At this, a smothered groan of horror escaped me,—I looked wildly round me, longing to find some deep grave of oblivious rest wherein to fall.
“Aye!” he continued—“The festival was fitted to the time of the world to-day!—Society, gorging itself blind and senseless, and attended by a retinue from Hell! My servants looked like men!—for truly there is little difference ’twixt man and devil! ‘Twas a brave gathering!—England has never seen so strange a one in all her annals!”
The sighing, wailing cries increased in loudness,—my limbs shook under me, and all power of thought was paralysed in my brain. He bent his piercing looks upon me with a new expression of infinite wonder, pity and disdain.
“What a grotesque creation you men have made of Me!” he said—“As grotesque as your conception of God! With what trifling human attributes you have endowed me! Know you not that the changeless, yet ever-changing Essence of Immortal Life can take a million million shapes and yet remain unalterably the same? Were I as hideous as your Churches figure me,—could the eternal beauty with which all angels are endowed, ever change to such loathsomeness as haunts mankind’s distorted imaginations, perchance it would be well,—for none would make of me their comrade, and none would cherish me as friend! As fits each separate human nature, so seems my image,—for thus is my fate and punishment commanded. Yet even in this mask of man I wear, men own me their superior,—think you not that when [p 467] the Supreme Spirit of God wore that same mask on earth, men did not know Him for their Master? Yea, they did know!—and knowing, murdered Him,—as they ever strive to murder all divine things as soon as their divinity is recognised. Face to face I stood with Him upon the mountain-top, and there fulfilled my vow of temptation. Worlds and kingdoms, supremacies and powers!——what were they to the Ruler of them all! ‘Get thee hence, Satan!’ said the golden-sounding Voice;—ah!—glorious behest!—happy respite!—for I reached the very gate of Heaven that night, and heard the angels sing!”
His accents sank to an infinitely mournful cadence.
“What have your teachers done with me and my eternal sorrows?” he went on—“Have not they, and the unthinking churches, proclaimed a lie against me, saying that I rejoice in evil? O man to whom, by God’s will and because the world’s end draws nigh, I unveil a portion of the mystery of my doom, learn now once and for all, that there is no possible joy in evil!—it is the despair and the discord of the Universe,—it is Man’s creation,—My torment,—God’s sorrow! Every sin of every human being adds weight to my torture, and length to my doom,—yet my oath against the world must be kept! I have sworn to tempt,—to do my uttermost to destroy mankind,—but man has not sworn to yield to my tempting. He is free!—let him resist and I depart;—let him accept me, I remain! Eternal Justice has spoken,—Humanity, through the teaching of God made human, must work out its own redemption,—and Mine!”
Here, suddenly advancing he stretched out his hand,—his figure grew taller, vaster and more majestic.
“Come with me now!” he said in a low penetrating voice that sounded sweet, yet menacing—“Come!—for the veil is down for you to-night! You shall understand with WHOM you have dwelt so long in your shifting cloud-castle of life!—and in What company you have sailed perilous seas!—one, who proud and rebellious, like you, errs less, in that he owns GOD as his Master!”
[p 468]
At these words a thundering crash assailed my ears,—all the windows on either side of the saloon flew open, and showed a strange glitter as of steely spears pointed aloft to the moon,— ... then, ... half-fainting, I felt myself grasped and lifted suddenly and forcibly upwards, ... and in another moment found myself on the deck of ‘The Flame,’ held fast as a prisoner in the fierce grip of hands invisible. Raising my eyes in deadly despair,—prepared for hellish tortures, and with a horrible sense of conviction in my soul that it was too late to cry out to God for mercy,—I saw around me a frozen world!—a world that seemed as if the sun had never shone upon it. Thick glassy-green walls of ice pressed round the vessel on all sides and shut her in between their inflexible barriers!—fantastic palaces, pinnacles, towers, bridges and arches of ice formed in their architectural outlines and groupings the semblance of a great city,—over all the coldly glistening peaks, the round moon, emerald-pale, looked down,—and standing opposite to me against the mast, I beheld, ... not Lucio, ... but an Angel!