to pray!"
She lifted her head and looked into his adoring eyes,—then kissed him with a strange, grave tenderness as though bidding him farewell, and with a gentle gesture motioned him away. Elated and flushed with joy, he obeyed her sign, and left her, disappearing in the same phantom-like way in which all the other figures in this weird dream-drama had made their exit. She watched him go with a wistful yearning gaze—then in apparent utter desperation she threw herself on her knees before the impassive Head on its rocky pedestal and prayed aloud:
"O hidden and unknown God whom we poor earthly creatures symbolise!—give me the strength to love unselfishly—the patience to endure uncomplainingly! Thou, Heart of Stone, temper with thy coldest wisdom my poor throbbing heart of flesh! Help me to quell the tempest in my soul, and let me be even as thou art—inflexible, immovable,—save when the sun strikes music from thy dreaming brows and tells thee it is day! Forgive, O great God, forgive the fault of my beloved!—a fault which is not his, but mine, merely because I live and he hath found me fair,—let all be well for him,—but for me let nothing evermore be either well or ill—and teach me—even me—to face the Sunrise!"
Her voice ceased—a mist came before me for a moment—and when this cleared, the same scene was presented to me under the glimmer of a ghostly moon. And she who looked so like myself, lay dead at the foot of the great Statue, her hands clasped on her breast, her eyes closed, her mouth smiling as in sleep, while beside her raved and wept her priestly lover, invoking her by every tender name, clasping her lifeless body in his arms, covering her face with useless passionate kisses, and calling her back with wild grief from the silence into which her soul had fled. And I knew then that she had put all thought of self aside in a sense of devotion to duty,—she had chosen what she imagined to be the only way out of difficulty,—to save the honour of her lover she had slain herself. But—was it wise? Or foolish? This thought pressed itself insistently home to my mind. She had given her life to serve a mistaken creed,—she had bowed to the conventions of a temporary code of human law—yet—surely God was above all strange and unnatural systems built up by man for his own immediate convenience, vanity or advantage, and was not Love the nearest thing to God? And if those two souls were destined lovers, COULD they be divided, even by their own rashness? These questions were curiously urged upon my inward consciousness as I looked again upon the poor fragile corpse among the reeds and palms of the sluggishly flowing river, and heard the clamorous despair of the man to whom she might have been joy, inspiration and victory had not the world been then as it is not now—the man, who as the light of the moonbeams fell upon him, showed me in his haggard and miserable features the spectral likeness of Santoris. Was it right, I asked myself, that the two perfect lines of a mutual love should be swept asunder?—or if it was, as some might conceive it, right according to certain temporary and conventional views of 'rightness.' was it POSSIBLE to so sever them? Would it not be well if we all occasionally remembered that there is an eternal law of harmony between souls as between spheres?—and that if we ourselves bring about a divergence we also bring about discord? And again,—that if discord results by our inter-meddling, it is AGAINST THE LAW, and must by the working of natural forces be resolved into concord again, whether such resolvance take ten, a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand years? Of what use, then, is the struggle we are for ever making in our narrow and limited daily lives to resist the wise and holy teaching of Nature? Is it not best to yield to the insistence of the music of life while it sounds in our ears? For everything must come round to Nature's way in the end—her way being God's way, and God's way the only way! So I thought, as in half-dreaming fashion I watched the vision of the dead woman and her despairing lover fade into the impenetrable shadows of mystery veiling the record of the light beyond.
