Jacopo was a Philosopher.

In recording this important fact, we mean to do especial reverence to the
large class of which he was an eminent member

To be a Philosopher, it is necessary to look upon Good and Evil as
highly amusing names for different forms of the same thing. When you
behold the world deformed by Evil, crimsoned with war, polluted with
the deeds of a horde of tyrants, under various names, you must not complain
of the Evil, nor speak harshly of the war, nor breathe a whisper
against the tyrants.

You must merely say—“Such things always have been, and such things
always will be.”

This is Philosophy.

When you see an innocent girl, hallowed by the ray of virginity, struggling
for bread, and earning, by her sixteen hours of daily toil, a pittance
that would not keep a rich lady in rouge for an hour, you must not speak

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of a better day for the Poor Girl, nor prophesy the coming of a time, when
honest maidenhood will be no longer poor—no longer subject to the cold
scorn of the rich—the vulgar avarice of the task-master—the lascivious
attempts of the wealthy profligate

No, sir. Gazing on the wan cheek of the Poor Girl, who works `the
nails from her finger's ends' for just enough `to keep body and soul together,
' you must gravely exclaim—

“Such things always have been, and such things always will be.”

For this is Philosophy.

Or in case the Poor Girl, tired of struggling for the bitter crust, and
sleeping in the damp, cold home, while the ten thousands of the rich have
their banquets, their operas, their dresses of velvet and satin, their diamonds
and gold—tired, I say of this hard, drear life, should listen to the offers of
the Rich Libertine, and sacrifice her priceless virtue for bread, clothing,
and something like a home, or perchance for the mere proposal of marriage,
which is never intended to be fulfilled—you must not in this case call
the Wealthy Profligate a scoundrel, worthier of the gallows than ever a
Pirate that trod a bloody deck, nor should you drop one tear for Poor Virginity,
suddenly wrecked into hopeless prostitution.

No, sir.

While the Rich Libertine goes to his gambling hell, and quenches the
fever of his idleness in dice or cards, or, maybe—for such things are done—
hurries to his Fashionable Church, and sits in his pew, with his name on
the door, in silver, and subscribes large sums to Missionary efforts, for
the benighted Pagans, while the Dishonored Girl, shut out from all pure,
all respectable society, because the Rich Libertine bought her virtue for a
Promise, has no resort but the house of infamy—you will compose yourself
into a sober attitude, and with unctuous utterance exclaim—

“Such things always have been, and such things always will be.”

This, as I said before, is Philosophy.

Maybe you live in a Free Land, which was colonized, some hundreds
of years ago, by a band of wandering exiles, who followed the hand of
God, and came out from the Old World, into the virgin wilderness, and
said, “Here we build an altar, sacred to the freedom of all races of men.”

A Free Land, which was admitted in the family of Nations, after a long
and bloody Revolution, after many and fearful battles, after a Declaration
which proclaimed to all the world, in the name of Almighty God, `That
all men are created free and equal!'

May be, this Free Land, only Seventy-one years after the Declaration,
is cursed by White Slavery, that hurls men and women and children in
the hot air of the factory, or coffins them in the foul courts of a Large
City, dooming them to coin their lives into a little bread, while the Rich
Man gets all the richer for their groans and tears. Or, maybe it is deformed,—
this Free Land, sanctified and set apart by God for the good of universal

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man—by a Black Slavery, that sells the unborn fruit of the mother's
womb, and pays a bounty for the violation of every instinct planted by
the Almighty in the heart of Father, Child, Brother and Sister. A Black
Slavery, that pays the expenses of chivalrous luxury, by selling wives
from their husbands, fathers from their children, the baby from its
mother's bosom; by trading in human flesh, as though it were meat for
the shambles; by—but there are facts so beautiful in this Black
Slavery, that the Devil himself would be ashamed to write them down,
upon the darkest page of Eternal Torment; truths so lovely, that the
Devil himself would blush to tell them to a group of listening friends.

Well; your Free Land is cursed by the White and the Black Slavery,
but you must not speak reproachfully of either. You must not say that
the White Slave, and the Black Slave, were made by the same God, and
redeemed by the same Christ, as the Rich Man and Slaveholder.

No, sir.

