CHAPTER XXIV
A great silence pervaded the Palazzo d'Oro,--the strained silence of anintense activity weighted with suspense. Servants moved about here andthere with noiseless rapidity,--Don Aloysius was seen constantly pacingup and down the loggia absorbed in anxious thought and prayer, and theMarchese Rivardi came and went on errands of which he alone knew theimport. Overhead the sky was brilliantly blue and cloudless,--the sunflashed a round shield of dazzling gold all day long on the breast ofthe placid sea,--but within the house, blinds were drawn to shade andtemper the light for eyes that perhaps might never again open to theblessing and glory of the day. A full week had passed since the "WhiteEagle" had returned from its long and adventurous flight over the vaststretches of ocean, bearing with it the two human creatures cast downto death in the deep Californian canon,--and only one of them hadreturned to the consciousness of life,--the other still stayed on theverge of the "Great Divide." Morgana had safely landed the heavy burdenof seeming death her ship had carried,--and simply stating to LadyKingswood and her household staff that it was a case of rescue fromdrowning, had caused the two corpses--(such as they truly appeared)--tobe laid, each in a separate chamber, surrounded with every means thatcould be devised or thought of for their resuscitation. In anatmosphere glowing with mild warmth, on soft beds they were placed,inert and white as frozen clay, their condition being apparently sohopeless that it seemed mere imaginative folly to think that the leastbreath could ever again part their set lips or the smallest pulsationof blood stir colour through their veins. But Morgana never wavered inher belief that they lived, and hour after hour, day after day shewatched with untiring patience, administering the mysterious balm orportion which she kept preciously in her own possession,--and not tillthe fifth day of her vigil, when Manella showed faint signs ofreturning consciousness, did she send to Rome for a famous scientistand physician with whom she had frequently corresponded. She entrustedthe dispatch of this message to Rivardi, saying--
"It is now time for further aid than mine. The girl will recover--butthe man--the man is still in the darkness!"
And her eyes grew heavy with a cloud of sorrow and regret whichsoftened her delicate beauty and made it more than ever unearthly.
"What are they--what is HE--to you?" demanded Rivardi jealously.
"My friend, there was a time when I should have considered thatquestion an impertinence from you!" she said, tranquilly--"But yours isthe great share of the rescue--and your magnificent bravery wins you mypardon,--for many things!" And she smiled as she saw him flush underher quiet gaze--"What is this man to me, you ask? Why nothing!--notnow! Once he was everything,--though he never knew it. Some quality inhim struck the keynote of the scale of life for me,--he was the greatdelusion of a dream! The delusion is ended--the dream is over! But forthat he WAS to me, though only in my own thoughts, I have tried to savehis life--not for myself, but for the woman who loves him."
"The woman we rescued with him?--the woman who is here?"
She bent her head in assent. Rivardi's eyes dwelt on her with greatertenderness than he had ever felt before,--she looked so frail andfairy-like, and withal so solitary. He took her little hand and gentlykissed it with courteous reverence.
"Then--after all--you have known love!" he said in a low voice--"Youhave felt what it is,--though you have assumed to despise it?"
"My good Giulio, I DO despise most heartily what the world generallyunderstands as love"--she replied; "There is no baser or more selfishsentiment!--a sentiment made up half of animal desire and half of apersonal seeking for admiration, appreciation and self-gratification!Yes, Giulio!--it is so, and I despise it for all these attributes--intruth it is not what I understand or accept as love at all--"
"What DO you understand and accept?" he asked, softly.
Her eyes shone kindly as she raised them to his face.
"Not what you can ever give, Giulio!" she said--"Love--to my mind--isthe spiritual part of our being--it should be the complete union of twosouls that move as one,--like the two wings of a bird making the bodysubservient to the highest flights, even as far as heaven! The physicalmating of man and woman is seldom higher than the physical mating ofany other animals under the sun,--the animals know nothing beyond--butwe--we ought to know something!" She paused, then went on--"There issometimes a great loftiness even in the physical way of so-called'love'--such passion as the woman we have rescued has for the man shewas ready to die with,--a primitive passion of primitive woman at herbest. Such feeling is out of date in these days--we have passed thatboundary line--and a great unexplored world lies open before us--whocan say what we may find there! Perhaps we shall discover what allwomen have sought for from the beginning of things--"
"And that is?" he asked.
"Happiness!" she replied--"The perfect happiness of life in love!"
He had held her hand till now, when he released it.
"I wish I could give it to you!" he said.
"You cannot, Giulio! I am not made for any man--as men go!"
"It is a pity you think so"--he said--"For--after all--you are just--awoman!"
"Am I?" she murmured,--and a strange flitting smile brightened herfeatures--"Perhaps!--and yet--perhaps not! Who knows!"
