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Page 57
He placed in my hands a small box of dark wood, evidently of great age.
It contained what looked like a number of shrivelled beans.
Having glanced at it curiously I returned it to him, shaking my head
blankly.
"You are puzzled?" he said, with a kind of boyish triumph, which
lighted up his face, which rejuvenated him and gave me a glimpse of
another man. "These, sir," he touched the shrivelled objects with a
long, delicate forefinger "are seeds of the sacred lotus of Ancient
Egypt. They were found in the tomb of a priest."
"And in what way do they bear upon the enquiry to which you referred,
Mr. Camber?"
"In this way," he replied, drawing toward him a piece of newspaper upon
which rested a mound of coarse shag. "I maintain that the vital
principle survives within them. Now, I propose to cultivate these
seeds, Mr. Knox. Do you grasp the significance, of this experiment?"
He knocked out the corn-cob upon the heel of his slipper and began to
refill the hot bowl with shag from the newspaper at his elbow.
"From a physical point of view, yes," I replied, slowly. "But I should
not have supposed such an experiment to come within the scope of your
own particular activities, Mr. Camber."
"Ah," he returned, triumphantly, at the same time stuffing tobacco into
the bowl of the corn-cob, "it is for this very reason that chapter
forty-two of my book must prove to be the hub of the whole, and the
whole, Mr. Knox, I am egotist enough to believe, shall establish a new
focus for thought, an intellectual Rome bestriding and uniting the
Seven Hills of Unbelief."
He lighted his pipe and stared at me complacently.
Whilst I had greatly revised my first estimate of the man, my revisions
had been all in his favour. Respecting his genius my first impression
was confirmed. That he was ahead of his generation, perhaps a new
Galileo, I was prepared to believe. He had a pride of bearing which I
think was partly racial, but which in part, too, was the insignia of
intellectual superiority. He stood above the commonplace, caring little
for the views of those around and beneath him. From vanity he was
utterly free. His was strangely like the egotism of true genius.
"Now, sir," he continued, puffing furiously at his corn-cob, "I
observed you glancing a moment ago at this volume of the 'Golden
Bough.'" He pointed to the scarred book which I have already mentioned.
"It is a work of profound scholarship. But having perused its hundreds
of pages, what has the student learned? Does he know why the twenty-
sixth chapter of the 'Book of the dead' was written upon lapis-lazuli,
the twenty-seventh upon green felspar, the twenty-ninth upon cornelian,
and the thirtieth upon serpentine? He does not. Having studied Part
Four, has he learned the secret of why Osiris was a black god, although
he typified the Sun? Has he learned why modern Christianity is losing
its hold upon the nations, whilst Buddhism, so called, counts its
disciples by millions? He has not. This is because the scholar is
rarely the seer."
"I quite agree with you," I said, thinking that I detected the drift of
his argument.
"Very well," said he. "I am an American citizen, Mr. Knox, which is
tantamount to stating that I belong to the greatest community of
traders which has appeared since the Phoenicians overran the then known
world. America has not produced the mystic, yet Jud�a produced the
founder of Christianity, and Gautama Buddha, born of a royal line,
established the creed of human equity. In what way did these magicians,
for a miracle-worker is nothing but a magician, differ from ordinary
men? In one respect only: They had learned to control that force which
we have to-day termed Will."
As he spoke those words Colin Camber directed upon me a glance from his
luminous eyes which frankly thrilled me. The bemused figure of the
Lavender Arms was forgotten. I perceived before me a man of power, a
man of extraordinary knowledge and intellectual daring. His voice,
which was very beautiful, together with his glance, held me enthralled.
"What we call Will," he continued, "is what the Ancient Egyptians
called _Khu_. It is not mental: it is a property of the soul. At
this point, Mr. Knox, I depart from the laws generally accepted by my
contemporaries. I shall presently propose to you that the eye of the
Divine Architect literally watches every creature upon the earth."
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