Startled by this profane interruption, he cast a look of alarm towards the statue, as if fearful lest the God should have heard my words. Then, turning to me, in a tone of mild solemnity, “It is but too plain,” said he, “that thoughts of the upper [pg 100]world, and of its vain delights, still engross thee too much, to let the lessons of Truth sink profitably into thy heart. A few hours of meditation amid this solemn scenery—of that wholesome meditation, which purifies, by saddening—may haply dispose thee to receive, with reverence, the holy and immortal knowledge that is in store for thee. With this hope, I now leave thee to thy own thoughts, and to that God, before whose calm and mournful eye the vanities of the world, from which thou comest, wither!”
Thus saying, he turned slowly away, and passing behind the statue, towards which he had pointed during the last sentence, suddenly, and as if by enchantment, disappeared from my sight.
CHAP. IX.
Being left to my own solitary thoughts, I had now leisure to reflect, with coolness, on the inconveniences, if not dangers, of the situation into which my love of adventure had hurried me. However ready my imagination was to kindle, in its own ideal sphere, I have ever found that, when brought into contact with reality, it as suddenly cooled;—like those meteors, that seem stars in the air, but, the moment they touch earth, are extinguished. Such was the disenchantment that now succeeded to the dreams in which I had been indulging. As long as Fancy had the field of the future to herself, even immortality did not seem too distant a race for her. But when human instruments interposed, the illusion vanished. From mortal lips the promise of immortality [pg 102]seemed a mockery, and imagination herself had no wings that could carry beyond the grave.
Nor was this disappointment the only feeling that occupied me;—the imprudence of the step, which I had taken, now appeared in its full extent before my eyes. I had thrown myself into the power of the most artful priesthood in the world, without a chance of being able to escape from their toils, or to resist any machinations with which they might beset me. It seemed evident, from the state of preparation in which I had found all that wonderful apparatus, by which the terrors and splendours of Initiation are produced, that my descent into the pyramid was not unexpected. Numerous, indeed, and active as were the spies of the Sacred College of Memphis, there could be but little doubt that all my movements, since my arrival, had been tracked; and the many hours I had passed in watching and wandering round the pyramid, betrayed a curiosity [pg 103]which might well inspire these wily priests with the hope of drawing an Epicurean into their superstitious toils.
I well knew their hatred to the sect of which I was Chief;—that they considered the Epicureans as, next to the Christians, the most formidable enemies of their craft and power. “How thoughtless, then,” I exclaimed, “to have placed myself in a situation, where I am equally helpless against their fraud and violence, and must either seem to be the dupe of their impostures, or submit to become the victim of their vengeance.” Of these alternatives, bitter as they were, the latter appeared by far the more welcome. I blushed even to think of the mockeries to which I already had yielded; and the prospect of being put through still further ceremonials, and of being tutored and preached to by hypocrites I despised, appeared to me, in my present temper, a trial of patience, to which the flames [pg 104]and the whirlwinds I had already encountered were pastime.
Often and impatiently did I look up, between those rocky walls, to the bright sky that appeared to rest upon their summits, as, round and round, through every part of the valley, I endeavoured to find an outlet from its gloomy precincts. But in vain I endeavoured;—that rocky barrier, which seemed to end but in heaven, interposed itself every where. Neither did the image of the young maiden, though constantly in my mind, now bring with it the least consolation or hope. Of what avail was it that she, perhaps, was an inhabitant of this region, if I could neither see her smile, nor catch the sound of her voice,—if, while among preaching priests I wasted away my hours, her presence diffused its enchantment elsewhere.
At length exhausted, I lay down by the brink of the lake, and gave myself up to all the melancholy of my fancy. The [pg 105]pale semblance of daylight, which had hitherto shone around, grew, every moment, more dim and dismal. Even the rich gleam, at the summit of the cascade, had faded; and the sunshine, like the water, exhausted in its descent, had now dwindled into a ghostly glimmer, far worse than darkness. The birds upon the lake, as if about to die with the dying light, sunk down their heads; and, as I looked to the statue, the deepening shadows gave an expression to its mournful features that chilled my very soul.