 CHAPTER 36 MOTHER AND DOTTER Lona was so disgusted with the people, and especially with the women, that she wished to abandon the place as soon as possible. I, on the contrary, felt very strongly that to do so would be to fail willfully where success was possible, and far worse, to weaken the hearts of the little ones, and so bring them into much greater danger. If we retreated, it was certain the princess would not leave us unassailed. If we encountered her the hope of the prophecy went with us, mother and daughter must meet, it might be that Lona's loveliness would take Lilith's heart by storm. If she threatened violence, I should be there between them. If I found that I had no other power over her, I was ready, for the sake of my Lona, to strike her pitilessly on the closed hand. I knew she was doomed, most likely it was decreed that her doom should now be brought to pass through us. Still without hint of the relation in which she stood to the princess, I stated the case to Lona as it appeared to me. At once, she agreed to accompany me to the palace. From the top of one of its great towers the princess had in the early morning, while the city yet slept, described the approach of the army of the little ones. The sight awoken her in over-mastering terror. She had failed in her endeavor to destroy them, and they were upon her. The prophecy was about to be fulfilled. When she came to herself, she descended to the black hall, and seated herself in the north focus of the ellipse, under the opening in the roof. For she must think. Now what she called thinking required a clear consciousness of herself, not as she was, but as she chose to believe herself, and to aid her in the realization of this consciousness, she had suspended, a little way from and above her, itself invisible in the darkness of the hall, a mirror to receive the full sunlight reflected from her person. For the resulting vision of herself in the splendor of her beauty, she sat, waiting, the meridional sun. Many a shadow moved about her in the darkness, but as often as, with a certain inner eye which she had, she caught sight of one, she refused to regard it. Close under the mirror stood the shadow, which attended her walks, but, self-occupied, him she did not see. The city was taken, the inhabitants were cowering in terror, the little ones and their strange cavalry were encamped in the square. The sun shone upon the princess, and for a few minutes she saw herself glorious. The vision passed, but she sat on. The night was now come, and darkness clothed and filled the glass, yet she did not move. A gloom that swarmed with shadows, wallowed in the palace, the servants shivered and shook, but dared not leave it because of the beasts of the little ones. All night long the princess sat motionless. She must see her beauty again, she must try again to think. But courage and will had grown weary of her, and would dwell with her no more. In the morning we chose twelve of the tallest and bravest of the boys to go with us to the palace. We rode our great horses, and they small horses and elephants. The princess sat waiting the sun to give her the joy of her own presence. The tide of the light was creeping up the shore of the sky, but until the sun stood overhead, not a ray could enter the black hall. He rose to our eyes, and swiftly ascended. As we climbed the steep way to the palace, he climbed the dome of its great hall. He looked in at the eye of it, and with sudden radiance the princess flashed upon her own sight. But she sprang to her feet with a cry of despair, alas her whiteness, the spot covered half her side, and was black as the marble around her. She clutched her robe, and fell back in her chair. The shadow glided out, and she saw him go. We found the gate open as usual, passed through the paved grove up to the palace door, and entered the vestibule. There in her cage lay the spotted leopardess, apparently asleep or lifeless. The little ones paused a moment to look at her. She leaped up rampant against the cage. The horses reared and plunged. The elephants retreated a step. The next instant she fell supine, writhed in quivering spasms, and lay motionless. We rode into the great hall. The princess yet leaned back in her chair in the shaft of sunlight, when from the stones of the court came to her ears the noise of the horses' hooves. She started, listened, and shook, never had such sound been heard in her palace. She pressed her hand to her side and gasped. The trampling came nearer and nearer. It entered the hall itself, moving figures that were not shadows approached her through the darkness. For us we saw a splendor, a glorious woman centering the dark. Lona sprang from her horse and bounded to her. I sprang from mine and followed Lona. Mother! Mother! she cried, and her clear, lovely voice echoed in the dome. The princess shivered. Her face grew almost black with hate. Her eyebrows met on her forehead. She rose to her feet and stood. Mother! Mother! cried Lona again as she leaped on the deus, and flung her arms around the princess. An instant more, and I should have reached them. In that instant I saw Lona lifted high and dashed on the marble floor. Oh! the horrible sound of her fall, at my feet she fell, and lay still. The princess sat down with the smile of a demoness. I dropped on my knees beside Lona, raised her from the stones, and pressed her to my bosom. With indignant hate I glanced at the princess. She answered me with her sweetest smile. I would have sprung upon her, taken her by the throat and strangled her, but love of the child was stronger than hate of the mother, and I clasped closer my precious burden. Her arms hung helpless. Her blood trickled over my hands and fell on the floor with soft, slow little plashes. The horses scented it, mine first, then the small ones. Mine reared, shivering and wild-eyed, went about and thundered blindly down the dark hall with the little horses after him. Lona's stood gazing down at his mistress and trembling all over. The boys flung themselves from their horses' backs and they, not seeing the black wall before them, dashed themselves, with mine, to pieces against it. The elephants came on to the foot of the deus and stopped, wildly trumpeting. The little ones sprang upon it and stood horrified. The princess lay back in her seat, her face that of a corpse, her eyes alone alive, wickedly flaming. She was again withered and wasted to what I found in the wood, and her side was as if a great branding hand had been laid upon it. But Lona saw nothing, and I saw but Lona, mother, mother she sighed and her breathing ceased. I carried her into the court. The sun shone upon a white face and the pitiful shadow of a ghostly smile. Her head hung back. She was dead as earth. I forgot the little ones, forgot the murdering princess, forgot the body in my arms, and wandered away, looking for my Lona. The doors and windows were crowded with brute faces, jeering at me, but not daring to speak, for they saw the white leopardous behind me, hanging her head close at my heel. I spurned her with my foot. She held back a moment and followed me again. I reached the square. The little army was gone. Its emptiness roused me. Where were the little ones, her little ones? I had lost her children. I stared helpless about me, staggered to the pillar, and sank upon its base. But as I sat gazing on the still countenance, it seemed to smile a live, momentary smile. I never doubted it an illusion, but believed what it said. I should yet see her alive. It was not she, it was I who was lost, and she would find me. I rose to go after the little ones and instinctively sought the gate by which we had entered. I looked around me, but saw nothing of the leopardous. The street was rapidly filling with a fierce crowd. They saw me encumbered with my dead, but for a time dared not assail me. Air I reached the gate, however, they had gathered courage. The women began to hustle me. I held on, heedless. A man pushed against my sacred burden with a kick I sent him away howling. But the crowd pressed upon me, and, fearing for the dead that was beyond hurt, I clasped my treasure closer, and freed my right arm. That instant, however, a commotion arose in the street behind me. The crowd broke, and through it came the little ones I had left in the palace. Ten of them were upon four of the elephants. On the two other elephants lay the princess, bound hand and foot, and quite still, save that her eyes rolled in her ghastly sockets. The two other little ones rode behind her on Lona's horse. Every now and then the wise creatures that bore her threw their trunks behind and felt her cords. 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 37 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 neighbor. It was she who fought the white lepertice the night they woke us with their yelling. Really 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 and 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 who 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 Lepidus. 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 OF LILITH This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. LILITH 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 moldered 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 loosen the world. And surely I scarce merited being made forever her jailer. 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 Loova. The next day we crossed the hot stream. Even 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 to sleep 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 on dancing to all eternity, and whether I should not one day have to join them because of my stiff neckadness, 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 specters 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 gambles 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 specters, who had nothing to smile with all, 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 recognize the pair I had before seen in that neighborhood. 