,this e,book was produced by ,andrew ,heath and ,david ,widger ,,chapter ,,lxxiv4 ,my ,work1 my ,philosophical ,work-the ambitious hope of my intellectual life--how eagerly ,i returned to it again6 ,far away from my household grief1 far away from my haggard perplexities--neither a ,lilian nor a ,margrave there6 ,as ,i went over what ,i had before written1 each link in its chain of reasoning seemed so serried1 that to alter one were to derange all2 and the whole reasoning was so opposed to the possibility of the wonders ,i myself had experienced1 so hostile to the subtle hypotheses of a ,faber1 or the childlike belief of an ,amy1 that ,i must have destroyed the entire work if ,i had admitted such contradictions to its design6 ,but the work was ,i myself6--,i1 in my solid1 sober1 healthful mind1 before the brain had been perplexed by a phantom4 ,were phantoms to be allowed as testimonies against science8 ,no2 in returning to my ,book1 ,i returned to my former ,me6 ,how strange is that contradiction between our being as man and our being as ,author6 ,take any writer enamoured of a system3 a thousand things may happen to him every day which might shake his faith in that system2 and while he moves about as mere man1 his faith is shaken4 ,but when he settles himself back into the phase of his being as author1 the mere act of taking pen in hand and smoothing the paper before him restores his speculations to their ancient mechanical train4 ,the system1 the beloved system1 reasserts its tyrannic sway1 and he either ignores1 or moulds into fresh proofs of his theory as author1 all which1 an hour before1 had given his theory the lie in his living perceptions as man4 ,i adhered to my system1--,i continued my work4 ,here1 in the barbarous desert1 was a link between me and the ,cities of ,europe4 ,all else might break down under me4 ,the love ,i had dreamed of was blotted out from the world1 and might never be restored2 my heart might be lonely1 my life be an exile's4 ,my reason might1 at last1 give way before the spectres which awed my senses1 or the sorrow which stormed my heart4 ,but here at least was a monument of my rational thoughtful ,me1--of my individualized identity in multiform creation4 ,and my mind1 in the noon of its force1 would shed its light on the earth when my form was resolved to its elements4 ,alas6 in this very yearning for the ,hereafter1 though but the ,hereafter of a ,name1 could ,i see only the craving of ,mind1 and hear not the whisper of ,soul6 ,the avocation of a colonist1 usually so active1 had little interest for me4 ,this vast territorial lordship1 in which1 could ,i have endeared its possession by the hopes that animate a ,founder1 ,i should have felt all the zest and the pride of ownership1 was but the run of a common to the passing emigrant1 who would leave no son to inherit the tardy products of his labour4 ,i was not goaded to industry by the stimulus of need4 ,i could only be ruined if ,i risked all my capital in the attempt to improve4 ,i lived1 therefore1 amongst my fertile pastures1 as careless of culture as the ,english occupant of the ,highland moor1 which he rents for the range of its solitudes4 ,i knew1 indeed1 that if ever ,i became avaricious1 ,i might swell my modest affluence into absolute wealth4 ,i had revisited the spot in which ,i had discovered the nugget of gold1 and had found the precious metal in rich abundance just under the first coverings of the alluvial soil4 ,i concealed my discovery from all4 ,i knew that1 did ,i proclaim it1 the charm of my bush-life would be gone4 ,my fields would be infested by all the wild adventurers who gather to gold as the vultures of prey round a carcass2 my servants would desert me1 my very flocks would be shepherdless6 ,months again rolled on months4 ,i had just approached the close of my beloved ,work1 when it was again suspended1 and by an anguish keener than all which ,i had previously known4 ,lilian became alarmingly ill4 ,her state of health1 long gradually declining1 had hitherto admitted checkered intervals of improvement1 and exhibited no symptoms of actual danger4 ,but now she was seized with a kind of chronic fever1 attended with absolute privation of sleep1 an aversion to even the lightest nourishment1 and an acute nervous susceptibility to all the outward impressions of which she had long seemed so unconscious2 morbidly alive to the faintest sound1 shrinking from the light as from a torture4 ,her previous impatience at my entrance into her room became aggravated into vehement emotions1 convulsive paroxysms of distress2 so that ,faber banished me from her chamber1 and1 with a heart bleeding at every fibre1 ,i submitted to the cruel sentence4 ,faber had taken up his abode in my house and brought ,amy with him2 one or the other never left ,lilian1 night or day4 ,the great physician spoke doubtfully of the case1 but not despairingly4 ,remember1 he said1 that in spite of the want of sleep1 the abstinence from food1 the form has not wasted as it would do were this fever inevitably mortal4 ,it is upon that phenomenon ,i build a hope that ,i have not been mistaken in the opinion ,i hazarded from the first4 ,we are now in the midst of the critical struggle between life and reason2 if she preserve the one1 my conviction is that she will regain the other4 ,that seeming antipathy to yourself is a good omen4 ,you are inseparably associated with her intellectual world2 in proportion as she revives to it1 must become vivid and powerful the reminiscences of the shock that annulled1 for a time1 that world to her4 ,so ,i welcome1 rather than fear1 the over-susceptibility of the awakening senses to external sights and sounds4 ,a few days will decide if ,i am right4 ,in this climate the progress of acute maladies is swift1 but the recovery from them is yet more startlingly rapid4 ,wait1 endure1 be prepared to submit to the will of ,heaven2 but do not despond of its mercy4 ,i rushed away from the consoler1--away into the thick of the forests1 the heart of the solitude4 ,all around me1 there1 was joyous with life2 the locust sang amidst the herbage2 the cranes gambolled on the banks of the creek2 the squirrel-like opossums frolicked on the feathery boughs4 ,and what1 said ,i to myself1--what if that which seems so fabulous in the distant being whose existence has bewitched my own1 be substantially true8 ,what if to some potent medicament ,margrave owes his glorious vitality1 his radiant youth8 ,oh1 that ,i had not so disdainfully turned away from his hinted solicitations--to what8--to nothing guiltier than lawful experiment4 ,had ,i been less devoted a bigot to this vain schoolcraft1 which we call the ,medical ,art1 and which1 alone in this age of science1 has made no perceptible progress since the days of its earliest teachers--had ,i said1 in the true humility of genuine knowledge1 'these alchemists were men of genius and thought2 we owe to them nearly all the grand hints of our chemical science1--is it likely that they would have been wholly drivellers and idiots in the one faith they clung to the most8'--had ,i said that1 ,i might now have no fear of losing my ,lilian4 ,why1 after all1 should there not be in ,nature one primary essence1 one master substance2 in which is stored the specific nutriment of life8 ,thus incoherently muttering to the woods what my pride of reason would not have suffered me gravely to say to my fellow-men1 ,i fatigued my tormented spirits into a gloomy calm1 and mechanically retraced my steps at the decline of day4 ,i seated myself at the door of my solitary log-hut1 lean ing my cheek upon my hand1 and musing4 ,wearily ,i looked up1 roused by a discord of clattering hoofs and lumbering wheels on the hollow-sounding grass-track4 ,a crazy groaning vehicle1 drawn by four horses1 emerged from the copse of gum-trees1--fast1 fast along the road1 which no such pompous vehicle had traversed since that which had borne me--luxurious satrap for an early colonist--to my lodge in the wilderness4 ,what emigrant rich enough to squander in the hire of such an equipage more than its cost in ,england1 could thus be entering on my waste domain8 ,an ominous thrill shot through me4 ,the driver--perhaps some broken-down son of luxury in the ,old ,world1 fit for nothing in the ,new ,world but to ply1 for hire1 the task that might have led to his ruin when plied in sport--stopped at the door of my hut1 and called out1 ,friend1 is not this the great ,fenwick ,section1 and is not yonder long pile of building the ,master's house8 ,before ,i could answer ,i heard a faint voice1 within the vehicle1 speaking to the driver2 the last nodded1 descended from his seat1 opened the carriage-door1 and offered his arm to a man1 who1 waving aside the proffered aid1 descended slowly and feebly2 paused a moment as if for breath1 and then1 leaning on his staff1 walked from the road1 across the sward rank with luxuriant herbage1 through the little gate in the new-set fragrant wattle-fence1 wearily1 languidly1 halting often1 till he stood facing me1 leaning both wan and emaciated hands upon his staff1 and his meagre form shrinking deep within the folds of a cloak lined thick with costly sables4 ,his face was sharp1 his complexion of a livid yellow1 his eyes shone out from their hollow orbits1 unnaturally enlarged and fatally bright4 ,thus1 in ghastly contrast to his former splendour of youth and opulence of life1 ,margrave stood before me4 ,i come to you1 said ,margrave1 in accents hoarse and broken1 from the shores of the ,east4 ,give me shelter and rest4 ,i have that to say which will more than repay you4 ,whatever1 till that moment1 my hate and my fear of this unexpected visitant1 hate would have been inhumanity1 fear a meanness1 conceived for a creature so awfully stricken down4 ,silently1 involuntarily1 ,i led him into the house4 ,there he rested a few minutes1 with closed eyes and painful gasps for breath4 ,meanwhile1 the driver brought from the carriage a travelling-bag and a small wooden chest or coffer1 strongly banded with iron clamps4 ,margrave1 looking up as the man drew near1 exclaimed fiercely1 ,who told you to touch that chest8 ,how dare you8 ,take it from that man1 ,fenwick6 ,place it here1--here by my side6 ,i took the chest from the driver1 whose rising anger at being so imperiously rated in the land of democratic equality was appeased by the gold which ,margrave lavishly flung to him4 ,take care of the poor gentleman1 squire1 he whispered to me1 in the spontaneous impulse of gratitude1 ,i fear he will not trouble you long4 ,he must be monstrous rich4 ,arrived in a vessel hired all to himself1 and a train of outlandish attendants1 whom he has left behind in the town yonder4 ,may ,i bait my horses in your stables8 ,they have come a long way4 ,i pointed to the neighbouring stables1 and the man nodded his thanks1 remounted his box1 and drove off4 ,i returned to ,margrave4 ,a faint smile came to his lips as ,i placed the chest beside him4 ,ay1 ay1 he muttered4 ,safe6 safe6 ,i shall soon be well again1--very soon6 ,and now ,i can sleep in peace6 ,i led him into an inner room1 in which there was a bed4 ,he threw himself on it with a loud sigh of relief4 ,soon1 half raising himself on his elbow1 he exclaimed1 ,the chest--bring it hither6 ,i need it always beside me6 ,there1 there6 ,now for a few hours of sleep2 and then1 if ,i can take food1 or some such restoring cordial as your skill may suggest1 ,i shall be strong enough to talk4 ,we will talk6 we will talk6 ,his eyes closed heavily as his voice fell into a drowsy mutter3 a moment more and he was asleep4 ,i watched beside him1 in mingled wonder and compassion4 ,looking into that face1 so altered yet still so young1 ,i could not sternly question what had been the evil of that mystic life1 which seemed now oozing away through the last sands in the hour-glass4 ,i placed my hand softly on his pulse3 it scarcely beat4 ,i put my ear to his breast1 and involuntarily sighed1 as ,i distinguished in its fluttering heave that dull1 dumb sound1 in which the heart seems knelling itself to the greedy grave6 ,was this1 indeed1 the potent magician whom ,i had so feared6--this the guide to the ,rosicrucian's secret of life's renewal1 in whom1 but an hour or two ago1 my fancies gulled my credulous trust6 ,but suddenly1 even while thus chiding my wild superstitions1 a fear1 that to most would seem scarcely less superstitious1 shot across me4 ,could ,lilian be affected by the near neighbourhood of one to whose magnetic influence she had once been so strangely subjected8 ,i left ,margrave still sleeping1 closed and locked the door of the hut1 went back to my dwelling1 and met ,amy at the threshold4 ,her smile was so cheering that ,i felt at once relieved4 ,hush6 said the child1 putting her finger to her lips1 she is so quiet6 ,i was coming in search of you1 with a message from her4 ,from ,lilian to me--what6 to me6 ,hush6 ,about an hour ago1 she beckoned me to draw near to her1 and then said1 very softly3 ',tell ,allen that light is coming back to me1 and it all settles on him--on him4 ,tell him that ,i pray to be spared to walk by his side on earth1 hand-in-hand to that heaven which is no dream1 ,amy4 ,tell him that1--no dream6' ,while the child spoke my tears gushed1 and the strong hands in which ,i veiled my face quivered like the leaf of the aspen4 ,and when ,i could command my voice1 ,i said plaintively1-- ,may ,i not1 then1 see her8--only for a moment1 and answer her message though but by a look8 ,no1 no6 ,no6 ,where is ,faber8 ,gone into the forest1 in search of some herbs1 but he gave me this note for you4 ,i wiped the blinding tears from my eyes1 and read these lines3-- ,i have1 though with hesitation1 permitted ,amy to tell you the cheering words1 by which our beloved patient confirms my belief that reason is coming back to her1--slowly1 labouringly1 but if she survive1 for permanent restoration4 ,on no account attempt to precipitate or disturb the work of nature4 ,as dangerous as a sudden glare of light to eyes long blind and newly regaining vision in the friendly and soothing dark would be the agitation that your presence at this crisis would cause4 ,confide in me4 ,i remained brooding over these lines and over ,lilian's message long and silently1 while ,amy's soothing whispers stole into my ear1 soft as the murmurs of a rill heard in the gloom of forests4 ,rousing myself at length1 my thoughts returned to ,margrave4 ,doubtless he would soon awake4 ,i bade ,amy bring me such slight nutriment as ,i thought best suited to his enfeebled state1 telling her it was for a sick traveller1 resting himself in my hut4 ,when ,amy returned1 ,i took from her the little basket with which she was charged1 and having1 meanwhile1 made a careful selection from the contents of my medicine-chest1 went back to the hut4 ,i had not long resumed my place beside ,margrave's pillow before he awoke4 ,what o'clock is it8 he asked1 with an anxious voice4 ,about seven4 ,not later8 ,that is well2 my time is precious4 ,compose yourself1 and eat4 ,i placed the food before him1 and he partook of it1 though sparingly1 and as if with effort4 ,he then dozed for a short time1 again woke up1 and impatiently demanded the cordial1 which ,i had prepared in the mean while4 ,its effect was greater and more immediate than ,i could have anticipated1 proving1 perhaps1 how much of youth there was still left in his system1 however undermined and ravaged by disease4 ,colour came back to his cheek1 his voice grew perceptibly stronger4 ,and as ,i lighted the lamp on the table near us--for it was growing dark--he gathered himself up1 and spoke thus1-- ,you remember that ,i once pressed on you certain experiments4 ,my object then was to discover the materials from which is extracted the specific that enables the organs of life to expel disease and regain vigour4 ,in that hope ,i sought your intimacy1--an intimacy you gave1 but withdrew4 ,dare you complain8 ,who and what was the being from whose intimacy ,i shrank appalled8 ,ask what questions you please1 cried ,margrave1 impatiently1 later--if ,i have strength left to answer them2 but do not interrupt me1 while ,i husband my force to say what alone is important to me and to you4 ,disappointed in the hopes ,i had placed in you1 ,i resolved to repair to ,paris1--that great furnace of all bold ideas4 ,i questioned learned formalists2 ,i listened to audacious empirics4 ,the first1 with all their boasted knowledge1 were too timid to concede my premises2 the second1 with all their speculative daring1 too knavish to let me trust to their conclusions4 ,i found but one man1 a ,sicilian1 who comprehended the secrets that are called occult1 and had the courage to meet ,nature and all her agencies face to face4 ,he believed1 and sincerely1 that he was approaching the grand result1 at the very moment when he perished from want of the common precautions which a tyro in chemistry would have taken4 ,at his death the gaudy city became hateful2 all its pretended pleasures only served to exhaust life the faster4 ,the true joys of youth are those of the wild bird and wild brute1 in the healthful enjoyment of ,nature4 ,in cities1 youth is but old age with a varnish4 ,i fled to the ,east2 ,i passed through the tents of the ,arabs2 ,i was guided--no matter by whom or by what--to the house of a ,dervish1 who had had for his teacher the most erudite master of secrets occult1 whom ,i knew years ago at ,aleppo---,why that exclamation8 ,proceed4 ,what ,i have to say will come--later4 ,from this ,dervish ,i half forced and half purchased the secret ,i sought to obtain4 ,i now know from what peculiar substance the so-called elixir of life is extracted2 ,i know also the steps of the process through which that task is accomplished4 ,you smile incredulously4 ,what is your doubt8 ,state it while ,i rest for a moment4 ,my breath labours2 give me more of the cordial4 ,need ,i tell you my doubt8 ,you have1 you say1 at your command the elixir of life of which ,cagliostro did not leave his disciples the recipe2 and you stretch out your hand for a vulgar cordial which any village chemist could give you6 ,i can explain this apparent contradiction4 ,the process by which the elixir is extracted from the material which hoards its essence is one that requires a hardihood of courage which few possess4 ,this ,dervish1 who had passed through that process once1 was deaf to all prayer1 and unmoved by all bribes1 to attempt it again4 ,he was poor2 for the secret by which metals may be transmuted is not1 as the old alchemists seem to imply1 identical with that by which the elixir of life is extracted4 ,he had only been enabled to discover1 in the niggard strata of the lands within range of his travel1 a few scanty morsels of the glorious substance4 ,from these he had extracted scarcely enough of the elixir to fill a third of that little glass which ,i have just drained4 ,he guarded every drop for himself4 ,who that holds healthful life as the one boon above all price to the living1 would waste upon others what prolongs and recruits his own being8 ,therefore1 though he sold me his secret1 he would not sell me his treasure4 ,any quack may sell you the information how to make not only an elixir1 but a sun and a moon1 and then scare you from the experiment by tales of the danger of trying it6 ,how do you know that this essence which the ,dervish possessed was the elixir of life1 since1 it seems1 you have not tried on yourself what effect its precious drops could produce8 ,poor wretch1 who once seemed to me so awfully potent6 do you come to the ,antipodes in search of a drug that only exists in the fables by which a child is amused8 ,the elixir of life is no fable1 cried ,margrave1 with a kindling of eye1 a power of voice1 a dilatation of form1 that startled me in one just before so feeble4 ,that elixir was bright in my veins when we last met4 ,from that golden draught of the life-spring of joy ,i took all that can gladden creation4 ,what sage would not have exchanged his wearisome knowledge for my lusty revels with ,nature8 ,what monarch would not have bartered his crown1 with its brain-ache of care1 for the radiance that circled my brows1 flashing out from the light that was in me8 ,oh again1 oh again6 to enjoy the freedom of air with the bird1 and the glow of the sun with the lizard2 to sport through the blooms of the earth1 ,nature's playmate and darling2 to face1 in the forest and desert1 the pard and the lion1--,nature's bravest and fiercest1--her firstborn1 the heir of her realm1 with the rest of her children for slaves6 ,as these words burst from his lips1 there was a wild grandeur in the aspect of this enigmatical being which ,i had never beheld in the former time of