OF ONE BLOOD.
                         OR, THE HIDDEN SELF.

                          PAULINE E. HOPKINS.

                Copyright, 1902, by Pauline E. Hopkins.




                              CHAPTER I.


The recitations were over for the day. It was the first week in
November and it had rained about every day the entire week; now
freezing temperature added to the discomforture of the dismal season.
The lingering equinoctial whirled the last clinging yellow leaves
from the trees on the campus and strewed them over the deserted
paths, while from the leaden sky fluttering snow-white flakes gave an
unexpected touch of winter to the scene.

The east wind for which Boston and vicinity is celebrated, drove the
sleet against the window panes of the room in which Reuel Briggs sat
among his books and the apparatus for experiments. The room served
for both living and sleeping. Briggs could have told you that the
bareness and desolateness of the apartment were like his life, but
he was a reticent man who knew how to suffer in silence. The dreary
wet afternoon, the cheerless walk over West Boston bridge through the
soaking streets had but served to emphasize the loneliness of his
position, and morbid thoughts had haunted him all day: To what use all
this persistent hard work for a place in the world--clothes, food, a
roof? Is suicide wrong? he asked himself with tormenting persistency.
From out the storm, voices and hands seemed beckoning him all day to
cut the Gordian knot and solve the riddle of whence and whither for all
time.

His place in the world would soon be filled; no vacuum remained empty;
the eternal movement of all things onward closed up the gaps, and the
wail of the newly-born augmented the great army of mortals pressing
the vitals of mother Earth with hurrying tread. So he had tormented
himself for months, but the courage was yet wanting for strength to
rend the veil. It had grown dark early. Reuel had not stirred from his
room since coming from the hospital--had not eaten nor drank, and was
in full possession of the solitude he craved. It was now five o’clock.
He sat sideways by the bare table, one leg crossed over the other. His
fingers kept the book open at the page where he was reading, but his
attention wandered beyond the leaden sky, the dripping panes, and the
sounds of the driving storm outside.

He was thinking deeply of the words he had just read, and which the
darkness had shut from his gaze. The book was called “The Unclassified
Residuum,” just published and eagerly sought by students of mysticism,
and dealing with the great field of new discoveries in psychology.
Briggs was a close student of what might be termed “absurdities” of
supernatural phenomena or _mysticism_, best known to the every-day
world as “effects of the imagination,” a phrase of mere dismissal, and
which it is impossible to make precise; the book suited the man’s mood.
These were the words of haunting significance:

“All the while, however, the phenomena are there, lying broadcast over
the surface of history. No matter where you open its pages, you find
things recorded under the name of divinations, inspirations, demoniacal
possessions, apparitions, trances, ecstasies, miraculous healing
and productions of disease, and occult powers possessed by peculiar
individuals over persons and things in their neighborhood.

“The mind-curers and Christian scientists, who are beginning to lift up
their heads in our communities, unquestionably get remarkable results
in certain cases. The ordinary medical man dismisses them from his
attention with the cut-and-dried remark that they are ‘only the effects
of the imagination.’ But there is a meaning in this vaguest of phrases.

“We know a non-hysterical woman who in her trances knows facts which
altogether transcend her _possible_ normal consciousness, facts about
the lives of people whom she never saw or heard of before. I am well
aware of all the liabilities to which this statement exposes me, and
I make it deliberately, having practically no doubt whatever of its
truth.”

Presently Briggs threw the book down, and, rising from his chair, began
pacing up and down the bare room.

“That is it,” at length he said aloud. “I have the power, I know
the truth of every word--of all M. Binet asserts, and could I but
complete the necessary experiments, I would astonish the world. O
Poverty, Ostracism! have I not drained the bitter cup to the dregs!” he
apostrophized, with a harsh, ironical laugh.

Mother Nature had blessed Reuel Briggs with superior physical
endowments, but as yet he had never had reason to count them blessings.
No one could fail to notice the vast breadth of shoulder, the strong
throat that upheld a plain face, the long limbs, the sinewy hands. His
head was that of an athlete, with close-set ears, and covered with an
abundance of black hair, straight and closely cut, thick and smooth;
the nose was the aristocratic feature, although nearly spoiled by
broad nostrils, of this remarkable young man; his skin was white, but
of a tint suggesting olive, an almost sallow color which is a mark of
strong, melancholic temperaments. His large mouth concealed powerful
long white teeth which gleamed through lips even and narrow, parting
generally in a smile at once grave, genial and singularly sweet; indeed
Briggs’ smile changed the plain face at once into one that interested
and fascinated men and women. True there were lines about the mouth
which betrayed a passionate, nervous temperament, but they accorded
well with the rest of his strong personality. His eyes were a very
bright and piercing gray, courageous, keen and shrewd. Briggs was not a
man to be despised--physically or mentally.

None of the students associated together in the hive of men under the
fostering care of the “benign mother” knew aught of Reuel Briggs’s
origin. It was rumored at first that he was of Italian birth, then
they “guessed” he was a Japanese, but whatever land claimed him as a
son, all voted him a genius in his scientific studies, and much was
expected of him at graduation. He had no money, for he was unsocial
and shabby to the point of seediness, and apparently no relatives, for
his correspondence was limited to the letters of editors of well known
local papers and magazines. Somehow he lived and paid his way in a
third-rate lodging-house near Harvard square, at the expense of the
dull intellects or the idle rich, with which a great university always
teems, to whom Briggs acted as “coach,” and by contributing scientific
articles to magazines on the absorbing subject of spiritualistic
phenomena. A few of his articles had produced a profound impression.
The monotonous pacing continued for a time, finally ending at the
mantel, from whence he abstracted a disreputable looking pipe and
filled it.

“Well,” he soliloquized, as he reseated himself in his chair, “Fate
has done her worst, but she mockingly beckons me on and I accept her
challenge. I shall not yet attempt the bourne. If I conquer, it will be
by strength of brain and will-power. I shall conquer; I must and will.”

The storm had increased in violence; the early dusk came swiftly down,
and at this point in his revery the rattling window panes, as well as
the whistle and shriek of gusts of moaning wind, caught his attention.
“Phew! a beastly night.” With a shiver, he drew his chair closer to the
cylinder stove, whose glowing body was the only cheerful object in the
bare room.

As he sat with his back half-turned to catch the grateful warmth, he
looked out into the dim twilight across the square and into the broad
paths of the campus, watching the skeleton arms of giant trees tossing
in the wind, and the dancing snow-flakes that fluttered to earth in
their fairy gowns to be quickly transformed into running streams that
fairly overflowed the gutters. He fell into a dreamy state as he gazed,
for which he could not account. As he sent his earnest, penetrating
gaze into the night, gradually the darkness and storm faded into
tints of cream and rose and soft moist lips. Silhouetted against the
background of lowering sky and waving branches, he saw distinctly
outlined a fair face framed in golden hair, with soft brown eyes, deep
and earnest--terribly earnest they seemed just then--rose-tinged baby
lips, and an expression of wistful entreaty. O how real, how very real
did the passing shadow appear to the gazer!

He tried to move, uneasily conscious that this strange experience was
but “the effect of the imagination,” but he was powerless. The unknown
countenance grew dimmer and farther off, floating gradually out of
sight, while a sense of sadness and foreboding wrapped him about as
with a pall.

A wilder gust of wind shook the window sashes. Reuel stared about
him in a bewildered way like a man awakening from a heavy sleep. He
listened to the wail of the blast and glanced at the fire and rubbed
his eyes. The vision was gone; he was alone in the room; all was
silence and darkness. The ticking of the cheap clock on the mantel kept
time with his heart-beats. The light of his own life seemed suddenly
eclipsed with the passing of the lovely vision of Venus. Conscious of
an odd murmur in his head, which seemed to control his movements, he
rose and went toward the window to open it; there came a loud knock at
the door.

Briggs did not answer at once. He wanted no company. Perhaps the
knocker would go away. But he was persistent. Again came the knock
ending in a double rat-tat accompanied by the words:

“I know you are there; open, open, you son of Erebus! You inhospitable
Turk!”

Thus admonished Briggs turned the key and threw wide open the door.

“It’s you, is it? Confound you, you’re always here when you’re not
wanted,” he growled.

The visitor entered and closed the door behind him. With a laugh
he stood his dripping umbrella back of the stove against the
chimney-piece, and immediately a small stream began trickling over the
uncarpeted floor; he then relieved himself of his damp outer garments.

“Son of Erebus, indeed, you ungrateful man. It’s as black as Hades in
this room; a light, a light! Why did you keep me waiting out there like
a drowned rat?”

The voice was soft and musical. Briggs lighted the student lamp. The
light revealed a tall man with the beautiful face of a Greek God; but
the sculptured features did not inspire confidence. There was that in
the countenance of Aubrey Livingston that engendered doubt. But he had
been kind to Briggs, was, in fact, his only friend in the college, or,
indeed, in the world for that matter.

By an act of generosity he had helped the forlorn youth, then in his
freshman year, over obstacles which bade fair to end his college days.
Although the pecuniary obligation was long since paid, the affection
and worship Reuel had conceived for his deliverer was dog-like in its
devotion.

“Beastly night,” he continued, as he stretched his full length
luxuriously in the only easy chair the room afforded. “What are you
mooning about all alone in the darkness?”

“Same old thing,” replied Briggs briefly.

“No wonder the men say that you have a twist, Reuel.”

“Ah, man! but the problem of whence and whither! To solve it is my
life; I live for that alone; let’m talk.”

“You ought to be re-named the ‘Science of Trance-States,’ Reuel. How a
man can grind day and night beats me.” Livingston handed him a cigar
and for a time they smoked in silence. At length Reuel said:

“Shake hands with Poverty once, Aubrey, and you will solve the secret
of many a student’s success in life.”

“Doubtless it would do me good,” replied Livingston with a laugh, “but
just at present, it’s the ladies, bless their sweet faces who disturb
me, and not delving in books nor weeping over ways and means. Shades of
my fathers, forbid that I should ever have to work!”

“Lucky dog!” growled Reuel, enviously, as he gazed admiringly at the
handsome face turned up to the ceiling and gazing with soft caressing
eyes at the ugly whitewashed wall through rings of curling smoke.
“Yet you have a greater gift of duality than I,” he added dreamily.
“Say what you will; ridicule me, torment me, but you know as well as
I that the wonders of a material world cannot approach those of the
undiscovered country within ourselves--the hidden self lying quiescent
in every human soul.”

“True, Reuel, and I often wonder what becomes of the mind and morals,
distinctive entities grouped in the republic known as man, when death
comes. Good and evil in me contend; which will gain the mastery? Which
will accompany me into the silent land?”

“Good and evil, God and the devil,” suggested Reuel. “Yes, sinner or
saint, body or soul, which wins in the life struggle? I am not sure
that it matters which,” he concluded with a shrug of his handsome
shoulders. “I should know if I never saw you again until the struggle
was over. Your face will tell its own tale in another five years. Now
listen to this:” He caught up the book he had been reading and rapidly
turning the leaves read over the various passages that had impressed
him.

“A curious accumulation of data; the writer evidently takes himself
seriously,” Livingston commented.

“And why not?” demanded Reuel. “You and I know enough to credit the
author with honest intentions.”

“Yes; but are we prepared to go so far?”

“This man is himself a mystic. He gives his evidence clearly enough.”

“And do you credit it?”

“Every word! Could I but get the necessary subject, I would convince
you; I would go farther than M. Binet in unveiling the vast scheme of
compensation and retribution carried about in the vast recesses of the
human soul.”

“Find the subject and I will find the money,” laughed Aubrey.

“Do you mean it, Aubrey? Will you join me in carrying forward a search
for more light on the mysteries of existence?”

“I mean it. And now, Reuel, come down from the clouds, and come with me
to a concert.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, ‘tonight,’” mimicked the other. “The blacker the night, the
greater the need of amusement. You go out too little.”

“Who gives the concert?”

“Well, it’s a new departure in the musical world; something Northerners
know nothing of; but I who am a Southerner, born and bred, or as the
vulgar have it, ‘dyed in the wool,’ know and understand Negro music.
It is a jubilee concert given by a party of Southern colored people at
Tremont Temple. I have the tickets. Redpath has them in charge.”

“Well, if you say so, I suppose I must.” Briggs did not seem greatly
impressed.

“Coming down to the practical, Reuel, what do you think of the Negro
problem? Come to think of it, I have never heard you express an opinion
about it. I believe it is the only burning question in the whole
category of live issues and ologies about which you are silent.”

“I have a horror of discussing the woes of unfortunates, tramps, stray
dogs and cats and Negroes--probably because I am an unfortunate myself.”

They smoked in silence.




                              CHAPTER II.


The passing of slavery from the land marked a new era in the life of
the nation. The war, too, had passed like a dream of horrors, and
over the resumption of normal conditions in business and living, the
whole country, as one man, rejoiced and heaved a deep sigh of absolute
content.

Under the spur of the excitement occasioned by the Proclamation of
Freedom, and the great need of schools for the blacks, thousands of
dollars were contributed at the North, and agents were sent to Great
Britain, where generosity towards the Negroes was boundless. Money
came from all directions, pouring into the hands of philanthropists,
who were anxious to prove that the country was able, not only to free
the slave, but to pay the great debt it owed him,--protection as he
embraced freedom, and a share in the great Government he had aided to
found by sweat and toil and blood. It was soon discovered that the
Negro possessed a phenomenal gift of music, and it was determined to
utilize this gift in helping to support educational institutions of
color in the Southland.

A band of students from Fisk University were touring the country, and
those who had been fortunate enough to listen once to their matchless
untrained voices singing their heartbreaking minor music with its grand
and impossible intervals and sound combinations, were eager to listen
again and yet again.

Wealthy and exclusive society women everywhere vied in showering
benefits and patronage upon the new prodigies who had suddenly become
the pets of the musical world. The Temple was a blaze of light, and
crowded from pit to dome. It was the first appearance of the troupe in
New England, therefore it was a gala night, and Boston culture was out
in force.

The two friends easily found their seats in the first balcony, and from
that position idly scanned the vast audience to beguile the tedious
waiting. Reuel’s thoughts were disturbed; he read over the program,
but it carried no meaning to his pre-occupied mind; he was uneasy; the
face he had seen outlined in the twilight haunted him. A great nervous
dread of he knew not what possessed him, and he actually suffered as
he sat there answering at random the running fire of comments made by
Livingston on the audience, and replying none too cordially to the
greetings of fellow-students, drawn to the affair, like himself, by
curiosity.

“Great crowd for such a night,” observed one. “The weather matches your
face, Briggs; why didn’t you leave it outside? Why do you look so down?”

Reuel shrugged his shoulders.

“They say there are some pretty girls in the troupe; one or two as
white as we,” continued the speaker unabashed by Reuel’s surliness.

“They range at home from alabaster to ebony,” replied Livingston. “The
results of amalgamation are worthy the careful attention of all medical
experts.”

“Don’t talk shop, Livingston,” said Briggs peevishly.

“You are really more disagreeable than usual,” replied Livingston,
pleasantly. “Do try to be like the other fellows, for once, Reuel.”

Silence ensued for a time, and then the irrepressible one of the party
remarked: “The soprano soloist is great; heard her in New York.” At
this there was a general laugh among the men. Good natured Charlie
Vance was generally “stuck” once a month with the “loveliest girl, by
jove, you know.”

“That explains your presence here, Vance; what’s her name?”

“Dianthe Lusk.”

“Great name. I hope she comes up to it,--the flower of Jove.”

“Flower of Jove, indeed! You’ll say so when you see her,” cried Charlie
with his usual enthusiasm.

“What! again, my son? ‘Like Dian’s kiss, unmasked, unsought, Love gives
itself,’” quoted Livingston, with a smile on his handsome face.

“Oh, stow it! Aubrey, even your cold blood will be stirred at sight
of her exquisite face; of her voice I will not speak; I cannot do it
justice.”

“If this is to be the result of emancipation, I for one vote that we
ask Congress to annul the Proclamation,” said Reuel, drily.

Now conversation ceased; a famous local organist began a concert on
the organ to occupy the moments of waiting. The music soothed Reuel’s
restlessness. He noticed that the platform usually occupied by the
speaker’s desk, now held a number of chairs and a piano. Certainly, the
assiduous advertising had brought large patronage for the new venture,
he thought as he idly calculated the financial result from the number
in the audience.

Soon the hot air, the glare of lights, the mingling of choice perfumes
emanating from the dainty forms of elegantly attired women, acted upon
him as an intoxicant. He began to feel the pervading excitement--the
flutter of expectation, and presently the haunting face left him.

The prelude drew to a close; the last chord fell from the fingers of
the artist; a line of figures--men and women--dark in hue, and neatly
dressed in quiet evening clothes, filed noiselessly from the anterooms
and filled the chairs upon the platform. The silence in the house was
painful. These were representatives of the people for whom God had sent
the terrible scourge of blood upon the land to free from bondage. The
old abolitionists in the vast audience felt the blood leave their faces
beneath the stress of emotion.

The opening number was “The Lord’s Prayer.” Stealing, rising, swelling,
gathering, as it thrilled the ear, all the delights of harmony in a
grand minor cadence that told of deliverance from bondage and homage
to God for his wonderful aid, sweeping the awed heart with an ecstasy
that was almost pain; breathing, hovering, soaring, they held the vast
multitude in speechless wonder.

Thunders of applause greeted the close of the hymn. Scarcely waiting
for a silence, a female figure rose and came slowly to the edge of the
platform and stood in the blaze of lights with hands modestly clasped
before her. She was not in any way the preconceived idea of a Negro.
Fair as the fairest woman in the hall, with wavy bands of chestnut
hair, and great, melting eyes of brown, soft as those of childhood;
a willowy figure of exquisite mould, clad in a sombre gown of black.
There fell a voice upon the listening ear, in celestial showers of
silver that passed all conceptions, all comparisons, all dreams; a
voice beyond belief--a great soprano of unimaginable beauty, soaring
heavenward in mighty intervals.

  “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land,
  Tell ol’ Pharaoh, let my people go.”

sang the woman in tones that awakened ringing harmonies in the heart of
every listener.

“By Jove!” Reuel heard Livingston exclaim. For himself he was dazed,
thrilled; never save among the great artists of the earth, was such a
voice heard alive with the divine fire.

Some of the women in the audience wept; there was the distinct echo of
a sob in the deathly quiet which gave tribute to the power of genius.
Spellbound they sat beneath the outpoured anguish of a suffering soul.
All the horror, the degradation from which a race had been delivered
were in the pleading strains of the singer’s voice. It strained the
senses almost beyond endurance. It pictured to that self-possessed,
highly-cultured New England assemblage as nothing else ever had, the
awfulness of the hell from which a people had been happily plucked.

Reuel was carried out of himself; he leaned forward in eager
contemplation of the artist; he grew cold with terror and fear.
Surely it could not be--he must be dreaming! It was incredible! Even
as he whispered the words to himself the hall seemed to grow dim and
shadowy; the sea of faces melted away; there before him in the blaze
of light--like a lovely phantom--stood a woman wearing the face of his
vision of the afternoon!




                             CHAPTER III.


It was Hallow-eve.

The north wind blew a cutting blast over the stately Charles, and
broke the waves into a miniature flood; it swept the streets of the
University city, and danced on into the outlying suburbs tossing the
last leaves about in gay disorder, not even sparing the quiet precincts
of Mount Auburn cemetery. A deep, clear, moonless sky stretched
overhead, from which hung myriads of sparkling stars.

In Mount Auburn, where the residences of the rich lay far apart,
darkness and quietness had early settled down. The main street seemed
given over to the duskiness of the evening, and with one exception,
there seemed no light on earth or in heaven save the cold gleam of the
stars.

The one exception was in the home of Charlie Vance, or “Adonis,” as he
was called by his familiars. The Vance estate was a spacious house with
rambling ells, tortuous chimney-stacks, and corners, eaves and ledges;
the grounds were extensive and well kept telling silently of the
opulence of its owner. Its windows sent forth a cheering light. Dinner
was just over.

Within, on an old-fashioned hearth, blazed a glorious wood fire, which
gave a rich coloring to the oak-panelled walls, and fell warmly on a
group of young people seated and standing, chatting about the fire.
At one side of it, in a chair of the Elizabethan period, sat the
hostess, Molly Vance, only daughter of James Vance, Esq., and sister of
“Adonis,” a beautiful girl of eighteen.

At the opposite side, leaning with folded arms against the high carved
mantel, stood Aubrey Livingston; the beauty of his fair hair and blue
eyes was never more marked as he stood there in the gleam of the fire
and the soft candle light. He was talking vivaciously, his eyes turning
from speaker to speaker, as he ran on, but resting chiefly with pride
on his beautiful betrothed, Molly Vance.

The group was completed by two or three other men, among them Reuel
Briggs, and three pretty girls. Suddenly a clock struck the hour.

“Only nine,” exclaimed Molly. “Good people, what shall we do to wile
the tedium of waiting for the witching hour? Have any one of you enough
wisdom to make a suggestion?”

“Music,” said Livingston.

“We don’t want anything so commonplace.”

“Blind Man’s Buff,” suggested “Adonis.”

“Oh! please not that, the men are so rough!”

“Let us,” broke in Cora Scott, “tell ghost stories.”

“Good, Cora! yes, yes, yes.”

“No, no!” exclaimed a chorus of voices.

“Yes, yes,” laughed Molly, gaily, clapping her hands. “It is the very
thing. Cora, you are the wise woman of the party. It is the very time,
tonight is the new moon, and we can try our projects in the Hyde house.”

“The moon should be full to account for such madness,” said Livingston.

“Don’t be disagreeable, Aubrey,” replied Molly. “The ‘ayes’ have it.
You’re with me, Mr. Briggs?”

“Of course, Miss Vance,” answered Reuel, “to go to the North Pole or
Hades--only please tell us where is ‘Hyde house.’”

“Have you never heard? Why it’s the adjoining estate. It is reputed to
be haunted, and a lady in white haunts the avenue in the most approved
ghostly style.”

“Bosh!” said Livingston.

“Possibly,” remarked the laughing Molly, “but it is the ‘bosh’ of a
century.”

“Go on, Miss Vance; don’t mind Aubrey. Who has seen the lady?”

“She is not easily seen,” proceeded Molly, “she only appears on
Hallow-eve, when the moon is new, as it will be tonight. I had
forgotten that fact when I invited you here. If anyone stands, tonight,
in the avenue leading to the house, he will surely see the tall veiled
figure gliding among the old hemlock trees.”

One or two shivered.

“If, however, the watcher remain, the lady will pause, and utter some
sentence of prophecy of his future.”

“Has any one done this?” queried Reuel.

“My old nurse says she remembers that the lady was seen once.”

“Then, we’ll test it again tonight!” exclaimed Reuel, greatly excited
over the chance to prove his pet theories.

“Well, Molly, you’ve started Reuel off on his greatest hobby; I wash
my hands of both of you.”

“Let us go any way!” chorused the venturesome party.

“But there are conditions,” exclaimed Molly. “Only one person must go
at a time.”

Aubrey laughed as he noticed the consternation in one or two faces.

“So,” continued Molly, “as we cannot go together, I propose that each
shall stay a quarter of an hour, then whether successful or not, return
and let another take his or her place. I will go first.”

“No--” it was Charlie who spoke--“I put my veto on that, Molly. If
you are mad enough to risk colds in this mad freak, it shall be done
fairly. We will draw lots.

“And I add to that, not a girl leave the house; we men will try the
charm for the sake of your curiosity, but not a girl goes. You can try
the ordinary Hallow-eve projects while we are away.”

With many protests, but concealed relief, this plan was reluctantly
adopted by the female element. The lots were prepared and placed in a
hat, and amid much merriment, drawn.

“You are third, Mr. Briggs,” exclaimed Molly who held the hat and
watched the checks.

“I’m first,” said Livingston, “and Charlie second.”

“While we wait for twelve, tell us the story of the house, Molly,”
cried Cora.

Thus adjured, Molly settled herself comfortably in her chair and began:
“Hyde House is nearly opposite the cemetery, and its land joins that
of this house; it is indebted for its ill-repute to one of its owners,
John Hyde. It has been known for years as a haunted house, and avoided
as such by the superstitious. It is low-roofed, rambling, and almost
entirely concealed by hemlocks, having an air of desolation and decay
in keeping with its ill-repute. In its dozen rooms were enacted the
dark deeds which gave the place the name of the ‘haunted house.’

“The story is told of an unfaithful husband, a wronged wife and a
beautiful governess forming a combination which led to the murder of
a guest for his money. The master of the house died from remorse,
under peculiar circumstances. These materials give us the plot for a
thrilling ghost story.”

“Well, where does the lady come in?” interrupted “Adonis.”

There was a general laugh.

“This world is all a blank without the ladies for Charlie,” remarked
Aubrey. “Molly, go on with your story, my child.”

“You may all laugh as much as you please, but what I am telling you is
believed in this section by every one. A local magazine speaks of it as
follows, as near as I can remember:

“‘A most interesting story is told by a woman who occupied the house
for a short time. She relates that she had no sooner crossed the
threshold than she was met by a beautiful woman in flowing robes of
black, who begged permission to speak through her to her friends. The
friends were thereupon bidden to be present at a certain time. When all
were assembled they were directed by invisible powers to kneel. Then
the spirit told the tale of the tragedy through the woman. The spirit
was the niece of the murderer, and she was in the house when the crime
was committed. She discovered blood stains on the door of the woodshed,
and told her uncle that she suspected him of murdering the guest, who
had mysteriously disappeared. He secured her promise not to betray
him. She had always kept the secret. Although both had been dead for
many years, they were chained to the scene of the crime, as was the
governess, who was the man’s partner in guilt. The final release of the
niece from the place was conditional on her making a public confession.
This done she would never be heard from again. And she never was,
except on Hallow-eve, when the moon is new.’”

“Bring your science and philosophy to bear on this, Reuel. Come, come,
man, give us your opinion,” exclaimed Aubrey.

“Reuel doesn’t believe such stuff; he’s too sensible,” added Charlie.

“If these are facts, they are only for those who have a mental affinity
with them. I believe that if we could but strengthen our mental sight,
we could discover the broad highway between this and the other world on
which both good and evil travel to earth,” replied Reuel.

“And that first highway was beaten out of chaos by Satan, as Milton has
it, eh, Briggs?”

“Have it as you like, Smith. No matter. For my own part, I have never
believed that the whole mental world is governed by the faculties we
understand, and can reduce to reason or definite feeling. But I will
keep my ideas to myself: one does not care to be laughed at.”

The conversation was kept up for another hour about indifferent
subjects, but all felt the excitement underlying the frivolous chatter.
At quarter before twelve, Aubrey put on his ulster with the words:
“Well, here goes for my lady.” The great doors were thrown open, and
the company grouped about him to see him depart.

“Mind, honor bright, you go,” laughed Charlie.

“Honor bright,” he called back.

Then he went on beyond the flood of light into the gloom of the night.
Muffled in wraps and ulsters they lingered on the piazzas waiting his
return.

“Would he see anything?”

“Of course not!” laughed Charlie and Bert Smith. “Still, we bet he’ll
be sharp to his time.”

They were right. Aubrey returned at five minutes past twelve, a failure.

Charlie ran down the steps briskly, but in ten minutes came hastening
back.

“Well,” was the chorus, “did you see it?”

“I saw something--a figure in the trees!”

“And you did not wait?” said Molly, scornfully.

“No, I dared not; I own it.”

“It’s my turn; I’m third,” said Reuel.

“Luck to you, old man,” they called as he disappeared in the darkness.

Reuel Briggs was a brave man. He knew his own great physical strength
and felt no fear as he traversed the patch of woods lying between the
two estates. As he reached the avenue of hemlocks he was not thinking
of his mission, but of the bright home scene he had just left--of
love and home and rest--such a life as was unfolding before Aubrey
Livingston and sweet Molly Vance.

“I suppose there are plenty of men in the world as lonely as I am,” he
mused; “but I suppose it is my own fault. A man though plain and poor
can generally manage to marry; and I am both. But I don’t regard a wife
as one regards bread--better sour bread than starvation; better an
uncongenial life-companion than none! What a frightful mistake! No! The
woman I marry must be to me a necessity, because I love her; because so
loving her, ‘all the current of my being flows to her,’ and I feel she
is my supreme need.”

Just now he felt strangely happy as he moved in the gloom of the
hemlocks, and he wondered many times after that whether the spirit is
sometimes mysteriously conscious of the nearness of its kindred spirit;
and feels, in anticipation, the “sweet unrest” of the master-passion
that rules the world.

The mental restlessness of three weeks before seemed to have possession
of him again. Suddenly the “restless, unsatisfied longing,” rose
again in his heart. He turned his head and saw a female figure
just ahead of him in the path, coming toward him. He could not see
her features distinctly, only the eyes--large, bright and dark.
But their expression! Sorrowful, wistful--almost imploring--gazing
straight forward, as if they saw nothing--like the eyes of a person
entirely absorbed and not distinguishing one object from another.

She was close to him now, and there was a perceptible pause in her
step. Suddenly she covered her face with her clasped hands, as if in
uncontrollable grief. Moved by a mighty emotion, Briggs addressed the
lonely figure:

“You are in trouble, madam; may I help you?”

Briggs never knew how he survived the next shock. Slowly the hands were
removed from the face and the moon gave a distinct view of the lovely
features of the jubilee singer--Dianthe Lusk.

She did not seem to look at Briggs, but straight before her, as she
said in a low, clear, passionless voice:

“You can help me, but not now; tomorrow.”

Reuel’s most prominent feeling was one of delight. The way was open to
become fully acquainted with the woman who had haunted him sleeping and
waking, for weeks past.

“Not now! Yet you are suffering. Shall I see you soon? Forgive me--but
oh! tell me--”

He was interrupted. The lady moved or floated away from him, with her
face toward him and gazing steadily at him.

He felt that his whole heart was in his eyes, yet hers did not drop,
nor did her cheek color.

“The time is not yet,” she said in the same, clear, calm, measured
tones, in which she had spoken before. Reuel made a quick movement
toward her, but she raised her hand, and the gesture forbade him
to follow her. He paused involuntarily, and she turned away, and
disappeared among the gloomy hemlock trees.

He parried the questions of the merry crowd when he returned to the
house, with indifferent replies. How they would have laughed at
him--slave of a passion as sudden and romantic as that of Romeo for
Juliet; with no more foundation than the “presentments” in books which
treat of the “occult.” He dropped asleep at last, in the early morning
hours, and lived over his experience in his dreams.




                              CHAPTER IV.


Although not yet a practitioner, Reuel Briggs was a recognized power in
the medical profession. In brain diseases he was an authority.

Early the next morning he was aroused from sleep by imperative knocking
at his door. It was a messenger from the hospital. There had been a
train accident on the Old Colony road, would he come immediately?

Scarcely giving himself time for a cup of coffee, he arrived at the
hospital almost as soon as the messenger.

The usual silence of the hospital was broken; all was bustle and
movement, without confusion. It was a great call upon the resources
of the officials, but they were equal to it. The doctors passed from
sufferer to sufferer, dressing their injuries; then they were borne to
beds from which some would never rise again.

“Come with me to the women’s ward, Doctor Briggs,” said a nurse. “There
is a woman there who was taken from the wreck. She shows no sign of
injury, but the doctors cannot restore her to consciousness. Doctor
Livingston pronounces her dead, but it doesn’t seem possible. So young,
so beautiful. Do something for her, Doctor.”

The men about a cot made way for Reuel, as he entered the ward. “It’s
no use Briggs,” said Livingston to him in reply to his question. “Your
science won’t save her. The poor girl is already cold and stiff.”

He moved aside disclosing to Reuel’s gaze the lovely face of Dianthe
Lusk!

The most marvellous thing to watch is the death of a person. At
that moment the opposite takes place to that which took place when
life entered the first unit, after nature had prepared it for the
inception of life. How the vigorous life watches the passage of the
liberated life out of its earthly environment! What a change is this!
How important the knowledge of whither life tends! Here is shown the
setting free of a disciplined spirit giving up its mortality for
immortality,--the condition necessary to know God. Death! There is no
death. Life is everlasting, and from its reality can have no end. Life
is real and never changes, but preserves its identity eternally as the
angels, and the immortal spirit of man, which are the only realities
and continuities in the universe, God being over all, Supreme Ruler and
Divine Essence from whom comes all life. Somewhat in this train ran
Reuel’s thoughts as he stood beside the seeming dead girl, the cynosure
of all the medical faculty there assembled.

