Across the Stream

by E. F. Benson

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All that day Archie lay in this strange seizure, apparently quite unconscious. Sometimes a paroxysm would take hold of him, and he lay with staring eyes and teeth that ground against each other, and limbs that curled into fantastic shapes. In the intervals he remained still, stiff and rigid, his eyes for the most part shut, breathing quickly, as if he had been running. Then once again the panic and the agony would grip him, and with eyes wide with terror and foaming mouth he struggled and fought against the Thing that mastered him. But each paroxysm left him weaker, and it was clear that he would not be able to stand many more of these attacks. Yet no one could wish them prolonged; it would but be merciful if the end came soon, and spared him further suffering.

Towards sunset that day Jessie was sitting by him, with orders to call the nurse next door if he showed signs of the restlessness which preceded the return of a seizure. She knew that, humanly speaking, he was dying, but her faith never faltered that he might still be saved, and that through her and her love salvation might come to him. Medical science was of no avail; it could not combat the spiritual foe that had taken him prisoner. That rescue had to be made through spiritual means, and the two-edged sword by which alone his captor could be vanquished was the bright-shining weapon of love and prayer. It was in her hand now, as she watched and waited.

He lay quite still, breathing quickly and with a shallow inspiration, but there were no signs of the restlessness for which she had to look out. But presently she observed that his eyes were no longer closed, but were open and looking steadily at the brass knob at the foot of his bed on which a sunbeam, entering through a chink at the side of the drawn window-blind made a focus of light. And, all at once, she guessed that he was looking at this with purpose, and her soul, sword in hand, crouched ready to spring. Then from the bed came Archie's voice.

"Martin," it said.

There was a dead silence, and she saw forming in the air a little in front of him a nucleus of mist. It gathered volume from a little jet as of steam that appeared to come from Archie himself. Thicker and thicker it grew; strange lines began to interlace themselves within it, and these took form. The dimness of its outline grew firm and distinct, the shape stood detached and clear, and, bending over Archie with a smile triumphant and cruel, stood the semblance she had seen once before at midnight in Archie's room. He was no longer looking at the knob at the foot of his bed, but with eyes wide open and blank with some nameless terror he gazed at the apparition.

Jessie rose and stood opposite it on the other side of his bed. Her two-edged sword was drawn now, and its bright blade gleamed in the darkness of the evil that flooded the room. And then it seemed that that incarnation of it that stood beside Archie's bed was aware, for it turned and looked her full in the face, bringing to bear on her the utmost of its hellish potency.

For one moment against that awful assault her soul cried out in panic. It had not dreamed that from all the crimes with which the world had withered and bled there could be distilled a tincture so poisonous. And then her love rallied her scattered courage, and she stood firm again. Nothing in the world but love and prayer could prevail, but nothing, if once she could fully realize that, could prevail against them. In her hand, as in the hand of all who are foes to evil, was the irresistible weapon, could she but use its power to the full…

She stood, as she knew, in the face of the deadliest peril by which any living thing, into which the breath of God has passed, can be confronted. There is no soul so strong that evil can cease to be a menace for it, and here, facing her, was the power that had already perverted all that Archie held of goodness and humanity. There it stood, one victim already its helpless prisoner, and it lusted for more. And the wordless struggle, as old as evil itself, began.

She would not give ground. Her soul laid itself open, and let the light invisible shine on it. In this struggle there were no strivings or wrestlings; she had but to stay quiet, and in just that achievement of quietness the struggle lay. Once for a moment all Hell swirled and exulted round her, for her love for Archie let itself contemplate the human and material aspect of him; the next she put all that away from her, and again stood with his soul, so to speak, in her uplifted hands, offering it to God. In the very storm-centre of this evil which shrieked and raged round her, there must be, and there was, a space where the peace that passeth understanding dwelt in serene calm. The storm might shift and envelope her again in its bellowings, but again and yet again she had to regain the centre where no blast of it could penetrate.