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Thus on the Field of Ardath he drained the cup of humility to the dregs, the cup which like that offered to the Prophet of Holy Writ was "full as it were with water, but the color of it was like fire" the water of tears.. the fire of faith, . . and with that prophet he might have said.. "When I had drunk of it, my heart uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for my spirit strengthened my memory."
You broke your fast with him, and surely it was easy for him to place some potent drug in the wine he gave you, which made you DREAM the rest; nay, viewed from this standpoint, it is open to question whether you ever went to the Field of Ardath at all, but merely DREAMED you did!
What of the "Flower-crowned Wonder" of the Field of Ardath, strayed for a while out of her native Heaven? Does the world know her marvellous origin? Perhaps the mystic Heliobas knows, perhaps even good Frank Villiers has hazarded a reverent guess at his friend's great secret but to the uninstructed, what does she seem?
I have seen and yet see that I am not able to express." Here Heliobas paused, having read the last sentence with peculiarly impressive emphasis. "That is all" he said "I see no more allusions to the name of Ardath. The last three verses are the same as those in the accepted Apocrypha." Alwyn had listened with an absorbed yet somewhat mystified air of attention.
But what was ARDATH? It was neither a country nor a city it was a "waste field," where he had seen. ... ah! WHOM had he seen? He struggled furiously with himself for some response to this, ... none came! Total dumb blankness was the sole result of the inward rack to which he subjected his thoughts!
Thus I, Heliobas, the impostor, take advantage of your state of mind to throw you into a trance, in which, by occult means, you see the vision of an Angel, who bids you meet her at a place called Ardath, and you, also, in your hypnotized condition, write a poem which you entitle 'Nourhalma. Then I, always playing my own little underhand game! read you portions of 'Esdras, and prove to you that 'Ardath' exists, while I delicately SUGGEST, if I do not absolutely COMMAND, your going thither.
Be glad that you have fathomed the mystery of your own life's purpose, for you are now as much a Positive Identity among vanishing spectres, as you were when, on the Field of Ardath, you witnessed and took part in the Mirage of your Past."
When he at last looked up, Edris had vanished! He was alone, . . alone on the Field of Ardath, ... the field that was "barren" in very truth, now she, his Angel, had been drawn away, as it seemed, into the sunlight, . . absorbed like a paradise-pearl into those rays of life-giving gold that lit and warmed the reddening earth and heaven!
And where had he been before he ever saw Ardath? ... had he NO recollection of any other place, any other surroundings? ABSOLUTELY NONE! torture his wits as he would, ABSOLUTELY NONE! ... This was frightful ... incredible! ... Surely, surely, he mused piteously, there must have been something in his life before the name of "Ardath" had swamped his intelligence! ...
My fame is, as you can guess, a mere ephemera, a small vanishing point, in comparison with the higher ambition I have now in view. Listen, you know nothing of what happened to me on the Field of Ardath, I should have written to you perhaps, but it is better to speak I will tell you all as briefly as I can."
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