PART III.

"'Come down in thy profoundest gloom—Without one radiant firefly's light,Beneath thine ebon arch entombEarth from the gaze of Heaven, O Night.A deed of darkness must be done,Put out the moon, roll back the sun.'

"Betsey was to 'season' Tom's coffee; he was very fond of coffee. Tom was to treat Betsey to a ride in a one-horse shay, and topple the shay, horse, and Mrs. Thomas W.—all except his mother's only son—over a most convenient and inviting little precipice, a trifle over four hundred feet deep, with boulders at the bottom rather thicker than autumn leaves in Vallambrossa, and a good deal harder. All this was to be the result of 'accident,' and 'inscrutible Providence,' as a matter of course. Afterwards he was to buy a 'slashing suit' of mourning, bury what was left of her in grand style, erect a fine headstone of marble, announcing that—

"'The Lord gave, and the Lord took away,Blessed be the name of the Lord!'

an inscription many a spouse would like to read in their own cases!

"The proposed locality of the fall of woman 'luckily' lay right on the road between their house and Santa Blarneeo. Each thought, 'I may not be able to achieve the exploit upon which I am bent, but one thing is certain, which is, that it shall not fail for want of trying. Once fairly accomplished, freedom comes, and then for a high old time!' So thought the woman; so thought the man.

"Night has various and strange influences, which are altogether unknown to the day. The Magi, on the plains of Chaldea, the astrologers of early Egypt, and the whole ancient world duly acknowledged the power of the astral bodies. The whole interest of Bulwer's 'Zanoni' hinges on the soul-expanding potentiality of a star upon Clarence Glyndon, one of the heroes of that Rosicrucian story. Indeed, the whole august fraternity, from the neophyte of last week to Ross and Henri More, down to Appolonius of Tyanæ, and away through the Ages to Thothmes, and down beyond all the Egyptian dynasties to Zytos, and still away into the very heart of the Pre-Adamite Eras, we know, held strange doctrines concerning stars; and if the historian of the Order, the great Mirandolo, be not mistaken, our Brotherhood possesses the key that reveals the nature of the starry influences, and how they may be gained. Of my own knowledge—for I am but in the fifth degree, therefore do not know all these mysteries—there are Destinies in the stars. Well, on this particular night, the star known as Hesper, she of the pale mild eye, was looking straight into the room where lay the precious pair, and it shone through the little window at the foot of the bed. The night was sultry—a little window—summer was in the ascendant—and the upper sash was down. Remember this,the upper sashwas down.

"And now a strange thing occurred, a very strange and mysterious thing. Just as Tom Clark and his wife had been magnetized into a sort of restless sleep from gazing at the star—an uneasy, disturbed, nervous, but dreamless sleep—as if a heavy, thick and murky cloud just floated off a stagnant marsh, there descended upon the house a pestilent, slimy mist, and it gathered over and about the roof; and it entered, rolling heavily, into the chamber, coming through that little window at the foot of the bed.

"It was a thick, dense, iron-greyish mist, approaching blackness, only that there was a sort of turgid redness, not a positive color, but as if it had floated over the depths of hell, and caught a portion of its infernal luminosity. And it was thick and dark, and dense and very heavy; and it swept and rolled, and poured into the room in thick, voluminous masses—into the very room, and about the couch where tossed in uneasy slumber the woman and the man. And it filled the apartment, and hung like a pall about their couch; and its fetor oppressed their senses; and it made their breath come thick, and difficult, and wheezing from their lungs. It was dreadful! And their breath mingled with the strange vapor, apparently endowing it with a kind of horrid life, a sort of semi-sentience; and gave it a very peculiar and fearful movement—orderly, systematic, gyratory, pulsing movement—the quick, sharp breath of the woman, the deep and heavy breath of the man. And it had come through the window at the foot of the bed, for the upper sash was down.

"Slowly, and with regular, spiracular, wavy motion, with gentle undulations, like the measured roll of the calm Pacific Sea, the gentle sea on which I am sailing toward the Pyramids and my Cora—six years old, and so pretty! Pyramids ten thousand years old, and so grand! Like the waves of that sea did the cloud begin to move gyrally around the chamber, hanging to the curtains, clinging to the walls, but as if dreading the moonlight,carefullyavoiding the window through which it had come, the little window at the foot of the bed—whose upper sash was down.

"Soon, very soon, the cloud commenced to change the axis of its movement, and to condense into a large globe of iron-hued nebulæ; and it began a contrary revolution; and it floated thus, and swam like a dreadful destiny over the unconscious sleepers on the bed, after which it moved to the western side of the room, and became nearly stationary in an angle of the wall, where for a while it stood or floated, silent, appalling, almost motionless, changeless, still.

"At the end of about six minutes it moved again, and in a very short time assumed the gross but unmistakable outline of a gigantic human form—an outline horrible, black as night—a frowning human form—cut not sharply from the vapor, but still distinctly human in itsshapeness—but very imperfect, except the head, which was too frightfully complete to leave even a lingering doubt but that some black and hideous devilry was at work in that little chamber. And the head was infamous, horrible, gorgonic; and its glare was terrible, infernal, blasting, ghastly—perfectly withering in its expression, proportions and aspect.

"TheTHING, this pestilent thing was bearded with the semblance of a tangled mass of coarse, grey iron wire. Its hair was as a serried coil of thin, long, venom-laden, poison-distilling snakes. The nose, mouth, chin and brows were ghastly, and its sunken cheeks were those of Famine intensified. The face was flat and broad, its lips the lips of incarnate hate and lust combined. Its color was the greenish blue of corpses on a summer battle-field, suffused with the angry redness of a demon's spite, while its eyes—great God!—itseye—for there was but one, and that one in the very centre of its forehead, between the nose and brow—was bloodshot and purple, gleaming with infernal light, and it glamored down with more than fiendish malignance upon the woman and the man.

