In an instant I stood free. My captors loosed their hold of me, and I rushed away, not knowing whither—only running, running, running, afraid of pursuit—till I suddenly found myself alone on the borders of a dark stretch of water spreading away in cold blackness to an unseen horizon.
XVIII
DREAMS WITHIN A DREAM
I stopped abruptly, brought perforce to a standstill. There was nothing but the black water heaving in front of me with a slow and dizzying motion and faintly illumined by a dim, pearly light like that of a waning moon. I looked behind me, fearing my persecutors were following, and saw that a thick mist filled the air and space to the obliteration of everything that might otherwise have been visible. I had thought it was day, and that the sun was shining, but now it appeared to be night. Utterly fatigued in body and mind, I sank down wearily on the ground, close to the edge of the strange dark flood which I could scarcely see. The quiet and deep obscurity had a lulling effect on my senses—and I thought languidly how good it would be if I might be allowed to rest where I was for an indefinite time.
"I can understand"—I said to myself—"why many people long for death and pray for it as a great blessing! They have lost love—and without love, life is valueless. To live on and on through cycles of time in worlds that are empty of all sweetness,—companionless and deprived of hope and comfort—this would be hell!—not heaven!"
"Hell—not heaven!" said a voice near me.
I started and looked up—a shadowy figure stood beside me—that of a woman in dark trailing garments, whose face shone with a pale beauty in the dim light surrounding us both.
"So you have found your way here at last!" she said, gently—"Here, where all things end, and nothing begins!"
I rose to my feet and confronted her.
"Where all things end!" I repeated—"Surely where life exists there is no end?"