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Arachne

<h2> CHAPTER XVI. </h2> A short row took Hermon and Eumedes the admiral's galley. Ledscha had already been carried ashore. There she was to be confronted with the men who were suspected of having showed the mutineers the way to the city. Absorbed in his own thoughts, Hermon waited for the admiral, who at first was claimed by one official duty after another. The artist's thoughts lingered with Daphne. To her father the loss of his house, nay, perhaps of his wealth, would seem almost unendurable, yet even were he beggared, provision was made for him and his daughter. He, Hermon, could again create, as in former days, and what happiness it would be if he were permitted to repay the man to whom he owed so much for the kindness bestowed upon him! He longed to give to the woman he loved again and again, and it would have seemed to him a favour of fortune if the flames had consumed even the last drachm of her wealthy father. Completely engrossed by these reflections, he forgot the horrors before him, but when he raised his eyes and saw the archers continuing their terrible work he shuddered. The admiral's galley lay so near the shore that he distinguished the figures of the Gauls separately. Some, obeying the instinct of self preservation, fled from the places which could be reached by the arrows of the archers on the ships, but others pressed toward the shafts. A frightful, heart-rending spectacle, yet how rich in food for the long-darkened eyes of the artist! Two brothers of unusual height, who, nude like all their comrades in death, offered their broad, beautifully arched chests to the arrows, would not leave his memory. It was a terrible sight, yet grand and worthy of being wrested from oblivion by art, and it impressed itself firmly on his mind. After noon Eumedes could at last devote himself to his young friend. Although the wind drove showers of fine rain before it, the admiral remained on deck with the sculptor. What cared they for the inclement weather, while one was recalling to mind and telling his friend how the hate of an offended woman had unchained the gloomy spirits of revenge upon him, the other, who had defied death on land water, listened to his story, sometimes in surprise, sometimes with silent horror? After the examination to which she had been subjected, Eumedes had believed Ledscha to be as Hermon described her. He found nothing petty in this beautiful, passionate creature who avenged the injustice inflicted upon her as Fate took vengeance, who, with unsparing energy, anticipated the Nemesis to whom she appealed, compelled men's obedience, and instead of enriching herself cast away the talents extorted to bring down fresh ruin upon the man who had transformed her love to hate. While the friends consulted together with lowered voices, their conjecture became conviction that it was the Biamite's inextinguishable hate which had led her to the Gauls and induced her to share the attack upon the capital. The assault upon the houses of Archias and Myrtilus was a proof of this, for the latter was still believed to be Hermon's property. She had probably supposed that the merchant's palace sheltered Daphne, in whom, even at Tennis, she had seen and hated her successful rival. Only the undeniable fact that Ledscha was the bridge-builder's companion presented an enigma difficult to solve. The freedman Bias had remained on Philippus's galley, and could not now be appealed to for a confirmation of his assertions, but Hermon distinctly remembered his statement that Ledscha had allowed the Gaul, after he had received the money intended for him, to take her from Pitane to Africa. When the short November day was drawing to a close, and the friends had strengthened themselves with food and drink, the rain ceased and, as the sun set, its after-glow broke through the rifts and fissures in the black wall of clouds in the western horizon like blazing flames in the conflagration of a solid stone building. Yet the glow vanished swiftly enough. The darkness of night spread over the sea and the arid strip of land in the south, but the greedy croaking of the ravens and vultures echoed more and more loudly from the upper air. From time to time the outbursts of rage and agony of despairing men, and horrible jeering laughter, drowned the voices of the flocks of birds and the roaring of the tempestuous sea. Sometimes, too, a sharp word of command, or a signal heard for a long distance, pierced through the awful sounds. Here and there, and at last everywhere on the squadron, which surrounded the tongue of land in a shallow curve, dim lights began to appear on the masts and prows of the ships; but darkness brooded over the coast. Only in the three fortified guardhouses, which had been hastily erected here, the feeble light of a lantern illumined the gloom. Twinkling lights also appeared in the night heavens between the swiftly flying clouds. One star after another began to adorn the blue islands in the cloudy firmament, and at last the full moon burst through the heavy banks of dark clouds, and shone in pure brilliancy above their heads, like a huge silver vessel in the black catafalque of a giant. At the end of the first hour after sunset Eumedes ordered the boat to be manned. Armed as if for battle, he prepared for the row to the scene of