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第22节

classic mystery and detective stories-第22节

小说: classic mystery and detective stories 字数: 每页4000字

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nigh achieved through such dread; fleeting back to the earth from

which its material was drawn to give bloom; indeedbut to herbs;

joy indeedbut to insects!



And now; in the flash of the sun; slowly wound up the slopes that

led to the circle; the same barbaric procession which had sunk into

the valley under the ray of the moon。  The armed men came first;

stalwart and tall; their vests brave with crimson and golden lace;

their weapons gayly gleaming with holiday silver。  After them; the

Black Litter。  As they came to the place; Ayesha; not raising her

head; spoke to them in her own Eastern tongue。  A wail was her

answer。  The armed men bounded forward; and the bearers left the

litter。



All gathered round the dead form with the face concealed under the

Black Veil; all knelt; and all wept。  Far in the distance; at the

foot of the blue mountains; a crowd of the savage natives had risen

up as if from the earth; they stood motionless leaning on their

clubs and spears; and looking toward the spot on which we were

strangely thus brought into the landscape; as if they too; the wild

dwellers on the verge which Humanity guards from the Brute; were

among the mourners for the mysterious Child of mysterious Nature!

And still; in the herbage; hummed the small insects; and still;

from the cavern; laughed the great kingfisher。  I said to Ayesha;

〃Farewell! your love mourns the dead; mine calls me to the living。

You are now with your own people; they may console yousay if I

can assist。〃



〃There is no consolation for me!  What mourner can be consoled if

the dead die forever?  Nothing for him is left but a grave; that

grave shall be in the land where the song of Ayesha first lulled

him to sleep。  Thou assist MEthou; the wise man of Europe!  From

me ask assistance。  What road wilt thou take to thy home?〃



〃There is but one road known to me through the maze of the

solitudethat which we took to this upland。〃



〃On that road Death lurks; and awaits thee!  Blind dupe; couldst

thou think that if the grand secret of life had been won; he whose

head rests on my lap would have yielded thee one petty drop of the

essence which had filched from his store of life but a moment?  Me;

who so loved and so cherished himme he would have doomed to the

pitiless cord of my servant; the Strangler; if my death could have

lengthened a hairbreadth the span of his being。  But what matters

to me his crime or his madness?  I loved him; I loved him!〃



She bowed her veiled head lower and lower; perhaps under the veil

her lips kissed the lips of the dead。  Then she said whisperingly:



〃Juma the Strangler; whose word never failed to his master; whose

prey never slipped from his snare; waits thy step on the road to

thy home!  But thy death cannot now profit the dead; the beloved。

And thou hast had pity for him who took but thine aid to design thy

destruction。  His life is lost; thine is saved!〃



She spoke no more in the tongue that I could interpret。  She spoke;

in the language unknown; a few murmured words to her swarthy

attendants; then the armed men; still weeping; rose; and made a

dumb sign to me to go with them。  I understood by the sign that

Ayesha had told them to guard me on my way; but she gave no reply

to my parting thanks。





XI





I descended into the valley; the armed men followed。  The path; on

that side of the water course not reached by the flames; wound

through meadows still green; or amidst groves still unscathed。  As

a turning in the way brought in front of my sight the place I had

left behind; I beheld the black litter creeping down the descent;

