The Rajah had regained self-possession and declined the proffered
courtesy in his usual cold and sneering manner, adding with a crafty
smile and with covert meaning, which perplexed and startled Bertram: "It is a wise man who familiarizes himself with the grave. For me; I
must deny myself, for I go tomorrow to take part in festivities the
reverse of funereal. I commend the propriety and aptness of your
researches, Atma Singh."
So saying he withdrew with a salaam that failed to cover the swift
scowl he bestowed on Bertram.
"There goes an enemy, Atma Singh," said Bertram, watching the retreating
figure arrayed in barbaric splendour, the profusion of the enormous
emeralds that adorned his yellow robe so subduing its hue that Bertram's
thrust was unmerited, as far as his attire was concerned at least. "He
is a foe to fear, unless I greatly mistake, an enemy of the serpent
kind," he continued.
But they speedily forgot the craft of the serpent, and pursued their
walk, conversing as they went.
Some tenets, they found, were familiar to the minds of both, and these,
they observed, might be called historical. Such were the vague
whisperings of things that occurred in the dawn of young Time before the
earliest twilight of story--traditions that linger as shades among the
nations, vague hints of former greatness and of a calamity, a crime
whose enormity is guessed by the magnitude of its shadow hovering over
the earth, shrouding men's cradles and darkening with a menace their
tombs. Such too were the joyful surmisings of a restoration, such the
imaginings of "That bright eternal day
Of which we priests and poets say
Such truths as we expect for happy men."
"Your story of the world's creation is strangely in accord with ours,"
said Bertram. "Our narrative is more precise, but the things stated so
clearly typify we know not what; and we and you are, I doubt not, wisest
when we own ourselves ignorant. Who can tell what is implied in the tale
of the birth of Time out of Eternity, ascending through seven gradations
to we know not what consummation when this seventh epoch of rest shall
be run?"
"The words of the wise," said Atma, "assign to all things perpetuity,
which involves a repetition of the cycle of Seven. Does the week of
seven days repeating itself endlessly in time, image the seven epochs
which, returning again and again, may constitute eternity?"
Bertram paused before he replied-"Your words move me, Atma Singh, for I have heard that on the first day
of a new week a Representative Man rose from the dead."