The Virgin of the Sun | Page 8

with whom?"
"Who? why, ghosts, of course, as you would call them in your
ignorance. Spirits of the dead I name them. Beautiful enough, too,
some of them. Look at that one there," and he lifted the lantern and
pointed to a pile of old bed posts of Chippendale design.
"Good day, Potts," I said hastily.
"Stop where you are," repeated Potts. "You don't believe me yet, but
when you are as old as I am you will remember my words and believe--
more than I do and see--clearer than I do, because it's in your soul, yes,
the seed is in your soul, though as yet it is choked by the world, the
flesh, and the devil. Wait till your sins have brought you trouble; wait
till the fires of trouble have burned the flesh away; wait till you have
sought Light and found Light and live in Light, then you will believe;
/then/ you will see."
All this he said very solemnly, and standing there in that dusky room
surrounded by the wreck of things that once had been dear to dead men
and women, waving the lantern in his hand and staring--at what was he
staring?--really old Potts looked most impressive. His twisted shape
and ugly countenance became spiritual; he was one who had "found
Light and lived in Light."
"You won't believe me," he went on, "but I pass on to you what a
woman has been telling me. She's a queer sort of woman; I never saw
her like before, a foreigner and dark-hued with strange rich garments
and something on her head. There, that, /that/," and he pointed through
the dirty window-place to the crescent of a young moon which

appeared in the sky. "A fine figure of a woman," he went on, "and oh!
heaven, what eyes--I never saw such eyes before. Big and tender,
something like those of the deer in the park yonder. Proud, too, she is,
one who has ruled, and a lady, though foreign. Well, I never fell in love
before, but I feel like it now, and so would you, young man, if you
could see her, and so I think did someone else in his day."
"What did she say to you?" I asked, for by now I was interested enough.
Who wouldn't be when old Potts took to describing beautiful women?
"It's a little difficult to tell you for she spoke in a strange tongue, and I
had to translate it in my head, as it were. But this is the gist of it. That
you were to have that chest and what was in it. There's a writing there,
she says, or part of a writing for some has gone--rotted away. You are
to read that writing or to get it read and to print it so that the world may
read it also. She said that 'Hubert' wishes you to do so. I am sure the
name was Hubert, though she also spoke of him with some other title
which I do not understand. That's all I can remember, except something
about a city, yes, a City of Gold and a last great battle in which Hubert
fell, covered with glory and conquering. I understood that she wanted
to talk about that because it isn't in the writing, but you interrupted and
of course she's gone. Yes, the price is £50 and not a farthing less, but
you can pay it when you like for I know you're as honest as most, and
whether you pay it or not, you must have that chest and what's in it and
no one else."
"All right," I said, "but don't trust it to the carrier. I'll send a cart for it
to-morrow morning. Lock it now and give me the key."

In due course the chest arrived, and I examined the bundle for the other
contents do not matter, although some of them were interesting. Pinned
inside the shawl I found a paper, undated and unsigned, but which from
the character and style of the writing was, I should say, penned by a
lady about sixty years ago. It ran thus:--
"My late father, who was such a great traveller in his young days and

so fond of exploring strange places, brought these things home from
one of his journeys before his marriage, I think from South America.
He told me once that the dress was found upon the body of a woman in
a tomb and that she must have been a great lady, for she was
surrounded by a number of other women, perhaps her servants who
were brought to be buried with her here when they died. They were all
seated about a stone table at the end of which were the remains of