Across the Zodiac
Page 27
CHAPTER XXVII - THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.
If I could have endured to describe to Eveena the terrible trialscene, that which occurred before she had the chance to question mewould have certainly sealed my lips. The past night had told upon meas no fatigue, no anxiety, no disaster of my life on Earth had everdone. I awoke faint and exhausted as a nervous valetudinarian, and Isuppose my feeling must have been plainly visible in my face, forEveena would not allow me to rise from the cushions till she hadsummoned an _amba_ and procured the material of a morning meal, thoughthe hour was noon. Far too considerate to question me then, she wasperhaps a little disappointed that, almost before I had dressed, amessage from her father summoned me to his presence.
"It is right," he said quietly, and with no show of feeling, thoughhis face was somewhat pale, "that you should be acquainted with thefulfilment of the sentence you assisted to pass. The outcast was foundthis morning dead in his own chamber. Nay, you need not start! We needno deathsman; alike by sudden disease, by suicide, by accident, ourdoom executes itself. But enough of this. I accepted the vote whichinvested you with the second rank in our Order, less because I thinkyou will render service to it here than that I desired you to possessthat entire knowledge of its powers and secrets which might enable youto plant a branch or offshoot where none but you could carry it ...That you will soon leave this world seemed to me probable, before theanticipations of practical prudence were confirmed by the voice ofprophecy. Your Astronaut shall be stored with all of which I know youhave need, and with any materials whose use I do not know that you maypoint out. To remove it from Asnyea would now be too dangerous. If youreceive tidings that shall bring you again into its neighbourhood, donot lose the opportunity of re-entering it.... And now let me takeleave of you, as of a dear friend I may not meet again."
"Do you know," I said, more touched by the tone than by the words,"that Eveena asked and I gave a promise that when I do re-enter it sheshall be my companion?"
"I did not know it, but I took for granted that she would desire it,and I should have been grieved to doubt that you would assent. Icannot disturb her peace by saying to her what I have just said toyou, and must part from her as on any ordinary occasion."
That parting, happily, I did not witness. Before evening we re-enteredour vessel, and returned home without any incident worthy of mention.
To my surprise, my return plunged me at once into the kind of vexationwhich Eveena had so anxiously endeavoured to spare me, and which I hadhoped Eunane's greater decision and less exaggerated tenderness wouldhave avoided. She seemed excited and almost fretful, and before we hadbeen half an hour at home had greeted me with a string of complaintswhich, on her own showing, seemed frivolous, and argued as much temperon her part as customary petulance on that of others. On one point,however, her report confirmed the suggestions of Eveena's previousexperience. She had wrested at once from Eive's hand the pencil thathad hitherto been used in absolute secrecy, and the consequent quarrelhad been sharp enough to suggest, if not to prove, that the privilegewas of practical as well as sentimental moment. Though aggravated byno rebuke, my tacit depreciation of her grievances irritated Eunane toan extreme of petulance unusual with her of late; which I bore so longas it was directed against myself, but which, turned at last onEveena, wholly exhausted my patience. But no sooner had I dismissedthe offender than Eveena herself interposed, with even more than herusual tenderness for Eunane.
"Do not blame my presumption," she said; "do not think that I ammerely soft or weak, if I entreat you to take no further notice ofEunane's mood. I cannot but think that, if you do, you will very soonrepent it."
She could not or would not give a reason for her intercession; butsome little symptoms I might have seen without observing, someperception of the exceptional character of Eunane's outbreak, or someunacknowledged misgiving accordant with her own, made me more thanwilling to accept Eveena's wish as a sufficient cause for forbearance.When we assembled at the morning meal Eunane appeared to be consciousof error; at all events, her manner and temper were changed. Watchingher closely, I thought that neither shame for an outbreak of unwontedextravagance nor fear of my displeasure would account for her languorand depression. But illness is so rare among a race educated forcountless generations on principles scientifically sound and sanitary,inheriting no seeds of disease from their ancestry, and safe from theinfection of epidemics long extirpated, that no apprehension ofserious physical cause for her changes of temper and complexionentered into my mind. To spare her when she deserved no indulgence wasthe surest way to call forth Eunane's best impulses; and I was notsurprised to find her, soon after the party had dispersed, in Eveena'schamber. That all the amends I could desire had been made and acceptedwas sufficiently evident. But Eunane's agitation was so violent andpersistent, despite all Eveena's soothing, that I was at lastseriously apprehensive of its effect upon the latter. The moment wewere alone Eveena said--
"I have never seen illness, but if Eunane is not ill, and very ill,all I have gathered in my father's household from such books as he hasallowed me, and from his own conversation, deceives me wholly; and yetno illness of which I have ever heard in the slightest degreeresembles this."
