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Lives of Alcyone

by Annie Besant & C. W. Leadbeater

Note

The lives are published in two volumes. Since the original drafting some additions to the Band of Servers have been met and recognised, so some additional charts have been added.

The pictures were done by one of our helpers, who was a fortunate combination of an artist, quick to visualise a description, and to some extent a clairvoyant and intuitive. They give a fair idea of the appearance of the subject of the biographies, as he was known to us.

This is, I believe, the first serious attempt to link together many lives of many persons in consecutive order, and they throw much light on the workings of Karma and the Law of Reincarnation. They remind one of a saying in the Hebrew Scriptures;”I will bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.”The present life period incline of the”gathering of the clan”and it has been strange to see how, apparently fortuitously, boys and girls have come together from different Nations, led by circumstances, and have fallen naturally into harmonious group.

Doubtless other such books as this will appear in the future, as the extension of sight becomes more common. This is a pioneer work, a new adventure, and our ship is likely to sail over stormy seas.

Annie Besant

December, 1924

Foreword

The servers

All who have read Man: Whence How and Whither are acquainted with the idea of the Group of Servers – a band of people who have offered themselves to do a certain amount of hard work of the world, especially the work of the pioneer. When a new country is to be brought under cultivation; there must be men who will be the first to enter it, who will be willing, for a long time, to dispense with all the little conveniences which make existence bearable, to live roughly and to work hard, cutting down trees, clear away undergrowth, digging up and leveling the ground, boring wells and constructing roads, and generally turning the wilderness into a fruitful field and making the jungle habitable; and without such preparatory labor civilized life, and all that it brings in its train in the way of opportunity and achievement, would never be possible at all.

The same statement is true of other and higher kind of development. When a new Root Race is to begin the Manu incharge of the business must take a certain number of people and deal with them much as the pioneer deals with the new country. He must break up many of their customs, their prejudices, their ways of thought, and implant in them others that are quite different, at the same time he is introducing changes into the shape and build of their physical bodies. Clearly such work difficult and complicated as it must be in any case can be done more easily if the human material is docile, if it is to some extent accustomed to the process, and willing to cooperate to the best of its ability, just as soil that has just been turned over is easier to dig than that which has never been touched. Such members The Manu finds in us who are members of His Band of Servers. Notice the qualities, which He must need in us.

First, the docility of which we have just spoken. We must be willing to follow Him through all dangers and difficulties, eager to take any hint that he throws to us, always ready to put aside personal desires and feelings for the sake of the work that has to be done.

Secondly, such comprehension of at least the broad outline of the work as would enable us to cooperate intelligently–as in the present age we call an interest in Theosophy.

Thirdly, patience, for without that we shall assuredly fall out by the way in the long march of evolution, and discouraged at the scantiness of the visible result from all our endeavors.

Fourthly, industry, the inflow of energy from behind that keeps us moving in spite of all hindrances - the flywheel that carries us over dead-point of exhaustion and despondency.

Fifthly, adaptability, and comradeship, so that we may learn to work together as a whole, to trust one another and make allowances for one another.

Have we then-we who have the honor to belong to this Band - all these qualities fully developed? Certainly not, but we are in the process of developing them, and every possible opportunity is given to us to hasten their unfolding. After the experience of many incarnations extending over thousands of years, we ought to exhibit these qualifications to an extent markedly greater than that observable among our fellowmen. If we do not so manifest them, if we are not yet what He would have us be, that is evidently our fault and we should instantly set about amending it. The history of our past lives shows us also that with some who are of our party His endeavor has already succeeded to the fullest possible extent. Further, if for the rest of us progress has not been so rapid, the knowledge of what those who are now adepts have done should be to us at once the greatest possible incentive and the most emphatic encouragement. Let us see, then, what can be learned from this past history.

Since the Book Man was written some further investigations have been made, in the course of preparing for the press the new book, containing an account of forty-eight of the lives of Alcyone. These investigations modify to a certain extent some of our previous conclusions, and alter the relative importance, which we were at first disposed to attach to the various factors governing the successive incarnations of this Group of Servers. When the’Lives of Alcyone’ were first published in The Theosophist, only a few of the dramatis personae were given after each Life - just those characters which happened to come into close touch with the hero of the story or exercised some definite influences over his life. A few of these people appeared nearly every time, but most of them were irregular; and this seemed to the investigators quite in accordance with what might be expected, for obviously men of widely differing temperaments would make for themselves karma of various kinds, which would carry some in this direction and some in that, and would give some a long life in the heaven world between incarnations while others would find themselves descending into the physical life after a much smaller interval.

From other lines of study we have realized the existence of three great factors as determining the place and time of each man’s birth. First, the force of evolution, which places each man where he can most readily acquire the qualities in which he happens to be deficient; second, the law of karma, which limits the action of that first force by allowing the man so much as he has deserved; third the law of attraction which brings the man again and again into connection with the other egos with whom he has formed links of some kind. We find these laws acting usually in the order above assigned them; and that order conveys their relative importance in the case of the great mass of humanity. It is true as we supposed that the length of a man’s life in the heaven world is determined by the amount of spiritual force which he has generated while on earth; it is true that the karma of his previous lives decides to a great extent the kind of existence which he will have now, and the happiness or misery which he shall experience in that existence.

But further enquiry has shown us that, in the case of the Band of Servers, These rules, which ordinarily operate, are subordinated to the purpose of the Group. It is of the essence of our membership of that Band that we should be ready to put aside all feelings and interests of the individual for the sake of the whole; and we find that this rule holds good even with regard to the births that we take. For us the third of these factors comes first; and what is primarily considered is not our individual karma, but the need of the group as a whole. In those earlier enquiries we found occasions when few of his friends appeared along with Alcyone, and at the time we took it for granted that the others were probably out of incarnation at that period. By spreading our nets a little wider, by examining generations before and after that in which our hero happened to be born, by searching among neighbors and friends as well as among blood relations, we have in nearly every case been able to find all or almost all of those whom we have specially identified; so while it is true that Alcyone’s individual karma, or the necessities of his private evolution, have brought him sometimes into the very midst of the group, and at other times thrown him for the moment aside from it, we must not, therefore assume that there is any change in the evolution of the group as a unity.

It is now clear that the members of this Band, whether emotional or intellectual, spiritual or material in disposition, have come down through the ages together, and that the fact of their association has always been the really dominant influence in their lives, and the most important influence in their lives, and the most important element in determining the time and place of their rebirth. They have been placed where they were wanted for the work without any consideration, for the moment, of their individual needs or their private progress. We must not suppose that their individual evolution has been neglected, or that their precise personal karma has been neglected, or that their precise personal karma has in anyway failed to produce its due effect; but because of their membership in this remarkable clan those needs have been achieved by methods differing slightly from those which are more usually employed. The greater or lesser amount of spiritual force generated in a given life for example finds its result not in the comparative length of the heaven life, but in its comparative intensity.

There are considerable intervals during which the Group is not required for work of an occult nature; but even then it still keeps together; its members do not go off separately, each pursuing his own evolution, but they are part so far as we can see, wherever the greatest good of the greatest number can best be consulted. When they are not wanted for outside work, their own evolution is taken into account; but even then it is not that of the individual, but that of the mass. In fact, to a certain extent, the clan may be considered as a little sub-world by itself. Most of the karma of its member’s is necessarily generated with their fellows, and therefore tends to work itself out within the Group, and to make the ties stronger between the comrades. It is therefore, evident that in calculating averages for the world in general, it is wiser not to include the members of our Group, as they are under an influence, which differentiates them in various ways from those who are not as yet being specially utilized.

In the introduction to the’Lives’ published in The theosophist it was mentioned that we had noted the existence of two classes of egos, who among other things, differed in their usual interval between lives, one taking an average of about twelve hundred years and the other an average of seven hundred. We still find these classes to be clearly marked; but when the members of them come into the Band of Servers their intervals are immediately thereby affected. The distinction still persists in certain pronounced cases; a detailed study of the charts which will be published in the new book of Lives will show that there are occasions on which one may suppose that the inherent tendency proves itself too strong for the new influence, and the clan temporarily breaks itself into two groups, each of which takes the interval to which it had previously been accustomed. But when that happens, we find that the whole clan is again united by the simple plan of synchronizing the third incarnation of one set with the second of the other, so that they are only apart for what is comparatively a very short time. Between these occasional outbreaks of old habit they are only apart for what is comparatively a very short time. Between these occasional outbreaks of old habit they arrive at a sort of compromise and keep together, but with intervals which are somewhat irregular - sometimes a thousand years or more, and sometimes only eight hundred. Single members occasionally break away from the Group for an incarnation or two - presumably because they have generated karma, which necessitates special treatment.

A phenomenon of interest, which has its influence upon these occasional departures from the regular routine, is the existence of what may be called sub-groups. Some of the principal characters have a small following, which tends to go with them wherever they go. This is fully apparent only when we have the whole series of charts before us so that our readers will not be able to make a complete study of it until they have the new book of Lives before them; but even from the very partial lists which were published in the The Theosophist, it is possible to observe indications of this fact. The close attachment of Herakles to Mars is an instance in point; Mars himself is usually associated with Jupiter and the Manu; while Herakles in turn has a certain more or less regular following, in which Capella, Beatrix, Gemini, Arcor and Capricorn are prominent. A still closer attachment subsists between Alcyone and Mizar, and wherever they are it will usually be found that Sirius, Electra and Fides are not far off. Erato, Melete, Concordia and Ausonia form a group of four, who happen to be closely related in this present incarnation; but this is no exception to their general rule, for in past lives they are constantly in intimate connection. A remarkable couple are Calypso and Amalthea ; for these two are constantly to be found in the relation of husband and wife, and if either of them is so ill advised as to marry somebody else they usually adjust the matter by eloping together. Another group which seems to be closely linked consists of Draco, Andromeda, Argus, Atalanta, Lili, Phoenix and Dactyl; the connection here is so frequent that when, in the course of our investigations, we came across one member of the party we always felt certain of speedily encountering the others, and we were rarely disappointed. Yet another group includes Hector, Albireo, Leo, Leto, Berenice and Pegasus; another comprises Aldebaran, Achilles and Orion. All these form smaller systems within the clan as a whole, much as in the solar system each of the greater planets has a system of satellites of its own. Only in the case of the Group there is this difference, that the subgroups are not inherently coherent; they are together more often than not, but they do break up and int ermingle sometimes, and it is evident that such changes of partnership are intentionally arranged.

Another very curious group is composed of entities whose link with the clan is less defined, for their connection with it seems often rather hostile than friendly. A decided instance of this is Scorpio, who comes down through the ages in violent opposition to Herakles, an attitude still maintained in the present life, in which the hatred and unscrupulousness are as prominent as ever,though the power to harm has obviously decreased with the passage of time. Other members of the same type, but somewhat less violent, are Cancer, Lacerta, Ursa, Hesperia; and they in turn have a set of friends such as Trapezium, Markab, Avelledo, who are sometimes associated with them and sometimes with more difinitely loyal members of the Group. Pollux who is occasionally of this party, has a special link of his own with Melpomene, though it often works along undesirable lines. Some who began forty or fifty thousand years ago as members of this less satisfactory subgroup seem to be gradually coming out of it and allying themselves more and more closely to the main body ; Gamma and Thetis are cases in point. Others there are who are closely and honourably associated with the clan, but almost always in a subordinate capacity; an example of this is Boreas. Egos retained very decidedly certain special characteristics; for example, all the characters are in most of the lives to some extent related to one another, and therefore presumably on the same social level; but whenever we come to an incarnation in which some of them are priests and warriors, and others are traders, one can always guess beforehand which names will be found in each of these classes. There are some who appear in the group only occasionally, and as it were by chance – evidently themselves not regular members of it, but probably karmically associated with some who are members; examples of this kind are Lota, Kappa and Liovtai.

The Group of Servers is a large one; the two hundred and fifty characters to whom names have been assigned are supposed to be less than one tenth of the whole, it is thought likely that the whole clan is divided into companies for the purpose of special training, and that these companies are taken in hand one after another by the Manu and his subordinates. Our two hundred and fifty may well be such a company, and when one of its members disappears from it for a time, he has probably been gaining experience in one of the other companies. There are various pieces of evidence that point to this. For example: our characters are called together by the Manu about 70,000 BC, when he is making preparations for his new Root Race; many of them were killed in the massacre which took place then, and received a promise from him that those who died for the sake of the Race should be re-incarnated in it immediately under somewhat more suitable conditions. When, ten thousand years later, the race was definitely established, every member of our group appeared in it. When the time came for the formation of the second sub-race our band was utilised both in the first occupation of the valley and again two thousand years later when the actual migration into Arabia took place. Just the same thing happened with regard to the third sub-race, our group passing through three incarnations in the course of its establishment. But when the time came for the founding of the fourth and fifth sub-races, not a single member of our clan of two hundred and fifty is to be found among those who were helping the Manu in his work. It seems evident, then, that at that period the turn of another company had come – and another set of egos must have been going through this training.

When the Bodhisattva condescended to appear in India as Shri Krishna and in Palestine as Jesus, no single member of our group was in attendance on him, nor were we chosen, as now, to prepare the way for his advent. In each of these cases He had attendants, so the presumption is that they belonged to one of the other companies.

From the glimpses we have had of the beginnings of the Sixth Root Race we know that our clan of Servers is to have the honour of being employed in that connection, and there is also reason to suppose that we should have a part to play in the development of the sixth sub race of this present Root Race. But the purpose for which we are now called together is neither of these, though it is still of the usual preparatory nature. We are now called upon to prepare the way of the Lord – to help to make ready the world for the descent of the Bodhisattva. Because that is so, the method of this incarnation differs from all those that have preceded it. When we were founding a physical race, we were born in the same country and thrown into close physical relationship, but that is not at all what is needed now. The coming teacher needs heralds to prepare his way in all countries, and so that ancient and compact Band of Servers finds itself scattered loosely over the whole civilised world.

Having thus scattered us, they bring this together again, but this time intellectually, on the mental plane instead of the physical. They draw us altogether through a common interest in Theosophy, and they are trying upon us this interesting experiment, to see whether after all the experience we have had, we can preserve the clan spirit and work equally well together for a common object when we are born in different races and different families. The subjects of the experiment at first known nothing about it. They find themselves in relation to people of other races and of many types, all with their various peculiarities, and the first idea that occurs to them is how tiresome these peculiarities are, and how difficult it is to get on with these people. But presently they get through the surface differences to the common humanity behind. The ego breaks through the veil of his vehicles, and the old sense of comradeship reasserts itself. We must needs be in every land because He needs his agents in every land; we must needs be a coherent all those agents must work together as one great body animated by one mighty spirit.

And those older lives we usually find our people gathered together into three or four large families, springing often from a single couple, or from two or three couples. The descendants of these couples for three or four generations generally consist almost wholly of members of our group. Then suddenly the stream dries up, and the next generation consists of strangers. But many among these strangers have been observed as recurring frequently, and it is possible that they might prove on further examination to be members of that second group whose existence we had been inferring. It may well be that that second group, whose members are as yet unidentified, may have been employed to follow our group in the case of the first, second and third sub races, and that they were tried in the leading role in the case of the fourth and fifth. It is likely that on so important an occasion as the descent of the Bodhisattva both of these groups, and quite possibly a dozen more, may be brought into incarnation.

Our investigations were undertaken for the special purpose in connection with the past lives of Alcyone, and the egos to whom names have been given are those who appear most closely in association with him – those who were going through the same training at the same time. Those who appear to be training in another squad naturally do not appear at all, although it is obvious that their work must have been just as important in connection with other sub races. Even in our own squad many other entities are recognizable as recurring frequently, and might no doubt be identified among existing fellows of the Theosophical Society, if the same amount of individual trouble were given to them that was given in the beginning to the others.

Sometimes theosophists have asked us whether they were not among this Band of Servers in the past, as they feel themselves so strongly drawn to some of the Great Ones, or to the President, that they feel sure they must have met them before. I think it is quite certain that almost every member of the society (at any rate, every member who is working strongly and disinterestedly for it) must have been in one or other of these groups at one time or another. Some of them may form that later generation which we so often half recognize. Round the families which we have catalogued there is a sort of a penumbra, an outer fringe which probably contains thousands who are now students of the sacred wisdom. Indeed, some who were not specifically mentioned may be as closely related to the Great Ones as those on our list; for we often recognise but two or three children out of a family of eight or ten; no doubt the unidentified children are Fellows of the Society also!

Sometimes a character almost forces himself upon our notice. For example, I noticed on several occasions a grand but unknown figure appearing in close connection with some of our most honoured names – an ego, evidently, of great importance. Having met with this character two or three times, we at last decided to follow him down to the present day, and discovered him to be the Master of the Master K.H. – a senior adept, to whom in our charts we have given the name of Dhruva.Quite recently I came across another character, apparently by the merest accident. One of our members brought to my notice a young friend of his, because he had heard that we happened to have a certain interest in common; and the moment that this younger stranger was introduced to me I saw that he was not a stranger, but, on the contrary, a prominent character in many of those lives of old -one whom I had supposed to be at present out of incarnation. He came into my life this time as the proofs of the new book on the Lives of Alcyone were already in hand; he was just in time to be included in chart number I, but just too late to take his place in the specimen ledger - page, as that was already ‘struck off’.

What happened then may occur again ; at any moment we may come across a person who held an important position among us in those days of old. Even if we do, however, he’ll be too late for inclusion in this edition of the book; the door is shut for this particular cycle of manifestation! Indeed, in any case, no more names are now being given, as the number is already somewhat unwieldy for our charts and ledgers. Also, no useful purpose is to be served by adding to the list; we have already enough instances from which to draw deductions with regard to the Servers; if further investigations are made, they would be more profitably undertaken among some entirely different class of entities.

The charts are prepared on the principle of a genealogical tree, and each gives the relationship of the characters at a given date.

From them it is easy, though laborious, to prepare a kind of ledger in which each character has his own page, and his relationships in successive lives are entered in due order, thus enabling us to see at a glance what position he has held, and how often he has been in touch with this person or that. A specimen page of such a ledger may be given in the new book, as a guide for anyone who wishes to construct such a volume.

A friend recently remarked that the length of physical life of the characters mentioned is always much above the average given in the present day by insurance statistics. That is true; but actuarial tables have so far concerned themselves only with an average based upon the present lives of a number of different egos, not with the successive lives of one ego. For anything we know, egos may have idiosyncrasies in this matter; some may be in the habit of taking the longest physical lives that their karma permits, while the others may prefer more frequent changes. Or it may be all decided for us from outside.

Students will notice that all through the ages almost all our characters have been practically monogamous. This must not be taken to indicate that the civilisations in which they were living had never admitted the practice of polygamy. The taking of one wife only may perhaps have been an instruction of the Manu; or it may have been largely a matter of practical convenience, as it is in India today. I understand that Hindu custom places little restriction on the number of wives any man may simultaneously have, yet among my many friends in India I know none, outside of certain royal families, who has more than one wife.

Families in our charts are often fairly large – though not unusually so, when compared with some of those of the present day, for in this twentieth-century incarnation one of our most illustrious members belonged to a family of thirty-five – a larger number than any which we have yet found in our charts! The intelligent care of the children was always a prominent part of instructions of manu and for that reason you find little infant mortality among the characters. It was by his instruction also that the families inter married so sedulously, in order that the newly established race might be kept pure from inter mixture – the result being that we comparatively rarely find one of our characters marrying one of the unrecognised.

We are usually scattered over three or four generations, and is it curious to note the groupings which occur. The two or three couples with which the families begin are often those who are now among the Great Ones, and we can understand that by supposing it necessary to have strongly developed characters to set the type. These Great Ones are themselves usually brothers or sisters in a family, the other members of which are unknown to us.

Their parents are sometimes obviously highly developed people, and one may assume that they have probably since then attained Adeptship, and are beyond our ken. The immediate descendants of those two or three couples are usually certain people who are even in the present day closely following Them. These people in turn inter marry, and then we get the bulk of the group. But there is generally a sharply defined bottom line to the chart, below which there are rarely any stragglers. Even in the lowest line our characters almost invariably find husbands or wives who are recognised, but their families, though numerous as ever, contained no characters whom we know. This arrangement is sufficiently common to make it reasonably certain that it is not accidental, but intended.

It is interesting to notice that some characters occur almost always in this bottom line, and so, so far as our charts and ledgers are concerned, appear to have no offspring, because their children are not among those who have been identified; others on the contrary usually occur near the top of the chart, and consequently show plenty of children, though their grandparents, and sometimes even their parents, are unknown, others have the habit of falling always in the middle of the chart, so that we are able to fill into a ledger both their ancestors and their descendants. It is too early as yet to speculate on the meaning of this arrangement, though no doubt it will emerge as the result of further study. It may be assumed that those who have members of the group as his children are learning how to train vehicles for the use of these helpful egos; but speculation is hardly likely to be profitable until we have the whole mass of facts before us in tabular form, and have time to consider them from all points of view. Admirable work has already been done along this line by Monsieur Gaston Revel but unfortunately he had at his command only the very small body of statistics published in The

Theosophist, and consequently many of his conclusions will need revision – as indeed is the case with most of our earlier attempts to generalise. For example, we embarked upon an interesting inquiry as to whether on the average the period between lives was longer after the male or the female incarnation; but now that we see that among us the interval for men and women alike is determined by the requirements of the group as a whole, it is obviously useless to persue that line of investigation any further.

It is evident that the experiment which is being tried in this present incarnation with the Band of Servers is quite a new one. Not only have they always in the past been in physical relationship, but it is clear that the details of the relationship were not left to chance, but were carefully arranged as part of a definite plan, in which the close association of the semi - patriarchal family life of those times was utilised to attain the required results, just as in the present day of semi detached families quite in other means are used, and advantage is take of the mental association of societies and clubs of various kinds.

That the method employed have been effective is shown by the case of Alcyone. In this present twentieth-century life only one member of the group which we have so often found surrounding him was born in cosanguinity with him, yet every member of that Group, on meeting him in this life, for what was then supposed to be the first time, instantly recognised the spiritual relationship which means so much more than any earthly tie. And what is true of Alcyone and his immediate and closest friends, is also true of the other groups or subdivisions of the clan of Servers, and to a somewhat less extent of the clan as a whole. Forty or fifty lives ago we find Alcyone engaged in riveting certain special links; later we find him meeting these same people frequently, it is true, but still somewhat less closely associated with them, because he is then engaged in forming certain other links – making efforts the results of which are perhaps still in the future.

As the real object of these incarnations is the formation of these links, so that the members of the clan may learn to understand and trust one another, and thus gradually become a pliable, reliable, intelligent unit that can be employed by the Great Ones as an instrument, it is obvious that we cannot measure the importance of any life by the superficial incidents which are all that we can describe in our series of stories. Picturesque occurrences may sometimes offer opportunity for heroical effort, and so may suddenly crystallise into visibility the results of long slow interior growth; but on the other hand a life barren of adventure may yet be fruitful in the quiet development of necessary qualities – a life happy, industrious, unsensational, pleasantly, placidly progressive. Putting aside the recurrent relationships due to the association in small subgroups, it can be found that each unit has during this series of lives being brought into intimate connection with a large number of the other units. If, for example, we opened the ledger at hazard, and look down the columns of husbands or wives, we should find on the whole very few repetitions.

Sometimes one ego will marry another over and over again, but more frequently the forty eight lives will show forty eight different experiments in marital life. It seems clear that the authorities who direct these matters are mixing us intentionally, in order that by entering into most intimate affinity with a number of different people we may know them thoroughly and learn to work with them.

To be a member of this Band of Servers is indeed a noble ambition, but it is not one of those that bring honor in the eyes of men. In the founding of races and sub-races it was often necessary for some of our characters to hold high office as kings and chief priests, though the communities with whom they were thus associated were usually but small. In later days, however, and especially within historical times, we have been content with humbler positions, though we should find that we have always been among the cultured people of our time. Few of us have borne names known in history, and those few have in most cases since reached Adeptship, as may be seen by referring to the tables published in Man.

Most of us are by no means upon that intellectual level, but what is asked of us is not the position of genius, but of those qualities which I mentioned in the beginning of this article. Since that is obviously what is required of us, our business is to work at that development, and that with all speed, so that when the Lord comes he may find in our group an instrument ready to his hand, an instrument as nearly perfect as we can make it.

The more we see of this Band of Servers, the more thankful I personally am to have the honor of belonging to it, for it has clearly a definite work to do for Him; and to have the opportunity of doing that is indeed a rare felicity. Feeling this as I do, I cannot but regret most poignantly that some who formed part of this Band in long-past centuries should have fallen away from it in this life. I know that they cannot fall away permanently, that their wanderings are only those of the naughty child who snatches his hand from that of his father and takes a little run on his own account – ending often in a tumble in the mud; I know that in their next incarnation they will be back amongst us studying the same philosophy, working for the same great end. They will surely take future opportunities; but what a pity to miss this one. Remember the story of the Lord Buddha, and the tremendous impetus which his blessed presence gave to all who came within its influence.

The coming of the Lord of Love would have the same effect upon those who stand around him; why should any man shut himself out from participation in such benefits? May we hope that this marvelous magnetic force will draw them all back to his feet, that his glorious light will open the eyes of the blind, that misunderstandings, jealousies and envyings will melt away before the fire of His Love? So mote it be! but if some are missing who should be among us, all the more zeal and energy must we show, so that the total of work done maybe no less – so that, if it may be, our comrades’ absence may pass unmarked until they had time to recover from their temporary disability and returned to the ranks. Above all must we remember the golden rule that”hatred never ceaseth by hatred; hatred ceaseth only by love”; for only by all observing that can we be worthy to know and to serve the Lord of Love when he comes.

C. W. Leadbeater

Introduction

Among men there are many different classes and the arrangements made for the reincarnation of these classes vary greatly – vary because the one supreme object is to promote the progress of their evolution, and being so different, they need different treatment. It has been written by Sir Edwin Arnold:

Who toiled a slave may come a new a Prince
  For gentler worthiness and merit won
Who ruled a King may wander earth in rags
  For things done and undone.

While it is unquestionably true that the instances of such sudden change of station as is suggested by the poet, they are comparatively rare and must not be taken as representing the ordinary course of a line of lives.

In the vast majority of cases a person born in the cultured classes is likely to find himself in a similar position in his next birth. The reason for this is twofold. First he is the kind of ego who can profit by such environment or he would not be put there; secondly the kind of karma which he generates in that position is far too complicated to be worked out in the slums or among primitive savages.

Therefore egos of the higher class usually take birth among cultured people; though now and again we come across a notable exception.

Among such higher class egos there are several broad types. An ego of that type with which our researches have made us most familiar usually runs through the various races with some approach to regular order, taking generally one birth in each, and allowing an interval about a thousand years between these births. Each sub-race appears to be specially intended and adapted to develop certain qualities and to teach certain lessons and the ego passes through them all in turn, so that his character may be gradually rounded out, and final perfection attained.

An ego who already possesses the quality which the conditions of a certain sub-races are intended to evoke may overleap that subrace altogether and incarnate in the next, while an ego peculiarly defective in the quality may need two or three successive incarnations in that sub-race before he is ready to pass on to another.

There is however another type of higher class egos who do not habitually take their sub-races in order, but have rather a tendency to return again and again to one sub-race. They devote themselves principally to evolution through that sub-race, and make only occasional excursions into others in search of special qualities. It is found that this type has usually a shorter average interval between lives – an average of about seven hundred years instead of a thousand. That does not mean at all that its members generate a smaller amount of spiritual force, but they work it out with far greater intensity. The more rapid incarnations and the return to the same sub-race might suggest that they are is some way intermediate between the first and the second class types, since these are to some extent characteristics of the latter class; yet they are manifestly not intermediate but in every way equal in general development to the highest of the first class egos whose lives we have previously inspected. They are not quite the same as those others; the type of the brain is a little different.

They are perhaps on the whole living less on the physical plane, while they are more developed at higher levels; but we have not been able so far to arrive at anything that we can fix as a really fundamental distinction.

It is evident that the egos arriving here from the moon chain come in groups - in ship- loads, as it were, just as passengers arrive by steamer from

America – with considerable intervals between them; and the members of each such shipload have characteristics in common, with regard to which they probably differ from all the ship loads. It was thought at first that these might prove to be people of different ways or planetary types, but that is not so, as we have people of nearly all the types in each of the shiploads.

All this is inchoate at present and in its preliminary stages, but we can see already that it opens up some interesting vistas, and that when the investigations have been carried a great deal further they will probably add considerably to our knowledge of the various methods of evolution.

It is likely that there may be other undiscovered types. It is already known that the Jews are an exception to the ordinary rule - that they constitute a race apart from others, the members of which rarely incarnate outside it; it would not be surprising if the Chinese and Japanese were presently found to constitute another and larger example of the same kind of exception. But this speculation can be proved or disproved only by the amassing of a large number of additional facts.

Distinctly lower class egos incarnate many times in each case, because they are much slower in learning its lessons. As this spiritual development is not so great, they generate far less force, and consequently the intervals between their births are much shorter; so that, although there are certain important exceptions, the general principle is that those lower in evolution take a shorter interval. The actual savage, whether he lives in Central Africa or in a London slum, spends a few years on the astral plane, and then comes back to earth almost immediately. It follows that the disproportion between the developed and cultured people and the vast Mass of the unevolved is not quite so hopeless as it appears at first sight, for the latter have their full numerical strength constantly in evidence, since they spend but little time on higher planes, while the former are away from the physical plane from ninety to ninety five percent of their time. An attempt at the rough classification of the egos will be found in vol. ii of The In ner Life.

In deciding the actual case of rebirth three principal factors come into play.

First and greatest of all comes the influence of the Law of Evolution. The Deity wills man’ s advancement and that Will exerts upon him a steady and ceaseless pressure.

The action of that Law tends always to place a man in such surroundings as are best suited to develop whatever qualities are lacking in him, entirely respective either of his likes and dislikes or of his deserts. The man in his short sightedness often thinks of such action as unpleasant an even hostile to his progress; for he naturally desires surroundings which will give him the opportunity of doing what he can already do well, whereas the Law tends rather to put him where he will be compelled to do those things which as yet he cannot do – to develop the qualities which at present he does not possess.

The second factor which comes into play in deciding where a man should be born is his own Karma – the result of his past actions. If uncontrolled the Law of Evolution would give him the best possible opportunities for development; but his past lives may not have been such as to deserve those opportunities. For that reason it may not be possible to give him the most suitable place, so he has to put up with the second best.

The exactitude with which any possible combination of karma expresses itself in the surroundings provided is most marvelous; it is often evident that no other place in the whole world would be so suitable as that in which the man finds himself. If one may put it so without irreverence, the location of the quite undeveloped man presents no problem to the karmic deities; if he is to be born in a savage race, it cannot matter much whether it is in Central Africa, in South America, or among the aborigines of Australia; if he must see the light in a slum, it can scarcely be important whether it shall be Montmartre, the Bowery, or the Seven Dials. The rough impacts, which alone can make any impression upon him as yet, can be found alike in all these places. But the developed man must present much greater difficulties, for he has previously set in motion multitudes of final forces of all sorts, and therefore an environment in which their effects can play upon him is necessary. Anyone of a hundred places would probably do equally well for the young soul; he has so many lessons to learn that it does not much matter which he takes first, or where he receives his preliminary teaching. But older soul needs special treatment and the one niche specially provided from for him is usually the only one in all the world which is really suitable for him. It is in the nature of the case that he very rarely thinks so, because not his likings but his true interests have been consulted when the arrangement was made; but the statement is nevertheless a true one.

The third factor which influences the rebirth of a man is another variant of his karma - the links which he has made with other egos in previous lives. All the minor good and evil that we do goes into a general debit and credit account, and is worked off impersonally; but if we so affect the life of another as considerably to help or to hinder his evolution, we form a personal tie with him, which necessitates another meeting later– sometimes many other meetings.

Unselfish love is one of the strongest forces in the world, and it draws egos together again and again, thereby largely modifying for the time the action of the forces of evolution and of karma.

Not that any man can ever escape the consequences of anything that he has done; the debt must invariably be paid, but the time and the conditions are often much altered by the introduction of this wonderful power of strong affection. Many instances of this will be noticed in the lines of lives, which have been published for our study.

It seems evident that in the flowing of the long stream of our lives we get together into groups - or it may be that we originally come forth in such groups - usually having as their centre some one dominant ego. In the history of the lives of Alcyone we see such a group, (or perhaps traces of two groups), drawn round the mighty individualities of the two Great Ones who have since attained the level of Adeptship. As we press back further and further into the mists of the remote past we find this little circle of egos ever more closely associated. That does not in the least imply that the bonds between them had been loosened of late; on the contrary they seem stronger than ever. The suggestion is rather that the members have recently been strong enough to separate for time without losing their connections – that each could go wherever it was necessary in order to develop missing qualities or to learn special lessons, without any danger that in doing this he would forget his comrades, or find his love for them grown weaker. So during the last few thousand years they have met somewhat less often than of yore, while each has been learning to stand alone; but in this present incarnation the whole group has once more been drawn together – not this time by mere family relationship, but by the far stronger tie of a common interest in a common work, following as ever the August leaders to whom they owe everything that they have and that they are – the Masters of Wisdom in whose hands lies the destiny of the Race that is to be. In this life they are loyal members of the Theosophical Society, and through it they are devoting to the service of humanity all the powers that they have gained through the storms and calms, the joy and sorrows of the many lives which lie behind them. For some of them at least the promise has been given that they shall part no more – that all their future shall be devoted to the work they love so well under the great Captains with whom their lives are so intimately united.

To this group we have given the name of Servers, and we find that throughout their history it has been their privilege to be employed in the pioneer work connected with the beginning of new sub-races.

All those whose lives have been specially investigated so far are members of this group, and we find that with them the fact of that membership has always been the most important element in determining the time and place of their rebirth. Emotional or intellectual, spiritual or material in disposition, they have had to move down the ages together, and so the result of the generation of a larger amount of spiritual force in any given life has been not (as is usual) a longer period of heaven-life, but a period of greater intensity of enjoyment.

Twenty years ago our attention was attracted to the lives of Erato–the first series that we examined - a series of seventeen incarnations with rather unusually long intervals between them; not violently eventful, but moving with exemplary regularity through the successive sub-races. A number of smaller sets followed; the next long series, examined fourteen years later, comprised the twenty-four lives of Orion. These were found to be tempestuous and unequal -a great contrast to those of Erato. Two years later still, the investigation of the lives of Alcyone was commenced, and a series of thirty was published in The Theosophist.

In the course of a different series of researches made in connection with the founding of the sub- races, we discovered the group of Servers already in existence at earlier periods of history; we came across them as far back as 70,000 BC, and again at 60,000, at 42,000, at 40,000, at 38,000 and 32,000. As our previous inquiries had taken us as far back as 22,600, it seemed worthwhile to carry them ten thousand years further; so that we have now some record of 42 consecutive incarnations of Alcyone, besides a few glimpses from more remote ages.

The hero of this set of lives which we lay before our readers, to whom we have given the name of the star Alcyone, belongs to a type or a ship-load who take between births an average interval of about eight hundred years. He does not take the sub-races in regular order, but devotes himself chiefly to the first sub-race of the fifth root-race–at first in its home by the Gobi Sea, then taking part in several of its migrations to the plains of India, and afterwards incarnating whenever possible in that strange ancient land of beauty and of mystery. A considerable proportion of the lives which we have so far examined have been spent on the historic soil of India; yet as they have brought him to the gateway of the Path of Holiness, it is manifest that this devotion to one sacred Motherland has in no way delayed his development. Let his lives be studied that his foot steps may be followed; let the reader see from them what qualities are necessary for the attainment of that Path, so that he also in his turn may’ enter upon the stream’ as Alcyone has done and may be numbered among those who are safe for ever – whose destiny is to devote themselves to the service of humanity.

In these lives certain qualities may be seen developing, certain relations may be watched strengthening themselves, and these should be studied as pointing to the goal set before himself by the Monad. For similar qualities and similar relations have to be developed and formed by each– by some earlier, because they started earlier, by others later because they started later. They may help some to realise that it is now as it was in the beginning, and that the door is open as of old, the Path is trodden as of yore.

Those who loved, supported, struggled side by side with Alcyone in the past are with him still, some to help, some to be helped.

A few words should perhaps be said as to the methods of investigation adopted in examining these past lives. The ordinary plan is to use the faculties of the causal body and simply read the records. In that way the whole life under examination may be passed in review as quickly or as slowly as may be found convenient. It is usually best to run rapidly over the life and select from it such incidents as have the most far-reaching consequences, and then go back and describe those in some detail.

Since in many of these stories of the past investigators themselves have borne part, a second method of inquiry has often been open to them - to throw themselves back into those forms of long ago, and actually live over again those stirring lives – to feel once more what they felt thousands of years ago, to look upon the world from the strangely different viewpoints of an Indian ascetic, an Atlantean noble, or an Aryan invader. In this way the stories are to the writers intensely vivid and dramatic, so that they long for the descriptive powers of the great writers of fiction, that situations so striking might be adequately portrayed.

When past lives are discussed, men often ask how it is possible at so great distance of time to fix exact dates. It has been done by strenuous labour and by much wearisome counting, starting usually from some point previously determined; and, whenever possible, the results obtained have been verified by some sort of cross reference or by astronomical observations. Errors of counting may of course have crept in, but the margin for such errors is small, and no trouble has been spared to obtain accuracy.

These accounts of the past are not printed merely as good stories -though they are often that–but as lessons in the working of karma life after life, full of instruction for the student and helpful for the realisation of the continuity of human life. It must however be remembered in reading them that the deeper causes too often lie out of sight, and that in recording a life story there is inevitably too much of action, too little of thought and feeling. Yet thought and feeling are far more potent as generating causes then our actions, for actions are the embodiment of past thoughts and feelings more than generators of the future. The motive of the action is more far reaching than the action, yet it is often deeply hidden, while the action saute aux yeux.

Despite this, much of the workings of karma may be learned by a study of a series of lives; we see the inter relations of individuals, the results of benefits and injuries, the links that draw the egos together, the repulsions that drive them apart, life after life. We notice the epochs in which great groups of related egos are formed, there scattering for centuries, millennia, their reunions and fresh scatterings. And out of the whole grows a sense of security, of an ever-ruling guidance, of Wisdom that plans, of Power that executes, of the certain workingout of a great purpose,of agents chosen, tested, accepted or dropped, opportunities offered, utilised, rejected, of a sure onward evolution amid complexity of ebbs and flows. A single life is seen into proportion, preceded and succeeded by many others. A feeling of strength and dignity grows within the reader as he thinks: “I too have a long past stretching behind me, I too a vast future stretching in front.”The troubles of the present lose their seriousness when seen in the light of immortality; successes and failures become passing incidents in a long panorama; birth and death—how often have they been experienced! He realises the profound truth voiced by Shri Krishna that since the Dweller in the body ever cast away outworn bodies and ever reclothed himself in new,”therefore, O son of Kunti, thou shouldest not grieve.”

Such help we trust to put in the way of our readers by the publication of this series of lives. May they find it a strong staff in the days of trouble, and a torch throwing light upon the tangled pathway of life!

The Characters

Following list of characters, with the explanation of them, is taken (barring modifications) from Man: Whence, How and Whither:History cannot be written without names, and as reincarnation is a fact–and therefore the reappearance of the same individual throughout succeeding ages is also a fact, the ego playing many parts under many names-we have given names to many individuals by which they may be recognised throughout the dramas in which they take part. Irving is the same Irving to us, as Macbeth, Richard III, Shylock, Charles I, Faust, Romeo, Matthias; and in any story of his life as actor he is spoken of as Irving, whatever part he is playing; his continuing individuality is recognised throughout. So a human being, in the long story in which lives are days, plays hundreds of parts, but is himself throughout—be he man or woman, peasant, prince, or priest. To this ‘himself’ or ego we have given a distinguishing name, so that he may be recognised under all the disguises put on to suit the part he is playing. These are mostly names of constellations, stars or Greek heroes. For instance we have given to Julius Caeser the name of Corona; to Plato that of Pallas, to Lao-Tze that of Lyra; in this way we can see how different are the lines of evolution, the previous lives which produce a Caeser and a Plato. It gives to the story a human interest, and teaches the student of reincarnation. The names of Those who constantly appear in this story as ordinary men and women, but who are now Masters, may make those great B eings real to some; They have climbed up to where They stand on the same ladder of life up which we are climbing now; They have known the common household life, the joys and sorrows, the successes and failures, which make up human experience. They are not Gods perfect from unending ages, but men and women who have unfolded within themselves and have, along a toilsome road reached the superhuman. They are the fulfilled promise of what we shall be, the flowers on the plant on which we are the buds.

Some of the Characters in the Story:

Четыре кумары  -- Четыре Господа Огня, по-прежнему проживающие в Шамбале.
Махагуру  -- Бодхисаттва своего времени, проявляющийся как Вьяса, Тот (Гермес), Заратустра, Орфей, и как Гаутама, который стал Господом Буддой.
Сурия  -- Господь Майтрея, нынешний Бодхисаттва, Верховный Учитель мира.
Ману  -- Глава Коренной Расы. Если с приставкой, Коренной-Ману или Семенной-Ману, еще более высокий Официальный, президирующий над более крупным циклом эволюции - Кругом или Цепью. Титул Вайвасвата в индийских книгах дают как Коренному-Ману нашей Цепи и Ману Арийской, или пятой, Коренной Расы.
Вираж  -- Маха-Чохан, высокая должность, равная Ману или Бодхисаттве.
Сатурн  -- Ныне Учитель, о котором упоминается в некоторых теософских книгах как 'Венецианец'.
Юпитер  -- Ныне Учитель, проживающий в холмах Нильгири.
Марс  -- Ныне Учитель М. Оккультного мира.
Меркурий  -- Ныне Учитель K.Х. Оккультного мира.
Нептун  -- Ныне Учитель Илларион.
Осирис  -- Ныне Учитель Серапис.
Брихаспати  -- Ныне Учитель Иисус.
Венера  -- Ныне Учитель Рагозци (или Раковский), 'Венгерский Адепт', граф Сен-Жермен XVIII века.
Уран  -- Ныне Учитель Д.K.
Вулкан  -- Ныне Учитель, известный в своей последней земной жизни как сэр Томас Мур.
Афина  -- Ныне Учитель, известный на Земле как Томас Вон, 'Евгений Филателист'.
Альба  -- Этель Уайт
Альбирео  -- Мария-Луиза Кирби
Алкион  -- Дж. Кришнамурти
Алетея  -- Джон ван Манен
Альтаир  -- Герберт Уайт
Аркор  -- A. J. Wilson
Аврора  -- Граф Бубна-Лицич
Капелла  -- S. Мод Шарп
Корона  -- Юлий Цезарь
Крукс  -- Почетный Отвей Каффе
Денеб  -- Лорд Кокрейн (Десятый граф Дандональд)
Евдоксия  -- Луиза Шоу
Fides  -- G. S. Arundale
Gemini   -- E. Мод Грин
Гектор  -- W. H. Kirby
Гелиос  -- Мари Русак
Геракл  -- Анни Безант
Лео  -- Фабрицио Русполи
Ломиа  -- J. I. Wedgwood
Лютеция  -- Чарльз Брэдлоу
Лира  -- Лао-Цзы
Мира  -- Карл Холбрук
Мизар  -- Я. Нитьянанда
Мона  -- Пит Мёльман
Норма  -- Маргарита Русполи
Олимпия  -- Дамодар K. Маваланкар
Паллас  -- Платон
Фоцея  -- W. Q. Judge
Феникс  -- Т. Паскаль
Полярная звезда  -- B. P. Вадиа
Протей  -- Тешу Лама
Селена  -- C. Джинараджадаса
Сириус  -- C. W. Ледбитер
Сива  -- Т. Субба Рао
Спика  -- Франческа Арундейл
Таурус  -- Джером Андерсон
Улисс  -- H. S. Олькотт
Ваджра  -- H. P. Блаватская
Веста  -- Минни С. Холбрук

Notes on the Charts

The charts of dramatis personae are arranged on the usual plan of a genealogical tree, except that successive generations are placed side by side in columns instead of under one another. The oldest generation is therefore to be found at the left hand side of the page, and the children of any given couple are joined together by a bracket. The generations may be followed from page to page by the numbers at the top of the columns, like the trains in a railway timetable. It often happens that one family may extend to more than one page; for example, in Chart 1, Jupiter and Saturn have five sons whose descendents occupy the whole of pages {21} and{ 22}. This is shown to the reader by the fact that the bracket including their family does not end on page 21, but is obviously broken off in order to continue on page 22. Male incarnations are printed in ordinary Roman type, and female in Italics. When any of the children marry, the husband (or wife) is inserted either after the child on the same line separated by a dash, or under the child, but somewhat to the right—the new couple acting as centre for a bracket in the next column to the right, which contains their children if any. For example:

would indicate that Alcyone married a wife Mizar, and had four children—two sons, Herakles and Fides, and two daughters, Sirius and Capella. Herakles in due course took Apollo as wife and had a son Leo( who married Norma) and a daughter Albireo, who espoused Hector. Alcyone’s second son Fides married Spica, and had a daughter Aquila ( who bestowed her hand upon Cassio) and a son Mira, who married a young lady named Rigel. Alcyone’s two daughters also married, Sirius being espoused by Electra, and Capella by Euphra; but their families, if any will be found in another part of the chart as the children are always put under the father, when he belongs to any of the families entered in the chart. To find the children of Elecrta and Sirius, therefore, it is necessary to search for their father Electra, who will be found elsewhere in same column, along with his family. When a character marries ( as nearly all of them do) his name appears twice in the chart—once in his own family, and once in that family into which he marries; but the offspring of the marriage are entered as belonging to the father’s family only, to avoid unnecessary repetition.

For the purpose of printing, it has been found desirable to shorten many of the longer names which were at first given, but they will in most cases still be recognisable to those who knew them in their older form. Two or three have been changed entirely in order to avoid co nfusion between similar contractions.

Except in Nos 1 to 6 the date given for each chart is that of the birth of Alcyone when he appears among the dramatis personae; when he does not it is the date of birth of some other character, who will be mentioned at the head of the chart. Approximate dates for others can easily be deduced from this. In any attempt to calculate averages, it will be well to omit Charts 1 to 6 as there are considerable unexplored gaps between these and the dates given are round numbers merely; from Chart 7 onwards the series of lives is unbroken for most of the characters though by no means for all. In most cases no search has been made for any life later than that in Alexandria in the fourth century after Christ, though probably many may have had an intermediate incarnation since then.

From the charts which are published herewith it is easy (though laborious) to construct a ledger in which each character has a separate page, giving a list of his births with notes of his near relationships in each. Such ledgers have been written by a few of our friends for their own use and a specimen page (pp 14,15) is appended to show how the work may be done.

A column for remarks is usually added, but there is no room to reproduce that.

Ledger of The Lives of Alcyone:

Life I

The work of the Band of Servers has perhaps rarely been more arduous than it was in the early days of the Fifth Root Race.

Those who have read Man : Whence, How and Whither, will remember how the great Lord Vaivasvata Manu led forth His selected band from Atlantis before the great catastrophe of 75,025 BC, and moved them first to Arabia and then after long trial there, to the shores of the Gobi Sea in Central Asia. Slowly, very slowly and gradually, he made his dispositions as befitted one who works for the far-distant future, who moves nations like pawns upon the board, who has centuries before Him for His combinations. The White Island of Shamballa was even then the centre from which He operated, though the great city whose streets radiated from it like the spokes a wheel was not to be built for thousands of years yet.

At the period when our history opens – in round numbers seventy thousand years before Christ – the community numbered perhaps seven or eight thousand people, living in several villages along the southern shore of the inland sea. The Manu as King lived upon the island and was rarely seen on the mainland, which was governed on His behalf by his son Jupiter. The scheme of government was largely patriarchal, and the five sons of Jupiter all bore their part in it under Him. His eldest son, Mars, ruled one of the villages, and had built for himself there upon a little hill a large and pleasant house surrounded by great trees and wide lawns upon which he gathered together his villagers when he desired to address them or to promulgate his laws.

Into the specious patriarchal life was born our hero Alcyone— in close relation even seventy thousand years ago with those who have since become the Great Masters who inspire the Theosophical Movement—their child in the flesh then, as he is their child in spirit now. Through all these lives since then he has never wavered in his steadfast allegiance to them, and how he treads the Path which they have trodden, he draws near to the goal which they have already attained. Little knew he of all that, when he played so happily seventy thousand years ago in that beautiful garden overlooking the sea, with his brother Sirius and his sister Mizar—companions tried and true, whose love for him has lasted through the ages, ever waxing, never waning—comrades who stand beside him still, who will be with him unto the end.

He was a handsome boy away there in the long ago—with aquiline nose and flashing eyes—rather like the most aristocratic type among the Arabs or the Pathans. He lived much in the open air, for that was the wise custom of the time—the insane practice of herding together crowds of growing boys in ill-ventilated schoolrooms not having been yet invented. Mars engaged as tutor and companion for his children the character to whom we have given the name of Rosa—male in that birth, though the cognomen sounds feminine—the studious and learned son of Ronald, the friend of his father Jupiter. But whenever the weather permitted it (and it must be very bad day before the children would agree that it did not) the instruction was given during rambles through the park which surrounded their home, or in the woods which covered the neighboring hills.

In this way the boys grew up healthy as well as happy, and when Alcyone reached marriageable age he was a daring rider, a fine swimmer and a tireless pedestrian, as well as a skilled reciter of the strange old poetic legends and invocations which were the popular literature of the time. Boys and girls were brought up together, and learnt the same physical exercises, though the girls were expected to know something of household matters as well—of cooking, weaving and healing art. Choice in marriage was free, but subject to a right of veto by the Manu—which however was practically never exercised. The brothers Sirius and Alcyone fell in love with two sisters, Vega and Leo—both of them friends who have been faithful through the ages, and still stand beside them in unfailing love and loyalty. In the life under consideration those two sisters were their cousins on their mothers side, and grand daughters of the great chief Corona.

So large was the rambling palace which Mars had built, that his sons did not leave it when they married, but just brought into use fresh section of it or added a room or two as required. A very happy family they were, Sirius and Alcyone being specially inseparable.

They acted as lieutenants for their father in much of the work that had to be done, superintended the cultivation of his vast estate, and the improvements which he was perpetually planning. In this busy life years slipped by almost unnoticed, and a sturdy family was growing up round each of the brothers. Mizar, meanwhile had left the ancestral home to marry her beloved cousin Herakles and they also had five children; but intercourse was constant between the families, for their villages were but a few miles apart.

The Manu had now grown very old, and He knew that the time was drawing near when for the good of the race in His charge He should take another body, so that it might begin again on a higher level. To this end He sent for His chiefs—Jupiter, Corona, Mars and Vajra, and gave them certain instructions, forewarning them of what was to come—that the race would be all but exterminated by savage nomads from the north, and that they must make arrangements to save a few chosen children, through whom it could be continued, by the same egos over again, but in bodies a little more suitable. So the chiefs returned to the mainland, commissioned to make a selection among the children, and send a limited number over to the White Island for safety, to dwell in the Temples there, in the very aura of the great Kumaras and Their glorious Court of Devas—the Angels of the Elements, the true rulers of the destiny of the world.

Alcyone and Leo had by this time four children, all of them great souls who have since become Adepts. Their daughters were Surya and Brihat (He who is now the bodhisattva, and the Master whose vehicle He took in Palestine) while their eldest son was Uranus, and their baby Neptune. All four of these were chosen by the patriarchs, but of the children of Sirius and Vega only baby Pearl was taken. Little Hector, the younger daughter of Achilles, was the only other one selected from the great household of Mars; but Herakles and Mizar had the honour of contributing two—their youngest boy, Fides, and their youngest girl, Pindar. The three little boys of Athena and Lyra were all taken and the three daughters of Castor and Helios, Elsa and Crux gave a son Polaris and a daughter Cygnus; and Electra the only son of Bee and Viola, was added to the band. All these were quite young; but three older children, belonging in reality to an earlier generation were also included - Vulcan and Venus, the twin children of Apollo and Osiris, and Pallas, the younger brother of Vega and Leo. Pallas was a big boy, and when he obtained an inkling of the object of the segregation, he begged earnestly to be left behind and allowed to fight; but he was sternly repressed and told that he must go over to the island to take care of Venus, whom he had long worshipped from a distance. He had no option but to obey, and he received his reward in the shape of the Manu’ s permission to marry his ladylove at an early date.

Capella—the youngest sister of Herakles, and little more than a child herself—was put incharge of the party, and promptly arranged to divide the responsibility by herself marrying Vulcan, the oldest of the boys.

As soon as the children were safely settled upon the island, the destruction which the Manu had foreseen fell upon the villages upon the mainland.

The Turanian hordes swept down in overwhelming numbers upon the Aryans and after a brave and most determined resistance massacred the entire colony. By order of the Manu all articles of value had been buried so that the savages could not find them, so that the victory which cost them so dear proved absolutely barren; their traditional fears prevented them from making any attack upon the White Island; and as a bare moiety of their army, spiritless, bootyless, mutinous, crossed on its way home the desert to the north of the Gobi Sea, a terrible sandstorm arose which suffocated whole regiments of them, so that only a shattered and panic- stricken fragment of the mighty host ever reached again the plains of Tartary, and for some thousands of years the salutary lesson was remembered, and the Aryan colony was left in peace.

It is interesting to note how absolutely the Manu looks upon everything that happens only from the point of view of the plan as a whole. The Massacre of His new race is to Him by no means a matter of regret; it is a necessary part of the scheme; and He so explains this to His followers that they account it as honour to cooperate in the work. We observe, not only on this but on many other occasions, that physical death is not regarded by the Great Ones at all as it usually is in the outer world. Our modern tendency is to consider it as the greatest of all evils, to inflict it as the ultimate punishment; those Leaders, who know so much more than we, account it merely as an incident in the work which is being done, or sometimes as a reward for a piece of work well performed. Well indeed would it be for us if we could acquire this attitude of the Masters of the Wisdom, if we could’ watch with larger eyes’ and see the truth which lies behind the illusory outer appearance. Then we should repose in utter trust upon the wisdom of the Power divine, knowing that

It slayeth and it saveth, nowise moved
  Except unto the working out of the doom;
Its threads are Love and Life; and Death and Pain
  The shuttles of its loom.

It maketh and unmaketh mending all;
  What it hath wrought is better than had been;
Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans
  Its wistful hands between.

Life II

The Aryans who had been slain in the Turanian foray had met their death cheerfully and even joyously, for the Manu had promised them that those who died for the infant race should speedily be reborn in it in better vehicles; and He soon began to make arrangements for the fulfilling of this promise. As soon as they were established on the island Vulcan and Capella were married, simultaneously with Pallas and Venus; and so in a year’ s time there were additions to the flock under their superintendence. Some twenty-two little people grew up together very happily and when they attained marriageable age they paired off naturally.

When the appointed time came, the Manu laid aside his worn out body, and was born afresh from Saturn and Surya, twelve years after the massacre. Mars and Viraj quickly followed Him as brother and sister, while Jupiter, Selene and Corona appeared as the children of Electra. As these in turn grew up, further intermarriages afforded opportunities for the rebirth of Alcyone, Mizar, Herakles, Sirius, Rama, and Apollo, and soon the descendents of Saturn and Surya grew into a considerable clan, in which those who had lost their lives in the massacre gradually reappeared in bodies more refined than those which they had resigned. Thirty-two years after the flight to the island, our hero was born as the eldest son of the Manu, and not long ago after that the young community was again transferred to the mainland. The Manu decided to restore and occupy the very house which Mars had built for himself in his previous incarnation, so that Alcyone was for the second time brought up in the same place and under the same conditions - almost with the same companions. His uncle Mars shared for some years his father’ s house, and so his cousins, Herakles and Mizar, were always with him; Apollo previously his uncle, was now his younger brother; while Sirius and Rama, who had before been a brother and an aunt, were now cousins living next door, and therefore always of the party.

Even at this early stage the Manu had in mind the plan of the splendid city that was to bear His name in future ages. Its actual construction was not commenced until after another great massacre some thousands of years later; but He had already in His mind the scheme of the radiating streets ten miles in length, from every point in which the White Island should be visible. He made no attempt as yet at the erection of the mighty buildings which were to line these thoroughfares; but he did decide upon their direction, and at the remote end of each He set up a huge trilithon, somewhat like those at Stonehenge, and beyond these in each case a small temple, scarcely more than a shrine. The streets eventually were to spread out from the shore like the sticks of a fan; but at this time no streets existed - only seven radiating paths, running over the downs and through the forests, and at the end of each such an erection as has been described. But the members of our clan were instructed to visit one of these shrines each day in turn.

At dawn they bathed and took their first meal; soon after that was over they all met together at the house of the Manu and started out in procession along one of the paths. As they marched they chanted poems composed for them by the Manu - chiefly invocations calling down upon themselves and their future home the blessings of all the spirits of earth and air, of water and of fire. Thus marching and singing they made their pilgrimage to the shrine of the day. When they reached it certain prayers were recited, and the clan rested for a while, before reforming their festal procession for the return march. By the time that they reached home it was already noon or later, so their midday meal was immediately prepared. After they had partaken of that, it was usual to rest for a time, and then to spend the remainder of the afternoon in such agricultural labor as was necessary to provide for the small wants of the community, or in whatever other work the chiefs decided to be desirable.

Thus it will be seen that fully half of each day was devoted to what we must regard as a religious exercise, though from another point of view it might be considered recreation, as all the people enjoyed it greatly, and anyone who was kept at home by illness, accident or some urgent duty felt himself much ill-used, Little children clamored to be allowed to go, long before they were strong enough for the twenty mile walk, and regarded it as a kind of “coming of age” when they at last received the permission to join the procession. Alcyone, when very young, gained great popularity among his fellows by persuading his father to let him organize a band of children who might be allowed to march a certain distance with the procession, and then play about until they could join it again on its return - he undertaking, as captain of the band, to be responsible for the safety and good conduct of the party of juveniles.

It was surprising, however, at how early an age the young people could do the whole distance without fatigue. As they took the paths in regular order, it will be evident that they achieved the seven pilgrimages in just a week, and visited each shrine once in the same period of time, the idea being the magnetization of those paths which were to be the streets of the remote future. This daily twentymile walk indubitably did much to keep the community in good condition, and they apparently found no difficulty in getting all necessary work done in the remainder of the day.

The Manu evidently attached great importance to the impression made by the invocations, the regular rhythmic chanting and the atmosphere of joyousness. The invocation undoubtedly had the effect of attracting certain orders of angels and nature spirits; and not only of attracting at the moment, but of making for them a sort of permanent line of attraction, or perhaps it may be better expressed as a line of least resistance, along which all angels and nature spirits at any time passing in the neighborhood would find it natural and easy to travel - such travel of course itself steadily increasing the magnetization. The regular rhythm and the chanting had their own part to play in this work, in establishing what might be called a habit of vibration in the ether and in the astral and mental matter - the effect being to make order and regularity easier, and disorder and irregularity more difficult and therefore less likely, whether in thought, emotion or action, along this established route .The spirit of joyousness upon which so much emphasis was laid naturally tended to reproduce itself, and consequently to establish that state of mind as a general background for the future inhabitants.

As Alcyone grew up, he was able more and more to share his father’ s work and finally to take a great deal of it off His shoulders.

At the age of nineteen he married his cousin Osiris, and presently had the great joy of welcoming as one of his children Mercury, who had been his mother in the last life, and had indeed been associated with the whole of his existence as a human being, for He was present at his individualisation from the animal kingdom. Other friends began to gather round him, some as his own children and some in the families of Sirius and Mizar, of Herakles and Aurora, of Apollo and Rama; indeed, before he left the physical plane practically the entire group of servers was again in incarnation.

Even then the community was but a small one, and lived like a large family rather than a tribe – a simple open air life in which all alike worked at whatever had to be done, adapting to their use whatever nature provided, and ingeniously making for themselves such tools as they needed; though a number of such things had been buried before the massacre by the order of the Manu, so that they were fairly well equipped in this respect. Their position was practically that of pioneers in a new country, but they had the advantage of the houses and roads constructed before the massacre; also a great deal of the surrounding country had previously been cleared and tilled, and though everything had run wild in the intervening years, it was by no means so difficult to deal with as actual primeval forest would have been.

They had the traditions of a highly civilized nation, and the Manu set high ideals for them, showing them how to produce the best effect with the limited means at their disposal. They were to a large extent isolated from the rest of the world (which indeed was the Manu’ s object and a necessary part of his scheme) but this had its advantages as well as its disadvantages, for it left them plenty of land, plenty of room to grow, and made them self-reliance incapable.

When the Manu attained the age of seventy, He chose to retire from the cares of office, and handed over the reins of government to Alcyone as His eldest son. Our hero was then just fifty, and he filled the position of leader of the little community with honor and dignity until his death at the advanced age of eighty five, when he was succeeded by his eldest son Siwa, himself already well advanced in years.

This incarnation may be regarded as important to those who took part in it, for in it we notice a definite interference on the part of the Manu with the ordinary intervals between the lives of His followers – for we see that he found it worth his while to bring them back almost immediately for the benefit of the race which he was engaged in founding.

The sub joined chart (ie chart II) is in reality a continuation of chart I so the numbering of the generations has been made continuous and the two charts to that extent overlap.

Life III

We’re making no attempt, at this stage, to give a consecutive history of our hero; we simply note his appearance when we happen to encounter in the course of investigations undertaken for quite other objects. We overleap some ten thousand years from the life last mentioned, and come down to what may perhaps be regarded as the final step in the foundation of the Root Race. More than once before, what looks like a tentative or abortive commencement had been made, and after a few centuries of growth the race was swept off the face of the earth by an inrush of savages, just as an artist might erase an outline in order to try again with the intention of drawing it more perfectly. Each time a few of the most promising children were saved from the massacre to be the seed of the next attempt; each time the Manu gathered together his Band of Servers, that they, who were used to his methods, might incarnate as his descendants, and so carry the Race along the lines which he desired.

Having no personal karma to hinder him, he made for himself each time a body closely approximating to the pattern given for that Race by the Solar Deity, the only difficulty in His way being the limitations imposed upon that body by a parentage which, though the best available, was necessarily short of perfection. He had to take a wife from the existing race, and therefore His children naturally fell somewhat below his level in the special developments peculiar to the new type; but he usually incarnated several times in the line of His own descendants, and each time brought the race near to that type.

The last of the massacres took place about 60,000 BC, and a few carefully chosen children were carried over to the islands, as before. Among these were Jupiter, daughter of the Manu; and when she grew up she married not one of her own race, but Mars, a Toltec prince from Poseidonis, whom the Manu had caused to incarnate over there especially with a view to this marriage, because he thought it desirable to blend in this way some of the noblest Toltec blood with His own. The oldest son of Mars and Jupiter was Viraj, and he in due course married Saturn, who was a cousin of his, and the most beautiful among the grand daughters of the Manu.

When the latter had blessed this union, he put aside his body and took birth as their son, having thus one fourth of Toltec blood to three-fourths of Aryan, each the very best of its kind.

About the same time was born Surya, a great grand daughter of His previous body; and when they were both of suitable age the Manu married her, and from this noble pair the new Race sprang in this its final genesis. We notice an unusual feature in connection with His family and those of His sons and daughters - which can hardly be accidental. He himself had twelve children, and each of these in turn had a family of precisely the same size. We observe the same phenomenon repeating itself in the third generation, several of His grandsons also having twelve children. Almost every identified member of our Band of Servers took part in this effort, and there are many whom as yet we do not know, though probably in the future they will come into the Theosophical Work. Evidently the Manu, Having arranged for Himself a favorable birth in a specially suitable body, and determined to use it as the definite beginning of His Race, called together all the forces at His disposal, and threw them all into direct descendents as rapidly as was consistent with obtaining the best possible conditions for them. In this way the new type was quickly and firmly established, so that the Aryan impress is unmistakable, and even a slight admixture of that blood shows itself for hundreds of years.

As soon as he had an efficient band of capable workmen, the construction of the mighty capital of His future empire was undertaken, Instead of letting His city grow by degrees as the population increased, He established it from the beginning as He meant it to be, building its houses long before there were occupants for them, but using such imperishable materials that they would remain unaffected by the lapse of time. Never before nor since has such a city been seen in the world’ s history; it took a thousand years to build it, and it lasted almost unchanged for fifty thousand, until the great catastrophe of the sinking of Poseidonis threw it into ruin. A full account of its splendor may be found in Man: whence, How and Whither, chapters xv and xvi.

But we are concerned not with the completed city, but with the building of it, when a hundred men took up the work that might well have taken a hundred thousand. These pioneers had first to erect for themselves humble temporary dwellings; they had to till the ground in order that they might have food to eat; but nevertheless they began to excavate extensive quarries, whence they cut huge blocks beautifully colored stone, making ready for the erection of those edifices which were later to be the wonder of the world. There was this unique characteristic about these men - these earlier selves of ours-that they were willing and glad to give their labor and their energy to working thus for a future generation - a generation which would consist partly of themselves indeed, as probably they knew; but of themselves in other bodies, with no memory then of all this antecedent toil, just as now they had no clear prevision of the glories that were to come. Yet they wrought joyously as a religious duty, because their great Ruler told them that this was meritorious work, part of the world’ s evolution, of a stupendous plan whose scope as yet they could not grasp. Slowly and very slowly the great design unfolded itself; the paths which our Servers had magnetized with such persistent effort in their daily processions ten thousand years before were now marked out as wide straight streets, like the radii of a spider’ s web; gradually the position of the cross streets was indicated, and the plan of the whole city began to show itself by the lines cleared in the great forests which had covered its site.

As decades rolled on, vast buildings began to rise, both on the sacred White Island and on the mainland. The Island was ever the center of the thought and worship of this growing nation; from every point of the seven radiating streets its glowing temples could be seen and its great central dome at once dominated and symbolized the whole life of the city. But we are dealing with the day of small things, when all this glory was as yet but a dream of the remote future; so we must turn from the life of the city to the private life of our hero.

Eldest son of the Manu and the Bodhisattva of the Root Race, with a stalwart band of noble and loving brothers and sisters growing up around him, perhaps even he has rarely had more favorable surroundings. Being the eldest - the first born of the new Race, the first exemplar of the fresh stream of life, which was pouring, into the world - he had the advantage of the most careful personal training at the hands of his father and mother. They lived almost entirely in the open air, and great attention was paid to physical exercise and development. From a very early age the Manu kept His son closely with Him night and day, evidently laying stress upon the constant influence of personal magnetism.

A little more than a year after his birth came a baby sister, Herakles and as the children grew up there was strongest affection between them - as indeed there has always been, all through the ages. They learnt together, played together, worked together, for under the wise tutelage of the Manu no difference was made in the education of the sexes. In those early days of strenuous labor there was little of what to us constitutes education, for though the children learnt to read and write, books were few and were regarded as sacred treasures. To those ancestors of ours the most accomplished man was literally the man who could turn his hand to anything, who was full of resource and ingenuity, quick of decision and action, capable in every sense of the word and in all departments of life. So as they reached adolescence the stalwart sons and daughters of the Manu were not only a magnificently handsome band of representatives of the new Race, but also a competent, sagacious and self-reliant leaders for the community which was springing up on the shores of the Gobi sea.

It will be understood that this community consisted of the descendents of the children saved at the time of the last massacreby this time a fairly numerous body - but that only the children of he Manu in this last birth (when He married Surya) were considered as belonging to the divine race - the Children of the Sun, as they were called, each of the twelve being identified with one of the signs of the zodiac. Naturally these twelve had to marry carefully-selected outsiders - that is to say, the best of the descendents of the Manu in His previous birth; but when their children in turn reached marriageable age He expressed His wish that as far as possible they should choose their partners within the Solar family. It will be seen from the accompanying chart that this instruction was carried out by all the characters whom we have identified.

It is abundantly clear, however, that our identifications include less than half of the band of Servers, for though we are able to recognize all the twelve children and those whom they marry, we know only half of his grandchildren, for we complete but four out of the twelve families, and can name but four or five children in each of the others. When we come to the next generation our recognition is almost confined to the descendents of Alcyone, and even there we have scarcely half of the total number, only three families being complete. Descending still another generation, we pick up a few belated stragglers among the grandchildren of Alcyone’ s eldest son Sirius, but find practically none whom we know elsewhere. This is what might be expected, for by this time the new race is so firmly established that the especial need for pioneer work no longer exists, and egos not so definitely devoted to selfless service may carry on the new nation in the ordinary way. The number of children in a family is by this time irregular, and it is evident in many ways that the necessity for definite regulation is no longer so pressing. The band of Servers had done its work, and rests in the heaven-life until the time comes for its next incarnation.

When Alcyone gained man’ s estate, he married his cousin Mercury, also a grand child of Viraj and Saturn, a girl of high attainments and radiant beauty, whom he loved with deep and reverent devotion. Within a year twin boys were born to him—Sirius and Mizar who grew up to be utterly devoted to him, to Mercury, and to one another as they have been through the centuries. A year later came a third boy, Electra, and assuredly there can never have been three finer or happier children. Other brothers and sisters followed in quick succession to be loved and cared for, but these three, so nearly of the same age, made a little sub-group of their own. They were curiously alike in face; no one but their parents ever knew one of the twins from the other, and Electra was distinguishable only when they were together by the fact that he was a trifle shorter.

From the time that they were able to walk and to talk intelligently they were inseparable; night and day they were always to be found together, and almost always with their father, except when his work carried him to places where they could not conveniently go. They were somewhat profanely nicknamed’ the trinity’, because they were popularly regarded as three identical manifestations of the same force. All kinds of quaint mistakes arose from their indistinguishability, and’ the trinity’ rather enjoyed these and took pleasure in arranging for them. Those outside the family regarded the absolute likeness as somewhat uncanny, and as they were the first three sons of Alcyone, a tradition arose that all his sons would be indistinguishable—a tradition which was only partially broken by the arrival of his next son Fides two years later, for he also bore a strong resemblance to his elder brothers. Wherever the three went, they were treated with great reverence, as the hope of the race and its future rulers; for though Sirius was the elder by a few minutes, and therefore technically the heir; no body ever knew which was he, and so all were regarded alike.

They might have run some risk of being spoiled by general adulation, but for the gentle wisdom of their mother Mercury, who taught them always that their high position carried with it imperative duties and responsibilities, and that just because a smile or a kind word from them meant so much to every one whom they met, that smile or kind word should never be withheld, no matter how busy they were or how pressing their work might be. Alcyone was at this time constantly engaged with his father the Manu in superintending the erection of the huge crescent of palaces which were to form the sea front of the future city, and the three boys took the keenest interest in this work, and begged to have the management of certain parts of it given over to them. The Manu smilingly agreed, and the boys were in a high state of excitement - full at the same time of the gratification at the trust reposed in them, and the anxiety to justify that trust by sleepless vigilance. The workers were also highly delighted because it was the common belief that’ the trinity’ carried with them wherever they went good fortune and immunity from accident; it is certainly true that in the course of all that stupendous work, which involved the lifting and carrying of enormous weights, there were no casualties of any importance.

Thus Alcyone lived a life of constant work, whose principal events were the beginning and the completion of this edifice or of that. It was his earnest desire to be allowed to undertake the erection of the marvelous maze of temples which was to cover the sacred Island; but this honor never fell to his lot, for it had been the decree of the Kumaras that a certain portion of the city should be finished before this work was begun. On rare occasions the Manu was received in audience by the Lord Himself, and once at such a time instructions were given that Alcyone and his three elder sons should also attend, so that they had the wonderful privilege and blessing of standing in the immediate presence of the Ruler of the Planet—an experience never to be forgotten.

The Manu lived among his people for a full century, and when He thought it best to leave them for awhile, He called together His children and grandchildren and told them that He entrusted to their zeal the work which He had begun; that now for a time he should watch it from a higher plane, but could still be consulted when necessary by who ever was for the time the head of the ruling House; and that when He saw it to be necessary He would descend into incarnation once more, but always in the same royal line, which must ever be kept free from any admixture of alien blood, except by his own express direction.

So He left His body, and by His own desire it was carried out far away into the centre of the Gobi desert and consigned to its depths. His order had been that there should be no mourning over His departure, so Alcyone, His son (himself now already a man of eighty years) reigned in His stead, and the work went on as steadily as before. On several occasions He showed Himself to Alcyone in sleep, and gave him directions about the building of the city, but in the main He expressed Himself as thoroughly satisfied with what was done.

For ten years Alcyone ruled wisely his now greatly increased community; but at the end of that time his dearly loved wife Mercury passed away, and He decided to resign all active work into the hands of his sons. So he in his turn called together the family (for by this time his great grand children were growing up around him) and told them henceforth to look upon his eldest son Sirius as their King, beckoning him to come forward and be solemnly enthroned upon the royal seat. But Sirius bent his knees before him and begged leave to make him one final request before he resigned his power; and when leave was given, he explained how, for nigh upon seventy years, he and his brothers Mizar and Electra had been in closest harmony, working and consulting together daily, so that indeed they seemed of one heart and one mind; and the boon which he asked was that this dear comradeship might remain unbroken until death— that all the three alike might bear the title of King, that they might sit together upon three equal thrones, and that if they should ever differ in opinion, the decision of the two who agreed should prevail; that when one died the other two should continue to rule, and when the second died the suvivor should be the sole king. Alcyone sat for a while in thought, and communed with the spirits of his father and his wise wife Mercury; and at last he gave consent to this unique arrangement, but only on condition that on the death of the third of this triumvirate, the crown should pass to Koli,the eldest son of Sirius, in order that there might be no interference with the direct line of descent upon which the Manu had laid so much stress. So three thrones were duly arranged, and Alcyone gave his blessing to’ the trinity’ —still almost as much alike as in the old days of their childhood, still as dear to one another as ever, though each was now the father of a fine family.

The strange triple control worked admirably well, but it gave rise to an amazing story which was carried by some travelers even to far Poseidonis—a story that amidst the deserts of Central Asia there existed a great city of incredible wealth and beauty - a city so vast that half its buildings were uninhabited - which was governed by a king of such marvelous magical power that he was able to multiply himself, and could be seen in three exactly similar forms sitting upon three thrones simultaneously when he administered justice!

After his abdication Alcyone lived but two years, and peacefully resigned his body, at the ripe age of ninety two, desiring that it might be consigned to the deep as his father’ s had been—a ceremony which was duly performed in the presence of the three Rulers and of such others of his children as survived.

The community grew this time with but little interference from without. Its members were almost as completely isolated from the outer world as they had been ten thousand years earlier.

Their only neighbors were certain tribes, half Atlantean and half Lemurian, who inhibited the valleys among the mountains some twenty miles inland – a peaceable people, not wholly uncivilized, perhaps somewhat in the position of the Maories when first discovered by Europeans. But these people kept to themselves, distrusting the open ground near the sea, from which their ancestors had been driven centuries before by Tarter raids. A few of the more daring spirits journeyed down to the Aryan settlement, and engaged themselves as servants and laborers and”the trinity”with a party of their friends, on several occasions made expeditions into the hills to see the villages of the mountaineers; but there was nothing that could be called intercourse between races, their language and custom being entirely different.

Life IV

The next glimpse that we get of the fortunes of our hero is after a lapse of nearly eighteen thousand years. The great city of Manoa, the building of which we saw commenced in our last chapter, is now of hoary antiquity, the centre of a vast and splendid civilisation, perhaps already past its prime. Our Band of Servers comes only incidentally into settled and great civilisations, the work of its members is rather to act as pioneers, to break ground for the growth of some new type, to do the forest-clearing and the roadlaying that make advancement possible for others later.

Just at this period the Manu had need of them, because he felt that the time had come to start the second subdivision of the great Aryan race – that subdivision the

[remnants] of which we now call Arabian. It was the previous founding over again on a smaller scale, though without the necessity of the intervening massacres, because the change required this time was not the radical, fundamental difference between one root race and another, but only the emphasizing of special characteristics which marks off the new sub race from its predecessors. But the general principle was the same, and the Manu began by segregating a few of his faithful followers from the rest, and sending them to reclaim one of the rugged valleys which ran up into the mountains behind the city.

During the millennium of its greatest renown the city had grown enormously in size, but the Manu had taken care that it should spread chiefly along the shores of the Gobi Sea, and inland only up to the foothills twenty miles away, so that the valleys were still virgin soil or primitive forest. Now one of these was to be used for the purpose to which from the beginning it had been destined, so the Manu proceeded to choose his instruments.

He was not himself in incarnation at the time, but he acted through His representative Jupiter, who was the chief priest of the period. On learning his wishes, Jupiter at once offered his own children for the work, if they were themselves willing. He had a son Corona and two daughters, Fomal and Beth.

Corona promptly accepted the opportunity offered to him, broke up his splendid establishment in the city, and moved off, with his wife Theo, his married sons Herakles and Pindar, and their respective families, to the selected valley, there to adopt a distinctly primitive and patriarchal life – a great contrast to that which he had until then been living. His sister Fomal had married Demeter, and these two were instantly fired with the same enthusiasm, and contrived to infect their six children with it. The other sister Beth, was equally eager, but not quite so fortunate in influencing her husband Calyx.

Calyx has rather a curious history; he has come down through the ages with a partner Amal, to whom he is especially closely linked, so that they find one another and marry, life after life, with quite extraordinary consistency. In the particular birth which we are considering they happened to be born as brother and sister, and consequently the custom of the country did not permit them to resume their usual relations. Calyx married Beth, the younger daughter of Jupiter, and Amal was urged by her mother to wed Laxa, a rich merchant, whom she did not really love. Both families dragged on more or less unhappily, Laxa vigorously objecting to the frequent visits of his brother-in-law, and to certain compromising situations which came under his notice.

When Beth, keenly desirous to sacrifice herself and her family in response to the call of the Manu, pertinaciously worried her already semi-detached husband to (metaphorically) take up his cross and go forth into wildness which had no attractions for him, it acted upon him like the final shock which determines the precipitation of matter from a saturated solution, or suddenly turns to ice the surface of a pool of water which, while absolutely still, has sunk to a temperature just below the freezing point without actually freezing. He deserted his wife (leaving behind him a letter to explain that he could never be happy with her, and therefore thought it kindest to set her free to follow her own devices) and fled with his sister Amal to a distant city. Laxa was furious – not to the loss of his wife, but at the scandal, which he feared might affect his business; he proclaimed that he had never trusted her, had long known her to be unfaithful, and would never under any consideration receive her back into his household. Beth and her children took refuge with her sister Fomal, who received them with open arms, and thus it happened that Jupiter’s children were all able to take the opportunity which he had so earnestly desired for him.

As to the runaway lovers, they reappeared some years later, hoping that the escape would be overlooked; but society in Manoa declined to receive them, so they actually presented themselves among the new community in the valley. Finding themselves no more welcome their, they drifted back to the distant city whither they had fled at first, and so pass out of our story.

The new community, then, began its existence under the direction of Corona, and consisted of his descendants and those of his two sisters. The eldest son of Corona was Herakles, already married to Sirius, and having a large family, all of whom we recognise as old friends. Among the sons are our hero Alcyone and his ever loved companion Mizar; Selene also, and Uranus and Achilles; while among the sisters we note Neptune and Orion. Thus we see that, though in quite different relations, Alcyone, Mizar and Sirius are once more together; and though at first sight the third member of the’ trinity’ of eighteen thousand years ago seems absent, he is presently discovered in the shape of a cousin.

Alcyone’s boyhood had been spent amid the manifold pleasures of the city, yet he keenly enjoyed the greater freedom of the pioneer life. The emigrants were by no means without comforts, for there was plenty of money available, so that laborers were hired to do the actual digging and building, and the work of our group was mainly that of planning and superintending. The young people took this up with great vigour and perseverance; temporary training places were first constructed, and then ground was cleared and brought under cultivation; wells were bored and water courses were dug out, while permanent houses were gradually erected in suitable spots, and lovely gardens were made around them.

Almost all of our characters appeared in the valley community, as the families rapidly increased. A few of the earlier generation stayed in the city, Xanthos; Kos, Pepin and Obra being too old to move, though in each case some of their children went.

Xenthos and Kos had three sons and there was unhappily a good deal of discussion among them with regard to this question of emigration. The parents were favorable to it, and their son Demurer took it up with enthusiasm, as has already been said; but their eldest born, Castor (who was a great devotee of fashion and convention, and always quite sure he was right on every subject under the sun) saw no use in such a proceeding, so he and his wife Rhea set their faces against it. They had three children, but all of them took an opposite line in the matter, because they had married into families, which were emigrating, and they preferred to follow their respective spouses. Castor and Rhea therefore felt themselves injured and deserted, as did the third brother Laxa, from whom Amal had fled; but Vale the son of Laxa still remained to them, and by his immovability became sole heir to the wealth of the two families.

The change to country life was a distinct advantage to Alcyone, who grew tall and broad and strong in consequence of the constant exercise in the open air. Presently he married his cousin Parseus, and in due course had six children, among whom we find Rama and Vulcan, while Venus and Osiris was respectively his sonin-law and daughter-in-law. Several of those who are now Masters of the Wisdom took birth in that generation, for, in addition to those already mentioned, among the nephews and nieces of our hero are Surya, Mars and Mercury. As son of Mars and Mercury the Manu himself reappeared and took to wife Koli, who was again Alcyone’ s grandchild, as in the previous life, but this time a girl instead of a boy. Saturn and Viraj were born as cousins of the Manu, and in the same generation Dhruva came in once more, so the new sub-race began under high auspices.

The valley was picturesque - very wild and rugged, and covered with primeval forest. Necessarily, a great deal of this had to be cleared away, but Corona desired to leave as much of it as was compatible with his plan. The valley was some ten miles in length, sloping steadily upward into the mountains. At the higher end of it was a precipice, down which fell a magnificent cascade, forming a deep pool at its foot, and then supplying a rapid river, which rushed down the centre of the Valley. Corona’ s general idea was to terrace this valley (which was about two miles wide) both longitudinally and laterally, and for this purpose he mapped it out in twenty sections. Upon six of these he began work as soon as the necessary houses had been erected, and he gave them respectively into the charge of his brother in law Demeter, his two sons Herakles and Pindar, and his nephews Vega, Mira and Aurora. The seven sons of Herakles all acted under their father, taking charge (as they grew old enough) of various departments; and Alcyone, young though he was soon signalised himself as an able and trustworthy lieutenant. He was especially anxious to save all the finest trees, and gave much time and thought to various ingenious plans to that end. He always said that it actually hurt him to give the order for the destruction of a tree - that it felt to him like killing a friend. The matter was so much in his mind that he went round to all the other superintendents and persuaded them also to adopt the schemes which he had tried in his father’ s section; and as none of them could refuse the eager, bright eyed boy, the part of the valley which was cleared took on even from the first the look of a gentleman’ s park. He soon became an authority upon the laying out of roads and estates, and the heads of all the sections utilised his talents in this direction. For the moment only a few residences were dotted about in the most desirable situations; but Corona’ s instructions were to plan the streets for a city of the future, to extend along both banks of the river at the mouth of the valley; and it was owing largely to the care and foresight of the young Alcyone, and to his personal efforts on behalf of what he felt to be his mission, that this was laid out as a garden city, with streets wide enough to contain a double avenue of trees and two streams of water.

His untiring exertions brought him prominently to the notice of his imperious grandfather Corona, who promptly married him to his cousin Parseus, as has already been mentioned. Parseus was a handsome and stately girl of rare beauty and became a devoted wife and a mother. Both Alcyone and Mizar had, from their earliest days, specially loved another cousin and playmate, Electra; but the autocratic grandfather regarded his descendents as pawns in the game, and assigned them to one another in marriage in accordance with some obscure theory of his own of the admixture of different qualities, which took little account of mere personal predilections.

His decisions were accepted by the people concerned as those of fate and thus when Electra was given to Pearl and Deneb to Mizar there was no outward protest, though some of the performers carried sore hearts through the consequent festivities. All the young people were absolutely loyal to their obligations, and as their children grew up around them their lives were happy enough; indeed, they were far too busy to indulge in unprofitable repinings.

Yet in the end by a strange turn of fortune’ s wheel, the dreams of childhood were realised. Miz ar’ s brilliant but capricious wife Deneb died three years after their marriage in giving birth to a little daughter, Cygnus; and less than two years after that Electra’ s husband, Pearl whom she had grown to love dearly, fell from a bridge which he was constructing across the river, and was swept away by the swift current and drowned. It was but natural that Mizar the closest friend of her childhood should visit her and try to console her for her sad loss; and since the widower was but twenty five years old, and the widow twenty three, it was perhaps still more natural that the love which had never died in their hearts should now at length assert its sway and that the lady should consent to make her early lover happy, stipulating only that they should delay until after the birth of the posthumous child of Pearl. Mizar was haunted by the fear that this might cost Electra her life as had happened with her first wife; but this prognostication was happily unfulfilled, for the little stranger arrived safely on the scenes, and proved to be our old friend Palas, who in due course grew up and married Vajra. As soon as Electra was strong again the faithful lovers were united, Corona offering no objection; and none who saw the whole hearted love and trust which shone in the wonderful starry eyes of that most noble bride could doubt that their happiness was assured.

Electra laughingly remarked that few couples had the good fortune to begin their married life already provided with eight children! Fortunately she loved children dearly, and her motherly instincts were strongly developed, for as the years rolled they more than doubled that original family. They were a joyous and closely united household, remarkably free from misfortune and disharmony.

Once a serious cloud appeared on their horizon, but prompt and vigorous action dissipated it without lasting consequences. It has been mentioned that Vajra married Pallas, and in the course of the interchange of visits connected with the business of courting, the families of Mizar and Polaris saw a great deal of one another. A showy, but rather shallow younger brother of Vajra’ s, named Pollux, contrived to captivate the heart of Melpomene, and their relations became unduly intimate. The discovery of this was a great shock to Mizar and Electra, for Melpomene was as yet only a child in their eyes, and they had had not the slightest suspicion that she could be in any danger. The parents of Pollux were also much pained about what had happened; a hurried council of the relations on both sides was held, and it was decided that, young as the delinquents were, it was best that they should marry at once, and all present bound themselves never to reveal what they knew. The marriage turned out fairly well, for the young people really loved each other; Pollux though idle and selfish, was not exacting and Melpomene was something of a poetess and an artist, so that she had plenty to occupy her time.

Meanwhile Alcyone and his stately wife Perseus had lived very happily and usefully, more and more absorbed, as the years passed, in the biblical task of turning a wilderness into a fruitful field, and then joining the fruitful fields together into noble estates, worthy homes for the magnates of the great city that was to be. Their four stalwart boys did them yeoman service in all this, and their two daughters were both fortunate enough to marry men of the same type, who entered heart and soul into the great plan which was being so rapidly carried out; for one of these husbands was Aquila, the son of Ekectra by her first marriage, and the other was no less a personage than Venus, younger brother of Mars himself, who was to be the father of the Manu.

Contemporaneously with the Manu practically all the rest of the characters came into incarnation; and after that the rough pioneer work was over, the new community was fairly on its feet, and so the band of Servers was no longer needed.

Corona in due course was gathered to his fathers, and

Herakles resumed the reins of government in his stead, moving well and wisely, and in all ways carrying out the scheme as originally laid down. Both Herakles and Sirius lived to old age, and their sons Aldebran and Achilles passed away before them, so it was into Alcyone’s hands that Herakles confided the control of affairs when his turn came, both of them well knowing that it was to be handed over to Alcyone’s grand nephew, the Manu, as soon as he chose to take charge of it. Alcyone was already sixty-two years of age when he became chieftain of the clan, and was well known and beloved by every member of it; and every day of his gentle rule added to the affection with which his people regarded him. Five years later the Manu came forward to lead His new sub race, and Alcyone was given the privilege of formally receiving him, placing the crown upon his head, and being the first to bow in homage before him.

Seventeen years more Alcyone lived, honored and loved by all; the wife Perseus had predeceased him, and Mizar and Electra, perhaps nearest of all to him, passed away a few months before him; so he felt, as he expressed it, that all the companions of his youth were gone, and that his attraction was to the other world rather than to this. So he passed peacefully to that other world, with the blessing of the Manu himself as his viaticum, ready to return to earthly life whenever his leader had the need of his services.

Students should note that though this band of Servers is retained by the Manu for work of a certain type, its members are by no means always engaged in that work, for the good reason that it needs doing only at intervals.

We must not suppose that their individual evolution has been neglected, or that their precise personal karma has in any way failed to produce its due effect; but because of their membership in this remarkable clan these needs have been achieved by methods differing slightly from those which seem to be more usually employed.

The greater or lesser amount of the spiritual force generated in a given life, for example, finds its result not in the comparative length of the heaven life, but in its comparative intensity. There are considerable intervals during which the group is not required for work of an occult nature but even then it still keeps together; its members do not go off separately, each pursuing his own evolution, but they are put, so far as we can see, wherever the greatest good of the greatest number can best be consulted. When they are not wanted for outside work their own evolution is taken into account; but even then it is not that of the individual, but that of the mass. In fact, to a certain extent, the clan may be considered as a little sub world by itself.

Most of the karma of its members is necessarily generated with their fellows, and therefore tends to work itself out within the group, and to make the ties stronger between the comrades, so that they may get to known one another thoroughly, and learn to work together.

Life V

Overleaping a life or two, probably spent in the same subrace, and in the furtherance of Manus schemes connected with it, we find Alcyone born-again in the royal family of Manoa. He was the fourth son of Jupiter, who was then ruler of the Empire, and his elder brothers were the Manu, Mars and Aurora. His boyhood was spent once more amid the glories of the great city of Manoa, though he paid many visits to that valley among the mountains which in his previous birth he had done so much to beautify. He had a younger sister, Fides, who adored him, and he in turn was naturally deeply devoted to the Manu and to Mars. He was also a great favourite with his uncle Vajra, whose son Mizar was his bosom friend. The close companionship between these two families had its natural result, for when he came of age Alcyone married Mizar’ s sister Electra, while on the same day Mizar himself espoused Fides. The married life of both couples was delightfully happy and harmonious, though presently as we should soon see, the exigencies of the Manu’ s plans brought about a temporary separation of husbands and wives, which was a great trial to all concerned.

It was now some two thousand years since the reclamation of the valley, and Corona’ s splendid scheme had been carried out to the full. The whole valley from end to end rose in a succession of terraces, with the great cascade at its end and a series of minor cascades at intervals of two or three miles. The sites also rose in giant steps from the river to the level of the encompassing hills, and at every point of vantage palatial residences stood surrounded by beautiful gardens and towering trees; for Alcyone’s plan had been perpetuated and the whole valley had the appearance of one vast park, the trees being far more prominent then the houses. Even the magnificent city which occupied the mouth of the valley, when looked upon from the hills above, presented the appearance rather of a Grove of trees with buildings scattered about it in it here and there, than of the great town that it really was.

The community inhabiting this lovely valley had waxed great and prosperous, and was now in effect a nation in itself, capable of sending fourth a considerable and well-equipped army. It remained part of the great Empire of Manoa, but had always a subsidiary ruler of its own, who was usually the eldest son of the King, just as in England the eldest son of the sovereign takes the title of Prince of Wales – except that in Manoa it was no more title, but a real Regency.

At the time when our story opens the Manu, as the eldest son of Jupiter, was once more ruling over the valley, and His law placed stringent restrictions upon the inter-marriages of its inhabitants with those of the great cities on the sea shore. Those who have read Man: Whence, How and Whither will remember that when He originally came forth from Atlantis with the small body of followers whom he had selected as the nucleus of his fifth Root Race he had first established himself in the highlands of Arabia. After remaining there for some considerable time he made a new selection from among his people and removed them to the shores of the Gobi Sea, leaving his Arabs to increase and multiply in their highland home.

Now that his object was to spread the special characteristics of his second sub-race without interfering with the population of the Empire of Manoa he naturally bethought himself of these Arabs as those who in the outer world were on the whole nearest to the type which he wished to produce. His plan therefore was to march a carefully selected army of his new sub-race into Arabia, to establish himself there with as little strife as possible, and gradually to absorb into his race the descendants of his ancient followers.

He therefore set to work to make arrangements on an elaborate scale for the sending forth and provisioning of a considerable army, selecting his men with great care. Only those who were young and strong were allowed to join his ranks. The majority were unmarried men, and among those who were married he usually selected men who as yet had only a few children. The total number of fighting men so set apart was about hundred and fifty thousand; and the wives, children and non-combatant camp followers made perhaps hundred thousand more. Naturally most of the band of servers were included in this army, as it was indeed to engage in precisely the sort of Pioneer work to which they were by this time well the custom.

His first step was to apportion the direction of the work among his own immediate relations.

The whole management of the migrating army was put in the hands of his next brother, Mars, until such time as he himself should join it. The third brother, Aurora, was to take his place as heir to the throne of Manoa and as regent of the valley; and it was the intention of the Manu to give over the charge of the Valley to him as soon as the army was ready to start, but to remain himself for a time to counsel and direct him, while his army was making its slow progress through the friendly country of Persia and Mesopotamia, and then himself, by travelling rapidly, to overtake it and assumed the leadership before it actually arrived in Arabia. He desired also to send an embassy in advance to inform the Arab tribes of his coming, and for this delicate mission he selected a still younger brother, the fourth son of Jupiter, our hero Alcyone.

Alcyone’s cousin and brother-in-law, Mizar, was to accompany him, and two elder brothers of Mizar, Corona and Theodorous, were to be lieutenants of Mars, and in charge of the wings of the army.

The mission confided to Alcyone and Mizar was regarded by them as a great honour and mark of confidence; but it had its dolorous aspect, for it separated them from wives whom they dearly loved. Alcyone had already three little sons (one a newly born babe) and Mizar too; and though it was understood that the wives and children of these two ambassadors should follow them with the army, and be during the journey under the special care of Herakles herself, the wife of the general, it was impossible not to feel the wrench of parting, and a certain amount of anxiety about the welfare of those dear ones. The ladies, however, were so proud of the trust reposed in their husbands that they passed bravely through the ceremony of leave taking, and even joined in signing a sort of valedictory paean as they stood at the top of a flight of steps and watched the little cavalcade ride away.

The party was not a large one, for though our friends took a guard of honour, as befitted their rank, they were especially anxious not to make any parade of military force, for they wished to convince the Arabs of the peacefulness of their mission. The menial work of the valley, it should be said, was done chiefly by men of Mongolian race, belonging to a tribe which lived in an almost inaccessible part of the mountains up above the great cascade. The Manu had long ago made it part of his work to send the missionaries to this tribe, and give to it such civilisation as its members were able to assimilate; the result being that most of them abandoned their old precarious hunting life and came to act as servants, gardeners, labourers and, common soldiers for the community of the valley -always, however, returning home to their mountains when they retired from active life.

Of men of this hill tribe, then, was composed of the guard of honour which escorted the young travelers – big, strong men, and especially intelligent, but entirely to be relied upon for courage and fidelity. Their captain was Iota, a character who appears but rarely in our story, and is usually attached rather to Orion than to Alcyone.

Another man of the same hill tribe who accompanied them was Boreas, who had had the good fortune to find an engagement in the palace household when a young lad, and, having one day been appointed to watch over the play-of Alcyone (then a tiny child) felt so strong and compelling an attraction towards him that there after he never left him, but took unceasing attendance upon him as his share of the household work – an arrangement to which nobody objected, as it relieved the other servants of responsibility. As Alcyone grew up, Boreas became his personal attendant and body-servant, and now on this expedition to far away Arabia he was still capably filling the same position both to him and Mizar, to whom his devotion was only less than to his own master.

The party wended their way first to Manoa, to pay their homage Jupiter, and then turned their faces West word, and rolled steadily for many years towards the setting sun. For a long time their route lay through their own land, where they were well known and received with high honour; but at last they crossed the frontier into Persia, to whose king they bore a message from the Manu, asking leave to March his hosts through that country, and suggesting a route which He might take, so as to cause the least possible disturbance to the daily business. They were empowered also to make arrangements for the victualling of the army at various points of its march; and all this business they most successfully carried out, sending back full news to the Manu by couriers whom they had brought with them for the purpose. The King of Persia received them graciously, and expressed his readiness to do anything in his power to forward the scheme of the Manu.

He wanted them to stay some months in his capital, and promised them all kinds of entertainments; but Alcyone, while thanking him for his kindness, told him that his business required haste, and that he felt it his duty to push on as rapidly as he could. So the King sent and additional and much larger guard of honor to accompany them to his south-eastern frontier, and to convoy them through a tract of desert which was said to be infested by robbers.

When the Persian soldiers left them, they were already near the somewhat ill-defined frontiers of Arabia, and not long after that they encountered a band of wild looking horsemen belonging to one of the Northern most of the Arab tribes. They parleyed with these people, and offered them reward if they would lead them to the presence of their Chieftain Ursa, which they forth with did; and our ambassadors then tendered to him various presents on behalf of the Manu, and tried to explain to him the desires and intentions of that great Leader. Ursa was irresponsive; he did not see what he would gain by the suggested incursions of foreigners; he remarked that he and his people were very well satisfied with affairs as they were, and he hinted that the scheme seemed to him rather like an attempt at annexation under another name. He was eventually so far won over as to promise that he would not oppose the passage of the Manu through a certain part of his territory; but further then that he could not be induced to commit himself until he saw how matters shaped themselves.

That two cousins passed on in due cou rse to various other chiefs, and on the whole they were everywhere hospitably received and treated as passing visitors of distinction; but none of those to whom they spoke were ready unreservedly to accept the idea of the introduction of the foreign element and the welding together of the tribes into an Empire or a Confederation. None of the ruling chiefs, that is; but some of the nobles came to them privately, and freely admitted that there was room for great improvement, and that they personally would Welcome any scheme which would bring the country into a more settled condition, and make them into a great nation, such as Persia and Egypt.

Alcyone sent periodical reports to the Manu, by caravans travelling through the desert to Persia, and then by couriers from the Persian capital to Manoa: so the Manu fully realised that his reception by the half civilised remnants of his original segregation might not be all that could be desired. But he nevertheless pushed on his preparations as rapidly as possible, and in about eighteen months His army started on its long journey. Mars, Corona and Theodorous conducted it successfully through their own country into Persia, and the Manu overtook it, as arranged, just as it was entering upon the great desert. He had carefully initiated Aurora into His work, solemnly taking leave of his father and mother, and now He was prepared to devote the rest of His life to the Aryanisation of Arabia.

Electra and Fides travelled with the army, under the care of Herakles; and, slow as was the progress, they rejoiced greatly that every day was bringing them nearer to the husbands whom they so dearly loved. A wonderful group of children they were bringing with them – five boys, all physically perfect and beautiful, but very much more than that, for all of them now stand high in the upper hierarchy, and one is the Bodhisattva himself, Teacher of angels and men.

Playing with them always, and sharing all the care lavished on them, were the three little ones of Mars and Herakless – not all boys this time, for their were two little girls in the General’ s family; and a very happy cluster of intfant stars they were, for they greatly enjoyed the constant change of scene, and the open-air life kept them bright and healthy.

Meanwhile Alcyone and Mizar, having spent months at the Court of each of a number of party Chiefs, doing their best to make friends with these distrustful magnates, had returned to the first tribe which they had encountered on the arrival, and were impatiently expecting a coming of the Manu. When at last He appeared; his army was not recognised; some stupid local official mistook His people for Persians, jumped to the conclusion that Persia was for some unknown reason invading Arabia, and promptly sent out a troop of cavalry to attack them.

He drove them back without difficulty, and took some of their officers prisoners; and then he sent these men to explain to their chief who he was, and to demand an interview. Ursa was angry at the reverse of his men, and much alarmed at what he heard of the size and splendid appearance of the army, and at first he refused to go, fearing a trap; but Alcyone did his best to reassure him, and eventually persuaded him to come with him to meet his brother. In his suspicions frame of mind, it took long to convince him that no harm was meant to him; and he was obviously embarrassed at the presence of so formidable a force within his borders. Alcyone who had been long enough in the country to know that these petty Chiefs were constantly at feud with one another, pointed out to him that if he offered hospitality to these military strangers he would be entirely secure from attack; and this consideration evidently weighed with him, so at last he decided to make the best of things, and rode across the hills with the Manu to show Him a large desolate valley which he offered to put at his disposal.

