“Whom say ye that I am?”
The painted Christ seemed to audibly ask the question.
“O noble Mystery of a Man, I cannot tell!” exclaimed El-Râmi suddenly and aloud—“I cannot say who you are, or who you were. A riddle for all the world to wonder at,—a white Sphinx with a smile inscrutable,—all the secrets of Egypt are as nothing to your secret, O simple, pure-souled Nazarene! You, born in miserable plight in miserable Bethlehem, changed the aspect of the world, altered and purified the modes of civilisation, and thrilled all life with higher motives for work than it had ever been dowered with before. All this in three years’ work, ending in a criminal’s death! Truly, if there was not something Divine in you, then God Himself is an error!”
The grand face seemed to smile upon him with a deep and solemn pity, and “Whom say ye that I am?” sounded in his ears as though it were spoken by some one in the room.
“I must be getting nervous;”—he muttered, drawing the curtain softly over the picture again, and looking uneasily round about him, “I think I cannot be much more than the weakest of men,—after all.”
A faint tremor seized him as he turned slowly but resolutely round towards the couch of Lilith, and let his eyes rest on her enchanting loveliness. Step by step he drew nearer and nearer till he bent closely over her, but he did not call her by name. A loose mass of her hair lay close to his arm,—with an impetuous suddenness he gathered it in his hands and kissed it.
“A sheaf of sunbeams!”—he whispered, his lips burning as they caressed the shining wealth of silken curls—“A golden web in which kisses might be caught and killed! Ah Heaven, have pity on me!” and he sank by the couch, stifling his words beneath his breath—“If I love this girl—if all this mad tumult in my soul is Love—let her never know it, O merciful Fates!—or she is lost, and so am I. Let me be bound,—let her be free,—let me fight down my weakness, but let her never know that I am weak, or I shall lose her long obedience. No, no! I will not summon her to me now—it is best she should be absent,—this body of hers, this fair fine casket of her spirit is but a dead thing when that spirit is elsewhere. She cannot hear me,—she does not see me—no, not even when I lay this hand—this ‘shadow of a hand,’ as she once called it, here, to quell my foolish murmurings.”
And, lifting Lilith’s hand as he spoke, he pressed its roseate palm against his lips,—then on his forehead. A strange sense of relief and peace came upon him with the touch of those delicate fingers—it was as though a cool wind blew, bringing freshness from some quiet mountain lake or river. Silently he knelt,—and presently, somewhat calmed, lifted his eyes again to look at Lilith,—she smiled in her deep trance—she was the very picture of some happy angel sleeping. His arm sank in the soft satin coverlet as he laid back the little hand he held upon her breast,—and with eager scrutiny he noted every tint and every line in her exquisite face;—the lovely long lashes that swept the blush-rose of her cheeks,—the rounded chin, dimpled in its curve,—the full white throat, the perfect outline of the whole fair figure as it rested like a branched lily in a bed of snow,—and, as he looked, he realised that all this beauty was his—his, if he chose to take Love and let Wisdom go. If he chose to resign the chance of increasing his knowledge of the supernatural,—if he were content to accept earth for what it is, and heaven for what it may be, Lilith, the bodily incarnation of loveliness, purity and perfect womanhood, was his—his only. He grew dizzy at the thought,—then by an effort conquered the longing of his heart. He remembered what he had sworn to do,—to discover the one great secret before he seized the joy that tempted him,—to prove the actual, individual, conscious existence of the Being that is said to occupy a temporary habitation in flesh. He knew and he saw the body of Lilith,—he must know, and he must see her Soul. And while he leaned above her couch, entranced, a sudden strain of music echoed through the stillness,—music solemn and sweet, that stirred the air into rhythmic vibrations as of slow and sacred psalmody. He listened, perplexed but not afraid,—he was not afraid of anything in earth or heaven save—himself. He knew that man has his worst enemy in his own Ego,—beyond that, there is very little in life that need give cause for alarm. He had, till now, been able to practise the stoical philosophy of an Epictetus while engaged in researches that would have puzzled the brain of a Plato,—but his philosophy was just now at fault and his self-possession gone to the four winds of heaven—and why? He knew not—but he was certain the fault lay in himself, and not in others. Of an arrogant temper and a self-reliant haughty disposition he had none of that low cowardice which people are guilty of, who, finding themselves in a dilemma, cast the blame at once on others, or on “circumstances” which, after all, were most probably of their own creating. And the strange music that ebbed and flowed in sonorous pulsations through the air around him troubled him not at all,—he attributed it at once to something or other that was out of order in his own mental perceptions. He knew how, in certain conditions of the brain, some infinitesimal trifle gone wrong in the aural nerves will persuade one that trumpets are blowing, violins playing, birds singing or bells ringing in the distance,—just as a little disorder of the visual organs will help to convince one of apparitions. He knew how to cast a “glamour” better than any so-called “theosophist” in full practice of his trickery,—and, being thus perfectly aware how the human sense can be deceived, listened to the harmonious sounds he heard with speculative interest, wondering how long this “fancy” of his would last. Much more startled was he when amid the rising and falling of the mysterious melody he heard the voice of Lilith saying softly in her usual manner—
“I am here!”
His heart beat rapidly, and he rose slowly from his kneeling position by her side. “I did not call you, Lilith!” he said tremblingly.