frank now as a sister, Cornelius. Our diverging mis
sions part us. You go to Jerusalem to preach the
cross ; I, to a narrower field, at Bozrah, to attempt the
rekindling of love on one lone altar of wedlock. God
orders it thus, and I submit unquestioningly ; for it is
not for one who can scarcely touch the hem of His
garment to challenge His wisdom by a murmur."

"But time, Miriamne, may leave you free, your
work being completed in the Giant City?"

" Even so. There is a gulf between us ; we may
love across it but not pass it, in body, in this life."

" And I can not see the gulf ? "

" I am in faith, after all, an Israelite ; enlightened to
be sure, but not likely to renounce the ancient beliefs.
You are a Christian ; nor would I wish you otherwise.
Now, amid the miseries I ve witnessed in my own
home, I can not but be admonished against any at
tempt at fusing, by the fire of adolescent, transitory
loving, two lives guided by faiths so constantly in antag
onisms."

" The faith of Jesus and Mary, truly lived, never
failed to fuse hearts sincerely loving. You may call
yourself what you like ; in substance of faith we are in
accord."

" The chaplain reasons well ; better than I can, and



404 The Queen of the House of David.

yet he does not convince me ! I can only plead that
he do not persist, and so make the parting harder. It
must be ; though my heart break, I must suffer the
immolation. I ve asked this question in the awful
sincerity of a soul as it were at the bar of judgment :
WJiat milt TJiou have me to do? I know the answer.
I must seek to bring father and mother together."

"And then?"

" Seek to know if the Messiah has indeed come,"

" And then ? "

"If I find He has, some way tell His people Israel,
as only a Jewess can, of the Light Everlasting."

"And then ? "

" Why, that s sufficient to measure the lives of gen
erations; but if I survive beyond that work, I have
vaguely passing through my mind the coming of a
millennial day when all mankind will be akin ; all right
eous, all just, and the tears of womankind assuaged."

" I pray for that, but how can we hasten joy by
breaking our own hearts? "

" I do not know what lies beyond ; how that day of
glory is to come, but this I know, the spirit of Chivalry
was from God. It had, and has a deep, impressive mean
ing. In contact with it at the west, I felt all the time
as if it were blind, but a Samson still, feeling for the
pillars of some mighty wrong. I wonder if I may not
be the giant s true guide. Or, better still, may I not
be, under God, the giantess to do the very work. Per
haps the world awaits a woman Samson ! "

"What Miriamne says is to me all mysticism!
Explain."

" I do not know how, beyond this: I m God s bride
by consecration, and He will keep me for His work."



" The Star of the Sea," 405

"Can t I share it?" almost piteously, the chaplain
asked.

" Truly, yes, wherever you may be> with me or not."

" Oh, Miriamne, your passionate enthusiasm en
trances me. You are an inspiration to me. I fear I
shall languish aside from you."

" I shall love you more, Cornelius, as you are more
grandly, heroically self-sacrificing."

"Any thing to win Miriamne s constant love ! "

" I shall love you, Cornelius, In a deep, holy way,
only and forever. I d be ashamed to be thus frank,
but that I have a love that is as pure as the heaven of
its birth. Be true to your God, to your mission ; a
little while and then at the City of Light, life s brief
dream over, the first, after God, I ll ask for will be the
faithful man whom my heart knows."

" Ah, what can I do? I m all zeal ; willing to go, but
the glow of your cheeks, the flash of your eyes, even
in the midst of such noble converse, drag me away
from my resolves. That that stimulates me, unmans
me, or reminds rae I am a man and a lover."

" You ought to teach me, not I you ; but you re
member you told me of the belief of some in penetra
tive virginity. That is the purity of Mary passing
somehow into others. Oh, all I am that s good, be in
you, and more, even all that she was whom you so
revere ; I mean the mother of the Christ."

"In my soul I reverently exclaim amen, but then
again, how strange the question will not down, must
we part ? And 90 saying he flung his arm about the
woman, passionately embracing her. He thought for
a moment he had overcome her, but the kiss on her
lips not resisted, was the end ; for slowly untwining his



406 The Queen of the House of David.

arms and holding his hands at arm s length, she ques
tioned : " Will you promise me one thing? "

"Surely, yes, name it."

"That you will think of me as a friend, sister, hence
forth, and let me go my way without further misery ?"

The man struggled with himself for a time ; then
gazed into her eyes with a most piteously appealing
gaze.

