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Page 73
Then while Lucius stood beside me, with his eyes upon the ground, I
said:
"I must go in haste; and I have but one thing to do. We have spoken,
Cynthia and I, of the love you have long borne her; and she is yours
now, to comfort and lead you as she has led and comforted me. This is
the last sacrifice of love, to give up love itself; and this I do very
willingly for the sake of Him that loves us: and here," I said, "is a
strange thing, that at the very crown and summit of life, for I am sure
that this is so, we should be three hearts, so full of love, and yet so
sorrowing and suffering as we are. Is pain indeed the end of all?"
"No," said Cynthia, "it is not the end, and yet only by it can we
measure the depth and height of love. If we look into our hearts, we
know that in spite of all we are more than rewarded, and more than
conquerors."
Then I took Cynthia's hand and laid it in the hand of Lucius; and I left
them there upon the peak, and turned no more. And no more woeful spirit
was in the land of heaven that day than mine as I stumbled wearily down
the slope, and found the valley. And then, for I did not know the way to
descend, I commended myself to God; and He took me.
XXXVI
I saw that I was standing in a narrow muddy road, with deep ruts, which
led up from the bank of a wide river--a tidal river, as I could see,
from the great mudflats fringed with seaweed. The sun blazed down upon
the whole scene. Just below was a sort of landing-place, where lay a
number of long, low boats, shaded with mats curved like the hood of a
waggon; a little farther out was a big quaint ship, with a high stern
and yellow sails. Beyond the river rose great hills, thickly clothed
with vegetation. In front of me, along the roadside, stood a number of
mud-walled huts, thatched with some sort of reeds; beyond these, on the
left, was the entrance of a larger house, surrounded with high walls,
the tops of trees, with a strange red foliage, appearing over the
enclosure, and the tiled roofs of buildings. Farther still were the
walls of a great town, huge earthworks crowned with plastered
fortifications, and a gate, with a curious roof to it, running out at
each end into horns carved of wood. At some distance, out of a grove to
the right, rose a round tapering tower of mouldering brickwork. The rest
of the nearer country seemed laid out in low plantations of some
green-leaved shrub, with rice-fields interspersed in the more level
ground.
There were only a few people in sight. Some men with arms and legs
bare, and big hats made of reeds, were carrying up goods from the
landing-place, and a number of children, pale and small-eyed, dirty and
half-naked, were playing about by the roadside. I went a few paces up
the road, and stopped beside a house, a little larger than the rest,
with a rough verandah by the door. Here a middle-aged man was seated,
plaiting something out of reeds, but evidently listening for sounds
within the house, with an air half-tranquil, half-anxious; by him on a
slab stood something that looked like a drum, and a spray of azalea
flowers. While I watched, a man of a rather superior rank, with a dark
flowered jacket and a curious hat, looked out of a door which opened on
the verandah and beckoned him in; a sound of low subdued wailing came
out from the house, and I knew that my time was hard at hand. It was
strange and terrible to me at the moment to realise that my life was to
be bound up, I knew not for how long, with this remote place; but I was
conscious too of a deep excitement, as of a man about to start upon a
race on which much depends. There came a groan from the interior of the
house, and through the half-open door I could see two or three dim
figures standing round a bed in a dark and ill-furnished room. One of
the figures bent down, and I could see the face of a woman, very pale,
the eyes closed, and the lips open, her arms drawn up over her head as
in an agony of pain. Then a sudden dimness came over me, and a deadly
faintness. I stumbled through the verandah to the open door. The
darkness closed in upon me, and I knew no more.
THE END
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