The Manu at once accepted this, and marched His people into it, and in a very few days they had contrived to make a great change in its appearance. They knew all about reclaiming valleys, and Corona and Alcyone were thoroughly in their element here; they had at their disposal all kinds of resources of which the Arabs never dreamt, and they metamorphosed that desert into a fruitful garden within a year. As soon as they had secured, the crops which were an absolute necessity for their community, they began to lay out the valley in imitation of the dearly loved home which they had left behind. Trees of course grew slowly, and the climate was quite different; but even already it was easy to see that this barren spot would soon become a paradise.

Seeing the wonderful progress that had been made, Ursa cast a covetous eye upon his transformed valley; in fact, it became a kind of Nabota’ s vineyard to him. His eldest son Pollux, an idle and dissolute fellow, was always urging him to seize, it and massacre the strangers ; but he realised that, even with the advantage of a treacherous attack, this would be a task beyond his powers. He had a long standing quarrel with Lacey, the chief of a neighboring tribe; and his second son, Tripos, advised him to persuade the Manu to attack this hereditary enemy, pointing out that, whoever was victor, the result would be favorable to them. If the Manu defeated Lacey, the feud would terminate in their favor; if Lacey defeated the Manu, it would be easy to overpower the disheartened remnants of his force. But, much to the disgust of the schemers, the Manu declined the crafty suggestion; He said that if Ursa was attacked, He would fight for him, but He saw no reason to interfere with another tribe, which was peaceably persuing its natural avocations.

Tripos then offered another suggestion—that his father should secretly send and embassy to his old enemy Lacey, and induce him by promise of rich spoil to join with him in extermination the hated foreigner. Lacey agreed to this, reflecting that when the victory was won he would probably have an opportunity of turning upon Ursa and annihilating his troops or that perhaps he would be able during the conflict to play him false and go over to the Manu’ s side. These schemes came to grief, however, for the Manu got wind of their conspiracy and was fully prepared for them; when they attacked them, He shattered their combined army, and, as they were both killed in the battle,proclaimed himself ruler over both their countries.

Pollux had also been killed, but Tripos was taken prisoner, as was Capri, the son of Lacey ; so the Manu sent for these two young men, and sternly told them that the days of internecine feud and anarchy were over, but if they chose to accept, under him, the position of administrators of their respective countries, He would give them a fair trial in that capacity. Humbled and terrified, they were astonished at the victor’ s clemency, and they accepted his incredible generosity in fear and trembling. They learned something of His methods, and for a considerable time did fairly well ; but they could never fully overcome their innate tendency towards underhand processes, and when they were at last discovered in a peculiarly mean plot to assassinate the Manu and recapture the country for themselves, He decided that it was useless to experiment further with them, so He banished them from His dominions, and they took refuge with Alastor, a fanatical religious leader in the south of

Arabia. Meanwhile the Manu consolidated His kingdom, and gradually taught its people that honesty is the best policy, and that a strictly just government is in the long run the most advantageous for all.

The formation of a strong and orderly State like this naturally attracted much attention in Arabia.

On the general principle of heaving half a brick at a stranger, various neighbouring Chieftains tried to raid the Manu’ s territory ; but the promptitude and efficiency with which the raiders were crushed gradually drove the lesson into even those thick skulls that it is sometimes desirable to mind one’s own business.

Indeed, these misdirected attempts usually ended in the annexation of the attacking tribe; and that tribe, when its turbulency had been repressed and it had aquired a few elementary principles of law and order, invariably discovered that the annexation had been eminently beneficial, and forthwith began to prosper amazingly. Other tribes watched this growth from outside with an envious eye, and some of their Rulers were wise enough voluntarily to submit themselves to the Manu, in which case He always accepted the suzerainty and incorporated the tribe into His empire, but retained the previous Chief as viceroy with full powers, appointing a skilled member of His own staff as a kind of resident political agent, to explain what ought to be done and how to do it. in this way by degrees the whole of the inner plateau of Arabia fell into His hands, and the northern half of the coast lands also; but the fanatical preaching of Alastor held the southern Arabs together in resistance of the new and nobler influence, so they remained for some centuries more in their old half civilised condition of lawless unrest.

The work of Aryanisation was managed gradually and with great care. Those of our characters who were in the Manu’ s army were practically all of them young married men, and even when in after years their children grew up, these in turn almost invariably married in their own race. Only the grand-children of the original immigrants were encouraged to intermarry with the Arabs—a generation of Arab wives as soon as the country was settled; but only seven of our characters are found among these young bachelors—Bootes, Vale, Able, Apis, Pomo, Laxa, and Zephyr. The Arabian women whom they married will be found noted in the accompanying chart.

The delight of Alcyone and Mizar in the reunion with their wives and children after the two years of separation may be imagined. As the years rolled on four more sons and three daaughters were added to Alcyone’ s quiver, the first of them being his present Master, Mercury. Mizar’ s family also reached the same figure, and in the due course all these grew up and wedded, and were surrounded by olive-branches of their own. The Manu gave to all His brothers and cousins provinces to rule under Him, and the same fate befell Ajax, who had married His daughter Vega. This kept them all very busy, and forced them to live apart, which they, who had so long been so closely bound together, much regretted; but they nevertheless contrived to meet fairly frequently, and their children paid long visits to one another.

Alcyone bore his part in several of the little wars, and more than once distinguished himself in battle; but as time went on wars became rarer, and the work of reconstruction and administration more and more claimed his whole time and attention. Thus years rolled by, busily yet in a sense uneventfully, bringing with them indeed a constant succession of incidents which were varied and interesting enough to those who took part in them, yet offering nothing salient which stood out above all others.

The one circumstance which stood out above all others in his memory was a visit of Mahaguru, who stayed for a time in Arabia on His way eastward after His appearance in Egypt as Thoth or Hermes. He had spent some years in that great Empire (then Atlantean, and at the height of its glory) preaching to its priests and people about the mysteries of the Hidden Light and the Hidden Work, and explaining how these great and glorious truths were symbolised in their ancient religion. A summary of His teaching there is given in Man: Whence, How and Whither, pages 284-287, and it was this which He repeated as He passed from province to province of Manu’ s Arabian Kingdom. Of all who heard who heard his wondrous teachings there were none who drank it in more sincerely than Alcyone and his family. Most of all did iit impress his third son, Surya, then just come of age; it so filled his soul that he came to his father and mother, demanding rather than praying permission to give up his whole life to it, to follow Mahaguru wherever He might go, and serve Him forever. They recognised the divine call, and willingly consented ; but when they went together to Mahaguru, He smilingly told them that He needed no such personal service, but that Surya was indeed wise to desire to devote his life to spreading the truth, since he had won the right to do so by service done in ages long past, the memory of which now was temporarily hidden from him by the veli of flesh; and so He took him to the Manu, and asked that he, young though he was, might be appointed Chief Priest in all that land of the new religion which He had founded. The Manu atonce agreed, and thus it came that in the priesthood now founded Alcyone’ s family took an important place.

Alcyone himself, with the Manu’ s consent, gave up the management of his province into the hands of his eldest son Viraj, a most capable and energetic young man; and he, the father, entered the piesthood with enthusiasm, rejoicing to serve in it under his talented son Surya, through whom the Mahaguru could speak even when physically at a distance. Three other younger sons of Alcyone—Mercury, Sirius and Selene—all felt the same inrush of the sacred fire, and solemnly vowed the whole of their lives to its service. Young though these were—for Selene was only sixteen— Mahaguru accepted their heartfelt pledges, for He knew their past and future; and He who reads the hearts of men knows well whom He can trust. So He ordained them all as priests with much stately ceremony before the face of all the people; and the multitude shouted with joy. And before He left the country, Mahaguru came one day to the house of Alcyone and called together the father and the four sons who had devoted their lives to the priesthood, and gave them His parting blessing, speaking words which none of them ever forgot. Turning first to Surya, and then to the rest, He said: “Hail! my Brother through the ages; hail! My brothers yet to be; you shall spread God’ s Love and Wisdom o’ er the world from sea to sea. Many and great shall be your difficulties and trials, yet greater still shall be your reward; for many thousands of years you must toil in preparation for the task that few can undertake, but when it is achieved you shall shine as the stars in heaven, for yours is the blessing of those who turn many to righteousness. There is a spiritual dynasty whose throne is never vacant, whose splendour never fails; its members form a golden chain whose links can never be torn asunder, for they draw back the world to God from whom it came. To that you among men, my Brothers of the Glorious Mystery, for through you the Light shall shine. More and more shall the Hidden Light become manifest; more and more shall the Hidden Work be done openly and be understood by man; and yours shall be the hands that raise the veil, yours the voices that shall proclaim the glad tidings to the world. Bearers of freedom and light and joy shall you be, and your names shall be holy in the ears of generations yet unborn. Farewell ; in this body you will see me no more, but forget not that in spirit we are always together.”

So He left them, and passed away to far Shamballa, not again to be seen of men until, ten thousand years later, His five priests met Him once more, to learn from Him the same great truths in a new form, and to give them to another sub-race. But Alcyone and his sons never forgot Him, and often they were conscious of His presence among them as they voiced His teachings to the multitude.

So Alcyone’ s life, which had begun in war and diplomacy, ended for religious work; he was forty-six years old when Mahaguru left them, and after that he preached for five and thirty years. His wife Electra died in the same year as her husband, preserving even in her old age her air of distinction and marvellous beauty; and within a few months Mizar and Fides also passed away. So of this group it might be said, as of Saul and Joanathan, that they”were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.”

The following soldiers of the Aryan army married members of the Band who had incarnated in Arabia for that purpose:

…

The undermentioned members had also been incarnated in Arabia, in order that they might forward the work of the Manu, but they did not take that opportunity offered to them:

…

Members of a Mangolian hill tribe:

…

Life VI

Two thousand years later Alcyone was still in the same sub race, but this time in a female body and in quite different sorroundings. The Arabian Empire had spread in many directions; indeed, except for a strip of Atlantean territory on the West Coast, Arabia and Egypt practically divided between them the continent of Africa. Mars had pushed his conquests as far south as the Waal River and had built himself an empire there, into which the Arabian population overcrowded at home, flowed down in ever increasing numbers. The work of erecting a new state is quite congenial to our band of Servers and as they always cluster around Mars and Mercury, who are both to be found in incarnation at this time and place, we need not wonder that but few of our characters are missing.

Our hero Alcyone was the eldest daughter of Mars and his eldest son Herakles who was even already ruling a province under Him. Mercury was the emperor’ s sister and was married to Dhruva, who was at that time officiating as Chief priest and minister of education- a position of great power and importance, for the tradition of the occasional overshadowing of Surya by Mahaguru (which was mentioned in our last chapter) still subsisted, and, though the priest took no direct share in the government of the country their authority in certain matters was supreme. For example it was their duty to select the heir to the throne, and their choice by no means always fell upon the eldest son of the last occupants will be seen later.

King Mars and his people speedily built cities and temples for themselves and introduced into their new country all the arts of their civilization much as had been done in Arabia two thousand years before; but it was not found possible to Aryanise the population of the country. The inhabitants whom the newcomers had found in occupation were Negro tribes derived from several different stocks.

Thousands of years before the population had been purely lemurian but it had considerably intermingled with the Rmohal sub race and as the country had at one time been conquered by the Tlavatli, there was a small infusion of that blood also among the chieftains. Mars permitted a certain amount of experimental intermarriage - indeed, he never at any time actually forbade it but His proud Arabs did not readily mingle with a race in many ways so inferior, and so radically different in color. Some of the lower class whites (for the Aryan Arabs were almost white) boldly took Negro wives, and among those who made this experiments we notice Phocea and Sirona but their mulatto children were practically a race apart. Some of these, if exceptionally pleasing in appearance, became absorbed in the ruling race, and introduced into it some rather curious new characteristics; some of them on the other hand married among the Negro population and eventually sank back into it; but the majority kept to themselves, married among themselves and dwelt to a great extent as a separate community—a community which, as centuries passed on, slowly grew into a nation which acquired a territory of its own, and had a long and checkered history with which we are not concerned. It will be seen however, that the Aryanisaiton of the race previously in occupation was not in this case countenanced and recommended as it had been in Arabia; though one mixed marriage, made for political purposes, had an influence upon the lives of some of our principal characters as will presently appear.

The religion of the Negro tribe was unusual, for it consisted in the worship of a mysterious female deity, who was alleged to inhabit a certain towering rock which was visible for many miles, the foot of this rock was surrounded by almost impenetrable forest, in which (naturally enough) all sorts of dreadful daemons were supposed to dwell but no definite information was forthcoming, for no Negro dared to enter the dark and gloomy glades. It was a tradition that on several occasions daring hunters had entered into the outskirts of the woodland in pursuit of game but they had never returned; and it was commonly believed that only the chief priest of the deity could ever reach the rock in safety by means of a hidden path, a knowledge of which was one of the great secrets of his. Even he must go only at stated times to make a special offering; and, it was well understood that if he failed to keep his ghastly appointment or went without the offering, his own life would be forfeit. On the day of the full moon he must appear before his dire deity and he must be accompanied by a young and handsome man, but just come of age, who was destined for the doubtful honour of marriage with the goddess. What occurred none knew but the high priest, and his lips were sealed by awful oath; but every month he returned alone in a condition of panic terror, and nothing more was ever heard of any of the bridegrooms.

Rumor had it that many years before three rash youths of bold and skeptical spirit, friends of the chosen spouse of the occasion, had venturously followed the priest and the victim secretly at a distance. Two of these, it was said, had returned: one, a gibbering lunatic, who lived in that state for many years; the other a broken man, with his nerve utterly gone, so that he never held up his head again, and died a few days afterwards. The story which this same survivor told was a sufficiently horrible one. The three foolhardy youths had followed the priests through the wood, hearing and seeing much that terrified them, but still persistently pursuing until the priest and their friend had gained the foot of the rock. Then, so the trembling narrator declared, those two ascended a few feet to a kind of natural platform, behind which the face of the precipice curved back in the shape of the horse shoe - the watcher, of course staying below in the shade of the tree, because the light of the full moon fell upon the platform, so that every object upon it was clearly visible.

Then the highpriest began a strange wild chant or evocation; and suddenly, as he sang, a great gap opened in the rock, and a horde of demons rushed out - creatures like dwarfed men or huge monkeys, but somehow indescribably distorted and horrible, giving an impression of hellish hate, despair and craving for revenge.

These appalling creatures surrounded the priest and the victim, and seemed to be springing upon them and tearing at them ; but the priest thrust them roughly aside with a gesture of authority, and raised his chant again. Suddenly, in the vast doorway, which had been so mysteriously rent in the face of the cliff, appeared a huge naked female form, at sight of which the priest and his companion fell upon their faces while the demon danced around them with a strange fiendish glee. The awestricken witness described the figure of the goddess as far beyond human stature, yet beautiful with a horrible dark beauty that was not of earth; and he passionately affirmed that of all the horror the worst feature was that while he was more utterly overwhelmed with terror than he had ever been before, he was also at the same time irresistibly attracted, so that, if his limbs had not absolutely refused to obey his will, he must have crept to the feet of that grisly form, even though he knew full well that discovery meant for him something far worse than death.

Presently the priest and the bridegroom rose to their feet, and an awful alluring smile broke forth upon the face of the giant figure, and she held out her arm to the doomed man as he moved slowly towards her walking as though in a trance. As he came within her reach, she stooped forward and lifted him in her arms—lifted that big, strong man lightly, as one might lift a kitten, and turned, carrying him, and disappeared into the darkness. The demons rushed tumultuously in after her and suddenly the rock was a blank wall in the bright moonlight, and the priest was staggering down the path from the platform like a drunken man. He was too full of his own mad fear to see the watcher, though he passed closed to them, than, they followed him in his wild flight back through that haunted forest as well as they could. But once they lost sight of him in the darkness, and so lost the path also, and fell into an apparently bottomless mud hole, from, which only two of them escaped, and that with the greatest difficulty and the most exhausting effort. When this happened they were already near the verge of the wood, so somehow the survivors made their way out of it, and somehow they got home again, but the only one who could speak said it would have been better for them if they also had died in the bog. And when the high priest heard the story, he smiled a dreadful smile, and said that those who pried into the mysteries of the goddess could not expect to escape her vengeance.

This was the tradition handed down in the tribe, and it may easily be imagined how such a tale would affect the mind of a crowd of superstitious savages. This grim religion was surrounded with such secrecy that it was not for a long time that the new ruling race heard anything definite about it. As the Negroes always bowed towards the rock whenever they caught sight of it, it was at first supposed that they worshipped it, and later that they regarded it as the throne or symbol of some deity. But the existence of the alleged goddess and the sacrifices periodically offered to her remained entirely unsuspected. The way in which it became known, and all that followed upon the discovery, will appear as we unfold our story.

In order that this may be comprehensible, we must first describe the other side of this repulsive religion—the benefits which her people were supposed to receive from their promiscuously polyandrous goddess in return for the heavy toll of sacrifices exacted by her. A peculiarly gruesome item in the disagreeable impression which she produced upon the one person outside her priesthood who claimed to have seen her was that baleful power of irresistible attraction—apparently magnetic in its character. It was asserted that she was able to confer this power upon her votaries— that her priest possessed by virtue of their office, and they could bestow it upon others at will - for a consideration, of course! It could be used on a small scale in matters of daily life, or on a large scale in national affairs; by it a young brave could compel the affection of the lady of his choice, a merchant could influence the mind of a customer so that he obtained his own price for his goods, or a man engaged in combat with another could render his enemy harmless.

The power may be described as communicable mesmeric control, and by its means there is no doubt that the priests contrived to enrich themselves considerably.

Mars and Dhruva had resolved not to interfere in any way with the religion of the Negroes - to give them the opportunity of hearing a plain statement of truth, but not to excite opposition by seeming in any way to force it upon their attention. Their general plan was one of conciliation in all directions, and though they insisted upon just and sufficient government, and held all the real power in their own hands, they still left the Negro chiefs and the priests as much of the pomp and the outward show as they desired. The chieftain of the period is not one of our characters, but his two sons appear in our list as Markab and Scorpio; and it was while the second of these was still a boy that the attention of the conquerors was first attracted to this curious religious hypnotism. The old chief intended that his eldest son Markab succeed to such a show of state as was left to him, and with a view to securing his position instructed him to seek for a wife among the ruling race. He even suggested to Mars that it would be a suitable arrangement if Markab could wed Alcyone, who was then a beautiful girl of fourteen; but Mars declined this ingenuous offer, and Markab consoled himself with the affection of Abel, a pretty girl of much lower class among the Arabs. From this marriage of political expediency was born Pollux, who caused much trouble later on.

With the laudable view of concentrating in his own family whatever in the way of power lay within his reach, the old chief had bargained with the high priest, who happened to be childless, that his own second son Scorpio should succeed to that important office; and consequently the boy was already undergoing the necessary training. Young Scorpio also, as well as his elder brother, had designs upon the beautiful Alcyone; and though he knew enough that he could never legitimately obtain her hand in marriage, he thought that he might get her into his power by the peculiar forces which he was learning to use. With this end in view he contrived to put himself in her way, and practice his unclean arts of fascination upon her—not without some effect, for she found herself constantly thinking of him, with an odd mixture of detestation and an incomprehensible sort of attraction. She spoke of him to her cousin and playmate Sirius, who had constituted himself her knight and attendant, while the gentler Alcyone thought there must be something good in him to cause that half sense of attraction.

Even her charity was strained, however, by his action a few days later. Meeting her one-day in a lonely part of a great garden near the palace, he turned the full battery of his half acquired hypnotic power upon her, and tried to compel her to submit to her embraces. Hitherto unknown feelings began to stir within her; though she had a strong sense of anger and outrage, she yet could not move from the spot, and there was somehow half of her that did not want to move. Fortunately the faithful Sirius ( who had been detained by some work which he had to do for his father) was on her track, and came rushing up just as Scorpio, with lust flaming in his eyes, was about to clasp her unresisting form in his arms. Sirius hurled him to the ground, and turned sharply to Alcyone, asking how she could let such a creature come near her. She haltingly explained how utterly she had loathed him, and yet had felt powerless to move as long as his eyes were upon hers; how some strange hateful spell had set half of her warring against the other half, and how his burning eyes had somehow soiled her and made her very soul feel unclean. Sirius, hearing and raging, set off again in chase of the culprit, who had limped away cursing; and the latter, seeing him gaining upon him, and realising that his anger was dangerous, leapt over the river that flowed through the garden, and thus escaped for the time by swimming to the other side; while Sirius, having explained emphatically to the discomfited youth in the water exactly what unpleasant things, he would do to him if he ever caught him thus trespassing again, returned to comfort Alcyone.

They talked the matter over exhaustively, and as they knew nothing whatever about hypnotism they came to the conclusion that it must be some horrible aboriginal magic; and Sirius promptly bore off the troubled Alcyone to his mother Mercury, who was wise in such matters. She heard their story, sympathised with their indignation, and reassured them by saying that she had heard of this kind of magic before, and that the power of the eye, as she called it, could be used for good as well as for evil, though the Priests of the light employed it but sparingly, not thinking it well to take a man’ s will from him even for a noble purpose. And she taught Alcyone a sacred word by the repetition of which such a spell could be averted if ever Scorpio should try it again; but Sirius calmly remarked that he did not think Scorpio would try it again; but that if he did, he, Sirius, would personally attend to him in such a way that he would work no more spells in that incarnation. Mercury smiled enigmatically and sent the children off together, greatly comforted. Sirius was right so far, for Scorpio had learned his lesson, and made no further direct attempts upon Alcyone. A few years later he married Hesper, a girl of his own race, and presently became high priest, as his astute father had intended.

This was the first event which drew the attention of the ruling race to the uncanny powers connected with the Negro religion, but the subject was not seriously persued. Strangely enough it was a similar occurrence in the very same family twenty years later that caused further inquiry, which resulted in a full exposure of the whole iniquitous business, and the downfall of the obscene cult which had cursed the country for so long.

As might naturally be expected, Sirius and Alcyone married in due course, and it will be seen equally natural to students of reincarnation that Mizar should be their eldest son, and Electra their eldest daughter, and that all these should be linked together by bonds of affection of far more than common strength. Other children followed, all of them characters well known and loved in previous and later lives, all of them, dear now as then, though some have reached the further shore and hold high office among Those who rule the world. It has been mentioned that Markab, the Negro chief, had married Abel; he had four mulatto children—two boys, Pollux and Tripos, brothers again, as they had been two thousands years ago in Arabia, and of much the same respective dispositions; and two girls, Alastor and Cetus, less coarse at any rate than their male relations.

Now Electra, even while still a child, was famed throughout the land for her wondrous beauty; and Pollux, being so much what he had been in Arabia, was all aflame with desire to possess her for his own. Being the eldest son of the chief, he was in the habit of seizing what ever he wanted, so he thought that in this case also he had only to ask to have, and was much surprised and annoyed when he found his suit politely but quite definitely rejected. Soon he was more than surprised and annoyed, for he was like a spoilt child, and could not bear to be contradicted or denied, so he sulked and fretted until he grew actually ill with unfulfilled desire. Now Markab really loved his eldest son, and saw nothing but a proper sense of his position in his most flagrant faults of character; also he had never forgiven Mars and Alcyone for rejecting his own offer of marriage to the latter, any more than Scorpio had forgotten his bitter experience at the hands of Sirius as a boy. Therefore these worthies laid their hands together, and resolved that Pollux should not be left to suffer from love-sickness, but that Electra should be abducted for him—thus not only relieving his pain, but paying off old scores at the same time, and gratifying a long smoldering hatred.

They chose for their nefarious plot a time when Sirius and Alcyone were away from home for a day or two, attending to some of his priestly business on another city. By a forged note, purporting to come from a girl friend, they easily lured the unsuspecting Electra from the shelter of her home; then Scorpio met her just as he had once met her, and with the added power conferred by years of practice, at once determined her will and induced her to accompany him unresistingly to the household of Markab. She had never heard of his attempt to seize her mother, but he was a man whom she instinctively disliked and rather feared; yet she afterwards declared that she had no option but to go with him—that (just as her mother had said) half of her wanted to go, while the other half vehemently protested. Go she did, at any rate, and as they walked along Scorpio used all his arts to strengthen his hold upon her will, taking into his hand a certain talisman which he wore and by its means invoking his dreadful goddess to send her power through him, and receiving in reply a strong outpouring of the smell of musk, which was always a sign of her attention and approval.

Electra followed him docilely to Markab’ s house, and there, to make more certain of her absolute submission, he administered to her a potion well known to many tribes, a compound of some of their vile secret poisons which has the effect of weakening the will, and of weakening and eventually destroying the memory. Having done this, he locked her safely in one of the rooms while he wet to tell Pollux, who was ill in bed and feverish with his disappointed desires. His uncle’ s news effected a temporary cure; he hastily rose and began to dress himself elaborately, with the view of making a favourable impression on his victim. But when, having completed his toilet, he hurried down to the reception room where he expected to find his love awaiting him, the door was unfastened and the bird had flown!

This was indeed a staggering surprise to all three villains, for they well knew that the drug alone, to say nothing of the hypnotism, made it quite impossible that their victim could have walked away voluntarily; she must have been carried away, but by whom? They began to feel terribly frightened, for to them this savoured of the supernatural; and even if there was some natural explanation, matters were but little improved, for that must involve the discovery villainy, and terrible vengeance from the outraged Arabs.

Leaving them for the moment to their terrified consultations, let us explain exactly what had happened. One of the servants of the chief, Markab was our old acquaintance Boreas; he had seen Alcyone on several occasions, and felt a strong admiration for her, because of which he had made enquiries into the religion of the light, and had secretly accepted it. He knew a great deal of the depravity of his master and of the execrable Scorpio; and when he saw the latter bring the young Electra into this infamous house, he at once suspected some unimaginable turpitude. Catching a glimpse of her face, he saw that she was under what he would have called magical influence, and he instantly resolved, for Alcyone’ s sake, to save her daughter from whatever hellish plot had been woven around her. As soon as Scorpio went away to Pollux’ s room,

Boreas unfastened the door he had just barred, and walked straight in upon Electra, who lifted a wan and uncomprehending face to greet his entrance.

“Lady” he said earnestly and respectfully,”

I am your friend, and I have come to save you from wicked men; I beg you to come back to your home with me at once.”

But she could not understand him clearly; she only replied:

“How can I come? He told me to wait here for him.”

There was no time for argument; begging her to pardon him, he lifted her in his arms and carried her out quickly into the garden, and by a side path and through some outhouses to a gate.

“Lady,” he said,” you are in great danger; trust me, come with me, and I will save you. I cannot carry you outside without attracting too much attention; you must walk with me, and I will help you along.”

She obeyed as if automatically, for the drug had disturbed the effect of hypnotic action; but it had also weakened her physically, and she walked with uncertain steps. He hurried her along as well as he could, half supporting and guiding her, until he felt himself out of immediate pursuit; and then he allowed her to walk more slowly.

His object was to get her home unnoticed, if it might be ; for he realised that her capture by Scorpio and her presence alone in a house of evil reputation should if possible not be generally known until he had explained it to Alcyone, and knew her wishes in the matter. He therefore took an unfrequented way, and was fortunate enough to escape almost entirely unquestioned. Entering the house of Sirius, he demanded at once to see Alcyone, and was sadly disappointed to hear that she and Sirius were away from home; he hesitated for a moment, and then asked to see Mizar. The latter was horrified at the sight of the pale, frightened face of his sister, and still more so to find that she could not speak to him coherently, and seemed not to understand what he said to her. He demanded an explanation from Boreas, who Told all that he knew, and incidentally asked to be taken into the Sirius household as a servant, as he could never now go back to that of Markab. Assuring him of his protection, Mizar made him repeat carefully once more of his account of what had occurred, and by a few gentle and tactful questions to poor Electra elicited enough from her to enable him to grasp the situation. He then sent for his sister Fides and Saturn, placed Electra in their care and told them to get her to bed and if possible to sleep; and then started out in a towering rage for the house of Markab.

Arrived there, he walked straight in without ceremony or hesitation, and found the three trembling rogues still in fearful consultation. He was as yet scarcely more than a boy, but he was a son of the dominant race, and he expressed his opinion of that chief and the high priest in rigorous and unflattering terms. He paid not the slightest heed to the boasted mesmeric power of the priest, who indeed was far too disturbed in mind to be able to use it. He concluded the denunciation with these words:

“You know quite well that I have only to go before my grandfather the King and tell my story, and within the hour you will be in prison, never to leave it alive; and you know that that is the fate that you deserve. But if that were done, your crime and my sister’ s misfortune would be known to all the kingdom, and I do not choose that it shall be so known. My mother is away from home; if when she returns she finds my sister still in this condition, she will be troubled about it, and I do not intend to have her troubled. Therefore instead of delivering you to justice, I will agree not to denounce you on this one condition ; that you come at once and remove your diabolical spell from my sister’ s mind, and restore her to normal health. If you don’ t do this, be sure that you shall both die.”

Markab at once breathed more freely, and made haste to agree; but Scorpio looked more disturbed than ever and, and said: “Young white lord, I would truly do this for you if I could; but what you ask is impossible. If I had cast only my spell upon your sister I could remove it ; but I have worked upon her the greatest magic at my command. I have cast upon her the spell of the goddess, and the goddess herself has ratified it; only she herself can remove it, if she should choose. But she will never choose to do so.”

“I know nothing of your goddess,” replied Mizar sternly,

“and I do not fear her, because I worship the Light; but if only she can remove the spell, lead me at once to her shrine, and I will speak to her face to face in the power of the Light, and will compel her do undo her foul magic.”

“Master, master,”cried Scorpio in horrified accents”you know not what you say ; it is death to look upon the face of the goddess, and no man may withstand her power.”

“Perchance that may be so,” replied Mizar;”

Yet I shall not shrink from death for the sake of my mother and my sister. But at least I will face this goddess, and the spell shall be removed.”“Young sir, you are brave ; though I hate your family, I admire your courage,” said Scorpio;”but I warn you that it is useless.”

“Take me to your goddess, or you shall both die,” was all the reply that Mizar would give.

“Lead him to her, brother,” said Markab, it is better that he should die than we.

“Come then if you must have it so,” said Scorpio;”but your blood be upon your head. I do not even know that the goddess will show herself on any day but her own day of the full moon; and it may be that she will slay us even for disturbing her rest. Yet come, since come you must. For myself, I do not even know that the goddess will show herself on any day but her own day of the full moon; and it may be that she will slay us even for disturbing her rest. Yet come, since come you must. For myself, I care not; it can be death either way, and I do not think that she will kill her priest.”

So Mizar and Scorpio started together for the haunted forest, the priest revolving in his mind the various plans for killing his companions so that he might avoid the risk of angering the goddess.

But Mizar was on his guard and contrived always that Scorpio should lead the way and thus the latter had not the opportunity to which he had hoped of pushing him into one of the bottomless mire holes in the swamps. Unknown to the two adventurers, Boreas, who knew Scorpio well enough to be incessantly suspicious of him was following him at a distance, armed with a heavy and murderous looking dagger and fully determined to use it in Mizar’ s defense if he saw the slightest suggestion of foul play. In course of time he reached the rock platform, and Scorpio once more urged Mizar to abandon his project and return without attempting to see the deity, upon whom it was death for any but his duly appointed priest to look.

But Mizar impatiently bade him get on with his conjuration; and so in despair he raised the strange immemorial imploring cry which had never before been used except the night of the full moon.

It seemed to do its ghastly work as well by sunlight as by moonlight, for the traditional results quickly followed; the rock door rose, the horrid horde of malignant creatures rushed out, and directly afterwards the giant figure showed itself. Scorpio fell upon his face, but Mizar stood gazing in intense surprise, not unmixed with fear, he tried to speak to this appalling being, but his tongue refused its office; he was conscious of a strange whirling sensation in his brain and an irresistible inclination to move forward; he struggled to remember his purpose in coming, and what he had resolved to do; but the power of thought had gone from him, and he felt as though he were in the grasp of some great force of Nature—a tornado, an avalanche, a maelstrom. The sword which he had drawn fell from his hand, and the hideous rabble seized it with a yell of triumph, and surging round him, bore him on with them like a rolling tide, while a strange, slow, dreadful smile broke out upon the face of the deity. She drew back as the swarming brood apporached, and the door of rock fell once more as soon as the mob had disappeared within it. Then Scorpio rose from the ground, and threw up his arms above his head.

“Praise be to the great and ever-victorious goddess,” he cried;”may all her foes be vanquished thus!”

And he turned and left the platform with exultant mien; but he had scarcely passed the first tree in the forest when Boreas sprang from behind it and buried his great dagger in his heart. So Scorpio fell in the hour of his unholy triumph, and Boreas fled back through the forest as though the hounds of hell had been behind him When a few hours later, he reached the house of Sirius and Alcyone, he found that they had just returned from their journey. He introduced himself, and told his weird and harrowing tale. Incredible as it seemed, they could not but believe when they saw the pitiable state to which poor Electra had been reduced, and indeed they obtained some sort of partial confirmation from her, for she was now able to speak somewhat more coherently; for Boreas, who knew much of negro charms and drugs, had instructed her sisters to administer to her an infusion of a certain plant which was an antidote to the poison which had been forced upon her by Scorpio.

Her father and mother saw the advisability of keeping this unsavoury story from the public ear, but at the same time Sirius realised that they were here in presence of a formidable power of whose resources they were ignorant. So, although he determined to set off himself without loss of time for the lair of the foul goddess in order to attempt the rescue of his eldest son, he first called his second son Viraj, told him the whole story, and sent him off to repeat it in secret to his father in law the king, asking only that it might not be made public unless he also fell into the power of this vile gorgon, and it was necessary to invoke military force to destroy her. But he trusted that it might not come to that, for he fully realised that they were treading on delicate ground, and that an open attack upon their sacred shrine might tear the whole Negro race into rebellion, and he knew that Mars wished to conciliate them.

At this point Alcyone came forward, and honestly begged her husband to let her accompany him on his perilous quest declaring vehemently that Mizar was her son as much as his, and that she had a right to help in his rescue, and assuring him also that she felt a strong insistent intuition that this was her work, that some emergency would arise in which a women’ s wit, sharpened by a mother’ s love, would be worth more than the strength and valor of a mere man. At first Sirius, much surprised at her request, would not hear of such a thing; but she was so persistent and so sure of her ground that at last he, who had in the past had good reason to respect her intuition, yielded half against his will. So she clad herself in the dress of a hunter, the clothes belonging to her son Viraj, and she armed herself with a bow and arrows, in the use of which she was expert as indeed were many ladies of that race. Then they called Boreas to act as guide, and all three set out on horse back pushing on at utmost speed. Soon they reached the border of the forest, and, time their horses to a convenient tree, plunged into its gloomy depths.

As they pressed on they discussed their plan of campaign -though so much had to be left uncertain that they could hardly be said to have one. They had no means of forcing the rocky door, but Boreas thought that he could imitate successfully the weird cry of the high priest, and hoped that the usual response might follow. Yet even if it did, they had no conception as to the dangers which that opening door might disclose, nor the strength of the diabolical garrison which might lie behind it. They knew not even that awful vampire goddess could be wounded by human weapons, whether she was accessible to human appeal, whether she could understand the yearning of a mother’s heart, or respond to the conception of love or pity. During their walk they extracted from Boreas all that he knew as to this horrible cult, and all that he had heard of its meagre but gruesome traditions; but they found in this little to encourage them.

Boreas could not tell them, with any certainty, of the supposed origin of this is strange deity; one theory allied her with a mysterious race of beings, half men, half animals, who were said to live in vast halls in the bowels of the earth; another regarded her as a princess among a giant race which had occupied the country long ago and had died out or been expelled, she only surviving because she had discovered in secret of eternal life. It was rumored also that she had a twin sister with whom she had shared the secret; that this sister had at first lived with her, but that they had quelled over some victim whom both desired, and that the other had gone away to the east by sea, to pray upon the inhabitants of some far distant land.

That she possessed real powers, which had frequently been manifested through her priests, was incontestable, but no one knew the exact nature of the powers, nor how far they extended. Boreas, however, firmly believed that the same great knife which had killed her high-priest would suffice to rid the world of her, and he asked nothing better than to have an opportunity to put his theory to proof.

When they reached the platform they found the corpse of Scorpio lying where Boreas had left it, but it was in process of being tore to pieces by some huge and peculiarly loathsome crabs, which had presumably come up out of the swamp. Driving these ghoulish creatures away, they examined the body, and found hanging round its neck a curious talisman—a disk of gold bearing upon it the image of a woman, evidently intended to represent the deity. From a confession later made by Cancer, who as the eldest daughter of the magician knew some of the secrets of the prison house, it was established that this highly magnetized disc was a centre of radiation for the power of the goddess, and that when, in mesmerizing any person or thing, the chief priest held that object, in his hand, the person or thing was brought into direct touch with that lurid divinity and could not afterwards be set free without her special intervention. This had been in the case of Electra, and therefore Scorpio was unable to remove the spell.

The small but intrepid party mounted the platform, and Boreas lifted up his voice in the weird chant that he had heard the dead man sing, hoping that through the rock any trilling difference of intonation might not be noticed. It would seem that the lady was uncritical, or perhaps she did not care what visitors she received, confident in her power to deal with any who might appear. At any rate, the rock door rose as before, and the swarm of misshapen goblins poured forth. A minute or two later they saw the gruesome entity to meet whom they had undertaken this extraordinary expedition; there stood in the doorway, filling it from ground to lintel, a huge gross female form, fully eight feet in height, and more than broad in proportion, darkblue—distinctly dark-blue in color, and faintly luminous in the gathering dusk. This awesome apparition was absolutely unclothed, except for a necklace of enormous gleaming stones; it emanated a strong and most sickening, yet half-intoxicating musky odour; and in the expression of its face there was ruthlessness and strange inhuman fathomless iniquity, and yet somehow a kind of fearful fascination.

Sirius who stood in front as champion of the party, experienced just the same sensations as those which had overpowered Mizar earlier in the day; he also tried to speak but could not; he also felt a resistless influence stealing over him from those inexorable unwinking eyes; he also would unquestionably have been subjugated by this preternatural witchery which was being concentrated upon him, if he had been left alone to face it. But a voice rang out from behind him like a clarion:

“Husband, Husband, she is overpowering you! Stand firm, and uphold the light!”

And as she spoke, Alcyone drew her bow to the very head of the arrow, and sped her shaft unerringly to the heart of that unearthly monster; and as it struck, that dread figure crashed to the earth with a blood curdling non-human cry, and lay writhing there with a ghastly contorted visage. In a few minutes it was still in death, and all present were conscious of a curious change in the atmosphere—of a sense of intense relief, of the removal of a weight.

And as they stood looking at one another and wondering, a loud cry was heard from within the cave, and Mizar came bounding out, shouting: “I am free; I am free!”He leapt over the prostrate body, and rushed up to his father and mother, asking wonderingly how they came there, and what had happened. But perhaps the strangest change was in the horde of creatures who had always been the first to rush out when the door was opened. They seemed as though thunderstruck; all their impish malignity was gone; they began to speak of one another in hesitating accents; some of them fell down as though from weakness. Alcyone said to Sirius: “See, husband, see! These are not demons, but men, and they have been suffering under some horrible enchantment. Say, brothers, who and what you are, and if we can help you, we will.”

Then one of these strange beings stepped forward and spoke haltingly, as one to whom speech is unfamiliar:

“Princess,” he said,”not long ago you knew me as a soldier of the palace guard; you have spoken to me many times, yet I cannot wonder that you do not know me now. Three months ago I was young and strong and brave; now my hair is white and I am old and broken, and cannot live; nor indeed do I wish to live, for my soul is utterly polluted and imbrued with deadly sin. For I was chosen, by the high priest of that dread demon there whom you have slain, to be her husband; I was brought her under her awful spell, and all that was unclean and animal within me she stirred into a mad riot such as you could never understand, nor any sane healthy human being; for there are things so hellish that the flesh creeps at the thought of them, and even the telling of them is as a blast of death. For a whole month I ministered to her monstrous lusts, and it seemed to me one long mad whirl of pleasure in which I lost all count of time; but in that time she drew all life from me, and left me what you see. At the next full moon a new victim came, and she cast me aside like a worn out garment. All these whom you see are like me; each has had his day, and has been drained of his vitality by that awful vampire who lies there; thus has she kept herself alive for untold ages, feeding upon the life of men, for her victims have numbered many thousands, and in the cave is a vast heap of their bones. Yet she does not let us die at once, but keeps us thus unnaturally alive and without sleep, full of a devilish malice and jealousy, yearning to drag others in to suffer as we have suffered, yet all the time envying and hating them. A hell indeed our dregs of life have been to us, and very day has seemed a thousand years of agony and despair. But now that you have killed her all is changed; the awful nightmare has gone, and I think that we shall die in peace; as you see, some of us are dying even now.”

Pity and horror filled the hearts of Alcyone, Sirius and Mizar when they heard these fearful revelations; and Sirius felt his heart burn within him, and he spoke to those doomed wretches such words as were given to him to speak. He told them of the light that dwelt in every one of them, that dwelt there ineradicable still, in spite of all these obscene horrors; that light which was a ray of the Eternal Light, from Whom all had come, into whom all must return. So that for them also there was hope and help, because, though indeed the Divine Spark had burnt low, it should surely one day be fanned again into flame; for them also the darkness should lighten, until they stood for ever in the perfect day. And the poor creatures heard and believed and were comforted; and natural sleep, a stranger to their eyes for many weary months and years, fell softly upon them, and in that sleep many passed peacefully away. And indeed naught else could be desired for them, for continued life could but have been continued misery; they were wan and shrunken and nerveless, bent so that those who had been tall men were now like deformed and stunted children, warped and gangrenous, rotting in death while still alive.

But Sirius and his son went and looked at the body of the dead monster, overcoming their horror in order that they might see what manner of being this was. Human undoubtedly, yet of a race happily long extinct; a ghastly anachronism, perpetuated only by some gruesome secret of wholesale murder verily” a thing to shudder at, not to see.”

Sirius conquered his repugnance sufficiently to unclasp the necklace of huge stones; but the very touch of that blue flesh was in itself revolting, for it was suberous, polyp-like, nauseating, unhuman. Mizar overleaped the corpse, and called to them to come to come and look at the cave, so shudderingly they passed into murky depths. Prodigious indeed it was, vast hall extending beyond vast hall far into the heart of the great needle of rock; and whether these halls were natural or artificial none could tell. In one of them was a huge pyramid of human bones—the remains of thousands of victims, even as the dying soldier had said. But the whole place reeked like a charnelhouse, that seemed more than mere physical.

So the exploring party soon came out again into purer air, and as they emerged they were amazed by the sound of a trumpet and by eager voices calling. They shouted in reply, and guided by their cries, king picked men, the very flower of his own special guard.

Glad indeed was he t o see his daughter safe and sound, and much he marveled at the astounding story which was told in reply to his enquiries. Incredible it might well have seemed, but for the irrefragable evidence before him—the corpse of the Lemurian giantess, and those of the men whom she had vampirised. Appalled at the discovery of the horrors which had been going on close to his very capital without his knowledge, he issued stern sharp orders in truly royal fashion. A huge letter should be made of branches, and the dead body of the monster should be carried through every street of the city, so that all the Negroes might understand that their direful deity was harmless now, and that her sanguinary cult was a thing of the past. The doctrine of the Light was to be preached to them in their own tongue, more fully, more clearly, more widely, than ever, so that none might ever again fall under-the sway of such a strange and loathsome superstition. A camp was to be made then and there, and such help as could be given to the fast dying victims was to be at their disposal. The entrance to the caves was to be at their disposal. The entrance to the caves was to be sealed up and covered deep under vast piles of rock, so that no man should ever enter there again; the swamp was to be filled up and drained, and a broad road made through the forest. And furthermore he ordered that the tall black peak that towered above them should be painted white as though crowned with snow, and ever thereafter kept so, as a sign that the reign of darkness was over, and that the Light had triumphed over its enemies. All these decrees were duly carried out, and the peak which had been a symbol of horror and dread became a constant reminder of the inevitable victory of the Light that lightens every man who cometh into the world.

Our exhausted party returned to its home, and the first inquiry was after the health of Electra. They found her pale and weak indeed, but otherwise entirely herself again, and her sisters related how, all in a moment, her senses had returned and she was free from the strange oppression which had weighed her down so terribly; and none doubted that this relief came to her at the moment of the death of the Lemurian whose spell had been woven around her. The shock of this unparalleled experience had been great to all those who had shared it, and it was some weeks before they entirely recovered from it. Electra’ s part in what had happened was never made public, but was confided only to Corona, her future husband.

A few days later, Sirius, Alcyone, Mizar and Electra all came together to the wise mother Mercury, and talked long and earnestly with her about these strange occurrences. Mizar asked her: “grandfather, how was it that I, trusting in the Light which we worship, could not resist the spell of that dreadful woman, and that even my father was powerless before her, while my mother unaffected, and she was able to kill her?”

And Mercury replied: “Grandson, the monster’ s power of will was greater far than yours, aye, greater even than your father’ s; not greater than the power of the Light, but greater than its manifestation in you, for a certain reason that I will tell you. The horrible mystery of this creature’ s strength had its root in that other mystery of sex, and therefore it could be used best, by each person, upon one of the opposite sex. Remember how, long ago, Scorpio even when a boy dominated the girl Alcyone by its means, but was at once overthrown by the boy Sirius, upon whom it had no effect.

Again, Scorpio easily influenced Electra, but could do nothing against you, even when you went to his house and openly threatened him. Yet when the operator was a woman—when you came face to face with the prodigy herself- you were overcome, and so was your father, while against Alcyone, because she was a women, her efforts were fruitless. Because your mother was dressed as a man, the monster was probably deceived; the magnetism which she poured out was aimed at men, and so your mother was unaffected. Truly you would have been unharmed also, if through you the Light had shown with perfect purity; because you have not yet attained perfection, because you are still human, there was within you that upon which her terrible forces could play. In the strength of utter purity, even the weakest will may naught that can be stained, naught upon which the can seize; but while there is even a germ of evil there is still danger. Yet though that fiend could neutralize your will, ad could draw you within her unholy cave and hold you there as prisoner, she could not dominate your very soul and bend you to her evil ends as she did those who yielded voluntarily to her. She could perhaps have taken your life; she could not make you her slave. So always there are limits to the power of evil; and only that can come to each man that he has himself deserved.

After years had passed, Sirius became High Priest in the place of Dhruva, his father, and with the ever sweet and sagacious help of his wife Alcyone he held that position long and creditably; and when he also died he was succeeded in it by Mizar, his son.

Alcyone survived her husband by a year or two only, and died greatly honored at the age of seventy six. On the death of King Mars, Herakles as eldest son was set upon the throne; but when he in turn passed away, the choice fell upon his second son Corona, so that the lovely Electra graced the position of the first lady in the land.

At Corona’ s death the succession passed to his second son Theodorous; but Koli, who was the daughter of Corona and Electra, married Mizar’ s son Leto, and to them was accorded the honour of giving birth to the Manu Himself, who thus came down to south Africa to confirm the dynasty and emphasize the characteristics of His second sub-race, so naturally the Priesthood placed Him upon the throne at the death of Theodorous.

The faithful Boreas married Nu, a white waiting maid of the household of Alcyone, and attached himself most especially to the service of Mizar—a devotion brought over from unrememberd past.

His sons, by an odd turn of the wheel of fate, married the daughters of his old master, the Negro chief Markab, and became persons of importance in the newly established mulatto community. The two sons of Markab, however, married the Negro daughters of Scorpio, and Pollux thus came into possession of the not inconsiderable wealth amassed by the late high priest, as well as that of his father Markab. This marriage drew him back into the ranks of the Negroes, but on the other hand established him in a leading position among them. Years later he engaged in a plot against Herakles, and when it was discovered his people forced him to lead an open rebellion, but he was promptly suppressed and put to death by corona.

Life VII

In the lives which have just been described we have seen glimpses of the work, which the Manu did with and through his second sub-race. In following the fortunes of our hero we now find ourselves brought similarly into contact with the beginnings of the third. The plan of preparation was the same, though in a different valley—a valley of rolling downs, which lent itself rather to pasture than to agriculture on a large scale. The Manu was himself ruling the city of Manoa at the time; He had married Mercury and had two sons, Osiris and Sirius. The latter married Mizar, the daughter of Mars and Siwa, and they had seven children, of whom Alcyone was the eldest, born this time in a male body. He was a sensitive child, given to dreaming and fond of solitude, sufficiently psychic to feel the presence of nature spirits and dead people, and sometimes to see them. Snatches of past lives came before him from time to time in dreams; he did not then know whence they came or what they were, but we (who have been following him through them) recognize at once the bands of people who marched singing up a long straight path from the sea to the mountains, ages before the building of the city; the envoys who set out for the court of the King of Persia, and afterwards across the desert to Arabia; and the weird events of the life last described, when in female form he had delivered a son (who was now his mother) from the horrors of the Lemurian magic. Six thousand years had elapsed since then, and he must have had seven or eight intervening lives, yet in his dreams it was clear as a happening of yesterday; and he experienced once more the curious mixture of irreconcilable feelings - of repulsion and attraction, of fear of the unknown and yet the certainty of triumph.

The Manu’ s theories of education were still the same, and Sirius followed them devoutedly, so Alcyone and Apollo were less harassed and misunderstood than the modern boy usually is, and consequently they retained through life a certain amount of their sensitiveness.

He talked often and eagerly of his dreams to his father and mother, but they had not his memory, though they often had a feeling that they were on the brink of remembering while they listened to her vivid descriptions, and once when Mizar was slightly feverish, she had a very clear vision of one of the scenes - an endorsement of his accuracy which greatly pleased Alcyone. He also discovered that when he related one of his dreams in the presence of his younger brother Apollo, the; latter was able to catch the thought picture from his mind and to make a drawing of what he described, sometimes including details which he himself had omitted to mention. The younger brother had an intense admiration for the elder, and during their youth they were always together, living a life of great happiness and full mutual comprehension.

In due course they both married. And this introduced into their lives new interests which made their previous inseparability impossible, but caused no diminution in their affection, their marriage call for no special comment, but that of their sister Orion caused a good deal of excitement in the family. This sister came between them in age—a handsome and striking-looking girl, beloved by both, and also by various other young men. One of the most passionate of these suitors was Gamma, the son of a neighbor in humble position, named Thetis, who was regarded as under a cloud in consequence of a wicked action committed many years before.

Mizar had a sister Helios, who from an early age had been destined to become a priestess of the temple, and was receiving the somewhat rigid training which was imposed upon those who were aspirants for that office; and Thetis having seen this girl, became the victim of an overmastering passion for her. Helios repulsed his advances with disdain: he swore to be revenged upon her and make a determined effort to seize her and subject her to his will.

Fortunately his scheme was discovered and the calamity averted; but the matter could not be kept altogether private, and Thetis became a social outcast in consequence. Later he married a woman of lower caste, and had a son Gamma, who to some extent inherited his lack of control in these matters. Orion and Gamma had sometimes played together as little children without any objection on the part of Sirius, who was disposed to think that Thetis had by this time atoned for his sin; but he would certainly not for a moment have contemplated the idea of an alliance so unsuitable for his daughter, so Gamma pursued his suit in secret, and even Orion herself, though feeling kindly towards him, did not regard it as serious.

About this time a dashing young foreigner arrived with a caravan from Mesopotamia, bringing a letter of introduction to Sirius, who at once received him as his guest, and put all his resources at his disposal. It was speedily evident that this, handsome stranger was captivated by the graces of his host’ s daughter, and presently her watchful mother Mizar sounded Orion on the subject, and she blushingly confessed that her happiness was bound up with the life of this new-comer. Mizar communicated her discovery to Sirius, for he had felt strongly attracted to his visitor—as indeed might have been expected, for this was Herakles, who had been especially sent by the Manu himself to take incarnation abroad in order that an infusion of the noblest Akkadian blood might be introduced into his projected sub-race. But in their physical bodies neither Herakles nor Sirius knew anything of all this, so the latter sought his guest sadly, and spoke frankly though delicately about the subject. Herakles at once admitted his strong affection for Orion, and explained the rank and wealth of his family; in order to show that as far as such qualifications went he was an eligible suitor. Sirius replied; “Both of wealth and rank I have amply sufficient to leave my daughter entirely free to select her future husband where she will, and I desire above all things that she should be happy, as I clearly see she would be with you. Indeed I may confess to you openly that never have I felt towards any stranger as I do towards you—never have I thought it possible that I could so feel towards one not of our Aryan blood; you are to me as a brother, and nothing could please me better than this alliance if it were possible. But it is unthinkable, because our race is a race set apart, a sacred race upon which many restrictions are laid; therefore it would be impious and unpatriotic of me to yield in this matter to the dictates of my heart, however deeply you and I and my daughter may suffer from my inflexibility. Do not think me unsympathetic in this; I know that to you I must seem proud and heartless, yet try to believe me when I tell you that I am doing at heavy cost to myself what I know to be a religious duty.”

But Herakles could not be convinced of the necessity of this rejection of his suit, nor was Orion to be comforted by any suggestions of the heroism of the sacrifice required of her; so the lovers remained disconsolate. Now Alcyone also felt as a brother towards Herakles, and moreover he had recently married Achilles, who was the bosom friend of Orion; so naturally this newly wedded couple felt deep sympathy with these unfortunate lovers, and desired very earnestly to find for them some honorable way of attaining the happiness which seemed at the same time so near them and yet so unreachable. At last Alcyone, greatly daring, went (without telling anyone of his intention) and solicited a private audience of his grandfather, and laid the whole case before Him, telling Him that he knew quite well the impossibility of the union, but that his beloved sister’ s life and happiness were at stake, and he felt that there ought to be some solution of the difficulty. And the Manu replied:

“Grandson you have done well to come to me in this matter.

Be of good cheer, for I can solve your difficulty, and bring happiness to all concerned, go and tell this to your sister and to her noble lover, and bear to your father my command that he shall wait upon me without delay.”

So delighted were they to hear this unexpected, this incredible news, and so eager to understand what it could mean, that they all came at once to the palace, though only Sirius went in before the King. And the Manu then unfolded to His son part of His wondrous plan—how He intended now to start a new sub-race, and to put the preparations for it into the hands of His second son, the eldest being required to act as His successor at Manoa; how for the purposes of that sub-race he needed the slight admixture of foreign blood, and how therefore he had Him self planned and arranged for all that had happened, so that the seeming stranger was in reality no stranger, but a brother from ages long past to be admitted with rejoicing into what was truly his home—the home of his soul, if not this time the birthplace of his body.

Then Sirius, overcome with joy, understood and obeyed, and withdrew his opposition; and the lovers were called before the Manu, who repeated to them the explanation which He had given to Sirius, and, turning to Herakles said: “My son, you have followed me throughout the ages, although you know it not; will you follow me now once more, giving up for my sake the country in which this time you were born, and taking up instead the work that I shall give you?”

And Herakles bowed his head and gave his promise, feeling that in doing this he was returning to his true fatherland and accepting a religious duty as well as entering upon a life of happiness. Then the Manu blessed them and gave them permission to marry; but in order that His law might not be broken, He sent for His eldest son Osiris, and asked him whether he was willing to adopt Herakles into his family. Osiris gladly consenting, the ceremony of adoption was at once performed and duly registered so that all formalities preliminary to the marriage might be complied with; and there was great rejoicing among those who had before been so sad, and all their friends were glad too, for Herakles had made himself universally popular.

That same evening, as Herakles and Alcyone walked together in the great garden of Sirius, talking reverently of what had happened that day and of the plans which the Manu had disclosed, a man suddenly leaped forth from behind a tree, and struck savagely at Herakles with a knife. Herakles was not looking in that direction at the moment, and might have fallen an easy prey to the assassin, but to reach him he had to cross in front of Alcyone, who, seeing the gleam of the knife in the starlight, dashed himself against the man and hurled him to the ground, so that Herakles received only a slight scratch. Before the ruffian could rise both gentlemen had seized him, and Alcyone had twisted the knife out of his hand.

When they dragged to the light they found him to be Gamma, who had been maddened by the idea that his adored one should thus be borne off by another—and not even an Aryan! He was handed over to the officers of justice, and the Manu sentenced him to lie banished from the empire of Manoa, telling him that he came from a bad stock, and was unworthy of the privilege of being an Aryan. So he was sent forth into what the Aryan poets called”the outer darkness,” where the religion of the light was not professed; and his place knew him no more.

Sirius with his children moved into the chosen valley, and the history of ten thousand years before repeated itself. The same work of reclaiming the ground and bringing it under cultivation, of mapping it out into estates and gradually building palatial country houses; even the very plan of terracing which Corona had adopted in the other valley was closely followed, for naturally all those who were doing the work had made a special study of the plan, and were familiar with its results and with all the improvements which later centuries had introduced. The character of this new valley rendered desirable certain modifications of the scheme, but Alcyone’ s cleverness at this work had not deserted him, and results soon began to show. Herakles had joyously accompanied his brother-inlaw, and threw himself into the pioneer work with his characteristic assiduity.

As the years rolled on stalwart sons and daughters gathered round them, many of our old friends appearing with new faces.

Among the twelve children of Alcyone we find Corona, ready once more, as ever, to become a mighty leader of men, whether in the arts of war or of peace; and also a daughter Selene, destined to meet with a very curious adventure, which we must describe, since it brought about what is perhaps the most noteworthy incident of Alcyone’ s later life. Selene, like her aunt Orion, had two suitors, but in this case both were equally eligible, for both belonged to the highest families, and as regards courage and ability there was little to choose between them. Selene’ s decision was in favour of Viraj, and an engagement was announced; but as she was still quite young, it was thought best to postpone the marriage for a time. The other suitor, Deneb, felt himself ill used; he declared that if Selene knew him better, she would not refuse him. He wanted nothing but fair play, he said, and equal opportunity, and somehow or other he meant to have them. Little attention was paid to his remarks, as they were put down simply as the expression of acute disappointment; but later they were remembered. The design which he formulated was old-fashioned enough; he wished to follow the custom of some of the Mongolian tribes, and carry off his future wife by force—not with least idea of injuring her in any way, or even of compelling her to accept him, but with the conviction that all he needed was an opportunity of showing himself to her as he really was, and she must certainly succumb to his fascinations. A crazy scheme, truly; but disappointed love and overweening self-conceit are bad counsellors.

He managed the plan of abduction rather cleverly, choosing a time when Selene was about to pay a long visit to some relations in the city. On various pretexts he got rid of the escorting servants, substituting some of his own, who were quite ready to assist him; and then he contrived to have false messages sent to the friends at each end of her journey—to her own family that she had arrived in safety, to the others that her visit was postponed for a time. Thus he gained a whole week’ s start before his treachery was discovered, and at the end of that time it was impossible to find any trace of his movements. Viraj was naturally furious, and Alcyone and Mizar exceedingly anxious; they all knew that Selene would not willingly have fled with Deneb, and they all could not understand what had occurred. Several days were wasted in exhaustive enquiries, but no reliable information could be obtained. Then it occurred to Mizar that her sister Helios, the priestess might be able to help them, as she was in the habit of going into trances occasionally and prophesizing cryptically; so she paid her a visit and invoked her aid to discover the direction in which Selene had been taken. Helios was at once greatly interested and promised to do her best for them; she threw herself into a receptive condition, and emerged with the reassuring information that the girl was safe and well, and in no danger of any sort; but that she was being carried far, far away to the south, and that her pursuers would have to cross the great sea before they would overtake her.

On this somewhat meagre indication Alcyone and Viraj set out southward with a small escort of faithful attendants; they enquired constantly whether any such party as they sought had been seen, but for a long time found no trace of it. The fact was that Deneb had taken special precautions as long as he was in the land directly governed by the Manu, but had somewhat relaxed his vigilance when he entered the tributary States, so when they had crossed the frontier the pursuers at last heard news of those whom they were following, and so learnt that they were on the right road. That road however was no easy one, and many weeks had passed before they reached the ocean. There again some time was wasted in futile enquiries but finally they ascertained that whom they sought had embarked upon a vessel which traded to the great islands of the south—those which we now call the Dutch Indies. They took the next ship going in the same direction, and at each port of call they made careful enquiries, and at last, at a port in the island, which we now call Sumatra, they heard that their predecessors had disembarked and gone up into the hills in the interior. Now the condition of that island differed little in those days from what it is at present; that is, the coasts were settled and civilised and occupied by a keen race of traders; but the hills in the interior were to a large extent in the hands of various savages tribes, who, though they had learnt by experience to let the coast people alone, were frequently at war among themselves; so that the country was distinctly unsafe for travellers.

However there was nothing to be done but to follow, so Alcyone took with him an interpreter who understood the language of the tribes, and plunged bravely into the mountains. There was no semblance of a road and the party had much difficulty in making its way over the rugged country. Inquiring after a white fugitive, they were directed to a tribe in a peculiarly inaccessible region; but as they drew nearer to it and the rumors became more definite, they saw that they were on a wrong track, for the story was of a white man who came there alone many years before, and had joined himself to that valley and pursued their quest elsewhere, offering a large reward for information. Travelling round the same mountain at a lower level, they at last heard news which seemed unmistakably to refer to those whom they sought, for they were told that a small body of white people guarding a lady had recently appeared among them, and had been attacked by a neighboring tribe, but had contrived to make friends with its chief. The people were now living unharmed among the members of that tribe regarded as semi-divine beings, or great heroes, with a wonderful power of fighting. But it was said that the lady sat always apart, and hardly ever spoke, but seemed enveloped in sadness, though treated by all with the most distinguished consideration.

On receipt of this news our party pushed forward rapidly up that valley, but about half way up they were received by a flight of arrows, which killed a servant and two horses, causing a momentarydisorder, while they were hurriedly arranging themselves for a conflict, Deneb suddenly showed himself upon the top of a rock overlooking the position, and called out to them to hold their hands and retire. If they did this, he said, they would be left unmolested, but if they advanced further they would certainly all be killed, as he had posted his savages with the military genius of the Aryan. He told them that Selene was in good health and entirely unharmed, and that if she were left alone he was quite sure that he could presently prevail upon her to accept him as her husband; but that he intended to have fair play and would brook no interference.

Alcyone and Viraj would have none of this, but shouted back defiance to him, and ordered their followers to charge in open order up the valley. This they did in the face of another discharge of arrows, and as soon as they got to close quarters with the savages the latter broke and fled, for they were unable to stand before the better arms and greater valour of the civilised men. But though they would not fight man to man, they dodged behind rocks and trees and kept up a shower of Parthian shafts, and the small party of Aryans had suffered considerably before they finally put them to fight. Deneb had cheered on his savages at first, and some of his Aryan attendants were among them trying to check their flight; but when he came down from his rock and Alcyone sprang to meet him, he lowered the point of his sword and said: “Friends, I thought to withstand you because it seems to me that I have not been treated fairly; but I find that I cannot fight along with savages against a nobleman of my own race.”

Thus the indomitable pride of the Aryan blood told when a crisis came, and Alcyone understood and recognised the sentiment, even though he was angry at the unnecessary slaughter both of his own men and of the barbarians. He said: “But you have caused the death of many men at the hands of these creatures; is that conduct worthy of an Aryan? Do you not know that for that alone you should be banished from the company of men?” (For it was the custom of the Aryans to speak of themselves as the noble—that indeed being the meaning of the word Aryan; of the highly civilised Atlantean races as’ men’ or as foreigners; and of the savage tribes simply as barbarians, not using for them the term’ men’ at all.)

“I know,”replied Deneb,”that that is against good morals because it is not our custom; but it has happened because you have pursued me thus into far countries and have not left me alone to carry out my plan.”

But Viraj broke in: “Your plan is a wicked one, for none who is worthy of the name Aryan would thus try to coerce a free- born lady; you know quite well that your father, your mother, your brothers disapprove of it and are much ashamed because of you; you know that you yourself would be full of anger if anyone thus treated your sister Aulus. I demand therefore that you shall at once yield the young lady to me whom she has chosen, and if you will not I shall kill you here and now.”

“No,”

“Deneb,” interposed Alcyone, “I cannot allow that,”replied for what he says as to my sister Aulus is true, though I had not thought of it in that way before. I thought only of giving the Lady Selene an opportunity of knowing me thoroughly, feeling sure that my devotion would win her; but if it will not, I am far from desiring her unhappiness. I will abide by her decision.”

So they all climbed up the hill together, calling the scattered savages to them, and telling them that peace had been arranged.

But the barbarians grumbled much, saying that many of them had been killed, and yet they had gained nothing. Their settlement was a collection of curiously-shaped wooden huts, surrounded by a defense of thorn-bushes, partly natural and partly artificial, but not quite effective; and our party had to climb over this by a rickety bamboo framework. The chief came somewhat sullenly to meet Deneb, not understanding how he had made friends with the enemy, and (like his people) not seeing what he had gained by the fray. He could not understand why so much fuss should be made about a woman, and regarded the whole affair as incomprehensible, but if the white stranger gave him money with which weapons could be bought, he was willing to sacrifice the lives of his people up to a certain number.

Our friends gave him scant attention, for Deneb was conducting them to the hut in which he had lodged Selene; but when they called her to come forth there was no answer, and she could not be found anywhere. There excited enquiries presently elicited the fact that the savage women set to guard the hut had felt it to watch the fight in the valley below, and meantime the prisoner had evidently escaped. the chief at once offered to behead the neglectful sentinels, and thought the Aryans less comprehensible than ever when they rejected his proposal with obvious disgust and horror. But the problem was, where could Selene have gone? The only way out of the valley was downward, and she had not passed them as they climbed up; there was nowhere where she could hide,, and the rocks above and at the sides were plainly inaccessible.

The chief attributed the disappearance to diabolical intervention, but Alcyone, though not entirely incredulous as to mysterious possibilities of that sort, was inclined to accept the suggestion, and sought persistently for a more commonplace explanation. The end of the valley was but small in area, and lay open before them, and there seemed no possibility of escape from it, as it was surrounded by a wall of sheer rock many feet in height, at the end of the valley, as is so often the case in similar formations, a cascade fell from still greater height. At the end of the valley, as is so often the case in similar formations, a cascade fell from still greater heights, making at its foot a pool in which the bolder spirits of the tribe sometimes bathed, though with circumspection, because of a tradition that some sinister creature dwelt there, who at some remote era of the past had seized two young men and carried them away—at least so it was supposed, for the young men had gone to bathe there and had never been seen again, nor could their bodies be found. Our friends were told that Selene, who had been allowed full liberty within the settlement, except when actual fighting was going on, had seemed attached to this pool and had swum in it daily, exciting the admiration of the barbarians by her courage and proficiency. No trace of her was now to be seen, however ; but Viraj had gloomy suspicions that somehow her disappearance might be connected with this pool. He argued with some show of reason that there was absolutely nowhere else in the valley where a body could be concealed; he had been into every hut in the village and they were all entirely without furniture. Alcyone had his suspicions of the savage chief, but could not accuse him, as it was impossible to formulate any reasonable theory of what he could have done with the missing young lady.

They returned to the hut which had been assigned to Deneb and his party to discuss the mystery; but Viraj prowled restlessly back to the cascade and its pool, muttering to himself that she might some how have fallen in, in some wild attempt to climb the rocks (though that looked manifestly impracticable); that the mythical monster might after all be real, and might have carried her off; that her body might be entangled in some weeds; and above all that there simply was not anywhere else where she could be. He had with him a confidential servant Boreas, a young man who was Alcyone’ s special personal attendant; and the man offered to dive into the pool and make a thorough examination of the bottom if he could reach it. Viraj agreed, and Boreas threw off his clothes and jumped in. He presently reappeared, reporting that the sides of the pool were shelving, but that he had not been able actually to reach the bottom.

Twice more he tried, but without success, and Viraj told him that he was only risking his life uselessly by trying to penetrate to depths beyond human reach. But he carved leave to try once more, because as he came up the last time he had observed a curious rock formation that he did not understand, and he thought there might be a shelf there under which a body might lodge. So after resting a few minutes he jumped in again; but this time he did not reappear as usual. After waiting fully five minutes, Viraj became convinced that some accident had happened, and he was just tearing off his own garments to spring in with a vague hope of discovering what had become of the faithful fellow, when Boreas came to the surface looking none the worse for his protracted immersion.

Viraj pronounced excitedly upon him, demanding an explanation; and a curious explanation it was. Boreas told him how he had investigated the shelf which he had noticed, and found that it overhung, and that there was an opening behind it. He had feared much that this might be the lair of the mythical beast, but nevertheless made up his mind to swim into it, lest the body, which he feared to find, might be concealed there. To his great surprise, a few strokes trough the darkness brought him into a place where there was a faint but unmistakable light, so he struck up instantly to the surface, and found himself in another pool, evidently in some sort of cave. The faint light filtered down from a great height, and both the cave and the pool appeared to be of considerable extent.

Boreas was greatly surprised and awed, and still more decidedly of opinion that he had chanced upon the dwelling place of some destructive monster; but after a few minutes, spent in nervous contemplation, he recollected that Viraj must be wondering about him, and so he dived back again through the passage into full daylight and told his story.

Naturally Viraj at once went to see this wonder for himself, and returned much impressed and convinced that Selene must undoubtedly have discovered this strange way of escape when bathing, and waited to utilize it until opportunity offered. He hurried back to the hut where Alcyone and Deneb were still occupied in profitless speculation, and unfolded before them his discovery (or rather that of Boreas) and his ideas, and announced his intentions of following up this possible clue and thoroughly investigating the cave, in which he thought it probable that Selene might be hidden. He had called her and obtained no answer; but the extent of the fissure was unknown, and along this line there was at least hope and something definite to do. Alcyone and Deneb agreed with him, and decided forthwith to divide their party, leaving a considerable guard under a trusty subordinate to look after their horses and other property, while the leaders, with a few followers who were good swimmers, were to follow the track so strangely discovered, and either find Selene or prove to themselves that she had not taken the very unusual road.

Deneb, horrified at the unexplained disappearance of Selene, was now thoroughly on the side of our friends, and begged to be allowed to accompany them in the adventure, so Alcyone accepted him with full faith that he would prove himself a loyal comrade. They could take but little clothing, but they they armed themselves fully, in case the mythical monster should prove to have an unpleasantly real existence. They had not taken the savage chief into their confidence as to their intentions, telling him only that they meant to leave their horsed encamped outside his village while they made some further researches; but some of his people undoubtedly saw the extraordinary spectacle of a number of warriors leaping one after another into a pool and vanishing utterly from mortal sight—which may well have been the basis for many a marvelous legend for centuries to come.

Viraj led the way, as one who knew it ; Alcyone followed him, then Deneb, and then their men, Boreas bringing up the rear.

Alcyone waited until all his men had emerged into the curious halflight of the cave and then ordered them to swim straight out from the wall through which they had entered. In this way they soon came to the other side of the cavern, and landed on a sloping rock, at one side of which a small stream of water was running into the pool.

Alcyone decided to follow this stream of water as far as possible, as in doing that he would be safe from falling into some bottomless crevasse—a danger which he apprehended because of the insufficient light which filtered through some crevice high above them. Presently they lost even that, for the stream flowed along a kind of tunnel, but by wading in it they made their way safely; and after what seemed a long time they emerged into another cavern of different character—scarcely more than a grotto, but with much more light than the other. This time the opening through which it came was visible, and Alcyone resolved to abandon the friendly little stream, and try to climb to it. Finding the ascent possible, though hazardous, he called his men to follow him, and they emerged into daylight once more, at the bottom of a kind of cup or small basin among the rocks.

Climbing to the rim of this in the only place where it seemed feasible to attempt it, they found themselves on a little platform on the side of a steep rock. To go upwards was clearly out of the question; downwards was smooth as glass, and sloped at an alarming angle, but only for about twenty feet, beyond which lay an ordinary rocky hillside, perilously steep but quite negotiable. As there was nothing else to be done, our party let themselves slide down one by one, and all arrived among the boulders without mishap. They did not know in the least where they were, but they had followed the only track that it seemed to them practicable for Selene to have taken; and at any rate, as Viraj remarked, they certainly could not return the same way! They had come out at the head of a different ravine; and as they watched from among the rocks they saw men moving some distance below them, and presently they were able to make out the village, which seemed, however, to be without the usual defense of a thorn-hedge. They afterwards discovered that this settlement, into which they had found their way by an unsuspected back-door, was considered absolutely inaccessible, and was consequently never attacked by the surrounding tribes. The only way into its valley was by a narrow and giddy path running along a shelf half-way down a stupendous precipice—a path along which men could advance only in single file, which could be blocked in a moment by a few boulders, and defended by one man against an army only if it possessed savage’ s weapons. Its people therefore dispensed with the inconvenience of the thorn-hedge and for all-sufficient defense kept two sentinels watching always night and day at the nearer end of their path.

Our friends from their nest of rocks, watched the life of the village below them while they discussed how they should advance into it. Advance it was clear they must, as they could not sit there and starve among the rocks, and they could not get back up that slippery slope. They argued that Selene must have found the way that they had found, because there was practically no other. She might have hidden somewhere in the cave, but there seemed no reason why she should, and besides they had shouted at intervals as they came through. So the probabilities were that she was in the village in front of them. But how would she have been received by the savages? For it is to be noted that many of these tribes had a decidedly unsavoury reputation, and a wandering damsel in distress might well excite in them emotions other than chivalry. She had already been missing for some hours, so clearly it behoved our friends to act without delay. It appeared probable that by making their way carefully among the rocks they could approach a good deal nearer the village without being observed, so they began to move cautiously forward.

No one in the tribe had the faintest conception that they might be attacked from above—from the sky, as they would have phrased it; so no sort of watch was kept on that side, and all the huts faced down the ravine. So our party, moving circumspectly, attained unnoticed a position hardly more than a hundred yards from the rearmost house. There they called a halt, and watched for an indication that anything unusual was happening; when suddenly their ideas were all upset by seeing a white man step out into the sunlight in little open space in the town. The man wore the insignia of a chief, and was obviously not a prisoner; so Alcyone raised a great shout in his own language, and the whole party broke cover and rushed downwards as quickly as the nature of the ground permitted. In doing this they lost sight of the white man, but they took it forgranted that he would accept them as friends; yet there were wild cries of surprise and alarm, and a hurried beating of a drum, so they realised that they were perhaps acting too precipitately, and at the foot of the rocks they called a halt for a moment. It was time, for though they could not see a single person, there came from behind the huts a flight of arrows - fortunately harmless, but showing what sort of welcome they might expect.

Alcyone walked forward alone, holding out his hand as a sign of peace, and calling out in his own tongue that he was a friend; but at that a figure with a white cloth drawn over its face, having holes for the eyes, stepped forth from behind a hut, and shouted in the same language.

“No friend, but an enemy ever! But for you I should have gained my revenge; but for you I might have won my bride!

Shouting some word of command which brought forth another shower of arrows, and then a charge of a horde of savage warriors, he rushed upon Alcyone and attacked him furiously. Alcyone realised at once that this was a dangerous antagonist, and he had to employ all his skill to defend himself against this savage onslaught.

A barbarian from the side struck at him with a spear; as he sprang back to avoid that, the savage, overreaching himself, stumbled for a moment between the antagonists. With a quick push and twist Alcyone threw him against the veiled man, and with one mighty stroke slew them both. A sharp hand-to-hand fight was by this time going on all round him, and he saw Deneb, at the head of a small band of his own followers, cutting his way heroically through the crowd of savages and driving them before him round the angle of the nearest hut. The fall of the veiled man evidently dispirited the black men, and they began to give way in all directions before the determined rush of the hand full of Aryans. As soon as the flight became general, and the largest group of huts was in the hands of the conquerors, Alcyone called back his pacific intentions by signs.

The interpreter had been afraid to join the swimming party, so he had no ready means of communication with them; for the most part they remained in hiding, but at least they ceased to offer any resistance to his advance. further shouting was heard in front, and at first they thought it betokened a renewal of the fight but in a moment appeared Deneb, leading Selene by the hand (this was the first time during the whole of her adventure that she had permitted him to touch it) and he brought her to her father and said: “There, Sir, I restore to you that of which I had robbed you, with many regrets and apologies; for I see now what I did was ill done, and that I was thinking of myself and of my desire only. And not of the wishes of her whom, nevertheless, I truly and loyally loved.”

He would have said more, but at this point he felt a faint, for he was sorely wounded, and it was over his body that Selene was clasped in her father’ s arms. But a moment later he turned her over to her lover Viraj, and raised the unconscious form of Deneb.

They bound up his wound as well as they could, and sprinkled water upon his face, and presently he recovered somewhat. They found that Selene during her enforced stay in that country had picked up a few words of the language of the barbarians, and knew, among other things, their peace-cry; so she was able to call some of them from their hiding-places, and explain that no harm would be done to them.

They knew of a plant whose leaves when chewed made an excellent application for wounds, and they soon had a sort of cataplasm of them prepared for Deneb and the other wounded men, and they cleaned out one of the largest huts sufficiently to enable them to use it as a shelter from the rays of the sun, and convert it into a temporary hospital. There was a point about which Alcyone had some curiosity, so he sought for the corpse of the first man who had opposed him, and dragged the veil off his head, to discover that this white chief of a savage tribe was none other than Gamma, whom long ago he had prevented from killing his brother-in-law Herakles.

Then Selene told them the story of her abduction, and of the intensity of her indignation and despair. She admitted that, except for the one all-important fact of thus carrying her off against her will,

Deneb had behaved most chivalrously, and had done everything in his power for her comfort. Nevertheless, she would have none of him at any price, and she was always watching for an opportunity to escape. Deneb had expected pursuit, but thought that by burying himself for a time amidst the barbarians of this far-away island he would successfully conceal himself from it; and as soon as Selene had made up her mind to marry him he intended to return home and be forgiven for his escapade. Therefore he had made friends with the chieftain of the first tribe, and arranged to stay with him for a while and help him in his petty wars against neighboring tribes in return for his hospitality.

Selene when bathing and diving in the pool, had discovered the passage inside the cave only on the very day of the attack, and had intended to make use of it that same night, as soon as she had got together the jewels that she was wearing when abducted. By leaving at night she hoped to secure a good start, and, she trusted that no one would guess the manner of her flight. When the attack came, and everyone’ s attention was attracted by it, she saw opportunity and profited by it. She had no certainty that there was another way out of the cave, though she hoped there might be; but if she could find one, she had formed the plan of living in the cave, and diving out through the passage at night to obtain food, until such time as a chance might offer for escaping from the valley altogether.

That the cave should open into another territory on the other side of the mountain had occurred to her, but she was not slow to take advantage of it. She also had slid down that smooth rock, and when she found a white chief who understood her language, she thought all her troubles were at an end. But Gamma, though he received her with great respect, evidently thought that providence had sent her as mate for him, and was already dreaming of founding a white dynasty that should conquer all these barbarous tribes and unite them into one empire. He was at first perturbed to hear of a back-door into his impregnable valley, but on consideration begged her to keep the secret from his followers, as he saw that he might be able to use it to impress his people with an idea of his supernatural powers. Selene saw that she had escaped from one too persistent a suitor only to fall into the hands of another even less desirable, and her situation would still have been very difficult if it had not been for the opportune arrival of her father.

But now the question was how to bring together the two halves of their expedition, and how to manage with their wounded men. It was manifest that these latter could not be carried back by the route which they already knew, even though the construction of a rough bamboo ladder enabled them to overcome the difficulty of the smooth rock, and as inspection of the only way into the valley had satisfied Alcyone that so large a burden as a helpless man could not possibly be conveyed safely along so dangerous a path.

There was, therefore no alternative but to stay where they were until their wounded recovered, and to try to bring the other section of their party from some other way. Such enquiries as Selene was able to make with the tribe on the other side of the mountain elicited only the vague reply that it lived in a different country at a distance of many days journey. Viraj volunteered to return through the tunnel with a single armament and bring the horses and the rest of the party round to the lower part of the valley where they now were ; and after much anxious consideration Alcyone decided that there was nothing better to be done than to accept the suggestion. So the ladder was rigged up, and the two men went back to the valley they had left and rejoined their comrades there.

By heavy bribes they induced two men of that tribe to go with them as guides to show the shortest way round the base of the mountain, but the country was so rugged, and such wide detours had to be made to avoid hostile tribes, that it was fully two weeks before Alcyone’ s sentinels at the other end of the rock-ledge announced the approach of Viraj. They regarded it as too great a risk to try to bring their horses along that impracticable path, so a camp had to be made at other end of it; but that naturally lay open to attack, and they deemed it wise to take some trouble to fortify it. No one interfered with them, however, for curious stories of their strange powers were already beginning to circulate among the savages, who were at the stage of development at which witchcraft always seems the simplest explanation of any unusual fact.

As tribal affairs had been disorganized by the death of their chief, Alcyone temporarily took his place, and endeavored to do simple justice as well as he could in circumstances which he often but practically comprehended. Gamma, it appeared, had taken a wife from among the savages, and had several children, the eldest being a boy of sixteen. Gamma had taught his children to speak the Aryan tongue, so Alcyone offered to take them to Manoa, but they all agreed in preferring to cast in their lot with the tribe whose customs and life they knew; so Alcyone demanded from the people whether they were prepared to recognize Gamma’ s eldest son as their chief when he himself left, and they all agreed to this, being full of reverence for the white men, whom they regarded as peculiarly favored by the gods. They had thought of Gamma as invulnerable and even now held that he could not have been killed except by superior white man, who, as they believed, came down mysteriously from heaven to execute upon him some divine decree.

So Alcyone took Gamma’ s son to live with him during his stay, and tried to give him some rudimentary education in the ways of the Aryan, especially indicating principles of justice and gentleness, and emphasizing the responsibility of the chief for the welfare and happiness of his people. The boy absorbed all this eagerly, and promised faithfully to observe this teaching all his life long, and to hand it on to his children in turn. with regard to this question of the succession, the boy spoke eagerly to Alcyone, begging him to send him from Manoa a white girl to be his wife, for he felt that the inspiration of these new ideas would fail him if his household became as that of the savages over whom he was to rule. Alcyone had gently explained that the conditions of life in faraway Manoa were so utterly different that no woman would consent permanently to leave them for the sake of sovereignty over a sumatran tribe; but as he found that the custom of the tribe permitted and even encouraged the marriage of brothers and sisters, and as gamma’ s eldest daughter only a year younger than the boy, had the same deep-rooted repulsion against accepting a barbarian husband, it seemed to him that it would be the lesser of two difficulties to allow these two to follow the habit of the tribe, and so perpetuate a mulatto line of chiefs who might, he hoped, be trusted at least to carry on the traditions he was endeavoring to implant.

This,then, was the arrangement finally made; and when, after some months, Deneb seemed sufficiently strong to make the perilous journey along the rocky shelf with safety, Alcyone himself celebrated the nuptials of these two strangely situated young people, and solemnly installed them as king and queen of the tribe, making a speech on the occasion (through the new king as interpreter) in which he gave the people much good advice, and promised them great prosperity if they followed it. He had previously exhorted them to refrain from useless attacks on their neighbors, and to make the most of their great natural advantages by cultivating their valley to the utmost, so that it would be entirely self supporting.

So, with many farewells from the new chief and chieftains, the Aryans at last set out on their homeward journey, which they accomplished without special incident. Alcyone had been away from home so long that there was great interest in his return, and he was forced to give a public account of his travels which practically amounted to a course of lectures. Sirius and Mizar were delighted to welcome back their son, and the wedding of Viraj and Selene was immediately (organized) with much pomp and rejoicing, the chief actors being popular public characters on account of their romantic experiences. During his recovery from his wounds Deneb had learned to reconcile himself to his fate, when after a year or two he married Castor, and settled down into a meek husband and father.

This may be described as the principal adventure of Alcyone’ s life, which for the rest followed an even course of happiness and usefulness. It seems curious that in this incarnation, as in the last which we examined, one incident should stand out so prominently from the rest of the life, and that in each case these incidents should be connected with the rescuing of a damsel, in distress. Electra, who had been the centre and cause of that strange adventure six thousand years before, was born this time as Alcyone’ s nephew, the son of Herakles, in order to obtain that infusion of Akkadian blood which the Manu required; but he married Alcyone’ s daughter Euphra, and was with him as much as though he had belonged to his family directly by birth.

Electra and Euphra had a son Echo, who was a strikingly handsome and most promising boy, but nervous and highly strung.

Unfortunately his eager yearning for information led him to overstudy, so that his health broke down, and he became the victim of some obscure nervous disease. They gave him complete rest and set him to live entirely out-of-doors, and it was part of his illness laid upon before him the whole realm of the nature spirits, who were greatly attracted by this wonderful beauty, so that he entered eagerly and unrestrainedly into their life, and absolutely lost interest in that of humanity. He became etherealised and spiritualized in the strangest way, yet from the physical point of view he was obviously losing strength daily, and drawing near to some unnatural euthanasia.

Euphra was in despair about him, and at last look him to her father Alcyone, who had a reputation for effecting mesmeric cures.

Alcyone was deeply interested in the strange case of his grandson, for whom he had a strong affection; he took the boy to live with him for a while, and spent much time in the investigation of this unusual disorder. He did not in the least discourage his love for the woods and the company of the mature spirits, but made a point of accompanying and sympathizing with him for asking him to describe and explain everything to him fully. At the same time he watched carefully for the slightest symptoms of the dawning the purely human interest, and one day he, thought he detected it when his little granddaughter Ida paid him a visit. So he promptly borrowed her from her mother Herminius for a long visit and let the two children be always together.

Little by little by his wise direction, the influence of human ld replaced that of the fairies, and Echo gradually regained the physical strength which has so nearly lleft him forever. Alcyone laid great stress upon achieving this with the full and hearty consent of all parties concerned, especially the fairies; for it this had not been done, if they had resigned their playfellow unwillingly, they would always have been trying to draw him back and there would have been a perpetual danger of relapse, and an unceasing feeling of resentment and hostility which would surely have led to disastrous results. But it was only after many months that Alcyone pronounced the boy fully cured and restored him to his parents, advising them to marry him to Ida ( since that was now the one dominant wish of his heart, and both she and her parents were agreeable to the match) as soon as ever they were old enough, this advice was accepted, and the young couple were ideally happy, all trace of Echo’ s nervousness having now completely disappeared, and his physical health being fully re-established, though something of the ethereality of aspect always remained to him.

When the Manu left His body, Osiris ascended the throne of Manoa, but Sirius, his brother, ruled the little community in the newly reclaimed valley, and after the death of Sirius, Alcyone succeeded to the charge. When he also passed away, at his special wish authority was vested in his nephew Viraj, the companion of his great adventure of many years ago. After him in turn followed Dhruva his son, who married Ajax; and the Manu Himself honored them by reappearing as their eldest son, and by His incarnation the new subrace was definitely started on its way.

Life VIII

Alcyone’ s next birth, which took place more than eight hundred years later, may be regarded as in many respects a continuation of the last. The Band of Servers came again into the same valley, to carry to on the development of the same rub-race, now thoroughly well settled and become a recognised subsidiary nation. This was not one of the occasions on which the Manu Himself thought it necessary to be in incarnation, but His pupil Jupiter was ruling the valley on His behalf, and Alcyone appears as his eldest son. He was, as usual in these early times, surrounded by some of those egos who seem to be most closely related to him, for we find as his brothers Mizar, Herakles, Selene and Sirius, as his sisters Neptune and Venus; he marries Electra, his sons are Apollo, Fides, Vulcan and Aquila, and his daughters Brihat, Euphora and Quies.

It seems evident that these groupings are not in any way matters of chance, but are carefully arranged as part of a definite plan, in which the close physical association of the semi-patriarchal family life of those times was utilised to attain the required results, just as in the present day of semi-detached families quite other means are used, and advantage is taken of the mental association of societies or clubs of various kinds. That the methods employed have been effective is shown by the case of Alcyone. Of the group just mentioned only one was in this present twentieth-century life into physical relationship with him, yet every member of it, on meeting him for what was then supposed to be the first time, instantly recognized the spiritual relationship which means so much more than any earthly tie. Many others than these belong to his group, but we give these as an example of what is meant. And what is true of Alcyone and his immediate and closest circles is also true of other groups or subdivisions of the clan of Servers, and to somewhat less extent of the clan as a whole. Forty or fifty lives ago we find Alcyone engaged in riveting these special links of which we have just spoken; later we shall find him meeting these people frequently, it is true, but still somewhat less closely associated with them, because he is then engaged in forming certain other links— making efforts the results of which are perhaps still in the future.

As the real object of the incarnations is the formation of these links, so that the members of the clan may learn to understand and trust one another, and thus gradually become a pliable, reliable, intelligent unit that can be employed by the great ones as an instrument, it is obvious that we cannot measure the importance of any life by the superficial incidents which are all that we can describe in our series of stories. Picturesque occurrences may sometimes offer opportunity for heroical effort, and so may suddenly crystallize into visibility the result of long, slow interior growth; but a life barren of adventure may yet be fruitful in quiet development of necessary qualities. Of such a nature was this eight life of our series—a life happy, industrious, unsensational—pleasantly, placidly progressive.

In his boyhood he met with a slight accident that might easily have had fatal consequences, but he fortunately escaped from it unhurt, though it was not without its effect on the direction of his studies and interests in later life. As a boy he was fond of being alone; and he often climbed the rocks at the back of his father’ s house, and wandered off upon solitary expeditions among the hills.

On one of these when he was about twelve years old he came upon a pretty little dell which he did not remember to have seen before, and ran down to explore it. At one place an unusual appearance in the rock attracted his attention, and he jumped down into a small hollow to examine it more closely. To his great surprise the ground gave way beneath him, and he had the sensation of a considerable fall and a shock, and found himself in dark.

He could not imagine what had happened, and he was very much startled and a good deal frightened. He was lying upon something soft—something which felt like vegetation, which had evidently broken his fall and he understood that he must somehow have dropped into a sort of cave; but he could not at all comprehend why he could see nothing of the hole through which he must have fallen, and why he found himself in utter darkness. The shock had dazed him for a few moments, but as soon as he recovered he stood up and stretched his hands all round, but felt nothing. A few cautious steps brought him to a smooth wall, along which he felt for some distance, but it seemed to continue in a straight line indefinitely. He was completely puzzled as to his situation, and decidedly uncomfortable about it; but he reasoned that as he had somehow fallen down into this place, his best plan would be to try to climb out of it by the same way, if he could only find it. So he felt his way back along the wall until he thought he reached about the place where he originally came into touch with it, and after two or three trials he stumbled over the vegetation among which he had fallen.

Standing there, he looked upwards, but could not see anything; he stretched his hand up, but touched nothing. Then he leapt upwards as high as he could, but found only blank space. He certainly had somehow fallen in at that point, and he could not understand why there was no trace of the hole through which he must have come.

No theory which he could formulate would explain the facts, and he began to suspect some supernatural interference, and to wonder whether he had been entrapped by some weird denizens of the underworld, who could see in the dark. An unpleasant suggestion, which he hurriedly rejected; and he decided that as it seemed to be impossible to get up he might well move along the wall as before, so as at least to discover the dimensions of his prison. He was not sure of his direction, and for some time he could not find the wall, and when at last he did touch it he came upon it obliquely instead of at right angles as before. He wondered whether it was the same wall, or whether he had reached the other side of his dungeon; but as he moved along it he found that it had the same characteristic of apparently indefinite extension. He had been in caves before—many of them; but none in the least like this. The extraordinary smoothness of both the wall and the floor impressed him, as well as the amazing size of the place. He walked with his hand upon the wall - cautiously indeed, for he knew that in caves one often came suddenly upon holes, and even pits of great deapth but here the floor seemed as smooth as a pavement, and the idea crosses itself into his mind that this must be an artificial excavation. But he had never heard of any such thing. Besides, he knew that a cave of any size is usually of corresponding height, which this could not be because of the small distance that he had fallen; and he knew that he had been walking beside that wall long enough to have crossed half of the great city itself; and how could any cave be of such dimensions as that?

The affair was a hopeless riddle; but at least he could do nothing but keep moving, though he was beginning to be oppressed by fears that there was something uncanny in the business, and that this nightmare of walking in the darkness would never end. Indeed, at one time he seriously entertained the idea that he might have been killed by the fall without knowing it, and was now wandering in some strange underworld of the dead! Still, there were difficulties in the way of that theory, and meantime he was growing physically tired, which seemed to show that he was still in the body. On and on he went, and his pace grew insensibly faster, for he learnt to trust the unvarying smoothness of the floor, and stepped out almost as briskly as if he were in the light, though always keeping one hand on the wall beside him, and the other stretched out in front, in case this amazing excavation should come to an end at last. But all the while two things daunted him - the intensity of the darkness and the silence. In a dark room on earth there is generally some ray of half light, some diminution of the blackness; but here it was so absolute, so uncompromising that it seemed to fold about him like a pall. Then the silence again; it was not the relative silence of the upper world, but an absolute silence that seemed unearthly in its finality. And then the utter incomprehensibility of the whole business; perhaps it was better not to think; but just mechanically to push on.

A hard trial for a boy of twelve; but fortunately even then he was already determined and persevering. So he pushed on steadily and tried to feel his mind a blank, even when he felt as though time must have ended and eternity begun. And then suddenly in front of him appeared a point of light like a star - so suddenly that he uttered an exclamation.He could not tell how far from him it was - that tiny spot of intense light, but he forgot his fatigue and hurried forward towards it, only then realising, by the magnitude of his relief, how near to hopelessness had been before. For a long time it seemed no nearer, for all his hurried walk; but at long last he saw that it was larger - that instead of being a point it was a hole. After yet another spell of walking the darkness began to grow less intense, and presently through the gloom he discovered another wall running parallel to his, and a little later a roof, perhaps six feet above his head; so that he realized that he must have walking for miles along an unquestionably artificial tunnel, and he began to hope that the point of light in front might prove to be the mouth of it.

So, quite simply, it did; and presently he found himself out in the blessed sunlight once more, and for a few minutes quite blinded by it. The tunnel debauched into a cuplike hollow on a lonely hillside which Alcyone had never seen before, and he had no idea where he was, though that troubled him little now he had escaped from the horror of the dark. Before leaving that strange subterranean passage, he turned to examine it more carefully, and his eye confirmed what his hands had long ago told him - the wonderful smoothness of the walls and the floor. But his sense of touch had not been able to inform him that the walls of this tunnel were profusely decorated with drawings, by no means badly executed in a rough but foreseeable style. These drawings, extended inwards as far as the light from the entrance permitted him to see; he promised himself to return and investigate more fully later, but at the height of the sun in the sky, he calculated that he could not have been more than three hours in the darkness, though it had seemed whole days; and he resolved to climb to the top of the hill in the hope of determining his whereabouts, the matter needed some consideration, for though he recognized the outline of certain peaks, he was regarding them from quite a new point of view; and it was some time before he realized that he had come through the heart of a mountain, and that to get back he would have to make his way either over it or round it.

Now that he had time to think of it he found that he was hungry, but unfortunately the mountain side provided nothing edible, so he had to push on as well as he could. After some climb he came to a stream and drank, which greatly refreshed him, for in the tunnel there had been a fine, almost impalpable, dust which made him very thirsty. When he gained the shoulder of the hill, he wanted to see his way back to his valley, but he had to walk fully two miles, so that it was late evening before he reached home, and his father had begun to feel anxious about him.

His tale of adventure keenly interested his father, and next day they went together to the scene of the accident taking with the several men, with a rope and some torches. Alcyone had little difficulty in finding again the valley in which, as he put it, the earth seemed to open and swallow him, but the curious appearance in the rock which had originally attracted his attention was no longer visible. What he had noticed was a crack about four feet long and a few inches wide, with sharply defined edges, and when he had leapt down to examine it more closely he had a vague impression that he must have somehow fallen through it, impossible though that seemed. But no such crack was now visible, and his father thought that he had not found the right spot, while Alcyone felt quite sure that he had, but could not explain the change.

Presently he saw an oddly rectangular depression in the rock, and going to look at it more closely, found that the apparently solid rock yielded when he set his foot upon it. For a moment he saw his crack of yesterday, and then as he drew back it again disappeared.

He was much startled, but a shout brought his father to the spot, and they proceeded to make a cautious investigation. They soon found that there was a square of rock—a sort of flagstone—which yielded when pressure was brought to bear upon it, and opened downwards like a trap door, swinging back into its place as the pressure was withdrawn. Further examination showed that it was worked by a simple but ingenious counterweight, and that it closed against a deep overlapping rim which prevented the faintest gleam of light from penetrating. It was evident that in some way a fragment of rock had been caught in the opening of this trap door, and had prevented it from closing completely. Through the crack thus left open—who shall say for how many years? light and rain penetrated, and as a result a thin cushion of giant moss had grown directly under the trapdoor, and had broken Alcyone’ s fall. As he sped upon the slab it had yielded under his weight; the fragment of rock had fallen, and so the door swung back perfectly into its place to completely shut out the light.

But what could have been the purpose of so strange an arrangement, and who could have made it? And what prehistoric race could have built a tunnel six miles long through hard rock, and why? To answer these natural questions further explorations were necessary; so by the aid of the rope which they had brought, Jupiter and Alcyone, with some of their men, descended into the passage and lighted their torches. At this point also the walls were found to be covered with drawings, so they at first supposed that they were thus ornamented through the whole length of the passage; but it was afterwards ascertained that the pictures were in groups, with long blank intervals, rendering it probable that they fulfilled a function roughly resembling that of the Stations of the Cross in a catholic church. As the tunnel extended in both directions, they might see what was at the other end of this extraordinary excavation.

With their torches they could move forward rapidly, and they soon came to a point where the passage divided, or rather where another and much wider passage left it at right angles. Attracted by the appearance of this wider passage they turned along it, and found that it led them to a large hall, which from its arrangement had obviously been uses as a temple. At the end of it was a roughlyhewn statue of colossal size and forbidding appearance, and in front of it a platform which could hardly be anything but an alter, though not of the usual shape. The walls of this temple were covered with drawings, some of them intended to represent dances and orgies, probably of questionable character. Climbing upon the alter, Alcyone narrowly escaped falling thorough another trap-door constructed exactly in the same way as that which had introduced him to this subterranean system.

Holding back this trap door and putting their torches through it, they were unable to see a plain square room, into which Alcyone of course begged to be allowed to descend. They lowered him into it, and Jupiter came after him, to find him examining a kind of stone trough or sarcophagus which occupied one side of the chambers empty now, but possibly once the tomb of some high priest of this forgotten religion which celebrated its mysteries thus in the bowels of the earth. At the end of the chamber were depressions in the wall by which it was possible to climb it, and on mounting these Alcyone found himself inside the great stone statue, and able to look out upon the temple through certain cunningly contrived holes. Probably this was an arrangement to enable the priest to speak oracles through the mouth of the goddess; but it seemed curious that the only discoverable entrance should be through a trap- door on the altar itself. Alcyone suggested that perhaps offerings placed upon it were made to drop through and disappear in token of their acceptance by the goddess; or that if they built a fire on their alter, the priest may have acquired a reputation by mysteriously disappearing amidst the smoke.

As their supply of torches was rapidly diminishing, they judged it prudent to leave the temple, and when they regained the narrower passage they continued their walk along it, to see whither it led.

After a time they came out, as Alcyone had done the day before, into a small cup- shaped depression, but in this case rocks and earth had slipped down and almost closed the entrance, so that they had some difficulty in pushing their way out. When they were able to look round them, they saw that they were quite near home—on a sort of ledge in the face of a cliff overlooking their own valley. The place was now inaccessible from below, but from the appearance of the spot it seemed likely that a land-slip had occurred at some remote period, and that, before that, there might well have been an easy path to the mouth of the tunnel. But what race had done this work of excavation, and why they had thought it necessary to take such a stupendous amount of trouble—these facts remained unexplained.

Alcyone was much interested in the place, feeling that he had a sort of proprietary right over it, because he had discovered it. He used to visit it frequently with his boy friends, one of whom, Albireo, made copies of all the drawings. They measured the passages, and made a plan of the whole excavation, and put together their drawings, plans and writings into a kind of book, which was forwarded to the King at Manoa, and kept in the great museum there. The drawings were evidently illustrative of the ceremonies to be performed at certain stages of the journey to the temple, and some of them were of a very remarkable character.

This curious accident had a considerable influence over Alcyone, turning his interest strongly in the direction of the study of prehistoric peoples and their religions and ceremonies.