"Nothing about this Thing was clearly cut or defined, except the head—its hideous, horrible head. Otherwise it was incomplete—a sort of spectral Formlessness. It was unfinished, as was the awful crime-thought that had brought it into being. It was on one side apparently a male, on the other it looked like a female; but, taken as a whole, it was neither man nor woman, it was neither brute nor human, but it was a monster and a ghoul—born on earth of human parents. There are many such things stalking our streets, and invisibly presiding over festal scenes, in dark cellars, by the lamp, in the cabinet and camp; and many such are daily peering down upon the white paper on the desks where sit grave and solemn Ministers of State, who, for Ambition's sake and greed of gold, play with an Empire's destiny as children do with toys, and who, with the stroke of a pen, consign vast armies to bloody graves—brave men, glorious hosts, kept back while victory is possible—kept back till the foeman has dug their graves just in front of his own stone walls and impenetrable ramparts—and then sent forward to glut the ground with human blood. Do you hear me, Ministers of State? I mean you! you who practically regard men's lives as boys regard the minnows of a brook. I mean you who sit in high places, and do murder by the wholesale—you who treat the men as half foes, half friends, tenderly; men whose hands are gripped with the iron grip of death around the Nation's throat—the Nation's throat—do you hear?—and crushing out the life that God and our fathers gave it. Remember Milliken's Bend, Port Hudson, Fort Wagner, and the Black Heroes of the war—Noble men—Black, too, but the bravest of the brave—yet treated not as heroes ought to be. Forget not Fredericksburg! and bear in mind that this gorgon of your own creation will not quit you, day or night—not even on your dying day, when it will hiss into your ears, 'Father, behold, embrace me!'—and its slime will fall upon and choke you, as you have choked our country. And the sheeted ghosts of six hundred thousand heroes, slaughtered by a whim, will mournfully upbraid, and—perhaps—forgive you. Will the weeping widows and the countless orphans—pale, blue-cast women, pale with grief, blue with want; orphans, poor little shrivelled, half-starved orphans—will they forgive you? will your own conscience? will the Eternal God of Heaven? Why did you sacrifice these six hundred thousand men? Why did you not put your guns and swords in the hands of six hundred thousand men—men who had God's best gifts to fight for and maintain—Liberty and their wives? Black men, too—brawny, brave, strong-hearted, Freedom-nerved, God-inspired black men.No black man yet ever sold his country!Why don't you first remove their disabilities here in the North? Why don't you bid them rise and be men? Why grudge freemen the pay of other free men; the bounty, the pension, of other heroes of the same rank? Do this, let the Negro understand that you concede his manhood, and appreciate his prowess; let him once know that you are grateful for all he does for the country, and proclaim it to the world, and Black men will flock to your standard, not only from your own soil, but from every spot on earth where civilized black men exist.

"See, yonder is a plain, miles in extent. In its centre there stands an obelisk. Go, Ministers of State, and plant on its top a banner, upon which shall be emblazoned this magic sentence: 'Freedom—Personal, Political, and Social, to the Black man—and protection of his Rights forever,' and there will be more magnetic power in it than in ten thousand Ministers, with their little whims; ten thousand 'Fancy Generals,' with their 'pretty little games,'—and such would be History's record when she handed you down the ages. If you would live in the sacred page, and have your names shine brightly, act, act at once, cut the cords that now bind the Black man. Say to him: 'Come as a man, not as a chattel! Come with me to Enfranchisement and Victory! Let us save the Nation!' and the swift-winged winds will bear the sound from pole to pole, from sea to sea, and from continent, island, and floating barks, from hills, valleys, and mountains, from hut, hovel, and dismal swamps, will come a vast and fearful host, in numbers like unto the leaves of the forest; and they will gather in that plain around that obelisk, rallying around that banner, and before their victorious march Rebellion will go down as brick walls before the storm of iron; and if France, or England, or Austria, or all, combine against them—they, too, will go out of the battle, nevermore to enter it again.

"This is possible destiny! Think of it, O Ministers of State!

"And so the fearful spectre in Tom Clark's room had its origin then and there—had been created by the morning's wicked thought—a creature fashioned by their human wills, and drawing its vitality from their life and pulses—drawing its very soul from out those two beating human hearts. Tell me not that I am painting a picture, limning the creature of a distorted fancy. I know better, you know better, we all know that just such hideous creatures, just such monstrosities, move, viewless, daily, up and down the crowded streets of Santa Blarneeo, up and down the streets of the Empire City and Puritanic Boston; but there are crowds of them in Pennsylvania Avenue, and they wear phantom epaulettes upon their spectral shoulders! You and I know that just such and other

"'Monstrous, horrid things that creepFrom out a slimy sea,'

exist all over the land—but principally in high places begotten of Treason and lust of Gold.

"Soon the lips began to move; it spoke: 'Father! mother! I am yet weak; be quick; make me strong! feed me; I am hungry; give me blood—hot streams—great gouts of blood! It is well. Kill, poison, die; it is well! Ha! ha! It is well; ho! ho!' and then the Thing began to dissolve into a filmy mist, until at last only the weight of its presence was felt, for it floated invisibly but heavily through the room, and, except the gleam—the fiery gleam of its solitary eye—nothing else of it was discernible.

"Ten minutes elapsed after it had found voice, and faded away, when suddenly a fleecy cloud that had for some time past obscured the sky in the direction of Hesper, shutting out her silvery smiles, broke away, and permitted her beams and those of the moon to once more enter the chamber and flood it with a sheeted silver glory—the room where still lingered the hateful Thing, and where still slept the woman and the man.