* * * * * *
Presently I became conscious of a deep murmuring sound tike the subdued hum of many thousands of voices,—and lifting my eyes I saw the wide circular sweep of a vast arena crowded with people. In the centre, and well to the front of the uplifted tiers of seats, there was a gorgeous pavilion of gold, draped with gaudy coloured silk and hung with festoons of roses, wherein sat a heavily-built, brutish-looking man royally robed and crowned, and wearing jewels In such profusion as to seem literally clothed in flashing points of light. Beautiful women were gathered round him,—boys with musical instruments crouched at his feet—attendants stood on every hand to minister to his slightest call or signal,—and all eyes were fixed upon him as upon some worshipped god of a nation's idolatry. I felt and knew that I was looking upon the 'shadow-presentment' of the Roman tyrant Nero; and I wondered vaguely how it chanced that he, in all the splendour of his wild and terrible career of wickedness, should be brought into this phantasmagoria of dream in which I and One Other alone seemed to be chiefly concerned. There were strange noises in my ears,—the loud din of trumpets—the softer sound of harps played enchantingly in some far-off distance—the ever-increasing loud buzzing of the voices of the multitude—and then all at once the roar as of angry wild beasts in impatience or pain. The time of this vision seemed to be late afternoon—I thought I could see a line of deep rose colour in a sky where the sun had lately set—the flare of torches glimmered all round the arena and beyond it, striking vivid brilliancy from the jewels on Nero's breast and throwing into strong relief the groups of soldiers and people immediately around him. I perceived now that the centre of the arena, previously empty, had become the one spot on which the looks of the people began to turn—one woman stood there all alone, clad in white, her arms crossed on her breast. So still was she,—so apparently unconscious of her position, that the mob, ever irritated by calmness, grew suddenly furious, and a fierce cry arose:—"Ad leones! Ad leones!" The great Emperor stirred from his indolent, half-reclining position and leaned forward with a sudden look of interest on his lowering features,—and as he did so a man attired in the costume of a gladiator entered the arena from one of its side doors and with a calm step and assured demeanour walked up to the front of the royal dais and there dropped on one knee. Then quickly rising he drew himself erect and waited, his eyes fixed on the woman who stood as immovably as a statue, apparently resigned to some untoward fate. And again the vast crowd shouted "Ad leones! Ad leones!" There came a heavy grating noise of drawn bolts and bars—the sound of falling chains—then a savage animal roar—and two lean and ferocious lions sprang into the arena, lashing their tails, their manes bristling and their eyes aglare. Quick as thought, the gladiator stood in their path—and I swiftly recognised the nature of the 'sport' that had brought the Emperor and all this brave and glittering show of humanity out to watch what to them was merely a 'sensation'—the life of a Christian dashed out by the claws and fangs of wild beasts—a common pastime, all unchecked by either the mercy of man or the intervention of God! I understood as clearly as if the explanation had been volunteered to me in so many words, that the woman who awaited her death so immovably had only one chance of rescue, and that chance was through the gladiator, who, to please the humour of the Emperor, had been brought hither to combat and frighten them off their intended victim,—the reward for him, if he succeeded, being the woman herself. I gazed with aching, straining eyes on the wonderful dream-spectacle, and my heart thrilled as I saw one of the lions stealthily approach the solitary martyr and prepare to spring. Like lightning, the gladiator was upon the famished brute, fighting it back in a fierce and horrible contest, while the second lion, pouncing forward and bent on a similar attack, was similarly repulsed. The battle between man and beasts was furious, prolonged and terrible to witness—and the excitement became intense. "Ad leones! Ad leones!" was now the universal wild shout, rising ever louder and louder into an almost frantic clamour. The woman meanwhile never stirred from her place—she might have been frozen to the ground where she stood. She appeared to notice neither the lions who were ready to devour her, nor the gladiator who combated them in her defence—and I studied her strangely impassive figure with keen interest, waiting to see her face,—for I instinctively felt I should recognise it. Presently, as though in response to my thought, she turned towards me,—and as in a mirror I saw MY OWN REFLECTED PERSONALITY again as I had seen it so many times in this chain of strange episodes with which I was so singularly concerned though still an outside spectator. Between her Shadow-figure and what I felt of my own existing Self there seemed to be a pale connecting line of light, and all my being thrilled towards her with a curiously vague anxiety. A swirling mist came before my eyes suddenly,—and when this cleared I saw that the combat was over—the lions lay dead and weltering in their blood on the trampled sand of the arena, and the victorious gladiator stood near their prone bodies triumphant, amid the deafening cheers of the crowd. Wreaths of flowers were tossed to him from the people, who stood up in their seats all round the great circle to hail him with their acclamations, and the Emperor, lifting his unwieldy body from under his canopy of gold, stretched out his hand as a sign that the prize which the dauntless combatant had fought to win was his. He at once obeyed the signal;—but now the woman, hitherto so passive and immovable, stirred. Fixing upon the gladiator a glance of the deepest reproach and anguish, she raised her arms warningly as though forbidding him to approach her—and then fell face forward on the ground. He rushed to her side, and kneeling down sought to lift her;—then suddenly he sprang erect with a loud cry:—
"Great Emperor! I asked of thee a living love!—and this is dead!"
