He broke off,—his voice failed him, and the monk looked at him compassionately.
“Judge not the power of God, El-Râmi Zarânos!” he said solemnly—“for it seems you cannot even measure the power of man. What!—did you think your secret experiment safely hid from all knowledge save your own?—nay! you mistake. I have watched your progress step by step—your proud march onward through such mysteries as never mortal mind dared penetrate before,—but even these wonders have their limits—and those limits are, for you, nearly reached. You must set your captive free!”
“Never!” exclaimed El-Râmi passionately. “Never, while I live! I defy the heavens to rob me of her!—by every law in nature, she is mine!”
“Peace!” said the monk sternly—“Nothing is yours,—except the fate you have made for yourself. That is yours; and that must and will be fulfilled. That, in its own appointed time, will deprive you of Lilith.”
El-Râmi’s eyes flashed wrath and pain.
“What have you to do with my fate?” he demanded—“How should you know what is in store for me? You are judged to have a marvellous insight into spiritual things, but it is not insight after all so much as imagination and instinct. These may lead you wrong,—you have gained them, as you yourself admit, through nothing but inward, concentration and prayer—my discoveries are the result of scientific exploration,—there is no science in prayer!”
“Is there not?”—and the monk, rising from his chair, confronted El-Râmi with the reproachful majesty of a king who faces some recreant vassal—“Then with all your wisdom you are ignorant,—ignorant of the commonest laws of simple Sound. Do you not yet know—have you not yet learned that Sound vibrates in a million million tones through every nook and corner of the Universe? Not a whisper, not a cry from human lips is lost—not even the trill of a bird or the rustle of a leaf. All is heard—all is kept,—all is reproduced at will for ever and ever. What is the use of your modern toys, the phonograph and the telephone, if they do not teach you the fundamental and eternal law by which these adjuncts to civilisation are governed? God—the great, patient, loving God—hears the huge sounding-board of space re-echo again and yet again with rough curses on His Name,—with groans and wailings; shouts, tears, and laughter send shuddering discord through His Everlasting Vastness, but amid it all there is a steady strain of music,—full, sweet, and pure—the music of perpetual prayer. No science in prayer! Such science there is, that by its power the very ether parts asunder as by a lightning stroke—the highest golden gateways are unbarred,—and the connecting-link ’twixt God and Man stretches itself through Space, between and round all worlds, defying any force to break the current of its messages.”
He spoke with fervour and passion,—El-Râmi listened silent and unconvinced.
“I waste my words, I know—” continued the monk—“For you, Yourself suffices. What your brain dares devise,—what your hand dares attempt, that you will do, unadvisedly, sure of your success without the help of God or man. Nevertheless—you may not keep the Soul of Lilith.”
His voice was very solemn yet sweet; El-Râmi, lifting his head, looked full at him, wonderingly, earnestly, and as one in doubt. Then his mind seemed to grasp more completely his visitor’s splendid presence,—the noble face, the soft commanding eyes,—and instinctively he bent his proud head with a sudden reverence.