Hartmann F. - The Talking Image of Urur

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H A L P S

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The Talking Image of Urur

Franz Hartmann

(English: Franz Hartmann, The Talking Image of Urur)

Published in book form by John W. Lovell Company, New York, in 1890. The final chapter, important to understanding the story, was omitted from the Lucifer serialization apart from its closing paragraph. (B. de Zirkoff, BCW 11:45, BCW 11:159)

Publications:

• Lucifer, vol. 3, no. 16, December 1888, pp. 292-300
• no. 17, January 1889, pp. 365-371
• no. 18, February 1889, pp. 457-471
• Lucifer, vol. 4, no. 19, March 1889, pp. 53-69
• Lucifer, vol. 4, no. 20, April 1889, pp. 155-162
• Lucifer, vol. 4, no. 21, May 1889, pp. 205-222
• Lucifer, vol. 4, no. 22, June 1889, pp. 296-313
• Lucifer, vol. 4, no. 23, July 1889, pp. 395-403
• Lucifer, vol. 4, no. 24, August 1889, pp. 478-485

Read:

• Electronic journal edition in Teopedia
• Electronic journal edition in Teopedia

CTD entry in Russian: Гартман Ф. - Говорящий идол Урура

Mentions

Mentioned in: On Pseudo-Theosophy (BCW 11:45) Miscellaneous Notes (BCW 11:159)

DATA

Title for references: Hartmann F. - The Talking Image of Urur
Short description: Published in book form by John W. Lovell Company, New York, in 1890. The final chapter, important to...

Franz Hartmann

The Talking Image of Urur

Printed credit: By Dr. Franz Hartmann.

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CHAPTER I. THE MYSTERY.

HIGH upon the rocks that guard the western coast of the United States against the aggressive waves of the Pacific Ocean, as they roll in through the “Golden Gate,” stands the “Cliff-house,” a place known to all who have lived in California. There the inhabitants of San Francisco go on hot summer days to enjoy the cool breeze that comes over the watery waste, and strangers from all parts of the globe may be found upon the verandah of the hotel, looking with delight upon the tranquil bay dotted with charming islands, and watching the fishing-boats with their white sails glittering in the sun. Below the railing of the porch, the breakers dash against giant masses of granite that raise from the inky deep their heads, crowned with wreaths of snow-white foam as the spray of the surging waves rises high in the air. At a short distance from the shore, in the midst of the never ceasing turmoil of the infuriated waters, appear two cliffs that have withstood for many centuries the onslaught of the ocean. Upon these cliffs may be seen at all times a great number of seals at play, their bellowing being heard even above the thunder and roaring of the surf.

It was amid these surroundings that one evening, as the sinking sun was colouring the clouds overhead with purple and gold, two persons stood upon the balcony looking over the pandemonium below. One of these was a man about forty years of age; the other a young and graceful lady, evidently of Spanish descent. Pancho – for that was the favourite name by which he was called by the little lady – had the air of a man who had travelled much; he was indeed a cosmopolitan in character. Having lived in many parts of the world, and among different nationalities, he had become acquainted with their habits and learned their various tongues. He had studied the popular sciences, and read a great many books; but he did not believe much in the assertions made by modern authorities. He always wanted to convince himself of the truth of a theory before he was willing to accept it. His master passion was a desire for knowledge, or to express it perhaps more correctly, a desire to gratify his curiosity in regard to the hidden mysteries of nature. He had entered deeply into the study of chemistry

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and read a great many alchemical books, without, however, discovering the way to prepare the Philosopher’s Stone. In the course of time he had accidentally become acquainted with the young and lovely Conchita. Finding her so attractive that he imagined he could not be happy without her, he deliberately proposed, and in due course of time submitted to the irksome ceremony, by means of which two persons of the opposite sex are legally made husband and wife.

Beauty of external form and of character are not always found hand-in-hand; but Conchita possessed both. Her figure was small but exquisitely beautiful, and the raven black colour of her hair formed a strong contrast to the delicate palor of her skin. Her form was faultless, and her manners exceedingly graceful. She was a beauty of such a rare kind that when she was passing through the streets of the city with her black mantilla thrown carelessly over her head and shoulders, men would stand still and stare, and ladies would cast shy glances at her as if afraid that she would outshine them all in beauty. She was proud, yet not vain; she knew that she was beautiful, yet was modest and unassuming; a most bewitching creature. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that Pancho was proud of his wife.

Conchita was born in Guatemala. She had been brought up in one of those Roman Catholic convents where girls vampirize each other because they are never permitted to see a man except their old Father-confessor. Under such circumstances the mind creates phantasies, for there is a longing for the unknown in every human nature, and that which is hidden or far away grows in imaginary value in proportion as it seems to be unattainable. The story of the forbidden fruit being the most palatable is not a fiction, and it was, perhaps, a desire to know the true nature of that mysterious and dangerous animal called “man,” which led to Conchita’s acquaintance with Pancho soon after she left the convent, and to her subsequent marriage.

Taking the above into consideration, the philosophers have not yet fully agreed whether this marriage was, or was not, the outcome of selfishness; but our historian thinks that all human actions are due to selfishness in some shape or other, and that an entirely unselfish person, one who has no desire whatever to incite him to action, would be about the most useless thing in the world.

However that may be, it is certain and beyond the possibility of any scientific doubt that Pancho and Conchita lived very happily together. To Pancho it seemed that his wife had no other desire but to please him, and he almost felt his phrenological bump of veneration growing in her presence. She seemed to be fully absorbed in her husband; but he was not absorbed by her, for man’s love is multifarious and vacillating; it comes from the imagination, while there is nothing more simple, and therefore more firm than the love of a woman. Her love springs from

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the heart and goes to the heart, while man’s love seldom penetrates below the surface.

Conchita loved her husband above all other things; but Pancho had many loves besides his wife. He loved to take aerial flights into the realm of occultism and mysticism; his greatest desire was to lift the veil of Isis and uncover the mysteries of Nature. The planet upon which he lived was not large enough to gratify his curiosity. He desired to know other worlds and other beings than those of this earth; he wished to know the whole of the universe, not that prison-house alone in which he was doomed to live.

Conchita cared nothing for Occultism, but loved to enjoy that Light which she saw with her physical eyes. She knew nothing about what is called “the supernatural,” except that which she had been told by her religious teachers; she imagined that if anything more could be known about it, her Father-confessor, who was a very smart person, would surely have found it out. She believed in God, although she had not the least conception of the meaning of that term, nor of what kind of being this God might be; but Pancho wanted scientific proof of the existence of God before he would make up his mind to believe in his existence. Conchita had an unbounded faith in divine providence and was willing to trust her destiny in the hands of God; Pancho imagined that each person was himself the master of his own destiny, and he required to know all the attributes of God before he would willingly trust himself into his power.

He had in vain studied natural sciences and theology, and consulted the most eminent professors and clergymen, in his search for reasonable proof of the survival of the soul after the death of the body. Doctrines which were positively asserted to be true by the luminaries of the church, were peremptorily denied and ridiculed by luminaries of science; while both parties based their opposite opinions upon equally plausible and logical grounds. Despairing in his attempts to find any human authority which could be implicitly trusted, he began to investigate Spiritualism, hoping to find in this new science the solution of such difficult problems. For once fortune seemed to smile upon him. He found opportunities to witness the most astounding phenomena, from common table-tippings up to the levitation of living persons, and from direct writings produced in locked slates up to the full materialization of corporal forms, seemingly solid human beings, with whom one could talk, who could be touched, and who, nevertheless, dissolved a moment after into thin air, or disappeared through solid walls.

Pancho was in the hey-day of his glory. His longed-for goal was at last attained: he had obtained proof palpable of the immortality of the soul. The spirits of his departed friends and acquaintances had come to him, and spoken about things of the past known to no mortal person, save himself. He received indisputable proof of their identity, not only

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through professional mediums, but through persons who themselves were disbelievers in Spiritualism. Moreover, he “sat for development” in the solitude of his room and obtained clairvoyant glimpses of various kinds. Once, a beautiful spirit, an angelic being of wondrous loveliness, appeared and told him that she was his spirit-bride, his true affinity, who awaited him with out-stretched arms in the bright hereafter, to lead him to her celestial palace, far, far away among the stars.

After a while, however, it turned out that some of his spiritualistic experiences were of an unsatisfactory character. Not that he had been cheated by fraudulent mediums; but that he saw that some of his cherished spirit communications were not in accordance with truth. He began to doubt whether even his spirit-bride was not the outcome of his own imagination. And thus he became sceptical in regard to the origin of the letters received from those that “were gone before.”

The proofs of the unreliability of these “spirit-communications” became more and more abundant as time went on, till at last he became thoroughly dissatisfied with the results of his researches.

It was just at this time that he made the acquaintance of Conchita, and resolved to bid adieu to the inhabitants of the “Summerland,” and to learn to know this present life, leaving the hereafter to take care of itself. He married his bride, and, for once in his life, was happy.

But if the craving for the unknown and the mysterious has once awakened within the heart, it is not so easily repressed. Even in his most happy hours, Pancho could not help making silent comparisons between his love in the spirit-world and his terrestrial wife. These were not quite favourable to the latter, as she was, after all, only a woman of flesh and blood, while the former was clothed in an ethereal form. It need hardly be said that he told Conchita nothing about it, for she was of Castilian blood, and would not have suffered any woman, material or spiritual, to come between her and her husband.

As the couple stood upon the balcony, looking down into the surging waters and the bellowing herd of seals that scrambled over the rocks, Pancho mockingly remarked:

“If I were convinced of the truth of the doctrine which teaches the transmigration of souls, I would be ready to believe that these beasts are the reincarnated egos of men coming fresh from the stock exchange. How they push and elbow each other down there, as if buying and selling shares. Now they have exchanged their human for animal forms, but their characters are the same. Formerly all their energies were bent to outwit each other for the purpose of obtaining money; now each one attempts to push the others down, in order to obtain a standing-place upon the sunny rock. It is the same selfishness acting in them now that was at work before; it but differs in the form of its manifestation. Formerly it was a desire for wealth; now it manifests itself in a more brutal form.”

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“I should be very unwilling to believe,” replied Conchita, “that human souls could desire to return again to this earth once they have departed from it. If I were to go, I should have no desire to return. I would rise above this planet into the region of starlight, and listen to the music of the spheres.”

“Intrastellar space,” sneered our Pancho, “is said to be as dark as pitch, and as there is no air to transmit sound, the music of the spheres, even if there were such, could not be heard.”

“Perhaps there may be another kind of light, and another kind of music than that which we know,” she said dreamily. “Perhaps the senses of the soul become there more refined and need no material air for the transmission of sound. Heaven is said to be a beautiful place, filled by angels crowned with diamonds, and its streets paved with gold.”

“If there were such a super-terrestrial world,” answered Pancho, “I should wish to go there and gather some of the rubies and pearls that are said to be so abundant in heaven. I would then bring them back to you. They would look well in your beautiful hair.”

“Who knows whether you would return,” said Conchita. “You might meet some angel more pretty than I am on your way, and forget all about me.”

“No angel or devil,” exclaimed Pancho, “will ever break the bonds by which our souls are united. Even if I were as far away from you as the earth from the moon, I would not forget you. Love acts independently of distance.”

Conchita seemed to reflect, and then asked: “Tell me, dear, what is your opinion about the nature of love?”

“Why!” hesitated Pancho, somewhat perplexed what to answer. “The books say that it is a peculiar state of the imagination which causes one to think of a certain object.”

“That would probably be imaginary love,” replied Conchita; “but I wish to know how you define the real thing.”

“The real thing!” repeated Pancho surprised. “I cannot see how love could be a real thing; it is merely a state of something which is called the mind; it is a sentiment by which two beings are attracted towards each other.”

Conchita did not seem to be quite satisfied with that reply, for after a pause, during which Pancho reflected about the nature of that thing called the mind, she suddenly asked:

“Do the stars love each other?”

“What a question,” answered Pancho. “Stars are inanimate bodies like our earth. They are composed of chemical substances, the same as we find upon our globe. How can they love each other if they have no consciousness?”

“It seems to me,” she went on, “that they must be conscious, for they are attracted towards each other, and if they were unconscious of

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everything, how could they respond to an attraction from afar? How could that which they are incapable of feeling have any effect upon them?”

“Some German philosophers say that there is no such thing as attraction, but that it is all due to some etheric force which propels from behind, while repulsion is said to be a wedging in of ether particles between two objects. At all events, the interaction seems to be due to some universal substance, and some philosophers say that this substance, or spirit, is an indivisible Unity, but I cannot see how that could be.”

A new idea seemed to have been intuitively grasped by Conchita; for she clapped her hands, and joyfully exclaimed: “Ah! I know. This spirit is a unity, and it is the same in me as in you. I always feel as if we both were really only one. When I am going away from you it seems to me as if I were going away from myself, and I often imagine that in loving you, I am only loving myself. Yes, I am sure we are one. You are Conchita, and I am Pancho!”

Highly rejoicing over her discovery, Conchita broke out into joyous laughter.

“It may be so,” seriously answered Pancho, “but in this case all human beings would be one, and you would have to love everybody just as much as you love me, we could then have no individual preferences. But there is something in your individuality which causes me to love you more than any other being. Will that individuality be for ever preserved, or will it, as the Buddhists say, be dissolved in the universal ocean of spirit? This is the great problem which I would wish to have solved.”

“Why should you worry about such a problem?” asked his wife. “I believe that, when the time comes that we should know it, the mystery will be solved.”

Pancho remained silent.

While carrying on this conversation, the lovers had left the verandah and descended to the beach. The sun had disappeared below the horizon. Dark clouds had gathered, threatening a storm, but the last rays of the sinking orb were fringing the dark masses with silver and gold, with yellow and purple and countless hues, which gradually faded away before the shadows of night.

“How beautiful is the sunset!” exclaimed Conchita, “and how sorry we should be to see its close, did we not know that the sun will rise again to-morrow.”

“Thus it is with life,” was the answer. “When the day dream of life comes to an end, then follows the night. It is said that there will be another sun rise for us, when we return to the earth in a new incarnation, but what will be our condition during the night? What shall we do between sunset and sunrise?”

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“Why, sleep, of course,” retorted Conchita. “Sleep, and dream happy dreams.”

“This idea of sleeping and dreaming does not at all please me,” he said. “A man who sleeps and dreams is not his own master; he neither reasons nor thinks. He is like a boat on the water without a helm, helplessly driven hither and thither by the winds and the waves; they may land him in a beautiful harbour, or dash him against a rock. Who knows where his dreams will take him? They may raise him up to heaven or throw him down into the abyss of hell. What I desire is not to dream, but to retain my own reasoning power, and the mastery over my imagination. I have read of Adepts who have accomplished this; if I knew where to find such men, I would go to them and ask them to teach me their secret. I would discover them, even if I had to go to the end of the world!

“There can be no doubt that such Adepts have once lived, and that they were in the possession of the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone and the true Elixir of Life; I believe that such men exist even to-day. I have read about the Rosicrucians, who were in the possession of such powers. They had a temple called the Universal Temple of the Holy Ghost where they used to meet, and it it said to have stood in some part of Southern Germany. I have hunted all over that country, but I could not find it. They had an ever-burning lamp that must have been constructed according to principles entirely unknown to modern chemistry, and they could call up the Elemental Spirits of nature.”

“There are undoubtedly people who can do very wonderful things,” interrupted Conchita. “There is, for instance, Juana, who can make spirits appear, but she is a very bad girl.”

“Who is Juana?” asked Pancho.

“A girl from my own country, a very strange girl. She is an Indian, and was captured, when a child, from a tribe of savages in the forests of Guatemala during an attack which the soldiers made upon the Indian camp. She was given into the charge of a sea captain, who afterwards gave her to me because I understood a little of her language. I have attempted to give her an education, but while she is full of tricks she does not seem capable of learning anything useful. She can foretell events by looking into a glass of water, and her prophecies usually come true; but she can also do a great deal of mischief. The neighbours are afraid of her and believe her to be a witch. I once caught her sticking needles into an image of wax representing a person who was then very sick. That person died, and people said that Juana had killed her by her malefice. However, this could not be proved. She caused so much trouble that I had to send her away, and she is now with a woman that used to be a servant in our family.”

“I have read a great deal about witches,” said Pancho, “and I have

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always wished to find an opportunity to investigate such phenomena. I hope you will introduce me without delay to your precious Juana.”

“Take my advice,” answered his wife, “and do not seek to become acquainted with her. I am sure that nothing good will result from such experiments.”

“I am not afraid of her spells,” he proudly replied. “I am strong enough to resist them. I dare even the devil, and why should I fear Juana’s powers if I can, thereby, learn something new? Let us go to her!”

“Your wish is a command to me,” answered Conchita. “The place where she lives is not far out of our way; we will visit her as we return.”

To this proposal Pancho readily consented. They returned to the city by carriage, and neither spoke much during the trip, for Pancho’s thoughts were occupied with the stories which he had read of the Rosicrucians, and Conchita felt that she had committed an imprudence in speaking about Juana. It seemed as if, already, a foreboding cloud had settled upon the two lovers.

It was already dark when they entered the city. Alighting, they dismissed the carriage and walked the rest of the way, which led up one of the steep hills upon which San Francisco is built. Turning a corner, they saw an old Catholic cathedral, whose door stood ajar, and whose interior was dimly illuminated. Conchita asked her husband to enter with her the church.

For a moment Pancho hesitated. He was no friend of churches, priestcraft or pious mummeries. He had not visited a church for years, and did not desire to enter one now. Nevertheless, he followed Conchita as she went into the building. Was it, perhaps, that he did not wish to displease his young wife by refusing to submit to her whim, or was it because even our most fanatical rationalists prefer to see their wives pious than over sceptical? For an arguing and incredulous woman loses much of the charm that characterizes her sex, and a wife who knows too much to believe in religion is likely also to be alert enough to mistrust her husband.

Thus he consented at last to enter the church, which at that hour was deserted. Arm in arm they walked down the aisle towards the altar, and it seemed to Pancho as if the wooden images of the saints posted along the walls were scowling at him reproachfully, as if surprised to see a heretic in their midst. Having arrived at the foot of the altar, Conchita sank down upon her knees and prayed silently, while Pancho stood in the background contemplating the picture.

It was a grand old cathedral, built in magnificent style. If Pancho had understood the symbolical meaning contained in stones, the architecture of that church might have told him more truths than all the sermons that had ever been preached in its pulpit; for the high pillars, massive and solid at their base, spoke of firmness and solidity of

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character, while the soft lines in which the arches curved upwards to the roof spoke of the aspiration of the soul towards the Unattainable and the Infinite.

The church was nearly dark, but through the stained glass of the high-arched window to the right, a ray of light from a lamp in the vicinity of the building crept in, and falling upon Conchita’s veil surrounded her head with a halo like that of a saint.

As the husband watched his wife, she appeared to him a glorified being, and her presence seemed to fill the whole of the building with some invisible but living and substantial power, perhaps of the same kind as that which must have existed in the Rosicrucian temple in the South of Germany. It seemed to him as if a supernatural golden and rosy light radiated from her form, and entering his being sought to kindle within his heart an inextinguishable flame of a nature unknown to modern chemistry. He felt the ennobling influence of Conchita’s soul, which seemed to lift him up on the wings of her own aspirations, and he wondered that such a spiritual being should have united her fate to his own. Perhaps it was the exalted state of Conchita’s imagination that caused him to feel a corresponding vibration within himself, and he began to think that love was more than a mere emotion; that it was a real power. He felt some inexplicable influence penetrating him and it took the whole strength of his rationalistic reasoning to resist the impulse to kneel down by the side of his wife and worship with her: a thing which would evidently have been very preposterous, an unpardonable weakness of which he certainly would have been very much ashamed hereafter.

Conchita arose, and smiled sweetly as she looked into the eyes of her husband.

A heavenly peace seemed to rest upon her soul, while Pancho’s mind was a battle-ground of contradictory thoughts and opposite emotions, whose nature and origin he could not well explain.

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CHAPTER II. JUANA.

THE two lovers, after leaving the old cathedral, continued their way, and soon entered the Chinese quarter of the city. The shops were lighted with gas, and crowds of people thronged the streets, while in the by-ways and alleys, females of doubtful character, looking hungry, defiant and greedy, were lurking. The great majority of the people were Chinese; from the well-to-do merchant in a silk robe down to the pale and ragged wretches that live in underground holes and subterranean passages, in continual warfare with the police. The nauseous odour of fish and garlic that pervaded the streets was by no means inviting, and our hero and heroine quickened their step to escape to the purer regions, higher up on the hill-side. Soon they reached a part of the city where the streets became more quiet, and at last they stopped in front of a gate leading into a small garden, in the midst of which, surrounded by bushes of jessamine and oleander, stood a small one-storey cottage.

Pancho pushed the gate open. In doing so he found it obstructed by something which proved to be the carcase of a dog, lying stiff and with its head thrown backwards, as if it had died of tetanus.

“This is Mrs. Wells’ pet poodle,” cried Conchita. “It seems as though it had been poisoned.”

They rang the bell and, the door being soon opened, Mrs. Wells appeared upon the threshold. She was a woman of about sixty years, in a white frilled cap. The lamp she carried was held up high to enable her to scrutinize the new-comers. Her face brightened up when she recognized Conchita.

“Bless me!” she exclaimed. “What good luck brings my darling here to-night? Please walk in.”

They entered, and Pancho was introduced to Mrs. Wells. The latter expressed herself delighted, and declared that this was indeed a fortunate ending to a most unfortunate day.

“How so?” asked Conchita. “Has anything disagreeable happened to you to-day?”

“Lots of disagreeable things have happened,” replied Mrs. Wells. “Mr. Hagard the landlord had long ago promised to have these rooms newly papered, but as he never did it, and the hangings were falling down from the walls, I could stand it no longer. So I took a few dollars which I had saved up, bought some paper myself, and hired a paper-

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hanger. But when the landlord heard that the rooms had been repaired, he came in and said, that the house was now worth a great deal more rent, and that he supposed I could now afford to pay him twenty dollars a month instead of eighteen as heretofore. I argued with him and told him that God would surely punish him for his avarice; but he said that he would not compel me to pay more, and if I did not wish to do so, I was at liberty to move out, if I liked. What shall I do now? I am a poor woman, and Mr. Hagard is a wealthy man. He owns two blocks of houses and has millions of money; yet he will not live in a decent room himself, but sleeps in the loft over one of his stables, and climbs into it at night by means of a ladder.”

“He is very much to be pitied,” remarked Conchita, “but has any other misfortune happened?”

“Nothing worth mentioning,” answered Mrs. Wells. “Only Juana has been very wicked. She played with Tommy and let him smell a bone, and when the dog snapped at it, she pulled it away. At last Tommy got hold of the bone, and then she snatched it away from him and he grew excited and bit her. This made her so furious, that I had to let the dog out, for Juana would surely have torn him to pieces!

“The bite does not seem to have agreed with the dog anyhow,” put in Pancho, who thereupon informed Mrs. Wells of having seen the poodle lying dead at the gate. They both went out and brought the body of the dog into the cottage. Mrs. Wells, who was very much grieved at the death of her favourite, said she was certain this was Juana’s doing.

“Where did she get the poison?” asked Pancho.

“That girl requires no poison,” answered the aggrieved woman. “She is poison enough herself. I shall be glad when she gets out of this house. She wishes to go back to Central America, and the sooner we send her back the better it will be for all of us. She will never be fit to live in a civilized country.”

Entering the kitchen, adjoining which was the chamber of Juana, our friends found a dark-coloured Indian girl with sharply defined features not altogether devoid of beauty. Her long black hair hung in disorder over her narrow forehead and her shoulders, as she sat in front of the grate, looking at the glimmering ashes, while a malicious smile played around her lips. It would have been somewhat difficult to estimate her age, which might have been fourteen or twenty-four; but it seemed as though her young body was inhabited by an aged soul. She was partly undressed, wearing a dark-blue shirt and a chequered shawl that but half concealed her form.

At the time when Juana was picked up from the battle field, she was already old enough to be impressed with its horrors. A company of government soldiers had killed nearly all of the tribe to which she belonged; but the officer in command had spared her life and taken her home to his family. Soon after that the officer was himself killed

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and she was taken in charge by a sea captain who employed her as a servant and brought her with him to the United States, where she was found by Conchita, and ultimately placed with Mrs. Wells. Juana had never forgotten the injury inflicted upon her people by the white race, and her heart was full of revenge. She seemed to hate everybody without discrimination, Conchita perhaps excepted; for the latter had been very kind to her and could converse with her in her Indian dialect. Moreover Conchita had promised to send her back to her own country, and she was very anxious to return, dreaming perchance of future greatness and even of becoming the queen of her tribe.

If she had any magic powers, it had never been ascertained how she acquired them. It is therefore, not unreasonable to suppose that she learned their use intuitively, having perhaps practised them in some previous incarnation; for it is said that though the details of some such previous existence may be entirely forgotten, the instincts and talents developed will remain unchanged by death and be ready to manifest themselves in constant increase in each successive existence.

Conchita explained to Juana the object of her visit, and asked her to show Pancho some proof of her art. After a long discussion Juana finally consented. Looking at Pancho’s hand, she said: “This man can see himself, he does not need my eyes.”

She then took a goblet and, filling it with water, uttered some words in a foreign tongue; at last she breathed upon it and bade Pancho to look, who did as directed. The surface of the water appeared at first as clear as a crystal, but gradually it seemed to become covered with a film. An image formed itself upon the film as on a mirror and became more and more distinct, until finally Pancho beheld in it a life-like representation of an event that had taken place in his earlier life. It represented the dying scene of a friend who had many years ago committed suicide on account of some disappointment. All the persons who were then present, Pancho included, were represented in every detail with the greatest exactness. Pancho had never spoken to anyone of this affair; in fact he had tried to erase it from his own memory. But there was another remarkable feature about that picture; for besides the persons standing around the bed of the dying man there were other beings which seemed invisible to the former; grinning Elementals of ludicrous and yet horrible shapes, awaiting apparently the parting of the soul and body. The dying man alone seemed to see them, although he could not speak. It was this that gave to his face that expression of horror which Pancho remembered only too well.

“Well done, my little devil!” exclaimed Pancho. “The image of the past has been correctly recorded. Now let us look at the future.”

Juana grinned and nodded assent. Pancho looked again, and now the face of a saint appeared upon the surface. It was a face bearing an expression of dignity, sanctity, and superhuman intelligence. But

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gradually the features underwent a change; they became distorted, and after a while there stood in the place of the saint the image of a clown, staring at Pancho. It slowly faded away.

“What does this mean?” asked Pancho.

“I do not know,” was Juana’s answer.

Further attempts to obtain any phenomena proved useless; but Pancho was so much pleased with what he had seen, that he proposed to have arrangements made immediately for Juana to come and live at his house. Conchita was evidently none too pleased with this idea; but being accustomed to agree with all her husband’s wishes, and perhaps also desiring to relieve Mrs. Wells of the troublesome Indian girl, she gave her consent. As to Juana, she seemed absolutely indifferent as to whether she was to go or to remain. So it was agreed that a room should be prepared for her the next day at their residence.

While Conchita and Mrs. Wells were talking over the subject, Pancho happened to look toward the kitchen window, and saw plainly the face of a man peering through one of the panes. It was an ugly face, with a brutal expression on it, the face of a man of about fifty years of age. This was all that Pancho could see, for the figure disappeared the moment its eyes caught his glance; and when he went to the window, he could see nothing but the darkness beyond. He thought that it might have been a phantom produced by his own imagination, and then concluded to say nothing of it, thinking it useless to alarm Mrs. Wells.

The husband and wife took their leave, and as they walked homeward an interior feeling told Pancho that he had acted inconsiderately in proposing to take care of Juana. He asked Conchita what she thought in regard to this matter.

“Juana is a malicious creature,” answered Conchita, “but I do not believe she will attempt to do any harm, for I have always been very friendly to her.”

“I expect great scientific results from our experiments with that girl,” continued Pancho. “Science has now arrived at the utmost limits of all that can possibly be known in regard to physical forces, and if we wish to know anything more, we must enter the field of Magic and Sorcery. The mediums of the Spiritualists are almost useless for our investigations; they do not know the cause of the phenomena which take place through their instrumentality. But those rare and exceptional individuals who understand the nature of these mysterious powers, and can produce phenomena at will, ought to be regarded as the greatest treasures of science. In the past such science used to slay its possessors. The science of the future, recognizing their value, will build them palaces and surround them with every comfort. Then, and only then, will it be possible to study those higher sciences which deal with the living forces of nature. Persons possessing such powers ought to be treated like the vestal priestesses of the ancient oracles. They ought to be kept

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away from contact with the vulgar and the ignorant, and not be exposed to any deleterious mental influences. They ought to be surrounded with the most favourable conditions to develop their powers and to use them for the benefit of humanity. Thus we might establish schools of Occultism all over the country, and come again into possession of the science which belonged to the ancient Rosicrucians and which has been lost on account of the ignorance of those who were in power during the Dark Ages. Thus shall we gain the power to chain the Elemental spirits of Nature to the car of science. We shall engage them to carry our letters in the twinkling of an eye from one part of the globe to another, and to give us correct information of what takes place in the bowels of the earth, and the highest regions of the sky. We shall rediscover the art of making gold and silver, pearls and precious stones, by artificial means; of rendering ourselves invisible, and of prolonging our lives to an indefinite period until at last we grow tired of walking the earth like the Wandering Jew and voluntarily retire for a period of repose.”

“Do you believe that there ever were any persons who possessed such powers?” quietly asked Conchita.

“Do I believe it?” exclaimed Pancho. “I am just as certain of it as I am of my own existence. The historical accounts of the wonders performed by the Rosicrucians and Alchemists cannot be mere lies and inventions; and we read in the works of Theophrastus Paracelsus that even an ordinary occultist must be able to take down the moon from the sky and to put it into a bath of water; a feat only paralleled by that of Joshua, mentioned in the Bible. Do you not believe, yourself, that during the mass an ordinary wafer is transformed into the flesh and blood of Christ? Why then should it be impossible to make gold out of mercury? But we will not enter into these subjects; they are too new and strange to be believed by anyone who is an entire stranger to occult science. If you doubt them, please remember that Moses made water run out of a rock by touching it with a stick, and that he was able to transform his staff into a snake.”

“I do not doubt that such things can be done,” answered Conchita. “I have seen Kellar perform just such wonderful things. I saw him make real hot coffee out of shavings and milk out of sawdust, while he transformed cotton into pieces of sugar. You remember also that he made a rosebush grow from a piece of wood; and its roses were no hallucination, for he gave me a rose and I took it home with me.”

“Yes, I know,” answered Pancho. “He is a very clever performer; but these things are all done by tricks. What I want to know is how to perform the genuine thing.”

“Oh, that would be charming!” exclaimed Conchita. “Please learn all about it, and then we can give an evening entertainment. How surprised Mrs. Wells would be if we could make her poodle come back

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to life; and then if we could make gold we could buy that little cottage from Mr. Hagard and give it to her, so that she would not have to worry about the rent, poor soul!”

“These are mere trifles,” answered Pancho. “If I knew how to employ the elemental powers of nature, I would do far more important things. It is said that if we had faith only as a mustard-seed, we should be able to remove mountains. I want to find out what is meant by that expression, ‘faith.’ I have reason to suppose that it refers to some talisman, and if I can get possession of it I will make short work with the canal of Panama. I will level the Rocky Mountains and transform Nebraska into a paradise.”

Conchita looked surprised. It seemed as if she began to doubt the sanity of her husband.

“You need not be surprised,” continued Pancho. “Such things are not impossible, and I have the key to it already in my possession. Schopenhauer says: ‘The world is the product of my imagination.’ If I can change my imagination, then I can change the world.”

“The best thing,” said Conchita, “would be to see Mr. Schopenhauer and ask him to change his imagination a little; for it seems necessary that some changes should be made. Where does he live?”

“Mr. Schopenhauer is dead,” answered Pancho; “but I see that you do not understand these things. I will explain them to you by-and-bye.”

During these discourses our friends reached their home, and we will now return to Mrs. Wells and see what Juana is doing. We find her still sitting in front of the grate, and upon the mantel-piece there burns a piece of a candle. She looks at the light and, in a subdued voice, sings a song in her native language; and while she sings the flame rises several inches in the air and sinks down again, its motions keeping beat with the melody. Presently a rap is heard and Juana rises. She blows out the light and opens the window.

When Pancho thought that the face which he saw peering through the window-pane was an apparition attracted by influences that surrounded Juana, he was not far from the truth; for the face belonged to Hagard, the miserly landlord, who for some time past had been in the habit of paying nightly visits to the Indian girl. He had come on his visit to Juana, but ran away when he saw himself observed by Pancho. Now the coast was clear and he returned.

“Who are those people that were here to-night?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” tauntingly answered Juana. “Has the lady with the black eyes found favour with you? Well! Such fish are not for you to catch. You are too ugly for her. It would take stronger powers than mine to make her fall in love with such an ape as you.”

“But who is she?” asked Hagard.

“I will not tell you,” answered Juana.

“Suppose I pay you for telling me?” asked Hagard, drawing a

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gold piece out of his pocket. “Refuse to tell me, I will ask Mrs. Wells.”

“Let me see,” said Juana, taking the gold piece, which she smelt and then hid away. “The lady is from my own country, and I am going to live with her. This is your last visit. You will see me no more.”

“Can you not find means to make me acquainted with her?”

“It would not be advisable for you to exhibit your carcase at her house as long as her husband is there,” sneered Juana.

“Can you not get the puppy out of the way?” asked Mr. Hagard.

“That would not improve your bad looks,” answered the girl.

“Don’t talk to me in that way, I know well that you are a witch. You can do anything, if you only use your powers.”