While the White Slave swelters in the factory, giving life and lungs,
breath and heart, to the rich man's coffers,—while the Black Slave (in
many cases whiter than his Master) is sold in sight of your Capitol, and
manacled and lashed, beneath the same Flag which floated over Washington
at Yorktown, you must compose yourself, and utter the calm
remark—

“Such things always have been, and such things always will be.”

Again; this is Philosophy.

As we gain some knowledge of the nature of Philosophy, we may also
form some idea of the character of the Philosopher.

He is one of the most estimable characters in the world. No wrong—
committed on others—can discompose his steady nerves, no outrage—
perpetrated on his neighbor—can shake the calm serenity of his soul. In
Turkey he is a great admirer of the Grand Turk; in Russia he loves the
Autocrat; in England he speaks with proper serenity of the starvation
of some millions of Irishmen; in Timbuctoo he greases his face, and
shouts hosanna to a God who, embodied in a reptile, is worshipped by rattling
pebbles in a calabash; in America, he speaks respectfully of Slavery,
either Black or White, and in Thibet he considers the Grand Llama a
very respectable personage indeed.

Some hundreds of years ago, the Philosopher spoke with great contempt
of certain vulgar Fishermen and Peasants, `who turned the world
upside down,' by a silly doctrine about the Brotherhood of Man, the
Gospel of the Poor, and other doctrines as vague and imaginary.

The sum and substance of the Philosopher's belief is comprised in a few
quaint maxims. `Such things always have been, such things always will
be.' `Tis the way of the world.' `Take the world as it comes.'

The last, `Take the world as it comes,' is a sovereign excuse in the
eyes of the Philosopher for every deed known in the calendar of Crime.

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The Seduction of a Poor Girl by a wealthy Libertine—the murder of a
Poor Man, in the fetid atmosphere of the Factory, by the Capitalist—the
robbery of Widows and Orphans by the wealthy Bank Director—the selling
of the babe from its mother's bosom, by the chivalrous slaveholder—these
incidents, and all others of like calendar, are chaptered in the Philosopher's
mind under one head, to wit; “Take the world as it comes.”

So glorious a thing is Philosophy.

So magnanimous and so entirely great is the Philosopher.

Jacopo was a Philosopher.

We shall endeavor to maintain and illustrate this point in the present
chapter.

We left him on the threshold of the farm-house, while the Negro stood
over the head of his unconscious Master, knife in hand, and a deep groan
echoed from the arbor.

Jacopo pushed open the door, and entered the large room, or hall of the
old farm-house.

As the light streamed in upon the gloom, Jacopo recognised the familiar
features of the place. It was the scene of the New Year's festival on the
last night of 1774. But the broad hearth was fireless now; it yawned
black and cold, in the cheerful sunlight. The huge rafters no longer
echoed the shouts of the merry-makers, nor did the floor tremble under
the dancer's tread. The room was silent and gloomy; the shutters
were closed, and the only light which enlivened its details, came through
the open door.

That light shone over a broad oaken table, which stood in the centre of
the floor.

The sight of the table brought the tears to Jacopo's eyes—

“Touching but harrowing memory! There sat old Peter, with his red
nose beaming over his white beard, like a beacon over a snow-drift. Here,
the turkey was placed, done to a turn too, and there the cats, which Law,
Medicine, and Divinity, by a simple act of faith, transformed into rabbits.
Upon this very spot, old Peter mixed—nay, mixed is a vulgar word—constructed
the sublime vision of the Dorfner punch, which made us all see
stars, and lifted our hearts into the regions of the Milky Way.”

Jacopo was overwhelmed with tender regrets.

“Venerable table!” he cried, “I have made a Pilgrimage to thee, even
as the devout of the olden time journeyed to St. Jago of Compostella!
Thou shalt be dedicated to the name of St. Dorfner, of the White Beard;
thy symbol, a Jug of Foaming Punch. Thy Pilgrim, a frail child of mortality,
sometimes called Jacopo, who, amid all his frailties, cherishes still,
in the inmost core of his heart, the memory of the Dorfner Punch—
Zounds! Why did not my guardian, who had the care of my father's
estate, send me to school to a Poet. Decidedly I have a genius in that way.

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After he had recited this extemporaneous snatch of lyric poetry, Jacopo
subsided from the regions of the ideal into sober matter of fact.

“It was on this very spot that I gave the soothin' potion to Madeline,”
he said, with a cool, business-like air; “although, at the time, I did not
dream of drugging the aristocracy, or even its humblest member.”

