The Mystics | Page 5

flood of light--crimson, rose-color, and
gold--poured out into the night.
CHAPTER II
In the first moment of astonishment, John stood motionless, his gaze
riveted on the glow of color that poured through the window upon the
rocks and heather of the cleft. Then, as he continued to stand with
widely opened eyes, another surprise was sprung upon him. The door
of the chapel opened and the figure of his uncle--long since supposed to
be sleeping tranquilly in his own room--showed tall and angular in the
aperture.
[Illustration: "THE FIGURE OF HIS UNCLE ... SHOWED TALL
AND ANGULAR IN THE APERTURE"]
From John's position, the open door and the lighted interior of the little
edifice were distinctly visible; and in one glance he saw his uncle's
silhouetted figure and behind it a bare space some dozen feet square,
lined on floor and walls with sections of marble alternately black and
white. From the ceiling of this chamber depended an octagonal symbol
in polished metal, and close by the door eight wax candles flickered
slightly in the faint stir of air. But his astonished and inquisitive eyes
had barely become aware of these details when Andrew Henderson

turned towards the circular sconce in which the candles were set and
began to extinguish them one by one. As the light died, he stepped
forward and John drew back sharply; but at his movement a stone,
loosened by his heel, went rolling down into the hollow. And a moment
later his uncle, glancing up, saw his figure outlined against the
luminous sky.
What the outcome of the incident would have been on any other
occasion, it is difficult to say. As it was, the moment was propitious.
Old Henderson, surprised in an instant of exaltation, was pleased to put
his own narrow, superstitious construction on the boy's appearance.
Laboring under an abnormal excitement, he showed no resentment at
the fact of being spied upon; but calling John to him, ordered him to
walk home beside him across the cliff.
Never was walk so strange--never were companions so ill-matched as
the two who threaded their way back over the headland. Andrew
Henderson walked first, talking all the time in a jargon addressed partly
to the boy, partly to himself, in which mysticism was oddly tangled
with a confusion of crazy theories and beliefs; behind came John, half
fascinated and wholly bewildered by the medley of words that poured
out upon the night.
On reaching the house, the old man became suddenly silent again,
falling back as if by habit into the morose absorption that marked his
daily life; but as he turned to mount the stairs to his own room, he
paused and his curious light-blue eyes travelled over his nephew's face.
"Good-night!" he said. "You make a good listener."
And John--still confused and silent--retired to bed, to lie awake for
many hours, partly thrilled and partly elated by the awesome thought
that there was a madman in the house.
* * * * *
But all that had happened seven years ago, and now Andrew Henderson
lay waiting for his end. In those seven years John had passed through

the mill of deadly monotony that saps even youth, and lulls every
instinct save hope. The first enthusiasm of romance that had wrapped
the discovery of his uncle's secret had faded out with time. By slow
degrees he had learned--partly from his own observation, partly from
the old man's occasional fanatic outbursts--that the strange chapel with
its metal symbol and marble floor was not the outcome of a private
whim, but the manifestation of a creed that boasted a small but ardent
band of followers. He had learned that--to themselves, if not to the
world--these devotees were known as the Mystics; that their articles of
faith were preserved in a secret book designated the Scitsym, which
passed in rotation each year from one to another of the six
Arch-Mystics, remaining in the care of each for two months out of the
twelve. He had discovered that London was the Centre of this sect; and
that its fundamental belief was the anticipation of a mysterious
prophet--human, and yet divinely inspired--by whose coming the light
was to extend from the small and previously unknown band across the
whole benighted world.
He had learned all these things. He had been stirred to a passing awe by
the discovery that his uncle was, in his own person, actually one of the
profound Six who formed the Council of the sect and to whom alone
the secrets of its creed were known; and for three successive years his
interest and curiosity had been kindled when Andrew Henderson
travelled to England and returned with the Arch-Councillor--an old
blind man of seventy--who invariably spent one day and night
mysteriously closeted with his host and