“If I should ever use them again for you, it would cost you more money than you are willing to pay,” answered Juana. “You are always so poor! You cannot afford to pay anything.”

“And you are always so greedy,” said the man. “Why don’t you get some of your devils to discover a hidden treasure or a good mine? I am willing to pay the expenses and to share the profits with you.”

“If I were to get the devil to do such a thing,” answered Juana, “there would be the devil to pay, and you cannot be trusted, for you are sly enough to cheat even the devil out of his dues.”

“Now, do talk sense,” replied the man, “I want you to assist me in this affair. That woman with the black eyes is just the kind of fish that suits my fancy, and I must have her, even if I had to strangle that knave of a husband and marry her. As to the financial part of the business, I will arrange that with you in a satisfactory manner.”

“I am not used to live on promises,” answered Juana. “Before I do anything for you, I must have the cash in my pocket. It may be that I can put my will into her and make her like you in spite of your looks; but then you will not have her own self: you will only have a part of me in her body.”

“If I only get her,” he muttered, “it will make little difference to me whose will is inside her. I shall find means to make her do my own will!”

“But it will make a great deal of difference to her,” replied Juana. “You know what were the consequences to the man who shot President Garfield, of letting the will of other people control his mind?”

“I don’t care. You do the job and I will pay the money. I will take charge of the consequences.”

“I will think the matter over, and let you know if there is any chance. But now I want you to leave. I am tired and sleepy.”

“You are a queer girl,” he said, hesitatingly; “but all right. Good-bye!” So saying, Mr. Hagard departed and Juana retired to bed.

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CHAPTER III. THE CHELA.

A FEW days after the events described in the preceding chapter, the following appeared in the San Francisco “Eagle”: –

Truth Stranger than Fiction!
A Miracle Worker from Africa!!
An Interview with the Chela of an Adept!!!
Disclosures in regard to the Mysterious Brotherhood!!!!

Yesterday a special reporter of the “Eagle” was fortunate enough to be admitted into the presence of a highly distinguished stranger from Africa, a genuine Chela, that is to say, a disciple of a Mysterious Brotherhood of Adepts, living in the most inaccessible regions of a desert in the Interior of Africa.

What he tells about his wonderful personal experiences is truly astonishing and would surpass belief, if he were not a gentleman of indubitable veracity, of acknowledged ability, and a person of high social standing, having at one time occupied the official position of an honoured personal assistant to one of the most eminent chieftains of Africa; besides being a member of several well-known Secret societies.

But let us begin at the beginning. Information reached this office yesterday that Mr. Joachim Puffer, formerly an officer in the employ of King Molobolo, but who had sacrificed his official position for the purpose of benefiting humanity, and taken up the life of an ascetic, had arrived at this city, and was stopping at the Grand Hotel. A special reporter was, therefore, immediately dispatched to that place, and gained admittance after the noble stranger’s dinner.

Mr. Puffer, A.B., M.B.L., etc., is a man about forty years of age, stout, with a rubicund face, small eyes and blond hair, and of aristocratic bearing. His hair is very long, and he wears side whiskers, but no moustache. He was dressed in a checkered suit of grey with black stripes, patent leather boots, a high collar and a blue necktie. He is of noble family, one of his ancestors having been gentleman of the chamber to a king. He is a strict vegetarian and takes alcohol in no shape. His revelations in regard to the Mysterious Brotherhood are truly wonderful, and from what he said to our reporter, we gather the following: –

For thousands of years the heads of the scientists have been puzzled to find out what causes the world to move. Some thought that it was the law of gravitation, and others imagined that it was magnetism; but it is evident that such absurd theories offer no explanation of the mystery. Mr. Puffer now assures us that the motion of the earth around its axis is due to the supernatural and miraculous powers possessed by a body of Adepts who live in a desert in Africa, in the exact geographical centre of the surface of this planet. By the united effort of their combined and concentrated will-power they can produce the most astonishing effects not only in the atmosphere of this earth, but also in the body of the sun. The proof of this assertion may be seen in the sun spots, a phenomenon well known to our astronomers, and which may easily be explained by the fact that the Adepts are supplying the sun with electricity, to keep its photosphere clear. Therefore is the name by which they are known – the Lunar Adepts. If these Adepts neglect their business, the disc of the sun becomes as full of mouldy spots as a cheese. If they were to stop for one moment exercising their will-power, the sun would become as dark as a crow, and the earth would cease to move. Besides having this almost incredible power, the Adepts are able to perform the most astonishing feats, which leave those of Robert Houdin, Bosco and Kellar far in the shade. They can eat living snakes, swallow fire and swords, and make a genuine Mango tree grow out of a pine board. If they wished to do so, they could transform all the old iron in the United States into masses of pure gold and cause potatoes to rain in Ireland. They could change the Mississippi river into old Bourbon whisky, and all the sand of Galveston Island into wheat. Our reporter asked Mr. Puffer how it came that there were occasionally famines in Africa if the Adepts had the power to do such things. Mr. Puffer replied that he had presented this matter to their consideration, but that the Adepts had no time to

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attend to such trifling matters, as their number was small and it was all they could do to keep the world going. They had something more important to do than to satisfy the greed of the paupers. They could, he said, travel about in their invisible astral bodies and see what is going on in the most private places; for they could pass through roofs without injuring the tiles, and walls were no obstacle to them. They were experts in thought reading, and could hypnotize people against their will, making them do as they liked. They could guide the thoughts of the people as easily as a coachman guides his horse, and they could cause anybody to become elected President of the United States if they were to take him under their patronage. These Adepts, of which Mr. Puffer, by a concatenation of fortunate circumstances, has become an accepted Chela, are in possession of untold wealth; and it is said that even the roofs of the houses in which they live are made of pure gold and set with rubies and diamonds. Our reporter asked Mr. Puffer how these Adepts acquired their power, but this Mr. Puffer was not permitted to tell.

It will be impossible to present to our readers in this necessarily short article all the ingenious and lucid explanations given by Mr. Puffer in regard to the secrets of the Lunar Brotherhood; but we cannot close without speaking of the most important secret in their possession. It is nothing less than a Talking Image, that is to say, a living piece of statuary which gives answers orally or in writing to anything a person may ask, the answers always proving to be correct. Our reporter offered to the Chela a hundred dollars if he would get him the correct numbers that would come out at the next drawing of the Havannah Lottery; but we must do Mr. Puffer the justice to say that he indignantly refused the offer, stating that financial considerations were not the objects of the Adepts; that he knew the numbers, but was not permitted to tell them, as his only object was to benefit humanity. This noble answer of Mr. Puffer in whom we behold a future Adept, may be regarded as a sufficient proof of his sincerity.

When Pancho finished reading this article, he did not know whether to laugh or to feel indignant at the stupidity of the reporter, who had evidently travestied and misrepresented great truths. “Mysteries of this kind,” he said, “should be kept sacred and not be bawled about in the streets, or made an object of public gossip by the vulgar.” But on further consideration he saw that if it had not been for that article in the “Eagle,” he himself would have remained ignorant of the august presence of the Chela. He was very anxious to see him in order to obtain further information in regard to the Brotherhood. This thought reconciled him to the indiscretions of the reporter, and he made up his mind to see Mr. Puffer that very evening.

Accordingly, Pancho went to the Grand Hotel, where he found the people in great consternation and the fire-brigade just leaving the house. The cause of the confusion was that an explosion had taken place in Mr. Puffer’s room, by which some of the furniture had been destroyed, and the chambermaid injured. It appeared that Mr. Puffer had left the room after the gas was lighted, and being either not conversant with modern inventions, on account of his long absence in Africa, or in a state of mental abstraction, he had blown out the gas instead of turning the tap. Soon afterwards the chambermaid had entered and attempted to relight the gas, when the accident happened.

While the servants were engaged in removing the broken furniture, Mr. Puffer returned. After he had been made to realize what had happened he began to curse most fearfully, and swore that the mischief was due to the work of a black magician who was persecuting him and seeking to destroy him. He would, indeed, have killed him long ago, if it had not been for the protection of the Adepts, who were always watching over him. Moreover, he said that gas-pipes and such things belonged to mundane illusions and that he had no time to attend to such trifles while engaged in meditating about the nature of Parabrahm.

He was given another room and Pancho introduced himself, stating his object, which was to obtain more light in regard to the Occult Brotherhood.

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“I am entirely at your service,” said Mr. Puffer. “It will give me the greatest pleasure to give you all the information you may desire in regard to the subject of the Great Hierophant and Adepts of Africa. The Society for the Distribution of Wisdom is not one of those abominable sects or modern secret societies that seek to mystify the public, e.g. the Theosophical Society. Every honest enquirer is entitled to be informed of all we know. All we demand is an open investigation, and we are not afraid of any criticism, however severe. All we want is the truth, the unadulterated truth.”

“I understand that you are a Chela of the Lunar Adepts?” asked Pancho.

“I am, sir! I am!” answered Mr. Puffer. “I am a Chela of one of the greatest Adepts that ever existed. I was introduced to him by a Lunar Angel,” he added, lowering the voice. “He has been here this morning and brought me a message from my master.”

“Have you ever seen the great Hierophant in Africa, personally?”

“No, not personally. But why should I? I see him and all others in clear vision whenever I like.”

“Are you then actually sure that the Brothers exist?” asked Pancho.

“Do the Brothers exist?” exclaimed Mr. Puffer. “Why! I tell you, my dear sir, there is nothing more true and indisputable than that they exist. See this white burnous, I obtained it myself directly from one of the Brothers in my own room.” So saying, Mr. Puffer showed Pancho a cloak of woollen fabric, which, however, bore no internal evidence of having come from an Adept rather than from any store.

“This rare garment,” continued Mr. Puffer, “is palpable and indubitable evidence that the Brothers exist, and nobody but a villainous sceptic, an inveterate liar, a benighted simpleton, or an incurable maniac, would deny their existence after seeing this apparel.”

“I am not a doubter,” said Pancho. “I have read of great Adepts in India who can do most wonderful things.”

“Pooh!” exclaimed Mr. Puffer contemptuously. “Do not talk to me about such trifles. They can at best mend an old broken coffee pot; they cannot be compared with our Lunar Adepts. Tell me, have you at present even the faintest conception of the solemnity of this occasion? Do you know in whose presence you stand? Would you dare to deny the existence of the Lunar Adepts, and run the risk of being immediately annihilated by them as a punishment for your scepticism? Let the consequences of him who doubts the powers of the Lunar Adepts come upon his own head! Om! Satwa! Wariaki! Starambo!

Upon this declaration Pancho did not consider it advisable to appear too inquisitive. He therefore confessed to be satisfied with the proof advanced, and asked Mr. Puffer whether he would be so kind as to introduce him to an Adept.

“That depends on certain circumstances,” said Mr. Puffer. “First of all you would have to become a member of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom, in order to attract the attention of the Brothers.”

“What kind of a thing is this Society for Distribution of Wisdom?” asked Pancho.

“The African S. D. W.,” answered Mr. Puffer, “is a society which is based

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upon the principle of universal tolerance and mutual admiration. Pray do not confuse it with our other Asian Society. The former, taking very unfair advantage of our having remained for æons modestly unknown, came out a few years ago with great flourish of trumpets as the first and only Society and Universal Brotherhood based on divine Wisdom, and of us has made simple parodists. Our Society differs from the Asian Society, as it advocates a spirit of universal freedom of opinion, provided that opinion holds only to our own interpretations of teachings. We claim that everyone has the right to pretend to believe and to say what he pleases, if he but thinks as we do; but the members of the Indian Society insist that truth should be proclaimed on the housetops. Most absurd and undiplomatic. Knave, fool and purblind sectarian is he who should dare to say anything against our Society or against any of the officers or persons connected with it. Our Fraternity is even now the most charitable body in the world, and he who slanders it is a coward, or a poisonous reptile which ought to be exterminated from the face of the earth.”

“I should consider myself extremely fortunate to become a member of your society and to attract the attention of the Adepts,” said Pancho.

“That is easy enough,” replied Mr. Puffer. “All you have to do is to get a diploma from Captain Bumpkins. I will manage the matter for you, if you are one of the ‘awakened.’”

“I am infinitely obliged to you,” said Pancho. “But, to tell you the truth, I should like to look a little deeper into this business. I am very much interested in Occultism and I should like to become a Chela like yourself.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Puffer. “That is quite another affair and rather difficult. You will have to get a Master, a Dwija, whose orders you must implicitly obey, whatever these orders may be, and you may not even know who that master is; for his orders will be communicated to you through Chelas or through the Talking Image.”

“It is just this mysterious way of doing things that is most attractive to me,” replied Pancho. “I do not think that they will ask anything unreasonable.”

“Then you will have to swear a solemn oath,” continued Mr. Puffer, “always to obey implicitly all the instructions given to you by a Chela as supposed to be coming from an unknown superior. You will swear that if anyone should object to any opinion offered by Captain Bumpkins, or any other member of our society, you will not listen to it, but support our views on every occasion.”

“I am willing to swear to anything you like,” answered Pancho, “if I can gain my object; because I have full confidence in your honesty,”

“You seem to have the qualifications necessary for a Chela,” continued Mr. Puffer, “and I think you might go to Africa to make the trial. At all events you may write a letter to Captain Bumpkins, to see whether you will be accepted.”

At these words Pancho was very much delighted; but being very impatient to know whether or not he would be accepted, he asked Mr. Puffer whether he could not find out immediately by his own mystic powers, whether his offer would be favourably received. To this Mr. Puffer answered:

“It is a serious matter to ask the Powers such questions; because they always get angry when we bother them with personal affairs; but in this case I

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will make an exception. There is a Lunar Brother just now here in the room and I will put myself in mental rapport with him.”

Mr. Puffer then went into a trance state, as might have been supposed from the contortions of his face and he then said:

“The Powers say that as you are not a married man, you may be accepted.”

“The Powers are mistaken,” said Pancho; “for I am married.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Mr. Puffer. “They never make a mistake.”

“Excuse me, sir,” replied Pancho; “I must know best, I am married to one of the loveliest ladies in the world.”

“It is a pity that you imagine such a thing,” said Mr. Puffer; “for a man of your capabilities could spend his time better than in dancing attendance upon a woman. Fortunately you are not married; for the Powers say that your supposed marriage is not a true marriage of the soul and that your wife is not your real affinity.”

“I have already suspected as much,” murmured Pancho.

“Such a marriage,” continued Mr. Puffer, “is a sham and ought to be discontinued at once. Leave that woman and go to Urur. Why will you cling to an illusion instead of seeking for the truth?”

“The truth is,” said Pancho, “that I love my wife very much and do not wish to be separated from her.”

“Such a love is beastly!” exclaimed the Chela. “It is merely an animal instinct and you must get rid of it at once. You cannot become a Chela and be initiated into the mysteries of the Lunar Brotherhood as long as you have a woman on the brain.”

“I do not think,” remarked Pancho, “that my love to my wife is of that beastly character which you describe, and moreover I think it would be wrong to leave her without any cause.”

“Vain sophistry! A cause can easily be found. Is it not cause enough if you desire to study the higher science and enter the higher life? Is it not lawful to sacrifice everything, if one is in pursuit of the truth? Lord Buddha himself left his beloved wife and child, his kingdom and palace, and went into a wilderness. Where would the world be to-day, if Buddha had remained a hen-pecked husband instead of becoming a Sage.”

“I am not prepared to criticise the doings of a Buddha,” said Pancho.

“The Christian religion teaches the same thing,” continued Mr. Puffer. “Jesus said that those who wish to follow him, must leave father and mother and wife, or words to that effect. I have read the story of a Catholic saint, a woman, who gave her father a thrashing and left her mother uncared for upon a dying bed. She ran away from home and went into a convent preferring to become a bride of Jesus, to meddling with mundane affairs.”

“I think that woman was a devil,” said Pancho very indignantly.

“What an illogical conclusion! If she had been a devil, she could not have become a saint.”

“Nevertheless, my conscience tells me that it would be very wrong for me to separate from my wife.”

“Now you do talk most terrible nonsense!” impatiently replied Mr. Puffer. That which you call conscience is in this case the voice of some vile Elemental, that seeks to divert you from your purpose. These ethereal animals

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are always ready to persuade us that we are right in the gratification of our selfish desires.”

“But is not the desire to become a Chela selfish?” asked Pancho.

“How can you call that selfish, if a person seeks to obtain wisdom?” asked Mr. Puffer. “Read, if you please the books of the smartest German philosophers, and you will find that such a transcendental selfishness is highly laudable and praiseworthy. What would become of human progress, if men were always satisfied with what they had and desired nothing better?”

“Do you know what is love?” asked Pancho.

“You bet!” exclaimed Mr. Puffer. “When I was young, I used to run after the girls; but since I have become a Chela, I have all the ladies run after me; but I laugh at them. I want to have nothing to do with women; they are the arch enemies of the occultist and the higher kind of phenomena, such as disembowelling oneself or to have oneself buried alive, can never be successfully done in the presence of a woman; because they attract too much of a man’s magnetism. Do not talk to me about women. They are despicable creatures.”

When Pancho heard these words he became very indignant and said:

“I do not propose to disembowel myself nor to have myself buried alive. Your fakirs seem to me stupid and ignorant fools. I never saw a person who was a woman hater, unless he was a self-conceited coward and a sensualist of the lowest kind.”

“You can think as you like,” said Mr. Puffer, “for our Society tolerates all kinds of opinions; but it is a shame that you will let your talents go to the rot on account of a woman. If you have once become an Adept you will be able to make Elementals appear before you in any shape you like; even in that of the most beautiful princess that exists in the world.”

“I should like very much to know how that is done,” said Pancho.

“If you have once been taught the necessary conjurations and formulas, it will be the easiest thing in the world,” replied Mr. Puffer: “but of course I am not permitted to tell you these things at present. They are only divulged to the members of our society. You had better write your application for Chelaship and I will send it to the Hierophant.”

“I will consider the matter. But please tell me what kind of a thing is the Talking Image?”

“You will have to go and see it yourself; it cannot be described. I have never seen it myself. But people say that it looks like a statue, and does not move, but inside it is alive, and it can speak. Moreover, if you place a piece of paper in its vicinity, it will write or precipitate messages upon it, and all this is done by the Mysterious Brotherhood.”

“I wonder how this is done?” said reflectively Pancho.

“It is easy enough to explain. You know that the Adepts can pass through the most solid walls, nor are skin and bones any obstacles to them. Some one of the Brothers, or a more advanced Chela, gets hold of the brain of the Image and, so to say, winds up the machinery, and then the thing works, and spells out whatever they like. There is always one or more of the Magicians engaged in working the Image.”

“This is very strange!” exclaimed Pancho. “How did you get such a curiosity?”

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“It was manufactured through magic spells expressly for the purpose of communicating with the world. They gave it to the Hierophant, who placed it in the sacred shrine at Urur.”

“Such a marvel alone would be worth while the trouble to go to Africa to see it,” said Pancho. “I have read of talking images that were in possession of the ancient Egyptians, but I thought they could only grunt or make a noise; I had no idea that they could talk sense.”

“When you once become an accepted Chela you will know still more wonderful things.”

“I hope to be accepted,” said Pancho.

“You will have to pass through a great many ordeals before this is done,” observed Mr. Puffer. “You will have to give indubitable proof of your courage to convince the Brothers that you can be trusted. They will do all sorts of things to frighten you, to see whether or not you are afraid.”

“I am not easily frightened,” said Pancho. “I shall probably write that application to-night.”

“For your own sake I hope that you will soon come to a favourable decision.”

Mr. Puffer accompanied Pancho to the door, and as they were bidding each other good-bye, Pancho said:

“By-the-bye, I almost forgot to ask you a question, which you may, perhaps, consider absurd. Do the Adepts teach any religion?”

“In our Society,” answered Mr. Puffer, “every man’s belief is respected. If you choose to imagine that the moon is made of green cheese, there is no one to prevent you from believing it, any more than in God. No, they teach no religion in particular.”

“I thought so,” answered Pancho. “I merely asked the question to settle all doubts for once and for ever. Farewell!”

“Au revoir!” said Mr. Puffer.

When Pancho left Mr. Puffer, he was highly elated at the prospect of becoming a Chela, and being initiated into the mysteries of African Magic. He did not doubt for a moment that he had all the necessary qualifications, and by becoming a member of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom, he had already made the most important step, and attracted the attention of the Adepts. Henceforth he had to be very careful in what he was doing, for there might be an Adept lurking in every corner to watch his actions. He knew that it was not an easy thing to become a Chela, and that it required a man of courage. Many had applied for Chelaship, but failed after they were tried. This was not to be feared in Pancho’s case. He was a person of undoubted bravery, and not afraid even of the devil. When a small boy in school he could fight single-handed, and lick the rest of the boys; and during his studies at Heidelberg he had fought many duels and come out triumphant in every instance. As to swimming and shooting, there were few who were his superiors, and if, as he had read, it was necessary for a Chela to pass through flame and fire, his chemical knowledge enabled him to make his clothes incombustible, so that he could jump through it without getting burnt.

“But why,” he thought, “should he write a letter of application for Chelaship to the Adepts? If those Magicians were ubiquitous and all-knowing, they would know his wish, and if they wanted him, they would be able to let him

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know it without his formal application. But then Pancho was not sufficiently acquainted with the rules of occult etiquette to answer the question. Perhaps it was a formality which had to be observed, and perhaps, also, Puffer, who confessed he had never met the Head of the Society, could give him only partial information. But then he was – a Chela!”

There was only one thought to which he could not get reconciled, namely, that of leaving his wife. He had no cause to abandon her and did not wish to do so. Conchita had always been faithful to him and she had just claims to his protection. But then, he argued with himself that the greater the sacrifice, the greater was also his merit. He saw himself in the position of a player who puts his whole fortune upon one single card, to either burst the bank or to go to perdition. He ended by a compromise.

“What would Conchita say,” he thought, “if I were to go to Africa to solve such a difficult problem? Surely she is a reasonable woman and will not object. Men leave their homes and wives for the purpose of gaining money; they go on voyages of discovery to the regions of eternal snow, or to the tropical zones of Africa, remaining away for years. Why should I not act likewise, and go to Africa in search of that which is far more important? Is there anything more valuable than a knowledge of the astral world, with its innumerable inhabitants? Is such a discovery not as much interesting as that of a new continent? Can there be anything more important than scientific proof of the existence of a class of spiritual beings who guide the destinies of mankind? Surely Conchita is of far too noble a mind not to consent to a separation for such a glorious purpose.”

“You ass!” said an interior voice, probably that of some vile Elemental. “These mysterious Lunar Brotherhoods have no other existence than in the brain of Mr. Puffer.”

“Get thee behind me, Satan!” answered Pancho, speaking to himself. “How could it be possible that the representative of a Society which worships the truth should speak anything else but the truth? Moreover, men might lie about ordinary things, but surely only a villain of the deepest dye would descend to that lowest imaginable state of degradation, in which the most holy and sacred things are trifled with or made objects of financial speculation. What but child’s play are murder, and arson, and vice of every kind, in comparison with that dark villainy of those vampires who seek material profit by playing upon the spiritual aspirations of man? Who but an unconceivable monstrosity of concentrated deviltry would dare to prostitute the highest and most exalted truths for the purpose of gratifying his greed for a few pennies, knowing how terrible would be the reaction?”

“Fool!” spoke the voice of the Elemental. “You need not go to Africa to find the Spirit of Truth.”

“Avaunt!” answered Pancho. “What will the spirit of truth benefit me if it does not become manifest? If that spirit has descended upon the mysterious Brotherhood, and if the inmates of Urur are in communication with it, what a glorious thing will it be to enlist in their army, and to become one of the pioneers to break down the wall of superstition and ignorance which encircles the world! To attain such an object, and to bring light to suffering humanity, is well worth the sacrifice, not only of my own life, but also of that of my wife.”

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Thus Pancho’s mind was swayed by thoughts of an opposite kind and by a series of partly logical, partly illogical, arguments. He reasoned himself into a belief that it was not only his right but also his duty to leave his wife and to go to Africa, to learn wisdom by sitting at the feet of the Hierophant who would introduce him to the Mysterious Brotherhood. Men are always willing to believe in the possibility of that which they desire. By the time that he reached his home, he was fully resolved to write the letter to the Lunar Adepts, which was to be his application for chelaship.

He arrived at his residence and went to Conchita’s room. There, upon a couch, was his beautiful wife peacefully sleeping. She had evidently waited for his return before retiring to bed. A happy smile rested upon her face, her hands were folded over her bosom which rose and sank in rhythmic proportions with her almost imperceptible breath. The rose-coloured shade of the lamp caused the light to produce a delicate roseate hue upon her graceful shoulders and arms, which would have otherwise seemed to be made of white Carrara marble; her long black hair having unfastened, now fell in dark heavy masses upon her bust. She looked like a being of supernatural beauty, and it now seemed to Pancho that there was no necessity to go any further to seek the truth; for that which is good and beautiful must also be true. He felt as if even the thought of deserting her was an unpardonable sin to atone for immediately; and carried away by his emotion, he kissed her soft cheek.

Conchita opened her eyes and looked surprised and pleased. Putting her arms around his neck, she pressed him to her heart, and said: “Dearest one! I had such a dream! I thought I was with you on the bank of a stream, and in the distance there was a beautiful island. It was full of flowers and the breeze wafted the odour of the blossoms to the place where we stood. There was a little boat, only big enough to hold one person. You went into the boat and said you would fetch me some of the flowers; but the current took you far out of my sight. I then became very sick. I cried and was wringing my hands in despair, when I discovered that I was myself on that island and you by my side. You then put your arms around me and kissed me and then I awoke.”

“I too had a stupid dream,” answered Pancho, “but it is over. Fear not, my beloved one, our two loves shall never be separated.”

“I know it,” answered Conchita; “but I want not only your love, I want yourself.”

The letter which Pancho had intended to write to the Lunar Brotherhood remained unwritten that night.

---

CHAPTER IV. THE OCCULT LETTER.

Pancho dreamed that night. It seemed to him that he and Conchita were in a boat in mid-ocean. A storm arose and the waves grew higher and higher. At last they seemed like mountains of water, and one of them went over the boat, entirely submerging it. He was convinced that they were both lost. He threw his arms around her, but she was torn away from him by the force of the water. Then the wave receded and he found himself still in the boat,

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but Conchita was gone. She was nowhere to be seen, although the ocean as by some miracle had now become perfectly calm. He then looked upwards and saw her floating in the air, radiant and smiling. She had become a glorified being and a bright star shone over her head. It was the influence of that star that had calmed the sea.

As long as he dreamed, he was happy; but when his external consciousness returned and the intellectual machinery of his brain again began to create for him once more illusions, his former doubts and hopes returned. The face of the Chelas at Urur, through whom the inaccessible, mysterious Adeptship might be reached, floated on his mental horizon and the voice of the Talking Image sounded to him more alluring than the song of the Loreley: “Am I not worthy,” it said, “that you should come across the sea to behold me? I, the Sphinx of the nineteenth century, the corner stone of the world’s future religion? Are there not hundreds lying prostrate at my feet, and thousands longing to worship at my shrine? Lo, the Mysterious Brotherhood requires a man to communicate their orders to the world; where will they find such a man? Are you so firmly tied to a woman by the chain of your affection that you cannot defend the truth?” Then the phantom face of Mr. Puffer, the Chela, opened its mouth and spoke. “Better write to the Lunar Adepts, and I will have it laid before the shrine of Urur. What harm can be done by merely writing a letter? Let us see what the result will be? Whatever answer you may receive, you will still be at liberty to do as you like! Write the letter!” When the voice ceased, it seemed as if a thousand echoes in Pancho’s brain were repeating the sentence: “Write! Write! Write the letter! the letter! the let – ter!”

Pancho hastily arose and dressed himself; and then his reasoning powers returned. For a moment he thought he would confess to his wife that he had been thinking of going to Africa, but he abandoned this idea. Why should he do so now? He thought it would be time enough for that when he had arrived at a certain decision. He made up his mind to say nothing about it and thus he established a barrier between him and his wife which prevented the full and harmonious flow of thought between the two, hence, a perfect understanding. Formerly they were one in their thoughts and feelings; now they were separated from each other by a secret, and thus the curse which accompanies the desire for gratification of curiosity had already begun to work.

Juana had now become a member of their little household and she behaved herself much better than had been expected. She made herself useful in many ways, doing small work about the house and the kitchen. Since her arrival Pancho had not asked her for a continuation of psychic experiments; but now he desired to try again her powers. Juana obeyed and, to his astonishment, she described to him a negro in the garb of an African chieftain, holding a sealed letter in his hand and upon the envelope was Pancho’s name.

“This man,” she said, “is a spirit; but not of one who is dead, but of a man who is living. He is a great and powerful person, and he says: ‘Write!’”

“Do you see anything more?” asked Pancho.

“Yes,” answered Juana. “He now shows me a very queer-looking place, something like a church, and in the midst of it is an altar upon which is a woman dressed in white.”

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After a pause she continued: “No; it is not a woman; it is much bigger than an ordinary woman, and it is made of stone. It is a statue, and, nevertheless, it is alive and can talk as well as anybody. It is very queer!”

Pancho was delighted. There was, as he supposed, indubitable proof that the Adepts could communicate with him even through Juana. To hesitate any longer would surely displease them. Did not Mr. Puffer say that he must unhesitatingly obey all orders coming from that quarter, and should he commence his occult career by hesitating to do so? He went to his room and without further delay wrote a letter to them, offering his services to the unknown Mysterious Brotherhood, and asking to be accepted as their disciple.

Such a precious document could not be safely entrusted to a servant and so he determined to hand it personally to Mr. Puffer. Once more he wended his way to the Grand Hotel. Mr. Puffer was delighted.

“I have no doubt,” he said, receiving the letter, “that you will be accepted on probation, and now, as you have entered upon the Path, I advise you to cease shaving or cutting your hair, because, in doing so, a great deal of magnetism is lost. Do not eat any meat. Eggs are permitted, but you must always first remove the dot from the yolk. The dot is the seat of life and must not be destroyed.”

“But is not the dot destroyed by the boiling?” asked Pancho.

“This is none of our business,” answered Mr. Puffer. “It will go to the Karma of the cook. It is enough if we do not destroy it ourselves. Furthermore you must never eat any beans. There is nothing more dangerous than beans. They have been expressly prohibited by Pythagoras.”

“I am sorry,” said Pancho; “for I am very fond of baked beans.”

“I do not care,” replied Mr. Puffer. “You will have to choose between Wisdom and beans.”

When Pancho returned to his house it seemed to him that he had made a step lower down in the scale of evolution and rendered himself extremely ridiculous by submitting his own reason to the will of an unknown superior; but he attributed this feeling to the circumstance that it was probably his lower nature which rebelled against the unaccustomed restraint, and that it would be absolutely necessary to obey. He remembered having been once told by a clergyman that if our reason does not harmonize with the doctrines of the church we must squelch it and believe in the doctrines. He made up his mind to make that attempt to see what would be the result. “I have gone so far,” he said to himself. “Now I will see it through, let the result be what it may.”

It required nearly three months to receive an answer from Africa. During that time Pancho grew more and more morose and melancholy. He did not dare to show any love to his wife. In his outward bearing he was as polite towards her as before, but his manner had now something forced and unnatural a circumstance which never escapes the observation of a sensitive woman. Conchita noticed the change in her husband and his growing coldness, which seemed rather assumed than natural, and with many words of endearment she tried to find out the secret of his trouble. It was in vain that Pancho denied his being troubled about anything, and invented all sorts of excuses; her intuition told her plainly that the former harmony between their souls no longer existed. Many were the bitter tears which she shed when alone in her room, and many

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the prayers she offered to the unknown God; but when Pancho was present she appeared merry, for the purpose of cheering him up. Pancho, too, was aware that his wife was silently suffering, and he would have been most willing to give an explanation; but how could he tell her that her own existence was the cause of his grief, and that she had become an obstacle in his way?

Partly to while away the time, and partly with a view to obtain information about the doings of the Mysterious Brotherhood, Pancho held frequent séances with Juana, at which Conchita took part, for she felt instinctively that her husband’s change of behavour was somehow connected with spiritualistic matters, and hoped thus to find out its cause. Juana was evidently a strong medium. There were loud raps and the usual spiritualistic phenomena, and frequently the girl became entranced, speaking under the influence of different spirits.

One of the “spirits” appeared to be that of an African Adept, who extolled the wisdom of the East, and its superiority over that of the West.

“The East,” he said, “is the land of wisdom, for it is the land where the sun rises. The East includes everything that is east of New York, especially Asia and Africa. All light comes from the East and goes to the West, and then it comes back again to the East. The three sages mentioned in the Bible came from the East. There are lots of Eastern sages, but who ever heard of a Western sage? All the Rosicrucians of the Middle Ages went to the East in search of wisdom, and the last of the Alchemists has emigrated to the East.”

Communications of that kind only increased Pancho’s wish to go to the land of Wisdom, and they forged still stronger the links with which his will was held captive by an inflamed desire.

Conchita, too, became caught with this strange infatuation. It seemed as if her own thoughts found expression through the mouth of the Indian girl; for a superior spirit, who said that its name was “Purity,” spoke to her through the entranced Juana, and whenever this spirit took possession of the Indian girl, she became, so to say, transfigured, and her face assumed an angelic expression.

“Grieve not,” said the spirit, “we are constantly around to guard you. We are the messengers sent by the Most High, and no evil can befall those that trust in our guidance. There are dark clouds gathering on the horizon whose exact nature we are not permitted to reveal; but if you have faith in the divine power that guides all things, all will be well. God sees everything, and not the least thing escapes his attention, for it is written that not even a sparrow falls from a tree without the will of God.”

The influence passed away, and then the spirit of the African Adept returned and wrote upon a paper:

“The spirit that just spoke is a liar. If a sparrow does not exert its own will to remain upon the tree, there is no God that will keep him there.”