She was firm.

" Yes I promise, but say affianced, to be wed in
heaven ? "

" God bless you," was her instant response. Their
lips met and the debate was ended.

And so for the time they separated, persuading
themselves that the whole matter between them had
been finally sealed. They had all faith in their pledges
mutually given, each to live apart from the other. As
yet they had no just conception of the power of a
rebel heart constantly uprising. Of course, they both
foresaw a measure of wretchedness in the future as a
consequence of their decision, but distant pain fore
seen by the young, is ever dimmed by hope, and very
different from present pain. These twain comforted
themselves, at first, by the thought that they were mar
tyrs, and it is always agreeable to feel ourself a martyr,
especially when expecting a martyr s reward ; at least
it is so until the reality of the martyrdom comes.

The sky grew darker, night shut down about the
ship, the winds increased, and that sense of awful lone
liness, felt on the eve of an impending night storm at
sea, came to all hearts but those of the sailors. The
latter were too busy to think of aught but their duties.
Then their captain had his reckonings, and assured



e< Thf Star of the Sea". 407

them by his bearing that he felt confident that he
cci .lu outride this storm as he had often before simi
lar ones, Miriamne, yielding not more to the captain s
command, than to the entreaties of Woelfkin, went
below to her cabin. She soon courted sleep to help
her forget the war of the tempest, praying a prayer
most fitting, meanwhile. The prayer was a medita
tion, like unto this : " He that cares for all will care
for helpless me, and come what may, keep me until
that last great day." The storm strengthened, and she
began to be anxious for her father, and her friend. She
had said to herself the latter title should define Cor
nelius. But her heart forgot its fear a moment in a
mysterious, merry peal of laughter; such laughter is
very real, but it is never heard by human ears. We
know it only in those exalted moments when we try
fine introspections ; when there seems to be tw r o of us;
the one observing and entering into the other. Miri
amne heard that laughter when she meditated, "Cor
nelius is just a friend." Presently she became more
anxious for those aloft. Then a troop of imperious
inner questions came to her: "Might I not stand by
him, if the danger increases ? Would it be wrong to
show him that I am brave and loving?"

"Will he think me cowardly and stony-hearted ?"
Resolution was being assailed, and weakened. The
questionings increased in number and imperiousness:
" What if to-night we are all to perish ? " Then she
let imagination take the rein. She thought of a scene
that might be if she and her beloved were as be
trothed, soon to be wed, lovers. In the scene she fan.
cied herself, her lover and her father all together in a
last embrace, going down into the yawning waves.



408 The Queen of the House of David.

" Would my lover try to save me ? " For the moment
there were two of her again, and it was the one that
awhile ago laughed so merrily, that now seemed to be
saying: "Would my lover try to save me ? " The one
self heard the question, and by silence, without sign of
rebuke, seemed to give the other self plenary indul
gence. Then came a free play of her imagination.
She saw herself lying in coral palaces, beneath the
moaning waves of the Mediterranean, still clasping
her lover and her parent. Then she thought of how
her friends would receive the news of her demise.
Perhaps some poet would embalm the event in death
less poems, and thousands read of the three that per
ished side by side. Her mind ran back to London.
She imagined a memorial service at the chapel of the
Palestineans and the Grand Master tkere saying : " Mi-
riamne de Griffin was lost at sea ; in the path of glo
rious duty, loyally pursued to the end."

Then she thought of Bozrah and the old stone house,
with her mother and her brothers, its sole occupants ;
the mother in mourning garbs, her spirit subdued, and
she often tenderly saying to the fatherless, sisterless
boys, " Miriamne was a good girl, a faithful daughter,
a noble woman."

But after all, these excursions were unsatisfactory to
the young woman. And naturally so. When she
thought of lying a corpse, with weed-winding sheets,
for years, in the caves of the sea, she was repelled.
Thoughts of her memorials, possibly to transpire at
London and Bozrah, were not very comforting. She
was too young, too free from morbidness, too deeply
enamored, to court, assiduously, posthumous honors.

Then came thought of a wreck and rescue, and it



" The Star of the Sea." 409

was very welcome. It grew out of the possibility of
the youth she loved and she alone, of all on board,
being saved. She thought of drifting about for days
on a raft ! Would she recall her resolutions and his, or
would he say to her: " Miriamne, I saved you from the
deep; now you are mine entirely and forever!"
Would she believe his claim paramount ? Would
duty s requirements be satisfied ? Then she was as
two again. One voice said yes, and the other did not
concur, neither did it gainsay. She could not pro
nounce a verdict and there were tears flowing.

