When in the middle of the night, William Jordan regained the little
room, he found the aged man, his father, seated there. The Book was
on the table open. The dagger, the chalice, and the stylus were also
displayed. But in the face of the aged man was the mute despair which
was ever upon it when these articles came to be brought forth.
The chalice was half-full of the red blood; the quill was dipped
therein and held in the hand. But not a stroke had been committed to
the virgin page of vellum.
“Will it never be done?” said the old man tremulously, “will it never
be accomplished? Answer me, Achilles.”
“I know not, my father,” said the young man. “I am not so learned in
the Book as I once was.”
“Yet our knowledge of the Book increases with our years and our
stature,” said the old man, as if in amazement. “Answer me, Achilles,
is it not so?”
“Yes and no,” said the young man. “The Book of the Ages, my father,
is an expression of the invisible forces of nature. And I am unfit to
discourse thereupon until I have spoken with my mother the Earth, who
is wise and of their kin. As my veins rapidly devour this third and
last phase upon which I am entered, they draw me nearer and nearer to
her. Never have I been so near to her as I am to-night. As soon as the
bright east announces the dawn I go to lie at the soft brown bosom of
my mother. If she will give suck to the first of her children, perhaps
it may be that the strength will come into his right hand.”
As the young man spoke these words, he walked to the window of the
little room and drew back the shutters.
“I see a faint light in the east,” he said, with a subdued excitement.
“The hour is at hand when I go upon my way.”
“You will return, O Achilles?” said his aged father apprehensively. “I
am lonely and my hairs are white.”
“Yes, my father, I will return,” said William Jordan, “I will return
to our little room. When I have gone out and lain at the breasts of my
mother the Earth; and I have walked in her wildernesses, and I have
traversed her seas, and I have surprised the last of her secrets, which
may be no secrets at all, I will return, my father, to our little room.”
“That is well, beloved one,” said the aged man, pressing his pale lips
to the forehead of the young man.
Yet in the emotion generated by his words of farewell, the young man
was seized again with a paroxysm.
“What--what do I see upon your lips, Achilles?” cried the aged man, his
father, peering with a curious horror in his dim eyes.
“Nature’s mandate, my father,” said the young man, with his secret and
beautiful smile.