"Simultaneously with this auspicious event there came sighing over the landscape, the musical notes of such a song as only seraphs sing—came over the wastes like the mystical bells that I have heard at sunset often while sailing on the Nile—mystical bells which thousands have heard and marvelled at—soft bells, silvery bells, church bells—bells, however, not rung by human hands. I have often heard them chiming over Egypt's yellow, arid sands, and I believe they are rung by angel hands on the other side of Time. And such a sound, only sweeter, came floating o'er the lea, and through the still air into the little chamber. Was it a call to the angels to join in prayer—midnight prayer, for the sinful souls of men? But it came. Low it was, and clear; pure it was, and full of saintly pity, like unto the dying cadence of the prayer that was prayed by the Sufferer on the stony heights of Calvary; that same Calvary where I have stood within a year, 'midst devout lovers of their Lord, and the jeering scoffs of Mussulmans! And the music came—so sweetly, as if 'twould melt the stony heart of Crime itself. And it proclaimed itself the overture of another act of the eventful drama then and there performing. And see! look there! the curtain rises. Woman, Man, behold! Alas! they slumber insensibly on. Gaze steadily at that upper sash—above it—for it is down; see, the clear space is again obscured by a cloud; but this time it is one of silver, lined with burnished gold, and flecked and edged with amethyst and purple. Look again! What is that at the window? It is a visible music—a glorious sheet of silvery vapor, bright, clear, and glittering as an angel's conscience! It is a broad and glowing mantle of woven gossamer, suffused with rose-blushes, and sprinkled with star-beams; and it flows through the space, and streams into the chamber, bathing all things in holy tremulous light, soft, sweet, balmy, and pure as the tears of virgin innocence weeping for the early dead! That light! It was just such a light as beamed from your eyes, Woman—beamed from out your soul, when, after your agony, your eye first fell upon the angel you had borne—the man-child whom God gave to your heart a little while ago; just such a light as flashed fitfully from your soul, and fell upon the cradle, O father of the strong and hopeful heart, wherein the little stranger lay; just such light as beamed from your eyes, in pride, and hope, and strange, deep prophecies, as you bent over her languishing form, heartfully pressing her first-born to her dear woman's bosom, when you looked so tenderly, kindly, lovingly down through her eyes into her spirit—the true heart beating for you and it, beneath folded—contentedly folded, arms—contented, too, through all the deep anguish, such, O man, as only a woman and a mother can undergo. That light! It was like that which fell upon the babe she had given you, and the great Man-wanting world—given first for its coming uses, and then to Him who doeth all things very well—well, even when He taketh the best part of our souls away, and transplants the slips in His eternal and infinite gardens, across the deep dark gulfs that hide the dead; just such a light as gleamed from her eyes and thine own, when your hearts felt calm and trustful once more, after the great, deep grief billows had rolled over them—grief for the loss of one who stayed but a little while on earth—all too coarse and rough for her—some little, cooing Winnie—like mine—whose soul nestles afar off, on His breast, in the blue sky, and whose body they laid in the cold grave, there in Utica, after they—he—had let her starve, perish sadly for want of proper food and medicine, while I was on the deep—winsome Winnie! child of my soul, gone, lost, but not forever!—just such a light played in that little room as streams from angel eyes when God takes back at the hands of Azrael and Sandalphon, the beautiful angels of Death and of Prayer, the things you had learned to love too well—to forgetfulness of God and all true human duty. But they will give back what they took: they will give back all, more in the clear sunshine of a brighter and a purer day, than these earthly ones of ours!

"And the light streamed through and into the chamber where lay the woman and the man; and it radiated around, and bathed every object in a crystalline luminescence; and it carried a sadness with it—just such a sadness as we feel when parting from those who love us very well; as I felt on the day I parted from ——, Brother of my soul! when we parted at the proud ship's side—the ocean courser, destined to bear me over the steaming seas to Egypt's hoary shrines. It bore a sadness with it like unto that which welled up from my soul, tapping the fountains of friendship—and tears upon its way, in the memorable hour wherein I left the Golden Gate, and began my perilous journey to the distant Orient—across the bounding seas. What an hour!—that wherein our bodies move away, but leave our sorrowing souls behind!

"Well, a holy light, sadness-bearing light, like this now rested on the bodies of the sleeping pair. At first, this silvery radiance filled the room, and then the fleecy vapor began to condense slowly. Presently it formed into a rich and opalescent cloud-column, which speedily changed into a large globe, winged, radiant and beautiful. Gradually there appeared in the centre of this globe a luminous spot, momentarily intensifying its brilliance, until it became like unto a tiny sun, or as the scintillæ of a rare diamond when all the lamps are brightly shining. Slowly, steadily, the change went on in this magic crystal globe, until there appeared within it the diminutive figure of a female, whose outlines became more clear as time passed on, until, at the end of a few minutes, the figure was perfect, and stood fully revealed and complete—about eighteen inches high, and lovely—ah, how lovely!—that figure; it was more than woman is—was all she may become—petite, but absolutely perfect in form, feature and expression; and there was a love-glow radiating from her presence sufficiently melting to subdue the heart of Sin itself, though robed in Nova Zembla's icy shroud. Her eyes!—ah, her eyes!—they were softer than the down upon a ring-dove's breast!—not electric, not magnetic—such are human eyes; and she was not of this earth—they were something more, and higher—they were tearful, anxious, solicitous, hopeful, tender, beaming with that snowy love which blessed immortals feel. Her hair was loose, and hung in flowing waves adown her pearly neck and shoulders. Such a neck and shoulders!—polished alabaster, dashed with orange blossoms, is a very poor comparison; it would be better to say that they resembled petrified light, tinted with the morning blush of roses! Around her brow was a coronet of burnished, rainbow hues; or rather the resplendent tints of polarized light. In its centre was the insignia of the Supreme Temple of the Rosie Cross—a circle inclosing a triangle—a censer on one side, an anchor fouled on the other, the centre-piece being a winged globe, surmounted by the sacred trine, and based by the watchword of the Order, 'Try,' the whole being arched with the blazon, 'Rosicrucia.' To attempt a minute description of this peerless fay, on my part, would be madness:—her chin, her mouth, her bust, her lips! No! I am not so vain as to make the essay. I may be equal to such a task a century or two from this, but am not equal to it now.

"There, then, and thus stood the crowned beauty of the Night, gazing down with looks of pity upon the restless occupants of that humble couch; for during all these transactions they had been asleep. She stood there, the realization and embodiment of Light; and there, directly facing her, glowered, and floated the eye of that hateful, scowling, frowning Thing—scowling with malignant joy upon the woman and the man. Thus stood the Shadow: thus stood the Light. But soon there came a change o'er the spirit of the scene; for now an occurrence took place of a character quite as remarkable as either of those already recounted; for in a very short time after the two Mysteries had assumed their relative positions, there came through the window—the same little window at the foot of the bed—the tall and stately figure of a man—a tall and regal figure, but it was light and airy—buoyant as a summer cloud pillowed on the air—the figure of a man, but not solid, for it was translucent as the pearly dew, radiant as the noontide sun, majestic as a lofty mountain when it wears a snowy crown!—the royal form of a man, but evidently not a ghost, or wraith, or a man of these days, or of this earth, or of the ages now elapsing. He was something more than man; he was supramortal; a bright and glorious citizen of a starry land of glory, whose gates I beheld, once upon a time, when Lara bade me wait; he was of a lineage we Rosicrucians wot of, and only we!—a dweller in a wondrous city, afar off, real, actual—whose gates are as the finest pearl—so bright and beautiful are they.... The stately figure advanced midway of the room until he occupied the centre of a triangle formed by the shadowy Thing, the female figure, and the bed; and then he waved his hand, in which was a staff or truncheon—winged at top and bottom; and he spake, saying:

