IDOLATRY:

_A ROMANCE_. 

by

JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 

BOSTON:JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO. 1874. 

University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co. , Cambridge. 

CONTENTS

Dedication

I. The Enchanted Ring

II. Out of Egypt

III. A May Morning

IV. A Brahman

V. A New Man with an old Face

VI. The Vagaries of Helwyse

VII. A Quarrel

VIII. A Collision Imminent

IX. The Voice of Darkness

X. Helwyse Resists the Devil

XI. A Dead Weight

XII. More Vagaries

XIII. Through a Glass

XIV. The Tower of Babel

XV. Charon's Ferry

XVI. Legend and Chronicle

XVII. Face to Face

XVIII. The Hoopoe and the Crocodile

XIX. Before Sundown

XX. Between Waking and Sleeping

XXI. We Pick Up Another Thread

XXII. Heart and Head

XXIII. Balder Tells an Untruth

XXIV. Uncle Hiero at Last

XXV. The Happiness of Man

XXVI. Music and Madness

XXVII. Peace and Good-will

XXVIII. Betrothal

XXIX. A Chamber of the Heart

XXX. Dandelions

XXXI. Married

XXXII. Shut In

XXXIII. The Black Cloud

DEDICATION

To ROBERT CARTER, ESQ. 

Not the intrinsic merits of this story embolden me to inscribe it toyou, my dear friend, but the fact that you, more than any other man, are responsible for its writing. Your advice and encouragement firstled me to book-making; so it is only fair that you should partake ofwhatever obloquy (or honor) the practice may bring upon me. 

The ensuing pages may incline you to suspect their author of arepugnance to unvarnished truth; but, --without prejudice toOthello, --since varnish brings out in wood veins of beauty invisiblebefore the application, why not also in the sober facts of life? Whenthe transparent artifice has been penetrated, the familiar substanceunderneath will be greeted none the less kindly; nay, the observerwill perhaps regard the disguise as an oblique compliment to hispowers of insight, and his attention may thus be better secured thanhad the subject worn its every-day dress. Seriously, the mostmatter-of-fact life has moods when the light of romance seems to gildits earthen chimney-pots into fairy minarets; and, were thestory-teller but sure of laying his hands upon the true gold, perhapsthe more his story had of it, the better. 

Here, however, comes in the grand difficulty; fact nor fancy is oftenreproduced in true colors; and while attempting justly to combinelife's elements, the writer has to beware that they be not mere cheapimitations thereof. Not seldom does it happen that what he proffers asgenuine arcana of imagination and philosophy affects the reader as adose of Hieroglyphics and Balderdash. Nevertheless, the first duty ofthe fiction-monger--no less than of the photographic artist doomed toproduce successful portraits of children-in-arms--is, to be amusing;to shrink at no shifts which shall beguile the patient intoprocrastinating escape until the moment be gone by. The gentle readerwill not too sternly set his face against such artifices, but, so theygo not the length of fantastically presenting phenomena inexplicableupon any common-sense hypothesis, he will rather lend himself to hisown beguilement. The performance once over, let him, if so inclined, strip the feathers from the flights of imagination, and wash the colorfrom the incidents; if aught save the driest and most ordinary mattersof fact reward his researches, then let him be offended!

_De te fabula_ does not apply here, my dear friend; for you will showme more indulgence than I have skill to demand. And should you findmatter of interest in this book, yours, rather than the author's, willbe the merit. As the beauty of nature is from the eye that looks uponher, so would the story be dull and barren, save for the life andcolor of the reader's sympathy. 

Yours most sincerely, JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 

IDOLATRY

I. 

THE ENCHANTED RING. 

One of the most imposing buildings in Boston twenty years ago was agranite hotel, whose western windows looked upon a graveyard. Passingup a flight of steps, and beneath a portico of dignified granitecolumns, and so through an embarrassing pair of swinging-doors to theroomy vestibule, --you would there pause a moment to spit upon theblack-and-white tessellated pavement. Having thus asserted your titleto Puritan ancestry, and to the best accommodations the houseafforded, you would approach the desk and write your name in the hotelregister. This done, you would be apt to run your eye over the lastdozen arrivals, on the chance of lighting upon the autograph of someacquaintance, to be shunned or sought according to circumstances. 

Let us suppose, for the story's sake, that such was the gentlereader's behavior on a certain night during the latter part of May, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-three. If now he will turn tothe ninety-ninth page of the register above mentioned, he will remarkthat the last name thereon written is, "Doctor Hiero Glyphic. Room27. " The natural inference is that, unless so odd a name be an assumedone, Doctor Glyphic occupies that room. Passing on to page onehundred, he will find the first entry reads as follows "BalderHelwyse, Cosmopolis. Room 29. "

In no trifling mood do we call attention to these two names, and, above all, to their relative position in the book. Had they bothappeared upon the same page, this romance might never have beenwritten. On such seemingly frail pegs hang consequences the mostweighty. Because Doctor Glyphic preferred the humble foot of theninety-ninth page to the trouble of turning to a leading position onthe one hundredth; because Mr. Helwyse, having begun the one hundredthpage, was too incurious to find out who was his next-door neighbor onthe ninety-ninth, ensued unparalleled adventures, and this account ofthem. 

Our present purpose, by the reader's leave, and in his company, is toviolate Doctor Hiero Glyphic's retirement, as he lies asleep in bed. Nor shall we stop at his bedside; we mean to penetrate deep into thedarksome caves of his memory, and to drag forth thence sundryodd-looking secrets, which shall blink and look strangely in thelight of discovery;--little thought their keeper that our eyes shouldever behold them! Yet will he not resent our, intrusion; it is twentyyears ago, --and he lies asleep. 

Two o'clock sounds from the neighboring steeple of the Old SouthChurch, as we noiselessly enter the chamber, --noiselessly, for thehush of the past is about us. We scarcely distinguish anything atfirst; the moon has set on the other side of the hotel, and perhaps, too, some of the dimness of those twenty intervening years affects oureyesight. By degrees, however, objects begin to define themselves; thebed shows doubtfully white, and that dark blot upon the pillow must bethe face of our sleeping man. It is turned towards the window; themouth is open; probably the good Doctor is snoring, albeit, acrossthis distance of time, the sound fails to reach us. 

The room is as bare, square, and characterless as other hotel rooms;nevertheless, its occupant may have left a hint or two of himselfabout, which would be of use to us. There are no trunks or otherluggage; evidently he will be on his way again to-morrow. The windowis shut, although the night is warm and clear. The door is carefullylocked. The Doctor's garments, which appear to be of rather a jauntyand knowing cut, are lying disorderly about, on chair, table, orfloor. He carries no watch; but under his pillow we see protrudingthe corner of a great leathern pocket-book, which might contain afortune in bank-notes. 

A couple of chairs are drawn up to the bedside, upon one of whichstands a blown-out candle; the other supports an oblong, coffin-shapedbox, narrower at one end than at the other, and painted black. Toosmall for a coffin, however; no human corpse, at least, is containedin it. But the frame that lies so quiet and motionless here, thrills, when awaked to life, with a soul only less marvellous than man's. Inshort, the coffin is a violin-case, and the mysterious frame theviolin. The Doctor must have been fiddling overnight, after gettinginto bed; to the dissatisfaction, perhaps, of his neighbor on theother side of the partition. 

Little else in the room is worthy notice, unless it be the pocket-combwhich has escaped from the Doctor's waistcoat, and the shavingmaterials (also pocketable) upon the wash-stand. Apparently our frienddoes not stand upon much toilet ceremony. The room has nothing more ofsignificance to say to us; so now we come to the room's occupant. Oureyes have got enough accustomed to the imperfect light to discern whatmanner of man he may be. 

Barely middle-aged; or, at a second glance, he might be fifteen totwenty-five years older. His face retains the form of youth, yet wearsa subtile shadow which we feel might be consistent even with extremeold age. The forehead is wide and low, supported by regular eyebrows;the face beneath long and narrow, of a dark and dry complexion. Insleep, open-mouthed, the expression is rather inane; though we canreadily imagine the waking face to be not devoid of a certainintensity and comeliness of aspect, marred, however, by an air ofguarded anxiety which is apparent even now. 

We prattle of the dead past, and use to fancy that peace must dwellthere, if nothing else. Only in the past, say we, is security fromjostle, danger, and disturbance; who would live at his ease mustnumber his days backwards; no charm so potent as the years, if readfrom right to left. Living in the past, prophecy and memory are atone; care for the future can harass no man. Throw overboard thatJonah, Time, and the winds of fortune shall cease to buffet us. Andmore to the same effect. 

And yet it is not so. The past, if more real than the future, is noless so than the present; the pain of a broken heart or head is neverannihilated, but becomes part and parcel of eternity. This uneasysnorer here, for instance: his earthly troubles have been over yearsago, yet, as our fancy sees him, he is none the calmer or the happierfor that. Observe him, how he mumbles inarticulately, and makesstrengthless clutchings at the blanket with his long, slender fingers. 

But we delay too long over the external man, seeing that our avowedbusiness is with the internal. A sleeping man is truly a helplesscreature. They say that, if you take his hand in yours and ask himquestions, he has no other choice than to answer--or to awake. TheDoctor--as we know by virtue of the prophetic advantages just remarkedupon--will stay asleep for some hours yet. Or, if you are clairvoyant, you have but to fall in a trance, and lay a hand on his forehead, andyou may read off his thoughts, --provided he does his thinking in hishead. But the world is growing too wise, nowadays, to put faith in oldwoman's nonsense like this. Again, there is--or used to be--an oddtheory that all matter is a sort of photographic plate, whereon isregistered, had we but eyes to read it, the complete history ofitself. What an invaluable pair of eyes were that! In vain, arraignedbefore them, would the criminal deny his guilt, the lover the softimpeachment. The whole scene would stand forth, photographed in fatalminuteness and indelibility upon face, hands, coat-sleeve, shirt-bosom. Mankind would be its own book of life, written in theprimal hieroglyphic character, --the language understood by all. Vocalconversation would become obsolete, unless among a few superiorpersons able to discuss abstract ideas. 

We speak of these things only to smile at them; far be it from us toinsult the reader's understanding by asking him to regard themseriously. But story-tellers labor under one disadvantage which ispeculiar to their profession, --the necessity of omniscience. Thistends to make them top arbitrary, leads them to disregard the modestyof nature and the harmonies of reason in their methods. They willpretend to know things which they never could have seen or heard of, and for the truth of which they bring forward no evidence; thusforcing the reader to reject, as lacking proper confirmation, what hewould else, from its inherent grace or sprightliness, be happy toaccept. 

That we shall be free from this reproach is rather our good fortunethan our merit. It is by favor of our stars, not by virtue of our own, that we turn not aside from the plain path of truth to the by-ways ofsupernaturalism and improbability. Yet we refrain with difficulty froma breath of self-praise; there is a proud and solid satisfaction inholding an unassailable position could we but catch the world's eye, we would meet it calmly!

Let us hasten to introduce our talisman. You may see it at this verymoment, encircling the third finger of Doctor Glyphic's left hand; infact, it is neither more nor less than a quaint diamond ring. Thestone, though not surprisingly large, is surpassingly pure andbrilliant; as its keen, delicate ray sparkles on the eye, one marvelswhence, in the dead of night, it got together so much celestial fire. Observe the setting; the design is unique. Two fairy serpents--onegolden, the other fashioned from black meteoric iron--are intertwinedalong their entire length, forming the hoop of the ring. Their headsapproach the diamond from opposite sides, and each makes a mighty biteat it with his tiny jaws, studded with sharp little teeth. Thus theircontest holds the stone firmly in place. The whole forms a prettysymbol of the human soul, battled for by the good and the evilprinciples. But the diamond seems, in its entirety, to be an awkwardmouthful for either. The snakes are wrought with marvellous dexterityand finish; each separate scale is distinguishable upon theirglistening bodies, the wrinkling of the skin in the coils, thesparkling points of eyes, and the minute nostrils. Such works of artare not made nowadays; the ring is an antique, --a relic of an age whenskill was out of all proportion to liberty, --a very distant timeindeed. To deserve such a setting, the stone must have exceptionalqualities. Let us take a closer look at it. 

Fortunately, its own lustre makes it visible in every part; theminuteness of our scrutiny need be limited only by our power of eye. It is cut with many facets, --twenty-seven, if you choose to countthem; perhaps (though we little credit such fantasies) some mysticsignificance may be intended in this number. Concentrating now ourattention upon any single facet, we see--either inscribed upon itssurface, or showing through from the interior of the stone--a sort ofmonogram, or intricately designed character, not unlike the mysteriousChinese letters on tea-chests. Every facet has a similar figure, though no two are identical. But the central, the twenty-seventhfacet, which is larger than the others, has an important peculiarity. Looking upon it, we find therein, concentrated and commingled, theother twenty-six characters; which, separately unintelligible, form, when thus united, a simple and consistent narrative, equivalent inextent to many hundred printed pages, and having for subject nothingless than the complete history of the ring itself. 

Some small portion of this narrative--that, namely, which relates moreparticularly to the present wearer of the ring--we will glance at; therest must be silence, although, going back as it does to the earliestrecords of the human race, many an interesting page must be skippedperforce. 

The advantages to a historian of a medium such as this are too patentto need pointing out. Pretension and conjecture will be avoided, because unnecessary. The most trifling thought or deed of any personconnected with the history of the ring is laid open to directinspection. Were there more such talismans as this, the profession ofauthorship would become no less easy than delightful, and criticismwould sting itself to death, in despair of better prey. So far as isknown, however, the enchanted ring is unique of its kind, and, such asit is, is not likely to become common property. 

II. 

OUT OF EGYPT. 

But the small hours of the morning are slipping away; we must construeour hieroglyphics without further palaver. The sleeper lies upon hisside, his left hand resting near his face upon the pillow. Were he tomove it ever so little during our examination, the history of yearsmight be thrown into confusion. Nevertheless, we shall hope to touchupon all the more important points, and in some cases to go intodetails. 

Concentrating our attention upon the central facet, its clear raystrikes the imagination, and forthwith transports us to a distant ageand climate. The air is full of lazy warmth. A full-fed river, glassing the hot blue sky, slides in long curves through a low-lying, illimitable plain. The rich earth, green with mighty crops, everywhereexhales upward the quivering heat of her breath. An indolent, dark-skinned race, turbaned and scantly clothed, move through themeadows, splash in the river, and rest beneath the palm-trees, whichmeet in graceful clusters here and there, as if striving to getbeneath one another's shadow. Dirty villages swarm and babble on theriver's brink. 

Were there leisure to listen, the diamond could readily relate thewhole history of this famous valley. For the stone was fashioned toits present shape while the thought that formed the Pyramids was yetunborn, and while the limestone and granite whereof they are built layin their silent beds, dreaming, perchance, of airy days before thedeluge, long ere the heated vapors stiffened into stone. Some greatpatriarch of early days, founder of a race called by his name, pickedup this diamond in the southern desert, and gave it its present form;perhaps, also, breathed into it the marvellous historical gift whichit retains to this day. Who was that primal man? how sounded hisvoice? were his eyes terrible, or mild? Seems, as we speak, we glimpsehis majestic figure, and the grandeur of his face and cloudy beard. 

He passed away, but the enchanted stone remained, and has sparkledalong the splendid march of successive dynasties, and has reflectedmen and cities which to us are nameless, or but a half-decipheredname. It has seen the mystic ceremonies of Egyptian priests, andcounts their boasted wisdom as a twice-told tale. It has watched theunceasing toil of innumerable slaves, piling up through many ardentyears the idle tombs of kings. It has beheld vast winding lengths ofprocessions darken and glitter across the plain, slowly devoured bythe shining city, or issuing from her gates like a monstrous birth. 

But whither wander we? Standing in this hotel of modern Boston, wemust confine our inquiries to a far later epoch than the Pharaohs'. Step aside, and let the old history sweep past, like the turbid andeddying current of the mysterious Nile; forbearing to launch our skiffearlier than at the beginning of the present century. 

The middle of June, eighteen hundred and sixteen: the river is justbeginning to rise, and the thirsty land spreads wide her lap toreceive him. Some miles to the north slumbers Cairo in white heat, itsoutline jagged with minarets and bulbous domes. Southward, the shadedPyramids print their everlasting outlines against the tremulousdistance; old as they are, it seems as though a puff of the Khamsinmight dissolve them away. Near at hand is a noisy, naked crowd of menand boys, plunging and swimming in the water, or sitting and standingalong the bank. They are watching and discussing the slow approach upstream of a large boat with a broad lateen-sail, and a strange flagfluttering from the mast-head. Rumor says that this boat contains acompany of strangers from beyond the sea; men who do not wear turbans, whose dress is close-fitting, and covers them from head tofoot, --even the legs. They come to learn wisdom and civilization fromthe Pyramids, and among the ruins of Memphis. 

A hundred yards below this shouting, curious crowd, stands, waist-deepin the Nile, a slender-limbed boy, about ten years old. He belongs toa superior caste, and holds himself above the common rabble. Beingperfectly naked, a careless eye might, however, rank him with therest, were it not for the talisman which he wears suspended to a finegold chain round his neck; a curiously designed diamond ring, theinheritance of a long line of priestly ancestors. The boy's face iscertainly full of intelligence, and the features are finely mouldedfor so young a lad. 

He also is watching the upward progress of the lateen-sail; has heard, moreover, the report concerning those on board. He wonders where isthe country from which they come. Is it the land the storks fly to, ofwhich mother (before the plague carried both her and father to astranger land still) used to tell such wonderful stories? Does theworld really extend far beyond the valley? Is the world all valley andriver, with now and then some hills, like those away up beyondMemphis? Are there other cities beside Cairo, and that one which hehas heard of but never seen, --Alexandria? Wonders why the strangersdress in tight-fitting clothes, with leg-coverings, and withoutturbans! Would like to find out about all these things, --about allthings knowable beside these, if any there be. Would like to go backwith the strangers to their country, when they return, and so becomethe wisest and most powerful of his race; wiser even than thosefabulously learned priestly instructors of his, who are so strict withhim. Perhaps he might find all his forefathers there, and his kindmother, who used to tell him stories. 

Bah! how the sun blisters down on head and shoulders: will take a diveand a swim, --a short swim only, not far from shore; for was not thepriest telling of a boy caught by a great crocodile, only, a few daysago, and never seen since? But there is no crocodile near to-day; and, besides, will not his precious talisman keep him from all harm?

The subtile Nile catches him softly in his cool arms, dandles him, kisses Him, flatters him, wooes him imperceptibly onwards. Now he isfar from shore, and the multitudinous feet of the current are hurryinghim away. The slow-moving boat is much nearer than it was a minuteago, --seems to be rasping towards him, in spite of the laziness of theimpelling breeze. The boy, as yet unconscious of his peril, nowglances shorewards, and sees the banks wheel past. The crowd ofbathers is already far beyond hearing yet, frightened and tired, hewastes his remaining strength in fruitless shouts. Now the deceitfuleddies, once so soft and friendly, whirl him down in ruthlessexultation. He will never reach the shore, good swimmer though he be!

Hark! what plunged from the bank, --what black thing moves towards himacross the water? The crocodile! coming with tears in his eyes, and along grin of serried teeth. Coming!--the ugly scaly head is alwaysnearer and nearer. The boy screams; but who should hear him? He feelswhether the talisman be yet round his neck. He screams again, calling, in half-delirium, upon his dead mother. Meanwhile the scaly snout isclose upon him. 

A many-voiced shout, close at hand; a splashing of poles in the water;a rippling of eddies against a boat's bows! As the boy drifts by, ablue-eyed, yellow-bearded viking swings himself from the halyard, catches him, pulls him aboard with a jerk and a shout, safe! The longgrin snaps emptily together behind him. The boy lies on the deck, avision of people with leg-coverings and other oddities of costumeswimming in his eyes; one of them supports his head on his knee, andbends over him a round, good-natured, spectacled face. Above, abeautiful flag, striped and starred with white, blue, and red, flapsindolently against the mast. --

Precisely at this point the sleeper stirs his hand slightly, butenough to throw the record of several succeeding years intouncertainty and confusion. Here and there, however, we catch imperfectglimpses of the Egyptian lad, steadily growing up to be a tall youngman. He is dressed in European clothes, and lives and moves amidcivilized surroundings: Egypt, with her pyramids, palms, and river, wesee no more. The priest's son seems now to be immersed in studies; heshows a genius for music and painting, and is diligently storing hismind with other than Egyptian lore. With him, or never far away, wemeet a man considerably older than the student, --good-natured, whimsical, round of head and face and insignificant of feature. Towards him does the student observe the profoundest deference, bowingbefore him, and addressing him as "Master Hiero, " or "Master Glyphic. "Master Hiero, for his part, calls the Egyptian "Manetho"; from whichwe might infer his descent from the celebrated historian of that name, but will not insist upon this genealogy. As for the studies, fromcertain signs we fancy them tending towards theology; the descendantof Egyptian priests is to become a Christian clergyman! Nevertheless, he still wears his talismanic ring. Does he believe it saved him fromthe crocodile? Does his Christian enlightenment not set him free fromsuch superstition?

So much we piece together from detached glimpses; but now, as themagic ray steadies once more, things become again distinct. Judgingfrom the style and appointments of Master Hiero Glyphic's house, he isa wealthy man, and eccentric as well. It is full of strangeincongruities and discords; beauties in abundance, but ill harmonized. One half the house is built like an Egyptian temple, and is enrichedwith many spoils from the valley of the Nile; and here a secretchamber is set apart for Manetho; its very existence is known to noone save himself and Master Hiero. He spends much of his time here, meditating and working amidst his books and papers, playing on hisviolin, or leaning idly back in his chair, watching the sunlight, through the horizontal aperture high above, his head, creep stealthilyacross the opposite wall. 

But these saintly and scholarly reveries are disturbed anon. MasterHiero, though a bachelor, has a half-sister, a pale, handsome, indolent young woman, with dark hair and eyes, and a rather haughtymanner. Helen appears, and thenceforth the household lives andbreathes according to her languid bidding. Manetho comes out of hisretirement, and dances reverential attendance upon her. He istwenty-five years old, now; tall, slender, and far from ill-looking, with his dark, narrow eyes, wide brows, and tapering face. His mannersare gentle, subdued, insinuating, and altogether he seems to pleaseHelen; she condescends to him, --more than condescends, perhaps. Meantime, alas! there is a secret opposition in progress, embodied inthe shapely person of that bright-eyed gypsy of a girl whom hermistress Helen calls Salome. There is no question as to Salome'scomplete subjection to the attractions of the young embryo clergyman;she pursues him with eyes and heart, and seeing him by Helen's side, she is miserably but dumbly jealous. 

How is this matter to end? Manetho's devotion to Helen seemsunwavering; yet sometimes it is hard not to suspect a secretunderstanding between him and Salome. He has ceased to wear his ring, and once we caught a diamond-sparkle from beneath the thick folds oflace which cover Helen's bosom; but, on the other hand, we fear hisarm has been round the gypsy's graceful waist, and that she has learntthe secret of the private chamber. Is demure Manetho a flirt, or dohis affections and his ambition run counter to each other? Helen wouldbring him the riches of this world, --but what should a clergyman carefor such vanities?--while Salome, to our thinking, is far theprettier, livelier, and more attractive woman of the two. BrotherHiero, whimsical and preoccupied, sees nothing of what is going on. Heis an antiquary, --an Egyptologist, and thereto his soul is wedded. Hehas no eyes nor ears for the loves of other people for one another. --

Provoking! The uneasy sleeper has moved again, and disorganized, beyond remedy, the events of a whole year. Judging from such fragmentsas reach us, it must have been a momentous epoch in our history. Fromthe beginning, a handsome, stalwart, blue-eyed man, with a great beardlike a sheaf of straw, shoulders upon the scene, and thenceforthbecomes inextricably mixed up with dark-eyed Helen. We recognize inhim an old acquaintance; he was on the lateen-sailed boat that went upthe Nile; it was he who swung himself from the vessel's side, andpulled Manetho out of the jaws of death, --a fact, by the way, of whichManetho remained ignorant until his dying day. With this new arrival, Helen's supremacy in the household ends. Thor--so they callhim--involuntarily commands her, and so her subjects. Against him, theReverend Manetho has not the ghost of a chance. To his credit is itthat he conceals whatever emotions of disappointment or jealousy hemight be supposed to feel, and is no less winning towards Thor thantowards the rest of the world. But is it possible that the talismanstill hides in Helen's bosom? Does the conflict which it symbolizesbeset her heart?

The enchanted mirror is still again, and a curious scene is reflectedfrom it. A large and lofty room, windowless, lit by flaring lamps hungat intervals round the walls; the panels contain carvings inbas-relief of Egyptian emblems and devices; columns surround thecentral space, their capitals carved with the lotos-flower, theirbases planted amidst papyrus leaves. A border of hieroglyphicinscription encircles the walls, just beneath the ceiling. In eachcorner of the room rests a red granite sarcophagus, and between eachpair of pillars stands a mummy in its wooden case. At that endfarthest from the low-browed doorway--which is guarded by two greatfigures of Isis and Osiris, sitting impassive, with hands on knees--israised an altar of black marble, on which burns some incense. Theperfumed smoke, wavering upwards, mingles with that of the lampsbeneath the high ceiling. The prevailing color is ruddy Indian-red, relieved by deep blue and black, while brighter tints show here andthere. Blocks of polished stone pave the floor, and dimly reflect thelights. 

In front of the altar stands a ministerial figure, --none other thanManetho, who must have taken orders, --and joins together, in holymatrimony, the yellow-bearded Thor and the dark-haired Helen. MasterHiero, his round, snub-nosed face red with fussy emotion, gives thebride away; while Salome, dressed in white and looking very pretty andlady-like, does service as bridesmaid, --such is her mistress's whim. She seems in even better spirits than the pale bride, and her blackeyes scarcely wander from the minister's rapt countenance. 

But a few hours later, when bride and groom are gone, Salome, --who, on some plausible pretext of, her own, has been allowed to remain withbrother Hiero until her mistress returns from the wedding-tour, ---Salome appears in the secret chamber, where the Reverend Manetho sitswith his head between his hands. We will not look too closely at thisinterview. There are words fierce and tender, tears and pleadings, feverish caresses, incoherent promises, distrustful bargains; and itis late before they part. Salome passes out through the greattomb-like hall, where all the lamps save one are burnt out; and theyoung minister remains to pursue his holy meditations alone. 

We are too discreet to meddle with the honeymoon; but, passing oversome eight months, behold the husband and wife returned, to plumetheir wings ere taking the final flight. Another strange sceneattracts us here. 

The dusk of a summer evening. Helen, with a more languid step and airthan before marriage, saunters along a path through the trees, somedistance from the house. She is clad in loose-flowing drapery, and hasthrown a white shawl over her head and shoulders. Reaching a bench ofrustic woodwork, she drops weariedly down upon it. 

Manetho comes out all at once, and stands before her; he seems to havedarkened together from the shadow of the surrounding trees. Perhaps alittle startled at his so abrupt appearance, she opens her eyes with awondering haughtiness; but, at the same time, the light pressure ofthe enchanted ring against her bosom feels like a dull sting, and herheart beats uncomfortably. He begins to speak in his usual tone ofsoftest deference; he sits down by her, and now she is paler, glancesanxiously up the path for her delaying husband, and the hand thatlifts her handkerchief to her lips trembles a little. Is it at hiswords? or at their tone? or at what she sees lurking behind his duskyeyes, curdling beneath his thin, dark skin, quivering down to the tipsof his long, slender fingers?

All in a moment he bursts forth, without warning, without restraint, the fire of the Egyptian sun boiling in his blood and blazing in hispassion. He seizes her soft white wrist, --then her waist; he pressesagainst his, her bosom, --what a throbbing!--her cheek to his, --howaghast! He pours hot words in torrents into her ears, --all that hisfretting heart has hoarded up and brooded over these months and years!all, --sparing her not a thought, not a passionate word. She tries torepel him, to escape, to scream for help; but he looks down her eyeswith his own, holds her fast, and she gasps for breath. So the serpentcoils about the dove, and stamps his image upon her bewildered brain. 

Verily, the Reverend Manetho has much forgotten himself. The issuemight have been disastrous, had not Helen, in the crisis of theaffair, lost consciousness, and fallen a dead weight in his arms. Helaid her gently on the bench, fumbled for a moment in the bosom of herdress, and drew out the diamond ring. Just then is heard the solidstep of Thor, striding and whistling along the path. Manetho snaps thegolden chain, and vanishes with his talisman; and he is the first toappear, full of sympathy and concern, when the distracted husbandshouts for help. 

Next morning, two little struggling human beings are blinking andcrying in a darkened room, and there is no mother to give them milk, and cherish them in her bosom. There sits the father, almost as stilland cold as what was his wife. She did not speak to him, nor seem toknow him, to the last. He will never know the truth; Manetho comes andgoes, and reads the burial-service, unsuspected and unpunished. ButSalome follows him away from the grave, and some words pass betweenthem. The man is no longer what he was. He turns suddenly upon her andstrikes out with savage force; the diamond on his finger bites intothe flesh of the gypsy's breast; she will carry the scar of thatbrutal blow as long as she lives. So he drove his only lover away, andlooked upon her bright, handsome face no more. 

Here Doctor Glyphic--or whoever this sleeping man may be--turnsheavily upon his face, drawing his hand, with the blood-stained ring, out of sight. We are glad to leave him to his bad dreams; the airoppresses us. Come, 't is time we were off. The eastern horizon bowsbefore the sun, the air colors delicate pink, and the very tombstonesin the graveyard blush for sympathy. The sparrows have been awake fora half-hour past, and, up aloft, the clouds, which wander ceaselesslyover the face of the earth, alighting only on lonely mountain-tops, are tinted into rainbow-quarries by the glorious spectacle. 

III. 

A MAY MORNING. 

King Arthur, in his Bohemian days, carried an adamantine shield, thegift of some fairy relative. Not only was it impenetrable, but, sointolerable was its lustre, it overthrew all foes before the lance'spoint could reach them. Observing this, the chivalric monarch had acover made for it, which he never removed save in the face ofsuperhuman odds. 

Here is an analogy. The imaginative reader may look upon our enchantedfacet-mirror as too glaringly simple and direct a source of facts tosuit the needs of a professed romance. Be there left, he would say, some room for fancy, and even for conjecture. Let the author seemoccasionally to consult with his companion, gracefully to defer to hisjudgment. Bare statement, the parade of indisputable evidence, is wellenough in law, but appears ungentle in a work of fiction. 

How just is this mild censure! how gladly are its demands conceded!Let dogmatism retire, and blossom, flowers of fancy, on your yieldingstems! Henceforward the reader is our confidential counsellor. Wewill pretend that our means of information are no better than otherwriters'. We will uniformly revel in speculation, and dally withimaginative delights; and only when hard pressed for the true pathwill we snatch off the veil, and let forth for a moment a redeemingray. 

In this generous mood, we pass through the partition between No. 27and No. 29. In the matter of bedchambers--even hotelbedchambers--therecan be great diversity. That we were in just now was close andunwholesome, and wore an air of feverishness and disorder. Here, onthe contrary, the air is fresh and brisk, for the breeze from Bostonharbor--slightly flavored, it is true, by its journey across thenorthern part of the city--has been blowing into the room all nightlong. Here are some trunks and carpet-bags, well bepasted with thenames of foreign towns and countries, famous and infamous. One of thetrunks is a bathing-tub, fitted with a cover--an agreeable promise ofrefreshment amidst the dust and weariness of travel. A Russia-leathertravelling-bag lies open on the table, disgorging an abundant armamentof brushes and combs and various toilet niceties. Mr. Helwyse must bea dandy. 

Cheek by jowl with the haversack lies a cylindrical case of the samekind of leather, with a strap attached, to sling over the shoulder. This, perhaps, contains a telescope. It would not be worth mentioning, save that our prophetic vision sees it coming into use by and by. Notto analyze too closely, everything in this room speaks of life, health, and movement. In spite of smallness, bareness, and angularity, it is fit for a May morning to enter, and expand to full-grown day. 

It is now about half past four, and the crisp new sunshine, just aboveground, has clambered over the window-sill, taken a flying leap acrossthe narrow floor, and is chuckling full in the agreeable face asleepupon the pillow. The face, feeling the warmth, and conscious, throughits closed eyelids, of the light, presently stretches its eyebrows, then blinks, and finally yawns, --Ah--h! Thirty-two even, white teeth, in perfect order; a great, red, healthy tongue, and a round, mellowroar, the parting remonstrance of the sleepy god, taking flight forthe day. Thereupon a voice, fetched from some profounder source thanthe back of the head, --

"Steward! bring me my--Oh! A land-lubber again, am I!"

Mr. Balder Helwyse now sits up in bed, his hair and beard, --which areextraordinarily luxuriant, and will be treated at greater lengthhereafter, --his hair and beard in the wildest confusion. He staresabout him with a pair of well-opened dark eyes, which contraststrangely with his fair Northern complexion. Next comes a spasmodicstretching of arms and legs, a whisking of bedclothes, and a solidthump of two feet upon the floor. Another survey of the room, endingwith a deep breathing in of the fresh air and an appreciative smack ofthe lips. 

"O nose, eyes, ears, and all my other godlike senses and faculties!what a sensation is this of Mother Earth at sunrise! Better, seems tome, than ocean, beloved of my Scandinavian forefathers. Hear thosebirds! look at those divine trees, and the tall moist grass roundthem! By my head! living is a glorious business!--What, ho! slave, empty me here that bath-tub, and then ring the bell. "

The slave--a handsome, handy fellow, unusually docile, inseparablefrom his master, whose life-long bondsman he was, and so much like himin many ways (owing, perhaps, to the intimacy always subsistingbetween the two), that he had more than once been confounded withhim, --this obedient menial--

No! not even for a moment will we mislead our reader. Are we not swornconfidants? What is he to think, then, of this abrupt introduction, unheralded, unexplained? Be it at once confessed that Mr. Helwysetravelled unattended, that there was no slave or other person of anykind in the room, and that this high-sounding order of his was a mereebullition of his peculiar humor. 

He was a philosopher, and was in the habit of making many of histenets minister to his amusement, when in his more sportive and genialmoods. Not to exhaust his characteristics too early in the story, itneed only be observed here that he held body and soul distinct, and sofar antagonistic that one or the other must be master; furthermore, that the soul's supremacy was the more desirable. Whether it were alsoinvariable and uncontested, there will be opportunity to find outlater. Meantime, this dual condition was productive of not a littleharmless entertainment to Mr. Helwyse, at times when persons lesshappily organized would become victims of ennui. Be the conditionswhat they might, he was never without a companion, whose ways he knew, and whom he was yet never weary of questioning and studying. Nosubject so dull that its different aspects, as viewed from soul andfrom body, would not give it piquancy. No question so trivial that itsdiscussion on material and on spiritual grounds would not lend itimportance. Nor was any enjoyment so keen as not to be enhanced by thecontrast of its physical with its psychical phase. 

Waking up, therefore, on this May morning, and being in a charminghumor, he chose to look upon himself as the proprietor of abody-servant, and to give his orders with patrician imperiousness. Theobedient menial, then, --to resume the thread, --sprang upon thetub-trunk, whipped off the lid, and discharged the contents upon thebed in a twinkling. This done, he stepped to the bell-rope, and lentit a vigorous jerk, soon answered by a brisk tapping at the door. 

"Please, sir, did you ring?"

"Indeed I did, my dear. Are you the pretty chambermaid?"

This bold venture is met by silence, only modified by a low delightedgiggle. Presently, --"Did you want anything, sir, please?"

"Ever so many things, my girl; more than my life is long enough totell! First, though, I want to apologize for addressing you frombehind a closed door; but circumstances which I can neither explainnor overcome forbid my opening it. Next, two pails of the best coldwater at your earliest convenience. Hurry, now, there's a Hebe!"

"Very good, sir, " giggles Hebe, retreating down passage. 

It is to be supposed that it was the plebeian body-servant thatcarried on this unideal conversation, and that the patrician soul hadnothing to do with it. The ability to lay the burden of lapses fromgood taste, and other goods, upon the shoulders of the flesh, issometimes convenient and comforting. 

Balder Helwyse, master and man, turns away from the door, and catchessight of a white-robed, hairy-headed reflection in the looking-glass, the phantom face of which at once expands in a genial expression ofmirth; an impalpable arm is outstretched, and the mouth seems thus tospeak:--

"Stick to your bath, my good fellow, and the evil things of this lifeshall not get hold of you. Water is like truth, --purifying, transparent; a tonic to those fouled and wearied with the dust andvanity of this transitional phenomenon called the world. Patronize it!be thy acquaintance with it constant and familiar! Remember, my dearBalder, that this slave of thine is the medium through which somethingbetter than he (thyself, namely) is filtered to the world, and theworld to thee. Go to, then! if the filter be foul, shall not thatwhich is filtered become unclean also?"

Here the rhetorical phantom was interrupted by the sound of a verygood violin, touched with unusual skill, in the next room. The phantomvanished, but Mr. Helwyse seated himself softly upon the bed, listening with full enjoyment to every note; his very toes seeming topartake of his appreciation. Music is the mysterious power which makesbody and soul--master and man--thrill as one string. The musicianplayed several bars, beautiful in themselves, but unconnected; andever and anon there sounded a discordant note, like a smirch upon afair picture. The execution, however, showed a master hand, and thethemes betrayed the soul of a true musician, albeit tainted with somesubtile deformity. 

"Heard him last night, and fell asleep, dreaming of a man with thebrain of a devil and an angel's heart. --Drop in on him presently, andhave him down to breakfast. If young, shall be our brother, --so longas there's anything in him. If--as I partly suspect--old, and afather, marry his daughter. But no; such a fiddler as he can't bemarried, unless unhappily. " Mr. Helwyse runs his hands dreamilythrough his tangled mane, and shakes it back. If philosophical, heseems also to be romantic and imaginative, and impressionable by otherpersonalities. It is, to be sure, unfair to judge a man from suchunconsidered words as he may let fall during the first half-hour afterwaking up in the morning; were it otherwise, we should infer that, although he might take a genuine interest in whomever he meets, itwould be too analytical to last long, except where the vein was a veryrich one. He would pick the kernel out of the nut, but, that done, would feel no sentimental interest in the shell. Too much of this! andyet who can help drawing conclusions (and not always incorrectly) fromthe first sight and sound of a new acquaintance?

There is a knock at the door, and Mr. Helwyse calls out, "Hullo? Ah!the cold water, emblem of truth. Thank you, Hebe; and scamper away asfast as you can, for I'm going to open the door!"

We also will retire, fastidious reader, and employ the leisureinterval in packing an imaginary carpet-bag for a short journey. Ourmain business, during the next few days, is with Mr. Helwyse, andsince there will be no telling what becomes of him after that, he mustbe followed up pretty closely. A few days does not seem much for thegetting a satisfactory knowledge of a man; nevertheless, an hour, rightly used, may be ample. If he will continue his habit of thinkingaloud, will affect situations tending to bring out his leading traitsof character; if we may intrude upon him, note-book in hand, in allhis moods and crises, --with all this in addition to discretionary useof the magic mirror, --it will be our own fault if Mr. Helwyse be notturned inside out. Properly speaking, there is no mystery about men, but only a great dulness and lethargy in our perceptions of them. Thesecret of the universe is no more a secret than is the answer to aschool-boy's problem. A mathematician will draw you a triangle and acircle, and show you the trigonometrical science latent therein. But aprofounder mathematician would do as much with the equation man!

While Mr. Helwyse is still lingering over his toilet, his neighbor thefiddler, whom he had meant to ask to breakfast, comes out of his room, violin-box in hand, walks along the passage-way, and is off downstairs. An odd-looking figure; those stylish clothes become him aslittle as they would a long-limbed, angular Egyptian statue. Fashion, in some men, is an eccentricity, or rather a violence done to theiressential selves. A born fop would have looked as little at home in atoga and sandals, as did this swarthy musician, doctor, priest, orwhatever he was, in his fashion-plate costume. Then why did he wearit?

There are other things to be followed up before attending to thatquestion. But the man is gone, and Balder Helwyse has missed thisopportunity of making his acquaintance. Had he been an hourearlier, --had any one of us, for that matter, ever been an hourearlier or later, --who can tell how the destinies of the world wouldbe affected! Luckily for our peace of mind, the hypothesis involves animpossibility. 

IV. 

A BRAHMAN. 

Whoever has been in Boston remembers, or has seen, the old Beacon HillBank, which stood, not on Beacon Hill, indeed, but in that part ofSchool Street now occupied by the City Hall. You passed down by thedirty old church, on the northeast corner of School and TremontStreets, which stands trying to hide its ugly face behind a row ofcolumns like sooty fingers, and whose School-Street side is quitebare, and has the distracted aspect peculiar to buildings erected onan inclined plane;--passing this, you came in sight of the bank, adarksome, respectable edifice of brick, two stories and a half high, and gambrel-roofed. It stood a little back from the street, much as anantiquated aristocrat might withdraw from the stream of modern life, and fancy himself exclusive. The poor old bank! Its respectable brickwalls have contributed a few rubbish-heaps to the new land in the BackBay, perhaps; and its floors and gambrel-roof have long since vanishedup somebody's chimney; only its money--its baser part--still survivesand circulates. Aristocracy and exclusivism do not pay. 

The bank, perhaps, took its title from the fact that it owed its chiefsupport to the Beacon Hill families, --Boston's aristocracy; andBoston's standard names appeared upon its list of managers. Ifbusiness led you that way, you mounted the well-worn steps, andentered the rather strict and formal door, over which clung theweather-worn sign, --faded gold lettering upon a rusty blackbackground. Nothing that met your eyes looked new, although everythingwas scrupulously neat. Opposite the doorway, a wooden flight of stairsmounted to the next floor, where were the offices of some old Puritanlawyers. Leaving the stairs on your left, you passed down a duskypassage, and through a glass door, when behold! the banking-room, withits four grave bald-headed clerks. But you did not come to draw ordeposit, your business was with the President. "Mr. MacGentle in?""That way, sir. " You opened a door with "Private" painted in blackletters upon its ground-glass panel. Another bald-headed gentleman, with a grim determination about the mouth, rose up from his table andbarred your way. This was Mr. Dyke, the breakwater against which thewaves of would-be intruders into the inner seclusion often brokethemselves in vain; and unless you had a genuine pass, your expeditionended there. 

Our pass--for we, too, are to call on Mr. MacGentle--would carry usthrough solider obstructions than Mr. Dyke; it is the pass ofimagination. He does not even raise his head as we brush by him. 

But, first, let us inquire who Mr. MacGentle is, besides President ofthe Beacon Hill Bank. He is a man of refinement and cultivation, ascholar and a reader, has travelled, and, it is said, could handle apen to better purpose than the signing bank-notes. In his earlieryears he studied law, and gained a certain degree of distinction inthe profession, although (owing, perhaps, to his having entered itwith too ideal and high-strung views as to its nature and scope) henever met with what is vulgarly called success. Fortunately for theideal barrister, an ample private estate made him independent ofprofessional earnings. Later in life, he trod the confines ofpolitics, still, however, enveloping himself in that theoretical, unpractical atmosphere which was his most marked, and, to some people, least comprehensible characteristic. A certain mild halo ofstatesmanship ever after invested him; not that he had at any timeactually borne a share in the government of the nation, but it wasunderstood that he might have done so, had he so chosen, or had hispolitical principles been tough and elastic enough to endure the wearand strain of action. As it was, some of the most renowned men in theSenate were known to have been his intimates at college, and he stillmet and conversed with them on terms of equality. 

Between law, literature, and statesmanship, in all of which pursuitshe had acquired respect and goodwill, without actually accomplishinganything, Mr. MacGentle fell, no one knew exactly how, into thepresidential chair of the Beacon Hill Bank. As soon as he was there, everybody saw that there he belonged. His social position, hisculture, his honorable, albeit intangible record, suited the old bankwell. He had an air of subdued wisdom, and people were fond ofappealing to his judgment and asking his advice, --- perhaps because henever seemed to expect them to follow it when given (as, indeed, theynever did). The Board of Directors looked up to him, deferred tohim, --nay, believed him to be as necessary to the bank's existence asthe entire aggregate of its supporters; but neither the Board nor thePresident himself ever dreamed of adopting Mr. MacGentle's financialtheories in the conduct of the banking business. 

Let no one hastily infer that the accomplished gentleman of whom wespeak was in any sense a sham. No one could be more true to himselfand his professions. But--if we may hazard a conjecture--he neverbreathed the air that other men breathe; another sun than ours shonefor him; the world that met his senses was not our world. His life, in short, was not human life, yet so closely like it that the twomight be said to correspond, as a face to its reflection in themirror; actual contact being in both cases impossible. No doubt theworld and he knew of the barrier between them, though neither said so. The former, with its usual happy temperament, was little affected bythe separation, smiled good-naturedly upon the latter, and nevertroubled itself about the difficulties in the way of shaking hands. But Mr. MacGentle, being only a single man, perhaps felt lonely andsad. Either he was a ghost, or the world was. In youth, he may havebelieved himself to be the only real flesh and blood; but in lateryears, the terrible weight of the world's majority forced him to theopposite conclusion. And here, at last, he and the world were at one!

Suppose, instead of listening to a personal description of this goodold gentleman, we take a look at him with our own eyes. There is nodanger of disturbing him, no matter how busy he may be. The innerretreat is very small, and as neat as though an old maid lived in it. The furniture looks as good as new, but is subdued to a tone of sobermaturity, and chimes in so well with the general effect that onescarcely notices it. The polished table is mounted in dark morocco;behind the horsehair-covered arm-chair is a gray marble mantel-piece, overshadowing an open grate with polished bars and fire-utensils inthe English style. During the winter months a lump of cannel-coal isalways burning there; but the flame, even on the coldest days, is toomuch on its good behavior to give out very decided heat. Over themantel-piece hangs a crayon copy of Correggio's Reading Magdalen, --theonly touch of sentiment in the whole room, and that, perhaps, accidental. 

The concrete nature of the President's surroundings is at firstperplexing, in view of our theory about his character. But it isevident that the world could never provide him with furniturecorresponding to the texture of his mind; and hence he wouldinstinctively lay hold of that which was most commonplace andnon-committal. If he could realize nothing outside himself, he mightat least remove whatever would distract him from inward contemplation. There is, however, one article in this little room which we must notomit to notice. It is a looking-glass; and it hangs, of all places inthe world, right over Mr. MacGentle's standing-desk, in the embrasureof the window. As often as he looks up he beholds the reflection ofhis cultured and sad-lined physiognomy, with a glimpse of dusky wallbeyond. Is he a vain man? His worst enemy, had he one, would not callhim that. Nevertheless, Mr. MacGentle finds a pathetic comfort in thissmall mirror. No one, not even he, could tell wherefore; but we fancyit to be like that an exile feels, seeing a picture of his birthplace, or hearing a strain of his native music. The mirror shows himsomething more real, to his sense, than is anything outside of it!