A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd. The Emperor leaned forward from his throne and smiled.
"Thank your Christian God for that!" he said—"Our pagan deities are kinder! They give us love for love!"
The gladiator gave a wild gesture of despair and turned his face upward to the light—THE FACE OF SANTORIS!
"Dead!—dead!"—he cried—"Of what use then is life? Dark are the beloved eyes!—cold is the generous heart!—the fight has been in vain—my victory mocks me with its triumph! The world is empty!"
Again the laughter of the populace stirred the air.
"Go to, man!"—and the rough voice of Nero sounded harshly above the murmurous din—"The world was never the worse for one woman the less! Wouldst thou also be a Christian? Take heed! Our lions are still hungry! Thy love is dead, 'tis true, but WE have not killed her! She trusted in her God, and He has robbed thee of thy lawful possession. Blame Him, not us! Go hence, with thy laurels bravely won! Nero commends thy prowess!"
He flung a purse of gold at the gladiator's feet—and then I saw the whole scene melt away into a confused mass of light and colour till all was merely a pearl-grey haze floating before my eyes. Yet I was hardly allowed a moment's respite before another scene presented itself like a painting upon the curtain of vapour which hung so persistently in front of me—a scene which struck a closer chord upon my memory than any I had yet beheld.
* * * * * *
The cool, spacious interior of a marble-pillared hall or studio slowly disclosed itself to my view—it was open to an enchanting vista of terraced gardens and dark undulating woods, and gay parterres of brilliant blossom were spread in front of it like a wonderfully patterned carpet of intricate and exquisite design. Within it was all the picturesque grace and confusion of an artist's surroundings; and at a great easel, working assiduously, was one who seemed to be the artist himself, his face turned from me towards his canvas. Posed before him, in an attitude of indolent grace, was a woman, arrayed in clinging diaphanous drapery, a few priceless jewels gleaming here and there like stars upon her bosom and arms—her hair, falling in loose waves from a band of pale blue velvet fastened across it, was of a warm brown hue like an autumn leaf with the sun upon it, and I could see that whatever she might be according to the strictest canons of beauty, the man who was painting her portrait considered her more than beautiful. I heard his voice, in the low, murmurous yet perfectly distinct way in which all sounds were conveyed to me in this dream pageant—it was exactly as if persons on the stage were speaking to an audience.
"If we could understand each other,"—he said—"I think all would be well with us in time and eternity!"
There was a pause. The picturesque scene before me seemed to glow and gather intensity as I gazed.
"If you could see what is in my heart,"—he continued—"you would be satisfied that no greater love was ever given to woman than mine for you! Yet I would not say I give it to you—for I have striven against it." He paused—and when he spoke again his words were so distinct that they seemed close to my ears.
"It has been wrung out of my very blood and soul—I can no more resist it than I can resist the force of the air by which I live and breathe. I ought not to love you,—you are a joy forbidden to me—and yet I feel, rightly speaking, that you are already mine—that you belong to me as the other half of myself, and that this has been so from the beginning when God first ordained the mating of souls. I tell you I FEEL this, but cannot explain it,—and I grasp at you as my one hope of joy!—I cannot let you go!"
She was silent, save for a deep sigh that stirred her bosom under its folded lace and made her jewels sparkle like sunbeams on the sea.
"If I lose you now, having known and loved you," he went on—"I lose my art. Not that this would matter—"
Her voice trembled on the air.
"It would matter a great deal"—she said, softly—"to the world!"
"The world!" he echoed—"What need I care for it? Nothing seems of value to me where you are not—I am nerveless, senseless, hopeless without you. My inspiration—such as it is—comes from you—"
She moved restlessly—her face was turned slightly away so that I could not see it.
"My inspiration comes from you,"—he repeated—"The tender look of your eyes fills me with dreams which might—I do not say would—realise themselves in a life's renown—but all this is perhaps nothing to you. What, after all, can I offer you? Nothing but love! And here in Florence you could command more lovers than there are days in the week, did you choose—but people say you are untouchable by love even at its best. Now I—"
Here he stopped abruptly and laid down his brush, looking full at her.
