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Page 81
At such moments--the happiest life counts but few--angels draw near,
but veil their happy eyes. Spirits of evil grind their teeth and
frown; and, for one awful instant, perceive their own deformity!
Before yet that dear embrace had lasted an eternity, the man felt the
woman shiver in his arms. The celestial heights and spaces dwindled,
the angelic music fainted. Heaven rolled back and left them alone on
earth. Manetho stood on the threshold between the sphinxes, wearing
such a smile as God has never doomed us to see on a child's face!
To few men comes the opportunity of facing in this life those whom
they believed they had put out of it. One might expect the palpable
assurance of the victim's survival would electrify the fancied
murderer. But to Balder's mind, his personal responsibility could not
be thus lightened; and any emotion of selfish relief was therefore
denied him. On the other hand, such inferences as he had been able to
draw from things seen and heard were not to Manetho's advantage. While
he could not but rejoice to have been spared actually hurrying a soul
from the life of free will to an unchangeable eternity, yet his
dominant instinct was to man himself for the hostile issues still to
arise. He looked at the being through whom his own life had received
so dark a stain with stern, keen eyes.
Gnulemah remained within the circle of her lover's arm. She seemed but
little interested in Manetho's appearance, save in so far as he
invaded the sanctity of her new immortal privilege. She had never
known anxiety on his account; he had never appealed to her feeling for
himself. If she loved him, it was with an affection unconscious
because untried. She had shivered in Balder's embrace at the moment of
the Egyptian's presence, but before having set eyes on him. Had the
nearness of his discordant spirit--his familiar face unseen--made her
conscious of an evil emanation from him, else unperceived?
Manetho, to do him justice, assumed anything but a hostile attitude.
His pleasure at seeing the pair so well affected towards each other
was plainly manifested. He clasped his hands together, then extended
them with a gesture of benediction and greeting, and came forward. His
swarthy face, narrowing from brow to chin, if it could not be frank
and hearty, at least expressed a friendliness which it had been
ungracious to mistrust.
"Yes, son of Thor, I live! God has been merciful to both of us. Let
one who knew your father take your hand. Believe that whatever I have
felt for him, I now feel for you,--and more!"
The speaker had cast aside the fashionable clothes which he was in the
habit of wearing during his journeys abroad, probably with a view to
guard against being conspicuous, and was clad in antique priestly
costume. A curiously figured and embroidered robe fell to his feet,
and was confined at the waist by a long girdle, which also passed
round his shoulders, after the manner of a Jewish ephod. It invested
him with a dignity of presence such as ordinary garments would not
have suggested. This, combined with the unexpectedly pacific tone of
his address (its somewhat fantastic formality suiting well with that
of his appearance), was not without effect on Balder. He gave his hand
with some cordiality.
"Yours, also?" continued the other, addressing Gnulemah with an
involuntary deference that surprised her lover. She complied, as a
princess to her subject. This incident seemed to indicate their
position relatively to each other. Had the wily Egyptian played the
slave so well, as finally in good earnest to have become one?
The three stood for a moment joined in a circle, through which what
incongruous passions were circulating! But Gnulemah soon withdrew the
hand held by Manetho, and sent it to seek the one clasped by Balder.
The priest turned cold, and stepped back; and, after an appearance of
mental struggle, said huskily,--
"Hiero is forgotten; you are all for the stranger!"
"You never told me who lived beyond the wall," returned Gnulemah, with
simple dignity; and added, "You are no less to me than before, but
Balder is--my love!" The last words came shyly from her lips, and she
swayed gently, like a noble tree, towards him she named.
Manetho's lips worked against each other, and his body twitched. He
was learning the difference between theory and practice,--dream and
fact. His subtle schemes had been dramas enacted by variations of
himself. No allowance had been made for the working of spirit on
spirit; even his special part had been designed too narrowly, with but
a single governing emotion, whereas he already found himself assailed
by an anarchic host of them.
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