his affluent1 dazzling youth4 ,and1 indeed1 in his language1 and in the thoughts it clothed1 there was an earnestness1 a concentration1 a directness1 a purpose1 which had seemed wanting to his desultory talk in the earlier days ,i expected that reaction of languor and exhaustion would follow his vehement outbreak of passion1 but1 after a short pause1 he went on with steady accents4 ,his will was sustaining his strength4 ,he was determined to force his convictions on me1 and the vitality1 once so rich1 rallied all its lingering forces to the aid of its intense desire4 ,i tell you1 then1 he resumed1 with deliberate calmness1 that1 years ago1 ,i tested in my own person that essence which is the sovereign medicament4 ,in me1 as you saw me at ,l----1 you beheld the proof of its virtues4 ,feeble and ill as ,i am now1 my state was incalculably more hopeless when formerly restored by the elixir4 ,he from whom ,i then took the sublime restorative died without revealing the secret of its composition4 ,what ,i obtained was only just sufficient to recruit the lamp of my life1 then dying down--and no drop was left for renewing the light which wastes its own rays in the air that it gilds4 ,though the ,dervish would not sell me his treasure1 he permitted me to see it4 ,the appearance and odour of this essence are strangely peculiar1--unmistakable by one who has once beheld and partaken of it4 ,in short1 ,i recognized in the hands of the ,dervish the bright life-renewer1 as ,i had borne it away from the corpse of the ,sage of ,aleppo4 ,hold6 ,are you then1 in truth1 the murderer of ,haroun1 and is your true name ,louis ,grayle8 ,i am no murderer1 and ,louis ,grayle did not leave me his name4 ,i again adjure you to postpone1 for this night at least1 the questions you wish to address to me4 ,seeing that this obstinate pauper possessed that for which the pale owners of millions1 at the first touch of palsy or gout1 would consent to be paupers1 of course ,i coveted the possession of the essence even more than the knowledge of the substance from which it is extracted4 ,i had no coward fear of the experiment1 which this timid driveller had not the nerve to renew4 ,but still the experiment might fail4 ,i must traverse land and sea to find the fit place for it1 while1 in the rags of the ,dervish1 the unfailing result of the experiment was at hand4 ,the ,dervish suspected my design1 he dreaded my power4 ,he fled on the very night in which ,i had meant to seize what he refused to sell me4 ,after all1 ,i should have done him no great wrong2 for ,i should have left him wealth enough to transport himself to any soil in which the material for the elixir may be most abundant2 and the desire of life would have given his shrinking nerves the courage to replenish its ravished store4 ,i had ,arabs in my pay1 who obeyed me as hounds their master4 ,i chased the fugitive4 ,i came on his track1 reached a house in a miserable village1 in which1 ,i was told1 he had entered but an hour before4 ,the day was declining1 the light in the room imperfect4 ,i saw in a corner what seemed to me the form of the ,dervish1--stooped to seize it1 and my hand closed on an asp4 ,the artful ,dervish had so piled his rags that they took the shape of the form they had clothed1 and he had left1 as a substitute for the giver of life1 the venomous reptile of death4 ,the strength of my system enabled me to survive the effect of the poison2 but during the torpor that numbed me1 my ,arabs1 alarmed1 gave no chase to my quarry4 ,at last1 though enfeebled and languid1 ,i was again on my horse4 ,again the pursuit1 again the track6 ,i learned--but this time by a knowledge surer than man's--that the ,dervish had taken his refuge in a hamlet that had sprung up over the site of a city once famed through ,assyria4 ,the same voice that in formed me of his whereabouts warned me not to pursue4 ,i rejected the warning4 ,in my eager impatience ,i sprang on to the chase2 in my fearless resolve ,i felt sure of the prey4 ,i arrived at the hamlet wearied out1 for my forces were no longer the same since the bite of the asp4 ,the ,dervish eluded me still2 he had left the floor1 on which ,i sank exhausted1 but a few minutes before my horse stopped at the door4 ,the carpet1 on which he had rested1 still lay on the ground4 ,i dismissed the youngest and keenest of my troop in search of the fugitive4 ,sure that this time he would not escape1 my eyes closed in sleep4 ,how long ,i slept ,i know not1--a long dream of solitude1 fever1 and anguish4 ,was it the curse of the ,dervish's car pet8 ,was it a taint in the walls of the house1 or of the air1 which broods sickly and rank over places where cities lie buried8 ,i know not2 but the ,pest of the ,east had seized me in slumber4 ,when my senses recovered ,i found myself alone1 plundered of my arms1 despoiled of such gold as ,i had carried about me4 ,all had deserted and left me1 as the living leave the dead whom the ,plague has claimed for its own4 ,as soon as ,i could stand ,i crawled from the threshold4 ,the moment my voice was heard1 my face seen1 the whole squalid populace rose as on a wild beast1--a mad dog4 ,i was driven from the place with imprecations and stones1 as a miscreant whom the ,plague had overtaken while plotting the death of a holy man4 ,bruised and bleeding1 but still defying1 ,i turned in wrath on that dastardly rabble2 they slunk away from my path4 ,i knew the land for miles around4 ,i had been in that land years1 long years ago4 ,i came at last to the road which the caravans take on their way to ,damascus4 ,there ,i was found1 speechless and seemingly lifeless1 by some ,european travellers4 ,conveyed to ,damascus1 ,i languished for weeks between life and death4 ,but for the virtue of that essence1 which lingered yet in my veins1 ,i could not have survived--even thus feeble and shattered4 ,i need not say that ,i now abandoned all thought of discovering the ,dervish4 ,i had at least his secret1 if ,i had failed of the paltry supply he had drawn from its uses4 ,such appliances as he had told me were needful are procured in the ,east with more ease than in ,europe4 ,to sum up1 ,i am here1 instructed in all the knowledge1 and supplied with all the aids1 which warrant me in saying1 ',do you care for new life in its richest enjoyments1 if not for yourself1 for one whom you love and would reprieve from the grave8 ,then1 share with me in a task that a single night will accomplish1 and ravish a prize by which the life that you value the most will be saved from the dust and the worm1 to live on1 ever young1 ever blooming1 when each infant1 new-born while ,i speak1 shall have passed to the grave4 ,nay1 where is the limit to life1 while the earth hides the substance by which life is renewed8 ,i give as faithfully as ,i can recall them the words in which ,margrave addressed me4 ,but who can guess by cold words transcribed1 even were they artfully ranged by a master of language1 the effect words produce when warm from the breath of the speaker8 ,ask one of an audience which some orator held enthralled1 why his words do not quicken a beat in the reader's pulse1 and the answer of one who had listened will be1 ,the words took their charm from the voice and the eye1 the aspect1 the manner1 the man6 ,so it was with the incomprehensible being before me4 ,though his youth was faded1 though his beauty was dimmed1 though my fancies clothed him with memories of abhorrent dread1 though my reason opposed his audacious beliefs and assumptions1 still he charmed and spell-bound me2 still he was the mystical fascinator2 still1 if the legends of magic had truth for their basis1 he was the born magician1--as genius1 in what calling soever1 is born with the gift to enchant and subdue us4 ,constraining myself to answer calmly1 ,i said1 ,you have told me your story2 you have defined the object of the experiment in which you ask me to aid4 ,you do right to bid me postpone my replies or my questions4 ,seek to recruit by sleep the strength you have so sorely tasked4 ,to-morrow-- ,to-morrow1 ere night1 you will decide whether the man whom out of all earth ,i have selected to aid me shall be the foe to condemn me to perish6 ,i tell you plainly ,i need your aid1 and your prompt aid4 ,three days from this1 and all aid will be too late6 ,i had already gained the door of the room1 when he called to me to come back4 ,you do not live in this but1 but with your family yonder4 ,do not tell them that ,i am here2 let no one but yourself see me as ,i now am4 ,lock the door of the but when you quit it4 ,i should not close my eyes if ,i were not secure from intruders4 ,there is but one in my house1 or in these parts1 whom ,i would except from the interdict you impose4 ,you are aware of your own imminent danger2 the life1 which you believe the discovery of a ,dervish will indefinitely prolong1 seems to my eye of physician to hang on a thread4 ,i have already formed my own conjecture as to the nature of the disease that enfeebles you4 ,but ,i would fain compare that conjecture with the weightier opinion of one whose experience and skill are superior to mine4 ,permit me1 then1 when ,i return to you to-morrow1 to bring with me the great physician to whom ,i refer4 ,his name will not1 perhaps1 be unknown to you3 ,i speak of ,julius ,faber4 ,a physician of the schools6 ,i can guess well enough how learnedly he would prate1 and how little he could do4 ,but ,i will not object to his visit1 if it satisfies you that1 since ,i should die under the hands of the doctors1 ,i may be permitted to indulge my own whim in placing my hopes in a ,dervish4 ,yet stay4 ,you have1 doubtless1 spoken of me to this ,julius ,faber1 your fellow-physician and friend8 ,promise me1 if you bring him here1 that you will not name me1--that you will not repeat to him the tale ,i have told you1 or the hope which has led me to these shores4 ,what ,i have told you1 no matter whether1 at this moment1 you consider me the dupe of a chimera1 is still under the seal of the confidence which a patient reposes in the physician he himself selects for his confidant4 ,i select you1 and not ,julius ,faber6 ,be it as you will1 said ,i1 after a moment's reflection4 ,the moment you make yourself my patient1 ,i am bound to consider what is best for you4 ,and you may more respect1 and profit by1 an opinion based upon your purely physical condition than by one in which you might suppose the advice was directed rather to the disease of the mind than to that of the body4 ,how amazed and indignant your brother-physician will be if he ever see me a second time6 ,how learnedly he will prove that1 according to all correct principles of science and nature1 ,i ought to be dead6 ,he uttered this jest with a faint weary echo of his old merry1 melodious laugh1 then turned his face to the wall2 and so ,i left him to repose4 ,,chapter ,,lxxv4 ,i found ,mrs4 ,ashleigh waiting for me in our usual sitting-room4 ,she was in tears4 ,she had begun to despond of ,lilian's recovery1 and she infected me with her own alarm4 ,however1 ,i disguised my participation in her fears1 soothed and sustained her as ,i best could1 and persuaded her to retire to rest4 ,i saw ,faber for a few minutes before ,i sought my own chamber4 ,he assured me that there was no perceptible change for the worse in ,lilian's physical state since he had last seen me1 and that her mind1 even within the last few hours1 had become decidedly more clear4 ,he thought that1 within the next twenty-four hours1 the reason would make a strong and successful effort for complete recovery2 but he declined to hazard more than a hope that the effort would not exhaust the enfeebled powers of the frame4 ,he himself was so in need of a few hours of rest that ,i ceased to harass him with questions which he could not answer1 and fears which he could not appease4 ,before leaving him for the night1 ,i told him briefly that there was a traveller in my but smitten by a disease which seemed to me so grave that ,i would ask his opinion of the case1 if he could accompany me to the but the next morning4 ,my own thoughts that night were not such as would suffer me to sleep4 ,before ,margrave's melancholy state much of my former fear and abhorrence faded away4 ,this being1 so exceptional that fancy might well invest him with preternatural attributes1 was now reduced by human suffering to human sympathy and comprehension2 yet his utter want of conscience was still as apparent as in his day of joyous animal spirits4 ,with what hideous candour he had related his perfidy and ingratitude to the man to whom1 in his belief1 he owed an inestimable obligation1 and with what insensibility to the signal retribution which in most natures would have awakened remorse6 ,and by what dark hints and confessions did he seem to confirm the incredible memoir of ,sir ,philip ,derval6 ,he owned that he had borne from the corpse of ,haroun the medicament to which he ascribed his recovery from a state yet more hopeless than that under which he now laboured6 ,he had alluded1 rapidly1 obscurely1 to some knowledge at his command surer than man's4 ,and now1 even now the mere wreck of his former existence--by what strange charm did he still control and confuse my reason8 ,and how was it that ,i felt myself murmuring1 again and again1 ,but what1 after all1 if his hope be no chimera1 and if ,nature do hide a secret by which ,i could save the life of my beloved ,lilian8 ,and again and again1 as that thought would force itself on me1 ,i rose and crept to ,lilian's threshold1 listening to catch the faintest sound of her breathing4 ,all still1 all dark6 ,in that sufferer recognized science detects no mortal disease1 yet dares not bid me rely on its amplest resources of skill to turn aside from her slumber the stealthy advance of death2 while in yon log-hut one whose malady recognized science could not doubt to be mortal has composed himself to sleep1 confident of life6 ,recognized science8--recognized ignorance6 ,the science of to-day is the ignorance of to-morrow6 ,every year some bold guess lights up a truth to which1 but the year before1 the schoolmen of science were as blinded as moles4 ,what1 then1 my lips kept repeating1--what if ,nature do hide a secret by which the life of my life can be saved8 ,what do we know of the secrets of ,nature8 ,what said ,newton himself of his knowledge8 ',i am like a child picking up pebbles and shells on the sand1 while the great ocean of ,truth lies all undiscovered around me6' ,and did ,newton himself1 in the ripest growth of his matchless intellect1 hold the creed of the alchemists in scorn8 ,had he not given to one object of their research1 in the transmutation of metals1 his days and his nights8 ,is there proof that he ever convinced himself that the research was the dream1 which we1 who are not ,newtons1 call it8#a ,and that other great sage1 inferior only to ,newton--the calculating doubt-weigher1 ,descartes--had he not believed in the yet nobler hope of the alchemists1--believed in some occult nostrum or process by which human life could attain to the age of the ,patriarchs8#b ,in thoughts like these the night wore away1 the moonbeams that streamed through my window lighting up the spacious solitudes beyond1--mead and creek1 forest-land1 mountaintop1--and the silence without broken by the wild cry of the night hawk and the sibilant melancholy dirge of the shining chrysococyx1#c--;bird that never sings but at night1 and obstinately haunts the roofs of the sick and dying1 ominous of woe and death4 ,but up sprang the sun1 and1 chasing these gloomy sounds1 out burst the wonderful chorus of ,australian groves1 the great kingfisher opening the jocund melodious babble with the glee of his social laugh4 ,and now ,i heard ,faber's step in ,lilian's room1--heard through the door her soft voice1 though ,i could not distinguish the words4 ,it was not long before ,i saw the kind physician standing at the threshold of my chamber4 ,he pressed his finger to his lip1 and made me a sign to follow him4 ,i obeyed1 with noiseless tread and stifled breathing4 ,he awaited me in the garden under the flowering acacias1 passed his arm in mine1 and drew me into the open pasture-land4 ,compose yourself1 he then said2 ,i bring you tidings both of gladness and of fear4 ,your ,lilian's mind is restored3 even the memories which had been swept away by the fever that followed her return to her home in ,l---- are returning1 though as yet indistinct4 ,she yearns to see you1 to bless you for all your noble devotion1 your generous1 greathearted love2 but ,i forbid such interview now4 ,if1 in a few hours1 she become either decidedly stronger or decidedly more enfeebled1 you shall be summoned to her side4 ,even if you are condemned to a loss for which the sole consolation must be placed in the life hereafter1 you shall have1 at least1 the last mortal commune of soul with soul4 ,courage6 courage6 ,you are man6 ,bear as man what you have so often bid other men submit to endure4 ,i had flung myself on the ground1--writhing worm that had no home but on earth6 ,man1 indeed6 ,man6 ,all1 at that moment1 ,i took from manhood was its acute sensibility to love and to anguish6 ,but after all such paroxysms of mortal pain1 there comes a strange lull4 ,thought itself halts1 like the still hush of water between two descending torrents4 ,i rose in a calm1 which ,faber might well mistake for fortitude4 ,well1 ,i said quietly1 fulfil your promise4 ,if ,lilian is to pass away from me1 ,i shall see her1 at least1 again2 no wall1 you tell me1 between our minds2 mind to mind once more1--once more6 ,allen1 said ,faber1 mournfully and softly1 why do you shun to repeat my words--soul to soul8 ,ay1 ay1--,i understand4 ,those words mean that you have resigned all hope that ,lilian's life will linger here1 when her mind comes back in full consciousness2 ,i know well that last lightning flash and the darkness which swallows it up6 ,you exaggerate my fears4 ,i have not resigned the hope that ,lilian will survive the struggle through which she is passing1 but it will be cruel to deceive you--my hope is weaker than it was4 ,ay1 ay4 ,again1 ,i understand6 ,your science is in fault1--it desponds4 ,its last trust is in the wonderful resources of ,nature1 the vitality stored in the young6 ,you have said1--those resources of ,nature are wondrous4 ,the vitality of youth is a fountain springing up from the deeps out of sight1 when1 a moment before1 we had measured the drops oozing out from the sands1 and thought that the well was exhausted4 ,come with me1--come4 ,i told you of another sufferer yonder4 ,i want your opinion of his case4 ,but can you be spared a few minutes from ,lilian's side8 ,yes2 ,i left her asleep4 ,what is the case that perplexes your eye of physician1 which is usually keener than mine1 despite all the length of my practice8 ,the sufferer is young1 his organization rare in its vigour4 ,he has gone through and survived assaults upon life that are commonly fatal4 ,his system has been poisoned by the fangs of a venomous asp1 and shattered by the blast of the plague4 ,these alone1 ,i believe1 would not suffice to destroy him4 ,but he is one who has a strong dread of death2 and while the heart was thus languid and feeble1 it has been gnawed by emotions of hope or of fear4 ,i suspect that he is dying1 not from the bite of the reptile1 not from the taint of the pestilence1 but from the hope and the fear that have overtasked the heart's functions4 ,judge for yourself4 ,we were now at the door of the hut4 ,i unlocked it3 we entered4 ,margrave had quitted his bed1 and was pacing the room slowly4 ,his step was less feeble1 his countenance less haggard than on the previous evening4 ,he submitted himself to ,faber's questioning with a quiet indifference1 and evidently cared nothing for any opinion which the great physician might found on his replies4 ,when ,faber had learned all he could1 he said1 with a grave smile3 ,i see that my advice will have little weight with you2 such as it is1 at least reflect on it4 ,the conclusions to which your host arrived in his view of your case1 and which he confided to me1 are1 in my humble judgment1 correct4 ,i have no doubt that the great organ of the heart is involved in the cause of your sufferings2 but the heart is a noble and much-enduring organ4 ,i have known men in whom it has been more severely and unequivocally affected with disease than it is in you1 live on for many years1 and ultimately die of some other disorder4 ,but then life was held1 as yours must be held1 upon one condition1--repose4 ,i enjoin you to abstain from all violent action1 to shun all excitements that cause moral disturbance4 ,you are young3 would you live on1 you must live as the