misery, and requested Hermon to buckle a coat of mail under his chlamys and put on the sword he gave him. True, a division of reliable Macedonian warriors was to accompany them, and Ledscha was in a well-guarded place, yet it might perhaps be necessary to defend themselves against an outburst of despair among the condemned prisoners. On the short trip, the crests of the tossing waves sometimes shone with a flickering light, while elsewhere long shadows spread like dark sails over the sea. The flat coast on which both men soon stepped was brightly illumined by the moonbeams, and the forms of the doomed men stood forth, like the black figures on the red background of a vase, upon the yellowish-brown sand on which they were standing, running, walking, or lying. At the western end of the tongue of land a sand hill had been surrounded by a wall and moat, guarded by heavily armed soldiers and several archers. The level ground below had been made secure against any attack, and on the right side was a roof supported by pillars. The officials intrusted with the examination of the ringleaders had remained during the day in this hastily erected open hut. The latter, bound to posts, awaited their sentence. The only woman among them was Ledscha, who crouched, unfettered, on the ground behind the enclosure, which consisted of short stakes fastened by a rope. Without presenting any serious obstacle, it merely indicated how far the prisoners might venture to go. Whoever crossed it must expect to be struck down by an arrow from the wall. This earthwork, it is true, menaced those held captive here, but they also owed it a debt of gratitude, for it shut from their eyes the horrible incidents on the sandy plain between the sea and the inland lake. This spot was now made as light as day by the rays of the full moon which floated in the pure azure sky far above the black cloud mountains, like a white lotus flower on clear waters, and poured floods of silvery radiance upon the earth. Eumedes commanded the Macedonians who formed his escort to remain at the fortress on the dune, and, pointing out Ledscha by a wave of the hand, he whispered to Hermon: "By the girdle of Aphrodite! she is terribly beautiful! For whom is the Medea probably brewing in imagination the poisoned draught?" Then he gave the sculptor permission to promise her immunity from punishment if she would consent at least to explain the Gauls' connection with the royal palaces; but Hermon strenuously refused to undertake this or a similar commission to Ledscha. Eumedes had expected the denial, and merely expressed to his friend his desire to speak to the Biamite after his interview was over. However refractory she might be, his mother's intercession should benefit her. Hermon might assure her that he, the commander, meant to deal leniently. He pressed the artist's hand as he spoke, and walked rapidly away to ascertain the condition of affairs in the other guardhouses. Never had the brave artist's heart throbbed faster in any danger than on the eve of this meeting; but it was no longer love that thrilled it so passionately, far less hate or the desire to let his foe feel that her revenge was baffled. It was easy for the victor to exercise magnanimity, and easiest of all for the sculptor in the presence of so beautiful an enemy, and Hermon thought he had never seen the Biamite look fairer. How exquisitely rounded was the oval, how delicately cut the profile of her face, how large were the widely separated, sparkling eyes, above which, even in the pale moonlight, the thick black brows were visible, united under the forehead as if for a dark deed to be performed in common! Time had rather enhanced than lessened the spell of this wonderful young creature. Now she rose from the ground where she had been crouching and paced several times up and down the short path at her disposal; but she started suddenly, for one of the Gauls bound to the posts, in whom Hermon recognised the bridge-builder, Lutarius, called her name, and when she turned her face toward him, panted in broken Greek like one overwhelmed by despair: "Once more—it shall be the last time—I beseech you! Lay your hand upon my brow, and if that is too much, speak but one kind word to me before all is over! I only want to hear that you do not hate me like a foe and despise me like a dog. What can it cost you? You need only tell me in two words that you are sorry for your harshness." "The same fate awaits us both," cried Ledscha curtly and firmly. "Let each take care of himself. When my turn comes and my eyes grow dim in death, I will thank them that they will not show you to me again, base wretch, throughout eternity." Lutarius shrieked aloud in savage fury, and tore so frantically at the strong ropes which bound him that the firm posts shook, but Ledscha turned away and approached the hut. She leaned thoughtfully against one of the pillars that supported the roof, and the artist's eyes watched her intently; every movement seemed to him noble and worth remembering. With her hand shading her brow, she gazed upward to the full moon. Hermon had already delayed speaking to her too long, but he would have deemed it criminal to startle her from this attitude. So must Arachne have stood when the goddess, in unjust anger, raised the weaver's shuttle against the more skilful mortal; for while Ledscha's