"I," he continued—"love you at neither best nor worst, but simply and entirely with all of myself—all that a man can be in passionate heart, soul and body!"
(How the words rang out! I could have sworn they were spoken close beside me and not by dream-voices in a dream!)
"If you loved me—ah God!—what that would mean! If you dared to brave everything—if you had the courage of love to break down all barriers between yourself and me!—but you will not do this—the sacrifice would be too great—too unusual—"
"You think it would?"
The question was scarcely breathed. A look of sudden amazement lightened his face—then he replied, gently—
"I think it would! Women are impulsive,—generous to a fault—they give what they afterwards regret—who can blame them! You have much to lose by such a sacrifice as I should ask of you—I have all to gain. I must not be selfish. But I love you!—and your love would be to more than the hope of Heaven!"
And now strange echoes of a modern poet's rhyme became mingled in my dream:
"You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you— Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer, But will it not one day in heaven repent you? Will they solace you wholly, the days that were? Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss, Meet mine and see where the great love is? And tremble and turn and be changed?—Content you; The gate is strait; I shall not be there.
Yet I know this well; were you once sealed mine, Mine in the blood's beat, mine in the breath, Mixed into me as honey in wine, Not time that sayeth and gainsayeth, Nor all strong things had severed us then, Not wrath of gods nor wisdom of men, Nor all things earthly nor all divine, Nor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death!"
I watched with a deepening thrill of anxiety the scene in the studio, and my thoughts centred themselves upon the woman who sat there so quietly, seeming all unmoved by the knowledge that she held a man's life and future fame in her hands. The artist took up his palette and brushes again and began to work swiftly, his hand trembling a little.
"You have my whole confession now!"—he said—"You know that you are the eyes of the world to me—the glory of the sun and the moon! All my art is in your smile—all my life responds to your touch. Without you I am—can be nothing—Cosmo de Medicis—"
At this name a kind of shadow crept upon the scene, together with a sense of cold.
"Cosmo de Medicis"—he repeated, slowly—"my patron, would scarcely thank me for the avowals I have made to his fair ward!—one whom he intends to honour with his own alliance. I am here by his order to paint the portrait of his future bride!—not to look at her with the eyes of a lover. But the task is too difficult—"
A little sound escaped her, like a smothered cry of pain. He turned towards her.
"Something in your face,"—he said—"a touch of longing in your sweet eyes, has made me risk telling you all, so that you may at least choose your own way of love and life—for there is no real life without love."
Suddenly she rose and confronted him—and once again, as in a magic mirror, I saw MY OWN REFLECTED PERSONALITY. There were tears in her eyes,—yet a smile quivered on her mouth.
"My beloved!"—she said—and then paused, as if afraid.
A look of wonder and rapture came on his face like the light of sunrise, and I RECOGNISED THE NOW FAMILIAR FEATURES OF SANTORIS! Very gently he laid down his palette and brushes and stood waiting in a kind of half expectancy, half doubt.
"My beloved!" she repeated—"Have you not seen?—do you not know? O my genius!—my angel!—am I so hard to read?—so difficult to win?"
Her voice broke in a sob—she made an uncertain step forward, and he sprang to meet her.
"I love you, love you!"—she cried, passionately—"Let the whole world forsake me, if only you remain! I am all yours!—do with me as you will!"
He caught her in his arms—straining her to his heart with all the passion of a long-denied lover's embrace—their lips met—and for a brief space they were lost in that sudden and divine rapture that comes but once in a lifetime,—when like a shivering sense of cold the name again was whispered:
"Cosmo de Medicis!"
A shadow fell across the scene, and a woman, dark and heavy-featured, stood like a blot in the sunlit brightness of the studio,—a woman very richly attired, who gazed fixedly at the lovers with round, suspicious eyes and a sneering smile. The artist turned and saw her—his face changed from joy to a pale anxiety—yet, holding his love with one arm, he flung defiance at her with uplifted head and fearless demeanour.
"Spy!"—he exclaimed—"Do your worst! Let us have an end of your serpent vigilance and perfidy!—better death than the constant sight of you! What! Have you not watched us long enough to make discovery easy? Do your worst, I say, and quickly!"
