“Spoke the Nazarine truth, when he said, ‘Faith can remove mountains?’ The Will of the Soul, armed with the consciousness of its immortal powers and infinite sympathies, can do more! The Will, determined and inflexible, can bend the invisible mysteries of the universe to its bidding, call up the fearful influences, ever at work within the bosom of Nature, and chain them, slaves of its power; bind the wild elements of man’s heart in subjection, and awe the souls of the multitude, when aroused by passion, or maddened by revenge. The Will can sway the heart of man, to the windings of a path, dark as the way I have trodden, leading the Soul onward through mystery, and doom, and blood; teaching it to trample on Fear, laugh at the ghastly face of Remorse, and scorn the uplifted arm of God! ‘Faith can remove mountains!’ I cannot, may not, at this fearful hour, trace the operations of the Invisible Might. Suffice it to say—Aldarin wills that the Re-created shall walk forth in a form of youth and power, and it shall be so.”
“Lo! The sands of the hour glass are well nigh spent. One-half of the last hour alone remains!”
“I will gaze within the Tabernacle of Life!”
Aldarin advanced, swept the sable hangings aside, and in a moment was lost to view.
Ibrahim also advanced to the front of the Tabernacle—as the mystic jargon of the Scholar named the tent—and listened with hushed breath and absorbing interest.
He could hear the subdued hissing of the flames within the Tabernacle; he could hear a low, scarce perceptible sound, like the seething of boiling lead; and a penetrating perfume of mingled frankincense and myrrh, saluted his senses, mingled with the odor of decaying mortality.
A single moment passed while Ibrahim listened, and then he advanced to the verge of the vast fire, burning on the cavern floor, and stood for a moment wrapt in stern and solitary thought.
Clasping his hands across his chest, he drooped his head low upon his bosom, while the trembling lip and dilated eye attested the violence of the struggle at work within his inmost soul.
He raised his head and looked round.
Tall and erect—the ruddy glow of the fire, streaming over his majestic face, disclosing every outline of his imposing costume—the Arabian gazed around, and beheld the stern sublimity of the cavern of the dead.