He spoke wildly as though possessed by a sort of frenzy,--his unknown companion heard him with an air of mild and pitying patience.
"Peace--peace! Blaspheme not the Most High, my son!" he said gently, yet reproachfully. "Distraught as thou dost seem with some strange misery, and sick with fears, forbear thine ignorant fury against Him who hath for love's dear sake alone created thee. Control thy soul in patience!--surely thou art afflicted by thine own vain and false imaginings, which for a time contort and darken the clear light of truth. Why dost thou thus disquiet thyself concerning the end of life, seeing that verily it hath NO end? ... and that what we men call death is not a conclusion but merely a new beginning? Waste not thy pity on these skeleton forms,--the empty dwellings of martial spirits long since fled, . . as well weep over fallen husks of corn from which the blossoms have sprung right joyously upward! This world is but our roadside hostelry, wherein we heaven-bound sojourners tarry for one brief, restless night,--why regret the loss of the poor refreshment offered thee here, when there are a thousand better feasts awaiting thee elsewhere on thy way? Come,--let me lead thee hence, . . this place is known as the Passage of the Tombs,--and communicates with the Inner Court of the Sacred Temple,--and if, as I fear, thou art a stray fugitive from the accursed Lysia's band of lovers, thou mayest be tracked hither and quickly slain. Come,--I will show thee a secret labyrinth by which thou canst gain the embankment of the river, and from thence betake thyself speedily home, . . if thou hast a home..." here he paused, and a keen, questioning glance flashed in his dark eyes. "But,--notwithstanding thy fluency of speech and fashion of attire, methinks thou hast the lost and solitary air of one who is a stranger in the city of Al-Kyris?"
Theos sighed.
"A stranger I am indeed!" he said drearily--"A stranger to my very self and all my former belongings! Ask me no questions, good father, for, as I live, I cannot answer them! I am oppressed by a nameless and mysterious suffering, . . my brain is darkened,--my thoughts but half-formed and never wholly uttered, and I,--I who once deemed human intelligence and reason all-supreme, all-clear, all-absolute, am now compelled to use that reason reasonlessly, and to work with that intelligence in helpless ignorance as to what end my mental toil shall serve! Woeful and strange it is!-- yet true; . . I am as a broken straw in a whirlwind,--or the pale ghost of my own identity groping for things forgotten in a land of shadows; . . I know not whence I came, nor whither I go! Nay, do not fear me,--I am not mad: I am conscious of my life, my strength, and physical well-being,--and though I may speak wildly, I harbor no ill-intent toward any man--my quarrel is with God alone!"