The Rajah had regained self-possession and declined the proffered

courtesy in his usual cold and sneering manner, adding with a crafty

smile and with covert meaning, which perplexed and startled Bertram: "It is a wise man who familiarizes himself with the grave. For me; I

must deny myself, for I go tomorrow to take part in festivities the

reverse of funereal. I commend the propriety and aptness of your

researches, Atma Singh."

So saying he withdrew with a salaam that failed to cover the swift

scowl he bestowed on Bertram.

"There goes an enemy, Atma Singh," said Bertram, watching the retreating

figure arrayed in barbaric splendour, the profusion of the enormous

emeralds that adorned his yellow robe so subduing its hue that Bertram's

thrust was unmerited, as far as his attire was concerned at least. "He

is a foe to fear, unless I greatly mistake, an enemy of the serpent

kind," he continued.

But they speedily forgot the craft of the serpent, and pursued their

walk, conversing as they went.

Some tenets, they found, were familiar to the minds of both, and these,

they observed, might be called historical. Such were the vague

whisperings of things that occurred in the dawn of young Time before the

earliest twilight of story--traditions that linger as shades among the

nations, vague hints of former greatness and of a calamity, a crime

whose enormity is guessed by the magnitude of its shadow hovering over

the earth, shrouding men's cradles and darkening with a menace their

tombs. Such too were the joyful surmisings of a restoration, such the

imaginings of "That bright eternal day

Of which we priests and poets say

Such truths as we expect for happy men."

"Your story of the world's creation is strangely in accord with ours,"

said Bertram. "Our narrative is more precise, but the things stated so

clearly typify we know not what; and we and you are, I doubt not, wisest

when we own ourselves ignorant. Who can tell what is implied in the tale

of the birth of Time out of Eternity, ascending through seven gradations

to we know not what consummation when this seventh epoch of rest shall

be run?"

"The words of the wise," said Atma, "assign to all things perpetuity,

which involves a repetition of the cycle of Seven. Does the week of

seven days repeating itself endlessly in time, image the seven epochs

which, returning again and again, may constitute eternity?"

Bertram paused before he replied-"Your words move me, Atma Singh, for I have heard that on the first day

of a new week a Representative Man rose from the dead."




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