That was exactly Pancho’s idea, and he was glad to see it confirmed.

“How strange!” exclaimed Conchita. “I always imagined that a sparrow had no will of its own, and that its will was the will of God.”

“Nonsense!” said Pancho. “There is no such thing as God. The African Adepts do not believe in a God and they know what they are talking about.”

“They must be very unhappy!” replied Conchita.

Pancho gave no reply; he saw that his wife was too ignorant to understand

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such philosophical questions, and he did not wish to enter into a discussion that might end in a dispute.

“What is the name of the African Adept who is communicating with us?” asked Pancho.

“Molobolo,” was the written answer.

“I thought Molobolo was the African king with whom Mr. Puffer stayed,” said Pancho, and the answer came:

“He was a king, and has now become an Adept.”

Thus Pancho received communications from “Molobolo” and Juana from “Purity,” and as these communications often contradicted each other, while each of the two parties believed in the infallibility of his or her guide, they only served to separate our friends still more and to create an antagonism between them, which became stronger in proportion as it became repressed.

The subject of Spiritualism now formed almost exclusively the topic of their conversation. Pancho who had already had considerable experiences in such matters did not believe that these communications originated from spirits of the dead, nor from angels. He had read a great deal about Shells and Elementaries and said that he knew a thing or two and was not going to be humbugged. As to “Purity” being an angel, as Conchita supposed, he argued that if there were no God, there could be no angels; but he believed in the possibility of receiving communications from living Adepts, and therefore those of Molobolo were to him genuine and all the rest was a fraud.

Conchita had elicited from Pancho an account of his visit to Mr. Puffer, and she now attributed Molabolo’s communications to an influence exercised over Pancho’s mind by Mr. Puffer. She believed in “Purity” but not in Molobolo, who, she said, was an evil spirit brought by Mr. Puffer. Pancho defended Molobolo and denounced “Purity” as being a fraud. Their discussions became sometimes very animated and would have often ended into a quarrel, if it had not been for Conchita’s ability to turn things into a joke.

One day Pancho remarked:

“My dear, all that ‘Purity’ says is nothing else but the reflections of your own mind; but as to King Molobolo, I know that he is a real and living person, residing at Kakodumbala in the Lybian desert; there can be no doubt of his identity; for Mr. Puffer himself has been living with him.”

“But, my dear,” said Conchita, “how do you know that the Molobolo that talks through Juana is not also a reflection of your own mind?”

“Because,” answered Pancho, “Adepts can do such things and spirits cannot. Moreover, my intuition tells me that it is Molobolo.”

“My intuition tells me that Purity is just as good as Molobolo,” replied Conchita. “They are either both true or both false.”

“You are mistaken, my dear,” said Pancho. “There must be a great difference between an Adept and a pretended spirit. I really shall have to go to Africa myself to settle the question.”

“I wish you would go,” said Conchita. “It would be better to settle it than to worry continually about it.”

“I am seriously thinking of doing so,” said Pancho.

A few days after this conversation took place, the postman brought a large package with the stamp of the post-office from the Cape of Good Hope.

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Pancho opened it, and found that it contained two letters. The first was a note from the Urur Office, saying that Pancho’s application for chelaship had been received and submitted to the Mysterious Brotherhood by means of the Shrine, and that the enclosed answer had been received. It also expressed the hope that Pancho would come to Urur to become a co-worker in the Cause of the truth for the benefit of humanity.

The second letter was enclosed in a curious envelope, on which mystic characters in various colours were printed. Pancho’s breath stood still as he opened it, for this was a letter from a real Adept, settling once and for ever the question of their existence. He opened it and found a note written in a strange, handwriting. It read as follows: –

“Friend, –

He who desires to devote his life to the service of Humanity must do so with his whole mind, his whole heart, implicitly and without any reserve. Tear out of your soul the root of evil, the love of pleasures which are not calculated for the fulfilment of the highest aspirations that man can have. Sacrifice your lower passions to your higher aspirations. Work for the cause of the truth, and great will be your reward. The Cause needs capable assistants. Your qualifications are excellent. It rests with you to develop your powers.”

The signature of this letter can not be given, but it was not Molobolo’s name.

“This is plain enough,” said Pancho to himself, after reading the letter. “I must go to Urur. I must make sacrifices to attain an exalted position.”

“Yes, I shall go,” he added, after a pause of reflection. “What is separation from a wife in comparison with the attainment of all the knowledge of the Adepts? It will be very painful to her to see me go, but it will not kill her, and when I have learned the art of making the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Life, I may come back to her.”

He firmly resolved to go. He took courage and spoke to his wife about it. preparing beforehand all that he would say in answer to her objections. But Conchita did not object.

“Go, my beloved one,” she said, “if it is your pleasure to do so. I know that you will not be satisfied until you have seen the Talking Image yourself.”

“But what will you do while I am gone?” asked Pancho.

“Wait until you return,” answered Conchita.

“But if I do not return?” said Pancho.

“I know that you will return,” replied Conchita. “After you have seen the Elephant you will be satisfied and glad to return to your wife.”

Pancho was somewhat stung by this remark, for he did not like to have such a sacred thing as the Talking Image compared with an elephant in a show; but he made no reply. He was satisfied with having so easily gained Conchita’s consent. He said:

“I hope to have my clairvoyant powers in a short time sufficiently developed to enable me to see how you are doing.”

“I have just been thinking of doing the same,” she said, “Juana told me of a man who is giving instructions how to become clairvoyant.”

“Oh, that will be nice, for I suppose that I will not have much time to write.”

It was settled that Pancho should leave by the next steamer of the Pacific Mail Company.

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Let not the reader suppose that Pancho was an extraordinary simpleton. There are thousands of persons living to-day, in high social positions, and being looked upon as wise, who are equally unreasonable. He was a person of more than average intelligence, but he was unconsciously selfish; he did not possess yet the knowledge of Self. His egoistic propensities caused him to see the truth in only a distorted aspect; his reason was made captive by it, enslaved by his desire.

In vain truth battled in him against error. During the night preceding his departure for Africa it made one more herculean effort to obtain mastery over him. He was in bed, but he could not sleep. It was as if a heavy load was resting upon his soul; he felt as if he were about to commit a great crime. An invisible vampire, ponderous as lead, seemed to be squatting upon his heart and sucking out his strength. His immortal spirit seemed to have departed, leaving behind only a gross material shell whose weight was dragging it down into the depths of the earth. He was conscious of being alive, but his life-blood seemed to be swarming with worms and reptiles, battling with each other, the symbols of his conflicting desires. To lie quiet under such circumstances was an impossibility; corporeal rest became intolerable. He rose, and dressing himself, attempted to go out, but the night was dark, and the rain coming down in torrents drove him back into the house. He groped his way back to the sleeping-room, and as he approached the bed it seemed to him that in the place of Conchita there was an ugly serpent with the face of Juana grinning at him. He turned away in disgust. Rather than remain at home he would be drowned in the rain. As he stepped out into the street there was a great shock of earthquake. It was the night in which a part of the Island of Java was destroyed and sank into the sea.

What was the cause of Pancho's emotions? Was it that he felt the coming earthquake? Was it the higher consciousness battling against the decisions of the animal mind and trying to prevent him from committing a bad action? or was it a foreboding of the evil results that would follow his departure? Who can tell? It is said that earthquakes are due to a disturbance of emotions in the soul of the earth. The elements in Pancho’s soul were likewise in a state of terrible conflict. It was as if his individuality had become divided into two separate entities, both existing in the same personality. One of these urged him to go, the other one bade him to stay, and Pancho did not know which one was right, or which wrong.

We will not enter into the details of what took place before his departure. It will be sufficient to say that Conchita showed a remarkable amount of self-control. She spoke of the joy that awaited her when she would see him return, and thought of how happy they would be together when the cobwebs in Pancho’s brain would have been removed by the African sun. She attempted to appear gay, and proposed to accompany her husband on board of the steamer; but when the fatal hour arrived, and she had dressed herself to go with him to the wharf, her courage gave way. Sobbing bitterly, she threw herself upon a lounge, and when Pancho entreated her to speak, he merely heard her whisper the words, “Father! Not my will, but Thine shall be done!”

Pancho hurried away.

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CHAPTER V. COLLEAGUES.

THE steamer on which Pancho took passage was a most beautiful ship of enormous dimensions. She had good accommodation, not only for numerous cabin passengers, but also for a great many Chinamen, who were about to return to their homes in the land of the Celestials, to celebrate the New Year; for on this important day it is customary in China to square up all accounts, and he who cannot settle his bills then and there loses his reputation and credit. There were over a thousand Chinese on board, occupying the lower deck, while in the state-rooms were lodged ladies and gentlemen of position, English lords travelling for pleasure, foreign consuls returning to their posts, grave-looking professors of science bent upon the discovery of some new insect or plant, and last, but not least, a number of young and gay missionaries with their newly-married wives, anxious to convert the heathen, and hoping to find a comfortable parsonage, with very little martyrdom connected with it.

There was a great bustle and noise as the preparations for leaving the harbour were progressing, and soon Pancho wished himself back to his quiet home. More than once he instinctively started to return; but while he hesitated the bell rang the last signal, the whistle sounded, the ropes that held the steamer to the wharf were drawn in, and all this seemed to him like the reading of his death warrant and preparations for the execution. Then the bridge was taken away, the ponderous engines began to puff and to roar, and the musicians played a valse. The command was given, the steamer began to move, and a watery grave opened its jaws between him and his beloved Conchita. For one moment he was ready to leap over the railing and jump back upon the wharf; but he hesitated, and in a moment it was too late. Then, for the first time, he fully realized that he was now separated from his wife, and it took all the strength of his will to keep himself from giving way to despair. He wanted to throw himself upon the ground, like Romeo in the play. He too was now banished from his beloved country and from the world in which his Juliet lived. Banished, not by a tyrant in mortal form, but by the demon of curiosity, the king of all evils.

Hurrahs arose from the crowd on the shore and from the sailors on board; they sounded to him like the howling of devils rejoicing over his torture; but in his soul there arose a cry of despair far louder than all that music and hurrahing, a cry which must certainly have reached beyond the noisy wharf and beyond the house-tops and spires of the City of a Thousand Hills, and reached a little cottage where a beautiful woman was lying in a death-like swoon upon the floor.

There was one more chance for escape, for when the ship left the “Golden 54Gate,” entering upon the open sea, the pilot left the ship, and a number of people who had accompanied their friends returned with him; but now Pancho had sufficiently recovered his will-power to resist the temptation. He watched the pilot-boat as it receded from the steamer, and the people in it waving their handkerchiefs to their friends, and as he watched, he thought he saw a female figure, dressed in white, with long, black hair falling over her shoulders, standing on the forecastle, wringing her hands, and a cry like that of one dying in agony covered the roar of the waves, calling: “O, Pancho! My Pancho, return!”

Too late! A breeze began to blow and the waves grew higher, showing their foam-covered crests. Occasionally a wave higher than the others dashed against the side of the steamer, throwing a spray of salt water upon the lower deck and causing consternation among the Chinamen, while the passengers on the upper deck enjoyed the fun. But soon the latter ceased in their turn to laugh, and the faces of many assumed a serious aspect. The first effects of sea-sickness were manifested in the high and the low, and even the missionaries turned pale and lost their hilarity.

It is doubtful whether there is any condition during which man feels more miserable than when his brain loses its point of balance on account of sea-sickness. The desire to die became so strong in Pancho’s mind that it excluded every other thought. But even the greatest evils will have an end, no grief is lasting for ever, and after a few days other curious events attracted his attention.

Among the passengers there was one especially grave and solemn-looking young man with long dark-brown hair, looking like an itinerant clergyman of the Baptist persuasion. This young man was accompanied by an extraordinary tall and lean female of past middle age, with sharp features and a short aquiline nose. Her artificial hair was of a different colour from that which had still been spared on her head by the cruel, destroying hand of Time. She was dressed in the height of fashion, with a profusion of sham jewellery, and her eyes wandered restlessly all over the ship, scrutinizing everybody, especially the rest of the ladies on board.

For several days the dignified-looking young man, either on account of his natural modesty, or on that of etiquette, was not seen to speak with anyone except the old lady, but as he occupied a place at the dinner-table next to Pancho, the usual civilities habitually indulged in on such occasions led to a conversation, in the course of which the stranger handed his card to Pancho. It was as follows:

A. B. C. GREEN, T.Ch.M.B.,
M. S. D.W., G. S. L.E.,
L. C. B. W. T., V. A., S. S. S., C. B.,
etc., etc., etc.

It appeared afterwards that these mysterious letters were to be interpreted as 55follows: – Anthony Balthazar Charles Green, Titulary Chela of the Mysterious Brotherhood, Member of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom, Graduate of the School of Law at Edwardsville, Late Correspondent of the Bullington Weekly Times, Visitor of America, Student of the Secret Sciences, Collector of Books, etc., etc., etc.

This introduction was followed by that of the old lady, whose name was Amelia Celestina Gloriosa Honeycomb.

Mr. Green continued to look very solemn and had little to say, but Mrs. Honeycomb at once opened her heart. She expressed herself delighted in making Pancho’s acquaintance.

“In one of my former incarnations,” she said, “I knew a person to whom you have a striking resemblance. He was a very dear friend of mine, and many a star-lit night have I wandered with him along the flowery banks of the Nile, inhaling the odours of the acacias and listening to the song of the nightingales, or we would be gliding along the current of the river in a mahogany boat, covered with roses and orange blossoms, while the chaste moon overhead threw her silvery rays upon the water, and our Nubian slave, sitting at the rudder and guiding the boat, would sing to us one of his weird native songs, accompanying it with his harp.”

“So you are a believer in reincarnation?” asked Pancho.

“O, yes!” sighed Mrs. Honeycomb. “I remember ten of my incarnations. In my last one I was a Greek slave; but I was treated so badly by my cruel master that I hate to think of it. I only know that I was very, very beautiful, and that my beauty caused me a great deal of trouble.”

“Dear me, how much she has changed!” thought Pancho. However, he did not express his thought, but asked Mr. Green whether he also remembered his past incarnations.

“I have been told that I was Socrates,” replied Mr. Green very gravely, “but I do not remember it. However, I expect to find out all these things when we arrive at Urur.”

“Are you going to Urur?” asked Pancho, surprised.

“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Green. “I have been accepted as a probationary Chela by the Mysterious Brotherhood.”

“Let me congratulate you,” said Pancho. “Do you already know who your Master is?”

“I am not personally acquainted with him, but his name is Rataraborumatchi.”

“And from whom do you get your orders?”

“I get them through Mrs. Honeycomb,” replied Mr. Green. “She is very much advanced in Chelaship, as you may see by the fact that she remembers her ten incarnations; but this is due to the fact that she was an Egyptian priestess, a thousand years ago.”

Mrs. Honeycomb seemed to be well pleased with Mr. Green’s explanation. “If anyone fails to see,” she exclaimed, “that Mr. Green was Socrates, I shall have my own opinion about such a person’s clairvoyance. I tell you Socrates is in him, and will out occasionally. When we were at Saratoga at dinner with my friend, the Countess Carnivalli, she said Mr. Green reminded her so much of Socrates. ‘My dear friend Mrs. Honeycomb,’ said the Countess, ‘there cannot be the slightest mistake about his having been Socrates.’”

56

Mr. Green looked still more solemn and dignified, if possible. Suddenly he said: “Gnothi seauton.”

“There; you have it!” exclaimed Mrs. Honeycomb. “It means, ‘know thyself.’ Mr. Green always says that when Socrates speaks in him.”

“It is a very wise saying,” remarked Pancho.

“Indeed it is!” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “It is an excellent saying. There is nothing so useful as when one knows himself. Now-a-days it is an easy thing to know oneself, but in Socrates’ time it was difficult, because people did not have such good looking-glasses then as now; we had only those miserable metal mirrors, and it took a lot of scrubbing to keep them polished.”

“Tell us something of your experience when you were the Greek slave,” begged Pancho.

“Don’t mention it,” sighed Mrs. Honeycomb. “It makes me feel dreadful to think of it! I was fastened to a chain, and there was a man who used to trifle with my affections. I remember him well. If I ever catch him in this present incarnation, I will make it hot for him,” she suddenly fired up.

“Peace, Mrs. Honeycomb!” said, very severely, Mr. Green. “Do not give way to feelings which are entirely below the dignity of a Chela. The man may have repented and suffered for his wickedness in Avitchi, or he may be still in Kama loca, and your revengeful feeling will keep him there.”

“I have looked all over Kama loca, but I could not find the villain,” replied Mrs. Honeycomb. “Of course, I did not go to Avitchi. I do not like to go to such a disreputable place.”

“So you are clairvoyant?” asked Pancho.

“I occasionally go out in my astral body,” answered Mrs. Honeycomb, evasively.

“I wish I could do the same thing,” he said.

“It is a dangerous thing to do,” replied Mrs. Honeycomb. “You must be well trained, especially if you attempt it without a guide. Before Captain Bumpkin, the Hierophant, was well trained, he once tried to get out in his astral body. He staggered around the room like a blind man, and struck his astral head against the too material bed-post. When he awoke he had a great big bump on his physical eye.”

“How does it feel, when one gets out in his astral body?” asked Pancho.

“Oh, so nice,” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “Everything looks just as natural as when you are in your physical body, but then you see only the astral counterpart of things. My friend, the Countess Carnivalli, went out once in her astral body, and was nearly frightened to death by an astral cow. It was all she could do to get back into her physical sheath before the cow knocked her down. It was in the country, and when the Countess Carnivalli opened her eyes there was actually a physical cow rushing at her, and she had to climb with her physical body over a physical fence.”

“And then those horrid Elementals and Elementaries!” added Mr. Green. “I have been told that the very sight of them is enough to make one sick at the stomach.”

“O, Mr. Green!” exclaimed Mrs. Honeycomb. “Will you do me the favour and never use such a vulgar expression in my presence again. Say ‘digestive organs’ if you have to say anything in regard to such physiological apparatus.”

57

“Well,” said Mr. Green, “it makes one sick at one’s digestive organs.”

“You have quite shocked my nerves,” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “Go to my cabin and fetch me my bottle with smelling salts.”

“A nice young man!” remarked Pancho, while Mr. Green was hurrying away.

“Very nice indeed!” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “Only he uses such vulgar expressions and does such boorish things. Would you believe it! When we were invited to dinner, at the house of my friend, the Countess Carnivalli, he actually cut his fish with a knife. I thought I should die. Of course my friend, the Countess Carnivalli, fainted right away.”

“He seems to have excellent qualifications for Chelaship,” said Pancho.

“O yes!” answered Mrs. Honeycomb. “He is ready to believe anything, especially if it comes in a letter that is dropped on his head.”

Mr. Green returned with the smelling salts.

“Thanks,” said Mrs. Honeycomb, receiving the bottle. “The Master says you may now go and meditate for an hour.”

“All right!” said Mr. Green, going away. But Mrs. Honeycomb called him back.

“Mr. Green,” she said, “Master says you must not let any idea come into your head.”

“Never!” solemnly acquiesced Mr. Green.

“Now go!” She ordered him off, and Mr. Green disappeared down stairs.

“What is he going to do?” enquired Pancho.

“We always make him sit every day for an hour or two and look at any fly-speck on the wall,” replied Mrs. Honeycomb, “so that the Master can work his brain and get it into good shape to make it receptive. The poor fellow is very anxious to become clairvoyant.”

“He seems to be very obedient.”

“O, yes! He is easily managed. If we would tell him to jump overboard, he would do so unhesitatingly. He is used to obedience. He was educated by a Christian clergyman, who made him do lots of nonsensical things to train him to obey. For two years Mr. Green had to carefully water a walking cane stuck into a flower-pot every day, although he knew well enough that it would never grow. It was merely done to get him into the habit of not using his reason.”

“But why did you tell him not to let any idea get into his head?”

“Because,” was the answer, “there is nothing more dangerous for a Chela than if he does his own thinking. He should never think, but always believe what we tell him.”

“What do you mean by we?” asked Pancho. “Has Mr. Green any other teacher besides yourself?”

“At present I am his only guide,” she answered. “He has full faith in me; but I always take care not to tell him anything very unreasonable; for he cannot be trusted. He used to believe everything that the clergyman told him from the First Book of Genesis down to the last Chapter of St. John’s Revelations; but one day that clergyman told him that they were going to have apple pie for dinner and instead of that it was squash. From that hour, Mr. Green then lost his faith in his clergyman, and called him a liar. Ever since then, moreover, he swears that the whole Bible is a tissue of lies.”

58

“But what has the Bible to do with the apple-pie?” asked Pancho.

“Mr. Green has studied logic,” she replied. “He says that anything which a man who once lied tells us must not be believed. It was the clergyman who told him that the Bible was true, and, as the clergyman lied about the pie, this proved the Bible false.”

“Very logical,” thought Pancho. “These Chelas are very queer people.”

During the subsequent days he became more intimately acquainted with Mr. Green. He found him to be a man of tolerably good education, but who, in spite of his having been Socrates, had not the faintest idea of the meaning of the term “self-knowledge.” He had read a great many books and believed that nobody could possibly know anything unless he had read it in a respectable book, or had been told of it by a respectable person. All his knowledge consisted in a belief in what he had been taught, and this belief was based upon nothing else but a belief in the respectability and veracity of his teacher. If the teacher happened to lose his respectability in the eyes of Mr. Green, then necessarily all the beliefs of the latter, and consequently all of his knowledge, went for nothing and were lost.

“I do not believe in the truth of the doctrines of a Church which employs untruthful and disreputable persons to teach them,” said Mr. Green, once; “for how could anything else than lies come out of the mouth of a liar? In my country nobody reads any book unless its author is well known for his veracity.”

“And who is to decide about the veracity of the author?” asked Pancho.

“It is the business of the publisher to see to that,” replied Green. “If a book is brought out by a publisher who has a reputation to lose, it must necessarily be a good book, and everybody will buy it; but if it is published by one whom nobody knows, nobody will want it, no matter what it contains. In my country, and especially in Germany, nobody cares for the contents of the book, and it also matters little who is the author. All that the reading public wants to know is, who is the publisher?”

“This is very true,” said Pancho, “and still those respectable publishers are often very ignorant people, who are perfectly incapable of judging of the value of the books which they undertake to sell.”

“How can that be possible?” asked Mr. Green. “What warrant have you to make such a statement? What would become of the public, if they could not trust any longer in the veracity of respectable publishers? And how can anybody know whether or not a thing is true, unless he can rely on the veracity of the person who tells him so.”

“I prefer to use my own judgment rather than to rely on anybody’s veracity,” said Pancho.

“So do I,” said Mr. Green. “I am not of a credulous, but of a very sceptical turn of mind. I never accept any statement from anybody unless I have sufficient proof of his respectability. I would not even have believed in Mrs. Honeycomb’s statements, if she had not given me sufficient proof of her veracity. I am not a man who is easily imposed on. I had once such an experience, and since then I am more careful.”

“How do you know that what Mrs. Honeycomb tells you is the truth?” asked Pancho.

“How could it be otherwise? Is not all that she says inspired by the 59Mysterious Brotherhood? Has she not given sufficient proof that she is in communication with Adepts? Does she not remember her past ten incarnations? Can she not go out in her astral body?”

“I don’t know,” our hero answered.

“That is because you are not a Chela,” answered Mr. Green. “We Chelas are not permitted to doubt.”

Such and similar conversations with Mr. Green made Pancho very sad and almost wish that he had stayed at home, for he recognized in him an overdrawn picture of his own self. All Mr. Green’s hopes and inspirations were based upon a belief in Mrs. Honeycomb’s veracity. All that had induced Pancho to go in search of the Mysterious Brotherhood was his belief in the truth of the statements made to him by Mr. Puffer.

“Is it then really true,” he asked himself, “that nobody can be found who actually knows anything, and that all our supposed knowledge is merely belief in statements made by others? Who is there who knows anything except what he is told by somebody else, and that somebody else what has been told in his turn to him? Can any truth be found except in mathematics and logic, and are we perfectly sure that even the basis upon which we base our calculation and logic is the correct one? Is not the truth of that basis likewise a mere assumption, if it cannot be logically proved; and if its truth can be known without any logical reasoning, why then should not all things be known without such artificial help? If I believe that 2 × 2 is four, because 1 + 1 is two, my belief is based upon the assumption that twice one is two, and this again is incomprehensible unless I take it for granted that 1 is unchangeable and does not turn into another number. But what if we could not depend on the one? What if it were suddenly to change into two or into some other number; then 1 + 1 instead of being 2 would perhaps be 3 or 4. But how do we know that 1 is 1 and unchangeable? As authority for it we have neither the statement of Mr. Puffer, nor that of Mrs. Honeycomb, nor even the declaration of an Adept. Nevertheless we know it, or imagine we know it, and if we can absolutely know one thing by our own intuition and without having been informed of it by another, why should we not be able to know all things in the same manner and without the necessity of logical proof? Surely there must be a mystery about these things, which I hope to have explained to me at Urur.”

Among the passengers there were two German professors, of great scientific reputation. They were called by some the “inseparables,” as they were always seen together. They were like “two hearts that beat as one,” but as neither of them seemed to be in possession of that kind of knowledge which Pancho imagined to be possible to attain, they sometimes became divided in their opinions, and then they quarrelled with each other in a most objectionable manner.

It was a fine evening. The sun shone in tranquil glory in the sky, as if he did not care a straw about the opinions of all the astronomers in the world, and the planet Earth revolved with the usual velocity around its axis, regardless of any scientist on board of the steamer, now aware of no other movement than that of the ship. The two professors were discussing some theories with regard to the interior of the earth; and while one insisted that the globe was a solid mass in a state of terrible heat, the other maintained that it was a hollow, egg-shaped body, 60containing no solid matter, but an atmosphere like our own. They had already waxed warm in defending their respective arguments, and their dispute began to attract the attention of the passengers on deck.

“Your theory,” cried Professor Hopfer, “is absurd. As a man of science, you ought to know that if one digs down into the earth, he finds the temperature rising at the rate of about 2° R. for every hundred feet, which gives a heat of some 2,000 degrees at a depth of 100,000 feet below the surface. Quod erat demonstrandum.”

“This antiquated theory of yours, which is at present held only by those who are entirely ignorant of scientific principles,” answered Professor Schlei, “has long ago been discarded by those who are better informed. It seems that you are not aware of the fact that at the boring of the artesian well at the insane asylum of St. Louis, the temperature increased in the manner described by you only until a depth of 3,209 feet had been reached, where it became 106 degrees, after which it began to sink, and at a depth of 3,817 feet the thermometer stood at 105; at ten feet farther down at 104, showing a decrease of 1° R. for every ten feet, which at 10,000 feet would give a cold of 900 degrees, showing that the inner strata of the earth’s crust are in a frozen state. Verb. sap. sat.”

“It seems more probable,” remarked the other, “that the observations at the digging of that well were taken by the inmates of the asylum. A schoolboy would laugh at your theory, if he ever heard of volcanoes, the safety valves of the earth.”

“Because,” replied his opponent, “the schoolboy would be asinine enough to imagine that the fire of the volcanoes came from the centre of the earth, while those who have studied the matter know that it comes from chemical decompositions taking place within the crust of the earth. Do you want to make people believe that they are standing upon the top of a fiery mass of thousands of miles in diameter, with only an egg shell between them and a glowing hell below, which at any time might burst and send them to perdition?”

“I had some suspicion,” he was promptly answered, “that you are in your dotage. Now I am certain of it, and arguments would be wasted upon you. If you were capable of reasoning, you would comprehend that we are not living on the periphery of a soap-bubble, which is at any moment ready to explode. You do not seem to know that Descartes had a similar theory and was forced to give it up, and that, according to the newest discoveries, our planet is a seven axial rotating ellipsoid. You seem to be ignorant of the fact that Gyldén of Stockhalm has solved the mathematical problem of the three bodies, by introducing the transcendental periodical functions discovered by Jacobi, and that he estimated the medium density of the earth as being 5·7.”

This was a stunner for Mr. Schlei, but he quickly recovered.

“I hope,” he exclaimed, “to live long enough to demolish you and your doctrines. I shall certainly write a book exposing your ignorance. I shall go to the North Pole and enter through Symes’ hole into the interior of the earth, to enjoy a good laugh at your stupidity.”

“And have you forgotten, then,” said Mr. Schlei, “that I am on my way to Naples, where I will dig a tunnel connecting the crater of Vesuvius with the Mediterranean? I will put out the fires of the volcano, and of the whole 61of the interior of our globe. I shall explode your vile theory, and this if I have to blow up the whole earth to do so.”

The quarrel was becoming serious, and it was with great difficulty that they were pacified by the bystanders. These were likewise divided in their opinions as to which one of the professors was in the right. Mr. Green proposed that it should be submitted to the decision of the Mysterious Brotherhood, but one of the missionaries said that it had already been decided in the Bible. Was it not written that in the beginning the earth was void, and there was darkness upon the face of the deep? If the earth were full of molten minerals, it could not have been void, and if there were a fire in it, it could not be dark; but this darkness also disposed of the theory about the holes at the poles.

It has not been stated whether or not everybody was satisfied with that explanation; but we know that Pancho was not. “What kind of a science is this,” he said to himself, “if men of science know nothing, and only imagine certain things to be true by drawing deductions from external appearance; or phenomena, which may go to support two opposite theories, and whose causes may be entirely different from what we imagine them to be? What kind of a being is man if he does not even know the nature of the planet upon which he lives, and how can he dare to decide on that which is beyond the stars?”

It was growing late. The passengers, one after another, retired to their cabins: but Pancho had no inclination to sleep. He stood at the railing and looked at the porpoises that were playing around the steamer, and at the streaks of liquid gold which the ship left in her track as she ploughed her way through the phosphorescent waves. The moon was not visible, but the stars were shining brightly. Their light was reflected in the foaming waters which were thrown into confusion by the unceasing motion of the screw. The air was pure and calm, and fit for meditation, and the stars taught Pancho a lesson. For, while their reflections in the water were distorted by the motion of the waves, they themselves were not a bit affected by it, but shone and twinkled in the sky. “Thus,” he said to himself, “it may be with Truth. It remains for ever the same; but its rays are broken and often distorted in the minds of men. Those who can see only the distorted image but mistake it for truth itself, live in illusion; those who can see Truth itself, see the Reality, and are in possession of knowledge.”

Pancho wondered from whence he got this idea. It had never been told to him by anyone, neither by Mr. Puffer nor Mrs. Honeycomb, and he believed in it, although its correctness had not been warranted to him by any respectable authority that he knew. But where could he find real truth?

As if in answer to his thought, a red glow appeared upon the eastern sky. Gradually the moon arose, throwing a silver stream upon the waters, causing the masts and the smoke-stacks to cast phantastic shadows upon the sea. A broad path of light seemed to extend from the horizon towards the ship, showing plainly the form of each wavelet within the glittering path, but it did not penetrate the watery depths below, where the corals and pearls, the sharks and the mermaids, were hidden far away from human sight.

---

62

CHAPTER VI. THE VOYAGE CONTINUED.

THEY were now approaching the coast of Japan, and one morning when Pancho stepped upon the deck a wonderful sight met his eyes. Before him, and resting high in the air, was a new planet, a bright, glittering world, illuminated by the rays of the terrestrial sun, although the latter had not yet risen above the horizon. It was the snow-covered top of the volcano Fuji-yama radiating with light, but whose foot was in darkness, for it was still dark in the valley, and a mass of mist and vapours played round the base of the mountain, making it appear as if the latter was not a thing belonging to this Earth, but a satellite created during the night.

After a short stop at Yokohama the steamer proceeded on her way. Gracefully she ploughed her way through the waters along the beautiful coast of Japan, and in sight of its bluff-lined shore. There were many lovely islands, and here and there, from behind the bushes, surrounded by a luxurious vegetation, and half hidden behind camphor and persimmon trees, peeped the roofs of the houses of the natives; neat cottages in idyllic places, such as Pancho had often dreamed about, and where he would have wished to spend the rest of his days with Conchita. Soon, however, the trees disappeared, and in the distance arose the volcano Oyama, grim and forbidding-looking, enveloped in smoke, sending dark masses of vapour up into the blue ether, and the edges of the clouds were reddened by the lurid fires coming from the mysterious crater below.

Among those who enjoyed the novel sight was Mrs. Honeycomb, and, being gifted with the power of clairvoyance, she described the elementals of fire as they arose from the crater and delved again into its depths.

“How quickly these fiery elementals bob up and down!” she exclaimed. “Now, do you see that big one with his black, curly locks and the pitchfork in his hand? How they frolic and jump.”

“Do you see anything?” asked Mr. Green.

“Of course I do,” answered Mrs. Honeycomb. “If you do not see them you must be as blind as a bat. The crater is full of them, and they wriggle and squirm like bees in a hive. There are big ones and little ones. They elongate their bodies and contract them again.”

“Are there any female elementals among them?” asked Mr. Green.

“Mr. Green!” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “I have already told you repeatedly not to think about females. It seems that you still have women on the brain. Were you not told that you could not become a genuine Chela as long as you are thinking of women? If you do that again you will draw upon you a severe reprimand from Rataraboru –”

“Hush!” interrupted Mr. Green. “There are people listening. Do not pronounce that holy name so publicly.”

“– matchi,” added Mrs. Honeycomb to her former sentence. “If I start to say something, it must out. I do not want to choke over it.”

“I wish I could get an occult letter!” said Mr. Green. “It would do me much good, and then it would be such a good test for my friends, if I were to get one here on board where nobody can be suspected of cheating.”

63

“You do not deserve any as long as you are such a doubter,” said Mrs. Honeycomb.

“I am doing the best I can,” replied Mr. Green.

It seems that then and there an invisible “adept” was present and heard Mr. Green’s request; for, incredible as it may appear, on the very night that followed this conversation, Mr. Green, being alone in his room, found an occult letter under his pillow, which was as follows:

To Mr. Green, Prob. Chel. M.B.

