[5] Witness the destruction of Foyers, to the historical shame and disgrace of Scotland and Scotsmen. [Back]
[p 469]
XLI
Crowned with a mystic radiance as of trembling stars of fire, that sublime Figure towered between me and the moonlit sky; the face, austerely grand and beautiful, shone forth luminously pale,—the eyes were full of unquenchable pain, unspeakable remorse, unimaginable despair! The features I had known so long and seen day by day in familiar intercourse were the same,—the same, yet transfigured with ethereal splendour, while shadowed by an everlasting sorrow! Bodily sensations I was scarcely conscious of;—only the Soul of me, hitherto dormant, was awake and palpitating with fear. Gradually I became aware that others were around me, and looking, I saw a dense crowd of faces, wild and wonderful,—imploring eyes were turned upon me in piteous or stern agony,—and pallid hands were stretched towards me more in appeal than menace. And I beheld as I gazed, the air darkening, and anon lightening with the shadow and the brightness of wings!—vast pinions of crimson flame began to unfurl and spread upwards all round the ice-bound vessel,—upwards till their glowing tips seemed well-nigh to touch the moon. And He, my Foe, who leaned against the mast, became likewise encircled with these shafted pinions of burning rose, which like finely-webbed clouds coloured by a strong sunset, streamed outward flaringly from his dark Form and sprang aloft in a blaze of scintillant glory. And a Voice infinitely sad, yet infinitely sweet, struck solemn music from the frozen silence.
[p 470]
“Steer onward, Amiel! Onward, to the boundaries of the world!”
With every spiritual sense aroused, I glanced towards the steerman’s wheel,—was that Amiel whom I had instinctively loathed?—that Being, stern as a figure of deadliest fate, with sable wings and tortured countenance? If so, I knew him now for a fiend in very truth!—if burning horror and endless shame can so transfigure the soul of man! A history of crime was written in his anguished looks, ... what secret torment racked him no living mortal might dare to guess! With pallid skeleton hands he moved the wheel;—and as it turned, the walls of ice around us began to split with a noise of thunder.
“Onward Amiel
!” said the great sad Voice again—“Onward where never man hath trod,—steer on to the world’s end!”
The crowd of weird and terrible faces grew denser,—the flaming and darkening of wings became thicker than driving storm-clouds rent by lightning,—wailing cries, groans and dreary sounds of sobbing echoed about me on all sides, ... again the shattering ice roared like an earthquake under the waters, ... and, unhindered by her frozen prison-walls, the ship moved on! Dizzily, and as one in a mad dream I saw the great glittering bergs rock and bend forward,—the massive ice-city shook to its foundations, ... glistening pinnacles dropped and vanished, ... towers lurched over, broke and plunged into the sea,—huge mountains of ice split up like fine glass, yawning asunder with a green glare in the moonlight as the ‘Flame’ propelled, so it seemed, by the demon-wings of her terrific crew, cut through the frozen passage with the sharpness of a sword and the swiftness of an arrow! Whither were we bound? I dared not think,—I deemed myself dead. The world I saw was not the world I knew,—I believed I was in some spirit-land beyond the grave, whose secrets I should presently realize perchance too well! On,—on we went,—I keeping my strained sight fixed for the most part on the supreme Shape that always confronted me,—that Angel-Foe whose eyes were wild with an eternity of sorrows! Face to [p 471] face with such an Immortal Despair, I stood confounded and slain forever in my own regard,—a worthless atom, meriting naught but annihilation. The wailing cries and groans had ceased,—and we sped on in an awful silence,—while countless tragedies,—unnameable histories,—were urged upon me in the dumb eloquence of the dreary faces round me, and the expressive teaching of their terrific eyes!
Soon the barriers of ice were passed,—and the ‘Flame’ floated out beyond them into a warm inland sea, calm as a lake, and bright as silver in the broad radiance of the moon. On either side were undulating shores, rich with lofty and luxuriant verdure,—I saw the distant hazy outline of dusky purple hills,—I heard the little waves plashing against hidden rocks, and murmuring upon the sand. Delicious odours filled the air;—a gentle breeze blew, ... was this the lost Paradise?—this semi-tropic zone concealed behind a continent of ice and snow? Suddenly, from the tops of the dark branching trees, came floating the sound of a bird’s singing,—and so sweet was the song, so heart-whole was the melody, that my aching eyes filled with tears. Beautiful memories rushed upon me,—the value and graciousness of life,—life on the kindly sunlit earth,—seemed very dear to my soul! Life’s opportunities,—its joys, its wonders, its blessings, all showered down upon a thankless race by a loving Creator,—these appeared to me all at once as marvellous! Oh for another chance of such life!—to redeem the past,—to gather up the wasted gems of lost moments,—to live as a man should live, in accordance with the will of God, and in brotherhood with his fellow-men! ... The unknown bird sang on in a cadence like that of a mavis in spring, only more tunefully,—surely no other woodland songster ever sang half so well! And as its dulcet notes dropped roundly one by one upon the mystic silence, I saw a pale Creature move out from amid the shadowing of black and scarlet wings,—a white woman-shape, clothed in her own long hair. She glided to the vessel’s edge, and there she leaned, with anguished face upturned,—it was the face of Sibyl! And even while I looked [p 472] upon her, she cast herself wildly down upon the deck and wept! My soul was stirred within me, ... I saw in very truth all that she might have been,—I realized what an angel a little guiding love and patience might have made her, ... and at last I pitied her! I never pitied her before!