She left him puzzled and uneasy. Somehow she always managed to evadehis efforts to become more intimate in his relations with her. Generousand kind-hearted as she was, she held him at a distance, and maintainedher own aloof position inexorably. A less intelligent man than Rivardiwould have adopted the cynic's attitude and averred that her rejectionof love and marriage arose from her own unlovableness andunmarriageableness, but he knew better than that. He was wise enough toperceive the rareness and delicacy of her physical and mentalorganisation and temperament,--a temperament so finely strung as tomake all other women seem gross and material beside her. He felt andknew her to be both his moral and intellectual superior,--and this veryfact rendered it impossible that he could ever master her mind and tameit down to the subservience of married life. That dauntless spirit ofhers would never bend to an inferior,--not even love (if she could feelit) would move her thus far. And the man she had adventured acrossocean to rescue--what was he? She confessed that she had loved him,though that love was past. And now she had set herself to watch nightand day by his dead body (for dead he surely was in Rivardi's opinion)sparing no pains to recover what seemed beyond recovery; while one ofthe greatest mysteries of the whole mysterious affair was justthis--How had she known the man's life was in danger?
All these questions Rivardi discussed with Don Aloysius, who listenedto him patiently without committing himself to any reply. WhateverMorgana had confided to him--(and she had confided much)--he kept hisown counsel.
Within forty-eight hours of Morgana's summons the famous specialistfrom Rome, Professor Marco Ardini, noted all over the world for hismiraculous cures of those whom other physicians had given up as pastcuring, arrived. He heard the story of the rescue of a man and womanfrom drowning with emotionless gravity, more taken for the moment byMorgana herself, whom he had never seen before, but with whom he hadcorresponded on current questions of scientific importance. From theextremely learned and incisive tone of her letters he had judged her tobe an elderly woman of profound scholarship who had spent the greaterpart of her life in study, and his astonishment at the sight of thesmall, dainty creature who received him in the library of the Palazzod'Oro was beyond all verbal expression,--in fact, he took some minutesto recover from the magnetic "shock" of her blue eyes and wistful smile.
"I must be quite frank with you,"--she said, after a preliminaryconversation with the great man in his own Italian tongue--"These twopeople have suffered their injuries by drowning--but not altogether.They are the victims of an earthquake,--and were thrown by the earth'supheaval into a deep chasm flooded by water--"
The Professor interrupted her.
"Pardon, Signora! There has been no recent earthquake in Europe."
She gave a little gesture of assent.
/> "Not in Europe--no! But in America--in California there has been aterrible one!"
"In California!" he echoed amazedly-"Gran' Dio! You do not mean to saythat you brought these people from California, across that vast extentof ocean?"
She smiled.
"By air-ship--yes! Really nothing so very remarkable! You will not askfor further details just now, Professor!" and she laid her pretty handcoaxingly on his arm--"You and I both know how advisable it is to sayas little as possible of our own work or adventures, while any subjectis awaiting treatment and every moment counts! I will answer anyquestion you may ask when you have seen my patients. The girl is abeautiful creature--she is beginning to regain consciousness--but theman I fear is past even YOUR skill. Come!"
She led the way and Professor Ardini followed, marvelling at herethereal grace and beauty, and more than interested in the "case" onwhich his opinion was sought. Entering a beautiful room glowing withlight and warmth and colour, he saw, lying on a bed and slightlypropped up by pillows, a lovely girl, pale as ivory, with dark hairloosely braided on either side of her head. Her eyes were closed, andthe long black lashes swept the cheeks in a curved fringe,--the lipswere faintly red, and the breath parted them slowly and reluctantly.The Professor bent over her and listened,--her heart beat slowly butregularly,--he felt her pulse.
"She will live!"--he said--"There are no injuries?"
"None"--Morgana replied, as he put his questions--"Some fewbruises--but no bones broken--nothing serious."
"You have examined her?"
"Yes."
"You have no nurses?"
"No. I and my house people are sufficient." Her tone became slightlyperemptory. "There is no need for outside interference. Whatever yourorders are, they shall be carried out."
He looked at her. His face was a somewhat severe one, furrowed withthought and care,--but when he smiled, a wonderful benevolence gave itan almost handsome effect. And he smiled now.
"You shall not be interfered with,"--he said--"You have done very well!Complete rest, nourishment and your care are all that this patientneeds. She will be quite herself in a very short time. She isextraordinarily beautiful!"
"I wish you could see her eyes!" said Morgana.
Almost as if the uttered wish had touched some recess of her stunnedbrain, Manella's eyelids quivered and lifted,--the great dark glory ofthe stars of her soul shone forth for an instant, giving suddenradiance to the pallor of her features--then they closed again as inutter weariness.
