He paused and drew a long, shuddering breath, like one who has narrowly escaped imminent destruction.
"Darkness!" he went on in low accents that thrilled with the memory of a past feat--"dense, horrible, frightful darkness!-- darkness that palpitated heavily with the labored motion of unseen things!--darkness that clung and closed about me in masses of clammy, tangible thickness,--its advancing and resistless weight rolled over me like a huge waveless ocean--and, absorbed within it, I was drawn down--down--down toward some hidden, impalpable but All Supreme Agony, the dull unceasing throbs of which I felt, yet could not name. 'O GOD!' I cried aloud, abandoning myself to wild despair, 'O GOD! WHERE ARE THOU?' Then I heard a great rushing sound as of a strong wind beaten through with wings, and a Voice, grand and sweet as a golden trumpet blown suddenly in the silence of night, answered: 'HERE! ... AND EVERYWHERE!' With that, a slanting stream of opaline radiance cleft the gloom with the sweep of a sword-blade, and I was caught up quickly ... I know not how ... for I saw nothing!"
Again he pushed and looked wistfully at Heliobas, who in turn regarded him with gentle steadfastness.
"It was wonderful--terrible!" ... he continued slowly--"yet beautiful! ... that Invisible Strength that rescued, surrounded, and uplifted me; and--" here he hesitated, and a faint flush colored his cheeks and stole up to the roots of his clustering hair-- "dream or no dream, I feel I cannot now altogether reject the idea of an existing Divinity. In brief ... I believe in God!"
"Why?" asked Heliobas quietly.
Alwyn met his gaze frankly and with a soft brightening of his handsome features.
"I cannot give you any logical reasons," he said. "Moreover, logical reasoning would not now affect me in a matter which seems to me more full of conviction than any logic. I believe, ... simply because I believe!"
Heliobas smiled--a very warm and kindly smile--but said nothing, and Alwyn resumed his narrative.
"As I tell you, I was caught up,--snatched out of that black profundity with inconceivable swiftness,--and when the ascending movement ceased, I found myself floating lightly like a wind-blown leaf through twining arches of amber mist, colored here and there with rays of living flame ... I heard whispers, and fragments of song and speech, all sweeter than the sweetest of our known music, ... and still I saw nothing. Presently some one called me by name --'THEOS! ... THEOS!' I strove to answer, but I had no words wherewith to match that silver-toned, far-reaching utterance; and once again the rich vibrating notes pealed through the vaporous fire-tinted air--'THEOS, MY BELOVED! HIGHER! ... HIGHER! ... All my being thrilled and quivered to that call. I yearned to obey, ... I struggled to rise--my efforts were in vain; when, to my joy and wonder, a small, invisible hand, delicate yet strong, clasped mine, and I was borne aloft with breathless, indescribable, lightning-like rapidity--on ... on ... and ever upward, till at last, alighting on a smooth, fair turf, thick-grown with fragrant blossoms of strange loveliness and soft hues, I beheld Her! ... and she bade me welcome."