Well, there stands the old gentleman, writing at this desk in thewindow. All men, they say, bear more or less resemblance to someanimal; Mr. MacGentle, rather tall and slender, with his slight stoop, and his black broadcloth frock-coat buttoned closely about his waist, brings to mind a cultivated, grandfatherly greyhound, upon his hindlegs. He has thick white hair, with a gentle curl in it, growing allover his finely moulded head. He is close-shaven; his mouth and noseare formed with great delicacy; his eyes, now somewhat faded, yet showan occasional reminiscence of youthful fire. The eyebrows arehabitually lifted, --a result, possibly, of the growing infirmity ofMr. MacGentle's vision; but it produces an expression ofhalf-plaintive resignation, which is rendered pathetic by the wrinklesacross his forehead and the dejected lines about his delicate mouth. 

He is dressed with faultless nicety and elegance, though in a fashionnow out of date. Perhaps, in graceful recognition of the advance ofage, he has adhered to the style in vogue when age first began toweigh upon his shoulders. He gazes mildly out from the embrasure ofan upright collar and tall stock; below spreads a wide expanse ofspotless shirt-front. His trousers are always gray, except in the heatof summer, when they become snowy white. They are uniformly too long;yet he never dispenses with his straps, nor with the gaiters thatcrown his gentlemanly shoes. 

Although not a stimulating companion, one loves to be where AmosMacGentle is; to watch his quiet movements, and listen to hismeditative talk. What he says generally bears the stamp of thought andintellectual capacity, and at first strikes the listener as rare goodsense; yet, if reconsidered afterwards, or applied to the practicaltests of life, his wisdom is apt to fall mysteriously short. Is Mr. MacGentle aware of this curious fact? There sometimes is a sadlyhumorous curving of the lips and glimmering in the eyes after he hasuttered something especially profound, which almost warrants thesuspicion. The lack of accord between the old gentleman and the worldhas become to him, at last, a dreary sort of jest. 

But we might go on forever touching the elusive chords of Mr. MacGentle's being; one cannot help loving him, or, if he be not realenough to love, bestowing upon him such affection as is inspired bysome gentle symphony. Unfortunately, he figures but little in thecoming pages, and in no active part; such, indeed, were unsuited tohim. But it is pleasant to pass through his retired little office onour way to scenes less peaceful and subdued; and we would gladly lookforward to seeing him once more, when the heat of the day is over andthe sun has gone down. 

V. 

A NEW MAN WITH AN OLD FACE. 

About an hour before noon on this same twenty-seventh of May, Mr. Dykeheard a voice in the outer room. He had held his position in the houseas confidential clerk for nearly or quite twenty-five years, wasblessed with a good memory, and was fond of saying that he neverforgot a face or a voice. So, as this voice from the outer roomreached his ears, he turned one eye up towards the door and muttered, "Heard that before, somewhere!"

The ground-glass panel darkened, and the door was thrown wide open. Upon the threshold stood a young man about six feet in height, offigure rather graceful and harmonious than massive. A black velveteenjacket fitted closely to his shape; he had on a Tyrolese hat; hisboots, of thin, pliant leather, reached above the knee. He carried astout cane, with a handle of chamois-horn; to a couple of straps, crossing each shoulder, were attached a travelling-scrip and atelescope-case. 

But neither his attire nor the unusual size and dark brilliancy ofhis eyes was so noticeable as his hair and beard, which outgrew thebounds of common experience. Beards, to be sure, were far more raretwenty years ago than they have since become. The hair was yellow, with the true hyacinthine curl pervading it. Rejoicing in luxuriantmight, it clothed and reclothed the head, and, descending lower, tumbled itself in bold masses on the young man's shoulders. As for thebeard, it was well in keeping. Of a purer yellow than the hair, ittwisted down in crisp, vigorous waves below the point marked bymankind's third shirt-stud. It was full half as broad as it was long, and lay to the right and left from the centre-line of the face. Theowner of this oriflamme looked like a young Scandinavian god. 

There seems to be a deeper significance in hair than meets the eye. Sons of Esau, whose beards grow high up on their cheek-bones, who arehairy down to their ankles, and to the second joints of their fingers, are generally men of a kindly and charitable nature, strong in what wecall the human element. One remembers their stout hand-grip; they lookfrankly in one's face, and the heart is apt to go out to them morespontaneously than to the smooth-faced Jacobs. Such a man was Samson, whose hair was his strength, --the strength of inborn truth andgoodness, whereby he was enabled to smite the lying Philistines. Andalthough they once, by their sophistries, managed to get the betterof him for a while, they forgot that good inborn is too vigorous amatter for any mere razor finally to subdue. See, again, what a greatbeard Saint Paul had, and what an outspoken, vigorous heart! Was itfrom freak that Greeks and Easterns reverenced beards as symbols ofmanhood, dignity, and wisdom? or that Christian Fathers thunderedagainst the barber, as a violator of divine law? No one, surely, couldaccuse that handy, oily, easy little personage of evil intent; but hesymbolized the subtile principle which pares away the natural virtueof man, and substitutes an artificial polish, which is hypocrisy. Itis to be observed, however, that hair can be representative of naturalevil as well as of good. A tangle-headed bush-ranger does not win oursympathies. A Mussulman keeps his beard religiously clean. 

Meanwhile the yellow-haired Scandinavian, whom we have already laidunder the imputation of being a dandy, stood on the threshold of Mr. Dyke's office, and that gentleman confronted him with a singularlyinquisitive stare. The visitor's face was a striking one, but can bedescribed, for the present, only in general terms. He might not becalled handsome; yet a very handsome man would be apt to appearinsignificant beside him. His features showed strength, and were atthe same time cleanly and finely cut. There was freedom in the archof his eyebrows, and plenty of eye-room beneath them. 

He took off his hat to Mr. Dyke, and smiled at him with artlesssuperiority, insomuch that the elderly clerk's sixty years weredisconcerted, and the Cerberus seemed to dwindle into the bumpkin!This young fellow, a good deal less than half Mr. Dyke's age, was yeta far older man of the world than he. Not that his appearancesuggested the kind of maturity which results from abnormal ordistorted development, --on the contrary, he was thoroughly genial andhealthful. But that power and assurance of eye and lip, generallybought only at the price of many years' buffetings, given and taken, were here married to the first flush and vigor of young manhood. 

"My name is Helwyse; I have come from Europe to see Mr. AmosMacGentle, " said the visitor, courteously. 

"Helwyse!--Hel--" repeated Mr. Dyke, having seemingly quite forgottenhimself. His customary manner to strangers implied that he knew, better than they did, who they were and what they wanted; and thatwhat he knew was not much to their credit. But he could only open hismouth and stare at this Helwyse. 

"Mr. MacGentle is an old friend; run in and tell him I'm here, and youwill see. " The young man put his hand kindly on the elderly clerk'sshoulder, much as though the latter were a gaping school-boy, anddirected him gently towards the inner door. 

Mr. Dyke regained his voice by an effort, though still lackingcomplete self-command. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Helwyse, sir, --ofcourse, of course, --it didn't seem possible, --so long, you know, --butI remembered the voice and the face and the name, --I neverforget, --but, by George, sir, can you really be--?"

"I see you have a good memory; you are Dyke, aren't you?" And Mr. Helwyse threw back his head and laughed, perhaps at the clerk'sbewildered face. At all events, the latter laughed, too, and they bothshook hands very heartily. 

"Beg pardon again, Mr. Helwyse, I'll speak to the President, " said Mr. Dyke, and stepped into the sanctuary of sanctuaries. 

Mr. MacGentle was taking a nap. He was seventy years old, and coulddrop asleep easily. When he slept, however lightly and briefly, he waspretty sure to dream; and if awakened suddenly, his dream would oftenprolong itself, and mingle with passing events, which would themselvesput on the semblance of unreality. On the present occasion the soundof Helwyse's voice had probably crept through the door, and insinuateditself into his dreaming brain. 

Mr. Dyke was too much excited to remark the President's condition. Heput his mouth close to the old gentleman's ear, and said, in anemphatic and penetrating undertone, --

"Here's your old friend Helwyse, who died in Europe two years ago, come back again, _younger than ever!_"

If the confidential clerk expected his superior to echo his ownbewilderment, he was disappointed. Mr. MacGentle unclosed his eyes, looked up, and answered rather pettishly, --

"What nonsense are you talking about his dying in Europe, Mr. Dyke? Hehasn't been in Europe for six years. I was expecting him. Let him comein at once. "

But he was already there; and Mr. Dyke slipped out again withconsternation written upon his features. Mr. MacGentle found himselfwith his thin old hand in the young man's warm grasp. 

"Helwyse, how do you do?--how do you do? Ah! you look as well as ever. I was just thinking about you. Sit down, --sit down!"

The old President's voice had a strain of melancholy in it, partly theresult of chronic asthma, and partly, no doubt, of a melancholictemperament. This strain, being constant, sometimes had a curiouslyincongruous effect as contrasted with the subject or circumstances inhand. Whether hailing the dawn of the millennium; holding playfulconverse with a child, making a speech before the Board, --underwhatever rhetorical conditions, Mr. MacGentle's intonation was alwayspitched in the same murmurous and somewhat plaintive key. Moreover, acorresponding immobility of facial expression had grown upon him; sothat altogether, though he was the most sympathetic and sensitive ofmen, a superficial observer might take him to be lacking in the commonfeelings and impulses of humanity. 

Perhaps the incongruity alluded to had not altogether escaped his ownnotice, and since discord of any kind pained him, he had mended thematter--as best he could--by surrendering himself entirely to hismournful voice; allowing it to master his gestures, choice oflanguage, almost his thoughts. The result was a colorlessness ofmanner which did great injustice to the gentle and delicate soulbehind. 

This conjecture might explain why Mr. MacGentle, instead of fallingupon his friend's neck and shedding tears of welcome there, onlyuttered a few commonplace sentences, and then drooped back into hischair. But it throws no light upon his remark that he had beenexpecting the arrival of a friend who, it would appear, had been deadtwo years. Helwyse himself may have been puzzled by this; or, being aquick-witted young man, he may have divined its explanation. He lookedat his entertainer with critical sympathy not untinged with humor. 

"I hope you are as well as I am, " said he. 

"A little tired this morning, I believe; I never was so strong a manas you, Helwyse. I think I must have passed a bad night. I rememberdreaming I was an old man, --an old man with white hair, Helwyse. "

"Were you glad to wake up again?" asked the young man, meeting theelder's faded eyes. 

"I hardly know whether I'm quite awake yet. And, after all, Thor, I'mnot sure that I don't wish the dream might have been true. If I werereally an old man, what a long, lonely future I should escape! but asit is--as it is--"

He relapsed into reverie. Ah! Mr. MacGentle, are you again the talland graceful youth, full of romance and fire, who roamed abroad inquest of adventures with your trusty friend Thor Helwyse, theyellow-bearded Scandinavian? Do you fancy this fresh, unwrinkled facea mate to your own? and is it but the vision of a restlessnight, --this long-drawn life of dull routine and gradualdisappointment and decay? Open those dim eyes of yours, good sir! stirthose thin old legs! inflate that sunken chest!--Ha! is that coughimaginary? those trembling muscles, --are they a delusion is that mistyglance only a momentary weakness There is no youth left in you, Mr. MacGentle; not so much as would keep a rose in bloom for an hour. 

"Have you seen Doctor Glyphic lately?" inquired Helwyse, after apause. 

"Glyphic?--do you know, I was thinking of him just now, --of our firstmeeting with him in the African desert. You remember!--a couple ofBedouins were carrying him off, --they had captured him on his way tosome apocryphal ruin among the sand-heaps. What a grand moment wasthat when you caught the Sheik round the throat with yourumbrella-handle, and pulled him off his horse! and then we mountedpoor Glyphic upon it, --mummied cat and all, --and away over the hotsand! What a day was that! what a day was that!"

The speaker's eyes had kindled; for a moment one saw the far flatdesert, the struggling knot of men and horses, the stampede of thethree across the plain, and the high sun flaming inextinguishablelaughter-over all!--and it had happened nigh forty years ago. 

"He never forgot that service, " resumed Mr. MacGentle, his customaryplaintive manner returning. "To that, and to your saving the Egyptianlad, --. Manetho, --you owe your wife Helen: ah! forgive me, --I hadforgotten; she is dead, --she is dead. "

"I never could understand, " remarked Helwyse, aiming to lead theconversation away from gloomy topics, "why the Doctor made so much ofManetho. " "That was only a part of the Egyptian mania that possessedhim, and began, you know, with his changing his name from Henry toHiero; and has gone on, until now, I suppose, he actually believeshimself to be some old inscription, containing precious secrets, notto be found elsewhere. Before the adventure with the boy, I remember, he had formed the idea of building a miniature Egypt in New Jersey;and Manetho served well as the living human element in it. 'Though Itake him to America, ' you know he said, 'he shall live in Egypt still. He shall have a temple, and an altar, and Isis and Osiris, and papyriand palm-trees and a crocodile; and when he dies I will embalm himlike a Pharaoh. ' 'But suppose you die first?' said one of us. 'Then heshall embalm me!' cried Hiero, and I will be the first Americanmummy. '"

Mr. MacGentle seemed to find a dreamy enjoyment in working this veinof reminiscence. He sat back in his low arm-chair, his unsubstantialface turned meditatively towards the Magdalen, his hands broughttogether to support his delicate chin. Helwyse, apprehending that thevein might at last bring the dreamer down to the present day, encouraged him to follow it. 

"It must have been a disappointment to the Doctor that his protégétook up the Christian religion, instead of following the faith andobservances of his Egyptian ancestors, for the last five thousandyears!"

"Why, perhaps it was, Thor, perhaps it was, " murmured Mr. MacGentle. "But Manetho never entered the pulpit, you know; it would not havebeen to his interest to do so; besides that, I believe he is reallydevoted to Glyphic, believing that it was he who saved him from thecrocodile. People are all the time making such absurd mistakes. Manetho is a man who would be unalterable either in gratitude orenmity, although his external manner is so mild. And as to his takingorders, why, as long as he wore an Egyptian robe, and said his prayersin an Egyptian temple, it would be all the same to Glyphic whatreligion the man professed!"

"Doctor Glyphic is still alive, then?"

The old man looked at the young one with an air half apprehensive, half perplexed, as if scenting the far approach of some undefineddifficulty. He passed his white hand over his forehead. "Everythingseems out of joint-to-day, Helwyse. Nothing looks or seems natural, except you! What is the matter with me?--what is the matter with me?"

Helwyse sat with both hands twisted in his mighty beard, and onebooted leg thrown over the other. He was full of sympathy at thespectacle of poor Amos MacGentle, blindly groping after the phantom ofa flower whose bloom and fragrance had vanished so terribly long ago;and yet, for some reason or other he could hardly forbear a smile. When anything is utterly out of place, it is no more pathetic thanabsurd; moreover, young men are always secretly inclined to laugh atold ones!

"Why should not Glyphic be alive?" resumed Mr. MacGentle. "Why not he, as well as you or I? Aren't we all about of an age?"

Helwyse drew his chair close to his companion's, and took his hand, asif it had been a young girl's. "My dear friend, " said he, "you saidyou felt tired this morning, but you forget how far you've travelledsince we last met. Doctor Glyphic, if he be living now, must be morethan sixty years old. Your dream of old age was such as many havedreamed before, and not awakened from in this world!"

"Let me think!--let me think!" said the old man; and, Helwyse drawingback, there ensued a silence, varied only by a long and tremulous sighfrom his companion; whether of relief or dejection, the visitor couldnot decide. But when Mr. MacGentle spoke, it was with more assurance. Either from mortification at his illusion, or more probably fromimperfect perception of it, he made no reference to what had passed. Old age possesses a kind of composure, arising from dulledsensibilities, which the most self-possessed youth can never rival. 

"We heard, through the London branch of our house, that Thor Helwysedied some two years ago. "

"He was drowned in the Baltic Sea. I am his son Balder. "

"He was my friend, " observed the old man, simply; but the tone he usedwas a magnet to attract the son's heart. "You look very much like him, only his eyes were blue, and yours, as I now see, are dark; but youmight be mistaken for him. "

"I sometimes have been, " rejoined Balder, with a half-smile. 

"And you are his son! You are most welcome!" said Mr. MacGentle, withold-fashioned courtesy. 

"Forgive me if I have--if anything has occurred to annoy you. I am avery old man, Mr. Balder; so old that sometimes I believe I forget howold I am! And Thor is dead, --drowned, --you say?"

"The Baltic, you know, has been the grave of many of our forefathers;I think my father was glad to follow them. I never saw him in betterspirits than during that gale. We were bound to England from Denmark. "

"Helen's death saddened him, --I know, --I know; he was never gay afterthat. But how--how did--?"

"He would keep the deck, though the helmsman had to be lashed to thewheel. I think he never cared to see land again, but he was full ofspirits and life. He said this was weather fit for a Viking. 

"We were standing by the foremast, holding on by a belaying-pin. Thesea came over the side, and struck him overboard. I went after him. Another wave brought me back; but not my father! I was knockedsenseless, and when I came to, it was too late. "

Helwyse's voice, towards the end of this story, became husky, and Mr. MacGentle's eyes, as he listened, grew dimmer than ever. 

"Ah!" said he, "I shall not die so. I shall die away gradually, like abreeze that has been blowing this way and that all day, and falls atsunset, no one knows how. Thor died as became him; and I shall die asbecomes me, --as becomes me!" And so, indeed, he did, a few yearslater; but not unknown nor uncared for. 

Balder Helwyse was a philosopher, no doubt; but it was no part of hiswisdom to be indifferent to unstrained sympathy. He went on to speakfurther of his own concerns, --a thing he was little used to do. 

It appeared that, from the time he first crossed the Atlantic, beingthen about four years old, up to the time he had recrossed it, a fewweeks ago, he had been journeying to and fro over the EasternHemisphere. His father, who, as well as himself, was American bybirth, was the descendant of a Danish family of high station andantiquity, and inherited the restless spirit of his ancestors. In thecourse of his early wanderings he had fallen in with MacGentle, who, though somewhat older than Helwyse, was still a young man; and laterthese two had encountered Hiero Glyphic. About fifteen years afterthis it was that Thor appeared at Glyphic's house in New Jersey, andwas welcomed by that singular man as a brother; and here he fell inlove with Glyphic's sister Helen, and married her. With her hereceived a large fortune, which the addition of his own made great;and at Glyphic's death Thor or his heirs would inherit the bulk of theestate left by him. 

So Thor, being then in the first prime of life, was prepared to settledown and become domestic. But the sudden death of his wife, and thesubsequent loss of one of the children she had borne him, drove himonce more abroad, with his baby son, never again to take root, or toreturn. And here Balder's story, as told by him, began. He seemed tohave matured very early, and to have taken hold of knowledge in allits branches like a Titan. The precise age at which he had learned allthat European schools could teach him, it is not necessary to specify;since it is rather with the nature of his mind than with the list ofhis accomplishments that we shall have to do. It might be possible, bytracing his-connection with French, or German, or Englishphilosophers, to make shrewd guesses at the qualities of his own!creed; but these will perhaps reveal themselves less diffidently underother tests. 

The last four or five years of his life Balder had spent in acquiringsuch culture as schools could not give him. Where he went, what he didand saw, we shall not exercise our power categorically to reveal;remarking only that his means and his social rank left him free to goas high as well as low as he pleased, --to dine with English dukes orwith Russian serfs. But a fine chastity inherent in his Northern bloodhad, whatever were his moral convictions, kept him from the mire; andthe sudden death of his father had given him a graver turn than wasnormal to his years. Meanwhile, the financial crash, which at thistime so largely affected Europe, swallowed up the greater part ofBalder's fortune; and with the remnant (about a thousand poundssterling), and a potential independence (in the shape of a learnedprofession) in his head, he sailed for Boston. 

"I knew you were my uncle Hiero's bankers, " he added, "and I supposedyou would be able to tell me about him. He is my only livingrelative. "

"Why, as to that, I believe it is a long time since the house has hadanything to do with his concerns, " returned the venerable President, abstractedly gazing at Balder's high boots; "but I'll ask Mr. Dyke. Heremembers everything. "

That gentleman (who had not passed an easy moment since Mr. Helwyse'sarrival) was now called in, and his suspense regarding the mysteriousvisitor soon relieved. In respect to Doctor Glyphic's affair he wasready and explicit. 

"No dollar of his money has been through our hands since winter ofEighteen thirty-five--six, Mr. Helwyse, sir, --winter following yourand your respected father's departure for foreign parts, " stated Mr. Dyke, straightening his mouth, and planting his fist on his hip. 

"Hm--hm!" murmured the President, standing thin and bent before theempty fireplace, a coat-tail over each arm. 

"You have heard nothing of him since then?"

"Nothing, Mr. Helwyse, sir! Reverend Manetho Glyphic--understood to bethe Doctor's adopted son--came here and effected the transfer, underauthority, of course, of his foster-father's signature. Where theproperty is at this moment, how invested with what returns, neitherthe President nor I can inform you, sir. "

"Hm--hm!" remarked Mr. MacGentle again. It was a favorite comment ofhis upon business topics. 

"It is possible I may be a very wealthy man, " said Balder, when Mr. Dyke had made his resolute bow and withdrawn. "But I hope my uncle isalive. It would be a loss not to have known so eccentric a man. I havea miniature of him which I have often studied, so that I shall knowhim when we meet. Can he be married, do you think?"

"Why no, Balder; no, I should hardly think so, " answered Mr. MacGentle, who, at the departure of his confidential clerk, hadrelapsed into his unofficial position and manner. "By the way, do_you_ contemplate that step?"

"It is said to be an impediment to great enterprises. I could learnlittle by domestic life that I could not learn better otherwise. "

"Hm, --we could not do without woman, you know. "

"If I could marry Woman, I would do it, " said the young man, unblushingly. "But a single crumb from that great loaf would be of nouse to me. "

"Ah, you haven't learned to appreciate women! You never knew yourmother, Balder; and your sister was lost before she was old enough tobe anything to you. By the way, I have always cherished a hope thatshe might yet be found. Perhaps she may, --perhaps she may. "

Balder looked perplexed, till, thinking the old gentleman might bereferring to a reunion in a future state, he said, --

"You believe that people recognize one another in the next world, Mr. MacGentle?"

"Perhaps, --perhaps; but why not here as well?" murmured the other, inreply; and Balder, suspecting a return of absent-mindedness, yieldedthe point. He had grown up in the belief that his twin-sister had diedin her infancy; but his venerable friend appeared to be under adifferent impression. 

"I shall go to New York, and try to find my uncle, or some trace ofhim, " said he. "If I'm unsuccessful, I mean to come back here, andsettle as a physician. "

"What is your specialty?"

"I'm an eye-doctor. The Boston people are not all clear-eyed, I hope. "

"Not all, --I should say not all; perhaps you may be able to help me, to begin with, " said Mr. MacGentle, with a gleam of melancholy humor. "I will ask Mr. Dyke about the chances for a practice he knowseverything. And, Balder, " he added, when the young man rose to go, "let me hear from you, and see you again sometimes, whatever mayhappen to you in the way of fortune. I'm rather a lonely old man, --alonely old man, Balder. "

"I'll be here again very soon, unless I get married, or commit amurder or some such enormity, " rejoined Helwyse, his long mustachecurling to, his smile. They shook hands, --the vigorous young god ofthe sun and the faded old wraith of Brahmanism, --with a friendly lookinto each other's eyes. 

VI. 

THE VAGARIES OF HELWYSE. 

Balder Helwyse was a man full of natural and healthy instincts: he wasnot afraid to laugh uproariously when so inclined; nor apt tocounterfeit so much as a smile, only because a smile would look well. What showed a rarer audacity, --he had more than once dared to weep! Tocrush down real emotions formed, in short, no part of his ideal of aman. Not belonging to the Little-pot-soon-hot family, he had, perhaps, never found occasion to go beyond the control of his temper, and blindrage he would in no wise allow himself; but he delighted inantagonisms, and though it came not within his rules to hate any man, he was inclined to cultivate an enemy, as more likely to beinstructive than some friends. His love of actual battle was intense:he had punched heads with many a hard-fisted school-boy in England; hebore the scar of a German _schläger_ high up on his forehead; andlater, in Paris, he had deliberately invaded the susceptibilities of aFrench journalist, had followed him to the field of honor, and beenthere run through the body with a small-sword, to the satisfaction ofboth parties. He was confined to his bed for a while; but hisoverflowing spirits healed the wound to the admiration of his doctors. 

These examples of self-indulgence have been touched upon only by wayof preparing the gentle reader for a shock yet more serious. Helwysewas a disciple of Brillat-Savarin, --in one word, a gourmand! Hisappetite never failed him, and, he knew how wisely to direct it. Henever ate a careless or thoughtless meal, be its elements simple asthey might. He knew and was loved by the foremost cooks all overEurope. Never did he allow coarseness or intemperance to mar therefinement of his palate. 

"Man, " he was accustomed to say, "is but a stomach, and the cook isthe pope of stomachs, in whose church are no respectable heretics. Ourhappiness lies in his saucepan, --at the mercy of his spit. Eating isthe appropriation to our needs of the good and truth of life, asexisting in material manifestation: the cook is the high-priest ofthat symbolic ceremony! I, and kings with me, bow before him! But hisis a responsibility beneath which Atlas might stagger; he, of all men, must be honest, warm-hearted, quick of sympathy, full of compassiontowards his race. Let him rejoice, for the world extols him for itswell-being;--yet tremble! lest upon his head fall the curse of itsmisery!"

This speech was always received with applause; the peroration beingdelivered with a vast controlled emphasis of eye and voice; and it wasfollowed by the drinking of the cook's health. "The generous virtues, "Mr. Helwyse would then go on to say, "arise from the cultivation ofthe stomach. From man's very earthliness springs the flower of hisspiritual virtue. We affect to despise the flesh, as vile andunworthy. What, then, is flesh made of? of nothing?--let who can, prove that! No, it is made of spirit, --of the divine, everlastingsubstance; it is the wall which holds Heaven in place! If there beanything vile in it, it is of the Devil's infusion, and enters notinto the argument. "

A man who had expressed such views as these at the most renownedtables of France and England was not likely to forget his principlesin the United States. Accordingly, he arose early, as we have seen, onthe morning after his arrival, and forced an astonished waiter tomarshal him to the kitchen, and introduce him to the cook. The cook ofthe Granite Hotel at that time was a round, red-lipped Italian, anartist and enthusiast, but whose temper had been much tried by lack ofappreciation; and, although his salary was good, he contemplatedthrowing it over, abandoning the Yankee nation to its fate, andseeking some more congenial field. Balder, who, when the mood was onhim, could wield a tongue persuasive as Richard the Third's, talkedto this man, and in seven minutes had won his whole heart. Theimmediate result was a delectable breakfast, but the sequel was atriumph indeed. It seems that the æsthetic Italian had for severaldays been watching over a brace of plump, truffled partridges. Thisday they had reached perfection, and were to have been eaten by noless a person than the cook himself. These cherished birds did he nowactually offer to make over to his eloquent and sympatheticacquaintance. Balder was deeply moved, and accepted the gift on onecondition, --that the donor should share the feast! "When a man servesme up his own heart, --truffled, too, --he must help me eat it, " hesaid, with emotion. The condition imposed was, after faint resistance, agreed to; the other episodes of the bill of fare were decided upon, and the Italian and the Scandinavian were to dine together thatafternoon. 

It still lacked something of the dinner-hour when Mr. Helwyse came outthrough the dark passage-way of the Beacon Hill Bank, and paused for afew moments on the threshold, looking up and down the street. Againstthe dark background he made a handsome picture, --tall, gallant, unique. The May sunshine, falling, athwart the face of the gloomy oldbuilding, was glad to light up the waves of his beard and hair, andto cast the shadow of his hat-brim over his forehead and eyes. Thepicture stays just long enough to fix itself in the memory, and thenthe young man goes lightly down the worn steps, and is lost along thecrowded street. Such as he is now, we shall not see him standing inthat dark frame again!

Wherever he went, Balder Helwyse was sure to be stared at; but to thishe was admirably indifferent. He never thought of speculating aboutwhat people thought of Mr. Helwyse; but to his own approval--somethingnot lightly to be had--he was by no means indifferent. Towards mankindat large he showed a kindly but irreverent charity, which excusedimperfection, not so much from a divine principle of love as fromscepticism as to man's sufficient motive and faculty to do well. Ofhimself he was a blunt and sarcastic critic, perhaps because heexpected more of himself than of the rest of the world, and fanciedthat that person only had the ability to be his censor!

If the Christian reader regards this mental attitude as unsound, farbe it from us to defend it! It must, nevertheless, be admitted thatwhoever feels the strong stirring of power in his head and hands willlearn its limits from no purely subjective source. The lesson mustbegin from without, and the only argument will be a deadly struggle. Until then, self-esteem, however veiled beneath self-criticism, cannotbut increase. And if the man has had wisdom and strength to abstainfrom vulgar self-pollution, Satan must intrust his spear to nohalf-fledged devil, but grasp it in his own hand, and join battle inhis own person. 

Undismayed by this fact, Helwyse reached Washington Street, andfollowed its westerly meanderings, meaning to spend part of theinterval before dinner in exploring Boston. He walked with an easysideways-swaying of the shoulders, whisking his cane, and smiling tohimself as he recalled the points of his interview with the President. 

"Just the thing, to make MacGentle tutelary divinity of so elusive amatter as money! Wonder whether the Directors ever thought of that?For all his unreality, though, he has something more real in him thanthe heaviest Director on the Board!

"How composedly he took me for my father! and when he discovered hismistake, how composedly he welcomed me in my own person! Was that theextreme of senility? or was it a subtile assertion of the fact, thathe who keeps in the vanguard of the age in a certain sense containshis father--the past--within himself, and is a distinct person chieflyby virtue of that containing power?

"Why didn't I ask him more about my foster-cousin Manetho? Egyptiansare more astute than affectionate. Would he cleave to my poor unclefor these last eighteen years merely for love? Why did he transferthat money so soon after we sailed? Ten to one, he has in his ownhands the future as well as the present disposal of Doctor HieroGlyphic's fortune! The old gentleman has had time to make a hundredwills since the one he showed my father, twenty years ago!

"Well, and what is that to you? Ah, Balder Helwyse, you lazy impostor, you are pining for Egyptian flesh-pots! Don't tell me about civilityto relatives, and the study of human nature! You are as bad as youaccuse your poor cousin of being, --who may be dead, or pastor of asmall parish, for all you know. And yet every school-girl can prattleof the educational uses of poverty, and of having to make one's ownliving! I have a good mind to take your thousand pounds sterling outof your pocket and throw them into Charles River, --and then begin atthe beginning! By the time I'd learnt what poverty can teach, it wouldbe over, --or I am no true man! Only they who are ashamed ofthemselves, or afraid of other people, need to start rich. "

Nevertheless, he could not do otherwise than hunt up the only relativehe had in America. Subsequent events did not convict him of being amere egotist, swayed only by the current of base success. He did notdespise prosperity, but he cared yet more to find out truths aboutthings and men. This is not the story of a fortune-hunter; not, at allevents, of a hunter of such fortunes as are made and lost nowadays. But, when one half of a man detects unworthy motives in the otherhalf, it is embarrassing. He acts most wisely, perhaps, who dropsdiscussion, and lets the balance of good and bad, at the given moment, decide. Our compound life makes many compromises, whereby ourprogress, whether heavenward or hellward, is made slow--and sure!

Here, or hereabouts, Balder lost his way. When thinking hard, he wasbeside himself; he strode, and tossed his beard, and shoulderedinoffensive people aside, and drew his eyebrows together, or smiled. Then, by and by, he would awake to realities, and find himself he knewnot where. 

This time, it was in an unsavory back-street; some dirty children wereplaying in the gutters, and a tall, rather flashily dressed man waswalking along some distance ahead, carrying something in one hand. Helwyse at first mended his pace to overtake the fellow, and ask theway to the hotel. But he presently changed his purpose, his attentionbeing drawn to the oddity of the other's behavior. 

The man was evidently one of those who live much alone, and socontract unconscious habits, against which society offers the onlysafeguard. He was absorbed in some imaginary dialogue; and soimperfectly could his fleshly veil conceal his mental processes, thathe gesticulated everything that passed through his mind. Thesegestures, though perfectly apparent to a steady observer, were so farkept within bounds as not to get more than momentary notice from thepassers-by, who, indeed, found metal more attractive to their gaze inHelwyse. 

Now did the man draw his head back and spread out his arms, as insurprise and repudiation; now his shoulders rose high, in deprecationor disclaimer. Now his forefinger cunningly sought the side of hisnose; now his fist shook in an imaginary face. At times he wouldstretch out a pleading arm and neck; the next moment he was aninflexible tyrant, spurning a suppliant. Again he would break into asoundless chuckle; then, raising his hand to his forehead, seemoverwhelmed with despair and anguish. Occasionally he would walk somedistance quite passively, only glancing furtively about him; buterelong he would forget himself again, and the dialogue would beginanew. 

Balder watched the man curiously, but without seeming to perceive therather grisly similitude between the latter's vagaries and his own. 

"What an ugly thing the inside of this person seems to be!" he said. "But then, whose thoughts and emotions would not render him alaughing-stock if they could be seen? If everybody looked, to hisfellow, as he really is, or even as he looks to himself, mankind wouldfly asunder, and think the stars hiding-places not remote enough! Howmany men in the world could walk from one end of the street they livein to the other, talking and acting their inmost thoughts all the way, and retain a bit of anybody's respect or love afterwards? No wonderHeaven is pure, if, our spiritual bodies are only thoughts andfeelings! and a Hell where every devil saw his fellow's deformityoutwardly manifested would be Hell indeed!

"But that can't be. Angels behold their own loveliness, because doingso makes them lovelier; but no devil could know his own vileness andlive. They think their hideousness charming, and, when the darkness isthickest about them, most firmly believe themselves in Heaven. But thelight of Heaven would be real darkness to them, for a ray of it wouldstrike them blind!"

Helwyse was too prone to moralizing. It shall not be our cue to quotehim, save when to do so may seem to serve an ulterior purpose. 

"I would like to hear the story that fellow is so exercised about, "muttered his pursuer. "How do I know it doesn't concern me? Thatviolin-box he carries is very much in his way; shall I offer to carryit for him, and, in return, hear his story? If the music soothes hissoul as much as the box moderates his gestures--"

Here the man abruptly turned into a doorway, and was gone. On comingup, Helwyse found that the doorway led in through a pair of greenfolding-doors to some place unseen. The house had an air of villanousrespectability, --a gambling-house air, or worse. Did the musician livethere? Helwyse paused but a moment, and then walked on; and thus, sagacious reader, the meeting was for the second time put off. 

When he reached his hotel, he had only half an hour to dress fordinner in; but he prepared himself faultlessly, chanting a sort ofhymn to Appetite the while. "Hunger, " quoth he, "is mightiest ofmagicians; breeds hope, energy, brains; prompts to love andfriendship. Hunger gives day and night their meaning, and makes thepulse of time beat; creates society, industry, and rank. Hunger movesman to join in the work of creation, --to harmonize himself with themusic of the universe, --to feel ambition, joy, and sorrow. Hungerunites man to nature in the ever-recurring inspiration to food, followed by the ever-alternating ecstasy of digestion. Morning tuneshis heart to joy, for the benison of breakfast awaits him. The sunscales heaven to light him to his noonday meal. Evening wooes himsupperwards, and night brings timeless sleep, to waft him to anotherdawn. Eating is earth's first law, and heaven itself could not subsistwithout it!"

So Balder Helwyse and the cook feasted gloriously that afternoon, inthe back pantry, and they solemnly installed the partridges among theconstellations!

VII. 

A QUARREL. 

That same afternoon Mr. MacGentle put his head into the outer officeand said, "Mr. Dyke, could I speak with you a moment?"

Mr. Dyke scraped back his chair and went in, with his polished baldhead, and square face and figure, --a block of common-sense. He wasmore common-sensible than usual, that afternoon, because he had sostrangely forgotten himself in the morning. Mr. MacGentle was in hisusual position for talking with his confidential clerk, --standing upwith his back to the fireplace, and his coat-tails over his arms. Experience had taught him that this attitude was better adapted thanany other to sustain the crushing weight of Mr. Dyke's sense. To haveconversed with him in a sitting position would have been to losebreath and vitality before the end of five minutes. 

"Mr. Helwyse has thoughts of settling in Boston to practise hisprofession, " began the President, gently. "I told him you would belikely to know what the chances are. "

"Profession is--what?" demanded Mr. Dyke, settling his fist on hiship. 

"O--doctor--physician; eye-doctor, he said, I think. "

"Eye-doctor? Well, Dr. Schlemm won't last the winter; may drop anyday. Just the thing for Mr. Helwyse, --Dr. Helwyse. " And the subject, being discussed at some length between the two gentlemen, took on apromising aspect. His house was picked out for the new incumbent, hisearnings calculated, his success foretold. Two characters so diverseas were the President and his clerk united, it seems, in liking theyoung physician. 

"Married?" asked Mr. Dyke, after a pause. 

"Why, no, --no; and he doesn't seem inclined to marry. But he is quiteyoung; perhaps he may, later on in life, Mr. Dyke. "

The elderly clerk straightened his mouth. "Matter of taste--andpolicy. Gives solidity, --position;--and is an expense and aresponsibility. " Mr. Dyke himself was well known to be the husband ofan idolized wife, and the father of a despotic family. 

"He never had the advantage of woman's influence in his childhood, youknow. His poor mother died in giving him and his sister birth; and thesister was lost, --stolen away, two or three years later. He does notappreciate woman at her true value, " murmured MacGentle. 

"Stolen away? His sister died in infancy, --so I understood, sir, "said the clerk, whose versions of past events were apt to differ fromthe President's. 

But the President--perhaps because he was conscious that his memoryregarding things of recent occurrence was treacherous--was abnormallysensitive as to the correctness of his more distant reminiscences. 

"O no, she was stolen, --stolen by her nurse, just before Thor Helwysewent to Europe, I think, " said he. 

"Beg your pardon, sir, " said Mr. Dyke, with an iron smile;"died, --burnt to death in her first year, --yes, sir!"

"Mr. Dyke, " rejoined MacGentle, dignifiedly, lifting his chin highabove his stock, "I have myself seen the little girl, then in herthird year, pulling her brother's hair on the nursery floor. She wasdark-eyed, --a very lovely child. As to the burning, I now recollectthat when the house in Brooklyn took fire, the child was in danger, but was rescued by her nurse, who herself received very severeinjuries. "

Mr. Dyke heaved a long, deliberate sigh, and allowed his eyes towander slowly round the room, before replying. 

"You are not a family man, Mr. MacGentle, sir! Don't blame you, sir!Your memory, perhaps--But no matter! The nurse who stole the childwas, I presume, the same who rescued her from the fire?"

Mr. Dyke perhaps intended to give a delicately ironical emphasis tothis question, but his irony was apt to be a rather unwieldy andunmistakable affair. The truth was, he was a little staggered by thePresident's circumstantial statement; whence his deliberation, and hisnot entirely pertinent rejoinder about "a family man. "

"And why not the same, sir? I ask you, why not the same?" demanded Mr. MacGentle, with slender imperiousness. 

But, by this time, Mr. Dyke had thought of a new argument. 

"The little girl, I understood you to say, was dark? Since she was thetwin-sister of one of Mr. Balder Helwyse's complexion, that is odd, Mr. MacGentle, --odd, sir. " And the solid family man fixed his sharpbrown eyes full upon the unsubstantial bachelor. The latter's delicatenostrils expanded, and a pink flush rose to his faded cheeks. He wasnow as haughty and superb as a paladin. 

"I will discuss business subjects with my subordinates, Mr. Dyke; notother subjects, if you please! This dispute was not begun by me. Letit be carried no further, sir! Twins are not necessarily, norinvariably, of the same complexion. Let nothing more be said, Mr. Dyke. I trust the little girl may yet be found and restored to herfamily--to--to her brother! I trust she may yet be found, sir!" And heglared at Mr. Dyke aggressively. 

"I trust you may live to see it, Mr. MacGentle, sir!" said theconfidential clerk, shifting his ground in a truly masterly manner;and before the President could recover, he had bowed and gone out. Tenminutes afterwards MacGentle opened the door, and lo! Dyke himself onthe threshold. 

"Mr. Dyke!"

"Mr. MacGentle!" in the same breath. 

"I--Mr. Dyke, let me apologize for my asperity, --for my rudeness, "says MacGentle, stepping forward and holding out his thin white hand, his eyebrows more raised than ever, the corners of his mouth moredepressed. "I am sincerely sorry that--that--"

"O sir!" cries the square clerk, grasping the thin hand in both hissquare palms; "O sir! O sir! No, no!--no, no! I was just coming to begyou--My fault, --my fault, Mr. MacGentle, sir! No, no!"

Thus incoherently ended the quarrel between these two old friends, thedispute being left undecided. But the important point was establishedthat Balder Helwyse was insured a practice in Boston, in case hisuncle Glyphic's fortune failed to enrich him. 

VIII. 

A COLLISION IMMINENT. 

A large, handsome steamer was the "Empire State, " of the line whichran between Newport and New York. She was painted white, hadwalking-beam engines, and ornamented paddle-boxes, and had been knownto run nearly twenty knots in an hour. On the evening of thetwenty-seventh of May, in the year of which we write, she left herNewport dock as usual, with a full list of passengers. On getting outof the harbor, she steamed into a bank of solid fog, and only got outof it the next morning, just before passing Hellgate, at the head ofEast River, New York. On the passage down Long Island Sound she metwith an accident. She ran into the schooner Resurrection, which waslying becalmed across her course, carrying away most of the schooner'sbowsprit, but doing no serious damage. This, however, was not theworst. On arriving in New York, it was found that one of thepassengers was missing! He had fallen overboard during the night, possibly at the time of the collision. 

Balder Halwyse was on board. After dining with the cook, and smokinga real Havana cigar (probably the first real one that he had ever beenblessed with), he put a package of the same brand in histravelling-bag, bade his entertainer, --who had solemnly engaged toremain in Boston for Mr. Helwyse's sole sake, --bade hisfellow-convivialist good by, and took the train to Newport, and fromthere the "Empire State" for New York. 

The darkness was the most impenetrable that the young man had everseen; Long Island Sound was like a pocket. The passengers--those whodid not go to their state-rooms at once--sat in the cabin reading, ordozing on the chairs and sofas. A few men stayed out on deck for anhour or two, smoking; but at last they too went in. The darkness wasappalling. The officer on the bridge blew his steam fog-whistle everyfew minutes, and kept his lanterns hung out; but they must have beeninvisible at sixty yards. 

Helwyse kept the deck alone. Apparently he meant to smoke his wholebundle of cigars before turning in. He paced up and down, Napoleon-like in his high boots, until finally he was brought to astand by the blind night-wall, which no man can either scale orcircumvent. Then he leaned on the railing and looked against thedarkness. Not a light to be seen in heaven or on earth! The waterbelow whispered and swirled past, torn to soft fragments by thegigantic paddle-wheel. Helwyse's beard was wet and his hands stickywith the salt mist. 

Ever and anon sounded the fog-whistle, hoarsely, as though the fog hadgot in its throat; and the pale glare of a lantern, fastened aloftsomewhere, lighted up the white issuing steam for a moment. There wasno wind; one was conscious of motion, but all sense of direction andposition--save to the steersman--was lost. Helwyse could see the redend of his cigar, and very cosey and friendly it looked; but he couldsee nothing else. 

It is said that staid and respectable people, when thoroughly steepedin night, will sometimes break out in wild grimaces and outlandishgesticulations. It is certainly the time when unlawful thoughts andwords come to men most readily and naturally. Night brings forth manythings that daylight starts from. The real power of darkness lies notin merely baffling the eyesight, but in creating the feeling ofdarkness in the soul. The chains of light are broken, and we canalmost believe our internal night to be as impenetrable to God's eyesas that external, to our own!

By and by Helwyse thought he would find some snug place and sit down. The cabin of the "Empire State" was built on the main deck, abaft thefunnel, like a long, low house. Between the stern end of this houseand the taffrail was a small space, thickly grown with camp-stools. Helwyse groped his way thither, got hold of a couple of thecamp-stools, and arranged himself comfortably with his back againstthe cabin wall. The waves bubbled invisibly in the wake beneath. Aftersitting for a while in the dense blackness, Helwyse began to feel asthough his whole physical self were shrivelled into a single atom, careering blindly through infinite space!

After all, and really, was he anything more? If he chose to think not, what logic could convince him of the contrary? Visible creation, asany child could tell him, was an illusion, --was not what it seemed tobe. But this darkness was no illusion! Why, then, was it not the onlyreality? and he but an atom, charged with a vital power of so-calledsenses, that generally deceived him, but sometimes--as now--let himglimpse the truth? The fancy, absurd as it was, had its attraction forthe time being. This great living, staring world of men and things isa terrible weight to lug upon one's back. But if man be an invisibleatom, what a vast, wild, boundless freedom is his! Infinite space iswide enough to cut any caper in, and no one the wiser. 

One would like to converse with a man who had been born and had livedin solitude and darkness. What original views he would have abouthimself and life! Would he think himself an abstract intelligence, out of space and time? What a riddle his physical sensations would beto him! Or, suppose him to meet with another being brought up in thesame way; how they would mystify each other! Would they learn to feelshame, love, hate? or do the passions only grow in sunshine? Wouldthey ever laugh? Would they hatch plots against each other, lie, deceive? Would they have secrets from each other?

But, fancy aside, take a supposable case. Suppose two sinners of ourdaylight world to meet for the first time, mutually unknown, on anight like this. Invisible, only audible, how might they plungeprofound into most naked intimacy, --read aloud to each other thesecrets of their deepest hearts! Would the confession lighten theirsouls, or make them twice as heavy as before? Then, the next morning, they might meet and pass, unrecognizing and unrecognized. But wouldthe knot binding them to each other be any the less real, becauseneither knew to whom he was tied? Some day, in the midst of friends, in the brightest glare of the sunshine, the tone of a voice wouldstrike them pale and cold. 

Somewhat after this fashion, perhaps, did Helwyse commune withhimself. He liked to follow the whim of the moment, whither it wouldlead him. He was romantic; it was one of his agreeablest traits, because spontaneous; and he indulged it the more, as being confidentthat he had too much solid ballast in the hold to be in danger ofupsetting. To-night, at this point of his mental ramble, he found thathis cigar had gone out. Had he been thinking aloud? He believed not, and yet there was no telling; he often did so, unconsciously. Were itso, and were any one listening, that person had him decidedly atadvantage!

What put it into his head that some one might be listening? It mayhave come by pure accident, --if there be such a thing. The ideareturned, stealing over his mind like a chilling breath. What if someone had all along been close beside him, with eyes fixed upon him!Helwyse found himself sitting perfectly still, holding his breath tolisten. There was no disguising it, --he felt uneasy. He wished hiscigar had not gone out. On second thoughts, he wished there had notbeen any cigar at all, because, if any one were near, the cigar musthave pointed out the smoker's precise position. The uneasiness did notlessen, but grew more defined. 

