zaroba had indeed forgotten her sorrows; but not in slumber, as féraz hoped and imagined. little did he think that she was no longer under the roof that had sheltered her for so many years; little could he guess that she was out wandering all alone in the labyrinth of the london streets,—a labyrinth of which she was almost totally ignorant, having hardly ever been out of doors since el-râmi had brought her from the east. true, she had occasionally walked in the little square opposite the house, and in a few of the streets adjoining,—once or twice in sloane street itself, but no farther, for the sight of the hurrying, pushing, busy throngs of men and women confused her. she had not realised what she was doing when she let herself out that night,—only when the street-door shut noiselessly upon her she was vaguely startled,—and a sudden sense of great loneliness oppressed her. yet the fresh air blowing against her face was sweet and balmy,—it helped to relieve the sickness at her heart, the dizziness in her brain,—and she began to stroll along, neither knowing nor caring whither she was going,—chiefly impelled by the strong necessity she felt for movement,—space,—liberty. it had seemed to her that she was being suffocated and buried alive in the darkness and desolation that had fallen on the chamber of lilith;—here, out in the open, she was free,—she could breathe more easily. and so she went on, almost unseeingly—the people she met looked to her like the merest shadows. her quaint garb attracted occasional attention from some of the passers-by,—but her dark fierce face and glittering eyes repelled all those who might have been inquisitive enough to stop and question her. she drifted errantly, yet safely, through the jostling crowds like a withered leaf on the edge of a storm,—her mind was dazed with grief and fear and long fasting, but now and then as she went, she smiled and seemed happy. affliction had sunk so deep within her, that it had reached the very core and centre of imagination and touched it to vague issues of discordant joy;—wherefore, persuaded by the magic music of delusion, she believed herself to be at home again in her native egypt. she fancied she was walking in the desert;—the pavement seemed hot to her feet and she took it for the burning sand,—and when after long and apparently interminable wanderings, she found herself opposite nelson’s column in trafalgar square, she stared at the four great lions with stupefied dismay.
“it is the gate of a city,”—she muttered—“and at this hour the watchmen are asleep. i will go on—on still farther,—there must be water close by, else there would be no city built.”
she had recovered a certain amount of physical strength in the restorative influence of the fresh air, and walked with a less feeble tread,—she became dimly conscious too of there being a number of people about, and she drew her amber-coloured draperies more closely over her head. it was a beautiful night;—the moon was full and brilliant, and hundreds of pleasure-seekers were moving hither and thither,—there was the usual rattle and roar of the vehicular traffic of the town which, it must be remembered, zaroba did not hear. neither did she clearly see anything that was taking place around her,—for her sight was blurred, and the dull confusion in her brain continued. she walked as in a dream,—she felt herself to be in a dream;—the images of el-râmi, of the lost lilith, of the beautiful young féraz, had faded away from her recollection,—and she was living in the early memories of days long past,—days of youth and hope and love and promise. no one molested her; people in london are so accustomed to the sight of foreigners and foreign costumes, that so long as they are seen walking on their apparent way peaceably, they may do so in any garb that pleases them, provided it be decent, without attracting much attention save from a few small and irreverent street-arabs. and even the personal and pointed observations of these misguided youngsters fail to disturb the dignity of a parsee in his fez, or to ruffle the celestial composure of a chinaman in his slippers. zaroba, moreover, did not present such a markedly distinctive appearance,—in her yellow wrapper and silver bangles, she only looked like one of the ayahs brought over from the east with the children of anglo-indian mothers,—and she passed on uninterruptedly, happily deaf to the noises around her, and almost blind to the ever-shifting human pageantry of the busy thoroughfares.
“the gates of the city,” she went on murmuring—“they are shut, and the watchmen are asleep. there must be water near,—a river or a place of fountains, where the caravans pause to rest.”
now and then the glare of the lights in the streets troubled her,—and then she would come to a halt and pass her hands across her eyes,—but this hesitation only lasted a minute,—and again she continued on her aimless way. the road widened out before her,—the buildings grew taller, statelier, and more imposing,—and suddenly she caught sight of what she had longed for,—the glimmering of water silvering itself in the light of the moon.
she had reached the embankment;—and a sigh of satisfaction escaped her, as she felt the damp chillness of the wind from the river blowing against her burning forehead. the fresh coolness and silence soothed her,—there were few people about,—and she slackened her pace unconsciously, and smiled as she lifted her dark face to the clear and quiet sky. she was faint and weary,—light-headed from want of food,—but she was not conscious of this any more than a fever-patient is conscious of his own delirium. she walked quite steadily now,—in no haste, but with the grave, majestic step that belongs peculiarly to women of her type and race,—her features were perfectly composed, and her eyes very bright. and now she looked always at the river, and saw nothing else for a time but its rippling surface lit up by the moon.
