Part 10

When he reached his cell he threw down the water skin and the palm leaves, not caring, in his despair, what became of them, and, flinging open the door, he staggered in and fell on his face in the oratory. At first he lay as one stunned, neither praying nor thinking, but after an hour of this prostration he came to his senses and began to pray feverishly, torrentially, like a man in a burning house or a sinking ship, pouring out passionate phrases and ejaculations so rapidly that his mind almost ceased to follow the sense of what his lips uttered. As he prayed, the light began to fail, and it seemed that the shadows that gathered silently into his cell were bodily presences. Soon the darkness would come, and with it the hosts of Satan into whose power he had so recklessly given himself.

But the night fell calm and silent. Not the remotest howl of hyena or jackal disturbed the crystal silence. And as the silence continued unbroken, Malchus, racked by fearful expectancy, became fascinated by it like a bird by the eye of a snake. He waited cold and breathless, more and more certain every minute that it would be shivered suddenly, appallingly, by some diabolical tumult which would be the prelude to his destruction. His mind had grown numb beneath the unendurable suspense, when at last the silence was broken and all his being concentrated into the one act of listening.

[Illustration: woodcut]

Instead of the horrors he was awaiting, it was a gentle, clear voice which had called softly outside his cell, A broken square of primrose-colored moonlight lay on the wall and floor of the oratory. For a time there was deep silence again. Then near the door the same sweet voice sent a thrill of delight through him, speaking a word that he did not understand. A sense of unreality possessed him; he must be asleep and dreaming, and he remembered with a feeling of infinite relief that Serapion had told him that a man is not responsible in the sight of God for his dreams. His fears were gone now, but his sense was still alert and soon he heard a faint sound in the outer room of his cell. He was too exhausted to wonder what it could be, and next moment something touched him in the dark--a hand, it seemed; but not the fierce hand of evil, but a gentle, ingratiating hand that stroked him. Malchus did not move. As in a dream, his will was nerveless and he lay with eyes closed while the groping hand explored him. Then two arms wound themselves about him and a soft cheek was laid against his. "Helena!" he whispered, ardently, and suddenly he threw off his passivity and, freeing his arms, he clasped to his own body the warm body that lay on the floor beside him.

_Chapter Twelve_

He awoke next morning to a cold despair. He knew that what he had experienced had been no dream, and he knew, too, that one small spark of consciousness, which he had willfully muffled, had affirmed at the time that it was real. He had sinned consciously and willingly; his delusion had been deliberate. He dared not pray, for to take the name of God into his mouth, vile as he was, would itself be mortal sin; and even if he had dared to pray, the prayers of a wretch like himself, who had implored God's help and protection only to scorn it when the moment of temptation came, would, he knew, be no better than an insolent mockery in the ear of Heaven. Now he was alone indeed, cut off not only from the worldly life which he had abandoned, but also from the holy life of the desert and the eternal life which is its reward. He was exhausted by long fasting and the violence of his emotions; and as with eyes fixed starkly on vacancy he contemplated his state, the horror of it numbed his understanding. "It is impossible," he muttered to himself, "impossible that it was not a dream." Slowly and painfully he rose to his feet. His brain reeled and for a moment he could do no more than stand, steadying himself with both hands pressed against the walls. Then with groping hands and feet he staggered into the outer room and so to the doorway of the cell. On the smooth sand outside, the print of small bare feet was set as a witness against him; and, as if for a sign that all his good works had been brought to naught, all the mats that he had woven were gone. Then his gaze fell on the sack of loaves, and a light came into his eyes, for he saw in food and drink a last consolation for his misery. He plunged both arms into the sack, bringing out all the loaves that were left, and, carrying them outside the cell, he sat down beside the full water skin which he had left there on the previous evening. He untied the neck and dipped each loaf into the water. But to dip them only was not enough; the loaves were still too hard to eat. He gnawed at one, holding it in both hands and chawing at it like a dog at a bone. But he could not break the crust, and at last he flung it away from him in fury and, getting on to his knees, he reached an earthenware dish from the table and set the loaves to soak. And as they soaked he crouched beside them, snatching impatiently at one and another and putting them to his teeth. Crouching solitary there, now immovable, now breaking into convulsive activity as he seized a loaf and raised it to his mouth, he looked like a great ape playing with stones. At last the loaves were soft enough and he fell upon them ravenously, stuffing fragment after fragment into his mouth and then bowing his face to the dish and sucking in draughts of water to soften the mass. So he fed, a fierce and uncouth spectacle, while water and a paste of masticated bread exuded from the corners of his mouth and clung to his ragged beard. He did not remember how on that day a year ago he had lain, exquisitely dressed, at table in his own house, the host of one of the most marvelous of all the marvelous feasts for which he and his friends were famed throughout Alexandria. At that feast the guests had been delighted by the novelty of the little silver ovens in which the slaves handed small newly baked loaves, each cunningly molded into a fantastic shape.

