when he came to himself, it was full daylight. his head was resting on some one’s knee,—some one was sprinkling cold water on his face and talking to him in an incoherent mingling of arabic and english,—who was that some one? féraz? yes!—surely it was féraz! opening his eyes languidly, he stared about him and attempted to rise.
“what is the matter?” he asked faintly. “what are you doing to me? i am quite well, am i not?”
“yes, yes!” cried féraz eagerly, delighted to hear him speak.—“you are well,—it was a swoon that seized you—nothing more! but i was anxious,—i found you here insensible——”
with an effort el-râmi rose to his feet, steadying himself on his brother’s arm.
“insensible!” he repeated vaguely.—“insensible!—that is strange!—i must have been very weak and tired—and overpowered. but,—where is he?”
“if you mean the master,” said féraz, lowering his voice to an almost awe-stricken whisper—“he has gone, and left no trace,—save that sealed paper there upon your table.”
el-râmi shook himself free of his brother’s hold and hurried forward to possess himself of the indicated missive,—seizing it, he tore it quickly open,—it contained but one line—“beware the end! with lilith’s love comes lilith’s freedom.”
that was all. he read it again and again—then deliberately striking a match, he set fire to it and burnt it to ashes. a rapid glance round showed him that the manuscripts concerning neptune and sirius were gone,—the mysterious monk had evidently taken them with him as desired. then he turned again to his brother.
“when could he have gone?” he demanded.—“did you not hear the street-door open and shut?—no sound at all of his departure?”
féraz shook his head.
“i slept heavily,” he said apologetically. “but in my dreams it seemed as though a hand touched me, and i awoke. the sun was shining brilliantly—some one called ‘féraz! féraz!’—i thought it was your voice, and i hurried into the room to find you, as i thought, dead,—oh! the horror of that moment of suspense!”
el-râmi looked at him kindly, and smiled.
“why feel horror, my dear boy?” he inquired.—“death—or what we call death,—is the best possible fortune for everybody. even if there were no afterwards, it would still be an end—an end of trouble and tedium and infinite uncertainty. could anything be happier?—i doubt it!”
and, sighing, he threw himself into his chair with an air of exhaustion. féraz stood a little apart, gazing at him somewhat wistfully—then he spoke—
“i too have thought that, el-râmi,” he said softly.—“as to whether this end, which the world and all men dread, might not be the best thing? and yet my own personal sensations tell me that life means something good for me if i only learn how best to live it.”
“youth, my dear fellow!” said el-râmi lightly. “delicious youth,—which you share in common with the scampering colt who imagines all the meadows of the world were made for him to race upon. this is the potent charm which persuades you that life is agreeable. but unfortunately it will pass,—this rosy morning-glory. and the older you grow the wiser and the sadder you will be,—i, your brother, am an excellent example of the truth of this platitude.”
“you are not old,” replied féraz quickly. “but certainly you are often sad. you overwork your brain. for example, last night of course you did not sleep—will you sleep now?”
“no—i will breakfast,” said el-râmi, rousing himself to seem cheerful.—“a good cup of coffee is one of the boons of existence—and no one can make it as you do. it will put the finishing touch to my complete recovery.”
féraz took this hint, and hastened off to prepare the desired beverage,—while el-râmi, left alone, sat for a few moments wrapped in a deep reverie. his thoughts reverted to and dwelt upon the strange and glorious figure he had seen standing in that very room between him and the monk,—he wondered doubtfully if such a celestial visitant were anywhere near him now? shaking off the fantastic impression, he got up and walked to and fro.
