At these words and at sight of the speaker, Morton Harland started back
as if he had been shot.
"Santoris!" he exclaimed--"Not possible! Rafel Santoris! No! You must
be his son!"
The stranger laughed.
"My good Harland! Always the sceptic! Miracles are many, but there is
one which is beyond all performance. A man cannot be his own offspring!
I am that very Santoris who saw you last in Oxford. Come, come!--you
ought to know me!"
He stepped more fully into the light which was shed from the open door
of the deck saloon, and showed himself to be a man of distinguished
appearance, apparently about forty years of age. He was well built,
with the straight back and broad shoulders of an athlete,--his face was
finely featured and radiant with the glow of health and strength, and
as he smiled and laid one hand on Mr. Harland's shoulder he looked the
very embodiment of active, powerful manhood. Morton Harland stared at
him in amazement and something of terror.
"Rafel Santoris!" he repeated--"You are his living image,--but you
cannot be himself--you are too young!"
A gleam of amusement sparkled in the stranger's eyes.
"Don't let us talk of age or youth for the moment"--he said. "Here I
am,--your 'eccentric' college acquaintance whom you and several other
fellows fought shy of years ago! I assure you I am quite harmless! Will
you present me to the ladies?"
There was a brief embarrassed pause. Then Mr. Harland turned to us
where we had withdrawn ourselves a little apart and addressed his
daughter.
"Catherine,"--he said--"This gentleman tells me he knew me at Oxford,
and if he is right I also knew HIM. I spoke of him only the other night
at dinner--you remember?--but I did not tell you his name. It is Rafel
Santoris--if indeed he IS Santoris!--though my Santoris should be a
much older man."
"I extremely regret," said our visitor then, advancing and bowing
courteously to Catherine and myself--"that I do not fulfil the required
conditions of age! Will you try to forgive me?"
He smiled--and we were a little confused, hardly knowing what to say.
Involuntarily I raised my eyes to his, and with one glance saw in those
clear blue orbs that so steadfastly met mine a world of
memories--memories tender, wistful and pathetic, entangled as in tears
and fire. All the inward instincts of my spirit told me that I knew him
well--as well as one knows the gold of the sunshine or the colour of
the sky,--yet where had I seen him often and often before? While my
thoughts puzzled over this question he averted his gaze from mine and
went on speaking to Catherine.
"I understand," he said--"that you are interested in the lighting of my
yacht?"
"It is most beautiful and wonderful,"--answered Catherine, in her
coldest tone of conventional politeness, "And so unusual!"
His eyebrows went up with a slightly quizzical.
"Yes, I suppose it is unusual," he said--"I am always forgetting that
what is not quite common seems strange! But really the arrangement is
very simple. The yacht is called the 'Dream'--and she is, as her name
implies, a 'dream' fulfilled. Her sails are her only motive power. They
are charged with electricity, and that is why they shine at night in a
way that must seem to outsiders like a special illumination. If you
will honour me with a visit to-morrow I will show you how it is
managed."
Here Captain Derrick, who had been standing close by, was unable to
resist the impulse of his curiosity.
"Excuse me, sir,"--he said, suddenly--"but may I ask how it is you sail
without wind?"
"Certainly!--you may ask and be answered!" Santoris replied. "As I have
just said, our sails are our only motive power, but we do not need the
wind to fill them. By a very simple scientific method, or rather let me
say by a scientific application of natural means, we generate a form of
electric force from the air and water as we move. This force fills the
sails and propels the vessel with amazing swiftness wherever she is
steered. Neither calm nor storm affects her progress. When there is a
good gale blowing our way, we naturally lessen the draft on our own
supplies--but we can make excellent speed even in the teeth of a
contrary wind. We escape all the inconveniences of steam and smoke and
dirt and noise,--and I daresay in about a couple of hundred years or so
my method of sailing the seas will be applied to all ships large and
small, with much wonder that it was not thought of long ago."
