We were back among the present things again. I had merely re-lived in a moment’s space a vision of that Past where these two had sinned against me. The memory was gone again. We now resumed our present reconstruction, by means of which the balance should be finally restored. The same two elemental Powers were with us still. Summoned once again—but this time that they might be dismissed.
“The Messengers of Wind and Fire approach,” Julius was saying softly. “Be ready for the Powers that follow after.”
“But—there poured through me but a moment ago——” I began, when his face stopped my speech sharply.
“That ‘moment’ was sixty centuries ago! Keep hold now upon your will,” he interrupted, yet without a trace of the vast excitement that I felt, “lest they invade your heart instead of mine. The glory that you knew was but the shadow of their coming—as long ago you returned and met them—when we failed. Keep close watch upon your will. It is the Equinox.... The pause now comes with midnight.”
Even before he had done speaking the majesties of Wind and Fire were upon us. And Nature came in with them. A dislocating change, swift as the shaking of some immense thick shutter that hides life behind material things, passed in a flash about us. We stood in a circle, hands firmly clasped. There was a first effect as if those very hands were fused and ran into a single molten chain. There was no outer sound. The silence in the air was deathlike. But the sensation in my soul was—life. The momentary confusion was stupendous, then passed away. I stood in that room, but I stood in the valley too. I was in Nature everywhere. I heard the deer go past me, I heard them on the soft, sweet grass, I heard their breathing and the beating of their hearts. Birds fluttered round my face and shoulders, I heard their singing in my blood and ears, I knew their wild desires and freedom, their darting to and fro, their swaying on the boughs. My feet were running water, while yet the solid mass of earth and cliff stood up in me. I also knew the growing of the flowers by the forests, tasted their fragrance in my breath, their tender, delicate essence all unwasted. It passed understanding, yet was natural as sight, for my hands went far away, while still quite close, dipping among the stars that grew and piled like heaps of gathered sand. It all was simple, easy, mine by right. Nature gave me her myriad sensations without stint. I had forgotten. I remembered. The universe stood open. “I” had entered with these other two beside me.
She raised her arms aloft, taking our hands up with her own, and cried with a voice like wind against great branches:
“They come! The Doors of Fire are wide, and the Gates of Wind stand open! They enter the channel that is offered.”
And his voice, like a roar of flame, came answering hers:
“The salutations of the Fire and Wind are made! The channel is prepared! There is no resistance!”