第27章

The Irish have a holy salmon of knowledge, just like the Chaldean man-fish.The Druids' tree-worship is identical with that of the Chaldeans--those pagan groves, you know, which the Jews were always being punished for building.

You see, there is nothing new.Everything is built on the ruins of something else.Just as the material earth is made up of countless billions of dead men's bones, so the mental world is all alive with the ghosts of dead men's thoughts and beliefs, the wraiths of dead races'

faiths and imaginings."

Father Forbes paused, then added with a twinkle in his eye:

"That peroration is from an old sermon of mine, in the days when I used to preach.I remember rather liking it, at the time.""But you still preach?" asked the Rev.Mr.Ware, with lifted brows.

"No! no more! I only talk now and again," answered the priest, with what seemed a suggestion of curtness.He made haste to take the conversation back again."The names of these dead-and-gone things are singularly pertinacious, though.

They survive indefinitely.Take the modern name Marmaduke, for example.It strikes one as peculiarly modern, up-to-date, doesn't it? Well, it is the oldest name on earth--thousands of years older than Adam.It is the ancient Chaldean Meridug, or Merodach.He was the young god who interceded continually between the angry, omnipotent Ea, his father, and the humble and unhappy Damkina, or Earth, who was his mother.This is interesting from another point of view, because this Merodach or Marmaduke is, so far as we can see now, the original prototype of our 'divine intermediary' idea.I daresay, though, that if we could go back still other scores of centuries, we should find whole receding series of types of this Christ-myth of ours."Theron Ware sat upright at the fall of these words, and flung a swift, startled look about the room--the instinctive glance of a man unexpectedly confronted with peril, and casting desperately about for means of defence and escape.For the instant his mind was aflame with this vivid impression--that he was among sinister enemies, at the mercy of criminals.He half rose under the impelling stress of this feeling, with the sweat standing on his brow, and his jaw dropped in a scared and bewildered stare.

Then, quite as suddenly, the sense of shock was gone;and it was as if nothing at all had happened.

He drew a long breath, took another sip of his coffee, and found himself all at once reflecting almost pleasurably upon the charm of contact with really educated people.

He leaned back in the big chair again, and smiled to show these men of the world how much at his ease he was.

It required an effort, he discovered, but he made it bravely, and hoped he was succeeding.

"It hasn't been in my power to at all lay hold of what the world keeps on learning nowadays about its babyhood,"he said."All I have done is to try to preserve an open mind, and to maintain my faith that the more we know, the nearer we shall approach the Throne."Dr.Ledsmar abruptly scuffled his feet on the floor, and took out his watch."I'm afraid--" he began.

"No, no! There's plenty of time," remarked the priest, with his soft half-smile and purring tones."You finish your cigar here with Mr.Ware, and excuse me while I run down and get rid of the people in the hall."Father Forbes tossed his cigar-end into the fender.

Then he took from the mantel a strange three-cornered black-velvet cap, with a dangling silk tassel at the side, put it on his head, and went out.

Theron, being left alone with the doctor, hardly knew what to do or say.He took up a paper from the floor beside him, but realized that it would be impolite to go farther, and laid it on his knee.Some trace of that earlier momentary feeling that he was in hostile hands came back, and worried him.He lifted himself upright in the chair, and then became conscious that what really disturbed him was the fact that Dr.Ledsmar had turned in his seat, crossed his legs, and was contemplating him with a gravely concentrated scrutiny through his spectacles.

This uncomfortable gaze kept itself up a long way beyond the point of good manners; but the doctor seemed not to mind that at all.