In connection with this he made friends with the curator of the museum at Manoa, and induced him to write to a similar official in the city of the Golden Gate at Poseidonis, sending a description of the excavation and the statue, and copies of some of the drawings, and asking whether others of the same kind were known. In due course came a reply from the chief guardian of the Atlantean museum to the effect that there were two places in Poseidonis where excavations of the same nature existed ( plans and drawings of which were enclosed) and that they were relics of a curious secret cult of the Earth Goddess, supposed to have been practiced by one of the later Lemurian sub-races, and borrowed from them by the Rmoahal. The cult was credited with obscene rites and even with human sacrifice, but the Atlantean curator considered these charges unproved, and begged for a full set of copies of all the drawings in the newly-discovered excavations, hoping that they might throw some light upon his theories. Alcyone himself, young as he was, started a correspondence with the Atlantean scientist, and suggested the various theories which had occurred to him to account for what he had observed. Alcyone acquired a great deal of information from these learned letters from Atlantis, and he also studied carefully whatever could be learnt along archaeological lines in the museum of Manoa, so that while still quite young he was a recognised authority on these subjects. The instruction gained from the Poseidonian curator threw much light on the religion and habits of the ancient race which had made the excavations, but they never conclusively established the use of the trap door through which Alcyone first fell. A similar arrangement had been discovered in one of the Atlantean passages, but its opening was in the floor of a small temple built on the surface of the earth, whereas if any building had ever surrounded Alcyone’ s trap door, no traces remained of it. It may have been intended to trap the unwary, to get rid secretly of undesirable or unruly worshippers, or simply to enable some priest who knew the trick of it to acquire a reputation by mysterious disappearances. Nothing remained either in picture or tradition, which definitely explained the mystery.

Alcyone’ s close friends gathered round him in serried phalanx in this incarnation, as in so many others. Among his brothers were Mizar, Herakles, Sirius and Selene, and when he came of age he married Electra, the daughter of Corona and Viraj.

His life was happy and useful, for he was surrounded by those whom he loved, and was keenly interested in the work which he had to do—the government and improvement of the valley. He was in sole control of the valley after the passing of his father Jupiter, but before that he was incharge of a district which occupied most of his energies, and gave him very little time for his archaeological studies.

Among other functions Alcyone had to act as judge, and obtained a certain reputation for the acumen which he showed in difficult cases. One curious affair which came under our notice involved sons of our characters, and therefore may be of interest.

There was in the chief city of the valley a man named Homara, who had acquired great wealth by trading and money lending, and had the reputation of being grasping and unscrupulous; in fact, though many made use of him in emergencies, few had a good word to say for him, and he was strongly suspected of blackmailing, though nothing had ever actually was proved against him. One night this man was murdered; his body was found in the road, the head being crushed in, as though by a succession of tremendous blows with a heavy cudgel. The road where the body lay was one of those running along the side of the valley and just underneath a terrace, so that all along one side of it was a high blank wall which was in reality the front of the terrace above, with houses and gardens coming to the edge of it; while on the other side of it was a row of houses, each standing in its own garden. Though the gates of these gardens opened from the road, it was only their backs which were visible from it, as all their principal rooms faced downhill across the valley for the sake of the view. Consequently though the street was in a populous residential quarter, and really had houses gardens continually on both sides, it was nevertheless comparatively lonely and very little overlooked. Thus the murder had not been witnessed, though it seemed certain that it had been committed early in the evening.

Homara’ s wife informed the police that her husband had left home at dark, saying that he had an appointment to meet Clio. Now Clio was heavily in debt to Homara, and the latter was pressing him for immediate payment which would have meant ruin to Clio; so here seemed a possible motive for the murder, and Clio was promptly arrested. He admitted having an appointment with the murdered man in the same street where his body was found, but stated that Homara had not kept it, and that after waiting for some hours at the rendezvous he had returned home. Various people came forward to bear testimony that while passing along the road they had seen Clio lurking about, and that he endeavored to avoid them; and two witnesses declared that they had also seen Clio’ s brother Theodorous loitering suspiciously in that same area. An order was therefore issued for his arrest, and it was elicited that he had a grudge against Homara on his own account, as the latter was in love with Taurus, whom Theodorous desired to marry; but as Homara had some kind of hold over her elder brother Stella, he was able to put obstacles in Theodorous’ way.

Each of these two brothers, Clio and Theodorous, believed secretly that the other had committed the murder, and each credited the other with semi-unselfish motives; for Clio thought that Theodorous had done this thing to save the family from ruin, while Theodorous supposed that Clio had been principally influenced by a desire to secure the happiness of his younger brother. Thus each was animated with the idea of sacrificing himself to save the other, and consequently each confessed himself guilty, to the great perplexity of the judge. The natural suggestion was that the brothers had conspired together to remove the obstruction from their path, but both of them vehemently denied this, and all the testimony of those who had seen them agreed that they had not been together.

Alcyone leaned to the theory that booth were guilty of the wish and intention to murder, but did not see his way to a decision as to which of them struck the fatal blow, especially as there was no evidence to show that either of them had been carrying a weapon capable of inflicting such injuries.

At this stage of the proceedings Udor appeared before the judge, and asked to be allowed to depose. Permission being given, he said that he had wished to remain silent, but that his conscience would no longer allow him to do so; he could not let innocent men suffer for his action, so he felt bound to confess that it was he that had killed Homara; though he declared that the blow had been struck in self defense. His story was that he was hurrying along that inauspicious road late on the night in question, when a man wildly waving some kind of weapon rushed threateningly upon him.

Startled at this unexpected and menacing apparition, he had struck out sharply with a thick stick which he was carrying; his assailant fell heavily, striking his head against the wall, and lay at his feet, apparently unconscious. Udor, unnerved by the suddenness of all this, did not stay for his recovery, but hastened home, hoping thereby to avoid being involved in any trouble. He declared that at the time he had no idea of the identity of the man whom he had struck; but when afterwards he heard that the body of Homara had been found, he supposed that this must be his opponent, and was horrified beyond words to find himself guilty of homicide, however unintentionally and even excusably. Still he had said nothing, hoping that the death of Homara would remain a mystery, but when he found that, from some incomprehensible accession of generosity or through some strange mistake, other men were taking upon themselves the blame of his action, he felt it his duty to come forward. He had not known Homara, and could offer no suggestion as to his reason for attacking him; at the time he had thought that the man must be mad. He was uncertain as to the part of the road where the incident took place but such impression as he had did not point to the spot where the body had been found, nor could he understand how such a blow as he had given could produce the results described.

Alcyone’ s curiosity and interest were keenly excited by this extraordinary crime, of which three separate persons confessed themselves guilty; he remanded the case, and himself went down to view the spot where the body had been found, wishing to form his own conclusions as to some points which had arisen. The first thing which he noticed was the existence of a ditch at the bottom of the lofty wall before mentioned; and he at once remarked that this disposed of Udor’ s story, for if a man had fallen so as to strike his head against the wall, his body could not have remained in a heap upon the pavement as described, but must have collapsed into the ditch. Inspecting that ditch, a large fragment of hewn stone attracted his attention, and he demanded that it should be lifted out and brought to him. On a closer examination the under side of it was seen to be stained by a dark fluid, evidently blood, and hair resembling that of the dead man was found adhering to it. Stopping back into the road and looking upward, he saw that there was a corresponding gap in the coping of the wall twenty feet above, and he immdiately demanded to know who lived in the house whose garden was directly above the spot where they stood. Being told that it was a man of the name of Nabha, he ordered that he should be brought before him, and enquired what he knew as to the fallen stone. Nabha hesitated for a while and at last seemed to make up his mind to speak out.

“I will tell you the whole truth, my lord,”he said;”it is I who killed Homara, and I do not regret it, for I believe I did well to rid the world of such a ruffian. Yet have I had no peace of mind since the deed was done, and perchance if I confess it openly I may find rest.

This dead man, my lord, was an evil doer, without shame or remorse; because I had borrowed money from him and was in his power he had forced me to give up to him my daughter Suadhu, and under promise of a full quittance he carried her off to minister to his vile pleasures. Yet after this he made still further demands upon me, telling me that he still held documents which enabled him to seize my home and land. Hearing this, I became mad against him, and thought to go and slay him with my hands.”“That night as I walked in my garden cursing him and planning how I could be revenged upon him, I looked over into the street far below and there I saw the very man. I caught sight of his face as he passed close to a lamp, and I knew that the powers of evil had answered my prayer and had delivered him into my hand. I went and stood by the loose stone in the coping of my wall; and balanced it so that a touch would throw it down. Hurriedly I dropped over a small piece of stick, to determine the exact spot where the stone would drop, and when he was just about to step upon it I pressed the stone so that it fell. My calculation was correct; I saw him crushed to the earth, and I rejoiced, yet in a moment horror fell upon me like a cloak, and I became as one mad. I rushed out of the house. I made my way down into the street below, yet I could not look upon my handwork. Distraught I ran along the road, not knowing whither I went; I saw a man approaching me, and I thought he intended to stop me. I had a stick in my hand, though I did not know I had caught it up; I flourished it threateningly, and the stranger struck me down with a heavy blow. I suppose I lay unconscious for a time; when I recovered I was alone, and my head ached shrewdly, yet it seemed that my madness had left me, so I crept home and went to bed. The deed was a righteous deed and I would do it again; yet have I had no peace of mind since its commission.”

Alcyone felt that in this fourth confession the truth had at last been told, but he sent to the house of the deceased Homara for the girl Suadhu, and heard her testimony, which fully confirmed what her father had said with regard to her. Then he called all the prisoners before him. Cleo and Theodorous he discharged, delivering to them a homily on the virtue of abstract truth, and explaining to them that falsehoods, even when unselfish, and dictated by affection, always hindered the cause of justice. Udor was also set free, the judge praising him for having come forward voluntarily to make in the cause of justice a statement so much against his own interest, in order to save others from the blame attached to a crime which they had already confessed, and saying that the credit due to him for his bravery was in no wise diminished by the fact that his statement had in fact been inaccurate, as the person against whose imagined attack he had defended himself was Nabha and not Homara. To Nabha he said:

“You have rid the world of a villain who unquestionably deserved to die, yet I must tell you that you were wrong in doing so, for in taking even such a man’ s life you have broken the beneficent law of our father the Manu, which ordains that all life is sacred, and that private revenge is inadmissible. You should have come to me and told me all, trusting to the justice and discrimination of your ruler, I will not give the ordinary sentence of banishment for life from the Empire of Manoa, because I think that in your case there were extenuating circumstances; but you must live for two years as a hermit upon the hills, so that you may have time by meditation to purge yourself from blood guiltiness and to quiet your perturbed spirit by the healing influences of nature.”

So Alcyone lived his life quietly doing his duty to his people, absorbed always in plans for their welfare; and when he passed away, full of years and honor, he was succeeded in the government of the valley by his eldest son Aopllo, who endeavored to walk in his steps and to carry on his traditions.

Life IX

Yet a third time we find Alcyone in the valley of the Third Root Race, born just in time to take part in the great migration, for which the previous lives had been a preparation. The Manu Himself ruled at this period, and under Him His sons Orpheus and Surya, with His grandson Mars, Corona, Vulcan, Theodorous and Vajra. These grandsons were to be the captains of his Hosts, their sons in turn forming a special staff of aides de camp; and it is among this staff that we find our hero who had been born eighteen years before as the son of Vulcan and Venus. With him was his brother Sirius, two years older, and the twin younger brothers Yajna and Aurora, only just sixteen, but full of valour and keen to distinguish themselves in the field. Chief among these young people were Herakles, the son of Mars, and other comrades were Pallas, Herminius, Rosa, Fons, Aletheia.

In this case there was definitely a kingdom to be conquered, so the migration was divided into two parts. First went a splendid army, three hundred thousand strong, and it was only some four years later, when the new Persian empire was thoroughly established, that the women and children were brought from their native valley to their future home. The conquest being achieved, the young soldiers took unto themselves wives and settled down into the life of organisation and building to which they had in previous incarnations been so well accustomed. A lcyone chose as his partner Fides, with whom Herakles had also fallen in love. The latter went off disgusted to the wars; that is to say, he led a punitive expedition to supress Tripos - a rebellious aboriginal chief; and when he returned victorious he married Psyche, an orphan cousin who had long worshipped him from a distance. The elder brother Sirius married Achilles, and the twins, Yajna and Aurora, now hardy soldiers with many brave actions to their credit, took unto themselves Alba and Dorado respectively. Among the children who came to them as the years rolled on were many of our well known characters: to Alcyone came Mercury himself, and Mizar, Apollo, Albireo, Hector, Leo—all friends true and tried; to Sirius came Saturn and Brihat, Vega, Rama, and others with whom our researches have made us familiar.

After the country was settled, the leaders of the army took up the positions of governors of the various provinces and cities. For fifteen years the Manu retained it nominally as a portion of His empire, and several times made a sort of royal progress through its provinces to see for Himself that all went as He wished. At the end of this time, being a man of great age, he retired from active life and was succeeded by His grandson Mars. Corona was then made King of Persia, with Theodorous under him as King of Mesopotamia and Babylonia, and thus the independent Persian Empire was fairly launched upon its long career.

As the country was on the whole somewhat barren, and many of its rivers lost themselves in the sand, the Manu had devised an elaborate scheme of irrigation, and began its construction as soon as a civil government superseded military rule. The project was on so great a scale that it needed the efforts of several generations to realise it completely; but ever as it approached its consummation the country became more fertile and prosperous. So important was this work considered that one of the many poetic titles which the affection of the people conferred upon their King was”The Giver of Water”

Neither Corona nor Theodorous had a son, so at their deaths they were succeeded by their nephews, Sirius and Alcyone, whose strong mutual affection enabled them to carry on in the most harmonious manner the complicated relations of the two parts of the Kingdom.

Almost directly after Sirius took up the reins of government the Empire was attacked by a fierce and warlike race from Armenia Major, the mountainous country to the northwest just below the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. The troops stationed in the northern part of Mesopotamia were intended only to keep order and repel small raids, and were quite inadequate to meet a great invasion; so Sirius and Alcyone hurriedly gathered together all the available troops, and called out all that remained of the veterans who had conquered the land a quarter of a century before. In this way they raised a great and powerful army which they put under the command of their brother Yajna, and sent him to roll back the incoming tide. Even so the Aryan army was far out numbered by its opponents; but it had an immense advantage in the tradition of discipline which had been impressed upon its members by the Manu.

Yajna was not only a brave soldier but an exceedingly capable general for those times, well versed in such strategy and tactics as were then understood; but he had a difficult task before him. The mountaineers had already made their way for some distance into the Empire; the Aryan populace had hurriedly retreated before them, and two of the newly founded towns had been destroyed, and much land laid waste. The enemy was hardly a disciplined force; each man fought for his own hand, but they were strong hardy and recklessly brave and full of boastful confidence in themselves and contempt for everyone else. Their great specialty was their irresistible charge- a wild rush of yelling, leaping fiends which had never failed to strike terror into their foes, and drive them in confusion and headlong flight before them. The scheme which Yajna devised to meet this formidable onslaught was much like that of the celebrated British square when prepared to receive cavalry, except that he disposed his people in many circles, and he drilled his army to be ready at a moments notice to adopt this curious formation. The heart of each circle was a body of archers, each of them attended by an assistant who carried a huge bundle of arrows, so that he could continue shooting for hours. The outer ring consisted of three rows of spearmen, the inner rows carrying long spears which they were instructed to ground at appropriate angles, and the front row bearing short heavy spears (of which the upper third was of metal, like the Roman pilam ) and also a curious apparatus looking rather like a photographer’ s tripod, which shut up into a walking stick for convenience of carriage, but opened out into an unpleasant system of metal spikes.

When they received from their scouts the signal that the enemy was bearing down upon them, the army instantly received orders to adopt this circle formation. It promptly fell apart into the prearranged units; the outer rows, unfolding their tripods, stuck them in the ground in front of them and interlocked them, so as to make an impenetrable breast high chevaux de frise, which was continued higher up by the spears of the inner lines; while as soon as the enemy came within range he was saluted with showers of arrows from the archers in the middle, who, however, were specially instructed to waste no arrows but to take careful aim. The mountaineers made no use of archery in war, regarding it as effeminate, and hastening always to get to close quarters with their foes; so in the first engagement they tried their usual tactics, disregarding the Aryan arrows (which nevertheless decimated their force before they could reach the circles) and expecting to carry all before them in their mad rush, but awaited the shock of their swift onset with perfect calmness and received it upon a disconcerting array of sharp points. In a few moments every circle was surrounded by a ring of dead mountaineers, and though their comrades sprang upon those bodies and fought with reckless bravery, they were under the difficulty that they could not get at their enemies, while the steady stream of arrows relentlessly swept them down. They came on again and again, but made practically no impression, and after a couple of hours of this work half their force lay dead on the field, and the other half had learnt by experience the futility of charging those impenetrable circles from which death poured out so ste adily.

Their leaders urged them to renew the attack, but the men sullenly refused; and while they were arguing the matter, Yajna suddenly broke up his circles and charged down on them, having arranged his men in small wedged shaped groups, still with the short spears in front and the longer ones behind—the archers for the moment slinging their bows upon their backs and becoming pikemen. The mountaineers were used to charging, but not to being charged, and they collapsed before the unaccustomed attack;

Yajna’ s carefully contrived human wedges cut through the mob as the prow of a ship cuts through the water, and after a brave but ineffectual struggle the remains of the supposedly invincible army broke and fled in dismay. The Aryans persued them closely, and as they were comparatively fresh, having stood still while the others had worn themselves out with bootless charges, the slaughter was great, and it was but a small proportion of the mountain army that was able to regain its fastness.

Yajna sent back a courier to Alcyone with news of his victory, which he begged him also to transmit to Sirius at the Persian capital.

At the same time he announced his intention, unless recalled by orders to the contrary, of following up his victory by an immediate invasion of the mountain country, and asking for reinforcements to guard his lines of communications when he moved forward. This plan he carried out, though the rugged nature of the ground put the gravest difficulties in his way. His reputation for invincibility preceded him, and won him half the battles before his opponents even saw him; and so he took possession of valley after valley, endeavoring whenever possible to avoid extermination the inhabitants, but to induce them to surrender instead. When they would do this, he accepted their oath of allegiance on behalf of Alcyone, confirmed them in the possession of their lands, and bound them over to furnish a certain amount of food for his army instead of the usual tax paid to the central government.

He carried on this process of gradual annexation for two years, closing the campaign by the bloodless capture of the innermost stronghold of the mountain chiefs, a remote and secluded valley which was considered absolutely inaccessible except by one very difficult path. Yajna, however, contrived to discover another route, and without the knowledge of the enemy massed his men on the hills round the valley, so that its chiefs could not but see that the entire place was at his mercy; and then he sent his son Muni with an embassy to put it to them whether it would not be wiser to surrender incontinently and avoid useless slaughter. Muni’ s diplomatic representations were successful, and the last independent fragment of Armenia was peacefully absorbed into the kingdom of Mesopotamia. with the concurrence of Sirius, Alcyone appointed Yajna as the first viceroy of the interesting land which he had conquered, though before entering upon that office he led his victorious army back, first to the capital of Mesopotamia and then to that of Persia, receiving hearty ovation at both laces. Within the year, Alcyone himself made a royal progress through his new mountain province, and was popular as soon as its benefits were fully understood.

Yajna’ s wife Alba was inordinately proud of the fact that she was the eldest daughter of Koli, who in turn was the eldest grandson of the Manu and she founded upon this a claim to succession to the throne of Persia on behalf of her son Muni. To pacify her, her husband finally promised to lay this claim before Sirius and Alcyone, though he took pains expressly to dissociate himself from it, and to explain that he personally favored the theory of the descent of a title through male heirs only. Sirius and Alcyone disallowed the claim, but as some sort of compensation they conferred upon Yagna the title of King instead of Viceroy of Armenia, and arranged that it should descend to his son Muni, and to his heirs forever, bearing with it the same nominal subordination to the crown of Mesopotamia that the latter yielded to Persia. It was at the same time arranged that in case of war the King of Armenia should act as commander in chief of the combined armies of the three countries, because of the genius which he had shown in military matters. The reputation which he had already won for the Persian armies, however saved them from the necessity of any further manifestation of strength during Alcyone’ s lifetime; the three brothers were in due course succeeded by their eldest sons, Vega, Mizar and Muni, and the peaceful development of the Empire made steady progress under their care.

Life X

An unusually short interval separates this next life of our hero from the last. The Band of Servers was engaged this time in assisting at the founding not of a race but of a religion, for the great Mahaguru appeared once more to put the eternal truth before His people, tough under a new symbol. We must presume that He saw this to be a suitable time for the promulgation of His teaching in the newly-formed Persian Empire, and shortened the heaven-life of His workers accordingly, so we find the same body of helpers awaiting Him. In Arabia, ten thousand years before, He had arranged the appointment of Surya as Chief Priest; here Surya was already occupying that exalted position even before His arrival. He was not born into the race in the ordinary way, but took a body which had been carefully prepared for Him—the body of Mercury, the second son of King Mars, who was at the time monarch of Persia, while his brother Corona held Mesopotamia under him.

Mars had a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters—all of them characters with whom we are already acquainted. His eldest son and heir was Jupiter; Mercury came next, and then our hero Alcyone, while Orion was the youngest of the brothers. The sisters were Electra, Rama and Fides, while other old friends were to be found close by in the family of the Chief Priest Surya, who had Mizar, Yajna and Selene among his sons, and Sirius among his daughters. All these young people played, learnt, and grew up together, and were to all intents and purposes members of one household, so the affection which already existed between them as the result of association in previous ages had every opportunity to manifest and develop.

As our young people approached adolescence their affection took on a new form, and presently Jupiter married Leo, and Mizar took to wife Electra, his fellow-member in that’ trinity’ of old.

Mercury did not marry, as all his thoughts were turned in the direction of preparation for the coming of the Mahaguru.

Unfortunately both Alcyone and Orion fell in love with the same young lady, Sirius, which led to sad complications, as we shall have to explain later.

In the five hundred years which had elapsed since the conquest of Persia there had been great progress, and the capital had grown into a fine, specious, well-arranged city, containing some magnificent specimens of architecture. Many other cities and towns had sprung into being, the population had rapidly increased, and but little waste land was now left all through the central provinces, for the scheme of irrigation ordered by the Manu had been thoroughly carried out, so that the country, once barren, had become one of the most fertile in the world, and prosperity and contentment reigned in it.

The splendid ceremony which celebrated the occupation by the Mahaguru of the body of Mercury has been the most beautifully described by Mrs. Besant in Man: Whence, How and Whither, and to that chronicle I refer all who wish to read a poetical account of a truly wonderful occult phenomenon—of the gorgeous procession amidst cheering thousands, of the sermon of the Mahaguru, of the Rod of

Power, of the Fire which fell from heaven, and the Blazing Star which brings the blessing of the ruler of the World.

The ministry of the Mahaguru is beyond all comparison the most important part of the tenth life of Alcyone, so this description, which perforce omits what has already been written in Man, is necessarily woefully incomplete, and should be supplemented by the reading of pages 298-302 of that work.

It was soon after the coming of the Mahaguru that Orion made a mistake which had far reaching consequences. Ever since early childhood both he and his elder brother Alcyone had loved their cousin Sirius. The young lady was very fond of them both and, being tender hearted, did not like to announce a decision which must cause deep disappointment to one. The matter was settled for them by their parents, for Mars and Surya discussed the subject, and called Alcyone before them to ask whether it would be agreeable for him to take his cousin Sirius to wife. Alcyone said that this was exactly what he wished, and her father then sent for Sirius and said to her:

“Our Lord the King does us the honor to propose a second alliance between our families, suggesting that you, my daughter, become the wife of his son Alcyone. Your mother and I could wish nothing better for you; yet, since to marry those who are unsuitable is a heinous sin, we have sent for you to ask whether you are entirely willing to accept the Prince, and can love him wholeheartedly as a husband should be loved.”

Sirius modestly answered that she could and would, so the couple were then and there betrothed, and an early date was fixed for the marriage ceremony. Surya gave them a solemn blessing, and they were full of joy; but as they turned away from the presence, Sirius whispered to her betrothed: “This is the happiest day of our lives; but it will be sad news for Orion.”

Alcyone started and led her back up the long hall; and when his father turned to him with surprise, he said: “I ought to tell you Sire, that my brother Orion also loves this lady, and that this betrothal will be a great blow to him.”

“Oh!” ejaculated the King;”and which of them do you prefer, young lady? You seem quite happy with things as they are!”

Sirius blushingly intimated that she was more than satisfied, and that she could not think of disturbing the King’ s arrangements. So Mars said:

“Let it be, the maid cannot marry you both, and it is fitting that the elder brother should be wedded first. I will see Orion and tell him that he must look elsewhere for a wife; he is young yet, and there is plenty of time before him.”

But when the news of the betrothal reached Orion, he became furiously angry, and swore that the marriage should never take place—that before it should happen he would himself kill both Sirius and his brother. He sent at once for Gamma, who was a young man of low birth who had attached himself to Orion as a sort of confidential servant and flatterer; and Gamma skillfully played upon his pride and increased his anger, thinking that he saw his way to making something for himself out of a serious quarrel between the princes. It was by that time dusk, so he set himself to spy upon the betrothed couple, and when he saw Alcyone go out alone he hurriedly called Orion to come and meet him. But when Orion saw

Alcyone coming along, evidently full of joy and chanting to himself a well known song of victory which was used by the Persian armies, his anger against his brother rose into maniacal fury, and he sprang out upon Alcyone and stabbed him with his dagger. “That is well done,”cried Gamma;”now let us quickly find the girl and carry her away before an alarm is raised.”

So under cover of the night they hastened to the part of the great building where Surya lived, and to the special apartments of Sirius, which were well known to both of them. They thought themselves fortunate to find her with only one attendant, whom Gamma at once struck down. Sirius called for help, but was quickly overpowered, bound and carried away by the two men, who contrived to get her out of the gardens unseen, and then away into a great park which at that time of the evening was almost empty. But by this time the waiting-woman had recovered her senses and given the alarm, and a guard was quickly called together and set out in pursuit. A servant had seen two men running in the direction of the park and carrying some large object, and was just describing this extraordinary event to his fellows and wondering whether they were not thieves who ought to be followed, when the clamour arose; so the guards knew which way to go, and for whom to look, as the waiting woman had recognised both men.

By this time the moon had risen, and by turning out a whole regiment of men and spreading them rapidly over the park, they were soon on the track of the fugitives. Orion was too much obsessed by anger to calculate carefully, but Gamma had had some idea of striking out into the open country and hiding. The chase however began too quickly to allow him to carry out his plan; he was cut off from the direction in which he had meant to go, and the searching parties spread out so effectively that in a little time only one way was open for flight. This led the abductors up a slight incline and soon the pursuers caught sight of them and began to converge upon them. Abruptly they came out upon the brink of a cliff overhanging a lake, and saw that they were trapped, for the soldiers were close behind, and there was no hope in turning to right or left.

Gamma threw himself down upon the grass with a curse but Orion seized Sirius in his arms and leapt boldly out over the cliff into the water far below.

A great shout arose from the pursuers, when they saw, their prey had escaped them; they rushed to the edge and looked over as well as they could, but in the dim light they could not distinguish anything clearly. They could not themselves get down to the shore without going a long way round but their shouts and the mighty splash had attracted the attention of another party of searchers below, who were recently made to understand what had happened.

There was no practicable beach just underneath but several men plunged into the water from the nearest point they could reach, and swam hurriedly to the floating bodies.

Both Orion and Sirius could swim, and as it had fortunately happened that they struck the water in an utmost erect position, they were not seriously injured, though they were to a great extent stunned by the shock. They came to the surface separately, and Sirius, being bound with scarves, could do nothing but float; but as the water was tranquil this was sufficient. She declared afterwards that she never actually lost consciousness, whereas it would seem that Orion did, though his body somehow floated. Thus the swimmers found them, and began slowly to make their way back to the shore with them. No boats were available at the end of the lake, but there were many helpers, and they contrived to throw into the water a great log, which was most useful in supporting the swimmers. So eventually they got the unfortunate couple ashore alive though only just alive; they covered them with borrowed garments and carried them home to the palace, where a night’ s sleep brought them back almost to normal condition. Gamma had offered no resistance when captured by the soldiers, and he had no excuse to give for his part in the affair, but told the whole story quite callously.

Meantime Alcyone also had been found soon after he was struck down; they carried him to his chambers with many angry mutterings and threats of vengeance upon the enemy who had done this—for Alcyone was very popular. Doctors were hurriedly called; they dressed his wound, and administered to him some drug which brought him temporarily back to consciousness; and presently they had him asleep again, with every hope of recovery if matters went well, though he was desperately weak from having lost so much blood. He did not know who was responsible for the murderous assault upon him; he knew nothing, of course, of the abduction of Sirius, and though he noticed her paleness when she visited his bedside next day, he was readily led to suppose it due to sorrow and anxiety about his condition. The doctors forbade him to exert himself by talking, so it was many days before he learnt the facts.

Meantime King Mars was royally angry about the whole affair, and had Orion and Gamma brought before him the next day for judgement. They had little to say for themselves. Orion admitted that his action had been wrong in stabbing Alcyone, and expressed pleasure at the news that he had not killed him; but he declared that he had been beside himself with anger, and had not realised what he did, and he still thought that if he had been able to escape with Sirius all would some how have come right. Mars spoke sternly of the disgrace reflected upon the royal line when the King’ s son thus broke the laws which his office bound him to uphold, and of the hard necessity laid upon him of pronouncing upon his own son the same sentence of banishment as would have fallen for the same crime upon the humblest of his subjects. So he sent forth Orion and Gamma to make living outside the Empire of Persia, telling them to atone by probity and industry elsewhere for the serious error with which their lives had begun in their native country.

Orion was not allowed to take leave of Alcyone, for the latter still knew nothing about the whole affair, and it was obvious that the excitement of hearing it now would have been disastrous to him. But his brother Mercury—or rather the Mahaguru dwelling in the body of his brother Mercury—sent for him before he left, and spoke to him gravely but kindly:

“Son, you have acted unwisely. You have indeed done much harm, yet it is not the harm which is so serious; it is the fact that you, who are one of us, should be able to do it. Selfishness is always evil, but doubly evil now, for it mars the harmony of our band just when it is needed for a special work during the short time that I can stay with you. Only once in thousands of years comes such an opportunity as has been offered to you in this life—to be among the foremost of those who help in the founding and spreading of a world - religion.

But you have allowed jealousy to throw you out of the group of workers, and you must tread a long and weary road before you earn the right to enter it again. Go then and learn your lesson, so that when my Successor comes you may be ready to take your part in the work.”

Thus Orion disappears for a time from our pages—to appear and win his old place only some thousands of years later. Alcyone slowly recovered and presently married Sirius; and among their large family we find many of our leading workers—all needed, for this was a life of strenuous labour. Jupiter, the eldest son of King Mars, was of course to be his successor, and so Alcyone was free to devote himself entirely to work under Mahaguru and Surya, and he proved the most devoted of servants to them. The Religion of the Fire was intended not so much to supercede as to supplement the worship of the Sun and the Star-Angles, which was the faith of the time. Something of the special teaching of the Mahaguru may be found in Man, pages 300 and 301, and this, with all sorts of variations and comments on it, is what Alcyone and his compeers preached all over that great Empire. After a time, when the new system was firmly established, the Mahaguru left them—left them as dramatically as He came. But that also has been fully narrated in the same book, far better than I could ever hope to describe it; so I need only allude to it here. It may be noted that in this life our characters are almost all concentrated into two generations—that of the Mahaguru, and that immediately following His. In that respect the incarnation which we are studying resembles that in which we now find ourselves in this twentieth century—in that, then as now, we were all simultaneously in physical bodies because the work which had to be done consisted of the giving of a mighty impulse—the establishment of channels for a force which might afterwards continue to flow through them for centuries.

Alcyone’ s life this time was a long one, and he retained full vigour to the very end of it, travelling usually for half of each year, and spending the other half at the capital, taking part in the services of the various temples there. For the first few years of married life, and again later when all the children were grown up, his wife Sirius usually accompanied him on all his apostolic journeyings; but there was an intervening period, when there were many young children, during which she regretfully found it necessary to stay at home in order to look after them more satisfactorily. But on these occasions Alcyone always took some of his elder children with him, for he had a strong belief in the educative value of travel, and he wished to train them from the first in the special work which they had to do.

Because of this they were all at an early age thoroughly conversant with all the fire ceremonies, and able to perform them reverently and effectively, and also to deliver excellent address in their father’ s style; and he gave them constant practice along both lines. In thus utilising his children he was following the advice of his father-in-law Surya, who had impressed the same idea on all his own family; so that one of the characteristics of the early days of this new Faith of the Fire was that all over the country it was being enthusiastically preached by boys in all the radiance of youth and purity. The children born in priestly families during the stay of the Mahaguru were all brought to Him for His blessing; and it was observed that through those who had had this honour there flowed a special power which evoked the most wonderful enthusiasm in their auditors.

A busy and useful life, in harness up to its last days, extending into the reigns of three Emperors—his father Mars, his brother Jupiter, and his nephew and son-in-law Capella, whose wife Ivy was celebrated as the beauty of the family. He passed away peacefully in his own house in the eighty-fifth year of his age, and on his deathbed the Mahaguru appeared to him in the well-known form of his brother Mercury—not aged like himself, but young and glowing as he had last seen it on the memorable day of the Ascension— congratulated him on a life spent without stint in His service, and called him to a time of well-earned rest with Him. He passed through the astral world almost immediately, and during the eight hundred years of his life in the heaven-world the Mahaguru was the principal figure in his surroundings, and in the bliss of His presence he grew as the flower grows, eagerly opening its heart to the sun.

Life XI

Yet again our band appears in the third sub-race and in the country of Persia, where there was by this time an old and wellestablished civilisation. Some fourteen centuries after the conquest of the country by the Manu, and about nine centuries after the visit of the Mahaguru, we find the same relative arrangement of the three main divisions of the kingdom still persisting. Neptune was at this time the King of Persia, while under him Sif was the ruler of Mesopotamia, and Elsa of the mountain district of Armenia. Each of these divisions had considerably increased in the intervening period, Persia having extended itself eastward, Mesopotamia southeastward to the head of the gulf, and Armenia westward so as to include part of Asia Minor. But on this western side of the kingdom the frontier was ill-defined, and there was no exact determination of the prerogatives of the various local chiefs, who owed a rather vague allegiance to the central power. There were in several parts of the kingdom almost inaccessible mountain fastnesses, and in these still remained unconquered tribes, who lived their own isolated life.

Mercury, whose body in the last life had been used by the Mahaguru, was in this incarnation one of the priests of the religion which had previously been founded through him; and our hero Alcyone appears as his second son.

Mercury was brother to Herakles the Queen, so his children were in constant association with the royal children, and when they grew up the natural results followed in the way of close friendships and matrimonial alliances. Mars, the heir to the throne, married Alcyone’ s sister Vajra, and the King’ s second son Electra espoused Sirius, another of Mercury’ s daughters. But when long before these alliances Alcyone and Electra were bosom friends, and a third who was often of the party was Alcyone’ s cousin Saturn, who afterwards married Mizar.

The three young men, Alcyone, Saturn and Electra, had at one time a remarkable adventure which narrowly escaped a fatal termination. It was the custom among the noble families of Persia at this time for young men to compete their education by a certain amount of travel, much as young Englishmen of the eighteenth century made the grand tour of Europe. The more impecunious contented themselves with visiting a few of the principal cities of their own empire, but the fashionable journey was that to the great Central - Asian capital of Manoa. This trip was duly taken by three friends, and they were profoundly impressed by what they saw; but after they returned from it they felt little disposed to adopt a settled life, and determined to make yet another expedition, first through the Armenian mountains, which in this incarnation they had not seen, and then on round the coast of Asia Minor and back through Palestine and Mesopotamia. This journey, though hardly a usual one, was supposed to be quite safe, for most of the Levantine coast was at that time in the hands of an Atlantean ruler named Rahanuha (our old friend Tripos), who, though he had the reputation of being a stern and remorseless tyrant, was friendly to Persia on account of the close mercantile relations which existed between the two countries.

The Atlantean merchants who for some centuries before that time had been establishing colonies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean were chiefly of the fourth sub-race—keen traders, but at the same time brave and adventurous men. Whenever there was any sort of a harbour one of their towns sprang up, and they soon opened up communications with Persia by means of caravans, thus furnishing its merchants with an outlet towards the countries of the west and an alternative route to Egypt, while at the same time they themselves introduced into Persia the wares of Atlantis. They suffered much in the early days from the depredations of the tribes of the interior, and they soon found it necessary to band themselves together into a confederation to resist the attacks. For some hundreds of years, however, they remained a cluster of practically independent cities, each gradually drawing under its sway more and more of the surrounding country. These cities adopted for themselves various schemes of government, but the commonest arrangement was for each of them to choose each year one of the principal merchants to be its governor.

Presently it happened in several cases that men who showed special aptitude for the office were elected to it for life. Then there arose in one of the cities a young man of military ability, named Al-hi (Known to us, however as Roxana); being the son of its governor he was put at the head of its troops, and organised them so well that, when the tribes made a determined attack upon it, he was able to inflict upon them a crushing defeat. The chieftain of one of the defeated tribes swore to be avenged upon it and spent several years in visiting all the other tribes and inducing them to join him in a colossal raid which should place all the coast towns in their power, and enable them to slaughter all the merchants and seize their gold.

By this concerted action three of the seaside cities were simultaneously besieged, and were soon in serious difficulties, for the tribesmen descended upon them like a swarm of locusts. But Roxana was equal to the occasion ; he had been training his enemies and had evolved clever plans whereby he circumvented his enemies and destroyed them in detail. When he had entirely broken up and disposed of the army that had attacked him, he marched to the help of the nearest of the other cities, which he found besieged by another huge yelling mob of tribesmen. Attacking this crowd at the nearest point, he soon forced his way through it into the city, whose magnates acclaimed him as a deliverer. But he offered his assistance only upon certain definite terms; he demanded that this city should recognise his father as its King—otherwise, he said, he would march his men home again and leave them to their fate. They were in desperate straits; they knew that they were themselves powerless against so great an incursion of hillmen, and so they soon decided to yield the conditions which Roxana required. This being settled, he at once took the offensive against the tribesmen, and after a long day of battle routed them utterly.Then after allowing his men a little rest, he moved on to the third city. There the enemy had already beaten down all resistance and stormed the town, and massacre and pillage were just commencing. He dashed in at once upon the victorious tribesmen, swept them out of the streets and houses, and soon changed defeat into victory. As the principal men of the place had already been killed, he had little difficulty in getting his father’ s authority recognised, and calmly announced to his father that he had brought two more cities under his rule.

His father was at first a little perturbed, but Roxana soon won him over to his views, and induced him to call a meeting of all the leading merchants to whom he himself expounded the great advantages which would accrue from the consolidation of the three cities into one state, and the establishment of a permanent dynasty of capable rulers. His magnetic force carried the whole meeting with him, and his father was proclaimed King by acclamation. Wisely, as little change as possible was made in the practical daily routine of government, and as soon as the citizens were used to the merely nominal alterations, Roxana carried off his father on a visit to other cities, and contrived to make the new regime popular there also.

When the modified machinery was working smoothly, this energetic young man set to work upon the construction of a good road to link together the three cities, and at the same time established an effective control over the intermediate tracts of country. When the new state was on a secure footing it was only a question of time to absorb the other Atlantean cities higher up the coast, and gradually to bring more and more of the hinterland into cultivation. After some years the father died, and Roxana himself came to the throne of the kingdom that he had built up. He ruled it for close upon half century, and during that time made it a powerful and prosperous state.

Unfortunately his successors had neither his capacity for organisation nor his sleepless devotion to the welfare of his country, and by the time that his great-grandson Tripos ascended the throne there was already bitter disaffection among his indocile subjects.

Tripos was a tactless person, a veritable Rehoboam, and he tried to repress instead of to conciliate; and though during the first years of his reign his efforts were successful, he stored up against himself an amount of virulent hatred that could not but presently find savage expression. It came to the surface at last in an outburst of indiscriminate massacre not at all unlike the French Revolution, in which not only Tripos was murdered, but all who could by any stretch of the imagination be connected with him or with the upholding of his rule; and unfortunately this explosion occurred while our three travelers were in the country. Being reasonably well dressed, they were at once seized by the first party of rebels whom they met, and when on being searched they were found to be in possession of a letter of introduction to Tripos, it was at once decided that they were dangerous people—aristocrats worthy of death.

The Levantine revolution, like the corresponding horror in France thirty thousand years later, made a great parade of the forms of justice, though carefully avoiding the reality; so our travelers were arrested and thrown into jail to await a trial which never came only because the self appointed officials who had signed the commitment were themselves murdered before they had time to go through the farce of examining the prisoners. Of course our travelers made indignant protests, but no manner of notice was taken of them; they were kept in close confinement for several months, receiving only the coarsest food, and even that irregularly and in insufficient quantity; and they owed their escape at last not to any form of trial, but to yet another ebullition of barbarity, in which it occurred to some ruffian who happened for the moment to be in power that it would save money and trouble to break open the jail and butcher the prisoners.

These particular prisoners, however, were Aryans, fresh and keen, trained fighters, stronger, braver, and more agile(even after their long confinement) than the comparatively effete Atlanteans, and when once their cell doors were broken open they soon possessed themselves of the weapons and quickly turned the tables on their opponents and fought their way out through the confusion into the open air. Fortunately it was night, so the race difference was less conspicuous than it must have been in the daylight, and by mingling with the madly-yelling crowd and judiciously effacing themselves at the first corner they contrived to escape notice for the moment.

While rejoicing in their recovered freedom they could not but recognise that they were still in a very awkward position. Their money had been stolen, their property confiscated, and their servant killed; they possessed nothing but the clothes on their backs and the swords which they had just snatched from the foes whom they had overthrown; they were in the midst of a city in the throes of a revolution, and had some hundreds of miles of possibly hostile country to cross before they were out of the most immediate danger.

Their first object was to get clear of the city, so as to avoid any probability of being rearrested; their second was to lay hands on some food. They knew nothing of the town, as they had been seized as soon as they entered it; they could never keep a straight course in any direction, because they were constantly compelled to turn aside and dive down some back alley to avoid bodies of armed men, generally half-drunk and brawling. Thus it happened that after what seemed to them to be hours in dodging about in this way they suddenly found themselves out on the sea-front of city, instead of on their way to the interior, as they had wished to be.

As several people were hurrying along the road into which they had come so abruptly, they thought it wise not to hesitate, but to walk straight across it as though they had some business with the ship which lay against the quay opposite. As they could see no one on board, it seemed best to walk straight on to the half deck as though they had a right there, and their movements apparently excited no suspicion on the part of the passers-by. At first they had a wild hope that they might be able to seize the ship and escape by its means, but they saw men moving about on another vessel close by, and realised that these people’ s attention would be attracted by anything so unusual as an attempt to move a ship at night. Alcyone however caught sight of a small boat attached to the stern, and it at once occurred to him that though the larger craft certainly could not be moved without arousing curiosity, it would not strike anyone as unusual that a small boat should pass along from one vessel to another. He communicated his idea in a whisper to his companions, who highly approved; but Electra said:

“Before we embark upon a voyage, let us see whether we can find anything to eat aboard here.”

Searching quickly yet carefully, they soon came upon a store of food—curiously shaped loaves of coarse hard bread, and masses of dates and figs, all crushed together into cakes. It was the fare of the common sailor, but our half-starved heroes recked naught of that; Alcyone hastily stripped off his cloak and made a sort of bag of it, which they filled with bread and fruit, while Electra found and promptly appropriated a little of olive oil. Meanwhile Saturn, who was examining the after part of the vessel, came suddenly and excitedly to tell them that a man(probably the watchman) lay asleep there upon a heap of sails. They moved like cats to avoid waking him; and contrived to get safely into a boat, which was only just large enough for the three. They cast it silently and pushed themselves along by the side of the ship, and paddled quietly with their hands for a few yards, so as to make no noise. There were two oars in the boat, but they did not use these until they were well out of sight of the line of vessels, fearing to attract attention.

Moving with the greatest caution, they gradually drew to the mouth of the little harbour, and were presently well out of reach.

Then they stopped rowing and attacked with great thankfulness their bundle of coarse provisions, and made the first satisfactory meal that they had had for months. Greatly strengthened by this, they discussed their plans, and decided that the best thing to do would be to row along the coast for a few miles until they came to some lonely part of it, and then abandon the boat and endeavour to make their way eastward to some less disturbed country. When dawn broke they found themselves opposite an apparently desolate shore, and after some searching discovered a spot where they could land-a few yards of sand with a small cave at the back. They dragged their boat ashore and into the cave, lest some inhabitants might see it, took a necessary and most refreshing bath, and then lay down beside the boat for a few hours of sleep.

Fortunately for our wanderers the revolutionary madness which was convulsing the towns had drawn into them a great number of the country people, so that they were able to travel unperceived and unmolested. During the day they saw several houses which appeared to be unoccupied and towards evening they ventured to enter one of these in search of food; but they found nothing but a little fruit. As the place was obviously abandoned they decided to spend the night there, and took the opportunity to wash what was left of their clothing. In a dark inner room they found a chest containing some such garments as farmers wore in those times, and in their distressed condition they thought it justifiable to appropriate some of these, as being less likely to attract unfavorable attention than the rags to which their own foreign clothing had been reduced. They still retained the swords of which they had possessed themselves in the fight at the time of their escape from prison, but had not scabbards for them, and so found them somewhat inconvenient.

Next morning they resumed their journey, still through a desert country, and after an hour’ s travel they were fortunate enough to encounter a flock of goats, from which they obtained some milk.

About midday they came in sight of a small village, which they judged it prudent to avoid as they saw from some flags which were displayed in front of the houses that the spirit of unrest had penetrated even there. By evening they were again ravenously hungry, and they decided that they must find another farmhouse; and by climbing a hill and examining the surrounding country they were able to discover one—a lonely homestead in a secluded valley.

As smoke was rising from it they knew that it was still occupied so they resolved to go boldly down to it and ask for food and shelter, arguing that it was improbable that men who lived in so quiet a spot should be infected with the madness of the town, and that they were well able to defend themselves against any force which they were likely to meet in this sequestered nook.

They found the house in possession of an old man and his wife, who received them most hospitably, but spoke some sort of provincial dialect which was by no means easy to follow. They gathered, however, that the old couple had several sons who had gone off to the city in the hope of gaining much money through the revolution; but that the old people themselves distrusted all these new-fangled ways and intended to keep the farm going as a home to which their sons could return as a refuge when the temporary madness was over. They asked eagerly for news of their sons, and our friends had regretfully to admit that they had none to give. They could not convey their whole story to these good people, but they tried to make them understand that they were travelers who had no part nor lot in the revolution, but merely sought to be allowed to go on their way in peace; that they had been robbed of their money and their horses, and that their servant had been killed. The old couple nodded politely, though it is doubtful how much they really comprehended; but they pressed food and drink upon their unexpected guests, and presently showed them to comfortable sleeping places.

The next morning their host showed them great anxiety that his visitors should look round his farm, so they complied, and were able to reward his hospitality by demonstrating to him some of the improved Aryan methods of cultivation. Alcyone also made great friends with a little group of grandchildren, who followed him all over the estate. The good old housewife loaded them with provisions for the journey, and they parted from their kindly friends with many expressions of gratitude. They felt themselves now reasonably safe, though they were still nominally within Atlantean territory; but they were a long way from their own frontier, and the country which lay between was sparsely inhabited by half civilised tribes of uncertain temper. They found no more farm houses, but the food which had been given to them lasted them for two days, and they supplemented it by various kinds of wild fruit. For a day or two after that they got very little, but then they had the good fortune to find a big patch of some kind of wild yam, which provided them with excellent nutriment. They did not care to eat locusts, as did John the Baptist thousands of years later—as do many Arabs of the present day; but they did eat the locust-bean whenever they came across it, and when opportunity they willingly partook of the other item of the prophet’ s dietary wild honey. Still they had some ten days of distinctly unsatisfactory food before they next caught sight of a human being.

At the end of that ti they came suddenly upon a body of horsemen, who surrounded them with evident curiosity, and addressed them in a tongue unknown to them. They replied in Atlantean language which they had been speaking for long, and one of the horsemen was called forward who knew a little of it, but so little that interchange of ideas seemed impossible. And when our friends spoke among themselves in the language current at that time in Persia the face of the leader of the band atonce lighted up, and he replied with a few words in that language to make inquiry whether he could understand it. A member of the band was soon produced who could talk it with fair fluency, so he said, he had twice been into Mesopotamia with caravans. Through him our travellers promptly explained their position to the leader who seemed much interested in their adventure, and very ready to give them any help in his power. He ordered that such food as was available should be set before them, and when they had taken it he provided them horses by rearranging some of the baggage of the party.

With newly found friends Alcyone and his companions journeyed for two days, until they came to the capital of that tribe-if one may give such a title to what was in reality little more than a kind of permanent camp, there being within its thorn defended walls more tents than hovels. Our friends were soon presented to the chief, who spoke their language with ease, and declared himself delighted to have the opportunity of serving some of the noble sons of a race which he greatly admired. He asked them to rest with him as long as they would, and promised to provide them with an escort to the capital of the tribe living eastward of him, from which they would have no difficulty in getting home, as caravans were frequently leaving for Mesopotamia. He also placed at their disposal all his resources, begging them to accept three fine horses, a whole outfit of rich garments, and a present of gold and jewels.They thanked him very heartily for his kindness, and expressed a hope that they would be able to return it when they reached their own land. Their adventures were now at an end, and the rest of the journey was safe though slow. Their absence, though somewhat longer than had been expected, had not caused any special anxiety, as nothing was yet known in Persia of the revolution in the Levantine towns.

Neptune listened to their story with great interest, and at once acceded to their request that an embassy might be sent to the chief who had so opportunely befriended them. Ida was put in charge of this expedition, which bore costly gifts to the chief, a letter of thanks from Neptune himself, and an offer of special felicities for any young men of the tribe who were willing to return to Persia for education and to the tribe who were willing to return to Persia for education and to enter the service of its King. A number of youths accepted this proposal, and in this way a custom was established which lasted for centuries and extended itself gradually to all the tribes of Asia Minor—the fashion that all young men of position, such as the sons of chiefs and nobles, should go to the Persian universities for education. So the adventure of the three friends had a permanent result in the spreading over a wide tract of country of the Aryan form of civilisation.

Alcyone specially asked that an effort might be made to find the old farmer in the secluded valley who had been first to befriend them so Ida added to his party as guides some young men from the country of the hospitable chieftain, and set out westward across the desolate lands. After some searching they came upon the valley, and found the old couple in great sorrow. They had been visited by a band of revolutionaries who had robbed them of everything, their three sons having been killed in the riots in the city, and they were left in destitution with three widowed daughters and eight or ten grandchildren. Ida was so much impressed with the hopelessness of their position that he persuaded them to abandon their desolated home and undertake with him the return journey to Persia. He had some doubt as to how Alcyone and Electra would regard so drastic a measure, but they received the simple old people with open arms, and led them before King Neptune, who at once assigned to them from his royal demesne a farm far larger and more valuable than that which they had left, though in order that they might not be troubled by the abrupt transition into a crowded and bustling civilisation, he chose for them a spot among the hills, remote from the capital city. Alcyone charged himself specially with the education of the grandchildren, and saw that places were eventually found for them either about the temple or the palace, and that they duly married into the Persian race. So all the members of that kindly farmer-family had reason to bless the day when they took in three hungry fugitives and sped them on their way rejoicing.

Meantime, the heir-apparent Mars had wedded Alcyone’ s sister Yajna, and soon after the return of our wanderers, Electra carried out an agreement which had been made in early childhood by marrying an elder sister Sirius; and a year or two later the third traveller, Saturn, married a younger sister Mizar. On their way through Mesopotamia Alcyone had been grately attracted by Apollo, the daughter of Sif, and as she was invited to the capital for the festivities in connection with the marriage of Electra, the young people met again, and very soon there was a third union to be celebrated. All these young people were special proteges of Queen Herakles, whose valuable advice was always at their disposal, and she exercised a great influence over their lives. She survived by a few years her husband Neptune, and lived to see her son Mars firmly settled on his father’ s throne.

By that time also Uranus had taken the place of his father Mercury as High Priest, and his brother Alcyone was working as his assistant.

He was presently appointed as his brother’ s representative in the second city of the kingdom—a position which for a time divided him and his children somewhat from the rest of our characters, though frequent visits were interchanged. Though his eldest son Viraj had been born at the capital, most of his children were thus natives of the southern city. Of his four sons, Viraj and Corona chose the political and military life, while Orpheus and Norma were content to assist in administrative and educational work which appertained to the business of the priesthood. Alcyone had always a strong love for children and a deep interest in education, and he devoted a great deal of his time working out a scheme of universal training for all children in the country—a plan not unlike that of the Boy Scout of the present times except that it included girls as well. Many of our characters were engaged in the carrying out of that project, which Mars at once adapted and enforced over the whole of his kingdom as soon as it was laid before him. In his fiftieth year Alcyone was called back to the capital and appointed Minister of Education, a post which he filled with ardour and efficiency until his death at the age of seventy-four.

Life XII

Our hero’ s next birth was once more in the great capital of Manoa, and in its royal family. I suppose that surroundings could scarcely be better than they were in this incarnation, for he was the son of Mars and Herakles, he had Viraj and Brihat as brothers, he married Mizar, and among his family of eight children there was only one who is not now numbers among the adepts. His father Mars had theories of his own as to the duties of the ruler, and Alcyone, as his heir, was brought up with a view to the position which he would one day have to fill. Even when quite young, his father frequently called him to come and listen to what was being said when he was dispensing justice to his people, and would often ask the little boy: “What judgement would give if you were trying this case?”

When he was fourteen years old, his father gave him regular daily practice in acting as judge, the king himself taking no part in the proceedings, but sitting by quietly and listening. Gradually as he grew up his father instructed him in the other departments of the work which appertained to the royal office. These were varied in character, for the King exercised intimate personal supervision over the work of all his ministers, and was full of plans of all sorts which they were expected to be ready to carry out. The monarch was head of the Church, as well as of the state, so one of his departments was for the extending of religious teaching. It corresponded in some ways to what we should now call missionary enterprise, but was much more liberal, more tolerant and grander in conception. Instead of trying by many dubious methods to substitute one superstition for another, its agents were occupied principally in promulgating the doctrine of the Inner Light, and explaining the vast and far reaching changes that a belief in this produced in the daily life of those who accepted it. What was preached was not so much the adoption of a new form of religion, as the superimposing, upon all sorts of quaint traditional creeds, of the great principles of the fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, and the consequent substitution of peace for strife, of cooperation for competition. It was held that the name by which the Deity is called is immaterial, and that the rites by which He is worshipped may vary according to the temperament of the devotee. Any form of religious belief was held to be compatible with the faith of the Light so long as it acknowledged the goodness of God; only those were considered inadmissible which regarded Him as a dangerous being who required propitiation by sacrifice, or as a wicked entity who delighted in torturing his creatures. Religions of this latter type were called”faiths of darkness,”and the people who held them were regarded with pity, and even with a certain amount of horror as blasphemers of God’ s Love.

There was what we should call a department of education, but they called it a department for citizen-training, and its work differed radically from anything that is done on the present day. Those appointed to the office of trainers did not try to load the memories of their students with facts, but taught them how to do things—how to build, to cook, to weave, to cultivate the ground, to bind up wounds, to cure diseases, to set broken bones, to ride, to shoot, to swim, to climb—all the practical needs of an open air life. All these things were taught to everyone, boys and girls alike, together with exercises for the development of the physical body. Children fully proficient in these preliminary requirements were allowed to choose the line of life which they wished to follow, and were then further trained in preparation for it. Reading and writing were taught to all, and also a certain set of religious verses; but the literature of the country was exhaustively studied only by those who felt specially drawn to it and wished to make it their vocation. The great work of the educational department was the discovering of merit and of aptitude, and it was considered a reproach to its officers if any one had to do work which was not suited to him.

In a country so dry it is natural that the department of irrigation should rank as of first rate importance. In its hands were the damming and control of rivers, and the cutting and maintenance of a vast system of canals; but its fatherly action was not confined to these greater benefits to the country as a whole, for it was also prepared to send its representatives to examine individual estates, and put in what-ever system of water-supply was considered most suitable. It was recognised as one of the duties of the Government to provide water for all its people and for this purpose elaborate and intricate arrangements were made—the result being that the whole of the land became wonderfully fertile. There was in addition a department of agriculture, whose officials were ready to advise as to the best utilisation of certain soils and aspects, and to supply all sorts of new seeds and cuttings. This department maintained representatives in distant parts of the empire, and also in some foreign countries, who were always on the watch for anything new in the way of plants or trees that might be of use in their own kingdom.

In this way many foreign trees and vegetables were introduced, some of which were found so suitable that they were definitely adapted, and became permanent residents of Asia.

Another department was concerned with the promotion of manufactures of various kinds, and was devoted chiefly to experiment—experiment in all conceivable directions that could be supposed to have any bearing on any one of the numerous lines of manufacture which were practiced in that kingdom. This department also had agents abroad, always watching for new discoveries and new or improved methods.

There were naturally various subdivisions—weaving, pottery, carving, ironfounding, and many others, for the civilisation of Manoa was at a high level.

Another section of government work was the maintenance of roads and communications, to which great attention was paid. A subdivision of this concerned itself of opening up of trade routes, and arranging for regular caravans to use them.

Each of these great departments of state had its own head and its own specialists, but the King had to understand and supervise the whole; so, as part of his preparation, Alcyone passed some time in each of them, studying and carefully watching. When later he came to the throne, he kept them all at high level of efficiency, paying frequent surprise visits to them, and occasionally workings of the machinery of state, and constantly taking a hand in them himself. He”plagiarised by anticipation” the methods of the renowned Haroun-al-Raschid, for he often went among his people in disguise, in order to do justice and to discover merit. In this way he found among the undistinguished mass of his subjects some very honest and clever servants, who might otherwise have remained mute and inglorious. Some of his adventures when upon these curious secret expeditions were not unlike those of the great Muhammadan Caliph. He was often accompanied upon them by his brother Viraj, and later I life by his son Mercury.

Many and varied were the duties of an autocratic monarch in those days of long ago, and Alcyone fulfilled them with painstaking exactitude. Indeed, it may be said that he were himself in doing the work of his country, for he died at what for him the comparatively early age of sixty-two—to a large extent a victim of too keen a sense of responsibility and of a system of excessive centralisation. His sister Yajna had married Corona; and when at the death of Alcyone, his son Mercury succeeded to the throne, Corona’ s advice and remarkable organising power were invaluable to the new King, who with that assistance endeavoured so to divide the labour that everything could be carried on efficiently without making the royal position impossibly onerous.

In this strenuous life of hard work there are no prominent scenes calling for special description, yet it was distinctly a life of training, a life in which definite progress was made.

The chart of this life is a small one, for it includes only those whose intervals are always short—those who, if they were not constrained by the fact of membership in the group of Servers, would apparently never be absent more than six or seven centuries.

Those whose tendency is towards an interval of about twelve hundred years miss this incarnation altogether, but reappear in that which follows.

Life XIII

The next life of our hero introduces us for the first time in this series to ground which is now part of the United Kingdom, though the surrounding conditions were then so different that localities can be recognised only with difficulty. There were no British Isles then; the North Sea, the Thames was a tributary of Rhine, which flowed into a northern ocean somewhere near the Shetland Isles; one could walk dryshod to Norway, to Spain or to China, and the inhabitants had all the advantages and all the disadvantages that attach to being part of a great continent.

It is to part of what is now the island of Ireland that our story directs our attention. Most of that country was then a kind of plateau of no great appearance than at present day. The population, which was but scanty, clustered round the mountains, or rather gathered in sheltered spots on the southern side of each mountain. A somewhat curious affect was produced by this arrangement; every hill which was high enough to give adequate shelter had its little township, built on the lines of the modern garden-city; each house on its own bit of ground, all religiously facing south and lying open to whatever sunshine there was. But the unsheltered spaces between the hills were either mighty forests or desolate wind-swept downs. The ruling race, to which all our characters belonged, showed by its habits that it had come from a southern clime; its members had an unconquerable love for sunshine and fresh air. It was a branchlet of that fifth Atlantean sub-race from whose ranks had been selected those who were led into Asia by the Manu to become the ancestors of the Aryan race. Its people shared the country with an earlier race—smaller and darker men, with broad Mangolian faces, who lived in villages of huts within the forests, and supported themselves partly by hunting and partly by a very primitive form of agriculture. In earlier days these forest villages had been continually at war with one another, and raids were frequently made in which the flocks of goats which represented almost their only form of wealth were driven off by the victors as spoils of war. But since the white race had invaded the country, they had insisted upon the maintenance of peace, and compelled the men of each village to confine themselves within certain prescribed limits, appointing from among the people a captain or headman who was held responsible for the maintenance of order among his fellows, and for collecting from them a small yearly impost as an acknowledgement of the over-lordship of the new-comers. Under this new regime the villages of that earlier race had become prosperous, their population and their primitive forms of wealth increasing rapidly. They accepted the domination of the white strangers without difficulty, believing them to be a semi divine race, the recipients of many favours from their wholly divine ancestors, and holding them to be invincible in battle. The while men were kindly in their bearing towards their inferiors, but there was little intercourse between the races, and almost no intermarriage, though there was no law to forbid it. The country, though wet, was fertile, and not over-populated, and the tastes of both its races were simple, so that there was general contentment and much rather primitive comfort.

Not many decades before this time the white race had moved into the country from the south, and had assumed the position of superiors over the darker race practically without opposition. Their leaders had been, as ever, a King and a Priest—men regarded as to a large extent set apart from their followers, so that their families intermarried in preference to seeking spouses among the ranks of their followers. Thus two great lines were formed, and from their younger branches a nobility sprang into existence. The offices were hereditary, and at the time that our story opens the holders were Mars and Surya. King Mars had married Vesta, a cousin of Surya; but Surya himself had gone farther afield to find his consort, having been led thereto by a strange and haunting vision. Among this race visions were common, and much importance was attached to them; and this one constantly recurred, and so made itself known as a veritable message from the Gods. Surya was but ten years old when it came to him, or rather when he first clearly remembered it. In his sleep it seemed to him that he was floating high in the air, looking down upon a city of marvellous beauty —a city larger than he had ever seen with his physical eyes, or imagined as possible in his physical brain; a city on the shore of a great lake, in which near the shore there was an island covered with glorious white buildings which seemed to his entranced gaze like the very courts of heaven itself.

Yet not to the wondorous island he was drawn, but to a large, low rambling house, which stood in an extensive park of its own a little way outside the city. And in that park he saw a little girl perhaps eight years old—a little girl of rare beauty, whom he some how knew quite well and loved with an intensity of affection which astonished him. She stood all alone at the edge of a tank with massive stone walls, watching the sporting of some bright hued fish that dwelt therein, and even as he floated low to see her face more clearly she leaned over too far, and fell with a cry of freight into the water.

Obviously she could not swim; there was no one near to help her, and the wall rose sheer and smooth several feet above her head; but before she could sink a second time Surya some how found himself in the water beside her, holding her up, and trying to swim with her across the tank to some steps which ran down to the level of the water. It was a tremendous strain upon for she threw her arms round his neck and impeded his motions; indeed she all but drowned him when after a last despairing effort he felt his feet touch the steps. Some how they staggered up them, and threw themselves upon the grass; and the girl, who had not yet unwound her arms from about his neck, looked deeply into his eyes and gave him a long, loving kiss. And then—he woke in his own bed in far away Ireland with that kiss still upon his lips, and his clothes all dripping with water of that Central Asian tank!

So excited was he by the adventure, and so certain that it was a real occurrence and no mere vision, that he rushed at once to the room of his father and mother and waked them to hear his story, showing his dripping garments in proof of it. They were much amazed, and could not comprehend how such a thing might be; yet they did not disbelieve, for in their race there were traditions of rare events not quite unlike this - of priests who had the power of appearing and disappearing mysteriously, of showing themselves at a distance from their sleeping bodies, and sometimes even of striking or of saving men who were physically faraway. And

Surya’ s mother was already predisposed to believe wondrous things of this noble and fearless son of hers; so, like another mother in later history, she kept all these tings and pondered them in her heart. But Surya wondered greatly how he knew that girl so well, and loved her so intensely, and even then as a little boy he vowed that to her and to no other should his life be devoted—that she and no other should be his wife when he grew up to manhood.

The memory of his strange adventure remained fresh and clear-cut in his mind; and as he had some skill in drawing, he drew several portraits of the little girl, and also made a drawing of the tank and the house which he had seen. He had no idea in what part of the world these places were situated, nor could his father the Chief Priest help him in discovering this, for though the priests were the principal depositories of the knowledge of the nation, geography was not a strong point among them.

But though he did not know where she lived, he thoroughly believed in the physical existence of the heroine of the story, and resolved that when he became a man he would find her. He was a boy of many day-dreams, and she always played a large part in them. He liked much to be alone, and often spent hours quite contentedly walking or lying in the sunlight, and telling himself interminable stories in which he and she passed through all sorts of stirring adventures. By thus constantly dwelling upon her perfections he naturally fanned the flame of his love, and at last he resolved to make a mighty effort to leave his body and reach her once more by definite materialisation. He had long before questioned his father as to the possibility of doing this; but the High Priest had dissuaded him from attempting it, saying that such power could only be attained by a long and severe training which could be safely undertaken only by an adult of great strength of will, and not by a boy of tender years.

But at last his yearning became too strong to bear; and so one night, after an earnest prayer to the Sun-Deity, he cast himself upon his bed and entered into the great endeavour, determined to succeed or die in the essaying. After long strain it seemed to him that something snapped, and at once he was free from the body and floating in the air. Startled at first, he quickly steadied himself, and as he fixed his will once more strongly upon his objective he began to move with great rapidity. He retained enough self-command to notice the direction of his flight, orienting himself by the stars, as he had been taught to do in the physical world. The journey seemed to him a long one, and before its rushing ended the stars which had been just rising upon his horizon when he started were well beyond the zenith, showing that he must have swept round a quarter of the circumference of the globe. And then—to him all unexpectedly—he came out into rosy dawn, and saw by its sweet light the city and the island that he knew so well.

Quickly he found the long low house, the garden and the tank; beside the latter he alighted, and stood wondering what to do, yet willing strongly that his love might come to him. And so, surely enough, she presently did, for she came running through the garden and dancing lightly over the grass, followed more soberly at a little distance by a stately yet kindly lady who was evidently her mother.

His girl friend had grown taller and more beautiful, and when she caught sight of him she stopped for a moment, startled, and then rushed towards him with a cry of glad recognition and threw her arms around his neck. With a wild out-flow of long pent-up feeling he held her to his breast, amply rewarded now for the weary waiting of the last four years; and it seemed to him that earth could hold nothing more of bliss for him, if but that moment might be prolonged for ever. But all too soon it passed, for her mother came up and stood looking at the children with an expression of intense though by no means unfriendly amazement. Releasing him from her embrace, but still holding him by the hand, the little girl excitedly poured out a torrent of information in a language entirely unknown to him, and the smiling mother drew him into her arms and kissed him warmly. He spoke to her in terms of respectful salutation, such as he had been taught to use to the great ladies of his own land, but it was evident that his new friends could no more understand his language than he had comprehended theirs. The mother spoke to him with several different intonations, probably trying various languages, but none of them conveyed anything to him; and seeing this, she took him by the hand and led him towards the house, her daughter clinging closely to his arm on the other side.

While full of the deepest happiness, Surya was acutely conscious of the fact that he was attired only in a single night robe, while his companions wore garments of rich materials which, though quite unlike any he had ever seen, were obviously their ordinary costume. But he was fortunately consoled by the thought that, as they must regard him as a foreigner from some unknown country, they might suppose th e customs of that country in the way of dress to be simpler than their own. The house into which they brought him was more sumptuously furnished than those to which he was accustomed, and when presently they took him into a room where food was served, he found both the provision and the mode of eating strange to him. He was an observant boy, and by covertly watching the methods of his entertainers he was able to get through the meal creditably, and he found the victuals palatable, though their flavors were entirely new to him. Just as breakfast was finished, a tall commanding-looking man entered, and was effusively greeted by the little girl, who at once presented her boy friend to him. He first placed his hand on Surya’ s head as though in blessing in his eyes with a piercing look that seemed to read into his soul. The scrutiny was satisfactory, for he drew him to his breast, enfolded him in warm embrace, and then again blessed him. He also spoke to him in several languages, but in none which he could comprehend; and after listening to a long story excitedly told by the girl with occasional confirmatory interjections from the mother, he smiled kindly upon Surya, and left the room.

The little girl then drew him out into the garden, guided him to an exquisitely carved stone seat, sat down beside him and began to try to establish some sort of communication with him. First she pointed to herself and recited several times a word which he took to be her name, and she seemed much pleased when he repeated it after her. Then she pointed to him, and evidently asked his name; he spoke it, and after several trials she was able to say it accurately.

Then she began to point to various objects, evidently giving him the names of them in her tongue, and he picked them up quickly, although the intonation of the language was quite different from his own. Many other words she made him learn, at whose meaning he could only guess but in the course of two or three hours he had accumulated quite a number of detached words and several little phrases about the significance of which he was by no means certain. Presently the mother came out to them; and when she heard what they were doing, she joined in the attempt to explain.

Suddenly, while all the three were deeply interested in his efforts to pronounce some unusually difficult word, an extraordinary feeling overwhelmed him; he sank into a few moments of curious whirling rushing unconsciousness, and awakened out of it to a sense of weakness and lassitude such as he had never before known. He found himself on his own bed at home in Ireland, with his own mother bending over him, evidently much perturbed at his condition.

It was some minutes before he was able to speak, and then he asked faintly where the little girl was. At first no one understood him, but presently his mother realised that he must be referring to what they had called his dream. He was anxious to tell his story, yet felt too weak to talk; seeing that, his mother soothed him, and in a little while got him to sleep again; but if during that sleep he returned to his friends in the garden, he had no recollection of such return when he awoke. Clearly his violent and persistent efforts had overstrained some part of the brain mechanism, for it was several months before he completely recovered, and his father and mother insisted that he should promise never to risk his life and his reason in the attempt to force his way where it was manifestly not natural that he should go. He promised, though reluctantly, but declared his unalterable conviction that his young love really existed, and his intention to search the world for her. He carefully wrote down the words and sentences that he had learnt, and asked all the learned people he encountered whether they recognised them; but none ever did.

Three years later, however, there came into that land a traveller of unknown race, who did not understand the language of the country; and because none could converse with him, they brought him to the Chief Priest as the most erudite of their people, hoping that he might be able to communicate with him. The Chief Priest was helpless; but Surya, who happened to be present, thought that he recognised the intonation, and tried upon the stranger some of his well-remembered words and phrases. The traveller’ s face brightened immediately, and he began to speak rapidly in the very tongue of Surya’ s friends. Of course, Surya could not follow him, but he obtained leave from his father to receive the stranger as a guest, and devoted many hours each day to working hard with him until each knew a good deal of the other’ s language, and they were able to exchange ideas.

He gathered that far to the south, on the shores of another sea, were many who spoke their tongue; and because the men of race had not infrequently travelled to the Mediterranean, and some had even settled there, he hoped by going there to find someone who knew perfectly both that language and his own. So he asked his father’ s permission to make that journey; but his father suggested that he should wait a year, until he had fully entered the priesthood.

He assented to this, but did not forget his resolve; and so in due course he found his way to a certain great southern city, where he had no difficulty in obtaining a teacher who could do what he wanted.

Now for the first time he acquired some definite information about the country of his experience; he met with men who knew the city and the island which he described so minutely, and were able to give him some idea of its direction and its distance—both of which agreed very closely with the results of such calculation as he had been able to make from his childish observations of the stars. But he told no one the details of those strange early visions or visits, keeping the memory of them to himself as a sacred thing. Only before he returned home he learnt the Manoan language so that he could speak it like his own, in preparation for the visit which he intended to make to Central Asia.

His father and mother were reconciled to his undertaking this long journey, though the latter begged him not to go quite yet, but to postpone it for a few years. The date of his departure was eventually determined by yet another vision, though it was of a different kind from the others. This time he found himself not in the garden but in the house, and in an inner room of it which he had not previously visited. He had had no special intention of going to Manoa that night (though the thought was always in his mind); nor had he any recollection of the journey; simply he found himself watching and listening to a conversation between his beloved (now a tall and beautiful woman) and her mother, and his newly-acquired familiarity with the language enabled him to understand every word. He gathered that they were discussing an offer of marriage which had been made by some suitor of high rank, who was evidently considered specially eligible. The mother was half-heartedly pressing his suit, or at least enlarging upon its advantages; but the daughter would have none of it, and declared that she had no wish to marry. After the affair had been presented from various points of view, and the young lady still remained uninterested, her mother remarked:

“My dear daughter, I know exactly what you are feeling; you have never lost the memory of your spectre-suitor, and you cannot bear the idea of unfaithfulness to him. I sympathise deeply, yet I also feel that we have absolutely no certainty that he really existed, that he still lives, that he on his part is faithful to you. Even if he lives, even if he still loves you, he may have been forced into a marriage in his own country; we know nothing of its customs; we do not even know where it is. Is it well to sacrifice your life to what may after all have been only some strange kind of unusually vivid dream? You know that your father and I wish to see you settled, and you will never have a better offer than this.”

The daughter admitted that her heart was entirely devoted to her spectre-boy, and said quite frankly that though she did not know whether she should ever see him again, she would rather submit to perpetual spinsterhood than marry any one else, for she felt that the boy she had twice so strangely seen was her own mate. Her mother acknowledged that the dictates of her own instinct agreed entirely with her daughter’ s decision, though on the physical plane such a course should not be defended as sensible. “If only he would come to us again,” she said,”we could perhaps discover something more about him, so that we might have a comprehensible reason to give for at least asking for a delay.”

Surya heard all this, and burned with eagerness to manifest himself; but he remembered his promise to his mother, and so was torn between two duties. Suddenly it occurred to him to wonder why he was obviously invisible to his friends, though he could himself hear and see quite clearly. Without understanding the detail of the matter, he saw that the circumstances of his presence were somehow different, and he instinctively felt that even if he had been free to make the same effort as before, it could not have been successful. So he turned his attention in another direction. He had lately been studying what we should now call mesmerism, and so it came naturally to him to turn to account his newly acquired knowledge. He exerted all his strength to impress upon the mind of the girl the fact of his presence, and in a few moments he saw that he was succeeding. She started, turned towards him, and peered earnestly into the shadows in the corner where he stood. He redoubled his efforts, throwing his whole soul into his fiery glance and directly afterwards she uttered a loud cry: “Mother, he is here! Do you not see him?”

She rushed towards him, but her outstretched arms passed trough him, and she cried:

“He is but a spectre indeed; I cannot touch him; alas, he must be dead!”

With all the strength he impressed upon her the reply: “Not dead, but living! Within a year I shall come to claim you.”

And she heard and understood, and eagerly repeated his words to her mother. Then he turned the current of his will upon the mother, and for a moment she saw him too; then the strain told upon him, and he vanished from their sight. But he was still able to watch long enough to see them fall into each other’ s arms, weeping tears of joy, and to hear them speak of his noble appearance, and say that he had more than fulfilled the promise of his boyhood. Then he returned to his body, woke up in great excitement and high resolve, and as soon as it was light went to his father and mother and told them what he had seen and heard. They agreed with him that his destiny was manifest, and that the will of the Sun-God had clearly declared itself in this matter. Indeed, his father publicly related the circumstances at one of the great religious gatherings as a gracious indication of the interest of the Deity in his worshippers, and he sent his son upon his long journey with an equipment worthy of his rank.

It seems evident that on his first visit to Manoa as a little boy, he was at first in his astral body in the usual way, and probably materialised himself by drawing himself what was needed from the surrounding ether; it may be that his intense desire to help was sufficient to enable him to perform that feat, or it may be that he was specially assisted by some passer-by, or some Great One who was watching his struggle. The fact that when he awoke his physical garments were wet, seems to suggest that he borrowed matter from his own etheric double; yet we have no instance of such rapid action at such a distance. On the second occasion it is clear that he tore away much of the matter of his own etheric double, and thereby injured himself so that it took him weeks to recover. This however enabled him to maintain the materialisation for a much longer time than is usual, to eat and drink, and to repeat clearly the words which were spoken to him. On his third visit he did not materialise at all, but mesmerised the mother and daughter into into believing that they saw him.

With such methods of physical transit as were available, it took him almost a year to reach the city of Manoa, but when he arrived he soon found his way to the house and garden which he knew so well; and a very curious sensation it was to stand physically where before he had been only astrally.

Inquiry in the neighbourhood had obtained for him the name of the lady of the house, so he boldly asked for her. When he was ushered into her presence, she recognised him immediately, and welcomed him with profound joy and many exclamations of wonder. Her daughter was instantly sent for, and when she entered the room she sprang into his arms with a glad cry of triumph and love. He was at once on the footing of a friend of the family, or rather of an honoured member of it; and he lost no time in inquiring about their side of the amazing story of their previous meetings. It agreed exactly with his own recollection in every particular; but naturally they had also to tell of the shock of stupefaction with which they had seen him vanish on his first and second visits. They had never doubted that he was a real living man, though only the daughter had been unshakably certain that she would one day meet him in the flesh.

Presently the father came in, and Surya was introduced to him; indeed, it was then that for the first time he really explained who he was, and from what country he came, for before they had all been too busy discussing his previous appearances to do anything else than take him for granted. His account of himself was accepted as eminently satisfactory, though his prospective mother in law looked very sober when she understood how far away from Manoa her daughter’ s new home would be. Surya was careful to explain that in Ireland there was less of luxury than in Manoa, and that their life was lived chiefly in the open air; but of all this his lady-love recked less than nothing, caring for naught else now that she had at last found the lover who for so many years had been to her halfmyth, and yet at the same time the most vivid fact in her consciousness. Naturally she had filled up by her imagination the numerous gaps which inevitably existed in her knowledge of him; and she was surprised to find in how many cases she had guessed exactly right, so that eventually they began to see that some sort of clairvoyance or intuition had guided her when she thought she was giving rein to her maiden fancies.

There had been so manifestly an intervention of divine power in their wondrous story that it never even occurred to the parents to object to the departure of their daughter to a far-away and unknown country; but they did plead for some delay, and eventually it was decided that the marriage should take place immediately, but that the newly-weded pair should reside in the bride’ s old home for a year, especially in the hope that the first child might be born under that roof. Surya gladly agreed to this, and despatched one of his suite to return to Ireland and bear to his mother news of his safe arrival, his marriage and his plans, and ask her to be ready in a year’ s time to welcome her daughter-in-law. The twelve months passed quickly, and before they were over the hopes of elders were fulfilled, for a noble son was born-our old friend Electra.

When the time came for farewells were said, and the young couple, with their new born baby, started on their way into what was to all intents and purposes a new world to the bride; yet so perfect was her love that she faced it without a qualm. The journey was prosperous, and a right royal welcome was accorded to the happy pair—literally royal, for Surya’ s parents had told the romantic story, and the King of the country had been greatly interested in it, and invited the travellers to pay him a visit. This was done, and he received them with every mark of favour, and would have had them stay long at his court; but Surya wished to get his wife home again quickly, to put her under the care of his mother. Soon Electra had a little sister—Mizar, whom he had loved so well long ages ago, whom he was to love no less in the life now before him.

Thus it will be seen that Aryan blood was introduced into the family of Chief Priest; and they further intermingled with the royal blood of their own country, for the King continued his friendship to wards those whom he felt to be favoured of the Deity. He drew th em into closer relations with him; his eldest son in due course married Mizar, while two of his daughters wedded sons of Surya, Electra himself taking to wife Brihat, and Rama espousing Vulcan. Electra and Brihat had three sons and four daughters, and the eldest of their family was our Alcyone, who was thus born directly into the succession to the position of High Priest, and had furthermore the advantage of a close alliance with the family of the reigning monarch. The work of the priesthood was very interesting, for it comprised not only the religious teaching of the people but the education of the children. All children in the kingdom learnt to read and write a curious rounded script, but hardly any of them except the Priests made much use of the sun, which they worshipped as the source of all life and the symbol or manifestation of the Deity. Daily hymns were chanted to him at sunrise and sunset, and at certain seasons of the year special festivals were celebrated in his honour.

Electra was a wise father, and contrived to retain the full confidence of his little boy, so that they were always very happy together. Alcyone was a great favourite also with his grandfather Surya and his grandmother Dhruva, and he loved nothing better than to sit at the feet of the latter while she told him wonderful stories of the city where his father was born, of its wide streets and its magnificent buildings, and above all of the marvellous beauty and serenity of the mighty Temples, built who knows how long ago by the hands of giants and godlike men of the old upon the mysterious White Island.

“Why have we no such temples here, grandfather?” he asked Surya one day.

And the great Priest answered:

“My boy, each race has its own customs, and its own ways of worshipping God; and so long as they acknowledge Him, it matters but little how. We have no temples because our forefathers have taught us that our God is everywhere, and that we need not set apart one time or one place more than another in which to serve Him, because our love to Him should be always in our hearts, so that every grove or field or house is to us a temple of His service, and every day a holy day upon which to do Him honour. We think that the trees and the sky which He has made are grander than any human work, and so we make them the pillars and the roof of our temple. For the same reason we have few ceremonies, because we think that our whole life should be one long ceremony of devotion to His service. You donot remember how, soon after you were born, you were carried up the hill in the early dawn to the great alter-stone near the summit, and laid upon it to await the morning kiss of our Lord the Sun, and how, as the first glad beam of rosy light fell upon you, I blessed you in His name and offered to Him as a sacrifice the life long devotion of your strength to His service, and of your body as a channel for His love. And if you so choose, later on there will be yet another ceremony which will dedicate you in a new sense to a still fuller service, when you become a Priest like me and like your father.”

Alcyone was satisfied; but he nevertheless resolved that as soon as he grew old enough he would travel to far-away Central Asia, and visit the great city with which his fate seemed so strangely linked. This resolve he duly carried out, for he made that journey, bearing gifts from King Mars of Ireland to the Emperor of Manoa, and he spent two years in the city which long centuries before he had helped so much in building. Perhaps it was this latter fact, or perhaps it was only the many stories which he had heard about it, which caused him to feel that nothing there was strange to him, but that he was as much at home as upon his own hill-sides. His great grandmother was still alive, and delighted to see him, and to show him the tank from which his grandfather saved his grandmother, the room in which his father was born, and all such mementoes of earlier days as very old people delight in. She was much pleased with him, and heaped upon him presents of great value, so that he returned home after two year’ s stay in Manoa a far richer man than he had been on his arrival. When he reached home, it was he who had tales to tell to his grandmother Dhruva—tales of the country which forty years before she had left for the sake of love, yet had never forgotten even for a day.

Soon after his return he married his cousin Mercury, with whom he had been in love ever since her birth, or at least since the day when, himself a tiny boy, he had been taken up the hill by his mother to see the consecration of the infant daughter of his uncle Rama. Not long after this came the ceremony of his own consecration and initiation into the full mysteries of the priesthood— an occasion of deep import, the memory of which abode with him throughout the rest of his life. The scene was, as ever, the great prehistoric alter-stone near the summit of the mountain which their repeated ceremonies had made so sacred; and the moment was, as before, the falling of the first sunbeam of a new day upon the brow of the candidate, crowned with roses and lilies, to typify at the same time the love of God which he must preach, and the purity of the life which he must lead. The ceremony was performed by his grandfather Surya, and in the course of it he delivered the following exhortation:

“This is an important occasion in your life—perhaps the most important in this life, because it admits you to the brotherhood of those whose duty it is to keep alight the fire of devotion in the hearts of the people, and to hold up before them the shining light of a good example. See to it that you never falter in these duties, that you exercise worthily the power which I have this day entrusted to you.

Remember always that this life is but one of many lives—one step on a vast staircase, leading up to the portal of the Temple of our Lord the Sun. When at last all the steps are trodden, when you shall enter the glorious portal, a splendid destiny lies before you. Servants of the servants of God shall you be, to help them on their way to Him, to guide their feet into the path of peace and happiness. “But for an office so magnificent the preparation is arduous.

For many lives in the past you have lived among us, among the Kings and Priests of the earth who are your true spiritual kin, in order that their spirit might permeate you, that you might become one in the heart and mind with them; for a few lives yet you will do this, but before the end there must be times of trial, lives in which you stand alone and away from us, lives spent in lower walks of life and among those who are less evolved; for only so can final debts be paid, only so can uttermost sympathy be developed, only so can be gained the power which enables a Prince of Life and Death to pour out his own life in final self-sacrifice for the saving and the blessing of the world. For ever shines our Lord the Sun; keep your mind ever fixed on Him, and learn to see Him through the darkest earth - born clouds, so that His reflection in you may be ever steadfast, and in you His people may find an ever-open gate through they may reach His feet; so that through you they may be saved from their sin and sorrow and ignorance, through you the little streamlets of their lives may reach at last the shoreless sea of His infinity, the ocean of eternal bliss which is the life of God.”

Alcyone and Mercury had nine children - all of them characters whom we have met many times before. His first was Sirius—a daughter this time; but his eldest son was Corona. In due time Surya passed away, and Electra became the Chief Priest; and at about the same period Mars also died, and Viraj succeeded to the throne, thus making Alcyone’ s aunt Mizar queen of the country.

Now that our hero was next in succession to the office of High Priest, he frequently acted for his father, and ranked next to him in power and importance. The residence of the Chief Priest was not at the capital, so the civil and religious centre of the country were not the same—much as, in England, Canterbury is really the seat of the ecclesiastical head of the Church, though London is the capital of the country. There was, however, no suggestion of rivalry between the two powers, as each had its own sphere, with which the other did not interfere.

The spot where the capital city stood in those days is not now identifiable, for it has been whelmed beneath the sea in the changes which took place at the same time of the sinking of Poseidonis; but the mountain where Surya officiated still remains, and is now known as Slieve-la-mon, in Tipperary. The Priests of the Sun knew much of magic, and were well acquainted with the various orders of the nature-spirits, as well as the greater Angels; and it was Surya himself who first gave to Slieve-la-mon the sacred character which it bears even to the present day. The arrangements as they exist there now were made by the Priests of the Tuatha-de-danaan just before the Milesian conquest; but it is to Surya that the inception of the great scheme is due, for he first conceived the idea of establishing in the country a number of centres from and through which power might be radiated. Electra and Alcyone understood these plans and each in his turn carried on the magnetisation, and handed on the tradition to his successors.

The life of the times was spacious and leisurely, for there was plenty of room in the land and every one had plenty of time, and so it often happened that such Priests as felt so disposed climbed the hill and sat in meditation near the altar-stone. The common folk came there but rarely, though sometimes one who had some trouble, or some difficult problem to solve, would sit alone in that sacred spot and wait for an inspiration, taking what came into his mind on such an occasion as the response of an oracle, as suggested by the guardian spirits of the place. This custom is eminently characteristic of the whole attitude of these people. Their entire life was permeated with the knowledge that close around them and in intimate relations with them was another world, unseen, yet ever present and always to be taken into account in every word and action. Indeed, that world was hardly regarded as unseen, so frequently did some token of its presence obtruded itself upon the physical senses.

The dead were not treated as absent, but as present in a slightly different way; it was fully recognised that many of them remained very closely in touch with mundane affairs, and were for some time after death deeply interested in the health of their friends, the progress of their crops, the well-being of their horses and cattle.

The living did not fear the dead, but regarded them with a certain reverence as possessing new powers and having in some respects a wider outlook. Sometimes people invoked a departed relation, but it was considered a dangerous and selfish act, and was discouraged by the Priests, who taught that when the dead could speak, they would try to do so, and that when they did not, it was rash and presumptuous of the living to thrust petty earthly concerns upon them. Nevertheless, manifestations of some sort from the departed were by no means uncommon; and, as the race was on the whole distinctly psychic, there were many who constantly received strong impressions as to the wishes of the dead, and these were almost invariably carried out.

The existence of Angels and nature-spirits was universally accepted—indeed, to most of the people it was a matter of first-hand knowledge, for such beings were often seen, and all sorts of strange adventures with them were on record. I have mentioned that though every one knew how to read and write, but little use was made of these accomplishments. To a large extent their place was taken by story-telling, which was elaborated to a degree of which under modern conditions we have no conception—elaborated until it became both a custom and a science. They had no such things as balls or garden-parties, but instead of them they had what can only be described as orgies of story-telling. The neighbours met somewhere or other for this purpose every night, usually taking the houses of the district in turn, and the party settled down round the fire and composed themselves to listen or to narrate. There was a vast store of legend and of supposed history—mainly the personal adventures of certain great heroes—and another huge department of accounts of angelic or fairy intervention; all these were recognised and accepted tales, which had to be told according to tradition, from which no departures would be tolerated, and the persons who knew most of these, and had a reputation for reciting them dramatically, were sure of an enthusiastic reception anywhere. Besides these classics, there were constantly new narrations of present-day adventures and happenings—stories which had their vogue, and then either died out and were forgotten or took their place among the received body of such romances.

Alcyone himself had some experiences of that kind, having seen the fairies at their gambols more than once; but the great fairy story of the family was a visit paid to some sort of underworld by his youngest daughter Yajna. When the child was about seven years old she disappeared one day, and though the distracted family searched the whole hill they could find no trace of her. Wild beasts, though rare, had not been entirely eliminated, and the first fear was that she had fallen a victim to some of them. But there was no evidence for this theory, and no such creatures had been seen in the neighborhood for years, so presently suspicion took another turn, and it began to be whispered that perhaps the fairies had taken her, as she was an especially beautiful child, and it was known that in the past such children had been coveted and captured by nature spirits. Her father immediately employed certain arts of conjuration with which he was acquainted, and soon obtained confirmation of this surmise, and a promise that his daughter should be restored to him unharmed if he would seek her in a dell which was indicated by his informant. He promptly repaired to the appointed place, and found the little girl asleep under a tree.

When aroused, she told a strange tale. When wandering on hill, quite near her own home, she had come upon a little hollow in the hillside which she had never seen before, and had found in it the entrance to a cave. She had hesitated whether to go farther, because of the darkness; but while she stood looking a handsome boy came out of the cave, and with a deep bow invited her to enter.

She was flattered by the deference with which he seemed to regard her, and asked him who he was, and where he lived. He replied that the cave was the entrance to his home, and that he would gladly show her the beautiful gardens which were but a little way within.

She wondered much, but curiosity triumphed, and she put her hand trustingly in that of her guide, and let him lead her into the darkness.

He seemed to be able to see quite well, and led her unhesitatingly forward; and after walking for a few minutes they came, quite suddenly and round a corner, upon a hall so vast that it was as though they were again in the open air. Yajna had no recollection of seeing the sky, but had the impression of a pleasant warm light like sunlight. They seemed to be in a garden, full of the loveliest flowers and trees, yet none of the flowers o trees were exactly like any which she had ever seen before. The boy led her forward through the garden, and presently they came upon a number of other children, who seemed to be playing some sort of a game, in which both she and her guide joined; but she was never able to explain quite what the game was, except that it was not like any played on earth. The merry party played and danced for hours without the slightest feeling of fatigue, and varied their proceedings by wandering hand in hand among the gorgeous vegetation, and on one occasion plunging into a crystal lake and splashing about in deliciously warm water. Yajna was deliriously happy, and earnestly wished that her brothers and sisters and friends could share her enjoyment; indeed she asked her boy friend whether she might come again and bring them all with her. He laughed joyously, and said that they would be heartily welcome if they could find the way— a cryptic utterance which Yajna did not understand, but she asked no more, lest she should seem rude. Nevertheless, in the midst of all her play curious little twinges of longing for her mother obtruded themselves into her mind—doubtless the result of the anxious thoughts of Mercury while the search was going on.

Suddenly there came to them thorough the garden a shining form to whom the playing children paid great deference; he spoke earnestly to the boy who had befriended Yajna, and then passed rapidly away. The boy called to Yajna, and told her that her father wanted her, and that he would take her to him. She ran to him at once, and he led her away from the garden, and up a curious stairway, which led them out among the roots of a great tree, and so into the old familiar world of daily life. But somehow that world seemed strangely dull, and the very sunlight itself looked pale after the golden light of the cave. The boy asked her to sit down beside him on the ground, and when she did so, he put his hands upon her shoulders and looked long into her eyes. His gaze was kind though compelling, and under it she found her sinking to sleep. Her last remembrance was that he stooped forward and kissed her as she sank to rest, and after that she knew no more until her father’ s touch awoke her.

She made repeated efforts to find the entrance to the cave, and the head of the stairway which came out among the roots of the tree, but could never come across the least trace of either, though she and her father and her uncle Naga spent many hours in the search. She was much impressed by what had happened to her, and tried again and again to get back into that beautiful underworld, but without success.

One day Naga sat meditatively upon the hill-side alone, and presently fell asleep in the sunshine. When he awoke he found standing near him a radiant young man who looked upon him benignantly; and it was some-how impressed upon him that this was the shining form of which his niece Yajna had spoken. He accosted the man, and asked if this were so, and the visitor smiled assent.

Naga continued:

“My little niece was so strongly attracted to the boy who led her into the garden, and it makes her sad not to see him again; cannot this be arranged? May they not play sometimes as they did on that occasion?”

The young man answered:

“Tell her that just as she loves that boy, so does he love her, and desires earnestly to see her; yet it is better that they should not meet, for they are of different worlds, and it is not meant that these worlds should intermingle too freely. If she came to us she would be lost to you; and she has work to do in your world. Believe me, things are best as they are. The boy will continue to love her and watch over her unseen. See I will call him.”

In a moment a handsome boy stood beside him. Naga held out his arms to him, and he came forward and gravely allowed him to embrace him; his look was full of longing, but he spoke no word.

Naga kissed him on the forehead, saying: “Take that as a greeting from her who loves you.”

Then in a moment the figures were gone, and Naga tried to persuade himself that it had been but a dream. Yet he well knew enough that it was something of the kind; and Alcyone and Yajna realised it too as soon as he told them the story. Many times Yajna dreamed of her boy friend, and often unexpected and inexplicable help was given to her in sundry childish difficulties; and she always attributed such help to his watchfulness. She clung tenaciously to his memory, and always said as a child that she meant to find him and marry him; but as she grew up the impression gradually wore off, and she finally married Muni—though she said that she did so only because he reminded her of her fairy boy more than any one else.

Alcyone lived as usual to a ripe old age, loved and reverenced by all the thousands who knew him.

Life XIV

Here we have another of those royal lives lived in Manoa referred to by Surya in his Irish Prophecy—which played so large a part in the development of our hero. He was not this time directly in the line of succession to the throne, for his father was Selene, the brother of the King; but he lived in the immediate neighbourhood of the palace, and Herakles, the eldest son of the monarch, was his greatest friend. Indeed, we have in this life a triumvirate of boys always together, as in the eleventh life; but as this time Alcyone’ s previous companions, Saturn and Electra, belonged to an earlier generation (Saturn being Alcyone’ s mother and Electra his uncle) the comrades of his adventures on this occasion were cousins, Herakles and Naga.

Happening to be of the same age, and being thrown a great deal together, these three very early became inseparables, and their friendship was cemented by a curious incident which occurred when they were about twelve years old. They were away in one of the outer suburbs of the city, having returned from a long ramble towards the mountains, when they came on an unpleasant scene. A number of rough boys and hobbledehoys of the lower classes were making fun of one who was obviously a foreigner—shouting insulting remarks after him, and even pelting him with mud. The victim was an old man, somewhat Mongolian in appearance, dressed in a strange foreign garb, and assisting himself as he walked by a curious carved ivory staff. He was hobbling along hurriedly, and trying to ignore the rudeness of his assailants; but when one of the bigger louts pushed another against him and almost threw him down, he turned upon them angrily and struck at them with his ivory staff. At this the young ruffians took to throwing stones instead of mud; and one of these, striking the old man on the head, felled him to the ground, and the crowd rushed in upon him.

Our boys had realised the condition of affairs when some distance away, and they at once started running towards the scene of conflict, and it was just at this crisis that they arrived. Though some of the roughs were much bigger and stronger than they, they atonce sprang upon them and tore them away from the old man.

The whole group was cowed by the suddenness of this unexpected assault, but after a few moments seeing only three small boys, they turned upon them savagely and made as if to attack them. Our three stood round the old man, who now sat up and looked about him in a dazed sort of way; and Herakles seized the ivory staff, and held it out towards the menacing crowd, shouting.

“I am the son of the King, and I order you instantly to retire.”

It is probable that some of the ruffians recognised him, for after a few hurried whispers they drew back sullenly, and the little crowd gradually melted away, so that our three boys were able to turn their attention to the elderly stranger whom they had rescued.

He thanked them effusively for their aid, saying that but for them he would have been seriously hurt and quite possibly killed, and he begged them to believe that he would not show himself ungrateful.

Herakles asked him to come at once to the palace, saying that he would lay a complaint directly before his father, but the old man thanked him and declared that he would rather go to his own home, and leave the punishment of his assailants to fate. “At least, then,”said Herakles,”let us accompany you to your home, if you will not come with us to the palace; for perhaps these rascals may still be lurking in the neighbourhood, and at any rate you seem to be weak and tired.”

The old man ( who has previously been known to us as Laxa) seemed touched by the kindness offered him, and allowed them to accompany him without further protest, Alcyone asking him to rest his hand on his shoulder and lean upon him as he walked. In this order, then, they passed through several streets, and at last came to a quarter of a city unknown to our three boys, and to a somewhat mean-looking house in it which the old man said was his home. He asked them to honour him by coming in, and glancing at one another, they accepted his offer, for they all felt considerable curiosity with regard to him. Naga, especially, had been examining the curious ivory stick, and had asked him a question about it, to which he gave a rather mysterious reply that it was of far greater importance than it appeared to be. So they were glad of the opportunity of entering his house, and they found that the inside by no means corresponded with the somewhat squalid outer appearance. The rooms were much larger than they had expected from so poor an entrance, and it was evident that this was by no means the abode of a poverty stricken person. There was not much in the way of furniture, but what there was seemed good in quality, though evidently of foreign manufacture; there were rich draperies of brilliant colouring, and many curiosities hanging on the walls and lying about. The old man noticed their evident curiosity, and seemed gratified by it.

“I suppose,”he said,”you did not expect such rooms in a house which seem so poor.”

When they assented he continued:

“I am not quite so poor as I find it advised to appear in a country where men of my race are despised and often ill-treated. I can assure you that you will find me not ungrateful for the great kindness which you have shown me, and perhaps my gratitude may not be so entirely worthless as at first sight it might seem to be.”

The boys understood but little of the meaning of his talk, but they saw that he intended to be friendly, and their native courtesy induced them to treat so old a man with deference. They were much interested in many curiosities in the room, and Laxa seemed pleased to show in many of the curiosities in the room, and Laxa seemed pleased to show them to them, and to explain their character and use. Presently he struck upon a beautifully-chased gong, and a servant appeared, to whom he gave orders to bring refreshment. The boys at first demurred, but the old man pressed food upon them so insistently that they were afraid of hurting his feelings by refusing, and consequently partook of some curious little sweet cakes with an odd spicy flavour quite new in their experience.

After talking for some time, he said;”Now what shall I do for you, to prove my gratitude to you for saving my life?”

Herakles protested against this, saying that they desired no reward for doing what any gentleman would have done, and other boys expressed full agreement with what he said.

“Very well, then,”said Laxa,”since you put it in that way I will not insult you by the offer of presents of any kind. Yet I will confer upon you the greatest benefit which it is in my power to give.

Poor as I appear, I hold high office in a powerful secret Society in my own land. Young as you are, and old as I am, you have yet stood by me and succoured me as if you were of my own race and family; therefore, as you will take no other reward from me, I will admit you as brothers of my Society; and let me tell you that although you may think that a matter of but little importance here in Manoa, you will find that wherever there is a man of my race he will be your servant because of what you have done to-day, when you show him the sign that I shall give you.”

The boys again glanced at one another, doubting whether these proceedings would meet the approval of their parents and leaders; but they were devoured by curiosity to know more about this strange old man and the secret Society of which he spoke, and they felt that at any rate they might as well see what, if anything, it required of them. So Herakles somewhat hesitatingly signified his consent, and the other two boys were quite ready to follow his lead.

