The Last Miracle

by M. P. Shiel

"But Styria," said one of the ladies—"Styria sounds so mythical! Why Styria?"

"To open the eyes of the blind," said Langler in a deep voice, "to set at liberty them that are bound!"

The ladies exchanged glances; but before any more could be said Miss Emily came in with a plate of seeds, and Langler sat up straight.

Now, before this, Miss Jane and Miss Lizzie had been giving the story of Baron Kolár's visits; one afternoon lately, they said, the baron had come down from London merely to eat their toast; and they expected him again soon. This being so, I was surprised that Langler should be so unbridled as to publish to them his going to Styria to set free the baron's prisoner! To this day I am at a loss to understand him, though I suppose that he was somewhat distempered by the late events, and in a state of unreal levity. And the very next afternoon, when one of the Benedictines of Up Hatherley, an old college friend, called at the cottage, to him, too, Langler told his intention of "starting at once for Styria." All this time he had said not a word of it to Miss Emily, so that I found myself doubting whether his intention could be serious. When at last Miss Emily heard that we should perhaps be going, it was I who told it her in confidence.

That was just a week after Langler had assured me that his mind was made up to go: and it was during the evening of that same day on which I told Miss Emily of it that a group of Spanish peasants, moving homeward in the gloaming through some fields between the villages of Guardo and Villalba, in Palencia, saw wrought in mid-air by a mountain side a vision of the crucifixion, and dropped to the ground. I was in my own rooms when a message of it was brought me. It was after dinner; Miss Emily had gone to Ritching to see some sick, and when I went to look for Langler I heard that he, too, was not in the house. However, I presently found him down in the south-west, in a grape-arbour near the abbey, and handed him the telegram without a word. He, as he read it, rose slowly from his seat, with a paleness under the skin; for the news of these events had always the same effect upon the mind—awe mixed with a very peculiar ecstasy—which did not diminish with repetition, for with each new alarm I was anew imbued with the same dream of the wind-up and term of the drama of time and the trumps of the tribunes of eternity. I saw the telegram tremble in Langler's hand; I heard him murmur: "another."

"Yes," I said, "another—the fourth." And I cried out: "Oh, Aubrey! where do we stand?"

He made no answer; his head was bowed; till presently he said: "let us go! why do we delay? let us go to-morrow."

"But am I not ready?" I cried.

"That is settled, then," said he: "we go. Emily shall hear it this night, and to-morrow we turn our backs upon Swandale and all our life here. It shall be done now."

"I am sure that you will be none the worse for it," I said.