The Worshipper of the Image

by Richard Le Gallienne

Had his senses deceived him? They must have deceived him. And yet that music at least had seemed startlingly near, sudden, and sweet, as though one should tread upon a harp in the grass. For the next day or two Antony could not get it out of his ears, and often, like a sweet wail through the wood, he seemed to hear the word "Resurgam."

Was Silencieux a living spirit, after all,—no mere illusion, but one of those beautiful demons of evil that do possess the souls of men?

He went and stood by Silencieux's grave. It was just as he had left it. Only an early yellow butterfly stood fanning itself on the freshly turned earth.

Was it the soul of Silencieux?

Cursing himself for a madman, he turned away, but had not gone many yards, when once more—there was that sudden strain of music and the word "Resurgam" somewhere on the wind.

This time he knew he was not mistaken, but to believe it true—O God, he must not believe it true. Reality or fancy, it was an evil thing which he had cast out of his life—and he closed his ears and fled.

Yet, though he loyally strove to quench that music in the sound of Beatrice's voice, deep in his heart he knew that the night would come when he would take his lantern and spade, wearily, as one who at length after hopeless striving obeys once more some imperious weakness—and look on the face of Silencieux again.

Too surely that night came, and, as in a dream, Antony found himself in the dark spring night hastening with lantern and spade to Silencieux's grave. It was only just to look on her face again, to see if she really lived like a vampire in the earth; and were she to be alive, he vowed to kill her where she lay—for into his life again he knew she must not come.

As he neared the whitebeam, a gust of wind blew out his lantern, and he stood in the profound darkness of the trees. While he attempted to relight it, he thought he saw a faint light at the foot of the whitebeam, as of a radiance welling out of the earth; but he dismissed it as fancy.

Then, having relit the lantern, he set the spade into the ground, and speedily removed the soil from the white face below. As he uncovered it, the wind again extinguished the lantern, and there, to his amazement and terror, was the face of Silencieux shining radiantly in the darkness. The hole in which she lay brimmed over with light, as a spring wells out of the hillside. Her face was almost transparent with brightness, and presently she spoke low, with a voice sweeter than Antony had ever heard before. It was the voice of that magic harp at the bottom of the sea, it was the voice that had told him of her lovers, the voice of hidden music that had cried "Resurgam" through the wood.