brow frowned angrily, a triumphant smile hovered around her mouth. At the same time she slightly opened her exquisitely formed lips, and the little white teeth which Hermon had once thought so bewitchingly beautiful glittered between them. Like the astronomer who fixes his gaze and tries to imprint upon his memory some rare star in the firmament which a cloud is threatening to obscure, he now strove to obtain Ledscha's image. He would and could model her in this attitude, exactly as she stood there, without her veil, which had been torn from her during the hand-to-hand conflict when she was captured, with her thick, half-loosened tresses falling over her left shoulder; nav, even with the slightly hooked nose, which was opposed to the old rule of art that permitted only the straight bridge of the nose to be given to beautiful women. Her nature harmonized with the ideal even in the smallest detail; here any deviation from reality must tend to injure the work. She remained motionless for minutes in the same attitude, as if she knew that she was posing to an artist; but Hermon gazed at her as if spell bound till the fettered Gaul again called her name. Then she left the supporting pillar, approached the barrier, stopped at the rope which extended from one short stake to another, and gazed at the man who was following her outside of the rope. It was a Greek who stood directly opposite to her. A black beard adorned his grave, handsome countenance. He, too, had a chlamys, such as she had formerly seen on another. Only the short sword, which he wore suspended at his right side in the Hellenic fashion, would not suit that other; but suddenly a rush of hot blood crimsoned her face. As if to save herself from falling, she flung out both arms and clutched a stake with her right and her left hand, thrusting her head and the upper portion of her body across the rope toward the man whose appearance had created so wild a tumult in her whole being. At last she called Hermon's name in such keen suspense that it fell upon his ear like a shrill cry. "Ledscha," he answered warmly, extending both hands to her in sincere sympathy; but she did not heed the movement, and her tone of calm self-satisfaction surprised him as she answered: "So you seek me in misfortune? Even the blind man knows how to find me here." "I would far rather have met you again in the greatest happiness!" he interrupted gently. "But I am no longer blind. The immortals again permit me, as in former days, to feast my eyes upon your marvellous beauty." A shrill laugh cut short his words, and the "Not blind!" which fell again and again from her lips sounded more like laughter than speech. There are tears of grief and of joy, and the laugh which is an accompaniment of pleasure is also heard on the narrow boundary between suffering and despair. It pierced the artist's heart more deeply than the most savage outburst of fury, and when Ledscha gasped: "Not blind! Cured! Rich and possessed of sight, perfect sight!" he understood her fully for the first time, and could account for the smile of satisfaction which had just surprised him on her lips. He gazed at her, absolutely unable to utter a word; but she went on speaking, while a low, sinister laugh mingled with her tones: "So this is avenging justice! It allows us women to be trampled under foot, and holds its hands in its lap! My vengeance! How I have lauded Nemesis! How exquisitely my retaliation seemed to have succeeded! And now? It was mere delusion and deception. He who was blind sees. He who was to perish in misery is permitted, with a sword at his side, to gloat over our destruction. Listen, if the good news has not already reached you! I, too, am condemned to death. But what do I care for myself? Even less than those to whom we pray and offer sacrifices for the betrayed woman. Now I am learning to know them! Thus Nemesis thanks me for the lavish gifts I have bestowed upon her? Just before my end she throws you, the rewarded traitor, into my way! I must submit to have the hated foe, whose blinding was the sole pleasure in my ruined life, look me in the face with insolent joy." Hermon's quick blood boiled. With fierce resentment he grasped her hand, which lay on the rope, pressed it violently in his strong clasp, and exclaimed, "Stop, mad woman, that I may not be forced to think of you as a poisonous serpent and repulsive spider!" Ledscha had vainly endeavoured to withdraw her hand while he was speaking. Now he himself released it; but she looked up at him in bewilderment, as if seeking aid, and said sadly: "Once—you know that yourself—I was different—even as long as I supposed my vengeance had succeeded. But now? The false goddess has baffled every means with which I sought to punish you. Who averted the sorest ill treatment from my head? And I was even defrauded of the revenge which it was my right, nay, my duty, to exercise." She finished the sentence with drooping head, as if utterly crushed, and this time she did not laugh, but Hermon felt his wrath transformed to sympathy, and he asked warmly and kindly if she would let nothing appease her, not even if he begged her forgiveness for the wrong he had done her, and promised to obtain her life, nay, also her liberty. Ledscha shook her head gently, and gravely answered: "What is left me without hate? What are the things which others deem best and highest to a miserable wretch like me?" Here Hermon pointed to the bridge-builder, bound to the post, saying, "Yonder man led you away from the husband whom you had wedded, and from him you received compensation for the love you had lost." "From him?" she cried furiously, and, raising her voice in a tone of the most intense loathing: "Ask yonder scoundrel himself! Because I needed a guide, I permitted him to take me away from my unloved husband and from the Hydra. Because he would help me to shatter the new and undeserved good fortune which you—yes, you—do you hear?