"Magnificent!" said Ardini, under his breath--"And full of the vitallight,--she will live!"
"And she will love!" added Morgana, softly.
The Professor looked at her enquiringly.
"The man she loves is in the next room"--she continued--"We rescued himwith her--if it can be called a rescue. He is the worst case. Only youmay be able to bring him back to consciousness,--I have done my best invain. If YOU fail then we must give up hope."
She preceded him into the adjoining chamber; as he entered it after herhe paused--almost intimidated, despite his long medical and surgicalexperience, by the stone-like figure of man that lay before him. It wasas if one should have unearthed a statue, grey with time--a statuenobly formed, with a powerful head and severe features sternlyset,--the growth of beard revealing, rather than concealing, thesomewhat cruel contour of mouth and chin. The Professor walked slowlyup to the bed and looked at this strange effigy of a human being formany minutes in silence,--Morgana watching him with strained but quietsuspense. Presently he touched the forehead--it was stone-cold--thenthe throat, stone-cold and rigid--he bent down and listened for theheart's pulsations,--not a flutter--not a beat! Drawing back from thisexamination he looked at Morgana,--she met his eyes with the query inher own which she emphasised by the spoken word--
"Dead?"
"No!"--he answered--"I think not. It is very difficult for a man ofthis type to die at all. Granted favourable conditions--and barringaccidents caused by the carelessness of others--he ought to be one ofthose destined to live for ever. But"--here he hesitated--"if I amright in my surmise,--of course it is only a first opinion--death wouldbe the very best thing for him."
"Oh, why do you say that?" she asked, pitifully.
"Because the brain is damaged--hopelessly! This man--whoever he is--hasbeen tampering with some chemical force he does not entirelyunderstand,--his whole body is charged with its influence, and this itis that gives his form its unnatural appearance which, thoughdeath-like, is not death. If I leave him alone and untouched he willprobably expire unconsciously in a few days,--but if--after what I havejust told you--you wish me to set the life atoms going again,--even asa clock is wound up,--I can relax the tension which now paralyses thecells, muscles and nerves, and he will live--yes!--like most peoplewithout brains he will live a long time--probably too long!"
Morgana moved to the bedside and gazed with a solemn earnestness at theimmobile, helpless form stretched out before her as though ready forburial. Her heart swelled with suppressed emotion,--she thought withanguish of the brilliant brain, the strong, self-sufficient naturebrought to such ruin through too great an estimate of human capability.Tears rushed to her eyes--
"Oh, give him life!" she whispered--"Give him life for the sake of thewoman who loves him more than life!"
The Professor gave her a quick, keen glance.
"You?"
She shivered at the question as though struck by a cold wind,--thenconquering the momentary weakness, answered--
"No. The girl you have just seen. He is her world!"
Ardini's brows met in a saturnine frown.
"Her world will be an empty one!" he said, with an expressivegesture--"A world without fruit or flower,--without light or song! Adreary world! But such as it is,--such as it is bound to be,--it canlive on,--a life-in-death."
"Are you quite sure of this?" Morgana asked--"Can any of us, howeverwise, be quite sure of anything?"
His frown relaxed and his whole features softened. He took her hand andpatted it kindly.
"Signora, you know as well as I do, that the universe and all within itrepresents law and order. A man is a little universe in himself--and ifthe guiding law of his system is destroyed, there is chaos anddarkness. We scientists can say 'Let there be light,' but the fulfilledresult 'and there was light' comes from God alone!"
"Why should not God help in this case?" she suggested.
"Ah, why!" and Ardini shrugged his shoulders--"How can I tell? My longexperience has taught me that wherever the law has been broken God doesNOT help! Who knows whether this frozen wreck of man has obeyed ordisobeyed the law? I can do all that science allows--"
"And you will do it!" interrupted Morgana eagerly, "You will use yourbest skill and knowledge--everything you wish shall be at yourservice--name whatever fee your merit claims--"
He raised his hand with a deprecatory gesture.
"Money does not count with me, Signora!" he said--"Nor with you. Thepoint with both of us in all our work is--success! Is it not so? Yes!And it is because I do not see a true success in this case that Ihesitate; true success would mean the complete restoration of this manto life and intelligence,--but life without intelligence is no triumphfor science. I can do all that science will allow--"
"And you WILL do this 'all'"--said Morgana, eagerly--"You will foregotriumph for simple pity!--pity for the girl who would surely die if hewere dead!--and perhaps after all, God may help the recovery!"
"It shall be as you wish, Signora! I must stay here two or three days--"
"As long as you find it necessary"--said Morgana--"All your ordersshall be obeyed."
