“You talk wildly, Zaroba—you cannot be well. Let me hear no more—you disturb my peace. I know what love is—I know what life is. But the best part of my life and love is not here,—but elsewhere.”
“You talk wildly, Zaroba—you cannot be well. Let me hear no more—you disturb my peace. I know what love is—I know what life is. But the best part of my life and love is not here,—but elsewhere.”
Zaroba took the paper from his hand, read it, and tore it to bits in a rage.
“O foolish youth!” she exclaimed—“Your love is the love of a Dream,—your life is the life of a Dream! You see with another’s eyes—you think through another’s brain. You are a mere machine, played upon by another’s will! But not for ever shall you be deceived—not for ever,—” here she gave a slight start and looked around her nervously as though she expected some one to enter the room suddenly—“Listen! Come to me to-night,—to-night when all is dark and silent,—when every sound in the outside street is stilled,—come to me—and I will show you a marvel of the world!—one who, like you, is the victim of a Dream!” She broke off abruptly and glanced from right to left in evident alarm,—then, with a fresh impetus of courage, she bent towards her companion again and whispered in his ear—“Come!”
“But where?” asked Féraz in the language of signs.
“Up yonder!” said Zaroba firmly, regardless of the utter amazement with which Féraz greeted this answer—“Up, where El-Râmi hides his great secret. Yes—I know he has forbidden you to venture there,—even so has he forbidden me to speak of what he cherishes so closely,—but are we slaves, you and I? Do you purpose always to obey him? So be it, an you will? But if I were you,—a man—I would defy both gods and fiends if they opposed my liberty of action. Do as it pleases you,—I, Zaroba, have given you the choice,—stay and dream of life—or come and live it! Till to-night—farewell!”
She had reached the door and vanished through it, before Féraz could demand more of her meaning,—and he was left alone, a prey to the most torturing emotions. “The vulgar vice of curiosity!” That was the phrase his brother had used to him scarcely an hour agone,—and yet, here he was, yielding to a fresh fit of the intolerable desire that had possessed him for years to know El-Râmi’s great secret. He dropped wearily into a chair and thought all the circumstances over. They were as follows:—
In the first place he had never known any other protector or friend than his brother, who, being several years older than himself, had taken sole charge of him after the almost simultaneous death of their father and mother, an event which he knew had occurred somewhere in the East, but how or when, he could not exactly remember, nor had he ever been told much about it. He had always been very happy in El-Râmi’s companionship, and had travelled with him nearly all over the world,—and, though they had never been rich, they always had sufficient wherewith to live comfortably, though how even this small competence was gained Féraz never knew. There had been no particular mystery about his brother’s life, however, till on one occasion, when they were travelling together across the Syrian desert, where they had come upon a caravan of half-starved Arab wanderers in dire distress from want and sickness. Among them was an elderly woman at the extreme point of death, and an orphan child named Lilith, who was also dying. El-Râmi had suddenly, for no special reason, save kindness of heart and compassion, offered his services as physician to the stricken little party, and had restored the elderly woman, a widow, almost miraculously to health and strength in a day or two. This woman was no other than Zaroba. The sick child however, a girl of about twelve years old, died. And here began the puzzle. On the day of this girl’s death, El-Râmi, with sudden and inexplicable haste, had sent his young brother on to Alexandria, bidding him there take ship immediately for the Island of Cyprus, and carry to a certain monastery some miles from Famagousta a packet of documents, which he stated were of the most extraordinary value and importance. Féraz had obeyed, and, according to further instructions, had remained as a visitor in that Cyprian religious retreat, among monks unlike any other monks he had ever seen or heard of, till he was sent for, whereupon, according to command, he rejoined El-Râmi in London. He found him, somewhat to his surprise, installed in the small house where they now were,—with the woman Zaroba, whose presence was another cause of blank astonishment, especially as she seemed to have nothing to do but keep certain rooms upstairs in order. But all the questions Féraz poured out respecting her, and everything that had happened since their parting in the Syrian desert, were met by equivocal replies or absolute silence on his brother’s part, and by and by the young man grew accustomed to his position. Day by day he became more and more subservient to El-Râmi’s will, though he could never quite comprehend why he was so willingly submissive. Of course he knew that his brother was gifted with certain powers of physical magnetism,—because he had allowed himself to be practised upon, and he took a certain interest in the scientific development of those powers, this being, as he quite comprehended, one of the branches of study on which El-Râmi was engaged. He knew that his brother could compel response to thought from a distance,—but, as there were others of his race who could do the same thing, and as that sort of mild hypnotism was largely practised in the East, where he was born, he attached no special importance to it. Endowed with various gifts of genius such as music and poetry, and a quick perception of everything beautiful and artistic, Féraz lived in a tranquil little Eden of his own,—and the only serpent in it that now and then lifted its head to hiss doubt and perplexity was the inexplicable mystery of those upstair rooms over which Zaroba had guardianship. The merest allusion to the subject excited El-Râmi’s displeasure; and during the whole time they had lived together in that house, now nearly six years, he had not dared to speak of it more than a very few times, while Zaroba, on her part, had faithfully preserved the utmost secrecy. Now, she seemed disposed to break the long-kept rules,—and Féraz knew not what to think of it.
“Is everything destiny, as El-Râmi says?” he mused—“Or shall I follow my own desires in the face of destiny? Shall I yield to temptation—or shall I overcome it? Shall I break his command,—lose his affection and be a free man,—or shall I obey him still, and be his slave? And what should I do with my liberty if I had it, I wonder? Womanish! What a word!AmI womanish?” He paced up and down the room in sudden irritation and haughtiness;—the piano stood open, but its ivory keys failed to attract him,—his brain was full of other suggestions than the making of sweet harmony.
“Do not seek out sorrow for yourself by rash and idle questioning.”
So his brother had said at parting And the words rang in his ears as he walked to and fro restlessly, thinking, wondering, and worrying his mind with vague wishes and foreboding anxieties, till the shining afternoon wore away and darkness fell.
A roughnight at sea,—but the skies were clear, and the great worlds of God, which we call stars, throbbed in the heavens like lustrous lamps, all the more brilliantly for there being no moon to eclipse their glory. A high gale was blowing, and the waves dashed up on the coast of Ilfracombe with an organ-like thud and roar as they broke in high jets of spray, and then ran swiftly back again with a soft swish and ripple suggestive of the downward chromatic scale played rapidly on well-attuned strings. There was freshness and life in the dancing wind;—the world seemed well in motion;—and, standing aloft among the rocks, and looking down at the tossing sea, one could realise completely the continuous whirl of the globe beneath one’s feet, and the perpetual movement of the planet-studded heavens. High above the shore, on a bare jutting promontory, a solitary house faced seaward;—it was squarely built and surmounted with a tower, wherein one light burned fitfully, its pale sparkle seeming to quiver with fear as the wild wind fled past joyously, with a swirl and cry like some huge sea-bird on the wing. It looked a dismal residence at its best, even when the sun was shining,—but at night its aspect was infinitely more dreary. It was an old house, and it enjoyed the reputation of being haunted,—a circumstance which had enabled its present owner to purchase the lease of it for a very moderate sum. He it was who had built the tower, and, whether because of this piece of extravagance or for other unexplained reasons, he had won for himself personally almost as uncanny a reputation as the house had possessed before he occupied it. A man who lived the life of a recluse,—who seemed to have no relations with the outside world at all,—who had only one servant (a young German, whom the shrewder gossips declared was his “keeper”)—who lived on such simple fare as certainly would never have contented a modern Hodge earning twelve shillings a week, and who seemed to purchase nothing but strange astronomical and geometrical instruments,—surely such a queer personage must either be mad, or in league with some evil “secret society,”—the more especially that he had had that tower erected, into which, after it was finished, no one but himself ever entered, so far as the people of the neighbourhood could tell. Under all these suspicious circumstances, it was natural he should be avoided; and avoided he was by the good folk of Ilfracombe, in that pleasantly diverting fashion which causes provincial respectability to shudder away from the merest suggestion of superior intelligence.
