"Poor Betsey! she had been reading Pope and Leibnitz, and Ben Blood—bad, worse and worst, unfairly interpreted; good, better and best, rightly understood—and as the respective writers probably meant. Weak people read a book as children do Swift's Gulliver—on the surface; others read the great book whose letters are suns, whose words are starry systems, in the self-same manner; and there is still a greater volume—the first edition, to be continued—the Human Soul—which they never read at all. All of these must go to school; they will graduate by-and-by, when Death turns over a new leaf. It is best to study now—there may not be so good a chance presently.
"Betsey Clark believed, or thought she did, that because God made all things, therefore there could be no wrong in all the world. She accepted Pope's conclusions literally, misread them, and totally overlooked the sublime teachings of the third author named; and her mind went to rest, and her conscience slumbered under the sophisms—for such they are, from one point of view. The opiate acted well. And so she slept for years—long years of peace, wealth, all the world could give her—slept in the belief that there would never be a waking. Was she right? Wait. Let us see.
"We are still in the little chamber, near the window—the little window at the foot of the bed—whose upper sash was down."
PART V.
TOM CLARK DREAMS AGAIN.
"And now the Shadow—the terrible, monstrous Thing, that had so strangely entered the room through the window—the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down—hovered no longer over the heads of the woman and the man—the unhappy woman, the misery-laden man, who, when the last sun had set, went to bed with Murder and Revenge—and Hatred—this wretched couple, who had contemplated such dreadful crimes, and who, within the past two hours, had had such strange and marvellous dreams! Only two hours! and yet in that space had been crowded the events of a lifetime. They say there are no miracles! What, then, is this? What are these strange experiences of soul which we are constantly having—fifty years compressed in an hour of ordinary Dream!—thirty thousand ages in a moment of time, while under the accursed spells of Hasheesh? The soul flying back over unnumbered centuries; scanning the totality of the Present, and grasping a myriad Futurities—sweeping the vortex of unborn epochs by the million!—and all in an instant of the clock, while under the influence of the still more accursed Muust. What are the frogs and bloody waves of Egypt, compared to these miracles of the human soul—these Dream-lives that are not Dreams?
"And so the Thing took the glare of its horrible Eye from off the woman and the man. Its mission—its temptations were over. And it floated from off the bed, frown-smiling at Hesperina as it did so; and it passed lazily, gloomily, scowlingly through the window at the foot of the bed, through which it had a little previously entered; and it moved through the starlight with a rush and a roar—a sullen rush and roar—as if each star-beam stabbed it with a dagger of flame; and the Thing seemed consciously angry, and it sullenly roared, as doth the wintry blast through the tattered sails of a storm-tossed bark, toilsomely laboring thro' the angry deep: a minute passed, and IT was gone; thank God! IT was gone—at last—that horrible Incubus—that most fearful Thing!
"Simultaneously the sleepers evinced by their movements that their souls, if not their senses, had been relieved by the presence of its absence; and they were apparently on the point of waking, but were prevented by the magic, or magnetic action of the angelic figure at that moment leaning o'er their couch; for she gently, soothingly waved her snowy hands, and, in a voice sweeter than the tones of love, whispered: 'Sleep on; still sleep—softly—sweetly sleep—and dream. Peace, troubled hearts! Peace; be still!' and they slumbered on.
"Tom Clark's dream had changed. All the former troubled and exciting scene had vanished into thin air, leaving only vague, dim memories behind, to remind his soul of what it had been, and what it had seen and suffered. In the former dream he had been on dry, solid land; but now all this was strangely altered, and he found himself tossed on a rough, tumultuous sea; his lot was cast upon the deep—upon a wild and dreary waste of waters. In his dream the rain—great round and heavy drops of rain—fell in torrents; the mad winds and driving sleet—for the rain froze as it fell—raved and roared fiercely, fitfully; and the good ship bent and bellied to the hurricane, and she groaned as if loath to give up the ghost. And she drove before the blast, and she plunged headlong into the foaming billows, and ever and anon shook her head—brave ship! as if she knew that ruin was before her, and had determined to meet it as a good ship should—bravely, fairly in the face.