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II.

It fell on this wise. You have heard me say that by profession I am a civil engineer. When I came out of my articles I thought that I did not know nearly enough about mechanical engineering to be a good all-round man, so for three years I went into a workshop and learnt all I could, which was considerable, because I loved the work. Then I took a billet on a steamer as engineer, so as to see the world a little, and, at this business, I made a couple of trips to Canada, one to the West Indies, and one to Japan. When I was coming home from Japan as third engineer, we had as our second a queer old fellow to whom I took a great fancy, and he also conceived a strong liking for me."

"He must have been a queer sort of fellow," murmured Nelly.

"Yes, he was," said Jack, "but you mustn't interrupt.—He had lived in the East almost all his life, and was strongly tinctured with the Oriental mysticism and love of out-of-the-way knowledge. He wasn't exactly a spiritualist, but he believed in all kinds of bogey influences, and there was something in him far above the mere credulous devourer of idle tales.

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He knew much of the philosophy current in those ancient lands, and hour after hour he would descant on the mysteries lying behind the phenomena of our common lives, till he infected me and made me almost as wild an enthusiast as himself. I became eaten up with the desire for knowledge hidden from the majority of my countrymen, and I was always at him to allow me to get a peep behind the veils, and become an initiate of some of those strange secret societies which he assured me carried on their remarkable work in places little visited by man. I went so far at last as to tell him that I had determined to renounce my profession (I have a small independent income) and pursue the search alone, if he would only give me the addresses of men in Asia who could help me to the knowledge I was pining for. At last, just before we separated, he yielded, and gave me the name of an old Brahmin whose dwelling was not far from the caves of Elephanta. To this old priest he gave me a letter of introduction written in some character that I could not read. I made a brief stay in England to get together a proper outfit, and then sailed for Bombay, presented my credentials to the priest, and told him that I was ready to become his pupil on any terms and for any length of service, and that I was ready to submit to any training however hard or long that would end in securing my novitiate. Unhappily, however, I had come too late. The old man was too infirm, he was indeed then sick unto death. He heard me patiently and with sympathy, commending my resolve as being the only desire worthy of an immortal being, but he gave me no hope that he would be able to instruct me in the path."

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"How did you manage to understand him?" said Nelly.

"Oh," replied Jack, "he talked beautiful English, far more grammatical and elegant than mine; for you may have noticed, dear, that I talk slang sometimes."

"Yes Jack, sometimes," said Nelly, archly.

"Everything he told me made me wish more and more to get at this knowledge which he averred held the mastery over all secrets of nature, and even over those things which we consider supernatural. He spoke of 'the last word of the Master,' which is alluded to in so many ancient legends of people now scattered to the ends of the earth. I said to him 'What is the effect of the Master-word? Does it only give control over the minds and actions of men?'

"'I myself,' he answered, 'who am of the Outer Circle, have never spoken nor heard the Master-word, that is for the few, or perhaps the One, that in all ages kept the sacred secret of its power. They who, like me, share a part of the lesser knowledge have power over the minds and actions of men, but they who stand near the Light exert the real power of which ours is but a ghost, a thin spiritual phantom.'

"I told him that I could not understand, and asked him to put it into words, so that I, a little child in understanding, might get a fuller idea of the position.

"'It is thus,' said the Brahmin, 'we, of the Outer Circle, have a power drawn from the Heaven of Illusion. You know that in the upward lives of the soul it rests each time after its bodily death in the Heaven of Illusion (Devachan). This is the heaven in which each receives what, in this world, has been to him the desire celestial; to the hunter, his hunting grounds crowded with game; to the worshipper of beauty, new and page 14endless shapes of loveliness; to those who care for domestic pleasures, continuous dwelling in the presence of those loved on earth. But all these things are spirit-reflections; to each soul they seem real, and so to each is the heaven they have desired, but nought has substance. All gradually fades away till, after perhaps centuries, the rested spirit incarnates once more and returns to the earthly pilgrimage. It is from this heaven we draw illusion, and bewitch the eyes of men with powers that seem real but are mere tricks of the senses overshadowed by another's will; influences cast by us upon the perceptions of human beings. Thus grows the mango tree from the flag-stones of the market place; the balls are thrown aloft and do not fall again, the figure climbs the endless rope to disappear into the sky. This is the witchcraft of the East, spoken of as juggling, but to be explained by no juggler, and with its secret virgin to the uninitiate. But the Master-word is not with us. For him possessing that precious secret the veil of illusion is rent away, and he holds power over the actual realities of the world. His touch rends the solid rock at will, not in appearance but in fact; for him the vivid lightning burns and scathes; and, better still, for him the earth breaks into fruit and flower. Before him pestilence melts like a mist, and health blows across the land like a pure wind: before the glance of his calm eyes the sin and sorrow of men take wings and fly away. But for the presence of such in the human world it would have long ago have grown corrupt and decayed; these are the world's heart beating out healthy blood through innumerable arteries and drawing back the changed, affected current through the countless veins,'

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"'Why,' I asked him, 'have you never attained to the Inner Circle? Have you not wished to perfect yourself?'

