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The Secret Power

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Secret Power




"Dead?"

"No!"--he answered--"I think not. It is very difficult for a man of
this type to die at all. Granted favourable conditions--and barring
accidents caused by the carelessness of others--he ought to be one
of those destined to live for ever. But"--here he hesitated--"if I
am right in my surmise,--of course it is only a first opinion--death
would be the very best thing for him."

"Oh, why do you say that?" she asked, pitifully.

"Because the brain is damaged--hopelessly! This man--whoever he is--
has been tampering with some chemical force he does not entirely
understand,--his whole body is charged with its influence, and this
it is that gives his form its unnatural appearance which, though
death-like, is not death. If I leave him alone and untouched he will
probably expire unconsciously in a few days,--but if--after what I
have just told you--you wish me to set the life atoms going again,--
even as a clock is wound up,--I can relax the tension which now
paralyses the cells, muscles and nerves, and he will live--yes!--
like most people without brains he will live a long time--probably
too long!"

Morgana moved to the bedside and gazed with a solemn earnestness at
the immobile, helpless form stretched out before her as though ready
for burial. Her heart swelled with suppressed emotion,--she thought
with anguish of the brilliant brain, the strong, self-sufficient
nature brought to such ruin through too great an estimate of human
capability. Tears rushed to her eyes--

"Oh, give him life!" she whispered--"Give him life for the sake of
the woman who loves him more than life!"

The Professor gave her a quick, keen glance.

"You?"

She shivered at the question as though struck by a cold wind,--then
conquering the momentary weakness, answered--

"No. The girl you have just seen. He is her world!"

Ardini's brows met in a saturnine frown.

"Her world will be an empty one!" he said, with an expressive
gesture--"A world without fruit or flower,--without light or song! A
dreary world! But such as it is,--such as it is bound to be,--it can
live on,--a life-in-death."

"Are you quite sure of this?" Morgana asked--"Can any of us, however
wise, be quite sure of anything?"

His frown relaxed and his whole features softened. He took her hand
and patted it kindly.

"Signora, you know as well as I do, that the universe and all within
it represents law and order. A man is a little universe in himself--
and if the guiding law of his system is destroyed, there is chaos
and darkness. We scientists can say 'Let there be light,' but the
fulfilled result 'and there was light' comes from God alone!"

"Why should not God help in this case?" she suggested.

"Ah, why!" and Ardini shrugged his shoulders--"How can I tell? My
long experience has taught me that wherever the law has been broken
God does NOT help! Who knows whether this frozen wreck of man has
obeyed or disobeyed the law? I can do all that science allows--"

"And you will do it!" interrupted Morgana eagerly, "You will use
your best skill and knowledge--everything you wish shall be at your
service--name whatever fee your merit claims--"

He raised his hand with a deprecatory gesture.

"Money does not count with me, Signora!" he said--"Nor with you. The
point with both of us in all our work is--success! Is it not so?
Yes! And it is because I do not see a true success in this case that
I hesitate; true success would mean the complete restoration of this
man to life and intelligence,--but life without intelligence is no
triumph for science. I can do all that science will allow--"

"And you WILL do this 'all'"--said Morgana, eagerly--"You will
forego triumph for simple pity!--pity for the girl who would surely
die if he were dead!--and perhaps after all, God may help the
recovery!"

"It shall be as you wish, Signora! I must stay here two or three
days--"

"As long as you find it necessary"--said Morgana--"All your orders
shall be obeyed."

"Good! Send me a trustworthy man-servant who can help to move and
support the patient, and we can get to work. I left a few necessary
appliances in your hall--I should like them brought into this room--
and then--" here he took her hand and pressed it kindly--"you can
leave us to our task, and take some rest. You must be very tired."

"I am never tired"--she answered, gently--"I thank you in advance
for all you are going to do!"

She left the room then, with one backward glance at the inert stiff
figure on the bed,--and went to arrange matters with her household
that the Professor's instructions should be strictly carried out.
Lady Kingswood, deeply interested, heard her giving certain orders
and asked--

"There is hope then? These two poor creatures will live?"

"I think so"--answered Morgana, with a thrill of sadness in her
sweet voice--"They will live--pray God their lives may be worth
living!"

She watched the man-servant whom she had chosen to wait on Ardini
depart on his errand--she saw him open the door of the room where
Seaton lay, and shut it--then there was a silence. Oppressed by a
sudden heaviness of heart she thought of Manella, and entered her
apartment softly to see how she fared. The girl's beautiful dark
eyes were wide open and full of the light of life and consciousness.
She smiled and stretched out her arms.

