The Quiver, 2/1900

by Various

"You try to beat the darkness away with your hands," he said by-and-by, "and you feel only that it is like solid rock to your touch. You strain your sight to pierce it, and, as you gaze, you realise its blackness, and it becomes deeper to your eyes. Why, then, do you stay upon its margin?"

"I stay because I hope and pray that, by dwelling near it, I may catch a glimpse of my only son; that I may hear his voice speak to me, or feel for a moment the warm, clinging touch of his little hands. I stay because I crave for a message from him, to tell me that he loves me still."

Then there was pity in the wise man's eyes, and it was the sweet pity of a mother who sees a child cry over a broken toy.

"Your son has many messages far you," he said, "but you cannot find or read them here; and, if you stay, your eyes will soon grow too dim to see, and the darkness will hold itself all about your heart. Turn your face and footsteps back to your people and your king, and seek there a message from your son which shall speak of consolation."

The Queen was silent then, and her feet and hands were still. She looked up at the wise, quiet man, and, as she looked, she saw that his eyes were like those of the child who had passed away, and she caught at the hem of his robe with trembling fingers.

"My sentence is—Forgiveness!"

"Who are you?" she cried. "Who are you, with your wise words, and your eyes like those of my son, who was but a little, little child?"

Then into the face of the man came a wonderful look, so that the Queen, seeing it, bent her head and bowed her forehead upon her hands. And it seemed to her, for a moment, as if strange sweet scents blew to her, and the darkness broke away into long alleys of light and bloom. And then there was a hush, and when she looked up again the wise man was gone.

But she remembered that he had given her the sweetest promise in the world—the promise of a message from her only son; and, believing him, she went away from the belt of darkness, and turned again to the palace, to her children, and to her king.