"Why not apply it yourself?" asked Dr. Brayle, now joining in the
conversation for the first time and putting the question with an air of
incredulous amusement--"With such a marvellous discovery--if it is
yours--you should make your fortune!"
Santoris glanced him over with polite tolerance.
"It is possible I do not need to make it,"--he answered, then turning
again to Captain Derrick he said, kindly, "I hope the matter seems
clearer to you? We sail without wind, it is true, but not without the
power that creates wind."
The captain shook his head perplexedly.
"Well, sir, I can't quite take it in,"--he confessed--"I'd like to know
more."
"So you shall! Harland, will you all come over to the yacht to-morrow?
There may be some excursion we could do together--and you might remain
and dine with me afterwards."
Mr. Harland's face was a study. Doubt and fear struggled for the
mastery in his expression and he did not at once answer. Then he seemed
to conquer his hesitation and to recover himself.
"Give me a moment with you alone,"--he said, with a gesture of
invitation towards the deck saloon.
Our visitor readily complied with this suggestion, and the two men
entered the saloon together and closed the door.
Silence followed. Catherine looked at me in questioning
bewilderment,--then she called to Mr. Swinton, who had been standing
about as though awaiting orders in his usual tiresome and servile way.
"What sort of an interview did you have with that gentleman when you
got on board his yacht?" she asked.
"Very pleasant--very pleasant indeed"--he replied--"The vessel is
magnificently appointed. I have never seen such luxury. Extraordinary!
More than princely! Mr. Santoris himself I found particularly
agreeable. When he had read Mr. Harland's note, he said he was glad to
find it was from an old college companion, and that he would come over
with me to renew the acquaintance. As he has done."
"You were not afraid of him, then?" queried Dr. Brayle, sarcastically.
"Oh dear no! He seems quite well-bred, and I should say he must be very
wealthy."
"A most powerful recommendation!" murmured Brayle--"The best in the
world! What do YOU think of him?" he asked, turning suddenly to me.
"I have no opinion,"--I answered, quietly.
How could I say otherwise? How could I tell such a man as he was, of
one who had entered my life as insistently as a flash of light,
illumining all that had hitherto been dark!
At that moment Catherine caught my hand.
"Listen!" she whispered.
A window of the deck saloon was open and we stood near it. Dr. Brayle
and Mr. Swinton had moved away to light fresh cigars, and we two women
were for the moment alone. We heard Mr. Harland's voice raised to a
sort of smothered cry.
"My God! You ARE Santoris!"
"Of course I am!" And the deep answering tones were full of music,--the
music of a grave and infinitely tender compassion--"Why did you doubt
it? And why call upon God? That is a name which has no meaning for you."
There followed a silence. I looked at Catherine and saw her pale face
in the light of the moon, haggard in line and older than her years, and
my heart was full of pity for her. She was excited beyond her usual
self-I could see that the appearance of the stranger from the yacht had
aroused her interest and compelled her admiration. I tried to draw her
gently to a farther distance from the saloon, but she would not move.
"We ought not to listen,"--I said--"Catherine, come away!"
She shook her head.
"Hush!" she softly breathed--"I want to hear!"
Just then Mr. Harland spoke again.
"I am sorry!" he said--"I have wronged you and I apologise. But you can
hardly wonder at my disbelief, considering your appearance, which is
that of a much younger man than your actual years should make you."
The rich voice of Santoris gave answer.
"Did I not tell you and others long ago that for me there is no such
thing as time, but only eternity? The soul is always young,--and I live
in the Spirit of youth, not in the Matter of age."
Catherine turned her eyes upon me in wide-open amazement.
"He must be mad!" she said.
I made no reply either by word or look. We heard Mr. Harland talking,
but in a lower tone, and we could not distinguish what he said.
Presently Santoris answered, and his vibrant tones were clear and
distinct.