"Good! Send me a trustworthy man-servant who can help to move andsupport the patient, and we can get to work. I left a few necessaryappliances in your hall--I should like them brought into this room--andthen--" here he took her hand and pressed it kindly--"you can leave usto our task, and take some rest. You must be very tired."
"I am never tired"--she answered, gently--"I than
k you in advance forall you are going to do!"
She left the room then, with one backward glance at the inert stifffigure on the bed,--and went to arrange matters with her household thatthe Professor's instructions should be strictly carried out. LadyKingswood, deeply interested, heard her giving certain orders andasked--
"There is hope then? These two poor creatures will live?"
"I think so"--answered Morgana, with a thrill of sadness in her sweetvoice--"They will live--pray God their lives may be worth living!"
She watched the man-servant whom she had chosen to wait on Ardinidepart on his errand--she saw him open the door of the room whereSeaton lay, and shut it--then there was a silence. Oppressed by asudden heaviness of heart she thought of Manella, and entered herapartment softly to see how she fared. The girl's beautiful dark eyeswere wide open and full of the light of life and consciousness. Shesmiled and stretched out her arms.
"It is my angel!" she murmured faintly--"My little white angel who cameto me in the darkness! And this is Heaven!"
Swiftly and silently Morgana went to her side, and taking heroutstretched arms put them round her own neck.
"Manella!" she said, tenderly--"Dear, beautiful Manella! Do you knowme?"
The great loving eyes rested on her with glowing warmth and pleasure.
"Indeed I know you!" and Manella's voice, weak as that of a sick child,sounded ever so far away--"The little white lady of my dreams! Oh, Ihave wanted you!--wanted you so much! Why did you not come back sooner?"
Afraid to trouble her brain by the sudden shock of too rapidlyrecurring memories, Morgana made no reply, but merely soothed her withtender caresses, when all at once she made a violent struggle to risefrom the bed.
"I must go!" she cried--"He is calling me! I must follow him--yes, evenif he kills me for it--he is in danger!"
Morgana held her close and firmly.
"Hush, hush, dear!" she murmured--"Be quite still! He is safe--believeme! He is near you--in the next room!--out of all danger."
"Oh, no, it is not possible!" and the girl's eyes grew wild withterror--"He cannot be safe!--he is destroying himself! I have followedhim every step of the way--I have watched him,--oh!--so long!--and hecame out of the hut this morning--I was hidden among the trees--hecould not see me--" she broke off, and a violent trembling shook herwhole body. Morgana tried to calm her into silence, but she went onrambling incoherently. "There was something he carried as though it wasprecious to him--something that glittered like gold,--and he went awayquickly--quickly to the canyon,--I followed him like a dog, crawlingthrough the brushwood--I followed him across the deep water--to thecave where it was all dark--black as midnight!" She paused--thensuddenly flung her arms round Morgana crying--"Oh, hold me!--holdme!--I am in this darkness trying to find him!--there!--there!--heturns and sees me by the light of a lamp he carries; he knows I havefollowed him, and he is angry! Oh, dear God, he is angry--he raises hisarm to strike me!" She uttered a smothered shriek, and clung to Morganain a kind of frenzy. "No mercy, no pity! That thing that glitters inhis hand--it frightens me--what is it? I kneel to him on the coldstones--I pray him to forgive me--to come with me--but his arm is stillraised to strike--he does not care--!"
Here a pale horror blanched her features--she drew herself away fromMorgana's hold and put out her hands with the instinctive gesture ofone who tries to escape falling from some great height. Morgana,alarmed at her looks, caught her again in her arms and held hertenderly, whereat a faint smile hovered on her lips and her distraughtmovements ceased.
"What is this?"--she asked--then murmured--"My little white lady, howdid you come here? How could you cross the flood?--unless on wings?Ah!--you are a fairy and you can do all you wish to do--but you cannotsave HIM!--it is too late! He will not save himself--and he does notcare,--he does not care--neither for me nor you!"
She drooped her head against Morgana's shoulder and her eyes closed inutter exhaustion. Morgana laid her back gently on her pillows, andpouring a few drops of the cordial she had used before, and of whichshe had the sole secret, into a wineglassful of water, held it to herlips. She drank it obediently, evidently conscious now that she wasbeing cared for. But she was still restless, and presently she sat upin a listening attitude, one hand uplifted.
"Listen!" she said in a low, awed tone--"Thunder! Do you hear it? Godspeaks!"
She lay down again passively and was silent for a long time. The hourspassed and the day grew into late afternoon, and Morgana, patientlywatchful, thought she slept. All suddenly she sprang up, wide-eyed andalert.
"What was that?" she cried--"I heard him call!"
Morgana, startled by her swift movement, stood transfixed--listening.The deep tones of a man's voice rang out loudly and defiantly--
"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say so! I am Masterof the World!"
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