A quiver ran through her whole frame and with a mournful cry she
fell fainting in the arms of Rathunor. Here his innate born courage
and bravery sustained him, and instantly there flashed into his mind
the words he had once heard the High Priest use while passing his
hands over an insensible form. So, gently laying her inanimate body
upon the grass, he repeated in slow, but firm and commanding tones
these words:
"Return, O soul, to thy physical body. Return, I command thee, and
reanimate this lifeless tenement of your soul. Come, come, I command
thee, come."
Scarcely had the last words been uttered when a movement of the
hands and limbs announced to Rathunor the return of life. She was
soon able to rise and, being supported by the Prince, they slowly
wended their way back to the castle. She walked as in a dream, but
as her step was stately and firm, the Prince did not become alarmed
until he had her safe in her room, when the extent of the occurrence
dawned upon him and then he hurriedly called her maid and sent at
once to dispatch a servant for their physician. Nu-nah had become
quite herself before the Doctor came and after he had administered a
little palliative, withdrew saying, "The Princess will soon be well.
It was only the result of fatigue induced by the constant excitement
of social pleasures."
The Prince was silent and, seeing the Princess was so comfortable,
he retired to his own apartments with strict injunctions, he should
be notified at once if any symptoms of the prostration should
appear. When once within his private chamber he threw himself down
in a chair and fell into a profound study. Over and over he
reviewed the incidents of the evening. "What was there in that music
that so enchanted Nu-nah? What did she see and hear that revived a
faint memory of something in the past? What magical force was it
that drew her so irresistibly toward the Temple? What produced that
quiver which preceded her falling insensible into his arms?"
He was half inclined to blame the Priests for it all, for he knew
something of the power of magic and its psychologic effect. The more
he reasoned the farther he wandered from a solution. Now he mused,
"If that had been the beautiful Vestal, Sarthia, I could understand
why she would be so powerfully attracted to the Temple, but Nu-nah,
who had never entered the Holy Sanctuary except for those sacred
Rites that are administered to all who are supposed to be bordering
on the land of the spiritual world; only those two nights, to his
knowledge, had she ever been in the Sacred Sanctuary; there was
something in those ceremonies that he had not as yet understood;
there must have been some mystical, magical power employed to
restore the frail, feeble, unconscious Nu-nah to life and health
and, to him."
He thought and reasoned until his brain was on fire, and still no
solution of the mystery was presented to his understanding.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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