The storm grew stronger, but the laboring ship rose
and fell on the billows at intervals, and she was lulled
to sleep. Her last thoughts, as she passed into dream
land, were that rt would have been a useless pain, both
endured, if now fchey were to be lost; the pain of de
termining, as they had, to live apart. As she so
thought she wished almost that they had not resolved
as they had. Conscience and desire were in their
ceaseless warfare. Then sleeping brought a dream of
joy, the blessing that comes often to the heart that is
clean. The dream was colored by events preceding.

Cornelius had reminded her the day before, as they
were sailing along the coast of Cyprus, that, at
Paphos, on that island, there was once a temple to
Venus, the fabled goddess of love. That divinity, sur
rounded by multitudes paying her homage, came be
fore the dreamer s mind in all those ravishing splen-
dors of person that are so attractive to human desires.
Around the goddess, and very close to her, were hosts
of young men and maidens, their actions as boisterous
and ecstatic as those intoxicated. Outside of the
throngs of youths were others older: and outside of



The Queen of the House of David.

these were others still ; those far away from the god-
dess, seemingly bowed with years. The company of
youths was constantly increased by new arrivals who
crowded back those there before them.

But there was a depletion as well as augmenting of
the vast, surging congregation ; for anon, as if mad,
some nearest the deity rushed away, both of the men
and the maidens, nor did those fleeing stop until they
found violent deaths by leaping from cliffs or into the
sea.

Then the ancients, crowded continually back by the
new arrivals, one after another, with expressions of
disappointment and disgust on their features, seemed
to melt away into a surrounding forest of trees that
were very black and very like shadows. The dreamer
in her dream betook herself to prayer that the God of
mercy might change what she saw.

Then she beheld the Paphian goddess in all the splen
dor of her form, a perfect triumph of nature, just as
depicted by bard and painter, looking out contemptu
ously, pitilessly, foward her former votaries, now aged
and pushed aside. There came then a voice as if from
above : " God is love."

Immediately on the face of the divinity there was an
expression as of terror, and she began sinking. Be
fore the mind of the dreamer, the beautiful creature, and
her retinue of nude, bold-faced attendants, with all that
appertained to them and their queen went down, in-
gulfed in a foaming, roaring whirlpool. As they
went down lightnings from above shot after them
And the dreamer looked aloft to see from whence the
voice and the lightning came. As she gazed upward
she saw a man of noble form, reverently bowing, as a



" The Star of the Sea." 411

son might bow in the presence of a mother revered and
loved, before a woman of noble mien and beautiful be
yond all compare

But this one s beauty had no similitude to that of
the departed deity. As the maiden gazed she dis
cerned that the man was the one her heart called
lover, the woman the one she had enshrined as the
ideal of her soul, Mary. The twain stood above her,
on a plain, apparently of clouds very bright, rising in
graceful curve from the earth and stretching away in
measureless vistas, filled with flowered parks, silvery
rivers and stately mountains. Along the rivers, amid
the flowery plains and on the verdant mountains, there
were numerous buildings; but these latter were invit
ing ; not palatial, nor stately. They were homes sur
rounded by family groups. And the dreamer dis
cerned true love triumphant and fruitful. She lingered
in this presence, anon longing for a presentment of her
self amid the scenes of pleasure, until all was suddenly
dissolved by a mighty lurch of the ship that awak
ened her. She started from her couch and all im
mediately before the dream came back to her mind.

" We re in a storm on the Mediterranean, and the cap
tain is anxious ! " Her nerves were now unstrung ; 3
woman s timorousness was upon her. She could hear
confused noises aloft, but no voices. For a moment
she questioned: "What if all but myself have been
swept away?" Then she thought of herself as drift
ing about in a ship, sailless, helmless, alone! The
thought was suffocating. The noises aloft continued,
and she gave strained attention to catch the sound of
a voice. There was nothing to be heard but the creak
ing of timbers, the dashing of waves, the shrieking of



412 The Queen of the House of David.

winds and vague thumpings, as if parts of the vessei
were beating each other to pieces.

