The weird of the wanderer Being the papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr. Nicholas Crabbe
and patricians and plebeians swept in reverse order across my view,
all doing their deeds. Time rushed enormously backward in tremendous
panoramas. Great men died before they won their fame. Kings were
deposed before they had been crowned. Nero and the Borgias and Cromwell
and Asquith and the Jesuits[11] enjoyed eternal infamy and then began
to earn it. My motherland, the kingdom of Victory queen of the stalwart
stately Anglicans, melted into barbaric Britain: Byzantion melted into
Rome; Venice into Henetian Altino; Hellas into innumerable migrations.
Blows fell; and then were struck. Bearded men became smooth-skinned
boys. Death came first; and birth came last. All things changed save
one: silver Sihor’s living waters rolled down through the green streak
of Egypt and the sacred Delta to the innumerably smiling sea.
Thus, was I whirled back through the rolling wheels of Time.
At length events were still. The medley of scenes vanished. And I was
ware that I was alone with Another, Unknown, in a void of blackness,
impenetrable, save where the blood-red altar glimmered obscurely; and,
on it, was inthroned a Presence, shapeless, indistinguishable from the
murky gloom.
But I was not afraid. And anon a voice spake to me, saying: “O man of
many wiles and inquisitive mind, it is permitted to thee to have thy
will, seeing that thy will is good and not evil. And, forasmuch as
wicked and fatuous anointed ones are minded to neglect thee, wasting
thee, throwing thee away as worthless, forasmuch also as the Maker of
thy stars will not have His good work spoiled and His keen tool rusted
or blunted by disuse or misuse, therefore, employment is granted to
thee such as thine energy deserveth and as thy mind desireth. For which
cause, thou art put back in time; and several lives are given thee to
live, and several deeds to do, and several fountains of wisdom are
laid bare to thee, so that (being perfected by much striving) at a
favourable occasion thou mayst fulfil thy free and perdurable destiny.”
Thus having spoken, the Voice ceased. But I was alone, in the dark,
very alert, inexpressibly elated, hugging huge joys in my superior
mind; and my heart was throbbing like the tail of a lambkin in
springtime drinking life from the ewe.
But the hall rocked slowly and more rapidly, with lamps and tones
and the roaring of hurricanes and waterspouts and the vibrance of
unmentioned and unthought-of music. And long tongues of white fire
went before; and all the gods of Khem followed after in intolerable
procession, Osiris and Isis and Heru the Child, and hawk-headed Ra in
his splendour, and well-plumed watery Nu and Nut, and intelligent Ptah
excessive in magnitude, and ram-headed Khnemu, and birdlike Khepera,
and self-originated Tum, and feathered Shu, and lion-headed Tefnut,
and Zeb the cackler, and Heru of the two horizons, and dark Set, and
jackal-headed Anpu the way-opener, and ibis-headed Thoth the measurer,
and Maat the straight, and Net the lady of heaven, and Sekhet the eye,
and cat-headed Bast, and plumed Ansu with his flail, and mistress Ta
Urt, and Hapi of the South with the papyrus, and Hapi of the North with
the lotus, and Amen the Only One who has no second, and Mother Nut the
sky his wife. And, all the while, I heard the shattering shaking of
the sacred sistrum, denoting the presence of Divine Mother Isis, the
Greatest of the Three.
But the Voice spake yet again to me, saying: “O man of many wiles and
inquisitive mind, these are the forms of The Supreme, at this time to
which thou art come.”
But I gazed on the assemblage of the gods, until my eyes were blinded;
and, for a time, I saw no more.
Such, then, was the manifestation which I gained by magic art at Thebes.
_I, Empedokles son of Polypemon, a Rhodian, have written this. My lord
the king ceased from dictating these histories, in order that he might
lead a squadron of his flying chariots, waging against King Artavasdes,
who_ (_audacious_) _has demanded tribute. And the Divine Herakles has
gone with my lord the king. May unconquered Mithra, M.Z.L., P.S.U.,
D.O.M., S.H.C., M.E.L.F.,[12] prosper this undertaking. And I seal up
the scrolls, impressing the wax with my lord the king’s own sigil of
the crab and the moon. And these scrolls are written fairly by me,
and sealed by me, Empedokles, the scribe, by command of my lord the
king._[13]
FOOTNOTES:
[11] This synthesis strikes me as being really most remarkable. A. H.
[12] I can only elucidate these majuscules by reference to the
Henetian inscription containing the Mithraic Morning Litanies (_Corona
Matutina Mithraica_) lately discovered by Mr. Rolfe at Tauricellium
(_Torcello_): “_Manceps Zodiacorum Luminum--Pater, Sospitator,
Unificator--Deus Optimus Maximus--Sol, Heros, Creator,--Mundi Expiator,
Lustrator, Fautor._” A. H.
[13] Several words in these documents are not to be found in my
lexicons. On pronouncing them aloud, however, at a time when they
worried me dreadfully, I discovered that they were mere phonetic
traliterations, _e.g._ ΡΕΒΟΛΒΕΡ is evidently “revolver,” and I take
ΟΥΑΔΤϹ for “watch.” Though, why Mr. Crabbe could not have continued to
call these conveniences a “death-spitter” or a “fire-ball-spitter” and
a “time-teller,” respectively, is something of a mystery to me. Perhaps
we shall be safe in assuming that his attention, to the form of matter
which he dictated, varied in intensity from time to time. It does so
with the best of us. Nec semper tendet arcum Apollo. I surmise that Mr.