"I take it to be," I said, "what on Earth women call hysteria and mentemper."
To this opinion, however, I could not adhere when, watching herclosely, I noticed the evident lack of spirit and strength with whichthe most active and energetic member of the household went about herusual pursuits. A terrible suspicion at first entered my mind, but waswholly discountenanced by Eveena, who insisted that there was noconceivable motive for an attempt to injure Eunane; while the ideathat mischief designed for others had unintentionally fallen on herwas excluded by the certainty that, whatever the nature of herillness, if it were such, it had commenced before our return. Longbefore evening I had communicated with Esmo, and received from him areply which, though exceedingly unsatisfactory, rather confirmedEveena's impression. The latter had taken upon herself the care of theevening meal; but, before we could meet there, my own observation hadsuggested an alarm I dared not communicate to her--one which a widerexperience than hers could neither verify nor dispel. Among symptomswholly alien, there were one or two which sent a thrill of terror tomy heart;--which reminded me of the most awful and destructive of thescourges wherewith my Eastern life had rendered me but too familiar.It was not unnatural that, if carried to a new world, that fearfuldisease should assume a new form; but how could it have been conveyed?how, if conveyed, could its incubation in some unknown vehicle havebeen so long? and how had it reached one, and one only, of myhousehold--one, moreover, who had no access to such few relics of myown world as I had retained, of which Eveena had the exclusive charge?All Esmo's knowledge, even were he within reach, could hardly help mehere. I dared, of course, suggest my apprehension to no one, least ofall to the patient herself. As, towards evening, her languor was againexchanged for the feverish excitement of the previous night, I seizedon some petulant word as an excuse to confine her to her room, and,selfishly enough, resolved to invoke the help of the only member ofthe family who should, and perhaps would, be willing to run personalrisk for the sake of aiding Eunane in need and protecting Eveena. Ihad seen as yet very little of Velna, Eunane's school companion; butnow, calling her apart, I told her frankly that I feared some illnessof my own Earth had by some means been communicated to her friend.
"You have here," I said, "for ages had no such diseases as those whichwe on Earth most dread; those which, communicated through water, air,or solid particles, spread from one person to another, endangeringespecially those who come nearest to the sufferers. Whoever approachesEunane risks all that I fear for her, and that 'all' means veryprobably speedy death. To leave her alone is impossible; and if Icannot report that she is fully cared for in other hands, no command,nothing short of actual compulsion, will keep Eveena away from her."
The girl looked up with a steady frank courage and unaffectedreadiness I had not expected.
The last words reminded me that to her who spoke death meantannihilation; a fact which has deprived the men of her race of nearlyevery vestige of the calm courage now displayed by this young girl,indebted as little as any human being could be to the insensibleinfluences of home affection, or the direct moral teaching which issometimes supposed to be a sufficient substitute. I led her at onceinto her friend's chamber, and a single glance satisfied me that myapprehensions were but too well-founded. Remaining long enough toassure the sufferer that the displeasure I had affected had whollypassed away, and to suggest the only measures of relief rather than ofremedy that occurred to me, I endeavoured for a few moments to collectmy thoughts and recover the control of my nerves in solitude. In myown chamber Eveena would assuredly have sought me, and I chosetherefore one of those as yet unoccupied. It did not take long toconvince me that no ordinary resources at my command, no medicalexperience of my own, no professional science existing among a racewho probably never knew the disease in question, and had not for agesknown anything like it, could avail me. My later studies in the occultscience of Eastern schools had not furnished me with any antidote inwhich I believed on Earth, and if they had, it was not here available.Despair rather than hope suggested an appeal to those which theanalogous secrets of the Starlight might afford. Anxiety, agitation,personal interest so powerful as now disturbed me, are generally fatalto the exercise of the powers recently placed at my command; sorecently that, but for Terrestrial experience, I should hardly haveknown how to use them. But the arts which assist in and facilitatethat tremendous all-absorbing concentration of will on which theexertion of those powers depends, are far more fully developed in theZveltic science than in its Earthly analogues. A desperate effort,aided by those arts, at last controlled my thoughts, and turned themfrom the sick-room to that distant chamber in which I had so latelystood.