The cruel smile deepened on the woman's mouth,—she made no answer, but simply raised her hand. In immediate obedience to the signal, a man, clad in the Florentine dress of the sixteenth century, and wearing a singular collar of jewels, stepped out from behind a curtain, attended by two other men, who, by their dress, were, or seemed to be, of inferior rank. Without a word, these three threw themselves upon the unarmed and defenceless painter with the fury of wild animals pouncing on prey. There was a brief and breathless struggle—three daggers gleamed in air—a shriek rang through the stillness—another instant and the victim lay dead, stabbed to the heart, while she who had just clung to his living body and felt the warmth of his living lips against hers, dropped on her knees beside the corpse with wild waitings of madness and despair.
"Another crime on your soul, Cosmo de Medicis!"—she cried—"Another murder of a nobler life than your own!—may Heaven curse you for it! But you have not parted my love from me—no!—you have but united us for ever! We escape you and your spies—thus!"
And snatching a dagger from the hand of one of the assassins before he could prevent her, she plunged it into her own breast. She fell without a groan, self-slain,—and I saw, as in a mist of breath on a mirror, the sudden horror on the faces of the men and the one woman who were left to contemplate the ghastly deed they had committed. And then—noting as in some old blurred picture the features of the man who wore the collar of jewels, I felt that I knew him—yet I could not place him in any corner of my immediate recognition. Gradually this strange scene of cool white marble vastness with its brilliant vista of flowers and foliage under the bright Italian sky, and the betrayed lovers lying dead beside each other in the presence of their murderers, passed away like a floating cloud,—and the same slow, calm Voice I had heard once before now spoke again in sad, stern accents:
"Jealousy is cruel as the grave!—the coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame! Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it—if a man would give all his substance for love it would be utterly contemned!"
* * * * * *
I closed my eyes,—or thought I closed them—a vague terror was growing upon me,—a terror of myself and a still greater terror of the man beside me who held my hand,—yet something prevented me from turning my head to look at him, and another still stronger emotion possessed me with a force so overpowering that I could hardly breathe under the weight and pain of it, but I could give it no name. I could not think at all—and I had ceased even to wonder at the strangeness and variety of these visions or dream-episodes full of colour and sound which succeeded each other so swiftly. Therefore it hardly seemed remarkable to me when I saw the heavy curtain of mist which hung in front of my eyes suddenly reft asunder in many places and broken into a semblance of the sea.
* * * * * *
A wild sea! Gloomily grey and grand in its onsweeping wrath, its huge billows rose and fell like moving mountains convulsed by an earthquake,—light and shadow combated against each other in its dark abysmal depths and among its toppling crests of foam—I could hear the savage hiss and boom of breakers dashing themselves to pieces on some unseen rocky coast far away,—and my heart grew cold with dread as I beheld a ship in full sail struggling against the heavy onslaught of the wind on that heaving wilderness of waters, like a mere feather lost from a sea-gull's wing. Flying along like a hunted creature she staggered and plunged, her bowsprit dipping into deep chasms from which she was tossed shudderingly upward again as in light contempt, and as she came nearer and nearer into my view I could discern some of the human beings on board—the man at the wheel, with keen eyes peering into the gathering gloom of the storm, his hair and face dashed with spray,—the sailors, fighting hard to save the rigging from being torn to pieces and flung into the sea,—then—a sudden huge wave swept her directly in front of me, and I saw the two distinct personalities that had been so constantly presented to me during this strange experience,—THE MAN WITH THE FACE OF SANTORIS—THE WOMAN WITH MY OWN FACE SO TRULY REFLECTED that I might have been looking at myself in a mirror. And just now the resemblance to us both was made more close and striking than it had been in any of the previous visions—that is to say, the likenesses of ourselves were given almost as we now existed. The man held the woman beside him closely clasped with one arm, supporting her and himself, with the other thrown round one of the shaking masts. I saw her look up to him with the light of a great and passionate love in her eyes. And I heard him say:—
"The end of sorrow and the beginning of joy! You are not afraid?"
"Afraid?" And her voice had no tremor—"With you?"
He caught her closer to his heart and kissed her not once but many times in a kind of mingled rapture and despair.
"This is death, my beloved!"—he said.
And her answer pealed out with tender certainty. "No!—not death, but life!—and love!"
