“But even if an unit rebels against the Law the Law crushes him” — interrupted Féraz softly— “A gnat flies into flame — the flame consumes it — the Law is fulfilled, — and the Law is God’s Will.”
El-Râmi bit his lip vexedly.
“Well, be that as it may one must needs find out what the Law is first, before it can either be accepted, or opposed,” he said.
Féraz made no answer. He was thinking of the simplicity of certain Laws of Spirit and Matter which were accepted and agreed to by the community of men of whom the monk from Cyprus was the chief master.
Karl meanwhile stared bewilderedly from Féraz to El-Râmi and from El-Râmi back to Féraz again. Their remarks were totally beyond his comprehension; he never could understand, and never wanted to understand these subtle philosophies.
“I came to ask you, sir” — he said after a pause— “whether you would not, now you know all, manage to take away that devilish thing that killed my master? I’m afraid to touch it myself, and no one else will — and there it lies up in the ruined tower shining away like a big lamp, and sticking like a burr to the iron rod I lifted it with. If it’s any good to you, I’m sure you’d better have it — and by-the-bye, I found this, sir, in my master’s room addressed to you.”
He held out a sealed envelope, which El-Râmi opened. It contained a folded paper, on which were scratched these lines —
“To EL-RMI ZARNOS. Good friend, in the event of my death, I beg you to accept all my possessions such as they are, and do me the one favour I ask, which is this — Destroy the Disc, and let my problem die with me.”
This paper duly signed, bore the date of two years previously. El-Râmi read it, and handed it to Karl who read it also. They were silent for a few minutes; then El-Râmi crossed the room, and unlocking a small cupboard in the wall, took out a sealed flask full of what looked like red wine.
“See here, Karl” — he said;— “There is no devil in the great stone you are so afraid of. It is as perishable as anything else in this best of all possible worlds. It is nothing but a peculiar and rare growth of crystal, which though found in the lowest depths of the earth, has the quality of absorbing light and emitting it. It clings to the iron rod in the way you speak of because it is a magnet, — and iron not only attracts but fastens it. It is impossible for me just now to go to Ilfracombe — besides there is really no necessity for my presence there. I can fully trust you to bring me the papers and few possessions of my poor old friend, — and for the rest, you can destroy the stone yourself — the Disc, as your master called it. All you have to do is simply to pour this liquid on it, — it will pulverize — that is, it will crumble into dust while you watch it, and in ten minutes will be indistinguishable from the fallen mortar of the shattered tower. Do you understand?”
Karl’s mouth opened a little in wonderment, and he nodded feebly, — he found it quite easy and natural to be afraid of the flask containing a mixture of such potent quality, and he took it from El-Râmi’s hand very gingerly and reluctantly. A slight smile crossed El-Râmi’s features as he said —
“No, Karl! there is no danger — no fear of pulverization for you. You can put the phial safely in your pocket, — and though its contents could pulverize a mountain if used in sufficient quantities, — the liquid has no effect on flesh and blood.”
“Pulverize a mountain!” repeated Karl nervously— “Do you mean that it could turn a mountain into a dust-heap?”
“Or a city — or a fortress — or a rock-bound coast — or anything in the shape of stone that you please” — replied El-Râmi carelessly— “but it will not harm human beings.”
“Will it not explode, sir?” and Karl still looked at the flask in doubt.
“Oh no — it will do its work with extraordinary silence and no less extraordinary rapidity. Do not be afraid!”
Slowly and with evident uneasiness Karl put the terrifying composition into his pocket, deeply impressed by the idea that he had about him stuff, which, if used in sufficient quantity, could “pulverize a mountain.” It was awful! — worse than dynamite, he considered, his thoughts flying off wantonly to the woes of Irishmen and Russians. El — Râmi seemed not to notice his embarrassment and went on talking quietly, asking various questions concerning Kremlin’s funeral, and giving advice as to the final arrangements which were necessary, till presently he inquired of Karl what he proposed doing with himself in the future.