" I ll not lie still in this coffin ! " she exclaimed, and
with a bound she made her way to the deck. As she
arrived there she thought she saw dark forms, some
crouching as if for shelter, and others as if engaged in
a great struggle. Were these demons, or the crew in
a struggle for life? She could not say. Then there
came a cry from the direction of the forward part of
the ship ; she thought it was her father s voice, but it
was very hoarse and scarcely recognizable.

She listened again to the cry : " Ho, ho ; ye Olympian
demons ! tear up the sea, charge now! Ha, ha ; have
at us ! " The cry thrilled her. Again the wild voice
rose above the storm :

" Bury her, my darling, if ye dare ! What matter!
her white soul has eternal wings ! "

She was certain it was her father. She longed to
rush to his side, but she doubted whether she could
find him in the darkness; then, too, even in the terrors
of the moment, her maiden modesty asserted itself.
She remembered that she was but partly clad.

Again came that voice, wilder than before: "Ye bil
lows, dare ye smite a knight in the face ? I ll meet your
challenge, and single-handed, in your midst, fight ! "

Miriamne s heart was almost paralyzed by the
thought, " Theboisterousness has overcome my father.
He s contemplating leaping into the sea ! "

Just then a vivid flash of lightning made every thing
visible. It seemed to cut under the clouds, which,
rain-charged, were running near the billow crests, and
at the same time enswathed the ship from the mast
tips to the partially exposed keel, in flame.



" The Star of the Sea" 413

The maiden saw by that flash her father standing on
the head-rail, one hand clinging to a stay rope, the
other with clinched fist, as if menacing the boiling
waters that leaped away from the plunging prow. His
face was livid, his hair wind-tossed, his eyes glaring.
With a scream she bounded toward him ; her scream
and appearance terrifying the sailors. It was so un
expected and they had forgotten the presence of a
woman o;i board. They only saw a white form, with
disheveled hair and with a motion light and swift as a
creature on wings, passing from companion-way for
ward.

But the fright was but momentary. Cornelius, who
had been vainly endeavoring to calm the knight, knew
the form, and loud enough to be heard by all cried :

" Miriamne de Griffin ! "

He was by her side in an instant.

The young woman uttered pleadingly one sentence,
but it thrilled all who heard it :

" My father ! "

Cornelius exultingly answered:

" Saved ! See, the captain holds him and has sum
moned the watch!" Then he could do no less, for
getting as he did in the present surprise, all eld re
solves, so he drew the trembling form to his heart as
closely as he could. She drew back a little, but he
whispered, " Miriamne." What else he might have
said was lost, for she fluttered a little, then rested, but
on the bosom of her companion.

She was a woman in peril, in fright, storm-drenched,
and in love. What otherwise or less could she have
done than nestle in the shelter that gave love for love
and promised her all else ?



414 The Queen of the House of David.

" Are you not alarmed, Cornelius ? "

" No."

" How strange ! You have changed places with me.
In the evening you trembled when I left you, and I
thought I was very brave. Now I tremble ; do you not ?"

" I cowered a while ago from the cross you presented
me ; it seemed to bring a lingering death."

Just then the ship s prow plunged under a mountain
ous billow. Miriamne clung to her support and fear
fully questioned :

" Shall we be overwhelmed ? "

" No ; I ve a token."

" From the captain ? "

"Not from the one who guides this ship alone."

A flash of lightning revealed the lover s face to Miri
amne. She saw his eyes turned devoutly upward, and
she understood his meaning. They had withdrawn to
a shelter by the vessel s side meanwhile. Presently
the young missioner spoke again ;

" Our Heavenly Father keeps vigil, I think, some-
times with especial care over this highway between the
outer world and the desolate habitations of His chosen
people."

" Hark, the sailors are singing! How strange it is
to sing in such perils," spoke the maiden.

" They re as happy now as the wave-walking petrels.
The Levant has done its worst; they know this by
the coming of the rain, hence they sing their Light
ning Song.

" Lightning song? " queried the maiden.

" Listen ! How they explode their vocalized breaths
in hissings, whizzings, followed by the prolonged crash
made by stamping feet and clapping hands at the end



" The Star of the Sea." 415

of every stanza. That chorus is meant to imitate
those heralds of the thunder, the flashing lightnings."

" But it seems presumptuous to me. The lightning
is so dreadful ! "

" Not that which comes as a funeral torch to Euroc-
lydon, as the sailors say. Some of them call it the
winking and blinking of St. Elmo going to sleep. "

" Oh, Cornelius, the storm is breaking ! I see a star ;
yes two ! " rapturously cried the maiden.