"Why should it seem to you so wonderful?" he said--"You do not think it
miraculous when the sculptor, standing before a shapeless block of
marble, hews it out to conformity with his inward thought. The marble
is mere marble, hard to deal with, difficult to shape,--yet out of its
resisting roughness the thinker and worker can mould an Apollo or a
Psyche. You find nothing marvellous in this, though the result of its
shaping is due to nothing but Thought and Labour. Yet when you see the
human body, which is far easier to shape than marble, brought into
submission by the same forces of Thought and Labour, you are
astonished! Surely it is a simpler matter to control the living cells
of one's own fleshly organisation and compel them to do the bidding of
the dominating spirit than to chisel the semblance of a god out of a
block of stone!"
There was a pause after this. Then followed more inaudible talk on the
part of Mr. Harland, and while we yet waited to gather further
fragments of the conversation, he suddenly threw open the saloon door
and called to us to come in. We at once obeyed the summons, and as we
entered he said in a somewhat excited, nervous way:--
"I must apologise before you ladies for the rather doubting manner in
which I received my former college friend! He IS Rafel Santoris--I
ought to have known that there's only one of his type! But the curious
part of it is that he should be nearly as old as I am,--yet somehow he
is not!"
I laughed. It would have been hard not to laugh, for the mere idea of
comparing the two men, Santoris in such splendid prime and Morton
Harland in his bent, lean and wizened condition, as being of the same
or nearly the same age was quite ludicrous. Even Catherine smiled--a
weak and timorous smile.
"I suppose you have grown old more quickly, father," she said--"Perhaps
Mr. Santoris has not lived at such high pressure."
Santoris, standing by the saloon centre table tinder the full blaze of
the electric lamp, looked at her with a kindly interest.
"High or low, I live each moment of my days to the full, Miss
Harland,"--he said--"I do not drowse it or kill it--I LIVE it! This
lady,"--and he turned his eyes towards me--"looks as if she did the
same!"
"She does!" said Mr. Harland, quickly, and with emphasis--"That's quite
true! You were always a good reader of character, Santoris! I believe I
have not introduced you properly to our little friend"--here he
presented me by name and I held out my hand. Santoris took it in his
own with a light, warm clasp--gently releasing it again as he bowed. "I
call her our little friend, because she brings such an atmosphere of
joy along with her wherever she goes. We persuaded her to come with us
yachting this summer for a very selfish reason--because we are disposed
to be dull and she is always bright,--the advantage, you see, is all on
our side! Oddly enough, I was talking to her about you the other
night--the very night, by the by, that your yacht came behind us off
Mull. That was rather a curious coincidence when you come to think of
it!"
"Not curious at all,"--said Santoris--"but perfectly natural. When will
you realise that there is no such thing as 'coincidence' but only a
very exact system of mathematics?"
Mr. Harland gave a slight, incredulous gesture.
"Your theories again," he said--"You hold to them still! But our little
friend is likely to agree with you,--when I was speaking of you to her
I told her she had somewhat the same ideas as yourself. She is a sort
of a 'psychist'--whatever that may mean!"
"Do you not know?" queried Santoris, with a grave smile--"It is easy to
guess by merely looking at her!"
My cheeks grew warm and my eyes fell beneath his steadfast gaze. I
wondered whether Mr. Harland or Catherine would notice that in his coat
he wore a small bunch of the same kind of bright pink bell-heather
which was my only 'jewel of adorning' that night. The ice of
introductory recognition being broken, we gathered round the saloon
table and sat down, while the steward brought wine and other
refreshments to offer to our guest. Mr. Harland's former uneasiness and
embarrassment seemed now at an end, and he gave himself up to the
pleasure of renewing association with one who had known him as a young
man, and they began talking easily together of their days at college,
of the men they had both been acquainted with, some of whom were dead,
some settled abroad and some lost to sight in the vistas of uncertain
fate. Catherine took very little part in the conversation, but she
listened intently--her colourless eyes were for once bright, and she
watched the face of Santoris as one might watch an animated picture.
Presently Dr. Brayle and Mr. Swinton, who had been pacing the deck
together and smoking, paused near the saloon door. Mr. Harland beckoned
them.
