Etext of Avillion and Other Tales.
By Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
London: Smith, Elder and Co., 65, Cornhill.
Bombay: Smith, Taylor and Co.1853.
[The Author of this Work Reserves the Right of Authorizing a
Translation of It.]
London:
Printed by Stewart and Murray, Old Bailey.

By the Author of "Olive," "The Head of the Family," "Agatha's
Husband," ect., ect.,

I offer these, that were of my May-days,
To May.

ADVERTISEMENT

THE Author, in including among "AVILLION AND OTHER
TALES" some reprints, has to offer acknowledgments for
permission, to the proprietors of "Fraser's," "Bentley's,"
"Sharpe's," "Jerrold's," and the "Dublin University" Magazines;
likewise to the "Athen‘um," and the Messrs. Chambers.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.AVILLION; OR, THE HAPPY ISLES 
THE LAST OF THE RUTHVENS 
THE SELF-SEER 
THE SCULPTOR OF BRUGES 
HE ITALIAN'S DAUGHTER
AVILLION; OR, THE HAPPY ISLES.

A Fireside Fancy.
"I am going a long way,
With these thou seest--if, indeed, 
I go--(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avillion."TENNYSON.

CHAPTER I.

WE sat together on the deck, Lilias and I, listening to the boom of
the wide Atlantic, and looking into each other's eyes. A thriftless
occupation, but infinitely sweet. We had not grown tired of it yet,
though we had been married three weeks; our love was not even a
shadow the less. It seemed impossible for us to date its beginning;
Heaven grant we may never know its end!

We had been wedded three weeks. Three weeks! Could it be, then,
that only one little month had passed since that day--the day of
days!--when-- But I will tell all concerning it. I will chronicle its
every hour, whether of suffering or joy; for now both are alike
written goldenly on this happy heart of mine.

I had been ill for a long time--indeed, from my youth up I have
rarely known the blessing of continuous health. But though this
circumstance gave a languor and a half-melancholy dreaminess to
my whole character, I think, too, it made me more humble, more
loving, more thankful for all the love which was showered upon
me. And when my long illness came, this blessing increased
tenfold. I heard people compassionate "poor Wilfred Mayer," and
say how hard it was that a young man should have the strength and
glory of his youth brought thus low. I did not feel it so; I knew that
there was power, aye, and beauty, in my soul; and I cared not for
the feeble body. Besides, I lived in such an atmosphere of love.
There was my father; my bold, frank-hearted brother, younger than
I, yet assuming all the tender protection of eldership; Hester, the
most loving of sisters; and one, dearer than any sister--Lilias Hay.

But the day--that day! In the morning I, feeble always, seemed
feebler than ordinary. I lay back in my arm-chair, listening to the
soft pattering of the April rain upon the window-sill, without any
connected thought, except a fear that the weather might keep Lilias
Hay in-doors: and I did not like to miss seeing her, even for a day. I
heard the sound of an opening door; but it was only the physician--
accompanied by a second, whom I had not seen before. I was
disappointed, and paid little heed to either, until I noticed that they
drew my sister aside, and spoke earnestly. While she listened,
Hester turned pale, looked at me, and began to weep. Her tears
seemed to fall on my heart like ice-drops, piercing me with a
shuddering dread. I felt, I knew, that that smooth-tongued stranger
had, with his calm, stolid lips, pronounced my death-doom.

And I must die! The Shadow, hovering near me so long that I had
ceased to regard it, was then close at hand-its very breath was upon
me!I MUST DIE!

Hester came to my side with the second physician. I looked fixedly
uponhim, my doomer. I believe I said some words which betrayed
my thoughts; for he answered, with a bland, cheerful smile, "that I
must not imagine anything so serious; a voyage, perhaps a summer
in Madeira, would soon--"

I turned away; I would hear no more of the smiling lie. Thank God,
it was not breathed by Hester's lips! No; she only wept, and kissed
me once or twice softly.

"In a week he must go!" I heard the physician whisper. Then I
knew there was no hope. They went away, and left me alone.

I tried to think of peace, of religion; I tried to say, "Thy will be
done;" but the strong writhings of human passion shut out from me
even the face of God. To die, to leave all my dear ones, to part
from Lilias Hay!--I uttered her name almost with a groan--the
thought was horrible. In this fearful moment I knew how madly,
how despairingly, I loved her. She knew it, too, though I had never
told her so. There was no need. The deep tenderness between us
had grown from year to year, until it became a part of our life. I
sayour life; for we seemed to have but one. Neither said, "I love;"
but the daily tide of our existence as it flowed harmoniously on,
cried out with its thousand voices, "See, how these two love one
another!"

I had hitherto been content that it should be so, knowing well that
Lilias would wed no man save me, and that one day the loving
friendship between us would be changed for a closer bond. But
now I must die--die without having called her wife, without even
having taken her once to my heart. O misery! that blessed,
long-dreamed-of moment would never come; I must go down into
the dark grave; I must lay my head in the dustthere, and not on the
pure, faithful bosom of my Lilias Hay!

I groaned aloud; I writhed in my anguish. Life and youth were yet
strong within me. I could not die. Sometimes I resolved at all
hazards to tell Lilias of my love. Perhaps I might draw life from
the lips of my betrothed; perhaps a wife's prayers might yet stand
between me and the Destroyer. I would risk it! I would ask her to
wed me now--at once. What,--wed youth with sickness, peace with
misery, life with death? God forgive the sinful thought! No; rather
let me die alone, with dumb lips that carried their eternal secret
mournfully to the grave. Best so--best even for her sake.

I grew calmer. My frozen despair melted into a dew of tears. I
began to pray the prayers that my dead mother had taught me when
I was a child. They made me feel like a child now, peaceful and
humble. When Hester came in again, I was able to look in her face
and smile. She did not weep, but talked with me calmly and
affectionately, about my journey. I said I would rather remain at
home; but she prayed--nay, they all prayed--that I would embrace
any chance that might spare me longer to their dear love. I
promised. Then my sister left the room, and brought in Lilias Hay.

Lilias was very pale, but composed and tearless. She came and sat
down beside me, in her usual place. I laid my hand on her lap; she
took it, and held it for a long time without a word.

"You know all, Lilias; that I am going to Madeira?"

"Yes."

I marvelled, nay, I was almost pained, that she said no more. My
Lilias! I did not know thy heart even then!

They were all in the room: my father, Charles, Hester, and one
who was to be Hester's bridegroom that very month. As they began
to consult as to who should accompany me on this voyage of
doom, young Fortescue drew her nearer to him with an anxious
look. Hester cast her eyes down; but I saw the struggle in her heart.
I would not put the claim even of a dying brother before that of an
affianced husband. I said I would rather have Charles with me;
and, after some resistance, Hester assented. They soon went away,
and left me, as they often did, alone with my friend Lilias.

My friend! Was it friendship, when her every tone, her very
movement, caused my heart to thrill, even through the cold
sluggish pulses of disease. How keenly I suffered! How I yearned
to lay my cheek on the dear hand I held, and pray her to take my
poor dying head to her bosom, and let my last breath utter the
life-long love which on earth might never be fulfilled. But I uttered
it not. Even when, speaking of my going away so soon, her words
came brokenly, and she leaned her brow against my chair in a long
tearful silence, I only laid my hand softly on her hair, and bade
"God bless her." Better, I thought, that she should mourn as
afriend than as a widow.--Lilias, my faithful one, was I right?

Then we talked in a quiet, ordinary way, about my journey and its
arrangements.

"Hester will go with you, surely; of course, Hester must go," said
Lilias.

"No, Hester must not, ought not," I answered earnestly. "Nothing
should divide two who love one another." And then I trembled at
my words, and I saw Lilias tremble too. But soon after she spoke
of some indifferent subject, and continued to do so until the time
came for her to go home. We bade each other "good-night" (we
dared not say "good-bye"), parting as usual with the long, lingering
hand- clasp only. She walked slowly to the door, her step seeming
to me like the rending of soul and body. Whether by gesture or
groan I betrayed the agony I know not; but Lilias turned round.
The next moment she had flung herself on her knees beside me.

"Wilfred, Wilfred! in life or death I cannot part with you. Hush!"--
and her voice grew solemn with unutterable tenderness--"do not
speak. Let me say the truth, long known to us both--that--" But she
could not say it. Only she caught my hands--wildly, fondly, fast--
"Oh, Wilfred! do not--nay, you shall not go alone. Friend! lover!
husband! take me with you!"

I fell forward--my head on her shoulder. My lips asked feebly and
blindly for the holy seal of troth-plight. I felt it--the first pure kiss
of Lilias Hay; and then I felt no more, but sank into a swoon of joy.

It lasted not long; for with returning consciousness came that iron
will of self-martyrdom, which would have made me die with my
love unspoken: I lifted myself from her enclasping arms.

"Lilias," I cried, "this must not be. You would give me life, and I
you--death. I dare not take the boon."

She arose; quick blushes diffused her face and neck, and then
faded away. O love! my faithful love! I could dream I saw thee
now, leaning over me with that white marble brow, and low,
solemn voice.

"Wilfred, you think of yourself alone--you have not remembered
me. Your love is my life--you have no right to take that from me. If
I must suffer, better--better a thousand times that I should suffer
with you than apart." And she sank once more on her knees beside
me. "Oh, Wilfred! my only comfort--my only hope in this world--
cast me not from you. Let me be your wife, to watch, tend, and
cherish you, until--until you go away, and then to follow--soon, oh,
soon!"

I opened my arms, crying, "Lilias, come." And thus, in one long
embrace, silent as death--or love, we plighted our troth to each
other.

A week after I and my wife were in the midst of the wide ocean,
on our way to Madeira.

Reader, you do not wonder now that it was almost heaven to me to
lie silent on the twilight-shadowed deck, doing nothing, save look
into the eyes of my Lilias.

They were eyes, now bright with hope as well as love: for it
seemed as though the shadows of doom were passing away from
mine. I drank in the soft breezes of the southern sea; they gave me
new life, as all said. But I knew, O my wife! that this new life was
brought by that precious love of thine.

CHAPTER II.

IT was a pleasant voyage--by day under the sunny heaven, by night
beneath the stars. Many a time Lilias and I sat for hours together
on the deck, hand in hand like little children; pleased with the
veriest trifles--a cloud on the sky, a flying fish on the water--
talking sweet idleness, half sense, half nonsense, as loving and
happy ones ever will; and then my wife would shake her head with
a mock reproof, and say, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves--we,
burthened between us with the conjoined weight of nearly fifty
years. She was so happy, that she even used to sport with me,
sometimes jesting about my having compelled herself to become
the wooer at last. She kept buzzing about me like a merry little
bee, her blithe voice lulling me either by song or speech, until, still
feeble, I often sank to sleep on the deck, with my head on her lap.
And then, many and many a time did I wake, feeling my hair wet
with the dew of passionate tenderness which had rained on me
from those dear eyes. "Thank God, thank God, for the blessedness
of love!" was all my heart could cry. But thus it did cry, day and
night, in a loud p‘an of joy that even angels might hear.

Friend reader, I dare say thou thinkest we were a couple of
simpletons! We smile on thee calmly. Poor fool! thou hast never
loved.

One night we watched the twilight into starlight, and could not tear
ourselves from the quiet, lonely deck. It was a strange and awful
thing to be sweeping in the darkness over that vast, desolate sea,
with not a sound near us, save the flapping of a sail and the wind
in the cordage singing almost like a human voice, or one which,
though all spiritual now, yet comes laden with the echo of its
remembered mortal wail. Our converse partook of the character of
the scene, and glided from the sweet trifling of contented earthly
love, into the solemn communion of two spirits, wedded not only
for life but for immortality. We spoke of the deep mysteries of our
being, of the unseen and immaterial world. All these things were
ever to me full of a strange fascination, in which Lilias shared.
Why should she not? All our lives we had thought alike, she
following whither I led. But she ever walked meekly, knowing that
the man is the head of the woman. Her wisdom was born and
taught of love, as a woman's should be. And to me it brought not
weariness but strength; I thanked Heaven that the wife of my
bosom was also the wife of my soul!

In the midst of our talk there came by our only fellow-passenger, a
German doctor. He startled us both, as he moved from behind a
sail, the setting moon lighting up his always pallid face and long,
gray hair. He seemed to us, in our present visionary mood, almost
phantom-like in his appearance.

Lilias started, and then laughed. "It is only Herr Foerster. Let us
speak to him."

"No," I said, for I did not like the man. He was a mystic. He vexed
me with his wild aspect, his floating locks, and his perpetual
harangues about Kant and Swedenborg, and Jacob Bœhmen.
Dear Lilias combated my prejudice in her own gentle way. Where I
condemned the eccentric philosopher, who hung out his wisdom as
a sign to catch men's eyes, she pitied the strange old man,
half-mad, and wholly desolate.

"See, Wilfred, how wistfully he is looking out over the waters. We
know not what sorrowful thoughts may be in that poor brain of his.
You will let me speak to him, dearest?"

She had her way, for it was the right way, and I knew it. In a few
minutes the old German was sitting with us, inclined to begin his
fantastic lore. But the mood had changed since yesterday, and his
speech was less mystic, and more full of dreamy poetry. I was
thankful that he had forgotten Kant. As his countenance lighted up,
and his speech grew earnest, I began to feel that there was sincerity
even in his eccentricities, and method in his madness.

"You were standing mute and absorbed when I spoke to you, Herr
Foerster," said Lilias. "Were you thinking about home?"

"I have no home."

There was scarcely any sorrow in his eye or tone. He had passed
these human weaknesses.

"But I was watching for a home, a true home--one in search of
which I have traversed these seas for ten years. I shall find it some
time--I know I shall."

Lilias looked at him compassionately; and then glanced
involuntarily--first to the sea, then upwards to the starry, steel-blue
sky.

"No: you mistake;" and the old mystic shook his head with a
half-scornful smile, "I seek nothing so vague as that: I have no
wish to die. Perhaps"-- and his voice grew mysterious--"Perhaps I
never may die."

My wife crept nearer to me, and gazed earnestly on the man whom
I now thought surely mad; but there was no sign of frenzy in his
manner. Reassured, Lilias again spoke.

