"How now, my son!"--said a grave, musical voice that had in it a certain touch of compassion, . . "What ails thee? ... and why art thou here? Art thou condemned to die! ... or dost thou seek an escape from death?"
Making an effort to overcome the sick giddiness that confused his brain, he looked up,--a bright lamp flared in his eyes, contrasting so dazzlingly with the surrounding gloom that for a moment he was half-blinded by its brilliancy, but presently steadying his gaze he was able to discern the dark outline of a tall, black-garmented figure standing beside him,--the figure of an old man, whose severe and dignified aspect at first reminded him somewhat of the prophet Khosrul. Only that Khosrul's rugged features had borne the impress of patient, long-endured, bitter suffering, and the personage who now confronted him had a face so calm and seriously impassive that it might have been taken for that of one newly dead, from whose lineaments all traces of earthly passion had forever been smoothed away.
"Art thou condemned to die, or dost thou seek an escape from death?" The question had, or seemed to have, a curious significance,--it reiterated itself almost noisily in his ears,-- his mind was troubled by vague surmises and dreary forebodings,-- speech was difficult to him, and his lips quivered pathetically, when he at last found force to frame his struggling thoughts into language.
"Escape from death!" he murmured, gazing wildly around as he spoke, on the vast skeleton crowd that encircled him.. "Old man, dost thou also talk of dream-like impossibilities? Wilt thou also maintain a creed of hope when naught awaits us but despair? Art thou fooled likewise with the glimmering Soul-mirage of a never- to-be-realized future? ... Escape from death? ... How?--and where! Art not these dry and vacant forms sufficiently eloquent of the all-omnipotence of Decay?" ... and he caught his unknown companion almost fiercely by the long robe, while a sound that was half a sob and half a sigh came from his aching throat.. "Lo you, how emptily they stare upon us! ... how frozen-piteous is their smile! ... Poor, poor frail shapes! ... nay!--who would think these hollow shells of bone had once been men! Men with strong hearts, warm-flowing blood, and throbbing pulses, . . men of thought and action, who maybe did most nobly bear themselves in life upon the earth, and yet are now forgotten, . . men--ah, great Heaven! can it be that these most rueful, loathly things have loved, and hoped, and labored through all their days for such an end as this! Escape from death! ... alas, there is no escape, . . 'tis evident we all must die, . . die, and with dust-quenched eyes unlearn our knowledge of the sun, the stars, the marvels of the universe,--for us no more shall the flowers bloom or the sweet birds sing; the poem of the world will write itself anew in every roseate flushing of the dawn,--but we,--we who have joyed therein,--we who have sung the praises of the light, the harmonies of wind and sea, the tunefulness of woods and fields,--we whose ambitious thoughts have soared archangel-like through unseen empyreans of space, there to drink in a honeyed hope of Heaven,--we shall be but DEAD! ... mute, cold, and stirless as deep, undug stones, . . dead! ... Ah God, thou Utmost Cruelty!"--and in a sudden access of grief and passion he raised one hand and shook it aloft with a menacing gesture--"Would I might look upon Thee face to face, and rebuke Thee for Thy merciless injustice!"