And yet poor old Dr. Kremlin was a being not altogether to be despised. His appearance was perhaps against him inasmuch as his clothes were shabby, and his eyes rather wild,—but the expression of his meagre face was kind and gentle, and a perpetual compassion for everything and everybody seemed to vibrate in his voice and reflect itself in his melancholy smile. He was deeply occupied—so he told a few friends in Russia, where he was born—in serious scientific investigations,—but the “friends,” deeming him mad, held aloof till those investigations should become results. If the results proved disappointing, there would be no need to notice him any more,—if successful, why then, by a mystic process known only to themselves, the “friends” would so increase and multiply that he would be quite inconveniently surrounded by them. In the meantime, nobody wrote to him, or came to see him, except El-Râmi; and it was El-Râmi now, who, towards ten o’clock in the evening, knocked at the door of his lonely habitation and was at once admitted with every sign of deference and pleasure by the servant Karl.
“I’m glad you’ve come, sir,”—said this individual cheerfully,—“The Herr Doctor has not been out all day, and he eats less than ever. It will do him good to see you.”
“He is in the tower as usual, at work?” inquired El-Râmi, throwing off his coat.
Karl assented, with rather a doleful look,—and, opening the door of a small dining-room, showed the supper-table laid for two.
El-Râmi smiled.
“It’s no good, Karl!” he said kindly—“It’s very well meant on your part, but it’s no good at all. You will never persuade your master to eat at this time of night, or me either. Clear all these things away,—and make your mind easy,—go to bed and sleep. To-morrow morning prepare as excellent a breakfast as you please—I promise you we’ll do justice to it! Don’t look so discontented—don’t you know that over-feeding kills the working capacity?”
“And over-starving kills the man,—working capacity and all”—responded Karl lugubriously—“However, I suppose you know best, sir!”
“In this case I do”—replied El-Râmi—“Your master expects me?”
Karl nodded,—and El-Râmi, with a brief “good-night,” ascended the staircase rapidly and soon disappeared. A door banged aloft—then all was still. Karl sighed profoundly, and slowly cleared away the useless supper.
“Well! How wise men can bear to starve themselves just for the sake of teaching fools, is more than I shall ever understand!” he said half aloud—“But then I shall never be wise—I am an ass and always was. A good dinner and a glass of good wine have always seemed to me better than all the science going,—there’s a shameful confession of ignorance and brutality together, if you like. ‘Where do you think you will go to when you die, Karl?’ says the poor old Herr Doctor. And what doIsay? I say—‘I don’t know,mein Herr—and I don’t care. This world is good enough for me so long as I live in it.’ ‘But afterwards, Karl,—afterwards?’ he says, with his gray head shaking. And what doIsay? Why, I say—‘I can’t tell,mein Herr! but whoever sent me Here will surely have sense enough to look after me There!’ And he laughs, and his head shakes worse than ever. Ah! Nothing can ever make me clever, and I’m very glad of it!”
He whistled a lively tune softly, as he went to bed in his little side-room off the passage, and wondered again, as he had wondered hundreds of times before, what caused that solemn low humming noise that throbbed so incessantly through the house, and seemed so loud when everything else was still. It was a grave sound,—suggestive of a long-sustained organ-note held by the pedal-bass;—the murmuring of seas and rivers seemed in it, as well as the rush of the wind. Karl had grown accustomed to it, though he did not know what it meant,—and he listened to it, till drowsiness made him fancy it was the hum of his mother’s spinning-wheel, at home in his native German village among the pine-forests, and so he fell happily asleep.
Meanwhile El-Râmi, ascending to the tower, knocked sharply at a small nail-studded door in the wall. The mysterious murmuring noise was now louder than ever,—and the knock had to be repeated three or four times before it was attended to. Then the door was cautiously opened, and the “Herr Doctor” himself looked out, his wizened, aged, meditative face illumined like a Rembrandt picture by the small hand-lamp he held in his hand.
“Ah!—El-Râmi!” he said in slow yet pleased tones—“I thought it might be you. And like ‘Bernardo’—you ‘come most carefully upon your hour.’”
He smiled, as one well satisfied to have made an apt quotation, and opened the door more widely to admit his visitor.
“Come in quickly,”—he said—“The great window is open to the skies, and the wind is high,—I fear some damage from the draught,—come in—come in!”
His voice became suddenly testy and querulous,—and El-Râmi stepped in at once without reply. Dr. Kremlin shut to the door carefully and bolted it—then he turned the light of the lamp he carried full on the dark handsome face and dignified figure of his companion.
“You are looking well—well,”—he muttered,—“Not a shade older—always sound and strong! Just Heavens!—if I had your physique, I think, with Archimedes, that I could lift the world! But I am getting very old,—the life in me is ebbing fast,—and I have not done my work— ... God! ... God! I have not done my work!”
He clenched his hands, and his voice quavered down into a sound that was almost a groan. El-Râmi’s black beaming eyes rested on him compassionately.
“You are worn out, my dear Kremlin,”—he said gently—“worn out and exhausted with long toil. You shall sleep to-night. I have come according to my promise, and I will do what I can for you. Trust me—you shall not lose the reward of your life’s work by want of time. You shall have time,—even leisure to complete your labours,—I will give you ‘length of days’!”
The elder man sank into a chair trembling, and rested his head wearily on one hand.
“You cannot;”—he said faintly—“you cannot stop the advance of death, my friend! You are a very clever man—you have a far-reaching subtlety of brain,—but your learning and wisdom must pausethere—there at the boundary-line of the grave. You cannot overstep it or penetrate beyond it—you cannot slacken the pace of the on-rushing years;—no, no! I shall be forced to depart with half my discovery uncompleted.”
El-Râmi smiled,—a slightly derisive smile.
“You, who have faith in so much that cannot be proved, are singularly incredulous of a fact thatcanbe proved;”—he said—“Anyway, whatever you choose to think, here I am in answer to your rather sudden summons—and here is your saving remedy;—” and he placed a gold-stoppered flask on the table near which they sat—“It is, or might be called, a veritable distilled essence of time,—for it will do what they say God cannot do, make the days spin backward!”
Dr. Kremlin took up the flask curiously.
“You are so positive of its action?”
“Positive. I have kept one human creature alive and in perfect health for six years on that vital fluid alone.”
“Wonderful!—wonderful!”—and the old scientist held it close to the light, where it seemed to flash like a diamond,—then he smiled dubiously—“Am I the new Faust, and you Mephisto?”
“Bah!” and El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders carelessly—“An old nurse’s tale!—yet, like all old nurses’ tales and legends of every sort under the sun, it is not without its grain of truth. As I have often told you, there is really nothing imagined by the human brain that is not possible of realisation, either here or hereafter. It would be a false note and a useless calculation to allow thought to dwell on what cannot be,—hence our airiest visions are bound to become facts in time. All the same, I am not of such superhuman ability that I can make you change your skin like a serpent, and blossom into youth and the common vulgar lusts of life, which to the thinker must be valueless. No. What you hold there will simply renew the tissues, and gradually enrich the blood with fresh globules—nothing more,—but that is all you need. Plainly and practically speaking, as long as the tissues and the blood continue to renew themselves, you cannot die except by violence.”