C.’s “death-parcels” were cartridges, and (from another indication in
the papyri) it may be asserted that they were tipped with an article or
convenience called a “dumdum.” A. H.
THE FIFTH PAPYRUS
_I, King Balthazar of Moxoene, having been victorious once again over
a barbarian people, and being wounded in battle, but not excessively,
dictate these words to Empedokles, my scribe, to pass the time._
Having seen, therefore, the vast white hall in the secret subterranean
temple at Thebes teeming full of the whole hierarchy of the gods of
Khem with all their relative appanages; and, having watched these holy
ones departing with the indicible pomp and splendour of their coming;
and, having heard the mystic voice which told me the meaning of these
manifestations, warning me of my connection with the same: anon, I was
left to ponder all these admirable happenings.
Now the hall was flooded with soft white light, as it had been when I
first entered it with Amenemhat. And, as I meditated, standing strongly
at my ease by the altar of blood-red porphyry, I was ware that white
carpets of silk (covered with silver embroideries) were looped from
column to column all round the immense circle, between each pair of
pillars a carpet hanging from capitals to bases. But the embroideries
represented the Assessors of Amentet: throned in state they were; and
they judged the dead, allotting some to the blissful abodes, and
others to the flaming house of Set who gnawed them with his teeth ever
champing in expectation of fresh meals. And, while I gazed on these
things, I remembered how that Amenemhat had spoken of similar carpets.
But, when I thought of that priest of Tanis, I was moved to hold a
council with the mind in my dear breast concerning many things. For
it seemed good to me to recall events in order, so that (knowing the
past precisely) I might understand the present and proceed securely to
the future. Wherefore, I reminded myself of my godlike dismissal of
Amenemhat at a time when I awfully needed a friend, of the ordeal of
the scorching staff, of the overwhelming and wily inquisitiveness which
impelled me to persist in spite of failure, of the mind-delighting
reward promised to my perseverance, of the flying whirling wheels
which swept me back through panoramas of Time, of the apparition of
the godlike company of Khem. And I considered all these things, fully
and turn by turn, before I laid them away in the cells of my memory,
as sedulous squirrels store nuts in hollow trees, making provision for
winter. But, when, at length, I was satisfied, I came down the steps
from the purple altar; and, gathering my priestly robe from the floor
where I had cast it at the beginning of the ordeal, I clothed myself,
and proceeded to the cloistral antechambers in search of the truck of
baggage which Amenemhat had trundled, from the outer future world,
into that arena of untimed immortality. For I was convinced that I no
longer stood in time where I had been, but rather more than nineteen
hundred years prior to the life which I had left. But, of this, I had
no particular or human certainty, but only a general or divine one, for
my watch told me that barely eleven hours had elapsed since my entrance
into the place; and I firmly prepared myself to find that those eleven
hours included nineteen centuries, and that the land of Egypt (which I
had left flourishing under the rule of Victory queen of the stalwart
stately Anglicans) was now cowering beneath the talons of Roman Eagles.
But, having wound-up my watch, and feeling very hungry, I refreshed my
body with the provisions in my baggage, leaving nothing for mice. Thus
I did, in the cloister behind the embroidered carpets.
Afterward, it seemed good to me to take such matters as would be
useful to me in my new life, and to dispose of the rest, before
emerging into activity in the sweet sunlight. Accordingly, under my
linen robe, I buckled on my belt of beautiful death-parcels with my
death-spitter in its proper sling. And, above that belt, I buckled on
my broad belt with the well-placed pockets, so that the two belts (one
above another) became like a thorax protecting my vitals. But, in the
well-sewn pockets of the broad belt, I bestowed my watch, and a box of
wax-matches,[14] and my gold and silver money, and my pocket-book with
its beautiful pencil,[15] and my Waterman’s Ideal Fountain Pen,[16]
and my Foreign Office Passport,[17] with the circular notes from my
bankers, and eight notes[18] each worth twenty-five ounces of gold.
Thus having prepared myself, I laced the strong sandals on my feet,
arranging the pleats of my robe conveniently to conceal what was
underneath, yet leaving all things ready to be snatched-at in case of
necessity. But there was nothing left, excepting my magic apparatus,
and the truck and lanthorn which had come with me to the place.
But, on pondering the thing again, I was ware (from the carpets between
the columns, and from a certain aspect of the porphyry altar), that
the temple in which I stood was no longer a deserted temple, forgotten
because buried by the lapse of ages, but actually a temple in daily
use. From which portent, I also was ware that it behoved me to be ready
to inflict my presence upon anyone (or at least to explain it plausibly
to anyone) who by chance might totter in my direction, and, indeed, not
to wait for such discovery, but to go at once in search of the society
of articulately-speaking men, and to take my share in life as I should
find it on the grain-giving earth.
For these reasons, then, I set my cabinet of essences and quintessences
in a darkish recess, hiding it, in case I should need it again:
but it remains there to this day. But I retraced my steps toward
the causeway, recrossing the dark river; and, coming there, I
broke my truck and lanthorn into pieces, and committed them to the
swiftly-flowing stream. But I went on toward the light of the outer
world, having the crystal orb (silver-banded with adornments of
rose-crystals and blue moonstones) hanging by its chain from my neck,
and the silver divination-cup in my left hand, and in my right the
magic staff with its silver chain twisted round my wrist. Thus, I