Lilith

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"And I neither to feel nor hear them!" I murmured. "How could you−−far away in your dreary old house! You thought the dreadful place had you once more! Now go and find them.−−Your parents, my child," he added, turning to Lona, "must come and find you!" The hour of our departure was at hand. Lona went to the couch of the mother who had slain her, and kissed her tenderly−−then laid herself in her father's arms. "That kiss will draw her homeward, my Lona!" said Adam. "Who were her parents?" asked Lona. "My father," answered Adam, "is her father also." She turned and laid her hand in mine. I kneeled and humbly thanked the three for helping me to die. Lona knelt beside me, and they all breathed upon us. "Hark! I hear the sun," said Adam. I listened: he was coming with the rush as of a thousand times ten thousand far−off wings, with the roar of a molten and flaming world millions upon millions of miles away. His approach was a crescendo chord of a hundred harmonies. The three looked at each other and smiled, and that smile went floating heavenward a three−petaled flower, the family's morning thanksgiving. From their mouths and their faces it spread over their bodies and shone through their garments. Ere I could say, "Lo, they change!" Adam and Eve stood before me the angels of the resurrection, and Mara was the Magdalene with them at the sepulchre. The countenance of Adam was like lightning, and Eve held a napkin that flung flakes of splendour about the place. A wind began to moan in pulsing gusts. "You hear his wings now!" said Adam; and I knew he did not mean the wings of the morning. "It is the great Shadow stirring to depart," he went on. "Wretched creature, he has himself within him, and cannot rest!" "But is there not in him something deeper yet?" I asked. "Without a substance," he answered, "a shadow cannot be−−yea, or without a light behind the substance!" He listened for a moment, then called out, with a glad smile, "Hark to the golden cock! Silent and motionless for millions of years has he stood on the clock of the universe; now at last he is flapping his wings! now will he begin to crow! and at intervals will men hear him until the dawn of the day eternal." I listened. Far away−−as in the heart of an æonian silence, I heard the clear jubilant outcry of the golden throat. It hurled defiance at death and the dark; sang infinite hope, and coming calm. It was the "expectation of the creature" finding at last a voice; the cry of a chaos that would be a kingdom! Then I heard a great flapping. Lilith Lilith 154
"The black bat is flown!" said Mara. "Amen, golden cock, bird of God!" cried Adam, and the words rang through the house of silence, and went up into the airy regions. At his AMEN−−like doves arising on wings of silver from among the potsherds, up sprang the Little Ones to their knees on their beds, calling aloud, "Crow! crow again, golden cock!"−−as if they had both seen and heard him in their dreams. Then each turned and looked at the sleeping bedfellow, gazed a moment with loving eyes, kissed the silent companion of the night, and sprang from the couch. The Little Ones who had lain down beside my father and mother gazed blank and sad for a moment at their empty places, then slid slowly to the floor. There they fell each into the other's arms, as if then first, each by the other's eyes, assured they were alive and awake. Suddenly spying Lona, they came running, radiant with bliss, to embrace her. Odu, catching sight of the leopardess on the feet of the princess, bounded to her next, and throwing an arm over the great sleeping head, fondled and kissed it. "Wake up, wake up, darling!" he cried; "it is time to wake!" The leopardess did not move. "She has slept herself cold!" he said to Mara, with an upcast look of appealing consternation. "She is waiting for the princess to wake, my child," said Mara. Odu looked at the princess, and saw beside her, still asleep, two of his companions. He flew at them. "Wake up! wake up!" he cried, and pushed and pulled, now this one, now that. But soon he began to look troubled, and turned to me with misty eyes. "They will not wake!" he said. "And why are they so cold?" "They too are waiting for the princess," I answered. He stretched across, and laid his hand on her face. "She is cold too! What is it?" he cried−−and looked round in wondering dismay. Adam went to him. "Her wake is not ripe yet," he said: "she is busy forgetting. When she has forgotten enough to remember enough, then she will soon be ripe, and wake." "And remember?" "Yes−−but not too much at once though." Lilith "But the golden cock has crown!" argued the child, and fell again upon his companions. Lilith 155
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Lilith George MacDonald
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Lilith George MacDonald • CHAPTER
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Lilith The library, although duly c
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CHAPTER II. THE MIRROR Nothing more
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"I saw you come through it!−−sa
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Lilith was the mirror, on whose top
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"I do not want to go," I said. "Tha
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"Ten minutes ago you did not see it
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CHAPTER V. THE OLD CHURCH I followe
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"Here we are at last!" said the rav
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"I never saw one do it!" "You saw m
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helmet" gleaming like a moonstone.
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"That also you will know when you w
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"Where was that?" "In this very roo
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"That is the door I spoke of," he s
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"I would have lain down at once had
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Lilith larger, and at length gave m
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The moon went below, and the world
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molten music sang me into a dreamle
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I lay on the floor that night hardl
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I had found that to ask precisely t
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had never seen any before they saw
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A long pause followed. "Then you do
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"I will," I replied−−and sat do
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"There is no hurt in the air," she
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their princess and her power, and d
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I learned afterward that there were
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Lilith to grow dark. At my feet lay
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I was lying on my withered leaves i
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"Have you hurt yourself, my lord?"
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"Granted!−−but in which or what
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they are pretty steadily growing mo
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To do for her all I could, I spread
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She was lying as I had left her. Th
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other from her shoulders. With the
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"Doubtless you pitied me!" "Never h
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Despair restored my volition; the s
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night. I ran the faster, though I c
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Lilith CHAPTER XXII. BULIKA I had l
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"Thank you!" she murmured. "Have yo
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As I lay sleepless, I began to hear
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"Take me to the princess," I said.
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The princess stood waiting me, in a
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CHAPTER XXVI. A BATTLE ROYAL I thre
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I turned and followed the spotted l
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in a stormy water, I was flung abou
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"Indeed you almost taught the noble
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"A song that had no sound into his
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Then at last I understood that Mr.
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"But," I returned, hard to persuade
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do. The librarian walked on in sile
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"Mr. Vane," croaked the raven, "thi
Page 105 and 106: All day I worked hard. When the dar
Page 107 and 108: Lilith I lay down by a tree, and on
Page 109 and 110: Now arose in the mind of the woman
Page 111 and 112: Little Ones, from a crowd of childr
Page 113 and 114: them as for those other animals, bu
Page 115 and 116: Lilith myself learned to obey! Untr
Page 117 and 118: For she must think! Now what she ca
Page 119 and 120: CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SHADOW A murmur
Page 121 and 122: In the morning we set out, and made
Page 123 and 124: "He will kill me!" she moaned. "At
Page 125 and 126: "Will the cat−woman−−I mean t
Page 127 and 128: terrible, something they were not t
Page 129 and 130: "Such a compulsion would be without
Page 131 and 132: embrace of a friend whom her soul h
Page 133 and 134: een timelessly, spacelessly, absolu
Page 135 and 136: "It is the biggest room in all this
Page 137 and 138: Almost under our feet, shot up the
Page 139 and 140: "This food will help thee to die,"
Page 141 and 142: "You will soon begin to find comfor
Page 143 and 144: She gave the candle to her husband,
Page 145 and 146: With measured tread along the path,
Page 147 and 148: And as I sat, there grew in me such
Page 149 and 150: and I thought I had heard the song
Page 151 and 152: me, as to him that made me, all in
Page 153 and 154: "Then remember, and recall. Trials
Page 155: He embraced Lona his child, put an
Page 159 and 160: tumid bulges, glaring orbs of sepia
Page 161 and 162: I had seen the lightning, but heard
Page 163: "But whence first into thy dark sel
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Lilith

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