“Cannot die!” echoed Kremlin, in stupefied wonder—“Cannot die?”
“Except by violence—” repeated El-Râmi with emphasis, “Well!—and what now? There is nothing really astonishing in the statement. Death by violence is the only death possible to any one familiar with the secrets of Nature, and there is more than one lesson to be learned from the old story of Cain and Abel. The first death in the world, according to that legend, was death by violence. Without violence, life should be immortal, or at least renewable at pleasure.”
“Immortal!” muttered Dr. Kremlin—“Immortal! Renewable at pleasure! My God!—then I have time before me—plenty of time!”
“You have, if you care for it—” said El-Râmi with a tinge of melancholy in his accents—“and if you continue to care for it. Few do, nowadays.”
But his companion scarcely heard him. He was balancing the little flask in his hand in wonderment and awe.
“Death by violence?” he repeated slowly. “But, my friend, may not God Himself use violence towards us? May He not snatch the unwilling soul from its earthly tenement at an unexpected moment,—and so, all the scheming and labour and patient calculation of years be ended in one flash of time?”
“God—if there be a God, which some are fain to believe there is,—uses no violence—” replied El-Râmi—“Deaths by violence are due to the ignorance, or brutality, or long-inherited foolhardiness and interference of man alone.”
“What of shipwreck?—storm?—lightning?”—queried Dr. Kremlin, still playing with the flask he held.
“You are not going to sea, are you?” asked El-Râmi smiling—“And surely you, of all men, should know that even shipwrecks are due to a lack of mathematical balance in shipbuilding. One little trifle of exactitude, which is always missing, unfortunately,—one little delicate scientific adjustment, and the fiercest storm and wind could not prevail against the properly poised vessel. As for lightning—of course people are killed by it if they persist in maintaining an erect position like a lightning-rod or conductor, while the electrical currents are in full play. If they were to lie flat down, as savages do, they could not attract the descending force. But who, among arrogant stupid men, cares to adopt such simple precautions? Any way, I do not see that you need fear any of these disasters.”
“No, no,”—said the old man meditatively, “I need not fear,—no, no! I have nothing to fear.”
His voice sank into silence. He and El-Râmi were sitting in a small square chamber of the tower,—very narrow, with only space enough for the one tiny table and two chairs which furnished it,—the walls were covered with very curious maps, composed of lines and curves and zigzag patterns, meaningless to all except Kremlin himself, whose dreamy gaze wandered to them between-whiles with an ardent yearning and anxiety. And ever that strange deep, monotonous humming noise surged through the tower as of a mighty wheel at work, the vibration of the sound seemed almost to shake the solid masonry, while mingling with it now and again came the wild sea-bird cry of the wind. El-Râmi listened.
“And still it moves?” he queried softly, using almost the words of Galileo,—“e pur si muove.”
Dr. Kremlin looked up, his pale eyes full of a sudden fire and animation.
“Ay!—still it moves!” he responded with a touch of eager triumph in his tone—“Still it moves—and still it sounds! The music of the Earth, my friend!—the dominant note of all Nature’s melody! Hear it!—round, full, grand, and perfect!—one tone in the ascending scale of the planets,—the song ofoneStar,—our Star—as it rolls on its predestined way! Come!—come with me!” and he sprang up excitedly—“It is a night for work;—the heavens are clear as a mirror,—come and see my Dial of the Fates,—you have seen it before, I know, but there are new reflexes upon it now,—new lines of light and colour,—ah, my good El-Râmi, if you could solvemyproblem, you would be soon wiser than you are! Your gift of long life would be almost valueless compared to my proof of what is beyond life——”
“Yes—if the proof could be obtained—” interposed El-Râmi.
“It shall be obtained!” cried Kremlin wildly—“It shall! I will not die till the secret is won! I will wrench it out from the Holy of Holies—I will pluck it from the very thoughts of God!”
He trembled with the violence of his own emotions,—then passing his hand across his forehead, he relapsed into sudden calm, and, smiling gently, said again—
“Come!”
El-Râmi rose at once in obedience to this request,—and the old man preceded him to a high narrow door which looked like a slit in the wall, and which he unbarred and opened with an almost jealous care. A brisk puff of wind blew in their faces through the aperture, but this subsided into mere cool freshness of air as they entered and stood together within the great central chamber of the tower,—a lofty apartment, where the strange work of Kremlin’s life was displayed in all its marvellous complexity,—a work such as no human being had ever attempted before, or would be likely to attempt again.
Thesingular object that at once caught and fixed the eye in fascinated amazement, and something of terror, was a huge disc, suspended between ceiling and floor by an apparently inextricable mesh and tangle of wires. It was made of some smooth glittering substance like crystal, and seemed from its great height and circumference to occupy nearly the whole of the lofty tower-room. It appeared to be lightly poised and balanced on a long steel rod,—a sort of gigantic needle which hung from the very top of the tower. The entire surface of the disc was a subdued blaze of light,—light which fluctuated in waves and lines, and zigzag patterns like a kaleidoscope, as the enormous thing circled round and round, as it did, with a sort of measured motion, and a sustained solemn buzzing sound. Here was the explanation of the mysterious noise that vibrated throughout the house,—it was simply the movement of this round shield-like mass among its wonderful network of rods and wires. Dr. Kremlin called it his “crystal” disc,—but it was utterly unlike ordinary crystal, for it not only shone with a transparent watery clearness, but possessed the scintillating lustre of a fine diamond cut into numerous prisms, so that El-Râmi shaded his eyes from the flash of it as he stood contemplating it in silence. It swirled round and round steadily; facing it, a large casement window, about the size of half the wall, was thrown open to the night, and through this could be seen a myriad sparkling stars. The wind blew in, but not fiercely now, for part of the wrath of the gale was past,—and the wash of the sea on the beach below had exactly the same tone in it as the monotonous hum of the disc as it moved. At one side of the open window a fine telescope mounted on a high stand pointed out towards the heavens,—there were numerous other scientific implements in the room, but it was impossible to take much notice of anything but the disc itself, with its majestic motion and the solemn sound to which it swung. Dr. Kremlin seemed to have almost forgotten El-Râmi’s presence,—going up to the window, he sat down on a low bench in the corner, and folding his arms across his breast gazed at his strange invention with a fixed, wondering, and appealing stare.
“How to unravel the meaning—how to decipher the message!” he muttered—“Sphinx of my brain, tell me, is there no answer? Shall the actual offspring of my thought refuse to clear up the riddle I propound? Nay, is it possible the creature should baffle the creator? See! the lines change again—the vibrations are altered,—the circle is ever the circle, but the reflexes differ,—how can one separate or classify them—how?”
Thus far his half-whispered words were audible,—when El-Râmi came and stood beside him. Then he seemed to suddenly recollect himself, and, looking up, he rose to his feet and spoke in a perfectly calm and collected manner.
“You see”—he said, pointing to the disc with the air of a lecturer illustrating his discourse—“To begin with, there is the fine hair’s-breadth balance of matter which gives perpetual motion. Nothing can stop that movement save the destruction of the whole piece of mechanism. By some such subtly delicate balance as that, the Universe moves,—and nothing can stop it save the destruction of the Universe. Is not that fairly reasoned?”
“Perfectly,” replied El-Râmi, who was listening with profound attention.