old4 ,more than this1--it is my duty to warn you that your tenure on earth is very precarious2 you may attain to many years2 you may be suddenly called hence tomorrow4 ,the best mode to regard this uncertainty with the calm in which is your only chance of long life1 is so to arrange all your worldly affairs1 and so to discipline all your human anxieties1 as to feel always prepared for the summons that may come without warning4 ,for the rest1 quit this climate as soon as you can1--it is the climate in which the blood courses too quickly for one who should shun all excitement4 ,seek the most equable atmosphere1 choose the most tranquil pursuits2 and ,fenwick himself1 in his magnificent pride of stature and strength1 may be nearer the grave than you are4 ,your opinion coincides with that ,i have just heard8 asked ,margrave1 turning to me4 ,in much--yes4 ,it is more favourable than ,i should have supposed4 ,i am far from disdaining the advice so kindly offered4 ,permit me1 in turn1 two or three questions1 ,dr4 ,faber4 ,do you prescribe to me no drugs from your pharmacopoeia8 ,drugs may palliate many sufferings incidental to organic disease1 but drugs cannot reach organic disease itself4 ,do you believe that1 even where disease is plainly organic1 ,nature herself has no alternative and reparative powers1 by which the organ assailed may recover itself8 ,a few exceptional instances of such forces in ,nature are upon record2 but we must go by general laws1 and not by exceptions4 ,have you never known instances--do you not at this moment know one--in which a patient whose malady baffles the doctor's skill1 imagines or dreams of a remedy8 ,call it a whim if you please1 learned sir2 do you not listen to the whim1 and1 in despair of your own prescriptions1 comply with those of the patient8 ,faber changed countenance1 and even started4 ,margrave watched him and laughed4 ,you grant that there are such cases1 in which the patient gives the law to the physician4 ,now1 apply your experience to my case4 ,suppose some strange fancy had seized upon my imagination--that is the doctor's cant word for all phenomena which we call exceptional--some strange fancy that ,i had thought of a cure for this disease for which you have no drugs2 and suppose this fancy of mine to be so strong1 so vivid1 that to deny me its gratification would produce the very emotion from which you warn me as fatal1--storm the heart1 that you would soothe to repose1 by the passions of rage and despair1--would you1 as my trusted physician1 concede or deny me my whim8 ,can you ask8 ,i should grant it at once1 if ,i had no reason to know that the thing that you fancied was harmful4 ,good man and wise doctor6 ,i have no other question to ask4 ,i thank you4 ,faber looked hard on the young1 wan face1 over which played a smile of triumph and irony2 then turned away with an expression of doubt and trouble on his own noble countenance4 ,i followed him silently into the open air4 ,who and what is this visitor of yours8 he asked abruptly4 ,who and what8 ,i cannot tell you4 ,faber remained some moments musing1 and muttering slowly to himself1 ,tut6 but a chance coincidence1--a haphazard allusion to a fact which he could not have known6 ,faber1 said ,i1 abruptly1 can it be that ,lilian is the patient in whose self-suggested remedies you confide more than in the various learning at command of your practised skill8 ,i cannot deny it1 replied ,faber1 reluctantly4 ,in the intervals of that suspense from waking sense1 which in her is not sleep1 nor yet altogether catalepsy1 she has1 for the last few days1 stated accurately the precise moment in which the trance--if ,i may so call it--would pass away1 and prescribed for herself the remedies that should be then administered4 ,in every instance1 the remedies so self-prescribed1 though certainly not those which would have occurred to my mind1 have proved efficacious4 ,her rapid progress to reason ,i ascribe to the treatment she herself ordained in her trance1 without remembrance of her own suggestions when she awoke4 ,i had meant to defer communicating these phenomena in the idiosyncrasy of her case until our minds could more calmly inquire into the process by which ideas--not apparently derived1 as your metaphysical school would derive all ideas1 from preconceived experiences--will thus sometimes act like an instinct on the human sufferer for self-preservation1 as the bird is directed to the herb or the berry which heals or assuages its ailments4 ,we know how the mesmerists would account for this phenomenon of hygienic introvision and clairvoyance4 ,but here1 there is no mesmerizer1 unless the patient can be supposed to mesmerize herself4 ,long1 however1 before mesmerism was heard of1 medical history attests examples in which patients who baffled the skill of the ablest physicians have fixed their fancies on some remedy that physicians would call inoperative for good or for harm1 and have recovered by the remedies thus singularly self-suggested4 ,and ,hippocrates himself1 if ,i construe his meaning rightly1 recognizes the powers for self-cure which the condition of trance will sometimes bestow on the sufferer1 'where' 7says the father of our art7 'the sight being closed to the external1 the soul more truthfully perceives the affections of the body4' ,in short--,i own it--in this instance1 the skill of the physician has been a compliant obedience to the instinct called forth in the patient2 and the hopes ,i have hitherto permitted myself to give you were founded on my experience that her own hopes1 conceived in trance1 bad never been fallacious or exaggerated4 ,the simples that ,i gathered for her yesterday she had described2 they are not in our herbal4 ,but as they are sometimes used by the natives1 ,i had the curiosity to analyze their chemical properties shortly after ,i came to the colony1 and they seemed to me as innocent as lime-blossoms4 ,they are rare in this part of ,australia1 but she told me where ,i should find them1--a remote spot1 which she has certainly never visited4 ,last night1 when you saw me disturbed1 dejected1 it was because1 for the first time1 the docility with which she had hitherto1 in her waking state1 obeyed her own injunctions in the state of trance1 forsook her4 ,she could not be induced to taste the decoction ,i had made from the herbs2 and if you found me this morning with weaker hopes than before1 this is the real cause1--namely1 that when ,i visited her at sunrise1 she was not in sleep but in trance1 and in that trance she told me that she had nothing more to suggest or reveal2 that on the complete restoration of her senses1 which was at hand1 the abnormal faculties vouchsafed to trance would be withdrawn4 ',as for my life1' she said quietly1 as if unconscious of our temporary joy or woe in the term of its tenure here1--'as for my life1 your aid is now idle2 my own vision obscure2 on my life a dark and cold shadow is resting4 ,i cannot foresee if it will pass away4 ,when ,i strive to look around1 ,i see but my ,allen--' ,and so1 said ,i1 mastering my emotions1 in bidding me hope1 you did not rely on your own resources of science1 but on the whisper of ,nature in the brain of your patient8 ,it is so4 ,we both remained silent some moments1 and then1 as he disappeared within my house1 ,i murmured1-- ,and when she strives to look beyond the shadow1 she sees only me6 ,is there some prophet-hint of ,nature there also1 directing me not to scorn the secret which a wanderer1 so suddenly dropped on my solitude1 assures me that ,nature will sometimes reveal to her seeker8 ,and oh6 that dark wanderer--has ,nature a marvel more weird than himself8 #a ,besides the three great subjects of ,newton's labours--the fluxional calculus1 physical astronomy1 and optics--a very large portion of his time1 while resident in his college1 was devoted to researches of which scarcely a trace remains4 ,alchemy1 which had fascinated so many eager and ambitious minds1 seems to have tempted ,newton with an overwhelming force4 ,what theories he formed1 what experiments he tried1 in that laboratory where1 it is said1 the fire was scarcely extinguished for weeks together1 will never be known4 ,it is certain that no success attended his labours2 and ,newton was not a man--like ,kepler--to detail to the world all the hopes and disappointments1 all the crude and mystical fancies1 which mixed themselves up with his career of philosophy444 ,many years later we find ,newton in correspondence with ,locke1 with reference to a mysterious red earth by which ,boyle1 who was then recently dead1 had asserted that he could effect the grand desideratum of multiplying gold4 ,by this time1 however1 ,newton's faith had become somewhat shaken by the unsatisfactory communications which he had himself received from ,boyle on the subject of the golden recipe1 though he did not abandon the idea of giving the experiment a further trial as soon as the weather should become suitable for furnace experiments4--,quarterly ,review1 ,no4 #bbj1 pp4 #abe1 #abf4 #b ,southey1 in his ,doctor1 vol4 vi4 p4 #b1 reports the conversation of ,sir ,kenelm ,digby with ,descartes1 in which the great geometrician said1 ,that as for rendering man immortal1 it was what he could not venture to promise1 but that he was very sure he could prolong his life to the standard of the patriarchs4 ,and ,southey adds1 that ,st4 ,evremond1 to whom ,digby repeated this1 says that this opinion of ,descartes was well known both to his friends in ,holland and in ,france4 ,by the stress ,southey lays on this hearsay evidence1 it is clear that he was not acquainted with the works and biography of ,descartes1 or be would have gone to the fountain-head for authority on ,descartes's opinions1 namely1 ,descartes himself4 ,it is to be wished that ,southey had done so1 for no one more than he would have appreciated the exquisitely candid and lovable nature of the illustrious ,frenchman1 and the sincerity with which he cherished in his heart whatever doctrine he conceived in his understanding4 ,descartes1 whose knowledge of anatomy was considerable1 had that passion for the art of medicine which is almost inseparable from the pursuit of natural philosophy4 ,at the age of twenty-four he had sought 7in ,germany7 to obtain initiation into the brotherhood of the ,rosicrucians1 but unluckily could not discover any member of the society to introduce him4 ,he desired1 says ,cousin1 to assure the health of man1 diminish his ills1 extend his existence4 ,he was terrified by the rapid and almost momentary passage of man upon earth4 ,he believed it was not1 perhaps1 impossible to prolong its duration4 ,there is a hidden recess of grandeur in this idea1 and the means proposed by ,descartes for the execution of his project were not less grand4 ,in his ,discourse on ,method1 ,descartes says1 ,if it is possible to find some means to render generally men more wise and more able than they have been till now1 it is1 ,i believe1 in medicine that those means must be sought444 ,i am sure that there is no one1 even in the medical profession1 who will not avow that all which one knows of the medical art is almost nothing in comparison to that which remains to learn1 and that one could be exempted from an infinity of maladies1 both of body and mind1 and even1 perhaps1 from the decrepitude of old age1 if one had sufficient lore of their causes and of all the remedies which nature provides for them4 ,therefore1 having design to employ all my life in the research of a science so necessary1 and having discovered a path which appears to me such that one ought infallibly1 in following1 to find it1 if one is not hindered prematurely by the brevity of life or by the defects of experience1 ,i consider that there is no better remedy against those two hindrances than to communicate faithfully to the public the little ,i have found1 etc4 7,discours de la ,methode1 vol4 i4 ,o,euvres de ,descartes1 ,cousin's ,edition47 ,and again1 in his ,correspondence 7vol4 ix4 p4 #cda71 he says3 ,the conservation of health has been always the principal object of my studies1 and ,i have no doubt that there is a means of acquiring much knowledge touching medicine which1 up to this time1 is ignored4 ,he then refers to his meditated ,treatise on ,animals as only an entrance upon that knowledge4 ,but whatever secrets ,descartes may have thought to discover1 they are not made known to the public according to his promise4 ,and in a letter to ,m4 ,chanut1 written in #afdf 7four years before he died71 he says ingenuously3 ,i will tell you in confidence that the notion1 such as it is1 which ,i have endeavoured to acquire in physical philosophy1 had greatly assisted me to establish certain foundations for moral philosophy2 and that ,i am more easily satisfied upon this point than ,i am on many others touching medicine1 to which ,i have1 nevertheless1 devoted much more time4 ,so that--7adds the grand thinker1 with a pathetic nobleness 7--so that1 instead of finding the means to preserve life1 ,i have found another good1 more easy and more sure1 which is--not to fear death4 #c ,chrysococyx lucidus1--namely1 the bird popularly called the shining or bronzed cuckoo4 ,its note is an exceedingly melancholy whistle1 heard at night1 when it is very annoying to any sick or nervous person who may be inclined to sleep4 ,i have known many instances where the bird has been perched on a tree in the vicinity of the room of an invalid1 uttering its mournful notes1 and it was only with the greatest difficulty that it could be dislodged from its position4--,dr4 ,bennett3 ,gatherings of a ,naturalist in ,australasia4 ,,chapter ,,lxxvi4 ,i strayed through the forest till noon1 in debate with myself1 and strove to shape my wild doubts into purpose1 before ,i could nerve and compose myself again to face ,margrave alone4 ,i re-entered the but4 ,to my surprise1 ,margrave was not in the room in which ,i had left him1 nor in that which adjoined it4 ,i ascended the stairs to the kind of loft in which ,i had been accustomed to pursue my studies1 but in which ,i had not set foot since my alarm for ,lilian had suspended my labours4 ,there ,i saw ,margrave quietly seated before the manuscript of my ,ambitious ,work1 which lay open on the rude table1 just as ,i had left it1 in the midst of its concluding summary4 ,i have taken the license of former days1 you see1 said ,margrave1 smiling1 and have hit by chance on a passage ,i can understand without effort4 ,but why such a waste of argument to prove a fact so simple8 ,in man1 as in brute1 life once lost is lost forever2 and that is why life is so precious to man4 ,i took the book from his hand1 and flung it aside in wrath4 ,his approval revolted me more with my own theories than all the argumentative rebukes of ,faber4 ,and now1 ,i said1 sternly1 the time has come for the explanation you promised4 ,before ,i can aid you in any experiment that may serve to prolong your life1 ,i must know how far that life has been a baleful and destroying influence8 ,i have some faint recollection of having saved your life from an imminent danger1 and if gratitude were the attribute of man1 as it is of the dog1 ,i should claim your aid to serve mine as a right4 ,ask me what you will4 ,you must have seen enough of me to know that ,i do not affect either the virtues or vices of others4 ,i regard both with so supreme an indifference1 that ,i believe ,i am vicious or virtuous unawares4 ,i know not if ,i can explain what seems to have perplexed you1 but if ,i cannot explain ,i have no intention to lie4 ,speak--,i listen6 ,we have time enough now before us4 ,so saying1 he reclined back in the chair1 stretching out his limbs wearily4 ,all round this spoilt darling of ,material ,nature were the aids and appliances of ,intellectual ,science1--books and telescopes and crucibles1 with the light of day coming through a small circular aperture in the boarded casement1 as ,i had constructed the opening for my experimental observation of the prismal rays4 ,while ,i write1 his image is as visible before my remembrance as if before the actual eye1--beautiful even in its decay1 awful even in its weakness1 mysterious as is ,nature herself amidst all the mechanism by which our fancied knowledge attempts to measure her laws and analyze her light4 ,but at that moment no such subtle reflections delayed my inquisitive eager mind from its immediate purpose1--who and what was this creature boasting of a secret through which ,i might rescue from death the life of her who was my all upon the earth8 ,i gathered rapidly and succinctly together all that ,i knew and all that ,i guessed of ,margrave's existence and arts4 ,i commenced from my vision in that mimic ,golgotha of creatures inferior to man1 close by the scene of man's most trivial and meaningless pastime4 ,i went on1--,derval's murder2 the missing contents of the casket2 the apparition seen by the maniac assassin guiding him to the horrid deed2 the luminous haunting shadow2 the positive charge in the murdered man's memoir connecting ,margrave with ,louis ,grayle1 and accusing him of the murder of ,haroun2 the night in the moonlit pavilion at ,derval ,court2 the baneful influence on ,lilian2 the struggle between me and himself in the house by the seashore1--the strange ,all that is told in this ,strange ,story4 ,but warming as ,i spoke1 and in a kind of fierce joy to be enabled thus to free my own heart of the doubts that had burdened it1 now that ,i was fairly face to face with the being by whom my reason had been so perplexed and my life so tortured4 ,i was restrained by none of the fears lest my own fancy deceived me1 with which in his absence ,i had striven to reduce to natural causes the portents of terror and wonder4 ,i stated plainly1 directly1 the beliefs1 the impressions which ,i had never dared even to myself to own without seeking to explain them away4 ,and coming at last to a close1 ,i said3 ,such are the evidences that seem to me to justify abhorrence of the life that you ask me to aid in prolonging4 ,your own tale of last night but confirms them4 ,and why to me--to me--do you come with wild entreaties to lengthen the life that has blighted my own8 ,how did you even learn the home in which ,i sought unavailing refuge8 ,how--as your hint to ,faber clearly revealed--were you aware that1 in yon house1 where the sorrow is veiled1 where the groan is suppressed1 where the foot-tread falls ghostlike1 there struggles now between life and death my heart's twin1 my world's sunshine8 ,ah6 through my terror for her1 is it a demon that tells you how to bribe my abhorrence into submission1 and supple my reason into use to your ends8 ,margrave had listened to me throughout with a fixed attention1 at times with a bewildered stare1 at times with exclamations of surprise1 but not of denial4 ,and when ,i had done1 he remained for some moments silent1 seemingly stupefied1 passing his hand repeatedly over his brow1 in the gesture so familiar to him in former days4 ,at length he said quietly1 without evincing any sign either of resentment or humiliation1-- ,in much that you tell me ,i recognize myself2 in much ,i am as lost in amazement as you in wild doubt or fierce wrath4 ,of the effect that you say ,philip ,derval produced on me ,i have no recollection4 ,of himself ,i have only this1--that he was my foe1 that he came to ,england intent on schemes to shorten my life or destroy its enjoyments4 ,all my faculties tend to self-preservation2 there1 they converge as rays in a focus2 in that focus they illume and--they burn4 ,i willed to destroy my intended destroyer4 ,did my will enforce itself on the agent to which it was guided8 ,likely enough4 ,be it so4 ,would you blame me for slaying the tiger or serpent--not by the naked hand1 but by weapons that arm it8 ,but what could tiger and serpent do more against me than the man who would rob me of life8 ,he had his arts for assault1 ,i had mine for self-defence4 ,he was to me as the tiger that creeps through the jungle1 or the serpent uncoiling his folds for the spring4 ,death to those whose life is destruction to mine1 be they serpent or tiger or man6 ,derval perished4 ,yes6 the spot in which the maniac had buried the casket was revealed to me--no matter how2 the contents of the casket passed into my hands4 ,i coveted that possession because ,i believed that ,derval had learned from ,haroun of ,aleppo the secret by which the elixir of life is prepared1 and ,i supposed that some stores of the essence would be found in his casket4 ,i was deceived--not a drop6 ,what ,i there found ,i knew not how to use or apply1 nor did ,i care to learn4 ,what ,i sought was not there4 ,you see a luminous shadow of myself2 it haunts1 it