Through the gloom which hung over the place, Jacopo beheld the door
which opened upon the stairway, leading into the upper rooms of the farm-house.

“`Sleep in that room, Jacopo,' was the remark of the respectable Hopkins:
`search every closet. Whatever you find in the way of paper or
parchment, bring to me, and your fortune is made. Be particularly careful
of every thing that bears the date, November twenty-third, 'fifty-six.'
It was very kind in Hopkins to tell me all this; but he might have had the
decency to tell me, in plain terms, that a murder had been committed in
this house, on that particular day; or he might have insinuated, even in the
most delicate manner, that `after the deed was done, the child was taken
away,' or that `Dorfner, with the corpse, also concealed certain parchments
and papers,' et cetera!”

Jacopo glanced upon the fragments of printed paper which he grasped
in his right hand, and at the same instant his slender legs shook like reeds.

“If Dorfner awakes, I am lost!” he cried, and hurried to the door—
opened it—and ascended a dark stairway.

“At the head of the stairway,” thought Jacopo, “is the passage which
traverses the farm-house from north to south, and at its southern end the
room of Madeline.”

The darkness and silence struck the philosoper with awe. The echo
of his footsteps, the very creaking of the rheumatic stairs, frightened him.
Presently he stood in the passage at the head of the stairs, and in the
impenetrable gloom, turned his steps in the direction of Madeline's chamber.

“Over the hall of the farm-house, there are two rooms,” he muttered—
“one is Madeline's, and t'other, as I've been told, has not been opened
these eight years.”

His hand touched the door of the latter chamber as he murmured these
words. Jacopo was seized with a violent nervous attack.

“Madeline's door is but a step farther,” he said, and advanced with
unsteady steps through the thick darkness.

His hand—extended at arm's length, and shaking like a weathercock
on a stormy day—touched the panels of a door.

Then it was that Jacopo belied his philosophy, and shook from head

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to foot, and grew hot and cold by turns. For a distinct memory of a pool
of blood, upon an oaken floor, at the foot of a bed, not only possessed his
fancy, but floated before his eye in the very darkness of the passage.

Gathering nerve, he placed his foot against the door; it opened suddenly,
and he fell upon his face, on the threshold of Madeline's chamber.

With a curse and a groan, he raised his face, and cast a hurried glance
over the room.

Through the dingy curtains of the southern window, streamed the warm
sunshine, while the western window was darkened by a cloak, or some
other garment, which, hung over the small leaden panes, gave passage to
but a few wandering rays.

In the corner, between these windows, stood a bed, whose coverlet,
soiled with dust, bore the impress of a human form.

There was a dressing-bureau of dark walnut, surmounted by a small
mirror, opposite the bed, and two chairs stood against the oak panels
which covered the walls. The white cover of the bureau was white no
longer, for it was discolored by a thick coating of dust—the mirror was
shrouded in a veil of cobwebs.

These details Jacopo comprehended at a glance, as, resting his hands
and knees upon the dusty floor, he gazed nervously about him.

He arose and closed the door, and cast his eyes towards the foot of the
bed. The floor was covered with dust, and yet he fancied that a dark
stain marred its surface, and gloomed ominously upon him.

“'Tis just the same as I saw it on that mornin', two years and six
months ago! There's the bureau—the chairs—the bed—all the same as
when I saw them last. I know it's peculiar. The only change that I
see, is that cloak hung over the window—the window which looks out
upon the chesnut tree. As for the bed—u-g-h! The print of her form
is stamped upon the dusty coverlet, and—”

Jacopo advanced to the foot of the bed, and with a quivering hand
brushed the dust away for the space of two or three feet.

As the thickly gathered dust was swept away, and a portion of the
white oaken floor brightened in the sunshine, in the centre of that white
space appeared a dark purple stain.

Jacopo sprang to his feet, as though a snake had bitten his heel.

“It's her blood!” he cried, and again he proved untrue to his philosophy;
for the sun, shining upon his small nose, wide mouth, and inflated
cheeks, revealed a visage ashy as the face of a dead man. “Hello! The
closet, as I'm an honest man!” and philosophy came to his aid, and his
face brightened into modest blushes.

In the corner next to the western window, appeared a solitary panel,
separated from the others by an oaken frame, and reaching from the ceiling
to the floor. On one side appeared some traces of a keyhole—Jacopo

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swept the cobwebs away, and his mouth at once displayed its capacity in
a boundless grin.

