lbertus
Magnus; I want you to have a good look at him this time and tell me if
he looks quite as commonplace as he did before. Such things can only
trickle slowly into the soul, but presently, ah! they get right hold of
one--they permeate one, and then there comes a time ...'

"Ombos snatched at the heavy curtain, and the rings screeched on the
brass rod. Clothed in his monkish garb, his face furrowed and seamed;
the lustre of his eyes dimmed by the tears of centuries--there stood
Albertus. The sunken cheeks spoke of years of study and aspiration, but
the swelling muscles of his arms, the deep chest, the wonderful
hands--big, bony, horrible hands--spoke of one from whom age has taken
little toll. Here was age, wisdom, mysticalness, a subtle sense of
pensive melancholy, and a persistence that never tires.

"'Well, how do you like my statue this time?' asked Ombos.

"'Splendid!' I breathed.

"'Yes,' he said looking hard at me. 'The best of it is Albertus asks for
nothing. You can neither bribe nor buy him; your flattery will not move
him; your approbation or blame alike are vain ... he has the
self-sufficiency of the Master of Masters.'

"'Yes,' I found myself saying eagerly. 'He is the Master of Masters.'

"Suddenly he turned and threw the curtain back and took me by the arm
and led me away. 'My force is all going into Albertus--but I must not
overdo it. If I stand too long before him he drains me of all my
god-energy, you know ... that leaves me sick and exhausted. You've heard
about how Michael Angelo put all his power into his marble statue of
Moses? You've read about such things? You know the kind of gush. I met a
poor, half-crazed, devil-driven poet-fellow in Paris some years ago who
told me he had written a great poem; he had lured the crucified soul of
a murderer into his verses. Confoundedly conceited about it, too, he was
... called it _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_. Bah! It would have taken him
a lifetime to put a murderer's socks into a poem. He was a mountebank
... a posturer! And what is this winged thing men name the soul? And who
did make the stars?' Ombos turned demon-like eyes on me, and his whole
face seemed lit up with an appalling mirth.

"'Believe them not, for they are not miraculous ones. They will be lost
for ever; they will die. Their books and statues may live, but they will
die, as sure as the grass grows over graves. My force and body and soul
is passing into the Master of Masters.... I s