"'My life,' answered the old priest, 'has been one long desire, one burning thirst for attainment, but it comes not with desire, nor is it reached by passionate craving. It comes to whom it comes, to those who are chosen and set apart. Rest assured of this, that while the desire to improve and go upward remains with you, so long you are not alone nor far from help. You are being led, guided by unseen hands charged with your care. Led, though you know it not; nearer every hour though you do not seem to have gained a pace, and sometimes only the thickness of the Veil's substance from the dazzling glory. May you lift that Veil and see! For me the end is near, and I have now but the hope that when I have rested and again put on the robe of life I may be counted worthy. For you, go, strive; it may be that you will prove by your efforts that you are among those from whom the elect are chosen, and that you may learn the great secret.'

"'How can I?' answered I. 'How can I hope to succeed without years of preparation? I must be a pupil before even the possibility of such a power can be conferred upon me. Tell me to whom to apply,'

"'I know of no such teacher in India; none of those who have the necessary training would care to impart it to a foreigner. If you would take a long journey to the Eastern Seas, there in the far-away Islands of the Archipelago, in the sacred land of Bali is a priest of Mahomet in whose breast are locked many secrets. He was wiser than I even when we parted many years ago, and if he is alive and you give him a certain sign which I can teach you, he may listen to your prayer for instruction.'

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"'A Mussulman!' I said. 'You, a Brahmin, send me to one yon count an infidel?'

"'My son,' said the priest, 'in the path yon seek to tread there is neither orthodox nor heretic — he is the only infidel who is infidelis — unfaithful — to the truth.

"I sailed from India for Bali, and reached the harbor of Bleling. I went inland to the town of Carang- Assem, to which I had been directed. The religion of the people is so strict and their devotion to the worship of Siva so intense that my enquiries for the Moslem priest were evidently distasteful, but I made a friend of the Rajah of Kalongkong, the chief of the island priests, and he ordered me to receive assistance in my search. At last I got on the tracks of my old Mussulman, whom I found living in a very poverty-stricken manner, clothed only in the sabok the robe of the common people.

"I presented myself before the moolah, and, making the brotherhood sign, informed him of my wish for initiation. To my dismay he answered in Arabic, then changed the dialect to Baliaese, evidently unable, like my Brahmin friend, to speak European languages. I had to look about some time to get an interpreter, and after much trouble got hold of one — a regular muff, too.

"On again presenting myself with the interpreter and explaining my wishes, I was met with a flat refusal. He said that he could not impart any teaching through a third person, and that it would be years before I could get such a knowledge of Arabic as would allow me to understand the refinements and subtleties of philosophy. 'Besides,' he added, 'the power still lies eastward. Go to the city of Giant Ruins.'

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"I had heard of Easter Island and its huge statues, and I told him that I was afraid there were none of the people, certainly none of the priests, left there.

"He said, 'Not so far, not so far by many thousand miles. Go to Ualan and Ponapè. In Ualan, among the ruins, half hidden in forest undergrowth and buried in the earth, are rooms wherein are held the lodges of initiation. There you may take the step which will put your foot on the upward way.'

"'But,' I remonstrated, 'those people are savages; do you tell me to turn my back on the learning of Europe and the wisdom of Asia to seek among barbarians the way of knowledge?'

"'You are but a child,' said the old man. 'I did not say that with them lay the secret; they have never attained; they are but as the still quiet earth in which the seed is buried deep, too deep for growth, but it lies there preserved in safety for the chosen ones. You are indeed a child to despise the humbler and more primitive races of men. Have you not heard how the wise are sometimes denied the light, and that it is "revealed unto babes." These barbarians are the world-infants. Go and learn of them.'

"I saw that it was useless to press the old Moslem further, and leaving Bali dropped down through the countless islands of the Archipelago, till with much trouble and no little expense I managed to get a passage in a trader bound to the Carolines, and was landed at Ponapè."

"Are you never coming to the point, Jack?" said Nelly. "I wanted to know about that scar on your forehead, and you have wandered off into talks with old priests about religion or mythical stuff of all kinds."

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"You dear, inconsistent girl," answered Jack; "didn't I tell you again and again that it would be a long story? You couldn't understand why I got hurt unless I told you how I put myself in such a position. But, if you like, the story can be told in half-a-dozen words. A nigger in Ponapè did it with his tomahawk. Finis."

"Now, dear Jack," said Nelly, "you won't be cross with me, will you? You know that I wouldn't hurt or offend you for worlds."

Jack had to be persuaded by many coaxings not confined to words before he would take up the thread of his anecdote, but at last consented.