It had
not even the relief of waves or ripples--simply a dark, cold, lifeless
expanse, with no gleam of light anywhere, of lighthouse or ship; neither
was there any special sound to be heard that one could
distinguish--nothing but the distant hum of the myriad voices of the dark
mingling in one ceaseless inarticulate sound. It was well I had not time
to dwell on it, or I might have reached some spiritually-disturbing
melancholy. Let me say here that ever since I had received my Lady's message
concerning this visit to St. Sava's I had been all on fire--not, perhaps,
at every moment consciously or actually so, but always, as it were,
prepared to break out into flame. Did I want a simile, I might compare
myself to a well-banked furnace, whose present function it is to contain
heat rather than to create it; whose crust can at any moment be broken by
a force external to itself, and burst into raging, all-compelling heat. No thought of fear really entered my mind. Every other emotion there
was, coming and going as occasion excited or lulled, but not fear. Well
I knew in the depths of my heart the purpose which that secret quest was
to serve. I knew not only from my Lady's words, but from the teachings
of my own senses and experiences, that some dreadful ordeal must take
place before happiness of any kind could be won. And that ordeal, though
method or detail was unknown to me, I was prepared to undertake. This
was one of those occasions when a man must undertake, blindfold, ways
that may lead to torture or death, or unknown terrors beyond. But, then,
a man--if, indeed, he have the heart of a man--can always undertake; he
can at least make the first step, though it may turn out that through the
weakness of mortality he may be unable to fulfil his own intent, or
justify his belief in his own powers. Such, I take it, was the
intellectual attitude of the brave souls who of old faced the tortures of
the Inquisition. But though there was no immediate fear, there was a certain doubt. For
doubt is one of those mental conditions whose calling we cannot control. The end of the doubting may not be a reality to us, or be accepted as a
possibility. These things cannot forego the existence of the doubt. "For even if a man," says Victor Cousin, "doubt everything else, at least
he cannot doubt that he doubts." The doubt had at times been on me that
my Lady of the Shroud was a Vampire. Much that had happened seemed to
point that way, and here, on the very threshold of the Unknown, when,
through the door which I was pushing open, my eyes met only an expanse of
absolute blackness, all doubts which had ever been seemed to surround me
in a legion. I have heard that, when a man is drowning, there comes a
time when his whole life passes in review during the space of time which
cannot be computed as even a part of a second. So it was to me in the
moment of my body passing into the church. In that moment came to my
mind all that had been, which bore on the knowledge of my Lady; and the
general tendency was to prove or convince that she was indeed a Vampire. Much that had happened, or become known to me, seemed to justify the
resolving of doubt into belief. Even my own reading of the books in Aunt
Janet's little library, and the dear lady's comments on them, mingled
with her own uncanny beliefs, left little opening for doubt. My having
to help my Lady over the threshold of my house on her first entry was in
accord with Vampire tradition; so, too, her flying at cock-crow from the
warmth in which she revelled on that strange first night of our meeting;
so, too, her swift departure at midnight on the second. Into the same
category came the facts of her constant wearing of her Shroud, even her
pledging herself, and me also, on the fragment torn from it, which she
had given to me as a souvenir; her lying still in the glass-covered tomb;
her coming alone to the most secret places in a fortified Castle where
every aperture was secured by unopened locks and bolts; her very
movements, though all of grace, as she flitted noiselessly through the
gloom of night. All these things, and a thousand others of lesser import, seemed, for the
moment, to have consolidated an initial belief. But then came the
supreme recollections of how she had lain in my arms; of her kisses on my
lips; of the beating of her heart against my own; of her sweet words of
belief and faith breathed in my ear in intoxicating whispers; of . . . I
paused. No! I could not accept belief as to her being other than a
living woman of soul and sense, of flesh and blood, of all the sweet and
passionate instincts of true and perfect womanhood. And so, in spite of all--in spite of all beliefs, fixed or transitory,
with a mind whirling amid contesting forces and compelling beliefs--I
stepped into the church overwhelmed with that most receptive of
atmospheres--doubt. In one thing only was I fixed: here at least was no doubt or misgiving
whatever. I intended to go through what I had undertaken. Moreover, I
felt that I was strong enough to carry out my intention, whatever might
be of the Unknown--however horrible, however terrible. When I had entered the church and closed the heavy door behind me, the
sense of darkness and loneliness in all their horror enfolded me round. The great church seemed a living mystery, and served as an almost
terrible background to thoughts and remembrances of unutterable gloom. My adventurous life has had its own schooling to endurance and upholding
one's courage in trying times; but it has its contra in fulness of
memory. I felt my way forward with both hands and feet. Every second seemed as
if it had brought me at last to a darkness which was actually tangible. All at once, and with no heed of sequence or order, I was conscious of
all around me, the knowledge or perception of which--or even speculation
on the subject--had never entered my mind. They furnished the darkness
with which I was encompassed with all the crowded phases of a dream. I
knew that all around me were memorials of the dead--that in the Crypt
deep-wrought in the rock below my feet lay the dead themselves. Some of
them, perhaps--one of them I knew--had even passed the grim portals of
time Unknown, and had, by some mysterious power or agency, come back
again to material earth. There was no resting-place for thought when I
knew that the very air which I breathed might be full of denizens of the
spirit-world. In that impenetrable blackness was a world of imagining
whose possibilities of horror were endless. I almost fancied that I could see with mortal eyes down through that
rocky floor to where, in the lonely Crypt, lay, in her tomb of massive
stone and under that bewildering coverlet of glass, the woman whom I
love. I could see her beautiful face, her long black lashes, her sweet
mouth--which I had kissed--relaxed in the sleep of death.