place along a line of purple-dusted busts; I
deposited my boxes on a table beside a massive brass thing lying there,
which, I suppose, must be what they called the Mace; and I sat to hear.

Unfortunately, the phonograph was a clock-work one, and when I wound it,
it would not go: so that I got very angry at my absurdity in not
bringing an electric mechanism, as I could with much less trouble have
put in a chemical than cleaned the clock-work; and this thing put me
into such a rage, that I nearly tore it to pieces, and was half for
kicking it: but there was a man sitting in an old straight-backed chair
quite near me, which they called the Speaker's Chair, who was in such a
pose, that he had, every time I glanced suddenly at him, precisely the
air of bending forward with interest to watch what I was doing, a
Mohrgrabim kind of man, almost black, with Jewish nose, crinkled hair,
keffie, and flowing robe, probably, I should say, an Abyssinian Galla;
with him were only five or six people about the benches, mostly leaning
forward with rested head, so that this place had quite a void
sequestered mood. At all events, this Galla, or Bedouin, with his
grotesque interest in my doings, restrained my hands: and, finally, by
dint of peering, poking, dusting, and adjusting, in an hour's time I got
the phonograph to go very well.

And all that morning, and far into late afternoon, forgetful of food,
and of the cold which gradually possessed me, I sat there listening,
musing--cylinder after cylinder: frivolous songs, orchestras, voices of
famous men whom I had spoken with, and shaken their solid hands,
speaking again to me, but thick-tongued, with hoarse effort and
gurgles, from out the vague void beyond the grave: most strange, most
strange. And the third cylinder that I put on, ah, I knew, with a
fearful start, that voice of thunder, I knew it well: it was the
preacher, Mackay's; and many, many times over I heard those words of his
that day, originally spoken, it seems, when the cloud had just passed
the longitude of Vienna; and in all that torrent of speech not one
single word of 'I told you so': but he cries:

'...praise Him, O Earth, for He is He: and if He slay me, I will laugh
raillery at His Sword, and banter Him to His face: for His Sword is
sharp Mercy, and His poisons kill my death. Fear not, therefore, little
flock of Man! but take my comfort to your heart to-night, and my sweets
to your tongue: for though ye have sinned, a