To the majority of those men, the case was an ordinary death, and that
was all there was to it. What did this young upstart expect to make of
it? Of his skill and wonderful theories they had heard strange tales,
but they viewed him coldly as we are apt to view those who dare to
leave the beaten track of conventionality.

Outwardly cool and stolid, showing no sign of recognition, he stood
for some seconds gazing down on Dianthe: every nerve quivered, every
pulse of his body throbbed. Her face held for him a wonderful charm,
an extraordinary fascination. As he gazed he knew that once more he
beheld what he had vaguely sought and yearned for all his forlorn
life. His whole heart went out to her; destiny, not chance, had brought
him to her. He saw, too, that no one knew her, none had a clue to
her identity; he determined to remain silent for the present, and
immediately he sought to impress Livingston to do likewise.

His keen glance swept the faces of the surrounding physicians. “No, not
one,” he told himself, “holds the key to unlock this seeming sleep of
death.” He alone could do it. Advancing far afield in the mysterious
regions of science, he had stumbled upon the solution of one of life’s
problems: _the reanimation of the body after seeming death_.

He had hesitated to tell of his discovery to any one; not even to
Livingston had he hinted of the daring possibility, fearing ridicule
in case of a miscarriage in his calculations. But for the sake of this
girl he would make what he felt to be a premature disclosure of the
results of his experiments. Meantime, Livingston, from his place at
the foot of the cot, watched his friend with fascinated eyes. He, too,
had resolved, contrary to his first intention, not to speak of his
knowledge of the beautiful patient’s identity. Curiosity was on tiptoe;
expectancy was in the air. All felt that something unusual was about to
happen.

Now Reuel, with gentle fingers, touched rapidly the clammy brow, the
icy, livid hands, the region of the pulseless heart. No breath came
from between the parted lips; the life-giving organ was motionless. As
he concluded his examination, he turned to the assembled doctors:

“As I diagnose this case, it is one of suspended animation. This woman
has been long and persistently subjected to mesmeric influences, and
the nervous shock induced by the excitement of the accident has thrown
her into a cataleptic sleep.”

“But, man!” broke from the head physician in tones of exasperation,
“rigor mortis in unmistakable form is here. The woman is dead!”

At these words there was a perceptible smile on the faces of some of
the students--associates who resented his genius as a personal affront,
and who considered these words as good as a reprimand for the daring
student, and a settler of his pretensions. Malice and envy, from Adam’s
time until today, have loved a shining mark.

But the reproof was unheeded. Reuel was not listening. Absorbed in
thoughts of the combat before him, he was oblivious to all else as he
bent over the lifeless figure on the cot. He was full of an earnest
purpose. He was strung up to a high tension of force and energy. As he
looked down upon the unconscious girl whom none but he could save from
the awful fate of a death by post-mortem, and who by some mysterious
mesmeric affinity existing between them, had drawn him to her rescue,
he felt no fear that he should fail.

Suddenly he bent down and took both cold hands into his left and passed
his right hand firmly over her arms from shoulder to wrist. He repeated
the movements several times; there was no response to the passes. He
straightened up, and again stood silently gazing upon the patient.
Then, like a man just aroused from sleep, he looked across the bed at
Livingston and said abruptly:

“Dr. Livingston, will you go over to my room and bring me the case of
vials in my medicine cabinet? I cannot leave the patient at this point.”

Livingston started in surprise as he replied: “Certainly, Briggs, if it
will help you any.”

“The patient does not respond to any of the ordinary methods of
awakening. She would probably lie in this sleep for months, and death
ensue from exhaustion, if stronger remedies are not used to restore the
vital force to a normal condition.”

Livingston left the hospital; he could not return under an hour; Reuel
took up his station by the bed whereon was stretched an apparently
lifeless body, and the other doctors went the rounds of the wards
attending to their regular routine of duty. The nurses gazed at him
curiously; the head doctor, upon whom the young student’s earnestness
and sincerity had evidently made an impression, came a number of times
to the bare little room to gaze upon its silent occupants, but there
was nothing new. When Livingston returned, the group again gathered
about the iron cot where lay the patient.

“Gentlemen,” said Reuel, with quiet dignity, when they were once more
assembled, “will you individually examine the patient once more and
give your verdicts?”

Once more doctors and students carefully examined the inanimate figure
in which the characteristics of death were still more pronounced. On
the outskirts of the group hovered the house-surgeon’s assistants ready
to transport the body to the operating room for the post-mortem. Again
the head physician spoke, this time impatiently.

“We are wasting our time, Dr. Briggs; I pronounce the woman dead. She
was past medical aid when brought here.”

“There is no physical damage, apparent or hidden, that you can see,
Doctor?” questioned Reuel, respectfully.

“No; it is a perfectly healthful organism, though delicate. I agree
entirely with your assertion that death was induced by the shock.”

“Not _death_, Doctor,” protested Briggs.

“Well, well, call it what you like--call it what you like, it amounts
to the same in the end,” replied the doctor testily.

“Do you all concur in Doctor Hamilton’s diagnosis?” Briggs included all
the physicians in his sweeping glance. There was a general assent.

“I am prepared to show you that in some cases of seeming death--or even
death in reality--consciousness may be restored or the dead brought
back to life. I have numberless times in the past six months restored
consciousness to dogs and cats after rigor mortis had set in,” he
declared calmly.

“Bosh!” broke from a leading surgeon. In this manner the astounding
statement, made in all seriousness, was received by the group of
scientists mingled with an astonishment that resembled stupidity. But
in spite of their scoffs, the young student’s confident manner made a
decided impression upon his listeners, unwilling as they were to be
convinced.

Reuel went on rapidly; his eyes kindled; his whole person took on the
majesty of conscious power, and pride in the knowledge he possessed. “I
have found by research that life is not dependent upon organic function
as a principle. It may be infused into organized bodies even after the
organs have ceased to perform their legitimate offices. Where death
has been due to causes which have not impaired or injured or destroyed
tissue formation or torn down the structure of vital organs, life may
be recalled when it has become entirely extinct, which is not so in
the present case. This I have discovered by my experiments in animal
magnetism.”

The medical staff was fairly bewildered. Again Dr. Hamilton spoke:

“You make the assertion that the dead can be brought to life, if I
understand your drift, Dr. Briggs, and you expect us to believe such
utter nonsense.” He added significantly, “My colleagues and I are here
to be convinced.”

“If you will be patient for a short time longer, Doctor, I will
support my assertion by action. The secret of life lies in what we
call volatile magnetism--it exists in the free atmosphere. You, Dr.
Livingston, understand my meaning; do you see the possibility in my
words?” he questioned, appealing to Aubrey for the first time.

“I have a faint conception of your meaning, certainly,” replied his
friend.

“This subtle magnetic agent is constantly drawn into the body through
the lungs, absorbed and held in bounds until chemical combination has
occurred through the medium of mineral agents always present in normal
animal tissue. When respiration ceases this magnetism cannot be drawn
into the lungs. It must be artificially supplied. This, gentlemen, is
my discovery. I supply this magnetism. I have it here in the case Dr.
Livingston has kindly brought me.” He held up to their gaze a small
phial wherein reposed a powder. Physicians and students, now eager
listeners, gazed spell-bound upon him, straining their ears to catch
every tone of the low voice and every change of the luminous eyes; they
pressed forward to examine the contents of the bottle. It passed from
eager hand to eager hand, then back to the owner.

“This compound, gentlemen, is an exact reproduction of the conditions
existing in the human body. It has common salt for its basis. This salt
is saturated with oleo resin and then exposed for several hours in an
atmosphere of free ammonia. The product becomes a powder, and _that_
brings back the seeming dead to life.”

“Establish your theory by practical demonstration, Dr. Briggs, and
the dreams of many eminent practitioners will be realized,” said Dr.
Hamilton, greatly agitated by his words.

“Your theory smacks of the supernatural, Dr. Briggs, charlatanism,
or dreams of lunacy,” said the surgeon. “We leave such assertions to
quacks, generally, for the time of miracles is past.”

“The supernatural presides over man’s formation always,” returned
Reuel, quietly. “Life is that evidence of supernatural endowment which
originally entered nature during the formation of the units for the
evolution of man. Perhaps the superstitious masses came nearer to
solving the mysteries of creation than the favored elect will ever
come. Be that as it may, I will not contend. I will proceed with the
demonstration.”

There radiated from the speaker the potent presence of a truthful
mind, a pure, unselfish nature, and that inborn dignity which repels
the shafts of lower minds as ocean’s waves absorb the drops of rain.
Something like respect mingled with awe hushed the sneers, changing
them into admiration as he calmly proceeded to administer the so-called
life-giving powder. Each man’s watch was in his hand; one minute
passed--another--and still another. The body remained inanimate.

A cold smile of triumph began to dawn on the faces of the older members
of the profession, but it vanished in its incipiency, for a tremor
plainly passed over the rigid form before them. Another second--another
convulsive movement of the chest!

“She moves!” cried Aubrey at last, carried out of himself by the strain
on his nerves. “Look, gentlemen, she breathes! _She is alive_; Briggs
is right! Wonderful! Wonderful!”

“We said there could not be another miracle, and here it is!” exclaimed
Dr. Hamilton with strong emotion.

Five minutes more and the startled doctors fell back from the bedside
at a motion of Reuel’s hand. A wondering nurse, with dilated eyes,
unfolded a screen, placed it in position and came and stood beside the
bed opposite Reuel. Holding Dianthe’s hands, he said in a low voice:
“Are you awake?” Her eyes unclosed in a cold, indifferent stare which
gradually changed to one of recognition. She looked at him--she smiled,
and said in a weak voice, “Oh, it is you; I dreamed of you while I
slept.”

She was like a child--so trusting that it went straight to the young
man’s heart, and for an instant a great lump seemed to rise in his
throat and choke him. He held her hands and chafed them, but spoke
with his eyes only. The nurse said in a low voice: “Dr. Briggs, a few
spoonfuls of broth will help her?”

“Yes, thank you, nurse; that will be just right.” He drew a chair
close beside the bed, bathed her face with water and pushed back the
tangle of bright hair. He felt a great relief and quiet joy that his
experiment had been successful.

“Have I been ill? Where am I?” she asked after a pause, as her face
grew troubled and puzzled.

“No, but you have been asleep a long time; we grew anxious about you.
You must not talk until you are stronger.”

The nurse returned with the broth; Dianthe drank it eagerly and called
for water, then with her hand still clasped in Reuel’s she sank into a
deep sleep, breathing softly like a tired child. It was plain to the
man of science that hope for the complete restoration of her faculties
would depend upon time, nature and constitution. Her effort to collect
her thoughts was unmistakable. In her sleep, presently, from her lips
fell incoherent words and phrases; but through it all she clung to
Reuel’s hand, seeming to recognize in him a friend.

A little later the doctors filed in noiselessly and stood about the
bed gazing down upon the sleeper with awe, listening to her breathing,
feeling lightly the fluttering pulse. Then they left the quiet house
of suffering, marvelling at the miracle just accomplished in their
presence. Livingston lingered with Briggs after the other physicians
were gone.

“This is a great day for you, Reuel,” he said, as he laid a light
caressing hand upon the other’s shoulder.

Reuel seized the hand in a quick convulsive clasp. “True and tried
friend, do not credit me more than I deserve. No praise is due me. I
am an instrument--how I know not--a child of circumstances. Do you not
perceive something strange in this case? Can you not deduce conclusions
from your own intimate knowledge of this science?”

“What can you mean, Reuel?”

“I mean--it is a _dual_ mesmeric trance! The girl is only partly normal
now. Binet speaks at length of this possibility in his treatise. We
have stumbled upon an extraordinary case. It will take a year to
restore her to perfect health.”

“In the meantime we ought to search out her friends.”

“Is there any hurry, Aubrey?” pleaded Reuel, anxiously.

“Why not wait until her memory returns; it will not be long, I believe,
although she may still be liable to the trances.”

“We’ll put off the evil day to any date you may name, Briggs; for my
part, I would preserve her incognito indefinitely.”

Reuel made no reply. Livingston was not sure that he heard him.




                              CHAPTER V.


The world scarcely estimates the service rendered by those who have
unlocked the gates of sensation by the revelations of science; and
yet it is to the clear perception of things which we obtain by the
study of nature’s laws that we are enabled to appreciate her varied
gifts. The scientific journals of the next month contained wonderful
and _wondering_ (?) accounts of the now celebrated case,--re-animation
after seeming death. Reuel’s lucky star was in the ascendant; fame
and fortune awaited him; he had but to grasp them. Classmates who had
once ignored him now sought familiar association, or else gazed upon
him with awe and reverence. “How did he do it?” was the query in each
man’s mind, and then came a stampede for all scientific matter bearing
upon animal magnetism.

How often do we look in wonder at the course of other men’s lives,
whose paths have diverged so widely from the beaten track of our own,
that, unable to comprehend the one spring upon which, perhaps, the
whole secret of the diversity hinged, we have been fain to content
ourselves with summing up our judgment in the common phrase, “Well,
it’s very strange; what odd people there are in the world, to be sure!”

Many times this trite sentence was uttered during the next few months,
generally terminating every debate among medical students in various
colleges.

Unmindful of his growing popularity, Reuel devoted every moment of his
spare time to close study of his patient. Although but a youth, the
scientist might have passed for any age under fifty, and life for him
seemed to have taken on a purely mechanical aspect since he had become
first in this great cause. Under pretended indifference to public
criticism, throbbed a heart of gold, sensitive to a fault; desiring
above all else the well-being of all humanity; his faithfulness to
those who suffered amounted to complete self-sacrifice. Absolutely free
from the vices which beset most young men of his age and profession,
his daily life was a white, unsullied page to the friend admitted to
unrestricted intercourse, and gave an irresistible impetus to that
friendship, for Livingston could not but admire the newly developed
depths of nobility which he now saw unfolding day by day in Reuel’s
character. Nor was Livingston far behind the latter in his interest in
all that affected Dianthe. Enthused by its scientific aspect, he vied
with Reuel in close attention to the medical side of the case, and
being more worldly did not neglect the material side.

He secretly sought out and obtained the address of the manager of the
jubilee singers and to his surprise received the information that Miss
Lusk had left the troupe to enter the service of a traveling magnetic
physician--a woman--for a large salary. They (the troupe) were now in
Europe and had heard nothing of Miss Lusk since.

After receiving this information by cable, Livingston sat a long time
smoking and thinking: people often disappeared in a great city, and
the police would undoubtedly find the magnetic physician if he applied
to them. Of course that was the sensible thing to do, but then the
publicity, and he hated that for the girl’s sake. Finally he decided
to compromise the matter by employing a detective. With him to decide
that it was expedient to do a certain thing was the same as to act;
before night the case was in the hands of an expert detective who
received a goodly retainer. Two weeks from that day--it was December
twenty-fourth--before he left his boarding place, the detective was
announced. He had found the woman in a small town near Chicago. She
said that she had no knowledge of Miss Lusk’s whereabouts. Dianthe
had remained with her three weeks, and at the end of that time had
mysteriously disappeared; she had not heard of her since.

Livingston secured the woman’s name and address, gave the man a second
check together with an admonition to keep silence concerning Miss Lusk.
That closed the episode. But of his observations and discoveries,
Aubrey said nothing, noting every phase of this strange happening in
silence.

Strangely enough, none of the men that had admired the colored artist
who had enthralled their senses by her wonderful singing a few weeks
before, recognized her in the hospital waif consecrated to the service
of science. Her incognito was complete.

The patient was now allowed the freedom of the corridors for exercise,
and was about her room during the day. The returns of the trance-state
were growing less regular, although she frequently fell into
convulsions, thereby enduring much suffering, sometimes lying for hours
in a torpid state. Livingston had never happened to be present on these
occasions, but he had heard of them from eye-witnesses. One day he
entered the room while one was occurring. His entrance was unnoticed as
he approached lightly over the uncarpeted floor, and stood transfixed
by the scene before him.

Dianthe stood upright, with closed eyes, in the middle of the room.
Only the movement of her bosom betrayed breath. The other occupants
of the room preserved a solemn silence. She addressed Reuel, whose
outstretched arms were extended as if in blessing over her head.

“Oh! Dearest friend! hasten to cure me of my sufferings. Did you not
promise at that last meeting? You said to me, ‘You are in trouble and I
can help you.’ And I answered, ‘The time is not yet.’ Is it not so?”

“Yes,” replied Reuel. “Patience a while longer; all will be well with
you.”

“Give me the benefit of your powerful will,” she continued. “I know
much but as yet have not the power to express it: I see much clearly,
much dimly, of the powers and influences behind the Veil, and yet I
cannot name them. Some time the full power will be mine; and mine shall
be thine. In seven months the sick will be restored--she will awake to
worldly cares once more.” Her voice ceased; she sank upon the cot in a
recumbent position. Her face was pale; she appeared to sleep. Fifteen
minutes passed in death-like stillness, then she extended her arms,
stretched, yawned, rubbed her eyes--awoke.

Livingston listened and looked in a trance of delight, his keen
artistic sense fully aroused and appreciative, feeling the glamour of
her presence and ethereal beauty like a man poring over a poem that he
has unexpectedly stumbled upon, losing himself in it, until it becomes,
as it were, a part of himself. He felt as he watched her that he was
doing a foolish thing in thus exposing himself to temptation while his
honor and faith were pledged to another. But then, foolishness is so
much better than wisdom, particularly to a man in certain stages of
life. And then he fell to questioning if there could be temptation for
him through this girl--he laughed at the thought and the next instant
dismay covered him with confusion, for like a flash he realized that
the mischief was already done.

As we have already hinted, Aubrey was no saint; he knew that fickleness
was in his blood; he had never denied himself anything that he wanted
very much in his whole life. Would he grow to want this beautiful woman
very much? Time would tell.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was Christmas-time--a good, sensible seasonable day before
Christmas, with frost and ice in abundance, and a clear, bright,
wintry sky above. Boston was very full of people--mostly suburban
visitors--who were rushing here and there bent on emptying their purses
on the least provocation. Good-nature prevailed among the pedestrians;
one poor wretch stood shivering, with blue, wan face, on the edge of
the sidewalk, his sightless eyes staring straight before him, trying
to draw a tune from a consumptive violin--the embodiment of despair.
He was, after all, in the minority, to judge by the hundreds of
comfortably-clad forms that hurried past him, breathing an atmosphere
of peace and prosperity.

Tomorrow the church bells would ring out tidings that another Christmas
was born, bidding all rejoice.

This evening, at six o’clock, the two friends went to dine in a
hotel in a fashionable quarter. They were due to spend the night and
Christmas day at the Vance house. As they walked swiftly along with
the elastic tread of youth, they simultaneously halted before the blind
musician and pressed into his trembling hand a bountiful gift; then
they hurried away to escape his thanks.

At the hotel Livingston called for a private dining room, and after the
coffee was served, he said:

“Tell me, Briggs, what is the link between you and your patient? There
is a link, I am sure. Her words while in the trance made a great
impression upon me.”

There was a pause before Reuel replied in a low tone, as he rested his
arm on the opposite side of the table and propped his head up on his
hand:

“Forgive me, Aubrey!”

“For what?”

“This playing with your confidence. I have not been entirely frank with
you.”

“Oh, well! you are not bound to tell me everything you know. You surely
have the right to silence about your affairs, if you think best.”

“Listen, Aubrey. I should like to tell you all about it. I would feel
better. What you say is true; there is a link; but I never saw her in
the flesh before that night at the Temple. With all our knowledge,
Aubrey, we are but barbarians in our ideas of the beginning, interim
and end of our creation. Why were we created? for whose benefit? can
anyone answer that satisfactorily?”

“‘Few things are hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and
seriously to the solution of a mystery,’ Hawthorne tells us,” replied
Aubrey. “Have not you proved this, Reuel?”

“Well, yes--or, we prove rather, that our solution but deepens the
mystery or mysteries. I have surely proved the last. Aubrey, I look
natural, don’t I? There is nothing about me that seems wrong?”

“Wrong! No.”

“Well, if I tell you the truth you will call me a lunatic. You have
heard of people being haunted by hallucinations?” Aubrey nodded. “I
am one of those persons. Seven weeks ago I saw Dianthe first, but not
in the flesh. Hallow-eve I spoke to her in the garden of the haunted
house, but not in the flesh. I thought it strange to be sure, that this
face should lurk in my mind so much of the time; but I never dreamed
what a crisis it was leading up to. The French and German schools of
philosophy have taught us that going to places and familiar passages in
books, of which we have had no previous knowledge, is but a proof of
Plato’s doctrine--the soul’s transmigration, and reflections from the
invisible world surrounding us.

“Finally a mad desire seized me to find that face a living reality that
I might love and worship it. Then I saw her at the Temple--I found her
at the hospital--_in the flesh!_ My desire was realized.”

“And having found her, what then?” He waited breathlessly for the reply.

“I am mightily pleased and satisfied. I will cure her. She is charming;
and if it is insanity to be in love with her, I don’t care to be sane.”

Livingston did not reply at once. His face was like marble in its
impassiveness. The other’s soft tremulous tones, fearless yet moist
eyes and broken sentences, appeared to awaken no response in his
breast. Instead, a far-off gleam came into his blue eyes. At last he
broke the silence with the words:

“You name it well; it is insanity indeed, for you to love this woman.”

“Why?” asked his friend, constrainedly.

“Because it is not for the best.”

“For her or me?”

“Oh, for _her_----!” he finished the sentence with an expressive
gesture.

“I understand you, Aubrey. I should not have believed it of you. If it
were one of the other fellows; but you are generally so charitable.”

“You forget your own words: ‘Tramps, stray dogs and Negroes----,’” he
quoted significantly. “Then there is your professional career to be
considered,--you mean honorable, do you not?----How can you succeed if
it be hinted abroad that you are married to a Negress?”

“I have thought of all that. I am determined. I will marry her in spite
of hell itself! Marry her before she awakens to consciousness of her
identity. I’m not unselfish; I don’t pretend to be. There is no sin
in taking her out of the sphere where she was born. God and science
helping me, I will give her life and love and wifehood and maternity
and perfect health. God, Aubrey! you, with all you have had of life’s
sweetness, petted idol of a beautiful world, you who will soon feel
the heart-beats of your wife against your breast when lovely Molly is
eternally bound to you, what do you know of a lonely, darkened life
like mine? I have not the manner nor the charm which wins women. Men
like me get love from them which is half akin to pity, when they get
anything at all. It is but the shadow. This is my opportunity for
happiness; I seize it. Fate has linked us together and no man and no
man’s laws shall part us.”

Livingston sipped his wine quietly, intently watching Reuel’s face.
Now he leaned across the table and stretched out his hand to Briggs;
his eyes looked full into his. As their hands met in a close clasp,
he whispered a sentence across the board. Reuel started, uttered an
exclamation and flushed slowly a dark, dull red.

“How--where--how did you know it?” he stammered.

“I have known it since first we met; but the secret is safe with me.”




                              CHAPTER VI.


The scene which met the gaze when an hour later the young men were
ushered into the long drawing-room of the Vance house was one
well-calculated to remove all gloomy, pessimistic reasoning. Warmth,
gaiety, pretty women, luxury,--all sent the blood leaping through the
veins in delightful anticipation.

Their entrance was greeted by a shout of welcome.

“Oh, Aubrey! I am so glad you are come,” cried Molly from the far end
of the room. “Fancy tomorrow being Christmas! Shall we be ready for all
that company tomorrow night and the ball-room, dining room and hall yet
to be trimmed? Is it possible to be ready?”

“Not if we stand dawdling in idle talk.” This from “Adonis,” who was
stretched full length on the sitting-room sofa, with a cigarette
between his lips, his hands under his handsome head, surrounded by a
bevy of pretty, chattering girls, prominent among whom was Cora Scott,
who aided and abetted Charlie in every piece of mischief.

Molly curled her lip but deigned no reply.

Bert Smith, from a corner of the room where he was about ascending a
step-ladder, flung a book heavily at Adonis’s lazy figure.

“Don’t confuse your verbs,” exclaimed Aubrey. “How can you stand when
you are lying down, and were you ever known to do anything else but
dawdle, Adonis--eh?”

“I give it up,” said Charlie, sleepily, kicking the book off the sofa.

“Is this an amateur grocery shop, may I ask, Miss Vance?” continued
Aubrey as he and Briggs made their way to their hostess through an
avalanche of parcels and baskets strewn on the tables and the floor.

Molly laughed as she greeted them. “No wonder you are surprised. I
am superintending the arrangement of my poor people’s gifts,” she
explained. “They must all be sent out tonight. I don’t know what I
should have done without all these good people to help me. But there
are _piles_ to be done yet. There is the tree, the charades, etc.,
etc.,” she continued, in a plaintive little voice.

“More particularly cetra, cetra,” said Aubrey from Bert’s corner where
he had gone to help along the good works of placing holly wreaths.

“Oh, you, Aubrey--stop being a magpie.” Aubrey and Molly were very
matter of fact lovers.

“Molly,” again broke in Charlie, “suppose the box from Pierson’s
has never come, won’t you be up a tree?” and the speaker opened his
handsome eyes wide, and shook off his cigarette-ash.

Molly maintained a dignified silence toward her brother. The firelight
danced and dwelt upon her lovingly. She was so pretty, so fair, so
slender, so graceful. Now in her gray plush tea-gown, with her hair
piled picturesquely on the top of her small head, and fixed there with
a big tortoise-shell pin, it would have been difficult to find a more
delightful object for the gaze to rest upon.

“We shall have to fall back upon the wardrobes,” she said at length.
“You are a horrid wet-blanket, Charlie! I am sure I----”

Her remarks were cut short as the door opened, and with laughter and
shouting a bevy of young people who had been at work in another part of
the house rushed in. “It is come; it’s all right; don’t worry, Molly!”
they sang in chorus.

“Do be quiet all of you; one can hardly hear oneself speak!”

The box from the costumer’s had arrived; the great costume party was
saved; in short, excitement and bustle were in full swing at Vance Hall
as it had been at Christmas-time since the young people could remember.

Adonis lifted himself from the sofa and proposed to open the box of
dresses at once, and try them on.

“Charlie, you are a brick!--the very thing!”

“Oh! yes, yes; let us try them on!”

Molly broke through the eager voices: “And we have not done the
ball-room yet!” she said reproachfully.

“Oh! bother the ball-room!” declared Adonis, now thoroughly aroused.
“We have all night. We can’t do better than to don our finery.”

Molly sat down with an air of resigned patience. “I promised Mr.
Pierson,” she observed quietly, “that the box should not be touched
until he was here to superintend matters.”

“Oh, Pierson be blowed!” elegantly observed her brother. But Reuel
Briggs suddenly dropped his work, walked over, and sided with Molly.

“You are quite right, Miss Molly; and you Charlie and Aubrey and the
rest of you men, if you want to open the box tonight you must first
decorate the ball-room. Business before pleasure.”

“Saved!--saved! See my brave, true knight defends his lady fair.” Molly
danced, practising the step she was about to astonish the company with
on Christmas-night. “I think I am what the Scotch call ‘fey,’” she
laughed. “I don’t know why I feel so awfully jolly tonight. I could
positively fly from sheer excitement and delight.”

“Don’t you know why?” observed Cora. “I will tell you. It is because
this is your last Christmas as Molly Vance; next year----”

“Ah, do not!” interrupted Molly, quickly. “Who knows what a year may
bring forth. Is it not so, Dr. Briggs?” she turned appealingly to Reuel.

“Grief follows joy as clouds the sunlight. ‘Woe! woe! each heart must
bleed, must break,’” was his secret thought as he bowed gravely. But
on his face was a look of startled perplexity, for suddenly as she
spoke to him it appeared that a dark veil settled like a pall over the
laughing face at his side. He shivered.

“What’s the matter, Briggs?” called out Adonis. They had reached the
ball-room and were standing over the piles of holly and evergreen,
ready for an onslaught on the walls.

“Don’t be surprised if Briggs acts strangely,” continued Charlie. “It
is in order for him to whoop it up in the spirit line.”

“Why, Charlie! What do you mean?” questioned Molly with an anxious
glance at Reuel.

“Anything interesting, Charlie?” called out a jolly girl across the
room.

“Briggs is our ‘show’ man. Haven’t you heard, girls, what a celebrity
is with you tonight? Briggs is a philosopher--mesmerism is his
specialty. Say, old man, give the company a specimen of your infernal
art, can’t you? He goes the whole hog, girls; can even raise the dead.”

“Let up, Charlie,” said Aubrey in a low tone. “It’s no joking matter.”

There were screams and exclamations from the girls. With reckless
gaiety Adonis continued,

“What is to be the outcome of the great furore you have created,
Briggs?”

“Nothing of moment, I hope,” smiled Reuel, good-naturedly. “I have been
simply an instrument; I leave results to the good angels who direct
events. What does Longfellow say about the arrow and the song?

  ‘Long, long afterwards, in an oak
  I found the arrow still unbroke;
  And the song, from beginning to end,
  I found in the heart of a friend.’

May it be so with my feeble efforts.”

“But circumstances alter cases. In this case, the ‘arrow’ is a girl and
a devilish handsome one, too; and the ‘air’ is the whole scientific
world. Your philosophy and mysticism gave way before Beauty. Argument
is a stubborn man’s castle, but the heart is still unconvinced.”

“‘I mixed those children up, and not a creature knew it,’” hummed Bert
Smith. “Your ideas are mixed, Don; stick to the ladies, you understand
girls and horseflesh; philosophy isn’t in your line.”

“Oh, sure!” said Adonis unruffled by his friend’s words.

“Charlie Vance,” said Molly severely, “if we have any more _swearing_
from you to-night, you leave the room until you learn to practice good
manners. I’m surprised at your language!”

“Just the same, Briggs is a fraud. I shall keep my eye on him. It’s
a case of beauty and the beast. Oh,” he continued in malicious glee,
“wouldn’t you girls turn green with envy, every man jack of you, if you
could see the beauty!”

Thereupon the girls fell to pelting him with holly wreaths and
evergreen festoons, much to the enjoyment of Mr. Vance, who had entered
unperceived in the general melee.

“What is it all about, Dr. Briggs?” asked Molly in a low voice.

“It is the case of a patient who was in a mesmeric sleep and I was
fortunate enough to awaken her. She is a waif; and it will be months
before she will be well and strong, poor girl.”

“Do you make a study of mesmerism, Doctor?” asked Mr. Vance from his
arm-chair by the glowing fire.

“Yes sir; and a wonderful science it is.”

Before Mr. Vance could continue, Livingston said: “If you folks will be
still for about ten minutes, I’ll tell you what happened in my father’s
house when I was a very small boy; I can just remember it.”

“If it’s a ghost story, make it strong, Aubrey, so that not a girl
will sleep tonight. Won’t the dears look pretty blinking and yawning
tomorrow night? We’ll hear ’em, fellows, in the small hours of the
morning, ‘Molly, Molly! I’m so frightened. I do believe someone is in
my room; may I come in with you, dear?’”

“Charlie, stop your nonsense,” laughed his father, and Adonis
obediently subsided.

“My father was Dr. Aubrey Livingston too,” began Aubrey, “and he owned
a large plantation of slaves. My father was deeply interested in the
science of medicine, and I believe made some valuable discoveries along
the line of mesmeric phenomena, for some two or three of his books are
referred to even at this advanced stage of discovery, as marvellous in
some of their data.

“Among the slaves was a girl who was my mother’s waiting maid, and I
have seen my father throw her into a trance-state many times when I was
so small that I had no conception of what he was doing.

“Many a time I have known him to call her into the parlor to perform
tricks of mind-reading for the amusement of visitors, and many
wonderful things were done by her as the record given in his books
shows.

“One day there was a great dinner party given at our place, and the
êlite of the county were bidden. It was about two years before the
civil war, and our people were not expecting war; thinking that all
unpleasantness must end in their favor, they gave little heed to the
ominous rumble of public opinion that was arising at the North, but
went on their way in all their pride of position and wealth without a
care for the future.

