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Idolatry - A Romance, a novel by Julian Hawthorne |
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Chapter 33. The Black Cloud |
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_ CHAPTER XXXIII. "Hiero,--it was his voice!" said Gnulemah. She looked in her lover's face, trusting to his wisdom and strength. She rested her courage on his, but her eyes stirred him like a trumpet-call. The burden of that cry had been calamity. Love is protean, makes but a step from dalliance to grandeur. Balder, no longer a sentimental bridegroom, stood forth ready, brief, energetic,--but more a lover than before! The voice had at the first moment sounded startlingly clear, then it had seemed distant and muffled. As Helwyse swiftly skirted the granite wall of the temple, his mind was busy with conjecture; but he failed to hit upon any reasonable explanation. The cry had come from the direction of the temple, and had he known of the existence of the apertures through the masonry, he might partly have solved the mystery. As it was, he thought only of getting inside, feeling sure that, explainably or not, Manetho must be there. In the oaken hall he met Nurse, who had also heard the cry, but knew not whence it proceeded. "In the temple, I think," said Helwyse, answering her agitated gesture. The clew was sufficient; she sped along towards the door whence she had so lately fled panic-stricken, Helwyse following. Beneath the solemn excitement and perplexity, lay warm and secure in his heart the thought of Gnulemah,--his wife. Blessed thought! which the whips and scorns of time should make but more tenderly dear and precious. As he breathed the incense-laden air of the temple, Balder's face grew stern. At each step he thought to see death in some ghastly form. In the joy of this his marriage night he had wished all the world might have rejoiced with him; but already was calamity abroad. Birth and death, love and hate, happiness and woe, are borne on every human breath, and mingled with daily meat and drink. So be it!--They were parodies of humanity who should live on a purer diet or inhale a rarer atmosphere. All the lights in the great hall, except the altar lamp, were burnt out, and the place was very dusky. Nurse went straight towards the secret door, looking neither to the right nor left; while Helwyse, who did not suspect its existence, was prying into each dark nook and corner. An inarticulate exclamation from the woman arrested him. She was standing behind the altar, close to the clock. As he approached she pointed to the wall. She had found the key in the lock, but dared not be first to brave the sight of what might be within. She appealed to the strength of the man, yet with a morbid jealousy of his precedence. Helywse saw the key, and, turning it, the seeming-solid wall disclosed a door, opening outwards, a single slab of massive granite. Within all was dark, and there was no sound. Was anything there? He looked round to address Nurse, but her appearance checked him. She was staring into the darkness; he could feel her one-eyed glance pass him, fastening on something beyond. He moved to let the lamplight enter the doorway; and then in the illuminated square that fell on the floor he saw Manetho's upturned face. The fallen priest lay with one arm doubled under him, the other thrown across his breast. Nurse stared at her broken idol, motionless, with stertorous breathing. But was Manetho dead? Helwyse, the physician, stepped across the threshold, and stooped to examine the body. The dumb creature followed and lay down, animal-like, close beside the deity of her worship. Presently the physician said,-- "There's life in him, but he's hurt internally. We must find a way to move him from here." "Life!"--the woman heard, nor cared for more. Her dry fixedness gave way with a gasp, and she broke into hysteric tears, rocking herself backwards and forwards, crooning over the insensible body, or stooping to kiss it. She had no sense nor heed for the lover of her youth. "Could such a creature have been his wife? even his mistress?" questioned Helwyse of himself. But he spoke out sharply:-- "You must stop this. He must be revived at once. Go and make ready a bed, and I will carry him to it." As he spoke, a silent shadow fell across the body, and Gnulemah stood in the doorway. Balder's first impulse was to motion her away from a spectacle so unsuited to her eyes. But though the shadow made her face inscrutable, the lines of her figure spoke, and not of weak timidity or effeminate consternation. Womanly she was,--instinct with that tender, sensitive power, the marvellous gift of God to woman only, which almost moves the sick man to bless his sickness. A holy gift,--surely the immediate influx of Christ's spirit. Man knows it not, albeit when he and woman have become more closely united than now, he may attain to share the Divine prerogative. Study nor skill can counterfeit it; but in the true woman it is perfect at the first appeal as at the last. "He shall have my bed," said this young goddess Isis; "it is ready, and my lamp is burning." Balder stooped to uplift his insensible burden. "O, not so!--more tenderly than that," she interposed, softly. A moment's hesitation, and then she unfastened the golden shoulder-clasp, and shook off her ample mantle. This was Manetho's litter. "I will help you carry him.