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 systems 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 good-bye, 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 bid 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 wrapped in her cloak before me. As nearly as I could judge I took the direct way, across the left branch of the riverbed, 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 away 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, modeling 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 paralyzed. 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 sepulcher? 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 Catwoman 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 Catwoman? 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 wrote 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 heard 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 not 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 am not afraid of being hurt a little. A good deal, cried Odoo, 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 Lovah, I saw them both more than once trying to feed her with grapes. Little tumbledown is good, Lovah 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 am 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. You do not see her, I said. Her face is covered. She has no face, they answered. She has a very beautiful face, I saw it once. It is indeed as beautiful as Lona's, I added with a sigh. Then what makes her hide it? I think I know, anyhow, she has some good reason for it. I don't like the cat-woman, she is frightful. You cannot like, and you ought not to dislike what you have never seen. Once more, you must not call her the cat-woman. What are we to call her, then, please? That is a pretty name, said a girl. I will call her Lady Mara, then perhaps she will show me her beautiful face. Mara, dressed and muffled in white, was indeed standing in the doorway to receive us. At last, she said, Lilith's hour has been long on the way, but it has come. Everything comes. Thousands of years have I waited, and not in vain. She came to me, took my treasure from my arms, carried it into the house, and returning took the princess. Lilith shuddered, but made no resistance. The beasts lay down by the door. We followed our hostess, the little ones looking very grave. She laid the princess on a rough settle at one side of the room, unbound her, and turned to us. Mr. Vane, she said, and you, little ones, I thank you. This woman would not yield to gentler measures. Harder must have their turn. I must do what I can to make her repent. The pitiful-hearted little ones began to sob sorely. Will you hurt her very much, Lady Mara, said the girl I have just mentioned, putting her warm little hand in mine? Yes, I am afraid I must. I fear she will make me, answered Mara. It would be cruel to hurt her too little. It would have all to be done again, only worse. May I stop with her? No, my child. She loves no one, therefore she cannot be with any one. There is one who will be with her, but she will not be with him. Will the shadow that came down the hill be with her? The great shadow will be in her, I fear, but he cannot be with her, or with any one. She will know I am beside her, but that will not comfort her. Will you scratch her very deep, asked Odu, going near and putting his hand in hers? Please, don't make the red juice come. She caught him up, turned her back to the rest of us, drew the muffling down from her face, and held him at arm's length, that he might see her. As if his face had been a mirror I saw in it what he saw. For one moment he stared, his little mouth open, then a divine wonder arose in his countenance, and swiftly changed to intense delight. For a minute he gazed entranced, then she set him down. Yet a moment he stood looking up at her, lost in contemplation, then ran to us with the face of a prophet that knows a bliss he cannot tell. Odu rearranged her mufflings and turned to the other children. You must eat and drink before you go to sleep, she said. You have a long journey. She set the bread of her house before them, and a jug of cold water. They had never seen bread before, and this was hard and dry, but they ate it without sign of distaste. They had never seen water before, but they drank without demure, one after the other looking up from the draught with a face of glad astonishment. Then she led away the smallest, and the rest went trooping after her. With her own gentle hands they told me she put them to bed on the floor of the garret. CHAPTER 39. THAT NIGHT Their night was a troubled one, and they brought a strange report of it into the day. Whether the fear of their sleep came out into their waking or their waking fear sank with them into their dreams. Awake or asleep they were never at rest from it. All night something seemed going on in the house, something silent, something terrible, something they were not to know. Never a sound awoke, the darkness was one with the silence, and the silence was the terror. Once a frightful wind filled the house and shook its inside, they said, so that it quivered and trembled like a horse shaking himself, but it was a silent wind that made not even a moon in their chamber, and passed away like a soundless sob. They fell asleep, but they woke again with a great start. They thought the house was filling with water such as they had been drinking. It came from below and swelled up until the garret was full of it, to the very roof. But it made no more sound than the wind, and when it sank away, they fell asleep, dry and warm. The next time they woke, all the air they said inside and out was full of cats. They swarmed up and down along and across everywhere about the room. They felt their claws trying to get through the nightgowns Lady Mara had put on them, but they could not, and in the morning not one of them had a scratch. Through the dark suddenly came the only sound they heard the night long, the far-off howl of the huge great-grandmother cat in the desert. She must have been calling her little ones, they thought, for that instant the cats stopped, and all was still. Once more they fell fast asleep, and did not wake till the sun was rising. Such was the account the children gave of their experiences, but I was with the veiled woman and the princess all through the night. Something of what took place I saw, much I only felt, and there was more which I could not see and heart only could in a measure understand. As soon as Mara left the room with the children my eyes fell on the white leopardous. I thought we had left her behind us, but there she was cowering in a corner. Apparently she was in mortal terror of what she might see. A lamp stood on the high chimney-piece, and sometimes the room seemed full of lamp-shadows, sometimes of cloudy forms. The princess lay on the settle by the wall, and seemed never to have moved hand or foot. It was a fearsome waiting. When Mara returned she drew the settle with Lilith upon it to the middle of the room, then sat down opposite me at the other side of the hearth. Between us burned a small fire. Something terrible was on its way. The cloudy presences flickered and shook. A silvery creature like a slow worm came crawling out from among them, slowly crossed the clay floor and crept into the fire. We sat motionless. The something came nearer. But the hours passed, midnight drew nigh, and there was no change. The night was very still. Not a sound broke the silence, not a rustle from the fire, not a crack from board or beam. But whether in the earth or in the air or in the waters under the earth, whether in my own body or in my soul, whether it was anywhere, I could not tell. A dread sense of judgment was upon me. But I was not afraid, for I had ceased to care for ought save the thing that must be done. Suddenly it was midnight. The muffled woman rose, turned toward the settle, and slowly unwound the long swaths that hid her face. They dropped on the ground, and she stepped over them. The feet of the princess were toward the hearth, Mara went to her head, and turning stood behind it. Then I saw her face. It was lovely beyond speech, white and sad, heart and soul sad but not unhappy, and I knew it never could be unhappy. Great tears were running down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her robe. Her countenance grew very still, and she wept no more. But for the pity in every line of her expression she would have seemed severe. She laid her hand on the head of the princess, on the hair that grew low on the forehead, and, stooping, breathed on the sallow brow. The body shuddered. "'Will you turn away from the wicked things you have been doing so long?' said Mara gently. The princess did not answer, Mara put the question again in the same soft, inviting tone. Still there was no sign of hearing. She spoke the words a third time. Then the seeming corpse opened its mouth and answered, its words appearing to frame themselves of something else than sound. I cannot shape the thing further. Sounds they were not, yet they were words to me. I will not, she said, I will be myself and not another. Alas, you are another now, not yourself. Will you not be your real self? I will be what I mean myself now. If you were restored, would you not make what amends you could for the misery you have caused? I would do after my nature. You do not know