"Where and what is this homile you seek?"

He pointed to the young moon just dipping into the western sea,
amidst a bank of fantastic clouds--"Look there! do you not see
beyond that pale crescent, where sea and sky meet, a luminous
verge, resembling white hills and shining towers? Resembling, did
I say? Nay, it is! That is the very spot I seek--the land beyond
sunset--the Island of the Blest."

Surprised and somewhat startled by his sudden vehemence, neither
Lilias nor I made any answer. He went on, changing abruptly from
the energy of enthusiasm to the calmness of eager reasoning.

"You will doubt this, I know. You will think me mad. Many have
done so--but I smile at them. The same was said of the great
Ithacan--of Columbus--of other noble spirits who have set out on a
like track."

"But none have ever found its ending, Herr Foerster," said I. "No
man ever yet reached the Island of the Blest."

"Rather say, no man ever came back from thence. How should
he?" And the German smiled a calm superior smile. As he went
on, his plain, well-arranged arguments almost staggered my doubts
as to his insanity. His speech was so like truth.

"Men in all ages have believed in the existence of this land.
Legends, variously modified by different ages and climes, have all
agreed in this universal fact, that far westward, in the midst of the
vast mysterious ocean, untraversed and untraversable by man, lies
an island, whose dwellers have all joys of humanity without its
pain--all the sensuous delights of earth, combined with the purity
of heaven. Who knows but that the angels carried God's Eden and
planted it there in the midst of the sea?"

"This faith is very beautiful," said Lilias, attracted even against her
will. "I had rather believe thus, than believe that the divine garden-
-trodden of angels, visited by God--was transformed into a howling
wilderness."

I could not but smile at her graceful fancy; but the influence of this
strange man was upon me also. "You say, Herr Foerster, that this
belief has extended over all ages. How so?"

"Is it not among the Greeks? Listen to Homer." And with his
grand, rich German accent, he poured out in kindred strength a
torrent of that majestic Greek, which was in truth worthy to be the
speech of Olympus--"The large utterance of the early gods."

"It sounds glorious," murmured Lilias; "but I am a woman, and
have only a woman's learning. I should like to hear it in our
English tongue."

Herr Foerster obeyed.

"Thus it runs, then:-"But thee the ever-living gods will sendUnto
the Elysian plain and distant boundsOf earth--There life is easiest
unto men: no snow,Or wintry storm, or rain, at any timeIs there;
but evermore the ocean sendsSoft-breathing air of Zephyr to
refreshThe habitants."

"So says the blind seer and poet--for poets are all seers. Hear, too,
the grand Pindar, still speaking the belief of his country--as in
those days bard, prophet, and priest were one:--"They speed their
wayTo Kronos' palace, where, aroundThe Island of the Blest, the
airsOf ocean breathe, and golden flowersBlaze: some on landFrom
shining trees, and other kindsThe water feeds. Of theseGarlands
and bracelets round their arms they bind."

"--Do you hearken, friends?"

We did indeed sit listening, in a silence that was not without awe.
The scene, the hour, the gestures and tones of this man, carried
with them a supernatural influence. More and more he spoke,
collecting with infinite learning every mythical fable that could
suggest or confirm this belief; the story of Ulysses, who sailed far
into the wild desert of waters in search of the land beyond the
sunset; the Roman superstition of the Island of Atlantis, which
ancient fable, if fable it were, had left its impress on the Atlantic;
the legends of medi‘val lore, that spurred on to enterprise a
Columbus and a Gama; the fantastic romance concerning the
"happy land of Faerie," the Island of Avalon and its dwellers, once
of earth--King Arthur, Sir Launfal, Ogier le Danois--all these
fanciful creations of history and fiction were brought together by
our companion--enthusiast, or madman, whichever he were--with a
reality utterly astounding.

"You see," he continued, "that each legend coincides in one fact--
the Happy Islands that lie in the western sea. Universal fable
proves individual truth--at least, I believed so; and when the world
became desolate to me, I turned my thoughts to a new land--the
land of the blest."

"You have suffered, then," whispered Lilias' tender voice.

"Few men long so ardently for another world, as they whose hope
is gone from this. But I must not speak of these things now: all are
past--long past. Why did you make me think of them? You--oh,
you twain have no need to seek the Happy Isles."

He drooped his face a moment, and then went on, harshly and wild
as before. "I dreamed this dream, night and day, until I was
convinced it was a truth. I squandered all my wealth--for whom
should I keep it?--and then set sail. Ten years, ten long years, have
I spent on these seas, passing from ship to ship--suffering famine
and drought, fire and wreck; yet never, oh! never have I touched
the land of the blest. But, hark you!" and he caught my hand--"I
know they are here, in this very ocean. I see theme sometimes--at
sunset, or at dawn, far off in the horizon they never come nearer.
But they will come near: ah, yes! I know that some day I shall find
the Happy Isles."

He stretched his clasped hands towards the ocean in full
confidence of faith.

"Poor dreamer!" I thought. "Are they wise or mad--to be envied or
pitied--the many who, like thee, toss blindly on the world's dark
sea, vainly seeking the Happy Isles?"

But I had not time for more speech; for suddenly there seized me a
racking pain, darting arrow-like through breast and brain. It was
the fore-warning of sufferings I well knew of old. They came upon
me, thronging thick and fast, sharp rending pains which lowered
my manhood to the shrieking agony of a child. And there, alone
beside me, sat the faithful one who had followed me over the seas-
-true woman, true wife! Thank Heaven--it was her thought as well
as mine--thank Heaven! that she was my wife now; that it was hers
to fold her cool hands round my brow, to gather me to her bosom
as a mother would a sick child. Every form and phase of tenderest
love--sister-love, mother-love, wife-love--seemed mingled into
one, and poured out upon me from the heart of my Lilias. I knew
now--would that every man on earth knew!--how infinite a faithful
woman's love can be!

Stronger and stronger grew these torturing pains, until my senses
became dim. I scarce felt even the winding arms of my Lilias, until
they were removed, and I perceived bending over me the German
mystic. He spoke, I thought, of some rare drug which would surely
lull my sufferings.

"It is very fearful--this new power!" answered Lilias.

I heard her voice, every tone.

Those around her spoke a few words. I only knew their effect by
her convulsive shudder and smothered cry; but soon after she said-
-

"Herr Foerster, you are a good man; I trust you with my life--more
than my life, remember! Let my husband try this, and God be
merciful to him and me!"

The German stooped down. To my distempered fancy his eyes
appeared to flame like demons', and his tongue to hiss in her ear--

"You have no fear?"

"No!" she replied.

"It is well--and you are wise! Two hours more of these tortures,
and--"

I heard no more; but as he went away I felt Lilias shiver; she drew
me closer to her, and kissed passionately my lips and eyes. I strove
to speak, but my mind would not concentrate itself so as to frame
one intelligible sentence. The German came back. He knelt before
me, and I perceived a faint fragrance that diffused itself on the air I
breathed. One struggle I made to convince myself that all was real-
-that I was clasped safe in my wife's arms--and then I gave myself
to the delicious numbness which stole over me. My eyes closed;
the gathering lights that flitted before them disappeared: it was as
though some spirit hand were folding over sight and hearing a dim,
gray veil. A few times I felt my heart booming up and down, like a
creature of life; I seemed almost to behold it beating in my bosom-
-its great pulses heaving continually louder and higher, like waves
of the sea; and once or twice I distinguished those rending pains--
pains darting lightning-like--pains that could be seen as well as
felt: for in this strange spell all the various senses seemed to be
confounded and mingled.

Then all grew peace. Closer and closer gathered over me the
solemn veil: one by one my heart's leaping pulses sank lower and
lower--as if dull fingers pressed them into stillness. All pain
ceased, and with it all perception of being. I faintly stirred my
hand, to convince myself of my bodily existence. I tried to make
my lips express the thoughts which dwelt in my still conscious
mind.

"I sleep, Lilias, I sleep!" It sounded less like my own human voice
than that of a spirit; but it was answered.

"Yes, my own dearest, you will sleep soon." Then all the outward
world became dim--the sounds and sights about me fading as
earth-landscapes fade before one who voyages through the air,
rising higher and higher, until cities, towers, and trees--are all an
undistinguishable mass. Thus I seemed to soar out of my bodily
organs into a new existence. All sensation van- ished: I no longer
breathed; yet I seemed to feel no need of vital air. My heart lay
still; but its hushed pulses gave me no pain. I no longer bore the
burden of a weary body: it was as though I had become
incorporeal, and had passed out of the world of matter into that of
spirit.

I said to myself, "This is death!" but the thought found no echo on
my lips--they would not give forth one sound. Then I knew more
clearly the change that had taken place. It seemed at first that I was
really dead--become a disembodied spirit. Yet my soul was not
free from the clay which it no longer had power to animate into
living and breathing man. It roved hither and thither, within its lost
tabernacle, and could not flee away. My brain yet maintained
power of thought and perception; through it I heard, and saw, and
felt, though my outward senses were benumbed. Then, when the
first delicious torpor had gone by, there came upon me a vague
horror. Could it be that I was dead, yet not dead--a tranced body
tenanted by a living soul? Was this my fearful doom?

It broke upon me with the first sound conveyed by my incorporeal
senses--the cry of my wife Lilias! Then I heard--what no man on
earth ever heard before the wail of his beloved over his own dead
corse!

CHAPTER III.

IN a dark cabin--around all coldness, silence, death--they left me;
me, still me, for the eternal essence had not quitted, could not quit,
its clay tenement. I knew all they did to me--the demons, with that
arch-demon looking on, smiling at his horrible work! I felt it all--
my palsied limbs being straightened, the dead-weights laid on my
eyes, my helpless hands decently composed;--with my spirit's
senses I saw and heard every whit, and yet my corporeal life was
gone. Wonder, rage, terror, swept over my soul as vainly as blasts
over a frozen lake--no sound, no movement, enabled the bodily
organs to reflect the mind; I had power over them no more.

The German with his fellow-ministers left me, and I lay wrapped
in terrible repose. I, of all human flesh, was the first who had felt
death. There was a marvel, a mystery, even a pride, in this awful
thought. I shrouded myself in it, and, piercing through the terror
and the gloom, my soul went travelling over every phase of wild
speculation. I, the immortal, indivisible I, looked down almost
pityingly upon that poor atom of helpless mortality that was
myself. It was a dear self--dear, with all its imperfections; for it
was the human form which Lilias held precious, even beautiful.
The pale, powerless head she had cherished on her bosom; the
cold, nerveless hands had lain, hour after hour, enfolded tenderly
in hers.

They were so folded once more; but it was the frenzied clasp of
the widow, not the wife.

She came--Lilias, my beloved; her footsteps sounded through the
stillness of the death-chamber; her sobs pierced the darkness of the
desolate night. Oh, fearful spell! that not even such a cry could
break!

I knew her hand was upon my pulseless heart; I knew her kisses
were showered on my dumb lips; yet I could not answer; no more
than the corpse which I appeared. A veil, far wider than that
between the dead and the living, was drawn between me and the
beloved of my soul. How I longed to rend at once the feeble thread
that linked me to mortality, and pass--through any agony, soever
great--into the state of a disembodied spirit. Then, perchance, I
might hold communion with her, as the departed are sometimes
permitted to do.

She would not believe that the life had entirely gone from my poor
shrouded form. She wrapped the cold hands in her bosom; she laid
her cheek beside mine on the same pillow; and so, weeping bitterly
until her strength failed, she fell asleep. But she awoke soon,
calling wildly on my name. Oh God! I would have almost perilled
the immortal soul Thou gavest me to answer her. Why, thou
Divine, didst Thou make this terrible human love so strong?

Lilias, shuddering, let my hands fall. When they fell, impassive as
clay, she uttered a cry such as would almost have broken a
death-slumber. It could not break mine.

She seized the lamp, and held it so that the light fell on my face.
There was one start, one gasping sigh, and then she stood calm.
Over her terror, her grief, her despair, had passed the awful peace
given by the presence of Death.

She laid down the light, moving slowly, with hushed steps. Then
she came, and knelt down, not by my pillow, but at the couch's
foot. She kissed me no more, she clasped me no more; I was no
longer her living husband, I was the solemn image of Death. That
image froze her human love into mute awe. Her tears ceased, her
sobs were stilled. For a moment she hid her face as if to shut out
from sight the dead face, once so beloved; and then she paused. It
was beloved still! But as she gazed, there was in her look less of
passionate earthly love than of the sublime yet awful tenderness
with which one would behold an angel of God or a departed soul.

After a while, Lilias lifted her voice and prayed--the widow's first
prayer. Yet it began with a thanksgiving. She thanked Heaven for
all I had been to her; for the love which had awakened her
girlhood's soul, calling into life its strength, joy, and beauty; for
the blessed fate which had worked out, in due time, that love's
fulfilment, so that every dower of her rich heart might be poured in
a full tide on him who was its awakener. No murmurings were
there for the love taken away; but blessings for the love that had
been.

"And thou, my husband!" she cried, "my own beloved! who art not
here, not in this form lying cold before me, but now standing a
spirit among the immortal ones, glorious and beautiful as they,
forsake me not! Live thou in my heart; change this human anguish
into memory peaceful and divine! Love me, love me, up in heaven
as I love thee on earth! Oh, thou who wert--who art--my soul's
soul, through life and after, what shall part thee from me!"

She looked--not down towards the pale figure beside which she
knelt, but upwards into heaven. Thither her lifted hands were
stretched, thither her eyes were turned; and I, yet prisoned in that
dull clay, mourned not that she regarded it no more, but rejoiced in
the immortal strength and purity of the devotion which had loved,
not my poor dying body, but me.

There came faces and voices to the door, and Lilias arose. She
arose, not the weeping, broken-hearted girl, stricken and desolate,
but the widow of the dead--calm, patient, almost sublime in her
sorrow. Many pitying friends gathered round her; there was only
one which stole in the rear, glaring at her and at me from amidst
his gray elf-locks--the Destroyer--who had worked upon us this
doom.

They besought Lilias to take some rest; but she meekly refused.
Covering my face, she took her seat at the head of what she
deemed her husband's corpse; and there remained, motionless and
mute, a solemn watcher over the living Dead. At last, her human
strength yielded to this weight of woe; she sank down, slowly,
slowly, on the breast that could shelter her no more. Falling thence
she lay a dull, unconscious heap on the cabin floor.