It was like the sensation felt when pointed at by a human finger, orstared at persistently. Was there indeed any one near? No sound ormovement gave answer, but the odd sensation continued. Helwyse fanciedhe could now tell whence it came;--from the left, and not far away. Hepeered earnestly thitherward, but his eyes only swallowed blackness. 

Was not this carrying a whim to a foolish length? If he thought hehad a companion, why not speak, and end the doubt? But the densesilence, darkness, uncertainty, made common-sense seem out of place. The whole black fog, the sea, the earth itself, seemed to be pressingdown his will! The longer he delayed, the weaker he grew. 

A slight shifting of his position caused him all at once to encounterthe eyes of the unseen presence with his own! The stout-nerved youngfellow was startled to the very heart. Was the unseen presencestartled also? At all events, the shock found Balder Helwyse histongue, seldom before tied up without his consent. 

"I hope I'm not disturbing your solitude. You are not a noisyneighbor, sir. "

So flat fell the words on the blank darkness, it seemed as if therecould never be a reply. Nevertheless, a reply came. 

"You must come much nearer me than you are, to disturb my solitude. Itdoes not consist in being without a companion. "

The quality of this voice of darkness was peculiar. It sounded old, yet of an age that had not outlived the devil of youth. Probably theinvisibility of the speaker enhanced its effect. With most of theelements of pleasing, it was nevertheless repulsive. It was soft, fluent, polished, but savage license was not far off, hard held by aslender leash; an underlying suggestion of harsh discordance. Theutterance, though somewhat rapid, was carefully distinct. 

Helwyse had the gift of familiarity, --of that rare kind of familiaritywhich does not degenerate into contempt. But there was an incongruityabout this person, hard to assimilate. In a couple of not veryoriginal sentences, he had wrought upon his listener an effect ofdepraved intellectual power, strangely combined with artlesssimplicity, --an unspeakably distasteful conjunction! Imagination, freed from the check of the senses, easily becomes grotesque; andHelwyse, unable to see his companion, had no difficulty in picturinghim as a grisly monster, having a satanic head set upon the ingenuousshoulders of a child. And what was Helwyse himself? No longer, surely, the gravely humorous moralizer? The laws of harmony forbid! He is amonster likewise; say--since grotesqueness is in vogue--the heart ofLucifer burning beneath the cool brain of a Grecian sage. Thesymbolism is not inapt, since Helwyse, while afflicted with pride andambition as abstract as boundless, had, at the same time, a logical, fearless brain, and keen delight in beauty. 

"I was just thinking, " remarked the latter monster, "that this was agood place for confidential conversation. "

"You believe, then, that talking relieves the mind?" rejoined theformer, softly. 

"I believe a thief or a murderer would be glad of an hour--such as nowpasses--to impart the story of what is dragging him to Hell. And eventhe best houses are better for an airing!"

"A pregnant idea! There are certainly some topics one would like todiscuss, free from the restraint that responsibility imposes. Have youever reflected on the subject of omnipotence?"

Somewhat confounded at this bold question, Helwyse hesitated a moment. 

"I can't see you, remember, any more than you can see me, " insinuatedthe voice, demurely. 

"I believe I have sometimes asked myself whether it wereobtainable, --how it might best be approximated, " admitted Helwyse, cautiously; for he began to feel that even darkness might be tootransparent for the utterance of some thoughts. 

"But you never got a satisfactory answer, and are not thereforeomnipotent? Well, the reason probably is, that you started wrongly. Did it ever occur to you to try the method of sin?"

"To obtain omnipotence? No!"

"It wouldn't be right, --eh?" chuckled the voice. "But then one mustlay aside prejudice if one wants to be all-powerful! Now, sin denotesseparation; the very etymology of the word should have attracted theattention of an ambitious man, such as you seem to be. It is a pathseparate from all other paths, and therefore worth exploring. "

"It leads to weakness, not to power!"

"If followed in the wrong spirit, very true. But the wise man sins andis strong! See how frank I am!--But don't let me monopolize theconversation. "

"I should like to hear your argument, if you have one. You are aprophet of new things. "

"Sin is an old force, though it may be applied in new ways. Well, youwill admit that the true sinner is the only true reformer andphilosopher among men? No? I will explain, then. The world is full ofdiscordances, for which man is not to blame. His endeavor to meet andharmonize this discordance is called sin. His indignation at disorder, rebellion against it, attempts to right it, are crimes! That is thevulgar argument which wise men smile at. "

"I may be very dull; but I think your explanations need explaining. "

"We'll take some examples. What is the liar, but one who sees thefalse relations of things, and seeks to put them in the true? Themission of the thief, again, is to equalize the notoriously unjustdistribution of wealth. A fundamental defect in the principles ofhuman association gave birth to the murderer; and as for theadulterer, he is an immortal protest against the absurd laws whichinterfere between the sexes. Are not these men, and others of similarstamp, the bulwarks of true society, --our leaders towards justice andfreedom?"

Whether this were satire, madness, or earnest, Helwyse could notdetermine. The night-fog had got into his brain. He made shift, however, to say that the criminal class were not, as a mere matter offact, the most powerful. 

"Again you misapprehend me, " rejoined the voice, with perfect suavity. "No doubt there are many weak and foolish persons who commitcrimes, --nay, I will admit that the vast majority of criminals areweak and foolish; but that does not affect the dignity of the truesinner, --he who sins from exalted motives. Ignorance is the only realcrime, polluting deeds that, wisely done, are sublime. Sin isculture!"

"Were I, then, from motives of self-culture, to kill you, I should betaking a long step towards rising in your estimation?" put in Helwyse. 

"Admirable!" softly exclaimed the voice, in a tone as of an approvingpat on the back. "Certainly, I should be the last to deny it! Butwould it not be more for the general good, were I, who have long beena student of these things, to kill a seeming novice like you? Itwould assure me of having had one sincere disciple. "

"I wonder whether he's really mad?" mused Balder Helwyse, shuddering alittle in the dampness. 

"But, badinage aside, " resumed this loquacious voice, "although thereis so much talk and dispute about evil, very few people know what evilessentially is. Now, there are some things, the mere doing of which bythe most involuntary agent would at once stamp his soul with theconviction of ineffable sin. He would have touched the essence ofevil. And if a wise man has done that, he has had in his hand the keyto omnipotence!"

"It is easily had, then. A man need but take his Leviticus andDeuteronomy, and run through the catalogue of crimes. He would be sureof finding the key hidden beneath some of them. "

"No; you do Moses scant justice. He--shrewd soul!--was too cunning tofall into such an error as that. He forbade a few insignificant andharmless acts, which every one is liable to commit. His policy was noless simple than sagacious. By amusing mankind with such trumpery, helured them off the scent of true sin. Believe me, the artifice was noidle one. Should mankind learn the secret, a generation would not passbefore the world would be turned upside down, and its present Rulerburied in the ruins!"

At this point, surely, Helwyse got up and went to his state-roomwithout listening to another word?--Not so. The Lucifer in him wasgetting the better of the sage. He wanted to hear all that the voiceof darkness had to say. There might be something new, somethinginstructive in it. He might hear a word that would unbar the door hehad striven so long to open. He aimed at knowledge and power beyondrecognized human reach. He had taken thought with himself keenly anddeeply, but was still uncertain and unsatisfied. Here opened a newavenue, so untried as to transcend common criticism. The temptation toomnipotence is a grand thing, and may have shaken greater men thanHelwyse; and he had trained himself to regard it--not exactly as atemptation. As for good or bad methods, --at a certain intellectualheight such distinctions vanish. Vulgar immorality he would turn fromas from anything vulgar; but refined, philosophic immorality, as aweapon of power, --there was fascination in it. 

--Folly and delusion!--

But Helwyse was only Helwyse, careering through pitchy darkness, on aviewless sea, with a plausible voice at his ear insinuating villanousthoughts with an air of devilish good-fellowship!

The "Empire State" was at this moment four and a half miles northeastof the schooner whose bowsprit she was destined to carry away. Thesteamer was making about ten knots an hour: the schooner was slowlydrifting with the tide into the line of the steamer's course. Thecatastrophe was therefore about twenty-seven minutes distant. 

IX. 

THE VOICE OF DARKNESS. 

The fog-whistle screeched dismally. Helwyse took his feet off thecamp-stool in front of him, and sat upright. 

"Do you know this secret of sin?" he asked. 

"It must, of course, be an object of speculation to a thoughtful man, "answered the voice, modestly parrying the question. "But I assure youthat only a man of intellect--of genius--has in him the intelligence, the sublime reach of soul, which could attain the full solution of theproblem; they who merely blunder into it would fail to grasp the grandsignificance of the idea. "

"But you affirm that whoever fairly masters the problem of absolutesin would have God and His kingdom at his mercy?"

"I am loath to appear boastful; but I apprehend the fact to be notunlike what you suggest, " the voice replied, with a subdued gusto. "Itwould depend upon our hypothetical person's discretion, and his viewsas to the claims of the august Being who has so long controlled thedestinies of the human race, how much the existing order of thingsmight have to fear from him. I should imagine that the august Being, if He be as wise as they say He is, would be careful how He treatedthis hypothetical person!"

"You are a liar, " said Helwyse, unceremoniously. "Why is not Satan, who must possess this all-powerful knowledge, supreme over theuniverse?"

Instead of taking offence (as Helwyse, to do him justice, hoped itwould; for his Berserker blood, which boiled only at heaven-and-helltemperature, was beginning to stir in him), --so far from beingoffended, the voice only uttered its peculiar quiet chuckle. 

"Your frankness charms me! it proves you worthy to learn. Satan--supposing there be such a personage--divides, with the otheraugust Being, the sovereignty of the spiritual world. Were I a cynic, I should say he owned at least half of the physical world into thebargain! But Satan is only a spirit, and his power over men is but asthe power of a dream. Were a Satan to arise in the flesh, so that mencould see and touch him, and hear his voice with their fleshyears, --there were a Satan! Already has the Incarnation of goodnessappeared to mankind, and, though the world be moved to virtue onlyslowly and with reluctance, mark how mighty has been his influence!What think you, then, would be the power of a Christ of evil, showingto men the path they already grope for? I tell you, the human racewould be his only; Hell, full to bursting with their hurrying souls, would outweigh Heaven in the balance; the teller of the secret wouldbe king above all, --forever!"

The sinuous voice twined round the listener's mind, swaddling thevigorous limbs into imbecile inertia. But when before now did a sanehuman brain let itself be duped by sophistry? This case were worthmarking, if only because it is unparalleled. 

"And the only punishable sin is ignorance!" muttered Helwyse. 

"Well, I have thought so, too. And I have questioned whether a manmight have power over himself, to put his hand to evil or to goodalike, and to remain impartial and impassive; and so make evil andgood alike minister to his culture and raise him upwards!"

"The question does credit to your wit, " chimed in the voice ofdarkness. "Whoever has in him the making of a deity must learn thenature of opposites. The soldier will not join battle without studyingthe tactics of the enemy. Without experimental knowledge of both eviland good, none but a fool would believe that man can becomeall-powerful. "

"From the care with which you avoid speaking the name of God, if fromno other cause, I should suppose you to be the Devil himself!"observed Helwyse, bluntly. 

"Well, profanity is vulgar! As to my being the Devil, it is too darkhere for either denial or acknowledgment to be of practical use. But(to be serious)--about this secret--"

The voice paused interrogatively. Lucifer, speaking through Helwyse'slips, demanded sullenly, --

"Well, what is the secret?"

What, indeed! Why, there is no such secret;--it is a bugbear! But themoral perversion of the person who could soberly ask the question thatHelwyse asked is not so easily disposed of. It met, indeed, with fullrecognition. As for the subtile voice, having accomplished its mainpurpose, it began now to evade the point and to run into digressions;until the collision came, and ended the conversation forever. 

"Unfortunately, " said the voice, "the secret is not such as may betold in a word. Like all profound knowledge, it can only becommunicated by leading the learner, step by step, over the groundtraversed by the original discoverer. Let me, as a sort ofpreliminary, suppose a case. "

Hereupon ensued a considerable silence, and Helwyse seemed once more adetached atom, flying through infinite darkness without guide orcontrol. Where was he?--what was he? Did the world exist, --the broadearth, the sunny sky, the beauty, the sound, the order and sweetsuccession of nature? Was he a shadow that had dreamed for a moment astrange dream, and would anon be quenched, and know what had seemedSelf no more? Strangely, through the doubt and uncertainty, Helwysefelt the pressure of his shoulders against the cabin wall, and thetouch of the dead cigar between his fingers. 

The voice, resuming, restored him to a reality that seemed lesstrustworthy than the doubt. The tone was not quite the same asheretofore. The smooth mocking had given place to a hurriedexcitement, alien to the philosophic temperament. 

"A man kidnaps the child of his enemy, through the child to revengehimself. Kill it?--no! he is no short-sighted bungler; he hasrefinement, foresight, understanding. She is but an infant, --open andimpressible, warm and sanguine! He isolates her from sight and reach. He pries into her nature with keenest delicacy, --no leaf is unread. Being learnt, he works upon it; touches each budding trait withgentlest impulse. No violence! he seems to leave her to her owndevelopment; yet nothing goes against his will. More than half is leftto nature, but his scarce perceptible touches bias nature. Ah! theidealization of education!"

"This sounds more real than hypothetical!" thought Helwyse. 

"So cunning was he, he reversed in her mind the universal law. Evilwas good; good, evil. She grew fast and strong, for evil is thesweeter food; it is rich earth to the plant. She never knew that evilexisted, yet evil was all she knew! For whatever is forced reacts; henever taught her positive sin, lest she perversely turn to good. "

"Did he mean insensibly to initiate her into the knowledge of absolutesin?"

"Such would be his purpose, --such would be his purpose. To make her adevil, without the chance of knowing it possible to be anything else!"

"He was a fool, " growled Helwyse. "The plan is folly, --impracticablein twenty ways. A soul cannot be so influenced. Devils are not made byeducation. The only devil would be the educator!"

But the voice had forgotten his presence. It ceased not to mutter toitself while he was speaking, and now it broke forth again. 

"Years have passed, --she is a woman now. She knows not that the worldexists. All is yet latent within her. But the time is at hand when thehidden forces shall flower! Plunged into life, with nothing to holdby, no truth, no divine help; her marvellous powers and passions infull strength, --all trained to drag her down, --not one aspiring, maddened by new thoughts, limitless opportunities opening beforeher, --she will plunge into such an abyss of sin as has been undreamtof since the Deluge!"

"Well, --what of it? what is the upshot?" questioned Helwyse withsullen impatience. The emotion now apparent in the voice, uncannythough it was, counteracted the spell wrought by its purelyintellectual depravity. Helwyse was perhaps beginning to understandthat he had ventured his stock of virgin gold for a handful of uncleanwaste-paper!

"He will come back, --her father, --my enemy! I have waited for him fromyouth to age. I have seen him in my dreams, and in visions. I am withhim continually, --we talk together. At first, cringingly and softly, Ilead him to recall the past, to speak of the dead wife, --the lostchild, --her baby ways and words. I lure him on till imagination hasfired his love and given life and vividness to his memory. Then Iwhisper, --She lives! she is near! in a moment he shall behold her! Andwhile his heart beats and he trembles, I bring her forth in herbeauty. Take her! your daughter! the one devil on earth; but devilsshall spring like grass in the track of her footsteps!"

The voice had worked itself into a frenzy, and, forgetting caution, had crazily exposed itself. Its owner was probably some poor lunatic, subject to fits of madness. But Helwyse was full of scorn and anger, born of that bitterest disappointment which admits not even the poorconsolation of having worthily aspired. He had been duped, --and by thecobwebs of a madman's brain! He broke into a short laugh, harsh to theear, and answering to no mirthful impulse. 

"So! you are the hero of your story? You have brooded all your lifeover a crazy scheme of stabbing a father through his child, until youhave become as blind as you are vicious! As for the girl, you may havemade her ignorant and stupid, or even idiotic; but that she shouldbecome queen of Hell or anything of that kind--"

He stopped, for his unseen companion was evidently beyond hearing him. The man seemed to be actually struggling in a fit, --gasping andchoking. It was a piteous business, --not less piteous than revolting. But Helwyse felt no pity, --only ugly, hateful, unrelenting anger, needing not much stirring to blaze forth in fearful passion. Where nowwere his wise saws, --his philosophic indifference? Self-respect is thepith of such supports; which being gone, the supports fail. 

"My music, --my music!" gasped the voice; "my music, or I shall die!"

"Die? Yes, it were well you should die. You cumber the earth! Shall Ido it?" Helwyse muttered to his heart, --"merely as a means ofculture!"

Perhaps it was said only in a mood of sardonic jesting. The nextmoment, no doubt, Balder Helwyse would have retired to his cabin, leaving the voice of darkness forever. But at that moment the hurriedflash of a lantern on the captain's bridge fell full on the youngman's face and shoulders, gleaming in his eyes, and lighting up themasses of yellow hair and mighty beard. He was standing with one handresting on the taffrail. The dim halo of the fog, folding him about, made him look like a spirit. 

X. 

HELWYSE RESISTS THE DEVIL. 

As the light so fell, hoarse voices shouted, and then a concussionshivered through the steamer, and her headway was slackened. But ofthis Helwyse knew nothing; for the voice had burst forth in a cry offear, amazement, and hate; and in another breath he found himselfclutched tightly in long, wiry arms, and felt panting breath hotagainst his face. 

He struggled at first to free himself, --but he was held in the grip ofa madman! Then did the turbid current of his blood begin to leap andtingle, and strange half-thoughts darted through his mind likedeformed spectres, capering as they flew! The bulwark of his will wasoverthrown; he could not poise himself long enough to recover hisself-sway. He was sliding headlong down a steep, the velocity momentlyincreasing. 

Was it Balder Helwyse that was struggling thus furiously, his bodyfull of fire, his brain of madness, his heart quick-beating withsavage, wicked, thirsty joy? His soul--his own no longer--wasbestridden by a frantic demon, who, brimming over with hot glee, drove him whirling blindly on, with an ever-growing purpose thatsurcharged each smallest artery, and furnished a condensed dart ofmalice wherewith to stab and stab again the opposing soul. He waxedevery instant madder, wickeder, more devilishly exultant; and now, although panting, breathless, pricking at every pore from the agony ofthe strain, he could scarce forbear screaming with delight! for hefelt he was gaining, and--O ecstasy!--knew that his adversary felt italso, and that his heart was as full of black despair and terror aswas his conqueror's of intolerable triumph! Gaining still!

Strange, that all through this wild frenzy in which body and soul wererapt, the essential part of Balder Helwyse seemed to be looking on, with a curious, repellent twist of feature, commenting on what wasgoing forward, and noting, with quiet interest and precision, eachvarying phase of the struggle, --noting, as of significance, that thesway of the demon of murder made the idea of other crimes seem beyondwords congenial, enticing, delicious!

Steadily through this storm of lawless fury has the predestinedvictory been drawing near! The throbbing of his enemy'sheart, --Helwyse feels it; did ever lover so rejoice in thepalpitations of his mistress? O the wine of life! drunk from the cupof murder! Hear how the wretch's voice breaks choking from histhroat!--he would beg for mercy, but cannot, shall not! Keep yourfingers in his throat; the other hand creeps warily downwards. Nowhurl him up, --over!--

 * * * * *

But with what an ugly gulp the black water swallowed his body!

XI. 

A DEAD WEIGHT. 

Was it not well done? Tempted to covet imaginary wickedness, Helwysewas ripe for real crime, --and who so worthy to suffer as the tempter?

He leaned panting against taffrail. His predominant feeling was thathe had been ensnared. His judgment had been drugged, and he had beenlured on to evil. An infamous conspiracy!

His breath regained, he stood upright and in a mechanical mannerarranged his disordered dress. His haversack was gone, --had been tornfrom his shoulders and carried overboard. An awkward loss! for itcontained, among other things, valuable letters and papers given himby his father; not to mention a note-book of his own, and UncleGlyphic's miniature. His dead enemy had carried off the proofs of hismurderer's identity!

Not till now did Helwyse become aware of an unusual tumult on thesteamer. Had they seen the deed?--He stood with set teeth, one hand onthe taffrail. Rather than be taken alive, he would leap over!

But it soon became evident that the nucleus of excitement waselsewhere. The "Empire State" was at a stand-still. Captain and mateswere shouting to one another and at the sailors. By the flying lightof the lanterns Helwyse caught glimpses of the sails and tall masts ofa schooner. He began to comprehend what had happened. 

"Thank God! that saves me, " he said with a sense of relaxation. Thenhe turned and peered fearfully into the black abyss beyond the stern. Nothing there! nothing save the heavy breathing of remorseless waves. 

The statistics of things God has been thanked for, --what piquantinstances would such a collection afford! Any unusual stir of emotionseems to impel a reference to something higher than the world. Only abloodless calm appears to be secure from God's interference. It isworthy of remark that this was the first time in Helwyse's career--atleast since his arrival at years of discretion--that he had thankedGod for anything. This was not owing to his being of a speciallyungrateful disposition, but to peculiar ideas upon the subject of aSupreme Being. God, he believed, was no more than the highest phase ofman; and in any man of sufficient natural endowment, he saw a possibleGod; just as every American citizen is a possible President! What isof moment at present, however, is the fact that the young man's firstinconsistency of word with creed dates at the time his self-controlforsook him on board the midnight steamer. 

In that thanksgiving prayer his passion passed away. After unnaturallydistending every sense and faculty, it suddenly ebbed, leaving theconsciousness of an irritating vacuum. Something must be done to fillit. One drawback to crime seems to be its insufficiency to itself. Itcreates a craving which needs must be fed. The demon returns, demanding a fresh task; and he returns again forever!

Helwyse, therefore, plunged into the midst of the uproar consequent onthe collision, and tried to absorb the common excitement, --to identifyhimself with other men; no longer to be apart from them and abovethem. But he did not succeed. It seemed as though he would never feelexcitement or warmth in the blood again! His deed was a dead weightthat steadied him spite of his best efforts. His aim has hithertobeen, not to forget himself;--let him forget himself now if he can!

The uproar was over all too soon, and the steamer once more under way. 

"No serious harm done, sir!--no harm done!" observed a spruce steward. 

"No; no harm. "

"By the way, sir, --thought I heard some one sing out aft just afore westruck. You heard it, sir? Thought some fellow'd gone overboard, maybe!"

"I saw no one, " answered Helwyse; nor had he. But he turned away, fearing that the brisk steward might read prevarication in his face. No, he had seen no one; but he had heard a plunge! He revolted fromthe memory of it, but it would not be banished. Had there been a soulin the body before it made that dive? even for a few minutesafterwards? He would have given much to know! In theorizing aboutcrime, he had always maintained the motive to be all in all. But now, though unable to controvert the logic of his assertion, he felt ittold less than the whole truth. He recognised a divine conservativevirtue in straws, and grasped at the smallest! Through the longtorture of self-questioning and indecision, let us not follow him. Uncertainty is a ghastly element in such a matter. 

He groped his way back to the taffrail. Why, he knew not; but there hewas at last. He might safely soliloquize now; there was no listener. He might light a cigar and smoke; no one would see him. Yet, no; for, on second thoughts, his cigars had gone with the haversack!

He bent over the slender iron railing. Where was--it now? Miles awayby this time, swinging, swaying down--down--down to the bottom of theSound! Slowly turning over as it sinks, its arms now thrown out, nowdoubled underneath; the legs sprawling helplessly; the head waggingloosely on the dead neck. Down--down, pitching slowly head forwards;righting, and going down standing, the hair floating straight on end. Down! O, would it never be done sinking--sinking--sinking? Was the seadeep as Hell?

But when it reached the bottom, would it rest there? No, not eventhere. It would drift uneasily about for a while on the dark sand, thegreen gloom of the water above it. Every hour it would grow less andless heavy; by and by it would begin slowly to rise--rise! Horrible itlooked now; not like itself, that had been horrible enough before. Rising, --rising. O fearful thing! why come to tell dead men's taleshere? You are done with the world. What wants mankind with you?Begone! sink, and rise no more! It will not sink; still it rises, andthe green gloom lightens as it slowly buoys upwards. The light restsshrinkingly on it, revealing the dreadful features. The limbs are nolonger pliant, but stiff, --terribly stiff and unyielding. Still itrises, nearer and nearer to the surface. See where the throat wasgripped! Up it comes at last in the morning sun, among the sparkling, laughing, pure blue waves, --the swollen, dead thing!--dead in themidst of the world's life, hideous amidst the world's beauty. It bobsand floats, and will sink no more; would rise to heaven if it could!No need for that. The tide takes it and creeps stealthily with ittowards the shore, and casts it, with shudder and recoil, upon thebeach. There it lies. 

Such visions haunted Helwyse as he leaned over the taffrail. He hadnot suspected, at starting, upon how long a voyage he was bound. Howmany hours might it be since he and the cook had so merrily dinedtogether? Was such a contrast possible? Surely no more monstrousdelusion than this of Time ever imposed upon mankind! For months andyears he jogs on with us, a dull and sober-paced pedestrian. Thencomes a sudden eternity! But Time thrusts a clock in our faces, andshows us that the hands have marked a minute only. Shall we put faithin him?

Helwyse suffered from a vivid imagination. He went not to his roomthat night. He kept the deck, and tried to talk with the men, following them about and asking aimless questions, until they began togive him short answers. Where were his pride and his serenesuperiority to the friendship or enmity of his race? where hisphilosophic self-criticism and fanciful badinage? his resolute, conquering eyes? his bearing of graceful, careless authority? Had allthese attributes been packed in his haversack, and cast with that uponthe waters? and would they, no more than he to whose care they hadbeen intrusted, ever return?

With each new hour, morning seemed farther off. In his objectlesswanderings, Helwyse came to the well of the engine-room and hung overit, gazing at the bright, swift-sliding machinery, studying the parts, tracing the subtle transmission of force from piece to piece. Here atlast was companionship for him! The engine was a beautifulcombination, --so polished, effective, and logical; like the minds ofsome philosophers, moving with superhuman regularity and power, butlifeless!

Helwyse watched it long, till finally its monotony wearied him. It wasdoing admirable work, but it never swerved from its course at the callof sentiment or emotion. Its travesty of life was repulsive. Machineryis the most admirable invention of man, but is modelled after noheavenly prototype, and will have no part in the millennium. It seemsto annul space and time, yet gives us no taste of eternity. Man livesquicker by it, but not more. With another kind of weapon must the truevictory over matter be achieved!

XII. 

MORE VAGARIES. 

Most benign and beautiful was the morning. The "Empire State" emergedfrom the fog and left it, a rosy cloud, astern. The chasing wavessparkled and danced for joy. The sun was up, fresh and unstained asyesterday. Night, that had changed so much, had left the sun undimmed. With the same power and brightness as for innumerable past centuries, his glorious glance colored the gray sky blue. Helwyse--he was at thestern taffrail again--looked at the marvellous sphere with unwinkingeyes, until it blurred and swam before him, and danced in coloredrings. It warmed his face, but penetrated no deeper. Looking away, black suns moved everywhere before his eyes, and the earth looked dimand shabby, as though blighted by a curse. 

Helwyse had not slept, partly from disinclination to the solitude ofhis berth, partly because the thought of awakening dismayed him. Nevertheless, he could scarcely believe in what had happened, now. Hestood upon the very spot; here was the semicircle of railing, thecamp-stools, the white cabin-wall against which he had leaned. But theblackness of night had so utterly past away that it seemed as thoughthe deed done in it must in some manner have vanished likewise. Whatis fact at one time looks unreal at another. It must be associatedwith all times and moods before it can be fully comprehended andaccepted. 

Glancing down at the deck, Helwyse saw there the cigar he had beensmoking the night before, flattened out by the tread of a foot, andlying close beside it a sparkling ring. He picked it up; it was adiamond of purest water, curiously caught between the mouths of twolittle serpents, whose golden and black bodies, twisted round eachother, formed the hoop. Realizing, after a moment, from whose fingerit must have fallen, he had an impulse to fling it far into the sea;but his second thought was not to part from it. The idea of its formerowner must indeed always be hateful to his murderer; but the bondbetween their souls was closer and more indissoluble than that betweenman and wife; and of so unnatural a union this ring was a fair emblem. Unnatural though the union were, to Helwyse it seemed at the timebetter than total solitude. 

He felt heavy and inelastic, --averse to himself, but still more tosociety. He wished to see men and women, yet not to be seen of them. He had used to be ready in speech, and willing to listen; now, nosubject interested him save one, --on which his lips must be foreverclosed. When the sun had made himself thoroughly at home on earth andin heaven, Helwyse went to his state-room, feeling unclean from thesoul outwards. While making his toilet, he took care to leave thewindow-blind up, that he might at any time see the blue sky and water, and the bright shore, with its foliage and occasional houses. Heshrank from severing, even for an instant, his communication with thebeneficent spirit of nature. And yet Nature could not comfort him, --inhis extremest need he found her most barren. He had been wont torejoice in her as the creature of his own senses; but when he askedher to sympathize with his pain, she laughed at him, --the magnificentcoquette!--and bade him, since she was only the reflection of himself, be content with his own sympathy. Truly, if man and Nature be thusallied, and God be but man developed, then is self-sufficiency theonly virtue worth cultivating, and idolatry must begin at home!

His efforts to improve his appearance were not satisfactory; the lossof his toilet articles embarrassed him not a little; and he, moreover, lacked zest to enter into the business with his customary care. Andwhat he did was done not merely for his own satisfaction, asheretofore, but with an eye to the criticisms of other people. Hisnaively unconscious independence had got a blow. After doing his besthe went out, pale and heavy-eyed, the diamond ring on his finger. 

The passengers had begun to assemble in the cabin. It seemed toHelwyse, as he entered, that one and all turned and stared at him withsuspicious curiosity. He half expected to see an accuser rise up andpoint a dreadful finger at him. But in truth the sensation he createdwas no more than common; it was his morbid sensitiveness, which forthe first time took note of it. He had been accustomed to look athimself as at a third person, in whose faults or successes he wasalike interested; but although his present mental attitude might havemoved him to smile, he, in fact, felt no such impulse. The hue of hisdeed had permeated all possible forms of himself, thus barring himfrom any standpoint whence to see its humorous aspect. The sun wouldnot shine on it!

As time passed on, however, and no one offered to denounce him, Helwyse began to be more at ease. Seeing the steward with whom he hadspoken the night before, he asked him whereabouts he supposed theschooner was. 

"O, she'll be in by night, sir, safe enough. Wind's freshened up agood bit since; wouldn't take her long to rig a new bowsprit. Begpardon, sir, did you happen to know the party next door to you?"

"I know no one. What about him?"

"Can't find him nowhere, sir. Door locked this morning; hadn't usedhis bed; must have come aboard, for there was a violin lying on thebed in a black box, for all the world like a coffin, sir. Queer, ain'tit?"

The steward was called away, but Helwyse's uneasiness had returned. Did this fellow suspect nothing? The student of men could not read hisface; the power of insight seemed to have left him. Reason could tellhim that it was impossible he should be suspected, but reason nolonger satisfied him. 

He left the cabin and once more sought the deck, harried and anxious. Why could not he be stolid and indifferent, as were many worsecriminals than he? Or was his disquiet a gauge of his moralaccountability? By as much as he was more finely gifted than othermen, was the stain of sin upon his soul more ineffaceable? Last night, ignorance was the only evil; but had he been satisfied with lesswisdom, might he not have sinned with more impunity? Nevertheless, Balder Helwyse would hardly have been willing to purchase greater easeat the price of being less a man. 

The steamer descended the narrow and swift current of East River, rounded Castle Garden, and reached her pier before eight o'clock. Shoulder to shoulder with the other passengers, Helwyse descended thegangplank. The official who took his ticket eyed him so closely thatthere was the beginning of an impulse in his weary brain to knock thefellow down. Finding himself not interfered with, however, he passedon to the rattling street, beginning to understand that the attentionhe excited was not owing to a visible brand of Cain, but to his beardand hair which were at variance with the fashion of that day. He wasneither more nor less a cynosure than at other times. But he was moresensitive to notice, and it now occurred to him that his uniqueappearance was unsafe as well as irksome. Were a certain body found, in connection with evidence more or less circumstantial, how readilymight he be pointed out! He fancied himself reading the description ina newspaper, and realized how many and how easily noted were hispeculiarities. His carelessness of public remark had been folly. Thesooner his peculiarities were amended, the better!

At the corner of the street stood a couple of policemen, --ponderous, powerful men, able between them to carry to jail the most refractorycriminal. One path was open to Helwyse, whereby to recover hisself-respect, and regain his true footing with the world; and that ledinto the hands of those policemen! With a revulsion of feeling perhapsless strange than it seems, he walked up to them, resolved tosurrender himself on a charge of murder. It was the simplest issue tohis embarrassments. 

"Policemen!" he began, with a return of his assured voice andbearing. They stared at him, and one said, "How?"

"Direct me to the best hotel near here!" said Helwyse. 

They stared, and told him the way to the Astor House. 

There had been but the briefest hesitation in Helwyse's mind, butduring that pause he had reconsidered his resolve and said No to it. Remembering some episodes of his past history, he cannot hastily beaccused of vulgar fear of death. In his case, indeed, it may haverequired more courage to close his mouth than to open it. Be that asit might, the question as to the degree and nature of his guilt wasstill unsettled in his mind. Moreover, had he been clear on thispoint, he yet distrusted the competence of human laws to do himjustice. He shrank from surrender, less as affecting his person thanas superseding his judgment. But, failing himself and mankind, to whatother court can he appeal? Should the fitting tribunal appear, will hehave the nerve to face it?

He did not go to the Astor House, notwithstanding the trouble he hadtaken to ask his way thither. He coasted along the more obscurethoroughfares, seeming to find something congenial in them. Here werepeople, many of whom had also committed crimes, whose eyes he neednot shun to meet, who were his brethren. To be sure, they gave him nofriendly glances, taking him for some dainty aristocrat, whom idlecuriosity had led to their domains. But Helwyse knew the secret of hiskinship; and he perhaps indulged a wild momentary dream of proclaiminghimself to them, entering into their life, and vanishing from thatworld that had known him heretofore. It is a shorter step than isgenerally supposed, from human height to human degradation. 

A pale girl with handsome features, careless expression, and somewhatdisordered hair, leant out of a low window, her loose dress fallingpartly open from her bosom as she did so. 

"Where are you going, my love?" inquired she, with a professionallyattractive smile. "Aren't you going to give me a lock of that sweetyellow hair?--there's a duck!"

It so happened that Helwyse had never before been openly accosted by amember of this class of the community. Was this infringement of therule the result of his own fall, or of the girl's exceptionaleffrontery? He had an indignant glance ready poised, but forbore tohurl it! The worst crime of the young woman was that she disposed ofherself at a rate of remuneration exactly corresponding to the valueof the commodity; whereas he, less economical and orderly, hadmortgaged his own soul by disposing of some one else's body, and was, if anything, out of pocket by the transaction! Undoubtedly the youngwoman had the best of it; very likely, had she been aware of thecircumstances, she would not have deigned him so much as a smile. Hetherefore neither yielded to her solicitations nor rebuked them, butpassed on. The adventure rectified his fraternizing impulse. Albeitstanding accountant for so great a sin, the mire was as yet alien tohim. 

But there was pertinence in the young woman's question; where was hegoing, indeed? Since the catastrophe on board the steamer, he hadforgotten Doctor Glyphic. He felt small inclination to meet hisrelative now; but certain considerations of personal interest nolonger wore the same color as yesterday. Robbed of his self-respect, he could ill afford to surrender worldly wealth into the bargain. Onthe other hand, to palm himself off on his uncle for a true man wasadding hypocrisy to his other crime. 

Such an objection, however, could hardly have turned the scale. Greatcrimes are magnets of smaller ones. It was necessary for Helwyse toalter the whole scheme of his life-voyage; and since he had failed inbeating up against the wind, why not make all sail before it?Meanwhile, it was easier to call on Doctor Glyphic than to devise anew course of action; and thus, had matters been allowed to take theirnatural turn, mere inertia might have brought about their meeting. 

But the irony of events turns our sternest resolves to ridicule. Onthe next street-corner was a hair-dresser's shop, its genial littleproprietor, plump and smug, rubbing his hands and smiling in thedoorway. Beholding the commanding figure of the yellow-bearded youngaristocrat, afar off, his professional mouth watered over him. What aharvest for shears and razor was here! Dare he hope that to him wouldbe intrusted the glorious task of reaping it?

As Helwyse gained the corner, his weary eyes took in the smilinghair-dresser, the little room beyond cheerful with sunshine andcolored paper-hangings, and the padded chair for customers to reclinein. Here might he rest awhile, and rise up a new man, --a stranger tohimself and to all who had known him. It was fitting that the inwardchange should take effect without; not to mention that the wearing ofso conspicuous a mane was as unsafe as it was unsuitable. 

He entered the shop, therefore, --the proprietor backing and bowingbefore him, --and sat down with a sigh in the padded chair. Immediatelyhe was enveloped in a light linen robe, a towel was tucked in roundhis neck by deft caressing fingers, the soothing murmur of a voice wasin his ear, and presently sounded the click-click of shears. Thedescendant of the Vikings closed his eyes and felt comfortable. 

The peculiar color and luxuriance of Balder's hair and beard weremarked attributes of the Helwyse line. In these days of ponderousgenealogies, who would be surprised to learn that the family sprangfrom that Balder, surnamed the Beautiful, who was the sun-god ofScandinavian mythology? Certain of his distinctive characteristics, both physical and mental, would appear to have been perpetuated withmarvellous distinctness throughout the descent; above all, the goldenlocks, the blue eyes, and the sunny disposition. 

For the rest, so far as sober history can trace them back, they seemto have been a noble and adventurous race of men, loving the sea, butoften taking a high part in the political affairs of the nation. Thesons were uniformly fair, but the daughters dark, --owing, it was said, to the first mother of the line having been a dark-eyed woman. But theadvent of a dark-eyed heir had been foretold from the earliest times, not without ominous (albeit obscure) hints as to the part he wouldplay in the family history. The precise wording of none of these oldprophecies has come down to us; but they seem in general to haveintimated that the dark-eyed Helwyse would bring the race to a ruinousand disgraceful end, saving on the accomplishment of conditions tooimprobable to deserve recording. The dead must return to life, theliving forsake their identity, love unite the blood of the victim tothat of the destroyer, --and other yet stranger things must happenbefore the danger could be averted. 

The superstitious reverence paid to enigmatical utterances of thiskind has long ago passed away; and, if any meaning ever attaches tothem, it is apt to be sadly commonplace. Nevertheless, when Balder wasborn, and the hereditary blue eyes were found wanting, thecircumstance was doubtless the occasion of much half-serious banteramong those to whom the ominous prophecies were familiar. Certainlythe young man had already made one grave mistake; and he could hardlyhave followed it up by a more disgraceful retreat than this to thehair-dresser's saloon. The ghosts of his heroic forefathers inValhalla would disown his shorn head with indignant scorn; for theirgolden locks had ever been sacred to them as their honor. When theRoman Empire was invaded by the Goths and Vandals, a Helwyse--so runsthe tale--was taken prisoner and brought before the Roman General. Thelatter summoned a barber and a headsman, and informed the captive thathe might choose between forfeiting his head, and that which grew uponit. As to the precise words in which the Northern warrior couched hisreply, historians vary; but they are agreed on the important pointthat his head was chopped off without delay!

Did the memory of these things bring no blush to Balder's cheeks?There he sat, as indifferent, to all outward seeming, as though hewere asleep. But this may have been the apathy consequent on theabandonment of lofty pretensions and sublime ambitions; betrayingproud sensitiveness rather than base lack of feeling. Balder Helwysewas not the first man of parts to appear in an undignified andunheroic light. The foremost man of all this world once whined like asick girl for his physic, and preposterously overestimated hisswimming powers; yet his greatness found him out!

In sober earnest, however, what real importance attaches to Helwyse'sdoings at this juncture? Physically and mentally weary, he may haveacted from the most ordinary motives. As to his entertaining anysuperstitious crotchets about having his hair cut, --the spirit of theage forbid it!

XIII. 

THROUGH A GLASS. 

The hair-dresser had the quality--now rare among his class--ofunlimited and self-enjoying loquacity; soothing, because its littlewaves lapsed in objectless prattle on the beach of the apprehension, to be attended to or not at pleasure. The sentences were withoutregular head or tail, and were connected by a friendly arrangementbetween themselves, rather than by any logical sequence; while therecurring pauses at interesting epochs of work wrought a recognitionof how caressing had been the easy voice, and accumulated a lazydisposition to hear it continue. 

After decking Helwyse for the sacrifice, he had murmuredconfidentially in his ear, "Hair, sir?--or beard, sir?--orboth?--little of both, sir? Just so. Hair first, please, sir. Love-lymorning!"

And thereupon began to clip and coo and whisk softly about, in thehighest state of barberic joy. As he worked, inspired by the curly, flowing glossy locks which, to his eye, called inarticulately for thetools of his trade, his undulating monologue welled forth untilColeridge might have envied him. Helwyse heard the sound, but let thewords go by to that unknown limbo whither all sounds, good or bad, have been flying since time began. 

By and by the hair was done; there ensued a plying of brushes, ablowing down the neck, and a shaking out of the linen apron. 

"Will you cast your eyes on the mirror now, sir, please?"

"No, --go on and finish, first, " replied Helwyse; and forthwith acushion was insinuated beneath his head, and his feet were elevatedupon a rest. He heard the preparation of the warm lather, and anon theknowing strapping of a razor. He put up his hand and stroked his beardfor the last time, wondering how he would look without it. 

"Never saw the like before, sir; must have annoyed you dreadful!"remarked the commiserating barber, as he passed the preparatoryscissors round his customer's jaw, mowing the great golden sheaf atone sweep. He spoke of it as though it were a cancer or other painfulexcrescence, the removal of which would be to the sufferer a boonunspeakable. 

Helwyse's face expressed neither anguish nor relief; he presently losthimself in thoughts of his own, only returning to the perception ofoutside things when the barber asked him whether he, also, had everattended camp-meeting; the subject being evidently one which had beenheld forth upon for some time past. 

"No?" continued the little man who by long practice had acquired awonderful power of interpreting silence. "Well, it's a great thing, sir; and a right curious thing is experiencing religion, too! A greatblessing I've found it, sir; there's a peace dwells with me, as theminister says, right along all the time now. Does the razor pleaseyou, sir? Ah! I was a wild and godless being once, although alwaysreckoned a smart hand with the razor;--Satan never took my cunninghand, as the poet says, away from me. Yes, there was a time when I washow-d' y'-do with all the bloods around the place, and a good businessI used to do out of them, too, sir; but religion is a peace there's nounderstanding, as the Good Book says; and if I don't make all I usedto, I save twice as much, --and that's the good of it, sir. Beau-ti-fulchin is yours, sir, I declare!"

"Do you believe in the orthodox faith?" demanded Helwyse; "inmiracles, and the Trinity, and so forth?"

"Everything we're told to believe in I believe, I hope, sir; and asquick as I hear anything more, why, I'm ready to believe that also, provided only it comes through orthodox channels, as the saying is. Ah, sir, it's the unquestioning belief that brings the happiness. Iwouldn't have anything explained to me, not if I could! and my faithis such, that what goes against it I never would believe, not if youproved it to me black and white, sir! Love-ly skin you've got, sir, --it's just like a woman's. The intellect is a snare, that's whatit is, --ah, yes! You think with me, sir, don't you?"

But Helwyse had relapsed into silence. The little hair-dresser washappy, was he?--happy, and hopeful, and conscious of spiritualprogress?--had no misgivings and feared no danger, --because he hadeliminated reason from his scheme of religion! Divine reason, --couldman live without it? A snare?--Well, had not Balder found it so?

True, that was not reason's fault, but his who misused reason. True, also, that he who believed on others' authority believed not ideas butmen, and was destitute of self-reliance or dignity. Yet thehair-dresser seemed to find in that very dependence his besthappiness, and to have built up a factitious self-respect from thevery ruin of true dignity. His position was the antipodes of Balder's, yet, if results were evidence, it was tenable and more successful. 

This plump, superficial, smiling little hair-dresser was a person ofno importance, yet it happened to him to modify not only Helwyse'sexternal aspect, but the aspect of his mind as well, --by thepresentation of a new idea; for strange to say, Helwyse had neverchanced to doubt that seraphim were higher than cherubim, or thatindependence was the only ladder to heaven. To be taught by oneavowedly without intellect is humiliating; but the experience of manywill furnish examples of a singular disregard of this kind ofproprieties. 

When the shaving was done to the artist's satisfaction, he held themirror before his customer's face. Helwyse looked narrowly at hisreflection, as was natural in making the acquaintance of one who wasto be his near and intimate companion. He beheld a set of featuresstrongly yet gracefully built, but shorn of a certain warm, manlyattractiveness. The immediate visibility of mouth and chin--index ofso large a part of man's nature--startled him. He was dismayed at theease wherewith the working of emotion might now be traced. Man whollyunveiled to himself is indeed an awful spectacle, be thedissection-room that of the surgeon or of the psychologist. Hardlymight angels themselves endure it. A measure of ignorance of ourselvesis wise, because consciousness of a weakness may lead us to give itrein. Perfect strength can coexist only with perfect knowledge, butneither is attainable by man. Man should pay to be screened fromhimself, lest his sword fail, --lest the Gorgon's head on his breastchange him to stone. 

The gracious, outflowering veil of Balder Helwyse's life had vanished, leaving nakedness. Henceforth he must depend on fence, feint andguard, not on the downright sword-stroke. With Adam, the fig-leafsucceeded innocence as a garment; for Helwyse, artificial address mustdo duty as a fig-leaf. The day of guiltless sincerity was past; gonelikewise the day of open acknowledgment of guilt. Now dawned the dayof counterfeiting, --not always the shortest of our mortal year. 

On the whole, Helwyse's new face pleased him not. He feltself-estranged and self-distrustful. Standing on the borders of adarker land, the thoughts and deeds of his past life swarmed in reviewbefore his eyes. Many a seeming trifling event now showed as theforewarning of harm to come. The day's journey once over, we see itsissue prophesied in each trumpery raven and cloud that we have metsince morning. However, the omens would have read as well another way;for nature, like man, is twofold, and can be as glibly quoted toSatan's advantage as to God's. 

"Very well done!" said Helwyse to the barber, passing a hand over theclose-cropped head and polished chin. "The only trouble is, it cannotbe done once for all. "

As the little man smilingly remarked, however, the charge was but tencents. His customer paid it and went out, and was seen by thehair-dresser to walk listlessly up the street. The improvement in hispersonal appearance had not mended his spirits. Indeed, it cannot bedisguised that his trouble was more serious than lay within a barber'sskill altogether to set right. 