Fortunate are those who can see without seeing, and hear without hearing, and know without knowing. Have faith in Mrs. Honeycomb. I will communicate my orders through her.

Rataraborumatchi.

Little sleep came upon the eyes of Mr. Green that night. He wept for joy, and more than once he started to knock for admittance at Mrs. Honeycomb’s door, to tell her of his good fortune. He was only restrained from doing so by fear of creating a scandal which might have injured Mrs. Honeycomb’s reputation. He therefore concluded to say nothing about it and to see whether Mrs. Honeycomb would discover it by her clairvoyant power; nor was he deceived in his intuition; for when he met her at the breakfast-table next morning, she asked him whether he had received a message from the Mysterious Brotherhood. This test fully convinced Mr. Green of Mrs. Honeycomb’s occult powers, and he saw all his doubts vanish before the sunlight of truth.

Mr. Green was delighted. From a mere titulary aspirant for Chelaship, he had now become an accepted probationary chela, as was proved beyond the possibility of a doubt by the wording of the letter. His bearing became still more solemn. He never permitted himself to indulge in a joke, and looked displeased when others showed signs of hilarity. He felt too much the importance and dignity of his position not to be overcome with awe, and he wondered at his own hidden greatness, which had entitled him to such honours.

“With the receipt of that letter,” he said to Pancho, “a new chapter has begun for me in my book of life. To become an accepted probationary Chela is one of the most respectable positions that can be obtained; but it is also one of the most important ones, and not without danger, for I have been told that as soon as such a honour has been conferred upon one, it brings out all of his latent propensities for evil. If one has an inherited inclination to lie or to steal, as soon as he becomes a probationary Chela, he becomes a liar or thief. I tell you this as a matter of precaution in your intercourse with me. I am not fully aware of all my inherited propensities, and if you should some day miss your watch or something, you will have to attribute it to my development. As far as lying is concerned, I do not believe that there is any danger. I do not feel any inclination to lie.”

Heretofore the subject of Occultism had been discussed only amongst our friends, but now Mr. Green, feeling, as he said, the influence of Rataraborumatchi upon him, considered it his duty to make propaganda among the passengers for a belief in Adepts, and the possibility of their existence soon became the general topic of conversation on board of the steamer. Mrs. Honeycomb received numerous applications from people who wanted to obtain occult letters and 64tests. One lady, who had been reading “Count de Gabalis,” requested Mr. Green to get her an attendant spirit to do her work; because she said that she always had so much trouble with her chambermaids, and would prefer a Sylphide that would not talk about her affairs with the neighbours. A young fellow wanted an Undine, and promised, if his request was granted, to provide her with all the water she could reasonably desire. Some wanted to be taught the art of making gold, and love powders, and a rich old invalid confidentially offered to Mr. Green a thousand dollars for a bottle of the Elixir of Life.

Mr. Green expressed his regret at his present inability to grant these requests, but promised to lay them before his “Master” on his arrival at Urur. He moreover stated that if he should ever return to England, he proposed to establish there a College of Occultism, in which he would himself be professor.

Among the new passengers who had come on board in Japan, there was a

Mr. A. Bottler, M.S.R.P.S., & S.S.D.U.S.

Professor of Magic.

All Orders Promptly Attended.

As may be seen by the above card, Mr. Bottler was a Member of a Society formed for the purpose of making Researches in Psychology, and also of Several other Societies for the Discovery of Unknown Sciences. He was himself a Professor of Magic, and had gained considerable reputation by testifying before the Seybert Commission in Philadelphia that he had never seen any spiritual phenomena, and that they were, therefore, all performed by tricks. He was an expert in classifying everything, and prided himself that he could explode anything which would not submit to his classification, as a humbug. Nevertheless, he was not a sceptic or an infidel, but rather of a religious turn of mind. It was especially due to his efforts that a Society had been formed to explore the bottom of the Red Sea, to rake up the golden chariot-wheels which had been lost by the Egyptians drowned in their pursuit of the children of Israel. Mr. Bottler, in a scientific dissertation laid before the “Society for the Discovery of Unknown Sciences,” had clearly given his reasons for his belief that these chariot-wheels, as well as many other articles of value, had resisted the influence of salt water, and could be recovered. He, moreover, had made himself famous by writing a book showing that the unicorn was not an extinct animal, and that some specimens of it still existed on the Island of Madagascar. He was now on his way to it to secure the beast, and to sell it to Barnum’s Museum.

Strange to say, while Mr. Bottler firmly believed in the occurrence of all the miracles described in the Bible, the accounts of which he took in their literal sense, he was a man of too scientific an education to believe in the existence of “Soul.” He had himself been a professor of Psychology at a college in England, and knew that there was no such thing as that. Every fact which went to show that man could exercise powers other than those which were produced 65by the physiological action of his physical body was peremptorily denied by Mr. Bottler, and there was nothing too evident for him to deny. When he heard of the existence of a Mysterious Brotherhood possessing occult powers, he became much excited.

“Let these Mysterious Brothers come out of their dens,” he said. “Let them show their certificates and qualifications! Let us see whether they can stand the test of science, before they come to ask us to believe in what they teach. Let them come out, I say! Who cares for sages whom nobody knows? Let them appear and perform their miracles before a committee of the S.R.P.S., and if they can stand the test, we will take them under our protection. An adept with a certificate from our association would command belief wherever he goes; but if he has no standing in our profession, he is only a quack.”

Such disrespectful language in regard to the Mysterious Brotherhood could not be tolerated by Mr. Green, who, in his capacity as a Chela, felt it to be his duty to defend them.

“These Brothers,” he said, “care nothing for your S.R.P.S., nor for your S.D.U.S. Their reputation is already too well established to need any certificates from your Society, but if you will come to Urur, I promise you in the name of the great Rataramorubatchi, whose influence I feel, that you will get satisfactory proof that such adepts do exist.”

“Who is that Rataramorubatchi?” asked Mr. Bottler.

“He is a man whose name ought to be pronounced only with the greatest reverence,” said Mr. Green. “He is over a thousand years old, and still he looks as if he were thirty-five, because whenever he feels himself getting old, he takes a dram of the Elixir of Life and makes himself young again. He and the other adepts are persons who know everything; because the greatest ancient mysteries have been handed down to them from the remotest antiquity, either orally or by tradition. What they say is true and cannot be denied. All the religious systems in the world have been instituted by persons who are now dead, and of whom we, therefore, do not know whether or not they were sufficiently respectable to be believed by our present and more enlightened generation. But the members of the Mysterious Brotherhood are living persons whose respectability has been vouched for by many respectable persons. Moreover, they have given sufficient proof of their occult powers, and what they teach must be true.”

“What kind of occult powers are they supposed to have?” asked Mr. Bottler.

“Come to Urur, and you will see it. In the meantime, you had better be more guarded in your expressions in regard to them.” So saying, Mr. Green walked away.

Mr. Bottler doubted very much the sanity of the Chela’s mental condition. Nevertheless his curiosity was now excited, and he desired to obtain more information in regard to Urur.

“What,” he thought, “if the existence of the Adepts were a truth after all? If I could learn from them the art of making gold by artificial means, or to hypnotize the people in England and make them elect me a Member of Parliament. How astonished would be the members of the S.S.P.S., if I could bring them not only a Unicorn, but a living Adept!”

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Mr. Bottler made up his mind to consult Mrs. Honeycomb.

Mrs. Honeycomb, in spite of her advanced years, was a remarkable woman. Her marriages with her first, second, and third husbands had not been happy ones. She must have been very attractive in her youth, as her first lover threatened to kill himself if she would refuse him, and she married him out of compassion. A generous soul she was, but the ungrateful wretch made her life miserable, and finally ran away. Her second husband, who at the time of his betrothal to her showed no symptoms of a desire to commit suicide, was heard to curse the day that he was born, soon after the honeymoon. But why should we revive these painful memories, which Mrs. Honeycomb tried to forget?

Love of truth compels us, however, to state that at the time of which we are writing, Mrs. Honeycomb had not yet given up all hopes of finding her real affinity. She had accepted a call from Captain Bumpkins to become one of the high-priestessess of the Shrine, and a diploma that admitted her to the inner circle of the Elect, and was on her way to enter upon her duties. Whether or not dreams of the Elixir of Life and of rejuvenation entered into her programme, we are not permitted to tell.

“This Mr. Green,” said Mr. Bottler, as he was walking upon the deck with Mrs. Honeycomb, “seems to be hallucinated. I am sure that there is not a word of truth in what he says.”

“Men can never be trusted,” answered Mrs. Honeycomb with a sigh, “and it may be that Mr. Green is just as bad as the rest of them. If I were a young girl, I would not believe a word of what any man said, unless I had the marriage certificate in my hand. They blow hot one day and cold the next, and even after the marriage they cannot be relied upon.”

“I meant to say,” continued Mr. Bottler, “that Mr. Green proposed to me. . . .”

“Did he, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Honeycomb, interrupting his sentence. “Well, I am not astonished at anything. You could hardly believe what queer things may happen to probationary Chelas. It must have been an evil spirit throwing a glamour over his eyes to make him imagine you were a woman. Such things are often done by black-magicians. My friend, the Countess Carnivalli, had a similar experience. She once thought she saw the spirit of an Adept walking in the yard, and when she ran out to meet him, it was only an old tablecloth that had been hung up to dry.”

“I am glad to hear you express such good and sensible views,” said Mr. Bottler. “All these spirits and ghosts are nothing but impostures and hallucinations, degrading to the dignity of man and destructive to the purity of women. The ancients believed in ghosts, but modern science has destroyed all such illusions. I have studied psychology thoroughly, and found that there is no such thing as a soul. Who ever saw a soul? It can be found neither in the pineal gland nor in the big toe. All thought is dynamic and molecular. It is produced by a hypertrophy of the ganglia of the brain. It is due to a condition caused by a spasmodic contraction of the dynamic centres of the cerebellum, in consequence of which the transversal oscillatory rythmic movements of the interior vibrations of the brain cells are kinetically altered. If you will look at the oscillatory curves of the four dimensional extensions of the thought dynamides, 67you will see that thoughts are produced by an increased action of the motor nerves of the cerebellum, entirely analogous to the oxydation of zinc in a voltaic battery.”

“I always thought so,” replied Mrs. Honeycomb. “It’s the best explanation I ever heard. My friend, the Countess Carnivalli, says the same thing whenever she is influenced by her guiding spirit. When he takes possession of her, he makes her vibrate like a battery, and when she speaks the whole audience becomes electrified.”

“It’s the air that acts as a conductor,” said Mr. Bottler. “When the four dimensional movements of the transversal oscillations of the thought dynamides have once been started by the contact and galvanic action of the grey matter of the brain with the blood corpuscles, the sympathetic impulses liberated in the mass of which the convolutions are composed may be transmitted to the auditory sense of the audience by means of the oscillations of the tympanum, and it is unnecessary to assume the action of spirits.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Honeycomb; “my husband was, then, a conductor. Poor man! He did not know anything about such things, and so he used spirits. I always told him that it was unnecessary, but after he once got into the habit, he could not quit it, and it killed him at last.”

“It is all due to a state of disturbed equilibrium,” said Mr. Bottler.

“Perfectly true!” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “His equilibrium was sometimes so much disturbed that he tumbled from one side to the other. O! if I could find the man in whom equilibrium is restored, I would follow him to the end of the world. I would recognize in him the true affinity for which my soul is yearning.”

“But, my dear madam,” said Mr. Bottler, “it seems that we are talking about two different subjects. You are thinking of yearnings, while I am discussing the most profound philosophical questions.”

“O, you men!” sighed Mrs. Honeycomb. “You will never understand a woman’s heart!”

Consultation with Mrs. Honeycomb having proved unsatisfactory, Mr. Bottler turned again to Mr. Green, and the latter insisted that Mr. Bottler should go to Urur to see the Talking Image, which would undoubtedly clear up all his doubts. “This Image,” he said, “is not an invisible spirit; but a substantial thing, made of some solid material, and it can think and talk like a human being.”

“The construction of such an Image,” said Mr. Bottler, “would go to prove the correctness of my theory about the thought dynamides. All we have to do is to construct a proper organism and to supply it with brain and blood in the right proportions, and there will be no difficulty in causing it to evolve thoughts. Add to that the proper organs of speech, and you will have a Talking Image as complete as the one you describe. On my return from Madagascar I will go to Urur and examine the Image, and if it is what you represent it to be, I shall construct one like it and present it to the S. R. P. S.”

“I will speak with Rataraborumatchi about it,” replied Mr. Green, “and recommend you to his attention. He will grant you all the necessary facilities to bring your investigation to a successful result.”

The steamer passed by the island of Formosa and entered the Chinese sea. 68Soon the long low hills of the coast were seen and the number of fishing boats encountered increased until the sea seemed to be a forest of masts. After they entered the tortuous channel that leads to Hong Kong a great commotion took place among the Chinese on board, who seemed swayed by one common impulse, the joy of returning home. Many longing hearts were beating as the steamer approached the harbour; many anxious eyes were watching the ship from the shore; hundreds of boats swarmed out from the wharf and surrounded her, and when, after anchor was cast, the human tide overflooded the deck, while the landing took place, Pancho wrote a letter to his wife, from which we will copy the following:

“The nearer I come to the place of my destination, the more do I become convinced that it was necessary for me to go, so as to see with my own eyes whether or not those marvels are true. There is no dependence to be put on anything that anyone hears. I have met with some scientific celebrities who differ in their opinions just as much as vulgar and ignorant people. Moreover I have met with two Chelas; but their statements are too absurd to be believed. I therefore am still far from a solution of the problem, and my heart beats with joy as I am coming nearer to the attainment of my object. We are half way on our journey now, and I shall soon see the Talking Image and sit at the feet of the great Hierophant, listening to his instructions and receiving positive proof that man has a soul.”

The rest of the letter contained such trifles as are usually talked of among lovers, and which it would be indiscreet to reveal.

During the last few days of the voyage, some learned discussions took place between Mr. Bottler and Green in regard to certain historical occurrences certified to in the Bible, in the reality of which Mr. Bottler fully believed, but which he explained on scientific grounds, meeting, however, occasionally with some difficulties. For instance, Mr. Bottler had no doubt that Jonah was swallowed by a fish, only he said that for some anatomical reasons it could not have been a whale, a mistake undoubtedly due to a mistranslation of the original text. He went into long speculations about Noah’s ark and the system which the former had adopted to feed the different animals. He also made a project on his return to Europe to raise an army of volunteers to recapture the Castle of Zion, which, as he said, had been long enough in the hands of the infidels.

As to Mr. Green, he denied the truth of the Bible. He said that such a respectable person as the Virgin Mary is represented would surely have selected a more suitable place than a stable to give birth to her child, and that Jesus would not have ridden into Jerusalem on an untrained ass, because, if he had not been an expert in horsemanship, he would have been in danger of being thrown and making himself ridiculous in the eyes of the people. In fact, it seemed as if Rataramorubatchi’s influence was already acting, as his Chela took actually to reasonings, while Mr. Bottler became daily more and more petrified in his own opinions.

Many philosophical interviews took place also between Mr. Bottler and Mrs. Honeycomb. The great scientist explained to her his ideas about the fourth dimension of space, and proved to her the enormous progress which science had made since the days of Plato. He demonstrated clearly and beyond the 69possibility of a doubt that an average schoolboy of our days knows a great deal more than did Socrates or Pythagoras. As to Plato, he was an old imbecile, whose intelligence was surpassed even by that of Mr. Green.

While Mrs. Honeycomb listened with infinite patience to Mr. Bottler’s explanations, which she neither understood nor cared to understand, the yearnings of her soul carried her mind far away to a more ideal realm, where she hoped to find her affinity. Pancho, as he came nearer to his destination, felt a more solemn influence pervading his being. He knew that he should now soon stand in the awful presence of Captain Bumpkins, the Hierophant, who would unveil before him the goddess of Nature, and introduce him to the Mysterious Brotherhood.

The ship now approached the African coast, and one day the island of Madagascar was reached, where Mr. Bottler left the ship to go to Tanarivo to hunt for his unicorn. He promised that after having accomplished his object he would come to Urur to investigate the claims of the followers of the Mysterious Brotherhood.

A few days more and a long blue line was seen, indicating land. Was it a part of the Lybian Desert where the sages dwell? Was that grey cloud on the western horizon hovering over the city of Kakodumbola, the abode of the Adepts?

Nearer and nearer; now the long hills with forests and houses could be plainly distinguished. Then the harbour appeared, and the city beyond, with its towers and palaces. Crowds of people were seen to walk about the shore watching the steamer, and among the boats that came and approached the ship there was one bearing a flag with the letters “S. D. W.,” meaning “Society for the Distribution of Wisdom,” written upon it.

“Stop!” The heavy engines which had laboured so long and faithfully ceased to work; a signal was given, and down came the heavy anchor, fastening its fangs in the deep.

The people from the boat of the S. D. W. came on board. They were members of that society, venerable Hottentots, Kaffirs, and Zulus, who gave a hearty welcome to our friends, and invited them into their boat to go ashore, where carriages were awaiting to take them further on to Urur.

They landed, and Pancho entered a carriage with one of the Zulus.

“I am exceedingly anxious to make the acquaintance of Captain Bumpkins,” said Pancho, as they drove along the beach on the road to Urur.

“We hope,” said the Zulu, after some hesitation, “that you will have some influence over him.”

“How could I, a mere beginner, have any influence over the Hierophant?” asked Pancho astonished. “Is it not far more probable that I will have to sit at his feet and listen to his wisdom?”

“It is all very well,” said the Zulu; “but, speaking confidentially, I will tell you that Bumpkins has some little peculiarities, and that we have stood his nonsense long enough; even the Hottentots will stand it no longer. We do not want to be made the laughing-stock for small boys and servant girls; we can see no wisdom in that. He wants us to march through the streets of the city, each one to wear a badge and a little flag in his hand. He means well enough; but we will not stand his nonsense, we won’t! We hope that you will persuade him to give it up, or there will be a mutiny. This is all that I am permitted to say.”

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CHAPTER VII. DESTROYED ILLUSIONS.

PANCHO and his companion were now entering the suburbs of the city, driving along a road lined with Banyan trees. Gradually the houses became less numerous and assumed the aspect of a rural district. Here and there along the coast were some little villages inhabited by Hottentot fishermen, but occasionally they met the stately mansions of Europeans.

Pancho had said nothing for a while, being deeply absorbed in thought. He could not make the idea of parades, badges and little flags agree with his conception of the dignity of an Hierophant. Suddenly he asked:

“How can it be possible that the Hierophant gives such ludicrous orders?”

“It is all the fault of Madame Corneille,” answered the Zulu.

“Who is Madame Corneille?” asked Pancho.

“Do not let us speak about her,” answered the Zulu. “The trees in this park have ears, the stones are listening, and what we say about her might be reported by the winds to the Mysterious Brotherhood.

They were now crossing a bridge leading over a river of considerable size. To the left was the ocean, and before them, bordered on one side by the river, was a beautiful park, planted with mango and cassurina trees, in the midst of which could be seen a white building in Moorish style.

“This,” said the Zulu, pointing towards the building, “is the temple in which is the sacred Shrine where the Talking Image is kept. The little house at a distance is the residence of the Hierophant.”

A short turn in the road brought them in front of a gate that opened through a stone wall surrounding the sacred precincts of Urur. As the horse entered through the gate, the animal took fright and attempted to run away; but being old and not of a very strong constitution, it was easily pacified by the driver.

The cause of this scare were two monstrous-looking things, made of blue paper and stuffed with straw. They stood at the sides of the entrance and were intended to represent elephants.

“What does this mean?” asked Pancho.

“They are the inventions of Madame Corneille, and have been put here as ornaments by Captain Bumpkins,” answered the Zulu. “To-morrow is the celebration of the anniversary of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom.”

“When is the next steamer going to leave for Europe?” asked Pancho.

“Next Monday,” answered the Zulu. “If you have any letters to send, you can mail them at the post-office in the village.”

The trees of the park were decorated with paper lanterns and flags. To the right was a grove of cocoanut-trees, hedged in by a natural fence of 156prickly pears. Another turn of the road brought our friends within sight of the house, whose massive pillars shone brightly in the light of the setting sun. Its rays fell upon a woman standing upon the verandah, and Pancho knew instinctively that she could be nobody else but Madame Corneille.

Pancho and the Zulu alighted from the carriage and were welcomed by the housekeeper. She was a thin woman of more than middle age, and almost the counterpart of Mrs. Honeycomb, only her figure was smaller, her nose still more aquiline, and her eyes more protruding. As she ogled Pancho she seemed to take his measure with them, as if mentally preparing for battle. Shaking hands with him, she expressed a hope that they would soon become friends.

“I shall depend on your aid to enter the temple of knowledge,” said Pancho.

“I have the key to it in my pocket,” answered Madame Corneille.

The carriage containing Mr. Green and Mrs. Honeycomb now drove up. Mrs. Honeycomb alighted and embraced Madame Corneille, but when the latter extended her hand to Mr. Green, he refused to take it, and said with his usual gravity: “I am an accepted probationary Chela, and before I shake hands with you, I must first ask in what capacity you are in this house?”

“I am superintending the household affairs,” answered Madame Corneille. “You had better make friends with me, if you want anything good to eat.”

“Being the superintendent of the household,” replied Mr. Green, “you are here in the position of a domestic, a position which is not sufficiently respectable to entitle you to shake hands with probationary Chelas. I shall ask Captain Bumpkins how it comes that he permits his servants to make themselves so familiar with distinguished visitors.”

Madame Corneille became purple with rage, but said nothing.

While Mr. Green was speaking, a young Hottentot, dressed in a long white gown, made his appearance.

“Lo!” she exclaimed. “Here comes the head Chela of this establishment;” and addressing the Chela, she called out: “Come here, Malaban, make your bow to the lady and gentleman.”

Malaban crossed his hands over his breast and bowed politely. Mr. Green extended his hand to him, but Malaban did not take it.

“Excuse me, sir!” said Malaban, “we are not permitted to shake hands with Europeans.”

“You see,” said Madame Corneille to Pancho, “it is on account of the magnetism, and then some of these Europeans may have the itch, if not something worse.”

“You can safely shake hands with me,” said Mr. Green, addressing Malaban, “for I am myself an accepted probationary Chela.”

“This I can hardly believe,” said Malaban. “You do not look like one.”

“I have a certificate from Rataraborumatchi to show it,” replied Mr. Green.

“If he wrote such a thing,” answered Malaban, “he must have meant it only in fun.”

“How long have you been a Chela?” asked Mr. Green.

“This I am not permitted to tell,” answered Malaban.

Pancho was going to ask him a question, but Madame Corneille said: “Do not ask him anything if you would not get fibs for an answer.”

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“Do Chelas ever tell fibs?” asked Pancho.

“They do not mean to do so,” answered Madame Corneille. “But they love the truth so much that they adorn it on every occasion.”

“Where is the Hierophant?” asked Pancho.

“The what? – O, you mean Bumpkins, Captain Bumpkins,” said Madame Corneille. “You will not see him to-night. Poor fellow! He has an awful toothache. He always sleeps at night with open windows and caught a cold.”

“But why does he do that?” asked Pancho.

“He says,” she answered, grinning, “that it is to save the mysterious Brothers the trouble to dematerialize themselves when they come to visit him in his dreams. But I will new show you to your rooms. Come, my dear Mrs. Honeycomb. I hear you are going to be initiated into the inner circle, and you will be entitled to a room in the upper story. Mr. Pancho has his room here to the right, and as to Mr. Green, we will put him away in a little garden house, where he can meditate without being disturbed.”

Our friends were shown to their rooms. The one Pancho occupied commanded a fine view of the river and an island planted with trees.

Soon the bell rang, announcing that supper was ready. Pancho went to the dining-room where he met his friends, and also Madame Corneille and her husband. Malaban and the rest of the Chelas did not come. They ate in a separate room, being afraid of the magnetism of the Europeans.

Pancho had fallen too deep from his Olympian heights to care for tea or for sausage. His appetite had been destroyed by the two blue elephants at the gate and by the revelations made by Madame Corneille. He did not care to eat and hardly tasted his food in spite of the praises bestowed upon it by Mrs. Honeycomb and Madame Corneille.

“May I offer you a piece of beef or mutton?” asked Madame Corneille.

“No, thanks,” answered Pancho. “I am a vegetarian.”

“This is a poor country for growing vegetables,” said Madame Corneille. “They are awful scarce; only occasionally we get hold of a cabbage head,” and addressing Mr. Green, she added: “Will you have some of this devilled ham?”

“I do not consider devilled ham proper food for Chelas,” answered Mr. Green. “I am a lover of jam and vegetables. I do not see why the Mysterious Brothers do not make plenty of vegetables grow around here. It must be the easiest thing for them, as they can make mango trees grow out of pineboards.”

“It takes such power to even cultivate a pumpkin,” she replied.

“Did you ever see a Mango tree grow?” asked Mrs. Honeycomb; addressing Monsieur Corneille.

“Nevarre!” rolled out the latter individual.

“We hear so much of the wonderful feats performed in Africa;” continued Mrs. Honeycomb. “Did you ever see Mr. Malaban go out in his astral body?”

Monsieur Corneille looked inquiringly at his wife, as if he did not know what to answer.

“Oh dear no!” answered Madame Corneille, “I do not want to see such a thing; it would frighten me to death. The poor boy is almost nothing but 158skin and bones, and if he were to go out in his astral body, there would be nothing left but a shadow,”

“I should like to go out in my astral body,” said Mr. Green.

“We won’t permit it,” answered Madame Corneille. “It would not do for people here to sneak about in their astral bodies and see what is going on,” and addressing her husband, she said: – “Don’t you think so, my dear?”

“Nevarre,” ejaculated Monsieur Corneille.

After supper Madame Corneille accompanied Pancho to his room to see whether everything was arranged according to her directions. They entered into a conversation about the mysterious Brotherhood, and Pancho asked her to tell him something about it.

“I am a Christian, and I do not like to have anything to do with such heathenish things. These mysterious Brothers have several times frightened me nearly to death. I am not going to stand it much longer.”

“But do you believe in the existence of those Brothers?” he asked.

“I know what I know,” nodded Madame Corneille. “I do not believe that it is right to have anything to do with such things. How do we know that these mysterious Brothers are not the very imps from Hell, or souls condemned to purgatory? I tell you, I have seen with my own eyes a broom become alive and sweep the room without any hand being attached to it, and now things begin to look serious. I do not object to innocent amusements such as fortune telling by cards, by which good spirits may aid a person to take a look at the future; but – well, do not let us talk about it any more. . . .

“I am sorry for it . . . . I should have been very much obliged to you for more information.

“You will find it out for yourself, by-and-bye,”

“Then do you mean to say,” he asked “that it is done by tricks, or by the work of the devil?”

“I am not going to accuse anyone,” replied Madame Corneille. “Do not ask me anything more about it.”

“Do I understand you rightly that you can tell fortune by cards?”

“I have occasionally succeeded. I often tell it to Mr. Malaban.”

“I wish you would try and tell me my fortune,” said Pancho.

“If you desire it, we may make an attempt. . . .”

They took seats at the table, and Madame Corneille produced a pack of cards out of her pocket, handing them to Pancho with a request to cut them. After this was done, she laid the cards out upon the table according to rule.

“The King of Hearts,” she said, “is yourself; for I see by the ring on your finger, that you are a married man. The Queen of Hearts is your wife. She is very beautiful.”

“Indeed she is,” replied Pancho,

“She is thinking of you very much,” she continued.

“I constantly feel it,” answered Pancho.

“It was an evil day for her when you left,” went on Madame Corneille. “She will be exposed to a great danger. There’s the knave of spades close to her, a very dangerous man, and the queen of spades is locking at her; she is your wife’s enemy.”

“My wife has no enemies,” he protested.

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“I am not so sure,” she said. “I do not always believe in the cards myself; but we shall see. It seems that you have no children.”

“None,” answered Pancho.

“The ace of diamonds is not far from you. This would go to show that you are not in straitened circumstances.”

“I have no cause to complain.”

“I do not see any card that would indicate that you belong to a church,” continued Madame Corneille.

“No, indeed; I do not,” answered Pancho.

“And you have no desire to join it?”

“Certainly not!”

“This card here,” continued Madame Corneille, “indicates that you will get a letter, and that one” – pointing to another – “that you are going to make a voyage. This is all I can see to-night.”

“I am very much obliged to you,” said Pancho; “but kindly give me some information about the ‘Talking Image.’”

“I can tell you confidentially its history,” grinned Madame Corneille. “It was once a human being like you or me. It was the daughter of an Arabian prince and a most beautiful child. When she was about sixteen years of age she fell in love with one of the Djinns, a class of spirits that inhabit the desert. Grimalkin, the chief of the Djinns, took a fancy to her, and would have carried her off bodily, but he had a very jealous wife who was herself a very powerful spirit. Then the Djinn took out the heart of the girl, which he hid away in his bosom, leaving her body with all its intellectual powers behind, and the body, deprived of the light of the spirit which resides in the heart turned to a stonelike mass, leaving her, however, alive and intelligent, and capable of reasoning. Now the Talking Image is, so to say, all brains, but no heart. Once a year, however, the Djinn is forced to bring back the heart and to let it shine within the Image; for if the light of the spirit were to be absent continually, even its intellect would die out like the glow of a wick from which the flame is extinguished, and which is no longer supplied with oil.”

“This is a most wonderful story. If it were told to me by anybody but you, I would not believe it. But have you ever seen any of these Djinns?”

“Don’t talk to me about them,” said Madame Corneille, “the whole house is full of those Djinns; they give directions about the cooking, and make the Chelas do what they like; they will pull the bed-cover away from you when you are asleep, and touch you with ice-cold hands. Pooh! I do not want to say any more about them. Good-night!”

Madame Corneille left and Pancho remained alone. For a long time he stood at the window and looked out into the darkness beyond. A storm was gathering, thick clouds were covering the sky, and the mind of Pancho was heavily charged with doubts. What Madame Corneille had told him awakened again in him in full force the memory of Conchita, and he would have given worlds to know who was the knave of spades. He imagined he felt that there was some impending danger, and he argued with himself whether or not it would be best to return home immediately. He had now seen the “elephant,” not only one, but two; and, as Conchita had rightly predicted, it was time for him to 160return. What if Conchita were sick or dying, while he was running after a Mysterious Brotherhood that existed nowhere but in his own imagination?

“O ye gods!” he exclaimed; “is this the outcome of the wisdom of the Adepts? A Hierophant parading the streets with a little flag in his hand, a Talking Image attended by spooks; Chelas who cannot open their mouths without telling a fib ... at all events, if the woman herself speaks the truth. . . . Yes, is it for this that I have left my home?”

No! It could not be! “Surely,” he said to himself, “there is some mistake which will be explained when I see the Hierophant.”

Pancho felt no inclination to sleep. He went out into the park and wandered among the trees, although the night was dark and he could hardly see before him. The idea that he had committed a great mistake in coming to Urur, grew stronger and stronger in his mind as he pondered over it. At last a feeling of despair entered his soul, and, clenching his fist, he exclaimed: “O, infinite, inconceivable and incomprehensible spirit of imbecility! what are you and what gave you power to turn me into a fool? Did I not always seek to know the truth, irrespective of any consequences that might result to me or to anyone? Was I not always proud of my scepticism and incredulity? Nevertheless, I was stupid enough to believe in the absurd tales of Mr. Puffer. Where are the great beings that turn the world and cannot even make a cabbage-head grow in this garden? Who are those Adepts, full of divine wisdom, who have to come and seek counsel from a Madame Corneille?”

Thus talking with himself, Pancho wandered away from the main building and came in the vicinity of a house of smaller dimensions. A light shining from an open window attracted his attention, and he beheld a man in the room where the light was brightly burning. He seemed to be about fifty years of age; but his face could not be clearly seen as it was bound up with a handkerchief. He held a paper in his hand, looking at it and making gesticulations. Presently, however, he looked up, and must have seen Pancho standing among the trees, for he dropped his paper and stared at him with surprise.

Then something curious happened. The man making a reverential bow and crossing his hands in Oriental fashion over his breast, addressed Pancho in the following words:

“O, great Krashibashi! Have I then at last found favour in your eyes? For many years have I wished to see you. At last my prayer now seems granted and you have consented to appear in bodily form before your obedient servant. May I ask you to enter this humble room and accept a chair? I shall immediately open the door.”

Pancho, seeing that this was evidently a case of mistaken identity, did not wish to intrude. He returned to his room and the sense of the ludicrous overcame his melancholy. There was now nothing to prevent him from sleeping. His doubts had vanished, and he was firmly convinced that he had been a fool.

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CHAPTER VIII. THE ANNIVERSARY.

A tremendous noise, resembling the beating of tin pans, aroused Pancho from his slumber. It was the noise made by the native musicians whom the Hierophant had engaged for the celebration of the anniversary of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom. It seemed as if it were intended to frighten away the sun which was just rising and to drive him back into the abyss beyond.

Pancho arose, and as he stepped out on the verandah, he saw the same man who the night before had addressed him as Krashibashi, approaching the house. Soon after that, closely followed by Mrs. Honeycomb, he entered, and the latter introduced him to Pancho as Captain Bumpkins.

Captain Bumpkins, or as his many friends and admirers used to call him, “the Hierophant,” was a man of remarkable and imposing appearance. Long, tall, exceedingly thin and bony, his skeleton frame seemed to be inhabited by a supernatural fire that gleamed through his black eyes, sunken deep within their orbits and overshadowed by dark bushy eye-brows. He was a man of about fifty years, but still full of vigour; and his martial bearing seemed to indicate that it would not be safe for any member of the S. D. W. to contradict him or to doubt the existence of the Mysterious Brotherhood. Nevertheless he was very kindhearted and goodnatured, and if it was true that the Talking Image was all brains and no heart, it might be said with equal sincerity that the Hierophant was all heart; for he was exceedingly anxious to increase the welfare of mankind. There was nothing so ridiculous which he would not have undertaken to do, if it had seemed to him that humanity could be benefitted thereby.

