LILITH

By George MacDonald

I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the settingsun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its goldenrays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. Iwas impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shiningfamily had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me, --to whom the sun was servant, --who had not gone intosociety in the village, --who had not been called on. I saw theirpark, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding'scranberry-meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. Their house was not obvious to vision; their trees grew through it. Ido not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not. They seemed to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons and daughters. They are quite well. The farmer's cart-path, which leads directlythrough their hall, does not in the least put them out, --as the muddybottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies. They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is theirneighbor, --notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his teamthrough the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Theircoat of arms is simply a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines and oaks. Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no politics. There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weavingor spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was doneaway, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum, --as of a distant hive inMay, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idlethoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industrywas not as in knots and excrescences embayed. 

But I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably outof my mind even now while I speak and endeavor to recall them, andrecollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort torecollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of theircohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I shouldmove out of Concord. 

Thoreau: "WALKING. "

CHAPTER I. THE LIBRARY

I had just finished my studies at Oxford, and was taking a brief holidayfrom work before assuming definitely the management of the estate. Myfather died when I was yet a child; my mother followed him within ayear; and I was nearly as much alone in the world as a man might findhimself. 

I had made little acquaintance with the history of my ancestors. Almostthe only thing I knew concerning them was, that a notable number of themhad been given to study. I had myself so far inherited the tendency asto devote a good deal of my time, though, I confess, after a somewhatdesultory fashion, to the physical sciences. It was chiefly the wonderthey woke that drew me. I was constantly seeing, and on the outlook tosee, strange analogies, not only between the facts of different sciencesof the same order, or between physical and metaphysical facts, butbetween physical hypotheses and suggestions glimmering out of themetaphysical dreams into which I was in the habit of falling. I was atthe same time much given to a premature indulgence of the impulse toturn hypothesis into theory. Of my mental peculiarities there is nooccasion to say more. 

The house as well as the family was of some antiquity, but nodescription of it is necessary to the understanding of my narrative. It contained a fine library, whose growth began before the inventionof printing, and had continued to my own time, greatly influenced, ofcourse, by changes of taste and pursuit. Nothing surely can more impressupon a man the transitory nature of possession than his succeeding toan ancient property! Like a moving panorama mine has passed from beforemany eyes, and is now slowly flitting from before my own. 

The library, although duly considered in many alterations of the houseand additions to it, had nevertheless, like an encroaching state, absorbed one room after another until it occupied the greater part ofthe ground floor. Its chief room was large, and the walls of it werecovered with books almost to the ceiling; the rooms into which itoverflowed were of various sizes and shapes, and communicated in modesas various--by doors, by open arches, by short passages, by steps up andsteps down. 

In the great room I mainly spent my time, reading books of science, old as well as new; for the history of the human mind in relation tosupposed knowledge was what most of all interested me. Ptolemy, Dante, the two Bacons, and Boyle were even more to me than Darwin or Maxwell, as so much nearer the vanished van breaking into the dark of ignorance. 

In the evening of a gloomy day of August I was sitting in my usualplace, my back to one of the windows, reading. It had rained the greaterpart of the morning and afternoon, but just as the sun was setting, theclouds parted in front of him, and he shone into the room. I rose andlooked out of the window. In the centre of the great lawn the featheringtop of the fountain column was filled with his red glory. I turned toresume my seat, when my eye was caught by the same glory on the onepicture in the room--a portrait, in a sort of niche or little shrinesunk for it in the expanse of book-filled shelves. I knew it as thelikeness of one of my ancestors, but had never even wondered why it hungthere alone, and not in the gallery, or one of the great rooms, amongthe other family portraits. The direct sunlight brought out the paintingwonderfully; for the first time I seemed to see it, and for the firsttime it seemed to respond to my look. With my eyes full of the lightreflected from it, something, I cannot tell what, made me turn and casta glance to the farther end of the room, when I saw, or seemed to see, a tall figure reaching up a hand to a bookshelf. The next instant, myvision apparently rectified by the comparative dusk, I saw no one, and concluded that my optic nerves had been momentarily affected fromwithin. 

I resumed my reading, and would doubtless have forgotten the vague, evanescent impression, had it not been that, having occasion a momentafter to consult a certain volume, I found but a gap in the row where itought to have stood, and the same instant remembered that just there Ihad seen, or fancied I saw, the old man in search of a book. I lookedall about the spot but in vain. The next morning, however, there itwas, just where I had thought to find it! I knew of no one in the houselikely to be interested in such a book. 

Three days after, another and yet odder thing took place. 

In one of the walls was the low, narrow door of a closet, containingsome of the oldest and rarest of the books. It was a very thick door, with a projecting frame, and it had been the fancy of some ancestor tocross it with shallow shelves, filled with book-backs only. The harmlesstrick may be excused by the fact that the titles on the sham backswere either humorously original, or those of books lost beyond hope ofrecovery. I had a great liking for the masked door. 

To complete the illusion of it, some inventive workman apparently hadshoved in, on the top of one of the rows, a part of a volume thin enoughto lie between it and the bottom of the next shelf: he had cut awaydiagonally a considerable portion, and fixed the remnant with one ofits open corners projecting beyond the book-backs. The binding of themutilated volume was limp vellum, and one could open the corner farenough to see that it was manuscript upon parchment. 

Happening, as I sat reading, to raise my eyes from the page, my glancefell upon this door, and at once I saw that the book described, ifbook it may be called, was gone. Angrier than any worth I knew in itjustified, I rang the bell, and the butler appeared. When I asked him ifhe knew what had befallen it, he turned pale, and assured me he did not. I could less easily doubt his word than my own eyes, for he had been allhis life in the family, and a more faithful servant never lived. He lefton me the impression, nevertheless, that he could have said somethingmore. 

In the afternoon I was again reading in the library, and coming to apoint which demanded reflection, I lowered the book and let my eyes gowandering. The same moment I saw the back of a slender old man, in along, dark coat, shiny as from much wear, in the act of disappearingthrough the masked door into the closet beyond. I darted across theroom, found the door shut, pulled it open, looked into the closet, which had no other issue, and, seeing nobody, concluded, not withoutuneasiness, that I had had a recurrence of my former illusion, and satdown again to my reading. 

Naturally, however, I could not help feeling a little nervous, andpresently glancing up to assure myself that I was indeed alone, started again to my feet, and ran to the masked door--for there wasthe mutilated volume in its place! I laid hold of it and pulled: it wasfirmly fixed as usual!

I was now utterly bewildered. I rang the bell; the butler came; I toldhim all I had seen, and he told me all he knew. 

He had hoped, he said, that the old gentleman was going to be forgotten;it was well no one but myself had seen him. He had heard a good dealabout him when first he served in the house, but by degrees he hadceased to be mentioned, and he had been very careful not to allude tohim. 

"The place was haunted by an old gentleman, was it?" I said. 

He answered that at one time everybody believed it, but the fact that Ihad never heard of it seemed to imply that the thing had come to an endand was forgotten. 

I questioned him as to what he had seen of the old gentleman. 

He had never seen him, he said, although he had been in the house fromthe day my father was eight years old. My grandfather would never heara word on the matter, declaring that whoever alluded to it should bedismissed without a moment's warning: it was nothing but a pretext ofthe maids, he said, for running into the arms of the men! but old SirRalph believed in nothing he could not see or lay hold of. Not one ofthe maids ever said she had seen the apparition, but a footman had leftthe place because of it. 

An ancient woman in the village had told him a legend concerning a Mr. Raven, long time librarian to "that Sir Upward whose portrait hangsthere among the books. " Sir Upward was a great reader, she said--notof such books only as were wholesome for men to read, but of strange, forbidden, and evil books; and in so doing, Mr. Raven, who was probablythe devil himself, encouraged him. Suddenly they both disappeared, andSir Upward was never after seen or heard of, but Mr. Raven continued toshow himself at uncertain intervals in the library. There were some whobelieved he was not dead; but both he and the old woman held it easierto believe that a dead man might revisit the world he had left, thanthat one who went on living for hundreds of years should be a man atall. 

He had never heard that Mr. Raven meddled with anything in the house, but he might perhaps consider himself privileged in regard to the books. How the old woman had learned so much about him he could not tell; butthe description she gave of him corresponded exactly with the figure Ihad just seen. 

"I hope it was but a friendly call on the part of the old gentleman!" heconcluded, with a troubled smile. 

I told him I had no objection to any number of visits from Mr. Raven, but it would be well he should keep to his resolution of saying nothingabout him to the servants. Then I asked him if he had ever seen themutilated volume out of its place; he answered that he never had, andhad always thought it a fixture. With that he went to it, and gave it apull: it seemed immovable. 

CHAPTER II. THE MIRROR

Nothing more happened for some days. I think it was about a week after, when what I have now to tell took place. 

I had often thought of the manuscript fragment, and repeatedly triedto discover some way of releasing it, but in vain: I could not find outwhat held it fast. 

But I had for some time intended a thorough overhauling of the books inthe closet, its atmosphere causing me uneasiness as to their condition. One day the intention suddenly became a resolve, and I was in the act ofrising from my chair to make a beginning, when I saw the old librarianmoving from the door of the closet toward the farther end of the room. I ought rather to say only that I caught sight of something shadowy fromwhich I received the impression of a slight, stooping man, in a shabbydress-coat reaching almost to his heels, the tails of which, dispartinga little as he walked, revealed thin legs in black stockings, and largefeet in wide, slipper-like shoes. 

At once I followed him: I might be following a shadow, but I neverdoubted I was following something. He went out of the library into thehall, and across to the foot of the great staircase, then up the stairsto the first floor, where lay the chief rooms. Past these rooms, Ifollowing close, he continued his way, through a wide corridor, to thefoot of a narrower stair leading to the second floor. Up that he wentalso, and when I reached the top, strange as it may seem, I found myselfin a region almost unknown to me. I never had brother or sister toincite to such romps as make children familiar with nook and cranny; Iwas a mere child when my guardian took me away; and I had never seen thehouse again until, about a month before, I returned to take possession. 

Through passage after passage we came to a door at the bottom of awinding wooden stair, which we ascended. Every step creaked under myfoot, but I heard no sound from that of my guide. Somewhere in themiddle of the stair I lost sight of him, and from the top of it theshadowy shape was nowhere visible. I could not even imagine I saw him. The place was full of shadows, but he was not one of them. 

I was in the main garret, with huge beams and rafters over my head, great spaces around me, a door here and there in sight, and long vistaswhose gloom was thinned by a few lurking cobwebbed windows and smalldusky skylights. I gazed with a strange mingling of awe and pleasure:the wide expanse of garret was my own, and unexplored!

In the middle of it stood an unpainted inclosure of rough planks, thedoor of which was ajar. Thinking Mr. Raven might be there, I pushed thedoor, and entered. 

The small chamber was full of light, but such as dwells in placesdeserted: it had a dull, disconsolate look, as if it found itself of nouse, and regretted having come. A few rather dim sunrays, marking theirtrack through the cloud of motes that had just been stirred up, fell upon a tall mirror with a dusty face, old-fashioned and rathernarrow--in appearance an ordinary glass. It had an ebony frame, on thetop of which stood a black eagle, with outstretched wings, in his beak agolden chain, from whose end hung a black ball. 

I had been looking at rather than into the mirror, when suddenly Ibecame aware that it reflected neither the chamber nor my own person. Ihave an impression of having seen the wall melt away, but what followedis enough to account for any uncertainty:--could I have mistaken for amirror the glass that protected a wonderful picture?

I saw before me a wild country, broken and heathy. Desolate hills ofno great height, but somehow of strange appearance, occupied the middledistance; along the horizon stretched the tops of a far-off mountainrange; nearest me lay a tract of moorland, flat and melancholy. 

Being short-sighted, I stepped closer to examine the texture of a stonein the immediate foreground, and in the act espied, hopping toward mewith solemnity, a large and ancient raven, whose purply black was hereand there softened with gray. He seemed looking for worms as he came. Nowise astonished at the appearance of a live creature in a picture, I took another step forward to see him better, stumbled oversomething--doubtless the frame of the mirror--and stood nose to beakwith the bird: I was in the open air, on a houseless heath!

CHAPTER III. THE RAVEN

I turned and looked behind me: all was vague and uncertain, as whenone cannot distinguish between fog and field, between cloud andmountain-side. One fact only was plain--that I saw nothing I knew. Imagining myself involved in a visual illusion, and that touch wouldcorrect sight, I stretched my arms and felt about me, walking in thisdirection and that, if haply, where I could see nothing, I might yetcome in contact with something; but my search was vain. Instinctivelythen, as to the only living thing near me, I turned to the raven, which stood a little way off, regarding me with an expression at oncerespectful and quizzical. Then the absurdity of seeking counsel fromsuch a one struck me, and I turned again, overwhelmed with bewilderment, not unmingled with fear. Had I wandered into a region where both thematerial and psychical relations of our world had ceased to hold? Mighta man at any moment step beyond the realm of order, and become the sportof the lawless? Yet I saw the raven, felt the ground under my feet, andheard a sound as of wind in the lowly plants around me!

"How DID I get here?" I said--apparently aloud, for the question wasimmediately answered. 

"You came through the door, " replied an odd, rather harsh voice. 

I looked behind, then all about me, but saw no human shape. The terrorthat madness might be at hand laid hold upon me: must I henceforth placeno confidence either in my senses or my consciousness? The same instantI knew it was the raven that had spoken, for he stood looking up at mewith an air of waiting. The sun was not shining, yet the bird seemed tocast a shadow, and the shadow seemed part of himself. 

I beg my reader to aid me in the endeavour to make myselfintelligible--if here understanding be indeed possible between us. I wasin a world, or call it a state of things, an economy of conditions, anidea of existence, so little correspondent with the ways and modes ofthis world--which we are apt to think the only world, that the bestchoice I can make of word or phrase is but an adumbration of whatI would convey. I begin indeed to fear that I have undertaken animpossibility, undertaken to tell what I cannot tell because no speechat my command will fit the forms in my mind. Already I have set downstatements I would gladly change did I know how to substitute a truerutterance; but as often as I try to fit the reality with nearer words, Ifind myself in danger of losing the things themselves, and feel like onein process of awaking from a dream, with the thing that seemed familiargradually yet swiftly changing through a succession of forms until itsvery nature is no longer recognisable. 

I bethought me that a bird capable of addressing a man must have theright of a man to a civil answer; perhaps, as a bird, even a greaterclaim. 

A tendency to croak caused a certain roughness in his speech, but hisvoice was not disagreeable, and what he said, although conveying littleenlightenment, did not sound rude. 

"I did not come through any door, " I rejoined. 

"I saw you come through it!--saw you with my own ancient eyes!" assertedthe raven, positively but not disrespectfully. 

"I never saw any door!" I persisted. 

"Of course not!" he returned; "all the doors you had yet seen--and youhaven't seen many--were doors in; here you came upon a door out! Thestrange thing to you, " he went on thoughtfully, "will be, that the moredoors you go out of, the farther you get in!"

"Oblige me by telling me where I am. "

"That is impossible. You know nothing about whereness. The only way tocome to know where you are is to begin to make yourself at home. "

"How am I to begin that where everything is so strange?"

"By doing something. "

"What?"

"Anything; and the sooner you begin the better! for until you are athome, you will find it as difficult to get out as it is to get in. "

"I have, unfortunately, found it too easy to get in; once out I shallnot try again!"

"You have stumbled in, and may, possibly, stumble out again. Whether youhave got in UNFORTUNATELY remains to be seen. "

"Do you never go out, sir?"

"When I please I do, but not often, or for long. Your world is sucha half-baked sort of place, it is at once so childish and soself-satisfied--in fact, it is not sufficiently developed for an oldraven--at your service!"

"Am I wrong, then, in presuming that a man is superior to a bird?"

"That is as it may be. We do not waste our intellects in generalising, but take man or bird as we find him. --I think it is now my turn to askyou a question!"

"You have the best of rights, " I replied, "in the fact that you CAN doso!"

"Well answered!" he rejoined. "Tell me, then, who you are--if you happento know. "

"How should I help knowing? I am myself, and must know!"

"If you know you are yourself, you know that you are not somebody else;but do you know that you are yourself? Are you sure you are not your ownfather?--or, excuse me, your own fool?--Who are you, pray?"

I became at once aware that I could give him no notion of who I was. Indeed, who was I? It would be no answer to say I was who! Then Iunderstood that I did not know myself, did not know what I was, had nogrounds on which to determine that I was one and not another. As for thename I went by in my own world, I had forgotten it, and did not care torecall it, for it meant nothing, and what it might be was plainly ofno consequence here. I had indeed almost forgotten that there it was acustom for everybody to have a name! So I held my peace, and it was mywisdom; for what should I say to a creature such as this raven, who sawthrough accident into entity?

"Look at me, " he said, "and tell me who I am. "

As he spoke, he turned his back, and instantly I knew him. He was nolonger a raven, but a man above the middle height with a stoop, verythin, and wearing a long black tail-coat. Again he turned, and I saw hima raven. 

"I have seen you before, sir, " I said, feeling foolish rather thansurprised. 

"How can you say so from seeing me behind?" he rejoined. "Did you eversee yourself behind? You have never seen yourself at all!--Tell me now, then, who I am. "

"I humbly beg your pardon, " I answered: "I believe you were once thelibrarian of our house, but more WHO I do not know. "

"Why do you beg my pardon?"

"Because I took you for a raven, " I said--seeing him before me asplainly a raven as bird or man could look. 

"You did me no wrong, " he returned. "Calling me a raven, or thinking meone, you allowed me existence, which is the sum of what one candemand of his fellow-beings. Therefore, in return, I will give you alesson:--No one can say he is himself, until first he knows that he IS, and then what HIMSELF is. In fact, nobody is himself, and himself isnobody. There is more in it than you can see now, but not more than youneed to see. You have, I fear, got into this region too soon, but nonethe less you must get to be at home in it; for home, as you may ormay not know, is the only place where you can go out and in. There areplaces you can go into, and places you can go out of; but the one place, if you do but find it, where you may go out and in both, is home. "

He turned to walk away, and again I saw the librarian. He did not appearto have changed, only to have taken up his shadow. I know this seemsnonsense, but I cannot help it. 

I gazed after him until I saw him no more; but whether distance hid him, or he disappeared among the heather, I cannot tell. 

Could it be that I was dead, I thought, and did not know it? Was I inwhat we used to call the world beyond the grave? and must I wander aboutseeking my place in it? How was I to find myself at home? The ravensaid I must do something: what could I do here?--And would that make mesomebody? for now, alas, I was nobody!

I took the way Mr. Raven had gone, and went slowly after him. PresentlyI saw a wood of tall slender pine-trees, and turned toward it. The odourof it met me on my way, and I made haste to bury myself in it. 

Plunged at length in its twilight glooms, I spied before me somethingwith a shine, standing between two of the stems. It had no colour, but was like the translucent trembling of the hot air that rises, in aradiant summer noon, from the sun-baked ground, vibrant like the smittenchords of a musical instrument. What it was grew no plainer as I wentnearer, and when I came close up, I ceased to see it, only the formand colour of the trees beyond seemed strangely uncertain. I would havepassed between the stems, but received a slight shock, stumbled, and fell. When I rose, I saw before me the wooden wall of the garretchamber. I turned, and there was the mirror, on whose top the blackeagle seemed but that moment to have perched. 

Terror seized me, and I fled. Outside the chamber the wide garretspaces had an UNCANNY look. They seemed to have long been waiting forsomething; it had come, and they were waiting again! A shudder wentthrough me on the winding stair: the house had grown strange to me!something was about to leap upon me from behind! I darted down thespiral, struck against the wall and fell, rose and ran. On the nextfloor I lost my way, and had gone through several passages a second timeere I found the head of the stair. At the top of the great stair I hadcome to myself a little, and in a few moments I sat recovering my breathin the library. 

Nothing should ever again make me go up that last terrible stair!The garret at the top of it pervaded the whole house! It sat upon it, threatening to crush me out of it! The brooding brain of the building, it was full of mysterious dwellers, one or other of whom might anymoment appear in the library where I sat! I was nowhere safe! I wouldlet, I would sell the dreadful place, in which an aërial portal stoodever open to creatures whose life was other than human! I would purchasea crag in Switzerland, and thereon build a wooden nest of one story withnever a garret above it, guarded by some grand old peak that would senddown nothing worse than a few tons of whelming rock!

I knew all the time that my thinking was foolish, and was even aware ofa certain undertone of contemptuous humour in it; but suddenly it waschecked, and I seemed again to hear the croak of the raven. 

"If I know nothing of my own garret, " I thought, "what is thereto secure me against my own brain? Can I tell what it is even nowgenerating?--what thought it may present me the next moment, the nextmonth, or a year away? What is at the heart of my brain? What is behindmy THINK? Am I there at all?--Who, what am I?"

I could no more answer the question now than when the raven put it tome in--at--"Where in?--where at?" I said, and gave myself up as knowinganything of myself or the universe. 

I started to my feet, hurried across the room to the masked door, wherethe mutilated volume, sticking out from the flat of soulless, bodiless, non-existent books, appeared to beckon me, went down on my knees, andopened it as far as its position would permit, but could see nothing. Igot up again, lighted a taper, and peeping as into a pair of reluctantjaws, perceived that the manuscript was verse. Further I could not carrydiscovery. Beginnings of lines were visible on the left-hand page, and ends of lines on the other; but I could not, of course, get at thebeginning and end of a single line, and was unable, in what I couldread, to make any guess at the sense. The mere words, however, woke inme feelings which to describe was, from their strangeness, impossible. Some dreams, some poems, some musical phrases, some pictures, wakefeelings such as one never had before, new in colour and form--spiritualsensations, as it were, hitherto unproved: here, some of the phrases, some of the senseless half-lines, some even of the individual wordsaffected me in similar fashion--as with the aroma of an idea, rousingin me a great longing to know what the poem or poems might, even yet intheir mutilation, hold or suggest. 

I copied out a few of the larger shreds attainable, and tried hard tocomplete some of the lines, but without the least success. The onlything I gained in the effort was so much weariness that, when I went tobed, I fell asleep at once and slept soundly. 

In the morning all that horror of the empty garret spaces had left me. 

CHAPTER IV. SOMEWHERE OR NOWHERE?

The sun was very bright, but I doubted if the day would long be fine, and looked into the milky sapphire I wore, to see whether the star in itwas clear. It was even less defined than I had expected. I rose from thebreakfast-table, and went to the window to glance at the stone again. There had been heavy rain in the night, and on the lawn was a thrushbreaking his way into the shell of a snail. 

As I was turning my ring about to catch the response of the star to thesun, I spied a keen black eye gazing at me out of the milky misty blue. The sight startled me so that I dropped the ring, and when I picked itup the eye was gone from it. The same moment the sun was obscured;a dark vapour covered him, and in a minute or two the whole sky wasclouded. The air had grown sultry, and a gust of wind came suddenly. A moment more and there was a flash of lightning, with a single sharpthunder-clap. Then the rain fell in torrents. 

I had opened the window, and stood there looking out at the precipitousrain, when I descried a raven walking toward me over the grass, withsolemn gait, and utter disregard of the falling deluge. Suspecting whohe was, I congratulated myself that I was safe on the ground-floor. Atthe same time I had a conviction that, if I were not careful, somethingwould happen. 

He came nearer and nearer, made a profound bow, and with a sudden wingedleap stood on the window-sill. Then he stepped over the ledge, jumpeddown into the room, and walked to the door. I thought he was on his wayto the library, and followed him, determined, if he went up the stair, not to take one step after him. He turned, however, neither toward thelibrary nor the stair, but to a little door that gave upon a grass-patchin a nook between two portions of the rambling old house. I made hasteto open it for him. He stepped out into its creeper-covered porch, andstood looking at the rain, which fell like a huge thin cataract; I stoodin the door behind him. The second flash came, and was followed by alengthened roll of more distant thunder. He turned his head over hisshoulder and looked at me, as much as to say, "You hear that?" thenswivelled it round again, and anew contemplated the weather, apparentlywith approbation. So human were his pose and carriage and the way hekept turning his head, that I remarked almost involuntarily, "Fine weather for the worms, Mr. Raven!"

"Yes, " he answered, in the rather croaky voice I had learned to know, "the ground will be nice for them to get out and in!--It must be agrand time on the steppes of Uranus!" he added, with a glance upward; "Ibelieve it is raining there too; it was, all the last week!"

"Why should that make it a grand time?" I asked. 

"Because the animals there are all burrowers, " he answered, "--like thefield-mice and the moles here. --They will be, for ages to come. "

"How do you know that, if I may be so bold?" I rejoined. 

"As any one would who had been there to see, " he replied. "It is a greatsight, until you get used to it, when the earth gives a heave, andout comes a beast. You might think it a hairy elephant or adeinotherium--but none of the animals are the same as we have everhad here. I was almost frightened myself the first time I saw thedry-bog-serpent come wallowing out--such a head and mane! and SUCHeyes!--but the shower is nearly over. It will stop directly after thenext thunder-clap. There it is!"

A flash came with the words, and in about half a minute the thunder. Then the rain ceased. 

"Now we should be going!" said the raven, and stepped to the front ofthe porch. 

"Going where?" I asked. 

"Going where we have to go, " he answered. "You did not surely think youhad got home? I told you there was no going out and in at pleasure untilyou were at home!"

"I do not want to go, " I said. 

"That does not make any difference--at least not much, " he answered. "This is the way!"

"I am quite content where I am. "

"You think so, but you are not. Come along. "

He hopped from the porch onto the grass, and turned, waiting. 

"I will not leave the house to-day, " I said with obstinacy. 

"You will come into the garden!" rejoined the raven. 

"I give in so far, " I replied, and stepped from the porch. 

The sun broke through the clouds, and the raindrops flashed and sparkledon the grass. The raven was walking over it. 

"You will wet your feet!" I cried. 

"And mire my beak, " he answered, immediately plunging it deep in thesod, and drawing out a great wriggling red worm. He threw back his head, and tossed it in the air. It spread great wings, gorgeous in red andblack, and soared aloft. 

"Tut! tut!" I exclaimed; "you mistake, Mr. Raven: worms are not thelarvæ of butterflies!"

"Never mind, " he croaked; "it will do for once! I'm not a reading manat present, but sexton at the--at a certain graveyard--cemetery, moreproperly--in--at--no matter where!"

"I see! you can't keep your spade still: and when you have nothing tobury, you must dig something up! Only you should mind what it is beforeyou make it fly! No creature should be allowed to forget what and whereit came from!"

"Why?" said the raven. 

"Because it will grow proud, and cease to recognise its superiors. "

No man knows it when he is making an idiot of himself. 

"Where DO the worms come from?" said the raven, as if suddenly growncurious to know. 

"Why, from the earth, as you have just seen!" I answered. 

"Yes, last!" he replied. "But they can't have come from it first--forthat will never go back to it!" he added, looking up. 

I looked up also, but could see nothing save a little dark cloud, theedges of which were red, as if with the light of the sunset. 

"Surely the sun is not going down!" I exclaimed, struck with amazement. 

"Oh, no!" returned the raven. "That red belongs to the worm. "

"You see what comes of making creatures forget their origin!" I criedwith some warmth. 

"It is well, surely, if it be to rise higher and grow larger!" hereturned. "But indeed I only teach them to find it!"

"Would you have the air full of worms?"

"That is the business of a sexton. If only the rest of the clergyunderstood it as well!"

In went his beak again through the soft turf, and out came the wrigglingworm. He tossed it in the air, and away it flew. 

I looked behind me, and gave a cry of dismay: I had but that momentdeclared I would not leave the house, and already I was a stranger inthe strange land!

"What right have you to treat me so, Mr. Raven?" I said with deepoffence. "Am I, or am I not, a free agent?"

"A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer, "answered the raven. 

"You have no right to make me do things against my will!"

"When you have a will, you will find that no one can. "

"You wrong me in the very essence of my individuality!" I persisted. 

"If you were an individual I could not, therefore now I do not. You arebut beginning to become an individual. "

All about me was a pine-forest, in which my eyes were already searchingdeep, in the hope of discovering an unaccountable glimmer, and sofinding my way home. But, alas! how could I any longer call that houseHOME, where every door, every window opened into OUT, and even thegarden I could not keep inside!

I suppose I looked discomfited. 

"Perhaps it may comfort you, " said the raven, "to be told that you havenot yet left your house, neither has your house left you. At the sametime it cannot contain you, or you inhabit it!"

"I do not understand you, " I replied. "Where am I?"

"In the region of the seven dimensions, " he answered, with a curiousnoise in his throat, and a flutter of his tail. "You had better followme carefully now for a moment, lest you should hurt some one!"

"There is nobody to hurt but yourself, Mr. Raven! I confess I shouldrather like to hurt you!"

"That you see nobody is where the danger lies. But you see that largetree to your left, about thirty yards away?"

"Of course I do: why should I not?" I answered testily. 

"Ten minutes ago you did not see it, and now you do not know where itstands!"

"I do. "

"Where do you think it stands?"

"Why THERE, where you know it is!"

"Where is THERE?"

"You bother me with your silly questions!" I cried. "I am growing tiredof you!"

"That tree stands on the hearth of your kitchen, and grows nearlystraight up its chimney, " he said. 

"Now I KNOW you are making game of me!" I answered, with a laugh ofscorn. 

"Was I making game of you when you discovered me looking out of yourstar-sapphire yesterday?"

"That was this morning--not an hour ago!"

"I have been widening your horizon longer than that, Mr. Vane; but nevermind!"

"You mean you have been making a fool of me!" I said, turning from him. 

"Excuse me: no one can do that but yourself!"

"And I decline to do it. "

"You mistake. "

"How?"

"In declining to acknowledge yourself one already. You make yourselfsuch by refusing what is true, and for that you will sorely punishyourself. "

"How, again?"

"By believing what is not true. "

"Then, if I walk to the other side of that tree, I shall walk throughthe kitchen fire?"

"Certainly. You would first, however, walk through the lady at the pianoin the breakfast-room. That rosebush is close by her. You would give hera terrible start!"

"There is no lady in the house!"

"Indeed! Is not your housekeeper a lady? She is counted such in acertain country where all are servants, and the liveries one andmultitudinous!"

"She cannot use the piano, anyhow!"

"Her niece can: she is there--a well-educated girl and a capitalmusician. "

"Excuse me; I cannot help it: you seem to me to be talking sheernonsense!"

"If you could but hear the music! Those great long heads of wildhyacinth are inside the piano, among the strings of it, and give thatpeculiar sweetness to her playing!--Pardon me: I forgot your deafness!"

"Two objects, " I said, "cannot exist in the same place at the sametime!"

"Can they not? I did not know!--I remember now they do teach that withyou. It is a great mistake--one of the greatest ever wiseacre made! Noman of the universe, only a man of the world could have said so!"

"You a librarian, and talk such rubbish!" I cried. "Plainly, you did notread many of the books in your charge!"

"Oh, yes! I went through all in your library--at the time, and came outat the other side not much the wiser. I was a bookworm then, but when Icame to know it, I woke among the butterflies. To be sure I have givenup reading for a good many years--ever since I was made sexton. --There!I smell Grieg's Wedding March in the quiver of those rose-petals!"

I went to the rose-bush and listened hard, but could not hear thethinnest ghost of a sound; I only smelt something I had never beforesmelt in any rose. It was still rose-odour, but with a difference, caused, I suppose, by the Wedding March. 

When I looked up, there was the bird by my side. 

"Mr. Raven, " I said, "forgive me for being so rude: I was irritated. Will you kindly show me my way home? I must go, for I have anappointment with my bailiff. One must not break faith with hisservants!"

"You cannot break what was broken days ago!" he answered. 

"Do show me the way, " I pleaded. 

"I cannot, " he returned. "To go back, you must go through yourself, andthat way no man can show another. "

Entreaty was vain. I must accept my fate! But how was life to be livedin a world of which I had all the laws to learn? There would, however, be adventure! that held consolation; and whether I found my way home ornot, I should at least have the rare advantage of knowing two worlds!

I had never yet done anything to justify my existence; my former worldwas nothing the better for my sojourn in it: here, however, I must earn, or in some way find, my bread! But I reasoned that, as I was not toblame in being here, I might expect to be taken care of here as well asthere! I had had nothing to do with getting into the world I had justleft, and in it I had found myself heir to a large property! If thatworld, as I now saw, had a claim upon me because I had eaten, and couldeat again, upon this world I had a claim because I must eat--when itwould in return have a claim on me!

"There is no hurry, " said the raven, who stood regarding me; "we do notgo much by the clock here. Still, the sooner one begins to do what hasto be done, the better! I will take you to my wife. "

"Thank you. Let us go!" I answered, and immediately he led the way. 

CHAPTER V. THE OLD CHURCH

I followed him deep into the pine-forest. Neither of us said much whileyet the sacred gloom of it closed us round. We came to larger and yetlarger trees--older, and more individual, some of them grotesque withage. Then the forest grew thinner. 

"You see that hawthorn?" said my guide at length, pointing with hisbeak. 

I looked where the wood melted away on the edge of an open heath. 

"I see a gnarled old man, with a great white head, " I answered. 

"Look again, " he rejoined: "it is a hawthorn. "

"It seems indeed an ancient hawthorn; but this is not the season for thehawthorn to blossom!" I objected. 

"The season for the hawthorn to blossom, " he replied, "is when thehawthorn blossoms. That tree is in the ruins of the church on yourhome-farm. You were going to give some directions to the bailiff aboutits churchyard, were you not, the morning of the thunder?"

"I was going to tell him I wanted it turned into a wilderness ofrose-trees, and that the plough must never come within three yards ofit. "

"Listen!" said the raven, seeming to hold his breath. 

I listened, and heard--was it the sighing of a far-off musical wind--orthe ghost of a music that had once been glad? Or did I indeed hearanything?

"They go there still, " said the raven. 

"Who goes there? and where do they go?" I asked. 

"Some of the people who used to pray there, go to the ruins still, " hereplied. "But they will not go much longer, I think. "

"What makes them go now?"

"They need help from each other to get their thinking done, and theirfeelings hatched, so they talk and sing together; and then, they say, the big thought floats out of their hearts like a great ship out of theriver at high water. "

"Do they pray as well as sing?"

"No; they have found that each can best pray in his own silentheart. --Some people are always at their prayers. --Look! look! There goesone!"

He pointed right up into the air. A snow-white pigeon was mounting, withquick and yet quicker wing-flap, the unseen spiral of an ethereal stair. The sunshine flashed quivering from its wings. 

"I see a pigeon!" I said. 

"Of course you see a pigeon, " rejoined the raven, "for there is thepigeon! I see a prayer on its way. --I wonder now what heart is thatdove's mother! Some one may have come awake in my cemetery!"

"How can a pigeon be a prayer?" I said. "I understand, of course, howit should be a fit symbol or likeness for one; but a live pigeon to comeout of a heart!"

"It MUST puzzle you! It cannot fail to do so!"

"A prayer is a thought, a thing spiritual!" I pursued. 

"Very true! But if you understood any world besides your own, you wouldunderstand your own much better. --When a heart is really alive, then itis able to think live things. There is one heart all whose thoughtsare strong, happy creatures, and whose very dreams are lives. When somepray, they lift heavy thoughts from the ground, only to drop them on itagain; others send up their prayers in living shapes, this or that, thenearest likeness to each. All live things were thoughts to begin with, and are fit therefore to be used by those that think. When one says tothe great Thinker:--'Here is one of thy thoughts: I am thinking it now!'that is a prayer--a word to the big heart from one of its own littlehearts. --Look, there is another!"

This time the raven pointed his beak downward--to something at the footof a block of granite. I looked, and saw a little flower. I had neverseen one like it before, and cannot utter the feeling it woke in me byits gracious, trusting form, its colour, and its odour as of a new worldthat was yet the old. I can only say that it suggested an anemone, wasof a pale rose-hue, and had a golden heart. 

"That is a prayer-flower, " said the raven. 

"I never saw such a flower before!" I rejoined. 

"There is no other such. Not one prayer-flower is ever quite likeanother, " he returned. 

"How do you know it a prayer-flower?" I asked. 

"By the expression of it, " he answered. "More than that I cannot tellyou. If you know it, you know it; if you do not, you do not. "

"Could you not teach me to know a prayer-flower when I see it?" I said. 

"I could not. But if I could, what better would you be? you would notknow it of YOURSELF and ITself! Why know the name of a thing when thething itself you do not know? Whose work is it but your own to open youreyes? But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool ofyou that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise!"

But I did see that the flower was different from any flower I had everseen before; therefore I knew that I must be seeing a shadow of theprayer in it; and a great awe came over me to think of the heartlistening to the flower. 

CHAPTER VI. THE SEXTON'S COTTAGE

We had been for some time walking over a rocky moorland covered withdry plants and mosses, when I descried a little cottage in the farthestdistance. The sun was not yet down, but he was wrapt in a gray cloud. The heath looked as if it had never been warm, and the wind blewstrangely cold, as if from some region where it was always night. 

"Here we are at last!" said the raven. "What a long way it is! In halfthe time I could have gone to Paradise and seen my cousin--him, youremember, who never came back to Noah! Dear! dear! it is almost winter!"

"Winter!" I cried; "it seems but half a day since we left home!"

"That is because we have travelled so fast, " answered the raven. "Inyour world you cannot pull up the plumb-line you call gravitation, andlet the world spin round under your feet! But here is my wife's house!She is very good to let me live with her, and call it the sexton'scottage!"

"But where is your churchyard--your cemetery--where you make yourgraves, I mean?" said I, seeing nothing but the flat heath. 

The raven stretched his neck, held out his beak horizontally, turned itslowly round to all the points of the compass, and said nothing. 

I followed the beak with my eyes, and lo, without church or graves, allwas a churchyard! Wherever the dreary wind swept, there was the raven'scemetery! He was sexton of all he surveyed! lord of all that was laidaside! I stood in the burial-ground of the universe; its compass theunenclosed heath, its wall the gray horizon, low and starless! I hadleft spring and summer, autumn and sunshine behind me, and come to thewinter that waited for me! I had set out in the prime of my youth, andhere I was already!--But I mistook. The day might well be long in thatregion, for it contained the seasons. Winter slept there, the nightthrough, in his winding-sheet of ice; with childlike smile, Spring cameawake in the dawn; at noon, Summer blazed abroad in her gorgeous beauty;with the slow-changing afternoon, old Autumn crept in, and died at thefirst breath of the vaporous, ghosty night. 

As we drew near the cottage, the clouded sun was rushing down thesteepest slope of the west, and he sank while we were yet a few yardsfrom the door. The same instant I was assailed by a cold that seemedalmost a material presence, and I struggled across the threshold as iffrom the clutches of an icy death. A wind swelled up on the moor, andrushed at the door as with difficulty I closed it behind me. Then allwas still, and I looked about me. 

A candle burned on a deal table in the middle of the room, and the firstthing I saw was the lid of a coffin, as I thought, set up against thewall; but it opened, for it was a door, and a woman entered. She was allin white--as white as new-fallen snow; and her face was as white as herdress, but not like snow, for at once it suggested warmth. I thought herfeatures were perfect, but her eyes made me forget them. The life ofher face and her whole person was gathered and concentrated in her eyes, where it became light. It might have been coming death that made herface luminous, but the eyes had life in them for a nation--large, anddark with a darkness ever deepening as I gazed. A whole night-heavenlay condensed in each pupil; all the stars were in its blackness, andflashed; while round it for a horizon lay coiled an iris of the eternaltwilight. What any eye IS, God only knows: her eyes must have beencoming direct out of his own! the still face might be a primevalperfection; the live eyes were a continuous creation. 

"Here is Mr. Vane, wife!" said the raven. 

"He is welcome, " she answered, in a low, rich, gentle voice. Treasuresof immortal sound seemed to be buried in it. 

I gazed, and could not speak. 

"I knew you would be glad to see him!" added the raven. 

She stood in front of the door by which she had entered, and did notcome nearer. 

"Will he sleep?" she asked. 

"I fear not, " he replied; "he is neither weary nor heavy laden. "

"Why then have you brought him?"

"I have my fears it may prove precipitate. "

"I do not quite understand you, " I said, with an uneasy foreboding as towhat she meant, but a vague hope of some escape. "Surely a man must do aday's work first!"

I gazed into the white face of the woman, and my heart fluttered. Shereturned my gaze in silence. 

"Let me first go home, " I resumed, "and come again after I have found ormade, invented, or at least discovered something!"

"He has not yet learned that the day begins with sleep!" said thewoman, turning to her husband. "Tell him he must rest before he can doanything!"

"Men, " he answered, "think so much of having done, that they fall asleepupon it. They cannot empty an egg but they turn into the shell, and liedown!"

The words drew my eyes from the woman to the raven. 

I saw no raven, but the librarian--the same slender elderly man, in arusty black coat, large in the body and long in the tails. I had seenonly his back before; now for the first time I saw his face. It wasso thin that it showed the shape of the bones under it, suggesting theskulls his last-claimed profession must have made him familiar with. Butin truth I had never before seen a face so alive, or a look so keen orso friendly as that in his pale blue eyes, which yet had a haze aboutthem as if they had done much weeping. 

"You knew I was not a raven!" he said with a smile. 

"I knew you were Mr. Raven, " I replied; "but somehow I thought you abird too!"

"What made you think me a bird?"

"You looked a raven, and I saw you dig worms out of the earth with yourbeak. "

"And then?"

"Toss them in the air. " "And then?"

"They grew butterflies, and flew away. "

"Did you ever see a raven do that? I told you I was a sexton!"

"Does a sexton toss worms in the air, and turn them into butterflies?"

"Yes. "

"I never saw one do it!"

"You saw me do it!--But I am still librarian in your house, for I neverwas dismissed, and never gave up the office. Now I am librarian here aswell. "

"But you have just told me you were sexton here!"

"So I am. It is much the same profession. Except you are a true sexton, books are but dead bodies to you, and a library nothing but a catacomb!"

"You bewilder me!"

"That's all right!"

A few moments he stood silent. The woman, moveless as a statue, stoodsilent also by the coffin-door. 

"Upon occasion, " said the sexton at length, "it is more convenient toput one's bird-self in front. Every one, as you ought to know, has abeast-self--and a bird-self, and a stupid fish-self, ay, and a creepingserpent-self too--which it takes a deal of crushing to kill! In truthhe has also a tree-self and a crystal-self, and I don't know how manyselves more--all to get into harmony. You can tell what sort a man is byhis creature that comes oftenest to the front. "

He turned to his wife, and I considered him more closely. He was abovethe ordinary height, and stood more erect than when last I saw him. Hisface was, like his wife's, very pale; its nose handsomely encased thebeak that had retired within it; its lips were very thin, and even theyhad no colour, but their curves were beautiful, and about them quivereda shadowy smile that had humour in it as well as love and pity. 

"We are in want of something to eat and drink, wife, " he said; "we havecome a long way!"

"You know, husband, " she answered, "we can give only to him that asks. "

She turned her unchanging face and radiant eyes upon mine. 

"Please give me something to eat, Mrs. Raven, " I said, "andsomething--what you will--to quench my thirst. "

"Your thirst must be greater before you can have what will quench it, "she replied; "but what I can give you, I will gladly. "

She went to a cupboard in the wall, brought from it bread and wine, andset them on the table. 

We sat down to the perfect meal; and as I ate, the bread and wineseemed to go deeper than the hunger and thirst. Anxiety and discomfortvanished; expectation took their place. 

I grew very sleepy, and now first felt weary. 

"I have earned neither food nor sleep, Mrs. Raven, " I said, "but youhave given me the one freely, and now I hope you will give me the other, for I sorely need it. "

"Sleep is too fine a thing ever to be earned, " said the sexton; "it mustbe given and accepted, for it is a necessity. But it would be perilousto use this house as a half-way hostelry--for the repose of a night, that is, merely. "

A wild-looking little black cat jumped on his knee as he spoke. Hepatted it as one pats a child to make it go to sleep: he seemed to mepatting down the sod upon a grave--patting it lovingly, with an inwardlullaby. 

"Here is one of Mara's kittens!" he said to his wife: "will you give itsomething and put it out? she may want it!"

The woman took it from him gently, gave it a little piece of bread, andwent out with it, closing the door behind her. 

"How then am I to make use of your hospitality?" I asked. 

"By accepting it to the full, " he answered. 

"I do not understand. "

"In this house no one wakes of himself. "

"Why?"

"Because no one anywhere ever wakes of himself. You can wake yourself nomore than you can make yourself. "

"Then perhaps you or Mrs. Raven would kindly call me!" I said, stillnowise understanding, but feeling afresh that vague foreboding. 

"We cannot. "

"How dare I then go to sleep?" I cried. 

"If you would have the rest of this house, you must not trouble yourselfabout waking. You must go to sleep heartily, altogether and outright. "My soul sank within me. 

The sexton sat looking me in the face. His eyes seemed to say, "Will younot trust me?" I returned his gaze, and answered, "I will. "

"Then come, " he said; "I will show you your couch. "

As we rose, the woman came in. She took up the candle, turned to theinner door, and led the way. I went close behind her, and the sextonfollowed. 

CHAPTER VII. THE CEMETERY

The air as of an ice-house met me crossing the threshold. The doorfell-to behind us. The sexton said something to his wife that made herturn toward us. --What a change had passed upon her! It was as if thesplendour of her eyes had grown too much for them to hold, and, sinkinginto her countenance, made it flash with a loveliness like that ofBeatrice in the white rose of the redeemed. Life itself, life eternal, immortal, streamed from it, an unbroken lightning. Even her handsshone with a white radiance, every "pearl-shell helmet" gleaming likea moonstone. Her beauty was overpowering; I was glad when she turned itfrom me. 

But the light of the candle reached such a little way, that at first Icould see nothing of the place. Presently, however, it fell on somethingthat glimmered, a little raised from the floor. Was it a bed? Couldlive thing sleep in such a mortal cold? Then surely it was no wonderit should not wake of itself! Beyond that appeared a fainter shine; andthen I thought I descried uncertain gleams on every side. 

A few paces brought us to the first; it was a human form under a sheet, straight and still--whether of man or woman I could not tell, for thelight seemed to avoid the face as we passed. 

I soon perceived that we were walking along an aisle of couches, onalmost every one of which, with its head to the passage, lay somethingasleep or dead, covered with a sheet white as snow. My soul grewsilent with dread. Through aisle after aisle we went, among couchesinnumerable. I could see only a few of them at once, but they were onall sides, vanishing, as it seemed, in the infinite. --Was it here lay mychoice of a bed? Must I go to sleep among the unwaking, with no one torouse me? Was this the sexton's library? were these his books? Truly itwas no half-way house, this chamber of the dead!

"One of the cellars I am placed to watch!" remarked Mr. Raven--in a lowvoice, as if fearing to disturb his silent guests. "Much wine is sethere to ripen!--But it is dark for a stranger!" he added. 

"The moon is rising; she will soon be here, " said his wife, and herclear voice, low and sweet, sounded of ancient sorrow long bidden adieu. 

Even as she spoke the moon looked in at an opening in the wall, and athousand gleams of white responded to her shine. But not yet could Idescry beginning or end of the couches. They stretched away and away, asif for all the disparted world to sleep upon. For along the far recedingnarrow ways, every couch stood by itself, and on each slept a lonelysleeper. I thought at first their sleep was death, but I soon saw it wassomething deeper still--a something I did not know. 

The moon rose higher, and shone through other openings, but I couldnever see enough of the place at once to know its shape or character;now it would resemble a long cathedral nave, now a huge barn made intoa dwelling of tombs. She looked colder than any moon in the frostiestnight of the world, and where she shone direct upon them, cast a bluish, icy gleam on the white sheets and the pallid countenances--but it mightbe the faces that made the moon so cold!

Of such as I could see, all were alike in the brotherhood of death, allunlike in the character and history recorded upon them. Here lay a manwho had died--for although this was not death, I have no other name togive it--in the prime of manly strength; his dark beard seemed to flowlike a liberated stream from the glacier of his frozen countenance; hisforehead was smooth as polished marble; a shadow of pain lingered abouthis lips, but only a shadow. On the next couch lay the form of a girl, passing lovely to behold. The sadness left on her face by parting wasnot yet absorbed in perfect peace, but absolute submission possessed theplacid features, which bore no sign of wasting disease, of "killing careor grief of heart": if pain had been there, it was long charmed asleep, never again to wake. Many were the beautiful that there lay verystill--some of them mere children; but I did not see one infant. Themost beautiful of all was a lady whose white hair, and that alone, suggested her old when first she fell asleep. On her stately countenancerested--not submission, but a right noble acquiescence, an assurance, firm as the foundations of the universe, that all was as it shouldbe. On some faces lingered the almost obliterated scars of strife, themarrings of hopeless loss, the fading shadows of sorrows that had seemedinconsolable: the aurora of the great morning had not yet quite meltedthem away; but those faces were few, and every one that bore such brandof pain seemed to plead, "Pardon me: I died only yesterday!" or, "Pardonme: I died but a century ago!" That some had been dead for ages I knew, not merely by their unutterable repose, but by something for which Ihave neither word nor symbol. 

We came at last to three empty couches, immediately beyond which lay theform of a beautiful woman, a little past the prime of life. One of herarms was outside the sheet, and her hand lay with the palm upward, inits centre a dark spot. Next to her was the stalwart figure of a man ofmiddle age. His arm too was outside the sheet, the strong hand almostclosed, as if clenched on the grip of a sword. I thought he must be aking who had died fighting for the truth. 

"Will you hold the candle nearer, wife?" whispered the sexton, bendingdown to examine the woman's hand. 

"It heals well, " he murmured to himself: "the nail found in her nothingto hurt!"

At last I ventured to speak. 

"Are they not dead?" I asked softly. 

"I cannot answer you, " he replied in a subdued voice. "I almost forgetwhat they mean by DEAD in the old world. If I said a person was dead, mywife would understand one thing, and you would imagine another. --This isbut one of my treasure vaults, " he went on, "and all my guests are notlaid in vaults: out there on the moor they lie thick as the leaves of aforest after the first blast of your winter--thick, let me say rather, as if the great white rose of heaven had shed its petals over it. Allnight the moon reads their faces, and smiles. "

"But why leave them in the corrupting moonlight?" I asked. 

"Our moon, " he answered, "is not like yours--the old cinder of aburnt-out world; her beams embalm the dead, not corrupt them. Youobserve that here the sexton lays his dead on the earth; he buries veryfew under it! In your world he lays huge stones on them, as if to keepthem down; I watch for the hour to ring the resurrection-bell, and wakethose that are still asleep. Your sexton looks at the clock to know whento ring the dead-alive to church; I hearken for the cock on the spire tocrow; 'AWAKE, THOU THAT SLEEPEST, AND ARISE FROM THE DEAD!'"

I began to conclude that the self-styled sexton was in truth an insaneparson: the whole thing was too mad! But how was I to get away from it?I was helpless! In this world of the dead, the raven and his wife werethe only living I had yet seen: whither should I turn for help? I waslost in a space larger than imagination; for if here two things, orany parts of them, could occupy the same space, why not twenty or tenthousand?--But I dared not think further in that direction. 

"You seem in your dead to see differences beyond my perception!" Iventured to remark. 

"None of those you see, " he answered, "are in truth quite dead yet, andsome have but just begun to come alive and die. Others had begun to die, that is to come alive, long before they came to us; and when such areindeed dead, that instant they will wake and leave us. Almost everynight some rise and go. But I will not say more, for I find my wordsonly mislead you!--This is the couch that has been waiting for you, " heended, pointing to one of the three. 

"Why just this?" I said, beginning to tremble, and anxious by parley todelay. 

"For reasons which one day you will be glad to know, " he answered. 

"Why not know them now?"