“Oh I shall look out for another situation,” — he said— “I shall not go back to Germany. I like to think of the ‘Fatherland,’ and I can sing the ‘Wacht am Rhein’ with as much lung as anybody, but I wouldn’t care to live there. I think I shall try for a place where there’s a lady to serve; you know, sir, gentlemen’s ways are apt to be monotonous. Whether they are clever or foolish they always stick to it, whatever it is. A gentleman that races is always racing, and always talking and thinking about racing, — a gentleman that drinks is always on the drink, — a gentleman that coaches is always coaching, and so on; now a lady does vary! One day she’s all for flowers, another for pictures, another for china, — sometimes she’s mad about music, sometimes about dresses, — or else she takes a fit for study, and gets heaps of books from the libraries. Now for a man-servant, all that is very agreeable and lively.”
Féraz laughed at this novel view of domestic service, and Karl, growing a little more cheerful, went on with his explanation —
“You see, supposing I get into a lady’s service, I shall have so much more to distract me. One afternoon I shall be waiting outside a picture-gallery with her shawls and wraps; another day I shall be running backwards and forwards to Mudie’s, — and then there’s always the pleasure of never quite knowing what she will do next. And it’s excitement I want just now — it really is!”
The corners of his good-humoured mouth drooped again despondently, and his thoughts reverted with unpleasant suddenness to the ‘pulverizing’ liquid in his pocket. What a terrible thing it was to get acquainted with scientists!
El-Râmi listened to his observations patiently.
“Well, Karl,” he said at last— “I think I can promise you a situation such as you would like. There is a very famous and lovely lady in London, known to the reading-world as Irene Vassilius — she writes original books; is sweetly capricious, yet nobly kind-hearted. I will write to her about you, and I have no doubt she will give you a trial.”
Karl brightened up immensely at this prospect.
“Thank you, sir!” he said fervently— “You’ve no idea what a deal of good it will do me to take in the tea to a sweet-looking lady — a properly-served tea, you know, all silver and good china. It will be a sort of tonic to me, — it will indeed, after that terrible place at Ilfracombe. You can tell her I’m a very handy man, — I can do almost anything, from cooking a chop, up to stretching my legs all day in a porter’s chair in the hall and reading the latest ‘Special.’ Anything she wishes whether for show or economy, she couldn’t have a better hand at it than me; — will you tell her so, sir?”
“Certainly!” replied El-Râmi with a smile. “I’ll tell her you are a domestic Von Moltke, and that under your management her household will be as well ordered as the German army under the great Field-Marshal.”
After a little more desultory conversation, Karl took his departure, and returned by the afternoon train to Ilfracombe. He was living with one of his fisher-friends, and as it was late when he arrived, he made no attempt to go to the deserted house of his deceased master that night. But early the next morning he hurried there before breakfast, and ascended to the shattered tower, — that awful scene of desolation from whence poor Kremlin’s mangled remains had been taken, and where only a dark stain of blood on the floor silently testified of the horror that had there been enacted. The Disc, lying prone, glittered as he approached it, with, as he thought, a fiendish and supernatural light — the early sunlight fell upon its surface, and a thousand prismatic tints and sparkles dazzled his eyes
as he drew near and gazed dubiously at it where it still clung to the iron pendulum. What could his master have used such a strange object for? — what did it mean? And that solemn humming noise which he had used to hear when the nights were still, — had that glistening thing been the cause? — had it any sound?...Struck by this idea, and filled with a sudden courage, he seized a piece of thick wire, part of the many tangled coils that lay among the ruins of roof and wall, and with it, gave the Disc a smart blow on its edge...hush!...hush!...The wire dropped from his hand, and he stood, almost paralyzed with fear. A deep, solemn, booming sound like a great cathedral bell, rang through the air, — grand, and pure and musical, and...unearthly! — as