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However, the omens would have read as well another way; for nature, like man, is twofold, and can be as glibly quoted to Satan's advantage as to God's. "Very well done!" said Helwyse to the barber, passing a hand over the close-cropped head and polished chin. "The only trouble is, it cannot be done once for all." As the little man smilingly remarked, however, the charge was but ten cents.
"You are a liar," said Helwyse, unceremoniously. "Why is not Satan, who must possess this all-powerful knowledge, supreme over the universe?" "Your frankness charms me! it proves you worthy to learn. Satan supposing there be such a personage divides, with the other august Being, the sovereignty of the spiritual world.
The natural inference is that, unless so odd a name be an assumed one, Doctor Glyphic occupies that room. Passing on to page one hundred, he will find the first entry reads as follows "Balder Helwyse, Cosmopolis. Room 29." In no trifling mood do we call attention to these two names, and, above all, to their relative position in the book.
Queen of Death!" cried Jervase Helwyse, advancing three steps into the chamber. "She is not here! There on yonder table, I behold the sparkle of a diamond which once she wore upon her bosom. There" and he shuddered "there hangs her mantle, on which a dead woman embroidered a spell of dreadful potency. But where is the Lady Eleanore?"
Bewitched by the spell of night, he had spoken to Helwyse things never before distinctly stated even to his own mind. The subtle, perverse devil who had discoursed so freely to his unknown hearer had scarcely been so unreserved to Manetho's private ear; and the devilish utterances had stirred up the latter not much less than the former.
"This is more than a plaster heaven," said he, looking up; "but I fear, Balder Helwyse, your only heaven, thus far, has been of plaster. You have seen this morning how the God of such a heaven looks. How about the God of this larger Heaven, think you?" Presently he turned away from the window; but he had quaffed so deeply of the morning glory, that the sinister frescos no longer depressed him.
But would it not be more for the general good, were I, who have long been a student of these things, to kill a seeming novice like you? It would assure me of having had one sincere disciple." "I wonder whether he's really mad?" mused Balder Helwyse, shuddering a little in the dampness.
The man seemed to be actually struggling in a fit, gasping and choking. It was a piteous business, not less piteous than revolting. But Helwyse felt no pity, only ugly, hateful, unrelenting anger, needing not much stirring to blaze forth in fearful passion. Where now were his wise saws, his philosophic indifference? Self-respect is the pith of such supports; which being gone, the supports fail.
He sat up, and, bracing himself against the roll of the vessel, he opened the bag and carefully examined its contents. In an inner pocket he found an old letter of Doctor Glyphic's to Thor; another from Thor to his son, dated three years back; and finally a diary kept by Balder Helwyse, which gave Manetho all the information he wanted.
Should mankind learn the secret, a generation would not pass before the world would be turned upside down, and its present Ruler buried in the ruins!" At this point, surely, Helwyse got up and went to his state-room without listening to another word? Not so. The Lucifer in him was getting the better of the sage. He wanted to hear all that the voice of darkness had to say.
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