It marked her, even there, that flaming, fiendish eye. It watched
her everywhere--her and me. Creeping snake-like into the
chamber, the Mystic gathered her in his foul clutch, indifferently,
as though that precious form had been some victim slain by his
hand. He bore her away, with a triumphant smile; and I, her
husband, bound in adamantine bonds, lay a living spirit prisoned in
a dead corse.

Again I was alone. The wind rose, and the ship rocked madly on
the deep. I, lying there, might have been a stone. All sense, all
power, was dead within me. Only the brain was alive--alive with
sight, and sound, and perception. Phantom after phantom rose,
peopling the vessel's hold. They danced in the darkness, like
motes in a sunbeam; they shrieked in the blast, a whirlwind of
unearthly voices; they filled the very air, the air that I had once
breathed.

Thus I lay amidst these horrors, until a human presence, more
demon-like than themselves, put them to flight. The German
Mystic came and stood over his victim.

Love had been powerless to unloose the spell; how then should
Hate have strength to break it? I, who would have heaped worlds
upon worlds to crush my enemy, soul and body, into ashes--was
doomed to lie still as a sleeping babe, while his cursed fingers
wandered over my dead heart, my sunken pulse; while, in his
ghastly mirth, he bent my helpless limbs, making me assume
mocking attitudes of life.

At last, he dropped upon my lips some liquid, and my tongue felt
itself unloosed. I howled upon him imprecations, threatenings,
prayers; but he only smiled! I shrieked, until I thought the sound
might pierce to the ocean's depths; and still he only smiled.

"Poor deceived one, it is vain!" he cried: "thy voice rings no louder
than the sigh of a summer wind. No human ear could hear it, save
mine, which is deaf as the rock. I must work my will."

He laid his finger on my lips, and they were sealed as with an iron
band. He began to speak once more.

"Listen, thou dumb one who hearest all! Against thee I bear no
malice, no revenge; thou art but my instrument to work out the
great end. Through thee I must find the Happy Isles. Thou, whose
bliss on earth seemed so secure that it took from thee all desire for
heaven--thou art the one chosen for this work. Therefore, I must
send thee--a living, trance-bound human soul--to the place where
the dead lie; to the unfathomable depth of the great sea, that there,
perchance, thou mayst discover the way to the Land of
Immortality."

At this my soul within me sent up a cry, such as might have risen
to the crystal walls of heaven when the Son of the Morning fell.
But it could not pass my frozen lips.

"Patience, poor struggler against destiny!" answered that voice of
doom, and yet it now seemed not fierce but pitiful, even mild. "Is
it so hard that thou, who hast been most blessed--who, loved and
loving, hast found earth a very heaven--shouldst sacrifice a few
years more of an existence that haply may soon become wretched
as mine, in order that a fellow-being, equal to thyself in all but
happiness, may exchange a life which to him has been a long
torture, for rest and peace?"

His voice became plaintive, nay, humble. But I saw only the hand
that rent from me love, hope, life, and I cursed him still.

"I hear thy unspoken thoughts," he replied. "But they avail not.
Thou hast no pity on me--me on whom neither God nor man ever
took pity. Thou hast no tenderness for thy brother-man, towards
whom the human eye was never turned in love. Now, then, I stand
as an avenger. I make thee a sacrifice for all the suffering and
outcast of thy kind. Thou shalt go first, and find out the pathway
on which they may follow to the land of peace. It is just, and I am
a righteous instrument to fulfil this doom. The time is at hand."

While he spoke the hurricane rose louder and louder, and amidst
its boomings came the din of clamorous voices, calling aloud that
the dead should be brought forth. The sea would not rest, they said,
until it had received its lawful prey.

The Mystic met them at the cabin door. "It shall be done now, at
once, while the widow sleeps. Poor mourner! It will save her one
parting pang the less."

He was a demon incarnate, with that cast-down eye--that silvery
tongue!

They swathed me--me--living me, in the cerements of the grave;
they bore me, a loathed weight, to the poop. There, out in the
midnight blackness, they stood, unconscious murderers; he leading
them on. Above the howl of the seething waves, I heard his low
voice breathing the mockery of a funeral prayer. A lifting up--a
plunge--and I sank down, down--into the yawning ocean-hell.

CHAPTER IV.

I BELIEVE that death itself--the real parting of soul and body--is
less horrible than many tortures, not only mental but corporeal,
which we endure during life. Many a man has dreamed that he was
dying--has felt vividly all the circumstances of that supreme hour--
the gradual ebbing away of existence, or the passing suddenly from
life into eternity. May it not be that this kind of dream, in which
we rarely suffer any pain, whether seeming to die slowly or by
violence, is but the striving of the spirit within us to foreshadow
the moment of its departure; to make known, in the only possible
way, the solemn secret which none who have passed death's
portals can ever return to unfold?

Thus I died, if death it could be called, as softly, as painlessly, as
one dies in dreams. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," the
change came. I sank down, down into an abyss of blackness,
silence, and nothingness! and then I rose up-rose like a bird, or a
cloud in the air. I beheld light, I heard sounds. I felt a life within
me; richer, fuller, than any human life. Around me was neither
void, nor spiritual heaven, nor terrible hell. It was earth--earth
purified into Paradise.

I stood on the shore of the Happy Isles!

As the sunshine of that blessed land fell on me, my
grave-cerements seemed to melt off like misty robes of air. With
them melted the icy spell which had bound me. Once again I
moved and breathed like living man--like that man of men who
rose up beneath the finger of God from the life-pregnant dust of
Eden.

As glorious as Eden itself was the land whereon I stood. Words
cannot picture it. Perchance you may form the best image of its
beauty, when you look up at those cloud landscapes which grow
visible on summer-eves, and talk to your little son at your knee
about the heavenly country which he dreams is something like that
which his young eyes behold in the pictured sky. No other earthly
similitude can approach so near to this vision of the Happy Isles.

Around them the sea folded itself like a girdle, a crystal circle,
encompassing them with wide and loving arms, like Infinity. For
there, Infinity and Eternity, the great mysteries into which the
deepest and purest human faith cannot pierce without trembling,
became near and familiar things. Still, the land was not heaven,
but earth--earth with its curse taken away, and made pure and
beautiful as it was in the Eden-time.

I walked with human feet along the lovely shore. I gazed with
human eyes upon the view beyond--a region of pastoral, untrodden
beauty, blue hills rising sky-wards, feathered down to the very
strand with trees. The land, though unlike any which I had known
on earth, was such as I had pictured many a time in fancy, when
dreaming over that time of which Homer and Hesiod sung--the
time when Hellas, the garden of the young world, was trodden by
gods, demi-gods, and heroes.

It seemed that I beheld the golden age of Greece. On these purple
hills the Latmian shepherd might have roved--amidst these thick
woods Oreads and Dryads might have made their happy bowers.
The sea itself, azure-shining and crystal-clear, seemed to catch its
brightness from myriads of Nereid-eyes below, and the breeze that
went sighing by was less an earth-wind than the audible breath of
Zephyrus over his goddess-love.

Now I discerned the beauty of those ancient myths--suited to the
time when the world was in its childhood, and needed to be taught
by childish parables--which spiritualized all nature in poetic
symbols, and filled the whole earth with the dim presence of
half-understood Divinity.

I, too, felt within myself the spirit of the golden age. I was a Greek.
I bounded over the strand, my bosom swelling with immortal fire--
such as the great and glorious Titan poured into the soul of man.
Life, young life, leaped in my veins; not that dull current
transfused through eighteen hundred years--but the rich flood,
sensuous yet pure, which coursed through the grand frames of the
ancient heroes. I walked, I leaped, I ran; feeling no longer the pain
and weakness of the body I had once borne, but a strength and
beauty akin to that of the conqueror Theseus, or the goddess-born
son of Peleus.

Up from the sea-shore, across a sloping hill--such an one as might
have blossomed beneath the footsteps of Paris and his woodland
bride, ere Enone's wail had made fair Ida itself a place of
desolation--up, higher and higher, I climbed; until from the hill
summit I looked down on the scene below.

It was a deep vale, amphitheatred by forest and mountain. There,
as in a nest of peace, dwelt the beings who peopled this new
world; I saw them already--not with narrow human vision, but with
an eye that seemed at once to behold and to know. They were
human in semblance--in beauty superhuman. Their speech was
music; their smile was sunshine: their very presence was an
atmosphere of joy. But it was a joy such as immortals feel--calm,
deep, tranquil. They had the power, never known on earth, to look
on the noon-day sun of happiness with undazzled and unblinded
eyes.

I stood on the mountain-top, and stretched forth my arms with a
gesture of glad and yearning desire. The rising sun cast my
shadow, dark and grand in its giant outline, upon the Happy Vale.
Then I heard arising a billowy sound of many voices, swelling into
a hymn. It came pealing on in the majestic cadences of Homer's
tongue, and its burthen evermore ran thus:--

"Rejoice, rejoice! Another mortal has reached the Happy Isles!"

Winding up from the valley, the graceful procession neared me.
Old men advanced first, rich in the beauty of age--for age has
beauty as well as youth. Wisdom, peace, and tranquil thought,
dwelt on each grave brow; the light of their eyes, though dimmed,
was not obscure. Life's evening descended upon them in
gray-clouded peace, bringing no regret nor fear.

Next came women--aged matrons, with their children's children
clinging to their robes; young mothers, to whom mother-love was
unmingled with fear, for their offspring would go down to the
grave--if graves were here--sinless as on the day of birth. Then
advanced Manhood--strong, mighty in stature, the perfect type of
physical beauty, ennobled by the indwelling beauty of the soul.
After this full development of humanity came young men and
maidens, meek, tender, modest, who carried in their bosoms the
rose of love; but it was a thornless rose. Last of all were seen the
children--infant buds, wherein lay folded the perfect man.

These all cried aloud, with one voice of jubilant song, "Welcome!
welcome to the Happy Isles!"

In the midst of them I passed on to the centre of the vale--a palace
of verdure, branch-roofed, and fretted overhead with azure and
gold--the blue sky and the darting sunlight. There was seen no
work of men's hands.

Neither was there a throne--the ruler stood among his people like a
father among his children. His only show of sovereignty was that
which nature stamped upon his mien and gesture. These tokens
pointed silently, "Behold a king among men!"

He was a king! I felt it as I looked upon him. He stood among
them, loftiest in stature, grandest in beauty. It was meet that he
should be so, for in this perfect land the symbol and the reality
were one; the outward manifestation was complete as the inward
truth. Therefore this kingly soul shone forth through a kingly
semblance.--The temple was worthy of the god.

I say god, because there was something god-like in him. Perhaps
the best type by which I can embody him is the Phidian Jove--but it
was Jove unthroned, uncrowned, save by the circumfluent
presence of his own deity.

I bowed myself before him, even to the ground, and my soul within
me bowed likewise. He raised me, repeating the words of the
choral salutation, "Stranger, whomsoever thou art, welcome to the
Happy Isles!"

I have often thought that if there be one physical manifestation in
which the indwelling divinity of manhood most shows itself, it is
the human voice. From the moment I heard his voice I could have
worshipped at the feet of that king. In its majestic sweetness was a
pensive under-tone; speaking of endurance, but endurance
sublimated into peace--of wisdom, but wisdom made holy by
meekness--of power, but power softened by love.

"O thou Greatest One," I cried, "tell me--who art thou?"

He smiled: his smile was like that of Jove, which makes earth to
laugh in sunshine.

"Askest thou this? Then, thou art not yet equal with us; but I will
make thee so."

He placed one hand on my brow, the other on my heart; and his
eyes looked solemnly into mine. An influence seemed to pass into
my soul, raising me to a higher state of being. Hitherto, my
existence had been one of mere sensation, like Adam's with the
tree of wisdom untasted. In the deepest and most delicious sense, I
had learned to feel--I now learned to know.

I sank before him, crying out,--

"Thou art the greatest, the wisest, of ancient heroes, the bold
adventurer into unknown seas. Hail Ulysses, King of Ithaca!"

The monarch lifted his head with a noble pride. "Iwas King of
Ithaca; I am Ulysses. That name, which the Divine Spirit caused to
be much honoured on earth, follows me here. My petty kingdom is
forgotten; but Ulysses, the true Ulysses, reigns in the Happy Isles.
And thou, O man! tell us,--for our knowledge extends not beyond
these lands, whence comest thou?"

I strove to answer the question; but a thick oblivion seemed to
have gathered over my past life: only, as I gazed listlessly on the
crowd that watched me with curious eyes, I saw two young lovers
stand, leaning in each other's arms. The sight brought a passing
gleam of remembrance, and then a sharp pang of regret.

"O King! all is dim with me; but it seems that I have been happy--
have known love. I cannot rest, even here. Let me go back to earth
once more."

"Is it even so?" And he cast on me a look of sublime compassion.
"Drink peace and oblivion with the dews of the Happy Isles!"

He drew me beneath the spreading branches, and shook from them
a shower of pearly drops, which fell, sweet as honey, on my lips
and brow. As they touched me, I ceased to suffer and regret, and
became altogether blessed.

I sat at the feet of the wisest of the Greeks while he judged his
people. Little need of judgment was there, when there was no
crime, and only enough of cloudy sorrow to show more clearly the
eternal sunshine of happiness around them. They gathered round
their king, drinking wisdom from his lips, and learning the few arts
and sciences that their rich world needed. He blessed the young, he
counselled those of maturer years, he spoke peace to the aged. As
they departed each their several ways, I inwardly marvelled at
many things concerning them, which even now seemed a mystery.

"Ulysses," I cried; "I, too, would fain learn of thee!"

The king bent his head in acquiescence.

"Tell me, then, of these thy people--did they journey with thee to
the sunset? And if so, how is it that some are young, some aged? Is
there birth and death here?"

He led me to a little distance, where stood a magnificent tree. Its
branches bore at once foliage, flowers, and fruit. Of its leaves,
some wore the tender green of spring, some the gold or ruddy hue
of autumn; and as they fell--for they did fall--each, touching the
earth, became a seedling plant, and so recommenced a new and
different existence.

