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Page 66
"So it has come!"
"Yes," said Amroth, "it has come! I have known it for some little time,
and my thought has mingled with yours. I tell you frankly that I did
not quite expect it; but one never knows here. You must come with me at
once. You are to see the last mystery; and though I am glad for your
sake that it is come, yet I tremble for you, because it is unlike any
other experience; and one can never be the same again."
I felt myself oppressed by a sudden terror of darkness, but, half to
reassure myself, I answered lightly:
"But it does not seem to have affected you, Amroth! You are always
light-hearted and cheerful, and not overshadowed by any dark or gloomy
thoughts."
"Yes, yes," said Amroth hurriedly. "It is easy enough, when it is once
over. Nothing that is behind one matters; but this is a thing that one
cannot jest about. Of course there is nothing to fear; but to be brought
face to face with the greatest thing in the world is not a light matter.
Let me say this. I am to be with you all through; and my only word to
you is that you must do exactly what I tell you, and at once, without
any doubting or flinching. Then all will be well! But we must not delay.
Come at once, and keep your mind perfectly quiet."
We went out together; and there seemed to have fallen a sense of gravity
over all whom we met. My companions did not speak to me as we walked
out, but stood aside to see me pass, and even looked at me, I thought,
with an air half of reverence, half of a sort of natural compassion, as
one might watch a dear friend go to be tried for his life.
We came out of the door, and found, it seemed to me, an unusual
stillness everywhere. The wind, which often blew high on the bare moor,
had dropped. We took a path, which I had never seen, which struck off
over the hills. We walked for a long time, almost in silence. But I
could not bear the strange curiosity which was straining at my heart,
and I said presently to Amroth:
"Give me some idea what I am to see or to endure. Is it some judgment
which I am to face, or am I to suffer pain? I would rather know the best
and the worst of it."
"It is everything," said Amroth; "you are to see God. All is comprised
in that."
His words fell with a shocking distinctness in the calm air, and I felt
my heart and limbs fail me, and a dizziness came over my mind. Hardly
knowing what I did or said, I came to a stop.
"But I did not know that it was possible," I said. "I thought that God
was everywhere--within us, about us, beyond us? How can that be?"
"Yes," said Amroth, "God is indeed everywhere, and no place contains
Him; neither can any of us see or comprehend Him. I cannot explain
it; but there is a centre, so to speak, near to which the unclean
and the evil cannot come, where the fire of His thought burns the
hottest.... Oh," he said, "neither word nor thought is of any use here;
you will see what you will see!"
Perhaps the hardest thing I had to bear in all my wanderings was the
sight of Amroth's own fear. It was unmistakable. His spirit seemed
prepared for it, perfectly courageous and sincere as it was; but there
was a shuddering awe upon him, for all that, which infected me with an
extremity of terror. Was it that he thought me unequal to the
experience? I could not tell. But we walked as men dragging themselves
into some fiery and dreadful martyrdom.
Again I could not bear it, and I cried out suddenly:
"But, Amroth, He is Love; and we can enter without fear into the
presence of Love!"
"Have you not yet guessed," said Amroth sternly, "how terrible Love can
be? It is the most terrible thing in the world, because it is the
strongest. If Death is dreadful, what must that be which is stronger
than Death? Come, let us be silent, for we are near the place, and this
is no time for words;" and then he added with a look of the deepest
compassion and tenderness, "I wish I could speak differently, brother,
at this hour; but I am myself afraid."
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