“Child as I was I was impressed by the beauty and wit of the women and
the chivalric bearing of the men gathered about my father’s hospitable
board on that memorable day. When the feasting and mirth began to lag,
someone called for Mira--the maid--and my father sent for her to come
and amuse the guests.

“My father made the necessary passes and from a serious, rather sad
Negress, very mild with everyone, Mira changed to a gay, noisy,
restless woman, full of irony and sharp jesting. In this case this
peculiar metamorphosis always occurred. Nothing could be more curious
than to see her and hear her. ‘Tell the company what you see, Mira,’
commanded my father.

“You will not like it, captain; but if I must, I must. All the women
will be widows and the men shall sleep in early graves. They come from
the north, from the east, from the west, they sweep to the gulf through
a trail of blood. Your houses shall burn, your fields be laid waste,
and a down-trodden race shall rule in your land. For you, captain, a
prison cell and a pauper’s grave.”

“The dinner-party broke up in a panic, and from that time my father
could not abide the girl. He finally sold her just a few months before
the secession of the Confederate States, and that was the last we ever
knew of her.”

“And did the prophecy come true about your father?” asked Mr. Vance.

“Too true, sir; my father died while held as a prisoner of war, in
Boston Harbor. And every woman at the table was left a widow. There is
only too much truth in science of mesmeric phenomena. The world is a
wonderful place.”

“Wonderful!” declared his hearers.

“I am thinking of that poor, pretty creature lying ill in that gloomy
hospital without a friend. Men are selfish! I tell you what, folks,
tomorrow after lunch we’ll make a Christmas visit to the patients,
and carry them fruit and flowers. As for your beautiful patient, Dr.
Briggs, she shall not be friendless any longer, she shall come to us
at Vance Hall.”

“Molly!” broke simultaneously from Aubrey and Charlie.

“Oh, I mean it. There is plenty of room in this great house, and here
she shall remain until she is restored to health.”

Expostulation was in vain. The petted heiress was determined, and when
Mr. Vance was appealed to he laughed and said, as he patted her hand:

“The queen must have her own.”

At length the costumer’s box was opened amidst jest, song and laughter.
The characters were distributed by the wilful Molly. Thus attired, to
the music of Tannhauser’s march, played by one of the girls on the
piano, the gay crowd marched and counter-marched about the spacious
room.

In the early morning hours, Aubrey Livingston slept and dreamed of
Dianthe Lusk, and these words haunted his sleep and lingered with him
when he woke:

“She had the glory of heaven in her voice, and in her face the fatal
beauty of man’s terrible sins.”

Aubrey Livingston knew that he was as hopelessly lost as was Adam when
he sold his heavenly birthright for a woman’s smile.




                             CHAPTER VII.


Through days and days, and again through days and days, over and over
again, Reuel Briggs fought to restore his patient to a normal condition
of health. Physically, he succeeded; but mentally his treatment was
a failure. Memory remained a blank to the unhappy girl. Her life
virtually began with her awakening at the hospital. A look of wonder
and a faint smile were the only replies that questions as to the past
elicited from her. Old and tried specialists in brain diseases and
hypnotic states came from every part of the Union on bootless errands.
It was decided that nothing could be done; rest, freedom from every
care and time might eventually restore the poor, violated mind to its
original strength. Thus it was that Dianthe became the dear adopted
daughter of the medical profession. Strange to say, Molly Vance secured
her desire, and wearing the name of Felice Adams, Dianthe was domiciled
under the roof of palatial Vance hall, and the small annuity provided
by the generous contributions of the physicians of the country was
placed in the hands of Mr. Vance, Sr., to be expended for their protege.

The astonishing nature of the startling problems he had unearthed, the
agitation and indignation aroused in him by the heartless usage to
which his patient must have been exposed, haunted Briggs day and night.
He believed that he had been drawn into active service for Dianthe by a
series of strange coincidences, and the subtle forces of immortality;
what future acts this service might require he knew not, he cared not;
he registered a solemn promise to perform all tasks allotted him by
Infinity, to the fullest extent of his power.

The brilliant winter days merged themselves into spring. After one
look into Dianthe’s eyes, so deep, clear and true, Molly Vance had
surrendered unconditionally to the charm of the beautiful stranger,
drawn by an irresistible bond of sympathy. “Who would believe,” she
observed to Livingston, “that at this stage of the world’s progress
one’s identity could be so easily lost and one still be living. It is
like a page from an exciting novel.”

With the impulsiveness of youth, a wonderful friendship sprang up
between the two; they rode, walked and shopped together; in short,
became inseparable companions. The stranger received every attention
in the family that could be given an honored guest. Livingston and
Briggs watched her with some anxiety; would she be able to sustain the
position of intimate friendship to which Molly had elected her? But
both breathed more freely when they noted her perfect manners, the ease
and good-breeding displayed in all her intercourse with those socially
above the level to which they knew this girl was born. She accepted the
luxury of her new surroundings as one to the manner born.

“We need not have feared for her; by Jove, she’s a thorough-bred!”
exclaimed Aubrey one day to Reuel. The latter nodded as he looked up
from his book.

“And why not? Probably the best blood of the country flows in the poor
girl’s veins. Who can tell? Why should she not be a thorough-bred?”

“True,” replied Aubrey, as a slight frown passed over his face.

“I am haunted by a possibility, Aubrey,” continued Reuel. “What if
memory suddenly returns? Is it safe to risk the unpleasantness of a
public reawakening of her sleeping faculties? I have read of such
things.”

Aubrey shrugged his handsome shoulders. “We must risk something for the
sake of science; where no one is injured by deception there is no harm
done.”

“Now that question has presented itself to me repeatedly lately: Is
deception justifiable for any reason? Somehow it haunts me that trouble
may come from this. I wish we had told the exact truth about her
identity.”

“‘If ’twere done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done
quickly’” murmured Aubrey with a sarcastic smile on his face. “How you
balk at nothing, Reuel,” he drawled mockingly.

“Oh, call me a fool and done with it, Aubrey: I suppose I am; but one
didn’t make one’s self.”

Drives about the snow-clad suburbs of Cambridge with Briggs and Molly,
at first helped to brighten the invalid; then came quiet social
diversions at which Dianthe was the great attraction.

It was at an afternoon function that Reuel took courage to speak of his
love. A dozen men buzzed about “Miss Adams” in the great bay window
where Molly had placed Dianthe, her superb beauty set off by a simple
toilet. People came and went constantly. Musical girls, generally with
gold eyeglasses on æsthetic noses, played grim classical preparations,
which have as cheerful an effect on a gay crowd as the perfect,
irreproachable skeleton of a bygone beauty might have; or articulate,
with cultivation and no voices to speak of, arias which would sap the
life of a true child of song to render as the maestro intended.

The grand, majestic voice that had charmed the hearts from thousands of
bosoms, was pinioned in the girl’s throat like an imprisoned song-bird.
Dianthe’s voice was completely gone along with her memory. But music
affected her strangely, and Reuel watched her anxiously.

Her face was a study in its delicate, quickly changing tints, its
sparkle of smiles running from the sweet, pure tremor of the lovely
mouth to the swift laughter of eyes and voice.

Mindful of her infirmity, Reuel led her to the conservatory to escape
the music. She lifted her eyes to his with a curious and angelic light
in them. She was conscious that he loved her with his whole most loving
heart. She winced under the knowledge, for while she believed in him,
depended upon him and gathered strength from his love, what she gave in
return was but a slight, cold affection compared with his adoration.

He brought her refreshments in the conservatory, and then told his
love and asked his fate. She did not answer at once, but looked at his
plain face, at the stalwart elegance of his figure, and again gazed
into the dark, true, clever eyes, and with the sigh of a tired child
crept into his arms, and into his heart for all time and eternity. Thus
Aubrey Livingston found them when the company had departed. So it was
decided to have the wedding in June. What need for these two children
of misfortune to wait?

Briggs, with his new interest in life, felt that it was good just to be
alive. The winter passed rapidly, and as he threaded the streets coming
and going to his hospital duties, his heart sang. No work was now too
arduous; he delighted in the duty most exacting in its nature. As the
spring came in it brought with it thoughts of the future. He was
almost penniless, and he saw no way of obtaining the money he needed.
He had not been improvident, but his lonely life had lived a reckless
disregard of the future, and the value of money. He often lived a day
on bread and water, at the same time sitting without a fire in the
coldest weather because his pockets were empty and he was too proud to
ask a loan, or solicit credit from storekeepers. He now found himself
in great difficulty. His literary work and the extra cases which his
recent triumph had brought him, barely sufficed for his own present
needs. Alone in his bachelor existence he would call this luxury, but
it was not enough to furnish a suitable establishment for Dianthe. As
the weeks rolled by and nothing presented itself, he grew anxious, and
finally resolved to consult Livingston.

All things had become new to him, and in the light of his great
happiness the very face of old Cambridge was changed. Fate had always
been against him, and had played him the shabbiest of tricks, but
now he felt that she might do her worst, he held a talisman against
misfortune while his love remained to him. Thinking thus he walked
along briskly, and the sharp wind brought a faint color into his sallow
face. He tried to think and plan, but his ideas were whirled away
before they had taken form, and he felt a giant’s power to overcome
with each inspiring breath of the crisp, cool March air. Aubrey should
plan for him, but he would accomplish.

Livingston had apartments on Dana Hill, the most aristocratic portion
of Cambridge. There he would remain till the autumn, when he would
marry Molly Vance, and remove to Virginia and renew the ancient
splendor of his ancestral home. He was just dressing for an evening
at the theatre when Briggs entered his rooms. He greeted him with his
usual genial warmth.

“What!” he said gaily, “the great scientist here, at this hour?”

Then noticing his visitor’s anxious countenance he added:

“What’s the matter?”

“I am in difficulties and come to you for help,” replied Reuel.

“How so? What is it? I am always anxious to serve you, Briggs.”

“I certainly think so or I would not be here now,” said Reuel. “But you
are just going out, an engagement perhaps with Miss Molly. My business
will take some time--”

Aubrey interrupted him, shaking his head negatively. “I was only going
out to wile away the time at the theatre. Sit down and free your mind,
old man.”

Thus admonished, Reuel flung himself among the cushions of the divan,
and began to state his reasons for desiring assistance; when he
finished, Livingston asked:

“Has nothing presented itself?”

“O yes; two or three really desirable offers which I wrote to accept,
but to my surprise, in each case I received polite regrets that
circumstances had arisen to prevent the acceptance of my valuable
services. That is what puzzles me. What the dickens did it mean?”

Aubrey said nothing but continued a drum solo on the arm of his chair.
Finally he asked abruptly: “Briggs, do you think anyone knows or
suspects your origin?”

Not a muscle of Reuel’s face moved as he replied, calmly: “I have been
wondering if such can be the case.”

“This infernal prejudice is something horrible. It closes the door of
hope and opportunity in many a good man’s face. I am a Southerner, but
I am ashamed of my section,” he added warmly.

Briggs said nothing, but a dark, dull red spread slowly to the very
roots of his hair. Presently Aubrey broke the painful silence.

“Briggs, I think I can help you.”

“How?”

“There’s an expedition just about starting from England for Africa; its
final destination is, I believe, the site of ancient Ethiopian cities;
its object to unearth buried cities and treasure which the shifting
sands of Sahara have buried for centuries. This expedition lacks just
such a medical man as you; the salary is large, but you must sign for
two years; that is my reason for not mentioning it before. It bids fair
to be a wonderful venture and there will be plenty of glory for those
who return, beside the good it will do to the Negro race if it proves
the success in discovery that scholars predict. I don’t advise you to
even consider this opportunity, but you asked for my help and this is
all I can offer at present.”

“But Dianthe!” exclaimed Reuel faintly.

“Yes,” smiled Aubrey. “Don’t I know how I would feel if it were Molly
and I was in your place? You are like all other men, Reuel. Passion
does not calculate, and therein lies its strength. As long as common
sense lasts we are not in love. Now the answer to the question of ways
and means is with you; it is in your hands. You will choose love and
poverty I suppose; I should. There are people fools enough to tell a
man in love to keep cool. Bah! It is an impossible thing.”

“Does true love destroy our reasoning faculties?” Reuel asked himself
as he sat there in silence after his friend ceased speaking. He felt
then that he could not accept this offer. Finally he got upon his feet,
still preserving his silence, and made ready to leave his friend.
When he reached the door, he turned and said: “I will see you in the
morning.”

For a long time after Briggs had gone, Aubrey sat smoking and gazing
into the glowing coals that filled the open grate.

All that night Reuel remained seated in his chair or pacing the
cheerless room, conning ways and means to extricate himself from his
dilemma without having recourse to the last extremity proposed by
Aubrey. It was a brilliant opening; there was no doubt of that; a
year--six months ago--he would have hailed it with delight, but if he
accepted it, it would raise a barrier between his love and him which
could not be overcome--the ocean and thousands of miles.

“Oh, no!” he cried, “a thousand times no! Rather give up my ambitions.”

Then growing more rational he gazed mournfully around the poor room
and asked himself if he could remain and see his wife amid such
surroundings? That would be impossible. The question then, resolved
itself into two parts: If he remained at home, they could not marry,
therefore separation; if he went abroad, marriage and separation.
He caught at the last thought eagerly. If then they were doomed to
separate, of two evils why not choose the least? The African position
would at least bind them irrevocably together. Instantly hope resumed
its sway in Reuel’s breast so fertile is the human mind in expedients
to calm the ruffled spirit; he began to estimate the advantages he
would gain by accepting the position: He could marry Dianthe, settle
a large portion of his salary upon her thus rendering her independent
of charity, leave her in the care of the Vance family, and return in
two years a wealthy man no longer fearing poverty. He had never before
builded golden castles, but now he speculated upon the possibility
of unearthing gems and gold from the mines of ancient Meroe and the
pyramids of Ethiopia. In the midst of his fancies he fell asleep. In
the morning he felt a wonderful relief as he contemplated his decision.
Peace had returned to his mind. He determined to see Aubrey at once and
learn all the particulars concerning the expedition. Providentially,
Aubrey was just sitting down to breakfast and over a cup of steaming
coffee Reuel told his decision, ending with these words: “Now, my dear
Aubrey, it may be the last request I may ever ask of you, for who can
tell what strange adventures may await me in that dark and unknown
country to which Fate has doomed me?”

Livingston tried to remonstrate with him.

“I know what I am saying. The climate is murderous, to begin with, and
there are many other dangers. It is better to be prepared. I have no
friend but you.”

“Between us, Reuel, oaths are useless; you may count upon my loyalty to
all your interests,” said Aubrey with impressiveness.

“I shall ask you to watch over Dianthe. I intrust her to you as I would
intrust her to my brother, had I one. This is all I ask of you when I
am in that far country.”

With open brow, clear eyes and grave face, Aubrey Livingston replied in
solemn tones:

“Reuel, you may sail without a fear. Molly and I will have her with us
always like a dear sister.”

Hand clasped in hand they stood a moment as if imploring heaven’s
blessing on the solemn compact. Then they turned the conversation on
the business of securing the position at once.




                             CHAPTER VIII.


Reuel was greatly touched during the next three months by the devotion
of his friend Livingston, whose unselfishness in his behalf he had
before had cause to notice. Nor was this all; he seemed capable of any
personal sacrifice that the welfare of Briggs demanded.

Before many days had passed he had placed the young man in direct
communication with the English officials in charge of the African
expedition. The salary was most generous; in fact, all the arrangements
were highly satisfactory. Whatever difficulties really existed melted,
as it were, before Aubrey’s influence, and Reuel would have approached
the time of departure over a bed of roses but for the pain of parting
with Dianthe.

At length the bustle of graduation was over. The last article of the
traveler’s outfit was bought. The morning of the day of departure was
to see the ceremony performed that would unite the young people for
life. It was a great comfort to Reuel that Charlie Vance had decided to
join the party as a tourist for the sake of the advantages of such a
trip.

The night before their departure Aubrey Livingston entertained the
young men at dinner in his rooms along with a number of college
professors and other learned savants. The most complimentary things
were said of Reuel in the after-dinner toasts, the best of wishes were
uttered together with congratulations on the marriage of the morrow for
they all admired the young enthusiast. His superiority was so evident
that none disputed it; they envied him, but were not jealous. The
object of their felicitations smiled seldom.

“Come, for heaven sake shake off your sadness; be the happy groom upon
whom Fortune, fickle jade, has at last consented to smile,” cried
Adonis. So, amid laughter and jest, the night passed and the morrow
came.

After his guests had departed, Aubrey Livingston went to the telegraph
office and sent a message:

  “To Jim Titus,

  “Laurel Hill, Virginia:--

 “Be on hand at the New York dock, Trans-Atlantic Steamship Co., on the
 first. I will be there to make things right for you. Ten thousand if
 you succeed the first six months.

  “A. L.”

       *       *       *       *       *

It was noon the next day and the newly wedded stood with clasped hands
uttering their good-byes.

“You must not be unhappy, dear. The time will run by before you know
it, and I shall be with you again. Meanwhile there is plenty to occupy
you. You have Molly and Aubrey to take you about. But pray remember my
advice,--don’t attempt too much; you’re not strong by any means.”

“No, I am not strong!” she interrupted with a wild burst of tears.
“Reuel, if you knew how weak I am you would not leave me.”

Her husband drew the fair head to his bosom, pressing back the thick
locks with a lingering lover’s touch.

“I wish to God I could take you with me,” he said tenderly after a
silence. “Dear girl, you know this grief of yours would break my heart,
only that it shows how well you love me. I am proud of every tear.”
She looked at him with an expression he could not read; it was full of
unutterable emotion--love, anguish, compassion.

“Oh,” she said passionately, “nothing remains long with us but sorrow
and regret. Every good thing may be gone tomorrow--lost! Do you know,
I sometimes dream or have waking visions of a past time in my life?
But when I try to grasp the fleeting memories they leave me groping in
darkness. Can’t you help me, Reuel?”

With a laugh he kissed away her anxieties, although he was dismayed to
know that at most any time full memory might return. He must speak to
Aubrey. Then he closed her lips with warm lingering kisses.

“Be a good girl and pray for your husband’s safety, that God may let
us meet again and be happy! Don’t get excited. That you _must_ guard
against.”

And Reuel Briggs, though his eyes were clouded with tears, was a happy
man at heart that day. Just that once he tasted to the full all that
there is of happiness in human life. Happy is he who is blessed with
even _one_ perfect day in a lifetime of sorrow. His last memory of her
was a mute kiss and a low “God bless you,” broken by a sob. And so
they parted.

In the hall below Molly Vance met him with a sisterly kiss for
good-bye; outside in the carriage sat Mr. Vance, Sr., Charlie and
Aubrey waiting to drive to the depot.

       *       *       *       *       *

Reuel Briggs, Charlie Vance and their servant, Jim Titus, sailed from
New York for Liverpool, England, on the first day of July.

       *       *       *       *       *

The departure of the young men made a perceptible break in the social
circle at Vance Hall. Mr. Vance buried himself in the details of
business and the two girls wandered disconsolately about the house and
grounds attended by Livingston, who was at the Hall constantly and
pursued them with delicate attentions.

By common consent it was determined that no summer exodus could be
thought of until after the travellers had reached August, all being
well, they would seek the limit of civilized intercourse in Africa.
While waiting, to raise the spirits of the family, it was decided to
invite a house party for the remainder of July, and in the beauties of
Bar Harbor. Soon gaiety and laughter filled the grand old rooms; the
days went merrily by.

Two men were sitting in the billiard room lounging over iced punch.
Light, perfumed and golden, poured from the rooms below upon the summer
night, and the music of a waltz made its way into the darkness.

“What an odd fish Livingston has grown to be,” said one, relighting a
thin, delicate-looking cigar. “I watched him out of curiosity a while
ago and was struck at the change in him.”

“Ah!” drawled the other sipping the cooling beverage. “Quite a Priuli
on the whole, eh?”

“Y-e-s! Precisely. And I have fancied that the beautiful Mrs. Briggs
is his Clarisse. What do you think? She shudders every time he draws
near, and sinks to the ground under the steady gaze of his eye. Odd,
isn’t it?”

“Deucedly odd! About to marry Miss Vance, isn’t he?”

“That don’t count. Love is not always legitimate. If there’s anything
in it, it is only a flirtation probably; that’s the style.”

“What you say is true, Skelton. Let’s drink the rest of this stuff and
go down again. I know we’re missed already.”

When they had swallowed the punch and descended, the first person they
saw was Livingston leaning against the door of the salon. His face was
abstracted and in dead repose, there lurked about the corners of his
full lips implacable resolution. The waltz was ended.

Some interminable argument was going on, generally, about the room.
Conversation progressed in sharp, brisk sentences, which fell from the
lips like the dropping shots of sharpshooters. There was a call for
music. Molly mentally calculated her available talent and was about to
give up the idea and propose something else, when she was amazed to see
Dianthe rise hurriedly from her seat on an ottoman, go to the piano
unattended and sit down. Unable to move with astonishment she watched
in fascination the slender white fingers flash over the keys. There was
a strange rigid appearance about the girl that was unearthly. Never
once did she raise her eyes. At the first sharp treble note the buzz in
the room was hushed at stillness. Livingston moved forward and rested
his arm upon the piano fastening his gaze upon the singer’s quivering
lips.

Slowly, tremulously at first, pealed forth the notes:

  “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land,
  Tell ol’ Pharaoh, let my people go.”

Scarcely was the verse begun when every person in the room started
suddenly and listened with eager interest. As the air proceeded,
some grew visibly pale, and not daring to breathe a syllable, looked
horrified into each other’s faces. “Great heaven!” whispered Mr. Vance
to his daughter, “do you not hear another voice beside Mrs. Briggs’?”

It was true, indeed. A weird contralto, veiled as it were, rising and
falling upon every wave of the great soprano, and reaching the ear as
from some strange distance. The singer sang on, her voice dropping
sweet and low, the echo following it, and at the closing word, she fell
back in a dead faint. Mr. Vance caught her in his arms.

“Mrs. Briggs has the soul of an artiste. She would make a perfect prima
donna for the Grand Opera,” remarked one man to Molly.

“We are as surprised as anyone,” replied the young girl; “we never knew
that Mrs. Briggs was musical until this evening. It is a delightful
surprise.”

They carried her to the quiet, cool library away from the glaring
lights and the excitement, and at her request left her there alone.
Her thoughts were painful. Memory had returned in full save as to her
name. She knit her brow in painful thought, finally leaning back among
her cushions wearily, too puzzled for further thought. Presently a step
paused beside her chair. She looked up into Livingston’s face.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked, gently taking in her slender wrist
and counting the pulse-beats.

Instead of answering his question, she began abruptly: “Mr. Livingston,
Reuel told me to trust you implicitly. Can you and will you tell me
what has happened to me since last I sang the song I have sung here
tonight? I try to recall the past, but all is confusion and mystery. It
makes my head ache so to think.”

Livingston suddenly drew closer to her.

“Yes, Felice, there _is_ a story in your life! I can save you.”

“Save me!” exclaimed the girl.

“Yes, and will! Listen to me.” In gentle accents he recounted to her
there in the stillness, with the pulsing music of the viols beating and
throbbing in her ears like muffled drums, the story of Dianthe Lusk as
we have told it here. At the close of the tale the white-faced girl
turned to him in despair the more eloquent because of her quietness.

“Did Reuel know that I was a Negress?”

“No; no one recognized you but myself.”

She hid her face in her hands.

“Who ever suffered such torture as mine?” she cried, bitterly. “And
there is no rest out of the grave!” she continued.

“Yes, there is rest and security in my love! Felice, Dianthe, I have
learned to love you!”

She sprang from his touch as if stung.

He continued: “I love you better than all in the world. To possess you
I am prepared to prove false to my friend--I am prepared to save you
from the fate that must be yours if ever Reuel learns your origin.”

“You would have me give up all for you?” she asked with a shudder.

“Ay, from your husband--from the world! We will go where none can ever
find us. If you refuse, I cannot aid you.”

“Pity me!”

She sank upon her knees at his feet.

“I give you a week to think it over. I can love, but cannot pity.”

In vain the girl sought to throw off the numbing influence of the man’s
presence. In desperation she tried to defy him, but she knew that she
had lost her will-power and was but a puppet in the hands of this false
friend.




                              CHAPTER IX.


“The Doctor is so good to you about letters; so different from poor
Charlie. I can’t imagine what he finds to write about.”

It was the first of August, and the last guest had left the mansion;
tomorrow they started for Bar Harbor. Molly, Dianthe and Livingston sat
together in the morning room.

“He tells me the incidents of the journey. This is the last letter for
three months,” said Dianthe, with a sigh.

“Of course, there is no love-making,” said Aubrey, lazily letting fall
his newspaper, and pushing his hands through his bright hair. He was
a sight for gods and men. His handsome figure outlined against the
sky, as he stood by the window in an attitude of listless grace, his
finely-cut face, so rich in color and the charm of varying expression,
turned indolently toward the two women to whom the morning mail had
brought its offering.

“Have you ever read one of Reuel’s letters?” Dianthe said, quietly.
“You may see this if you like.” A tap sounded on the door.

“Miss Molly, if you please, the dress-maker has sent the things.”

“Oh, thank you, Jennie, I’ll come at once!” and gathering up her
letters, Molly ran off with a smile and a nod of apology.

Aubrey stood by the window reading Reuel’s letter. His face was deadly
white, and his breath came quick and short. He read half the page; then
crushed it in his hand and crossed the room to Dianthe. She, too, was
pale and there was something akin to fear in the gaze that she lifted
to his face.

“How dare you?” he asked breathlessly; “but you are a woman! Not one of
you has any delicacy in her heart! Not one!”

He tore the letter across and flung it from him.

“I do not suffer enough,” he said in a suffocated voice. “You taunt me
with this view of conjugal happiness--with his _right_ to love and care
for you.”

“I did not do it to hurt you,” she answered. “Do you have no thought
for Molly’s sufferings if I succumb to your threats of exposure and
weakly allow myself to be frightened into committing the great wrong
you contemplate toward two true-hearted people? I thought you could
realize if you could _know_ how Reuel loves and trusts me, and how true
and noble is his nature.”

“Do you think I have room to pity Reuel--Molly--while my own pain is
more than I can bear? Without you my ambition is destroyed, my hope for
the future--my life is ruined.”

He turned from her and going to a distant part of the room, threw
himself into a chair and covered his face with his hands. Against her
will, better promptings and desires, the unfortunate girl is drawn
by invisible influences across the room to the man’s side. Presently
he holds her in his eager, strong embrace, his face and tears hidden
against her shoulder. She does not struggle in his clasp, only looks
into the future with the hopeless agony of dumb despair.

At length he broke the silence. “There is nothing you can feel, or say
to me that I do not realize--the sin, the shame, the lasting disgrace.
I know it all. I told you once I loved you; I tell you now that I
cannot _live_ without you!”

An hour later Dianthe sat alone in the pleasant room. She did not
realize the beauty of the languid mid-summer day. She thought of
nothing but the wickedness of betraying her friends. Her perfect
features were like marble. The dark eyes had deep, black circles round
them and gazed wistfully into the far, far distance, a land where
spirit only could compass the wide space. As she sat there in full
possession of all her waking faculties, suddenly there rose from out
the very floor, as it were, a pale and lovely woman. She neither looked
at Dianthe nor did she speak; but walked to the table and opened a book
lying upon it and wrote; then coming back, stood for a moment fixed;
then sank, just as she rose, and disappeared. Her dress was that of a
servant. Her head was bare; her hair fell loosely around her in long
black curls. Her complexion was the olive of mulattoes or foreigners.
As the woman passed from her view, Dianthe rose and went to the table
to examine the book. She did not feel at all frightened, recognizing
instantly the hand of mysticism in this strange occurrence. There
on the open page, she perceived heavy marks in ink, under-scoring
the following quotation from the 12th chapter of Luke: “For there is
nothing covered that shall not be revealed.” On the margin, at the end
of this passage was written in a fine female hand, the single word,
“Mira.”

       *       *       *       *       *

After luncheon Aubrey proposed that they go canoeing on the river. The
idea was eagerly embraced and by five o’clock the large and luxurious
canoe floated out from the boat-house upon the calm bosom of the lovely
Charles rocking softly to the little waves that lapped her sides.

The day had been oppressive, but upon the river a refreshing breeze
was blowing now that the sun had gone down. For the time all Dianthe’s
cares left her and her tortured mind was at peace. Molly was full of
life and jested and sang and laughed. She had brought her mandolin with
her and gave them soft strains of delicious waltzes.

On, on they glided under the impetus of the paddle-strokes in Aubrey’s
skilful hands, now past the verdure-clad pine hills, now through beds
of fragrant water-lilies getting gradually farther and farther from
the companionship of other pleasure-seekers. On, into the uninhabited
portion where silent woods and long green stretches of pasture-land
added a wild loneliness to the scene.

How lovely was the evening sky with its white clouds dotting the azure
and the pink tinting of the sunset casting over all its enlivening
glow; how deep, and dark was the green of the water beneath the
shadowing trees. From the land came the lowing of cows and the sweet
scent of freshly spread hay.

Suddenly Aubrey’s paddle was caught and held in the meshes of the
water-lily stems that floated all about them. He leaned far over to
extricate it and in a moment the frail craft was bottom up, its living
freight struggling in the river. Once, twice, thrice a thrilling call
for help echoed over the darkening land; then all was still.




                              CHAPTER X.


The expedition with which Reuel Briggs found himself connected was made
up of artists, savants and several men--capitalists--who represented
the business interests of the venture. Before the white cliffs of the
English coast were entirely lost to view, Reuel’s natural propensities
for leadership were being fully recognized by the students about him.
There was an immediate demand for his professional services and he was
kept busy for many days. And it was the best panacea for a nature like
his--deep and silent and self-suppressing. He had abandoned happiness
for duty; he had stifled all those ominous voices which rose from the
depth of his heart, and said to him: “Will you ever return? and if you
return will you find your dear one? and, if you find her, will she not
have changed? will she have preserved your memory as faithfully as you
will preserve hers?”

A thousand times a day while he performed his duties mechanically,
his fate haunted him--the renunciation which called on him to give up
happiness, to open to mishap the fatal door absence. All the men of
the party were more or less silent and distrait, even Charlie Vance
was subdued and thoughtful. But Briggs suffered more than any of them,
although he succeeded in affecting a certain air of indifference. As he
gradually calmed down and peace returned to his mind, he was surprised
to feel the resignation that possessed him. Some unseen presence spoke
to his inner being words of consolation and hope. He was shown very
clearly his own inability to control events, and that his fate was no
longer in his own hands but ordered by a being of infinite pity and
love. After hours spent in soul-communion with the spirit of Dianthe,
he would sink into refreshing slumber and away in peace. Her letters
were bright spots, very entertaining and describing minutely her life
and daily occupation since his departure. He lived upon them during the
voyage to Tripoli, sustained by the hope of finding one upon arriving
at that city.

One fine evening when the sun was setting, they arrived at Tripoli.
Their course lay toward the southward, and standing on deck, Reuel
watched the scene--a landscape strange in form, which would have
delighted him and filled him with transports of joy; now he felt
something akin to indifference.

The ripples that flit the burnished surface of the long undulating
billows tinkled continually on the sides of the vessel. He was aware of
a low-lying spectral-pale band of shore. That portion of Africa whose
nudity is only covered by the fallow mantle of the desert gave a most
sad impression to the gazer. The Moors call it “Bled el Ateusch,” the
Country of Thirst; and, as there is an intimate relation between the
character of a country and that of its people, Reuel realized vividly
that the race who dwelt here must be different from those of the rest
of the world.

“Ah! that is our first glimpse of Africa, is it?” said Adonis’s voice,
full of delight, beside him.

He turned to see his friend offering him a telescope. “At last we are
here. In the morning we shall set our feet on the enchanted ground.”

In the distance one could indeed make out upon the deep blue of the
sky the profile of Djema el Gomgi, the great mosque on the shores of
the Mediterranean. At a few cable lengths away the city smiles at them
with all the fascination of a modern Cleopatra, circled with an oasis
of palms studded with hundreds of domes and minarets. Against a sky
of amethyst the city stands forth with a penetrating charm. It is the
eternal enchantment of the cities of the Orient seen at a distance;
but, alas! set foot within them, the illusion vanishes and disgust
seizes you. Like beautiful bodies they have the appearance of life, but
within the worm of decay and death eats ceaselessly.