When he had eaten all the bread, he sat for a while, staring before him; then untying the water skin again, he took a long draught from it and, letting it slip from his hands so that it lay gulping out its contents into the thirsty sand, he rose and reached for his staff. Without a glance behind him he stepped out into the empty desert. His mind was empty, barren. He had no plan, no hope, nothing but the instinct to fly from a place accursed, to fly further and further into the desert, as if by unceasing flight he could at last outrun the terrible consequences of his sin. But the moment he left the shelter of the cell an invisible host of evil flung itself upon him, beating up the sand in clouds into his eyes and mouth, wrapping him round in a bewildering whirlwind and hurling broadcast the heap of palm leaves which on the previous evening he had flung down outside the door. He blundered on blindly, with no thought of his direction, beating the air with his hands in an attempt to drive off the unseen adversaries that surrounded him with jeers and whistlings, owlish hoots and derisive laughter. Behind him he heard his door beat and beat again upon its hinges, and he knew that demons had taken possession of his deserted cell and were desecrating it with their foul revelries. He ran on blindly, falling headlong and rising again, till his strength was exhausted and he lay where he fell....

He opened his eyes. He was lying on the level plain of the desert. Long screens of blowing sand, long filmy processions of sand which had taken on human and animal forms, came streaming toward him out of the distance. There was sand everywhere. His eyes and mouth and ears were full of sand; sand coated his skin and filled his clothes, and the ground, the air, and the sky were full of flying sand. It was as if the desert itself had risen against the outcast, had taken on a fierce, vengeful mobility which would soon engulf him, consume him, disintegrate and dry him till he himself was nothing but a cloud among clouds of blowing sand, whirling restlessly from desert to desert, with no more life than a vague and changing form and a thin, crying voice like the voice of despair. Dust to dust; ashes to ashes. The words whirled in the emptiness of his mind as the sand in the empty air, and he nestled his head in his clasped arms and lay on his face, still as a boulder, while the sand hailed against his leather tunic and mounded itself about him till it overflowed in rivulets over his neck and arms and legs.

[Illustration: woodcut]

With darkness the storm grew fiercer. The wind shrieked and howled about his prostrate, half-buried body and through the wind came other and wilder howls, now far off, now close and terrible. Then something touched him, and again and again. Something heavy and four-footed stood upon his back. It moved, and then he felt a hot snuffling breath against his cheek. He turned his head in horror and opened his eyes. Green eyes stared down at him. He clenched his fist and struck out. The creature moved away, but slowly, and Malchus felt that it was still lurking close by, with others, waiting its time. Then a more terrible outburst of howls severed the night. He was surrounded by howling, yelling beasts. Raising his head, he could see their eyes glinting, now green, now red, all round him. They beat him, trampled on him; their claws tore at his naked arms and legs. He sprang to his feet and flung himself forward, waving his arms, and there was a scattering of vague shapes in the darkness and the wind was for a moment more densely loaded with sand. No longer daring to lie down, he moved onward, slowly, feebly, painful step by step, and only when it grew light did he dare to submit and, abandoning all effort, sink to the ground in a stupor.