"'I, Otanethi, the Genius of the Temple, Lord of the Hour, and servant of the Dome, am sent hither to thee, O Hesperina, Preserver of the falling; and to thee, dark Shadow, and to these poor blind gropers in the Night and gloom. I am sent to proclaim that man ever reacheth Ruin or Redemption through himself alone—strengthened by Love of Him—self-sought—reacheth either Pole of Possibility as he, fairly warned, and therefore fully armed, may elect! Poor, weak man!—a giant, knowing not his own tremendous power!—Master both of Circumstance and the World—yet the veriest slave to either!—weak, but only through ignorance of himself!—forever and forever failing in life's great race through slenderness of Purpose!—through feebleness of Will! Virtue is not virtue which comes not of Principle within—that comes not of will and aspiration. That abstinence from wrong is not virtue which results from external pressure—fear of what the speech of people may effect! It is false!—that virtue which requires bolstering or propping up, and falls when left to try its strength alone! Vice is not vice, but weakness, that springs not from within—which is the effect of applied force. Real vice is that which leaves sad marks upon the soul's escutcheon, which the waters of an eternity may not lave away or wash out; and it comes of settled purpose—from within, and is the thing of Will. The virtue that has never known temptation—and withstood it, counts but little in the great Ledger of the Yet to Be! True virtue is good resolve, better thinking, and action best of all! That man is but half completed whom the world has wholly made. They are never truly made who fail to make themselves! Mankind are not of the kingdom of the Shadow, nor of the glorious realm of Light, but are born, move along, and find their highest development in the path which is bounded on either side by those two eternal Diversities—the Light upon this side—the Shadow upon that:"'The road to man and womanhood lies in the mean:Discontent on either side—happiness between.'"'Life is a triangle, and it may be composed of Sorrow, Crime, Misery; or Aspiration, Wisdom, Happiness. These, O peerless Hesperina, are the lessons I am sent to teach. Thou art here to save two souls, not from loss, assailings or assoilings from without, but from the things engendered of morbid thought—monstrous things bred in the cellars of the soul—the cesspools of the spirit—crime-caverns where moral newts and toads, unsightly things and hungry, are ever devouring the flowers that spring up in the heart-gardens of man—pretty flowers, wild—but which double and enhance in beauty and aroma from cultivation and care. We are present—I to waken the wills of yonder pair; thou to arouse a healthy purpose and a normal action; and the Shadow is here to drag them to Perdition. Man cannot reach Heaven save by fearlessly breasting the waves of Hell! Listen! Thou mayest not act directly upon the woman or the man, but are at liberty to effect thy purpose through the instrumentality ofDream! And thou,' addressing the Thing, 'thou grim Shadow—Angel of Crime—monstrous offspring of man's begetting—thou who art permitted to exist, art also allowed to flourish and batten on human hearts. I may not prevent thee—dare not openly frustrate thee—for thus it is decreed. Thou must do thy work. Go; thou art free and unfettered. Do thy worst; but I forbid thee to appear as thou really art—before their waking senses, lest thy horrible presence should strike them dumb and blind, or hurl Will and Reason from their thrones. Begone! To thy labor, foul Thing, and do thy work also through the powerful instrumentality ofDream!'"Thus spoke the genius of the Order and the Hour; and then, turning him toward the couch, he said, yearningly, with tearful mien and outstretched arms: 'Mortals, hear me in thy slumber—let thy souls, but not thy senses, hear and understand. Behold, I touch thee with this magic wand of Rosicrucia, and with it wake thy sleeping wills—thus do I endow thee with the elements, Attention, Aspiration, Persistence—the seeds of Power—of resistless Might, which, will—if such be thy choice, enable thee to realize a moral fortress, capable of defying the combined assaults of all the enginery Circumstance can bring to bear against thee. The citadel is Will. Intrenched within it, thou art safe. But beware of turning thy assaulting power against thyselves. Will, normal, ever produceth Good: Abnormal, it hurls thee to the Bad! Remember! Wake not to the external life, but in thy slumber seize on the word I whisper in thine ears; it is a magic word—a mighty talisman, more potent than the seal of Solomon—more powerful than the Chaldean's wand—but it is potential for ill as for Good. See to it, therefore, that it is wisely used. The word is,"TRY!" As thou shalt avail thyselves of its power, so be it unto thee. I now leave thee to thy fate, and the fortunes that may befall thee.Twodreams each shalt thou have this night; one of them shall be overruled by thy good, the other by thy evil genius. God help thee! Farewell!' and in another instant, the tall and stately figure passed through the moonlight, out upon the deep bosom of the Night; and he floated, accompanied by the same soft music heard before, away off into the blue empyrean; and he passed through the window—the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down.

"'The road to man and womanhood lies in the mean:Discontent on either side—happiness between.'

"'Life is a triangle, and it may be composed of Sorrow, Crime, Misery; or Aspiration, Wisdom, Happiness. These, O peerless Hesperina, are the lessons I am sent to teach. Thou art here to save two souls, not from loss, assailings or assoilings from without, but from the things engendered of morbid thought—monstrous things bred in the cellars of the soul—the cesspools of the spirit—crime-caverns where moral newts and toads, unsightly things and hungry, are ever devouring the flowers that spring up in the heart-gardens of man—pretty flowers, wild—but which double and enhance in beauty and aroma from cultivation and care. We are present—I to waken the wills of yonder pair; thou to arouse a healthy purpose and a normal action; and the Shadow is here to drag them to Perdition. Man cannot reach Heaven save by fearlessly breasting the waves of Hell! Listen! Thou mayest not act directly upon the woman or the man, but are at liberty to effect thy purpose through the instrumentality ofDream! And thou,' addressing the Thing, 'thou grim Shadow—Angel of Crime—monstrous offspring of man's begetting—thou who art permitted to exist, art also allowed to flourish and batten on human hearts. I may not prevent thee—dare not openly frustrate thee—for thus it is decreed. Thou must do thy work. Go; thou art free and unfettered. Do thy worst; but I forbid thee to appear as thou really art—before their waking senses, lest thy horrible presence should strike them dumb and blind, or hurl Will and Reason from their thrones. Begone! To thy labor, foul Thing, and do thy work also through the powerful instrumentality ofDream!'