"Come in, come in!" he said--"Santoris, this is my physician, Dr.
Brayle, who has undertaken to look after me during this
trip,"--Santoris bowed--"And this is my secretary, Mr. Swinton, whom I
sent over to your yacht just now." Again Santoris bowed. His slight,
yet perfectly courteous salutation, was in marked contrast with the
careless modern nod or jerk of the head by which the other men barely
acknowledged their introduction to him. "He was afraid of his life to
go to you"--continued Mr. Harland, with a laugh--"He thought you might
be an illusion--or even the devil himself, with those fiery sails!" Mr.
Swinton looked sheepish; Santoris smiled. "This fair dreamer of
dreams"--here he singled me out for notice--"is the only one of us who
has not expressed either surprise or fear at the sight of your vessel
or the possible knowledge of yourself, though there was one little
incident connected with the pretty bunch of bell-heather she is
wearing--why!--you wear the same flower yourself!"
There was a moment's silence. Everyone stared. The blood burned in my
veins,--I felt my face crimsoning, yet I knew not why I should be
embarrassed or at a loss for words. Santoris came to my relief.
"There's nothing remarkable in that, is there?" he queried,
lightly--"Bell-heather is quite common in this part of the world. I
shouldn't like to try and count up the number of tourists I've lately
seen wearing it!"
"Ah, but you don't know the interest attaching to this particular
specimen!" persisted Mr. Harland--"It was given to our little friend by
a wild Highland fellow, presumably a native of Mull, the very morning
after she had seen your yacht for the first time, and he told her that
on the previous night he had brought all of the same kind he could
gather to you! Surely you see the connection?"
Santoris shook his head.
"I'm afraid I don't!" he said, smilingly. "Did the 'wild Highland
fellow' name me?"
"No--I believe he called you 'the shentleman that owns the yacht.'"
"Oh well!" and Santoris laughed--"There are so many 'shentlemen' that
own yachts! He may have got mixed in his customers. In any case, I am
glad to have some little thing in common with your friend--if only a
bunch of heather!"
"HER bunch behaves very curiously,"--put in Catherine--"It never fades."
Santoris made no comment. It seemed as if he had not heard, or did not
wish to hear. He changed the conversation, much to my comfort, and for
the rest of the time he stayed with us, rather avoided speaking to me,
though once or twice I met his eyes fixed earnestly upon me. The talk
drifted in a desultory manner round various ordinary topics, and I,
moving a little aside, took a seat near the window where I could watch
the moon-rays striking a steel-like glitter on the still waters of Loch
Scavaig, and at the same time hear all that was being said without
taking any part in it. I did not wish to speak,--the uplifted joy of my
soul was too intense for anything but silence. I could not tell why I
was so happy,--I only knew by inward instinct that some point in my
life had been reached towards which I had striven for a far longer
period than I myself was aware of. There was nothing for me now but to
wait with faith and patience for the next step forward--a step which I
felt would not be taken alone. And I listened with interest while Mr.
Harland put his former college friend through a kind of inquisitorial
examination as to what he had been doing and where he had been
journeying since they last met. Santoris seemed not at all unwilling to
be catechised.
"When I escaped from Oxford,"--he said--but here Mr. Harland interposed.
"Escaped!" he exclaimed--"You talk as if you had been kept in prison."
"So I was"--Santoris replied--"Oxford is a prison, to all who want to
feed on something more than the dry bones of learning. While there I
was like the prodigal son,--exiled from my Father's House. And I 'did
eat the husks that the swine did eat.' Many fellows have to do the
same. Sometimes--though not often--a man arrives with a constitution
unsuited to husks. Mine was--and is--such an one."
"You secured honours with the husks," said Mr. Harland.
Santoris gave a gesture of airy contempt.
"Honours! Such honours! Any fellow unaddicted to drinking, with a fair
amount of determined plod could win them. The alleged 'difficulties' in
the way are perfectly childish. They scarcely deserve to be called the
pothooks and hangers of an education. I always got my work done in two
or three hours--the rest of my time at college was pure leisure,--which
I employed in other and wiser forms of study than those of the general
curriculum--as you know."