"Here," said the sage, "as the life of a tree, is the life of men:
peacefully flow their fourscore years and ten; then they bid adieu
to those they love, fall calmly asleep, and in that slumber the soul
passes from the worn-out body into that of a new-born babe. Thus
it is with the native dwellers in this land."

"But with those thou leddest from Greece, and with thyself?" I
asked, gazing on the majestic form of perfect manhood, on which
no added year might have passed since Calypso's immortal eyes,
tear-dimmed, watched it disappear along the island-shore.

The Ithacan answered,--

"Men's souls differ from one another in greatness. I and my
followers, though mortal, bore within us the germ of immortality,
which gave us will to seek, and strength to find, the Happy Isles.
Therefore, it needed not for us to pass through a succession of
lives in order to attain perfection. We are already perfect."

"Then to thee and thine comes no change; but the body, now made
the complete manifestation of the soul, is immortal as itself?"

"Even so. Now, come hither and behold!"

Still following him, I entered a pleasant glade, thick sown with
amaranth and asphodel. Through it ran murmuring a little stream,
in whose mirror looked the pale flower that wastes for love of its
own image.

There was neither sun nor moon; but the whole atmosphere was
pervaded with a serene twilight, like that of the dawn of day. It
showed the quiet vale, and the countenances of those who dwelt
therein. They were men of various mien; but over all was spread
the same air of purity, happiness, and rest. The stalwart soldier
leaned on his useless weapons; the poet, sitting on the
flower-enamelled grass, sang his innocent songs, happy as a little
child; the sage, lying calmly beneath the tree-shadows, found his
deepest wisdom in the enjoyment of perfect peace.

It was a picture of the world's sinless infancy, when it lay, as a
babe does, soul and body alike wrapped in slumbrous stillness.
Would an awakening come? Or was this the culmination of
existence?

As the idea crossed my spirit, I looked upon my guide. His face,
too, wore the same expression--that of a soul which, desiring
nought, or else having nought to desire, finds its struggles and
sufferings merged into entire contentment.

In this Elysium, there seemed to be no future;--but was there a
past? I turned unto the king, and said,--

"Tell me, Ulysses, have these all drunk of the Lethe dew, and lost
the memory of their former life?"

"No!" he answered; "but they see it pictured dimly and painlessly
like a remembered dream."

"And thou?"

His countenance shone with sublime triumph.

"To me the past is sweet as the remembrance of toil in rest: I look
on it calmly, rejoicingly, as the victor of the goal looks back on the
ended race."

So saying, the Ithacan turned from the entrance of the vale, and
went on, I following his footsteps, to the margin of the sea.

CHAPTER V.

ON the verge of the strand Ulysses stood, and looked towards the
vast ocean which had served as a pathway to his hero-feet. It
kissed them now in tiny wavelets, obediently acknowledging his
sovereignty. The moist touch seemed laden with some passing
memories of earth; for the king stretched forth his arms and cried--

"Oh, life long past! oh, toils long conquered! oh, land long
forsaken! must I then remember ye once more?"

He leaned against an overhanging rock: Icrouch- ing on the silver
sands at his feet, looked up with wonder and reverence to the face
of the son of Laertes.

"Wisest of the Greeks--" I began.

"Thou sayest right," interrupted he. "I was the wisest of the
Greeks. The great gods poured wisdom into my soul when I yet
hung upon the bosom of Anticlea. As a child, I yearned for the
might and energy of youth; as a youth, I desired to attain the full
knowledge of man. But when manhood came, the sceptre of
Laertes only cumbered my hands; and the petty realm of Ithaca
confined my soul.

"The wise men said to me, "Son of Laertes, waste not thy strength
in idle dreaming. Emulate Hercules and Theseus: take in thine
hand arrow and spear, and rid the land of monsters." And the
young men whispered, "Go forth with us, let us fight against men,
and take captive fair women; this is glory." But I knew that both
voices were false: I felt within me something beyond the glory of
the hunter or the warrior. So I stayed, vainly chafing at the limits
of the narrow island.

"At last a vision came to me--"Go," it said, "wed the daughter of
Jove--Helen--most beautiful of all the women of earth. Mingle thy
mortal blood with that of divinity, and thou shalt become thyself
divine." I believed the deceitful dream, self-created out of the
longings of unsatisfied youth; I went and stood with the princes of
Greece at the court of Tyndarus."

Ulysses paused: and I, whose memory, while a blank as regarded
my own past, went side by side with that of the mighty Ithacan--
cried: "Tell me of that perfect type of woman--the ideal of beauty
to the ancient world--tell me of Helen of Troy."

"Helen of Lac‘dmon rises before me now," answered Ulysses.
"She stands veiled at the foot of the throne. Around her are the
young warriors, thirsting with ambition and eager love. Love! what
was love to me? I sought not the fairest woman in Greece, but the
being, Jove-born, whose embrace might impart unto my mortality
the power and wisdom of the god.

"The veil was lifted: Helen stood revealed. The warriors knelt
entranced before her. Fools! to mistake that incarnation of
voluptuous human beauty for the divine Woman, the child of Jove!
I turned away, half in sorrow, half in scorn, and wooed no more
the daughter of Leda."

"But the son of Laertes returned not without a bride," I said,
earnestly regarding the face of the king. Wisdom sat there--placid
yet stern, unbending firmness, and indomitable will; but there was
no sign of human tenderness. I saw that in the great Ithacan's soul
an insatiable thirst for knowledge had filled the place of love.

He answered carelessly:--"My people said it was meet a woman
should sit by the hearth of Ulysses, to tend the age of Anticlea, and
bring up sons to mount Laertes' throne. So Penelope sailed with
me in the black ships to Ithaca."

There was a silence--during which the little waves sang their
under-melody, until it grew into the boom of the rising tide. The
sea dashed and foamed against the rocks that confined it; and its
loud roar sounded mournful even in the Happy Isles.

Ulysses beheld, and a new spirit dawned in his majestic eyes.
"Child of the after world," he cried, turning suddenly round, "thou
seest in that sea the image of my soul. It would not--could not stay
murmuring among the golden sands: it must rise and rise, even
though it dashed itself howling upon the bitter rocks. I sat, an
enslaved king, upon my paltry throne, holding sway over the
human beasts--for they were soulless as beasts--to whom the
purple and the diadem made me appear divine; I ruled them, and
then scorned myself for stooping to such a dominion. Why was I
thus pent up within the limits of my narrow isle?--I for whose
aspirings the world itself appeared too bounded and too small."

"Yet," I answered him, timorously and softly, "when the summons
came, the monarch of Ithaca used his wisdom for a stratagem,
rather than depart with those who warred for Helen, against Troy.
Why did the kingly warrior pretend madness, and sow salt on the
sea-shore?"

A look, as like human anger as that immortal face could assume,
darkened the brow of the king. "Because the folly of mankind
forced greatness itself to cunning. Was it meet that Ulysses, gifted
in the wisdom of the gods, should go forth with a barbarian race to
quarrel over an adulterous woman? But fate is stronger than
human will: and so I, with my twelve ships, sailed for the Phrygian
shore."

"And thou wert among the mightiest there?"

"I was the mightiest! Wisdom is greater than valour. It was I who
ruled the wavering Agamemnon, and led the virgin-sacrifice to
Aulis. I, by my counsels, caused the destruction of Troy."

As he spoke, there came before my mind's eye a vision of the
pillaged city, the murdered Priam, the aged Hecuba grovelling in
her children's gore. And I said, mournfully, "Alas, for Troy!"

The face of Ulysses expressed neither triumph nor compassion, as
he answered. "Troy fell: it was destined that she should fall. The
will of the Supreme must be accomplished. The world's tide must
swell onward, whether men, cities, or kingdoms, lie engulfed in its
course. Greece learned wisdom from that ten years' miserable war;
and from the ravaged town may have arisen a new and a greater
Ilion."

"It has--it has!" I answered, thinking of Eneas whose descendants
builded Rome, and longing to impart the knowledge to which the
wisest of the ancient world had not attained. But his impassive
look asked it not. The perfection of his Elysium seemed to be,
never to desire. Instead of speaking of a future which to him was
indifferent, I pursued my questions concerning the past.

"Great Ulysses! to thy ten years before Troy succeeded another
period of greater glory still--the glory of endurance. Let me bow,
heart and soul, before the patient wanderer over many seas, the
hero struggling with destiny, conquering alike the jaws of Scylla
and the Sirens' song--enslaved neither by fear, ambition, nor love;"
and here I paused, doubtful, remembering fair Circe's isle.

But the king answered unmoved. "If ever love subdued me, it was
an immortal's love, which I thought might lift my being and
endow it with something divine. But even Circe's charms were
laid at my feet: I sought them not. And the winds that wafted our
flying ship from the enchanted isle, testified that wisdom and
virtue were dearer to Ulysses than the clasp of a goddess's
imploring arms."

"Yet when the end was gained, the travail past, and the son of
Laertes reached his native land, did that wisdom and virtue find
their perfect fruition in happiness and peace? Else wherefore did
thy bold feet quit for ever the Ithacan shore?"

Ulysses advanced a few paces, and lifted his hand in the attitude of
speech. He stood as he might have stood before the throne of
Agamemnon, his lips dropping words sweet as honey, but strong
and all-subduing as the wine which Hebe poured out for Jove.

"I was a man before my age. I discerned faintly a higher life than
that of brute warfare and sensual pleasure, and turned with
loathing from my brethren. I sought this diviner life everywhere--
in the renown of battle, in the purer glory of travails conquered, in
the delights of a goddess's love. But wisdom, which is alone
happiness, ever flitted before me like a vain shadow: it was no
nearer to me in Circe's or Calypso's island than in the
gore-encrusted fields of Troy. So I turned my footsteps and sought
it in my own home. I gave laws to my people; I taught them the
lore of distant lands; I stooped my warrior's hand to guide the
plough and melt the ore; I spoke of that wisdom which is better
than physical prowess--of peace, which is more glorious than war."

"And they rewarded thee?"

"They muttered among themselves that fame had lied, and that the
returned Ulysses was the same madman and coward whom their
fathers had seen sowing the shore with salt. And throughout the
isle men lived like brutes; each lifting his hand against his brother,
as though Ulysses had never reigned in Ithaca."

"Alas!" I murmured. "Woe for him who is the herald of a coming
age! But surely there was peace and content by the hearth of the
returned spouse, the noble father, the duteous son? Surely there
was rest for thee amidst thy kindred?"

He replied, calmly as ever; "A great man often finds no kindred
but the gods. So it was with me and mine. I walked with them; I
was not of them. Laertes looked on me and marvelled, as Typhon
might have done at the monster offspring which called him sire.
Anticlea "was not." Pale shade of mother-love, thou at least in thy
solemn Hades hadst acknowledged thy Ulysses! Telemachus, dull
follower of a past age's lore, with nought of fiery youth save its
presumption, sought to guide into safe proprieties the errant
sceptre held by his father's daring hand. Good he was--tender too;
but the aged eagle despises the filial cares of the hooded crow.
Ulysses was alone still."

"Yet Penelope?" I began inquiringly.

"Penelope sat by the hearth and span."

In that one sentence, where the only reproach was indifference, I
read the sole atoning plea for the husband who once more quitted,
and for ever, a wife faithful for twenty years. I saw before me the
fair dull embodiment of virtuous inanities, fulfilling the lifeless
round of conjugal and maternal duty, scared with horror at the bold
soul that, over-leaping the world's boundary of assumed right and
wrong, would fain dive for itself into the mysteries of the divine
and the true. I knew how it was that not even the coldly-faithful
Penelope could keep her lord within the bounds of Ithaca.

"But," I cried, "tell me how the end came; and how it was that
thou and thy crew set sail for the Happy Isles?"

Ulysses paused, and a rapt expression, which might be either
memory or prophecy, arose in his eyes, which were fixed on the
distant cloud-hung main.

"I see my palace, as on that day of brutal feasting, when, moved to
scorn and wrath, I stood in the midst, and called them beasts. They
proved the justice of the name. They rose up against the hand that
fed them: they would have torn asunder the only true man in
Ithaca. Cowards! I hear their howling now. I see the white face of
my son Telemachus, pleading caution, expediency, while on the
other hand arise Penelope's weak railings against her rude,
iron-hearted lord, whom she deemed the cause of all. But I stood
up, among fools and beasts, A MAN--the man who had conquered
gods and monsters, earth and hell-Ulysses."

"And Ulysses was victor once more," I cried eagerly.

"Go, ask the Ithacans, if Ithaca yet exist, concerning the aged
monarch, whose age was more glorious than their puling youth.
With me, to fight was to conquer. I crushed them like dust under
my sceptre, and then I cast it among them--I would be no more
their king."

"What followed?"

"I gathered from far and wide those tried companions of my
ancient glory who yet breathed the upper air; neither them nor me
did the dull world understand. Gladly they arose at their chieftain's
summons--gladly they prepared to follow Ulysses to the West.
Once more the old ship rocked in the bay, and on every aged cheek
the sea-wind blew, alluring with delicious hope across the
unknown wave. Thus Ulysses departed."

"But it was in peace?"

"Ay, in peace! From the tomb of Laertes to the strand did the
crawling slaves track these footsteps, even with acclamations. The
new-crowned head of Telemachus was bent for my blessing, and
Penelope herself followed me to the shore. Her countenance
expressed demure regret, but her eyes were bright, and not with
tears. I saw that ere the prow had turned from the land, she
likewise had turned away, hurrying joyfully to where the released
people cried, "Long live the King Telemachus!" He was a meet
king for them."

"Even so, O great Ulysses! And thou--"

"I looked on Ithaca no more; but stretched my sail towards the
boundless expanse of waters, when I might attain my full desire.
So the shore faded from us for ever, and we sailed on and on, night
and day, towards the sunset, until we reached the Happy Isles."

As Ulysses ceased, the sublime calm of his countenance deepened
more and more. There was scarcely need for the question that burst
from my lips--

"And they are, indeed, the Happy Isles? Thou art perfectly
blessed?"

