Lilith

by George MacDonald

  I walked on in front, and out of the city. What an end to the hopes with which I entered the evil place! We had captured the bad princess, and lost our all-beloved queen! My life was bare! my heart was empty!

  CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SHADOW

  A murmur of pleasure from my companions roused me: they had caught sight of their fellows in the distance! The two on Lona’s horse rode on to join them. They were greeted with a wavering shout—which immediately died away. As we drew near, the sound of their sobs reached us like the breaking of tiny billows.

  When I came among them, I saw that something dire had befallen them: on their childish faces was the haggard look left by some strange terror. No possible grief could have wrought the change. A few of them came slowly round me, and held out their arms to take my burden. I yielded it; the tender hopelessness of the smile with which they received it, made my heart swell with pity in the midst of its own desolation. In vain were their sobs over their mother-queen; in vain they sought to entice from her some recognition of their love; in vain they kissed and fondled her as they bore her away: she would not wake! On each side one carried an arm, gently stroking it; as many as could get near, put their arms under her body; those who could not, crowded around the bearers. On a spot where the grass grew thicker and softer they laid her down, and there all the Little Ones gathered sobbing.

  Outside the crowd stood the elephants, and I near them, gazing at my Lona over the many little heads between. Those next me caught sight of the princess, and stared trembling. Odu was the first to speak.

  “I have seen that woman before!” he whispered to his next neighbour. “It was she who fought the white leopardess, the night they woke us with their yelling!”

  “Silly!” returned his companion. “That was a wild beast, with spots!”

  “Look at her eyes!” insisted Odu. “I know she is a bad giantess, but she is a wild beast all the same. I know she is the spotted one!”

  The other took a step nearer; Odu drew him back with a sharp pull.

  “Don’t look at her!” he cried, shrinking away, yet fascinated by the hate-filled longing in her eyes. “She would eat you up in a moment! It was HER shadow! She is the wicked princess!”

  “That cannot be! they said she was beautiful!”

  “Indeed it is the princess!” I interposed. “Wickedness has made her ugly!”

  She heard, and what a look was hers!

  “It was very wrong of me to run away!” said Odu thoughtfully.

  “What made you run away?” I asked. “I expected to find you where I left you!”

  He did not reply at once.

  “I don’t know what made me run,” answered another. “I was frightened!”

  “It was a man that came down the hill from the palace,” said a third.

  “How did he frighten you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He wasn’t a man,” said Odu; “he was a shadow; he had no thick to him!”

  “Tell me more about him.”

  “He came down the hill very black, walking like a bad giant, but spread flat. He was nothing but blackness. We were frightened the moment we saw him, but we did not run away; we stood and watched him. He came on as if he would walk over us. But before he reached us, he began to spread and spread, and grew bigger end bigger, till at last he was so big that he went out of our sight, and we saw him no more, and then he was upon us!”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “He was all black through between us, and we could not see one another; and then he was inside us.”

  “How did you know he was inside you?”

  “He did me quite different. I felt like bad. I was not Odu any more—not the Odu I knew. I wanted to tear Sozo to pieces—not really, but like!”

  He turned and hugged Sozo.

  “It wasn’t me, Sozo,” he sobbed. “Really, deep down, it was Odu, loving you always! And Odu came up, and knocked Naughty away. I grew sick, and thought I must kill myself to get out of the black. Then came a horrible laugh that had heard my think, and it set the air trembling about me. And then I suppose I ran away, but I did not know I had run away until I found myself running, fast as could, and all the rest running too. I would have stopped, but I never thought of it until I was out of the gate among the grass. Then I knew that I had run away from a shadow that wanted to be me and wasn’t, and that I was the Odu that loved Sozo. It was the shadow that got into me, and hated him from inside me; it was not my own self me! And now I know that I ought not to have run away! But indeed I did not quite know what I was doing until it was done! My legs did it, I think: they grew frightened, and forgot me, and ran away! Naughty legs! There! and there!”

  Thus ended Odu, with a kick to each of his naughty legs.

  “What became of the shadow?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” he answered. “I suppose he went home into the night where there is no moon.”

  I fell a wondering where Lona was gone, and dropping on the grass, took the dead thing in my lap, and whispered in its ear, “Where are you, Lona? I love you!” But its lips gave no answer. I kissed them, not quite cold, laid the body down again, and appointing a guard over it, rose to provide for the safety of Lona’s people during the night.

  Before the sun went down, I had set a watch over the princess outside the camp, and sentinels round it: intending to walk about it myself all night long, I told the rest of the army to go to sleep. They threw themselves on the grass and were asleep in a moment.

  When the moon rose I caught a glimpse of something white; it was the leopardess. She swept silently round the sleeping camp, and I saw her pass three times between the princess and the Little Ones. Thereupon I made the watch lie down with the others, and stretched myself beside the body of Lona.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII. TO THE HOUSE OF BITTERNESS

  In the morning we set out, and made for the forest as fast as we could. I rode Lona’s horse, and carried her body. I would take it to her father: he would give it a couch in the chamber of his dead! or, if he would not, seeing she had not come of herself, I would watch it in the desert until it mouldered away! But I believed he would, for surely she had died long ago! Alas, how bitterly must I not humble myself before him!

