Julian Hawthorne

“ The will of all is to be made one will, in harmony with the recorded will of the spirit. Tell them that the strain will be great, but constancy will prevail. Tell them that the hands of the little children are to be laid, above all, upon the uniting cord; for innocence and love hold the universe together. Let this be done, and Tor shall not be unseated from its place.”
Lamara spoke with solemn emphasis, lifting up her arms and her face, as if addressing not so much Zarga in person as the divine qualities of helpfulness and devotion which were to be exemplified in her. ”

“ I have brought you to the center of this rock; none but I knows how to enter it, and none can pass out from it but by my leave. Here you shall stay until you die; and I will stay with you. You say I cannot love you; I love you, and hate you, enough for that! When the end of the world comes, and the graves are rent asunder, they will find our bones here, intertwined like lovers. Let Miriam make what she can of that!”
“You have not the power to do what you say,” answered Jack. ”

“ Things may happen in our daily walk and pass unobserved that are in their essence more marvelous than the transformation of a blackthorn stick into a battle-charger.
Be that as it may, it was a mounted cavalier who issued forth from the castle just as Miriam helped the dazed and moribund Prince of Tor to his feet and assigned him to Jack’s care while she faced the mob. She faced them, but made no demonstration. They were intimidated, but it would not be for long. The sight of Torpeon making his escape into the castle set fire to their rage anew. They were gathering courage for an onset. ”

“ Miriam, my mate! Be proud and reluctant as you will; I love you but the more, and the fire of your love will burn only the clearer and more intensely when the error that confuses you has been burned away. You and I shall sit at our ease and smile at each other as we behold the phantasmagory of Creation pass in review at our feet! The great stars shall wither and crumble into dust, and we will arise in the freshness of our youth and summon others to bloom before us in the glory of their prime. ”

“ When one of us has won the great victory, a halo appears over his head. It is the sign that he has entered into himself, and nothing can harm him afterward; and all nature is open to him and serves him.”
“The great victory? Over what? Let me try! I ask no better!”
“No evil can prevail over one who has overcome the ally of evil in himself,” said Lamara. “Dear Jack, no one, of himself, can really do anything. We see paradise before us, but we are kept from it by a wall, and we say we are shut out by some higher power. ”

“ But if Zarga’s view were right, Lamara would withdraw her warning. What should he do?
Zarga seemed to read his mind. “It’s not for a girl such as I to tell a lover what to do to save the woman he loves,” she said. “But I warn you, if you touch her, Torpeon will exert his whole power to keep her. And don’t think you can baffle him again as you did once! He will come with his legions behind him!”
Love, jealousy, and the pride of a man’s valor against his foe, were temptations too strong: and at that moment Miriam stirred in her trance, her eyelids quivered and her lips moved. ”

“ Yes, look at me! Am I not beautiful? What happiness is there that I cannot give you? Take me—know me—love me! In this world there are a thousand joys that are not dreamed of on your earth! And our years are not few, like yours, nor can age dull and enfeeble us. My power is great; I will lead you through endless delights, blooming one after another, like roses from one stem of love. Or if you long for daring deeds, mighty works, or strange adventures, fame and worship, I can launch you on such a career as no tales of heroes tell! You are made for the highest things ”

“ Scattered here and there in the void around this apparition were five or six much smaller globes, each of a different tint—red, blue, yellow, green, golden and silvery. The voyagers were dropping swiftly down into the midst of this marvelous earth. It expanded until its circumference covered the entire field of sight; rivers, mountains, forests and plains were now discernible. A few breaths more, and they would alight there!
In the awe and wonder of this revelation, one thought and emotion filled Jack’s soul: Miriam! As the downward rush continued, Solarion laid a hand gently on his head ”

“ JACK was lying on his back on the ground. In the beautiful sky overhead hung what looked like a vast silvery simitar, the curved edge downward, flashing in the sun, if it were not itself the source of light. The weapon extended its arc from horizon to horizon: beautiful but menacing, it was suspended over him like a cosmic sword of Damocles, and without any visible support: were it to descend, it would not only cut Jack in twain, but the planet on which he lay, and any others of our system which might lie in its path. ”

“ But this was mere reflex action, she had been too much amazed to express her amazement.
“Sure I will, miss, with pleasure,” Jenny relied; and turned briskly and walked out. There had been no illusion about it, no reproduction. Inanimate things might be imitated, but not a human being in flesh and blood.
Miriam had leisure before Jenny returned with the tea-things on the tray to recover her breath and to turn the matter over in her mind. But the only result of her reflections was an increased admiration for Torpeon: a being who could do this was not to be despised. ”

“ Still it brightened, and now assumed the form of a ring of purest radiance, shining above his forehead; if a circle of pearls could be fire, they would appear thus. It was visible for several minutes; and whether it then vanished, or whether the eyes of the onlookers were unable any longer to discern it, was doubtful. Perhaps it was a thing which only persons of good will and pure heats could have seen at all.
They went out in silence; but the meaning of the halo sank deep into the lovers’ souls, and its light guided their life. ”

“ He would follow Miriam, find her, and bring her back! The youth assumed, with the words he had uttered, the stature of a hero; and the hearts of his hearers bowed before him.
His uncle, in whose blood the hero strain was still warm, looked in the boy’s eyes and stifled the remonstrance that sprang to his lips. It was an enterprise in which any man might have been proud to perish. Old Terence Mayne stared at him speechless: then, tottering forward, leaned his gray head upon Jack’s shoulder and sobbed aloud. Finally, Mary Faust stepped up to him and took both his hands in hers. ”