it. Your nature is good, and you do evil. I do as my self pleases as my self desires. You will do as the shadow overshadowing yourself inclines you? I will do what I will do. You have killed your daughter, Lilith. I have killed thousands. She is my own. She was never yours as you are another's. I am not another's. I am my own and my daughter is mine. Then, alas, your hour is come. I care not. I am what I am. No one can take from me myself. You are not the self you imagine. So long as I feel myself what it pleases me to think myself, I care not. I am content to be to myself what I would be. What I choose to seem to myself makes me what I am. My own thought makes me me. My own thought of myself is me. Another shall not make me. But another has made you, and can compel you to see what you have made yourself. You will not be able much longer to look to yourself anything but what he sees you. You will not much longer have satisfaction in the thought of yourself. At this moment you are aware of the coming change. No one ever made me. I defy that power to unmake me from a free woman. You are his slave, and I defy you. You may be able to torture me. I do not know, but you shall not compel me to anything against my will. Such a compulsion would be without value. But there is a light that goes deeper than the will. A light that lights up the darkness behind it. That light can change your will, can make it truly yours and not another's. Not the shadows. Into the created can pour itself the creating will. And so redeem it. That light shall not enter me. I hate it. Be gone, slave. I am no slave, for I love that light and will with the deeper will which created mine. There is no slave but the creature that wills against its creator. Who is a slave but her who cries, I am free, yet cannot cease to exist. You speak foolishness from a cowering heart. You imagine me given over to you. I defy you. I hold myself against you. What I choose to be you cannot change. I will not be what you think me, what you say I am. I am sorry you must suffer. But be free. She alone is free who would make free. She loves not freedom who would enslave. She is herself a slave. Every life, every will, every heart that came within your ken you have sought to subdue. You are the slave of every slave you have made. Such a slave that you do not know it. See your own self. She took her hand from the head of the princess and went two backward paces from her. A soundless presence as of roaring flame possessed the house, the same I presume that was to the children a silent wind. Involuntarily I turned to the hearth, its fire was a still small, moveless glow. But I saw the worm thing come creeping out, white-hot, vivid as incandescent silver, the live heart of essential fire. Along the floor it crawled toward the settle, going very slow. Yet more slowly it crept up on it and laid itself as unwilling to go further at the feet of the princess. I rose and stole nearer. Mara stood motionless as one that waits an event foreknown. The shining thing crawled onto a bare bony foot. It showed no suffering, neither was the settle scorched where the worm had lain. Slowly, very slowly, it crept along her robe until it reached her bosom, where it disappeared among the folds. The face of the princess lay stonely calm. The eyelids closed as over dead eyes and for some minutes nothing followed. At length on the dry parchment-like skin began to appear drops as of the finest dew. In a moment they were as large as seed-pearls, ran together, and began to pour down in streams. I darted forward to snatch the worm from the poor withered bosom and crush it with my foot, but Mara, mother of sorrow, stepped between and drew aside the closed edge of the robe. No serpent was there, no searing trail, the creature had passed in by the center of the black spot, and was piercing through the joints and marrow to the thoughts and intents of the heart. The princess gave one writhing, contorted shudder, and I knew the worm was in her secret chamber. "'She is seeing herself,' said Mara, and laying her hand on my arm, she drew me three paces from the settle. Of a sudden the princess bent her body upward in an arch, then sprang to the floor and stood erect. The horror on her face made me tremble lest her eyes should open, and the sight of them overwhelmed me. Her bosom heaved and sank, but no breath issued. Her hair hung and dripped, then it stood out from her head and emitted sparks, again hung down, and poured the sweat of her torture on the floor. I would have thrown my arms about her, but Mara stopped me. You cannot go near her, she said, she is far away from us, afar in the hell of herself consciousness. The central fire of the universe is radiating into her the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of what she is. She sees at last the good she is not, the evil she is. She knows that she is herself the fire in which she is burning, but she does not know that the light of life is the heart of that fire. Her torment is that she is what she is. Do not fear for her. She is not forsaken. No gentler way to help her was left. Wait and watch. It may have been five minutes or five years that she stood thus I cannot tell, but at last she flung herself on her face. Mara went to her and stood looking down upon her. Large tears fell from her eyes on the woman who had never wept and would not weep. "'Will you change your way?' she said at length. "'Why did he make me such?' gasped Lilith. "'I would have made myself—oh, so different! I am glad it was he that made me and not I myself. He alone is to blame for what I am. Never would I have made such a worthless thing. He meant me such that I might know it and be miserable. I will not be made any longer.' "'Unmake yourself, then,' said Mara. "'Alas, I cannot. You know it and mock me. How often have I not agonized to cease, but the tyrant keeps me being. I curse him, now let him kill me.' The words came in jets as from a dying fountain. "'Had he not made you?' said Mara gently and slowly. You could not even hate him. But he did not make you such. You have made yourself what you are. Be of better cheer. He can remake you. I will not be remade. He will not change you. He will only restore you to what you were. I will not be ought of his making. Are you not willing to have that set right which you have set wrong?' She lay silent. Her suffering seemed abated. "'If you are willing, put yourself again on the settle.' "'I will not,' she answered, forcing the words through her clenched teeth. A wind seemed to wake inside the house, blowing without sound or impact, and a water began to rise that had no lap in its ripples, no sob in its swell. It was cold, but it did not benumb. Unseen and noiseless it came. It smote no sense in me, yet I knew it rising. I saw it lift at last and float her. Gently it bore her, unable to resist and left, rather than laid her, on the settle. Then it sank swiftly away.' The strife of thought, accusing and excusing, began afresh, and gathered fierceness. The soul of Lilith lay naked to the torture of pure, interpenetrating inward light. She began to moan, and sigh great sighs, then murmur as holding colloquy with a divisual self. Her queendom was no longer whole. It was divided against itself. One moment she would exult as over her worst enemy, and weep. The next she would writhe in the embrace of a friend, whom her soul hated and laugh like a demon. At length she began what seemed a tale about herself, in a language so strange and in forms so shadowy, that I could but here and there understand a little. Yet the language seemed the primeval shape of one I knew well, and the forms to belong to dreams which had once been mine, but refused to be recalled. The tale appeared now and then to touch upon things that Adam had read from the departed manuscript, and often to make allusion to influences and forces, vices too I could not help suspecting, with which I was unacquainted. She ceased, and again came the horror in her hair, the sparkling and flowing alternate. I sent a beseeching look to Mara. "'Those, alas, are not the tears of repentance,' she said, the true tears gather in the eyes. Those are far more bitter and not so good. Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates. Once with his father he is to himself of no more account. It will be so with her.' She went nearer and said, "'Will you restore that which you have wrongfully taken?' I have taken nothing,' answered the princess, forcing out the words in spite of the pain, that I had not the right to take. My power to take manifested my right.' Mara left her. Gradually my soul grew aware of an invisible darkness, a something more terrible than ought that had yet made itself felt. A horrible nothingness, a negation positive enfolded her. The border of its being that was yet no being touched me, and for one ghastly instant I seemed alone with death absolute. It was not the absence of everything I felt, but the presence of nothing. The princess dashed herself from the settle to the floor with an exceeding great and bitter cry. It was the recoil of being from annihilation. "'For pity's sake,' she shrieked, "'tear my heart out, but let me live!' That there fell upon her and upon us also who watched with her, the perfect calm as of a summer night. Suffering had all but reached the brim of her life's cup, and a hand had emptied it. She raised her head, half rose and looked around her. A moment more and she stood erect with the air of a conqueror. She had won the battle. Dareful, she had met her spiritual foes they had withdrawn defeated. She raised her withered arm above her head, a pain of unholy triumph in her throat, when suddenly her eyes fixed in a