--Why do you-weep, Nurse? he will awake, or Balder would have told us." Never, since Diana stooped to earth to love Endymion, was seen a nobler sight than Gnulemah in her simple, clinging tunic, whose heavy golden hem kissed her polished knee, while her round and clear-cut arms were left bare. After the first glance, her lover lowered his eyes, lest he should forget all else in gazing at her. But the blood mounted silently to his cheeks and burned there. As for her,--she trusted Balder more freely than herself. Manetho was laid gently on the broad robe, and so upraised and borne forwards; Balder at the head, Gnulemah at the foot. Heavy, heavy is a lifeless body; but the man had cause to wonder at the woman's fresh and easy strength. What a contrast was she to the disfigured creature who hobbled moaning beside the litter, the relaxed hand clutched in both hers, kissing it again and again with grotesque passion! Yet both were women, and loved as women love. The granite statues sitting serene at the doorway maintained the stony calm which, only, deserves the name of supernatural. These passed, the flowery heat of the dim conservatory brought them to Gnulemah's room. The curtain was looped up and the passage clear. Thus first did the wedded pair enter what should have been their bridal chamber, and laid the lifeless body on the nuptial bed. A fair, pure room; the clear walls frescoed with graceful wreaths of floating figures. In the eastern window, through which the earliest sunbeams loved to fall, stood an alabaster altar; on it a chain of faded dandelions. The bed was a lovely nest, the lines flowing in long curves,--a barge of Venus for lovers to voyage to heaven in. On a table near at hand lay some embroidered work at which Gnulemah's magic needle had been busy of late. Balder glanced at these things with a reverence almost timid; and, turning back to what lay so inert and doltish on the sacred bed, he could not but sigh. Every means was employed to rally the Egyptian from his swoon. He bore no external marks of injury, but there could be no doubt that he had sustained a terrible shock, and possibly concussion of the brain; the amount of the internal damages could not yet be estimated.--Meanwhile the black cloud from the west was muttering drowsily overhead, and an occasional lightning-flash dulled the mild radiance of the lamp. As consciousness ebbed back to the patient, the storm increased, and the trembling roll of heavy thunder drowned the first gasps of returning life. Had that vast cloud come to shut out his soul from heaven, and was its mighty voice uttering the sentence of his condemnation? The air was thick with the inconsolable weeping of the rain, and gusty sighs of wind drove its cold tear-drops against the window. How was it with Manetho?--During the instant after the ladder had given way and he was rushing through the air and clutching vainly at the dark void, every faculty had violently expanded, so that he seemed to see and think at every pore. The next instant his rudely battered body refused to bear the soul's messages; light and knowledge sank into bottomless darkness! By and by--for aught he knew it might have been an eternity--a brief gleam divided the night; then another, and others; he seemed to be moving through air, upborne on a cloud. He strove to open his eyes, and caught a glimpse of reeling walls,--of a figure,--figures. A deep rumbling sound was in his ears, as of the rolling together of chaotic rocks, gradually subsiding into stillness. He felt no pain, only dreamy ease. He was resting softly on a bank of flowers, in the heart of a summer's day. He was filled with peace and love, and peace and love were around him. Some one was nestling beside him; was it not the woman,--the bright-eyed, smiling gypsy with whom he had plighted troth?--surely it was she. "Salome,--Salome, are you here? Touch me,--lay your cheek by mine. So,--give me your hand. I love you, my pretty pet,--your Manetho loves you!" The slow sentences ended. Nurse had laid her unsightly head beside his on the pillow, and the two were happy in each other. O piteous, revolting, solemn sight! Those faces, grief-smitten, old; long ago, in passionate and lawless youth, they had perchance lain thus and murmured loving words. And now for a moment they met and loved again,--while death knocked at their chamber door! But Balder had perceived a startling significance in Manetho's words. He took Gnulemah by the hand and led her to the eastern window. A flash greeted them, creating a momentary world, which started from the womb of night, and vanished again before one could say "It is there!" Then followed a long-drawn, intermittent rumble, as if the fragments of the spectre world were tumbling avalanche-wise into chaos. "I remember now about the dandelions," Balder said. "Was not Nurse with us then?" "Yes," answered Gnulemah; "and it was she and Hiero who took me from you. But why does he call her Salome? and who is Manetho?" Balder did not reply. He leant against the window-frame and gazed out into the black storm. Knowing what he now did, it required no great stretch of ingenuity to unravel Manetho's secret.--He turned to Gnulemah, and, taking her in his arms, kissed her with a defiant kind of ardor. "What is it?" she whispered, clinging to him with a reflex of his own unspoken emotion. "We are safe!