Endor

“ He complimented his hostess upon a modest sole Colbert and a poulet en casserole—the Club chef he assured her had nothing to learn from Saint James’s Street and Pall Mall; to the claret he rendered all the honors of a vintage wine; in a word, John Endor’s look of high ascetism did not taboo the minor arts of life.
It was this zest in everything which made him such a lovable companion. The seer, the visionary, was a man of the world. ”

“ Reputation was in a measure theirs before the Blackhampton election; but it was now enhanced, consolidated by a resounding victory which filled the mouth of the world.
It was glorious to be young, to be strong, to be one in dedication to a great task. Much would be demanded of them. They must prepare to live laboriously. Yet a vista had opened before their eyes. Inspiration came to them hour by hour. During the first few weeks of marriage it seemed to John Endor that God was in His Heaven after all. ”

“ A terrible phrase seared her like an acid, but for the time being sheer stoicism allowed her to bear the pain.
[5] A table had been commandeered without difficulty in a favorite corner. Only a few of the Club habitués were dining, but John Endor brought a new interest into the room. It was no more than the emotion he was accustomed to excite. He leapt to the eye of every assembly. A force, a magnet, the lines of a rare personality made an effect of positive beauty. Nearly all women were attracted by him. ”

“ In five minutes the dead solitude and silence of the place were no more, and a begging, screeching, shouting mob were struggling about the horses’ feet and blocking the way. “Bucksheesh! bucksheesh! bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh!” It was Magdala over again, only here the glare from the infidel eyes was fierce and full of hate. The population numbers two hundred and fifty, and more than half the citizens live in caves in the rock. Dirt, degradation and savagery are Endor’s specialty. We say no more about Magdala and Deburieh now. Endor heads the list. It is worse than any Indian ‘campoodie’. ”

“ John Endor.
He was good to look at certainly, his low voice a delight, there was not a hint of stiffness or formality about him, and, crowning joy, he had a sense of humor.
“How exciting!” Only a very little curry was needed for Miss Clarice to effect a superb, if rather stoical, recovery. “Do tell me. Who is the lady?”
“Miss Helen Sholto of Virginia, my dear.” Mrs. Wilber had seen the announcement in the Morning Post, and had known how to cherish it in a manner becoming a prime minister’s lady. “But tell me, Mr. Endor, what does dear Lady Elizabeth say?” ”

“ John Endor enjoyed his dinner all the same and so did Miss Clarice. The talk was really quite amusing. Mr. Williams himself was a model host and no mean conversationalist. He went back a long way. Even in Victorian times he had been in the inner circle of society and politics. He had a fund of anecdote which no man living knew better how to employ. He was always geniality itself, and on occasions of modest festivity in the bosom of his family he was wholly delightful. ”

“ Nothing could be simpler or easier than what you have now to do. Will you not help us all by fulfilling your oath?”
“That’s quite impossible,” said Endor. “No one could welcome the limiting of the Society’s functions [321] more earnestly than myself, but rather than take the life of another, in such circumstances, I am fully prepared to take my own.”
“All of us,” said Hierons, “are particularly anxious that your life shall not be sacrificed. We recognize that in the immediate future it is likely to be of signal use to the world. ”

“ In the moments that immediately followed, a mind cruelly torn became a house divided against itself. One part of his brain, wherein lurked the eternal verities, assured him that this illicit assembly, this Council of Seven, was no place for John Endor. And yet in another part of his ethos, an influence, alien, but of extreme potency, was also at work. The cold logic of the matter was that on the issue that had been raised Lien Weng and his associates were perfectly right. In a matter of this kind, no man could be permitted to forswear allegiance. ”

“ The eye of the seer and the fervor of the prophet when under the discipline of the will seldom fail in their impact upon an audience of average people which often has a flair for just those qualities in which it knows itself to be lacking.
John Endor’s first meeting produced a mighty reverberation. It was heard all over the City. But it was a mere prelude to the fight. And what a fight! The “graft” that Sir Munt had feared came powerfully into play. That amazing organization, the U. P., had its unseen tentacles fixed very firmly in the vitals of the nation. ”