might be the clarion stroke of a clock beating out, not the short pulsations of Time, but the vast throbs of Eternity. Round and round, in eddying echoes swept that sweet, sonorous note, — till — growing gradually fainter and fainter, it died entirely away from human hearing, and seemed to pass out and upwards into the gathering sunrays that poured brightly from the East, there to take its place perchance, in that immense diapason of vibrating tone-music that fills the star-strewn space for ever and ever. It was the last sound struck from the great Star-Dial: — for Karl, terrified at the solemn din, wasted no more time in speculative hesitation, but taking the flask El-Râmi had given him, he opened it tremblingly and poured all its contents on the surface of the crystal. The red liquid ran over the stone like blood, crumbling it as it ran and extinguishing its brilliancy, — eating its substance away as rapidly as vitriol eats away the human skin, — blistering it and withering it visibly before Karl’s astonished eyes, — till, as El-Râmi had said, it was hardly distinguishable from the dust and mortar around it. One piece lasted just a little longer than the rest — it curled and writhed like a living thing under the absolutely noiseless and terribly destructive influence of that blood-like liquid that seemed to sink into it as water sinks into a sponge, — Karl watched it, fascinated — till all at once it broke into a sparkle like flame, gleamed, smouldered, leaped high...and — disappeared. The wondrous Dial with its “perpetual motion” and its measured rhythm, was as if it had never been, — it had vanished as utterly as a destroyed Planet, — and the mighty Problem reflected on its surface remained...and will most likely still remain...a mystery unsolved.
CHAPTER XIII.
FOR two or three weeks after he had received the news of Kremlin’s death, El-Râmi’s mind was somewhat troubled and uneasy. He continued his abstruse studies ardently, yet with less interest than usual, — and he spent hour after hour in Lilith’s room, sitting beside the couch on which she reposed, saying nothing, but simply watching her, himself absorbed in thought. Days went by and he never roused her, — never asked her to reply to any question concerning the deep things of time and of eternity with which her aërial spirit seemed conversant. He was more impressed by the suddenness and terror of Kremlin’s end than he cared to admit to himself, — and the “Light-Maps” and other papers belonging to his deceased old friend, all of which had now come into his possession, were concise enough in many marvellous particulars, to have the effect of leading him almost imperceptibly to believe that after all there was a God, — an actual Being whose magnificent attributes baffled the highest efforts of the imagination, and who indeed, as the Bible grandly hath it— “holds the Universe in the hollow of His hand.” And he began to go back to the Bible for information; — for he, like most students versed in Eastern philosophies, knew that all that was ever said or will be said on the mysteries of life and death, is to be found in that Book, which though full of much matter that does not pertain to its actual teaching, remains the one chief epitome of all the wisdom of the world. When it is once remembered that the Deity of Moses and Aaron was their own invented Hobgoblin, used for the purpose of terrifying and keeping the Jews in order, much becomes clear that is otherwise impossible to accept or comprehend. Historians, priests, lawgivers, prophets and poets have all contributed to the Bible, — and when we detach class from class and put each in its proper place, with — out confounding them all together in an inextricable jumble as “Divine inspiration,” we obtain a better view of the final intention of the whole. El-Râmi considered Moses and Aaron in the light of particularly clever Eastern conjurers, — and not only conjurers, but tacticians and diplomatists, who had just the qualities necessary to rule a barbarous, ignorant, and rebellious people. The thunders of Mount Sinai, — the graving of the commandments on tablets of stone, — the serpent in the wilderness, — the bringing of water out of a rock, — the parting of the sea to let an army march through; — he, El-Râmi, knew how all these things were done, and was perfectly cognisant of the means and appliances used to compass all these seemingly miraculous events.
