Lilith

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Lilith I got up and went through one narrow street after another, gradually filling with idlers, and was not surprised to see no children. By and by, near one of the gates, I encountered a group of young men who reminded me not a little of the bad giants. They came about me staring, and presently began to push and hustle me, then to throw things at me. I bore it as well as I could, wishing not to provoke enmity where wanted to remain for a while. Oftener than once or twice I appealed to passers−by whom I fancied more benevolent−looking, but none would halt a moment to listen to me. I looked poor, and that was enough: to the citizens of Bulika, as to house−dogs, poverty was an offence! Deformity and sickness were taxed; and no legislation of their princess was more heartily approved of than what tended to make poverty subserve wealth. I took to my heels at last, and no one followed me beyond the gate. A lumbering fellow, however, who sat by it eating a hunch of bread, picked up a stone to throw after me, and happily, in his stupid eagerness, threw, not the stone but the bread. I took it, and he did not dare follow to reclaim it: beyond the walls they were cowards every one. I went off a few hundred yards, threw myself down, ate the bread, fell asleep, and slept soundly in the grass, where the hot sunlight renewed my strength. It was night when I woke. The moon looked down on me in friendly fashion, seeming to claim with me old acquaintance. She was very bright, and the same moon, I thought, that saw me through the terrors of my first night in that strange world. A cold wind blew from the gate, bringing with it an evil odour; but it did not chill me, for the sun had plenished me with warmth. I crept again into the city. There I found the few that were still in the open air crouched in corners to escape the shivering blast. I was walking slowly through the long narrow street, when, just before me, a huge white thing bounded across it, with a single flash in the moonlight, and disappeared. I turned down the next opening, eager to get sight of it again. It was a narrow lane, almost too narrow to pass through, but it led me into a wider street. The moment I entered the latter, I saw on the opposite side, in the shadow, the creature I had followed, itself following like a dog what I took for a man. Over his shoulder, every other moment, he glanced at the animal behind him, but neither spoke to it, nor attempted to drive it away. At a place where he had to cross a patch of moonlight, I saw that he cast no shadow, and was himself but a flat superficial shadow, of two dimensions. He was, nevertheless, an opaque shadow, for he not merely darkened any object on the other side of him, but rendered it, in fact, invisible. In the shadow he was blacker than the shadow; in the moonlight he looked like one who had drawn his shadow up about him, for not a suspicion of it moved beside or under him; while the gleaming animal, which followed so close at his heels as to seem the white shadow of his blackness, and which I now saw to be a leopardess, drew her own gliding shadow black over the ground by her side. When they passed together from the shadow into the moonlight, the Shadow deepened in blackness, the animal flashed into radiance. I was at the moment walking abreast of them on the opposite side, my bare feet sounding on the flat stones: the leopardess never turned head or twitched ear; the shadow seemed once to look at me, for I lost his profile, and saw for a second only a sharp upright line. That instant the wind found me and blew through me: I shuddered from head to foot, and my heart went from wall to wall of my bosom, like a pebble in a child's rattle. CHAPTER XXIII. A WOMAN OF BULIKA I turned aside into an alley, and sought shelter in a small archway. In the mouth of it I stopped, and looked out at the moonlight which filled the alley. The same instant a woman came gliding in after me, turned, trembling, and looked out also. A few seconds passed; then a huge leopard, its white skin dappled with many blots, darted across the archway. The woman pressed close to me, and my heart filled with pity. I put my arm round her. "If the brute come here, I will lay hold of it," I said, "and you must run." Lilith 76