"It is my angel!" she murmured faintly--"My little white angel who
came to me in the darkness! And this is Heaven!"

Swiftly and silently Morgana went to her side, and taking her
outstretched arms put them round her own neck.

"Manella!" she said, tenderly--"Dear, beautiful Manella! Do you know
me?"

The great loving eyes rested on her with glowing warmth and
pleasure.

"Indeed I know you!" and Manella's voice, weak as that of a sick
child, sounded ever so far away--"The little white lady of my
dreams! Oh, I have wanted you!--wanted you so much! Why did you not
come back sooner?"

Afraid to trouble her brain by the sudden shock of too rapidly
recurring memories, Morgana made no reply, but merely soothed her
with tender caresses, when all at once she made a violent struggle
to rise from the bed.

"I must go!" she cried--"He is calling me! I must follow him--yes,
even if he kills me for it--he is in danger!"

Morgana held her close and firmly.

"Hush, hush, dear!" she murmured--"Be quite still! He is safe--
believe me! He is near you--in the next room!--out of all danger."

"Oh, no, it is not possible!" and the girl's eyes grew wild with
terror--"He cannot be safe!--he is destroying himself! I have
followed him every step of the way--I have watched him,--oh!--so
long!--and he came out of the hut this morning--I was hidden among
the trees--he could not see me--" she broke off, and a violent
trembling shook her whole body. Morgana tried to calm her into
silence, but she went on rambling incoherently. "There was something
he carried as though it was precious to him--something that
glittered like gold,--and he went away quickly--quickly to the
canyon,--I followed him like a dog, crawling through the brushwood--
I followed him across the deep water--to the cave where it was all
dark--black as midnight!" She paused--then suddenly flung her arms
round Morgana crying--"Oh, hold me!--hold me!--I am in this darkness
trying to find him!--there!--there!--he turns and sees me by the
light of a lamp he carries; he knows I have followed him, and he is
angry! Oh, dear God, he is angry--he raises his arm to strike me!"
She uttered a smothered shriek, and clung to Morgana in a kind of
frenzy. "No mercy, no pity! That thing that glitters in his hand--it
frightens me--what is it? I kneel to him on the cold stones--I pray
him to forgive me--to come with me--but his arm is still raised to
strike--he does not care--!"

Here a pale horror blanched her features--she drew herself away from
Morgana's hold and put out her hands with the instinctive gesture of
one who tries to escape falling from some great height. Morgana,
alarmed at her looks, caught her again in her arms and held her
tenderly, whereat a faint smile hovered on her lips and her
distraught movements ceased.

"What is this?"--she asked--then murmured--"My little white lady,
how did you come here? How could you cross the flood?--unless on
wings? Ah!--you are a fairy and you can do all you wish to do--but
you cannot save HIM!--it is too late! He will not save himself--and
he does not care,--he does not care--neither for me nor you!"

She drooped her head against Morgana's shoulder and her eyes closed
in utter exhaustion. Morgana laid her back gently on her pillows,
and pouring a few drops of the cordial she had used before, and of
which she had the sole secret, into a wineglassful of water, held it
to her lips. She drank it obediently, evidently conscious now that
she was being cared for. But she was still restless, and presently
she sat up in a listening attitude, one hand uplifted.

"Listen!" she said in a low, awed tone--"Thunder! Do you hear it?
God speaks!"

She lay down again passively and was silent for a long time. The
hours passed and the day grew into late afternoon, and Morgana,
patiently watchful, thought she slept. All suddenly she sprang up,
wide-eyed and alert.

"What was that?" she cried--"I heard him call!"

Morgana, startled by her swift movement, stood transfixed--
listening. The deep tones of a man's voice rang out loudly and
defiantly--

"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say so! I am
Master of the World!"




CHAPTER XXV


A brilliant morning broke over the flower-filled gardens of the
Palazzo d'Oro, and the sea, stretched out in a wide radiance of
purest blue shimmered with millions of tiny silver ripples brushed
on its surface by a light wind as delicate as a bird's wing. Morgana
stood in her rose-marble loggia, looking with a pathetic wistfulness
at the beauty of the scene, and beside her stood Marco Ardini,
scientist, surgeon and physician, looking also, but scarcely seeing,
his whole thought being concentrated on the "case" with which he had
been dealing.