At twilight in this atmosphere the city outlines itself faintly, then
disappears in dusky haze. One by one the stars came into the sky until
the heavens were a twinkling blaze; the sea murmured even her soft
refrain and slept with the transparency of a mirror, flecked here and
there with fugitive traces of phosphorescence.

The two young men stood a long time on the deck gazing toward the shore.

“Great night!” exclaimed Adonis at length with a long-drawn sigh of
satisfaction. “It promises to be better than anything Barnum has ever
given us even at a dollar extra reserved seat.”

Reuel smiled in spite of himself; after all, Charlie was a home-line
warranted to ward off homesickness. On board there was the sound
of hurrying feet and a murmur of suppressed excitement, but it had
subsided shortly; an hour later “sleep and oblivion reigned over all.”

In the morning, amid the bustle of departure the mail came on board.
There were two letters for Reuel. He seated himself in the seclusion
of the cabin safe from prying eyes. Travelling across the space that
separated him from America, his thoughts were under the trees in the
garden of Vance Hall. In the fresh morning light he thought he could
discern the dress of his beloved as she came toward him between the
trees.

Again he was interrupted by Charlie’s jolly countenance. He held an
open letter in his hand. “There, Doc., there’s Molly’s letter. Read it,
read it; don’t have any qualms of conscience about it. There’s a good
bit in it concerning the Madam, see? I thought you’d like to read it.”
Then he sauntered away to talk with Jim Titus about the supplies for
the trip across the desert.

Jim was proving himself a necessary part of the expedition. He was a
Negro of the old régime who felt that the Anglo-Saxon was appointed by
God to rule over the African. He showed his thoughts in his obsequious
manner, his subservient “massa,” and his daily conversation with those
about him. Jim superintended the arrangement of the table of the
exploring party, haggled over prices with the hucksters, quarreled with
the galley cooks and ended by doing all the cooking for his party in
addition to keeping his eye on “Massa Briggs.” All of this was very
pleasant, but sometimes Reuel caught a gleam in Jim’s furtive black eye
which set him thinking and wondering at the latter’s great interest in
himself; but he accounted for this because of Livingston’s admonitions
to Jim to “take care of Dr. Briggs.”

Willing or not, the company of travellers were made to take part in
the noisy scene on deck when a horde of dirty rascals waylaid them, and
after many uses and combination of all sorts over a few cents, they
and their luggage were transported to the Custom House. “Ye gods!”
exclaimed Charlie in deep disgust, “what a jostling, and what a noise.”

All the little world about them was in an uproar, everyone signalling,
gesticulating, speaking at once. Such a fray bewilders a civilized
man, but those familiar with Southern exuberance regard it tranquilly,
well knowing the disorder is more apparent than real. Those of the
party who were familiar with the scene, looked on highly amused at the
bewilderment of the novices.

Most of them had acquired the necessary art of not hurrying, and under
their direction the examination of the baggage proceeded rapidly.
Presently, following a robust porter, they had traversed an open
place filled with the benches and chairs of a “café,” and soon the
travellers were surprised and amused to find themselves objects of
general curiosity. Coffee and nargiles were there merely as a pretext,
in reality the gathering was in their honor. The names of the members
of the expedition were known, together with its object of visiting
Meroe of ancient fame, the arrival of such respectable visitors is a
great event. Then, too, Tripoli is the natural road by which Africa has
been attacked by many illustrious explorers because of the facility
of communication with the country of the Blacks. Nowhere in northern
Africa does the Great Desert advance so near the sea. The Atlas range
rises from the Atlantic coast, extending far eastward. This range loses
itself in the gulf of Little Syrta, and the vast, long-pent-up element,
knowing no more barrier, spreads its yellow, sandy waves as far as the
Nile, enveloping the last half-submerged summits which form a rosary of
oases.

Under the Sultan’s rule Tripoli has remained the capital of a truly
barbaric state, virgin of improvements, with just enough dilapidated
abandon, dirt and picturesqueness to make the delight of the artist.
Arabs were everywhere; veiled women looked at the Christians with
melting eyes above their wrappings. Mohammedanism, already twelve
centuries old, has, after a period of inactivity, awakened anew in
Africa, and is rapidly spreading. Very unlike the Christians, the
faithful of today are the same fervid Faithful of Omar and Mohammed.
Incredulity, indifference, so widely spread among other sects are
unknown to them.

Supper-time found the entire party seated on the floor around a
well-spread tray, set on a small box. They had taken possession of the
one living-room of a mud house. It was primitive but clean. A post
or two supported the thatched ceiling. There were no windows. The
furniture consisted of a few rugs and cushions. But the one idea of
the party being sleep, they were soon sunk in a profound and dreamless
slumber.

The next day and the next were spent in trying to gain an audience with
the Sheik Mohammed Abdallah, and the days lengthened into weeks and
a month finally rolled into oblivion. Meantime there were no letters
for Dr. Briggs and Charlie Vance. Everyone else in the party had been
blessed with many letters, even Jim was not forgotten.

Reuel had learned to be patient in the dolce far miente of the East,
but not so Charlie. He fumed and fretted continually after the
first weeks had passed. But promptly at two, one hot afternoon the
Sheik knocked at the door of their hut. He was a handsome man of
forty years--tall, straight, with clear brown eyes, good features,
a well-shaped moustache and well-trimmed black beard. Authority
surrounded him like an atmosphere. He greeted the party in French and
Arabic and invited them to his house where a feast was spread for them.
Presents were given and received and then they were introduced to
Ababdis, an owner of camels who was used to leading parties into the
wilderness. After much haggling over prices, it was decided to take
fifteen camels and their drivers. Supplies were to consist of biscuit,
rice, tea, sugar, coffee, wax candles, charcoal and a copious supply
of water bags. It was decided not to start until Monday, after the
coming of the mail, which was again due. After leaving Tripoli, it was
doubtful when they would receive news from America again. The mail
came. Again Jim was the only one who received a letter from the United
States. Reuel handed it to him with a feeling of homesickness and a
sinking of the heart.

Monday morning found them mounted and ready for the long journey across
the desert to the first oasis. From the back of a camel Charlie Vance
kept the party in good humor with his quaint remarks. “Say, Doc., it’s
worth the price. How I wish the pater, your wife and Molly could see us
now. Livingston wouldn’t do a thing to these chocolate colored gentry
of Arabia.”

“And Miss Scott? where does she come in?” questioned Reuel with an
assumption of gaiety he was far from feeling.

“Oh,” replied Charlie, not at all non-plussed. “Cora isn’t in the
picture; I’m thinking of a houri.”

“Same old thing, Charlie--the ladies?”

“No,” said Charlie, solemnly. “It’s business this time. Say, Briggs,
the sight of a camel always makes me a child again. The long-necked
beast is inevitably associated in my mind with Barnum’s circus and
playing hookey. Pop wants me to put out my sign and go in for business,
but the show business suits me better. For instance,” he continued
with a wave of his hand including the entire caravan, “Arabs, camels,
stray lions, panthers, scorpions, serpents, explorers, etc., with a few
remarks by yours truly, to the accompaniment of the band--always the
band you know, would make an interesting show--a sort of combination
of Barnum and Kiralfy. The houris would do Kiralfy’s act, you know.
There’s money in it.”

“Were you ever serious in your life, Charlie?”

“What the deuce is the need of playing funeral all the time, tell me
that, Briggs, will you?”

The great desert had the sea’s monotony. They rode on and on hour after
hour. The elements of the view were simple. Narrow valleys and plains
bounded by picturesque hills lay all about them. The nearer hills to
the right had shoulders and hollows at almost regular intervals, and a
sky-line of an almost regular curve. Under foot the short grass always
seemed sparse, and the low sage-shrubs rather dingy, but as they looked
over the plain stretching away in every direction, it had a distinctly
green tint. They saw occasionally a red poppy and a purple iris. Not
a tree was to be seen, nor a rock. Sometimes the land lay absolutely
level and smooth, with hardly a stone larger than a bean. The soft blue
sky was cloudless, the caravan seemed to be the only living creature
larger than a gazelle in the great solitude. Even Reuel was aroused to
enthusiasm by the sight of a herd of these graceful creatures skimming
the plain. High in the air the larks soared and sang.

As they went southward the hot sun poured its level rays upon them, and
the song of the drivers was a relief to their thoughts. The singing
reminded travellers of Venetian gondoliers, possessing as it did the
plaintive sweetness of the most exquisite European airs. There was
generally a leading voice answered by a full chorus. Reuel thought
he had never heard music more fascinating. Ababdis would assume the
leading part. “Ah, when shall I see my family again; the rain has
fallen and made a canal between me and my home. Oh, shall I never see
it more?” Then would follow the chorus of drivers: “Oh, what pleasure,
what delight, to see my family again; when I see my father, mother,
brothers, sisters, I will hoist a flag on the head of my camel for
joy!” About the middle of the week they were making their way over the
Great Desert where it becomes an elevated plateau crossed by rocky
ridges, with intervening sandy plains mostly barren, but with here and
there a solitary tree, and sometimes a few clumps of grass. The caravan
was skirting the base of one of these ridges, which culminated in a
cliff looking, in the distance, like a half-ruined castle, which the
Arabs believed to be enchanted. Reuel determined to visit this cliff,
and saying nothing to any one, and accompanied only by Jim and followed
by the warnings of the Arabs to beware of lions, they started for the
piles of masonry, which they reached in a couple of hours. The moon
rose in unclouded splendor, and Moore’s lines came to his heart:

  “O, such a blessed night as this,
    I often think if friends were near,
  How we should feel, and gaze with bliss
    Upon the moonlight scenery here.”

He strolled into the royal ruin, stumbling over broken carvings,
and into hollows concealed by luminous plants, beneath whose shades
dwelt noisome things that wriggled away in the marvelous white light.
Climbing through what was once a door, he stepped out on a ledge of
masonry, that hung sheer seven hundred feet over the plain. Reuel got
out his pipe and it was soon in full blast, while the smoker set to
building castles in the curls of blue smoke, that floated lightly into
space. Jim with the guns waited for him at the foot of the hill.

Under the influence of the soothing narcotic and the spell of the
silver moon, Reuel dreamed of fame and fortune he would carry home
to lay at a little woman’s feet. Presently his castle-building was
interrupted by a low wail--not exactly the mew of a cat, nor yet the
sound of a lute.

Again the sound.

What could it be?

“Ah, I have it!” muttered Reuel; “it’s the Arabs singing in the camp.”

Little did he imagine that within ten paces of him crouched an enormous
leopard.

Little did he imagine that he was creeping, creeping toward him, as a
cat squirms at a bird.

He sat on the ruined ledge of the parapet, within two feet of the edge;
seven hundred feet below the desert sand glittered like molten silver
in the gorgeous moonlight.

He was unarmed, having given Jim his revolver to hold.

Reuel sat there entirely unconscious of danger; presently a vague
feeling struck him, not of fear, not of dread, but a feeling that if
he turned his head he would see an enemy, and without knowing why, he
slowly turned his head.

Great heavens! what did he see? A thrill of horror passed through him
as his eyes rested upon those of an enormous brute, glaring like hot
coals set in blood-red circles.

Its mouth was wide open, its whiskers moving like the antennae of a
lobster. It lay on its belly, its hindquarters raised, its forepaws
planted in the tawny sand ready to spring.

The moon played on the spots of its body. The dark spots became
silvered, and relapsed into darkness as the animal breathed, while its
tail lashed about, occasionally whipping the sand with a peculiar whish.

How was he to withstand its spring?

The weight of its body would send him over the precipice like a shot.

Strange to say a grim satisfaction came to him at the thought that the
brute must go down with him. Where could he hold? Could he clutch at
anything? he asked himself.

He dared not remove his eyes from those of the leopard. He could not
in fact. But in a sort of introverted glance he saw that nothing stood
between him and space but a bare, polished wall, that shone white
beneath the moonbeams.

“Was there a loose stone--a stone that would crush in the skull of the
blood-thirsty animal?” Not so much as a pebble to cast into the depths,
for he had already searched for one to fling over, as people do when
perched on eminences. He cried for help, “Jim! Jim! O-o-o-h, Jim!”

There came no reply; not the slightest sound broke the stillness as the
sound of his cries died away.

Reuel was now cool--cool as a cucumber--so cool that he deliberately
placed himself in position to receive the rush of the terrific brute.
He felt himself moving gently back his right foot, shuffling it back
until his heel came against an unevenness in the rock, which gave him a
sort of purchase--something to back it.

He gathered himself together for a supreme effort, every nerve being at
the highest condition of tension.

It is extraordinary all the thoughts that pass like lightning in a
second of time, through the mind, while face to face with death.
Volumes of ideas flashed through his brain as he stood on the stone
ledge, with eternity awaiting him, knowing that this would be the end
of all his hopes and fears and pleasant plans for future happiness,
that he would go down to death in the embrace of the infuriated animal
before him, its steel-like claws buried in his flesh, its fetid breath
filling his nostrils. He thought of his darling love, and of how the
light would go out of her existence with his death. He thought of
Livingston, of the fellows who had gathered to bid him God speed,
of the paragraphs in the papers. All these things came as harrowing
pictures as he stood at bay in the liquid pearl of the silent moon.

The leopard began to move its hindquarters from side to side. A spring
was at hand.

Reuel yelled then--yelled till the walls of the ruined castle echoed
again--yelled as if he had 10,000 voices in his throat--yelled, as a
man only yells when on his being heard depends his chance for dear life.

The beast turned its head sharply, and prepared to spring. For a second
Briggs thought that a pantomime trick might give him a chance. What if
he were to wait until the animal actually leaped, and then turn aside?

Carried forward by its own weight and momentum it would go over the
ledge and be dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

It was worth trying. A drowning man catches at a straw. Instinctively
Reuel measured his distance. He could step aside and let the brute
pass, but that was all. The ledge was narrow. He was, unhappily, in
very good condition. The sea-voyage had fattened him, and it was just a
chance that he could escape being carried over by the brute.

He accepted the chance.

Then came the fearful moment.

The leopard swayed a little backward!

Then, to his intense delight, he heard a shout of encouragement in
Vance’s well-known voice, “Coming, Briggs, coming!”

The next moment a hand was laid on his shoulder from a window above;
it was Charlie, who trembling with anxiety had crept through the ruin,
and, oh, blessed sight! handed Reuel his revolver.

Briggs made short work of the leopard: he let him have three
barrels--all in the head.

Vance had become alarmed for the safety of his friend, and had gone to
the ruin to meet him. When very nearly there, he had heard the first
cry for help, and had urged his camel forward. Arrived at the castle he
had found Jim apparently dead with sleep, coiled up on the warm sand.
How he could sleep within sound of the piercing cries uttered by Briggs
was long a mystery to the two friends.




                              CHAPTER XI.


The caravan had halted for the night. Professor Stone, the leader of
the expedition, sat in Reuel’s tent enjoying a pipe and a talk over the
promising features of the enterprise. The nearer they approached the
goal of their hopes--the ancient Ethiopian capital Meroe--the greater
was the excitement among the leaders of the party. Charlie from his bed
of rugs listened with ever-increasing curiosity to the conversation
between the two men.

“It is undoubtedly true that from its position as the capital of
Ethiopia and the entrepot of trade between the North and South, between
the East and West, Meroe must have held vast treasures. African
caravans poured ivory, frankincense and gold into the city. My theory
is that somewhere under those pyramids we shall find invaluable records
and immense treasure.”

“Your theories may be true, Professor, but if so, your discoveries will
establish the primal existence of the Negro as the most ancient source
of all that you value in modern life, even antedating Egypt. How can
the Anglo-Saxon world bear the establishment of such a theory?” There
was a hidden note of sarcasm in his voice which the others did not
notice.

The learned savant settled his glasses and threw back his head.

“You and I, Briggs, know that the theories of prejudice are swept
away by the great tide of facts. It is a _fact_ that Egypt drew
from Ethiopia all the arts, sciences and knowledge of which she was
mistress. The very soil of Egypt was pilfered by the Nile from the
foundations of Meroe. I have even thought,” he continued meditatively,
“that black was the original color of man in prehistoric times. You
remember that Adam was made from the earth; what more natural than that
he should have retained the color of the earth? What puzzles me is not
the origin of the Blacks, but of the Whites. Miriam was made a leper
outside the tents for punishment; Naaman was a leper until cleansed. It
is a question fraught with big possibilities which God alone can solve.
But of this we are sure--all records of history, sacred and profane,
unite in placing the Ethiopian as the primal race.”

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Charlie from his bed on the floor. “Count me out!”

“Don’t touch upon the origin of the Negro; you will find yourself in
a labyrinth, Professor. That question has provoked more discussion
than any other concerning the different races of man on the globe.
Speculation has exhausted itself, yet the mystery appears to remain
unsolved.

“Nevertheless the Biblical facts are very explicit, and so simple as
to force the very difficulties upon mankind that Divinity evidently
designed to avoid.

“The relationship existing between the Negro and other people of the
world is a question of absorbing interest. For my part, I shall be
glad to add to my ethnological knowledge by anything we may learn at
Meroe.” Thus speaking Reuel seemed desirous of dismissing the subject.
More conversation followed on indifferent subjects, and presently the
Professor bade them good night and retired to his own tent.

Reuel employed himself in making entries in his journal. Charlie
continued to smoke, at times evincing by a musical snore that he was in
the land of dreams. Jim sat at some distance reading a letter that he
held in his hand.

The night was sultry, the curtains of the tent undrawn: from out the
silent solitude came the booming call of a lion to his mate.

Suddenly a rush of balmy air seemed to pass over the brow of the
scribe, and a dim shadow fell across the tent door. It was the form of
the handsome Negress who had appeared to Dianthe, and signed herself
“Mira.”

There was no fear in Reuel’s gaze, no surprise; it was as if a familiar
and welcome visitor had called upon him. For a moment an impulse to
spring away into the wide, wide realms of air, seemed to possess him;
the next, the still, dreamy ecstasy of a past time; and then he saw
Jim--who sat directly behind him--placed like a picture on his very
table. He saw him knit his brow, contract his lip, and then, with a
face all seamed with discontent, draw from his vest a letter, seemingly
hidden in a private pocket, reading thus:--

 “Use your discretion about the final act, but be sure the letters are
 destroyed. I have advised the letters sent in your care as you will
 probably be detailed for the mail. But to avoid mishap call for the
 mail for both parties. Address me at Laurel Hill--Thomas Johnson.”

  “A. L.”

Twice did the visionary scene, passing _behind_ the seer, recross
his entranced eyes; and twice did the shadowy finger of the shining
apparition in the tent door point, letter by letter, to the pictured
page of the billet, which Jim was at that very moment perusing with
his natural, and Reuel Briggs with his spiritual eyes. When both had
concluded the reading, Jim put up his letter. The curtains of the tent
slightly waved; a low, long sigh, like the night’s wind wail, passed
over the cold, damp brow of the seer. A shudder, a blank. He looked out
into the desert beyond. All was still. The stars were out for him, but
the vision was gone.

Thus was explained to Reuel, by mesmeric forces, the fact that his
letters had been withheld.

He had not once suspected Jim of perfidy. What did it mean? he asked
himself. The letter was in Livingston’s handwriting! His head swam; he
could not think. Over and over again he turned the problem and then,
wishing that something more definite had been given him, retired, but
not to sleep.

Try as he would to throw it off, the most minute act of Jim since
entering his service persisted in coming before his inner vision.
The night when he was attacked by the leopard and Jim’s tardiness in
offering help, returned with great significance. What could he do but
conclude that he was the victim of a conspiracy.

“There is no doubt about it,” was his last thought as he dropped into
a light doze. How long he slept he could not tell, but he woke with a
wild, shrill cry in his ears: “Reuel, Reuel, save me!”

Three times it was repeated, clear, distinct, and close beside his ear,
a pause between the repetitions.

He roused his sleeping friend. “Charlie, Charlie! wake up and listen!”

Charlie, still half asleep, looked with blinking eyes at the candle
with dazzled sight.

“Charlie, for the love of God wake up!”

At this, so full of mortal fear were his words, Adonis shook off his
drowsiness and sat up in bed, wide awake and staring at him in wonder.

“What the deuce!” he began, and then stopped, gazing in surprise at the
white face and trembling hands of his friend.

“Charlie,” he cried, “some terrible event has befallen Dianthe, or like
a sword hangs over our heads. Listen, listen!”

Charlie did listen but heard nothing but the lion’s boom which now
broke the stillness.

“I hear nothing, Reuel.”

“O Charlie, are you sure?”

“Nothing but the lion. But that’ll be enough if he should take it into
his mind to come into camp for his supper.”

“I suppose you are right, for you can hear nothing, and I can hear
nothing now. But, oh Charlie! it was so terrible, and I heard it so
plainly; though I daresay it was only my--Oh God! there it is again!
listen! listen!”

This time Charlie heard--heard clearly and unmistakably, and hearing,
felt the blood in his veins turn to ice.

Shrill and clear above the lion’s call rose a prolonged wail, or rather
shriek, as of a human voice rising to heaven in passionate appeal for
mercy, and dying away in sobbing and shuddering despair. Then came the
words:

“Charlie, brother, save me!”

Adonis sprang to his feet, threw back the curtain of the tent and
looked out. All was calm and silent, not even a cloud flecked the sky
where the moon’s light cast a steady radiance.

Long he looked and listened; but nothing could be seen or heard. But
the cry still rang in his ears and clamored at his heart; while his
mind said it was the effect of imagination.

Reuel’s agitation had swallowed up his usual foresight. He had
forgotten his ability to resort to that far-seeing faculty which he had
often employed for Charlie’s and Aubrey’s amusement when at home.

Charlie was very calm, however, and soothed his friend’s fears, and
after several ineffectual attempts to concentrate his powers for the
exercise of the clairvoyant sight of the hypnotic trance, was finally
able to exercise the power.

In low, murmuring cadence, sitting statuesque and rigid beneath the
magnetic spell, Reuel rehearsed the terrible scene which had taken
place two months before in the United States in the ears of his
deeply-moved friend.

“Ah, there is Molly, poor Molly; and see your father weeps, and the
friends are there and they too weep, but where is my own sweet girl,
Dianthe, love, wife! No, I cannot see her, I do not find the poor
maimed body of my love. And Aubrey! What! Traitor, false friend! I
shall return for vengeance.

“Wake me, Charlie,” was his concluding sentence.

A few upward passes of his friend’s hands, and the released spirit
became lord of its casket once more. Consciousness returned, and
with it memory. In short whispered sentences Reuel told Vance of his
suspicions, of the letter he read while it lay in Jim’s hand, of his
deliberate intention to leave him to his fate in the leopard’s claws.

The friends laid their plans,--they would go on to Meroe, and then
return instantly to civilization as fast as steam could carry them, if
satisfactory letters were not waiting them from America.




                             CHAPTER XII.


Late one afternoon two weeks later, the caravan halted at the edge of
the dirty Arab town which forms the outposts to the island of Meroe.

Charlie Vance stood in the door of his tent and let his eyes wander
over the landscape in curiosity. Clouds of dust swept over the sandy
plains; when they disappeared the heated air began its dance again, and
he was glad to re-enter the tent and stretch himself at full length in
his hammock. The mail was not yet in from Cairo, consequently there
were no letters; his eyes ached from straining them for a glimpse of
the Ethiopian ruins across the glassy waters of the tributaries of the
Nile which encircled the island.

It was not a simple thing to come all these thousands of miles to
look at a pile of old ruins that promised nothing of interest to him
after all. This was what he had come for--the desolation of an African
desert, and the companionship of human fossils and savage beasts of
prey. The loneliness made him shiver. It was a desolation that doubled
desolateness, because his healthy American organization missed the
march of progress attested by the sound of hammers on unfinished
buildings that told of a busy future and cosy modern homeliness.
Here there was no future. No railroads, no churches, no saloons, no
schoolhouses to echo the voices of merry children, no promise of the
life that produces within the range of his vision. Nothing but the
monotony of past centuries dead and forgotten save by a few learned
savants.

As he rolled over in his hammock, Charlie told himself that next to
seeing the pater and Molly, he’d give ten dollars to be able to thrust
his nose into twelve inches of whiskey and soda, and remain there until
there was no more. Then a flicker of memory made Charlie smile as he
remembered the jollities of the past few months that he had shared with
Cora Scott.

“Jolly little beggar,” he mentally termed her. “I wonder what sort of a
fool she’d call me if she could see me now whistling around the ragged
edge of this solid block of loneliness called a desert.”

Then he fell asleep and dreamed he was boating on the Charles, and that
Molly was a mermaid sporting in a bed of water-lilies.

Ancient writers, among them Strabo, say that the Astabora unites its
stream with the Nile, and forms the island of Meroe. The most famous
historical city of Ethiopia is commonly called Carthage, but Meroe
was the queenly city of this ancient people. Into it poured the
traffic of the world in gold, frankincense and ivory. Diodorus states
the island to be three hundred and seventy-five miles long and one
hundred and twenty-five miles wide. The idea was borne in upon our
travellers in crossing the Great Desert that formerly wells must have
been established at different stations for the convenience of man and
beast. Professor Stone and Reuel had discovered traces of a highway and
the remains of cisterns which must have been marvellous in skill and
prodigious in formation.

All was bustle and commotion in the camp that night. Permission had
been obtained to visit and explore the ruins from the Arab governor of
the Province. It had cost money, but Professor Stone counted nothing as
lost that would aid in the solution of his pet theories.

The leaders of the enterprise sat together late that night, listening
to the marvellous tales told by the Professor of the city’s ancient
splendor, and examining closely the chart which had remained hidden
for years before it fell into his hands. For twenty-five years this
apostle of learning had held the key to immense wealth, he believed,
in his hands. For years he had tried in vain to interest the wealthy
and powerful in his scheme for finding the city described in his chart,
wherein he believed lay the gold mines from which had come the streams
of precious metal which made the ancient Ethiopians famous.

The paper was in a large envelope sealed with a black seal formed to
resemble a lotus flower. It was addressed:

TO THE STUDENT WHO, HAVING COUNTED THE COST, IS RESOLUTE TO ONCE MORE
REVEAL TO THE SCEPTICAL, THE ANCIENT GLORY OF HOARY MEROE.

Within the envelope was a faded parchment which the Professor drew
forth with trembling hands. The little company drew more closely about
the improvised table and its flickering candle which revealed the
faded writing to be in Arabic. There was no comment, but each one
listened intently to the reader, who translated very fully as he went
along.

“Be it known to you, my brother, that the great and surpassing wealth
mentioned in this parchment is not to be won without braving many
dangers of a deadly nature. You who may read this message, then, I
entreat to consider well the perils of your course. Within the mines of
Meroe, four days’ journey from the city toward Arabia, are to be found
gold in bars and gold in flakes, and diamonds, and rubies whose beauty
excels all the jewels of the earth. For some of them were hidden by the
priests of Osiris that had adorned the crown of the great Semiramis,
and the royal line of Queen Candace, even from ancient Babylon’s
pillage these jewels came, a spectacle glorious beyond compare.
There, too, is the black diamond of Senechus’s crown (Senechus who
suffered the captivity of Israel by the Assyrians), which exceeds all
imagination for beauty and color.

“All these jewels with much treasure beside you will gain by following
my plain directions.

“Four days’ journey from Meroe toward Arabia is a city founded by men
from the Upper Nile; the site is near one of its upper sources, which
still has one uniform existence. This city is situated on a forked
tributary, which takes its rise from a range of high, rocky mountains,
almost perpendicular on their face, from which descend two streams like
cataracts, about two miles apart, and form a triangle, which holds the
inner city. The outer city occupies the opposite banks on either side
of the streams, which after joining, form a river of considerable size,
and running some five miles, loses itself in the surrounding swamps.
The cities are enclosed within two great walls, running parallel with
the streams. There are also two bridges with gates, connecting the
inner and outer cities; two great gates also are near the mountain
ranges, connecting the outer city with the agricultural lands outside
the walls. The whole area is surrounded by extensive swamps, through
which a passage known only to the initiated runs, and forms an
impassable barrier to the ingress or egress of strangers.

“But there is another passage known to the priests and used by them,
and this is the passage which the chart outlines beneath the third
great pyramid, leading directly into the mines and giving access to the
city.

“When Egypt rose in power and sent her hosts against the mother
country, then did the priests close with skill and cunning this
approach to the hidden city of refuge, where they finally retired,
carrying with them the ancient records of Ethiopia’s greatness, and
closing forever, as they thought, the riches of her marvellous mines,
to the world.

“Beneath the Sphinx’ head lies the secret of the entrance, and yet not
all, for the rest is graven on the sides of the cavern which will be
seen when the mouth shall gape. But beware the tank to the right where
dwells the sacred crocodile, still living, although centuries have
rolled by and men have been gathered to the shades who once tended on
his wants. And beware the fifth gallery to the right where abide the
sacred serpents with jewelled crowns, for of a truth are they terrible.

“This the writer had from an aged priest whose bones lie embalmed in
the third pyramid above the Sphinx.”

With this extraordinary document a chart was attached, which, while an
enigma to the others, seemed to be perfectly clear to Professor Stone.

The letter ended abruptly, and the chart was a hopeless puzzle to the
various eyes that gazed curiously at the straggling outlines.

“What do you make of it, Professor?” asked Reuel, who with all his
knowledge, was at sea with the chart. “We have been looking for
mystery, and we seem to have found it.”

“What do I make of it? Why, that we shall find the treasure and all
return home rich,” replied the scholar testily.

“Rubbish!” snorted Charlie with fine scorn.

“How about the sacred crocodile and the serpents? My word, gentlemen,
if you find the back door key of the Sphinx’ head, there’s a chance
that a warm welcome is awaiting us.”

Charlie’s words met with approval from the others, but the Professor
and Reuel said nothing. There was silence for a time, each man drawing
at his pipe in silent meditation.

“Well, I’m only travelling for pleasure, so it matters not to me how
the rest of you elect to shuffle off this mortal coil, I intend to get
some fun out of this thing,” continued Charlie.

There was a shout of laughter from his companions.

“Pleasure!” cried one. “O Lord! You’ve come to the wrong place. This
is business, solid business. If we get out with our skins it will be
something to be thankful for.”

“Well,” said Reuel, rousing himself from a fit of abstraction, “I come
out to do business and I have determined to see the matter through if
all is well at home. We’ll prove whether there’s a hidden city or not
before we leave Africa.”

The Professor grasped his hand in gratitude, and then silence fell upon
the group. The curtains of the tent were thrown back. Bright fell the
moonlight on the sandy plain, the Nile, the indistinct ruins of Meroe,
hiding all imperfections by its magic fingers. It was a wonderful sight
to see the full moon looking down on the ruins of centuries. The weird
light increased, the shadows lengthened and silence fell on the group,
broken only by the low tones of Professor Stone as he told in broken
sentences the story of ancient Ethiopia.

“For three thousand years the world has been mainly indebted for its
advancement to the Romans, Greeks, Hebrews, Germans and Anglo-Saxons;
but it was otherwise in the first years. Babylon and Egypt--Nimrod
and Mizraim--both descendants of Ham--led the way, and acted as
the pioneers of mankind in the untrodden fields of knowledge. The
Ethiopians, therefore, manifested great superiority over all the
nations among whom they dwelt, and their name became illustrious
throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

“The father of this distinguished race was Cush, the grandson of Noah,
an Ethiopian.

“Old Chaldea, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, was the first
home of the Cushites. Nimrod, Ham’s grandson, founded Babylon. The
Babylonians early developed the energy of mind which made their country
the first abode of civilization. Canals covered the land, serving the
purposes of traffic, defense and irrigation. Lakes were dug and stored
with water, dykes built along the banks of rivers to fertilize the
land, and it is not surprising to learn that from the earliest times
Babylonia was crowded with populous cities. This grandeur was brought
about by Nimrod the Ethiopian.”

“Great Scott!” cried Charlie, “you don’t mean to tell me that all this
was done by _niggers_?”

The Professor smiled. Being English, he could not appreciate Charlie’s
horror at its full value.

“Undoubtedly your Afro-Americans are a branch of the wonderful and
mysterious Ethiopians who had a prehistoric existence of magnificence,
the full record of which is lost in obscurity.