"Seest thou not I am," replied the king. "Here all desires are
fulfilled--we have wisdom, peace, virtue, glory, together with
every delight of sense exalted into purity. We have no longings
unattained--we live a life like that of childhood, one delicious
present."

"But the future?" I said, as a doubt crossed my mind--a doubt that
was not reflected in the countenance of Ulysses.

"I understand not thy words," he said.

"Dost thou desire nought--expect nought? Is there not even here a
something beyond--an Infinite, whereunto the soul may lift itself--
a perpetual Future?"

"What is the Future?" said the king's calm voice.

Then I knew that I was in an Elysium where there was no
to-morrow. My spirit, born in later time, possessed a power greater
than that of the greatest in the elder world--their heaven was
sensuous delight and rest; mine--?

I knew not, as yet, what it was, or in what sphere of being. I only
knew that I was different from those among whom I moved. As
Ulysses left me, passing with slow, majestic footsteps across the
shining sands, I felt that there was something wanting even in this
Paradise. The sea appeared no longer a loving guard, but a crystal
barrier, awful even in its beauty. And when the moon rose--
looming out of the waters like a thing of life, coming from--
whither?--there rushed back upon me the eternal secret, the thirst
for the mysterious Beyond.

I lay beneath the shadow of the rock, immersed in thoughts too
deep to belong to the Happy Isles, but appertaining to another state
of existence. Whether that existence had been, or was to be, I
knew not. The moon climbed higher in the heavens, spanning the
far sea with a glimmering bridge of light: it drew nearer and
nearer, until it reached my very feet--a silver pathway leading--was
it to Infinity or Nothingness?

Should I arise and follow? The impulse dawned, strengthened,
grew into a madness. The Island of the Blest, the peaceful vale--all
faded from me. I yearned for something to hope for--something yet
to come. I looked at that unsubstantial, dazzling line, and then at
my own material frame, which, though spiritualized and made
beautiful, bore yet a human likeness. Dare I walk the waves with
mortal feet?

I dare! for each earthly particle is interpenetrated with my
immortal soul. Faith, and Will, and Infinite Desire, can accomplish
all things.

I turned one look on the beautiful land, sleeping beneath the
curtain of night--then I set my foot on the living line of radiance.

That immortal pathway sustained my immortal feet! On it I walked
over the fathomless abyss, on, on--whither?

CHAPTER VI.

OUT into the dim obscure, guided and sustained only by that
slender moonlight line, I passed without fear. As I went, olden
thoughts entered my mind; and this strange journey seemed a
shadowing of something on earth--some wild ocean of fate, to be
crossed by one pale ray.

Gradually the moon set, and the path was gone!

I felt it vanish from beneath my feet--with the darkness came
imminent death! I cried out aloud, and the cry brought to me the
knowledge that I had passed into another sphere of being--for, lo!
in my despair I called upon God--the Christian's God!

At once, in a moment, the abyss of darkness was ablaze with light,
showing me that I had almost reached the land. Looking up, I saw
on the near shore a palace whose splendour lightened the whole
isle, and glimmered even on the waves. But amidst these waves I
was struggling still. I saw afar off life, safety, bliss, and yet Death
was ready to engulf me.

There rose to my lips words faintly remembered as being known of
old, solemn and holy--

"What shall I do to be saved!"

But still around me the greedy waves hissed and roared. Then the
cry at my heart changed to one humble, helpless, yet not hopeless--

"Lord, what wilt Thou do, that I may be saved?"

Instantly I saw a light boat crossing the seething waters. In it stood
a youth, pale, beautiful; serene and holy of mien as he who abode
at Patmos--the beloved apostle John. Again I cried, and the answer
was--

"Brother, peace! Help is near."

Then, his blessed hands lifted me out of that yawning grave, and I
sank before him--saved!

He made on my forehead the sign of the cross, saying--

"Welcome, brother! This is the island of Avillion, where dwell
many good Christian knights, with those knights of Fa‰rie who
serve God, and believe in His word. I, too, abide among them,
because my life on earth was spent in faith and purity, and in the
quest of the Sangreal."

"Who then art thou, my preserver?"

The youth put aside his shining helmet, looking upward a holy yet
humble joy.

"I am Galahad, the only one of King Arthur's knights to whom
God gave strength and patience to find the holy Greal."

As he spoke, the boat touched the strand. He signed me with the
cross once more, leaped on the shore, and disappeared.

"Oh, leave me not!" I cried. "Good knight and true, I need thy
guidance even here! How shall I tread alone the unknown isle; how
enter the shining palace?"

And I looked tremblingly at the castle where dwelt King Arthur
and Morgue la Faye; I knew it was so; for now all my prescience
came back upon me, even as in the Island of Ulysses. But while I
gazed, not daring to approach the presence of so great a hero, that
which I had deemed a king's palace became a temple of the King
of Kings. From the cathedral windows gleamed the altar lights,
which I knew were burning round the Sangreal; and through the
wide-opened doors came the holy matin-hymn, lifted ere yet the
sky was purple with dawn. "Dilexi quoniam" began the psalm; and
as it proceeded, verse after verse pealed on my heart and memory.

"The sorrows of death compassed me, the pains of hell gat hold
upon me..... Then called I upon the name of the Lord.....

"Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears,
and my feet from falling.

"I will walk before the Lord in the light of the living."

I entered the open temple-gate, and paid my vows at the threshold
of the King of Heaven.

From thence I passed amid the train of worshippers--men and
women, Christian knights, and ladies pure and fair--to the presence
of Arthur and Morgue la Faye. They sat together on a throne, alike,
and yet unlike; for she was the most beauteous dame in the whole
land of Fa‰rie, while on the face of her mortal brother lingered still
the traces of his long warfare on earth. Yet he was a noble king to
behold; and as he sat leaning upon Excalibur, his fair hair falling
on either side his broad forehead, and his limbs showing grand and
giantlike through his garments' folds, I felt rising within me the
same ardour which had impelled so many brave knights to fight,
bleed, or die, for Arthur of Britain.

Around the presence-chamber were grouped the most noted of the
dwellers in Avillion. I beheld and knew them all. Side by side
stood the two bold adventurers from the land of the Cymiri, who
sailed westward in search of the Gwerdonnan Lian--the Green Isles
of the Ocean--and returned no more; Prince Madoc, and Merlin,
the mightiest sage of those early days. Afar from these, half hid in
a delicious twilight shadow, Sir Launfal, the pure and faithful
knight, lay resting at the feet of the beloved Tryamour. Near the
throne leaned Ogier le Danois, the valiant and pious, who at his
birth was chosen by Morgue la Faye to be her loyal amoureux. He
ever kept at her side, looking up into her calm, queen-like eyes,
and ready to obey her lightest behest, as true knight should for the
sake of his dear ladye. But apart from all, kneeling in a little
oratory, I saw Sir Galahad. His face was turned eastward, and the
early sunbeams fell around his head like a glory. It seemed like the
smile of God's love resting first and nearest upon him who on
earth had loved God only.

Concealed behind the massive pillars which sustained the hall, I
beheld all these, and then felt, piercing even to my hiding-place,
the eagle glance of Arthur the king.

"Come forth!" he said. "Whence art thou?"

I answered trembling; for his voice was loud and deep, as the noise
of many waters; and yet it sounded familiar, for the accents,
though stronger and more rugged, were those of my native speech.
The long-forgotten world, with all its memories, all its ties, rushed
back upon my thought.

"Great king, I come from thine own far-off island in the northern
seas. There, Arthur of Britain is remembered still."

His countenance changed, and his mailed fingers tightened over
Excalibur.

"Is it so? Bringest thou tidings from myking- dom? Do the men of
Carlyon ask for Arthur to return once more?"

And his frame, hitherto calm as a giant image of a marble knight,
was stirred with human emotion. This land, then, was not like that
of Ulysses, an elysium of undesiring repose.

"I cannot answer thee, O King!" I cried, while a confused mass of
earthly memories struggled dimly in my brain.

But Morgue la Faye arose, and struck her wand on the area below
the throne. Immediately the ground divided, and formed a deep
crystal well.

"Look down, and tell what thou seest," said the sweet tones of the
Queen of Fa‰rie.

"I see a land where men run about like ants, each laden with a
golden burthen, or struggling to gain the same; I see palaces built
for and inhabited by fools, and squalid huts where great and wise
men grovel in misery."

"Oh, my Britain! oh, my country!" groaned the king. "The time is
not yet come; they look not for Arthur!"

But his immortal sister said tenderly, "Wait! The ages that pass by
but nearer bring the Joyful day, when Arthur shall come on earth
again. Child of man, look into the spring once more!"

"Aye, look!" cried the king. "Tell me of my palace, the
many-towered Camelot; of Tintagel, fair home of my mother
Igrayne; of the plain near the sea, where my brave army fought
with Mordred; of the valley, where I lay wounded and tended by
Sir Bedivere!"

"I see a castle on a cliff."

"Ah!" eagerly interposed the king of knights, "it is my ancient
castle of Dovor, where Sir Gawaine's ashes lie. Do they still say
the masses for his soul, and does the passing bell ring nightly over
the desolate sea shore?"

"It is a shore, not desolate but thronged with human habitations.
The sea is black with ships, the hum of commerce rises up to the
castle-wall. Men and women, their souls and bodies alike
enfeebled by luxury and thirst of gold, tread mincingly over the
bones of the stalwart-limbed and noble-hearted knight."

"Alas! alas!" Arthur again began, but the Fa‰rie lady's hand was
on his lips.

My vision continued. "I behold a plain, intersected far and near
with iron net-work; over it speed, thundering and bowling,
breathing smoke and flame, giant-steeds stranger than those which
Merlin harnessed to his chariot. He chained demons within the
centre of the earth; this generation has created subject-demons
from the dull dead metals that lie enwombed there."

"And these mighty dwellers in Britain have forgotten their fathers.
Of Arthur and his bold knights no trace or memory remains on
earth," said the King, while a shadow gloomed on his brow, like a
cloud sweeping over a gray mountain-top.

"Not so," I answered. "The world's truths of mystical allegory are
enduring as itself. The Round Table has crumbled into dust, and
the raven hoots where stood the towers of Tintagel; but still many
an old romaunt, and many a new poet's songs, keep up the name
and the glory of Arthur."

The king folded his hands upon Excalibur, and leaned his forehead
against the hilt. "Then I have lived," he said, and peace again stole
over his majestic countenance.

Turning from the scene around me, I again sought the depths of the
magic well. My vision obeyed now, not the command of Arthur,
but the impulse of my own being. I saw no land, but a black
heaving sea, upon which rode a single ship. Within its darkest
cabin I beheld a woman sitting alone. She rocked herself to and fro
in her desolation; she lifted helplessly her pale, sorrowful face.

Then I leaped up with a great cry, and from my now conscious
heart burst forth the name of Lilias.

But immediately Morgue la Faye bound round my temples a
slender circlet of gold. As it touched my brow all memory
vanished, and I fell down in a swoon.

CHAPTER VII.

WHEN I awoke, or seemed to awake, the presence-chamber, and
all the beautiful and noble forms with which it was thronged, had
disappeared. I lay in a dim cavern that was hollowed out of a
basaltic rock. Huge pillars sustained the roof; glistening stalactites
peopled the place with fantastic images of natural objects, animals,
and even the human form. These icy phantasms of life grinned
from dim hiding-places, making the solitude horrible. It was as
though a troop of spectres had suddenly been congealed into
material form; each grotesque or ghastly shape still transparent as
air, but fixed in an awful immobility.

As I beheld, it seemed that the most fearful vision that ever startled
human eye, would be less terrible than these embodied phantoms. I
strove to break the spell. I called aloud, but the echoes of my own
voice rang through the cavern like the shrieks of innumerable
spirits. Then I felt the thin golden thread on my brow, and
remembered all that had chanced since I clung to the saving hand
of Sir Galahad, within sight of the island-shore. And while I
pondered, it seemed as though my nature had become like that of
the other dwellers in Avillion, and I had entered on a new sphere
of being. In this sphere, my memory, alive to the past of others,
was utterly dead to my own. From the golden thread a balmy
influence passed into my brain, stilling all those pangs which in
the human world so often teach us that to suffer needs but to
remember.

My life seemed only to have begun from the moment when my
feet touched the shore of Avillion. But from that time it was a full,
real life, acute to enjoy, and as acute to endure. Kneeling on the
floor of the cavern, the terror that convulsed me plainly showed
that I was human still. And like the cry which weak humanity
sends up to heaven, was that which, bursting from my shrinking
soul, became a prayer to God.

"O Thou, who tookest me out of the deep waters, save me from
this hell!"

I lifted up mine eyes, and saw standing beside one of the gigantic
pillars, a form of flesh and blood. I knew it well--the dark, sombre
face, in whose upper lineaments was stamped the impress of
intellect and beauty, equally divine, while the lower features
denoted stormy human passions--ambition, sensuality, and
obstinate will--a mixture of the angel and the beast. It was Merlin
the demon-born.

Still, to behold living and breathing man was bliss unutterable in
this horrible place. I leaped forward and clasped the knees of the
enchanter. He looked down upon me with contemptuous triumph.

"Weak child of the after ages, how thou quailest with fear at these
poor shadows! With all the boasted glories of thy modern time, the
magician of the elder world is greater than thou."

At this scornful speech, I arose, trembling still, but striving to
answer him boldly. "Merlin, why comest thou to mock me, after
affrighting me with thy horrible phantasms? What sent thee
thither?"

"The merciful tenderness of Morgue la Faye, and mine own will. I
desired to see if one of the vaunted later world was bolder than the
greatest magician of ancient time. I am content: now let there be
peace between us." He reached his hand; but I paused, irresolute.
"Thou fearest to clasp the hand of Merlin, the demon-born!"

He had spoken aloud the words in my heart. I dared not deny them.

"Fool! I am the son of a demon--of a spirit great, strong--and good,
because he was strong. What is virtue, but that power which is the
mightiest? Therefore my demon sire was as worthy of worship as
any of your angels."

I shrank aghast, and instinctively made the sign which was used as
a symbol in those olden times to whose simplicity I had apparently
returned--the sign of the holy cross. The magician made it
likewise.

"Fear not," he said: "I, too, worship God. I, with men and spirits,
must needs revere the one Omnipotent Spirit, the origin of all."