"That also you will know when you wake. "

"But these are all dead, and I am alive!" I objected, shuddering. 

"Not much, " rejoined the sexton with a smile, "--not nearly enough!Blessed be the true life that the pauses between its throbs are notdeath!"

"The place is too cold to let one sleep!" I said. 

"Do these find it so?" he returned. "They sleep well--or will soon. Ofcold they feel not a breath: it heals their wounds. --Do not be a coward, Mr. Vane. Turn your back on fear, and your face to whatever may come. Give yourself up to the night, and you will rest indeed. Harm will notcome to you, but a good you cannot foreknow. "

The sexton and I stood by the side of the couch, his wife, with thecandle in her hand, at the foot of it. Her eyes were full of light, buther face was again of a still whiteness; it was no longer radiant. 

"Would they have me make of a charnel-house my bed-chamber?" I criedaloud. "I will not. I will lie abroad on the heath; it cannot be colderthere!"

"I have just told you that the dead are there also, 'Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, '"

said the librarian. 

"I will NOT, " I cried again; and in the compassing dark, the two gleamedout like spectres that waited on the dead; neither answered me; eachstood still and sad, and looked at the other. 

"Be of good comfort; we watch the flock of the great shepherd, " said thesexton to his wife. 

Then he turned to me. 

"Didst thou not find the air of the place pure and sweet when thouenteredst it?" he asked. 

"Yes; but oh, so cold!" I answered. 

"Then know, " he returned, and his voice was stern, "that thou whocallest thyself alive, hast brought into this chamber the odours ofdeath, and its air will not be wholesome for the sleepers until thou artgone from it!"

They went farther into the great chamber, and I was left alone in themoonlight with the dead. 

I turned to escape. 

What a long way I found it back through the dead! At first I was tooangry to be afraid, but as I grew calm, the still shapes grew terrible. At last, with loud offence to the gracious silence, I ran, I fledwildly, and, bursting out, flung-to the door behind me. It closed withan awful silence. 

I stood in pitch-darkness. Feeling about me, I found a door, opened it, and was aware of the dim light of a lamp. I stood in my library, withthe handle of the masked door in my hand. 

Had I come to myself out of a vision?--or lost myself by going back toone? Which was the real--what I now saw, or what I had just ceased tosee? Could both be real, interpenetrating yet unmingling?

I threw myself on a couch, and fell asleep. 

In the library was one small window to the east, through which, at thistime of the year, the first rays of the sun shone upon a mirror whencethey were reflected on the masked door: when I woke, there they shone, and thither they drew my eyes. With the feeling that behind it must liethe boundless chamber I had left by that door, I sprang to my feet, and opened it. The light, like an eager hound, shot before me into thecloset, and pounced upon the gilded edges of a large book. 

"What idiot, " I cried, "has put that book in the shelf the wrong way?"

But the gilded edges, reflecting the light a second time, flung it ona nest of drawers in a dark corner, and I saw that one of them was halfopen. 

"More meddling!" I cried, and went to close the drawer. 

It contained old papers, and seemed more than full, for it wouldnot close. Taking the topmost one out, I perceived that it was in myfather's writing and of some length. The words on which first my eyesfell, at once made me eager to learn what it contained. I carried itto the library, sat down in one of the western windows, and read whatfollows. 

CHAPTER VIII. MY FATHER'S MANUSCRIPT

I am filled with awe of what I have to write. The sun is shining goldenabove me; the sea lies blue beneath his gaze; the same world sends itsgrowing things up to the sun, and its flying things into the air whichI have breathed from my infancy; but I know the outspread splendour apassing show, and that at any moment it may, like the drop-scene of astage, be lifted to reveal more wonderful things. 

Shortly after my father's death, I was seated one morning in thelibrary. I had been, somewhat listlessly, regarding the portrait thathangs among the books, which I knew only as that of a distant ancestor, and wishing I could learn something of its original. Then I had taken abook from the shelves and begun to read. 

Glancing up from it, I saw coming toward me--not between me and thedoor, but between me and the portrait--a thin pale man in rusty black. He looked sharp and eager, and had a notable nose, at once reminding meof a certain jug my sisters used to call Mr. Crow. 

"Finding myself in your vicinity, Mr. Vane, I have given myself thepleasure of calling, " he said, in a peculiar but not disagreeablevoice. "Your honoured grandfather treated me--I may say it withoutpresumption--as a friend, having known me from childhood as his father'slibrarian. "

It did not strike me at the time how old the man must be. 

"May I ask where you live now, Mr. Crow?" I said. 

He smiled an amused smile. 

"You nearly hit my name, " he rejoined, "which shows the family insight. You have seen me before, but only once, and could not then have heardit!"

"Where was that?"

"In this very room. You were quite a child, however!"

I could not be sure that I remembered him, but for a moment I fancied Idid, and I begged him to set me right as to his name. 

"There is such a thing as remembering without recognising the memory init, " he remarked. "For my name--which you have near enough--it used tobe Raven. "

I had heard the name, for marvellous tales had brought it me. 

"It is very kind of you to come and see me, " I said. "Will you not sitdown?"

He seated himself at once. 

"You knew my father, then, I presume?"

"I knew him, " he answered with a curious smile, "but he did not careabout my acquaintance, and we never met. --That gentleman, however, " headded, pointing to the portrait, --"old Sir Up'ard, his people calledhim, --was in his day a friend of mine yet more intimate than ever yourgrandfather became. "

Then at length I began to think the interview a strange one. But intruth it was hardly stranger that my visitor should remember Sir Upward, than that he should have been my great-grandfather's librarian!

"I owe him much, " he continued; "for, although I had read many morebooks than he, yet, through the special direction of his studies, he wasable to inform me of a certain relation of modes which I should neverhave discovered of myself, and could hardly have learned from any oneelse. "

"Would you mind telling me all about that?" I said. 

"By no means--as much at least as I am able: there are not such thingsas wilful secrets, " he answered--and went on. 

"That closet held his library--a hundred manuscripts or so, for printingwas not then invented. One morning I sat there, working at a catalogueof them, when he looked in at the door, and said, 'Come. ' I laid down mypen and followed him--across the great hall, down a steep rough descent, and along an underground passage to a tower he had lately built, consisting of a stair and a room at the top of it. The door of this roomhad a tremendous lock, which he undid with the smallest key I ever saw. I had scarcely crossed the threshold after him, when, to my eyes, hebegan to dwindle, and grew less and less. All at once my vision seemedto come right, and I saw that he was moving swiftly away from me. In aminute more he was the merest speck in the distance, with the topsof blue mountains beyond him, clear against a sky of paler blue. Irecognised the country, for I had gone there and come again many a time, although I had never known this way to it. 

"Many years after, when the tower had long disappeared, I taught one ofhis descendants what Sir Upward had taught me; and now and then to thisday I use your house when I want to go the nearest way home. I mustindeed--without your leave, for which I ask your pardon--have by thistime well established a right of way through it--not from front to back, but from bottom to top!"

"You would have me then understand, Mr. Raven, " I said, "that you gothrough my house into another world, heedless of disparting space?"

"That I go through it is an incontrovertible acknowledgement of space, "returned the old librarian. 

"Please do not quibble, Mr. Raven, " I rejoined. "Please to take myquestion as you know I mean it. "

"There is in your house a door, one step through which carries me into aworld very much another than this. "

"A better?"

"Not throughout; but so much another that most of its physical, and manyof its mental laws are different from those of this world. As for morallaws, they must everywhere be fundamentally the same. "

"You try my power of belief!" I said. 

"You take me for a madman, probably?"

"You do not look like one. "

"A liar then?"

"You give me no ground to think you such. "

"Only you do not believe me?"

"I will go out of that door with you if you like: I believe in youenough to risk the attempt. "

"The blunder all my children make!" he murmured. "The only door out isthe door in!"

I began to think he must be crazy. He sat silent for a moment, his headresting on his hand, his elbow on the table, and his eyes on the booksbefore him. 

"A book, " he said louder, "is a door in, and therefore a door out. --Isee old Sir Up'ard, " he went on, closing his eyes, "and my heart swellswith love to him:--what world is he in?"

"The world of your heart!" I replied; "--that is, the idea of him isthere. "

"There is one world then at least on which your hall-door does notopen?"

"I grant you so much; but the things in that world are not things tohave and to hold. "

"Think a little farther, " he rejoined: "did anything ever become yours, except by getting into that world?--The thought is beyond you, however, at present!--I tell you there are more worlds, and more doors to them, than you will think of in many years!"

He rose, left the library, crossed the hall, and went straight up tothe garret, familiar evidently with every turn. I followed, studying hisback. His hair hung down long and dark, straight and glossy. His coatwas wide and reached to his heels. His shoes seemed too large for him. 

In the garret a light came through at the edges of the great roofingslabs, and showed us parts where was no flooring, and we must step fromjoist to joist: in the middle of one of these spaces rose a partition, with a door: through it I followed Mr. Raven into a small, obscurechamber, whose top contracted as it rose, and went slanting through theroof. 

"That is the door I spoke of, " he said, pointing to an oblong mirrorthat stood on the floor and leaned against the wall. I went in frontof it, and saw our figures dimly reflected in its dusty face. Therewas something about it that made me uneasy. It looked old-fashioned andneglected, but, notwithstanding its ordinary seeming, the eagle, perchedwith outstretched wings on the top, appeared threatful. 

"As a mirror, " said the librarian, "it has grown dingy with age; butthat is no matter: its clearness depends on the light. "

"Light!" I rejoined; "there is no light here!"

He did not answer me, but began to pull at a little chain on theopposite wall. I heard a creaking: the top of the chamber was turningslowly round. He ceased pulling, looked at his watch, and began to pullagain. 

"We arrive almost to the moment!" he said; "it is on the very stroke ofnoon!"

The top went creaking and revolving for a minute or so. Then he pulledtwo other chains, now this, now that, and returned to the first. Amoment more and the chamber grew much clearer: a patch of sunlight hadfallen upon a mirror on the wall opposite that against which the otherleaned, and on the dust I saw the path of the reflected rays to themirror on the ground. But from the latter none were returned; theyseemed to go clean through; there was nowhere in the chamber a secondpatch of light!

"Where are the sunrays gone?" I cried. 

"That I cannot tell, " returned Mr. Raven; "--back, perhaps, to wherethey came from first. They now belong, I fancy, to a sense not yetdeveloped in us. "

He then talked of the relations of mind to matter, and of senses toqualities, in a way I could only a little understand, whence he wenton to yet stranger things which I could not at all comprehend. He spokemuch about dimensions, telling me that there were many more than three, some of them concerned with powers which were indeed in us, but of whichas yet we knew absolutely nothing. His words, however, I confess, tooklittle more hold of me than the light did of the mirror, for I thoughthe hardly knew what he was saying. 

Suddenly I was aware that our forms had gone from the mirror, whichseemed full of a white mist. As I gazed I saw, growing gradually visiblebeyond the mist, the tops of a range of mountains, which became clearerand clearer. Soon the mist vanished entirely, uncovering the face of awide heath, on which, at some distance, was the figure of a man movingswiftly away. I turned to address my companion; he was no longer by myside. I looked again at the form in the mirror, and recognised the widecoat flying, the black hair lifting in a wind that did not touch me. Irushed in terror from the place. 

CHAPTER IX. I REPENT

I laid the manuscript down, consoled to find that my father had had apeep into that mysterious world, and that he knew Mr. Raven. 

Then I remembered that I had never heard the cause or any circumstanceof my father's death, and began to believe that he must at last havefollowed Mr. Raven, and not come back; whereupon I speedily grew ashamedof my flight. What wondrous facts might I not by this time have gatheredconcerning life and death, and wide regions beyond ordinary perception!Assuredly the Ravens were good people, and a night in their house wouldnowise have hurt me! They were doubtless strange, but it was facultyin which the one was peculiar, and beauty in which the other wasmarvellous! And I had not believed in them! had treated them as unworthyof my confidence, as harbouring a design against me! The more I thoughtof my behaviour to them, the more disgusted I became with myself. Whyshould I have feared such dead? To share their holy rest was an honourof which I had proved myself unworthy! What harm could that sleepingking, that lady with the wound in her palm, have done me? I fell alonging after the sweet and stately stillness of their two countenances, and wept. Weeping I threw myself on a couch, and suddenly fell asleep. 

As suddenly I woke, feeling as if some one had called me. The house wasstill as an empty church. A blackbird was singing on the lawn. I said tomyself, "I will go and tell them I am ashamed, and will do whateverthey would have me do!" I rose, and went straight up the stairs to thegarret. 

The wooden chamber was just as when first I saw it, the mirror dimlyreflecting everything before it. It was nearly noon, and the sun wouldbe a little higher than when first I came: I must raise the hood alittle, and adjust the mirrors accordingly! If I had but been in time tosee Mr. Raven do it!

I pulled the chains, and let the light fall on the first mirror. I turned then to the other: there were the shapes of the formervision--distinguishable indeed, but tremulous like a landscape in apool ruffled by "a small pipling wind!" I touched the glass; it wasimpermeable. 

Suspecting polarisation as the thing required, I shifted and shifted themirrors, changing their relation, until at last, in a great degree, sofar as I was concerned, by chance, things came right between them, andI saw the mountains blue and steady and clear. I stepped forward, and myfeet were among the heather. 

All I knew of the way to the cottage was that we had gone through apine-forest. I passed through many thickets and several small fir-woods, continually fancying afresh that I recognised something of the country;but I had come upon no forest, and now the sun was near the horizon, and the air had begun to grow chill with the coming winter, when, to mydelight, I saw a little black object coming toward me: it was indeed theraven!

I hastened to meet him. 

"I beg your pardon, sir, for my rudeness last night, " I said. "Will youtake me with you now? I heartily confess I do not deserve it. "

"Ah!" he returned, and looked up. Then, after a brief pause, "My wifedoes not expect you to-night, " he said. "She regrets that we at allencouraged your staying last week. "

"Take me to her that I may tell her how sorry I am, " I begged humbly. 

"It is of no use, " he answered. "Your night was not come then, or youwould not have left us. It is not come now, and I cannot show you theway. The dead were rejoicing under their daisies--they all lie among theroots of the flowers of heaven--at the thought of your delight when thewinter should be past, and the morning with its birds come: ere youleft them, they shivered in their beds. When the spring of the universearrives, --but that cannot be for ages yet! how many, I do not know--anddo not care to know. "

"Tell me one thing, I beg of you, Mr. Raven: is my father with you? Haveyou seen him since he left the world?"

"Yes; he is with us, fast asleep. That was he you saw with his arm onthe coverlet, his hand half closed. "

"Why did you not tell me? That I should have been so near him, and notknow!"

"And turn your back on him!" corrected the raven. 

"I would have lain down at once had I known!"

"I doubt it. Had you been ready to lie down, you would have knownhim!--Old Sir Up'ard, " he went on, "and your twice great-grandfather, both are up and away long ago. Your great-grandfather has been with usfor many a year; I think he will soon begin to stir. You saw him lastnight, though of course you did not know him. "

"Why OF COURSE?"

"Because he is so much nearer waking than you. No one who will not sleepcan ever wake. "

"I do not at all understand you!"

"You turned away, and would not understand!" I held my peace. --But if Idid not say something, he would go!

"And my grandfather--is he also with you?" I asked. 

"No; he is still in the Evil Wood, fighting the dead. "

"Where is the Evil Wood, that I may find him?"

"You will not find him; but you will hardly miss the wood. It is theplace where those who will not sleep, wake up at night, to kill theirdead and bury them. "

"I cannot understand you!"

"Naturally not. Neither do I understand you; I can read neither yourheart nor your face. When my wife and I do not understand our children, it is because there is not enough of them to be understood. God alonecan understand foolishness. "

"Then, " I said, feeling naked and very worthless, "will you be so goodas show me the nearest way home? There are more ways than one, I know, for I have gone by two already. "

"There are indeed many ways. "

"Tell me, please, how to recognise the nearest. "

"I cannot, " answered the raven; "you and I use the same words withdifferent meanings. We are often unable to tell people what they NEED toknow, because they WANT to know something else, and would therefore onlymisunderstand what we said. Home is ever so far away in the palm of yourhand, and how to get there it is of no use to tell you. But you will getthere; you must get there; you have to get there. Everybody who is notat home, has to go home. You thought you were at home where I found you:if that had been your home, you could not have left it. Nobody can leavehome. And nobody ever was or ever will be at home without having gonethere. "

"Enigma treading on enigma!" I exclaimed. "I did not come here to beasked riddles. "

"No; but you came, and found the riddles waiting for you! Indeed youare yourself the only riddle. What you call riddles are truths, and seemriddles because you are not true. "

"Worse and worse!" I cried. 

"And you MUST answer the riddles!" he continued. "They will go on askingthemselves until you understand yourself. The universe is a riddletrying to get out, and you are holding your door hard against it. "

"Will you not in pity tell me what I am to do--where I must go?"

"How should I tell YOUR to-do, or the way to it?"

"If I am not to go home, at least direct me to some of my kind. "

"I do not know of any. The beings most like you are in that direction. "

He pointed with his beak. I could see nothing but the setting sun, whichblinded me. 

"Well, " I said bitterly, "I cannot help feeling hardly treated--takenfrom my home, abandoned in a strange world, and refused instruction asto where I am to go or what I am to do!"

"You forget, " said the raven, "that, when I brought you and you declinedmy hospitality, you reached what you call home in safety: now you arecome of yourself! Good night. "

He turned and walked slowly away, with his beak toward the ground. Istood dazed. It was true I had come of myself, but had I not come withintent of atonement? My heart was sore, and in my brain was neitherquest nor purpose, hope nor desire. I gazed after the raven, and wouldhave followed him, but felt it useless. 

All at once he pounced on a spot, throwing the whole weight of his bodyon his bill, and for some moments dug vigorously. Then with a flutter ofhis wings he threw back his head, and something shot from his bill, casthigh in the air. That moment the sun set, and the air at once grew verydusk, but the something opened into a soft radiance, and came pulsingtoward me like a fire-fly, but with a much larger and a yellower light. It flew over my head. I turned and followed it. 

Here I interrupt my narrative to remark that it involves a constantstruggle to say what cannot be said with even an approach to precision, the things recorded being, in their nature and in that of the creaturesconcerned in them, so inexpressibly different from any possible eventsof this economy, that I can present them only by giving, in the formsand language of life in this world, the modes in which they affectedme--not the things themselves, but the feelings they woke in me. Eventhis much, however, I do with a continuous and abiding sense offailure, finding it impossible to present more than one phase of amultitudinously complicated significance, or one concentric sphere of agraduated embodiment. A single thing would sometimes seem to be and meanmany things, with an uncertain identity at the heart of them, which keptconstantly altering their look. I am indeed often driven to set downwhat I know to be but a clumsy and doubtful representation of the merefeeling aimed at, none of the communicating media of this world beingfit to convey it, in its peculiar strangeness, with even an approachto clearness or certainty. Even to one who knew the region better thanmyself, I should have no assurance of transmitting the reality ofmy experience in it. While without a doubt, for instance, that I wasactually regarding a scene of activity, I might be, at the same moment, in my consciousness aware that I was perusing a metaphysical argument. 

CHAPTER X. THE BAD BURROW

As the air grew black and the winter closed swiftly around me, thefluttering fire blazed out more luminous, and arresting its flight, hovered waiting. So soon as I came under its radiance, it flew slowlyon, lingering now and then above spots where the ground was rocky. Everytime I looked up, it seemed to have grown larger, and at length gave mean attendant shadow. Plainly a bird-butterfly, it flew with a certainswallowy double. Its wings were very large, nearly square, and flashedall the colours of the rainbow. Wondering at their splendour, I becameso absorbed in their beauty that I stumbled over a low rock, and laystunned. When I came to myself, the creature was hovering over my head, radiating the whole chord of light, with multitudinous gradations andsome kinds of colour I had never before seen. I rose and went on, but, unable to take my eyes off the shining thing to look to my steps, Istruck my foot against a stone. Fearing then another fall, I sat down towatch the little glory, and a great longing awoke in me to have it in myhand. To my unspeakable delight, it began to sink toward me. Slowly atfirst, then swiftly it sank, growing larger as it came nearer. I feltas if the treasure of the universe were giving itself to me--put out myhand, and had it. But the instant I took it, its light went out; all wasdark as pitch; a dead book with boards outspread lay cold and heavy inmy hand. I threw it in the air--only to hear it fall among the heather. Burying my face in my hands, I sat in motionless misery. 

But the cold grew so bitter that, fearing to be frozen, I got up. Themoment I was on my feet, a faint sense of light awoke in me. "Is itcoming to life?" I cried, and a great pang of hope shot through me. Alas, no! it was the edge of a moon peering up keen and sharp over alevel horizon! She brought me light--but no guidance! SHE would nothover over me, would not wait on my faltering steps! She could but offerme an ignorant choice!

With a full face she rose, and I began to see a little about me. Westward of her, and not far from me, a range of low hills broke thehorizon-line: I set out for it. 

But what a night I had to pass ere I reached it! The moon seemed to knowsomething, for she stared at me oddly. Her look was indeed icy-cold, butfull of interest, or at least curiosity. She was not the same moon Ihad known on the earth; her face was strange to me, and her light yetstranger. Perhaps it came from an unknown sun! Every time I looked up, I found her staring at me with all her might! At first I was annoyed, as at the rudeness of a fellow creature; but soon I saw or fancied acertain wondering pity in her gaze: why was I out in her night? Thenfirst I knew what an awful thing it was to be awake in the universe: IWAS, and could not help it!

As I walked, my feet lost the heather, and trod a bare spongy soil, something like dry, powdery peat. To my dismay it gave a momentary heaveunder me; then presently I saw what seemed the ripple of an earthquakerunning on before me, shadowy in the low moon. It passed into thedistance; but, while yet I stared after it, a single wave rose up, andcame slowly toward me. A yard or two away it burst, and from it, with ascramble and a bound, issued an animal like a tiger. About his mouth andears hung clots of mould, and his eyes winked and flamed as he rushedat me, showing his white teeth in a soundless snarl. I stood fascinated, unconscious of either courage or fear. He turned his head to the ground, and plunged into it. 

"That moon is affecting my brain, " I said as I resumed my journey. "Whatlife can be here but the phantasmic--the stuff of which dreams are made?I am indeed walking in a vain show!"

Thus I strove to keep my heart above the waters of fear, nor knew thatshe whom I distrusted was indeed my defence from the realities I tookfor phantoms: her light controlled the monsters, else had I scarce takena second step on the hideous ground. "I will not be appalled by thatwhich only seems!" I said to myself, yet felt it a terrible thing towalk on a sea where such fishes disported themselves below. With that, astep or two from me, the head of a worm began to come slowly out of theearth, as big as that of a polar bear and much resembling it, with awhite mane to its red neck. The drawing wriggles with which its hugelength extricated itself were horrible, yet I dared not turn my eyesfrom them. The moment its tail was free, it lay as if exhausted, wallowing in feeble effort to burrow again. 

"Does it live on the dead, " I wondered, "and is it unable to hurt theliving? If they scent their prey and come out, why do they leave meunharmed?"

I know now it was that the moon paralysed them. 

All the night through as I walked, hideous creatures, no two alike, threatened me. In some of them, beauty of colour enhanced loathlinessof shape: one large serpent was covered from head to distant tail withfeathers of glorious hues. 

I became at length so accustomed to their hurtless menaces that Ifell to beguiling the way with the invention of monstrosities, neversuspecting that I owed each moment of life to the staring moon. Thoughhers was no primal radiance, it so hampered the evil things, that Iwalked in safety. For light is yet light, if but the last of a countlessseries of reflections! How swiftly would not my feet have carried meover the restless soil, had I known that, if still within their rangewhen her lamp ceased to shine on the cursed spot, I should that momentbe at the mercy of such as had no mercy, the centre of a writhing heapof hideousness, every individual of it as terrible as before it had butseemed! Fool of ignorance, I watched the descent of the weary, solemn, anxious moon down the widening vault above me, with no worse uneasinessthan the dread of losing my way--where as yet I had indeed no way tolose. 

I was drawing near the hills I had made my goal, and she was now not farfrom their sky-line, when the soundless wallowing ceased, and the burrowlay motionless and bare. Then I saw, slowly walking over the light soil, the form of a woman. A white mist floated about her, now assuming, nowlosing to reassume the shape of a garment, as it gathered to her or wasblown from her by a wind that dogged her steps. 

She was beautiful, but with such a pride at once and misery on hercountenance that I could hardly believe what yet I saw. Up and down shewalked, vainly endeavouring to lay hold of the mist and wrap it aroundher. The eyes in the beautiful face were dead, and on her left side wasa dark spot, against which she would now and then press her hand, asif to stifle pain or sickness. Her hair hung nearly to her feet, andsometimes the wind would so mix it with the mist that I could notdistinguish the one from the other; but when it fell gathering togetheragain, it shone a pale gold in the moonlight. 

Suddenly pressing both hands on her heart, she fell to the ground, andthe mist rose from her and melted in the air. I ran to her. But shebegan to writhe in such torture that I stood aghast. A moment moreand her legs, hurrying from her body, sped away serpents. From hershoulders fled her arms as in terror, serpents also. Then somethingflew up from her like a bat, and when I looked again, she was gone. Theground rose like the sea in a storm; terror laid hold upon me; I turnedto the hills and ran. 

I was already on the slope of their base, when the moon sank behind oneof their summits, leaving me in its shadow. Behind me rose a waste andsickening cry, as of frustrate desire--the only sound I had heard sincethe fall of the dead butterfly; it made my heart shake like a flag inthe wind. I turned, saw many dark objects bounding after me, and madefor the crest of a ridge on which the moon still shone. She seemed tolinger there that I might see to defend myself. Soon I came in sight ofher, and climbed the faster. 

Crossing the shadow of a rock, I heard the creatures panting at myheels. But just as the foremost threw himself upon me with a snarl ofgreedy hate, we rushed into the moon together. She flashed out an angrylight, and he fell from me a bodiless blotch. Strength came to me, andI turned on the rest. But one by one as they darted into the light, theydropped with a howl; and I saw or fancied a strange smile on the roundface above me. 

I climbed to the top of the ridge: far away shone the moon, sinking toa low horizon. The air was pure and strong. I descended a little way, found it warmer, and sat down to wait the dawn. 

The moon went below, and the world again was dark. 

CHAPTER XI. THE EVIL WOOD

I fell fast asleep, and when I woke the sun was rising. I went to thetop again, and looked back: the hollow I had crossed in the moonlightlay without sign of life. Could it be that the calm expanse before meswarmed with creatures of devouring greed?

I turned and looked over the land through which my way must lie. Itseemed a wide desert, with a patch of a different colour in thedistance that might be a forest. Sign of presence, human or animal, wasnone--smoke or dust or shadow of cultivation. Not a cloud floated inthe clear heaven; no thinnest haze curtained any segment of its circlingrim. 

I descended, and set out for the imaginable forest: something alivemight be there; on this side of it could not well be anything!

When I reached the plain, I found it, as far as my sight could go, ofrock, here flat and channeled, there humped and pinnacled--evidently thewide bed of a vanished river, scored by innumerable water-runs, withouta trace of moisture in them. Some of the channels bore a dry moss, andsome of the rocks a few lichens almost as hard as themselves. The air, once "filled with pleasant noise of waters, " was silent as death. It took me the whole day to reach the patch, --which I found indeed aforest--but not a rudiment of brook or runnel had I crossed! Yet throughthe glowing noon I seemed haunted by an aural mirage, hearing so plainlythe voice of many waters that I could hardly believe the opposingtestimony of my eyes. 

The sun was approaching the horizon when I left the river-bed, andentered the forest. Sunk below the tree-tops, and sending his raysbetween their pillar-like boles, he revealed a world of blessed shadowswaiting to receive me. I had expected a pine-wood, but here were treesof many sorts, some with strong resemblances to trees I knew, otherswith marvellous differences from any I had ever seen. I threw myselfbeneath the boughs of what seemed a eucalyptus in blossom: its flowershad a hard calyx much resembling a skull, the top of which rose like alid to let the froth-like bloom-brain overfoam its cup. From beneaththe shadow of its falchion-leaves my eyes went wandering into deep afterdeep of the forest. 

Soon, however, its doors and windows began to close, shutting up aisleand corridor and roomier glade. The night was about me, and instantand sharp the cold. Again what a night I found it! How shall I make myreader share with me its wild ghostiness?

The tree under which I lay rose high before it branched, but the boughsof it bent so low that they seemed ready to shut me in as I leanedagainst the smooth stem, and let my eyes wander through the brieftwilight of the vanishing forest. Presently, to my listless rovinggaze, the varied outlines of the clumpy foliage began to assume orimitate--say rather SUGGEST other shapes than their own. A light windbegan to blow; it set the boughs of a neighbour tree rocking, and alltheir branches aswing, every twig and every leaf blending its individualmotion with the sway of its branch and the rock of its bough. Amongits leafy shapes was a pack of wolves that struggled to break froma wizard's leash: greyhounds would not have strained so savagely! Iwatched them with an interest that grew as the wind gathered force, andtheir motions life. 

Another mass of foliage, larger and more compact, presented my fancywith a group of horses' heads and forequarters projecting caparisonedfrom their stalls. Their necks kept moving up and down, with animpatience that augmented as the growing wind broke their verticalrhythm with a wilder swaying from side to side. What heads they were!how gaunt, how strange!--several of them bare skulls--one with the skintight on its bones! One had lost the under jaw and hung low, lookingunutterably weary--but now and then hove high as if to ease the bit. Above them, at the end of a branch, floated erect the form of a woman, waving her arms in imperious gesture. The definiteness of these andother leaf masses first surprised and then discomposed me: what if theyshould overpower my brain with seeming reality? But the twilight becamedarkness; the wind ceased; every shape was shut up in the night; I fellasleep. 

It was still dark when I began to be aware of a far-off, confused, rushing noise, mingled with faint cries. It grew and grew until a tumultas of gathering multitudes filled the wood. On all sides at oncethe sounds drew nearer; the spot where I lay seemed the centre of acommotion that extended throughout the forest. I scarce moved hand orfoot lest I should betray my presence to hostile things. 

The moon at length approached the forest, and came slowly into it: withher first gleam the noises increased to a deafening uproar, and I beganto see dim shapes about me. As she ascended and grew brighter, thenoises became yet louder, and the shapes clearer. A furious battle wasraging around me. Wild cries and roars of rage, shock of onset, struggleprolonged, all mingled with words articulate, surged in my ears. Cursesand credos, snarls and sneers, laughter and mockery, sacred names andhowls of hate, came huddling in chaotic interpenetration. Skeletons andphantoms fought in maddest confusion. Swords swept through the phantoms:they only shivered. Maces crashed on the skeletons, shattering themhideously: not one fell or ceased to fight, so long as a single jointheld two bones together. Bones of men and horses lay scattered andheaped; grinding and crunching them under foot fought the skeletons. Everywhere charged the bone-gaunt white steeds; everywhere on foot oron wind-blown misty battle-horses, raged and ravened and raved theindestructible spectres; weapons and hoofs clashed and crushed; whileskeleton jaws and phantom-throats swelled the deafening tumult with thewar-cry of every opinion, bad or good, that had bred strife, injustice, cruelty in any world. The holiest words went with the most hating blow. Lie-distorted truths flew hurtling in the wind of javelins and bones. Every moment some one would turn against his comrades, and fight morewildly than before, THE TRUTH! THE TRUTH! still his cry. One I noted whowheeled ever in a circle, and smote on all sides. Wearied out, a pairwould sit for a minute side by side, then rise and renew the fiercecombat. None stooped to comfort the fallen, or stepped wide to sparehim. 

The moon shone till the sun rose, and all the night long I had glimpsesof a woman moving at her will above the strife-tormented multitude, nowon this front now on that, one outstretched arm urging the fight, theother pressed against her side. "Ye are men: slay one another!" sheshouted. I saw her dead eyes and her dark spot, and recalled what I hadseen the night before. 

Such was the battle of the dead, which I saw and heard as I lay underthe tree. 

Just before sunrise, a breeze went through the forest, and a voicecried, "Let the dead bury their dead!" At the word the contendingthousands dropped noiseless, and when the sun looked in, he saw never abone, but here and there a withered branch. 

I rose and resumed my journey, through as quiet a wood as ever grew outof the quiet earth. For the wind of the morning had ceased when the sunappeared, and the trees were silent. Not a bird sang, not a squirrel, mouse, or weasel showed itself, not a belated moth flew athwart my path. But as I went I kept watch over myself, nor dared let my eyes rest onany forest-shape. All the time I seemed to hear faint sounds of mattockand spade and hurtling bones: any moment my eyes might open on things Iwould not see! Daylight prudence muttered that perhaps, to appear, tenthousand phantoms awaited only my consenting fancy. 

In the middle of the afternoon I came out of the wood--to find beforeme a second net of dry water-courses. I thought at first that I hadwandered from my attempted line, and reversed my direction; but I soonsaw it was not so, and concluded presently that I had come to anotherbranch of the same river-bed. I began at once to cross it, and was inthe bottom of a wide channel when the sun set. 

I sat down to await the moon, and growing sleepy, stretched myself onthe moss. The moment my head was down, I heard the sounds of rushingstreams--all sorts of sweet watery noises. The veiled melody of themolten music sang me into a dreamless sleep, and when I woke the sunwas already up, and the wrinkled country widely visible. Covered withshadows it lay striped and mottled like the skin of some wild animal. Asthe sun rose the shadows diminished, and it seemed as if the rocks werere-absorbing the darkness that had oozed out of them during the night. 

Hitherto I had loved my Arab mare and my books more, I fear, than liveman or woman; now at length my soul was athirst for a human presence, and I longed even after those inhabitants of this alien world whom theraven had so vaguely described as nearest my sort. With heavy yet hopingheart, and mind haunted by a doubt whether I was going in any directionat all, I kept wearily travelling "north-west and by south. "

CHAPTER XII. FRIENDS AND FOES

Coming, in one of the channels, upon what seemed a little shrub, theoutlying picket, I trusted, of an army behind it, I knelt to look atit closer. It bore a small fruit, which, as I did not recognise it, I feared to gather and eat. Little I thought that I was watched frombehind the rocks by hundreds of eyes eager with the question whether Iwould or would not take it. 

I came to another plant somewhat bigger, then to another larger still, and at length to clumps of a like sort; by which time I saw that theywere not shrubs but dwarf-trees. Before I reached the bank of thissecond branch of the river-bed, I found the channels so full of themthat it was with difficulty I crossed such as I could not jump. In oneI heard a great rush, as of a multitude of birds from an ivied wall, butsaw nothing. 

I came next to some large fruit-bearing trees, but what they bore lookedcoarse. They stood on the edge of a hollow, which evidently had oncebeen the basin of a lake. From the left a forest seemed to flow intoand fill it; but while the trees above were of many sorts, those in thehollow were almost entirely fruit-bearing. 

I went a few yards down the slope of grass mingled with moss, andstretched myself upon it weary. A little farther down stood a tiny treefull of rosiest apples no bigger than small cherries, its top close tomy hand; I pulled and ate one of them. Finding it delicious, I was inthe act of taking another, when a sudden shouting of children, mingledwith laughter clear and sweet as the music of a brook, startled me withdelight. 

"He likes our apples! He likes our apples! He's a good giant! He's agood giant!" cried many little voices. 

"He's a giant!" objected one. 

"He IS rather big, " assented another, "but littleness isn't everything!It won't keep you from growing big and stupid except you take care!"

I rose on my elbow and stared. Above and about and below me stood amultitude of children, apparently of all ages, some just able to runalone, and some about twelve or thirteen. Three or four seemed older. They stood in a small knot, a little apart, and were less excitedthan the rest. The many were chattering in groups, declaiming andcontradicting, like a crowd of grown people in a city, only with greatermerriment, better manners, and more sense. 

I gathered that, by the approach of my hand to a second apple, they knewthat I liked the first; but how from that they argued me good, I did notsee, nor wondered that one of them at least should suggest caution. Idid not open my mouth, for I was afraid of frightening them, and sureI should learn more by listening than by asking questions. For Iunderstood nearly all they said--at which I was not surprised: tounderstand is not more wonderful than to love. 

There came a movement and slight dispersion among them, and presently asweet, innocent-looking, lovingly roguish little fellow handed me a hugegreen apple. Silence fell on the noisy throng; all waited expectant. 

"Eat, good giant, " he said. 

I sat up, took the apple, smiled thanks, and would have eaten; but themoment I bit into it, I flung it far away. 

Again rose a shout of delight; they flung themselves upon me, so asnearly to smother me; they kissed my face and hands; they laid hold ofmy legs; they clambered about my arms and shoulders, embracing my headand neck. I came to the ground at last, overwhelmed with the lovelylittle goblins. 

"Good, good giant!" they cried. "We knew you would come! Oh you dear, good, strong giant!"

The babble of their talk sprang up afresh, and ever the jubilant shoutwould rise anew from hundreds of clear little throats. 

Again came a sudden silence. Those around me drew back; those atop of megot off and began trying to set me on my feet. Upon their sweet faces, concern had taken the place of merriment. 

"Get up, good giant!" said a little girl. "Make haste! much haste! Hesaw you throw his apple away!"

Before she ended, I was on my feet. She stood pointing up the slope. Onthe brow of it was a clownish, bad-looking fellow, a few inches tallerthan myself. He looked hostile, but I saw no reason to fear him, for hehad no weapon, and my little friends had vanished every one. 

He began to descend, and I, in the hope of better footing and position, to go up. He growled like a beast as he turned toward me. 

Reaching a more level spot, I stood and waited for him. As he came near, he held out his hand. I would have taken it in friendly fashion, buthe drew it back, threatened a blow, and held it out again. Then Iunderstood him to claim the apple I had flung away, whereupon I made agrimace of dislike and a gesture of rejection. 

He answered with a howl of rage that seemed to say, "Do you dare tell memy apple was not fit to eat?"

"One bad apple may grow on the best tree, " I said. 

Whether he perceived my meaning I cannot tell, but he made a stridenearer, and I stood on my guard. He delayed his assault, however, untila second giant, much like him, who had been stealing up behind me, wasclose enough, when he rushed upon me. I met him with a good blow in theface, but the other struck me on the back of the head, and between themI was soon overpowered. 

They dragged me into the wood above the valley, where their tribelived--in wretched huts, built of fallen branches and a few stones. Intoone of these they pushed me, there threw me on the ground, and kickedme. A woman was present, who looked on with indifference. 

I may here mention that during my captivity I hardly learned todistinguish the women from the men, they differed so little. Often Iwondered whether I had not come upon a sort of fungoid people, with justenough mind to give them motion and the expressions of anger and greed. Their food, which consisted of tubers, bulbs, and fruits, was to meinexpressibly disagreeable, but nothing offended them so much as to showdislike to it. I was cuffed by the women and kicked by the men because Iwould not swallow it. 

I lay on the floor that night hardly able to move, but I slept a gooddeal, and woke a little refreshed. In the morning they dragged me to thevalley, and tying my feet, with a long rope, to a tree, put a flat stonewith a saw-like edge in my left hand. I shifted it to the right; theykicked me, and put it again in the left; gave me to understand that Iwas to scrape the bark off every branch that had no fruit on it; kickedme once more, and left me. 

I set about the dreary work in the hope that by satisfying them I shouldbe left very much to myself--to make my observations and choose my timefor escape. Happily one of the dwarf-trees grew close by me, andevery other minute I plucked and ate a small fruit, which wonderfullyrefreshed and strengthened me. 

CHAPTER XIII. THE LITTLE ONES

I had been at work but a few moments, when I heard small voices near me, and presently the Little Ones, as I soon found they called themselves, came creeping out from among the tiny trees that like brushwood filledthe spaces between the big ones. In a minute there were scores andscores about me. I made signs that the giants had but just left me, and were not far off; but they laughed, and told me the wind was quiteclean. 

"They are too blind to see us, " they said, and laughed like a multitudeof sheep-bells. 

"Do you like that rope about your ankles?" asked one. 

"I want them to think I cannot take it off, " I replied. 

"They can scarcely see their own feet!" he rejoined. "Walk with shortsteps and they will think the rope is all right. "

As he spoke, he danced with merriment. 

One of the bigger girls got down on her knees to untie the clumsy knot. I smiled, thinking those pretty fingers could do nothing with it, but ina moment it was loose. 

They then made me sit down, and fed me with delicious little fruits;after which the smaller of them began to play with me in the wildestfashion, so that it was impossible for me to resume my work. When thefirst grew tired, others took their places, and this went on until thesun was setting, and heavy steps were heard approaching. The littlepeople started from me, and I made haste to put the rope round myankles. 

"We must have a care, " said the girl who had freed me; "a crush of oneof their horrid stumpy feet might kill a very little one!"

"Can they not perceive you at all then?"

"They might see something move; and if the children were in a heap onthe top of you, as they were a moment ago, it would be terrible; forthey hate every live thing but themselves. --Not that they are much aliveeither!"

She whistled like a bird. The next instant not one of them was to beseen or heard, and the girl herself had disappeared. 

It was my master, as doubtless he counted himself, come to take me home. He freed my ankles, and dragged me to the door of his hut; there hethrew me on the ground, again tied my feet, gave me a kick, and left me. 

Now I might at once have made my escape; but at length I had friends, and could not think of leaving them. They were so charming, so full ofwinsome ways, that I must see more of them! I must know them better!"To-morrow, " I said to myself with delight, "I shall see them again!"But from the moment there was silence in the huts until I fell asleep, Iheard them whispering all about me, and knew that I was lovingly watchedby a multitude. After that, I think they hardly ever left me quitealone. 

I did not come to know the giants at all, and I believe there wasscarcely anything in them to know. They never became in the leastfriendly, but they were much too stupid to invent cruelties. Often Iavoided a bad kick by catching the foot and giving its owner a fall, upon which he never, on that occasion, renewed his attempt. 

But the little people were constantly doing and saying things thatpleased, often things that surprised me. Every day I grew more loathto leave them. While I was at work, they would keep coming and going, amusing and delighting me, and taking all the misery, and much of theweariness out of my monotonous toil. Very soon I loved them more thanI can tell. They did not know much, but they were very wise, and seemedcapable of learning anything. I had no bed save the bare ground, butalmost as often as I woke, it was in a nest of children--one or other ofthem in my arms, though which I seldom could tell until the light came, for they ordered the succession among themselves. When one crept into mybosom, unconsciously I clasped him there, and the rest lay close aroundme, the smaller nearer. It is hardly necessary to say that I did notsuffer much from the nightly cold! The first thing they did in themorning, and the last before sunset, was to bring the good giant plentyto eat. 

One morning I was surprised on waking to find myself alone. As I cameto my senses, however, I heard subdued sounds of approach, and presentlythe girl already mentioned, the tallest and gravest of the community, and regarded by all as their mother, appeared from the wood, followed bythe multitude in jubilation manifest--but silent lest they should rousethe sleeping giant at whose door I lay. She carried a boy-baby in herarms: hitherto a girl-baby, apparently about a year old, had been theyoungest. Three of the bigger girls were her nurses, but they sharedtheir treasure with all the rest. Among the Little Ones, dolls wereunknown; the bigger had the smaller, and the smaller the still less, totend and play with. 

Lona came to me and laid the infant in my arms. The baby opened his eyesand looked at me, closed them again, and fell asleep. 

"He loves you already!" said the girl. 

"Where did you find him?" I asked. 

"In the wood, of course, " she answered, her eyes beaming with delight, "--where we always find them. Isn't he a beauty? We've been out allnight looking for him. Sometimes it is not easy to find!"

"How do you know when there is one to find?" I asked. 

"I cannot tell, " she replied. "Every one makes haste to tell the other, but we never find out who told first. Sometimes I think one must havesaid it asleep, and another heard it half-awake. When there is a baby inthe wood, no one can stop to ask questions; and when we have found it, then it is too late. "

"Do more boy or girl babies come to the wood?"

"They don't come to the wood; we go to the wood and find them. "

"Are there more boys or girls of you now?"

I had found that to ask precisely the same question twice, made themknit their brows. 

"I do not know, " she answered. 

"You can count them, surely!"

"We never do that. We shouldn't like to be counted. "

"Why?"

"It wouldn't be smooth. We would rather not know. "

"Where do the babies come from first?"

"From the wood--always. There is no other place they can come from. "

She knew where they came from last, and thought nothing else was to beknown about their advent. 

"How often do you find one?"

"Such a happy thing takes all the glad we've got, and we forget the lasttime. You too are glad to have him--are you not, good giant?"

"Yes, indeed, I am!" I answered. "But how do you feed him?"

"I will show you, " she rejoined, and went away--to return directly withtwo or three ripe little plums. She put one to the baby's lips. 

"He would open his mouth if he were awake, " she said, and took him inher arms. 

She squeezed a drop to the surface, and again held the fruit to thebaby's lips. Without waking he began at once to suck it, and she went onslowly squeezing until nothing but skin and stone were left. 

"There!" she cried, in a tone of gentle triumph. "A big-apple world itwould be with nothing for the babies! We wouldn't stop in it--would we, darling? We would leave it to the bad giants!"

"But what if you let the stone into the baby's mouth when you werefeeding him?" I said. 

"No mother would do that, " she replied. "I shouldn't be fit to have ababy!"

I thought what a lovely woman she would grow. But what became of themwhen they grew up? Where did they go? That brought me again to thequestion--where did they come from first?

"Will you tell me where you lived before?" I said. 

"Here, " she replied. 

"Have you NEVER lived anywhere else?" I ventured. 

"Never. We all came from the wood. Some think we dropped out of thetrees. "

"How is it there are so many of you quite little?"

"I don't understand. Some are less and some are bigger. I am very big. "

"Baby will grow bigger, won't he?"

"Of course he will!"

"And will you grow bigger?"

"I don't think so. I hope not. I am the biggest. It frightens mesometimes. "

"Why should it frighten you?"

She gave me no answer. 

"How old are you?" I resumed. 

"I do not know what you mean. We are all just that. "

"How big will the baby grow?"

"I cannot tell. --Some, " she added, with a trouble in her voice, "beginto grow after we think they have stopped. --That is a frightful thing. Wedon't talk about it!"

"What makes it frightful?"

She was silent for a moment, then answered, "We fear they may be beginning to grow giants. "

"Why should you fear that?"

"Because it is so terrible. --I don't want to talk about it!"

She pressed the baby to her bosom with such an anxious look that I darednot further question her. 

Before long I began to perceive in two or three of the smaller childrensome traces of greed and selfishness, and noted that the bigger girlscast on these a not infrequent glance of anxiety. 

None of them put a hand to my work: they would do nothing for thegiants! But they never relaxed their loving ministrations to me. Theywould sing to me, one after another, for hours; climb the tree to reachmy mouth and pop fruit into it with their dainty little fingers; andthey kept constant watch against the approach of a giant. 

Sometimes they would sit and tell me stories--mostly very childish, andoften seeming to mean hardly anything. Now and then they would call ageneral assembly to amuse me. On one such occasion a moody littlefellow sang me a strange crooning song, with a refrain so pathetic that, although unintelligible to me, it caused the tears to run down my face. This phenomenon made those who saw it regard me with much perplexity. Then first I bethought myself that I had not once, in that world, lookedon water, falling or lying or running. Plenty there had been in somelong vanished age--that was plain enough--but the Little Ones had neverseen any before they saw my tears! They had, nevertheless, it seemed, some dim, instinctive perception of their origin; for a very small childwent up to the singer, shook his clenched pud in his face, and saidsomething like this: "'Ou skeeze ze juice out of ze good giant'sseeberries! Bad giant!"

"How is it, " I said one day to Lona, as she sat with the baby in herarms at the foot of my tree, "that I never see any children among thegiants?"

She stared a little, as if looking in vain for some sense in thequestion, then replied, "They are giants; there are no little ones. "

"Have they never any children?" I asked. 

"No; there are never any in the wood for them. They do not love them. Ifthey saw ours, they would stamp them. "

"Is there always the same number of the giants then? I thought, before Ihad time to know better, that they were your fathers and mothers. "

She burst into the merriest laughter, and said, "No, good giant; WE are THEIR firsters. "

But as she said it, the merriment died out of her, and she lookedscared. 

I stopped working, and gazed at her, bewildered. 

"How CAN that be?" I exclaimed. 

"I do not say; I do not understand, " she answered. "But we were here andthey not. They go from us. I am sorry, but we cannot help it. THEY couldhave helped it. "

"How long have you been here?" I asked, more and more puzzled--in thehope of some side-light on the matter. 

"Always, I think, " she replied. "I think somebody made us always. "

I turned to my scraping. 

She saw I did not understand. 

"The giants were not made always, " she resumed. "If a Little One doesn'tcare, he grows greedy, and then lazy, and then big, and then stupid, andthen bad. The dull creatures don't know that they come from us. Veryfew of them believe we are anywhere. They say NONSENSE!--Look at littleBlunty: he is eating one of their apples! He will be the next! Oh! oh!he will soon be big and bad and ugly, and not know it!"

The child stood by himself a little way off, eating an apple nearlyas big as his head. I had often thought he did not look so good as therest; now he looked disgusting. 

"I will take the horrid thing from him!" I cried. 

"It is no use, " she answered sadly. "We have done all we can, and itis too late! We were afraid he was growing, for he would not believeanything told him; but when he refused to share his berries, and saidhe had gathered them for himself, then we knew it! He is a glutton, andthere is no hope of him. --It makes me sick to see him eat!"

"Could not some of the boys watch him, and not let him touch thepoisonous things?"

"He may have them if he will: it is all one--to eat the apples, and tobe a boy that would eat them if he could. No; he must go to the giants!He belongs to them. You can see how much bigger he is than when firstyou came! He is bigger since yesterday. "

"He is as like that hideous green lump in his hand as boy could look!"

"It suits what he is making himself. "

"His head and it might change places!"

"Perhaps they do!"

"Does he want to be a giant?"

"He hates the giants, but he is making himself one all the same: helikes their apples! Oh baby, baby, he was just such a darling as youwhen we found him!"

"He will be very miserable when he finds himself a giant!"

"Oh, no; he will like it well enough! That is the worst of it. "

"Will he hate the Little Ones?"

"He will be like the rest; he will not remember us--most likely willnot believe there are Little Ones. He will not care; he will eat hisapples. "

"Do tell me how it will come about. I understand your world so little! Icome from a world where everything is different. "

"I do not know about WORLD. What is it? What more but a word in yourbeautiful big mouth?--That makes it something!"

"Never mind about the word; tell me what next will happen to Blunty. "

"He will wake one morning and find himself a giant--not like you, goodgiant, but like any other bad giant. You will hardly know him, but Iwill tell you which. He will think he has been a giant always, and willnot know you, or any of us. The giants have lost themselves, Peony says, and that is why they never smile. I wonder whether they are not gladbecause they are bad, or bad because they are not glad. But they can'tbe glad when they have no babies! I wonder what BAD means, good giant!"

"I wish I knew no more about it than you!" I returned. "But I try to begood, and mean to keep on trying. "

"So do I--and that is how I know you are good. "

A long pause followed. 

"Then you do not know where the babies come from into the wood?" I said, making one attempt more. 

"There is nothing to know there, " she answered. "They are in the wood;they grow there. "

"Then how is it you never find one before it is quite grown?" I asked. 

She knitted her brows and was silent a moment:

"They're not there till they're finished, " she said. 

"It is a pity the little sillies can't speak till they've forgotteneverything they had to tell!" I remarked. 