Were man potentially omniscient, then might Balder's late deed be nocrime, but a simple exercise of prerogative. But is knowledge of evilreal knowledge? God is goodness and man is evil. God knows both goodand evil. Man knows evil--knows himself--only; knows God only in sofar as he ceases to be man and admits God. But this simple truthbecomes confused if we fancy a possible God in man. 

This was Balder's difficulty. Possessed of a strong, comprehensivemind, he had made a providence of himself; confounded intelligencewith integrity; used the moral principle not as a law of action but asa means of insight. The temptation so to do is strong in proportion asthe mind is greatly gifted. But experience shows no good results fromyielding to it. Blind moral instinct, if not safer, is morecomfortable!

Not the deed alone, but the revelation it brought, preyed on the youngman's peace. If he were a criminal to-day, then was the whole argumentof his past life criminal likewise. Yesterday's deed was the logicaloutcome of a course of thought extending over many yesterdays. Why, then, had not his present gloom impended also, and warned himbeforehand? Because, while parleying with the Devil, he looks angelic;but having given our soft-spoken interlocutor house-room, he makes upfor lost time by becoming direfully sincere!

On first facing the world in his new guise, Helwyse felt anembarrassment which he fancied everybody must remark. But, in fact (ashe was not long discovering), he was no longer remarkable; the barberhad wiped out his individuality. It was what he had wished, and yethis insignificance annoyed him. The stare of the world had put him outof countenance; yet when it stopped staring he was still unsatisfied. What can be the solution of this paradox?

It perhaps was the occasion of his seeking the upper part of the city, where houses were more scarce and there were fewer people to beunconcerned! In country solitudes he could still be the chief figure. He entered Broadway at the point where Grace Church stands, and passedon through the sparsely inhabited region now known as Union Square. The streets hereabouts were but roughly marked out, and were left inmany places to the imagination. On the corner of Twenty-third Streetwas a low whitewashed inn, whose spreading roof overshadowed thegirdling balcony. Farmers' wagons were housed beneath the adjoiningshed, and one was drawn up before the door, its driver conversing witha personage in shirt-sleeves and straw hat, answering to the name ofCorporal Thompson. 

Helwyse perhaps stopped at the Corporal's hospitable littleestablishment to rest himself and get some breakfast; but whether ornot, his walk did not end here, but continued up Broadway, and afterpassing a large kitchen-garden (whose owner, a stout Dutchman, waspacing its central path, smoking a long clay pipe which he took fromhis lips only to growl guttural orders to the gardeners who werestooping here and there over the beds), emerged into open country, where only an occasional Irish shanty broke the solitude. 

How long the young man walked he never knew; but at length, from thesummit of a low hill, he looked northwest and saw the gleam of HudsonRiver. Leaving the road he struck across rocky fields which finallybrought him to the river-bank. A stony promontory jutted into thewater, and on this (having clambered to its outer extremity) Helwysesat down, his feet overhanging the swirling current. The tide was justpast the flood. 

About two hundred yards up stream, to the northward, stood a smallwooden house, on the beach in front of which a shabby old mariner wasbailing out his boat. Southwards, some miles away, curved theshadowed edge of the city, a spire mounting here and there, apencilled mist of smoke from chimneys, a fringe of thready mastsaround the farthest point. In front slid ceaselessly away the vastsweep of levelled water, and still it came undiminished on. Theopposing shore was a mile distant, its rocky front gradually gainingabruptness and height until lost round the northern curve. Butdirectly opposite Helwyse's promontory, the stony wall was for someway especially precipitous and high, its lofty brink serried with athick phalanx of trees. 

This spot finally monopolized the adventurer's attention; had he beenin Germany, he would have looked for gray castle-towers rising behindthe foliage. The place looked inaccessible and romantic, and wasundeniably picturesque. New York was far enough away to be mistakenfor--say--Alexandria; while the broad river certainly took its rise inas prehistoric an age as the Nile itself. Perhaps in the early morningof the world some chieftain built his stronghold there, and foughtnotable battles and gave mighty feasts; and later married, and begatstalwart sons, or a daughter beautiful as earth and sky! Where to-daywere her youth and beauty, her loving noble heart, her warm melodiousvoice, her eyes full of dark light? Why were there no such womennow?--not warped, imperfect, only half alive in body and spirit; butcharged from the heart outwards with pure divine vitality, --naturesvivid as fire, yet by strength serene!

"Why did not I live when she lived, to marry her?" muttered Helwyse ina dream. "A woman whose infinite variety age could not alter norcustom stale! A true wife would have kept me from error. What man cancomprehend the world, if he puts half the world away? Now it is toolate; she might have helped me rise to greatness, but not to beardisgrace. Ah, Balder Helwyse, poor fool! you babble as if she stoodbefore you to take or leave. _You_ rise to greatness? You never hadthe germs of greatness in you! You are so little that not the goddessFreya herself could have made you tall! Through what delusion did youfancy yourself better than any other worm?"

There was an interval, not more than a rod or two in width, in thetree-hedge which lined the opposite cliff. Through this one might geta narrow glimpse of what lay beyond. A strip of grassy lawn extendedin front of what seemed to be the stone corner of a house. Thedistance obscured detail, but it looked massively built, though notafter the modern style. As Helwise gazed, sharpening his eyes todiscern more clearly, he saw a figure moving across the lawn directlytowards him. Advancing to the brink of the cliff, it there paused andseemed to return his glance. Helwyse could not tell whether it wereman or woman. Had the river only been narrower!

The next moment he remembered his telescope, and, taking it from itscase, he was at a bound within one hundred yards of the western shore. Man or woman? he steadied the glass on his knee and looked again. Awoman, surely, --but how strangely dressed! Such a costume had notbeen in vogue since Damascus was a new name in men's mouths. Baldergazed and gazed. Accurately to distinguish the features wasimpossible, --tantalizingly so; for the gazer was convinced that shewas both young and beautiful. Her motions, her bearing, the gracefulpeculiarity of her garb, --a hundred nameless evidences made it sure. How delightful to watch her in her unconsciousness! yet Helwyse felt adelicacy in thus stealing on her without her knowledge or consent. Butthe misgiving was not strong enough to shut up his telescope; perhapsit added a zest to the enjoyment. 

"The very princess you were just now dreaming of! the most beautifuland complete woman! Would I were the prince to win thee!"

This aspiration was whispered, as though its object were withinconversable distance. Balder could be imaginative enough when thehumor took him. 

Hardly had the whisper passed his lips when he saw the princessmajestically turn her lovely head, slowly and heedfully, until herglance seemed directly to meet his own. His cheeks burned; it was asif she had actually overheard him. Was she gracious or offended? Hesaw her stretch towards him her arms, and then, with a gesture ofbeautiful power, clasp her hands and draw them in to her bosom. 

Prince Balder's hand trembled, the telescope slipped; the quick effortto regain it lent it an impetus that shot it far into the water. Ithad done its work and was gone forever. The beautiful princess wasonce more a vague speck across a mile of rapid river; now, even thespeck had moved beyond the trees and was out of sight!

The episode had come so unexpected, and so quickly passed, that now itseemed never to have been at all! But Helwyse had yielded himselfunreservedly to the influence of the moment. Following so aptly thefanciful creation of his thought, the apparition had acquired peculiarsignificance. The abrupt disappearance afflicted him like a positiveloss. 

Did he, then, soberly believe himself and the princess to haveexchanged glances (not to speak of thoughts) across a river a milewide? Perhaps he merely courted a fancy from which the test of reasonwas deliberately withheld. Spirits not being amenable to materiallaws, what was the odds (so far as exchange of spiritual sentimentwas concerned) whether the prince and princess were separated by milesor inches?

But however plausible the fancy, it was over. Helwyse leaned back onthe rock, drew his hat over his eyes, folded his hands beneath hishead, and appeared to sleep. 

XIV. 

THE TOWER OF BABEL. 

In a perfect state of society, where people will think and act inharmony with only the purest æsthetic laws, a knowledge of stenographyand photography will suffice for the creation of perfect works of art. But until that epoch comes, the artist must be content to do thegrouping, toning, and proportioning of his picture for himself, underpenalty of redundancy and confusion. People nowadays seldom do orthink the right thing at the fitting moment; insomuch that thebiographer, if he would be intelligible, must use his own discretionin arranging his materials. 

Now, in view of the rough shaking which late events had given Balderand his opinions, it is doing no violence to probability to fancy himtaking an early opportunity to pass these opinions in review. It wouldbe easy, by a glance at the magic ring, to reproduce his meditationsjust as they passed through his brain. Brevity and pertinence, however, counsel us to recall a dialogue which had taken place aboutthree years before. 

Balder and his father were then in the North of England; and thelatter (who never concerned himself with any save the plainest andmost practical philosophy) was not a little startled at an analogydrawn by his son between the cloud-cap on Helvellyn's head and theAlmighty! Premising that the cloud-cap, though apparently stable, wasreally created by the continuous passage of warmer air through a coldregion around the summit of the mountain, whereby it was for a momentcondensed into visibility and then swept on, --having postulated thisfact, and disregarding the elder's remark that he believed not a wordof it, --Balder went on to say that God was only a set ofattributes, --in a word, the perfection of all human attributes, --andnot at all an individual!

"And what has that to do with your cloud-making theory?" demandedThor, with scorn. 

"The perfect human attributes, " replied Balder, unruffled, "correspondto the region of condensation, --the cold place, you understand. "

"Do they? Well?"

"The constant condensation of the warm current from below correspondsto the taking on of these attributes by a ceaseless succession ofhuman souls. Filling out the Divine character, they lose identity, andso make room for others. "

"What are these attributes?"

"They are ineffable, --they are omniscience, --the comprehension of thewhole creative idea. "

"You expect me to believe that, --eh?" growled Thor. 

"If I could believe you understood it, dear old sceptic!" returnedBalder, with affectionate irreverence, throwing his arm across hisfather's broad shoulders. "I say that every soul of right capacity, living for culture, and not afraid of itself, will at last reach thathighest point. It is the sublime goal of man, and no human life iscomplete unless in gaining it. Many fail, but not all. I will not! No, I am not blasphemous; I think life without definite aim not worthhaving; and that aim, the highest conceivable. "

Thor, having stared in silence at his descendant, came out with astentorian Viking laugh, which Balder sustained with perfectgood-humor. 

"Ho, ho!--the devil is in you, son!--in those black eyes ofyours, --ho, ho! No other Helwyse ever had such eyes, --or such ideaseither! Well, but supposing you passed the condensation point, whatthen?"

Balder, who was entirely in earnest about the matter, answeredgravely, --

"I cease to be; but what was I becomes the pure, life-giving, spiritual substance, and enters into fresh personalities, and sopasses up again in endless circulation. "

"Hum! and how with the evil ones, boy?"

"As with all waste matter; they are cast aside, and, as distinctsouls, are gradually annihilated. But they may still manure the soil, and involuntarily help the growth of others. Sooner or later, in oneor another form, all come into use. "

"For all I see, then, " quoth Thor, "your devils come to the same endas your gods!"

"There is the same kind of difference, " returned the philosopher, "asbetween light and earth, --both of which help the growth of flowers;but light gives color and beauty, earth only the insipid matter. Iwould rather be the light. "

"Another thing, " proceeded Thor, ignoring this distinction; "admittingall else, how do you account for your region of condensation?"

"By the necessity of perfection, " answered Balder, after someconsideration. "There would be no meaning in existence unless ittended towards perfection. But you have hit on the unanswerablequestion. "

Thor shook his head and huge grizzled beard. "German Universityhumbug!" growled he. "Get you into a scrape some day. The cloud's notmade in that way, I tell you! Come, let's go back to the inn. "

"Take my arm, " said Balder; and as together they descended the spur ofthe mountain, he added lovingly, "I'll bring no clouds across yoursky, my dear old man!" So the hospitable inn received them. 

The discussion between the two was never renewed; but Balder held tohis creed. He elaborated and fortified what had been mere outlinebefore. No dogma can be conceived which many circumstances will notseem to confirm and justify. But we cannot attempt to keep abreast ofBalder's deductions. There are as many theological systems asindividual souls; and no system can be wholly apprehended by any onesave its author. 

Mastery of men and things, --supreme knowledge to the end of supremepower, --such seems to have been his ambition, --an ambition tooabstract and lofty for much rivalry. Nature and human nature were atonce his laboratory and his instruments. His senses were to himoutlets of divinity. The good and evil of such a scheme scarce needpointing out. It was the apotheosis of self-respect; but self-respectraised to such a height becomes self-worship; human vision dazzles atthe sublimity of the prospect; at the moment of greatest weakness thesoul arrogates invincible power, and falls! For, the mightier man is, the more absolutely does he need the support of a mightier Man than hecan ever be. 

No doubt Balder had often been assailed by doubts and weariness; thepath had seemed too long and arduous, and he had secretly pined forsome swift issue from perplexity and delay. In such a moment was itthat the voice of darkness gained his ear, and, like a will-o'-the-wisp, lured him to calamity. Verily, it is not easy to be God. Only buildersof the Tower of Babel know the awfulness of its overthrow. 

Balder's spirit lay prostrate among the ruins, too stunned andbewildered to see the reason or justice of his fall. Such a state isdangerous, for, the better part of the mind being either occupied withits disaster or stupefied by it, the superficial part is readily movedto folly or extravagance, --to deeds and thoughts which a saner momentwould scout and ridicule. Well is it, then, if the blind steps areguided to better foothold than they know how to choose. Angels aresaid to be particularly watchful over those who sleep; perhaps, also, during the darkness which follows on moral perversion. 

XV. 

CHARON'S FERRY. 

After lying motionless for half an hour, Balder suddenly sat uprightand settled his hat on his head. A new purpose had come to him which, arriving later than it might have done, made him wish to act upon itwithout delay. 

The old mariner had by this time bailed out his boat, and, havingshipped a mast in the forward thwart, was dropping down stream. As heneared the promontory Balder hailed him:--

"Hullo! skipper, take me across?"

The skipper, without replying, steered shorewards, the otherclambering down the rock to meet him. After a brief parley, duringwhich the old fellow closely scrutinized his intending passenger fromhead to foot, a bargain was struck, and they put forth, tackingdiagonally across stream. For Balder, having charged his imaginationwith castles, warlike chieftains, and beautiful princesses, hadfinally arrived at the conclusion that the stone house was anenchanter's castle; the figure he had seen, an imprisoned lady;himself, a knight-errant bound to rescue her and give the wickedenchanter his deserts. This idea possessed his brain for the momentmore vividly than do realities most men. The plumed helmet was on hishead, he glittered with shining arms and sword, his heart warmed andthrobbed with visions of conflict and bold emprise. The commonplaceassumed an aspect of grandeur and magnificence in harmony with hischivalric mania. The leaky craft in which he sat became a majesticbarge; the skipper, some wrinkled Charon who doubtless had ferriedmany a brave knight to his death beneath yonder castle's walls. Thatseeming birch-stump on the farther shore was the castle champion, armed cap-a-pie in silver harness and ready with drawn sword to dobattle against all comers. Trim the sail, ferryman, and steer thyskilfullest!

The kind of insanity which sees in outward manifestation the fantasiesof the mind is an affection incident at times to every one. An artistsees beauties in a landscape, an artisan in pulleys and levers, andeither may be so far insane in the eyes of the other. Nature discoversgrandeur, beauty, or truth according as the quality abides in theseer. In this view Balder or Don Quixote was no more insane than otherpeople. Their eyes bore true witness to what was in their minds, andthe sanest eyes can do no more. Their minds were, perhaps, out offocus; but who can cast the first stone?

The skipper, when not masquerading as Charon, was a lean, brown, andwrinkled old salt, neither complete nor clean of garb, and bulging asto one lank cheek with a quid of tobacco. At first he sat silent, dividing his attention between the conduct of his boat and hispassenger. 

"Whereabouts will yer land, Captain?" he asked when they were fairlyunder way. 

"Wherever there is a path upwards. Who is the owner of the castle?"

"The castle? Well, there ain't many rightly knows just what his nameis, " answered Charon, cocking his gray eye rather quizzically. "Somesays one thing, some another. I have heard tell he was Davy Joneshimself!"

"Have you ever seen him?"

"Well, I don't know; I've seen something that might have been him; butthere's no telling! he can fix himself up to look like pretty muchanything, they say. There ain't many calls up to the castle, anyway. "

"Why not?"

"Well, there's a big wall all around the place, for one thing, andnever a gate in it; so without yer dives under ground and up again, there don't seem no easy way of getting in. "

"Does the owner never come out, then?"

"Well, he can get out, I expect, when he wants to, " replied thewrinkled humorist, with a weather-beaten grin. "They do say he whipsoff on a broomstick about once a month and steers for Bos-ton!" Hisfashion of utterance was a leisurely sing-song, like the roll of avessel anchored in a ground-swell. 

"Why does he go there?" demanded Prince Balder, with the air offinding nothing extravagant or improbable in the sailor's yarn. Thelatter (a little doubting whether his interlocutor were a simpleton ora "deep one") answered, after a moment's pause, --to replenish hisimagination perhaps, --

"Well, in course, I knows nothing what he does; but they do say hecoasts around to all the ho-tels and overhauls the log. He's beenlaying for some one this twenty year. My idea, it's about time hehailed him!"

"What does he want with him?"

"Well, yer see, what folks say is, this chap had played some game orother off on Davy; so Davy he puts a rod in pickle and vows he'd beeven with the chap, yet. 

"Yer see, --I'll tell yer, " continued Charon, leaning forward on hisknee and speaking confidentially; "just as this chap was puttingoff, --with some of Davy's belongings, likely, --Davy up and cuts aslice of flesh and blood off him. Well, he takes this slice and fixesit up one way or another, and makes a witch out of it, --handsome asshe can be, --enough to draw a chap's heart right out through hisjacket. Now, being as she's his own flesh and blood, d' yer see, thischap I'm telling yer on's bound to come back after her afore he dies. Well, soon as Davy gets hold on him, he ups with him to the placeyonder and outs with the witch. 'Here yer are, my dear friend!' sayshe (as civil as may be), 'here's yer own flesh and blood a-waiting foryer!' Well, the chap grabs for her, and once he touches her thereain't no letting go no more. Off she starts on her broomstick, healong behind, till they gets over Hell gate--" Charon checked himself, made an ominous downward gesture with his right forefinger, andemphasized it by spitting solemnly to leeward. 

"Did you ever meet him, --this man?" asked Helwyse, rousing himselffrom a brown study and looking Charon in the eyes. 

"Well, now, I couldn't tell for certain as I ever met him, " repliedthe other, returning the look with an odd wrinkling of the features. "But it's nigh on twenty year that I fetched a man across this veryspot, and back again in the evening, that might have been him. Leastways, he was the last caller ever I took over to that house. "

"I am the first since he--eh?"

"Well, yer are; and, Captain, --no offence to you, --but allowing for alot of hair he had, he was like enough to you to be yer twin brother!"

"Or even myself! So Davy Jones goes by the name of Doctor Glyphic inthese parts, does he?" said Balder, with a sudden, incisive smile, which almost cut through the old ferryman's self-possession. The boatat the same moment glided into a little cove, and the passenger jumpedashore. Charon stood deferentially touching his weather-stained hat, too much mystified to speak. But the fare which Helwyse handed himrestored his voice. 

"Thank yer, Captain, --thank yer kindly!--hope no offence, Captain, --achap picks up a deal of gossip in twenty year, and--"

"No offence in the world!" cried Helwyse; "I take you for a powerfulenchanter, who seems to steer one way, when he is in fact taking hispassenger in another. Where are you bound?"

"Well, I was dropping down a bit to see if the schooner ain't aroundyet. She'd ought to be in by now, if nothing ain't runned into her inthe fog. "

Helwyse paused a moment, eying Charon sharply. "The schooner'Resurrection, '" he began, and, seeing he had hit the mark, continued, "was run into last night on Long Island Sound, and had her bowspritcarried away. But no serious damage was done, and she'll be in bynight, if the wind holds. "

With this he bade the awe-stricken old yarn-spinner farewell, and, with secret laughter at his bewilderment, turned to the narrow zigzagpath that climbed the bank, passing the birch-stump champion without aglance of recognition. A few vigorous minutes brought him to thesummit, whence, facing round, he saw the broad river crawl beneathhim; the little boat, with Charon in the stern, drift downwards; andbeyond, the whole rough length of Manhattan Island. 

A few days before Thor Helwyse's departure for Europe (some four yearsafter his wife's death) he had left a certain little boy and girl incharge of the nurse, --a woman in whose faithfulness he placed theutmost confidence, --and had crossed from Brooklyn to New Jersey, tosay good by to Brother Hiero. Returning at night he found one of thechildren--his son Balder--locked up in the nursery; the nurse and thelittle girl had disappeared, nor did Thor again set eyes on either ofthem. 

Balder, as he grew up, often questioned his father concerning variousevents which had happened beyond the reach of his childish memory; andamong other stories, no doubt this of the farewell visit to UncleGlyphic had been often told with all the details. By no miracle, therefore, but simply by an acute mental process, associating togethertime, place, and description, was Balder enabled so to dumfounder oldCharon. 

Embarking on a phantom quest, his brain full of whimsical visions, Balder had thus unexpectedly stepped into the path of his legitimateaffair. The accident (for no better reason than that it was such)inspired him with a superficial cheerfulness. He had landed somedistance below his uncle Glyphic's house, --for such indeed itwas, --and he now took his way towards it through trees and underbrush. It was so situated, and so thickly surrounded with foliage, as to bevisible from no point in the vicinity. Had the site been chosen with aview to concealment, the builder could not have succeeded better. Remembering the eccentricity of his uncle's character, as portrayed inmany an anecdote, Balder would not have been surprised to find himliving under ground, or in a pyramid. 

On arriving at the wall whereof the ferryman had told him, he found ita truly formidable affair, some twelve feet high and built of brick. To scale it without a ladder was impossible; but Balder, neverdoubting that there was a gate somewhere, set out in search of it. 

It was tiresome walking over the uneven ground and through obstructingbushes, branches, and stumps. The tall brick barrier seemed asinterminable as unbroken. How many houses, thought Balder, might havebeen built from the material thus wasted! If ever he came intopossession of the place, he resolved to present the brick to hisfriend Charon, that he might replace his wooden shanty with somethingmore durable and convenient, and perhaps build a dock for the schooner"Resurrection" to lie in. It must have taken a fortune to put up sucha wall; were the enclosure proportionally valuable, it was worth whilecrossing the ocean to see it. Still more wall! fully a mile of italready, and yet further it rambled on through leafy thickets. But nosigns of a gate!

"I believe the Devil really does live here!" exclaimed Balder, inimpatient heat; "and the only way in or out is on a broomstick, --or bydiving under ground, as Charon said!"

Stumbling onwards awhile farther, he suddenly came again upon theriver-bank, having skirted the whole length of the wall. There wasactually no getting in! The castle was impregnable. 

Helwyse sat down at the foot of a birch-tree which grew a few yardsfrom the wall. 

"How does my uncle manage about his butcher and baker, I wonder! Hemight at least have provided a derrick for victualling his stronghold. Perhaps he hauls up provisions by ropes over the face of the cliff. Nodoubt, Charon knew about it. Shall I go down and look?"

It was provoking--having come so far to call on a relative--to be putoff with a mile or two of brick wall. The gate must have been walledup since his father's time, for Thor had never mentioned anydeficiency in that respect. But Balder's determination waspiqued, --not to mention his curiosity. Had the path from Mr. MacGentle's office to Doctor Glyphic's door been straight andunobstructed, the young man might have wandered aside and neverreached the end. As it was, he was goaded into the resolution to seehis uncle at all hazards. An additional spur was the thought of thegracious apparition which he had seen--or dreamt he saw--from thefarther bank. Was she indeed but an apparition?--or the single realityamidst the throng of fantasies evoked by his overwroughtmind?--beaconing him through misty errors to a fate better than heknew! In all seriousness, who could she be? Had Doctor Glyphic crownedhis eccentricities by marrying, and begetting a daughter?

These speculations were interrupted by the clear, joyous note of abird, just above Balder's head. It was such a note as might have beenuttered by a paradisical cuckoo with the breath of a brighter world inhis throat. Looking up, he saw a beautiful little fowl perched on thetopmost twig of the birch-tree. It had a slender bill, and on its heada crest of splendid feathers, which it set up at Balder in a mostcoquettish manner. The next moment it flew over the wall, and from thefarther side warbled an invitation to follow. 

Although he could not fly, Balder reflected that he could climb, andthat the top of the tree would show him more than he could see now. The birch looked tolerably climbable and was amply high; as totoughness, he thought not about it. Beneath what frivolous disguisesdoes destiny mask her approach! Discretion is a virtue; yet, hadBalder been discreet enough to examine the tree before getting intoit, the ultimate consequences are incalculable!

As it was (and marvelling why he had not thought of doing it before)he set stoutly to work, and, despite his jack-boots, was soon amongthe upper branches. The birch trembled and groaned unheeded. The bird(an Egyptian bird, --a hoopoe, --descendant of a pair brought by DoctorGlyphic from the Nile a quarter of a century ago), --the hoopoe wasfluttering and warbling and setting its brilliant cap at the young manmore captivatingly than ever. A glance over the enclosure showed abeautifully fertile and luxurious expanse, damasked with soft greengrass and studded with flowers and trees. A few hundred yards awaybillowed the white tops of an apple-orchard in full bloom. Southward, half seen through boughs and leaves, rose an anomalous structure ofbrick, glass, and stone, which could only be the famous house on whosedesign and decoration old Hiero Glyphic had spent years and fortunes. 

The tract was like an oasis in a forbidding land. The soil had noneof the sandy and clayey consistency peculiar to New Jersey, but wasdeep and rich as an English valley. The sunshine rested more warmlyand mellowly here than elsewhere. The southern breeze acquired atropical flavor in loitering across it. The hoopoe had seemed out ofplace on the hither side the wall, but now looked as much at home asthough the Hudson had been the Nile indeed. 

"My uncle, " said Balder to himself, as he swayed among the branches ofhis birch-tree, "has really succeeded very well in transporting apiece of Egypt to America. Were I on the other side of the wall, nodoubt I might appreciate it also!"

The hoopoe responded encouragingly, the tree cracked, and Balder feltwith dismay that it was tottering beneath him. There was no time toclimb down again. With a dismal croak, the faithless birch leanedslowly through the air. There was nothing to be done but to go withit; and Balder, even as he descended, was able to imagine how absurdhe must appear. The tree fell, but was intercepted at half its heightby the top of the wall. The upper half of the stem, with its humanfruit still attached to it, bent bow-like towards the earth, the trunknot being quite separated from the root. 

Helwyse had thus far managed to keep his presence of mind, and now, glancing downwards, he saw the ground not eight feet below. He loosedhis hold, and the next instant stood in the soft grass. The birch hadbeen his broomstick. Meanwhile the hoopoe, with a triumphant note, flew off towards the house to tell the news. 

XVI. 

LEGEND AND CHRONICLE. 

Hiero Glyphic's house came not into the world complete at a birth, butwas the result of an irregular growth, progressing through many years. Originally a single-gabled edifice, its only peculiarity had been thatit was brick instead of wooden. Here, red and unornamented as thehouse itself, the future Egyptologist was born. The parallel betweenhim and his dwelling was maintained more or less closely to the end. 

He was the first pledge of affection between his mother and father, and the last also; for shortly after his advent the latter parent, aretired undertaker by profession, failed from this world. The widowwas much younger than her husband, and handsome to boot. Nevertheless, several years passed before she married again. Her second lord waslikewise elderly, but differed from the first in being enormouslywealthy. The issue of this union was a daughter, the Helen of ourstory, a pretty, dark-eyed little thing, petted and indulged by allthe family, and reigning undisputed over all. 

Meanwhile the old brick house had been deserted, Mrs. Glyphic havingaccompanied her second husband to his sumptuous residence in Brooklyn. But in process of time Hiero (or, as he was then called, Henry) tookit into his head to return to the original family mansion and livethere. No objection was made; in truth, Henry's oddities, awkwardnesses, and propensity to dabble in queer branches of researchand experiment may have allayed the parting pangs. Back he blundered, therefore, to the banks of the Hudson, and established himself in hisbirthplace. What he did there during the next few years will never beknown. Grisly stories about the man in the brick house were currentamong the country people. A devil was said to be his familiar friend;nay, it was whispered that he himself was the arch-fiend! But nothingpositively supernatural, or even unholy, was ever proved to have takenplace. The recluse had the command of as much money as he could spend, and no doubt he wrought with it miracles beyond the vulgarcomprehension. His mind had no more real depth than a looking-glasswith a crack in it, and its images were disjointed and confused. Thereare many such men, but few possess unlimited means of carrying theircrack-brained fancies into fact. 

During this--which may be called the second--period of Glyphic'scareer, he made several anomalous additions to the brick house, allafter designs of his own. He moreover furnished it anew throughout, ina manner that made the upholsterers stare. Each room--so reads thelegend--was fitted up in the style of a different country, accordingto Glyphic's notion of it! He was said to live in one apartment oranother according as it was his whim to be Spaniard, Turk, Russian, Hindoo, or Chinaman. He also applied himself to gardening, andenclosed seven hundred acres of ground adjoining the house with apicket-fence, forerunner of the famous brick wall. The whole tract wasdug out and manured to the depth of many feet, till it was by far themost fertile spot in the State. The larger trees were not disturbed, but the lesser were forced to give place to new and rare importationsfrom foreign countries. Gorgeous were the hosts of flowers, like banksof sunset clouds; the lawns showed the finest turf out of England;there was a kitchen-garden rich and big enough to feed an army ofepicures all their lives. In short, the place was a concentratedextract of the world at large, where one might at the same moment be arecluse and a cosmopolitan. Here might one live independent of theworld, yet sipping the cream thereof; and might persuade himself thatall beyond these seven hundred enchanted acres was but a diffusedreflection of the concrete existence between the cliff and the fence. 

But to this second period succeeded finally the third, --that whichwitnessed the birth and growth of the Egyptian mania. Its natal momenthas not been precisely determined; perhaps it was a gradual accretion. Mr. Glyphic's relatives in Brooklyn were one day electrified by thenews that the quondam Henry--now Hiero--purposed instant departure forEurope and Egypt. Before starting, however, he built the brick wallround his estate, shutting it out forever from human eyes. Then hevanished, and for nine years was seen no more. 

His return was heralded by the arrival at the port of New York of amountain of freight, described in the invoice as the property ofDoctor Hiero Glyphic of New Jersey. The boxes, as they stood piledtogether on the wharf, might have furnished timber sufficient to builda town. They contained the fruits of Doctor Glyphic's antiquarianresearches. 

The Doctor himself--where he picked up his learned title isunknown--was accompanied by a slender, swarthy young factotum whoanswered to the name of Manetho. He was introduced to the Brooklynrelatives as the pupil, assistant, and adopted son of Hiero Glyphic. The latter, physically broadened, browned, and thickened by histravels, was intellectually the same good-natured, fussy, flightyoriginal as ever; shallow, enthusiastic, incoherent, energetic. 

He and his adopted son shut themselves up behind the brick wall; butit soon transpired that extensive additions were making to the oldhouse. Beyond this elementary fact conjecture had the field to itself. Both architects and builders were imported from another State andsworn to secrecy, while the high wall and the hedge of trees baffledprying eyes. Quantities of red granite and many blocks of preciousmarbles were understood to be using in the work. The opinion gainedthat such an Oriental palace was building as never had been seenoutside an Arabian fairy-tale. 

By and by the work was done, the workmen disappeared. But whoeverhoped that now the mystery would be revealed, and the Oriental palacebe made the scene of a gorgeous house-warming, was disappointed. Thedwellers behind the wall emerged not from their seclusion, nor wereothers invited to relieve it. In due course of time Doctor Glyphic'sworthy step-father died. The widow and her daughter continued to livein Brooklyn until the former's death, which took place a few yearsafterwards. Then Helen came to her brother, and the Brooklyn house wasput under lock and key, and so remained till Helen's marriage, when itwas set in order for the bridal pair. But Thor's wife died as theywere on the point of moving thither, and he sold it four years laterand left America forever. 

After his departure less was known, than before of how things went onbehind the brick wall. The gateway was filled in with masonry. No onewas ever seen entering the enclosure or leaving it; though it wassupposed that, somehow or other, communication was occasionally hadwith the outside world. As knowledge dwindled, legend grew, and wildwere the tales told of the invisible Doctor and his foster-son. In hisyouth, the former had been suspected of simple witchcraft, but he wasnot let off so easily now. Manetho was first dubbed a genie whom theDoctor had brought out of Egypt. Afterwards it was hinted that thesetwo worthies were in fact one and the same demon, who by some infernaljugglery was able to appear twain during the daytime, but resumed hisproper shape at night, and cut up all manner of unholy capers. 

By another version, Doctor Glyphic died in Egypt, not beforebargaining with the Prince of Darkness that his body should returnhome in charge of a condemned soul under the guise of Manetho. Duringthe day, affirmed these theorists, the body was inspired by the soulwith phantom life; but became a mummy at night, when the condemnedsoul suffered torments till morning. With sunrise the ghastly dramabegan anew. This state of things must continue until the sun shone allnight long within the brick wall enclosure. 

A third, more moderate account is that to which we have alreadylistened from Charon's lips. And he perhaps built on a broader basisof truth than did the other yarn-spinners. But under whatever form thelegend appeared, there was always mingled with it a vaguely mysteriouswhisper relating to the alleged presence in the Doctor's Den (so theenclosure was nicknamed) of an apparition in female form. What orwhence she was no one pretended soberly to conjecture. Even herpersonal aspect was the subject of vehement dispute; some maintainingher to be of more than human beauty, while others swore by their headsthat she was so hideous fire would not burn her! These damned her fora malignant witch; those upheld her as a heavenly angel, urged by lovedivine to expiate, through voluntary suffering, the nameless crimes ofthe demoniac Doctor. But unless the redemption were effected within acertain time, she must be swallowed up with him in common destruction. Were the how and wherefore of these alternatives called in question, the answer was a wise shake of the head!

The gentle reader will believe no one of the fantastic legends hererecorded; possibly they were not believed by their very fabricators. They are useful only as tending to show the moral atmosphere of thehouse and its occupants. There is sometimes a subtile symbolic elementinwoven with such tales, which--though not the truth--helps us toapprehend the truth when we come to know it. Moreover, the fancifulparts of history are to the facts as clouds to a landscape; a pictureis incomplete without them; they aid in bringing out the distances, and cast lights and shadows over tracts else harsh and bare. 

Beyond what he had gathered from the ancient mariner, Balder Helwyseknew nothing of these fearful fables. This perhaps accounted for theboldness wherewith he pursued his way towards the mysterious house, following in the airy wake of the clear-throated little hoopoe. 

XVII. 

FACE TO FACE. 

The ground-plan of the house was like a capital H placed endwisetowards the river. The northern side consisted of the original brickbuilding and the additions of the second period; the southern was thatstone edifice which so few persons had been lucky enough to see. Thecentre or cross-piece comprised the grand entrance-hall and staircase, heavily panelled with dark oak, and the floor flagged with squares ofblack and white marbles. 

This entrance-hall opened eastward into a generous conservatory, filling the whole square court between the wings at that end. Thecorresponding western court was devoted to the roomy portico. Two orthree broad steps mounted to a balcony twenty feet deep and nearlytwice as wide, protected by a lofty roof supported on slender Moorishcolumns. Crossing this, one came to the hall-door, likewise Moorish inarch and ornamentation. Considered room by room and part by part, thehouse was good and often beautiful; taken as a whole, it was thecraziest amalgamation of incongruities ever conceived by human brain. 

Balder, approaching from the north, trod enjoyingly the silken grass. No misgiving had he; his uncle would hardly be from home, nor would hebe apt to discredit his nephew's identity. His face had already beenevidence to more than one former knower of his father, and why notalso to his uncle?

The house was more than half a mile in a direct line from thebirch-tree, and presented an imposing appearance; but on drawing near, the odd architectural discrepancies became noticeable. Side by sidewith the prosy Americanism of the northern wing, sprang gracefully theMoorish columns of the portico; beyond, uprose in massive granite, quaintly inscribed and carved, and strengthened by heavy pilasters, the ponderous Egyptian features of the southern portion. The latterwas neither storied nor windowed, and, as Balder conjectured, probablycontained but a single vast room, lighted from within. 

Meanwhile there were no signs of an inhabitant, either in the house orout of it. It wore in parts an air of emptiness and neglect, notexactly as though gone to seed, but as if little human love and carehad been expended there. The deep-set windows of the brick wing, likethe sunken eyes of an old woman, peered at the visitor with duskyforlornness. Lonely and stern on the other side stood the Egyptianpilasters, as though unused to the eye of man; the hieroglyphics alongthe cornice intensified the impression of desertion. As the young manset foot beneath the portico, he laid a hand on one of the slenderpillars, to assure himself that it was real, and not a vision. Cool, solid marble met his grasp; the building did not vanish in a peal ofthunder, with an echo of demoniac laughter. Yes, all was real!

But the stillness was impressive, and Balder struck the pillar sharplywith his palm, merely for the sake of hearing a noise. There was noanswering sound, so, after a moment's hesitation, he walked to thedoor, --which stood ajar, --purposing to call in the aid of bell andknocker. Neither of these civilized appliances was to be found. Whiledebating whether to use his voice or to enter and use his eyes, thenote of the hoopoe fell on his ear. An instant after came an answeringnote, deeper, sweeter, and stronger, --it thrilled to Balder's heart, bringing to his mind, by some subtile process, the goddess of thecliff. 

He crossed the oak-panelled hall (where the essence of mediævalEngland lingered) and came to the threshold of the conservatory. Itwas a scene confusedly beautiful. The air, as it touched his face, wastropically warm and indolent with voluptuous fragrance of flowers andplants. Luxuriant shrubs, with broad-drooping leaves, stoodmotionless in the heat. Two palm-trees uplifted their heavy plumesforty feet aloft, on slender stalks, brushing the high glass roof. Inthe midst of the conservatory a pool slumbered between rocky margins, overgrown with a profusion of reeds, grasses, and water-plants. Therefloated the giant leaves and blossoms of the tropic water-lily; and ona fragment of rock rising above the surface dozed a small crocodile, not more than four feet long, but looking as old, dried up, and coldlycruel as sin itself!

The place looked like an Indian jungle, and Balder half expected tosee the glancing spits of a tiger crouching beneath the overarchingleaves; or a naked savage with bow and arrows. But amid all thisvegetable luxuriance appeared no human being, --no animal save the evilcrocodile. Whence, then, that melodious voice, --clear essence ofnature's sweetest utterances?

At the left of the conservatory was a door, the entrance to theEgyptian temple. It was square and heavy-browed, flanked by shortthick columns rising from a base of sculptured papyrus-leaves, andflowering in lotus capitals. Three marble steps led to the threshold, while on either side reclined a sphinx in polished granite, softened, however, by a delicate flowering vine, which had been trained to clinground their necks. On the deep panels of the door were mystic emblemscarved in relief. A line of hieroglyphics inscribed the lintel in deepblue, red, and black, --to what purport Balder could not divine. 

At the opposite side of the conservatory was a corresponding door, veiled by an ample fold of silken tapestry, cunningly hand-worked inrepresentation of a moon half veiled in clouds, shining athwart astormy sea. By her light a laboring ship was warned off the rocks toleeward. The room (one of the later additions) by its external promisemight have been the bower of some fashionable beauty thousands ofyears ago. 

Balder looked from one of these doors to the other, doubting at whichto apply. The tapestry curtain was swept aside at the base, leaving asmall passage clear to the room beyond. In this opening now appearedthe bright-crested head and eyes of the hoopoe, peeping mischievouslyat the intruder, who forthwith stepped down into the conservatory, holding forth to the little bird a friendly finger. The bird eyed himcritically, then launched itself on the air, and, alighting on a sprayabove his head, warbled out a brilliant call. 

Hereupon was heard within a quick rustling movement; the curtain wasthrust aside, and a youthful woman issued forth amongst the warmplants. She was within a few feet of Balder Helwyse before seeming torealize his presence. She caught herself motionless in an instant. Thesparkle of laughter in her eyes sank in a black depth of wonder. Hereyes filled themselves with Balder as a lake is filled with sunshine;and he, the man of the Wilie and philosopher, could only return hergaze in voiceless admiration. 

Were a face and form of primal perfection to appear among men, mightnot its divine originality repel an ordinary observer, used toconsider beautiful such abortions of the Creator's design as sin anddegeneration have produced? Not easily can one imagine what a real manor woman would look like. Painting nor sculpture can teach us; we mustlearn, if at all, from living, electric flesh and blood. 

This young woman was tall and erect with youthful majesty. She stoodlike the rejoicing upgush of a living fountain. Her contour wassubtile with womanly power, --suggesting the spring of the panther, theglide of the serpent. Warm she seemed from the bosom of nature. Onefelt from her the influence of trees, the calm of meadows, the highfreedom of the blue air, the happiness of hills. She might have beenthe sister of the sun. 

The moulding finger of God seemed freshly to have touched her face. Itwas simple and harmonious as a chord of music, yet inexhaustible inits variety. It recalled no other face, yet might be seen in it thegerms of a mighty nation, that should begin from her and among amyriad resemblances evolve no perfect duplicate. No angel'scountenance, but warmest human clay, which must undergo some changebefore reaching heaven. The sphinx, before the gloom of her riddle haddimmed her primal joy, --before men vexed themselves to unravel God'swebs from without instead of from within, --might have looked thus; orsuch perhaps was Isis in the first flush of her divinity, --fresh fromHim who made her immortally young and fair. 

Her black hair was crowned with a low, compact turban, --a purple andwhite twist of some fine cottony substance, striped with gold. Roundher wide, low brow fitted a band of jewelled gold, three fingers'breadth, from which at each temple depended a broad, flat chain ofwoven coral, following the margin of the cheeks and falling loose onthe shoulders. A golden serpent coiled round her smooth throat anddrooped its head low down in her bosom. Her elastic feet, arched likea dolphin's back, were sandalled; the bright-colored straps, crossingone another half-way to the knee, set dazzlingly off the clear, duskywhiteness of the skin. 

From her shoulders fell a long full robe of purple byssus, over anunderdress of white which readied the knee. This tunic was confined atthe waist by a hundred-fold girdle, embroidered with rainbow flowersand fastened in a broad knot below the bosom, the low-hanging endsheavy with fringe. The outer robe, with its long drooping sleevesfalling open at the elbow, was ample enough wholly to envelop thefigure, but was now girded up and one fold brought round and thrustbeneath the girdle in front, to give freedom of motion. A rare perfumeemanated from her like the evening breath of orange-blossoms. 

Balder was no unworthy balance to this picture, though his elsestately features showed too much the stimulus of modern thought. Hewas eminent by culture; she by nature only. But Balder's culture hadnot greatened him. Greatness is not of the brain, save as allied tothe deep, pure chords which thrill at the base of the human symphony. He might have stood for our age; she, for that more primitive butprofounder era which is at once man's beginning and his goal. 

Balder's eyes could not frankly hold their own against her gaze ofawful simplicity. All he had ever done amiss arose and put him to theblush. Nevertheless, he would not admit his inferiority; instead ofdropping his eyes he closed the soul behind them, and sharpened themwith a shallow, out-striking light. Without understanding the change, she felt it and was troubled. Loftily majestic as were her form andfeatures, she was feminine to the core, --tender and finely perceptive. The incisive masculine gaze abashed her. She raised one handdeprecatingly, and her lips moved, though without sound. 

He relented at this, and straightway her expression again shifted, andshe smiled so radiantly that Balder almost looked to see whence camethe light! The wondrous lines of her face curved and softened; allthat was grave vanished. A tree standing in the sober beauty ofshadow, when suddenly lit by the sun, changes as she changed; forsunshine is the laughter of the world. 

The smile refreshed her courage, for she came nearer and made asideways movement with her arm, apparently with the expectation thatit would pass through the stalwart young man as readily as through theair. On encountering solid substance, she drew startled back, half inalarm and wholly in surprise. Balder had felt her touch, first as abenediction; then it chilled him, through remembrance of a deedforever debarring him from aught so pure and innocent as she. Thesubtleties of his philosophy might have cajoled him anywhere save inher presence. There, he felt unmistakably guilty; yet from irrationaldread that she, whose intuitions seemed so swift and deep, might graspthe cause of his discomposure, he strove to hide it. Last of all theworld should she know his crime!

Scarce two minutes since their meeting, yet perhaps a large proportionof their lives had meanwhile been charmed away. No word had beenspoken, --eyes had superseded tongues. Nay, was ordinary conversationpossible with a young goddess such as this? So perfect seemed hermastery over those profounder elements of intercourse underlyingspeech, which are higher and more direct than the mechanism ofarticulate words, that perhaps the latter method was unknown to her. 

Nevertheless, one must say something. But what?--with what sentence ofsupreme significance should he begin? Moreover, what language shouldhe use? for she, whose look and bearing were so alien to the land andage, might likewise be a stranger to modern dialects. But Aryan orSemitic was not precisely at the tip of Balder's tongue!

In the midst of his embarrassment, the startling note of the hoopoepierced his ear, and precipitated him into asking that great elementalquestion which all created things are forever putting to oneanother, --

"What is your name?"

XVIII. 

THE HOOPOE AND THE CROCODILE. 

"Gnulemah!" she answered, laying a finger on the head of her goldenserpent, and uttering the name as though it were of the only woman inthe world. 

But the next moment she found time to realize that somethingunprecedented had occurred, and her wonder trembled on the brink ofdismay. 

"Speaks in my language!" she exclaimed below her breath; "but is notHiero. "

Until Balder's arrival, then, Hiero would seem to have been the onlytalking animal she had known. The singularity of this did not at firststrike the young man. Gnulemah was the arch-wonder; yet she so fullyjustified herself as to seem very nature; and by dint of her magicreality, what else had been wonderful seemed natural. Balder was infairy-land. 

He fell easily into the fairy-land humor. 

"I am a being like yourself, " said he, with a smile; "and not dumblike your plants and animals. "

"Understood!--answered!" exclaimed Gnulemah again, in a tremor. Asmorning spreads up the sky, did the sweet blood flow outward to warmher face and neck. As the blush deepened, her eyelids fell, and sheshielded her beautiful embarrassment with her raised hands. A pathosin the simple grace of this action drew tears unawares to Balder'seyes. 

What was in her mind? what might she be? Had she lived always in thisenchanted spot, companionless (for poor old Hiero could scarcely serveher turn) and ignorant perhaps that the world held other beingsendowed like herself with human gifts? Had she vainly soughtthroughout nature for some kinship more intimate than nature couldyield her, and thus at length fancied herself a unique, independentlycreated soul, imperial over all things? Since her whole world wascomprised between the wall and the river, no doubt she believed thereality of things extended no further. 