“We associate with the name ‘Chaldea’ the sciences of astronomy and
philosophy and chronology. It was to the Wise Men of the East to
whom the birth of Christ was revealed; they were Chaldeans--of the
Ethiopians. Eighty-eight years before the birth of Abraham, these
people, known in history as ‘Shepherd Kings,’ subjugated the whole of
Upper Egypt, which they held in bondage more than three hundred years.”

“It is said that Egyptian civilization antedates that of Ethiopia,”
broke in Reuel. “How do you say, Professor?”

“Nothing of the sort, nothing of the sort. I know that in connecting
Egypt with Ethiopia, one meets with most bitter denunciation from most
modern scholars. Science has done its best to separate the race from
Northern Africa, but the evidence is with the Ethiopians. If I mistake
not, the ruins of Meroe will prove my words. Traditions with respect
to Memnon connect Egypt and Ethiopia with the country at the head of
the Nile. Memnon personifies the ethnic identity of the two races.
Ancient Greeks believed it. All the traditions of Armenia, where lies
Mt. Ararat, are in accordance with this fact. The Armenian geography
applies the name of Cush to four great regions--Media, Persia, Susiana,
Asia, or the whole territory between the Indus and the Tigris. Moses of
Chorene identifies Belus, king of Babylon with Nimrod.

“But the Biblical tradition is paramount to all. In it lies the
greatest authority that we have for the affiliation of nations, and it
is delivered to us very simply and plainly: ‘The sons of Ham were Cush
and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan ... and Cush begot Nimrod ... and the
beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in
the land of Shinar.’ It is the best interpretation of this passage to
understand it as asserting that the four races--Egyptians, Ethiopians,
Libyans and Canaanites--were ethnically connected, being all descended
from Ham; and that the primitive people of Babylon were a subdivision
of one of these races; namely, of the Cushite or Ethiopian.

“These conclusions have lately received important and unexpected
confirmation from the results of linguistic research. After the most
remarkable of Mesopotamian mounds had yielded their treasures, and
supplied the historical student with numerous and copious documents,
bearing upon the history of the great Assyrian and Babylonian
empires, it was determined to explore Chaldea proper, where mounds of
considerable height marked the site of several ancient cities. Among
unexpected results was the discovery of a new form of speech, differing
greatly from the later Babylonian language. In grammatical structure
this ancient tongue resembles dialects of the Turanian family, but its
vocabulary has been pronounced to be decidedly Cushite or Ethiopian;
and the modern languages to which it approaches nearest are thought
to be the Mahen of Southern Arabia and the Galla of Abyssinia. Thus
comparative philology appears to confirm old traditions. An Eastern
Ethiopia instead of being the invention of bewildered ignorance, is
rather a reality which it will require a good deal of scepticism to
doubt, and the primitive race that bore sway in Chaldea proper belongs
to this ethnic type. Meroe was the queenly city of this great people.”

“It is hard to believe your story. From what a height must this people
have fallen to reach the abjectness of the American Negro,” exclaimed a
listener.

“True,” replied the Professor. “But from what a depth does history show
that the Anglo-Saxon has climbed to the position of the first people of
the earth today.”

Charlie Vance said nothing. He had suffered so many shocks from the
shattering of cherished idols since entering the country of mysteries
that the power of expression had left him.

“Twenty-five years ago, when I was still a young man, the camel-driver
who accompanied me to Thebes sustained a fatal accident. I helped him
in his distress, and to show his gratitude he gave me the paper and
chart I have shown you tonight. He was a singular man, black hair and
eyes, middle height, dark-skinned, face and figure almost perfect, he
was proficient in the dialects of the region, besides being master of
the purest and most ancient Greek and Arabic. I believe he was a native
of the city he described.

“He believed that Ethiopia antedated Egypt, and helped me materially
in fixing certain data which time has proved to be correct. He added a
fact which the manuscript withholds,--that from lands beyond unknown
seas, to which many descendants of Ethiopia had been borne as slaves,
should a king of ancient line--an offspring of that Ergamenes who lived
in the reign of the second Ptolemy--return and restore the former glory
of the race. The preservation of this hidden city is for his reception.
This Arab also declared that Cush was his progenitor.”

“That’s bosh. How would they know their future king after centuries of
obscurity passed in strange lands, and amalgamation with other races?”
remarked the former speaker.

“I asked him that question; he told me that every descendant of the
royal line bore a lotus-lily in the form of a birthmark upon his
breast.”

It might have been the unstable shadows of the moon that threw a
tremulous light upon the group, but Charlie Vance was sure that Reuel
Briggs started violently at the Professor’s words.

One by one the men retired to rest, each one under the spell of
the mysterious forces of a past life that brooded like a mist over
the sandy plain, the dark Nile rolling sluggishly along within a
short distance of their camp, and the ruined city now a magnificent
Necropolis. The long shadows grew longer, painting the scene into
beauty and grandeur. The majesty of death surrounded the spot and its
desolation spoke in trumpet tones of the splendor which the grave must
cover, when even the memory of our times shall be forgotten.




                             CHAPTER XIII.


Next morning the camp was early astir before the dawn; and before the
sun was up, breakfast was over and the first boatload of the explorers
was standing on the site of the ruins watching the unloading of the
apparatus for opening solid masonry and excavating within the pyramids.

The feelings of every man in the party were ardently excited by the
approach to the city once the light of the world’s civilization. The
great French writer, Volney, exclaimed when first his eyes beheld the
sight, “How are we astonished when we reflect that to the race of
Negroes, the object of our extreme contempt, we owe our arts, sciences
and even the use of speech!”

From every point of view rose magnificent groups of pyramids rising
above pyramids. About eighty of them remaining in a state of partial
preservation. The principal one was situated on a hill two and a half
miles from the river, commanding an extensive view of the plain. The
explorers found by a hasty examination that most of them could be
ascended although their surfaces were worn quite smooth. That the
pyramids were places of sepulture they could not doubt. From every
point of view the sepulchres were imposing; and they were lost in
admiration and wonder with the first superficial view of the imposing
scene.

One of the approaches or porticoes was most interesting, the roof
being arched in regular masonic style, with what may be called a
keystone. Belonging without doubt to the remotest ages, their ruined
and defaced condition was attributed by the scientists to their great
antiquity. The hieroglyphics which covered the monuments were greatly
defaced. A knowledge of these characters in Egypt was confined to the
priests, but in Ethiopia they were understood by all showing that even
in that remote time and place learning and the arts had reached so high
a state as to be diffused among the common people.

For a time the explorers wandered from ruin to ruin, demoralized as to
routine work, gazing in open astonishment at the wonders before them.
Many had visited Thebes and Memphis and the Egyptian monuments, but
none had hoped to find in this neglected corner, so much of wonder and
grandeur. Within the pyramids that had been opened to the curious eye,
they found the walls covered with the pictures of scenes from what must
have been the daily life,--death, burial, marriage, birth, triumphal
processions, including the spoils of war.

Reuel noticed particularly the figure of a queen attired in long robe,
tight at neck and ankles, with closely fitted legs. The Professor
called their attention to the fact that the entire figure was
dissimilar to those represented in Egyptian sculpture. The figure was
strongly marked by corpulency, a mark of beauty in Eastern women. This
rotundity is the distinguishing feature of Ethiopian sculpture, more
bulky and clumsy than Egypt, but pleasing to the eye.

The queen held in one hand the lash of Osiris, and in the other a lotus
flower. She was seated on a lion, wearing sandals resembling those
specimens seen in Theban figures. Other figures grouped about poured
libations to the queen, or carried the standards graced and ornamented
by the figures of the jackal, ibis and hawk. At the extremity of each
portico was the representation of a monolithic temple, above which were
the traces of a funeral boat filled with figures.

Professor Stone told them that Diodorus mentions that some of the
Ethiopians preserved the bodies of their relatives in glass cases
(probably alabaster), in order to have them always before their eyes.
These porticoes, he thought, might have been used for that purpose.
The hair of the women was dressed in curls above the forehead and in
ringlets hanging on their shoulders.

One who had visited the chief galleries of Europe holding the treasures
accumulated from every land, could not be unmoved at finding himself on
the site of the very metropolis where science and art had their origin.
If he had admired the architecture of Rome and the magnificent use they
had made of the arch in their baths, palaces and temples, he would be,
naturally, doubly interested at finding in desolate Meroe the origin
of that discovery. The beautiful sepulchres of Meroe would give to him
evidence of the correctness of the historical records. And then it was
borne in upon him that where the taste for the arts had reached such
perfection, one might rest assured that other intellectual pursuits
were not neglected nor the sciences unknown. Now, however, her schools
are closed forever; not a vestige remaining. Of the houses of her
philosophers, not a stone rests upon another; and where civilization
and learning once reigned, ignorance and barbarism have reassumed their
sway.

This is the people whose posterity has been denied a rank among the
human race, and has been degraded into a species of talking baboons!

  “Land of the mighty Dead!
  There science once display’d
  And art, their charms;
  There awful Pharaohs swayed

  “Great nations who obeyed;
  There distant monarchs laid
  Their vanquished arms.
  They hold us in survey--

  “They cheer us on our way--
  They loud proclaim,
  From pyramidal hall--
  From Carnac’s sculptured wall--
  From Thebes they loudly call--
  “_Retake your fame_”

  “Arise and now prevail
  O’er all your foes;
  In truth and righteousness--
  In all the arts of peace--
  Advance and still increase,
  Though hosts oppose!”

Under the inspiration of the moment, Charlie, the irrepressible,
mounted to the top of the first pyramid, and from its peak proceeded
to harangue his companions, lugging in the famous Napoleon’s: “From
the heights of yonder Pyramids forty centuries are contemplating
you,” etc. This was admirably done, and the glances and grimaces of
the eloquent young American must have outvied in ugliness the once
gracious-countenanced Egyptian Sphinx.

We may say here that before the excavations of the explorers were
ended, they found in two of the pyramids, concealed treasures,--golden
plates and tables that must have been used by the priests in their
worship. Before one enormous image was a golden table, also of enormous
proportions. The seats and steps were also of gold, confirming the
ancient Chaldean records which tell of 800 talents of metal used in
constructing this statue.

There was also a statue of Candace, seated in a golden chariot. On
her knees crouched two enormous silver serpents, each weighing thirty
talents. Another queen (Professor Stone said it must be Dido from
certain peculiar figures) carried in her right hand a serpent by the
head, in her left hand a sceptre garnished with precious stones.

All of this treasure was collected finally, after indemnifying the
government, and carefully exported to England, where it rests today in
the care of the Society of Geographical Research.

They never forgot that sunset over the ancient capital of Ethiopia at
the close of the first day spent on the city’s site, in the Desert.
The awe-inspiring Pyramids throwing shadows that reminded one of the
geometrical problems of his student days; the backsheesh-loving Arabs,
in the most picturesque habiliments and attitudes; the patient camels,
the tawny sands, and the burnished coppery sunlight! They had brought
tents with them, leaving the most of the outfit on the opposite bank
under the care of Jim Titus, whom Reuel had desired the professor to
detail for that duty. Somehow since his adventure in the ruins with the
leopard, and the mysterious letter-reading, he had felt a deep-seated
mistrust of the docile servant. He concluded not to keep him any
nearer his person than circumstances demanded. In this resolve Charlie
Vance concurred; the two friends resolved to keep an eye on Titus, and
Ababdis was sent for the mail.

Reuel Briggs had changed much. Harassed by anxieties which arose from
his wife’s silence, at the end of two months he was fast becoming
a misanthrope. Charlie felt anxious as he looked at him walking
restlessly up and down in the pale moonlight, with fiery eyes fixed
on space. Charlie suppressed his own feelings over the silence of his
father and sister to comfort Reuel.

“You ought not, my dear Briggs,” he would say. “Come, for heaven’s
sake shake off that sadness which may make an end of you before you
are aware.” Then he would add, jestingly, “Decidedly, you regret the
leopard’s claws!”

On this night the excitement of new scenes had distracted the thoughts
of both men from their homes, and they lay smoking in their hammocks
before the parted curtains of the tent lazily watching Ababdis
advancing with a bundle in his hand. It was the long expected mail!




                             CHAPTER XIV.


It was some three weeks after this before Briggs was able to assume his
duties. The sudden shock of the news of his wife’s death over-weighted
a brain already strained to the utmost. More than once they despaired
of his life--Professor Stone and Vance, who had put aside his own grief
to care for his friend. Slowly the strong man had returned to life once
more. He did not rave or protest; Fate had no power to move him more;
the point of anguish was passed, and in its place succeeded a dumb
stupidity more terrible by far, though far more blessed.

His love was dead. He himself was dead for any sensibility of suffering
that he possessed. So for many days longer he lay in his hammock
seemingly without a thought of responsibility.

They had carried him back to the camp across the river, and there he
spent the long days of convalescence. What did he think of all day
as he moved like a shadow among the men or swung listlessly in the
hammock? Many of the men asked themselves that question as they gazed
at Briggs. One thought repeated itself over and over in his brain,
“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”
“Many waters”--“many waters”--the words whispered and sung appealingly,
invitingly, in his ears all day and all night. “Many waters, many
waters.”

One day he heard them tell of the removal of the door in the pyramid
two and one-half miles on the hill. They had found the Sphinx’ head
as described in the manuscript, but had been unable to move it with
any instrument in their possession. Much to his regret, Professor
Stone felt obliged to give the matter up and content himself with the
valuable relics he had found. The gold mines, if such there were, were
successfully hidden from searchers, and would remain a mystery.

The white orb of the moon was high in the heavens; the echoless sand
gave back no sound; that night Reuel rose, took his revolver and
ammunition, and leaving a note for Vance telling him he had gone to the
third pyramid and not to worry, he rowed himself over to Meroe. He had
no purpose, no sensation. Once he halted and tried to think. His love
was dead:--that was the one fact that filled his thoughts at first.
Then another took its place. Why should he live? Of course not; better
rejoin her where parting was no more. He would lose himself in the
pyramid. The manuscript had spoken of dangers--he would seek them.

As he went on the moon rose in full splendor behind him. Some beast of
the night plunged through a thicket along the path.

The road ascended steadily for a mile or more, crossing what must
have once been carriage drives. Under the light of the setting moon
the gradually increasing fertility of the ground shone silver-white.
Arrived at the top of the hill, he paused to rest and wipe the
perspiration from his face. After a few minutes’ halt, he plunged
on and soon stood before the entrance of the gloomy chamber; as he
stumbled along he heard a low, distinct hiss almost beneath his feet.
Reuel jumped and stood still. He who had been desirous of death but an
hour before obeyed the first law of nature. Who can wonder? It was but
the reawakening of life within him, and that care for what has been
entrusted to us by Omnipotence, will remain until death has numbed our
senses.

The dawn wind blew all about him. He would do no more until the dawn.
Presently the loom of the night lifted and he could see the outlines
of the building a few yards away. From his position he commanded the
plain at his feet as level as a sea. The shadows grew more distinct,
then without warning, the red dawn shot up behind him. The sepulchre
before him flushed the color of blood, and the light revealed the
horror of its emptiness.

Fragments of marble lay about him. It seemed to the lonely watcher that
he could hear the sound of the centuries marching by in the moaning
wind and purposeless dust.

The silence and sadness lay on him like a pall and seemed to answer to
the desolation of his own life.

For a while he rambled aimlessly from wall to wall examining the
gigantic resting place of the dead with scrupulous care. Here were
ranged great numbers of the dead in glass cases; up and up they mounted
to the vaulted ceiling. His taper flickered in the sombreness, giving
but a feeble light. The air grew cold and damp as he went on. Once upon
a time there had been steps cut in the granite and leading down to a
well-like depression near the center of the great chamber. Down he went
holding the candle high above his head as he carefully watched for the
Sphinx’ head. He reached a ledge which ran about what was evidently
once a tank. The ledge ran only on one side. He looked about for the
Sphinx; unless it was here he must retrace his steps, for the ledge ran
only a little way about one side of the chamber.

He was cold and damp, and turned suddenly to retrace his steps, when
just in front of him to the left the candle’s light fell full on the
devilish countenance of the Ethiopian Sphinx.

He moved quickly toward it; and then began an examination of the
figure. As he stepped backward his foot crushed through a skull; he
retreated with a shudder. He saw now that he stood in a space of
unknown dimensions. He fancied he saw rows of pillars flickering
drunkenly in the gloom. The American man is familiar with many things
because of the range of his experience, and Reuel Briggs was devoid of
fear, but in that moment he tasted the agony of pure, physical terror.
For the first time since he received his letters from home, he was
himself again filled with pure, human nature. He turned to retrace his
steps; something came out of the darkness like a hand, passed before
his face emitting a subtle odor as it moved; he sank upon the ground
and consciousness left him.

From profound unconsciousness, deep, merciful, oblivious to pain and
the flight of time, from the gulf of the mysterious shadows wherein
earth and heaven are alike forgotten, Reuel awoke at the close of the
fourth day after his entrance into the Great Pyramid. That Lethean
calm induced by narcotic odors, saved his reason. Great pain, whether
physical or mental, cannot last long, and human anguish must find
relief or take it.

A soft murmur of voices was in his ears as he languidly unclosed his
eyes and gazed into the faces of a number of men grouped about the
couch on which he lay, who surveyed him with looks of respectful
admiration and curiosity mingled with awe. One of the group appeared to
be in authority, for the others listened to him with profound respect
as they conversed in low tones, and were careful not to obtrude their
opinions.

Gradually his senses returned to him, and Reuel could distinguish his
surroundings. He gazed about him in amazement. Gone were all evidences
of ruin and decay, and in their place was bewildering beauty that
filled him with dazzling awe. He reclined on a couch composed of silken
cushions, in a room of vast dimensions, formed of fluted columns of
pure white marble upholding a domed ceiling where the light poured in
through rose-colored glass in soft prismatic shades which gave a touch
of fairyland to the scene.

The men beside him were strangers, and more unreal than the vast
chamber. Dark-visaged, he noticed that they ranged in complexion from
a creamy tint to purest ebony; the long hair which fell upon their
shoulders, varied in texture from soft, waving curls to the crispness
of the most pronounced African type. But the faces into which he gazed
were perfect in the cut and outline of every feature; the forms hidden
by soft white drapery, Grecian in effect, were athletic and beautifully
moulded. Sandals covered their feet.

The eyes of the leader followed Reuel’s every movement.

“Where am I?” cried Briggs impetuously, after a hurried survey of the
situation.

Immediately the leader spoke to his companions in a rich voice,
commanding, but with all the benevolence of a father.

“Leave us,” he said. “I would be alone with the stranger.”

He spoke in ancient Arabic known only to the most profound students of
philology. Instantly the room was cleared, each figure vanished behind
the silken curtains hanging between the columns at one side of the room.

“How came I here?” cried Reuel again.

“Peace,” replied the leader, extending his arms as if in benediction
above the young man’s head. “You have nothing to fear. You have been
brought hither for a certain purpose which will shortly be made clear
to you; you shall return to your friends if you desire so to do, after
the council has investigated your case. But why, my son, did you wander
at night about the dangerous passages of the pyramid? Are you, too, one
of those who seek for hidden treasure?”

In years the speaker was still young, not being over forty despite
his patriarchal bearing. The white robe was infinitely becoming,
emphasizing breadth of shoulder and chest above the silver-clasped
arm’s-eye like nothing he had seen save in the sculptured figures of
the ruined cities lately explored. But the most striking thing about
the man was his kingly countenance, combining force, sweetness and
dignity in every feature. The grace of a perfect life invested him like
a royal robe. The musical language flowed from his lips in sonorous
accents that charmed the scholar in his listener, who, to his own great
surprise and delight, found that conversation between them could be
carried on with ease. Reuel could not repress a smile as he thought of
the astonishment of Professor Stone if he could hear them rolling out
the ancient Arabic tongue as a common carrier of thought. It seemed
sacrilegious.

“But where am I?” he persisted, determined to locate his whereabouts.

“You are in the hidden city Telassar. In my people you will behold the
direct descendants of the inhabitants of Meroe. We are but a remnant,
and here we wait behind the protection of our mountains and swamps,
secure from the intrusion of a world that has forgotten, for the coming
of our king who shall restore to the Ethiopian race its ancient glory.
I am Ai, his faithful prime minister.”

Hopelessly perplexed by the words of the speaker, Reuel tried to
convince himself that he was laboring under a wild hallucination; but
his senses all gave evidence of the reality of his situation. Somewhere
in Milton he had read lines that now came faintly across his memory:

    “Eden stretched her lines
    From Auran eastward to the royal tow’rs
    Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,
    Or where the sons of Eden long before
  Dwelt in Telassar.”

Something of his perplexity Ai must have read in his eyes, for he
smiled as he said, “Not Telassar of Eden, but so like to Eden’s
beauties did our ancestors find the city that thus did they call it.”

“Can it be that you are an Ethiopian of those early days, now lost in
obscurity? Is it possible that a remnant of that once magnificent race
yet dwells upon old mother Earth? You talk of having lived at Meroe;
surely, you cannot mean it. Were it true, what you have just uttered,
the modern world would stand aghast.”

Ai bowed his head gravely. “It is even so, incredible though it may
seem to you, stranger. Destroyed and abased because of her idolatries,
Ethiopia’s arrogance and pride have been humbled in the dust. Utter
destruction has come upon Meroe the glorious, as was predicted. But
there was a hope held out to the faithful worshippers of the true God
that Ethiopia should stretch forth her hand unto Eternal Goodness, and
that then her glory should again dazzle the world. I am of the priestly
caste, and the office I hold descends from father to son, and has so
done for more than six thousand years before the birth of Christ. But
enough of this now; when you are fully rested and recovered from the
effect of the narcotics we were forced to give you, I will talk with
you, and I will also show you the wonders of our hidden city. Come with
me.”

Without more speech he lifted one of the curtains at the side of the
room, revealing another apartment where running water in marble basins
invited one to the refreshing bath. Attendants stood waiting, tall,
handsome, dark-visaged, kindly, and into their hands he resigned Reuel.

Used as he was to the improvements and luxuries of life in the modern
Athens, he could but acknowledge them as poor beside the combination
of Oriental and ancient luxury that he now enjoyed. Was ever man more
gorgeously housed than this? Overhead was the tinted glass through
which the daylight fell in softened glow. In the air was the perfume
and lustre of precious incense, the flash of azure and gold, the
mingling of deep and delicate hues, the gorgeousness of waving plants
in blossom and tall trees--palms, dates, orange, mingled with the
gleaming statues that shone forth in brilliant contrast to the dark
green foliage. The floor was paved with varied mosaic and dotted here
and there with the skins of wild animals.

After the bath came a repast of fruit, game and wine, served him on
curious golden dishes that resembled the specimens taken from ruined
Pompeii. By the time he had eaten night had fallen, and he laid
himself down on the silken cushions of his couch, with a feeling
of delicious languor and a desire for repose. His nerves were in a
quiver of excitement and he doubted his ability to sleep, but in a few
moments, even while he doubted, he fell into a deep sleep of utter
exhaustion.




                              CHAPTER XV.


When he arose in the morning he found that his own clothing had been
replaced by silken garments fashioned as were Ai’s with the addition of
golden clasps and belts. In place of his revolver was a jewelled dagger
literally encrusted with gems.

After the bath and breakfast, Ai entered the room with his noiseless
tread, and when the greetings had been said, invited him to go with
him to visit the public buildings and works of Telassar. With a swift,
phantomlike movement, Ai escorted his guest to the farther end of the
great hall. Throwing aside a curtain of rich topaz silk which draped
the large entrance doors he ushered him into another apartment opening
out on a terrace with a garden at its foot--a garden where a marvellous
profusion of flowers and foliage ran riot amid sparkling fountains and
gleaming statuary.

Through a broad alley, lined with majestic palms, they passed to the
extreme end of the terrace, and turning faced the building from which
they had just issued. A smile quivered for a moment on Ai’s face
as he noted Reuel’s ill-concealed amazement. He stood for a moment
stock-still, overcome with astonishment at the size and splendor of the
palace that had sheltered him over night. The building was dome-shaped
and of white marble, surrounded by fluted columns, and fronted by
courts where fountains dashed their spray up to the blue sky, and
flowers blushed in myriad colors and birds in gorgeous plumage flitted
from bough to bough.

It appeared to Reuel that they were on the highest point of what might
be best described as a horse-shoe curve whose rounded end rested on the
side of a gigantic mountain. At their feet stretched a city beautiful,
built with an outer and inner wall. They were in the outer city. Two
streams descended like cataracts to the plain below, at some distance
from each other, forming a triangle which held another city. Far in
the distance like a silver thread, he could dimly discern where the
rivers joined, losing themselves in union. As he gazed he recalled the
description of the treasure city that Professor Stone had read to the
explorers.

As far as the eye could reach stretched fertile fields; vineyards
climbed the mountain side. Again Reuel quoted Milton in his thoughts,
for here was the very embodiment of his words:

    “Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose,
    Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
    Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine
    Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
    Luxuriant; meanwhile murmuring waters fall
    Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake,
    That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown’d
    Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.
  The birds their choir apply; airs, vernal airs,
    Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
    The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
    Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
  Led on th’ eternal spring.”

Far below he could dimly discern moving crowds; great buildings reared
their stately heads towards a sky so blue and bewildering beneath
the sun’s bright rays that the gazer was rendered speechless with
amazement. Shadowy images of past scenes and happenings flitted across
his brain like transient reflection of a past perfectly familiar to him.

“Do you find the prospect fair?” asked Ai at length, breaking the
settled silence.

“Fairer than I can find words to express; and yet I am surprised to
find that it all seems familiar to me, as if somewhere in the past I
had known just such a city as this.”

Ai smiled a smile of singular sweetness and content; Reuel could have
sworn that there was a degree of satisfaction in his pleasure.

“Come, we will go down into the city. You who know the wonders of
modern life at its zenith, tell me what lesson you learn from the
wonders of a civilization which had its zenith six thousand years
before Christ’s birth.”

“Six thousand years before Christ!” murmured Reuel in blank stupidity.

“Aye; here in Telassar are preserved specimens of the highest
attainments the world knew in ancient days. They tell me that in many
things your modern world is yet in its infancy.”

“How!” cried Reuel, “do you then hold communion with the world outside
your city?”

“Certain members of our Council are permitted to visit outside the
gates. Do you not remember Ababdis?”

“Our camel-driver?”

Ai bowed. “He is the member who brought us news of your arrival, and
the intention of the expedition to find our city for the sake of its
treasure.”

More and more mystified by the words and manner of his guide, Reuel
made no reply. Presently they entered a waiting palanquin and were
borne swiftly toward the city. The silken curtains were drawn one side,
and he could drink in the curious sights. They soon left the country
behind them and entered a splendid square, where stately homes were
outlined against the dense blue of the sky. A statue of an immense
sphinx crouched in the center of the square, its giant head reaching
far into the ethereal blue. Fountains played on either side, dashing
their silvery spray beyond the extreme height of the head. Under
umbrageous trees were resting-places, and on the sphinx was engraved
the words: “That which hath been, is now; and that which is to be, hath
already been; and God requireth that which is past.”

Suddenly a crowd of men surged into the square, and a deep-toned bell
sounded from a distance. Swiftly sped the bearers, urged forward by the
general rush. The booming of the bell continued. They reached the end
of the avenue and entered a side street, through a court composed of
statues. They paused before a stately pile, towering in magnificence
high in the heavens, a pile of marvellously delicate architecture
worked in stone. The entrance was of incomparable magnificence. Reuel
judged that the four colossal statues before it represented Rameses the
Great. They were each sculptured of a single block of Syene granite of
mingled red and black. They were seated on cubical stones. The four
Colosses sitting there before that glittering pile produced a most
imposing effect.

The steps of the temple were strewn with flowers; the doors stood open,
and music from stringed instruments vibrated upon the air. The bearers
stopped at a side entrance, and at a sign from Ai, Reuel followed him
into the edifice.

All was silence, save for the distant hum of voices, and the faint
sound of music. They halted before a curtain which parted silently for
their entrance. It was a small room, but filled with a light of soft
colors; when Reuel could command his gaze, he beheld about twenty
men prostrated before him. Presently they arose and each filed past
him, reverently touching the hem of his white robe. Among them was
Ababdis, so transformed by his gorgeous robes of office as to be almost
unrecognizable.

Ai now assumed an azure robe embroidered in silver stars and crescents
that formed a sunburst in shape of a Grecian cross. He then advanced
towards Reuel bearing on a silken cushion a magnificent crown, where
the principal aigrette was shaped as a cross set with gems priceless in
value. Astounded at the sight, the young man stood motionless while it
was adjusted by golden chains about his head. The gems blazed with the
red of the ruby, the green of the emerald, the blue of the sapphire,
the yellow of the topaz, the cold white of priceless diamonds. But
dulling all the glories of precious stones, peerless in their own
class, lay the center ornament--the black diamond of Senechus’s crown,
spoken of in Professor Stone’s record. A white robe of silken stuff
was added to his costume, and again his companions filed past him in
deepest reverence. Reuel was puzzled to understand why so great homage
was paid to him. While he turned the thought in his mind, a bugle
sounded somewhere in the distance, sweet and high. Instantly, he felt
a gliding motion as if the solid earth were slipping from beneath his
feet, the curtains before him parted silently, and he found himself
alone on a raised platform in the center of a vast auditorium, crowded
with humanity. Lights twinkled everywhere; there was the fragrance of
flowers, there were columns of marble draped in amber, azure and green,
and glittering lamps encrusted with gems and swung by golden chains
from the sides of the building. A blazing arch formed of brilliant
lamps raised like a gigantic bow in the heavens and having in its
center the words

  “HAIL! ERGAMENES!”

in letters of sparkling fire, met his startled gaze. Then came a
ringing shout from the throats of the assembled multitude, “Ergamenes!
Ergamenes!” Again and again the throng lifted up the joyous cry.
Presently as Reuel stood there undecided what to do--not knowing what
was expected of him, as silently as he had come, he felt the motion of
the platform where he stood. The crowd faded from sight, the curtains
fell; once more he stood within the little room, surrounded by his
companions.

“Ababdis, Ai,” he demanded, sternly, “What is the meaning of this
strange happening, more like a scene from the Arabian Nights? Who is
Ergamenes?”

“Thou art Ergamenes--the long-looked-for king of Ethiopia, for whose
reception this city was built! But we will return to the palace, now
that the people have satisfied somewhat their curiosity. At supper you
shall know more.”

Once more the bearers carried them swiftly beyond the confines of
the city, and soon the palace walls rose before them. Reuel had
hardly collected his scattered wits before he found himself seated at
table and on either side of the board the Council reclined on silken
cushions. His own seat was raised and placed at the head of the table.
There was no talking done while what seemed to be a solemn feast was
in progress. Servants passed noiselessly to and fro attending to their
wants, while from an alcove the music of stringed instruments and
sweetest vocal numbers was borne to their ears.

After supper, they still reclined on the couches. Then from the hidden
recesses the musicians came forth, and kneeling before Reuel, one began
a song in blank verse, telling the story of Ergamenes and his kingdom.

      “Hail! oh, hail, Ergamenes!
  The dimmest sea-cave below thee,
    The farthest sky-arch above,
  In their innermost stillness know thee,
    And heave with the birth of Love.
     All hail!
  We are thine, all thine, forevermore;
  Not a leaf on the laughing shore,
  Not a wave on the heaving sea,
    Nor a single sigh
    In the boundless sky,
  But is vowed evermore to thee!”

“Son of a fallen dynasty, outcast of a sunken people, upon your breast
is a lotus lily, God’s mark to prove your race and descent. You,
Ergamenes, shall begin the restoration of Ethiopia. Blessed be the name
of God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are His, and He changeth
the times and seasons; He removeth kings and countries, and setteth
them up again; He giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them
that know understanding! He revealeth the deep and secret things; He
knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him!