“ Lord Glenfallen became ashy pale, almost livid; he made two or three efforts to clear his voice to speak, but in vain, and turning suddenly from me, he walked to the window; the horror and dismay, which, in the olden time, overwhelmed the woman of Endor, when her spells unexpectedly conjured the dead into her presence, were but types of what I felt, when thus presented with what appeared to be almost unequivocal evidence of the guilt, whose existence I had before so strongly doubted. ”

“ Blue eyes are always considered to be dangerous in the East. I said, "You are quite right, O ye women of Endor; I was born with the Evil Eye"; whereupon they became very civil, that I might not hurt them. We then descended into the plain between Endor and Nazareth, and it was so hot and close that I fell asleep on my horse for fully an hour. At last we reached the Vale of Nazareth. I was glad to ride into the camp, where I found all our former travellers. They were very hospitable, and gave me shelter until our tents were pitched. The camps were all pitched in a small plain without the town. ”

“ The member for Blackhampton East had much to say to Sir Munt, and he said it cogently. The two men were singularly unlike. Endor, a highly civilized man of liberal ideas, was consumed with a desire to leave the world a little better than he found it. Sir Josiah, on the other hand, had not been born to social advantages. Entirely self-educated he had made his way by mother wit and force of will; but like so many of his kind, to whom life had brought prosperity, he too, had a regard for the body politic. In Sir Munt the vein of idealism which ennobled John Endor was conspicuously lacking. ”

“ As soon as Lien Weng had explained what the procedure was and before any part of it could be set in motion, John Endor rose a second time to speak. He now addressed himself mainly to George Hierons the American, and to his own countryman, Roland Holles. In the stress of the moment he did not hesitate to appeal to them as fellow members of the Anglo-Saxon world, men of his own race and blood, white men, men of western training and ideas to whom such proceedings as these must be subversive in the last degree. ”

“ The agents through whom the lower Elohim are consulted are called necromancers, wizards, and diviners, and are looked down upon by the prophets and priests of the higher Elohim; but the "seer" connects the two, and they are all alike in their essential characters of media. The wise woman of Endor was believed by others, and, I have little doubt, believed herself, to be able to "bring up" whom she would from Sheol, and to be inspired, whether in virtue of actual possession by the evoked Elohim, or otherwise, with a knowledge of hidden things. ”

“ I have fullest confidence in my wife. What seest thou, Endora?'
'I fear,' replied the witch, 'I must have been mistaken; for now I see here a beautiful woman with rippling hair of golden hue flowing back from a snowy brow.'
'Yes, yes; go on. That is right.'
'No, it cannot be the Nika you call wife; she has eyes of blue, deep as the sea, and her cheeks are tinged with the glory of the pomegranate. She stands erect; she walks like a queen.'
'Thou art right, Endora. 'Tis she! Thou art an artist ”

“ With such intoxication for Chios, and if the Greek half equals thee, then it would be so apparent to the Proconsul.'
'Never you care! Give me a philtre to cool his love.'
So, without more words, Endora stepped into the gloom of the cave, and, opening one of the chests, took therefrom ingredients for the spell. On the altar the woman laid some embers of fire, and, pouring oil over them, they sent forth a little blaze, shining out and lighting up the faces with a lurid glare, casting dark shadows behind them. For a moment no voice broke the stillness of the place. ”

“ Endora, thou speakest wisely. Truly thou art acting a part in assuming the craft of a low-born fortune-teller. I see thou art skilled in words, and still hast the soul and wisdom of a priestess; as a diamond thou wilt sparkle, begrimed as thou art with the adverse circumstances of thy life. Thou hast interested me. It is well one should know what is propagated around her. Hast thou any more respecting this strange belief?' [Pg 201]
'Only this: One day when on the mountain yonder two men were near. ”