It was indeed the closet, but where was the key?

Jacopo pondered anxiously for a moment, with his finger upon the tip
of his nose.

“I must force this door; but where's a crowbar? Considering all
circumstances—the exigencies of the case—the fact, that if Peter Dorfner
wakes up, I am a murdered man—at all events, a kicked man—the
scarcity of crowbars—with other reasons, which are doubtless very good,
but which do not now occur—I think that I am justified in using the
hatchet which I saw on the table down stairs.”

After he had come to this remarkable conclusion, Jacopo lost no time
in hurrying to the door, and presently his footsteps echoed from the
stairs. He was not absent longer than a minute; and when he returned,
the hatchet was in his hand, and his face was enlivened by a grimace,
which buried his eyes among laughing wrinkles, while it gave his mouth
the outline of a loosened shoe-string.

“Now for the closet, and the mysteries,” exclaimed Jacopo, as he
stood on the threshold—“and, above all things, for the Twenty-Third of
November, Fifty-Six!”

The hatchet fell from his hand, and clattered on the floor, while Jacopo
staggered backward against the door-frame.

“The Devil!” he ejaculated, with a profound sigh, his small eyes dilating
like the eyes of a cat in the dark, and his nether jaw separating from
the upper.

He was seized with a violent fit of trembling; he rubbed his eyes;
he pinched his thin legs; he pressed his hands upon his round paunch;
he shook himself like a water-spaniel, after a bath.

“I am not dreaming!” he ejaculated.

It was very much like a dream. A braver man than Jacopo might
have been frightened; a greater Philosopher than Jacopo might have been
driven from his stoical composure; for it was a very remarkable sight
which he saw, altogether shadowy and unreal in appearance.

In the centre of the room, near the foot of the bed, and in the light of
the southern window, appeared a small pine table, standing on four
rickety legs, and covered with papers and parchments. Among these
papers and parchments, which had a kind of sepulchral look, being imbued
with a musty odor, indicative of old chests, or suggestive of some withered
lawyer's den,—among these papers and parchments, I say, appeared
a pale white hand, which grasped a pen, and rested upon a broad sheet
of foolscap.

That pale white hand belonged to an elderly gentleman, clad in black,
as all elderly gentlemen ought to be, and seated—like a man at his ease—
in an oaken chair, with unpainted arms and capacious seat

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It was this pine table, this pale white hand, this elderly gentleman,
which filled Jacopo with indefinable terror.

Had the pine table started from the floor, like the festival board of
some goblin story? Had the elderly gentleman been summoned, by a
spell, from some uneasy resting-place in some forgotten graveyard?

Jacopo could not answer these questions, but, cold with affright, leaned
against the door-post, his knees shaking together, like dry sticks on a
windy day.

It was a long time before he could muster courage to gaze into the face
of this indefinable personage. He was writing, very leisurely, like a good
merchant in his counting-house; his eyes were downcast, and he did not
seem to know that there was such an individual as Jacopo in the world.

You may imagine the feelings which agitated the heart of Jacopo, as
he examined, with a stealthy glance, the countenance and the attire of this
Incomprehensible.

It was the visage of a man of some sixty years. The nose was long,
the lips thin, the forehead broad and high, with short, stiff, gray hair, disclosing
the outline of a large head. A solitary mass of his gray hair—it
could not be called a curl—rested upon the centre of the brow, falling
half-way down to the well-defined eyebrows. The eyes were not visible;
Jacopo was every instant afraid that they would be raised, and that their
glance would penetrate his soul.

The form of the stranger was marked by a broad chest, wide shoulders,
and long arms. He was clad, as I have said, in sober black; a waistcoat
buttoned to the throat, with a white cravat about the neck, and spotless
ruffles around the wrists. His legs were crossed under the table; Jacopo
beheld a diamond buckle shining on his black shoe, like a glow-worm on
a piece of charcoal.

And the elderly gentleman continued writing, with the light playing
over his pale forehead, while Jacopo stood trembling against the door-post.
Not for a moment did he raise his eyes, nor did he manifest, by the slightest
gesture, that he was aware of Jacopo's presence.

This continued for five minutes or more; the cold dews began to start
from Jacopo's brow.

“It is the Devil!” he mentally ejaculated.