* * * * *
I seemed to stand beside her, and at once to be aware that my thoughtwas visible to the closed eyes. From lips paler than ever, words--sogenerally resembling those I had previously heard that some readersmay think them the mere recollection thereof--appeared to reach mysense or my mind as from a great distance, spoken in a tone of mingledpity, promise, and reproof:--
"What is youth or sex or beauty in the All-Commander's sight? For the arm that smote and spared not, shall His wisdom spare to smite? Yet, love redeems the loving; yet in thy need avail The Soul whose light surrounds thee, the faith that will not fail. Thy lips shall soothe the terror, call to yon couch afar The solace of the Serpent, the shadow of the Star! Strength shall sustain the strengthless, nor the soft hand loose its grasp Of the hand it trusts and clings to--till another meet its clasp.... --Steel-hard to man's last anguish, wax-soft to woman's mood!-- Death quits not the death-dealer; blood haunts the life of blood!"
* * * * *
Returning to the peristyle, I encountered Eveena, who had been seekingme anxiously. Much alarmed for her, I bade her return at once to herroom. She obeyed as of course, equally of course surprised and alittle mortified; while I, marvelling by what conceivable means theplague of Cairo or Constantinople could have been conveyed acrossforty million miles of space and some two years of Earthly time, pacedthe peristyle for a few minutes. As I did so, my eye fell on the roseswhich grew just where chance arrested my steps. If they do not affordan explanation which scientific medicine will admit, I can suggest noother. But, if it were so, how fearfully true the warning!--by what amysterious fate did death dog my footsteps, and "blood haunt the lifeof blood!"
The reader may not remember that the central chamber of the women'sapartments, next to which was Eunane's, had been left vacant. This Idetermined to occupy myself, and bade the girls remove at once tothose on its right, as yet unallotted. I closed the room, threw off mydress, and endeavoured by means of the perfumed shower-bath to drivefrom my person what traces of the infection might cling to it; forEveena had the keys of all my cases and of the medicine-chest, and Icould not make up my mind to reclaim them by a simple unexplainedmessage sent by an amba, or, still worse, by the hands of Enva orEive. I laid the clothes I had worn on one of the shelves of the wall,closing over them the crystal doors of the sunken cupboard; and,having obtained through the amban a dress which I had not worn sincemy return, and which therefore could hardly have about it any trace ofinfection, I sought Eveena in her own room.
That something had gone wrong, and gravely wrong, she could not butknow; and I found her silent and calm, indeed, but weeping bitterly,whether for the apprehension of danger to me, or for what seemed wantof trust in her. I asked her for the keys, and she gave them; but witha mute appeal that made the concealment I desired, however necessary,no longer possible. Gently, cautiously as I could, but softening, nothiding, any part of the truth, I gave her the full confidence to whichshe was entitled, and which, once forced out of the silence preservedfor her sake, it was an infinite relief to give. If I could notobserve equal gentleness of word and manner in absolutely forbiddingher to approach, either Eunane's chamber or my own, it was because,the moment she conceived what I was about to say, her almost indignantrevolt from the command was apparent. For the first and last time shedistinctly and firmly refused compliance, not merely with the kindlythough very decided request at first spoken, but with the formal andperemptory command by which I endeavoured to enforce it.
"You command me to neglect a sister in peril and suffering," she said."It is not kind; it is hardly worthy of you; but my first duty is toyou, and you have the right, if you will, to insist that I shallreserve my life for your sake. But you command me also to forsake youin danger and in sorrow; and nothing but the absolute force you may ofcourse employ shall compel me to obey you in that."