Laxa then explained to him that long ago his country had been conquered by a neighbouring race - conquered finally by an act of treachery so gross that it made all really friendly relation between the races impossible for ever. He said that his people had become unwarlike through centuries of peace, and that they were unable to resist these foreign rulers; but they had banded themselves together in various secret societies, and by means of these they contrived to maintain themselves, and to keep the tyranny of the foreigners to some extent in check. Now that foreign dynasty had come under the rule of Manoa, and matters were much better than they had been previously; but it was the custom of the Empire of Manoa to recognise the ruling classes in the countries which came under its control, and as far as possible to continue them in offices which they had previously held. Consequently the hated conquering race still held their position as a sort of noble caste, and much of the power was even yet in their hands; so there was still much ill feeling, though the old hatred was to some extent dying down.

There were several of these secret societies, he said and they differed much in their aims; that to which he himself had the honour to belong was not one of those which resorted to the extreme measures of arson and assassination; it was rather a brotherhood all the members of which were sworn to help one another in the case of need, and to defend one another against aggression. He explained to them that as they were not citizens of his country it would mean to them only that they were sure of help from any of his countrymen whenever they might meet them; and that if they ever should in later life visit his native land it would at once put them on the footing of friends instead of strangers, and enable them to enter into the inner life of the people in a way which without such a passport would be entirely impossible. All that he asked of them was a pledge to regard and to treat as brothers one who could show them the sign of the brotherhood.

This they readily consented to do, and Laxa then proceeded to teach them a certain sign whereby they might recognise other members whenever they encountered them. He told them also that all members of this Society bore its seal, indelibly impressed upon the inside of their arm just below the armpit, and he asked them whether they were willing to bear this sign. Joyously scenting an unusual adventure, the boys eagerly agreed, and Laxa thereupon struck his gong again and when the servant appeared, gave him some directions in a strange language. As a result of these the man brought a little piece of apparatus which looked not at all unlike an ordinary seal, except that the pattern on the seal was marked out by a number of tiny needle like points. He asked them to bare their arms, and warned them that the imprint of the seal was for a few moments exceedingly painful; but that feeling he said, would soon pass away. He then performed his little operation, pressing the seal upon the arms of the boys in the place indicated and in rubbing upon the wound which was made a curious kind of paste.

The result of this operation was to impress upon the arm the sign of swastika in a beautiful crimson colour; but it naturally made the arm very painful, so the old man tied a small piece of wet cloth over the wound, and then sent them away, telling them that its effect would pass off and they would be all right in a day or two. He had exacted from them a promise to say nothing of their adventure to any one; and this promise they faithfully kept. As Laxa had said, after a day or two the inflammation passed away, and the only permanent result was a beautiful little piece of tattooing. Before leaving the old man the boys had asked whether they might call upon him again, and had been told that he would always be glad to see them ; so after a few weeks they repeated their visit, and were welcomed as before, Laxa telling them many exciting stories about his country.

This little adventure produced a considerable impression upon their minds—an impression which was deepened by the fact that a few weeks later they happened, upon one of their numerous expeditions together, to meet two men of Mongolian extraction— men who seemed to them to be of the same race as the old man whom they had rescued. It immediately occurred to them that here was an opportunity of putting his statements to the test; so Herakles made the mystic sign that had been taught to them. The men, who had looked stolid before, exhibited the liveliest interest, and instantly drew aside their cloaks and raised their arms so as to bring into view the sign of the swastika. As they had been instructed by the old man, our boys immediately responded by showing their signs in a similar way; and as soon as the Mongolians saw these they instantly knelt before them in the road with every appearance of reverence. Laxa had told the boys that the form in which he had impressed the sign upon them indicated their admission to the highest order of the society; and this difference in rank accounted for the great deference shown by the Mongolians, for on examination they saw that the mark borne by those men differed in certain respects from that which had been impressed upon them. This little incident, however, reassured them as to the genuineness of Laxa’ s statements, and they began to realize that the reward which he had given them was not so much a mere form as they had at first supposed. This fact, and the information which they gained from their old friend, gave them strong information which they gained from their old friend, gave them a strong interest in Mongolia and its people, and they determined that when they grew up they would contrive to travel in that part of the world and put their membership in this strange society to a practical test.

It was however a good many years later when the opportunity to do this actually came their way; but the old interest still survived, and they were eagerly desirous to take it. It was the custom of the country that scions of the royal house should hold the governorships of the provinces of the empire; and the opportunity which offered itself was that a governorship in a remote part of what is now the Chinese empire fell vacant when our hero had reached the age of twenty-two. Herakles, being the heir to the throne was precluded from taking any appointments of this nature; but Alcyone immediately applied for the post, and to the surprise of his father and his other relations, who regarded him as too young to undertake such responsibilities so far away from the capital. However he insisted upon his desire to take this office, and as there was no competition for it, it was eventually assigned to him; and Naga’ s eager application to go as his assistant was also admitted. Thus it happened that these two young princes set off together on a journey which was to have an unexpected termination.

They rode for many months before they reached the province over which Alcyone was to rule. When they did reach it their reception was far from satisfactory, for immediately upon crossing its borders their little party fell into an ambush, and was attacked from all sides by armed men whom they then supposed to be robbers. In the first wild rush Alcyone was struck down, and the Aryan soldiers were swept along in confusion for some distance. Then Naga, quickly assuming the command, rallied them and by a few quick evolutions enabled them to get room to re-form and to use their weapons. When this was done, they soon drove before them the armed mob which had attacked them, which seemed in a moment to fall into inextricable confusion and to begin to fight among themselves. These men were in full flight, and many of them were killed; but when the bodyguard got back to the place where Alcyone had fallen his body was nowhere to be seen. The prisoners whom they took were interrogated, but none of them would admit that he knew anything about it. A careful and exhaustive search was made of the whole neighbourhood, but no trace of the missing leader could be found, and they were at last reluctantly compelled to abandon all hope of recovering his body.

Enquiry showed that the attack had been engineered by one of the secret societies, of which the old man had spoken to them— the Society of the Blue Spear, which had the reputation of being the most extreme and the most anarchistic of all such organisations.

Naga, full of grief and rage at the loss of his leader, promptly made prisoners of all the men upon whose body the blue spear-head could be found, and drove them before him on his march. Presently he was met by a deputation representing the ruling classes of the province—a deputation which had come out to receive the new Governor, and appeared to be overwhelmed with grief and anxiety at the tragedy which had occurred. Naga told them shortly that unless and until Alcyone reappeared he himself proposed to take command, and while he was Willing to accept their professions of loyalty, it could be satisfactorily proved to him only by the discovery of the body of Alcyone, and the punishment of those who had slain him. The notables of the country assured him of their profound grief and of their thorough co-operation with him in his endeavour to sift the matter to the bottom.

All members who could be proved to belong to the Blue Spear Society were put under arrest, a searching investigation was made, and the existence of a widely extended plot was unearthed. It was discovered that the heads of this illicit organisation had concocted a plan to seize upon the government of the province and massacre the ruling classes; and as a preliminary they had thought it well to remove the new Governor.

But although the existence of the plot was freely admitted, no information could be obtained as to its result; the survivors of the attack declared that they themselves had been mysteriously attacked in turn, not only by the handful of Aryan soldiers, but by others whom they did not know. So many people separately told this strange story that it seemed as though there must be some foundation for it; but Naga could obtain no satisfaction, though he distinctly acquired the impression that the people whom he was cross-examining were speaking the truth as far as they knew it.

In this extremity it occurred to him to make use of the secret sign of the Society of the Crimson Swastika, and although that met with no response among the ruling classes who surrounded him, it quickly brought him recognition from others among the people who, as soon as they knew of his rank within their Society, immediately put their whole organisation at his command. They were able at once to explain the mystery of the failure of the Blue Spear attack.

They had themselves received information of it, and it was their members who had intervened and come at the critical moment to the assistance of the Aryan Guard. They were, however, unable to throw any light upon the disappearance of the body of Alcyone.

Profound as was his sorrow for his cousin, Naga felt the business of the state must be carried on. He therefore assumed the office of Governor, and despatched an embassy to Mars with a full report of all that had happened, and an intimation that he held the province on behalf of the King until he should be confirmed or until someone else should be appointed. Then he settled down to the business of administration, but he first of all made it a point to stamp out of existence the Blue Spear Society, and in this he invoked the services of the Crimson Swastika. He was successful up to a certain point; but he had the impression all the while that something was eluding him, for he frequently came across traces of some other hidden force of far greater power which he was yet unable to identify. He stated this impression quite plainly in the secret meetings of his Society, and its local leaders agreed with him, yet they were unable to solve the mystery, although the surface administration appeared to be most successful, and the affairs of the province moved smoothly and prosperously. This secret uncertainty caused Naga constant inward anxiety; he felt keenly the responsibility of his position and often longed to be able to discuss it with his old comrades, Herakles and Alcyone, and to advise with them as he would have done in the days gone by.

Matters went on in this way for some months, during which Naga’ s feeling of irritation increased all the while, for he found himself foiled again and again at various points by some intangible opposition. Finally this incomprehensible but ever recurring difficulty got upon his nerves to such an extent that he called a council of all the heads of the Crimson Swastika of the whole province—a secret meeting to which only those with the highest credentials were admitted. Before them he laid his case and recapitulated his reasons for feeling certain of the existence of some powerful organisation which was entirely unknown to them, although they supposed themselves to have spies in every part of the country, and to be thoroughly well informed as to what was going on. The heads of the organisation maintained that it was quite impossible that such a body could exist without their knowledge; yet they were unable to explain satisfactorily the indications which Naga pointed out to them.

He demanded that a more searching investigation should be made, and blamed the leaders for the inefficiency of their arrangements; but they were quite unable to suggest any further steps for the elucidation of the mystery.

Just as they had come to this unsatisfactory conclusion the guard of the door of the chamber came before them in a condition of manifest perturbation, declaring that there stood one at the door who gave the sign of the highest division of their order, although every member of that division in the country was already present in the hall. This seemed to imply the serious suggestion that the highest of their secrets were somehow in the hands of an outsider—something which could have happened only by quite incredible treachery. The janitor asked what he should do; but Naga quickly decided that a brother who held the supreme secrets must at least be admitted, whatever steps it might be necessary to take afterwards. The doors were consequently thrown open, and a cloaked stranger came in. As he advanced up the hall he made a sign which all present instantly recognised, before which they rose in reverence; and when at last he came before Naga he threw back his hood and showed the face of Alcyone. Naga received him with a shout of incredulous surprise, but as soon as he realised that his cousin really stood before him, introduced him as the true Governor to the rest of the assembly, and then installed him in the President’ s chair.

Alcyone of course had a story to tell—a very remarkable story.

He had been knocked down and stunned in the attack by the Blue Spears but when the members of the Crimson Swastika, who had in turn been watching the watchers, poured out upon the Blue Spears and overthrew them, he was just recovering sufficiently to make a sign which they instantly recognised. They promptly bore him away from the field into a place of concealment, but while they were doing so he again relapsed into unconsciousness. When he recovered for the second time he found himself being most carefully and respectfully tended, for in the mean time they had discovered his rank in the order from the peculiar form of the seal impressed upon his arm.

It was sometime before he recovered perfectly from the blow which he had received and in the course of that recovery he learnt much from his temporary host about the condition of affairs in the country, and especially about the relations between the various secret societies. He was in the house of a high official of his own Society, and that official was in possession of a great deal of information about the inner workings of the hostile organisation of the Spear. Alcyone was intensely interested by what he heard of this, and he found his host to be in possession of knowledge by means of which it might be possible for them to pass themselves off as members of the inner circle of the Spear. Alcyone immediately resolved to devote himself to the discovery of the truth about this iniquitous organisation, and it occurred to him that he had now an unexampled opportunity of following the matter up in person in a way that as governor of the province he could not possibly have done. Officially he was supposed to be dead, and consequently he was free to make use of his knowledge; whereas as governor his every movement would have been known, and he must have made all the most critical investigations by deputy. Though regretting the sorrow that he knew this would cause to Naga, he felt that it might well be for the best interests of his province that he should take advantage of the opportunity that had thus fallen in his way, and that he and his host should disguise themselves thoroughly and endeavour to follow up the clues so providentially placed in their hands.

They carried out this resolve; the succeeded in obtaining possession of the innermost secrets of the Spear, and they found that its strength lay in the existence of an inner circle which was unknown even to the rank and file of the Society—an inner circle which, while it directed that outer society, also acted upon its own account and struck with unerring secrecy and dispatch. It cost Alcyone a vast amount of time and trouble to trace all the ramifications of this conspiracy, but eventually he came to know by sight all of its leaders, and he gathered together against them an overwhelming mass of evidence. During all the time that these investigations were in progress he remained closely hidden, his identity absolutely unsuspected except by his original host, whom he had bound over by his oath of obedience to maintain rigid secrecy.

When at last he had all the information that he required and his schemes had fully matured, he came to the headquarters of his own Society with the intention of getting through it into communication with his cousin without as yet revealing himself to the outside public; and, as has been seen, he happened to arrive dramatically in the midst of a specially important meeting.

That same night orders were sent out for the arrest of all the members of that inner circle of the Spear, and in the course of a few days Alcyone and Naga had every one of them safely in their hands.

Only when that result was achieved did Alcyone declare himself to the country and take up the reins of government. The accused were brought before the proper courts and the whole story came out, and then for the first time the force which had all the time been thwarting Naga’ s best endeavours was discovered and exposed. The prisoners were duly brought before the appointed courts and condemned; the tyranny of the evil organisation was broken, and the land had rest from intrigue and conspiracy.

Alcyone and Naga spent many years in carrying on the administration of their province. Through their membership in the Society of the Crimson Swastika they gained the confidence and cooperation of the natives of the country, were able to meet them in intimate relations, and learned to understand their desires and aspirations.

Mars, seeing that he had here enthusiastic subordinates, who thoroughly understood their work, wisely left them to do as they would; and the result was great contentment and prosperity in that far-distant province.

Both the cousins had been betrothed before they left home, and deep had been the sorrow in Manoa at the news of the supposed death of Alcyone; correspondingly great also the rejoicing when it came to be known that the report was false. As soon as the great conspiracy was definitely broken up, and it became certain that the province had entered upon an era of unexampled peace and prosperity, the governor and his assistant arranged that their future wives should journey out to them, and the double wedding was celebrated with great pomp and much national rejoicing.

As the years rolled by large families grew up around them, and life went very well with them. Alcyone and Naga endeared themselves to all the people in their great province, travelling constantly about it, and obtaining private and detailed information as to the needs of the people through the organisation to which they belonged. On several occasions they paid visits to their relations at Manoa, Naga remaining in charge of the province when Alcyone was away, and Alcyone doing double work during the absence of Naga; but they were never both away simultaneously, until at the age of sixty Alcyone obtained from Herakles(who had by that time succeeded his father Mars) leave to retire and spend the rest of his days in his own country. Five years after his return Alcyone passed peacefully away, leaving behind him a record of efficient and useful work for his country.

Life XV

It would be perhaps fantastic to suppose that the curious adventure of the previous life were the direct cause of this, and yet there seems to be a certain amount of ground for such a supposition. The interest evoked in our hero and his cousins for the Turanian race and its allies was certainly due to their encounter with the old man, Laxa; and from that interest came Alcyone’ s ready offer to accept that remote governorship, and from that in turn the principal work of his life. On the other hand Laxa’ s attachment to the Aryan race came certainly from the kind intervention of the three boys, for they were, so far as was seen, the only Aryans with whom he had any pleasant relations. In this fifteenth life we find Laxa still in the same race, though not in the same branch of it. We find that his love for the Aryan race induces him to take considerable trouble to procure an Aryan husband for his daughter, and from that fact in turn proceeds the possibility of incarnation among his immediate descendents, not only of the three boys who had rescued him, but of a large number of other members of the band of Servers.

Laxa had two sons and a daughter. The sons married in the ordinary way among their compatriots; but for the daughter, to whom he was strongly attached, he was most anxious to procure a husband of the later race. For that reason he declined several eligible offers from the countrymen of his own; and when he heard that an Aryan wanderer had attached himself to one of the nomad tribes in his neighbourhood, he made a considerable journey in order to find that tribe, to speak to the wanderer and to offer him sufficient inducements to return with him to his home. This wanderer was our old friend Calyx, and he had fled from the empire of Manoa because in a moment of passion and under great provocation he had slain a man of wealth and standing who had acted oppressively towards him. He was therefore in the position of an adventurer, and was quite glad to meet with a reasonable offer of work with some sort of home attached to it. So when Laxa came in his way, seemed to take a violent fancy to him, and offered him an opportunity for settling himself, he readily accepted it. When, after a bong journey, Laxa brought him back to his own tribe, he introduced him to his daughter Clio, a passable and pleasant young lady; and after they had known one another for a short time he calmly unfolded to Calyx his plan that the latter should marry his daughter and succeed in due course to the chieftainship of the tribe, for Clio was his eldest child, and at his death the headship would by their custom pass to her and to her husband rather than to his sons, Myna and Capri.

The tribe was one of the largest and wealthiest in all that part of Asia, so the offer was distinctly a good one, and Calyx had no hesitation in accepting it, if Clio could be induced to consent. It was speedily found that she had no objection to make to her father’ s plan, and in this way the matter was settled. The three sons of that marriage were Mars, Mizar and Herakles, while Alcyone was the grand-daughter of Laxa through his son Myna. Mizar the second son of Calyx and Clio, married his cousin Mercury, who was another grand-daughter of Laxa, and their eldest son was Naga; so that in this way the three boys who had helped him in Manoa seven hundred years before were among his immediate descendents. On the other hand the three who had taken so keen an interest in the Turanian race in that previous life now found themselves in position of power and authority in one of its branches. One cannot insist upon any direct connection, but the juxtaposition is decidedly suggestive.

For the three boys and for all those who had previously been born in Manoa the life was curiously different, for this tribe was nomadic in a certain stately way. It owned enormous numbers of goats and mountain sheep, and it wandered about a somewhat barren but not uninteresting country, encamping for a year, or sometimes for two or three years, in a certain spot, sowing its crops and reaping its harvest, and then moving on to some other sphere of activity. Though to this extent nomadic, the people are by no means to be thought of as uncivilised, for they distinctly possessed artistic taste along certain lines. There was nothing in the way of painting or sculpture; but they had considerable proficiency in wood carving, although wood was a rare commodity with them. They were clever workers in metal, and they understood very well the jeweler’ s art.

There were beautiful patterns also in their curtains and carpets, and they had a fine sense of harmony in colour.

There is not much to be said as to the childhood of our heroine. She was strongly attached to her mother Gem, and even more closely to her sister Mercury. They grew up almost entirely in the open air, and learnt to ride almost as soon as to walk. There was comparatively little in the way of education as we think of it now, though the children were taught the arts of spinning and weaving, and all such crafts as was of use in their wandering life. As soon as Alcyone grew up she was married to the heir apparent, Mars, somewhat to the envy of her companions, and found herself in charge of one of the finest tents of the tribe. Even though, as has been said, they usually stayed in the same place for twelve months, and not infrequently for two or three years, they never built permanent houses, but always occupied their tents—which, however, were roomy and comfortably arranged.

The tent of Mars was a large square erection, stretched upon nine heavy pillars. Instead of canvas a fabric of woven dark brown goats hair was stretched over this, and the big tent was divided down the middle by a curtain. On one side of the curtain was the living room, and on the other were kept the special horses of the family—not the draught animals, but highly-bred creatures which were used for riding—animals of remarkable spirit and intelligence, who were regarded with the greatest affection, and treated entirely as members of the family. In that half of the big tent which might be described as the living room, a low wooden seat or sofa was erected, making three sides of a square, but leaving the open side towards the door of the tent. This sort of divan was covered with cloth of tasteful colours, upon which were piled many cushions of more brilliant hue. The ground was covered with carpets of beautiful design, and cloths and weapons were hung from the pillars of the tent. The general effect was much more roomy and comfortable than might be expected, and the arrangements were well adapted to suit changes of temperature and climate. The side of the tent could be raised or lowered at will, and ventilation was secured by a space left under what might be called the eaves. All culinary and other household work was done either in the open air, or in other smaller tents standing behind the large one, and the numerous attendants were accommodated in similar erections.

In a home of this sort Mars and Alcyone lives their lives very happily and brought up a family of eight children, while Mizar and Mercury carried on a similar establishment not far away, so that as usual all their children were brought up together. Among these children we find many names well known and greatly honored through many lives, as will be seen by reference to the accompanying chart. It will however be noticed that this is to some extent an intermediate incarnation and that only those characters are preset who would normally take an interval of seven hundred years or less.

Mars ruled his tribe as ever well and wisely, and Alcyone’ s life was a placid and happy one. Though her work consisted largely of superintending the spinning and weaving and the household duties, it was by no means confined to this, for she constantly discussed with her husband the affairs of the tribe, and accompanied him on long rides over the rolling and somewhat barren country. The people were not wholly vegetarian, for they certainly ate goats flesh dried and smoked. In addition to this their staple food was cheese and bread, although they ate a good deal of fruit when they could get it. The religion of these people was not very prominent or well defined. It may be described as animistic in type, for they unquestionably deified some of the powers of nature, but they also offered what practically amounted to worship to their ancestors. This uneventful life ended at what is for Alcyone the comparatively early age of sixty.

Life XVI

Our hero’ s destiny here brings him into the midst of another of those easy going civilisations that were so common in the world before the modern spirit introduced its uncomfortable doctrine of the necessity for living always at high pressure. Though we find him now at the antipodes, he is in the same sub-race as in Ireland in the thirteenth life, and the conditions have much in common. The climate is much better, so that the settlements are no longer confined to the sunny sides of the hills. Crops are far larger and fruit is more plentiful, and life generally is easier in all respects. But the race displays its characteristics, its love for the open air, its realisation of the proximity of the unseen world, its sun-worship, and its distaste for temples made with hands.

The men of this fifth sub-race had entered the country only a few centuries before, dispossessing tribes who were apparently a mixture of Turanian and Lemurian stock. These aborigines had offered no serious resistance to the invaders, but had retired to the hills and the less accessible parts of the country, where they still existed in large numbers. There was little intercourse between the two races, except that in various places small groups of the Turanians abandoned their unfriendly attitude and came and made settlements in the immediate neighbourhood of the white men, for whom they were usually willing to work when required. The untamed part of this earlier race was regarded with horror and aversion, chiefly because of the peculiarly objectionable form of their religion, which eventually led to their complete subjugation, as will be seen later.

Almost all our characters are present in this life, most of them of course among the superior race, but a few among the TuranoLemurians. The rulers of the country was Viraj, and according to the custom of this branch of the race the King was also ipso facto the head of the Church, that is to say, the High Priest. Viraj, however, was a strong and somewhat stern ruler, who had a great genius for administration. He was little attracted to the priestly side of his work, although he performed such duties as had to be done with a sharp military brevity which was impressive in its way. His oldest son Surya was from an early age drawn much more to the priestly than to the kingly side of the royal office, and this characteristic was so marked that as soon as he came of age Viraj turned over to him all that part of the work, in order that he himself might plunge with renewed ardour into the organisation of his country.

Surya married Alcyone, who appeared this time in a female body as the daughter of the younger brother of King Viraj. She had a most intense reverence and affection for her husband, and shared with him his devotion to the priestly side of his office. Though Surya was the heir-apparent, many of the duties that would naturally have fallen to him were left to his younger brother Leo, in order that he might be able to devote all his time to a re-organisation of the priesthood and its methods. His first children were the twin boys Mars and Mercury; and as soon as these twins began to be able to express their preferences it was manifest that they were respectively incarnations of the two sides of the royal office; for Mars seemed to care comparatively little for the temple ceremonies, while he manifested the most intense interest in the administrative work of his grandfather. Although the affection between the twin brothers was most touching, they differed entirely on this point; for Mercury’ s devotion was all to the temple services, which he constantly attended with his mother. Even already Viraj and Surya had decided that if they both lived long enough the crown should pass from grandfather to grandson Mars, leaving Surya to devote himself to the work which he loved, and Mercury to inherit high position in due course, thereby establishing a separation between the kingly and priestly offices.

As years rolled on Alcyone’ s family rapidly increased, all its members being characters well known to us. It was one of her greatest pleasures to dream of their future, imagining for them all sorts of distinguished destinies. Some of her dreams seem to have been actual previsions; and her husband Surya, who used to listen to her with an indulgent smile, was on one occasion at least greatly impressed by one of her visions—so much so that he took the words out of her mouth and spoke himself as though inspired: “You and I, my wife, and these flowers of our race, have a wondrous destiny before us. As you follow me now, so shall you and they follow me in that glorious future. Some of these who now call you mother shall pass in advance of you, and shall be my more immediate helpers in the work which I have to do. And when your share in that work comes, others of these your children shall stand round you as helpers and disciples. So the members of this our family shall not be separated as so often happens; again and again shall they be here together, so that it becomes a permanent family whose members shall meet in fraternal affection through the ages that are yet to come.”

So when Viraj was gathered to his fathers it was Mars, not Surya, who was proclaimed King in his stead; and it was not long after he came to the throne before it was found necessary to take further control of that part of the island inhabited by the Turano Lemurians. These latter had an obscene form of religion which, among other unpleasantness, involved occasional human sacrifices—usually sacrifices of especially beautiful children. These were sometimes selected from among their own families, but more frequently one of their tribes made a raid upon another in the hope of finding suitable victims. On one occasion, however, it was decided by the priests of this unpleasant form of worship that an unusually choice sacrifice was required, because an unknown infectious disease had broken out among their people. So the priests met in conclave and decided that, as ordinary methods had proved ineffectual in turning aside the wrath of their deities, a white child should be captured and sacrificed.

Their only hope of obtaining such a prize was through some of those of their tribe who were in close touch with the ruling race.

There had been a certain amount of intermarriage between the races, although this was discouraged by the authorities, and it was from some of these mulatto families that the most powerful and most scheming of the priests were drawn. Among them were found just at this period two with whom we are acquainted, Lacey and Tripos.

Aided by a woman named Cancer, they resolved to steal a child from the white settlements, and after much lurking and watching they contrived to carry off Phra, one of the grandsons of Surya and Alcyone. It was some little time before he was missed, and still longer before his relations suspected what had happened; but as soon as the truth was realised the boy’ s father, Naga, hurriedly got together a few friends and retainers, and started out in pursuit. As they knew nothing of the secret hiding-places of the aborigines they would probably have failed in their quest, but for the aid given to them by some others of the mulattos who were thoroughly well disposed towards the white race. Assisted by these, Naga and his party were able to overtake the abductors and rescue the child before the tribe could be called together for the sacrifice.

They made prisoners of the three people we have mentioned, and brought them before King Mars, who promptly had them executed, and furthermore issued an edict that the interior portion of the country should be brought directly under his rule, and that sacrifices of all sorts should be entirely suppressed. This was done, but the aborigines regretted their sanguinary faith, and were by no means well disposed towards the new regime.

This was on the whole a quiet and uneventful life, passed in a pleasant land and among an amiable people. They were not by any means unlike those of their race whom we have already described as living in Ireland a few centuries before. They were good farmers and bold seamen, hospitable and affectionate, showing a great reverence for old age. The great men among them were rather orators and poets than fighters; and certain amount of excellence along these lines was expected from the leaders of the people, as all judgements, sermons and public speeches of any sort on great occasion were invariably delivered in extemporaneous verse. They were clever builders, weavers and dyers; and their woodcarving was remarkably good, intricate and detailed. The life was on the whole happy and simple one, with no striking events, and at the end of it Alcyone passed peacefully away at the elevated age of eighty-eight.

Life XVII

In this life we find ourselves back again among the wonderful race of the Toltecs. In many ways the most powerful and enduring of all sons of Atlantis. Our group of Servers, however, appears not in the centre of the empire in the Island of Poseidonis, but in the country which we now call Mexico. Our members were there obviously in order to regenerate it, for in many ways it had fallen from the high estate of the parent race. The corruption and looseness of morals which gradually sapped the vitality of the great City of the Golden Gate had been working in this rich and flourishing colony, and this decadence in virility had been accompanied by a caducity in religion also. What had originally been a pure and noble sun-worship had borrowed foul and cruel rites from the savage faiths of wild Central American tribes, until it became more degraded and unholy than the Turano-Lemurian cult described in the previous life.

Human sacrifices were offered more frequently and with far more gorgeous surroundings, for the magnificent temples erected by the race in its prime were still intact, though perverted to uses which would have horrified their builders.

The principal city of their capital city was a vast amphitheater, rather larger than the Colosseum at Rome, with a small pyramid in the middle, on the truncated summit of which was a little inner temple or shrine. The priests did not content themselves with taking toll from its population by way of actual sacrifices; they also seized upon promising children to be their mediums in all sorts of obscene invocations. They had made a considerable study of mesmeric power, and develop it to a high degree of efficiency; and they remorselessly employed it to persuade parents to give up their offspring to them. The children seized by them always died early.

They were utilised for a time as mediums, all vitality being gradually drained out of them; then they usually fell victims to the foul lusts of the priests, and finally were offered as sacrifices to various bloodthirsty deities.

Even this was not all, for those who were sacrificed frequently became vampires at death, and came back as creatures of unnamable horror to prey upon those whom they had once loved best. Add to all this that those priests exacted heavy contributions from every one whom they thought to be possessed of wealth of any sort, and it will be seen that the country groaned under a terrible tyranny and was sorely in need of relief.

All this King Mars had known from childhood; and he had often thought as a boy that when he came to the throne he would try to do something to curb the power of this iniquitous priesthood. But in actual fact it was far from easy to see what improvements could be made. The whole system was absolutely rotten; yet, much as the people hated it, they had grown up with it and were used to it; they lay under the weight of its influence and really believed that the cruel deities of whom they were told would take undying vengeance upon them if any of these loathsome rites were omitted. There was a certain fierce fanaticism about the priests, and by their mesmeric influence they to some extent infected the people with this, so that at the time they actually rejoiced in the abominable sacrifices, even though they well knew that they themselves or those most dear to them might be the next victims.

So King Mars, though he had himself no faith in such deities, and heartily wished to deliver his people from this odious ecclesiastical tyranny, did not see his way to any immediate action.

He felt that some day he must come into conflict with this priestly power, but he felt that when he did the struggle would be a serious one, and he waited in the faint hope that some day circumstances might be more favourable for it. His chief hope lay in the fact that he had thoroughly endeared himself to his people by a just, equitable and benignant rule, and he felt sure that they would follow him to the death in any cause except one which conflicted with their religious ideas. But if his hold upon them was by love, that of the priests was by fear; and in all but the noblest natures the latter emotion is apt to be the stronger.

Mars had married Vulcan, and they had three sons and two daughters. The heir-apparent was Sirius, who married Electra, an old friend of many lives, and it was as their eldest daughter that Alcyone was born. Brought up as she was in the seclusion of a splendid palace surrounded by lovely gardens which covered several square miles, Alcyone knew almost nothing of the terror which brooded over her country, hearing only some faint reflections of it from the talk of her slaves. Mars discussed the matter frequently with his sons and daughters, but nothing was said about it to Alcyone until she was almost of age, when an event happened which forced it upon her attention.

A younger daughter of the King was Spica, who had married Alces, and had three children. Of these her favourite was Fides, who was at that time about eleven years of age. On one of the great religious festivals she took him with her to the principal temple, where many thousands of people were gathered to join in the celebrations. She found herself in the arena of the vast amphitheatre, near the foot of the central pyramid. She had just been joining in a mighty chant or song invoking their deity—a most impressive and magnetic performance when so many thousands of voices took part in it—when the chief priest Scorpio came out of the inner shrine and stood in front of its door gazing sternly upon the crowd. Spica was acutely conscious that he was pouring out the much dreaded mesmeric influence, and she soon felt that his eye was resting especially upon her, and that he was using all his arts to induce her to come up the steps and offer her son to him as a servant of the temple. Knowing full well what his fate in that case would be, she called up all her reserves of will-power, and resisted with all her strength, clasping the boy to her side in the earnestness of her endeavour to protect him. Her will, however, was far less trained than that of Scorpio, and in spite of her superhuman efforts, she presently found herself moving towards him up the steps, drawing with her the frightened yet fascinated boy. “You wish to offer this boy to us for the service of the high gods?”inquired Scorpio.

Spica felt herself forced to mutter some indistinct acquiescence, and Scorpio, with a triumphant leer of lust and cruelty, solemnly accepted the gift in the name of his deities, took Fides by the hand and led him into the shrine, while Spica rushed blindly down the steps and forced her way somehow through the crowd. As soon as she was out of the immediate influence of

Scorpio she realised fully the horror of what she had done; but, though full of grief and despair, she knew well that it was useless for her to return, for under the gaze of those evil eyes she would be able to say nothing. For sometime she wandered about in the park outside the great amphitheater, heart-broken and scarcely able to think, but at last she made up her mind to seek her father the King and place her case before him and beg for his intervention.

She found him in those apartments of the place which were specially appropriated to his eldest son, and she told her tale to him in the presence of Sirius and Electra and their family. The anger of the King was aroused, and his voice was deep and stern as he said to them:

“Of a surety this is too much; must they lay their vile hands even upon a member of my own family?”

He was about to say more, but was checked by the uprising of Alcyone, who suddenly stood in front of him with a regal commanding air quite foreign to her usual nature, and began speaking rapidly in ringing measured tones: “The time has come, O King,”she said.”The years of this tyranny are fulfilled. For many centuries the night has brooded over this land, growing ever darker and darker; but now at last the dawn shall come. It is your hand, O King, that must free your people from this curse, and this evil priesthood of demons must be destroyed root and branch, and its power removed for ever. Send first,O King, and demand the return of your grandson; and when that is refused, as it will be, arise in your might and proclaim that by long-continued wickedness and, cruelty this priesthood has forfeited its power, and that you, as King and father to your people, take over the priestly power to yourself and your descendents for ever. Make this your decree, and send your soldiers to enforce it, and your people will hail you with acclamation as their deliverer from intolerable wrong.

Strong indeed are hate and fear, yet love is stronger still. And if you will take this boldly in hand, and do right and justice, fearing nothing, your name shall be acclaimed through many generations, and your people shall live free and happy under you as their father upon earth, even as God is their father in heaven.”

King Mars sat in silent astonishment, watching the delivery of this spirited address by the gentle and usually silent Alcyone, and the family stood round her in equal amazement. But Sirius said: “It is not he who has spoken, but some Great One; father and King, the advice is good advice, and she has indicated the wisest way,”Seize that man, and bind him and all his followers; and see that he utters no more treason against the name of our lord the King.”

The order was at once carried out, and Sirius with him to surround the amphitheater and took a squadron of soldiers with him to surround the great monastery close by. That was quickly done, and the startled priests were made prisoners before they knew what was happening. There were some murmurs from amongst the crowd, but when Sirius faced them and held up the King’ s signet, the people bowed their heads and went silently away, marvelling much at the strange things that were happening.

Then Sirius called before him the warden of the monastery, and demanded to know what had been done with Fides. The warden denied all knowledge of any person, but as Sirius quietly remarked that if he was not then and there produced every Priest in the monastery would be instantly beheaded and the place burnt to the ground, the warden’ s memory returned to him and he sullenly indicated the way to the novice’ s department. Sirius strode along the echoing corridors with a strong force of soldiers at his back, and presently found his frightened nephew, in a room along with four other boys who had been obtained from their parents that same day in the same nefarious manner. They were in charge of a heavyfaced monk, who raised an indignant protest against the invasion, but was quickly silenced. Sirius drew Fides to him and asked how he felt; but the boy was evidently dazed and unable to answer clearly.

When Sirius tried to draw him away he resisted in some clumsy way, as though acting in his sleep or under the influence of some drug, and eventually Sirius found it necessary to lift him in his arms and carry him in that way from that ill-omened house. The other boys were removed in the same way by some of the soldiers, and all of them were taken to the palace, where Spica was overjoyed to hold in her arms once more the son whom she had thought irretrievably lost. True, he did not seem to know her, and tried rather to avoid her embraces, or at best passively endured them; but at least she had him with her once more, and she hoped presently to be able to cure him of this strange malady.

Meanwhile the news of all this was spreading, and the town was becoming somewhat unquiet. But King Mars, who in the meantime had gathered together almost a whole division of his army, had already dispatched detachments to invest all the other monasteries in the neighbourhood, and to imprison their Priests, and at the same time he sent forth heralds to announce in all the public squares and gardens of the city that he required all his loyal subjects to gather together an hour after daybreak the following morning, to meet him in the great temple, when he would announce to them his will. Meantime the city was under martial law, and everyone was to stay quiet within his own house during the night. The people marvelled greatly, but the streets were full of soldiers and no one dared to disobey, the more so as but few of them knew what had really happened. The King sent out mounted messengers with all speed to the other towns of the country, bidding his governors everywhere to arrest all Priests and monks, and to hold them in safety until they heard again from him.

The next morning that vast amphitheatre was even fuller than it had been the day before, but instead of the festive chants there was a wondering silence, relieved only by loyal shouts of welcome when the King himself was seen riding in at the great gates of the temple, inside which no horse or other animal had ever been seen before.

Solemnly and slowly he rode up the lane kept by his soldiers, his sons walking on either side of him, when he reached the central pyramid he dismounted and climbed the steps, and then turned and spoke to his people:

“My people,” he said,”

I come to you today to bring you glad tidings of great joy. For many years you have suffered terribly.

You have yielded up your dear sons to the sacrifice, and have seen them drawn from you into the clutches of the Priests, and by these same Priests your wealth has been constantly taken from you. All this you have borne uncomplainingly, because you were told that it was the will of the gods, that they needed this sacrifice, this service, this wealth, and that if you did not comply you would suffer even more. I have come this morning to tell you that you have been deceived, that all this nightmare of horror has been one stupendous lie, that the Gods are beneficent and not hostile, that they demand from you no sacrifice but the sacrifice of a pure life, and that they need from you no contribution but that of helpfulness to others. Your Priests have misled you; because they thought only of themselves and their power and their greed they could not know the Gods, and so they led you into the worship of demons. From this moment I, your King, am your Priest and your father, and these my sons shall be your priesthood also. From this time forth royal blood shall be the seal of priesthood, and already I dedicate to its service these scions of my house.”

And he ranged before him on the steps of his pyramid Rama, Neptune, Naga, Euphra, Selene, Mizar, and Brihat. And turning to the people he said:

“Here now before you all I consecrate these my children to the work of the priesthood, and they shall go forth through all the land and teach the faith of light instead of darkness, of joy instead of fear. And now since a great tyranny is overthrown, I call upon you all to make this a day of rejoicing—such rejoicing as you have never known before. For this day you are all my guests, and I bid you make merry and rejoice. I order also that every year for ever this day shall be set apart and kept holy in memory of the beginning of a new era. And so for the first time as your real High Priest and King I give you the blessing of the Great God who is the true Father of His people.”

All those who had heard the words of the King raised a great shout of joy, and the gist of them was quickly repeated all through that vast crowd clear back to the walls of the amphitheatre, and then to the thousands outside who had been unable to enter. And truly, as all, rich and poor alike, though there were many among them who wondered whether indeed this thing could be really true, and whether perchance the old and the evil gods would not presently take strange vengeance upon them.

There was but little fighting, for the priests in the provincial towns, when they heard how their whole hierarchy in the capital had been stricken down at one fell blow, made haste to yield themselves, and though here and there was some little opposition, in a very short time all was quelled, and in the remoter districts also the people began to rejoice in their strange new freedom from oppression.

Altogether there had been a large number of Priests and monks, and hangers-on of the monasteries. All these the King brought together, and when they were assembled from all parts of the country in the capital city, he sent Sirius to make a proclamation to them. He told them that they must quite clearly understand that their evil reign was over once and for all, that he had no confidence in those who had been Priests and leaders in that evil faith, and that if they were found again within its borders they would be instantly put to death. To the monks and the rabble of attendants he gave a choice; he told them that they could, if they wished, accompany their masters into exile, or if they chose to take up some honest trade they might have an opportunity to prove themselves good citizens; but that they must clearly understand that the old order of things was definitely past, and past for ever, and that any attempt to revive it would be instantly and finally crushed.

The Priests, with Scorpio at their head, were consequently driven over to the southern frontiers and left to make their way as best they could among savage tribes, where presently they carved out for themselves a tract of country, and became a small separate community with whose fortunes we have no further concern. Some few Priests there were who, being filled with hatred and malice against the King, pretended to have been merely monks, and so obtained leave to stay behind in Mexico. Among those were Cancer, Lacey and Tripos, who had brought ever into this life the hatred of Mars which they had acquired in New Zealand seven hundred years before; and after a short time these people made an abortive attempt at organising a rebellion, the avowed object of which was to bring back Scorpio, depose Mars, and form some kind of ecclesiastical government to rule over the country. This plot, however, was happily discovered and nipped in the bud, and the three principal promoters thereof were again executed.

The change in the country was marvellous, and the people blossomed out like flowers under its influence. For a long time they seemed hardly able to believe in their freedom, and a sort of popular song or recitation was composed, of which the burden was”Never again.”

“Never again,” it said,”shall blood flow upon the alters; never again shall our children be torn from our arms; never again shall our property be stolen from us; never again shall we suffer unnamable horrors in the name of those devils whom we took for Gods; never, never again.”

In the midst of all this general rejoicing Spica’ s heart was full of sorrow for though indeed her son had been rescued from the power of Scorpio, his mind was clouded and the evil influence was still strong upon him. She heard from one of those who had been monks, who was therefore acquainted with the nefarious mesmeric powers of Scorpio, that one who had once come under his control could never break away from it again, but most inevitably pass through the various stages of degradation which ended in vampirism. Much horrified at this, she carried her case once more before her father the King, but he had to confess himself powerless in this matter, knowing nothing as to how to deal with it. He spoke with great kindness to his daughter, and showed much sympathy and sorrow, but yet he knew not what to advise. At last he turned suddenly to Alcyone and said to her: “Daughter, through you there came to us the advice which has saved my kingdom, and has freed it for ever from the powers of evil. Can it be that in this case also you can come to our assistance, and rid this poor suffering boy of evil, even as you have done for the country as a whole?”

Then the power seized once more, and she arose and said: “O King, the power of evil is terrible indeed, and to oppose it may well mean the rending asunder of body and soul. Yet it must be opposed, even though the victim die, because if we do not oppose it, then is he lost not for this time only but for all time, for never again can he free himself from the downward course of the vampire. I cannot tell what the result may be, yet must I set him free even though in doing so I may destroy his body.”

So she turned upon her shrinking nephew, and raised her hands in the air above his head, and cried aloud:

“In the Name of the Great Father of all, let this curse depart from thee!”

The boy uttered a terrible cry and fell to the ground as one dead. He lay in a trance of unconsciousness for many days, but at least he did not die, and after a long while consciousness returned to him, and he called faintly for his mother. Weak and ill he was indeed, yet she knew that she had her son back again from the dead, for now he knew her and clung to her as of old. Presently he slowly recovered, yet the shock had been so terrible that all through his life he remained nervous and easily disturbed. Indeed, for many lives and through thousands of years something of the effect of that terrible psychic convulsion was still to be seen. For the evil High Priest had seized upon the very soul of him, and had made for it a link with that whose name must not be spoken. And the breaking of such a link is a feat which but few can accomplish, yet this case it has been done by the power and love of Alcyone—and of Surya who worked through her, though not then in physical incarnation.

Alcyone’ s life passed on in great love and happiness. She married her cousin Selene, and her eldest son was Herakles, in very truth a friend of many lives. Among her ten children were two who have now attained, and others for whose near attainment we may hope. Her life was one long benediction to those around her, for she remained to see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, even to the age of ninety years. And the good work in which she had so large a share remained as a monument after her, for never again while that Toltec race occupied the ancient land of Maxico were sacrifices re-established. Long after that race had been destroyed by the flood which accompanied the sinking of Poseidonis it was repeopled by a half-savage race who, having in themselves much of the cruelity and greed, psychometrised the ancient stones, and revived to some extent the ancient horrors, but for twenty thousand years and more the work of Alcyone and Surya bore its fruit.

Alcyone now takes an interval of nearly a thousand years before his next incarnation, and the majority of our characters move along with him.

Some few, however, who distinctly belong to the type which takes shorter intervals, seem to find it impossible to stay away so long, and consequently come back as, a small group on their own account in Egypt, about the year 24000. A list of their relationships is here appended.

Orion, one of our list of characters, has been found to have a somewhat abnormal list of lives, which were written out in some detail in volumes xxxii and xxxiii of The Theophist. In this book we shall reproduc the charts, in order that our list of incarnations may not be seriously imperfect, but of the lives themselves we can publish here only the briefest epitome, referring our readers to the magazine for further details.

It will have been observed that Orion moved with the rest of the party until the tenth life. Then he broke away from the main body, and for a time disappeares from our ken. We pick him up again in the year 23,875, in the Hawaiian Islands, where he was the son of Alastor, the high priest of the diety of the volcano. Orion was destined to succeed to his father’s office, and consequently he passed through series of unplesant initiation ceremonies, in which he was thrown into a trance by drugs with the idea that the diety of the volcano would enter into him. The moral level of this priesthood was by no means high, its principal business being the pronouncing and the averting of curses. Human sacrifices were occasionally offered, and the priests terrorised the people by threatening them with bad dreams and dreaad diseases.

As a young man Orion fell in love with Cancer, who was already betrothed to Gamma, a particular friend of his. As soon as Orion decided that he wanted this girl for himself, he threatened Gamma with all sorts of magic if he did not yield her to him. Gamma, however, really loved Cancer, and resisted Orion’s threats for some time, though he was seriously frightened. Orion’s curses would not work, so he assisted the diety by administering to Gamma a poisonous drug which produced a long and severe illness. In the immediate expectation of death Gamma agreed to yield his bethrothed to Orion, but when he recovered he felt a deep and abiding hatred for him.

Alastor was a very vindictive man, and having contrived to quarrel with the King of the island, he tried to have him assasinated. The King discovered the plot, banished Alastor and appointed his son Orion to succeed him. Orion than cast off his wife Cancer as not fit for his present position, and had her poisoned in order to get her out of the way, so that he could marry the sister of the King, by whom in due course he had a son Cygnus, to whom he was greatly attached. When Gamma learnt of the murder of Cancer he vowed vengeance, and Orion, knowing that he was dangerous, contrived to have him cast into prison on an accusation of being concerned in a plot against the King. Orion then sent to visit him in the prison an emissary who succeded in poisoning him.

Presently the old King died, and his son succeeded to the throne. This change of rulers was unfavourable to Orion’s plans. He had been able to manage the older man, but found the son distinctly suspicious of him, and disposed to find fault. An embassy arrived from a neighbouring island, and the King consulted Orion as to how he should receive it. Orion advised that it should be received haughtily and disrespectfully, and the result of this was an invasion. When the enemy arrived Orion was advised to curse them and prevent them from landing but his curses proved ineffectual, and he lost much of his prestige and power. Eventually the King took advantage of a quarrel to depose Orion, and sent him away; and as soon as it was seen that he was no longer under the protection of the King, Epsilon, who was one of his enemies, fell upon him and stabbed him. Epsilon had been a lover of Zeta, a sensitive, highly strung girl, the daughter of a rich man. When Epsilon wished to marry her the high priest refused his consent (which according to the law of the country was required) unless the father of the girl would surrender to the priesthood a large part of the patrimony. This the father declined to do, and Orion threatened all kinds of physical and supernatural ills. These threats so preyed upon the girl’s mind that eventually she became insane, and her lover Epsilon vowed vengeance upon Orion, and took it as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

…

Life XVIII

Yet again we find our hero in the Toltec race, but in a kingdom differing much from that of Mexico—a kingdom in the same continent truly, but further north, and lying west of the range of the Rocky Mountains. Mars was as usual its ruler, and his territory extended far along the Pacific Coast line, from what is now California in the south up to British Columbia in the north. A great Tlavatli kingdom held the Mississippi Valley and practically all that part of the country which now constitutes the Southern States of the Union. The northern part of what is now Canada, were occupied by a congeries of minor tribes who lived principally by hunting and fishing, and built no great cities. But the civilisation of the western coast was highly advanced and old-established, and the kingdom of Mars held many cities as large and as handsome as those of Mexico, though the style of building was different. The land was fruitful, and the climate salubrious, with enough of variety between the northern and the southern parts to provide a varied assortment of products. The country therefore was prosperous, and with South America, and by land with the Tlavatli kingdom, and also bartered commodities of various kinds for furs and pelts with the wandering tribes of the north and east, it still remained true that it was to a large extent a self supporting community, and that what it imported were luxuries rather than necessaries.

In the days of his youth Mars had had to fight for his kingdom.

He was a younger son, not in the direct line of succession, but his elder brother was a man of wild and uncontrolled passion and very little principle, who entangled himself in all sorts of undesirable situations, and turned a deaf ear to the stern remonstrances of his father. At last, after some unusually dishonourable escapade, the father formally disowned and disinherited him, and diverted the succession to Mars. The older brother who had been banished from the court, hereupon proclaimed his father incapable of ruling, and assumed the title of King, gathering together an army of his adherents.

Having on his side some skilful and unscrupulous warriors, he at first obtained considerable success, and succeeded in capturing his father hand putting him to death. Mars, who had been managing the affairs of the southern province, then proclaimed himself King by the right of the appointment from his father, gathered together what was left to him of the army, and marched immediately against his brother. The older man had the advantage in point of numbers, and he had cowed the northern population by barbarous acts of cruelty ; but he had fatal defects of character, from which Mars was entirely free. The younger son marched his men with far greater rapidity than his brother supposed to be possible, and while the indolent and luxurious elder was still delaying on the scene of his triumphs, and still engaged in celebrating them by a series of feastings and debaucheries, mars fell upon him unexpectedly and put his forces utterly to rout. The older brother fled after the battle. Some said that he was dead, some that he was in hiding, and some that he had escaped and was living beyond the frontiers among the hunting tribes of the north. At any rate he disappeared from practical politics, and the authority of Mars was no longer questioned.

He married Siwa and settled down to his favourite work of organisation. He completely remodelled the government of the country, dividing it into provinces on a scheme of his own, chiefly according to the natural products, and while he appointed Governors for these provinces, he also allowed them a certain amount of representation on a scheme more nearly agreeing with modern ideas than with those of twenty thousand years before the Christian era.

Soon his eldest son Rama was born to him, and he was quickly followed by two other boys, Viola and Neptune, and two most beautiful girls, Albiero and Ajax. During all these years Mars led an exceedingly busy life, for he was perpetually travelling all over the vast extent of his kingdom to see how his new constitution was working and to watch that the best possible results were being obtained from all the widely different sources of revenue yielded by so varied a country. As soon as his son Rama reached the age of seven Mars took him with him on these constant journeyings, and explained to him much of what he was doing, encouraging him to ask questions, and to try to understand the reasons for everything.

In this way the little boy soon came to have a great store of varied knowledge, though not much of education in our modern sense of the word; and Mars was careful to impress upon him that this duty would be his one day, and that it was the work of the king to understand thoroughly how every one of his subjects obtained his living, and to see that no difficulties were put in the way of his doing it.

Rama grew up tall and graceful and strong. At an early stage he fell in love with his lovely cousin Electra, who admired him immediately. Mars smiled benignantly upon their childish romance, but he put no obstacles in its way, and told Rama that if when he attained a certain age he was found thoroughly proficient in all the arts of kingship, he should be rewarded with the hand of his ladylove. Long before the appointed time the assiduous Rama knew all that there was to know along those lines, and needed only practice and experience to be able to manage the kingdom as well as his father. Indeed, Mars often sent him alone to visit outlying provinces, examine into the condition of affairs there, and report upon them, and these reports were always satisfactorily made out, and often contained most valuable suggestions. Presently, therefore, Rama received his reward, and the nuptials of the happy pair were celebrated with many days of great rejoicing in the capital city.

Rama continued his tours of inspection and at first his wife always accompanied him upon them. But there soon came a time when family cares made it desirable that she should stay at home, even though she was sad at the necessity of the temporary parting from her husband. Their eldest son was Viraj, a splendidly healthy boy, who from the first showed the quality of great determination. He was soon followed by another son Sirius, and a beautiful daughter Alcyone. As time passed on the family became a large one, and for many years Electra was able to accompany her husband only occasionally and on his shorter journeys. Later on, when the children had grown up, she and he travelled together as of yore, and naturally Rama practiced with his own boys the same scheme of liberal education by means of which Mars had so skillfully developed in him the faculties of observation and quick judgement. In due course Mars was gathered to his fathers, and Rama assumed the crown, after which he found it advisable to spend most of his time in the capital city, and left the travelling inspection to his family of seven sons- some of whom, however, held at various times the position of governors of the provinces.

Meantime our heroine had also grown up, and entered into the state of holy matrimony. There was a curious little complication in regard to her marriage which was not without its effect on her after life. Two cousins simultaneously fell in love with her—Dhruva and Mizar, both of them sons of her wise uncle Mercury. The two brothers loved one another loyally, so they did not quarrel about her, but they not unnaturally demanded that she should make a choice between them; and that she felt herself quite unable to do, for she had a great affection for tem both. In her secret heart she really preferred the younger, but it was so evident that the older felt that he could not live without her that she was greatly embarrassed in coming to a decision. Eventually she confessed her difficulty to her father, who not unnaturally said that it was eminently an affair for her to decide; but as she appeared to see so clearly both sides of the question, the King called Mercury into consultation, and after much weighing of various considerations they decided in favour of Dhruva.

Mizar was of course terribly disappointed, and it is just possible that Alcyone to some extent shared his feelings. Though she decorously did her sentiments.

Just at this time much trouble had broken out among certain affliated tribes of half-savages on the other side of the mountains, and one party in the dispute had invoked the aid of the great western King. So Mizar volunteered to head the expedition which was just about to set out, and Rama thought it well to accede to his request, in order that by strenuous and varied occupations he might forget his disappointment. Dhruva, though overjoyed at the decision in his favour, sympathised deeply with his brother, and was sorry that he insisted upon departing on so dangerous a service. Mizar remained away for more than two years. Having quelled the original disturbance, he organised a number of the tribes and persuaded them to affiliate themselves to the larger kingdom, so that the result of his work was to extend its boundaries considerably. He consolidated his new tribes into a province, of which Rama appointed him first Governor; and he was carrying out his plans with marked successes when further troubles broke out to the north of his new acquisition.

A number of wilder tribes had become alarmed at his proceedings, regarding them as a menace to their independence; and so for the time being they composed their own perenial differences, and banded themselves together to make a raid on a larger scale upon those of their brothers who had submitted themselves to civilised domination. Their attack was in far greater force than Mizar had before had to face, and he experienced great difficulty in holding his own against them. He sent hurriedly to the capital for reinforcements, but he knew that in the nature of things a considerable time must elapse before it could be possible for these to arrive, and meantime he found it necessary to stand on the defensive rather than to attack. Dhruva had become more and more uneasy as news came of the reckless exploits of his brother, and when at last this hurried application for help arrived he insisted upon personally taking command of the relief expedition.

When, after a long and tedious journey, he arrived at the scene of action it was only to find that his brother had altogether disappeared. A few days before, Mizar had seen an opportunity of inflicting great loss upon the enemy by a sudden bold dash, and had consequently taken a small body of picked troops and set out as a sort of flying column. He had penetrated into the hills, and it was evident from the hurried abandonment of their positions by the enemy that he had succeded in the object of his manoeuvres, but at the same time nothing further had been heard from him, and it was feared that he had fallen into an ambush. The general whom he had left in charge in the newly built capital of his province had sent out various reconnaissances, but they had not been able to obtain any news of their Governor.

As soon as Dhruva heard this, although his men were still fatigued after their wearisome journey, he promptly got together a number of his best troops and, taking some of the natives as guides, plunged into the mountains in search of his brother. After many adventures he at last came upon him entrenched with his men in a place of great strength on the top of a hill. Their position was almost impregnable but they were a small number, surrounded by an overwhelming force, and almost entirely without food. The troops which Dhruva had with him were far from sufficient to relieve a position besieged by so large a body of men; nevertheless he did not hesitate for a moment but delivered a most determined attack. At the same time Mizar and his men, seeing the rescue party at hand, came dashing down the hill and attacked the savages in the rear, and after a brilliant and hardfought engagement they entirely broke up and routed that division of the enemy, and were left in undisputed possession of the field of battle. The remaining divisions, however, far outnumbered them, and their losses had been so heavy that another victory of the same sort would have left few of them alive to celebrate it.

Dhruva had unfortunately been severely wounded, so Mizar was in command of the expedition, and he immediately ordered a retreat down the valley up which they had come. This was carried out in a careful and orderly manner, and though the enemy persistently attacked them in the rear, they were unable to make any impression upon them, so that they achieved their retreat almost entirely without loss, though the savages suffered severely.

As soon as they got out of the mountains and within reach of their territory, Mizar sent back to his local capital for further reinforcements, and when he receieved them he turned upon the savage tribes and inflicted upon them so heavy a defeat that their army was practically annihilated, and they gave no further trouble.

Meantime Dhruva lay sorely wounded, and it soon became evident that he could not recover. Mizar, full of remorse, reproached himself as indirectly the cause of his brother’ s death, but Dhruva, when he was able to speak, would not listen to any such suggestion, declaring that this was but the fortune of war, and that he was glad that it had happened to him, and not to his dearly loved brother. He begged Mizar to carry the news of his death to Alcyone, and himself to marry her as soon as the days of mourning were over, saying that there was no one to whom he would so gladly entrust the little son and daughter that had been born to him. Mizar was deeply affected, and doubted much in his own mind whether Alcyone would agree to this suggestion, or whether she might not rather regard him with aversion as to some extent the cause of her husband’ s death; but in order to satisfy the dying Dhruva he promised to lay the matter before her and to abide by her decision.

Soon after, Dhruva died, blessing his brother with his last breath, and adjuring him to take charge on his behalf of his wife and children. Mizar put his chief captain in charge of his new province, and travelled slowly down to the capital with his sad news. He dreaded to approach his father with it, but Mercury bore it nobly, saying that he knew quite surely that Mizar had done the best he could, and that since Dhruva had to die he could have died no better than in rescuing his brother. The report had to be laid before King Rama, who received it in the same spirit, and then came the still heavier task of breaking the news to the widow Alcyone. She was shocked, of course; but when Mizar gave her her husband’ s dying message, she bowed her head and simply said: “Let it be as he has willed.”

So it came to pass that when the time of mourning was over Mizar and Alcyone were wedded, and thus the latter was comforted for the loss of her first husband. The children were too young to know anything about it; and all through their lives they had never the slightest reason to miss their father, or to feel themselves treated in any wise differently from their half-brothers and sisters who presently came to join them.

Mizar and Alcyone certainly merited the blessing called down by the wise king of old on the man who hath his quiver full, for they had no fewer than fourteen children in addition to the two who were Dhruva’ s. In the fullness of years King Rama also died, and Alcyone’ s brother Viraj came to the throne—the eldest of the seven brothers. All the other six still survived, and were acting either as Governors of provinces under Viraj or as travelling inspectors, for the scheme that Mars had instituted long before was still being carried out. Several outlying provinces had had by this time been annexed, and the system of frontier guards had been perfected, so that the latter half of Alcyone’ s life was a time of peace and great progress so far as the country was concerned. As usual Alcyone lived to old age, and finally passed away at the age of eighty-nine, after a life of great usefulness in which her many children had been well and happily trained.

Orion was born in a Tartar race in Central Asia. He was the son of a high official, a governor of a district whose duty led him to travel constantly all over his province. In the intervals between these journeyings he and his family lived in one of the principal houses in the chief city of the province.

Here unfortunately lived Gamma, the same woman who had exercised such an evil influence over Orion in his previous life, and he was scarcely sixteen when she got him into her toils. The previous life might have repeated itself, but for the entry upon the scene of Helios, a young lady whom he had the opportunity of saving one day from some robbers on a country road. She was duly grateful, and he was much impressed by her beauty, but was disagreeably surprised to learn that she was the daughter of a house between which and his own there was a bitter hereditary feud. After much cognition he determined that he must marry her, and so he solemnly informed his father of his love. The father thought him mad, and finding him intractable finally drove him from the homestead and disinherited him. The young man was thus left in a peculiar position–thrown out penniless on the world for the sake of a girl whom he had seen only once, when he did not know whether she cared in the least for him. He rode off to the town where she lived, and contrived to obtain a meeting with Helios. He rode up to her father’s castle and boldly told his hereditary enemy that he wanted to marry his daughter. The Chieftain thought that he was mad, and had him cast out of the castle with a warning not to come again on pain of death. He did not quite know what to do next, as he had no money and knew of no trade by which he could support himself. Presently it occurred to him that he could at least make a living by hunting, and he did this for some time, occassionally communicating with his lady-love through a servant. This led to the inevitable result; the lady one day escaped from her father’s castle and they fled together, hiding themselves among one of the wandering tribes. Among these nomadic people they lived very happily, even though their physical surroundings were horribly rough and poor. Orion undertook to do the hunting for the caravan in return for food and lodging for himself and his wife, and presently he bartered some of his skins for cattle, and in this way came to own a few, like the men of the tribe. They wandered with this tribe for several years, and later on transferred themselves to another of higher type. When this tribe became engaged in a war Orion offered his services, which were eagerly accepted, and when his side was victorious he received a considerable share of the spoil, and so became comparatively rich.

Meanwhile, news of their flight together had reached Orion’s family, who was furious, considering that he had disgraced their name and had dragged their honour in the dust by intermarrying with their hereditary enemies; so his father sent his brother succeded in tracing the pair ; finding them domiciled among a powerful warlike tribe he hesitated to make any attack upon them. Presently he allied himself with a robber band, which occupied a small rocky valley among the hills, and presently, with the aid of a couple of bandits he made an attack upon his brother and tried to kill him. Orion, however, succeeded in beating off his assailants; so Scorpio, having failed in that, kidnapped Orion’s little son Aldeb. Orion thereupon organised an attack upon the bandits’ valley, and after hard fighting captured it and rescued his little son. In the course of the fighting he killed Scorpio, who was in disguise, and then for the first time he discovered that it was his own brother who had been thus pursuing him. The remainder of his life passed comparatively quietly and he at the age of fifty-eight.

Orion re-appears in a female body in the year 22,978, in the island of Madagaskar. She was again the child of Alastor, who this time was a celebrated hunter. When Orion grew up she fell deeply in love with Cygnus, who had been her son in a previous life. Alastor was unfavourable to their union, and sold Orion to an older man, Cancer, who had been his wife in that other life. This man had a previous wife Gamma, who in Hawaii had been the lover of Orion’s wife Cancer, and had been poisoned by him. Gamma was jealous and vindictive, and made things most unpoeasant for Orion, but was afraid to do her any serious harm while the husband continued to love her and to her children. The husband became more and more indifferent, because he was in love with Zeta, who had been in Hawaii the young girl who was driven mad by Orion’s threats. Orion tried to console herself by a love affair with Cygnus, but Gamma discovered their proceedings and brought the husband down upon them. Cygnus was horribly mutilated before Orion’s eyes and then thrown to a giant octopus, who was regarded as some sort of a deity. Maddened by a suspicion that it was not his own, the husband snatched from her her year old baby, and threw it into the fire before her eyes, and then degraded her to the position of a slave in his house, a position in which she was kept for twenty years, and very harshly treated. During all this time she nourished the most intense hatred towards her husband and Gamma. Now the latter had a little grandson whom she loved passionately, and one Orion, maddened by some special act of cruelty, seized this grandson and pushed him into the fire in turn. In revenge for this, Gamma ordered Orion to be seized and stretched naked upon the ground near a hill of huge driver ants, who at once attacked and devoured her.

Life XIX

King Mars was once again ruling in North America, but this time on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, in the great Tlavatli Kingdom of Toyocatli, which we previously described as including all the Southern States of the Union.

With him, naturally, came the band of Servers; and among them we find our heroine Alcyone as the eldest daughter of Mizar and Helios, who were exceedingly kind, tender and devoted parents. Her father - Mizar was a man of great wealth, as he not only owned vast flocks and herds, but had also on his estate a good deal of alluvial gold, which was washed out of some gravel on the banks of a rapid stream in a hilly region. These flocks were not, however, goats or sheep exactly as we know them now, but more resembled the gnu.

The commonest animal was a kind of heavily-built long - haired goat, with head, neck and horns not unlike those of a miniature ox. The hill country round the gulf seems to have been of quite a different outline in those days. The river now known as the Mississippi cut across the State now bearing that name, instead of flowing round it in a curve between that state and Louisiana as at present. The gulf of Mexico was less in size than at present. The Gulf of Mexico was less in size than now, and its c onfiguration was quite different.

In a beautiful grove not far from Alcyone’ s home stood a magnificent temple, built in the form of a five pointed star, in the angles of which were stairways which led up to the central ceremonial chamber. Over this chamber was a large dome, coloured blue on the inside. On the inside wall just below the dome was a frieze about three feet high of some metal which looked like silver, inlaid with symbols and hieroglyphics. In the upper part of the dome hung seven silver bells, heavy and large enough to give clear deep tones, resonant and beautiful.

Beneath the temple itself were crypts in which were kept instruments of gold and silver studded with precious stones, which were used in ceremonial worship on special and secret occasions. The central hall under the dome was circular, and its walls were decorated with rare stones inlaid in symbolical forms; its whole appearance gave one the idea of Byzantine architecture. In it all the sacramental and festal ceremonies were conducted. On the second floor of the temple, in the points of the star, were the rooms of the priests; one of the windows in each room looked into the central hall, and sometimes minor services and ceremonies were conducted by the priests from their rooms through these large openings.

It is here that we find the first scene of importance in the life of Alcyone, the occasion being that of her presentation or consecration, which took place at the age of six months. Over this ceremony Mercury presided, assisted physically by three other priests, Osiris, Venus and Brihat, and astrally by the Mahaguru, who hovered above the alter, visible only to the clairvoyant. This group is a most interesting one to contemplate, and it can hardly be considered a mere coincidence that those who represented four separate forms of the Great Mysteries should have been there together at this time. The ceremony of the consecration of Alcyone appears to have been largely astrological. The colour used on the alter was electric blue, the colour ascribed to the planet Uranus, which was in the ascendant at the moment of the child’ s birth. The influence of this planet also accounts to some extent for the latent possibilities of psychic development which came into manifestation later in her life. During the consecration ceremony an angel appeared, and into his guardianship the child was given; with the approval of the Mahaguru, who directed from higher planes the work of Mercury. The Mahaguru was the founder of the religion of this people, and he appeared in order to make a link between the child and the overshadowing angel. He seemed to take possession of this, the first-born child of the family, and stretched out His arms over it with words to the effect that He took this ego into his care, not for this time only, but for the future.

Venus was incharge of the astrological part of the ceremony; he had cast the child’ s horoscope and arranged the necessary details in accordance with the child’ s horoscope and arranged the necessary details in accordance with the planetary aspects in it, though it was Mercury who performed the actual ceremonies of the consecration. The child was placed upon a smaller altar made of metal and highly magnetised; this stood in front of the principal alter and the rites were intended to make a magnetic link between the child, the angel and the Mahaguru, and also to inhibit any lower disturbing influences. During the ceremony the seven silver bells in the dome chimed three short musical phrases, the priests chanting in unison with them, as they stood each in the centre of one of the sides of the great square altar facing towards it. During the ceremony the little Alcyone wore a magnificently embroidered robe, made by her mother Helios, who often also enjoyed the privilege of embroiding the priests’ s robes and some of the decorations of the Temple.

On the child’ s robe was worked a large swan as a centrepiece (probably the Kalahamsa) and there was a border of curved swastikas. The temple itself was attached to a great central temple far away in Atlantis, over which Surya presided as High Priest, assisted by Jupiter and Saturn.

The people were a light brown race, belonging to the Tlavatly subdivision of the fourth Root Race; and about two years after the ceremony described, we find Alcyone a little toddling whitish-brown baby, wearing golden anklets which were really her mother’ s bracelets; as the baby enjoyed playing with them when on the mother’ s arm, she put them on the little ankles, and they would often fall off as the child walked.

On this occasion our old friend Sirius was the son of the priest Brihat, and his first sight of Alcyone was at that consecration ceremony. Although he was only about three years of age, he had been brought by his parents to witness this dedication ceremony, which was an exceptionally brilliant one, as Alcyone’ s parents. Being wealthy people, spent a great deal of money on decorations and processions. The grandeur of it greatly impressed him. And he at once fell in love with the baby, declaring his intention of marrying her when he became a man. When he was a few years older and again expressed the same sentiments, his parents advised him to put the thought out of his mind, since they were comparatively poor and Alcyone’ s parents were very rich.

The two families lived on opposite sides of the river, which at this point was about a mile wide. Sirius did not share the view of his parents that difference of circumstances should be a barrier to his love, and when he was about twelve and Alcyone about nine years old, we find him having himself ferried across the river in order to pay his little sweet heart a visit. He brought her a piece of sugar-cane which she refused to eat alone, so they compromised matters by taking alternate bites of it, as they sat together under the shade of a wall.

Sirius could not forget Alcyone, and contrived to continue visiting her; presently he swam across the river daily for this purpose, even though the current was very swift and it took courage to accomplish it. As no one knew where he went on these occasions, he acquired the reputation of being a strange boy who took long wandering walks all alone. While swimming across the river on one of these visits he was attacked by an alligator, but contrived to kill it by stabbing it under the foreleg with a knife which he had carried for several days, because he had seen a similar reptile shortly before. Alcyone’ s brother Herakles became an intimate friend of Sirius, and being some years younger rather worshipped the older boy, and was glad to carry letters for him to Alcyone, thus considerably helping in this juvenile love affair.

Years went by and the children grew up into youth and maiden, but still remained faithful to one another. The young lady’ s parents of course knew all about it by this time, but they did not look with much favour upon the impecunious suitor, especially as an opportunity offered for Alcyone to become the bride of Vajra, who was the son of King Mars, and heir to his throne. Alcyone, while admitting that it would be a very pleasant thing some day to become a queen, still would not give up her love for Sirius and wished to marry him. When a final decision had to be taken in the matter of marriage, and she was pressed by her parents to accept Vajra, she wept bitterly and was deeply distressed and dejected. Her mother’ s tender heart could not bear this, and her father too was deeply moved, so she had her way at last and was permitted to accept Sirius. All being settled, Helios wished to make a settlement of a sum of money upon the two, and to carry things out gracefully and generously. Sirius and his father were proud and found it hard to accept this, but it was finally arranged. Helios and Mizar made the best of things, and considered themselves fortunate that their daughter had chosen the son of one so honoured in the temple as Brihat.

The parents on both sides having made the final arrangements, the marriage of the happy young lovers took place in most gorgeous state in the temple, and the ceremony was performed by the high priest Mercury, aided by Brihat, the father of Sirius, and by the high priest Mercury, aided by

Brihat, the father of Sirius, and by his uncles Osiris and Yajnya. Alcyone looked most beautiful in a white robe, and here again the skilled handiwork of Helios showed itself, as the dress was profusely embroidered with gold and jewels.

Mercury, handsome as a Greek God, recited the marriage service in a most impressive and dignified manner, and threw much cordial personal feeling into the words which he had to repeat, for he had known and loved both bride and bridegroom since their childhood.

The central feature of this marriage ceremony seems to have been a sort of eucharist. The celebrant invoked the Mahaguru, and then handed handed the sacramental cup to Sirius, who passed it on to Alcyone; she drank some of its contents and handed it back to him, and then he in turn drank.

The cup and the liquid had been highly magnetised, so that all earthly influence was removed from it, and only that of the Mahaguru left paramount. The husband and wife, after receiving the blessings of the Mahaguru, were bound together with ropes of roses and walked hand in hand round the alter, vowing in turn before each of the priests who were taking part in the ceremony. After this circumambulation they were seated side by side in a sort of palanquin which was drawn up into the air by ropes and left swinging high above the heads of the people while further blessings were chanted. This was to symbolise their new relation to each other, that they were now alone together and apart from the rest of the world, and also that they could rise together to planes higher than either would be able to reach apart, and that thus they work together, for a higher good. Then they were once more lowered to the floor, and received a final blessing from the priest preparatory to leaving the temple.

Many handsome presents were given to them, and it is noteworthy that all these were brought to the temple to be magnetised by the priests. Among them was a huge golden bowl from Helios, which was wrought in the form of a lotus.

Some beautiful chased silver swinging lamps were given by Mizar, and were filled with sweet scented oil which perfumed the whole temple. At various points during the ceremony the bells in the domes sounded soft muffled tones, but as it finished they rang out joyfully.

In this family alone we find a considerable gathering of the theosophical clan, for in addition to the nine children of Helios there were sixteen born to Sirius and Alcyone, all of them egos well known to us. If we include the children of the King, and those of Vajra and Herakles, who are also numerous, we find nearly all our dramatis personnae. The children of most of these families were taught by the Priests of the temple, and some of the sons became inmates of it. besides the sixteen children of Alcyone and Sirius, they also adopted the orphan Olaf, because Mercury was deeply interested in him.

Somewhat strained relations existed just at this time between the court of Mars and the authorities of the great Temple, chiefly owing to a number of small misunderstandings intentionally created by two young priests of bad character,

Thetis and Scorpio, who cherished a bitter grudge against the King because he had been compelled to banish their father Cancer for a series of henious crimes which he had committed at the instigation of a stronger ruffian than himself. These two young fellows contrived somehow to become aware of a conspiracy against the King, and joined themselves to it, intending either to use it or to betray it, as might best suit their own machinations. They decided to request an audience from the King, and if he granted it, to endeavour to utilise the occasion to assasinate him. There was a certain important functionary (Castor) in the King’ s household, among whose duties it was to arrange audiences for him; so these two young scoundrels wrote a letter to this man asking for an appointment, and hinting that they could betray a dark conspiracy against the King, and could also show that the Temple authorities were trying to undermine his power.

In going up the steps of the palace the functionary accidentally dropped the letter, and herakles happened to pick it up. (Herakles was now an intimate friend of Vajra and in consequence was much at the palace.) He was on his way to Sirius at the time, and when he read the contents of this letter he had so odd a feeling of danger that he showed it to Sirius, and discussed the matter with him. Sirius at once, consulted his wife Alcyone, who proceeded to psychometrise it, and saw the plot in the minds of the scoundrels. In order to confirm what she saw, they took the letter to Helios, who was also psychic. She agreed as to the plot, and they felt that they ought to take some action, but since some high authorities of the Temple had been accused of treachery to the King, and this was mentioned in the letter, it was a serious question what to do with it.

It was finally decided to say nothing for the moment to the King, but Herakles went to the functionary to whom the letter had been written. The latter had been seeking for it everywhere before reporting its contents to the King. So Herakles told him what he feared, and together they arranged that the ruffians should have the desired audience, but that they themselves should be present and also have in readiness a strong guard. The would be murderers presented themselves, and as they were rising from the usual prostration, Thetis thrust his hand into the front of his robe and grasped a dagger. Herakles, who was close to the King’ s side, saw the action and guessed its meaning, so he sprang forward just in time to seize the man’ s wrist as he raised the dagger and was to leap upon the King. Both the villains were quickly overpowered and imprisoned, and shortly afterwards they were banished from the kingdom. The law condemned them to be buried alive, but the Monarch commuted their sentence to banishment, because he said that wicked as their action had been, and worthless as they themselves appeared to be, their treachery had been dictated by a perverted idea of filial affection and family honour.

The King was thus grateful to Herakles for having thus saved his life, and when he heared the part that Alcyone and Helios had played in the affair, he called them before him and publicly thanked them. The entire family, including that of

Sirius, was much advanced in royal and public favour.

Herakles was honoured by receiving the King’ s daughter (Bee) in marriage, and was appointed as ruler over the large province in which the family of Sirius lived. Vajra was made ruler over the province in which Mizar and Helios lived, and as only the river seperated these two provinces there was much happy social intercourse between all these families, the court and the temple Priests. After the attempted assasination of the King, it became known at once that the rumour that the priests of the temple had tried to undermine the power of the King had no foundation whatever. Mars sent for the Chief Priest Mercury, who came to the palace with Herakles and Vajra. A wonderfully clear understanding was at once established between the Priest and the Monarch, and harmony was restored between the Court and the Temple; so much so, that when later the King abdicated in favour of his son Vajra, he took up his permanent residence with the Priests in order to live a life of devotion.

Various expeditions were sent out from time to time by the King, and one of them was given into the charge of Vajra and Herakles. They were sent to make a sort of treaty with the ruler of the kingdom where they had lived a thousand years before, and bore rich gifts with them. On the way, near where New Mexico now is, they were attacked by savage tribes similar in type to Pueblo Indians, who captured them and then sent to Mars for a large ransom. But instead of a ransom, the King sent Sirius with a large army of trusted men to rescue the captives. This they succeeded in doing, the army engaging the Indians in front of their village while Sirius entered it from the rear and easily rescued Vajra and Herakles, who were borne home amid great rejoicing. Herakles had learned the Indian language while prisoner among them. Some time after their return a second expedition was sent to the same kingdom, which reached its destination and returned safely; but this time the King would not permit Sirius, Vajra or Herakles to go. Another expedition was sent towards the north-west, as a rumour had come of great silver and gold mines in that direction. It was successful, and returned with much treasure and large numbers of sparkling gold-stones, such as those now found in Arizona, and also great quantities of other gems of various kinds.

During the expedition of Sirius to rescue Vajra and Herakles a rather interesting experience occurred in the family of his son Demeter, who had married Elsa and settled in a house in the suburbs of the city. They soon found that there were other previous tenants who paid no rent, for the house was haunted in the most extraordinary way, and they were much disturbed by all sorts of unwelcome manifestations.

Noises were heard, doors opened and shut unexpectedly, and they were to be found on investigation. The manifestations appeared to centre themselves round a certain room, though no part of the house was entirely free from them. The constant pressure of this psychic trouble quite wore out both Demeter and his wife. It was the wife who was first actually seized upon by the haunting entities, but, in endeavouring to protect her, Demeter himself became partially obssessed, and after that had once happened, quite long periods of time elapsed in many cases during which he had no accurate knowledge of what had occurred or what he had been doing. Both he and his wife were quite worn out with this, and as an addition to the family was impending, the mother of Demeter (Alcyone) felt that some decided steps must be taken. She determined to go herself to the house and spend a night alone in the room which seemed to be the central point of the disturbance, in order to try to discover exactly what was the matter, and to see if there were any possible way of dealing with the subject.

Demeter and his wife strongly urged that they should be allowed to remain with her, but she insisted on being alone, saying that she could not be responsible for anybody but herself. When everything was quite quiet, she covered the light and sat waiting. For a long time nothing was happened, but at last there came three heavy dull knocks or blows, such as might be made by a large slow-moving object. Cold chills ran down Alcyone’ s spine, and an overmastering sensation of fear came over her. She shook this off, hastily uncovered the light, and stood looking expectantly towards the place from which the knocks appeared to come, reciting mantras by which she expected to call breath on the back of her neck.

She spun round and then something tapped her lightly on the back. Again she spun round but could see nothing there, and as she was thus looking into space something brushed her ankle. Looking down she saw a horrible object on the floor; it was like a large worm, perhaps four feet in length, but somewhat cigar-shaped, covered with hair, black, coarse, short and bristly; it had a sort of rudimentary face, with no features but a big red hole which took the place of a mouth, and the whole gave out a horrible and most sickening odour, as of something that had been long dead. It writhed along, and came curling round her leg, and as she reached down to tear it off, it fastened on her hand like a vampire, and then began to coil round her body. Just then she saw her son Demeter approaching, looking like one drowned, with horribly distorted features—lead coloured, greenish, and bloated—and with a baleful deadly fire in his eyes, lambent and unholy. At first she thought he was coming to defend her; the horrible worm was just getting at her throat, and she called to Demeter to help her. But he came towards her in a curious, stooping, crouching manner, his fingers clutching the air, and instead of helping her he seized her by the throat. With all her strength of will she called upon Sirius (who was absent on the expedition more than thousand miles away) and he at once came astrally in answer; he seized the beast with one hand and Demeter with the other, tore them apart, dashed the beast to the floor and stamped upon it, till it was nothing more than a jelly; then he shook Demeter into wakefulness, and was gone as suddenly as he came. Demeter looked at his mother in a dazed sort of way and said again and again: “What is it? What is it? What is it?”

A great weakness overpowered him, and did not pass away for a long time, but he was never again obsessed.

Alcyone’ s hair was white on one side where the beast had struck her, and for days afterwards she could not get rid of the horrible odour. The incident made a deep impression on her mind, and whenever she thought of it, it made her physically sick. For years she could not bear the sight of any creature that writhed, and she nearly fainted one day when a harmless cat happened to curve itself round her ankle, although it was a year after her adventure; and for a long time even the sight of a small worm would cause her to grow pale and weak.

When Alcyone had called Sirius to help her, he and others were sitting round a camp-fire, and at once he fell back in a trance. He plainly heard his wife’ s call, and somehow found himself in a room which he did not know. Seeing his wife in dreadful danger, he rushed to her aid, endowed with superhuman strength; when he had rescued her in the manner described, he seemed to lose consciousness, and when it returned his friends of the camp were sprinkling water on his face. He felt quite weak after this, and was not fully himself for several days, so his exertion had evidently been a great strain upon him.

Alcyone went to Mercury and told him her story, asking him what could have been the cause of all these strange happenings; he looked into the matter and unearthed the fact that on the spot where Demeter lived there had been long ago a centre for a peculiarly obscene form of early magic. Its devotees used to provide their seance a bath of human blood, and huge scorpion-like creatures materialised and stalked round it, squirting out a poison which seared everything which came near them. Among these creatures was the unpleasant object that attacked Alcyone, and as it had been starving for a long time it was proportionately ferocious. These elementals were expressions of a certain form of evil thought, deliberately intensified and materialised by magical ceremonies, and, being ensouled by’ familiar spirits’ of a particularly obscene kind, they were exceedingly dangerous. By those who made them they were called’ sendings’, because they could be sent to anyone whom the magician hated to materialise in his bed-room, to sit on his breast in the night and spit venom on him. An entity of an evolution lower than the physical used to be put into such a thing, and enabled to hold together.

In the year 22,605, when Sirius was about sixty years old, the King prepared an expedition to a certain holy city in Yucatan, which was about to be visited by Surya, the Head Priest of the great Atlantean religion, and Alcyone, Sirius, Mizar, Helios, Mercury, Uranus and many others set forth, starting in the late summer and travelling southward round the Gulf. At first they used carts, but after a time they had to leave the great main rock road and abandon the carts, using their mule-like horses or mustangs both for pack and riding. The main rock roads were really remnants of a previous age.

When Atlantis was at the height of its glory, wide roads of solid rock were formed radiating in all directions from the Great City of the Golden Gate, stretching over hill and dale for thousands of miles; and these were crossed by a network of local roads, which, however, were not so well made of kept.

On one occasion our party fell into difficulties in trying to cross a river. At a later point in the journey they met a caravan of merchants who were using a curious camel-like sort of animal, resembling a big llama. It was some type between the two; the Atlanteans had been fond of experimenting in the crossing of animals. Once our travelers came to a deep canon, and though it was less than fifty yards across they had to travel thirty miles round to reach the opposite side of it. when about half way on their journey they met another caravan, of which all the people were in a dying condition, because the savages had poisoned the water of the stream from which they had drunk. Mercury magnetised the people and neutralised thee poison, thus saving them all. They now bent their course towards the east and then a little to the north, and soon a guide met them, a curious aboriginal man, who had been sent from Yucatan for the purpose of showing them all. They now bent their course towards the east, and then a little to the north, and soon sent from Yucatan for the purpose of showing them the way. The people in the city were aware of the approach of the pilgrims, at least of this particular caravan, and a procession met them at the gate.

Mars, Mercury and the Priests at once repaired to the great temple of which Saturn was the Chief Priest, where they found some kind of initiation ceremony taking place. The number of people admitted to this was of course limited, but both Sirius and Alcyone were allowed to be present. There was a sort of golden throne, magnificently decorated; it had lion arms and a flight of nine steps leading up to it with carved animals on either side, something of the Egyptian style of work. Surya sat upon this throne, and received the people as they were presented to him, exchanging with each of them certain signs. Each priest as he appeared before Surya, gave him the same secret salutation, which is one of those still used in the White Lodge at the present day. Surya sent out streams of blessing or perhaps they were sent through him. Afterwards the huge brazen gates of the were thrown open, and the rest of the party came in, and Surya came down from his throne to speak with them, saluting them with the most friendly words.

One remarkable fact that was observed is that he must have known even then to speak with them, saluting them with the most friendly words. One remarkable fact that was observed is that he must have known even then the same which Alcyone would choose on his admission to the Sangha twenty-eight incarnations later, in the life in which he met lord Buddha, because he distinctly referred to it. our friends attended also another great gathering on an occasion when Surya spoke of love which is so characteristically his own, telling all the pilgrims the emphasis that must be laid upon that quality.

“Love is life,” he said,”the only life that is real. A man who ceased to love is already dead. All conditions in life are to be judged fortunate or unfortunate according to the opportunities that they offer for love. Love will come under the most unlikely circumstances, if men will but allow it to come.

Without this all other qualifications are only as water lost in the sand.”

Our band of pilgrims stayed in the city for about two months and then started for home. On the journey they ran short of water and could find no source of divining twig. While they were still on the way Helios died, to the great sorrow of her friends and relations. Mizar could not bear to leave the body to decay in the wilderness, and was grief-stricken because they had not the usual acid which was the custom to inject into the corpse to burn it up at once. In compassion for Mizar, Mercury placed his hands on the body and disintegrated it by some means, as though by sending a current of consuming heat through it. Alcyone, being psychic, felt no separation from her mother, and so through her Helios was just as much in touch with the family as ever, as she accompanied them on their journey in her astral body.

Sirius died at the age of sixty-four, but both he and Helios continued for a long time to keep up the closest relations with Alcyone, lingering intentionally on the higher levels of the astral world in order to do so. Her children and her brother Herakles looked after her thoroughly well as far as her physical wants were concerned. She occupied herself for the last twenty years of her life in writing a great book on religious subjects. It was in four parts or volumes, with curiously epigrammatic and untranslatable titles. The nearest we can come to rendering them in English is: “Whence? Why? Whither? Beyond.”

Mercury ordered that when this work was finished it should be preserved in the crypt of the Temple; but some centuries later, in consequence of the danger of invasion, it was removed to the other Temple in Yucatan. A copy of it was made by Alcyone herself for the Chief Priest Surya, which she sent to him in Atlantis; it now rests in the secret museum of the Great White Lodge.

Ajax had married Erato, and had a son (Melete) who was about five years old when the following curious incident happened. One day he was not to be found, and his mother, half mad with anxiety, went to Alcyone the grandmother, who tried in every conceivable way to find him, even to the sending of a servant down a well by means of a rope to see if he had fallen into it. At last, all physical resources having failed them, Alcyone sat down, determined to look for him psychically. She was successful in discovering where he was, and she told the father to take his sword and come with her at once to save the child. She led the way to an old half-ruined hut, to which a savage woman had carried off the boy, with the intention of sacrificing him in a black magical ceremony. Her intention was to make his intestines into strings for a musical instrument to be used for demoniacal invocations. The woman was resting with the child at this hut, in the course of her journey to a dark shrine which lay further in the forest. By means of a magical potion she had put the child to sleep, so that she could carry him more conveniently, and was just about to start on her way when Alcyone and the father arrived. At first they threatened to kill the woman, but after a time relented, telling her, however, that if she came near their house again she would meet with certain death.

Another curious instance of the practical utility of Alcyone’ s remarkable psychical powers may be noted, though it occurred many years earlier than the last, and before the death of Sirius. One night she had a vivid dream, in which she saw a place, a deep ravine, in which there was hidden some gold. This dream came to her three times, and each time a child, or nature spirit, led her to the spot and pointed laughingly at the gold, taking it into his hands and playing with it. After the third repetition she took it seriously and consulted her husband. He at once decided that there was something in it, and set out with Alcyone and Mizar to find the place. They soon came to indications which Alcyone recognised, but it took much time and trouble to find the exact spot. When at last they did reach they were well repaid for their efforts; there was a sort of pocket in which the gold lay, and the amount was great and enabled them to be comfortably off for life, and to perform many acts of charity.

Among the latest incidents of Alcyone’ s life, we notice that, at the age of 84, she gave a magnificent reception in honour of some delegates who had been sent over from the Central Temple of Atlantis, Viraj being at the head of the embassy.

In the year 22,578 this eventful life closed and Alcyone passed away, loved and respected by all who had known her.

Orion appears again in the year 22,208, in a female body in the peninsula of Malacca, as the daughter of a trader. She was born with an overwhelming horror of all creeping things, and a great fear of fire and often had frightful dreams of her past life, so that she suffered much from hysteria. She grew up, married, and had two children; but her eldest child one day fell into the fire and was burned, and this accident had a terrible effect upon her, for it drove away her reason. Her life after this was a long period of mental suffering, and it ended in a horrible death. A great bonfire was lit to celebrate a victory, and when she saw it she fell into the fire with wild shrieks. The only other of our characters appearing at the same time was Zeta, the girl who was driven mad in Madagaskar; but appeared in this case as the son of a watch-doctor, who tried to care Orion’s hysteria.

We have here another instance of the phenomenon which we mentioned in Life XVIIIa. Alcyone remains out of incarnation for a period of 819 years, and then has an unusually short life, so that her next interval was 275 years, thus making a total interval between the nineteenth and twenty first lives of 1,111 years. This fitted conveniently enough as one interval for some of our characters, but there were others who were unable to stay away so long, and consequently took an intermediate incarnation in India, as will be shown in the following chart.

Life XX

Alcyone was born in a female body in the year 21759 B.C., not far from where Chittagong now stands. She was the daughter of Brihat and Neptune, and was one of a family of four. Her elder brother was Uranus and her younger sister was Mizar, but both of these died young: Uranus at the age of eighteen and Mizar, in childbirth, at the age of fifteen. There was also a younger brother, Vulcan, who was taught from boyhood by the Priests in the temple.

The father Brihat seems to have been both ruler and Priest of a small community or kingdom. Astrology was a prominent factor in the religious ideas of the day, and Alcyone’ s horoscope was cast with great elaboration. It destined her to a marriage with Saturn, who was a distant relation, and it foretold that she should bear a child of remarkable power and holiness, and directed that all her early life should be arranged as a preparation for this coming event. The instructions were obeyed, and she was specially instructed by the Priests with a view to this.

Her childhood was a happy one. We see her as a graceful, beautiful child, with long streaming black hair. The only mode of dressing the hair was to catch it back from the face with golden clasps, in which were mounted most magnificent diamonds, so large that they looked like brilliant stars against her dark locks. The hair was washed daily and anointed with magnetised oil, which was supposed to stimulate the intellectual faculties. She was carefully secluded from all possible trouble or difficulty. Her only sorrow was the death of her elder brother Uranus, to whom she was profoundly attached.

At the age of fifteen she was duly married to Saturn with great pomp, and a year later a noble boy was born (Surya). There was great rejoicing over this event, and every care was taken of the child of promise. Alcyone was very sensitive and impressionable, and when the child was about to come to her she had a wonderful dream in which she saw a bright star leave the sky and enter her. This dream caused her to be considered a holy person. She was also clairvoyantly conscious of the presence of the ego when it attached itself to her.

Everything seemed to promise for her a long and brilliant life under the most favourable conditions; yet all these expectations were disappointed, for her life was abruptly terminated at the age of seventeen by an accident in which she voluntarily sacrificed herself in order to save her child. The circumstances were as follows: Alcyone’ s house formed part of a great suite of buildings erected round a sort of square which was within the palace of the King. A slave-woman, who was changing the water in a glass vase containing gold-fish, was called away on some other business, and set the vase down on a table in the full rays of the sun. The glass acted as a lens, and the sun-rays, streaming through it, converged on some neighbouring wood-work and set it on fire. The house was built entirely of wood, richly gilded, and the flames spread like lightening in every direction, blazing up like a furnace. Alcyone was, at the moment, at some little distance off, but as the servants rushed off in every direction shouting and screaming, her attention was attracted, and she flew, fleet as a deer, towards the burning house.

The baby had been left with his nurse in an upper room, but she had gone out, confiding her charge to some fellow-servants.

These fled downwards on the alarm of fire, forgetting the baby, and the terrified nurse, rushing for the child, fell back at the sight of the blazing staircase, which was the only way to the nursery. Wringing her hands, she screamed out: “The child! the child”, but dare not face the roaring flames which barred the road.”My boy?”gasped Alcyone, and sprang up through the sea of fire. Several of the stairs had already fallen, leaving only in some places the supporting wooden bars not yet burned through, though blazing. Desperately she plunged on, climbing, slipping, leaping across the gaps through which the flames flaring upwards, caught her garments and scorched her flesh. Surely no human strength would suffice to carry her to the top! But mother’ s love is omnipotent, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, she reached the room where the baby lay.

Smoke was pouring into it, and she wrapped an unburnt fragment of clothing across her mouth and crawled along the floor. The babe, crowing at the dancing flames, stretched out chubby arms to his mother, and, catching him up, she pressed his face into her bosom and fled downwards with her boy close wrapped in her arms. Again she crossed that burning torrent, her body nude, her hair blazing, the diamonds dropping from it, flashing back the flames. Somehow she reached the bottom, the open air, and fell prostrate outside, shielding the babe even as she fell. He was unhurt, but she was dying, and in less than an hour she breathed her last. More out of her body than in it, too terribly injured to retain feeling, she was scarce conscious of suffering, and her last smile seemed to be on the freed astral form, as it bent over the rescued boy. Is it not the karma she made, by dying for Surya then, being reaped in the present opportunity given to Alcyone to serve the Blessed one again?

After its mother’ s death the child was taken in charge by his aunt Viraj (Saturn’ s sister), who was even then an advanced ego, and has since become an important member of the Occult Hierarchy. She was psychic, and through her Alcyone was still able to help and care for the child. The aunt never allowed any of the servants to touch the baby, and swung him herself in the garden in a sort of cradle hung up between the trees. There, in the quiet grove, Alcyone would speak to her from the astral world about the child, who was thus brought up altogether in a holy atmosphere and soon became a wonder, at the age of seven delivering teaching in the temple, so that people from all quarters came to hear him.

It seems as though from time to time the members of the present Hierarchy of Adepts were born together in different countries to assist in the founding of a new religion, or of a magnetised centre, we see them also spreading the religion and sending expeditions to other distant centres, as in the previous life in North America, where an expedition was sent to Yucatan. In the present one, some twentyfive years after Alcyone’ s death, we see Surya sending one north to the city of Salwan. Some of the party lost their lives from the hardships endured; and among these was Alcyone’ s younger brother Vulcan, at the age of about thirty-five.

Life XXI

The next appearance of our band of Servers is in South India, and on this occasion Orion, who has been wandering in outer deserts for some thousands of years, finds his way back into the group-but in a very peculiar way. He was born in 21540 as a girl in one of the hill tribes of the Nilgiris, a clever, good looking and unscrupulous young person. She had no intention of living the life of the hill tribes, so she engaged herself to serve a noble Tamil lady, and was appointed to attend upon her daughter Iota, to whom she speedily made herself indispensable. In this Tamil family was an heirloom—an enormous emerald credited with magical powers. It had been magnetised in Atlantis by one of the Lords of the Dark Face, and it was supposed to earn for its possessor whatever he most desired, but it always brought misfortune in the end, and those who used it became tools of the original magnetiser. Iota persuaded her father to give her this wonderful stone, and by its means to arrange for her a marriage with a neighbouring King. By the power of the stone this plan was carried through, and the King sent an escort to bring his bride to him. Iota took with her three attendants, Orion being one of them, and on the journey Orion contrived to murder her young mistress and then personated her. Her plot succeeded and she was duly married to King Theodoros, to whom she made a good and clever wife. It is to the credit of Orion that in her new surroundings she did not forget her brother Egeria, whom she had dearly loved, but sent secretly for him, had him educated as befitted her new station and eventually married him to one of the ladies of the court, though never openly acknowledging him as her brother.

Ten years later, for reasons of state, the King took a second wife Nu, a princess of a neighbouring house. After all these years the murder of Iota atlast came to light, and Orion’ s true status was discovered. Her husband was indignant at the outrage on his pride, and promptly condemned her to death. When thrown into prison she invoked the Lord of the Emerald, and he appeared to her and ordered her to throw the emerald out of the window to Sigma, one of the little children of the second wife Nu, who was playing outside. As soon as this was done he ordered Orion to take poison, and as she left her body the little girl Sigma fell down dead in the courtyard, and Orion was pushed into her body. When they went to lead out the queen to execution she was of course found dead in her cell.

In Sigma’ s body she was contracted in marriage to Leo, the prince of a neighbouring kingdom, in what is now the Telugu country, and after they were married she induced her young husband to bring about his father’ s abdication, so that she herself might be queen of the country. Alcyone was born in the year 21,467 as their eldest son, and there were four other children. When Alcyone was eleven years old his mother Orion fell ill of some internal disease which was found to be incurable. As soon as she knew that death was drawing near, she told again approached to the Lord of the Emerald, who told her that he would help her once more to take another body, but that it must be that of her daughter Theseus, whom she loved dearly. For some time she refused this.

But at last increasing suffering drove her to accept it. So she drowned Theseus, hung the emerald round the child’ s neck and then threw herself into the water and sank. When she recovered consciousness she was in the body of Theseus, and so, instead of being Alcyone’ s mother, she was now, as far as outward appearance went, his sister.

The politics of the time were complicated and troublous, and Alcyone, though anxious to do his duty, was more interested in his studies than in affairs of state. He learned whatever was customary for boys of his class and time, and was proficient in riding, shooting, swimming, and the various sports of the race. When he came of age he married Herakles, who was the daughter of a neighbouring Raja, and they were happy together in their religious studies. The Priest Mercury was a neighbour and close friend.

In order to save the King Leo from certain defeat at the hands of a coalition of neighbouring States, Alcyone’ s mother Orion had induced Leo to place it under the suzerainty of the Atlantean Emperor, Jupiter, and there was much discontent among the people about this. A few years after, when Orion had had to change bodies, and could therefore no longer direct Leo’ s policy, the discontent broke out into open rebellion, and Leo was defeated and killed. Sirius (the son of Gimel, an Atlantean Noble) was sent sent over from Atlantis by Jupiter to be governor of the Kingdom which was thus made a province of the vast Atlantean Empire. Sirius made friends with Alcyone and Orion, at first perhaps from motives of policy, but the friendship quietly ripened into real affection. He fell in love with Orion and demanded her hand from her brother Alcyone, who gladly gave it, and a close tie united the two families and also that of the priest Mercury. This made the government of the province an easy matter, as the official heads of both the parties in it were now so thoroughly united. In fact the three families were almost like one, and made a kind of little society of their own, in which all sorts of interesting problems were discussed.

We find that the language commonly used then in India was not Sanskrit, and ceremonies usually began with the word Tau, not with Aum. The doctrines of reincarnation and karma were commonly known to the people. The Teacher (Mercury) knew of the Great ones behind who sometimes helped. Some of the expressions which are familiar to us now were in use then also, as for example: “I am That”. Mercury told the people that of all the qualities that they could develop, all the qualifications they could possess, the most important was the power to recognise that all was That. “you cut down a tree,”He said”that is the life of the tree; dig up a stone, That is what holds the particles of stone together; That is the life of the sun, That is in the clouds, in the roaring of the sea, in the rainbow, in the glory of the mountain” and so on. These words are taken from a discourse of Mercury on death. In a book from which he read to the people there were well known phrases, such as: “One thing is the right,while the sweet is another; these two tie a man to objects apart. Of the twain it is well for who taketh the right one, who chooseth the sweet, goeth wide of the aim. The right and the sweet come to a mortal; the wise sifts the two and sets them apart. For,right unto sweet the wise man prefereth; the fool taketh sweet to hold and retain”.(Kath Upanishad; words in Meads translation.) The wording in Mercury’ s book was not actually identical, but it was clearly the same set of verses.

There was another saying”if one is killed, and I am the slain, yet I am I also the sword of the slayer, and none slays or is slain because all are one. There is no first nor last, no life nor death, because all are one in him.”

The books which Mercury used did not come from the Aryans; this book from which he read (evidently the original of the Katha Upnishad) was written in the city of the Golden Gate by one who was a member of the brotherhood. It belonged to a great collection, and had been handed down through many centuries. The Nachiketas story had not yet been connected with it.