“they have cut down the reeds”—she said, softly under her breath,—“and the tall palms are gone,—but the river is always the same,—they cannot change that. nothing can dethrone the nile-god, or disturb his sleep among the lilies, down towards the path of the sunset. here i shall meet my belovëd again,—here by the banks of the nile;—yet, it is strange and cruel that they should have cut down the reeds. i remember how softly they rustled with the movements of the little snakes that lived in the golden sand,—yes!—and the palm-trees were high—so high that their feathery crowns seemed to touch the stars. it was egypt then,—and is it not egypt now? yes—surely—surely it is egypt!—but it is changed—changed,—all is changed except love! love is the same for ever, and the heart beats true to the one sweet tune. yes, we shall meet,—my belovëd and i,—and we shall tell one another how long the time has seemed since we parted yesterday. only yesterday!—and it seems a century,—a long long century of pain and fear, but the hours have passed, and the waiting is over——”
she broke off abruptly, and stood suddenly still;—the obelisk faced her. cut sharp and dark against the brilliant sky the huge “cleopatra’s needle” towered solemnly aloft, its apex seeming to point directly at a cluster of stars above it. something there was in its weird and frowning aspect, that appealed strangely to zaroba’s wandering intelligence,—she gazed at it with eager, dilated eyes.
“to the memory of heroes!” she said whisperingly, with a slight proud gesture of her hand,—“to the glory of the dead! salutation to the great gods and crowned kings! salutation and witness to the world of what hath been! the river shall find a tongue—the shifting sands shall uphold the record, so that none shall forget the things that were! for the things that are, being weak, shall perish,—but the things that were, being strong, shall endure for ever! here, as god liveth, is the meeting-place; the palms are gone, but the nile flows on, and the moon is the sunlight of lovers. here will i wait for my belovëd,—he knows the appointed hour, ... he will not be long!”
she sat down, as close to the obelisk as she could get, her face turned towards the river and the moonlight; and the clocks of the great city around her slowly tolled eleven. her head dropped forward on her chest,—though after a few minutes she lifted her face with an anxious look—and,—“did the child call me?” she said, and listened. then she relapsed into her former sunken posture, ... once a strong shuddering shook her limbs as of intense cold in the warm june night, ... and then she was quite still ...
the hours passed on,—midnight came and went,—but she never stirred. she seemed to belong to the obelisk and its attendant sphinxes,—so rigid was her figure, so weird in its outline, so solemn in its absolute immobility. ... and in that same attitude she was found later on towards morning, stone dead. there was no clue to her identity,—nothing about her that gave any hint as to her possible home or friends; her statuesque old face, grander than ever in the serene pallor of death, somewhat awed the two burly policemen who lifted her stark body and turned her features to the uncertain light of early dawn, but it told them no history save that of age and sorrow. so, in the sad chronicles entitled “found dead,” she was described as “a woman unknown, of foreign appearance and costume, seemingly of eastern origin,”—and, after a day or two, being unrecognised and unclaimed, she was buried in the usual way common to all who perish without name and kindred in the dreary wilderness of a great city. féraz, missing her on the morning after her disappearance, searched for her everywhere as well as he knew how,—but, as he seldom read the newspapers, and probably would not have recognised the brief account of her there if he had,—and as, moreover, he knew nothing about certain dreary buildings in london called mortuaries, where the bodies of the drowned, and murdered, and unidentified, lie for a little while awaiting recognition, he remained in complete and bewildered ignorance of her fate. he could not imagine what had become of her, and he almost began to believe that she must have taken ship back to her native land,—and that perhaps he might hear of her again some day. and truly, she had gone back to her native land,—in fancy;—and truly, it was also possible she might be met with again some day,—in another world than this. but in the meantime she had died,—as best befitted a servant of the old gods,—alone, and in uncomplaining silence.