“Surely that of itself,—the secret of perpetual motion,—is a great discovery, is it not?” questioned Kremlin eagerly.
El-Râmi hesitated.
“It is,” he said at last. “Forgive me if I paused a moment before replying,—the reason of my doing so was this. You cannot claim to yourself any actual discovery of perpetual motion, because that is Nature’s own particular mystery. Perhaps I do not explain myself with sufficient clearness,—well, what I mean to imply is this—namely, that your wonderful dial there would not revolve as it does if the Earth on which we stand were not also revolving. If we could imagine our planet stopping suddenly in its course, your disc would stop also,—is not that correct?”
“Why, naturally!” assented Kremlin impatiently. “Its movement is mathematically calculated to follow, in a slower degree, but with rhythmical exactitude, the Earth’s own movement, and is so balanced as to be absolutely accurate to the very half-quarter of a hair’s-breadth.”
“Yes,—and there is the chief wonder of your invention,” said El-Râmi quietly. “It is that peculiarly precise calculation of yours that is so marvellous, in that it enables youto follow the course of perpetual motion. With perpetual motion itself you have nothing to do,—you cannot find its why or its when or its how,—it is eternal as Eternity. Things must move,—and we all move with them—your disc included.”
“But the moving things are balanced—so!” said Kremlin, pointing triumphantly to his work—“On one point—one pivot!”
“And that point——?” queried El-Râmi dubiously.
“Is a Central Universe”—responded Kremlin—“where God abides.”
El-Râmi looked at him with dark, dilating, burning eyes.
“Suppose,” he said suddenly—“suppose—for the sake of argument—that this Central Universe, you imagine exists, were but the outer covering or shell of another Central Universe, and so on through innumerable Central Universes for ever and ever and ever, and no point or pivot reachable!”
Kremlin uttered a cry, and clasped his hands with a gesture of terror.
“Stop—stop!” he gasped—“Such an idea is frightful!—horrible! Would you drive me mad?—mad, I tell you? No human brain could steadily contemplate the thought of such pitiless infinity!”
He sank back on the seat and rocked himself to and fro like a person in physical pain, the while he stared at El-Râmi’s majestic figure and dark meditative face as though he saw some demon in a dream. El-Râmi met his gaze with a compassionate glance in his own eyes.
“You are narrow, my friend,”—he observed—“as narrow of outward and onward conception as most scientists are. I grant you the human brain has limits; but the human Soul has none! There is no ‘pitiless infinity’ to the Soul’s aspirations,—it is never contented,—but eternally ambitious, eternally inquiring, eternally young, it is ready to scale heights and depths without end, unconscious of fatigue or satiety. What of a million million Universes? I—even I—can contemplate them without dismay,—the brain may totter and reel at the multiplicity of them,—but theSoulwould absorb them all and yet seek space for more!”
His rich, deep, tranquil voice had the effect of calming Kremlin’s excited nerves. He paused in his uneasy rocking to and fro, and listened as though he heard music.
“You are a bold man, El-Râmi,” he said slowly—“I have always said it,—bold even to rashness. Yet with all your large ideas I find you inconsistent; for example, you talk of the Soul now, as if you believed in it,—but there are times when you declare yourself doubtful of its existence.”
“It is necessary to split hairs of argument with you, I see”—returned El-Râmi with a slight smile,—“Can you not understand that I maybelievein the Soul without being sure of it? It is the natural instinct of every man to credit himself with immortality, because this life is so short and unsatisfactory,—the notion may be a fault of heritage perhaps, still it is implanted in us all the same. And I do believe in the Soul,—but I require certainty to make my mere belief an undeniable fact. And the whole business of my life is to establish that fact provably, and beyond any sort of doubt whatever,—what inconsistency do you find there?”
“None—none—” said Kremlin hastily—“But you will not succeed,—yours is too daring an attempt,—too arrogant and audacious a demand upon the unknown forces.”
“And what of the daring and arrogance displayed here?” asked El-Râmi, with a wave of his hand towards the glittering disc in front of them.
Kremlin jumped up excitedly.
“No, no!—you cannot call the mere scientific investigation of natural objects arrogant,” he said—“Besides, the whole thing is so very simple after all. It is well known that every star in the heavens sends forth perpetual radiations of light; which radiations in a given number of minutes, days, months, or years, reach our Earth. It depends of course on the distance between the particular star and our planet, as to how long these light-vibrations take to arrive here. One ray from some stars will occupy thousands of years in its course,—in fact, the original planet from which it fell may be swept out of existence before it has time to penetrate our atmosphere. All this is in the lesson-books of children, and is familiar to every beginner in the rudiments of astronomy. But apart from time and distance, there isno cessationto these light-beats or vibrations; they keep on arriving for ever, without an instant’s pause. Now my great idea was, as you know, to catch these reflexes on a mirror or dial of magnetic spar,—and you see for yourself that this thing, which seemed impossible, is to a certain extent done. Magnetic spar is not a new substance to you, any more than it was to the Egyptian priests of old—and the quality it has, of attracting light in its exact lines wherever light falls, is no surprise to you, though it might seem a marvel to the ignorant. Every little zigzag or circular flash on that disc is a vibration of light from some star,—but what puzzles and confounds my skill is this;—That there is a meaning in those lines—a distinct meaning which asks to be interpreted,—a picture which is ever on the point of declaring itself, and is never declared. Mine is the torture of a Tantalus watching night after night that mystic dial!”
He went close up to the disc, and pointed out one particular spot on its surface where at that moment there was a glittering tangle of little prismatic tints.
“Observe this with me—” he said, and El-Râmi approached him—“Here is a perfect cluster of light-vibrations,—in two minutes by my watch they will be here no longer,—and a year or more may pass before they appear again. From what stars they fall, and why they have deeper colours than most of the reflexes, I cannot tell. There—see!” and he looked round with an air of melancholy triumph, mingled with wonder, as the little spot of brilliant colour suddenly disappeared like the moisture of breath from a mirror—“They are gone! I have seen them four times only since the disc was balanced twelve years ago,—and I have tried in every way to trace their origin—in vain—all, all in vain! If I could only decipher the meaning!—for as sure as God lives there is a meaning there.”
El-Râmi was silent, and Dr. Kremlin went on.
“The air is a conveyer of Sound—” he said meditatively—“The light is a conveyer of Scenes. Mark that well. The light may be said to create landscape and generate Colour. Reflexes of light make pictures,—witness the instantaneous flash, which, with the aid of chemistry, will give you a photograph in a second. I firmly believe that all reflexes of light are so many letters of a marvellous alphabet, which, if we could only read it, would enable us to grasp the highest secrets of creation. The seven tones of music, for example, are in Nature;—in any ordinary storm, where there is wind and rain and the rustle of leaves, you can hear the complete scale on which every atom of musical composition has ever been written. Yet what ages it took us to reduce that scale to a visible tangible form,—and even now we have not mastered thequarter-tonesheard in the songs of birds. And just as the whole realm of music is in seven tones of natural Sound, so the whole realm of light is in a pictured language of Design, Colour, and Method, with an intention and a message, whichwe—we human beings—are intended to discover. Yet, with all these great mysteries waiting to be solved, the most of us are content to eat and drink and sleep and breed and die, like the lowest cattle, in brutish ignorance of more than half our intellectual privileges. I tell you, El-Râmi, if I could only find out and place correctlyoneof those light-vibrations, the rest might be easy.”