ghastly stare. What was she seeing? I looked and saw. Before her, cast from unseen heavenly mirror, stood the reflection of herself, and beside it a form of splendid beauty. She trembled and sank again on the floor helpless. She knew the one what God had intended her to be, the other what she had made herself. The rest of the night she lay motionless altogether. With the gray dawn growing in the room she rose, turned to Mara and said in prideful humility, "'You have conquered. Let me go into the wilderness and bewail myself.' Mara saw that her submissions were not feigned, neither was it real. She looked at her a moment and returned, "'Begin, then, and set right in the place of wrong.' "'I know not how,' she replied, with the look of one who foresaw and feared the answer. "'Open thy hand, and let that which is in it go.' A fierce refusal seemed to struggle for passage, but she kept it prisoned. I cannot, she said, I have no longer the power. Open it for me!' She held out the offending hand. It was more a paw than a hand. It seemed to me plain that she could not open it. Mara did not even look at it. "'You must open it yourself,' she said quietly. "'I have told you I cannot.' "'You can, if you will, not indeed at once, but by persistent effort. What you have done you do not yet wish undone. Do not yet intend to undo.' "'You think so,' I dare say, rejoined the princess with a flash of insolence, but I know that I cannot open my hand. "'I know you better than you know yourself, and I know you can. You have often opened it a little way. Without trouble and pain you cannot open it quite, but you can open it. At worst you could beat it open. I pray you, gather your strength, and open it wide. I will not try what I know impossible. It would be the part of a fool.' "'Which you have been playing all your life. Oh, you are hard to teach.' Defiance reappeared on the face of the princess. She turned her back on Mara, saying, "'I know what you have been tormenting me for. You have not succeeded, nor shall you succeed. You shall yet find me stronger than you think. I will yet be mistress of myself. I am still what I have always known myself, queen of hell and mistress of the worlds.' Then came the most fearful thing of all. I did not know what it was. I knew myself unable to imagine it. I knew only that if it came near me I should die of terror. I now know that it was life in death. If dead, yet existent, and I knew that Lilith had had glimpses, but only glimpses of it before. It had never been with her until now. She stood as she had turned. Mara went and sat down by the fire, fearing to stand alone with the princess I went also and sat again by the hearth. Something began to depart from me. A sense of cold, yet not what we call cold, crept not into but out of my being, and pervaded it. The lamp of life and the eternal fire seemed dying together, and I about to be left with not but the consciousness that I had been alive. Mercifully bereavement did not go so far, and my thought went back to Lilith. Something was taking place in her which we did not know. We knew we did not feel what she felt, but we knew we felt something of the misery it caused her. The thing itself was in her, not in us. Its reflex, her misery, reached us, and was again reflected in us. She was in the outer darkness. We present with her who was in it. We were not in the outer darkness, had we been we could not have been with her. We should have been timelessly, spacelessly, absolutely apart. The darkness knows neither the light nor itself. Only the light knows itself and the darkness also. None but God hates evil and understands it. Something was gone from her which then first by its absence she knew to have been with her every moment of her wicked years. The source of life had withdrawn itself. All that was left her of conscious being was the dregs of her dead and corrupted life. She stood rigid. Mara buried her head in her hands. I gazed on the face of one who knew existence but not love. Knew nor life, nor joy, nor good. With my eyes I saw the face of alive death. She knew life only to know that it was dead and that in her death lived. It was not merely that life had ceased in her, but that she was consciously a dead thing. She had killed her life and was dead and knew it. She must death it for ever and ever. She had tried her hardest to unmake herself and could not. She was a dead life. She could not cease. She must be. In her face I saw and read beyond its misery, saw in its dismay that the dismay behind it was more than I could manifest. It sent out a livid gloom. The light that was in her was darkness, and after its kind it shone. She was what God could not have created. She had usurped beyond her share in self-creation and her part had undone his. She saw now what she had made, and behold it was not good. She was as a conscious corpse, whose coffin would never come to pieces, never set her free. Her bodily eyes stood wide open as if gazing into the heart of horror essential. Her own indestructible evil. Her right hand also was now clenched upon existent nothing, her inheritance. But with God all things are possible. He can save even the rich. Without change of look, without sign of purpose, Lilith walked toward Mara. She felt her coming, and rose to meet her. I yield, said the Princess. I cannot hold out. I am defeated. Not the less. I cannot open my hand. Have you tried? I am trying now with all my might. I will take you to my father. You have wronged him worst of the created. For he best of the created can help you. How can he help me? He will forgive you. Ah! If he would but help me to cease. Not even that am I capable of. I have no power over myself. I am a slave. I acknowledge it. Let me die. A slave thou art, that shall one day be a child, answered Mara, verily thou shalt die but not as thou thinkest, thou shalt die out of death into life. Now is the life for that never was against thee. Like her mother in whom lay the motherhood of all the world, Mara put her arms around Lilith and kissed her on the forehead. The fiery cold misery went out of her eyes and their fountains filled. She lifted and bore her to her own bed in the corner of the room, laid her softly upon it, and closed her eyes with caressing hands. Lilith lay and wept. The lady of sorrow went to the door and opened it. Morn with the spring in her arms waited outside. Softly they stole in at the opened door with a gentle wind in the skirts of their garments. It flowed and flowed about Lilith, rippling the unknown, upwaking sea of her life eternal. Rippling and to ripple it until at length, she who had been but as a weed cast on the dry sandy shore to wither, should know herself an inlet of the everlasting ocean. Henceforth to flow into her for ever, and eb no more. She answered the morning wind with reviving breath, and began to listen. For in the skirts of the wind had come the rain, the soft rain that heals the moan, the many wounded grass, soothing it with the sweetness of all music, the hush that lives between music and silence. It bedewed the desert places around the cottage, and the sands of Lilith's heart heard it, and drank it in. When Mara returned to sit by her bed, her tears were flowing softer than the rain. And soon she was fast asleep. CHAPTER 40 THE HOUSE OF DEATH The mother of Saro's rose muffled her face and went to call the little ones. They slept as if all the night they had not moved, but the moment she spoke they sprang to their feet, fresh as if new-made. Mara lay down the stair they followed her, and she brought them where the princess lay, her tears yet flowing as she slept. Their glad faces grew grave. They looked from the princess out on the rain, then back at the princess. The sky is falling, said one. The white juice is running out of the princess, cried another, with an odd look. Is it rivers? asked Odu, gazing at the little streams that flowed down her hollow cheeks. Yes, answered Mara, the most wonderful of all rivers. I thought rivers was bigger and rushed, like a lot of little ones making loud noises, he returned, looking at me, from whom alone he had heard of rivers. Look at the rivers of the sky, said Mara. See how they come down to wake up the waters under the earth. Soon will the rivers be flowing everywhere, merry and loud, like thousands and thousands of happy children. Oh, how glad they will make you, little ones! You have never seen any, and do not know how lovely is the water. That will be the glad of the ground that the princess has grown good, said Odu. See the glad of the sky? Are the rivers the glad of the princess? asked Luba. They are not her juice, for they are not red. They are the juice inside the juice, answered Mara. Odu put one finger to his eye, looked at it, and shook his head. Princess will not bite now, said Luba. No, she will never do that again, replied Mara. But now we must take her nearer home. Is that a nest? asked Sozo. Yes, a very big nest. But we must take her to another place first. What is that? It is the biggest room in all this world. But I think it is going to be pulled down. It will soon be too full of little nests. Go and get your clumsies. Please are there cats in it? Not one. The nests are too full of lovely dreams for one cat to get in. We shall be ready in a minute, said Odu, and ran out, followed by all except Luba. Lilith was now awake and listening with a sad smile. But her rivers are running so fast, said Luba, who stood by her side and seemed unable to take her eyes from her face. Her robe is all—I don't know what. Clumsies won't like it. They won't mind it, answered Mara. Those rivers are so clean, that they make the whole world clean. I had fallen asleep by the fire, but for