with its curtains closed; and the Veiled Woman walking by its side。

But soon the funeral procession was lost to my eyes; and the

thoughts that it roused were erased。  The waves in man's brain are

like those of the sea; rushing on; rushing over the wrecks of the

vessels that rode on their surface; to sink; after storm; in their

deeps。  One thought cast forth into the future now mastered all in

the past: 〃Was Lilian living still?〃  Absorbed in the gloom of that

thought; hurried on by the goad that my heart; in its tortured

impatience; gave to my footstep; I outstripped the slow stride of

the armed men; and; midway between the place I had left and the

home which I sped to; came; far in advance of my guards; into the

thicket in which the Bushmen had started up in my path on the night

that Lilian had watched for my coming。  The earth at my feet was

rife with creeping plants and many…colored flowers; the sky

overhead was half hid by motionless pines。  Suddenly; whether

crawling out from the herbage or dropping down from the trees; by

my side stood the white…robed and skeleton formAyesha's attendant

the Strangler。



I sprang from him shuddering; then halted and faced him。  The

hideous creature crept toward me; cringing and fawning; making

signs of humble goodwill and servile obeisance。  Again I recoiled

wrathfully; loathingly; turned my face homeward; and fled on。  I

thought I had baffled his chase; when; just at the mouth of the

thicket; he dropped from a bough in my path close behind me。

Before I could turn; some dark muffling substance fell between my

sight and the sun; and I felt a fierce strain at my throat。  But

the words of Ayesha had warned me; with one rapid hand I seized the

noose before it could tighten too closely; with the other I tore

the bandage away from my eyes; and; wheeling round on the dastardly

foe; struck him down with one spurn of my foot。  His hand; as he

fell; relaxed its hold on the noose; I freed my throat from the

knot; and sprang from the copse into the broad sunlit plain。  I saw

no more of the armed men or the Strangler。  Panting and breathless;

I paused at last before the fence; fragrant with blossoms; that

divided my home from the solitude。



The windows of Lilian's room were darkened; all within the house

seemed still。



Darkened and silenced home; with the light and sounds of the jocund

day all around it。  Was there yet hope in the Universe for me?  All

to which I had trusted Hope had broken down; the anchors I had

forged for her hold in the beds of the ocean; her stay from the

drifts of the storm; had snapped like the reeds which pierce the

side that leans on the barb of their points; and confides in the

strength of their stems。  No hope in the baffled resources of

recognized knowledge!  No hope in the daring adventures of Mind

into regions unknown; vain alike the calm lore of the practiced

physician; and the magical arts of the fated Enchanter!  I had fled

from the commonplace teachings of Nature; to explore in her

Shadowland marvels at variance with reason。  Made brave by the

grandeur of love; I had opposed without quailing the stride of the

Demon; and my hope; when fruition seemed nearest; had been trodden

into dust by the hoofs of the beast!  And yet; all the while; I had

scorned; as a dream; more wild than the word of a sorcerer; the

hope that the old man and the child; the wise and the ignorant;

took from their souls as inborn。  Man and fiend had alike failed a

mind; not ignoble; not skill…less; not abjectly craven; alike

failed a heart not feeble and selfish; not dead to the hero's

devotion; willing to shed every drop of its blood for a something

more dear than an animal's life for itself!  What remainedwhat

remained for man's hope?man's mind and man's heart thus

exhausting their all with no other result but despair!  What

remained but the mystery of mysteries; so clear to the sunrise of

childhood; the sunset of age; only dimmed by the clouds which

collect round the noon of our manhood?  Where yet was Hope found?

In the soul; in its every…day impulse to supplicate comfort and

light; from the Giver of soul; wherever the heart is afflicted; the

mind is obscured。



Then the words of Ayesha rushed over me: 〃What mourner can be

consoled; if the dead die forever?〃  Through every pulse of my

frame throbbed that dread question; all Nature around seemed to

murmur it。  And suddenly; as by a flash from heaven; the grand

truth in Faber's grand reasoning shone on me; and lighted up all;

within and without。  Man alone; of all earthly creatures; asks;

〃Can the dead die forever?〃 and the instinct that urges the

question is God's answer to man。  No instinct is given in vain。



And born with the instinct of soul is the instinct that leads the

soul from the seen to the unseen; from time to eternity; from the

torrent that foams toward the Ocean of Death; to the source of its

stream; far aloft from the Ocean。



〃Know thyself;〃 said the Pythian of old。  〃That precept descended

from Heaven。〃  Know thyself!  Is that maxim wise?  If so; know thy

soul。  But never yet did man come to the thorough conviction of

soul but what he acknowledged the sovereign necessity of prayer。

In my awe; in my rapture; all my thoughts seemed enlarged and

illumed and exalted。  

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