Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/277

1858.] where heavy boughs of wood and splinters from the heart of the pine lay ready for the hand of the Coming to kindle. Upon the threshold, plucking out the dead leaves of the ivy, stood one from whose face strength, and beauty, and guile that the guileless knew not, shone sunlike upon Maya; and as she faltered and paused, he spoke a welcome to her in her own language, and held toward her the clasping hand of help. A thrill of mad joy cleft the heart of the Princess, a glow of incarnate summer dyed with rose her cheek and lip, the Spark blazed through her brimming eyes, weariness vanished. "Home! home!" sung her rapt lips; and in the delirious ecstasy of the hour she pressed toward the hearth, laid down her scrip and staff upon the heaped wood, flung herself on the red stone, and, heedless of the opal talisman, flashed outward from her joyful eyes the Spark,—the Crown, the Curse! So a forked tongue of lightning speeds from its rain-fringed cloud, and cleaves the oak to its centre; so the blaze of a meteor rushes through mid-heaven, and—is gone! The Spark lit, quivered, sunk, and flashed again; but the wood lay unlighted beneath it. Maya gasped for breath, and with the long respiration the Spark returned, lit upon her lips, seared them like a hot iron, and entered into her heart,—the blighting canker of her fate, a bitterness in flesh and spirit forevermore.

Writhing with anguish and contempt, she turned away from the wrought stone whose semblance had beguiled her to her mortal loss; and as she passed from the step, another hand lit a consuming blaze beneath her staff and scrip, sending a sword of flame after her to the threshold, and the house-spirit shrieked aloud, "Only stones together strike fire, Maya!"—while from the casement above looked forth two faces, false and fair, with eyes of azure ice, and disdainful smiles, and bound together by a curling serpent, that ringed itself in portentous symbol about their waists.

With star-like eyes, proud lips, and erect head, Maya went out. Her laugh rang loud; her song soared in wild and mocking cadence to the stars; her rigid brow wore scorn like a coronal of flame; and with a scathed nature she trod the streets of the city, mixed with its wondering crowds, made the Spark a blaze and a marvel in all lands,—but hid the opal in her bosom; for its scarlet spot of life-blood had dropped away, and the jewel was broken across.

So the wide world heard of Maya, the Child of the Kingdom, and from land to land men carried the stinging arrows of her wit, or signalled the beacon-fires of her scorn, while seas and shores unknown echoed her mad and rapt music, or answered the veiled agony that derided itself with choruses of laughter, from every mystic whisper of the wave, or roar of falling headlands.

And then she fled away, lest, in the turbulent whirl of life, the Curse should craze, and not slay her. For sleep had vanished with wordless moans and frighted aspect from her pillow,—or if it dared, standing afar off, to cast its pallid shadow there, still there was neither rest nor refreshing in the troubled spell. Nor could the thirst that consumed her quench itself with red wine or crystal water, translucent grapes or the crimson fruits that summer kisses into sweetness with her heats; forever longing, and forever unsated, it parched her lips and burnt her gasping mouth, but there was no draught to allay it. And even so food failed of its office. Kindly hands brought to her, whose queenliness asserted itself to their souls with an innocent loftiness, careless of pomp or insignia, all delicate dates and exquisite viands; but neither the keen and stimulating odors of savory meat, the crisp whiteness of freshest bread, nor the slow-dropping gold of honeycomb could tempt her to eat. The simplest peasant's fare, in measure too scanty for a linnet, sustained her life; but the Curse lit even upon her food, and those lips of fire burned all things in their touch to tasteless ashes.

So she fled away; for the forest was