“Great were the sins of our fathers, and the white stranger was to
Ethiopia but a scourge in the hands of an offended God. The beautiful
temples of Babylon, filled with vessels of silver and gold, swelled
the treasures of the false god Bel. Babylon, where our monarchs dwelt
in splendor, once the grandest city to be found in the world. Sixty
miles round were its walls, of prodigious height, and so broad that
seven chariots could be driven abreast on the summit! One hundred
gates of solid brass gave entrance into the city, guarded by lofty
towers. Beautiful buildings rose within, richly adorned and surrounded
by gardens. One magnificent royal palace was girdled by three walls,
the outermost of which was seven miles and a half in compass. In its
grounds rose the far-famed hanging gardens, terraces built one above
another to the height of three hundred and fifty feet, each terrace
covered with thick mould, and planted with flowers and shrubs, so
that the skill of man created a verdant hill on a plain. Nearly in
the centre rose the lofty temple of Belus, the tower of Babel, whose
builders had hoped to make its summit touch the very skies. Millions
of dollars in gold were gathered in the chambers of the temple. The
wealth, power and glory of the world were centered in the mighty city
of Babylon.

“On the throne of this powerful city sat your forefathers, O Ergamenes!”

Part of the story had been given in recitative, one rich voice carrying
grandly the monotonous notes to the accompaniment of the cornet, flute,
sackbut, dulcimer and harp. Reuel had listened to the finest trained
voices attempting the recitative in boasted musical circles, but never
in so stately and impressive a manner as was now his privilege to hear.
They continued the story.

“And Meroe, the greatest city of them all, pure-blooded Ethiopian. Once
the light of the world’s civilization, now a magnificent Necropolis.

“Standing at the edge of the Desert, fertile in soil, rich in the
luxuries of foreign shores; into her lap caravans poured their
treasures gathered from the North, South, East and West. All Africa
poured into this queenly city ivory, frankincense and gold. Her
colossal monuments were old before Egypt was; her wise men monopolized
the learning of the ages, and in the persons of the Chaldeans have
figured conspicuously the wisdom of ages since Meroe has fallen.

“Mother of ancient warfare, her horsemen and chariots were the wonder
and terror of her age; from the bows of her warriors, the arrows sped
like a flight of birds, carrying destruction to her foes,--a lamb in
peace, a lion in time of war.”

Once more the measure changed, and another voice took up the story in
verse.

  “Who will assume the bays
    That the hero wore?
  Wreaths on the Tomb of Days
    Gone evermore!
  Who shall disturb the brave
  Or one leaf of their holy grave?
  The laurel is vow’d to them,
  Leave the bay on its sacred stem!
  But hope, the rose, the unfading rose,
  Alike for slave and freeman grows!

  “On the summit, worn and hoary,
  Of Libya’s solemn hills,
  The tramp of the brave is still!
  And still is the poisoned dart,
  In the pulse of the mighty hearts,
  Whose very blood was glory!

  “Who will assume the bays
    That the hero wore?
  Wreaths on the Tomb of Days
    Gone evermore!”

Upon Reuel a strange force seemed working. If what he heard were true,
how great a destiny was his! He had carefully hidden his Ethiopian
extraction from the knowledge of the world. It was a tradition among
those who had known him in childhood that he was descended from a
race of African kings. He remembered his mother well. From her he had
inherited his mysticism and his occult powers. The nature of the mystic
within him was, then, but a dreamlike devotion to the spirit that had
swayed his ancestors; it was the shadow of Ethiopia’s power. The lotus
upon his breast he knew to be a birthmark. Many a night he had been
aroused from childhood’s slumbers, to find his mother bending above
him, candle in hand, muttering broken sentences of prayer to Almighty
God as she examined his bosom by the candle’s rays. He had wondered
much; now he guessed the rest. Once more the clanging strings of the
instruments chained his attention. The recitative was resumed.

“The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to
whomsoever He will. He delivereth and rescueth, and He worketh signs
and wonders in heaven and in earth. Pre-eminent in peace, invincible
in war--once the masters of mankind, how have we fallen from our high
estate!

“Stiff-necked, haughty, no conscience but that of intellect, awed
not by God’s laws, worshipping Mammon, sensual, unbelieving, God has
punished us as he promised in the beginning. Gone are our ancient
glories, our humbled pride cries aloud to God in the travail of
our soul. Our sphinx, with passionless features, portrays the dumb
suffering of our souls.

  “Their look, with the reach of past ages, was wise,
  And the soul of eternity thought in their eyes.

“By divine revelation David beheld the present time, when, after
Christ’s travail for the sins of humanity, the time of Ethiopia’s
atonement being past, purged of idolatry, accepting the One Only
God through His Son Jesus, suddenly should come a new birth to the
descendants of Ham, and Ethiopia should return to her ancient glory!
Ergamenes, all hail!

  “You come from afar
    From the land of the stranger,
  The dreadful in war,
    The daring in danger;
  Before him our plain
    Like Eden is lying;
  Behind him remain
    But the wasted and dying.

  “The weak finds not ruth,
    Nor the patriot glory;
  No hope for the youth,
    And no rest for the hoary;
  O’er Ethiop’s lost plains
    The victor’s sword flashes,
  Her sons are in chains,
    And her temples in ashes!

  “Who will assume the bays
    That the hero wore?
  Wreaths on the Tomb of Days
    Gone evermore!”

Upon his companions the song of the past of Ethiopia had a strange
effect. Soothing at times, at times exciting, with the last notes
from the instruments the company sprang to their feet; with flashing
dark eyes, faces reflecting inward passions, they drew their short,
sabrelike arms and circled about Reuel’s throne with the shout
“Ergamenes! Ergamenes!”




                             CHAPTER XVI.


Once more Reuel found himself alone with Ai. It was far into the night,
but he felt sleepless and restless. At last Ai broke a long silence:

“Tell me of the country from which you come, Ergamenes. Is it true that
the Ethiopian there is counted less than other mortals?”

“It is true, Ai,” replied Reuel. “There, the dark hue of your skin,
your waving hair with its trace of crispness, would degrade you below
the estate of any man of fair hue and straight locks, belonging to any
race outside the Ethiopian, for it is a deep disgrace to have within
the veins even one drop of the blood you seem so proud of possessing.”

“That explains your isolation from our race, then?”

Reuel bowed his head in assent, while over his face passed a flush of
shame. He felt keenly now the fact that he had played the coward’s part
in hiding his origin. What though obstacles were many, some way would
have been shown him to surmount the difficulties of caste prejudice.

“And yet, from Ethiopia came all the arts and cunning inventions
that make your modern glory. At our feet the mightiest nations have
worshipped, paying homage to our kings, and all nations have sought
the honor of alliance with our royal families because of our strength,
grandeur, riches and wisdom. Tell me of all the degradation that has
befallen the unfortunate sons of Ham.”

Then in the deep, mysterious silence of the night, Reuel gave in
minutest detail the story of the Negro, reciting with dramatic effect
the history of the wrongs endured by the modern Ethiopian.

To his queries as to the history of these mountain-dwelling Ethiopians,
Ai gave the following reply:

“We are a singular people, governed by a female monarch, all having
the same name, Candace, and a Council of twenty-five Sages, who are
educated for periodical visits to the outer world. Queen Candace is a
virgin queen who waits the coming of Ergamenes to inaugurate a dynasty
of kings. Our virgins live within the inner city, and from among them
Candace chooses her successor at intervals of fifteen years.

“To become a Sage, a man must be married and have at least two
children; a knowledge of two out-world languages, and to pass a severe
examination by the court as to education, fitness and ability. After
an arduous preparation they are initiated into the secrets of this
kingdom. They are chosen for life. The inner city is the virgins’
court, and it is adorned with beautiful gardens, baths, schools and
hospitals. When a woman marries she leaves this city for the outer one.

“We have a great temple, the one you entered, dedicated to the Supreme
or Trinity. It is a masterpiece of beauty and art. The population
assembles there twice a year for especial service. It seats about
12,000 persons. The Sages have seen nothing equal to it in the outer
world.

“Octagonal in shape, with four wings or galleries, on opposite sides;
the intervening spaces are filled with great prism columns, twenty-five
feet high, made of a substance like glass, malleable, elastic and
pure. The effect is gorgeous. The decorations of the hall are prepared
natural flowers; that is, floral garlands are subjected to the fumes
of the crystal material covering them like a film and preserving their
natural appearance. This is a process handed down from the earliest
days of Ethiopian greatness. I am told that the modern world has not
yet solved this simple process,” he said, with a gentle smile of
ridicule.

“We preserve the bodies of our most beautiful women in this way. We
suspend reflecting plates of the crystal material arranged in circles,
pendant from the ceiling of the central hall, and thus the music of the
instruments is repeated many times in sweetest harmony.

“We have services at noon every seventh day, chiefly choral, in praise
of the attributes of the Supreme. Our religion is a belief in One
Supreme Being, the center of action in all nature. He distributed a
portion of Himself at an early age to the care of man who has attained
the highest development of any of His terrestrial creatures. We call
this ever-living faculty or soul Ego.

“After its transition Ego has the power of expressing itself to other
bodies, with like gift and form, its innate feeling; and by law of
affinity, is ever striving to regain its original position near the
great Unity; but the physical attractions of this beautiful world
have such a fascination on the organism of man that there is ever a
contention against the greater object being attained; and unless the
Ego can wean the body from gross desires and raise it to the highest
condition of human existence, it cannot be united to its Creator. The
Ego preserves its individuality after the dissolution of the body.
We believe in re-incarnation by natural laws regulating material on
earth. The Ego can never be destroyed. For instance, when the body of
a good man or woman dies, and the Ego is not sufficiently fitted for
the higher condition of another world, it is re-associated with another
body to complete the necessary fitness for heaven.”

“What of the Son of man? Do you not know the necessity of belief in the
Holy Trinity? Have not your Sages brought you the need of belief in
God’s Son?” Ai looked somewhat puzzled.

“We have heard of such a God, but have not paid much attention to it.
How believe you, Ergamenes?”

“In Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” replied Reuel solemnly.

“O Ergamenes, your belief shall be ours; we have no will but yours.
Deign to teach your subjects.”

When at last Reuel closed his eyes in slumber, it was with a feeling of
greater responsibility and humility than he had ever experienced. Who
was he that so high a destiny as lay before him should be thrust upon
his shoulders?

After these happenings, which we have just recorded, every day Reuel
received callers in state. It seemed to him that the entire populace
of that great hidden city turned out to do him homage. The Sages,
clad in silver armor, attended him as a body-guard, while soldiers
and officials high in the councils of the State, were ranged on both
sides of the immense hall. The throne on which he sat was a massive
one of silver, a bronze Sphinx couched on either side. The steps of
the throne were banked with blossoms, offerings from the procession
of children that filed slowly by, clad in white, wearing garlands of
roses, and laying branches of palm, oleander flowers, lilies and olive
sprays before their king.

Offerings of gold, silver and gems, silken cloths, priceless articles
moulded into unique and exquisite designs, sword of tempered steel,
beside which a Damascus blade was coarse and unfinished, filled his
artist soul with delight and wonder. Later, Ai escorted him to the
underground workshops where brawny smiths plied their trades; and there
the secrets of centuries dead and gone were laid bare to his curious
gaze.

How was it possible, he asked himself again and again, that a nation so
advanced in literature, science and the arts, in the customs of peace
and war, could fall as low as had the Ethiopian? Even while he held the
thought, the answer came: As Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream,
so has it been and is with Ethiopia. “They shall drive thee from men,
and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall
make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of
heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou knowest that
the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever
He will. Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee; after that thou shalt
have known that the heavens do rule.”

But the excitement and changes through which he had passed began
to tell upon a constitution already weakened by mental troubles.
Ai observed with much concern, the apathy which foretold a serious
illness. Hoping to arouse him from painful thoughts which now engrossed
his mind, Ai proposed that the visit to the inner city, postponed by
the pressure of other duties, be made the next day.

That morning a company, of which the Sages formed a part, started for
the inner city. They were to spend the night in travel, resting by
day. The progress of the party was very slow, and in a direction Reuel
had not yet explored. A deep yellow glow suffused the sky. This soon
gave way to the powerful but mellow light of the African moon, casting
long shadows over the silvery green of the herbage and foliage. They
encountered a perfect network of streams, pursuing their way through
virgin forests, brilliant by daylight with beautiful flowers. The woods
were inhabited by various kinds of birds of exquisite note and plumage.
There were also a goodly number of baboons, who descended from the
trees and ranged themselves on the ground to obtain a nearer view of
the travellers. They grinned and chattered at the caravan, seeming to
regard them as trespassers in their domains.

The character of the country improved as they neared the interior.
Reuel noticed that this was at variance with the European idea
respecting Central Africa, which brands these regions as howling
wildernesses or an uninhabitable country. He found the landscape most
beautiful, the imaginary desert “blossomed like the rose,” and the
“waste sandy valleys” and “thirsty wilds,” which had been assigned to
this location, became, on close inspection, a gorgeous scene, decorated
with Nature’s most cheering garniture, teeming with choice specimens
of vegetable and animal life, and refreshed by innumerable streams,
branches of the rivers, not a few of which were of sufficient magnitude
for navigation and commerce. But Reuel remembered the loathsome desert
that stood in grim determination guarding the entrance to this paradise
against all intrusion, and with an American’s practical common sense,
bewailed this waste of material.

Proceeding along a mountain gorge, our travellers found the path
straitened between the impending mountain on one side and a rapid and
sparkling stream on the other. On the opposite side of the ravine the
precipices rose abruptly from the very edge of the water. The whole
appearance of this mountain pass was singularly grand, romantically
wild and picturesquely beautiful. They were often obliged to clamber
over huge masses of granite, fallen from the cliffs above; and, on
this account, progress was slow and toilsome. On turning an angle
of the rock, about the centre of the gorge, the party were suddenly
confronted by a huge, tawny lion, which stood directly in the path,
with not a wall and scarce a space between. The path was so narrow in
this place that it would have been impossible to pass the brute without
touching him. Used to the king of the African jungle, the company did
not shrink, but faced the animal boldly, although not without some
natural physical fear. The lion, too, seemed to be taken by surprise.
Thus the opponents stood at a distance of five yards, each staring at
the other for several minutes. Had the travellers shown the least signs
of fear, or had they attempted to escape, the fate of one, at least,
would have been sealed. Now appeared an exhibition of the power of
magnetism. Reuel stepped in advance of the foremost bearer, fixed his
wonderful and powerful eyes upon the beast, literally transfixing him
with a glance, poured the full force of his personal magnetism upon the
animal, which almost instantly responded by low growls and an uneasy
twisting of the head; finally, the terrible glance remaining inflexible
and unwavering, the beast turned himself about and slowly withdrew with
a stately and majestic tread, occasionally looking back and uttering a
low growl, as if admonishing the travellers to keep their distance.

Murmurs of wonder and admiration broke from Reuel’s companions, who
were aware of the danger attending the meeting of a hungry lion at
close quarters. His admirable intrepidity, and the remarkable powers
which were his birthright, had preserved him and his companions.

“Truly, he is the King!” they murmured among themselves. And more than
ever Ai watched him with increasing love and the fondness of a father.

Without further adventure they reached the portals of the inner city.
Their arrival was evidently anticipated, for they were received by
a band of young females under the guardianship of a matron. By this
escort they were shown to the palace and into the rooms set apart for
their reception. Having rested for an hour, bathed and dined, they
were ready for the ceremony of introduction. Another guard of women
took them in charge, and the procession started down one passage,
crossed a great, aisle-like hall, and came to a corresponding passage
on the other side. On through seemingly endless colonnades they passed,
till they came to a huge door formed of great winged creatures. Reuel
had thought that nothing could surpass the palace in the outer city
for beauty and luxury, but words failed him as his eyes drank in the
glories of the lofty apartment into which they stepped, as an Amazon in
silver mail threw wide the glittering doors, disclosing the splendor
of the royal Presence-chamber. It was a lofty saloon lined with gilded
columns, the sunlight falling from the open roof upon the mosaic floor
beneath. The tapestries which lined the walls bore exquisite paintings
of love and warfare.

As the door opened, a voice called. The company halted before a
curtained recess, guarded by a group of beautiful girls. Never had
Reuel beheld such subtle grace of form and feature, such masses of
coal-black hair, such melting eyes of midnight hue. Each girl might
have posed for a statue of Venus.

The heavy curtains were lifted now, and discovered the Queen reclining
upon a pile of silken cushions--a statue of Venus worked in bronze.

“The Queen is here!” exclaimed a voice. In an instant all present
prostrated themselves upon the floor. Reuel alone stood erect, his
piercing eyes fixed upon the woman before him.

Grave, tranquil and majestic, surrounded by her virgin guard, she
advanced gracefully, bending her haughty head; then, gradually her
sinuous body bent and swayed down, down, until she, too, had prostrated
herself, and half-knelt, half-lay, upon the marble floor at Reuel’s
feet.

“O Ergamenes, hast thou indeed returned to thine inheritance?” murmured
a voice like unto silver chimes. Reuel started, for it seemed to him
that Dianthe’s own voice was breathing in his ears.

Knowing now what was expected of him, he raised the Queen with one
hand, addressed her courteously in Arabic, led her to her silken couch,
seated himself, and would have placed her beside him, but she, with a
gesture of dissent, sank upon the cushions at his feet that had served
her for footstools.

By this time the Sages had risen and now reclined on the silken couches
with which the apartment was well supplied. Ai advanced and addressed
the Queen; during this exchange of courtesies, Reuel gazed upon her
curiously.

She reminded him strongly of his beautiful Dianthe; in fact, the
resemblance was so striking that it was painful, and tears, which were
no disgrace to his manhood, struggled to his eyes. She was the same
height as Dianthe, had the same well-developed shoulders and the same
admirable bust. What suppleness in all her movements! What grace,
and, at the same time, what strength! Yes; she was a Venus, a superb
statue of bronze, moulded by a great sculptor; but an animated statue,
in which one saw the blood circulate, and from which life flowed. And
what an expressive face, full of character! Long, jet-black hair and
totally free, covered her shoulders like a silken mantle; a broad,
square forehead, a warm bronze complexion; thick black eyebrows, great
black eyes, now soft and languishing--eyes which could weep in sorrow
or shoot forth lightning in their anger; a delicate nose with quivering
nostrils, teeth of dazzling whiteness behind lips as red as a rose;
in her smile of grace and sweetness lurked a sense of power. He was
astonished and lost in admiration in spite of himself. Her loveliness
was absolutely and ideally perfect. Her attitude of unstudied grace
accorded well with the seriousness of her face; she seemed the
embodiment of all chastity.

The maidens of her household waited near her--some of them with baskets
of flowers upheld in perfect arms. Some brought fruit in glittering
dishes and wine in golden goblets of fairy-like fretwork, which were
served from stands of ivory and gold. One maiden knelt at her lyre,
prepared to strike its chords at pauses in the conversation.

The attendants now retired modestly into the background, while Ai and
the other Sages conversed with the Queen. She listened with downcast
eyes, occasionally casting a curious, though deferential glance at the
muscular figure beside her.

“And dost thou agree, and art thou willing to accept the destiny
planned by the Almighty Trinity for thee and me from the beginning of
all things, my lord?” she questioned at length in her flute-like voice.

“Queen Candace, thy beauty and graciousness dazzle me. I feel that I
can love thee with all my heart; I will fulfill my destiny gladly, and
I will cleave to thee until the end.”

“Now,” answered the Queen with sweet humility, “now, when thou,
my lord, doth speak so royally, it doth not become me to lag in
generosity.” She paused.

Reuel, gazing into her beautiful face, was deeply moved by strong
emotions. Again she spoke:

“Behold! in token of submission I bow to my lord, King Ergamenes.”
She bent herself slowly to the ground, and pressed her knees for one
instant upon the mosaic floor. “Behold,” and she touched his forehead
lightly with her lips, “in earnest of connubial bliss, I kiss thee,
King Ergamenes. Behold,” and she placed her hand upon his heart,
“I swear to thee eternal fealty by the Spirit--the never-changing
Trinity.” This ceremony ended she seated herself once more beside him.
Reuel felt himself yielding readily to her infinite attractiveness. In
the azure light and regal splendor of the fragrant apartment, there was
rest and satisfaction. All the dreams of wealth and ambition that had
haunted the feverish existence by the winding Charles, that had haunted
his days of obscure poverty in the halls of Harvard, were about to be
realized. Only once had he known joy in his checkered life, and that
was when he basked in the society of Dianthe, whom he now designated
his spirit-bride. The delirium of that joy had ended in lamentation.
Doubts and misgivings had assailed him in the silence of the night when
Ai had left him and his influence was withdrawn. Then he had but a
faint-hearted belief in the wonderful tale told to him, but here, under
Queen Candace’s magic influence, all doubts disappeared, and it seemed
the most natural thing in the world to be sitting here among these
descendants of the ancient Ethiopians, acknowledged as their King,
planning a union with a lovely woman, that should give to the world a
dynasty of dark-skinned rulers, whose destiny should be to restore the
prestige of an ancient people.

Verily, if the wonders he had already seen and heard could be possible
in the nineteenth century of progress and enlightenment, nothing was
impossible. Dianthe was gone. The world outside held nothing dear to
one who had always lived much within himself. The Queen was loving,
beautiful--why not accept this pleasant destiny which held its alluring
arms so seductively towards him? A sudden moisture filled his eyes; a
curious vague softness and tenderness stole over him. Turning abruptly
toward his hostess, he held out his own swimming goblet:

“Drink we a loving cup together, oh Queen Candace!” he said in a voice
that trembled with earnestness. “I pledge my faith in return for thine!”

The Queen returned his ardent gaze with one of bright surprise and
joyous happiness, and bending her head, drank a deep draught of the
proffered wine.

“Almost thou lovest me, Ergamenes. May the Eternal Trinity hold fast
our bonds!” With a graceful salute she returned the goblet. Reuel drank
off in haste what remained within it.

“Behold! I have prepared against this happy hour,” continued the Queen,
and going to an inlaid cabinet at one side of the room, she took from
it a curious ring of dull gold, bearing one priceless gem cut in the
form of a lotus lily. “Hold forth thy hand,” she said, and on his
finger placed the ring.

“Thus do I claim thee for all eternity.”

The Sages had watched the actors in this life-drama with jealous eyes
that noted every detail with open satisfaction. At Queen Candace’s last
words, Ai extended his arms with the solemn words:

“And now it is done and never can be undone or altered. Let us hence,
that the union may be speedily accomplished.”




                             CHAPTER XVII.


In a month the marriage was to be celebrated with great pomp and
rejoicing. Preparations began as soon as the interview between the
Queen and the prospective King was over.

After his return from this betrothal, the power of second sight
which seemed to have left Reuel for a time, returned in full force.
Restlessness was upon him; Dianthe’s voice seemed ever calling to him
through space. Finally, when his feelings became insupportable, he
broached the subject to Ai.

The latter regarded his questioner gravely. “Of a truth thou art
a legitimate son of Ethiopia. Thou growest the fruits of wisdom.
Descendant of the wise Chaldeans, still powerful to a degree undreamed
of by the pigmies of this puny age, you look incredulous, but what I
tell you is the solemn truth.”

“The Chaldeans disappeared from this world centuries ago,” declared
Reuel.

“Not all--in me you behold their present head; within this city and the
outer world, we still number thousands.”

Reuel uttered an exclamation of incredulous amazement. “Not possible!”

Silently Ai went to his cabinet and took down a small, square volume
which he placed in Reuel’s hand. “It is a record of the wisdom and
science of your ancestors.”

Reuel turned it over carefully,--the ivory pages were covered with
characters sharply defined and finely engraved.

“What language is this? It is not Hebrew, Greek nor Sanskrit, nor any
form of hieroglyphic writing.”

“It is the language once commonly spoken by your ancestors long before
Babylon was builded. It is known to us now as the language of prophecy.”

Reuel glanced at the speaker’s regal form with admiration and reverence.

“Teach me what thou knowest, Ai,” he said humbly, “for, indeed, thou
art a wonderful man.”

“Gladly,” replied Ai, placing his hand in loving tenderness upon the
bowed head of the younger man. “Our destiny was foreordained from the
beginning to work together for the upbuilding of humanity and the
restoration of the race of our fathers. This little book shall teach
your soul all that you long to know, and now grasp but vaguely. You
believe in the Soul?”

“Most assuredly!”

“As a Personality that continues to live after the body perishes?”

“Certainly.”

“And that Personality begins to exert its power over our lives as
soon as we begin its cultivation. Death is not necessary to its
manifestation upon our lives. There are always angels near! To us who
are so blessed and singled out by the Trinity there is a sense of the
supernatural always near us--others whom we cannot see, but whose
influence is strong upon us in all the affairs of life. Man only proves
his ignorance if he denies this fact. Some in the country from which
you come contend that the foundations of Christianity are absurd and
preposterous, but all the prophecies of the Trinity shall in time be
fulfilled. They are working out today by the forces of air, light,
wind,--the common things of daily life that pass unnoticed. Ethiopia,
too, is stretching forth her hand unto God, and He will fulfill her
destiny. The tide of immigration shall set in the early days of the
twentieth century, toward Africa’s shores, so long bound in the chains
of barbarism and idolatry.”

Reuel listened entranced, scarce breathing.

“I was warned of your coming long before the knowledge was yours. The
day you left your home for New York, I sat within my secret chamber,
and all was revealed to me.”

“Ay, Ai,” Reuel answered, feebly. “But how?”

“You believe that we can hold communion with the living though seas
divide and distance is infinite, and our friends who have passed to the
future life of light are allowed to comfort us here?”

“I believe.”

“’Tis so,” continued Ai. “Half by chance and half by learning, I long
ago solved one of the great secrets of Nature. Life is wonderful,
but eternity is more wonderful.” He paused, regarding affectionately
Reuel’s troubled face.

“I will answer thy question presently. But can I do aught for thee?
Dost memories of that world from which thou hast recently come disturb
thee, Ergamenes? I have some feeble powers; if thou wilt, command
them.” Ai fell into the use of “thee” and “thou” always when greatly
moved, and Reuel had become very dear to him.

“I would know some happenings in the world I have left; could my desire
be granted, I might, perchance, lose this restlessness which now
oppresses me.”

Ai regarded him intently. “How far hast thou progressed in knowledge of
Infinity?” he asked at length.

“You shall be the judge,” replied Reuel. And then ensued a technical
conversation on the abstract science of occultism and the future state.

“I see thou are well versed,” said Ai finally, evidently well pleased
with the young man’s versatility. “Come with me. Truly we have not
mistaken thee, Ergamenes. Wonderfully hast thou been preserved and
fitted for the work before thee.”

Reuel had the freedom of the palace, but he knew that there were
rooms from which he was excluded. One room especially seemed to be
the sanctum sanctorium of the Sages. It was to this room that Ai now
conducted him.

Reuel was nearly overpowered with the anticipation of being initiated
into the mysteries of this apartment. He found nothing terrifying,
however, in the plain, underground room into which he was ushered.
A rough table and wooden stools constituted the furniture. The only
objects of mystery were a carved table at one end of the apartment,
with a silken cloth thrown over its top, and a vessel like a baptismal
font, cut in stone, full of water. Air and light came from an outside
source, for there were no windows in the room. After closing the door
securely, Ai advanced and removed the cloth from the table. “Sit,” he
commanded. “You ask me how I knew of your coming to my land. Lo, I have
followed your career from babyhood. Behold, Ergamenes! What would you
see upon the mirror’s face? Friend or foe?”

Reuel advanced and looked upon the surface of a disk of which the top
of the table was composed. The material of which the polished surface
was composed was unknown to Reuel; it was not glass, though quite
transparent; it was not metal, though bright as polished steel.

Reuel made no wish, but thought of the spot where the accident had
occurred upon the River Charles weeks before. He was startled to
observe a familiar scene where he had often rowed for pleasure on
pleasant summer evenings. Every minute particular of the scenery was
distinctly visible. Presently the water seemed to darken, and he saw
distinctly the canoe containing Aubrey, Molly and Dianthe gliding over
the water. He started back aghast, crying out, “It is magical!”

“No, no, Ergamenes, this is a secret of Nature. In this disk I can
show thee what thou wilt of the past. In the water of the font we see
the future. Think of a face, a scene--I will reflect it for thee on
this disk. This is an old secret, known to Ethiopia, Egypt and Arabia
centuries ago. I can reflect the past and the faces of those passed
away, but the living and the future are cast by the water.”

Reuel was awed into silence. He could say nothing, and listened to
Ai’s learned remarks with a reverence that approached almost to
worship before this proof of his supernatural powers. What would the
professors of Harvard have said to this, he asked himself. In the heart
of Africa was a knowledge of science that all the wealth and learning
of modern times could not emulate. For some time the images came and
went upon the mirror, in obedience to his desires. He saw the scenes
of his boyhood, the friends of his youth, and experienced anew the
delights of life’s morning. Then he idly desired to see the face of his
loved Dianthe, as she last appeared on earth. The surface of the disk
reflected nothing!

“You have not reached perfection then, in this reflector?”

“Why think you so?” asked Ai gravely.

“I have asked to see the face of a friend who is dead. The mirror did
not reflect it.”

“The disk cannot err,” said Ai. “Let us try the water in the font.”

“But that reflects the living, you say; she is dead.”

“The disk cannot err,” persisted Ai. He turned to the font, gazed in
its surface, and then beckoned Reuel to approach. From the glassy
surface Dianthe’s face gazed back at him, worn and lined with grief.

“’Tis she!” he cried, “her very self.”

“Then your friend still lives,” said Ai, calmly.

“Impossible!”

“Why do you doubt my word, Ergamenes?”

Then with great suppressed excitement and much agitation, Reuel
repeated the story of Dianthe’s death as brought to him by the last
mail he had received from America.

“You say that ‘Molly,’ as you call her, was also drowned?”

“Yes.”

“Let us try the disk.”

They returned to the mirror and instantly the face of Molly Vance gazed
at them from the river’s bed, surrounded by seaweed and grasses.

“Can a man believe in his own sanity!” exclaimed Reuel in an agony of
perplexity.

Ai made no reply, but returned to the font. “I think it best to call up
the face of your enemy. I am sure you have one.” Immediately the water
reflected the debonair face of Aubrey Livingston, which was almost
instantly blotted out by the face of Jim Titus.

“Two!” murmured Ai. “I thought so.”

“If she then lives, as your science seems to insist, show me her
present situation,” cried Reuel, beside himself with fears.

“I must have a special preparation for the present,” said Ai, calmly.
He set about preparing a liquid mixture. When this was accomplished he
washed the face of the disk with a small sponge dipped in the mixture.
A film of sediment instantly formed upon it.

“When this has dried, I will scrape it off and polish the mirror,
then we shall be ready for the demonstration. One picture only will
come--this will remain for a number of days, after that the disk will
return to its normal condition. But, see! the sediment is caked. Now
to remove it and finish our test.” At last it was done, and the disk
repolished. Then standing before it, Ai cried, in an earnest voice:

“Let the present appear upon the disk, if it be for the benefit of Thy
human subjects!”

Ai appeared perfectly calm, but his hands shook. Reuel remained a short
remove from him, awaiting his summons.

“Come, Ergamenes.”

For a few moments Reuel gazed upon the plate, his eyes brilliant with
expectation, his cheeks aglow with excitement. Then he involuntarily
shuddered, a half suppressed groan escaped him, and he grew ashy
pale. In a trice he became entirely unnerved, and staggered back and
forth like a drunken man. Greatly alarmed, and seeing he was about to
fall, Ai sprang to his side and caught him. Too late. He fell to the
floor in a swoon. The picture reflected by the disk was that of the
ancestral home of the Livingstons. It showed the parlor of a fine old
mansion; two figures stood at an open window, their faces turned to the
interior. About the woman’s waist the man’s arm was twined in a loving
embrace. The faces were those of Aubrey and Dianthe.

Late that night Reuel tossed upon his silken couch in distress of
mind. If the disk were true, then Dianthe and Aubrey both lived and
were together. He was torn by doubts, haunted by dreadful fears of he
knew not what. If the story of the disk were true, never was man so
deceived and duped as he had been. Then in the midst of his anger and
despair came an irresistible impulse to rise from his bed. He did so,
and distinctly felt the pressure of a soft hand upon his brow, and a
yielding body at his side. The next instant he could have sworn that he
heard the well-known tones of Dianthe in his ears, saying:

“Reuel, it is I.”

