rget, a child
was born who should understand. As happens once in many centuries, a
wise man arose, and he interpreted the legends and traditions, and
refreshed in the memory of this people the significance of their
origin.

He taught them the mystery of the sea, and of the beyond, that
hitherto unimaginable beyond, so that men yearned to cross the ocean.

Then the ignorant rose up and slew that man, thinking him an evil one,
luring men to their death. And those who had understood him sorrowed
greatly. His life had been pure, white, without reproach, and the
light that shone in his eyes was the same that burned in the stars.

But though the ignorant could destroy his body, they could not destroy
the fair life that he had lived, that wonderful example of how men may
stand in the presence of the eternal mysteries.

There arose followers who dedicated themselves to the truth he had
revealed, that truth boundless and infinite as the sea itself.
And they lit a fire like the sacred fire in the temples of the
fire-worshippers, and that fire should never be extinguished until
some sign rose out of the horizon, illumining and dissolving the
mystery.

"Who knows," they say, "but that we are the descendants of kings?
There is that in us that is foreign to this land, something not
indigenous to this soil, of which this island is not worthy. It cometh
from afar and had elsewhere its begetting. In us are latent unnamed
powers, senses that in this island cannot be used. Our eyes are
unnecessarily bright, our hearts superfluously strong. This Earth
cannot satisfy us, it cannot afford scope enough, we cannot try
ourselves upon it. This is the hope that we keep holy, that out of the
heavens or across the sea our kindred, our masters, or our gods will
claim us and take us to a new land where our hearts' meaning may
completely show itself outwardly to the sky; where our latent senses
will find the things that can be sensed, and our faculties that which
can be made, where our hearts and wills may be satisfied, and we may
find wings with which to soar over all seas."

Behold these dedicates, with their torch of remembrance kindled in
the night of ignorance, these living eternally in the presence of the
mystery! They pine upon shores, looking over the unbridgeable abyss,
yearning their souls towards that ultimate horizon, with limbs vainly
strong, eyes vainly keen, hearts ready for an adventure they may not
undertake. At their feet wai