Ziska, The Problem of a Wicked Soul - Page 1/76

Originally Published in 1896

Now in the Public Domain

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TO THE PRESENT LIVING RE-INCARNATION OF ARAXES

Prologue

Dark against the sky towered the Great Pyramid, and over its apex

hung the moon. Like a wreck cast ashore by some titanic storm, the

Sphinx, reposing amid the undulating waves of grayish sand

surrounding it, seemed for once to drowse. Its solemn visage that

had impassively watched ages come and go, empires rise and fall,

and generations of men live and die, appeared for the moment to

have lost its usual expression of speculative wisdom and intense

disdain--its cold eyes seemed to droop, its stern mouth almost

smiled. The air was calm and sultry; and not a human foot

disturbed the silence. But towards midnight a Voice suddenly arose

as it were like a wind in the desert, crying aloud: "Araxes!

Araxes!" and wailing past, sank with a profound echo into the deep

recesses of the vast Egyptian tomb. Moonlight and the Hour wove

their own mystery; the mystery of a Shadow and a Shape that

flitted out like a thin vapor from the very portals of Death's

ancient temple, and drifting forward a few paces resolved itself

into the visionary fairness of a Woman's form--a Woman whose dark

hair fell about her heavily, like the black remnants of a long-

buried corpse's wrappings; a Woman whose eyes flashed with an

unholy fire as she lifted her face to the white moon and waved her

ghostly arms upon the air. And again the wild Voice pulsated

through the stillness.

"Araxes! ... Araxes! Thou art here,

--and I pursue thee! Through life into

death; through death out into life again!

I find thee and I follow! I follow!

Araxes!..."

Moonlight and the Hour wove their own mystery; and ere the pale

opal dawn flushed the sky with hues of rose and amber the Shadow

had vanished; the Voice was heard no more. Slowly the sun lifted

the edge of its golden shield above the horizon, and the great

Sphinx awaking from its apparent brief slumber, stared in

expressive and eternal scorn across the tracts of sand and tufted

palm-trees towards the glittering dome of El-Hazar--that abode of

profound sanctity and learning, where men still knelt and

worshipped, praying the Unknown to deliver them from the Unseen.

And one would almost have deemed that the sculptured Monster with

the enigmatical Woman-face and Lion-form had strange thoughts in

its huge granite brain; for when the full day sprang in glory over

the desert and illumined its large features with a burning saffron

radiance, its cruel lips still smiled as though yearning to speak

and propound the terrible riddle of old time; the Problem which

killed!