As he spoke I regarded him with less of dread; for upon his dark
face had dawned something which made it like unto an angel's.
Such a light might have irradiated the brow of the great Hierarch
of heaven, before he rebelled and fell.

"Merlin, I fear thee not, nor hate thee: God made us all--men,
angels, and demons (or, as thou callest them, spirits). We are alike
His children, or may become such, one day. Give me thy hand, and
guide me from this dreary cave once more into the fair valley of
Avillion, if indeed I am still near there."

"This is Avillion. Thou art in the island of the blest," said the
magician.

I marvelled greatly. "How can it be so, when I suffer trial, and
terror, and pain? Dost thou call this happiness?"

Then Merlin answered, taking up his parable, like the prophets of
olden time:--

"Can the day exist without the night, or the sunshine without the
shade? Does not good itself need the opposition of evil? Far higher
than a dull life of perpetual selfish bliss, is that state of being
which consists of temptation and triumph, struggle and victory,
endurance and repose. Thus, in our life here, is intermixed just so
much of evil and of suffering as will purify and lift us one stage
nearer to divine perfection."

"Then all suffer, and are tempted, and must be?"

"Thou scarce knowest which thy words imply," replied Merlin;
and now his speech was soft, almost heavenly, so that I loved to
listen to him. "Here, as on earth, temptation comes from man,
suffering from God. One is a torturing flame, the other a refining
fire. In Avillion, some have to struggle against the evil within
themselves: some are ordained to suffer for, with, or from their
brethren."

"Which, Merlin, is thy destiny?"

"It comes upon me now!" cried the enchanter, while the heavenly
influence passed from his face, and it kindled with lurid fire. He
gnashed his teeth, and his glaring eyes were fixed upon a dim
alcove, where stood among the stalactite images one that was
likest to humanity.

Horror! while we beheld--for my gaze was rivetted too--there was
a change in the icy phantom. The indistinct thing took form like a
statue; the statue seemed transforming into flesh; roundness and
colour came into the transparent limbs; the rigid hair stirred with
life. Momently the icy shape was becoming a beautiful woman.

Merlin looked, and his face was like one struggling with the
death-agony.

"Vivienne! for whom I burned in such mad passion, art thou
following me still? Look!" and he clutched my hand. "Dost thou
not see her, with her bare, white-gleaming limbs; her floating,
perfumed tresses, in every golden thread of which she netted my
soul? Dost thou not feel her young breath, that once came upon my
already wrinkled brow like the breath of spring? Vivienne--my
love, my beautiful: it is she--it is she!"

He drew a long gasping sigh, and stretched out his arms with a
gesture of incontrollable passion. But still his feet were steadfast:
he approached no nearer to the alluring phantasm, which appeared
continually changing from crystal to flesh, and then back again
into crystal. Merlin's gleaming eyes drank in athirst every varying
line of the lovely form.

"See!" he cried, "her brow unbends, she will smile soon; she who
was so harsh, so cold! Her ripe lips part sunnily; she leans forward,
her lithe form drooping like an aspen. Vivienne--Vivienne, come!"

But that instant, the cry of delirious joy became a shriek of horror.
He pressed his hands upon his eyes.

"Temptress! fiend! nay, I mingle all foul names in one, and call
thee woman. Begone!"

He clung to the basalt pillar against which he had leaned. His face
was hidden, but I saw that in the stalwart arm every muscle and
nerve was quivering.

"Still there? Is not the struggle ended yet? Be thyself, Merlin!
Remember the time on earth: thy mad passion that counted a life's
wisdom as nothing to one heartless woman's love. Think of the
long wanderings after her fair, cursed footsteps--cheated, befooled,
mocked--think of her treachery at last. Ah, Vivienne, smilest thou
still? So didst thou, luring me to enter the magic cave--so rung thy
light laugh: I heard it as the spell--closed rock shut down upon me,
writhing in a darkness that might have been eternal. Murderess, I
defy thee! Thy tortured slave is thy victor now!"

He sprang away, and disappeared in the gloom. Immediately the
woman's form became congealed once more into its
semi-transparent substance. There was a sound like the roar of
many floods, and the whole scene melted away.

I found myself on the margin of a lake, surrounded with
mountains. Silvery mists hung over the water, and trembled on the
hill sides:--all things looked pale, shadowy, and pure. At first, I
seemed to be in a deep solitude; but presently I became aware of a
boat gliding over the lake. There, reclining on a golden bed, even
as that wherein he traversed the sea to the city of Sarras, I saw the
form of him who alone was pure enough to behold the Sangreal--
the virgin-knight, Sir Galahad.

CHAPTER VIII.

AS Sir Galahad neared the shore I saluted him with a reverent and
joyful heart. In him seemed perpetually to abide the spirit of
holiness, and that love of God which is the fountain from whence
diverse wide streams of universal love. He was at once Galahad
the Christian champion, before whose righteous arm fell alike the
world's temptations and its opposing powers--Galahad, the pious
knight who saw appear the goblet which held the Holy Greal, in
the mystic covering of white samite--Galahad the youth, at once
loving and pure; devoted to heaven, yet not free from human ties--
witness his friends, Sir Bors and Sir Percival, and the holy
self-devoted maid, Sir Percival's sister--Galahad, the tender son,
who dying "kissed Sir Bors and Sir Percival, saying, "Salute my
father, Sir Launcelot, and bid him remember this unstable world,""
and then was borne upward by angels.

All these things, as I had read of them in old romaunt and history,
returned vividly to my memory. I said unto him--

"O Galahad, knight beloved of God and man, is this indeed the
form whose breath parted while yet in prayer before the holy table,
in the sacred city of Sarras? Did the angel-hands then bear thee,
not at once to heaven, but to this happy Island of Avillion?"

He smiled serenely, and answered--

"Yea! It was God's will that I should still serve him in the flesh,
and so I dwell in Avillion, among those who have journeyed
thither, like Arthur, without seeing death."

"And is thine, like theirs, an existence whose bliss consists in trial
conquered?" I asked, remembering, Merlin and the horrible cave.

A faint shade of sadness overspread the beautiful face:--

"Not for myself I suffer, but for my brethren. I minister here as
angels do on earth. They weep over human sin and sorrow; but
their tears are holy, and soon dried--they know that the All-wise
and All-merciful cannot but make all clear at last."

"But, save thee, the dwellers in Avillion have each this mournful
doom of trial?"

"Call it not doom," he answered gently, "since it is God's will, and
therefore must be good.--Now, of all whom thou hast seen here,
whose inner struggle wouldst thou behold? Desire, and the desire
will be fulfilled--it is ever so in the Happy Isle of Avillion.

"I would see Arthur," I said.

The young knight lifted me by the hands, and instantly, with the
speed of a winged thought, we stood unseen by the couch of the
son of Uther Pendragon.

The King, seemed to strive with troubled dreams. His huge limbs
tossed restlessly, and his sleeping fingers ever sought blindly the
renowned Excalibur, which lay beside him--at once his sceptre and
his sword. He called oftentimes upon his good knights of the
Round Table--Tristram, and Launcelot; also, Gawaine, his near
kinsman, so well beloved, and by Sir Launcelot's fatal hand slain.
Then, suddenly awaking, he lifted up his voice and cried--

"O valiant companions of old! O dear land of Britain! when will
Arthur revisit ye once more? Why must this yearning never be
allayed?--even in the happy vale of Avillion it brings perpetual
pangs!"

And he smote upon his manly breast, that was long since healed of
the "grievous wound," but rent with an inward struggle, harder
perhaps to bear.

Galahad came and stood beside him. I wist not whether Arthur
beheld the vision; but his countenance softened into peace--even
as that of a sleeper when an unseen angel passes by. He took
Excalibur once more, but used it neither as a sceptre nor a sword.
Lifting up the hilt, which was made in the form of a cross, he
kissed it with devotion.

"O Thou, for whose blood in the Sangreal my good knights spent
so many years in a patient quest, give me patience too, that I may
wait until Arthur be worthy of his kingdom, and his kingdom of
him! Quell this impure earthly ambition, both in memory and in
desire--let me grow meek, and pray, until the time comes when the
son of Uther shall reign again in Britain."

He kissed once more the battle-cross formed by the elfin sword,
and then lay down and slept like a little child.

As Galahad passed out, the whole chamber was lightened by the
holy gladness of his smile. Truly it might be seen that he had been
among the angels; that in the eyes which had beheld the shining of
the Sangreal dwelt the reflection of its brightness evermore.

I followed after, traversing with him the blessed isle. For it was
blessed, even though it was not a region of unmixed joy, or perfect
repose. Each human soul was pressing onward, and on each brow
was the divine light of Hope. They drew strength even from the
trials endured--as he who pushes forward in a race feels his cheek
fanned by the fresh breeze into health and beauty, while the listless
lingerer on perfumed banks droops wearily, howsoever the sun
may shine.

"But," I said to Sir Galahad, "when the trial is over rest comes? I
would fain see this rest."

He took nte to a bower where reclined two lovers in the cool of
day--

"Enter, brother!" said Galahad, "my ministry is needless here."

So I passed, alone and still invisible, to the presence of Sir Launfal
and Tryamour.

As grief grows keener from the memory of joy, go happiness is
deepened by the remembrance of vanished sorrow. I felt this when
I beheld Launfal and his beloved. He talked with her of the
troublous time on earth; but he spoke even of suffering with a
smile.

"Dost remember, love, the Forest of Carlyon: how I lay in poverty,
despondency, and pain--when the three Fa‰rie maids came riding
by, and brought me unto a region of peace and beauty, even to
thee? O dear eyes, that looked upon me in my darkness and my
misery, and loved me amidst all!"

And, as he lay at her feet, he drew down to his own the lovely
head, and kissed the drooping eyes--radiant as those of a princess
of Fa‰rie; but tender as those of a loving woman.

Then again spoke Launfal:--

"How hard it was, after that season of bliss, to mix once more with
the vileness of earth--how bitter, save for those hours when a wish
brought me the dear presence of my Fa‰rie love. Then, when for
that pure smile I had to endure the false queen Guinever's--more
cursed in her love than in her hate--"

"O my faithful one! yet thou didst remember me!" And as
Tryamour bent over him, her long locks, dropping immortal balm,
fell in golden waves on the bosom of her knight and love.

"I remembered thee? Could I forget my life, my other soul? Yet in
the dungeon and at the stake did I endure, nor implored thee to
come and save me: I never asked of thee aught--not even love--yet
thou gavest me all!"

She smiled upon him with her heavenly eyes, and bade him
remember earth's sorrows no more.

"Nay, it is sweet to remember," answered Launfal. "Here, in this
dear bower, let me think of the lonely dungeon where I lay in
perpetual darkness, knowing that the first entering gleam of
daylight would be a signal to guide me unto death. Let me call
back the moment when dazzled, blinded, I staggered forth at last.
By degrees, all grew clear: I heard the leafy rustling of the great
pile formed of yet green trees--ah! cruel lengthening of torture,
planned by that revengeful woman-fiend! I saw her sitting on the
pollated throne, beside her deluded spouse, my dear lord King
Arthur! He loved me once--even now he blenched at the sight of
me, and turned away his troubled face; perchance, he could not yet
believe that I had so wronged his honour. Then came the chains,
the lighted torch, the approaching flame--"

"Speak no more!" shuddering said the Fa‰rie lady--with the
woman's heart.

"Yet a little; but only of thee--of thee, Tryamour!--as the steps of
thy fair palfrey sounded musically along the palace terrace, and
thou stoodest forth with thy immortal beauty to proclaim the
honour of thy true knight. Oh! the rapture, when I felt the cool
breeze wrapping my freed limbs as with a garment, and the swift
steed bore me on, ever following thee, past the gleam of the now
harmless pyre, past the shoutings of the multitude, far, far over
forest, mountain, and sea, into the happy vale of Avillion."

He looked up; first heavenwards, and then into that earthly heaven,
the eyes of her he loved. As I beheld him, it seemed that his face,
sublimed by past suffering, was more beautiful even than hers,
which bore the cloudless aspect of perpetual bliss. I saw how it
was that, in some things, a man is greater than an angel.

As these two sat together, leaning cheek to cheek in the silence of
perfect love, the birds in the linden-trees over-head broke forth
into singing; and lo! amidst the marvels of the Happy Isle, I
distinguished one more--that their very song was speech. Thus it
ran:--

"But for the rain, the green earth would wither; without the
evening gloom, man could not behold the stars. So, storm bringeth
freshness; night, dawn, trial, peace; and death, immortality!"

I fell on my face, praying--nay, almost weeping, as one sometimes
does in a heart-poured prayer such as was mine. When it ended, I
arose; but the marriage-bower, and those happy ones who abode
therein, I saw no more.

CHAPTER VIII.

I STOOD once more beside the lake amidst the hills. It was still
veiled in that perpetual mist; and the solitary marge was dimly
illumined by a light like that of a gray June midnight, when the
pale half-moon has just set. There was no sound, not even of a
stirring leaf; for the hills sloped down to the water-side, bare and
treeless; lake, mountain, and sky--sky, lake, and mountain--
reflected each other in ghost-like silence and repose.

At length, through the mist, I heard a sound of many footsteps.
They came nearer; and I distinguished the form of Merlin, leading
a mounted band of the dwellers in Avillion. Suddenly he paused,
and the loud trumpet-tone of his voice rang over the still shore:--

"Who will go with me across the Lake of Shadows?"

There stepped forward the giant figure of King Arthur--Morgue la
Faye following. Behind them Sir Galahad stood, meek, yet
fearless; and these three alone answered Merlin's summons. But
the King paused, and said,--

"How shall we cross the awful lake? Galahad, thou only among us
who has known death, aid us now."

The young knight advanced to the margin, and stretched his arms
out over the water that lay before him, solemn, soundless,
unrippled by a single wave. Then I saw glide towards him the boat
in which he had formerly reclined, with its purple sails shadowing
the golden bed. It came on, impelled invisibly; for there was no
man therein.

"Enter!" said Galahad, in his angel-voice; and immediately the
vessel rocked beneath the great bulk of the two mightiest of
Britain's ancient sons, Arthur and Merlin. "Enter thou, too, my
brother," said they to me.

