El-Râmi’s heart beat high with triumph at these words.
“My will!” he said, more to himself than to her—“The force of it!—the marvel of it!—my will!”
Lilith heard,—a strange glory seemed to shine round her, like a halo round a pictured saint, and the voice that came from her lips rang out with singularly sweet clearness.
“Your will!” she echoed—“Your will—and also—God’s will!”
He started, amazed and irresolute. The words were not what he expected, and he would have questioned their meaning, but that he saw on the girl’s lovely features a certain pale composed look which he recognised as the look that meant silence.
“Lilith!” he whispered.
No answer. He stood looking down upon her, his face seeming sterner and darker than usual by reason of the intense, passionate anxiety in his burning eyes.
“God’s will!” he echoed with some disdain—“God’s will would have annihilated her very existence long ago out in the desert;—what should God do with her now that I have not done?”
His arrogance seemed to be perfectly justifiable; and yet he very well knew that, strictly speaking, there was no such thing as “annihilation” possible to any atom in the universe. Moreover, he did not choose to analyse the mystical reasons as to why he had been permitted by Fate or Chance to obtain such mastery over one human soul,—he preferred to attribute it all to his own discoveries in science,—his own patient and untiring skill,—his own studious comprehension of the forces of Nature,—and he was nearly, if not quite, oblivious of the fact that there is a Something behind natural forces, which knows and sees, controls and commands, and against which, if he places himself in opposition, Man is but the puniest, most wretched straw that was ever tossed or split by a whirlwind. As a rule, men of science work not for God so much as against Him,—wherefore their most brilliant researches stop short of the goal. Great intellects are seldom devout,—for brilliant culture begets pride—and pride is incompatible with faith or worship. Perfect science, combined with perfect selflessness, would give us what we need,—a purified and reasoning Religion. But El-Râmi’s chief characteristic was pride,—and he saw no mischief in it. Strong in his knowledge,—defiant of evil in the consciousness he possessed of his own extraordinary physical and mental endowments, he saw no reason why he should bow down in humiliated abasement before forces, either natural or spiritual, which he deemed himself able to control. And his brow cleared, as he once more bent over his tranced “subject” and, with all the methodical precaution of a physician, felt her pulse, took note of her temperature, and judged that for the present she needed no more of that strange Elixir which kept her veins aglow with such inexplicably beauteous vitality. Then—his examination done—he left the room; and as he drew the velvet portière behind him the little white moth that had flown in for a night’s shelter fluttered down from the golden lamp like a falling leaf, and dropped on the couch of Lilith, shrivelled and dead.