"Truly, yes; Castor and Pollux, the Twins, the
Sailor s Delight ! They say these stars are storm
rulers and friends of the mariner. Now hear how they
shout their song! They see the stars ! "

Above the subsiding wind and waves, rose the words
of the singers :

"Now to our harbor safe going;

Riding the billows, pushed by the gale :
The torch of the Twins bright glowing
Tipping our mast and gilding each sail."

"And do these stars assure, Cornelius?"

" I saw a star no cloud can ever hide, through the
darkest part of the storm."

" A star?"

" Yes, Mary, Star of Sea. "

" I do not comprehend you."

" God s love ! He that guided the maiden orphan
of Bethlehem through the besetments of her life, amid
the tempests of Jewry and Rome, purely, safely, glori
ously, to the end ; while many of noble birth and hav
ing every earthly good went down to ruin, walks ever
on the wave where faith voyages."

" And you thought of the Holy Mother in the
storm ( "



41 6 The Queen of the House of David.

Yes, this Adriatic is full of angels, that come in
thoughts, or before the eyes ! You remember Paul,
tempest tossed a day and a night on this sea, was found
by the Divine Messenger that night when the darkness
was thickest ? "

"And this Star of the Sea? "

" It tells me mother-love was carried by a dying
Savior into the heart of the Triune, Eternal God, and
we are His children, and He became Father and Mother
to us. You have seen the hen gather her chickens, as
human mother shelters with her arm or apron her child
in pain or peril? "

" How touching ! Think you He felt for us like ten
derness in the height of the storm?"

" He sought in His plenteous wisdom mother love
to sustain Himself, during the pain and perils of His
incarnation, and will ever surely grant a love and care
to His own beloved ones in suffering or danger as ten
der as that He sought and needed for Himself."

"Surely this is a grateful, natural reasoning; but do
you believe Mary presides over the sailor especially?"

" It is enough for me to know that the Father
through Mary exemplified His motheriiness."

"I ll never more call yon bright luminaries Castor
and Pollux, but rather Jesus and Mary, the guides and
the defenders ! " And for a long time they gazed at the
double stars, the storm slowly abating. Once the youth,
drawing the maiden closely to himself, questioned:

" Can not we call the stars in conjunction, Cornelius
and Miriamne ? "

They had been watching, in sweet converse, there, a
long time ; there were faint traces of dawn in the east,
and Miriamne had just been thinking, " Palestine re-



" The Star of the Sea" 417

ceives us with illumination ; " then she bethought her-
self that she and the man with her were going hither
to proclaim the Gospel of eternal light. The question
of her lover recalled the converse of the day before.
That seemed fact, unchanged ; all occurring since,
dream. She arose, pointed eastward, and firmly said:
" There lies our work, our all. May a glorious day
inhalo all God s chosen country ere long. Cornelius,
yesterday we promised solemnly that we dare not turn
from now ; especially after our wonderful deliverance ! v
She glided away to her cabin, leaving the man alone-
to contemplate the poor comfort of being praised as a
martyr, on a cross of self-sacrifice ; the pains of which,,
if not as awful as those of Calvary, were destined to.
be more prolonged. His face was as if sprinkled with
white ashes ; it was so pale, so blank. After the tempest
they spoke very little with each other. Miriamne
waved away any attempt at re-opening the subject, with
a motion of the finger to the lips, signaling silence, and
a glance all tenderness, but full of pitiful pleadings to
be spared. The young man but once or twice essayed
the discussion, fearing on the one hand to trust himself
to speak, and on the other hand feeling that any effort
to change his fate would be hopeless. But he and she
were full of inner conflicts. Then their pathways
seemed stony, brier-tangled. They had both elected,
for Guide and Ideal, Jesus and Mary ; they were both
going toward the cross in a noble consecration of their
lives. But they denied themselves that that sustained
Jesus, home love, such as he found at Bethany ; conju
gal love, such as sustained Mary, the wife and the
mother, as well as the disciple. They had as their loft
iest ambition the purpose of making the world happier



4 1 8 The Queen of the House of David.

and better, and began by making misery for themselves.
They had read that a star led the wise men of the
East to Christ in a cradle, the light of the Gospel
rising first in a little home circle. They looked at the
double stars above them after the storm that night