He heaved a profound sigh,—and the great disc, circling steadily with its grave monotonous hum, might have passed for the wheel of Fate which he, poor mortal, was powerless to stop though it should grind him to atoms.
El-Râmi watched him with interest and something of compassion for a minute or two,—then he touched his arm gently.
“Kremlin, is it not time for you to rest?” he asked kindly—“You have not slept well for many nights,—you are tired out,—why not sleep now, and gather strength for future labours?”
The old man started, and a slight shiver ran through him.
“You mean——?” he began.
“I mean to do for you what I promised—” replied El-Râmi, “You asked me for this—” and he held up the gold-stoppered flask he had brought in with him from the next room—“It is all ready prepared for you—drink it, and to-morrow you will find yourself a new man.”
Dr. Kremlin looked at him suspiciously—and then began to laugh with a sort of hysterical nervousness.
“I believe—” he murmured indistinctly and with affected jocularity—“I believe that you want to poison me! Yes—yes!—to poison me and take all my discoveries for yourself! You want to solve the great Star-problem and take all the glory and rob me—yes, rob me of my hard-earned fame!—yes—it is poison—poison!”
And he chuckled feebly, and hid his face between his hands.
El-Râmi heard him with an expression of pain and pity in his fine eyes.
“My poor old friend—” he said gently—“You are wearied to death—so I pardon you your sudden distrust of me. As for poison—see!” and he lifted the flask he held to his lips and drank a few drops—“Have no fear! Your Star-problem is your own,—and I desire that you should live long enough to read its great mystery. As for me, I have other labours;—to me stars, solar systems, ay! whole universes are nothing,—my business is with the Spirit that dominates Matter—not with Matter itself. Enough;—will you live or will you die? It rests with yourself to choose—for you are ill, Kremlin—very ill,—your brain is fagged and weak—you cannot go on much longer like this. Why did you send for me if you do not believe in me?”
The old Doctor tottered to the window-bench and sat down,—then looking up, he forced a smile.
“Don’t you see for yourself what a coward I have become?” he said—“I tell you I am afraid of everything;—of you—of myself—and worst of all, ofthat—” and he pointed to the disc—“which lately seems to have grown stronger than I am.” He paused a moment—then went on with an effort—“I had a strange idea the other night,—I thought, suppose God, in the beginning, created the universe simply to divert Himself—just as I created my dial there;—and suppose it had happened that instead of being His servant, as He originally intended, it had become His master?—that He actually had no more power over it? Suppose He weredead? We see that the works of men live ages after their death,—why not the works of God? Horrible—horrible! Death is horrible! I do not want to die, El-Râmi!” and his faint voice rose to a querulous wail, “Not yet—not yet! I cannot!—I must finish my work—I must know—I must live——”
“You shall live,” interrupted El-Râmi. “Trust me—there is no death inthis!”
He held up the mysterious flask again. Kremlin stared at it, shaking all over with nervousness—then on a sudden impulse clutched it.
“Am I to drink it all?” he asked faintly.
El-Râmi bent his head in assent.
Kremlin hesitated a moment longer—then, with the air of one who takes a sudden desperate resolve, he gave one eager yearning look at the huge revolving disc, and, putting the flask to his lips, drained its contents. He had scarcely swallowed the last drop, when he sprang to his feet, uttered a smothered cry, staggered, and fell on the floor motionless. El-Râmi caught him up at once, and lifted him easily in his strong arms on to the window-seat, where he laid him down gently, placing coverings over him and a pillow under his head. The old man’s face was white and rigid as the face of a corpse, but he breathed easily and quietly, and El-Râmi, knowing the action of the draught he had administered, saw there was no cause for anxiety in his condition. He himself leaned on the sill of the great open window and looked out at the starlit sky for some minutes, and listened to the sonorous plashing of the waves on the shore below. Now and then he glanced back over his shoulder at the great dial and its shining star-patterns.
“Only Lilith could decipher the meaning of it all,” he mused. “Perhaps,—some day—it might be possible to ask her. But then, do I in truth believe what she tells me?—wouldhebelieve? The transcendentally uplifted soul of a woman!—ought we to credit the message obtained through so ethereal a means? I doubt it. We men are composed of such stuff that we must convince ourselves of a fact by every known test before we finally accept it,—like St. Thomas, unless we put our rough hand into the wounded side of Christ, and thrust our fingers into the nail-prints, we will not believe. And I shall never resolve myself as to which is the wisest course,—to accept everything with the faith of a child, or dispute everything with the arguments of a controversialist. The child is happiest; but then the question arises—Were we meant to be happy? I think not,—since there is nothing that can make us so for long.”
His brow clouded and he stood absorbed, looking at the stars, yet scarcely conscious of beholding them. Happiness! It had a sweet sound,—an exquisite suggestion; and his thoughts clung round it persistently as bees round honey. Happiness!—What could engender it? The answer came unbidden to his brain—“Love!” He gave an involuntary gesture of irritation, as though some one had spoken the word in his ear.
“Love!” he exclaimed half aloud. “There is no such thing—not on earth. There is Desire,—the animal attraction of one body for another, which ends in disgust and satiety. Love should have no touch of coarseness in it,—and can anything be coarser than the marriage-tie?—the bond which compels a man and woman to live together in daily partnership of bed and board, and reproduce their kind like pigs, or other common cattle. To call thatloveis a sacrilege to the very name,—for Love is a divine emotion, and demands divinest comprehension.”
He went up to where Kremlin lay reclined,—the old man slept profoundly and peacefully,—his face had gained colour and seemed less pinched and meagre in outline. El-Râmi felt his pulse,—it beat regularly and calmly. Satisfied with his examination, he wheeled away the great telescope into a corner, and shut the window against the night air,—then he lay down himself on the floor, with his coat rolled under him for a pillow, and composed himself to sleep till morning.
Thenext day dawned in brilliant sunshine; the sea was as smooth as a lake, and the air pleasantly warm and still. Dr. Kremlin’s servant Karl got up in a very excellent humour,—he had slept well, and he awoke with the comfortable certainty of finding his eccentric master in better health and spirits, as this was always the case after one of El-Râmi’s rare visits. And Karl, though he did not much appreciate learning, especially when the pursuit of it induced people, as he said, to starve themselves for the sake of acquiring wisdom, did feel in his own heart that there was something about El-Râmi that was not precisely like other men, and he had accordingly for him not only a great attraction, but a profound respect.
“If anybody can do the Herr Doctor good, he can—” he thought, as he laid the breakfast-table in the little dining-room whose French windows opened out to a tiny green lawn fronting the sea,—“Certainly one can never cure old age,—that is an ailment for which there is no remedy; but however old we are bound to get, I don’t see why we should not be merry over it and enjoy our meals to the last. Now let me see—what have I to get ready—” and he enumerated on his fingers—“Coffee—toast—rolls,—butter—eggs—fish,—I think that will do;—and if I just put these few roses in the middle of the table to tempt the eye a bit,”—and he suited the action to the word—“There now!—if the Herr Doctor can be pleased at all——”
“Breakfast, Karl! breakfast!” interrupted a clear cheerful voice, the sound of which made Karl start with nervous astonishment. “Make haste, my good fellow! My friend here has to catch an early train.”
Karl turned round, stared, and stood motionless, open-mouthed, and struck dumb with sheer surprise. Could it be the old Doctor who spoke? Was it his master at all,—this hale, upright, fresh-faced individual who stood before him, smiling pleasantly and giving his orders with such a brisk air of authority? Bewildered and half afraid, he cast a desperate glance at El-Râmi, who had also entered the room, and who, seeing his confusion, made him a secret sign.