"It is exactly as I at first told you,"--he said--"The man is strong
in muscle and sinew,--but his brain is ruined. It can no longer
control or command the body's mechanism,--therefore the body is
practically useless. Power of volition is gone,--the poor fellow
will never be able to walk again or to lift a hand. A certain
faculty of speech is left,--but even this is limited to a few words
which are evidently the result of the last prevailing thoughts
impressed on the brain-cells. It is possible he will repeat those
words thousands of times!--the oftener he repeats them the more he
will like to say them."

"What are they?" Morgana asked in a tone of sorrow and compassion.

"Strange enough for a man in his condition"--replied Ardini--"And
always the same. 'THERE SHALL BE NO MORE WARS! THERE CAN BE NONE! I
SAY IT!--_I_ ONLY! IT IS MY GREAT SECRET! _I_ AM MASTER OF THE
WORLD!' Poor devil! What a 'master of the world' is there!"

Morgana shuddered as with cold, shading her eyes from the radiant
sunshine.

"Does he say nothing else?" she murmured--"Is there no name--no
place--that he seems to remember?"

"He remembers nothing--he knows nothing"--answered Ardini--"He does
not even realize me as a man--I might be a fish or a serpent for all
his comprehension. One glance at his moveless eyes is enough to
prove that. They are like pebbles in his head--without cognisance or
expression. He mutters the words 'Great Secret' over and over again,
and tacks it on to the other phrase of 'No more wars' in a semi-
conscious sort of gabble,--this is, of course, the disordered action
of the brain working to catch up and join together hopelessly
severed fragments."

Morgana lifted her sea-blue eyes and looked with grave appeal into
the severely intellectual, half-frowning face of the great
Professor.

"Is there no hope of an ultimate recovery?" she asked--"With time
and rest and the best of unceasing care, might not this poor brain
right itself?"

"Medically and scientifically speaking, there is no hope,--none
whatever"--he replied--"Though of course we all know that Nature's
remedial methods are inexhaustible, and often, to the wisest of us,
seem miraculous, because as yet we do not understand one tithe of
her processes. But--in this case,--this strange and terrible case"--
and he uttered the words with marked gravity,--"It is Nature's own
force that has wrought the damage,--some powerful influence which
the man has been testing has proved too much for him--and it has
taken its own vengeance."

Morgana heard this with strained interest and attention.

"Tell me just what you mean,"--she said--"There is something you do
not quite express--or else I am too slow to understand--"

Ardini took a few paces up and down the loggia and then halted,
facing her in the attitude of a teacher preparing to instruct a
pupil.

"Signora,"--he said--"When you began to correspond with me some
years ago from America, I realised that I was in touch with a highly
intelligent and cultivated mind. I took you to be many years older
than you are, with a ripe scientific experience. I find you young,
beautiful, and pathetic in the pure womanliness of your nature,
which must be perpetually contending with an indomitable power of
intellectuality and of spirituality,--spirituality is the strongest
force of your being. You are not made like other women. This being
so I can say to you what other women would not understand. Science
is my life-subject, as it is yours,--it is a window set open in the
universe admitting great light. But many of us foolishly imagine
that this light emanates from ourselves as a result of our own
cleverness, whereas it comes from that Divine Source of all things,
which we call God. We refuse to believe this,--it wounds our pride.
And we use the discoveries of science recklessly and selfishly--
without gratitude, humbleness or reverence. So it happens that the
first tendency of godless men is to destroy. The love of destruction
and torture shows itself in the boy who tears off the wing of an
insect, or kills a bird for the pleasure of killing. The boy is
father of the man. And we come, after much ignorant denial and
obstinacy, back to the inexorable truth that 'they who take the
sword shall perish with the sword.' If we consider the 'sword' as a
metaphor for every instrument of destruction, we shall see the force
of its application--the submarine, for example, built for the most
treacherous kind of sea-warfare--how often they that undertake its
work are slain themselves! And so it is through the whole gamut of
scientific discovery when it is used for inhuman and unlawful
purposes. But when this same 'sword' is lifted to put an end to
torture, disease, and the manifold miseries of life, then the Power
that has entrusted it to mankind endows it with blessing and there
are no evil results. I say this to you by way of explaining the view
I am forced to take of this man whose strange case you ask me to
deal with,--my opinion is that through chance or intention he has
been playing recklessly with a great natural force, which he has not
entirely understood, for some destructive purpose, and that it has
recoiled on himself."

Morgana looked him steadily in the eyes.