"I understand you, Eveena; and you, in your turn, must think and feelthat I intend to express neither displeasure nor pain; that I mean noharshness to you, no less respect as well as love than I have alwaysshown you, when I say that obey you shall; that the same sense of dutywhich impels you to refuse obliges me to enforce my command. At notime would I have allowed you to risk your life where others might beavailable. But if you were the only one who could help, I should,under other circumstances, have felt that the same paramount duty thatattaches to me attached in a lighter degree to yourself. Now, as youwell know, the case is different; and even were Eunane not quite safein my hands and in Velna's, you must not run a risk that can beavoided. You will promise me to remain on this side the peristyle orin the further half of it, or I must confine you perforce; and it isnot kind or right in this hour of trouble to impose upon me so painfula task."
With every tone, look, and caress that could express affection andsympathy, Eveena answered--
"Do what seems your duty, and do not think that I misunderstand yourmotive or feel the shadow of humiliation or unkindness. Make me obeyif you can, punish me if I disobey; but obey you, when you tell me,for my own life's sake or for any other, to desert you in the hour ofneed, of danger, and of sorrow, I neither will nor can." I cut shortthe scene, bidding her a passionate farewell in view of theprobability that we should not meet again. I closed the door behindme, having called her whom at this moment and in this case I couldbest trust, because her worse as well as her better qualities werealike guarantees for her obedience.
"Enva," I said, "you will keep this room till I release you; and youwill answer it to me, as the worst fault you can commit, if Eveenapasses this threshold, under whatever circumstances, until I give herpermission, or until, if it be beyond my power to give it, her fathertakes the responsibilities of my home upon himself."
I procured the sedatives which might relieve the suffering I could nothope to cure. I wrote to Esmo, stating briefly but fully the posi
tionas I conceived it; and, on a suggestion from Eive, I despatchedanother message to a female physician of some repute--one of those fewwomen in Mars who lead the life and do the work of men, and for whoseattendance, as I remembered, Eunane had expressed a strong theoreticalpreference.
From that time I scarcely left her chamber save for a few minutes, andVelna remained constantly at her friend's side, save when, to give herat least a chance of escape, I sent her to her room to bathe, changeher dress, and seek the fresh air for the half hour during which aloneI could persuade her to leave the sufferer. The _daftare_ (man-woman)physician came, but on learning the nature of the disease, expressedintense indignation that she had been summoned to a position of somuch danger to herself.
I answered by a contemptuous inquiry regarding the price for which shewould run so much risk as to remain in the peristyle so long as Imight have need of her presence; and, for a fee which would ensure hera life-income as large as that secured to Eveena herself, sheconsented to remain within speaking distance for the few hours inwhich the question must be decided. Eunane was seldom insensible oreven delirious, and her quick intelligence caught very speedily themeaning of my close attendance, and of the distress which neitherVelna nor I could wholly conceal. She asked and extracted from me whatI knew of the origin of her illness, and answered, with a far strongerfeeling than I should have expected even from her--
"If I am to die, I am glad it should be through trying to serve andplease Eveena.... It may seem strange, Clasfempta," she went onpresently, "scarcely possible perhaps; but my love for her is not onlygreater than the love I bear you, but is so bound up with it that Ialways think of you together, and love you the better that I love her,and that you love her so much better than me.... But," she resumedlater, "it is hard to die, and die so young. I had never known whathappiness meant till I came here.... I have been so happy here, and Iwas happier each day in feeling that I no longer made Eveena or youless happy. Ah! let me thank you and Eveena while I can foreverything, and above all for Velna.... But," after another longpause, "it is terrible and horrible--never to wake, to move, to hearyour voices, to see you, to look upon the sunlight, to think, or evento dream again! Once, to remove a tooth and straighten the rest, theymade me senseless; and that sinking into senselessness, though I knewI should waken in a minute, was horrible; and--to sink intosenselessness from which I shall never waken!"
She was sinking fast indeed, and this terror of death, so seldom seenin the dying, grew apparently deeper and more intense as death drewnear. I could not bear it, and at last took my resolve and dismissedVelna, forbidding her to return till summoned.
"Ah!" said Eunane, "you send her away that she may not see the last.Is it so near?"
