“Let us pray,” the voice said.
Henry made a violent effort with his tongue. “No!” he cried.
“But you prayed before.”
“Yes, I prayed before—because my mother would have liked it. She would have wanted me to pray at least once, more as a proof of her training than for any other reason, a reassurance to her that she had done her duty by me.”
“Would you die heretic, Sir Henry? Aren’t you afraid of death?”
“I am too tired, sir, or too lazy, to consider problems of heresy. And I am not afraid of death. I have seen much violence, and no man whom I have admired was afraid of death, but only of dying. You see, sir, death is an intellectual matter, but dying is pure pain. And this death of mine is very pleasant so far. No, sir; I am not afraid even of dying. It is comfortable, and it would be quiet if I could only be left alone. It is as though I were about to sleep after a great effort.”
He heard the Vicar’s voice again; but, though the warm hand still stroked his wrist, the voice came from a mighty distance.
“He will not answer me,” the Vicar was saying. “I am perplexed for his soul.”
Then he heard his wife speaking to him. “You must pray, dear. Every one does. How can you get to heaven if you do not pray?”
There she was again, intent on making a contract with God. But Henry did not want to look at her. Naïve though her philosophy was, her eyes were as deep and as sad as the limitless sky. He wanted to say, “I won’t want to get to heaven once I am dead. I won’t want them to disturb me.” They made such a commotion about this death.
The doctor had come back into the room. “He is unconscious,” the booming voice proclaimed. “I think I will bleed him again.”
Henry felt the scalpel cut into his arm. It was pleasant. He hoped they would cut him again and again. But the illusion was contradictory. Rather than feeling the blood leaving him, he sensed a curious warmth slipping through his body. His breast and arms tingled as though some robust, ancient wine were singing in his veins.
Now a queer change began to take place. He found that he could see through his eyelids, could see all about him without moving his head. The doctor and his wife and the Vicar and even the room were sliding away from him.
“They are moving,” he thought. “I am not moving. I am fixed. I am the center of all things and cannot move. I am as heavy as the universe. Perhaps I am the universe.”
A low, sweet tone was flowing into his consciousness; a vibrant, rich organ tone, which filled him, seemed to emanate from his brain, to flood his body, and from it to surge out over the world. He saw with a little surprise that the room had gone. He was lying in an immeasurable dark grotto along the sides of which were rows of thick, squat columns made of some green, glittering crystal. He was still in a reclining position, and the long grotto was sliding past him. Of a sudden, the movement stopped. He was surrounded by strange beings, having the bodies of children, and bulbous, heavy heads, but no faces. The flesh where their faces should have been was solid and unbroken. These beings were talking and chattering in dry, raucous voices. Henry was puzzled that they could talk without mouths.
Slowly the knowledge grew in him that these were his deeds and his thoughts which were living with Brother Death. Each one had gone immediately to live with Brother Death as soon as it was born. When he knew their identity, the faceless little creatures turned on him and clustered thickly about his couch.
“Why did you do me?” one cried.
“I do not know; I do not remember you.”
“Why did you think me?”
“I do not know. I must have known, but I have forgotten. My memory is slipping away from me here in this grotto.”
Still insistently they questioned him, and their voices were becoming more and more strident and harsh, so that they overwhelmed the great Tone.
“Me! answer me!”
“No; me!”
“Oh, leave me! Let me rest,” Henry said wearily. “I am tired, and I cannot tell you anything anyway.”
Then he saw that the little beings were crouching before an approaching form. They turned toward the form and cowered, and at length fell on their knees before it and raised trembling arms in gestures of supplication.
Henry strained his attention toward the figure. Why, it was Elizabeth coming toward him—little Elizabeth, with golden hair and a wise young look on her face. She was girdled with cornflowers, and her eyes were strangely puzzled and bright. With a little start of surprise she noticed Henry.
“I am Elizabeth,” she said. “You did not come to see me before you went away.”
“I know. I think I was afraid to talk with you. But I stood in the darkness before your window, and I whistled.”
“Did you?” She smiled at him gladly. “That was nice of you. I cannot see, though, why you should have been afraid of me—of such a little girl. It was silly of you.”
“I do not know why,” he said. “I ran away. I was motivated by a power that is slipping out of all the worlds. My memories are leaving me one by one like a colony of aged swans flying off to some lonely island in the sea to die. But you became a princess, did you not?” he questioned anxiously.
“Yes, perhaps I did. I hope I did. I, too, forget. Tell me, did you really stand there in the dark?”
Henry had noticed a peculiar thing. If he looked steadily at one of the crouched, faceless beings, it disappeared. He amused himself by staring first at one and then at another until all of them were gone.
“Did you really stand there in the dark?”
“I do not know. Perhaps I only thought I did.” He looked for Elizabeth, but she, too, had disappeared. In her place there was a red smoldering ember, and the light was dying out of it.
“Wait, Elizabeth—Wait. Tell me where my father is. I want to see my father.”
The dying ember answered him.
“Your father is happily dead. He was afraid to test even death.”
“But Merlin, then—Where is Merlin? If I could only find him.”
“Merlin? You should know of him. Merlin is herding dreams in Avalon.”
The fire went out of the ember with a dry, hard snap. There was no light anywhere. For a moment, Henry was Conscious of the deep, mellow pulsation of the Tone.