"You may be right,"--she said--"He is--or was--one of the most
brilliant of our younger scientists. You know his name--I have sent
you from New York some accounts of his work--He is Roger Seaton,
whose experiments in the condensation of radioactivity startled
America some four or five years ago--"

"Roger Seaton!" he exclaimed--"What! The man who professed to have
found a new power which would change the face of the world? . . .
He,--this wreck?--this blind, deaf lump of breathing clay? Surely he
has not fallen on so horrible a destiny!"

Tears rushed to Morgana's eyes,--she could not answer. She could
only bend her head in assent.

Profoundly moved, Ardini took her hand, and kissed it with
sympathetic reverence.

"Signora," he said--"This is indeed a tragedy! You have saved this
life at I know not what risk to yourself--and as I am aware what a
life of great attainment it promised to be, you may be sure I will
spare no pains to bring it back to normal conditions. But frankly I
do not think it will be possible. There is the woman who loves him--
her influence may do something--"

"If he ever loved her--yes"--and Morgana smiled rather sadly--"But
if he did not--if the love is all on her side--"

Ardini shrugged his shoulders.

"A great love is always on the woman's side,"--he said--"Men are too
selfish to love perfectly. In this case, of course, there is no
emotion, no sentiment of any sort left in the mere hulk of man. But
still I will continue my work and do my best."

He left her then,--and she stood for a while alone, gazing far out
to the blue sea and sunlight, scarcely seeing them for the half-
unconscious tears that blinded her eyes. Suddenly a Ray, not of the
sun, shot athwart the loggia and touched her with a deep gold
radiance. She saw it and looked up, listening.

"Morgana!"

The Voice quivered along the Ray like the touched string of an
aeolian harp. She answered it in almost a whisper--

"I hear!"

"You grieve for sorrows not your own," said the Voice--"And we love
you for it. But you must not waste your tears on the errors of
others. Each individual Spirit makes its own destiny, and no other
but Itself can help Itself. You are one of the Chosen and Beloved!--
You must fulfil the happiness you have created for your own soul!
Come to us soon!" A thrill of exquisite joy ran through her.

"I will!" she said--"When my duties here are done."

The golden Ray decreased in length and brilliancy, and finally died
away in a fine haze mingling with the air. She watched it till it
vanished,--then with a sense of relief from her former sadness, she
went into the house to see Manella. The girl had risen from her bed,
and with the assistance of Lady Kingswood, who tended her with
motherly care, had been arrayed in a loose white woollen gown,
which, carelessly gathered round her, intensified by contrast the
striking beauty of her dark eyes and hair, and ivory pale skin. As
Morgana entered the room she smiled, her small even teeth gleaming
like tiny pearls in the faint rose of her pretty mouth, and
stretched out her hand.

"What has he said to you?" she asked--"Tell me! Is he not glad to
see you?--to know he is with you?--safe with you in your home?"

Morgana sat down beside her.

"Dear Manella"--she answered, gently and with tenderest pity--"He
does not know me. He knows nothing! He speaks a few words,--but he
has no consciousness of what he is saying."

Manella looked at her wonderingly--

"Ah, that is because he is not himself yet"--she said--"The crash of
the rocks--the pouring of the flood--this was enough to kill him--
but he will recover in a little while and he will know you!--yes, he
will know you, and he will thank God for life to see you!"

Her unselfish joy in the idea that the man she loved would soon
recognise the woman he preferred to herself, was profoundly
touching, and Morgana kissed the hand she held.

"Dear, I am afraid he will never know anything more in this world"--
she said, sorrowfully--"Neither man nor woman! Nor can he thank God
for a life which will be long, living death! Unless YOU can help
him!"

"I?" and Manella's eyes dilated with brilliant eagerness; "I will
give my life for his! What can I do?"

And then, with patient slowness and gentleness, little by little,
Morgana told her all. Lady Kingswood, sitting in an arm-chair near
the window, worked at her embroidery, furtive tears dropping now and
again on the delicate pattern, as she heard the details of the
tragic verdict given by one of Europe's greatest medical scientists
on the hopelessness of ever repairing the damage wrought by the
shock which had shaken a powerful brain into ruins. But it was
wonderful to watch Manella's face as she listened. Sorrow, pity,
tenderness, love, all in turn flashed their heavenly radiance in her
eyes and intensified her beauty, and when she had heard all, she
smiled as some lovely angel might smile on a repentant soul. Her
whole frame seemed to vibrate with a passion of unselfish emotion.