A cry went up from the sailors—a cry of heartrending agony,—a mass of enormous billows rolling steadily on together hurled themselves like giant assassins upon the frail and helpless vessel and engulfed it—it disappeared with awful swiftness, like a small blot on the ocean sucked down into the whirl of water—the vast and solemn greyness of the sea spread over it like a pall—it was a nothing, gone into nothingness! I watched one giant wave rise in a crystalline glitter of dark sapphire and curl over the spot where all that human life and human love had disappeared,—and then—there came upon my soul a sudden sense of intense calm. The great sea smoothed itself out before my eyes into fine ripples which dispersed gradually into mist again—and almost I found my voice—almost my lips opened to ask: "What means this vision of the sea?" when a sound of music checked me on the verge of utterance—the music of delicate strings as of a thousand harps in heaven. I listened with every sense caught and entranced—my gaze still fixed half unseeingly upon the heavy grey film which hung before me—that mystic sky-canvas upon which some Divine painter had depicted in life-like form and colour scenes which I, in a sort of dim strangeness, recognised yet could not understand—and as I looked a rainbow, with every hue intensified to such a burning depth of brilliancy that its light was almost intolerably dazzling, sprang in a perfect arch across the cloud! I uttered an involuntary cry of rapture—for it was like no earthly rainbow I had ever seen. Its palpitating radiance seemed to penetrate into the very core and centre of space,—aerially delicate yet deep, each separate colour glowed with the fervent splendour of a heaven undreamed of by mere mortality and too glorious for mortal description. It was the shining repentance of the storm,—the assurance of joy after sorrow—the passionate love of the soul rising upwards in perfect form and beauty after long imprisonment in ice-bound depths of repression and solitude—it was anything and everything that could be thought or imagined of divinest promise!
My heart beat quickly—tears sprang to my eyes—and almost unconsciously I pressed the kind, strong hand that held mine. It trembled ever so slightly—but I was too absorbed in watching that triumphal arch across the sky to heed the movement. By degrees the lustrous hues began to pale very slowly, and almost imperceptibly they grew fainter and fainter till at last all was misty grey as before, save in one place where there were long rays of light like the falling of silvery rain. And then came strange rapidly passing scenes as of cloud forms constantly shifting and changing, in all of which I discerned the same two personalities so like and yet so unlike ourselves who were the dumb witnesses of every episode,—but everything now passed in absolute silence—there was no mysterious music,—the voices had ceased—all was mute.
Suddenly there came a change over the face of what I thought the sky—the clouds were torn asunder as it were to show a breadth of burning amber and rose, and I beheld the semblance of a great closed Gateway barred across as with gold. Here a figure slowly shaped itself,—the figure of a woman who knelt against the closed barrier with hands clasped and uplifted in pitiful beseeching. So strangely desolate and solitary was her aspect in all that heavenly brilliancy that I could almost have wept for her, shut out as she seemed from some mystic unknown glory. Round her swept the great circle of the heavens—beneath her and above her were the deserts of infinite space—and she, a fragile soul rendered immortal by quenchless fires of love and hope and memory, hovered between the deeps of immeasurable vastness like a fluttering leaf or flake of snow! My heart ached for her—my lips moved unconsciously in prayer:
"O leave her not always exiled and alone!" I murmured, inwardly—"Dear God, have pity! Unbar the gate and let her in! She has waited so long!"
The hand holding mine strengthened its clasp,—and the warm, close pressure sent a thrill through my veins. Almost I would have turned to look at my companion—had I not suddenly seen the closed gateway in the heavens begin to open slowly, allowing a flood of golden radiance to pour out like the steady flowing of a broad stream. The kneeling woman's figure remained plainly discernible, but seemed to be gradually melting into the light which surrounded it. And then—something—I know not what—shook me down from the pinnacle of vision,—hardly aware of my own action, I withdrew my hand from my companion's, and saw—just the solemn grandeur of Loch Coruisk, with a deep amber glow streaming over the summit of the mountains, flung upward by the setting sun! Nothing more!—I heaved an involuntary sigh—and at last, with some little hesitation and dread, looked full at Santoris. His eyes met mine steadfastly—he was very pale. So we faced each other for a moment—then he said, quietly:—
"How quickly the time has passed! This is the best moment of the sunset,—when that glory fades we shall have seen all!"
