LITERATURE. 6q 



" Away ! Away ! " exclaimed Tiinu, loaiuiiig with ragu. " If thou wilt show the truth 

 of thy boast of obedience, go to the brink of yon cloud, precipitate thyself into the darkness 

 of inUnitude, and disappear nevxT to be heard of more, (lo ! " 



" Father ! Oh my I'atliL-r, let me but wait the return of my mother tliat 1 may receive 

 her last embrace." 



" Go ! (io ! " shouted Timu, " tlum slialt meet lier where thou goest." 



War looked at him, and tw(j tt'ars of pure wliite lire rose to his eyes, butseeing his father's 

 arm still pointcil firmly in tiie direction of the cloud he went towards it. He looked back 

 once, but hearing his fatlier voice's saying " Go ! Curse on thee ! Go ! " bent he his head 

 and full of despair he dived into the depth of the abyss, where his track, markefl i^y a line of 

 light was gazed on with satisfaction by the followers of Timu. 



THE FLIGfiT. 



Twirl ! Whirl ! Go ! . . blindfolded with sorrow, heedless, hopeless, mad, 

 now twisting his powerful life into distorted spiral of the abyss, now sounding straight as a 

 beam of light all the recess of intinitude and throwing the semen of life and activit\' where 

 before there had only been slumber. 



Leaping, bomiding, rushing, at such a tremendous rate llial his course left behind it 

 in the darkness a line of hre coiling and recoiling on itself, twisting in almost indescribable 

 parabolas, clashing, in his wild tiight against the celestial spheres, crushing or carrying in 

 his train all the sidereal bodies who were waiting for his passage in the dreary solitude of the 

 dark, on . . . on . . . " Mother ! Mother ! " cried lie with a voice at the sound 

 of which an awful shudder was felt by everything which is. " Mother ! Mother ! Where art 

 thou? " but millions of echoes were the only answer to his lormidable roar. 



Suffering without hope, fall without redemption, wound whicli cannot be soothed, 

 past which cannot be lived again, inexorable destmy which cannot erase the past, "Mother! 

 Mother ! " did he shriek, pulling out handfuls of his burning hau" and throwing it behind 

 him, tearing the flesh of his breast and opening it like a bleeding fruit ..." Mother ! 

 jMother ! I would give my life not to have caused thee any suffering. What has become of 

 thee? In what solitude does thy pale old age drag out its sorrow and the loneliness of its 

 al:)andonment? Malediction, woe, despair ! . . . " and he pursued his headlong course, 

 frantic, terrible, blind, rolling madly at the head of myriads of asters which, attracted by his 

 glory, were following in his train ; breaking through every obstacle, on . . . on . . . 

 upwards, downwards, in every direction, as an eagle in the air, an emu on the plains, a fish 

 in the ocean, the lightning in the clouds, meditations m the mind . . . tearing, striking, 

 destroying ... on ... on .. . when all of a siuUkn he saw before him 

 the sweet image of Atah, who alone stood in his path and waited to be crushed by him. 

 He stopped, and Atah went up to him. " I heard thy despair, War, and I have come to thee. 

 I have come to thee," she repeated; but War, pensive, did not utter a word. " 1 know," 

 said she " I know thou thinkest of her, but hear me, for what 1 have to tell thee is of her. 

 I was hiding where thou hadst placed me, and the melancholy of my exile was sweetened by 

 the hope of thine advent. My piercing eyes were travelling day and night in my oscillations 

 from the Zenith to the Xadu" waiting for the apparition of thy beauty when thou shouldst 

 come to throw on me the radiance of thy bounties ..." and she paused and gazed 

 silent and enraptured at the fascinating eyes of War . . . "I was waiting . . . 

 waiting . . . and waiting is so long . . . when gradually tliere grew upon me a 

 feeling which I could not explain. I felt a thrill, then a shiver, then a shudder, and I heard 

 coming towards me, vaguely at first, then growing more disthict, lamentable and pitiful 

 an ocean of sobs, which rent my heart, and from that time I have not had an instant of life 