“Yes—be as quick as you can, Karl,” he said. “Your master has had a good night, and is much better, as you see. We shall be glad of our breakfast; I told you we should, last night. Don’t keep us waiting!”
“Yes, sir—no, sir!” stammered Karl, trying to collect his scattered senses and staring again at Dr. Kremlin,—then, scarcely knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, he scrambled out of the room into the passage, where he stood for a minute stupefied and inert.
“It must be devils’ work!” he ejaculated amazedly. “Who but the devil could make a man look twenty years younger in a single night? Yes—twenty years younger,—he looks that if he looks a day. God have mercy on us!—what will happen next—what sort of a service have I got into?—Oh, my poor mother!”
This last was Karl’s supremest adjuration,—when he could find nothing else to say, the phrase “Oh, my poor mother!” came as naturally to his lips as the familiar “D——n it!” from the mouth of an old swaggerer in the army or navy. He meant nothing by it, except perhaps a vague allusion to the innocent days of his childhood, when he was ignorant of the wicked ways of the wicked world, and when “Oh, my poor mother!” had not the most distant idea as to what was going to become of her hopeful first-born.
Meantime, while he went down into the kitchen and bustled about there, getting the coffee, frying the fish, boiling the eggs, and cogitating with his own surprised and half-terrified self, Dr. Kremlin and his guest had stepped out into the little garden together, and they now stood there on the grass-plot surveying the glittering wide expanse of ocean before them. They spoke not a word for some minutes,—then, all at once, Kremlin turned round and caught both El-Râmi’s hands in his own and pressed them fervently—there were tears in his eyes.
“What can I say to you?” he murmured in a voice broken by strong emotion—“How can I thank you? You have been as a god to me;—I live again,—I breathe again,—this morning the world seems new to my eyes,—as new as though I had never seen it before. I have left a whole cycle of years, with all their suffering and bitterness, behind me, and I am ready now to commence life afresh.”
“That is well!” said El-Râmi gently, cordially returning the pressure of his hands. “That is as it should be. To see your strength and vitality thus renewed is more than enough reward for me.”
“And do I reallylookyounger?—am I actually changed in appearance?” asked Kremlin eagerly.
El-Râmi smiled. “Well, you saw poor Karl’s amazement”—he replied. “He was afraid of you, I think—and also of me. Yes, you are changed, though not miraculously so. Your hair is as gray as ever,—the same furrows of thought are on your face;—all that has occurred is the simple renewal of the tissues, and revivifying of the blood,—and this gives you the look of vigour and heartiness you have this morning.”
“But will it last?—will it last?” queried Kremlin anxiously.
“If you follow my instructions, of course it will—” returned El-Râmi—“I will see to that. I have left with you a certain quantity of the vital fluid,—all you have to do is to take ten drops every third night, or inject it into your veins if you prefer that method;—then,—as I told you,—you cannot die, except by violence.”
“And no violence comes here”—said Kremlin with a smile, glancing round at the barren yet picturesque scene—“I am as lonely as an unmated eagle on a rock,—and the greater my solitude the happier I am. The world is very beautiful—that I grant,—but the beings that inhabit it spoil it for me, albeit I am one of them. And so I cannot die, except by violence? Almost I touch immortality! Marvellous El-Râmi! You should be a king of nations!”
“Too low a destiny!” replied El-Râmi—“I’d rather be a ruler of planets.”
“Ah, there is your stumbling-block!” said Kremlin, with sudden seriousness,—“You soar too high—you are never contented.”
“Content is impossible to the Soul”—returned El-Râmi,—“Nothing is too high or too low for its investigation. And whatevercanbe done,shouldbe done, in order that the whole gamut of life may be properly understood by those who are forced to live it.”
“And do not you understand it?”
“In part—yes. But not wholly. It is not sufficient to have traced the ripple of a brain-wave through the air and followed its action and result with exactitude,—nor is it entirely satisfactory to have all the secrets of physical and mental magnetism, and attraction between bodies and minds, made clear and easy without knowing thereasonof these things. It is like the light vibrations on your disc,—they come—and go; but one needs to know why and whence they come and go. I know much—but I would fain know more.”
“But is not the pursuit of knowledge infinite?”
“It may be—ifinfinity exists. Infinity is possible—and I believe in it,—all the same I must prove it.”
“You will need a thousand lifetimes to fulfil such works as you attempt!” exclaimed Kremlin.
“And I will live them all;”—responded El-Râmi composedly—“I have sworn to let nothing baffle me, and nothing shall!”
Dr. Kremlin looked at him in vague awe,—the dark, haughty, handsome face spoke more resolvedly than words.
“Pardon me, El-Râmi”—he said with a little diffidence—“It seems a very personal question to put, and possibly you may resent it, still I have often thought of asking it. You are a very handsome and very fascinating man—you would be a fool if you were not perfectly aware of your own attractiveness,—well, now tell me—have you never loved anybody?—any woman?”
The sleepy brilliancy of El-Râmi’s fine eyes lightened with sudden laughter.
“Loved a woman?—I?” he exclaimed—“The Fates forbid! What should I do with the gazelles and kittens and toys of life, such as women are? Of all animals on earth, they have the least attraction for me. I would rather stroke a bird’s wings than a woman’s hair, and the fragrance of a rose pressed against my lips is sweeter and more sincere than any woman’s kisses. As the females of the race, women are useful in their way, but not interesting at any time—at least, not to me.”
“Do you not believe in love then?” asked Kremlin.
“No. Do you?”
“Yes,”—and Kremlin’s voice was very tender and impressive—“I believe it is the only thing of God in an almost godless world.”
El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders.
“You talk like a poet. I, who am not poetical, cannot so idealise the physical attraction between male and female, which is nothing but a law of nature, and is shared by us in common with the beasts of the field.”
“I think your wisdom is in error there”—said Kremlin slowly—“Physical attraction there is, no doubt—but there is something else—something more subtle and delicate, which escapes the analysis of both philosopher and scientist. Moreover it is an imperative spiritual sense, as well as a material craving,—the soul can no more be satisfied without love than the body.”
“That is your opinion—” and El-Râmi smiled again,—“But you see a contradiction of it in me.Iam satisfied to be without love,—and certainly I never look upon the ordinary woman of the day without the disagreeable consciousness that I am beholding the living essence of sensualism and folly.”
“You are very bitter,” said Kremlin wonderingly—“Of course no ‘ordinary’ woman could impress you,—but there are remarkable women,—women of power and genius and lofty ambition.”
“Les femmes incomprises—oh yes, I know!” laughed El-Râmi—“Troublesome creatures all, both to themselves and others. Why do you talk on these subjects, my dear Kremlin?—Is it the effect of your rejuvenated condition? I am sure there are many more interesting matters worthy of discussion. I shall never love—not in this planet; in some other state of existence I may experience the ‘divine’ emotion. But the meannesses, vanities, contemptible jealousies, and low spites of women such as inhabit this earth fill me with disgust and repulsion,—besides, women are treacherous,—and I loathe treachery.”
At that moment Karl appeared at the dining-room window as a sign that breakfast was served, and they turned to go indoors.
“All the same, El-Râmi—” persisted Kremlin, laying one hand on his friend’s arm—“Do not count on being able to escape the fate to which all humanity must succumb——”
“Death?” interposed El-Râmi lightly—“I have almost conquered that!”
“Ay, but you cannot conquer Love!” said Kremlin impressively—“Love is stronger than Death.”