The Hierophant had one great hobby, and this hobby was “Magnetism”; in magnetism he saw the future Saviour of the world. According to his views there was nothing that could not be accomplished by magnetism; from the mending of a boot by the occult power of the Adept, up to making oneself invisible, a feat of which seemed to Captain Bumpkins the ultima thule of all that could ever be accomplished by the future sages that were to be produced in the golden era which he was ready to inaugurate. Not only was the curing of all bodily ills a mere trifle to him, which in the near future would do away with all medical quackery, legalized or otherwise, but he thought there would not be the least difficulty in raising mankind up to the highest level of morality. To do this we had only to magnetise away the phrenological bumps of those who are affected with vicious propensities, and to cause appropriate bumps to grow by the same means on the heads of those who were deficient in virtue. Moreover the “mental magnetism” of which the Hierophant dreamed was a “carrier of mind,” and consequently not only life, but thought, knowledge and divine wisdom could be imparted to all by one who knew how to magnetise properly, abundantly and with sufficient force.

“All the ills which at present affect the world,” he used to say; “are merely a product of the disturbed equilibrium of the world’s magnetism. Let the magnetic currents react upon their magnetic intramolecular centres and the 162equilibrium be restored at their neutral points and you will be surprised at the result.”

Mrs. Honeycomb fully agreed with the Hierophant in regard to these points and thus it may be seen that those who have accused Captain Bumpkins of being somewhat deficient in intellectual power have uttered a villainous and sacrilegious blasphemy. Even a superficial glance at his benevolent face whenever he spoke on the subject of Occultism, would reveal the fact that he was one man among a thousand, one who fully realized that his sole destiny was the elevation of the human race.

The Society for the Distribution of Wisdom, of which Captain Bumpkins was the founder and president, was an organization having for its object the prosecution of philosophical researches and the advancement of humanitarian interests. As such it was a very good institution. It claimed to be based on universal freedom of thought, and there would have been nothing impracticable in that, if those who belonged to it had been capable of doing their own thinking. Unfortunately however, such persons are rare and few, while those who are not in possession of real knowledge, and therefore not free of error, can no more live without creeds and adopted opinions than a fish without water. Thus the members of the Society did not accept the truth on the strength of their own perception; but they clamoured for well authenticated proofs of it (from the Mysterious Brotherhood), and thus they had given up their old superstitions, merely to replace them by new superstitions; for that which one imagines to know on mere hearsay, and belief in the veracity of a teacher, is not self-knowledge, and therefore merely an opinion, even if it is true.

But the Society for D. O. W. had also among its members some persons of considerable spiritual unfolding and intellectual power; especially a number of Brahmins that had emigrated from Asia; but the vast majority of its members were attracted by a desire to gratify their curiosity, and to obtain favours from the Mysterious Brotherhood.

A new light had appeared on the mental horizon of the world owing to the revelations made by the Talking Image; but whenever such a light appears, it attracts, first of all, the curious, the fanatical, and those who are discontented with the world and with themselves. They wonder at the appearance of that light, and not understanding its nature, they invent the most ludicrous theories for its explanation, and it is their misrepresentations which bring the new doctrines into disrepute. Such was the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom, of which Captain Bumpkins was the head, and whom we have now introduced to the reader.

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“I CONGRATULATE you,” said Captain Bumpkins to Pancho, after the first salutations and talk about the weather were over, “that you have been selected by the Mysterious Brotherhood to carry on the work for the cause of the truth. The truth is the best thing in the world. We want nothing but truth! truth!”

“This is perfectly true,” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “My friend, the Countess Carnivalli, used to say the same thing.”

“Do you, then, really believe in the existence of a Mysterious Brotherhood?” asked Pancho.

“Believe it?” exclaimed the Hierophant. “I not only believe it, I know it. I have seen them and talked with them for hours. Only last night one of the greatest Adepts, and the most prominent member of the Mysterious Brotherhood, the great Krashibashi himself, came to me through the open window of my room, and I had a long chat with him that lasted till long after midnight, when he suddenly disappeared.”

“Do these Adepts visit you often?”

“There is not a day in the year,” answered Captain Bumpkins, “when I do not see some of them in their astral, and sometimes they come to me in their physical, forms. Occasionally, when they wish to talk to me, they take possession of somebody that happens to be around. Once I met Krashibashi in the form of an apple-woman; at another time he took possession of a policeman, and once I had a long talk with him while he got inside of a lightning-rod-agent.”

“How could you tell that it was Krashibashi talking to you?”

“He always gives me certain passwords and masonic signs, by which I can know who I am talking with,” said the Hierophant. “This is just as good as if he were to show his diploma.”

“You must have had some wonderful experiences in your life!”

“I have travelled a great deal,” replied the Hierophant. “I have seen the burning bush in the desert, a species of Eucalyptus already known to Moses and the man-eating Dragonia purpurea, a tree that swallows the children that are sacrificed to him. I have been all over Europe, eaten maccaroni at Naples, and plum pudding in England; but there is nothing that surpasses the apple-dumplings in Germany.”

“I thought that story of the burning bush was an allegory,” interjected Pancho, but the Hierophant, whose mind was absorbed in the recollections of his voyages, continued:

“I tell you, these apple-dumplings are made in a very peculiar manner. I have tried my best to get those African cooks to make them after the receipt 206I brought with me from Germany, but so far without success. They make them either too tough or too soft.”

“I would like to make the acquaintance of these Mysterious Brothers,” tried Pancho again.

“I used to say to them,” went on the Hierophant, “give me apple-dumplings or death; but it is of no use; they will not depart from their African style of cooking.”

“They look real nice in their astral bodies,” said Mrs. Honeycomb; “provided that they are not too much dematerialized to be seen.”

“What is the best way to develop one’s spiritual perceptions, so as to enter into communication with the Mysterious Brotherhood?”

“I have an excellent magic mirror, a genuine mountain crystal from Arkansas,” said the Hierophant. “It it well magnetised. It cost me fifteen dollars and I will let you have it for the same price.”

“I have seen such mirrors,” said Pancho, “but how can anybody tell whether that what he sees in them is true?”

“If you think fifteen dollars too much, I will let you have it for twelve,” said the Hierophant; “but actually I could not go down another cent. Mirrors of that kind are the most reliable ones that can be found anywhere.”

“I meant to say,” replied Pancho, “that I have been told that it is necessary to attain a certain degree of spiritual perfection to enter into communication with the Mysterious Brotherhood; I cannot see how that can be done by looking into a mirror.”

“It is all done by self-hypnotization,” answered Captain Bumpkins. “There is no better way to hypnotise oneself than such a mirror. I have seen people that could not look in a crystal for ten minutes without falling asleep. I tell you what I will do. You may have it for ten dollars; but this is my last word.”

“Mr. Green will take it for that,” said Mrs. Honeycomb.

“But I am not disputing the value of the mirror, at all. What are ten dollars, if one can obtain self-knowledge for it? Money is only an illusion.”

“I do not agree with you about that,” said the Hierophant. “I know there are some philosophers who teach such stuff, but they do not believe it themselves. I once knew a philosopher who said that money was an illusion, and when somebody took away five dollars from him, you should have seen the fuss he made.” Here the Hierophant shook himself with laughing.

“I could have told you so,” agreed Mrs. Honeycomb.

“Perhaps the philosopher was himself an illusion, and needed money as such.”

“No, sir,” exclaimed the Hierophant. “He was not an illusion, but a solid fellow weighing nearly two hundred pounds. He once stepped upon my foot, and I tell you that was no illusion.”

“Is there any way of joining that Mysterious Brotherhood?” asked Pancho.

“To do so, you will have to become an Adept.”

“How is that done?”

“I dare say,” explained Bumpkins, “you know what is meant by the term ‘Suggestion.’ In ordinary cases, a magnetizer suggests to a patient that he is well, and then the patient gets well. In cases of adeptship, the person magnetises himself and suggests to himself that he is an Adept and when the 207suggestion is strong enough he becomes one. Of course, if you can get one of the Brothers to magnetize you, the thing will be done much quicker.”

“I wish you would get a Brother to magnetize me,” said Mrs. Honeycomb.

“They always select for that the best people. If you want to attract their special attention, I advise you to join our moral regiment.”

“What is the moral regiment?” asked Pancho.

“It is a new institution which I have recently organized after the pattern of the Salvation Army,” said Captain Bumpkins. “It is made up of people who sign a pledge that they will lead a moral life. Each soldier of the regiment is entitled to wear a badge to show that he is of a good moral character. Any one who does not tell a lie for a year becomes an officer and may carry a wooden sword. He has then to carefully watch the conduct of his company, and if any soldier is caught in telling a fib, that person will have to pay a fine.”

“I suppose that the Mysterious Brothers could tell immediately if anyone told a lie? They would make very good officers.”

“Last night,” answered the Hierophant, “I offered to Krashibashi the generalship of the regiment, and he promised to accept it. He will find out immediately if anyone tells a lie. These Mysterious Brothers know everything; they can see at any times what is going on in the most distant parts of the globe. They have hundreds of time reported to me things that were taking place in far-off countries, and I always found their accounts correct.”

“I wish you would ask Krashibashi whether everything is all right in my house,” said Pancho.

“The Brothers, my dear sir, do not meddle with trifling affairs. I would not dare to ask them such a question; they would get awfully angry. They never give any advice or orders except in cases of the greatest importance, when the interests of humanity as a whole are at stake. On such occasions they may write an occult letter or appear personally.”

“O, dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Honeycomb. “How I wish I could have a talk with a Brother.”

“There is one standing in that corner behind the tree just now,” said the Hierophant, pointing in the indicated direction; “I see him nod his head; he hears every word you say.”

“The Lord have mercy!” exclaimed Mrs. Honeycomb. “I cannot see a thing. I wish my friend the Countess Carnivalli were here!”

There the conversation ended because Bumpkins was called away. The park became alive with guests, nearly all being members of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom; the rest of them were visitors or aspirants who were not yet in possession of a diploma. The soldiers of the moral regiment wore yellow badges, and their officers could be recognised by wearing badges of larger size and wooden swords. Madame Corneille was distributing little yellow flags which the members of the S. D. W. were to carry in their hands during the public parade which was going to take place in the city.

There were, however, some who showed symptoms of insubordination and refused to take the badges and flags. They soon flocked together into a group and consulted with each other. Finally they selected Mr. Green to draw up a protest against the blue elephants and the flags, which was to be presented to Bumpkins. When everything was prepared, the Hierophant was informed 208that some of the members desired to present a petition to him. Everybody then proceeded to the great Hall of the building. Captain Bumpkins placed himself on a kind of a throne and Mr. Green began to read as follows:

“The Elephant is a sagacious animal. Its usual colour is grey, and there are also white and black elephants; but nobody ever saw one that was blue . . . .”

Mr. Green had hardly time to read so far when the sound of a gong was heard, coming from the direction of the temple. Immediately the cry arose: “A message from the Shrine! – A message from the Shrine!” Mr. Malaban then entered the room in hot haste, holding in his hand a paper which he presented to the Hierophant. It was an occult letter. The whole of the assembly arose and listened in breathless silence to hear the message from the Mysterious Brotherhood. Thrice the worthy president bowed his venerable head; he then took the paper from the hands of the Chela, and after placing it upon his forehead in sign of respect, he opened the letter and read:

“The elephants and the flags may be dispensed with; but the badges and the music must remain.

“Krashibashi.”

“This settles the question,” said the Hierophant. “The meeting is dissolved.”

Great was the joy of the Zulus to see that their wish had been granted. Some strong and courageous men were immediately dispatched to execute the unfortunate victims. They did their work well. For months afterwards the corpses of the two beasts could be seen lying on the ground, their legs stretched up in the air, their blue paper skins torn and rotting in the sun and rain, and the straw sticking out of their digestive organs.

The wisdom of this decision of the Mysterious Brotherhood was self-evident. The importance of the occasion was indisputable and justified the interference of supernatural powers. A mutiny had threatened to break out in the Society for Distribution of Wisdom and damage its authority, a circumstance which might have done untold harm to the progress of the cause of truth, and been detrimental to the highest interests of humanity; but the wise decision of the Adepts quelled the disturbance. It satisfied the discontented by doing away with the flags and the elephants, and still it confirmed the authority of Captain Bumpkins, and soothed his feelings by granting to him the badges and the music. “No one but gods could have made such a decision,” gravely remarked Mr. Green.

“This dissatisfaction among certain of our members,” explained Bumpkins, “is the work of black magicians. I am sorry for these people, but I hope to bring them to repentance.”

“How sensitive these Brothers must be,” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “We read here at Urur a petition to the Mysterious Brotherhood and immediately the sound of our voices is wafted on astral waves for thousands of miles over the desert into the far off Nigris Mountains to Kakodumbala, the city of the Adepts. It reaches the astral tympanums of the Brothers and immediately they send an occult letter. I must write about this to my friend the Countess Carnivalli. She will be very much astonished.”

“This is not the way it is done,” said Bumpkins. “There was an astral Chela present, listening to what was said. I saw him standing behind your chair.”

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“O dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Honeycomb. “What a pity that I did not know it!”

“But was not the document signed by one of the Brothers?” asked Mr. Green.

“That does not make any difference,” said Bumpkins. “Accepted Chelas are authorized to sign the names of their Masters to any document they like.”

Mr. Green was not quite satisfied with this arrangement; but, being unacquainted with the code of laws of the Mysterious Brotherhood, he had no right to object.

More members and strangers arrived, and it was a great sight to see so many different nationalities intermingled. There were Brahmins from Asia and distinguished people from Europe, Zulus, Caffirs, and Hottentots and a few savages from Australia. Ladies and gentlemen in elegant clothes side by side with the half-nude natives of Africa. There were Christians and Jews; Mohammedans and fire-worshippers. One raven-black African princess in her native costume could be seen walking arm-in-arm with a beautiful European, and the dark skin of the African formed a strange contrast with the peach-blossom complexion of the European girl. Such a sight is to be seen hardly anywhere except at the annual gatherings at the Shrine of Urur.

The Talking Image had expressed a desire not to be bothered, and therefore the great meeting where the speeches were to be made did not take place within the sacred precincts of the temple, but in a temporary building which had been constructed expressly for that purpose, in a distant part of the park. At the appointed hour the procession formed and walked into that building. First came two native policemen, and then the music. Then came the Hierophant dressed in oriental costume with a turban upon his head. After him came Malaban and the rest of the Chelas, accepted, probationary and titulary ones, including Mrs. Honeycomb, Pancho and Mr. Green. After this came the crethi and phleti of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom, including a great number of small boys, and at last followed the invited guests. The President took his seat; the scribes dipped their pens into the ink, and after order was restored Captain Bumpkins delivered his speech.

We will not attempt to reproduce in full all the eloquent words which Captain Bumpkins spoke on this solemn occasion. There was a great deal of truth in what he said and also a great deal of error. There was a great deal of exaggeration in the statements he made; but this circumstance was evidently not due to any wilful misrepresentation of facts; but rather to a too vivid imagination. He alluded with pride to the progress which the Society for Distribution of Wisdom had made during the past and which was especially due to the revelations that had been given to the world through the instrumentality of the Talking Image, whose utterances were then attracting the attention of the world, and the most distinguished people from all parts of the globe were now coming to join the society.

Only yesterday Pancho, a distinguished stranger, had come, attracted by the unselfish desire of enlightening mankind and to benefit humanity by fighting for the cause of the truth. With him had come Mr. Green, a well-known scientist and a man of unusual intelligence. He had laid away his numerous titles, to enlist under the flag of Wisdom and to become a probationary Chela in the 210Mysterious Brotherhood, of which he was already a titulary member. He was the kind of a man that was wanted in the coming battle for truth, and as he – Captain Bumpkins – was looking with a clairvoyant eye into the future, he could foresee the day when Mr. Green would become president of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom, after he, the present occupant of that chair, was laid away in his grave.

A great applause followed, and the Hierophant, overcome by emotion, wiped a tear from his cheek. After a while he continued:

“Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters and children! I address you all without any distinction of colour or race; for in the Society for Distribution of Wisdom all are equals and have equal rights. We are not merely a brotherhood, but also a sisterhood, a childrenhood, a neighbourhood, a universal family of harmonious minds. Upon us and upon us only are centered the hopes of the world. Millions of longing eyes are directed towards the S. D. W., thirsting for wisdom. Where, oh, where shall they obtain it? There have been wise men in the world attempting to teach the truth. But how can the world at present know whether or not they were to be believed, or their assertions reliable? What were their credentials? Who vouched for their veracity? Alas, echo answers ‘who!’ Some of them worked miracles; but those miracles could only be proofs to those who personally witnessed them. The accounts of them may have been exaggerated; they were not always produced under test conditions. Moreover, the people in ancient times not being versed in hypnotism and magnetism, may have regarded certain things as miraculous which appear to us perfectly natural. The transmutation of water into wine, for instance, is a feat that may have appeared wonderful to the Canaanites, but to-day every dealer in liquors is in possession of this secret. In many instances it has been positively proved that the accounts in the Bible regarding certain miracles are inaccurate. Now-a-days it is known to every child in the street that the ‘snake’ which tempted Eve in Paradise was no snake at all, but a Pterodactyle, an animal which looks like a dragon; also that the trumpets, at whose voice the walls of Jericho fell, were fitted with a very ingeniously-constructed mechanism, resembling that which has recently been discovered by Mr. John Worrell Keeley.

“Now, however, a new instrument for revelation has been given to the world by the Mysterious Brotherhood, an instrument whose veracity no sane person can doubt, and whose infallibility is self-evident to all thinkers. I cannot omit expressing my impatience and indignation when I hear the speculations of our so-called philosophers, who attempt to find out by their own thinking the mysteries of nature and man. It cannot be denied that some of them have had some tolerable good ideas, even approaching the truth; but I say, let those people wait patiently until the Talking Image has had its say, and they may then go to sleep, satisfied that what it has said is true.

“Let me ask you in all sincerity: What is the use of anyone trying to do his own thinking, if he has a Mysterious Brother who can give him all the information he wants and whose veracity can be relied upon; an adept, I say, who can magnetize knowledge into his brain much faster than he could ever learn it by going through all sorts of experiences? Do those people who want to find out everything themselves, imagine that they are wiser than the Mysterious 211Brotherhood? Do those sceptics and scoffers believe that they can teach an adept? Villains and rogues they are, sunk in the swamp of materialism and doubt. Their day of reckoning is near, when they will be rooted out of existence.

“But what words, ladies and gentlemen, will be adequate to describe the self-sacrificing spirit of ladies of rank and position, who have sacrificed the comfort of a luxurious home, renounced their social standing, and even the delights of married life, to come to Africa for the benefit of humanity? They are like beautiful angels coming to save this sinful world. It is certainly incredible that there are ladies even this day, who would do such a thing, and nevertheless it is true, too true, for such a lady is right in our midst. Her name is Mrs. Honeycomb, whom I now have the honour to introduce to you. She is a graduate of a well-known boarding-school in England. For many years she has faithfully stood by the side of her husband, and as he has now gone to that bourne from which no traveller returns, she has resolved to remain single and to sacrifice her life to the cause of the truth.”

A tremendous applause followed and Mrs. Honeycomb hid her face in her handkerchief. She was too full of emotion to speak. What the Hierophant had said about her was not doing her justice, although he may have imagined it to be true. If she had wanted to speak, she might have told a different tale.

It has not been decided whether it was a good or an evil spirit that then and there put the idea into the mind of the Hierophant to request Mrs. Honeycomb to make a speech. At all events he did so.

“O, dear,” said Mrs. Honeycomb, “I do not know what to say.”

“Never mind,” whispered Captain Bumpkins; “the Brothers will put the words into your mind.”

Thus encouraged, Mrs. Honeycomb arose.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said; “I am a defender of women’s rights. If I ever had to submit to be married again, I would take care of having my own separate rights. I would not let any man get the best of me again. This is all I have to say.”

Mrs. Honeycomb sat down under a storm of applause.

“The eloquent words of Mrs. Honeycomb,” now spoke Captain Bumpkins, “contain a great deal of truth. We want the freedom of women. We are for perfect equality of the sexes.”

A general hurrah arose from the members of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom, and the Hierophant continued:

“The words which our sister, Mrs. Honeycomb, spake will be printed to reverberate throughout the world. The sentiments which she expressed will find their echo at Washington, London and Paris. Men and women are separate beings and therefore they must have separate rights. In fact it would perhaps be best if they would remain separate altogether. I know of more than one fine fellow whose prospects of becoming a Chela have been entirely spoiled by his having a wife. Confound these women! They are an everlasting botheration and a drawback in the attainment of the honours which may be bestowed by the Mysterious Brotherhood.”

Mr. Green here rose and asked whether no exceptions were ever made to that rule and no special permits granted. He said he had heard of a powerful Adept who was all his life in love with a lady whose name was Sophia and that 212this circumstance did not interfere with his being promoted to the highest degree that can be conferred by the Mysterious Brotherhood.

The deafening uproar which these words elicited cannot be described. The members of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom, especially the small boys, shouted and whistled, clapped their hands and threw their hats and turbans into the air. The assembly resembled a congregation of maniacs.

During this time Mr. Green looked more solemn than usual. He felt the dignity of a future Hierophant swelling within his breast. He congratulated himself fcr having come to Urur. What a prospect was there open before him!

More than once his shortsighted relatives had prophesied to him that he would never come to anything in the world, that he was useless and incapable; so that now he revelled in the anticipation of the joy of seeing them confounded on the day when he would return and give them proofs of his occult powers.

On this occasion Pancho’s interior eyes were also opened to an extent. Even without the aid of a magic mirror he could see that the Society for Distribution of Wisdom was not exactly what he had imagined it to be. He could see that there were few persons, if any, who cared anything for truth for its own sake, but only for the benefits that would arise from its possession. He knew that it was not the desire of benefitting humanity that had caused him to come to Urur, but that he hoped to obtain knowledge in regard to certain mysterious things, and he was aware that neither Mr. Green nor Mrs. Honeycomb would have come to Africa if they had not expected to profit by the visit.

After a pause the Hierophant continued his speech. He said that he had received reliable information from the Mysterious Brotherhood, that a band of black magicians were leagued together, bent on the destruction of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom, and that the Adepts had given him orders to establish a Secret Committee of Defence to devise and employ means by which the schemes of these sorcerers could be frustrated and they themselves be confounded and annihilated. He said that the best members of the S.D.W. should be selected to serve on that committee and he therefore appointed Mrs. Honeycomb, Pancho and Mr. Green.

This important announcement created a great sensation among the members of the S.D.W. and the hearts of many were oppressed with dark forebodings of coming evil events, but there were also some who were discontented and felt themselves slighted for not having been appointed to that committee, and some of them even threatened to give to the Hierophant “a piece of their mind.”

At the end of the meeting the president gave out the subject of a prize-essay on the following question of occult dynamics:

“If there is a church with two steeples of equal dimensions and the bells are all hung in one steeple only and none in the other; what will be, when these bells are rung, the consequence of this disturbance of equilibrium, in its physical, metaphysical and occult aspects?”

The writer of the best essay on this mysterious problem was promised the privilege of wearing a cocked hat with a feather.

Then the subject of the phenomena of dreams was broached.

“A friend of mine,” said Mr. Green, “dreamt of five numbers. He thought of putting them into the lottery, but neglected to do so on that day. On the 213following he went to the lottery office, but arrived too late; it was on a Saturday evening and the office was closed. On the following Monday the bulletin appeared where the numbers that had been drawn were recorded, and among them there was not a single one of those which he had dreamt about.”

“To a superficial observer,” remarked the Hierophant, “this might go to prove that there are unreliable dreams; but what proof have you that those numbers did not come out in some other lottery, or at some other time? If your friend had put these numbers in every lottery in the world and kept on putting them in, they might have come out after all.

After this conversation Pancho retired to his room. All that he had seen and heard had only served to confirm him in his opinion that there was no such thing as a Mysterious Brotherhood, or that, if it existed, it must be something very different from what it had been represented to him by Mr. Puffer and Captain Bumpkins. “Could it be possible that such exalted beings should engage in such puerilities?” he asked himself. “Can it be imagined that persons in possession of supreme wisdom should refuse to do something useful, but find time to descend from the Nigris mountain to give orders about blue elephants? O, the imbecility of these Brothers. If they are such as Captain Bumpkins describes, how great must it be!”

Mr. Green entered the room.

“Brother Pancho,” he said, “we have both been greatly honoured in being appointed members of the Secret Committee of Defence against Black Magicians. What a sensation it will create among my friends! I will immediately telegraph the news to London.”

“You had better wait,” answered Pancho, “for the committee is a secret one and if the black magicians find out the names of the members, it might go hard with you.”

Mrs. Honeycomb entered. Being a member of the S. C. D. B. M., she was entitled to take part in the consultation.

“The first thing to be done,” she said, “is to find out who the black magicians are. I therefore propose to get a good magic mirror and to see how they look. It is extremely difficult to fight against a man unless you can see him and know who he is.”

“Who knows,” said Mr. Green; “there may be some of them right here in this room.”

“We must keep them out from here, then,” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “I am going to put a vessel of vitriol in my room to keep them away.”

“I believe,” said Mr. Green, “the best plan will be to take a strictly legal course and hand them over to the authorities.”

“It would take an astral policeman to catch the astral body of a wizard,” replied Mrs. Honeycomb. “I am not afraid of any man, if he comes to me in his physical form. Let them come to me bodily and I will show them how I can deal with men. I will make them slink into a corner, the nasty curs! But, of course, if we have to deal with astral bodies, that is a different thing.”

At this moment Mr. Green observed Madame Corneille standing near the open door, and it seemed to him that she had been listening. He became very indignant.

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“What are you doing here?” he said. “This is a private meeting of a committee and we do not want any servants eavesdropping.”

Madame Corneille was going to answer, but Mr. Green slammed the door in her face, and she went away, menacing, in the direction of the temple.

As may be supposed, the appointment of the Committee of Defence against Black Magicians formed the main topic of conversation on that day in Urur, and if those villains would have had the power to go about in their invisible astral bodies and to listen to what was said, they would certainly have been amused to hear the various plans that were proposed to effect their destruction. Some persons thought that these magicians were Doug-Pa's residing in the Gobian desert; others imagined that they could be found in London among the members of the Society for the Discovery of Unknown Sciences, and again others believed that it was a Society of the Jesuits who had an eye upon the destruction of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom. Only one little lady, the one described above as having a peach-blossom complexion, had a theory of her own, and while sitting at the dinner-table she whispered to Pancho, who was next to her, “I know who these black magicians are. They are – Madame Corneille and her familiars.”

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CHAPTER IX. THE TALKING IMAGE.

Close by the riverside and overshadowed by high eucalyptus and cedar trees in the park of Urur, there is a curiously shaped building. It is built like a Chinese pagoda, three stories high, each story having a projecting roof, on the top of which is a large gilded globe. A narrow winding staircase leads to the top story of the building. On the second floor a side door opens into the room where reside Mr. Malaban and Ram, two Chelas, guarding the stairs that lead still higher up to the sacred room, called “the Shrine,” where the Talking Image is kept. Nothing extraordinary is seen in the room of the Chelas; there are only a few mats and tiger skins. Books, tobacco pipes and writing materials are scattered over the floor. Tables and chairs are absent, for they are quite unnecessary for those who are accustomed to sit in Oriental fashion squatting upon the ground.

The top story of the building contained the Talking Image, the jewel of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom. This room was the sanctuary of the pagoda. It was built in the shape of an octagon, its ceiling was a high vault, painted in blue with golden stars, representing the twelve signs of the Zodiac, while in the midst was the emblem of the Sun with an eye in it. This represented universal Consciousness, and the eye was surrounded by a triangle, the representation of form. The walls were hung with dark tapestry, ornamented with magical signs. There were Persian mats and Indian shawls, arms and ornaments of various savage nations and a number of stuffed animals, including a gorilla, a pelican and the skin of a cobra. There was only one window on the eastern side looking towards the river and a soft light fell through its stained glass upon an object that stood motionless in the centre of the room, while all around it was semi-darkness and gloom.

This object was the Talking Image itself.

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Various attempts have been made by prominent writers to give a fair description of the Talking Image and its natural history; but none of them have been successful, nor is there much hope that we shall succeed in this task, unless the readers will permit us to employ our clairvoyant powers; and even then the success will be doubtful. Nevertheless, we will try:

Standing upon its pedestal it was an imposing figure, resembling somewhat a woman in a state of trance. Usually there was to all appearance, no life about it except its head. From the eyes downward it seemed to be dead, immovable, heartless and petrified. From the eyes upward it was alive, at times conscious, and sometimes even of superhuman intelligence. The statue seemed made of stone; still there was a brain in it, capable of reasoning and thinking. All this apparent immovability was, however, merely an illusion. In reality the Image was a compound of living and conscious elemental principles, which had, so to say, crystallized into a compound organism of a very singular nature; and, as a magnet attracts iron filings and fixes them upon its surface, in a similar manner the elemental principles composing the body of the Image would attract to themselves corresponding intelligent principles of various grades and characters from the unseen world.

Thoughts existing in the minds of those who were near, and even of those who were distant, would, on reaching the Image, act upon corresponding elements within the stone-like mass, and as a mirror reflects the objects in its vicinity, likewise the statue would reflect the thoughts of persons whether present or absent. Nor was it at all necessary that such persons should themselves be conscious of the thoughts which they projected upon the Image; on the contrary, the latter seemed to be impressed especially powerfully by the thoughts that came, so to say, from the heart and not from the brains of others, and it gave utterance to such thoughts in speech and, occasionally, in writing.

Therefore its utterances were, at times, a reflection of the interior states of those who were en rapport with the Image; but at other times phenomena of a superior order took place. On such occasions a light of a seemingly supernatural kind, coming, not from the heart, but from the outside, seemed to enter and to illuminate that brain. Then the grey and immovable eyes would brighten, as if they belonged to a human being, capable of feeling and subject to emotions, and on such occasions the Image would speak words of great wisdom that astonished the world and perplexed the scientists and philosophers. But when that Light was entirely absent, and only weak-minded and superficial persons were present, it would be either entirely silent or merely echo back the words of the latter.

Being like a mirror, it would reflect truly the best as well as the worst traits of those who stood before it. It was at once the pride and the despair of its friends, and an object of scorn for its enemies; for neither the one nor the other understood its true nature. It seemed to be like all human beings of a dual nature or possessed of two polarities; but while in human beings there is usually no marked line of distinction between the high and the low, it seemed as if in the Image the two natures had become separated from each other. It was in fact like an animal and a god, without the intermediary human element between the two poles.

The nature of the material of which it was composed was an object of 216continual quarrel among scientists, and has never been satisfactorily explained. It seemed to be stone and yet still it could not be stone of a usual kind. It was as if it were made of a substance composed of a great number of living beings of an unknown kind, in a state of sleep or petrification, from which they could be temporarily awakened when that superior light radiated on the brain. It then seemed as if each of these component parts had a life of its own, and could act independently of the organism of the Image. It was even said that on certain occasions some of these integral parts had separated themselves from the Image, and could act intelligently at a distance, but had to return again, in the same sense as we may send a thought to a friend in a distant country, which may enter the consciousness of that friend, while, at the same time, we do not lose the thought, for it resumes its place in our memory after the service is rendered. But while the thoughts of ordinary human beings are not self-conscious, but reflect merely the consciousness of the sender, the thoughts thus emanating from the Image were said to be made self-conscious by the power of that mysterious Light, so that they could act, as it were, independently of the Image and do many queer things.

Such phenomena, however, did not take place under all circumstances. Sometimes the Image answered questions, and at other times it remained obstinately silent. A series of scientific experiments were made by eminent scientists, under the supervision of the Hierophant, for the purpose of determining the cause of this instability. Barometrical, thermometrical, hygrometrical, electrical and magnetic observations and measurements were taken; but no satisfactory conclusions were arrived at. The Talking Image seemed to care nothing for scientific conditions; but proved to be fickle-minded, and to have a will of its own. At present the scientific experiments were discontinued, and the mechanism of the Image was authoritatively declared to belong to the region of the Unknowable in Nature.

Captain Bumpkins, however, being of a scientific turn of mind, had not yet given up all hope to find out how the mechanism worked. He had applied to the Society for the Discovery of Unknown Sciences at London to send him a man who was an expert in such matters, to examine the Image; and not long after the arrival of our friends, the Hierophant received information that a Mr. Botler, a member of that Society, who had made himself quite celebrated by the discovery of some remnants of the Tower of Babel, and of some petrified wood of Noah’s Ark, would be sent to explore the mystery. Captain Bumpkins was anxiously awaiting his arrival.

However, we will not anticipate the regular course of events.

While the Hierophant is enjoying his dinner with his guests, we will step into the sacred room and see what is taking place. Everything is silent there; only the rush of the water in the swiftly-flowing river below, and occasionally the shout of a fisherman, is heard, for the noise of the crowd in the park does not penetrate into this place, and the native musicians are resting from their exhaustive muscular labour. Presently the door opens, and Madame Corneille enters. She throws a shy glance around, and silently closes and locks the door. Then, approaching the Image, she addresses the latter, commanding it in a stern voice to “awaken!”

A commotion seems to take place within the Image. A shadow of disgust and 217contempt creeps over its face. It does not move its lips, but a hollow voice, coming apparently from the base of the Image, answers:

“Be gone!”

“I shall not be gone,” answered Madame Corneille. “I know the secret of your composition, and I can manage some of the devils that have possession of you. Keep quiet, or I shall speak the word that will dissolve you into thin air.”