In Balder she had found a creature like, yet pleasingly unlikeherself, palpable to feeling as to sight, and gifted with thatarticulate utterance which till now she had accounted her almostpeculiar faculty. Delightful might be the discovery, but awesome too, frightening her back by its very tendency to draw her forward. 

Whether or not this were the solution of Gnulemah's mystery, Balderrecognized quiet to be his cue towards her. Probably he could not dobetter than to get the ear of Doctor Hiero, and establish himself upona footing more conventional than the present one. His next stepaccordingly was to ask after him by name. 

She peeped at the questioner between her fingers, but ventured notquite to emerge from behind them, as she answered, --her primaryattempt at description, --

"Hiero is--Hiero!"

"And how long have you been here?" inquired Balder with a smile. 

Gnulemah forgot her embarrassment in wondering how so remarkable acreature happened to ask questions whose answers her whole world knew!

"We are always here!" she exclaimed; and added, after a moment'sdoubtful scrutiny, "Are you a spirit?"

"An embodied spirit, --yes!" answered he, smiling again. 

"One of those I see beyond, "--she pointed towards the cliff, --"thatmove and seem to live, but are only shadows in the great picture? No!for I cannot touch them nor speak with them; they never answer me;they are shadows. " She paused and seemed to struggle with herbewilderment. 

"They are shadows!" repeated Helwyse to himself. 

Though no Hermetic philosopher, he was aware of a symbolic truth inthe fanciful dogma. Outside his immediate circle, the world is ashadow to every man; his fellow-beings are no more than apparitions, till he grasps them by the hand. So to Gnulemah the cliff and thegarden wall were her limits of real existence. The great pictureoutside could be true for her only after she had gone forth and feltas well as seen it. 

Fancy aside, however, was not hers a condition morally and mentallydeplorable? Exquisitely developed in body, must not her mind havegrown rank with weeds, --beautiful perhaps, but poisonous? HereinBalder fancied he could trace the one-sided influence of hiscrack-brained uncle. --Whether his daughter or not, Gnulemah wasevidently a victim of his experimental mania. What particular crotchetcould he have been humoring in this case? Was it an attempt to getback to the early sense of the human race?

The materials for such an evolution were certainly of temptingexcellence. In point of beauty and apparent natural capacity, Gnulemahmight claim equality with the noblest daughter of the Pharaohs. Thegrand primary problem of how to isolate her from all contact with theoutside world was, under the existing circumstances, easy of solution. Beyond this there needed little positive treatment. Her creed mustarise from her own instinctive and intuitive impressions. Of allbeyond the reach of her hands, she trust to her eyes alone forinformation; no marvel, therefore, if her conclusions concerning thegreat intangible phenomena of the universe were fantastic as theveriest heathen myths. The self-evolved feelings and impulses of ablack-eyed nymph like Gnulemah were not likely to be orthodox. She wasprobably no better than a worshipper of vain delusions and idols ofthe imagination. 

Her attire--a style of costume such as might have been the fashion inthe days of Cheops or Tuthmosis--showed a carrying out of the Doctor'swhim, --a matching of the external to the internal conditions of theage he aimed to reproduce. The project seemed, on the whole, to havebeen well conceived and consistently prosecuted. It was seldom thatUncle Hiero achieved so harmonious a piece of work; but the ideashowed greater moral obliquity than Balder would have looked for inthe old gentleman. 

But there was no deep sincerity in the young man's strictures. Therebefore him stood the woman Gnulemah, --purple, white, and gold; avivid, breathing, warm-hued life; a soul and body rich with Orientalsplendor. There she stood, her hair flowing dark and silky frombeneath her twisted turban, her eyes, --black melted loadstones; thebroad Egyptian pendants gleaming and glowing from temple to shoulder. The golden serpent seemed to writhe on her bosom, informed from itswearer with a subtile vitality. Through all dominated a grand repose, like the calm of nature, which storms may prove but not disthrone!

There she stood, --enchanted princess, witch, goddess, --woman at allevents, palpable and undeniable. She must be accepted for what shewas, civilized or uncivilized, heathen or Christian. She was aperfected achievement, --vain to argue how she might have been madebetter. Who says that an evening cloud, gorgeous in purple andheavenly gold, were more usefully employed fertilizing a garden-patch?

Balder Helwyse, moreover, was not a simple utilitarian; he was almostready to make a religion of beauty. If he blamed his uncle forshutting up this superb creature within herself, he failed not toadmire the result of the imprisonment. He knew he was beholding asrare a spectacle as ever man's eyes were blessed withal; nor was heslow to perceive the psychological interest of the situation. To astudent of mankind, if to no one else, Gnulemah was beyond estimationprecious. But had Balder forgotten what fruit his tree of philosophyhad already yielded him?

At all events, he forbore to press his question as to the whereaboutsof Uncle Hiero, who would turn up sooner or later. It was enough forthe present to know that he still existed. Meanwhile he would soundthe depths of this fresh nature, undisturbed. 

The hoopoe (who had played an important part in promoting theacquaintance thus far) forsook his perch above Balder's head, andafter hovering for a moment in mid-air, as if to select the best spot, he alighted on the mossy cushion at the foot of the twin palm-trees. Such a couch might Adam and Eve have rejoiced to find in Paradise. Balder took the hint, and without more ado threw himself down there, while Gnulemah half knelt, half sat beside him, propped on her arm, her warm fingers buried in the cool moss. The little master-of-ceremoniesremained, with a fine sense of propriety, between the two, preeningand fluttering his brilliant feathers and casting diamond glancessidelong. 

"You remember nothing before coming to this place, Gnulemah?"

"Only dream-memories, that grow dimmer. Before this, I was a spirit inthe great picture, and when my lamp goes out I shall return thither. "

"Your lamp, Gnulemah?--what lamp?"

"How can you understand me and yet not know what I know? My lamp isthe light of my life; it burns always in the temple yonder; when itgoes out my life will become a darkness, for I am Gnulemah, thedaughter of fire!"

"I knew not that my uncle was a poet, " muttered Balder to himself. "Adaughter of fire, --yes, there is lightning in her eyes!" Aloud hesaid, secretly alluding to the manner of his descent into thegarden, --

"I dropped from the sky into your world, Gnulemah. Though we can talktogether, whatever we tell each other will be new. "

She caught the idea of a lifetime spent instructing this delightfulbeing, and receiving in return instruction from him. She entered atonce the charming vista. 

"Tell me, " she began, bending towards him in her earnestness, "arethere others like you?--are they bright and beautiful as you are?--ordo they look like Hiero?"

Balder laughed, and flushed, and his heart warmed pleasurably. Herewas a compliment from the very soul of nature. And albeit the lovelyflatterer's experience of men was avowedly most limited, yet her tastewas unvitiated as her sincerity, and her judgment may therefore havebeen more valuable than that of the most practised belle of fashion. But he answered modestly, --

"Hiero and I are both men, and there are as many men as stars inheaven, and as many women as men, myriads of men and women, Gnulemah!"

She lifted her face and hand in eloquent astonishment. 

"O, what a world!" she exclaimed in her low-toned way. "But are thewomen all like me?"

"There is not one like you, " answered Balder, with the quiet emphasisof conviction. How refreshing was it thus to set aside conventionalism!Her ingenuousness brought forth the like from him. 

"Have you never wished to go beyond the wall?" he asked her. 

"Yes, often!" she said, fingering the golden serpent thoughtfully. "But that could not be unless I put out the lamp. Sometimes I gettired of this world, --it has changed since I first came to it. "

"Is it less beautiful?"

"It is smaller than it used to be, " said Gnulemah, pensively. "Oncethe house was so high, it seemed to touch heaven;--see how it hasdwindled since then! And so with other things that are on earth. Thestars and the sun and clouds, they have not changed!"

"That is a consolation, is it not?" observed Balder, between a smileand a sigh. Gnulemah was not the first to charge upon the world thealterations in the individual; nor the first, either, to find comfortin the constancy of Heaven. 

She went on, won to further confidence by her listener's sympathy, --

"I used to hope the wall would one day become so low that I might passover it. But it has ceased to change, and is still too high. Shall Iever see the other side?"

"It can be broken down if need be. But you might go far beforefinding a world so fair as this. Perhaps it would be better to standon the cliff, and only look forth across the river. "

"I cannot stay always here, " returned Gnulemah, shaking her turbanedhead, with its gleaming bandeau and rattling pendants. "But no wall isbetween me and the sky; the flame of my lamp goes upward, and whyshould not Gnulemah?"

"A friend is the only world one does not tire of, " he replied after apause. "You have lacked companions. "

Gnulemah glanced down at the hoopoe, who forthwith warbled aloud andfluttered up to her shoulder. The bird was her companion, and so, likewise, were the plants and flowers. Gnulemah could converse withthem in their own language. Nature was her friend and confidant, andintimately communed with her. 

All this was conveyed to Balder's apprehension, not by words, but bysome subtile expressiveness of eye and gesture. Gnulemah could givevoiceless utterances in a manner pregnant and felicitous almost beyondbelief. 

"I meet also a beautiful maiden in the looking-glass, " she added; "herface and motion are always the same as my own. But though she seems tospeak, her voice never reaches me; and she smiles, but only when Ismile; and mourns only when I mourn. We can never reach each other;but there is more in her than in my birds and flowers. "

"She is the shadow of yourself; no reality, Gnulemah. "

"Are we shadows of each other, then? is she weary of her world, as Iof mine? shall we both escape to some other, --or only pass each intothe other's, and be separated as before?"

Balder, like wise men before him, was at some loss how to bring hiswisdom to bear here. He could not in one sentence explain thecomplicated phenomena in question. Fortunately, however, Gnulemah (whohad apparently not yet learned to appeal from her own to another'sjudgment) seemed hardly to expect a solution to problems upon whichshe had expended much private thought. 

"I have come to look on her as though she were myself, and she tellsme secrets which no one else can know. Some things she tells me that Ido not care to hear, but they are always true. I can see changes in;her face that I feel in my own heart. "

"Does she teach you that you grow every day more beautiful?" He waswilling to prove whether Gnulemah could thus be disconcerted. Many awoman had he known, surprisingly innocent until a chance word orglance betrayed profoundest depths. 

"Our beauty is like the garden, which is beautiful every day, thoughno day is just like another. But the changes I mean are in the spiritthat looks back at me from her eyes, when I enter deeply into them. "

What connection could, after all, subsist between beauty and vanity inone who neither had rivals nor aught to rival for? Doubtless sheenjoyed her beauty, --the more, as her taste was pure of conventionalfalsities. How much of worldly experience would it take to vitiatethat integrity in her? Would it not be better to leave her to end herlife, restricted to the same innocent and lovely companionship whichhad been hers thus far? Here the hoopoe, startled at some movementthat Balder made, abandoned his perch on his mistress's shoulder, andflew to the top of the palm-tree. Had the day when such friends wouldsuffice her needs gone by?

Yes, it was now too late. No one who has beheld the sun canthenceforth dispense with it. Balder had shone across the beautifulrecluse's path, and linked her to outside realities by a chain which, whether he went or stayed, would never break. Flowers, birds, shadowsin the mirror, --less than nothing would these things be to her fromthis hour on. 

Heretofore the intercourse between the two had been tentative andincoherent, --a doubtful, aimless grappling with strange conditionswhich seemed delightful, but might mask unknown dangers. No solidbasis of mutual acquaintanceship had been even approached. Balder, accustomed though he was to woman's society, knew not how to apply hisexperience here; while Gnulemah had not yet perhaps decided whetherher visitor were natural or supernatural. The man was probably theless at ease of the two, finding himself in a pass through whichtradition nor culture could pilot him. Gnulemah, being used to dailycommunion with things mysterious to her understanding, would scarcelyhave altered her demeanor had Balder turned out to be a genie!

But the first step towards fixing the relations between them wasalready taken. The young man's abrupt movement of his hand to his face(probably with purpose to stroke the beard no longer growing there)had not only scared away the hoopoe, but had flashed on Gnulemah a rayfrom the diamond ring. 

She rose to her feet suddenly, yet easily as a startled serpent rearserect its body. Vivid emotion lightened in her face. Balder knew notwhat to make of the look she gleamed at him. 

"What are you?" she asked, her voice sunk to almost a whisper. "Hiero?--are you Hiero?"

Balder stared confounded, --partly inclined to smile!

"Come back, --transfigured!" she went on, her eyes deepening with awe. What did it mean? Somewhat disturbed, Balder got also on his feet. Ashe did so, Gnulemah crouched before him, holding out her hands like asuppliant. An on-looker might have fancied that the would-be God hadfound his worshipper at last!

"My name is Balder, " his Deityship managed to say. As he spoke, thesun rounded the corner of the house, and the light fell brightly onhim, Gnulemah kneeling in shadow. The glory of his splendid youthseemed to have shone out from within him in sudden effulgence. 

"Balder!" she slowly repeated, still gazing up at him. 

"There is a relationship between us, " said he, a vague uneasinessurging him to take refuge behind the quaint fantasy, "You are thedaughter of fire, and I the descendant of the sun!"

He spoke the unpremeditated notion which the sunburst had created inhis brain, --spoke not seriously nor yet lightly. He had as much rightto his genealogy as she to hers. 

But what a strange effect his words wrought on her! She clasped herhands together quickly in a kind of ecstasy. 

"The sun, --Balder! I have prayed to him, --he as come to me, --Balder, my God!" With how divine an accent did her full low voice give him thename to which he had dared aspire! He was God--and her God!

He perhaps divined one part of the process through which her mind musthave gone; but he could not find a word to answer, whether ofacceptance or disclaimer. He turned pale, --his heart sick. Had therecognition of his Godhood been too tardy? Gnulemah fancied herepulsed her, and her passion kindled, --only religious passion, but itseared him!

"Do not be cold to me, Balder!"--his name as she uttered it moved himas a blasphemy. "In my lonely kneelings I have felt you! my eyesclose, my hands grow together, my breath flutters, every breath is joyand fear! I think 'He is with me, --the Being I adore!' but when Iopened my eyes, He was gone, --Balder!"

Still motionless and seeming-deaf stood the Divinity, bathed inmocking sunlight. He was powerless to stop her from unveiling to him, as to a visible God the sacred places of her maiden heart. Thatsublime office whose reversion he had boldly courted, in thepossession shrivelled his soul to nothing and left him dead. It wasnot easy to be God, --even over one human being!

But Gnulemah, in her mighty earnestness, knelt nearer, so that theedge of Balder's sunlight smote the golden ornaments that clung roundher outstretched arms. She almost touched him, but though his spiritrecoiled, the doltish flesh would not be moved. 

"It was not to be always so, " she continued, an appealing vehemencequivering through her tones. "Some day I was to see Him and know Himmore clearly. Shine on me, Balder! am not I your priestess? in themorning do not I worship you, and at noon, and in the evening? Atnight do not I kneel at your altar and pray you to care for me while Isleep? Hear me, Balder! I see you in all things, --they are yourthoughts and meet again in you! The sun himself is but your shadow! Donot I know you, my Balder? Be not clouded from your servant! Leave menot, --take me with you where you go!"

It was at this moment that the young man's mind, stumbling stupidlyhither and thither, chanced to encounter that picture of thecourtesan, leaning from the open window in the city street, beckoninghim to come. She took Gnulemah's place, beckoning, making a hatefulparody of Gnulemah's expression and gestures. Could a devil take theconsecrated place of angels? or was the angel a worse devil indisguise? In the same day, to him the same man, could two such voicesspeak, --such faces look? And could the germ of Godhead abide in a soulliable to the irony of such vicarious solicitation?

Speech or motion was still denied him. His priestess, strengthened byreligious passion, was bold to touch with hers his divine hand, on thefinger of which demoniacally glittered the murder-token. The hand wasso cold and lax that even the smooth warmth of her soft fingers failedto put life in it. 

"You have taken Hiero to yourself, --take me also! be my God as well ashis, for I shall be alone now he is gone. This ring which he alwayswore--"

Balder roughly snatched back his hand. 

"Hiero's ring?"

"Why do you look so?--is it not a sign to me from him?"

"Hiero's ring?--tell me, Gnulemah, is this Hiero's ring?--Stop--standup! No--call me Satan!--Hiero's ring!"

"Where is Hiero, then?" demanded Gnulemah, rising and dilating. "Youwear his ring, --what have you done with him?--Is there no God?"

The words came riding on the waves of deep-drawn breaths, for her soulwas in a tumult. Her life had thus far been like a quiet sequesteredpool, reflecting only the sky, and the ferns and flowers that bentabove its margin; ignorant, moreover, of its own depth and nature. Now, invaded by storm, God and nature seemed swept away and lost, anda terror of loneliness darkened over it. 

"Is there no Balder?" reiterated Gnulemah. But all at once thefierceness in her eyes melted, as lightning is followed by summerrain. She came so near, --he standing dulled with horror of hisdiscovery, --came so near that her breath touched him, and he couldhear the faint rustling of the white byssus on her bosom, and the softtinkle of the broad pendants that glowed against her black hair; andcould see how profoundly real her beauty was. Mighty and beneficentmust be the force or the law which could combine the rude elementsinto such a form of life as this!

"Let me live for you and serve you! Though the world has no Balder, may not I have mine? You shall be everything to me! Without you Icannot be; but I want no other God if I have my Balder!"

This was another matter! Nevertheless, --so subtle is the boundarybetween love human and divine, --Gnulemah in these first passionatemoments may easily have deemed the one no less sublime than the other. 

But there was no danger of Balder's falling into such an error. Thedistinction was clear to him. Yet with remorse and abasement strovethe defiant impulse to pluck and eat--forgetful of this world and thenext the royal fruit so fairly held to his lips! For herein fails thedivinity of nature, --she can minister as well to man's depravity as tohis exaltation; which could not happen were she one with God. Nay, man had need be strong with Divine inspiration, before communingunharmed with nature's dangerous loveliness. 

His hand in Gnulemah's was now neither cold nor lax. She raised it inimpetuous homage to her forehead. The diamond left a mark there; firstwhite, then red. For a breath or two, their eyes saw depths in eachother beyond words' fathoming. .. . 

A door was closed above; and the echo stole down stairs and crept witha hollow whisper into the conservatory. The little lord chamberlainfluttered down from his lofty perch and hovered between the two faces, his penetrating note sounding like a warning, Gnulemah drew back, anda swift blush let fall its rosy veil from the golden gleam of herjewelled forehead-band to below the head of the serpent which twistedround her neck. 

One parting look she gave Balder, pregnant of new wonder, fear, andjoy. Then she turned and glided with quick ophidian grace to thedoorway from which she had first appeared, and was eclipsed by thecurtain. The inner door shut; she was gone. Dull, dull and colorlesswas the conservatory. The hoopoe had flown out through the hall to theopen air. Only the crocodile continued to keep Balder company. 

After standing a few moments, he once more threw himself down on themoss couch beneath the palm-trees. There he reclined as before, supported on his elbow, and turned the diamond ring this way and thaton his finger in moody preoccupation. 

Was the crocodile asleep, or stealthily watching him?

XIX. 

BEFORE SUNDOWN. 

If Balder Helwyse had been in a vein for self-criticism at thisjuncture, the review might probably have dissatisfied him. Hepossessed qualities which make men great. He could have dischargedaugust offices, for he saw things in large relations and yet minutely. His mind and courage could rise to any enterprise, and carry it withease and cheerfully. His nature was even more receptive than active. He had force of thought to electrify nations. 

But his was the old story of the star-gazer walking into the well, whomight have studied the stars in the well, but could not be warned ofthe well by the stars. He had whistled grand chances down the wind, reaching after what was superhuman. His hunger had been vast, but thefood wherewith he had filled himself nourished him not, and suddenlyhe had collapsed. His first actual step towards realizing his loftyaspirations had landed him low amongst earth's common criminals, --norhad the harm stopped there. That defiant impulse to which he had justnow been on the point of yielding had not dared so much as to haveshown its face before his unvitiated will. He was disorganized and atthe mercy of events, because without law sufficient to keep and guidehimself. 

Though fallen, there was in him somewhat giant-like, perhaps easier tosee now than before, --as the ruin seems vaster than the perfectbuilding. The travail of a soul like Balder's must issue greatly, whether for good or ill. He could not remain long inchoate, but theelements would combine to make something either darker or fairer thanhad been before. Meanwhile, in the uncrystallized solution the curiousanalyst might detect traits bright or sinister, ordinarily invisible. Here were softness, impetuosity, romantic imagination, and tenderfire, enough to set up half a dozen poets. Again, there was a fund ofmalignity, coldness, and subtlety adequate to the making an Iago. Here, too, were the clear sceptical intellect, the fertility andversatile power of brain, which only the loftier minds of the worldhave shown. 

Such seemingly incongruous qualities are, in the human crucible, somingled, proportioned, and refined, as to form a seeming simple andtransparent whole. We may feel the presence of a spirit weighty, strong, deep, without understanding the how and why of impression. Only at critical moments, such as this in Balder's life, can we pointout the joining lines. 

Balder's present attitude, viewed from whatever side, was no lessirksome than ignoble. One misfortune was with diabolic ingenuitydovetailed into another. It was bad enough to have killed a man; butthe victim was his own uncle, and the father--at least thefoster-father--of Gnulemah. And she, forsooth, must idolize themurderer; and, finally, his heart must leap forth in passionateresponse to hers at the moment--partly perhaps for the reason--thatevery honest motive forbade it. That look and touch, at the moltenpoint of various emotions, had welded their spirits together at onceand lastingly. 

What next? For Gnulemah and for himself what course was leastdisastrous?--the heroic line, --to leave her without a word?--or, concealing what he was, should he stay and be happy in her arms? Wasthere a third alternative?

"To part would be yet worse for her than for me. She would think I haddeceived her. And, love apart, how can I leave her whose onlyprotector I have killed? That deed puts me in his place; so love andduty are at one for once. Her Balder, --her God, --she calls me. She ismy universe; the depth and limit of my knowledge and power are gaugedby her. Such is the issue of my aspirations!"

He breathed out a half-laugh, ending in a sigh. "But loving her issweeter than to inform creation!" he added, aloud. 

The crocodile made no reply. Balder went on, fingering the telltalering and talking with himself; the earth, meanwhile, slowly turningher warm shoulder to the western sun. A still half-light filled theconservatory as with a clear mellow liquor, and the rich leaves, andblossoms stood breathless with delight. The painfully rigidcontraction of Balder's features was softening away; he was cominginto harmony with the sensuous beauty of the scene, or its refinedvoluptuousness--serene, unambitious, content with time and careless ofeternity--interpreted his altered temper. 

Be happy in the sunlight, O men and women! Love and kiss, --bow downand worship each the other! Who can tell of another joy like this?Everlasting knows it not, for only the flavor of death can give itperfection! Save for the foreshadow of midnight, noonday were notbeautiful. But when night comes, sink ye in one another's arms, andsleep! Heaven on earth is a richer, stronger draught than Heaven; butpray that in vouchsafing death, it cheat ye not of annihilation!

He had forgotten that there was anything ugly in the world, or thatthe blindest cannot always escape the Gorgon. He recked not the riskof bringing a being such as Gnulemah face to face with modern life, nor bethought him that the secret in his heart would still be nearerit than love could come. Neither, during this fortunate moment, didfear of discovery harass him. 

Oddly, too, it was not to domestic comforts, --the love of wife, children, and friends, --nor yet to the absorbing duties of aprofession, that Balder looked for a shield against inward trouble. Hope held him no more than fear; his happiness must consist in freedomfrom both. He thought only of the Gnulemah of to-day, --unique, beautiful, untamed, divinely ignorant; but whose heart walked before, leading the giddy mind by paths the wisest dared not tempt. The soundsof her voice, the shiftings of her expression, her look, hertouch, --he recalled them all. He centred time and space in her. Change, new conditions, succession of events, --these came not nearher. Their life should know neither past nor future, but abide aconstant Now, --until the end!

His lips followed his thought with soundless movement. Handsome lipsthey were, --the under, full, but sharply defined from thebulwark-chin; the upper, slender, boldly curved, firm, yetsensitive;--the mouth was a compendium of the man's physical nature. His eyes, large and almost as dark as Gnulemah's, albeit far differentin effect, --were now in-looking; the pupils, always extraordinarilylarge and brilliant, almost filled the space between the eyelids. Hishair clung round his head in yellow curls; the dark dense eyebrowsarched at ease. With velvet doublet and well-moulded limbs, in theenchanted evening-glow, he looked the ideal fairy prince, --noble, wise, and valiant; conquering fate for love's sake. They were braveprinces, --they of old time. But one wonders whether the giants andenchanters, nowadays, are not stronger and subtler than they used tobe!

XX. 

BETWEEN WAKING AND SLEEPING. 

There was an old woman in the house who went by the name of Nurse; herduties being to cook the meals and preserve a sort of order in such ofthe rooms as were occupied by the family. Since the greater part ofthe house was uninhabited, and there were only two mouths to feedbeside her own, Nurse was not without leisure moments. How were theyemployed?

Not in gossiping, for she had no cronies. Not in millinery anddressmaking, for there were no admiring eyes to reward such labors. Not in gadding, for she might not pass the imprisoning wall. Not evenin reading, perhaps because she was not much of a proficient in thatart. 

The truth is that--to the outward eye at least--she was uniformlyidle. For years past she had spent many hours of each night in thecorner of the kitchen fireplace, which was as large, roomy, andsmoke-seasoned as any in story-books or mediæval halls. Here sat she, winter and summer, her body bent forward over her knees, herdisfigured face supported on one hand, while the other lay across herbreast. This was her common position, and she seldom moved to changeit. She hummed tunes to herself sometimes, --not hymn tunes, --but neverwas heard to utter an articulate word. Often you might have thoughther asleep, --but no! when you least expected it a shining black eyewas fixed oh you; an eye which, two hundred years ago, would haveconvicted its owner of witchcraft. It was the only bright thing aboutthe poor woman. 

Whenever the master of the house came to the kitchen, Nurse'switch-eye followed him animal-like; no movement of his, no expression, seemed to escape it. A curious observer might sometimes have remarkedin her, during the few moments after the man's entrance, a muffledagitation, an irregularity of the breath, an obscure anxiety andsuspense. This, however, would soon subside, and rarely recur duringhis stay. The phenomenon had been observable daily for nearly a scoreof years, yet nothing had meantime happened to explain or justify it. Had an original dread--groundless or not--prolonged its phantomexistence precisely because it had never met with justification?

Often for weeks at a time, complete silence would obtain betweenmaster and Nurse. He would enter and ramble hither and thither theample kitchen; eat what had been prepared for him, and be off againwithout a word or glance of acknowledgment. Or, again, pacingirregularly to and fro before the fireplace, he would pour forth longdisjointed rhapsodies, wild speculations, hopes, and misgivings; hismood changing from solemn to gay, and round through gusty passion tomorbid gloom. But never did he address his words to Nurse so much asto himself or to some imaginary interlocutor; and she for her partnever answered him a syllable, but sat in silence through it all. Yetwas she ever alert to listen, and sometimes the subdued tremblingwould come on and the obstruction of breath. But when the talker, inmid-excitement of speech, snatched his violin and drew from itmelodies weirdly exquisite, soothing his diseased thoughts andharmonizing them, Nurse would become once more composed; the phantomdanger was again put off, and the violinist would presently fall intosilence, --sometimes into sleep. But still, while he slept, thewitch-eye watched him; though with an expression of yearning, uncouthintensity which seldom ventured forth while he was awake. 

With Gnulemah, Nurse's intercourse became yearly more and moreinfrequent. As the child arose to womanhood, she grew apart from thevoiceless creature who had cared for her infancy. It was notGnulemah's fault, whose heart was never barren of loving impulses. But mother, father, were words whose meaning she had never beentaught; and had Nurse comprehended the unconscious thirst and hungerof the girl's soul, --unconscious, but not therefore harmless, --shemight have tried, by dint of affectionate observances andcompanionship, to represent the motherly office which she had filledin the beginning. But this was not to be. Some hidden agency hadforced the two ever farther asunder. Moreover, Gnulemah developedrapidly, while Nurse underwent a process of gradual congealment, --herwits and emotions became torpid. Besides this, she was the victim ofdisfigurement, physical as well as spiritual; while Gnulemah, bothnaturally and by training, was sensitive to beauty and ugliness. Othersurface causes no doubt there were, in addition to the hidden one, which was perhaps the most potent of all. 

A considerable time had passed since Gnulemah's departure, when Balderbecame aware that he was not alone in the conservatory. His thoughtswere all of Gnulemah, and he looked quickly round in expectation ofseeing her. The apparition of a widely different object startled himto his feet. 

A female figure stood before him, wrapped in sad-colored garments ofanomalous description, her head tied up in dark turban-like folds ofcloth. A lock of rusty black hair escaped from beneath this head-dressand hung down beside her face. She might once have been tall anderect, but her form now sagged to the left, losing both height anddignity. Her visage, seamed and furrowed by the scar of some terriblecalamity, had lost its natural contour. The left eye was extinguished, but the right remained, --the only feature in its original state. Itwas dark and bright, and possessed, by very virtue of its disfiguredenvironment, a repulsive kind of beauty. Its influence was peculiar. In itself, it postulated an owner in the prime of life, handsome andgraceful. But, one's attention wandering, the woman's actual uglinessimpressed itself with an intensity enhanced by the imaginary contrast. 

A grotesque analogy was thus brought to light. The woman was dual. Herright side lived; the left--blind, inert, and soulless--was draggedabout a dead weight. It was an unnatural emphasizing of thespiritual-material composition of mankind. Observable, moreover, washer strange method of disguising emotion. There was no muscularconstraint; she simply turned her blank left side to the spectator, with an effect like the interposition of a dead wall!

Such, on Balder's perhaps abnormally excited apprehension, was theimpression the nurse produced. She, on her part, was perhaps moredisconcerted than he. Her single eye settled upon him in a panic ofsurprise. The dressing of the scene gave Balder a grisly reminder ofthe first moments of Gnulemah's eloquent astonishment. There was asgreat an apparent difference between the superb Egyptian and this poorcreature, as between good and evil; but there was also thedisagreeable suggestion of a similar kind of relationship. Gnulemah, withered, stifled, and degraded by some unmentionable curse, mighthave become a thing not unlike this woman. 

"Have we met before, madam?" asked Helwyse, impelled to the questionby what he took for a bewildered recognition in her eye. 

She moved her lips, but made no audible answer. 

"I am Balder Helwyse, " he added; for he had made up his mind that allconcealments (save one) were unnecessary. 

A grotesque quake of emotion travelled through the woman's body, andshe gave utterance to a harsh inarticulate sound. She came confusedlyforwards, groping with hands outstretched. Balder, though not wont tofail in courtesy to the sorriest hag, could scarce forbear recoiling;especially because he fancied that an expression of affectionateinterest was struggling to get through the scarred incrustation of thewoman's nature. 

Perhaps she marked his inward shrinking, for she checked herself, and, slowly turning her lifeless screen, hid behind it. It was impotentdeprecation translated into flesh, --at once ludicrous and painful. Theyoung man found so much difficulty in restraining the manifestationof his distaste, that he blushed in the twilight at his own rudeness. He would do his best to redeem himself. 

"Doctor Hiero Glyphic is my uncle, " said he, moving to get on Nurse'sright side, and speaking in his pleasantest tone. "Is he at home? Ihave come a long way to see him. "

Preoccupied by his amiable purpose to reassure the woman, Helwyse hadgot to the end of this speech before realizing the ghastly mockeryinvolved in it. Nevertheless, it was well. Even thus falsely andboldly must he henceforth speak and act. By a happy accident he hadopened the path, and must see to it that his further steps did notretrograde. 

Still Nurse answered not a word, which was the less surprising, inasmuch as she had been dumb for a quarter of a century past. ButBalder, supposing her silence to proceed from stupidity or deafness, repeated more loudly and peremptorily, --

"Doctor Glyphic, --is he here? is he alive?"

He felt a morbid curiosity to hear what reply would be made to thequestion whose answer only he could know. But he was puzzled toobserve that it appeared to throw Nurse into a state of agitation asgreat as though she had herself been the perpetrator of Balder'scrime! She stood quaking and irresolute, now peeping for a momentfrom behind her screen, then dodging back with an increase of panic. 

This display--rendered more uncouth by its voicelessness--revolted theæsthetic sensibilities of Helwyse. Besides, what was the meaning ofit? Had it actually been Davy Jones with whom he had striven on themidnight sea? and had his adversary, instead of drowning, spread hisbat-wings for home, and left his supposititious murderer to disquiethimself in vain? Verily, a practical joke worthy its author!

This conceit revealed others, as a lightning-flash the midnightlandscape. Balder was encircled by witchcraft, --had been ferried by areal Charon to no imaginary Hades. The quaint secluded beauty ofcircumstance was an illusion, soon to be dispelled. Gnulemahherself--miserable thought!--was perhaps a thing of evil; what if thisvery hag were she in another form? Glancing round in the deepeningtwilight, Balder fancied the dark, still plants and tropic shrubsassumed demoniac forms, bending and crowding about him. The old witchyonder was muttering some infernal spell; already he felt numbness inhis limbs, dizziness in his brain. 

The devils are gathering nearer. A heavy, heated atmosphere quiversbefore his eyes, or else the witch and her unholy crew are uniting ina reeling dance. In vain does Balder try to shut his eyes and escapethe giddy spectacle; they stare widely open and see thingssupernatural. Nor can he ward off these with his hands, which arerigid before him, and defy his will. The devilish jig becomes wilder, and careers through the air, Balder sweeping with it. In mid-whirl, hesees the crocodile, --cold, motionless, waiting with long, dryjaws--for what?

A cry breaks from him. With a wrench that strains his heart he burstsloose from the devil's bonds that confine his limbs. The witch hasvanished, and Helwyse seems to himself to fall headlong from a vastheight, striking the earth at last helpless and broken. 

"Gnulemah!"

Gasping out that name, he becomes insensible. 

Beneath an outside of respectable composure have turmoiled the tidesof such remorse and pain as only a man at once largely and finely madecan feel. Added to the mental excitement carried through many phasesto the point of distraction, have been bodily exertion and want offood and sleep. The apparition of unnatural ugliness, of behaviorstrange as her looks, coming upon him in this untoward condition, needed not the heat of the conservatory and stupefying perfume of theflowers to bring on the brief delirium and final unconsciousness. Ashe lies there let us remember that his last word threw back theunworthy, dark misgiving, that beauty and deformity, good and bad, could by any jugglery become convertible. 

As a mere matter of fact, Nurse was no witch, nor had she, of her ownwill and knowledge, done Balder any harm. On the contrary, she wasalready at work, with trembling hands and painfully thumping heart, torelieve his sad case. She was touched and agitated to a singulardegree. It was not the first time in the patient's life that she hadtended him. The reader has guessed her secret, --that she had knownBalder before he knew himself, and cared for him when his only careshad been to eat and sleep. She knew her baby through his manly statureand mature features, less from his likeness to his father than fromcertain uneffaced traces of infantine form and expression. She was ofgypsy blood, and had looked on few human faces since last seeing his. He did not recognize her until some time afterwards. All thingsconsidered, it was hardly possible he should do so. 

It was curious to observe how awkwardly she now managed emotions thathad once flowed but too readily. She was moved by impulses which shehad long forgotten how to interpret. Her only outlet for tendernesswas her solitary eye, which might well have given way under the strainthus put upon it. 

But by and by the inward heat began to thaw the stiff outward crust, which had been hardening for so many years. Glimpses there were of thehandy, affectionate, sympathizing woman, emerging from fossilization. Her withered heart once more hungered and thirsted, and the strangeduality tended to melt back again into unity. 

Balder's attack at length yielded, and a drowsy consciousnessreturned, memory and reason being still partly in abeyance. His heavy, half-closed eyes rested on darkness. A crooning sound was in hisear, --a nursery lullaby, wordless but soothing. Where was he? Had hebeen ill? Was he in his cradle at home? Was Salome sitting by to watchhim and give him his medicine? Yes, very ill he was, but would bebetter in the morning; and meanwhile he would be a good boy, and notcry and make a fuss and trouble Salome. 

"Nurse, --Sal!--I say, Sal!"

Salome bent over him as of old. 

"Had such a funny dream, Sal! dreamt I was grown up, and--killed aman! What makes you shake so, Sal? it wasn't true, you know! And I'mgoing to be a good boy and go to sleep. Good night! give a kiss fromme--to--my--little--"

So sinks he into slumber, profound as ever wooed his childhood; hishead pillowed in Salome's lap, his funny dream forgotten. 

XXI. 

WE PICK UP ANOTHER THREAD. 

Darkness and silence reigned in the conservatory; the group of thesleeping man and attendant woman was lost in the warm gloom, andscarcely a motion--the low drawing of a breath--told of theirpresence. 

A great gray owl, which had passed the daylight in some obscurecorner, launched darkling forth on the air and winged hither andthither, --once or twice fanning the sleeper's face with silentpinions. The crocodile lazily edged off the stone, plumped quietlyinto the water, and clambered up the hither margin of the pool, therecoming to another long pause. A snail, making a night-journey acrossthe floor, found in its path a diamond, sparkling with a light of itsown. The snail extended a cool cautious tentacle, --recoiled itfastidiously and shaped a new course. A broad petal from a tallflowering-shrub dropped wavering down, and seemed about to light onBalder's forehead; but, swerving at the last moment, came to rest onthe scaly head of the crocodile. The night waited and listened, asthough for something to happen, --for some one to appear! Salome, too, was waiting for some one;--was it for the dead?

Meantime, pictures from the past glimmered through her memory. When, in our magic mirror, we saw her struck down by the hand of her lover, she was far from being the repulsive object she is now. Indeed, butfor that chance word let fall yesterday, about her having been badlyburnt, we might be at a loss to justify our recognition of her. 

After Manetho's rude dismissal of her, she fled--not knowing whitherbetter--to Thor Helwyse, who was living widowed in his Brooklyn house, with his infant son and daughter. Because she had been Helen'sattendant, she besought Helen's husband to give her a home. She was insore trouble, but said no more than this; and Thor, suspecting nothingof her connection with Manetho, gladly received her as nurse to hischildren. 

But past sins and imprudences would find out Salome no less thanothers. At the critical moment for herself and her fortunes, the housetook fire. She risked her life to save Thor's daughter, was herselfburned past recognition, and (one misfortune treading on another'sheels) balanced on death's verge for a month or two. She got well, inpart; but the faculty of speech had left her, and beauty of face andfigure was forever gone. 

In her manifold wretchedness, and after such devotion shown, it wasnot in Thor's warm heart to part with her; so, losing much, she gainedsomething. She remained with her benefactor, whose manly courtesy everforbore to probe the secret of her woman's heart, over which as overher face she always wore a veil. The world saw Salome no more. She satin the nursery, watching year by year the dark-eyed little maidenplaying with the fair-haired boy. Broad-shouldered Thor would come in, with his grand, kindly face and royal beard; would kiss the littlegirl and tussle with the boy, mightily laughing the while at theformer's solicitude for her playmate; would throw himself on thegroaning sofa, and exclaim in his deep voice, --

"God bless their dear little souls! Why, Nurse! when did a brother andsister ever love each other like that, --eh?"

Salome probably was not unhappy then; indeed, --whether she knew it ornot, --she was at her happiest. But new events were at hand; Thor, growing yearly more restless, at length resolved to sell his house andgo to Europe, taking with him Salome and both the children. Everythingwas ready, down to the packing of Salome's box. A day or two beforethe sailing, Thor went to New Jersey, to bid farewell to his eccentricbrother-in-law. It was a warm summer day, and the children played frommorning till night in the front yard, while Nurse sat in the windowand kept her eye on them. Her thoughts, perhaps, travelled elsewhere. 

Since her misfortune she had, no doubt, had more opportunity than mostwomen for reflection: silence breeds thought. What she thought about, no one knew; but she could hardly have forgotten Manetho. On this lastevening, when at the point of leaving America forever, it would havebeen strange had no memory of him passed through her mind. 

She had not heard his name in the last four years, and she knew thathe suspected nothing of her whereabouts. Had he ever wished to seeher? she wondered and thought, "He would not know me if he did seeme!" With that came a tumultuous longing once more to look upon him. Too late! Why had she not thought of this before? Now must her lastmemory of him be still as when, disfigured by sudden rage, he turnedupon her and struck her on the bosom. There was the scar yet; the firehad spared it! It was a keepsake which, as time passed, Salomestrangely learned to love!

It was growing dusk, --time for the children to come in. They weresitting deep in the abundant grass, weaving necklaces out ofdandelion-stems. Nurse leaned out of window and beckoned to attracttheir attention. But either they were too much absorbed to noticeher, or they were wilfully blind; so Nurse rose to go out and fetchthem. 

Before reaching the open front door, she stopped short and her heartseemed to turn over. A tall dark man was leaning over the fence, talking with the little girl. Nurse shrank within the shadow of thedoor, and thence peeped and listened, --as well as her beating pulseswould let her. 

"I know where fairy-land is, " says the man, in the soft, engaging tonethat the listener so well remembers. "Come! shall we go together andvisit it?"

"He come too?" asks the little maiden, nodding towards the boy, who isportentously busy over his dandelions. 

"He may if he likes, " the man answers with a smile. "But we must makehaste, or fairy-land will be shut up!"

It flashes into Salome's head what this portends. She had heard thisman vow revenge on Thor long ago, and she now sees how he means tokeep his oath. He has shrewdly improved the opportunity of Thor'sabsence, and has come intending to carry off either his son or hisdaughter. Fortune, it seems, had chosen for him the dark-eyed littlegirl. See! he stoops and lifts her gently over the wall, and they areoff for fairy-land!

Rush out, Salome! alarm the neighborhood and force the kidnapper togive up his booty! After Thor's kindness to you, will you be false tohim? Besides, what motive have you for unfaithfulness? Grant that youlove Manetho, --what harm, save to his revengeful passion, could resultfrom thwarting him?

Salome acted oddly on this occasion, --it would seem, irrationally. Butthat which appears to the spectator but a trivial modification mayhave vital weight with the actor. Had Manetho taken Balder, forexample, Salome might have pursued another and more intelligiblecourse than the one she actually took. She hurried out of the door andcaught Manetho by the arm before he was twenty paces on his way. Heturned, savage but frightened, setting down the little girl but notletting go her hand. She was in her happiest humor, and informed Nursethat she was to be queen of fairy-land!

Nurse lifted the veil from her face and looked steadfastly at Manethowith her one eye. It was enough, --he saw in her but a hideousobject, --would never know her for the bright girl he had onceprofessed to love. Salome gave one sob, containing more of womanlyemotion than could be written down in many words, and then was quietand self-possessed. Manetho did not offer to escape, but stood on hisguard; half prepared, however, --from something in the woman'smanner, --to find her a confederate. 

"S'e come too?" chirped the unconscious little maiden. 

But Manetho's attention was turned to some words that Salome waswriting in a little blank-book which she always carried in her pocketShe offered to help him carry off the child, on condition of beingherself one of the party!

He looked narrowly at the woman, but could make nothing by hisscrutiny. Was it love for the child that prompted her behavior? No;for she could easily have raised the neighborhood against him. Shecompletely puzzled him, and she would give no explanations. What if heshould accept her offer? She would be an advantage as well as aninconvenience. The child would have the care to which it had beenaccustomed, and Manetho would thus be spared much embarrassment. Whenthe woman's help became superfluous, it would not be difficult to giveher the slip. 

There was small leisure for reflection. An agreement was made, --onSalome's part, with a secret sense of intense triumph, not unmixedwith fear and pain. She caught up Master Balder and his dandelions, kissed and hugged him violently, and locked him into the nursery;where he was found some hours afterwards by his father, in a state ofgreat hunger and indignation. But the little dark-haired maiden was nomore. She was gone to her kingdom of fairy-land, and Nurse with her. Long mourned Balder for his vanished playmate!

Salome has kept her secret well. And now, there she sits, herlong-lost baby's head in her lap, thinking of old times; and thelonger she thinks, the more she softens and expands. Has she done agreat wrong in her life? Surely she has suffered greatly, and in amanner that might well wither her to the core. But there must stillhave been a germ of life in the shrivelled seed, which thisnight--memorable in her existence--has begun to quicken. 

By and by come a few tears, with a struggle at first, then moreeasily. Kind darkness lets us think of Salome bright and comely as inthe old days, with the added grace of inward beauty wrought by sadexperience. But, in truth, she is marred past earthly recovery. Nothing removes a soul so far from human sympathy asself-repression, --especially for any merely human end!

The night creeps reluctantly westward; the gray owl wings back to hisshady corner; the adventurous snail, half-way up the palm-tree, glueshimself to the bark and turns in for a nap. The crocodile has resumedhis old position on the rock in the pool, and the flower petal floatson the water. Here comes the brilliant hoopoe with his smart crest andclear chirrup, impatient to bid Gnulemah good morning! All is asbefore, save that the group beneath the palm-trees has disappeared!

Balder slept late, yet, on awakening, he thought he must be dreamingstill. He could not distinguish imagination from reality. His mind hadtemporarily lost its grasp, his will its authority. Where was he? Wasit years or hours since he had entered Boston harbor?

Suddenly rose before him the vision of the deadly struggle on themidnight sea. Round this central point the rest crystallized in order. His heart sank, and he sighed most heavily. But presently he rose tohis elbow and stared about in bewilderment. Had he ever seen this roombefore? How came he here?

He was lying on a carved bedstead, furnished with sheets of fine linenand a counterpane of blue embroidered satin; but all bearing anappearance of great age. The room was oval, like a bird's-egg halvedlengthwise; the smoothly vaulted ceiling being frescoed with a crowdof figures. The rich and costly furniture harmonized with thebedstead, and bore the same marks of age. The chairs and lounge weresatin-covered; the sumptuous toilet-table was fitted with a mirror oftrue crystal; the arched window was curtained with azure satin andlace. It was a chamber fit for a princess of the old _régime_, unaltered since its fair occupant last abode in it. 

Balder now examined the frescos which covered wall and ceiling. Thesubject seemed at the first glance to be a Last Judgment, or somethingof that nature. A mingled rush of forms mounted on one side to thebright zenith, and thence lapsed confusedly down the opposite descent. The dark end of the room presented a cloud of gloomily fantasticshapes, swerved from the main stream, and becoming darker and moreformless the farther they receded, till at the last they were lost ina murky shadow. Not entirely lost, however; for as Balder gazedawfully thitherward, the shadow seemed to resolve itself into a massof intertwined and struggling beings, neither animal nor human, butcombining the more unholy traits of both. 

But from the centre of the upward stream shone forms and faces ofangelic beauty; yet, on looking more narrowly, Balder discerned ineach one some ghastly peculiarity, revealing itself just whenenjoyment of the beauty was on the point of becoming complete. Suchwas the effect that the most angelic forms were translated intomocking demons, and where the light seemed brightest there was thespiritual darkness most profound. 