—enjoyed, I remained with him among the Gauls. More than one Alexandrian brought me the news that you were revelling in golden wealth, and the wretch promised to make you and your uncle beggars if the surprise succeeded. He did this, though he knew that it was you who took him up from the road and saved his life; for nothing good and noble dwells in his knavish soul. He yearned for me, and still more ardently for the Alexandrians' gold. Worse than the wolf that licked the hand of the man who bandaged its wounds, he would have shown his teeth to the preserver of his life. I have learned this, and if he dies here of starvation and thirst he will receive only what he deserves. He knows, too, what I think of him. The greedy beast of prey was not permitted even to touch my hand. Just ask him! There he is. Let him tell you how I listened to his vows of love. Before I would have permitted yonder wretch to recall to life what you crushed in this heart—" Here Lutarius interrupted her with a flood of savage, scarcely intelligible curses, but very soon one of the guards, who came out of the hut, stopped him with a lash. When the Gaul, howling under the blows, was silenced, Hermon asked, "So your mad thirst for vengeance also caused this suicidal attack?" "No," she answered simply; "but when they determined upon the assault, and had killed their leader, Belgius, yonder monster stole to their head. So it happened—I myself do not know how—that they also obeyed me, and I took advantage of it and induced them to begin with your house and Archias's. When they had captured the royal palaces, they intended to assail the Temple of Demeter also." "Then you thought that even the terrible affliction of blindness would not suffice to punish the man you hated?" asked Hermon. "No," she answered firmly; "for you could buy with your gold everything life offers except sight, while in me—yes, in me—gloom darker than the blackest night shrouded my soul. Through your fault I was robbed of all, all that is clear to woman's heart: my father's house, his love, my sister. Even the pleasure in myself which had been awakened by your sweet flatteries was transformed by you into loathing." "By me?" cried Hermon, amazed by the injustice of this severe reproach; but Ledscha answered his question with the resolute assertion, "By you and you alone!" and then impatiently added: "You, who, by your art, could transform mortal women into goddesses, wished to make me a humiliated creature, with the rope which was to strangle her about her neck, and at the same time the most repulsive of creeping insects. 'The hideous, gray, eight-legged spider!' I exclaimed to myself, when I raised my arms and saw my shadow on the sunlit ground. 'The spider!' I thought, when I shook the distaff to draw threads from the flax in leisure hours. 'Your image!' I said, when I saw spiders hanging in dusty corners, and catching flies and gnats. All these things made me a horror to myself. And at the same time to know that the Demeter, on whom you bestowed the features of the daughter of Archias, was kindling the whole great city of Alexandria with enthusiasm, and drawing countless worshippers to her sanctuary! She, an object of adoration to thousands, I—the much-praised beauty—a horror to myself! This is what fed my desire for vengeance with fresh food by day and night; this urged me to remain with yonder wretch; for he had promised, after pillaging the royal palaces, to shatter your Demeter, the image of the daughter of Archias, which they lauded and which brought you fame and honour—it was to be done before my eyes—into fragments." "Mad woman!" Hermon again broke forth indignantly, and hastily told her how she had been misinformed. Ledscha's large black eyes dilated as if some hideous spectre was rising from the ground before her, while she heard that the Demeter was the work of Myrtilus and not his; that his friend's legacy had long since ceased to belong to him, and that he was again as poor as when he was in Tennis during the time of their love. "And the blindness?" she asked sadly. "It transformed life for me into one long night, illumined by no single ray of light," was the reply; "but, the immortals be praised, I was cured of it, and it was old Tabus, on the Owl's Nest at Tennis, whose wisdom and magic arts you so often lauded, who gave the remedy and advice to which I owe my recovery." Here he hesitated, for Ledscha had seized the rope with one hand and the stake at her right with the other, in order not to fall upon her knees; but Hermon perceived how terribly his words agitated her, and spoke to her soothingly. Ledscha did not seem to hear him, for while still clinging to the rope she looked sometimes at the sand at her feet, sometimes up to the full moon, which was now flooding