“What a career I could make if I chose!” he thought— “What wealth I could amass, — what position! I who know how to quell the wildest waves of the sea, — I who, by means of a few drops of liquid can corrode a name or a device so deeply on stone that centuries shall not efface it — I who can do so many things that would astonish the vulgar and make them my slaves, — why am I content to live as I do, when I could be greater than a crowned king? Why, because I scorn to trick the ignorant by scientific skill which I have neither the time nor the patience to explain to them — and again — because I want to fathom the Impossible; — I want to prove if indeed there is any Impossible. What can be done and proved, when once it is done and proved, I regard as nothing, — and because I know how to smooth the sea, call down the rain, and evoke phantoms out of the atmosphere, I think such manifestations of power trifling and inadequate. These things are all provable; and the performance of them is attained through a familiar knowledge of our own earth-elements and atmosphere; but to find out the subtle Something that is not of earth, and has not yet been made provable, — that is the aim of my ambition. The Soul! What is it? Of what ethereal composition? of what likeness? of what feeling? of what capacity? This, and this alone is the Supreme Mystery, — when once we understand it, we shall understand God. The preachers waste their time in urging men and women to save their souls, so long as we remain in total ignorance as to what the Soul IS. We cannot be expected to take any trouble to ‘save’ or even regard anything so vague and dubious as the Soul under its present conditions. What is visible and provable to our eyes, is that our friends die, and to all intents and purposes, disappear. We never know them as they were any more,...and,...what is still more horrible to think of, but is nevertheless true, — our natural tendency is to forget them, — indeed, after three or four years, perhaps less, we should find it difficult, without the aid of a photograph or painted picture, to recall their faces to our memories. And it is curious to think of it, but we really remember their ways, their conversation, and their notions of life better than their actual physiognomies. All this is very strange and very perplexing too, — and it is difficult to imagine the reason for such perpetual tearing down of affections, and such bitter loss and harassment, unless there is some great Intention behind it all, — an Intention of which it is arranged we shall be made duly cognisant. If we are not to be made cognisant, — if we are not to have a full and perfect Explanation, — then the very fact of Life being lived at all is a mere cruelty, — a senseless jest which lacks all point, — and the very grandeur and immensity of the Universe becomes nothing but the meanest display of gigantic Force remorselessly put forth to overwhelm creatures who have no power to offer resistance to its huge Tyranny. If I could but fathom that Ultimate Purpose of things! — if I could but seize the subtle clue — for I believe it is something very slight and delicate which by its very fineness we have missed, — something which has to do with the Eternal Infinitesimal — that marvellous power which creates animated and regularly organized beings, many thousands of whose bodies laid together would not extend one inch. It is not to the Infinitely Great one must look for the secret of creation, but to the Infinitely Little.”
So he mused, as he sat by the couch of Lilith and watched h
er sleeping that enchanted sleep of death-in-life. Old Zaroba, though now perfectly passive and obedient, and fulfilling all his commands with scru — pulous exactitude, was not without her own ideas and hopes as she went about her various duties connected with the care of the beautiful tranced girl. She seldom spoke to Féraz now except on ordinary household matters, and he understood and silently respected her reserve. She would sit in her accustomed corner of Lilith’s regal apartment, weaving her thread-work mechanically, but ever and anon lifting her burning eyes to look at El-Râmi’s absorbed face and note the varied expressions she saw, or fancied she saw there.
“The feverish trouble has begun” — she muttered to herself on one occasion, as she heard her master sigh deeply— “The stir in the blood, — the restlessness — the wonder — the desire. And out of heart’s pain comes heart’s peace; — and out of desire, accomplishment; and shall not the old gods of the world rejoice to see love born again of flames and tears and bitter-sweet as in the ancient days? For there is no love now such as there used to be — the pale Christ has killed it, — and the red rose aglow with colour and scent is now but a dull weed on a tame shore, washed by the salt sea, but never warmed by the sun. In the days of old, in the nights when Ashtaroth was queen of the silver hours, the youths and maidens knew what it was to love in the very breath of Love! — and the magic of all Nature, the music of the woods and waters, the fire of the stars, the odours of the flowers — all these were in the dance and beat of the young blood, and in the touch of the soft red lips as they met and clung together in kisses sweeter than honey in wine. But now — now the world has grown old and cold, and dreary and joyless, — it is winter among men and the summer is past.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 271