"Little Tolma, the last before this baby, looked as if she had somethingto tell, when I found her under a beech-tree, sucking her thumb, but shehadn't. She only looked up at me--oh, so sweetly! SHE will never gobad and grow big! When they begin to grow big they care for nothing butbigness; and when they cannot grow any bigger, they try to grow fatter. The bad giants are very proud of being fat. "

"So they are in my world, " I said; "only they do not say FAT there, theysay RICH. "

"In one of their houses, " continued Lona, "sits the biggest and fattestof them--so proud that nobody can see him; and the giants go to hishouse at certain times, and call out to him, and tell him how fat he is, and beg him to make them strong to eat more and grow fat like him. "

The rumour at length reached my ears that Blunty had vanished. I saw afew grave faces among the bigger ones, but he did not seem to be muchmissed. 

The next morning Lona came to me and whispered, "Look! look there--by that quince-tree: that is the giant that wasBlunty!--Would you have known him?"

"Never, " I answered. "--But now you tell me, I could fancy it might beBlunty staring through a fog! He DOES look stupid!"

"He is for ever eating those apples now!" she said. "That is what comesof Little Ones that WON'T be little!"

"They call it growing-up in my world!" I said to myself. "If only shewould teach me to grow the other way, and become a Little One!--Shall Iever be able to laugh like them?"

I had had the chance, and had flung it from me! Blunty and I were alike!He did not know his loss, and I had to be taught mine!

CHAPTER XIV. A CRISIS

For a time I had no desire save to spend my life with the Little Ones. But soon other thoughts and feelings began to influence me. First awokethe vague sense that I ought to be doing something; that I was notmeant for the fattening of boors! Then it came to me that I was in amarvellous world, of which it was assuredly my business to discoverthe ways and laws; and that, if I would do anything in return for thechildren's goodness, I must learn more about them than they could tellme, and to that end must be free. Surely, I thought, no suppression oftheir growth can be essential to their loveliness and truth and purity!Not in any world could the possibility exist of such a discord betweenconstitution and its natural outcome! Life and law cannot be so atvariance that perfection must be gained by thwarting development! Butthe growth of the Little Ones WAS arrested! something interfered withit: what was it? Lona seemed the eldest of them, yet not more thanfifteen, and had been long in charge of a multitude, in semblance andmostly in behaviour merest children, who regarded her as their mother!Were they growing at all? I doubted it. Of time they had scarcely theidea; of their own age they knew nothing! Lona herself thought she hadlived always! Full of wisdom and empty of knowledge, she was at oncetheir Love and their Law! But what seemed to me her ignorance might intruth be my own lack of insight! Her one anxiety plainly was, that herLittle Ones should not grow, and change into bad giants! Their "goodgiant" was bound to do his best for them: without more knowledge oftheir nature, and some knowledge of their history, he could do nothing, and must therefore leave them! They would only be as they werebefore; they had in no way become dependent on me; they were stillmy protectors, I was not theirs; my presence but brought them more indanger of their idiotic neighbours! I longed to teach them many things:I must first understand more of those I would teach! Knowledge nodoubt made bad people worse, but it must make good people better! I wasconvinced they would learn mathematics; and might they not be taught towrite down the dainty melodies they murmured and forgot?

The conclusion was, that I must rise and continue my travels, in thehope of coming upon some elucidation of the fortunes and destiny of thebewitching little creatures. 

My design, however, would not so soon have passed into action, but forwhat now occurred. 

To prepare them for my temporary absence, I was one day telling themwhile at work that I would long ago have left the bad giants, but that Iloved the Little Ones so much--when, as by one accord, they came rushingand crowding upon me; they scrambled over each other and up the tree anddropped on my head, until I was nearly smothered. With three very littleones in my arms, one on each shoulder clinging to my neck, one standingstraight up on my head, four or five holding me fast by the legs, othersgrappling my body and arms, and a multitude climbing and descending uponthese, I was helpless as one overwhelmed by lava. Absorbed in the merrystruggle, not one of them saw my tyrant coming until he was almost uponme. With just one cry of "Take care, good giant!" they ran from me likemice, they dropped from me like hedgehogs, they flew from me up the treelike squirrels, and the same moment, sharp round the stem came the badgiant, and dealt me such a blow on the head with a stick that I fell tothe ground. The children told me afterwards that they sent him "sucha many bumps of big apples and stones" that he was frightened, and ranblundering home. 

When I came to myself it was night. Above me were a few pale stars thatexpected the moon. I thought I was alone. My head ached badly, and I wasterribly athirst. 

I turned wearily on my side. The moment my ear touched the ground, Iheard the gushing and gurgling of water, and the soft noises made megroan with longing. At once I was amid a multitude of silent children, and delicious little fruits began to visit my lips. They came and cameuntil my thirst was gone. 

Then I was aware of sounds I had never heard there before; the air wasfull of little sobs. 

I tried to sit up. A pile of small bodies instantly heaped itself at myback. Then I struggled to my feet, with much pushing and pulling fromthe Little Ones, who were wonderfully strong for their size. 

"You must go away, good giant, " they said. "When the bad giants see youhurt, they will all trample on you. "

"I think I must, " I answered. 

"Go and grow strong, and come again, " they said. 

"I will, " I replied--and sat down. 

"Indeed you must go at once!" whispered Lona, who had been supportingme, and now knelt beside me. 

"I listened at his door, " said one of the bigger boys, "and heard thebad giant say to his wife that he had found you idle, talking to a lotof moles and squirrels, and when he beat you, they tried to kill him. Hesaid you were a wizard, and they must knock you, or they would have nopeace. "

"I will go at once, " I said, "and come back as soon as I have found outwhat is wanted to make you bigger and stronger. "

"We don't want to be bigger, " they answered, looking very serious. "We WON'T grow bad giants!--We are strong now; you don't know how muchstrong!"

It was no use holding them out a prospect that had not any attractionfor them! I said nothing more, but rose and moved slowly up the slope ofthe valley. At once they formed themselves into a long procession; someled the way, some walked with me helping me, and the rest followed. Theykept feeding me as we went. 

"You are broken, " they said, "and much red juice has run out of you: putsome in. "

When we reached the edge of the valley, there was the moon just liftingher forehead over the rim of the horizon. 

"She has come to take care of you, and show you the way, " said Lona. 

I questioned those about me as we walked, and learned there was a greatplace with a giant-girl for queen. When I asked if it was a city, theysaid they did not know. Neither could they tell how far off, or in whatdirection it was, or what was the giant-girl's name; all they knew was, that she hated the Little Ones, and would like to kill them, only shecould not find them. I asked how they knew that; Lona answered that shehad always known it. If the giant-girl came to look for them, they musthide hard, she said. When I told them I should go and ask her why shehated them, they cried out, "No, no! she will kill you, good giant; she will kill you! She is anawful bad-giant witch!"

I asked them where I was to go then. They told me that, beyond thebaby-forest, away where the moon came from, lay a smooth green country, pleasant to the feet, without rocks or trees. But when I asked how I wasto set out for it. 

"The moon will tell you, we think, " they said. 

They were taking me up the second branch of the river bed: when they sawthat the moon had reached her height, they stopped to return. 

"We have never gone so far from our trees before, " they said. "Now mindyou watch how you go, that you may see inside your eyes how to come backto us. "

"And beware of the giant-woman that lives in the desert, " said one ofthe bigger girls as they were turning, "I suppose you have heard ofher!"

"No, " I answered. 

"Then take care not to go near her. She is called the Cat-woman. She isawfully ugly--AND SCRATCHES. "

As soon as the bigger ones stopped, the smaller had begun to run back. The others now looked at me gravely for a moment, and then walked slowlyaway. Last to leave me, Lona held up the baby to be kissed, gazed inmy eyes, whispered, "The Cat-woman will not hurt YOU, " and went withoutanother word. I stood a while, gazing after them through the moonlight, then turned and, with a heavy heart, began my solitary journey. Soon thelaughter of the Little Ones overtook me, like sheep-bells innumerable, rippling the air, and echoing in the rocks about me. I turned again, andagain gazed after them: they went gamboling along, with never a care intheir sweet souls. But Lona walked apart with her baby. 

Pondering as I went, I recalled many traits of my little friends. 

Once when I suggested that they should leave the country of the badgiants, and go with me to find another, they answered, "But that wouldbe to NOT ourselves!"--so strong in them was the love of place thattheir country seemed essential to their very being! Without ambition orfear, discomfort or greed, they had no motive to desire any change; theyknew of nothing amiss; and, except their babies, they had never had achance of helping any one but myself:--How were they to grow? But again, Why should they grow? In seeking to improve their conditions, mightI not do them harm, and only harm? To enlarge their minds after thenotions of my world--might it not be to distort and weaken them? Theirfear of growth as a possible start for gianthood might be instinctive!

The part of philanthropist is indeed a dangerous one; and the man whowould do his neighbour good must first study how not to do him evil, andmust begin by pulling the beam out of his own eye. 

CHAPTER XV. A STRANGE HOSTESS

I travelled on attended by the moon. As usual she was full--I had neverseen her other--and to-night as she sank I thought I perceived somethinglike a smile on her countenance. 

When her under edge was a little below the horizon, there appeared inthe middle of her disc, as if it had been painted upon it, a cottage, through the open door and window of which she shone; and with the sightcame the conviction that I was expected there. Almost immediately themoon was gone, and the cottage had vanished; the night was rapidlygrowing dark, and my way being across a close succession of smallravines, I resolved to remain where I was and expect the morning. Istretched myself, therefore, in a sandy hollow, made my supper off thefruits the children had given me at parting, and was soon asleep. 

I woke suddenly, saw above me constellations unknown to my former world, and had lain for a while gazing at them, when I became aware of a figureseated on the ground a little way from and above me. I was startled, asone is on discovering all at once that he is not alone. The figure wasbetween me and the sky, so that I saw its outline well. From where I laylow in the hollow, it seemed larger than human. 

It moved its head, and then first I saw that its back was toward me. 

"Will you not come with me?" said a sweet, mellow voice, unmistakably awoman's. 

Wishing to learn more of my hostess, "I thank you, " I replied, "but I am not uncomfortable here. Where wouldyou have me go? I like sleeping in the open air. "

"There is no hurt in the air, " she returned; "but the creatures thatroam the night in these parts are not such as a man would willingly haveabout him while he sleeps. "

"I have not been disturbed, " I said. 

"No; I have been sitting by you ever since you lay down. "

"That is very kind of you! How came you to know I was here? Why do youshow me such favour?"

"I saw you, " she answered, still with her back to me, "in the light ofthe moon, just as she went down. I see badly in the day, but at nightperfectly. The shadow of my house would have hidden you, but bothits doors were open. I was out on the waste, and saw you go into thishollow. You were asleep, however, before I could reach you, and I wasnot willing to disturb you. People are frightened if I come on themsuddenly. They call me the Cat-woman. It is not my name. "

I remembered what the children had told me--that she was very ugly, andscratched. But her voice was gentle, and its tone a little apologetic:she could not be a bad giantess!

"You shall not hear it from me, " I answered, "Please tell me what I MAYcall you!"

"When you know me, call me by the name that seems to you to fit me, " shereplied: "that will tell me what sort you are. People do not often giveme the right one. It is well when they do. "

"I suppose, madam, you live in the cottage I saw in the heart of themoon?"

"I do. I live there alone, except when I have visitors. It is a poorplace, but I do what I can for my guests, and sometimes their sleep issweet to them. "

Her voice entered into me, and made me feel strangely still. 

"I will go with you, madam, " I said, rising. 

She rose at once, and without a glance behind her led the way. I couldsee her just well enough to follow. She was taller than myself, but notso tall as I had thought her. That she never turned her face to me mademe curious--nowise apprehensive, her voice rang so true. But how was Ito fit her with a name who could not see her? I strove to get alongsideof her, but failed: when I quickened my pace she quickened hers, andkept easily ahead of me. At length I did begin to grow a little afraid. Why was she so careful not to be seen? Extraordinary ugliness wouldaccount for it: she might fear terrifying me! Horror of an inconceivablemonstrosity began to assail me: was I following through the darkan unheard of hideousness? Almost I repented of having accepted herhospitality. 

Neither spoke, and the silence grew unbearable. I MUST break it!

"I want to find my way, " I said, "to a place I have heard of, but whosename I have not yet learned. Perhaps you can tell it me!"

"Describe it, then, and I will direct you. The stupid Bags know nothing, and the careless little Lovers forget almost everything. "

"Where do those live?"

"You are just come from them!"

"I never heard those names before!"

"You would not hear them. Neither people knows its own name!"

"Strange!"

"Perhaps so! but hardly any one anywhere knows his own name! It wouldmake many a fine gentleman stare to hear himself addressed by what isreally his name!"

I held my peace, beginning to wonder what my name might be. 

"What now do you fancy yours?" she went on, as if aware of my thought. "But, pardon me, it is a matter of no consequence. "

I had actually opened my mouth to answer her, when I discovered that myname was gone from me. I could not even recall the first letter of it!This was the second time I had been asked my name and could not tell it!

"Never mind, " she said; "it is not wanted. Your real name, indeed, iswritten on your forehead, but at present it whirls about so irregularlythat nobody can read it. I will do my part to steady it. Soon it will goslower, and, I hope, settle at last. "

This startled me, and I was silent. 

We had left the channels and walked a long time, but no sign of thecottage yet appeared. 

"The Little Ones told me, " I said at length, "of a smooth green country, pleasant to the feet!"

"Yes?" she returned. 

"They told me too of a girl giantess that was queen somewhere: is thather country?"

"There is a city in that grassy land, " she replied, "where a woman isprincess. The city is called Bulika. But certainly the princess is nota girl! She is older than this world, and came to it from yours--witha terrible history, which is not over yet. She is an evil person, andprevails much with the Prince of the Power of the Air. The people ofBulika were formerly simple folk, tilling the ground and pasturingsheep. She came among them, and they received her hospitably. She taughtthem to dig for diamonds and opals and sell them to strangers, and madethem give up tillage and pasturage and build a city. One day they founda huge snake and killed it; which so enraged her that she declaredherself their princess, and became terrible to them. The name of thecountry at that time was THE LAND OF WATERS; for the dry channels, of which you have crossed so many, were then overflowing with livetorrents; and the valley, where now the Bags and the Lovers have theirfruit-trees, was a lake that received a great part of them. But thewicked princess gathered up in her lap what she could of the water overthe whole country, closed it in an egg, and carried it away. Her lap, however, would not hold more than half of it; and the instant she wasgone, what she had not yet taken fled away underground, leaving thecountry as dry and dusty as her own heart. Were it not for the watersunder it, every living thing would long ago have perished from it. Forwhere no water is, no rain falls; and where no rain falls, no springsrise. Ever since then, the princess has lived in Bulika, holding theinhabitants in constant terror, and doing what she can to keep them frommultiplying. Yet they boast and believe themselves a prosperous, andcertainly are a self-satisfied people--good at bargaining and buying, good at selling and cheating; holding well together for a commoninterest, and utterly treacherous where interests clash; proud of theirprincess and her power, and despising every one they get the better of;never doubting themselves the most honourable of all the nations, andeach man counting himself better than any other. The depth of theirworthlessness and height of their vainglory no one can understand whohas not been there to see, who has not learned to know the miserablemisgoverned and self-deceived creatures. "

"I thank you, madam. And now, if you please, will you tell me somethingabout the Little Ones--the Lovers? I long heartily to serve them. Whoand what are they? and how do they come to be there? Those children arethe greatest wonder I have found in this world of wonders. "

"In Bulika you may, perhaps, get some light on those matters. There isan ancient poem in the library of the palace, I am told, which of courseno one there can read, but in which it is plainly written that after theLovers have gone through great troubles and learned their own name, theywill fill the land, and make the giants their slaves. "

"By that time they will have grown a little, will they not?" I said. 

"Yes, they will have grown; yet I think too they will not have grown. It is possible to grow and not to grow, to grow less and to grow bigger, both at once--yes, even to grow by means of not growing!"

"Your words are strange, madam!" I rejoined. "But I have heard it saidthat some words, because they mean more, appear to mean less!"

"That is true, and such words HAVE to be understood. It were well forthe princess of Bulika if she heard what the very silence of the landis shouting in her ears all day long! But she is far too clever tounderstand anything. "

"Then I suppose, when the little Lovers are grown, their land will havewater again?"

"Not exactly so: when they are thirsty enough, they will have water, and when they have water, they will grow. To grow, they must have water. And, beneath, it is flowing still. "

"I have heard that water twice, " I said; "--once when I lay down to waitfor the moon--and when I woke the sun was shining! and once when Ifell, all but killed by the bad giant. Both times came the voices of thewater, and healed me. "

The woman never turned her head, and kept always a little before me, butI could hear every word that left her lips, and her voice much remindedme of the woman's in the house of death. Much of what she said, I didnot understand, and therefore cannot remember. But I forgot that I hadever been afraid of her. 

We went on and on, and crossed yet a wide tract of sand before reachingthe cottage. Its foundation stood in deep sand, but I could see thatit was a rock. In character the cottage resembled the sexton's, but hadthicker walls. The door, which was heavy and strong, opened immediatelyinto a large bare room, which had two little windows opposite eachother, without glass. My hostess walked in at the open door out of whichthe moon had looked, and going straight to the farthest corner, took along white cloth from the floor, and wound it about her head and face. Then she closed the other door, in at which the moon had looked, trimmeda small horn lantern that stood on the hearth, and turned to receive me. 

"You are very welcome, Mr. Vane!" she said, calling me by the name I hadforgotten. "Your entertainment will be scanty, but, as the night is notfar spent, and the day not at hand, it is better you should be indoors. Here you will be safe, and a little lack is not a great misery. "

"I thank you heartily, madam, " I replied. "But, seeing you know the nameI could not tell you, may I not now know yours?"

"My name is Mara, " she answered. 

Then I remembered the sexton and the little black cat. 

"Some people, " she went on, "take me for Lot's wife, lamenting overSodom; and some think I am Rachel, weeping for her children; but I amneither of those. "

"I thank you again, Mara, " I said. "--May I lie here on your floor tillthe morning?"

"At the top of that stair, " she answered, "you will find a bed--on whichsome have slept better than they expected, and some have waked all thenight and slept all the next day. It is not a very soft one, but it isbetter than the sand--and there are no hyenas sniffing about it!"

The stair, narrow and steep, led straight up from the room to anunceiled and unpartitioned garret, with one wide, low dormer window. Close under the sloping roof stood a narrow bed, the sight of which withits white coverlet made me shiver, so vividly it recalled the couches inthe chamber of death. On the table was a dry loaf, and beside it a cupof cold water. To me, who had tasted nothing but fruit for months, theywere a feast. 

"I must leave you in the dark, " my hostess called from the bottom of thestair. "This lantern is all the light I have, and there are things to doto-night. "

"It is of no consequence, thank you, madam, " I returned. "To eat anddrink, to lie down and sleep, are things that can be done in the dark. "

"Rest in peace, " she said. 

I ate up the loaf, drank the water every drop, and laid myself down. The bed was hard, the covering thin and scanty, and the night cold: Idreamed that I lay in the chamber of death, between the warrior and thelady with the healing wound. 

I woke in the middle of the night, thinking I heard low noises of wildanimals. 

"Creatures of the desert scenting after me, I suppose!" I said tomyself, and, knowing I was safe, would have gone to sleep again. Butthat instant a rough purring rose to a howl under my window, and Isprang from my bed to see what sort of beast uttered it. 

Before the door of the cottage, in the full radiance of the moon, a tallwoman stood, clothed in white, with her back toward me. She was stoopingover a large white animal like a panther, patting and stroking it withone hand, while with the other she pointed to the moon half-way up theheaven, then drew a perpendicular line to the horizon. Instantly thecreature darted off with amazing swiftness in the direction indicated. For a moment my eyes followed it, then sought the woman; but she wasgone, and not yet had I seen her face! Again I looked after the animal, but whether I saw or only fancied a white speck in the distance, I couldnot tell. --What did it mean? What was the monster-cat sent off to do? Ishuddered, and went back to my bed. Then I remembered that, when I laydown in the sandy hollow outside, the moon was setting; yet hereshe was, a few hours after, shining in all her glory! "Everything isuncertain here, " I said to myself, "--even the motions of the heavenlybodies!"

I learned afterward that there were several moons in the service of thisworld, but the laws that ruled their times and different orbits I failedto discover. 

Again I fell asleep, and slept undisturbed. 

When I went down in the morning, I found bread and water waiting me, theloaf so large that I ate only half of it. My hostess sat muffled besideme while I broke my fast, and except to greet me when I entered, neveropened her mouth until I asked her to instruct me how to arrive atBulika. She then told me to go up the bank of the river-bed until itdisappeared; then verge to the right until I came to a forest--in whichI might spend a night, but which I must leave with my face to the risingmoon. Keeping in the same direction, she said, until I reached a runningstream, I must cross that at right angles, and go straight on until Isaw the city on the horizon. 

I thanked her, and ventured the remark that, looking out of the windowin the night, I was astonished to see her messenger understand her sowell, and go so straight and so fast in the direction she had indicated. 

"If I had but that animal of yours to guide me--" I went on, hoping tolearn something of its mission, but she interrupted me, saying, "It was to Bulika she went--the shortest way. "

"How wonderfully intelligent she looked!"

"Astarte knows her work well enough to be sent to do it, " she answered. 

"Have you many messengers like her?"

"As many as I require. "

"Are they hard to teach?"

"They need no teaching. They are all of a certain breed, but not one ofthe breed is like another. Their origin is so natural it would seem toyou incredible. "

"May I not know it?"

"A new one came to me last night--from your head while you slept. "

I laughed. 

"All in this world seem to love mystery!" I said to myself. "Some chanceword of mine suggested an idea--and in this form she embodies the smallfact!"

"Then the creature is mine!" I cried. 

"Not at all!" she answered. "That only can be ours in whose existenceour will is a factor. "

"Ha! a metaphysician too!" I remarked inside, and was silent. 

"May I take what is left of the loaf?" I asked presently. 

"You will want no more to-day, " she replied. 

"To-morrow I may!" I rejoined. 

She rose and went to the door, saying as she went, "It has nothing to do with to-morrow--but you may take it if you will. "

She opened the door, and stood holding it. I rose, taking up thebread--but lingered, much desiring to see her face. 

"Must I go, then?" I asked. 

"No one sleeps in my house two nights together!" she answered. 

"I thank you, then, for your hospitality, and bid you farewell!" I said, and turned to go. 

"The time will come when you must house with me many days and manynights, " she murmured sadly through her muffling. 

"Willingly, " I replied. 

"Nay, NOT willingly!" she answered. 

I said to myself that she was right--I would not willingly be her guesta second time! but immediately my heart rebuked me, and I had scarcecrossed the threshold when I turned again. 

She stood in the middle of the room; her white garments lay like foamywaves at her feet, and among them the swathings of her face: it waslovely as a night of stars. Her great gray eyes looked up to heaven;tears were flowing down her pale cheeks. She reminded me not a littleof the sexton's wife, although the one looked as if she had not wept forthousands of years, and the other as if she wept constantly behind thewrappings of her beautiful head. Yet something in the very eyes thatwept seemed to say, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh inthe morning. "

I had bowed my head for a moment, about to kneel and beg herforgiveness, when, looking up in the act, I found myself outside adoorless house. I went round and round it, but could find no entrance. 

I had stopped under one of the windows, on the point of calling aloud myrepentant confession, when a sudden wailing, howling scream invaded myears, and my heart stood still. Something sprang from the window abovemy head, and lighted beyond me. I turned, and saw a large gray cat, itshair on end, shooting toward the river-bed. I fell with my face in thesand, and seemed to hear within the house the gentle sobbing of one whosuffered but did not repent. 

CHAPTER XVI. A GRUESOME DANCE

I rose to resume my journey, and walked many a desert mile. How I longedfor a mountain, or even a tall rock, from whose summit I might seeacross the dismal plain or the dried-up channels to some bordering hope!Yet what could such foresight have availed me? That which is within aman, not that which lies beyond his vision, is the main factor in whatis about to befall him: the operation upon him is the event. Foreseeingis not understanding, else surely the prophecy latent in man would comeoftener to the surface!

The sun was half-way to the horizon when I saw before me a rugged rockyascent; but ere I reached it my desire to climb was over, and I longedto lie down. By that time the sun was almost set, and the air had begunto grow dark. At my feet lay a carpet of softest, greenest moss, couchfor a king: I threw myself upon it, and weariness at once began to ebb, for, the moment my head was down, the third time I heard below me manywaters, playing broken airs and ethereal harmonies with the stones oftheir buried channels. Loveliest chaos of music-stuff the harp aquariankept sending up to my ears! What might not a Händel have done with thatever-recurring gurgle and bell-like drip, to the mingling and mutuallydestructive melodies their common refrain!

As I lay listening, my eyes went wandering up and down the rocky slopeabrupt above me, reading on its face the record that down there, agesago, rushed a cataract, filling the channels that had led me to itsfoot. My heart swelled at the thought of the splendid tumult, wherethe waves danced revelling in helpless fall, to mass their music in oneorgan-roar below. But soon the hidden brooks lulled me to sleep, andtheir lullabies mingled with my dreams. 

I woke before the sun, and eagerly climbed to see what lay beyond. Alas, nothing but a desert of finest sand! Not a trace was left of the riverthat had plunged adown the rocks! The powdery drift had filled itscourse to the level of the dreary expanse! As I looked back I saw thatthe river had divided into two branches as it fell, that whose bank Ihad now followed to the foot of the rocky scaur, and that which first Icrossed to the Evil Wood. The wood I descried between the two on thefar horizon. Before me and to the left, the desert stretched beyond myvision, but far to the right I could see a lift in the sky-line, givinghope of the forest to which my hostess had directed me. 

I sat down, and sought in my pocket the half-loaf I had brought withme--then first to understand what my hostess had meant concerning it. Verily the bread was not for the morrow: it had shrunk and hardened to astone! I threw it away, and set out again. 

About noon I came to a few tamarisk and juniper trees, and then to a fewstunted firs. As I went on, closer thickets and larger firs met me, andat length I was in just such a forest of pines and other trees as thatin which the Little Ones found their babies, and believed I had returnedupon a farther portion of the same. But what mattered WHERE whileEVERYWHERE was the same as NOWHERE! I had not yet, by doing something init, made ANYWHERE into a place! I was not yet alive; I was only dreamingI lived! I was but a consciousness with an outlook! Truly I had beennothing else in the world I had left, but now I knew the fact! I saidto myself that if in this forest I should catch the faint gleam of themirror, I would turn far aside lest it should entrap me unawares, andgive me back to my old existence: here I might learn to be something bydoing something! I could not endure the thought of going back, with somany beginnings and not an end achieved. The Little Ones would meet whatfate was appointed them; the awful witch I should never meet; the deadwould ripen and arise without me; I should but wake to know that I haddreamed, and that all my going was nowhither! I would rather go on andon than come to such a close!

I went deeper into the wood: I was weary, and would rest in it. 

The trees were now large, and stood in regular, almost geometric, fashion, with roomy spaces between. There was little undergrowth, andI could see a long way in every direction. The forest was like a greatchurch, solemn and silent and empty, for I met nothing on two feet orfour that day. Now and then, it is true, some swift thing, and againsome slow thing, would cross the space on which my eye happened thatmoment to settle; but it was always at some distance, and only enhancedthe sense of wideness and vacancy. I heard a few birds, and saw plentyof butterflies, some of marvellously gorgeous colouring and combinationsof colour, some of a pure and dazzling whiteness. 

Coming to a spot where the pines stood farther apart and gave room forflowering shrubs, and hoping it a sign of some dwelling near, I took thedirection where yet more and more roses grew, for I was hungry after thevoice and face of my kind--after any live soul, indeed, human or not, which I might in some measure understand. What a hell of horror, Ithought, to wander alone, a bare existence never going out of itself, never widening its life in another life, but, bound with the cords ofits poor peculiarities, lying an eternal prisoner in the dungeon of itsown being! I began to learn that it was impossible to live for oneselfeven, save in the presence of others--then, alas, fearfully possible!evil was only through good! selfishness but a parasite on the treeof life! In my own world I had the habit of solitary song; here not acrooning murmur ever parted my lips! There I sang without thinking; hereI thought without singing! there I had never had a bosom-friend; herethe affection of an idiot would be divinely welcome! "If only I had adog to love!" I sighed--and regarded with wonder my past self, whichpreferred the company of book or pen to that of man or woman; which, ifthe author of a tale I was enjoying appeared, would wish him away that Imight return to his story. I had chosen the dead rather than the living, the thing thought rather than the thing thinking! "Any man, " I saidnow, "is more than the greatest of books!" I had not cared for mylive brothers and sisters, and now I was left without even the dead tocomfort me!

The wood thinned yet more, and the pines grew yet larger, sending uphuge stems, like columns eager to support the heavens. More trees ofother kinds appeared; the forest was growing richer! The roses wore nowtrees, and their flowers of astonishing splendour. 

Suddenly I spied what seemed a great house or castle; but its forms wereso strangely indistinct, that I could not be certain it was more than achance combination of tree-shapes. As I drew nearer, its lines yet heldtogether, but neither they nor the body of it grew at all more definite;and when at length I stood in front of it, I remained as doubtful of itsnature as before. House or castle habitable, it certainly was not; itmight be a ruin overgrown with ivy and roses! Yet of building hid in thefoliage, not the poorest wall-remnant could I discern. Again and againI seemed to descry what must be building, but it always vanished beforecloser inspection. Could it be, I pondered, that the ivy had embraced ahuge edifice and consumed it, and its interlaced branches retained theshapes of the walls it had assimilated?--I could be sure of nothingconcerning the appearance. 

Before me was a rectangular vacancy--the ghost of a doorway without adoor: I stepped through it, and found myself in an open space like agreat hall, its floor covered with grass and flowers, its walls and roofof ivy and vine, mingled with roses. 

There could be no better place in which to pass the night! I gathereda quantity of withered leaves, laid them in a corner, and threw myselfupon them. A red sunset filled the hall, the night was warm, and mycouch restful; I lay gazing up at the live ceiling, with its traceryof branches and twigs, its clouds of foliage, and peeping patches ofloftier roof. My eyes went wading about as if tangled in it, until thesun was down, and the sky beginning to grow dark. Then the red rosesturned black, and soon the yellow and white alone were visible. Whenthey vanished, the stars came instead, hanging in the leaves likelive topazes, throbbing and sparkling and flashing many colours: I wascanopied with a tree from Aladdin's cave!

Then I discovered that it was full of nests, whence tiny heads, nearly indistinguishable, kept popping out with a chirp or two, anddisappearing again. For a while there were rustlings and stirrings andlittle prayers; but as the darkness grew, the small heads became still, and at last every feathered mother had her brood quiet under her wings, the talk in the little beds was over, and God's bird-nursery at restbeneath the waves of sleep. Once more a few flutterings made me lookup: an owl went sailing across. I had only a glimpse of him, but severaltimes felt the cool wafture of his silent wings. The mother birds didnot move again; they saw that he was looking for mice, not children. 

About midnight I came wide awake, roused by a revelry, whose noiseswere yet not loud. Neither were they distant; they were close to me, butattenuate. My eyes were so dazzled, however, that for a while I couldsee nothing; at last they came to themselves. 

I was lying on my withered leaves in the corner of a splendid hall. Before me was a crowd of gorgeously dressed men and gracefully robedwomen, none of whom seemed to see me. In dance after dance they vaguelyembodied the story of life, its meetings, its passions, its partings. Astudent of Shakspere, I had learned something of every dance alludedto in his plays, and hence partially understood several of those Inow saw--the minuet, the pavin, the hey, the coranto, the lavolta. Thedancers were attired in fashion as ancient as their dances. 

A moon had risen while I slept, and was shining through thecountless-windowed roof; but her light was crossed by so many shadowsthat at first I could distinguish almost nothing of the faces ofthe multitude; I could not fail, however, to perceive that there wassomething odd about them: I sat up to see them better. --Heavens! couldI call them faces? They were skull fronts!--hard, gleaming bone, barejaws, truncated noses, lipless teeth which could no more take part inany smile! Of these, some flashed set and white and murderous; otherswere clouded with decay, broken and gapped, coloured of the earth inwhich they seemed so long to have lain! Fearfuller yet, the eye-socketswere not empty; in each was a lidless living eye! In those wrecks offaces, glowed or flashed or sparkled eyes of every colour, shape, andexpression. The beautiful, proud eye, dark and lustrous, condescendingto whatever it rested upon, was the more terrible; the lovely, languishing eye, the more repulsive; while the dim, sad eyes, less atvariance with their setting, were sad exceedingly, and drew the heart inspite of the horror out of which they gazed. 

I rose and went among the apparitions, eager to understand somethingof their being and belongings. Were they souls, or were they and theirrhythmic motions but phantasms of what had been? By look nor by gesture, not by slightest break in the measure, did they show themselves awareof me; I was not present to them: how much were they in relation to eachother? Surely they saw their companions as I saw them! Or was each onlydreaming itself and the rest? Did they know each how they appeared tothe others--a death with living eyes? Had they used their faces, not forcommunication, not to utter thought and feeling, not to share existencewith their neighbours, but to appear what they wished to appear, andconceal what they were? and, having made their faces masks, were theytherefore deprived of those masks, and condemned to go without facesuntil they repented?

"How long must they flaunt their facelessness in faceless eyes?" Iwondered. "How long will the frightful punition endure? Have they atlength begun to love and be wise? Have they yet yielded to the shamethat has found them?"

I heard not a word, saw not a movement of one naked mouth. Were theybecause of lying bereft of speech? With their eyes they spoke as iflonging to be understood: was it truth or was it falsehood that spokein their eyes? They seemed to know one another: did they see one skullbeautiful, and another plain? Difference must be there, and they had hadlong study of skulls!

My body was to theirs no obstacle: was I a body, and were they butforms? or was I but a form, and were they bodies? The moment one of thedancers came close against me, that moment he or she was on the otherside of me, and I could tell, without seeing, which, whether man orwoman, had passed through my house. 

On many of the skulls the hair held its place, and however dressed, orin itself however beautiful, to my eyes looked frightful on the bonesof the forehead and temples. In such case, the outer ear often remainedalso, and at its tip, the jewel of the ear as Sidney calls it, would hang, glimmering, gleaming, or sparkling, pearl or opal ordiamond--under the night of brown or of raven locks, the sunriseof golden ripples, or the moonshine of pale, interclouded, fluffycirri--lichenous all on the ivory-white or damp-yellow naked bone. Ilooked down and saw the daintily domed instep; I looked up and saw theplump shoulders basing the spring of the round full neck--which witheredat half-height to the fluted shaft of a gibbose cranium. 

The music became wilder, the dance faster and faster; eyes flared andflashed, jewels twinkled and glittered, casting colour and fire on thepallid grins that glode through the hall, weaving a ghastly rhythmicwoof in intricate maze of multitudinous motion, when sudden came apause, and every eye turned to the same spot:--in the doorway stood awoman, perfect in form, in holding, and in hue, regarding the companyas from the pedestal of a goddess, while the dancers stood "like oneforbid, " frozen to a new death by the vision of a life that killed. "Dead things, I live!" said her scornful glance. Then, at once, likeleaves in which an instant wind awakes, they turned each to another, andbroke afresh into melodious consorted motion, a new expression intheir eyes, late solitary, now filled with the interchange of a commontriumph. "Thou also, " they seemed to say, "wilt soon become weak aswe! thou wilt soon become like unto us!" I turned mine again to thewoman--and saw upon her side a small dark shadow. 

She had seen the change in the dead stare; she looked down; sheunderstood the talking eyes; she pressed both her lovely hands on theshadow, gave a smothered cry, and fled. The birds moved rustling intheir nests, and a flash of joy lit up the eyes of the dancers, whensuddenly a warm wind, growing in strength as it swept through the place, blew out every light. But the low moon yet glimmered on the horizon with"sick assay" to shine, and a turbid radiance yet gleamed from so manyeyes, that I saw well enough what followed. As if each shape had beenbut a snow-image, it began to fall to pieces, ruining in the warm wind. In papery flakes the flesh peeled from its bones, dropping like soiledsnow from under its garments; these fell fluttering in rags and strips, and the whole white skeleton, emerging from garment and flesh together, stood bare and lank amid the decay that littered the floor. A faintrattling shiver went through the naked company; pair after pairthe lamping eyes went out; and the darkness grew round me with theloneliness. For a moment the leaves were still swept fluttering all oneway; then the wind ceased, and the owl floated silent through the silentnight. 

Not for a moment had I been afraid. It is true that whoever would crossthe threshold of any world, must leave fear behind him; but, for myself, I could claim no part in its absence. No conscious courage was operantin me; simply, I was not afraid. I neither knew why I was not afraid, nor wherefore I might have been afraid. I feared not even fear--which ofall dangers is the most dangerous. 

I went out into the wood, at once to resume my journey. Another moon wasrising, and I turned my face toward it. 

CHAPTER XVII. A GROTESQUE TRAGEDY

I had not gone ten paces when I caught sight of a strange-lookingobject, and went nearer to know what it might be. I found it amouldering carriage of ancient form, ruinous but still upright on itsheavy wheels. On each side of the pole, still in its place, lay theskeleton of a horse; from their two grim white heads ascended theshrivelled reins to the hand of the skeleton-coachman seated on histattered hammer-cloth; both doors had fallen away; within sat twoskeletons, each leaning back in its corner. 

Even as I looked, they started awake, and with a cracking rattle ofbones, each leaped from the door next it. One fell and lay; the otherstood a moment, its structure shaking perilously; then with difficulty, for its joints were stiff, crept, holding by the back of the carriage, to the opposite side, the thin leg-bones seeming hardly strong enough tocarry its weight, where, kneeling by the other, it sought to raise it, almost falling itself again in the endeavour. 

The prostrate one rose at length, as by a sudden effort, to the sittingposture. For a few moments it turned its yellowish skull to this sideand that; then, heedless of its neighbour, got upon its feet by graspingthe spokes of the hind wheel. Half erected thus, it stood with its backto the other, both hands holding one of its knee-joints. With littleless difficulty and not a few contortions, the kneeling one rose next, and addressed its companion. 

"Have you hurt yourself, my lord?" it said, in a voice that soundedfar-off, and ill-articulated as if blown aside by some spectral wind. 

"Yes, I have, " answered the other, in like but rougher tone. "You woulddo nothing to help me, and this cursed knee is out!"

"I did my best, my lord. "

"No doubt, my lady, for it was bad! I thought I should never find myfeet again!--But, bless my soul, madam! are you out in your bones?"

She cast a look at herself. 

"I have nothing else to be out in, " she returned; "--and YOU at leastcannot complain! But what on earth does it mean? Am I dreaming?"

"YOU may be dreaming, madam--I cannot tell; but this knee of mineforbids me the grateful illusion. --Ha! I too, I perceive, have nothingto walk in but bones!--Not so unbecoming to a man, however! I trust togoodness they are not MY bones! every one aches worse than another, andthis loose knee worst of all! The bed must have been damp--and I toodrunk to know it!"

"Probably, my lord of Cokayne!"

"What! what!--You make me think I too am dreaming--aches and all! Howdo YOU know the title my roistering bullies give me? I don't rememberyou!--Anyhow, you have no right to take liberties! My name is--I amlord----tut, tut! What do you call me when I'm--I mean when you aresober? I cannot--at the moment, --Why, what IS my name?--I must have beenVERY drunk when I went to bed! I often am!"

"You come so seldom to mine, that I do not know, my lord; but I may takeyour word for THAT!"

"I hope so!"

"--if for nothing else!" "Hoity toity! I never told you a lie in mylife!"

"You never told me anything but lies. "

"Upon my honour!--Why, I never saw the woman before!"

"You knew me well enough to lie to, my lord!"

"I do seem to begin to dream I have met you before, but, upon my oath, there is nothing to know you by! Out of your clothes, who is to tellwho you may not be?--One thing I MAY swear--that I never saw you so muchundressed before!--By heaven, I have no recollection of you!"

"I am glad to hear it: my recollections of you are the lessdistasteful!--Good morning, my lord!"

She turned away, hobbled, clacking, a few paces, and stood again. 

"You are just as heartless as--as--any other woman, madam!--Where inthis hell of a place shall I find my valet?--What was the cursed name Iused to call the fool?"

He turned his bare noddle this way and that on its creaking pivot, stillholding his knee with both hands. 

"I will be your valet for once, my lord, " said the lady, turning oncemore to him. "--What can I do for you? It is not easy to tell!"

"Tie my leg on, of course, you fool! Can't you see it is all but off?Heigho, my dancing days!"

She looked about with her eyeless sockets and found a piece of fibrousgrass, with which she proceeded to bind together the adjoining partsthat had formed the knee. When she had done, he gave one or twocarefully tentative stamps. 

"You used to stamp rather differently, my lord!" she said, as she rosefrom her knees. 

"Eh? what!--Now I look at you again, it seems to me I used to hateyou!--Eh?"

"Naturally, my lord! You hated a good many people!--your wife, ofcourse, among the rest!"

"Ah, I begin, I be-gin---- But--I must have been a long timesomewhere!--I really forget!--There! your damned, miserable bit of grassis breaking!--We used to get on PRETTY well together--eh?"

"Not that I remember, my lord. The only happy moments I had in yourcompany were scattered over the first week of our marriage. "

"Was that the way of it? Ha! ha!--Well, it's over now, thank goodness!"

"I wish I could believe it! Why were we sitting there in that carriagetogether? It wakes apprehension!"

"I think we were divorced, my lady!"

"Hardly enough: we are still together!"

"A sad truth, but capable of remedy: the forest seems of some extent!"

"I doubt! I doubt!"

"I am sorry I cannot think of a compliment to pay you--without lying, that is. To judge by your figure and complexion you have lived hardsince I saw you last! I cannot surely be QUITE so naked as yourladyship!--I beg your pardon, madam! I trust you will take it I ambut jesting in a dream! It is of no consequence, however; dreamingor waking, all's one--all merest appearance! You can't be certain ofanything, and that's as good as knowing there is nothing! Life may teachany fool that!"

"It has taught me the fool I was to love you!"

"You were not the only fool to do that! Women had a trick of falling inlove with me:--I had forgotten that you were one of them!" "I did loveyou, my lord--a little--at one time!"

"Ah, there was your mistake, my lady! You should have loved me much, loved me devotedly, loved me savagely--loved me eternally! Then I shouldhave tired of you the sooner, and not hated you so much afterward!--Butlet bygones be bygones!--WHERE are we? Locality is the question! To beor not to be, is NOT the question!"

"We are in the other world, I presume!"

"Granted!--but in which or what sort of other world? This can't behell!"

"It must: there's marriage in it! You and I are damned in each other. "

"Then I'm not like Othello, damned in a fair wife!--Oh, I remember myShakspeare, madam!"

She picked up a broken branch that had fallen into a bush, and steadyingherself with it, walked away, tossing her little skull. 

"Give that stick to me, " cried her late husband; "I want it more thanyou. "

She returned him no answer. 

"You mean to make me beg for it?"

"Not at all, my lord. I mean to keep it, " she replied, continuing herslow departure. 

"Give it me at once; I mean to have it! I require it. "

"Unfortunately, I think I require it myself!" returned the lady, walkinga little quicker, with a sharper cracking of her joints and clinking ofher bones. 

He started to follow her, but nearly fell: his knee-grass had burst, andwith an oath he stopped, grasping his leg again. 

"Come and tie it up properly!" he would have thundered, but he onlypiped and whistled!

She turned and looked at him. 

"Come and tie it up instantly!" he repeated. 

She walked a step or two farther from him. 

"I swear I will not touch you!" he cried. 

"Swear on, my lord! there is no one here to believe you. But, pray, donot lose your temper, or you will shake yourself to pieces, and where tofind string enough to tie up all your crazy joints, is more than I cantell. "

She came back, and knelt once more at his side--first, however, layingthe stick in dispute beyond his reach and within her own. 

The instant she had finished retying the joint, he made a grab at her, thinking, apparently, to seize her by the hair; but his hard fingersslipped on the smooth poll. 

"Disgusting!" he muttered, and laid hold of her upper arm-bone. 

"You will break it!" she said, looking up from her knees. 

"I will, then!" he answered, and began to strain at it. 

"I shall not tie your leg again the next time it comes loose!" shethreatened. 

He gave her arm a vicious twist, but happily her bones were in bettercondition than his. She stretched her other hand toward the brokenbranch. 

"That's right: reach me the stick!" he grinned. 

She brought it round with such a swing that one of the bones of thesounder leg snapped. He fell, choking with curses. The lady laughed. 

"Now you will have to wear splints always!" she said; "such dry bonesnever mend!"

"You devil!" he cried. 

"At your service, my lord! Shall I fetch you a couple of wheel-spokes?Neat--but heavy, I fear!"

He turned his bone-face aside, and did not answer, but lay and groaned. I marvelled he had not gone to pieces when he fell. The lady rose andwalked away--not all ungracefully, I thought. 

"What can come of it?" I said to myself. "These are too wretched for anyworld, and this cannot be hell, for the Little Ones are in it, andthe sleepers too! What can it all mean? Can things ever come right forskeletons?"

"There are words too big for you and me: ALL is one of them, and EVER isanother, " said a voice near me which I knew. 

I looked about, but could not see the speaker. 

"You are not in hell, " it resumed. "Neither am I in hell. But thoseskeletons are in hell!"

Ere he ended I caught sight of the raven on the bough of a beech, rightover my head. The same moment he left it, and alighting on the ground, stood there, the thin old man of the library, with long nose and longcoat. 

"The male was never a gentleman, " he went on, "and in the bony stageof retrogression, with his skeleton through his skin, and his characteroutside his manners, does not look like one. The female is less vulgar, and has a little heart. But, the restraints of society removed, you seethem now just as they are and always were!"

"Tell me, Mr. Raven, what will become of them, " I said. 

"We shall see, " he replied. "In their day they were the handsomestcouple at court; and now, even in their dry bones, they seem to regardtheir former repute as an inalienable possession; to see their faces, however, may yet do something for them! They felt themselves rich toowhile they had pockets, but they have already begun to feel ratherpinched! My lord used to regard my lady as a worthless encumbrance, forhe was tired of her beauty and had spent her money; now he needs herto cobble his joints for him! These changes have roots of hope in them. Besides, they cannot now get far away from each other, and they see noneelse of their own kind: they must at last grow weary of their mutualrepugnance, and begin to love one another! for love, not hate, isdeepest in what Love 'loved into being. '"

"I saw many more of their kind an hour ago, in the hall close by!" Isaid. 

"Of their kind, but not of their sort, " he answered. "For many yearsthese will see none such as you saw last night. Those are centuriesin advance of these. You saw that those could even dress themselves alittle! It is true they cannot yet retain their clothes so long as theywould--only, at present, for a part of the night; but they are prettysteadily growing more capable, and will by and by develop faces; forevery grain of truthfulness adds a fibre to the show of their humanity. Nothing but truth can appear; and whatever is must seem. "

"Are they upheld by this hope?" I asked. 

"They are upheld by hope, but they do not in the least know their hope;to understand it, is yet immeasurably beyond them, " answered Mr. Raven. 

His unexpected appearance had caused me no astonishment. I was like achild, constantly wondering, and surprised at nothing. 

"Did you come to find me, sir?" I asked. 

"Not at all, " he replied. "I have no anxiety about you. Such as youalways come back to us. "

"Tell me, please, who am I such as?" I said. 

"I cannot make my friend the subject of conversation, " he answered, witha smile. 

"But when that friend is present!" I urged. 

"I decline the more strongly, " he rejoined. 

"But when that friend asks you!" I persisted. 

"Then most positively I refuse, " he returned. 

"Why?"

"Because he and I would be talking of two persons as if they were oneand the same. Your consciousness of yourself and my knowledge of you arefar apart!"

The lapels of his coat flew out, and the lappets lifted, and I thoughtthe metamorphosis of HOMO to CORVUS was about to take place before myeyes. But the coat closed again in front of him, and he added, withseeming inconsequence, "In this world never trust a person who has once deceived you. Aboveall, never do anything such a one may ask you to do. "

"I will try to remember, " I answered; "--but I may forget!"

"Then some evil that is good for you will follow. "

"And if I remember?"

"Some evil that is not good for you, will not follow. "

The old man seemed to sink to the ground, and immediately I saw theraven several yards from me, flying low and fast. 

CHAPTER XVIII. DEAD OR ALIVE?

I went walking on, still facing the moon, who, not yet high, was staringstraight into the forest. I did not know what ailed her, but shewas dark and dented, like a battered disc of old copper, and lookeddispirited and weary. Not a cloud was nigh to keep her company, and thestars were too bright for her. "Is this going to last for ever?" sheseemed to say. She was going one way and I was going the other, yetthrough the wood we went a long way together. We did not commune much, for my eyes were on the ground; but her disconsolate look was fixed onme: I felt without seeing it. A long time we were together, I and themoon, walking side by side, she the dull shine, and I the live shadow. 

Something on the ground, under a spreading tree, caught my eye with itswhiteness, and I turned toward it. Vague as it was in the shadow ofthe foliage, it suggested, as I drew nearer, a human body. "Anotherskeleton!" I said to myself, kneeling and laying my hand upon it. A bodyit was, however, and no skeleton, though as nearly one as body couldwell be. It lay on its side, and was very cold--not cold like a stone, but cold like that which was once alive, and is alive no more. Thecloser I looked at it, the oftener I touched it, the less it seemedpossible it should be other than dead. For one bewildered moment, Ifancied it one of the wild dancers, a ghostly Cinderella, perhaps, that had lost her way home, and perished in the strange night of anout-of-door world! It was quite naked, and so worn that, even in theshadow, I could, peering close, have counted without touching them, every rib in its side. All its bones, indeed, were as visible as iftight-covered with only a thin elastic leather. Its beautiful yetterrible teeth, unseemly disclosed by the retracted lips, gleamedghastly through the dark. Its hair was longer than itself, thick andvery fine to the touch, and black as night. 

It was the body of a tall, probably graceful woman. --How had she comethere? Not of herself, and already in such wasted condition, surely! Herstrength must have failed her; she had fallen, and lain there until shedied of hunger! But how, even so, could she be thus emaciated? And howcame she to be naked? Where were the savages to strip and leave her?or what wild beasts would have taken her garments? That her body shouldhave been left was not wonderful!

I rose to my feet, stood, and considered. I must not, could not let herlie exposed and forsaken! Natural reverence forbade it. Even thegarment of a woman claims respect; her body it were impossible to leaveuncovered! Irreverent eyes might look on it! Brutal claws might tossit about! Years would pass ere the friendly rains washed it into thesoil!--But the ground was hard, almost solid with interlacing roots, andI had but my bare hands!

At first it seemed plain that she had not long been dead: there was nota sign of decay about her! But then what had the slow wasting of lifeleft of her to decay?

Could she be still alive? Might she not? What if she were! Things wentvery strangely in this strange world! Even then there would be littlechance of bringing her back, but I must know she was dead before Iburied her!

As I left the forest-hall, I had spied in the doorway a bunch of ripegrapes, and brought it with me, eating as I came: a few were yet left onthe stalk, and their juice might possibly revive her! Anyhow it was allI had with which to attempt her rescue! The mouth was happily a littleopen; but the head was in such an awkward position that, to move thebody, I passed my arm under the shoulder on which it lay, when I foundthe pine-needles beneath it warm: she could not have been any time dead, and MIGHT still be alive, though I could discern no motion of the heart, or any indication that she breathed! One of her hands was clenched hard, apparently inclosing something small. I squeezed a grape into her mouth, but no swallowing followed. 

To do for her all I could, I spread a thick layer of pine-needles anddry leaves, laid one of my garments over it, warm from my body, liftedher upon it, and covered her with my clothes and a great heap of leaves:I would save the little warmth left in her, hoping an increase to itwhen the sun came back. Then I tried another grape, but could perceiveno slightest movement of mouth or throat. 

