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Page 64
"In ten minutes Pym and Peters, going in different directions, had
aroused many of the exiles, who hastened in all directions, to search
thoroughly the poorer quarters of the city, and to inquire of everyone
whom they might encounter concerning the residence of the old nurse. The
exiles had already visited, or sent others to visit, about every house
in the city; but in a few instances--particularly where but one person
lived in a house--the occupant had been advised, and had consented, to
come to a central station and there remain till the storm abated or
passed; and then, for some purpose delaying, had been overcome by the
cold, and, as the system of search included only one visit to each
house, had been left to die--the fact transpiring through an accidental
second visit, or when the city was later scoured in search of food that
might have been overlooked.
"An hour later, one of many messengers who were searching for Pym met
him, and told him that Lilama was found. He hastened to the house in
which they had found her--a small frame structure, the residence of her
former nurse.
"At the entrance of this house stood Peters, waiting for his young
friend; and as Pym felt the hand of the old sailor, put forth to stop
him in his breathless haste, and as he looked into the hard, rugged face
of his old friend, he knew that he must nerve himself for a shock. Alas!
His surmise was only too correct. They entered the main room of the
house together, Peters in the rear. Drawing aside from the entrance to
the room a porti�re--Peters had already visited the room--Pym passed in,
Peters remaining on the outer side of the curtained doorway, that he
might prevent others from following, or even from viewing the young
friend who was now to receive one of the keenest stabs with which
Destiny ever pierces the human heart.
"For a moment Pym would wholly have mistaken the scene before him, had
Peters not said a word of warning as the porti�re fell behind his young
friend.
"On the lounge which stood against the farther wall as he entered, lay
an elderly woman, apparently asleep; and covering her were the outer
wraps--scanty, indeed, for such a day--of Lilama. On the left, as Pym
swept at a glance the apartment, he saw the maid Ixza, reclining in a
large chair; she, also, to all appearances, was asleep. Then he saw his
wife. She crouched on the floor at the foot of the lounge, only her
wealth of light golden hair at first visible. Stepping to her side, Pym
saw her, as many times in the ducal gardens he had seen her drop to the
ground in her girlish fashion, to rest. Her arms were intertwined upon
the foot of the lounge, her head resting upon them; and there the tired,
childlike young wife had gone to sleep--forever.
"How beautiful she was in death! The gentle hand that had never touched
the person of another but in helpfulness--how fair, how pallid; the fond
sweet eyes that knew no glance but that of love and kindness--they were
almost hidden by the drooping lids; the tenderest, loveliest face the
sunlight ever kissed, smiled upward at him as he gazed--his heart felt
colder than was this dear form he dropped beside and clasped. But the
lips--the ripe red lips--the rapturous, maidenly lips, the first touch
of which had raised him forever from the coarse earth--the arch lips
that had bewitched him with their own seductive smile, and could not
shape themselves to harsher act than pouting--a fleeting pout, that
captivated ere it vanished--he could not look at them in death--he could
not.
"Sweet child of a weird land and a strange people! She was one of those
whose spotless souls need not the purifying fire of a long earthly life.
For Pym, now and later, the sorrow and the yearning void; for her, only
an earlier advancement.
"Pym's mind was shocked; but behind the shock he felt the awful anguish
of such a separation. Was this the end? Could it be the end? For him,
truly that day his last hope for this life died. But hereafter? Surely
this was not to be the end of all! A few more years of grovelling on the
clay bosom of the cold, selfish earth, and then--only oblivion? No, no:
he would not, he could not believe it.
"As Pym stood there, where many, many other men have stood, and millions
yet will stand, did his soul rise into the heavenly atmosphere, or did
it question God's decrees and sink to rise no more? This I cannot
answer.
"After such a loss, oh, the weary weight of unutterable woe; the awful
sense that hope is dead, whilst the mourner can only stand with
streaming eyes and bleeding heart, forever chained to the ghastly corpse
of every dear ambition, of every joy, and all that our universe of
feeling builds on hope. But we should learn from such a loss a lesson,
for the lesson if learned insures our own advancement: such losses are
but the purposes of God unfolding for those we love and for ourselves an
eternity of blissful harmony."
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