Still the stranger continued writing, only once removing his hand from
his paper, to brush a vagrant fly from his nose. A smile began to gather
about his thin lips, and widen slowly over his face, until it agitated the
small wrinkles near the corners of his eyes.

“Ehem!” coughed Jacopo,—and shuddered, for he was afraid of those
eyes, which he had not seen.

The unknown continued writing.

Grasping the door-post with one hand, Jacopo wiped the cold dew from

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his forehead with the other, and summoned all his Philosophy to his aid.
He was nerving himself in silence for a desperate effort.

“Where”—he gasped, frightened at the sound of his voice—“Where
did you come from?”

How his heart beat against his ribs, as he awaited the answer!

Yet the elderly gentleman did not raise his eyes, nor pause for an instant
in his task; with imperturbable gravity he continued writing, the noise
made by his pen, heard distinctly through the silence.

“Did he come in the winder?” faltered Jacopo, relapsing unconsciously
into a vulgarity of expression, rather unphilosophical,—“Or through the
floor? Did he bring the table in his pocket? Maybe he came through
the closet? No—no, sir! It can't be. The door is still locked, and
there's the cobwebs over the lock. Ugh! This goes ahead of Italy and
France and Spain—never saw any thing like it in my life, not even in the
great German Principality of Spitzenburschendingenflotzer, where the
Devil comes dressed in breeches and flannel, and the peasants believe in
Ghosts, who eat sour-krout.”

The voice of the unknown was heard for the first time; it was a voice
as low, as sweet, as melodious as the voice of a beautiful woman; and
yet Jacopo shuddered again as he heard it.

Without raising his eyes, the unknown exclaimed:

“There are two kinds of scoundrels in this world. There is the grave
scoundrel, who indulges himself with magnificent villanies, and becomes
glorious from the very magnitude of his crimes. The Borgia belonged to
this class; at this hour, he is admired for his elaborate depravity. Then
there is the petty scoundrel, who ministers to the basest appetites of the
grand scoundrel, and becomes the miserable hireling of splendid baseness,
selling his soul for a piece of money, and wearing his perjuries as a fop
wears paste jewels. It is the life of such a scoundrel that I hold in my
hand—”

“Eh!” ejaculated Jacopo.

“He is called by various names,” continued the elderly gentleman,
still keeping his eyes upon the paper; “and first we meet with him in
the south of France, as a lay brother of the Jesuits, and known as Brother
Joseph-Marie—”

Jacopo started—rubbed his eyes—picked his ears.

“Saint Beelzebub!” he groaned.

“As Joseph-Marie. The house of the Jesuits stood in a garden, half-way
up a hill, whose summit commanded a view of the Mediterranean.
In the valley beneath was a convent, whose white walls looked out from
among vines and olive trees. Among the nuns who peopled this convent,
was one, a fair and beautiful thing, who had been forced by wealthy relations
to take the vow against her will, and bury all the love and freshness
of her virgin heart in that living sepulchre. She was called Sister

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Antonia. And in the Monastery of the Jesuits was a pale, thoughtful
Father, renowned as much for his piety and eloquence, as for his youth;
as much for the brilliancy of his eyes, the singular sweetness of his voice,
as for the remarkable grandeur of his intellect. He was altogether a man
to be loved; the very children knelt for his blessing, as he passed along
the valley, and the whole country by the sea shore resounded with the
praises of Father Ignatius. But he was a man, alas! with all his devotion
to the Church and to his Order, there lingered wit in his bosom a
spark of earthly passion, which only wanted a single breeze, to fan into
a flame. He became the spiritual Director of the convent; he met with
the young sister Antonia; through the dim lattice of the confessional, the
griefs, the hopes, the fears of that warm heart were poured into his soul.

“And they loved—loved with a love beyond madness in intensity—and
lingering together, in the shadows of the conventual chapel, the white
sleeve of the nun, resting on the dark robe of the Jesuit, they said to one
another, `We will cast aside these coffins which imprison our souls.
We will fly to a New World. A cabin under a hillside in the depth of
some untrodden forest, shall be our refuge and our bridal home.'