[Illustration: woodcut]

When he awoke he was sitting up, with a strong arm supporting him. A young man knelt beside him, offering him a cup of water. A cake of dried dates lay on a flat stone beside him. He drank the water greedily and then ate the dates; then he turned his eyes to the young man's. They were deep, untroubled blue eyes like the eyes of a child. As they met Malchus's they were full of a gentle solicitude. "How do you come to be here, so far from mankind?" he asked Malchus.

"I was a hermit," Malchus replied, in a voice that was hardly more than a sigh.

"I too am a hermit," answered the young man. "My cell is only a few yards away. When I came out this morning I found you lying here." He helped Malchus to rise. "Come into my cell," he said, "for you are half dead."

Malchus shook his head. "I cannot," he said, "for I am not worthy. I have committed the unforgivable sin and I must go my way."

"Whither are you going?"

Malchus pointed forward into the desert.

"But can I do no more for you, my brother?" the young man asked him.

"Pray for me," Malchus replied as he began to move away. "Pray that I myself may some day dare to pray again."

The young hermit stood watching the meager, plodding figure which soon the desert gathered out of his sight into its arid heart....

Week after week Malchus pushed on. At first he was fed by the hermits upon whose lonely cells he chanced often enough to escape starvation, for in those days the number of hermits in the desert was very great. But after a while the cells grew less frequent and he began to enter a stark country which seemed to have been stripped of all life. Only once in that quarter did he come upon a cell. It stood gaunt upon the naked rock, itself more like a rock than a house built by mortal hands. In it lived an aged and venerable hermit who had spoken with the great Saint Anthony face to face. There were no springs in that waterless waste and the ancient man was compelled to collect in sponges the dew which fell only in the last two months of the year. Every evening he set out the sponges on his roof and before dawn he squeezed the dew out of them into a cistern. In this way he was able to collect enough water for the whole year. He set food and water before Malchus and questioned him about his journey.

"I do not know whither I am going, my father," Malchus replied, "for I who was a hermit have committed the unforgivable sin and I fly onward into the pathless wilderness that I may escape from humanity and from my sin."

"For him that truly repents," the old man answered, "there is no unforgivable sin. But if, being a hermit, you committed sin, it was because you did not perpetually set death, and that which follows death, before your eyes; for he who has his eyes perpetually fastened on death comes to a state of understanding which forever releases the soul from temptation. Each day the hermit must set his soul to contemplate this mortal body of ours and must speak thus with the voice of his soul to each part of it in turn: 'O legs, which have strength to move yourselves and to stand up, stand up before the presence of your Lord.' And to the hands: 'O hands, so soon to decay and crumble into dust and never again be clasped together; before that hour of dissolution comes, stretch yourselves out in supplication to the Lord.' And to the whole body: 'O body, rise and worship God and bear me up that I may offer praise and prayer to the Lord with a good heart, before we are separated one from another and I go down into the place of forgetfulness and am fettered in everlasting darkness, and you consume away and rot and become a thing of loathing and putrefaction. For if you follow after the delights and pleasant things of the world you will surely cast me into never-ending torment.' My son," the old man concluded, "if you meditate thus always until the truth of these things has bitten itself into your heart and mind, it will be impossible for you thereafter to commit sin."

Then Malchus, having eaten and drunk, arose and bade the holy man farewell.

Thenceforward all human habitation ceased, but still he traveled onwards. His food was now the meager herbage springing in rare places among stones or in the frail shadow of thorn-bushes, and his scarce drink was from a desert well or some foul and clotted pool which still lingered stagnating among the sandhills.

One morning, after many desolate days, he saw far ahead of him on the pale floor of the desert as it were a ragged black cloth. It was about four hours after dawn, and as he walked on he saw also that the desert before him was streaked with green. Then, as he drew nearer, he saw that what had seemed to be a black cloth was in truth a great herd of browsing beasts; and when, at noon, he came up with them, he found that they were buffaloes. They were feeding upon the green herb which sprang plentifully in that place. Some of them lifted their great lowering heads as he approached, and he was afraid and was about to turn aside, when two figures, dark as themselves, stood upright in the midst of the herd. When they saw Malchus they began to come toward him, making their way among the beasts. And Malchus saw that they had the forms of men and that they were naked and their bodies covered with hair. He stood, his limbs weak with terror, for he was sure that they were demons, but as they drew near, one of them shouted to him, "Do not be afraid, for we are men like yourself."

