Idolatry

After his departure less was known, than before of how things went on behind the brick wall. The gateway was filled in with masonry. No one was ever seen entering the enclosure or leaving it; though it was supposed that, somehow or other, communication was occasionally had with the outside world. As knowledge dwindled, legend grew, and wild were the tales told of the invisible Doctor and his foster-son. In his youth, the former had been suspected of simple witchcraft, but he was not let off so easily now. Manetho was first dubbed a genie whom the Doctor had brought out of Egypt. Afterwards it was hinted that these two worthies were in fact one and the same demon, who by some infernal jugglery was able to appear twain during the daytime, but resumed his proper shape at night, and cut up all manner of unholy capers.

By another version, Doctor Glyphic died in Egypt, not before bargaining with the Prince of Darkness that his body should return home in charge of a condemned soul under the guise of Manetho. During the day, affirmed these theorists, the body was inspired by the soul with phantom life; but became a mummy at night, when the condemned soul suffered torments till morning. With sunrise the ghastly drama began anew. This state of things must continue until the sun shone all night long within the brick wall enclosure.

A third, more moderate account is that to which we have already listened from Charon's lips. And he perhaps built on a broader basis of truth than did the other yarn-spinners. But under whatever form the legend appeared, there was always mingled with it a vaguely mysterious whisper relating to the alleged presence in the Doctor's Den (so the enclosure was nicknamed) of an apparition in female form. What or whence she was no one pretended soberly to conjecture. Even her personal aspect was the subject of vehement dispute; some maintaining her to be of more than human beauty, while others swore by their heads that she was so hideous fire would not burn her! These damned her for a malignant witch; those upheld her as a heavenly angel, urged by love divine to expiate, through voluntary suffering, the nameless crimes of the demoniac Doctor. But unless the redemption were effected within a certain time, she must be swallowed up with him in common destruction. Were the how and wherefore of these alternatives called in question, the answer was a wise shake of the head!

The gentle reader will believe no one of the fantastic legends here recorded; possibly they were not believed by their very fabricators. They are useful only as tending to show the moral atmosphere of the house and its occupants. There is sometimes a subtile symbolic element inwoven with such tales, which--though not the truth--helps us to apprehend the truth when we come to know it. Moreover, the fanciful parts of history are to the facts as clouds to a landscape; a picture is incomplete without them; they aid in bringing out the distances, and cast lights and shadows over tracts else harsh and bare.