So I entered tremblingly, yet eagerly, after Morgue la Faye. Then
Merlin uttered a spell, and the boat darted forward from the strand
without either wind or tide.

Far out into the lake we sailed. The silvery vapours shut out from
my vision alike shore and sky. I cast my eyes downwards; and lo!
it seemed that, like a bird of the air sweeping over a city of earth,
the boat glided over a new world lying beneath the waters. In its
mysterious depths, I saw palaces, towers, tombs, outlined dimly
through a gigantic shroud of mist, like that which hung above the
surface. At times, stirring amidst this shroud, I distinguished
denser vapours, which scarce bore airy form, but resembled the
cirri that float in a summer evening sky.

Merlin arose. As the masses of his black robe fell heavily around
him, he might have been likened to a thunder-cloud lifting itself
slowly from the horizon. He wore no magic symbols; he held no
books of power. In the strength of his soul alone lay the
necromancer's might.

"Ye who desired to visit the Lake of Shadows--say, who among
you seeks to call up the ghastly habitants of the City of the Dead?"

King Arthur spoke first:--

"I yearn for tidings of my kingdom on the earth. Therefore I would
fain summon those who lie buried in Britain, and whose spirits
may still hover round the spot where their bones repose. Which
among them, deemest thou, is most able to answer my summons?"

"Love only has power over death," replied the enchanter. "Call one
of those who were dearest to thee on earth."

"They were few indeed!" And a grim, almost scornful smile swept
over Arthur's face. "Ambition was all to me. I loved my royal
kingdom more than any of its subject dwellers--save, perhaps,
Guinever and Gawaine."

"Choose between them!" said Merlin's stern voice.

The monarch paused, irresolute.

"Gawaine, thou wert a valiant knight; indeed I loved thee, my
sister's son! But Guinever sat with me on that dear-prized throne. I
summon her, not as the wife of Arthur, but the Queen of Britain."

Morgue la Faye's hand dropped from her brother's, and Merlin's
dark brow was knitted in wrath. Nevertheless he leaned over the
vessel's side, dipped his fingers in the lake, and uttered the spell:--

"Soul of Guinever Queen of Britain, arise!"

Slowly lifting itself out of the deep appeared one of the cloud-like
vapours. Gradually it became a human form, wearing a nun's garb.
Then I remembered the story of the death of her whose spirit
parted ere Sir Launcelot came to Almesbury, over whom "he wept
not greatly, but sighed." Perchance that one longtear- less sigh
followed the frail Guinever's fleeting soul even to its resting-place;
for in the wail that arose from the waters, I heard evermore the
words--

"Launcelot! Launcelot!"

"Peace, complaining spirit! False queen, false wife, false woman,
answer thy lord!" cried the enchanter.

Arthur spoke--stern, cold, passionless. He thought neither of pity,
anger, nor revenge--only of his Britain. But to all his questions
came from the suffering soul no word, save the cry of "Mercy,
mercy! I repent! Let me rest!" And ever and anon, in mournful
plainings, was repeated the wail, "Launcelot! Launcelot!"

The king sat down wrathful and silent; and the phantom faded into
a wreath of mist that seemed continually to hover round the vessel.

Then Sir Galahad arose, and stood before Arthur and Merlin, meek
reproach, mingled with sorrow, clouding his eyes.

"Oh, men!" he said: "sinful yourselves, yet so harsh to judge the
sinning--is there no pity in God's dear heaven for such as these?
The convent-cell at Almesbury yet bears record of the tears, the
sackcloth, the bloody scourge--sad portion of her who was once a
queen! The aisles of Glastonbury yet ring with those funeral
orisons wrung from the penitent despair of the knighted monk!"

And turning from where Arthur and Merlin sat together--both
shrinking into silence before his words --Galahad dipped his hands
in the lake, writing in the stirless waters the sign of the holy cross.

"Oh, dear father, my lord Sir Launcelot, whose sins may God
pardon! no voice but mine shall summon thee here. Let me look on
thy face once more!"

There was a pause; and then rising from the misty depth, I saw the
mailed image of a knight. It was Guinever's lover--faithful in sin,
but yet most faithful--the bravest of the champions of the Round
Table--Sir Launcelot du Lac. Beneath the shadowy helmet were
the features--still, and ashen gray--as they might have appeared to
his brother monks who gazed down weepingly into the deep grave
at Joyous Garde.

He spoke not, and none spoke with him. Only his son Galahad,
with clasped hands, knelt and prayed.

Even while the spirit lingered, there came and hovered over his
helm a cloud-like shadow; and through the silence was heard that
continual wail--"Launcelot, Launcelot!" But it won no answer,
either in word or look, from the pale spectre of Guinever's knight.

The phantoms both grew dimmer; and then I was aware of another
sight coming near the vessel. It seemed an open boat; and therein,
resting on a bed, was a woman dressed in fair array; and "she lay
as though she had smiled." By this, and by the writing in her hand,
I knew the vision was she who had died for love of Sir Launcelot--
Elaine, the fair maid of Astolat. I looked on the beautiful dead
image, and thought of the time when the waters of Thames had
floated up to the feet of Sir Launcelot this poor broken lily, that
asked no guerdon for love faithful even unto death, but burial from
his hand. And when I remembered this, my heart melted with pity,
and I wept.

"Dost thou weep for me?" said a voice, sweet in its sadness, like a
vesper-bell heard over the sea at night. I felt it came from the pale
lips that looked "as if they smiled." Weepest thou for me, because
I died? Nay: for love's bliss was greater than death's pain."

"How so--when the love proved vain?" I asked.

She did not answer my words; but went on murmuring softly, as
one does in musing aloud:--

"Dear my lord Sir Launcelot! was it sin or shame that I should love
thee, who came and stood before me like an angel in a dream? I
never thought tenderly of living man, save thee. Thou wert the sun
that unfolded my life's flower: when the sun set, it faded, and I
died."

The voice was thrilled with a meek sorrow that roused my pity into
wrath.

"Surely it was evil in the sun to scorch the poor flower," I cried,
remembering how the concealed knight took and wore in the fray
the token of Elaine la Blanche; and how, when she swooned at his
wound, he, saying no word of any former love, prayed her brother,
Sir Lavaine, to bring her to him, and took her in his arms and
kissed her. Then I thought of all the days of fondest tendance
which to the knight brought renewed life, to the fair maid death.
And lastly, of the cruel scorn which, knowing her pure love,
instead of requital offered pitiful gold. And my swelling heart told
me that Sir Launcelot had done a grievous wrong.

But again the voice seemed to answer my thoughts, though it
spoke not to me, but dreamily and vague:--

"Was it, then, so sorrowful to die for thee, my Launcelot? or did
my death lay aught to thy charge? Nay: it was no sin of thine. I
worshipped thee, as one should only worship Heaven; Heaven
punished me--then pityingly took me home: I am content!"

Again my tears fell to hear that low, tender voice; and I marvelled
in my heart whether on earth it had been ever thus uncomplaining.
The spirit answered once more:--

"What was I, that I should murmur against thee, O my lord Sir
Launcelot? Only once-when I lay in my tears, and darkness, and
despair--I heard the blithe sound of thy trumpets, and saw thee
going forth again into the fair world; while I--forgotten, forsaken--
was to thee less than the grass under thy footsteps. Oh, forgive me,
my lord and love, for that one cry of reproach against thee! Iwould
have been--aye, ten thousand times--that trodden grass, if for a
moment it gave freshness to thy feet!"

I looked on the calm features, where no movement of the lips gave
token of the voice which spake. But the deep peace of the smile
that sat on the dead face was an echo of the words which the spirit
uttered. And when I thought of the pure soul which had departed in
the tower of Astolat--praying and confessing meekly unto God, and
remembering with tender and forgiving love Sir Launcelot--I said
in my heart that unto such, against whom earth's hopes are closed,
does the kingdom of heaven open.

While I watched this vision, Arthur, Merlin, and Sir Galahad sat at
the vessel's prow, each absorbed in thought; little to them was
maiden's love or maiden's woe. But Morgue la Faye came near
with her woman's soul shining tearfully in her majestic eyes, and
cried--

"Tell me--thou pure and meek spirit, whom I have summoned
from thy rest--does the remembered love of earth wound thee even
in Paradise?"

Elaine la Blanche answered:--

"I love still, but I suffer no more: God looked on me in mercy, and
drew wholly unto Himself that love which in life was divided. I am
happy-yet I forget thee not: I never could forget thee, my lord Sir
Launcelot!"

While the voice yet spoke, there stood beside the bed another
spirit--also in woman's form. Before its glory the mists dispersed,
and light broke forth upon the waters. Soon another voice was
heard, sweet as that which had murmured its patient sorrow; but
clear and joyous as the angels' harping before the throne.

"Galahad, dear brother of my soul, say unto my brother in the
flesh, Sir Percival--and to that true knight Sir Bors--that far
exceeding the holy city of Sarras, to which we four journeyed
together, is the Eternal city, New Jerusalem. Say, I rejoice that I
died, a willing sacrifice, for the glory of God."

Galahad lifted his brow, radiant with exceeding joy.

"Maiden--through life pure and heaven-devoted, as was the
virgin-mother of Nazareth--say, where does thy soul abide?"

"In Paradise; ministering there as many of God's servants do on
earth, and as thou dost in Avillion. Therefore my spirit,
inter-penetrated and made strong by its love of God--which in life
was entire and undivided--is commanded to succour this soul, once
tortured by earthly love. Sister, come!"

Over the bier she bent, lifting by the hand the pale form, even like
Him who lifted the dead, and said, "Arise."

Elaine arose. To the opening eyes came a brightness, less of earth
than heaven; to the lips came a voice--no mournful complainings,
but melodious hallelujahs. And so, linked hand-in-hand, the
sister-souls passed from sight, not sinking like the rest into the dim
city of the dead, but soaring upwards unto the mount of God.

CHAPTER IX.

AS one who falls, flooded and dazzled by a sunshine cloud--or as
Paul fell, blinded by the heavenly vision near Damascus--so sank I.
Human eye and ear could not endure the glorious radiance, the
angelic melody. Beneath them, my brain and sense seemed
numbed--or rather exhaled into delicious death.

From this trance I awoke, feeling on my brow the light touch of a
woman's hand. It brought strange, undefined remembrances.
Wistfully I looked up.

I lay in the midst of the great hall, once filled with many knights
and ladies. It now held only the fair presence of Queen Morgue la
Faye. But she stood beside me less as a queen than a woman. Her
gorgeous robes were thrown aside, and in her white garments she
seemed a simple earthly maid, even resembling -- I strove to
remember what or who she resembled; but my thoughts fled away,
like winged birds, ever fluttering on before, yet impossible to
seize. Amidst them I heard continually the murmuring of the little
fount which had sprung up at Morgue la Faye's bidding from the
cloven marble floor. It seemed singing to me an olden song of
some long-past existence; and yet, when I drew nearer, its waters
were as smooth and as opaque as the marble which encircled them.
But still, rising from their depths, came that mystic murmur, as it
were a voice from the inner earth.

I leaned eagerly over the well, and my greedy ear drank in its
musical whispers. Morgue la Faye said to me--

"Child of man, what dost thou hear?"

"I hear a sound, like the evening wind in the full-leafed
linden-trees that grew--where was it they grew? Or like that Eolian
harp we put between the ivied window, and listened--who listened,
and when? Alas! alas! the thoughts slip from me; I cannot grasp
them!"

"Bend down thy head again over the water."

"I feel--I feel a perfume; it comes from a violet-bank, the bank
where--but no, all is gone. Again, it is like a rose-garden; I am
walking there in sunshine and gladness; and now it changes to a
sweet clematis-breath--wafted through that still autumn night, with
the stars shining coldly overhead, and the waning crescent
glimmering through the trees. Ah me! ah me! it is fled from me!
No more! no more!" And uttering these mournful words, the
perpetual dirge of life, I fell down weeping beside the mysterious
spring.

Morgue la Faye stood on the other brink; for the well had grown
wider and broader, and even now was swelling out into an infant
stream. She stood, her falling hands meek-folded, her head half
bent, watching me. A gleam of womanly pity softened the
steel-like brightness of her eyes.

Perceiving it, I cried imploringly,--

"O Queen of Avillion, I am not of thy nature, but only mortal man!
Why dost thou try me thus?"

"Because, as thou sayest, thou art not of our nature," she answered
softly. "Thou canst not stay in our happy isle; but I have no power,
nor yet desire, to cast thee thence. Thou must depart of thine own
will."

"Depart!" I echoed sorrowfully; for now that the spell had ceased,
I felt no more the vague memories and wild longings which it had
awakened. I thought with fear of quitting the beautiful island for
some unknown region, perhaps of horror and woe.

"Poor mortal!" Morgue La Faye continued. "Art thou then so loath
to depart? Do the sounds and sights of former times, which I have
raised up before thee, fail to win thee back to earth?"

"I know not of what thou speakest," I answered, trembling. "True,
I had a vision; but it is gone now. I would fain stay in Avillion."

"It cannot be," said the firm but still gentle voice of King Arthur's
sister, as she crossed the spring, its waters sinking not beneath her
airy footsteps. Then she bade me kneel, and took from my head the
slender thread of gold which continually encircled it.

Instantly my brain reeled beneath the thronging memories with
which it teemed. All came back to me--my land, my home, my
Lilias--each thought piercing my soul like arrows tipped with that
bitterest poison, the remembrance of eternally-lost joy.

I dashed myself on the ground at the feet of Morgue la Faye:--

"Cruel queen, why didst thou take from me that blessed spell of
Oblivion? Why torture me with these memories of earth? O Lilias
my wife! my love! my beautiful! would to Heaven that I might see
thy face once more!"

Morgue la Faye lifted me from the earth, where I grovelled in mad
despair, and led me to the brink of the magic well.

"Now, poor child of mortality, cast thine eyes down once more."

I did so. Oh marvel! As the clouds of oblivion had passed from my
soul, so passed the dusky shadow from beneath the water, which
became crystal clear. While I gazed, there grew defined from out
its depths the image of a scene--an earth-landscape--one that I
knew--oh how well! Blue and dim rose the mountains--those giant
spectres of my childhood, which, night after night, enclosed the
descending sun in their craggy, ghostly arms; beneath them lay the
valley,--and the broad river, and the woody slope, where stood--a
Home.