some time had been awake and listening, and now rose. It is time to mount, Mr. Vane, said our hostess. Tell me, please, I said, is there not a way by which to avoid the channels and the den of monsters? There is an easy way across the riverbed, which I will show you, she answered, but you must pass once more through the monsters. I fear for the children, I said. Fear will not once come nigh them, she rejoined. We left the cottage, the beasts stood waiting about the door. Odu was already on the neck of one of the two that were to carry the princess. I mounted Lona's horse, Mara brought her body, and gave it me in my arms. When she came out again with the princess, a cry of delight arose from the children. She was no longer muffled. Looking at her and entranced with her loveliness, the boys forgot to receive the princess from her. But the elephants took Lilith tenderly with their trunks, one round her body and one round her knees, and Mara helping laid her along between them. Why does the princess want to go? asked a small boy. She would keep good if she stayed here. She wants to go, and she does not want to go. We are helping her, answered Mara. She will not keep good here. What are you helping her to do, he went on? To go where she will get more help. Help to open her hand, which has been closed for a thousand years. So long? Then she has learned to do without it. Why should she open it now? Because it is shut upon something that is not hers. These lady Mara, may we have some of your very dry bread before we go, said Louva? Mara smiled and brought them four loaves and a great jug of water. We will eat as we go, they said, but they drank the water with delight. I think, remarked one of them, it must be elephant juice. It makes me so strong. We set out, the lady of sorrow walking with us, more beautiful than the sun, and the white leopardess following her. I thought she meant but to put us in the path across the channels, but I soon found she was going with us all the way. Then I would have dismounted that she might ride, but she would not let me. I have no burden to carry, she said, the children and I will walk together. It was the loveliest of mornings, the sun shone his brightest and the wind blew his sweetest, but they did not comfort the desert, for it had no water. We crossed the channels without difficulty, the children gambling about Mara all the way, but did not reach the top of the ridge over the bad burrow until the sun was already in the act of disappearing. Then I made the little ones mount their elephants, for the moon might be late, and I could not help some anxiety about them. The lady of sorrow now led the way by my side, the elephants followed, the two that bore the princess in the center, the leopardess brought up the rear, and just as we reached the frightful margin, the moon looked up and showed the shallow basin lying before us untroubled. Mara stepped into it, not a movement answered her tread or the feet of my horse, but the moment that the elephants carrying the princess touched it, the seemingly solid earth began to heave and boil, and the whole dread brood of the hellish nest was commove'd. Monsters up rose on all sides, every neck at full length, every beak and claw outstretched, every mouth agape, long-billed heads, horribly jawed faces, naughty tentacles innumerable, went out after Lilith. She lay in an agony of fear, nor dared stir a finger. Whether the hideous things even saw the children, I doubt, certainly not one of them touched a child, not one loathily member passed the live rampart of her bodyguard to lay hold of her. Little ones, I cried, keep your elephants close about the princess. Be brave, they will not touch you. What will not touch us? We don't know what to be brave at, they answered, and I perceived they were unaware of one of the deformities around them. Never mind then, I returned, only keep close. They were panopled in their blindness, incapacity to see was their safety, what they could know wise be aware of could not hurt them. But the hideous forms I saw that night, Mara was a few paces in front of me when a solitary, bodyless head bounced on the path between us. The leperous came rushing under the elephants from behind and would have seized it, but with frightful contortions of visage and a loathsome howl, it gave itself a rapid rotatory twist, sprang from her, and buried itself in the ground. The death in my arms, assoiling me from fear, I regarded them all unmoved, although never, sure, was elsewhere beheld such a crew accursed. Mara still went in front of me, and the leperous now walked close behind her, shivering often for it was very cold, when suddenly the ground before me to my left began to heave, and a low wave of earth came slinking toward us. It rose higher as it drew near, out of it slouched a dreadful head, with fleshy tubes for hair, and opening a great oval mouth snapped at me. The leperous sprang, but fell baffled beyond it. Almost under our feet shot up the head of an enormous snake, with a lamping, wallowing glare in its eyes. Again the leperous rushed to the attack, but found nothing. At a third monster she darted with like fury and like failure, then suddenly ceased to heed the phantom horde. But I understood the peril, and hastened the crossing, the rather that the moon was carrying herself strangely. Even as she rose she seemed ready to drop and give up the attempt as hopeless, and since I saw her sink back once fully her own breath. The arc she made was very low, and now she had begun to descend rapidly. We were almost over when, between us and the border of the basin, arose a long neck, on the top of which, like the blossom of some Stygian lily, sat what seemed the head of a corpse, its mouth half open and full of canine teeth. I went on, it retreated, then drew aside. The lady stepped on the firm land, but the leperous between us, roused once more, turned and flew at the throat of the terror. I remained where I was to see the elephants, with the princess and the children, safe on the bank. Then I turned to look after the leperous. That moment the moon went down. For an instant I saw the leperous and the snake monster convolved in a cloud of dust. Then darkness hid them. Trembling with fright, my horse wheeled, and in three bounds overtook the elephants. As we came up with them a shapeless jelly dropped on the princess, a white dove dropped immediately on the jelly, stabbing it with its beak. It made a squelching, sucking sound and fell off. Then I heard the voice of a woman talking with Mara, and I knew the voice. I fear she is dead, said Mara. I will send and find her, answered the mother, but why, Mara, shouldst thou at all fear for her or for any one? Death cannot hurt her who dies doing the work given her to do. I shall miss her sorely. She is good and wise. Yet I would not have her live beyond her hour. She has gone down with the wicked. She will rise with the righteous. We shall see her again ere very long. Mother, I said, although I did not see her, we come to you many, but most of us are little ones. Will you be able to receive us all? You are welcome, every one, she answered. Sooner or later all will be little ones, for all must sleep in my house. It is well with those that go to sleep young and willing. My husband is even now preparing her couch for Lilith. She is neither young nor quite willing, but it is well indeed that she is come. I heard no more. Mother and daughter had gone away together through the dark. But we saw a light in the distance, and toured it, we went stumbling over the moor. Adam stood in the door, holding the candle to guide us, and talking with his wife, who, behind him, laid bread and wine on the table within. Happy children, I heard her say, to have looked already on the face of my daughter. Surely it is the loveliest in the great world. When we reached the door Adam welcomed us almost merrily. He set the candle on the threshold, and going to the elephants would have taken the princess to carry her in, but she repulsed him, and, pushing her elephants asunder, stood erect between them. They walked from beside her, and left her with him, who had been her husband, ashamed indeed of her gaunt uncombliness, but unsubmissive. He stood with a welcome in his eyes that shone through their severity. �We have long waited for thee, Lilith,� he said. She returned him no answer. Eve and her daughter came to the door. The mortal foe of my children, murmured Eve, standing radiant in her beauty. �Your children are no longer in her danger,� said Mara. She has turned from evil. �Trust her not hastily, Mara,� answered her mother. She has deceived a multitude. But you will open to her the mirror of the law of liberty, mother, that she may go into it and abide in it. She consents to open her hand and restore. Will not the great father restore her to inheritance with his other children? I do not know him, murmured Lilith, in a voice of fear and doubt. �Therefore it is thou art miserable,� said Adam. �I will go back once I came,� she cried, and turned, wringing her hands to depart. That is indeed what I would have thee do, where I would have thee go, to him from whom thou cameest. In thy agony didst thou not cry out for him? I cried out for death, to escape him and thee. Death is even now on his way to lead thee to him. Thou knowest neither death nor the life that dwells in death, both befriend thee. I am dead, and would see thee dead, for I live, and love thee. Thou art weary and heavy laden, art thou not ashamed? Is not the being thou hast corrupted become to thee at length an evil thing? Wouldst thou yet live on in disgrace eternal? Cease thou, canst not, wilt thou not be restored, and be. She stood silent with bowed head. �Father,� said Mara, �take her in thine arms, and carry her to her couch. There she will open her hand, and die into life. �I will walk,� said the Princess. Adam turned and led the way. The Princess walked feebly after him into the cottage. Then Eve came out to me where I sat with Lona in my bosom. She reached up her arms, took her from me, and carried her in. I dismounted, and the children also, the horse and the elephants stood shivering. Mara padded and stroked them every one. They lay down and fell asleep. She led us into the cottage, and gave the little ones of the bread and wine on the table. Adam and Lilith were standing there together, but silent both. Eve came from the chamber of death where she had laid Lona down, and offered of the bread and wine to the Princess. �Thy beauty slays me! It is death I would have, not food,� said Lilith, and turned from her. �This food will help thee to die,� answered Eve. But Lilith would not taste it. �If thou wilt, nor eat, nor drink, Lilith,� said Adam, �come and see the place where thou shalt lie in peace.