deep silence followed his invocation,—a silence he seemed to expect and be prepared for. looking at a silver timepiece on a bracket above the couch, he mentally counted slowly a hundred beats,—then pressing the fragile wrist he held still more firmly between his fingers, he touched with his other hand the girl’s brow, just above her closed eyes. a faint quiver ran through the delicate body,—he quickly drew back and spoke again.
“lilith! where are you?”
the sweet lips parted, and a voice soft as whispered music responded—
“i am here!”
“is all well with you?”
“all is well!”
and a smile irradiated the fair face with such a light as to suggest that the eyes must have opened,—but no!—they were fast shut.
el-râmi resumed his strange interrogation.
“lilith! what do you see?”
there was a moment’s pause,—then came the slow response—
“many things,—things beautiful and wonderful. but you are not among them. i hear your voice and i obey it, but i cannot see you—i have never seen you.”
el-râmi sighed, and pressed more closely the soft small hand within his own.
“where have you been?”
“where my pleasure led me”—came the answer in a sleepy yet joyous tone—“my pleasure and—your will.”
el-râmi started, but immediately controlled himself, for lilith stirred and threw her other arm indolently behind her head, leaving the great ruby on her breast flashingly exposed to view.
“away, away, far, far away!” she said, and her accents sounded like subdued singing—“beyond,—in those regions whither i was sent—beyond——” her voice stopped and trailed off into drowsy murmurings—“beyond—sirius—i saw——”
she ceased, and smiled—some happy thought seemed to have rendered her mute.
el-râmi waited a moment, then took up her broken speech.
“far beyond sirius you saw—what?”
moving, she pillowed her cheek upon her hand, and turned more fully round towards him.
“i saw a bright new world,”—she said, now speaking quite clearly and connectedly—“a royal world of worlds; an undiscovered star. there were giant oceans in it,—the noise of many waters was heard throughout the land,—and there were great cities marvellously built upon the sea. i saw their pinnacles of white and gold—spires of coral, and gates that were studded with pearl,—flags waved and music sounded, and two great suns gave double light from heaven. i saw many thousands of people—they were beautiful and happy—they sang and danced and gave thanks in the everlasting sunshine, and knelt in crowds upon their wide and fruitful fields to thank the giver of life immortal.”
“life immortal!” repeated el-râmi,—“do not these people die, even as we?”
a pained look, as of wonder or regret, knitted the girl’s fair brows.
“there is no death—neither here nor there”—she said steadily—“i have told you this so often, yet you will not believe. always you bid me seek for death,—i have looked, but cannot find it.”
she sighed, and el-râmi echoed the sigh.
“i wish”—and her accents sounded plaintively—“i wish that i could see you! there is some cloud between us. i hear your voice and i obey it, but i cannot see who it is that calls me.”
el-râmi paid no heed to these dove-like murmurings,—moreover, he seemed to have no eyes for the wondrous beauty of the creature who lay thus tranced and in his power,—set on his one object, the attainment of a supernatural knowledge, he looked as pitiless and impervious to all charm as any grand inquisitor of old spain.
“speak of yourself and not of me”—he said authoritatively, “how can you say there is no death?”
“i speak truth. there is none.”
“not even here?”
“not anywhere.”
“o daughter of vision, where are the eyes of your spirit?” demanded el-râmi angrily—“search again and see! why should all nature arm itself against death if there be no death?”
“you are harsh,”—said lilith sorrowfully—“should i tell you what is not true? if i would, i cannot. there is no death—there is only change. beyond sirius, they sleep.”
el-râmi waited; but she had paused again.
“go on”—he said—“they sleep—why and when?”
“when they are weary”—responded lilith. “when all is done that they can do, and when they need rest, they sleep, and in their sleep they change;—the change is——”
she ceased.
“the change is death,” said el-râmi positively,—“for death is everywhere.”
“not so!” replied lilith quickly, and in a ringing tone of clarion-like sweetness. “the change is life,—for life is everywhere!”
there ensued a silence. the girl turned away, and, bringing her hand slowly down from behind her head, laid it again upon her breast over the burning ruby gem. el-râmi bent above her closely.
“you are dreaming, lilith,”—he said as though he would force her to own something against her will. “you speak unwisely and at random.”
still silence.
“lilith!—lilith!” he called.
no answer;—only the lovely tints of her complexion, the smile on her lips, and the tranquil heaving of her rounded bosom indicated that she lived.
“gone!” and el-râmi’s brow clouded; he laid back the little hand he held in its former position and looked at the girl long and steadily—“and so firm in her assertion!—as foolish an assertion as any of the fancies of féraz. no death? nay—as well say no life. she has not fathomed the secret of our passing hence; no, not though her flight has outreached the realm of sirius.
“‘but that the dread of something after death,
the undiscovered country from whose bourne
no traveller returns, puzzles the will.’
ay, puzzles the will and confounds it! but must i be baffled then?—or is it my own fault that i cannot believe? is it truly her spirit that speaks to me?—or is it my own brain acting upon hers in a state of trance? if it be the latter, why should she declare things that i never dream of, and which my reason does not accept as possible? and if it is indeed her soul, or the ethereal essence of her that thus soars at periodic intervals of liberty into the unseen, how is it that she never comprehends death or pain? is her vision limited only to behold harmonious systems moving to a sound of joy?”
and, seized by a sudden resolution, he caught both the hands of the tranced girl and held them in his own, the while he fixed his eyes upon her quiet face with a glance that seemed to shoot forth flame.
