The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales

Twilight of the Gods, and Other
Tales, The

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Title: The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales
Author: Richard Garnett
Release Date: November 16, 2003 [EBook #10095]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Illustration: An eagle pecking at the heart of a bearded man, chained to
a rock, with the inscription: "Cor ex est numquam ex cordis regina

volantum".]
THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS: AND OTHER TALES
BY
RICHARD GARNETT
MDCCCCIII
TO
HORACE HOWARD FURNESS AND GEORG BRANDES. DABO
DUOBUS TESTIBUS MEIS

CONTENTS
The Twilight of the Gods The Potion of Lao-Tsze Abdallah the Adite
Ananda the Miracle Worker The City of Philosophers The Demon Pope
The Cupbearer The Wisdom of the Indians The Dumb Oracle Duke
Virgil The Claw Alexander the Ratcatcher The Rewards of Industry
Madam Lucifer The Talismans The Elixir of Life The Poet of
Panopolis The Purple Head The Firefly Pan's Wand A Page from the
Book of Folly The Bell of Saint Euschemon Bishop Addo and Bishop
Gaddo The Philosopher and the Butterflies Truth and Her Companions
The Three Palaces New Readings in Biography The Poison Maid
NOTES

THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
Truth fails not, but her outward forms that bear The longest date do
melt like frosty rime.

I

The fourth Christian century was far past its meridian, when, high
above the summit of the supreme peak of Caucasus, a magnificent
eagle came sailing on broad fans into the blue, and his shadow
skimmed the glittering snow as it had done day by day for thousands of
years. A human figure--or it might be superhuman, for his mien seemed
more than mortal--lifted from the crag, to which he hung suspended by
massy gyves and rivets, eyes mournful with the presentiment of pain.
The eagle's screech clanged on the wind, as with outstretched neck he
stooped earthward in ever narrowing circles; his huge quills already
creaked in his victim's ears, whose flesh crept and shrank, and
involuntary convulsions agitated his hands and feet. Then happened
what all these millenniums had never witnessed. No thunderbolt had
blazed forth from that dome of cloudless blue; no marksman had
approached the inaccessible spot; yet, without vestige of hurt, the eagle
dropped lifeless, falling sheer down into the unfathomable abyss below.
At the same moment the bonds of the captive snapped asunder, and,
projected by an impetus which kept him clear of the perpendicular
precipice, he alighted at an infinite depth on a sun-flecked greensward
amid young ash and oak, where he long lay deprived of sense and
motion.
The sun fell, dew gathered on the grass, moonshine glimpsed through
the leaves, stars peeped timidly at the prostrate figure, which remained
prostrate and unconscious still. But as sunlight was born anew in the
East a thrill passed over the slumberer, and he became conscious, first
of an indescribably delicious feeling of restful ease, then of a gnawing
pang, acute as the beak of the eagle for which he at first mistook it. But
his wrists, though still encumbered with bonds and trailing fetters, were
otherwise at liberty, and eagle there was none. Marvelling at his inward
and invisible foe, he struggled to his feet, and found himself contending
with a faintness and dizziness heretofore utterly unknown to him. He
dimly felt himself in the midst of things grown wonderful by
estrangement and distance. No grass, no flower, no leaf had met his eye
for thousands of years, nothing but the impenetrable azure, the transient
cloud, sun, moon, and star, the lightning flash, the glittering peaks of
ice, and the solitary eagle. There seemed more wonder in a blade of
grass than in all these things, but all was blotted in a dizzy swoon, and

it needed his utmost effort to understand that a light sound hard by,
rapidly growing more distinct, was indeed a footfall. With a violent
effort he steadied himself by grasping a tree, and had hardly
accomplished so much when a tall dark maiden, straight as an arrow,
slim as an antelope, wildly beautiful as a Dryad, but liker a Maenad
with her aspect of mingled disdain and dismay, and step hasty as of one
pursuing or pursued, suddenly checked her speed on perceiving him.
"Who art thou?" he exclaimed.
"Gods! Thou speakest Greek!"
"What else should I speak?"
"What else?