  To Adam I must take Lilith also. I had no power to make her repent! I had hardly a right to slay her—much less a right to let her loose in the world! and surely I scarce merited being made for ever her gaoler!

  Again and again, on the way, I offered her food; but she answered only with a look of hungering hate. Her fiery eyes kept rolling to and fro, nor ever closed, I believe, until we reached the other side of the hot stream. After that they never opened until we came to the House of Bitterness.

  One evening, as we were camping for the night, I saw a little girl go up to her, and ran to prevent mischief. But ere I could reach them, the child had put something to the lips of the princess, and given a scream of pain.

  “Please, king,” she whimpered, “suck finger. Bad giantess make hole in it!”

  I sucked the tiny finger.

  “Well now!” she cried, and a minute after was holding a second fruit to a mouth greedy of other fare. But this time she snatched her hand quickly away, and the fruit fell to the ground. The child’s name was Luva.

  The next day we crossed the hot stream. Again on their own ground, the Little Ones were jubilant. But their nests were still at a great distance, and that day we went no farther than the ivy-hall, where, because of its grapes, I had resolved to spend the night. When they saw the great clusters, at once they knew them good, rushed upon them, ate eagerly, and in a few minutes were all fast asleep on the green floor and in the forest around the hall. Hoping again to see the dance, and expecting the Little Ones to sleep through it, I had made them leave a wide space in the middle. I lay down among them, with Lona by my side, but did not sleep.

  The night came, and suddenly the company was there. I was wondering with myself whether, night after night, they would thus go o
n dancing to all eternity, and whether I should not one day have to join them because of my stiff-neckedness, when the eyes of the children came open, and they sprang to their feet, wide awake. Immediately every one caught hold of a dancer, and away they went, bounding and skipping. The spectres seemed to see and welcome them: perhaps they knew all about the Little Ones, for they had themselves long been on their way back to childhood! Anyhow, their innocent gambols must, I thought, bring refreshment to weary souls who, their present taken from them and their future dark, had no life save the shadow of their vanished past. Many a merry but never a rude prank did the children play; and if they did at times cause a momentary jar in the rhythm of the dance, the poor spectres, who had nothing to smile withal, at least manifested no annoyance.

  Just ere the morning began to break, I started to see the skeleton-princess in the doorway, her eyes open and glowing, the fearful spot black on her side. She stood for a moment, then came gliding in, as if she would join the dance. I sprang to my feet. A cry of repugnant fear broke from the children, and the lights vanished. But the low moon looked in, and I saw them clinging to each other. The ghosts were gone—at least they were no longer visible. The princess too had disappeared. I darted to the spot where I had left her: she lay with her eyes closed, as if she had never moved. I returned to the hall. The Little Ones were already on the floor, composing themselves to sleep.

  The next morning, as we started, we spied, a little way from us, two skeletons moving about in a thicket. The Little Ones broke their ranks, and ran to them. I followed; and, although now walking at ease, without splint or ligature, I was able to recognise the pair I had before seen in that neighbourhood. The children at once made friends with them, laying hold of their arms, and stroking the bones of their long fingers; and it was plain the poor creatures took their attentions kindly. The two seemed on excellent terms with each other. Their common deprivation had drawn them together! the loss of everything had been the beginning of a new life to them!

  Perceiving that they had gathered handfuls of herbs, and were looking for more—presumably to rub their bones with, for in what other way could nourishment reach their system so rudimentary?—the Little Ones, having keenly examined those they held, gathered of the same sorts, and filled the hands the skeletons held out to receive them. Then they bid them goodbye, promising to come and see them again, and resumed their journey, saying to each other they had not known there were such nice people living in the same forest.

  When we came to the nest-village, I remained there a night with them, to see them resettled; for Lona still looked like one just dead, and there seemed no need of haste.

  The princess had eaten nothing, and her eyes remained shut: fearing she might die ere we reached the end of our journey, I went to her in the night, and laid my bare arm upon her lips. She bit into it so fiercely that I cried out. How I got away from her I do not know, but I came to myself lying beyond her reach. It was then morning, and immediately I set about our departure.

  Choosing twelve Little Ones, not of the biggest and strongest, but of the sweetest and merriest, I mounted them on six elephants, and took two more of the wise CLUMSIES, as the children called them, to bear the princess. I still rode Lona’s horse, and carried her body wrapt in her cloak before me. As nearly as I could judge I took the direct way, across the left branch of the river-bed, to the House of Bitterness, where I hoped to learn how best to cross the broader and rougher branch, and how to avoid the basin of monsters: I dreaded the former for the elephants, the latter for the children.

  I had one terrible night on the way—the third, passed in the desert between the two branches of the dead river.

