Lilith George MacDonald (top 10 best books of all time .TXT) 📖

was already fast asleep. Mara covered the arm with the sheet, and the three turned away.

“Will you not dress the wound?” I said.

“A wound from that sword,” answered Adam, “needs no dressing. It is healing and not hurt.”

“Poor lady!” I said, “she will wake with but one hand!”

“Where the dead deformity clung,” replied Mara, “the true, lovely hand is already growing.”

We heard a childish voice behind us, and turned again. The candle in Eve’s hand shone on the sleeping face of Lilith, and the waking faces of the three Little Ones, grouped on the other side of her couch. “How beautiful she is grown!” said one of them.

“Poor princess!” said another; “I will sleep with her. She will not bite any more!”

As he spoke he climbed into her bed, and was immediately fast asleep. Eve covered him with the sheet.

“I will go on her other side,” said the third. “She shall have two to kiss her when she wakes!”

“And I am left alone!” said the first mournfully.

“I will put you to bed,” said Eve.

She gave the candle to her husband, and led the child away.

We turned once more to go back to the cottage. I was very sad, for no one had offered me a place in the house of the dead. Eve joined us as we went, and walked on before with her husband. Mara by my side carried the hand of Lilith in the lap of her robe.

“Ah, you have found her!” we heard Eve say as we stepped into the cottage.

The door stood open; two elephant-trunks came through it out of the night beyond.

“I sent them with the lantern,” she went on to her husband, “to look for Mara’s leopardess: they have brought her.”

I followed Adam to the door, and between us we took the white creature from the elephants, and carried her to the chamber we had just left, the women preceding us, Eve with the light, and Mara still carrying the hand. There we laid the beauty across the feet of the princess, her forepaws outstretched, and her head couching between them.

XLI I Am Sent

Then I turned and said to Eve,

“Mother, one couch next to Lona is empty: I know I am unworthy, but may I not sleep this night in your chamber with my dead? Will you not pardon both my cowardice and my self-confidence, and take me in? I give me up. I am sick of myself, and would fain sleep the sleep!”

“The couch next to Lona is the one already prepared for you,” she answered; “but something waits to be done ere you sleep.”

“I am ready,” I replied.

“How do you know you can do it?” she asked with a smile.

“Because you require it,” I answered. “What is it?”

She turned to Adam:

“Is he forgiven, husband?”

“From my heart.”

“Then tell him what he has to do.”

Adam turned to his daughter.

“Give me that hand, Mara, my child.”

She held it out to him in her lap. He took it tenderly.

“Let us go to the cottage,” he said to me; “there I will instruct you.”

As we went, again arose a sudden stormful blast, mingled with a great flapping on the roof, but it died away as before in a deep moan.

When the door of the death-chamber was closed behind us, Adam seated himself, and I stood before him.

“You will remember,” he said, “how, after leaving my daughter’s house, you came to a dry rock, bearing the marks of an ancient cataract; you climbed that rock, and found a sandy desert: go to that rock now, and from its summit walk deep into the desert. But go not many steps ere you lie down, and listen with your head on the sand. If you hear the murmur of water beneath, go a little farther, and listen again. If you still hear the sound, you are in the right direction. Every few yards you must stop, lie down, and hearken. If, listening thus, at any time you hear no sound of water, you are out of the way, and must hearken in every direction until you hear it again. Keeping with the sound, and careful not to retrace your steps, you will soon hear it louder, and the growing sound will lead you to where it is loudest: that is the spot you seek. There dig with the spade I will give you, and dig until you come to moisture: in it lay the hand, cover it to the level of the desert, and come home.⁠—But give good heed, and carry the hand with care. Never lay it down, in what place of seeming safety soever; let nothing touch it; stop nor turn aside for any attempt to bar your way; never look behind you; speak to no one, answer no one, walk straight on.⁠—It is yet dark, and the morning is far distant, but you must set out at once.”

He gave me the hand, and brought me a spade.

“This is my gardening spade,” he said; “with it I have brought many a lovely thing to the sun.”

I took it, and went out into the night.

It was very cold, and pitch-dark. To fall would be a dread thing, and the way I had to go was a difficult one even in the broad sunlight! But I had not set myself the task, and the minute I started I learned that I was left to no chance: a pale light broke from the ground at every step, and showed me where next to set my foot. Through the heather and the low rocks I walked without once even stumbling. I found the bad burrow quite still; not a wave arose, not a head appeared as I crossed it.

A moon came, and herself showed me the easy way: toward morning I was almost over the dry channels of the first branch of the riverbed, and not far, I judged, from Mara’s cottage.

The moon was very low, and the sun not yet up, when I saw before