"Nothing can destroy me!" I said within myself—"Nothing can slay the immortal part of me, and nothing can separate my soul from the soul of my beloved! In all earth, in all heaven, there is no cause for fear!"
Hesitating no longer, I closed my eyes,—then extending my clasped hands I threw myself forward and plunged into the darkness!—down, down, interminably down! A light followed me like a meteoric shaft of luminance piercing the blackness—I retained sufficient consciousness to wonder at its brilliancy, and for a time I was borne along in my descent as though on wings. Down, still down!—and I saw ocean at my feet!—a heaving mass of angry waters flecked with a wool-like fleece of foam!
"The Change that is called Death, but which is Life!"
This was the only clear thought that flashed like lightning through my brain as I sank swiftly towards the engulfing desert of the sea!—then everything swirled into darkness and silence!
* * *
* *
*
A delicate warm glow like the filtering of sunbeams through shaded silk and crystal—a fragrance of roses—a delicious sound of harp-like music—to these things I was gradually awakened by a gentle pressure on my brows. I looked up—and my whole heart relieved itself in a long deep sigh of ecstasy!—it was Aselzion himself who bent over me,—Aselzion whose grave blue eyes watched me with earnest and anxious solicitude. I smiled up at him in response to his wordless questioning as to how I felt, and would have risen but that he imperatively signed to me to lie still.
"Rest!" he said,—and his voice was very low and tender. "Rest, poor child! You have done more than well!"
Another sigh of pure happiness escaped me,—I stretched out my arms lazily like one aroused from a long and refreshing slumber. My sensations were now perfectly exquisite; a fresh and radiant life seemed pouring itself through my veins, and I was content to remain a perfectly passive recipient of such an inflow of health and joy. The room I found myself in was new to me—it seemed made up of lovely colourings and a profusion of sweet flowers—I lay enshrined as it were in the centre of a little temple of beauty. I had no desire to move or to speak,—every trouble, every difficulty had passed from my mind, and I watched Aselzion dreamily as he brought a chair to the side of my couch and sat down—then, taking my hand in his, felt my pulse with an air of close attention.
I smiled again.
"Does it still beat?" I asked, finding my voice suddenly—"Surely the great sea has drowned it!"