Unable to answer, but entirely conscious of a presence near him, he had
presence of mind enough to reiterate a mental question. His voiceless
question was fully understood, for again the familiar voice spoke:

“I am not dead, my husband; but I am lost to you. Not of my own seeking
has this treachery been to thee, O beloved. The friend into whose care
you gave me has acquired the power over me that you alone possessed,
that power sacred to our first meeting and our happy love. Why did you
leave me in the power of a fiend in human shape, to search for gold?
There are worse things in life than poverty.”

Calming the frenzy of his thoughts by a strong effort, Reuel continued
his mental questions until the whole pitiful story was his. He knew not
how long he continued in this communion. Over and over he turned the
story he had learned in the past few hours. Ungovernable rage against
his false friend possessed him. “Blind, fool, dupe, dotard!” he called
himself, not to have seen the treachery beneath the mask of friendship.
And then to leave her helpless in the hands of this monster, who had
not even spared his own betrothed to compass his love for another.

But at least revenge was left him. He would return to America and
confront Aubrey Livingston with his guilt. But how to get away from the
hidden city. He knew that virtually he was a prisoner.

Still turning over ways and means, he fell into an uneasy slumber, from
which he was aroused by a dreadful shriek.




                            CHAPTER XVIII.


It was now two months since Reuel’s strange disappearance from the
camp of the explorers. Day after day they had searched every inch of
the ground within and about the pyramids, with no success. Charlie
Vance was inconsolable, and declared his intention of making his home
at Meroe until Reuel was found. He scouted the idea of his death by
falling a prey to wild beasts, and hung about the vicinity of the
Great Pyramid with stubborn persistence. He was no longer the spoiled
darling of wealth and fashion, but a serious-minded man of a taciturn
disposition.

He spent money like water in his endeavor to find the secret passage,
believing that it existed, and that in it Reuel was lost.

One morning he and Jim Titus laid bare a beautifully worked marble
wall, built of fine masonry, with even blocks, each a meter and a half
long, and below the exquisitely worked moulding two further layers
of well-worked calcareous stone. The whole formed a foundation for a
structure which had fallen into ruins about two and a half meters high.
But this wall continued for thirteen meters only, and then returned at
right angles at each end. On the inner side this marble structure was
backed by large blocks of calcareous stone, and in the inner angles,
they had with much labor to break up and remove two layers of blocks
superimposed at right angles, one upon another. The entire party was
much puzzled to learn what this structure could have been.

Sculptures and paintings lined the walls. As usual, there was a queen,
attired in a long robe. The queen had in one hand the lash of Osiris
and in the other a lotus flower.

At the extremity of each portico was the representation of a monolithic
temple, above which were the traces of a funeral boat filled with
figures.

After two days’ work, the skilled diggers assured the explorers
that they could do nothing with the debris but to leave it, as it
was impossible to open the structure. But in the night, Charlie was
kept awake by the thought that this curious structure might hold the
expedition’s secret; and remembering that perseverance was never
beaten, set to work there the next morning, digging into the interior
and breaking up the huge blocks which impeded his progress. The next
day another impediment was reached, and it was decided to give it up.
Again Charlie was awake all night, puzzling over the difficulties
encountered, and again he made up his mind not to give it up. Charlie
was learning many needed lessons in bitterness of spirit out in
these African wilds. Sorrow had come to him here in the loss of his
sister, and the disappearance of his friend. As Reuel had done in the
night weeks before, so he did now, rising and dressing and securing
his weapons, but taking the precaution to awaken Jim, and ask him to
accompany him for a last visit to the Pyramid.

Jim Titus seemed strangely subdued and quiet since Reuel’s
disappearance. Charlie decided that their suspicions were wrong, and
that Jim was a good fellow, after all.

As they trudged along over the sandy paths in the light of the great
African moon, Charlie was glad of Jim’s lively conversation. Anecdotes
of Southern life flowed glibly from his tongue, illustrated by songs
descriptive of life there. It really seemed to Vance that a portion of
the United States had been transported to Africa.

They entered the great Pyramid, as Reuel had done before them, lit
their torches, and began slowly and carefully to go over the work of
excavation already done.

They passed down a side passage opening out of the outer passage, down
a number of steps and along an underground shaft made by the workmen.
Suddenly the passage ended. They halted, held up the lamps and saw such
a scene as they were not likely to see again. They stood on the edge of
an enormous pit, hedged in by a wall of rock. There was an opening in
the wall, made by a hinged block of stone. This solid door had opened
noiselessly, dark figures had stolen forth, and had surrounded the two
men. As they discovered their strange companions, weapons of burnished
steel flashed and seemed to fill the vault. Not a sound was heard but
the deep breathing of men in grim determination and on serious business
bent. Instantly the two travellers were bound and gagged.

Instantly, after the seizure, the eyes of the prisoners were
blindfolded; then they were half led, half dragged along by their
captors. As he felt the grip of steel which impelled a forward
movement, Charlie bitterly cursed his own folly in undertaking so mad
a venture. “Poor Reuel,” he lamented, “was this the explanation of his
disappearance?” Reuel had been the life of the party; next to Professor
Stone, he was looked up to as leader and guide, and with his loss, all
interest seemed to have dropped from the members of the expedition.

For half an hour they were hurried along what must have been deep
underground passages. Charlie could feel the path drop beneath his feet
on solid rock which seemed to curve over like the edges of a waterfall.
He stumbled, and would have fallen if strong arms had not upheld him.
He could feel the rock worn into deep gutters smoother than ice. For
the first time he heard the sound of his captors’ voices. One in
command gave an order in an unknown tongue. Charlie wished then that he
had spent more time in study and less in sport.

“Oh,” he groaned in spirit, “what a predicament for a free-born
American citizen, and one who has had on the gloves with many a famous
ring champion!” He wondered how Jim was faring, for since the first
frightened yell from his lips, all had been silence.

There came another brief command in the unknown tongue, and the
party halted. Then Charlie felt himself lifted into what he finally
determined was a litter. He settled himself comfortably, and the
bearers started. Charlie was of a philosophical nature; if he had been
born poor and forced to work for a living, he might have become a
learned philosopher. So he lay and reflected, and wondered where this
experience would end, until, lulled by the yielding motion and the
gentle swaying, he fell asleep.

He must have slept many hours, for when he awoke he felt a strong
sensation of hunger. They were still journeying at a leisurely pace.
Charlie could feel the sweet, fresh air in his face, could hear the
song of birds, and smell the scented air, heavy with the fragrance
of flowers and fruits. Mentally thanking God that he still lived, he
anxiously awaited the end of this strange journey. Presently he felt
that they entered a building, for the current of air ceased, and the
soft footsteps of the bearers gave forth a metallic sound. There came
another command in the unknown tongue, and the bearers stopped; he
was told to descend, in unmistakable English, by a familiar voice. He
obeyed the voice, and instantly he was relieved of his bandage; before
his sight became accustomed to the semi-darkness of the room, he heard
the retreating steps of a number of men. As his sight returned in full,
he saw before him Ai and Abdallah and Jim.

Abdallah regarded him with a gaze that was stolid and unrecognizing.
The room in which he stood was large and circular. Floors and walls
were of the whitest marble, and from the roof light and air were
supplied. There were two couches in the room, and a divan ran about one
of its sides. There was no door or entrance visible--nothing but the
unvarying white walls and flooring.

“Stranger,” said Ai, in his mellow voice, speaking English in fluent
tones, “Why hast thou dared to uncover the mysteries of centuries?
Art thou weary of life that thou hast dared to trifle with Nature’s
secrets? Scarce an alien foot has traversed this land since six
thousand years have passed. Art weary of living?” As he asked the last
question, Charlie felt a chill of apprehension. This man, with his
strange garb, his dark complexion, his deep eyes and mystic smile,
was to be feared and reverenced. Summoning up all his sang froid and
determination not to give in to his fears, he replied,--

“We came to find old things, that we may impart our knowledge to the
people of our land, who are eager to know the beginning of all things.
I come of a race bold and venturesome, who know not fear if we can get
a few more dollars and fresh information.”

“I have heard of your people,” replied Ai, with a mysterious sparkle
in his eyes. “They are the people who count it a disgrace to bear my
color; is it not so?”

“Great Scott!” thought Charlie, turning mental somersaults to find an
answer that would placate the dignitary before him. “Is it possible
that the ubiquitous race question has got ahead of the expedition! By
mighty, it’s time something was done to stop this business. Talk of
Banquo’s ghost! Banquo ain’t in it if this is the race question I’m up
against.” Aloud he said, “My venerable and esteemed friend, you could
get there all right with your complexion in my country. We would simply
label you ‘Arab, Turk, Malay or Filipino,’ and in that costume you’d
slide along all right; not the slightest trouble when you showed your
ticket at the door. Savee?” He finished with a profound bow.

Ai eyed him sadly for a moment, and then said,--

“O, flippant-tongued offspring of an ungenerous people, how is it
with my brother?” and he took Jim’s unresisting hand and led him up
to Charlie. “Crisp of hair,” and he passed his hand softly over Jim’s
curly pate. “Black of skin! How do you treat such as this one in your
country?”

Charlie felt embarrassed in spite of his assurance. “Well, of course,
it has been the custom to count Africans as our servants, and they have
fared as servants.”

“And yet, ye are all of one blood; descended from one common father.
Is there ever a flock or herd without its black member? What more
beautiful than the satin gloss of the raven’s wing, the soft glitter
of eyes of blackest tint or the rich black fur of your own native
animals? Fair-haired worshippers of Mammon, do you not know that you
have been weighed in the balance and found wanting? that your course is
done? that Ethiopia’s bondage is about over, her travail passed?”

Charlie smiled in inward mirth at what he called the “fossilized
piece of antiquity.” “Touched in the forehead; crank,” was his mental
comment. “I’d better put on the brakes, and not aggravate this lunatic.
He’s probably some kind of a king, and might make it hot for me.” Aloud
he said, “Pardon, Mr. King, but what has this to do with making me a
prisoner? Why have I been brought here?”

“You will know soon enough,” replied Ai, as he clapped his hands.
Abdallah moved to the side of the room, and instantly a marble block
slid from its position, through which Ai and he departed, leaving the
prisoners alone.

For a while the two men sat and looked at each other in helpless
silence. Then Jim broke the silence with lamentations.

“Oh, Lord! Mr. Vance, there’s a hoodoo on this business, and I’m the
hoodoo!”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Vance. “Be a man, Jim, and help me find a way out
of this infernal business.”

But Jim sat on the divan, lamenting and refusing to be comforted.
Presently food was brought to them, and then after many and useless
conjectures, they lay down and tried to sleep.

The night passed very comfortably on the whole, although the profound
silence was suggestive of being buried alive. Another day and night
passed without incident. Food was supplied them at regular intervals.
Charlie’s thoughts were varied. He--fastidious and refined--who had
known no hardship and no sorrow,--why had he left his country to wander
among untutored savages? None were there to comfort him of all his
friends. These walls would open but to admit the savage executioner.
He ground his teeth. He thought of Cora Scott; doubtless she thought
him dead. Dead! No; nor would he die. He’d find a way out of this or
perish; he’d go home and marry Cora. Now this was a most surprising
conclusion, for Charlie had been heard to say many times that “he’d be
drawn and quartered before he’d tie up to a girl of the period,” which
Cora undoubtedly was. As if aroused from a dream, he jumped up and
going over to Jim, shook him. The Negro turned uneasily in his sleep
and groaned. Again he shook him.

“Get up, Jim. Come, I’m going to try to get out of this.”

“I’m afraid, Mr. Vance; it’s no use.”

“Come on, Jim; be a man.”

“I’m ready for anything, only show me the way,” replied Jim in
desperation. Their pistols had been taken from them, but their knives
remained. They stored what food remained about their persons and began
a thorough examination of the room.

“They certainly find an exit here somewhere, Jim, and we must find it
too.”

“Easier said than done, I fear, sir.”

An hour--two hours, passed in fruitless search; the marble walls showed
not a sign of exit or entrance. They rested then, sitting on the sides
of the divans and gazing at each other in utter helplessness. The full
moonlight showered the apartment with a soft radiance from the domed
roof. Suddenly, Jim sprang forward and inserted his knife in a crevice
in the floor. Instantly Charlie was beside him, working like mad on
the other side. The slab began to waver to and fro, as though shaken
by a strong force--the crack widened--they saw a round, flat metal
button--Jim seized it with one hand and pried with the knife in the
other--a strong breeze of subterranean air struck through the narrow
opening--and with a dull reverberation half the flooring slid back,
revealing what seemed to be a vast hole.

The men recoiled, and lay panting from their labors on the edges of the
subway. Charlie blessed his lucky stars that hidden in his clothes was
a bundle of tapers used by the explorers for just such emergencies. By
great good fortune, his captors had not discovered them.

“What’s to be done now, Jim?”

“Git down there and explore, but hanged if I want the job, Mr. Vance.”

“We’ll go together, Jim. Let’s see,” he mused, “What did Prof. Stone’s
parchment say? ‘Beware the tank to the right where dwells the sacred
crocodile, still living, although centuries have rolled by, and men
have been gathered to the shades who once tended on his wants. And
beware the fifth gallery to the right where abide the sacred serpents
with jewelled crowns, for of a truth are they terrible,’” quoted
Charlie, dreamily.

“You don’t suppose this is the place you were hunting for, do you?”
queried Jim, with eyes big with excitement.

“Jim, my boy, that’s a question no man can answer at this distance from
the object of our search. But if it is, as I suspect, the way to the
treasure will lead us to liberty, for the other end must be within the
pyramid. I’m for searching this passage. Come on if you are with me.”

He lighted his taper and swung it into the abyss, disclosing steps of
granite leading off in the darkness. As his head disappeared from view,
Jim, with a shudder, followed. The steps led to a passage or passages,
for the whole of the underground room was formed of vaulted passages,
sliding off in every direction. The stairs ended in another passage;
the men went down it; it was situated, as nearly as they could judge,
directly beneath the room where they had been confined. Silently the
two figures crept on, literally feeling their way. Shortly they came
to another passage running at right angles; slowly they crept along
the tunnel, for it was nothing more, narrowing until it suddenly ended
in a sort of cave, running at right angles; they crossed this, halting
at the further side to rest and think. Charlie looked anxiously about
him for signs, but saw nothing alarming in the smooth sandy floor, and
irregular contorted sides. The floor was strewn with bowlders like
the bed of a torrent. As they went on, the cavern widened into an
amphitheatre with huge supporting columns. To the right and left of
the cave there were immense bare spaces stretching away into immense
galleries. Here they paused to rest, eating sparingly of the food they
had brought. “Let us rest here,” said Charlie, “I am dead beat.”

“Is it not safer to go on? We cannot be very far from the room where we
were confined.”

“I’ll sit here a few moments, anyhow,” replied Charlie. Jim wandered
aimlessly about the great vault, turning over stones and peering into
crevices.

“What do you expect to find, Jim, the buried treasure?” laughed
Charlie, as he noted the earnestness of the other’s search.

Jim was bending over something--wrenching off a great iron cover.
Suddenly he cried out, “Mr. Vance, here it is!”

Charlie reached his side with a bound. There sat Jim, and in front of
him lay, imbedded in the sand of the cavern’s floor, a huge box, long
and wide and deep, whose rusted hinges could not withstand the stalwart
Negro’s frantic efforts.

With a shuddering sigh the lid was thrust back, falling to one side
with a great groan of almost mortal anguish as it gave up the trust
committed to its care ages before. They both gazed, and as they gazed
were well-nigh blinded. For this is what they saw:--

At first, a blaze of darting rays that sparkled and shot out myriad
scintillations of color--red, violet, orange, green, and deepest
crimson. Then by degrees, they saw that these hues came from a jumbled
heap of gems--some large, some small, but together in value beyond all
dreams of wealth.

Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, amethysts, opals, emeralds,
turquoises--lay roughly heaped together, some polished, some
uncut, some as necklaces and chains, others gleaming in rings and
bracelets--wealth beyond the dreams of princes.

Near to the first box lay another, and in it lay gold in bars and gold
in flakes, hidden by the priests of Osiris, that had adorned the crowns
of queens Candace and Semiramis--a spectacle glorious beyond compare.

“The Professor’s parchment told the truth,” cried Charlie, after a few
moments, when he had regained his breath. “But what shall we do with
it, now we have it?” asked Jim in disconsolate tones. “We can’t carry
it with us.”

“True for you, Jim,” replied Vance, sadly. “This wealth is a mockery
now we have it. Jim, we’re left, badly left. Here we’ve been romping
around for almost six months after this very treasure, and now we’ve
got it we can’t hold it. This whole expedition has been like monkeying
with a saw mill, Jim, my boy, and I for one, give in beaten. Left, I
should say so; badly left, when I counted Africa a played-out hole in
the ground. And, Jim, when we get home, if ever we do, the drinks are
on me. Now, old man, stow some of these glittering baubles in your
clothing, as I am going to do, and then we’ll renew our travels.”
He spoke in jest, but the tears were in his eyes, and as he clasped
Jim’s toil-hardened black hand, he told himself that Ai’s words were
true. Where was the color line now? Jim was a brother; the nearness of
their desolation in this uncanny land, left nothing but a feeling of
brotherhood. He felt then the truth of the words, “Of one blood have I
made all races of men.”

As they stooped to replace the cover, Jim’s foot knocked against an
iron ring set in the sandy flooring. “I believe it’s another box, Mr.
Vance,” he called out, and dropping his work, he pulled with all his
might.

“Careful, Jim,” called Charlie’s warning voice. Too late! The ring
disappeared at the second tug, revealing a black pit from which came
the odor of musk. From out the darkness came the sweeping sound of
a great body moving in wavelets over a vast space. Fascinated into
perfect stillness, Vance became aware of pale emerald eyes watching
him, and the sound of deep breathing other than their own. There was
a wild rattle and rush in the darkness, as Jim, moving forward, flung
down his taper and turned to flee.

“The serpents! The serpents! Fly for your life, Jim!” shouted Charlie,
as he dashed away from the opening. Too late! There came a terrible
cry, repeated again and again. Charlie Vance sunk upon the ground,
overcome with horror.




                             CHAPTER XIX.


It must have been about one o’clock in the morning when Reuel started
out of a fitful slumber by the sound of that terrible scream. He sprang
to his feet and listened. He heard not a sound; all was silence within
the palace. But his experience was so vivid that reason could not
control his feelings; he threw wide the dividing curtains, and fled out
upon the balcony. All was silence. The moonlight flooded the landscape
with the strength of daylight. As he stood trying to calm himself, a
shadow fell across his path, and raising his eyes, he beheld the form
of Mira; she beckoned him on, and he, turning, followed the shadowy
figure, full of confidence that she would show him the way to that
fearful scream.

On they glided like two shadows, until the phantom paused before what
seemed a solid wall, and with warning gaze and uplifted finger, bade
him enter. It was a portion of the palace unfamiliar to him; the walls
presented no hope of entrance. What could it mean? Mira faded from his
gaze, and as he stood there puzzling over this happening, suddenly
the solid wall began to glide away, leaving a yawning space, in which
appeared Ai’s startled and disturbed face.

“Back!” he cried, as he beheld his King. “Back, Ergamenes! how come you
here?”

“What was the cry I heard, Ai? I cannot rest. I have been led hither,”
he continued, significantly. Then, noticing the other’s disturbed
vision, he continued, “Tell me. I command you.”

With a murmured protest, Ai stepped aside, saying, “Perhaps it is best.”

Reuel advanced into the room. The hole in the floor was securely
closed, and on the divans lay Charlie Vance, white and unconscious,
and Jim Titus, crushed almost to a jelly but still alive. Abdallah
and a group of natives were working over Vance, trying to restore
consciousness. Reuel gave one startled, terrified glance at the two
figures, and staggered backward to the wall.

Upon hearing that cry, Jim Titus stirred uneasily, and muttered, “It’s
him!”

“He wishes to speak with you,” said Ai, gravely.

“How came they here, and thus?” demanded Reuel in threatening anger.

“They were searching for you, and we found them, too, in the pyramid.
We confined them here, debating what was best to do, fearing you would
become dissatisfied. They tried to escape and found the treasure and
the snakes. The black man will die.”

“Are you there, Mr. Reuel?” came in a muffled voice from the dying man.

Reuel stood beside him and took his hand,--“Yes, Jim, it is I; how came
you thus?”

“The way of the transgressor is hard,” groaned the man. “I would not
have been here had I not consented to take your life. I am sure you
must have suspected me; I was but a bungler, and often my heart failed
me.”

“Unhappy man! how could you plot to hurt one who has never harmed you?”
exclaimed Reuel.

“Aubrey Livingston was my foster brother, and I could deny him nothing.”

“Aubrey Livingston! Was he the instigator?”

“Yes,” sighed the dying man. “Return home as soon as possible and
rescue your wife--your wife, and yet not your wife--for a man may not
marry his sister.”

“What!” almost shrieked Reuel. “What!”

“I have said it. Dianthe Lusk is your own sister, the half-sister of
Aubrey Livingston, who is your half-brother.”

Reuel stood for a moment, apparently struggling for words to answer
the dying man’s assertion, then fell on his knees in a passion of sobs
agonizing to witness. “You know then, Jim, that I am Mira’s son?” he
said at length.

“I do. Aubrey planned to have Miss Dianthe from the first night he
saw her; he got you this chance with the expedition; he kept you from
getting anything else to force you to a separation from the girl. He
bribed me to accidentally put you out of the way. He killed Miss Molly
to have a free road to Dianthe. Go home, Reuel Briggs, and at least
rescue the girl from misery. Watch, watch, or he will outwit you yet.”
Reuel started in a frenzy of rage to seize the man, but Ai’s hand was
on his arm.

“Peace, Ergamenes; he belongs to the ages now.”

One more convulsive gasp, and Jim Titus had gone to atone for the deeds
done in the flesh.

With pallid lips and trembling frame, Reuel turned from the dead to the
living. As he sat beside his friend, his mind was far away in America
looking with brooding eyes into the past and gazing hopelessly into the
future. Truly hath the poet said,--

  “The evil that men do lives after them.”

And Reuel cursed with a mighty curse the bond that bound him to the
white race of his native land.

       *       *       *       *       *

One month after the events narrated in the previous chapter, a strange
party stood on the deck of the out-going steamer at Alexandria,
Egypt--Reuel and Charlie Vance, accompanied by Ai and Abdallah in the
guise of servants. Ai had with great difficulty obtained permission
of the Council to allow King Ergamenes to return to America. This was
finally accomplished by Ai’s being surety for Reuel’s safe return,
and so the journey was begun which was to end in the apprehension and
punishment of Aubrey Livingston.

Through the long journey homeward two men thought only of vengeance,
but with very different degrees of feeling. Charlie Vance held to the
old Bible punishment for the pure crime of manslaughter, but in Reuel’s
wrongs lay something beyond the reach of punishment by the law’s arm;
in it was the accumulation of years of foulest wrongs heaped upon the
innocent and defenceless women of a race, added to this last great
outrage. At night he said, as he paced the narrow confines of the deck,
“Thank God, it is night;” and when the faint streaks of dawn glowed in
the distance, gradually creeping across the expanse of waters, “Thank
God, it is morning.” Another hour, and he would say, “Would God it were
night!” By day or night some phantom in his ears holloes in ocean’s
roar or booms in thunder, howls in the winds or murmurs in the breeze,
chants in the voice of the sea-fowl--“Too late, too late. ’Tis done,
and worse than murder.”

Westward the vessel sped--westward while the sun showed only as a
crimson ball in its Arabian setting, or gleamed through a veil of smoke
off the English coast, ending in the grey, angry, white-capped waves of
the Atlantic in winter.




                              CHAPTER XX.


It was believed by the general public and Mr. Vance that Molly and
Dianthe had perished beneath the waters of the Charles River, although
only Molly’s body was recovered. Aubrey was picked up on the bank of
the river in an unconscious state, where he was supposed to have made
his way after vainly striving to rescue the two girls.

When he had somewhat recovered from the shock of the accident, it was
rumored that he had gone to Canada with a hunting party, and so he
disappeared from public view.

But Dianthe had not perished. As the three struggled in the water,
Molly, with all the confidence of requited love, threw her arms about
her lover. With a muttered oath, Aubrey tried to shake her off, but her
clinging arms refused to release him. From the encircling arms he saw
a sight that maddened him--Dianthe’s head was disappearing beneath the
waters where the lily-stems floated in their fatal beauty, holding in
their tenacious grasp the girl he loved. An appalling sound had broken
through the air as she went down--a heart-stirring cry of agony--the
tone of a voice pleading with God for life! the precious boon of life!
That cry drove away the man, and the brute instinct so rife within
us all, ready always to leap to the front in times of excitement or
danger, took full possession of the body. He forgot honor, humanity,
God.

With a savage kick he freed himself and swam swiftly toward the spot
where Dianthe’s golden head had last appeared. He was just in time.
Grasping the flowing locks with one hand and holding her head above the
treacherous water, he swam with her to the bank.

Pretty, innocent, tender-hearted Molly sank never to rise again.
Without a word, but with a look of anguished horror, her despairing
face was covered by the glistening, greedy waters that lapped so
hungrily about the water-lily beds.

As Aubrey bore Dianthe up the bank his fascinated gaze went backward to
the spot where he had seen Molly sink. To his surprise and horror, as
he gazed the body rose to the surface and floated as did poor Elaine:

  “In her right hand the lily,
  --All her bright hair streaming down--
  --And she herself in white,
  All but her face, and that clear-featured face
  Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead,
  But fast asleep, and lay as tho’ she smiled.”

Staggering like a drunken man, he made his way to a small cottage up
the bank, where a woman, evidently expecting him, opened the door
without waiting for his knock.

“Quick! here she is. Not a word. I will return to-night.” With these
words Livingston sped back to the river bank, where he was found by the
rescuing party, in a seemingly exhausted condition.

For weeks after these happenings Dianthe lived in another world,
unconscious of her own identity. It was early fall before her full
faculties were once more with her. The influence which Livingston had
acquired rendered her quiescent in his hands, and not too curious as
to circumstances of time and place. One day he brought her a letter,
stating that Reuel was dead.

Sick at heart, bending beneath the blight that thus unexpectedly fell
upon her, the girl gave herself up to grief, and weary of the buffets
of Fate, yielded to Aubrey’s persuasions and became his wife. On the
night which witnessed Jim Titus’s awful death, they had just returned
to Livingston’s ancestral home in Maryland.

It would be desecration to call the passion which Aubrey entertained
for Dianthe, love. Yet passion it was--the greatest he had ever
known--with its shadow, jealousy. Indifference on the part of his idol
could not touch him; she was his other self, and he hated all things
that stood between him and his love.

It was a blustering night in the first part of November. It was
twilight. Within the house profound stillness reigned. The heavens were
shut out of sight by masses of sullen, inky clouds, and a piercing
north wind was howling. Within the room where Dianthe lay, a glorious
fire burnt in a wide, low grate. A table, a couch and some chairs were
drawn near to it for warmth. Dianthe lay alone. Presently there came
a knock at the door. “Enter,” said the pale woman on the couch, never
once removing her gaze from the whirling flakes and sombre sky.

Aubrey entered and stood for some moments gazing in silence at the
beautiful picture presented to his view. She was gowned in spotless
white, her bright hair flowed about her unconstrained by comb or pin.
Her features were like marble, the deep grey eyes gazed wistfully
into the far distance. The man looked at her with hungry, devouring
eyes. Something, he knew not what, had come between them. His coveted
happiness, sin-bought and crime-stained, had turned to ashes--Dead-Sea
fruit indeed. The cold gaze she turned on him half froze him, and
changed his feelings into a corresponding channel with her own.

“You are ill, Dianthe. What seems to be your trouble? I am told that
you see spirits. May I ask if they wear the dress of African explorers?”

It had come to this unhappy state between them.

“Aubrey,” replied the girl in a calm, dispassionate tone, “Aubrey, at
this very hour in this room, as I lay here, not sleeping, nor disposed
to sleep, there where you stand, stood a lovely woman; I have seen her
thus once before. She neither looked at me nor spoke, but walked to the
table, opened the Bible, stooped over it a while, seeming to write,
then seemed to sink, just as she rose, and disappeared. Examine the
book, and tell me, is that fancy?”

Crossing the room, Aubrey gazed steadfastly at the open book. It
was the old family Bible, and the heavy clasps had grown stiff and
rusty. It was familiar to him, and intimately associated with his
life-history. There on the open page were ink lines under-scoring the
twelfth chapter of Luke: “For there is nothing covered that shall not
be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known.” At the end of this
passage was written the one word “Nina.”

Without a comment, but with anxious brows, Aubrey returned to his
wife’s couch, stooped and impressed several kisses on her impassive
face. Then he left the room.

Dianthe lay in long and silent meditation. Servants came and went
noiselessly. She would have no candles. The storm ceased; the moon
came forth and flooding the landscape, shone through the windows upon
the lonely watcher. Dianthe’s restlessness was soothed, and she began
tracing the shadows on the carpet and weaving them into fantastic
images of imagination. What breaks her reverie? The moonlight gleams
on something white and square; it is a letter. She left the couch and
picked it up. Just then a maid entered with a light, and she glanced
at the envelope. It bore the African postmark! She paused. Then as the
girl left the room, she slipped the letter from the envelope and read:

 “Master Aubrey,--I write to inform you that I have not been able to
 comply with your wishes. Twice I have trapped Dr. Briggs, but he has
 escaped miraculously from my hands. I shall not fail the third time.
 The expedition will leave for Meroe next week, and then something
 will surely happen. I have suppressed all letters, according to your
 orders, and both men are feeling exceedingly blue. Kindly put that
 first payment on the five thousand dollars to my sister’s credit in
 a Baltimore bank, and let her have the bank book. Next mail you may
 expect something definite.

  “Yours faithfully,
  “Jim Titus.”

Aubrey Livingston had gone to an adjoining city on business, and would
be absent three or four days.

That night Dianthe spent in his library behind locked doors, and all
about her lay open letters--letters addressed to her, and full of love
and tenderness, detailing Reuel’s travels and minutely describing every
part of his work.

Still daylight found her at her work. Then she quitted it, closed
up the desk, tied up the letters, replaced them, left the room, and
returned to her boudoir to think. Her brain was in a giddy whirl, and
but one thought stood out clearly in her burning brain. Her thoughts
took shape in the one word “Reuel,” and by her side stood again the
form of the pale, lovely mulattress, her long black curls enveloping
her like a veil. One moment--the next the room was vacant save for
herself.

Reuel was living, and she a bigamist--another’s wife! made so by
fraud and deceit. The poor overwrought brain was working like a
machine now--throbbing, throbbing, throbbing. To see him, hear his
voice--this would be enough. Then came the thought--lost to her, or
rather she to him--and how? By the plans of his would-be murderer. O,
horrible, inhuman wretch! He had stolen her by false tales, and then
had polluted her existence by the breath of murder. Murder! What was
murder? She paused and gasped for breath; then come the trembling
thought, “Would he were dead!”

He would return and discover the opening of the letters. “O, that he
were dead!”

She wandered about the grounds in the cold sunshine, burning with
fever, and wild with a brain distraught. She wished the trees were
living creatures and would fall and crush him. The winds in their fury,
would they but kill him! O, would not something aid her? At last she
sat down, out of breath with her wanderings and wearied by the tumult
within her breast. So it went all day; the very heavens beckoned her to
commit a deed of horror. She slept and dreamed of shapeless, nameless
things that lurked and skulked in hidden chambers, waiting the signal
to come forth. She woke and slept no more. She turned and turned the
remainder of the night; her poor warped faculties recalled the stories
she had read of Cenci, the Borgias, and even the Hebrew Judith. And
then she thought of Reuel, and the things he had told her on many an
idle day, of the properties of medicine, and how in curiosity she had
fingered his retorts used in experiments. And he had told her she was
apt, and he would teach her many things of his mysterious profession.
And as she thought and speculated, suddenly something whispered, as it
were, a name--heard but once--in her ear. It was the name of a poison
so subtle in its action as to defy detection save by one versed in its
use. With a shudder she threw the thought from her, and rose from her
couch.

We know we’re tempted. The world is full of precedents, the air with
impulses, society with men and spirit tempters. But what invites sin?
Is it not a something within ourselves? Are we not placed here with
a sinful nature which the plan of salvation commands us to overcome?
If we offer the excuse that we were tempted, where is the merit of
victory if we do not resist the tempter? God does not abandon us to
evil prompters without a white-robed angel, stretching out a warning
hand and pointing out the better way as strongly as the other. When we
conquer sin, we say we are virtuous, triumphant, and when we fall, we
excuse our sins by saying, “It is fate.”