accosts1 it compels you4 ,of this ,i know nothing4 ,was it the emanation of my intense will really producing this spectre of myself1 or was it the thing of your own imagination1--an imagination which my will impressed and subjugated8 ,i know not4 ,at the hours when my shadow1 real or supposed1 was with you1 my senses would have been locked in sleep4 ,it is true1 however1 that ,i intensely desire to learn from races always near to man1 but concealed from his every-day vision1 the secret that ,i believed ,philip ,derval had carried with him to the tomb2 and from some cause or another ,i cannot now of myself alone1 as ,i could years ago1 subject those races to my command1--,i must1 in that1 act through or with the mind of another4 ,it is true that ,i sought to impress upon your waking thoughts the images of the circle1 the powers of the wand1 which1 in your trance or sleep-walking1 made you the involuntary agent of my will4 ,i knew by a dream--for by dreams1 more or less vivid1 are the results of my waking will sometimes divulged to myself--that the spell had been broken1 the discovery ,i sought not effected4 ,all my hopes were then transferred from yourself1 the dull votary of science1 to the girl whom ,i charmed to my thraldom through her love for you and through her dreams of a realm which the science of schools never enters4 ,in her1 imagination was all pure and all potent2 and tell me1 ,o practical reasoner1 if reason has ever advanced one step into knowledge except through that imaginative faculty which is strongest in the wisdom of ignorance1 and weakest in the ignorance of the wise4 ,ponder this1 and those marvels that perplex you will cease to be marvellous4 ,i pass on to the riddle that puzzles you most4 ,by ,philip ,derval's account ,i am1 in truth1 ,louis ,grayle restored to youth by the elixir1 and while yet infirm1 decrepit1 murdered ,haroun1--a man of a frame as athletic as yours6 ,by accepting this notion you seem to yourself alone to unravel the mysteries you ascribe to my life and my powers4 ,o wise philosopher6 ,o profound logician6 you accept that notion1 yet hold my belief in the ,dervish's tale a chimera6 ,i am ,grayle made young by the elixir1 and yet the elixir itself is a fable6 ,he paused and laughed1 but the laugh was no longer even an echo of its former merriment or playfulness1--a sinister and terrible laugh1 mocking1 threatening1 malignant4 ,again he swept his hand over his brow1 and resumed1-- ,is it not easier to so accomplished a sage as you to believe that the idlers of ,paris have guessed the true solution of that problem1 my place on this earth8 ,may ,i not be the love-son of ,louis ,grayle8 ,and when ,haroun refused the elixir to him1 or he found that his frame was too far exhausted for even the elixir to repair organic lesions of structure in the worn frame of old age1 may he not have indulged the common illusion of fathers1 and soothed his death-pangs with the thought that he should live again in his son8 ,haroun is found dead on his carpet--rumour said strangled4 ,what proof of the truth of that rumour8 ,might he not have passed away in a fit8 ,will it lessen your perplexity if ,i state recollections8 ,they are vague1--they often perplex myself2 but so far from a wish to deceive you1 my desire is to relate them so truthfully that you may aid me to reduce them into more definite form4 ,his face now became very troubled1 the tone of his voice very irresolute1--the face and the voice of a man who is either blundering his way through an intricate falsehood1 or through obscure reminiscences4 ,this ,louis ,grayle6 this ,louis ,grayle6 ,i remember him well1 as one remembers a nightmare4 ,whenever ,i look back1 before the illness of which ,i will presently speak1 the image of ,louis ,grayle returns to me4 ,i see myself with him in ,african wilds1 commanding the fierce ,abyssinians4 ,i see myself with him in the fair ,persian valley1-lofty1 snow-covered mountains encircling the garden of roses4 ,i see myself with him in the hush of the golden noon1 reclined by the spray of cool fountains1--now listening to cymbals and lutes1 now arguing with graybeards on secrets bequeathed by the ,chaldees1--with him1 with him in moonlit nights1 stealing into the sepulchres of mythical kings4 ,i see myself with him in the aisles of dark caverns1 surrounded by awful shapes1 which have no likeness amongst the creatures of earth4 ,louis ,grayle6 ,louis ,grayle6 all my earlier memories go back to ,louis ,grayle6 ,all my arts and powers1 all that ,i have learned of the languages spoken in ,europe1 of the sciences taught in her schools1 ,i owe to ,louis ,grayle4 ,but am ,i one and the same with him8 ,no--,i am but a pale reflection of his giant intellect4 ,i have not even a reflection of his childlike agonies of sorrow4 ,louis ,grayle6 ,he stands apart from me1 as a rock from the tree that grows out from its chasms4 ,yes1 the gossip was right2 ,i must be his son4 ,he leaned his face on both hands1 rocking himself to and fro4 ,at length1 with a sigh1 he resumed1-- ,i remember1 too1 a long and oppressive illness1 attended with racking pains1 a dismal journey in a wearisome litter1 the light hand of the woman ,ayesha1 so sad and so stately1 smoothing my pillow or fanning my brows4 ,i remember the evening on which my nurse drew the folds of the litter aside1 and said1 ',see ,aleppo6 and the star of thy birth shining over its walls6' ,i remember a face inexpressibly solemn and mournful4 ,i remember the chill that the calm of its ominous eye sent through my veins1--the face of ,haroun1 the ,sage of ,aleppo4 ,i remember the vessel of crystal he bore in his hand1 and the blessed relief from my pains that a drop from the essence which flashed through the crystal bestowed6 ,and then--and then--,i remember no more till the night on which ,ayesha came to my couch and said1 ',rise4' ,and ,i rose1 leaning on her1 supported by her4 ,we went through dim narrow streets1 faintly lit by wan stars1 disturbing the prowl of the dogs1 that slunk from the look of that woman4 ,we came to a solitary house1 small and low1 and my nurse said1 ',wait4' ,she opened the door and went in2 ,i seated myself on the threshold4 ,and after a time she came out from the house1 and led me1 still leaning on her1 into her chamber4 ,a man lay1 as in sleep1 on the carpet1 and beside him stood another man1 whom ,i recognized as ,ayesha's special attendant1--an ,indian4 ',haroun is dead1' said ,ayesha4 ',search for that which will give thee new life4 ,thou hast seen1 and wilt know it1 not ,i4' ,and ,i put my hand on the breast of ,haroun--for the dead man was he--and drew from it the vessel of crystal4 ,having done so1 the frown of his marble brow appalled me4 ,i staggered back1 and swooned away4 ,i came to my senses1 recovering and rejoicing1 miles afar from the city1 the dawn red on its distant wall4 ,ayesha had tended me2 the elixir had already restored me4 ,my first thought1 when full consciousness came back to me1 rested on ,louis ,grayle1 for he also had been at ,aleppo2 ,i was but one of his numerous train4 ,he1 too1 was enfeebled and suffering2 he had sought the known skill of ,haroun for himself as for me2 and this woman loved and had tended him as she had loved and tended me4 ,and my nurse told me that he was dead1 and forbade me henceforth to breathe his name4 ,we travelled on1--she and ,i1 and the ,indian her servant1--my strength still renewed by the wondrous elixir4 ,no longer supported by her1 what gazelle ever roved through its pasture with a bound more elastic than mine8 ,we came to a town1 and my nurse placed before me a mirror4 ,i did not recognize myself4 ,in this town we rested1 obscure1 till the letter there reached me by which ,i learned that ,i was the offspring of love1 and enriched by the care of a father recently dead4 ,is it not clear that ,louis ,grayle was this father8 ,if so1 was the woman ,ayesha your mother8 ,the letter said that 'my mother had died in my infancy4' ,nevertheless1 the care with which ,ayesha had tended me induced a suspicion that made me ask her the very question you put4 ,she wept when ,i asked her1 and said1 ',no1 only my nurse4 ,and now ,i needed a nurse no more4' ,the day after ,i received the letter which announced an inheritance that allowed me to vie with the nobles of ,europe1 this woman left me1 and went back to her tribe4 ,have you never seen her since8 ,margrave hesitated a moment1 and then answered1 though with seeming reluctance1 ,yes1 at ,damascus4 ,not many days after ,i was borne to that city by the strangers who found me half-dead on their road1 ,i woke one morning to find her by my side4 ,and she said1 ',in joy and in health you did not need me4 ,i am needed now4' ,did you then deprive yourself of one so devoted8 ,you have not made this long voyage--from ,egypt to ,australia--alone1--you1 to whom wealth gave no excuse for privation8 ,the woman came with me2 and some chosen attendants4 ,i engaged to ourselves the vessel we sailed in4 ,where have you left your companions8 ,by this hour1 answered ,margrave1 they are in reach of my summons2 and when you and ,i have achieved the discovery--in the results of which we shall share--,i will exact no more from your aid4 ,i trust all that rests for my cure to my nurse and her swarthy attendants4 ,you will aid me now1 as a matter of course2 the physician whose counsel you needed to guide your own skill enjoins you to obey my whim--if whim you still call it2 you will obey it1 for on that whim rests your own sole hope of happiness1--you1 who can love--,i love nothing but life4 ,has my frank narrative solved all the doubts that stood between you and me1 in the great meeting-grounds of an interest in common8 ,solved all the doubts6 ,your wild story but makes some the darker1 leaving others untouched3 the occult powers of which you boast1 and some of which ,i have witnessed1--your very insight into my own household sorrows1 into the interests ,i have1 with yourself1 in the truth of a faith so repugnant to reason-- ,pardon me1 interrupted ,margrave1 with that slight curve of the lip which is half smile and half sneer1 if1 in my account of myself1 ,i omitted what ,i cannot explain1 and you cannot conceive3 let me first ask how many of the commonest actions of the commonest men are purely involuntary and wholly inexplicable4 ,when1 for instance1 you open your lips and utter a sentence1 you have not the faintest idea beforehand what word will follow another4 ,when you move a muscle can you tell me the thought that prompts to the movement8 ,and1 wholly unable thus to account for your own simple sympathies between impulse and act1 do you believe that there exists a man upon earth who can read all the riddles in the heart and brain of another8 ,is it not true that not one drop of water1 one atom of matter1 ever really touches another8 ,between each and each there is always a space1 however infinitesimally small4 ,how1 then1 could the world go on1 if every man asked another to make his whole history and being as lucid as daylight before he would buy and sell with him8 ,all interchange and alliance rest but on this1--an interest in common4 ,you and ,i have established that interest3 all else1 all you ask more1 is superfluous4 ,could ,i answer each doubt you would raise1 still1 whether the answer should please or revolt you1 your reason would come back to the same starting-point1 --namely1 ,in one definite proposal have we two an interest in common8 ,and again ,margrave laughed1 not in mirth1 but in mockery4 ,the laugh and the words that preceded it were not the laugh and the words of the young4 ,could it be possible that ,louis ,grayle had indeed revived to false youth in the person of ,margrave1 such might have been his laugh and such his words4 ,the whole mind of ,margrave seemed to have undergone change since ,i last saw him2 more rich in idea1 more crafty even in candour1 more powerful1 more concentred4 ,as we see in our ordinary experience1 that some infirmity1 threatening dissolution1 brings forth more vividly the reminiscences of early years1 when impressions were vigorously stamped1 so ,i might have thought that as ,margrave neared the tomb1 the memories he had retained from his former existence1 in a being more amply endowed1 more formidably potent1 struggled back to the brain2 and the mind that had lived in ,louis ,grayle moved the lips of the dying ,margrave4 ,for the powers and the arts that it equally puzzles your reason to assign or deny to me1 resumed my terrible guest1 ,i will say briefly but this3 they come from faculties stored within myself1 and doubtless conduce to my self-preservation1--faculties more or less1 perhaps 7so ,van ,helmont asserts71 given to all men1 though dormant in most2 vivid and active in me because in me self-preservation has been and yet is the strong master-passion1 or instinct2 and because ,i have been taught how to use and direct such faculties by disciplined teachers1--some by ,louis ,grayle1 the enchanter2 some by my nurse1 the singer of charmed songs4 ,but in much that ,i will to have done1 ,i know no more than yourself how the agency acts4 ,enough for me to will what ,i wish1 and sink calmly into slumber1 sure that the will would work somehow its way4 ,but when ,i have willed to know what1 when known1 should shape my own courses1 ,i could see1 without aid from your pitiful telescopes1 all objects howsoever far4 ,what wonder in that8 ,have you no learned puzzle-brained metaphysicians who tell you that space is but an idea1 all this palpable universe an idea in the mind1 and no more8 ,why am ,i an enigma as dark as the ,sibyls1 and your metaphysicians as plain as a hornbook8 ,again the sardonic laugh4 ,enough3 let what ,i have said obscure or enlighten your guesses1 we come back to the same link of union1 which binds man to man1 bids ,states arise from the desert1 and foeman embrace as brothers4 ,i need you and you need me2 without your aid my life is doomed2 without my secret the breath will have gone from the lips of your ,lilian before the sun of to-morrow is red on the hill-tops4 ,fiend or juggler1 ,i cried in rage1 you shall not so enslave and enthrall me by this mystic farrago and jargon4 ,make your fantastic experiment on yourself if you will3 trust to your arts and your powers4 ,my ,lilian's life shall not hang on your fiat4 ,i trust it--to-- ,to what--to man's skill8 ,hear what the sage of the college shall tell you1 before ,i ask you again for your aid4 ,do you trust to ,god's saving mercy8 ,ah1 of course you believe in a ,god8 ,who1 except a philosopher1 can reason a ,maker away8 ,but that the ,maker will alter ,his courses to hear you2 that1 whether or not you trust in ,him1 or in your doctor1 it will change by a hairbreadth the thing that must be--do you believe this1 ,allen ,fenwick8 ,and there sat this reader of hearts6 a boy in his aspect1 mocking me and the graybeards of schools4 ,i could listen no more2 ,i turned to the door and fled down the stairs1 and heard1 as ,i fled1 a low chant3 feeble and faint1 it was still the old barbaric chant1 by which the serpent is drawn from its hole by the charmer4 ,,chapter ,,lxxvii4 ,to those of my readers who may seek with ,julius ,faber to explore1 through intelligible causes1 solutions of the marvels ,i narrate1 ,margrave's confession may serve to explain away much that my own superstitious beliefs had obscured4 ,to them ,margrave is evidently the son of ,louis ,grayle4 ,the elixir of life is reduced to some simple restorative1 owing much of its effect to the faith of a credulous patient3 youth is so soon restored to its joy in the sun1 with or without an elixir4 ,to them ,margrave's arts of enchantment are reduced to those idiosyncrasies of temperament on which the disciples of ,mesmer build up their theories1--exaggerated1 in much1 by my own superstitions2 aided1 in part1 by such natural1 purely physical magic as1 explored by the ancient priest-crafts1 is despised by the modern philosophies1 and only remains occult because ,science delights no more in the slides of the lantern which fascinated her childhood with simulated phantoms4 ,to them ,margrave is1 perhaps1 an enthusiast1 but1 because an enthusiast1 not less an impostor4 ,l',homme se pique1 says ,charron4 ,man cogs the dice for himself ere he rattles the box for his dupes4 ,was there ever successful impostor who did not commence by a fraud on his own understanding8 ,cradled in ,orient ,fableland1 what though ,margrave believes in its legends2 in a wand1 an elixir2 in sorcerers or ,afrites8 ,that belief in itself makes him keen to detect1 and skilful to profit by1 the latent but kindred credulities of others4 ,in all illustrations of ,duper and ,duped through the records of superstition--from the guile of a ,cromwell1 a ,mahomet1 down to the cheats of a gypsy--professional visionaries are amongst the astutest observers4 ,the knowledge that ,margrave had gained of my abode1 of my affliction1 or of the innermost thoughts in my mind1 it surely demanded no preternatural aids to acquire4 ,an ,old ,bailey attorney could have got at the one1 and any quick student of human hearts have readily mastered the other4 ,in fine1 ,margrave1 thus rationally criticised1 is no other prodigy 7save in degree and concurrence of attributes simple1 though not very common7 than may be found in each alley that harbours a fortune-teller who has just faith enough in the stars or the cards to bubble himself while he swindles his victims2 earnest1 indeed1 in the self-conviction that he is really a seer1 but reading the looks of his listeners1 divining the thoughts that induce them to listen1 and acquiring by practice a startling ability to judge what the listeners will deem it most seer-like to read in the cards or divine from the stars4 ,i leave this interpretation unassailed4 ,it is that which is the most probable2 it is clearly that which1 in a case not my own1 ,i should have accepted2 and yet ,i revolved and dismissed it4 ,the moment we deal with things beyond our comprehension1 and in which our own senses are appealed to and baffled1 we revolt from the ,probable1 as it seems to the senses of those who have not experienced what we have4 ,and the same principle of ,wonder that led our philosophy up from inert ignorance into restless knowledge1 now winding back into shadow land1 reverses its rule by the way1 and1 at last1 leaves us lost in the maze1 our knowledge inert1 and our ignorance restless4 ,and putting aside all other reasons for hesitating to believe that ,margrave was the son of ,louis ,grayle1--reasons which his own narrative might suggest1--was it not strange that ,sir ,philip ,derval1 who had instituted inquiries so minute1 and reported them in his memoir with so faithful a care1 should not have discovered that a youth1 attended by the same woman who had attended ,grayle1 had disappeared from the town on the same night as ,grayle himself disappeared8 ,but ,derval had related truthfully1 according to ,margrave's account1 the flight of ,ayesha and her ,indian servant1 yet not alluded to the flight1 not even to the existence of the boy1 who must have been of no mean importance in the suite of ,louis ,grayle1 if he were1 indeed1 the son whom ,grayle had made his constant companion1 and constituted his principal heir4 ,not many minutes did ,i give myself up to the cloud of reflections through which no sunbeam of light forced its way4 ,one thought overmastered all2 ,margrave had threatened death to my ,lilian1 and warned me of what ,i should learn from the lips of ,faber1 the sage of the college4 ,i stood1 shuddering1 at the door of my home2 ,i did not dare to enter4 ,allen1 said a voice1 in which my ear detected the unwonted tremulous faltering1 be firm1--be calm4 ,i keep my promise4 ,the hour is come in which you may again see the ,lilian of old1 mind to mind1 soul to soul4 ,faber's hand took mine1 and led me into the house4 ,you do1 then1 fear that this interview will be too much for her strength8 said ,i1 whisperingly4 ,i cannot say2 but she demands the interview1 and ,i dare not refuse it4 ,,chapter ,,lxxviii4 ,i left ,faber on the stairs1 and paused at the door of ,lilian's room4 ,the door opened suddenly1 noiselessly1 and her mother came out with one hand before her face1 and the other locked in ,amy's1 who was leading her as a child leads the blind4 ,mrs4 ,ashleigh looked up1 as ,i touched her1 with a vacant1 dreary stare4 ,she was not weeping1 as was her womanly wont in every pettier grief1 but ,amy was4 ,no word was exchanged between us4 ,i entered1 and closed the door2 my eyes turned mechanically to the corner in which was placed the small virgin bed1 with its curtains white as a shroud4 ,lilian was not there4 ,i looked around1 