  We had stopped the elephants in a sheltered place, and there let the princess slip down between them, to lie on the sand until the morning. She seemed quite dead, but I did not think she was. I laid myself a little way from her, with the body of Lona by my other side, thus to keep watch at once over the dead and the dangerous. The moon was half-way down the west, a pale, thoughtful moon, mottling the desert with shadows. Of a sudden she was eclipsed, remaining visible, but sending forth no light: a thick, diaphanous film covered her patient beauty, and she looked troubled. The film swept a little aside, and I saw the edge of it against her clearness—the jagged outline of a bat-like wing, torn and hooked. Came a cold wind with a burning sting—and Lilith was upon me. Her hands were still bound, but with her teeth she pulled from my shoulder the cloak Lona made for me, and fixed them in my flesh. I lay as one paralysed.

  Already the very life seemed flowing from me into her, when I remembered, and struck her on the hand. She raised her head with a gurgling shriek, and I felt her shiver. I flung her from me, and sprang to my feet.

  She was on her knees, and rocked herself to and fro. A second blast of hot-stinging cold enveloped us; the moon shone out clear, and I saw her face—gaunt and ghastly, besmeared with red.

  “Down, devil!” I cried.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked, with the voice of a dull echo from a sepulchre.

  “To your first husband,” I answered.

  “He will kill me!” she moaned.

  “At least he will take you off my hands!”

  “Give me my daughter,” she suddenly screamed, grinding her teeth.

  “Never! Your doom is upon you at last!”

  “Loose my hands for pity’s sake!” she groaned. “I am in torture. The cords are sunk in my flesh.”

  “I dare not. Lie down!” I said.

  She threw herself on the ground like a log.

  The rest of the night passed in peace, and in the morning she again seemed dead.

  Before evening we came in sight of the House of Bitterness, and the next moment one of the elephants came alongside of my horse.

  “Please, king, you are not going to that place?” whispered the Little One who rode on his neck.

  “Indeed I am! We are going to stay the night there,” I answered.

  “Oh, please, don’t! That must be where the cat-woman lives!”

  “If you had ever seen her, you would not call her by that name!”

  “Nobody ever sees her: she has lost her face! Her head is back and side all round.”

  “She hides her face from dull, discontented people!—Who taught you to call her the cat-woman?”

  “I heard the bad giants call her so.”

  “What did they say about her?”

  “That she had claws to her toes.”

  “It is not true. I know the lady. I spent a night at her house.”

  “But she MAY have claws to her toes! You might see her feet, and her claws be folded up inside their cushions!”

  “Then perhaps you think that I have claws to my toes?”

  “Oh, no; that can’t be! you are good!”

  “The giants might have told you so!” I pursued.

  “We shouldn’t believe them about you!”

  “Are the giants good?”

  “No; they love lying.”

  “Then why do you believe them about her? I know the lady is good; she cannot have claws.”

  “Please how do you know she is good?”

  “How do you know I am good?”

  I rode on, while he waited for his companions, and told them what I had said.

  They hastened after me, and when they came up,—

  “I would not take you to her house if I did not believe her good,” I said.

  “We know you would not,” they answered.

  “If I were to do something that frightened you—what would you say?”

  “The beasts frightened us sometimes at first, but they never hurt us!” answered one.

  “That was before we knew them!” added another.

  “Just so!” I answered. “When you see the woman in that cottage, you will know that she is good. You may wonder at what she does, but she will always be good. I know her better than you know me. She will not hurt you,—or if she does,——”

  “Ah, you are n
ot sure about it, king dear! You think she MAY hurt us!”

  “I am sure she will never be unkind to you, even if she do hurt you!”

  They were silent for a while.

  “I’m not afraid of being hurt—a little!—a good deal!” cried Odu. “But I should not like scratches in the dark! The giants say the cat-woman has claw-feet all over her house!”

  “I am taking the princess to her,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because she is her friend.”

  “How can she be good then?”

  “Little Tumbledown is a friend of the princess,” I answered; “so is Luva: I saw them both, more than once, trying to feed her with grapes!”

  “Little Tumbledown is good! Luva is very good!”

  “That is why they are her friends.”

  “Will the cat-woman—I mean the woman that isn’t the cat-woman, and has no claws to her toes—give her grapes?”

  “She is more likely to give her scratches!”

  “Why?—You say she is her friend!”

  “That is just why.—A friend is one who gives us what we need, and the princess is sorely in need of a terrible scratching.”

  They were silent again.

  “If any of you are afraid,” I said, “you may go home; I shall not prevent you. But I cannot take one with me who believes the giants rather than me, or one who will call a good lady the cat-woman!”

  “Please, king,” said one, “I’m so afraid of being afraid!”

  “My boy,” I answered, “there is no harm in being afraid. The only harm is in doing what Fear tells you. Fear is not your master! Laugh in his face and he will run away.”

  “There she is—in the door waiting for us!” cried one, and put his hands over his eyes.

  “How ugly she is!” cried another, and did the same.