“ The coloring of life, faint in the beginning, gained depth, as if an artist were adding to his gray outline more vivid touches from his palette. The living picture acquired each moment greater definition; from point to point the outlines and contours settled into certainty; and Jack’s lips grew dry as he recognized more and more unmistakably the proportions and movements of the woman he loved. For the other figure he had as yet no eyes, but he knew it could represent no other than Torpeon. ”

“ She seated herself on a curved bench of marble that stood on the seaward crest of the knoll, and spread out her black hair, thick and long, to dry in the sun. Seated thus at ease, and secure from all disturbance, Miriam fell into a reverie, which gradually became profound. The intense but restricted sphere of personal consciousness closed itself in the broad, steady luminousness of perception which comprises and permeates the individual as does the ocean its waves. The beautiful capacities of nature became transparent. ”

“ Wherever Lamara was, the fire of life seemed to be stimulated by the combined intensity and calm of her own being.
Up and down in the short pathway before her, Jack paced to and fro, restless as a high-strung horse galled by his tether. Lamara observed him with sympathy tinged with grave amusement.
He stooped before her at length, and resumed the conversation in which they had been engaged. “If it concerned only myself, it would be easy to be patient,” he expostulated. “But when a man loves a woman, and she is in danger, you might as well expect him to be dead and alive at the same moment! ”

“ If you will be my friend, set me on my way to save Miriam from the trouble that has befallen her; neither you nor I are foolish enough to be deceived by a smoke-wreath, no matter what images some magic-lantern may throw on it!”
Zarga faced him with clenched hands and burning eyes. “I tell you once more, she does not love you; she does not even love Torpeon; she yields to him only because he has made her believe that he can make her queen of all the planets. ”

“ The great globe was clothed with a lovely iridescence, the mingling hues of which united in white shafts of light, bearing in their bosom the invisible rays of spiritual energy which should counteract and overcome the profane forces of dissolution. Slowly but irresistibly the gigantic struggle issued in the victory of law and peace, and the infernal armies of rebellion and chaos gave way before the might of their opponents. Miriam saw the throes and heavings of tortured Tor gradually subside, and the planet resumed the steadfast track of its orbit. ”

“ It whirled around the castle, deep down in whose rock-quarried crypt the crazed desperado had set in motion the huge wheels of his impious engine. The waters beat upon the walls and towers; they tottered and crumbled, and, whirling as they fell, buried their builder beneath a pyramid of shattered stone.
But, as Miriam still rose aloft, she saw the vast sphere of Saturn outspread beneath her. Upon its surface, revealed in the intense light of the blazing arch, the myriads of the Saturnians performed in concert the evolutions of their mystic rite. ”

“ Sincerely yours, MARY FAUST.
Miriam looked across at her father, who was immersed in his business mail. How near and dear to her he was, and yet how far removed! Distance is but the relation of one mind to another; we may be closer to the Pleiades than to the companion whose arm is linked in our own. But diameters of sidereal systems cannot sever us from those we love. ”

“ Miriam said. “Wishes, after all, are the greatest power in the world; they are in science and art and deeds, like the soul in the body. But time and space, like veils, keep us from recognizing the miracle of it. But sometimes the veils may be lifted, and then we see. I’m glad you are here.”
“So am I, miss,” returned Jenny. “But how will we be getting back again?”
“By wishing, perhaps,” said Miriam, with a smile. “But we’ll have to help ourselves a little, too, I think. So it was Mary Faust, after all,” she said to herself; “but she must have somehow cooperated with Torpeon. ”

“ Lamara said in a tender voice. “You can do work that will more than make good the mischief; and out of all that might undertake it, I shall entrust it to you.”
“You trust me still?” said the girl. “I don’t trust myself!”
“We learn self-trust by being trusted by others,” Lamara returned. “The welfare of all our people is in your hands. It lies with you, also, to give back happiness to the strangers whom you wronged, and perhaps to save from destruction the planet from which your own ancestors came hither!” ”

“ Had Jack spoken aloud? At all events, as if in response to a summons, and to Jack’s unspeakable delight and agitation, out she paced, quietly, from behind the barrier and moved to a place directly at his side!
She gave no sign, however, of recognizing his presence. She tossed back over her shoulder a heavy strand of her hair, leaned forward and whispered in her stallion’s ear, then straightened her limbs and lifted her body, alert with life and vigor. At the second signal she crouched forward over the withers and threw up one arm, keen for the signal. It came—the race was on! ”

“ Lamara said it, and I know it!”
“I know nothing of immortality,” Zarga replied, with a touch of scorn. “But whatever it be, I would not, if I were a man, wish to give the woman I loved to another during this life of earth!”
Jack’s face flushed. “We can both die!” he said.
“Love wants life, not death!” the girl exclaimed. “Love has a body as well as a soul! Do you know that, while we sat here, Torpeon is with her? An hour of trance is his hour of possession! And how long will a woman love a man who stays inactive while she is in his rival’s arms? Women love the possessor!” ”

“ Beyond, above the trees, rose the dome of a summer pavilion. Over all the island passed breathings of wild-flower perfume like fairy music.
“God indeed has enabled us to incarnate the substance of our minds,” Aunion said musingly; “to shape them after our thought and to color them with our emotions. Others painfully toil against the obduracy of things to accomplish what we may do and undo with the flowing of a breath. ”