and saw her half reclined on a couch near the window4 ,she was dressed1 and with care4 ,was not that her bridal robe8 ,allen6 ,allen6 she murmured4 ,again1 again my ,allen--again1 again your ,lilian6 ,and1 striving in vain to rise1 she stretched out her arms in the yearning of reunited love4 ,and as ,i knelt beside her1 those arms closed round me for the first time in the frank1 chaste1 holy tenderness of a wife's embrace4 ,ah6 she said1 in her low voice 7her voice1 like ,cordelia's1 was ever low71 all has come back to me1--all that ,i owe to your protecting1 noble1 trustful1 guardian love6 ,hush6 hush6 the gratitude rests with me2 it is so sweet to love1 to trust1 to guard6 my own1 my beautiful--still my beautiful6 ,suffering has not dimmed the light of those dear eyes to me6 ,put your lips to my ear4 ,whisper but these words3 ',i love you1 and for your sake ,i wish to live4' ,for your sake1 ,i pray--with my whole weak human heart--,i pray to live6 ,listen4 ,some day hereafter1 if ,i am spared1 under the purple blossoms of yonder waving trees ,i shall tell you all1 as ,i see it now2 all that darkened or shone on me in my long dream1 and before the dream closed around me1 like a night in which cloud and star chase each other6 ,some day hereafter1 some quiet1 sunlit1 happy1 happy day6 ,but now1 all ,i would say is this3 ,before that dreadful morning-- ,here she paused1 shuddered1 and passionately burst forth1 ,allen1 ,allen6 you did not believe that slanderous letter6 ,god bless you6 ,god bless you6 ,great-hearted1 high-souled--,god bless you1 my darling6 my husband6 ,and ,he will6 ,pray to ,him humbly as ,i do1 and ,he will bless you4 ,she stooped and kissed away my tears2 then she resumed1 feebly1 meekly1 sorrowfully1-- ,before that morning ,i was not worthy of such a heart1 such a love as yours4 ,no1 no2 hear me4 ,not that a thought of love for another ever crossed me6 ,never1 while conscious and reasoning1 was ,i untrue to you1 even in fancy4 ,but ,i was a child1--wayward as the child who pines for what earth cannot give1 and covets the moon for a toy4 ,heaven had been so kind to my lot on earth1 and yet with my lot on earth ,i was secretly discontented4 ,when ,i felt that you loved me1 and my heart told me that ,i loved again1 ,i said to myself1 ',now the void that my soul finds on earth will be filled4' ,i longed for your coming1 and yet when you went ,i murmured1 ',but is this the ideal of which ,i have dreamed8' ,i asked for an impossible sympathy4 ,sympathy with what8 ,nay1 smile on me1 dearest6--sympathy with what8 ,i could not have said4 ,ah1 ,allen1 then1 then1 ,i was not worthy of you6 ,infant that ,i was1 ,i asked you to understand me3 now ,i know that ,i am a woman1 and my task is to study you4 ,do ,i make myself clear8 ,do you forgive me8 ,i was not untrue to you2 ,i was untrue to my own duties in life4 ,i believed1 in my vain conceit1 that a mortal's dim vision of heaven raised me above the earth2 ,i did not perceive the truth that earth is a part of the same universe as heaven6 ,now1 perhaps1 in the awful affliction that darkened my reason1 my soul has been made more clear4 ,as if to chastise but to teach me1 my soul has been permitted to indulge its own presumptuous desire2 it has wandered forth from the trammels of mortal duties and destinies2 it comes back1 alarmed by the dangers of its own rash and presumptuous escape from the tasks which it should desire upon earth to perform4 ,allen1 ,allen1 ,i am less unworthy of you now6 ,perhaps in my darkness one rapid glimpse of the true world of spirit has been vouchsafed to me4 ,if so1 how unlike to the visions my childhood indulged as divine6 ,now1 while ,i know still more deeply that there is a world for the angels1 ,i know1 also1 that the mortal must pass through probation in the world of mortals4 ,oh1 may ,i pass through it with you1 grieving in your griefs1 rejoicing in your joy6 ,here language failed her4 ,again the dear arms embraced me1 and the dear face1 eloquent with love1 hid itself on my human breast4 ,,chapter ,,lxxix4 ,that interview is over6 ,again ,i am banished from ,lilian's room2 the agitation1 the joy of that meeting has overstrained her enfeebled nerves4 ,convulsive tremblings of the whole frame1 accompanied with vehement sobs1 succeeded our brief interchange of sweet and bitter thoughts4 ,faber1 in tearing me from her side1 imperiously and sternly warned me that the sole chance yet left of preserving her life was in the merciful suspense of the emotions that my presence excited4 ,he and ,amy resumed their place in her chamber4 ,even her mother shared my sentence of banishment4 ,so ,mrs4 ,ashleigh and ,i sat facing each other in the room below2 over me a leaden stupor had fallen1 and ,i heard1 as a voice from afar or in a dream1 the mother's murmured wailings1 ,she will die6 she will die6 ,her eyes have the same heavenly look as my ,gilbert's on the day on which his closed forever4 ,her very words are his last words1--',forgive me all my faults to you4' ,she will die6 she will die6 ,hours thus passed away4 ,at length ,faber entered the room2 he spoke first to ,mrs4 ,ashleigh1--meaningless soothings1 familiar to the lips of all who pass from the chamber of the dying to the presence of mourners1 and know that it is a falsehood to say hope1 and a mockery as yet1 to say1 endure4 ,but he led her away to her own room1 docile as a wearied child led to sleep1 stayed with her some time1 and then returned to me1 pressing me to his breast father-like4 ,no hope6 no hope6 said ,i1 recoiling from his embrace4 ,you are silent4 ,speak6 speak6 ,let me know the worst4 ,i have a hope1 yet ,i scarcely dare to bid you share it2 for it grows rather out of my heart as man than my experience as physician4 ,i cannot think that her soul would be now so reconciled to earth1 so fondly1 so earnestly1 cling to this mortal life1 if it were about to be summoned away4 ,you know how commonly even the sufferers who have dreaded death the most become calmly resigned to its coming1 when death visibly reveals itself out from the shadows in which its shape has been guessed and not seen4 ,as it is a bad sign for life when the patient has lost all will to live on1 so there is hope while the patient1 yet young and with no perceptible breach in the great centres of life 7however violently their forts may be stormed71 has still intense faith in recovery1 perhaps drawn 7who can say87 from the whispers conveyed from above to the soul4 ,i cannot bring myself to think that all the uses for which a reason1 always so lovely even in its errors1 has been restored1 are yet fulfilled4 ,it seems to me as if your union1 as yet so imperfect1 has still for its end that holy life on earth by which two mortal beings strengthen each other for a sphere of existence to which this is the spiritual ladder4 ,through yourself ,i have hope yet for her4 ,gifted with powers that rank you high in the manifold orders of man1--thoughtful1 laborious1 and brave2 with a heart that makes intellect vibrate to every fine touch of humanity2 in error itself1 conscientious2 in delusion1 still eager for truth2 in anger1 forgiving2 in wrong1 seeking how to repair2 and1 best of all1 strong in a love which the mean would have shrunk to defend from the fangs of the slanderer1--a love1 raising passion itself out of the realm of the senses1 made sublime by the sorrows that tried its devotion1--with all these noble proofs in yourself of a being not meant to end here1 your life has stopped short in its uses1 your mind itself has been drifted1 a bark without rudder or pilot1 over seas without shore1 under skies without stars4 ,and wherefore8 ,because the mind you so haughtily vaunted has refused its companion and teacher in ,soul4 ,and therefore1 through you1 ,i hope that she will be spared yet to live on2 she1 in whom soul has been led dimly astray1 by unheeding the checks and the definite goals which the mind is ordained to prescribe to its wanderings while here2 the mind taking thoughts from the actual and visible world1 and the soul but vague glimpses and hints from the instinct of its ultimate heritage4 ,each of you two seems to me as yet incomplete1 and your destinies yet uncompleted4 ,through the bonds of the heart1 through the trials of time1 ye have both to consummate your marriage4 ,i do not--believe me--,i do not say this in the fanciful wisdom of allegory and type1 save that1 wherever deeply examined1 allegory and type run through all the most commonplace phases of outward and material life4 ,i hope1 then1 that she may yet be spared to you2 hope it1 not from my skill as physician1 but my inward belief as a ,christian4 ,to perfect your own being and end1 ',ye will need one another6' ,i started--the very words that ,lilian had heard in her vision6 ,but1 resumed ,faber1 how can ,i presume to trace the numberless links of effect up to the ,first ,cause1 far off--oh2 far off--out of the scope of my reason4 ,i leave that to philosophers1 who would laugh my meek hope to scorn4 ,possibly1 probably1 where ,i1 whose calling has been but to save flesh from the worm1 deem that the life of your ,lilian is needed yet1 to develop and train your own convictions of soul1 ,heaven in its wisdom may see that her death would instruct you far more than her life4 ,i have said1 ,be prepared for either1--wisdom through joy1 or wisdom through grief4 ,enough that1 looking only through the mechanism by which this moral world is impelled and improved1 you know that cruelty is impossible to wisdom4 ,even a man1 or man's law1 is never wise but when merciful4 ,but mercy has general conditions2 and that which is mercy to the myriads may seem hard to the one1 and that which seems hard to the one in the pang of a moment may be mercy when viewed by the eye that looks on through eternity4 ,and from all this discourse--of which ,i now1 at calm distance of time1 recall every word--my human1 loving heart bore away for the moment but this sentence1 ,ye will need one another2 so that ,i cried out1 ,life1 life1 life6 ,is there no hope for her life8 ,have you no hope as physician8 ,i am a physician1 too2 ,i will see her4 ,i will judge4 ,i will not be banished from my post4 ,judge1 then1 as physician1 and let the responsibility rest with you4 ,at this moment1 all convulsion1 all struggle1 has ceased2 the frame is at rest4 ,look on her1 and perhaps only the physician's eye could distinguish her state from death4 ,it is not sleep1 it is not trance1 it is not the dooming coma from which there is no awaking4 ,shall ,i call it by the name received in our schools8 ,is it the catalepsy in which life is suspended1 but consciousness acute8 ,she is motionless1 rigid2 it is but with a strain of my own sense that ,i know that the breath still breathes1 and the heart still beats4 ,but ,i am convinced that though she can neither speak1 nor stir1 nor give sign1 she is fully1 sensitively conscious of all that passes around her4 ,she is like those who have seen the very coffin carried into their chamber1 and been unable to cry out1 ',do not bury me alive6' ,judge then for yourself1 with this intense consciousness and this impotence to evince it1 what might be the effect of your presence1--first an agony of despair1 and then the complete extinction of life6 ,i have known but one such case1--a mother whose heart was wrapped up in a suffering infant4 ,she had lain for two days and two nights1 still1 as if in her shroud4 ,all save myself said1 ',life is gone4' ,i said1 ',life still is there4' ,they brought in the infant1 to try what effect its presence would produce2 then her lips moved1 and the hands crossed upon her bosom trembled4 ,and the result8 exclaimed ,faber1 eagerly4 ,if the result of your experience sanction your presence1 come2 the sight of the babe rekindled life8 ,no2 extinguished its last spark6 ,i will not enter ,lilian's room4 ,i will go away1--away from the house itself4 ,that acute consciousness6 ,i know it well6 ,she may even hear me move in the room below1 hear me speak at this moment4 ,go back to her1 go back6 ,but if hers be the state which ,i have known in another1 which may be yet more familiar to persons of far ampler experience than mine1 there is no immediate danger of death4 ,the state will last through to-day1 through to-night1 perhaps for days to come4 ,is it so8 ,i believe that for at least twelve hours there will be no change in her state4 ,i believe also that if she recover from it1 calm and refreshed1 as from a sleep1 the danger of death will have passed away4 ,and for twelve hours my presence would be hurtful8 ,rather say fatal1 if my diagnosis be right4 ,i wrung my friend's hand1 and we parted4 ,oh1 to lose her now6--now that her love and her reason had both returned1 each more vivid than before6 ,futile1 indeed1 might be ,margrave's boasted secret2 but at least in that secret was hope4 ,in recognized science ,i saw only despair4 ,and at that thought all dread of this mysterious visitor vanished1--all anxiety to question more of his attributes or his history4 ,his life itself became to me dear and precious4 ,what if it should fail me in the steps of the process1 whatever that was1 by which the life of my ,lilian might be saved6 ,the shades of evening were now closing in4 ,i remembered that ,i had left ,margrave without even food for many hours4 ,i stole round to the back of the house1 filled a basket with elements more generous than those of the former day2 extracted fresh drugs from my stores1 and1 thus laden1 hurried back to the hut4 ,i found ,margrave in the room below1 seated on his mysterious coffer1 leaning his face on his hand4 ,when ,i entered1 he looked up1 and said1-- ,you have neglected me4 ,my strength is waning4 ,give me more of the cordial1 for we have work before us to-night1 and ,i need support4 ,he took for granted my assent to his wild experiment2 and he was right4 ,i administered the cordial4 ,i placed food before him1 and this time he did not eat with repugnance4 ,i poured out wine1 and he drank it sparingly1 but with ready compliance1 saying1 ,in perfect health1 ,i looked upon wine as poison2 now it is like a foretaste of the glorious elixir4 ,after he had thus recruited himself1 he seemed to acquire an energy that startlingly contrasted his languor the day before2 the effort of breathing was scarcely perceptible2 the colour came back to his cheeks2 his bended frame rose elastic and erect4 ,if ,i understood you rightly1 said ,i1 the experiment you ask me to aid can be accomplished in a single night8 ,in a single night1--this night4 ,command me4 ,why not begin at once8 ,what apparatus or chemical agencies do you need8 ,ah6 said ,margrave1 formerly1 how ,i was misled6 ,formerly1 how my conjectures blundered6 ,i thought1 when ,i asked you to give a month to the experiment ,i wish to make1 that ,i should need the subtlest skill of the chemist4 ,i then believed1 with ,van ,helmont1 that the principle of life is a gas1 and that the secret was but in the mode by which the gas might be rightly administered4 ,but now all that ,i need is contained in this coffer1 save one very simple material1--fuel sufficient for a steady fire for six hours4 ,i see even that is at hand1 piled up in your outhouse4 ,and now for the substance itself1--to that you must guide me4 ,explain4 ,near this very spot is there not gold--in mines yet undiscovered8--and gold of the purest metal8 ,there is4 ,what then8 ,do you1 with the alchemists1 blend in one discovery gold and life8 ,no4 ,but it is only where the chemistry of earth or of man produces gold1 that the substance from which the great pabulum of life is extracted by ferment can be found4 ,possibly1 in the attempts at that transmutation of metals1 which ,i think your own great chemist1 ,sir ,humphry ,davy1 allowed might be possible1 but held not to be worth the cost of the process1--possibly1 in those attempts1 some scanty grains of this substance were found by the alchemists1 in the crucible1 with grains of the metal as niggardly yielded by pitiful mimicry of ,nature's stupendous laboratory2 and from such grains enough of the essence might1 perhaps1 have been drawn forth1 to add a few years of existence to some feeble graybeard1--granting1 what rests on no proofs1 that some of the alchemists reached an age rarely given to man4 ,but it is not in the miserly crucible1 it is in the matrix of ,nature herself1 that we must seek in prolific abundance ,nature's grand principle1--life4 ,as the loadstone is rife with the magnetic virtue1 as amber contains the electric1 so in this substance1 to which we yet want a name1 is found the bright life-giving fluid4 ,in the old goldmines of ,asia and ,europe the substance exists1 but can rarely be met with4 ,the soil for its nutriment may there be well-nigh exhausted4 ,it is here1 where ,nature herself is all vital with youth1 that the nutriment of youth must be sought4 ,near this spot is gold2 guide me to it4 ,you cannot come with me4 ,the place which ,i know as auriferous is some miles distant1 the way rugged4 ,you can not walk to it4 ,it is true ,i have horses1 but-- ,do you think ,i have come this distance and not foreseen and forestalled all that ,i want for my object8 ,trouble your self not with conjectures how ,i can arrive at the place4 ,i have provided the means to arrive at and leave it4 ,my litter and its bearers are in reach of my call4 ,give me your arm to the rising ground1 fifty yards from your door4 ,i obeyed mechanically1 stifling all surprise4 ,i had made my resolve1 and admitted no thought that could shake it4 ,when we reached the summit of the grassy hillock1 which sloped from the road that led to the seaport1 ,margrave1 after pausing to recover breath1 lifted up his voice1 in a key1 not loud1 but shrill and slow and prolonged1 half cry and half chant1 like the nighthawk's4 ,through the air--so limpid and still1 bringing near far objects1 far sounds--the voice pierced its way1 artfully pausing1 till wave after wave of the atmosphere bore and transmitted it on4 ,in a few minutes the call seemed re-echoed1 so exactly1 so cheerily1 that for the moment ,i thought that the note was the mimicry of the shy mocking ,lyre-,bird1 which mimics so merrily all that it hears in its coverts1 from the whir of the locust to the howl of the wild dog4 ,what king1 said the mystical charmer1 and as he spoke he carelessly rested his hand on my shoulder1 so that ,i trembled to feel that this dread son of ,nature1 ,godless and soulless1 who had been--and1 my heart whispered1 who still could be--my bane and mind-darkener1 leaned upon me for support1 as the spoilt younger-born on his brother1--what king1 said this cynical mocker1 with his beautiful boyish face1--what king in your civilized ,europe has the sway of a chief of the ,east8 ,what link is so strong between mortal and mortal1 as that between lord and slave8 ,i transport yon poor fools from the land of their birth2 they preserve here their old habits1--obedience and awe4 ,they would wait till they starved in the solitude1--wait to hearken and answer my call4 ,and ,i1 who thus rule them1 or charm them--,i use and despise them4 ,they know that1 and yet serve me6 ,between you and me1 my philosopher1 there is but one thing worth living for1--life for oneself4 ,is it age1 is it youth1 that thus shocks all my sense1 in my solemn completeness of man8 ,perhaps1 in great capitals1 young men of pleasure will answer1 ,it is youth2 and we think what he says6 ,young friends1 ,i do not believe you4 ,,chapter ,,lxxx4 ,along the grass-track ,i saw now1 under the moon1 just risen1 a strange procession1 never seen before in ,australian pastures4 ,it moved on1 noiselessly but quickly4 ,we descended the hillock1 and met it on the way1--a sable litter1 borne by four men1 in unfamiliar ,eastern garments2 two other servitors1 more bravely dressed1 with yataghans and silver-hilted pistols in their belts1 preceded this sombre equipage4 ,perhaps ,margrave divined the disdainful thought that passed through my mind1 vaguely and half-unconsciously2 for he said1 with a hollow1 bitter laugh that had replaced the lively peal of his once melodious mirth1-- ,a little leisure and a little gold1 and your raw colonist1 too1 will have the tastes of a pacha4 ,i made no answer4 ,i had ceased to care who and what was my tempter4 ,to me his whole being was resolved into one problem3 ,had he a secret by which death could be turned from ,lilian8 ,but now1 as the litter halted1 from the long dark shadow which it cast upon the turf the figure of a woman emerged and stood before us4 ,the outlines of her shape were lost in the loose folds of a black mantle1 and the features of her face were hidden by a black veil1 except only the dark1 bright1 solemn eyes4 ,her