“what a fool i am!” he exclaimed half aloud—“as if my eyes could not be as much deluded for once in a way as the eyes of any one else! it was a strange shape,—a marvellously divine-looking apparition;—but he evolved it—he is as great a master in the art of creating phantasma as moses himself, and could, if he chose, make thunder echo at his will on another mount sinai. upon my word, the things that men can do are as wonderful as the things that they would fain attempt; and the only miraculous part of this particular man’s force is that he should have overpowered me, seeing i am so strong. and then one other marvel—(if it be true),—he could see the soul of lilith.”
here he came to a full stop in his walk, and with his eyes fixed on vacancy he repeated musingly—
“he could see the soul of lilith. if that is so—if that is possible, then i will see it too, if i die in the attempt. to see the soul—to look upon it and know its form—to discern the manner of its organisation, would surely be to prove it. sight can be deceived, we know—we look upon a star (or think we look upon it), that may have disappeared some thirty thousand years ago, as it takes thirty thousand years for its reflex to reach us—all that is true—but there are ways of guarding against deception.”
he had now struck upon a new line of thought,—ideas more daring than he had ever yet conceived began to flit through his brain,—and when féraz came in with the breakfast he partook of that meal with avidity and relish, his excellent appetite entirely reassuring his brother with regard to his health.
“you are right, féraz,” he said, as he sipped his coffee.—“life can be made enjoyable after a fashion, no doubt. but the best way to get enjoyment out of it is to be always at work—always putting a brick in to help the universal architecture.”
féraz was silent. el-râmi looked at him inquisitively.
“don’t you agree with me?” he asked.
“no—not entirely”—and féraz pushed the clustering hair off his brow with a slightly troubled gesture.—“work may become as monotonous and wearisome as anything else if we have too much of it. if we are always working—that is, if we are always obtruding ourselves into affairs and thinking they cannot get on without us, we make an obstruction in the way, i think—we are not a help. besides, we leave ourselves no time to absorb suggestions, and i fancy a great deal is learned by simply keeping the brain quiet and absorbing light.”
“‘absorbing light’?” queried his brother perplexedly—“what do you mean?”
“well, it is difficult to explain my meaning,” said féraz with hesitation—“but yet i feel there is truth in what i try to express. you see, everything absorbs something, and you will assuredly admit that the brain absorbs certain impressions?”
“of course,—but impressions are not ‘light’?”
“are they not? not even the effects of light? then what is the art of photography? however, i do not speak of the impressions received from our merely external surroundings. if you can relieve the brain from conscious thought,—if you have the power to shake off outward suggestions and be willing to think of nothing personal, your brain will receive impressions which are to some extent new, and with which you actually have very little connection. it is strange,—but it is so;—you become obediently receptive, and perhaps wonder where your ideas come from. i say they are the result of light. light can use up immense periods of time in travelling from a far distant star into our area of vision, and yet at last we see it,—shall not god’s inspiration travel at a far swifter pace than star-beams, and reach the human brain as surely? this thought has often startled me,—it has filled me with an almost apprehensive awe,—the capabilities it opens up are so immense and wonderful. even a man can suggest ideas to his fellow-man and cause them to germinate in the mind and blossom into action,—how can we deny to god the power to do the same? and so,—imagine it!—the first strain of the glorious tannhäuser may have been played on the harps of heaven, and rolling sweetly through infinite space may have touched in fine far echoes the brain of the musician who afterwards gave it form and utterance—ah yes!—i would love to think it were so!—i would love to think that nothing,—nothing is truly ours; but that all the marvels of poetry, of song, of art, of colour, of beauty, were only the echoes and distant impressions of that eternal grandeur which comes hereafter!”
his eyes flashed with all a poet’s enthusiasm,—he rose from the table and paced the room excitedly, while his brother, sitting silent, watched him meditatively.
“el-râmi, you have no idea,” he continued—“of the wonders and delights of the land i call my star! you think it is a dream—an unexplained portion of a splendid trance,—and i am now fully aware of what i owe to your magnetic influence,—your forceful spell that rests upon my life;—but see you!—when i am alone—quite, quite alone, when you are absent from me, when you are not influencing me, it is then i see the landscapes best,—it is then i hear my people sing! i let my brain rest;—as far as it is possible, i think of nothing,—then suddenly upon me falls the ravishment and ecstasy,—this world rolls up as it were in a whirling cloud and vanishes, and lo! i find myself at home. there is a stretch of forest-land in this star of mine,—a place all dusky green with shadows, and musical with the fall of silvery waters,—that is my favourite haunt when i am there, for it leads me on and on through grasses and tangles of wild flowers to what i know and feel must be my own abode, where i should rest and sleep if sleep were needful; but this abode i never reach; i am debarred from entering in, and i do not know the reason why. the other day, when wandering there, i met two maidens bearing flowers,—they stopped, regarding me with pleased yet doubting eyes, and one said—‘look you, our lord is now returned!’ and the other sighed and answered—‘nay! he is still an exile and may not stay with us.’ whereupon they bent their heads, and, shrinking past me, disappeared. when i would have called them back i woke!—to find that this dull earth was once again my house of bondage.”
