Part 23 (2/2)
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.”
”Literally?”
”Literally, Mr. Knox. We need no images, no idols, no paintings. All power, all light comes from one source. That source is the sun! The sun controls Will, and the Will is the soul. If there were a cavern in the earth so deep that the sun could never reach it, and if it were possible for a child to be born in that cavern, do you know what that child would be?”
”Almost certainly blind,” I replied; ”beyond which my imagination fails me.”
”Then I will inform you, Mr. Knox. It would be a demon.”
”What!” I cried, and was momentarily touched with the fear that this was a brilliant madman.
”Listen,” he said, and pointed with the stem of his pipe. ”Why, in all ancient creeds, is Hades depicted as below? For the simple reason that could such a spot exist and be inhabited, it must be sunless, when it could only be inhabited by devils; and what are devils but creatures without souls?”
”You mean that a child born beyond reach of the sun's influence would have no soul?”
”Such is my meaning, Mr. Knox. Do you begin to see the importance of my experiment with the lotus seeds?”
I shook my head slowly. Whereupon, laying his corn-cob upon the desk, Colin Camber burst into a fit of boyish laughter, which seemed to rejuvenate him again, which wiped out the image of the magus completely, and only left before me a very human student of strange subjects, and withal a fascinating companion.
”I fear, sir,” he said, presently, ”that my steps have led me farther into the wilderness than it has been your fate to penetrate. The whole secret of the universe is contained in the words Day and Night, Darkness and Light. I have studied both the light and the darkness, deliberately and without fear. A new age is about to dawn, sir, and a new age requires new beliefs, new truths. Were you ever in the country of the Hill Dyaks?”
This abrupt question rather startled me, but:
”You refer to the Borneo hill-country?”
”Precisely.”
”No, I was never there.”
”Then this little magical implement will be new to you,” said he.
Standing up, he crossed to a cabinet littered untidily with all sorts of strange-looking objects, carved bones, queer little inlaid boxes, images, untidy ma.n.u.scripts, and what-not.
He took up what looked like a very ungainly tobacco-pipe, made of some rich brown wood, and, handing it to me:
”Examine this, Mr. Knox,” he said, the boyish smile of triumph returning again to his face.
I did as he requested and made no discovery of note. The thing clearly was not intended for a pipe. The stem was soiled and, moreover, there was carving inside the bowl. So that presently I returned it to him, shaking my head.
”Unless one should be informed of the properties of this little instrument,” he declared, ”discovery by experiment is improbable. Now, note.”
He struck the hollow of the bowl upon the palm of his hand, and it delivered a high, bell-like note which lingered curiously. Then:
”Note again.”
He made a short striking motion with the thing, similar to that which one would employ who had designed to jerk something out of the bowl. And at the very spot on the floor where any object contained in the bowl would have fallen, came a reprise of the bell note! Clearly, from almost at my feet, it sounded, a high, metallic ring.
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