stature was lofty1 her bearing majestic1 whether in movement or repose4 ,margrave accosted her in some language unknown to me4 ,she replied in what seemed to me the same tongue4 ,the tones of her voice were sweet1 but inexpressibly mournful4 ,the words that they uttered appeared intended to warn1 or deprecate1 or dissuade2 but they called to ,margrave's brow a lowering frown1 and drew from his lips a burst of unmistakable anger4 ,the woman rejoined1 in the same melancholy music of voice4 ,and ,margrave then1 leaning his arm upon her shoulder1 as he had leaned it on mine1 drew her away from the group into a neighbouring copse of the flowering eucalypti1--mystic trees1 never changing the hues of their pale-green leaves1 ever shifting the tints of their ash-gray1 shedding bark4 ,for some moments ,i gazed on the two human forms1 dimly seen by the glinting moonlight through the gaps in the foliage4 ,then turning away my eyes1 ,i saw1 standing close at my side1 a man whom ,i had not noticed before4 ,his footstep1 as it stole to me1 had fallen on the sward without sound4 ,his dress1 though ,oriental1 differed from that of his companions1 both in shape and colour2 fitting close to the breast1 leaving the arms bare to the elbow1 and of a uniform ghastly white1 as are the cerements of the grave4 ,his visage was even darker than those of the ,syrians or ,arabs behind him1 and his features were those of a bird of prey1--the beak of the eagle1 but the eye of the vulture4 ,his cheeks were hollow2 the arms1 crossed on his breast1 were long and fleshless4 ,yet in that skeleton form there was a something which conveyed the idea of a serpent's suppleness and strength2 and as the hungry1 watchful eyes met my own startled gaze1 ,i recoiled impulsively with that inward warning of danger which is conveyed to man1 as to inferior animals1 in the very aspect of the creatures that sting or devour4 ,at my movement the man inclined his head in the submissive ,eastern salutation1 and spoke in his foreign tongue1 softly1 humbly1 fawningly1 to judge by his tone and his gesture4 ,i moved yet farther away from him with loathing1 and now the human thought flashed upon me3 was ,i1 in truth1 exposed to no danger in trusting myself to the mercy of the weird and remorseless master of those hirelings from the ,east1--seven men in number1 two at least of them formidably armed1 and docile as bloodhounds to the hunter1 who has only to show them their prey8 ,but fear of man like myself is not my weakness2 where fear found its way to my heart1 it was through the doubts or the fancies in which man like myself disappeared in the attributes1 dark and unknown1 which we give to a fiend or a spectre4 ,and1 perhaps1 if ,i could have paused to analyze my own sensations1 the very presence of this escort-creatures of flesh and blood-lessened the dread of my incomprehensible tempter4 ,rather1 a hundred times1 front and defy those seven ,eastern slaves--,i1 haughty son of the ,anglo-,saxon who conquers all races because he fears no odds--than have seen again on the walls of my threshold the luminous1 bodiless ,shadow6 ,besides3 ,lilian6 ,lilian6 for one chance of saving her life1 however wild and chimerical that chance might be1 ,i would have shrunk not a foot from the march of an army4 ,thus reassured and thus resolved1 ,i advanced1 with a smile of disdain1 to meet ,margrave and his veiled companion1 as they now came from the moonlit copse4 ,well1 ,i said to him1 with an irony that unconsciously mimicked his own1 have you taken advice with your nurse8 ,i assume that the dark form by your side is that of ,ayesha4 ,the woman looked at me from her sable veil1 with her steadfast solemn eyes1 and said1 in ,english1 though with a foreign accent3 ,the nurse born in ,asia is but wise through her love2 the pale son of ,europe is wise through his art4 ,the nurse says1 ',forbear6' ,do you say1 ',adventure'8 ,peace6 exclaimed ,margrave1 stamping his foot on the ground4 ,i take no counsel from either2 it is for me to resolve1 for you to obey1 and for him to aid4 ,night is come1 and we waste it2 move on4 ,the woman made no reply1 nor did ,i4 ,he took my arm and walked back to the hut4 ,the barbaric escort followed4 ,when we reached the door of the building1 ,margrave said a few words to the woman and to the litter-bearers4 ,they entered the but with us4 ,margrave pointed out to the woman his coffer1 to the men the fuel stowed in the outhouse4 ,both were borne away and placed within the litter4 ,meanwhile1 ,i took from the table1 on which it was carelessly thrown1 the light hatchet that ,i habitually carried with me in my rambles4 ,do you think that you need that idle weapon8 said ,margrave4 ,do you fear the good faith of my swarthy attendants8 ,nay1 take the hatchet yourself2 its use is to sever the gold from the quartz in which we may find it embedded1 or to clear1 as this shovel1 which will also be needed1 from the slight soil above it1 the ore that the mine in the mountain flings forth1 as the sea casts its waifs on the sands4 ,give me your hand1 fellow-labourer6 said ,margrave1 joyfully4 ,ah1 there is no faltering terror in this pulse6 ,i was not mistaken in the ,man4 ,what rests1 but the ,place and the ,hour8 ,i shall live6 ,i shall live6 ,,chapter ,,lxxxi4 ,margrave now entered the litter1 and the ,veiled ,woman drew the black curtains round him4 ,i walked on1 as the guide1 some yards in advance4 ,the air was still1 heavy1 and parched with the breath of the ,australasian sirocco4 ,we passed through the meadow-lands1 studded with slumbering flocks2 we followed the branch of the creek1 which was linked to its source in the mountains by many a trickling waterfall2 we threaded the gloom of stunted1 misshapen trees1 gnarled with the stringy bark which makes one of the signs of the strata that nourish gold2 and at length the moon1 now in all her pomp of light1 mid-heaven amongst her subject stars1 gleamed through the fissures of the cave1 on whose floor lay the relics of antediluvian races1 and rested in one flood of silvery splendour upon the hollows of the extinct volcano1 with tufts of dank herbage1 and wide spaces of paler sward1 covering the gold below1--,gold1 the dumb symbol of organized ,matter's great mystery1 storing in itself1 according as ,mind1 the informer of ,matter1 can distinguish its uses1 evil and good1 bane and blessing4 ,hitherto the ,veiled ,woman had remained in the rear1 with the white-robed1 skeleton-like image that had crept to my side unawares with its noiseless step4 ,thus in each winding turn of the difficult path at which the convoy following behind me came into sight1 ,i had seen1 first1 the two gayly-dressed1 armed men1 next the black bier-like litter1 and last the ,black-veiled ,woman and the ,white-robed ,skeleton4 ,but now1 as ,i halted on the tableland1 backed by the mountain and fronting the valley1 the woman left her companion1 passed by the litter and the armed men1 and paused by my side1 at the mouth of the moonlit cavern4 ,there for a moment she stood1 silent1 the procession below mounting upward laboriously and slow2 then she turned to me1 and her veil was withdrawn4 ,the face on which ,i gazed was wondrously beautiful1 and severely awful4 ,there was neither youth nor age1 but beauty1 mature and majestic as that of a marble ,demeter4 ,do you believe in that which you seek8 she asked1 in her foreign1 melodious1 melancholy accents4 ,i have no belief1 was my answer4 ,true science has none4 ,true science questions all things1 takes nothing upon credit4 ,it knows but three states of the mind1--,denial1 ,conviction1 and that vast interval between the two1 which is not belief1 but suspense of judgment4 ,the woman let fall her veil1 moved from me1 and seated herself on a crag above that cleft between mountain and creek1 to which1 when ,i had first discovered the gold that the land nourished1 the rain from the clouds had given the rushing life of the cataract2 but which now1 in the drought and the hush of the skies1 was but a dead pile of stones4 ,the litter now ascended the height3 its bearers halted2 a lean hand tore the curtains aside1 and ,margrave descended1 leaning1 this time1 not on the ,black-veiled ,woman1 but on the ,white-robed ,skeleton4 ,there1 as he stood1 the moon shone full on his wasted form2 on his face1 resolute1 cheerful1 and proud1 despite its hollowed outlines and sicklied hues4 ,he raised his head1 spoke in the language unknown to me1 and the armed men and the litter-bearers grouped round him1 bending low1 their eyes fixed on the ground4 ,the ,veiled ,woman rose slowly and came to his side1 motioning away1 with a mute sign1 the ghastly form on which he leaned1 and passing round him silently1 instead1 her own sustaining arm4 ,margrave spoke again a few sentences1 of which ,i could not even guess the meaning4 ,when he had concluded1 the armed men and the litter-bearers came nearer to his feet1 knelt down1 and kissed his hand4 ,they then rose1 and took from the bier-like vehicle the coffer and the fuel4 ,this done1 they lifted again the litter1 and again1 preceded by the armed men1 the procession descended down the sloping hillside1 down into the valley below4 ,margrave now whispered1 for some moments1 into the ear of the hideous creature who had made way for the ,veiled ,woman4 ,the grim skeleton bowed his head submissively1 and strode noiselessly away through the long grasses1--the slender stems1 trampled under his stealthy feet1 relifting themselves1 as after a passing wind4 ,and thus he1 too1 sank out of sight down into the valley below4 ,on the tableland of the hill remained only we three1--,margrave1 myself1 and the ,veiled ,woman4 ,she had reseated herself apart1 on the gray crag above the dried torrent4 ,he stood at the entrance of the cavern1 round the sides of which clustered parasital plants1 with flowers of all colours1 some amongst them opening their petals and exhaling their fragrance only in the hours of night2 so that1 as his form filled up the jaws of the dull arch1 obscuring the moonbeam that strove to pierce the shadows that slept within1 it stood now--wan and blighted--as ,i had seen it first1 radiant and joyous1 literally framed in blooms4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxii4 ,so1 said ,margrave1 turning to me1 under the soil that spreads around us lies the gold which to you and to me is at this moment of no value1 except as a guide to its twin-born1--the regenerator of life6 ,you have not yet described to me the nature of the substance which we are to explore1 nor of the process by which the virtues you impute to it are to be extracted4 ,let us first find the gold1 and instead of describing the life-amber1 so let me call it1 ,i will point it out to your own eyes4 ,as to the process1 your share in it is so simple1 that you will ask me why ,i seek aid from a chemist4 ,the life-amber1 when found1 has but to be subjected to heat and fermentation for six hours2 it will be placed1 in a small caldron which that coffer contains1 over the fire which that fuel will feed4 ,to give effect to the process1 certain alkalies and other ingredients are required2 but these are prepared1 and mine is the task to commingle them4 ,from your science as chemist ,i need and ask nought4 ,in you ,i have sought only the aid of a man4 ,if that be so1 why1 indeed1 seek me at all8 ,why not confide in those swarthy attendants1 who doubtless are slaves to your orders8 ,confide in slaves6 when the first task enjoined to them would be to discover1 and refrain from purloining gold6 ,seven such unscrupulous knaves1 or even one such1 and ,i1 thus defenceless and feeble6 ,such is not the work that wise masters confide to fierce slaves4 ,but that is the least of the reasons which exclude them from my choice1 and fix my choice of assistant on you4 ,do you forget what ,i told you of the danger which the ,dervish declared no bribe ,i could offer could tempt him a second time to brave8 ,i remember now2 those words had passed away from my mind4 ,and because they had passed away from your mind1 ,i chose you for my comrade4 ,i need a man by whom danger is scorned4 ,but in the process of which you tell me ,i see no possible danger unless the ingredients you mix in your caldron have poisonous fumes4 ,it is not that4 ,the ingredients ,i use are not poisons4 ,what other danger1 except you dread your own ,eastern slaves8 ,but1 if so1 why lead them to these solitudes2 and1 if so1 why not bid me be armed8 ,the ,eastern slaves1 fulfilling my commands1 wait for my summons where their eyes cannot see what we do4 ,the danger is of a kind in which the boldest son of the ,east would be more craven1 perhaps1 than the daintiest ,sybarite of ,europe1 who would shrink from a panther and laugh at a ghost4 ,in the creed of the ,dervish1 and of all who adventure into that realm of nature which is closed to philosophy and open to magic1 there are races in the magnitude of space unseen as animalcules in the world of a drop4 ,for the tribes of the drop1 science has its microscope4 ,of the host of yon azure ,infinite magic gains sight1 and through them gains command over fluid conductors that link all the parts of creation4 ,of these races1 some are wholly indifferent to man1 some benign to him1 and some dreadly hostile4 ,in all the regular and prescribed conditions of mortal being1 this magic realm seems as blank and tenantless as yon vacant air4 ,but when a seeker of powers beyond the rude functions by which man plies the clockwork that measures his hours1 and stops when its chain reaches the end of its coil1 strives to pass over those boundaries at which philosophy says1 ',knowledge ends1'--then he is like all other travellers in regions unknown2 he must propitiate or brave the tribes that are hostile1--must depend for his life on the tribes that are friendly4 ,though your science discredits the alchemist's dogmas1 your learning informs you that all alchemists were not ignorant impostors2 yet those whose discoveries prove them to have been the nearest allies to your practical knowledge1 ever hint in their mystical works at the reality of that realm which is open to magic1--ever hint that some means less familiar than furnace and bellows are essential to him who explores the elixir of life4 ,he who once quaffs that elixir1 obtains in his very veins the bright fluid by which he transmits the force of his will to agencies dormant in nature1 to giants unseen in the space4 ,and here1 as he passes the boundary which divides his allotted and normal mortality from the regions and races that magic alone can explore1 so1 here1 he breaks down the safeguard between himself and the tribes that are hostile4 ,is it not ever thus between man and man8 ,let a race the most gentle and timid and civilized dwell on one side a river or mountain1 and another have home in the region beyond1 each1 if it pass not the intervening barrier1 may with each live in peace4 ,but if ambitious adventurers scale the mountain1 or cross the river1 with design to subdue and enslave the population they boldly invade1 then all the invaded arise in wrath and defiance1--the neighbours are changed into foes4 ,and therefore this process--by which a simple though rare material of nature is made to yield to a mortal the boon of a life which brings1 with its glorious resistance to ,time1 desires and faculties to subject to its service beings that dwell in the earth and the air and the deep--has ever been one of the same peril which an invader must brave when he crosses the bounds of his nation4 ,by this key alone you unlock all the cells of the alchemist's lore2 by this alone understand how a labour1 which a chemist's crudest apprentice could perform1 has baffled the giant fathers of all your dwarfed children of science4 ,nature1 that stores this priceless boon1 seems to shrink from conceding it to man2 the invisible tribes that abhor him1 oppose themselves to the gain that might give them a master4 ,the duller of those who were the life-seekers of old would have told you how some chance1 trivial1 unlooked-for1 foiled their grand hope at the very point of fruition1--some doltish mistake1 some improvident oversight1 a defect in the sulphur1 a wild overflow in the quicksilver1 or a flaw in the bellows1 or a pupil who failed to replenish the fuel1 by falling asleep by the furnace4 ,the invisible foes seldom vouchsafe to make themselves visible where they can frustrate the bungler1 as they mock at his toils from their ambush4 ,but the mightier adventurers1 equally foiled in despite of their patience and skill1 would have said1 ',not with us rests the fault2 we neglected no caution1 we failed from no oversight4 ,but out from the caldron dread faces arose1 and the spectres or demons dismayed and baffled us4' ,such1 then1 is the danger which seems so appalling to a son of the ,east1 as it seemed to a sees in the dark age of ,europe4 ,but we can deride all its threats1 you and ,i4 ,for myself1 ,i own frankly ,i take all the safety that the charms and resources of magic bestow4 ,you1 for your safety1 have the cultured and disciplined reason which reduces all fantasies to nervous impressions2 and ,i rely on the courage of one who has questioned1 unquailing1 the ,luminous ,shadow1 and wrested from the hand of the magician himself the wand which concentred the wonders of will6 ,to this strange and long discourse ,i listened without interruption1 and now quietly answered1-- ,i do not merit the trust you affect in my courage2 but ,i am now on my guard against the cheats of the fancy1 and the fumes of a vapour can scarcely bewilder the brain in the open air of this mountain-land4 ,i believe in no races like those which you tell me lie viewless in space1 as do gases4 ,i believe not in magic2 ,i ask not its aids1 and ,i dread not its terrors4 ,for the rest1 ,i am confident of one mournful courage1--the courage that comes from despair4 ,i submit to your guidance1 whatever it be1 as a sufferer whom colleges doom to the grave submits to the quack who says1 ',take my specific and live6' ,my life is nought in itself2 my life lives in another4 ,you and ,i are both brave from despair2 you would turn death from yourself1 ,i would turn death from one ,i love more than myself4 ,both know how little aid we can win from the colleges1 and both1 therefore1 turn to the promises most audaciously cheering4 ,dervish or magician1 alchemist or phantom1 what care you and ,i8 ,and if they fail us1 what then8 ,they cannot fail us more than the colleges do6 ,,chapter ,,lxxxiii4 ,the gold has been gained with an easy labour4 ,i knew where to seek for it1 whether under the turf or in the bed of the creek4 ,but ,margrave's eyes1 hungrily gazing round every spot from which the ore was disburied1 could not detect the substance of which he alone knew the outward appearance4 ,i had begun to believe that1 even in the description given to him of this material1 he had been credulously duped1 and that no such material existed1 when1 coming back from the bed of the watercourse1 ,i saw a faint yellow gleam amidst the roots of a giant parasite plant1 the leaves and blossoms of which climbed up the sides of the cave with its antediluvian relics4 ,the gleam was the gleam of gold1 and on removing the loose earth round the roots of the plant1 we came on--,no1 ,i will not1 ,i dare not1 describe it4 ,the gold-digger would cast it aside1 the naturalist would pause not to heed it2 and did ,i describe it1 and chemistry deign to subject it to analysis1 could chemistry alone detach or discover its boasted virtues8 ,its particles1 indeed1 are very minute1 not seeming readily to crystallize with each other2 each in itself of uniform shape and size1 spherical as the egg which contains the germ of life1 and small as the egg from which the life of an insect may quicken4 ,but ,margrave's keen eye caught sight of the atoms upcast by the light of the moon4 ,he exclaimed to me1 ,found6 ,i shall live6 ,and then1 as he gathered up the grains with tremulous hands1 he called out to the ,veiled ,woman1 hitherto still seated motionless on the crag4 ,at his word she rose and went to the place bard by1 where the fuel was piled1 busying herself there4 ,i had no leisure to heed her4 ,i continued my search in the soft and yielding soil that time and the decay of vegetable life had accumulated over the ,pre-,adamite strata on which the arch of the cave rested its mighty keystone4 ,when we had collected of these particles about thrice as much as a man might hold in his hand1 we seemed to have exhausted their bed4 ,we continued still to find gold1 but no more of the delicate substance1 to which1 in our sight1 gold was as dross4 ,enough1 then said ,margrave1 reluctantly desisting4 ,what we have gained