El-Râmi made no answer,—and they went in to breakfast. They did full justice to the meal, much to Karl’s satisfaction, though he could not help stealing covert glances at his master’s changed countenance, which had become so much fresher and younger since the previous day. How such a change had been effected he could not imagine, but on the whole he was disposed to be content with the evident improvement.
“Even if he is the devil himself—” he considered, his thoughts reverting to El-Râmi—“I am bound to say that the devil is a kind-hearted fellow. There’s no doubt about that. I suppose I am an abandoned sinner only fit for the burning—but if God insists on making us old and sick and miserable, and the devil is able to make us young and strong and jolly, why let us be friends with the devil, say I! Oh, my poor mother!”
With such curious emotions as these in his mind, it was rather difficult to maintain a composed face, and wait upon the two gentlemen with that grave deportment which it is the duty of every well-trained attendant to assume,—however, he managed fairly well, and got accustomed at last to hand his master a cup of coffee without staring at him till his eyes almost projected out of his head.
El-Râmi took his departure soon after breakfast, with a few recommendations to his friend not to work too hard on the problems suggested by the disc.
“Ah, but I have now found a new clue,” said Kremlin triumphantly—“I found it in sleep. I shall work it out in the course of a few weeks, I daresay—and I will let you know if the result is successful. You see, thanks to you, my friend, I have time now,—there is no need to toil with feverish haste and anxiety—death, that seemed so near, is thrust back in the distance——”
“Even so!” said El-Râmi with a strange smile—“In the far, far distance,—baffled and kept at bay. Oddly enough, there are some who say there is no death——”
“But there is—there must be!—” exclaimed Kremlin quickly.
El-Râmi raised his hand with a slight commanding gesture.
“It is not a certainty—” he said—“inasmuch as there isnocertainty. And there is no ‘Must-be,’—there is only the Soul’s ‘Shall-be’!”
And with these somewhat enigmatical words he bade his friend farewell, and went his way.
Itwas yet early in the afternoon when he arrived back in London. He went straight home to his own house, letting himself in as usual with his latch-key. In the hall he paused, listening. He half expected to hear Féraz playing one of his delicious dreamy improvisations,—but there was not a sound anywhere, and the deep silence touched him with an odd sense of disappointment and vague foreboding. His study door stood slightly ajar,—he pushed it wider open very noiselessly and looked in. His young brother was there, seated in a chair near the window, reading. El-Râmi gazed at him dubiously, with a slowly dawning sense that there was some alteration in his appearance which he could not all at once comprehend. Presently he realised that Féraz had evidently yielded to some overwhelming suggestion of personal vanity, which had induced him to put on more brilliant attire. He had changed his plain white linen garb for one of richer material, composed in the same Eastern fashion,—he wore a finely-chased gold belt, from which a gold-sheathed dagger depended,—and a few gold ornaments gleamed here and there among the drawn silken folds of his upper vest. He looked handsome enough for a new Agathon as he sat there apparently absorbed in study,—the big volume he perused resting partly on his knee,—but El-Râmi’s brow contracted with sudden anger as he observed him from the half-open doorway where he stood, himself unseen,—and his dark face grew very pale. He threw the door back on its hinges with a clattering sound and entered the room.
“Féraz!”
Féraz looked up, lifting his eyelids indifferently and smiling coldly.
“What, El-Râmi! Back so early? I did not expect you till nightfall.”
“Did you not?” said his brother, advancing slowly—“Pray how was that? You know I generally return after a night’s absence early in the next day. Where is your usual word of welcome? What ails you? You seem in a very odd humour!”
“Do I?”—and Féraz stretched himself a little,—rose, yawning, and laid down the volume he held on the table—“I am not aware of it myself, I assure you. How did you find your old madman? And did you tell him you were nearly as mad as he?”
El-Râmi’s eyes flashed indignant amazement and wrath.
“Féraz!—What do you mean?”
With a fierce impulsive movement Féraz turned and fully faced him,—all his forced and feigned calmness gone to the winds,—a glowing picture of youth and beauty and rage commingled.
“What do I mean?” he cried—“I mean this! That I am tired of being your slave—your ‘subject’ for conjurer’s tricks of mesmerism,—that from henceforth I resist your power,—that I will not serve you—will not obey you—will not yield—no!—not an inch of my liberty—to your influence,—that I am a free man, as you are, and that I will have the full rights of both my freedom and manhood. You shall play no more with me; I refuse to be your dupe as I have been. This is what I mean!—and as I will have no deception or subterfuge between us,—for I scorn a lie,—hear the truth from me at once;—I know your secret—I have seen Her!”
El-Râmi stood erect,—immovable;—he was very pale; his breath came and went quickly—once his hand clenched, but he said nothing.
“I have seen Her!” cried Féraz again, flinging up his arms with an ecstatic wild gesture—“A creature fairer than any vision!—and you—you have the heart to bind her fast in darkness and in nothingness,—you it is who have shut her sight to the world,—you have made for her, through your horrible skill, a living death in which she knows nothing, feels nothing, sees nothing, loves nothing! I tell you it is a cursed deed you are doing,—a deed worse than murder—I would not have believed it of you! I thought your experiments were all for good,—I never would have deemed you capable of cruelty to a helpless woman! But I will release her from your spells,—she is too beautiful to be made her own living monument,—Zaroba is right—she needs life—joy—love!—she shall have them all;—throughme!”
He paused, out of breath with the heat and violence of his own emotions;—El-Râmi stood, still immovably regarding him.
“You may be as angered as you please”—went on Féraz with sullen passion—“I care nothing now. It was Zaroba who bade me go up yonder and see her where she slept; ... it was Zaroba——”
“‘The woman tempted me and I did eat—’” quoted El-Râmi coldly,—“Of course it was Zaroba. No other than a woman could thus break a sworn word. Naturally it was Zaroba,—the paid and kept slave of my service, who owes to me her very existence,—who persuaded my brother to dishonour.”
“Dishonour!” and Féraz laid his hand with a quick, almost savage gesture on the hilt of the dagger at his belt. El-Râmi’s dark eyes blazed upon him scornfully.
“So soon a braggart of the knife?” he said. “What theatrical show is this? You—you—the poet, the dreamer, the musician—the gentle lad whose life was one of peaceful and innocent reverie—are you so soon changed to the mere swaggering puppy of manhood who pranks himself out in gaudy clothing, and thinks by vulgar threatening to overawe his betters? If so, ’tis a pity—but I shall not waste time in deploring it. Hear me, Féraz—I said ‘dishonour,’—swallow the word as best you may, it is the only one that fits the act of prying into secrets not your own. But I am not angered,—the mischief wrought is not beyond remedy, and if it were there would be still less use in bewailing it. What is done cannot be undone. Now tell me,—you say you have seen Her.Whomhave you seen?”
Féraz regarded him amazedly.
“Whom have I seen?” he echoed—“Whom should I see, if not the girl you keep locked in those upper rooms,—a beautiful maiden, sleeping her life away, in cruel darkness and ignorance of all things true and fair!”
“An enchanted princess, to your fancy—” said El-Râmi derisively. “Well, if you thought so, and if you believed yourself to be a new sort of Prince Charming, why, if she were only sleeping, did you not wake her?”
“Wake her?” exclaimed Féraz excitedly.—“Oh, I would have given my life to see those fringed lids uplift and show the wonders of the eyes beneath! I called her by every endearing name—I took her hands and warmed them in my own—I would have kissed her lips——”
“You dared not!” cried El-Râmi, fired beyond his own control, and making a fierce bound towards him—“You dared not pollute her by your touch!”