� She led the way through the door of death, and she followed, submissive. But when her foot crossed the threshold, she drew it back, and pressed her hand to her bosom, struck through with the cold immortal. A wild blast fell roaring on the roof, and died away in a moan. She stood, ghastly with terror. �It is he,� said her voiceless lips. I read their motion. �Woe, Princess!� I whispered. �The great shadow,� she murmured. �Here he cannot enter,� said Adam. �Here he can hurt no one.� Over him also is power given. �Are the children in the house?� asked Lilith, and at the word the heart of Eve began to love her. �He never dared touch a child,� she said. �Nor have you either ever heard a child, your own daughter you have but sent into the loveliest sleep. For she was already a long time dead when you slew her. And now death shall be the atonemaker. You shall sleep together. �Wife,� said Adam, let us first put the children to bed, that she may see them safe. He came back to fetch them. As soon as he was gone, the princess knelt to Eve, clasped her knees, and said, �Beautiful Eve, persuade your husband to kill me. You he will listen. Indeed I would but cannot open my hand. You cannot die without opening it. To kill you would not serve you,� answered Eve, �but indeed he cannot. No one can kill you but the shadow, and whom he kills never knows she is dead, but lives to do his will and thinks she is doing her own. �Show me then to my grave I am so weary I can live no longer. I must go to the shadow. But I would not.� She did not, could not understand. She struggled to rise but fell at the feet of Eve. The mother lifted and carried her inward. �I followed Adam and Mara and the children into the chamber of death. We passed Eve with Lilith in her arms and went farther in. �You shall not go to the shadow,� I heard Eve say as we passed them. And now is his head under my heel. The dim light in Adam's hand glimmered on the sleeping faces, and as he went on the darkness closed over them. The very air seemed dead. Was it because none of the sleepers breathed it? Profoundest sleep filled the wide place. It was as if not one had waked since last I was there, for the forms I had then noted lay there still. My father was just as I had left him, save that he seemed yet nearer to a perfect peace. The woman beside him looked younger. The darkness, the cold, the silence, the still air, the faces of the lovely dead made the hearts of the children beat softly, but their little tongues would talk with low hushed voices. What a curious place to sleep in, said one, I would rather be in my nest. It is so cold, said another. �Yes, it is cold,� answered our host, �but you will not be cold in your sleep. Where are our nests?� asked more than one, looking round and seeing no couch unoccupied. �Find places, and sleep where you choose,� replied Adam. Maybe they scattered, advancing fearlessly beyond the light, but we still heard their gentle voices, and it was plain they saw where I could not. �Oh!� cried one, �here is such a beautiful lady. May I sleep beside her? I will creep in quietly and not wake her. �Yes, you may� answered the voice of Eve behind us, and we came to the couch while the little fellow was yet creeping slowly and softly under the sheet. He laid his head beside the ladies, looked up at us, and was still. His eyelids fell, he was asleep. We went a little farther, and there was another who had climbed up on the couch of a woman. �Mother, mother� he cried, kneeling over her, his face close to hers. �She is so cold she can�t speak,� he said, looking up to us. �But I will soon make her warm.� We lay down and, pressing close to her, put his little arm over her. In an instant he, too, was asleep, smiling in absolute content. We came to a third little one. It was Loova. She stood on tiptoe, leaning over the edge of a couch. �My own mother wouldn�t have me,� she said softly, �will you?� Receiving no reply, she looked up at Eve. The great mother lifted her to the couch, and she got at once under the snowy covering. Each of the little ones had by this time, except three of the boys, found at least an unobjecting bedfellow, and lay still and white beside a still white woman. The little orphans had adopted mothers. One tiny girl had chosen a father to sleep with, and that was mine. A boy lay by the side of the beautiful matron with the slow healing hand. On the middle one of the three couches hitherto unoccupied lay Lona. Eve set Lilith down beside it. Adam pointed to the vacant couch on Lona�s right hand, and said, �There, Lilith, is the bed I have prepared for you.� She glanced at her daughter, lying before her like a statue carved in semi-transparent alabaster, and shuddered from head to foot. �How cold it is,� she murmured. �You will soon begin to find comfort in the cold,� answered Adam. �Promises to the dying are easy,� she said. �But I know it. I too have slept. I am dead. I believed you dead long ago, but I see you alive. More alive than you know, or are able to understand, I was scarce alive when first you knew me. Now I have slept, and am awake. I am dead, and live indeed. I fear that child,� she said, pointing to Lona, �She will rise and terrify me. She is dreaming love to you.� �But the shadow,� she moaned, �I fear the shadow. He will be wroth with me.� He at sight of whom the horses of heaven start and rear dares not disturb one dream in this quiet chamber. �I shall dream, then. You will dream.� �What dreams?� that I cannot tell, but none he can enter into. When the shadow comes here, it will be to lie down and sleep also. His hour will come, and he knows it will. �How long shall I sleep?� You and he will be the last to wake in the morning of the universe. The princess lay down, drew the sheet over her, stretched herself out straight, and lay still with open eyes. Adam turned to his daughter. She drew near. �Lilith,� said Mara, �you will not sleep if you lie there a thousand years until you have opened your hand, and yielded that which is not yours to give or to withhold. �I cannot,� she answered, �I would if I could, and gladly, for I am weary, and the shadows of death are gathering about me.� �They will gather and gather, but they cannot enfold you while yet your hand remains unopened. You may think you are dead, but it will be only a dream. You may think you have come awake, but it will still be only a dream. Open your hand, and you will sleep indeed. Then awake indeed. �I am trying hard, but the fingers have grown together and into the palm. I pray you put forth the strength of your will, for the love of life draw together your forces and break its bonds. I have struggled in vain. I can do no more. I am very weary, and sleep lies heavy upon my lids. The moment you open your hand, you will sleep. Open it, and make an end.� A tinge of color arose in the parchment-like face, the contorted hand trembled with agonized effort. Mara took it, and sought to aid her. �Hold, Mara,� cried her father. �There is danger.� The princess turned her eyes upon Eve, beseechingly. �There was a sword I once saw in your husband's hands,� she murmured. �I fled when I saw it. I heard him who bore it say it would divide whatever was not won, and indivisible. �I have the sword,� said Adam. The angel gave it me when he left the gate. �Bring it, Adam,� pleaded Lilith, �and cut me off this hand that I may sleep.� �I will,� he answered. He gave the candle to Eve and went. The princess closed her eyes. In a few minutes, Adam returned with an ancient weapon in his hand. The scabbard looked like vellum grown dark with years, but the hilt shone like gold that nothing could tarnish. He drew out the blade. It flashed like a pale blue northern streamer. And the light of it made the princess open her eyes. She saw the sword, shuddered, and held out her hand. Adam took it. The sword gleamed once. There was one little gush of blood, and he laid the severed hand in Mara's lap. Lilith had given one moan and was already fast asleep. Mara covered the arm with the sheet, and the three turned away. �Will you not dress the wound,� I said. �A wound from that sword,� answered Adam, �needs no dressing. It is healing and not hurt.� �Poor lady,� I said. �She will wake with but one hand.� �Where the dead deformity clung,� replied Mara, �the true lovely hand is already growing.� We heard a childish voice behind us and turned again. The candle in Eve's hand shone on the sleeping face of Lilith and the waking faces of the three little ones grouped on the other side of her couch. �How beautiful she is grown,� said one of them. �Poor princess,� said another. �I will sleep with her. She will not bite any more.