The days sped on. To the on-looker life jogged along as monotonously
at Livingston Hall as in any other quiet home. The couple dined and
rode, and received friends in the conventional way. Many festivities
were planned in honor of the beautiful bride. But, alas! these days but
goaded her to madness. The uncertainty of Reuel’s fate, her own wrongs
as a wife yet not a wife, her husband’s agency in all this woe, the
frailness of her health, weighed more and more upon a mind weakened
by hypnotic experiments. Her better angel whispered still, and she
listened until one day there was a happening that turned the scale, and
she pronounced her own dreadful doom--“For me there’s no retreat.”




                             CHAPTER XXI.


It was past midday about two weeks later that Dianthe wandered about
the silent woods, flitting through the mazes of unfamiliar forest
paths. Buried in sad thoughts she was at length conscious that her
surroundings were strange, and that she had lost her way. Every now
and then the air was thick and misty with powdery flakes of snow which
fell, or swept down, rather, upon the brown leaf-beds and withered
grass. The buffeting winds which kissed her glowing hair into waving
tendrils brought no color to her white cheeks and no light to her eyes.
For days she had been like this, thinking only of getting away from the
busy house with its trained servants and its loathsome luxury which
stifled her. How to escape the chains which bound her to this man was
now her only thought. If Reuel lived, each day that found her still
beneath the roof of this man whose wife she was in the eyes of the
world, was a crime. Away, away, looking forward to she knew not what,
only to get away from the sight of his hated face.

Presently she paused and looked about her. Where was she? The spot was
wild and unfamiliar. There was no sight or sound of human being to
question as to the right direction to take, not that it mattered much,
she told herself in bitterness of spirit. She walked on more slowly
now, scanning the woods for signs of a human habitation. An opening in
the trees gave a glimpse of cultivated ground in a small clearing, and
a few steps farther revealed a typical Southern Negro cabin, from which
a woman stepped out and faced her as if expecting her coming. She was
very aged, but still erect and noble in form. The patched figure was
neat to scrupulousness, the eye still keen and searching.

As the woman advanced slowly toward her, Dianthe was conscious of a
thrill of fear, which quickly passed as she dimly remembered having
heard the servants jesting over old Aunt Hannah, the most noted
“voodoo” doctor or witch in the country.

“Come in, honey, and res’,” were her first words after her keen
eyes had traveled over the woman before her. Dianthe obeyed without
a murmur; in truth, she seemed again to have lost her own will in
another’s.

The one-roomed cabin was faultlessly neat, and the tired girl was
grateful for the warmth of the glowing brands upon the wide hearth.
Very soon a cup of stimulating coffee warmed her tired frame and
brought more animation to her tired face.

“What may your name be, Auntie?” she asked at length, uneasy at the
furtive glances cast by the eyes of the silent figure seated in the
distant shadow of the chimney-corner. The eyes never wavered, but no
answer was vouchsafed her by the woman in the corner. Somewhere she had
read a description of an African princess which fitted the woman before
her.

  “I knew a princess; she was old,
    Crisp-haired, flat-featured, with a look
  Such as no dainty pen of gold
    Would write of in a fairy book.

  “...
  Her face was like a Sphinx’s face, to me,
    Touched with vast patience, desert grace,
  And lonesome, brooding mystery.”

Suddenly a low sound, growing gradually louder, fell upon Dianthe’s
ear; it was the voice of the old woman crooning a mournful minor
cadence, but for an instant it sent a chill about the girl’s heart.
It was a funeral chant commonly sung by the Negroes over the dead. It
chimed in with her gloomy, despairing mood and startled her. She arose
hastily to her feet to leave the place.

“How can I reach the road to Livingston Place?” she asked with a
shudder of apprehension as she glanced at her entertainer.

“Don’t be ’feared, child; Aunt Hannah won’t hurt a ha’r of that purty
head. Hain’t it these arms done nussed ev’ry Livingston? I knowed your
mother, child; for all you’re married to Marse Aubrey, you isn’t a
white ’ooman.”

“I do not deny what you say, Auntie; I have no desire so to do,”
replied Dianthe gently.

With a cry of anguish the floodgates of feeling were unloosed, and the
old Negress flung her arms about the delicate form. “Gawd-a-mercy! My
Mira’s gal! My Mira’s gal!” Then followed a harrowing scene.

Dianthe listened to the old story of sowing the wind and reaping the
whirlwind. A horrible, paralyzing dread was upon her. Was she never to
cease from suffering and be at rest? Rocking herself to and fro, and
moaning as though in physical pain, the old woman told her story.

“I was born on de Livingston place, an’ bein’ a purty likely gal, was
taken to de big house when I was a tot. I was trained by ol’ Miss’. As
soon as I was growed up, my mistress changed in her treatment of me,
for she soon knowed of my relations with massa, an’ she was hurt to de
heart, po’ ’ooman. Mira was de onlies’ child of ten that my massa lef’
me for my comfort; all de res’ were sold away to raise de mor’gage off
de prop’rty.

“Ol’ marse had only one chil’, a son; he was eddicated for a doctor,
and of all the limb o’ de devil, he was de worst. After ol’ marse an’
ol’ miss’ was dead he took a shine to Mira, and for years he stuck to
her in great shape. Her fust child was Reuel----”

“What!” shrieked Dianthe. “Tell me--quick, for God’s sake! Is he alive,
and by what name is he known?” She was deathly white, and spread out
her hands as if seeking support.

“Yes, he’s living, or was a year ago. He’s called Dr. Reuel Briggs, an’
many a dollar he has sent his ol’ granny, may the good Marster bless
him!”

“Tell me all--tell me the rest,” came from the lips of the trembling
girl.

“Her second child was a girl,--a beautiful, delicate child, an’ de
Doctor fairly worshipped her. Dat leetle gal was yourself, an’ I’m your
granny.”

“Then Reuel Briggs is my brother!”

“Certain; but let me tell you de res’, honey. Dese things jes’ got to
happen in slavery, but I isn’t gwine to wink at de debbil’s wurk wif
both eyes open. An’ I doesn’t want you to keep on livin’ with Marse
Aubrey Livingston. It’s too wicked; it’s flyin’ in de face ob Almighty
God. I’se wanted to tell you eber sense I knowed who he’d married.
After a while de Doctor got to thinkin’ ’bout keepin’ up de family
name, an’ de fus’ thing we knows he up an’ marries a white lady down to
Charleston, an’ brings her home. Well! when she found out all de family
secrets she made de house too hot to hol’ Mira, and it was ordered
that she mus’ be sold away. I got on my knees to Marse an’ I prayed to
him not to do it, but to give Mira a house on de place where she could
be alone an’ bring up de childrun, an’ he would a done it but for his
wife.”

The old woman paused to moan and rock and weep over the sad memories of
the past. Dianthe sat like a stone woman.

“Den I believe de debbil took possession of me body and soul. A week
before my po’ gal was to be sol’, Misses’ child was born, and died in
about an hour; at about de same time Mira gave birth to a son, too. In
de ’citemen’ de idea come to me to change de babies, fer no one would
know it, I being alone when de chil’ died, an’ de house wil’ fer fear
misses would die. So I changed de babies, an’ tol’ Marse Livingston
dat Mira’s boy was de dead one. So, honey, Aubrey is your own blood
brother an’ you got to quit dat house mejuntly.”

“My brother!”

Dianthe stood over the old woman and shook her by the arm, with a look
of utter horror that froze her blood. “My brothers! both those men!”

The old woman mumbled and groaned, then started up.

Aunt Hannah breathed hard once or twice. Minute after minute passed.
From time to time she glanced at Dianthe, her hard, toil-worn hands
strained at the arms of her chair as if to break them. Her mind seemed
wavering as she crooned:

“My Mira’s children; by de lotus-lily on each leetle breast I claim
them for de great Osiris, mighty god. Honey, hain’t you a flower on
your breast?”

Dianthe bowed her head in assent, for speech had deserted her. Then old
Aunt Hannah undid her snowy kerchief and her dress, and displayed to
the terrified girl the perfect semblance of a lily cut, as it were, in
shining ebony.

“Did each of Mira’s children have this mark?”

“Yes, honey; all of one blood!”

Dianthe staggered as though buffeted in the face. Blindly, as if in
some hideous trance, reeling and stumbling, she fell. Cold and white as
marble, she lay in the old woman’s arms, who thought her dead. “Better
so,” she cried, and then laughed aloud, then kissed the poor, drawn
face. But she was not dead.

Time passed; the girl could not speak. The sacrilege of what had been
done was too horrible. Such havoc is wrought by evil deeds. The first
downward step of an individual or a nation, who can tell where it will
end, through what dark and doleful shades of hell the soul must pass in
travail?

  “The laws of changeless justice bind
    Oppressor and oppressed;
  And close as sin and suffering joined,
    We march to Fate abreast.”

The slogan of the hour is “Keep the Negro down!” but who is clear
enough in vision to decide who hath black blood and who hath it not?
Can any one tell? No, not one; for in His own mysterious way He has
united the white race and the black race in this new continent. By the
transgression of the law He proves His own infallibility: “Of one blood
have I made all nations of men to dwell upon the whole face of the
earth,” is as true to-day as when given to the inspired writers to be
recorded. No man can draw the dividing line between the two races, for
they are both of one blood!

Bending a little, as though very weak, and leaning heavily upon her old
grandmother’s arm, Dianthe at length set out for the Hall. Her face was
lined and old with suffering. All hope was gone; despair was heavy on
her young shoulders whose life was blasted in its bloom by the passions
of others.

As she looked upward at the grey, leaden sky, tears slowly trickled
down her cheeks. “God have mercy!” she whispered.




                             CHAPTER XXII.


For two days Mrs. Livingston brooded in her chamber. Fifty times a day
Aubrey asked for her. The maid told him she was ill, but not alarmingly
so; no physician was called. She was simply indisposed, could not be
seen.

Gazing in Dianthe’s face, the maid whispered, “She sleeps. I will not
disturb her.”

Alone, she springs from her couch with all the energy of life and
health. She paced the room. For two long hours she never ceased her
dreary walk. Memories crowded around her, wreathing themselves in
shapes which floated mistily through her brain. Her humble school days
at Fisk; her little heart leaping at the well-won prize; the merry play
with her joyous mates; in later years, the first triumphant throb when
wondering critics praised the melting voice, and world-admiring crowds
applauded. And, O, the glorious days of travel in Rome and Florence!
the classic scenes of study; intimate companionship with Beethoven,
Mozart and Hayden; the floods of inspiration poured in strains of
self-made melody upon her soul. Then had followed the reaction, the
fall into unscrupulous hands, and the ruin that had come upon her
innocent head.

The third day Mrs. Livingston arose, dressed, and declaring herself
quite well, went to walk. She returned late in the afternoon, dined
with her husband, conversed and even laughed. After dinner they walked
a while upon the broad piazzas, beneath the silent stars and gracious
moon, inhaling the cold, bracing air. Then Aubrey begged her for a
song. Once again she sang “Go down, Moses,” and all the house was
hushed to drink in the melody of that exquisite voice.

To mortal eyes, this young pair and their surroundings marked them as
darlings of the gods enjoying the world’s heaped-up felicity. Could
these same eyes have looked deeper into their hearts, not the loathsome
cell of the wretch condemned to death could have shown a sight more
hideous. ’Twas late. Pausing at her chamber door, Aubrey raised her
hand to his lips with courtly grace, and bade her good-night.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was the first hours of the morning. From the deepest and most
dreamless slumber that had ever sealed his eyes, Aubrey awoke just as
the clock was striking two. ’Twas quite dark, and at first he felt that
the striking clock had awakened him; yet sleep on the instant was as
effectually banished from his eyes as if it were broad daylight. He
could not distinguish the actual contact of any substance, and yet he
could not rid himself of the feeling that a strong arm was holding him
forcibly down, and a heavy hand was on his lips. He saw nothing, though
the moon’s rays shone full into the room. He felt nothing sensuously,
but everything sensationally; and thus it was that with eyes
half-closed, and seemingly fixed as by an iron vice, he beheld the door
of his dressing-room--the private means of communication with Dianthe’s
rooms--very cautiously opened, and Dianthe herself, in a loose robe,
crept into the room, and stealthily as a spirit glide to the side of
his bed.

Arrested by the same trance-like yet conscious power that bound his
form but left perception free, Aubrey neither spoke nor moved. And
yet he felt, and partially beheld her stoop over him, listen to his
breathing, pass her hand before his eyes to try if they would open;
then he, with sidelong glance, beheld her, rapidly as thought, take up
the night glass standing on his table, and for the glass containing
clear cold water, which it was his custom to swallow every morning upon
first awakening, substitute one which, he had seen from the first,
she carried in her hand. This done, the stealthy figure moved away,
gently drew back the door, and would have passed; but no--the spell was
broken. A hand was on her shoulder--a hand of iron. Back it dragged
her--into the room just left, shut the door and locked it, held her
in its sinewy strength till other doors were locked, then bore her to
the bed, placed her upon it, and then released her. And there she sat,
white and silent as the grave, whilst before her stood Aubrey, pale as
herself, but no longer silent.

Taking the glass which she had substituted, he held it to her lips, and
pronounced the one word--“Drink!” But one word; but O, what a world
of destiny, despair, and agony hung on that word; again and again
repeated. Her wild and haggard eyes, her white, speechless lips, all,
alas! bore testimony to her guilt--to a mind unbalanced, but only added
determination to Aubrey’s deep, unflinching purpose.

“Drink! deeper yet! Pledge me to the last drop; drink deep; drink all!”

“Aubrey, Aubrey! mercy, as you look for it! let me explain----” The
shrinking woman was on her knees, the half-drained glass in her hand.

“Drink!” shouted Aubrey. “Drain the glass to Reuel!”

“To Reuel!” gasped Dianthe, and set the glass down empty. Once more
Aubrey led his bride of three months back to the door of her room. Once
more before her chamber door he paused; and once again, but now in
mockery, he stooped and kissed her hand.

“Farewell, my love,” he said. “When we meet, ’twill be----”

“In judgment, Aubrey; and may God have mercy on our guilty souls!”




                            CHAPTER XXIII.


’Twas a cold gray morning; the dawn of such a day as seems to wrap
itself within the shroud of night, hiding the warm sun in its stony
bosom, and to creep through time arrayed in mourning garments for
the departed stars. Aubrey was up by the earliest glimpse of dawn.
Uncertain what to do or where to go, he made a pretence of eating,
sitting in solemn state in the lonely breakfast room, where the
servants glided about in ghostly silence, which was too suggestive for
the overwrought nerves of the master of all that magnificence. Fifty
times he asked the maid for Mrs. Livingston. The woman told him she was
ill,--not alarmingly so; no physician’s services were needed, neither
his own nor another’s. He did not ask to see her, yet with a strange
and morbid curiosity, he kept on questioning how she was, and why
she kept her chamber, until the knowing laugh and sly joke about the
anxiety of bridegrooms over the welfare of brides made the servants’
quarters ring with hilarity. At length, tired of his aimless wandering,
he said he’d go. His valet asked him where. He could not tell. “Pack up
some things.”

“For how long a time, sir?”

“I cannot tell, James.”

“Shall I order the carriage?”

“Anything, something! A horse; yes. I’ll have the swiftest one in the
stable. A valise--no more; no, you need not come. I must be alone.”

In Dianthe’s room the attendants tread noiselessly, and finally leave
her to enjoy her feigned slumber. She waits but the closing of the
door, to spring from her couch with all the seeming energy of life
and health. First she went to the window and flung wide the hangings,
letting in a flood of light upon the pale, worn face reflected in the
mirror. What a wondrous change was there! The long white drapery of
her morning robe fell about her like a shroud, yet, white as it was,
contrasted painfully with the livid ash-hue of her skin. Her arms
were thin and blue, her hands transparent; her sunny hair hung in
long dishevelled, waving masses, the picture of neglect; the sunken,
wan brow, and livid lips, the heavy eyes with deep, black halos round
them--all these made up a ruined temple.

“When he comes he will not know me,” she murmured to herself; then
sighing deeply, turned and paced the room. What she thought of, none
could say. She spoke not; never raised her eyes from off the ground,
nor ceased her dreary walk for two long hours. She sometimes sobbed,
but never shed a tear.

Here we drop the veil. Let no human eye behold the writhings of that
suffering face, the torture of that soul unmoored, and cast upon the
sea of wildest passion, without the pilot, principle, or captain of
all salvation, God, to trust in,--passion, adoration of a human idol,
hereditary traits entirely unbalanced, generous, but fervid impulses,
her only guides. She knew that her spiritual person must survive the
grave, but what that world was where her spirit was fast tending, only
the dread tales of fear and superstition shadowed truth; and now,
when her footsteps were pressing to it, horror and dread dogged every
footprint.

Hour after hour elapsed alone. O, ’twas agony to be alone! She could
not bear it. She would call her maid; but no, her cold, unimpassioned
face would bring no comfort to her aching heart, aching for pity, for
some cheering bosom, where she might sob her ebbing life away. The door
opens,--and O joy! old Aunt Hannah’s arms enfold her. For hours the two
sat in solemn conference, while the servants wondered and speculated
over the presence of the old witch.


At last night fell. “Mother,” murmured the dying girl, raising her
head from off her damp pillow. “A very golden cloud is printed with
the fleecy words of glory. ‘I will return.’” She pointed to the golden
clouds banking the western sky. “O, will our spirits come, like setting
suns, on each tomorrow of eternity?”

For answer, the old woman raised her hand in warning gesture. There
sounded distinct and clear--three loud, yet muffled knocks on the panel
directly above the couch where Dianthe lay.

“’Tis nothing, mother; I’m used to it now,” said the girl with
indifference.

“You say ’tis nuffin’, honey; but yer limbs are quiverin’ wif pain,
and the drops ob agony is on yer po’ white face. You can’t ’ceive me,
chile; yer granny knows de whole circumstance. I seed it all las’
night in my dreams. Vengeance is mine; I will repay. One comes who is
de instrumen’ ob de Lord.” And the old woman muttered and rocked and
whispered.

Whatever was the cause of Mrs. Livingston’s illness, its character
was unusual and alarming. The maid, who was really attached to the
beautiful bride, pleaded to be allowed to send for medical aid in vain.
The causes for her suffering, as stated by Dianthe, were plausible;
but her resolve to have no aid, inflexible. As evening advanced, her
restlessness, and the hideous action of spasmodic pains across her
livid face, became distressing. To all the urgent appeals of her
servants, she simply replied she was waiting for some one. He was
coming soon--very soon and then she would be quite well.

And yet he came not. From couch to door, from door to window, with
eager, listening ear and wistful eyes the poor watcher traversed her
chamber in unavailing expectancy. At length a sudden calm seemed to
steal over her; the incessant restlessness of her wearied frame
yielded to a tranquil, passive air. She lay upon cushions piled high
upon the couch commanding a view of the broad hallways leading to her
apartments. The beams of the newly risen moon bathed every object in
the dim halls. Clear as the vesper bell, sounding across a far distant
lake, strains of delicious music, rising and falling in alternate
cadence of strong martial measure, came floating in waves of sound down
the corridor.

Dianthe and Aunt Hannah and the maid heard the glorious echoes; whilst
in the town the villagers heard the music as of a mighty host. Louder
it grew, first in low and wailing notes, then swelling, pealing
through arch and corridor in mighty diapason, until the very notes of
different instruments rang out as from a vast orchestra. There was
the thunder of the organ, the wild harp’s peal, the aeolian’s sigh,
the trumpet’s peal, and the mournful horn. A thousand soft melodious
flutes, like trickling streams upheld a bird-like treble; whilst ever
and anon the muffled drum with awful beat precise, the rolling kettle
and the crashing cymbals, kept time to sounds like tramping of a vast
but viewless army. Nearer they came. The dull, deep beat of falling
feet--in the hall--up the stairs. Louder it came and louder. Louder
and yet more loud the music swelled to thunder! The unseen mass must
have been the disembodied souls of every age since Time began, so vast
the rush and strong the footfalls. And then the chant of thousands
of voices swelling in rich, majestic choral tones, joined in the
thundering crash. It was the welcome of ancient Ethiopia to her dying
daughter of the royal line.

Upspringing from her couch, as through the air the mighty hallelujah
sounded, Dianthe with frantic gestures and wild distended eyes, cried:
“I see them now! the glorious band! Welcome, great masters of the
world’s first birth! All hail, my royal ancestors--Candace, Semiramis,
Dido, Solomon, David and the great kings of early days, and the great
masters of the world of song. O, what long array of souls divine, lit
with immortal fire from heaven itself! O, let me kneel to thee! And to
thee, too, Beethoven, Mozart, thou sons of song! Divine ones, art thou
come to take me home? Me, thy poor worshipper on earth? O, let me be
thy child in paradise!

The pageant passed, or seemed to pass, from her whose eyes alone of
all the awe-struck listeners, with mortal gaze beheld them. When, at
length, the last vibrating echoes of the music seemed to die away in
utter vacant silence to the terrified attendants, Dianthe still seemed
to listen. Either her ear still drank in the music, or another sound
had caught her attention.

“Hark, hark! ’Tis carriage wheels. Do you not hear them? Now they pass
the railroad at the crossing. Hasten, O hasten! Still they have a long
mile to traverse. O, hasten! They call me home.”

For many minutes she sat rigid and cold as marble. The trembling
maid wept in silent terror and grief, for the gentle bride was a
kind mistress. Old Aunt Hannah, with a fortitude born of despair,
ministered in every possible way to the dying girl. To the great relief
of all, at last, there came to their ears the very distant rumbling
of wheels. Nearer it came--it sounded in the avenue--it paused at the
great entrance, some one alighted--a stir--the sound of voices--then
footsteps--the ascent of footsteps on the stairs. Nearer, nearer
yet; hastily they come, like messengers of speed. They’re upon the
threshold--enter. Then, and not till then, the rigid lady moved. With
one wild scream of joy she rushed forward, and Reuel Briggs clasped her
in his arms.

For a few brief moments, the wretched girl lived an age in heaven. The
presence of that one beloved--this drop of joy sweetened all the bitter
draught and made for her an eternity of compensation. With fond wild
tenderness she gazed upon him, gazed in his anxious eyes until her own
looked in his very soul, and stamped there all the story of her guilt
and remorse. Then winding her cold arms around his neck, she laid her
weary head upon his shoulder and silently as the night passed through
the portals of the land of souls.




                             CHAPTER XXIV.


’Twas midnight. The landscape was still as death. Hills, rocks, rivers,
even the babbling brooks, seemed locked in sleep. The moonbeams dreamt
upon the hillside; stars slept in the glittering sky; the silent vales
were full of dreaming flowers whose parti-colored cups closed in sleep.
In all that solemn hush of silence one watcher broke the charmed spell.
’Twas Aubrey Livingston. Now he moves swiftly over the plain as if
some sudden purpose drove him on; then he turns back in the self-same
track and with the same impulsive speed. What is he doing in the lonely
night? All day, hour after hour, mile on mile, the scorching midday
sun had blazed upon his head, and still he wandered on. The tranquil
sunset purpled round his way and still the wanderer hastened on. In his
haggard eyes one question seems to linger--“I wonder if she lives!”

Many, many dreary times he said this question over! He has a secret and
’tis a mighty one; he fears if human eye but look upon him, it must be
revealed. Hark! suddenly there falls upon his ear the sound of voices,
surely some one called! Again! His straining ear caught a familiar
sound.

“Aubrey! Aubrey Livingston!”

“By heaven, it is her voice!” he told himself. And as if to assure him
still more of who addressed him, close before his very eyes moved two
figures. Hand in hand they passed from out a clump of sheltering trees,
and slowly crossed his path. One face was turned toward him, the other
from him. The moon revealed the same white robe in which he had last
beheld her, the long, streaming hair, her slippered feet--all were
there. Upon his wondering eyes her own were fixed in mute appeal and
deepest anguish; then both figures passed away, he knew not where.

“’Twas she, and in full life. God of heaven, she lives!”

Pausing not to think he was deceived, enough for him, she lived. He
turned his steps toward his home, with flying feet he neared the hall.
Just as he reached the great entrance gates, he saw the two figures
slightly in advance of him. This time Dianthe’s face was turned away,
but the silver moonbeams threw into bold relief the accusing face of
Molly Vance!

With a sudden chill foreboding, he entered the hall and passed up the
stairs to his wife’s apartments. He opened wide the door and stood
within the chamber of the dead.

There lay the peaceful form--spread with a drapery of soft, white gauze
around her, and only the sad and livid, poisoned face was visible above
it; and kneeling by the side of her, his first love and his last--was
Reuel Briggs.

Rising from the shadows as Aubrey entered, Charlie Vance, flanked on
either side by Ai and Ababdis, moved to meet him, the stern brow and
sterner words of an outraged brother and friend greeted him:

“Welcome, murderer!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Dianthe was dead, poisoned; that was clear. Molly Vance was unduly done
to death by the foul treachery of the same hand. All this was now
clear to the thinking public, for so secluded had Aubrey Livingston
lived since his return to the United States, that many of his intimate
associates still believed that he had perished in the accident on the
Charles. It was quite evident to these friends that his infatuation for
the beautiful Dianthe had led to the commission of a crime. But the
old adage that, “the dead tell no tales,” was not to be set aside for
visionary ravings unsupported by lawful testimony.

Livingston’s wealth purchased shrewd and active lawyers to defend him
against the charges brought by the Vances--father and son,--and Reuel
Briggs.

One interview which was never revealed to public comment, took place
between Ai, Ababdis, Aunt Hannah, Reuel Briggs and Aubrey Livingston.

Aubrey sat alone in his sumptuous study. An open book was on his knees,
but his eyes were fixed on vacancy. He was changed and his auburn locks
were prematurely grey. His eyes revealed an impenetrable mystery within
into whose secret depths no mortal eye might look. Thus he sat when the
group we have named above silently surrounded him. “Peace, O son of
Osiris, to thy parting hour!”

Thus Ai greeted him. There was no mistaking these words, and gazing
into the stern faces of the silent group Aubrey knew that something of
import was about to happen.

Aubrey did not change countenance, although he glanced at Reuel as if
seeking mercy. The latter did not change countenance; only his eyes,
those strange deep eyes before whose fixed gaze none could stand
unflinching, took on a more sombre glow. Again Ai spoke:

“God has willed it! Great is the God of Ergamenes, we are but worms
beneath His feet. His will be done.” Then began a strange, weird scene.
Round and round the chair where Aubrey was seated walked the kingly
Ai chanting in a low, monotone in his native tongue, finally advancing
with measured steps to a position directly opposite and facing
Livingston, and stood there erect and immovable, with arms raised as if
in invocation. His eyes glittered with strange, fascinating lights in
the shaded room. To the man seated there it seemed that an eternity was
passing. Why did not these two men he had injured take human vengeance
in meting out punishment to him? And why, oh! why did those eyes,
piercing his own like poinards, hold him so subtly in their spell?

Gradually he yielded to the mysterious beatitude that insensibly
enwrapped his being. Detached from terrestrial bonds, his spirit soared
in regions of pure ethereal blue. A delicious torpor held him in its
embrace. His head sank upon his breast. His eyes closed in a trancelike
slumber.

Ai quitted his position, and approaching Aubrey, lifted one of the shut
eyelids. “He sleeps!” he exclaimed.

Then standing by the side of the unconscious man he poured into his
ear--speaking loudly and distinctly,--a few terse sentences. Not a
muscle moved in the faces of those standing about the sleeper. Then Ai
passed his hands lightly over his face, made a few upward passes, and
turning to his companions, beckoned them to follow him from the room.
Silently as they had come the group left the house and grounds, gained
a waiting carriage and were driven rapidly away. In the shelter of the
vehicle Charlie Vance spoke, “Is justice done?” he sternly queried.

“Justice will be done,” replied Ai’s soothing tones.

“Then I am satisfied.”

But Reuel spoke not one word.

       *       *       *       *       *

One day not very long after this happening, the body of Aubrey
Livingston was found floating in the Charles river at the very point
where poor Molly Vance had floated in the tangled lily-bed. The
mysterious command of Ai, “death by thine own hand,” whispered in his
ear while under hypnotic influence, had been followed to the last
letter.

Thus Aubrey had become his own executioner according to the ancient
laws of the inhabitants of Telassar. Members of the royal family in
direct line to the throne became their own executioners when guilty of
the crime of murder.

       *       *       *       *       *

Reuel Briggs returned to the Hidden City with his faithful subjects,
and old Aunt Hannah. There he spends his days in teaching his people
all that he has learned in years of contact with modern culture. United
to Candace, his days glide peacefully by in good works; but the shadows
of great sins darken his life, and the memory of past joys is ever with
him. He views, too, with serious apprehension, the advance of mighty
nations penetrating the dark, mysterious forests of his native land.

“Where will it stop?” he sadly questions. “What will the end be?”

But none save Omnipotence can solve the problem.

To our human intelligence these truths depicted in this feeble work
may seem terrible,--even horrible. But who shall judge the handiwork
of God, the Great Craftsman! Caste prejudice, race pride, boundless
wealth, scintillating intellects refined by all the arts of the
intellectual world, are but puppets in His hand, for His promises
stand, and He will prove His words, “Of one blood have I made all races
of men.”


                              (THE END.)




                          Transcriber’s Notes

Errors in punctuation have been fixed.

Page 33: “he addded dreamily” changed to “he added dreamily”

Page 36: “the degredation” changed to “the degradation” “It Mount
Auburn” changed to “In Mount Auburn”

Page 38: “out of choas” changed to “out of chaos”

Page 104: “subtile magnetic agent” changed to “subtle magnetic agent”

Page 105: “potent pressence” changed to “potent presence” “The muse
returned” changed to “The nurse returned”

Page 106: “once ingored him” changed to “once ignored him”

Page 109: “lonelly, darkened life” changed to “lonely, darkened life”

Page 110: “we stand dwadling” changed to “we stand dawdling” “aided and
abbetted” changed to “aided and abetted” “anything else but dwadle”
changed to “anything else but dawdle” “Oh, you, Aubey” changed to “Oh,
you, Aubrey”

Page 112: “stop your nonsence” changed to “stop your nonsense”

Page 191: “strange coincidencies” changed to “strange coincidences”

Page 192: “I supose” changed to “I suppose”

Page 193: “away befort” changed to “away before”

Page 195: “learned savans” changed to “learned savants” “he the happy
groom” changed to “be the happy groom”

Page 197: “his slender wrist” changed to “her slender wrist”

Page 199: “beauty of the lanquid” changed to “beauty of the languid”

Page 264: “artists, savans” changed to “artists, savants”

Page 266: “enough dilapitated abandon” changed to “enough dilapidated
abandon” “period of inacitivity” changed to “period of inactivity”

Page 268: “antennal of a lobster” changed to “antennae of a lobster”
“interrupted by a low vail” changed to “interrupted by a low wail”

Page 269: “came again an unevennes” changed to “came against an
uneveness” “perched on imminences” changed to “perched on eminences”

Page 270: “enterpret of trade” changed to “entrepot of trade” “learned
savan” changed to “learned savant”

Page 271: “Lister, listen” changed to “Listen, listen”

Page 272: “hypnotice trance” changed to “hypnotic trance”

Page 339: “learned savans” changed to “learned savants”

Page 341: “impassible barrier” changed to “impassable barrier”

Page 344: “watching the unlfading of the apparatus” changed to
“watching the unloading of the apparatus”

Page 347: “the echoeless sand” changed to “the echoless sand” “before
the entrace” changed to “before the entrance” “Here were ranger great
numbers” changed to “Here were ranged great numbers”

Page 429: “Lybia’s solemn hills” changed to “Libya’s solemn hills”

Page 497: “toward Afric’s shores” changed to “toward Africa’s shores”

Page 582: “Ethoapia’s bondage” changed to “Ethiopia’s bondage”

Page 646: “overwraught brain” changed to “overwrought brain”

Page 731: The line ““To Reuel!” gasped Dianthe, and set” was
incorrectly printed above the previous paragraph and has been relocated.

Page 806: The spelling of “Abdadis” changed to “Ababdis”.