“lilith! lilith! by the force of my will and mastery over thy life, i bid thee return to me! o flitting spirit, ever bent on errands of pleasure, reveal to me the secrets of pain! come back, lilith! i call thee—come!”
a violent shudder shook the beautiful reposeful figure,—the smile faded from her lips, and she heaved a profound sigh.
“i am here!”
“listen to my bidding!” said el-râmi, in measured accents that sounded almost cruel. “as you have soared to heights ineffable, even so descend to lowest depths of desolation! understand and seek out sorrow,—pierce to the root of suffering, explain the cause of unavailing agony! these things exist. here in this planet of which you know nothing save my voice,—here, if nowhere else in the wide universe, we gain our bread with bitterness and drink our wine with tears. solve me the mystery of pain,—of injustice,—of an innocent child’s anguish on its death-bed,—ay! though you tell me there is no death!—of a good man’s ruin,—of an evil woman’s triumph,—of despair,—of self-slaughter,—of all the horrors upon horrors piled, which make up this world’s present life. listen, o too ecstatic and believing spirit!—we have a legend here that a god lives—a wise all-loving god,—and he, this wise and loving one, has out of his great bounty invented for the torture of his creatures,—hell! find out this hell, lilith!—prove it!—bring the plan of its existence back to me. go,—bring me news of devils,—and suffer, if spirits can suffer, in the unmitigated sufferings of others! take my command and go hence, find out god’s hell!—so shall we afterwards know the worth of heaven!”
he spoke rapidly,—impetuously,—passionately;—and now he allowed the girl’s hands to fall suddenly from his clasp. she moaned a little,—and, instead of folding them one over the other as before, raised them palm to palm in an attitude of prayer. the colour faded entirely from her face,—but an expression of the calmest, grandest wisdom, serenity, and compassion came over her features as of a saint prepared for martyrdom. her breathing grew fainter and fainter till it was scarcely perceptible,—and her lips parted in a short sobbing sigh,—then they moved and whispered something. el-râmi stooped over her more closely.
“what is it?” he asked eagerly—“what did you say?”
“nothing, ... only ... farewell!” and the faint tone stirred the silence like the last sad echo of a song—“and yet ... once more ... farewell!”
he drew back, and observed her intently. she now looked like a recumbent statue, with those upraised hands of hers so white and small and delicate,—and el-râmi remembered that he must keep the machine of the body living, if he desired to receive through its medium the messages of the spirit. taking a small phial from his breast, together with the necessary surgeon’s instrument used for such purposes, he pricked the rounded arm nearest to him, and carefully injected into the veins a small quantity of a strange sparkling fluid which gave out a curiously sweet and pungent odour;—as he did this, the lifted hands fell gently into their original position, crossed over the ruby star. the breathing grew steadier and lighter,—the lips took fresh colour,—and el-râmi watched the effect with absorbed interest and attention.
“one might surely preserve her body so for ever,” he mused half aloud. “the tissues renewed,—the blood reorganised,—the whole system completely nourished with absolute purity; and not a morsel of what is considered food, which contains so much organic mischief, allowed to enter that exquisitely beautiful mechanism, which exhales all waste upon the air through the pores of the skin as naturally as a flower exhales perfume through its leaves. a wonderful discovery!—if all men knew it, would not they deem themselves truly immortal, even here? but the trial is not over yet,—the experiment is not perfect. six years has she lived thus, but who can say whether indeed death has no power over her? in those six years she has changed,—she has grown from childhood to womanhood,—does not change imply age?—and age suggest death, in spite of all science? o inexorable death!—i will pluck its secret out if i die in the effort!”
he turned away from the couch,—then seemed struck by a new idea.
“if i die, did i say? but can i die? is her spirit right? is my reasoning wrong? is there no pause anywhere?—no cessation of thought?—no end to the insatiability of ambition? must we plan and work and live—for ever?”
a shudder ran through him,—the notion of his own perpetuity appalled him. passing a long mirror framed in antique silver, he caught sight of himself in it,—his dark handsome face, rendered darker by the contrasting whiteness of his hair,—his full black eyes,—his fine but disdainful mouth,—all looked back at him with the scornful reflex of his own scornful regard.
he laughed a little bitterly.
“there you are, el-râmi-zarânos!” he murmured half aloud. “scoffer and scientist,—master of a few common magnetic secrets such as the priests of ancient egypt made sport of, though in these modern days of ‘culture’ they are sufficient to make most men your tools! what now? is there no rest for the inner calculations of your mind? plan and work and live for ever? well, why not? could i fathom the secrets of thousand universes, would that suffice me? no! i should seek for the solving of a thousand more!”
he gave a parting glance round the room,—at the fair tranced form on the couch, at the placid zaroba slumbering in a corner, at the whole effect of the sumptuous apartment, with its purple and gold, its roses, its crystal and ivory adornments,—then he passed out, drawing to the velvet curtains noiselessly behind him. in the small ante-room, he took up the slate and wrote upon it—
“i shall not return hither for forty-eight hours. during this interval admit as much full daylight as possible. observe the strictest silence, and do not touch her.
“el-râmi.”
having thus set down his instructions he descended the stairs to his own room, where, extinguishing the electric light, he threw himself on his hard camp-bedstead and was soon sound asleep.