“These words may have been sealed with a kiss, for the nun was altogether
beautiful, and the yonng Jesuit felt the blood fire in every vein,
as by the many-colored casement, he drew her form to his heart, and saw
the light of the rising moon reflected in her eyes.—It is a long story, but
they planned their escape. The night was fixed; the shallop which was
to bear them out to sea, was hidden under the high crags by the shore.
The night came, I say, but father Ignatius passed it in the dungeon of his
Monastery, beating his forehead against the chains—and there was a lifeless
form stretched in a cell of the convent, the corse of a pale, beautiful
girl. For they had been betrayed, by a wretch who overheard their
plans,—who listened to their vows—who counted their kisses—as he concealed
his form behind a pillar of the chapel. And that wretch was the
lay Brother, Joseph Marie.”

Jacopo was white as a shroud. He grasped the door post with both
hands, and sank helplessly on his knees.

“Joseph-Marie, the Englishman,” continued the unknown without raising
his eyes, “the lay brother of the Order of Jesus, was the miserable
creature, who gave these young hearts to infamy and death! Let us turn
over another page of his history—”

“No! No! Do not!” gasped Jacopo on his knees, but the unknown
did not heed him. “I'd a great deal rather you would n't—”

“He has changed his name. He is called Bernard; he is the favorite
valet of a superannuated Profligate, the Count D'Arcy. Near the chatean
of the Count, is the hut of an humble peasant man, whose life of slavery,
is relieved by the presence of an only child—a daughter—a pure, beautiful
girl, for all her peasant garb, and course wooden shoes. And it is

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Bernard the valet, who lures this child of poverty from her father s roof, and
sells her unpolluted form, into the arms of gray-haired sensualism. Oh,
my good Bernard, this is another crime, for which you will have to
answer some day—”

Thus speaking, while a smile agitated his thin lips, the unknown did
not once raise his eyes. Jacopo grovelling on the floor, pale as death,
and shivering as with an ague chill, clenched his hands, and exclaimed

“It is no man. It is n't a human being. It's the ve-r-y devil!”

And the unknown turned over another page, and resumed in his low
musical voice—

“In Florence we next behold him. The companion of a young English
lord, something between a Valet and a Tutor. And the young Lord loves
an Italian girl, the daughter of an aged nobleman, who is as proud as he
is poor. In the very earnestness of youth, in the very frankness of boyhood,
our young English lord would marry this girl, and set an English
coronet upon her white forehead. Who is it that poisons his heart? Who
is it, that tells the young lord of a father's anger, and the sneer of the
fashionable world? Who is it, that lulls the senses of the old man's
child, with a drugged potion, and yields her an insensible and helpless
victim, into the arms of infamy? Who but our old friend Joseph-Marie,
sometimes called Bernard, and now known by the name of —”

“Don't! Don't!” cried Jacopo, in grotesque dismay—“Upon my
word this is a very peculiar state of affairs. Indeed I'm not of sufficient
consequence to merit all this attention. I'd rather you would not speak
of it.”

“By the name of Jacopo,” calmly continued the elderly gentlem n,
“But the basest deed of all, compared to which all other infamies are
virtues,—ah! Wretch it is written here! Madeline! Madeline!”

At this word an overwhelming horror possessed the wretch who
grovelled near the door. His hands were clenched, but he could not
raise them from his knees; the cold dews were upon his forehead; for
the first time something like Remorse arose before his Philosophic Soul.

“She was only a Peasant Girl,” he cried, in broken tones—“And
Reginald was in love with her—I could n't help it. How could I?”

It was incredible! Jacopo saw and doubted; he heard and could not
believe!

This elderly gentleman, with the sombre attire and remarkable face,
continued his meditations, without seeming to be aware that there was a
certain round-pouched, red-nosed man, writhing on the floor, not ten paces
from his chair. Much less did he appear to know, that the name of this
man was Jacopo.

“Jacopo,—once called Bernard—sometime since known as Brother
Joseph-Marie!” continued the elderly gentleman. “The very sublimity

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of this man's baseness fills me with unutterable loathing.—What do you
think of it, sir?”

For the first time he raised his eyes.

Yes, speaking in that calm, pleasant voice, with an elegant gesture of
his right hand, he lifted his gaze from the manuscript—he looked into
Jacopo's face.

Where his eyes dark, were they gray or blue?

Jacopo could not tell. Every thing about him was swimming in a
fiery haze; a sound like the murmur of a distant cataract was in his ears.
And yet, through that murmur, he heard the clear deep tones of the unknown—
through that fiery haze, there came the glare of two intensely
brilliant eyes, shining and turning into his very soul.