"Doubt, " I said to myself, "may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing. " So tight was the skin uponher bones that I dared not use friction. 

I crept into the heap of leaves, got as close to her as I could, andtook her in my arms. I had not much heat left in me, but what I hadI would share with her! Thus I spent what remained of the night, sleepless, and longing for the sun. Her cold seemed to radiate into me, but no heat to pass from me to her. 

Had I fled from the beautiful sleepers, I thought, each on her "dim, straight" silver couch, to lie alone with such a bedfellow! I hadrefused a lovely privilege: I was given over to an awful duty! Beneaththe sad, slow-setting moon, I lay with the dead, and watched for thedawn. 

The darkness had given way, and the eastern horizon was growing dimlyclearer, when I caught sight of a motion rather than of anythingthat moved--not far from me, and close to the ground. It was the lowundulating of a large snake, which passed me in an unswerving line. Presently appeared, making as it seemed for the same point, what I tookfor a roebuck-doe and her calf. Again a while, and two creatures likebear-cubs came, with three or four smaller ones behind them. The lightwas now growing so rapidly that when, a few minutes after, a troop ofhorses went trotting past, I could see that, although the largest ofthem were no bigger than the smallest Shetland pony, they must yet befull-grown, so perfect were they in form, and so much had they all theways and action of great horses. They were of many breeds. Some seemedmodels of cart-horses, others of chargers, hunters, racers. Dwarf cattleand small elephants followed. 

"Why are the children not here!" I said to myself. "The moment I am freeof this poor woman, I must go back and fetch them!"

Where were the creatures going? What drew them? Was this an exodus, ora morning habit? I must wait for the sun! Till he came I must not leavethe woman! I laid my hand on the body, and could not help thinking itfelt a trifle warmer. It might have gained a little of the heat I hadlost! it could hardly have generated any! What reason for hope there washad not grown less!

The forehead of the day began to glow, and soon the sun came peering up, as if to see for the first time what all this stir of a new world wasabout. At sight of his great innocent splendour, I rose full of life, strong against death. Removing the handkerchief I had put to protect themouth and eyes from the pine-needles, I looked anxiously to see whetherI had found a priceless jewel, or but its empty case. 

The body lay motionless as when I found it. Then first, in the morninglight, I saw how drawn and hollow was the face, how sharp were the bonesunder the skin, how every tooth shaped itself through the lips. Thehuman garment was indeed worn to its threads, but the bird of heavenmight yet be nestling within, might yet awake to motion and song!

But the sun was shining on her face! I re-arranged the handkerchief, laid a few leaves lightly over it, and set out to follow the creatures. Their main track was well beaten, and must have long been used--likewisemany of the tracks that, joining it from both sides, merged in, andbroadened it. The trees retreated as I went, and the grass grew thicker. Presently the forest was gone, and a wide expanse of loveliest greenstretched away to the horizon. Through it, along the edge of the forest, flowed a small river, and to this the track led. At sight of the water anew though undefined hope sprang up in me. The stream looked everywheredeep, and was full to the brim, but nowhere more than a few yards wide. A bluish mist rose from it, vanishing as it rose. On the opposite side, in the plentiful grass, many small animals were feeding. Apparently theyslept in the forest, and in the morning sought the plain, swimming theriver to reach it. I knelt and would have drunk, but the water was hot, and had a strange metallic taste. 

I leapt to my feet: here was the warmth I sought--the first necessity oflife! I sped back to my helpless charge. 

Without well considering my solitude, no one will understand what seemedto lie for me in the redemption of this woman from death. "Prove whatshe may, " I thought with myself, "I shall at least be lonely no more!" Ihad found myself such poor company that now first I seemed to know whathope was. This blessed water would expel the cold death, and drown mydesolation!

I bore her to the stream. Tall as she was, I found her marvellouslylight, her bones were so delicate, and so little covered them. I grewyet more hopeful when I found her so far from stiff that I could carryher on one arm, like a sleeping child, leaning against my shoulder. Iwent softly, dreading even the wind of my motion, and glad there was noother. 

The water was too hot to lay her at once in it: the shock might scarefrom her the yet fluttering life! I laid her on the bank, and dippingone of my garments, began to bathe the pitiful form. So wasted was itthat, save from the plentifulness and blackness of the hair, it wasimpossible even to conjecture whether she was young or old. Her eyelidswere just not shut, which made her look dead the more: there was a crackin the clouds of her night, at which no sun shone through!

The longer I went on bathing the poor bones, the less grew my hope thatthey would ever again be clothed with strength, that ever those eyelidswould lift, and a soul look out; still I kept bathing continuously, allowing no part time to grow cold while I bathed another; and graduallythe body became so much warmer, that at last I ventured to submerge it:I got into the stream and drew it in, holding the face above the water, and letting the swift, steady current flow all about the rest. I noted, but was able to conclude nothing from the fact, that, for all the heat, the shut hand never relaxed its hold. 

After about ten minutes, I lifted it out and laid it again on the bank, dried it, and covered it as well as I could, then ran to the forest forleaves. 

The grass and soil were dry and warm; and when I returned I thought ithad scarcely lost any of the heat the water had given it. I spread theleaves upon it, and ran for more--then for a third and a fourth freight. 

I could now leave it and go to explore, in the hope of discoveringsome shelter. I ran up the stream toward some rocky hills I saw in thatdirection, which were not far off. 

When I reached them, I found the river issuing full grown from a rockat the bottom of one of them. To my fancy it seemed to have run down astair inside, an eager cataract, at every landing wild to get out, butonly at the foot finding a door of escape. 

It did not fill the opening whence it rushed, and I crept through into alittle cave, where I learned that, instead of hurrying tumultuously downa stair, it rose quietly from the ground at the back like the base ofa large column, and ran along one side, nearly filling a deep, rathernarrow channel. I considered the place, and saw that, if I could finda few fallen boughs long enough to lie across the channel, and largeenough to bear a little weight without bending much, I might, withsmaller branches and plenty of leaves, make upon them a comfortablecouch, which the stream under would keep constantly warm. Then I ranback to see how my charge fared. 

She was lying as I had left her. The heat had not brought her to life, but neither had it developed anything to check farther hope. I got a fewboulders out of the channel, and arranged them at her feet and on bothsides of her. 

Running again to the wood, I had not to search long ere I found somesmall boughs fit for my purpose--mostly of beech, their dry yellowleaves yet clinging to them. With these I had soon laid the floor of abridge-bed over the torrent. I crossed the boughs with smaller branches, interlaced these with twigs, and buried all deep in leaves and dry moss. 

When thus at length, after not a few journeys to the forest, I hadcompleted a warm, dry, soft couch, I took the body once more, and setout with it for the cave. It was so light that now and then as I wentI almost feared lest, when I laid it down, I should find it a skeletonafter all; and when at last I did lay it gently on the pathless bridge, it was a greater relief to part with that fancy than with the weight. Once more I covered the body with a thick layer of leaves; and tryingagain to feed her with a grape, found to my joy that I could open themouth a little farther. The grape, indeed, lay in it unheeded, but Ihoped some of the juice might find its way down. 

After an hour or two on the couch, she was no longer cold. The warmth ofthe brook had interpenetrated her frame--truly it was but a frame!--andshe was warm to the touch;--not, probably, with the warmth of life, butwith a warmth which rendered it more possible, if she were alive, thatshe might live. I had read of one in a trance lying motionless forweeks!

In that cave, day after day, night after night, seven long days andnights, I sat or lay, now waking now sleeping, but always watching. Every morning I went out and bathed in the hot stream, and every morningfelt thereupon as if I had eaten and drunk--which experience gave mecourage to lay her in it also every day. Once as I did so, a shadow ofdiscoloration on her left side gave me a terrible shock, but the nextmorning it had vanished, and I continued the treatment--every morning, after her bath, putting a fresh grape in her mouth. 

I too ate of the grapes and other berries I found in the forest; but Ibelieved that, with my daily bath in that river, I could have done verywell without eating at all. 

Every time I slept, I dreamed of finding a wounded angel, who, unable tofly, remained with me until at last she loved me and would not leave me;and every time I woke, it was to see, instead of an angel-visage withlustrous eyes, the white, motionless, wasted face upon the couch. ButAdam himself, when first he saw her asleep, could not have looked moreanxiously for Eve's awaking than I watched for this woman's. Adam knewnothing of himself, perhaps nothing of his need of another self; I, analien from my fellows, had learned to love what I had lost! Were thisone wasted shred of womanhood to disappear, I should have nothing in mebut a consuming hunger after life! I forgot even the Little Ones: thingswere not amiss with them! here lay what might wake and be a woman! mightactually open eyes, and look out of them upon me!

Now first I knew what solitude meant--now that I gazed on one whoneither saw nor heard, neither moved nor spoke. I saw now that a manalone is but a being that may become a man--that he is but a need, andtherefore a possibility. To be enough for himself, a being must bean eternal, self-existent worm! So superbly constituted, so simplycomplicate is man; he rises from and stands upon such a pedestal oflower physical organisms and spiritual structures, that no atmospherewill comfort or nourish his life, less divine than that offered by othersouls; nowhere but in other lives can he breathe. Only by the reflex ofother lives can he ripen his specialty, develop the idea of himself, the individuality that distinguishes him from every other. Were all menalike, each would still have an individuality, secured by his personalconsciousness, but there would be small reason why there should be morethan two or three such; while, for the development of the differenceswhich make a large and lofty unity possible, and which alone canmake millions into a church, an endless and measureless influence andreaction are indispensable. A man to be perfect--complete, that is, in having reached the spiritual condition of persistent and universalgrowth, which is the mode wherein he inherits the infinitude of hisFather--must have the education of a world of fellow-men. Save for thehope of the dawn of life in the form beside me, I should have fled forfellowship to the beasts that grazed and did not speak. Better to goabout with them--infinitely better--than to live alone! But with thefaintest prospect of a woman to my friend, I, poorest of creatures, wasyet a possible man!

CHAPTER XIX. THE WHITE LEECH

I woke one morning from a profound sleep, with one of my hands verypainful. The back of it was much swollen, and in the centre of theswelling was a triangular wound, like the bite of a leech. As the daywent on, the swelling subsided, and by the evening the hurt was all buthealed. I searched the cave, turning over every stone of any size, butdiscovered nothing I could imagine capable of injuring me. 

Slowly the days passed, and still the body never moved, never openedits eyes. It could not be dead, for assuredly it manifested no sign ofdecay, and the air about it was quite pure. Moreover, I could imaginethat the sharpest angles of the bones had begun to disappear, thatthe form was everywhere a little rounder, and the skin had less of theparchment-look: if such change was indeed there, life must be there! thetide which had ebbed so far toward the infinite, must have begun againto flow! Oh joy to me, if the rising ripples of life's ocean were indeedburying under lovely shape the bones it had all but forsaken! Twentytimes a day I looked for evidence of progress, and twenty times a day Idoubted--sometimes even despaired; but the moment I recalled the mentalpicture of her as I found her, hope revived. 

Several weeks had passed thus, when one night, after lying a long timeawake, I rose, thinking to go out and breathe the cooler air; for, although from the running of the stream it was always fresh in the cave, the heat was not seldom a little oppressive. The moon outside was full, the air within shadowy clear, and naturally I cast a lingering look onmy treasure ere I went. "Bliss eternal!" I cried aloud, "do I see hereyes?" Great orbs, dark as if cut from the sphere of a starless night, and luminous by excess of darkness, seemed to shine amid the glimmeringwhiteness of her face. I stole nearer, my heart beating so that I fearedthe noise of it startling her. I bent over her. Alas, her eyelids wereclose shut! Hope and Imagination had wrought mutual illusion! my heart'sdesire would never be! I turned away, threw myself on the floor of thecave, and wept. Then I bethought me that her eyes had been a littleopen, and that now the awful chink out of which nothingness had peered, was gone: it might be that she had opened them for a moment, and wasagain asleep!--it might be she was awake and holding them close! Ineither case, life, less or more, must have shut them! I was comforted, and fell fast asleep. 

That night I was again bitten, and awoke with a burning thirst. 

In the morning I searched yet more thoroughly, but again in vain. Thewound was of the same character, and, as before, was nearly well by theevening. I concluded that some large creature of the leech kind cameoccasionally from the hot stream. "But, if blood be its object, " I saidto myself, "so long as I am there, I need hardly fear for my treasure!"

That same morning, when, having peeled a grape as usual and taken awaythe seeds, I put it in her mouth, her lips made a slight movement ofreception, and I KNEW she lived!

My hope was now so much stronger that I began to think of some attirefor her: she must be able to rise the moment she wished! I betook myselftherefore to the forest, to investigate what material it might afford, and had hardly begun to look when fibrous skeletons, like those of theleaves of the prickly pear, suggested themselves as fit for the purpose. I gathered a stock of them, laid them to dry in the sun, pulled apartthe reticulated layers, and of these had soon begun to fashion two loosegarments, one to hang from her waist, the other from her shoulders. With the stiletto-point of an aloe-leaf and various filaments, I sewedtogether three thicknesses of the tissue. 

During the week that followed, there was no farther sign except that shemore evidently took the grapes. But indeed all the signs became surer:plainly she was growing plumper, and her skin fairer. Still she did notopen her eyes; and the horrid fear would at times invade me, that hergrowth was of some hideous fungoid nature, the few grapes being nowisesufficient to account for it. 

Again I was bitten; and now the thing, whatever it was, began to pay meregular visits at intervals of three days. It now generally bit me inthe neck or the arm, invariably with but one bite, always while I slept, and never, even when I slept, in the daytime. Hour after hour would Ilie awake on the watch, but never heard it coming, or saw sign of itsapproach. Neither, I believe, did I ever feel it bite me. At lengthI became so hopeless of catching it, that I no longer troubled myselfeither to look for it by day, or lie in wait for it at night. I knewfrom my growing weakness that I was losing blood at a dangerous rate, but I cared little for that: in sight of my eyes death was yielding tolife; a soul was gathering strength to save me from loneliness; we wouldgo away together, and I should speedily recover!

The garments were at length finished, and, contemplating my handiworkwith no small satisfaction, I proceeded to mat layers of the fibre intosandals. 

One night I woke suddenly, breathless and faint, and longing after air, and had risen to crawl from the cave, when a slight rustle in the leavesof the couch set me listening motionless. 

"I caught the vile thing, " said a feeble voice, in my mother-tongue; "Icaught it in the very act!"

She was alive! she spoke! I dared not yield to my transport lest Ishould terrify her. 

"What creature?" I breathed, rather than said. 

"The creature, " she answered, "that was biting you. "

"What was it?"

"A great white leech. "

"How big?" I pursued, forcing myself to be calm. 

"Not far from six feet long, I should think, " she answered. 

"You have saved my life, perhaps!--But how could you touch the horridthing! How brave of you!" I cried. 

"I did!" was all her answer, and I thought she shuddered. 

"Where is it? What could you do with such a monster?"

"I threw it in the river. "

"Then it will come again, I fear!"

"I do not think I could have killed it, even had I known how!--I heardyou moaning, and got up to see what disturbed you; saw the frightfulthing at your neck, and pulled it away. But I could not hold it, and washardly able to throw it from me. I only heard it splash in the water!"

"We'll kill it next time!" I said; but with that I turned faint, soughtthe open air, but fell. 

When I came to myself the sun was up. The lady stood a little way off, looking, even in the clumsy attire I had fashioned for her, at oncegrand and graceful. I HAD seen those glorious eyes! Through the nightthey had shone! Dark as the darkness primeval, they now outshone theday! She stood erect as a column, regarding me. Her pale cheek indicatedno emotion, only question. I rose. 

"We must be going!" I said. "The white leech----"

I stopped: a strange smile had flickered over her beautiful face. 

"Did you find me there?" she asked, pointing to the cave. 

"No; I brought you there, " I replied. 

"You brought me?"

"Yes. "

"From where?"

"From the forest. "

"What have you done with my clothes--and my jewels?"

"You had none when I found you. "

"Then why did you not leave me?"

"Because I hoped you were not dead. "

"Why should you have cared?"

"Because I was very lonely, and wanted you to live. "

"You would have kept me enchanted for my beauty!" she said, with proudscorn. 

Her words and her look roused my indignation. 

"There was no beauty left in you, " I said. 

"Why, then, again, did you not let me alone?"

"Because you were of my own kind. "

"Of YOUR kind?" she cried, in a tone of utter contempt. 

"I thought so, but find I was mistaken!"

"Doubtless you pitied me!"

"Never had woman more claim on pity, or less on any other feeling!"

With an expression of pain, mortification, and anger unutterable, sheturned from me and stood silent. Starless night lay profound in thegulfs of her eyes: hate of him who brought it back had slain theirsplendour. The light of life was gone from them. 

"Had you failed to rouse me, what would you have done?" she askedsuddenly without moving. 

"I would have buried it. "

"It! What?--You would have buried THIS?" she exclaimed, flashing roundupon me in a white fury, her arms thrown out, and her eyes darting forksof cold lightning. 

"Nay; that I saw not! That, weary weeks of watching and tending havebrought back to you, " I answered--for with such a woman I must be plain!"Had I seen the smallest sign of decay, I would at once have buriedyou. "

"Dog of a fool!" she cried, "I was but in a trance--Samoil! what afate!--Go and fetch the she-savage from whom you borrowed this hideousdisguise. "

"I made it for you. It is hideous, but I did my best. "

She drew herself up to her tall height. 

"How long have I been insensible?" she demanded. "A woman could not havemade that dress in a day!"

"Not in twenty days, " I rejoined, "hardly in thirty!"

"Ha! How long do you pretend I have lain unconscious?--Answer me atonce. "

"I cannot tell how long you had lain when I found you, but there wasnothing left of you save skin and bone: that is more than three monthsago. --Your hair was beautiful, nothing else! I have done for it what Icould. "

"My poor hair!" she said, and brought a great armful of it round frombehind her; "--it will be more than a three-months' care to bring YOUto life again!--I suppose I must thank you, although I cannot say I amgrateful!"

"There is no need, madam: I would have done the same for any woman--yes, or for any man either!"

"How is it my hair is not tangled?" she said, fondling it. 

"It always drifted in the current. "

"How?--What do you mean?"

"I could not have brought you to life but by bathing you in the hotriver every morning. "

She gave a shudder of disgust, and stood for a while with her gaze fixedon the hurrying water. Then she turned to me:

"We must understand each other!" she said. "--You have done me the twoworst of wrongs--compelled me to live, and put me to shame: neither ofthem can I pardon!"

She raised her left hand, and flung it out as if repelling me. Somethingice-cold struck me on the forehead. When I came to myself, I was on theground, wet and shivering. 

CHAPTER XX. GONE!--BUT HOW?

I rose, and looked around me, dazed at heart. For a moment I could notsee her: she was gone, and loneliness had returned like the cloud afterthe rain! She whom I brought back from the brink of the grave, had fledfrom me, and left me with desolation! I dared not one moment remain thushideously alone. Had I indeed done her a wrong? I must devote my life tosharing the burden I had compelled her to resume!

I descried her walking swiftly over the grass, away from the river, tookone plunge for a farewell restorative, and set out to follow her. Thelast visit of the white leech, and the blow of the woman, had enfeebledme, but already my strength was reviving, and I kept her in sightwithout difficulty. 

"Is this, then, the end?" I said as I went, and my heart brooded asad song. Her angry, hating eyes haunted me. I could understand herresentment at my having forced life upon her, but how had I furtherinjured her? Why should she loathe me? Could modesty itself be indignantwith true service? How should the proudest woman, conscious of my everyaction, cherish against me the least sense of disgracing wrong? Howreverently had I not touched her! As a father his motherless child, Ihad borne and tended her! Had all my labour, all my despairing hope goneto redeem only ingratitude? "No, " I answered myself; "beauty must havea heart! However profoundly hidden, it must be there! The deeper buried, the stronger and truer will it wake at last in its beautiful grave! Torouse that heart were a better gift to her than the happiest life! Itwould be to give her a nobler, a higher life!"

She was ascending a gentle slope before me, walking straight and steadyas one that knew whither, when I became aware that she was increasingthe distance between us. I summoned my strength, and it came infull tide. My veins filled with fresh life! My body seemed to becomeethereal, and, following like an easy wind, I rapidly overtook her. 

Not once had she looked behind. Swiftly she moved, like a Greek goddessto rescue, but without haste. I was within three yards of her, when sheturned sharply, yet with grace unbroken, and stood. Fatigue or heat sheshowed none. Her paleness was not a pallor, but a pure whiteness; herbreathing was slow and deep. Her eyes seemed to fill the heavens, andgive light to the world. It was nearly noon, but the sense was uponme as of a great night in which an invisible dew makes the stars looklarge. 

"Why do you follow me?" she asked, quietly but rather sternly, as if shehad never before seen me. 

"I have lived so long, " I answered, "on the mere hope of your eyes, thatI must want to see them again!"

"You WILL not be spared!" she said coldly. "I command you to stop whereyou stand. "

"Not until I see you in a place of safety will I leave you, " I replied. 

"Then take the consequences, " she said, and resumed her swift-glidingwalk. 

But as she turned she cast on me a glance, and I stood as if run throughwith a spear. Her scorn had failed: she would kill me with her beauty!

Despair restored my volition; the spell broke; I ran, and overtook her. 

"Have pity upon me!" I cried. 

She gave no heed. I followed her like a child whose mother pretends toabandon him. "I will be your slave!" I said, and laid my hand on herarm. 

She turned as if a serpent had bit her. I cowered before the blaze ofher eyes, but could not avert my own. 

"Pity me, " I cried again. 

She resumed her walking. 

The whole day I followed her. The sun climbed the sky, seemed to pauseon its summit, went down the other side. Not a moment did she pause, nota moment did I cease to follow. She never turned her head, never relaxedher pace. 

The sun went below, and the night came up. I kept close to her: if Ilost sight of her for a moment, it would be for ever!

All day long we had been walking over thick soft grass: abruptly shestopped, and threw herself upon it. There was yet light enough to showthat she was utterly weary. I stood behind her, and gazed down on herfor a moment. 

Did I love her? I knew she was not good! Did I hate her? I could notleave her! I knelt beside her. 

"Begone! Do not dare touch me, " she cried. 

Her arms lay on the grass by her sides as if paralyzed. 

Suddenly they closed about my neck, rigid as those of thetorture-maiden. She drew down my face to hers, and her lips clung to mycheek. A sting of pain shot somewhere through me, and pulsed. I couldnot stir a hair's breadth. Gradually the pain ceased. A slumberousweariness, a dreamy pleasure stole over me, and then I knew nothing. 

All at once I came to myself. The moon was a little way above thehorizon, but spread no radiance; she was but a bright thing set inblackness. My cheek smarted; I put my hand to it, and found a wet spot. My neck ached: there again was a wet spot! I sighed heavily, and feltvery tired. I turned my eyes listlessly around me--and saw what hadbecome of the light of the moon: it was gathered about the lady! shestood in a shimmering nimbus! I rose and staggered toward her. 

"Down!" she cried imperiously, as to a rebellious dog. "Follow me a stepif you dare!"

"I will!" I murmured, with an agonised effort. 

"Set foot within the gates of my city, and my people will stone you:they do not love beggars!"

I was deaf to her words. Weak as water, and half awake, I did not knowthat I moved, but the distance grew less between us. She took one stepback, raised her left arm, and with the clenched hand seemed to strikeme on the forehead. I received as it were a blow from an iron hammer, and fell. 

I sprang to my feet, cold and wet, but clear-headed and strong. Had theblow revived me? it had left neither wound nor pain!--But how came Iwet?--I could not have lain long, for the moon was no higher!

The lady stood some yards away, her back toward me. She was doingsomething, I could not distinguish what. Then by her sudden gleam I knewshe had thrown off her garments, and stood white in the dazed moon. Onemoment she stood--and fell forward. 

A streak of white shot away in a swift-drawn line. The same instant themoon recovered herself, shining out with a full flash, and I saw thatthe streak was a long-bodied thing, rushing in great, low-curved boundsover the grass. Dark spots seemed to run like a stream adown its back, as if it had been fleeting along under the edge of a wood, and catchingthe shadows of the leaves. 

"God of mercy!" I cried, "is the terrible creature speeding to thenight-infolded city?" and I seemed to hear from afar the sudden burstand spread of outcrying terror, as the pale savage bounded from house tohouse, rending and slaying. 

While I gazed after it fear-stricken, past me from behind, like a swift, all but noiseless arrow, shot a second large creature, pure white. Itspath was straight for the spot where the lady had fallen, and, as Ithought, lay. My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth. I sprang forwardpursuing the beast. But in a moment the spot I made for was far behindit. 

"It was well, " I thought, "that I could not cry out: if she had risen, the monster would have been upon her!"

But when I reached the place, no lady was there; only the garments shehad dropped lay dusk in the moonlight. 

I stood staring after the second beast. It tore over the ground with yetgreater swiftness than the former--in long, level, skimming leaps, thevery embodiment of wasteless speed. It followed the line the other hadtaken, and I watched it grow smaller and smaller, until it disappearedin the uncertain distance. 

But where was the lady? Had the first beast surprised her, creeping uponher noiselessly? I had heard no shriek! and there had not been time todevour her! Could it have caught her up as it ran, and borne her away toits den? So laden it could not have run so fast! and I should have seenthat it carried something!

Horrible doubts began to wake in me. After a thorough but fruitlesssearch, I set out in the track of the two animals. 

CHAPTER XXI. THE FUGITIVE MOTHER

As I hastened along, a cloud came over the moon, and from the gray darksuddenly emerged a white figure, clasping a child to her bosom, andstooping as she ran. She was on a line parallel with my own, but did notperceive me as she hurried along, terror and anxiety in every movementof her driven speed. 

"She is chased!" I said to myself. "Some prowler of this terrible nightis after her!"

To follow would have added to her fright: I stepped into her track tostop her pursuer. 

As I stood for a moment looking after her through the dusk, behind mecame a swift, soft-footed rush, and ere I could turn, something sprangover my head, struck me sharply on the forehead, and knocked me down. I was up in an instant, but all I saw of my assailant was a vanishingwhiteness. I ran after the beast, with the blood trickling from myforehead; but had run only a few steps, when a shriek of despair torethe quivering night. I ran the faster, though I could not but fear itmust already be too late. 

In a minute or two I spied a low white shape approaching me through thevapour-dusted moonlight. It must be another beast, I thought at first, for it came slowly, almost crawling, with strange, floundering leaps, as of a creature in agony! I drew aside from its path, and waited. As itneared me, I saw it was going on three legs, carrying its left fore-pawhigh from the ground. It had many dark, oval spots on a shining whiteskin, and was attended by a low rushing sound, as of water falling upongrass. As it went by me, I saw something streaming from the lifted paw. 

"It is blood!" I said to myself, "some readier champion than I haswounded the beast!" But, strange to tell, such a pity seized me at sightof the suffering creature, that, though an axe had been in my hand Icould not have struck at it. In a broken succession of hobbling leapsit went out of sight, its blood, as it seemed, still issuing in a smalltorrent, which kept flowing back softly through the grass beside me. "Ifit go on bleeding like that, " I thought, "it will soon be hurtless!"

I went on, for I might yet be useful to the woman, and hoped also to seeher deliverer. 

I descried her a little way off, seated on the grass, with her child inher lap. 

"Can I do anything for you?" I asked. 

At the sound of my voice she started violently, and would have risen. Ithrew myself on the ground. 

"You need not be frightened, " I said. "I was following the beast whenhappily you found a nearer protector! It passed me now with its footbleeding so much that by this time it must be all but dead!"

"There is little hope of that!" she answered, trembling. "Do you notknow whose beast she is?"

Now I had certain strange suspicions, but I answered that I knew nothingof the brute, and asked what had become of her champion. 

"What champion?" she rejoined. "I have seen no one. "

"Then how came the monster to grief?"

"I pounded her foot with a stone--as hard as I could strike. Did you nothear her cry?"

"Well, you are a brave woman!" I answered. "I thought it was you gavethe cry!"

"It was the leopardess. "

"I never heard such a sound from the throat of an animal! it was likethe scream of a woman in torture!"

"My voice was gone; I could not have shrieked to save my baby! When Isaw the horrid mouth at my darling's little white neck, I caught up astone and mashed her lame foot. "

"Tell me about the creature, " I said; "I am a stranger in these parts. "

"You will soon know about her if you are going to Bulika!" she answered. "Now, I must never go back there!"

"Yes, I am going to Bulika, " I said, "--to see the princess. "

"Have a care; you had better not go!--But perhaps you are--! Theprincess is a very good, kind woman!"

I heard a little movement. Clouds had by this time gathered so thickover the moon that I could scarcely see my companion: I feared she wasrising to run from me. 

"You are in no danger of any sort from me, " I said. "What oath would youlike me to take?"

"I know by your speech that you are not of the people of Bulika, " shereplied; "I will trust you!--I am not of them, either, else I should notbe able: they never trust any one--If only I could see you! But I likeyour voice!--There, my darling is asleep! The foul beast has not hurther!--Yes: it was my baby she was after!" she went on, caressing thechild. "And then she would have torn her mother to pieces for carryingher off!--Some say the princess has two white leopardesses, " shecontinued: "I know only one--with spots. Everybody knows HER! If theprincess hear of a baby, she sends her immediately to suck its blood, and then it either dies or grows up an idiot. I would have gone awaywith my baby, but the princess was from home, and I thought I might waituntil I was a little stronger. But she must have taken the beast withher, and been on her way home when I left, and come across my track. Iheard the SNIFF-SNUFF of the leopardess behind me, and ran;--oh, how Iran!--But my darling will not die! There is no mark on her!"

"Where are you taking her?"

"Where no one ever tells!"

"Why is the princess so cruel?"

"There is an old prophecy that a child will be the death of her. That iswhy she will listen to no offer of marriage, they say. "

"But what will become of her country if she kill all the babies?"

"She does not care about her country. She sends witches around to teachthe women spells that keep babies away, and give them horrible thingsto eat. Some say she is in league with the Shadows to put an end to therace. At night we hear the questing beast, and lie awake and shiver. Shecan tell at once the house where a baby is coming, and lies down at thedoor, watching to get in. There are words that have power to shoo heraway, only they do not always work--But here I sit talking, and thebeast may by this time have got home, and her mistress be sending theother after us!"

As thus she ended, she rose in haste. 

"I do not think she will ever get home. --Let me carry the baby for you!"I said, as I rose also. 

She returned me no answer, and when I would have taken it, only claspedit the closer. 

"I cannot think, " I said, walking by her side, "how the brute could bebleeding so much!"

"Take my advice, and don't go near the palace, " she answered. "There aresounds in it at night as if the dead were trying to shriek, but couldnot open their mouths!"

She bade me an abrupt farewell. Plainly she did not want more of mycompany; so I stood still, and heard her footsteps die away on thegrass. 

CHAPTER XXII. BULIKA

I had lost all notion of my position, and was walking about in pure, helpless impatience, when suddenly I found myself in the path of theleopardess, wading in the blood from her paw. It ran against my ankleswith the force of a small brook, and I got out of it the more quicklybecause of an unshaped suspicion in my mind as to whose blood it mightbe. But I kept close to the sound of it, walking up the side of thestream, for it would guide me in the direction of Bulika. 

I soon began to reflect, however, that no leopardess, no elephant, nohugest animal that in our world preceded man, could keep such a torrentflowing, except every artery in its body were open, and its huge systemwent on filling its vessels from fields and lakes and forests as fast asthey emptied themselves: it could not be blood! I dipped a finger in it, and at once satisfied myself that it was not. In truth, however it mighthave come there, it was a softly murmuring rivulet of water that ran, without channel, over the grass! But sweet as was its song, I dared notdrink of it; I kept walking on, hoping after the light, and listening tothe familiar sound so long unheard--for that of the hot stream was verydifferent. The mere wetting of my feet in it, however, had so refreshedme, that I went on without fatigue till the darkness began to growthinner, and I knew the sun was drawing nigh. A few minutes more, andI could discern, against the pale aurora, the wall-towers of acity--seemingly old as time itself. Then I looked down to get a sight ofthe brook. 

It was gone. I had indeed for a long time noted its sound growingfainter, but at last had ceased to attend to it. I looked back: thegrass in its course lay bent as it had flowed, and here and thereglimmered a small pool. Toward the city, there was no trace of it. Nearwhere I stood, the flow of its fountain must at least have paused!

Around the city were gardens, growing many sorts of vegetables, hardlyone of which I recognised. I saw no water, no flowers, no sign ofanimals. The gardens came very near the walls, but were separated fromthem by huge heaps of gravel and refuse thrown from the battlements. 

I went up to the nearest gate, and found it but half-closed, nowisesecured, and without guard or sentinel. To judge by its hinges, it couldnot be farther opened or shut closer. Passing through, I looked downa long ancient street. It was utterly silent, and with scarce anindication in it of life present. Had I come upon a dead city? I turnedand went out again, toiled a long way over the dust-heaps, and crossedseveral roads, each leading up to a gate: I would not re-enter untilsome of the inhabitants should be stirring. 

What was I there for? what did I expect or hope to find? what did I meanto do?

I must see, if but once more, the woman I had brought to life! I didnot desire her society: she had waked in me frightful suspicions; andfriendship, not to say love, was wildly impossible between us! But herpresence had had a strange influence upon me, and in her presence Imust resist, and at the same time analyse that influence! The seeminglyinscrutable in her I would fain penetrate: to understand something ofher mode of being would be to look into marvels such as imaginationcould never have suggested! In this I was too daring: a man must not, for knowledge, of his own will encounter temptation! On the other hand, I had reinstated an evil force about to perish, and was, to the extentof my opposing faculty, accountable for what mischief might ensue! I hadlearned that she was the enemy of children: the Little Ones might be inher danger! It was in the hope of finding out something of their historythat I had left them; on that I had received a little light: I must havemore; I must learn how to protect them!

Hearing at length a little stir in the place, I walked through thenext gate, and thence along a narrow street of tall houses to a littlesquare, where I sat down on the base of a pillar with a hideous bat-likecreature atop. Ere long, several of the inhabitants came saunteringpast. I spoke to one: he gave me a rude stare and ruder word, and wenton. 

I got up and went through one narrow street after another, graduallyfilling with idlers, and was not surprised to see no children. Byand by, near one of the gates, I encountered a group of young men whoreminded me not a little of the bad giants. They came about me staring, and presently began to push and hustle me, then to throw things at me. I bore it as well as I could, wishing not to provoke enmity wherewanted to remain for a while. Oftener than once or twice I appealed topassers-by whom I fancied more benevolent-looking, but none would halta moment to listen to me. I looked poor, and that was enough: to thecitizens of Bulika, as to house-dogs, poverty was an offence! Deformityand sickness were taxed; and no legislation of their princess was moreheartily approved of than what tended to make poverty subserve wealth. 

I took to my heels at last, and no one followed me beyond the gate. Alumbering fellow, however, who sat by it eating a hunch of bread, pickedup a stone to throw after me, and happily, in his stupid eagerness, threw, not the stone but the bread. I took it, and he did not darefollow to reclaim it: beyond the walls they were cowards every one. Iwent off a few hundred yards, threw myself down, ate the bread, fellasleep, and slept soundly in the grass, where the hot sunlight renewedmy strength. 

It was night when I woke. The moon looked down on me in friendlyfashion, seeming to claim with me old acquaintance. She was very bright, and the same moon, I thought, that saw me through the terrors of myfirst night in that strange world. A cold wind blew from the gate, bringing with it an evil odour; but it did not chill me, for the sun hadplenished me with warmth. I crept again into the city. There I found thefew that were still in the open air crouched in corners to escape theshivering blast. 

I was walking slowly through the long narrow street, when, just beforeme, a huge white thing bounded across it, with a single flash in themoonlight, and disappeared. I turned down the next opening, eager to getsight of it again. 

It was a narrow lane, almost too narrow to pass through, but it ledme into a wider street. The moment I entered the latter, I saw onthe opposite side, in the shadow, the creature I had followed, itselffollowing like a dog what I took for a man. Over his shoulder, everyother moment, he glanced at the animal behind him, but neither spoke toit, nor attempted to drive it away. At a place where he had to cross apatch of moonlight, I saw that he cast no shadow, and was himself buta flat superficial shadow, of two dimensions. He was, nevertheless, anopaque shadow, for he not merely darkened any object on the otherside of him, but rendered it, in fact, invisible. In the shadow he wasblacker than the shadow; in the moonlight he looked like one who haddrawn his shadow up about him, for not a suspicion of it moved besideor under him; while the gleaming animal, which followed so close at hisheels as to seem the white shadow of his blackness, and which I now sawto be a leopardess, drew her own gliding shadow black over the ground byher side. When they passed together from the shadow into the moonlight, the Shadow deepened in blackness, the animal flashed into radiance. Iwas at the moment walking abreast of them on the opposite side, my barefeet sounding on the flat stones: the leopardess never turned heador twitched ear; the shadow seemed once to look at me, for I lost hisprofile, and saw for a second only a sharp upright line. That instantthe wind found me and blew through me: I shuddered from head to foot, and my heart went from wall to wall of my bosom, like a pebble in achild's rattle. 

CHAPTER XXIII. A WOMAN OF BULIKA

I turned aside into an alley, and sought shelter in a small archway. Inthe mouth of it I stopped, and looked out at the moonlight which filledthe alley. The same instant a woman came gliding in after me, turned, trembling, and looked out also. A few seconds passed; then a hugeleopard, its white skin dappled with many blots, darted across thearchway. The woman pressed close to me, and my heart filled with pity. Iput my arm round her. 

"If the brute come here, I will lay hold of it, " I said, "and you mustrun. "

"Thank you!" she murmured. 

"Have you ever seen it before?" I asked. 

"Several times, " she answered, still trembling. "She is a pet of theprincess's. You are a stranger, or you would know her!"

"I am a stranger, " I answered. "But is she, then, allowed to run loose?"

"She is kept in a cage, her mouth muzzled, and her feet in gloves ofcrocodile leather. Chained she is too; but she gets out often, and sucksthe blood of any child she can lay hold of. Happily there are not manymothers in Bulika!"

Here she burst into tears. 

"I wish I were at home!" she sobbed. "The princess returned only lastnight, and there is the leopardess out already! How am I to get into thehouse? It is me she is after, I know! She will be lying at my own door, watching for me!--But I am a fool to talk to a stranger!"

"All strangers are not bad!" I said. "The beast shall not touch you tillshe has done with me, and by that time you will be in. You are happy tohave a house to go to! What a terrible wind it is!"

"Take me home safe, and I will give you shelter from it, " she rejoined. "But we must wait a little!"

I asked her many questions. She told me the people never did anythingexcept dig for precious stones in their cellars. They were rich, and hadeverything made for them in other towns. 

"Why?" I asked. 

"Because it is a disgrace to work, " she answered. "Everybody in Bulikaknows that!"

I asked how they were rich if none of them earned money. She repliedthat their ancestors had saved for them, and they never spent. When theywanted money they sold a few of their gems. 

"But there must be some poor!" I said. 

"I suppose there must be, but we never think of such people. When onegoes poor, we forget him. That is how we keep rich. We mean to be richalways. "

"But when you have dug up all your precious stones and sold them, youwill have to spend your money, and one day you will have none left!"

"We have so many, and there are so many still in the ground, that thatday will never come, " she replied. 

"Suppose a strange people were to fall upon you, and take everything youhave!"

"No strange people will dare; they are all horribly afraid of ourprincess. She it is who keeps us safe and free and rich!"

Every now and then as she spoke, she would stop and look behind her. 

I asked why her people had such a hatred of strangers. She answered thatthe presence of a stranger defiled the city. 

"How is that?" I said. 

"Because we are more ancient and noble than any othernation. --Therefore, " she added, "we always turn strangers out beforenight. "

"How, then, can you take me into your house?" I asked. 

"I will make an exception of you, " she replied. 

"Is there no place in the city for the taking in of strangers?"

"Such a place would be pulled down, and its owner burned. How is purityto be preserved except by keeping low people at a proper distance?Dignity is such a delicate thing!"

She told me that their princess had reigned for thousands of years; thatshe had power over the air and the water as well as the earth--and, shebelieved, over the fire too; that she could do what she pleased, and wasanswerable to nobody. 

When at length she was willing to risk the attempt, we took our waythrough lanes and narrow passages, and reached her door without havingmet a single live creature. It was in a wider street, between twotall houses, at the top of a narrow, steep stair, up which she climbedslowly, and I followed. Ere we reached the top, however, she seemed totake fright, and darted up the rest of the steps: I arrived just in timeto have the door closed in my face, and stood confounded on the landing, where was about length enough, between the opposite doors of the twohouses, for a man to lie down. 

Weary, and not scrupling to defile Bulika with my presence, I tookadvantage of the shelter, poor as it was. 

CHAPTER XXIV. THE WHITE LEOPARDESS

At the foot of the stair lay the moonlit street, and I could hear theunwholesome, inhospitable wind blowing about below. But not a breath ofit entered my retreat, and I was composing myself to rest, when suddenlymy eyes opened, and there was the head of the shining creature I hadseen following the Shadow, just rising above the uppermost step! Themoment she caught sight of my eyes, she stopped and began to retire, tail foremost. I sprang up; whereupon, having no room to turn, she threwherself backward, head over tail, scrambled to her feet, and in a momentwas down the stair and gone. I followed her to the bottom, and lookedall up and down the street. Not seeing her, I went back to my hardcouch. 

There were, then, two evil creatures prowling about the city, one with, and one without spots! I was not inclined to risk much for man or womanin Bulika, but the life of a child might well be worth such a poorone as mine, and I resolved to keep watch at that door the rest of thenight. 

Presently I heard the latch move, slow, slow: I looked up, and seeingthe door half-open, rose and slid softly in. Behind it stood, not thewoman I had befriended, but the muffled woman of the desert. Without aword she led me a few steps to an empty stone-paved chamber, and pointedto a rug on the floor. I wrapped myself in it, and once more lay down. She shut the door of the room, and I heard the outer door open and closeagain. There was no light save what came from the moonlit air. 

As I lay sleepless, I began to hear a stifled moaning. It went on fora good while, and then came the cry of a child, followed by a terribleshriek. I sprang up and darted into the passage: from another door in itcame the white leopardess with a new-born baby in her mouth, carryingit like a cub of her own. I threw myself upon her, and compelled her todrop the infant, which fell on the stone slabs with a piteous wail. 

At the cry appeared the muffled woman. She stepped over us, the beastand myself, where we lay struggling in the narrow passage, took up thechild, and carried it away. Returning, she lifted me off the animal, opened the door, and pushed me gently out. At my heels followed theleopardess. 

"She too has failed me!" thought I; "--given me up to the beast to besettled with at her leisure! But we shall have a tussle for it!"

I ran down the stair, fearing she would spring on my back, but shefollowed me quietly. At the foot I turned to lay hold of her, butshe sprang over my head; and when again I turned to face her, she wascrouching at my feet! I stooped and stroked her lovely white skin;she responded by licking my bare feet with her hard dry tongue. Then Ipatted and fondled her, a well of tenderness overflowing in my heart:she might be treacherous too, but if I turned from every show of lovelest it should be feigned, how was I ever to find the real love whichmust be somewhere in every world?

I stood up; she rose, and stood beside me. 

A bulky object fell with a heavy squelch in the middle of the street, afew yards from us. I ran to it, and found a pulpy mass, with just formenough left to show it the body of a woman. It must have been thrownfrom some neighbouring window! I looked around me: the Shadow waswalking along the other side of the way, with the white leopardess againat his heel!

I followed and gained upon them, urging in my heart for the leopardessthat probably she was not a free agent. When I got near them, however, she turned and flew at me with such a hideous snarl, that instinctivelyI drew back: instantly she resumed her place behind the Shadow. AgainI drew near; again she flew at me, her eyes flaming like live emeralds. Once more I made the experiment: she snapped at me like a dog, andbit me. My heart gave way, and I uttered a cry; whereupon the creaturelooked round with a glance that plainly meant--"Why WOULD you make me doit?"

I turned away angry with myself: I had been losing my time ever sinceI entered the place! night as it was I would go straight to the palace!From the square I had seen it--high above the heart of the city, compassed with many defences, more a fortress than a palace!

But I found its fortifications, like those of the city, much neglected, and partly ruinous. For centuries, clearly, they had been of no account!It had great and strong gates, with something like a drawbridge to themover a rocky chasm; but they stood open, and it was hard to believe thatwater had ever occupied the hollow before them. All was so still thatsleep seemed to interpenetrate the structure, causing the very moonlightto look discordantly awake. I must either enter like a thief, or break asilence that rendered frightful the mere thought of a sound!

Like an outcast dog I was walking about the walls, when I came to alittle recess with a stone bench: I took refuge in it from the wind, laydown, and in spite of the cold fell fast asleep. 

I was wakened by something leaping upon me, and licking my face withthe rough tongue of a feline animal. "It is the white leopardess!" Ithought. "She is come to suck my blood!--and why should she not haveit?--it would cost me more to defend than to yield it!" So I lay still, expecting a shoot of pain. But the pang did not arrive; a pleasantwarmth instead began to diffuse itself through me. Stretched at my back, she lay as close to me as she could lie, the heat of her body slowlypenetrating mine, and her breath, which had nothing of the wild beast init, swathing my head and face in a genial atmosphere. A full convictionthat her intention toward me was good, gained possession of me. Iturned like a sleepy boy, threw my arm over her, and sank into profoundunconsciousness. 

When I began to come to myself, I fancied I lay warm and soft in my ownbed. "Is it possible I am at home?" I thought. The well-known scents ofthe garden seemed to come crowding in. I rubbed my eyes, and looked out:I lay on a bare stone, in the heart of a hateful city!

I sprang from the bench. Had I indeed had a leopardess for my bedfellow, or had I but dreamed it? She had but just left me, for the warmth of herbody was with me yet!

I left the recess with a new hope, as strong as it was shapeless. Onething only was clear to me: I must find the princess! Surely I had somepower with her, if not over her! Had I not saved her life, and had shenot prolonged it at the expense of my vitality? The reflection gave mecourage to encounter her, be she what she might. 

CHAPTER XXV. THE PRINCESS

Making a circuit of the castle, I came again to the open gates, crossedthe ravine-like moat, and found myself in a paved court, planted atregular intervals with towering trees like poplars. In the centre wasone taller than the rest, whose branches, near the top, spread a littleand gave it some resemblance to a palm. Between their great stems Igot glimpses of the palace, which was of a style strange to me, butsuggested Indian origin. It was long and low, with lofty towers at thecorners, and one huge dome in the middle, rising from the roof to halfthe height of the towers. The main entrance was in the centre of thefront--a low arch that seemed half an ellipse. No one was visible, thedoors stood wide open, and I went unchallenged into a large hall, inthe form of a longish ellipse. Toward one side stood a cage, in whichcouched, its head on its paws, a huge leopardess, chained by a steelcollar, with its mouth muzzled and its paws muffled. It was whitewith dark oval spots, and lay staring out of wide-open eyes, withcanoe-shaped pupils, and great green irids. It appeared to watch me, butnot an eyeball, not a foot, not a whisker moved, and its tail stretchedout behind it rigid as an iron bar. I could not tell whether it was alive thing or not. 

From this vestibule two low passages led; I took one of them, andfound it branch into many, all narrow and irregular. At a spot where wasscarce room for two to pass, a page ran against me. He started back interror, but having scanned me, gathered impudence, puffed himself out, and asked my business. 

"To see the princess, " I answered. 

"A likely thing!" he returned. "I have not seen her highness thismorning myself!"

I caught him by the back of the neck, shook him, and said, "Take me toher at once, or I will drag you with me till I find her. She shall knowhow her servants receive her visitors. "

He gave a look at me, and began to pull like a blind man's dog, leadingme thus to a large kitchen, where were many servants, feebly busy, andhardly awake. I expected them to fall upon me and drive me out, but theystared instead, with wide eyes--not at me, but at something behind me, and grew more ghastly as they stared. I turned my head, and saw thewhite leopardess, regarding them in a way that might have feared stouterhearts. 

Presently, however, one of them, seeing, I suppose, that attack was notimminent, began to recover himself; I turned to him, and let the boy go. 

"Take me to the princess, " I said. 

"She has not yet left her room, your lordship, " he replied. 

"Let her know that I am here, waiting audience of her. "

"Will your lordship please to give me your name?"

"Tell her that one who knows the white leech desires to see her. "

"She will kill me if I take such a message: I must not. I dare not. "

"You refuse?"

He cast a glance at my attendant, and went. 

The others continued staring--too much afraid of her to take their eyesoff her. I turned to the graceful creature, where she stood, her muzzledropped to my heel, white as milk, a warm splendour in the gloomy place, and stooped and patted her. She looked up at me; the mere movement ofher head was enough to scatter them in all directions. She rose on herhind legs, and put her paws on my shoulders; I threw my arms round her. She pricked her ears, broke from me, and was out of sight in a moment. 

The man I had sent to the princess entered. 

"Please to come this way, my lord, " he said. 

My heart gave a throb, as if bracing itself to the encounter. I followedhim through many passages, and was at last shown into a room so largeand so dark that its walls were invisible. A single spot on the floorreflected a little light, but around that spot all was black. I lookedup, and saw at a great height an oval aperture in the roof, on theperiphery of which appeared the joints between blocks of black marble. The light on the floor showed close fitting slabs of the same material. I found afterward that the elliptical wall as well was of black marble, absorbing the little light that reached it. The roof was the long halfof an ellipsoid, and the opening in it was over one of the foci of theellipse of the floor. I fancied I caught sight of reddish lines, butwhen I would have examined them, they were gone. 

All at once, a radiant form stood in the centre of the darkness, flashing a splendour on every side. Over a robe of soft white, her hairstreamed in a cataract, black as the marble on which it fell. Hereyes were a luminous blackness; her arms and feet like warm ivory. Shegreeted me with the innocent smile of a girl--and in face, figure, andmotion seemed but now to have stepped over the threshold of womanhood. "Alas, " thought I, "ill did I reckon my danger! Can this be the woman Irescued--she who struck me, scorned me, left me?" I stood gazing at herout of the darkness; she stood gazing into it, as if searching for me. 

She disappeared. "She will not acknowledge me!" I thought. But the nextinstant her eyes flashed out of the dark straight into mine. She haddescried me and come to me!

"You have found me at last!" she said, laying her hand on my shoulder. "I knew you would!"

My frame quivered with conflicting consciousnesses, to analyse whichI had no power. I was simultaneously attracted and repelled: eachsensation seemed either. 

"You shiver!" she said. "This place is cold for you! Come. "

I stood silent: she had struck me dumb with beauty; she held me dumbwith sweetness. 

Taking me by the hand, she drew me to the spot of light, and againflashed upon me. An instant she stood there. 

"You have grown brown since last I saw you, " she said. 

"This is almost the first roof I have been under since you left me, " Ireplied. 

"Whose was the other?" she rejoined. 

"I do not know the woman's name. "

"I would gladly learn it! The instinct of hospitality is not strongin my people!" She took me again by the hand, and led me through thedarkness many steps to a curtain of black. Beyond it was a white stair, up which she conducted me to a beautiful chamber. 

"How you must miss the hot flowing river!" she said. "But there is abath in the corner with no white leeches in it! At the foot of yourcouch you will find a garment. When you come down, I shall be in theroom to your left at the foot of the stair. "

I stood as she left me, accusing my presumption: how was I to treatthis lovely woman as a thing of evil, who behaved to me like asister?--Whence the marvellous change in her? She left me with a blow;she received me almost with an embrace! She had reviled me; she saidshe knew I would follow and find her! Did she know my doubts concerningher--how much I should want explained? COULD she explain all? Could Ibelieve her if she did? As to her hospitality, I had surely earnedand might accept that--at least until I came to a definite judgmentconcerning her!