In one temple there were no images at all. The religion was not sun-worship—at least not exclusively; rather a worship of the power of nature. Outside the temple was a large bull in stone, facing the temple and looking in. inside there was a curious arrangement— a depression, instead of a raised alter. Two or three steps led upto a great low square platform, paved with beautiful tiles, and then there was depression in the centre with a railing round it. People threw flowers in the depression, in the middle of which was a slab which was specially holy; it had some markings on it, but we could make nothing of them.

In another temple there were many images which were set in niches in its back wall. The people wore a different dress from those in the former temple, and there were men who were distinctly priests, which was not the case in the other. The images sat crosslegged, and had not more than the natural number of arms. This was the old form of Jainism, presumably, and the images of Tirthankar. Some images were naked; others, which had a lose garment over them, were probably regarded as dressed, or perhaps a conventional symbol was intended.

In another temple a long way to the north, there was already a lingam. Up there the trimurthy was fully recognised, though the names were not those used now. In one cave-temple there was a gigantic face carved out of the rock which was three faces in one though it was so arranged that only one face could be clearly seen at a time. There was a great temple in South India which also contained a Trimurti. We tried to discover the meaning of the name attached to it, to see what idea was connected with it in the mind of its priest, and we found that one priest thought of it as: “He whose life flows through all.”

While another had the idea that the three persons were: “He who opens the gates, He who guides the stream, and He who closed the gates.”We saw no specimens here of the many-armed images which are so plentiful at the present time.

The priest had strong ideas about a”Lake of Light,”which was also Death and Life and Love; all streams led into the Lake of Light, whence so ever they seem to begin. There were traces also of the theory that all we see is illusion but the only Reality is the Lake of Light.”We live in the Lake of Light and donot know it. We think of ourselves separated, but we are each a drop in the lake.”

The priest seemed to be perpetually urging the people to get behind the illusion of, the senses, and to realise that That was the real Presence behind all and the separated forms were the separated drops: “When they fall in again they are all one,”they said,”and it is we ourselves who make all the sorrow and trouble.”

They had a prayer to the “Lords who Are the Lights, who consist of the Light”.

What is written above represents something of what was taught to the people, but in this small and strictly private family circle, mercury was willing to go, a little further, and expound the true meaning of the symbol, and give far more information about the lake of life and the Lords who are the light. He told them of a great teacher, who might be invoked by certain prayers and ceremonies, whose blessing might be called down upon them if they asked for it earnestly and with pure heart. They invoked him at their meetings, and a response always came, and on two special occasions He even showed Himself. This Great One was He whom we know as the Mahaguru, and His special connection with this group was that He had, in a previous birth, founded their religion and arranged that He would, as the founder, respond to certain invocations made under proper conditions by it’ s true adherents. He threw into the mind of mercury the solution of his problems and the answers to their questions on religious matters, and once or twice certain personal directions were given to them, though this was a rare occurrence.

The priest Mercury had married Ulysses. The pleasant intercourse between the families and their study of the questions which so deeply interested them went on harmoniously for years, and the first break in the party occurred in the year 21423 BC, when Orion confessed her black magic to Mercury and Sirius, threw the magic emerald into the sea, and retired to an ascetic life, with a view of atoning for her deeds. She handed over her children to the care of a friend Helios, and four years later the latter married Albireo, a young brother of Alcyone.

The children of these families all grew up together, and naturally fell in love with one another, so that when they became men and women there was a good deal of intermarriage between them. Achilles took to wife Mizar, while Uranus married Vega, and Hector Selene. Aldebran however, caused much trouble to the family through becoming involved with and marrying a woman of bad character (Gamma), who ruined his life, and left him a miserable wreck when she finally abandoned him, and ran away with Pollux, who was a rich but dissolute merchant.

Vajra was also a source of anxiety to his mother Herakles, because he developed a wandering disposition,, and became a great traveller in search of knowledge and experience. He, however, wrote a brilliant account of his travels, which was read over and over again by the family group, and practically learnt by heart by the younger members. Alcyone was so interested in some of its glowing descriptions that he actually undertook no less than three difficult and dangerous journeys in order to see the places of which his son had given so attractive an account. In the course of these he met with various adventures, the most serious being that he was once captured by robbers and held for ransom, though he contrived to escape by disguising himself as a woman. In another case he was carried off his feet while trying to wade across a swollen river, and was swept down more than a mile, and nearly drowned. He also accompanied Sirius on several of the latter’ s official tours through the province; indeed, Sirius delegated many of his powers to him, being anxious to show the people what thorough accord existed between the Atlantean power and their old royal family. The tie between these two men was singularly close, and, though of different races, they seemed always to understand each other perfectly. Sirius, who was patriotic, told Alcyone much of the glories of Poseidonis and the City of Golden Gate, and fired him with great enthusiasm about it and an intense desire to see it, which bore fruit much later in life.

Herakles died in 21396 B.C. at the age of seventy, and Sirius, to whom she had been a particularly close friend, mourned her loss quite as much as Alcyone, and accorded her the most gorgeous obsequies. This left Alcyone much alone, and he clung more than ever to his friend Sirius, who fully returned his affection, so that the two old men were like brothers. For thirty years Sirius had been visiting regularly every month his wife Orion, who was living as an ascetic; and when she died in 21392 B.C., he felt himself unable to stay any longer in India, and applied for leave to resign his Governorship and return to Poseidonis. Alcyone, though seventyfive years of age, immediately announced his intention to accompany him, and actually did so.

The two septuagenarians had a prosperous voyage, and Alcyone found the splendors of the capital even greater than he had expected. Few of those whom Sirius had known forty-four years ago were still living to greet him. The Emperor Jupiter was long ago dead, and his son Mars reigned in his stead; he received the two old men with great honour, and gave them honorary posts at his court, distinguishing them with many marks of favour. He must have felt drawn to them, for he set his court astrologers to calculate the particulars of their connection with him, and was informed that both had worked with him more than once in the past, and that both were destined to serve him in some mighty work far in the future, when nearly a quarter of a lakh of years had been added to the roll of time.

None of them then understood this prophecy, but it is evident that it will be fulfilled in the Californian community about 2750 A.D.

Vajra who had accompanied his father, soon took a prominent position under the Emperor and enjoyed his fullest confidence.

Sirius and Alcyone lived together in the same house as brothers for ten years, and both died in 21382, hale and hearty to the last.

During these ten years they jointly prepared a book upon Southern India, which was highly esteemed, and was regarded for centuries in Poseidonis as the classical work on its subject. It was in two volumes, one treating of the different races and their customs, and the other of the various religions—the latter embodying much of the teaching given to them long before by the priest Mercury.

The few members of the band of servers who take the somewhat earlier incarnation recorded in’Chart XIXa, but were not drawn into the vortex of chart XXI, re-appear in India about the year 21,200,clustering round the teacher Vulcan.

A list is appended.

Life XXII

Our hero’ s next life was a life of pilgrimage - pilgrimage of an altogether unusual character, extending over half a century of time and many thousands of miles in distance. Yet he did not commence his wanderings until middle life. One of several remarkable characteristics of this series of lives is their abnormal length upon the physical plane. All these people whose incarnations we have been examining belong to what are called the upper classes, where the average length of life is on the whole greater than in the lower. A list of seventeen lives of Erato, for example, gives us an average length upon the physical plane of 48 years; twenty-four lives Orion give us an average of 53 ½, and twenty-one of Sirius an average of 63 6/7—this latter already distinctly above the normal; but Alcyone’ s average is no less than 74.35!

Indeed when his life is cut short by accident, he rarely stops short of the fourscore years which the Psalmist gives as an extreme limit for the men of his day; and furthermore he seems always to retain full vigour up to the end of these unusually extended incarnations. Whether this is an individual peculiarity, or the characteristic of a certain type, we have yet to learn.

This new chapter of our story takes us once more to the south of India, but this time to what is now the Salem district, where Uranus, the father of Alcyone, was an important land-owner—a sort of petty chieftain, who could lead a respectable regiment of his retainers to the standard of his overlord Mars. Uranus was a man of great courage and justice, and he trained his children in both these virtues, telling them that without these qualities a man of the highest birth was lower than the commonest person who possessed them.

He had a large family, all of them prominent members of the band of Servers.

Alcyone who was born in 20574 B.C., was a bright, encouraging, unselfish child, intensely devoted to his mother Mercury. All through her life his love for her never wavered, and he took no action of any importance without first consulting her. Nothing requiring special note for the purpose of our story occurred during his childhood and youth. He received what was considered at the time a good education, and at the age of twenty he married Percy, by whom he had twelve children. He had a beautiful home and all that wealth could give him; but his desire was rather for the life of a hermit than for that of the world, and his mother encouraged him in this inclination, advising him however to wait until his children were grown up before leaving them.

During his life Alcyone took part in three military expeditions.

The first was when he was quite a young man, and accompanied his father, when the latter led out his contingent of soldiers to fight for Mars. On one occasion during that campaign he received some kind of distinction for signal service rendered. On the second of these expeditions he was alone, but on the third he was accompanied by his sons, and Herakles performed an act of bravery under the eyes of Mars, who was now quite old. In consequence of this act Mars took Herakles into his body-guard, where, subsequently, the latter was able to render him many little services.

When this expedition was over, the King summoned Alcyone to his presence, and requested that Herakles should assume his father’ s duties in the kingdom. Alcyone replied that whatever the King wished should be done, but that he believed himself still quite able to continue his services towards him. But the King said: “No; it will not be possible, for when you return to your home you will find that you have sustained a great bereavement, in consequence of which you will no longer fight for me in this life, and on your next visit to this city you will wear the robe of a holy man—a pilgrim.”

“Be it as the King wills,”said Alcyone;”but living or dead I shall always be at the King’ s service.”“It is true that you will do the service,” replied Mars,”not this time only but many times, through ages yet to come; yet your greatest service will be not in fighting my enemies, but in helping me to build up a kingdom in the future which shall endure for thousands of years, and the results of your achievements in that future kingdom will never pass away.”

The King then thanked him and bade him farewell.

When Alcyone reached home he found that the prophecy of Mars had been fulfilled. The bereavement which the King had foretold was the death of his mother Mercury. This was so great a sorrow to him that he felt unable any longer to engage in the affairs of ordinary life; so, as his children had now all attained years of discretion, he determined to carry out his long-cherished intention of becoming a hermit or ascetic. He therefore left his eldest son Herakles to represent him at the court of the King, and his second son Mizar to carry on his duties as land-owner.

Herakles, though still quite a young man, became not only a great captain under Mars, but also a highly trusted advisor. He was popular, and greatly beloved by the people. In time he became a close friend of Orpheus, the eldest son of Mars, and after the latter had succeeded his father on the throne he made Herakles his chief minister, in which capacity he worked faithfully for many years. At last some serious difference of opinion arose between the King and his prime minister, on some question of policy. Because of this Herakles, who was of a hypersensitive nature, resigned his post, and asked to be appointed to the governorship of a distant province.

The King granted his request with much regret, and Herakles became practically the absolute ruler of that province, as the King did not interfere with him in any way.

In due course the King died, and soon after that his successor, Cetus, issued some mandate which Herakles considered it would be unwise for his people to obey; by disregarding it he practically declared himself independent, and may therefore be said to have founded a small separate kingdom. Herakles had married Gemini, a lady who was stormily affectionate, but of an impulsive nature and weak character.

Meanwhile Alcyone’ s second son, Mizar, managed the vast family estate satisfactorily. He surprised everyone by marrying a slave girl (Irene), whose story is as follows. In the second war in which Alcyone fought under Mars, a number of prisoners were captured and made slaves. Among them was a man whose daughter was so strongly attached to him that when he was carried off as a captive she refused to be separated from him. After her father’ s death the daughter became a slave in Alcyone’ s household, and grew much attached to him, serving him with great faithfulness and assiduity. She helped to look after his children, and when Mizar was left practically the head of the family, he took the bold step of making her his wife—an act which he never had the slightest reason to regret.

At the time of Alcyone’ s inconsolable grief over his mother’ s death, a revered friend suggested that he should accompany him on a pilgrimage to see a holy man who lived at a sacred shrine to the south of Alcyone’ s home. So they arranged to make the pilgrimage together, and Alcyone’ s youngest son Cygnus went with them, to take care of his father. When they reached the shrine, the wise and holy Priest Jupiter received them most kindly, and Alcyone was greatly consoled by listening to his words. He also permitted Alcyone to witness certain secret ceremonies which much resembled the Eleusian Mysteries, and these stimulated his psychic faculties to such an extent that during one of them he not only had a vision of his mother, but was able to communicate with her. He was so deeply impressed by the beauty of the temple and its ceremonies and the saintliness of the High Priest, that when he was told that there were many such shrines in India he then and there made a vow to visit them all before he died.

This vow seems to have been occasionally taken by ascetics at that period, but most of them died before they accomplished it.

Alcyone soon found that he could continue to communicate with his mother Mercury, and this was a great joy and comfort to him. She approved greatly of his pilgrimage, and undertook to guide him from shrine to shrine on his way. We next see him at a great temple situated where Madura now stands; the High Priest in charge of which was Saturn.

Some time after he left this place, we find him at a shrine in Central India near the godavari river, where Brihat welcomed him with the warmest hospitality and friendship.

Soon after this a regrettable incident occurred. It will be remembered that Cygnus accompanied Alcyone on his travels.

Cygnus was deeply attached to his father, utterly ready to serve him in any way, showing wonderful fidelity. This was one side of his character; but on the other hand he was always getting himself involved with the opposite sex. On three separate occasions during this pilgrimage he got himself into serious trouble, and Alcyone had much difficulty in pacifying the people concerned. Each time Cygnus had promised amendment with many protestations and real sorrow; yet temptation was often too strong for him. Alcyone again and again threatened to send him home, but still this trouble recurred.

On the fourth and last occasion the case was a peculiarly bad one, and the facts became generally known, giving rise to strong popular indignation, so that Alcyone and Cygnus were compelled to make their escape hurriedly in the middle of the night in order to avoid being lynched by an angry crowd. They took refuge in a jungle, and were there attacked by a tiger. As the tiger was about to spring, Cygnus—who was full of remorse and had been bitterly reproaching himself for the trouble he had caused—threw himself in front of his father so as to receive the full weight of the animal. Alcyone at once attacked the beast with his staff, which was the only weapon he had, and eventually succeeded in beating it off; but Cygnus was already dead, and his father deeply mourned his loss.

Alcyone journeyed next towards Burma, and when he reached the neighbourhood of Chandernagar he visited a shrine and temple which were in charge of the High Priest Venus. There was much of an astrological nature in the worship here, and on the walls of the temple there were planetary symbols made of magnetised metal.

From thence Alcyone proceeded towards the north-east, and eventually arrived at a shrine in the Lakhimpur district near the Brahmputra river. It was in charge of Lyra, a Chinese Priest who had come from Tibet to found a new religion under the direct inspiration of the Mahaguru. This Priest at a much later period became the philosopher Laotze. He presented to Alcyone a remarkable talisman, made of a kind of black stone, inlaid with minute Chinese characters in white. The inspiration had been made with such accuracy that it looked as though it were done with some chemical which had taken the colour from the stone, so that it resembled white veining in black marble. This talisman gave out remarkably powerful vibrations, and the object of this gift was said to be to place Alcyone under the protection of certain exalted influences which were directly subordinate to the Mahaguru himself. Before Alcyone took leave the High Priest pronounced over him a remarkable benediction, prophesying for him a vast sphere of usefulness in the far-distant future.

The next temple that Alcyone visited formed part of a small monastery situated on a snowy hill-side, near Brahmkund. The sites of many of these shrines appear to have been consecrated by the Mahaguru personally, some of them by quite physical-plane methods, in much the same manner as, many thousands of years later, magnetised centres were established by Apollonius of Tyana.

After leaving Brahmkund, Alcyone spent several years in journeying slowly across the whole north of India, during which time he mat with many adventures of various kinds. Perhaps the next point of special interest for us is his visit to a shrine at Mount Girnar in Kathiawar, where Alcesist was the chief Priest. With this place both he and Orion were closely connected in a subsequent life; and there is now a magnificent Jain temple there, one hall of which Alcyone himself built in that later time.

From here Alcyone went to Somnath, a place situated near the sea, with a fine view. The temple here was in charge of Viraj, and was built on a most magnificent scale.

In order to reach the next shrine of importance Alcyone had to return northwards and was compelled to cross a long, barren, deserted tract of country, not far from where Ahmedabad is now.

We next see our pilgrim in the district of Surat, at a sort of pagoda temple. The shrine here was in chare of Pallas, an old Priest with a white beard and an impressive manner; a splendid, majestic man, extremely intellectual, though perhaps with too little heart.

This Priest was known in a much later life as the philosopher Plato.

The officials connected with this shrine were rather of the nature of statesmen than of ascetics.

After Surat, Alcyone visited a temple a temple in the Vindhya hills, called by an Atlantean name, but not of any special interest. It had a talking image which was worked by means of a speakingtube, but the Priests who managed this had no feeling that they were deceiving the people. The Priest who spoke really believed that he was inspired by the deity, and in sending his message through the mouth of the image, he considered that he was merely putting it in the way most calculated to impress his audience. There were some good people among the Priests there, one of them being

Phocea, who had taken to wife Procyon.

Passing on, the wanderer visited a number of places on the way home, and altogether spent about fifty years of his life in fulfilling his vow. He finally took up his abode in the cave which he had inhabited before starting on his pilgrimage, where he lived to the unusual age of one hundred and nine.

During his meditations Mercury constantly appeared to him and gave him much advice and instruction. She helped him to recover the memory of previous lives and of those who had been in them with him so that his cave was peopled with thought-forms of many of the characters who have previously appeared in this series of lives.

Again we find occurring the same phenomenon which we have already noticed-a certain number of the members of the band cannot or donot remain our of incarnation as long as does Alcyone, and consequently we have an important little group in that part of Central Asia which we now know as Tibet. It appears to be there for the sake of reforming and elevating the religion of the people, and centres round a priest, Jupiter, who derives his inspiration from Surya. The latter, however, is not observed as in incarnation at this period, but occassionally appears astrally.

Life XXIII

We pass now to another wonderful old world civilisations, for the next birth of our hero was in the year 19554, in an old Turanian race in what is now China. But in order to bring in all of our characters it will be necessary for us to go back a little further than that, and to a country considerably to the west. We find Orion born in the year 19,617 in the same sub-race, but in what is now called Bactria. He was of an old but impoverished family, whose one great object in life was the re-establishment of their fortunes. And it was in pursuance of this family ideal that Orion met with such adventures as distinguished this incarnation.

A man whom he had befriended when in suffering and extreme poverty, told him in gratitude a strange story of a vast buried treasure upon which he had come by accident when hunting in the country to the north. He had brought away with him what little he could carry, intending to return with assistance and remove the rest, but he had met with an accident on his return journey, an accident from which he never recovered. When he died Orion mentioned this story to his father, and although they thought it but little worthy of credence, he determined to set out and search for that treasure. In the course of this expedition he was captured by one of the fierce nomad tribes and enslaved, and had twelve years of great suffering. His family supposed him to be dead—all except his second son Bellatrix, who persisted in the belief that his father was still alive, and announced his intention of going in search of him as soon as he was old enough. This he did, and after two years of adventure he found his father and both contrived to escape. They then proceeded to find the treasure, and brought it safely home, to the joy and astonishment of the rest of the family.

The Bactrian nation was in danger of being absorbed by a stronger power from the south, and was at the same time constantly suffering from the raids of the nomadic tribes to the north. To avoid these ills large numbers of its people had migrated eastwards, and the family of Orion finally decided to join one of these migrations.

They eventually settled on fertile country in the southern part of China, and made for themselves a comfortable home there, and it was in that district and from a branch of that family that our hero Alcyone was born. He was the great-grandson of Orion, and the son of Mira, who was a man of considerable wealth and influence, and had held at various times high offices in his district. Mira was a sharp imperious man, but just and kind-hearted, and always good to the little Alcyone, though sometimes he did not understand him, and so was a little impatient. Alcyone’ s mother was Selene, also a kind-hearted person; a studious woman, more occupied with philosophical questions than with household cares. Mira had an intense admiration for her and was proud of her learning and literary ability, and these feelings were fully shared by Alcyone as soon as he grew old enough to understand. Perhaps the principal influence in his life was that of his brother Sirius, who was two years older than he, and consequently a kind of boyish hero in his eyes. Even as children these two brothers were inseparable, and though they occasionally got into mischief they were on the whole fairly good little boys.

When they were aged ten and eight respectively, one of their chief delights was to sit at their mother’ s knee and listen when she expounded to them her theories. Of course they did not fully understand them, but they were delighted at her evident pleasure, and naturally by degrees they absorbed a certain amount of her ideas. They were specially charmed with a book which she had herself written, which seemed to their childish minds quite a divine revelation. It was an attempt to explain and popularise the teachings of a book of great antiquity which had been brought over from Atalntis; it seems to have been the original form of one of the Upnishads. The original of this book the children were taught to regard with the greatest respect and reverence. It was illustrated with a number of curious coloured diagrams over which they used to pore with the keenest interest, although their interpretations of them were obviously fanciful.

When Alcyone was about twelve years old, by a brave action he saved his brother Sirius from serious injury—perhaps even saved his life. They were running along together in the woods, Sirius as usual a few paces in advances, when they came upon the remains of a camp-fire which had been made in a shallow pit. Thee fire had burnt down so that nothing but a black charred mass was visible on the surface, and Sirius jumped upon it without any suspicion of its nature. He broke through the surface and sprained his ankle with trying to disentangle himself that he did not know that flames had burst out behind him and fastened upon his clothing. Alcyone, running up, grasped the situation, and immediately sprang upon him and tore the blazing garment off him, burning his own hands sadly in the act; then, seeing that his brother was crippled and helpless, he dragged him away from the rapidly reviving fire, and rolled him over on the grass to extinguish the smouldering cloth. The boys got home with real difficulty, each helping the other, for Sirius bound up Alcyone’ s burnt hands, and Alcyone acted as a kind of crutch for Sirius as he hopped painfully along on one leg.

The two brothers, as they grew up, became enthusiastic exponents of their mother’ s theories, which brought them to some extent into opposition to the orthodox ideas of the period, and caused them to be regarded as eccentric. fortunately, however, at that time and place people seem to have been tolerant on religious matters, and there was no persecution of any sort because of difference of opinion.

When Sirius was about twenty and Alcyone eighteen, they both fell violently in love with Alberio, a young lady who had royal blood in her veins, being the grand-daughter of Mars, who was at this time Emperor of Western China. (Vajra, a daughter of Mars, had married Ulysses, the governor of the province in which our family lived, and report said that she led him a decidedly unhappy life.

However that may have been, one of their daughters was Albireo, and she was a beautiful girl, of kindly disposition, though highspirited and imperious.) The brothers were unconcious rivals for her hand, but happily Sirius discovered in time the state of his brother’ s affections, and instantly resolved to crush down his own feelings for Alcyone’ s sake. He placed the whole of his share of the family fortune at Alcyone’ s disposal to enable him to prosecute his suit in a fashion worthy of the exalted rank of his lady-love—not that she herself cared for money so long as she had what she wished in other ways; but her father’ s consent was to be bought only by costly presents, and still more by a display of the power which great wealth gives. Alcyone refused for a long time to accept his brother’ s gift, but the attitude of Ulysses practically forced him either to do so or to resign his aspirations to the hand of Albireo.

Sirius would not hear of the latter course, alleging that the connection would be of high importance for the family, though his real reason was that he knew failure in his suit would break the heart of the brother whom he loved more than anything else in the world.

There were other suitors—notably a dashing but unprincipled young fellow (Scorpio) who was possessed of great wealth, but was not of good family. He was possessed of great wealth, but was not of good family. He was trying to push his suit in all sorts of underhand ways, and his plans soon brought in into collision with Sirius, who heartily despised and disliked him. When finally Sirius and Alcyone succeeded in arranging the marriage of the latter with Albireo, Scorpio was furious, and rushed away in a rage, swearing to be revenged upon them, but they only laughed at him and challenged him to do his worst.

Later Scorpio returned, pretending to regret his anger and to be heartily anxious to atone for it and to cooperate in making the betrothed couple happy. He told them that, feeling ashamed of his outburst, he had consulted an astrologer to know what he could do to help them, and had been told of a great treasure which was destined for them, which they could obtain only through his assistance. He stated that this was concealed in a certain cave in a valley in a distant art of the country, and offered to take them to the place. Alcyone, being honest and unsuspicious, gave ready credence to the tale, all the more since they needed money for the marriage; but Sirius had his doubts, and insisted upon accompanying the party. When they drew near to the spot Scorpio contrived that he should be delayed—in fact he bribed a servant to cause some slight detention, so that Alcyone and another servant (Boreas) went on alone towards the cave.

Sirius had thought nothing of the delay at first, but when other minor obstacles cropped up he began to be uneasy, and suddenly a sort of vision flashed before his eyes in which he saw Alcyone being attacked by wild beasts, and he felt instinctively that the whole affair was a diabolical plot. Though this was only an intuition, and he had no proof, he at once accused Scorpio of double-dealing and attempted murder, and challenged him so vehemently that the villain quailed before him and practically admitted his guilt. Sirius bound him and left him in charge of a servant, assuring him that if Alcyone came to any harm he would not fail to kill him on his return. He took with him another man and hurried in pursuit of his brother, whom he overtook just in time to prevent him from trying to enter the cave.

Then they went round to the cliff above and watched to see if there was any foundation for the idea about wild beasts, and presently they saw two clouded tigers come out from it. When they returned they carried Scorpio with them as a prisoner, and delivered him over to the governor. Ulysses, who when he heard their story banished him from the country.

All this time Alcyone had not the least suspicion of the unrequited affection which was eating out the heart of Sirius. When all was arranged and the marriage day actually fixed, Sirius rather broke down, and made some excuse to go away to a distant city.

Alcyone was much surprised and somewhat hurt at his brother’ s absence from the ceremony, as he could not understand it; but after the marriage it appeared that Albireo had had her suspicion, and it was through her intuition that the truth at last came out. Alcyone was full of remorse, and declared that though he could not have lived without Albireo he would rather have died than have lived without his beloved brother. But Sirius comforted him and said that without the will of the gods he could not have known what was in his brother’ s mind, and so his sacrifice must have been acceptable in their eyes, and that therefore Alcyone also must accept it cheerfully as the decree of fate. Still Sirius never married, but remained always true to the memory of that first love; and indeed Albireo was touched, and declared that she loved and honored them both equally.

Sirius and Alcyone had a younger sister Vega, to whom they were deeply attached. Pollux, an acquaintance who was invited to the house, formed an illicit attachment to this young sister and betrayed her, and when discovery was imminent he fled. Alcyone and Sirius resolved to avenge their sister’ s wrong, and set out together in pursuit of him. They hunted him all over China for two years, and eventually traced him to the northern part of the country.

While engaged in this pursuit Alcyone fell ill at a place called Urga.

There was a celebrated temple there, presided over by Orpheus, a Lama with a long white beard. He was hospitable to the brothers, took them in and appointed Auriga, who was one of his priests, to look after Alcyone. The young priest took a great fancy to his patient and was unremitting in his attentions. When Alcyone was quite well again, and they started once more on their quest, this young man accompanied them for some distance and was a great assistance to them.

They found that Pollux, who was evidently in great fear of them, had crossed to the island of Saghalien in hope of escaping them. They however followed him thither, and finally overtook him and killed him; then they returned home with a sense of duty accomplished. According to the morality of the time this slaying of Pollux was supposed completely to rehabilitate Vega, and after a time she married Tiphys, a rich merchant of the town and a member of the governor’ s council, and their eldest daughter was Iris, who afterwards married Leo. Mizar had previously married Polaris, who afterwards married Leo. Mizar had previously married Polaris, who was the son of the librarian of the principal temple. They lived happily, and in due course Polaris succeeded to his father’ s office.

During their absence the banished Scorpio had returned disguised as an ascetic, and had succeeded in securing the patronage of Castor, who was a statesman of considerable influence. While abroad Scorpio had somehow acquired mesmeric power and a knowledge of magic of an undesirable kind, and while begging for food at Castor’ s house he seems to have marked as an easy prey, and used his mesmeric power to obtain an invitation to stay permanently in his house. By degrees he gained a great influence over Castor, who had him installed at one of the temples as a holy man. He maintained his position at that temple for many years, and practiced his arts upon the people with great success. He never forgot his enmity to Sirius and Alcyone, and gradually poisoned Castor’ s mind against them and caused a great deal of trouble, for Castor to some extent succeeded in influencing Albireo’ s father

Ulysses against them also, so that strained relations were created within the family. Scorpio found a fit instrument in Thetis, a young woman of doubtful character, who fell in love with Alcyone’ s eldest son Leo, and appealed to Scorpio for help to obtain some sort of love-philtre to administer to him. Scorpio agreed to help her on condition that she made over to him all the money that she inherited from her father. He then made clay images of Leo and of the young woman, and made many mesmeric passes over them with various weird incantations, and then contrived to conceal them in Leo’ s bed-room.

His magic worked to some extent, and he did succeed in creating in Leo’ s mind an infatuation for the young person, so that he even talked of ruining his life by marrying her. Leo’ s sister Mercury, however, was intuitional, and sensed the existence of some kind of plot; also she knew that her brother would never of himself have been attracted by a woman of such coarse type. She spoke to her father and uncle about it, and declared her conviction that Scorpio was somehow involved in the plot, and that he was an imposter, Sirius had long suspected him, having seen evidence that he tricked the people in various petty ways, and on the strength of what Mercury said he set himself definitely to investigate, and soon succeeded in tracing Scorpio’ s identity. This discovery at once rendered Scorpio liable to death penalty, as his sentence of banishment had forbidden him to return to the country on pain of death; so he was forthwith executed.

All his plots were laid bare by Mercury’ s swift intuition, so that not only was Leo released from his spells, but Ulysses and Castor saw how they had been mislead, and perfect harmony was restored. Ulysses was anxious to atone for his previous coldness and distrust, so when a few years later he fell ill and was told by his doctors that he could not recover, he sent an embassy to Mars announcing his approaching death and begging that Sirius might be appointed in his place. Mars was pleased to accede to his request, and Sirius might be appointed in his place. Mars was pleased to accede to his request, and Sirius became Governor of the district.

He appointed Alcyone Chief Judge, and they both held their offices with much honour and respect until their death in the year 19,485.

The exposure of Scorpio had greatly enhanced the reputation of Sirius, and his scrupulous probity maintained it at the highest level. His niece Mercury, to whom the discovery was really due, entered the temple as a postulant, and was noted for her clairvoyant faculty and her power to cure certain diseases.

When she was about thirty, Mars, now a very old man, made a sort of triumphal progress through his kingdom, and when he came into sort of triumphal progress through his kingdom, and when he came into their district it was the duty of Sirius and Alcyone to entertain him. Thus it happened that Mars met Mercury, and was at once greatly impressed by her. He did not lose sight of her, and eventually induced her to leave the temple and marry Osiris, one off his grandsons, so that later she became queen of the country. But that of course was long after her father’ s death. Sirius and Alcyone were just as inseparable as old men as they had been as boys; throughout a long life no misunderstanding had ever arisen between them, and they died within a few days of each other, each feeling his life imperfect without the other. As Sirius had never married, Alcyone’ s son Leo imperfect without the other. As Sirius had never married, Alcyone’ s son Leo was appointed to the vacant Governorship, which he filled creditably, greatly insisted by the fact of his good wife Iris.

Our first experiment in the way of investigating the details of past lives was made in connection with a character called Erato, and the point at which it chanced that those investigtions commenced was his birth in Chaldea in the year 19,245 B.C. He was born into the hereditary sacrodotal caste; but unfortunately he was also at the same time born into a xurious hereditary feud connected with it. His grand-father Castor had twins, Melete and Again, and as the law was that the high-Priesthood descended to the eldest son of its present occupant the matter of a few minutes precedence was important. Unfortunately, the nurse in charge got the children mixed, and did not know which was which; so, as the matter could not be decided, Castor decreed that they should be coheirs. When they grew up there was a certain amount of jealousy between them, and each was determined that his own son should later be co-heirs. When they grew up there was a certain amount of jealousy between them, and each was determined that his own son should later be the high priest. Erato was the son of melete, while Phocea was the son of Aglaia’s jealousy, and he even went to the length of thrice trying to murder his nephew Erato. The third attempt was at least partially successful, for although Erato escaped, his father Melete was killed. A fourth attempt was made, but again Erato escaped, his younger brother Juno being killed in his stead. This time the whole story came out, and the governor of the town intervened; but the matter was taken out of his hands, for the emperor Theodorous, happened at that period to be making one of his customary visits of inspection. Hearing of the matter he had the parties brought before him;and when he had inquired into the whole of the story he decided to put an end to all difficulties by giving to each of the cousins a separate field of activity. As Phocea had not been privy to the plot to murder his cousin he left him in sole charge of the temple of his native place, but he carried off Erato with him to his own capital to fill a vacancy in the great temple there. There he led a peaceful and useful life under the headship of the chief priest Pallas; and on, the death of the latter he succeeded to his office, and thus became the most important religious authority in the kingdom of Chaldea.

He lived to old age, and was much respected. A list is subjoined of most of our characters who appeared with him.

Almoxt the same sub-group which we saw in Chart XXIIa endeavouring to bring about a religious reform in Tibet, was again engaged in predisely similer work 500 years later on the other side of the world in the Amazoan valley. This was at that time the seat of an interesting but somewhat effete civilisation, and there was obviously great need for the work of purification in which our members engaged. The group was again under the leadership of Jupiter, but in this case Surya instead of operating from the astral world took birth in the ordinary way,and married Jupiter’s daughter Naga. His preaching was of the country, and gave it in its improved form a new lease of life which lasted for some thousands of years. He lived a long and active life, and when he passed away the headship of the work devolved upon his eldest son Vajra, who undertook a vast amount of missionary work and spent his life in travelling about the continent. From the work done at this time and from the organisation set on foot was developed that wonderful Peruvian civilisation with which we come into contact in Life XXXIII.

Life XXIV

The cradle of the great Aryan race was on the shores of the Central Asian Sea, which (up to the time of the cataclysm which sunk the island of Poseidonis beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean) occupied the area which is now the Gobi Desert. The great founder of the race, the Manu Vaivaswat, had established his colony there after the abortive attempt in the highlands of Central Arabia, and after a long period of incubation and many vicissitudes the race had become great and powerful. Several times during the ages of its existence had the Manu sent forth huge hosts to establish sub-races in various parts of that vast continent, and at the time of which we have now to write once more this virile nation was outgrowing its boundaries. During its history the Manu had incarnated again and again to direct it, but at the time of Alcyone’ s birth (18,885 B.C.) he had not shown himself physically among his people for many centuries, and so there had been time for differences of opinion to arise as to exactly what his intentions had been.

A section had grown up among them who argued that now that the new race was definitely established, and there was no danger that the type could be lost, the strictest ordinances of the Manu as to not mingling with other races were no longer intended to be operative. Consequently certain families allowed themselves to intermarry for political purposes with some of the rulers of the Tarter races. This was considered as a crime by the more orthodox, and it led to so much friction that eventually those who held the wider opinion established themselves as separate community which in course of time grew into a considerable kingdom. They themselves, however, seem soon to have abandoned the idea of intermarriage with the other races, so that there was practically no perceptible difference of type between the two tribes, but this did not in the least heal the religious division, which on the contrary seems to have been accentuated by the passage of time. The great bulk of the Aryans regarded with horror this tribe which had once intermarried, and would have no dealings with them. The adoption or development of difference in language among them still further emphasised the division, and they were regarded as a hostile race for centuries before the rapidly increasing orthodox Aryans occupied their original territory after many battles, and finally drove them out into the desert.

The cultivable land round the shores of the Gobi Sea was a limited area, and the great central orthodox kingdom of the fifth rootrace occupied all the best part of it. This separated race had therefore to be content with much less desirable territories, and they settled chiefly in valleys around the northern hills. The central race increased so rapidly that it was constantly pressing upon these independent tribes and trying to annex their valleys. The orthodox people were so extraordinarily bigoted and intolerant that they could not mix peacefully with these others who differed from them, but regarded them as demons to be exterminated, so that for the most part no compromise was possible.

Mars who was at this time King of one of the tribes which constituted this seceding race, had long been much troubled by the incursions of the orthodox, and though he had contrived to resist them so far, he knew that he could not hope to do so indefinitely, for his tribe, though large and well organised, was a mere handful compared to the multitudes of the central race. Unless he fought persistently against them his race would speedily be exterminated, and it seemed as though the most determined resistance could only postpone for a while this inevitable end. In his perplexity on this point he had frequently asked counsel from his religious teacher Jupiter; the latter always strongly advised against fighting, but did not tell him how he was to maintain the existence of his people.

The difficulty was constantly becoming more acute and the danger more imminent, when in answer to many prayers and appeals there came at least to Mars a vision which decided his course of action. Both the orthodox and those who were considered unorthodox venerated equally the memory of the Manu, and gave him all but divine honours, so when he appeared to Mars in a dream, and gave him counsel as to his difficulties, he gladly accepted the solution offered.

The Manu told him that the dilemma in which he found himself was not the result of any play of chance forces, but had been arranged long before hand as part of his plan. He announced that it was his desire that Mars, whom he had specially chosen for the work, should lead the vanguard of the greatest migration in history— that he should take his tribe and journey westwards and southward for many years, until he reached a certain sacred land which was prepared for him—a land of unexampled fertility, in which great spiritual as well as material progress could be attained. Here he should settle and flourish exceedingly; and he was specially enjoined to treat well and kindly all the tribes and races with whom he came in contact, fighting with them only when actually compelled.

He was to enter upon this promised land and move slowly onward to its extremity, and it was foretold to him that the tribes of the orthodox empire, who were pressing so hard upon him, would rejoice over his departure and exult in their occupation of his lands; but that in the future they also should find his people in possession of the most desirable part of the promised land, and that their efforts to oust them would be unsuccessful. He was further told that he himself in future lives would take no inconsiderable part in the direction of these migrations, and that as a reward for all this hard work he and his wife Mercury would have the privilege in the future of doing an even greater work—such work as the Manu himself had done. The prophesy referred specially also to his sons Herakles and Alcyone, and expressly stated that work of a similar nature awaited them still further in the future.

This vision at once lifted Mars out of all his perplexities and filled him with enthusiasm for the mighty mission confided to him. He ordered a great assemblage of all his people, and told them what he had seen and heard, and what he had decided to do, and he spoke so convincingly that he carried the entire tribe with him and infected it with his own zeal. He instructed them to gather together great stores of food in its most probable forms, and to drive with them the strongest and best of their flocks and herds. He consulted his astrologers as to the best day for the start, and just before it he planned and carried out a successful raid upon the territory of his orthodox enemies, gaining thereby a great amount of property which was useful to him, and having his own people safe out of the way and far on their journey before reprisals could be attempted.

There was amongst his subjects a considerable party who regarded this migration as a wild scheme and the vision of Mars as a delusion. The head of this recalcitrant party was Alastor, and he declared that his conscience would not allow him to follow a leader whom he believed to be under the guidance of some evil or diabolical power which was deceiving and misleading him, and causing him to undertake a mad enterprise which could only end in the utter ruin of those who were foolish enough to follow him. To this tirade Mars replied that he would force no man to accompany him, for he wanted none but loyal and willing-cooperators, and that Alastor and his followers might stay behind if they pleased. Only a comparatively small number of Alastor’ s party were prepared to take so extreme a step, and most of his friends urged him to reconsider his determination. He however remained obstinate, declaring that he and his band of Adullamites were the only people who were really faithful to the commands of the Manu, since they stayed in the country where he had established them and refused to be diverted from their manifest duty by hysterical dreams and pretended revelations.

Mars wasted no more time over him, but told him that he might go to the destruction in his own way. Alastor did stay behind, and displayed a certain amount of evil ingenuity in his endeavour to make the best of the situation. As has already been said, Mars had organised a raid upon the orthodox, and naturally their ruler fitted out a punitive expedition to crush the audacious mountaineers.

Alastor boldly went out to meet this army, announced himself as the head of one of two rival parties existing in the mountain kingdom, and offered his support to the invaders on condition of good treatment for himself and his people. He stated that for a long time he had been convinced that the men of his own tribe were wrong in having long ago intermarried with Atlanteans, and that he had often wished to join himself to the orthodox empire, but had been prevented from doing so by Mars. He described the route taken by the latter in his migration, and offered to show the invaders how, by taking a short cut across the hills, they could overtake him and probably defeat his people. The orthodox leader thought it best to accept his offer of assistance, and promised him the lives of his followers in return for this treachery. The expedition plunged into the mountains under Alastor’ s guidance in the effort to intercept Mars; but being unused to and unprepared for high altitudes its members suffered exceedingly, and were when after many hardships they succeeded in meeting Mars they were defeated with great slaughter.

The leader, however, escaped and promptly put Alastor and his myrmidons to death.

True to his instructions, Mars endeavored to avoid fighting as far as he could. When he approached any organised kingdom he always sent his embassy to its ruler announcing that he and his people came in peace and amity, in obedience to a divine command, and that all that they desired was to be allowed to pass quietly on their way to carry out the orders which they had received.

In most cases the required permission was readily given, and often the inhabitants of the countries through which they passed received them hospitably, and sped them on their way with gifts of food.

Sometimes a chieftain was alarmed by the report of their numbers, and refused them admission within his frontiers, and when that occurred Mars turned aside from the direct line of his course, and sought for a more friendly ruler. Two or three times he was savagely attacked by predatory tribes, but his hardy mountaineers found no great difficulty in beating them off.

Under these conditions Alcyone’ s early life was as unsettled and adventurous one. He was about ten years old when his father decided upon the migration, and consequently at an age to enjoy to the full the constant change and adventure of it. He had as it were two sides to his character—one frankly boyish and fond of all this excitement and variety, and the other dreamy and mystical. He dearly loved both of his parents, but he seems to have specially associated his father with the former of these moods and his mother with the latter. On some days he rode by his father at the head of the caravan, or dashed on far in front on some sort of scout duty, keen and active and very much on the physical plane; on others he remained behind with his mother, often riding curled up in one of the panniers on the back, often riding curled up in one of the panniers on the back of some draught-animal, buried in his own visions and taking no heed of the country through which they were passing.

In this latter condition he seemed to be living not in the present but in the past, for he had often extraordinarily vivid visions (most often really of past incarnations, though he did not know that) which he regarded as so entirely private and scared that he would hardly ever speak of them even to his mother, and ever at all to any one else. These visions were of varied character, some of them connected with lives which we have already investigated, but others which are at present unknown to us. In many of these scenes his father and mother appeared, and he always recognised them, under whatever veil of race or sex they might be hidden. Sometimes, when a rare wave of confidence swept over him, he would describe these visions to his mother, making them marvellously picturesque and life-like. He called them his picture-stories, and he would say: “Mother, in this story you are a priest in the temple,” you are my mother, just as now,” or”In this or again,”In this you are my little baby, and I carry you in my arms.”

Whenever he said These things his mother felt herself identified with the figure in the vision, and her memory was as it were awakened by his. She remembered now that when she was herself a child she used to have similar recollections, though as she grew older they faded from her mind; and she realised that her son was seeing what she used to see. In one of his most splendid visions—that which he liked best of all—neither his father nor mother appeared, but he saw himself as a young girl filled with intense love and determination, rushing through raging flame and suffocating smoke to rescue a child who was the hope of the world—a memory of the life in Burma three thousand years before.

But he had also other memories in which his parents bore no part, and some of these were far less desirable.

One curious set of visions which came now and then appeared to image some ceremonies of the darker magic, evidently from a remote past. They were indescribably weird, yet thrilling and they excited a feeling of inexpressible horror and loathing which was yet somehow mingled with a kind of savage ecstasy. There was about them a distinct sense of something radically unholy and evil— something from which Alcyone’ s present nature shrank with terror and disgust, while he was yet keenly conscious that there had been a time in the far-distant past when it had filled him with a fierce joy— when he had somehow been able to revel in what now he utterly abhorred. He disliked these visions intensely, yet occasionally they asserted themselves, and when one had commenced he seemed compelled to play his part in it to the end. Of these he had never been able to speak to his mother, though she had twice noticed the prostration which followed them, for he came out of them in a condition of profuse perspiration and utter nervous exhaustion. But he said only his dreams had been terrifying, but that he could not describe them.

It is not easy to recover the actual subject matter of these evil visions, but they evidently reflected some of the wild orgies of the darker worship as practiced in Atlantis—som ething of the same order as the alleged witches’

Sabbath of the Middle Ages—a kind of riotously sensual adoration of some strange personification of evil belonging to an existence which humanity has now altogether transcended. Its devotees appear among other things to have been able by the use of some potion or unguent to assume animal forms at will and to levitate these transformed physical bodies. In looking back involuntarily upon these unholy revels Alcyone always saw himself with a partner—always the same partner; and he knew that it was for the love of that partner that he had thrown himself into this cult of evil, that her seduction had drawn him into it and taught him to enjoy it. Yet even amidst his horror he knew that she had had herself no evil purpose in doing this—that it was because she loved him that in reality she would have died rather than harm him, and that it was only her ignorance which permitted her to be used as a lure by malicious powers behind. These unpleasant visions came to the boy but rarely, and they would not have merited such detailed mention but for the fact that a few years later they were shown to have a close connection with one of the recurrent characters in our story.

Some time before the birth of Alcyone a certain Mongolian chieftain had come to take refuge in the kingdom of Mars. This chieftain was the younger brother of a reigning chief who was (apparently not unreservedly) decidedly unpopular with his people.

The younger, on the contrary, was universally liked, and there was a conspiracy, though entirely without the young man’ s knowledge, to dethrone the elder brother and set him up in his stead. This was discovered and suppressed, but as it was impossible to persuade the elder brother that the younger had not been privy to it, he had to flee for his life, and it was in this way that he came to seek refuge with Mars. He and two or three friends who had escaped with him proved harmless and indeed desirable members of Aryan tribe, so they settled down and were accepted without further question.

They had brought their wives and children with them; so they formed a kind of minor community within the tribe, living amongst it but not intermarrying with it. This young chieftain (Taurus) had several children, but the only one that comes into our story is Cygnus, a daughter who was about the same age as Alcyone, wit whom she fell violently in love. They played together often as children, but along with many others, and it does not seem that Alcyone specially differentiated her from the rest, though he was always affectionate to all. As they grew older, the boys and girls drew more and more apart in their games, and so he saw less of her, but she never for a moment forgot him.

When she was seventeen her father married her to Aries, who was the son of one of his companions. He was much older than she was, and she had no affection for him, but her wishes were not consulted in the matter; it was entirely an affair of policy. Her husband was not a bad man, and was never unkind to her, but he was absorbed in his studies and had no attention to spare for his young wife, whom he regarded rather as part of the necessary furniture of a home rather than a sentient being who might possibly have claims upon him.

For a long time she fretted silently against this, being all the time madly in love with Alcyone, and seeing him only occasionally and casually. At last there came a time when he was sent on ahead of the main body on a dangerous scouting expedition; hearing of this and fearing that he might be killed, she seems to have been reduced to desperation, and she fled from her husband, dressed herself in male attire, and joined the small band of men whom he was taking on this perilous expedition. Alcyone succeeded in carrying out the instructions of Mars, but only at the cost of the loss of many of his men, and among others Cygnous was fatally wounded and her sex discovered.

She was carried before Alcyone, and when he recognised her she asked to be left alone with him for a few moments before her death. Then she told him of her love and her reason for thus following him; he was much surprised, and deeply regretted that he had not known of her affection before. As he stood beside her his mind was persistently haunted by the most vivid presentment of his old vision of the wild orgies of Atlantean magic, and like a glare of lightening it burst upon him that Cygnus was identical with the female companion of that strange old witchcraft. He was so struck by this revelation that his manner showed it, and she, who had known something in childhood of the visionary side of his nature, at once divined that he was seeing something non-physical, and set her will with all her remaining strength to see it too. She had not been at all psychic during life, but now as death approached, the veil was to some extent broken trough by her earnest effort, and as she seized his hand the vision which he saw opened before her eyes also. She was horror stricken at his evident horror, but at the same time in a way delighted also, for she said: “At least you loved me then, and though through ignorance I led you into evil, I swear that in the future I will atone for this and regain your love by loyal and ungrudging service to the uttermost.”

Saying this she died, and Alcyone mourned over her, regretting that he had not known of her love for him, for had he done so, he might have prevented her untimely end. When opportunity offered he told the story of this strange experience to his mother, and she agreed with him that without doubt his vision did represent the events of previous incarnations, and that she, his father, his sister, his elder brothers and Cygnus had really borne in those lives the parts which the visions assigned to them. The story of which this particular incident brought the recollection will be found in Man : Whence, How and Whither, p 122.

The strong influence of his mother Mercury over Alcyone seemed to increase rather than decrease as the years rolled on, and though the vision of his childhood now visited him but rarely he still remained impressible as far as she was concerned, and frequently caught her thought even when at a distance from her. For example, on one occasion when her sons were out on a scouting expedition clearing the way through the hills for the main body of the caravan, she became aware through a dream of an ambush into which Herakles and his party were in danger of falling. The whole scene was so vividly before her eyes, and the natural features of the country so deeply engraved on her mind, that she could not but feel sure that the danger was a real one. She called before her some natives of the hill-country who happened to be in the camp, described minutely to them the place which she had seen, and asked whether they recognised it. They immediately replied that they knew it well, and asked how she came to know it, since it was more than a day’ s march ahead. When she heard this she was even more certain than before, and as it was clearly impossible to send a messenger to Herakles in time, she tried to convey a warning by thought.

Herakles, however, was so full of business and the cares of the expedition that he was not amenable to thought impressions just then; but fortunately Alcyone, who was in charge of a smaller body of men in a neighbouring ravine, caught the feeling that his mother was in deep anxiety, and, turning his thought strongly in her direction, read the whole affair from her mind like a vision, and at once changed his course, led his own party up an almost impossible cliff and across som e intervening spurs of the mountain, and reached his brother just in time to prevent him from falling into the ambush, thus unquestionably saving his life, for the arrangements of the hill savages were so well made that the total destruction of his party was a certainty. But with the warning which Alcyone gave, the Aryans were able to turn the tables on the savages and descend upon them from above while they were watching in fancied security, so that they were driven away with great slaughter and a clear way through the mountains was opened for whole tribe.

Soon after this Mars thought it well that Alcyone should marry.

The young man had no special desire in the matter, but was quite willing to accede to his father’ s wish; so he consulted his mother, and she suggested several young ladies whom she considered suitable, and eventually Alcyone selected Theseus. She made him a good wife, though she was somewhat jealous and exacting. He had seven children, among whom was Neptune, who afterwards married Hector, and one of their children was Mizar, who was always Alcyone’s favourite granddaughter; and specially devoted to him.

Many years were occupied in the westward journey through the hilly country, and sometimes the tribe suffered considerable hardships, but on the whole they got on well and lost remarkably few men, considering the difficulties of the route. When at last they reached the great plains of India their progress was far easier, especially as their first entry upon them was into the dominions of a great King named Podishpar (Viraj) who welcomed them with the greatest hospitality, recognising them and their work, and doing everything in his power to help them on their way. In the first place he assigned to them a tract of fertile ground on the banks of a river, and supplied them with grain to sow there, so that not only did they stay encamped there for a whole year enjoying his hospitality, but they had an enormous store of grain to take on with them when they finally departed. A few of them, worn out with the ceaseless travelling of the past thirty years, settled permanently in the kingdom of this friendly potentate, but the great majority decided to push on.

At parting King Podishpar gave to Mars a book of the

Atlantean scriptures and a talisman of extraordinary power—a cube of wonderful centre. He also sent embassies in advance to many friendly monarchs with whom he was in alliance, telling them of the coming of the Aryans and asking them to receive them kindly. Thus their way was smoothed for them, and the weariness of the constant travelling was reduced to a minimum. The talisman was well known all over the north of India, and all who saw it did reverence to its bearer. It was supposed to confer good fortune and invincibility upon its possessor, but when Viraj gave it to Mars he said proudly: “I have no longer need of it, for I am invincible without it, and I carve out my own fortune with my sword.”

For Podishpar had a huge two-handed sword with a golden hilt in which a magnificent ruby was set, and this sword was popularly reported to possess magical properties, so that he who held it could never feel fear, nor could he be injured in battle; and he also commanded the service of certain genie or spirits, much as Aladdin commanded the slaves of the lamp. As a further proof of goodwill, and in order to cement the alliance between them, King Podishpar asked Mars for his daughter Brihat as a husband for his son Corona, and Mars gladly acceded to the request. Brihat had previously married Vulcan, one of the subordinate leaders of the Aryan host; but Vulcan had been killed in one of their fights with the savages. It is evident from this that there was then no prejudice against the re-marriage of a widow.

Here and there, for one reason or another, bands of men dropped away from the great host of Mars as the years rolled on, and settled at intervals along the line of his route. In the course of some centuries these small settlements developed into powerful tribes, who subjugated the people round about them, and for themselves considerable kingdoms. They were always arrogant and intolerant, and so tiresome with their constant aggressions that about a thousand years later the Atlantean kingdoms banded them together against them, and, with some help from the Divine Ruler of the Golden Gate, finally defeated them and drove them with great slaughter down into the south of the peninsula, where the descendants of Mars were then ruling. Here they found refuge, absorbed into the mass of the population. The higher classes of the south country, though from longer exposure to the Indian sun they have become somewhat darker, are as fully Aryan as any of the northern people, having mingled only very slightly with the highest Atlantean blood.

Still, in spite of these defections there was scarcely any reduction in the number of the followers of Mars, as the births among his people were largely in excess of the deaths. Alcyone might be said to know no life but this peripatetic existence, and even his children had been born into it and grew up in it. but the open air and constant exercise were health-giving, and they enjoyed their perpetual pilgrimage through these lands of the sun. Mars, who was now growing somewhat old, divided his great host into three parts, and gave them into charge of his three sons, Uranus, Herakles and Alcyone, so that he himself was relieved from all worry about details.

And retained only a general supervision. His wife Mercury, however, had so great a reputation for wisdom that all the people came to her for counsel in special difficulties, and her three sons trusted greatly to her intuition.

King Podishpar had told Mars that since his instructions were to press on to the south of India he would recommend him to a certain ally of his, King Huyaranda (sometimes called Lahira) who had the kingdom next in size to his own. In fact these two monarchs at this period governed between them by far the greater part of India. One ruled the north and the other the south, and they were separated by a broad belt of smaller kingdoms, quite insignificant by comparison.

King Huyaranda (whom we know as Saturn) held rather a curious position, for though he was the autocratic and undisputed monarch of the country, the leader of its armies and the dispenser of justice, there was in the background an even greater power—that of a High Priest who was also a kind of religious ruler—a person never seen by the people, but yet regarded with the utmost awe. He lived apart from all the rest of the world in the strictest seclusion, in a magnificent palace which stood in the midst of a enormous garden surrounded by lofty walls of the garden, and even his attendants were not permitted to leave it. He communicated with the outer world only through his representative, the deputy High Priest, and no one but this deputy was supposed to ever see him, for when he wished to walk in his garden every one was ordered to keep out of the way. The reason for all this seclusion was that he was regarded as the earthly mouthpiece of Mahaguru, and it was supposed that unless he was kept scrupulously apart from all contact with ordinary people he could not be pure enough or calm enough to be an absolutely perfect channel for the messages from on high.

The relations between the King and his invisible High Priest seem to have been not unlike those which existed in old days between the Shogun and the Mikado in Japan, for the former did nothing of any importance without consulting the latter. At this time the High Priest bore the name of Byarsha, and was a man of great strength and wisdom—the Great One known to us as Surya, whose life Alcyone had saved at the cost of her own, three thousand years before in Burma.

When the embassy from King Podishpar reached King Huyaranda and announced the impending arrival of Mars and his host, King Huyaranda at once consulted Surya as to the attitude which he ought to adopt. The reply of the High Priest was that this migration had been ordered by the gods, and that the tribe who came were the precursors of mighty nation from whom many great teachers of the world should come. The King was advised to receive them with all honour, and to assign them tracts of land near all his principal cities, so that those of them who wished might spread themselves over the country and settle in it. but for those who preferred to remain as a separate community an almost unoccupied district near the foot of the Nilgiris was to be set apart, that they might dwell there after the customs of their forefathers.

The oracle spoke several years before the arrival of Mars, so when he came he found everything in readiness for him. King Huyaranda sent his own son Crux to receive him at the frontier of the kingdom, and when he approached the capital he himself came forth to meet him at the head of a splendid procession, and treated him with the utmost deference. He explained to Mars the instructions which he had received with regard to him, and Mars at once accepted all the arrangements suggested, thankful to find that at last his wanderings were over and his heavy responsibility at an end. In a wonderfully short time the behests of the High Priest were carried out, and the Aryans were peacefully established as a recognised part of the population of this great southern kingdom.

Before their arrival Surya had issued a curious manifesto about them, instructing his people as to how they were to receive and regard these”high-nosed strangers from the north.”

He especially described them as fitted by their nature for the priestly office, and decreed that the ranks of the priesthood should be recruited from them, and that the offices should also as far as possible be hereditary among them.

Those of them who wished were to be free to mingle with his own people and devote themselves to warlike or commercial pursuits, but those who were willing to take up the priestly work were to have every facility for living as a class apart from the rest, to be maintained by gifts from the rest, but to own no personal property.

The deputy High Priest, through whom these and all other decrees were promulgated to the outer world, was at this time a very old man, whom we know as Osiris, and when because of advancing age he begged to be relieved from the onerous duties of his office, by way of setting an example to the nation Surya asked Mars to send him one of his sons to take the vacant post. Mars felt himself greatly honoured by this request, and said that he held himself and all who belonged to him entirely at the disposal of the Messenger of the Gods; but that as he himself was now old and wished to retire from worldly affairs he would prefer it if his elder son Herakles could be left to take upon him his cares and to carry on the traditions and reputations of the chieftainship, and if his younger son Alcyone could be permitted to receive the signal mark of esteem which Surya destined for his family. (It should be mentioned that Uranus had already adopted the hermit life, and established himself in a cave in the Nilgiris, and when approached on the subject he firmly declined to return to the ordinary world.) Surya was graciously pleased to accept the arrangement suggested by Mars, so Alcyone suddenly found himself in the curious position of the representative in the outer world of what was really the chief power in the kingdom—the only person who ever met that august potentate face to face, and consequently the channel for all communications with him, even those from the King Huyaranda himself. He was much oppressed at first by the seriousness of the responsibility, but as he learnt the routine of his business and came to know Surya better he found that he could easily fulfil the duties of his position. The principal difficulty was that of selection—to decide which of the score of cases which came before him each day were worth submitting, he had to decide himself; but by watching Surya’ s judgements he acquired much wisdom, and soon had a great reputation for acumen and even-handed justice.

The actual courts of law were of course not in his hands, though even there his advice carried great weight; but many people in difficulty asked advice from the priests instead of applying for legal redress, and when the decision of the High Priest or his deputy was once given it was never questioned. This responsibility in itself was a liberal education for Alcyone, and the constant close association with Surya was helpful to him. There was always the guidance of Mahaguru in the background, but this was given to Surya only, usually in dream or meditation, but some time by direct and audible voice. On one occasion Alcyone was privileged to receive a few words of kindly commendation in that way from

Mahaguru, which greatly encouraged him in his arduous labours and gave him a new stimulus. He held this responsible office for nearly thirty years, until his death at the age of seventy-nine, and during all this time Surya seemed to grow but little older.

When Alcyone was about sixty years old he lost his mother, which was a great grief to him, and would indeed have been insupportable but for the consolation and help given to him by Surya. Shortly afterwards his wife Theseus followed his mother, and during the last seventeen years of his life his household was managed by his favourite granddaughter Mizar, who was deeply attached too him and understood him better than anyone else. At the death of Mars, Herakles succeeded to the chieftainship of the tribe, but the office soon became merely nominal, as the Aryans settled down as part of the nation among whom they lived, though the priestly caste never intermarried with it. Later, however, as Crux died without issue, Herakles was unanimously called upon by the people to ascend the vacant throne, and so an Aryan dynasty was firmly established in the south of India. All Brahmanas of the south, commonly called the dark

Caucasians, are unquestionably descended from the tribe whose arrival we have described, though from long residence in tropical lands they are a good deal darker than their ancestors.

In the interval between this life and the next Orion took a birth in North Africa, as the son of an important trader and cultivator.

He was a passionate youth, and fell into bad company, and so by way of instituting a reform his parents married him before he was twenty years of age to Sigma, whom he neglected, as he had fallen in love with Epislon, a woman of rather unpleasant character. This lady had another admirer in the person of Cancer, the son of the governor of the district, and she finally decided in his favour. Orion, finding them together one day, killed Cancer, and tried to carry off the fainting Epislon. In his headlong flight wih her he fell into a ravine; he was not seriously hurt, but the girl appeared to be killed. As some men who had seen the incident were shouting after him and chasing him, Orion fled to the seashore, and as he saw a vessel which he recognised as one of his father’s, only a short distance from the land, he sprang into the sea and swam out to it. The ship was on a voyage down the West Coast of Africa, but on the way she fell in with a very heavy storm and was wrecked. Orion was the only survivor, and eventually found himself thrown upon an uninhibited island now called the Great Salvage. As this island was quite out of the normal course of trading vessels, he lived there alone for twenty years, and was at last rescued by a vessel which had been driven far out of its course. He started to make his way over land to his own country, and found it a very long and wearisome journey. Even when he reached his birthplace he feared to make himself known;but he made discreet enquiries. He found that both the governor’s family and his own had moved away from that part of the island, and that there was only one female member remaining of the family of the girl Epislon. Presently he contrived to see this member and found it to be Epislon herself, who recognised him in spite of the passage of time and the great changes which it had wrought in him. She explained to him that she had recovered from the fall, though it had left her permanently lame, and all her lovers had consequently deserted her. Eventually Orion married her, and as she had some money they set up in trade and lived out the rest of their lives in a quiet and orderly fashion.

…

Life XXV

Our story takes us now into another continent. Our hero was this time the son of Leo and Achilles, and was born in the year 18,209 B.C. in a kingdom in North Africa, which comprised most of what we know now as Algeria and Morocco. This was then an island, as what is now the Desert of Sahara was then a sea. The race occupying the country was the Atlantean Semite, and the people did not differ very greatly from the higher-class Arabs of the present day. Their civilisation was of an advanced type, and learning was very highly esteemed. Public order was well maintained, architecture and sculpture were of a high order, and the roads and gardens were beautifully kept. Fountains were specially plentiful, the water being brought from the mountains by skillfully-constructed aqueducts, somewhat as in ancient Rome.

Alcyone lived in the suburbs of a large city on the southern side of the island—that is, on the northern coast of the Sahara Sea.

His father Leo was the principal judge and administrator of the city— a man of great wealth and influence in the community, who had large estates and also owned many ships. The management of the estates was still much on the patriarchal plan, but naturally Leo had to spend most of his time in the city, so that the land was left largely in the hands of his steward Sagitta, who managed it for him ably and loyally, who managed it for him ably and loyally. In their childhood his twin sons Alcyone and Sirius lived much at the country-house in the midst of his huge estate, as they both greatly preferred this to the town life. There they played often with the steward’ s son Algol and his daughter Cygnus, and had childish flirtations with the latter.

As they grew older they had to stay more in town for the sake of attending the classes at the university, which had attained a great reputation. It had a large number of resident students, who came from the surrounding districts, and also many day-scholars who lived at their own homes, as Sirius and Alcyone did. The university, however, had entirely outgrown its buildings, and its accommodation was in every way defective.

It conferred degrees in divinity, mathematics, literature and rhetoric—or at least proficiency in debating and lecturing; but it also gave prizes for sword-play, for javelin-throwing and for the illumination of manuscripts. The student was supposed to be trained in fighting and to live a strictly celibate life—to be a sort of soldiermonk; but owing to the rapid growth of the University and the utter lack of accommodation this aspect of education had to some extent been neglected.

Sirius and Alcyone went through the usual course, and the latter especially was fired with an extraordinary enthusiasm for his alma mater. He devised all sorts of schemes for her improvement and aggrandisement, and often declared (but only in private to Sirius) that he would devote his life to her, would double her roll of students and make her famous throughout the whole world. He infected his brother with his zeal, and Sirius promised in case of his father’ s death to take upon himself the whole management of estates and the inheritance of various offices from their father, in order to leave

Alcyone entirely free to make a lifework of the development of the university—but of course sharing everything with him precisely as though he took his recognised part in the business of their life.

Alcyone though full of far reaching plans for the future, by no means neglected comparatively small present opportunities of doing any kind of service that offered itself; this attracted the notice of the authorities of the University, so that when the time came when he would naturally have left, they offered him a post on its permanent staff. He accepted joyously, and by willingness to do any piece of work which others avoided, by unremitting diligence and unflagging devotion to the interests of the corporate body, he advanced himself so rapidly that in his thirtieth year he was unanimously elected by the supreme council of the city to the office of Head of the University. He was by far the youngest man who had ever held that post; yet the only person on the council who voted against him was his own father, and when this became known his fellow-councillors united in asking him to withdraw his opposition in order that the vote might be unanimous. He at once complied, saying that he knew of his son’ s devotion to the welfare of the University, and fully agreed with his colleagues that they would find no more earnest man, and that he had voted against him in the first place only because of his youth, and lest he himself should be unconsciously influenced by his love for his son.

When Alcyone at last had full power in his hands he lost no time in getting to work. First of all he appealed to his father to give him nearly half of his great estate as a site for the University and its gardens, for he declared that it should be no longer be vilely and insufficiently housed in the heart of the city, but should have free and ample domicile in a healthy country place near the sea. His father and Sirius gladly agreed to give the required land, and Alcyone then went to work to collect the large amount of money necessary for his extensive schemes. He succeeded in stirring the patriotism of his fellow-citizens, so that some gave him money, others lent him labourers, others supplied him with materials gratis, and in a wonderfully short time work was beginning on a really large scale, spacious buildings were being erected for all the various purposes of the University, and splendid gardens were being laid out on an extensive scale. As Alcyone was strongly impressed with the importance of an open-air life for the young, the different parts of his edifice were erected on a decidedly novel plan, which was rendered possible only by the favourable climate of the country, and the large amount of ground which he had at his disposal. Except in the case of a tower for astronomical observation, no building had an upper floor, and every room was built separately.

The university was not a building or even set of buildings in the ordinary sense, but a huge garden with a number of rooms dotted about it at intervals, with avenues leading from one to another, interspersed with fountains, ponds and miniature cascades.

Such seats and desks or platforms as were considered necessary for the various class or lecture rooms were placed under the trees in the open air, a room being provided in each case as an alternative, only to be employed when the weather was inclement. This of course scattered the buildings over a large area, so that a students were arranged in rows back to back, each room opening straight out into the garden and having no interior communication with any other.

A supply of fresh water was kept constantly flowing in each room, and spotless cleanliness was enforced. The students were encouraged to live entirely out of doors, and to use their rooms only for sleeping.

Objection had been taken on behalf of the day-scholars to Alcyone’ s scheme of moving the University out of town into the country; so in order to meet their difficulty he had promised to provide means of transport for them. To fulfill this purpose he invented a novel means of extraordinary kind of rock-tramway, operated by water-power. The possibility of this was suggested to him by the nature of the country. Along the coast between the city and this University ran a cliff perhaps three hundred feet high, and a river cut through this cliff about midway. He diverted some of the water of this river on each side, commencing far inland, and so arranged two streams running parallel to the top of the cliff. He then made a smooth road of highly polished rock, and dragged light cars along it on runners, something on the principle of a modern sleigh.

At frequent intervals were were double moveable water-tanks, which slid up and down the face of the cliff between columns like a lift.

When he wished to start a car he allowed one tank to fill with water and then to slip down the cliff. Its weight dragged the car (to which it was attached by a rope) from its starting-place to the top of the lift; there that rope was at once cast off, and a rope from the next rope attached, which drew it on in the same way another hundred yards, and so by a succession of constant changes of rope the car was dragged all the way to the University at a pace rather faster than a horse could travel, and he carried upon each spidery-looking car many more students than a horse could have drawn. On reaching the bottom of the cliff each tank was at once emptied, and the descending full tank drew up the empty one at the same time that it pulled along a car. He was able in this way to keep a large number of cars running simultaneously, for as only one could be pulled over each section at one time there was no danger of collision, and of course all the cars were running in a steady procession out of the city in the early morning and back to it in the evening. Students were conveyed on this primitive tramway free of charge, but it was presently discovered that this was also a convenient way of carrying stores and materials out there, and so other cars of different make were sometimes used in the middle of the day. Then it transpired that there were often people who desired to travel in that direction.

At first such people formally applied for permission to ride on the cars, but presently Alcyone ordered that any one might make use of them upon making a small payment, and so a real tramway system was instituted. Later still the rather clumsy lifts were replaced by water-wheels, and a succession of continuous ropes was used.

Alcyone worked not only at the housing of his University, but also at its interior development. He spared neither trouble nor money to make it absolutely the best in every way he could think of, sending over even to Poseidonis to engage professors who had the highest reputation for some special subjects. (Among those who responded to his invitation we note Pallas, Lyra, Orpheus and Cetus.) He classified its heterogeneous collection of manuscripts, built a magnificent library for them, and employed agents in many countries to gather together others. In this manner he came into possession of many valuable books, but as naturally it not unfrequently happened that he had several copies of the same work, he instituted a plan for exchanging duplications with other libraries in Egypt, Poseidonis and India. It is interesting to note that he thus came into relation with the very library in the south of India which he himself had founded six hundred years before when he was acting as deputy for Surya. He also insisted much on the physical side of the soldier-priests, and drilled his young fellows into a regular army.

The capital city of the country, the residence of its ruler, was on the northern side of the island, but he had long ago made a journey thither, obtained audience of that ruler (Venus) and gained his approval and support for his schemes. He even contrived that Venus himself should perform the ceremony of opening and consecrating the University - for he was chief priest of the religion as well as temporal ruler—a function which was made to involve a fabulously splendid procession and much elaborate ritual. The University buildings were by no means really completed when this formal opening took place, but Alcyone thought it well to take advantage of the ruler’ s visit, for the sake of the prestige that his opening would give.

Alcyone would much have preferred a quiet and obscure life, for he had a great desire to write certain books on philosophy, but having taken up assignment of his beloved University as his lifework, he thought it his duty to sacrifice his private inclinations. He had married Helios, and had several children. His eldest daughter, Mercury, took a great pride and interest in his work for the University; indeed, after a certain painful event, which cast a shadow over her young life, she devoted herself entirely to its welfare. The second daughter, Ulysses, was a wayward and passionate girl, and her lack of self-control brought great trouble upon the family, for she fell wildly in love with Vajra, who was a suitor for the hand of her sister Mercury, Vajra’ s affections were already fully engaged with

Mercury, so he paid no attention to the balndishments of Ulysses, and this indifference drove the latter to distraction. Her passion was so mad that she threw aside all ordinary decency, and made quite improper advances to him, thinking that if they succeeded she might force him to marry her. His devotion to Mercury made him impervious to these, and his rejection of them infuriated Ulysses so much that in a fit of passion and jealousy she stabbed him.

Her brother Herakles, becoming cognisant of this murder, took it upon himself, in order to shield his sister and to save the family from the disgrace which such immodest action on the part of one of its ladies would entail. He was consequently on his own confession arrested for the murder, and was brought before his uncle Sirius as judge, Leo having by this time retired. Sirius was much horrified at such an occurrence in the family, but tried to do his judicial duty precisely as though the accused had been unconnected with him.

Having had much experience in various cases, he noted sundry discrepancies in the story of Herakles, asked inconvenient questions, and finally announced his entire disbelief in it, and remanded the case for further enquiry. He put it off in this way several times, feeling convinced that there was more in the background, though Herakles obstinately persisted in his story; but the law would not permit indefinite postponement, and naturally there were those who attributed his hesitation to the fact that the accused was his nephew.

Fortunately at the last moment the intuition of Mercury led her to suspect the truth (she declared that she saw it before her as in dream), and she charged Ulysses with it so vehemently that at last the latter confessed and committed suicide to escape the ignominy of a public trial. Of course Herakles was at once released, but naturally the event threw a gloom over both the families, and there was widespread popular sympathy for them.

Mercury mourned long and sincerely for Vajra, and after his death gave up all thought of marriage and devoted herself wholly to helping with his University. Her mother Helios, too, was full of good suggestions with regard to it, and Herakles also ably seconded his father’ s efforts. Herakles was much troubled in mind about the falsehood which he had told with regard to the murder, even though it had been with the intention of shielding his sister; so he went to consult Brihat, a learned and holy man who lived as a hermit, though he came out into the world at intervals so far as to lecture at the University on philosophy and divinity. He was much respected by the whole community, and regarded as a kind of confidential adviser. So Herakles went to him and told him the whole story, saying that he felt he had done a wrong thing, and wished to atone for it by adopting an ascetic life. Brihat consoled him, telling him that though he could not approve of the falsehood he fully appreciated the excellence of his motive. He dissuaded him from leaving the world, and advised him rather to make his atonement by remaining in it and devoting himself to its service. He at once chose to work for the University as his special line, to which Brihat cordially agreed.

Brihat had some reputation also as a healer, though it appears to have been not so much his own doing as that Surya something sent power through him and effected cures in that way. This was done once with regard to Alcyone himself, after an unfortunate accident which occurred at the University. Alcyone’ s second son, Aldeb, had taken up keenly the study of the chemistry of the period, having travelled as far as Egypt inn order to obtain additional information from the professors there. He had made several important and useful discoveries, and was always engaged in experiments, often of the most daring character, in which his sister Mercury also took much interest.

One day when Alcyone had been invited to the laboratory to inspect the results of some new processes, a serious explosion took place, stunning both Mercury and Aldeb, and setting on fire the garments of the former. Alcyone displayed great personal bravery in this emergency, rushing forward and beating out the flames with his hands, and dragging the body of Mercury out of a pool of blazing liquid, thereby unquestionably saving her life. He was badly burned himself in doing this, and it was in consequence of this that he was taken to Brihat. The latter passed his hands lightly over the wounds and blisters, applied to them some sort of oil which he specially magnetised, and then deftly enveloped them in bandages, telling Alcyone not to touch them for a certain time, and promising that when at the end of that time he removed them he should find the wounds healed, which proved to be the case. It is noteworthy that Brihat always used the nave Surya in his magnetisations, and that he invoked him when operating upon Alcyone, saying : “I cure him in thy name and for thy work.”

Owing to Alcyone’ s prompt action Mercury was but slightly injured, but Aldeb, who had been nearest to the retort, was much hurt by the force of the explosion, though hardly burnt at all.

Alcyone was so much interested by Brihat’ s procedure that he afterwards went to him to learn the art of mesmeric healing, and practiced it among his own students with considerable success.

Once Brihat himself fell ill, and was sedulously nursed by Helios.

On yet another occasion Brihat’ s semi-occult influence came usefully into the family life. During one of the vacations of the University an attack was made upon a village in the neighbourhood by Negro pirates from the southern shore of the Sahara Sea. Brihat by some means or other became cognisant of the impending attack—from his eyrie on the hill-top he may have seen the fleet of boats approaching—and he managed by means of thought transference to warn Alcyone of the danger. Leo, Alcyone and Herakles, representing thus three generations, happened to be within reach, and they all at once hurried down to the village and organised the inhabitants to resist the raid. The villagers were illarmed and unaccustomed to fighting, and if caught unawares would undoubtedly have fallen an easy prey to the savage marauders. But having three gentlemen to lead and encourage them, and to make a definite plan of defense for them, they were able to do much better.

Our heroes thought it best not to attempt to oppose the landing of the enemy, but succeeded in decoying them into an ambush in which large numbers of the were slaughtered.

Mizar, the youngest son of Sirius, happened to be staying out there with two boy friends. These boys had of course been left behind when the news arrived, and strictly enjoined to keep out of harm’ s way. But equally of course they desired to see something of the fighting, and stole down after their elders, and while they were watching from a distance Leo’ s arrangements for the defense, a brilliant idea suddenly dawned upon Mizar which he instantly communicated to his companions. The pirates ran their boats up on the shore, made them fast and left them while they charged into the village to pillage, rushed to these boats and set them on fire, helping the conflagration by pouring into them a quantity of pitch which they obtained from the yard of a neighboring boat-builder. The pirates had not dreamt of any serious opposition and had left their craft entirely undefended, so the boys had a clear field of action, and in a surprisingly short space of time, by working with feverish energy, they had the entire fleet of boats blazing merrily, and whenever they could not get the flames at once to seize upon some part of the vessels they could easily reach. In this they were assisted by another of our characters—Boreas, who was a boy servant to Mizar.

Fortunately for themselves they contrived to get away just before some of the pirates, disgusted with their unexpectedly warm reception, came trooping back to the beach and realised that they were cut off. This discovery made them fight with redoubled savagery, but Leo’ s plans were so well laid, and he was so ably seconded by the younger men, that they were able to keep the pirates at bay until the arrival of Sirius with a large armed force from the city—for immediately on receipt of the first warning of danger Alcyone had sent a mesenger to him for military assistance. The pirates were then ruthlessly exterminated.

The younger branches of the family intermarried to some extent, Vega taking Bee to wife, and Bella joining with aqua. The childish association of Cygnus with Sirius and Alcyone led to her falling seriously in love with the latter when they grew older. Though she had never previously shown her love openly, his marriage with Helios was a great blow to her, and she went and reproached him bitterly for forgetting him, as she put it. He was much concerned about the affair, and spoke gently and kindly to her, though he was in no way shaken in his devotion to his wife. Cygnus could not forget him, and refused several eligible offers because of this; but after some years she at last yielded to the oft-repeated solicitations of an old suitor, married him and lived a sober and happy life. Her brother Algol married Psyche, which was considered an exceedingly good match for him.

Perfect understanding always subsisted between the twinbrothers Sirius and Alcyone, and when the former died at the age of sixty-nine Alcyone felt that he had lost himself as well as his brother.

But he soon realised that nothing was really lost, for each night he dreamt vividly of Sirius, and during the two years which he survived it may truly be said that he lived through the days only for the sake of the nights. Up to the last, however, he retained the keenest interest in his University, and it was his greatest joy to see how thoroughly his son Herakles entered into his feelings, and how eagerly he carried on his work. Finally Alcyone passed away peacefully during sleep, at the age of 71, leaving behind him as a monument a university the renown of which lasted some two thousand years, until the civlisation wore itself out, and was overrun by barbarous tribes. We find another of our characters Phocea, acting as a clerk in the office of the University.

Life XXVI

Alcyone’ s birth this time takes us to Central Asia once more, but now in the midst of the huge orthodox majority settled in that cradle-land of the fifth Root-Race. It took place in 17464 B.C., shortly after the other through thousands of years, gradually established the first Aryan sub-race in the possession of the Indian peninsula. One wing of the expedition previous to that now to be described had met with a serious disaster; part of the emigrant body had followed the western route travelled by Mars in the nineteenth century B.C.(18,875), avoiding the great mountain barriers of the Himalayas; but a smaller party, less weighted by women and children, had decided boldly to face the great Range, following a road they had heard of from traders, which led thorough a practicable but gloomy Pass, debouching into the plains near the city now known as Peshawar. In modern days we know it as the Khybar Pass. They had pressed on, engaging in skirmishes with the hill-tribes from time to time, until near the end of the Pass, when suddenly a host of foes came down upon them like an avalanche, in front, behind, on each side, and, hopelessly outnumbered, they perished almost to a man. A few stragglers from the main body escaped, and, after incredible hardships which left only two survivors, these two starving, miserable fugitives arrived on the frontier of the Aryans, and, after resting for a brief space, were sent on to the King of the central community. Clad in sheep-skins given to them by their first hosts, they appeared before him and told the story of the massacre, and from that time the Pass was known as the Pass of death. Jupiter was then a boy of about ten, and the story made a great impression upon him, and when, as King of the tribe, he decided to send his eldest son Mars, at the head of another great host of emigrants, to penetrate into India, he advised him to avoid the Pass of Death and to seek some other egress.

The preparations for the expeditions lasted for some years, and Mars decided to make careful selection of the families which were to take part in the emigration, choosing only such as appeared likely to be best able to withstand the inevitable hardships of the way, and specially the warriors best trained in the methods of guerrilla fighting for mountains and of set battles on the plains.

Among others his choice fell on Psyche, the father of Alcyone (then a boy of nine), whose wife Arthur was a woman of courage and resource. Capella, a neighbour and a close friend of Psyche, whose comrade he had been in several marauding expeditions, was also chosen by Mars. A great captain, Vulcan, was the warrior on whom Mars placed most reliance, and, dividing his host into two, he sent him a little ahead of himself, with instructions to penetrate through the mountains along a route running southwards and bending eastwards; while he would lead his party a little to the west, but not so far west as the Pass of Death. On emerging from the mountains the separated hosts were to rejoin each other, marching respectively eastwards and westwards till they met.

The starting of Mars was a little delayed by the pregnancy of his wife Neptune; soon after his eldest son Herakles was born, he set forward with his huge caravan. The women and children were divided into large parties, with herds of cattle and horses and flocks of sheep and goats; these were placed in the centre of a great number of fighting men, while on the outskirts all round hovered a cloud of well-mounted warriors, accompanied by swift and lightly armed runners, whom they could dispatch to the main body on any alarm, covering them from pursuit, the runners being less distinguishable than mounted messengers would have been, and the roughness of the ground impeding runners less than mounted men.

In the early days Mars and Psyche were often seen riding side by side, discussing the prospects before them, while Alcyone, mounted on a rough, sure-footed pony of the hills, would sometimes ride beside them, listening thoughtfully to their discourses, then dash ahead to take part with the scout in front, and then pass his elders at full gallop, as he rode to find his mother Arthur in the centre of the troop, eagerly attending to her wants and cheering her with gay stories of the troops, or in the sunset hour, nestle by her side, whispering his dreams, his hopes. Albeiro and Leto often accompanied him on his less adventurous and later baby Ajax would sit in front of him and prattle gaily as he rode, held fast by his brother’ s arm. Capella’ s sons became members of this young party, and the daughters, riding astride, often accompanied them.

Hector, Capella’ s eldest daughter, became Albeiro’ s favourite companion while Alcyone found his best loved comrade in Rigel, the daughter of Betel. Ere the plains were reached the two pairs were wed, and the family of Mars had been increased by two sons and three daughters.

After some fifteen years of travelling, the caravan-army of Mars reached the plains, the earlier bodies camping and awaiting the later ones, until all were gathered in one huge camp. From time to time the younger men would make forays into the surrounding country, and on several occasions Mars had reproved Herakles for his somewhat reckless plunges into the unknown; the lad was wilful and impetuous, and inclined to think that his elders overrated the danger of his excursions. However, he received a sharp lesson, when one day he and his troops fell into an ambush and were suddenly attacked by a hostile force, which rose on all sides and pressed them sore. Herakles charged boldly with his men, trying to break through the encompassing—ring, but was beaten back every time; his case seemed hopeless, when a band of horsemen came charging up and a rain of arrows, loosed as they galloped, fell on the assailants. The horse of Herakles had fallen with him beneath it wounded and stunned; a sharp melee followed, the enemies were driven off, and Alcyone, recognising his friend’ s horse, rolled it over with the aid of two of the soldiers, and found the senseless body of Herakles underneath. It seemed that Alcyone had gone eastword, in search of the hoped-for approaching army under Vulcan, and had met a similar scouting troop from it, under Vajra, looking for the western force; they had met with much rejoicing, and were returning to the camp of Mars when a thick cloud of dust was noted by Vajra’ s keen eyes. Alcyone was impressed with the idea that Herakles was in danger, and urged his companions to speed.

They arrived but just in time to save the party from massacre, and Alcyone, tenderly raising his friend’ s body, supported it against his breast until he laid it at his mother Neptune’ s feet. She nursed her stalwart son back into health ere long, but Mars improved the occasion by reminding Herakles of his warning, and pointing out to him that Alcyone was no less brave because he was less headstrong.

The two armies having joined, the ablest leader of both decided to march southwards to find a suitable place for permanent settlement. They left the women and children behind in strongly entrenched camp, covering a large tract of land about midway between the modern Jammu and Gujranwallah, with a sufficient body of armed men to hold the camp against attack. The place soon assumed the aspect of a city, with great areas for grazing around it on all sides, and cultivated fields within the entrenchments.

The invading host moved into a country already inhabited and flourishing. There were great cities, the dwellers in which had reached a high state of civilisation, and had become ever-luxurious and indolent. One of the immigrations of Aryans seemed to have established itself in the large areas which were not cultivated, and after much fighting and parleying, its members had settled themselves beside the civilised town-dwellers, defending them against the attacks of others and more or less plundering them themselves, under guise of tribute and subsidies. The owners of the country despised the northern warriors as less civilised than themselves, but feared their prowess in arms and their arrogance in council, and allowed themselves slowly but surely to be pressed back into their cities, and allowed themselves slowly but surely to be pressed back into their cities, or turned into servants and labourers outside.

The Aryans, chanting the hymns of their War-Gods, and haughty in their strength and virility, despised equally the luxurious and decadent population of the land they coveted, and settled themselves down in the territory now known as Punjab, gradually becoming the real masters of the country. Another immigration turned eastwards, settling in what we now call Assam and northern Bengal. When the present immigration arrived, aiming at what is now called the Punjab—by the direction of the Manu conveyed to Mars through Jupiter—it found the land partly occupied by previous settlers, who eyed the new-comers askance and, while refraining from active hostility, endeavoured by passive resistance and withholding of aid to turn them away from their own neighbourhood.

After a year spent in obtaining information,, and consultation over the reports brought in by bodies of scouts, Mars and his council decided to make their permanent central settlement in the land where Delhi is now situated, despite the fact that the only convenient route was barred by a great city inhabited by the Toltec owners of the soil. Alcyone, though still under thirty years of age, was charged with the duty of leading an embassy to the ruler of the city and surrounding district, praying for free passage past the city and for permission to purchase food and forage. The mission was skillfully discharged, and permission was obtained on condition that the main body of troops should not pass close to the city, but should make a considerable detour in order to avoid it. Mars was invited to visit the Chief, and accepted the offer of hospitality. Like a wise general, however, he took with a strong escort, and left Vulcan in charge of the main body, taking Alcyone, Herakles and Vajra with himself.

The city lay within a huge wall, made of a high embankment, sloping on its inner side, but perpendicular and faced with iron plates, bolted together on the outer side, thus presenting a continuous and unscalable surface. This extraordinary wall made the city practically impregnable to attack by the arms of the time, such as were possessed by the uncivilised nations whose hordes swept now and again over the country; it could only be successfully assaulted from above, and the art of manufacturing airships had been lost by these degenerated Toltecs, and not yet entrusted to the younger race of Aryans. Castor, its chief, hence felt himself secure from attack, but none the less designated in his own mind that when these formidable strangers entered within his gates, he would seize them, hoping that the army, thus deprived of its leaders, might be persuaded to become mercenaries in his own employ. He was disappointed to find that the second in command to Mars was not one of the party, but was none the less determined to carry out his nefarious design.

On the night preceding the proposed treachery, Neptune visited her husband in his sleep, and told him that she had seen a vision of his seizure at the morrow’ s feast. Under the flowing festal robes presented by his host, Mars consequently donned his fighting jerkin and concealed his arms, and bade all his escort follow his example; these at the feast were to be ready at his signal to form a compact body and fight their way out of the hall, while the bulk of his escort were to await them outside. He sent some of his men to lounge near the city gate by which he proposed to escape, with orders to seize the guard and hold the gate on arrival of his messengers, and he stationed a few swift runners to carry to them the news, so soon as they should hear the sound of his war-conch.

In the midst of the feast, as Castor was making a stately speech to his chief guest, he signaled to those chosen to seize the visitors, and Mars was suddenly pinioned from behind. With a desperate wrench, the powerful warrior shook himself free as he sprang to his feet, and the rear of his conch crushed through the hall, so startling his assailants that they for a moment fell back, fearstricken. The pause was sufficient. Alcyone, Herakles, Vajra and others rushed towards him and guarded his sides and back, while, striking down Castor with one mighty blow of his clenched fist—for he would not slay the man whose bread he was eating—he swiftly charged through the crowd to the door of the banqueting hall. In a moment he was among his men, who had sprung to their horses at the sound of his conch and had galloped into the inner courtyard, bringing the horses of Mars and his comrades, and ere the guards of Castor had recovered from their stupor, Mars and his men were away, in headlong flight through the streets to the appointed gate, where the trusted Captain, Capella—who, warned by the runners, had meanwhile captured the guards and substituted for them his own men, locked them with the heavy keys, and trotted away with these across his horse’ s neck, waiting for explanation of the proceedings until a more convenient moment.

Mars had too arduous work in hand to turn his army back to punish the aggressors; moreover he had no time to waste on reducing the city by starvation—a work of years—and no arms wherewith to take it by assault. So he pressed onward to his determined goal, laid the foundations of the future city, appointed Vulcan as governor, with Alcyone and Herakles under him, and himself, with Vajra and a picked troop, set out for his far—off camp, to bring down the women and children. Gathering all together, he started again for his new city, which he named Ravipur, and arrived there after a wearisome journey; encumbered as a camp, he did not succeed in travelling more than seven or eight miles a day.

It is only fair to mention that Castor on reflection was ashamed of the trick that he had tried to play upon Mars, and had the moral courage to send trick that he had tried to play upon Mars, and had the moral courage to send an embassy to apologise. Mars responded to this by sending Capella back with friendly gifts to conclude a treaty of alliance with Castor, and by way of cementing this, Castor’ s eldest son Aries was married to Capella’ s daughter Demeter—a union which turned out happily for all concerned.

Beside the large band of our characters who marched into India with Mars, we find a considerable number who were not chosen for the migration, but stayed behind in the Central Asian kingdom with his aunt Mercury. The latter had married Viraj, and from this union, and that of Viraj’ s sister Viola with Spes, descended several families, among whom are about forty of the people whose fortunes we have been following.

From this time onward events moved along ordinary courses—skirmishes with sorrounding tribes, embassies to neighbouring Chiefs, cultivation of land, and the business of a great settlement. Mars passed away at about the age of sixty-five, leaving Herakles to succeed him, with Alcyone as his most trusted councillor and dearest friend.

Alcyone died at the age of sixty, in 17,404 B.C., his wife preceeding him by a few years. Herakles died soon after Alcyone, never recovering quite from the loss.”The better half of myself is gone,” he said sadly;”why should I remain behind?”

Not considering that either of his sons Gem and Arcor was sufficiently steady and reliable to succeed him, he named his brother Siwa as his successor, and sent his sons away, each with a strong troop and caravan, to found cities for themselves.

Orion was born in the year 17,228, in an Accadian race in the southern part of Poseidonis. The country was in an unsettled condition, and the people, who were chiefly manufacturer’s and traders, suffered much from the depredations of pirates.

Orion was the son of a rich merchant, and was early taken into his business, but owing to his infatuation for women of an undesirable type, he soon became dishonest. On one occasion he received on behalf of his father payments for a large shipment of goods, but misappropriated the money; and as discovery was imminent he siezed upon the young clerk Zeta, who had brought him the money, and sold him to the pirates as a slave. Presently the woman, Gamma, for whose sake he had done this crime, tired of him and arranged that he in turn should be seized and sold to the pirates. In this way he was carried to their headquarters and there met the victim whom he had sold to them years before. For a long time these two fellow prisoners were bitter enemies but eventually they made up their quarrel, became friends, and managed, after fourteen years of captivity to escape from the galleys in which they were. Zeta was badly injured in the course of the escape, but Orion tended him carefully,and therby saved his life.

Orion afterwards took service with a goldsmith, and in that way supported Zeta until his death, Orion in the course of time succ eeded to the budiness and amassed some wealth, but lost it all thorugh the dishonesty of a workman. He was now too old to obtain regular work, so he drifted gradually downwards, became a begger again and lived in poverty and obscurity to extreme old age.

Erato was born in the year 17,147 in an Arab family, but at about the age of nine was captured and carried off into Egypt as a slave. He was fortunate enough to fall into the hands of a kindly family, and was appointed as the attendant of the little son of his master. He was treated very much as a member of the family, and when the head of it died he married his young master’s sister and established his footing definitely. The father’s property had become involved, and after his death they were very poor, and it was mainly Erato who supported them, as his young brother-in-law was by no means a practical man. Erato presently obtained a position as secretary to Pallas, an old man who had a very fine library and was engaged upon a great historical work. He held this post for ten years until the death of Pallas, who left to him his library and also some of his property on condition of his finishing the great historical work. This he did, though it took him many years, and eventually he presented a copy of the book to the Pharaoh,who placed it in the royal archives and offered Erato a position in connection with the royal library at the capital. Erato Erato, however, declined this, and ended his life peacefully upon his own estate.

…

Life XXVII

In the year 16,876 B.C. there flourished a great Akkadian maritime oligarchy, which was situated somewhat to the south of the central part of Poseidonis. The people belonged to the sixth Atlantean sub-race, resembling the Etruscans or the Phoenicians— essentially a race of merchants and sailors, opulent, business-like and inclined to be ostentatious. Mars was the Toltec Emperor at this time, as he had often been before, and this people owned him as suzerain, though practically independent of him. They were governed by a nominally elected council, but the members of this all invariably belonged to half-a-dozen great families, and though Mars nominate the chairman of the council he interfered but little in their affairs. The person who had by far the greatest influence in the country at this time was the High Priest Surya, a man of saintly life and great wisdom, who was known and revered throughout the whole Atlantean empire. As a matter of policy and in order to consolidate the empire, Mars had offered his son Herakles to marry Saturn, the daughter of Surya, and this offer had been accepted. In this way Herakles became, not exactly a subordinate King, but the permanent head of the Akkad council, and so virtually the ruler of the country. The sons of Herakles were Mercury and Venus, and these sons married respectively Brihat and Osiris, which brings us to the generation with which we have to deal, for Alcyone was the eldest son of Mercury, and Sirius and Mizar were the daughters of Venus.

Alcyone was thus the grandson of Herakles, and the greatgrandson of Mars and Surya. The Emperor Mars was already some sixty years of age when Alcyone was born, and he saw him only three or four times on the occasion of the periodical State progresses of the Emperor through his country, and once when he himself visited the capital. With his other great-grandfather, Surya, he was in constant touch, and a close affection existed between the old man and the boy. Surya considered him a child of great promise, and devoted much of his time to superintending his education, so that he acquired a great deal more than the usual commercial training of the time. The priests were in a certain way highly educated men, for they were all expected to learn their scriptures by heart, and to have to use a book in any part of the service, even the most unusual, would have been considered a weakness. They were also the doctors and scientific men of the time, so that they had to spend many years in study. As a rule only the children of the priestly class became priests, and not by any means all even of them, for it was quite usual for the younger sons of priests to adopt the mercantile or maritime profession.

Herakles being the son of the Emperor, and therefore not of the priestly caste, was not considered eligible to succeed Surya, so that it was understood that when by death or resignation is office became vacant, it should be inherited by his grandson Mercury, who had been trained in the Temple from childhood with that view. As his mother Brihat was also a deeply religious woman, it was natural that Alcyone should find himself familiar with the Temple courts at an early age, and should learn to think the profession of a priest the most desirable in the world. As he grew, however he made many friends among the boys of the town, and soon found that most of them did not at all agree with him in this, but that all their desires were centered round quite another life—the excitement of making good bargains and gaining much money, or the interest of sailing to distant lands where all sorts of strange adventures might be encountered. Thrilling stories of dangers surmounted and of fortunes quickly made were dinned into his ears, and there was a side of his nature which responded very rapidly to all this. But when he excitedly repeated these stories of his father and mother, or to his great-grandfather Surya, they gently told him that, fascinating as the life of a sailor or a merchant might be, it was still on the whole one of self-interest, while that of a priest was altruistic—that the one worked for the physical life only, but the other for a higher life and for all eternity. They told him also that while both the sailor and the merchant sometimes met with strange and exciting adventures, these were after all rare, while the daily life of each involved a great deal of dull, plodding hard work.

So he grew up with two antagonistic ideals in his mind, and for years he was not quite sure whether he most desired to be a High Priest or a successful pirate. His boy-friends painted in vivid colors the delights of the swash-bucking life, while Surya spoke to him of the higher joys of self-sacrifice; and each in turn seemed desirable to him. Mercury and the gentle Brihat doubted much whether the companionship of his young friends was good for him, and debated whether it was not a duty to withdraw him from its fascination; but the aged Surya advised them to let him go his own way and decide for himself, pointing out that in him were mingled the blood of the

Emperor and that of the High Priest, and that they must each have full play. For he said:

“I have seen in my long life many boys, and I believe in this lad and love him; and when the time of decision comes I think he will choose aright.”

The old man’ s confidence was justified. When Alcyone came to the age at which he accepted as a postulant in the Temple, his great-grandfather sent for him and asked him whether he wished to enter it. He replied that he did; but instead of immediately accepting him, Surya told him to go once more among his boy and girlfriends and hear all the stories they could tell him, to go with them on board the vessels then in port and talk with the sailors, and then to come back to him a week later and tell him whether he adhered to his resolution. The boy did as he was told, and the struggle in his mind was a sore one. The tales of adventures had never seemed so attractive; the smell of pitch and of strange spices and far-away seas that hung round the great ships intoxicated him. Worst of all was the attraction of a certain young lady—Phocea, the daughter of Alces, one of the rich merchants - a little girl of about his own age; many boys were striving to be noticed by her, and she favoured those who boasted loudly of the adventures which they would seek, and the deeds of prowess they would do; and she had once spoken of him half-contemptuously as”only a young priest”.

He went to see her on this occasion, and found her as usual holding a little court of admiring friends near the harbour, and listening to and applauding the gasconde of the would-be seacaptains or pirate kings. One boy especially seemed for the moment to be high in th e favour of their fickle young goddess, and he gave himself airs accordingly, and sneered at Alcyone for his supposed want of dash and courage. Presently, however, his tone changed, for as the children all went on board one of the empty ships moored to the wharf, he, being intent upon showing off before his lady-love some boyish prank, slipped from a plank into the foul water of the dock. He screamed and struggled helplessly, and was in evident danger of drowning for he did not know how to swim; but Alcyone, who was a strong and practiced swimmer, at once plunged in and dragged him to some steps, though only with great difficulty, as the drowning boy clutched him round the neck and he could not free himself. They were both much exhausted, the rescuer being in rather worse condition than the rescued; but some men who had come running up carried them up the steps and into a neighbouring house, where they soon recovered. The little girl, who had fainted, remarked when she came to herself: “The young priest is the best of them after all.”

But Alcyone blamed her in his mind for the accident, and never after that felt any attraction towards her.

He went back at once to his great-grandfather and said: “Take me into the Temple, for to help others at home is a better thing than to seek adventure abroad.”

And Surya blessed him, and said: “You have chosen wisely, as I knew you would. I have prayed much for you, and last night, as I was praying, the past and the future opened before my eyes, and I know what has been and what shall be. Just as today you saved another life at the risk of your own; so long ago did you save my life, even mine, at the cost of your own; and once more in the future you may give up your life for me if you will, and through that sacrifice all the kingdoms of the world shall be blessed.”

The boy looked up at Surya in wonder and awe, for the old man’ s face was transfigured as he spoke, and it seemed as though mighty flames were playing round him; and though Alcyone could not then fully understand what he meant, he never forgot the impression which it made upon him. He was duly admitted into the Temple, and was very happy in his life there, for though the studies were arduous they were well arranged, and were made interesting to the postulants. Surya, wishing perhaps to show the boy that in the priestly life also one might have travel and adventure, offered him the opportunity of accompanying his father Mercury and some other priests upon a mission to a great library and university in Northern Africa. Naturally Alcyone accepted with the greatest joy, and the voyage was a never-failing wonder and delight to him. It was a long and slow, but not too long for him; indeed, his excitement and interest wen land came in sight were somewhat tempered by the regret which he felt at leaving the vessel, every sailor in which was a personal friend to him.