"Thus spoke the genius of the Order and the Hour; and then, turning him toward the couch, he said, yearningly, with tearful mien and outstretched arms: 'Mortals, hear me in thy slumber—let thy souls, but not thy senses, hear and understand. Behold, I touch thee with this magic wand of Rosicrucia, and with it wake thy sleeping wills—thus do I endow thee with the elements, Attention, Aspiration, Persistence—the seeds of Power—of resistless Might, which, will—if such be thy choice, enable thee to realize a moral fortress, capable of defying the combined assaults of all the enginery Circumstance can bring to bear against thee. The citadel is Will. Intrenched within it, thou art safe. But beware of turning thy assaulting power against thyselves. Will, normal, ever produceth Good: Abnormal, it hurls thee to the Bad! Remember! Wake not to the external life, but in thy slumber seize on the word I whisper in thine ears; it is a magic word—a mighty talisman, more potent than the seal of Solomon—more powerful than the Chaldean's wand—but it is potential for ill as for Good. See to it, therefore, that it is wisely used. The word is,

"TRY!" As thou shalt avail thyselves of its power, so be it unto thee. I now leave thee to thy fate, and the fortunes that may befall thee.Twodreams each shalt thou have this night; one of them shall be overruled by thy good, the other by thy evil genius. God help thee! Farewell!' and in another instant, the tall and stately figure passed through the moonlight, out upon the deep bosom of the Night; and he floated, accompanied by the same soft music heard before, away off into the blue empyrean; and he passed through the window—the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down.

"In the Kingdom of Dream strange things are seen,And the Fate of the Nations are there, I ween."From"The Rosie Cross,"an unpublished Poem byP. B. Randolph.

"The regal being was scarcely gone from the chamber ere Hesperina and the Shadow—which had once more become visible, approached the sleeping pair—drew nigh unto the woman and the man; and the Fay gently breathed upon their heads, as if to establish a magneticrapportbetween herself and them. She then calmly took her stand near the bedside, and folded her beautiful arms across her still more beautiful bosom, and awaited the action of the tempter. She had not long to wait, for straightway the Black Presence advanced, and hovered over the bed—hovered scowlingly over them, glaring down into their souls, as doth the vampire upon the man she would destroy—the spirit of Wrong peering wistfully at all beautiful things, and true! Such was the posture of affairs; and thus they remained until the Thing had also established some sort of connection with the sleepers. It soon became evident, from their nervous, uneasy movements and postures, that the twain were rapidly crossing the mystic boundaries that divide our own from Dream-land—that they were just entering the misty mid-region—the Shadow, the Thing, the monstrousIt, ruling the hour, and guiding them through the strange realm—

"'That lieth sublime, out of Space and out of Time.'

"The man who says that dreams are figments is a fool. Half of our nightly experiences are, in their subsequent effects upon us, far more real and positive than our daily life of wakefulness. Dreams are, as a general thing, save in rare instances, sneered at by the wise ones of this sapient age. Events, we of Rosicrucia hold, are pre-acted in other spheres of being. Prophetic dreaming is no new thing. Circumstances are constantly occurring in the outer life that have been pre-viewed in Dream-land. Recently, while in Constantinople, I became acquainted with a famous Dongolese negro, near the Grand Mosque of St. Sophia, in one of the narrow streets on the left, as you enter the square from toward the first bridge, and this man had reduced the interpretation of dreams to a science almost; and many a long hour have I rapidly driven the pen, in the work of recording what was translated to me from Dongolese and Arabic into Turkish and English, from his lips, obtaining in this way not merely the principles upon which his art was founded, but also explicit interpretations of about twenty-nine hundred different dreams.

"Tom Clark was dreaming; and, lo! great changes had taken place in the fortunes of the sleeping man. No longer a toiler at the anvil or the plow, he had become a rich and, as times go, therefore an honored man—honored by the crowd which, as a general thing, sees the most virtue in the heaviest sack of dollars.

"The wealth of Mr. Thomas W. had come to him in a very singular and mysterious manner, all since he had become a widower; for Mrs. Thomas was dead, poor woman, having some time previously met her fate through a very melancholy accident. An extract from the 'Daily Truth-Teller,' of Santa Blarneeo, a copy of which paper Tom Clark carried in his pocket all the time, and which pocket I shall take the liberty of picking of the journal aforesaid, and of quoting, will tell the story—sad story—but not the whole of it, quite:

