"Ruth! What is wrong with you? What has she done to you?"We ran to his side.He stood clutching her hands, searching her eyes.They were wide, unseeing, dream filled.Upon her face the calm and stillness, which were mirrored reflections of Norhala's unearthly tranquillity, had deepened.
"Brother." The sweet voice seemed far away, drifting out of untroubled space, an echo of Norhala's golden chimings --"Brother, there is nothing wrong with me.Indeed --all is--well with me--brother."He dropped the listless palms, faced the woman, tall figure tense, drawn with mingled rage and anguish.
"What have you done to her?" he whispered in Norhala's own tongue.
Her serene gaze took him in, undisturbed by his anger save for the faintest shadow of wonder, of perplexity.
"Done?" she repeated, slowly."I have stilled all that was troubled within her--have lifted her above sorrow.I have given her the peace--as I will give it to you if--""You'll give me nothing," he interrupted fiercely; then, his passion breaking through all restraint--"Yes, you damned witch--you'll give me back my sister!"In his rage he had spoken English; she could not, of course, have understood the words, but their anger and hatred she did understand.Her serenity quivered, broke.
The strange stars within her eyes began to glitter forth as they had when she had summoned the Smiting Thing.Unheeding, Ventnor thrust out a hand, caught her roughly by one bare, lovely shoulder.
"Give her back to me, I say!" he cried."Give her back to me!"The woman's eyes grew--awful.Out of the distended pupils the strange stars blazed; upon her face was something of the goddess outraged.I felt the shadow of Death's wings.
"No! No--Norhala! No, Martin!" the veils of inhuman calm shrouding Ruth were torn; swiftly the girl we knew looked out from them.She threw herself between the two, arms outstretched.
"Ventnor!" Drake caught his arms, held them tight;"that's not the way to save her!"
Ventnor stood between us, quivering, half sobbing.
Never until then had I realized how great, how absorbing was that love of his for Ruth.And the woman saw it, too, even though dimly; envisioned it humanly.
For, under the shock of human passion, that which Ithought then as utterly unknown to her as her cold serenity was to us, the sleeping soul--I use the popular word for those emotional complexes that are peculiar to mankind--stirred, awakened.
Wrath fled from her knitted brows; her eyes dropping to the girl, lost their dreadfulness; softened.She turned them upon Ventnor, they brooded upon him; within their depths a half-troubled interest, a questioning.
A smile dawned upon the exquisite face, humanizing it, transfiguring it, touching with tenderness the sweet and sleeping mouth--as a hovering dream the lips of the slumbering maid.
And on the face of Ruth, as upon a mirror, I watched that same slow, understanding tenderness reflected!
"Come," said Norhala, and led the way through the sparkling curtains.As she passed, an arm around Ruth's neck, I saw the marks of Ventnor's fingers upon her white shoulder, staining its purity, marring it like a blasphemy.
For an instant I hung behind, watching their figures grow misty within the shining shadows; then followed hastily.Entering the mists I was conscious of a pleasant tingling, an acceleration of the pulse, an increase of that sense of well-being which, I grew suddenly aware, had since the beginning of our strange journey minimized the nervous attrition of constant contact with the abnormal.
Striving to classify, to reduce to order, my sensations I drew close to the others, overtaking them in a dozen paces.A dozen paces more and we stepped out of the curtainings.