As they sailed along the coast a curious feeling came over him that he had seen it all before, and it grew so strong that he amused himself by telling the sailors what would come in sight beyond each headland as they came to it; and the remarkable thing was that he was always right. He described in detail the city which was their port of disembarkation long before they reached it; and the sailors who knew it said that his description of the hills and valleys and the position of buildings was marvellously accurate, but that what he said as to the shape and size of the buildings themselves and the extension of the town was almost all of it wrong. When at last they came in sight of it his feelings were of the most mixed description; he recognised instantly all the physical features of the place, but the town was enormously larger than in his opinion it ought to be, and the buildings seemed all different. He was strangely excited at this astounding half recognition of everything, and constantly questioned his father about it, but at first Mercury could only say that he must have travelled on in advance of the ship in his eagerness, and seen things in a vision.

Presently, when it became evident that the city which he knew was much smaller, it occurred to his father that they might be in the presence of the phenomenon of a memory from a past incarnation; and when they landed he became almost sure of this, because when Alcyone described how, according to his idea, the various streets ought to run or the buildings to stand, in several cases the inhabitants said:

“Yes, there is a tradition that it used to be like that.”

When they were carried out to the University on a curious hydraulic rock tramway he became still more excited, and described exactly how it used to work, and the form of the old cars, which had for centuries been superseded by another type; and when they reached the University itself he was quite unable to contain himself, for he declared that he knew every walk in the garden, and dragged his father about to show it all to him. Presently his fullness of memory reawakened that of his father, and Mercury also began to see things as they used to be and to recollect events as well as scenes of a far-away past. Then father and son were able to compare notes, and to realise that in those old days they had been, not father and son, but father and daughter, and that the relative positions had been reversed. Then Alcyone said to his father: “You are an advanced priest of the Temple, and I am only a beginner; how could I remember all this before you did?”

Mercury replied: “It is just because your body is younger than mine that it is easier for you to remember; I have changed sex too, and so have an entirely different outlook on life, while you have not. Besides, this University was your life work, and so it was impressed more strongly upon your mind than upon mine.”

They talked over all that time together, and marvelled greatly as they recalled incident after incident of the earlier life, and went from building to building, noting the changes. Most of all, perhaps, they were interested in the library, where they found some of the very books in which they used to read—some even that they had copied with their own hands.

Among other recollections, the language of that country came back to them, but of course it used to be spoken fifteen hundred years before, so that to those who heard them it sounded archaic and almost unintelligible; indeed the professor of ancient language was the only man with whom they could converse quite freely. The University staff were greatly interested in this wondrous phenomenon, and they had an amusing argument with a professor of history, who insisted that their memory of various events must be wrong because it did not agree with his books. Alcyone found with great glee a statue of himself in that incarnation, and after much persuasion he induced the authorities to inscribe on its pedestal his present name, and a record of the fact that he was a reincarnation of the founder, and the date on which he had visited the University.

From this it will be seen that after a searching enquiry the claims of our two travellers were admitted, and this unusual occurrence aroused a vast amount of interest, and was widely known and had a great reputation.

After their work in connection with the library was completed, they started on their homeward voyage. The ruler of the country sent for them, and desired to persuade them to stay in his realm, but Mercury respectfully declined the invitation, alleging as excuse that he had undertaken in Poseidonis duties belonging to his present incarnation, and that he must return to fulfil them.

Their voyage home was accomplished without serious mishap, though a heavy storm carried them far out of their course and gave them some new experiences. The vessel this time called in passing at the great City of Golden Gate, and Alcyone was much impressed with its architectural splendour, though Mercury felt its moral atmosphere to be foul and degraded. Of course they took this opportunity to pay a visit to Mars, who received them with great kindness, and kept them with him for two months.

By force of example and by stern repression of evil tendencies, Mars had kept his court at least outwardly decent; but he was well aware that the Toltec civilisation was even then decadent, and that a strong party among his subjects scarcely veiled their impatience of the restrictions which he imposed upon them. He felt that the outlook for the Empire was a gloomy one,and congratulated his descendents that their lot was cast in a part of the continent in which, though the inhabitants were often materialistic and avaricious, they were at least much freer from the darker magic and from what was called’ refined’ forms of sensuality. Even

Alcyone, young though he was, felt that there was something wrong with the place, despite its magnificence, and was glad when the time came for them to pursue their journey.

Mars was deeply interested in the account of the remarkable recovery of memory on the part of both father and son at the North African University. He had no recollections of that nature himself, but said that in dreams he frequently found himself leading vast hosts through stupendous mountain ranges, and that he found himself leading vast hosts through stupendous mountain ranges, and that he had speculated as to whether those might not be memories of actual achievements in some previous birth. As Alcyone sat and listened to all this, it seemed to him that he too could see those towering peaks and those slow-moving multitudes, with his greatgrandfather riding at their head, and his vision added many details which Mars would certainly have recognised if Alcyone had not been far too shy to venture upon describing them in the presence of the Emperor. He did describe them afterwards to his father, but, as we know, Mercury had not been in the emigration to which they referred, and so they awakened no memory for him.

When at last they reached their native city, the aged Surya welcomed Alcyone warmly, and rejoiced to hear his visions of the past. The report of these, which had rejected to hear of his visions of the past. The report of these, which had preached him, caused him to be regarded in the Temple as the most promising of its neophytes, and it was universally felt that he had a great future before him. One person at least reckoned upon that, and determined if possible to share it, and that was Phocea, the girl who had so nearly drawn him away from entering the Temple several years before. She had tried to attract him then; she tried with maturer arts to attract him now.

But by this time he was trebly armed against her wiles, for immediately on returning from his voyage he had met his cousin Sirius, and at once felt so strong an attraction for her that he determined off hand to marry her at the earliest possible moment.

She thoroughly reciprocated his feelings, and was just as eager for instant marriage as he was, but the parents on both sides did not wuite understand such a violent case of love at first sight, and insisted kindly but firmly on a delay of at least a year. The young people unwillingly consented to this, because they could not help it, but this intervening period was one of severe trial to both of them, and this became so evident to the discerning eyes of Brihat that she contrived to get it shortened by almost half, to the great relief of the lovers. Surya himself performed the marriage ceremony, though it was but rarely that he took any personal part in the services, usually giving only his benediction to vast crowds from a lofty opening in the facade of the Temple, much as the Pope used to do at Rome. This marriage was indeed his last appearance at any public function, and only a few months later Alcyone and his wife were summoned to his bedside to receive his farewell message. He said to Alcyone: “Now I stand on the threshold of another world, and mine eyes can pierce the veil which hangs between this and that. I tell you that there lies before you much of tribulation, for all that has been evil in your past must be expiated, and you may be free. In your next birth you will pay something of your debt by a death of violence and after that you will return amidst surroundings of darkness and evil yet if, through that, you can see the light and tear away the veil which binds you, your reward shall be great. You shall follow in my footsteps, and shall fall at the feet of Him whom I also worship. Yes, and she also”

(turning to Sirius),”she also shall follow me, and your father shall lead you, for you be all of one great Race—the Race of those who help the world. And now I go down into what men call death; but though I seem to leave you, yet in truth I leave you not, for neither death nor birth can separate the members of that Race—those who take upon them the vow that can never be broken. So take courage to meet the storm, for after the storm the Sun shall shine—the Sun that never sets.”

A few days later Surya breathed his last, but Alcyone never forgot him through all his long life, and he often saw him in dreams and received blessing and help from him. So mercury took charge of the great Temple in his stead, and strove to carry on everything as Surya’ s wisdom had ordered it, his father Herakles co-operating in every way as the head of the temporal government.

The daughters of Venus had been a closely united family; indeed their feelings were so nearly identical that Sirius and Mizar were both in love with Alcyone, as well as with one another. When he married the former, the latter, incapable of any feeling of jealousy, loved both husband and wife just as dearly as before, and they so strongly reciprocated the affection that they invited Mizar to live with them. She joyously accepted, and no one could have been more loyal and loving coadjutor than she was to Sirius during all the years that followed. A more piteous case was to Sirius during all the years that followed. A more piteous case was that of Helios, a niece of Osiris, who had followed. A more piteous case was that of Helios, a niece of Osiris, who had been left an orphan at an early age, and consequently adapted by her uncle Venus. She had grown up with the family, and was so much one with it that she followed the example of the two elder girls in falling in love with Alcyone, and was quite heart-broken when he carried them both off, since she could not well offer to join his new household. She did, however, later came on long visits to the family, and in course of time accepted Alcyone’ s younger brother Achilles, thus remaining in close touch with all those whom she loved so well.

The authorities of the North African University had never forgotten their reincarnation founder, the little boy who had told th em so marvellous a story and exhibited such vivid enthusiasm. The tale had caught the popular imagination and been repeated in every home in the land, and when, some twelve years after his visit, the headship of the University fell vacant with no obvious successor, and somebody set on foot the idea that the post should be offered to the original founder, there was a tremendous outburst of enthusiasm over the whole country, and the ruler in consequence sent so pressing an invitation and made so generous an offer that Alcyone felt it would be churlish to refuse. Though he had now a wife and three children he consented to expatriate himself, and set up a home for them in a foreign land.

He was received in Africa with a perfect ovation; he landed at the capital city, by the special request of the ruler, and after being feted there for some time made a triumphal progress through the country to his ancient home. He was able to arrange to inhabit the very same suite of rooms or halls in which he had lived fourteen hundred years before, and he even had furniture constructed on archaic models, and endeavoured to reproduce as far as he could the exact appearance of the place in that previous life. The recollection of his earnest efforts then was a never-failing wonder and joy to him now, and he had such an opportunity as is given to few to see the permanent results of his own work after many generations. He threw himself into the university work with a vigour and enthusiasm which fourteen hundred years had not diminished, and his wife Sirius and his sister-in-law Mizar (who of course had accompanied them) co-operated with equal zeal.

Infected by his eagerness, both Sirius and Mizar began to remember something of that remote past, but they never attained to anything approaching his perfect familiarity with the older time.

Vesta, who at that time was the youngest child, seemed as thoroughly at home in it all as his father, but Bella, though he also had been equally intimately associated with it all in that other life, had no memory of it whatever. Alcyone soon found that to establish a university and arrange it all just as one wished was one thing, but that to administer it when all its customs had the weight of a thousand years of tradition behind them was quite another. Still, he was happy in his work, and he managed everything with such tact that no outcry was made against various reforms which he contrived by degrees to institute. He kept up a constant correspondence with his father Mercury, this being indeed one of the stipulations which the latter had made before giving his consent to his acceptance of the headship of the University. He had also made it a condition that his son should return whenever he had urgent need of him, or whenever he felt his own strength beginning to fail.

Some comparatively uneventful years of hard work followed, his children growing up around him. Though they had married so young, he and his wife were exceedingly happy together, and as closely united as when they were twin brothers in the same country in that other life. While Alcyone was working in Africa, his greatgrandfather Mars passed away in the City of the Golden Gate, and his grandfather Herakles was called to assume the imperial purple.

Venus then took the place of Herakles as temporal chieftain of the Akkads, since his elder brother Mercury was already in charge of the Temple work. Herakles found that the position of Emperor was on sinecure, for he did his best to carry on government on his father’ s lines, though the opposition of the party who demanded greater license in morals grew ever stronger and more restive. Various conspiracies were unmasked and suppressed, yet new ones were ever coming to light, and it seemed that the hostility between the few who wished to retain the semblance of decent living and the majority who cared little for such things must soon break out into open war.

Under these circumstances Herakles found the government of such things must soon break out into open war. Under these circumstances Herakles found the government of such an Empire a weary and thankless task, and often wished himself back again in the steady-going mercantile oligarchy.

Although the North African University was at that time probably the most famous in the world, the education of the poorer classes in that category was entirely neglected. This matter did not seem to occur at all to the upper classes, but it was brought prominently before Alcyone and Sirius by the fact that an especially faithful servant of theirs, who was really almost a friend, had an exceedingly bright-looking little boy (Boreas) to whom Alcyone’ s children took a great fancy. It was on enquiring about the education of this boy (in consequence of some remarks made by his own sons) that Alcyone first realised that there was absolutely no provision of this sort for the poorer classes. He arranged easily enough for the teaching of that particular child by a private tutor, and in due course admitted him as a free pupil of the University; but the incident suggested to him that there might well be many more equally bright children among the poor, for whom no such possibilities presented themselves. He and Sirius discussed the matter for a long time together, and finally worked out a tentative scheme, to the carrying out of which they resolved to devote some of the large income of the University.

It was a sort of combination of a bording-school and an agricultural community, and his plan was that the university should acquire tracts of land in central positions all over the country, and on these tracts should build and operate free schools. Each tract was to be under the joint management of a school master and a farmer, and the boys were to live at the school and spend half of each day in learning and the other half in cultivation the land. The university was to support these colonies for the first year, after which it was expected that the sale of the surplus produce would be sufficient to maintain them. The feeding and clothing of the boys themselves was to be a first charge upon the school funds in either case. Girls were to be admitted to the extent to which suitable work could be found for them. If after a school-colony had worked successfully for some years it was found that it had a sufficient surplus, it was to be allowed the honour of founding branches or offshoots, but all to be under the direct control of the University. Boys who showed exceptional talent were to have facilities for entering other and higher schools, somewhat on the plan of the modern scholarship system, and if they could work their way up to the level required for the University itself, certain allowances were to be made to them, and remunerative work of some sort was to be made to them, when they had passed through its curriculum.

This scheme was first submitted to the ruler of the country, who was graciously pleased to approve of it and to recommend his subjects to take advantage of it. Then Alcyone set vigorously to work, bought land in various places and got other tracts given to him, and began to have schools built much on the general plan of the University itself—that is, not one large building, but a number of isolated rooms in a garden. The poor were at first a little shy in taking advantage of the establishments, mainly because the boys who went there were unable to earn any money for their parents; but soon the vast benefits of the scheme began to be generally understood, and they were all filled to overflowing. Alcyone’ s plan for their management was an economical one, and as he was able to provide them with the right kind of seeds and cuttings form the vast estates of the University, they rapidly became financially independent, and a brisk competition arose among them for the honour of founding branches. Alcyone coupled with it his old idea of physical training, about which he was just an enthusiastic now as in the previous birth, so that the boys whom he turned out were not only far better educated but far healthier than the rest. To conclude this part of the subject here, Alcyone stayed altogether twenty-seven years in North Africa and, the ruler had issued a decree making attendance at them compulsory upon all boys under a certain age until they had reached a certain level, with, however, discretion to local officials to make exceptions where they saw good cause to do so.

The plan on the whole worked exceedingly well, but it had one unexplained result. The care bestowed upon physical training and the direct affliction with the University gave the pupils of these schools for the poor a considerable advantage over the sons of richer parents who attended private schools. A few merchants consequently began to send their sons to the school-colonies, and presently several of them joined together, bought some land, erected a school of the Alcyone type exclusively for children of their own class, and then offered it to the University. Alcyone accepted it, and it proved a success, and soon there were many others like it.

The natural result was that one after another of the old private schools closed for lack of pupils, and in a few years the whole education of the country was entirely under the management of the University, and Alcyone was practically Minister of Public Education.

All this kept him very busy, and in such congenial toil the years slipped rapidly by. He and Sirius had agreed that their children should not be allowed to forget their native country, and so they had sent each of them back once or twice on visits to their grandfather Mercury. During these visits the three boys had found themselves wives to accompany them back to the country of their adoption.

Selene, a younger brother of Alcyone, had married Uranus, but died young, leaving a son Leo and a daughter Mira. On his visit to Poseidonis, Vesta fell in love with and married Mira, and when Selene’ s death occurred; her brother Leo decided to return to

Africa with his sister and brother-in-law. Alcyone at once found work for him in connection with the university, and he soon fell in love with and married Alcyone’ s eldest daughter Vega. Not long afterwards he met with a sad accident, being thrown from his horse, and receiving injuries which proved fatal; so Vega with her baby son Vajra returned once more to her father’ s house. After some years she married Pindar, a kind and capable man, and to them was born a daughter, Cygnus, who became a charming little girl and was always a prime favorite with her grandfather Alcyone. They had also a son, Iris.

Alcyone worked on steadily for a number of years, and might have spent the whole of his life in guiding the University to which he was so closely linked, but that his father Mercury and his mother Brihat, finding themselves growing old and less active than of yore, wrote begging him to return and solace their last days with his presence. He felt it his duty to obey this call, though it was a great struggle for him to leave his African work. He discussed the matter with his wife, and she also agreed with him that they ought to sacrifice their own wishes, however strong they were, to the desire of the parents whom they so revered. So Alcyone made a journey to the capital and had an audience with the ruler, in which he told him exactly the facts of the case, and what he felt he ought to do.

At first the ruler flatly refused to give him permission to abandon the University; but after a night’ s sleep he sent for him again, and announced that if his son Bella (whom the ruler had seen and liked) would act as deputy manager of the University, Alcyone should still remain the nominal Head of the University, and that all important questions connected with it should be submitted for his decision. Alcyone thankfully accepted his arrangement, subject of course to its endorsement by Bella; of which however he had little doubt. On his return home he summoned his sons to a family council, and told them the ruler’s’ decision. Bella was a businesslike and capable man, and his wife Ulysses had also considerable administrative ability, so it seemed that the interests of the University would be safe in their hands; furthermore Vesta, who was psychic and impressionable, seemed in many ways better fitted for succession to the priestly office in Poseidonis than was his eldest son. After the first surprise of the proposal was over, they all agreed that it was under the circumstances the best that could be done, and Bella in his turn journeyed to the capital to place his formal acceptance of the office in the hands of the ruler, and to receive from him a solemn charge with regard to the conduct of the University. On his return Alcyone set sail for Poseidonis, in the year 16,823, taking with him Mizar, Vesta and Neptune.

On the voyage a great blow fell upon him in the death of his dearly loved wife Sirius by an accident. She was enceinte at the time, and in very bad weather she was thrown off a couch and fatally injured. Her husband was overpowered by grief, and declared that he could not live without her, and should not know in the least what to do. But she tried to cheer him, and begged him to grant her one last request. Of course he promised to do so, and she asked him to marry her sister Mizar at once, so that the home might go on just as before, and she might feel satisfied that everything was being made comfortable for him. She said that if she knew that this would be soon she could die in peace, and she would also keep near them if it was permitted, and would even try to speak to them. Alcyone and

Mizar finally yielded to her request, and promised to marry as soon as they reached home; and when this was settled Sirius peacefully passed away, telling them with her last words not to grieve for her.

She was buried at sea, and, true to his promise, Alcyone married Mizar as soon as possible after they reached Poseidonis.

Mercury, who mourned much over the death of Sirius, performed the ceremony for them, and they felt the presence of the dead wife while the service was in progress. Indeed Brihat declared that she saw her standing smilingly beside them, and joining in some of the recitations. Brihat had had a dream or vision of the death of Sirius at the time when it occurred, and neither she nor Mercury was unprepared to hear the news of it on the arrival of the travellers. Mizar proved a true helpmeet for Alcyone; she knew his ways so thoroughly that every thing went on just as though Sirius had been still on the physical plane. She was also thoroughly in sympathy with all his interests and knew the whole of the University business, so that though he never forgot Sirius he soon settled down into the new condition of affairs, and his life ran smoothly along its grooves. His old pleasures in the priestly work was soon revived, and he found that the manifold interests of the Temple left him little time for sorrowing over his loss. As soon as he was little used to the management of affairs

Mercury withdrew entirely into the background and lived the life of a recluse, coming forth only rarely and on special occasions.

Alcyone retained under these different conditions his strong interest in educational matters, and made an attempt to introduce into his native land a system similar to that which had been so successful in Africa. He founded a University on the lines of the old one, and opened a couple of his farm-colony schools for the poor.

Both attempts may be said to have succeeded, but they were never taken up in the oligarchy with quite the same enthusiasm as in North Africa. Still, he worked hard at the arrangements, and his system slowly spread, and he was thanked by the council for introducing it; but as years passed on he was obliged more and more to delegate to others the business connected with it, for his priestly work became more and more engrossing.

He kept constantly in touch by correspondence with Bella and the University work in Africa, and frequently and earnest invitations reached him asking him to pay another visit to the scene of his earlier labours. He always promised that he would do this some time of other, but for years no opportunity presented itself.

He was training his son Vesta to succeed him in the Temple work, but Vesta, though eager, zealous and psychic, was still somewhat too impulsive, and did not always distinguish impulses from intuitions, and so was sometimes hurried into unwise actions. His cousin and brother-in-law Augriga proved of the greatest assistance to him, and took up the educational work so enthusiastically that Alcyone soon turned over that department entirely to him. Auriga was a person of hard-headed commonsense, and a good organiser, so under his management the schools soon began to flourish exceedingly.

Venus the father of Auriga, had long before been called to the City of the golden Gate to succeed Herakles, and he in his turn had summoned his eldest son Crux to support him in his old age, and to learn the way in which so cumbrous an Empire was managed, in preparation for the time when he himself should be called upon to hold the reins of power. In 16,811 Venus passed away and Crux came to the throne, and very shortly after that Mercury and Brihat died within a few months of one another. Though this was not unexpected at so great an age, it came as a shock to Alcyone, all the more so as he had been overworking himself for a long time and was therefore not at his strongest. He felt the need of rest and change, and with considerable difficulty he persuaded to pay the long promised visit to North Africa, the hope being that the seavoyage and the absence of responsibility might set him up again in health.

This expectation was to a great extent fulfilled, for his passage was a pleasant one, and he received a most enthusiastic welcome at the University, and was delighted to find that Bella had been managing everything with praiseworthy firmness and tact, so that both the University itself and the schools were in a most satisfactory state of efficiency. He declined to interfere in any way, or to take any share in the management, though he was of course feted everywhere, and expected to appear as a figure-head and make speeches on numerous occasions. He spent twelve months in Africa, and even then returned only because of an urgent request from Vesta. When he reached his native land he was already sixty seven years old, and he yearned much for a life of meditation and repose, so he encouraged Vesta to continue as far as possible the work to which he had grown accustomed during his father’ s absence, and he himself remained rather in the background, coming forth only on great festivals or when special advice was needed. He was regarded by all the people as a great saint and a person of marvellous wisdom, and those who could obtain his advice in their difficulties thought themselves highly favoured.

On several occassions he mesmerically cured people suffering from various diseases, though e refused to make a regular practice of this, saying that he could help only those cases which he was specially inspired to help.

So he lived on for seventeen years, passing the evening of his life peacefully and contentedly, hale and vigorous, and keeping all his faculties to the last. Mizar remained inseparable from him (she had of course accompanied him to Africa) and their devotion to one another was touching. When Mizar died in the year 16,793 he seemed scarcely to mourn her, saying that it was not worth while to sorrow over so short a seperation, as he knew he should soon follow her almost immediately. His prediction was justified, for he passed quietly away the following year, leaving behind him a great reputation on two continents. Two exactly similar statues of him were made, and were set up in the Central Halls of his two Universities—in that in Africa besides that other statue of his earlier personality on the pedestal of which in his boyhood he had had his present name engraved. The same sculptor produced the two statues, and each University presented one to the other with a suitable inscription. The story of the founder who had so strangely returned and recognised his work was repeated in Africa for centuries, though later, when the statues had disappeared, it became confused, and ran that he was a great magician who had preserved the same body for fourteen hundred years, and so had revisited the scene of his former labours.

Life XXVIII

There was much movement and excitement in the central city of the Fifth Race settlement in Central Asia. Swetdwipa, the White island in the inland sea, whereon stood and stands Shamballa, the Sacred City, was indeed, pervaded as ever by the solemn peace which is the benediction of the high Presences that dwell there; but the adjoining city on the shore of the sea, taking its name from the Manu—Manu’ s City—was full of eager turmoil, for preparation were on foot for a great emigration, the greatest which we have so far observed. Once more the Manu had spoken and had demanded from Surya, the Deputy of the Mahaguru, the gift of His two sons, Mars and Mercury, to lead the vast host of emigrants. He had directed that the emigrants should be divided into three columns.

One, forming the right wing, led by Corona—a warrior of iron will and extraordinary ability, but also of indomitable pride—was to cross the Himalayas through what is now Kashmir, and to find its way through the Punjab and the United Provinces to Bengal; the central and principal host, commanded by Mars—who was the head of the three armies—was to penetrate to Nepal through Tibet, and march from Nepal to Bengal; the central and principal host, commanded by Mars—who was the head of the three armies—was to penetrate to Nepal through Tibet, and march from Nepal to Bengal; the third, the left wing, under Vulcan, was to make its way across Tibet to Bhutan, and thence to Bengal. Thus the three armies were to converge on Northern Bengal, and subjugate that country, making it their home.

This migration seems to have been one of special importance, and a large number of familiar figures were concerned in it. No less than ten who are now Masters are found playing important parts, to say nothing of their many disciples who have followed Them through the ages. A great ceremony preceded the setting out of the vast hosts. In the temple of the Sacred city on the White Island, in the great Hall of Audience—with its massive chair hewn out of living rock, covered with golden mouldings that scarce allowed the rock to peep through—were gathered the most august of Figures. In the centre, in front of the chair but at the foot of its seven steps, towered the mighty form of Vaivasvata, the Manu, the typical man of the Fifth Root-Race. Clustering hair of dark brown shot with fold fell upon His shoulders, and the massive beard of like hue rolled, thick-curling, over His breast; eagle-eyed, with brows slightly arched and shadowing the eyes into darkness, save when the lids, normally somewhat dropped, were lifted suddenly and the eyes flashed out dazzlingly, compelling all who looked on Him to veil their gaze; the nose high and arched, the lips curved and set firmly. A King of men, truly; one whose word meant Law, whose lifted hand impelled or restrained at will.

Beside Him, on His right, stood the Mahaguru, His priestly Brother, the Head of the Religion of the community. Stately and mighty also was He, but while the Manu breathed resistless Will and every gesture spoke of Rule, this Blessed One breathed Love most compassionate, and a Wisdom as pure and deep as the Manu’ s Will was mighty. His hair dusky as ebony, His eyes of darkest violet, almost black, His mouth tender, easily curving into a gracious smile.

Seeking His name, we find many in the people’ s minds—as though reverence and love sought varied expression; often Pita, Deospita, Vyas, Sarvajnarshi, Sugata, Ravidas, Ushadas, Mahamuni, Jnanraja—such are some of the names by which the people love Him. On the left side of the Manu stands Surya, with radiant hair and shining eyes—eyes that dwell with deep affection on His noble sons, the chief figures in the crowd facing the alter, which stands between the Heads of the community and Their people.

They are clad with great magnificence; a long cloak of cloth of gold with heavy jewelled clasps falls around Their feet; the Mahaguru and Surya have, beneath this, long white robes of finest material; the Manu wears a double-like garment of rich erimson, reaching below His knees, the legs and feet bare. They are waiting, expectant, for the overshadowing presence of the Mighty Lords of the Flame, who are to appear to bless th e departing hosts.

The leaders of the army stand close to the ancient Alter, whereon each has placed his favourite weapon, mace, or axe, or sword, facing their Chiefs. Mars is in the centre, with his wife Brihat on his left, and Mercury upon his right. Mercury’ s wife, Saturn, is beside him, and by her, again, stands Vulcan. On Brihat’ s left is Corona, who had once in a previous birth ruled as an Emperor of the city of the Golden Gate in far Atlantis. A noble quartet of warriors they looked, with their stately wives, full worthy of them.

A group of children sat beyond the Alter, a little awed by the great Figures on whom their eyes were fixed; they were the children of Mars and Mercury; Jupiter, a noble boy of ten years of age, the eldest son of Mars, with his sisters Osiris, Uranus and Ulysses, his brother Siwa, a chubby boy of two, and in the arms of Osiris, the eight years-old maiden, a baby boy, Viraj, who gazed with solemn eyes upon the Three. Mercury’ s eldest son was Selene, a thoughtful-looking boy, about the age of Jupiter, his arm thrown round the youngest girl, Mizar, a restless babe scarce twelve months old; his brothers Leo and Vajra sat, with arms round each other’ s shoulders; the sisters Herakles and Alcyone sat nested together, little maids of five and three, for Alcyone had been born in 15,995, and Herakles was two years her elder and a little inclined to be protective of her junior.

There is a great hush, for a single note rings through the great Hall, clear as a silver clarion, and a brilliant Light blazes out above the rock-hewn chair. The assembly bows down, for in the chair is seated a marvellous Figure, dazzling, an emboldened Power, and behind Him are three Others, only less great than He. They are the four Kumaras of Indian Scriptures, the Lords of the Flame. “Go forth, my children, and do my work; my strength is upon you. Having wrought return.”

The accents fall upon the hushed stillness; a hand is raised in blessing, and when the heads bent low in reverence are raised, the chair is empty and the Light is gone.

Surya stepped out and blessed his sons, who bent the knee before him and then, stooping, raised the little Alcyone, his favorite grand daughter, and drew close to him the sturdier form of Herakles:

“My little ones,” he said, and his tender face grew gently solemn,”on a far rough way you go. Mothers of brave men you shall be, and fair women also shall call each of you’ mother’.

Your race shall dwell long in the land and thither also you shall come again many times, to learn and teach. But this is the first of the lives of expiation, that old Karma may be outworn, old wrongs made right.

Death shall come to both of you together, in strange and violent way. In that hour, call on me and I will come to you, and the Light you have just now seen shall shine in the darkness then.”

Little Alcyone hid her face in his neck and laughed softly; she did not understand, but she loved her grandfather; and Herakles looked up boldly, unwitting the gravity of the prophecy;”I shall call loud, so that you will hear,” and Jupiter, who always called

Herakles his little wife, said proudly: “I will take care of you.”

Long and arduous was the journey, and many years had passed ere the three commanders met again. Corona found his way south fairly easily, as the road through Kashmir was known, and the people of the settled portions were not unfriendly. But on reaching the Punjab he fell out with the inhabitants almost from the beginning, and presently he had to fight his way through a hostile country. He besieged the great Toltec city, now under Aryan rule, where Mars had been betrayed some fifteen hundred years before, and at length reduced it by starvation, and made its ruler swear fealty to himself; he next subdued Ravipur—near the site of the modern Delhi—and established there one of his own officers as a tributary King; he pressed southwards, ever fighting and reducing his enemies to submission, till he had carved himself out an empire, with half a hundred tributary chiefs. Forty years had rolled away ere he reached Bengal, an aged warrior of over seventy years of age, to find Mars settled in Central Bengal, having founded and established his kingdom.

Vulcan had found his way through Tibet and Bhutan a good sixteen years earlier, had joined his forces with those of Mars, and in

15,953 had invaded Assam, and had there established himself in fairly peaceful possession by the time Corona arrived, in 15,952 B.C. Much however had happened ere that, and our hero, or rather heroine, is with Mars, and to her fortunes we must turn.

The route of Mars, on leaving Central Asia, took him in four years across the great Range into Tibet, and he remained there for a full year, to rest the feebler members of his army-caravan, ere they began the toilsome road across the mountains to Nepal. During this time Castor was born, and much time was given daily to training the boys of the party in athletics of every sort. Jupiter was the leader in all manly exercises, and among the boys whom he formed into a troop, which he trained in scouting and mimic warfare, we note his cousins Leo, Vajra and Selene, Vajra making up for his juvenility by his reckless daring and extreme activity—and their friends Albeiro and Arcor. Alcyone, a girl between seven and eight, was a somewhat dreamy maiden, quiet and thoughtful, more apt to sit at home than to roam abroad. She would sing softly to herself the chants to the angels of her people and lose herself in visions as she sang.

At the end of the fifth year since leaving Manoa, the army started again on its way, and climbed slowly over the mountains which lay between Tibet and Nepal. It tried to follow the course of a mountains which lay between eastwards and southwards, but was constantly forced to turn aside when the river plunged into impassable gorges and foamed through ravines where the cliffs almost closed above it. There were many skirmishes with hill-tribes, but no serious fighting until two years later they approached Nepal, where Mars found himself obliged to divide his army, leaving half under Mercury to guard the huge entrenched camp, and going out himself with remainder of his troops to subdue the country sufficiently to make a safe road for his people. He took with him his eldest son, Jupiter, and his young troop, Mercury specially bidding his son Vajra learn the soldierly duty of obedience. One attempt was made to rush the camp during his absence, but Mercury repelled it without great difficulty and with little loss of life. It is a pretty scene to see Mercury seated with his wife and sister-in-law, with Alcyone nestling on his breast, and a girl-friend Capri, Herakles’ special chum, leaning against his knee, as he told them stories of Surya and the Mahaguru, and sometimes, speaking softly and low, of the great Kumaras whom they had seen ere leaving Manoa. Herakles was a more restless child, and her eyes would rove eagerly over the camp outside while her father was speaking, bringing on herself sometimes a solemn reproof from the more demure Capri. Osiris and Uranus also, with little Viraj, were interested auditors while Ulysses was apt to sympathise with Herakles’ wandering gaze.

Two years passed before the waiting camp again welcomed Mars and joyous were the greetings which met the returning wanderers. He had secured a passage through Nepal, partly by fighting, partly by diplomacy, and the whole caravan set out, a couple of months later, in early summer. That winter they camped near the borders of Nepal, resuming their journey the following summer, and thus slowly they went forwards, marching during the summer, camping in the winter, and spending weary years on the way ere they reached India itself.

Meanwhile the sisters had grown into stately and handsome maidens, inheriting something of the beauty and grace of their father and mother. Herakles was now eighteen, and Alcyone sixteen, and Mars sought his favourite niece as wife for his eldest son, while the sweet ways and gentle eyes of Alcyone had won the heart of Albeiro, Jupiter’ s brother in arms. Demure Capri had become the ideal of Arcor, whose own somewhat stormy nature found rest and refreshment in her gentle household ways, and the three pairs were married ere the army left its winter camp in 15,979 B.C.

Mars led his great host peacefully through the extreme north of Bengal that summer, and camped along a huge river when marching time was over. Here he determined to wait the arrival of Vulcan and Corona, in order that their united forces might take possession of the land, and that he might there build up his kingdom. Another two years, however, elapsed before the approach of Vulcan was reported to him. Nothing whatever was to be heard of corona, and after waiting for a third year, Mars, Mercury and Vulcan decided to press on without him. They left the women and children in an entrenchment camp in northern Bengal (15,975 B.C.) while they marched southwards, taking with them Jupiter, Albeiro, Selene and Leo, through a fertile but only thinly settled land, and at intervals the army stopped and threw up strong embankments, protected by deep trenches which seem to have become easily filled up with water, the water being thus drained away from a considerable surrounding area, which was readily cultivable, and afforded splendid grazing grounds for cattle. Mars detached at each of these settlements a considerable body of troops, leaving them orders to make broad and firm roads between the camps; after five years of this marching and building, he placed Vulcan in authority over the whole of the conquered land, directing him to return to the northern camp, taking with him all those who wished to settle down there with their wives and children, as well as a large force, sufficient to guard the great numbers that were to settle in the various camps established in Bengal. He himself determined to continue his march southwards, and arranged to return to the place where they parted after another five years.

Vulcan accordingly started visiting all the settlements on his way north; he found them prosperous and busy, the scattered inhabitants of the country having entered into friendly relations with them, often taking service as cowherds, laborers and so on. He pressed on northwards till he reached the original camp (15,967 B.C.) and was joyfully welcomed by its inhabitants. He found a few newcomers there; before they had parted Herakles had given birth to a son, Bee, and a daughter, Canopus; Alcyone to two sons, Neptune and Psyche, while Capri had borne Arcor a daughter, a pretty little girl, Pindar, and a son, Altair. To these had been added Aletheia, son of Herakles, Rigel, daughter of Alcyone, and Adrona, son of Arcor. The three older children, Bee, Neptune and Pindar were of an age—eleven years old, having been born in winter of 15,978—and were as inseparable as their mothers, while remaining trio, Canopus, Psyche and Altair were equally fond of each other.

Each little maiden had her two knights, Pindar being everywhere accompanied by Bee and Neptune, Canopus by Psyche and Altair.

A happy childhood was theirs, playing on foot and on ponyback, rough unkempt ponies, and gathering at eventide with their mothers, to tell of the day’ s delight, and to listen to stories of the land the mothers had left in childhood, above all to the story of the great Temple from the lips of Alcyone, and the august Figures their childish eyes had seen. Aletheia, Rigel and Adrona were but seven years of age, pretty healthy children, much petted by the uncles of the two first-named, Vajra and Castor, the younger sons of Mercury.

Vulcan gathered together all the families whose heads or elder members had followed Mars, and took them southwards, leaving each group with their long separated men relatives in the settlement where these were dwelling. Joyous were the meetings, saddened here and there by gaps in family circles, when death had swept away by disease or violence those who were not to meet again their loved ones upon earth.

Meanwhile Mars had gone southwards, and soon found himself engaged in a long series of skirmishes and battles, for the country he invaded was thickly populated with people of Atlantean blood, and as he approached the sea-board these became more warlike, and offered more resistance to his advance. At last he had to fight a serious pitched battle, to which the King of the Orissa country had summoned all his hosts: his priests, followers of the Atlantean dark magic, had incited the troops to fury by fiery harangues, and had rendered them, as they believed, invincible by human sacrifices offered to their gloomy elemental deities in the huge temple near the sea which was the most sacred centre of their worship, a temple of unknown antiquity and cyclopean architecture of the Lemurian type, standing in what is now the town of Puri. In the dim recesses of that temple, on the night before the battle joined, the priests had gathered in unholy conclave, and with ghastly rites and furious invocations had summoned their dark deities to give battle to the radiant angels of the Aryan invaders.

At daybreak the decisive battle began, and for five days it raged; Mars and Mercury led their hosts with dauntless valour, well seconded by their sons and their faithful friends, among whom Arcor was conspicuous for his reckless courage. Great was the slaughter, but, as the fifth day darkened into evening, the hosts of Orissa were in headlong fight and the victorious

Aryans chased them southwards, and encamped for the night in the camp that their enemies had left. Mars appeared to have carried a charmed life, but all the other leaders were wounded more or less, and very weary were the hosts that slept.

Rising ere daybreak, as was their wont, strange and new was the sight before the eyes of those who, all unknowing had camped near the sea-shore. Never had they seen the broad expanse of the ocean, and loud cries of wonder and of awe burst from these children of the desert and the mountain as the huge plain of heaving waters burst upon their gaze in the dim twilight ere the dawn, and the waves rippled to their feet, making them start back in fear. Their leaders came out at the shouts of the soldiers, wondering if the enemy had returned in force. Transfixed they also stood, and, as they gazed, the eastern sky began to redden towards the dawn; they watched, breathless, and suddenly the crimson globe of the Sun flung itself upwards from the waters, as though it leaped from the bosom of the deep, and Mars and Mercury threw themselves upon their faces and the red rays blazed across the ocean, and the cry: “Samudra! Samudra!”rang from a thousand throats. The Sun had been Pushan, the Nourisher, Pantha, the Path, as he guided them over the deserts; now he was born of the sea, in the magical wonder of the dawning.

The neck of the resistance was broken, and Mars established the centre of his kingdom to the north of Orissa, in Central Bengal, leaving Jupiter, his eldest son, in charge of Orissa, with Albeiro, Leo and Arcor as his lieutenants. He departed to keep his tryst with Vulcan, promising that Mercury should return and bring with him the families of all left to settle in that part of his realm. Immediately after this Vulcan parted from Mars and invaded and conquered Assam, setting up there his kingdom with little difficulty.

In due course Mercury returned, bringing with him his noble wife, Saturn, and his sons Viraj and Castor, and his three daughters, Herakles, Alcyone and Mizar. He brought with him also Uranus, to be the bride of Leo, and aurora to wed Selene. Arcor joyfully welcomed his fondly loved Capri and his sons Altair and Adrona.

And now came many years of hard work, the building up of a kingdom, interspersed with occasional wars of defense—skirmishes with predatory bands, endeavours to conciliate the former owners of the country, and efforts to put sown human sacrifices. Once during these years Mars paid a visit to his children, bringing with him his sons Siwa and Viraj, and his daughter Ulysses. Osiris had married and could not leave her home. On this occasion Vajra and Ulysses were wed, and after much discussion, the parents decided to leave these two as rulers of Orissa, and to return themselves to the northern capital, taking with them Jupiter and his family; for Mars was very old, and wished to install his eldest son upon the throne and retire from the world with Mercury and their wives. This was done, and Vajra and Ulysses were left in charge.

For a time all went apparently well, but a storm was gathering below the surface. Vajra did not show the skill in conciliation characteristic of Jupiter, and his measures, aimed to bring about good results, were sometimes harsh. In 15,937 B.C. a great religious festival of the old religion was to be held, and Vajra had, the year before, forbidden its celebration, knowing the danger of such a concourse, excited by sacrifices and incantations. Herakles had come to spend some months with Alcyone, for the twain were not happy when apart, and she - having become learned in the deeper knowledge of the Atlantean White Magic and having wedded it to the worship of the bright Gods worshipped in her ancient home—began teaching this mingled philosophy and religion to the younger men and women of her brother’ s kingdom, and she included in her classes some of the younger priests of the dark Atlantean faith. This was to strike a deadly blow to the still powerful priesthood, and ere long the muttering of hatred grew deep and angry.

As the months passed, the growlings grew louder, and a conspiracy was formed to attack the house of Albeiro, where Herakles and Alcyone were living, while he was away on a projected journey with Vajra to a distant part of the country. The priesthood resolved that the forbidden celebration should take place, and with victims nobler than the common herd; and they diligently circulated rumours that a rising was to take place in the district whither Vajra and Albeiro were going. The result of this skillfully planned deception was that Vajra took with him the main part of his army, leaving a comparatively small force under Arcor to preserve order and defend his household.

It was 15,937 B.C. and the high day, or rather night, of the forbidden festival was near. The early morning dawned clear and cool, but scattered groups might be seen slowly converging to a centre, and that centre the house of Albeiro. The groups coalesced into a crowd; the crowd grew in number and denseness. Presently a deep clanging note clashed into the quiet: it was the note of the great bell of the temple, unheard for long, the bell that no longer might be sounded. The roar of the crowd answered the brazen voice of the bell, and in a moment a riot had broken out. The house of Albeiro was broken into, the guards slaughtered, and in front of the crowd, as it surged inwards, towered the tall gaunt form of the Atlantean High Priest, Scorpio, on whose head a price had long been set, and who had lain hidden in the underground vaults of the temple, known to none but the initiated priesthood.”Ya-uli! Yauli!,”shrieked the mob, half deeming him risen from the dead, and frenzied by religious excitement. A slow stern smile curved his iron lips as he heard his name re-echo, and turning, he waved back the yelling mob, and they stopped silent.

“Wait, children of the Lord of the Dark Face; your day has come. I go to bring forth the accursed, the women of the barbarians of the North, who have crushed your worship and closed the temples of your Gods. Aiyo! Aiyo! The Lords have risen; they cry for blood, and blood shall they have. Slay! slay all but the two women who are theirs. They are mine, as the priest of the Gods who drink human blood and devour human flesh. Tonight shall their thirst be slaked and their hunger appeased, Aiyo! Aiyo! I have said!”

Into the house he stalked, grim as death and stern as an incarnate Hate. At the first alarm Arcor had sounded his conch to summon his men, and, as they flung themselves into the passages and held the stairways, a fierce but hopeless combat had ended in their extermination. Arcor himself had rushed to the private entrance into the ladies’ apartment, had struck down the priests who led the crowd—Ya-uli cautiously withdrawing till the way was clear—and had battled desperately, though alone, to bar the road. He fell, pierced by a score of wounds, and the Chief Priest stepped over his body to his prey.

Alcyone and Herakles were at their morning worship when the crash of breaking doors told them of danger, and as they rose, two tall and stately women—Herakles, now at the age of sixty, crowned with silver hair, and Alcyone with dark tresses, silver streaked, falling below her waist—the door of their worship-chamber burst open, and the tall Priest stood on the threshold. The two women faced him, a proud interrogation as to such intrusion spoken by the uplift of the noble heads, the gaze of the steady eyes. “Come, ye accursed! The day of your oppression is over; the night of your doom is near. Come, for the Dark Lords call. I am their messenger of vengeance.”

Herakles threw her arm round her sister’ s slight form: “Priest! You threaten those who know not fear. Begone! invite not death.”

A harsh laugh grated on the air: “Death, woman! I give it, I do not accept it. Come forth: you are mine.”

He made a gesture to some priests behind him; they came in and seized the women by the arms, drawing out cords to bind.

“Bind not!” said Herakles.”

We shall not flee. Come, dearest, come. Our father’ s daughters know how to die.”

Alcyone glanced up at her sister, an angelic smile upon her face: “I am ready, sister beloved.”

And they moved slowly forward, surrounded by the priests, through the passages strewn with the bodies of the dead.

Unblenching they went through the seething crowd, which yelled at them, shook clenched fists as they passed, and would have torn them in pieces had it not been for the priests they feared. Slowly they went onwards through the city to the place where yawned widely the mighty open gates of the temple, with long aisles of dark pillars glooming away into darkness. White-robed, fair skinned, the two sisters looked like angels of light amid the tossing crowd of dark faces and dark bare arms flung high in the air. At the gate the priests turned and Ya-uli spake:

“To-night, four hours after the sunset, the gates will be opened; let all children of the Lords of the Dark Face come to their festival.”

The gates clanged together, and Herakles and Alcyone were past all earthly help.

At first, no harm was wrought on them; they were offered rich food and wine, but would not eat. Only fruit would they take, and a drink of milk. Then commenced a long persuasive talk; Ya-uli strove to win their promise to take part in the worship of the Dark Gods that night, pledging himself that they should return home in safety if they would thus purchase life with dishonor. In his false heart he meant to slay them after they had worshipped, but he longed to proclaim them renegades to their faith and so win credit for his own. Uselessly he strove against their steady will, and in wrath at last he bade the priests take them to the gloomy centre of the temple, and leave them there awhile.

A dread and awful place it was in which they were left. Dim shapes, some red, some black, some sickly grey, were half visible through the gloom. Low moans, as of something in pain, came, dully muffled, to their ears.

“Herakles,” whispered Alcyone,”are these things alive or dead? They make me shudder.”

“Darling, I know not, but living or dead, they cannot hurt the soul.”

They whispered to each other in the gloomy cavern, spoke of home, of husbands, of children, and then of the days of happy childhood, and the glorious vision of the past.

“I think the time has come,” said Alcyone,”and we shall see our grandfather again.”

“And the Light!”breathed Herakles.

It was ten o’ clock, and a dense crowd filled the huge dark building, silent, expectant, awe-struck. At a given sign the women were seized, and lifted upon a high altar, in view of all, and a lurid light, blood red shone out, none could say whence, and threw the awful figures around into grim semblance of life. There was a sound of rending cloth, and the robes of the two women were torn from them, and the fair white bodies shone out nude and shrinking. A low cry of horror burst from them, and then Herakles threw up her proud head and flung her arms around her sister, striving to shield her from the gaze of the rough crowd: “You shame your mothers, men, in shaming us,” she cried, and then stood silent.”Look at them,” called the Priest,”before the Dark Lord feasts upon them. When next you see them, he shall have had his fill.”

And then the light faded, and the crowd filed out, to wait for the rites that none save the priests might see and live.

How tell the horrors that ensued: flames rose from surrounding altars, and shrieking captives were led in, and the fire fed with fat skinned from their living bodies till the flames roared high; then their blood was set flowing and caught in iron vessels, and set to boil in huge iron pots, and poured upon the images set in the circle round; foul creatures of the slime, huge spiders, monstrous scorpions, fed on the remnants of the slime, huge spiders, monstrous scorpions, fed on the remnants of the mutilated bodies; and presently one after another of the images woke into awful life, began to stir, to slip downwards from their pedestals, obscene shapes of unimaginable horror, and crawled and writhed towards the centre where Alcyone and Herakles still stood, clasped in each other’ s arms.”Fly! Fly!” yelled the priests,”the Dark Lord is coming, and his hosts are here!”and they tumbled over each other in a mad rush to escape from the terror they had invoked.

Out of the darkness loomed a gigantic face—a face of power majestic, of pain and wrath too deep for words, of intolerable weariness and despair. A mighty hand was waved, just visible by its own dull glow, as of hot iron half-quenched and the fearful figures rolled up around the alter and reared up red gaping mouths and hairy tearing claws. Then rang out the voice of Herakles, loud and clear:

“Suryadeva, Suryadeva, Mahapita, come! Oh, come!”

And there, in the midst of all the horrors, there shone out the light on which the children’ s eyes had rested, and beneath it the radiant form of the Surya they knew, with tender eyes and outstretched arms; and with a sob of joy Alcyone sprang forward, and her body dropped lifeless on the alter. And all the horrid shapes shrivelled into nothingness, and lay about like the cast-off skins of snakes, and the pillars broke, and the cavern walls fell in, and the bodies of the sisters had for tomb the mighty temple of the Lord of the Dark Face.

And that night in Puri, there was fear and trembling, for earthquake rent the ground, and a huge tidal wave came rushing from the sea. But they who cowered in terror, and they who, remembering the two sisters, wept for their awful fate, they knew nothing of the outstretched arms that had carried them home, cradled on the bosom that is to become the Refuge of the world; they knew nothing of the Light that had turned into heaven the darkness of that hell.

Of the vengeance Vajra wrought when he returned, and of the grief of Jupiter and Albeiro, there is here no room to tell. And it was all over very long ago.

Simultaneously with this two of our characters. Rhea and Vale are found in Atlantis, Vale being male and Rhea female.

Life XXIX

It may be remembered that in the ninth of this series of lives Surya prophesied the tragic death which closed the tenth, and also foretold that great trial and difficulty should characterise that which succeeded it. On the other hand he promised that if the trial were nobly borne, the difficulty successfully surmounted, definite progress should be the result. Indeed, apart from this particular case, we may take it as a general rule that, when a man is approaching the entrance to the Path, he is likely to have some lives involving a good deal of suffering and some unpleasant conditions.

There are two reasons for this. First, whatever of evil karma remains to him must be cleared out of the way as speedily as possible, in order that it may not hamper him when the time draws near for the final effort. Second, any undesirable qualities in him must be quickly conquered, so that the necessary qualifications may be acquired, and the way may be clear.

In the lives already described our hero has had the privilege of frequent and close association with men women who have since become Masters of the Wisdom, and everything has been done to strengthen his character by example and precept. In this life which is now to be chronicled he is thrown from birth into gross and evil surroundings and the help of the presence of those Great Ones is withdrawn from him - the object evidently being to work off some bad karma, and in doing so to give him an opportunity of showing whether he has within him sufficient strength and insight to break through an evil tradition even though it has behind it all the weight of religious and tradition even though it has behind it all the weight of religious and parental authority, of immemorial custom and of personal passion.

Alcyone, then, was born this time in a female body in the year 15,402 B.C. in Rahana, in the Oudh district of India. Her father, Cetus was the priest of a religion about which there seemed to be much mystery. Although he himself was unquestionably of Aryan descent, the religion was certainly aboriginal, for it was at the same time too elaborate and too barbarous for the joyous-hearted Aryans.

It may well have been the seed from which Kali worship has since arisen, for it consisted mainly of gloomy rites to a bloodthirsty female deity. There was a good deal of reckless gaiety about the outer side of this faith, but through it all there always rang a sombre note of gloom and fear. Many secret services were held to which only the ‘initiated’ were admitted, and at these the most horrible rites of the darker magic were freely practiced. Many parts of some of these services were held in a language incomprehensible to the people, but at the same time some of the recitations were at least partially Sanskrit.

Alcyone’ s father was a fit person for such a faith, a stern, reserved and gloomy man, but nevertheless a person of very great influence. He was supposed to have won many powers by sacrifices and austerities, and was further credited with readiness to use them for evil in a great many ways. Her mother, Cancer, was not unkind, but was always in a condition of anxiety and terror, which speedily communicated itself to the child. The latter lived a rather frightened and neglected life; she was not actually badly treated, and as she was not admitted to the inner services, she saw nothing definite of the more unnecessary horrors of her religion, but the gloom and the fear of the inner circles reacted upon her childhood miserable with vague terrors.

She grew up without much education, and there was no event of special importance in her young life, until at the age of about sixteen she met Pollux, a bright handsome careless fellow, whose appearance at once attracted her. The attraction seems to have been mutual, so they fell in love in the ordinary way. Alcyone was too terrified to find it possible to propound the idea of love in the dark, uncertain atmosphere of the family life, so these young people met frequently in secret, and in course of time became too intimate.

After a while Alcyone pressed her lover to make some arrangements as to marriage, but when urged he declared that this was an impossibility, as not only did he belong to quite a different religion, but there was also a hereditary feud between his family and that of Alcyone.

It took a long time to convince Alcyone that her lover was really heartless and did not intend to make any move in the matter; but, when at last she realised the truth, she turned from him with disgust and told all to her mother, announcing her condition, and vowing to devote her life being revenged upon the man who had brought her into it. Her mother was much shocked and upset, but when she learnt who the lover was she said at once that he came of a bad stock, and that his father before him had ruined a younger sister of hers, in a similer manner. This story made Alcyone only the more fiercely indignant and, as has been said, she resolved to dedicate her whole life to a full and carefully-planned revenge. Her mother then unfolded to her the secret that revenge could be had through the secret rites of their religion, and she consequently became eager to be initiated into it.

The whole story had to be told to her father, who also was furiously angry, for by the customs of the time the birth of an illegitimate child doomed her to the life of a widow. He blamed her bitterly, but yet commended and encouraged her desire for revenge.

He permitted her to learn the secrets of the faith, by which she was deeply impressed, but also greatly terrified, for she had to pledge herself to a nightmare of horrors which she would have been glad to be able to forget. In order to cloak as far as possible the results of the undue intimacy, the father insisted upon her immediate marriage to a devil-priest, Scorpio, a man much older than herself and of most undesirable type, one who was a medium for the most horrible influences.

Of course she shrank with loathing from all this, but yet accepted it as a necessary part of the revenge to which she had resolved to devote her life. The whole affair had become distorted by her long brooding over it, and her state of mind was such that she was open to a steady pressure from evil astral influences, a condition of practical obsession which was considered a mark of great advancement in this peculiarly abominable religion. After extracting from her blood curdling oaths of secrecy, her mother unfolded to her a particularly ghoulish scheme of vengeance which she said had never been known to fail. Among other repulsive details it involved the crime of murdering her own child, and offering it to the deity invoked. In her rage against Pollux she agreed to this, because it would be his child; but when it was born her maternal instincts triumphed, and she refused to fulfil the agreement or to consummate the sacrifice.

Many of the ceremonies had already been commenced, for it was of the essence of the horrible pact that the birth of the child she should already have dedicated both herself and it utterly to the service of this loathsome goddess. The culmination was to be the slaughter of the child upon the alter of the deity with certain tremendous invocations, in response to which the image was supposed to descend from its pedestal and to embrace the suppliant. In this embrace the goddess was to pass from the image into the body of the worshipper, who then, as the vehicle of the deity, was herself to devour the sacrifice. In the strength of that ghastly meal the obssessing entity was supposed to give to the body much the same powers which medieval superstition attributed to the Hand of Glory. At the approach of the avenger all doors flew open, and all living creatures became incapable of resisting his will, so that he could wreak his vengeance unopposed, and even unrecognised, for the goddess threw over him a mantle of invisibility.

Driven by mad rage and by the almost irresistible force of environment, Alcyone had begun the earlier stages of this appalling piece of witchcraft. But when the child was actually born she experienced a revulsion of feeling, and declined to continue the dedicatory ceremonies. Her father was exceedingly angry, and rediculed her as weak and unworthy of the assistance and favour of the goddess. He even claimed that the child already belonged not to the mother but to the deity to whom it had been dedicated, and demanded that it should be delivered to him on her behalf. Alcyone firmly refused this, braving even the anger of her gloomy and terrible father. He insisted indignantly for a time, and then suddenly yielded with a sneer, saying that the goddess would obtain her rights in another way.

Soon afterwards the baby fell ill, and in spite of all that the mother could do its mysterious malady grew rapidly worse. She presently fell ill herself with watching and grieving over it, and when she recovered she fell ill herself with watching and grieving over it, and when she recovered she was told that early in her illness the baby had died, and its body had been burnt in the usual way. But she always had certain lurking suspicions, and ever after this a drawing of hatred mingled with her fear of her father. The truth (which, however, she never actually knew, whatever she may have suspected) was that her father, really believing in his fanaticism that the child belonged to the goddess, and that her anger would descend upon him if he allowed her to be robbed of it, had contrived to administer repeated doses of slow poison, first to the child and then to the mother, and as soon as the latter was unconscious he had taken the child and sacrificed it himself to his bloodthirsty deity.

Human sacrifice formed a regular part of the secret rites of this horrible faith, and yet in the midst of all these abominations there were certain gleams of some original better influences–certain suggestions which may have been the reflection of a condition in which the faith was not so utterly degraded. The very phrase which was solemnly pronounced by the priest at the culminating point of a human sacrifice seemed to have in it some faint reflection of a better time, for the earlier part of it at least had a tone which reminds one of the Upanishads. It ran something like this:

“From the earth is the breath and the blood, but whence is the soul? Who is he who holds the unborn in his hands? The watchers of old are dead, and now we watch in turn. By the blood which we offer, hear us and save! The breath and the blood we give thee. Save thou the soul and give it to us in exchange.”

These last words seemed to point to the idea that the soul, or perhaps more exactly th e astral body, of the sacrificed was to be given into their power to become one of their horrible band of obsessing entities, to be at once an instrument and yet in some strange way one of the objects of their degraded worship. As has been said, most of their incantations were entirely incomprehensible, and bore a considerable resemblance to those employed in Voodoo or Obeah ceremonies by the Negroes. Others, however, contained distinct Sanskrit words, usually buried in the midst of a series of uncouth exclamations delivered with a furious energy which certainly made them terribly powerful for evil. One of their characteristics was the use of certain cacophonous combinations of constants into which all the vowels were inserted in turn. The syllable”hrim” was used in this way, as also the interjection”kshrang”. In the midst of these uncouth outbursts of spite occurred what appears to be an evil wish in unmistakable Sanskrit: “Yushmabhih mohanam bhavatu,” and the whole utterance concluded with some peculiarly explosive curses which it seems impossible to express in any ordinary system of letters.

Poor Alcyone led an exceedingly miserable life amidst all the chaos of obscene horrors. Her husband was an evil and crafty man, who prayed upon the credulity of the people, and was often in a condition of complete intoxication from the use of hemp and some form of opium. Soon Alcyone came bitterly to regret the fit of mad revenge which had led her into all this network of evil, but she was too firmly entangled in it to be able to make her escape, and indeed there still were times when the obsession dominated her and she felt that revenge would be right and sweet. Presently her father died, and the family fell back into a position of less influence.

This unnatural parent, however, was more terrible dead than alive, for he concentrated all his energies, in the lowest part of the astral plane, and execercised a peculiarly malignant obsession over his daughter. She knew the influence well, and earnestly desired to resist it, but could find no method of doing so, though her suffering under it was indescribable and her whole soul was filled with uttermost loathing. Her mother and all three other female members of her family were under the same malign influence to a greater of less degree, but to them the whole thing was a matter of course, and they even supposed themselves to be specially favoured and to become in some way holy, when they were seized upon even for the most dreadful purposes.

Along with all the psychical influence there was a perfect labyrinth of the most complicated and ingenious plotting on the physical plane. Years were spent in the elaboration of a nefarious scheme to get Pollux into the power of the family, and at last the plan matured itself and he and his child Tiphys were in their hands— for he had married in the meantime and had with him a bright little boy. Alcyone’ s mother and other female relatives were filled with fiendish exultation, and joined in a strange kind of orgy of hatred, the father impressing himself upon them all more strongly than ever.

Alcyone felt the tremendous power of this combination, and was often carried away by it and unable to resist its action, although even then she was all the time in a condition of bitter protest and resentment. Pollux was to be poisoned in a piculiarly horrible way, and it was to Alcyone that the task was entrusted of the actual administration of the dissipation, and Alcyone felt nothing but repulsion for him; and, as at this critical moment the obsession by the father was almost perfect, there is little doubt that the crime would have been committed, but for a most fortunate shock which she received at the last moment.

Just as she was handing the cup to her victim, she met the wide gaze of the child. his eyes were exactly those of his father, her joyous young lover of so many years ago, who had been the one bright spot in her dreary early life. in a flash those eyes brought back the past, and with it a realisation of what she was about to do now under the awful compelling power of this ghastly religion of hate.

The instantaneous revulsion of feeling was complete; she dashed the cup to the ground and rushed from the house—from the house and from the city, dressed just as she happened to be at the moment, so overpowered by the horror of the thing that she never even paused for a thought as to what lay before her, or what would come of it, resolved only to have done for ever at any cost with all that evil life.

The violence of her feelings broke through the black pall of evil influence which had so long dominated her, and for the time she was entirely freed from the maleficent control of her father. She rushed out into the country, careless whither she went so long as she escaped for ever from that awful life. Unaccustomed to exercise and to the free air of heaven, she was soon sinking from fatigue, but still she pressed on, upheld somehow by a kind of frenzy of determination. She had of course no money, and only indoor clothing, but she thought nothing of these things until night began to fall. Then for the first time she looked about her and became conscious of her surroundings. She was already many miles from home, out in the open country, and, becoming conscious at last of severe fatigue and hunger, she turned her steps towards a country house of some size which she saw at a little distance.

She knew little what to say or do, but fortunately Achilles, the mistress of this house, was a kind motherly woman, who was touched by the exhausted condition of the wanderer and received her with open arms, and postponed her questions until she had eaten and rested. Then, little by little, the whole story came out, and many were the exclamations of wonder and pity on the part of the good old dame, as the horrors of the dark demon-worship were gradually revealed. The old lady made light of the fact that in leaving home Alcyone had lost her position in life and all her worldly possessions, telling her that all that mattered nothing now that she had escaped from the other horrors, and that she must now devote herself to changing radically and entirely her whole attitude of mind, and forget all about the past as though it had been a mere hideous dream. She said wisely that life began afresh for her from that hour—indeed that she had not really lived until now, and she promised to do all in her power to help her and make the new life easy for her.

Alcyone feared that her husband, the devil-priest, might be incited to assert some kind of legal claim over her, for she knew that the worshippers of the dark cult would be fiercely angry that one of their initiates should escape from the fold. But the old woman, who was a brave and capable person, declared that she did not know exactly how the law might stand, but that, law or no law, she was at any rate quite certain as to one fact—that she did not intend to give Alcyone up to her husband or any of her relations; and she felt quite confident that if the case were carried before the King of the country and all the nefarious proceedings of the dark demon-worship exposed, the authorities would be certain to take her side and decline to deliver her again into the slavery from which she had escaped.

Alcyone was most thankful to this kind protectress, and in her condition of utter exhaustion of body and mind was glad to adopt the suggestion that at least they might leave all further discussion till the morrow, and to sink to rest in the comfortable quarters provided for her. The shock to her had been severe, and it would have been only natural if some serious illness had supervened; and indeed it seemed as though that would have been the case but for a wonderful vision which came to her during the night. A man of commanding appearance and wonderful gentleness of mien(Mercury) appeared to her and spoke words of comfort and encouragement, telling her that the awful life which she had lived so far had two aspects of which she had been entirely unconscious.

First, its terrible sufferings had paid off outstanding debts from long past lives and had made the way clear for future advancement; and secondly, the whole life had been in the nature of a test, to see whether at its present stage her will was strong enough to break through as exceedingly powerful surrounding of evil.

He congratulated her upon her success and determination in breaking away, and prophesied for her a future of rapid progress and usefulness. He said that the way was long before her, but drew for her also by his words a beautiful picture of two paths of progress, the slow and easy road that winds round the mountain, and the shorter but steeper and more rugged path that lies before those who for love of God and man, are willing to devote themselves to the welfare of their brothers. She had, he said, the opportunity to take the latter in the future if she chose, and if she took that path, though the work would be arduous, the reward would be glorious beyond all comprehension. This vision produced a profound impression upon her, and she never afterwards forgot the words of the face of the instructor, not did she ever entirely lose the glow of enthusiasm with which she felt herself eagerly accepting the second of these alternatives which he placed before her.

Next morning she related her vision to her kind hostess, who was deeply impressed by it, and said it quite confirmed the impression which she herself had received. It had its effect even upon the physical plane, for it was largely owing to it that Alcyone was better than might have been expected. Her dead father troubled her greatly by constant and determined attempts to reassert his old dominion over her. She however, called up all the latent reserves of her will and and set them definitely against this influence, rejecting it with all the vigour which she possessed, without the slightest hesitation or compromise, with the strong resolution that she might die in resisting the obsession, but at least she would never again submit to it. This struggle continued at frequent intervals for many months, but whenever it came she always kept before her the face of the vulnerable messenger of her vision, and fortified herself by remembering his words.

All this time she stayed with her kind hostess, who would not hear of her going anywhere else, or of her making any effort to support herself in any way. Apart from this constant astral pressure she had no trouble, for no attempt to reclaim her was made on the physical plane on behalf of her husband. Indeed, it seems that the family somehow acquired the idea that she was dead, some rumours reaching them of the discovery of the body of a woman vaguely answering to her description. Her hostess always declared that the Gods had guided her footsteps to her, and that she accepted her as a charge from them. Alcyone was most grateful for all this kindness, and tried in every possible way to make herself of some use to her benefactress in return for it. She now began to learn something of the ordinary Aryan religion, which proved attractive to her after all the horrors of her early training. She devoted much time to its study, and soon knew much more about it than her hostess.

Little seems to have been at this time committed to writing, but she obtained much assistance and instruction from Vega, a Brahman, who made her acquaintance on the occasion of a visit which he paid to her hostess. He was much interested in her and profoundly touched by the story of her previous sufferings. He taught her a number of hymns, some of them of great beauty, and all of high moral tone and of beneficent intent. His advice was on the whole good and sensible, though in certain directions he was somewhat narrow and fettered. His wife Auriga was also of great help to Alcyone, for she was deeply interested in religious matters.

At the end of about a year the dead father ceased to make any effort to assert his influence, and Alcyone felt at last that all connection with the old evil life had been entirely severed. It seemed to her like looking back upon some past incarnation, when she tried for a moment to see anything of that earlier time, and soon she was able to cut herself off from it so far that some at least of its details began to fade from her memory.

After the influence of the father had entirely departed, she had the unspeakable pleasure and encouragement of seeing once more in dream the Hierophant who had shown himself to her on the first night of her escape. On this occasion he congratulated her upon her newly won freedom and gave her a promise of help and protection.

She endeared herself much, not only to her hostess, but also to other members of the family and to friends. She became practically a daughter of the house, or rather filled the place of one who had married and left the homestead. It seemed in fact as though the family had forgotten that she was not one of themselves, for when the old benefactress died an equal share of what was left was offered to her as a matter of course, and when she protested against this it was pressed upon her with the utmost sincerity. She agreed at last to accept a certain small share, and continued for some years longer to live with this same family.

There came a time when the second generation was growing up and more room seemed desirable, so she transferred herself to a smaller house on the estate, to live there with one of the younger couples, Cygnus and Iris, to whom she acted as a kind of mother and advisor. Her interest in the religion never waned, and presently she had learned all that her Brahman friend, was able to teach her, and was passionately desirous of still further information upon many points. The Brahman found himself unable to supply all this, but he told her of a holy man who, if he still lived, would be able to answer all her questions. He spoke of this man with the greatest reverence, saying that from him he had learnt all that he knew, and that he had always felt sadly conscious that he might have learnt much more if only he had had the power to grasp fully the words of wisdom which fell from the teacher’ s lips.

He spoke so earnestly and enthusiastically of this teacher, that after much consultation Alcyone resolved to make a journey in search of this man—a considerable undertaking for one who was now becoming an old woman. The distance was great, and as the Brahman had not heard of his teacher for a number of years, there was a good deal of uncertainty as to whether he would still be found in the same place, but there seems to have been no readily available method of making enquiries. However, Alcyone set off on this rather curious pilgrimage, and at the last moment the Brahman Vega resolved to throw up his position and his work and accompany her, and thus they journeyed together taking with them only a couple of servants as attendants, one of whom was our old acquaintance Boreas.

After various adventures and more than a month’ s travelling, they reached the temple over which Vega’ s teacher presided, and heard to their great joy that he was still living. They asked for an audience and Vega was overjoyed to fall once more at the feet of his ancient instructor. He then turned to introduced Alcyone, but saw with amazement that she was regarding the teacher with unspeakable wonder and reverence, and yet with an obvious recognition, while he in turn smiled upon her as some one with whom he was already familiar. A few words of incoherent explanation soon showed that this teacher was Mercury, the person who had twice appeared to her in vision, and of course this discovery put an entirely new complexion upon the affair, and linked them all together as already old friends.

Now began a happy time for Alcyone, for all her questions were answered and her most earnest desires were fulfilled, and the teacher spoke often to her of a far distant future in which she should learn far more than she could at present know, and should hand on the knowledge to others for the helping of the world. But he told her that for this many qualities were needed which she did not yet possess, that there was much karma even yet to be worked out; that to this end she must be willing to forget self and to sacrifice herself utterly for the welfare of mankind, but that at the end of this effort would come triumph and peace at the last. Vega made up his mind to send for his wife and family and to stay for the rest of his life with this teacher, and Alcyone would gladly have done the same, for a strong affection sprang up between them; but the teacher told her that this was not her destiny, and indeed that he himself would be but a little while longer upon the physical plane, while her duty lay with the family who had helped and rescued her.

So at the end of about a year she took leave of him with many regrets and travelled slowly back again to her old friends, who were heartily glad to welcome her. The rest of her old friends, who were heartily glad to welcome her. The rest of her life was spent quietly but happily in ministering to and helping the children and grandchildren of those who had been so kind to her.

Alcyone acquired a wide reputation because of her remarkable knowledge on all religious points, and she became an authority to be consulted even by the priests and the Brahmans of the neighbourhood. So the life which had begun amidst such horrors of storm and strife ended with the calm of a peaceful sunset, and she passed away deeply regretted by all those who knew and loved her so well.

A small group of our characters appear at this time in Rajputana, and a few more are found to be existing contemporaneosly in Mysore.

In the course of the development of his character it became necessary at this time for Erato to undergo a severe test. Having triuphed over certain difficulties in his last life in Egypt, he was now thrown into the midst of the corrupt and effete Atlantean civilisation –presumably with the hope that the strong development in his previous lives would enable him to triumph over the evil, and to live a pure and noble life in the midst of gross impurity. Thus he reappears in 15,288 in Poseidonis as the son of a man who was rich and well connected, but wholly devoted to gain, unscrupulous, hard and grasping, with no thought of anything beyond this world. Naturally, therefore, Erato was an uneasy, unhappy sort of boy, with vague feelings of discomfort and discontent with his surroundings, and dim aspirations toward something better. As he grew up, however, he became absorbed in the idle and vicious life of the time; but was in no way specially bad, but neither better. As he grew up, however, he became absorbed in the idle and vicious life of the time; but was in no way specially bad, but neither better nor worse than those around him. This being the case, it is perhaps hardly to be regretted that his life was cut short at the age of forty-four by a wound received in a street brawl. Five others of our characters are found along with him:

…

His next appearance may be regarded as directly the consequence of the last life, for it took him out of the luxurious and enervating conditions of the civilisation of Poseidonis, and placed him amidst surroundings as bleak, as hardy and as uncomfprtable as can well be imagined. There was a change of sex, for he was born in 14,746 in the extreme North America, in the Rmohal branch of the Atlanteans. It was clearly a life of hard training, and Erato’s immediate associates in it were by no means at his level. He had temporarily been cast among people for below him in evolution, none of whom can be identified as belonging to our band of servers.

…

Life XXX

The incarnation which took place B.C. 14,415 at Kalipa, in the Oudh neighbourhood, is again a female one in the Brahman caste, or rather perhaps in the caste which afterwards became Brahman.

We have reached a period when each head of a house hold was the priest for that household. It was his duty himself to perform for his family most of the ceremonies for which it is now considered necessary to invoke the assistance of a specially trained priest or officiant; so perhaps this may be regarded as a kind of transition stage. It seems to have been supposed that every householder should know all the necessary ceremonies, and yet even already there were some who did not, and therefore needed sometimes to call in the assistance of better read or trained neighbours. This was even then paving the way for the existence of a special class who should make a profession of doing this work, and this very fact seems to have reacted upon other conditions, and produced a kind of vicious circle, because those men who were specially engaged to do such work found it to their interest to multiply ceremonies and make them more and more complicated, precisely in order that it might be necessary to call them in for their due performance.

Alcyone was the daughter of such a head of a household (Leo)—a man who practiced farming on a fairly large scale, being chiefly a cultivator of the ground, but also having many flocks and herds. He was one of those who may be described as learned in the ceremonies, and he rarely needed to call in outside assistance of any kind. His brief, however, does not seem to have corresponded at all closely to modern Hinduism, being much more largely a worship of the personification of Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma; in fact, his mind was practically devoid of philosophy altogether. Still the connection with modern Hinduism is quite observable.

Their religion appears to have consisted mainly of the offering of a number of sacrifices to the various powers of nature, but some at least of their ceremonies look like prototypes of those of the present day. Sacrifices were offered for the dead father by his eldest son, but the sacrifice seems to have had two parts, or to have been of two varieties, one involving merely provision of some sort of food for the dead, and the other being of the nature of a kind of bribe to appease entities who might otherwise have annoyed or preyed upon the dead man. There was also a ceremony corresponding to the thread-giving of the present day—a kind of initiation of the boy into the ceremonies of his class, though the giving of a thread was not noticed in connection with it; in fact there appeared to be three such initiatory ceremonies at different stages, about the ages of seven, fourteen and twenty-one respectively, the first being of a simple preparatory and personal nature, the second an extension of the same but much more elaborate and detailed, and only the third conferring the full power to act as a priest for others.

Alcyone, even from childhood, took a keen interest in the ceremonies. As a child she was to some extent clairvoyant, and part at least of her delight in the ceremonies consisted in watching their effects and observing the entities evoked by them, whom however she regarded more as play-fellows than as dread deities. She had an elder brother Uranus, who shared her interest in all these matters, though he was not clairvoyant, and had to depend upon her for a description of what occurred. As children these two were perpetually asking their father about such matters questions which he was unable to answer, and as they grew up these young people became somewhat dissatisfied with the religion of their time, seeking perpetually for enlightenment with the religion of their time, seeking perpetually for enlightenment on general problems which were not touched upon in the information given in such traditions as were then extant. They were seeking, in fact, for some king of rudimentary Theosophy, some system which could contain and explain the isolated and even apparently contradictory statements made to them.

The brother and sister were always fond of going off alone together and discussing these knotty problems, and while Uranus, being older, had greater reasoning power, Alcyone frequently had flashes of intuition which brought solutions at which his intellect did not enable him to arrive. The rest of the family, even including the father Leo and the mother Orpheus, regarded this young couple as dreamy and unpractical, and thought their speculations and arguments of little use. They were constantly seeking in various directions for light upon their difficulties, but they met with but little either of comprehension or of sympathy. Somewhere in a secluded spot at some distance away in the hills, it was said that a community or fraternity existed who devoted themselves to some such studies as these; but since they were people of a different race and a different faith, they were much despised by the Aryans, and even regarded with hatred as unbelievers.

Sometimes elder people who overheard the rather crude discussions of the brother and sister would contemptuously tell them that they ought to go and learn from this fraternity, and this idea, spoken no doubt merely at random or in jest, took root in their minds, until at last they came to think of a visit to that community as a possible and even a desirable thing, in spite of the bitter prejudice felt against in by their own race and class. The matter was again and again discussed between them in private, and eventually they arrived at a resolution that when Uranus came of age they would go and find this community, with a view to ascertaining whether the disdain in which its members were held was well-founded, or whether perchance they really had some teaching to give, of which the contemptuous Aryan was not possessed.

Soon after the elder brother came of age, he announced his intention of making this journey and of taking Alcyone with him, and this of course caused a good deal of outcry and opposition in the family, more especially from the mother. Both Uranus and Alcyone were about to be married—or rather that was the father’ s wish with regard to both; but Uranus(who, apart from this abnormal desire, had always been a good son and full of common sense) declared that his assent to their marriage arrangements would be conditional upon his first being allowed to make this experimental visit and so take his sister with him. As has been said, the mother and other relations protested rigourously, but the father eventually said: “Let them go and see for themselves; first, they will probably not be able to find the community, and after much unavailing search will presently come home and settle down contentedly; secondly, it there is such a brotherhood and they do find it, they will assuredly also find that it has no information of any value to give them; and again having realised the foolishness of their dream they will be willing to come home and settle down into ordinary life.”

The idea of a young girl undertaking such a curious pilgrimage into the unknown was evidently foreign to the custom of the time, but since the two were inseparable, since the sister declared that the brother should not go without her, and since he on his part announced that without her he would not go, the father at last silenced all opposition and gave his permission, though with a good deal of semi-contemptuous feeling.

The brother and sister started on their journey, passing from village to village, through the thickly populated part of the country, without any difficulty or special adventure. As they passed on they made enquiries with regard to the alleged community. Some people regarded the whole thing as a myth, or said that perhaps there once had been such a body of men, but that it had been dispersed or massacred by the marauding bands of Aryans; others declared that it still existed, but they seemed to have no definite information of its whereabouts, or the type of men who composed it. however as they moved onward, the rumours of its real existence began to prevail over the denials, and when they came to the foot of the hills they were able to get something like a definite direction.

Here, however, their adventures began, for the villages now were often wide apart and difficult of access, and though Alcyone was a well-developed young woman, and almost as good a walker on the level as her brother, the hill-climbing tried her sorely, and it took her some weeks to become accustomed to it, and fairly proficient in it. As information about the brotherhood became more definite it also became less encouraging, for it was evident that rigid exclusiveness was one of its prominent rules, and certainly that no women belonged to it or were admitted into its precincts. This sounded ominous, and Alcyone, though eagerly anxious to carry out the adventure to its legitimate conclusion, at once offered to find a place in some village at the foot of the hills, where she could stay while her brother penetrated into the secret places, and learnt the mysteries of the brotherhood—on condition, of course, that he faithfully promised to impart them all to her on his return. Uranus, however, would not hear of this, and vowed that they would keep together or not go at all, and said that he would have none of the wisdom of a fraternity so churlish as to refuse it to any honestly enquiring mind. Their courage and endurance were fairly tested in the course of this pilgrimage, by the extreme fatigue and occasional privation, and by their adventure, and by their adventures with wild beasts; also on one or two occasions they met with much suffering and exposure in consequence of their losing their way.

Eventually however they reached their goal and found that this much discussed community was really a fact upon the physical plane. The brotherhood lived in a secluded valley, nestling far up in a wild part of the mountains, exceedingly well defended by nature against any possibility of attack, or indeed even of discovery by those unaquainted with the district. In this valley was a large central building, rudely some sort of robber fortress. This was the residence of the head of the community, and also contained the large dining and meeting hall. Round it were grouped irregularly a number of small stone houses—almost huts, some of them—which had been erected by the various brothers as they joined. This community or monastery was called Cuhupan (evidently an Atlantean name) and consisted almost entirely of men of high Atlantean race, only two or three among them being Aryan. They lived what might be called a semi-monastic life, spending much of their time in meditation and study, and yet at the same time each taking his appointed share in the cultivation and preparation of the grains and fruits upon which they lived.

Having altast discovered this secret, the brother and sister presented themselves at the gates of the valley for admission. This was at first promptly denied to them, and they were practically told to go about their business. Uranus however represented that they had travelled hundreds of miles in search of the wisdom which this community alone could give to them, and he demanded to be taken before its head, that at least his case might be enquired into before its head, that at least his case might be enquired into before it was summarily disposed of. After some demur the guardians of the gate granted them this favour, though assuring them beforehand that it was entirely useless to attempt admission. The quiet but determined persistence of Uranus eventually procured them the desired interview, and they were brought before Vesta, the head of the brotherhood, a man of venerable and dignified appearance, yet with an exceedingly keen and penetrating gaze. To him they told their story quite frankly, asserting, in answer to an enquiry, that they had no wish to give up the religion into which they had been born, at least certainly not without much further enquiry, but that they earnestly desired information which that religion as propounded by their father and neighbours was unable to give them, and that they had heard from afar of the fame and the learning of this monastery, and so had come all this way in the hope of being allowed to partake of it.

Uranus stated his case so well that the head of the community finally agreed to allow him to receive instruction, but for a long time he would not consent to the admission of Alcyone, as no woman had ever been permitted to reside within the precincts of the monastery. Uranus, however, quite definitely took the stand that both must be admitted to the teaching, or neither, and Alcyone herself when questioned showed such an intelligent interest in religious matters that eventually the abbot gave way, though he felt sure that he could trust his brethren, he yet doubted whether some trouble and heart-burning might not be caused among them by her presence. An empty hut was assigned to the brother and sister.

Certain restrictions were placed upon Alcyone’ s movements which she considered as absolutely ridiculous. She would, however, have complied with far more serious conditions for the sake of the information which she expected to obtain.

When once the matter was thus settled, the abbot in person interested himself in teaching them such wisdom as he had to give, and he soon saw that both of them were well worthy of any help that he could give them. For them to come into touch with something of the knowledge and science of Atlantis was the revelation of a new world. Though the Aryans of the period were a fighting race, with a great many original ideas of their own, they were not a highly educated people in the direction of either scientific or philosophical knowledge. The brother and sister soon found that the questions about which they had somewhat crudely speculated had been thoroughly discussed thousands of years before in Atlantis, and that the abbot and his monks were possessed of definite systems of thought which extended far further than they had ever dreamed.

All this was the purest delight to them, and they devoured every scrap of information that they could obtain from the abbot or from any other of the brothers. The system put before them had many points of contact with the Theosophy of to-day; and above all things the monastery possessed a score of secret books, from which verses were read to them, which filled them with delight and with awe, since written books were not yet in vogue among their own people. They earnestly desired to be admitted as probationers of the Order, but this the abbot would not permit, saying that Alcyone could in no case be so received, and that even her brother must prove his fitness by years of residence. He was, however, allowed to assist in the labours of the community, as a sort of payment in kind for the hospitality necessarily extended to his sister and himself. So passed some happy months, full of eager study and interest.

Presently, however, the abbot’ s half-formed fears were realised, for, in spite of the disfiguring veil, some of his younger disciples began to fall in love with Alcyone, and it is to be feared that she herself was by no means indifferent to their obvious though unspoken admiration; though, to do her justice, her head was so full of the new philosophy that it was some time before she perceived their sentiments. When she became more accustomed to the life, and had time to look about her, the inevitable sequel to such an anomalous condition of affairs specially declared itself. The old abbot had trusted too much to the veiled face and the difference of race—for the contempt of the Aryan for what he considered the effeminate and effete Atlantean was fully reciprocated by the latter, who regarded the Aryan as a mere barbarian without even the rudiments of real culture. One at least of the young Atlantean monks contrived to see Alcyone unveiled, and found that the charms of the fair Aryan altogether overpowered his race prejudice. Things soon reached a stage at which secret meetings were arranged, and equally inevitably in due course of time these secret meetings were discovered, and then of course a great explosion of wrath took place. Alcyone, her brother, and the erring young monk, Neptune, were all brought up before the abbot and instantly banished from the community, for though the abbot had learned to love the two strangers he loved his community as his life-work far more.

Uranus was exceedingly indignant and, much as he loved his sister, he blamed her severely for her action. As soon as they were cast out of the valley and the restraining guardianship of the brothers was removed, he fell upon the young monk, whom he considered as the cause of his exclusion, and a struggle took place between the two young men in which both were wounded, which left Alcyone mistress of the situation. She rated them both roundly for their folly in quarrelling when it was obvious that, their interests were identical; she said that, while she bitterly regretted that any action of hers should have led to this banishment, she yet could not regret the action in itself, which she felt to be entirely in accordance with nature, and she asked why it might not be possible that they live a life in the outer world more natural than that of the community, and yet at the same time continue the study of the philosophy which had become the guiding principle of their lives.

The common sense of her brother brought him at last to see this, and the young monk was willing enough to be friendly, so

Alcyone, with much trouble and hardship, got the two young men to the nearest village, though even that was a long distance away. She herself tended their wounds and did her best for them, but it was only at the village that they could get help and rest and proper food.

They stayed here for some little time, but eventually decided that it would be better to be even further away from the monastery, the young monk especially desiring to reach some part of the country where the story of his expulsion need not be known. Not that he regretted it, for he regarded the world as well lost for the sake of love, and Alcyone in turn developed a strong regard for him. She did not feel that it would be possible for her to return home with a husband of the despised race, especially one who had been obtained in so irregular a manner, and Uranus also determined to throw in his lot with the young couple, at any rate temporarily.

Having no means of subsistence, they had naturally to endeavour to turn to work of some sort. Uranus understood practical farming well, but Neptune, though strong, sturdy and willing, had no knowledge of any useful art beyond the little that he had gained in taking his share in the cultivation of the monastic valley.

Nevertheless they presently engaged themselves to Irene, a farmer who, growing old and having no children within reach, desired assistance in the cultivation of his estate. Thus by degrees they worked their way into a recognised position which, though at first but humble, gradually improved itself. As they came to know him better the old farmer proved kindly and honourable, and presently he assigned to them a definite share in the farm. Here they lived and worked for some years, on the whole happily, gradually winning their way to position of respect and opulence in the little village.

Several children were born to Alcyone, and she became a capable house-mother. Though she never lost her interest in philosophy and religious problems she had naturally less time to give to their discussion, as the cares of the family and the household accumulated upon her. While she brought up her children in the rites of her ancestral Aryan religion she nevertheless grafted on to it the noble philosophy of old Atlantis, and so for them and for some friends who were interested she to some extent anticipated the later developments of that Hinduism which accepted the Upanishads as well as the Vedas. Prominent among these friends was a young neighbour, Cygnus, who felt great admiration for Alcyone and great respect for her opinion in religious matters. He and his wife Mizar were close friends of the family for many years.

The fact that Alcyone and her husband were of different races does not seem to at all to have put them outside the pale of society in either race; on the contrary, it operated rather in the opposite direction, as it enabled them to make friends in both. Her children as they grew up were fine stalwart specimens, and seemed for once to combine the good qualities of the two races, instead of the bad ones, as he so often unfortunately the case in such admixtures.

Alcyone’ s childish clairvoyance had diminished as she grew older, and deserted her almost entirely after marriage, though her sensitiveness and keen intuition still remained. But the clairvoyance showed itself occasionally in at least one of her children, and at any rate the recollection of it was always a precious possession to her, as enabling her to realise far more keenly than would have otherwise been the case the facts of the unseen world which is always so close about us.

Some twelve years after their expulsion from the monastery, news reached them that its abbot had for a long time been making patient but unsuccessful enquiries after them; and, feeling now perfectly secure with respect to any further steps that he might take, they had no hesitation in sending in search of his messenger and announcing themselves to him. Then they found that the object of the abbot’ s long continued enquiries was to convey to them a certain message. He had been told by his teacher Mercury(whom he reverenced deeply, who appeared to him or communicated with him astrally, but had never been seen by him in the flesh) that he had done wrong in expelling them, for though the action of Alcyone and the monk was in itself indefensible, it was after all but a natural weakness of the body, while the earnest desire for wisdom was a quality of the man within, which in the far-distant future would be turned to valuable account, not for themselves alone, but for the helping of many others also. Therefore the abbot wished to rescind his action, and invite all three to return to their studies with the community.

This invitation had of course been issued in ignorance of the fact that they had settled down into family life, and both Alcyone and her husband felt that it was impossible for them to accept it, since their duty to their children was now paramount. Uranus, however, decided to pay a visit to the abbot, to thank him for his kindness in sending them such a message, and to beg from him a gift which they had long and earnestly desired—a copy of one of the sacred books. After a stay of some months in his old quarters he returned with this much prized treasure, bringing with him the friendly wishes and blessings if Vesta.

Soon after this the old farmer Irene, for whom they had originally begun to work, passed over to the astral plane, leaving them in return for their years of loyal service nearly the whole of his estate, with the exception of certain small portions already promised to some distant relations. Thus the family became definitely established as local magnates, and their future welfare was assured.

There house also became a kind of religious centre, since it was recognised that the philosophical information which they had to give formed a valuable supplement to the ordianary teaching of the Nature-worship which surrounded them. Alcyone’ s husband Neptune and her brother Uranus both died before her, but though she mourned over the separation from them her children still remained to her, as did also her position of great respect and honour in the district. She passed away peacefully at the age of ninety-one.

Life XXXI

Our story takes us this time to the southern part of the great island of Poseidonis, in the middle of what is now the Atlantic Ocean. Alcyone was born there among a nation of mountaineers of Tlavatli race, in the year 13,651 B.C. She was the daughter of Mercury, a priest of the Sun, who was of noble birth, being distantly related to the ruler of the country. She had a happy childhood, and was utterly devoted to her father, who was especially kindly and helpful towards her, and seems to have understood children better than the average parent of that age. The religion of the period was primarily Sun-worship, although there was also a good deal of personification of various powers of nature; and it would also seem that some great saints of old had been deified. The little girl was keenly interested in the temple ceremonies, and much impressed by them, and when she was young it was her wish to dedicate her life to the service of the temple. In connection with the temple there were two careers open for women—one being something along the line of the usual vestal virgins, or temple-clairvoyants, and the other a sort of guild of service which consisted of married women.

As she grew up she prepared herself for the former position, with the approval of her father, and entered herself at the age of sixteen. The various practices of meditation enjoined for the girls appear to have produced considerable effect upon her, and the father was hopeful about her making rapid progress. However, before her first year of definite service in the novitiate was completed, the inevitable young man appeared on the scene, and she fell deeply in love with him. The object of her affections (Sirius) was something of a mystery; he had only recently appeared in the city, and no one seemed to know who he was, nor whence he came, and even in these earlier years that was regarded as an objection to a possible suito r, though he was a handsome and well-set-up youth.

She saw this young man at some of the temple service, and they were strangely attracted towards each other at first sight, so that he began to scheme for occasions of meeting her, which were difficult to procure, since she was constantly in attendance at the temple.

The young suitor, however, contrived, by the exercise of great patience and assiduity, to obtain speech with her on a good many occasions, and their strange friendship rapidly warmed into a passionate attachment.

At first, Alcyone said nothing of this to her father, but he halfdivined that something was going on, and he put some questions to her which presently brought forth a shamefaced confession that the temple services were no longer the first thing in life for her. The father was disappointed at this, but nevertheless took it both kindly and philosophically, and gave her some sensible advice, to the effect that it was useless to devote herself to the special service of the Deity unless she was absolutely certain of her vocation, and that after all she could serve the Sun-God, less directly perhaps, yet just as truly and nobly, if she followed the dictates of her heart. He demanded, however, to see the young man, and the latter’ s account of himself was by no means satisfactory from the point of view of a parent, for he could only say that though he was of noble birth and quite equal in rank to her whom he loved, yet there was surrounding his origin a mystery, which he was not at liberty to disclose. Also he seemed to have no present connection with his family, whatever it might have been, and was obtaining a somewhat precarious livelihood by hunting, though he declared that this was in no way the vocation to which he was born. The priest was strongly attracted to him, in spite of his obvious undesirability, for he seemed both a handsome and a worthy young fellow, though curiously untamed and seemingly ignorant of the ways of ordinary life.

Mercury frankly told him that he liked what he saw of him, but at the same time it was quite impossible that he should give his daughter to a person involved in so much mystery, and with no regular means of livelihood, that unless he was prepared fully to confide in him, he felt with regret that he could hardly encourage the intimacy of the two young lovers.

The young man was much cast down by this, though he could not but admit its justice, but he still maintained that the secret in which he was involved was not his own, and that he must await the proper time before divulging it. Thus the matter was left in suspense for some little time, the priest regretfully forbidding the young people to see each other in private, even though he quite frankly admitted that he felt strongly drawn towards the mysterious young man.

Alcyone’ s affection for him was so strong that she probably might have ignored the mystery and fled with him, but for her strong love for and confidence in her father, which persuaded her that he must be right, even in what she thought his first cruelty towards her. She was much torn by divided feelings, and suffered greatly for a while.

All this time the ruler of the country, Alastor, was at war with the Toltec overlord, Corona, some question of an extravagant demand for tribute having brought a long smouldering disaffection to the point of open revolt. Owing to the greatly superior discipline and fighting power of the armies of the suzerain, it was difficult for these men of the hills to meet them in open fight. The local King, however, knew his country very well, and his son Ursa contrived to destroy a large Toltec army by inveigling it into a valley which he was then able to flood from a concealed reservoir. In honour of this victory there were great public rejoicings and a sort of national festival was held. Somehow, in the course of this, strange rumours began to fly about with regard to the young lover, Sirius, and he was one day suddenly arrested and carried before old King Alsator. In the course of the enquiries then made the whole of the strange life-story of Sirius came out, and proved to be romantic though distinctly unconventional.

This old Alastor was a precise but incredibly stupid man, and in consequence of his character the affairs of his family had gone seriously wrong. His son Ursa was a wild young fellow, accustomed to do what he liked, without any consideration for others. He had a younger sister, Orion, who in their childhood was entirely devoted to him. They were always together, and he made her fetch and carry for him in the usual manner of elder brothers with devoted little sisters. As they grew up, the affection between them remained as strong as ever, and in process of time his relations with her became more than fraternal. This was discovered, and caused some scandal, for even in those more easy-going times such relationship was considered highly improper. When it came to Alastor’ s knowledge he behaved in the most foolish manner, making a great parade of Spartan justice, and, instead of treating the young people kindly and sensibly, he banished his son from the country and condemned his daughter to death. Ursa, however, had idea of submitting quietly to such an inauspicious ending to his pleasures.

He managed to escape from his father’ s guards, and to rescue his sister from the place in which she was confined, and they fled together and concealed themselves in a forest on the outskirts of the kingdom, having contrived to divert pursuit by allowing it to be understood that they had fled by sea from a certain port in quite another direction. In this forest he and his sister lived for some years, and two children were born to them, a son, Sirius, and a daughter, Vega. Ursa carefully tattooed round the waist of Sirius the red snake which marked him as the heir to the throne, and the brother and sister lived happily enough in sylvan solitude; but after a time Ursa began to tire of this life and to yearn for the delights of the Court and the position which he had left.

Being in the habit of considering only his own convenience, he had no hesitation in abandoning his wife and children; he made his appearance at a port and pretended to have arrived from a foreign country. He soon made his way to his father, who forgave him and reinstated him as heir to the throne. Being anxious to provide for the succession. Alastor shortly arranged a marriage for Ursa, which the latter accepted without saying anything about the wife and the children whom he had left behind in the forest. Indeed, on first returning he had allowed it to be understood that he had had no part in his sister’ s escape, and knew nothing about her fate. His new wife, Hesperia, presently bore him child, Pollux; and this child was also tattooed with the snake, for if Ursa had not permitted this to be done, suspicion would have been at once aroused. The new wife, however, proved to be of a trying temper, and he often looked back with regret on his happy free life in the forest. On one occasion when he was out hunting in the forest where he had lived so long, he contrived to separate himself from his companions and went to look at the hut which he had built for his sister-wife, but he found it deserted.

Orion had lived on there for many years and had seen her children grow up healthy and beautiful. She had no difficulty with regard to food, for the various traps which Ursa had made were still in action and she was able to gather fruit and dig up roots as he had done. When her children grew old enough to need clothing she wove it for them from reeds, and they lived a natural and happy life, though she sorrowed much because of the desertion of her brother and husband. She always cherished the hope that some time of other he would return to her, and that in process of time her son would sit upon the throne of his ancestors.

Presently it occurred to her that, if this were to be so, she must manage to bring her children somehow into contact with their fellow-creatures, that they might not be entirely strange to them; so she dressed herself in what remained of the clothes in which she had originally escaped, and made her way to a village where she was able to exchange the skin of the creatures that they had killed for some clothing, such as peasants wear, suitable for the children and herself. She was then able to take her children once or twice on expeditions to villages in the remote part of the country where the forest was situated, but she did not visit the same village twice, lest suspicion should be excited, and she always gave out that she and her children were travellers passing through the country. As the young man grew up his mother told him the story of his royal birth, and they planned how they would reappear in the capital and claim recognition after the death of the old king.

Presently, however, Orion fell ill and died. When on her deathbed she made her son solemnly promise that he would go to his father and announce himself as the heir to the throne. She warned him however that his father was a man of moods, and that he must watch carefully for the right moment at which to make such an announcement. The young people mourned deeply the death of their mother. They buried her body under the floor of the hut, and then abandoned it for ever, as they could not bear to live any longer in a place where every tree and stone reminded them perpetually of their loss. They made their way gradually to the capital, Sirius taking the most affectionate care of his sister Vega. He contrived to find some employment there, using chiefly his skill in hunting and trapping. His intention was in this way to support himself and his sister until the old King died; but, as has been described, he was forestalled in this. Among the festivities in connection with the great victory previously mentioned were some swimming races in which he took part—in which, indeed, he out-distanced all competitors— but it happened by some accident that the red snake tattooed round his waist was seen, and remarks began to fly about which eventually reached the ears of old Alastor, and led to his being brought before him. When the truth came out there was an angry scene, and Alastor compelled Ursa to issue an order for the execution of Sirius, who was cast into prison and closely guarded. To Alastor, however, the shock of the disclosure had been so great that it brought on a stroke, from which he never recovered, and he died in few days.

Ursa then became King, and he was resolved that his elder son Sirius should be heir to the throne, instead of Pollux, as the latter had even shown a weak and dissipated character. The new King was however in difficulties, as he could not well annul the decree which his father had forced him to sign, so he determined to manage privately the escape of Sirius from prison. His second wife, Hesperia, seems in some way to have got wind of his intention, or perhaps she only suspected him, but at any rate she watched him closely and resolved to thwart him in the interest of her own son Pollux.

The prison was a curious labyrinth of stone walls, circle within circle, and every opening from one circle to another was efficiently guarded. The son, as a prisoner of State, was placed in the central cell of all. Ursa disguised himself and left his palace, secretly at night, went to the outer guard and bribed him with a curious trinket, in consideration for receiving which he agreed to absent himself for a few moments, and allow the disguised King to enter the prison.

Meanwhile the jealous Hesperia had discovered her husband’ s absence, and, full of suspicion, immediately rushed to the prison gates. Finding the first guard gone her suspicions were confirmed, and she entered by the door which Ursa had left open. The latter went on until he met the second guard, upon whom he sprang before he could give the alarm, and managed, after a furious struggle, to choke the man to death. He succeeded in eluding the third guard, but again had a struggle with the fourth, in which he finally conquered, though he himself was wounded. Finally he penetrated to the innermost cell and found his son, to whom he offered freedom and safety on condition that he would go away

(preserving however absolute silence as to his identity and history) and never return. The son, not recognising his father in his disguise, refused to give this pledge, as he said that he was bound by the promise which he had already made to his mother on her death-bed that he would return to the capital and claim his inheritance. Ursa implored him to go, to go under any conditions or no conditions, but in any case to escape while still there was time.

Something caused his son to suspect the identity of his visitor, so he tore away the disguise from his father’ s face and recognised him. Just at this moment Hesperia arrived; she had found the murdered guard and had possessed herself of his dagger, but had been detained through having to parley with third guard, who would not let her pass until she unveiled herself and used her authority as Queen. Now she sprang upon her husband like a maniac; and there was a terrible struggle, during which both father and son were wounded. Eventually, when she saw that she could not prevail against them, she stabbed herself to the heart in her wild passion.

Father and son now held a consultation as to the best course to pursue. At first the father suggested that they should escape together and leave the kingdom to take care of itself, but Sirius strenuously opposed that idea, offering rather to disappear and disregard his promise to his mother. But Ursa would not now consent to that, and they discussed the matter all through the long hours of the night. Sirius suggested that at Ursa’ s death the kingdom should be divided between himself and Pollux, or, if that was not feasible, that a high post in the Government should be offered to the latter. Ursa did not approve this, and finally decided that honesty was the best policy, and that the time had come to undo the wrong of his life so far as was now possible.

They went back to the palace together, and Ursa sent for Pollux and told him the whole story, saying that he must give up all hope of succeeding to the throne. Pollux took the news badly, and rushed out of his father’ s presence in a great rage.

Ursa then called together his chieftains, told them the whole history of his life, and introduced to them the true heir to the throne.