Could such beauty as I saw, and such wickedness as I suspected, existin the same person? If they could, HOW was it possible? Unable to answerthe former question, I must let the latter wait!

Clear as crystal, the water in the great white bath sent a sparklingflash from the corner where it lay sunk in the marble floor, and seemedto invite me to its embrace. Except the hot stream, two draughts in thecottage of the veiled woman, and the pools in the track of the woundedleopardess, I had not seen water since leaving home: it looked a thingcelestial. I plunged in. 

Immediately my brain was filled with an odour strange and delicate, which yet I did not altogether like. It made me doubt the princessafresh: had she medicated it? had she enchanted it? was she in any wayworking on me unlawfully? And how was there water in the palace, and nota drop in the city? I remembered the crushed paw of the leopardess, andsprang from the bath. 

What had I been bathing in? Again I saw the fleeing mother, again Iheard the howl, again I saw the limping beast. But what matter whence itflowed? was not the water sweet? Was it not very water the pitcher-plantsecreted from its heart, and stored for the weary traveller? Water camefrom heaven: what mattered the well where it gathered, or the springwhence it burst? But I did not re-enter the bath. 

I put on the robe of white wool, embroidered on the neck and hem, thatlay ready for me, and went down the stair to the room whither my hostesshad directed me. It was round, all of alabaster, and without a singlewindow: the light came through everywhere, a soft, pearly shimmer ratherthan shine. Vague shadowy forms went flitting about over the walls andlow dome, like loose rain-clouds over a grey-blue sky. 

The princess stood waiting me, in a robe embroidered with argentinerings and discs, rectangles and lozenges, close together--a silvermail. It fell unbroken from her neck and hid her feet, but its long opensleeves left her arms bare. 

In the room was a table of ivory, bearing cakes and fruit, an ivory jugof milk, a crystal jug of wine of a pale rose-colour, and a white loaf. 

"Here we do not kill to eat, " she said; "but I think you will like whatI can give you. "

I told her I could desire nothing better than what I saw. She seatedherself on a couch by the table, and made me a sign to sit by her. 

She poured me out a bowlful of milk, and, handing me the loaf, beggedme to break from it such a piece as I liked. Then she filled from thewine-jug two silver goblets of grotesquely graceful workmanship. 

"You have never drunk wine like this!" she said. 

I drank, and wondered: every flower of Hybla and Hymettus must have sentits ghost to swell the soul of that wine!

"And now that you will be able to listen, " she went on, "I must do whatI can to make myself intelligible to you. Our natures, however, are sodifferent, that this may not be easy. Men and women live but to die; we, that is such as I--we are but a few--live to live on. Old age is to youa horror; to me it is a dear desire: the older we grow, the nearer weare to our perfection. Your perfection is a poor thing, comes soon, andlasts but a little while; ours is a ceaseless ripening. I am not yetripe, and have lived thousands of your years--how many, I never cared tonote. The everlasting will not be measured. 

"Many lovers have sought me; I have loved none of them: they sought butto enslave me; they sought me but as the men of my city seek gems ofprice. --When you found me, I found a man! I put you to the test; youstood it; your love was genuine!--It was, however, far from ideal--farfrom such love as I would have. You loved me truly, but not with truelove. Pity has, but is not love. What woman of any world would returnlove for pity? Such love as yours was then, is hateful to me. I knewthat, if you saw me as I am, you would love me--like the rest ofthem--to have and to hold: I would none of that either! I would beotherwise loved! I would have a love that outlived hopelessness, outmeasured indifference, hate, scorn! Therefore did I put on cruelty, despite, ingratitude. When I left you, I had shown myself such as youcould at least no longer follow from pity: I was no longer in needof you! But you must satisfy my desire or set me free--prove yourselfpriceless or worthless! To satisfy the hunger of my love, you mustfollow me, looking for nothing, not gratitude, not even pity inreturn!--follow and find me, and be content with merest presence, withscantest forbearance!--I, not you, have failed; I yield the contest. "

She looked at me tenderly, and hid her face in her hands. But I hadcaught a flash and a sparkle behind the tenderness, and did not believeher. She laid herself out to secure and enslave me; she only fascinatedme!

"Beautiful princess, " I said, "let me understand how you came to befound in such evil plight. "

"There are things I cannot explain, " she replied, "until you have becomecapable of understanding them--which can only be when love is grownperfect. There are many things so hidden from you that you cannot evenwish to know them; but any question you can put, I can in some measureanswer. 

"I had set out to visit a part of my dominions occupied by a savagedwarf-people, strong and fierce, enemies to law and order, opposed toevery kind of progress--an evil race. I went alone, fearing nothing, unaware of the least necessity for precaution. I did not know that uponthe hot stream beside which you found me, a certain woman, by no meansso powerful as myself, not being immortal, had cast what you call aspell--which is merely the setting in motion of a force as natural asany other, but operating primarily in a region beyond the ken of themortal who makes use of the force. 

"I set out on my journey, reached the stream, bounded across it, ----"

A shadow of embarrassment darkened her cheek: I understood it, butshowed no sign. Checked for the merest moment, she went on:

"--you know what a step it is in parts!--But in the very act, anindescribable cold invaded me. I recognised at once the nature of theassault, and knew it could affect me but temporarily. By sheer force ofwill I dragged myself to the wood--nor knew anything more until I sawyou asleep, and the horrible worm at your neck. I crept out, dragged themonster from you, and laid my lips to the wound. You began to wake; Iburied myself among the leaves. "

She rose, her eyes flashing as never human eyes flashed, and threw herarms high over her head. 

"What you have made me is yours!" she cried. "I will repay you as neveryet did woman! My power, my beauty, my love are your own: take them. "

She dropt kneeling beside me, laid her arms across my knees, and lookedup in my face. 

Then first I noted on her left hand a large clumsy glove. In my mind'seye I saw hair and claws under it, but I knew it was a hand shuthard--perhaps badly bruised. I glanced at the other: it was lovely ashand could be, and I felt that, if I did less than loathe her, I shouldlove her. Not to dally with usurping emotions, I turned my eyes aside. 

She started to her feet. I sat motionless, looking down. 

"To me she may be true!" said my vanity. For a moment I was tempted tolove a lie. 

An odour, rather than the gentlest of airy pulses, was fanning me. I glanced up. She stood erect before me, waving her lovely arms inseemingly mystic fashion. 

A frightful roar made my heart rebound against the walls of its cage. The alabaster trembled as if it would shake into shivers. The princessshuddered visibly. 

"My wine was too strong for you!" she said, in a quavering voice; "Iought not to have let you take a full draught! Go and sleep now, andwhen you wake ask me what you please. --I will go with you: come. "

As she preceded me up the stair, --

"I do not wonder that roar startled you!" she said. "It startled me, Iconfess: for a moment I feared she had escaped. But that is impossible. "

The roar seemed to me, however--I could not tell why--to come from theWHITE leopardess, and to be meant for me, not the princess. 

With a smile she left me at the door of my room, but as she turned Iread anxiety on her beautiful face. 

CHAPTER XXVI. A BATTLE ROYAL

I threw myself on the bed, and began to turn over in my mind the taleshe had told me. She had forgotten herself, and, by a single incautiousword, removed one perplexity as to the condition in which I found her inthe forest! The leopardess BOUNDED over; the princess lay prostrate onthe bank: the running stream had dissolved her self-enchantment! Her ownaccount of the object of her journey revealed the danger of the LittleOnes then imminent: I had saved the life of their one fearful enemy!

I had but reached this conclusion when I fell asleep. The lovely winemay not have been quite innocent. 

When I opened my eyes, it was night. A lamp, suspended from the ceiling, cast a clear, although soft light through the chamber. A deliciouslanguor infolded me. I seemed floating, far from land, upon the bosom ofa twilight sea. Existence was in itself pleasure. I had no pain. SurelyI was dying!

No pain!--ah, what a shoot of mortal pain was that! what a sickeningsting! It went right through my heart! Again! That was sharpnessitself!--and so sickening! I could not move my hand to lay it on myheart; something kept it down!

The pain was dying away, but my whole body seemed paralysed. Some evilthing was upon me!--something hateful! I would have struggled, but couldnot reach a struggle. My will agonised, but in vain, to assert itself. I desisted, and lay passive. Then I became aware of a soft hand on myface, pressing my head into the pillow, and of a heavy weight lyingacross me. 

I began to breathe more freely; the weight was gone from my chest; Iopened my eyes. 

The princess was standing above me on the bed, looking out into theroom, with the air of one who dreamed. Her great eyes were clear andcalm. Her mouth wore a look of satisfied passion; she wiped from it astreak of red. 

She caught my gaze, bent down, and struck me on the eyes with thehandkerchief in her hand: it was like drawing the edge of a knife acrossthem, and for a moment or two I was blind. 

I heard a dull heavy sound, as of a large soft-footed animal alightingfrom a little jump. I opened my eyes, and saw the great swing of a longtail as it disappeared through the half-open doorway. I sprang after it. 

The creature had vanished quite. I shot down the stair, and into thehall of alabaster. The moon was high, and the place like the inside ofa faint, sun-blanched moon. The princess was not there. I must find her:in her presence I might protect myself; out of it I could not! I wasa tame animal for her to feed upon; a human fountain for a thirstdemoniac! She showed me favour the more easily to use me! My waking eyesdid not fear her, but they would close, and she would come! Not seeingher, I felt her everywhere, for she might be anywhere--might even nowbe waiting me in some secret cavern of sleep! Only with my eyes upon hercould I feel safe from her!

Outside the alabaster hall it was pitch-dark, and I had to grope my wayalong with hands and feet. At last I felt a curtain, put it aside, andentered the black hall. There I found a great silent assembly. How itwas visible I neither saw nor could imagine, for the walls, the floor, the roof, were shrouded in what seemed an infinite blackness, blackerthan the blackest of moonless, starless nights; yet my eyes couldseparate, although vaguely, not a few of the individuals in the massinterpenetrated and divided, as well as surrounded, by the darkness. It seemed as if my eyes would never come quite to themselves. I pressedtheir balls and looked and looked again, but what I saw would not growdistinct. Blackness mingled with form, silence and undefined motionpossessed the wide space. All was a dim, confused dance, filled withrecurrent glimpses of shapes not unknown to me. Now appeared a woman, with glorious eyes looking out of a skull; now an armed figure on askeleton horse; now one now another of the hideous burrowing phantasms. I could trace no order and little relation in the mingling and crossingcurrents and eddies. If I seemed to catch the shape and rhythm of adance, it was but to see it break, and confusion prevail. With theshifting colours of the seemingly more solid shapes, mingled a multitudeof shadows, independent apparently of originals, each moving afterits own free shadow-will. I looked everywhere for the princess, butthroughout the wildly changing kaleidoscopic scene, could not see hernor discover indication of her presence. Where was she? What might shenot be doing? No one took the least notice of me as I wandered hitherand thither seeking her. At length losing hope, I turned away to lookelsewhere. Finding the wall, and keeping to it with my hand, for eventhen I could not see it, I came, groping along, to a curtained openinginto the vestibule. 

Dimly moonlighted, the cage of the leopardess was the arena of whatseemed a desperate although silent struggle. Two vastly differing forms, human and bestial, with entangled confusion of mingling bodies andlimbs, writhed and wrestled in closest embrace. It had lasted but aninstant when I saw the leopardess out of the cage, walking quietly tothe open door. As I hastened after her I threw a glance behind me: therewas the leopardess in the cage, couching motionless as when I saw herfirst. 

The moon, half-way up the sky, was shining round and clear; the bodilessshadow I had seen the night before, was walking through the treestoward the gate; and after him went the leopardess, swinging her tail. I followed, a little way off, as silently as they, and neither of themonce looked round. Through the open gate we went down to the city, lyingquiet as the moonshine upon it. The face of the moon was very still, andits stillness looked like that of expectation. 

The Shadow took his way straight to the stair at the top of which I hadlain the night before. Without a pause he went up, and the leopardessfollowed. I quickened my pace, but, a moment after, heard a cry ofhorror. Then came the fall of something soft and heavy between me andthe stair, and at my feet lay a body, frightfully blackened and crushed, but still recognisable as that of the woman who had led me home and shutme out. As I stood petrified, the spotted leopardess came bounding downthe stair with a baby in her mouth. I darted to seize her ere shecould turn at the foot; but that instant, from behind me, the whiteleopardess, like a great bar of glowing silver, shot through themoonlight, and had her by the neck. She dropped the child; I caught itup, and stood to watch the battle between them. 

What a sight it was--now the one, now the other uppermost, both toointent for any noise beyond a low growl, a whimpered cry, or a snarl ofhate--followed by a quicker scrambling of claws, as each, worryingand pushing and dragging, struggled for foothold on the pavement! Thespotted leopardess was larger than the white, and I was anxious for myfriend; but I soon saw that, though neither stronger nor more active, the white leopardess had the greater endurance. Not once did she loseher hold on the neck of the other. From the spotted throat at lengthissued a howl of agony, changing, by swift-crowded gradations, into thelong-drawn CRESCENDO of a woman's uttermost wail. The white one relaxedher jaws; the spotted one drew herself away, and rose on her hind legs. Erect in the moonlight stood the princess, a confused rush of shadowscareering over her whiteness--the spots of the leopard crowding, hurrying, fleeing to the refuge of her eyes, where merging theyvanished. The last few, outsped and belated, mingled with the cloudof her streamy hair, leaving her radiant as the moon when a legion oflittle vapours has flown, wind-hunted, off her silvery disc--save that, adown the white column of her throat, a thread of blood still trickledfrom every wound of her adversary's terrible teeth. She turned away, took a few steps with the gait of a Hecate, fell, covered afresh withher spots, and fled at a long, stretching gallop. 

The white leopardess turned also, sprang upon me, pulled my armsasunder, caught the baby as it fell, and flew with it along the streettoward the gate. 

CHAPTER XXVII. THE SILENT FOUNTAIN

I turned and followed the spotted leopardess, catching but one glimpseof her as she tore up the brow of the hill to the gate of the palace. When I reached the entrance-hall, the princess was just throwing therobe around her which she had left on the floor. The blood had ceased toflow from her wounds, and had dried in the wind of her flight. 

When she saw me, a flash of anger crossed her face, and she turned herhead aside. Then, with an attempted smile, she looked at me, and said, "I have met with a small accident! Happening to hear that the cat-womanwas again in the city, I went down to send her away. But she had one ofher horrid creatures with her: it sprang upon me, and had its claws inmy neck before I could strike it!"

She gave a shiver, and I could not help pitying her, although I knewshe lied, for her wounds were real, and her face reminded me of how shelooked in the cave. My heart began to reproach me that I had let herfight unaided, and I suppose I looked the compassion I felt. 

"Child of folly!" she said, with another attempted smile, "--not crying, surely!--Wait for me here; I am going into the black hall for a moment. I want you to get me something for my scratches. "

But I followed her close. Out of my sight I feared her. 

The instant the princess entered, I heard a buzzing sound as of manylow voices, and, one portion after another, the assembly began to beshiftingly illuminated, as by a ray that went travelling from spot tospot. Group after group would shine out for a space, then sink back intothe general vagueness, while another part of the vast company would growmomently bright. 

Some of the actions going on when thus illuminated, were not unknown tome; I had been in them, or had looked on them, and so had the princess:present with every one of them I now saw her. The skull-headed dancersfooted the grass in the forest-hall: there was the princess looking inat the door! The fight went on in the Evil Wood: there was the princessurging it! Yet I was close behind her all the time, she standingmotionless, her head sunk on her bosom. The confused murmur continued, the confused commotion of colours and shapes; and still the ray wentshifting and showing. It settled at last on the hollow in the heath, andthere was the princess, walking up and down, and trying in vain to wrapthe vapour around her! Then first I was startled at what I saw: the oldlibrarian walked up to her, and stood for a moment regarding her; shefell; her limbs forsook her and fled; her body vanished. 

A wild shriek rang through the echoing place, and with the fall of hereidolon, the princess herself, till then standing like a statue in frontof me, fell heavily, and lay still. I turned at once and went out: notagain would I seek to restore her! As I stood trembling beside thecage, I knew that in the black ellipsoid I had been in the brain of theprincess!--I saw the tail of the leopardess quiver once. 

While still endeavouring to compose myself, I heard the voice of theprincess beside me. 

"Come now, " she said; "I will show you what I want you to do for me. "

She led the way into the court. I followed in dazed compliance. 

The moon was near the zenith, and her present silver seemed brighterthan the gold of the absent sun. She brought me through the trees to thetallest of them, the one in the centre. It was not quite like the rest, for its branches, drawing their ends together at the top, made a clumpthat looked from beneath like a fir-cone. The princess stood close underit, gazing up, and said, as if talking to herself, "On the summit of that tree grows a tiny blossom which would at onceheal my scratches! I might be a dove for a moment and fetch it, but Isee a little snake in the leaves whose bite would be worse to a dovethan the bite of a tiger to me!--How I hate that cat-woman!"

She turned to me quickly, saying with one of her sweetest smiles, "Can you climb?"

The smile vanished with the brief question, and her face changed to alook of sadness and suffering. I ought to have left her to suffer, butthe way she put her hand to her wounded neck went to my heart. 

I considered the tree. All the way up to the branches, were projectionson the stem like the remnants on a palm of its fallen leaves. 

"I can climb that tree, " I answered. 

"Not with bare feet!" she returned. 

In my haste to follow the leopardess disappearing, I had left my sandalsin my room. 

"It is no matter, " I said; "I have long gone barefoot!"

Again I looked at the tree, and my eyes went wandering up the stem untilmy sight lost itself in the branches. The moon shone like silveryfoam here and there on the rugged bole, and a little rush of wind wentthrough the top with a murmurous sound as of water falling softly intowater. I approached the tree to begin my ascent of it. The princessstopped me. 

"I cannot let you attempt it with your feet bare!" she insisted. "A fallfrom the top would kill you!"

"So would a bite from the snake!" I answered--not believing, I confess, that there was any snake. 

"It would not hurt YOU!" she replied. "--Wait a moment. "

She tore from her garment the two wide borders that met in front, andkneeling on one knee, made me put first my left foot, then my right onthe other, and bound them about with the thick embroidered strips. 

"You have left the ends hanging, princess!" I said. 

"I have nothing to cut them off with; but they are not long enough toget entangled, " she replied. 

I turned to the tree, and began to climb. 

Now in Bulika the cold after sundown was not so great as in certainother parts of the country--especially about the sexton's cottage; yetwhen I had climbed a little way, I began to feel very cold, grew stillcolder as I ascended, and became coldest of all when I got among thebranches. Then I shivered, and seemed to have lost my hands and feet. 

There was hardly any wind, and the branches did not sway in theleast, yet, as I approached the summit, I became aware of a peculiarunsteadiness: every branch on which I placed foot or laid hold, seemedon the point of giving way. When my head rose above the branchesnear the top, and in the open moonlight I began to look about for theblossom, that instant I found myself drenched from head to foot. Thenext, as if plunged in a stormy water, I was flung about wildly, andfelt myself sinking. Tossed up and down, tossed this way and tossed thatway, rolled over and over, checked, rolled the other way and tossed upagain, I was sinking lower and lower. Gasping and gurgling and choking, I fell at last upon a solid bottom. 

"I told you so!" croaked a voice in my ear. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. I AM SILENCED

I rubbed the water out of my eyes, and saw the raven on the edge of ahuge stone basin. With the cold light of the dawn reflected from hisglossy plumage, he stood calmly looking down upon me. I lay on my backin water, above which, leaning on my elbows, I just lifted my face. Iwas in the basin of the large fountain constructed by my father in themiddle of the lawn. High over me glimmered the thick, steel-shiny stalk, shooting, with a torrent uprush, a hundred feet into the air, to spreadin a blossom of foam. 

Nettled at the coolness of the raven's remark, "You told me nothing!" I said. 

"I told you to do nothing any one you distrusted asked you!"

"Tut! how was mortal to remember that?"

"You will not forget the consequences of having forgotten it!" repliedMr. Raven, who stood leaning over the margin of the basin, and stretchedhis hand across to me. 

I took it, and was immediately beside him on the lawn, dripping andstreaming. 

"You must change your clothes at once!" he said. "A wetting does notsignify where you come from--though at present such an accident isunusual; here it has its inconveniences!"

He was again a raven, walking, with something stately in his step, toward the house, the door of which stood open. 

"I have not much to change!" I laughed; for I had flung aside my robe toclimb the tree. 

"It is a long time since I moulted a feather!" said the raven. 

In the house no one seemed awake. I went to my room, found adressing-gown, and descended to the library. 

As I entered, the librarian came from the closet. I threw myself on acouch. Mr. Raven drew a chair to my side and sat down. For a minute ortwo neither spoke. I was the first to break the silence. 

"What does it all mean?" I said. 

"A good question!" he rejoined: "nobody knows what anything is; a mancan learn only what a thing means! Whether he do, depends on the use heis making of it. "

"I have made no use of anything yet!"

"Not much; but you know the fact, and that is something! Most peopletake more than a lifetime to learn that they have learned nothing, anddone less! At least you have not been without the desire to be of use!"

"I did want to do something for the children--the precious Little Ones, I mean. "

"I know you did--and started the wrong way!"

"I did not know the right way. "

"That is true also--but you are to blame that you did not. "

"I am ready to believe whatever you tell me--as soon as I understandwhat it means. "

"Had you accepted our invitation, you would have known the right way. When a man will not act where he is, he must go far to find his work. "

"Indeed I have gone far, and got nowhere, for I have not found my work!I left the children to learn how to serve them, and have only learnedthe danger they are in. "

"When you were with them, you were where you could help them: you leftyour work to look for it! It takes a wise man to know when to go away; afool may learn to go back at once!"

"Do you mean, sir, I could have done something for the Little Ones bystaying with them?"

"Could you teach them anything by leaving them?"

"No; but how could I teach them? I did not know how to begin. Besides, they were far ahead of me!"

"That is true. But you were not a rod to measure them with! Certainly, if they knew what you know, not to say what you might have known, theywould be ahead of you--out of sight ahead! but you saw they were notgrowing--or growing so slowly that they had not yet developed theidea of growing! they were even afraid of growing!--You had never seenchildren remain children!"

"But surely I had no power to make them grow!"

"You might have removed some of the hindrances to their growing!"

"What are they? I do not know them. I did think perhaps it was the wantof water!"

"Of course it is! they have none to cry with!"

"I would gladly have kept them from requiring any for that purpose!"

"No doubt you would--the aim of all stupid philanthropists! Why, Mr. Vane, but for the weeping in it, your world would never have becomeworth saving! You confess you thought it might be water they wanted: whydid not you dig them a well or two?"

"That never entered my mind!"

"Not when the sounds of the waters under the earth entered your ears?"

"I believe it did once. But I was afraid of the giants for them. Thatwas what made me bear so much from the brutes myself!"

"Indeed you almost taught the noble little creatures to be afraid of thestupid Bags! While they fed and comforted and worshipped you, all thetime you submitted to be the slave of bestial men! You gave the darlingsa seeming coward for their hero! A worse wrong you could hardly havedone them. They gave you their hearts; you owed them your soul!--Youmight by this time have made the Bags hewers of wood and drawers ofwater to the Little Ones!"

"I fear what you say is true, Mr. Raven! But indeed I was afraid thatmore knowledge might prove an injury to them--render them less innocent, less lovely. "

"They had given you no reason to harbour such a fear!"

"Is not a little knowledge a dangerous thing?"

"That is one of the pet falsehoods of your world! Is man's greatestknowledge more than a little? or is it therefore dangerous? The fancythat knowledge is in itself a great thing, would make any degree ofknowledge more dangerous than any amount of ignorance. To know allthings would not be greatness. "

"At least it was for love of them, not from cowardice that I served thegiants!"

"Granted. But you ought to have served the Little Ones, not the giants!You ought to have given the Little Ones water; then they would soonhave taught the giants their true position. In the meantime you couldyourself have made the giants cut down two-thirds of their coarsefruit-trees to give room to the little delicate ones! You lost yourchance with the Lovers, Mr. Vane! You speculated about them instead ofhelping them!"

CHAPTER XXIX. THE PERSIAN CAT

I sat in silence and shame. What he said was true: I had not been a wiseneighbour to the Little Ones!

Mr. Raven resumed:

"You wronged at the same time the stupid creatures themselves. For themslavery would have been progress. To them a few such lessons as youcould have given them with a stick from one of their own trees, wouldhave been invaluable. "

"I did not know they were cowards!"

"What difference does that make? The man who grounds his action onanother's cowardice, is essentially a coward himself. --I fear worse willcome of it! By this time the Little Ones might have been able to protectthemselves from the princess, not to say the giants--they were alwaysfit enough for that; as it was they laughed at them! but now, throughyour relations with her, ----"

"I hate her!" I cried. 

"Did you let her know you hated her?"

Again I was silent. 

"Not even to her have you been faithful!--But hush! we were followedfrom the fountain, I fear!"

"No living creature did I see!--except a disreputable-looking cat thatbolted into the shrubbery. "

"It was a magnificent Persian--so wet and draggled, though, as to lookwhat she was--worse than disreputable!"

"What do you mean, Mr. Raven?" I cried, a fresh horror taking me by thethroat. "--There was a beautiful blue Persian about the house, butshe fled at the very sound of water!--Could she have been after thegoldfish?"

"We shall see!" returned the librarian. "I know a little about cats ofseveral sorts, and there is that in the room which will unmask this one, or I am mistaken in her. "

He rose, went to the door of the closet, brought from it the mutilatedvolume, and sat down again beside me. I stared at the book in his hand:it was a whole book, entire and sound!

"Where was the other half of it?" I gasped. 

"Sticking through into my library, " he answered. 

I held my peace. A single question more would have been a plunge into abottomless sea, and there might be no time!

"Listen, " he said: "I am going to read a stanza or two. There is onepresent who, I imagine, will hardly enjoy the reading!"

He opened the vellum cover, and turned a leaf or two. The parchment wasdiscoloured with age, and one leaf showed a dark stain over two-thirdsof it. He slowly turned this also, and seemed looking for a certainpassage in what appeared a continuous poem. Somewhere about the middleof the book he began to read. 

But what follows represents--not what he read, only the impression itmade upon me. The poem seemed in a language I had never before heard, which yet I understood perfectly, although I could not write the words, or give their meaning save in poor approximation. These fragments, then, are the shapes which those he read have finally taken in passing againthrough my brain:--

 "But if I found a man that could believe In what he saw not, felt not, and yet knew, From him I should take substance, and receive Firmness and form relate to touch and view; Then should I clothe me in the likeness true Of that idea where his soul did cleave!"

He turned a leaf and read again:--

 "In me was every woman. I had power Over the soul of every living man, Such as no woman ever had in dower-- Could what no woman ever could, or can; All women, I, the woman, still outran, Outsoared, outsank, outreigned, in hall or bower. 

 "For I, though me he neither saw nor heard, Nor with his hand could touch finger of mine, Although not once my breath had ever stirred A hair of him, could trammel brain and spine With rooted bonds which Death could not untwine-- Or life, though hope were evermore deferred. "

Again he paused, again turned a leaf, and again began:--

 "For by his side I lay, a bodiless thing; I breathed not, saw not, felt not, only thought, And made him love me--with a hungering After he knew not what--if it was aught Or but a nameless something that was wrought By him out of himself; for I did sing

 "A song that had no sound into his soul; I lay a heartless thing against his heart, Giving him nothing where he gave his whole Being to clothe me human, every part: That I at last into his sense might dart, Thus first into his living mind I stole. 

 "Ah, who was ever conquering Love but I! Who else did ever throne in heart of man! To visible being, with a gladsome cry Waking, life's tremor through me throbbing ran!"

A strange, repulsive feline wail arose somewhere in the room. I startedup on my elbow and stared about me, but could see nothing. 

Mr. Raven turned several leaves, and went on:--

 "Sudden I woke, nor knew the ghastly fear That held me--not like serpent coiled about, But like a vapour moist, corrupt, and drear, Filling heart, soul, and breast and brain throughout; My being lay motionless in sickening doubt, Nor dared to ask how came the horror here. 

 "My past entire I knew, but not my now; I understood nor what I was, nor where; I knew what I had been: still on my brow I felt the touch of what no more was there! I was a fainting, dead, yet live Despair; A life that flouted life with mop and mow!

 "That I was a queen I knew right well, And sometimes wore a splendour on my head Whose flashing even dead darkness could not quell-- The like on neck and arms and girdle-stead; And men declared a light my closed eyes shed That killed the diamond in its silver cell. "

Again I heard the ugly cry of feline pain. Again I looked, but sawneither shape nor motion. Mr. Raven seemed to listen a moment, but againturned several pages, and resumed:--

 "Hideously wet, my hair of golden hue Fouled my fair hands: to have it swiftly shorn I had given my rubies, all for me dug new-- No eyes had seen, and such no waist had worn! For a draught of water from a drinking horn, For one blue breath, I had given my sapphires blue!

 "Nay, I had given my opals for a smock, A peasant-maiden's garment, coarse and clean: My shroud was rotting! Once I heard a cock Lustily crow upon the hillock green Over my coffin. Dulled by space between, Came back an answer like a ghostly mock. "

Once more arose the bestial wail. 

"I thought some foul thing was in the room!" said the librarian, castinga glance around him; but instantly he turned a leaf or two, and againread:--

 "For I had bathed in milk and honey-dew, In rain from roses shook, that ne'er touched earth, And ointed me with nard of amber hue; Never had spot me spotted from my birth, Or mole, or scar of hurt, or fret of dearth; Never one hair superfluous on me grew. 

 "Fleeing cold whiteness, I would sit alone-- Not in the sun--I feared his bronzing light, But in his radiance back around me thrown By fulgent mirrors tempering his might; Thus bathing in a moon-bath not too bright, My skin I tinted slow to ivory tone. 

 "But now, all round was dark, dark all within! My eyes not even gave out a phantom-flash; My fingers sank in pulp through pulpy skin; My body lay death-weltered in a mash Of slimy horrors----"

With a fearsome yell, her clammy fur staring in clumps, her tail thickas a cable, her eyes flashing green as a chrysoprase, her distendedclaws entangling themselves so that she floundered across the carpet, ahuge white cat rushed from somewhere, and made for the chimney. Quick asthought the librarian threw the manuscript between her and the hearth. She crouched instantly, her eyes fixed on the book. But his voice wenton as if still he read, and his eyes seemed also fixed on the book:--

 "Ah, the two worlds! so strangely are they one, And yet so measurelessly wide apart! Oh, had I lived the bodiless alone And from defiling sense held safe my heart, Then had I scaped the canker and the smart, Scaped life-in-death, scaped misery's endless moan!"

At these words such a howling, such a prolonged yell of agony burst fromthe cat, that we both stopped our ears. When it ceased, Mr. Raven walkedto the fire-place, took up the book, and, standing between the creatureand the chimney, pointed his finger at her for a moment. She layperfectly still. He took a half-burnt stick from the hearth, drew withit some sign on the floor, put the manuscript back in its place, with alook that seemed to say, "Now we have her, I think!" and, returning tothe cat, stood over her and said, in a still, solemn voice:--

"Lilith, when you came here on the way to your evil will, you littlethought into whose hands you were delivering yourself!--Mr. Vane, whenGod created me, --not out of Nothing, as say the unwise, but out of Hisown endless glory--He brought me an angelic splendour to be my wife:there she lies! For her first thought was POWER; she counted it slaveryto be one with me, and bear children for Him who gave her being. Onechild, indeed, she bore; then, puffed with the fancy that she hadcreated her, would have me fall down and worship her! Finding, however, that I would but love and honour, never obey and worship her, she pouredout her blood to escape me, fled to the army of the aliens, and soonhad so ensnared the heart of the great Shadow, that he became her slave, wrought her will, and made her queen of Hell. How it is with her now, she best knows, but I know also. The one child of her body she fears andhates, and would kill, asserting a right, which is a lie, over what Godsent through her into His new world. Of creating, she knows no more thanthe crystal that takes its allotted shape, or the worm that makes twoworms when it is cloven asunder. Vilest of God's creatures, she livesby the blood and lives and souls of men. She consumes and slays, but ispowerless to destroy as to create. "

The animal lay motionless, its beryl eyes fixed flaming on the man: hiseyes on hers held them fixed that they could not move from his. 

"Then God gave me another wife--not an angel but a woman--who is to thisas light is to darkness. "

The cat gave a horrible screech, and began to grow bigger. She went ongrowing and growing. At last the spotted leopardess uttered a roar thatmade the house tremble. I sprang to my feet. I do not think Mr. Ravenstarted even with his eyelids. 

"It is but her jealousy that speaks, " he said, "jealousy self-kindled, foiled and fruitless; for here I am, her master now whom she, wouldnot have for her husband! while my beautiful Eve yet lives, hopingimmortally! Her hated daughter lives also, but beyond her evil ken, one day to be what she counts her destruction--for even Lilith shallbe saved by her childbearing. Meanwhile she exults that my human wifeplunged herself and me in despair, and has borne me a countless race ofmiserables; but my Eve repented, and is now beautiful as never was womanor angel, while her groaning, travailing world is the nursery of ourFather's children. I too have repented, and am blessed. --Thou, Lilith, hast not yet repented; but thou must. --Tell me, is the greatShadow beautiful? Knowest thou how long thou wilt thyself remainbeautiful?--Answer me, if thou knowest. "

Then at last I understood that Mr. Raven was indeed Adam, the old andthe new man; and that his wife, ministering in the house of the dead, was Eve, the mother of us all, the lady of the New Jerusalem. 

The leopardess reared; the flickering and fleeing of her spots began;the princess at length stood radiant in her perfect shape. 

"I AM beautiful--and immortal!" she said--and she looked the goddess shewould be. 

"As a bush that burns, and is consumed, " answered he who had been herhusband. "--What is that under thy right hand?"

For her arm lay across her bosom, and her hand was pressed to her side. 

A swift pang contorted her beautiful face, and passed. 

"It is but a leopard-spot that lingers! it will quickly follow those Ihave dismissed, " she answered. 

"Thou art beautiful because God created thee, but thou art the slave ofsin: take thy hand from thy side. "

Her hand sank away, and as it dropt she looked him in the eyes with aquailing fierceness that had in it no surrender. 

He gazed a moment at the spot. 

"It is not on the leopard; it is in the woman!" he said. "Nor will itleave thee until it hath eaten to thy heart, and thy beauty hath flowedfrom thee through the open wound!"

She gave a glance downward, and shivered. 

"Lilith, " said Adam, and his tone had changed to a tender beseeching, "hear me, and repent, and He who made thee will cleanse thee!"

Her hand returned quivering to her side. Her face grew dark. She gavethe cry of one from whom hope is vanishing. The cry passed into a howl. She lay writhing on the floor, a leopardess covered with spots. 

"The evil thou meditatest, " Adam resumed, "thou shalt never compass, Lilith, for Good and not Evil is the Universe. The battle between themmay last for countless ages, but it must end: how will it fare withthee when Time hath vanished in the dawn of the eternal morn? Repent, Ibeseech thee; repent, and be again an angel of God!"

She rose, she stood upright, a woman once more, and said, "I will not repent. I will drink the blood of thy child. " My eyes werefastened on the princess; but when Adam spoke, I turned to him: he stoodtowering above her; the form of his visage was altered, and his voicewas terrible. 

"Down!" he cried; "or by the power given me I will melt thy very bones. "

She flung herself on the floor, dwindled and dwindled, and was again agray cat. Adam caught her up by the skin of her neck, bore her tothe closet, and threw her in. He described a strange figure on thethreshold, and closing the door, locked it. 

Then he returned to my side the old librarian, looking sad and worn, andfurtively wiping tears from his eyes. 

CHAPTER XXX. ADAM EXPLAINS

"We must be on our guard, " he said, "or she will again outwit us. Shewould befool the very elect!"

"How are we to be on our guard?" I asked. 

"Every way, " he answered. "She fears, therefore hates her child, and isin this house on her way to destroy her. The birth of children is in hereyes the death of their parents, and every new generation the enemy ofthe last. Her daughter appears to her an open channel through which herimmortality--which yet she counts self-inherent--is flowing fast away:to fill it up, almost from her birth she has pursued her with an utterenmity. But the result of her machinations hitherto is, that in theregion she claims as her own, has appeared a colony of children, towhich that daughter is heart and head and sheltering wings. My Evelonged after the child, and would have been to her as a mother to herfirst-born, but we were then unfit to train her: she was carried intothe wilderness, and for ages we knew nothing of her fate. But she wasdivinely fostered, and had young angels for her playmates; nor did sheever know care until she found a baby in the wood, and the mother-heartin her awoke. One by one she has found many children since, and thatheart is not yet full. Her family is her absorbing charge, and neverchildren were better mothered. Her authority over them is withoutappeal, but it is unknown to herself, and never comes to the surfaceexcept in watchfulness and service. She has forgotten the time when shelived without them, and thinks she came herself from the wood, the firstof the family. 

"You have saved the life of her and their enemy; therefore your lifebelongs to her and them. The princess was on her way to destroy them, but as she crossed that stream, vengeance overtook her, and she wouldhave died had you not come to her aid. You did; and ere now she wouldhave been raging among the Little Ones, had she dared again cross thestream. But there was yet a way to the blessed little colony through theworld of the three dimensions; only, from that, by the slaying of herformer body, she had excluded herself, and except in personal contactwith one belonging to it, could not re-enter it. You provided theopportunity: never, in all her long years, had she had one before. Herhand, with lightest touch, was on one or other of your muffled feet, every step as you climbed. In that little chamber, she is now watchingto leave it as soon as ever she may. "

"She cannot know anything about the door!--she cannot at least know howto open it!" I said; but my heart was not so confident as my words. 

"Hush, hush!" whispered the librarian, with uplifted hand; "she can hearthrough anything!--You must go at once, and make your way to my wife'scottage. I will remain to keep guard over her. "

"Let me go to the Little Ones!" I cried. 

"Beware of that, Mr. Vane. Go to my wife, and do as she tells you. "

His advice did not recommend itself: why haste to encounter measurelessdelay? If not to protect the children, why go at all? Alas, even now Ibelieved him only enough to ask him questions, not to obey him!

"Tell me first, Mr. Raven, " I said, "why, of all places, you have shuther up there! The night I ran from your house, it was immediately intothat closet!"

"The closet is no nearer our cottage, and no farther from it, than anyor every other place. "

"But, " I returned, hard to persuade where I could not understand, "howis it then that, when you please, you take from that same door a wholebook where I saw and felt only a part of one? The other part, you havejust told me, stuck through into your library: when you put it again onthe shelf, will it not again stick through into that? Must not then thetwo places, in which parts of the same volume can at the same momentexist, lie close together? Or can one part of the book be in space, orSOMEWHERE, and the other out of space, or NOWHERE?"

"I am sorry I cannot explain the thing to you, " he answered; "but thereis no provision in you for understanding it. Not merely, therefore, is the phenomenon inexplicable to you, but the very nature of it isinapprehensible by you. Indeed I but partially apprehend it myself. Atthe same time you are constantly experiencing things which you not onlydo not, but cannot understand. You think you understand them, but yourunderstanding of them is only your being used to them, and therefore notsurprised at them. You accept them, not because you understand them, but because you must accept them: they are there, and have unavoidablerelations with you! The fact is, no man understands anything; when heknows he does not understand, that is his first tottering step--nottoward understanding, but toward the capability of one dayunderstanding. To such things as these you are not used, therefore youdo not fancy you understand them. Neither I nor any man can here helpyou to understand; but I may, perhaps, help you a little to believe!"

He went to the door of the closet, gave a low whistle, and stoodlistening. A moment after, I heard, or seemed to hear, a soft whir ofwings, and, looking up, saw a white dove perch for an instant on the topof the shelves over the portrait, thence drop to Mr. Raven's shoulder, and lay her head against his cheek. Only by the motions of their twoheads could I tell that they were talking together; I heard nothing. Neither had I moved my eyes from them, when suddenly she was not there, and Mr. Raven came back to his seat. 

"Why did you whistle?" I asked. "Surely sound here is not sound there!"

"You are right, " he answered. "I whistled that you might know I calledher. Not the whistle, but what the whistle meant reached her. --There isnot a minute to lose: you must go!"

"I will at once!" I replied, and moved for the door. 

"You will sleep to-night at my hostelry!" he said--not as a question, but in a tone of mild authority. 

"My heart is with the children, " I replied. "But if you insist----"

"I do insist. You can otherwise effect nothing. --I will go with you asfar as the mirror, and see you off. "

He rose. There came a sudden shock in the closet. Apparently theleopardess had flung herself against the heavy door. I looked at mycompanion. 

"Come; come!" he said. 

Ere we reached the door of the library, a howling yell came afterus, mingled with the noise of claws that scored at the hard oak. Ihesitated, and half turned. 

"To think of her lying there alone, " I murmured, "--with that terriblewound!"

"Nothing will ever close that wound, " he answered, with a sigh. "It musteat into her heart! Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only goodwhere evil was, is evil dead. An evil thing must live with its eviluntil it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil. "

I held my peace until a sound I did not understand overtook us. 

"If she should break loose!" I cried. 

"Make haste!" he rejoined. "I shall hurry down the moment you are gone, and I have disarranged the mirrors. "

We ran, and reached the wooden chamber breathless. Mr. Raven seized thechains and adjusted the hood. Then he set the mirrors in their properrelation, and came beside me in front of the standing one. Already I sawthe mountain range emerging from the mist. 

Between us, wedging us asunder, darted, with the yell of a demon, thehuge bulk of the spotted leopardess. She leaped through the mirror asthrough an open window, and settled at once into a low, even, swiftgallop. 

I cast a look of dismay at my companion, and sprang through to followher. He came after me leisurely. 

"You need not run, " he called; "you cannot overtake her. This is ourway. "

As he spoke he turned in the opposite direction. 

"She has more magic at her finger-tips than I care to know!" he addedquietly. 

"We must do what we can!" I said, and ran on, but sickening as I saw herdwindle in the distance, stopped, and went back to him. 

"Doubtless we must, " he answered. "But my wife has warned Mara, and shewill do her part; you must sleep first: you have given me your word!"

"Nor do I mean to break it. But surely sleep is not the first thing!Surely, surely, action takes precedence of repose!"

"A man can do nothing he is not fit to do. --See! did I not tell you Marawould do her part?"

I looked whither he pointed, and saw a white spot moving at an acuteangle with the line taken by the leopardess. 

"There she is!" he cried. "The spotted leopardess is strong, but thewhite is stronger!"

"I have seen them fight: the combat did not appear decisive as to that. "

"How should such eyes tell which have never slept? The princess didnot confess herself beaten--that she never does--but she fled! When sheconfesses her last hope gone, that it is indeed hard to kick againstthe goad, then will her day begin to dawn! Come; come! He who cannot actmust make haste to sleep!"

CHAPTER XXXI. THE SEXTON'S OLD HORSE

I stood and watched the last gleam of the white leopardess melt away, then turned to follow my guide--but reluctantly. What had I to do withsleep? Surely reason was the same in every world, and what reason couldthere be in going to sleep with the dead, when the hour was calling thelive man? Besides, no one would wake me, and how could I be certain ofwaking early--of waking at all?--the sleepers in that house let morningglide into noon, and noon into night, nor ever stirred! I murmured, butfollowed, for I knew not what else to do. 

The librarian walked on in silence, and I walked silent as he. Time andspace glided past us. The sun set; it began to grow dark, and I felt inthe air the spreading cold of the chamber of death. My heart sank lowerand lower. I began to lose sight of the lean, long-coated figure, and atlength could no more hear his swishing stride through the heather. But then I heard instead the slow-flapping wings of the raven; and, atintervals, now a firefly, now a gleaming butterfly rose into the raylessair. 

By and by the moon appeared, slow crossing the far horizon. 

"You are tired, are you not, Mr. Vane?" said the raven, alighting on astone. "You must make acquaintance with the horse that will carry you inthe morning!"

He gave a strange whistle through his long black beak. A spot appearedon the face of the half-risen moon. To my ears came presently thedrumming of swift, soft-galloping hoofs, and in a minute or two, out ofthe very disc of the moon, low-thundered the terrible horse. His maneflowed away behind him like the crest of a wind-fighting wave, tornseaward in hoary spray, and the whisk of his tail kept blinding the eyeof the moon. Nineteen hands he seemed, huge of bone, tight of skin, hardof muscle--a steed the holy Death himself might choose on which to rideabroad and slay! The moon seemed to regard him with awe; in her scarylight he looked a very skeleton, loosely roped together. Terrificallylarge, he moved with the lightness of a winged insect. As he drew near, his speed slackened, and his mane and tail drifted about him settling. 

Now I was not merely a lover of horses, but I loved every horse I saw. I had never spent money except upon horses, and had never sold a horse. The sight of this mighty one, terrible to look at, woke in me longing topossess him. It was pure greed, nay, rank covetousness, an evil thingin all the worlds. I do not mean that I could have stolen him, but that, regardless of his proper place, I would have bought him if I could. Ilaid my hands on him, and stroked the protuberant bones that humped ahide smooth and thin, and shiny as satin--so shiny that the very shapeof the moon was reflected in it; I fondled his sharp-pointed ears, whispered words in them, and breathed into his red nostrils the breathof a man's life. He in return breathed into mine the breath of a horse'slife, and we loved one another. What eyes he had! Blue-filmy like theeyes of the dead, behind each was a glowing coal! The raven, with wingshalf extended, looked on pleased at my love-making to his magnificenthorse. 

"That is well! be friends with him, " he said: "he will carry you all thebetter to-morrow!--Now we must hurry home!"

My desire to ride the horse had grown passionate. 

"May I not mount him at once, Mr. Raven?" I cried. 

"By all means!" he answered. "Mount, and ride him home. "

The horse bent his head over my shoulder lovingly. I twisted my handsin his mane and scrambled onto his back, not without aid from certainprotuberant bones. 

"He would outspeed any leopard in creation!" I cried. 

"Not that way at night, " answered the raven; "the road isdifficult. --But come; loss now will be gain then! To wait is harderthan to run, and its meed is the fuller. Go on, my son--straight tothe cottage. I shall be there as soon as you. It will rejoice my wife'sheart to see son of hers on that horse!"

I sat silent. The horse stood like a block of marble. 

"Why do you linger?" asked the raven. 

"I long so much to ride after the leopardess, " I answered, "that I canscarce restrain myself!"

"You have promised!"

"My debt to the Little Ones appears, I confess, a greater thing than mybond to you. "

"Yield to the temptation and you will bring mischief upon them--and onyourself also. "

"What matters it for me? I love them; and love works no evil. I willgo. "

But the truth was, I forgot the children, infatuate with the horse. 

Eyes flashed through the darkness, and I knew that Adam stood in hisown shape beside me. I knew also by his voice that he repressed anindignation almost too strong for him. 

"Mr. Vane, " he said, "do you not know why you have not yet done anythingworth doing?"

"Because I have been a fool, " I answered. 

"Wherein?"

"In everything. "

"Which do you count your most indiscreet action?"

"Bringing the princess to life: I ought to have left her to her justfate. "

"Nay, now you talk foolishly! You could not have done otherwise than youdid, not knowing she was evil!--But you never brought any one to life!How could you, yourself dead?"

"I dead?" I cried. 

"Yes, " he answered; "and you will be dead, so long as you refuse todie. "

"Back to the old riddling!" I returned scornfully. 

"Be persuaded, and go home with me, " he continued gently. "Themost--nearly the only foolish thing you ever did, was to run from ourdead. "

I pressed the horse's ribs, and he was off like a sudden wind. I gavehim a pat on the side of the neck, and he went about in a sharp-drivencurve, "close to the ground, like a cat when scratchingly she wheelsabout after a mouse, " leaning sideways till his mane swept the tops ofthe heather. 

Through the dark I heard the wings of the raven. Five quick flaps Iheard, and he perched on the horse's head. The horse checked himselfinstantly, ploughing up the ground with his feet. 

"Mr. Vane, " croaked the raven, "think what you are doing! Twice alreadyhas evil befallen you--once from fear, and once from heedlessness:breach of word is far worse; it is a crime. "

"The Little Ones are in frightful peril, and I brought it upon them!" Icried. "--But indeed I will not break my word to you. I will return, andspend in your house what nights--what days--what years you please. "

"I tell you once more you will do them other than good if you goto-night, " he insisted. 

But a false sense of power, a sense which had no root and was merelyvibrated into me from the strength of the horse, had, alas, rendered metoo stupid to listen to anything he said!

"Would you take from me my last chance of reparation?" I cried. "Thistime there shall be no shirking! It is my duty, and I will go--if Iperish for it!"

"Go, then, foolish boy!" he returned, with anger in his croak. "Take thehorse, and ride to failure! May it be to humility!"

He spread his wings and flew. Again I pressed the lean ribs under me. 

"After the spotted leopardess!" I whispered in his ear. 

He turned his head this way and that, snuffing the air; then started, and went a few paces in a slow, undecided walk. Suddenly he quickenedhis walk; broke into a trot; began to gallop, and in a few moments hisspeed was tremendous. He seemed to see in the dark; never stumbled, notonce faltered, not once hesitated. I sat as on the ridge of a wave. Ifelt under me the play of each individual muscle: his joints were soelastic, and his every movement glided so into the next, that not oncedid he jar me. His growing swiftness bore him along until he flew ratherthan ran. The wind met and passed us like a tornado. 

Across the evil hollow we sped like a bolt from an arblast. No monsterlifted its neck; all knew the hoofs that thundered over their heads! Werushed up the hills, we shot down their farther slopes; from the rockychasms of the river-bed he did not swerve; he held on over them hisfierce, terrible gallop. The moon, half-way up the heaven, gazed witha solemn trouble in her pale countenance. Rejoicing in the power of mysteed and in the pride of my life, I sat like a king and rode. 

We were near the middle of the many channels, my horse every othermoment clearing one, sometimes two in his stride, and now and thengathering himself for a great bounding leap, when the moon reached thekey-stone of her arch. Then came a wonder and a terror: she began todescend rolling like the nave of Fortune's wheel bowled by the gods, andwent faster and faster. Like our own moon, this one had a human face, and now the broad forehead now the chin was uppermost as she rolled. Igazed aghast. 

Across the ravines came the howling of wolves. An ugly fear began toinvade the hollow places of my heart; my confidence was on the wane! Thehorse maintained his headlong swiftness, with ears pricked forward, andthirsty nostrils exulting in the wind his career created. But there wasthe moon jolting like an old chariot-wheel down the hill of heaven, withawful boding! She rolled at last over the horizon-edge and disappeared, carrying all her light with her. 

The mighty steed was in the act of clearing a wide shallow channel whenwe were caught in the net of the darkness. His head dropped; its impetuscarried his helpless bulk across, but he fell in a heap on the margin, and where he fell he lay. I got up, kneeled beside him, and felt him allover. Not a bone could I find broken, but he was a horse no more. I satdown on the body, and buried my face in my hands. 

CHAPTER XXXII. THE LOVERS AND THE BAGS

Bitterly cold grew the night. The body froze under me. The cry of thewolves came nearer; I heard their feet soft-padding on the rocky ground;their quick panting filled the air. Through the darkness I saw the manyglowing eyes; their half-circle contracted around me. My time was come!I sprang to my feet. --Alas, I had not even a stick!

They came in a rush, their eyes flashing with fury of greed, their blackthroats agape to devour me. I stood hopelessly waiting them. One momentthey halted over the horse--then came at me. 