"'Fearful and Fatal Catastrophe!—We learn with deep, sincere, and very profound regret, that another of those fearful calamities, which no human prudence can guard against, no foresight prevent, has just occurred, and by means of which a most estimable woman, an exemplary and loving wife, an excellent Christian, firm friend, and esteemed person, has been suddenly cut off in her prime, and sent prematurely to her final account. It appears that the late heavy rains have rendered all the roads leading from Santa Blarneeo nearly impassable, by reason of the rifts, rocks, boulders, and slides of clay—very dangerous and slippery clay—which they have occasioned."'Especially is this the case along the cliff road, and more particularly where it skirts the side of the Bayliss Gulch. Of late it has been exceedingly unsafe to pass that way in broad daylight, and much more so after dark."'At about ten o'clock yesterday morning, as Mr. Ellet, the Ranchero, was passing that road, along the brink of what is known as the Scott ravine, his horse shied at some objects in the path, which proved to be a man's hat and woman's shawl, on the very edge of the precipice—a clear fall of something like four hundred feet. It immediately occurred to Farmer Ellet, that if anybody had tumbled over the cliff, that there was a great probability that whoever it was must have been considerably hurt, if nothing more, by the time they reached the bottom, as he well remembered had been the case with a yoke of steers of his that had run off at the same spot some years before, and both of which were killed, very dead, indeed, by the accident. So, at least, he informed our reporter, who took down the statement phonographically. Mr. Ellet discovered the remains of a horse and buggy at the bottom of the ravine, and at a little to the left, about ten feet down the bank, where he had, by a miracle, been thrown when the horse went over, Mr. Ellet found the insensible body of a man, desperately hurt, but still breathing. His fall had been broken by some stout young trees and bushes, amidst the roots of which he now lay. Mr. E. soon rescued the sufferer, who proved to be Mr. Thomas W. Clark, a well-known, honest, sober man, and a neighbor as well. Mr. Clark's injuries are altogether internal, from the shock of falling, otherwise he is almost unscathed. His pains inwardly are very great, besides which he is nearly distracted and insane from the loss of his wife and horse, but mainly for the former. It seems that they had been riding out on a visit to a sick friend, and the horse had slipped on the wet clay, had taken fright, and leaped the bank, just as Clark was hurled from the buggy, and landed where Ellet found him. The horse, carriage, and the precious freight, instantly plunged headlong down through four hundred feet of empty air."'We learn that the couple were most devotedly attached to each other, as is notorious from the fact, among others, that whenever they met, after a day's absence, and no matter where, nor in what company, they invariably embraced and kissed each other, in the rich, deep fullness of their impassioned and exhaustless conjugal love. Poor Clark's loss is irreparable. His wife had been twice married, but her affection for her first husband was but as a shallow brook compared to the deep, broad ocean of love for him who now mourns, most bitterly mourns, her untimely fate!'

"'Especially is this the case along the cliff road, and more particularly where it skirts the side of the Bayliss Gulch. Of late it has been exceedingly unsafe to pass that way in broad daylight, and much more so after dark.

"'At about ten o'clock yesterday morning, as Mr. Ellet, the Ranchero, was passing that road, along the brink of what is known as the Scott ravine, his horse shied at some objects in the path, which proved to be a man's hat and woman's shawl, on the very edge of the precipice—a clear fall of something like four hundred feet. It immediately occurred to Farmer Ellet, that if anybody had tumbled over the cliff, that there was a great probability that whoever it was must have been considerably hurt, if nothing more, by the time they reached the bottom, as he well remembered had been the case with a yoke of steers of his that had run off at the same spot some years before, and both of which were killed, very dead, indeed, by the accident. So, at least, he informed our reporter, who took down the statement phonographically. Mr. Ellet discovered the remains of a horse and buggy at the bottom of the ravine, and at a little to the left, about ten feet down the bank, where he had, by a miracle, been thrown when the horse went over, Mr. Ellet found the insensible body of a man, desperately hurt, but still breathing. His fall had been broken by some stout young trees and bushes, amidst the roots of which he now lay. Mr. E. soon rescued the sufferer, who proved to be Mr. Thomas W. Clark, a well-known, honest, sober man, and a neighbor as well. Mr. Clark's injuries are altogether internal, from the shock of falling, otherwise he is almost unscathed. His pains inwardly are very great, besides which he is nearly distracted and insane from the loss of his wife and horse, but mainly for the former. It seems that they had been riding out on a visit to a sick friend, and the horse had slipped on the wet clay, had taken fright, and leaped the bank, just as Clark was hurled from the buggy, and landed where Ellet found him. The horse, carriage, and the precious freight, instantly plunged headlong down through four hundred feet of empty air.

"'We learn that the couple were most devotedly attached to each other, as is notorious from the fact, among others, that whenever they met, after a day's absence, and no matter where, nor in what company, they invariably embraced and kissed each other, in the rich, deep fullness of their impassioned and exhaustless conjugal love. Poor Clark's loss is irreparable. His wife had been twice married, but her affection for her first husband was but as a shallow brook compared to the deep, broad ocean of love for him who now mourns, most bitterly mourns, her untimely fate!'

"There! What d'ye think o' that, my lady?—what d'ye think o' that, my man? That's a newspaper report, the same that Tom Clark carried in his pocket, and read so often in his dream. Singular, isn't it, that the ruling passion triumphs, especially Reporters'—even in Death or Dream-land.

"At the end of two days Mr. Clark recovered sufficiently to go to the foot of the cliff, and when there his first work was to carefully bury what was left of his wife—and her first husband's portrait at the same time—for he had placed that canvas across the backs of two chairs, and amused himself by jumping through it—like a sensible man.

"There is—do you know it?—an almost uncontrollable fascination in Danger. Have you never been seized with the desire to throw yourself down some yawning chasm, into some abyss, over into the ready jaws of a shark, to handle a tiger, play with a rattlesnake, jump into a foundery furnace, write a book, edit a paper, or some other such equally wise and sensible thing? Well, I know many who have thus been tempted—and to their ruin. Human nature always has a morbid streak, and that is one of them, as is also the horrible attraction to an execution—to visit the scene of a homicide or a conflagration—especially if a few people have been burnt up—and the more the stronger the curiosity; or to look at the spot where a score or two of Pat-landers have been mumified by the weakness of walls—and contractors' consciences. With what strange interest we read how the monarch of some distant lovely isle dined with his cabinet, offPotage aux têet de missionaire—how they banqueted on delicate slices of boiled evangelist, all of whichviandeswere unwillingly supplied by the Rev. Jonadab Convert-'em-all, who had a call that way to supply the bread of life, not slices of cold missionary—and did both! So with Tom Clark. One would have thought that the last scene he would willingly have looked upon, would have been the bottom of the ravine. Not a bit of it. An uncontrollable desire seized him, and for his life he could not keep away from the foot of the cliff. He went there, and day by day searched for every vestige of the poor woman, whose heart, and head likewise, he at last had succeeded in breaking into very small fragments. These relics he buried as he found them, yet still could not forsake his daily haunt. Of course, for a time the people observed his action, attributed it to grief and love, forbore to watch or disturb, and finally cared nothing about the matter whatever. Such things are nothing in California. Well was it for Clark that it was so—that they regarded him as mildly insane, and let his vagaries have full swing, for it gave him ample time and opportunity to fully improve one of the most astounding pieces of good luck that ever befell a human being since the year One.

