ossessing yourself of
other people's correspondence, we cannot expect any great amount of
honesty on your part. And pray what have you found so useful to you in
this letter?"

"I have found, brother, that you are, like myself, a son of the Good
Work."

"Of what good work do you speak" asked Rodin not a little surprised.

Faringhea replied with an expression of bitter irony. "Joshua says to you
in his letter--'Obedience and courage, secrecy and patience, craft and
audacity, union between us, who have the world for our country, the
brethren for our family, Rome for our queen.'"

"It is possible that M. Van Dael has written thus to me Pray, sir, what
do you conclude from it?"

"We, too, have the world for our country, brother, our accomplices for
our family, and for our queen Bowanee."

"I do not know that saint," said Rodin, humbly.

"It is our Rome," answered the Strangler. "Van Dael speaks to you of
those of your Order, who, scattered over all the earth, labor for the
glory of Rome, your queen. Those of our band labor also in divers
countries, for the glory of Bowanee."

"And who are these sons of Bowanee, M. Faringhea?"

"Men of resolution, audacious, patient, crafty, obstinate, who, to make
the Good Work succeed, would sacrifice country and parents, and sister
and brother, and who regard as enemies all not of their band!"

"There seems to be much that is good in the persevering and exclusively
religious spirit of such an order," said Rodin, with a modest and
sanctified air; "only, one must know your ends and objects."

"The same as your own, brother--we make corpses."[13]

"Corpses!" cried Rodin.

"In this letter," resumed Faringhea, "Van Dael tells you that the
greatest glory of your Order is to make 'a corpse of man.' Our work also
is to make corpses of men. Man's death is sweet to Bowanee."

"But sir," cried Rodin, "M. Van Dael speaks of the soul, of the will, of
the mind, which are to be brought down by discipline."

"It is true--you kill the soul, and we the body. Give me your hand,
brother, for you also are hunters of men."

"But once more, sir,--understand, that we only meddle with the will, the
mind," said Rodin.

"And what are bodies deprived of soul, will, thought, but mere corpses?
Come--come, brother; the dead we make by the cord are not more icy and
inanimate than those you make by your discipline. Take my hand, brother;
Rome and Bowanee are sisters."

Notwithstanding his apparent c