He unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took from it a box full of red powder, and two small flasks, one containing minute globules of a glittering green colour like tiny emeralds,—the other full of a pale amber liquid. He smiled as he looked at these ingredients,—and then he gave a glance out through the window at the dark and rainy afternoon.
“To pass the time, why not?” he queried half aloud. “One needs a little diversion sometimes even in science.”
Whereupon he placed some of the red powder in a small bronze vessel and set fire to it. A thick smoke arose at once and filled the room with cloud that emitted a pungent perfume, and in which his own figure was scarcely discernible. He cast five or six of the little green globules into this smoke; they dissolved in their course and melted within it,—and finally he threw aloft a few drops of the amber liquid. The effect was extraordinary, and would have seemed incredible to any onlooker, for through the cloud a roseate Shape made itself slowly visible,—a Shape that was surrounded with streaks of light and rainbow flame as with a garland. Vague at first, but soon growing more distinct, it gathered itself into seeming substance, and floated nearly to the ground,—then rising again, balanced itself lightly like a blown feather sideways upon the dense mist that filled the air. In form this “coruscation of atoms,” as El-Râmi called it, resembled a maiden in the bloom of youth,—her flowing hair, her sparkling eyes, her smiling lips, were all plainly discernible;—but, that she was a mere phantasm and creature of the cloud was soon made plain, for scarcely had she declared herself in all her rounded laughing loveliness than she melted away and passed into nothingness like a dream. The cloud of smoke grew thinner and thinner, till it vanished also so completely that there was no more left of it than a pale blue ring such as might have been puffed from a stray cigar. El-Râmi, leaning lazily back in his chair, had watched the whole development and finish of his “experiment” with indolent interest and amusement.
“How admirably the lines of beauty are always kept in these effects,”—he said to himself when it was over,—“and what a fortune I could make with that one example of the concentration of atoms if I chose to pass as a Miracle-maker. Moses was an adept at this kind of thing; so also was a certain Egyptian priest named Borsa of Memphis, who just for that same graceful piece of chemistry was judged by the people as divine,—made king,—and loaded with wealth and honour;—excellent and most cunning Borsa! But we—we do not judge any one “divine” in these days of ours, not even God,—for He is supposed to be simply the lump of leaven working through the loaf of matter,—though it will always remain a question as to why there is any leaven or any loaf at all existing.”
He fell into a train of meditation, which caused him presently to take up his pen and write busily many pages of close manuscript. Féraz came in at the usual hour with supper,—and then only he ceased working, and shared the meal with his young brother, talking cheerfully, though saying little but commonplaces, and skilfully steering off any allusion to subjects which might tend to increase Féraz’s evident melancholy. Once he asked him rather abruptly why he had not played any music that day.
“I do not know”—answered the young man coldly—“I seem to have forgotten music—with other things.”
He spoke meaningly;—El-Râmi laughed, relieved and light at heart. Those “other things” meant the name of Lilith, which his will had succeeded in erasing from his brother’s memory. His eyes sparkled, and his voice gathered new richness and warmth of feeling as he said kindly—
“I think not, Féraz,—I think you cannot have forgotten music. Surely it is no extraneous thing, but part of you,—a lovely portion of your life which you would be loath to miss. Here is your little neglected friend,”—and, rising, he took out of its case an exquisitely-shaped mandolin inlaid with pearl—“The dear old lute,—for lute it is, though modernised,—the same-shaped instrument on which the rose and fuchsia-crowned youths of old Pompeii played the accompaniment to their love songs; the same, the very same on which the long-haired, dusky-skinned maids of Thebes and Memphis thrummed their strange uncouth ditties to their black-browed warrior kings. I like it better than the violin—its form is far more pleasing—we can see Apollo with a lute, but it is difficult to fancy the Sun-god fitting his graceful arm to the contorted positions of a fiddle. Play something, Féraz”—and he smiled winningly as he gave the mandolin into his brother’s hands—“Here,”—and he detached the plectrum from its place under the strings—“With this little piece of oval tortoiseshell, you can set the nerves of music quivering,—those silver wires will answer to your touch like the fibres of the human heart struck by the tremolo of passion.”
He paused,—his eyes were full, of an ardent light, and Féraz looked at him wonderingly. What a voice he had!—how eloquently he spoke!—how noble and thoughtful were his features!—and what an air of almost pathetic dignity was given to his face by that curiously snow-white hair of his, which so incongruously suggested age in youth! Poor Féraz!—his heart swelled within him; love and secret admiration for his brother contended with a sense of outraged pride in himself,—and yet—he felt his sullen amour-propre, his instinct of rebellion, and his distrustful reserve all oozing away under the spell of El-Râmi’s persuasive tongue and fascinating manner,—and to escape from his own feelings, he bent over the mandolin and tried its chords with a trembling hand and downcast eyes.
“You speak of passion,” he said in a low voice—“but you have never known it.”