CHAPTER VIII IN TENEBRIS

Another day had gone down the never returning tide of time. The sun was sinking in a rosy bed of quilted clouds. All day long Hellayne had sat brooding in her chamber, unable to shake off the lethargy of despair that bound and benumbed her limbs, rousing herself at long intervals just sufficiently to wring her hands for very anguish, without even the faintest ray of hope to pierce the black night of her misery.

Just as a white border of light had been visible on the edge of the dark cloud that hung over her, just as she had refound the man whose love was the very breath of her existence, her evil star had again flamed in the ascendant and, losing him anew, she had utterly lost herself. She struggled with her thoughts, as a drowning man amid tossing waves, groping about in the dark for a plank to float upon, when all else has sunk in the seas around him.

She had hardly touched the food which Persephoné herself had brought to her. Yet it seemed to her the Circassian had regarded her strangely, as she placed the viands before her. She had tried to frame a question, but her lips seemed to refuse the utterance, and at last Persephoné had departed, with the mocking promise to return later, to inquire how the Lady Hellayne had spent the day.

Now it seemed to her as if a poison breath of evil was slowly permeating the narrow confines of her chamber. Something she had never before experienced was floating before her vision, was creeping into her brain, was booming in her ears, was turning her blood to ice.

Was it the voiceless echo of an ill-omened incantation, handed down through generations of poisoners and witches from the time of pagan Rome?

"Hecaten voco,
Voco Tisiphonem,
Spargens avernales aquas,
Te morti devoveo; te diris ago."

Was she going mad?

Hellayne's hands went to her forehead.

"I think I am sane," she said to herself, "at least—as yet."

Would Heaven not come to her aid? She was but a weak woman who in vain—too often in vain—had tried to snatch a few moments of happiness from life. Ah! If Death knew what a service he would render her! But no! She would brace her heart strings more than ever. She would renew her fight with dusk and madness. She would face and challenge each mad phantom—make it speak—reveal itself,—or she would break the silence of that monstrous place at least with her own voice. Though flesh was weak she would be strong to-night—but—ah God! here they came trooping out of the night.

She cowered back, shuddering, her eyes fixed on the dusky depths of the chamber.

It was the blue one—the one whose limbs and cheeks seemed made of pale blue ice. She felt her limbs growing numb. But she would bar its way.

The finger of the freezing shape was on its lip. Did it mean that it was dumb? Well, then, let it speak by signs. The dim blue rays that draped its silence quaked like aspens.

"Who are you?" she forced herself to speak. "Are you Hate? You shake your head? Are you Despair? No? Not that? Then you must be Fear!"

The figure nodded with a horrible grin.

"Fear of what?"

The phantom passed its finger slowly across its throat.

She held on to the panelling to keep from falling. Her woman's strength had bounds. But she recovered herself and forced herself to speak.

"Ah!" she said, "it is this she contemplates? How soon? I needs must know. How many twilights have I still to live, before they sink my body in yonder lotus pond?"

The phantom held up three fingers.

"Only three," Hellayne babbled like a child, talking to herself. "Well—pass upon your way, phantom.—You have given me all you had to give—three dusks to rise to Heaven."

She raised her eyes in prayer and a strange rapture came into her face. But it vanished suddenly—and once more she stared, shuddering, into the gloom.

For craze and hell still prevailed.

Look, there it came!

What new and monstrous phantom was swaying and groping towards her? A headless monk!—The air grew black with horror. Horror shrivelled her skin, was raising the roots of her hair.

It was for her he was groping. Her wits were beginning to leave her. She had to move this way and that to avoid him. She felt, if he only touched her, madness would win the day. And he groped and groped, and she seemed to feel him near to her.

"Away! Away!" she shrieked. But she was wasting her breath. He had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear.

And he groped and groped, as if he felt her already under his vague, white hands.

"Help—God!" she shrieked.

Nature could not cope with such shapes as these!

And Hellayne fell forward in a swoon.

It was late in the night when she regained consciousness. She opened her eyes. The shapes of dusk had gone. She was alone—alone on the stone floor of the chamber. Everything was still in the long dusky gallery beyond. Perhaps it was all over for the night, and yet—what was there upon the threshold?

"Oh, my God! my God!" she cried. "Let me die—only not this horror!"

There the phantom stood. Its scarlet mantle glimmered almost black. She dared not turn her back. She dared not shut her eyes. He made neither sign, nor beck, nor nod. But, like a crazy shadow, he circled round and round her, soundlessly, as if he were treading on velvet.

"Keep off—keep off!" she shrieked. "Protect me, oh my God! Madness is closing in upon me!"

And with a sudden, desperate movement she rushed at the phantom to tear the crimson mask from its face.

Her arms penetrated empty air.

With a moan she sank upon the floor. Her arms spread out, she lay upon her face.

The swoon held her captive once more.

But the dream was kinder to Hellayne than life.

She stood upon a rocky promontory in her own far-off land of Provence.

Before her spread the peace of the wide, glimmering sea.

What are these golden columns through which the water glistens?

A man stood within the ruins of a great temple, the sea before him, violet hills behind. From the summit of an island mountain in the bay the lilt of a tender song was drifting upwards.

And, as he sang, the great sea stirred. It heaved, it writhed, it rose. With onward movement, as of a coiling serpent, the whole vast liquid brilliance rushed upon the temple. Mighty billows of beryl curved and broke in sheets of white foam.

"Fear nothing," said the man. "Your river has found the sea!"

It was Tristan's voice.

From the distance came the faint tolling of a bell, forlorn, as from a forest chapel, infinitely sweet and tremulous. In a faint light, like a mountain mist at dawn, the whole scene faded away, and Hellayne was in a garden—a rose garden. She had been there before, but how different it all was. She was being smothered in roses. Flame roses every one—curled into fiery petal whorls, dancing in the garden dusk under a red, red sky.

Ah! There it is again, the terrible face, leering from among the branches, the face that froze the blood in her veins, that made her heart turn cold as ice and filled her soul with horror.

It is the Count Laval. He is seeking her, seeking her everywhere. Horns are peering out from under his scarlet cap, and he has long claws.

Now she is fleeing through the rose garden, faster, faster, ever faster. But he is gaining upon her. From bosquet to bosquet, from thicket to thicket; she hears his approaching steps. Now she can almost feel his breath upon her neck.

At last he has overtaken her.

Now he is circling round her, nearer and nearer, extending his hands towards her, while she follows his movement with horror-stricken eyes.

But her strength, her body, are paralyzed.

As his hands close round her throat, his eyes gloating with dull malice, she covers her face with her hands and falls with a shriek.

And as she lies there before him, dead, he looks down upon her with a strange smile upon his lips and casts his scarlet mantle over her.

Once more Hellayne is in the throes of a swoon.