The Secret Power by Marie Corelli (dark academia books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Marie Corelli
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âI think soââanswered Morgana, with a thrill of sadness in her sweet voiceââThey will liveâpray God their lives may be worth living!â
She watched the man-servant whom she had chosen to wait on Ardini depart on his errandâshe saw him open the door of the room where Seaton lay, and shut itâthen there was a silence. Oppressed by a sudden heaviness of heart she thought of Manella, and entered her apartment softly to see how she fared. The girlâs beautiful dark eyes were wide open and full of the light of life and consciousness. She smiled and stretched out her arms.
âIt is my angel!â she murmured faintlyââMy little white angel who came to me in the darkness! And this is Heaven!â
Swiftly and silently Morgana went to her side, and taking her outstretched arms put them round her own neck.
âManella!â she said, tenderlyââDear, beautiful Manella! Do you know me?â
The great loving eyes rested on her with glowing warmth and pleasure.
âIndeed I know you!â and Manellaâs voice, weak as that of a sick child, sounded ever so far awayââThe little white lady of my dreams! Oh, I have wanted you!âwanted you so much! Why did you not come back sooner?â
Afraid to trouble her brain by the sudden shock of too rapidly recurring memories, Morgana made no reply, but merely soothed her with tender caresses, when all at once she made a violent struggle to rise from the bed.
âI must go!â she criedââHe is calling me! I must follow himâyes, even if he kills me for itâhe is in danger!â
Morgana held her close and firmly.
âHush, hush, dear!â she murmuredââBe quite still! He is safeâ believe me! He is near youâin the next room!âout of all danger.â
âOh, no, it is not possible!â and the girlâs eyes grew wild with terrorââHe cannot be safe!âhe is destroying himself! I have followed him every step of the wayâI have watched him,âoh!âso long!âand he came out of the hut this morningâI was hidden among the treesâhe could not see meââ she broke off, and a violent trembling shook her whole body. Morgana tried to calm her into silence, but she went on rambling incoherently. âThere was something he carried as though it was precious to himâsomething that glittered like gold,âand he went away quicklyâquickly to the canyon,âI followed him like a dog, crawling through the brushwoodâ I followed him across the deep waterâto the cave where it was all darkâblack as midnight!â She pausedâthen suddenly flung her arms round Morgana cryingââOh, hold me!âhold me!âI am in this darkness trying to find him!âthere!âthere!âhe turns and sees me by the light of a lamp he carries; he knows I have followed him, and he is angry! Oh, dear God, he is angryâhe raises his arm to strike me!â She uttered a smothered shriek, and clung to Morgana in a kind of frenzy. âNo mercy, no pity! That thing that glitters in his handâit frightens meâwhat is it? I kneel to him on the cold stonesâI pray him to forgive meâto come with meâbut his arm is still raised to strikeâhe does not careâ!â
Here a pale horror blanched her featuresâshe drew herself away from Morganaâs hold and put out her hands with the instinctive gesture of one who tries to escape falling from some great height. Morgana, alarmed at her looks, caught her again in her arms and held her tenderly, whereat a faint smile hovered on her lips and her distraught movements ceased.
âWhat is this?ââshe askedâthen murmuredââMy little white lady, how did you come here? How could you cross the flood?âunless on wings? Ah!âyou are a fairy and you can do all you wish to doâbut you cannot save HIM!âit is too late! He will not save himselfâand he does not care,âhe does not careâneither for me nor you!â
She drooped her head against Morganaâs shoulder and her eyes closed in utter exhaustion. Morgana laid her back gently on her pillows, and pouring a few drops of the cordial she had used before, and of which she had the sole secret, into a wineglassful of water, held it to her lips. She drank it obediently, evidently conscious now that she was being cared for. But she was still restless, and presently she sat up in a listening attitude, one hand uplifted.
âListen!â she said in a low, awed toneââThunder! Do you hear it? God speaks!â
She lay down again passively and was silent for a long time. The hours passed and the day grew into late afternoon, and Morgana, patiently watchful, thought she slept. All suddenly she sprang up, wide-eyed and alert.
âWhat was that?â she criedââI heard him call!â
Morgana, startled by her swift movement, stood transfixedâ listening. The deep tones of a manâs voice rang out loudly and defiantlyâ
âThere shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say so! I am Master of the World!â
CHAPTER XXV
A brilliant morning broke over the flower-filled gardens of the Palazzo dâOro, and the sea, stretched out in a wide radiance of purest blue shimmered with millions of tiny silver ripples brushed on its surface by a light wind as delicate as a birdâs wing. Morgana stood in her rose-marble loggia, looking with a pathetic wistfulness at the beauty of the scene, and beside her stood Marco Ardini, scientist, surgeon and physician, looking also, but scarcely seeing, his whole thought being concentrated on the âcaseâ with which he had been dealing.