el-râmi heard him with patient interest.
“i do not deny, féraz,” he said slowly, “that your impressions are very strange——”
“very strange? yes!” cried féraz. “but very true!”
he paused—then on a sudden impulse came close up to his brother, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“and do you mean to tell me,” he asked, “that you who have studied so much, and have mastered so much, yet receive no such impressions as those i speak of?”
a faint flush coloured el-râmi’s olive skin.
“certain impressions come to me at times, of course,” he answered slowly.—“and there have been certain seasons in my life when i have had visions of the impossible. but i have a coldly-tempered organisation, féraz,—i am able to reason these things away.”
“oh, you can reason the whole world away if you choose,” said féraz.—“for it is nothing after all but a pinch of star-dust.”
“if you can reason a thing away it does not exist,” observed el-râmi drily.—“reduce the world, as you say, to a pinch of star-dust, still the pinch of star-dust is there—it exists.”
“some people doubt even that!” said féraz, smiling.
“well, everything can be over-done,” replied his brother,—“even the process of reasoning. we can, if we choose, ‘reason’ ourselves into madness. there is a boundary-line to every science which the human intellect dare not overstep.”
“i wonder what and where is your boundary-line?” questioned féraz lightly.—“have you laid one down for yourself at all? surely not!—for you are too ambitious.”
el-râmi made no answer to this observation, but betook himself to his books and papers. féraz meanwhile set the room in order and cleared away the breakfast,—and, these duties done, he quietly withdrew. left to himself, el-râmi took from the centre drawer of his writing-table a medium-sized manuscript book which was locked, and which he opened by means of a small key that was attached to his watch-chain, and bending over the title-page he critically examined it. its heading ran thus—
the new religion
a reasonable theory of worship conformable to the eternal and unalterable laws of nature.
“the title does not cover all the ground,” he murmured as he read.—“and yet how am i to designate it? it is a vast subject, and presents different branches of treatment, and, after all said and done, i may have wasted my time in planning it. most likely i have,—but there is no scientist living who would refuse to accept it. the question is, shall i ever finish it?—shall i ever know positively that there is, without doubt, a conscious, personal something or some one after death who enters at once upon another existence? my new experiment will decide all—if i see the soul of lilith, all hesitation will be at an end—i shall be sure of everything which now seems uncertain. and then the triumph!—then the victory!”
his eyes sparkled, and, dipping his pen in the ink, he prepared to write, but ere he did so the message which the monk had left for him to read recurred with a chill warning to his memory,—
“beware the end! with lilith’s love comes lilith’s freedom.”
he considered the words for a moment apprehensively,—and then a proud smile played round his mouth.
“for a master who has attained to some degree of wisdom, his intuition is strangely erroneous this time,” he muttered. “for if there be any dream of love in lilith, that dream, that love is mine! and being mine, who shall dispute possession,—who shall take her from me? no one,—not even god,—for he does not break through the laws of nature. and by those laws i have kept lilith—and even so i will keep her still.”
satisfied with his own conclusions, he began to write, taking up the thread of his theory of religion where he had left it on the previous day. he had a brilliant and convincing style, and was soon deep in an elaborate and eloquent disquisition on the superior scientific reasoning contained in the ancient eastern faiths, as compared with the modern scheme of christianity, which limits god’s power to this world only, and takes no consideration of the fate of other visible and far more splendid spheres.