"No, darling!" I replied (she, like Eveena, had learnt the meaning ofone or two expressions of human affection in my own tongue), "but Ihave that to say which I would not willingly say in her presence. Youdread death not as a short terrible pain, and for you it will not beso, not as a short sleep, but as eternal senselessness andnothingness. Has it never seemed to you strange that, loving Eveena asI do, _I_ do not fear to die? Though you did not know it, I have livedalmost since first you knew me under the threat of death; and deathsudden, secret, without warning, menacing me every day and every hour.And yet, though death meant leaving her and leaving her to a fate Icould not foresee, I have been able to look on it steadily. Kneelinghere, I know that I am very probably giving my life to the same end asyours. I do not fear. That may not seem strange to you; but Eveenaknows all I know, and I could scarcely keep Eveena away. So lovingeach other, _we_ do not fear to die, because we believe, we know, thatthat in us which thinks, and feels, and loves will live; that in deathwe lay aside the body as we lay aside our worn-out clothing. If Ithought otherwise, Eunane, I could not bear _this_ parting."
She clasped my hands, almost as much surprised and touched, I thought,for the moment by the expression of an affection of which till thathour neither of us were fully aware, as by the marvellous andincredible assurance she had heard.
"Ah!" she said, "I have heard her people are strange, and they dreamsuch things. No, Clasfempta, it is a fancy, or you say it to comfortme, not because it is true."
The expression of terror that again came over her face was too painfulfor endurance. To calm that terror I would have broken every oath,have risked every penalty. But in truth I could never have paused toask what in such a case oath or law permitted, "Listen, Eunane," Isaid, "and be calm. Not only Eveena, not only I, but hundreds,thousands, of the best and kindliest men and women of your world holdthis faith as fast as we do. You feel what Eveena is. What she is andwhat others are not, she owes to this trust:--to the assurance of aPower unseen, that rules our lives and fortunes and watches ourconduct, that will exact an account thereof, that holds us as Hischildren, and will never part with us. Do you think it is a lie thathas made Eveena what she is?"
"But you _think_, you do not know."
"Yes, I know; I have seen." Here a touch, breaking suddenly upon thatintense concentration of mind and soul on a single thought, violentlystartled me, gentle as it was; and to my horror I saw that Eveena waskneeling with me by the couch.
"Remember," she said, in the lowest, saddest whisper, "'the Veil thatguards the Shrine.'"
"No matter, Eveena," I answered in the same tone, the pain at my heartsuppressing even the impulse of indignation, not with her, but withthe law that could put such a thought into her heart. "Neither penaltynor oath should silence me now. Whether I break our law I know not;but I would forfeit life here--I would forfeit life hereafter, ratherthan fail a soul that rests on mine at such a moment."
The clasp of her hand showed how thoroughly, despite the momentarydoubt, she felt with me; and I could not now recur to that secondaryselfishness which had so imperiously repelled her from thesick-chamber.
"I have seen," I repeated, as Eunane still looked earnestly into myface, "and Eveena has seen at the same moment, one long ages sincedeparted this world--the Teacher of this belief, the Founder of thatSociety which holds it, the ancestor of her own house--in bodily formbefore us."
"It is true," said Eveena, in answer to Eunane's appealing look.
"And I," I added, "have seen more than once in my own world the formsof those I have known in life recalled, according to promise, to humaneyes."
The testimony, or the contagion of the strong undoubting confidence wefelt therein, if they did not convince the intellect, changed the toneof thought and feeling of the dying girl. Too weak now to reason, orto resist the impression enforced upon her mind by minds always farmore powerful than her own in its brightest hours, she turnedinstinctively from the thought of blackness, senselessness eternal, tothat of a Father whose hand could uphold, of the wings that can leapthe grave. Her left hand clasped in mine, her right in Eveena's,--looking most in my face, because weakness leant on strength even morethan love appealed to love--Eunane spent the remaining hours of thatnight in calm contentment and peace. Perhaps they were among the mostperfectly peaceful and happy she had known. To strong, warm,sheltering affection she had never been used save in her new home; andin the love she received and returned there was much too strange andself-contradicting to be satisfactory. But no shadow of jealousy,doubt, or contradictory emotion troubled her now: assured of Eveena'ssisterly love as of my own hardly and lately won trust and tenderness.
The light had been long subdued, and the chamber was dim as dimmesttwilight, when suddenly, with a smile, Eunane cried--
"It is morning already! and there,--why, there is Erme."
She stretched out her arms as if to greet the one creature she hadloved--perhaps more dearly than she loved those now beside her. Thehands dropped; and Eveena's closed for ever on the sights of thisworld the eyes whose last vision had been of another.