In the zenith was a white lustre which obliterated distinction of formas much as did the cloudy obscurity at the end of the room. Now thedesign seemed about to unfold itself; then again it eluded the gazer'sgrasp. Suddenly at length it stood revealed. A gigantic face, withwide-floating hair and beard, looked down into Balder's own. Itsexpression was of infinite malignity and despair. The impersonation ofall that is wicked and miserable, its place was at the top of Heaven;it was moulded of those aspiring forms of light, and was the goalwhich the brightest attained. Moreover, either by some uglycoincidence or how otherwise he could not conceive, this countenanceof supreme evil was the very reflex of Balder's, --a portrait minutelytrue, and, despite its satanic expression, growing every moment moreunmistakable. 

Was this accident, or the contrivance of an unknown and unfathomablemalice? Balder, Lord of Heaven, instinct with the essence of Hell! Agrim satire on his religious speculations! But what satirist had beenbitter enough so to forestall the years?--for the painting must havebeen designed while Balder was still an infant. 

He threw himself off the bed and stepped to the window, and saw theblue sky and the river rhyming it. The breath of the orchard visitedhim, and he was greeted by the green grass and trees, He sighed withrelief. There had been three mornings since his return to America. Forthe first he had blessed his own senses; the second had looked him outof countenance but the third came with a benediction, serene andmighty, such as Balder's soul had not hitherto been open to. 

"This is more than a plaster heaven, " said he, looking up; "but Ifear, Balder Helwyse, your only heaven, thus far, has been of plaster. You have seen this morning how the God of such a heaven looks. Howabout the God of this larger Heaven, think you?"

Presently he turned away from the window; but he had quaffed so deeplyof the morning glory, that the sinister frescos no longer depressedhim. They were ridiculously unimportant, --nothing more than stains onthe wall, in fact. Balder could not tell why he felt light-hearted. Itwas solemn light-heartedness, --not the gayety of sensuous spirits, such as he had experienced heretofore. It had little to do withphysical well-being, for the young man was still faint and dizzy, andweak from hunger. Behold, then, at the foot of the bed, a carved tablecovered with a damask cloth and crowned with an abundant breakfast;not an ordinary breakfast of coffee, rolls, omelette, and beefsteak, but a pastoral breakfast, --fresh milk, bread and honey and fruit andmellow cheese, --such food as Adam might have begun the day with. 

In face of the yet unsolved mystery of his own presence in the room, this new surprise caused Balder no special wonder. Beyond theapparition of the ugly dumb woman, he recollected nothing of theprevious evening's experience. Could she have transported him hither?Well, he would not let himself be disturbed by apparent miracles. "Nodoubt the explanation is simple, " thought he; and with that he beganhis toilet. The dressing-table displayed a variety of dainty articlessuch as a lady might be supposed to use, --pearl-handled brushes, enamelled powder-boxes, slender vases of Meissen porcelain, a fancifulring-stand; from the half-open drawer a rich glimpse of an Indian fan;a pair of delicate kid gloves, which only a woman's hands could haveworn, were thrown carelessly on the table. There were still the littlewrinkles in the fingers, but time had changed the pristine white todingy yellow. 

"Whose hands could have worn them? whose chamber was this?" musedBalder. "Not Gnulemah's; she knows nothing of kid gloves and powder!and these things were in use before she was born. Whose face wasreflected in this glass, when those gloves were thrown down here? Wasthat her marriage-bed? Were children born in it?"

His seizure of the night before must have dulled the edge of his wit, else he had scarce asked questions which chance now answered for him. A scratch on one corner of the polished mirror-surface showed, oncloser inspection, a name and a date written with a diamond. Shadingoff the light with his hand, Balder read, "Helen, 1831. "

"My mother's name; the year I was born. My mother!" he repeatedsoftly, taking up the old yellow gloves. "And this room was mybirthplace, --and my little sister's! My mother's things, as she leftthem; for father once told me that he never entered her room after shewas buried. She died here; and here my little sister and I began tolive. And here I am, again, --really the same little helpless innocentbaby who cried on that bed so long ago. Only not innocent now!Perhaps, not helpless, either!

"How happy that barber was yesterday! prattled about being born again. Cannot I be born again, --to-day, --in this room? Here I first began, and have come round the world to my starting-point. I will beginafresh this morning. "

And heavily as he was weighted in the new race, he would not bedisheartened. Unuttered resolves brightened his eyes and made hiscourage high. 

Before beginning breakfast, he returned to the window and drank againof the divine blue and green. From the branch of a near tree thehoopoe startled him and made him color. Was the bird an emissary fromGnulemah? Balder's mouth drew back, and his chin and eyesstrengthened, as though some part of his unuttered resolves wererecalled by the thought of her. 

When he was ready to go, he turned at the door, and threw a partingglance round the dainty old-fashioned chamber, trying to gather intoone all the thoughts, memories, and resolves connected with it. Hehad nearly forgotten the frescos; the victorious sunshine had reducedthe figures, satanic or beautiful, to a meaningless agglomeration ofwandering lines and faded colors. As for his own portrait, it was nolonger distinguishable. 

XXII. 

HEART AND HEAD. 

Balder easily found his way to the conservatory, but it wasempty, --Gnulemah, at least, was not there! The tapestry curtain in herdoorway was pushed aside, the door itself open. Where should he seekher?

As he stood in doubt, he saw lying at his feet a violet. Picking itup, he saw another some distance beyond it, and still another on thethreshold which he had just crossed. They were Gnulemah'sfootsteps, --the scent of this sweet quarry, teaching him how to followher. So he followed, nor let one fragrant trace escape him; andpresently he had a nosegay of them. 

She was out of doors, then. Truly, on such a day as this, where elseshould she be? What walls could presume to hold her? Her lovelinesswas at one with nature's, and they attracted each other. To thesolitary nymph, her mighty playmate had been all-sufficient; for shesaw not the earth and sky as they appear nowadays to mankind, but thedivine meaning which they clothe. Thus she could converse withanimals, and could read plants and stones more profoundly thanbotanist or geologist. She followed inward to her own fresh andbeautiful soul the sympathies which allied her to outward things, andfound there their true prototypes. 

But when the strong magnetism of a new human spirit began to act uponher, these fine communings with nature suffered disturbance. In suchthunderstorms as the meeting of the electric forces must engender, there was need of a trustworthier safeguard than simple perception ofa divine purpose underlying creation. Only the personal God is strongenough to govern the relations of soul with soul. Barren of Eve, Adamwould not have fallen; but with her he will one day not only retrievehis fall, but climb to a sublimer height than any to which he couldhave aspired alone. 

Balder strolled out on the wide lawn. Southwestward wound an avenue ofgreat trees, overshadowing the narrow footpath that stole beneaththem. To the right, round the northern corner of the house, he couldsee far off the white tops of the blossoming apple-trees; and beyond, the river. The orchard perfume came riding on the untamed breeze, andwhispered a fragrant secret in the young man's ear. Orchardward hepursued his search. 

As he went on, Gnulemah grew every moment nearer. At length he caughtthe flutter of her mantle amidst the foliage, and presently saw heron the brink of the precipice, looking out across the broad blueriver. Thus had he, through his glass, darkly, seen her stand the daybefore. Were the crossing a river and the flight of a day all thatdivided his past life from what he thought awaited him now!

While yet at a distance, he called to her, --not from impatience, butbecause he stood in awe of the meeting, and wanted the first momentsover. His voice touched Gnulemah like a beloved hand, and turned hertowards him. Her face, which had not learned to be the mask ofemotion, but was instead the full and immediate index thereof, brightened with joy; and as he came near, the joy increased. Yet aseriousness deep down in her eyes, marked the shadow of a night andthe dawn of another day. A spiritual chemistry had been working inher. 

She did not move forward to meet him but stood delighting in the senseof his ever-growing nearness. When at length he stood close beforeher, she drew a long, pleasant breath and said, --

"A beautiful morning!"

This was no commonplace greeting, for it was not made in a commonplacemanner. It said that his coming had consummated the else imperfectbeauty of nature, and won its expression from Gnulemah's lips. Thecommonplace wondered to find itself transmuted into a compliment offine gold!

Gnulemah's attire to-day was more Diana-like than yesterday's, andlooked as appropriate to her as leaves to trees or clouds to the sky. Her dress, indeed, was not so much a conventional appendage as aliving, sensitive part of her, which might be supposed to change itscolor and style in sympathy with her shifting moods and surroundings, yet never losing certain distinctive traits which had their foundationin her individual nature. 

"A beautiful morning!" returned Balder, taking her hand. "Were youexpecting me?"

"I feared you might not show yourself to me again, " she answered, withsudden tears twinkling on her eyelashes. She seemed more tenderlyhuman and approachable to-day than heretofore. Had she found hermountain-height of unmated solitude untenable?--found in herself ayielding woman, and in Balder the strength that is a man? Thisdescent, which was a sweet ascent, made her endlessly more lovable. 

"I come here always when I feel lonely, " continued she. "If it had notbeen for this place, with its great outlook, I should often have beentoo lonely to stay in the world. "

"We all need an outlook to a larger, world, Gnulemah. "

"Besides, you came to me from the other side!" said she glancing inhis face. 

"Did you see me there?" Balder was on the point of asking; but he waswise enough to refrain. If he could believe it true, let him not tempthis happiness; if faith were weak, why build a barrier against it? Sohe kept silence. 

"You found my violets!" whispered Gnulemah, with a shy smile. "Youunderstand all I do and am; it is happiness to be with you. "

They sat down by mutual consent beneath a crooked old apple-tree, which yet blossomed as pure and fresh as did the youngest in theorchard. From beneath this white and perfumed tent was a view of thedistant city. 

Gnulemah could not be called talkative, yet in giving her thoughtsexpression she outdid vocabularies. Many fine muscles there werearound her eyes, at the corners of her mouth, and especially in theupper lip, --whose subtile curvings and contractions spoke volumes ofquestion, appeal, observation. Her form by its endless shiftingsuttered delicate phrases of pleasure, surprise, or love; her hands andfingers were orators, and eloquent were the curlings and tappings ofher Arab feet. 

This kind of language would be blank to one used rather to hear wordsthan to feel them; but Balder, in, his present exalted mood, delightedin it. Was there any enjoyment more refined than to see his thought, before he had given it breath, lighten in the eyes of this daughterof fire? and with his own eyes to catch the first pure glimmer of heryet unborn fancies? A language genial of intimacy, for the talkersmust feel in order to utterance, --must meet each other, from the heartoutward, at every point. The human form is made of meanings. It is thefull thought of its Creator, comprising all other thoughts. Is itblind chance or lifeless expediency that moulds the curves of woman'sbosom, builds up man's forehead like a citadel, and sets his head onhis shoulders? Is beauty beautiful, or are we cozened by congenialugliness? But Balder's philosophic scepticism should never have braveda test like Gnulemah!

Except music, painting, sculpture, --all the arts and inspiration ofthem, --waited on the nib of the pen, such talk as passed between thesetwo could not be written. Some things--and those not the leastprofound and admirable of life--transcend the cunning of man tointerpret them, unless to an apprehension as fine as they! We are fainto content ourselves with the husks. 

"It must be happy there!" said Gnulemah, looking cityward. "So manyBalders and Gnulemahs!"

"Why happy?" asked the man of the world, with a faint smile. 

"We are only two, and have known each other to-day and yesterday. Butthey, you said, are as many as the stars, and have been together manyyesterdays. "

Such was the woman's unclinched argument, leaving her listener to drawthe inference. He would not forestall her enlightenment from the grimpage of his own experience. But do not many pure and loving souls passthrough the world without once noticing how bad most of the roads are, and how vexed the climates? So might not the earthly heaven ofGnulemah's imagination tenderly blind her to the unheavenly earth ofBalder's knowledge?

Through his abstraction Balder felt on his hand a touch soft as theflowing of a breath, yet pregnant of indefinite apprehension. When twoclouds meet, there is a hush and calm; but the first seeming-triflinglightning-flash brings on the storm whereby earth's face is altered. So Balder, full-charged as the thunder-cloud, awaited fearfully thefirst vivid word which should light the way for those he had resolvedto speak. 

"I see you with my open eyes, Balder, and touch you and hear you. Isthis the end I thought would come? Balder, are you greatest?" Withfull trust she appealed to him to testify concerning himself. This wasthe seriousness he had marked beneath the smile. 

"Are you content it should be so?"

She plucked a blade of grass and tied it in a knot, and began, drawing a trembling breath between each few words, --

"O Balder, --if I must kneel to you as to the last and greatest ofall, --if there is nothing too holy to be seen and touched, --if thereis no Presence too sublime for me to comprehend--"

"What then?" asked he, meeting her troubled look with a strong, cheerful glance. 

"Then the world is less beautiful than I thought it; the sun is lessbright, and I am no more pleasing to myself. " Tears began to flow downher noble cheeks; but Balder's eyes grew brighter, seeing which, Gnulemah was encouraged to continue. 

"How could I be happy? for either must I draw myself apart from you--OBalder!--or else live as your equal, and so degrade you; for I am nota goddess!"

"Then there are no goddesses on earth, nor gods! Gnulemah, you neednot shrink from me for that. "

The beautiful woman smiled through her sparkling eyelashes. She couldlove and reverence the man who, as a deity, bewildered anddisappointed her. But was the intuition therefore false which hadrevealed to her the grand conception of a supreme, eternal God?

They sat silent for a while, and neither looked in the other's face. They had struck a sacred chord, and the sweet, powerful sound thrilledBalder no less than Gnulemah. But presently he looked up; his cheekswarmed, and his heart swelled out. He was about to put in jeopardy hismost immediate jewel, and the very greatness of the risk gave himcourage. Not to the world, that could not judge him righteously, wouldhe confess his crime, --but to the woman he loved and who loved him. Her verdict could not fail to be just and true. 

Could a woman's judgment of her lover be impartial? Yes, if herinstincts be pure and harmonious, and her worldly knowledge that of achild. Her discrimination between right and wrong would be at onceaccurate and involuntary, like the test of poison. Love for thecriminal would but sharpen her intuition. The sentence would not bespoken, but would be readable in eyes untainted alike by prejudice orsophistry. 

Gnulemah was thus made the touchstone of Balder's morality. He stoodready to abide by her decision. Her understanding of the case shouldfirst be made full; then, if condemned by her look, he would publishhis crime to the world, and suffer its penalty. But should her eyesabsolve him, then was crime an illusion, evil but undeveloped good, the stain of blood a prejudice, and Cain no outcast, but the venerableforefather of true freedom. 

Unsearchable is the heart of man. Balder had looked forward tocondemnation with a wholesome solemnity which cheered while itchastened him. But the thought of acquittal, and at Gnulemah's hands, appalled him. The implicit consequences to humanity seemed moreformidable than the worst which condemnation could bring upon himself. So much had he lately changed his point of view, that only the fear ofseeing his former creed confirmed could have now availed to stifle hisconfession. 

But that fear did not much disquiet him; he trusted too deeply in hisjudge to believe that she would justify it. In short, Gnulemah was inhis opinion right-minded, exactly in proportion as she should convicthim of being in the wrong. Balder resigned the helm of his vessel, laden as she was with the fruits of years of thought and speculation, at the critical moment of her voyage, --resigned her to the guidance ofa woman's unreasoning intuition. He might almost as well have averredthat the highest reach of intellect is to a perception of the betterworth and wisdom of an unlearned heart. 

XXIII. 

BALDER TELLS AN UNTRUTH. 

By way of enheartening himself for what he was to do, Balder kissedthe posy of Gnulemah's fragrant footsteps. He kept his eyes down, lestshe should see something in them to distract her attention from hisstory. He must go artfully to work, --gain her assent to the abstractprinciples before marshalling them against himself. 

Meanwhile Gnulemah had picked up a gold beetle, and was examining itwith a certain grave interest. 

"I never told you how I came by this ring of Hiero's. It was the nightbefore I first saw you, Gnulemah. "

"The ring guided you to me!" said she, glancing at his downcastvisage. 

"Perhaps it did!" he muttered, struck by the ingenious superstition;and he eyed the keen diamond half suspiciously. How fiercely thelittle serpents were struggling for it! "But Hiero--he has lost it, and you will see him no more!"

"You are with me!" returns she, shining out at him from beneath herlevel brows. What should she know of death and parting?

Balder still forbore to raise his face. Gnulemah was in a frolicsomehumor, the reaction of her foregoing solemnity. But Balder, who deemedthis hour the gravest of his life, was taken aback by her unseasonablegayety. Casting about for means to sober her, --an ungracious thing fora lover to do!--he hit upon the gold beetle. 

"Dead; the poor little beetle! Do you know what death is, Gnulemah?"

"It is what makes life. The sun dies every night, to get life for themorning. And trees die when cold comes, so as to smile out in greenleaves again, --greener than if there had been no death. So it is withall things. "

"Not with everything, " said Balder, taking her light-heartedness verygravely. "That gold beetle in your hand is dead, and will never liveor move again. "

But at that Gnulemah smiled; and bringing her hand, with the beetle init, near her perfect lips, she lent it a full warm breath, --enough tohave enlivened an Egyptian scarabæus, --and behold! the beetle spreadits wings and whizzed away. Before Balder could recover from thisunexpected refutation, the lovely witch followed up her advantage. 

"You thought, perhaps, that Hiero was as dead as the little beetle;but he lives more beautifully in you!"

He looked startled up, his large eyes glittering blackly in thepaleness of his face. Gnulemah, with the serenity of a victoriousdisputant willing to make allowances, continued, --

"It may be different in the outside world from which you come; buthere death ends nothing, but makes life new and strong. "

After a silence of some duration, poor Balder renewed his attack fromanother quarter. 

"What would you think of one who put to death a creature you loved?"

She smiled, and shook her glowing pendants. 

"Only God puts to death; and no one would hurt a thing I love!"

"What should you think of one who put to death a man?"

Gnulemah looked for a moment perplexed and indignant. Then, toBalder's great discomfiture, she laughed like a bird-chorus. 

"Why do you imagine what cannot be? Would you and Hiero kill eachother? The gray owl kills little mice, but that is to eat them. Wouldyou eat Hiero--"

"Don't laugh, Gnulemah!" besought he. "I should kill him, not asanimals kill one another, but from rage and hatred. "

"Hatred!" repeated Gnulemah, dislikingly; "hatred, --what is it?"

"A passion of men's hearts, --the wish that evil may befall others. When the hatred is bitter enough, and the opportunity fair, theykill!"

Gnulemah shuddered slightly and looked sad. Then she leaned towardsBalder and touched his shoulder persuasively. 

"Never think of such things, or talk of them! Could you hate anyone, Balder? or kill him if you did?"

With that glorious presence so near him, --her voice so close to hisear, --how could he answer her? His heart awoke, and beat and drove thetingling blood tumultuously forth to the remotest veins. She saw theflush, and caught the passionate brilliancy of his eyes. Happy andafraid, she drew back, saying in haste, --

"You have not told me yet about the ring!"

That was not wisely said! Balder checked himself with a sudden, stronghand, and held still, --his brows lowered down and his lips settledtogether, --until his pulses were quiet and his cheeks once more pale. 

"I will tell you, " he said; "but to understand, you must first hearsome other things. " He hesitated, face to face with an analysis ofmurder. The position was at once stimulating and appalling. To dissectand reduce to its elements that grisly murder-devil which had oncepossessed his own soul, and whose writhings beneath the scalpel hewould therefore feel as his own--here loomed a prospect large andterrible! Nevertheless, Balder took up the knife. 

The white petal of an apple-blossom, part from its calyx, camefloating earthwards; but a breeze caught it and wafted it aloft. Itsank again, and was again arrested and borne skywards. Finally isdisappeared over the cliff-edge. 

"The weight that made it fall is of the earth, " said Balder (both heand Gnulemah had been watching the petal's course). "The breeze thatbuoyed it up was from heaven, and so it is with man. Were there noheavenly support, he would fall at once, but whether or not, he alwaystends to fall. "

Gnulemah objected, "It loves the air better than the earth!"

"When man begins to fall, he becomes mad, and thinks he is notfalling, but that earth is heaven, to which he is rising. But sinceearth is not like heaven, infinite, he does not wish others to enjoyit, lest his own pleasure be marred. "

"How can that be?" said the unwilling Gnulemah. "What can make men sohappy on earth as other men?"

"Each wants all power for himself, " rejoined Balder, his voice growingstern as he pursued his theme. "They want to hurl their fellows out ofthe world, even to annihilation. Every moment this hatred is let growin the heart's garden, it spreads and strengthens, till it gainsdominion and makes men slaves, and madder than before. Each will beabove his rival, --his enemy! he will be absolute master over him. Andfrom that resolve is born murder!"

"Why do you tell Gnulemah this?" she asked, lifting her head like amajestic serpent. But she could not stop him now. His voice, measuredat first, was now driven by emotion. 

"Murder comes next; and many a man, had fear or impotence not withheldhim, would have done murder a thousand times. But sometimes the demonleaps up and masters impotence and fear. The man is drunk withimmeasurable selfishness, --greater than the universe can satisfy;which would fain make one victim after another, till all the humanrace should be destroyed; and then would it turn against Heaven andGod. Save for man's mortal frailty, the population of the world wouldever and anon be swept away by some giant murderer. 

"Wickedness grows faster, the wickeder it is; he who has been wickedonce will easily be so again, --the more easily as his crime was great. Even though through all his mortal life he sin no more, yet his driftis thitherward! Only the air of Heaven breathing through his soulafter death can make him pure. "

Balder was speaking out all the gloom and terror which had beensilently gathering within him since his fatal night. As he spoke, hismind expanded, and perceived things before unknown. As the reasons forcondemnation multiplied, he did but push on the harder, striking ateach tender spot in his own armor. And as the day turned fatallyagainst him, his face looked great and heroic, and his voice soundedalmost triumphant. 

Thus far, he had only generalized; now, he was come to his own plight. On several points he had been painfully in doubt: whether he had donethe deed in self-defence; whether he had meant to do it; whether ithad not been a blind, mad accident, since swollen by feveredimagination into the likeness of wilful crime. But against such doubtsarrayed itself the ineffaceable memory of that wild joy which hadfilled his soul, when he had felt his enemy in his power! Had the mansurvived, Balder might still have doubted; being dead, doubts were butcowardly sophistry. 

But during the brief pause he made, came a backward recoil of thatimpulse which had swept him on. All at once he was cold, and wavered. Gnulemah was sitting with her elbow on her knee, her strange eyesfixed upon him. Had he duly considered what effect all this might haveon her? In aiming at his own life, might not the sword pass alsothrough hers? Abruptly to behold sin, --to find in the first man shehad learnt to know, the sinner, --to be left this burden on her untriedsoul, --might this not ruin more than her earthly happiness? Did shestill love him, such love could end only in misery; should she hatehim who of all men was bound to protect her defencelessness, --thatwere misery indeed!

This misgiving, arresting his hand at the instant of delivering thefinal blow, almost discouraged the much-tried man. He glanced sullenlytoward the edge of the cliff, only a few yards off. A new thoughtjarred through his nerves! He got up and walked to the brink. Fullsixty feet to the bottom. 

Gnulemah also rose slowly, and stretched herself like a tired child, sending a lazy tension through every noble limb and polished muscle. She sighed with a deep breathing in and out, and pressed her handsagainst her temples. 

"I was not made to understand such things. Tell me of what you havedone or seen--I shall understand that. The things my love does notenter only trouble me and make me sad. "

As she spoke, she turned away towards the house. She saw, or thoughtshe saw, a man's figure stealing cautiously behind a clump of bushesnear the north-eastern corner. Her listlessness fell from, her like amantle, and she watched, motionless!

Her last words had goaded Balder past bearing. As she turned away, hisface looked grim and forlorn. He balanced with half-raised arms on thecliff's brink. The river slumbered bluely on below, peace was aloft inthe sky, and joy in the trees and grass. But in the man were darknessand despair and loathing of his God-given life!

The thing he meditated was not to be, however. Close in shore a littleboat glided into view, beating up against stream. In the stern, thesheet in one hand and the tiller in the other, sat Balder's old friendCharon. He nodded up at the young man with a recognizing grin. Then helaid his tiller-hand aside his brown cheek and sang out, --

"Look out there, Capt'n! Davy Jones's got back, --run foul of you!"

The next moment he put down the helm and ran out. 

Meantime Balder, coloring from shame, had stepped back from hisdangerous position; and the peril was past. But the palteringirresolution which he had at all points displayed urged him to redeemhimself, --else was he lower than a criminal. He went towardsGnulemah, --knelt down, --caught her dress, --he knew not what he did! Ina blind dance of sentences he told her that he was a murderer, thatall he had said pointed at himself, that with his own hands he hadkilled Hiero, whose body now lay at the bottom of the sea; manyfrantic words he spoke. Thus, without art or rhetoric, roughly draggedforth by head and ears, came his momentous confession into the world. Gnulemah had more than once striven to check it, but in vain. When hehad come to an end, and stood tense and quivering as a bowstring whosearrow has just flown, these words reached him:--

"Hiero is not dead; he is there behind the trees. "

Stiffly he turned and stared bewildered. Landscape, sky, Gnulemah, swam before his eyes in fragments, like images in troubled water. Sheput out her arm and tenderly supported him. 

"Where?" said he at length. 

"Near the house, --there!" she pointed. 

Balder began to walk forward doubtfully. But, suddenly realizing whatlay before him, clearness and vigor ebbed back. He saw a figure turnthe corner of the house. Then he leapt out and ran like a stag-hound!

XXIV. 

UNCLE HIERO AT LAST. 

In a couple of minutes Balder was at the house, breathless: the figurewas nowhere to be seen. He sprang across the broad portico, andhurried with sounding feet through the oaken hall. Should he go upstairs, or on to the conservatory? The sound of a softly shutting doorfrom the latter direction decided him. The place looked as when heleft it a half-hour before. Gnulemah's curtain had not been moved. Theother door was closed; he ran up the steps between the granitesphinxes, and found it locked. Butting his shoulder against the panelwith impatient force, the hinges broke from their rotten fastenings, and the door gave inwards. Balder stepped past it, and found himselfin the sombre lamp-lit interior of the temple. 

He could discern but little; the place seemed vast; the corners wereveiled in profound shadow. At the farther end a huge lamp wassuspended, by a chain from the roof, over a triangular altar of blackmarble. The architecture of the room was strange and massive as ofEgyptian temples. Strong, dark colors met the eye on all sides; in thepanels of the walls and distant ceiling fantastic devices showedobscurely forth. Nine mighty columns, of design like those in thedoorway, were ranged along the walls, their capitals buried in theupward gloom. 

Becoming used to the dusk, Balder now marked an array of colossalupright forms, alternating between the pillars. Their roughresemblance to human figures drew him towards one of them: it was anEgyptian sarcophagus covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, andprobably holding an immemorial mass of spiced flesh and rags. Thesesilent relics of a prehistoric past seemed to be the only companypresent. In view of his uncle's well-known tastes, the nephew was notunprepared to meet these gentry. 

But he was come to seek the living, not the dead. The figure that hehad seen outside must be within these four walls, there being no othervisible outlet besides the door through which Balder had entered. Wasold Hiero Glyphic lurking in one of these darksome corners, or behindsome thick-set column? The young man looked about him as sharply as hecould, but nothing moved except the shadows thrown by the lamp, whichwas vibrating pendulum-like on its long chain. 

He approached this lamp, his steps echoing on the floor of polishedgranite. What had set the thing swinging? It had a leisurelyelliptical motion, as from a moderate push sideways. The lamp waswrought in bronze, antique of fashion and ornament. It had capacityfor gallons of oil, and would burn for weeks without refilling. Thealtar beneath was a plain black marble prism, highly polished, restingupon a round base of alabaster. A handful of ashes crowned its top. Between the altar and the wall intervened a space of about seven feet. 

The glare of the lamp had blinded Balder to what was beyond it; but, on stepping round it, he was confronted by an old-fashioned uprightclock, such as were in vogue upon staircase-landings and inentrance-halls a hundred years ago. With its broad, white, dial-plate, high shoulders, and dark mahogany case, it looked not unlike a tall, flat-featured man, holding himself stiffly erect. But whether man orclock, it was lifeless; the hands were motionless, --there was no soundof human or mechanical heart-beat within though Balder held his yetpanting breath to listen. Was it Time's coffin, wherein his corpse hadlain still many a silent year, --only that years must stand stillwithout Time to drive them on! But this still had had no part in themoving world, --knew naught of life and change, day and night. Heredwelt a moveless present, --a present at once past and to come, yetnever here! No wonder the mummies felt at home! though even they couldonly partially appreciate the situation. 

The clock was fastened against the wall. The longer Balder gazed atit, the more human-like did it appear. Its face was ornamented withcolored pictures of astronomical processes, sufficiently resembling aset of shadowy features, of a depressed and insignificant type. Themahogany case served for a close-fitting brown surtout, buttoned tothe chin. The slow vibration of the lamp produced on the countenancethe similitude of a periodically recurring grimace. 

Not only did the clock look human, but--or so Balder fancied--it borea grotesque and extravagant likeness to a certain elderly relative ofhis, whose portrait he had carried in an inner pocket of hishaversack, --now in Long Island Sound. It reminded him, in a word, ofpoor old Uncle Hiero, whom he had--no, no!--who was alive and well, and was perhaps even now observing his dear nephew's perplexity, andmaliciously chuckling over it!

The young man glanced uneasily over his shoulder, but all beyond thelamp was a gloomy blank, The same moment he trod upon some tough, thick substance, which yielded beneath his foot! Thoroughly startled, he jumped back. It lay near the foot of the clock. He stooped, pickedit up, and held in his hands the well-known haversack, from which hehad parted on board the "Empire State. " How his heart beat as heexamined it! It was stained and whitened with salt water, and thestrap was broken in two. Opening it, there were his toilet articlesand all his other treasures, --even the cherished miniature, --not muchthe worse for their wetting. So there could no longer be any doubtthat his uncle had come back. Where was he?

That queer fancy about the clock stuck in Balder's head! Somehow orother it must be connected with Doctor Glyphic. The haversack, droppedat its foot, was direct evidence. Yet, did ever wise man harbor notionso irrational! Its manifest absurdity only excuse for thinking it. 

With no declared object in view, Balder grasped the clock by its highshoulders and shook it, but with no result. He next struck the smartlywith clenched fist: the blow sounded, --not hollow, but close andmuffled! The case either solid, or filled with something that deadenedthe echo. Filled with what? who would think of putting anything in aclock? It was big enough to be sure, to hold a man, if he could find away to get in!

The sequence of thoughts is often obscure, but Balder's next idea, wild as it was, could hardly be called incoherent. A man might beconceived to be in the clock; perhaps a man was in it; but if so, theman could be none other than Doctor Hiero Glyphic!

This conclusion once imagined, suspense was unendurable. The logiciantried to open the front of the case, but it was riveted fast. Withimpetuous fingers he then wrenched at the disc. With a sound like arusty screech, it came off in his hands. The lamp so flickered thatBalder feared it was going out, and even at this epoch had to lookround to reassure himself. Meanwhile, a pungent, but not unpleasantodor saluted his nostrils: he turned back to the clock, --a clock nolonger!--and beheld the unmistakable lineaments of his worthy unclepeeping forth with half-shut eyes from the place where the dial-platehad been. 

The nephew dropped the dial-plate, and it was shattered on the granitefloor. He was badly frightened. There was no delusion about theface, --it was a sufficiently peculiar one; and the miniature portrait, though doing the Doctor's beauty at least justice, was accurate enoughto identify him by. This was no unsubstantial apparition, --no brainphantom, to waver and vanish, leaving only an uncomfortable doubtwhether it had been at all. Stolid, undeniable matter was, peeringphlegmatically between its wrinkled eyelids. 

But admitting that now, at last, we have lighted upon the genuine andauthentic Doctor Glyphic, why should the sight of him so oddly affectBalder Helwyse, whose avowed object in pulling off the dial-plate hadbeen to justify a suspicion that Uncle Hiero was behind it? Why, moreover, did the young man not address his relative, congratulatinghimself upon their meeting, and rallying the old gentleman on hisattempt to escape his nephew's affectionate solicitude? There had, indeed, been a misunderstanding at their last encounter, and Balderhad so far forgotten himself as to throw Hiero into the sea; but itwas the part of good-breeding, as well as of Christianity, to forgetsuch errors, and heal the bruise with an extra application of balsamicverbiage. 

Why so speechless, Balder? Do you wait for your host to speak first?Nay, never stand on ceremony. He is an eccentric recluse, unused tothe ways of society, while a man of the world like you has at histongue's tip a score of phrases just suited to the occasion. Speak up, therefore, in your most genial tone, and tell the Doctor how glad youare to find him in such wonderful preservation! Put him at his ease byfeigning that his position appears to you the most natural in theworld, --just what befits a gentleman of his years and honors! Flatterhim, if only from self-interest, for he has a deep pocket, and may beinduced to let you put a hand in it. 

Not a word in response to all this eloquence, Balder? Positively yourbehavior appears rather curmudgeonly than heroic! You stand gazing atyour relative with almost as much fixedness as he returns your starewithal. There is something odd about this. 

What is that pungent odor? Is the Doctor a dandy, that he should useperfumes? And where did he get so peculiar a scent as this? It iscommonly in vogue only at that particular toilet which no man everperformed for himself, but which never needs to be done twice, --a kindof toilet, by the way, especially prevalent amongst the ancientEgyptians. Since, then, Doctor Glyphic is so ardent an Egyptologist, perhaps we have hit upon the secret of his remarkable odoriferousness. But to shut one's self up in a box that looks so uncommonly like acoffin, --is not that carrying the antiquarian whim a trifle too far?

This face of his, --one fancies there is a curiously dry look about it!The unnaturally yellow skin resembles a piece of good-for-nothingwrinkled parchment. The lips partake of the prevailing sallow tint, and the mouth hangs a little awry. From the cloth in which the head isso elaborately bandaged up strays forth, here and there, an arid lockof hair. The lack of united expression in his features produces aneffect seldom observable in a living face. The eyes are lustreless, and densely black; or possibly (the suspicion is a startling one) weare looking into empty eye-sockets! No eyes, no expression, parchmentskin, swathed head, odor of myrrh and cassia, and, dominating all, this ghastly immobility! Has Doctor Glyphic even now escaped, leavingus to waste time and sentiment over some worn-out disguise of his?Nay, if he be not here, we need not seek him further. Having forsakenthis, he can attain no other earthly hiding-place. We must pause here, and believe either that this dry time-husk is the very last of poorHiero, or that a living being which once bore his name has vanishedinward from our reach, and now treads a more real earth than any thattime and space are sovereign over. 

Balder (whose perceptions were unlimited by artistic requirements)probably needed no second glance to assure him that his uncle was amummy of many years' standing. But no effort of mental gymnasticscould explain him the fact. Were this real, then was his steamboatadventure a dream, the revelation of the ring a delusion, and hiswater-stained haversack a phantom. He wandered clewless in a maze ofmystery. Nor was this the first paradox he had encountered sinceoverleaping the brick wall. He began to question whethersupernaturalism had not teen too hastily dismissed by lovers ofwisdom!

Thus do the actors in the play of life plod from one to anotherscene, nor once rise to a height whence a glance might survey past andfuture. Memory and prophecy are twin sisters, --nay, they areessentially one muse, whom mankind worships on this side and slightson that. This is well, for had she but one aspect, the world would beeither too confident or too helpless. But in reviewing a life, one isapt to make less than due allowance for the helplessness. Thus it isno prejudice to Balder's intellectual acumen that he failed for amoment to penetrate the thin disguises of events, and to perceiverelations obvious to the comprehensive view of history. We will takeadvantage of his bewildered pause to draw attention to some mattersheretofore neglected. 

XXV. 

THE HAPPINESS OF MAN. 

When Manetho, --who shall no longer perplex us with his theft of aworthier man's name, --when Manetho felt himself worsted in the briefstrenuous struggle, he tried to drag his antagonist overboard withhim. But his convulsive fingers seized only the leathern strap of thehaversack. Balder--his Berserker fury at white heat--flung the manwith such terrible strength as drove him headlong over the taffraillike a billet of wood, the stout strap snapping like thread!

Manetho struck the water in sorry plight, breathless, bruised, halfstrangled. He sank to a chilly depth, but carried his wits down withhim, and these brought him up again alive, however exhausted. Too weakto swim, he yet had strength left to keep afloat. But for thecollision, he had drowned, after all!

The cool salt bath presently helped him to a little energy, and by thetime the steamer was under way, he could think of striking out. It waswith no small relief that he heard near voices sounding through theblack fog. Partly by dint of feeble struggles, partly shouldered onby waves, --ready to save as to drown him, --he managed to accomplishthe short distance to the schooner. With all his might he shouted fora rope, and amidst much yo-heave-ho-ing, cursing, and astonishment, was at length hauled aboard, the haversack in his grasp. 

The skipper and his crew were kind to him; for men still havecompassion upon one another, and give succor according to the need ofthe moment, --not to the balance of good and evil in the sufferer. Thewind freshened, an impromptu, bowsprit was rigged, and the"Resurrection" limped towards New York. Manetho's partial stupor wasrelieved by hot grog and the cook's stove. He gave no further accountof himself than that he had fallen overboard at the moment ofcollision; adding a request to be landed in New York, since he hadleft some valuable luggage on the steamer. 

The skipper gave the stranger his own bunk, the off-watch turned in, and Manetho was left to himself. He lay for a long while thinking overwhat had happened. Bewitched by the spell of night, he had spoken toHelwyse things never before distinctly stated even to his own mind. The subtle, perverse devil who had discoursed so freely to his unknownhearer had scarcely been so unreserved to Manetho's private ear; andthe devilish utterances had stirred up the latter not much less thanthe former. 

Both men had been wrought, according to their diverse natures, to thepitch of frenzy. But similar crazy seizures had been incident to theEgyptian from boyhood. He had anxiously watched against them, andcontrived various means to their mitigation, --the most successfulbeing the music of his violin, which he seldom let beyond his reach. Yet, again and again would the fit steal a march on him. Hence, inpart, his retired way of life, varied only by the brief journeysdemanded by the twofold craving--for gambling and for news of Thor, who figured in his morbid imagination as the enemy of his soul!

The news never came, but all the more brooded Manetho over his hatredand his fancied wrongs. His mind had never been entirely sound, andyears tinged it more and more deeply with insanity. His philosophy oflife--obscure indeed if tried by sane standards--emits a dusky glimmerwhen read by this. He would creep through miles of subterraneanpassages to achieve an end which one glance above ground would haveargued vain!

Lying on the bunk in the close cabin, lighted by a dirty lanternpendent from the roof, the Reverend Manetho began to fear that not hisworst misfortune was the having been thrown overboard. At the momentwhen madness was smouldering to a blaze within him, the lantern flashhad revealed to him the face which, for twenty years, he had seen invisions. Often had he rehearsed this meeting, varying his imaginarybehavior to suit all conceivable moods and attitudes of his enemy, butnever thinking to provide for perversity in himself! So far fromveiling his designs with the soft-voiced cunning of his Orientalnature, he had been a wild beast! A misgiving haunted him, moreover, that he had babbled something in the false security of darkness, whichmight give Helwyse a clew to his secret. 

But here Manetho asked himself a question that might have suggesteditself before. Was it really his enemy, Thor Helwyse, whose face hehad seen? or only some likeness of him?

Thor must be threescore years old by this, --the senior by ten years ofManetho himself; while his late antagonist had the strength and aspectof half that age. Yet how could he be mistaken in the face which hadhaunted him during more than the third part of his lifetime? He hadrecognized it on the instant!

"I will ask the haversack!" said he. He sat up, and, bracing himselfagainst the roll of the vessel, he opened the bag and carefullyexamined its contents. In an inner pocket he found an old letter ofDoctor Glyphic's to Thor; another from Thor to his son, dated threeyears back; and finally a diary kept by Balder Helwyse, which gaveManetho all the information he wanted. 

He had so arranged matters that at Glyphic's death he had got thecontrol of the money into his own hands, and had made such diligentuse of it that enough was not now left to pay for his prosecution as athief and forger. In fact, had Balder delayed his return another year, he would have found the enchanted castle in possession of theauctioneer; and as to the fate of its inhabitants, one does not liketo speculate!

Having read the papers, Manetho replaced them, and next pulled out theminiature of Doctor Glyphic. He studied this for a long time. It wasthe portrait of a man to whom--so long as their earthly relations hadcontinued--the Egyptian renegade had been faithful. Perhaps there wassome secret germ of excellence in poor Hiero, unsuspected by the restof the world, but revealed to Manetho, from whom in turn it had drawnthe best virtues that his life had to show. Doctor Glyphic had neverbeen a comfortable companion; but Manetho was always patient andhonest with him. This integrity and forbearance were the moreremarkable, since the Doctor seldom acknowledged a kindness, and knewso little of business that he might have been robbed of his fortune atany moment with impunity. 

Either from physical exhaustion or for some worthier reason, theEgyptian cried over this miniature, as an affectionate girl might havecried over the portrait of her dead lover. For a time he was all tearsand softness. His emotion had not the convulsiveness which, with menof his age, is apt to accompany the exhibition of much feeling. Hewept with feminine fluency, nor did his tearfulness seem out ofcharacter. There was a great deal of the woman in him. 

Having wept his fill, he tenderly wiped his eyes, and returned thepicture to its receptacle; and first assuring himself that nothingelse was concealed in the haversack, he shut it up and resumed hismeditations. 

It was the son, then, whom he had met, --and Thor was dead. Dead!--thatwas a hard fact for Manetho to swallow. His enemy had escapedhim, --was dead! Through all the years of waiting, Manetho had notanticipated this. How should Thor die before revenge had been wreakedupon him?--But he was dead!

By degrees, however, his mind began to adjust itself to the situation. The son, at all events, was left him. He cuddled the thought, whispering to himself and slyly smiling. Did not the father live againin the son? he would lose nothing, therefore, --not lose, but gain!The seeming loss was a blessing in disguise. The son, --young, handsome, hot of blood! Already new schemes began to take shape in theEgyptian's brain. His dear revenge!--it should not starve, but feed onthe fat of the land, --yea, be drunk with strong wine. 

He lay hugging himself, his long narrow eyes gleaming, his full lipsworking together. He was revolving a devilish project, --the flintiestcriminal might have shuddered at it. But there was nothing flinty norunfeeling about Manetho. His emotions were alert and moist, his smilecame and went, his heart beat full; he was now the girl listening toher lover's first passionate declaration!

He had gathered from Balder's diary that the young man was in searchof his uncle, and had been on his way to the house at the time oftheir encounter. There was a chance that this unlucky episode mightfrighten him away. He no doubt supposed himself guilty of manslaughterat least; how gladly would the clergyman have reassured him! Andindeed there was no resentment in Manetho's heart because of his roughusage at Balder's hands. His purposes lay too deep to influenceshallower moods. He presented a curious mixture of easy forgivenessand unmitigable malice. 

The only other anxiety besetting him arose from the loss of the ring. He looked upon it as a talisman of excellent virtue, and moreoverperceived that in case Balder should pick it up, it might become themeans of identifying its owner and obstructing his plans. But thesewere mere contingencies. The probability was that young Helwyse wouldultimately appear at his uncle's house, and would there be ensnared inthe seductive meshes of Manetho's web. The ring was most likely at thebottom of the Sound. So, smiling his subtle feminine smile, theEgyptian fell asleep, to dream of the cordial welcome he would givehis expected guest. 

Towards midnight of the same day he approaches the house by way of thewinding avenue, his violin-case safe in hand. He steps out joyfullybeneath the wide-spread minuet of twinkling stars. On his way he comesto a moss-grown bench at the foot of a mighty elm, --the bench on whichhe sat with Helen during the stirring moments of their last interview. Manetho's soul overflows to-night with flattering hopes, and he hasspare emotion for any demand. He drops on his knees beside thisdecayed old bench, and kisses it twice or thrice with tendervehemence; stretches out his arms to embrace the air, and ripplesforth a half-dozen sentences, --pleading, insinuating, passionate. Hecan love her again as much as ever, now that the wrong done him is onthe eve of requital. 

But his mood is no less fickle than melting. Already he is up andaway, almost dancing along the shadowed, romantic tree-aisle, his eyesglistening black in the starlight, --no longer with a lover's luxurioussorrow, but with the happy anticipation of an artless child, promiseda holiday and playthings. So lightsome and expansive is Manetho'sheart, the hollow hemisphere of heaven seems none too roomy for it!

Evil as well as good knows its moments of bliss, --its hours! Hell isthe heaven of devils, and they want no better. Often do the wages ofsin come laden with a seeming blessing that those of virtue lack. Thesinner looks upon Satan's face, and it is to him as the face of God!

But from the womb of this grim truth is born a noble consolation. Werehell mere torment, and joy in heaven only, where were the good man'smerit? Only when the choice lies between two heavens--the selfish andthe unselfish--is the battle worthy the fighting! No human soul diesfrom earth that attains not heaven, --that heaven which the heartchiefly sought while in this world; and herefrom is the genesis ofvirtue. Sin brings its self-inflicted penalties there as here; buthell is still the happiness of man, heaven of God!

Reaching the house, Manetho passed through the open door, crossed thehall with his customary noiselessness, and entered the conservatory. Despite the darkness, he was at once aware of the motionless groupbeneath the palm-trees. A stranger in the house was something sounprecedented that he could not repress a throb of alarm. Nurse lookedup and beckoned him. Drawing near, he heard the long, deep breathingof the sleeper. With a sudden fore-glimpse of the truth, he kneltdown, and bent over the upturned countenance. 

Though the beard was close-shaven and the hair cropped short, therecould be no doubt about the face. His guest had come before him, andwas lying defenceless at his feet; but Manetho harbored no thought ofviolence. He pressed his slender hands together with an impulse ofsympathy. "Poor fellow!" he whispered, "how he has suffered! How thehorror of blood-guiltiness must have tortured him! The noble Helwysehair, --all gone! Too dear a price to pay for the mere sacrifice of ahuman life! And pain and all might have been spared him, --poor fellow!poor fellow!" Manetho lacked but little of shedding true tears overthe evidence of his dearest foe's useless dread and anguish. Did hewish Balder to bring undulled nerves to his own torture-chamber?

His lament over, Manetho turned to Nurse for such informationregarding the guest's arrival and behavior as she might have tocommunicate. Of his own affair with Balder he made no mention. Theconversation was carried on by signs, according to a code long sincegrown up between the two. When the tale was told, Nurse was despatchedto make ready Helen's room for the new-comer, and thither did the twolaboriously bear him, and laid him, still sleeping, on his mother'sbed. 

XXVI. 

MUSIC AND MADNESS. 