“ In the early morning one watches the silent battle of dawn and darkness upon the waters of Tahoe with a placid interest; but when the shadows sulk away and one by one the hidden beauties of the shore unfold themselves in the full splendor of noon; when the still surface is belted like a rainbow with broad bars of blue and green and white, half the distance from circumference to centre ”

“ Now they can afford to wait, and Andor will do it with confidence, he is a man and he is free. He viewed the future as a master views his slave; the future is his to do with what he likes, to mould, to shape in accordance with his will.
The land which must one day be his, and Elsa his already! Andor almost fell to wishing that the train would start quickly—so many seconds would have been lived of those three intervening years. ”

“ These miracles of penance were the first and immediate results of S. Enda's work in Aran.
It was in his life that these holy men had daily before them the personal realization of all they were striving after; he taught them to cherish the flinty dungeon and the dripping cave for love of the hard manger and the harder cross; he bade them dwell amid the discomforts and dreariness of their island home, because in the tabernacles of sinners the blessed majesty of God was daily outraged by the crimes of men. ”

“ Andor, by dint of fighting and obstinacy, has kept his place in the door of one of the carriages; he sits on the floor, with his feet down on the step below, and refuses to quit his position for anyone. Several lads from the rear have tried to throw him out or to drag him in, but Andor is mightily strong—you cannot move him if he be not so minded.
Elsa, sitting on the step lower down, is resting her elbow on his knee. There is no thought of hiding their love for one another; let the whole village know it, or the whole countryside, they do not care ”

“ So no one in Marosfalva knew that Andor had died of cholera in the hospital of Slovnitza until Lakatos Pál became sick, and in his loneliness spoke of the matter to Pater Bonifácius.
Then there was universal mourning in the village. Andor had always been very popular: good-looking, as merry as a skylark and a splendid dancer, he was always the life and soul of every entertainment. Girls who had flirted with him wept bitter tears, the mothers who thought how rich Andor would have been now that old Lakatos was sure to die very soon—sighed deep sighs of regret. ”

“ But that it was His way for your future happiness, of that I am convinced."
"There could have been no harm this time, Pater, in Andor and I being happy in our way. There could be no wrong in two people caring for one another, and wanting to live their lives together."
"Ah! that we shall never know, my child. The book of the 'might-have-been' is a closed one for us. Only God has the power to turn over its pages."
"Andor and I would have been so happy!" she reiterated, with the obstinacy of a vain regret; "and life would have been an earthly paradise." ”

“ But Andor, obsessed by the one idea, feeling his own helplessness in the matter, would not let the matter drop.
"How you can look at another woman," he said sombrely, "while Elsa is near you I cannot imagine." ”

“ Andor was his only brother's only child, and I suppose Pali bácsi [3] was suddenly struck with the idea that he really had no one to leave his hoardings to. He was always a fool and a lout. If Andor had lived it would have been all right. I think Pali bácsi was quite ready to do something really handsome for him. Now that Andor is dead he has no one; and when he dies his money all goes to the government. It is a pity," he added, with a shrug of the shoulders. "If a peasant of Marosfalva had it it would do good to the commune." ”

“ From more than one group of spectators came similar or other comments on pretty Elsa and her partner. The general consensus of opinion seemed to be that it was as well Andor was going away for three years. Old Kapus and his wife would never allow their daughter to marry [Pg 24] a man with pockets as empty as their own, and it was no use waiting for dead men's shoes. Lakatos Pál, the rich uncle, from whom Andor was bound to inherit some day, was little past the prime of life. Until he died how would Andor and a penniless wife contrive to live? ”

“ For all energy, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual, is fundamentally one: it is primarily sexual.
Hendricks paused in his sentimental walk, marvelling that he had not realised sooner this simple truth. It brought a certain logical meaning even into the pagan rites upon the mountains, these ancient rites which symbolised the marriage of the two tremendous elements of wind and fire, heat and air. And the lad’s quiet, busy mood that morning confirmed his simple discovery. It involved restraint and purpose. Lord Ernie was alive. ”