already will suffice for a life thrice as long as legend attributes to ,haroun4 ,i shall live1--,i shall live through the centuries4 ,forget not that ,i claim my share4 ,your share--yours6 ,true--your half of my life6 ,it is true4 ,he paused with a low1 ironical1 malignant laugh2 and then added1 as he rose and turned away1 ,but the work is yet to be done4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxiv4 ,while we had thus laboured and found1 ,ayesha had placed the fuel where the moonlight fell fullest on the sward of the tableland1--a part of it already piled as for a fire1 the rest of it heaped confusedly close at hand2 and by the pile she had placed the coffer4 ,and there she stood1 her arms folded under her mantle1 her dark image seeming darker still as the moonlight whitened all the ground from which the image rose motionless4 ,margrave opened his coffer1 the ,veiled ,woman did not aid him1 and ,i watched in silence1 while he as silently made his weird and wizard-like preparations4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxv4 ,on the ground a wide circle was traced by a small rod1 tipped apparently with sponge saturated with some combustible naphtha-like fluid1 so that a pale lambent flame followed the course of the rod as ,margrave guided it1 burning up the herbage over which it played1 and leaving a distinct ring1 like that which1 in our lovely native fable-talk1 we call the ,fairy's ,ring1 but yet more visible because marked in phosphorescent light4 ,on the ring thus formed were placed twelve small lamps1 fed with the fluid from the same vessel1 and lighted by the same rod4 ,the light emitted by the lamps was more vivid and brilliant than that which circled round the ring4 ,within the circumference1 and immediately round the woodpile1 ,margrave traced certain geometrical figures1 in which--not without a shudder1 that ,i overcame at once by a strong effort of will in murmuring to myself the name of ,lilian--,i recognized the interlaced triangles which my own hand1 in the spell enforced on a sleep-walker1 had described on the floor of the wizard's pavilion4 ,the figures were traced1 like the circle1 in flame1 and at the point of each triangle 7four in number7 was placed a lamp1 brilliant as those on the ring4 ,this task performed1 the caldron1 based on an iron tripod1 was placed on the wood-pile4 ,and then the woman1 before inactive and unheeding1 slowly advanced1 knelt by the pile1 and lighted it4 ,the dry wood crackled and the flame burst forth1 licking the rims of the caldron with tongues of fire4 ,margrave flung into the caldron the particles we had collected1 poured over them first a liquid1 colourless as water1 from the largest of the vessels drawn from his coffer1 and then1 more sparingly1 drops from small crystal phials1 like the phials ,i had seen in the hand of ,philip ,derval4 ,having surmounted my first impulse of awe1 ,i watched these proceedings1 curious yet disdainful1 as one who watches the mummeries of an enchanter on the stage4 ,if1 thought ,i1 these are but artful devices to inebriate and fool my own imagination1 my imagination is on its guard1 and reason shall not1 this time1 sleep at her post6 ,and now1 said ,margrave1 ,i consign to you the easy task by which you are to merit your share of the elixir4 ,it is my task to feed and replenish the caldron2 it is ,ayesha's to heed the fire1 which must not for a moment relax in its measured and steady heat4 ,your task is the lightest of all it is but to renew from this vessel the fluid that burns in the lamps1 and on the ring4 ,observe1 the contents of the vessel must be thriftily husbanded2 there is enough1 but not more than enough1 to sustain the light in the lamps1 on the lines traced round the caldron1 and on the farther ring1 for six hours4 ,the compounds dissolved in this fluid are scarce1--only obtainable in the ,east1 and even in the ,east months might have passed before ,i could have increased my supply4 ,i had no months to waste4 ,replenish1 then1 the light only when it begins to flicker or fade4 ,take heed1 above all1 that no part of the outer ring--no1 not an inch--and no lamp of the twelve1 that are to its zodiac like stars1 fade for one moment in darkness4 ,i took the crystal vessel from his hand4 ,the vessel is small1 said ,i1 and what is yet left of its contents is but scanty2 whether its drops suffice to replenish the lights ,i cannot guess1--,i can but obey your instructions4 ,but1 more important by far than the light to the lamps and the circle1 which in ,asia or ,africa might scare away the wild beasts unknown to this land--more important than light to a lamp1 is the strength to your frame1 weak magician6 ,what will support you through six weary hours of night-watch8 ,hope1 answered ,margrave1 with a ray of his old dazzling style4 ,hope6 ,i shall live1--,i shall live through the centuries6 ,,chapter ,,lxxxvi4 ,one hour passed away2 the fagots under the caldron burned clear in the sullen sultry air4 ,the materials within began to seethe1 and their colour1 at first dull and turbid1 changed into a pale-rose hue2 from time to time the ,veiled ,woman replenished the fire1 after she had done so reseating herself close by the pyre1 with her head bowed over her knees1 and her face hid under her veil4 ,the lights in the lamps and along the ring and the triangles now began to pale4 ,i resupplied their nutriment from the crystal vessel4 ,as yet nothing strange startled my eye or my ear beyond the rim of the circle1--nothing audible1 save1 at a distance1 the musical wheel-like click of the locusts1 and1 farther still1 in the forest1 the howl of the wild dogs1 that never bark2 nothing visible1 but the trees and the mountain-range girding the plains silvered by the moon1 and the arch of the cavern1 the flush of wild blooms on its sides1 and the gleam of dry bones on its floor1 where the moonlight shot into the gloom4 ,the second hour passed like the first4 ,i had taken my stand by the side of ,margrave1 watching with him the process at work in the caldron1 when ,i felt the ground slightly vibrate beneath my feet1 and1 looking up1 it seemed as if all the plains beyond the circle were heaving like the swell of the sea1 and as if in the air itself there was a perceptible tremor4 ,i placed my hand on ,margrave's shoulder and whispered1 ,to me earth and air seem to vibrate4 ,do they seem to vibrate to you8 ,i know not1 ,i care not1 he answered impetuously4 ,the essence is bursting the shell that confined it4 ,here are my air and my earth6 ,trouble me not4 ,look to the circle6 feed the lamps if they fail4 ,i passed by the ,veiled ,woman as ,i walked towards a place in the ring in which the flame was waning dim2 and ,i whispered to her the same question which ,i had whispered to ,margrave4 ,she looked slowly around1 and answered1 ,so is it before the ,invisible make themselves visible6 ,did ,i not bid him forbear8 ,her head again drooped on her breast1 and her watch was again fixed on the fire4 ,i advanced to the circle and stooped to replenish the light where it waned4 ,as ,i did so1 on my arm1 which stretched somewhat beyond the line of the ring1 ,i felt a shock like that of electricity4 ,the arm fell to my side numbed and nerveless1 and from my hand dropped1 but within the ring1 the vessel that contained the fluid4 ,recovering my surprise or my stun1 hastily with the other hand ,i caught up the vessel1 but some of the scanty liquid was already spilled on the sward2 and ,i saw with a thrill of dismay1 that contrasted indeed the tranquil indifference with which ,i had first undertaken my charge1 how small a supply was now left4 ,i went back to ,margrave1 and told him of the shock1 and of its consequence in the waste of the liquid4 ,beware1 said he1 that not a motion of the arm1 not an inch of the foot1 pass the verge of the ring2 and if the fluid be thus unhappily stinted1 reserve all that is left for the protecting circle and the twelve outer lamps6 ,see how the ,grand ,work advances6 how the hues in the caldron are glowing blood-red through the film on the surface6 ,and now four hours of the six were gone2 my arm had gradually recovered its strength4 ,neither the ring nor the lamps had again required replenishing2 perhaps their light was exhausted less quickly1 as it was no longer to be exposed to the rays of the intense ,australian moon4 ,clouds had gathered over the sky1 and though the moon gleamed at times in the gaps that they left in blue air1 her beam was more hazy and dulled4 ,the locusts no longer were heard in the grass1 nor the howl of the dogs in the forest4 ,out of the circle1 the stillness was profound4 ,and about this time ,i saw distinctly in the distance a vast ,eye6 ,it drew nearer and nearer1 seeming to move from the ground at the height of some lofty giant4 ,its gaze riveted mine2 my blood curdled in the blaze from its angry ball2 and now as it advanced larger and larger1 other ,eyes1 as if of giants in its train1 grew out from the space in its rear2 numbers on numbers1 like the spearheads of some ,eastern army1 seen afar by pale warders of battlements doomed to the dust4 ,my voice long refused an utterance to my awe2 at length it burst forth shrill and loud1-- ,look6 look6 ,those terrible ,eyes6 ,legions on legions6 ,and hark6 that tramp of numberless feet2 they are not seen1 but the hollows of earth echo the sound of their march6 ,margrave1 more than ever intent on the caldron1 in which1 from time to time1 he kept dropping powders or essences drawn forth from his coffer1 looked up1 defyingly1 fiercely4 ,ye come1 he said1 in a low mutter1 his once mighty voice sounding hollow and labouring1 but fearless and firm1--ye come1--not to conquer1 vain rebels6--ye whose dark chief ,i struck down at my feet in the tomb where my spell had raised up the ghost of your first human master1 the ,chaldee6 ,earth and air have their armies still faithful to me1 and still ,i remember the war-song that summons them up to confront you6 ,ayesha6 ,ayesha6 recall the wild troth that we pledged amongst roses2 recall the dread bond by which we united our sway over hosts that yet own thee as queen1 though my sceptre is broken1 my diadem reft from my brows6 ,the ,veiled ,woman rose at this adjuration4 ,her veil now was withdrawn1 and the blaze of the fire between ,margrave and herself flushed1 as with the rosy bloom of youth1 the grand beauty of her softened face4 ,it was seen1 detached as it were1 from her dark-mantled form2 seen through the mist of the vapours which rose from the caldron1 framing it round like the clouds4 that are yieldingly pierced by the light of the evening star4 ,through the haze of the vapour came her voice1 more musical1 more plaintive than ,i had heard it before1 but far softer1 more tender2 still in her foreign tongue2 the words unknown to me1 and yet their sense1 perhaps1 made intelligible by the love1 which has one common language and one common look to all who have loved1--the love unmistakably heard in the loving tone1 unmistakably seen in the loving face4 ,a moment or so more1 and she had come round from the opposite side of the fire-pile1 and bending over ,margrave's upturned brow1 kissed it quietly1 solemnly2 and then her countenance grew fierce1 her crest rose erect2 it was the lioness protecting her young4 ,she stretched forth her arm from the black mantle1 athwart the pale front that now again bent over the caldron1--stretched it towards the haunted and hollow-sounding space beyond1 in the gesture of one whose right hand has the sway of the sceptre4 ,and then her voice stole on the air in the music of a chant1 not loud1 yet far-reaching2 so thrilling1 so sweet1 and yet so solemn1 that ,i could at once comprehend how legend united of old the spell of enchantment with the power of song4 ,all that ,i recalled of the effects which1 in the former time1 ,margrave's strange chants had produced on the ear that they ravished and the thoughts they confused1 was but as the wild bird's imitative carol1 compared to the depth and the art and the soul of the singer1 whose voice seemed endowed with a charm to enthrall all the tribes of creation1 though the language it used for that charm might to them1 as to me1 be unknown4 ,as the song ceased1 ,i heard1 from behind1 sounds like those ,i had heard in the spaces before me1--the tramp of invisible feet1 the whir of invisible wings1 as if armies were marching to aid against armies in march to destroy4 ,look not in front nor around1 said ,ayesha4 ,look1 like him1 on the caldron below4 ,the circle and the lamps are yet bright2 ,i will tell you when the light again fails4 ,i dropped my eyes on the caldron4 ,see1 whispered ,margrave1 the sparkles at last begin to arise1 and the rose-hues to deepen1--signs that we near the last process4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxvii4 ,the fifth hour had passed away1 when ,ayesha said to me1 ,lo6 the circle is fading2 the lamps grow dim4 ,look now without fear on the space beyond2 the eyes that appalled thee are again lost in air1 as lightnings that fleet back into cloud4 ,i looked up1 and the spectres had vanished4 ,the sky was tinged with sulphurous hues1 the red and the black intermixed4 ,i replenished the lamps and the ring in front1 thriftily1 heedfully2 but when ,i came to the sixth lamp1 not a drop in the vessel that fed them was left4 ,in a vague dismay1 ,i now looked round the half of the wide circle in rear of the two bended figures intent on the caldron4 ,all along that disk the light was already broken1 here and there flickering up1 here and there dying down2 the six lamps in that half of the circle still twinkled1 but faintly1 as stars shrinking fast from the dawn of day4 ,but it was not the fading shine in that half of the magical ring which daunted my eye and quickened with terror the pulse of my heart2 the ,bushland beyond was on fire4 ,from the background of the forest rose the flame and the smoke1--the smoke1 there1 still half smothering the flame4 ,but along the width of the grasses and herbage1 between the verge of the forest and the bed of the water-creek just below the raised platform from which ,i beheld the dread conflagration1 the fire was advancing1--wave upon wave1 clear and red against the columns of rock behind1--as the rush of a flood through the mists of some ,alp crowned with lightnings4 ,roused from my stun at the first sight of a danger not foreseen by the mind ,i had steeled against far rarer portents of ,nature1 ,i cared no more for the lamps and the circle4 ,hurrying back to ,ayesha1 ,i exclaimed3 ,the phantoms have gone from the spaces in front2 but what incantation or spell can arrest the red march of the foe1 speeding on in the rear6 ,while we gazed on the caldron of life1 behind us1 unheeded1 behold the ,destroyer6 ,ayesha looked1 and made no reply2 but1 as by involuntary instinct1 bowed her majestic head1 then rearing it erect1 placed herself yet more immediately before the wasted form of the young magician 7he still bending over the caldron1 and hearing me not in the absorption and hope of his watch71--placed herself before him1 as the bird whose first care is her fledgling4 ,as we two there stood1 fronting the deluge of fire1 we heard ,margrave behind us1 murmuring low1 ,see the bubbles of light1 how they sparkle and dance6 ,i shall live1 ,i shall live6 ,and his words scarcely died in our ears before1 crash upon crash1 came the fall of the age-long trees in the forest2 and nearer1 all near us1 through the blazing grasses1 the hiss of the serpents1 the scream of-the birds1 and the bellow and tramp of the herds plunging wild through the billowy red of their pastures4 ,ayesha now wound her arms around ,margrave1 and wrenched him1 reluctant and struggling1 from his watch over the seething caldron4 ,in rebuke2 of his angry exclamations1 she pointed to the march of the fire1 spoke in sorrowful tones a few words in her own language1 and then1 appealing to me in ,english1 said1-- ,i tell him that here the ,spirits who oppose us have summoned a foe that is deaf to my voice1 and-- ,and1 exclaimed ,margrave1 no longer with gasp and effort1 but with the swell of a voice which drowned all the discords of terror and of agony sent forth from the ,phlegethon burning below1--and this witch1 whom ,i trusted1 is a vile slave and impostor1 more desiring my death than my life4 ,she thinks that in life ,i should scorn and forsake her1 that in death ,i should die in her arms6 ,sorceress1 avaunt6 ,art thou useless and powerless now when ,i need thee most8 ,go6 ,let the world be one funeral pyre6 ,what to me is the world8 ,my world is my life6 ,thou knowest that my last hope is here1--that all the strength left me this night will die down1 like the lamps in the circle1 unless the elixir restore it4 ,bold friend1 spurn that sorceress away4 ,hours yet ere those flames can assail us6 ,a few minutes more1 and life to your ,lilian and me6 ,thus having said1 ,margrave turned from us1 and cast into the caldron the last essence yet left in his empty coffer4 ,ayesha silently drew her black veil over her face2 and turned1 with the being she loved1 from the terror he scorned1 to share in the hope that he cherished4 ,thus left alone1 with my reason disenthralled1 disenchanted1 ,i surveyed more calmly the extent of the actual peril with which we were threatened1 and the peril seemed less1 so surveyed4 ,it is true all the ,bush-land behind1 almost up to the bed of the creek1 was on fire2 but the grasses1 through which the flame spread so rapidly1 ceased at the opposite marge of the creek4 ,watery pools were still1 at intervals1 left in the bed of the creek1 shining tremulous1 like waves of fire1 in the glare reflected from the burning land2 and even where the water failed1 the stony course of the exhausted rivulet was a barrier against the march of the conflagration4 ,thus1 unless the wind1 now still1 should rise1 and waft some sparks to the parched combustible herbage immediately around us1 we were saved from the fire1 and our work might yet be achieved4 ,i whispered to ,ayesha the conclusion to which ,i came4 ,thinkest thou1 she answered1 without raising her mournful head1 that the ,agencies of ,nature are the movements of chance8 ,the ,spirits ,i invoked to his aid are leagued with the hosts that assail4 ,a mightier than ,i am has doomed him6 ,scarcely had she uttered these words before ,margrave exclaimed1 ,behold how the ,rose of the alchemist's dream enlarges its blooms from the folds of its petals6 ,i shall live1 ,i shall live6 ,i looked1 and the liquid which glowed in the caldron had now taken a splendour that mocked all comparisons borrowed from the lustre of gems4 ,in its prevalent colour it had1 indeed1 the dazzle and flash of the ruby2 but out from the mass of the molten red1 broke coruscations of all prismal hues1 shooting1 shifting1 in a play that made the wavelets them selves seem living things1 sensible of their joy4 ,no longer was there scum or film upon the surface2 only ever and anon a light rosy vapour floating up1 and quick lost in the haggard1 heavy1 sulphurous air1 hot with the conflagration rushing towards us from behind4 ,and these coruscations formed1 on the surface of the molten ruby1 literally the shape of a ,rose1 its leaves made distinct in their outlines by sparks of emerald and diamond and sapphire4 ,even while gazing on this animated liquid lustre1 a buoyant delight seemed infused into my senses2 all terrors conceived before were annulled2 the phantoms1 whose armies had filled the wide spaces in front1 were forgotten2 the crash of the forest behind was unheard4 ,in the reflection of that glory1 ,margrave's wan cheek seemed already restored to the radiance it wore when ,i saw it first in the framework of blooms4 ,as ,i gazed1 thus enchanted1 a cold hand touched my own4 ,hush6 whispered ,ayesha1 from the black veil1 against which the rays of the caldron fell blunt1 and absorbed into ,dark4 ,behind us1 the light of the circle is extinct1 but there we are guarded from all save the brutal and soulless destroyers4 ,but before6--but before 6--see1 two of the lamps have died out6--see the blank of the gap in the ring ,guard that breach1--there the demons will enter4 ,not a drop is there left in his vessel by which to replenish the lamps on the ring4 ,advance1 then2 thou hast still the light of the soul1 and the demons may recoil before a soul that is dauntless and guiltless4 ,if not1 ,three are lost6--as it is1 ,one is doomed4 ,thus adjured1 silently1 involuntarily1 ,i passed from the ,veiled ,woman's side1 over the sere lines on the turf which had been traced by the triangles of light long since extinguished1 and towards the verge of the circle4 ,as ,i advanced1 overhead rushed a dark cloud