"I am resolved NOW!" said Alwyn slowly and determinately. "If you are so certain of your influence, come! ... unbar my chains! ... open the prison-door! Let me go hence to-night; there is no time like the present!"
"To night!" and Heliobas turned his keen, bright eyes full upon him, with a look of amazement and reproach--"To night' without faith, preparation or prayer, you are willing to be tossed through the realms of space like a grain of dust in a whirling tempest? Beyond the glittering gyration of unnumbered stars--through the sword-like flash of streaming comets--through darkness--through light--through depths of profoundest silence--over heights of vibrating sound--you--YOU will dare to wander in these God- invested regions--you a blasphemer and a doubter of God!"
His voice thrilled with passion,--his aspect was so solemn, and earnest, and imposing that Alwyn, awed and startled, remained for a moment mute--then, lifting his head proudly, answered-"Yes, I DARE! If I am immortal I will test my immortality! I will face God and find these angels you talk about! What shall prevent me?"
"Find the angels!" Heliobas surveyed him sadly as he spoke. "Nay! ... pray rather that they may find THEE!" He looked long and steadfastly at Alwyn's countenance, on which there was just then the faint glimmer of a rather mocking smile,--and as he looked, his own face darkened suddenly into an expression of vague trouble and uneasiness--and a strange quiver passed visibly through him from head to foot.
"You are bold, Mr. Alwyn,"--he said at last, moving a little away from his guest and speaking with some apparent effort--"bold to a fault, but at the same time you are ignorant of all that lies behind the veil of the Unseen. I should be much to blame if I sent you hence to-night, utterly unguided--utterly uninstructed. I myself must think--and pray--before I venture to incur so terrible a responsibility. To-morrow perhaps--to-night, no! I cannot-- moreover I will not!"
Alwyn flushed hotly with anger. "Trickster!" he thought. "He feels he has no power over me, and he fears to run the risk of failure!"
"Did I hear you aright?" he said aloud in cold determined accents. "You cannot? you will not? ... By Heaven!"--and his voice rose, "I say you SHALL!" As he uttered these words a rush of indescribable sensations overcame him,--he seemed all at once invested with some mysterious, invincible, supreme authority,--he felt twice a man and more than half a god, and moved by an irresistible impulse which he could neither explain nor control, he made two or three hasty steps forward,--when Heliobas, swiftly retreating, waved him off with an eloquent gesture of mingled appeal and menace.