“It is so in some kind. The actions of that life of yours leave spirit-prints behind them from the most infinitesimal to the largest. Now, see! I have but to wish, and there again is all the moving pantomime around you of that unhappy day when you well-nigh died upon this spot,” and the chieftainess leaped to her feet and swept her arm around and looked into the void and smiled and nodded as though all the wild spectacle she spoke of were enacting under her very eyes. “Surely, you see it! Look at the priests and the people, and there the running foreigners and that tall youth at their head—why, O trader in oils and dyes! it is not the remembrance of the thing, it is, I swear it, the thing itself——”
But never a line or color could I perceive, only the curling smoke overhead looped and hung like tapestries upon the gray lichened walls, and the black night-time through the crevices. And, discovering this, Blodwen suddenly stopped and looked upon me with vexed compassion. “I am sorry, I am no good teacher to so outrun my pupil. Ask me henceforth what simple questions you will, and they shall be answered to the best I can.”
And so presently I went on: “If those things which have been are thus to you—and it does not seem impossible—how is it with those other things of to-day, or still unborn of the future? How far can you more favored ones foresee or guide those things to which we, unhappy, but submit?”
“The strong tide of circumstance, Phœnician, is not to be turned by such hands as these”—and she held her pallid wrists toward the blaze, until I saw the ruddy gleam flash back from the rough gold bosses of her ancient bracelets. “There are laws outside your comprehension which are not framed for your narrow understanding. We obey these as much as you, but we perceive with infinitely clearer vision the inevitable logic of fate, the true sequence of events, and thus it is sometimes within our power to amend and guide the details of that brief episode which you call your life.”
“Do you say that priceless span, my comrades, yonder sleeping girl, and all the others set so high a value on is but ‘an episode’?”
“Yes—a halting step upon a wondrous journey, half a gradation upon the mighty spirals of existence!”
“And time?” I asked, full of a wonder that scarce found leisure to comprehend one word of hers before it asked another question. “Is there time with you? Even I, reflective now and then upon this long journey of mine, have thought that time must be a myth, an impossibility to larger experience.”
“Of what do you speak, my merchant? I do not remember the word.”
“Oh, yes; but you must. Is there period and change yonder? Is Time—Time, the great braggart and bully of life, also potent with you?”
“Ah! now I do recall your meaning; but, my Tyrian, we left our hour-glasses and our calendars behind us when we came away! There is, perhaps, time yonder to some extent, but no mortal eyes, not mine even, can tell the teaching of that prodigious dial that records the hours of universes and of spaces.”