"He will be my care!" she said--"The good God has heard my prayers
and given him to me to be all mine!" She clasped her hands in a kind
of ecstasy, "My life is for him and him alone! He will be my little
child!--this big, strong, poor broken man!--and I will nurse him
back to himself,--I will watch for every little sign of hope!--he
shall learn to see through my eyes--to hear through my ears--to
remember all that he has forgotten!. . ." Her voice broke in a half
sob. Morgana put an arm about her.

"Manella, Manella!" she said--"You do not know what you say--you
cannot understand the responsibility--it would make you a prisoner
for life--"

"Oh, I understand!" and Manella shook back her dark hair with the
little proud, decisive gesture characteristic of her temperament--
"Yes!--and I wish to be so imprisoned! If we had not been rescued by
you, we should have died together!--now you will help us to live
together! Will you not? You are a little white angel--a fairy!--
yes!--to me you are!--your heart is full of unspent love! You will
let me stay with him always--always?--As his nurse?--his servant?--
his slave?"

Morgana looked at her tenderly, touched to the quick by her
eagerness and her beauty, now intensified by the glow of excitement
which gave a roseate warmth to her cheeks and deeper darkness to her
eyes. All ignorant and unsuspecting as she was of the world's
malignity and cruel misjudgments, how could it be explained to her
that a woman of such youth and loveliness, electing to dwell alone
with a man, even if the man were a hopeless paralytic, would make
herself the subject of malicious comment and pitiless scandal! Some
reflection of this feeling showed itself in the expression of
Morgana's face while she hesitated to answer, holding the girl's
hand in her own and stroking it affectionately the while. Manella,
gazing at her as a worshipper might gaze at a sacred picture,
instinctively divined her thought.

"Ah? I know what you would say!" she exclaimed, "That I might bring
shame to him by my companionship--always--yes!--that is possible!--
wicked people would talk of him and judge him wrongly--"

"Oh, Manella, dear!" murmured Morgana--"Not him--not him--but YOU!"

"Me?" She tossed back her wealth of hair, and smiled--"What am I?
Just a bit of dust in his path! I am nothing at all! I do not care
what anybody says or thinks of ME!--what should it matter! But see!-
-to save HIM--let me be his wife!"

"His wife!" Morgana repeated the words in amazement, and Lady
Kingswood, laying down her work, gazed at the two beautiful women,
the one so spiritlike and fair, the other so human and queenly, in a
kind of stupefaction, wondering if she had heard aright.

"His wife! Yes!". . . Manella spoke with a thrill of exultation in
her voice,--and she caught Morgana's hand and kissed it fondly--"His
wife! It is the only way I can be his slave-woman! Let me marry him
while he knows nothing, so that I may have the right to wait upon
him and care for him! He shall never know! For--if he comes to
himself again--please God he will!--as soon as that happens I will
go away at once. He will never know!--he shall never learn who it is
that has cared for him! You see? I shall never be really his wife--
nor he my husband--only in name. And then--when he comes out of the
darkness--when he is strong and well once more, he will go to YOU!--
you whom he loves--"

Morgana silenced her by a gesture which was at once commanding and
sweetly austere.

"Dear girl, he never loved me!" she said, gently--"He has always
loved himself. Yes!--you know that as well as I do! Once--I fancied
I loved HIM--but now I know my way of love is not his. Let us say no
more of it! You wish to be his wife? Do you think what that means?
He will never know he is your husband--never recognise you,--your
life will be sacrificed to a helpless creature whose brain is gone--
who will be unconscious of your care and utterly irresponsive. Oh,
sweet, TOO loving Manella!--you must not pledge the best years of
your youth and beauty to such a destiny!"

Manella's dark eyes flashed with passionate ardour and enthusiasm.

"I must--I must!" she said--"It is the work God gives me to do! Do
you not see how it is with me? It is my one love--the best of my
heart!--the pulse of my life! Youth and beauty!--what are they
without him? Ill or well, he is all I care for, and if I may not
care for him I will die! It is quite easy to die--to make an end!--
but if there is any youth or beauty to spend, it will be better to
spend it on love than in death! My white angel, listen and be
patient with me! You ARE patient but still be more so!--you know
there will be none in the world to care for him!--ah!--when he was
well and strong he said that love would weary him--he did not think
he would ever be helpless and ill!--ah, no!--but a broken brain is
put away--out of sight--to be forgotten like a broken toy! He was at
work on some wonderful invention--some great secret!--it will never
be known now--not a soul will ever ask what has become of it or of
him! The world does not care what becomes of anyone--it has no
sympathy. Only those who love greatly have any pity!"

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