The majority of them at once agreed to accept Sirius as heir, in spite of the irregularity of his birth, and thenceforward he wore the golden collar which marked his rank. Pollux, however, left the country and endeavored to get together a foreign army to help him to assert what he supposed to be his claim. He was unable to raise this army among small neighboring tribes, and so went off to Poseidonis and tried to interest the Toltec ruler in his affairs. Corona was quite willing to espouse his cause because of the question of the tribute, and also because Ursa had recently defeated his armies, though he was unable to give much active assistance in consequence of a considerable rebellion in another part of his dominions.

Meantime Sirius, having been publicly acknowledged, was able to come before Mercury and tell the true story of his early life, and demand once more the hand of Alcyone. Under these altered circumstances Mercury was quite willing to give it, saying that though the conditions surrounding the birth of Sirius had been exceedingly irregular, yet his public acceptance as heir to the throne to a large extent wiped out all that and assured his position. There is no doubt the priest had taken a liking to the young man, and that it was this and the strong love of Sirius for Alcyone that induced him to be ready to overlook the irregularities aforesaid. Alcyone therefore was married with considerable pomp and ceremony, and, though still young, took her place among the great ladies of the kingdom.

She was intensely happy in this beginning of her new life, proud of her husband and really exulting in his most remarkable early history instead of being repelled by it. this unalloyed happiness lasted for some three years, during which time two beautiful children (Uranus, a son, and Herakles, a daughter) were born to her, but after this the war broke out again and her husband had to go forth and bear his share in it.

It seemed, however, that the Toltec Emperor was not pursuing this local war with any great vigour, so that in spite of the superior discipline of his men, and their far great number, successes were fairly evenly divided, and the war dragged on for a long time with no pronounced victory on either side. King Ursa was in the habit of consulting Mercury when he required advice, and paid him deep reverence. It was about this time that Mercury gave him some information with regard to his relations with his son Sirius in a previous life —an account which affected him deeply, and caused him to have a great scene of explanation with his son, at the end of which he decided to abdicate in favour of Sirius, and retired to a kind of hermit life.

Sirius took up the reins of government and, young as he was, acquitted himself creditably, coming often to his hermit-father, and still more often to Mercury, for advice as to the way in which he should meet the various difficulties which are inseparable from such a position as his. Alcyone was thus lifted to the highest position in this small State, and bore her honours well. The new King carried on the war with varying success, and at one time had an exceedingly narrow escape of losing his life by treachery. There was at his court a certain old woman, Thetis, who pretended great loyalty to his cause, but was in reality on the side of his half-brother, on whose behalf the Toltec Emperor was waging war. She contrived in some underhand way to learn something of the King’ s plans, and especially of a certain small expedition which he was about to lead in order to obtain important information as to the disposition of the Toltec armies. This woman was able to betray this little expedition to the Toltecs, in order that they might arrange an ambuscade, and so, as she thought, make sure of the death of the King.

Her nefarious project was defeated only by a dream or inspiration which came to the hermit-father, in consequence of which he left his cave, and met his son the King while on his way with his expedition, and demanded to be allowed to lead thee party himself.

His son expostulated, saying that it was madness for his father at his age to expose himself to such risks. Ursa however insisted, and Sirius was at last compelled to yield. The old royal hermit therefore led the expedition, and contrived to obtain the necessary information and send back a messenger with it before he fell into the ambuscade which had been prepared for his son, and was killed. In this way the life of Sirius was saved, but he mourned greatly for the death of his father, all the more since Mercury by some intuition was able to tell him that his father had, through his dream, known of the danger, and had therefore voluntarily resigned his own life in order to deliver his son.

This event produced a profound impression upon both Sirius and Alcyone, and the former went to consult Mercury as to what line of action he should take. Mercury’ s advice was that, since not only was the country being devastated by this incessant warfare, but also anything like real progress for the people was impossible while such conditions persisted, he should make a determined effort to come to terms with the Toltec Emperor, even though for that purpose it might be necessary to offer some compromise, such as the payment of a largely enhanced tribute. By good fortune, Sirius was able shortly afterwards to inflict a crushing defeat upon the Toltec army, and to drive its remnants out of his kingdom. As soon as this had been done, he at once sent an embassy to the Toltec Emperor announcing that although the victory was at present entirely in his hands, he yet desired peace and not further war, and to save bloodshed he desired to come to an amicable arrangement. The Emperor, tired of an unprofitable war in a distant part of his kingdom, was more reasonable than might have been expected, and so, by the payment of only a slightly enhanced tribute from the revenues, Sirius was enabled to disband his armies, and devote them to much needed works of peace.

Alcyone was a real helpmate to her husband in all this, being full of plans for the amelioration of the condition of the people. A time of peace and prosperity now began both for the King and the country. Several more children were born to the King and Queen and they were happy in their domestic life together. Another of our list of characters appears here—Cygnus, who steward of some large States belonging to Sirius, whom he served faithfully in that capacity for many years.

The other claimant to the throne, Pollux, the half-brother of the King, though his case was abandoned by the Toltec Emperor, did not cease to plot in order to gain the throne. His chief endeavor was to assassinate Sirius, and twice he all but succeeded. On the second of these occasion it was really Alcyone who saved her husband’ s life, for she had a vivid dream which induced her to send to him with the greatest haste as he sat in judgement, warning him that an attack on him was about to be made. Her dream or forecast described the man who was about to make the murderous attack with such accuracy that the king was instantly able to recognise him when he came before him, and immediately ordered his guards to seize and examine him. The weapon with which it had been his intention to murder the King was found upon him, and as he was not able to account for its possession his shrift was a short one.

Under the King’ s intelligence rule, and with the peace which he had procured for it, the kingdom rapidly advanced in power and wealth. Again at the suggestion of Mercury, now drawing to extreme old age, Sirius sent for his half-brother, and endeavoured to come to some sort of arrangement with him. He told him quite plainly that he regarded the kingdom as a charge committed to his care, and that he could not therefore yield it to anyone else, but he offered him the governorship of a certain division of the country under himself. The claimant, however declined to accept this, and said that he would be satisfied with nothing less than the whole. However, in the course of interviews which he had had with Sirius, this half-brother had fallen in love with Alcyone, and for the purpose of being near her he presently offered to accept the governorship, not of a distant province, but of the capital city. This Sirius willingly gave him.

When Mercury heard of this arrangement he warned Sirius not to place too great a confidence in the apparent friendliness of his half-brother. A time came when Pollux took advantage of his new position to make improper advanced to Alcyone, which she promptly rejected, yet she doubted whether she should expose him to her husband because of the fact that the latter was greatly pleased to have (as he thought) thus extinguished the lifelong enmity of his half-brother. As the young man promised amendment she hid the matter for a while, but presently his passions once more got the better of him and a scene occurred which it was impossible to hide from Sirius, the latter was exceedingly angry, and deposed his brother and cast him into prison, where he shortly afterwards died.

At this period a great sorrow came both to Sirius and Alcyone in the death of their revered father and teacher, Mercury, at a very advanced age. They mourned sincerely over his loss, and indeed they might well do so, for no similarly sage counsellor was forthcoming after he had gone. Meanwhile the Toltec Emperor also had died, and his successor, Ulysses, presently determined upon an aggressive policy, his idea being definitely to reduce the whole of the island to a direct obedience to himself, instead of his being merely the nominal suzerain over a number of Kings of the earlier sub-races. After a great deal of effort to make the whole into one kingdom, but the Tlavatli mountaineers could not brook the loss of their liberty, and constant outbreaks were the result, and plots and counterplots. Sirius was killed in battle in the effort to save the liberty of his country, in the year 13,000.

Alcyone was filled with deepest sorrow, and allowed herself to harbour bitter thoughts of revenge against the new Toltec Emperor.

This misfortune seemed for the time quite to change her character, and the gentle and loving wife became a determined and relentless avenger, filled entirely with one idea. She dressed herself in her husband’ s armour, put herself at the head of what remained of her people and fled to the recesses of the mountains, since the Toltec armies had overrun the whole country. Her husband’ s steward, Cygnus, who had always greatly admired her, became one of the foremost of her band of warriors, and distinguished himself greatly.

She directed a guerrilla warfare for some years, enduring the greatest hardships, but never for a moment swerving from her purpose. She was unable, with her handful of mountaineers, to meet the Toltecs in open fight, but she constantly harassed them and, owing to the intimate knowledge which she gained of the fastnessees of the mountain-chain, she was always able to elude all attempts to capture her. Meanwhile, she never wavered in her hatred of the Emperor, whose ambition had caused the death of her beloved husband.

She caused her sons to take an oath never to rest until that Emperor and his power should be destroyed, and she sent one of them (Aurora) in disguise to the City of the Golden Gate to endeavour to compass this destruction. After many adventures the young man reached that city, and soon contrived to attach himself to some of the many disaffected parties, and when the opportunity offered he was one of the party who fell upon the Emperor and slew him. He hurried to his mother with the news of the downfall of the tyrant, proudly exhibiting to her the dagger with which the deed had been done. She welcomed him with praise as the avenger of his father, yet even in the very act a doubt for the first time came across her mind as to whether her dead husband and her dead father would fully have approved her action.

The doubt grew and increased until it became a nightmare to her, and she commenced a kind of invocation to her dead husband, declaring that she would not cease to call for him until he should tell her what was his will. For days and nights she continued this strange invocation until at last she fell asleep in sheer exhaustion; then in her dream she saw Sirius once more. Sirius and Mercury came to her together, and they told her that, while by all the standards of the time her act of revenge had been allowable and even laudable, there was yet a higher standpoint from which all revenge was not prerogative of the Law.

“My daughter,” said Mercury,

“in this you have erred, though well I understand the reason for your error. Your excuse seemed to you a sufficient one, yet no excuse can ever make wrong right, nor violence justifiable, and this act of yours will bring much suffering in the future, both to you and the devoted instrument whom you have employed; but through suffering wisdom shall come to you, and in the far future your hand shall lead to the light him whose career of sin you have now cut short, and in that future I shall help and direct you both as I have done in this life.”

Alcyone, though grieved at the disapproval of her father, was yet greatly comforted in many ways by this vision, for she had once more met face to face those whom in all the world she had loved most deeply. Once more she became herself again. She retained her man’ s attire only long enough to install her eldest son Uranus upon the throne of his father, and then cast it aside for ever, and became the gentle and loving Alcyone of earlier days.

Now that the tyrant was dead, his kingdom at once broke up into its original parts, and no further attack was made upon the tribes of the southern mountains. The new King Uranus ruled well and wisely, for the Queen-mother Alcyone was ever at his back, thinking always what Sirius would have done, and what Mercury would have advised. For some considerable time they did still advise her, though she was but half conscious of the fact; yet often it was to their influence that she owed the wisdom of the decisions which she made, or rather influenced the King to make.

Though she herself had now come to regard the period of her revenge with regret and distaste, and indeed to look upon it with wonder as a kind of obsession, the people applauded it, and regarded it as the most splendid heroism. She was therefore greatly reverenced and admired, and her influence was in many ways even greater than that of the King himself. She survived her husband for some thirty years, and eventually passed peacefully away in the year 13,569, at the age of eighty-two, deeply loved and mourned by the whole nation and by the many children whom she had reared so well, except fot that one dark time when the shock of a great sorrow had led her to deviate from the teaching of the law of love. Her son the King survived her for some years and, remembering her instruction, ruled well and wisely, and as the Toltec power never regained sufficient strength to reassert itself in the southern mountains, the dynasty which was thus founded lasted for centuries, and her tribe flourished exceedingly.

This life was on the whole a good one, and in it considerable progress was made, in spite of that one lapse, under terrible provocation, into the fault which had been the dominant note of a previous life. But at least we may note that this time the feeling of revenge was excited no longer on merely personal grounds, but solely by the injury to a loved one. As we shall presently see, there are lives lying yet far in the future in which all thought of revenge shall be cast aside under the influence of the great Embodiment of Love and Compassion.

Her eldest daughter, Herakles, married Aldeb, and this transferred her interests to another kingdom of the same general type and condition, also Tlavatli. In course of time her husband inherited the throne of this kingdom, so that she also became a Queen. She had a great reputation for wisdom, and was at times under the control of some good influence, for her husband often consulted her on points about which he was in doubt, which she certainly answered with more than her own knowledge.

Mizar married Irene—an event which took place much later than any of the other marriages. When her mother grew old she and her husband came and lived at the old home, and she took charge of the household. Vajra left home early, and seemed to have traveled a good deal, and he stayed a long time with Aldeb and Herakles. He was decidedly adventurous, and undertook several exploring expeditions into the neighbouring mountains. Demeter was rather sensitive, tough not distinctly psychic. Neptune, a man with a good deal of affection which he always placed wisely, married Bella.

Selene led a quiet life and studious life.

At this time Viraj was Ruler of the great South Indian empire, and Brihat was his queen, and Mars was one of their sons. The Manu appeared astrally to the Emperor, and directed him to send Mars over the sea to Egypt by way of Ceylon. He was directed also to choose a band of young men and young women who were to accompany him and take part in the great work of the Aryanisation of Egypt. Among those so chosen were a number of our characters, as will be seen from the subjoined chart.

On their arrival in Egypt, then under Toltec rule, they were met by Jupiter, the Pharaoh of the time. He had one child only, his daughter Saturn, his wife having died in childbirth. His High Priest, Surya had been directed in a vision by the mahaguru to receive the strangers with honour, and to advise Jupiter to give his daughter to Mars in marriage; this he did, and in a comparatively short time marriages were arranged among the existing nobility for all of the new comers.

Small as was this importation of Aryan blood, in a few generations it had tinged the whole of Egyptian nobility, for since the Pharaoh had set his seal of august approval upon these mixed marriages, all the patrician families competed eagerly for the honour of an alliance with the sons or daughters of the new comers. The mingling of the two races produced a new and, distinctive type, which we know so well from the Egyptian monuments. From this time onwards an incarnation among the upper classes of Egypt counted as a birth in the first sub- race of the fifth Root Race.

Some account of the result of this Aryanisation, of the destruction of the bulk of the population at the time of the sinking of Poseidonis, and of the gradual re-population of the country by various races, until the Manu himself came again and united the whole of Egypt under one rule, will be found in the book Man: Whence, How and Whither, pages 503–5.

Clio and Markab were noted among a group of Egyptian statesmen who disapproved of the Aryan immigratioon, and seemed against it. Clio’s wife Adrona and Markab’s wife Able were implicated in their plots. All four of them were eventually exiled, as was also Cancer, the sister of Adrona.

Life XXXII

The fanatical majority of the Aryan race in Central Asia continued to increase and multiply, and as the cultivable land round the shores of the Gobi Sea was a limited quantity, wave after wave of emigrations went forth from it, and the great majority of these waves eventually found their way into India. Much later certain bands penetrated Persia, but at this time the empire occupying that district was much too strong for them to venture to attack it. One army or tribe of such emigrants had, however, worked their way round the north of Persia, and eventually arrived at the Caucasian district, from which far later they radiated over Europe. Many minor waves of immigration into India seem to have extended over a period of some thousands of years.

In a general way the Aryan incursion much resembled the descent of the Goths and Vandals upon the Roman Empire. We find the same phenomenon of a high civilisation with all sorts of specialised detail, yet somewhat effete. The A ryan invaders, though much less civilised as far as arts and sciences went, were a more virile race, far more fanatical and less philosophical. Their leaders impressed upon them that their conquest was a religious war. They spoke of the Atlanteans as Dasyas, and regarded them as unbelievers, to be exterminated at all costs, despising their higher civilisation and their arts, though not apparently their gold and jewels, and their soldiers were well-disciplined, yet in most cases they were unable to stand before the wild onrush of the burly barbarians from the north, Other races existed in the country, apparently of Lemurian descent; there was a large black population quite apart both from the brown Tlavatli majority, and from the red Toltec race, in whose hands was usually all the power. The Toltecs were sometimes spoken of as Nagas, and some of the darker people were called Takshaks—a people who used poisoned arrows with iron barbs.

The Aryans were physically larger and men, with keen eyes and aquiline noses, not unlike the Afgans or Pathans of the present day, and man for man they easily overmatched the more enervated Atlanteans, though some of the large fortified towns of the latter held out against their attacks for centuries. The Aryans were on the whole a bright and happy people, though by no means ideal in the life which they lived. At this period the majority were flesh-eaters; at least it is certain that some large tribes did kill and eat cattle. Also there was a good deal of drunkenness among them, the chief liquor being the juice of some plant of the asclepiad order, which they mixed with milk. Some of the tribes, when they settled down in the conquered countries in the north of India, cultivated wheat and barley, and practically became vegetarians. Nothing in the nature of caste is observable at this period.

The parents of Alcyone belonged to one of these wandering bands, and he was born on the march, somewhere in the hill country in the neighbourhood of what is now called Afghanistan, in the year 12,877 B. C. This band made its way slowly down to the Punjab, which was already in the hands of the Aryans. These marauding invaders seem always to have been ready to fight, just as much with men of their own race as with others, if they could not get exactly what they wanted. In some cases the Aryan Kings already in possession were wise enough to claim kinship with these new bands and speed them on their way; others, having been settled for centuries, regarded their bretheren as mere savages, resisted them vigorously, and were usually defeated by them.

The family to which Alcyone belonged eventually settled down at a place called Arupalu, not far from where Amritsar now is. It must be remembered that while the Aryan invaders usually expelled or massacred the Atlanteans, in some places they lived amicably with them; and though the majority of the Aryans were fiercely intolerant and fanatical, and objected to anything which even savoured of the higher civilisation of Atlantis, there were yet some who were more broad-minded and more willing to learn. The religion of the Atlanteans was a form of Sun worship, but it was accompanied by a magnificent system of philosophy. Their temples were usually of dazzling white stone, and built in the shape of a star.

Alcyone’s earliest memories were connected with the ceaseless forward movement of the tribe, and he first deity to whom he was taught to pray was the Path-finder, to whom the tribe put up their petitions that he would find a road for them, and lead them into a pleasant land. They had many strange and interesting traditions of the country whence they had come. If these are in any way to be trusted, it would seem that they had been a semi-barbarous people, living on the outskirts of the territory of some great settled power, whose constant pressure and expansion drove them into migration.

Alcyone’s father in this incarnation was Algol, and his mother was Theseus, but she died very shortly after his birth. The father was a man of fanatical type, bitterly opposed to everything, good and bad alike, which savored of the high Atlantean civilisation, and this feeling was rather intensified than modified by the fact that in the district in which they settled the Aryans and Atlanteans had arranged to live together in comparative harmony. Alcyone soon doubted the wisdom of his father’s position for there were many things about the civilisation which attracted him strongly, and even as a boy he made friends equally with Atlantean and Aryan children.

Indeed, his favorite companion, Psyche, was the son of a wealthy Atlantean dignitary, Orpheus, but his father’s fanaticism was so great that he never dared to invite his friend to his home, or even to let his father know of that friend’s existence. He contrived incidentally to get a good deal more education than his father would have given him, for he learnt at second-hand from his friend a good deal of what the later was taught.

All these facts had a serious influence over the direction of his future life, for his visits to this boy-friend continued over a period of some years, until they were both young men, when he complicated the situation by falling deeply in love with his friend’s sister Mizar.

The feeling was strongly reciprocated, but the prospect before the two young people was not hopeful. It was impossible even to think of proposing such an alliance to the father Algol, while the Atlantean dignitary on his side was little likely to welcome an arrangement which linked him to one who was so fiercely opposed to his race. So the young people found themselves to some extent in a dilemma-unable to do anything without taking the parents into their confidence, and yet at the same time unable to tell either of the parents, because of the feelings with which they regarded each other.

The Gordian knot was cut for them, however, for through gossip of some kind the news of Alcyone’ s visits to an Atlantean household reached his father’ s ears, and called down upon his head an outburst of vituperation. When it thus came to the point, Alcyone boldly admitted that his friendship was a matter of years, and he furthermore announced his intention of marrying Mizar. His father promptly turned him out of the house, but fortunately omitted to notify his Atlantean friends. Alcyone at once went to call upon them, took his friend and Mizar into his confidence, and took away the breath of the latter by proposing that she should instantly fly with him then and there, before the news of his father’ s proceedings could come to the ears of her family. At first there was some natural hesitation, but finally Mizar yielded, and with Psyche’ s assistance, and a large sum of money which he lent them, these two young lovers actually started off together.

Their method of escape was to attach themselves to one of the Aryan bands which happened just then to be passing through the country, feeling certain that that was the last place in which anyone would look for them, and also that a body of Aryan invaders would be unlikely to give them up, even if enquiries were made for them. Some sort of excuse about a sudden visit to some friends or relations kept the Atlantean father off their track until the band to which they joined themselves had passed out of the province, and by the time that he realised the state of affairs it was practically impossible to trace the fugitives; that is to say, he was able to discover that they had joined the Aryan host, but not to recover them or to obtain any further information about them.

The Aryan bands were moving eastwards, and though there was much about their mode of life which was distasteful to the young couple, they were nevertheless kindly treated in a kind of hearty and boisterous manner. They moved on with the band for some time, though always fully intending to break away from it when they felt themselves sufficiently secure from possible pursuit or interference.

Having thus sacrificed everything for the sake of love, Alcyone had of course to consider how he could make a living for himself and his young wife. As they were of different nations it was necessary that they should find something to do, and somewhere to make a home, in one of these parts of the country where the two races were living together in amity. Alcyone had the good fortune to be able to reduce a personal service to Vesta, one of the leaders of the band, by an act of bravery during a night attack which was made upon a part of this very irregular army; but although for that once Alcyone had saved his life, his destiny was evidently to leave this plane, for he was killed shortly afterwards in some fighting a little further to the east. In return for this service Vesta pressed upon Alcyone’ s acceptance a large chest of gold and jewels which he had acquired in the attack upon some Atlantean city in an earlier part of his march.

He also demanded Alcyone’ s story, and when he heard that it was his desire to abandon the wandering life as soon as possible and settle to some occupation, he offered him the choice of coming on with them to further conquests in the remote and unknown eastern country (probably Bengal) or of establishing himself almost immediately with recommendations to Draco, a certain relative of the leader’ s who had come into the country a few years before with a previous band, and had succeeded in establishing himself not far from where they then were. As Mizar was about to become a mother, and found the constant travelling and the rough boisterous life of the camp very trying, Alcyone accepted the latter alternative, and through the good offices of the leader’ s relative he presently found himself in possession of an estate at a place called Dhramira, not far from where Saharanpur now stands. Draco’ s wife Cassio was particularly kind to Mizar, and nursed her carefully through her confinement.

They settled down now into a happy and somewhat uneventful life. Owing to the recommendation which they had received from the Aryan leader they were able to make good friends, but they were so much devoted to each other that the really important part of their life was the domestic. A son, Fomal, was soon born to them, and their pleasure would have been unalloyed but for an unfortunate accident which befell Alcyone at this period, and caused him a great deal of suffering–—deed, he never entirely recovered from it. He was always of as enquiring and experimental turn of mind, and when a rich Atlantean friend, Aletheia, imported one of the strange air-ships from Atlantis, he willingly accepted an invitation to make a trial trip in it along with its owner. Some error in the management of the power caused one of the directing tubes to catch and become jammed at a critical moment so that the machine fell, and its passengers were thrown out with great violence. Both were badly injured, and though Alcyone eventually recovered and become as strong as ever, he walked with a limp until the day of his death, owing to some injury to the hip which could not be perfectly dealt with by the primitive surgery of the time.

His estate however prospered, and as the years rolled by he became rich and respected. He took considerable interest in the study of Atlantean philosophy, and he and Mizar remained always upon the most friendly terms with both the Aryan and the Atlantean priests, though their attachment was on the whole greatest to the star-shaped temples of the Sun-God. Aryan migrations continued to pass them at intervals, but they were fortunate in being able to deal in a politic manner with these wandering bands, and Alcyone, in memory of his friend Vesta, always offered them the freest hospitality, and so kept on good terms with them. The largest of all these migrations was under the charge of Mars, who led a mighty host of armed men through Amritsar on his way to Central India, where he eventually made for himself an empire. His brother Mercury came with him as high priest. Alcyone felt an intense admiration for Herakles, the daughter of Mars, and could not bear to part from her.

Both Alcyone and his wife lived to a good old age, and were much respected, he being especially looked up to as an expounder of the philosophy and one who was able to harmonise the conflicting tenets of the two religions. Towards the end of her life Mizar suffered much from rheumatism, and was practically bed-ridden for some years before her death at the age of seventy-five. Alcyone survived her for five years, himself passing away in the year 12,795.

Although there were few striking events in this life, and many years of comparatively quiet prosperity, it was not without its effect in developing the character of Alcyone, who gained in courage and decision, and showed considerable administrative ability, learning also especially the art of dealing wisely with men—an acquisition which was of great value to him in his next incarnation.

Life XXXIII

Twelve thousand years before the Christian era there existed in the country which we now call Peru one of the most remarkable civilisations that the world has ever seen. This is not the place to give a full account of it; that may be found in the book Man: Whence, How and Whither. Here it must suffice to say that under an absolute autocrat who reigned by divine right, we find in full operation all that is intelligent in the ideas propounded by the Socialists of to-day, with the result that poverty was entirely unknown, and the general average of public health and happiness was out of all proposition higher than in any country at the present day. The organisation was so perfect that death occurred almost only from old age or accident, that no one needed to work after the age of forty-five, that there was practically no law but that of public opinion, and no punishment except the expulsion from the community of anyone who by uncivilised behaviour was considered to have forfeited the privilege of belonging to it.

This most marvellously successful of civilisations lasted unchanged for thousands of years, much as did that of Egypt; but eventually it became effete, as do all races after a sufficient lapse of time, and the degenerate descendants of its mighty heroes were overcome by another and far less developed nation. The conquerors, though in many respects far inferior to those whom they displaced, had the grace to recognise the advantages of that ideal form of government, and tried to carry it on as far as they could. But they lacked the education, the strength and intelligence of the men of old, and it was but a pale reflection of the original glory of that mighty empire that was found by the Christian barbarians who invaded the country four hundred years ago, and perpetrated there perhaps the foulest crime of which history tells us.

We find Alcyone born in 12,093 B.C., as the son of Uranus and Hesperia, and thus closely connected with the royal family, since Uranus was the brother of the Inca Mars. Alcyone was the younger brother of Sirius, and was a very handsome child, redbronze in colour, with wavy black hair and flashing black eyes. As a little child he wore a curious double necklace of magnificent emeralds, the largest I have ever seen. He was born near Cuzco, in a great rambling house of reddish stone, built on a steep, hill-side, which was cut into terraces leading down to a river, over which there was a wonderful bridge with enormous piers.

The education which he received was an exceedingly practical one, though not at all in accordance with modern ideas. He learnt reading and writing, and very great care was bestowed upon the art of calligraphy. There seem to have been two scripts—the cursive script of ordinary life, and what was called temple-scripts, a writing done with the accuracy of engraving, which presented a beautiful appearance, as it was usually executed in a kind of illumination of many colours, red, blue, black and gold. At this latter Alcyone was particularly successful, so that even while still a boy he was employed to write some manuscripts for some of the principal temples in Cuzco, and was proud of being chosen for this service. It does not appear, so far as I can see, that any occult significance is to be attached to the order of the colours; but it was certainly the custom to write particular texts always in the same colours, and to preserve the same order.

The ancient Peruvians had no arithmetic in our sense of the word, and all their calculations were done by means of a frame and beads, in the manipulation of which they were most dexterous.

Astronomy was their prominent subject, all the stars having special names of their own, though they seem to have been grouped in a manner quite different from that which we employ at the present day. They were also studied from an astrological point of view, and each was supposed to have its special influence, much attention being paid to this and to the exact moment at which certain undertakings were to be commenced. Geography was only imperfectly known, and the history at their command was chiefly local, and even so was studied only by a few specialists, and not at all as a general subject. Many folk-tales were current of the doings of ancient Gods and Heroes, and some of these were founded upon events of Atlantean history. There was also some vague knowledge that a new race was being founded on the other side of the world, but they had no definite information about the matter.

They made much of an elaborate system of physical culture, a series of exercises not unlike the modern jinjitsu of the Japanese, the knowledge of which was confined to the ruling class. It enabled them to perform what looked like miracles in the eyes of the common people and the barbarian tribes. Chemistry was liberally studied, but purely from a practical point of view, connected, for example, with the making of manures and plant-foods of all descriptions. They had a good deal of machinery, though much of it would seem to us at the present day clumsy in its construction. Both painting and music were taught as a matter of course to the higher classes, though Alcyone did not take any special interest in either, devoting himself almost entirely to the production of beautiful temple writings. The painting was curious being done with rapid dashes which dried instantly, and could not be altered. They had some exceedingly fine colours, more brilliant and yet purer than any that we have now; indeed, colour took a prominent part in civilisation.

The clothing of the people was of bright, yet tasteful and harmonious colour; Alcyone, for example, almost always dressed himself from head to foot in a most lovely shade of pale blue. The very food which they ate was coloured, for the upper classes at least lived almost entirely upon a sort of cake made of flour much like wheat, and these cakes were flavoured in many different ways and coloured according to the flavour, red, blue, yellow or variegated with stripes. Fruit also was extraordinarily plentiful, and a great deal of it was eaten, even by the poorest of the people.

The books in which Alcyone wrote were composed of thin sheets of enamelled metal of some kind; the surface was almost exactly like porcelain, but the plates were flexible. The characters were painted on, rather than written, and then the whole sheet was subjected to great heat so that the characters were rendered indelible by it—fired in, as it were. These books were of course of different sizes, but the most ordinary kind was about eighteen inches by six, the writing running along the page from left to right, as on a palm-leaf manuscript. The sheets were fastened together at the upper corners, and when not being used were kept in a shallow metal box. These metal boxes were frequently ornamented with carved horn, which was inlaid in some curious manner, and caused to adhere to the metal without rivets or glue. Such books were sometimes of gold, a metal which seems to have been exceedingly common in Peru then, as in later days.

The innermost shrine, or holy place, of the temples was usually hung with plates of gold, and also in connection with the temples it was not uncommon to see basso-relievos with quite a thick coating of beaten gold. These temples were vast, but according to our ideas generally rather low in proportion to their other dimensions. There were however also a number of steppyramids, with small temples upon the top of them. At this period no animal sacrifices of any sort were offered in Peru—only fruit and flowers. Much praise was offered to the Sun as to the manifestation of the Deity, but no prayer, as it was supposed that the Deity knew best what was good for His creatures. They believed in a progressive existence after death, the conditions of which depended upon the man’ s actions during life, and it was considered wrong and the man’ s actions during life, and it was considered wrong and ungrateful to mourn for the dead, because the Deity did not like to see his children suffer. Reincarnation was not clearly present in their teaching, though there were some texts which were probably really references to it, or at least appear to bear that as their most natural interpretation.

Alcyone had many young friends of both sexes, but he was always attracted most of all towards one whom he had known in other lives, Mizar, the daughter of Vesta and Mira. She was a timid and shrinking young lady, but clinging and affectionate. She in her turn adored Alcyone, and when they were married with the glad consent of the families on both sides they formed a most united couple. As they belonged to the ruling class, public opinion exacted from them ceaseless activity in the interest of the community, and their course in life was practically marked out for them by the mere fact of their birth.

The business of this ruling class was always to rule—but to rule entirely in the interest of their people; and so the usual course for a young man was to begin first as an assistant governor on a small scale over some small village or quarter of a town. After that he gradually passed onward, acting as assistant to some governor of some what higher position, until at last he was entrusted with a village or a small subdivision himself. Alcyone had to go through this routine like all the others, and he acted as assistant for a time to his father Uranus, and later to his elder brother Sirius. They worked together in closest fraternity with the fullest mutual understanding.

Alcyone had a special attachment to the second son of Sirius (Vega), loving more than the rest. The family was a large and united one and had many distinguished connections, but they all stood well together.

Alcyone worked under Sirius for many years, as they were transferred from one post to another, but eventually a good opportunity offered for him to take a separate charge, and then his long experience in the subordinate capaciity stood him in good stead, so that he was able to rise rapidly to the command of a large border district, of which he became the Tlecolen, that is, the governor and judge. The governorship of this border district was an onerous charge, for it involved not only the management of the district itself but also of its relations with the more or less savage tribes beyond the border, over which he had a sort of suzerainty or loose jurisdiction.

At an early period of his journey of this office Alcyone conceived the idea of civilising the nearest of these savage tribes, and adding them to the empire, and he made this to a great extent his life-work. This imposed a heavy strain on him, because in addition to the business of his province he was constantly travelling among these tribes, making friends in the most intimate manner with their chiefs, and gradually trying to educate them into Peruvian system, and brought up to understand the current ideas as to the responsibility of the rulers for the welfare of their people. In this way he had presently succeeded in forming quite a large band of young barbarians, who were in truth barbarians no longer, and he entrusted to them the preparation of their people for the revolution which he hoped presently to bring about.

In fact, for years before he ventured to propose the formal incorporation of the new province into the empire of the Inca, he had already the whole machinery of its government in working order, according to the Peruvian methods. So that when the time was ripe the transition was easily managed. He made the principal chief a sort of sub-governor, but still stood ready to check any arbitrary exercise of authority. This incorporation of a new province was considered a great achievement, and brought him great credit at court. He was specially sent for by the Inca, and publicly thanked for the work that he had done.

The remarkable and obvious improvement introduced into the conditions of life in this new province attracted the attention of other and more savage tribes lying beyond it and a number of their chieftains came as a kind of deputation to offer their submission to the governor, and to ask for a similar extension of benefits to their people. Alcyone received these people in the fullest possible state, in order to produce an impression upon them. His robes on the occasion were of the most magnificent description, the same that he would have worn if presented to the Emperor—made of some sort of cloth covered with small scales of gold, which gleamed in the sunlight with a dazzling splendour. Some curious scientific arrangement was also introduced by which the governor was surrounded with flashes of blinding light, so that the savages prostrated before him, evidently regarding him as a supernatural being, or some kind of Deity. This electrical display was arranged for him by Cygnus, who had spent much of his time in studies of this sort. He was a relation by marriage of Alcyone’ s and had attached himself to him and followed his fortunes. When Alcyone became governor of this border district, Cygnus was put in charge of the principal tow as a kind of mayor, and did his work faithfully.

Alcyone’ s interest in educational work was so great that when he reached the age at which it was permissible for a governor to retire, he petitioned the Inca to allow him to transfer himself to the priestly caste, and devote himself entirely to this educational work. It was more usual for governors to work on until extreme old age, or even until death, although they were at perfect liberty to give up their work on attaining the age of sixty. This petition was granted, and he at once transferred himself to the department presided over by his uncle Mercury, under whom he had the privilege of working for some years. So great was his enthusiasm and appointed as his successor in the responsible office of Director General of Education for the empire. The natural successor of Mercury in this office would have been his son Surya, but he and his brother had been sent by the Inca on an important mission to the City of the Golden Gate, and on the invitation of the Emperor had settled in Atlantis, where they held high office. Alcyone invented various new methods, largely teaching by objects, and by combinations of building-blocks and designs—a kind of primitive kindergarten. He also made a great point of the use of varied colours in many ways, and tried to train the eyes of the children to distinguish artistic shades. There was a doctrine in the religious teaching that beauty of form and colour was especially pleasing to the Deity, and that the production of such beauty might be regarded as an acceptable offering to Him. Alcyone took up this matter, and brought it prominently forward, making this value of beauty his especial gospel. He maintained remarkable vigour even up to extreme old age, and continued to travel constantly all over the empire to oversee the various educational establishments, until within a few days of his death in 12,003. His wife Mizar had died four years previously, in 12,007, at the age of eighty-four. This was a valuable life, in which much useful work was done for others, and so great progress was made. Our characters Orion and Erato are also to be found in this life born in the same class as Alcyone and doing work of the same kind.

Ulysses belonged to the royal family, being the son of Corona.

He was educated in a technological school and became a great agriculturist. Later in life he was sent to persuade Vajra to return from a wild tribe to which he had gone, and while they were on their return journey they fell into an ambush. Ulysses, seeing a man about to shoot Vajra with an arrow rushed in between and was killed.

Life XXXIV

The next life takes us back again to India, and gives in many ways a great contrast to the last one. Our hero was born in the year 11,182 at a place called Ranthambhor in Rajputana. He was the son of an Aryan chief owning a good deal of land and much respected, a man of strong character, but somewhat harsh. Caste, as such, had not yet distinctly appeared, but the family to which Alcyone belonged was one of the most highly regarded, and several members of it had become priests in various temples, so that we may regard it as distinctly Brahman. His mother was a good housewife and a capable woman, but always immersed in small matters, and with comparatively little of spirituality about her nature. His mother was a good housewife and a capable woman, but always immersed in small matters, and with comparatively little of spirituality about her nature.

Alcyone as a child was keen and active, but reserved in nature. He was more affectionate with his uncle. Percy than with either his father or his mother—naturally enough, for Percy had been his eldest son in Peru, while they had not then been related to him. This uncle lived in the same house, and his influence had much to do with forming the child’ s mind. Percy was of a speculative and inquiring turn of mind, and was much interested in all kinds of occult influences and in researches connected with them. Though he did not remember their Peruvian relationship, he was strongly attracted towards Alcyone from the first, and the tie between them was greatly strengthened when he discovered that the boy was exceedingly sensitive, and responded much more readily than he himself did to some of the occult influences which he had learnt how to evoke.

He tried a number of mesmeric experiments with Alcyone, and attained unexpected success, finding that when he had thrown him into a trance various entities could speak through him, and he could also be used as an instrument for clairvoyant investigation. Although he himself constantly mesmerised Alcyone he never permitted anyone else to do so, and he also taught Alcyone how to mesmerise others, and how to invoke nature-spirits. He set him to practice crystal-gazing, and automatic writing with a stylus. In this way, he constantly received communications from various dead people and also from living entities, and after a time these not only wrote through him, but even began to use him as a medium and to speak though him.

These two people, then, the uncle and the nephew, lived a kind of inner life of their own, for Alcyone’ s parents, though they knew all about what was taking place, were but little interested in it, and inclined to regard it as somewhat useless and nonsensical, though quite glad to share in the credit when Alcyone’ s clairvoyance happened to discover something useful, as once or twice happened. Various other phenomena took place, many of them by no means unlike those with which we meet in modern Spiritualism, but these were regarded by those who knew of them with a good deal of hesitation and suspicion, some holding them with a certain respect, as a kind of inspiration. The young Alcyone occasionally passed into a trance during which materialisation occurred.

All this was under the control of a kind of spirit-guide who called himself Narayan to whom they paid great respect, regarding him as a divine manifestation. This entity promised to take care of the medium under all conditions, to protect and develop him, and he held out hopes of great occurences later when the boy should be grown up. Among other things he advised the practice of psychometry, and accordingly they took a great deal of trouble to procure suitable specimens, such as fragments of stone, small articles of various kinds from different countries, and anything that might be supposed to have been connected with any ancient civilisation. Alcyone soon proved apt at this work. They held many sittings, and acquired by degrees a vast amount of information about the earlier stages of the world’ s history, about hill-tribes and primitive men and prehistoric animals. By means of some articles which had been brought from Central Asia they got on the track of that early fifth Root-Race civilisation; by means of other objects which had been brought from Atlantis, Alcyone had visions of the great City of the Golden Gate, and also a series of pictures from Atlantean history. Indeed they compiled by degrees books of history of all the three places—early India, Central Asia, and Atlantis itself.

The entity calling himself Narayan commented on what they saw, and sometimes gave explanations. In this way they produced by degrees quite a mass of literature, and it said that Percy had no other object in life than the prosecution of these studies.

Many of those who came to ask for help or advice were suffering from various diseases, and Narayan met with considerable success in prescribing for these, having chiefly a small set of herbal remedies, which on the whole worked well. His prescriptions had quite a modern air about them, for he always insisted vehemently upon fresh air and cleanliness, and the observation of hygienic rules. His anatomical and surgical knowledge was limited, but still he could evidently see what he was doing, and was able to diagnose the condition of the internal organs, and therefore either to deal with them successfully or to say that they could not be dealt with. There was considerable uncertainty, however, about the whole thing, as in some cases the entity calling himself Narayan did not appear when required, and in other cases he apparently refused to prescribe, or at least did not manifest or take any notice.

As Alcyone grew older he was definitely attached to the temple at which they worshipped, for the performance of ceremonies. On one occasion when a number of pilgrims were present, Narayan impressed him to address the crowd, so that we have here the phenomenon of a kind of trance-speaking. Narayan did not completely obsess Alcyone, as the latter still retained a certain consciousness of what was going on, and was able to sit or stand without falling; but at the same time he did not usually know what was coming, so that the speech was given through him as an instrument rather than by him. The address which he gave to the piligrim on the first occasion greatly pleased and impressed Adrona, the head priest in charge of the temple, who happened to hear it, and he at once saw that Alcyone possessed in this a talent of an unusual order, which might be of the greatest value in enhancing the reputation of the temple. He therefore encouraged Alcyone to yield himself to this influence of Narayan, though it is doubtful whether he really believed the high claims made by the spirit-guide.

From this time forth the young Alcyone took a position of considerable importance in the temple, and addresses and sermons were not infrequently given through him, tough they were never able to calculate with certainty whether the communicating entity would or would not manifest himself on any given occasion. Besides what may be called public sermons, a great many private messages were given to persons who came from all parts of the country, to ask various questions or to beg for boons of different kinds. Some of these answers were in the usual cryptic style peculiar to oracles, but on the other hand some were quite definite, and conveyed real information, which was at times distinctly valuable as enabling people to recover lost articles, to gain information with regard to missing relations, and so on.

Although a great deal of public and semi-public work was done in this way in connection with the temple, Percy and Alcyone continued, as opportunity offered, what may be called their private seances, and at these a number of remarkable phenomenon manifested themselves. On several occasions small objects were brought to them, which were alleged to have come from great distances. They had also now and then manifestations of spiritlights, and the carrying about of objects. Materialisations were not common, but still they did occasionally take place, and in this way they began to know the appearance of several of these spirit-people.

Undesirable as mediumship undoubtedly is, it did not in any way injure Alcyone’ s health. Their seances and sermons and psychometrisations continued with varied success for quite a number of years, and all this time Alcyone was making his position more secure in the temple.

The fame of Alcyone’ s achievements along these various lines was noised abroad, and people came from all parts of the country to this temple, thereby adding greatly to its revenues. The King of the country on one occasion sent for Alcyone, to see whether any advice would be given through him towards the curing of a painful disease consequent upon an accident while hunting.

Fortunately on this occasion Narayan was available, and though the instructions which he gave were not palatable to the King he nevertheless followed them, though under protest, and was shortly entirely cured, which of course brought still greater fame to Alcyone.

In many cases also communications from dead people were given through Alcyone, though the spirit-guide exercised rather a rigid censorship over this, and often declined to permit any attempt in this direction. However, in some cases, what could now-a-days be called tests were given, and on one occasion a valuable missing treasure was discovered through the information supplied by Narayan.

The private seances with Percy and the psychometry were continued, though naturally the opportunities for them were now comparatively few. At one of these private seances a new influence suddenly manifested itself, which gave quite a fresh direction to their investigations. I have mentioned that occasionally small objects were brought from a distance, and at a certain seance a beautiful carved seal was produced in that way, Narayan telling them through Alcyone that he was ordered to bring it and to direct that Alcyone should psychometrise it. The result of the psychometrisation was startling, for this seal came from Peru, and was one of those which had been officially used by his uncle Mercury in the previous incarnation. Its effect was to bring before him with the greatest vividness first one or two special scenes from that incarnation, and then practically the whole of it, so that he spent many hours, day after day, in living over again all its most striking events.

In all these scenes the figure of Mercury was the most prominent, and Alcyone’ s strong attachment to him and deep reverence for him made these pictures more of a reality to him than the very life which he was really living. Until now his instinct had always been to consult the spirit-guide, and to abide in all cases by his advice when any question arose for decision; but in this psychometric image of Mercury he found himself in the presence of so much greater wisdom, and also of an altogether purer and higher attitude towards everything, that he constantly yearned to consult the uncle of his former life instead of the spirit-guide of this. But of course the pictures of the Peruvian life, intensely vivid and realistic as they were, were still only pictures, and the characters in them could only repeat the parts, which they had really played some eight hundred years before.

A problem of some difficulty arose as to the way in which the temple influence should be used with regard to the succession to the throne of the country. The chief priest of the temple was distinctly in favour of one who was not the rightful heir, because he could obtain his support in certain schemes which he had in hand. Alcyone himself, on the other hand, felt that to use the power of the temple in favour of one who was emphatically not a good man would be not only a highly improper thing in itself but distinctly a failure in duty, and so he was in considerable trouble with regard to this matter. The advice of Narayan was to fall in with the wishes of the chief priest, since greater power would probably accrue in that way to the temple authorities; but Alcyone felt strongly dissatisfied with this, and earnestly desired to have the opinion on this subject of the uncle upon whose wisdom he found himself so constantly learning in the scenes from old Peru. It must be understood that in examining these pictures psychometrically, he found them not merely as pictures, but was able, as it were, to enter into that form and to live over again, with all its original intensity, the life of authority and experiment which he had led in those earlier centuries, and he had when doing this a curious double consciousness, for the memories of the Indian life were present in his mind even while he was living over again the older Peruvian existence.

During this period of indecision he was going back psychometrically by means of the seal into that older life, and constantly he made a passionate appeal to the Peruvian uncle for counsel in his present Indian difficulty; or rather perhaps for the support which he felt sure that that uncle would have given to his own conviction of the side of what seemed to him right. Suddenly, and in answer to this appeal, there came something which he had never seen before; a kind of vivid and greatly intensified life came into the form of the uncle in his mental picture into reality and changed before his eyes into a commanding Indian figure, which materialised itself so as to be visible to Percy as well as to him, and spoke to him with great emphasis in reply to his appeal.

Mercury told him that he had really been his uncle long ago in old Peru, but now was born again in a distant part of India. He then proceeded to give him definite advice, first of all upon the subject at issue, and then on a more personal matter. He told him that his intuition was right, and that the influence of the temple should be used only in favour of the rightful heir to the throne, and charged Percy to put that message before the chief priest with all the force of which he was capable. Then Mercury, in his new form, told Alcyone most impressively that he had embarked upon a dangerous course in submitting himself as he had done to the will of Narayan; that he should do so no longer, but should use only such of his powers as could be exercised in full consciousness and without any yielding of his body to the use of any other entity whatever; that he had a great work to do in the far distant future, to do which he must be keenly sensitive and yet absolutely positive; that therefore this training had been necessary, but that now there had been enough of it.

Alcyone gladly and eagerly accepted this advice, but asked his new monitor how he was to make the required change—how, after so many years of complete submission to Narayan, he could now suddenly succeed in resisting. Mercury replied that he himself knew much of these matters and would assist him; that while it was impossible for him to come to him in the physical body, he would yet give him astrally such instruction as was necessary, and that here and now he would enable him altogether to cast off the influence of Narayan and the possibility of that undesirable kind of mediumship, by throwing him into a trance which should last for years, and enable his various vehicles to grow too strong ever again to be used by any other than himself. Turning then to Percy, he gave him minute directions as to the treatment of the body of Alcyone during this lengthened rest, and charged him to take the greatest care of it.

Then, fixing his piercing eyes upon Alcyone, he made over him a few mesmeric passes, under the effect of which Alcyone passed immediately into a deep trance, but with a smile of ineffable happiness upon his face.

In that strange trance his physical body lay for a period of seven years, exactly as Mercury had foretold, and all this time the latter’ s directions were implicitly followed by Percy, who took the greatest care that every detail should be carried out exactly as it had been ordered. This prolonged trance was of course regarded by the temple authorities as a miracle of the first order, and it was indirectly the cause of an enormous increase in the revenues, as the whole affair became noised abroad, and pilgrims came by thousands from distant parts to see the sleeping priest.

During the trance, the consciousness of Alcyone rested almost entirely upon the mental plane; it was in fact the consciousness of the ego in close contact with the ego of Mercury, both apparently under the direction of, and it were bound together by and in, a still higher consciousness, which was directing both to some great end at present unexpressed. All this time Alcyone’ s physical body lay rested in perfect health, all its particles gradually changing in the natural course of events, while his astral and mental bodies were being steadily moulded by the pressure of these higher influences. When, at the end of this long sleep, he awoke in the most natural manner on the very day that had been fixed by Mercury, he was in the physical brain entirely unconscious of all that had passed, remembering only the appearance and the words of Mercury, just as though what had happened then had taken place only the evening before.

When Percy informed him of the lapse of years he was at first utterly incredulous, and only by slow degrees and by the most convincing proofs could he be brought to understand the astonishing fate which had overtaken him. From that moment however, his mediumship ceased entirely, although his sensitiveness and his power of psychometry remained. He was no longer amenable to the influence of Narayan, of whom indeed he never heard again, nor did any other entity speak through him for the rest of his life. People continued to flock to him for the curing of various diseases; this was now no longer done though him as before, but by a careful experiment he found that in many cases he himself by his own insight was able to diagnose and to cure their ills.

He had of course a greater reputation than ever, in consequences of his long trance, but when at the urgent solicitation of the chief priest he resumed his temple addresses, he found that he had now to prepare and to think them out entirely for himself, though he had certainly a greatly enhanced power of thought and capacity of expression.

He tried again and again the psychometrisation of the Peruvian seal, and found himself able to call up the whole of the older life as vividly as before; yet never again did the loved form of his Peruvian uncle change into its modern Indian presentment, nor was he able to come into touch on the physical plane with him to whom he owed so much.

The communication made by Percy to the chief priest of the temple seven years before had led to the priest’ s throwing the weight of the temple influence into the scales in favour of the rightful heir Orpheus, and in consequence of that this heir had since come to the throne. There was naturally therefore a close link between the temple and the palace, and the new King, mindful of what he owed to Alcyone, showed marked favour to him in every way, so that on the passing away of the chief priest at an advanced age, Alcyone was at once appointed as his successor, and administered the affairs of the temple until the day of his death.

At the age of twenty-two he had married a good young lady, Cygnus, who was always kind and faithful to him, though there was nothing about her character which calls for any special remark. She bore him nine children. Naturally all of these children played at trying psychometry, and Osiris proved to be even more successful with it than his father. They all survived him, and all did well in the world, as his influential position enabled him to place them satisfactorily.

He died in the year 11,111, at the age of seventy-one, deeply reverenced by a wide circle of people.

Mercury was in physical incarnation at this time, but far away in the south of India, where most of our characters were gathered round him. He did not meet Alcyone in this incarnation upon the physical plane.

A good many of our characters are gathered together in China about 10,750 B.C. Mars is as usual the Ruler of the country–a powerful Emperor; he marries the daughter of the eloquent High Priest Herakles, who is to a large extent the centre of attraction for the rest of the party, as they are all more or less his desciples, or followers of his desciples, in turn. Some of the families involved have come from a considerable distance, attracted by the fame of the High Priest, and have even sacrificed their patrimony in order to do so. Surya himself appears on the scene as a grandson of the Emperor Mars, and a great-grandson of High-Priest Herakles, at whose death he takes up and carries on the work of religious reform which the high priest had begun. Surya had four brothers; the eldest Viraj was heir-presumptive to the throne, and had to devote himself to the material exercises and studies appropriate to that line of life; but the other three, Yajna, Naga and Sirius, threw themselves whole heartedly into the work of helping Surya in his plans, and devoted their lives to his serice. their sons in turn took up this life enthusiastically as soon as they became old enough to be of assistance. Their sons in turn took up this life enthusiastically as soon as they became old enough to be of assistance. They travelled over vast areas of country, and it is not too much to say that the whole of China and a great part of central Asia was affected by their work.

Life XXXV

The car of Juggarnant (properly Jagannath, the Lord of World), in the town of Puri on the Bay of Bengal, is famous in every civilised country, and we were regaled in our nurseries upon gruesome stories of the iniquities connected with it. Why so much excitement was aroused by the garbled accounts of it given by early missionaries, it is somewhat difficult to say, for not even the most bigoted sectarian could pretend that all the slaughter which the temple of Jagannath has seen since its foundation equals in horror and cruelty one day of the ghastly tortures of the Christian Inquisition. But nevertheless Jagannath has a world-wide reputation, and there seems reason to suppose that, though it by no means deserves it now, it may have done so some thousands of years ago.

The glimpse which we had of its methods at the close of the twentyeighth life of this series prepares us to find that unpleasant practices were still going on there in 10,429 B.C., when Alcyone was born at a coast-town called Kanura, only a few miles from Puri.

His father Brihat had been a great Aryan leader, but now that the invading bands had reached the Sea, he had a great reputation as a wise and holy man, full of devotion. Alcyone’ s mother in this life was Uranus, an earnest and devoted woman. The eldest children of this couple were two sisters, twins, Neptune and Siwa, and these two had a great influence over Alcyone. Mizar also appears as a sister, four years younger that Alcyone, whom he loved and protected, and Mizar was devoted to him in return.

Alcyone was earnest, eager, and easily impressible. He responded at once to true affection, but shrank into stolidity if treated unkindly. He had an intense admiration for his father, his mother and his elder sisters. He was extremely sensitive, and to some extent psychic and clairvoyant when young—sufficiently so at least to see nature-spirits and sometimes to hear voices, especially one which occasionally gave him counsel at crises in his life. He was always fond of the sea, and was perpetually swimming in it, or rowing sailing on it; and as a small boy he would have liked nothing better than to be a sailor. On one occasion he was some distance out in a small boat with a clumsy sail, when he was caught by a sudden squall of great severity. The people watching on shore thought that he must inevitably be lost, but just at the critical moment the voice told him to keep his presence of mind, and gave him directions what to do, so that he brought in his boat in safety, in a way which could not have been surpassed by the most experienced seaman, and by the use of a manoeuvre of which few would have thought.

He was much interested in all religious ceremonies, and performed them solemnly and—effectively. His father, seeing this, was encouraged to hope that he might have the priestly vocation, which was the dearest wish of his heart for him. The boy was delighted at the idea, and his sisters also encouraged it, so he was entered as a novice, and was proud of it. his life in the temple was pleasant to him, for all the priests were attracted by his charming ways, and thus every one helped him and made his work easy. The religion seems to have been principally Sun-worship, and it is curious to note that they spoke of their Deity always as the”Sea- born Sun”. When Alcyone came to man’ s estate he married Ajax, and in the course of the years had a family of twelve children.

In the neighbouring town of Puri there was still a great centre of one of the forms of the old Atlantean religion of the darker sort— the worship of an entity which required human sacrifices, but in return for them seems to have displayed a large number of manifestations of various kinds which were popularly regarded as miracles. Because of these marvellous results, members of Brihat’ s band were occasionally drawn away to follow the priests of this magic, much to their leader’ s sorrow, for he regarded all members of the band which he had led into India as though they were his children, so that this other temple was a considerable source of annoyance to him, and among his immediate followers there was a strong feeling against it. Alcyone, who had an inquiring turn of mind, was curious about anything in the way of phenomena, and once paid a visit to this temple, on the occasion of a certain festival on which there was to be a special display. His handsome appearance attracted the notice of one of the priests there, who made persistent effort to gain some control over him. He successfully resisted these with some assistance and advice from his father, but found them exceedingly trying. The voice which occasionally intervened in his affairs seems to have been that of a kindred spirit, for it on several occassions suggested lines of investigation, and put him upon the track of all sorts of curious and out-of-the-way things.

On one occasion this voice gave him the startling information that there were people living in the interior of the earth, and when he developed a keen interest in this it offered to give him ocular demonstration of the fact by leading him to a certain cave by which he would gain admission into their dwelling-place—or rather, as was represented, one of their dwelling-places. He eagerly accepted this offer, but it was unfortunately coupled with a condition that he should tell no one of the expedition, if he wished to undertake it. He doubted much as to the wisdom of this course, but eventually to make the journey and attempt to verify the statement, but stipulated that a certain bosom-friend, Demeter, should be allowed to accompany him.

Demeter was another young priest, a son of one of the chief priests of the same temple; and the original reason of the bond between them was that Demeter also could see nature-spirits, and could sometimes hear the same inner voice.

This stipulation seemed for some time to be an insuperable difficulty, but eventually the mysterious inner voice yielded on that point—only, however, on, condition that both the young men took a specially solemn bow that they would tell no one of their journey nor indicate to anyone else the way which was to be shown to them. In compliance with the terms of this agreement they had to pretend to set forth in 10,402 upon a pilgrimage to certain northern shrines; that is to say, the pilgrimage was genuine enough, for they really visited the shrines, but the true object of the expedition was known to none but those who undertook it. The journey which they had to take was a long one for those days, and occupied some months, but in due course and after many adventures they found themselves in the neighbourhood of the spot that had been indicated to them.

The inner voice would not permit to take with them say servant or attendant for the final effort, but directed them to provide themselves with food for many days, and also with a supply of torches to light them during their exploration. With considerable trouble they found the entrance to a cavern which was apparently quite unknown to the tribes living in the neighbourhood. They entered it with considerable misgivings, not caring, when it came to the point, to trust themselves in its intricacies, for indeed it seemed to be a perfect labyrinth. For a long time it led them merely into the heart of the mountain, without making any specially appreciable descent, but eventually the course of the naturally-arched passage which they had been directed to follow turned steeply downwards, and they had to do an amount of downward climbing which was exceedingly awkward and perilous for them, hampered as they were with bundles of torches and packages of food.

How far down they actually penetrated they had no means of knowing, nor could they estimate with any sort of accuracy the time which the descent occupied, but their underground journey must have been altogether a matter of many days. They suffered a good deal from the pressure of the atmosphere, which was great at that depth, and alarming to them, as of course they did not in the least understand it. The temperature also increased slightly, but not seriously enough to interfere in any way with their advance, though the conditions made the violent exertion of progress over so rough a road exceedingly trying. They had many narrow escapes, more than once only just avoiding serious accidents. Though they knew nothing of such matters it seems probable that they were travelling down a kind of fault or fissure, which may perhaps have been caused by an earthquake, or possibly by some volcanic outburst of long ago. Fortunately, plenty of water was usually available, although once or twice in that confined and heated atmosphere they suffered considerably from the want of it.

After a long time spent in this slow progress they became conscious of a faint and inexplicable luminosity in the heavy atmosphere which surrounded them, and presently they came out onto a cavity so vast that they were unable to see its limits. It seemed to be full of this curious pale radiance, by means of which, however, they were able to see distinctly enough to dispense altogether with the torches. Their eyes required great deal of adjustment to this extraordinary light, so that for some time they could not at all calculate the distance of objects, and met with some awkward falls in consequence. Everything felt abnormally heavy to them, and every motion seemed somehow a violent effort. They soon discovered that this enormous cavity was inhabited not only by animals but also by human beings, though these last were in various ways unlike any others that they had ever seen. The impression conveyed to them was that the inhabitants of this strange inner world had at some time or other in the far past belonged to the outer, though it would appear that the people themselves held rather the opposite idea, and thought of themselves as original, and of those who had escaped into the - outer world as men upon whom some dismal fate had fallen.

The men whom they saw were wild-looking, and somehow indescribably strange and inhuman. They seemed to constitute a numerous community, and there were many things about them which were inexplicable to our explorers. They had no means of communicating with them, except by gestures, but it was evident that their arrival excited great wonder. If these primitive cave-men had ever had communication with any humanity on the surface of the earth it must have been long ago, for their characteristics at this day differed widely from those of any of the known races.

The utter strangeness of everything daunted the spirits of our explorers, and although their interest was naturally intense they often wished that they had never undertaken the adventure. The life in the midst of which they found themselves was in so many ways quite incomprehensible to them. The inner voice directed them only occasionally, and they had no means of obtaining the information on hundreds of points which they were naturally so eager to acquire.

They were unable to form any opinion as to the nature of the diffused radiance which filled the vast cavern. The vegetables which grew in it, and the animals which moved among them, were alike strange to them. The people seemed to be in many ways what we should call savages, for they had no visible dwellings of any sort, nor was it clear that they engaged in any definite work, such for example as the cultivation of their soil. They appeared to live partly upon the flesh of certain semi-reptilian animals which they caught, and partly upon a huge fungoid growth which was exceedingly common, a sort of gigantic toadstool.

Our adventurers shrank with horror from the reptilian form of food, which the inhabitants devoured raw—indeed there was nothing whatever to show that they knew of fire in any of its forms—but since the stores which our friends had brought with them were running low, and they had no certainty of being able to replenish them, they did eat the fungus, and found it to be sustaining, though far from palatable. It seemed to have a curious exhilarating or almost intoxicating effects upon their unaccustomed organisms.

The people were evidently greatly astonished to see their visitors, and indeed at first fled from them in fear, but presently they ventured to approach and examine them more closely. Nothing in the nature of clothing was seen, and the colour of the people was an unpleasant and curious livid kind of lead-colour, probably produced by this strange diffused light. Women were seen among them and also, large numbers of children. They may have been a remnant of some early Lemurian race, for they had many of the characteristics of the blue egg-headed people, who at one time occupied a considerable portion of the Lemurian continent. Among other things, they were now somewhat below the ordinary height of men, though broad and squat in appearance, whereas the ancient Lemurian races from which they might have sprung were distinctly taller and looser in build than the men of later races. If, however, they did originally come from that stock, they must have been considerably modified by long ages of sojourn under these unearthly conditions.

They may have belonged to a different evolution altogether, or perhaps to that of the Inner round, in which case they would afford an opportunity of human incarnation to those individualised animals for whom there is now no humanity sufficiently primitive on the surface of the earth.

These people still exist at the present day. There are many of these cavities and some of them are peopled by tribes much more advanced than those encountered by our adventurers. The mental body of these people is not at all highly developed. Their speech is an unholy compound of clicks and grunts, helped out with a good deal of clumsy gesture. No ceremonies have so far been observed among them. Marriage is between one man and one woman in many cases, but in other cases not. There seems no sign of rank, nor any kind of government—indeed, there is nothing to govern.

Sometimes there are quarrels, but all on a small scale. As regards property they may be said to own some sort of weapons. The majority of them have no clothing. There is no day and night with them; they mostly throw themselves down to sleep after taking a meal. The children sometimes amuse themselves with dances.

There are plenty of rivers, and the people swim in them in a curious dog-like fashion.

Our two friends abode among these extraordinary savages for a period which, measured by day and night, would have been perhaps a couple of weeks. Their difficulties were considerable, and a great portion of each day had to be devoted to sleep, as they never both slept at the same time, feeling it always necessary that one should be on the watch. The savages seemed to have no evil intentions towards them, and indeed to be on the whole rather afraid of them, though full of curiosity, but at the same time they could not trust them, and it is also certain that some of the reptiles were carnivorous, and probably poisonous. There was a good deal of vegetation, specially in the neighbourhood of water; nothing of any great size, except what might be called a sort of gigantic grass, a kind of bamboo which could not support itself, but crept along the ground. There were also spiky plants of the general appearance of aloes, and various kinds of cactus and rushes and sedges and that kind of thing, but all of a curious bleached unhealthy colour, many of them darkish, but none really green.

After they had become somewhat accustomed to this weird and uncomfortable condition of affairs, the voice directed Alcyone and his friend to proceed straight out into the cavity and to walk for many hours in a straight line, leaving the great wall. They soon lost sight of the wall in this curious diffused luminosity, and felt strangely lost in this nightmare of a world, with no certainty of getting out of it again. But they continued walking in spite of the difficulties of the atmosphere, and at last came upon a different type of people, who by comparison with the others might be said to be quite advanced, for they had places to live in, though they were only hollowed out of the ground—chambers in the rock. But these people wove a sort of matting. They did not seem to know fire, but they may be said to have kept domestic animals. They had a kind of goat, of which they drank the milk. Their settlement was pitched round a number of boiling springs or geysers, and in these boiling springs they cooked the flesh of their goats, also that of some turtle like creatures. It may have been the same race, but it was certainly a stage further advanced. They could draw to a certain extent, and also they engraved or scratched signs upon the rocks according to some primitive scheme, consisting entirely of round impressions (cupshaped marks) arranged in a form which signified something—so many in a straight line meaning one thing, and so many arranged in an angle something else. These were not letters, but ideograms, or signs for certain things. The marks were produced by grinding a sharpened edge into the rock. They had thus a series of intelligible signs, but no idea beyond the making of these round depressions.

They made also a kind of string or rope out of their reeds, and the women were beginning to wear coloured stones. Our friends came in one place upon a kind of pocket of precious stones, and carried them away with them —fine specimens, splendid gems, which proved on their return to the upper world to be of great rarity.

These people, who might be said to be a little more advanced, sometimes smeared themselves with colour, for there was coloured mud to be found in connection with the boiling springs. We noticed a sort of rose-colour, green, and yellow (which may have been sulphur); it was something like the”paint-pots” in the Yellowstone Park. To swoop out the mud these people used flat stones.

Eventually our friends found their way back, with great difficulty, to the hoe by which they had entered the cavity. They had still some of their original food, though it was hard and dry, and they also took with some of the fungus. They made a fresh bundle of torches out of the bamboo, but they were not satisfactory, as they often went out. However, they were able to relight them, as they carried with them the primitive instrument for fire-making which they had brought with them—a stick and string and a little cup. At last they struggled up to the surface again, but with great difficulty in climbing, and came out into the daylight dazzled and bewildered.

Indeed, they had to remain in the cavern for more than a day, in order to get their eyes gradually used to the daylight. They had a curious feeling of sickness, arising apparently from the change in the density of the air; this sickness, lasted for a good many hours, but they were thankful indeed to get back again.

The voice told Alcyone that this experience was necessary for him, that now he had a wider knowledge of the possibilities of life and evolution, so that he might understand and sympathise more fully, and that later on he would know more about all this. But now he was to go home again, to rejoin his family, and to prepare himself for another great trial which was to come. The two friends agreed to say nothing of their story anywhere in the places through which they passed, but to reserve all mention of it until they reached home.

There they told the story to Alcyone’ s father and the family circle.

The father said: “Yes, there is a tradition, not among us, but among the Atlanteans, of such underground races of men.”

Something of the story was also told by Demeter to some other people outside; but they supposed it to be mere fabrication. The family of course knew it to be true, and fully realised what a wonderful experience it was.

Alcyone did well in the temple life, and held some offices important for one so young. As time went on he more and more helped his father in his work, and the father grew to rely more and more upon him, the affection between them becoming steadily stronger. He also, in addition, obtained some recognition and fame on his own account. In 10,387 the great sorrow of his life came to him. He undertook a journey to visit some distant shrines in the south, of the sites of those now called Rameshwaram and Srirangam. His sons, Helios and Achilles, now splendid young men of twenty, begged to accompany him, and he and Ajax agreed, thinking that the experience of the voyage would be of interest to them. He took ship in a trading vessel, a large one for those times, and thus he commenced a leisurely voyage down the coast, calling at various ports on the way.

The interest of the voyage was great, and father and sons enjoyed it; but after they had been some weeks on their way a fearful storm arose, and lasted for many days, sweeping them far out of their course into quite unknown seas, and reducing their ship to a helpless wreck, leaking in the most serious manner. They drifted for days in a desperate condition, keeping the vessel afloat only by constant work, so that all, sailors and passengers alike, were absolutely worn out. When they were at the last point of exhaustion they saw land ahead of them, which heartened them to make a final effort to keep afloat and to try somehow to reach it. the direction of their drift appeared to be carrying them some miles to the north of the land, which was only an island of no great size. They debated the advisability of casting themselves into the sea, but they were too weak to swim, and a number of sharks were already following the drifting vessel. They thought of breaking up some part of the ship and making a kind of rough raft, but while they were feebly trying this they saw a fleet of canoes put off from the shore. Soon they were surrounded by a horde of shrieking savages, who greeted them with a shower of arrows, and then sprang on board and massacred the exhausted Indians with clubs.

Alcyone’ s sons were murdered before his eyes, and he himself was also struck down, though only stunned. When he came to himself the savages were looting the ship; as soon as he was seen to be alive a savage rushed at him to kill him, but another, who seemed to be in authority, interfered, and he was bound with a piece of rope, and thrown into one of the canoes. He thought at first that he was the only survivor, and when he remembered the death of his sons, he wished that he died with them; but presently another living man was discovered, a member of the crew, and he also was bound and thrown into the canoe beside Alcyone. Alcyone had always spoken kindly to the sailors, and was known by them as a holy person, so this man was deeply sorry to see him in such a pass. He had small comfort to give, for he said that, though he did not know exactly where they were, he had but little doubt, from the general direction of the storm, that they had fallen among a set of the most bloodthirsty and ferocious cannibals known.

The savages presently decided to tow the vessel to their island—a proceeding which they accomplished only very slowly, and with a prodigious amount of noise. They succeeded in getting it just within the entrance of a small cove before it actually sank, so that it remained resting on the sand, with its decks just awash. The savages, being expert divers, were able by degrees to break it up, and to take from it all that they considered of value. As soon as they had recovered from the labour of the towing, preparations were made for a great feast. The glad news of the capture of this great store of food was somehow communicated to other parts of the island, apparently by means of columns of smoke, so that large bodies of savages gathered. The bodies of the Indians who had been killed on board the ship were almost all recovered, and the savages proceeded to build an enormous fire and to cook them. The amount that these cannibals were able to eat was most surprising, and by the end of the second day of the feast they were all in a comatose condition.

They had however, taken the precaution to secure Alcyone and his sailor companion before they went to sleep. They were kept strongly under guard, but were not otherwise ill-treated, and they were plentifully supplied with food in the shape of a coarse kind of yam. It was painfully evident to the captives that they were being reserved for another day’ s feasting, and they felt that their only hope of preserving their lives was to escape as soon as possible, and they agreed that they would never be likely to find a better opportunity than this time when all the savages were overcome with heavy sleep. An armed man was guarding the hut into which they had been thrown, but he also had eaten enormously, and they had good reason to hope that presently he might slumber like the rest.

Unfortunately they were securely bound, as indeed they had been ever since their capture, their bonds being partially relaxed for a few moments only when food was brought to them. Also they were naked, and entirely without weapons of any kind, everything having been torn away from them.

Alcyone cared little for his life now that his sons were dead, and had he been alone he would probably have made no effort to escape the impending fate; but when he said something of that sort to the sailor, the latter—though speaking very hesitatingly and respectfully—tried to cheer him up, and asked whether there were not other dear ones at home in India for whom it might be worth while to live. This reminded him of his father and mother, his wife and Mizar, and he thought how sad they would be if death overtook him, so for their sake he roused himself to listen to the plans which the sailor suggested. The first necessity was to get free somehow from their bonds, which were very painful, and it had to be done silently, as the guard was only a few feet from them. The sailor had various schemes, but they all involved springing upon the guard (unless he accommodatingly fell asleep), overpowering or even killing him, and then making a rush for the shore, and seizing the first boat that came in their way; for they agreed that escape inland was an impossibility, as they could never maintain themselves, nor hide themselves from the savages.

Before attempting a hazardous voyage in an open boat a store of provisions was absolutely necessary, and also plenty of water, but they had no idea where to find either of these things, and they were unlikely to have time to search for them. Anyhow the first point was to free themselves from the ropes. As the guard looked in upon them at frequent intervals, this was an undertaking of no slight difficulty. But presently these intervals became longer, and at last he was absent so long that the sailor set to work to gnaw at the rope that bound him to the wall of the hut. After incredible labour he succeeded in severing it; Alcyone tried to do the same, but could make little progress. The sailor then rolled over to him, and began to gnaw the cord which tied his hands. After a long time and much anxiety this effort was at last successful, though at the cost of great suffering to the sailor; then Alcyone set to work to untie the sailor’ s bonds, and as soon as that was achieved they were both quickly free, though their limbs were swollen and painful, and they could not use them easily.

After rubbing and chafing other a little they peeped cautiously out and saw the sentinel crouched in a heap just before the door of the hut, evidently fast asleep. No one else seemed to be moving, so with infinite caution, inch by inch, they glided past him, Alcyone picking up the spear which had fallen from his hand and lay beside him. The savages lay about round the ashes of their fires like the dead upon a battle-field and, so far as our adventurers could see, no watch was being kept. They could see nothing eatable anywhere, so they were compelled to enter a hut in search of provisions, and unfortunately in doing this they somehow awoke a woman, who at once raised a warning cry. Two men started up at the door of the hut, and barred their way, but they were still dazed with sleep, and before they could do anything effective Alcyone drove his spear into one of them, while the sailor sprang unarmed upon the other, bore him to the ground, and then stunned him with a blow from his own club. The woman’ s shouts, however, were awakening more savages, so our heroes started at full speed for the sea. Only one of the cannibals was in time to interpose himself between them and the object of their desires, and the sailors disposed of him with the club, which he still retained. They reached the shore, pushed off hurriedly the smallest of the canoes which they found drawn up on the beach, threw themselves into her, and commenced to paddle with feverish haste. A boat was put off after them, but they had a good start and both of them were expert rowers, so they were able to keep their distance until they got well out to sea. The pursuing boat persevered for some time; but presently, seeing that they did not gain upon the fugitives, the savages gave up the chase with a yell of disgust and hatred, and sent after them a final flight of arrows, one of which wounded the sailor in the leg.

The escape was thus an accomplished fact, but they were entirely without food and water, afloat on a great ocean in a small canoe, with no idea where or which way to steer. they knew only that India lay to the west of them, but they knew, also that it must be many hundreds of miles away, and that both wind and waves were carrying them decidedly eastward. they agreed that their only hope was speedily to reach some uninhabited island, for in this part of the world inhabitants meant cannibals. But meantime no island was in sight but that which they had left, to which they dared not return, and they were beginning already to suffer terribly from thirst. Seeing that fish seemed numerous the sailor lay in wait in the bows of the boat, and after several attempts succeeded in spearing one with the weapon which Alcyone had taken from the sentinel. He offered his prize respectfully to Alcyone, who however refused to touch it, as he had never in his life eaten any living creature. When convinced that he would on no account partake of it, the sailor himself devoured it raw.

Shortly afterwards he began to complain of acute shooting pains in his limbs, and of strange lassitude, and presently he laid down his paddle, and collapsed in the bottom of the boat. Alcyone was much concerned, but there was nothing that he could do, and in an hour or so the sailor was dead. Evidently the arrow which had wounded him was poisoned. Alcyone sorrowed greatly for the loss of one who, though so different in rank, had become really a friend in these few days of crowded adventure and excitement. The swollen and puffy body soon showed unmistakable signs that the soul had finally left it, so Alcyone had to throw it overboard, and it drifted in sight of him until it was torn to pieces by sharks.

Night fell, and the wind freshened, and he had great trouble in preventing the swamping of his canoe as the sea rose. Dawn came at last, and he was still afloat, and the sea had gone down somewhat, but his sufferings from thirst were horrible. The day wore slowly on, the wind remaining steady. The heat of the sun was intense, and though he relieved himself a little by constantly throwing water over his head and body he had a day of great misery. Night came again, and there was at last a coolness, and as the sea was quiet he had occasional snatches of sleep; but he was nevertheless weak and faint when the second morning dawned.

When the sun rose he saw a faint blur of land, ahead of him but to the south, and the sight revived him enough to induce him to make an effort to paddle in that direction. Again he suffered much from the fierce heat of the sun, and the violent exertion of incessant paddling under such conditions; but he did manage to draw steadily nearer to the goal, and at last, about three o’ clock in the afternoon, with a final struggle, he ran his canoe on the beach of a tiny island, and threw himself down on the sand.

After a short rest the remorseless glare of the sun forced him, exhausted as he was, to struggle to his feet again, and wander inland in search of water. This he did not at first find, but he saw a grove of coconut trees, and contrived to break open of the fallen fruit, and drank the contents. This refreshed him, and he made further investigations, first securing the boat by drawing it high on the shore, out of reach of the waves. He found a small spring and some fruit-trees—a kind of wild banana and some wood-apples; and he threw himself down in the shade b the spring, and slept the sleep of utter weariness. When he awoke the night had passed, and it was dawn once more. He felt much better, and started to make an exploration of his island. It was small, but thickly covered with trees, and it was dawn once more. He felt much better, and started to make an exploration of his island. It was small but thickly covered with trees, and there was a little spring of good water, so he thought himself fortunate, especially as it seemed to be entirely uninhabited.

He soon saw, however, that there was only enough fruit to support him for a few days, and he debated within himself what he should do. His nautical knowledge told him that India lay to the west, and that it was impossible to reach it, not only because of the great distance, but also because at this season of the year the prevailing wind and current were unfavourable. He could go only eastward, and he remembered vaguely that he had heard from sailor friends about these cannibal islands, and that they were much nearer to the east side of the bay than to the Indian coast. He did not in the least know how long it would take him to reach the mainland of the continent, so he felt that he must start as soon as he could, so that his provisions might, if possible, last through the voyage.

He determined to gather all the fruit, store it in his boat, and try to get off the following morning, thus making sure of one more good night’ s rest. He had the good fortune to find some yams, which added largely to his scanty store, so he finally decided to stay one more day in order to make a rough sail for his canoe by plaiting some palm-leaves. Being entirely naked he had of course no knife with him, but with great trouble he contrived to drag off a stick which would make an apology for a mast, and to tie it in its place in the canoe by knotted coconut fibres. His primitive sail had to be attached to the stick in the same manner, and the whole arrangement was absolutely insecure and unsatisfactory. But still he discovered by experiments that it would pull his canoe along as fast as he could paddle it, and that therefore as long as the wind remained light, it would at least save his arms, or slightly increase this speed. His most serious difficulty was that he had no vessel to carry water. The best that he could do seemed to be to take with him as large a number of cocoanuts as possible, but that number after all was only small, as the canoe was not built to carry much in the way of freight. He took with him then all the fruits and yams that he could find in his tiny territory, and added to this as large a heap of cocoanuts as he thought safe, weighing down his boat merely to the water’ s edge.

He started at daybreak the following morning and found that his sail acted on the whole better than he expected, but he was acutely conscious that at the first real puff of wind the whole thing would infallibly go over. He rowed for an hour or so at intervals, being exceedingly anxious to hasten the voyage as much as possible, and at the same time to economise his strength, because he knew neither how long it would last nor what kind of reception he would be likely to meet with at its end. During the day he made what he felt under the circumstances to be satisfactory progress, and the wind was so gentle and so steady that he was able to doze a good deal during the night. The next morning found him out of sight of his friendly little islet, and entirely alone in the centre of a vast horizon.

All day long he moved on, with little of incident to break the monotony, though his store of food and cocoanuts was diminishing with alarming rapidity. Three more days and nights passed without any change worth chronicling, and by this time he had little food or water left, but yet there was no sign of any sort that he was approaching the mainland.

During the next night he was dozing as usual when he was suddenly rudely awakened by the rough movement of the boat, and in a moment found his sail torn away from its mast and carried off into space. It was a squall which lasted only a few minutes, and was accompanied by a heavy shower of rain, but nevertheless it had robbed him at one stroke of his principal means of progression. He still rowed at intervals whenever he felt equal to it, but did not press himself greatly, as he had after all no certain knowledge of the directions in which he had to progress. The next day he suffered greatly fr om the sun’ s heat, from which on the previous day the sail had to a certain extent protected him, and as the days passed on, and food and drink entirely failed him, he sank into a sort of stupor of weakness. He was almost too apathetic to be despairing, but he had little hope to be of good cheer, since all his suffering was karmic, and he would certainly be saved in the end. This encouraged him greatly and gave him strength to bear up for two days more, and at the end of the end of that time he entirely lost consciousness.

When he recovered it to be found himself on board a small trading vessel in a sadly weak and emaciated condition, but still alive and able with great difficulty to move and to speak a little. None of the people of the ship spoke any language which she could understand, and he wondered much how he came to be there, as he found himself unable to recall anything of his past, nor did he even know for the time his own name. The sailors of the little vessel were kind to him in their rough way, and shared with him such coarse food as they had, so that he became slowly somewhat more like himself again, but still he could not recover his memory. The phenomenon was a curious one, for it seemed as though his astral and etheric bodies had been somehow dragged awry by the longcontinued suffering, and all his earnest efforts to remember were for the present unsuccessful. He could understand nothing that was said to him, and had to try to communicate with the kindly sailor by means of signs.

After some days they reached a port—a city of some importance, but the place was utterly strange to him, and everyone there spoke this language which he could not understand. The people were not Indians, but were apparently of some Mongoloid race, with a sprinkling of darker men who had probably some relics of Lemurian blood in their reins. He was distinctly therefore a stranger in a strange land, and though his good-natured sailor companions took him before some person who was evidently in authority, and seemed to be explaining his case, he was left quite in ignorance as to what they intended to do with him. It was evident that many questions were put to him, but he could only shake his head, and indeed he felt that even if the language had been intelligible to him he could have told practically nothing about himself.

He did not of course understand what was passing, but it afterwards transpired that he had been assigned practically as a kind of slave to a certain man who employed him to do light work in his fields. He did willingly enough such work as was assigned to him, feeling grateful for the food and lodging accorded to him, and realising that, unless he himself could remember something more clearly, he must just take anything which came in his way. To speak of his recovering his memory is perhaps too definite an expression, for he did not actually realise that he must have had a past, just as other people had, but it simply seemed to be missing.

Then it came to him suddenly in the middle of the night, as he was sleeping with other labourers in a kind of large hut or shed. He seemed to wake from sleep and see his father, and with that came a rush of recollection of his home and of all his previous life. He father spoke to him, adjuring him to return to his sorrowing family, telling him that he himself was growing old and surely needed his help.

Alcyone sprang to his feet and rushed to embrace his father, but of course found nothing in the spot where he had stood. He was intensely excited by this sudden recovery of memory, and was moat anxious to start at once for his home, but did not in acquaintance with the language of the people among whom he found himself made it practically impossible to explain to them so complicated and unusual a case. He could only assert clumsily and brokenly that he had seen his father, and must go.

It does not seem that any objection was offered to his departure either by his companions or employer, but he was confronted with serious difficulties in that he could not make himself understood, nor did he know to whom to apply for any sort of assistance. His knowledge of the geography of the country was limited. He realised that there was some kind of land connection somewhere to the north, and that it might be possible to return to India by that route but he knew nothing whatever as to the distance except that it must be great, nor had he any idea of the kind of country to be traversed, or by whom it was inhabited. He made his way from the inhabited. He made his way from the island farm at which he had been working back to the port once more, and there for some little time he made a precarious living by doing odd jobs in various ways connected with shipping. His idea was that, as he knew something of a sailor’ s work, he might possibly find a ship sailing to some Indian port, and might work his way at last to some place near home. He visited many ships, but found none that were going across the bay.

He encountered, however, one friendly captain who could speak a few words of his language, and consequently took a great interest in him, and tried to help him. To this man he told the outline of his story, and the captain assured him that he might have to wait for the years before he met with a vessel going to his own part of the world, which indeed was only vaguely known to the captain, by reputation. This new friend strongly advised him to take any vessel which he could find gong up the coast northward, to go wit it as far as it went, and then to leave it and try for another one which would take hi further along. In that way he said that by two or three stages he would certainly be able to get back to some port on the Indian peninsula, and might even meet eventually with a vessel which would touch at his own port.

He saw the wisdom of this advice, and when the captain further offered to come with him to act as interpreter for him and try to find him a berth on some ship that was northward bound, he fell in thankfully with the proposed arrangement. The captain was as good as his word, and he found him a berth upon a small trading vessel which, though in a slow and leisurely manner, carried him some hundreds of miles northwards. He left this craft at the northern extremity of her voyage, and contrived to ship himself upon another somewhat similar vessel bound still further north, and so in the course of a year he eventually got back to the mouths of the Ganges. When once more among people who spoke a variant of his language he felt himself not far from home, and with but little difficulty contrived to put himself on board a vessel which called at the port from which he had sailed on that disastrous voyage, now tree years ago.

His wife and family greeted the long-lost wanderer with the wildest demonstrations of joy; they had given him up for lost, but his father, Brihat, had always maintained that he was alive and well, and would return to them in due course, for he declared that on two occasions he had clearly seen him—once in a small open boat, apparently far out at sea, and on another occasion dressed as a labourer, and amidst a great number of other similar people lying sleeping in a kind of shed. After three years of such an entirely different existence it took him some time to accustom himself to the routine of the priestly work, but he was indeed glad to take it up again and to find himself once more among those who had so long mourned him as dead. The story of his adventures was soon noised abroad, and he had to tell his tale over many times to large numbers of enquires. No one knew what to make of the loss of memory, although there were some few who had vaguely heard of similar cases.

His extraordinary adventures made him a person of mark, and his great-grandchildren were never tired of making him repeat the story to them, the report of these adventures reached the ears of Orpheus, the ruler of that part of the country, and he sent for Alcyone in order to hear his account at first-hand. It impressed him greatly, and he decreed a pension to Alcyone as some sort of compensation for his sufferings The rest of his life seems to call for no special comment. His father Brihat died in 10,378, and he was appointed as his successor.

This naturally brought him into a continuous round of all the old temple ceremonies, and under these influences on several occasions the voice which had so often directed him during the earlier years was heard by him again, though it had apparently altogether abandoned him during the period of his adventures and for some years subsequently. It manifested in these later years only rarely, but among other things it foretold to him the exact day of his death, which took place in 10,356.

In 9686 Orion was born in a female body in China, but was drowned at the age of thirteen. The only other of our characters to appear at this time are Theseus, a little girl friend of Orion,, and Erato who was born nearly half a century later as the eldest daughter of Theseus; but Erato also passed away at the age of twelve. It is a little difficult to understand the object for which the two egos thus make a passing call upon the Turanian race; but evidently such a brief visit must have been in some way necessary for their evolution. One reason may have been that they were both needed in the following life in Poseidonis and that a small intermediate incarnation was necessary in each case to fill up the time.

…

Life XXXVI

Our story now carries us back again to the great Atlantic island of Poseidonis, for this time Alcyone took a male birth in the white race which inhabited its northern mountains. He was born in the year 9672 B.C., only a little before the final catastrophe which sank the land. The general condition of the country was one of great corruption, and the majority of the population, the dominant races which inhabited the plains, lived dissolute and selfish lives, which involved the practice of a large amount of black magic. In these northern mountains, however, patriarchal conditions existed, and life in general was of a much healthier type than that in the plains below.

The people had much less of the arts and refinements of civilisation,, but were certainly purer and nobler than those of the cities.

Some of the tribes inhabiting the various valleys of the great mountain range owed a nominal allegiance to the Toltec king below; others had independent rulers of their own. But in either case the owner of the valley was usually practically also its undisputed lord; for his allegiance was merely nominal, whether it was given to some monarch of his own fifth sub-race or to the Toltec sovereign.

Quarrels between the Toltec government and the mountaineers as to the payment of the amount of tribute were more or less constant.

Owing to the extreme difficulty of manoeuvring an army in such rugged country it was rarely worth while for the Toltec sovereign to try to enforce his claims; but now and then an army was sent out, and usually it succeeded in devastating one or two isolated valleys, massacring the male inhabitants and carrying off the women and cattle.

The father of Alcyone was Neptune, and his mother Herakles.

His elder sister Mercury became while quite young a postulant at a temple in the hills, and later was one of its priestesses; though this in no way interfered with her marriage and family life. All the younger children of the family adopted her, and she always gently protested, helped and taught them. The religion was a form of sun-worship, and all the great festivals were determined by the solistices and equinoxes. On the whole the life of these mountaineers seems to have been pure and healthy—a striking contrast to the utter corruption of the great cities of the plains. Neptune lived on his huge estate in truly patriarchal style; he practically owned a whole valley—for the land was all valleys divided by steep ridges. He had many dependants, but although they were respectful in a certain independent sort of way, they were really almost more like friends than servants.

We have here then a large group of people who lived happily together, and on the whole lived practically to themselves. They occasionally visited the men of neighbouring valleys and received visits from them, but these were always rather formal affairs, needing a good deal of preparation, because of the serious amount of climbing involved in crossing the intervening ridges. The character of the country was such that a detour of many miles was frequently necessary in order to reach a house which would have been less than a mile off if a tunnel could have which made through the hill. On the whole these valleys were fairly secure against attacks from below, unless a eat force was brought against them and an elaborate plan was made to close beforehand all means of escape.

They had books, but not many of them; there was much recitation of bardic poems and much telling of legends, of which Alcyone’ s mother, Herakles, had a wonderful collection—enough to make a modern folk-lorist green with envy. The people believed in naturespirits, and there were among them many who had seen them.

The conditions in some ways rather resembled those of which we hear in mediaeval England; all the weaving and spinning were done at home, and there seems to have been an immense amount of house and farm work. The housewives kept great stores of linen and herbs. The men seem mostly to have lived on horseback, using a kind of surefooted mountain pony, which looked somewhat mulelike. Many of these valleys were loosely joined under a chieftain, and some of these chieftains paid, as we have said, a nominal tribute to the Toltecs, though most of them were independent, and among these lost was the King to which this valley belonged. The Toltecs periodically attacked them, but rarely with success, because of the configuration of the country. Apart from the occasional menace of such attacks they lived peacefully and happily enough, with their harvest festivals and their festivals at the time of sowing the seed, at both of which races and athletic sports were prominent. These festivals were the great occasions of meeting between the people of the different valleys; and Neptune’ s men especially exchanged amenities with their nearest neighbours, the vassals of his brothers Naga and Yajna, who divided between them the next valley on one side, and those of Ivy, who dwelt in a little isolated basin far up the hills on the other. Their society was necessarily limited, but harmonious. Education was simply, and was chiefly given at home, for in most of the valleys there was nothing in the nature of a school.

Alcyone grew up happily, and was a strong and healthy boy.

He deeply admired his father and mother, but his love for his elder sister, Mercury, was the dominant factor in his early life. As a small boy he could not bear to be parted from her, and did nothing without consulting her; and indeed as long she lived she was the principal influence over him.

At a harvest festivity, when he was only ten years old, he first saw Vega, who was to be his future wife; he singled her out at once, and would play with no one else, and the small maiden, who was about his own age, was flattered by his attentions and reciprocated his affection. He never forgot her, though as he grew older he became more shy in expressing his sentiments. When she was sixteen she had grown unusually beautiful, and several suitors were already eagerly applying for her hand—among them Alcyone’ s elder brother, Albireo, who was the heir to the estate and therefore could offer a better position than Alcyone could as a younger son.

This troubled Alcyone greatly; he loved his brother and did not wish to stand in his way, nor to prevent Vega from becoming mistress of the whole valley, as she would eventually be if she married Albireo; and yet he felt that he could not give her up.

As usual he confided in Mercury, who sympathised deeply, and told him that the matter must be left to the decision of Vega, who might after all have a personal preference which could take no account of wealth in hand or in flocks and herds. Alcyone kept himself in the background, and gave Albireo every chance, and only when Vega had definitely refused the latter did he venture to offer himself as a substitute. Vega joyously accepted him, and they were married when they were just twenty, and lived the happiest of lives together. Albireo loyally accepted Vega’ s decision, though he suffered much at first. After some years, he consoled himself by marrying another lady, Concord, but they had no children, and a little later Albireo was killed in resisting one of the Toltec forays, so that after all Alcyone became the heir, and stood in the position of which he had feared that he was depriving her.

Alcyone and Vega had a large family—Sirius, the last and youngest of the flock, being born when Alcyone was already fiftyfour years of age. Just at that time Neptune died, and Alcyone inherited the vast estate, which he directed with much wisdom, for while he kept the headship of the valley, and decided all cases himself, he yet left the practical management of the land almost entirely in the hands of his younger brothers Psyche and Leo, who were in many ways better at details than he was himself. For thirtytwo years he held his position, hale, active and keen-sighted to the last, outliving most of his contemporaries.

The brothers who had assisted him so ably died long before him, but their place was filled by his eldest son Ulysses, who proved a most capable manager. Through all this time his life flowed on evenly, and on the whole happy, for the only variations were good harvests or bad harvests, fine years or stormy ones, with occasional rumours of Toltec raids. His children grew up and married, and he saw his grandchildren and even his great-grandchildren around him, and was always the best of friends and counsellors to all of them.

The great sorrows of his life were the deaths of Mercury and of Vega, the latter fortunately taking place only a little before his own.

The long dreaded Toltec invasion, of which they had been hearing for years as harrying distant valleys, finally descended upon them in the year 9586. Old as he was, Alcyone gathered his people, and rode at their head to meet the enemy. Owing to the superiority of their position, the mountaineers were able to hold back the Toltecs for two days, and to slaughter many of them; but reinforcements from the plains arrived, and Alcyone and his faithful followers were overwhelmed by numbers. He himself was killed, as were all the men and elder women of his tribe, while the younger women were carried into captivity down in the plains. Sirius, at that time thirty-two years of age, was one of the latter.

She was assigned to the harem of a rich Toltec, and plunged into a life of servitude of a most intolerable character. She suffered much, but tried to bear it philosophically, hoping always for some amelioration of her condition. About a month later, Orion, who had lived in an adjoining valley, was captured in the same way and was bought by the same man, and so she and Sirius met for the first time in that life. Orion was less philosophical; she was filled with indignation, and was all the while in a condition of passionate protest against all the outrages offered to her. By the end of a week she was half insane with the horror of it all, and in fact had already made two attempts at suicide. Sirius was filled with pity for her, and contrived to some extent to protect her and to make her lot more bearable. Naturally, all their hopes were centred upon escape, though it seemed entirely hopeless. Sirius at last conceived a plan which, though desperate enough, seemed not quite absolutely impossible. To get out of the house at all was their first great difficulty, but even if that were achieved their white skins would at once betray them as slaves, and they could not walk a hundred yards without the certainty of exposure and capture. Obviously, therefore, disguise was necessary, and Sirius contrived to obtain possession of some of the complexion paint which, being intended for a Toltec woman, gave the darker tint which would make the fugitives resemble the conquering race. One day Sirius contrived to purloin a suit of clothes which belonged to one of the male visitors.

Hurriedly she applied the paint to her face, hands and arms, and also carefully painted Orion. Then she put on the male garments, dressed Orion in some clothes of the Toltec women, made her veil herself thoroughly, and then took her boldly by the hand and made her way into the more public part of the house, mingling easily with the guests and quite naturally walking out of the house by the front door amidst bowing servants. This happy audacity carried them safely into the street as they were the appearance of a Toltec husband and wife no one interfered with them. They had, of course, no money, but Sirius had some trifling jewels, which she had from her, but she thought it no harm to steal them back again before she started. Selling these they obtained some money, and later on they gained some by selling their fashionable garments and changing into ordinary dress of the respectable working people of the country.

With all sorts of adventures and difficulties they made their way towards the hills where their home had been, and were very thankful when they came once more among people of their own race, even though these were only the tribes of the foot-hills, who had long been in subjection to the Toltec government. But at least among them they were able to wash off the horrible paint which it had cost them such ceaseless trouble to renew. To attain permanent safety they must either reach some part of the mountains where the people did not owe allegiance to the Toltecs, or they must take refuge in a nunnery; for when the country had yielded itself to the Toltec government a special stipulation had been made that there should be no interference with the religious institutions of the country, and that the right of sanctuary should still remain to these. As Orion was in weak and nervous state they were practically forced to the latter alternative, and accordingly they applied to Helios, the abbess of a great monastery which lay near their route. To her they revealed their entire history, and she at once took them in and assured them of her protection. Here they lived happily for many years, the only incident of adjoining monastery, to obtain mesmeric influence over Orion for improper purposes. This attempt was defeated by Sirius, and Scorpio’ s trickery was revealed to Helios, who had him sent away from the monastery.

The sinking of Poseidonis was foretold by the priests of the northern race, and, though many did not believe or pay any attention, there were also many who did. As the time approached, the abbess called her great army of nuns together, and dramatically described to them what was coming. She stated that as money would soon no longer be required, all the great wealth of the convent was at the disposal of those who wished to leave the country, and all were left perfectly free to do what they chose. For herself she cared little about life, and did not care to begin it all over again in a new place as she was too old, and so she intended to stay and perish with her country, upholding the flag of her order to the last. Sirius and Orion, full of affection for her, and fixed by her enthusiasm, resolved to stay with her, as did a good many of the nuns. More than half, however, took advantage of her offer, and eleven large ships were fitted out to convey them to other lands.

When the final destruction came the abbess called the nuns together and asked Orion, who was a fine musician, to play to them, to play as she had never played before. The nervous shrinking woman was absolutely transfigured; an ecstasy descended upon her and she swept the strings with a noble gesture and called forth such a volume of sound as no harp had ever before given. So tremendous was the power of that divine music that when the sea rushed in and swept all the nuns to destruction not a single cry was raised, for all were so rapt from the lower world that the passage into the next was unnoticed.

Another of our characters, Erato, also born in a female body among the mountains, had precisely the same experience of being captured and enslaved in the great city. In this case, however, the son Ursa of her owner Alastor fell in love with her and married her.

Though a self-indulgent man, no better than the rest in that dissolute era, he was good to his young wife in a careless sort of way, and she was grateful to him for having saved her from the ordinary lot of the slave. When the time of the cataclysm approached, she was warned of it by the priests of her own people, and she announced their prophesy to her husband. He ridiculed the idea, but as many others were escaping to them, telling her that she would come back in a year or two and find him living just the same life under the same conditions. She thanked him, telling he that she would come back in a year or two and find him living just the same life under the same conditions. She thanked him, but declined his offer, saying that if he intended to perish along with his country she thought it her duty to remain by his side. He was pleased with her decision, even though he had not the slightest expectation that anything would really happen. When the cataclysm came he acknowledged that she had been right, and regretted that he had not listened to her; but they died together by no means ignobly.

It would seem that with the life we come as far as Erato is concerned to the close of a minor cycle of soul-evolution ; in it we see the success of a kind of evolutionary experiment. In his earlier life in Chaldea he was thrown into surroundings which made a good life eminently probable for him. Born in the priestly caste, he encountered none but virtuous examples; virtue was universally expected of him, and in every way made easy for him. To have sinned seriously would have been difficult; it would have been to fly in the face of all comfortable conventions; it would have needed a determination in the direction of wickedness which our hero happily did not possess. So he succumbed to his fate, and was good. In the second life one may see the application of a test to the habit of goodness which had been set up in the previous incarnation. Here were circumstances distinctly less favourable than the Chaldean; would the ego prove strong enough to rise superior to them? He did; he came triumphantly through the ordeal, and thereby strengthened his character. In the third life a far harder test was applied, and he was plunged into the midst of a civilisation so unsatisfactory in every way that to lead a good life under the conditions would have been more difficult than to lead an evil one as a priest in Chaldea. He was not strong enough for this; he became the creature of his circumstances, and lived as did others around him. It may have been but natural for them, but for him it was a failure, for he had known something far better. Consequently, his next life shows a distinct drop. There was here a certain amount of physical suffering, which no doubt toughened his fibre even while it discharged some portion s of his heavy karmic debt. In the succeeding incarnation he had a great deal of emotional suffering. On the whole he bore it well and nobly, and came out of it purified and strengthened. The Peruvian life was clearly an opportunity for him to try his newly acquired powers under the most favourable auspices, thereby not only increasing them but setting up a habit of using them - creating a momentum along the line of good. When this had been accomplished, and when he had also achieved whatever result was expected from that quaint Chinese incarnation in which he did little more than leave his card on the Celestial Empire, back he came again to the very scene of the original failure in Poseidonis to try over again to the very scene of the original failure in Poseidonis to try over again that terrible test. But the intervening lives had not been spent in vain; they had done their work; this time he passed, and passed triumphantly, not only leading a good life in the midst of general iniquity, but even nobly sacrificing that life to an almost exaggerated sense of duty. Thus the object of the evolutionary forces was achieved and he was at liberty to pass on to the development of another side of his character.

Returning now to the valleys in which our story of this life opened, we find that Ulysses, the eldest son of Alcyone, though left for dead upon the field of battle, afterwards recovered and, gathering together a few men who had contrived to escape to the hills, attempted a partial restoration of the ravaged estates. All the cattle had been captured and all the crops destroyed, but he made a beginning again in a small way; and though he lived only for a few years, two of his children, Cetus and Pyx, whom he had hidden, carried on the work after his death, and had succeeded in bringing part of the estate once more under cultivation before the date of the sinking of the island. They were, however, among these who accepted the warning of the priests, and made their escape from Poseidonis in time to avoid to final catastrophe.

A considerable number of the children escaped the massacre.