"Thank you!" she murmured. "Have you ever seen it before?" I asked. "Several times," she answered, still trembling. "She is a pet of the princess's. You are a stranger, or you would know her!" "I am a stranger," I answered. "But is she, then, allowed to run loose?" "She is kept in a cage, her mouth muzzled, and her feet in gloves of crocodile leather. Chained she is too; but she gets out often, and sucks the blood of any child she can lay hold of. Happily there are not many mothers in Bulika!" Here she burst into tears. "I wish I were at home!" she sobbed. "The princess returned only last night, and there is the leopardess out already! How am I to get into the house? It is me she is after, I know! She will be lying at my own door, watching for me!−−But I am a fool to talk to a stranger!" "All strangers are not bad!" I said. "The beast shall not touch you till she has done with me, and by that time you will be in. You are happy to have a house to go to! What a terrible wind it is!" "Take me home safe, and I will give you shelter from it," she rejoined. "But we must wait a little!" I asked her many questions. She told me the people never did anything except dig for precious stones in their cellars. They were rich, and had everything made for them in other towns. "Why?" I asked. "Because it is a disgrace to work," she answered. "Everybody in Bulika knows that!" I asked how they were rich if none of them earned money. She replied that their ancestors had saved for them, and they never spent. When they wanted money they sold a few of their gems. "But there must be some poor!" I said. "I suppose there must be, but we never think of such people. When one goes poor, we forget him. That is how we keep rich. We mean to be rich always." "But when you have dug up all your precious stones and sold them, you will have to spend your money, and one day you will have none left!" "We have so many, and there are so many still in the ground, that that day will never come," she replied. Lilith "Suppose a strange people were to fall upon you, and take everything you have!" "No strange people will dare; they are all horribly afraid of our princess. She it is who keeps us safe and free and rich!" Every now and then as she spoke, she would stop and look behind her. Lilith 77
Page 1 and 2:
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.
Page 25 and 26:
"That also you will know when you w
Page 27 and 28: "Where was that?" "In this very roo
Page 29 and 30: "That is the door I spoke of," he s
Page 31 and 32: "I would have lain down at once had
Page 33 and 34: Lilith larger, and at length gave m
Page 35 and 36: The moon went below, and the world
Page 37 and 38: molten music sang me into a dreamle
Page 39 and 40: I lay on the floor that night hardl
Page 41 and 42: I had found that to ask precisely t
Page 43 and 44: had never seen any before they saw
Page 45 and 46: A long pause followed. "Then you do
Page 47 and 48: "I will," I replied−−and sat do
Page 49 and 50: "There is no hurt in the air," she
Page 51 and 52: their princess and her power, and d
Page 53 and 54: I learned afterward that there were
Page 55 and 56: Lilith to grow dark. At my feet lay
Page 57 and 58: I was lying on my withered leaves i
Page 59 and 60: "Have you hurt yourself, my lord?"
Page 61 and 62: "Granted!−−but in which or what
Page 63 and 64: they are pretty steadily growing mo
Page 65 and 66: To do for her all I could, I spread
Page 67 and 68: She was lying as I had left her. Th
Page 69 and 70: other from her shoulders. With the
Page 71 and 72: "Doubtless you pitied me!" "Never h
Page 73 and 74: Despair restored my volition; the s
Page 75 and 76: night. I ran the faster, though I c
Page 77: Lilith CHAPTER XXII. BULIKA I had l
Page 81 and 82: As I lay sleepless, I began to hear
Page 83 and 84: "Take me to the princess," I said.
Page 85 and 86: The princess stood waiting me, in a
Page 87 and 88: CHAPTER XXVI. A BATTLE ROYAL I thre
Page 89 and 90: I turned and followed the spotted l
Page 91 and 92: in a stormy water, I was flung abou
Page 93 and 94: "Indeed you almost taught the noble
Page 95 and 96: "A song that had no sound into his
Page 97 and 98: Then at last I understood that Mr.
Page 99 and 100: "But," I returned, hard to persuade
Page 101 and 102: do. The librarian walked on in sile
Page 103 and 104: "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
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"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,"
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"You will soon begin to find comfor
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She gave the candle to her husband,
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With measured tread along the path,
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And as I sat, there grew in me such
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and I thought I had heard the song
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me, as to him that made me, all in
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"Then remember, and recall. Trials
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He embraced Lona his child, put an
Page 157 and 158:
"The black bat is flown!" said Mara
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tumid bulges, glaring orbs of sepia
Page 161 and 162:
I had seen the lightning, but heard
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"But whence first into thy dark sel
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Lilith

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