âIt is exactly as I at first told you,ââhe saidââThe man is strong in muscle and sinew,âbut his brain is ruined. It can no longer control or command the bodyâs mechanism,âtherefore the body is practically useless. Power of volition is gone,âthe poor fellow will never be able to walk again or to lift a hand. A certain faculty of speech is left,âbut even this is limited to a few words which are evidently the result of the last prevailing thoughts impressed on the brain-cells. It is possible he will repeat those words thousands of times!âthe oftener he repeats them the more he will like to say them.â
âWhat are they?â Morgana asked in a tone of sorrow and compassion.
âStrange enough for a man in his conditionââreplied ArdiniââAnd always the same. âTHERE SHALL BE NO MORE WARS! THERE CAN BE NONE! I SAY IT!â_I_ ONLY! IT IS MY GREAT SECRET! I AM MASTER OF THE WORLD!â Poor devil! What a âmaster of the worldâ is there!â
Morgana shuddered as with cold, shading her eyes from the radiant sunshine.
âDoes he say nothing else?â she murmuredââIs there no nameâno placeâthat he seems to remember?â
âHe remembers nothingâhe knows nothingââanswered ArdiniââHe does not even realize me as a manâI might be a fish or a serpent for all his comprehension. One glance at his moveless eyes is enough to prove that. They are like pebbles in his headâwithout cognisance or expression. He mutters the words âGreat Secretâ over and over again, and tacks it on to the other phrase of âNo more warsâ in a semi- conscious sort of gabble,âthis is, of course, the disordered action of the brain working to catch up and join together hopelessly severed fragments.â
Morgana lifted her sea-blue eyes and looked with grave appeal into the severely intellectual, half-frowning face of the great Professor.
âIs there no hope of an ultimate recovery?â she askedââWith time and rest and the best of unceasing care, might not this poor brain right itself?â
âMedically and scientifically speaking, there is no hope,ânone whateverââhe repliedââThough of course we all know that Natureâs remedial methods are inexhaustible, and often, to the wisest of us, seem miraculous, because as yet we do not understand one tithe of her processes. Butâin this case,âthis strange and terrible caseââ and he uttered the words with marked gravity,ââIt is Natureâs own force that has wrought the damage,âsome powerful influence which the man has been testing has proved too much for himâand it has taken its own vengeance.â
Morgana heard this with strained interest and attention.
âTell me just what you mean,ââshe saidââThere is something you do not quite expressâor else I am too slow to understandââ
Ardini took a few paces up and down the loggia and then halted, facing her in the attitude of a teacher preparing to instruct a pupil.
âSignora,ââhe saidââWhen you began to correspond with me some years ago from America, I realised that I was in touch with a highly intelligent and cultivated mind. I took you to be many years older than you are, with a ripe scientific experience. I find you young, beautiful, and pathetic in the pure womanliness of your nature, which must be perpetually contending with an indomitable power of intellectuality and of spirituality,âspirituality is the strongest force of your being. You are not made like other women. This being so I can say to you what other women would not understand. Science is my life-subject, as it is yours,âit is a window set open in the universe admitting great light. But many of us foolishly imagine that this light emanates from ourselves as a result of our own cleverness, whereas it comes from that Divine Source of all things, which we call God. We refuse to believe this,âit wounds our pride. And we use the discoveries of science recklessly and selfishlyâ without gratitude, humbleness or reverence. So it happens that the first tendency of godless men is to destroy. The love of destruction and torture shows itself in the boy who tears off the wing of an insect, or kills a bird for the pleasure of killing. The boy is father of the man. And we come, after much ignorant denial and obstinacy, back to the inexorable truth that âthey who take the sword shall perish with the sword.â If we consider the âswordâ as a metaphor for every instrument of destruction, we shall see the force of its applicationâthe submarine, for example, built for the most treacherous kind of sea-warfareâhow often they that undertake its work are slain themselves! And so it is through the whole gamut of scientific discovery when it is used for inhuman and unlawful purposes. But when this same âswordâ is lifted to put an end to torture, disease, and the manifold miseries of life, then the Power that has entrusted it to mankind endows it with blessing and there are no evil results. I say this to you by way of explaining the view I am forced to take of this man whose strange case you ask me to deal with,âmy opinion is that through chance or intention he has been playing recklessly with a great natural force, which he has not entirely understood, for some destructive purpose, and that it has recoiled on himself.â
Morgana looked him steadily in the eyes.
âYou may be right,ââshe saidââHe isâor wasâone of the most brilliant of our younger scientists. You know his nameâI have sent you from New York some accounts of his workâHe is Roger Seaton, whose experiments in the condensation of radioactivity startled America some four or five years agoââ
âRoger Seaton!â he exclaimedââWhat! The man who professed to have found a new power which would change the face of the world? . . . He,âthis wreck?âthis blind, deaf lump of breathing clay? Surely he has not fallen on so horrible a destiny!â
Tears rushed to Morganaâs eyes,âshe could not answer. She could only bend her head in assent.
Profoundly moved, Ardini took her hand, and kissed it with sympathetic reverence.
âSignora,â he saidââThis is indeed a tragedy! You have saved this life at I know not what risk to yourselfâand as I am aware what a life of great attainment it promised to be, you may be sure I will spare no pains to bring it back to normal conditions. But frankly
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