Before leaving Balder to his repose, Manetho paused to regain hisbreath, and to throw a glance round the room. It was a place he seldomvisited. He had seen Helen's dead body lie on that bed, and the sighthad bred in him an animosity against the chamber and everything itcontained. After Doctor Glyphic's death he had gratified this feelingin a characteristic manner. Possessing a genius for drawing secondonly to that for music, he had exercised it on the walls of the room, originally modelled and tinted to represent a robin's egg. He mixedhis colors with the bitter distillations of his heart, and created thebeautiful but ill-omened vision which long afterwards so disquietedBalder. --

From the chamber he now repaired to the kitchen, which was in somerespects the most attractive place in the house. The smoky ceiling;the cavernous cupboards opening into the walls; the stanch dressers, polished by use and mottled with many an ancient stain; the greatblack range, which would have cooked a meal for a troop ofmen-at-arms, --all spoke of homely comfort. Nurse had Manetho's mealready for him, and, having set it out on the table, she retired to herposition in the chimney-corner. The Egyptian's spare body wasordinarily nourished with little more than goes to the support of anArab, and Nurse's monotonous life must have been unfavorable to largeappetite. As for Gnulemah, --although young women are said to thriveand grow beautiful on a diet of morning dew, noonday sunshine, andevening mist, --it seems quite likely that she ate no less than thehealth and activity of a Diana might naturally require. 

Manetho made a gleeful repast, and Nurse looked on from her corner, externally as unattractive-looking a woman as one would wish to see. Nevertheless, had she been made as some clocks are, with a plate ofglass over her inner movements, she would have monopolized theclergyman's attention and impaired his appetite. He did not sit downto the table, but took up one viand after another, and ate as hewalked to and fro the floor. Supper over, he crowned it with anunheard-of excess, --for Manetho was commonly a very temperate man. Hebrought from a cupboard a dusty bottle of priceless wine, which hadonce enriched the cellar of a king of Spain. Drawing the cork, hepoured some of the golden liquor into a slender glass, while thespiritual aroma flowed invisible along the air, visiting everydarksome nook, and even saluting Nurse, who had long been a strangerto any such delicate attention. 

Manetho filled two glasses, and then beckoned Nurse to come from hercorner, and drink with him. Forth she hobbled accordingly, lookingmore than usually ugly by reason of her surprise and embarrassment atthe unexpected summons. Manetho, on the other hand, seemed to havecast aside his years, and to be once more the graceful, sinuous, courteous youth, whose long black eyes had, long ago, seen Salome'sheart. With an elegant gesture he handed her the brimming wineglass, accompanying it with a smile which well-nigh shook it from between herfingers. He took up his own glass, and said, --

"I seldom drink wine, Nurse, --never, unless a lady, joins me! Once Idrank with her whose chamber our guest now occupies; and once withanother--" Manetho paused. "I never speak her name, Nurse; but weloved each other. I did not treat her well!" He murmured with a sigh, tears in his eyes. "Were she here to-night, at her feet would I suefor pardon, --the renewal of our love. By my soul!" he cried, suddenly, "I had thought to drink a far different toast; but let this glass bedrained to the memory of the sweet moments she and I have knowntogether! Drink!"

He tossed off the wine. But poor Nurse, strangely agitated, droppedhers on the floor; the precious liquor was spilled, and the glassshivered. She gazed beseechingly at Manetho. Could he not penetratethat mask to the face behind it? Is flesh so miserably opaque that nospark of the inwardly burning soul can make itself felt or seenwithout? Manetho saw only the broken glass and its wasted contents!

"You are as clumsy as you are ugly!" said he, "Go back to your corner. I must converse with my violin. "

She returned heavily to her place, feeling the darker and colderbecause that wine had been spilled before she could raise it to herlips. One taste, she fancied, might have begun a transformation in herlife! But we know not the weight of the chains we lay upon our limbs. 

The Egyptian's buoyant humor had dismissed the whole matter in anothermoment. He opened his violin-case, lovingly caressing the instrumentas he took it out. Then he tucked it fondly under his chin, andresumed his walking. The delicately potent wine warbled through hisnerves, and tinted memory with imagination. 

The bow, traversing the strings, drew forth from them a sweet andplaintive note, like the tender remonstrance of a neglected friend. Nolanguage says so much in so short space as music, nor will, till webanish those dead bones, consonants, and adopt the pure vowel speechof infants and angels. 

"Ay, long have we been apart, my beloved one, and much have I neededthee!" murmured Manetho. "I yearned for thy soothing and refreshingvoice; yea, death walked near me, because thou, my preserver, wast notby to guard me. But, rejoice! all is again well with us, --the hour ofour triumph is near!"

The fine instrument responded, carolling forth an exquisite pæan, --anascending scale, mounting to a breathless ecstasy, and falling inslower melody along gliding waves of fortunate sound. The player drankeach perfect note, till his pulses beat in unison with the rhythm. Hisviolin and he were wedded lovers since his youth, nor had discord evercome between them. 

"Two little children weaving flower-chains for each other in thegrass. I said, 'The one that first comes to me shall be mine!' And thelittle maiden arose, leaving her brother among the flowers. So one wastaken and the other left. But, behold! the brother has come to playwith his sister once more!"

Again the music--a divine philosopher's stone--touched the theme intofine-spun golden harmony. The dusky kitchen, with its one dull lampglimmering on the table, broadened with marble floors, and sprangaloft in airy arches! Twinkling stars hung between the columns, burning with a fragrance like flowers. It was a summer morning, justbefore sunrise. The clear faces of children peeped from violet-strewnrecesses where they had passed the night; and, as their sweet eyesmet, they shouted for joy, and ran to embrace one another. 

"Oh! my beloved, " softly burst forth the Egyptian, "how blessed are weto-night!" He touched the strings to a measured tune, following with aminuet-step up and down the floor. A fantastic spectacle! for as hepassed and repassed the lamp, an elastic shadow crept noiselesslybehind him, dodged beneath his feet, and anon outstretched itself likea sudden pit yawning before him. "This night repays the dreary yearsthat lie behind. How have I outlasted them! What had I fallen on thevery threshold of requital?--all I had hoped and labored for, afailure!"

Here paused the tune and the dance, and arose a weird dirge ofcompassion over what might have been! So moving was it, the playerhimself was melted. His dark nature showed its fairest side, --sensitiverefinement, grace of expression, flowing ease of manner. Quick was he infancy, emotional, soft and strong, gentle and fiery. In this hour hebloomed, like some night-flowering plant, of perfume sweet butpoisonous. This was Manetho's apogee!

Again his humor changed, and he became playful and frivolous. Had oldNurse in the corner been little more personable, he might have caughther round the waist, and forced her to tread a wild measure with him. But this unfolding of his faculties in the shower of good fortune hadrefined his æsthetic susceptibility. The withered, disfigured womanwas no partner for him!

She sat, following, with the intentness of her single eye, his everymotion, her head swaying in unconscious sympathy. Although her bodysat so stiff and awkward in the chimney-seat, her spirit, inspiredwith the grace of love, was dancing with Manetho's. But the body keptits place, knowing that erelong he too must come to rest. In the lightof a vivid recollection, the long tract between fades andforeshortens, till only the Then and the Now are notable. However, thelight will pale, the dusty miles outstretch their length once more, and the pilgrim find himself wearier than ever. 

But meanwhile the clergyman floats hither and thither like a wreath ofblack smoke blown about by a draught of air. One might have expectedto see him all at once vanish up the wide-mouthed chimney. The musicseems to emanate less from the instrument than from the player; itinterprets and colors every motion and expression. His chanting andhis playing answer and supplement each other, like strophe andantistrophe. 

"Let me tell thee why I rejoice, that thy sympathy may increase myjoy!

"A beautiful woman, young, a fountain of fresh life, an ivory vasefilled with earthly flowers. The eye that gazes on her form is takencaptive; yea, her face intoxicates the senses. But she is poisonous, aqueen of death, and her feet walk towards destruction!

"Supple and strong is she as the serpent, quick and graceful as thepanther. Food has she for nourishment, for the warming of the blood;exercises for the body, to keep her healthful and fair. Her triumph isin the flesh, --she finds it perfect. The flesh she deems divine, --theearth, a heaven!

"Books, the world of men, --she knows not: sees in herself Creation'scause and centre; in God, but the myriad reflex of her beauty. Self isher God, whom she worships in thunder and lightning, in sun and stars, in fire and water. Dreaming and waking are alike real to her: sheknows not to divide truth from falsehood. 

"Whom should she thank for health, for life and birth? She is born ofthe fire that burns in her own bosom. To her is nothing lawful norunlawful. No tie binds her soul to salvation. A fair ship is she, butrudderless, and the wind blows on the rocks. Let God save her if Hewill--and can!"

The inspiration of the Arab improvisatore would have seemed tamebeside Manetho's nervous exaltation. Save for the tingling satire ofthe violin-strings, his rhapsody might easily have lapsed to madness. From this point, however, his rapture somewhat abated, and he began todescend towards prose, his music clothing him downwards. 

"As for me, I have bowed down before her, pampering her insolentmajesty, preserving her poison to rancor first in her father's heart. Of him, death robbed me; but the son, --the brother is left. Even deathspared brother and sister to each other!

"A handsome man! worthy to stand by her. Never fairer couple sprangfrom one stem. They love each other, --and shall love!--more than everbrother and sister loved before. But they shall be bound by a tie soclose that the mere tie of blood hangs loose beside it! Then shallnight come down on them, --a night no rising sun shall ever chase away. In that; darkness will I speak--"

This devilish monologue ended abruptly here. The faithful instrument, whose responsive sympathy had failed him, jarringly snapped a string!A sting of anguish pricked through Manetho's every nerve. Hisfictitious buoyancy evaporated like steam, --he barely made shift tototter to a chair. Laying the violin with tremling hands on the table, his head dropped on his arms beside it; and there was a long, feverishsilence. 

At length he raised his haggard face, and, supporting it upon hishands, he gazed at the figure in the chimney-corner; and began, in atone sullen and devoid of animation as November rain, --

"Why did you force yourself upon me?--not for Gnulemah's sake, Ithink. Not for money, --you had none. Not for love of me either, Ifancy, --grisly harpy!

"Once I suspected you of being a spy. You walked among pitfalls then!But what spy would sit for eighteen years without speech or movement?You have been useful too. No one could have filled your place, --withyour one eye and dumb mouth!

"Did you hate Thor? were you my secret ally against him? But how couldyou fathom my purposes enough even to help me? And what wrong has hedone you terrible enough for such revenge as mine? What human being, except Manetho, could hold an unwavering purpose so many years? Haveyou never pitied or relented? Sometimes I have almost wavered myself!

"What name and history have you buried, and never shown me? Why haveyou spent your dumb life in this seclusion? You are a mystery, --yet amystery of my own making! I might as wisely dissect my violin to findwhere lurks the music. A mass of wood and strings, --the music is fromme!

"Have you a thought of preventing the scheme I spoke of to-night?" TheEgyptian leaned far across the table, the better to scrutinize theunanswering woman's face. Her eye met his with a steady intelligencethat disconcerted him. 

"Are you a woman?" he muttered, drawing back, "and have you no pity onthe children whom you nursed in their infancy?--not any pity! asimplacable--almost more implacable than I? But think of her beauty andinnocence, --for is she not innocent as yet? Would you see her foreverruined, --and stretch forth no saving hand?" Nurse moved her head upand down, as in slow, deliberate assent. Manetho, beholding thereflection in her of his own moral deformity, was filled withabhorrence!

"More hideous within than without, --you demon! come to haunt me andmake me wicked as yourself. It was you snapped the chord of mymusic, --that better spirit which had till then saved me from yourspells! My evil genius! I know you now, though never until thismoment. "

This madman was not the first sinner who, happening to catch anoutside glimpse of his interior grime, has tried to cheat his scaredconscience by an outcry of "Devil!--devil!" Is there not a touch ofpathos in the vanity of the situation? For the cry is in part sincere;no man can be so wholly evil, while in this world, as quite to divorcethe better angel from his soul. But alas! for the poor righteousindignation. 

XXVII. 

PEACE AND GOOD-WILL. 

Balder Helwyse, dumfounded before the revelation of the clock, mighthave stared himself into imbecility, had not he heard his name spokenin sweet human music, and, turning, beheld Gnulemah peeping throughthe doorway down the hall. 

There was no great distance between them, yet she seemed immeasurablespaces away. Against the bright background of the conservatory herform stood dark, the outlines softened by semi-transparent edges ofdrapery. But the dull red lamplight lit duskily up the folds of herrobe, her golden ornaments, and the black tarns, her eyes. Sheappeared to waver between the light of heaven and the lurid gloom ofheaven's opposite. 

Balder came hastily towards her, waving her back. He wassuperstitiously anxious that she should return unshadowed to the clearouter sunshine, instead of joining him in this tomb of dead bones anddarkness. Darkness might indeed befriend his own imperfections; butshould Gnulemah be dimmed to soothe his vanity?

Such emblematic fancies are common to lovers, whose ideal passiontends always to symbolism. But to those who have never loved, it willbe enough to say that the young man felt an instinctive desire tospare Gnulemah the ugly spectacle in the clock, and was perhaps notunwilling to escape from it himself!

She awaited him, in the bright doorway, like an angel come to lead himto a better world. "Do not leave me any more!" she said, putting herhand in his. "You did not do the thing you thought. Let us betogether, and dream no more such sadness!"

"Is her innocence strong enough to protect her against that sinfuldeluge of confession I poured out upon her?" thought Helwyse, glancingat her face. "Has it fallen from her harmless, like water from abird's breast? And am I after all no murderer?"

Doubt nor accusation was in her eyes, but soft feminine faith. Hereyes, --rather than have lost the deep intelligence of their darklight, Balder would have consented to blotting from heaven its host ofstars! Through them shone on him, --not justice, but the divineinjustice of woman's love. That wondrous bond, more subtile thanlight, and more enduring than adamant, had leagued her to him. Consecrated by the blessing of her trust, he must not dare distrusthimself. If the past were blindly wrong, she was the God-given clew toguide him right. 

An unspeakable tenderness melted them both, --him for what hereceived, her for what she gave. The rich bud of their love bloomed atonce in full, fragrant stateliness. Their hearts, left unprotected bytheir out-opened arms, demanded shelter, and found it in nestling oneach other. Heaven touched earth in the tremulous, fiery calm of theirmeeting lips, --magnets whose currents flowed from the mysterious polesof humanity. 

At such moments--the happiest life counts but few--angels draw near, but veil their happy eyes. Spirits of evil grind their teeth andfrown; and, for one awful instant, perceive their own deformity!

Before yet that dear embrace had lasted an eternity, the man felt thewoman shiver in his arms. The celestial heights and spaces dwindled, the angelic music fainted. Heaven rolled back and left them alone onearth. Manetho stood on the threshold between the sphinxes, wearingsuch a smile as God has never doomed us to see on a child's face!

To few men comes the opportunity of facing in this life those whomthey believed they had put out of it. One might expect the palpableassurance of the victim's survival would electrify the fanciedmurderer. But to Balder's mind, his personal responsibility could notbe thus lightened; and any emotion of selfish relief was thereforedenied him. On the other hand, such inferences as he had been able todraw from things seen and heard were not to Manetho's advantage. Whilehe could not but rejoice to have been spared actually hurrying a soulfrom the life of free will to an unchangeable eternity, yet hisdominant instinct was to man himself for the hostile issues still toarise. He looked at the being through whom his own life had receivedso dark a stain with stern, keen eyes. 

Gnulemah remained within the circle of her lover's arm. She seemed butlittle interested in Manetho's appearance, save in so far as heinvaded the sanctity of her new immortal privilege. She had neverknown anxiety on his account; he had never appealed to her feeling forhimself. If she loved him, it was with an affection unconsciousbecause untried. She had shivered in Balder's embrace at the moment ofthe Egyptian's presence, but before having set eyes on him. Had thenearness of his discordant spirit--his familiar face unseen--made herconscious of an evil emanation from him, else unperceived?

Manetho, to do him justice, assumed anything but a hostile attitude. His pleasure at seeing the pair so well affected towards each otherwas plainly manifested. He clasped his hands together, then extendedthem with a gesture of benediction and greeting, and came forward. Hisswarthy face, narrowing from brow to chin, if it could not be frankand hearty, at least expressed a friendliness which it had beenungracious to mistrust. 

"Yes, son of Thor, I live! God has been merciful to both of us. Letone who knew your father take your hand. Believe that whatever I havefelt for him, I now feel for you, --and more!"

The speaker had cast aside the fashionable clothes which he was in thehabit of wearing during his journeys abroad, probably with a view toguard against being conspicuous, and was clad in antique priestlycostume. A curiously figured and embroidered robe fell to his feet, and was confined at the waist by a long girdle, which also passedround his shoulders, after the manner of a Jewish ephod. It investedhim with a dignity of presence such as ordinary garments would nothave suggested. This, combined with the unexpectedly pacific tone ofhis address (its somewhat fantastic formality suiting well with thatof his appearance), was not without effect on Balder. He gave his handwith some cordiality. 

"Yours, also?" continued the other, addressing Gnulemah with aninvoluntary deference that surprised her lover. She complied, as aprincess to her subject. This incident seemed to indicate theirposition relatively to each other. Had the wily Egyptian played theslave so well, as finally in good earnest to have become one?

The three stood for a moment joined in a circle, through which whatincongruous passions were circulating! But Gnulemah soon withdrew thehand held by Manetho, and sent it to seek the one clasped by Balder. The priest turned cold, and stepped back; and, after an appearance ofmental struggle, said huskily, --

"Hiero is forgotten; you are all for the stranger!"

"You never told me who lived beyond the wall, " returned Gnulemah, withsimple dignity; and added, "You are no less to me than before, butBalder is--my love!" The last words came shyly from her lips, and sheswayed gently, like a noble tree, towards him she named. 

Manetho's lips worked against each other, and his body twitched. Hewas learning the difference between theory and practice, --dream andfact. His subtle schemes had been dramas enacted by variations ofhimself. No allowance had been made for the working of spirit onspirit; even his special part had been designed too narrowly, with buta single governing emotion, whereas he already found himself assailedby an anarchic host of them. 

"Gnulemah!" he cried at length, "my study, --my thought, --mypurpose, --body of my hopes and prayers!" He knelt and bowed himself ather feet, in the Oriental posture of worship, and went on with risingpassion:--"My secrets have bloomed in thy beauty, --been music in thyvoice, --darkened in thine eyes! O my flower--fascinating, terrible!--the time is ripe for the gathering, for the smelling of theperfume, for the kissing of the petals! I must yield thee up, O myidol! but in thy hand are my life and my reason, --yea, Gnulemah, thouart all I am!"

The tears, gestures, voice, with which Manetho thus delivered himself, shocked the Northern taste of Helwyse. Through the semi-scriptural, symbolic language, he fancied he could discern a basis of materialismso revolting that the man of the world--the lover now!--listened withshame and anger. Here was a professed worshipper of Gnulemah, whoascribed to her no nobler worth than to be the incarnation of his owndesires and passions! It was abject self-idolatry, thought Balder, masquerading as a lofty form of idealization. 

The priest's mind was in a more complex condition than Balderimagined. His absorption in Gnulemah, if only as she was theinstrument of his dominant purpose, must have been complete; thesuccess (as he deemed it) of his life was staked on her. But, inaddition to this, the unhappy man had, unwittingly, and with thevehemence of his ill-ordered nature, grown to love the poison-draughtbrewed for his enemy! When the enemy's lips touched the cup, didManetho first become aware that it brimmed with the brewer's ownlife-blood!

Yet it might have been foreseen. He loved her, not because she wasidentified with his aims, nor even because she was beautiful, but (andnot inconsistently with his theoretical belief in her devilishness)because she was pure and true. Under the persuasion that he wasinfluencing her nature in a manner only possible, if at all, to amoral and physical despot, he had himself been ruled by her strongerand loftier spirit. The transcendent cunning on which he had pridedhimself, as regarded his plan of educating Gnulemah, had amounted tolittle more than imbecile inaction. 

As Manetho prostrated himself, and even touched the hem of Gnulemah'srobe to his forehead, Balder looked to see her recoil; but shemaintained a composure which argued her not unused to such homage. Somuch evil (albeit unintentionally) had the Egyptian done her, that shecould suffer, while she slighted, his worship. Yet, in the height ofher proud superiority to him, she turned with sweet submission to herlover, and, obedient to his whisper, gathered up her purple mantle andpassed through the green conservatory to her own door, through which, with a backward parting glance at her master, she superbly vanished. Balder had disliked the scene throughout, yet his love was greaterthan before. An awe of the woman whose innate force could command anature like this priest's seemed to give his passion for her a morevigorous fibre. 

The two men were now left alone to come to what understanding theymight. Manetho rose to his feet, obliquely eying Helwyse, and spokewith the manner and tone of true humility, --

"You have seen me in my weakness. I am but a broken man, BalderHelwyse. "

"We had better speak the plain truth to each other, " said Balder, after a pause. "You can have no cause to be friendly to me. I cannotextenuate what I did. I think I meant to kill you. "

"You were not to blame!" exclaimed the other, vehemently, holding uphis hands. "You had to deal with a madman!"

"It is a strange train of chances has brought us together again; itought to be for some good end. I came here unawares, and, but for thisring, should not have known that we had met before. "

"I lie under your suspicion on more accounts than one, " observedManetho, glancing in the other's face. "I have assumed your uncle'sname, and the disposal of his property; and I have concealed hisdeath; but you shall be satisfied on all points. The child, too, Gnulemah!--I have kept her from sight and knowledge of the world, butnot without reason and purpose, as you shall hear. Ah! I am but apoor broken man, liable, as you have seen, to fits of madness andextravagance. You shall hear everything. And listen, --as a witnessthat I shall speak truth, I will say my say before the face of HieroGlyphic yonder, and upon the steps of his altar! See, I desire neitherto palliate nor falsify. Shall we go in?"

With some repugnance Helwyse followed the priestly figure through thelow-browed door, He had seen too much of men to allow any instinctiveaversion to influence him, in the absence of logical evidence. Andthis man's words sounded fair; his frank admission of occasionalinsanity accounted for many anomalies. Nevertheless, and apart fromany question of personal danger, Balder felt ill at ease, like animalsbefore a thunder-storm. As he sat down beside his companion on thesteps of the black altar, and glanced up at the yellow visage thatpresided over it, he tried to quiet his mind in vain; even the thoughtof Gnulemah yielded a vague anxiety!

XXVIII. 

BETROTHAL. 

The ring, which Balder had taken off with the intention of returningit to its owner, still remained between his thumb and finger; and ashe sat under the gloom of the altar, its excellent brilliancy caughthis eye. He had never examined it minutely. It was pure as virtue, andpossessed similar power to charm the dusky air into seven-hued beauty. A fountain of lustre continually welled up from its interior, like anexhaustless spring of wisdom. From amidst the strife of the littleserpents it shone serenely forth, with, divine assurance ofgood, --eternal before the battle began, and immortal after it shouldcease. The light refreshed the somewhat jaded Helwyse, and during theensuing interview he ever and anon renewed the draught. 

But the Egyptian seemed to address a silent invocation to the mummy. The anti-spiritual kind of immortality belonging to mummies may havebeen congenial to Manetho's soul. Awful is that loneliness which eventhe prospect of death has deserted, and which must prolong itselfthroughout a lifeless and hopeless Forever! If Manetho could imagineany bond of relationship between this perennial death's-head andhimself, no marvel that he cherished it jealously. 

"You shall hear first about myself, " said the priest; "yet, truly, Iknow not how to begin! No mind can know another, nor even its ownessential secrets. My time has been full of visions and unrealities. Iam the victim of a thing which, for lack of a better name, I callmyself!"

"Not a rare sickness, " remarked Balder. 

"A ghost no spell can lay! It grasps the rudder, and steers towardsgulfs the will abhors. A crew of unholy, mutinous impulses flingabroad words and thoughts unrecognizable. Not Manetho talked in theblackness of that night; but a devil, to whom I listened shuddering, unable to control him!"

"The Reverend Manetho Glyphie, my cousin by adoption, --and sometimes adevil!" muttered Balder, musingly. "I had forgotten him. "

People are more prone to err in fancying themselves righteous, thanthe reverse; nevertheless, the course and limits of self-deception areindefinite. It is within possibility for a man to believe himselfwicked, while his actual conduct is ridiculously blameless, evenpraiseworthy! Although intending to mislead Balder, Manetho'sutterances were true to a degree unsuspected by himself. He was moretrue than had he tried to be so, because truth lay too profound forhis recognition!

"A shallower man, " he resumed, "would bear a grudge against the handthat clutched his throat; but I own no relationship to the madman youchastised. And there are deep reasons why I must set your father's sonabove all other men in my regard. "

"My father seldom spoke of you, and never as of an especial friend, "interposed the ingenuous Balder. 

"He knew not my feeling towards him, nor would he have comprehendedit. It is a thing I myself can scarce understand. To the outward eyethere is juster cause for hatred than for love. 

"I will speak openly to you what has hitherto lain between my heartand God. Before Thor saw your mother, I had loved her. My life's hopewas to marry her. Thor came, --and my hope lingered and died. For it, was no resurrection. " Here Manetho broke all at once into sobs, covering his face with his hands; and when he continued, his voice wassoftened with tears. 

"Thor called her to him, and she gladly went. He stormed and carriedwith ease the fortress which, at best, I could hope only slowly toundermine. She loved him as women love a conqueror; she might haveyielded me, at most, the grace of a condescending queen. I keptsilence: to whom could I speak? I had felt great ambitions, --to becomehonored and famous, --to preach the gospel as it had not yet beenpreached, --all ambitions that a lover may feel. But the tree died forlack of nourishment. See what is left!"

He opened out his arms with a gesture wanting neither in pathos nordignity. Balder could not but sympathize with what he felt to be agenuine emotion. 

"Amidst the ruins of my Memphis, I kept silence. I hated--myself! formy powerlessness to keep her. In my hours of madness I hated her too, and him; but that was madness indeed! Deeper down was a sanity thatloved him. Since he had made my love his, I must love him. So onlymight I still love her. The only beauty left my ruins was that!

"She died; and with her would have died all sanity, --all love, butthat her children kept me back from worse ruin than was mine already. They were a link to bind me to the good. Now Thor is dead, but stillhis son--her son--survives. Hence is it that you are more to me thanother men. "

"Did Doctor Glyphic know nothing of this?"

"I never told him of either my hope or my despair. My beloved master!he lived and died without suspicion that I had striven to be a brotheras well as son to him. "

"When did he die?"

"Eighteen years ago, " said Manetho, solemnly. "You are the first towhom his death has been revealed. Beloved master! have I not obeyedthy will?" And he looked up to his master's parchment visage. 

"I discovered his death for myself, you know, " observed Helwyse. "Butit could not have been more than eighteen years since my father, thenon the point of departure for Europe, saw Hiero Glyphic alive!"

"Yes, yes! Did he ever tell you what passed in that interview?"demanded Manetho, eagerly. 

"Little more than a farewell, I think. There was some talk about theestate. At my uncle's death, the house was to come to you, theproperty to my father or his heirs. But neither expected at that timethat it was to be their last meeting. "

"Was no one mentioned beside Thor's children and myself?" asked thepriest, looking askant at Balder as he spoke. 

"No my uncle neither had nor expected children, as far as I know!"

"Thor did not see her, --Gnulemah?"

"Gnulemah?--how should he have seen her?" exclaimed Balder, insurprise. 

"Then her mystery remains!" said Manetho, looking up. 

He had perhaps doubted whether any suspicion of who Gnulemah reallywas had found its way to the young man's mind. The latter's receptionof his question reassured him. There could be no risk in catering tohis aroused curiosity. The account Manetho now gave was true, thoughfalsehood lurked in the pauses. 

"That day Thor came, I left the house early in the morning. It wasnight when I returned; and Thor was gone. The house was dark, and atfirst there was no sound. But presently I heard the voice of a child, murmuring and babbling baby words. I passed through the outer hall andthe conservatory, and came to where we now are. The lamp was burningas it has burned ever since. 

"I saw him lying on the altar steps, --lying so!" Marrying act to word, the Egyptian slid down and lay prostrate at the altar's foot. "He wasdead and cold!" he added; and gave way to a shuddering outburst ofgrief. 

Balder's nerves were a little staggered at this tale with itsheightening of dramatic action and morbid circumstance; and he wassilent until the actor (if such he were) was in some degreerepossessed of himself. Then he asked, --

"What of the child?"

"I have named her Gnulemah. She played about the dead body, bright andcareless as the flame of the lamp. Whence she came she could nottell, nor had I seen her before that day. It seemed that, at themoment my master's life burned out, hers flamed up; and since that dayit has lighted and warmed my solitude. "

"And Doctor Glyphic--"

"I embalmed him!" cried Manetho, clasping his hands in grotesqueenthusiasm. "It was my privilege and my consolation to render his bodyimmortal. In my grief I rejoiced at the opportunity of manifesting mydevotion. Not the proudest of the Pharaohs was more sumptuouslypreserved than he! In that labor of love there was no cunning secretof the art that I did not employ. Night and day I worked alone; andwhile he lay in the long nitre bath, I watched or slept beside him. Then I enwound him thousand-fold in finest linen smeared with fragrantgum, and hid his beloved form in the coffin he had chosen longbefore. "

"Did my uncle choose this form of burial?"

"He lived in hopes of it! It was his wish that his body might bedisposed as became his name, and the passion that had ruled his life. Me only did he deem worthy of the task, and equal to it. Had I diedbefore him, his fairest hope would have been blighted, his life afailure!"

"A dead failure, truly!" muttered Balder, impelled by the verygrewsomeness of the subject to jest about it. "Was his loftiestaspiration to mummy and be mummied?--But yours was a dangerous officeto fulfil, Cousin Manetho. Had the death got abroad, you might havebeen suspected of foul play!"

"The cause was worth the risk, " replied the other, sententiously. 

Helwyse shot a keen look at his companion, but could discern in himnone of the common symptoms of guilt. The priest, however, was a mineof sunless riddles, one lode connecting with another; it was idleattempting to explore them all at once. So the young man recurred tothat vein which was of most immediate interest to himself. 

"Have you no knowledge concerns Gnulemah's origin?" he inquired. 

Manetho laid his long brown hand on Balder's arm. 

"If she be not Gnulemah, daughter of fire, it must rest with you togive her another name, " said he. 

"I care not who was her father or her mother, " rejoined the lover, after a short silence; "Gnulemah is herself!"

The lithe fingers on his arm clutched it hard for a moment, andManetho averted his face. When he turned again, his features seemed toexpress exultation, mingled with a sinister flavor of some darkeremotion. 

"Son of Thor, you have your father's frankness. Do you love her?"

"You saw that I loved her, " returned Balder, his black eyes kindlingsomewhat intolerantly. 

"If I can hasten by one hour the consummation of that love, my lifewill have been worth the living!"

"That's kindly spoken!" exclaimed Helwyse, heartily; and, opening hisstrong white hand, he took the narrow brown one into its grasp. He hadnot been prepared for so friendly a profession. 

"When I have seen your soul tied to hers in a knot that even death maynot loosen, --and if it be permitted me to tie the knot, I shall havedrained the cup of earthly happiness!" He spoke with a deliberateintensity not altogether pleasant to the ear. He would not relinquishBalder's hand, as he continued in his high-strung vein, --

"I know at last for whom my flower has bloomed. Through the world, across seas, by strange accidents has Providence brought you safe tothis spot; and has made you what you are, and her incomparable amongwomen. --You love her with heart and soul, Balder Helwyse?"

"So that the world seems frail; and I--except for mylove--insignificant!"

In the sudden emphasis of his question, Manetho had risen to hisfeet; and Balder likewise had started up, before giving his reply. Ashe spoke the words strongly forth, his swarthy companion seemed tocatch them in the air, and breathe them in. Slowly an expression ofjoy, that could hardly be called a smile, welled forth from his longeyes, and forced its way, with dark persistency of glee, through allhis face. 

"By you only in the world would I have her loved!" he said; andrepeated it more than once. 

He remained a full minute leaning with one arm on the altar, his eyesabstracted. Then he said abruptly, --

"Why not be married soon?"

The lover looked up questioningly, a deep throb in his heart. 

"Soon--soon!" reiterated Manetho. "Love is a thing of moments morethan of years. I know it! Do you stand idle while Gnulemah awaits you?We may die to-morrow!"

"I have no right to hurry her, " said Helwyse in a low voice. "Sheknows nothing of the world. I would marry her to-morrow--"

"To-morrow! why not to-day? Why wait? that she may learn thefalsehoods of society, --to flirt, dress, gossip, crave flattery? Whydo you hesitate? Speak out, son of Thor!"

"I have spoken. Do you doubt me? Were it possible, she should be mywife this hour!"

"Oh!" murmured Manetho, the incisiveness of his manner melting awayas suddenly as it came; "now have you proved your love. You shall bemade one, --one!--to-day. Four-and-twenty years ago this day, I marriedyour parents on this very spot. The anniversary shall become a doubleone!"

The black eye-sockets of the mummy stared Balder in the face. But at atouch from Manetho, he turned, and saw Gnulemah, bright with beautifulenchantment, in the doorway. 

"Yes, to-day!" he said impetuously. 

"You shall wed her with that ring!" whispered the victorious tempterin his ear. "Go to her; tell her what marriage is! I will call yousoon. "

The lover went, and the woman, coming forward, sweetly met himhalf-way. But glancing back again before passing out, Balder saw thatthe priest had vanished; and the lamp, flickering above the mummy'sdry features, wrought them into a shadowy semblance of emotion. 

XXIX. 

A CHAMBER OF THE HEART. 

Manetho neither sank through the granite floor, nor ascended in thesmoke of the lamp. He unlocked a door (to the panels of which theclock was affixed, and which it concealed) and let himself into hisprivate study, a room scarce seven feet wide, though corresponding inlength and height with the dimensions of the outer temple. Books andpapers were kept here, and such other things of a private or valuablenature as Manetho wished should be inaccessible to outsiders. Againstthe wall opposite the door stood a heavy mahogany table; beside it, adeep-bottomed chair, in which the priest now sat down. 

The room was destitute of windows, properly so called. The walls werefull twenty feet high; and at a distance of some sixteen feet from thefloor, a series of low horizontal apertures pierced the masonry, allowing the light of heaven to penetrate in an embarrassed manner, and hesitatingly to reveal the interior. Viewed from without, thesenarrow slits would be mistaken for mere architectural indentations. Tothe inhabitant they were of more importance, contracted though theywere; and albeit one could not look out of them, they served asventilators, and to distinguish between fine and cloudy weather. 

In his earlier and more active days, Manetho had lived and workedthroughout the whole extent of this study, and it had been kept cleanand orderly to its remotest corner. But as years passed, and the rangeof his sympathies and activities narrowed, the ends of the room hadgradually fallen into dusty neglect, till at length only the smallspace about the chair and table was left clear and available. The restwas impeded by books, instruments of science, and endless chaoticrubbish; while spiders had handed down their ever-broadening estatesfrom father to child, through innumerable Araneidæan generations. Agray uniformity had thus come to overspread everything; and with theexceptions of a cracked celestial globe, and the end of a worm-eatenold ladder, there was nothing to catch the attention. 

Here might the Egyptian indulge himself in whatever extravagances ofword or act he chose, secure from sight or hearing; and here had hespent many an hour in such solitary exercises as no sane mind canconceive. To him the room was thick with associations. Here had hepursued his studies, or helped the Doctor in his erratic experimentsand research; here, with Helen in his thoughts, he had shaped out acareer, --not all of Christian humility and charity, perhaps, but atleast unstained by positive sin, and not unmindful of domestichappiness. Here, again, had Salome visited him, bringing discord anddelight in equal parts; for at times, with the strong heat of youth, he had vowed to love only her and to forsake ambition; and anon thebloodless counsels of worldly power and welfare banished her with acurse for having crossed his path. Head and heart were always at warin Manetho. The talismanic diamond flashed or waned, and fiercelywriggled the little fighting serpents. 

At length Thor Helwyse's gauntlet was thrown into the ring; andpeace--if still present to outward seeming--abode not in the feverishsoul of the Egyptian. But it was his nature to dissemble. In this roomhe had often outwatched the night, chewing the cud of his wrongs, invoking vengeance upon the thwarter of his hopes, and swearingthrough his teeth to even the balance between them. The black serpentheld the golden one helpless in his coils. The obtuse Doctor, blundering in at morning, would find his adopted son with pallidcheeks and glittering eyes, but ever ready with a smile and pleasantgreeting, obedience and help. Hiero Glyphic, however wayward andcross-grained, never had cause to censure this creature of his, --toremind him that he might have been food for crocodiles. 

Manetho's dissimulation was almost without flaw. Even Helen, whosefancy had played with him at first, but who in time had indolentlyyielded to the fascination exerted over her, and even gone so far asto permit his adulation, and accept in the ring the mystic pledgethereof (during all the countless ages of its experience it had nevertouched woman's hand before), --even she, when her lazy heart andoverbearing spirit were at length aroused and quelled by the voicerather of a master than suitor, was deceived by forsaken Manetho'sunruffled face, gentle voice, and downcast eyes. She told herself thathis love had never dared be warmer than a kind of worship, like thatof a pagan for his idol, apart from human passion; such, at allevents, had been her understanding of his attentions. As to the ring, it had been tendered as an offering at the shrine of abstractwomanhood; to return it too soon would imply a supposition of morepersonal sentiment. Neither must Thor see it, however; his rough sensewould fail to appreciate her fine-drawn distinction. So she concealedit in her bosom, and Manetho's serpents were ever between Thor and hiswife's heart. She was false both to husband and lover. 

Great Thor, meanwhile, pitied the slender Egyptian, and in a kindlyway despised him, with his supple manners, quiet words, and religiousstudies. To the young priest's timid yet earnest request forpermission to pronounce the marriage-service of him and his bride, Thor assented with gruff heartiness. 

"Marry us? Of course! marry us as fast as you can, if it gives you anypleasure, my friend of the crocodile. A good beginning for yourministerial career, --marrying a couple who love each other as much asNell and I do. Eh, Nellie?"

The ceremony over, Manetho had retired to his study, and there passedthe night, --their marriage-night! What words and tones, what twistingsof face and body, did those passionless walls see and hear? How thesmooth, studious, submissive priest yearned for power to work his willfor one day! And as the cool, still morning sheared the lustre fromhis lamp-flame, how desolate he felt, with his hatred and despair andblaspheming rage! Evil passions are but poor company, in the earlymorning. 

But was not Salome left him? The only sincerely tender words he hadever spoken to woman had been said to her: his humblest and happiestthoughts had been born of their early acquaintance, --before he hadraised his eyes to the proud and languid mistress. Yet on her only didthe evil passions of Manetho wreak themselves in harm and wrong; heronly, on a later day, did he dastardly strike down. Poor Salome hadgiven him her heart. These walls had seen their meetings. 

Years afterwards, Manetho had here embalmed his foster-father:through long hours had he labored at his hateful task, with curiouszest and conscientiousness. As regarded the strange place ofsepulture, the Egyptian had perhaps imagined a symbolic fitness inenclosing his human immortal in the empty shell of time. Over thismatter of Hiero Glyphic's death and burial, however, must ever brood acloud of mystery. Undoubtedly Manetho loved the man, --but death wasnot always the worst of ills in Manetho's philosophy. 

The clock had been affixed to the study door both as an additionalconcealment, and possibly as a congenial sentry over the interiorassociations. Since then the place had become the clergyman's almostdaily resort. Pacing the contracted floor, sitting moodily in thechair, --many a brooding hour had gone over his barrenly busy head, andwritten its darkening record in his book of life. Here had beenschemed that plan of revenge, whose insanity the insane schemer couldnot perceive. Nor could he understand that mightier powers than hecould master worked against him, and even used his efforts to bringforth contrary results. 

But not all hours had passed so. Spaces there had been wherein evilcounsels had retired to a cloudy background, athwart which hadbrightened a rainbow, intangible, whose source was hidden, but whosecolors were true before his eyes. The grace and aerial beauty ofsunshine lightened through the rain, --the pleasing loveliness ofessential life was projected on the gloom of evil imaginations. ForManetho's actual deeds were apt to be prompted by far gentlerinfluences than governed his theories. The man was better than hismind: and goodness, perhaps, bears an absolute blessing; insomuch thatthe sinner, doing ignorant good, yet feels the benefit thereof; justas the rain, however dismal, cannot prevent the sun from makingrainbows out of it. 

On this particular morning Manetho sank into his deep-seated chair, and was quite still. A great part of what had hitherto made his dailylife ended here. The activity of existence was over for him. Thought, feeling, hope, could live hereafter only as phantoms of memory. But tolook back on evil done is not so pleasant as to plan it; the dead bodyof a foe moves us in another way than his living hostile person. 

When, therefore, Manetho should have hurled to its mark thelong-poised spear, he would have little to look forward to. That onemoment of triumph must repay, both for what had been and was to come. To-day of all his days, then, must each sense and faculty be inexquisite condition. Unseasonably enough, however, he found himself ina perversely dull and callous state. Could Providence so cajole him asto mar the only joyful hour of his life! Then better off than he weresavages, who could destroy their recusant idols. But nothing short ofspiritual suicide would have destroyed the idol of Manetho!

He was wearing to-day the same priestly robe which he had put on when, for the first and last time, he performed a ministerial duty. In thisrobe had he married Helen to Thor. Itself a precious relic ofantiquity, it had once dignified the shoulders of a contemporary ofManetho's remotest ancestors. Old Hiero Glyphic had counted it amongsthis chiefest treasures; and on his sister's wedding-day had producedit from its repository, insisting that the minister should wear itinstead of the orthodox sacerdotal costume. Since then it had lainuntouched till to-day. 

Manetho brooded over the dim magnificence of its folds, sitting amidstthe cobwebbed rubbish, a narrow glint of sunshine creepingslope-downwards from the crevice above his head. He smoothed thefabric abstractedly with his hand, recalling the thoughts and scenesof four-and-twenty years ago. 

"I joined them in the holy bonds of matrimony, --read over them thatservice, those sacred words heavy with solemn benediction. Rich, smooth, softly modulated was my voice, missing not one just emphasisor melodious intonation. Ah! had they seen my soul. But my eyes werehalf closed like the crocodile's, yet never losing sight of the two Iwas uniting in sight of God and man. The Devil too was there. Heturned the blessings my lips uttered into blighting curses, that fellon the happy couple like pestilential rain!

"Laughable! Covered head to foot with curses, and felt them not! Allwas smiles, blushes, happiness, forward-looking to a long, joyfulfuture. They knelt before me; I uplifted my hands and invoked the lastblessing, --the final curse! My heart burned, and the smoke of its fireenveloped bride and groom, fouling his yellow beard, and smirching hersilvery veil; shutting out heaven from their prayers, and blackeningtheir path before them. They neither felt nor knew. They kissed, --Isaw their lips meet, --as Balder and Gnulemah to-day. Then I covered myface and seemed to be in prayer!

"Gnulemah, --I hate her!--yes, but hatred sometimes touches the heartlike love. I love her!--to marry her? Woe to him who becomes herhusband! As a daughter?--no daughter is she of mine!--I hate her, then. 

"Why am I childless?--how would I have loved a child! I would haveleft all else to love my child! I would have been the one father inthe world! My life should have been full of love as it has been ofhate. Why did not God send me a wife and a daughter?"

Men's ears have grown deaf to any save the most commonplace oracles. But there is ever a warning voice for who will listen. One may objectthat its language is unknown, or its whisper inaudible; but to thequestion, "Whence your ignorance and deafness?" what shall be theanswer?

In Manetho's case it appears to have been the venerable robe that tookon itself the task of remonstrance. 

"You are unreasonable, friend, " it interposed with a gentle rustle. "Gnulemah, if not your daughter, might, however, have stood you inplace of one; and she would have done you just as much good, in theway of softening and elevating your nature, as though she had been theissue of your own loins. You have turned the milk and honey of yourlife into gall and wormwood; and I wish I could feel sure that onlyyou would get the benefit of it!"

The reproof had as well been spared; it is doubtful whether theculprit heard so much as a word of it. His reverie rambled on. 

"Keen, --that Balder! he half suspects me. Had I not so hurried him toa conclusion, he would have questioned me too closely. He shall knowall presently, even as I promised him!--shall hear a sounder guess atGnulemah's genealogy than was made to-day. 

"Do I love her?--only as the means to my end! The end once gained, Ishall hate her as I do him. But not yet, --and therefore must I lovehim as well as her. They shall be, to-day, my beloved children!To-morrow, --how shall I endure till to-morrow, --all the nightthrough? O Gnulemah!--

"They love each other well, --seem made to make each other happy; yethave they come together from the ends of the earth to be each other'scurse! Only if I keep silence might it be otherwise, for love mighttame the devil that I have bred in Gnulemah. Even now she seems moreangel than devil!--Am I mad?"

He straightened himself in his chair, and glanced up towards thecrevice whence slanted the dusty sunshine. The old robe took theopportunity to deliver its final warning. 

"Not yet mad beyond remedy, Manetho; but you look up too seldom at thesunshine, and brood too often over your own dusty depths. You have hadno consciously unselfish thought during the last quarter of a century. You eat, drink, and breathe only Manetho! This room is yours, becauseit is fullest of rubbish, and least looks out upon the gloriousuniverse. Break down your walls! take broom in hand without delay!Proclaim at once the crime you meditate. Go! there is still sunshinein this dust-hole of yours, and more of heaven in every man than hehimself dreams of. The sun is passing to the other side. Go while itshines!"

But Manetho's dull ears heard not; and the aged garment of truth spokeno more. 

XXX. 

DANDELIONS. 

It seems a pity that, with all imagination at our service, we shouldhave to confine our excursions within so narrow a domain as this ofHiero Glyphic's. One tires of the best society, uncondimented with anoccasional foreign relish, even of doubtful digestibility. Barringthis, it only remains to relieve somewhat the monotony of our food, byvariety in the modes of dishing it up. 

Balder had been no whit disconcerted at the priest's abruptevanishment. The divine sphere of Gnulemah had touched him with itssweet magnetism, and he was sensible of little beyond it. Their handsgreeted like life-long friends. Drawing hers within his arm, he stillkept hold of it, and her rounded shoulder softly pressed his, as theyloitered out between the impenetrable sphinxes. The conservatory, however beautiful in itself and by association, was too small to holdtheir hearts at this moment. They passed on, and through the columnsof the Moorish portico, into the fervent noon sunshine. 

Grasshoppers chirped; fine buzzing flies darted swift circles and litagain; birds giggled and gossiped, bobbing and swinging among swayingboughs. Battalions of vast green trees stood grand in shadow-lakes ofcooler green, their myriad leaves twinkling light and dark. Tendergleams of river topped the enamelled bank, --the further shore aslumbering El Dorado. The trees in the distant orchard wore bridalveils, and even Gnulemah's breath was not much sweeter than theirs!

Emerging arm in arm on the enchanted lawn the lovers turned southwardsup the winding avenue. The fragrance, the light and warmth, the birdand insect voices, imperfectly expressed their own heart-happiness. The living turf softly pressed up their feet. This was the fortunatehour that comes not twice. Happy those to whom it comes at all! Tolive was such full bliss, every new movement overflowed the cup. Joywas it to look on earth and sky; but to behold each other was heaven!More life in a moment such as this, than in twenty years of schemingmore successful than Manetho's. 