With a sound of swiftness all but silence, a cloud of green eyes camedown on their flank. The heads that bore them flew at the wolves with acry feebler yet fiercer than their howling snarl, and by the cry I knewthem: they were cats, led by a huge gray one. I could see nothing ofhim but his eyes, yet I knew him--and so knew his colour and bigness. Aterrific battle followed, whose tale alone came to me through the night. I would have fled, for surely it was but a fight which should haveme!--only where was the use? my first step would be a fall! and my foesof either kind could both see and scent me in the dark!

All at once I missed the howling, and the caterwauling grew wilder. Thencame the soft padding, and I knew it meant flight: the cats had defeatedthe wolves! In a moment the sharpest of sharp teeth were in my legs;a moment more and the cats were all over me in a live cataract, biting wherever they could bite, furiously scratching me anywhere andeverywhere. A multitude clung to my body; I could not flee. Madly I fellon the hateful swarm, every finger instinct with destruction. I torethem off me, I throttled at them in vain: when I would have flung themfrom me, they clung to my hands like limpets. I trampled them under myfeet, thrust my fingers in their eyes, caught them in jaws strongerthan theirs, but could not rid myself of one. Without cease they keptdiscovering upon me space for fresh mouthfuls; they hauled at my skinwith the widespread, horribly curved pincers of clutching claws; theyhissed and spat in my face--but never touched it until, in my despair, Ithrew myself on the ground, when they forsook my body, and darted atmy face. I rose, and immediately they left it, the more to occupythemselves with my legs. In an agony I broke from them and ran, carelesswhither, cleaving the solid dark. They accompanied me in a surroundingtorrent, now rubbing, now leaping up against me, but tormenting me nomore. When I fell, which was often, they gave me time to rise; when fromfear of falling I slackened my pace, they flew afresh at my legs. All that miserable night they kept me running--but they drove me by acomparatively smooth path, for I tumbled into no gully, and passing theEvil Wood without seeing it, left it behind in the dark. When at lengththe morning appeared, I was beyond the channels, and on the verge of theorchard valley. In my joy I would have made friends with my persecutors, but not a cat was to be seen. I threw myself on the moss, and fell fastasleep. 

I was waked by a kick, to find myself bound hand and foot, once more thethrall of the giants!

"What fitter?" I said to myself; "to whom else should I belong?" and Ilaughed in the triumph of self-disgust. A second kick stopped my falsemerriment; and thus recurrently assisted by my captors, I succeeded atlength in rising to my feet. 

Six of them were about me. They undid the rope that tied my legstogether, attached a rope to each of them, and dragged me away. I walkedas well as I could, but, as they frequently pulled both ropes at once, I fell repeatedly, whereupon they always kicked me up again. Straight tomy old labour they took me, tied my leg-ropes to a tree, undid my arms, and put the hateful flint in my left hand. Then they lay down and peltedme with fallen fruit and stones, but seldom hit me. If I could havefreed my legs, and got hold of a stick I spied a couple of yards fromme, I would have fallen upon all six of them! "But the Little Ones willcome at night!" I said to myself, and was comforted. 

All day I worked hard. When the darkness came, they tied my hands, andleft me fast to the tree. I slept a good deal, but woke often, and everytime from a dream of lying in the heart of a heap of children. With themorning my enemies reappeared, bringing their kicks and their bestialcompany. 

It was about noon, and I was nearly failing from fatigue and hunger, when I heard a sudden commotion in the brushwood, followed by a burst ofthe bell-like laughter so dear to my heart. I gave a loud cry of delightand welcome. Immediately rose a trumpeting as of baby-elephants, aneighing as of foals, and a bellowing as of calves, and through thebushes came a crowd of Little Ones, on diminutive horses, on smallelephants, on little bears; but the noises came from the riders, not theanimals. Mingled with the mounted ones walked the bigger of the boysand girls, among the latter a woman with a baby crowing in her arms. Thegiants sprang to their lumbering feet, but were instantly saluted with astorm of sharp stones; the horses charged their legs; the bears rose andhugged them at the waist; the elephants threw their trunks round theirnecks, pulled them down, and gave them such a trampling as they hadsometimes given, but never received before. In a moment my ropes wereundone, and I was in the arms, seemingly innumerable, of the LittleOnes. For some time I saw no more of the giants. 

They made me sit down, and my Lona came, and without a word began tofeed me with the loveliest red and yellow fruits. I sat and ate, thewhole colony mounting guard until I had done. Then they brought up twoof the largest of their elephants, and having placed them side by side, hooked their trunks and tied their tails together. The docile creaturescould have untied their tails with a single shake, and unhooked theirtrunks by forgetting them; but tails and trunks remained as their littlemasters had arranged them, and it was clear the elephants understoodthat they must keep their bodies parallel. I got up, and laid myself inthe hollow between their two backs; when the wise animals, counteractingthe weight that pushed them apart, leaned against each other, and madefor me a most comfortable litter. My feet, it is true, projected beyondtheir tails, but my head lay pillowed on an ear of each. Then some ofthe smaller children, mounting for a bodyguard, ranged themselves ina row along the back of each of my bearers; the whole assembly formeditself in train; and the procession began to move. 

Whither they were carrying me, I did not try to conjecture; I yieldedmyself to their pleasure, almost as happy as they. Chattering andlaughing and playing glad tricks innumerable at first, the moment theysaw I was going to sleep, they became still as judges. 

I woke: a sudden musical uproar greeted the opening of my eyes. 

We were travelling through the forest in which they found the babies, and which, as I had suspected, stretched all the way from the valley tothe hot stream. 

A tiny girl sat with her little feet close to my face, and looked downat me coaxingly for a while, then spoke, the rest seeming to hang on herwords. 

"We make a petisson to king, " she said. 

"What is it, my darling?" I asked. 

"Shut eyes one minute, " she answered. 

"Certainly I will! Here goes!" I replied, and shut my eyes close. 

"No, no! not fore I tell oo!" she cried. 

I opened them again, and we talked and laughed together for quiteanother hour. 

"Close eyes!" she said suddenly. 

I closed my eyes, and kept them close. The elephants stood still. Iheard a soft scurry, a little rustle, and then a silence--for in thatworld SOME silences ARE heard. 

"Open eyes!" twenty voices a little way off shouted at once; but when Iobeyed, not a creature was visible except the elephants that bore me. I knew the children marvellously quick in getting out of the way--thegiants had taught them that; but when I raised myself, and looking aboutin the open shrubless forest, could descry neither hand nor heel, Istared in "blank astonishment. "

The sun was set, and it was fast getting dark, yet presently a multitudeof birds began to sing. I lay down to listen, pretty sure that, if Ileft them alone, the hiders would soon come out again. 

The singing grew to a little storm of bird-voices. "Surely the childrenmust have something to do with it!--And yet how could they set thebirds singing?" I said to myself as I lay and listened. Soon, however, happening to look up into the tree under which my elephants stood, I thought I spied a little motion among the leaves, and looked morekeenly. Sudden white spots appeared in the dark foliage, the music dieddown, a gale of childish laughter rippled the air, and white spots cameout in every direction: the trees were full of children! In the wildestmerriment they began to descend, some dropping from bough to boughso rapidly that I could scarce believe they had not fallen. I left mylitter, and was instantly surrounded--a mark for all the artillery oftheir jubilant fun. With stately composure the elephants walked away tobed. 

"But, " said I, when their uproarious gladness had had scope for a while, "how is it that I never before heard you sing like the birds? Even whenI thought it must be you, I could hardly believe it!"

"Ah, " said one of the wildest, "but we were not birds then! We wererun-creatures, not fly-creatures! We had our hide-places in the bushesthen; but when we came to no-bushes, only trees, we had to build nests!When we built nests, we grew birds, and when we were birds, we had to dobirds! We asked them to teach us their noises, and they taught us, andnow we are real birds!--Come and see my nest. It's not big enough forking, but it's big enough for king to see me in it!"

I told him I could not get up a tree without the sun to show me the way;when he came, I would try. 

"Kings seldom have wings!" I added. 

"King! king!" cried one, "oo knows none of us hasn't no wings--foolisfeddery tings! Arms and legs is better. "

"That is true. I can get up without wings--and carry straws in my mouthtoo, to build my nest with!"

"Oo knows!" he answered, and went away sucking his thumb. 

A moment after, I heard him calling out of his nest, a great way up awalnut tree of enormous size, "Up adain, king! Dood night! I seepy!"

And I heard no more of him till he woke me in the morning. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. LONA'S NARRATIVE

I lay down by a tree, and one and one or in little groups, the childrenleft me and climbed to their nests. They were always so tired at nightand so rested in the morning, that they were equally glad to go to sleepand to get up again. I, although tired also, lay awake: Lona had not bidme good night, and I was sure she would come. 

I had been struck, the moment I saw her again, with her resemblance tothe princess, and could not doubt her the daughter of whom Adam hadtold me; but in Lona the dazzling beauty of Lilith was softened bychildlikeness, and deepened by the sense of motherhood. "She isoccupied probably, " I said to myself, "with the child of the woman I metfleeing!" who, she had already told me, was not half mother enough. 

She came at length, sat down beside me, and after a few moments ofsilent delight, expressed mainly by stroking my face and hands, began totell me everything that had befallen since I went. The moon appeared aswe talked, and now and then, through the leaves, lighted for a quiveringmoment her beautiful face--full of thought, and a care whose loveredeemed and glorified it. How such a child should have been born ofsuch a mother--such a woman of such a princess, was hard to understand;but then, happily, she had two parents--say rather, three! She drew myheart by what in me was likest herself, and I loved her as one who, growto what perfection she might, could only become the more a child. I knewnow that I loved her when I left her, and that the hope of seeingher again had been my main comfort. Every word she spoke seemed to gostraight to my heart, and, like the truth itself, make it purer. 

She told me that after I left the orchard valley, the giants began tobelieve a little more in the actual existence of their neighbours, andbecame in consequence more hostile to them. Sometimes the LittleOnes would see them trampling furiously, perceiving or imagining someindication of their presence, while they indeed stood beside, andlaughed at their foolish rage. By and by, however, their animosityassumed a more practical shape: they began to destroy the trees onwhose fruit the Little Ones lived. This drove the mother of them all tomeditate counteraction. Setting the sharpest of them to listen atnight, she learned that the giants thought I was hidden somewhere near, intending, as soon as I recovered my strength, to come in the dark andkill them sleeping. Thereupon she concluded that the only way to stopthe destruction was to give them ground for believing that they hadabandoned the place. The Little Ones must remove into the forest--beyondthe range of the giants, but within reach of their own trees, which theymust visit by night! The main objection to the plan was, that the foresthad little or no undergrowth to shelter--or conceal them if necessary. 

But she reflected that where birds, there the Little Ones could findhabitation. They had eager sympathies with all modes of life, and couldlearn of the wildest creatures: why should they not take refuge from thecold and their enemies in the tree-tops? why not, having lain in thelow brushwood, seek now the lofty foliage? why not build nests whereit would not serve to scoop hollows? All that the birds could do, theLittle Ones could learn--except, indeed, to fly!

She spoke to them on the subject, and they heard with approval. Theycould already climb the trees, and they had often watched the birdsbuilding their nests! The trees of the forest, although large, did notlook bad! They went up much nearer the sky than those of the giants, and spread out their arms--some even stretched them down--as if invitingthem to come and live with them! Perhaps, in the top of the tallest, they might find that bird that laid the baby-eggs, and sat upon themtill they were ripe, then tumbled them down to let the little ones out!Yes; they would build sleep-houses in the trees, where no giant wouldsee them, for never by any chance did one throw back his dull head tolook up! Then the bad giants would be sure they had left the country, and the Little Ones would gather their own apples and pears and figs andmesples and peaches when they were asleep!

Thus reasoned the Lovers, and eagerly adopted Lona's suggestion--withthe result that they were soon as much at home in the tree-tops as thebirds themselves, and that the giants came ere long to the conclusionthat they had frightened them out of the country--whereupon they forgottheir trees, and again almost ceased to believe in the existence oftheir small neighbours. 

Lona asked me whether I had not observed that many of the children weregrown. I answered I had not, but could readily believe it. She assuredme it was so, but said the certain evidence that their minds too hadgrown since their migration upward, had gone far in mitigation of thealarm the discovery had occasioned her. 

In the last of the short twilight, and later when the moon was shining, they went down to the valley, and gathered fruit enough to serve themthe next day; for the giants never went out in the twilight: that tothem was darkness; and they hated the moon: had they been able, theywould have extinguished her. But soon the Little Ones found that fruitgathered in the night was not altogether good the next day; so thequestion arose whether it would not be better, instead of pretending tohave left the country, to make the bad giants themselves leave it. 

They had already, she said, in exploring the forest, made acquaintancewith the animals in it, and with most of them personally. Knowingtherefore how strong as well as wise and docile some of them were, andhow swift as well as manageable many others, they now set themselvesto secure their aid against the giants, and with loving, playfulapproaches, had soon made more than friends of most of them, fromthe first addressing horse or elephant as Brother or Sister Elephant, Brother or Sister Horse, until before long they had an individual namefor each. It was some little time longer before they said Brother orSister Bear, but that came next, and the other day she had heard onelittle fellow cry, "Ah, Sister Serpent!" to a snake that bit him as heplayed with it too roughly. Most of them would have nothing to do with acaterpillar, except watch it through its changes; but when at length itcame from its retirement with wings, all would immediately address it asSister Butterfly, congratulating it on its metamorphosis--for whichthey used a word that meant something like REPENTANCE--and evidentlyregarding it as something sacred. 

One moonlit evening, as they were going to gather their fruit, they cameupon a woman seated on the ground with a baby in her lap--the womanI had met on my way to Bulika. They took her for a giantess that hadstolen one of their babies, for they regarded all babies as theirproperty. Filled with anger they fell upon her multitudinously, beatingher after a childish, yet sufficiently bewildering fashion. She wouldhave fled, but a boy threw himself down and held her by the feet. Recovering her wits, she recognised in her assailants the children whosehospitality she sought, and at once yielded the baby. Lona appeared, andcarried it away in her bosom. 

But while the woman noted that in striking her they were careful not tohurt the child, the Little Ones noted that, as she surrendered her, she hugged and kissed her just as they wanted to do, and came to theconclusion that she must be a giantess of the same kind as the goodgiant. The moment Lona had the baby, therefore, they brought the motherfruit, and began to show her every sort of childish attention. 

Now the woman had been in perplexity whither to betake herself, notdaring to go back to the city, because the princess was certain to findout who had lamed her leopardess: delighted with the friendliness ofthe little people, she resolved to remain with them for the present:she would have no trouble with her infant, and might find some wayof returning to her husband, who was rich in money and gems, and veryseldom unkind to her. 

Here I must supplement, partly from conjecture, what Lona told me aboutthe woman. With the rest of the inhabitants of Bulika, she was awareof the tradition that the princess lived in terror of the birth of aninfant destined to her destruction. They were all unacquainted, however, with the frightful means by which she preserved her youth and beauty;and her deteriorating physical condition requiring a larger use of thosemeans, they took the apparent increase of her hostility to children fora sign that she saw her doom approaching. This, although no one dreamedof any attempt against her, nourished in them hopes of change. 

Now arose in the mind of the woman the idea of furthering the fulfilmentof the shadowy prediction, or of using the myth at least for her ownrestoration to her husband. For what seemed more probable than thatthe fate foretold lay with these very children? They were marvellouslybrave, and the Bulikans cowards, in abject terror of animals! If shecould rouse in the Little Ones the ambition of taking the city, thenin the confusion of the attack, she would escape from the little army, reach her house unrecognised, and there lying hidden, await the result!

Should the children now succeed in expelling the giants, she wouldbegin at once, while they were yet flushed with victory, to suggest theloftier aim! By disposition, indeed, they were unfit for warfare; theyhardly ever quarrelled, and never fought; loved every live thing, andhated either to hurt or to suffer. Still, they were easily influenced, and could certainly be taught any exercise within their strength!--Atonce she set some of the smaller ones throwing stones at a mark; andsoon they were all engrossed with the new game, and growing skilful init. 

The first practical result was their use of stones in my rescue. Whilegathering fruit, they found me asleep, went home, held a council, camethe next day with their elephants and horses, overwhelmed the fewgiants watching me, and carried me off. Jubilant over their victory, the smaller boys were childishly boastful, the bigger boys lessostentatious, while the girls, although their eyes flashed more, werenot so talkative as usual. The woman of Bulika no doubt felt encouraged. 

We talked the greater part of the night, chiefly about the growth of thechildren, and what it might indicate. With Lona's power of recognisingtruth I had long been familiar; now I began to be astonished at herpractical wisdom. Probably, had I been more of a child myself, I shouldhave wondered less. 

It was yet far from morning when I became aware of a slight flutteringand scrambling. I rose on my elbow, and looking about me, saw manyLittle Ones descend from their nests. They disappeared, and in a fewmoments all was again still. 

"What are they doing?" I asked. 

"They think, " answered Lona, "that, stupid as they are, the giantswill search the wood, and they are gone to gather stones with which toreceive them. Stones are not plentiful in the forest, and they have toscatter far to find enow. They will carry them to their nests, and fromthe trees attack the giants as they come within reach. Knowing theirhabits, they do not expect them before the morning. If they do come, itwill be the opening of a war of expulsion: one or the other people mustgo. The result, however, is hardly doubtful. We do not mean tokill them; indeed, their skulls are so thick that I do not think wecould!--not that killing would do them much harm; they are so littlealive! If one were killed, his giantess would not remember him beyondthree days!"

"Do the children then throw so well that the thing MIGHT happen?" Iasked. 

"Wait till you see them!" she answered, with a touch of pride. "--But Ihave not yet told you, " she went on, "of a strange thing that happenedthe night before last!--We had come home from gathering our fruit, andwere asleep in our nests, when we were roused by the horrid noisesof beasts fighting. The moon was bright, and in a moment our treesglittered with staring little eyes, watching two huge leopardesses, oneperfectly white, the other covered with black spots, which worried andtore each other with I do not know how many teeth and claws. To judge byher back, the spotted creature must have been climbing a tree when theother sprang upon her. When first I saw them, they were just under myown tree, rolling over and over each other. I got down on the lowestbranch, and saw them perfectly. The children enjoyed the spectacle, siding some with this one, some with that, for we had never seen suchbeasts before, and thought they were only at play. But by degrees theirroaring and growling almost ceased, and I saw that they were in deadlyearnest, and heartily wished neither might be left able to climb atree. But when the children saw the blood pouring from their flanks andthroats, what do you think they did? They scurried down to comfort them, and gathering in a great crowd about the terrible creatures, began topat and stroke them. Then I got down as well, for they were much tooabsorbed to heed my calling to them; but before I could reach them, thewhite one stopped fighting, and sprang among them with such a hideousyell that they flew up into the trees like birds. Before I got back intomine, the wicked beasts were at it again tooth and claw. Then Whiteyhad the best of it; Spotty ran away as fast as she could run, and Whiteycame and lay down at the foot of my tree. But in a minute or two she wasup again, and walking about as if she thought Spotty might be lurkingsomewhere. I waked often, and every time I looked out, I saw her. In themorning she went away. "

"I know both the beasts, " I said. "Spotty is a bad beast. She hates thechildren, and would kill every one of them. But Whitey loves them. Sheran at them only to frighten them away, lest Spotty should get hold ofany of them. No one needs be afraid of Whitey!"

By this time the Little Ones were coming back, and with much noise, forthey had no care to keep quiet now that they were at open war with thegiants, and laden with good stones. They mounted to their nests again, though with difficulty because of their burdens, and in a minute werefast asleep. Lona retired to her tree. I lay where I was, and sleptthe better that I thought most likely the white leopardess was stillsomewhere in the wood. 

I woke soon after the sun, and lay pondering. Two hours passed, and thenin truth the giants began to appear, in straggling companies of threeand four, until I counted over a hundred of them. The children werestill asleep, and to call them would draw the attention of the giants: Iwould keep quiet so long as they did not discover me. But by and by onecame blundering upon me, stumbled, fell, and rose again. I thought hewould pass heedless, but he began to search about. I sprang to my feet, and struck him in the middle of his huge body. The roar he gave rousedthe children, and a storm as of hail instantly came on, of which not astone struck me, and not one missed the giant. He fell and lay. Othersdrew near, and the storm extended, each purblind creature becoming, as he entered the range of a garrisoned tree, a target for convergingstones. In a short time almost every giant was prostrate, and a jubilantpæan of bird-song rose from the tops of fifty trees. 

Many elephants came hurrying up, and the children descending the treeslike monkeys, in a moment every elephant had three or four of them onhis back, and thus loaded, began to walk over the giants, who lay androared. Losing patience at length with their noise, the elephants gavethem a few blows of their trunks, and left them. 

Until night the bad giants remained where they had fallen, silent andmotionless. The next morning they had disappeared every one, and thechildren saw no more of them. They removed to the other end of theorchard valley, and never after ventured into the forest. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. PREPARATION

Victory thus gained, the woman of Bulika began to speak about the city, and talked much of its defenceless condition, of the wickedness ofits princess, of the cowardice of its inhabitants. In a few days thechildren chattered of nothing but Bulika, although indeed they had notthe least notion of what a city was. Then first I became aware of thedesign of the woman, although not yet of its motive. 

The idea of taking possession of the place, recommended itself greatlyto Lona--and to me also. The children were now so rapidly developingfaculty, that I could see no serious obstacle to the success of theenterprise. For the terrible Lilith--woman or leopardess, I knew her onevulnerable point, her doom through her daughter, and the influencethe ancient prophecy had upon the citizens: surely whatever in theenterprise could be called risk, was worth taking! Successful, --and whocould doubt their success?--must not the Little Ones, from a crowdof children, speedily become a youthful people, whose government andinfluence would be all for righteousness? Ruling the wicked with a rodof iron, would they not be the redemption of the nation?

At the same time, I have to confess that I was not without views ofpersonal advantage, not without ambition in the undertaking. It wasjust, it seemed to me, that Lona should take her seat on the thronethat had been her mother's, and natural that she should make of me herconsort and minister. For me, I would spend my life in her service; andbetween us, what might we not do, with such a core to it as the LittleOnes, for the development of a noble state?

I confess also to an altogether foolish dream of opening a commerce ingems between the two worlds--happily impossible, for it could have donenothing but harm to both. 

Calling to mind the appeal of Adam, I suggested to Lona that to findthem water might perhaps expedite the growth of the Little Ones. Shejudged it prudent, however, to leave that alone for the present, as wedid not know what its first consequences might be; while, in the courseof time, it would almost certainly subject them to a new necessity. 

"They are what they are without it!" she said: "when we have the city, we will search for water!"

We began, therefore, and pushed forward our preparations, constantlyreviewing the merry troops and companies. Lona gave her attentionchiefly to the commissariat, while I drilled the little soldiers, exercised them in stone-throwing, taught them the use of some otherweapons, and did all I could to make warriors of them. The maindifficulty was to get them to rally to their flag the instant the callwas sounded. Most of them were armed with slings, some of the biggerboys with bows and arrows. The bigger girls carried aloe-spikes, strong as steel and sharp as needles, fitted to longish shafts--ratherformidable weapons. Their sole duty was the charge of such as were toosmall to fight. 

Lona had herself grown a good deal, but did not seem aware of it:she had always been, as she still was, the tallest! Her hair wasmuch longer, and she was become almost a woman, but not one beauty ofchildhood had she outgrown. When first we met after our long separation, she laid down her infant, put her arms round my neck, and clung to mesilent, her face glowing with gladness: the child whimpered; shesprang to him, and had him in her bosom instantly. To see her withany thoughtless, obstinate, or irritable little one, was to think ofa tender grandmother. I seemed to have known her for ages--foralways--from before time began! I hardly remembered my mother, but in mymind's eye she now looked like Lona; and if I imagined sister or child, invariably she had the face of Lona! My every imagination flew to her;she was my heart's wife! She hardly ever sought me, but was almostalways within sound of my voice. What I did or thought, I referredconstantly to her, and rejoiced to believe that, while doing her work inabsolute independence, she was most at home by my side. Never for me didshe neglect the smallest child, and my love only quickened my senseof duty. To love her and to do my duty, seemed, not indeed one, butinseparable. She might suggest something I should do; she might ask mewhat she ought to do; but she never seemed to suppose that I, any morethan she, would like to do, or could care about anything except whatmust be done. Her love overflowed upon me--not in caresses, but in acloseness of recognition which I can compare to nothing but the devotionof a divine animal. 

I never told her anything about her mother. 

The wood was full of birds, the splendour of whose plumage, while ittook nothing from their song, seemed almost to make up for the lack offlowers--which, apparently, could not grow without water. Their gloriousfeathers being everywhere about in the forest, it came into my heart tomake from them a garment for Lona. While I gathered, and bound them inoverlapping rows, she watched me with evident appreciation of my choiceand arrangement, never asking what I was fashioning, but evidentlywaiting expectant the result of my work. In a week or two it wasfinished--a long loose mantle, to fasten at the throat and waist, withopenings for the arms. 

I rose and put it on her. She rose, took it off, and laid it at myfeet--I imagine from a sense of propriety. I put it again on hershoulders, and showed her where to put her arms through. She smiled, looked at the feathers a little and stroked them--again took it off andlaid it down, this time by her side. When she left me, she carried itwith her, and I saw no more of it for some days. At length she came tome one morning wearing it, and carrying another garment which she hadfashioned similarly, but of the dried leaves of a tough evergreen. Ithad the strength almost of leather, and the appearance of scale-armour. I put it on at once, and we always thereafter wore those garments whenon horseback. 

For, on the outskirts of the forest, had appeared one day a troop offull-grown horses, with which, as they were nowise alarmed at creaturesof a shape so different from their own, I had soon made friends, and twoof the finest I had trained for Lona and myself. Already accustomed toride a small one, her delight was great when first she looked down fromthe back of an animal of the giant kind; and the horse showed himselfproud of the burden he bore. We exercised them every day until they hadsuch confidence in us as to obey instantly and fear nothing; after whichwe always rode them at parade and on the march. 

The undertaking did indeed at times appear to me a foolhardy one, but the confidence of the woman of Bulika, real or simulated, alwaysovercame my hesitancy. The princess's magic, she insisted, would provepowerless against the children; and as to any force she might muster, our animal-allies alone would assure our superiority: she was herself, she said, ready, with a good stick, to encounter any two men of Bulika. She confessed to not a little fear of the leopardess, but I was myselfready for her. I shrank, however, from carrying ALL the children withus. 

"Would it not be better, " I said, "that you remained in the forest withyour baby and the smallest of the Little Ones?"

She answered that she greatly relied on the impression the sight of themwould make on the women, especially the mothers. 

"When they see the darlings, " she said, "their hearts will be taken bystorm; and I must be there encouraging them to make a stand! If there bea remnant of hardihood in the place, it will be found among the women!"

"YOU must not encumber yourself, " I said to Lona, "with any of thechildren; you will be wanted everywhere!"

For there were two babies besides the woman's, and even on horseback shehad almost always one in her arms. 

"I do not remember ever being without a child to take care of, " sheanswered; "but when we reach the city, it shall be as you wish!"

Her confidence in one who had failed so unworthily, shamed me. Butneither had I initiated the movement, nor had I any ground for opposingit; I had no choice, but must give it the best help I could! For myself, I was ready to live or die with Lona. Her humility as well as her trusthumbled me, and I gave myself heartily to her purposes. 

Our way lying across a grassy plain, there was no need to take food forthe horses, or the two cows which would accompany us for the infants;but the elephants had to be provided for. True, the grass was as goodfor them as for those other animals, but it was short, and with theirone-fingered long noses, they could not pick enough for a single meal. We had, therefore, set the whole colony to gather grass and make hay, ofwhich the elephants themselves could carry a quantity sufficient to lastthem several days, with the supplement of what we would gather freshevery time we halted. For the bears we stored nuts, and for ourselvesdried plenty of fruits. We had caught and tamed several more of thebig horses, and now having loaded them and the elephants with theseprovisions, we were prepared to set out. 

Then Lona and I held a general review, and I made them a little speech. I began by telling them that I had learned a good deal about them, andknew now where they came from. "We did not come from anywhere, " theycried, interrupting me; "we are here!"

I told them that every one of them had a mother of his own, like themother of the last baby; that I believed they had all been brought fromBulika when they were so small that they could not now remember it; thatthe wicked princess there was so afraid of babies, and so determined todestroy them, that their mothers had to carry them away and leave themwhere she could not find them; and that now we were going to Bulika, tofind their mothers, and deliver them from the bad giantess. 

"But I must tell you, " I continued, "that there is danger before us, for, as you know, we may have to fight hard to take the city. "

"We can fight! we are ready!" cried the boys. 

"Yes, you can, " I returned, "and I know you will: mothers are worthfighting for! Only mind, you must all keep together. "

"Yes, yes; we'll take care of each other, " they answered. "Nobody shalltouch one of us but his own mother!"

"You must mind, every one, to do immediately what your officers tellyou!"

"We will, we will!--Now we're quite ready! Let us go!"

"Another thing you must not forget, " I went on: "when you strike, besure you make it a downright swinging blow; when you shoot an arrow, draw it to the head; when you sling a stone, sling it strong andstraight. "

"That we will!" they cried with jubilant, fearless shout. 

"Perhaps you will be hurt!"

"We don't mind that!--Do we, boys?"

"Not a bit!"

"Some of you may very possibly be killed!" I said. 

"I don't mind being killed!" cried one of the finest of the smallerboys: he rode a beautiful little bull, which galloped and jumped like ahorse. 

"I don't either! I don't either!" came from all sides. 

Then Lona, queen and mother and sister of them all, spoke from her bighorse by my side:

"I would give my life, " she said, "to have my mother! She might kill meif she liked! I should just kiss her and die!"

"Come along, boys!" cried a girl. "We're going to our mothers!"

A pang went through my heart. --But I could not draw back; it would bemoral ruin to the Little Ones!

Chapter XXXV. THE LITTLE ONES IN BULIKA

It was early in the morning when we set out, making, between the bluesky and the green grass, a gallant show on the wide plain. We wouldtravel all the morning, and rest the afternoon; then go on at night, rest the next day, and start again in the short twilight. The latterpart of our journey we would endeavour so to divide as to arrive at thecity with the first of the morning, and be already inside the gates whendiscovered. 

It seemed as if all the inhabitants of the forest would migrate with us. A multitude of birds flew in front, imagining themselves, no doubt, the leading division; great companies of butterflies and other insectsplayed about our heads; and a crowd of four-footed creatures followedus. These last, when night came, left us almost all; but the birds andthe butterflies, the wasps and the dragon-flies, went with us to thevery gates of the city. 

We halted and slept soundly through the afternoon: it was our first realmarch, but none were tired. In the night we went faster, because it wascold. Many fell asleep on the backs of their beasts, and woke in themorning quite fresh. None tumbled off. Some rode shaggy, shamblingbears, which yet made speed enough, going as fast as the elephants. Others were mounted on different kinds of deer, and would have beenracing all the way had I not prevented it. Those atop of the hay on theelephants, unable to see the animals below them, would keep talking tothem as long as they were awake. Once, when we had halted to feed, Iheard a little fellow, as he drew out the hay to give him, commune thuswith his "darling beast":

"Nosy dear, I am digging you out of the mountain, and shall soon getdown to you: be patient; I'm a coming! Very soon now you'll send up yournose to look for me, and then we'll kiss like good elephants, we will!"

The same night there burst out such a tumult of elephant-trumpeting, horse-neighing, and child-imitation, ringing far over the silent levels, that, uncertain how near the city might not be, I quickly stilled theuproar lest it should give warning of our approach. 

Suddenly, one morning, the sun and the city rose, as it seemed, together. To the children the walls appeared only a great mass ofrock, but when I told them the inside was full of nests of stone, I sawapprehension and dislike at once invade their hearts: for the first timein their lives, I believe--many of them long little lives--they knewfear. The place looked to them bad: how were they to find mothers insuch a place? But they went on bravely, for they had confidence inLona--and in me too, little as I deserved it. 

We rode through the sounding archway. Sure never had such a drumming ofhoofs, such a padding of paws and feet been heard on its old pavement!The horses started and looked scared at the echo of their own steps;some halted a moment, some plunged wildly and wheeled about; but theywere soon quieted, and went on. Some of the Little Ones shivered, andall were still as death. The three girls held closer the infants theycarried. All except the bears and butterflies manifested fear. 

On the countenance of the woman lay a dark anxiety; nor was I myselfunaffected by the general dread, for the whole army was on my hands andon my conscience: I had brought it up to the danger whose shadow wasnow making itself felt! But I was supported by the thought of the comingkingdom of the Little Ones, with the bad giants its slaves, and theanimals its loving, obedient friends! Alas, I who dreamed thus, had notmyself learned to obey! Untrusting, unfaithful obstinacy had set me atthe head of that army of innocents! I was myself but a slave, like anyking in the world I had left who does or would do only what pleases him!But Lona rode beside me a child indeed, therefore a free woman--calm, silent, watchful, not a whit afraid!

We were nearly in the heart of the city before any of its inhabitantsbecame aware of our presence. But now windows began to open, and sleepyheads to look out. Every face wore at first a dull stare of wonderlessastonishment, which, as soon as the starers perceived the animals, changed to one of consternation. In spite of their fear, however, whenthey saw that their invaders were almost all children, the women camerunning into the streets, and the men followed. But for a time all ofthem kept close to the houses, leaving open the middle of the way, forthey durst not approach the animals. 

At length a boy, who looked about five years old, and was full of theidea of his mother, spying in the crowd a woman whose face attractedhim, threw himself upon her from his antelope, and clung about her neck;nor was she slow to return his embrace and kisses. But the hand of a mancame over her shoulder, and seized him by the neck. Instantly a girl ranher sharp spear into the fellow's arm. He sent forth a savage howl, andimmediately stabbed by two or three more, fled yelling. 

"They are just bad giants!" said Lona, her eyes flashing as she droveher horse against one of unusual height who, having stirred up thelittle manhood in him, stood barring her way with a club. He dared notabide the shock, but slunk aside, and the next moment went down, struckby several stones. Another huge fellow, avoiding my charger, steppedsuddenly, with a speech whose rudeness alone was intelligible, betweenme and the boy who rode behind me. The boy told him to address the king;the giant struck his little horse on the head with a hammer, and hefell. Before the brute could strike again, however, one of the elephantsbehind laid him prostrate, and trampled on him so that he did notattempt to get up until hundreds of feet had walked over him, and thearmy was gone by. 

But at sight of the women what a dismay clouded the face of Lona! Hardlyone of them was even pleasant to look upon! Were her darlings to findmothers among such as these?

Hardly had we halted in the central square, when two girls rode up inanxious haste, with the tidings that two of the boys had been hurriedaway by some women. We turned at once, and then first discovered thatthe woman we befriended had disappeared with her baby. 

But at the same moment we descried a white leopardess come boundingtoward us down a narrow lane that led from the square to the palace. TheLittle Ones had not forgotten the fight of the two leopardesses in theforest: some of them looked terrified, and their ranks began to waver;but they remembered the order I had just given them, and stood fast. 

We stopped to see the result; when suddenly a small boy, called Odu, remarkable for his speed and courage, who had heard me speak of thegoodness of the white leopardess, leaped from the back of his bear, which went shambling after him, and ran to meet her. The leopardess, to avoid knocking him down, pulled herself up so suddenly that she wentrolling over and over: when she recovered her feet she found the childon her back. Who could doubt the subjugation of a people which saw anurchin of the enemy bestride an animal of which they lived in dailyterror? Confident of the effect on the whole army, we rode on. 

As we stopped at the house to which our guides led us, we heard ascream; I sprang down, and thundered at the door. My horse came andpushed me away with his nose, turned about, and had begun to batter thedoor with his heels, when up came little Odu on the leopardess, and atsight of her he stood still, trembling. But she too had heard the cry, and forgetting the child on her back, threw herself at the door; theboy was dashed against it, and fell senseless. Before I could reach him, Lona had him in her arms, and as soon as he came to himself, set him onthe back of his bear, which had still followed him. 

When the leopardess threw herself the third time against the door, itgave way, and she darted in. We followed, but she had already vanished. We sprang up a stair, and went all over the house, to find no one. Darting down again, we spied a door under the stair, and got into alabyrinth of excavations. We had not gone far, however, when we met theleopardess with the child we sought across her back. 

He told us that the woman he took for his mother threw him into a hole, saying she would give him to the leopardess. But the leopardess was agood one, and took him out. 

Following in search of the other boy, we got into the next house moreeasily, but to find, alas, that we were too late: one of the savageshad just killed the little captive! It consoled Lona, however, to learnwhich he was, for she had been expecting him to grow a bad giant, fromwhich worst of fates death had saved him. The leopardess sprang uponhis murderer, took him by the throat, dragged him into the street, andfollowed Lona with him, like a cat with a great rat in her jaws. 

"Let us leave the horrible place, " said Lona; "there are no mothershere! This people is not worth delivering. "

The leopardess dropped her burden, and charged into the crowd, thisway and that, wherever it was thickest. The slaves cried out and ran, tumbling over each other in heaps. 

When we got back to the army, we found it as we had left it, standing inorder and ready. 

But I was far from easy: the princess gave no sign, and what she mightbe plotting we did not know! Watch and ward must be kept the nightthrough!

The Little Ones were such hardy creatures that they could reposeanywhere: we told them to lie down with their animals where they were, and sleep till they were called. In one moment they were down, andin another lapt in the music of their sleep, a sound as of water overgrass, or a soft wind among leaves. Their animals slept more lightly, ever on the edge of waking. The bigger boys and girls walked softlyhither and thither among the dreaming multitude. All was still; thewhole wicked place appeared at rest. 

CHAPTER XXXVI. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

Lona was so disgusted with the people, and especially with the women, that she wished to abandon the place as soon as possible; I, on thecontrary, felt very strongly that to do so would be to fail wilfullywhere success was possible; and, far worse, to weaken the hearts ofthe Little Ones, and so bring them into much greater danger. If weretreated, it was certain the princess would not leave us unassailed!if we encountered her, the hope of the prophecy went with us! Motherand daughter must meet: it might be that Lona's loveliness would takeLilith's heart by storm! if she threatened violence, I should be therebetween them! If I found that I had no other power over her, I wasready, for the sake of my Lona, to strike her pitilessly on the closedhand! I knew she was doomed: most likely it was decreed that her doomshould now be brought to pass through us!

Still without hint of the relation in which she stood to the princess, I stated the case to Lona as it appeared to me. At once she agreed toaccompany me to the palace. 

From the top of one of its great towers, the princess had, in the earlymorning, while the city yet slept, descried the approach of the army ofthe Little Ones. The sight awoke in her an over-mastering terror: shehad failed in her endeavour to destroy them, and they were upon her! Theprophecy was about to be fulfilled!

When she came to herself, she descended to the black hall, and seatedherself in the north focus of the ellipse, under the opening in theroof. 

For she must think! Now what she called THINKING required a clearconsciousness of herself, not as she was, but as she chose to believeherself; and to aid her in the realisation of this consciousness, shehad suspended, a little way from and above her, itself invisible in thedarkness of the hall, a mirror to receive the full sunlight reflectedfrom her person. For the resulting vision of herself in the splendour ofher beauty, she sat waiting the meridional sun. 

Many a shadow moved about her in the darkness, but as often as, with acertain inner eye which she had, she caught sight of one, she refusedto regard it. Close under the mirror stood the Shadow which attended herwalks, but, self-occupied, him she did not see. 

The city was taken; the inhabitants were cowering in terror; the LittleOnes and their strange cavalry were encamped in the square; the sunshone upon the princess, and for a few minutes she saw herself glorious. The vision passed, but she sat on. The night was now come, and darknessclothed and filled the glass, yet she did not move. A gloom that swarmedwith shadows, wallowed in the palace; the servants shivered and shook, but dared not leave it because of the beasts of the Little Ones; allnight long the princess sat motionless: she must see her beauty again!she must try again to think! But courage and will had grown weary ofher, and would dwell with her no more!

In the morning we chose twelve of the tallest and bravest of the boysto go with us to the palace. We rode our great horses, and they smallhorses and elephants. 

The princess sat waiting the sun to give her the joy of her ownpresence. The tide of the light was creeping up the shore of the sky, but until the sun stood overhead, not a ray could enter the black hall. 

He rose to our eyes, and swiftly ascended. As we climbed the steep wayto the palace, he climbed the dome of its great hall. He looked in atthe eye of it--and with sudden radiance the princess flashed upon herown sight. But she sprang to her feet with a cry of despair: alas herwhiteness! the spot covered half her side, and was black as the marblearound her! She clutched her robe, and fell back in her chair. TheShadow glided out, and she saw him go. 

We found the gate open as usual, passed through the paved grove up tothe palace door, and entered the vestibule. There in her cage lay thespotted leopardess, apparently asleep or lifeless. The Little Onespaused a moment to look at her. She leaped up rampant against the cage. The horses reared and plunged; the elephants retreated a step. Thenext instant she fell supine, writhed in quivering spasms, and laymotionless. We rode into the great hall. 

The princess yet leaned back in her chair in the shaft of sunlight, whenfrom the stones of the court came to her ears the noise of the horses'hoofs. She started, listened, and shook: never had such sound beenheard in her palace! She pressed her hand to her side, and gasped. Thetrampling came nearer and nearer; it entered the hall itself; movingfigures that were not shadows approached her through the darkness!

For us, we saw a splendour, a glorious woman centring the dark. Lonasprang from her horse, and bounded to her. I sprang from mine, andfollowed Lona. 

"Mother! mother!" she cried, and her clear, lovely voice echoed in thedome. 

The princess shivered; her face grew almost black with hate, hereyebrows met on her forehead. She rose to her feet, and stood. 

"Mother! mother!" cried Lona again, as she leaped on the daïs, and flungher arms around the princess. 

An instant more and I should have reached them!--in that instant I sawLona lifted high, and dashed on the marble floor. Oh, the horrible soundof her fall! At my feet she fell, and lay still. The princess sat downwith the smile of a demoness. 

I dropped on my knees beside Lona, raised her from the stones, andpressed her to my bosom. With indignant hate I glanced at the princess;she answered me with her sweetest smile. I would have sprung upon her, taken her by the throat, and strangled her, but love of the child wasstronger than hate of the mother, and I clasped closer my preciousburden. Her arms hung helpless; her blood trickled over my hands, andfell on the floor with soft, slow little plashes. 

The horses scented it--mine first, then the small ones. Mine reared, shivering and wild-eyed, went about, and thundered blindly down the darkhall, with the little horses after him. Lona's stood gazing down at hismistress, and trembling all over. The boys flung themselves from theirhorses' backs, and they, not seeing the black wall before them, dashedthemselves, with mine, to pieces against it. The elephants came on tothe foot of the daïs, and stopped, wildly trumpeting; the Little Onessprang upon it, and stood horrified; the princess lay back in her seat, her face that of a corpse, her eyes alone alive, wickedly flaming. Shewas again withered and wasted to what I found in the wood, and her sidewas as if a great branding hand had been laid upon it. But Lona sawnothing, and I saw but Lona. 

"Mother! mother!" she sighed, and her breathing ceased. 

I carried her into the court: the sun shone upon a white face, and thepitiful shadow of a ghostly smile. Her head hung back. She was "dead asearth. "

I forgot the Little Ones, forgot the murdering princess, forgot thebody in my arms, and wandered away, looking for my Lona. The doors andwindows were crowded with brute-faces jeering at me, but not daring tospeak, for they saw the white leopardess behind me, hanging her headclose at my heel. I spurned her with my foot. She held back a moment, and followed me again. 

I reached the square: the little army was gone! Its emptiness roused me. Where were the Little Ones, HER Little Ones? I had lost her children!I stared helpless about me, staggered to the pillar, and sank upon itsbase. 

But as I sat gazing on the still countenance, it seemed to smile a livemomentary smile. I never doubted it an illusion, yet believed what itsaid: I should yet see her alive! It was not she, it was I who was lost, and she would find me!

I rose to go after the Little Ones, and instinctively sought the gateby which we had entered. I looked around me, but saw nothing of theleopardess. 

The street was rapidly filling with a fierce crowd. They saw meencumbered with my dead, but for a time dared not assail me. Ere Ireached the gate, however, they had gathered courage. The women beganto hustle me; I held on heedless. A man pushed against my sacred burden:with a kick I sent him away howling. But the crowd pressed upon me, andfearing for the dead that was beyond hurt, I clasped my treasure closer, and freed my right arm. That instant, however, a commotion arose in thestreet behind me; the crowd broke; and through it came the Little Ones Ihad left in the palace. Ten of them were upon four of the elephants; onthe two other elephants lay the princess, bound hand and foot, and quitestill, save that her eyes rolled in their ghastly sockets. The two otherLittle Ones rode behind her on Lona's horse. Every now and then the wisecreatures that bore her threw their trunks behind and felt her cords. 

I walked on in front, and out of the city. What an end to the hopes withwhich I entered the evil place! We had captured the bad princess, andlost our all-beloved queen! My life was bare! my heart was empty!

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SHADOW

A murmur of pleasure from my companions roused me: they had caught sightof their fellows in the distance! The two on Lona's horse rode on tojoin them. They were greeted with a wavering shout--which immediatelydied away. As we drew near, the sound of their sobs reached us like thebreaking of tiny billows. 

When I came among them, I saw that something dire had befallen them: ontheir childish faces was the haggard look left by some strange terror. No possible grief could have wrought the change. A few of them cameslowly round me, and held out their arms to take my burden. I yieldedit; the tender hopelessness of the smile with which they received it, made my heart swell with pity in the midst of its own desolation. Invain were their sobs over their mother-queen; in vain they sought toentice from her some recognition of their love; in vain they kissed andfondled her as they bore her away: she would not wake! On each side onecarried an arm, gently stroking it; as many as could get near, put theirarms under her body; those who could not, crowded around the bearers. Ona spot where the grass grew thicker and softer they laid her down, andthere all the Little Ones gathered sobbing. 

Outside the crowd stood the elephants, and I near them, gazing at myLona over the many little heads between. Those next me caught sight ofthe princess, and stared trembling. Odu was the first to speak. 

"I have seen that woman before!" he whispered to his next neighbour. "It was she who fought the white leopardess, the night they woke us withtheir yelling!"

"Silly!" returned his companion. "That was a wild beast, with spots!"

"Look at her eyes!" insisted Odu. "I know she is a bad giantess, but sheis a wild beast all the same. I know she is the spotted one!"

The other took a step nearer; Odu drew him back with a sharp pull. 

"Don't look at her!" he cried, shrinking away, yet fascinated by thehate-filled longing in her eyes. "She would eat you up in a moment! Itwas HER shadow! She is the wicked princess!"

"That cannot be! they said she was beautiful!"

"Indeed it is the princess!" I interposed. "Wickedness has made herugly!"

She heard, and what a look was hers!

"It was very wrong of me to run away!" said Odu thoughtfully. 

"What made you run away?" I asked. "I expected to find you where I leftyou!"

He did not reply at once. 

"I don't know what made me run, " answered another. "I was frightened!"

"It was a man that came down the hill from the palace, " said a third. 

"How did he frighten you?"

"I don't know. "

"He wasn't a man, " said Odu; "he was a shadow; he had no thick to him!"

"Tell me more about him. "

"He came down the hill very black, walking like a bad giant, but spreadflat. He was nothing but blackness. We were frightened the moment we sawhim, but we did not run away; we stood and watched him. He came on as ifhe would walk over us. But before he reached us, he began to spread andspread, and grew bigger end bigger, till at last he was so big that hewent out of our sight, and we saw him no more, and then he was upon us!"

"What do you mean by that?"

"He was all black through between us, and we could not see one another;and then he was inside us. "

"How did you know he was inside you?"

"He did me quite different. I felt like bad. I was not Odu any more--notthe Odu I knew. I wanted to tear Sozo to pieces--not really, but like!"

He turned and hugged Sozo. 

"It wasn't me, Sozo, " he sobbed. "Really, deep down, it was Odu, lovingyou always! And Odu came up, and knocked Naughty away. I grew sick, andthought I must kill myself to get out of the black. Then came a horriblelaugh that had heard my think, and it set the air trembling about me. And then I suppose I ran away, but I did not know I had run away untilI found myself running, fast as could, and all the rest running too. I would have stopped, but I never thought of it until I was out of thegate among the grass. Then I knew that I had run away from a shadow thatwanted to be me and wasn't, and that I was the Odu that loved Sozo. Itwas the shadow that got into me, and hated him from inside me; it wasnot my own self me! And now I know that I ought not to have run away!But indeed I did not quite know what I was doing until it was done! Mylegs did it, I think: they grew frightened, and forgot me, and ran away!Naughty legs! There! and there!"

Thus ended Odu, with a kick to each of his naughty legs. 

"What became of the shadow?" I asked. 

"I do not know, " he answered. "I suppose he went home into the nightwhere there is no moon. "

I fell a wondering where Lona was gone, and dropping on the grass, tookthe dead thing in my lap, and whispered in its ear, "Where are you, Lona? I love you!" But its lips gave no answer. I kissed them, not quitecold, laid the body down again, and appointing a guard over it, rose toprovide for the safety of Lona's people during the night. 

Before the sun went down, I had set a watch over the princess outsidethe camp, and sentinels round it: intending to walk about it myselfall night long, I told the rest of the army to go to sleep. They threwthemselves on the grass and were asleep in a moment. 

When the moon rose I caught a glimpse of something white; it was theleopardess. She swept silently round the sleeping camp, and I saw herpass three times between the princess and the Little Ones. Thereupon Imade the watch lie down with the others, and stretched myself beside thebody of Lona. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. TO THE HOUSE OF BITTERNESS

In the morning we set out, and made for the forest as fast as we could. I rode Lona's horse, and carried her body. I would take it to herfather: he would give it a couch in the chamber of his dead! or, if hewould not, seeing she had not come of herself, I would watch it in thedesert until it mouldered away! But I believed he would, for surely shehad died long ago! Alas, how bitterly must I not humble myself beforehim!

To Adam I must take Lilith also. I had no power to make her repent! Ihad hardly a right to slay her--much less a right to let her loose inthe world! and surely I scarce merited being made for ever her gaoler!

Again and again, on the way, I offered her food; but she answered onlywith a look of hungering hate. Her fiery eyes kept rolling to and fro, nor ever closed, I believe, until we reached the other side of thehot stream. After that they never opened until we came to the House ofBitterness. 

One evening, as we were camping for the night, I saw a little girl goup to her, and ran to prevent mischief. But ere I could reach them, thechild had put something to the lips of the princess, and given a screamof pain. 

"Please, king, " she whimpered, "suck finger. Bad giantess make hole init!"

I sucked the tiny finger. 

"Well now!" she cried, and a minute after was holding a second fruitto a mouth greedy of other fare. But this time she snatched her handquickly away, and the fruit fell to the ground. The child's name wasLuva. 

The next day we crossed the hot stream. Again on their own ground, the Little Ones were jubilant. But their nests were still at a greatdistance, and that day we went no farther than the ivy-hall, where, because of its grapes, I had resolved to spend the night. When they sawthe great clusters, at once they knew them good, rushed upon them, ateeagerly, and in a few minutes were all fast asleep on the green floorand in the forest around the hall. Hoping again to see the dance, andexpecting the Little Ones to sleep through it, I had made them leave awide space in the middle. I lay down among them, with Lona by my side, but did not sleep. 