“What do you want?” sounded the voice.

“I want to remain what I am,” answered Madame Corneille. “I am the mistress of this place. I have power over the blustering Hierophant, and the Chelas crawl at my feet; but now a worm has crossed my path, and I must make him obedient like the rest. Mr. Green has been impudent to me. Put him down.”

While Madame Corneille was speaking, the lower parts of the statue seemed to become alive, a cloud issued from its base, and became more and more dense, until it shaped itself into a curious being, which was neither an animal nor a man. It was rather of a ludicrous than of a terrible aspect, resembling, to a certain extent, a human being of minute proportions; but its head was that of a bird of prey, with big protruding goggle eyes; while its long spindle legs ended in web-footed extremities, like those of a goose. When the monster was fully formed, Madame Corneille laid a sheet of paper before it, and directly her thoughts became expressed upon the paper in writing. When the writing was finished, the Elemental again dissolved into a cloud, which entered into the body of the Image. During this process the Image seemed to be perfectly dead; but when the Elemental had returned to its place, the eyes of the Image shone with a faint spark of life.

Madame Corneille folded the paper in the shape of a letter, and deposited it at the feet of the statue. Smiling contentedly, she then retired as noiselessly as she had come. But the Image did not stir; only the expression of pain which rested upon its face during the presence of Madame Corneille faded away, and was replaced once more by that of repose.

About an hour after this event a procession was seen to go towards the temple. It consisted of a number of persons among which were our friends, Mrs. Honeycomb, Pancho, and Mr. Green, who, having been duly tested and examined, and not found wanting, were now to be initiated by Captain Bumpkins into the secrets of the Mysterious Brotherhood. Mr. Ram, who walked at the head of the procession, carried the unavoidable flag, and Mr. Malaban the utensils necessary for fumigation, to drive evil spirits away. In the midst of the crowd walked the Hierophant.

The procession ascended the stairs and entered the room of the Image. The Chelas prostrated themselves before it, and Captain Bumpkins followed their example, looking like a fish out of water as he floundered upon the floor. Mr. Green, too, made an effort to do likewise, but remembering the dignity due to his future position, he stopped and merely made a reverential bow. Mrs. Honeycomb made a nice curtsey, giving to the Image the sweetest of her smiles practised expressly for that purpose, and Pancho waited to see what was coming. He had still great doubts in regard to the existence of the Mysterious Brotherhood, but hated to give up his illusion. Now the time for a final decision had come. Now or never would these secrets be revealed to him.

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The Chelas arose. Captain Bumpkins resumed his former position. The initiation began.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the Hierophant, “this is the most solemn day in my life, as I have the honour of introducing you to the Talking Image of Urur. It is perhaps the greatest curiosity in the world, and there are thousands of people who would be willing to give their bottom dollar to see it. About its natural history little is known; I captured it myself in the interior of Africa, with a great deal of danger to myself, and brought it here at a considerable expense. You may touch it, to see that it is made of solid material and that there is no trickery about it, though it is able to talk. If it were necessary I could produce certificates from persons of very high standing, to prove its solidity. I have exhibited it before a great number of African kings and queens, who have been gracious enough to express their entire gratification. It is awful hot to-day.”

The Hierophant wiped the sweat from his brow, and then continued:

“I am now going to divulge to you the greatest mysteries; such as I would not reveal for a thousand dollars to anyone save to a member of our society.”

After a solemn silence, Captain Bumpkins went on:

“This Image has been magnetized and psychologized by the Mysterious Brotherhood. Being in a state of hypnotism it is always inhabited by one or more of the Brothers, who will give answers to the questions we ask. I am now going to make them talk.”

Captain Bumpkins then advanced towards the Image, and said:

“Who is now present in you? Is it Krashibashi?”

“Krashibashi,” repeated the voice from the interior of the Image.

“You see, ladies and gentlemen, it is Krashibashi himself.” Then addressing the Image, he asked:

“May I ask a question?”

“Ask a question,” answered the Image.

“Will the Brother kindly tell me the names of those Black Magicians?” asked the Hierophant.

“Black Magicians,” echoed the Image.

“Yes; the Black Magicians who desire to ruin our Society,” continued the Hierophant. “Tell us their names, so that we may kill and destroy them.”

“Kill and destroy them,” was the answer.

“You see, ladies and gentlemen; the Brothers give us full permission to kill and destroy these villains; but they are not permitted to reveal their names. We will have to go out in our astral bodies to hunt them up.”

“May I ask a question?” asked Mr. Green, and the answer came:

“Ask a question.”

“I wish to call the attention of the respectable Mysterious Brotherhood,” said Mr. Green, “to the fact that having received a superior education at one of the most eminent colleges in Europe, and having studied Latin and Greek, geography and natural history, I consider myself qualified to become a member of the Mysterious Brotherhood. I would therefore ask whether I will be accepted as a real Chela?”

“Will be accepted as a real Chela,” sounded the answer.

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“Let me congratulate you,” said the Hierophant to Mr. Green. “What an honour is that conferred upon you!”

The Hierophant embraced Mr. Green and Mrs. Honeycomb looked upon him with profound admiration; but Mr. Malaban being of a jealous nature, did not like to have such high honours conferred upon a European. Bending over, he whispered to Mr. Ram: “I do not think this is to be taken seriously. Krashibashi said it merely in fun.”

“Krashibashi said it merely in fun,” repeated the Image.

The Hierophant, however, as well as Mr. Green, were too much enraptured to hear that remark. After their mutual congratulations were over Mrs. Honeycomb stepped forward and asked whether she was permitted to ask a question.

“Ask a question,” came the voice from the Image.

“I only wish to know,” said Mrs. Honeycomb, “whether my friend, the Countess Carnivalli is well?”

“The Countess Carnivalli is well,” was the reply of the Image.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the Hierophant, “I have now initiated you into the greatest mystery of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom, and these secrets are not to be divulged to anybody unless he has been fully tested and tried beyond the possibility of backsliding or becoming a traitor. I hope that none of you will ever communicate them to anyone without my permission. If one of you should ever be indiscreet, let him look out for Captain Bumpkins. I am not given to joking. I have been an officer under King Malabolo. I once hit a man with a double-barrelled shot-gun.”

“My friend, the Countess Carnivalli . . .” began Mrs. Honeycomb; but she was interrupted by Malaban, who noticed an occult letter at the feet of the Image. He picked it up and handed it to the Hierophant. It was addressed to Mr. Green and contained the following:

“To Mr. Green, titulary probationary Chela.

You have shown a deplorable want of intelligence in insulting our most intimate friend and adviser, Madame Corneille. Under other circumstances such a misbehaviour would put an end to your Chelaship. In offending Madame Corneille you have offended me. For once we will overlook your profound ignorance and stupidity; but we order you to beg her pardon and to put yourself under her guidance. Have implicit faith in Madame Corneille; tell her all your secrets and obey all her directions. Whatever Madame Corneille may order you to do, do it.

Krashibashi.”

“A letter from Krashibashi!” exclaimed the Hierophant. “Oh, how blessed you are, my brother,” and Captain Bumpkins went once more to embrace Mr. Green, nearly upsetting him.

“My master is Rataborumatchi; I do not know Krashibashi,” said Mr. Green.

“Wretch!” shouted the Hierophant. “Krashibashi is the boss of the Mysterious Brotherhood. I would not give one Krashibashi for a dozen Rataborumatchi. What! a stripling without any beard on his face comes here to discredit the words of Krashibashi! Shame upon you! I am ready to whip anybody who says that Krashibashi is not a gentleman.”

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Captain Bumpkins had talked himself into quite an excitement and proceeded to pull off his coat to show that he was in fighting trim; but Mrs. Honeycomb interfered and succeeded in pacifying him.

“Now don’t!” she said. “Just keep yourself quiet, Captain Bumpkins and don't put on airs. There is no use in being angry. There is nobody who has anything against Krashibashi.”

Overcome by emotion, the Hierophant stopped, and then as suddenly staggered towards Mrs. Honeycomb and shook hands with her. Then growing sentimental he began to weep and blubbered out: “My dear Mrs. Honeycomb! You are my only friend. You are a true daughter of Krashibashi. Swear that you will never betray me. Swear!”

“O, Captain Bumpkins!” sighed Mrs. Honeycomb.

“Shall I make some smoke?” asked Malaban, getting his incense ready.

“No!” said the Hierophant. “The meeting is adjourned sine die.”

The Chelas then prostrated themselves again before the Talking Image and retired in the same order in which they had entered the Shrine. The Hierophant walking arm-in-arm with Mrs. Honeycomb wobbled away, followed by Mr. Green. But Pancho, seeing that he was unobserved, remained behind. A moment after he was alone with the Talking Image in the sacred Shrine of Urur.

For a while he stood motionless, like the Talking Image itself, looking at the latter and lost in his thoughts. “This then,” he said to himself, “is the summum bonum of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom, and the essence of its mysteries. The Hierophant, an imbecile, the Chelas, simpletons, the Talking Image an echo! Was I possessed by the spirit of an idiot when I made up my mind to go to Urur in search of self-knowledge, or was it the devil that rendered me gullible enough to believe in the absurd tales of Mr. Puffer, the Chela? Now I have had my experience and the farce is ended. The scales have fallen from my eyes. The next steamer shall carry me home to my wife; but you, O, Talking Image, who are the cause of all this illusion and mischief; you who delude the ignorant and betray the weak, may you be . . . .”

Pancho did not finish his sentence, for at that moment a rosy light filled the room and an exquisite odour became perceptible. A halo of golden light of a supermundane character surrounded the head of the Image, sending silvery rays upwards towards the ceiling, and, as Pancho lifted his eyes to the ceiling, it faded away and O, wonder! above the statue of stone there floated another Image, an exact representation or counterpart of the former, but far more beautiful, ethereal, living. . . . The glassy gaze of the statue had gone; and an angelic being whose eyes seemed to penetrate to the very centre of Pancho’s soul and to read his innermost thoughts, was looking down on him!

Speechless, he beheld the apparent miracle taking place before his eyes, and he saw that the ethereal form floated down and surrounding the Image became at last absorbed by it; and in proportion as the latter absorbed its own ethereal counterpart, the eyes of the statue began to brighten, life seemed to come into its limbs, until at last when the absorption was finished, the Talking Image itself seemed to be transformed into an angelic being, hardly inferior to its celestial counterpart. It then began to speak in a sweet voice, differing entirely from the one heard before. It said:

“Curse not the Image, my friend, which, like all other beings, is but an 221instrument in the hands of its own creator. The echo gives foolish answers to the questions of the fool, but by him who seeks for wisdom, wisdom will be received. An instrument which is not attuned gives forth discordant sounds, and a harp played upon by an ignorant child will not produce the same melodies as if played by a master musician. Is paper to be cursed, because falsehoods may be written upon it? Are mirrors to be abolished because they reflect the faces of the vile, as truly as those of the virtuous?”

“Who are you, O, beautiful being?” asked Pancho. “Are you the god you seem to be or am I labouring under an illusion?”

“I am the Master of the Image,” answered the latter. “To know my name would be useless to you. The Light which shines within my being and which gives me Life is self-existent and true. My form is an illusion like yours, like that of Captain Bumpkins, and like that of every other being on earth. All forms are illusive and impermanent; they are not self-existent but subject to continual change. But all, however imperfect they may be, are instruments through which the truth may become manifest, for in all of them is a spark of light, a product of the ray of the Sun of Divine Wisdom. There are lilies and tulips in the gardens, and daisies upon the fields; and in all of them the light of the sun manifests itself by producing various colours and hues. The forms perish, but the sunlight continues to exist even after all the flowers are gone.”

“Where can I find that light?” asked Pancho.

“Where should you expect to find the light that shines in you except within your own Higher Self?” replied the Image, “Seek it where it exists and not where it cannot be known. Seek it not in the realm of the imagination, but at the fountain of truth; seek it not in the brain but in the heart, the centre of your own world.”

“You have desired a man who would work entirely unselfishly for the benefit of humanity,” said Pancho. “To such a man you have promised to communicate all your knowledge. I have come to undertake that work without regard to self. When shall I obtain my reward?”

There was a pause, and then the voice from the Image spoke and said: “He who has given up the love of Self seeks for no reward. Only to him who asks for nothing, everything shall be given.”

“Teach me then,” answered Pancho, “how I can give up the love of self.”

“Acquire first the knowledge of Self,” answered the voice; “you cannot give up consciously a thing which you do not know, and which is not in your possession.”

“Give me then the power to possess myself; teach me the secrets of Alchemy.” . . . .

As Pancho uttered this selfish prayer, a clap of thunder shook the temple from the top to its very foundation, and the room grew suddenly dark. Involuntarily he closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, the rosy light and the fragrance had disappeared and the room looked as usual. The Image looked cold and deathlike. Its stony eyes were directed towards the ceiling, and the questions which Pancho asked elicited no response; its features had the aspect of perfect indifference.

He was now fully convinced that there exist superior and intelligent powers, invisible to the eyes of mortal man, but nevertheless living and active; but he 222was also certain that such powers were something different from what he was led to believe, and that their duties must be of a higher kind than to magnetize their blockhead admirers and to play tricks for the amusement of those who flattered them. It then seemed to Pancho as if within himself was contained the shadow of such a power; a consciousness of a higher mind, a state into which he who enters loses all sight of terrestrial things and is entirely unaffected by that which concerns the everchanging illusion called the personality of man. Caring nothing for its' sorrows and joys, he dwells in a realm where all is Light, peace, tranquillity, glory and enduring happiness, in an interior realm where all speculation and fancy cease and pure knowledge alone exists. Surely this and none other must be the realm wherein dwells the Mysterious Brotherhood. . . . .

After this adventure Pancho did not feel inclined to mix with the crowd but wanted to commune with his own thoughts. He walked towards the seashore and arrived at the beach over which the waves rolled in rhythmic succession. There was a sandhill from which a fine view could be had of the sea and the distant eity. A number of native fishermen were engaged in stretching nets upon a sandbank at the mouth of the river; for as the waves rolled over the bank, they carried with them their living inhabitants and many an unfortunate victim was caught in the treacherous net. There were some beautiful shells buried here and there in the sand; but there were no Barnacles, such as Pancho had seen on the shores of the Pacific, when he walked there with his beloved Conchita, and promised to her that their love should not separate them even in death.

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CHAPTER X. REVELATIONS.

THE days of the anniversary celebration came to an end; the blue elephants had entirely lost their shape, the native musicians were dismissed, the Hierophant rested on his laurels and the guests returned one after another to their homes.

Pancho remained at Urur. His adventure with the Talking Image had strongly impressed his mind, and he desired to receive some more revelations. He wanted to know what is that “self” which one must know before it can be renounced and which we cannot possess as long as we are ourselves possessed by it; that Self to which man clings with the grip of despair and which no one wishes to lose. “What,” he thought, “would become of a man who should give up his Self; what would be left of him, if his self is all that is in him?” Then it was that he felt the foreboding of something like a superior state in which there is all knowledge but no conception of limitation and narrowness; a condition in which the soul is superior to all that concerns the battle of shadows taking place on the material plane; but that state seemed to him still far away; far more distant and unapproachable than the sun, resting tranquilly in its own self-luminous light, while his rays plays with the phantoms and shadows which they produce upon the material world. Was the rosy light that was absorbed by the Image an emanation of a superior light, in which life and consciousness and knowledge exist? Was the ethereal form which he imagined he saw one of the Mysterious Brotherhood, or was it the soul of the Image itself? Pancho remembered to have read in Plutarch that every man has a soul and that it does not commingle with the body in all men alike. That in some bodies it gets absorbed fully, and then the whole frame is corrupted by appetites and passions; while it penetrates into others only partially, the purer part remaining outside.

It was said that only the vulgar think that the whole of their soul is within them; just as they believe the image reflected from a mirror to be in the glass: but the more intelligent know it to be without.

He asked Captain Bumpkins about it, and the Hierophant surmised that it must have been either Krashibashi or Rataraborumatchi, adding that he would investigate the matter.

“Do not trouble yourself about such questions,” he said. “Wait until my new Wisdom-Catechism is published and you will then know all about it.”

“A Wisdom-Catechism?” asked Pancho, astonished.

“Yes,” answered Captain Bumpkins, “a catechism about Divine Wisdom; giving the correct explanations of all the mysteries of the universe; a catechism that will make those who read it divinely wise.”

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“But,” said Pancho, “how will those who read know whether or not its contents are true?”

“There can be no doubt about its veracity,” said the Hierophant; “because Krashibashi has promised to attest it with his own seal.”

Indeed it seemed as if a new era of light was dawning upon the world. A great deal of information on subjects heretofore considered occult was given to the world by some intelligence that spoke through the Talking Image of Urur. Whether the information thus given came from Krashibashi or from Rataramorubatchi is not positively known; but it is certain that the new doctrines astonished the world and gratified the curiosity of many; but whether those who were thus better informed, grew any wiser from it, our historian has not been able to ascertain. The new and nevertheless very old doctrines embraced the process of the evolution of the visible and invisible realms of nature, explaining not merely the origin of all gross material and visible forms, but also the cause of the existence and the manner of development of all beings in the universe, from that semi-spiritual monad “or centre of vibration,” called “atom,” up to a planetary spirit whose body is as large as the sphere of the planet to which it belongs. It proved logically to the mind many things that are open to the perception of the illuminated Seer alone, showing that all forms in the universe are the products of the Universal Will acting upon the ideation of the Universal Mind; while both these were merely functions of one eternal and self-existing principle, having its origin in the Absolute.

Captain Bumpkins corroborated these statements, and amplified them from the storehouse of his own experience. “It’s all done by magnetism,” he said. “I have seen a fakir make a mango tree grow out of a kernel merely by magnetizing it. The more he magnetized it the more it grew until it was thirty-six feet and two inches high.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Green.

“I told you so,” said Mrs. Honeycomb.

The revelations brought out by the Image showed, in a manner comprehensible even to the rationalistic mind, that there could be no such thing as “dead matter” in the universe; but that the whole world was a manifestation of Life and that this Life principle was one and indivisible, while it was merely the forms of its manifestations which differed from each other according to the nature of the bodies in which they took place.

“Life,” said the voice that spoke through the Image, “is not a product of the form in which it is observed, no more than the air which a person inhales is the product of his lungs; but it is a manifestation of an unvisible and universal power of Life, which produces all forms and without which no form could come into existence or continue to exist.”

“Life,” added the Hierophant, “is produced by magnetism. I have seen with my own eyes a fakir buried for forty days, twenty feet under the ground in a hole. I have carefully examined it. There was not even as much as a gas pipe through which he could have breathed. Anyone who saw it done would have betted ten dollars that the man was stone-dead. But when he was taken up, he recovered and ate a hearty breakfast. It is all done by magnetism.”

“I have heard of a similar case that happened at Edwardsville,” said Mr. Green. “A woman died at that town and two respectable doctors gave their 298certificates that she was quite dead; but when they carried her to the churchyard, the coffin struck against the overhanging branch of a tree, and dropped to the ground; the woman then awoke and was alive as ever. It nearly frightened her husband to death.”

“Such a coming back to life,” said Captain Bumpkins, “can only occur with persons in possession of abnormal powers and a strong magnetic constitution.”

“The husband of that woman,” went on Mr. Green, “was so much convinced of his wife’s abnormal powers of coming to life again, that when, a year afterwards, she again died, he made the funeral procession go by another road, to avoid the repetition of such an accident.”

“I have read the story of an ancient philosopher, who was in the habit of magnetizing himself and going out in his astral form,” remarked the Hierophant, “on such occasions his physical body being as dead as a door-nail. One day his wife had his body burned to ashes. You should have seen the surprise of the philosopher when he returned and found that his body was gone. It annoyed him very much.”

By a series of arguments, at once logical and comprehensive, the Image proved that the divine spirit of Man is not a product of the animal form or organization; but that it has existed in all eternity and will never cease to be; that forms are not, but that they merely exist, and that the spirit must overshadow and exist in a form to obtain the perfect consciousness and knowledge that belongs to such forms. It also showed that divine self-knowledge could not possibly be obtained within one short span of life: but that an almost endless chain of reincarnations or re-expressions in form would be necessary before it could gain all the experience necessary to attain the knowledge of good and evil and gradually grow into that higher consciousness which forms the basis of true self-knowledge. It said that those whose whole attention was absorbed by the external illusions produced by the senses, or by intellectual research into things that belonged merely to the phenomenal aspect of nature, could not attain that knowledge of the spirit which constitutes the knowledge of self; but that to realize the eternal Reality it was necessary to fix one’s thoughts and aspirations upon that which is eternal and real.

“This is perfectly true,” said the Hierophant. “I once knew a yogi who spent several hours every day in magnetizing himself and looking at a fly-speck upon the wall. In seven years time he became so much developed that he could not tell the difference between a man and a spirit. He used to run against people in the street, supposing them to be spirits, and talked with real spirits, imagining them to be living people. He was ultimately locked up in an insane asylum.”

“I wish he were here,” remarked Mrs. Honeycomb, “to help us catch these black Magicians.”

“The yoga-philosophy,” saith the Image, “teaches the suppression of the functions of the thinking principle; that means to say the suppression of that manner of thinking which is not in exact harmony with the perception of the truth by spiritual contemplation. There is nothing to hinder the mind from penetrating into the deepest mysteries of nature except the perception of the productions of its own imagination, which, like the vapours forming clouds within the terrestrial atmosphere that hinder a person from seeing the sun, fill 299the mental sphere with illusions and prevent the light of truth from entering the soul. The perverted will of man creates perverted desires, and these call into existence the illusive images of things which have no real existence, causing him to see the truth, not as it is, but merely as a distorted reflection.”

“Never think,” explained the Hierophant. “The worst thing a Chela can do is to think. Think of nothing! The less a man thinks, the more he knows.”

“That is very easy,” acquiesced Mr. Green. “I must have been a yogi all my life, I see.”

“The internal perception and understanding of truth,” continued the Image, “constitutes true meditation, by which the union of the soul of man with his own real divine Self may be accomplished. The practice of yoga has for its object to obtain control over one’s thoughts and emotions, and to penetrate by the power of interior thought, deep down into the sanctuary of the temple, where, upon the innermost altar, slumbers the divine spark which each human being has received from the power that called him into existence. Not the ntellectual speculation of man, only the divine spirit within the soul can penetrate into those depths and reveal to man the mysteries of divine being. Who can know these divine secrets but he who has himself experienced the divine state? Who can form an intellectual conception of that which is inconceivable to the imagination? If anyone desires to know the truth, let him rise above that which is earthly. Let him fix his whole consciousness in the mirror of that which is eternal; let him fix his soul in the sublimity of the divine Ideal; let him fix his will in the supreme Power within and by the exercise of divine Love transform his entire being into the image of his divine Self. He will then be able to see and to hear and to feel that which can only be perceived by those who, in this world of errors, can rise above its illusions and live in that heaven of truth.”

“Can you give us the astronomical direction in which the heaven is located?” asked Captain Bumpkins. “Please state the exact number of miles in regard to its distance from Urur, and how long it takes an average spirit to reach it?”

“Alas!” replied the Image, “you are too far from the truth even to conceive of the distance.”

“Is it Krashibashi who is now talking?” inquired the Hierophant.

No response followed.

“I think he is gone,” said the Hierophant.

“He must be an awful nice gentleman,” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “I could listen to him for hours, if one could only understand what he means.”

“The trouble is that one is not always sure who of them is talking,” continued the Hierophant. “Sometimes it is Krashibashi, at other times it is Rataramorubatchi, and then again it may only be one of the inferior Chelas. I have therefore made some arrangements with Krashibashi so that there will be no mistake. I make him give me a sign with the thumb of the Image, so that I should always know whether it is he.”

“Did he give you the sign?” asked Mr. Green.

“Not this time,” replied the Hierophant, “and I have my doubts as to whether it really was Krashibashi, because he spoke such incomprehensible gibberish. Who ever saw a divine spirit? What does he mean by that spirit 300revealing to man all sorts of things? I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, what we want is facts and not speculations. I am a scientist. If anyone wants to make me believe that he is an Adept, let him levitate himself; let him write an occult letter or make himself invisible. We do not want to be preached at. We want something tangible.”

“But then,” said Mrs. Honeycomb, “he spoke so nicely about love and how it transforms one’s whole being. I had some experience of that. When I was married I was an entirely different person.”

Mr. Green heaved a sigh.

Such and similar conversations took place frequently at Urur, and while Pancho was astonished at the profundity of the thoughts uttered by the Image, he was equally surprised at the way in which they were received by the Hierophant and his followers. The most exalted ideas were rendered ridiculous by being misinterpreted and misapplied. The Talking Image spoke of things of which the members of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom could form no conception. Moreover, they had never agreed about a definition of terms, and applied the same words to things which were very different from each other. Thus the story of the building of the Tower of Babel was repeated again, and will always be repeated as long as men do not possess a true conception of the things they are talking about; for whenever they seek to build a system of thought concerned with those transcendental regions where the material perception ceases and the true ideal begins, their conceptions differ, and a “confusion of tongues” takes place.

If the doctrines of the Talking Image were misunderstood even by its own immediate followers, it is not surprising that when they reached the general public they were still more misrepresented and their meaning distorted. Especially its utterances against the abuses of so-called religion, and against the wiles of priestcraft, were looked upon by many as attacks upon the spirit of religion; its denial of the existence of a mutable and entra-cosmic God was misconstrued into a denial of Deity, that universal divine Power, pure and self-existent, which causes the attractions by which all forms are created.

There were many who saw in the Image nothing but a destroyer of their own cherished opinions, and they were not slow in denouncing doctrines which they were incapable of comprehending.

Truth is welcome to everyone so long as it does not come into conflict with one’s adopted opinions or with one’s own personal interests; but when it appears in the shape of an enemy seeking to destroy beloved hobbies and prejudices, which are parts of our very selves, grown into our flesh, it becomes hateful and is driven away. Thus the truths pronounced by the Image were now persecuted by the intellectual but unspiritual scribes and pharisees, distorted and crucified, as in times of old, and The Image itself was denounced by the clergy as being the instrument of the devil.

The jealousy of the African scientists became awakened, for their knowledge was to a great extent a mere belief on accepted authority. How could an Image dare to know things about which respectable bookmakers and University professors knew nothing? Such effrontery could not be tolerated. The point of view from which these scientific critics looked upon transcendental matters was far lower than that of the unknown intelligence that spoke through the Image. 301They were used to stick to externalities and small details. They were not able to conceive of the Unity of the All and to follow the Image into the higher regions of abstract ideas, where form ceases to exist. Hence they soon joined the clergy in their vilifications and persecutions of the Talking Image of Urur, and spoke and wrote a great deal against it.

While the enemies of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom thus did their very best to make its name known all over the world, those who belonged to it spent all the power at their command to ruin still more effectually its reputation. There were many who, like Pancho, Mr. Green and Mrs. Honeycomb, had not the faintest conception of what self-knowledge means, and who, nevertheless, imagined it to be their duty to enlighten the world about things which were entirely unknown to themselves. They mistook “wisdom” for a belief in certain statements supposed to come from the Mysterious Brotherhood; and the rubbish published by them was often sufficiently intolerable to frighten away for ever any honest investigator. In fact the S. D. W. assumed an entirely sectarian character, and differed from other sects only in so far as it advocated more superstitions than the rest.

Mr. Green became the obedient servant of Madame Corneille according to directions received from Krashibashi. Meeting her in the garden he apologized to her for his rudeness, and begged her to become his guru and guide.

“I will consider the matter,” said Madame Corneille, “but you will have to submit to some tests to try your obedience.”

“I shall do all you command me to;” urged Mr. Green, “because I want to become a real and accepted Chela, as soon as I can.”

“Very well,” she said, “bring me a stick.”

Mr. Green went, and soon returned from the woodshed with a stick of dry wood, and handed it to the housekeeper.

“And now I shall throw this stick as far as I can,” said Madame Corneille, “and you will pick and bring it back to me.”

“But, Madame Corneille! . . .” groaned Mr. Green.

“Just as you please,” she interrupted. “If you do not obey, you can leave it alone. The consequences will fall upon yourself.”

“Oh, but I will! I will! . . . Certainly!” stuttered Mr. Green.

On flew the stick. “Now, apporte!” she ordered in French.

Mr. Green proceeded to move gravely in the direction of the stick.

“Hurry on!” she commanded.

He quickened his steps as much as his dignity would permit him, but Madame Corneille was not satisfied. She ordered him to run, and Mr. Green had to run, and to bring the stick back to her. She then threw it in another direction and made him run for it again, and she repeated her “test” several times to the great amusement of the servants who were watching the spectacle.

“Now, Mr. Green,” said Madame Corneille, after he had become fully exhausted and was panting for breath, “you will have to report to me every day the exact state of your feelings. You know that Krashibashi can read all your thoughts. If you should keep any of them secret from me, he would become extremely displeased. Take good care not to forget anything in your confessions.”

Mr. Green promised to obey, and henceforward he confessed his thoughts 302every evening to Madame Corneille. He told her about a sweetheart whom he had left behind, in the old country, and whose name was Minnie. He had promised to marry her; but that was before he had known anything about the Mysterious Brotherhood. When he saw opening before him the bright prospect of being selected for Chelaship, with all the rights and privileges attached to such a position, he had abandoned his Minnie. He now confessed that he was still thinking of her a great deal, and would be pleased to have her as a co-partner in chelaship; but he had been told that this could not be done.

As Mr. Green advanced in his chelaship, he became conscious of being beset by temptations of various kinds. Some of these were as terrible as the trials through which the Hierophant himself had passed unscathed. For instance, there were a number of mango trees in the park of Urur, and as the fruits began to ripen, a negro woman of advanced age was set to watch over them lest they should be pilfered by the boys. The natural charms of that negro woman attracted Mr. Green’s attention. Ignorant of the reason why she walked daily up and down in the vicinity of the small house in which he resided, and which was situated in the garden, he persuaded himseif that she had been sent by the Mysterious Brotherhood as a temptation to test his moral character. But Mr. Green was not so easily caught in the snares as that. He could see through it all; nor did he wish to evade the temptation. So taking his chair out on the porch, he sat on it for long hours, watching the woman, and setting his teeth – he resisted the temptation to the bitter end.

Pancho’s temptations were of a different kind. He thought a great deal of Conchita and it seemed as if some invisible powers were continually trying to drag him back to his home. Still, he did not wish to return. For what little he had heard from the Talking Image seemed to him of far greater importance than everything else in life. Sometimes he feared he was not doing his duty in remaining so far away from his wife, and that the latter might be in need of him. He was, therefore, very glad when, about a month after his arrival, he received a letter from Conchita in answer to the one he had written to her from Hong Kong, and found it full of affectionate words. Among other things it contained the following passage:

“Do you know, my beloved one, how delicious it is to give oneself up entirely and without reserve to the being we love; to be absolutely in his power, to belong to him fully, body and soul? Surely such a love, to which one gives up one’s whole being to be absorbed by him whom we love, cannot be sinful or selfish. Such is my love. My body is here, but my soul is with you. There are a thousand invisible threads which seem to drag it out of me, so that it may fly away and be united with your soul. Our spiritual seances have been discontinued, but in the place of it I am making psychic experiments. Juana has brought a man who is said to be a good mesmeriser, and who can put people into a trance so that they become clairvoyant. By his aid I hope to loosen the links which hold my soul to this helpless body, so that it may follow you across the sea and become cognizant of your presence.

“As to your returning, I will only say: Do not return before you have completed your investigations. When you return I want you to belong to me as fully as I belong to you. I am longing to see you, and waiting to welcome you back to my heart; but I have no other will than yours. Stay as long as you

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consider it necessary, and whatever you may decide will always have my entire consent.”

Pancho did not exactly like the idea of Conchita having a man to magnetize her, but on further reflection he thought that, if it amused her, it might, perhaps, help to divert her mind. He felt a great relief at having received Conchita’s consent to his staying as long as he wished, and in return, he was as perfectly willing to give her his permission to continue her psychic experiments if she could derive any satisfaction from them.

“How strange it is,” he thought, “that we cannot love two objects at one and the same time with the same intensity of power! If we love one, the other is sure to be neglected. If I love Krashibashi with all my heart, Conchita has to have less of my love. If I love Conchita, Krashibashi will not be attracted to me as he is, and will not give me his secrets. What shall I do?”

“Simpleton!” murmured an interior voice. “Will you never be satisfied that Krashibashi exists nowhere outside of your own imagination?”

“Let his name be what it may,” argued Pancho, “I know that there is some power, and a high intelligence external to myself. I have seen the rosy light absorbed in the head of the Image. Why could not the same rosy light enter my head? Why could not the Master communicate with me? There is some mystery in this, and it will be of no use for me to return to my wife before I have found it out.”

By special permission of Madame Corneille, who was the chief and supreme keeper of the Shrine, hoping to clear his doubts still further, he obtained another interview with the Image. This was an extraordinary favour, for the Image was not accessible to all persons at all times, but only to Madame Corneille and to Messrs. Malaban and Ram, who were real and accepted probationary Chelas, while the rest were only titulary ones (save Mr. Green, who was now a real titulary and probationary one). Nor was it customary to permit anyone to see the Image alone, without being accompanied by one of the Chelas, to carry out the prescribed fumigations to keep evil spirits away.

On this occasion, however, Pancho received little satisfaction from the Image, which seemed to give forth merely a reflection of his own thoughts. It repeated in substance the same sentences that were contained in the letter which Pancho had received through Mr. Puffer, and in which it was said that “he who desires to devote his services to the Mysterious Brotherhood must do so with his whole heart, his whole mind, implicitly and without any reserve,” etc.

“Why is it that the occultist is not permitted to have a wife?” asked Pancho. “Did not King Solomon have 700 wives and 300 concubines, and was he not the wisest of men?”