of wings1--birds dislodged from the forest on fire1 and screaming1 in dissonant terror1 as they flew towards the farthermost mountains2 close by my feet hissed and glided the snakes1 driven forth from their blazing coverts1 and glancing through the ring1 unscared by its waning lamps2 all undulating by me1 bright-eyed and hissing1 all made innocuous by fear1--even the terrible ,death-adder1 which ,i trampled on as ,i halted at the verge of the circle1 did not turn to bite1 but crept harmless away4 ,i halted at the gap between the two dead lamps1 and bowed my head to look again into the crystal vessel4 ,were there1 indeed1 no lingering drops yet left1 if but to recruit the lamps for some priceless minutes more8 ,as ,i thus stood1 right into the gap between the two dead lamps strode a gigantic ,foot4 ,all the rest of the form was unseen2 only1 as volume after volume of smoke poured on from the burning land behind1 it seemed as if one great column of vapour1 eddying round1 settled itself aloft from the circle1 and that out from that column strode the giant ,foot4 ,and1 as strode the ,foot1 so with it came1 like the sound of its tread1 a roll of muttered thunder4 ,i recoiled1 with a cry that rang loud through the lurid air4 ,courage6 said the voice of ,ayesha4 ,trembling soul1 yield not an inch to the demon6 ,at the charm1 the wonderful charm1 in the tone of the ,veiled ,woman's voice1 my will seemed to take a force more sublime than its own4 ,i folded my arms on my breast1 and stood as if rooted to the spot1 confronting the column of smoke and the stride of the giant ,foot4 ,and the ,foot halted1 mute4 ,again1 in the momentary hush of that suspense1 ,i heard a voice1--it was ,margrave's4 ,the last hour expires1 the work is accomplished6 ,come6 come6 ,aid me to take the caldron from the fire2 and quick6--or a drop may be wasted in vapour--the ,elixir of ,life from the caldron6 ,at that cry ,i receded1 and the ,foot advanced4 ,and at that moment1 suddenly1 unawares1 from behind1 ,i was stricken down4 ,over me1 as ,i lay1 swept a whirlwind of trampling hoofs and glancing horns4 ,the herds1 in their flight from the burning pastures1 had rushed over the bed of the watercourse1 scaled the slopes of the banks4 ,snorting and bellowing1 they plunged their blind way to the mountains4 ,one cry alone1 more wild than their own savage blare1 pierced the reek through which the ,brute ,hurricane swept4 ,at that cry of wrath and despair ,i struggled to rise1 again dashed to earth by the hoofs and the horns4 ,but was it the dream-like deceit of my reeling senses1 or did ,i see that giant ,foot stride past through the close-serried ranks of the maddening herds8 ,did ,i hear1 distinct through all the huge uproar of animal terror1 the roll of low thunder which followed the stride of that ,foot8 ,,chapter ,,lxxxviii4 ,when my sense had recovered its shock1 and my eyes looked dizzily round1 the charge of the beasts had swept by2 and of all the wild tribes which had invaded the magical circle1 the only lingerer was the brown ,death-adder1 coiled close by the spot where my head had rested4 ,beside the extinguished lamps which the hoofs had confusedly scattered1 the fire1 arrested by the watercourse1 had consumed the grasses that fed it1 and there the plains stretched1 black and desert as the ,phlegroean ,field of the ,poet's ,hell4 ,but the fire still raged in the forest beyond1--white flames1 soaring up from the trunks of the tallest trees1 and forming1 through the sullen dark of the smoke-reek1 innumerable pillars of fire1 like the halls in the ,city of fiends4 ,gathering myself up1 ,i turned my eyes from the terrible pomp of the lurid forest1 and looked fearfully down on the hoof-trampled sward for my two companions4 ,i saw the dark image of ,ayesha still seated1 still bending1 as ,i had seen it last4 ,i saw a pale hand feebly grasping the rim of the magical caldron1 which lay1 hurled down from its tripod by the rush of the beasts1 yards away from the dim fading embers of the scattered wood-pyre4 ,i saw the faint writhings of a frail wasted frame1 over which the ,veiled ,woman was bending4 ,i saw1 as ,i moved with bruised limbs to the place1 close by the lips of the dying magician1 the flash of the ruby-like essence spilled on the sward1 and1 meteor-like1 sparkling up from the torn tufts of herbage4 ,i now reached ,margrave's side4 ,bending over him as the ,veiled ,woman bent1 and as ,i sought gently to raise him1 he turned his face1 fiercely faltering out1 ,touch me not1 rob me not6 ,you share with me6 ,never6 never6 ,these glorious drops are all mine6 ,die all else6 ,i will live6 ,i will live6 ,writhing himself from my pitying arms1 he plunged his face amidst the beautiful1 playful flame of the essence1 as if to lap the elixir with lips scorched away from its intolerable burning4 ,suddenly1 with a low shriek1 he fell back1 his face upturned to mine1 and on that face unmistakably reigned ,death6 ,then ,ayesha tenderly1 silently1 drew the young head to her lap1 and it vanished from my sight behind her black veil4 ,i knelt beside her1 murmuring some trite words of comfort2 but she heeded me not1 rocking herself to and fro as the mother who cradles a child to sleep4 ,soon the fast-flickering sparkles of the lost elixir died out on the grass2 and with their last sportive diamond-like tremble of light1 up1 in all the suddenness of ,australian day1 rose the sun1 lifting himself royally above the mountain-tops1 and fronting the meaner blaze of the forest as a young king fronts his rebels4 ,and as there1 where the bush-fires had ravaged1 all was a desert1 so there1 where their fury had not spread1 all was a garden4 ,afar1 at the foot of the mountains1 the fugitive herds were grazing2 the cranes1 flocking back to the pools1 renewed the strange grace of their gambols2 and the great kingfisher1 whose laugh1 half in mirth1 half in mockery1 leads the choir that welcome the morn1--which in ,europe is night1--alighted bold on the roof of the cavern1 whose floors were still white with the bones of races1 extinct before--so helpless through instincts1 so royal through ,soul--rose ,man6 ,but there1 on the ground where the dazzling elixir had wasted its virtues1--there the herbage already had a freshness of verdure which1 amid the duller sward round it1 was like an oasis of green in a desert4 ,and there wild-flowers1 whose chill hues the eye would have scarcely distinguished the day before1 now glittered forth in blooms of unfamiliar beauty4 ,towards that spot were attracted myriads of happy insects1 whose hum of intense joy was musically loud4 ,but the form of the life-seeking sorcerer lay rigid and stark2 blind to the bloom of the wild-flowers1 deaf to the glee of the insects1--one hand still resting heavily on the rim of the emptied caldron1 and the face still hid behind the ,black ,veil4 ,what6 the wondrous elixir1 sought with such hope and well-nigh achieved through such dread1 fleeting back to the earth from which its material was drawn1 to give bloom1 indeed1--but to herbs3 joy indeed1--but to insects6 ,and now1 in the flash of the sun1 slowly wound up the slopes that led to the circle the same barbaric procession which had sunk into the valley under the ray of the moon4 ,the armed men came first1 stalwart and tall1 their vests brave with crimson and golden lace1 their weapons gayly gleaming with holiday silver4 ,after them1 the ,black ,litter4 ,as they came to the place1 ,ayesha1 not raising her head1 spoke to them in her own ,eastern tongue4 ,a wail was her answer4 ,the armed men bounded forward1 and the bearers left the litter4 ,all gathered round the dead form with the face concealed under the black veil2 all knelt1 and all wept4 ,far in the distance1 at the foot of the blue mountains1 a crowd of the savage natives had risen up as if from the earth2 they stood motionless1 leaning on their clubs and spears1 and looking towards the spot on which we were1--strangely thus brought into the landscape1 as if they too1 the wild dwellers on the verge which ,humanity guards from the ,brute1 were among the mourners for the mysterious ,child of mysterious ,nature6 ,and still1 in the herbage1 hummed the small insects1 and still1 from the cavern1 laughed the great kingfisher4 ,i said to ,ayesha1 ,farewell6 your love mourns the dead1 mine calls me to the living4 ,you are now with your own people1 they may console you2 say if ,i can assist4 ,there is no consolation for me6 ,what mourner can be consoled if the dead die forever8 ,nothing for him is left but a grave2 that grave shall be in the land where the song of ,ayesha first lulled him to sleep4 ,thou assist ,me1--thou1 the wise man of ,europe6 ,from me ask assistance4 ,what road wilt thou take to thy home8 ,there is but one road known to me through the maze of the solitude1--that which we took to this upland4 ,on that road ,death lurks1 and awaits thee6 ,blind dupe1 couldst thou think that if the grand secret of life had been won1 he whose head rests on my lap would have yielded thee one petty drop of the essence which had filched from his store of life but a moment8 ,me1 who so loved and so cherished him1--me he would have doomed to the pitiless cord of my servant1 the ,strangler1 if my death could have lengthened a hair-breadth the span of his being4 ,but what matters to me his crime or his madness8 ,i loved him6 ,i loved him6 ,she bowed her veiled head lower and lower2 perhaps1 under the veil1 her lips kissed the lips of the dead4 ,then she said whisperingly1-- ,juma the ,strangler1 whose word never failed to his master1 whose prey never slipped from his snare1 waits thy step on the road to thy home6 ,but thy death cannot now profit the dead1 the beloved4 ,and thou hast had pity for him who took but thine aid to design thy destruction4 ,his life is lost1 thine is saved4 ,she spoke no more in the tongue that ,i could interpret4 ,she spoke1 in the language unknown1 a few murmured words to her swarthy attendants2 then the armed men1 still weeping1 rose1 and made a dumb sign to me to go with them4 ,i understood by the sign that ,ayesha had told them to guard me on my way2 but she gave no reply to my parting thanks4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxix4 ,i descended into the valley2 the armed men followed4 ,the path1 on that side of the watercourse not reached by the flames1 wound through meadows still green1 or amidst groves still unscathed4 ,as a turning in the way brought in front of my sight the place ,i had left behind1 ,i beheld the black litter creeping down the descent1 with its curtains closed1 and the ,veiled ,woman walking by its side4 ,but soon the funeral procession was lost to my eyes1 and the thoughts that it roused were erased4 ,the waves in man's brain are like those of the sea1 rushing on1 rushing over the wrecks of the vessels that rode on their surface1 to sink1 after storm1 in their deeps4 ,one thought cast forth into the future now mastered all in the past3 ,was ,lilian living still8 ,absorbed in the gloom of that thought1 hurried on by the goad that my heart1 in its tortured impatience1 gave to my footstep1 ,i outstripped the slow stride of the armed men1 and1 midway between the place ,i had left and the home which ,i sped to1 came1 far in advance of my guards1 into the thicket in which the bushmen had started up in my path on the night that ,lilian had watched for my coming4 ,the earth at my feet was rife with creeping plants and many-coloured flowers1 the sky overhead was half-hid by motionless pines4 ,suddenly1 whether crawling out from the herbage1 or dropping down from the trees1 by my side stood the white-robed and skeleton form1--,ayesha's attendant1 the ,strangler4 ,i sprang from him shuddering1 then halted and faced him4 ,the hideous creature crept towards me1 cringing and fawning1 making signs of humble good-will and servile obeisance4 ,again ,i recoiled1--wrathfully1 loathingly2 turned my face homeward1 and fled on4 ,i thought ,i had baffled his chase1 when1 just at the mouth of the thicket1 he dropped from a bough in my path close behind me4 ,before ,i could turn1 some dark muffling substance fell between my sight and the sun1 and ,i felt a fierce strain at my throat4 ,but the words of ,ayesha had warned me2 with one rapid hand ,i seized the noose before it could tighten too closely1 with the other ,i tore the bandage away from my eyes1 and1 wheeling round on the dastardly foe1 struck him down with one spurn of my foot4 ,his hand1 as he fell1 relaxed its hold on the noose2 ,i freed my throat from the knot1 and sprang from the copse into the broad sunlit plain4 ,i saw no more of the armed men or the ,strangler4 ,panting and breathless1 ,i paused at last before the fence1 fragrant with blossoms1 that divided my home from the solitude4 ,the windows of ,lilian's room were darkened2 all within the house seemed still4 ,darkened and silenced ,home6 with the light and sounds of the jocund day all around it4 ,was there yet hope in the ,universe for me8 ,all to which ,i had trusted ,hope had broken down6 ,the anchors ,i had forged for her hold in the beds of the ocean1 her stay from the drifts of the storm1 had snapped like the reeds which pierce the side that leans on the barb of their points1 and confides in the strength of their stems4 ,no hope in the baffled resources of recognized knowledge6 ,no hope in the daring adventures of ,mind into regions unknown2 vain alike the calm lore of the practised physician1 and the magical arts of the fated ,enchanter6 ,i had fled from the commonplace teachings of ,nature1 to explore in her ,shadow-land marvels at variance with reason4 ,made brave by the grandeur of love1 ,i had opposed without quailing the stride of the ,demon1 and by hope1 when fruition seemed nearest1 had been trodden into dust by the hoofs of the beast6 ,and yet1 all the while1 ,i had scorned1 as a dream more wild than the word of a sorcerer1 the hope that the old man and the child1 the wise and the ignorant1 took from their souls as inborn4 ,man and fiend had alike failed a mind1 not ignoble1 not skilless1 not abjectly craven2 alike failed a heart not feeble and selfish1 not dead to the hero's devotion1 willing to shed every drop of its blood for a something more dear than an animal's life for itself6 ,what remained--what remained for man's hope8--man's mind and man's heart thus exhausting their all with no other result but despair6 ,what remained but the mystery of mysteries1 so clear to the sunrise of childhood1 the sunset of age1 only dimmed by the clouds which collect round the noon of our manhood8 ,where yet was ,hope found8 ,in the soul2 in its every-day impulse to supplicate comfort and light1 from the ,giver of soul1 wherever the heart is afflicted1 the mind is obscured4 ,then the words of ,ayesha rushed over me3 ,what mourner can be consoled1 if the ,dead die forever8 ,through every pulse of my frame throbbed that dread question4 ,all ,nature around seemed to murmur it4 ,and suddenly1 as by a flash from heaven1 the grand truth in ,faber's grand reasoning shone on me1 and lighted up all1 within and without4 ,alan alone1 of all earthly creatures1 asks1 ,can the ,dead die forever8 and the instinct that urges the question is ,god's answer to man6 ,no instinct is given in vain4 ,and born with the instinct of soul is the instinct that leads the soul from the seen to the unseen1 from time to eternity1 from the torrent that foams towards the ,ocean of ,death1 to the source of its stream1 far aloft from the ,ocean4 ,know thyself1 said the ,pythian of old4 ,that precept descended from ,heaven4 ,know thyself6 ,is that maxim wise8 ,if so1 know thy soul4 ,but never yet did man come to the thorough conviction of soul but what he acknowledged the sovereign necessity of prayer4 ,in my awe1 in my rapture1 all my thoughts seemed enlarged and illumined and exalted4 ,i prayed1--all my soul seemed one prayer4 ,all my past1 with its pride and presumption and folly1 grew distinct as the form of a penitent1 kneeling for pardon before setting forth on the pilgrimage vowed to a shrine4 ,and1 sure now1 in the deeps of a soul first revealed to myself1 that the ,dead do not die forever1 my human love soared beyond its brief trial of terror and sorrow4 ,daring not to ask from ,heaven's wisdom that ,lilian1 for my sake1 might not yet pass away from the earth1 ,i prayed that my soul might be fitted to bear with submission whatever my ,maker might ordain4 ,and if surviving her--without whom no beam from yon material sun could ever warm into joy a morrow in human life--so to guide my steps that they might rejoin her at last1 and1 in rejoining1 regain forever6 ,how trivial now became the weird riddle that1 a little while before1 had been clothed in so solemn an awe6 ,what mattered it to the vast interests involved in the clear recognition of ,soul and ,hereafter1 whether or not my bodily sense1 for a moment1 obscured the face of the ,nature ,i should one day behold as a spirit8 ,doubtless the sights and the sounds which had haunted the last gloomy night1 the calm reason of ,faber would strip of their magical seemings2 the ,eyes in the space and the ,foot in the circle might be those of no terrible ,demons1 but of the wild's savage children whom ,i had seen1 halting1 curious and mute1 in the light of the morning4 ,the tremor of the ground 7if not1 as heretofore1 explicable by the illusory impression of my own treacherous senses7 might be but the natural effect of elements struggling yet under a soil unmistakably charred by volcanoes4 ,the luminous atoms dissolved in the caldron might as little be fraught with a vital elixir as are the splendours of naphtha or phosphor4 ,as it was1 the weird rite had no magic result4 ,the magician was not rent limb from limb by the fiends4 ,by causes as natural as ever extinguished life's spark in the frail lamp of clay1 he had died out of sight--under the black veil4 ,what mattered henceforth to ,faith1 in its far grander questions and answers1 whether ,reason1 in ,faber1 or ,fancy1 in me1 supplied the more probable guess at a hieroglyph which1 if construed aright1 was but a word of small mark in the mystical language of ,nature8 ,if all the arts of enchantment recorded by ,fable were attested by facts which ,sages were forced to acknowledge1 ,sages would sooner or later find some cause for such portents--not supernatural4 ,but what ,sage1 without cause supernatural1 both without and within him1 can guess at the wonders he views in the growth of a blade of grass1 or the tints on an insect's wing8 ,whatever art ,man can achieve in his progress through time1 ,man's reason1 in time1 can suffice to explain4 ,but the wonders of ,god8 ,these belong to the ,infinite2 and these1 ,o ,immortal6 will but develop new wonder on wonder1 though thy sight be a spirit's1 and thy leisure to track and to solve an eternity4 ,as ,i raised my face from my clasped hands1 my eyes fell full upon a form standing in the open doorway4 ,there1 where on the night in which ,lilian's long struggle for reason and life had begun1 the ,luminous ,shadow had been beheld in the doubtful light of a dying moon and a yet hazy dawn2 there1 on the threshold1 gathering round her bright locks the aureole of the glorious sun1 stood ,amy1 the blessed child6 ,and as ,i gazed1 drawing nearer and nearer to the silenced house1 and that ,image of ,peace on its threshold1 ,i felt that ,hope met me at the door1--,hope in the child's steadfast eyes1 ,hope in the child's welcoming smile6 ,i was at watch for you1 whispered ,amy4 ,all is well4 ,she lives still--she lives6 ,thank ,god6 thank ,god6 ,she lives1--she will recover6 said another voice1 as my head sunk on ,faber's shoulder4 ,for some hours in the night her sleep was disturbed1 convulsed4 ,i feared1 then1 the worst4 ,suddenly1 just before the dawn1 she called out aloud1 still in sleep1-- ',the cold and dark shadow has passed away from me and from ,allen1--passed away from us both forever6' ,and from that moment the fever left her2 the breathing became soft1 the pulse steady1 and the colour stole gradually back to her cheek4 ,the crisis is past4 ,nature's benign ,disposer has permitted ,nature to restore your life's gentle partner1 heart to heart1 mind to mind-- ,and soul to soul1 ,i cried1 in my solemn joy4 ,above as below1 soul to soul6 ,then1 at a sign from ,faber1 the child took me by the hand and led me up the stairs into ,lilian's room4 ,again those clear arms closed around me in wife-like and holy love1 and those true lips kissed away my tears1--even as now1 at the distance of years from that happy morn1 while ,i write the last words of this ,strange ,story1 the same faithful arms close around me1 the same tender lips kiss away my tears4 ,,the ,,end4