The Last Miracle

by M. P. Shiel

"True," said he; "but is that worth all our pains? an obsolete Church keeping up a look of life...."

"But is it not late in the day, Aubrey," said I, "to trouble our heads with any such doubts? We decided months ago, before we came, that the Church was worth saving; hence we came. Let's not disparage our own work. Personally, I assure you, I am not deeply concerned, for I don't deem myself called upon to be the saviour of anything: but Emily despatched me upon this work, and so I do it with conviction. Moreover, the quicker done the quicker at Swandale."

"Ah, Swandale," sighed Langler. "But I confess, Arthur, that I depart from the mountain with some regret: that old burg up there is so cradled in gales, such a spirit-world wears out its winds with well-a-days, and the tarns, the vapours, the wild swans...."

"My own feeling is rather rapture than regret," I answered; but such was the elegiac soul of Langler, which still discovered something over which to sigh and indulge its chaste melancholies. Meantime, our waggonette was moving at a walk down the benighted mountain-world, our Jan cowering so still over his nag that he might have been asleep; while we others chatted constantly—I at least being elated at our escape, at our task almost over, at home in sight, though I had no hat, the drizzles were trying, the bosom of the mountains gave out a steam of music, as it were thousands and ten thousands busy and breeding, and the organ's sound-board breathing, and our talk was a forlorn droning in a state of being which was made all of winds and bewitchment; sometimes in a flash we might descry a crucifix hung on a crag, and our sighs would then hanker back to that night-whelmed thing on the river-bank away behind us. Keenly our hearts smote us at this memory of Max Dees. How much harm had our meddling hurled upon that man! how he must have waited and hungered for that "one good file" which never found its way to him; and now he was all in the dark on the river-bank. When I expressed my surprise that it was Tschudi himself who had sent us to see him there, Langler said: "I wonder if Tschudi has been acting to-night on his own initiative? The baron now, at any rate, does not appear to be about the burg, or the troop should have seen him; still, Tschudi may be in wireless communication with him. But Tschudi's own private motive in sending us to the crucifix seems to have been an impulse of mere spite or rage, and he may have had in his mind that we should never leave the region after seeing."

"I doubt though that at that time he meant to stop us," said I: "I think it was only after he knew of our talk with the Mother Dees. Yet it would be odd, too, that they shouldn't mind our getting away with the knowledge of Dees' doom, but should be so eager to stop us with the knowledge of Dees' life-story."

"But of the two the latter is the more important," said Langler; "for, as to Dees' doom, they perhaps calculated that by the time we could report it the Church would be impotent to avenge it; but, as to Dees' life-story, our knowledge of it is knowledge of the Church-plot, and is of permanent value as proof that churchmen are innocent of fraud in the present miracles; therefore it was urgent to stop us when we had this knowledge, since even years hence our evidence may be of use in restoring churchmen to favour, and in ruining the plot."

"Ah," said I, "years hence little would be left of the Church, I think, if we had once been locked into that north-west dungeon. However, here we are, and now for the break-up of the fountains of the great deep. Poor Dr Burton! I wonder where he will be found in all that upheaval? I am afraid for him: the spirit that could pitch from such a moral height to 'well, pretty, do you love me?'——"

"Beastly mess!" hissed Langler to himself: "oh, pray, Arthur, I beg——"

"As for me," I said quickly, "the man upon whom I now rather bet is the archbishop's red rag, Ambrose Rivers"—and we went on chatting about the latest news of Rivers which we had from Swandale. We were still, I remember, discussing Rivers when a jodeling call arose somewhere in our rear, at which our Jan, it seemed to me, sat up to prick his ears. In a minute the call was anew heard, lalling nearer now; and now Jan pulled up short. "Why do you stop?" I cried to him, "don't stop! get on!" "It is my cousin Isai, sirs," he answered, "who is running to me with a message, for it is his jodel." "Still, you are to hurry on instantly," I cried; "every moment is precious!" But he would not budge, and even as I urged him I heard the panting of a runner near upon us. Our Jan now jumped down; at the horse's head there was a confab between the cousins, of which all that I could catch was the pantings of Isai; and I sat in a stew of the keenest anxiety. It came into my head to rush and seize the reins and lash the horse; but before I could act the whispering was over, Jan jumped up afresh, and we moved on—at least it never entered my mind to doubt that it was Jan who jumped up, though I now suspect that it was Isai. Anyway, we went on at the old walk, regained some calm of mind, again began to be talkative, and for perhaps twenty minutes now nothing happened, till all at once I was aware of the leap of our driver from the wagon, and a second afterwards the nag broke into galloping. It is my belief that a knife or something keen had been driven into its flesh—nothing less could account for its fury, and the clown had chosen for his deed a piece of the road which was little broader than the vehicle, with precipice on the right, with cliff on the left above us. There was no hope for us but in leaping, and "leap, Aubrey!" I cried as I sprang into the air over the back, with my face to the pace, and fell on my length. Lying there, I seemed to hear a fearful silence; no sound of horse and cart; and, understanding that both had bounded down the steep, I feared to stir, lest I might find that Langler had gone with them. But presently, from some distance down, he called out upon me. I ran asking if he was hurt. "A few bruises perhaps," he panted in answer, "but I seem to have lost my hat." This solicitude about his hat I understood to be feigned, for I felt him trembling like a leaf. But such was Langler: he was for ever preoccupied about the soul, and, not calm by nature, wished always to appear to himself immovably calm.

Well, the hat could not be found, and on foot we went on down the pass. But it was not long before we were lost in a wilderness of stone and wood, where no way was. We fell into a state of fear that night both of us, and it imbued our souls for hours. I had never before in my life felt quite like that; I hope never to have to undergo such ghouls again. But there are things which can hardly be put on paper. Perhaps our experiences of the evening, the nets set for our feet, the steepness of our leap from the cart, that sight on the river-bank behind us—all these may have helped to demoralise us. The word "jumpy" somewhat describes our panic. After a time we ceased to try to hide our chills from each other. What exactly was the matter I can't quite tell; we had always endeavoured to be brave men, and no particular peril now menaced; but that night our spirits caught affrights one from the other; we both seem to have had the boding that we were about to taste of death; the grave, being, the mountains, grew too hugely gruesome for us, the womb of gloom brought forth awe—somehow we were unhinged. It was Langler perhaps who openly began it. We were resting together on a rock under the fragments of a Carthusian monastery when I heard him murmur in a sort of awed contemplation: "God be merciful...." "Why, what now?" said I. "God be merciful," he murmured again, "I have seen the wraith of Emily." This was so unlike him! My blood ran cold. "Where?" I whispered. For a minute he made no answer, then with the same entranced awe he murmured: "there—to the left of the arch, between the two trees: do you see nothing?" The hairs of my head bristled as, peering that way, I murmured: "yes, it is she." "Our breath is in His hand," sighed Langler, with a held-up hand.