They followed the same path Helen had walked the eve of her death; andpresently arrived at the old bench. Shadow and sunshine wrestledplayfully over it, while the green blood of the leaves overhead glowedvividly against the blue. Around the bench the grass grew taller, ason a grave; and crisp lichens, gray and brown, overspread its surface. Man had neglected it so long that Nature, overcoming her diffidencetowards his handiwork, had at length claimed it for her own. 

The glade was full of great golden dandelions, whose soft yellowcrowns were almost too heavy for the slender necks. The prince andprincess of the fairy-tale paused here, recognizing the spot as themost beautiful on earth, --albeit only since their love's arrival. Theyseated themselves not on the bench, but on the yet more primitivegrass beside it. They had not spoken as yet. Balder plucked somedandelions, and proceeded to twist them into a chain; and Gnulemah, after watching him for a while followed his example. 

"You and I have sat on the grass and woven such chains before, "asserted she at length. "When was it?"

"I haven't done such a thing since I was a child not much taller thana dandelion, " returned Balder. He was not ethereal enough to followGnulemah in her apparently fanciful flight, else might he have lightedon a discovery to which all the good sense and logic in the worldwould not have brought him. 

"Yes; we have made these chains before!" reiterated Gnulemah, lookingat her companion in a preoccupied manner. "They were to have chainedus together forever. "

"We should have made them of stronger stuff then. But which of usbroke the chain?"

"They took us away from each other, and it was never finished. Do youremember nothing?"

"The present is enough for me, " said her lover; and he finished hisnecklace with a handsome clasp of blossoms, and threw it over herneck. She gave a low sigh of satisfaction. 

"I have been waiting for it ever since that time! And here is mine foryou. "

Thus adorned by each other's hands, their love seemed greater thanbefore, and they laughed from pure delight. Their bonds lookedfragile; yet it would need a stronger wrench to part them than hadthey been cables of iron or gold, unsustained by the subtile might oflove. 

"Let us link them together, " proposed Balder; and, loosening a link ofhis chain, he reunited it inside Gnulemah's. "We must keep together, "he continued with a smile, "or the marriage-bonds will break. "

"Is this marriage, Balder? to be tied together with flowers?"

"One part of marriage. It shows the world that we belong only to eachother. "

"How could they help knowing that, --for to whom else could webelong? besides, why should they know?"

"Because, " answered Balder after some consideration, "the world ismade in such a way, that unless we record all we do by some visiblesymbol, everything would get into confusion. "

"No no, " protested Gnulemah, earnestly. "Only God should know how welove. Must the world know our words and thoughts, and how we have satbeneath these trees?--Then let us not be married!"

They were leaning side to side against the bench, along whose edgeBalder had stretched an arm to cushion Gnulemah's head. As he turnedto look at her, a dash of sunlight was quivering on her clear smoothcheek, and another ventured to nestle warmly below the head of theguardian serpent on her bosom, for Gnulemah and the sun had beenlovers long before Balder's appearance. Where breathed such anotherwoman? From the low turban that pressed her hair to the bright sandalson her fine bronze feet, there was no fault, save her very uniqueness. She belonged not to this era, but to the Golden Age, past or to come. Could she ever be conformed to the world of to-day? Dared her loverassume the responsibility of revealing to this noble soul all themeanness, sophistries, little pleasures, and low aims of thisimperfect age? Could he change the world to suit her needs? or endureto see her change to suit the world? Moreover, changing so much, mightshe not change towards him? The Balder she loved was a grander manthan any Balder knew. Might she not learn to abhor the hand whichshould unveil to her the Gorgon features of fallen humanity?--Much hasman lost in losing Paradise!

Contemplating Gnulemah's entrance into the outer world, Manetho hadanticipated her ruin from the flowering of the evil seed which hebelieved himself to have planted in her. Might not the same resultissue from a precisely opposite cause? The Arcadian fashion in whichthe lovers' passion had ripened must soon change forever. It wasperilous to advance, but to retreat was impossible. Balder was at bay;had he loved Gnulemah less, he would have regretted Charon'sferry-boat. But his love was greater for the danger and difficultywherewith it was fraught. He could not summon the millennium; well, hemight improve himself. 

"If I could but shut her glorious eyes to all the shabby littlenessthey will have to see, we might hazard the rest, " he sighed tohimself. "If the pure visions of her maiden years might veil from herthose gross realities of every-day life! With what face shall I meether glance after it has suffered the first shock?"

Meanwhile her last objection remained unanswered, and Balder, distrustful of his capacity, was inspired to seek inspiration from herhe would instruct. 

"Tell me how you love me, Gnulemah, " said he. 

She roused herself, and bending her face to his, breathlessly kissedhis lips. Then she drooped her warm cheek on his shoulder, andwhispered the rest:--

"My love is to be near you, and to breathe when breathe; it is love tobecome you, as water becomes wave. And love would make me sweet toyou, as honey and music and flowers. I love to be needed by you, asyou need food and drink and sleep; and my love will be loved, as Godloves the world. "

To the lover these sentences were tender and sublime poetry. The tearscame to his eyes, hearing her speak out her loving soul so simply. Hehad travelled through the world, while she had lived her life betweena wall and a precipice. But not the noisy, gaudy, gloomy crust whichis fresh to-day, and to-morrow hardens, and the next day crumbles, isthe world; but the fire-globe within: and Gnulemah was nearer thatfire than Balder. There was puissance in her simplicity, --in herignorance of that crust which he had so widely studied. Her knowledgewas more profound than his, for she had never learned to stultify itwith reasons. 

"It is true, --God only can know our love, " said Balder, and, havingsaid it, he felt his mind clear and strengthen. For it is theacknowledgment of God that lends the deepest seeing to the eye, andtunes the universe to man; and Balder, at this moment of mingled love, humility, and fear, made and confessed that supreme discovery. --"OnlyHe knows what our love is, but the marriage-rite informs the worldthat He knows it. "

"But why must the world know?" persisted Gnulemah, still seeming toshrink at the idea. 

"Because it is wholesome for all men to know that we have made Godparty to our union. That our love may be pure and immortal, we mustlook through each other to Him; the acknowledgment will keep others aswell as ourselves from misusing love's happiness. "

"Then, after we have knelt together before Him, we shall be no longertwo, but one!" Gnulemah spoke, after some pause, in a full tone ofjoy; yet her voice shrank at the last, from the feeling that she hadpenetrated all at once to a holy place. A delicious fear seized her, and she clung to her lover so that he could perceive the tremor thatagitated her. 

No more was said. Their confidence was in each other; with Balder ather side, Gnulemah was fearful of the world no longer. But her visionswere all spiritual; even the kisses on her lips were to her a sacredmiracle! Love makes children of men and women, --shows them the wisdomof unreason and the value of soap-bubbles. These lovers must meet theworld, but the light and freshness of the Golden Age should accompanythem. The man held the maiden's hand, and so faced the future with asmile. 

Few as were the hours since they first had seen each other, it seemedas though they could hardly know each other better; then why put offthe consummation a single hour? Manetho had been right, and Baldermarvelled at having required the spur. He knew of no materialhindrances; unlimited resources would be his, and these would rendereasier Gnulemah's introduction to society. Perhaps (for doubtlessManetho would desire it) they might begin housekeeping in this veryhouse, and thus, by gradual approaches, make their way to life'srealities, --vulgarly so called!

At this moment, Balder's respect for wealth was many fold greater thanever it had been before. It should be the sword and shield wherewithhe would protect the woman of his heart. Gnulemah was not of the kindwho need the discipline of poverty; her beauty and goodness would bebest nurtured beneath an affluent sun. Wants and inconveniences wouldrather pain and mystify than educate her. How good was that God whohad vouchsafed not only the blessing, but the means of enjoying it!

God gave Balder Helwyse opportunity to prove the soundness of hisfaith. Labor and poverty awaited him; what else and worse let timeshow. In anguish, fear, and humiliation had his love been born, butthe birth-pangs had been as brief as they were intense. A brave soul'smetal is more severely tried by crawling years of monotonous effort, discord of must with wish, and secret self-suppression and misgiving. Happily life is so ordered that no blow can crush unless dealt fromwithin, nor is any sunshine worth having that shines only fromwithout. 

Balder's eyes were softer than their wont, and there was a tender andsweet expression about his mouth. Never had life been so inestimable ablessing, --never had nature looked so divinely alive. He could imaginenothing gloomy or forbidding; in darkness's self he would have foundgerms of light. His love was a panoply against ill of mind or body. Hethought he perceived, once for all, the insanity of selfishness andsin. 

Suddenly he was conscious through Gnulemah of the same shiver that hadvisited her in the conservatory that morning. Looking round, he wasstartled to see, beyond the near benison of her sumptuous face, thetall form of the Egyptian priest. He was not a dozen yards away, advancing slowly towards them. Balder sprang up. 

"Our chain, --you have broken it!" exclaimed Gnulemah. It was only aflower chain, but flowers are the bloom and luxury of life. 

Manetho came up with a smile. 

"Come, my children!" said he. "This chain would soon have faded andfallen apart of itself, but the chain I will forge you is strongerthan time and weightier than dandelions. Come!"

Gnulemah picked up the broken links, and they followed him to thehouse. 

XXXI. 

MARRIED. 

The significant part of most life histories is the record of a fewdetached hours, the rest being consequence and preparation. Helwysehad lived in constant mental and physical activity from childhood up;but though he had speculated much, and ever sought to prove the truthby practice, yet he had failed to create adequate emergencies, and waslike an untried sword, polished and keen, but lacking still the onestern proof of use. 

Thus, although a man of the world, in a deeper sense he was untouchedby it. He had been the sentimental spectator of a drama wherein someshadow of himself seemed to act. The mimic scenes had sometimes movedhim to laughter or to tears, but he had never quite lost the suspicionof an unreality under all. The best end had been--in a largesense--beauty. Beauty of love, of goodness, of strength, ofwisdom, --beauty of every kind and degree, but nothing better! Beautywas the end rather than the trait of all desirable things. To havepower was beautiful, and beautiful was the death that opened the wayto freer and wider power. Most beautiful was Almightiness; yet, lapsing thence, it was beautiful to begin the round again in fresh, new forms. 

This kind of spider-webs cannot outlast the suns and snows. Personalpassion disgusts one with brain-spun systems of the universe, and mayeven lead to a mistrust of mathematics! One feels the overwhelmingpower of other than intellectual interests; and discovers in himself ahitherto unsuspected universe, profound as the mystery of God, wherethe cockle-shell of mental attainments is lost like an asteroid in theabyss of space. 

What is the mind?--A little window, through which to gaze out upon thevast heart-world: a window whose crooked and clouded pane we maydiligently clean and enlarge day by day; but, too often, the deep viewbeyond is mistaken for a picture painted on the glass and limited byits sash! Let the window by all means expand till the darksome housebe transformed to a crystal palace! but shall homage be paid thecrystal? Of what value were its transparency, had God not built theheavens and the earth?--

Though Helwyse had failed to touch the core of life, and to recognizethe awful truth of its mysteries, he had not been conscious offailure. On the contrary he had become disposed to the belief that hewas a being apart from the mass of men and above them: one who couldsee round and through human plans and passions; could even be separatefrom himself, and yield to folly with one hand, while the other jotteddown the moral of the spectacle. He was calm in the conviction that hecould measure and calculate the universe, and draw its plan in hiscommonplace book. God was his elder brother, --himself in some distantbut attainable condition. He matched finity against the Infinite, andthereby cast away man's dearest hope, --that of eternal progresstowards the image of Divine perfection. 

Once, however, the bow had smitten his heart-strings with a new resultof sound, awakening fresh ideas of harmony. When Thor was swept todeath by that Baltic wave, Balder leapt after him, hopeless to save, but without demur! The sea hurled him back alone. For many a monththereafter, strange lights and shadows flashed or gloomed across hissky, and sounds from unknown abysses disquieted him. But all was notquite enough; perhaps he was hewn from too stanch materials lightly tochange. Yet the sudden shock of his loss left its mark: the props ofself-confidence were a little unsettled; and the events whose coursewe have traced were therefore able to shake them down. 

For Destiny rained her sharpest blows on Balder Helwyse all at once, and the attack marks the turning-point of his life. She chose herweapons wisely. He was beaten by tactics which a coarser and shallowernature would have slighted. He sustained the onslaught for the mostpart with outward composure, --but bleeding inwardly. 

His had been a vast egoism, rooted in his nature and trained by hisphilosophy. It must die, if at all, violently, painfully, and--insilence. The truer and more constant the soul, the more complete thedestruction of its idol. Character is not always the slow growth ofyears: often do the elements mingle long in formless solution; somesudden jar causes them to spring at once to the definite crystal. There had, hitherto, been a kind of impersonality about Balder, havingits ultimate ground in his blindness to the immutable unity of God. But so soon as his eye became single, he stood pronounced in hisindividuality, less broadly indifferent than of yore, but organizedand firm. 

In this inert world the body pursues but imperfectly the processes ofthe soul. These three days had made small change in Helwyse's face. His expression was less serene than of yore, but pithier as well asmore joyful. The humorous indifference had given place to a kindlierhumanity. Gone was the glance half satiric, half sympathetic; but inits stead was something warmer and more earnest. For the charity ofscepticism was substituted a sentiment less broad, but deeper andtruer. It would need an insight supernaturally keen to detect thusearly these alterations in the page of Balder's countenance; but theirgerms are there, to develop afterwards. 

During this pause in our narrative, Helwyse was sitting at his chamberwindow, awaiting the summons to the ceremony. The afternoon was faradvanced, and the landscape lay breathless beneath the golden burdenof the lavish sun. The bridegroom rose to his feet; surely the bridemust be ready! Was that strange old Nurse delaying her? Did sheherself procrastinate? Balder was waxing impatient!

The clear outcry of the hoopoe startled the calm air, and that goodlittle messenger came fluttering in haste to the window. Bound itsneck was twined a golden dandelion, --Gnulemah's love-token! With aknowing upturn of its bright little eye, the bird submitted to beingrobbed of its decoration; then warbled a keen good-by, and flew away. 

The lover behaved as foolishly towards the dandelion as a lovershould. At last he drew the stem through the button-hole of hisvelveteen jacket, and was ready to answer in person the shy invitationit conveyed. The bride waited!

His hand was on the latch, when some one knocked. He threw open thedoor, --and had to look twice before recognizing Nurse. Her dingyanomalous drapery had been exchanged for another sort of costume. Herscars strove to be hidden beneath the yellow lace and crumpledfeathers of an antique head-dress. She wore a satin gown of an oldfashion, whose pristine whiteness was much impaired by time. An agedfan, ragged, but of tasteful pattern, dangled at her wrist. Sheresembled some forgotten Ginevra, reappearing after an age's seclusionin the oaken chest. Her aspect was painfully repellent, the more forthis pathetic attempt at good looks. The former unlovely garb had asort of fitness to the blasted features; but so soon as she forsookthat uncanny harmony and tried to be like other women, she becameundesirably conspicuous. 

"The bridesmaid!" came to Balder's lips, --but did not pass them. Hewould not hurt the poor creature's feelings by the betrayal ofsurprise or amusement. She was a woman, --and Gnulemah was no more. According to his love for his wife, must he be tender and gentletowards her sex. 

When, therefore, Nurse gave him to understand that she was to marshalhim to the altar, Balder, never more heroic than at that moment, offered her his arm, which she accepted with an air of scarecrowgentility. Either the change of costume had struck in, or it was thesymbol of inward change. She seemed struggling against her torpor, herdimness and deadness. She tried, perhaps, to recall the day when thatdress was first put on, --the day of Helen's marriage, when Salome hadattended her mistress to the altar, --when she hoped before many weeksto stand at an altar on her own account. --Not yet, Salome, nor in thisworld. Perchance not in another; for they who maim their earthly livesmay not enjoy in heaven the happiness whose seed was not planted here. The injury is justly irreparable; else had angels been immediatelycreated. 

But Salome was practising deception on herself. Airs and graces whichmight have suited a coquettish lady's-maid, but were in her a ghastlyabsurdity, did she revive and perpetrate. Struggling to repress theugly truth, she was in continual dread of exposure. Fain would shedream for an hour of youth and beauty, knowing, yet veiling theknowledge, that it was a dream. Divining her desire, Balder helped outthe masquerade as best he might. She was thankfully aware of hiskindness, yet shunned acknowledgment, as a too bare betrayal of thecause of thanks. 

As they passed a cracked cheval-glass in an intervening room, thebridesmaid stole a glance at her reflection, flirting her fan andgiving an imposing whisk to the train of her gown. Helwyse, whom, three days before, this behavior would simply have amused, felt onlypitying sympathy to-day. Gnulemah was always before him, and charmedhis eyes and thoughts even to the hag on his arm. He brought himselfto address courteous and pleasant remarks to his companion, and tomeet unwincingly her one-eyed glance; and was as gallant as though herpretence had been truth. 

On entering the conservatory, Nurse seemed as much agitated as thoughshe, instead of Gnulemah, were to be chief actress in the comingceremony. At the Sphinx door she relinquished Balder's arm, and, hurrying across the conservatory, vanished behind Gnulemah's curtain. As she passed out of sight she threw a parting glance over hershoulder. The action recalled Gnulemah's backward look of the dayprevious, when she had fled at the sound of the closing door. Whatugly fatality suggested so fantastic a parallel between this creatureand Balder's future wife!

He entered the temple, which glowed and sparkled like a sombre gem. Many-colored lamps were hung on wires passing round the hall frompillar to massive pillar. Their glare defined the strange character ofthe Egyptian architecture and ornament; nevertheless, the place lookedless real and substantial than in the morning. It seemed theimpalpable creation of an enchanter, which his wand would anondissolve into air once more!

On each side the door sat a statue of polished red granite, with calmregular face and hands on knees. Helwyse, who had not observed thembefore, fancied them summoned as witnesses to the compact then to besolemnized. Doubtless they had witnessed ceremonies not less solemn orimposing. 

On the black marble altar at the further end of the hall was burningsome rich incense, whose perfumed smoke, clambering heavily upwards, mingled with that of the lamps beneath the ceiling. On the polishedfloor, in front, lay a rug of dark blue cloth, heavily bordered withgold; upon it were represented in conscientious profile a number oflank-limbed Egyptians performing some mystic rite. To the right of thealtar stood the priest Manetho, apparently engaged in prayer. Balderspoke to him. 

"This is more like a tomb than a wedding hall. Would not theconservatory have been more fitting?"

"Better make a tomb the starting-point of marriage than its goal!"smiled the holy man. "And is it not well that your posterity shouldbegin from the spot which saw the union that gave you being? andbeneath the eyes of him but for whom neither this hall nor we who hereassemble would to-day have existed!" He pointed to the mummy of oldHiero Glyphic, the aspect of which might have left a bad taste in themouth of Joy herself. Balder shrugged his shoulders. 

"It matters little, perhaps, where the seed is sown, so that theflower reach the sunshine at last. But your mummy is an ill-favoredwedding-guest, whatever honor we may owe the man who once lived in it. I would, not have Gnulemah--"

"Behold her!" interrupted Manetho, speaking as hough a handful of dusthad suddenly got in his throat. 

Yes, there she came, the old Nurse following her like a misshapenshadow. Daughter of sun and moon, --a modern Pandora endowed with thestrength of a loftier nature! She was robed in creamy white; herpendants were woven pearls. Fine lines of virgin gold gleamed in herturban, and through her long veil, and along the folds of her girdle. But the serpent necklace had been replaced by the dandelion chain thatBalder had made her. Her lips and cheeks were daintily aflame, and atender fire flickered in her eyes, which saw only Balder. She was abridal song such as had not been sung since Solomon. 

As the two reached the altar, Salome stepped to one side, andManetho's eye fell upon her; for a moment his gaze fixed, while aslight movement undulated through his body, as the wave travels alongthe cord. The old white dress, unseen for five-and-twenty years; someintangible trick of motion or attitude in the wearer; the occasion andcircumstance recurring with such near similarity, --these and perhapsother trifles combined to recall long-vanished Salome. She had stoodat that other wedding, just where Nurse was now, --bright, shapely, sparkling-eyed, full of love for him. What a grisly contrast wasthis!--Why had he thrown away that ardent, loving heart? How sweet andcomfortable might life have been to-day, with Salome his wife, andsons and daughters at her side, --daughters beautiful as Gnulemah, sonstall as Balder! But Hatred had been his chosen mistress, and dismalwas the progeny begotten on her! The pregnant existence that mighthave been his, and the scars and barrenness which had actuallyredounded to him, were symbolized in the remembered Salome and her ofto-day. 

The brief reminiscence passed, leaving Manetho face to face with hissacred duty. With the warning of the past in his ears and that of thefuture before his eyes, did he step unrelenting across the thresholdof his crime? At all events he neither hesitated nor turned back. Butthere was no triumph in his eyes, and his tones and manner were heavyand mechanical; as though the Devil (having brought him thus far withhis own consent and knowledge) had now to compel a frozen soul in asenseless body!

The service began, none the less hallowed for the lovers, because forManetho it was the solemn perversion of a sacred ceremony. His voicelabored through the perfumed air, and recoiled in broken echoes fromgloomy corners and deep-tinted walls. The encircling lamps glowed inserried lines of various light; the fantastic incense-flame rustledsoftly on the altar. The four figures seemed a group of phantoms, --amomentary rich illusion of the eye. And save for their viewless souls, what were they more? Earth is a phantom; but what we cannot grasp isreal and remains!--

The rite was over, the diamond gleamed from Gnulemah's finger, and thepriest with uplifted hands had bade man not part whom God had united. Husband and wife gazed at each other with freshness and wonder intheir eyes; as having expected to see some change, and anew delightedat finding more of themselves than ever!

Male and female pervades the universe, and marriage is the end andfulfilment of creation. God has builded the world of love and wisdom, woman and man; truly to live they must unite, she yielding herself tohis form, he moulding himself of her substance. As love unquickened bywisdom is barren, and knowledge impotent unkindled by affection, soare the unmarried lifeless. 

Ill and bitter was it, therefore, for Manetho and Salome, after themarried ones had departed, taking their happiness with them. Thepriest's, eyes were dry and dull, as he leaned wearily against thesmoking altar. 

"You did not speak!" he said to the woman; "you saw her betrayed toruin and pollution, and spoke not to save her!--Dumb? the dead mighthave moved their tongues in such need as this! She will abhor andcurse me forever! may you share her curse weighted with mine!--OGnulemah!"--

Salome cowered and trembled in her satin dress, beneath the burden ofthat heavy anathema. She had risen that day determined to reveal thesecret of her life before night. She had been awaiting a favorablemoment, but opportunity or decision still had failed her. Nevertheless, another morning should not find her the same nameless, forsaken creature that she was now. --Manetho had bowed his face uponthe altar, and so remained without movement. With one hand fumbling atthe bosom of her dress--(the scar of her lover's blow should be thetalisman to recall his allegiance), --Salome made bold to approach himand timidly touch his arm. 

"Unhand me! whatever you are, --devil! my time is not yet come!"

He raised a threatening arm, with a gleam of mad ferocity beneath hisbrows. But the woman did not shrink; the man was her god, and shepreferred death at his hands to life without him. Ignorant of thecause of her firmness, it seemed to cow him. He slunk behind thealtar, hurriedly unlocked the secret door, and let himself into thestudy. His haste had left the key in the lock outside. The doorslammed together, the spring-bolt caught, and the swathed head of oldHiero Glyphic shook as though the cold of twenty winters had come onhim at once. 

XXXII. 

SHUT IN. 

Left alone, Salome was taken with a panic; she fancied herselfdeserted in a giant tomb, with dead men gathering about her. Sheherself was in truth the grisliest spectre there, in her white satingown and feathers, and the horror of her hideous face. But she took toflight, and the key remained unnoticed in the lock. 

We, however, must spend an hour with Manetho in his narrow andprison-like retreat. There is less day and more night between thesehigh-shouldered walls than elsewhere; for though the sun is scarcebelow the horizon, cobwebs seem to pervade the air, making the eveninggray before its time. Yonder seated figure is the nucleus of thegloom. The room were less dark and oppressive, but for him!

Does he mean to spend the night here? He sits at ease, as one who, having labored the day long hard and honestly, finds repose at sundowngrateful. Such calm of mind and body argues inward peace--orparalysis!

But Manetho has food for meditation, for his work is stillincomplete. Ah, it has been but a sour and anxious work after all!when it is finished, let death come, since Death-in-life will be thesole alternative. Yet will death bring rest to your weariness, thinkyou? Would not Death's eyes look kindlier on you, if you had used moreworthily Death's brother, --Life? What would you give, Manetho, to seeall that you have done undone? if to undo it were possible!

One picture is ever before you, --you see it wherever you look, andwhether your eyes be shut or open, --two loving souls, standing hand inhand before you to be married. How happy they look! how noblyconfident is their affection! with what clear freedom their eyes soundone another's depths! Neither cares to have a thought or feelingunshared by the other. --What have you done, Manetho?--shall the deedstand? O dark and distorted soul! the minutes are slipping fast away, and you are slipping with them to a black eternity. Will you stir handnor foot to save yourself, to break your fall? not raise your voice, for once to speak the truth? Even yet the truth may save!--

The night of your life will this be, Manetho. Will you dream of thosewhose few hours of bliss will stamp Forever on the seal of yourdamnation? Think, --through what interminable æons the weight of theirjust curse will pile itself higher and heavier on your miserablesoul! Fain would you doubt the truth of immortality: but the power ofunbelief is gone; devil-like, you believe and tremble. And where isthe reward which should recompense you for this large outlay? Does thehoney of your long-awaited triumph offend your lips like gall?--Thenwoe for him whose morning dreams of vengeance become realities in theevening!--

How stands it between you and Gnulemah, Manetho? She has never lovedyou ardently, perhaps; but how will you face her hatred? It is late tobe asking such questions, --but has not her temperate affection beenyour most precious possession? have you not yearned and labored forit? have you not loved her with more than a father's tenderness? Undermask of planning her ruin, have not all the softer and better impulsesof your nature found exercise and sustenance? Conceiving a devil, haveyou brought forth an angel, and unawares tasted angelic joy?--If thisbe true, Manetho, your guilty purpose towards her is not excused, buthow much more awful becomes the contemplation of her fate! Rouse up!sluggard, rush forth! you may save her yet. Up! would you risk thesalvation of three souls to glut a meaningless spite? You have beenfighting shadows with a shadow. Up!--it is the last appeal. --

You stir, --get stiffly to your feet, --put hand to forehead, --starearound. The twilight has deepened apace; only by glancing upwards canyou distinguish a definite light. You are uncertain and lethargic inyour movements, as though the dawning in you of a worthy resolutionhad impaired the evil principle of your vitality. You are as a mannourished on poison, who suddenly tastes an antidote, --and finds itfatal!

You halt towards the door and put forth a hand to open it. You willsave Gnulemah; her innocence will save her from the knowledge of herloss. As for Balder, --his suffering will satisfy a reasonable enemy. No wife, no fortune, the cup dashed from his lips just as the aromawas ravishing his nostrils!--O, enough! Open the door, therefore, andgo forth. 

In your magnanimity you feel for the key, but it is not in itsaccustomed place. Try your pockets; still in vain! Startled, you turnto the table, and feel carefully over it from end to end. You raisethe heavy chair like a feather, and shake it bottom downwards. Nothingfalls. You are down on your knees groping affrighted amongst the dustand rubbish of the floor. The key is lost! You spring up, --brisklyenough now, --and stand with your long fingers working against oneanother, trying to think. That key, --where had you it last?--

A blank whirl is your memory, --nothing stands clearly out. How cameyou here? With whom did you speak just now? What was said?--Twopersons there seemed to be, oddly combined in one, --most unfamiliar intheir familiarity. Or was it your evil genius, Manetho? who bydevilish artifice has at this last hour shut the door against yourfirst good impulse; locked the door against soul and body; shut you inand carried off the key of your salvation. 

Do not give way yet; review your situation carefully. --Your voicewould be inaudible through these massive walls, were the listener buta yard away. --Be quick with your thinking, for the unmitigable minutesare dying fast and forever. --Were it known that you were here, couldyou be got out? No, for the secret of the door is known only toyourself. Those who once shared the knowledge with you are dead, ormany years gone! Your evil genius no doubt knows it, and all yoursecrets; but dream not that she will liberate you. She has beenawaiting this opportunity. You shall remain here to-night and manynights. Your bones shall lie gaunt on this cobwebbed floor. Only thedaily sunbeam shall know of your tomb. And Gnulemah?. .. 

Your knees falter beneath you, and you sink in wretched tears to thefloor, --tears that bring no drop of comfort. To be shut up alone witha soul like yours, at the moment when the sin so long tampered withhas escaped your control, and is pitilessly doing its devilish workon the other side your prison-walls, near, yet inaccessible, --who canmeasure the horror of it? Till now you have made your will the law ofright and wrong, and read your life by no higher light than your own. You read it otherwise to-night, lying here helpless and alone. Thatlost key has unlocked the fair front of your complacency and revealedthe wizened deformity behind it. You have been insane; but the anguishthat would craze a sane man clears the mist from your reason. Youbehold the truth at last; but as the drowning man sees the ship passon and leave him. 

But we care not to watch too curiously the writhings of yourimprisoned soul, Manetho; the less, because we doubt whether the agonywill be of benefit to you. Forgiveness of enemies is perhaps beyondyour scope; even your rage to save Gnulemah was kindled chiefly byyour impotence to do so. God forbid we do you less than justice! buthope seems dim for such as you; nor will a death-bed repentance, however sincere, avail to wipe away the sins of a lifetime. Jealousyof Balder, rather than desire for Gnulemah's eternal weal, awoke yourconscience. For the thought of their spending life in happy ignoranceof their true relationship inflames--does not allay--your agony!

Your womanish outburst of despairing tears over, a hot fever ofrestlessness besets you. The space is narrow for disquiet such asyours, --you hunt up and down the strip of floor like a caged beast. Noway out, --no way out!--Face to face with lingering death, why nothasten it? No moral scruple withholds you. Yet will you not die byyour own hand. Through all your suffering you will cling to life andworship it. Never will you open your arms to death, --which seems toyou no grave, compassionate angel, but a malignant fiend lying inambush for your soul. And such a fiend will your death be; for to allmen death is the reflection of their life in the mind's mirror. --Stillto and fro you fare, a moving shadow through a narrow gloom, walled inwith stone. 

Awful is this unnatural sanity of intellect: it is like the calm inthe whirlwind's centre, where the waves run higher though the air isdeadly still, and the surly mariner wishes the mad wind backagain. --To and fro you flit, goaded on and strengthened by untiringanguish. You are but the body of a man; your thought and emotion areabroad, haunting the unconscious, happy lovers!--

Suddenly you stop short in your blind walk, throw up your arms, andbreak into an irrepressible chuckle. Has your brain given way atlast?--No, your laugh is the outcome of a genuine revulsion offeeling, intense but legitimate. What is the cause of it?--You plungeinto the rubbish-heap at one end of the room, and grasp and drawforth the rickety old ladder which has been lying there these twentyyears. You have seen it almost daily, poking out amidst the cobwebs, and probably for that very reason have so long failed to perceive thatit was susceptible of a better use than to be food for worms. You setit upright against the wall; its top round falls three feet below thehorizontal aperture. Enough, if you tread with care. Narrow, steep, and rickety is the path to deliverance; but up! for your time isshort. 

Upward, with cautious eagerness! The ladder is warped and restsunevenly, and once or twice a round cracks beneath the down-pressingfoot; the thing is all unsound and might fall to pieces at any moment. However, the top is gained, and your nervous hands are on the sill atlast. Easing yourself a little higher, you look forth on the worldonce more. 

Not so late after all! Red still lingers along the western horizon, but against it is mounting and expanding a black cloud, glancing everand anon with dangerous lightning. In a clear sky-lake above thecloud, steadily burns a planet. The gentle twilight rests lovingly onearth's warm bosom--

Hark! look! what moves yonder beneath the trees?--

Your parched, eager face strained forwards, your hungry eyes eatingthrough the gloom, --see emerge from the avenue two figures, saunteringlover-like side to side! How forgetful of the world they seem! Littlethink they of you, of the rack on which you have been outstretched. But their hour has come. This moment shall be their last ofpeace, --their last of happy love. 

 * * * * *

--What sound was that?--Was it a yell of triumph, --a shout forhelp, --a scream of terror?--It does not come again; but the silence ismore terrible than the cry. 

XXXIII. 

THE BLACK CLOUD. 

"Hiero, --it was his voice!" said Gnulemah. She looked in her lover'sface, trusting to his wisdom and strength. She rested her courage onhis, but her eyes stirred him like a trumpet-call. The burden of thatcry had been calamity. Love is protean, makes but a step fromdalliance to grandeur. Balder, no longer a sentimental bridegroom, stood forth ready, brief, energetic, --but more a lover than before!

The voice had at the first moment sounded startlingly clear, then ithad seemed distant and muffled. As Helwyse swiftly skirted the granitewall of the temple, his mind was busy with conjecture; but he failedto hit upon any reasonable explanation. The cry had come from thedirection of the temple, and had he known of the existence of theapertures through the masonry, he might partly have solved themystery. As it was, he thought only of getting inside, feeling surethat, explainably or not, Manetho must be there. 

In the oaken hall he met Nurse, who had also heard the cry, but knewnot whence it proceeded. 

"In the temple, I think, " said Helwyse, answering her agitatedgesture. 

The clew was sufficient; she sped along towards the door whence shehad so lately fled panic-stricken, Helwyse following. Beneath thesolemn excitement and perplexity, lay warm and secure in his heart thethought of Gnulemah, --his wife. Blessed thought! which the whips andscorns of time should make but more tenderly dear and precious. 

As he breathed the incense-laden air of the temple, Balder's face grewstern. At each step he thought to see death in some ghastly form. Inthe joy of this his marriage night he had wished all the world mighthave rejoiced with him; but already was calamity abroad. Birth anddeath, love and hate, happiness and woe, are borne on every humanbreath, and mingled with daily meat and drink. So be it!--They wereparodies of humanity who should live on a purer diet or inhale a rareratmosphere. 

All the lights in the great hall, except the altar lamp, were burntout, and the place was very dusky. Nurse went straight towards thesecret door, looking neither to the right nor left; while Helwyse, whodid not suspect its existence, was prying into each dark nook andcorner. An inarticulate exclamation from the woman arrested him. Shewas standing behind the altar, close to the clock. As he approachedshe pointed to the wall. She had found the key in the lock, but darednot be first to brave the sight of what might be within. She appealedto the strength of the man, yet with a morbid jealousy of hisprecedence. 

Helywse saw the key, and, turning it, the seeming-solid wall discloseda door, opening outwards, a single slab of massive granite. Within allwas dark, and there was no sound. Was anything there?

He looked round to address Nurse, but her appearance checked him. Shewas staring into the darkness; he could feel her one-eyed glance passhim, fastening on something beyond. He moved to let the lamplightenter the doorway; and then in the illuminated square that fell on thefloor he saw Manetho's upturned face. The fallen priest lay with onearm doubled under him, the other thrown across his breast. Nursestared at her broken idol, motionless, with stertorous breathing. 

But was Manetho dead? Helwyse, the physician, stepped across thethreshold, and stooped to examine the body. The dumb creature followedand lay down, animal-like, close beside the deity of her worship. Presently the physician said, --

"There's life in him, but he's hurt internally. We must find a way tomove him from here. "

"Life!"--the woman heard, nor cared for more. Her dry fixedness gaveway with a gasp, and she broke into hysteric tears, rocking herselfbackwards and forwards, crooning over the insensible body, or stoopingto kiss it. She had no sense nor heed for the lover of her youth. 

"Could such a creature have been his wife? even his mistress?"questioned Helwyse of himself. But he spoke out sharply:--

"You must stop this. He must be revived at once. Go and make ready abed, and I will carry him to it. "

As he spoke, a silent shadow fell across the body, and Gnulemah stoodin the doorway. Balder's first impulse was to motion her away from aspectacle so unsuited to her eyes. But though the shadow made her faceinscrutable, the lines of her figure spoke, and not of weak timidityor effeminate consternation. Womanly she was, --instinct with thattender, sensitive power, the marvellous gift of God to woman only, which almost moves the sick man to bless his sickness. A holygift, --surely the immediate influx of Christ's spirit. Man knows itnot, albeit when he and woman have become more closely united thannow, he may attain to share the Divine prerogative. Study nor skillcan counterfeit it; but in the true woman it is perfect at the firstappeal as at the last. 

"He shall have my bed, " said this young goddess Isis; "it is ready, and my lamp is burning. "

Balder stooped to uplift his insensible burden. 

"O, not so!--more tenderly than that, " she interposed, softly. Amoment's hesitation, and then she unfastened the goldenshoulder-clasp, and shook off her ample mantle. This was Manetho'slitter. 

"I will help you carry him. --Why do you-weep, Nurse? he will awake, orBalder would have told us. "

Never, since Diana stooped to earth to love Endymion, was seen anobler sight than Gnulemah in her simple, clinging tunic, whose heavygolden hem kissed her polished knee, while her round and clear-cutarms were left bare. After the first glance, her lover lowered hiseyes, lest he should forget all else in gazing at her. But the bloodmounted silently to his cheeks and burned there. As for her, --shetrusted Balder more freely than herself. 

Manetho was laid gently on the broad robe, and so upraised and borneforwards; Balder at the head, Gnulemah at the foot. Heavy, heavy is alifeless body; but the man had cause to wonder at the woman's freshand easy strength. What a contrast was she to the disfigured creaturewho hobbled moaning beside the litter, the relaxed hand clutched inboth hers, kissing it again and again with grotesque passion! Yet bothwere women, and loved as women love. 

The granite statues sitting serene at the doorway maintained the stonycalm which, only, deserves the name of supernatural. These passed, theflowery heat of the dim conservatory brought them to Gnulemah's room. The curtain was looped up and the passage clear. Thus first did thewedded pair enter what should have been their bridal chamber, and laidthe lifeless body on the nuptial bed. 

A fair, pure room; the clear walls frescoed with graceful wreaths offloating figures. In the eastern window, through which the earliestsunbeams loved to fall, stood an alabaster altar; on it a chain offaded dandelions. The bed was a lovely nest, the lines flowing in longcurves, --a barge of Venus for lovers to voyage to heaven in. On atable near at hand lay some embroidered work at which Gnulemah's magicneedle had been busy of late. Balder glanced at these things with areverence almost timid; and, turning back to what lay so inert anddoltish on the sacred bed, he could not but sigh. 

Every means was employed to rally the Egyptian from his swoon. He boreno external marks of injury, but there could be no doubt that he hadsustained a terrible shock, and possibly concussion of the brain; theamount of the internal damages could not yet be estimated. --Meanwhilethe black cloud from the west was muttering drowsily overhead, and anoccasional lightning-flash dulled the mild radiance of the lamp. Asconsciousness ebbed back to the patient, the storm increased, and thetrembling roll of heavy thunder drowned the first gasps of returninglife. Had that vast cloud come to shut out his soul from heaven, andwas its mighty voice uttering the sentence of his condemnation? Theair was thick with the inconsolable weeping of the rain, and gustysighs of wind drove its cold tear-drops against the window. 

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

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

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

"Salome, --Salome, are you here? Touch me, --lay your cheek by mine. So, --give me your hand. I love you, my pretty pet, --your Manetho lovesyou!"

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

But Balder had perceived a startling significance in Manetho's words. He took Gnulemah by the hand and led her to the eastern window. Aflash greeted them, creating a momentary world, which started from thewomb of night, and vanished again before one could say "It is there!"Then followed a long-drawn, intermittent rumble, as if the fragmentsof the spectre world were tumbling avalanche-wise into chaos. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"My darling, you do not know what wrong he has done you--and others. It is only justice that he should learn how God punishes such as he!"

"Will not God teach him?" said Gnulemah, trembling to oppose the manshe loved, yet by love compelled to do so. 

Balder paused, and looked towards the bed. There was a flickeringsmile on Manetho's face; he seemed to be reviving. His injuries wereperhaps not fatal after all. Should he recover, he must sooner orlater receive his so-called punishment; meanwhile, Balder was inclinedto regard himself as the chosen minister of Divine justice. Why notspeak now?

This was the second occasion that he had held Manetho in his power, ata time when the Egyptian had been attempting his destruction. In theprevious encounter he had retaliated in kind. Would the bitter issueof that self-indulgence not make him wary now? Here was again themurderous lust of power, albeit disguised as love of justice. HadBalder's penitent suffering failed to teach him the truth of humanbrotherhood, and equality before God? Love, typified by Gnulemah, would fain dissuade him from his purpose: but love (as often happenswhen it stands in the way of harsh and ignoble impulses) appearedfoolishly merciful. 

Once again his glance met Gnulemah's, --lingered a moment, --and thenturned away. It was for the last time. At that moment he was lessnoble than ever before. But the expression of her eyes he neverforgot; the love, the entreaty, the grandeur, --the sorrow!--

He turned away and approached the bedside, while Gnulemah went tokneel at her maiden altar. Manetho's eyes were closed; his featureswore a singularly childlike expression. In truth, he was but halfhimself; the shock he had sustained had paralyzed one part of hisnature. The subtle, evil-plotting Egyptian was dormant; his braininterpreted nothing save the messages of the heart; only theaffectionate, emotional Manetho was awake. The evil he had done andthe misery of it were forgotten. --All this Balder divined; yet hisassumption of godlike censorship would not permit him to relent. It iswhen man deems himself most secure that he falls, in a worse way thanever. 

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

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

"I am Balder Helwyse, --the son of Thor, " continued the other, speakingwith incisive deliberation, better to touch the stunned man'sapprehension, "I once had a twin sister. You believe that Gnulemah isshe. "

The priest's features were getting a bewildered, plaintive expression. Either he was beginning to comprehend the purport of Balder's words, or else the sternness of the latter's tone and glance agitated him. 

Bader concentrated all his force into the utterance of the finalsentences, vowing to himself that his fallen enemy should understand!Did he think of Gnulemah then? or of Salome--partly for whose; sake, he feigned, he had assumed the scourge?

"My sister died, --was burned to death before she was a year old. Intrying to save her, the nurse almost lost her own life. On that samenight, this nurse gave birth to a daughter, --whose name you havecalled Gnulemah. Salome is her mother. Who her father is, Manetho, youbest know!"

The words were spoken, --but had the culprit heard them? Salome (whofrom the first had shrunk back to the head of the bed, beyond thepossible range Manetho's vision) burst into confused hysteric cries. Gnulemah had risen from her altar and was looking at Balder: he felther glance, --but though he told himself that he had done but justice, he dared not meet it!--He kept his eyes fastened on the pallidcountenance of the Egyptian. The latter's breath came feebly andirregularly, but the anxious expression was gone, and there was againthe flickering smile. All at once there was an odd, solemn change. --

The man was dying. Balder saw it, --saw that his enemy was escaping himunpunished! There yet remained one stimulant that might rouse him, andin the passion of the moment this self-appointed lieutenant of theAlmighty applied it. 

"Come forward here, Salome!" cried he; "let him look on the face thathis sins have given you. As there is a God in Heaven, your wrongsshall be set right!"

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

Then burst a thunder-clap like the crashing together of heaven andearth! At the same instant a blinding, hot glare shut out all sight. Balder was hurled back against the wall, a shock like the touch ofdeath in every nerve. 

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

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

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

Shivering and desperate, --not yet daring for his life tounderstand, --he came and stood before her, almost within reach ofthose groping hands. 

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

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

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

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

 * * * * *

The storm-cloud moved eastward and was dispersed. Black though hadbeen its shadow, it endured but for a moment; the echo of its furypassed away, and its deadly thunderbolt left behind a pureratmosphere. So sweeps and rages over men's heads the storm ofcalamity; and so dissolves, though seeming for the time indissoluble. 

But the distant planet comes forth serene from its brief eclipse, andas night deepens, bears its steady fire yet more aloft. Like God'slove, its radiance embraces the world, yet forgets not the smallestflower nor grain of sand. From its high station it beholds theinfinite day surround the night, and knows the good before and beyondthe ill. Great is its hope, for causes are not hidden from its quieteternal eye. 

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

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

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

"Now that I know there is no hope, I can acknowledge the good evenwhile I feel the hardship. Her dreams have been of a world such as noreal existence could show; to have been awakened would permanentlyhave saddened her, if no worse. But she is great enough to believewithout seeing; and in the deepest sense, her belief is true. Shestill remains in that ideal fairy-land in which I found her; and nodoubt, as time goes on, her visions grow more beautiful!"

Thus Balder Helwyse, in tones agreeably vigorous, though grave andlow. 

"Yes--yes; and perhaps, dear Balder, the denial of this one great boonmay save her from much indefinite disquiet; and certainly, as you say, from the great danger of disappointment and its consequences. Yes, --and you may still keep her lamp alight, with a more lasting thanPromethean fire!--But how is it with you, dear boy?"

"Let none who love me pray for my temporal prosperity, " returnsHelwyse, turning his strong, dark gaze on the other's aged eyes. "Ihave met with many worshippers of false gods, but none the germs ofwhose sin I found not in myself. The _I_ to whom was confided thisexcellent instrument of faculties and senses is a poor, weak, selfishcreature, who fancied his gifts argued the possession of the verymerits whose lack they prove. God, in His infinite mercy, dealssternly with me; and I know how to thank Him!"--

Mr. MacGentle does not reply in words; but a grave smile glimmers inhis faded eyes, and, smiling, he slowly shakes his venerable head. 

One more brief glimpse, and then we are done. --

A pleasant parlor of southern aspect, looking through a deepbay-window over a spacious garden. Here sits a stalwart gentleman ofmiddle age, with a little boy and girl on either knee, who playbo-peep with his wide-spreading yellow beard. How they all laugh! andwhat a pleasant laugh has the stalwart, dark-eyed gentleman, --sodeep-toned and yet so boyish! But presently all three pause to takebreath. 

"Thor, " then says the gentleman, "whose portrait did I tell you thatwas?" And he points to an oil-painting hanging over the piano. 

"Grandpapa MacGentle, papa!"

"What did he do for all of us?"

As Master Thor hesitates a moment, the little golden-haired ladybreaks in, --"_I_ know, papa! He made uth rich, and gave uth ourhouthe, and he thaw me when I wath a wee, wee baby, and then he--he--"

"He went to Heaven, papa!" says Thor, recovering himself. 

Hereupon there was a silence, because the two children, glancing up intheir father's face, saw that it was grave and thoughtful. 

But suddenly the little girl pricks up her small ears, and scramblesto the carpet, and sets off for the door at full speed, without aword. Thor is close behind, but just too late to be first in openingthe door. 

"Mamma! mamma!"

And Balder Helwyse springs up, and as she enters with the rejoicingchildren at each hand, he meets her with the thrilling smile which, inthis world, she will never see!

THE END. 

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