The Way of the Spirit
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THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT
“Bakhita,” said Mea presently in a clear and ringing voice, “it is done. Come; tire me in those robes that I have made ready, my bridal robes. Be swift now, for my lord calls me.”
The stern-faced, aged woman rose and obeyed. Tabitha knelt in prayer by the corpse of Rupert, and messengers swiftly spread the news that Zahed had departed from his people. A while later, as high and shrill the Eastern death-wail broke upon the silence, a door burst open and in rushed Edith.
“Oh! is it true, is it true?” she sobbed.
Tabitha pointed to the shrouded form of Rupert.
“Come no nearer,” she said, “lest you should die also – you who are not ready to die.”
The two women, Edith and Mea, stood face to face with each other; Edith, dishevelled, weeping; Mea, a strange and glorious sight in the rays of the rising sun that struck on her through the open window place. She was clad in silvery robes that flowed about her; in her weak hand swayed the ancient sceptre of her race, upon her breast lay a pectoral of Isis and Nepthys weeping over dead Osiris; above her outspread hair was set that funeral crown worked in thin gold and enamelled flowers which once she had shown to Rupert. Her wide eyes shone like stars, and the fever that burned upon it seemed to give to her mysterious face a richer beauty.
“I greet you, lady,” she said to Edith. “Well have I nursed our lord, but now he has passed from us – home, and I – I follow him,” and she pointed over the shattered temple and the wall of mountains upwards to the splendid sky.
“You follow him; you follow him!” gasped Edith. “What do you mean?”
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H. RIDER HAGGARD
By way of answer, Mea tore open her white wrappings and showed her bosom marked with those spots of plague that appear only just before the end.
“It was his last and best gift to me,” she cried in Arabic. “Soon, very soon we two shall have done with separations and with griefs. Hearken you, his lady according to your law. He had determined that to-morrow he would have gone back with you whom he forgave, as I do. But we prayed, he and I – yes, knee by knee we prayed to our God, that He would save us from this sacrifice, and He has answered to our prayer. Behold! we who have followed the way of the Spirit inherit the Spirit; and we who renounced, renounce no more. To me it was given to save his life; to me it is given to share his death, and all beyond it through light, through dark – forever and forever.
“Way now, make way for Tama who comes to her lord’s bed!”
Then while they gazed and wondered, with slow steps Mea reeled to the couch upon which the corpse of Rupert lay; uttering one low cry of love and triumph, she cast herself beside him, and there she died.
“Now,” said the quiet voice of Tabitha, as she looked upward to heaven over the ruined temples of a faith fulfilled and the cruel mountains of our world – “now, who will deny there dwells One yonder that rewards the righteous and smites the wicked with His sword?”
Литературно-художественное издание
H. Rider Haggard
The Way of the Spirit
Выпускающий редактор: Э. Ефанова Редактор: П. Воронин
Корректор: И. Серегина Компьютерная верстка: Т. Мосолова Художественное оформление: С. Дондупова
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