These sounds were meant for me alone, then? I waited, and the music gradually died away; and as I resumed my kneeling position by the bier all was again silence, save for the unabated raging of the storm.
A strange calmness now fell on my spirits. Some invisible hand seemed to hold me still and tearless. Zara was dead. I realized it now. I began to consider that she must have known her fate beforehand. This was what she had meant when she said she was going on a journey. The more I thought of this the quieter I became, and I hid my face in my hands and prayed earnestly.
A touch roused me--an imperative, burning touch. An airy brightness, like a light cloud with sunshine falling through it, hovered above Zara's bier! I gazed breathlessly; I could not move my lips to utter a sound. A face looked at me--a face angelically beautiful! It smiled. I stretched out my hands; I struggled for speech, and managed to whisper: "Zara, Zara! you have come back!"
Her voice, so sweetly familiar, answered me: "To life? Ah, never, never again! I am too happy to return. But save him--save my brother! Go to him; he is in danger; to you is given the rescue. Save him; and for me rejoice, and grieve no more!"
The face vanished, the brightness faded, and I sprang up from my knees in haste. For one instant I looked at the beautiful dead body of the friend I loved, with its set mouth and placid features, and then I smiled. This was not Zara--SHE was alive and happy; this fair clay was but clay doomed to perish, but SHE was imperishable.
"Save him--save my brother!" These words rang in my ears. I hesitated no longer--I determined to seek Heliobas at once. Swiftly and noiselessly I slipped out of the chapel. As the door swung behind me I heard a sound that first made me stop in sudden alarm, and then hurry on with increased eagerness. There was no mistaking it--it was the clash of steel!