--But that man shall not die without hearing the truth," he added, sternly. Again there was a dazzling lightning-flash, and the thunder seemed to break at their very ears. By a quick, sinuous movement, Gnulemah freed herself from his arm and looked at him with her grand eyes,--night-black, lit each with a sparkling star. Her feminine intuition perceived a change in him, though she could not fathom its cause. It jarred the fineness of their mutual harmony. "Our happiness should make others' greater," said she. He looked into her eyes with a gaze so ardent that their lids drooped; and the tone of his answer, though lover-like, had more of masculine authority in it than she had yet heard from him. "My darling, you do not know what wrong he has done you--and others. It is only justice that he should learn how God punishes such as he!" "Will not God teach him?" said Gnulemah, trembling to oppose the man she loved, yet by love compelled to do so. Balder paused, and looked towards the bed. There was a flickering smile on Manetho's face; he seemed to be reviving. His injuries were perhaps not fatal after all. Should he recover, he must sooner or later receive his so-called punishment; meanwhile, Balder was inclined to regard himself as the chosen minister of Divine justice. Why not speak now? This was the second occasion that he had held Manetho in his power, at a time when the Egyptian had been attempting his destruction. In the previous encounter he had retaliated in kind. Would the bitter issue of that self-indulgence not make him wary now? Here was again the murderous lust of power, albeit disguised as love of justice. Had Balder's penitent suffering failed to teach him the truth of human brotherhood, and equality before God? Love, typified by Gnulemah, would fain dissuade him from his purpose: but love (as often happens when it stands in the way of harsh and ignoble impulses) appeared foolishly merciful. Once again his glance met Gnulemah's,--lingered a moment,--and then turned away. It was for the last time. At that moment he was less noble than ever before. But the expression of her eyes he never forgot; the love, the entreaty, the grandeur,--the sorrow!-- He turned away and approached the bedside, while Gnulemah went to kneel at her maiden altar. Manetho's eyes were closed; his features wore a singularly childlike expression. In truth, he was but half himself; the shock he had sustained had paralyzed one part of his nature. The subtle, evil-plotting Egyptian was dormant; his brain interpreted nothing save the messages of the heart; only the affectionate, emotional Manetho was awake. The evil he had done and the misery of it were forgotten.--All this Balder divined; yet his assumption of godlike censorship would not permit him to relent. It is when man deems himself most secure that he falls, in a worse way than ever. "Do you know me, Manetho?" demanded the young man. The priest opened his eyes dreamily, and smiled, but made no further answer. "I am Balder Helwyse,--the son of Thor," continued the other, speaking with incisive deliberation, better to touch the stunned man's apprehension, "I once had a twin sister. You believe that Gnulemah is she." The priest's features were getting a bewildered, plaintive expression. Either he was beginning to comprehend the purport of Balder's words, or else the sternness of the latter's tone and glance agitated him. Bader concentrated all his force into the utterance of the final sentences, vowing to himself that his fallen enemy should understand! Did he think of Gnulemah then? or of Salome--partly for whose; sake, he feigned, he had assumed the scourge? "My sister died,--was burned to death before she was a year old. In trying to save her, the nurse almost lost her own life. On that same night, this nurse gave birth to a daughter,--whose name you have called Gnulemah. Salome is her mother. Who her father is, Manetho, you best know!" The words were spoken,--but had the culprit heard them? Salome (who from the first had shrunk back to the head of the bed, beyond the possible range Manetho's vision) burst into confused hysteric cries. Gnulemah had risen from her altar and was looking at Balder: he felt her glance,--but though he told himself that he had done but justice, he dared not meet it!--He kept his eyes fastened on the pallid countenance of the Egyptian. The latter's breath came feebly and irregularly, but the anxious expression was gone, and there was again the flickering smile. All at once there was an odd, solemn change.-- The man was dying. Balder saw it,--saw that his enemy was escaping him unpunished! There yet remained one stimulant that might rouse him, and in the passion of the moment this self-appointed lieutenant of the Almighty applied it. "Come forward here, Salome!" cried he; "let him look on the face that his sins have given you. As there is a God in Heaven, your wrongs shall be set right!" Salome moved to obey; but Gnulemah glided swiftly up and held her back. Balder stepped imperiously forward to enforce his will. Had he but answered his wife's eyes even then!--He came forward one step. Then burst a thunder-clap like the crashing together of heaven and earth! At the same instant a blinding, hot glare shut out all sight. Balder was hurled back against the wall, a shock like the touch of death in every nerve. He staggered up, all unstrung, his teeth chattering. He saw,--not the lamp, flickering in the draught from the broken window,--not Manetho, lying motionless with the smile frozen on his lips,--not Salome, prostrate across the body of him she had worshipped. He saw Gnulemah--his wife whom he loved--rise from the altar's step against which she had been thrown; stand with outstretched arms and blank, wide-open eyes; grope forwards with outstretched arms and uncertain feet; grope blindly this way and that, moaning,-- "Balder,--Balder,--where are you?" Shivering and desperate,--not yet daring for his life to understand,--he came and stood before her, almost within reach of those groping hands. "I am here,--look at me, Gnulemah!