Malchus made the sign of the Cross, but still they came on. "If you are men," he asked them, fearfully, "why are you living among wild beasts?"

The one who had spoken before replied: "We were once monks in a great monastery, the monastery of Tabenna; but we both desired the life of solitude, so we left the monastery and wandered into the desert alone, and at length we came here. We have been here for forty years. I am an Egyptian and this brother is a Lybian." Then he began to question Malchus. "Tell me," he said, "how it goes with the children of men. Do they still build houses and ships? Do the ancient cities still stand and are their kings and governors still subject to the powers of evil? And what of the land we knew? Do the river waters still rise in flood once in the year?"

Malchus turned away with a sign of repulsion. "I cannot answer such questions, for I, too, have abandoned the world." Then he turned to the two creatures again, his eyes still fierce with suspicion. "How," he muttered, "can you be men? For if men were to remain here naked and without shelter, their bodies would be burned up by the summer sun and frozen to death by the winter cold."

"We are men indeed," answered the Egyptian, "though we graze the green herb with the beasts, and God has given to our naked bodies the power to endure both heat and cold."

Then those two human creatures turned from him to the nearest patch of herb, and there crouched upon their hands and knees and began to feed. And the great beasts that browsed about them accepted them as one of themselves and, moving forward as they cropped the herb, they inclosed them in their midst and Malchus saw them no more.

With a heavy sigh he resumed his way. "Here," he said to himself, "I have crossed the limit of the human world." But still he fled onward, for his despair drove him, and again he was a creeping thing upon the powdery floors of the desert, goaded daily by remorse, horror-stricken, and tortured nightly by the devils into whose power he had give himself, his body all the while blistered by the noonday fire, shaken by the chills of night, consumed by hunger and thirst and strange fevers. Throughout that time he trusted for his sustenance to what green herb he might find, for he would collect no food to carry with him, being determined to leave in God's hands whether he should live or die. And at last in a remoter desert of rock and sand he saw the dark mouth of a cave in the rock. He climbed up to it and looked inside, and when his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness he saw a man seated within with his back to the entrance. Malchus took up a stone and beat against the rock after the custom of the hermits, but the man did not move, and thinking that he might be at prayer or in a state of meditation, Malchus sat patiently outside, waiting till he should have finished. Yet after many hours the man had not moved, and when Malchus knocked again more loudly he took no notice.

But Malchus could not bring himself to depart. He was desperate, in his long loneliness, for the comfort of a human voice; even a short phrase, a human word or two, would be something to take back with him into the great void where the only voices were the voices of those embodiments of evil which tormented him by night. And so he entered the cave and laid his hands on the bowed shoulders of the seated man. Then, to his horror, the figure swayed, paused, and suddenly crumbled beneath the weight of his arms into a wreckage of bones and dry powder. The powdery dust stuck to his hands and steamed up into his nostrils, and he sprang back, sickened to the heart and, turning round, fled in horror from the cave.

Dust to dust. All about him now was dust and sand, the dried and crumbled residue of extinct life. For now he had reached the limit not only of humanity, but of life itself, and nothing was left for him but to parch and disintegrate with all else, a prey to the relentless heat and cold and the eternal restlessness of the winds. With a shudder of loathing he shook that gray human dust from his hands; but as he stared into the open palms the thought came to him, in the words of the aged holy man, that those hands of his would ere long decay and crumble into the same gray dust. Why, then, should he turn with loathing from what he himself was so soon to become? For whether the soul is destined for eternal bliss or eternal torment, dust is surely the destiny of the body. As he pondered those words, spoken by the soul to the hands, he remembered how they continued, "Before that hour of dissolution comes, stretch yourselves out in supplication to the Lord," and for the first time since his frenzied flight had begun he felt within him the desire and the courage to pray.