Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts | Page 6

first cage, a man scourged with rods; in the
second, a body twisted on the rack; in the third, a woman with a
starving babe, and a fellow that held food to them and withdrew it

quickly (the torturers wore masks on their faces, and whenever blood
flowed some threw handfuls of sawdust, and blood and sawdust
together were carried off by the running water); in the fourth cage, a
man tied, naked and helpless, whom a masked torturer pelted with discs
of gold, heavy and keen-edged; in the fifth a brasier with irons heating,
and a girl's body crouched in a corner--
"I will see no more!" I cried, and turned towards the great purple
canopy. High over it the sun broke yellow on the climbing tiers of seats.
"Harry! someone is watching behind those curtains! Is it--HE?"
Harry bent his head.
"But this is all that I believed! This is Nero, and ten times worse than
Nero! Why did you bring me here?" I flung out my hand towards the
purple throne, and finding myself close to a fellow who scattered
sawdust with both hands, made a spring to tear his mask away. But
Harry stretched out an arm.
"That will not help you," he said. "The man has no face."
"No face!"
"He once had a face, but it has perished. His was the face of these
sufferers. Look at them."
I looked from cage to cage, and now saw that indeed all these
sufferers--men and women--had but one face: the same wrung brow,
the same wistful eyes, the same lips bitten in anguish. I knew the face.
We all know it.
"His own Son! O devil rather than God!" I fell on my knees in the
gushing water and covered my eyes.
"Stand up, listen and look!" said Harry's voice.
"What can I see? He hides behind that curtain."
"And the curtain?"

"It shakes continually."
"That is with His sobs. Listen! What of the water?"
"It runs from the throne and about the floor. It washes off the blood."
"That water is His tears. It flows hence down the hill, and washes all
the shores of earth."
Then as I stood silent, conning the eddies at my feet, for the first time
Harry took my hand.
"Learn this," he said. "There is no suffering in the world but ultimately
comes to be endured by God."
Saying this, he drew me from the spot; gently, very gently led me away;
but spoke again as we were about to pass into the shadow of the arch--
"Look once back: for a moment only."
I looked. The curtains of the imperial seat were still drawn close, but in
a flash I saw the tiers beside it, and around, and away up to the sunlit
crown of the amphitheatre, thronged with forms in white raiment. And
all these forms leaned forward and bowed their faces on their arms and
wept.
So we passed out beneath the archway. Grey Sultan stood outside, and
as I mounted him the gate clashed behind. . . .
IV
I turned as it clashed. And the gate was just the lodge-gate of
Sevenhays. And Grey Sultan was trampling the gravel of our own drive.
The morning sun slanted over the laurels on my right, and while I
wondered, the stable clock struck eight.
The rest I leave to you; nor shall try to explain. I only know that, vision
or no vision, my soul from that hour has gained a calm it never knew
before. The sufferings of my fellows still afflict me; but always, if I

stand still and listen, in my own room, or in a crowded street, or in a
waste spot among the moors, I can hear those waters moving round the
world--moving on their "priest-like task "--those lustral divine tears
which are Oceanus.

THE SEVENTH MAN.
In a one-roomed hut, high within the Arctic Circle, and only a little
south of the eightieth parallel, six men were sitting--much as they had
sat, evening after evening, for months. They had a clock, and by it they
divided the hours into day and night. As a matter of fact, it was always
night. But the clock said half-past eight, and they called the time
evening.
The hut was built of logs, with an inner skin of rough match-boarding,
daubed with pitch. It measured seventeen feet by fourteen; but opposite
the door four bunks--two above and two below--took a yard off the
length, and this made the interior exactly square. Each of these bunks
had two doors, with brass latches on the inner side; so that the owner, if
he chose, could shut himself up and go to sleep in a sort of cupboard.
But as a rule, he closed one of them only--that by