“It is not so much the external associations of the body as the associations of the mind, which hinder the seeker after truth to find his own divine self,” replied the Image. “Let him who desires to unite himself with truth beware of forming adulterous connections with false opinions and unholy feelings. He who embraces the views of another person and imagines that he has thereby come into possession of self-knowledge is deluded. Matter is not superior to Spirit, nor Form to Principle. External conditions alone cannot prevent Spirit from rising above Matter, if it really desires to rise above it, or to obtain the knowledge of truth.”

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“Where can we find truth?” asked Pancho.

“He who knows the One,” replied the Image, “knows All. He who knows the many, knows nothing.”

“But who is the One?” asked Pancho. “And where will I find it?”

“The One is everywhere, and the fruit upon the tree of Knowledge does not ripen by its own efforts. Everything will be accomplished in the fulness of its own time.”

“But if I can accomplish nothing by my own efforts,” said Pancho, “what is the use of trying to work at all?”

“No one can give to himself that which he does not possess,” replied the Image. “He can do nothing more than throw away that which is an impediment to his unfoldment. All light comes from the interior sun.”

“But when will that light appear?” still went on Pancho, and the answer came:

“Blessed are those who can live in time as if they were in eternity, and in eternity as if they were in time.”

“What does this mean?” he asked.

No answer followed, and no further response could be elicited from the Image.

Pancho desired very much to know who the One was, whom one should know to know everything. He asked the Hierophant about it.

“Can’t you see,” answered Captain Bumpkins, “that it is Krashibashi? If you once get acquainted with Krashibashi, he will tell you everything.”

CHAPTER XI. INTRIGUES.

While Pancho is staying in Africa seeking for Light, it is our duty to see what Conchita is doing.

For a couple of weeks after Pancho’s departure, a deep melancholy took possession of her mind. Even her spiritualistic séances ceased to interest her, for, however wise were the sayings of “Purity,” they consisted in generalities regarding morals and religion which contained nothing new to Conchita; they did not give her any satisfactory information as to what her husband was doing and when he would return.

If she could have risen up to the clouds, and followed with clairvoyant vision the ship that carried her truant lover away, she would have been happy. She would have given worlds to have her inner sight opened even for one short moment of time, and to see Pancho’s thoughts. She knew that such things could be done, there was abundant proof in the history of spiritualism, and in the annals of the Society for the Discovery of Unknown Sciences, to show that persons at the moment of death had appeared to their friends in distant countries. Why could not she do the same? Why could not she die for a moment and go to see Pancho and then live again?

The idea of becoming a clairvoyant took entire possession of Conchita’s mind, and began to envelop her reason. Juana had already told her of a 305man who had extraordinary powers of developing mediumship and clairvoyance in others and she made up her mind to ask Juana to introduce him to her.

“Mr. Smith,” answered Juana, “will be ready at any time to attend to your orders.”

Mr. “Smith,” who in reality was nobody else but Mr. Hagard, came, and at his first visit Conchita felt an indescribable repugnance to him. Something – was it her own clairvoyance, or intuition? – seemed to tell her that this person was dangerous. Nevertheless her curiosity overcame her repugnance; she concluded to try the experiment and “Purity” predicted that it would be successful.

Mr. Hagard was not entirely without psychological powers. He knew how to influence weaker minds by the power of his superior will, or to use a modern phrase, to “hypnotize” them without their knowledge and he often made use of this power in making bargains. Once, merely for the purpose of testing his power, he had willed three of his friends, young men of good character to go to certain place and get drunk; he watched them as they left, one after another, and before midnight, he had the pleasure of seeing that they were so beastly drunk that they had to be carried off by the police, and moreover two of these three young persons, who heretofore had not been addicted to the use of spiritual liquors, now took to drinking without any further hypnotization and were now drunken sots, unfit for business of any kind.

Conchita submitted to be “magnetized” by “Mr. Smith.” Every evening Mr. Hagard would come, and putting his hands upon Conchita’s head, who at first shrunk back at his touch, he would pour streams of vile and gross material thought, impregnated with evil will into her mind. In this work he was assisted by the wily Juana who acted upon Conchita’s imagination by giving real or pretended “spirit-communications” and “Purity” gave her blessing to the work of destruction. Gradually thoughts and feelings which had heretofore been unknown to her began to grow within Conchita’s mind, to fill her soul with desires whose nature astonished her and to load her imagination with pictures of a repugnant character. Whether or not any other means were taken to poison Conchita’s will and imagination, we are unable to say; it is only stated that, incredible as it may appear, the image of Pancho became gradually less prominent in her mind, and was displaced by an inexplicable affection for Mr. Hagard. At first Conchita was astonished at this change and laughed at its absurdity; but the link was now formed and grew stronger every day until it was too strong to be broken.

Some poet says that vice, seen too often and becoming familiar, is first endured, and at last embraced, and one of the greatest modern occultists says that any inordinate desire or thought having once taken root within the mind may become developed and take form, gaining power over all other desires, thoughts and actions, clouding and enveloping the understanding and at last destroying the supremacy of divine Reason.

Conchita perceived that she was losing her own self, and that another “spirit” was taking possession of her, but it was now too late to reject the intruder. Her thoughts and her manners became changed; she began to feel pleasure in things which she had formerly abhorred, she laughed at Mr. Hagard’s frivolous jokes and wept afterwards because she had been so foolish as to find 306them amusing. She accepted Mr. Hagard’s invitation to visit places of public amusement with him, and, to make a long story short, she became strongly attracted to Mr. Hagard, while somehow she hated him from the bottom of her heart.

Once, in the beginning of this strange infatuation and some six weeks after Pancho’s departure, she received a letter from her husband, which he had written from Hong Kong and she answered it as we have seen in an affectionate manner; but after this, Juana took good care that no more letters from Africa were received by Conchita, while the communications received from the “spirits” went to corroborate her suspicion that Pancho had found another charmer in Africa. In Conchita’s mind, the image of Pancho faded away in spite of her efforts to hold it and Mr. Hagard’s will took possession of her heart.

At last she was attacked by a severe spell of sickness for which the doctors could find no appropriate name in their books on Pathology; but which they classified as “Hysteria.” For a long time she seemed to be at the point of dying, and when at last her physical health returned, she was very much changed. But we will not run ahead of the regular course of events.

While this drama was being enacted in San Francisco and Conchita’s ruin accomplished, intrigues of a different kind took place at Urur.

The Hierophant had made great friends with Mrs. Honeycomb, and Madame Corneille’s authority was on the wane. She was an intelligent woman and of keen perceptions, and could easily foresee that the time was coming when Mrs. Honeycomb would oust her from her position as high priestess of the Shrine. She was cordially hated and feared by all the Chelas except Mr. Green, who in obedience to the orders received from Krashibashi was now the accepted disciple of Madame Corneille, confessing to her all his little secrets and sins and obeying her orders in all things. Thereby he expected to obtain the favour of the Mysterious Brotherhood and to have the time of his probation shortened.

Of the existence of Krashibashi he had no doubt. Not that he had any other proofs of his existence except the letter found at the foot of the Image, but was this not enough? Moreover, his existence was believed in by many respectable persons, and to doubt it would have been undeniably a grave offence, which Krashibashi would have resented. Therefore, Mr. Green did not dare to disbelieve in him. Most of the time he sat in his room, thinking of this Adept, and gradually the latter took form in his imagination. A dark-looking face appeared to him in his dreams, and was preparing to speak. Knocks and raps were heard in Mr. Green’s bedstead, at which he was at first very much frightened. But one night he took courage, and asked, as loud raps were heard:

“Who is there?”

Then a faint voice, as if coming from a great distance, spoke and said:

“It is – me – Bro – brother, – Kra – shi – ba – shi.”

It nearly frightened Mr. Green to death, and he hid himself under the bedclothes. But in the morning his courage returned, and since then he became convinced that he was rapidly progressing towards adeptship.

But to return to Madame Corneille, we may also see what she is doing.

Let the reader take some of the magic salve which we herewith present to him and anoint his eyes. He will then see what is taking place in the room of Monsieur and Madame Corneille and listen to their conversation.

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Monsieur Corneille is sitting on a sofa, smoking his pipe, while Madame stands near the window, watching the clouds.

“Fermez la porte, ma chère!” said Monsieur, “and tell me a leetal vat you know.”

Madame Corneille went out upon the verandah, and examined carefully to see whether anybody was listening. Having satisfied herself that no one was near, she returned and locked the door.

“This Mr. Green,” she said, moving a chair to the sofa, and seating herself by the side of her consort, “has told me that Bumpkins promised Mrs. Honeycomb to give the Image into her charge. I tell you, our position here is no longer secure.”

“Mais,” replied Monsieur Corneille, “you can write a letter and send away Monsieur Bumpkin.”

“True,” answered Madame Corneille; but that would only delay the crisis, for he will return again. I am seriously thinking of accepting the proposal of the Rev. Mr. Sniff, who offered to pay me a good round sum if we will only deliver the Image to him.”

“’Ow much will Monsieur Sniff pay?”

“Mr. Sniff,” said Madame Corneille, “has no money; but he acts in the name of the bishop, and what Mr. Sniff promises is just as good as if the bishop had promised it himself.”

“Nevare!” exclaimed Monsieur Corneille. “I do not believe in ze promises of Monsieur le bishop, nor in ze promises of Monsieur Sniff. I prefer to ’ave ze money in my pocket.”

“I will go and see him,” said Madame Corneille, “I think he will pay well if we destroy the Image.”

“Eh bien!” answared Monsieur Corneille; “you may try a leetal.”

Madame Corneille prepared herself to drive to the city, and M. Corneille went to see the coachman to order the carriage.

Mrs. Honeycomb’s time was very much taken up with preparations to fight the Black Magicians. She had placed vessels with oil of vitriol not only in her own chamber, but in nearly all the rooms of the house. She had attempted to see the Black Magicians in the magic crystal which Captain Bumpkins still had in his possession, but she had seen nothing. She therefore made up her mind to buy a large looking-glass and to prepare it herself according to certain rules and incantations prescribed in an old book dealing with sorcery. She was walking across the compound, when she saw Madame Corneille coming out of her rooms fully dressed.

“Are you going to drive to the city, dear?” asked Mrs. Honeycomb.

“Yes, dear,” replied Madame Corneille. “I am going to make some purchases Can I do anything for you?”

“I think I will go with you,” said Mrs. Honeycomb. “I have not yet had a good look at the city, and I want to select a good mirror.”

Madame Corneille did not care for company on her errand, and so she said that it was quite impossible for her to take anyone. “The day is hot and it will be too hard for the poor old horse to carry a third person besides myself and the driver,” she added.

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“I will wait then until to-morrow,” answered Mrs. Honeycomb. “To-morrow I will go out shopping, and you can remain at home.”

“I am very much obliged to you,” said Madame Corneille, “but it is my business to attend to the shopping, and I would never dare to trust my horse to a stranger.”

“I thought,” replied Mrs. Honeycomb, “that the horse belonged to Captain Bumpkins, and that I had as much right to it as yourself?”

“It has been put into my charge,” snapped Madame Corneille, “and I shall see that my animals are not ill-treated.”

“Do you mean to insinuate,” asked indignantly Mrs. Honeycomb, “that I am in the habit of ill-treating animals?”

“You are a stranger to me,” replied Madame Corneille, “and I know from yourself the way you treated your husband.”

“I must confess,” cried the other, “that I am not accustomed to such language. It seems that in Africa one can learn all sorts of things. When I was at Saratoga my friend the Countess Carnivalli. . . .”

“Do not trouble yourself to give me lessons in etiquette; they are not appreciated.”

“Nevertheless it seems that you need them very much,” retorted Mrs. Honeycomb.

“All I have to say,” replied Madame Corneille, “is, that if the looking-glasses at Urur are not large enough to show off your beautiful figure, you will have to go to the city to buy another mirror at your own expense.”

“People living in glass-houses should not throw stones,” hissed Mrs. Honeycomb. “I heard Captain Bumpkins say that you had goggle eyes and a crooked nose.”

“My face is good enough for my husband,” answered Madame Corneille; “but I doubt whether you will ever catch a man again, in spite of all the arts you may practise before your looking-glass.”

“Perhaps I had a more intelligent husband than you seem to have,” was the snub.

“And perhaps many more than I had,” sarcastically grinned Madame Corneille.

Pale with rage Mrs. Honeycomb turned and walked away, and Madame Corneille entering the carriage ordered the coachman to drive to the city. We will follow her there.

We see her alight in front of a shop where she makes some purchases. She then motions the coachman to wait for her return and walks on foot through several streets and narrow lanes until she arrives at a stone wall enclosing a garden. There she stops at a door over which is a cross hewn in the stone. She rings the bell, and presently a Hottentot opens the door. He seems to know her, for he nods as if in answer to a question. Madame Corneille enters the house and walks directly to the Rev. Sniff’s room.

Rev. Sniff is a serious looking gentleman in clerical clothes. His narrow forehead is crowned with thin blonde hair. A large mouth with thin lips, the upper of which is very protruding, seems to divide his smooth shaven face into two halves from ear to ear, while his sharply pointed nose and his projecting chin seem to be attracted towards each other, giving him the appearance of a nut 309cracker. Nor is this comparison entirely out of place; for Mr. Sniff had cracked many a hard nut in the interest of his church, and by his eloquence and the unctuosity of his manners he had caused many an inheritance to slip away from it lawful heirs, for the benefit of his congregation.

When Madame Corneille entered the hall, he was reading a novel, but for some as yet unexplained reason no sooner did he heard a step than he hid the book under a sofa pillow and took up a ponderous bible. When he saw Madame Corneille he smiled and rubbed his hands.

“Welcome, my daughter,” he said. “I am always glad to see a faithful member of our blessed church. May I ask you what brings you here this morning?”

“I just dropped in to see how you were doing,” she replied.

“Thanks to the Lord,” said Rev. Sniff, “my health is very good. But how are things at Urur? Are the devils there still having it their own way? Is there no sign of repentance or change of heart?”

“Some more devils have come,” rudely replied Madame Corneille, “and they will soon begin tormenting you unless we put an end to their game.”

“You are right, my daugther, and I see that you are in a good Christian mood. When you were here last, you seemed to have some doubts with regard to the propriety of destroying the devil’s tool. I rejoice to see that the Lord has at last opened your eyes; and hope that you have not forgotten the sacred teaching of your childhood, when at your holy confirmation you were made to promise allegiance to our blessed church. Let us destroy this framework of falsehood which the father of lies has invented the better to blind the eyes of those whose souls he would lead to eternal predition.”

“We have to make a living, Mr. Sniff,” coolly observed Madame Corneille. “If we work for the church, we expect to get paid by the church.”

“My dear Madame Corneille,” was the soft reply. “He who serves the altar is entitled to get his living from the altar, says the Bible: will you help us to do away with the Image?”

“That,” said Madame Corneille, “depends on the conditions we are offered. If we can agree. . . . How much are you willing to pay?”

“The servants of the Lord are poor,” replied the Rev. gentleman. “Why should you care for silver and gold which rusts and is destroyed by the moth? What are all the joys of the earth compared with the blessings which you will receive when you appear before the Eternal; when you receive your heavenly reward in Paradise for having been a successful co-labourer in the sacred cause of religion and gained a victory over the devil!”

“You may as well spare your breath, Mr. Sniff,” said Madame Corneille. “I am not so easily discarded with fine talk. For all the jewels which pave the streets of your heavenly city I could not buy a mess of baked potatoes. It’s quite right that Christianity should gain a victory; but how much are you willing to give for it?”

“O, Madame Corneille!” exclaimed Rev. Sniff. “I actually believe that the poison which these wicked heretics – whom may the Lord destroy – have poured into your ears, has not yet been eliminated from your system. But let me tell you that an influential friend of the church has put a thousand dollars at my disposal, which I may use as I see proper, to advance the cause of religion.”

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“A thousand dollars!” contemptuously chuckled Madame Corneille. “Why Captain Bumpkins or Mr. Green would give me twice that amount, if I would only betray the plot to them. Say ten thousand, and then we may begin talking.”

“Oh, my sister!” groaned Mr. Sniff. “How would you expect to find ten thousand dollars among those who have forsaken the vanities of this world? The missionary funds are almost exhausted, and there has been no famine this year. If I do all in my power, I may perhaps bring up the subscription to two thousand.”

“I shall come some other time, when you are better disposed,” said Madame Corneille, turning to go.

“Stay!” cried the Rev. Sniff, “Suppose I should collect three thousand; what guarantee can you give that we shall succeed in confounding this work of the devil?”

“I will destroy the Image,” she replied.

“This is not enough,” said Rev. Sniff. “Above all it is necessary that you should destroy its reputation; show that all that it has done, has been accomplished by tricks, ventriloquism, and slight of hand.”

“All this is easy enough.”

“Then you will have to show that all its messages are the work of the devil,’’ he continued.

“How can they be the work of the devil if they are done by ventriloquism?” inquired Madame Corneille. “The two statements are incompatible.”

“That does not make any difference,” said Sniff. “People do not reason so deeply. The more theories the better. Each one may then select the explanation that suits him best. Those who do not believe in the devil may choose ventriloquism, and those who do not belive in ventriloquism may go to the devil.”

“I will attend to all that, but not for three thousand dollars.”

“I could not give a cent more; we could not afford it, times are too bad. Doubt and irreligion are on the increase, and the number of infidels are growing at a fearful rate. Scepticism is rampant. It has ceased to be looked upon as a crime, and the authority of the church is openly disregarded. The churches are empty and contributions scarce. If we get a heathen converted, he costs us a great deal more than he is worth. There are numbers of these rascals whom I have baptized a dozen times over, whose faces I know, but who come to me each time under another name so as to get their fee. See the money they cost us. It is only by casting our bread upon the waters that we can expect to get a return.

“I will consult my husband about it,” she said.

“Let me know your decision to-morrow. And now, farewell, my daughter: and may the blessing of the Lord be upon you, so that you may succeed in your undertaking.”

So saying, the Rev. Mr. Sniff gave his blessing to her, and Madame Corneille went away rejoicing over the money which she expected to get. Mr. Sniff watched her through the window, and as he saw her pass out through the door, a malicious grin crept over his face, and he whispered, “There is many a slip between the cup and the lip.” He then snapped his fingers, and took from under the pillow the novel which he had hidden away

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Had Pancho bought the magic mirror, recommended to him by the Hierophant, he would undoubtedly have been able to see that there were some disorganizing elements within the folds of the S. D. W. He would have perceived the devils of vanity, conceit, envy and avarice enter within the sacred precincts of the temple, in spite of Mrs. Honeycomb’s vessels with vitriol; and that they had all one common leader – a great Black Master Magician, an expert in creating illusions, whose name was “Selfishness.” Even the magnetism which the Chelas had accumulated by letting their hair and nails grow to an enormous size did not prove strong enough to serve them as armour, and protect them against the attacks of these unseen enemies. Messrs. Malaban and Ram disliked all non-Africans, and especially those Europeans who were presumptuous enough to aspire to Chelaship in the Mysterious Brotherhood. This was a right which they believed to belong to Africans alone, as the Brothers themselves were said to be of the African race. Neither Mr. Malaban nor Mr. Ram had ever been outside of Africa, nor did they know the least thing about European civilization and science. As a benighted inhabitant of China looks upon all foreigners as barbarians, so these African Chelas considered all Europeans as inferior beings. Mr. Malaban was a descendant of a noble family of Hottentots, while in the veins of Mr. Ram ran the blood of the Caffirs. Both of these gentlemen were co-editors of the “Light from the Shrine,” a journal which expounded the views of the leaders of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom. Mr. Malaban’s writing’s were very much in demand, on account of the self-assurance with which he wrote about things of which he knew absolutely nothing. Mr. Ram wrote little, but talked a great deal. Once the flow of his eloquence had started there was no means of knowing when it would stop.

If we enter the editorial room we find Malaban and Ram holding friendly converse. Both are squatting on the floor, and smoking their pipes. Mr. Malaban had just finished writing an article for the “Light from the Shrine,” and reads it to Mr. Ram. It is as follows:

“Western Science and its Absurdities.

“Some Western ‘scientists’ have again dished up the absurd statement that the moon could not be inhabited, because, as they say, there is neither water nor air in it. One of our ‘esteemed correspondents’ – of course, a European – is innocent enough to ask us whether we believe in that statement. We will not waste our time in entering upon a lengthy examination of the question how these so-called ‘scientists’ can know that there is neither water nor air in the Moon, as they have never been there themselves. All we wish to say is that it has been stated over and over again and repeated in the pages of the ‘Light from the Shrine,’ that there are beings that can live without water and air; and we are, moreover, informed by a higher authority than ourselves, that there is a very ancient book called ‘Gulliver’s Travels,’ which gives an exact description of the inhabitants of the Moon. The time, however, for such revelations to be given out to the world has not yet arrived; nor are we, ourselves, permitted to give out any detailed accounts in regard to the nature of the lunar inhabitants, as such mysteries are not to be divulged to the vulgar. But we

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warn our readers that they should pay more attention to what we write. If they cannot remember what we have already said, let them search the back numbers of our journal, as our time is too precious to be wasted in answering questions which have already been answered, and plainly enough to be understood by anyone gifted with common sense. Even if the bright side of the Moon were without water and air, there is no reason why the dark side of it should not have as much of it as is desirable, if not more.”

“Hit them right!” exclaimed Mr. Ram. “Unless you talk plain English with these fellows, they will have no respect for you. The style of the article is vigorous. They will think it has been dictated by the Talking Image itself. But do you know anything about the inhabitants of the Moon?”

“Not I,” replied Malaban; “but I heard Madame Corneille say to her husband that he looked like the man in the Moon. So of course there must be men in it.”

“These stupid Europeans,” said Mr. Ram, “seem to think that Krashibashi has nothing to do but to answer their foolish questions! Here is a letter from a woman calling herself the Countess of Carnivalli, with a request to submit it to the Mysterious Brotherhood. Listen:

‘My Dear Sir. – I cry to you from the depths of despair. I perceive with horror that I am getting older and uglier with every day. I have read your article on the Elixir of Life, showing how youth and beauty could be restored. I entreat you, for pity’s sake, to send me a bottle of that Elixir, with directions how to use it. Send it C. O. D. All charges will be paid. Yours with the greatest reverence,

‘The Countess Carnivalli.’

“Here is another letter from London,” continued Mr. Ram.

‘Office of David Solomon Hirsch.

‘Mr. Krashibashi Esq., Urur. – Dear Sir. – “Light from the Shrine” received and contents duly noted. Please forward, by return mail, price list of Philosopher’s Stones and samples. We hope to dispose of several gross among Members of Parliament, City and Club men. How much is the amount of commission? – Respectfully,

‘D. S. Hirsch.’”

“How can we send him a Philosopher’s Stone?” remarked Malaban. “I have never seen one myself.”

“Here is also an application for Chelaship,” continued Mr. Ram.

‘Dear Sir. – The undersigned longs to be admitted to Chelaship, and hereby promises the strictest obedience to any and all orders coming from unknown Superiors. Yours very truly,

‘A. Singleton.’”

“He is a suitable person,” saith Malaban. “He must be accepted.”

“Here is another from Madagascar,” said Mr. Ram.

‘Captain Bumpkins. – Dear Sir, – I have the honour to inform you that I have been appointed by the “Society for the Discovery of Unknown Sciences,”

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to go to Urur and investigate the claims of the Mysterious Brotherhood. If they prove to be satisfactory, the Brothers may be certain of the warmest support of our Society. I am here on this island for the purpose of obtaining a specimen of the Unicorn, in the interest of science; but I have not yet been successful. There would certainly be no better occasion for the Mysterious Brothers to prove their wonderful powers than by assisting me in securing a Unicorn. If they grant my request, please ask them also to let me have a specimen of the Phœnix for our ornithological collection. One that has already been reborn from its ashes preferred. – Yours very sincerely,

‘H. Bottler.’”

“We will have to submit this letter to the Talking Image,” said Ram.

“There is no need of bothering Krashibashi about it,” replied Malaban, “I am his Chela, and if I answer it in his name it is just as good as if Krashibashi had written the answer himself.”

“Malaban!” sounded a shrill voice from the top story of the temple. Malaban turned pale, and hurried upstairs to the room where the Image stood. It showed no signs of life, but from its interior sounded a voice, saying:

“Fool! Do not let me hear you say again that a letter written by you is just as good as one written by Krashibashi.”

“I did not know,” stammered Malaban, “that you were listening. I wanted to save Krashibashi the trouble.”

“Begone,” commanded the voice, “and do not plagiarize so much. It all falls back on me.”

“How about the Unicorn?” asked Malaban.

“Tell the Bottler to come,” said the Image. “Avaunt!”

Malaban retired with a reverential bow, but before he had fully descended the stairs, he heard himself called again. Once more he hurried upstairs.

“What are your orders?” he asked the Image.

“Nothing,” it replied. “I wanted to say something, but I have changed my mind.”

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CHAPTER XII. A MIRACLE.

Far be it from us to throw a slur upon any of our fellow-men, or, still worse, to impugn the intelligence of any legally-constituted authority. Nor do we wish to besmirch the memory of good people by attributing wrong motives to what they did. An old proverb says that to him to whom God gives an office He also gives the qualifications necessary to fill it. But in spite of all this, it is true, and the cloak of charity is not long enough to hide the fact, that, in comparatively modern times, at a certain village to which a negro, by some mishap, found his way, he was rubbed and washed by order of the authorities, for the purpose of making him white, because these good and well-meaning people had never heard of black men. The burgomaster, especially, was not a little indignant that a strange vagabond should dare to appear in his presence with such a black face.

It is in the nature of man that he should fear and hate that which he does not know, and persecute that which he does not understand. Thus it has been before, and history never ceases repeating itself. The huntsman is proud of killing a bird such as has never been seen, and the scientist knows of no greater pleasure than to examine a new discovery in its minutest details, even if that examination involves the destruction of the object.

Let the new discovery be a bird of the woods or a truth descended from Heaven for the purpose of redeeming the world, it will always have to be ill-treated by ignorance, misunderstood, and its form destroyed before poor and benighted humanity will awaken to a true understanding of its nature. In vain the history of Galileo is shouted into the ears of the modern scientist, he himself constitutes a petty tribunal of inquisition, and acts like the one which objected to the rotundity of the earth, whenever he finds a truth not in accordance with his adopted opinions.

We do not claim that this should not be so; we believe that everything is the outcome of previously existing conditions, and therefore exactly what is must be. We do not propose to blame the world for not being better than it is; we would merely like to have it clearly understood what it is. Neither credulity nor scepticism is the true saviour of mankind.

The history of Christina Mirabilis, born in 1150 at Luettich, who had the power of flying from tree to tree like a bird, and who could not be caught until some ruffian succeeded in breaking her leg with a stick of wood thrown at her, or that of Joseph of Cupartino, born on July 17th, 1603, at Naples, who was first tortured on the rack by the Holy Inquisition, and afterwards made a saint, because he was in possession of certain powers, of which the majority of other persons do not know that they exist. These and a thousand similar histories 396might be cited to show that Self-opinionatedness is the spouse of Ignorance, and Cruelty is their child.

Nor does the history of the Talking Image of Urur show that those who wish to pry with curious eyes into the mysteries of Nature have become any wiser than their forefathers, who likewise hunted for external proofs, for the purpose of convincing themselves, by argumentation, of the existence of things which they ought to have been capable of perceiving within their own selves.

Phenomena of a strange and occult character continued to take place in the presence of the Talking Image. The ringing of invisible silver bells was often heard in the air, and occult letters were dropped on the heads of the Chelas, but the greatest phenomenon of all that occurred, and one which may truly be considered of a miraculous nature, was that some of the benighted Chelas and Members of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom actually said and wrote certain things, whose character bore self-evident proof that they must have emanated from an intelligence superior to their own. Unfortunately, such an inspiration never lasted. Thus, Mrs. Honeycomb wrote a little book entitled “Rays of Wisdom,” which contained great and exalted thoughts, and was evidently full of divine inspiration; a book which she herself neither understood, nor did she follow the counsels given therein. It was nevertheless, a very remarkable book, and one which seemed to be the outcome of the magnetism of Rataramorubatchi poured upon Mrs. Honeycomb’s head.

Mr. Green, likewise, after having received several numbers of the Edwardsville Herald, sent to him by a friend, and which spoke in a flattering manner of his prospects of being advanced to the hierophantic chair, felt encouraged to sit down and try some of Krashibashi’s magnetism, an effort which we are glad to state was not without a certain result. He went into poetry, and, with his permission, we will give the reader a speimen of his productions: –

“Do you know for what I’m yearning?   Guess, ah, guess what it can be! I am yearning after learning   All ’bout Mulaprakriti. “I am yearning, like the parrots,   Without mustard cannot be, And like mules that yearn for carrots,   After Mulaprakriti.”

If we take into consideration the fact that Mr. Green never wrote any poetry before, we shall clearly perceive that he must have been inspired; for, although the form of the poem is somewhat defective, the underlying ideas are very suggestive and beautiful.

But Pancho’s brain, we are sorry to say, remained entirely inactive, even under the combined influence of the magnetism of Krashibashi and Rataramorubatchi, for, being of a mulish and stubborn nature, he would continually do his own thinking, and not allow the ideas of the Mysterious Brotherhood to take shape in his mind.

Madame Corneille’s occult powers were of a different kind. Her speciality seemed to be the production of direct occult letters without the application of 397magnetism of any kind; and, moreover, the occult letters produced through her strange mediumistic powers offered the extraordinary advantage of always appearing at the time when they best served her purpose.

Thus a few days after the interview between Madame Corneille and Rev. Sniff, Captain Bumpkins found an occult letter while alone in his room. Its contents were as follows:

“My Dear Bumpkins. –

In consideration of the valuable services which you have rendered to the cause of Truth, and as a reward for your indefatigable labours, I am authorised by the great I Am to communicate to you the following:

“You are aware that the chiefs of the Mysterious Brotherhood live in a city called Kakodumbala, situated within the inaccessible mountain regions of the Lybian desert, and guarded by a legion of grim elementals. No mortal foot has ever found the way to the place where we live, nor could it be approached by a balloon, as we would immediately send a thunderbolt to annihilate the intruder; but to you, our esteemed Hierophant, we will disclose the fact that there are subterranean passages leading under the mountains to the doors of our city. He who is wise enough to discover such a passage, courageous enough to enter it and strong enough to encounter the foul air contained therein, if once he safely passes through that passage, to him the doors of our city will be opened, and the remaining years of his Chelaship will be remitted. We will give him a diploma to show to the world that he is a member of the Mysterious Brotherhood and he shall be entitled to wear a green ribbon with the order of the Blue Elephant suspended upon his breast. Hoping that you will make the attempt to find the subterranean passage, so that you may be introduced to the great ‘I Am,’

I remain, Yours faithfully,
“Krashibashi.”

Where, ah, where, can we find words to express and picture the delight which Captain Bumpkins experienced after reading this letter! He made up his mind to immediataly start for the mountains, and discover the subterranean hole. He did not for a moment consider the dangers connected with such a perilous undertaking; he only thought of the diploma, of the order of the Blue Elephant and of his introduction to the great I Am, whom he rightly supposed to be a personage superior to the rest of the Mysterious Brotherhood, and whom he pictured to himself as an old benevolent man, with a long grey beard, dresssd in a white gown, with a crown upon his head, and reading the Bhagavat-Gita.

Thus the Hierophant left, and for several weeks, nothing unusual happened at Urur. Madame Corneille frequently went to the city, presumably to hold interviews with the Rev. Sniff. Mrs. Honeycomb was searching for means to discover the whereabouts of the Black Magicians, Mr. Green occupied himself with evolving thoughts for the benefit of Humanity, and Pancho wasted his time in worrying because he did not know certain things, instead of employing it in seeking to obtain knowledge of them.

At this time some violent attacks were made by certain newspapers upon the Talking Image, and its doctrines. These were said to be pernicious, and the occult phenomena taking place at Urur were denounced as sleight-of-hand performances. They were made, it was averred, by Mr. Green and the other 398Chelas, for the purpose of enticing the gullible 'into the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom. Especially “The Missionary,” a paper published at the city was virulent in his attacks upon the Image, saying that it was possessed by devils, and that all it said was produced by ventriloquism; that Krashibashi and Rataraborumatchi were spooks and impostors, and that the Image ought to be destroyed and its supporters prosecuted by law.

To substantiate these claims a number of letters were published by “The Missionary,” and these letters were said to be copies from originals signed by Krashibashi and Rataramorubatchi. The originals were to be privately shown at the office of “The Missionary,” whose editor was the Rev. Sniff. This threw a great deal of discredit upon the Mysterious Brotherhood, impugning as it did the honesty of Krashihashi, the veracity of Rataramorubatchi and the intelligence of Captain Bumpkins and Mr. Green. The following are some of the specimens, as they appeared.

“Extracts” from The Missionary.

“My Dear Madame Corneille.

The Mysterious Brotherhood is sorely in need of money. Please persuade Captain Bumpkins to appoint a committee to go to London and to rob the Bank of England of a few millions of pounds. Let him choose for that purpose only people of intelligence – if any such may be found. Let them be provided with crowbars and dynamite, and take good care not to be caught.

Yours for the truth, Rataraborumatchi.”

The second letter, in different handwriting, was addressed to the Hierophant.

“My Dear Captain Bumpkins.

You know that every Chela must have a master, whose orders he must obey implicitly, but whom he is not permitted to know until he becomes finally initiated after having had his obedience tested and tried in every way. You will probably soon be offered a high position in the government. Accept it, but whatever the government may order you to do, always remember that you must first of all obey the orders of your unknown Master. Not the enemy of the government, but the enemy of your Master is your enemy. Do not forget this, and all will be well with you, even if the government goes to the deuce.

Yours faithfully, Krashibashi.”

