The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

THE ELECTRIC SILENCE borne upon the breeze, and the air was lit with faint electric flames that gathered themselves into a hill of light. 50 I, being lifted up, and my heart overflowing, came into the funeral chamber that was exceeding bright, and there was the table for the feast, and beneath it the coffin wherein lay the body of the master. There too I saw barren wood bear roses, and I heard the voice of the master. After that I was shewn all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and many other things of great use and beauty. Then I took my leave of the old man of the tower, and boarded the shallop that I had made, when he cried out piteously that he feared earthquake, and asked me for my aid. So with a heart both heavy and light I abandoned my shallop and the dreadful labour of its fashioning, and came back to him. Then came earthquake as he had foreseen; and he and the boats also were swallowed up. In the tidal wave of the earthquake I was borne far away, even from the fair man my brother; and in the darkness he was lost to me. I knew not even whether he had perished. But fashioning a raft from the loose planks of the wreckage, I made shift to paddle. The ark was invisible, and I had no more memory thereof, so turned away was I and absorbed in the bright signs upon the way. And now my raft was like to sink, and my arms were exceeding weary, when a voice sounded but a little above me: “ Enter the ark! “ And I looked up and beheld a bearded man, mighty, with the signs of labour and long journeying writ upon him. I knew him; and for this reason was I much amazed, for I had believed him far from that place. But taking my hand 59