serene discernment--which
is omniscience--that works in the seer; it is the divine and unlimited
power--which is omnipotence--that from time to time enables the magician
to produce supernatural effects!"

"Away with prophets and marvels!" cried Nebsecht.

"I should have thought," said Pentaur, "that even the laws of nature
which you recognize presented the greatest marvels daily to your eyes;
nay the Supreme One does not disdain sometimes to break through the
common order of things, in order to reveal to that portion of
Himself which we call our soul, the sublime Whole of which we form
part--Himself. Only today you have seen how the heart of the sacred
ram--"

"Man, man!" Nebsecht interrupted, "the sacred heart is the heart of a
hapless sheep that a sot of a soldier sold for a trifle to a haggling
grazier, and that was slaughtered in a common herd. A proscribed
paraschites put it into the body of Rui, and--and--" he opened the
cupboard, threw the carcase of the ape and some clothes on to the floor,
and took out an alabaster bowl which he held before the poet--"the
muscles you see here in brine, this machine, once beat in the breast
of the prophet Rui. My sheep's heart wilt be carried to-morrow in the
procession! I would have told you all about it if I had not promised the
old man to hold my tongue, and then--But what ails you, man?" Pentaur
had turned away from his friend, and covered his face with his hands,
and he groaned as if he were suffering some frightful physical pain.
Nebsecht divined what was passing in the mind of his friend. Like a
child that has to ask forgiveness of its mother for some misdeed, he
went close up to Pentaur, but stood trembling behind him not daring to
speak to him.

Several minutes passed. Suddenly Pentaur raised his head, lifted his
hands to heaven, and cried:

"O Thou! the One!--though stars may fall from the heavens in summer
nights, still Thy eternal and immutable laws guide the never-resting
planets in their paths. Thou pure and all-prevading Spirit, that
dwellest in me, as I know by my horror of a lie, manifest Thyself in
me--as light when I think, as mercy when I act, and when I speak, as
truth--always as truth!"

The poet spoke these words with absorbed fervor, and Nebsecht heard them
as if they were speech from some distant and beautiful world. He went
affectionately up to his friend, and eagerly held out his hand. Pentaur
grasped it, pressed it warmly, and said:

"That w