� As he spoke he climbed into her bed and was immediately fast asleep. Eve covered him with the sheet. �I will go on her other side,� said the third. �She shall have two to kiss her when she wakes. Then I am left alone,� said the first mournfully. �I will put you to bed,� said Eve. She gave the candle to her husband and led the child away. We turned once more to go back to the cottage. I was very sad for no one had offered me a place in the house of the dead. Eve joined us as we went and walked on before with her husband. Mara by my side carried the hand of Lilith in the lap of her robe. �Ah, you have found her,� we heard Eve say as we stepped into the cottage. The door stood open. Two elephant trunks came through it out of the night beyond. �I sent them with the lantern,� she went on to her husband, �to look for Mara's leperdice. They have brought her.� I followed Adam to the door and between us we took the white creature from the elephants and carried her to the chamber we had just left, the women preceding us. Eve with the light and Mara still carrying the hand. There we laid the beauty across the feet of the princess, her four paws outstretched and her head couching between them. End of CHAPTER XXI of Lilith. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. RECORDING by Pete Williams Lilith by George MacDonald CHAPTER XXI I AM SENT Then I turned and said to Eve, �Mother, one couch next to Lona is empty. I know I am unworthy, but may I not sleep this night in your chamber with my dead? Will you not pardon both my cowardice and my self-confidence and take me in? I give me up. I am sick of myself and would fain sleep the sleep. The couch next to Lona is the one already prepared for you, she answered, but something waits to be done ere you sleep.� �I am ready,� I replied. �How do you know you can do it?� she asked with a smile. �Because you require it,� I answered. �What is it?� she turned to Adam. �Is he forgiven, husband?� �From my heart.� �Then tell him what he has to do.� Adam turned to his daughter. �Give me that hand, Mara, my child.� She held it out to him in her lap. He took it tenderly. �Let us go to the cottage,� he said to me. �There I will instruct you.� As we went again arose a sudden stormful blast, mingled with a great flapping on the roof, but it died away as before in a deep moan. When the door of the death chamber was closed behind us, Adam seated himself, and I stood before him. �You will remember,� he said, �after leaving my daughter's house you came to a dry rock, bearing the marks of an ancient cataract? You climbed that rock and found a sandy desert? Go to that rock now, and from its summit walk deep into the desert. And go not many steps ere you lie down and listen with your head on the sand. If you hear the murmur of water beneath, go a little farther, and listen again. If you still hear the sound you are in the right direction. Every few yards you must stop, lie down, and hearken. If listening thus at any time you hear no sound of water. You are out of the way and must hearken in every direction until you hear it again. Listen with the sound and careful not to retrace your steps. You will soon hear it louder, and the growing sound will lead you to where it is loudest. That is the spot you seek. There dig with the spade I will give you, and dig until you come to moisture. In it lay the hand. Cover it to the level of the desert and come home. But give good heed and carry the hand with care. Never lay it down, in what place of seeming safety so ever. Nothing touch it. Stop nor turn aside for any attempt to bar your way. Never look behind you, speak to no one, answer no one, walk straight on. It is yet dark, and the morning is far distant, but you must set out at once. He gave me the hand and brought me a spade. This is my gardening spade, he said, with it I have brought many a lovely thing to the sun. I took it and went out into the night. It was very cold and pitch dark. To fall would be a dread thing, and the way I had to go was a difficult one, even in the broad sunlight. But I had not set myself the task, and the minute I started I learned that I was left to no chance. A pale light broke from the ground at every step and showed me where next to set my foot. Through the heather and low rocks I walked without once even stumbling. I found the bad burrow quite still, not a wave arose, not a head appeared as I crossed it. A moon came and herself showed me the easy way. Toward morning I was almost over the dry channels of the first branch of the riverbed, and not far I judged from Mara's cottage. The moon was very low, and the sun not yet up when I saw before me in the path, here narrowed by rocks, a figure covered from head to foot with a veil of moonlit mist. I kept on my way as if I saw nothing. The figure threw aside its veil. "'Have you forgotten me already?' said the princess, or what seemed she. I neither hesitated nor answered. I walked straight on. "'You meant then to leave me in that horrible sepulchre? Do you not yet understand that where I pleased to be, there I am? Take my hand. I am alive as you.' I was on the point of saying, Give me your left hand, but bethought myself held my peace and steadily advanced. "'Give me my hand,' she suddenly shrieked, or I will tear you in pieces. You are mine.' She flung herself upon me. I shuddered but did not fault her. Nothing touched me, and I saw her no more. With measured tread along the path, filling it for some distance, came a body of armed men. I walked through them, nor know whether they gave way to me or were bodiless things, but they turned and followed me. I heard and felt their march at my very heels, but I cast no look behind, and the sound of their steps and the clash of their armor died away. A little farther on, the moon being now close to the horizon and the way in deep shadow, I described, seated where the path was so narrow that I could not pass her, a woman with muffled face. "'Ah,' she said, you are come at last. I have waited here for you an hour or more. You have done well. Your trial is over. My father sent me to meet you that you might have a little rest on the way. Give me your charge, and lay your head in my lap. I will take good care of both until the sun is well risen. I am not bitterness always, neither to all men.' Her words were terrible with temptation, for I was very weary. And what more likely to be true? If I were, through slavish obedience to the letter of the command and lack of pure insight, to trample under my feet the very person of the lady of sorrow, my heart grew faint at the thought, then beat as if it would burst my bosom. Nevertheless my will hardened itself against my heart, and my step did not falter. I took my tongue between my teeth lest I should unawares answer and kept on my way. If Adam had sent her, he could not complain that I would not heed her. Nor would the lady of sorrow love me the less, that even she had not been able to turn me aside. Just ere I reached the phantom she pulled the covering from her face. Great indeed was her loveliness, but those were not Mara's eyes. No lie could truly or for long imitate them. I advanced as if the thing were not there, and my foot found empty room. I had almost reached the other side when a shadow, I think it was the shadow, barred my way. He seemed to have a helmet upon his head, but as I drew closer I perceived it was the head itself, I saw. So distorted as to bear but a doubtful resemblance to the human. A cold wind smote me, dank and sickening, repulsive as the air of a charnel-house, firmness forsook my joints and my limbs trembled as if they would drop in a helpless heap. I seemed to pass through him, but I think now that he passed through me. For a moment I was as one of the damned. Then a soft wind like the first breath of a newborn spring greeted me, and before me arose the dawn. My way now led me past the door of Mara's cottage. It stood wide open, and upon the table I saw a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water. In or around the cottage was neither howl nor wail. I came to the precipice that testified to the vanished river. I climbed its worn face and went on into the desert. There at last, after much listening to and fro, I determined the spot where the hidden water was loudest, hung Lilith's hand about my neck, and began to dig. It was a long labor, for I had to make a large hole because of the looseness of the sand, but at length I threw up a damp spadeful. I flung the sexton-tool on the verge and laid down the hand. A little water was already oozing from under its fingers. I sprang out and made haste to fill the grave. Then utterly fatigued, I dropped beside it and fell asleep. CHAPTER 42 I SLEEP THE SLEEP When I woke the ground was moist about me, and my track to the grave was growing a quicksand. In its ancient course the river was swelling, and had begun to shove at its burden. Then it would be roaring down the precipice, and divided in its fall, rushing with one branch to re-submerge the orchard valley, with the other to drown perhaps the monster horde, and between them to isle the evil wood. I set out at once on my return to those who sent me. When I came to the precipice, I took my way betwixt the branches, for I would pass again by the cottage of Mara, lest she should have returned. I longed to see her once more ere I went to sleep, and now I knew where to cross the channels, even if the river should have overtaken me, and filled them. But when I reached it, the door stood open still, the bread and the water were still on the table, and deep silence was within and around it. I stopped and called aloud at the door, but no voice replied, and I went my way. A little farther