# Mirrikh, or, A Woman from Mars/Chapter 29

CHAPTER XXIX.
“BEHOLD, I SHOW YOU A MYSTERY!”
I was dreaming of Hope! I was at her side; together we were floating through realms of boundless space.
But it was not as it had been before. It was just as vivid, just as real, and yet there was a difference. I gazed into her eyes, I stretched out my hands to grasp her, but clutched at the empty air.
“No, George; not now!” I heard her say. “All danger has passed, and many useful years lie before you. Return to your work, but before I remove my power from your brain I would have you behold the workings of a mighty mystery—a mystery which concerns that mightiest of all mysteries—the human soul.”
Then I thought she bent forward and kissed me, but when once more I tried to throw my arms about her, she was not there.
Nor was I the light and airy being which in fancy I had thought myself.
I was lying upon the rocks looking at the Doctor, powerless to move or speak.
Evidently he considered me simply in a faint, and had left me to look out for myself while he attended to Walla.
​He had his ear against her heart when I first saw him, while his fingers pressed her pulse; but in a moment he stood up, muttering a single word.
“Dead!”
With all my might I tried to call out to him, but in vain.
Again he returned to the charge, and this time the examination was most searching.
Once more he rose up, muttering:
“Dead as a door nail!”
Then instead of turning to me, as one might naturally have supposed he would do, he stood gazing down upon Walla’s face.
What did he see? What did he read in those white, silent features?
God knows! I only know what I saw, and, be it real, or be it but a dream, my eyes actually beheld what I am about to relate.
Above Walla hovered two females in snow white garments, with faces pure and refined beyond description. They seemed to be busy about her head; their hands moved with incredible rapidity.
For several moments, it seemed to me, I continued to watch them, then suddenly they rose into the air and with them rose Walla, perfect even to the smallest shred of her garments; yet another Walla remained stretched upon the rocks.
“She is dead! These are ministering angels taking her spirit away,” I thought; when all at once something white seemed to flit across my vision, and to my utter amazement I beheld the woman whom I had seen standing by the side of Maurice on Mars, settling down over Walla’s earthly form.
“It is Merzilla! She is seeking a body!” flashed over me, and I remembered Maurice’s words.
For an instant she appeared to hover over Walla, her fingers moving like lightning. To me it seemed as though she were drawing from her own brain a silvery thread which she conveyed to the brain of the corpse.
Still I watched her. Still the work continued. The length of the thread was tremendous. It seemed as if miles upon miles of it had been unwound.
Would she never cease?
Just as I asked myself the question, I heard the Doctor’s voice shouting in my ear.
​“A miracle! By Jove! A miracle! Wylde! Oh Wylde!”
I sprang up and tremblingly caught his arm.
“Walla!” I gasped. “Walla? Does she live?”
“Look! I swear to you that a moment ago Walla was dead; but now look!”
Walla had risen to her feet, but over the face had come a wondrous change.
Walla!
But was it Walla?
Upon this point I prefer not to commit myself.
All I know is that where Walla’s skin was dark, the face of the woman before me became as light as any blonde I ever saw. Where Walla’s hair was jet black, the hair upon the head at which I now looked, I saw change to a light brown. As for the face—but enough! I shall say it boldly. I saw every feature of that face transformed. It was no longer Walla Benjow upon whom we gazed. It was the woman I had seen on Mars!