Féraz recoiled,—a sudden chill ran through his blood. His brother was transformed with the passion that surged through him,—his eyes flashed—his lips quivered—his very form seemed to tower up and tremble and dilate with rage.
“El-Râmi!” he stammered nervously, feeling all his newly-born defiance and bravado oozing away under the terrible magnetism of this man, whose fury was nearly as electric as that of a sudden thunderstorm,—“El-Râmi, I did no harm,—Zaroba was there beside me——”
“Zaroba!” echoed El-Râmi furiously—“Zaroba would stand by and see an angel violated, and think it the greatest happiness that could befall her sanctity! To be of common clay, with household joys and kitchen griefs, is Zaroba’s idea of noble living. Oh rash unhappy Féraz! you say you know my secret—you do not know it—you cannot guess it! Foolish, ignorant boy!—did you think yourself a new Christ with power to raise the Dead?”
“The dead?” muttered Féraz, with white lips—“The dead? She—the girl I saw—lives and breathes ...”
“Bymywill alone!” said El-Râmi—“By my force—by my knowledge—by my constant watchful care,—by my control over the subtle threads that connect Spirit with Matter. Otherwise, according to all the laws of ordinary nature, that girl isdead—she died in the Syrian desert six years ago!”
Atthese words, pronounced slowly and with emphatic distinctness, Féraz staggered back dizzily and sank into a chair,—drops of perspiration bedewed his forehead, and a sick faint feeling overcame him. He said nothing,—he could find no words in which to express his mingled horror and amazement. El-Râmi watched him keenly,—and presently Féraz, looking up, caught the calm, full, and fiery regard of his brother’s eyes. With a smothered cry, he raised his hands as though to shield himself from a blow.
“I will not have it;”—he muttered faintly—“You shall not force my thoughts,—I will believe nothing against my own will. You shall no longer delude my eyes and ears—I have read—I know,—I know how such trickery is done!”
El-Râmi uttered an impatient exclamation, and paced once or twice up and down the room.
“See here, Féraz;”—he said, suddenly stopping before the chair in which his brother sat,—“I swear to you that I am not exercising one iota of my influence upon you. When I do, I will tell you that you may be prepared to resist me if you choose. I am using no power of any kind upon you—be satisfied of that. But, as you have forced your way into the difficult labyrinth of my life’s work, it is as well that you should have an explanation of what seems to you full of mysterious evil and black magic. You accuse me of wickedness,—you tell me I am guilty of a deed worse than murder. Now this is mere rant and nonsense,—you speak in such utter ignorance of the facts that I forgive you, as one is bound to forgive all faults committed through sheer want of instruction. I do not think I am a wicked man”—he paused, with an earnest, almost pathetic expression on his face—“at least I strive not to be. I am ambitious and sceptical—and I am not altogether convinced of there being any real intention of ultimate good in the arrangements of this world as they at present exist,—but I work without any malicious intention; and without undue boasting I believe I am as honest and conscientious as the best of my kind. But that is neither here nor there,—as I said before, you have broken into a secret not intended for your knowledge—and, that you may not misunderstand me yet more thoroughly than you seem to do, I will tell you what I never wished to bother your brains with. For you have been very happy till now, Féraz—happy in the beautiful simplicity of the life you led—the life of a poet and dreamer,—the happiest life in the world!”
He broke off, with a short sigh of mingled vexation and regret—then he seated himself immediately opposite his brother and went on—
“You were too young to understand the loss it was to us both when our parents died,—or to know the immense reputation our father Nadir Zarânos had won throughout the East for his marvellous skill in natural science and medicine. He died in the prime of his life,—our mother followed him within a month,—and you were left to my charge,—you a child then, and I almost a man. Our father’s small but rare library came into my possession, together with his own manuscripts treating of the scientific and spiritual organisation of Nature in all its branches,—and these opened such extraordinary vistas of possibility to me, as to what might be done if such and such theories could be practically carried out and acted upon, that I became fired with the ardour of discovery. The more I studied, the more convinced and eager I became in the pursuit of such knowledge as is generally deemed supernatural, and beyond the reach of all human inquiry. One or two delicate experiments in chemistry of a rare and subtle nature were entirely successful,—and by and by I began to look about for a subject on whom I could practise the power I had attained. There was no one whom I could personally watch and surround with my hourly influence except yourself,—therefore I made my first great trial uponyou.”
Féraz moved uneasily in his chair,—his face wore a doubtful, half-sullen expression, but he listened to El-Râmi’s every word with vivid and almost painful interest.
“At that time you were a mere boy—” pursued El-Râmi—“but strong and vigorous, and full of the mischievous pranks and sports customary to healthy boyhood. I began by slow degrees to educate you—not with the aid of schools or tutors—but simply by my Will. You had a singularly unretentive brain,—you were never fond of music—you would never read,—you had no taste for study. Your delight was to ride—to swim like a fish,—to handle a gun—to race, to leap,—to play practical jokes on other boys of your own age and fight them if they resented it;—all very amusing performances no doubt, but totally devoid of intelligence. Judging you dispassionately, I found that you were a very charming gamesome animal,—physically perfect—with a Mind somewhere if one could only discover it, and a Soul or Spirit behind the Mind—if one could only discover that also. I set myself the task of finding out both these hidden portions of your composition—and of not only finding them, but moulding and influencing them according to my desire and plan.”
A faint tremor shook the younger man’s frame—but he said nothing.
“You are attending to me closely, I hope?” said El-Râmi pointedly—“because you must distinctly understand that this conversation is the first and last we shall have on the matter. After to-day, the subject must drop between us for ever, and I shall refuse to answer any more questions. You hear?”
Féraz bent his head.
“I hear—” he answered with an effort—“And what I hear seems strange and terrible!”
“Strange and terrible?” echoed El-Râmi. “How so? What is there strange or terrible in the pursuit of Wisdom? Yet—perhaps you are right, and the blank ignorance of a young child is best,—for thereissomething appalling in the infinitude of knowledge—an infinitude which must remain infinite, if it be true that there is a God who is for ever thinking, and whose thoughts become realities.”
He paused, with a rapt look,—then resumed in the same even tone,—
“When I had made up my mind to experimentalise upon you, I lost no time in commencing my work. One of my chief desires was to avoid the least risk of endangering your health—your physical condition was admirable, and I resolved to keep it so. In this I succeeded. I made life a joy to you—the mere act of breathing a pleasure—you grew up before my eyes like the vigorous sapling of an oak that rejoices in the mere expansion of its leaves to the fresh air. The other and more subtle task was harder,—it needed all my patience—all my skill,—but I was at last rewarded. Through my concentrated influence, which surrounded you as with an atmosphere in which you moved, and slept, and woke again, and which forced every fibre of your brain to respond to mine, the animal faculties, which were strongest in you, became subdued and tamed,—and the mental slowly asserted themselves. I resolved you should be a poet and musician—you became both; you developed an ardent love of study, and every few months that passed gave richer promise of your ripening intelligence. Moreover, you were happy,—happy in everything—happiest perhaps in your music, which became your leading passion. Having thus, unconsciously to yourself, fostered your mind by the silent workings of my own, and trained it to grow up like a dower to the light, I thought I might make my next attempt, which was to probe for that subtle essence we call the Soul—the large wings that are hidden in the moth’s chrysalis;—and influence that too;—but there—there, by some inexplicable opposition of forces, I was baffled.”