The Works of "Fiona Macleod", Volume IV. Sharp Elizabeth Amelia
and some the Unknown God. Behind him was a throng of demons and demoniac creatures: and all died continually. And the wood itself – it was an infinite forest; a forest of human souls awaiting God."
The Will listened, with eyes strangely ashine. Suddenly he fell upon his knees, and prayed. We saw tears falling from his eyes.
"I am blind and deaf," he whispered in the ear of the Body, as he rose; "but, lest I forget, tell me where I am, in what place we are."
"It is a garden called Gethsemane," answered the other – though I know not how he knew – I – we – as we walked onward in silence through the dusk of moon and star, and saw the gossamer-webs whiten as they became myriad, and hang heavy with the pale glister of the dews of dawn.
The morning twilight wavered, and it was as though an incalculable host of grey doves fled upward and spread earthward before a wind with pinions of rose: then the dappled dove-grey vapour faded, and the rose hung like the reflection of crimson fire, and dark isles of ruby and straits of amethyst and pale gold and saffron and April-green came into being: and the new day was come.
We stood silent. There is a beauty too great. We moved slowly round by the low bare hill beyond the wood. No one was there, but on the summit stood three crosses; one, midway, so great that it threw a shadow from the brow of the East to the feet of the West.
The Soul stopped. He seemed as one rapt. We looked upon him with awe, for his face shone as though from a light within. "Listen," he whispered, "I hear the singing of the Sons of Joy. Farewell: I shall come again."
We were alone, we two. Silently we walked onward. The sunrays slid through the grass, birds sang, the young world that is so old smiled: but we had no heed for this. In that new solitude each almost hated the other. At noon a new grief, a new terror, came to us. We were upon a ridge, looking westward. There were no hills anywhere.
Doubtless the Soul had gone that way which led to them. For us … they were no longer there.
"Let us turn and go home," said the Body wearily.
The Will stood and thought.
"Let us go home," he said.
With that he turned, and walked hour after hour. It was by a road unknown to us, for, not noting where we went, we had traversed a path that led us wide of that by which we had come. At least we saw nothing of it. Nor, at dusk, would the Will go further, nor agree even to seek for a path that might lead to the garden called Gethsemane.
"We are far from it," he said, "if indeed there be any such place. It was a dream, and I am weary of all dreams. When we are home again, O Body, we will dream no more."
The Body was silent, then abruptly laughed. His comrade looked at him curiously.
"Why do you laugh?"
"Did you not say there would be no more tears? And of that I am glad."
"You did not laugh gladly. But what I said was that there shall be no more dreams for us, that we will dream no more."
"It is the same thing. We have tears because we dream. If we hope no more, we dream no more: if we dream no more, we weep no more. And I laughed because of this: that if we weep no more we can live as we like, without thought of an impossible to-morrow, and with little thought even for to-day."
For a time we walked in brooding thought, but slowly, because of the gathering dark. Neither spoke, until the Body suddenly stood still, throwing up his arms.
"Oh, what a fool I have been! What a fool I have been!"
The Will made no reply. He stared before him into the darkness.
We had meant to rest in the haven of the great oaks, but a thin rain had begun, and we shivered with the chill. The thought came to us to turn and find our way back to the house of the shepherd, hopeless as the quest might prove, for we were more and more bewildered as to where we were, or even as to the direction in which we moved, being without pilot of moon or star, and having already followed devious ways. But while we were hesitating, we saw a light. The red flame shone steadily through the rainy gloom, so we knew that it was no lantern borne by a fellow-wayfarer. In a brief while we came upon it, and saw that it was from a red lamp burning midway in a forest chapel.
We lifted the latch and entered. There was no one visible. Nor was any one in the sacristy. We went to the door again, and looked vainly in all directions for light which might reveal a neighbouring village, or hamlet, or even a woodlander's cottage.
Glad as we were of the shelter, and of the glow from the lamp, a thought, a dream, a desire, divided us. We looked at each other sidelong, each both seeking and avoiding the other's eyes.
"I cannot stay here," said the Body at last; "the place stifles me. I am frightened to stay. The path outside is clear and well trodden; it must lead somewhere, and as this chapel is here, and as the lamp is lit, a village, or at least a house, cannot be far off."
The Will looked at him.
"Do not go," he said earnestly.
"Why?"
"I do not know. But do not let us part. I dare not leave here. I feel as though this were our one safe haven to-night."
The Body moved to the door and opened it.
"I am going. And – and – I am going, too, because I am tired both of you and the Soul. There is only one way for me, I see, and I go that way. Farewell."
The door closed. The Will was alone. For a few moments he stood, smiling scornfully. With a sudden despairing gesture he ran to the door, flung it open, and peered into the darkness.
He could see no one; could hear no steps. His long beseeching cry was drowned among these solitudes. Slowly he re-closed the door; slowly walked across the stone flags; and with folded arms stood looking upon the altar, dyed crimson with the glow from the great lamp which hung midway in the nave.
There was a choir-stall to the right. Here he sat, for a time glad merely to be at rest.
Soon all desire of sleep went from him, and he began to dream. At this he smiled: it was so brief a while ago since he had said he would dream no more.
Away now from his two lifelong comrades, and yet subtly connected with them, and living by and through each, he felt a new loneliness. Life could be very terrible. Life … the word startled him. What life could there be for him if the Body perished? That was why he had cried out in anguish after his comrade had left, with that ominous word "farewell." True, now he lived, breathed, thought, as before: but this, he knew, was by some inexplicable miracle of personality, by which the three who had been one were each enabled to go forth, fulfilling, and in all ways ruled and abiding by, the natural law. If the Body should die, would he not then become as a breath in frost? If the Soul … ah! he wondered what then would happen.
"When I was with the Body," he muttered, "I was weary of dreams, or longed only for those dreams which could be fulfilled in action. But now … now it is different. I am alone. I must follow my own law. But what … how … where … am I to choose? All the world is a wilderness with a heart of living light. The side we see is Life: the side we do not see we call Hope. All ways – a thousand myriad ways – lead to it. Which shall I choose? How shall I go?"
Then I began to dream … I … we … then the Will began to dream.
Slowly the Forest Chapel filled with a vast throng, ever growing more dense as it became more multitudinous, till it seemed as though the walls fell away and that the aisles reached interminably into the world of shadow, through the present into the past, and to dim ages.
Behind the altar stood a living Spirit, most wonderful, clothed with Beauty and Terror.
Then the Will saw, understood, that this was not the Christ, nor yet the Holy Spirit, but a Dominion. It was the Spirit of this world, one of the Powers and Dominions whom of old men called the gods. But all in that incalculable throng worshipped this Spirit as the Supreme God. He saw, too, or realised, that, to those who worshipped, this Spirit appeared differently, now as a calm and august dreamer, now as an inspired warrior, now as a man wearing a crown of thorns against the shadow of a gigantic cross: as the Son of God, or the Prophet