"It fell out upon a certain day, that, after attending to other duties, Tom Clark, as usual, wound his way, by a zig-zag and circuitous path, to the foot of the hill, and took his accustomed seat near by the rock where it was evident Mrs. C. had landed—the precise spot where her flight had been so rudely checked. There he sat for a while, like Volney, in deep speculative reverie and meditation—not upon the ruins of Empires, but upon those of his horse, his buggy, and his wife. Suddenly he started to his feet, for a very strange fancy had struck upon his brain. I cannot tell the precise spot of its impingement, but it hit him hard. He acted on the idea instantly, and forthwith resolved to dig up all the soil thereabouts, that had perchance drank a single drop of her blood. It was not conscience that was at work, it was destiny. This soil, that had been imbrued with the blood of the horse and buggy—no, the woman, I mean—he resolved to bury out of sight of man and brute, and sun and moon, and little peeping stars; for an instinct told him that the gore-stained soil could not be an acceptable spectacle to anything on earth, upon the velvet air, or in the blue heaven above it; and so he scratched up the mould and buried it out of sight, in a rift hard by, between two mighty rocks, that the earthquake had split asunder a million years before.

"And so he threw it in, and then tried to screen it from the sun with leaves and grass, great stones and logs of wood; after which he again sat down upon the rock to rest.

"Presently he arose to go, when, as he did so, a gleam of sunshine flashed back upon his eyes from a minute spiculæ of, he knew not what. He stooped; picked up the object, and found, to his utter astonishment, that he held in his hand a lump of gold, solid gold—an abraded, glittering lump of actual, shining gold.

"Tom Clark nearly fainted! The lump weighed not less than a pound. Its sides had been scratched by him as he dug away the earth at the foot of the cliff where his wife had landed, after a brief flight through four hundred feet of empty air—a profitable journey for him—but not for her, nor the horse, nor buggy!

"For a minute Clark stood still, utterly bewildered, and wiping the great round beads of sweat from off his brow. He wept at every pore. But it was for a minute only: in the next he was madly, wildly digging with the trowel he always carried with him, for Tom was Herb-Doctor in general for the region roundabout, and was great at the root and herb business, therefore went prepared to dig them wherever chance disclosed them.

"Five long hours did he labor like a Hercules, in the soft mould, in the crevices of the rocks—everywhere—and with mad energy, with frantic zeal. Five long hours did he ply that trowel with all the force that the hope of sudden wealth inspired, and then, exhausted, spent, he sank prostrate on the ground, his head resting on a mass of yellow gold—gold not in dust, or flecks, or scales, but in great and massy lumps and wedges, each one large enough for a poor man's making.

"That morning Thomas Clark's worldly wealth, all told, could have been bought thrice over for any five of the pieces then beneath his head, and there were scores of them. His brain reeled with the tremendous excitement. He had struck the richest 'Lead' ever struck by mortal man on the surface of the planet, for he had already collected more than he could lift, and he was a very strong and powerful man. There was enough to fill a two-peck measure, packed and piled as close and high as it could be; and yet he had just begun. Ah, Heaven, it was too much!

"Alas, poor Tom! poor, doubly poor, with all thy sudden, boundless wealth! Thou art even poorer than Valmondi, who, the legends say, gave his soul to the service of the foul fiend—for he, like thee, had riches inexhaustible; but, unlike Valmondi, and the higher Brethren of the Rosie Cross, thou hast not the priceless secret of Perpetual youth. Thou wilt grow old, Tom Clark—grow old, and sick, and grey hairs and wrinkles will overtake thee. And see! yonder is an open grave, and it yearns for thee, Tom Clark, it yearns for thee! And there's Blood upon thy hands, Tom Clark, red gouts of Blood—and gold cannot wash it off.

"Valmondi repented, and died a beggar, but thy heart is cased in golden armor, and the shafts of Mercy may not reach its case, and wake thee up to better deeds, and high and lofty daring for the world and for thy fellow-men. Gold! Ah, Tom, Tom, thou hadst better have been a humble Rosicrucian—better than I, for weakness has been mine. It is better to labor hard with brain and tongue and hands, for mere food and raiment, than be loaded down with riches, that bear many a man earthward, and fill untimely graves! It is better to live on bread, and earn it, than to be a millionaire. Better to have heaped up wealth of Goodness, than many bars of Gold. Poor Tom! Rich you are in what self-seeking men call wealth; but poor, ah, how poor! in the better having, which whetteth the appetite for knowledge, and its fruitage, Wisdom, and which sendeth man, at night, to Happy Dream land, upon the viewless pinions of sweet and balmy Sleep! Every dollarabovelabor brings ten thousand evils in its train.

"Well, night was close at hand, and Tom buried his God, and went home. Home, did I say? Not so. He went to his bed, to sleep, and in that sleep he dreamed that it was raining double eagles, while he held his hat beneath the spout. But he was not home, for home is where the heart is, and we have seen the locality of Clark's.

"For days, weeks, months, he still worked at his 'Lead,' studiously keeping his own counsel, and managing the affair, from first to last, with the most consummate tact; so that no one even suspected that the richest man in California, and on the entire continent, was Mr. Thomas W. By degrees he conveyed to, and had vast sums coined at the mint, as agent for some mining companies. A few hogsheads he buried here and there, and sprinkled some dozens of barrels elsewhere about the ground. This he continued to do until at last evenhisappetite for gold was doubly,triplyglutted; and then he sprung the secret, sold his claim for three millions, cash in hand, and forthwith moved, and set up an establishment close under Telegraph Hill, in the best locality in all Santa Blarneeo.

"And now everybody and his wife bowed to Mr. Thomas W., and did homage to—his money. Curious, isn't it, how long some godswilllive? About three thousand years ago a man of Israel fashioned one out of borrowed jewelry, fashioned it in the form of aveal, after which he proclaimed it, and all the human calves fell down straightway, and a good many are still bent on worshipping at the self-same shrine. That calf has retained to this day 'eleven-tenths' of earth's most zealous adoration! So now did men reverence Clark's money. Women smiled upon him, ambitious spinsters ogled, and hopeful maidens set their caps to enthrall him. He could carry any election, gave tone to the Money Market, reigned supreme and undisputed king on ''Change,' and people took him for a happy man; and so he was, as long as daylight lasted, and he was steadily employed; but, somehow or other, his nights were devilishly unpleasant! He could not rest well, for in the silence of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon man, an unsheeted ghost passed before his face, bearing a most damnably correct similitude to a former female acquaintance of his, now, alas! deceased; and not unfrequently, as he hurried along the streets, did he encounter persons who bore surprising and unmistakable resemblances to the 'dear departed.'