both sky and earth with light. At last she dropped it, and said in a hollow tone: "Now I understand everything. You met her when Bias gave her the bridal dowry which was to purchase my release from my husband. How it must have enraged her! I thought of it all, pondered and pondered how to spare her; but through whom, except Tabus, could I return to Hanno the property, won in battle by his blood, which he had thrown away for me? Tabus kept the family wealth. And she—the marriage bond which two persons formed was sacred and unassailable—the woman who broke her faith with her husband and turned from him—was an abomination to her. How she loved her sons and grandsons! I knew that she would never forgive the wrong I did Hanno. From resentment to me she cured the man whom I hated." "Yet probably also," said Hermon, "because my blighted youth aroused her pity." "Perhaps so," replied Ledscha hesitatingly, gazing thoughtfully into vacancy. "She was what her demons made her. Hard as steel and gentle as a tender girl. I have experienced it. Oh, that she should die with rancour against me in her faithful old heart! She could be so kind!—even when I confessed that you had won my love, she still held me dear. But there are many great and small demons, and most of them were probably subject to her. Tabus must have learned through them how deeply I offended her son Satabus, and how greatly his son Hanno's life was darkened through me. That is why she thwarted my vengeance, and her spirits aided her. Thus all these things happened. I suspected it when I heard that she had succumbed to death, which I—yes, I here—had held back from her with severe toil through many a sleepless night. O these demons! They will continue to act in the service of the dead. Wherever I may go, they will pursue me and, at their mistress's bidding, baffle what I hope and desire. I have learned this only too distinctly!" "No, Ledscha, no," Hermon protested. "Every power ceases with death, even that of the sorceress over spirits. You shall be freed, poor woman! You will be permitted to go wherever you desire; and I shall model no spider after your person, but the fairest of women. Thousands will see and admire her, and—if the Muse aids me—whoever, enraptured by her beauty, asks, 'Who was the model for this work which inflames the most obdurate heart?' will be told, 'It was Ledscha, the daughter of Shalit, the Biamite, whom Hermon of Alexandria found worthy of carving in costly marble." Ledscha uttered a deep sigh of relief, and asked: "Is that true? May I believe it?" "As true," he answered warmly, "as that Selene, who promised to grant you in her full radiance the greatest happiness, is now shedding her mild, forgiving light upon us both." "The full moon," she murmured softly, gazing upward at the shining disk. Then she added in a louder tone: "Old Tabus's demons promised me happiness—you know. It was the spider which so cruelly shadowed it for me on every full moon, every day, and every night. Will you now swear to model a statue from me, the statue of a beautiful human being that will arouse the delight of all who see it? Delight—do you hear?—not loathing—I ask again, will you?" "I will, and I shall succeed," he said earnestly, holding out his hand across the rope. She clasped it, looked up to the full moon again, and whispered: "This time—I will believe it—you will keep your promise better than when you were in Tennis. And I—I will cease to wish you evil, and I will tell you why. Bend your ear nearer, that I may confess it openly." Hermon willingly obeyed the request, but she leaned her head against his, and he felt her laboured breathing and the warm tears that coursed silently down her cheeks as she said, in a low whisper: "Because the moon is full, and will yet bring me what the demons promised, and because, though strong, I am still a woman. Happiness! How long ago I ceased to expect it!—but now-yes, it is what I now feel! I am happy, and yet can not tell why. My love—oh, yes! It was more ardent than the burning hate. Now you know it, too, Hermon. And I—I shall be free, you say? And Tabus, how she lauded rest—eternal rest! Oh dearest—this sorely tortured heart, too—you can not even imagine how weary I am!" Here she was silent, but the man into whose face she was gazing with loving devotion felt a sudden movement at his side as she uttered the exclamation. He did not notice it, for the sweet tone of her voice was penetrating the inmost depths of his heart. It sounded as though she was speaking from the happiest of dreams. "Ledscha!" he exclaimed warmly, extending his arm toward her—but she had already stepped back from his side, and he now perceived the terrible object—she had snatched his sword from its sheath, and as, seized by sudden terror, he gazed at her, he saw the shining blade glitter in the moonlight and suddenly vanish. In an instant he swung his agile body over the rope and rushed to her. But she had already sunk to her knees, and while he clasped her in is arms to support her, he heard her call his own name tenderly, then murmur it in a lower tone, and the words "Full moon" and "Happiness" escape her lips. Then she was silent, and her beautiful head dropped on her breast like a flower broken by a tempest. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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