Ere another year had been fully born, the world spoke in homage and in wonder of two things.

The one, a genius which had suddenly arisen in its midst, and taken vengeance for the long neglect of bitter years, and scourged the world with pitiless scorn until, before this mighty struggle which it had dared once to deride and to deny, it crouched trembling; and wondered and did homage; and said in fear, "Truly this man is great, and truth is terrible."

The other,--the bodily beauty of a woman; a beauty rarely seen in open day, but only in the innermost recesses of a sensualist's palace; a creature barefooted, with chains of gold about her ankles, and loose white robes which showed each undulation of the perfect limbs, and on her breast the fires of a knot of opal; a creature in whose eyes there was one changeless look, as of some desert beast taken from the freedom of the air and cast to the darkness of some unutterable horror; a creature whose lips were forever mute, mute as the tortured lips of Laena.

One day the man whom the nations at last had crowned, saw the creature whom it was a tyrant's pleasure to place beside him now and then, in the public ways, as a tribune of Rome placed in his chariot of triumph the vanquished splendor of some imperial thing of Asia made his slave.

Across the clear hot light of noon the eyes of Arslan fell on hers for the first time since they had looked on her amidst the pale poppies, in the noonrise, in the fields.

They smiled on her with a cold, serene, ironic scorn.

"So soon?" he murmured, and pa.s.sed onward, whilst the people made way for him in homage.

He had his heart's desire. He was great. He only smiled to think--all women were alike.

Her body shrank, her head dropped, as though a knife were thrust into her breast.

But her lips kept their silence to the last. They were so strong, they were so mute; they did not even once cry out against him, "For thy sake!"

CHAPTER XVII.

In the springtime of the year three G.o.ds watched by the river.

The golden willows blew in the low winds; the waters came and went; the moon rose full and cold over a silvery stream; the reeds sighed in the silence. Two winters had drifted by, and one hot, drowsy summer; and all the white still shapes upon the walls of the granary already had been slain by the cold breath of Time. The green weeds waved in the empty cas.e.m.e.nts; the chance-sown seeds of thistles and of bell-flowers were taking leaf between the square stones of the paven floors; on the deserted threshold lichens and brambles climbed together; the filmy ooze of a rank vegetation stole over the loveliness of Persephone and devoured one by one the immortal offspring of Zeus; about the feet of the bound sun-king in Phaeros and over the calm serene mockery of Hermes'

smile the gray nets of the spiders' webs had been woven to and fro, around and across, with the lacing of a million threads, as Fate weaves round the limbs and covers the eyes of mortals as they stumble blindly from their birthplace to their grave. All things, the damp and the dust, the frost and the scorch, the newts and the rats, the fret of the flooded water, and the stealing sure inroad of the mosses that everywhere grew from the dews and the fogs had taken and eaten, in hunger or sport, or had touched and thieved from, then left gangrened and ruined.

The three G.o.ds alone remained, who, being the sons of eternal night, are unharmed and unaltered by any pa.s.sage of the years of earth,--the only G.o.ds who never bend beneath the yoke of Time, but unblenchingly behold the nations wither as uncounted leaves, and the lands and the seas change places, and the cities and the empires pa.s.s away as a tale that is told, and the deities that are worshiped in the temples change name and attributes and cultus at the wanton will of the age that begat them.

In the still, cold moonlit air they stand together hand in band, looking outward through the white night-mists. Other G.o.ds perished with the faith of each age as it changed; other G.o.ds, lived by the breath of men's lips, the tears of prayer, the smoke of sacrifice; but they--their empire is the universe. In every young soul that leaps into the light of life, rejoicing blindly, Oneiros has dominion, and he alone. In every creature that breathes, from the conqueror resting on a field of blood to the nest-bird cradled in its bed of leaves, Hypnos holds a sovereignty which nothing mortal can long resist and live. And Thanatos--to him belongs every created thing, past, present, and to come; beneath his foot all generations lie, and in the hollow of his hand he holds the worlds. Though the earth be tenantless, and the heavens sunless, and the planets shrivel in their courses, and the universe be desolate in an endless night, yet through the eternal darkness Thanatos still will reign, and through its eternal solitudes he alone will wander and he still behold his work.

Deathless as themselves, their shadows stood; and the worm and the lizard and the newt left them alone and dared not wind about their calm clear brows, and dared not steal to touch the roses at their lips,--knowing that ere the birth of the worlds these were, and when the worlds shall have perished they still will reign on,--the slow, sure, soundless, changeless ministers of an eternal rest, of an eternal oblivion.

A little light strayed in from the gray skies, pale as the primrose-flowers that grow among the reeds upon the sh.o.r.e, and found its way to them trembling, and shone in the far-seeing depths of their unfathomable eyes.

To eyes which spake and said: "Sleep, Dreams, and Death;--we are the only G.o.ds that answer prayer."

With the faint gleam of the tender evening light there came across the threshold a human form, barefooted, bareheaded, with broken links of golden chains gleaming here and there upon her limbs, with white robes hanging heavily, soaked with dews and rains; with sweet familiar smells of night-born blossoms, of wet leaves, of budding palm-boughs, of rich dark seed-sown fields, and the white flower-foam of orchards shedding their fragrance from about her as she moved.

Her face was bloodless as the faces of the G.o.ds; her eyes had a look of blindness, her lips were close-locked together; her feet stumbled often, yet her path was straight.