"'Black clouds come up, like sinful visions,To distract the souls of solitary men.'

"Was Tom Clark mistaken? Was it Fancy? Was it Fear?... One night he went to a theatre, but left it in a hurry, when the actor, who was playing Macbeth, looked straight into his private box and said:

"'The times have been that, when the brains were outThe man would die—and there an end;Butnowthey rise again, with twenty mortal murdersOn their crowns, to push us from our seats!'

And the words pushed Clark out of the house, deadly sick—fearfully pale; for the avenging furies, roused at last, were at that very moment lashing his guilty soul to madness—and Shakspeare's lines, like double-edged daggers, went plunging, cutting, leaping, flying through every vault and cavern of his spirit. He rushed from the place, reached his house, and now: 'The bowl, the bowl! Wine, give me wine, ruby wine.' They gave it, and it failed! Stronger drink, much stronger, now became his refuge, and in stupefying his brain he stultified his conscience. His torture was not to last forever, for by dint of debauchery his sensitive soul went to sleep, and the brute man took the ascendant. Conscience slept profoundly. His heart grew case-hardened, cold and callous as an ice-berg. He married a Voice, and a Figure, as heartless as himself; became a politician—which completely finished him; but still, several handsome donations to a fashionable church—just think of it!—had the effect of procuring him the reputation of sanctity, which lie he, by dint of repetition, at last prevailed upon himself to believe. Thus we leave him for awhile, and return to the chamber in which was the little window whose upper sash was down.

"Madame, awake, it will be remembered, had come to the conclusion to settle Tom's coffee—and hash, at the same time, with a dose or two of ratsbane, or some similar delicate condiment; and now, in her dream, she thought all her plans were so well and surely made as to defy detection, and laugh outright at failure.

"In California there is a small but very troublesome rodent known to Science as 'Pseudo-stoma bursarius,' and to the vulgar world as 'gopher'—a sort of burrowing rat, nearly as mischievous and quite as wicked, for the little wretches have a settled and special penchant for boring holes in the ground, particularly in the vicinity of fruit trees. My friend, Mr. Rumford, who has a very fine orchard in Fruit Vale, Contra Costa, just across the bay from Santa Blarneeo, recently assured me that the rascals make it a point to destroy young trees, not only without compunction, but even without saying, 'By your leave.' Now it so happened that Clark's place was overstocked with the pestilent animals alluded to, and the proprietors had, time and again, threatened the whole race with extermination, by means of arsenic, phosphor-paste, or some other effective poison, but had never carried the resolution into practice. This fact was seized on by Mrs. Clark, as a capitalpoint d'appui. Accordingly, with a dull hand-saw, the lady hacked a few dozen of the very choicest young trees, in such a way as to make them look like unmistakable gopher-work, thus subjecting the brutes to charges whereof they were as innocent astwounborn babes. Gophers and the Devil have to answer for a great deal that properly belong to other parties. Her act was a grand stroke of policy. She meant that Tom should voluntarily get the poison, which she intended he—not the gophers—should take at the very earliest possible opportunity.Shedidn't mean to purchase arsenic—oh, no, she knew too much forthat! The ravage was speedily discovered by Clark. He raved, stamped his foot in his wrath, turned round on his heel, pulled his cap over his eyes, ejaculated, 'Dod dern 'em!' started for the city, and that very night returned, bearer of six bits' worth of the strongest and deadliest kind of poison—quite as deadly, almost as strong, as that which stupid fools drink in corner stores at six cents a glass.

"That night about half the poison was mixed and set. Twelve hours thereafter there was great tribulation and mourning in Gopherdom; for scores of the little gentry ate of it, liked the flavor, tried a little more—got thirsty—they drank freely (most fools do!), felt uncomfortable, got angry, swelled—with indignation and poisoned meal! and not a few of them immediately (to quote Mr. Clark), 'failed in business; that is to say, they burst—burst all to thunder! Alas, poor rodents!

"Next morning Tom's coffee was particularly good. Betsey fairly surpassed herself, in fact she came it rather too strong. About ten o'clock he felt thirsty, and inclined toward cold water; for the weather was hot, and so were his 'coppers,' to quote the Ancient Mariner. He would have taken much water, only that Betsey dissuaded him, and said: 'It was just like him, to go and get sick by drinking ever so much cold water! Why didn't he take switchel, or, what was much better, cold coffee, with plenty of milk in it—and sugar, of course;' and so he (Tom) tried her prescription, liked it, took a little more, and that night followed the Gophers!

"Three days afterwards a kindly neighbor handed Mrs. Clark a fresh copy of the 'Santa Blarneeo Looking Glass,' wherein she read, with tearful eyes, the following true and veracious account of

"'We regret to announce the fearful suicide, while laboring under a fit of temporary insanity, caused by the bite of a gopher, of Mr. Thomas W. Clark. It appears, that in order to destroy the vermin, he purchased some arsenic, gave some to the animals, got bitten by them, ran stark mad in consequence, and then swallowed the balance (about a pound) himself. His unfortunate wife now lies at the point of death, by reason of the dreadful shock. She is utterly distracted by the distressing and heart-rending event, which is all the more poignant from the fact, that probably no married pair that ever lived were more ardently and devotedly attached than were they. The coroner and a picked jury of twelve men sat for two hours in consultation, after which they found a verdict of "Death by his own act, while insane from the bite of a gopher!"'

"In due time the body of the victim who had been killed so exceedingly dead, by cruel, cold poison—(if it had been warm he might have stood it, but cold!)—was consigned to the grave—and forgetfulness at the same time; and after a brief season of mourning, materially assisted before company by a peeled onion (one of the rankest kind) in a handkerchief, applied to the eyes—my Lady Gay, our disconsolate relict—fair, forty, and somewhat fat—gave tokens, by change of dress, that she was once more in the market matrimonial,

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