The night came, and suddenly the company was there. I was wondering withmyself whether, night after night, they would thus go on dancing to alleternity, and whether I should not one day have to join them because ofmy stiff-neckedness, when the eyes of the children came open, and theysprang to their feet, wide awake. Immediately every one caught hold ofa dancer, and away they went, bounding and skipping. The spectres seemedto see and welcome them: perhaps they knew all about the Little Ones, for they had themselves long been on their way back to childhood!Anyhow, their innocent gambols must, I thought, bring refreshment toweary souls who, their present taken from them and their future dark, had no life save the shadow of their vanished past. Many a merry butnever a rude prank did the children play; and if they did at times causea momentary jar in the rhythm of the dance, the poor spectres, who hadnothing to smile withal, at least manifested no annoyance. 

Just ere the morning began to break, I started to see theskeleton-princess in the doorway, her eyes open and glowing, the fearfulspot black on her side. She stood for a moment, then came gliding in, as if she would join the dance. I sprang to my feet. A cry of repugnantfear broke from the children, and the lights vanished. But the lowmoon looked in, and I saw them clinging to each other. The ghostswere gone--at least they were no longer visible. The princess too haddisappeared. I darted to the spot where I had left her: she lay withher eyes closed, as if she had never moved. I returned to the hall. TheLittle Ones were already on the floor, composing themselves to sleep. 

The next morning, as we started, we spied, a little way from us, twoskeletons moving about in a thicket. The Little Ones broke their ranks, and ran to them. I followed; and, although now walking at ease, withoutsplint or ligature, I was able to recognise the pair I had before seenin that neighbourhood. The children at once made friends with them, laying hold of their arms, and stroking the bones of their long fingers;and it was plain the poor creatures took their attentions kindly. Thetwo seemed on excellent terms with each other. Their common deprivationhad drawn them together! the loss of everything had been the beginningof a new life to them!

Perceiving that they had gathered handfuls of herbs, and were lookingfor more--presumably to rub their bones with, for in what other waycould nourishment reach their system so rudimentary?--the Little Ones, having keenly examined those they held, gathered of the same sorts, andfilled the hands the skeletons held out to receive them. Then they bidthem goodbye, promising to come and see them again, and resumed theirjourney, saying to each other they had not known there were such nicepeople living in the same forest. 

When we came to the nest-village, I remained there a night with them, tosee them resettled; for Lona still looked like one just dead, and thereseemed no need of haste. 

The princess had eaten nothing, and her eyes remained shut: fearing shemight die ere we reached the end of our journey, I went to her in thenight, and laid my bare arm upon her lips. She bit into it so fiercelythat I cried out. How I got away from her I do not know, but I came tomyself lying beyond her reach. It was then morning, and immediately Iset about our departure. 

Choosing twelve Little Ones, not of the biggest and strongest, but ofthe sweetest and merriest, I mounted them on six elephants, and tooktwo more of the wise CLUMSIES, as the children called them, to bear theprincess. I still rode Lona's horse, and carried her body wrapt inher cloak before me. As nearly as I could judge I took the direct way, across the left branch of the river-bed, to the House of Bitterness, where I hoped to learn how best to cross the broader and rougher branch, and how to avoid the basin of monsters: I dreaded the former for theelephants, the latter for the children. 

I had one terrible night on the way--the third, passed in the desertbetween the two branches of the dead river. 

We had stopped the elephants in a sheltered place, and there let theprincess slip down between them, to lie on the sand until the morning. She seemed quite dead, but I did not think she was. I laid myself alittle way from her, with the body of Lona by my other side, thusto keep watch at once over the dead and the dangerous. The moon washalf-way down the west, a pale, thoughtful moon, mottling the desertwith shadows. Of a sudden she was eclipsed, remaining visible, butsending forth no light: a thick, diaphanous film covered her patientbeauty, and she looked troubled. The film swept a little aside, andI saw the edge of it against her clearness--the jagged outline ofa bat-like wing, torn and hooked. Came a cold wind with a burningsting--and Lilith was upon me. Her hands were still bound, but with herteeth she pulled from my shoulder the cloak Lona made for me, and fixedthem in my flesh. I lay as one paralysed. 

Already the very life seemed flowing from me into her, when Iremembered, and struck her on the hand. She raised her head with agurgling shriek, and I felt her shiver. I flung her from me, and sprangto my feet. 

She was on her knees, and rocked herself to and fro. A second blast ofhot-stinging cold enveloped us; the moon shone out clear, and I saw herface--gaunt and ghastly, besmeared with red. 

"Down, devil!" I cried. 

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, with the voice of a dull echo froma sepulchre. 

"To your first husband, " I answered. 

"He will kill me!" she moaned. 

"At least he will take you off my hands!"

"Give me my daughter, " she suddenly screamed, grinding her teeth. 

"Never! Your doom is upon you at last!"

"Loose my hands for pity's sake!" she groaned. "I am in torture. Thecords are sunk in my flesh. "

"I dare not. Lie down!" I said. 

She threw herself on the ground like a log. 

The rest of the night passed in peace, and in the morning she againseemed dead. 

Before evening we came in sight of the House of Bitterness, and the nextmoment one of the elephants came alongside of my horse. 

"Please, king, you are not going to that place?" whispered the LittleOne who rode on his neck. 

"Indeed I am! We are going to stay the night there, " I answered. 

"Oh, please, don't! That must be where the cat-woman lives!"

"If you had ever seen her, you would not call her by that name!"

"Nobody ever sees her: she has lost her face! Her head is back and sideall round. "

"She hides her face from dull, discontented people!--Who taught you tocall her the cat-woman?"

"I heard the bad giants call her so. "

"What did they say about her?"

"That she had claws to her toes. "

"It is not true. I know the lady. I spent a night at her house. "

"But she MAY have claws to her toes! You might see her feet, and herclaws be folded up inside their cushions!"

"Then perhaps you think that I have claws to my toes?"

"Oh, no; that can't be! you are good!"

"The giants might have told you so!" I pursued. 

"We shouldn't believe them about you!"

"Are the giants good?"

"No; they love lying. "

"Then why do you believe them about her? I know the lady is good; shecannot have claws. "

"Please how do you know she is good?"

"How do you know I am good?"

I rode on, while he waited for his companions, and told them what I hadsaid. 

They hastened after me, and when they came up, --

"I would not take you to her house if I did not believe her good, " Isaid. 

"We know you would not, " they answered. 

"If I were to do something that frightened you--what would you say?"

"The beasts frightened us sometimes at first, but they never hurt us!"answered one. 

"That was before we knew them!" added another. 

"Just so!" I answered. "When you see the woman in that cottage, you willknow that she is good. You may wonder at what she does, but she willalways be good. I know her better than you know me. She will not hurtyou, --or if she does, ----"

"Ah, you are not sure about it, king dear! You think she MAY hurt us!"

"I am sure she will never be unkind to you, even if she do hurt you!"

They were silent for a while. 

"I'm not afraid of being hurt--a little!--a good deal!" cried Odu. "ButI should not like scratches in the dark! The giants say the cat-womanhas claw-feet all over her house!"

"I am taking the princess to her, " I said. 

"Why?"

"Because she is her friend. "

"How can she be good then?"

"Little Tumbledown is a friend of the princess, " I answered; "so isLuva: I saw them both, more than once, trying to feed her with grapes!"

"Little Tumbledown is good! Luva is very good!"

"That is why they are her friends. "

"Will the cat-woman--I mean the woman that isn't the cat-woman, and hasno claws to her toes--give her grapes?"

"She is more likely to give her scratches!"

"Why?--You say she is her friend!"

"That is just why. --A friend is one who gives us what we need, and theprincess is sorely in need of a terrible scratching. "

They were silent again. 

"If any of you are afraid, " I said, "you may go home; I shall notprevent you. But I cannot take one with me who believes the giantsrather than me, or one who will call a good lady the cat-woman!"

"Please, king, " said one, "I'm so afraid of being afraid!"

"My boy, " I answered, "there is no harm in being afraid. The only harmis in doing what Fear tells you. Fear is not your master! Laugh in hisface and he will run away. "

"There she is--in the door waiting for us!" cried one, and put his handsover his eyes. 

"How ugly she is!" cried another, and did the same. 

"You do not see her, " I said; "her face is covered!"

"She has no face!" they answered. 

"She has a very beautiful face. I saw it once. --It is indeed asbeautiful as Lona's!" I added with a sigh. 

"Then what makes her hide it?"

"I think I know:--anyhow, she has some good reason for it!"

"I don't like the cat-woman! she is frightful!"

"You cannot like, and you ought not to dislike what you have neverseen. --Once more, you must not call her the cat-woman!"

"What are we to call her then, please?"

"Lady Mara. "

"That is a pretty name!" said a girl; "I will call her 'lady Mara'; thenperhaps she will show me her beautiful face!"

Mara, drest and muffled in white, was indeed standing in the doorway toreceive us. 

"At last!" she said. "Lilith's hour has been long on the way, but itis come! Everything comes. Thousands of years have I waited--and not invain!"

She came to me, took my treasure from my arms, carried it into thehouse, and returning, took the princess. Lilith shuddered, but made noresistance. The beasts lay down by the door. We followed our hostess, the Little Ones looking very grave. She laid the princess on a roughsettle at one side of the room, unbound her, and turned to us. 

"Mr. Vane, " she said, "and you, Little Ones, I thank you! This womanwould not yield to gentler measures; harder must have their turn. I mustdo what I can to make her repent!"

The pitiful-hearted Little Ones began to sob sorely. 

"Will you hurt her very much, lady Mara?" said the girl I have justmentioned, putting her warm little hand in mine. 

"Yes; I am afraid I must; I fear she will make me!" answered Mara. "Itwould be cruel to hurt her too little. It would have all to be doneagain, only worse. "

"May I stop with her?"

"No, my child. She loves no one, therefore she cannot be WITH any one. There is One who will be with her, but she will not be with Him. "

"Will the shadow that came down the hill be with her?"

"The great Shadow will be in her, I fear, but he cannot be WITH her, orwith any one. She will know I am beside her, but that will not comforther. "

"Will you scratch her very deep?" asked Odu, going near, and putting hishand in hers. "Please, don't make the red juice come!"

She caught him up, turned her back to the rest of us, drew the mufflingdown from her face, and held him at arms' length that he might see her. 

As if his face had been a mirror, I saw in it what he saw. For onemoment he stared, his little mouth open; then a divine wonder arose inhis countenance, and swiftly changed to intense delight. For a minute hegazed entranced, then she set him down. Yet a moment he stood looking upat her, lost in contemplation--then ran to us with the face of a prophetthat knows a bliss he cannot tell. Mara rearranged her mufflings, andturned to the other children. 

"You must eat and drink before you go to sleep, " she said; "you have hada long journey!"

She set the bread of her house before them, and a jug of cold water. They had never seen bread before, and this was hard and dry, but theyate it without sign of distaste. They had never seen water before, but they drank without demur, one after the other looking up fromthe draught with a face of glad astonishment. Then she led away thesmallest, and the rest went trooping after her. With her own gentlehands, they told me, she put them to bed on the floor of the garret. 

CHAPTER XXXIX. THAT NIGHT

Their night was a troubled one, and they brought a strange report ofit into the day. Whether the fear of their sleep came out into theirwaking, or their waking fear sank with them into their dreams, awake orasleep they were never at rest from it. All night something seemed goingon in the house--something silent, something terrible, something theywere not to know. Never a sound awoke; the darkness was one with thesilence, and the silence was the terror. 

Once, a frightful wind filled the house, and shook its inside, theysaid, so that it quivered and trembled like a horse shaking himself;but it was a silent wind that made not even a moan in their chamber, andpassed away like a soundless sob. 

They fell asleep. But they woke again with a great start. They thoughtthe house was filling with water such as they had been drinking. It camefrom below, and swelled up until the garret was full of it to the veryroof. But it made no more sound than the wind, and when it sank away, they fell asleep dry and warm. 

The next time they woke, all the air, they said, inside and out, wasfull of cats. They swarmed--up and down, along and across, everywhereabout the room. They felt their claws trying to get through thenight-gowns lady Mara had put on them, but they could not; and in themorning not one of them had a scratch. Through the dark suddenly, camethe only sound they heard the night long--the far-off howl of the hugegreat-grandmother-cat in the desert: she must have been calling herlittle ones, they thought, for that instant the cats stopped, and allwas still. Once more they fell fast asleep, and did not wake till thesun was rising. 

Such was the account the children gave of their experiences. But I waswith the veiled woman and the princess all through the night: somethingof what took place I saw; much I only felt; and there was more which eyecould not see, and heart only could in a measure understand. 

As soon as Mara left the room with the children, my eyes fell on thewhite leopardess: I thought we had left her behind us, but there shewas, cowering in a corner. Apparently she was in mortal terror of whatshe might see. A lamp stood on the high chimney-piece, and sometimesthe room seemed full of lamp-shadows, sometimes of cloudy forms. Theprincess lay on the settle by the wall, and seemed never to have movedhand or foot. It was a fearsome waiting. 

When Mara returned, she drew the settle with Lilith upon it to themiddle of the room, then sat down opposite me, at the other side of thehearth. Between us burned a small fire. 

Something terrible was on its way! The cloudy presences flickered andshook. A silvery creature like a slowworm came crawling out from amongthem, slowly crossed the clay floor, and crept into the fire. We satmotionless. The something came nearer. 

But the hours passed, midnight drew nigh, and there was no change. Thenight was very still. Not a sound broke the silence, not a rustle fromthe fire, not a crack from board or beam. Now and again I felt a sort ofheave, but whether in the earth or in the air or in the waters under theearth, whether in my own body or in my soul--whether it was anywhere, I could not tell. A dread sense of judgment was upon me. But I was notafraid, for I had ceased to care for aught save the thing that must bedone. 

Suddenly it was midnight. The muffled woman rose, turned toward thesettle, and slowly unwound the long swathes that hid her face: theydropped on the ground, and she stepped over them. The feet of theprincess were toward the hearth; Mara went to her head, and turning, stood behind it. Then I saw her face. It was lovely beyond speech--whiteand sad, heart-and-soul sad, but not unhappy, and I knew it never couldbe unhappy. Great tears were running down her cheeks: she wiped themaway with her robe; her countenance grew very still, and she wept nomore. But for the pity in every line of her expression, she would haveseemed severe. She laid her hand on the head of the princess--on thehair that grew low on the forehead, and stooping, breathed on the sallowbrow. The body shuddered. 

"Will you turn away from the wicked things you have been doing so long?"said Mara gently. 

The princess did not answer. Mara put the question again, in the samesoft, inviting tone. 

Still there was no sign of hearing. She spoke the words a third time. 

Then the seeming corpse opened its mouth and answered, its wordsappearing to frame themselves of something else than sound. --I cannotshape the thing further: sounds they were not, yet they were words tome. 

"I will not, " she said. "I will be myself and not another!"

"Alas, you are another now, not yourself! Will you not be your realself?"

"I will be what I mean myself now. "

"If you were restored, would you not make what amends you could for themisery you have caused?"

"I would do after my nature. "

"You do not know it: your nature is good, and you do evil!"

"I will do as my Self pleases--as my Self desires. "

"You will do as the Shadow, overshadowing your Self inclines you?"

"I will do what I will to do. "

"You have killed your daughter, Lilith!"

"I have killed thousands. She is my own!"

"She was never yours as you are another's. "

"I am not another's; I am my own, and my daughter is mine. "

"Then, alas, your hour is come!"

"I care not. I am what I am; no one can take from me myself!"

"You are not the Self you imagine. "

"So long as I feel myself what it pleases me to think myself, I carenot. I am content to be to myself what I would be. What I choose to seemto myself makes me what I am. My own thought makes me me; my own thoughtof myself is me. Another shall not make me!"

"But another has made you, and can compel you to see what you have madeyourself. You will not be able much longer to look to yourself anythingbut what he sees you! You will not much longer have satisfaction in thethought of yourself. At this moment you are aware of the coming change!"

"No one ever made me. I defy that Power to unmake me from a free woman!You are his slave, and I defy you! You may be able to torture me--I donot know, but you shall not compel me to anything against my will!"

"Such a compulsion would be without value. But there is a light thatgoes deeper than the will, a light that lights up the darkness behindit: that light can change your will, can make it truly yours and notanother's--not the Shadow's. Into the created can pour itself thecreating will, and so redeem it!"

"That light shall not enter me: I hate it!--Begone, slave!"

"I am no slave, for I love that light, and will with the deeper willwhich created mine. There is no slave but the creature that willsagainst its creator. Who is a slave but her who cries, 'I am free, ' yetcannot cease to exist!"

"You speak foolishness from a cowering heart! You imagine me given overto you: I defy you! I hold myself against you! What I choose to be, youcannot change. I will not be what you think me--what you say I am!"

"I am sorry: you must suffer!"

"But be free!"

"She alone is free who would make free; she loves not freedom who wouldenslave: she is herself a slave. Every life, every will, every heartthat came within your ken, you have sought to subdue: you are the slaveof every slave you have made--such a slave that you do not know it!--Seeyour own self!"

She took her hand from the head of the princess, and went two backwardpaces from her. 

A soundless presence as of roaring flame possessed the house--the same, I presume, that was to the children a silent wind. Involuntarily Iturned to the hearth: its fire was a still small moveless glow. But Isaw the worm-thing come creeping out, white-hot, vivid as incandescentsilver, the live heart of essential fire. Along the floor it crawledtoward the settle, going very slow. Yet more slowly it crept up onit, and laid itself, as unwilling to go further, at the feet of theprincess. I rose and stole nearer. Mara stood motionless, as one thatwaits an event foreknown. The shining thing crawled on to a bare bonyfoot: it showed no suffering, neither was the settle scorched where theworm had lain. Slowly, very slowly, it crept along her robe until itreached her bosom, where it disappeared among the folds. 

The face of the princess lay stonily calm, the eyelids closed as overdead eyes; and for some minutes nothing followed. At length, on the dry, parchment-like skin, began to appear drops as of the finest dew: in amoment they were as large as seed-pearls, ran together, and began topour down in streams. I darted forward to snatch the worm from the poorwithered bosom, and crush it with my foot. But Mara, Mother of Sorrow, stepped between, and drew aside the closed edges of the robe: no serpentwas there--no searing trail; the creature had passed in by the centreof the black spot, and was piercing through the joints and marrow tothe thoughts and intents of the heart. The princess gave one writhing, contorted shudder, and I knew the worm was in her secret chamber. 

"She is seeing herself!" said Mara; and laying her hand on my arm, shedrew me three paces from the settle. 

Of a sudden the princess bent her body upward in an arch, then sprang tothe floor, and stood erect. The horror in her face made me tremble lesther eyes should open, and the sight of them overwhelm me. Her bosomheaved and sank, but no breath issued. Her hair hung and dripped; thenit stood out from her head and emitted sparks; again hung down, andpoured the sweat of her torture on the floor. 

I would have thrown my arms about her, but Mara stopped me. 

"You cannot go near her, " she said. "She is far away from us, afar inthe hell of her self-consciousness. The central fire of the universe isradiating into her the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of whatshe is. She sees at last the good she is not, the evil she is. She knowsthat she is herself the fire in which she is burning, but she does notknow that the Light of Life is the heart of that fire. Her torment isthat she is what she is. Do not fear for her; she is not forsaken. Nogentler way to help her was left. Wait and watch. "

It may have been five minutes or five years that she stood thus--Icannot tell; but at last she flung herself on her face. 

Mara went to her, and stood looking down upon her. Large tears fell fromher eyes on the woman who had never wept, and would not weep. 

"Will you change your way?" she said at length. 

"Why did he make me such?" gasped Lilith. "I would have made myself--oh, so different! I am glad it was he that made me and not I myself!He alone is to blame for what I am! Never would I have made such aworthless thing! He meant me such that I might know it and be miserable!I will not be made any longer!"

"Unmake yourself, then, " said Mara. 

"Alas, I cannot! You know it, and mock me! How often have I not agonisedto cease, but the tyrant keeps me being! I curse him!--Now let him killme!"

The words came in jets as from a dying fountain. 

"Had he not made you, " said Mara, gently and slowly, "you could not evenhate him. But he did not make you such. You have made yourself what youare. --Be of better cheer: he can remake you. "

"I will not be remade!"

"He will not change you; he will only restore you to what you were. "

"I will not be aught of his making. "

"Are you not willing to have that set right which you have set wrong?"

She lay silent; her suffering seemed abated. 

"If you are willing, put yourself again on the settle. "

"I will not, " she answered, forcing the words through her clenchedteeth. 

A wind seemed to wake inside the house, blowing without sound or impact;and a water began to rise that had no lap in its ripples, no sob in itsswell. It was cold, but it did not benumb. Unseen and noiseless it came. It smote no sense in me, yet I knew it rising. I saw it lift at last andfloat her. Gently it bore her, unable to resist, and left rather thanlaid her on the settle. Then it sank swiftly away. 

The strife of thought, accusing and excusing, began afresh, andgathered fierceness. The soul of Lilith lay naked to the torture of pureinterpenetrating inward light. She began to moan, and sigh deep sighs, then murmur as holding colloquy with a dividual self: her queendom wasno longer whole; it was divided against itself. One moment she wouldexult as over her worst enemy, and weep; the next she would writhe as inthe embrace of a friend whom her soul hated, and laugh like a demon. At length she began what seemed a tale about herself, in a languageso strange, and in forms so shadowy, that I could but here and thereunderstand a little. Yet the language seemed the primeval shape of oneI knew well, and the forms to belong to dreams which had once been mine, but refused to be recalled. The tale appeared now and then to touch uponthings that Adam had read from the disparted manuscript, and often tomake allusion to influences and forces--vices too, I could not helpsuspecting--with which I was unacquainted. 

She ceased, and again came the horror in her hair, the sparkling andflowing alternate. I sent a beseeching look to Mara. 

"Those, alas, are not the tears of repentance!" she said. "The truetears gather in the eyes. Those are far more bitter, and not so good. Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step inthe way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self heabominates. Once with his father, he is to himself of no more account. It will be so with her. "

She went nearer and said, "Will you restore that which you have wrongfully taken?"

"I have taken nothing, " answered the princess, forcing out the wordsin spite of pain, "that I had not the right to take. My power to takemanifested my right. "

Mara left her. 

Gradually my soul grew aware of an invisible darkness, a somethingmore terrible than aught that had yet made itself felt. A horribleNothingness, a Negation positive infolded her; the border of its beingthat was yet no being, touched me, and for one ghastly instant I seemedalone with Death Absolute! It was not the absence of everything I felt, but the presence of Nothing. The princess dashed herself from the settleto the floor with an exceeding great and bitter cry. It was the recoilof Being from Annihilation. 

"For pity's sake, " she shrieked, "tear my heart out, but let me live!"

With that there fell upon her, and upon us also who watched with her, the perfect calm as of a summer night. Suffering had all but reached thebrim of her life's cup, and a hand had emptied it! She raised her head, half rose, and looked around her. A moment more, and she stood erect, with the air of a conqueror: she had won the battle! Dareful she had mether spiritual foes; they had withdrawn defeated! She raised her witheredarm above her head, a pæan of unholy triumph in her throat--whensuddenly her eyes fixed in a ghastly stare. --What was she seeing?

I looked, and saw: before her, cast from unseen heavenly mirror, stoodthe reflection of herself, and beside it a form of splendent beauty, Shetrembled, and sank again on the floor helpless. She knew the one whatGod had intended her to be, the other what she had made herself. 

The rest of the night she lay motionless altogether. 

With the gray dawn growing in the room, she rose, turned to Mara, andsaid, in prideful humility, "You have conquered. Let me go into thewilderness and bewail myself. "

Mara saw that her submission was not feigned, neither was it real. Shelooked at her a moment, and returned:

"Begin, then, and set right in the place of wrong. "

"I know not how, " she replied--with the look of one who foresaw andfeared the answer. 

"Open thy hand, and let that which is in it go. "

A fierce refusal seemed to struggle for passage, but she kept itprisoned. 

"I cannot, " she said. "I have no longer the power. Open it for me. "

She held out the offending hand. It was more a paw than a hand. Itseemed to me plain that she could not open it. 

Mara did not even look at it. 

"You must open it yourself, " she said quietly. 

"I have told you I cannot!"

"You can if you will--not indeed at once, but by persistent effort. Whatyou have done, you do not yet wish undone--do not yet intend to undo!"

"You think so, I dare say, " rejoined the princess with a flash ofinsolence, "but I KNOW that I cannot open my hand!"

"I know you better than you know yourself, and I know you can. You haveoften opened it a little way. Without trouble and pain you cannot openit quite, but you CAN open it. At worst you could beat it open! I prayyou, gather your strength, and open it wide. "

"I will not try what I know impossible. It would be the part of a fool!"

"Which you have been playing all your life! Oh, you are hard to teach!"

Defiance reappeared on the face of the princess. She turned her back onMara, saying, "I know what you have been tormenting me for! You have notsucceeded, nor shall you succeed! You shall yet find me stronger thanyou think! I will yet be mistress of myself! I am still what I havealways known myself--queen of Hell, and mistress of the worlds!"

Then came the most fearful thing of all. I did not know what it was; Iknew myself unable to imagine it; I knew only that if it came near me Ishould die of terror! I now know that it was LIFE IN DEATH--life dead, yet existent; and I knew that Lilith had had glimpses, but only glimpsesof it before: it had never been with her until now. 

She stood as she had turned. Mara went and sat down by the fire. Fearingto stand alone with the princess, I went also and sat again by thehearth. Something began to depart from me. A sense of cold, yet not whatwe call cold, crept, not into, but out of my being, and pervaded it. Thelamp of life and the eternal fire seemed dying together, and I aboutto be left with naught but the consciousness that I had been alive. Mercifully, bereavement did not go so far, and my thought went back toLilith. 

Something was taking place in her which we did not know. We knew we didnot feel what she felt, but we knew we felt something of the miseryit caused her. The thing itself was in her, not in us; its reflex, hermisery, reached us, and was again reflected in us: she was in the outerdarkness, we present with her who was in it! We were not in the outerdarkness; had we been, we could not have been WITH her; we should havebeen timelessly, spacelessly, absolutely apart. The darkness knowsneither the light nor itself; only the light knows itself and thedarkness also. None but God hates evil and understands it. 

Something was gone from her, which then first, by its absence, she knewto have been with her every moment of her wicked years. The source oflife had withdrawn itself; all that was left her of conscious being wasthe dregs of her dead and corrupted life. 

She stood rigid. Mara buried her head in her hands. I gazed on the faceof one who knew existence but not love--knew nor life, nor joy, norgood; with my eyes I saw the face of a live death! She knew life only toknow that it was dead, and that, in her, death lived. It was not merelythat life had ceased in her, but that she was consciously a dead thing. She had killed her life, and was dead--and knew it. She must DEATH ITfor ever and ever! She had tried her hardest to unmake herself, andcould not! she was a dead life! she could not cease! she must BE! In herface I saw and read beyond its misery--saw in its dismay that the dismaybehind it was more than it could manifest. It sent out a livid gloom;the light that was in her was darkness, and after its kind it shone. Shewas what God could not have created. She had usurped beyond her sharein self-creation, and her part had undone His! She saw now what she hadmade, and behold, it was not good! She was as a conscious corpse, whosecoffin would never come to pieces, never set her free! Her bodily eyesstood wide open, as if gazing into the heart of horror essential--herown indestructible evil. Her right hand also was now clenched--uponexistent Nothing--her inheritance!

But with God all things are possible: He can save even the rich!

Without change of look, without sign of purpose, Lilith walked towardMara. She felt her coming, and rose to meet her. 

"I yield, " said the princess. "I cannot hold out. I am defeated. --Notthe less, I cannot open my hand. "

"Have you tried?"

"I am trying now with all my might. "

"I will take you to my father. You have wronged him worst of thecreated, therefore he best of the created can help you. "

"How can HE help me?"

"He will forgive you. "

"Ah, if he would but help me to cease! Not even that am I capable of! Ihave no power over myself; I am a slave! I acknowledge it. Let me die. "

"A slave thou art that shall one day be a child!" answeredMara. --"Verily, thou shalt die, but not as thou thinkest. Thou shaltdie out of death into life. Now is the Life for, that never was againstthee!"

Like her mother, in whom lay the motherhood of all the world, Mara puther arms around Lilith, and kissed her on the forehead. The fiery-coldmisery went out of her eyes, and their fountains filled. She lifted, andbore her to her own bed in a corner of the room, laid her softly uponit, and closed her eyes with caressing hands. 

Lilith lay and wept. The Lady of Sorrow went to the door and opened it. 

Morn, with the Spring in her arms, waited outside. Softly they stole inat the opened door, with a gentle wind in the skirts of their garments. It flowed and flowed about Lilith, rippling the unknown, upwaking sea ofher life eternal; rippling and to ripple it, until at length she who hadbeen but as a weed cast on the dry sandy shore to wither, should knowherself an inlet of the everlasting ocean, henceforth to flow into herfor ever, and ebb no more. She answered the morning wind with revivingbreath, and began to listen. For in the skirts of the wind had comethe rain--the soft rain that heals the mown, the many-woundedgrass--soothing it with the sweetness of all music, the hush that livesbetween music and silence. It bedewed the desert places around thecottage, and the sands of Lilith's heart heard it, and drank it in. WhenMara returned to sit by her bed, her tears were flowing softer than therain, and soon she was fast asleep. 

CHAPTER XL. THE HOUSE OF DEATH

The Mother of Sorrows rose, muffled her face, and went to call theLittle Ones. They slept as if all the night they had not moved, butthe moment she spoke they sprang to their feet, fresh as if new-made. Merrily down the stair they followed her, and she brought them where theprincess lay, her tears yet flowing as she slept. Their glad faces grewgrave. They looked from the princess out on the rain, then back at theprincess. 

"The sky is falling!" said one. 

"The white juice is running out of the princess!" cried another, with anawed look. 

"Is it rivers?" asked Odu, gazing at the little streams that flowedadown her hollow cheeks. 

"Yes, " answered Mara, "--the most wonderful of all rivers. "

"I thought rivers was bigger, and rushed, like a lot of Little Ones, making loud noises!" he returned, looking at me, from whom alone he hadheard of rivers. 

"Look at the rivers of the sky!" said Mara. "See how they come downto wake up the waters under the earth! Soon will the rivers be flowingeverywhere, merry and loud, like thousands and thousands of happychildren. Oh, how glad they will make you, Little Ones! You have neverseen any, and do not know how lovely is the water!"

"That will be the glad of the ground that the princess is grown good, "said Odu. "See the glad of the sky!"

"Are the rivers the glad of the princess?" asked Luva. "They are not herjuice, for they are not red!"

"They are the juice inside the juice, " answered Mara. 

Odu put one finger to his eye, looked at it, and shook his head. 

"Princess will not bite now!" said Luva. 

"No; she will never do that again, " replied Mara. "--But now we musttake her nearer home. "

"Is that a nest?" asked Sozo. 

"Yes; a very big nest. But we must take her to another place first. "

"What is that?"

"It is the biggest room in all this world. --But I think it is going tobe pulled down: it will soon be too full of little nests. --Go and getyour clumsies. "

"Please are there any cats in it?"

"Not one. The nests are too full of lovely dreams for one cat to getin. "

"We shall be ready in a minute, " said Odu, and ran out, followed by allexcept Luva. 

Lilith was now awake, and listening with a sad smile. 

"But her rivers are running so fast!" said Luva, who stood by her sideand seemed unable to take her eyes from her face. "Her robe is all--Idon't know what. Clumsies won't like it!"

"They won't mind it, " answered Mara. "Those rivers are so clean thatthey make the whole world clean. "

I had fallen asleep by the fire, but for some time had been awake andlistening, and now rose. 

"It is time to mount, Mr. Vane, " said our hostess. 

"Tell me, please, " I said, "is there not a way by which to avoid thechannels and the den of monsters?"

"There is an easy way across the river-bed, which I will show you, " sheanswered; "but you must pass once more through the monsters. "

"I fear for the children, " I said. 

"Fear will not once come nigh them, " she rejoined. 

We left the cottage. The beasts stood waiting about the door. Odu wasalready on the neck of one of the two that were to carry the princess. Imounted Lona's horse; Mara brought her body, and gave it me in my arms. When she came out again with the princess, a cry of delight arose fromthe children: she was no longer muffled! Gazing at her, and entrancedwith her loveliness, the boys forgot to receive the princess from her;but the elephants took Lilith tenderly with their trunks, one round herbody and one round her knees, and, Mara helping, laid her along betweenthem. 

"Why does the princess want to go?" asked a small boy. "She would keepgood if she staid here!"

"She wants to go, and she does not want to go: we are helping her, "answered Mara. "She will not keep good here. "

"What are you helping her to do?" he went on. 

"To go where she will get more help--help to open her hand, which hasbeen closed for a thousand years. "

"So long? Then she has learned to do without it: why should she open itnow?"

"Because it is shut upon something that is not hers. "

"Please, lady Mara, may we have some of your very dry bread before wego?" said Luva. 

Mara smiled, and brought them four loaves and a great jug of water. 

"We will eat as we go, " they said. But they drank the water withdelight. 

"I think, " remarked one of them, "it must be elephant-juice! It makes meso strong!"

We set out, the Lady of Sorrow walking with us, more beautiful than thesun, and the white leopardess following her. I thought she meant but toput us in the path across the channels, but I soon found she was goingwith us all the way. Then I would have dismounted that she might ride, but she would not let me. 

"I have no burden to carry, " she said. "The children and I will walktogether. "

It was the loveliest of mornings; the sun shone his brightest, and thewind blew his sweetest, but they did not comfort the desert, for it hadno water. 

We crossed the channels without difficulty, the children gamboling aboutMara all the way, but did not reach the top of the ridge over the badburrow until the sun was already in the act of disappearing. Then I madethe Little Ones mount their elephants, for the moon might be late, and Icould not help some anxiety about them. 

The Lady of Sorrow now led the way by my side; the elephantsfollowed--the two that bore the princess in the centre; the leopardessbrought up the rear; and just as we reached the frightful margin, themoon looked up and showed the shallow basin lying before us untroubled. Mara stepped into it; not a movement answered her tread or the feetof my horse. But the moment that the elephants carrying the princesstouched it, the seemingly solid earth began to heave and boil, and thewhole dread brood of the hellish nest was commoved. Monsters uprose onall sides, every neck at full length, every beak and claw outstretched, every mouth agape. Long-billed heads, horribly jawed faces, knottytentacles innumerable, went out after Lilith. She lay in an agony offear, nor dared stir a finger. Whether the hideous things even saw thechildren, I doubt; certainly not one of them touched a child; not oneloathly member passed the live rampart of her body-guard, to lay hold ofher. 

"Little Ones, " I cried, "keep your elephants close about the princess. Be brave; they will not touch you. "

"What will not touch us? We don't know what to be brave at!" theyanswered; and I perceived they were unaware of one of the deformitiesaround them. 

"Never mind then, " I returned; "only keep close. "

They were panoplied in their blindness! Incapacity to see was theirsafety. What they could nowise be aware of, could not hurt them. 

But the hideous forms I saw that night! Mara was a few paces in frontof me when a solitary, bodiless head bounced on the path between us. Theleopardess came rushing under the elephants from behind, and would haveseized it, but, with frightful contortions of visage and a loathsomehowl, it gave itself a rapid rotatory twist, sprang from her, and burieditself in the ground. The death in my arms assoiling me from fear, Iregarded them all unmoved, although never, sure, was elsewhere beheldsuch a crew accursed!

Mara still went in front of me, and the leopardess now walked closebehind her, shivering often, for it was very cold, when suddenly theground before me to my left began to heave, and a low wave of earth cameslinking toward us. It rose higher as it drew hear; out of it sloucheda dreadful head with fleshy tubes for hair, and opening a great ovalmouth, snapped at me. The leopardess sprang, but fell baffled beyond it. 

Almost under our feet, shot up the head of an enormous snake, with alamping wallowing glare in its eyes. Again the leopardess rushed to theattack, but found nothing. At a third monster she darted with like fury, and like failure--then sullenly ceased to heed the phantom-horde. But Iunderstood the peril and hastened the crossing--the rather that the moonwas carrying herself strangely. Even as she rose she seemed ready todrop and give up the attempt as hopeless; and since, I saw her sink backonce fully her own breadth. The arc she made was very low, and now shehad begun to descend rapidly. 

We were almost over, when, between us and the border of the basin, arosea long neck, on the top of which, like the blossom of some Stygian lily, sat what seemed the head of a corpse, its mouth half open, and full ofcanine teeth. I went on; it retreated, then drew aside. The lady steppedon the firm land, but the leopardess between us, roused once more, turned, and flew at the throat of the terror. I remained where I was tosee the elephants, with the princess and the children, safe on the bank. Then I turned to look after the leopardess. That moment the moonwent down, For an instant I saw the leopardess and the snake-monsterconvolved in a cloud of dust; then darkness hid them. Trembling withfright, my horse wheeled, and in three bounds overtook the elephants. 

As we came up with them, a shapeless jelly dropped on the princess. Awhite dove dropped immediately on the jelly, stabbing it with its beak. It made a squelching, sucking sound, and fell off. Then I heard thevoice of a woman talking with Mara, and I knew the voice. 

"I fear she is dead!" said Mara. 

"I will send and find her, " answered the mother. "But why, Mara, shouldst thou at all fear for her or for any one? Death cannot hurt herwho dies doing the work given her to do. "

"I shall miss her sorely; she is good and wise. Yet I would not have herlive beyond her hour!"

"She has gone down with the wicked; she will rise with the righteous. Weshall see her again ere very long. "

"Mother, " I said, although I did not see her, "we come to you many, butmost of us are Little Ones. Will you be able to receive us all?"

"You are welcome every one, " she answered. "Sooner or later all will belittle ones, for all must sleep in my house! It is well with those thatgo to sleep young and willing!--My husband is even now preparing hercouch for Lilith. She is neither young nor quite willing, but it is wellindeed that she is come. "

I heard no more. Mother and daughter had gone away together throughthe dark. But we saw a light in the distance, and toward it we wentstumbling over the moor. 

Adam stood in the door, holding the candle to guide us, and talking withhis wife, who, behind him, laid bread and wine on the table within. 

"Happy children, " I heard her say, "to have looked already on the faceof my daughter! Surely it is the loveliest in the great world!"

When we reached the door, Adam welcomed us almost merrily. He set thecandle on the threshold, and going to the elephants, would have takenthe princess to carry her in; but she repulsed him, and pushing herelephants asunder, stood erect between them. They walked from besideher, and left her with him who had been her husband--ashamed indeed ofher gaunt uncomeliness, but unsubmissive. He stood with a welcome in hiseyes that shone through their severity. 

"We have long waited for thee, Lilith!" he said. 

She returned him no answer. 

Eve and her daughter came to the door. 

"The mortal foe of my children!" murmured Eve, standing radiant in herbeauty. 

"Your children are no longer in her danger, " said Mara; "she has turnedfrom evil. "

"Trust her not hastily, Mara, " answered her mother; "she has deceived amultitude!"

"But you will open to her the mirror of the Law of Liberty, mother, thatshe may go into it, and abide in it! She consents to open her hand andrestore: will not the great Father restore her to inheritance with Hisother children?"

"I do not know Him!" murmured Lilith, in a voice of fear and doubt. 

"Therefore it is that thou art miserable, " said Adam. 

"I will go back whence I came!" she cried, and turned, wringing herhands, to depart. 

"That is indeed what I would have thee do, where I would have theego--to Him from whom thou camest! In thy agony didst thou not cry outfor Him?"

"I cried out for Death--to escape Him and thee!"

"Death is even now on his way to lead thee to Him. Thou knowest neitherDeath nor the Life that dwells in Death! Both befriend thee. I am dead, and would see thee dead, for I live and love thee. Thou art weary andheavy-laden: art thou not ashamed? Is not the being thou hast corruptedbecome to thee at length an evil thing? Wouldst thou yet live on indisgrace eternal? Cease thou canst not: wilt thou not be restored andBE?"

She stood silent with bowed head. 

"Father, " said Mara, "take her in thine arms, and carry her to hercouch. There she will open her hand, and die into life. "

"I will walk, " said the princess. 

Adam turned and led the way. The princess walked feebly after him intothe cottage. 

Then Eve came out to me where I sat with Lona in my bosom. She reachedup her arms, took her from me, and carried her in. I dismounted, and thechildren also. The horse and the elephants stood shivering; Mara pattedand stroked them every one; they lay down and fell asleep. She led usinto the cottage, and gave the Little Ones of the bread and wine on thetable. Adam and Lilith were standing there together, but silent both. 

Eve came from the chamber of death, where she had laid Lona down, andoffered of the bread and wine to the princess. 

"Thy beauty slays me! It is death I would have, not food!" said Lilith, and turned from her. 

"This food will help thee to die, " answered Eve. 

But Lilith would not taste of it. 

"If thou wilt nor eat nor drink, Lilith, " said Adam, "come and see theplace where thou shalt lie in peace. "

He led the way through the door of death, and she followed submissive. But when her foot crossed the threshold she drew it back, and pressedher hand to her bosom, struck through with the cold immortal. 

A wild blast fell roaring on the roof, and died away in a moan. Shestood ghastly with terror. 

"It is he!" said her voiceless lips: I read their motion. 

"Who, princess!" I whispered. 

"The great Shadow, " she murmured. 

"Here he cannot enter, " said Adam. "Here he can hurt no one. Over himalso is power given me. "

"Are the children in the house?" asked Lilith, and at the word the heartof Eve began to love her. 

"He never dared touch a child, " she said. "Nor have you either ever hurta child. Your own daughter you have but sent into the loveliest sleep, for she was already a long time dead when you slew her. And now Deathshall be the atonemaker; you shall sleep together. "

"Wife, " said Adam, "let us first put the children to bed, that she maysee them safe!"

He came back to fetch them. As soon as he was gone, the princess kneltto Eve, clasped her knees, and said, "Beautiful Eve, persuade your husband to kill me: to you he will listen!Indeed I would but cannot open my hand. "

"You cannot die without opening it. To kill you would not serve you, "answered Eve. "But indeed he cannot! no one can kill you but the Shadow;and whom he kills never knows she is dead, but lives to do his will, andthinks she is doing her own. "

"Show me then to my grave; I am so weary I can live no longer. I must goto the Shadow--yet I would not!"

She did not, could not understand!

She struggled to rise, but fell at the feet of Eve. The Mother lifted, and carried her inward. 

I followed Adam and Mara and the children into the chamber of death. Wepassed Eve with Lilith in her arms, and went farther in. 

"You shall not go to the Shadow, " I heard Eve say, as we passed them. "Even now is his head under my heel!"

The dim light in Adam's hand glimmered on the sleeping faces, and as hewent on, the darkness closed over them. The very air seemed dead: was itbecause none of the sleepers breathed it? Profoundest sleep filled thewide place. It was as if not one had waked since last I was there, forthe forms I had then noted lay there still. My father was just as I hadleft him, save that he seemed yet nearer to a perfect peace. The womanbeside him looked younger. 

The darkness, the cold, the silence, the still air, the faces of thelovely dead, made the hearts of the children beat softly, but theirlittle tongues would talk--with low, hushed voices. 

"What a curious place to sleep in!" said one, "I would rather be in mynest!" "It is SO cold!" said another. 

"Yes, it is cold, " answered our host; "but you will not be cold in yoursleep. "

"Where are our nests?" asked more than one, looking round and seeing nocouch unoccupied. 

"Find places, and sleep where you choose, " replied Adam. 

Instantly they scattered, advancing fearlessly beyond the light, but westill heard their gentle voices, and it was plain they saw where I couldnot. 

"Oh, " cried one, "here is such a beautiful lady!--may I sleep besideher? I will creep in quietly, and not wake her. "

"Yes, you may, " answered the voice of Eve behind us; and we came to thecouch while the little fellow was yet creeping slowly and softly underthe sheet. He laid his head beside the lady's, looked up at us, and wasstill. His eyelids fell; he was asleep. 

We went a little farther, and there was another who had climbed up onthe couch of a woman. 

"Mother! mother!" he cried, kneeling over her, his face close to hers. "--She's so cold she can't speak, " he said, looking up to us; "but Iwill soon make her warm!"

He lay down, and pressing close to her, put his little arm over her. Inan instant he too was asleep, smiling an absolute content. 

We came to a third Little One; it was Luva. She stood on tiptoe, leaningover the edge of a couch. 

"My own mother wouldn't have me, " she said softly: "will you?"

Receiving no reply, she looked up at Eve. The great mother lifted her tothe couch, and she got at once under the snowy covering. 

Each of the Little Ones had by this time, except three of the boys, found at least an unobjecting bedfellow, and lay still and white besidea still, white woman. The little orphans had adopted mothers! One tinygirl had chosen a father to sleep with, and that was mine. A boy layby the side of the beautiful matron with the slow-healing hand. On themiddle one of the three couches hitherto unoccupied, lay Lona. 

Eve set Lilith down beside it. Adam pointed to the vacant couch onLona's right hand, and said, "There, Lilith, is the bed I have prepared for you!"

She glanced at her daughter lying before her like a statue carved insemi-transparent alabaster, and shuddered from head to foot. "How coldit is!" she murmured. 

"You will soon begin to find comfort in the cold, " answered Adam. 

"Promises to the dying are easy!" she said. 

"But I know it: I too have slept. I am dead!"

"I believed you dead long ago; but I see you alive!"

"More alive than you know, or are able to understand. I was scarce alivewhen first you knew me. Now I have slept, and am awake; I am dead, andlive indeed!"

"I fear that child, " she said, pointing to Lona: "she will rise andterrify me!"

"She is dreaming love to you. "

"But the Shadow!" she moaned; "I fear the Shadow! he will be wroth withme!"

"He at sight of whom the horses of heaven start and rear, dares notdisturb one dream in this quiet chamber!"

"I shall dream then?"

"You will dream. "

"What dreams?"

"That I cannot tell, but none HE can enter into. When the Shadow comeshere, it will be to lie down and sleep also. --His hour will come, and heknows it will. "

"How long shall I sleep?"

"You and he will be the last to wake in the morning of the universe. "

The princess lay down, drew the sheet over her, stretched herself outstraight, and lay still with open eyes. 

Adam turned to his daughter. She drew near. 

"Lilith, " said Mara, "you will not sleep, if you lie there a thousandyears, until you have opened your hand, and yielded that which is notyours to give or to withhold. "

"I cannot, " she answered. "I would if I could, and gladly, for I amweary, and the shadows of death are gathering about me. "

"They will gather and gather, but they cannot infold you while yet yourhand remains unopened. You may think you are dead, but it will be onlya dream; you may think you have come awake, but it will still be only adream. Open your hand, and you will sleep indeed--then wake indeed. "

"I am trying hard, but the fingers have grown together and into thepalm. "

"I pray you put forth the strength of your will. For the love of life, draw together your forces and break its bonds!"

"I have struggled in vain; I can do no more. I am very weary, and sleeplies heavy upon my lids. "

"The moment you open your hand, you will sleep. Open it, and make anend. "

A tinge of colour arose in the parchment-like face; the contorted handtrembled with agonised effort. Mara took it, and sought to aid her. 

"Hold, Mara!" cried her father. "There is danger!"

The princess turned her eyes upon Eve, beseechingly. 

"There was a sword I once saw in your husband's hands, " she murmured. "Ifled when I saw it. I heard him who bore it say it would divide whateverwas not one and indivisible!"

"I have the sword, " said Adam. "The angel gave it me when he left thegate. "

"Bring it, Adam, " pleaded Lilith, "and cut me off this hand that I maysleep. "

"I will, " he answered. 

He gave the candle to Eve, and went. The princess closed her eyes. 

In a few minutes Adam returned with an ancient weapon in his hand. Thescabbard looked like vellum grown dark with years, but the hilt shonelike gold that nothing could tarnish. He drew out the blade. It flashedlike a pale blue northern streamer, and the light of it made theprincess open her eyes. She saw the sword, shuddered, and held out herhand. Adam took it. The sword gleamed once, there was one little gush ofblood, and he laid the severed hand in Mara's lap. Lilith had given onemoan, and was already fast asleep. Mara covered the arm with the sheet, and the three turned away. 

"Will you not dress the wound?" I said. 

"A wound from that sword, " answered Adam, "needs no dressing. It ishealing and not hurt. "

"Poor lady!" I said, "she will wake with but one hand!"

"Where the dead deformity clung, " replied Mara, "the true, lovely handis already growing. "

We heard a childish voice behind us, and turned again. The candle inEve's hand shone on the sleeping face of Lilith, and the waking facesof the three Little Ones, grouped on the other side of her couch. "Howbeautiful she is grown!" said one of them. 

"Poor princess!" said another; "I will sleep with her. She will not biteany more!"

As he spoke he climbed into her bed, and was immediately fast asleep. Eve covered him with the sheet. 

"I will go on her other side, " said the third. "She shall have two tokiss her when she wakes!"

"And I am left alone!" said the first mournfully. 

"I will put you to bed, " said Eve. 

She gave the candle to her husband, and led the child away. 

We turned once more to go back to the cottage. I was very sad, for noone had offered me a place in the house of the dead. Eve joined us as wewent, and walked on before with her husband. Mara by my side carried thehand of Lilith in the lap of her robe. 

"Ah, you have found her!" we heard Eve say as we stepped into thecottage. 

The door stood open; two elephant-trunks came through it out of thenight beyond. 

"I sent them with the lantern, " she went on to her husband, "to look forMara's leopardess: they have brought her. "

I followed Adam to the door, and between us we took the white creaturefrom the elephants, and carried her to the chamber we had just left, the women preceding us, Eve with the light, and Mara still carryingthe hand. There we laid the beauty across the feet of the princess, herfore-paws outstretched, and her head couching between them. 

CHAPTER XLI. I AM SENT

Then I turned and said to Eve, "Mother, one couch next to Lona is empty: I know I am unworthy, but mayI not sleep this night in your chamber with my dead? Will you not pardonboth my cowardice and my self-confidence, and take me in? I give me up. I am sick of myself, and would fain sleep the sleep!"

"The couch next to Lona is the one already prepared for you, " sheanswered; "but something waits to be done ere you sleep. "

"I am ready, " I replied. 

"How do you know you can do it?" she asked with a smile. 

"Because you require it, " I answered. "What is it?"

She turned to Adam:

"Is he forgiven, husband?"

"From my heart. "

"Then tell him what he has to do. "

Adam turned to his daughter. 

"Give me that hand, Mara, my child. "

She held it out to him in her lap. He took it tenderly. 

"Let us go to the cottage, " he said to me; "there I will instruct you. "

As we went, again arose a sudden stormful blast, mingled with a greatflapping on the roof, but it died away as before in a deep moan. 

When the door of the death-chamber was closed behind us, Adam seatedhimself, and I stood before him. 

"You will remember, " he said, "how, after leaving my daughter's house, you came to a dry rock, bearing the marks of an ancient cataract; youclimbed that rock, and found a sandy desert: go to that rock now, andfrom its summit walk deep into the desert. But go not many steps ere youlie down, and listen with your head on the sand. If you hear the murmurof water beneath, go a little farther, and listen again. If you stillhear the sound, you are in the right direction. Every few yards you muststop, lie down, and hearken. If, listening thus, at any time you hearno sound of water, you are out of the way, and must hearken in everydirection until you hear it again. Keeping with the sound, and carefulnot to retrace your steps, you will soon hear it louder, and the growingsound will lead you to where it is loudest: that is the spot you seek. There dig with the spade I will give you, and dig until you come tomoisture: in it lay the hand, cover it to the level of the desert, andcome home. --But give good heed, and carry the hand with care. Never layit down, in what place of seeming safety soever; let nothing touch it;stop nor turn aside for any attempt to bar your way; never look behindyou; speak to no one, answer no one, walk straight on. --It is yet dark, and the morning is far distant, but you must set out at once. "

He gave me the hand, and brought me a spade. 

"This is my gardening spade, " he said; "with it I have brought many alovely thing to the sun. "

I took it, and went out into the night. 

