CHAPTER XXIV.
’Twas midnight. The landscape was still as death. Hills, rocks, rivers, even the babbling brooks, seemed locked in sleep. The moonbeams dreamt upon the hillside; stars slept in the glittering sky; the silent vales were full of dreaming flowers whose parti-colored cups closed in sleep. In all that solemn hush of silence one watcher broke the charmed spell. ’Twas Aubrey Livingston. Now he moves swiftly over the plain as if some sudden purpose drove him on; then he turns back in the self-same track and with the same impulsive speed. What is he doing in the lonely night? All day, hour after hour, mile on mile, the scorching midday sun had blazed upon his head, and still he wandered on. The tranquil sunset purpled round his way and still the wanderer hastened on. In his haggard eyes one question seems to linger—“I wonder if she lives!”
Many, many dreary times he said this question over! He has a secret and ’tis a mighty one; he fears if human eye but look upon him, it must be revealed. Hark! suddenly there falls upon his ear the sound of voices, surely some one called! Again! His straining ear caught a familiar sound.
“Aubrey! Aubrey Livingston!”
“By heaven, it is her voice!” he told himself. And as if to assure him still more of who addressed him, close before his very eyes moved two figures. Hand in hand they passed from out a clump of sheltering trees, and slowly crossed his path. One face was turned toward him, the other from him. The moon revealed the same white robe in which he had last beheld her, the long, streaming hair, her slippered feet—all were there. Upon his wondering eyes her own were fixed in mute appeal and deepest anguish; then both figures passed away, he knew not where.
“’Twas she, and in full life. God of heaven, she lives!”
Pausing not to think he was deceived, enough for him, she lived. He turned his steps toward his home, with flying feet he neared the hall. Just as he reached the great entrance gates, he saw the two figures slightly in advance of him. This time Dianthe’s face was turned away, but the silver moonbeams threw into bold relief the accusing face of Molly Vance!
With a sudden chill foreboding, he entered the hall and passed up the stairs to his wife’s apartments. He opened wide the door and stood within the chamber of the dead.
There lay the peaceful form—spread with a drapery of soft, white gauze around her, and only the sad and livid, poisoned face was visible above it; and kneeling by the side of her, his first love and his last—was Reuel Briggs.
Rising from the shadows as Aubrey entered, Charlie Vance, flanked on either side by Ai and Ababdis, moved to meet him, the stern brow and sterner words of an outraged brother and friend greeted him:
“Welcome, murderer!”
Dianthe was dead, poisoned; that was clear. Molly Vance was unduly done to death by the foul treachery of the same hand. All this was now clear to the thinking public, for so secluded had Aubrey Livingston lived since his return to the United States, that many of his intimate associates still believed that he had perished in the accident on the Charles. It was quite evident to these friends that his infatuation for the beautiful Dianthe had led to the commission of a crime. But the old adage that, “the dead tell no tales,” was not to be set aside for visionary ravings unsupported by lawful testimony.
Livingston’s wealth purchased shrewd and active lawyers to defend him against the charges brought by the Vances—father and son,—and Reuel Briggs.
One interview which was never revealed to public comment, took place between Ai, Ababdis, Aunt Hannah, Reuel Briggs and Aubrey Livingston.
Aubrey sat alone in his sumptuous study. An open book was on his knees, but his eyes were fixed on vacancy. He was changed and his auburn locks were prematurely grey. His eyes revealed an impenetrable mystery within into whose secret depths no mortal eye might look. Thus he sat when the group we have named above silently surrounded him. “Peace, O son of Osiris, to thy parting hour!”
Thus Ai greeted him. There was no mistaking these words, and gazing into the stern faces of the silent group Aubrey knew that something of import was about to happen.
Aubrey did not change countenance, although he glanced at Reuel as if seeking mercy. The latter did not change countenance; only his eyes, those strange deep eyes before whose fixed gaze none could stand unflinching, took on a more sombre glow. Again Ai spoke:
“God has willed it! Great is the God of Ergamenes, we are but worms beneath His feet. His will be done.” Then began a strange, weird scene. Round and round the chair where Aubrey wasseated walked the kingly Ai chanting in a low, monotone in his native tongue, finally advancing with measured steps to a position directly opposite and facing Livingston, and stood there erect and immovable, with arms raised as if in invocation. His eyes glittered with strange, fascinating lights in the shaded room. To the man seated there it seemed that an eternity was passing. Why did not these two men he had injured take human vengeance in meting out punishment to him? And why, oh! why did those eyes, piercing his own like poinards, hold him so subtly in their spell?
Gradually he yielded to the mysterious beatitude that insensibly enwrapped his being. Detached from terrestrial bonds, his spirit soared in regions of pure ethereal blue. A delicious torpor held him in its embrace. His head sank upon his breast. His eyes closed in a trancelike slumber.
Ai quitted his position, and approaching Aubrey, lifted one of the shut eyelids. “He sleeps!” he exclaimed.
Then standing by the side of the unconscious man he poured into his ear—speaking loudly and distinctly,—a few terse sentences. Not a muscle moved in the faces of those standing about the sleeper. Then Ai passed his hands lightly over his face, made a few upward passes, and turning to his companions, beckoned them to follow him from the room. Silently as they had come the group left the house and grounds, gained a waiting carriage and were driven rapidly away. In the shelter of the vehicle Charlie Vance spoke, “Is justice done?” he sternly queried.
“Justice will be done,” replied Ai’s soothing tones.
“Then I am satisfied.”
But Reuel spoke not one word.
One day not very long after this happening, the body of Aubrey Livingston was found floating in the Charles river at the very point where poor Molly Vance had floated in the tangled lily-bed. The mysterious command of Ai, “death by thine own hand,” whispered in his ear while under hypnotic influence, had been followed to the last letter.
Thus Aubrey had become his own executioner according to the ancient laws of the inhabitants of Telassar. Members of the royal family in direct line to the throne became their own executioners when guilty of the crime of murder.
Reuel Briggs returned to the Hidden City with his faithful subjects, and old Aunt Hannah. There he spends his days in teaching his people all that he has learned in years of contact with modern culture. United to Candace, his days glide peacefully by in good works; but the shadows of great sins darken his life, and the memory of past joys is ever with him. He views, too, with serious apprehension, the advance of mighty nations penetrating the dark, mysterious forests of his native land.
“Where will it stop?” he sadly questions. “What will the end be?”
But none save Omnipotence can solve the problem.
To our human intelligence these truths depicted in this feeble work may seem terrible,—even horrible. But who shall judge the handiwork of God, the Great Craftsman! Caste prejudice, race pride, boundless wealth, scintillating intellects refined by all the arts of the intellectual world, are but puppets in His hand, for His promises stand, and He will prove His words, “Of one blood have I made all races of men.”
(THE END.)