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Page 96
The brief reminiscence passed, leaving Manetho face to face with his
sacred duty. With the warning of the past in his ears and that of the
future before his eyes, did he step unrelenting across the threshold
of his crime? At all events he neither hesitated nor turned back. But
there was no triumph in his eyes, and his tones and manner were heavy
and mechanical; as though the Devil (having brought him thus far with
his own consent and knowledge) had now to compel a frozen soul in a
senseless body!
The service began, none the less hallowed for the lovers, because for
Manetho it was the solemn perversion of a sacred ceremony. His voice
labored through the perfumed air, and recoiled in broken echoes from
gloomy corners and deep-tinted walls. The encircling lamps glowed in
serried lines of various light; the fantastic incense-flame rustled
softly on the altar. The four figures seemed a group of phantoms,--a
momentary rich illusion of the eye. And save for their viewless souls,
what were they more? Earth is a phantom; but what we cannot grasp is
real and remains!--
The rite was over, the diamond gleamed from Gnulemah's finger, and the
priest with uplifted hands had bade man not part whom God had united.
Husband and wife gazed at each other with freshness and wonder in
their eyes; as having expected to see some change, and anew delighted
at finding more of themselves than ever!
Male and female pervades the universe, and marriage is the end and
fulfilment of creation. God has builded the world of love and wisdom,
woman and man; truly to live they must unite, she yielding herself to
his form, he moulding himself of her substance. As love unquickened by
wisdom is barren, and knowledge impotent unkindled by affection, so
are the unmarried lifeless.
Ill and bitter was it, therefore, for Manetho and Salome, after the
married ones had departed, taking their happiness with them. The
priest's, eyes were dry and dull, as he leaned wearily against the
smoking altar.
"You did not speak!" he said to the woman; "you saw her betrayed to
ruin and pollution, and spoke not to save her!--Dumb? the dead might
have moved their tongues in such need as this! She will abhor and
curse me forever! may you share her curse weighted with mine!--O
Gnulemah!"--
Salome cowered and trembled in her satin dress, beneath the burden of
that heavy anathema. She had risen that day determined to reveal the
secret of her life before night. She had been awaiting a favorable
moment, but opportunity or decision still had failed her.
Nevertheless, another morning should not find her the same nameless,
forsaken creature that she was now.--Manetho had bowed his face upon
the altar, and so remained without movement. With one hand fumbling at
the bosom of her dress--(the scar of her lover's blow should be the
talisman to recall his allegiance),--Salome made bold to approach him
and timidly touch his arm.
"Unhand me! whatever you are,--devil! my time is not yet come!"
He raised a threatening arm, with a gleam of mad ferocity beneath his
brows. But the woman did not shrink; the man was her god, and she
preferred death at his hands to life without him. Ignorant of the
cause of her firmness, it seemed to cow him. He slunk behind the
altar, hurriedly unlocked the secret door, and let himself into the
study. His haste had left the key in the lock outside. The door
slammed together, the spring-bolt caught, and the swathed head of old
Hiero Glyphic shook as though the cold of twenty winters had come on
him at once.
XXXII.
SHUT IN.
Left alone, Salome was taken with a panic; she fancied herself
deserted in a giant tomb, with dead men gathering about her. She
herself was in truth the grisliest spectre there, in her white satin
gown and feathers, and the horror of her hideous face. But she took to
flight, and the key remained unnoticed in the lock.
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