It was very cold, and pitch-dark. To fall would be a dread thing, andthe way I had to go was a difficult one even in the broad sunlight! ButI had not set myself the task, and the minute I started I learned that Iwas left to no chance: a pale light broke from the ground at every step, and showed me where next to set my foot. Through the heather and the lowrocks I walked without once even stumbling. I found the bad burrow quitestill; not a wave arose, not a head appeared as I crossed it. 

A moon came, and herself showed me the easy way: toward morning I wasalmost over the dry channels of the first branch of the river-bed, andnot far, I judged, from Mara's cottage. 

The moon was very low, and the sun not yet up, when I saw before me inthe path, here narrowed by rocks, a figure covered from head to foot aswith a veil of moonlit mist. I kept on my way as if I saw nothing. Thefigure threw aside its veil. 

"Have you forgotten me already?" said the princess--or what seemed she. 

I neither hesitated nor answered; I walked straight on. 

"You meant then to leave me in that horrible sepulchre! Do you not yetunderstand that where I please to be, there I am? Take my hand: I amalive as you!"

I was on the point of saying, "Give me your left hand, " but bethoughtmyself, held my peace, and steadily advanced. 

"Give me my hand, " she suddenly shrieked, "or I will tear you in pieces:you are mine!"

She flung herself upon me. I shuddered, but did not falter. Nothingtouched me, and I saw her no more. 

With measured tread along the path, filling it for some distance, came abody of armed men. I walked through them--nor know whether they gave wayto me, or were bodiless things. But they turned and followed me; I heardand felt their march at my very heels; but I cast no look behind, andthe sound of their steps and the clash of their armour died away. 

A little farther on, the moon being now close to the horizon and the wayin deep shadow, I descried, seated where the path was so narrow that Icould not pass her, a woman with muffled face. 

"Ah, " she said, "you are come at last! I have waited here for you anhour or more! You have done well! Your trial is over. My father sent meto meet you that you might have a little rest on the way. Give me yourcharge, and lay your head in my lap; I will take good care of both untilthe sun is well risen. I am not bitterness always, neither to all men!"

Her words were terrible with temptation, for I was very weary. And whatmore likely to be true! If I were, through slavish obedience to theletter of the command and lack of pure insight, to trample under myfeet the very person of the Lady of Sorrow! My heart grew faint at thethought, then beat as if it would burst my bosom. 

Nevertheless my will hardened itself against my heart, and my step didnot falter. I took my tongue between my teeth lest I should unawaresanswer, and kept on my way. If Adam had sent her, he could not complainthat I would not heed her! Nor would the Lady of Sorrow love me the lessthat even she had not been able to turn me aside!

Just ere I reached the phantom, she pulled the covering from her face:great indeed was her loveliness, but those were not Mara's eyes! no liecould truly or for long imitate them! I advanced as if the thing werenot there, and my foot found empty room. 

I had almost reached the other side when a Shadow--I think it was TheShadow, barred my way. He seemed to have a helmet upon his head, but asI drew closer I perceived it was the head itself I saw--so distorted asto bear but a doubtful resemblance to the human. A cold wind smote me, dank and sickening--repulsive as the air of a charnel-house; firmnessforsook my joints, and my limbs trembled as if they would drop in ahelpless heap. I seemed to pass through him, but I think now that hepassed through me: for a moment I was as one of the damned. Then a softwind like the first breath of a new-born spring greeted me, and beforeme arose the dawn. 

My way now led me past the door of Mara's cottage. It stood wide open, and upon the table I saw a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water. In oraround the cottage was neither howl nor wail. 

I came to the precipice that testified to the vanished river. I climbedits worn face, and went on into the desert. There at last, after muchlistening to and fro, I determined the spot where the hidden water wasloudest, hung Lilith's hand about my neck, and began to dig. It was along labour, for I had to make a large hole because of the loosenessof the sand; but at length I threw up a damp spadeful. I flung thesexton-tool on the verge, and laid down the hand. A little water wasalready oozing from under its fingers. I sprang out, and made haste tofill the grave. Then, utterly fatigued, I dropped beside it, and fellasleep. 

CHAPTER XLII. I SLEEP THE SLEEP

When I woke, the ground was moist about me, and my track to the gravewas growing a quicksand. In its ancient course the river was swelling, and had begun to shove at its burden. Soon it would be roaring downthe precipice, and, divided in its fall, rushing with one branch toresubmerge the orchard valley, with the other to drown perhaps themonster horde, and between them to isle the Evil Wood. I set out at onceon my return to those who sent me. 

When I came to the precipice, I took my way betwixt the branches, for Iwould pass again by the cottage of Mara, lest she should have returned:I longed to see her once more ere I went to sleep; and now I knew whereto cross the channels, even if the river should have overtaken me andfilled them. But when I reached it, the door stood open still; the breadand the water were still on the table; and deep silence was within andaround it. I stopped and called aloud at the door, but no voice replied, and I went my way. 

A little farther, I came where sat a grayheaded man on the sand, weeping. 

"What ails you, sir?" I asked. "Are you forsaken?"

"I weep, " he answered, "because they will not let me die. I have been tothe house of death, and its mistress, notwithstanding my years, refusesme. Intercede for me, sir, if you know her, I pray you. "

"Nay, sir, " I replied, "that I cannot; for she refuses none whom it islawful for her to receive. "

"How know you this of her? You have never sought death! you are much tooyoung to desire it!"

"I fear your words may indicate that, were you young again, neitherwould you desire it. "

"Indeed, young sir, I would not! and certain I am that you cannot. "

"I may not be old enough to desire to die, but I am young enough todesire to live indeed! Therefore I go now to learn if she will at lengthtake me in. You wish to die because you do not care to live: she willnot open her door to you, for no one can die who does not long to live. "

"It ill becomes your youth to mock a friendless old man. Pray, ceaseyour riddles!"

"Did not then the Mother tell you something of the same sort?"

"In truth I believe she did; but I gave little heed to her excuses. "

"Ah, then, sir, " I rejoined, "it is but too plain you have not yetlearned to die, and I am heartily grieved for you. Such had I too beenbut for the Lady of Sorrow. I am indeed young, but I have wept manytears; pardon me, therefore, if I presume to offer counsel:--Go to theLady of Sorrow, and 'take with both hands'* what she will give you. Yonder lies her cottage. She is not in it now, but her door stands open, and there is bread and water on her table. Go in; sit down; eat of thebread; drink of the water; and wait there until she appear. Then askcounsel of her, for she is true, and her wisdom is great. "

He fell to weeping afresh, and I left him weeping. What I said, I fearhe did not heed. But Mara would find him!

The sun was down, and the moon unrisen, when I reached the abode of themonsters, but it was still as a stone till I passed over. Then I hearda noise of many waters, and a great cry behind me, but I did not turn myhead. 

Ere I reached the house of death, the cold was bitter and the darknessdense; and the cold and the darkness were one, and entered into my bonestogether. But the candle of Eve, shining from the window, guided me, andkept both frost and murk from my heart. 

The door stood open, and the cottage lay empty. I sat down disconsolate. 

And as I sat, there grew in me such a sense of loneliness as never yetin my wanderings had I felt. Thousands were near me, not one was withme! True, it was I who was dead, not they; but, whether by their life orby my death, we were divided! They were alive, but I was not dead enougheven to know them alive: doubt WOULD come. They were, at best, far fromme, and helpers I had none to lay me beside them!

Never before had I known, or truly imagined desolation! In vain I tookmyself to task, saying the solitude was but a seeming: I was awake, andthey slept--that was all! it was only that they lay so still and did notspeak! they were with me now, and soon, soon I should be with them!

I dropped Adam's old spade, and the dull sound of its fall on the clayfloor seemed reverberated from the chamber beyond: a childish terrorseized me; I sat and stared at the coffin-door. --But father Adam, motherEve, sister Mara would soon come to me, and then--welcome the cold worldand the white neighbours! I forgot my fears, lived a little, and lovedmy dead. 

Something did move in the chamber of the dead! There came from it whatwas LIKE a dim, far-off sound, yet was not what I knew as sound. My soulsprang into my ears. Was it a mere thrill of the dead air, too slightto be heard, but quivering in every spiritual sense? I KNEW withouthearing, without feeling it!

The something was coming! it drew nearer! In the bosom of mydesertion awoke an infant hope. The noiseless thrill reached thecoffin-door--became sound, and smote on my ear. 

The door began to move--with a low, soft creaking of its hinges. It wasopening! I ceased to listen, and stared expectant. 

It opened a little way, and a face came into the opening. It was Lona's. Its eyes were closed, but the face itself was upon me, and seemed to seeme. It was white as Eve's, white as Mara's, but did not shine like theirfaces. She spoke, and her voice was like a sleepy night-wind in thegrass. 

"Are you coming, king?" it said. "I cannot rest until you are with me, gliding down the river to the great sea, and the beautiful dream-land. The sleepiness is full of lovely things: come and see them. "

"Ah, my darling!" I cried. "Had I but known!--I thought you were dead!"

She lay on my bosom--cold as ice frozen to marble. She threw her arms, so white, feebly about me, and sighed--

"Carry me back to my bed, king. I want to sleep. "

I bore her to the death-chamber, holding her tight lest she shoulddissolve out of my arms. Unaware that I saw, I carried her straight toher couch. 

"Lay me down, " she said, "and cover me from the warm air; it hurts--alittle. Your bed is there, next to mine. I shall see you when I wake. "

She was already asleep. I threw myself on my couch--blessed as never wasman on the eve of his wedding. 

"Come, sweet cold, " I said, "and still my heart speedily. "

But there came instead a glimmer of light in the chamber, and I saw theface of Adam approaching. He had not the candle, yet I saw him. At theside of Lona's couch, he looked down on her with a questioning smile, and then greeted me across it. 

"We have been to the top of the hill to hear the waters on their way, "he said. "They will be in the den of the monsters to-night. --But why didyou not await our return?"

"My child could not sleep, " I answered. 

"She is fast asleep!" he rejoined. 

"Yes, now!" I said; "but she was awake when I laid her down. "

"She was asleep all the time!" he insisted. "She was perhaps dreamingabout you--and came to you?"

"She did. "

"And did you not see that her eyes were closed?"

"Now I think of it, I did. "

"If you had looked ere you laid her down, you would have seen her asleepon the couch. "

"That would have been terrible!"

"You would only have found that she was no longer in your arms. "

"That would have been worse!"

"It is, perhaps, to think of; but to see it would not have troubledyou. "

"Dear father, " I said, "how is it that I am not sleepy? I thought Ishould go to sleep like the Little Ones the moment I laid my head down!"

"Your hour is not quite come. You must have food ere you sleep. "

"Ah, I ought not to have lain down without your leave, for I cannotsleep without your help! I will get up at once!"

But I found my own weight more than I could move. 

"There is no need: we will serve you here, " he answered. "--You do notfeel cold, do you?"

"Not too cold to lie still, but perhaps too cold to eat!"

He came to the side of my couch, bent over me, and breathed on my heart. At once I was warm. 

As he left me, I heard a voice, and knew it was the Mother's. She wassinging, and her song was sweet and soft and low, and I thought she satby my bed in the dark; but ere it ceased, her song soared aloft, andseemed to come from the throat of a woman-angel, high above all theregion of larks, higher than man had ever yet lifted up his heart. Iheard every word she sang, but could keep only this:--

 "Many a wrong, and its curing song; Many a road, and many an inn; Room to roam, but only one home For all the world to win!"

and I thought I had heard the song before. 

Then the three came to my couch together, bringing me bread and wine, and I sat up to partake of it. Adam stood on one side of me, Eve andMara on the other. 

"You are good indeed, father Adam, mother Eve, sister Mara, " I said, "toreceive me! In my soul I am ashamed and sorry!"

"We knew you would come again!" answered Eve. 

"How could you know it?" I returned. 

"Because here was I, born to look after my brothers and sisters!"answered Mara with a smile. 

"Every creature must one night yield himself and lie down, " answeredAdam: "he was made for liberty, and must not be left a slave!"

"It will be late, I fear, ere all have lain down!" I said. 

"There is no early or late here, " he rejoined. "For him the true timethen first begins who lays himself down. Men are not coming home fast;women are coming faster. A desert, wide and dreary, parts him who liesdown to die from him who lies down to live. The former may well makehaste, but here is no haste. "

"To our eyes, " said Eve, "you were coming all the time: we knew Marawould find you, and you must come!"

"How long is it since my father lay down?" I asked. 

"I have told you that years are of no consequence in this house, "answered Adam; "we do not heed them. Your father will wake when hismorning comes. Your mother, next to whom you are lying, ----"

"Ah, then, it IS my mother!" I exclaimed. 

"Yes--she with the wounded hand, " he assented; "--she will be up andaway long ere your morning is ripe. "

"I am sorry. "

"Rather be glad. "

"It must be a sight for God Himself to see such a woman come awake!"

"It is indeed a sight for God, a sight that makes her Maker glad! Hesees of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied!--Look at her oncemore, and sleep. "

He let the rays of his candle fall on her beautiful face. 

"She looks much younger!" I said. 

"She IS much younger, " he replied. "Even Lilith already begins to lookyounger!"

I lay down, blissfully drowsy. 

"But when you see your mother again, " he continued, "you will notat first know her. She will go on steadily growing younger until shereaches the perfection of her womanhood--a splendour beyond foresight. Then she will open her eyes, behold on one side her husband, on theother her son--and rise and leave them to go to a father and a brothermore to her than they. "

I heard as one in a dream. I was very cold, but already the cold causedme no suffering. I felt them put on me the white garment of the dead. Then I forgot everything. The night about me was pale with sleepingfaces, but I was asleep also, nor knew that I slept. 

CHAPTER XLIII. THE DREAMS THAT CAME

I grew aware of existence, aware also of the profound, the infinitecold. I was intensely blessed--more blessed, I know, than my heart, imagining, can now recall. I could not think of warmth with the leastsuggestion of pleasure. I knew that I had enjoyed it, but could notremember how. The cold had soothed every care, dissolved every pain, comforted every sorrow. COMFORTED? Nay; sorrow was swallowed up in thelife drawing nigh to restore every good and lovely thing a hundredfold!I lay at peace, full of the quietest expectation, breathing the dampodours of Earth's bountiful bosom, aware of the souls of primroses, daisies and snowdrops, patiently waiting in it for the Spring. 

How convey the delight of that frozen, yet conscious sleep! I had nomore to stand up! had only to lie stretched out and still! How cold Iwas, words cannot tell; yet I grew colder and colder--and welcomed thecold yet more and more. I grew continuously less conscious of myself, continuously more conscious of bliss, unimaginable yet felt. I hadneither made it nor prayed for it: it was mine in virtue of existence!and existence was mine in virtue of a Will that dwelt in mine. 

Then the dreams began to arrive--and came crowding. --I lay naked on asnowy peak. The white mist heaved below me like a billowy sea. The coldmoon was in the air with me, and above the moon and me the colder sky, in which the moon and I dwelt. I was Adam, waiting for God to breatheinto my nostrils the breath of life. --I was not Adam, but a child inthe bosom of a mother white with a radiant whiteness. I was a youth ona white horse, leaping from cloud to cloud of a blue heaven, hastingcalmly to some blessed goal. For centuries I dreamed--or was itchiliads? or only one long night?--But why ask? for time had nothing todo with me; I was in the land of thought--farther in, higher up than theseven dimensions, the ten senses: I think I was where I am--in the heartof God. --I dreamed away dim cycles in the centre of a melting glacier, the spectral moon drawing nearer and nearer, the wind and the welterof a torrent growing in my ears. I lay and heard them: the wind andthe water and the moon sang a peaceful waiting for a redemption drawingnigh. I dreamed cycles, I say, but, for aught I knew or can tell, theywere the solemn, æonian march of a second, pregnant with eternity. 

Then, of a sudden, but not once troubling my conscious bliss, all thewrongs I had ever done, from far beyond my earthly memory down to thepresent moment, were with me. Fully in every wrong lived the consciousI, confessing, abjuring, lamenting the dead, making atonement with eachperson I had injured, hurt, or offended. Every human soul to which I hadcaused a troubled thought, was now grown unspeakably dear to me, and Ihumbled myself before it, agonising to cast from between us the clingingoffence. I wept at the feet of the mother whose commands I had slighted;with bitter shame I confessed to my father that I had told him two lies, and long forgotten them: now for long had remembered them, and kept themin memory to crush at last at his feet. I was the eager slave of allwhom I had thus or anyhow wronged. Countless services I devised torender them! For this one I would build such a house as had never grownfrom the ground! for that one I would train such horses as had never yetbeen seen in any world! For a third I would make such a garden as hadnever bloomed, haunted with still pools, and alive with running waters!I would write songs to make their hearts swell, and tales to makethem glow! I would turn the forces of the world into such channels ofinvention as to make them laugh with the joy of wonder! Love possessedme! Love was my life! Love was to me, as to him that made me, all inall!

Suddenly I found myself in a solid blackness, upon which the ghost oflight that dwells in the caverns of the eyes could not cast one fanciedglimmer. But my heart, which feared nothing and hoped infinitely, wasfull of peace. I lay imagining what the light would be when it came, and what new creation it would bring with it--when, suddenly, withoutconscious volition, I sat up and stared about me. 

The moon was looking in at the lowest, horizontal, crypt-like windowsof the death-chamber, her long light slanting, I thought, acrossthe fallen, but still ripening sheaves of the harvest of the greathusbandman. --But no; that harvest was gone! Gathered in, or swept awayby chaotic storm, not a sacred sheaf was there! My dead were gone! I wasalone!--In desolation dread lay depths yet deeper than I had hithertoknown!--Had there never been any ripening dead? Had I but dreamed themand their loveliness? Why then these walls? why the empty couches? No;they were all up! they were all abroad in the new eternal day, and hadforgotten me! They had left me behind, and alone! Tenfold more terriblewas the tomb its inhabitants away! The quiet ones had made me quiet withtheir presence--had pervaded my mind with their blissful peace; now Ihad no friend, and my lovers were far from me! A moment I sat and staredhorror-stricken. I had been alone with the moon on a mountain top in thesky; now I was alone with her in a huge cenotaph: she too was staringabout, seeking her dead with ghastly gaze! I sprang to my feet, andstaggered from the fearful place. 

The cottage was empty. I ran out into the night. 

No moon was there! Even as I left the chamber, a cloudy rampart hadrisen and covered her. But a broad shimmer came from far over the heath, mingled with a ghostly murmuring music, as if the moon were raininga light that plashed as it fell. I ran stumbling across the moor, andfound a lovely lake, margined with reeds and rushes: the moon behindthe cloud was gazing upon the monsters' den, full of clearest, brightestwater, and very still. --But the musical murmur went on, filling thequiet air, and drawing me after it. 

I walked round the border of the little mere, and climbed the range ofhills. What a sight rose to my eyes! The whole expanse where, with hot, aching feet, I had crossed and recrossed the deep-scored channels andravines of the dry river-bed, was alive with streams, with torrents, with still pools--"a river deep and wide"! How the moon flashed on thewater! how the water answered the moon with flashes of its own--whiteflashes breaking everywhere from its rock-encountered flow! And a greatjubilant song arose from its bosom, the song of new-born liberty. Istood a moment gazing, and my heart also began to exult: my life was notall a failure! I had helped to set this river free!--My dead were notlost! I had but to go after and find them! I would follow and followuntil I came whither they had gone! Our meeting might be thousands ofyears away, but at last--AT LAST I should hold them! Wherefore else didthe floods clap their hands?

I hurried down the hill: my pilgrimage was begun! In what direction toturn my steps I knew not, but I must go and go till I found my livingdead! A torrent ran swift and wide at the foot of the range: I rushedin, it laid no hold upon me; I waded through it. The next I sprangacross; the third I swam; the next I waded again. 

I stopped to gaze on the wondrous loveliness of the ceaseless flash andflow, and to hearken to the multitudinous broken music. Every now andthen some incipient air would seem about to draw itself clear of thedulcet confusion, only to merge again in the consorted roar. At momentsthe world of waters would invade as if to overwhelm me--not with theforce of its seaward rush, or the shouting of its liberated throng, butwith the greatness of the silence wandering into sound. 

As I stood lost in delight, a hand was laid on my shoulder. I turned, and saw a man in the prime of strength, beautiful as if fresh from theheart of the glad creator, young like him who cannot grow old. I looked:it was Adam. He stood large and grand, clothed in a white robe, with themoon in his hair. 

"Father, " I cried, "where is she? Where are the dead? Is the greatresurrection come and gone? The terror of my loneliness was upon me;I could not sleep without my dead; I ran from the desolatechamber. --Whither shall I go to find them?"

"You mistake, my son, " he answered, in a voice whose very breath wasconsolation. "You are still in the chamber of death, still upon yourcouch, asleep and dreaming, with the dead around you. "

"Alas! when I but dream how am I to know it? The dream best dreamed isthe likest to the waking truth!"

"When you are quite dead, you will dream no false dream. The soul thatis true can generate nothing that is not true, neither can the falseenter it. "

"But, sir, " I faltered, "how am I to distinguish betwixt the true andthe false where both alike seem real?"

"Do you not understand?" he returned, with a smile that might have slainall the sorrows of all his children. "You CANNOT perfectly distinguishbetween the true and the false while you are not yet quite dead; neitherindeed will you when you are quite dead--that is, quite alive, for thenthe false will never present itself. At this moment, believe me, you areon your bed in the house of death. "

"I am trying hard to believe you, father. I do indeed believe you, although I can neither see nor feel the truth of what you say. "

"You are not to blame that you cannot. And because even in a dream youbelieve me, I will help you. --Put forth your left hand open, and closeit gently: it will clasp the hand of your Lona, who lies asleep whereyou lie dreaming you are awake. "

I put forth my hand: it closed on the hand of Lona, firm and soft anddeathless. 

"But, father, " I cried, "she is warm!"

"Your hand is as warm to hers. Cold is a thing unknown in our country. Neither she nor you are yet in the fields of home, but each to each isalive and warm and healthful. "

Then my heart was glad. But immediately supervened a sharp-stingingdoubt. 

"Father, " I said, "forgive me, but how am I to know surely that thisalso is not a part of the lovely dream in which I am now walking withthyself?"

"Thou doubtest because thou lovest the truth. Some would willinglybelieve life but a phantasm, if only it might for ever afford them aworld of pleasant dreams: thou art not of such! Be content for a whilenot to know surely. The hour will come, and that ere long, when, beingtrue, thou shalt behold the very truth, and doubt will be for ever dead. Scarce, then, wilt thou be able to recall the features of the phantom. Thou wilt then know that which thou canst not now dream. Thou hastnot yet looked the Truth in the face, hast as yet at best but seen himthrough a cloud. That which thou seest not, and never didst see savein a glass darkly--that which, indeed, never can be known save by itsinnate splendour shining straight into pure eyes--that thou canst notbut doubt, and art blameless in doubting until thou seest it face toface, when thou wilt no longer be able to doubt it. But to him who hasonce seen even a shadow only of the truth, and, even but hoping he hasseen it when it is present no longer, tries to obey it--to him the realvision, the Truth himself, will come, and depart no more, but abide withhim for ever. "

"I think I see, father, " I said; "I think I understand. "

"Then remember, and recall. Trials yet await thee, heavy, of a naturethou knowest not now. Remember the things thou hast seen. Truly thouknowest not those things, but thou knowest what they have seemed, whatthey have meant to thee! Remember also the things thou shalt yet see. Truth is all in all; and the truth of things lies, at once hid andrevealed, in their seeming. "

"How can that be, father?" I said, and raised my eyes with the question;for I had been listening with downbent head, aware of nothing but thevoice of Adam. 

He was gone; in my ears was nought but the sounding silence of theswift-flowing waters. I stretched forth my hands to find him, but noanswering touch met their seeking. I was alone--alone in the land ofdreams! To myself I seemed wide awake, but I believed I was in a dream, because he had told me so. 

Even in a dream, however, the dreamer must do something! he cannot sitdown and refuse to stir until the dream grow weary of him and depart: Itook up my wandering, and went on. 

Many channels I crossed, and came to a wider space of rock; there, dreaming I was weary, I laid myself down, and longed to be awake. 

I was about to rise and resume my journey, when I discovered that I laybeside a pit in the rock, whose mouth was like that of a grave. It wasdeep and dark; I could see no bottom. 

Now in the dreams of my childhood I had found that a fall invariablywoke me, and would, therefore, when desiring to discontinue a dream, seek some eminence whence to cast myself down that I might wake: withone glance at the peaceful heavens, and one at the rushing waters, Irolled myself over the edge of the pit. 

For a moment consciousness left me. When it returned, I stood in thegarret of my own house, in the little wooden chamber of the cowl and themirror. 

Unspeakable despair, hopelessness blank and dreary, invaded me with theknowledge: between me and my Lona lay an abyss impassable! stretched adistance no chain could measure! Space and Time and Mode of Being, aswith walls of adamant unscalable, impenetrable, shut me in from thatgulf! True, it might yet be in my power to pass again through the doorof light, and journey back to the chamber of the dead; and if so, I wasparted from that chamber only by a wide heath, and by the pale, starry night betwixt me and the sun, which alone could open for me themirror-door, and was now far away on the other side of the world! but animmeasurably wider gulf sank between us in this--that she was asleep andI was awake! that I was no longer worthy to share with her that sleep, and could no longer hope to awake from it with her! For truly I was muchto blame: I had fled from my dream! The dream was not of my making, any more than was my life: I ought to have seen it to the end! and infleeing from it, I had left the holy sleep itself behind me!--I would goback to Adam, tell him the truth, and bow to his decree!

I crept to my chamber, threw myself on my bed, and passed a dreamlessnight. 

I rose, and listlessly sought the library. On the way I met no one; thehouse seemed dead. I sat down with a book to await the noontide: nota sentence could I understand! The mutilated manuscript offered itselffrom the masked door: the sight of it sickened me; what to me was theprincess with her devilry!

I rose and looked out of a window. It was a brilliant morning. With agreat rush the fountain shot high, and fell roaring back. The sun sat inits feathery top. Not a bird sang, not a creature was to be seen. Ravennor librarian came near me. The world was dead about me. I took anotherbook, sat down again, and went on waiting. 

Noon was near. I went up the stairs to the dumb, shadowy roof. I closedbehind me the door into the wooden chamber, and turned to open the doorout of a dreary world. 

I left the chamber with a heart of stone. Do what I might, all wasfruitless. I pulled the chains; adjusted and re-adjusted the hood;arranged and re-arranged the mirrors; no result followed. I waited andwaited to give the vision time; it would not come; the mirror stoodblank; nothing lay in its dim old depth but the mirror opposite and myhaggard face. 

I went back to the library. There the books were hateful to me--for Ihad once loved them. 

That night I lay awake from down-lying to uprising, and the next dayrenewed my endeavours with the mystic door. But all was yet in vain. Howthe hours went I cannot think. No one came nigh me; not a sound from thehouse below entered my ears. Not once did I feel weary--only desolate, drearily desolate. 

I passed a second sleepless night. In the morning I went for the lasttime to the chamber in the roof, and for the last time sought an opendoor: there was none. My heart died within me. I had lost my Lona!

Was she anywhere? had she ever been, save in the mouldering cells ofmy brain? "I must die one day, " I thought, "and then, straight from mydeath-bed, I will set out to find her! If she is not, I will go tothe Father and say--'Even thou canst not help me: let me cease, I praythee!'"

CHAPTER XLIV. THE WAKING

The fourth night I seemed to fall asleep, and that night woke indeed. Iopened my eyes and knew, although all was dark around me, that I lay inthe house of death, and that every moment since there I fell asleepI had been dreaming, and now first was awake. "At last!" I said to myheart, and it leaped for joy. I turned my eyes; Lona stood by my couch, waiting for me! I had never lost her!--only for a little time lost thesight of her! Truly I needed not have lamented her so sorely!

It was dark, as I say, but I saw her: SHE was not dark! Her eyes shonewith the radiance of the Mother's, and the same light issued from herface--nor from her face only, for her death-dress, filled with the lightof her body now tenfold awake in the power of its resurrection, waswhite as snow and glistering. She fell asleep a girl; she awoke a woman, ripe with the loveliness of the life essential. I folded her in my arms, and knew that I lived indeed. 

"I woke first!" she said, with a wondering smile. 

"You did, my love, and woke me!"

"I only looked at you and waited, " she answered. 

The candle came floating toward us through the dark, and in a fewmoments Adam and Eve and Mara were with us. They greeted us with a quietgood-morning and a smile: they were used to such wakings!

"I hope you have had a pleasant darkness!" said the Mother. 

"Not very, " I answered, "but the waking from it is heavenly. "

"It is but begun, " she rejoined; "you are hardly yet awake!"

"He is at least clothed-upon with Death, which is the radiant garment ofLife, " said Adam. 

He embraced Lona his child, put an arm around me, looked a moment or twoinquiringly at the princess, and patted the head of the leopardess. 

"I think we shall meet you two again before long, " he said, lookingfirst at Lona, then at me. 

"Have we to die again?" I asked. 

"No, " he answered, with a smile like the Mother's; "you have died intolife, and will die no more; you have only to keep dead. Once dying as wedie here, all the dying is over. Now you have only to live, and that youmust, with all your blessed might. The more you live, the stronger youbecome to live. "

"But shall I not grow weary with living so strong?" I said. "What if Icease to live with all my might?"

"It needs but the will, and the strength is there!" said the Mother. "Pure life has no weakness to grow weary withal. THE Life keepsgenerating ours. --Those who will not die, die many times, dieconstantly, keep dying deeper, never have done dying; here all isupwardness and love and gladness. "

She ceased with a smile and a look that seemed to say, "We are motherand son; we understand each other! Between us no farewell is possible. "

Mara kissed me on the forehead, and said, gayly, "I told you, brother, all would be well!--When next you would comfort, say, 'What will be well, is even now well. '"

She gave a little sigh, and I thought it meant, "But they will notbelieve you!"

"--You know me now!" she ended, with a smile like her mother's. 

"I know you!" I answered: "you are the voice that cried in thewilderness before ever the Baptist came! you are the shepherd whosewolves hunt the wandering sheep home ere the shadow rise and the nightgrow dark!"

"My work will one day be over, " she said, "and then I shall be glad withthe gladness of the great shepherd who sent me. "

"All the night long the morning is at hand, " said Adam. 

"What is that flapping of wings I hear?" I asked. 

"The Shadow is hovering, " replied Adam: "there is one here whom hecounts his own! But ours once, never more can she be his!"

I turned to look on the faces of my father and mother, and kiss them erewe went: their couches were empty save of the Little Ones who had withlove's boldness appropriated their hospitality! For an instant thatawful dream of desolation overshadowed me, and I turned aside. 

"What is it, my heart?" said Lona. 

"Their empty places frightened me, " I answered. 

"They are up and away long ago, " said Adam. "They kissed you ere theywent, and whispered, 'Come soon. '"

"And I neither to feel nor hear them!" I murmured. 

"How could you--far away in your dreary old house! You thought thedreadful place had you once more! Now go and find them. --Your parents, my child, " he added, turning to Lona, "must come and find you!"

The hour of our departure was at hand. Lona went to the couch of themother who had slain her, and kissed her tenderly--then laid herself inher father's arms. 

"That kiss will draw her homeward, my Lona!" said Adam. 

"Who were her parents?" asked Lona. 

"My father, " answered Adam, "is her father also. "

She turned and laid her hand in mine. 

I kneeled and humbly thanked the three for helping me to die. Lona kneltbeside me, and they all breathed upon us. 

"Hark! I hear the sun, " said Adam. 

I listened: he was coming with the rush as of a thousand times tenthousand far-off wings, with the roar of a molten and flaming worldmillions upon millions of miles away. His approach was a crescendo chordof a hundred harmonies. 

The three looked at each other and smiled, and that smile went floatingheavenward a three-petaled flower, the family's morning thanksgiving. From their mouths and their faces it spread over their bodies and shonethrough their garments. Ere I could say, "Lo, they change!" Adam andEve stood before me the angels of the resurrection, and Mara was theMagdalene with them at the sepulchre. The countenance of Adam was likelightning, and Eve held a napkin that flung flakes of splendour aboutthe place. 

A wind began to moan in pulsing gusts. 

"You hear his wings now!" said Adam; and I knew he did not mean thewings of the morning. 

"It is the great Shadow stirring to depart, " he went on. "Wretchedcreature, he has himself within him, and cannot rest!"

"But is there not in him something deeper yet?" I asked. 

"Without a substance, " he answered, "a shadow cannot be--yea, or withouta light behind the substance!"

He listened for a moment, then called out, with a glad smile, "Harkto the golden cock! Silent and motionless for millions of years hashe stood on the clock of the universe; now at last he is flapping hiswings! now will he begin to crow! and at intervals will men hear himuntil the dawn of the day eternal. "

I listened. Far away--as in the heart of an æonian silence, I heard theclear jubilant outcry of the golden throat. It hurled defiance atdeath and the dark; sang infinite hope, and coming calm. It was the"expectation of the creature" finding at last a voice; the cry of achaos that would be a kingdom!

Then I heard a great flapping. 

"The black bat is flown!" said Mara. 

"Amen, golden cock, bird of God!" cried Adam, and the words rang throughthe house of silence, and went up into the airy regions. 

At his AMEN--like doves arising on wings of silver from among thepotsherds, up sprang the Little Ones to their knees on their beds, calling aloud, "Crow! crow again, golden cock!"--as if they had both seen and heard himin their dreams. 

Then each turned and looked at the sleeping bedfellow, gazed a momentwith loving eyes, kissed the silent companion of the night, and sprangfrom the couch. The Little Ones who had lain down beside my father andmother gazed blank and sad for a moment at their empty places, then slidslowly to the floor. There they fell each into the other's arms, as ifthen first, each by the other's eyes, assured they were alive and awake. Suddenly spying Lona, they came running, radiant with bliss, to embraceher. Odu, catching sight of the leopardess on the feet of the princess, bounded to her next, and throwing an arm over the great sleeping head, fondled and kissed it. 

"Wake up, wake up, darling!" he cried; "it is time to wake!"

The leopardess did not move. 

"She has slept herself cold!" he said to Mara, with an upcast look ofappealing consternation. 

"She is waiting for the princess to wake, my child, " said Mara. 

Odu looked at the princess, and saw beside her, still asleep, two of hiscompanions. He flew at them. 

"Wake up! wake up!" he cried, and pushed and pulled, now this one, nowthat. 

But soon he began to look troubled, and turned to me with misty eyes. 

"They will not wake!" he said. "And why are they so cold?"

"They too are waiting for the princess, " I answered. 

He stretched across, and laid his hand on her face. 

"She is cold too! What is it?" he cried--and looked round in wonderingdismay. 

Adam went to him. 

"Her wake is not ripe yet, " he said: "she is busy forgetting. When shehas forgotten enough to remember enough, then she will soon be ripe, andwake. "

"And remember?"

"Yes--but not too much at once though. "

"But the golden cock has crown!" argued the child, and fell again uponhis companions. 

"Peter! Peter! Crispy!" he cried. "Wake up, Peter! wake up, Crispy! Weare all awake but you two! The gold cock has crown SO loud! The sun isawake and coming! Oh, why WON'T you wake?"

But Peter would not wake, neither would Crispy, and Odu wept outright atlast. 

"Let them sleep, darling!" said Adam. "You would not like the princessto wake and find nobody? They are quite happy. So is the leopardess. "

He was comforted, and wiped his eyes as if he had been all his lifeused to weeping and wiping, though now first he had tears wherewith toweep--soon to be wiped altogether away. 

We followed Eve to the cottage. There she offered us neither bread norwine, but stood radiantly desiring our departure. So, with never a wordof farewell, we went out. The horse and the elephants were at the door, waiting for us. We were too happy to mount them, and they followed us. 

CHAPTER XLV. THE JOURNEY HOME

It had ceased to be dark; we walked in a dim twilight, breathing throughthe dimness the breath of the spring. A wondrous change had passed uponthe world--or was it not rather that a change more marvellous hadtaken place in us? Without light enough in the sky or the air to revealanything, every heather-bush, every small shrub, every blade of grasswas perfectly visible--either by light that went out from it, as firefrom the bush Moses saw in the desert, or by light that went out of oureyes. Nothing cast a shadow; all things interchanged a little light. Every growing thing showed me, by its shape and colour, its indwellingidea--the informing thought, that is, which was its being, and sent itout. My bare feet seemed to love every plant they trod upon. The worldand my being, its life and mine, were one. The microcosm and macrocosmwere at length atoned, at length in harmony! I lived in everything;everything entered and lived in me. To be aware of a thing, was to knowits life at once and mine, to know whence we came, and where we were athome--was to know that we are all what we are, because Another is whathe is! Sense after sense, hitherto asleep, awoke in me--sense aftersense indescribable, because no correspondent words, no likenesses orimaginations exist, wherewithal to describe them. Full indeed--yet everexpanding, ever making room to receive--was the conscious being wherethings kept entering by so many open doors! When a little breezebrushing a bush of heather set its purple bells a ringing, I was myselfin the joy of the bells, myself in the joy of the breeze to whichresponded their sweet TIN-TINNING**, myself in the joy of the sense, andof the soul that received all the joys together. To everything glad Ilent the hall of my being wherein to revel. I was a peaceful oceanupon which the ground-swell of a living joy was continually lifting newwaves; yet was the joy ever the same joy, the eternal joy, with tens ofthousands of changing forms. Life was a cosmic holiday. 

Now I knew that life and truth were one; that life mere and pure isin itself bliss; that where being is not bliss, it is not life, butlife-in-death. Every inspiration of the dark wind that blew where itlisted, went out a sigh of thanksgiving. At last I was! I lived, andnothing could touch my life! My darling walked beside me, and we were onour way home to the Father!

So much was ours ere ever the first sun rose upon our freedom: what mustnot the eternal day bring with it!

We came to the fearful hollow where once had wallowed the monsters ofthe earth: it was indeed, as I had beheld it in my dream, a lovely lake. I gazed into its pellucid depths. A whirlpool had swept out the soil inwhich the abortions burrowed, and at the bottom lay visible the wholehorrid brood: a dim greenish light pervaded the crystalline water, andrevealed every hideous form beneath it. Coiled in spires, folded inlayers, knotted on themselves, or "extended long and large, " theyweltered in motionless heaps--shapes more fantastic in ghoulish, blasting dismay, than ever wine-sodden brain of exhausted poet feveredinto misbeing. He who dived in the swirling Maelstrom saw none tocompare with them in horror: tentacular convolutions, tumid bulges, glaring orbs of sepian deformity, would have looked to him innocencebeside such incarnations of hatefulness--every head the wickedflower that, bursting from an abominable stalk, perfected its evilsignificance. 

Not one of them moved as we passed. But they were not dead. So long asexist men and women of unwholesome mind, that lake will still be peopledwith loathsomenesses. 

But hark the herald of the sun, the auroral wind, softly trumpetinghis approach! The master-minister of the human tabernacle is at hand!Heaping before his prow a huge ripple-fretted wave of crimson and gold, he rushes aloft, as if new launched from the urging hand of his makerinto the upper sea--pauses, and looks down on the world. White-ravingstorm of molten metals, he is but a coal from the altar of the Father'snever-ending sacrifice to his children. See every little flowerstraighten its stalk, lift up its neck, and with outstretched headstand expectant: something more than the sun, greater than the light, iscoming, is coming--none the less surely coming that it is long upon theroad! What matters to-day, or to-morrow, or ten thousand years to Lifehimself, to Love himself! He is coming, is coming, and the necks of allhumanity are stretched out to see him come! Every morning will they thusoutstretch themselves, every evening will they droop and wait--until hecomes. --Is this but an air-drawn vision? When he comes, will he indeedfind them watching thus?

It was a glorious resurrection-morning. The night had been spent inpreparing it!

The children went gamboling before, and the beasts came after us. Fluttering butterflies, darting dragon-flies hovered or shot hither andthither about our heads, a cloud of colours and flashes, now descendingupon us like a snow-storm of rainbow flakes, now rising into the humidair like a rolling vapour of embodied odours. It was a summer-day morelike itself, that is, more ideal, than ever man that had not diedfound summer-day in any world. I walked on the new earth, under the newheaven, and found them the same as the old, save that now they openedtheir minds to me, and I saw into them. Now, the soul of everything Imet came out to greet me and make friends with me, telling me we camefrom the same, and meant the same. I was going to him, they said, withwhom they always were, and whom they always meant; they were, they said, lightnings that took shape as they flashed from him to his. The darkrocks drank like sponges the rays that showered upon them; the greatworld soaked up the light, and sent out the living. Two joy-fires wereLona and I. Earth breathed heavenward her sweet-savoured smoke; webreathed homeward our longing desires. For thanksgiving, our veryconsciousness was that. 

We came to the channels, once so dry and wearyful: they ran and flashedand foamed with living water that shouted in its gladness! Far as theeye could see, all was a rushing, roaring, dashing river of water madevocal by its rocks. 

We did not cross it, but "walked in glory and in joy" up its right bank, until we reached the great cataract at the foot of the sandy desert, where, roaring and swirling and dropping sheer, the river divided intoits two branches. There we climbed the height--and found no desert:through grassy plains, between grassy banks, flowed the deep, wide, silent river full to the brim. Then first to the Little Ones wasrevealed the glory of God in the limpid flow of water. Instinctivelythey plunged and swam, and the beasts followed them. 

The desert rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. Wide forests had sprungup, their whole undergrowth flowering shrubs peopled with song-birds. Every thicket gave birth to a rivulet, and every rivulet to itswater-song. 

The place of the buried hand gave no sign. Beyond and still beyond, theriver came in full volume from afar. Up and up we went, now along grassymargin, and now through forest of gracious trees. The grass grew sweeterand its flowers more lovely and various as we went; the trees grewlarger, and the wind fuller of messages. 

We came at length to a forest whose trees were greater, grander, andmore beautiful than any we had yet seen. Their live pillars upheaved athick embowed roof, betwixt whose leaves and blossoms hardly a sunbeamfiltered. Into the rafters of this aerial vault the children climbed, and through them went scrambling and leaping in a land of bloom, shouting to the unseen elephants below, and hearing them trumpet theirreplies. The conversations between them Lona understood while I butguessed at them blunderingly. The Little Ones chased the squirrels, and the squirrels, frolicking, drew them on--always at length allowingthemselves to be caught and petted. Often would some bird, lovelyin plumage and form, light upon one of them, sing a song of what wascoming, and fly away. Not one monkey of any sort could they see. 

CHAPTER XLVI. THE CITY

Lona and I, who walked below, heard at last a great shout overhead, andin a moment or two the Little Ones began to come dropping down from thefoliage with the news that, climbing to the top of a tree yet tallerthan the rest, they had descried, far across the plain, a curioussomething on the side of a solitary mountain--which mountain, they said, rose and rose, until the sky gathered thick to keep it down, and knockedits top off. 

"It may be a city, " they said, "but it is not at all like Bulika. "

I went up to look, and saw a great city, ascending into blue clouds, where I could not distinguish mountain from sky and cloud, or rocks fromdwellings. Cloud and mountain and sky, palace and precipice mingled in aseeming chaos of broken shadow and shine. 

I descended, the Little Ones came with me, and together we sped onfaster. They grew yet merrier as they went, leading the way, and neverlooking behind them. The river grew lovelier and lovelier, until I knewthat never before had I seen real water. Nothing in this world is morethan LIKE it. 

By and by we could from the plain see the city among the blue clouds. But other clouds were gathering around a lofty tower--or was it arock?--that stood above the city, nearer the crest of the mountain. Gray, and dark gray, and purple, they writhed in confused, contrariantmotions, and tossed up a vaporous foam, while spots in them gyrated likewhirlpools. At length issued a dazzling flash, which seemed for amoment to play about the Little Ones in front of us. Blinding darknessfollowed, but through it we heard their voices, low with delight. 

"Did you see?"

"I saw. "

"What did you see?"

"The beautifullest man. "

"I heard him speak!"

"I didn't: what did he say?"

Here answered the smallest and most childish of the voices--that ofLuva:--

"He said, ''Ou's all mine's, 'ickle ones: come along!'"

I had seen the lightning, but heard no words; Lona saw and heard withthe children. A second flash came, and my eyes, though not my ears, were opened. The great quivering light was compact of angel-faces. Theylamped themselves visible, and vanished. 

A third flash came; its substance and radiance were human. 

"I see my mother!" I cried. 

"I see lots o' mothers!" said Luva. 

Once more the cloud flashed--all kinds of creatures--horses andelephants, lions and dogs--oh, such beasts! And such birds!--great birdswhose wings gleamed singly every colour gathered in sunset or rainbow!little birds whose feathers sparkled as with all the precious stonesof the hoarding earth!--silvery cranes; red flamingoes; opal pigeons;peacocks gorgeous in gold and green and blue; jewelly hummingbirds!--great-winged butterflies; lithe-volumed creeping things--all inone heavenly flash!

"I see that serpents grow birds here, as caterpillars used to growbutterflies!" remarked Lona. 

"I saw my white pony, that died when I was a child. --I needn't have beenso sorry; I should just have waited!" I said. 

Thunder, clap or roll, there had been none. And now came a sweet rain, filling the atmosphere with a caressing coolness. We breathed deep, andstepped out with stronger strides. The falling drops flashed the coloursof all the waked up gems of the earth, and a mighty rainbow spanned thecity. 

The blue clouds gathered thicker; the rain fell in torrents; thechildren exulted and ran; it was all we could do to keep them in sight. 

With silent, radiant roll, the river swept onward, filling to the marginits smooth, soft, yielding channel. For, instead of rock or shingle orsand, it flowed over grass in which grew primroses and daisies, crocusesand narcissi, pimpernels and anemones, a starry multitude, large andbright through the brilliant water. The river had gathered no turbidcloudiness from the rain, not even a tinge of yellow or brown; thedelicate mass shone with the pale berylline gleam that ascended from itsdeep, dainty bed. 

Drawing nearer to the mountain, we saw that the river came from its verypeak, and rushed in full volume through the main street of the city. It descended to the gate by a stair of deep and wide steps, mingled ofporphyry and serpentine, which continued to the foot of the mountain. There arriving we found shallower steps on both banks, leading up tothe gate, and along the ascending street. Without the briefest halt, theLittle Ones ran straight up the stair to the gate, which stood open. 

Outside, on the landing, sat the portress, a woman-angel of dark visage, leaning her shadowed brow on her idle hand. The children rushed uponher, covering her with caresses, and ere she understood, they had takenheaven by surprise, and were already in the city, still mounting thestair by the side of the descending torrent. A great angel, attendedby a company of shining ones, came down to meet and receive them, butmerrily evading them all, up still they ran. In merry dance, however, a group of woman-angels descended upon them, and in a moment they werefettered in heavenly arms. The radiants carried them away, and I sawthem no more. 

"Ah!" said the mighty angel, continuing his descent to meet us who werenow almost at the gate and within hearing of his words, "this is well!these are soldiers to take heaven itself by storm!--I hear of a horde ofblack bats on the frontiers: these will make short work with such!"

Seeing the horse and the elephants clambering up behind us--

"Take those animals to the royal stables, " he added; "there tend them;then turn them into the king's forest. "

"Welcome home!" he said to us, bending low with the sweetest smile. 

Immediately he turned and led the way higher. The scales of his armourflashed like flakes of lightning. 

Thought cannot form itself to tell what I felt, thus received by theofficers of heaven***. All I wanted and knew not, must be on its way tome!

We stood for a moment at the gate whence issued roaring the radiantriver. I know not whence came the stones that fashioned it, but amongthem I saw the prototypes of all the gems I had loved on earth--far morebeautiful than they, for these were living stones--such in which I saw, not the intent alone, but the intender too; not the idea alone, but theimbodier present, the operant outsender: nothing in this kingdom wasdead; nothing was mere; nothing only a thing. 

We went up through the city and passed out. There was no wall on theupper side, but a huge pile of broken rocks, upsloping like the moraineof an eternal glacier; and through the openings between the rocks, theriver came billowing out. On their top I could dimly discern what seemedthree or four great steps of a stair, disappearing in a cloud white assnow; and above the steps I saw, but with my mind's eye only, as it werea grand old chair, the throne of the Ancient of Days. Over and under andbetween those steps issued, plenteously, unceasingly new-born, the riverof the water of life. 

The great angel could guide us no farther: those rocks we must ascendalone!

My heart beating with hope and desire, I held faster the hand of myLona, and we began to climb; but soon we let each other go, to use handsas well as feet in the toilsome ascent of the huge stones. At lengthwe drew near the cloud, which hung down the steps like the borders of agarment, passed through the fringe, and entered the deep folds. A hand, warm and strong, laid hold of mine, and drew me to a little door with agolden lock. The door opened; the hand let mine go, and pushed me gentlythrough. I turned quickly, and saw the board of a large book in the actof closing behind me. I stood alone in my library. 

CHAPTER XLVII. THE "ENDLESS ENDING"

As yet I have not found Lona, but Mara is much with me. She has taughtme many things, and is teaching me more. 

Can it be that that last waking also was in the dream? that I am stillin the chamber of death, asleep and dreaming, not yet ripe enough towake? Or can it be that I did not go to sleep outright and heartily, and so have come awake too soon? If that waking was itself but a dream, surely it was a dream of a better waking yet to come, and I have notbeen the sport of a false vision! Such a dream must have yet loveliertruth at the heart of its dreaming!

In moments of doubt I cry, "Could God Himself create such lovely things as I dreamed?"

"Whence then came thy dream?" answers Hope. 

"Out of my dark self, into the light of my consciousness. "

"But whence first into thy dark self?" rejoins Hope. 

"My brain was its mother, and the fever in my blood its father. "

"Say rather, " suggests Hope, "thy brain was the violin whence it issued, and the fever in thy blood the bow that drew it forth. --But who madethe violin? and who guided the bow across its strings? Say rather, again--who set the song birds each on its bough in the tree of life, andstartled each in its order from its perch? Whence came the fantasia? andwhence the life that danced thereto? Didst THOU say, in the dark of thyown unconscious self, 'Let beauty be; let truth seem!' and straightwaybeauty was, and truth but seemed?"

Man dreams and desires; God broods and wills and quickens. 

When a man dreams his own dream, he is the sport of his dream; whenAnother gives it him, that Other is able to fulfil it. 

I have never again sought the mirror. The hand sent me back: I will notgo out again by that door! "All the days of my appointed time will Iwait till my change come. "

Now and then, when I look round on my books, they seem to waver as ifa wind rippled their solid mass, and another world were about to breakthrough. Sometimes when I am abroad, a like thing takes place; theheavens and the earth, the trees and the grass appear for a moment toshake as if about to pass away; then, lo, they have settled again intothe old familiar face! At times I seem to hear whisperings around me, asif some that loved me were talking of me; but when I would distinguishthe words, they cease, and all is very still. I know not whether thesethings rise in my brain, or enter it from without. I do not seek them;they come, and I let them go. 

Strange dim memories, which will not abide identification, often, through misty windows of the past, look out upon me in the broaddaylight, but I never dream now. It may be, notwithstanding, that, whenmost awake, I am only dreaming the more! But when I wake at last intothat life which, as a mother her child, carries this life in its bosom, I shall know that I wake, and shall doubt no more. 

I wait; asleep or awake, I wait. 

Novalis says, "Our life is no dream, but it should and will perhapsbecome one. "

 *Chapter 42: William Law. 

 **Chapter 45: Tin tin sonando con sì dolce nota Che 'l ben disposto spirito d' amor turge. DEL PARADISO, x. 142. 

 ***Chapter 46: Oma' vedrai di sì fatti uficiali. Del Purgatorio, ii. 30.