CHAPTER XXVII — THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.

If I could have endured to describe to Eveena the terrible trial scene, that which occurred before she had the chance to question me would have certainly sealed my lips.  The past night had told upon me as no fatigue, no anxiety, no disaster of my life on Earth had ever done.  I awoke faint and exhausted as a nervous valetudinarian, and I suppose my feeling must have been plainly visible in my face, for Eveena would not allow me to rise from the cushions till she had summoned an amba and procured the material of a morning meal, though the hour was noon.  Far too considerate to question me then, she was perhaps a little disappointed that, almost before I had dressed, a message from her father summoned me to his presence.

“It is right,” he said quietly, and with no show of feeling, though his face was somewhat pale, “that you should be acquainted with the fulfilment of the sentence you assisted to pass.  The outcast was found this morning dead in his own chamber.  Nay, you need not start!  We need no deathsman; alike by sudden disease, by suicide, by accident, our doom executes itself.  But enough of this.  I accepted the vote which invested you with the second rank in our Order, less because I think you will render service to it here than that I desired you to possess that entire knowledge of its powers and secrets which might enable you to plant a branch or offshoot where none but you could carry it ...  That you will soon leave this world seemed to me probable, before the anticipations of practical prudence were confirmed by the voice of prophecy.  Your Astronaut shall be stored with all of which I know you have need, and with any materials whose use I do not know that you may point out.  To remove it from Asnyea would now be too dangerous.  If you receive tidings that shall bring you again into its neighbourhood, do not lose the opportunity of re-entering it....  And now let me take leave of you, as of a dear friend I may not meet again.”

“Do you know,” I said, more touched by the tone than by the words, “that Eveena asked and I gave a promise that when I do re-enter it she shall be my companion?”

“I did not know it, but I took for granted that she would desire it, and I should have been grieved to doubt that you would assent.  I cannot disturb her peace by saying to her what I have just said to you, and must part from her as on any ordinary occasion.”

That parting, happily, I did not witness.  Before evening we re-entered our vessel, and returned home without any incident worthy of mention.