The third letter was in still another handwriting, and to experts that were called in, have never been able fully to determine the name of the mysterious Brother who wrote it. It was as follows:

“Sapristi! Shal we submit to bay our monée to the Gouvernement? Shal we supprimer our raison? Shall we listen to the enseignments of Monsieur le bishop? No, nevare! We will eat up these Hottentots. They will be nothing to us but a dejeuner à la fourchette.”

The last one was signed by the “Talking Image” itself, although it has never been explained how an image of stone could write a letter without being made to write it by some external influence. It ran thus:

“Oh, how weary I am of life in a world where everything without a single exception is the product of ignorance; a world which is only one grand hallucination. Please show me one man or woman who is not a fool and I will thank you for it. Alas, he who thinks that he is not a fool is surely the greatest of all, because life itself is a tomfoolery, and if he were not a fool, he would not have been born at all. What but vanity is even the greatness of the kings in this world. . . .”

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(The rest of the letter – it was stated – could not be published for reasons that are intimately connected with the interests of religion and morality.)

Such villainous and seditious letters, subversive to the authority of church and state, and tending to overthrow the very foundations of society – (for what would become of society if every person should consider the other a fool?) could not be tolerated. Even the friends of the Image did not wish to be told that they were fools; the scientists stormed, the clergy raged, the aristocracy became indignant; the Government was applied to for protection, and the public demanded in a loud voice that the Image should be destroyed.

To crown the exposure, a letter in the handwriting of Mr. Green was found and published in “The Missionary.” It was addressed to a medical man, and its contents were as follows:

“Dear Sir, –

I have been informed that you have a good remedy by which the power of ventriloquism can be developed. Ever since I came to Urur, I and the other Chelas have been engaged in making ‘the Image’ talk by our ventriloquism and we are all affected with sore throat and cramps in the digestive organs. If you can give me any advice, please address.”

“Green Esq, Chela, Urur.”

This letter, which, however, afterwards was declared to be a forgery, settled the matter. It proved beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the Image was not only possessed by devils, but that all its utterances were the results of frauds and impostures produced by Mr. Green, Mr. Malaban and Ram. Henceforth, the clamour of the press, and the outcry of the public, could not be treated any longer with indifference. It was necessary that an example should be made and the culprits be punished.

These were dark days for the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom. While the Hierophant was away, seeking for the subterranean hole that leads to the city of Kakadumbala, they were like a herd of sheep without their leader, not knowing which way to go. In vain Messrs. Malaban, Ram and Green sent lengthy communications to the papers in defence of the Mysterious Brotherhood; the former expressing his contempt for the vile insinuations of “The Missionary,” which he would not have condescended to answer if it were not for the benefit of humanity; while the latter stated that he had studied Latin and Greek, and that, therefore, even a child might see that he was not the man to be easily imposed on. Alas, for poor humanity! All these communications were returned with the ominous words written on the margin, “declined with thanks.” In vain Mrs. Honeycomb, being certain that it all was the work of Black Magicians, substituted nitric acid for the oil of vitriol, the latter having proved to be ineffective to restore harmony at Urur. Krashibashi and Rataramorubatchi seemed to have gone to sleep. Whether they had emigrated, or found it beneath their dignity to meddle with such trifling affairs, has not been ascertained; because Captain Bumpkins was gone and the Chelas were not permitted to tell. At last, however, a communication was given through the “Image,” signed by the great I Am, in which he said that on a certain day he would give a public proof of his power, and existence, and perform a miracle.

This letter created a great sensation, and a kind of armistice was silently agreed upon between the friends and the foes of the Image, until the day of the miracle should arrive.

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At this time an event occurred which created a great sensation among the members of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom. It has never been ascertained how the rumour originated; but on a certain day the news was suddenly spread that a living Adept, a member of the Mysterious Brotherhood, had been seen near the Shrine, and was now inhabiting one of the forests adjoining Urur. The appearance of a man-eating tiger in the vicinity of an African village, would not have created a greater sensation than did this report about the presence of a man who was really wise. The Chelas were seen to run about and gesticulate in an excited manner, and everyone who was not an invalid took to the woods in search of the supposed Adept. Mr. Green along with the others swore that he would not return until he had attained his object.

Pancho went likewise to the forest; but for a different purpose. He had begun to think that it would be of little use to hunt for an Adept from whom to receive further instruction, as long as the instructions which he already possessed were not carried out. Moreover, he was led to believe that spiritual knowledge is of a subjective kind, which cannot be taught by words; but that it consists in a knowledge of certain powers existing within oneself, and which must exist therein before one is able to know them. He cared no more for talk but wanted to study the germs of power existing within himself, and to practise that meditation which is taught in the ancient books. He got the translation of Edwin Arnold’s “Song Celestial,” and read the description in it of a Yogi; that is to say of one who has attained the power of being self-conscious of divine truth.

“. . . . Sequestered should he sit Steadfastly meditating, solitary, His thoughts controled, his passions laid away, Quit of belongings. In a fair still spot, Having his fixed abode – not too much raised Nor yet too low – let him abide; his goods A cloth, a deerskin and the Kusa grass. There setting hard his mind upon the One, Restraining heart and senses, silent, calm, Let him accomplish Yoga and achieve Pureness of soul, holding immovable Body and neck and head, his gaze absorbed Upon his nose end.”

Pancho made up his mind to follow these directions and to try the experiment He knew of a quiet secluded spot near the seashore, where he could practise the ceremony prescribed in the Bhagavat Gita, without being disturbed. He resolved to make the trial. True, he thought that a little more clothing than a cloth would do no harm and he had neither a deer skin nor a supply of Kusa grass; but these were evidently matters of secondary consideration.

So taking his hat he proceeded towards the seashore. He did not follow the road but went through the forest and jungle to a place where stood an old deserted Mahommedan temple whose walls were crumbling to pieces. He mounted the platform in front of it. This platform was about four feet high 401and consequently “not too much raised nor yet too low.” There he sat down, making himself as comfortable as possible, watching for a while the moonbeams playing upon the foaming waves and listening to the sound of the surf. He then tried to keep his body, head and neck immovable, and directed his gaze upon his nose end, not without fear however of getting a permanent squint.

Some months had now elapsed and Pancho had received no further news from his wife. To his troubles about philosophical questions was added the anxiety to know the reason of Conchita’s silence. He had written several letters, but received no answer. He had even began to make himself familiar with the thought that she was dead. In this opinion he was confirmed by the fact that he dreamed of her frequently and believed at times he saw her form even after awakening; but no sooner did his external consciousness become fully re-established, than the apparition disappeared.

He tried to think of nothing, but did not succeed, for thoughts of Conchita came into his mind; when his eyes were attracted to the moonbeams that fell through the branches. Suddenly it seemed to him as if there was a cloud-like mist floating between the trees, and that it grew denser and denser, until it assumed the well-known form of Conchita, robed in white; but far more beautiful than he had ever seen her in life. Her face was radiant with joy, her eyes seemed to penetrate to his very soul, she smiled, and although her lips did not move, nevertheless it seemed to him that he heard her saying:

“Do not grieve my beloved one, all will be well.”

“Is it then true,” thought Pancho, “that you are dead?” and as if in answer to his thoughts the form replied:

“Not dead; but gone before.”

“How happy you seem to be,” cried Pancho, and heard in reply:

“Joy! joy! There is no death. My power to communicate with you is growing stronger. Farewell!”

“Farewell!” echoed Pancho, as the dear form faded away.

How long Pancho sat in that place meditating about the vision he had seen is not known; but he was suddenly disturbed by a voice speaking in solemn accents the words:

“Rum, shrum, Korumbulum, satawaki, Karibaki, Krashibashi.”

It was Mr. Green’s voice, and as Pancho looked around, there in the moonlight stood Mr. Green himself, repeating the above meaningless words. But what was most peculiar about him was that he was dressed in absolutely nothing except a loin cloth, his white flesh forming a strong contrast with the dark background of trees.”

“Rum, shrum, Korumbulum!” it sounded again, when Pancho exclaimed:

“What are you doing, Mr. Green? Are you not afraid of snakes?”

“No snake will bite him who has been selected to become a hierophant,” replied Mr. Green. “I have become a real probationary Chela and I am under the special protection of Krashibashi who will see that I am not bitten by snakes.”

“But what has become of your clothes?” asked Pancho.

“I took them off,” replied Mr. Green, “for it is written that a real Yogi must wear nothing but a loin cloth.

“And what are the words you spoke?” asked Pancho.

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“I am sorry that you have listened,” answered Mr. Green. “They are a sacred formula that was given to me by my guru.”

Pancho looked into the eyes of Mr. Green and what he saw there was – insanity! Then it seemed to him as if he had suddenly become aware of an abyss yawning at his feet, and that he himself was on the verge of it. He knew that if he should go one step further he himself would become a maniac like Mr. Green.

By a good deal of persuasion he prevailed upon Mr. Green to put on his clothes and return home with him. From this simple act of kindness Pancho received more interior satisfaction and spiritual strength, than if he had stood upon one leg for a week, or held his breath for a month, or gone through any similar kind of ceremony prescribed by the Yoga philosophy. In the meantime the day was approaching when Krashibashi was to perform his miracle. On the evening before the great day, numerous visitors had arrived for the purpose of witnessing it. Among the former was Mr. Bottler, in his official capacity as deputy of the Society for the Discovery of Unknown Sciences, and it was on him that now hung the hopes of the S. D. W. He was looked upon as the redeemer who was sure to confound the enemies of the Society, by proving beyond any reasonable doubt the existence of the Mysterious Brotherhood; and what Mr. Bottler said confirmed the members of the S. D. W. in their belief that they would gain a complete victory over their detractors.

“I congratulate the members of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom,” said Mr. Bottler, “that a man of such eminent qualifications as I possess has been selected to investigate the claims of the Mysterious Brotherhood. If these Brothers exist, I say, let their doctrines be believed, by all means; but if they do not exist, then their doctrines should not be accepted, for what they teach can only be pernicious in the extreme. If it can be shown that the raps which were made in the presence of the Image were not produced by the great Krashibashi, but by a being of an inferior order, then I say, I shall not believe for a moment in his theories of evolution; but if Krashibashi himself produced these raps, then I shall announce to the world that his doctrines are true.”

These wise words of Mr. Bottler were received with great applause.

“There can be no doubt that there exists a source of inspiration,” observed Mr. Green.

“If there is such a source,” observed Mr. Bottler, “let it be shown. Let it come forward and show whether or not it can stand the test of scientific research. What is this power which claims to be the source of inspiration? To what category does it belong? What is its chemical composition? How shall it be classified? Let it give us visible and tangible proof of its existence. Until this is done, I for one shall refuse to believe.”

Mr. Bottler was then introduced to Madame Corneille, and they soon became friends. She made to him certain revelations intensely interesting and highly important for the promotion of science. What the exact nature of these revelations was has never been fully revealed, from that day to this. It was merely whispered that Mr. Bottler was provided with a large-sized flask to be corked with Solomon’s seal, and into which he expected to ensnare a living Adept to be henceforward preserved in the Museum of his Society.

Supper, to which a number of guests were invited, was announced. During 403that meal Mr. Bottler astonished the members of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom by his profound learning.

Mr. Green proposed a toast to Mr. Bottler, the representative member of the Society for the Discovery of Unknown Sciences, and in answer to it Mr. Bottler rose and said:

“Well may modern science be proud of the results it has achieved! All that has been formerly considered occult, has now been thoroughly explained, and new discoveries are continually being made by science. Through my own infatigable labours, carried on with an immense amount of patience and exactness for a number of years, I have succeeded in proving beyond the possibility of contradiction, that if we take one of these rotato-spheroidal Calcium-carbonate-exudates of embryonial-gallinaceous intermediary formations” (here Mr. Bottler took up an egg from the table), “and by the exercise of a certain amount of force perforate the polar curvature-maxima of the same situated diametrically opposite, disturbing the equilibrium within the exterior periphery, either by suitable mechanical appliances, or even by physiological means, we may create variations between the internal and external tensions of the fluids contained within the said ovoid body. In consequence of this, the protoplasmic sarcode mass with all the physiological products belonging thereunto, will be expelled either with a constant or varying velocity, in a straight or parabolic direction, according to the fundamental laws governing the hydrodynamic equations of fluidic and semi-fluidic bodies.”

Larger and larger grew the eyes of Mr. Green during Mr. Bottler’s discourse. Formerly he had imagined that to suck an egg it was only necessary to make a hole in each end; but now he saw the profundity of his ignorance. The members of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom listened awe-struck and in silence, and their attention reached its climax when Mr. Bottler proceeded to demonstrate by beautiful experiment the truth of the theory he had so clearly explained. He solemnly perforated the ovoid body; but as the egg was hard boiled – a circumstance which Mr. Bottler could not have foreseen – the experiment failed this time.

The eventful day had arrived.

The great day of the Miracle. Early in the morning large crowds assembled at Urur; but only a certain number of selected people received admission cards to enter the shrine. At the appointed hour the procession could be seen wending its way to the temple. There was Malaban Babu with his unavoidable flag, and Ram-Garu carrying incense, Messrs. Bottler, Green, Pancho, Mrs. Honeycomb with other Chelas, besides a great number of experts and dignitaries that had come from the city to witness the performance. They entered the temple and ascended the stairs leading to the sacred room. They opened the door in solemn silence and raised their eyes in reverential awe. They looked in the direction of the Shrine, and then stared wildly at each other. . . .

The “Talking Image” was gone! ... .

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CHAPTER XIII. THE BOOK OF MYSTERIES.

An indescribable consternation was caused at Urur by the mysterious disappearance of the Talking Image. Those that had come to enjoy the fun of seeing a miracle declared themselves to have been cheated; they stormed and raged and denounced the Image as being the work of the devil. The leaders of the Society for Distribution of Wisdom hung their heads in shame and mortification; because now the existence of sages was beyond the possibility of being demonstrated to science. The Chelas looked wise, but in their wisdom threw out only ambiguous hints; for as a matter of course they were not permitted to tell that which they were supposed to know.

The room of the Image was in perfect order and nothing was missing in it, only the air therein seemed to be somewhat different from what it had been before; but this difference was only perceptible to those who were of a sensitive nature and, for all we know, it may have existed only in their imagination. Everyone agreed that the Image was too ponderous to have been carried away without making a noise that would have attracted attention, as it would have required at least six strong men to bring it down the narrow and winding stairs. There was no blood, nor any burnt remnants, nor any other sign that a crime had been committed. There was only one plausible theory, namely, that it had been thrown out of the window into the river below; and in that case it would have immediately sunk to the bottom on account of its heavy weight. But even this theory was hardly admissible, because the window was found to be fastened from the inside and the room had been carefully locked by Madame Corneille. Immediate search however was made in the river by native fishermen, experts in diving; but nothing was found. The Image was gone. This alone was absolutely certain and beyond the possibility of a doubt. Its goneness required no other scientific proof, but the fact remained that it was absent; a fact which was self-evident even to the most superficial observer and undeniable even by the most stubborn logician; but the manner in which it had left and where it went remained a mystery.

All the researches proved vain. A rich Hottentot offered a considerable sum for the recovery of the Image. The scientific experts appointed one committee after another to find out its whereabouts. They nearly split their heads in investigating the matter; but no trace could be found. They took measurements and photographs of the rooms and chemically analyzed the walls of the buildings; they examined and cross-examined a score of witnesses, accepting such evidence as agreed with the opinions which they had already formed, and rejecting that which seemed to them impossible or improbable, or for which there was no precedent to be found in their books.

Mr. Bottler was furious. He deeply felt his disappointment and mortification which must have been very severe. He had already failed in securing a Unicorn and a phœnix. The petrified wood of Noah’s ark, which he had discovered, was by another scientist proved to belong to a species of tree existing 479posterior to that historical event; in the remnants of the tower of Babylon about which he had written a book, a piece of a coffee-cup was found, bearing an inscription in English and the story of the drowning of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea was by Mr. Bottler’s opponents asserted to be a mere allegory. Now in addition to all that, the bottle wherein he had hoped to capture a Mysterious Brother still stood empty; its open orifice gaping at him in a reproachful manner and as if asking to be filled and closed with Solomon’s Seal. This new failure was therefore very annoying. His reputation as an expert in matters that belong to the occult was at stake. Something must be done to save it. He therefore sat down and wrote deliberately a “Report” to the “Society for the Discovery of Unknown Sciences”; from which we will extract in sum and substance the following points:

1. “The ‘Talking Image of Urur,’ never had any real existence. It was merely an epidemic and collective hallucination caused by a dislocation of the normal threshold of consciousness, a state in which the perceptions of the transcendental subject becomes hopelessly mingled up and confused with the perceptions of the personality and therefore the mind deranged.”

2. “The Mysterious Brotherhood never had and never can have any existence; for it is indisputable that if a class of beings in possession of superhuman intelligence were to exist, they would be intelligent enough not to let slip an opportunity to obtain the endorsement of well-educated and experienced scientists, together with their aid and assistance. The very fact that these “mysterious brothers” failed to appear before a representative of the Discovery of Unknown Sciences, is prima facie evidence that there are none such, or that they are afraid of being examined.”

3. “Viewed from a religio-philosophical-scientific point of view a belief in Talking Images and Mysterious Brotherhoods may without hesitation be pronounced to be a deplorable folly, a degrading and immoral superstition, which ought to be immediately frowned down.”

4. “Your commissioner furthermore suggests that according to his exact mathematical calculations the ‘Talking Image’ must have had a specific gravity surpassing from 1235 to 2272 times that of Platina or Tridium and it consequently follows that its specific pressure upon any conceivable substratum could not have been less than 4040, nor more than 45,440 atmospheric pressures to the square-inch; a weight which cannot be resisted by any known material. It seems therefore, according to my calculations of probabilities absolutely certain that the said Image is now on its way towards the centre of gravitation of this globe, and, according to the law of quadratic acceleration of velocity, it may be supposed to have already arrived at its destination.”

Thus Mr. Bottler’s report made for the time being an end to the belief in Talking Images and Mysterious Brotherhoods, and there were many who, although having seen and conversed with the Image, began to have serious doubts as to whether they had not been deluded, hallucinated or imposed upon in some inexplainable way; because seeing without understanding does not convey true knowledge, nor can any such knowledge be acquired by those who seek to understand that which they have never seen with the eyes of the body or with the eye of the spirit

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With the disappearance of the Talking Image the main source from which the members of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom received that information and those opinions which constituted their “wisdom,” was dried up and exhausted. It is true that there were many who continued to write under the influence of the spirit; but as their doctrines differed from each other, they must have been inspired by a variety of spirits, and could not all have been inspired by the Spirit of Truth.

Thus, while one eminent Fellow of the S.D.W., stated that the inhalation of carbonic gas through both nostrils was necessary to produce a sage; another not less eminent Fellow asserted that the inhalation of such a gas was deleterious to spiritual development and that it would be necessary to inhale pure oxygen by one nostril and blown out by the other.

One authoritatively speaking Fellow found out that it requires a daily consumption of two pounds of pork and three pounds of beans to turn a sinner into a Saint, while another writer, who claimed to be better informed, condemned pork and beans and wanted to raise a crop of Saints by feeding them exclusively on certain quantities of rice and asses-milk.

One wanted to turn the people into Adepts by shutting them up in air-tight underground holes, another proposed for that purpose a small room of sun-dried clay, not more than six feet high and with only one window. Still others taught that to produce a mysterious brother it was necessary to sit cross-legged on the top of a mountain and to hold on to one’s toes. Some suggested that a long woollen ribbon should be swallowed for the purpose of purification and others proclaimed as the only means for salvation the internal application of soap and water.

But we will not enter into a more detailed description of the various external means by which the members of the S. D. W. expected to effect internal, i.e., spiritual perfection, and how by the exercise of their own mortal will they expected to draw down upon them the Light of the Universal Spirit, which comes to man in no other way than by the grace of that Spirit alone. Important as the publication of such vagaries might be for the instruction of those who actually seek for eternal Truth for its own sake and not for their own aggrandizement, their exposure might create ill feelings among some of the still living remnants of that S. D. W., which (we are inclined to imagine) does not exist any more. Ignorance has such an ugly face that whenever a mirror is held up before her, in which to behold herself, she becomes angry, but not any wiser by it.

Love of truth compels us to state that neither Pancho nor Mrs. Honeycomb nor Mr. Green made serious efforts to go through the gymnastic exercises prescribed for those who wish to become sages and saints.

Pancho was still thirsting for knowledge. He, like the rest, did not know that God can only be known to God, or, to express it in other words, that the Truth can only be known to itself. He wanted to grasp with his finite mind the mysteries of infinity. Not having the remotest conception of the nature of the true Faith, he, like the rest, imagined that believing in the statements of well authenticated authorities was identical with true knowledge. He, like the others, did not know that divine truth can only be given by divine truth itself. Not being able to see the Truth, he craved for information about it from others. The Talking Image was gone and could therefore not give him any more inform481mation: he was trying to find not the truth itself but some other person from whom to receive information.

Among the most prominent members of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom, there was a man whose name was Caramba, a very learned person and of superior intelligence. The most singular stories were circulating about him, as to how he was able to control the spirits of nature and make them obey his commands. He was regarded by many as being a member, in disguise, of the Mysterious Brotherhood and it was in fact an open secret within the ranks of the S. D. W. that he had invented a telescope for discovering the Divinity in the Universe.

This man was said to be in possession of a mysterious and very ancient book from which he had learned all that he knew in regard to the mysteries of Nature and God. To obtain a look at that book was now all that Pancho desired; but in regard to this Caramba was extremely reticent, and only after repeated efforts Pancho succeeded in.eliciting a promise from him that it should be produced.

“This book,” said Caramba, “is not in my possession; it is hidden away in a tomb and guarded by grim Elementals. If you have the courage to face those terrible powers of Nature, I may by your aid obtain possession of it.”

Pancho declared that he was ready to dare everything for the sake of the truth, and proposed to go immediately to the tomb where the treasure was hidden.

“Such a difficult work,” said Caramba, “can only be undertaken when the aspect of the constellations is favourable. When the sun enters the sign of Aries, we will begin the work. In the meantime prepare yourself by fasting and prayer.”

Fortunately it was the beginning of the year and the time when the sun enters the sign of Aries was not far away. Soon that day arrived and at midnight, Caramba and Pancho went together to the tomb to rescue the “Book of Mysteries” from the power of the elemental spirits of Nature.

Dark was the night, and the clouds, like sombre phantastic shadows on a still darker background, were floating rapidly over the sky, driven by the wind that sighed in the tree tops. A storm was gathering in the west; these huge masses of solid darkness were seen to advance excluding entirely from sight the light of solitary stars that here and there appeared through rents in the clouds. The road led them through a forest, and at last they stood before a dilapidated edifice, looking like the remnants of an ancient tomb.

Here they entered and descended by a flight of stairs into a subterranean vault. Overgrown with moss were the walls, as Pancho could feel by touching them with his hands on descending. Cautiously they went below and the first thing they saw, after striking a light, was a huge snake of a poisonous kind, gliding over the floor and disappearing in a dark corner.

“Thus,” said Caramba, “when man descends within his own self, in search of the greatest of treasures, his soul, the first object that meets his sight after 482the mental darkness is dispelled is the snake of self-love being driven away by the light of divine wisdom.”

Pancho listened to those words; but they made no impression on his mind. He had never heard of a man descending within himself, and did not know how it could be done. As to finding himself, he thought that he had found his own self long ago in his thoughts. He had always lived in his thoughts; that is to say in the realm of the Imagination. He did not know that there was another realm in which a man could live; the realm of self-conscious Will.

Caramba now opened the bag which he had brought with him and which contained six candles, a book, piece of chalk, and a dagger. The six candles he lighted and stuck them on the ground in the form of a circle, and then by means of the piece of chalk he drew a smaller circle upon the ancient marble floor; but the dagger he took unto himself, and bidding Pancho to follow him he entered the circle and opened the book which he had brought with him, and which was said to contain the secret formulas necessary to be pronounced for the conjuration of the elemental spirits of nature.

A glance at that book convinced Pancho that it was nothing more nor less but “Ollendorf’s ready method of learning French”; whereupon he expressed to Caramba his surprise and astonishment; but the latter said:

“I do not know French, and the sentences in this book are all gibberish to me; but it will make no difference in which way I will arouse my will to defy the dwellers of the threshold, that stand guard over the Book of Mystery. Listen in awe and be silent, and under no circumstances leave the magic circle that will surely protect you.”

Thereupon Caramba began his conjuration, reading in a loud and solemn voice the words that were printed in that French grammar, and his voice sounded dismally, reverberating from the walls of the vault.

“Monsieur!” it sounded, “s’il vous plait, donnez moi votre canif.”

“Oui, Monsieur, je vous le rendrai!”

More and more terrible sounded the voice of Caramba, his eyes were lit up by a supernatural fire, such as causes the lion to divert his head from the penetrating looks of his guardian and the tiger to slink away from his intended prey. A strange influence seemed to pervade the air of the vault and the walls seemed to tremble. Suddenly one of the lights went out and then another and when the sixth candle was extinguished by that invisible power which seemed to pervade the place like some horror that can be felt by the soul, but neither seen with the eyes nor touched by the hands, groans and cries of distress were heard as if issuing from the bowels of the earth and strange forms seemed to flit about in the gloom, that seemed to be alive and substantial; but they were not defined enough to show what character for good or for evil they were intended to represent.

Fain would Pancho have left; but his body was as if paralyzed – not with fear – but as by a withdrawing of his vitality that seemed to be absorbed by these invisible beings and give life to them. At last a gleam as if of some supermundane light seemed to issue from the ground, there appeared to be a cave in the floor, where before no such opening had been seen; and at the bottom of the cave was an open casket containing the scrolls that constituted the “Book of Mysteries.”

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“Est-ce que mouchoirs appartiennent à messieurs les étrangers ou à messieurs les anglais?” “Non, monsieur, ils appartiennent à moi!” sounded the voice of Caramba, assuming an indescribable pitch, and the scrolls were seen to rise from the casket, and as if carried by invisible hands, they floated into the circle and were laid at Caramba’s feet. As soon as this was accomplished a clap of thunder seemed to shake the earth in its foundation; the rain was heard to fall down in torrents above the vault; but within the cave all was tranquil, and as if ignited by some magic power the six candles were burning again.

“It is accomplished!” said Caramba. “The book which has for centuries been promised to the world, is now in our possession. Thus is the will of man victorious over the inhabitants of the Astral Light.”

Home they went through the mire and the splashing rain, and for several days Pancho kept on poring over the contents of the Book of Mysteries; receiving therefrom however no benefit; for although that book contained the greatest of truths; he was not in possession of the key necessary for their comprehension. That key is the understanding; for there can be no other key to the understanding of Wisdom, than Wisdom itself.

Many years afterwards, when by the Mercy of God a better light had come over Pancho’s mind, he could see the wisdom of these contents; but at that time they appeared to him as utter folly and nonsense; so that he threw away the copies which he had taken, and of which only a few remnants have been recovered which we herewith present to the reader as examples to show what Wisdom was contained within that mysterious book.

Extracts from the Book of Mysteries.

One of the scrolls preserved contained a prescription for the purpose of preserving perpetual youth. It read as follows:

“If you wish to preserve your youth, or after having become old, turn young again; rub yourself two or three times a week with the juice of Cassia, and every night before going to bed, lay upon your heart a plaster, made of the following ingredients:

Oriental Saffron, Red Rose leaves, Sandal wood, Aloes and Amber.

Liquefy the whole in a sufficient quantity of Oil of Roses and add enough of White Virgin-Wax to give it the necessary consistency. In the morning this must be taken off and carefully enclosed in a leaden box (♄) to be preserved till the following night, when it is again to be applied.”

Another scroll contained a still more incomprehensible prescription. It was said to be the sum and substance of all that was necessary to prepare the Philosopher’s Stone; as it indeed is, as all will see, provided they are capable to understand its secret meaning. It was a prescription given by Theophrastus Paracelsus and was as follows:

“If you wish to prepare the true Philosopher’s Stone, all you will have to do is to transform the moon in the sky into pure water, and throw her upon the earth. You will then have accomplished a great miracle. Clean her again from all impurity, and put her into her old place, and she will then shine more beautiful than before; but if she is melancholy, put her into a bath of beauty, and paint her with the abiding splendour taken from the raw earth, a process that will be agreeable to her. Force her to remain in that bath for a while, and she will then remain voluntarily in it for ever, and you may render her tractable according to your pleasure.”

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This was more than Pancho could endure. He had never heard of any other moon than the eternal moon, the satellite of our planet, and, as a matter of course, nobody could treat her in the way prescribed by Paracelsus. He already felt his head swimming. He was now fully convinced that books on occultism were useless trash, and the hermetic philosophers nothing less than lunatics, that ought to be shut up in a madhouse; and if these prescriptions had not been sufficient to produce in him that conviction, the reading of the following story contained in the Book of Mysteries, would have been alone enough to convince him.

An Alchemical Story.

A student of the secret sciences wanted to learn the art how to make pure gold by artificial means. He applied for instruction to a sage who had travelled for many years in the East, and was well versed in alchemy. At first the sage was unwilling to teach the secret, but at last he consented. He gave to the student a little of a red powder in a small bottle, and told him to melt ten pounds of lead in a crucible, and then to add the tenth part of a grain of the red powder, boiling the same together for a quarter of an hour, after which all the lead would be transformed into gold. He, however, entreated and implored him, that during the time of boiling the lead, he should not let the thought of a rhinoceros come into his mind; “for,” he said, “if you think about a rhinoceros during that time, the whole process will be spoiled, and you will have at the end nothing but boiled lead.”

Thereupon the student of the secret sciences promised to follow the advice of the sage. He immediately procured some lead and a crucible, and proceeded to try the experiment. He tried it very often; but every time, when the lead began to boil, the thought of a rhinoceros came into his mind, and the more he tried to avoid it, the more did he think of that beast, and his process was spoiled every time. At last the red powder was all gone, and the sage refused to give him another supply. Then the student, having wasted his time and his money, became very angry, and cursed the sage, and said that he would never have thought of a rhinoceros if the sage had not mentioned it to him.

When Pancho had finished reading the scrolls, he flung them into a corner. Full of disgust, he went to Caramba, and said:

“Do you want to make sport of me by representing to me a book filled with impossible prescriptions and puerile stories as being a book full of wisdom? Well it would be, if it had been left in the hands of the grim Elementals; for more stupid nonsense I never saw in my life.”

“I always thought,” answered Caramba, “that there was something queer about these prescriptions.”

“And did it, then, never occur to you,” asked Pancho, “that all such books are written by madmen, published by idiots, and bought only by fools?”

“The fact of the matter is,” replied Caramba, “that he who wishes to judge about religious matters correctly, and wants to know the secrets of Alchemy, must know in what country the Paradise was situated and what kind of apples grew therein. He must know of what kind of wood Noah’s ark was built and what kind of animals were contained therein. What kind of water was transformed into what kind of wine at the wedding at Cana and what were the names of the parties that contracted the marriage. What kind of cement was used at 485the building of the Tower at Babylon and from what kind of a tomb did Christ resurrect after his crucifixion. Where does the best Mercury grow and what is the original cause of the rainbow?”

To this Pancho answered and said:

“The fact of the matter is, that I care nothing about the place where the Paradise was situated, nor about the apples that grew in that garden. I am not interested in Noah’s ark, neither do I care a straw about the animals that were contained therein. It is a matter of perfect indifference to me what kind of wine was made at the wedding of Cana, nor am I anyway concerned in the marriage of strangers. The cement used at the building of the Tower of Babylon was probably some kind of Portland cement and the tomb from which Christ was resurrected was presumably like any other tomb in that country. Mercury is a mineral and does not grow upon trees, and as to the cause of the rainbow, if you ever come to a civilized country, most any schoolboy will be able to inform you about it.”

So saying Pancho walked away.

Just about at that time a great split occurred in the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom. Some of the members had been led to disbelieve in the existence of the Mysterious Brotherhood, while others still believed in it, and as the truth of everything that the Society knew or believed to know, depended on the say-so of those Brothers, it was a most serious matter, for it was said that if they existed, then that which was taught in their name must be true; while if they did not exist, then all must be false (a most logical conclusion!), and thus perhaps, for the first time in the history of the world the life of Universal Truth was made to depend on the existence of a body of unknown Adepts, instead of the existence of the Adepts depending on the presence of the truth.

Thus the black magicians in spite of all precautions taken by the secret committee of defence did their work most effectively. The storm of passion was aroused and different opinions clashed together like waves in a stormy sea in the outer circle of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom. But in the inner circle to which only those belonged that were more advanced, the initiated ones, to whom some of the more serious secrets had been confided, dissensions of a different character took place. There were some who said among the three Wings that appeared at the cradle of Christ, Melchior was the first, Balthasar the second, and Kaspar third. Others maintained that Melchior was the first and Kaspar the second; while still others attempted to prove by historical evidence, at once logical and convincing, that Kaspar was the first and superior, attributing to Melchior only an inferior character and to Balthasar no value at all.

Thus the inner section of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom became divided against itself in three different camps. There were the Melchiorites, the Kasparites and the Balthasarites, and they fought among themselves with the same intrepidity that characterised the theologians of the middle-ages when the world was stirred into commotion by their attempts to decide the important question, whether Adam in Paradise was or was not in possession of a navel.

But as to Pancho, we are sorry to say, he had become entirely indifferent to all that.

He cared no longer about the Mysterious Brotherhood, nor about the three Wings of the East, and he was even heard to utter the blasphemy, that it would be safer to put one’s faith in the truth itself, than in the assertions of Krashibashi or Rataraborumatchi or any other Adept, whether he existed or not. By expressing such views he made himself many enemies among the members of the Society for the Distribution of Wisdom. He finally resolved to return to his home.

(To be continued.)

Footnotes

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