We had chosen it as our home, our wedded home, when--the
melancholy voyage ended--Lilias and I should return to our own
land and our own people. There it stood, near the spot where we
had both dwelt from childhood--a house reverend and beautiful
with years. Over its brown walls climbed the ivy, mingling with
the dear clematis, cherished of old; its painted gothic windows
transmitted every sunbeam in rainbow-tinted glory; and from its
protecting eaves the brooding swallows merrily flew--their
cheerful homes without being meet emblems of that most blessed
one within.

A moment, and the scene changed to the interior. I saw the quaint
labyrinthine chambers, whose gloom was made beautiful by the
presence of youth and happiness. Pictures shone from the
dark-panelled walls; in a recess, the ivory-keyed instrument smiled
over the soul of music shut up within it; above the green,
branch-adorned hearth, fresh-gathered flowers bent to their own
fair images in the mirror.

And near them, pure and lovely as they, was my own life's flower,
whom I had chosen to adorn and bless my home--my wife Lilias!

She sat droopingly, her cheek resting against the crimson chair--
the same where mine had rested in many an hour of mental and
bodily suffering. The remembrance seemed to strike her then; for
suddenly she lifted her face, wherein was love so intense that it
almost became agony, and cried--aye, I heard the very tone--

"Wilfred, beloved, come!"

I would have plunged into hell itself to answer that call! Hearing it,
I sprang madly into the waters, there to seek the vision and the
voice.

In a moment, Avillion and its dwellers had vanished from me for
ever.

CHAPTER X.

AWAKING, I found myself, not in the happy home--not in the dear
arms of my Lilias--but lying in the depth of a thick wood, which,
though in all things resembling earth, was yet unknown to me.

I had gained a strange new land--but different from both those I
had mysteriously traversed; it was neither Elysium nor Avillion. It
was a human world. I trod it with the body of a living man--a man
of modern time. I repeated to myself the name I bore in my
father's house, Wilfred Mayer. Another name, not less familiar, I
murmured, mingled with many tears; the name of my long-parted
wife--my dear Lilias. Every home-recollection came back to me, as
to one who after a season of madness is restored to health and
reason. The intervening time was dim; I could scarce tell whether
it were vision or reality. But all seemed ended now. I felt a real
man, dwelling on a real earth.

I touched the moss whereon I lay--the same green carpet of which
Lilias and I had often heaped fairy-cushions in her childish days;
when I, a sickly youth, was glad to make myself a child for and
with her. Thinking of this, I laid my cheek on the soft moss, kissed
it, and wept.

Suddenly I heard a footstep passing by. It was a stranger--human
like myself. The face was such a one as in this nineteenth century
may be seen sometimes--nay, often--in street, or mart, or social
dwelling; not radiant in superhuman beauty, nor yet devoid of an
inward spiritual charm; the face neither of a god nor an angel, but
of a good man. The moment I saw it, I acknowledged this;
stretched out my hand to him, and called him "brother."

"You say right," he answered, smiling. "We are all brothers here,
and though I cannot say I know your face, yet there is something in
it which seems familiar to me. Therefore, welcome, brother!"

"Welcome to where? for indeed I know not."

"To quiet spot on God's earth, which its inhabitants try to make as
near as they can to Paradise. We call it Eden-land, or the Happy
Isle."

"Another Happy Isle!" I cried, and again became bewildered. "Oh,
friend! I have dreamed such wild dreams, if indeed they be
dreams. Help me to clear my poor wandering brain. I desire nought
but quiet, and home, and Lilias."

"Lilias? I knew the name once; it was a sorrowful name to me, but
its memory is softened here. Come, stranger and brother, you shall
speak no more, think no more, until you have rested and grown
calm. Follow me to my home."

He took my hand and guided me through the wood. I noticed more
closely his face, his bearing, even his garments. The latter were
simple and manly; such as one in our century and our English
clime might wear, consulting ease and grace rather than fantastic
fashion. We entered his dwelling, which was characteristic as his
dress--entered by an unlatched door. Then he began to fulfil the
gentle precept which I saw written over his hearth. "Feed the
hungry, and clothe the naked."

In a brief time I stood beside him, already feeling like a denizen of
this new home and new world. Then we sat down together by that
hospitable hearth, and he said to me--

"My brother--or rather my son, for you are a youth compared with
these white hairs--will you now tell me by what name I shall call
you?"

"Its sound will bring back mournful remembrances," said I. "It is
mine, and my father's also,--Wilfred Mayer."

The stranger clasped my two hands in his, and then looked at me
eagerly, fondly, parting back my hair as though I had been a little
child. "I could weep now," he said, "save that in this happy place
are no tears shed, not even for earth's memories. I rejoice, and
thank Heaven, that I look in the face of my sister's son."

"You are then--"

"Ay, say the name, since it is not forgotten on earth," and he
smiled with a calm pleasure; "the name I bore when we were all
little children together--Cyril."

"I learned it when I was a child too," cried I, clasping his hand
once more. "Well I remember how on many a stormy winter's
night my mother would stand by my little bed, pale and grave, and
teach me in my simple prayers to say, "God preserve Uncle Cyril
far over the seas.""

"Did she so?--my dear Hester--my true sister!" murmured the old
man with a tremulous lip. "Go on, tell me more."

"He was always a mystery to me, this Uncle Cyril, whom I had
never seen, and of whom no one spoke, without looking sorrowful.
Once, too, when there came to us, with her babe in her arms, the
mother of Lilias--"

"You mistake," cried Cyril. "The mother of Lilias died at her birth.
Nay, but I forget time's passing. Perhaps there was a second
Lilias? Go on, Wilfred."

"I remember that day well: how I, a blithe schoolboy, was touched
by her sweet, quiet face, and hearing she had come from abroad,
asked her, as I did all strangers, if she brought news of Uncle
Cyril; how she looked very mournful, and my mother took me
away, telling me not to speak to her of Uncle Cyril more."

Cyril drooped his head lower on his hands, only saying softly, "Go
on, my sister's child, go on."

"I remember also, though faintly, for I was still very young, how
there used to come letters from abroad, over which my mother
looked grave, nay, wept sometimes, and I knew they were from
Uncle Cyril. Over the last she did not weep but smiled, took me on
her knee, and told me that Uncle Cyril was coming home. Week
after week passed, but he came not. My father sometimes hinted of
ships that set sail for home, and vanished strangely on the wide
deep, never reaching land. And day by day my mother's face grew
sadder, and she started at every sound. When I asked her what had
become of Uncle Cyril's ship, she would shudder and say that God
alone knew--no living man could tell."

I paused, but he motioned me to continue.

"Month after month went by, and a strange awe came over me. All
day I pondered about the missing vessel, whose fate no man knew.
Sometimes at night I dreamed about it; I saw it on fire,--or
becalmed until all the crew perished by slow famine or maddening
thirst,--or striking on a rock, and sinking in a moment, as though
some great demon from the world below had sucked it in with all
its living freight. Every wild sea-tale that I had read--every wilder
fancy that boyhood's dreamy brain could conceive--were gathered
up to give form and shape to the story. Yet still it was there--a
nameless horror--a mystery sealed, until the great day when the sea
should give up her dead."

"Amen!" said my companion, solemnly. "But tell me still of that
dear home."

",There, week by week, hope grew fainter--faded--died. At last my
mother told me, sadly, but without weeping, to leave out one name
in my childish prayers--for that Uncle Cyril was with God, and
needed them no more. But the awe and expectation would not pass
away; and many a night I started up in my little bed, dreaming that
he was come."

I ceased, and a deep silence fell upon us both, as we sat by the red
embers of the sinking fire--for the climate had changed in this new
world, and I felt no longer the glow of perpetual summer, but the
pleasant chill of autumn. I thought of the region, and of my
companion, with a curiosity born scarce of fear but wonder. Had
Cyril indeed passed through the awful gate, and did I stand in the
Land of the Dead, with one of its unearthly inhabitants? He might
have read my thought; for my hand was caressed once more by his
own hand of flesh and blood, as he said--

"My kinsman, Wilfred Mayer,--know that God's power and
mysteries, even on earth, are greater than men dreamy of. Listen to
the tale of one who, though he has seen strange things, and been
led through strange paths, yet looks, like thee, to the same ending
of the journey--death's calm sleep, and the waking unto an eternal
morrow."

He lifted his eyes to heaven: I drew near and listened to his words.

"There was a boy once, born with every passion in his nature so
vehement, that a feather's touch might turn him either to good or
evil. It is so sometimes: Gabriel and Lucifer were both archangels,
and the boldest of all the apostles was he who stood consenting
unto thee death of Stephen. We cannot fathom these mysteries.

"Well! the boy of whom I speak had two good angels ever at his
side--his twin sister Hester, and one who was of distant kindred,
though she had grown up with them, eating the same bread, and
drinking of the same cup. Of these two the youth loved one dearly,
as a brother should; the other--God alone knoweth how he loved
her! In this love were mingled esteem, reverence, tenderness,
passion. Every one of his heart's fibres clung around her, day by
day. And because they had so twined--slowly, imperceptibly, like
household links--she never felt or saw them; but when dearer
bonds came, she untwined these,smil- ingly, unconsciously--
slipped from them; they fell--and the boy's heart broke!

"I speak wildly: it did not break; but its softness became iron--its
full, rich tide was turned to gall. She lived to weep a sister's tears--
mark you, only a sister's!--over an outcast and a prodigal. She
never knew the truth; if she had--why even then it would have been
the same. She had done no wrong--she never loved him.

"He became a wanderer over the wide world. The face of God,
which he had mocked in the glare of cities, he learned to see
revealed in the terrible loneliness of the desert--in the wonders of
the mighty deep. Still he wandered on--God's mercy following
him. Who could hide from the presence of the Eternal? In the
grand mountain solitudes It came, bringing awful peace--It soothed
him in the deep river-flow--It smiled upon him in the green, sunny
savannah. So, through the wide arms of Nature--the Nature which
He had made--God drew unto himself this erring soul; and it grew
pure and calm.

"After many years, the man yearned to see the home whence the
boy had fled with curses. He embarked for England--his heart's
desire flying swifter than the vessel; but an unseen hand prevented
both. Nor ship nor crew were ever heard of more."

"Tell me, O strange relater of this marvellous tale, whither sped
the fated ship--or how?"

His voice changed, and his countenance likewise. He spoke now
like one, who forgetting himself, had become a teacher among his
brethren.

"I said before, in this world, concerning which proud man thinks
he knows all, there are many mysteries of which he knows nothing.
Who has ever found a path through the region of eternal ice?
Whose daring bark has sailed over the mighty Antarctic Sea?"

"It is true! It is true! But my sense is bewildered; explain the
mystery further."

He went on:--

"Men traverse the seas, year after year, safely; but then comes a
tale of some ship which has vanished mysteriously from the face
of the deep--how, or by what means, none can ever tell. In the
thronged ocean-path lay no floating wreck, no glimpse of a
flaming vessel, gives token how she perished: men shudder,
marvel,--and forget, until they hear a like tale."

"It is even so!" I sighed.

"Noom, listen! The vessels perish not: He to whom belong land
and sea, hides them in the hollow of His hand, and brings them
safe to a haven in the midst of the deep--an island-garden--the
Eden whence Adam was driven. It is here!"

I started in trembling wonder:--

"This, then, is Paradise?"

"Not Paradise, such as when man needed continually the visible
presence of angels; but an Eden suited for earth's late-born
children--a land where men of this modern time may live in peace,
and worship God."

He rose up, for while we talked night had fallen:--

"Now, my son--are you not even as my son?--go! Rest and sleep.
To-morrow I will show the wonders of this land."

CHAPTER XI.

I LAID me down, and slept the deep sleep of healthful weariness.
At dawn I awoke;--there was, then, night and day, sunrise and
sunset, in this Eden-land? The golden darts fell on my eyelids, and
slumber passed away. My mind was clear: I remembered all the
past, even its sufferings; but suffering itself was calm. I waited
meekly for the strange mysteries of my fate to work themselves
out: they were a mingled and knotted web; but the beam was held
by a Hand Divine.

I lay on my bed, my once-tortured heart beating peacefully beneath
my folded hands. Ere the dawn-streaks had faded from the sky,
Cyril stood beside me.

"My son, arise! He who loves not the early morning loves not the
memory of his youth."

I arose, and clad myself in the simple garments of this land. As I
felt my limbs free to bound, and the sweet morning air played
round my bare throat, and tossed my long wavy hair, it seemed to
me that even these little things influence man's character, and that
he in whose soul dwells the love of the beautiful, will ever follow
nature's most perfect Art, in order that in himself he may show, as
far as he can, the image of that grace which he delights to behold
in others.

We quitted Cyril's dwelling, and went out towards the forest.

"Whither do you lead me, my kind guide?" I said.

He answered, "To worship, with morning freshness,--the God of
the morning."

He walked along a little further, quite silent, and then stood still.
We were in a narrow valley, lying east and west, enclosed on two
sides by the gray mountains and purple woods, and between them,
from out the sea which bounded the valley eastward, burst the
sunwise. Oh! it was glorious!

"Beautiful! how beautiful is morning!" murmured Cyril. And
turning round, he said, "It ever seems to me, dear kinsman, as
though the earth at dawn recovers its Eden-freshness; or that when
night, the shadow of God's protecting hand laid over it, is
withdrawn, there comes a passing vision of the glory departing."

"It is so," I answered. "Nay, it seems as though He who called
Himself the "bright and morning star," and "the Sun of
Righteousness arising," had especially hallowed the dawn of day."

"And meant that man should hallow it too. Therefore, come and
see how we hail the morning."

I followed him far in the forest to a great temple. Its strong
tree-pillars had never been reared; they had risen of themselves
through the mystic inward principle of life, which no human power
can give to the meanest blade of grass. Its walls were formed of
interlacing verdure, its pavement tessellated with flowers. Through
its leafy arches rang the voices of innumerable choristers, invisible
cherubs of the air, hymning continually. And its roof was the blue
infinite ether,