--I am here--your husband!" There was a pause. The storm, having spent itself in that last burst, was rolling heavily away. There was silence in the nuptial chamber, infringed only by the breathing of the newly married lovers. "I hear you, Balder," said Gnulemah at length, tremulously, while her blank eyes rested on his face, "but I cannot see you. My lamp must have gone out. Will not you light it for me?"-- Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord: I will repay! * * * * * The storm-cloud moved eastward and was dispersed. Black though had been its shadow, it endured but for a moment; the echo of its fury passed away, and its deadly thunderbolt left behind a purer atmosphere. So sweeps and rages over men's heads the storm of calamity; and so dissolves, though seeming for the time indissoluble. But the distant planet comes forth serene from its brief eclipse, and as night deepens, bears its steady fire yet more aloft. Like God's love, its radiance embraces the world, yet forgets not the smallest flower nor grain of sand. From its high station it beholds the infinite day surround the night, and knows the good before and beyond the ill. Great is its hope, for causes are not hidden from its quiet eternal eye. No journal of a life has been our tale; rather a glimpse of a beginning! We have traversed an alpine pass between the illimitable lands of Past and Future. We have felt the rock rugged beneath our feet; have seen the avalanche and mused beside the precipice, and have taken what relief we might in the scanty greensward, the few flowers, and the brief sunshine. Now, standing on the farewell promontory, let us question the magic mirror concerning the further road,--as, before, of that from the backward horizon hitherwards. Mr. MacGentle's quiet little office: himself--more venerable by a year than when we saw him last--in his chair: opposite him, Dr. Balder Helwyse. The latter wears a thick yellow beard about six inches in length, is subdued in dress and manner, and his smile, though genial, has something of the sadness of autumn sunshine. The two have been conversing earnestly, and now there is a short silence. "We must give up hoping it, then," says Mr. MacGentle at last, in a more than usually plaintive murmur. "It is hard,--very hard, dear Balder." "Now that I know there is no hope, I can acknowledge the good even while I feel the hardship. Her dreams have been of a world such as no real existence could show; to have been awakened would permanently have saddened her, if no worse. But she is great enough to believe without seeing; and in the deepest sense, her belief is true. She still remains in that ideal fairy-land in which I found her; and no doubt, as time goes on, her visions grow more beautiful!" Thus Balder Helwyse, in tones agreeably vigorous, though grave and low. "Yes--yes; and perhaps, dear Balder, the denial of this one great boon may save her from much indefinite disquiet; and certainly, as you say, from the great danger of disappointment and its consequences. Yes,--and you may still keep her lamp alight, with a more lasting than Promethean fire!--But how is it with you, dear boy?" "Let none who love me pray for my temporal prosperity," returns Helwyse, turning his strong, dark gaze on the other's aged eyes. "I have met with many worshippers of false gods, but none the germs of whose sin I found not in myself. The _I_ to whom was confided this excellent instrument of faculties and senses is a poor, weak, selfish creature, who fancied his gifts argued the possession of the very merits whose lack they prove. God, in His infinite mercy, deals sternly with me; and I know how to thank Him!"-- Mr. MacGentle does not reply in words; but a grave smile glimmers in his faded eyes, and, smiling, he slowly shakes his venerable head. One more brief glimpse, and then we are done.-- A pleasant parlor of southern aspect, looking through a deep bay-window over a spacious garden. Here sits a stalwart gentleman of middle age, with a little boy and girl on either knee, who play bo-peep with his wide-spreading yellow beard. How they all laugh! and what a pleasant laugh has the stalwart, dark-eyed gentleman,--so deep-toned and yet so boyish! But presently all three pause to take breath. "Thor," then says the gentleman, "whose portrait did I tell you that was?" And he points to an oil-painting hanging over the piano. "Grandpapa MacGentle, papa!" "What did he do for all of us?" As Master Thor hesitates a moment, the little golden-haired lady breaks in,--"_I_ know, papa! He made uth rich, and gave uth our houthe, and he thaw me when I wath a wee, wee baby, and then he--he--" "He went to Heaven, papa!" says Thor, recovering himself. Hereupon there was a silence, because the two children, glancing up in their father's face, saw that it was grave and thoughtful. But suddenly the little girl pricks up her small ears, and scrambles to the carpet, and sets off for the door at full speed, without a word. Thor is close behind, but just too late to be first in opening the door. "Mamma! mamma!" And Balder Helwyse springs up, and as she enters with the rejoicing children at each hand, he meets her with the thrilling smile which, in this world, she will never see! [THE END] _ |
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