"You mean occult mysteries and things of that sort?"
"'Occult' is a word of such new coinage that it is not found in many
dictionaries,"--said Santoris, with a mirthful look--"You will not find
it, for instance, in the earlier editions of Stormonth's reliable
compendium. I do not care for it myself; I prefer to say 'Spiritual
science.'"
"You believe in that?" asked Catherine, abruptly.
"Assuredly! How can I do otherwise, seeing that it is the Key to the
Soul of Nature?" "That's too deep for me!" said Dr. Brayle, pouring
himself out a glass of whisky and mixing it with soda-water--"If it's a
riddle I give it up!"
Santoris was silent. There was a moment's pause. Then Catherine leaned
forward across the table, looking at him with tired, questioning eyes.
"Could you not explain?" she murmured.
"Easily!" he answered--"Anyone can understand it with a little
attention. What I mean is this,--you know that the human body outwardly
expresses its inward condition of health, mentality and
spirituality--well, in exactly the same way Nature, in her countless
varying presentations of beauty and wisdom, expresses the Soul of
herself, or the spiritual force which supports her existence.
'Spiritual science' is the knowledge, not of the outward effect so much
as of the inward cause which makes the effect manifest. It is a
knowledge which can be applied to the individual daily uses of
life,--the more it is studied, the more reward it bestows, and the
smallest portion of it thoroughly mastered, is bound to lead to some
discovery, simple or complex, which lifts the immortal part of a man a
step higher on the way it should go."
"You are satisfied with your researches, then?" asked Mr. Harland.
Santoris smiled gravely.
"Do I look like a man that has failed?" he answered.
Mr. Harland studied his handsome face and figure with ill-concealed
envy.
"You went abroad from Oxford?" he queried.
"Yes. I went back to the old home in Egypt--the house where I was born
and bred. It had been well kept and cared for by the faithful servant
to whom my father had entrusted it--as well kept as a Royal Chamber in
the Pyramids with the funeral offerings untouched and a perpetual lamp
burning. It was the best of all possible places in which to continue my
particular line of work without interruption--and I have stayed there
most of the time, only coming away, as now, when necessary for a change
and a look at the world as the world lives in these days."
"And"--here Mr. Harland hesitated, then went on--"Are you married?"
Santoris lifted his eyes and regarded his former college acquaintance
fixedly.
"That question is unnecessary"--he said--"You know I am not."
There was a brief awkward pause. Dr. Brayle looked up with a satirical
smile.
"Spiritual science has probably taught you to beware of the fair
sex"--he said.
"I do not entirely understand you"--answered Santoris, coldly--"But if
you mean that I am not a lover of women in the plural you are right."
"Perhaps of the one woman--the one rare pearl in the deep sea"--hinted
Dr. Brayle, unabashed.
"Come, you are getting too personal, Brayle," interrupted Mr. Harland,
quickly, and with asperity--"Santoris, your health!"
He raised a glass of wine to his lips--Santoris did the same--and this
simple courtesy between the two principals in the conversation had the
effect of putting their subordinate in his proper place.
"It seems superfluous to wish health to Mr. Santoris," said Catherine
then--"He evidently has it in perfection."
Santoris looked at her with kindly interest.
"Health is a law, Miss Harland"--he said--"It is our own fault if we
trespass against it."
"Ah, you say that because you are well and strong," she answered, in a
plaintive tone--"But if you were afflicted and suffering you would take
a different view of illness."
He smiled, somewhat compassionately.
"I think not,"--he said--"If I were afflicted and suffering, as you
say, I should know that by my own neglect, thoughtlessness,
carelessness or selfishness I had injured my organisation mentally and
physically, and that, therefore, the penalty demanded was just and
reasonable."
