Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-39.djvu/71

Rh seem absurd to any one else. This world is the heaven of animals: there is no past or future to them, no memory or hope; nothing but the fulness of the present. They are born into their sphere of life, and they fill it completely, whether it be mischievous or beneficent. But man, poor fellow! is little more than a striving, a regret, a folly, and a disappointment. He never becomes what he is capable of being, and he is never satisfied with what he is. If it were not for this effortless self-fulfilment that we see in animals, the world would be a grim place, indeed! And so it was a comfort to me to play with my queen of cobras, knowing that she was untroubled and content, and that no rumor of the grief and dread and evil that made the day hateful to the rest of us would ever pass the portals of her consciousness or alter the serenity of her demeanor. I could hold her in my arms and let her coil around my neck, but, though she could feel the beating of my heart, no knowledge of what stirred it could ever cross the bottomless spiritual gulf between animal and human. Were I the wickedest or the most faultless being that ever lived on earth, her relation to me would remain unchanged, provided I treated her with the same attention. The denunciations of my bitterest enemy would leave her as unmoved as the eulogies of my dearest friend. No one but myself can disturb her confidence in me; the whole world would be powerless to shake it. Such an attitude has in it something of the sublime safety of eternity itself.

Presently I heard noises and voices without, and I left Sâprani with a mind once more composed. Tom had returned, bringing the coroner and the village doctor with him. They made their examination and took my deposition; and by the time that was over, the wagon, with mother and the rest, had arrived. Sinfire rode up to the door on her horse, and gave me a look, as she dismounted, to say that all was well.

Death, as I have always believed, is no evil to those who die; but distress remains behind them. It seems as if one calamity had a tendency to breed others; and when the sufferer most needs peace and repose, he is most certain to be confronted with fresh hostile influences. There is only one sure consolation to look forward to; and that is, that the day will come when you, too, will die, and, in your turn, leave all behind you.

Mother's condition gives me anxiety. John managed his mission clumsily, and allowed her to discover too abruptly that her favorite son was murdered. A species of hysterics immediately seized upon her, accompanied by a tremor of the whole body that has remained ever