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She looked at me tenderly, and hid her face in her hands. But I had caught a flash and a sparkle behind
the tenderness, and did not believe her. She laid herself out to secure and enslave me; she only fascinated
me!
"Beautiful princess," I said, "let me understand how you came to be found in such evil plight."
"There are things I cannot explain," she replied, "until you have become capable of understanding
them--which can only be when love is grown perfect. There are many things so hidden from you that you
cannot even wish to know them; but any question you can put, I can in some measure answer.
"I had set out to visit a part of my dominions occupied by a savage dwarf-people, strong and fierce,
enemies to law and order, opposed to every kind of progress--an evil race. I went alone, fearing nothing,
unaware of the least necessity for precaution. I did not know that upon the hot stream beside which you
found me, a certain woman, by no means so powerful as myself, not being immortal, had cast what you
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Lilith -- THE PRINCESS -- chapter xxv
call a spell--which is merely the setting in motion of a force as natural as any other, but operating
primarily in a region beyond the ken of the mortal who makes use of the force.
"I set out on my journey, reached the stream, bounded across it,----"
A shadow of embarrassment darkened her cheek: I understood it, but showed no sign. Checked for the
merest moment, she went on:
"--you know what a step it is in parts!--But in the very act, an indescribable cold invaded me. I
recognised at once the nature of the assault, and knew it could affect me but temporarily. By sheer force
of will I dragged myself to the wood--nor knew anything more until I saw you asleep, and the horrible
worm at your neck. I crept out, dragged the monster from you, and laid my lips to the wound. You began
to wake; I buried myself among the leaves."
She rose, her eyes flashing as never human eyes flashed, and threw her arms high over her head.
"What you have made me is yours!" she cried. "I will repay you as never yet did woman! My power, my
beauty, my love are your own: take them."
She dropt kneeling beside me, laid her arms across my knees, and looked up in my face.
Then first I noted on her left hand a large clumsy glove. In my mind's eye I saw hair and claws under it,
but I knew it was a hand shut hard--perhaps badly bruised. I glanced at the other: it was lovely as hand
could be, and I felt that, if I did less than loathe her, I should love her. Not to dally with usurping
emotions, I turned my eyes aside.
She started to her feet. I sat motionless, looking down.
"To me she may be true!" said my vanity. For a moment I was tempted to love a lie.
An odour, rather than the gentlest of airy pulses, was fanning me. I glanced up. She stood erect before
me, waving her lovely arms in seemingly mystic fashion.
A frightful roar made my heart rebound against the walls of its cage. The alabaster trembled as if it
would shake into shivers. The princess shuddered visibly.
"My wine was too strong for you!" she said, in a quavering voice; "I ought not to have let you take a full
draught! Go and sleep now, and when you wake ask me what you please.--I will go with you: come."
As she preceded me up the stair,--"I do not wonder that roar startled you!" she said. "It startled me, I
confess: for a moment I feared she had escaped. But that is impossible."
The roar seemed to me, however--I could not tell why--to come from the white leopardess, and to be
meant for me, not the princess.
With a smile she left me at the door of my room, but as she turned I read anxiety on her beautiful face.
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Lilith -- THE PRINCESS -- chapter xxv
This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
at Calvin College. Last updated on May 27, 1999.
Contacting the CCEL.
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Lilith -- A BATTLE ROYAL -- chapter xxvi
chapter xxvi
A BATTLE ROYAL
I THREW myself on the bed, and began to turn over in my mind the tale she had told me. She had
forgotten herself, and, by a single incautious word, removed one perplexity as to the condition in which I
found her in the forest! The leopardess bounded over; the princess lay prostrate on the bank: the running
stream had dissolved her self-enchantment! Her own account of the object of her journey revealed the
danger of the Little Ones then imminent: I had saved the life of their one fearful enemy!
I had but reached this conclusion when I fell asleep. The lovely wine may not have been quite innocent.
When I opened my eyes, it was night. A lamp, suspended from the ceiling, cast a clear, although soft
light through the chamber. A delicious languor infolded me. I seemed floating, far from land, upon the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]