"Surely you do not maintain that a man is responsible for his own
ailments?" said Mr. Harland--"That would be too far-fetched, even for
YOU! Why, as a matter of fact a wretched human being is not only cursed
with his own poisoned blood but with the poisoned blood of his
forefathers, and, according to the latest medical science, the very air
and water swarm with germs of death for the unsuspecting victim."
"Or germs of life!" said Santoris, quietly--"According to my knowledge
or 'theory,' as you prefer to call it, there are no germs of actual
death. There are germs which disintegrate effete forms of matter merely
to allow the forces of life to rebuild them again--and these may
propagate in the human system if it so happens that the human system is
prepared to receive them. Their devastating process is called disease,
but they never begin their work till the being they attack has either
wasted a vital opportunity or neglected a vital necessity. Far more
numerous are the beneficial germs of revivifying and creative
power--and if these find place, they are bound to conquer those whose
agency is destructive. It all depends on the soil and pasture you offer
them. Evil thoughts make evil blood, and in evil blood disease
germinates and flourishes. Pure thoughts make pure blood and rebuild
the cells of health and vitality. I grant you there is such a thing as
inherited disease, but this could be prevented in a great measure by
making the marriage of diseased persons a criminal offence,--while much
of it could be driven out by proper care in childhood. Unfortunately,
the proper care is seldom given."
"What would you call proper care?" asked Catherine.
"Entire absence of self-indulgence, to begin with,"--he answered--"No
child should be permitted to have its own way or expect to have it. The
first great lesson of life should be renunciation of self."
A faint colour crept into Catherine's faded cheeks. Mr. Harland
fidgeted in his chair.
"Unless a man looks after himself, no one else will look after him"--he
said.
"Reasonable care of one's self is UNselfishness," replied
Santoris--"But anything in excess of reasonable care is pure vice. A
man should work for his livelihood chiefly in order not to become a
burden on others. In the same way he should take care of his health so
that he may avoid being a troublesome invalid, dependent on others'
compassion. To be ill is to acknowledge neglect of existing laws and
incapacity of resistance to evil."
"You lay down a very hard and fast rule, Mr. Santoris"--said Dr.
Brayle--"Many unfortunate people are ill through no fault of their own."
"Pardon me for my dogmatism when I say such a thing is
impossible"--answered Santoris--"If a human being starts his life in
health he cannot be ill UNLESS through some fault of his own. It may be
a moral or a physical fault, but the trespass against the law has been
made. And suppose him to be born with some inherited trouble, he can
eliminate even that from his blood if he so determines. Man was not
meant to be sickly, but strong--he is not intended to dwell on this
earth as a servant but as a master,--and all the elements of strength
and individual sovereignty are contained in Nature for his use and
advantage if he will but accept them as frankly as they are offered
ungrudgingly. I cannot grant you "--and he smiled--"even the smallest
amount of voluntary or intended mischief in the Divine plan!"
At that moment Captain Derrick looked in at the saloon door to remind
us that the boat was still waiting to take our visitor back to his own
yacht. He rose at once, with a briefly courteous apology for having
stayed so long, and we all vent with him to see him off. It was
arranged that we were to join him on board his vessel next day, and
either take a sail with him along the island coast or else do the
excursion on foot to Loch Coruisk, which was a point not to be missed.
As we walked all together along the moonlit deck a chance moment placed
him by my side while the others were moving on ahead. I felt rather
than saw his eyes upon me, and looked up swiftly in obedience to his
compelling glance. There was a light of eloquent meaning in the
expression of his face, but he spoke in perfectly conventional tones:--
"I am glad to have met you at last,"--he said, quietly--"I have known
you by name--and in the spirit--a long time."
I did not answer. My heart was beating rapidly with an excitation of
nameless joy and fear commingled.
"To-morrow"--he went on--"we shall be able to talk together, I hope,--I
feel that there are many things in which we are mutually interested."
Still I could not speak.
"Sometimes it happens"--he continued, in a voice that trembled a
little--"that two people who are not immediately conscious of having
met before, feel on first introduction to each other as if they were
quite old friends. Is it not so?"