She had hidden by day, she had fled by night; all human creatures had scattered from her path, in terror of her as of some unearthly thing: she had made her way blindly yet surely through the sweet cool air, through the shadows and the gra.s.ses, through the sighing sounds of bells, through the leafy ways, through the pastures where the herds were sleeping, through the daffodils blowing in the shallow brooks;--through all the things for which her life had been athirst so long and which she reached too late,--too late for any coolness of sweet gra.s.s beneath her limbs to give her rest; too late for any twilight song of missel-thrush or merle to touch her dumb dead heart to music; too late for any kiss of cl.u.s.tering leaves to heal the blistering shame that burned upon her lips and withered all their youth. And yet she loved them,--loved them never yet more utterly than now when she came back to them, as Persephone to the pomegranate-flowers of h.e.l.l.

She crossed the threshold, whilst the reeds that grew in the water by the steps bathed her feet and blew together softly against her limbs, sorrowing for this life so like their own, which had dreamed of the songs of the G.o.ds and had only heard the hiss of the snakes.

She fell at the feet of Thanatos. The bonds of her silence were loosened; the lips dumb so long for love's sake found voice and cried out:

"How long?--how long? Wilt thou never take pity, and stoop, and say, 'Enough'? I have kept faith, I have kept silence, to the end. The G.o.ds know. My life for his; my soul for his: so I said. So I have given.

I would not have it otherwise. Nay,--I am glad, I am content, I am strong. See,--I have never spoken. The G.o.ds have let me perish in his stead. Nay, I suffer nothing. What can it matter--for me? Nay, I thank thee that thou hast given my vileness to be the means of his glory. He is immortal, and I am less than the dust:--what matter? He must not know; he must never know; and one day I might be weak, or mad, and speak. Take me whilst still I am strong. A little while agone, in the s.p.a.ce in the crowds he saw me. 'So soon?' he said,--and smiled. And yet I live! Keep faith with me; keep faith--at last. Slay me now,--quickly,--for pity's sake! Just once,--I speak."

Thanatos, in answer, laid his hand upon her lips, and sealed them, and their secret with them, mute, for evermore.

She had been faithful to the end.

To such a faith there is no recompense, of men or of the G.o.ds, save only death. On the sh.o.r.es of the river the winds swept through the reeds, and, sighing amidst them, mourned, saying, "A thing as free as we are, and as fair as the light, has perished; a thing whose joys were made, like ours, from song of the birds, from sight of the sun, from sound of the waters, from smell of the fields, from the tossing spray of the white fruit-boughs, from the play of the gra.s.ses at sunrise, from all the sweet and innocent liberties of earth and air. She has perished as a trampled leaf, as a broken sh.e.l.l, as a rose that falls in the public ways, as a star that is cast down on an autumn night. She has died as the dust dies, and none sorrow. What matter?--what matter? Men are wise, and G.o.ds are just,--they say."

The moon shone cold and clear. The breath of the wild thyme was sweet upon the air. The leaves blew together murmuring. The shadows of the clouds were dark upon the stream. She lay dead at the feet of the Sons of Night.

The Red Mouse sat without, and watched, and said, "To the end she hath escaped me." The noisome creatures of the place stole away trembling; the nameless things begotten by loneliness and gloom glided to their holes as though afraid; the blind newts crept into the utter darkness afar off; the pure cool winds alone hovered near her, and moved her hair, and touched her limbs with all the fragrance of forest and plain, of the pure young year and the blossoming woodlands, of the green garden-ways and the silvery sea. The lives of the earth and the air and the waters alone mourned for this life which was gone from amidst them, free even in basest bondage, pure though every hand had cast defilement on it, incorrupt through all corruption--for love's sake.

CHAPTER XVIII.

In the springtime of the year three reapers cut to the roots the reeds that grew by the river.

They worked at dawn of day: the skies were gray and dark; the still and misty current flowed in with a full tide; the air was filled with the scent of white fruit-blossoms; in the hush of the daybreak the song of a lark thrilled the silence; under the sweep of the steel the reeds fell.

Resting from their labors, with the rushes slain around them, they, looking vacantly through the hollow cas.e.m.e.nts, saw her body lying there at the feet of the G.o.ds of oblivion.

At first they were shaken and afraid. Then the gleam of the gold upon her limbs awakened avarice; and avarice was more powerful than fear.

They waded through the rushes and crossed the threshold, and, venturing within, stood looking on her in awe and wonder, then timorously touched her, and turned her face to the faint light. Then they said that she was dead.

"It is that evil thing come back upon us!" they muttered to one another, and stood looking at one another, and at her, afraid.

They spoke in whispers; they were very fearful; it was still twilight.

"It were a righteous act to thrust her in a grave," they murmured to one another at the last,--and paused.

"Ay, truly," they agreed. "Otherwise she may break the bonds of the tomb, and rise again, and haunt us always: who can say? But the gold----"

And then they paused again.

"It were a sin," one murmured,--"it were a sin to bury the pure good gold in darkness. Even if it came from h.e.l.l----"

"The priests will bless it for us," answered the other twain.

Against the reddening skies the lark was singing.

The three reapers waited a little, still afraid, then hastily, as men slaughter a thing they dread may rise against them, they stripped the white robes from her and drew off the anklets of gold from her feet, and the chains of gold that were riven about her breast and limbs. When they had stripped her body bare, they were stricken with a terror of the dead whom they thus violated with their theft; and, being consumed with apprehension lest any, as the day grew lighter, should pa.s.s by there and see what they had done, they went out in trembling haste, and together dug deep down into the wet sands, where the reeds grew, and dragged her still warm body unshrouded to the air, and thrust it down there into its nameless grave, and covered it, and left it to the rising of the tide.

Then with the gold they hurried to their homes.