I came where sat a gray-headed man on the sand, weeping. What ails you, sir, I asked, are you forsaken? I weep, he answered, because they will not let me die. I have been to the house of death, and its mistress, not withstanding my ears, refuses me. Intercede for me, sir, if you know her, I pray you. Nay, sir, I replied, that I cannot, for she refuses none whom it is lawful for her to receive. Oh, know you this of her! You have never sought death, you are much too young to desire it. I fear your words may indicate that, were you young again, neither would you desire it. Indeed, young sir, I would not, and certain I am that you cannot. I may not be old enough to desire to die, but I am young enough to desire to live indeed. Therefore I go now to learn if she will at length take me in. You wish to die because you do not care to live. She will not open her door to you, for no one can die who does not long to live. It ill becomes your youth to mock a friendless old man. Pray cease your riddles! Did not then the mother tell you something of the same sort? In truth I believe she did, but I gave little heed to her excuses. Ah, then, sir, I rejoined, it is but too plain you have not yet learned to die, and I am heartily grieved for you. Such had I too been but for the Lady of Sorrow. I am indeed young, but I have wept many tears. Pardon me, therefore, if I presume to offer counsel. Go to the Lady of Sorrow, and take with both hands what she will give you. Yonder lies her cottage. She is not in it now, but her door stands open, and there is bread and water on her table. Go in. Sit down. Eat of the bread. Drink of the water, and wait there until she appear. Then ask counsel of her for she is true, and her wisdom is great. He fell to weeping afresh, and I left him weeping. What I said I fear he did not heed. But Mara would find him. The sun was down, and the moon unrizen, when I reached the abode of the monsters, but it was still as a stone till I passed over. Then I heard a noise of many waters and a great cry behind me, but I did not turn my head. ere I reached the house of death the cold was bitter and the darkness dense, and the cold and the darkness were one and entered into my bones together. But the candle of Eve, shining from the window, guided me, and kept both frost and murk from my heart. The door stood open, and the cottage lay empty. I sat down, disconsolate. And as I sat there grew in me such a sense of loneliness as never yet in my wanderings had I felt. Thousands were near me. Not one was with me. True, it was I who was dead, not they, but, whether by their life or by my death, we were divided. They were alive, but I was not dead enough even to know them alive. Doubt would come. They were, at best, far from me, and helpers I had none to lay me beside them. Never before had I known, or truly imagined, desolation. In vain I took myself to task, saying the solitude was but a seeming. I was awake, and they slept. That was all. It was only that they lay so still and did not speak. They were with me now, and soon, soon I should be with them. I dropped Adam's old spade, and the dull sound of its fall on the clay floor seemed reverberated from the chamber beyond. A childish terror seized me. I sat and stared at the coffin-door. But Father Adam, Mother Eve, Sister Mara would soon come to me and then welcome the cold world and the white neighbors. I forgot my fears, lived a little, and loved my dead. Something did move in the chamber of the dead. There came from it what was like a dim, far-off sound, yet was not what I knew as sound. My soul sprang into my ears. Was it a mere thrill of the dead air? Too slight to be heard, but quivering in every spiritual sense? I knew, without hearing, without feeling it. Though something was coming, it drew nearer. In the bosom of my desertion awoke an infant hope. The noiseless thrill reached the coffin-door, became sound, and smote on my ear. The door began to move with a low, soft creaking of its hinges. It was opening. I ceased to listen and stared, expectant. It opened a little way, and a face came into the opening. It was Lona's. Its eyes were closed, but the face itself was upon me, and seemed to see me. It was white as Eve's, white as Mara's, but did not shine like their faces. She spoke, and her voice was like a sleepy night wind in the grass. Are you coming, King? It said, I cannot rest until you are with me. Gliding down the river to the great sea, and the beautiful dream-land, the sleepiness is full of lovely things. Come and see them. Ah, my darling, I cried, had I but known, I thought you were dead. She lay on my bosom, cold as ice frozen to marble. She threw her arms so white, feebly about me inside. Carry me back to my bed, King. I want to sleep. I bore her to the death-chamber, holding her tight lest she should dissolve out of my arms. Unaware that I saw, I carried her straight to her couch. Lay me down, she said, and cover me from the warm air. It hurts a little. Your bed is there, next to mine. I shall see you when I wake. She was already asleep. I threw myself on my couch, blessed as never was man on the eve of his wedding. Come, sweet cold, I said, and still my heart speedily. But there came instead a glimmer of light in the chamber, and I saw the face of Adam approaching. He had not the candle, yet I saw him. At the side of Lona's couch he looked down on her with a questioning smile, and then greeted me across it. We have been to the top of the hill to hear the waters on their way, he said. They will be in the den of the monsters to-night. But why did you not await our return? My child could not sleep, I answered. She is fast asleep, he rejoined. Yes, now, I said, but she was awake when I laid her down. She was asleep all the time, he insisted. She was perhaps dreaming about you, and came to you. She did. And did you not see that her eyes were closed? Now I think of it I did. If you had looked ere you laid her down, you would have seen her asleep on the couch. That would have been terrible. You would only have found that she was no longer in your arms. That would have been worse. It is, perhaps, to think of, but to see it would not have troubled you. Dear father, I said, how is it that I am not sleepy? I thought I should go to sleep like the little ones the moment I laid my head down. Your hour is not quite come. You must have food ere you sleep. Ah, I ought not to have lain down without your leave, for I cannot sleep without your help. I will get up at once. But I found my own weight more than I could move. There is no need. We will serve you here, he answered. You do not feel cold, do you? Not too cold to lie still, but perhaps too cold to eat. He came to the side of my couch, bent over me, and breathed on my heart. At once I was warm. As he left me I heard a voice and knew it was the mother's. She was singing, and her song was sweet and soft and low, and I thought she sat by my bed in the dark. But ere it ceased her song soared aloft, and seemed to come from the throat of a woman angel, high above all the region of larks, higher than man had ever yet lifted up his heart. I heard every word she sang, but could keep only this. Many a wrong and its curing song, many a road and many an in, come to Rome but only one home for all the world to win. And I thought I had heard the song before. Then the three came to my couch together, bringing me bread and wine, and I sat up to partake of it. Adam stood on one side of me, Eve and Mara on the other. You are good indeed, Father Adam, Mother Eve, Sister Mara, I said, To receive me, in my soul I am ashamed and sorry. We knew you would come again, answered Eve. How could you know it, I returned? Because here was I, born to look after my brothers and sisters, answered Mara with a smile. Every creature must one night yield himself and lie down, answered Adam. He was made for liberty and must not be left a slave. It will be late, I fear, ere all have lain down, I said. There is no early or late here, he rejoined. For him the true time then first begins who lays himself down. Men are not coming home fast. Women are coming home faster. A desert, wide and dreary, parts him who lies down to die, from him who lies down to live. The former may well make haste, but here is no haste. To our eyes, said Eve, you were coming all the time. We knew Mara would find you, and you must come. How long is it since my father laid down, I asked? I have told you that years are of no consequence in this house, answered Adam. We do not heed them. Your father will wake when his morning comes. Your mother, next to whom you are lying. Ah, then it is my mother, I exclaimed. Yes, she with the wounded hand, he assented. She will be up and away long ere your morning is ripe. I am sorry. Be rather glad. It must be a sight for God himself to see such a woman come awake. It is indeed a sight for God, a sight that makes her maker glad. He sees of the travail of his soul and is satisfied. Look at her once more, and sleep. He let the rays of his candle fall on her beautiful face. She looks much younger, I said. She is much younger, he replied. Even Lilith already begins to look younger. I lay down, blissfully drowsy. But when you see your mother again, he continued, you will not at first know her. She will go on steadily growing younger until she reaches the perfection of her womanhood, a splendor beyond foresight. Then she will open her eyes, behold on one side her husband, on the other her son, and rise and leave them to go to a father and a brother more to her than they. I heard as one in a dream. I was very cold, but already the cold caused me no suffering. I felt them put on me the white garment of the dead. Then I forgot everything.