Some, like Cetus and Pyx, were hidden in caves which the Toltec marauders never discovered; others were sent away when the first rumours of the inland valley, the very existence of which was unknown to the soldiers of the plains. It happened that some twenty years before. Alcyone had sent his nephew Fides on a mission to chief of that inland valley; and that chief, taking a great fancy to Fides, and seeing that he could be of great use to him and could teach his people much, had begged him to send for his family and settle there. This fides did, after obtaining permission from Alcyone; and so when wars and rumours of wars began to fill the air, a refuge among their own relations in that place of safety was ready for those children whose parents thought it wise to provide for them. Sirius, for example, made this arrangement for her two little daughters Ajax and Elsa, and consequently they grew up under the fostering care of Fides and Uranus, and in due course were happily married.

When the priests and astrologers of the white mountain race issued their warning of the impending destruction of the continent, Fides, though by that time an old man, gathered together those among his adopted people who wished to leave the country, and acted as leader of a considerable migration by sea to Northern

Africa. He was hospitably received there, and his followers were encouraged to settle among the Atlas Mountains, in a valley by no means unlike the home that they had left. There among the Kabyles some of their descendants are still to be found, though naturally there has been some of their descendants are still to be found, though naturally there has been some admixture of other blood during the millenniums that have passed. One of our characters, Spica, had the honour of being the first baby born in the new settlement, the very day after the caravan had ramped there; and Fides declared this to be a happy omen, and specially distinguished the newly born infant by conferring upon him the title of”father of the new land” and taking him under his special protection.

Life XXXVII

Whenever he is not drawn elsewhere by absolute necessities of service or of evolution, our hero here seems to gravitate naturally towards the great motherland of India. It is there that we find him reborn in 8775 B.C. at a place called Dorasamudra (now Halebida) north of Hassan in Mysore. His father was Proteus and his mother Mercury, a most saintly woman, of high reputation for wisdom. He received what was considered at the time a good education, which consisted chiefly in memorizing immense numbers of verses on any and every subject religion, legendary history and folklore, law, medicine, and even mathematics. His mother had a marvellous knowledge of all these matters, and her influence was of the greatest value to him in every way. There was a vast amount of unnecessary ceremonial, but the mother took an eminently common-sense view of all this, and constantly impressed upon him that a virtuous life was more important than a thousand ceremonies, and that truth, honour, and kindliness were the offerings must pleasing to the deity.

His father taught him a number of priestly invocations, into which he threw himself with great vigour, and was able to perform them effectively, really succeeding in obtaining a response from the various entities upon whom he called. His will-power as a boy was remarkable, though not always wisely exercised; for instance, he was once discovered in the act of tearing off a nail from one of his fingers just to see if he could bear it. Once again, as in Peru, he acquired a reputation for writing temple manuscripts, and also for the extraordinary number of verses that he knew in proportion to his age, the latter being of course due to the influence of his mother.

When he was about twenty he married Uranus, the daughter of another of the priests. Although there was not yet at this period and in this place exactly a Brahman caste, there was a priestly class which already tended somewhat to keep apart, so that it was natural that a priest’ s son should marry a priest’ s daughter, although he was in no way bound to do so. The father of Uranus was a priest of considerable position, but not quite equal in rank to Proteus, who was a man of great power because he was in charge of the principal temple, a magnificent polished stone building wit elaborate sculptures. The local Raja, Castor, attended and supported this temple, so that the position of Proteus as his spiritual adviser was one of great importance in the State. Castor owed allegiance to an overlord, Mars, who ruled a far larger kingdom, but he was practically independent, except as to foreign affairs.

Soon after the marriage of Alcyone a new factor was introduced into the case by the arrival from the north of Aries, a man with a great reputation as a magician—a reputation which was not altogether undeserved, for he really had studied deeply and acquired control over certain astral entities, and he also possessed a knowledge of some facts in chemistry and electricity, which enabled him to perform what to the men of those days seemed marvellous miracles. He had, too, some mesmeric power; and by the display of these various accomplishments he soon acquired complete ascendancy over Castor, and so became a formidable opponent to the orthodox Proteus, whose influence and prestige declined as that of the new man increased.

Aries did not in any way set himself in open opposition to Proteus, and he was not at heart a bad man, though it must be said that he took every opportunity to feather his own nest. Perhaps even more than by thought of gain, he was actuated by the love of power and by the pleasure which he felt in working his wonderful experiments, and seeing the profound impression which they forced upon the people. Proteus was, not unnaturally, a good deal annoyed at the falling off of his revenues and the decrease of his influence and he was thoroughly persuaded that the influence of Aries was entirely an evil one.

This condition of affairs went on for some years, the friction getting worse as time passed. Castor built a great temple for Aries, and the two cults may be said to have been in open rivalry. Proteus really believed Aries to be guilty of various objectionable forms of magic, and did not at al scruple to say so and this was partly responsible for the fact that Aries acquired a somewhat unenviable reputation, and though his undoubted powers were much admired, he was also a good deal feared. Castor caused some trouble to Aries by always insisting on partaking in his secret rites, trying always to understand the working of the various forces employed, and even to attempt new experiments of various kinds with them. As his own knowledge was after all somewhat limited, Aries was always distinctly nervous about these experiments, and eventually his fears were realised, as Castor contrived to get himself blown up and killed.

Of course Castor’ s death was supposed to be attributable entirely to magic, and Proteus, not unnaturally, made the most of this accident and charged his rival with having intentionally compassed the death of the King; indeed, there is no reason to doubt that he really believed this to be the case. Aries indignantly repudiated the charge, and declared that Castor had come by his end through disregarding his warnings, and provoking the wrath of his attendant spirits. This unfortunate occurrence exasperated the feeling between the two rival sects, and the leaders actually began to hate one another and to enter into plots against one another, each feeling himself inspired by the highest motives and doubtless believing that his rival’ s success would mean disaster of the State.

As Castor had no heir, the overlord Mars sent his own son Ulysses to fill the vacant throne, and the two sects immediately began to scheme for the support of this new King. The showy miracles of Aries carried the day, and Ulysses, who was exceedingly eager after phenomena of this kind, became a devoted disciple of the magician. The success of the rival galled Proteus greatly, and it was chiefly through disappointment and baffled rage that he fell ill and speedily died, though his followers with one accord attributed this entirely to the workings of magic by Aries. Whether there was any truth in their surmise it is difficult to say. There is no doubt that Aries, firmly convinced that Proteus was a dangerous man, employed mesmeric and elemental forces and accelerated his death. Alcyone, at any rate, believed this. Young as he was, he succeeded to his father’ s position as chief priest of the great temple, and he undoubtedly felt that in doing this he was taking up arms against Aries and his followers.

In the meantime the lot of Aries was by no means a happy one. His own immediate followers naturally accepted his statement as to the cause of Castor’ s death, but there was a good deal of doubt and suspicion among the majority of the populace, and people feared and distrusted him more than ever. Ulysses also gave him a good deal of trouble, though not quite in the same way as Castor had done it was not so much that Ulysses desired to perform all the experiments himself, as that he was constantly requiring to be entertained by new marvels, and would not believe when Aries told him that he had exhausted his repertoire. By this constant pressure Aries was forced into exhibiting experiments with which he was only imperfectly acquainted, gave rise to doubt in the King’ s mind.

To retrieve his position Aries employed all the magical arts which he knew, even some which were decidedly dark in complexion. By means such as these he wove kind of mesmeric spell round Ulysses, so that the latter eventually became a mere tool in his hands, and had scarcely any will of his own. But though in this way he had obtained complete ascendancy over the King, he was by no means free from trouble; in order to produce some of his effects he had resorted to trickery, and one of his subordinates, Scorpio, who knew of this, threatened to expose him to the King and the people, and so obtained a powerful influence over Aries, which he exercised mercilessly. Unfortunately his designs were more personal and less innocent than those of Aries, and the latter sometimes found himself involved in schemes which were intensely hateful to him.

Among these was a plot with many complications, an account of which is not essential to our story. One of its chief element however was that Aries (or rather the schemer behind him) was to gain possession of Mizar, a young brother of Alcyone, and push him into some of the mysteries of the darker cult. The plotters had contrived to obtain a certain hold over Mizar in consequence of some small youthful indiscretions of his which they threatened to expose, and he was besides, somewhat dazzled by the splendid prospects of success and power which they held out to him.

Mercury, however, was determined that no son of hers should fall under the their influence, and she strongly urged Alcyone to take a determined stand in the matter and to declare open war if necessary.

An appeal was made to Ulysses about the affair, and the case was so pressed upon him that, even though he was sunk into a kind of stupor under the constant obsession of some of the entities directed by Aries, he found it difficult not to give ear to Alcyone’ s representations. Aries, however, seeing his plans to be in some danger, appealed to the weak side of Ulysses by proposing a spectacular exhibition of magic, in which he undertook finally to overthrow Alcyone and dispose of his pretensions to knowledge.

Ulysses, who had a great love for theatrical display of any sort, immediately consented to this, as it had every appearance of fairness, and yet relieved him from the trouble of coming to a decision; so at an appointed time he summoned all the parties before him, and contrived what practically amounted to a public contest in magic before his assembled court.

It seemed a very unequal contest, for Aries was a man of great reputation, thoroughly well-equipped with a certain amount of science on the physical plane and also with capable co-adjucators on the astral—a man of commanding presence, hardly past the prime of life. Alcyone, on the other hand, was young and comparatively untried; he had none of the scientific knowledge, and his mantras, though effective in their way, were only of the orthodox kind. His will, however, was strong, and he was absolutely determined at all costs to save his brother. He took counsel with Mercury who urged him to undertake the struggle and promised him victory in spite of all appearances. The contrast between the two opponents was still further emphasised by the splendid robes in which Aries appeared, and the fact that he was surrounded by all his temple servants whereas Alcyone had simply presented himself unattended, and in the creamy white dress of a priest of his temple.

Ulysses was in his usual condition of partial obsession, and seemed somewhat dazed and hesitating in his speech, as he opened the proceedings by calling upon his friend and teacher Aries to state his case. Aries had had a tripod brought in, a sort of temporary altar, upon which he burnt great quantities of some special kind of incense, upon the stupefying effects of which he evidently calculated. He produced a number of his best miracles and worked up his auditors to a condition of great excitement and enthusiasm, though it must be admitted that some of them were also badly frightened. Finally he ended a long diatribe by calling Mizar out of the crowd of his followers to stand by his side, and asking him publicly to swear allegiance to him, which Mizar, being quite obviously under hypnotic influence, forthwith proceeded to do. Aries then called upon Ulysses and the courtiers present to witness this, and then, turning to where Alcyone was seated alone at the opposite side of the dais upon the upper part of which the King’ s throne was set, he projected all his mesmeric and magical force against him, and adjured him also to come over at his bidding and to be his slave. The stream of force poured upon him made Alcyone’ s head swim for a moment, but as his sight cleared he saw the face of his mother before him. He rose and said: “I come, but not as your slave!”

Bowing deeply before Ulysses, he strode across and confronted Aries, standing face to face with him, and challenging his mesmeric power. Aries raised his arm as though to curse him, and began rapidly uttering spells. Alcyone said nothing more; he spoke not a single word, but kept his burning eyes fixed upon those of Aries, and threw all the force of his will into a most determined resistance. For some minutes they stood thus facing each other amidst breathless silence. Then Alcyone became conscious that the power of Aries was failing, and with one great effort of will he raised his arm and, pointing straight at Aries, said with fell intensity: “May the power that thou hast misused depart from thee!”

Even as he uttered the words Aries, realising his defeat, fell to the ground insensibly. Then Alcyone turned his will on Ulysses, and called to him:

“O King, awake! Rise, shake off this evil power and defy the demons who have seized thee! Come forth from darkness to light!”

With a great start the King sprang to his feet and came down the steps until he faced Alcyone, and said: “What is this that you have done to me? A great change has come over me?”

Alcyone answered: “I have done nothing, O King; but the power of the deity has manifested itself, and thou hast been freed from the prison in which this man had immured thee.”

And Ulysses replied, speaking to his courtiers:

“Verily this which he says is true, for I feel as though I had escaped from some dark dungeon, and I know that whereas before I was bound, now I am free.”

Turning to Alcyone he continued: “You, who have done this great thing for me—I transfer to you by this act all the revenues of him whose wiles you have conquered, and I ask you to instruct me further in a magic so powerful as to defeat so easily the greatest magician whom I have known.”

“There is no magic here, O King,” replied Alcyone,” but that of a strong will, a pure heart and a sense of right; yet I thank thee for thy gift, and if it be thy will I will gladly help thee to undo the wrong that has been done. But first let me call my brother.”

With a look he called Mizar to his side. Mizar came willingly enough, for the fall of his quondam chief had caused a shock which had enabled him to throw off the hypnotic influence, and now he felt not the slightest attraction to the darker magic which before had meant so much to him. Now he too saw before, him the face of their mother. And he gladly attached himself to Alcyone, unable to comprehend how he could ever have even temporarily left him.

Ulysses dismissed the assembly and, calling Alcyone to him, began at once to arrange for a series of instructions from him. From that moment he transferred all his interest and support to the great temple over which Alcyone presided; and; with the advice of his mother, Alcyone was gradually able to lead him from love of magical phenomena to a consideration of the mighty truths of life and death and to inspire him with an earnest desire to set his feet on the path which leads to perfection. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy-madeby Mercury in the thirty - first life, five thousand years before.

Ulysses on his part felt strong affection and gratitude towards Alcyone, and conferred him with honours. Young as Alcyone was, this triumph made him practically the greatest power in the kingdom, for Aries eclipsed entirely and ceased to be a factor in public life.

Indeed, it would seem that his nerves were shattered, for he was no longer could command the entities with which he had formerly worked. His chemical and electrical knowledge appears largely to have abandoned him. It seems as though, in the tremendous effort of willpower, made on the occasion of the public test, something had snapped in his brain, so that ever after that his memory was defective and quite unreliable. Most of his fair-weather friends deserted him, and friends, who had now a complete revulsion of feeling, did not feel called upon to do anything for him, saying that he had already wasted over him a large proportion of his substance.

This partial occlusion of memory may be regarded as merciful, for his life would have been a miserable one if he had fully realised the change which had come over his fortunes; but the weakness in the brain increased as the years passed, and he eventually sank into an almost animal condition. Now that Ulysses accepted Alcyone as his adviser he also came much into contact with Mercury, and felt the deepest respect for her, and it was in reality owing to her intercession that a sort of small pension was eventually assigned to her intercession that s sort of small pension was eventually assigned to Aries, so that he was able to live out what remained of his life without actual anxiety as to food and lodging.

Ulysses sent to his father the Maharaja a highly coloured account of all that had occurred, which so interested Mars that he promptly ordered Ulysses to send both Alcyone and Mercury to his capital. The visit was duly paid, and Mars received them with great pomp, and after a series of interviews with them desired that Alcyone should settle in his capital, offering to put him in charge of one of the principal temples there. It was difficult to refuse this munificent offer; but, after long consultation with his mother, Alcyone respectfully begged to be allowed to return to his own temple, representing that he felt the carrying on of its work to be a duty which he owed to his dead father, and also urging his earnest desire to help and guide the Maharaja’ s son Ulysses, for whom he felt a serious responsibility. Mars regretted this decision, but yet eventually granted the request influenced thereto principally by the strong regard which he had for Mercury. The most intimate understanding seemed immediately to spring up between them, and though Mars would fain have had them both remain with him permanently, yet he would not oppose the clearly stated wish of the lady for whom he felt so deep a respect. In due course Mercury and Alcyone returned home, but from that time onward constant correspondence was kept up between the Maharaja and Mercury, and the Maharaja more than once visited Dorasamudra in order to see her.

Alcyone’ s influence over Ulysses was emphatically a good one, for without it the young ruler would certainly have fallen into dissolute ways. He had distinctly two sides to his character. Both of them exceedingly strong. His interest in occult powers and phenomena, and also in the progress of his people, was undoubtedly genuine and strong, yet at the same time there was a streak of sensuality in him which led him sometimes into reckless disregard of the rights of others and of the duties of his position.

Alcyone’ s advice and influence steadied him greatly, and much modified the occasional outbursts which occurred, so that on the whole the King was kept within reasonable bounds. The character of Ulysses changed greatly for the better under Alcyone’ s direction, and he formed and carried out many schemes for the good of his people, Alcyone and Mercury being always the force behind the throne in these matters, so that eventually this little kingdom became one of the most flourishing in the whole of the south of India.

Many years passed in this way, and in the fullness of time Mercury died, to the lasting sorrow of Alcyone and Ulysses. The Maharaja survived Mercury by a few years only, and then Ulysses was compelled to his turn repeated the offer which his father had made, begging Alcyone to go w ith him to the capital, and saying that as all that he had been able to do in Dorasamudra had been with the advice of and largely under the direction of Alcyone, he could not possibly take upon his shoulders the responsibility of this far larger work without the same help and guidance. Alcyone resisted this persuasion for a long time, but as his eldest son Siwa had now grown up and was not only well able to take charge of his temple, but also quite willing to undertake that responsibility. Alcyone at last yielded to the urgent solicitations of Ulysses, and they journeyed together to take up the new work. Alcyone was at last appointed as chief priest of the principal temple in the capital, a post which he filled with dignity and success; and although at every turn both he and the new Maharaja missed the sage counsel of Mercury, they were yet able to manage well by constantly applying the maxims which she had taught them.

His closeness to Alcyone remained until his death, in a position of great honour dignity and usefulness, in which he was succeeded by his brother Mizar yet in spite of all this he quite frequently had an irrational longing for the more active life of the world—a desire to go out with Ulysses in his occasional campaigns, and to live the life of a soldier rather than that of the priest and student. Nevertheless his life was on the whole a happy one, and one in which much good karma was unquestionably made. Finally he passed peacefully away at the age of eighty - three, leaving behind him a great reputation for wisdom and sanctity of life.

After Mizar’ s death, Alcyone’ s eldest son Siwa was invited to take charge of the Principal temple at the capital. He accepted, and brought with him his eldest son Brihat as assistant, leaving Alcyone’ s original temple in the hands of his second son, Naga, who with the help of his wife Herakles had already established for himself a great reputation for administrative ability.

Erato appears alone in Etruria in the year 8569. He is the daughter of well to do cultivators who live in homely but comfortable way. The girl shows her artistic taste in the skilful combination of colours in weaving and similar work, but there are no events of importance in this somewhat monotonous life.

Orion takes a female incarnation more than two hundred years later, in Etruria, not far from where Grosseto now stands. Her father Muni, is a man of substance, a rich merchant, though he also owns many vineyards. He is kind to his daughter in a general way, but distinctly puts his business as the first interest in life, and eventually sacrifices her to it, marrying her at the age of seventeen to Scorpio, a man of forty five who he thinks suitable for a business partner. Scorpio regarded the affair as merely a transaction which secured his entry into the firm, and both parties were well satisfied with their bargaain until the father discovered that his brilliant partner was swindling him and misappropriating large sums of money. A frious quarrel occurred, and the dashing partner left the house, of course carrying his wife with him, and set up an establishment of his own in another part of the city. In this new locality his neglected wife made acquaintance with Achilles, a presentable but penniless young man, and at once fell violently in love with him. After a time they eloped, and lived on odd jobs in great happiness and picturesque poverty. The injured husband was furious, and threatened condign vengeance, but Orion’s father chuckled over the misfortune of his former partner, and caused it to be publicly known that he would welcome his daughter and her lover if they would make his house their home. They accepted his offer, and Scorpio was more angry than ever; he was just taking the matter up in the most vindictive spirit when some further frauds of his on a still larger scale came to light, and he was banished from the country with forfeiture of his wealth and his rights as a citizen.

This set his wife legally free, and she was formally married to the man of her choice. Her father took her second into the business in place of the swindler. Aldeb was born to them as a son–a handsome, promising boy who, however, fell from the rocks and was drowned at the age of thirteen. Orion was frantic with grief, and refused to believe that the boy was dead, declaring that she would not submit to fate and would have her son back whether gods willed it or not. Life did gradually return to the frpstrate form, and

Life XXXVIII

Again we find ourselves in India, for Alcyone took birth this time in the Peshawar district, in the year 7852, in what appears to correspond to the Kshattriya caste, though it was then called “rajan”. I see evidence at this time of three castes only, brahman, rajan, and vis. They seem to have been originally clearly different races; the brahman was the almost unmixed Aryan, the rajan was the Aryan intermingled with the ancient ruling race of the Toltecs, and the vis was Aryan mixed with other Atlantean races, chiefly Mongolian and Tlavatli, with sometimes a certain intermixture of later Lemurian races. They were allowed at that time to intermarry among themselves, but not with any one outside of the three castes; and even already it was beginning to be thought more proper and fashionable to marry only in one’ s own caste.

Alcyone was the son of Aurora, a petty chieftain of considerable reputation as a warrior. His mother was Vajra, a brave and somewhat masculine woman. Fighting seems to be the only business of this caste, and it was most persistently pursued. There was a vast amount of apparently needless bloodshed. The part of the country in which we find ourselves was divided into a number of tiny principalities, and among these perpetual warfare went on. occasionally a stronger man appeared among the princes etc and conquered several others, and thus made himself overlord for a time ,but at his death his kingdom almost invariably broke up, and the same dreary cycle of ceaseless war repeated itself.

On the whole it affected the mass of the population much less than might have been expected. Trade and agriculture went on to a certain extent all the time, and only the professional soldiers fought as a rule,though of course no man’ s life was ever really safe. It was a very curious state of affairs, the people being in certain ways so highly civilised, and yet life being absolutely uncertain. There was no really settled law or order, but endless years of combat— constant sieges, constant expeditions. The Aryans were not yet settled—in fact, it may be said that the final immigration was still pressing on. by about 9700 B.C. the last Aryan inhabitant had withdrawn from the Central Asian kingdom round the Gobi Sea; but India was already settled and thickly populated, and these later bands were by no means welcome. For two thousand years they were held back in Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and most of them only gradually, individually, peaceably, made their way down to the plains. Sometimes, however, raids were made by organised bands, and occasionally also there was an incursion of Mongols of various kinds, who massacred everybody. Certainly, at this period, this was an uncomfortably turbulent part of the country. A large kingdom, such as I have described, had just recently broken up, and determined struggles for the overlordship were still going on.

The belief of the time was in some ways not quite the same as that in modern Hinduism. There was a trinity, but it was of Agni, Indra and Surya, and the higher idea of Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma had not yet been reached or known. Sacrifices on a large scale were painfully common, and the Ashwamedha or horse sacrifice was highly esteemed. It was even said that a hundred such sacrifices would make a man higher than Indra.

Alcyone and his father and mother were in close association with a Brahman family who had a great influence over his life. The heads of this family were Saturn and his wife Mercury; their sons were Brihat and Naga, and Neptune, Orpheus and Uranus were their daughters. The close friendship of this family formed the one redeeming feature of this life; otherwise, however necessary it may have been for the evolution of the ego, it is not one that we can find much pleasure in contemplating. It will be recollected that in the previous birth Alcyone, though enjoying a wide influence as a spiritual teacher, used sometimes to yearn for the more active life of the soldier; probably this incarnation was a direct response to those desires, given in order to cure the ego once and for all of such dissatisfaction, by offering him his fill of the ephemeral glory of the battle-field.

He began with some little enthusiasm for the military life, but soon sickened of it, and when the reaction set in he would have been glad to return to that with which eight hundred years before he had not been fully content. Even when still quite a young man, he felt that he had had enough of this ceaseless slaughter; he was a brave and capable man, but he lacked the ruthlessness which is necessary for the great military leaders; he was too full of sympathy for the wounded and the suffering, whether they were on his side or that of his enemies. He expressed something of this to his mother, but she checked his further confidence by treating his scruples as effeminate; so he turned to his friends and companions Brihat and Naga, who, being Brahmans, fully, sympathised with his feelings as to the usefulness and wickedness of all this organised murder.

Brihat took him to his mother Mercury, who was always affectionate and wise in counsel, and he had a series of long talks with her. She did not make the mistake of discouraging or ridiculing him, but admitted at once that his attitude was a reasonable one, and indeed agreed entirely with her own ; but she pointed out to him that he had been born in the rajan caste, not by chance but as the result of some previous thought or action, and her opinion was that, distasteful as it all was to him, he should yet uphold the traditional honour of his house, and fulfil the duties of his position until such time as the gods should see fit to release him from it, as they easily could if they chose; and she believed and hoped that they would do so when they saw that the time had come.

So he went on through many years of all sorts of stormy, horrible, impossible scenes, always tired of it all and yearning for a life of learning and meditation, till at last at the age of fifty he lost his right arm in a battle, and was in other ways so crippled as to render further fighting impossible. When he recovered, at the earnest invitation of Mercury and Brihat he took up his abode with them, and may be said to have passed practically into the Brahman caste—a change which was quite possible in those days. Thus began the really happy period of his life, and he felt rather thankful than otherwise for the accident which had forced him into retirement from the field. His experience of the soldier’ s life had bred a permanent distaste for it, so that he never wished for it again in any future life, and though sometimes, when he had to do it as a matter of duty he did it bravely and honourably, he never again felt any delight in it.

His attachment to Mercury was specially strong, and when she died he mourned her long and sincerely. He remained with Brihat and Naga, taking part in the temple ceremonies(though apparently there some form which his crippled condition was considered to debar him), and studying with keen interest such philosophy as was available, till in 7774, when he had already reached the age of seventy-eight, the Tarters once more descended upon his district, dealing death and destruction everywhere. Against a fee, so barbaric as this Alcyone felt it right to fight, and when after many days of siege and the most awful massacres it seemed certain that the town must soon fall into the hands of these savage marauders, he went to the fort and, old and crippled though he was, offered himself to share the fate of his old comrades in arms, and die—since all must die—fighting as well as a man in his condition could. When, however, the fort was captured and destruction certain, the rajans saved themselves from the disgrace of defeat by simultaneous suicide, and it was thus Alcyone died. His sons Percy and Mizar both perished with him.

Laxa appears about 7500 B.C. in Chaldea, while Rhea appears in Turkestan. About 300 years later Vale also appears in Turkestan; and five or six hundred years later Calyx and Amal are noted in Assyria.

Erato takes birth in Japan in a female body in the year 7457. Her life is uneventful, but her artistic faculties show themselves in her skill in painting upon silk. Her talent is employed to produce decorative hangings for the temples.

Life XXXIX

As our hero had now had seven successive lives in male bodies, a change of sex takes place. We find Alcyone born this time in the year 6986 B.C. in the mighty kingdom of Egypt. Her name was Sebek-neferu-ra, and her father Sirius was the governor of a province and a man of importance in the country; he was of an old family, and stood high at Court and in the confidence of the Pharaoh, Mars, whose son Herakles was all his life his closest friend. Indeed, upon the death of Lutea, to whom Herakles had been married in his youth, it was Naga, the elder sister of his bosom friend Sirius, whom the heir to the throne chose as his second wife. Thus in due course of time Naga became Queen of Egypt, and Sirius and Alcyone thus found themselves in very close association with the throne. Alcyone’ s mother, Ursa was a white woman—the daughter of a chieftain near the Atlas Mountains; but as he had been only a semi-civilised person no reference was usually made to this side of her ancestry.

Ursa was only tepidly affectionate to Alcyone, because she had hoped for a son, and was much disappointed; but the father loved the child dearly. When a son (Egeria) arrived eighteen months later, the mother was entirely wrapped up in him and therefore neglected the daughter somewhat; but the father and the daughter were only drawn the closer together by that. Ursa was very imperious and impulsive, but was evidently trying hard to control and improve herself. Sirius, on the other hand, was quiet and steadygoing.

The girl Alcyone was well-educated; she had a keen brain and was affectionate, sensitive and observant, but very shy and in certain ways timid. As she grew up the father had her much with him; she asked to be used as a secretary, and he found her really valuable in that capacity. When she was fifteen he had a tiresome illness, but she carried on most of the work very efficiently, deciding wisely, even when he was too ill to be consulted, and acting boldly in his name. She declined, however, to use the death-penalty under any circumstances, although she exercised all the other powers of jurisdiction which belonged to her father, using his official seal.

Sirius, when he recovered, confirmed all her decisions where that was necessary, and applauded her actions. Two years later, her mother died after a lingering illness and much terrible suffering.

Alcyone waited upon her and looked after her devotedly, while the son Egeria for whose sake Ursa had neglected her daughter, spent most of the time elsewhere and came to see his mother but rarely.

During this final illness, Ursa recognised that she had not done full justice to Alcyone, and had been somewhat blinded by the intensity of her affection for her son.

A young man of her own rank presently sought Alcyone’ s hand in marriage; she was not averse to him, but she felt that she could not bear to leave her father, and Sirius on his side also felt that life would be empty without her. Still he urged her to accept the young man, as he seemed eligible and honestly in love. She obediently did so, and on the whole her married life was happy, though she always looked back upon her childhood as an ideal time.

The religions ceremonies of the period impressed her deeply, and seemed absolutely real to her while they lasted. The ornate ritual of Egypt, the splendid processions down the Nile, the hymns and dances in honour of the gods and goddesses, the magic that was worked by the priests, and the occasional materialisations of the deities—all these things had a profound effect upon her feelings, and played a large part in her life.

She had eleven children, to whom she was deeply devoted; they were all handsome, and made a beautiful picture when they were gathered round her. She lived chiefly for them, and she regarded social functions as tiresome because they took her away from children, although she played her part as a grand lady when necessary, and was just and generous to those dependent on her.

As she was beautiful, several lovers made advances of various kinds to her, but she invariably rejected them, and remained faithful to her husband.

One day an old man, Thetis, turned up—a travelling merchant, who had known something of her mother’ s early history, which had not been free from blame. Ursa had been an impulsive and headstrong girl; she had refused to accept a husband whom her father had designated for her, and had run off instead with another man. Her chosen bridegroom, unfortunately, turned out to be a worthless fellow who was already married, and he eventually abandoned her. Now this villain Thetis, discovering from gossip Alcyone’ s position, threatened her with the exposure of all this history. Alcyone, being proud with regard to this, and not knowing how her husband would take an exposure (he being a conventional type of man) in a weak moment agreed to pay money to this blackmailer, and therefore fell into his power. He was so mercilessly rapacious that she had to sell jewels to satisfy him.

However, one of her sons, Helios, a boy of fourteen, accidentally overheard one of her conversations with this extortioner, and, stung by a rude remark of th e blackmailer, sprang out upon him and killed him. The mother was much shocked and startled, though of course from one point of view relieved also.

There was great trouble as to the disposal of the body, and mother and son finally conveyed it by night to the river. The dread of discovery weighed heavily for some time upon Alcyone’ s heart, though, apparently, not at all upon her son’ s. Nothing further was heard of the affair, for the blackmailer’ s body was not found, and he was supposed to have travelled away again, as usual.

When Alcyone was thirty-seven years of age her father, Sirius, died. The loss was a great grief to her; indeed, a child about to be born then died in consequence. One of her other children, however, proved to be mediumistic, and could see and speak to the dead father, and this brought great consolation to Alcyone. Through this child (Demeter) Sirius was able to give her much good advice, and to reconcile her to his absence from the physical plane. During physical life he had been much interested in the service of the temple and its magic. And he had often conversed with her about such matters as he was allowed to share with her. Even after his death they still spoke of these things. Her husband, however, did not understand them or care for them, though he was usually king and proud of his wife. He was a successful man, and had considerable influence; his ideas were more worldly and less religious than his wife’ s, though he often deferred to her judgement about certain matters, and seemed to think that she might have some sort of inspiration.

No very conspicuous events were noticed as occurring in this incarnation; she met the ordinary joys and sorrows of life, but acted nobly and steadfastly a part which was not without its difficulties.

She avoided all the little plots and conspiracies, political and social, which were so common at the time, and she attained a position of consideration and respect through a straightforward simple reliability. She lived to the age of seventy- seven, the head of quite a clan of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, retaining her faculties and power of affection to the last. Her husband had died some years before.

It would seem that, just as the dissatisfaction with life as a Brahman brought Alcyone into a life of constant fighting, so his intense disgust with the unreasonableness and uselessness of that constant fighting brought him (or rather her) into what was on the whole a placid and comparatively eventless home-life. So true is it that strong desires being about their own fulfilment.

It was in this life that Neptune and Athena crossed the sea to Greece in order to attend the Mahaguru in His wandering incarnation as Orpheus, in which He preached the Law to the Greeks through the medium of his glorious music.

In 6758 Orion took birth among the Tartars, as the daughter of one of the prominent members of a nomad tribe. There were some one of the prominent members of a nomad tribe. There were some unfortunate passages in her early life, but she eventually married Cygnus. Her early experiences gave her an especial sympathy for the unfortunate, and she therefore championed the cause of Cancer, who had been ruined by Aglaia, the son of the chief. She attempted at first to influence him by the occult arts to marry Cancer, but as this failed she went boldly to him and made a direct appeal. Aglaia admitted his responsibility, made a handsome provision for Cancer, but arranged a marriage for her in a neighbouring tribe. Orion was a good and careful mother to her children, and finally achieved a good position for all of them, though only at the cost of long-continued self-sacrifice, which so overtasked her strength that she passed away at the age of fifty-two.

We have one of the happiest lives with which we have met during our investigations a life i n a highly developed yet distinctly spiritual civilisation; for by the efforts of a group of our characters the best traditions of Manoa were revived in a kingdom in Central India, a curious dual kingdom, the two parts of which were, at the period of the opening of our story, under the control of Ajax and Fomal respectively. These two rulers belonged to the same subdivision of the race–a haughty Aryan tribe called Saraswati from the far north, a handsome and usually light coloured people; but a dispute had grown up between their forefathers about the delimitation of the frontier, and there had been a certain amount of ill-feeling, which these two wisely determined to end once for all by making the strongest possible offensive alliance, in order that they might present a united front to the non-Aryan tribes of the neighbourhood. Each had a son and a daughter, and it was resolved that these should marry, and even that their offspring in turn should intermarry as far as possible.

When thus combined, the twin kingdoms were too strong to fear attack from any of the neighbouring potentates, so that an era of unexampled peace and prosperity set in, during which arts of all kings flourished, and a high level of material progress was attained, of which the Powers behind took advantage to raise the spiritual tone of the race by a sort of religious revival–for the purposes of which, no doubt, the members of our group were brought into incarnation at this place and time.

In course of time Ajax and Fomal were gathered to t heir father, and Herakles and Athena reigned in their places. Round them grew up strong and sturdy children, who as they came of age fell in love and intermarried naturally enough, needing therefore little stimulous from the agreement made by their grandparents, for they were all friends of long ago, closely akin for thousands of years, instinctively recognising their affinity at first sight, just as many of them do in this present life.

From an early age, the royal children were trained in the art of government, much as in the eighteenth life; and as each came of age he was set to practice what he had learnt, being appointed to some Governership–in a small town first usually, then in a larger town, and then in a province. For it was part of the theory of Herakles to awaken strong personal loyalty by bringing members of the royal family into direct touch with as many of the people as possible.

The religion of the period differed from any that we have previously observed in India, in that the whole of the worship was directed exclusively to a goddess, instead of to any of the Persons of the Trinity. This goddess was not of the murderous variety, like Kali, but a beneficent being called Uma Himavati, or often Uma Mai–a kind of earth -mother like Ceres, who was supposed to give good harvests to her votaries.

But from this exclusive worship of a goddess came the curious fact that at the temples there were no priests, but only priestesses. As the people were Brahmans, each man performed his own household ceremonies; but as far as the outer public worship went, it was supposed that Uma Mai would be served by own sex only. This gave the women a unique position and power in this civilisation; especially as it was of the essence of the faith that the goddess frequently inspired her priestesses, and spoke through them to her devotees. As a matter of fact there was a good deal of inspiration, but it chiefly came from Mahaguru, who was making use of this peculiar arrangement to bring about religious reform on a large scale.

The wives of these royal Governors were ex officio the Chief Priestesses of their respective provinces; and naturally the elder sisters Jupiter and Mercury, who had married the two heir-apparent, took the principal position. But after his eldest daughter Mercury, and his heir Mars, came in the family of Herakles the twin sisters Naga and Yajna, who speedily became celebrated for the frequency and accuracy of their inspirations, so that people came from a great distance to consult them. These twins, though bound together by the strongest ties of affection, differed so greatly in disposition that their views on any subject were usually wide apart–yet not so much divergent as complimentary. As their husbands Sirius and Leo held offices which obliged them to keep in constant touch with each other, these ladies worked together at the same temple, and it became their custom both to speak on the same subject from their different points of view. Yajna was full of questions, seeking to define everything by analysis and by differentiating it from other things, and appealing chiefly to the intellect of her audience, while Naga took always the synthetical view, sought to understand everything as an expression of the Divine Love, and appealed always to the higher emotions and to the intuition, which she called the voice of the goddess within the heart of man.

So these two superbly handsome women presented always the two sides of any subject, yet without the least feeling of opposition or disputation, each understanding perfectly the position of the other, for the inspiration of both came from the same source–limitless wisdom and love of the Mahaguru. Naturally their husbands were intensely proud of them, and they were all exceedingly happy together.

The husbands joined their forces to build upon the slope of a hill just above their town a magnificent temple for their wives–a temple on so grand a scale and with such splendid decorations that it was regarded as one of the finest in India, and soon became a goal for pilgrim age from distant parts of the country. Its consecration was a wonderful ceremony, for the Mahaguru Himself overshadowed Naga, and delivered through her a sermon so exquisite that all who heard it were profoundly touched and impressed, and great permanent effects were produced.

Not only did many of the audience devote themselves thence forward entirely to the religious life, but a distinctly higher moral tone was introduced into the daily life of the town and district. The building so auspiciously inaugurated was known as the Temple of the Twin Sisters, and it remained as a venerated shrine for many centuries.

The tie between Sirius and his wife was peculiarly close, and their affection unusually strong; they understood each other thoroughly, and thought - transference between them was by no means uncommon. On one occasion, when there was war with a southern kingdom, and Sirius was away fighting, Naga and Yajna were sitting together in earnest conversation in the house of the former. Suddenly Sirius walked in at the door, approached them with a radiant smile, and -vanished! The ladies were greatly startled, and Yajna cried: “O my poor sisters, he must be killed! It is only at the moment of death that men come like that.”

Naga was troubled at the saying, yet she replied, “I do-not think he is dead; I am sure he is not, for I should know inside it he were.”

She clung to this faith, even though presently news came from the seat of war that he was missing, and even an account from one who had seen him struck down, apparently at the very hour when he had appeared to her. But still she trusted to her inner conviction; still she affirmed, “My husband is not dead; we shall hear from him some day.”

Surely enough, her confidence was justified, for after a long time came a letter from him telling her how he had been severely wounded, and how at the very moment of falling his one thought had been of her, and he had seen her and her twin sister, looking at him in glad surprise; but as he advanced to speak to them, they somehow vanished, and he sank into unconsciousness.

When he came to himself again, he found himself a prisoner with Egeria, one of his captains; and he went on to say how Egeria had nursed him until he was strong again, and how they had then contrived to esca pe and rejoin the Army, which was now entirely victorious. Naga rejoiced greatly over the news, and still more when, a few weeks later, her husband was once more with her, strong, active, loving as ever.

In course of time Mars and Saturn succeeded Herakles and Athena. Still the covenant of Ajax and Fomal was religiously carried out, and the eldest son of each house married the eldest daughter of the other, and since all of them were intimate friends from of old, the arrangement always worked well. Thus Mizar, the eldest son of Mars, married Fides, and his sister Rama was joined to Brihat, and the destinies of those favoured kingdoms remained for many years in the hands of our band of Servers. Naga’s Eldest daughter Selene, and Yajna’s second daughter Euphra proved specially responsive to the influence of the Mahaguru, and so were able to take the place of their mothers when the latter grew older. The twin sisters and their husbands lived to a great age, and showed forth to the last the strong affection which had been the key-note of their lives. This was a life of great happiness for all concerned in it, of high aspiration nobly realised; for under the inspiration of the Mahaguru, the ruling families of whom we have written, set themselves to elevate the thought and life of a nation; and to a great extent that effort succeeded.

Life XL

After a period of nearly a thousand years, Alcyone appeared again in 5964 B.C. as a girl in a Brahman family at a small place called Atmapura, near Ujjain, in a kingdom called Malwa. Her father had a wide reputation as an astrologer, and many people came even from great distances to consult him. He appeared to have made a large percentage of successes, and on the whole he seems to have given good advice; but he was exceedingly imperious and tyrannical, and it any person once neglected any advice of his he would never receive him again, no matter how high a fee he might offer. He amassed much money, but was charitable with it—not a bad man, but a fanatic and difficult to get on with, because he would regulate every detail of his life and everybody else’ s by astrology.

On some day his household had no food during the whole day, because the influence were not favourable for cooking; at other times they were roused in the middle of the night, because of some evil stellar aspect, whose dire results could be averted only by prayers and ceremonies. He cast horoscopes for his children, and expected them to live up to them, which sometimes proved trying.

He decreed that our heroine was born to a life of tremendous religious austerities, in order to atone for some supposed crime of the past, and also (in some way which was not clearly formulated in his mind) to win thereby the favour of the gods for the country, and prepare for a vaguely glorious future.

The child honestly tried to appreciate a life of incessant prayer and semi-starvation, but found it difficult, and sometimes yearned to be without a mission, just found it difficult, and sometimes yearned to be without a mission, just like ordinary children. At other times, however, she quite believed her father’ s prophesies and entered into his enthusiasm, and there were occasions on which she was psychically sensitive and had gorgeous visions, and for the time those seemed to make up for every-thing. Still she was physically weak; and when she was about seventeen, during a seven days fast she caught fever and died. Her father was sorry, but I think even more indignant at the failure of his prophesies.

A curious little life, this, bearing no visible relation to those which preceded and followed it. it must have worked out a good deal of bad karma, but its principal use was probably as stop-gap. A period of nearly a thousand years had passed since the last life, and as that last life was not in any way highly distinguished, it may well be that the spiritual force generated could not readily be extended to cover a longer time. She was needed in Kathiawar three hundred years later to meet the group to which she belongs, and this quaint little intermediate incarnation, with the heaven-life which it earned, just carried her over to the required time. Her relations with the astrologer-father were probably the conclusion of some piece of karma, for they have not come into contact since; nor will they in this life, as the astrologer passed away from among us before Alcyone’ s birth.

In Mongolia about 5900 Castor and Laxa were brrother and sister. Nu and Sxorpio also appeared with them.

Erato takes birth in the year 5879 in a large city not far above the apex of the delta of the Nile. His father Zeno held the office of architect of the royal domains, and naturally the young Erato grew up to take a great interest in such work, and to do a little modelling in private on his own account. His father desired him to join the army, which he obediently did, though he had no interest in military matters, and cared only for art.After taking part in one of the great expeditions sent by the Pharaoh into Arabia and Syria he left the army and settled down in life as a sculptor. Soon after this he married Melete, and one of his works was a fine group of Isis and Horus, for which his wife and his first-born son were the models. At his father’s death he took over his office, but continued his work as a sculptor. Among other things he porduced the celebrated statuette of the Scribe, which is now to be seen in the Louvre. His wife died before him, and his last work was a statue of her, after finishing which he peacefully passed away.

Life XLI

After a short life spent in solitude, quite apart from her usual friends. Alcyone this time returned to the bosom of her group—to the very heart of it. Indeed, for once more she sat at the feet of Mercury, once more she married Mizar, and for the second time in the recorded lives she and Sirius were twins. They were born in the year 5635 at Girnar, in Kathiawar, and were the children o f the local Raja, Corona. Alcyone had an extraordinary sympathy with her twin brother, always knew what was happening to him, and could sometimes foretell things about him, and could sometimes foretell things about him. When quite a little boy, Sirius once had a fall from his horse, struck his head and was insensible for a few minutes. At the same moment, at home, some miles away, Chandrakirti (Alcyone) cried,”Oh, he is falling,”and herself fell in a faint. Again one day he was lost for a time, and his mother Leo was very anxious, because there was a suspicion that he had fallen down a well, and the mother began reproaching his attendant for not taking proper care of him. The little sister, however, lisped: “It is all right, mother, you need not scold Biru. My brother is on the mountain, and he is very tired. I am also just as tired, and as soon as he comes in we shall both go to bed; but he is quite safe.”

The twins were always both ill together and recovered together, and they seemed each to know what the other was thinking—or still more they seemed to think together, always liking the same people and things. Perhaps as they grew up the rapport was not quite so perfect in every detail; they still had the same thoughts, but one would emphasize some of them more than the other did. It was commonly said by the people that they had only one soul between them, though in reality they had evolved along quite different lines. They were exceedingly alike physically, except that the brother was a little taller; and one of Alcyone’ s great jokes was to dress in brother’ s clothes and see for how long she could deceive his servants into believing her to be their young master; and her aptitude was so great that she succeeded in this about nine times out of ten, and even several times went out for long rides with his grooms and attendants without being discovered.

Their characteristics, however, were decidedly different; the brother was slower and steadier, while the sister was brilliant but impulsive, and sometimes choleric and impatient. She insisted on being educated with him—on learning everything that he learnt, and so acquired a set of accomplishments somewhat unusual for an Indian girl. When, at the age of fourteen, he had his first experience of going to battle, she demanded to be allowed to go too. Naturally their father would not permit this, and even Sirius, in all the pride of his new armour, said that it was not proper for a girl to fight, and, much more, that he could not fight well himself if he knew that his dear sister was in danger.

She was indignant, and went and shut herself up in her room in high dudgeon; privately, however, she had determined to go in spite of them all, and go she did, disguised in the dress of a boy, Mizar (the son of Andromeda, a prominent noble at the Court) who was desperately but hopelessly in love with her, and so would do anything for her. He had been a play-fellow of the twins, and had long worshipped the small Alcyone, without daring to aspire to the hand of the daughter of the King.

When Alcyone found herself in the battle she was distinctly nervous, but she kept as close to her brother as she could, and had the good fortune to be able to save his life, for while he was fighting with one man, another rushed at him from behind. Alcyone saw this, flung herself between them with a shout, and contrived in doing so to throw the assailant off his feet, though she too fell, entangled with him. In a moment he was on his feet again, with spear uplifted to kill her, but Sirius had recognised her voice as he was in the act of killing his previous antagonist. He swept round like lightning, and with the same swing of his sword cut off the arm which held the spear, but only just in time. Then he appointed some of his men to guard his sister, finished the battle ( which he won) and rode home in triumph with her beside him.

He could not chide her for her presence, because after all she had saved his life, as he had saved hers, but he made her promise not to do it again by describing in her what a terrible shock it was to him when he heard her voice again and realised that she was in danger, and how it took the strength from his arm and from his heart—though, as she instantly remarked,”enough of it seems to have remained to cut off a man’ s arm”. However, she kept her promise, and after this she never went into battle with him again.

Though all such times were occasions of much greater agony for her than if she had actually been with him, for she seemed to sense whenever danger approached him, and she felt acutely that this time she was not there physically to ward it off.

When the time came for her marriage there was an eligible offer from the son of a neighbouring Raja, but she absolutely refused to leave her brother. Her father was annoyed, but Sirius joined his pleadings to hers, and eventually a compromise was arranged. The suitor was refused, but on condition that Alcyone should marry Mizar, the eldest son of an important noble of the Court. Naturally he was overjoyed, and Alcyone was well content, for she had stipulated that her husband should come and live in a wing of the palace, so that she might not be seperated from her brother. Cygnus, a younger brother of Mizar, was also hopelessly in love with Alcyone, and devoted his life to her service, remaining unmarried until her death; but afterwards he married Egeria.

A few years later Sirius himself married, but fortunately Alcyone approved of the bride (Orion) who came all the way from Amer, in the Jaipur State. The years which followed were on the whole very happy ones, though Alcyone had anxieties when her husband and her brother were away fighting. Presently, the Raja (Corona) died, and Sirius became King, and was more than ever involved in affairs of State. Orion and Alcyone became bosom friends and were together; they were commonly called the two Queens.

Both felt a strong attraction for the wonderful temple on the great hill which towers above Girnar. It was—and is truly marvellous building, like a vast mediaeval castle of marble, court opening out of court, and hall out of hall, in bewildering confusion, with matchless carvings and lovely traceries on every hand. It was built on the side of a steep mountain, and the only entrance to it was through a single narrow gateway in a rugged picturesque gorge. So sharp were the slopes that hardly two of its halls were on the same level, and when one looked down upon the huge building from the neighbouring summit, it had a curious effect of a forest of gleaming white marble domes, growing precariously up and down half-a-mile of steep hillside.

The stupendous temple had an absolute fascination for the two Queens; the were constantly having themselves carried up there in their palanquins, and when their dearly loved husbands were away from home, fighting in some of the petty wars of the period, they spent much more time up there than in their palace below, even though instead of their wide marble halls they had only a tiny guestchamber hollowed out of the rock—with, however a prospect from its little window of fifty miles of fertile plain. It was up there that Queen Orion insisted on retiring (much to the dismay of her court physicians) when her first child was to be born, and up there in that tiny rock chamber Alcyone nursed her through the affair. Alcyone greatly loved this temple, and built from her own private purse a new shrine for it, and a lovely marble hall with many pillars. Saturn was the Head of the great Temple, and under him as officiants were Mercury, Brihat, Vajra and Herakles. Helios, Naga and Achilles were eager young postulants in the same temple, but Helios died early.

Mercury was the special advisor of the two Queens, and also of Sirius. The pious example of these two great ladies was widely followed all through the kingdom, and the cause of religion was greatly promoted thereby.

Sirius had a good deal of trouble with his eldest son Gamma, who was wayward and of bad disposition. Alcyone had no patience with him and thought he ought to be sternly repressed, but his father was usually gentle and forbearing with him, and quite at the end of his life that attitude was justified. Though he caused trouble over and over again in the meantime and indeed was really responsible for his father’ s death. Because some dishonourable and treacherous actions of his had been discovered, he had fled from the court and had joined a hostile army which was invading the country. In the battle which ensued he wounded his father severely in the side with a spear, but fled in horror when he saw him fall.

Sirius had himself put into a litter and still directed the rest of the battle, which was a complete victory for him. The son Gamma was captured, and was deeply repentant for his deeds.

When later the same enemy gathered a new force and again attacked the country, the reformed Gamma led the troops against them, and won a final victory over them by a desperate deed of valour, leading a forlorn hope to certain death, but thereby gaining the day.

When Sirius wounded by Gamma, had fallen from his horse in that previous battle. Alcyone also had fallen at home, crying : “He is hurt; He will die!”

She suffered just as he did, lingered on for months as he did, and finally died on the same day without any reason but sympathy with her wounded brother. She could not however forgive or receive her nephew Gamma, who had caused the death of his father Sirius; and even after Gamma died bravely in the effort to atone, she still said that it was the least he could do, and not half enough to expiate his wickedness. Alcyone herself had seven children, to whom she was a good and loving mother.

Life XLII

We come now to a set of four lives, three of which were spent in India, which were devoted entirely to the working out of past karma. The Great Ones, though usually in the neighbourhood, took a less prominent part in these than in the earlier lives. In a general way I think we may regard these four principally as a preparation for the four which followed them.

Alcyone was born this time in the year 4970, as the daughter of an old and noble house, in a small kingdom called Tirganga, which was under the suzerainty of protection of the Maharaja of much larger district called Sravasthi. Alcyone’ s name was Manidevi. Her horoscope foretold that she would suffer much, and also said that she would be the mother of a king. As a child she was boyish and impulsive. Her education seems to have been limited in scope, and included little but reading and writing and the recitation of innumerable texts; though she also learnt weaving and cooking and housewifely duties of various sorts, as well as the science of herbs and of compounding unguents and salves for wounds, and indeed medicines generally.

She did not at all wish to be married, but her desires were little consulted; when her father and mother saw in this at least a possible step in the direction of the fulfilment of the prophesy, and when a fine son (Helios) was born to her she naturally had her hopes, though it did not seem likely that he could come into the line of inheritance.

After some years a daughter, Rigel, was born, and then a second son Hector; and soon after that her husband died, and her hopes therefore much diminished. From the outer-world point of view this practically made the fulfilment of the forecast impossible, but she still cherished in her heart the feeling that somehow the Gods would carry out their decree, and so she tried to train her handsome son in riding and swordsmanship, and everything that would make him a striking and suitable figure in the popular eye.

Presently the old Raja, Cetus, who had seemed likely to live on indefinitely died suddenly, and the son, Cancer, who succeeded him proved to be weak and inefficient ruler. His wife, Alastor, the new Queen, was a scheming and ambitious person, and having no son herself, she looked with an evil eye on Alcyone’ s handsome boy as a possible claimant in the future. Alcyone had to keep very quiet, for Alastor was suspicious and unscrupulous, and only sought for some pretext to harm her. Her hopes, however, had again risen; for although at any time the present Raja, who was still a young man, might have a son, he seemed no stronger in health than he was in will, and neither he nor the Queen was popular; so she thought that, in some turn of the strange kaleidoscope of an Indian court, some opening for her own boy might presently appear.

When her son was eighteen, however, all these hopes were dashed to the ground in an entirely unexpected manner. She was a religious woman, and when Herakles, a holy man of great reputation in the country, was passing through the town, she eagerly offered herself for the privilege of entertaining him. He stayed with her for some weeks, and she felt deep affection and reverence for him; and the nobility of his life and the beauty of his teaching appealed so strongly to her son Helios that he begged the holy man to accept him as a pupil, and his mother to allow him to go.

A great struggle took place within her; for this would mean the entire sacrifice of the one great dream of her life. And yet, on the other hand, she knew well that this was a high honour, for the holy man was willing to accept her son, saying that the boy would do well and would go far, and that he had links with him from a previous life. The sacrifice of all her affectionate ambitions was a great strain, but after many days at last she agreed; and Helios went with the holy man on his journey towards the hills. But having parted with him she shut herself up to mourn, and would not be comforted.

After some days of this, the younger brother, Hector, at last resolved to break in upon her solitude, telling her that though his brother was gone it was to a higher and grander life, and that he himself was still left and would endeavour to take his place. She had never thought of him in that way, though always kind and loving towards him; she had been so entirely engrossed in the elder brother and the prophesy, that she had thought of Hector only as a little boy.

Alastor maliciously rejoiced when she heard that the handsome son had adopted the ascetic life. About this period she determined that it was quite imperative that she should have a son, so she contrived a plot by which she presented Scorpio, the illegitimate son of Hesperia, one of the servants, as her own, bribing the real mother to silence. This required an elaborate and complicated plot, and although it was undeservedly successful, she was never free thereafter from devouring anxiety and suspicion.

Now that she had thus provided a pretended heir for herself, she seemed more than ever desirous to remove by any means all possible rivals. Still uneasy about Alcyone, she made various plots against her, and especially made an effort to murder her second son. Hector, by night by her own hand; but through a mistake she stabbed the daughter Rigel instead, and escaped without being recognised. Though Alcyone suspected her.

This attempt having failed, Alastor brought an accusation of plotting against Alcyone, and contrived to manufacture sufficient evidence to get her driven away from the city with her son. Alcyone knew that not only her present misfortunes, but also the death of her daughter, were directly attributable to Alastor, and therefore felt great resentment against her directly attributable to Alastor, and therefore felt great resentment against her, and vowed in a moment of anger to be revenged upon her some day. Being exiled in this way she lived in great poverty in a neighbouring State, earning a living for herself and her son by making and selling sweet-meats.

Some years passed in this way, Alcyone all the while harbouring bitter feelings against Alastor. Cancer presently died, and his wife succeeded in getting her pretended son crowned, but he proved dissolute and unmanageable. Among other evil deeds he outraged a girl, Thetis, who was his own sister, though he did not know it. His real mother, Hesperia, in anger betrayed his origin. The queen-dowager, of course, denied it, and had Hesperia poisoned, but the rumour had spread and found general acceptance.

There was much murmuring and rebellion among the people, and the story eventually reached the ears of Mars, the Suzerain at Sravasthi, who came down in person to investigate the case and found ample proof of the charge, whereupon he deposed the servant’ s son Scorpio, and caused enquiry to be made for Alcyone. After some trouble she was found, and her son Hector placed upon the throne, it became her duty to look after and advise him, and she rose nobly to the emergency, making determined efforts to check the impulsiveness of her former life, and to be always patient and gentle with him. For sometime she practically governed the little State wisely and well, and by admirable prudence and restraint she made it happy and flourishing.

There was, however, a strong party of the supporters of the previous corrupt court who, having been dispossessed, were inwardly disloyal to the new regime, and opposed her effort to do justice whenever they dared. Presently the young King married Regulus, but his wife did not prove satisfactory. She had much personal ambition, and was jealous of the influence of his mother over him, so that she worked against Alcyone, and tried to undermine her power and to inveigle the young King into taking action which his mother disapproved. For some years this unsatisfactory condition of affairs went on, the new Queen trying to make a party of her own.

Eventually she had a long and serious illness, following upon the birth of one of her children. Alcyone nursed her through this, and took such unremitting care of her little children that Regulus began to see her true character, and came to love her. After her recovery, therefore, she entirely withdrew her old opposition, and everything worked much more smoothly. The Queen-dowager, Alastor, the supposed mother of the deposed King, who had been sent away into exile, returned secretly and stirred up a plot to restore that unworthy pretended son. She was however detected, taken prisoner and brought before the Raja, who then sent for his mother, and said: “Here is your ancient enemy, against whom you vowed vengeance for the death of my sister. Now I give her to you. What will you do with her?”

But the defeated plotter looked so abject that Alcyone could not retain her anger against her, so she said: “Her misery and failure are punishment enough. I forgive her. Let her go.”

But the woman came immediately afterwards and asked to see her, and threw herself at her feet, and wept over all the evil that she had done, saying:

“Now I die, for when I heard that I was too be delivered into your hands I at once took poison, feeling that you could not forgive me, but would torture me for all that I had done made you suffer.”

“No,” said Alcyone;”since you have thus repented you shall not die,” and she sent for her own court physician and asked what antidote there was for this poison. The administered it, and though Alastor was already deeply under the influence of the drug which she had taken, by long and careful nursing they succeeded in saving her life. She afterwards devoted herself to an ascetic existence of meditation and works of charity, to atone for her previous evil deeds.

Herakles, now grown rather old and feeble, arrived one day at Tiraganga, and brought terrible news to Alcyone, the news of the death of her eldest son—the son whom, in her heart, she had always loved the best. Herakles told her, with unaffected sorrow, how he had loved the young man, of the swift progress the latter had made along the line of inner development, and how at last he had died heroically, defending his master from the attack of a party of robbers. Even though Alcyone had long ago made up her mind to give up her son, the news of his death was a great shock to her, and caused her deep grief, but Herakles comforted her by reciting again and again the praised of his nobility of life, his courage and his devotion, and explained the good karma that such a life and such a death could not but make for his own future advancement.

Herakles had half-doubted whether the sad news that he brought would not make him an unwelcome guest to Alcyone; but instead of that she was more strongly drawn to him than ever, and begged him to make his home in Tiraganga, persuading her son the raja to provide for him such modest establishment as he was willing to accept—though indeed he needed little persuasion, for he himself also felt deep reverence for him. Alcyone herself visited him daily and learnt much from him, trusting much to his advice in the education of her grandchildren, to whom she principally devoted the closing years of her life. The king and Queen fully recognised how much they owed to her loving care and prudent management, so that the concluding years of her life were passed in calm happiness, and she was regarded by all with great reverence and affection gratitude. She finally passed away peacefully in the cold weather of the year 4901, at the age of sixty-nine.

Life XLIII

We find ourselves once more in that most wonderful of the old civilisations which had its seat on the banks of the Nile. It was in the reign of the Pharaoh Unas, the last sovereign of the fifth dynasty which ruled over the joyous sons of mighty Khem, that Alcyone was born as the daughter of Ajax and Bellatrix. Her name was Hatshepu.

Her father was the nextdoor neighbour of a great Court official, named Anarseb (Markab), and Markab’ s eldest son was Sirius, whose name this time was Menka. The comradeship of previous lives soon asserted itself, and Sirius and Alcyone, being playmates, became much attached to each other.

Alcyone’ s elder brother Uranus was very kind to them, and gave up much time to teaching them various things. Demeter, another little girl about the same age, a cousin of Alcyone, was also a great friend—a partially clairvoyant child who had wonderful visions. Sirius and Alcyone liked to listen to the descriptions of what she saw, and Alcyone was several times able to see these things too, by touching Demeter. Sirius could not do this, so the girls told him that boys were not fit for such privileges, being too coarse and masculine!

They played together amidst the lovely gardens for which Egypt was so famous—gardens which contained cleverly arranged artificial hills, dales and lakes. There was water everywhere, surrounded often by marble or polished granite steps and pillars; there were flowers growing on every foot of grass and hanging over every wall, while the huge blossoms of the lotus covered many of the ponds. The children were as thoroughly at home in the water as on the land, and enjoyed their early life immensely under the warm Egyptian sun.

Naturally Sirius and Alcyone had long ago arranged to marry as soon as they grew up, but unfortunately an unforeseen obstacle presented itself. There was among the chief priests of the city a man whom few liked and everybody feared—a man against whom nothing was certainly known but a great deal was suspected.

Everyone who offended him or opposed his will invariably died shortly afterwards, but the deaths could never in any way be traced to him. He had a son (Scorpio) who was decidedly a chip of the old block; he had all his father’ s unpleasant peculiarities and was vulgar and offensive in addition.

When Alcyone was a well grown handsome girl of about fifteen, Scorpio happened to see her; his passion was aroused by her beauty, and he made some approaches which she rejected with scorn. He drew off with some sort of muttered apology, but with an evil look. The difficulty thus placed in the way of their gratification only intensified his wicked desires and he determined to obtain possession of her at any cost, even if he had to marry her. He soon saw that marriage would be the only way in which he could hope to attain his wishes, and so he prepare an elaborate plot. He worked at his scheme for a long time, until it was diabolically ingenious and complete. He got hold of certain letters of her father’ s, and by skilful forgeries and interpolations transformed them into evidence of complicity in a plot against the Pharaoh.

Then he sought an interview with Alcyone, and explained that these documents had fallen into his hands, and that his duty and interest alike demanded that he should at once place them before the King, by which he would obtain much credit and great reward; but that because of his great love for her he was willing to take the risk of suppressing them, if she on her part, by giving herself and her wealth to him, would indemnify him for the loss of this reward, and make his interests identical with those of her family. It, however, she said a work about this to her father or anyone else, he would instantly lodge the documents in the proper quarter.

This troubled Alcyone greatly; for her father’ s seals and signatures were undoubtedly genuine, and she knew that he was in the habit of expressing rather revolutionary opinions, and although she had occasionally a doubt, she feared that the letters must really be his. Also this seemed an opportunity to so something really heroic, such as she and Demeter and Sirius had often talked about—to save the family at the cost of what to her was more than life. She felt herself precluded from consulting anybody, and she saw no way to escape, so she yielded to this fellow’ s representations and announced to her astonished family that she intended to marry him. But she did not trust him, and so she stipulated that she must have those incriminating letters in her hands before the marriage ceremony.

The whole thing was a horrible business for her, especially when her mother questioned her as to whether she really liked this man, and she had to pretend that she did, while all the time her heart was full of loathing. Sirius also was much shocked and pained when he heard the news; he said that, though he could never love anyone but Alcyone, he was quite willing she should marry someone else if she really wished it, and if it was best for her, but that he could not believe that she could commit such an outrage on good taste as to marry that particular person. He insisted upon hearing her decision from her own lips, and even then he told her that he could not really believe it, but thought that she must be under some enchantment. He came near guessing the truth, which terrified her greatly, and made her try the more earnestly to deceive him.

Her elder brother Uranus was away from home at this time, or it is probable that he would have solved the difficulty. As it was, she carried out her bargain and resolved to make the best of it, but her life was never really a happy one, though so far as the physical plane was concerned she had luxuries enough. Her husband disliked Sirius and was jealous of him, so she could see but little of her old lover. In 4017 Sirius’ mother died, at the birth of a little son(Vega). Not long after this Markab died also, and Sirius had the household upon his hands, and as he also succeeded to some of his father’ s offices he was immersed in business affairs. He still remained faithful to the memory of Alcyone, and refused to consider the question of any other marriage, though there were many advantageous offers.

Alcyone had two children, Taurus and Virgo, and obtained some consolation in loving them, but was always haunted by the fear that they would grow up like father. Her life was really a long martyrdom, for she never forgot her love for Sirius, and never could learn to like her husband, though she tried to do her duty to him.

When her brother Uranus returned he was amazed and indignant about her marriage; he questioned her closely, and discussed the matter with Sirius, and his suspicions came near to the truth. His sister begged him not to press her any further as the deed was now done and could not be undone, and they must all make the best of it.

She had other children, but they all died, and her dreary life dragged on for twenty years. Her husband’ s fiery passion had died away long ago, but he never ill treated her, and she preferred his neglect to his attentions while she had no objection to any other intrigues in which he might engage. Now that he was quite careless as to what she did and where she went, she contrived to see Sirius much more frequently.

Some change had been introduced into the life of the latter by the circumstances connected with a certain military expedition to the far south, in which a young noble named Ramasthenes (Mercury) had been taken prisoner. This young captive was entertained in turn by several of the Egyptian captains, and spent two years in the house of Sirius. His interest in philosophy and occult problems was marked, and as Uranus, Sirius and Alcyone all delighted in them also, there was much discussion. Now Mercury was introduced to certain high authorities of one of the chief temples by Castor, who was also an officer in Egyptian army, and had been with Sirius at the time when Mercury was taken prisoner. The father of Castor had been one of the most munificent patrons of this temple, and had held certain important lay offices in connection with it, to which Castor had succeeded, so that he was a person of great influence with the priests, and his recommendation carried Mercury at once into the heart of things. The latter at once became an enthusiastic student of the Mysteries, in which he immersed himself for years, though still keeping in touch with his friends.

In 3998 Alcyone was at last released from her long penance by the death of her husband, and of course Sirius immediately wanted her to marry him. She resisted on some theory that she was now unfit, being polluted by contact with her late husband, but the persistence of Sirius overcame her scruples, and she at last consented to marry him as soon as the year’ s interval after the death of her previous husband (which custom demands) should have expired.

Sirius was happy in the prospect, but once more his hopes were dashed to the ground. His younger brother Vega got into serious trouble; he had forced a connection with a woman of low type, discovered her in infidelity to him, and killed her and her paramour, and then ran away and hid himself to escape the consequences of the murder. Sirius gave up all business, and devoted himself to searching for Vega, and after the expenditure of much time and trouble he succeeded in finding him in a state of illness and destitution in a far-away city. A death sentence had been passed upon him by the Pharaoh, and it was only with great difficulty, and much distasteful reference to his own services that Sirius was able to get this commuted for a fine so heavy that he had to sell the ancestral home in order to pay it. He was thus reduced to comparative poverty, but he recovered Vega, who had entirely reformed, and they lived together happily enough in their obscurity.

Under these circumstances he could no longer ask Alcyone to marry him, as in order to do so she would have been legally compelled to give up the small pension which was all that her first husband had left her. She would willingly have shared poverty with Sirius, but feared to ass to his burdens; and they both felt that since such unforeseen obstacles had twice arisen to prevent their union, perhaps the Gods did not wish them to marry.

Alcyone attached herself to the chief temple, and studied under Mercury, who had made wonderful progress in mystic lore, while Sirius devoted himself to the uncongenial task of trying to make money in order to buy back his ancestral home. It took him nearly twenty years to do this, but he succeeded at last, and then once more, at the age of sixty, he discussed with Alcyone the subject of marriage. She had long been devoted to the temple services and studies, and had made great advancement in them, and in order to marry she would have had to give up the position which she had gained in the temple work, so after thinking the offer over carefully and consulting Mercury and Uranus, they both agreed, though with certain pangs of regret, that they would still continue to offer their lives separately as a sacrifice to the Gods, as they had done hitherto. Cygnus, one of the students in the temple, had long ago fallen in love with Alcyone, and had several times asked her to marry him, but without success.

Vega married an old playmate of his childhood, Ursa, the daughter of an Indian king who had been driven from his kingdom and had taken refuge on the banks of the Nile. They lived happily and had two beautiful children, Andromeda and Draco, and Sirius and Alcyone hovered over these children as though they had been their own. Quite a class of students were by this time working under the direction of Mercury, and this was the principal; interest of the latter part of Alcyone’ s life.

Sirius died in 3967, and Alcyone mourned deeply for him, until one day he appeared to her and told her that to mourn for him, was unworthy of a student of the Hidden Light, and reminded her of the teaching which the Mysteries gave them as to the coming forth by day. Often as they had talked over it all, it was now for the first time tat he made her fully realise of how little importance death is, and how entirely the dead and the living are one family.

This cheered her greatly, and she could often feel quite clearly his presence near her, though it was only twice that she actually saw him, once as above described, and once just before her own death, which occurred in 3960, at the age of seventy five. He told her then that he had cast a horoscope, or somehow made a calculation, about the remote future, and had discovered that, because they both had sacrificed themselves in this life for the sake of duty, they would meet once more at the feet of Mercury, after the passage of nearly six thousand years, and after that they would part no more; so she passed away quite peacefully and happily.

Orion also appeared in this life, under the name of Kepheren, as the son of Achilles, another near neighbour of the Indian king and the Anarseb family, in his childhood he played constantly with Vega, the little brother of Sirius. He was eight years old when the Captive Ramasthenese came to reside in the house of Sirius, and he used often to sit at the stranger’ s feet and listen to this talk. He was entered as a kind of day-scholar at the temple, and eventually became a pupil of Ramasthenes. Unfortunately, however, he formed some undesirable acquaintances, and was led away into the dissipations of the city life which for the moment he preferred to that of the temple. When it was definitely known that he had renounced the temple, the Pharaoh Unas offered his daughter Helios to Orion in marriage, and the ceremony was celebrated with much pomp and magnificence. Orion ardently loved his young wife, but nevertheless he realised that he had made a mistake in giving up the temple, and he never ceased to regret this. His wife died young but left behind her three children of whom the eldest Ptah-hotep(whom we know as Selene) was an unusually studious youth. He later became a learned man, and wrote a widely celebrated book on The Wisdom of Egypt. He lived to an extreme old age, one hundred and ten years, and was much respected for his great erudition.

Orion’ s later days were somewhat lonely, as all the friends for whom he cared passed on before him. Towards the end of his life he came to poverty. Evidently this royal life in Egypt under such remarkably favourable conditions was intended to be the climax towards which many previous incarnations had led. But choice must always be free, and Kephren chose wrongly, thus postponing the designed culmination.

Erato also took his part in this life, though he was born far away at Ajmere in Rajputana, as the son of the chieftain Deneb, and married the daughter of the suzerain Mars. In his youth he went to the wars with his father, and was presently sent along with him by Mars on an important embassy to Egypt. Among the officers who received the embassy were Sirius and Castor, with whom Erato at once struck up a friendship. The embassy was housed on the bank of the Nile in the neighbourhood of the group of friends to which reference has already several times been made, and Erato was readily admitted to intimacy with it. After his return to India he again took part in the constant wars of the period, and eventually had the misfortune to kill his own younger brother by accident in one of the battles. This sad occurrence induced him to leave his wife and children and become an ascetic. He wandered for a long time in the forests until at last he found an old man, Spica, living in a cave, who sheltered him and offered him instruction. Under his tuition Erato grew calm and resigned, and it was in that cave that he died at the age of forty-five.

Rhea was present in this life as the wife of Kallesarthon, the officer in charge of the expedition which captured Ramasthenes.

The officer in charge of the expedition which captured

Ramasthenes. The latter had been the pupil of Jupiter, an old man who was killed in that same expedition. His daughter Alcestis was taken prisoner at the same time by Kalesarthon, and was subsequently married by Castor, although he had already two wives living. Alces had a younger sister to live with her in Egypt, as they had no other relations living. When Pyx grew up she married Zeno, the son of Ulysses.

A considerable nunber of our characters appeared in India at this time. They were grouped chiefly in two large families, descended respectively from Jupiter and Pavo. These families intermarried in the usual way, Mars and Corona being the eldest sons. Jupiter had five sons, who being all huge men, were commonly called the five giants. They were all huge men, were commonly called the five giants. They were all remarkably alike in form and feature, though differing widely in disposition; Mercury and Naga resembled each other so closely that they were practically indistinguishable. They were all trained and expert warriors, and on the occasion of a tournament they challenged any twenty of the knights and nobles assembled there to fight simultaneously against them. Twenty experts promptly accepted the challenge, but were easily defeated; then twenty more tried hoping that the giants might be fatigued after their previous exertions, but this also failed ignominiously, and the five giants were left in possession of the field. They had one sister Yajna, as tall and stalwart as her brothers; indeed, she had been known to put on their armour and go forth with with them with out being detected. She appropriately married Corona.

Instead of acting as governors of Provinces, the king’s sons in this incarnation rode up and down the country like the knights-errant of the Middle Ages, seeking for wrongs to redress, and endeavouring to see that justice was done in their land. When Mars came to the throne he sent his next brother Naga to be Viceroy of a vast new province which, owing to the failure of its original dynasty, had just been absirbed unti the kingdom, and Naga spent the rest of his life there as practically an independent ruler, Mars visiting that part of his kingdom only twice in some forty years. Naga had married Electra, and they made a magnificently handsome pair; their numerous children were careful to intermingle with the other branches of the family, but we may notice that the grandchildren were already becoming exclusive, and marrying only among their own people.

The kingdom in which there had previously been a good deal of mal-administration and corruption was brought by the efforts of our group into a much better condition, and the Government remained strong, just and able for some centuries.

Life XLIV

This time Alcyone returned to his beloved motherland of India, and also to the male sex, having been five times feminine.

He was born in a town called Narsingarh, near the Vindhya Hills, the the year 3059 B.C. His name was Shivarshi, and he was born into an old and noble family, though much reduced in the world-poor but proud. The great traditions handed down from father to son were the memory of its ancient greatness, and imposed the necessity of maintaining the dignity and re-establishing the position.

It still retained a considerable estate, but had no money to cultivate or stock it, and also money had been borrowed on it in some way.

Alcyone’ s father Taurus was a good man at heart, but stern and proud; the mother Virago was rather weak and complaining, though well-meaning. Their life was one of a certain amount of privation because everything had to be sacrificed to the family pride.

The old profuse charities could not now be lavished, but some scanty show of them must be; appearances must somehow be kept up before the outer world, even though food ran short. They lived in a rambling old castle, only a small part of which was really habitable, most of it being desperately in need of repairs. Alcyone was the second son, the eldest being Pollux; they were remarkably alike to face, though absolutely different in disposition. As they grew up Alcyone was deeply religious, reliable and painstaking, while Pollux was careless and dissolute, and a source of much trouble to his family.

Nevertheless it was to the eldest son that the father booked to mend the fortunes of his house, not by his own exertions, but by a fortunate chance. Pollux happened to have been born at a certain conjunction of the planets, on the name-day of the local ruler; and consequently by the advice of his astrologers that ruler had bequeathed great wealth to him, though he had seen him only as a baby, and knew little of his later life. In all ways, therefore, Alcyone had to be sacrificed to Pollux; for example, when they grew up Alcyone fell deeply in love and wished to marry, but could not do so because Pollux, being the eldest, must marry, in order to carry on the family, and a brave show must be made at his wedding, and there was not money enough for two.

So Pollux married Adrona, but did not long remain faithful to her; he got himself entangled in some disreputable transactions and finally disappeared with another woman (Melpo). The father felt that all this bad behaviour of Pollux, and also his disappearance, must at any cost be kept from the knowledge of the Raja, lest he should withdraw his legacy; so he ordered Alcyone to personate Pollux (which he could easily do, as there was a close resemblance between them), and, though this was most distasteful to him, he had to obey.

So it was given out that it was Alcyone who had gone on a journey, and that, because of that, Pollux had to change his mode of life and stay more at home, Alcyone entirely avoided the friends and the haunts of Pollux, and in this way escaped detection. He held the position of Pollux for some years, and gradually built up for him a reputation vastly better than his own. He entirely declined however to take his brother’ s wife, as the father wished him to do. When

Pollux returned penniless, and without the unfortunate woman, they forgave him and he resumed his place in the family—Alcyone, of course, being supposed to have returned from his journey; but Pollux did not live up to the reputation which Alcyone had made for him, and so caused much trouble.

Finally he committed a serious crime, and, for the sake of the family honour and the legacy Alcyone sacrificed himself and took the blame for this action upon himself. The result was that he was condemned and cast into prison. The family recognised his heroism on its behalf, and did all that it could for him; but even with their best endeavours he had a miserable time, for the prison was horrible in many ways; he had to herd indiscriminately with real criminals, and the prisoners were habitually left without proper or sufficient food. It was the custom that they should stand in turn at a grating and beg from the passers-by, and in that way they were usually able to eke out a precarious existence. His father contrived to send some little food daily to Alcyone, even though the store at home was frequently insufficient; but even this miserable dole—Alcyone could not take wholly for himself, when he saw the still greater suffering of some of the weaker prisoners.

This horrible imprisonment dragged on for some time; and in the meantime Pollux pursued his evil ways and got himself into still further difficulties; at last Aqua, a sympathetic younger sister to whom Alcyone had been especially kind, could not bear this condition of frightful injustice any longer, so she escaped from the house without her father’ s leave, went before the Raja, and told him the whole truth. This involved a terrible exposure, and brought great public disgrace on the family; the old father committed suicide out of shame; the eldest son Pollux was banished; and the Raja removed Alcyone from prison and appointed him to an office in his service.

The father being dead and the elder brother away, Alcyone was now the head of the family, and inherited all its traditions and obligations, and also its debts and difficulties. The salary of his office was sufficient to prevent starvation and to keep the house going in a modestly comfortable way, but it was not at all enough to restore the long-lost glories of the family. Alcyone therefore pondered often over the state of affairs, and wondered what he could do to carry out the life-long wish of his father, which he regarded as a sacred charge laid upon him.

After a time he decided to go and consult Neptune, the chief Brahman of a neighbouring temple, who had a great reputation for sanctity and wisdom. The Brahman heard his tale sympathetically, and after much consideration advised him to undertake a short pilgrimage to a certain well-known shrine, and there to offer up a series of special prayers and meditations to the deity. This advice he accepted; he performed the necessary ceremonies, and prayed earnestly to the deity to help him in this matter, not for the sake of the money, but because of his father’ s command.

During these days of special prayer he had to live and sleep in the temple, as near as might be to the image of the deity. On the last night of his stay he had an exceedingly vivid dream, which told him to go home to his castle, to go down into a certain unused dungeon among its foundations, and there to take up the stones of the floor and to dig to a certain depth. He return home, but doubted whether he should pay attention to the dream; eventually, however, he thought that because of its peculiar vividness it might have been sent to him by the deity in answer to his prayer, and that at any rate it would cost but little trouble to make the search as suggested.

He followed carefully the instructions given to him, and discovered under the dungeon floor a magnificent treasure of golden vessels and precious stones, which had presumably been buried by some ancestor when some danger impended, as so often happened in Indian history. This splendid trove put matters right for him, for its value was more than sufficient to enable him to free his land from its encumbrances, and to sow it and stock it; indeed it left him much over, wherewith to build a temple and some rest-house and to organise many processions in gratitude to the deity who had sent him the dream.

The rest of his life passed in his native city, but never left it for any length of time except for certain pilgrimages which he undertook. He was always a deeply religious man, of devotional type, kind and gentle with his family and dependants, and charitable towards the poor. As soon as he was relieved by the finding of the treasure of the immediate pressure of financial worries, he turned his attention to study and devoted to it a definite portion of time each day, and presently acquired a great reputation as a learned and holy man. When his eldest son grew up to years of discretion and had proved himself a wise and capable manager, Alcyone abdicated his position and retired to spend the remainder of his days in study, religious conversation and exercises, not in the jungle, but in a sort of small wooden house or shed in a garden upon his own estate.

Here he died peacefully at an advanced age.

Like Gaul in the days of Ceaser, Crete was at this time civided into three parts or states–Knossos, Goulas and Polurheni. Jupiter was King of Knossos and Overlord of the whole island, for the rulers of the other states acknowledged him as their leader, although they were perfectly free to manage their own internal affairs. Mars was King of the great City and terrirory of Goulas, near the eastern end of the island, and Corona was King of Polurheni. There was also, in the south of the island, an independent city with a few miles of territory attached to it, over which Vulcan ruled as hereditary Prince.

All these Kings were also ex-officio High Priests, as in Egypt, and the King’s palace was always the principal temple of his State.

The people worshipped a dual deity-Father-Mother-and these two were regarded as one, though some men offered their devotion more to the Father-aspect, and some to the Mother. The Father, when spoken of separately, was called Brito, and the Mother Dictynna. No statues were made of these deities, but great reverence was paid to their symbol, which was a curious object like a souble-headed axe. This was carved in stone and made in metal, and set up in the temples where one would naturally expect a statue, and a conventional drawing of it represented the deity in the writing of the period. This double axe was called labrys and it was for it originally that the celebrated Labyrinth was built, to symbolise to the people the difficulty of finding the Path of God.

Much of their religious service and worship was carried on out of doors. Various remarkable isolated peaks of rock were regarded as sacred to the Great mother, and the King and his people went out to one or other of these on certain days in each month and chanted prayers and praises. A fire was lit, and each person wove a sort of crown of leaves for himself, wore it for awhile, and then threw it into the fire as an offering to the Mother-God. Each of these peaks had also a special yearly festival, much like a Pardon in Brittany–a kind of semi religious village fair, to which people came from all parts of the island to picnic in the open air for two or three days and enjoyed themselves hugely. In one case we noticed that a great old tree of enormous size and unusually perfect shape was regarded as sacred to Diktynna, and offerings were made under its branches. A vast amount of incense was burnt under it, and it was supposed that the leaves they were carefully collected and distributed to the people, who regarded as sacred to Diktynna, and offerings were made under its branches. A vast amount somehow absorbed and retained the scent, so when they fell in autumn they carefully collected and distributed to the people, who regarded them as talismans which protected them from evil. That these dried leaves had a strong fragrance is undeniable, but how far it was due to the incense seems problematical.

The people were a fine looking race, obviously Greek in type, their dress was simple, for the men in ordinary life usually wore nothing but a loin cloth except when they put on gorgeous official costumes for religious or other festivals. The women wore a cloth which covered the whole of their body, but was arranged something like an Indian dhoti in the lower part, giving rather the effect of a divided skirt.

The interior of the island was mountainous, not unlike Sicily, and there was much beautiful scenery. The architecture was massive but the houses were curiously arranged. On entering, one came directly into a large hall like a church, in which the entire family and the servants lived all day, the cooking being done in one corner. At the back was a covered passage (as in the houses in Java at the present day) leading to what was in effect a separate building in which were the sleeping rooms. These were quite small and dark–mere cubicles–but open all round for about two feet under the rood, so that there was ample ventilation. Round the wall of this hall under the roof usually ran a frieze of painted bas -relief-generally a procession, executed in the most spirited style.

The buildings were of granite, and there were many statues of granite, though also some made of a softer stone, and some of copp er and wood. Iron was used by this race, but not much; the principal metal was copper. The pottery was distinctly peculiar; all the commonest articles were made of bright yellow earthenware, painted with all sorts of figures. These figures were generally on a broad white band round the middle of the pot, and the colours used were nearly always red, brown or yellow-very rarely blue or green. These were the common household pots; but for the table they had porcelain and glass–both very well made. Most of the glass was of a bluish green tint, like some of the old Venetian glass–not colourless like ours. The people used many vessels of gold, wonderfully chased and sometimes set with jewels. These people were especially clever at jeweller’s work of all sorts, and made elaborate ornaments. One sees among them no diamonds or rubies–chiefly amethysts, jasper and agate. But many ornamentals were evidently imported, for they had statuettes and models in carved ivory.

These people had two kinds of writing, evidently corresponding to the hieroglyphic and the demotic in Egypt, but they were quite different from the Egyptian. A decimal system was used in calculating, and arithematic generally seems to have been well understood. These Cretans were good sailors, and had a powerful fleet of galleys, some with as many as sixty oars. They used sails alsosails which were wonderfully painted; but apparantly they employed them only whe the wind was almost directly astern.

Jupiter had for his queen Viraj, who was the chief priestess of the Mother-God Diktynna. Viraj was a very holy woman of high reputation and great power; in fact through her husband, she was virtually the ruler of the island, and her son Saturn held an imp ortant position among the priests, and was governor of the capital city under his father. Mars, who had married Herakles, had two brothers, Mercury and Brihaspati, who acted as assistant priests and relieved him of much of his work.

The relationship of various characters will be seen by reference to the list of dramatis personne, but two or three events of interest are worth mentioning here. Mizar, the youngest daughter of Mars and Herakles, was famed throughout the whole island for her wit and marvellous beauty, and, though she was still very young, a host of eligible young men were in love with her. It was an unwritten law that the daughters of the royal house should not, except under extraordinary circumstances, marry before the age of eighteen; so on her eighteenth birthday her father receieved four proposals for her, from Sirius, the son of Mercury; Crux, the son of Brihaspati; Pallas, the son of Corona; and Achilles, the son of Vulcan.

Mars did not know how to decide among all these young men, so he called them all together into his presence and told them to settle amongst themselves who should have the first right to offer himself to the fair one. The natural instinct of the time would have been that the swains should fight for the maiden, but this Mars did not desire, saying that they were all as brothers, and that a quarrel between them sould inevitably weaken the royal house. Pallas proposed that they should decide by throwing the dice, but Sirius objected saying;

“I will never consent to dishonour so noble a maid by making her hand the prize of a gambling contest. We are all here together; we are all brothers of the King’s house; why should one seek to go before the other, and why should we put the lady whom we all lovve to the pain of refusing any of us privately? If it please the King, let the Flower of Crete be called into his presence here and now, and let her say which of us she chooses–if indeed she will have anyone of us whom she has known all her life, for she may desire first to see strangers from other lands. Have I spoken well, O King?”“You have spoken well,”replied Mars.”Yet before she is called, I must have a promise from all that you will abide peacefully by her decision, and that there shall be no quarrelling later about this matter.”“That will I at least promise freely and fully, my lord King,”said Sirius.”Let me offer yet one more suggestion.

All we are bretheren, as I have said; let us be bretheren in another and different sense. All alike we love your daughter; let us bind ourselves by a solemn sworn agreement that whoever she shall choose, whether it be one of us or some other, we will loyally accept that choice, and will remain through all our lives true brothers to her and her husband, ready to render faithful service, and if need be to yield life itself for her and for him.”

The idea caught the fancy of the others, so they all sloemnly swore in the presence of the King to accept her choice and to be ever at her service; and then Mizar was called. But Mizar had guessed beforehand what was going on, and had concealed herself behind a curtain in an upper room the window of which looked down into the King’s hall of private audience; she had heard what Sirius had said, and perhaps that may have influenced her choice; or perhaps she had made up her mind long before. At any rate, when her father concisely stated the case, she shyly gave her hand to Sirius, and then gathering courage from his grasp, she called to the others, who were turning away in dejection after bowing before the King: “Princes, hear me! I love you all; I would that I could please you all. I heard your vow of brotherhood, and I honour you for it. let me on my side tell you that my husband and I accept your service and your friendship. Brothers shall you be to both of us, and near our hearts, as long as life shall last, and even afterwards, if that may be.”

The vow was kept, and no cloud of misunderstanding was ever allowed to arise between the members of that brotherhood. And Hector (who had also loved her, but, because he was the younger brother of Sirius, had not thought it proper to present heiself along with him) asked to be allowed to join the brotherhood when he heard of it, and most loyally kept his pledge. Afterwards he married Dora, but she died in childbirth, leaving him three little babies. He found a foster mother for them in Boreas, the wife of Nu, a poor man, whose little child had died only a day or two before. A year later Nu also died, and Boreas became a servant to Mizar, to whom she was deeply devoted.

As will be seen from the table at the end, the other members of the brotherhood also married in due course, though they never forgot their vow. Much to the sorrow of Achilles, Ophis, his eldest son, was killed in his first battle, when they were repulsing the attack of an army of marauders from the island of Cyprus.

Before his marriage Sirius had been sent to Sicily on an embassy to one of the rulers there. On that occasion Achilles and Hector accompanied him, and they had a most interesting voyage, and were much impressed by the wonderful beauty of the island.

Soma and Regulus were the heads of a family of the merchant class, who devoted much of their wealth to charitable purposes, and so aquired the friendship of Sirius and Mizar, who were also much engaged in similer work. Some of our minor characters appear in this life as slaves–a rare event in the group of incarnations which has been examined. Soma’s son, Camel, fell in love with Pomo who was one of these slaves, bought her, set her free and married her.

Orion took birth in 2736, in an Arab race in South Africa. His father owned land and flocks, but was at the same time a hunter and trader. Orion and his younger brother Scorpio fell in love with the same woman. Orion married her, and the younger brother,

The finest specimen in Orion’s treasure trove was quite equal to it, or if anything rather larger, so the idea had occurred to Orion that it might be possible to prepare a duplicate of the diamond sword, and he thought that if his King suddenly reappeared among his partisans in apparantly miraculous possession of what could hardly fail to be taken for the sacred relic, their faith in its mystical porperties would so assure them of victory as to make them practically invincible. The king’s imagination was fired, but he doubted whether it was right or wise to make a duplication of the sacred sword. Orion then suggested another plan. He offered to make his way back in disguise to their capital, manage somehow to steal the sacred sword and bring it to the king. The king accepted his offer, but he found the matter far from easy, and had to arrange an elaborate plot. He was successful, and fled one night with the sword in his possession, but its absence was discovered sooner than he had calculated. A pursuit was undertaken, and he and his servant Gamma were overtaken and captured. The captors then encamped for the night, and before morning the resourceful servant had contrived to free both himself and his master, had murdered the guard and stolen the sword from the officer in charge. the usurper endeavoured to conceal the fact that the sword was lost, but it became known in spite of his efforts,and the superstition of the people made them fee that his cause was already lost and his sceptre departed from him. So when the true king appeared with a strong but determined army of followers the resistance offered was only half-hearted, and the usurper fled in dismay.

Orion was then placed by the king in a position of honour which he retained until he was killed at the age of forty-eight in a battle with a neighbouring tribe.

…

In 2695 Vega was born in a sort of Bedouin tribe, but at ten years old she was captured and carried off into Egypt as a slave. The person to whom she was assigned was Auriga, who was very good to her and took her as a personal attendant. A son of the house fell in love with her, and affairs presently came to a crisis. The mistress of the house discovered it, and turned out Vega and her little baby. The young man was sent away to reside at a distance for a time and forget his infatuation, but Vega contrived to follow him and presently there were two more babies. Then the young man was recalled to his home, forgiven, and married to a person of his own rank. Vega and her three babies being left behind in the country, where she worked for some years as servant. eventually, as the children began to grow up, she felt that she must have some education for them, and she consequently presented herself at the town house where there was naturally a great disturbance. Auriga, though very angry, felt that it was right to do something for the children and offered to take charge of them if the mother would let them go, and never see them again. This decision caused her great suffering, but I the end for the sake of the children she yielded, and went away never to return. Her mother who had been captured along with her and had all this time been acting as housekeeper to Auriga went away with Vega, and they lived together for the rest of this life, which ended at the age of fifty.

Life XLV

Faithful once more to Hindustan, our hero took birth in the year 2180 B.C. at small town called Mopa, in the kingdom of Wardha, in what is now the Nagpur district. His name was Bhrojagohallamarshi, and his father, Albireo, was a Brahman of the highest type—a thoroughly good man, earnest, steady, persevering and charitable. His mother, Leo, was a worthy helpmate to such a husband, so Alcyone may be considered distinctly fortunate in his parents. His education was carefully supervised, and was of a somewhat more modern type than in the earlier incarnations.

Enormous numbers of verses were still learnt by heart; indeed Alcyone acquired at quite an early age the title of Dwivedi, and later on that of Trivedi, for learning by heart two and three Vedas respectively—a stupendous task. But he also learnt grammar, geography, astrology, arithmetic and medicine—the last of rather remarkable character. He was considered a most promising boy, and later in life was respected as an unusually learned man. He spoke at least four languages—the older Sanskrit; some dialect derived from it, which was then probably aboriginal languages.

When he came of age he married a beautiful girl, Algol, and chose as his profession that of a schoolmaster, in which he was eminently successful. He was always kind and gentle with his boys, and was idolised by them; they would do anything for him, and take any trouble to please him, and he on his part spared no pains to make them understand whatever he taught them. He greatly enjoyed his life and work, and as his home life was also happy one, this incarnation may be considered a propitious one in its earlier years, although it closed with disaster and undeserved disgrace.

In 2150, when he was only thirty years of age and had still quite young children, his country was invaded by some neighbouring king. Alcyone did not at all like fighting, and he regarded the whole affair as a ridiculous waste of time; nevertheless, he took his place in the ranks, and bore his part bravely in what had to be done. The Wardha army, however, was defeated, and Alcyone was compelled to take his young family and fly from his home to escape massacre.

They wandered in exile for three years, sometimes suffering greatly from privations; but at the end of that time the invader was himself attacked from another direction, and a successful revolution restored the previous ruling line of Wardha, so that Alcyone was able to return to his beloved school.

The ravages of war had been followed by famine; his old pupils were all scattered, and only a moiety could be gathered together again. He had now another spell of quiet life, during which he gradually built up his school until it exceeded its former strength, and he was much delighted to find that his eldest son Libra had inherited his power of teaching and his love for that profession, and so made an able assistant.

The shadow that was to darken his life began to loom over him in 2127; his youngest daughter Mizar, whom he loved tenderly, was then fifteen, and an undesirable suitor appeared for her hand in the person of our old historian Scorpio—a man of more than twice her age, already noted for a life of debauchery, and credited with the possession of a most violent and vindictive temper. The man, however, was rich, powerful, and a scion of a family which it was not well to offend; so though Alcyone was absolutely determined that he would not give his daughter to such a person, the refusal could not be made as abrupt and decided as he would have wished it to be.

The undesirable suitor absolutely declined to take a negative answer, and persisted in thrusting himself at all times and seasons upon the poor girl, until his persecution became a nightmare to her.

Alcyone was at last driven to tell him in no measured terms that his proposals could not under any circumstances be accepted, and indeed to forbid him to enter the house. The man was violently indignant, and swore, with much abusive language that not only would he have the girl in spite of her father, but that his revenge upon that father for daring to insult him should be one of no ordinary character. Alcyone was much troubled about this affair, because, although he could not possibly have done otherwise, he still knew well that this man had powerful connections if he chose to use them, and that a rich and unscrupulous man is always a dangerous enemy. However, he heard nothing more of the matter for a time, and he hoped that the undesirable suitor had had his fleeting fancy attracted towards some other object.

But one night he heard screams proceeding from his daughter’ s room, and, catching up a dagger and rushing in halfdressed, he found the villain, with two other men to help him, in the very act of carrying off his daughter, with evidence of peculiar outrage. Though only thus partially armed, and only one against three, he rushed at once upon the ravisher and stabbed him to the heart. The other men fled, although one of them wounded him in his flight. He could not seriously regret the act which had been forced upon him, but nevertheless he knew that to kill a member of a rich and powerful house was a dangerous action, no matter now great the provocation may have been; so he judged it wise to have himself carried at the earliest dawn in a litter to the court of the Raja, so that he himself might state his case before a complaint could against him.

He told the whole truth to the king, exactly as it had occurred.

The Monarch had little difficulty in believing the story, for the dead man’ s character was well known, and Alcyone’ s reputation was a good one. The Raja expressed perfect sympathy and assured him that the law should not punish him for the deed, which he considered entirely justifiable; but at the same time powerful enemies, from the subtler forms of whose vengeance even he, the king, might not be able to shield him.

Meanwhile the Raja forestalled any complaint or criticism by himself issuing a notice announcing the death of the ravisher, and the circumstances under which it had taken place, adding a free pardon to Alcyone, and an expression of his belief that no brave man could have acted otherwise than he had done. After that there was nothing more too be said, and the majority of his people heartily approved the manifesto; the injured family thought it politic to appear to agree with the general verdict, but at the same time they gave elaborate funeral ceremonies to their kinsman, and contrived in various small ways to make it apparent that they were by no means ready to forget and forgive the stain that had fallen on their name.

From this time onwards Alcyone’ s life was never free from all kinds of intrigues and accusations; and he soon began to realise that this was due not merely to the physical plane persecution of a powerful family, but also, and much more, to a determined attempt from the astral plane to compass his ruin. Indeed, the dead man showed himself to him many times in dreams, always threatening him with the absolute certainty of destruction at his hands. Alcyone was a brave man, but this perpetual pressure from unexpected quarters soon began to get upon his nerves. He never knew what would happen next, but he knew quite certainly that something would happen, that it would be something unpleasant, and that it would come upon him suddenly from the quarter from which he least expected it. Mysterious losses fell upon him;; pupils were withdrawn from him on the most flimsy excuses; and he began to see that shortly he would be in serious monetary difficulties.

It happened that he had a rich and childless uncle (Cancer), who had the reputation of a miser of the most pronounced type. As Alcyone was his nearest living relation, and it had always been understood that he was to be his heir, he bethought himself of applying to this somewhat unpleasant old man for financial assistance. The old man, refused him with contumely, and assured him that no single coin of whatever money he possessed should ever by any chance pass into his hands. Alcyone was not unnaturally indignant at this treatment, and perhaps spoke somewhat unwisely; but he certainly cherished no resentment against the old man, and he was much horrified when, the next night, he found a strong and almost irresistible suggestion coming into his head to go and kill this somewhat unworthy relation, and relieve his most pressing necessities by the use of the miser’ s store.

Such a suggestion coming into his mind so strongly quite confounded him, and he could not in the least understand it, until suddenly he seemed half to see and half to sense behind it the form of the suitor whom he had been obliged to kill; and he realised that this diabolical suggestion was only another of that man’ s methods of trying to injure him. This once understood, the suggestion was instantly and finally repudiated, and he thought little more of it. until suddenly news arrived that his old curmudgeon of an uncle had mysteriously disappeared—and then, a little later, that his body had been found, showing clear traces of murder.

The next news that he had after this was brought by the officers of the law, who came to arrest him for the commission of the crime. He of course protested his innocence, but they simply laughed at what he said, and told him that he could explain all that to the judge, but that they did not think that he would succeed in persuading him to believe him. He lay in prison for some time, and was then brought up for trial. The case as represented against him utterly confounded him; his own dagger had been found concealed in his uncle’ s room, and the wounds upon the body had obviously been made by that, or some exactly similar weapon. Two men swore to having seen him enter his uncle’ s house on the night in question, and his uncle’ s servant testified to having admitted him, and afterwards having heard the sounds of a struggle of some sort, and heavy groans proceeding from the door closed in some way that made it impossible to open it, and when some hours afterwards he succeeded in making his way in, he found no one there, though the blood and the traces of the struggle were evident.

Other men testified to having clearly seen Alcyone carrying a huge load in a sack, which might well have been a human body, a few hours later during the same night; and he had been walking in the direction of the place where the body was afterwards found. The servant positively identified the body as that of his master; as it had been hidden under water, the face had been eaten away by fishes, and was not therefore actually recognisable, but there was no mistake as to the clothes and general shape and appearance of the corpse.

In the face of such circumstantial evidence the judge could scarcely hesitate; but when, even at the last moment, thinking of the unblemished reputation of Alcyone, he delayed to pronounce the sentence, another witness appeared who, passing beneath the window of the dead man’ s room, had heard a furious altercation, in which he had recognised the voices of Alcyone and his uncle, the latter crying for mercy and the former angrily refusing it. the witness declared that he had waited for a time to see what would come of it, and watched until he saw Alcyone come forth bearing the sack upon his shoulders as previously described, and with an expression of great fear upon his countenance and obvious bloodstains upon his clothing. A cloak of his with bloodstains on it was produced in court; and the judge reluctantly pronounced the death penalty, adding to it remarks of deep regret that one who had been so universally respected for many years should, in a moment of revengeful passion, have been guilty of so barbarous a deed. Alcyone of course protested his innocence all through, but as the proofs accumulated he seemed quite stunned, and at last he could only say: “I do-not believe that my uncle is dead; but at least his disappearance will kill me.”

He was sent back to prison and condemned to die at daybreak the next morning. That evening in his cell he received a visit from a foreign priest who had passed through the town some two years previously, as he was making a pilgrimage to all the principal shrines of India. Alcyone had offered entertainment to this visitor on that occasion, and he had spent two or three weeks in his house. The stranger’ s name was Sarthon (but we know him as Mercury), and he was a priest initiated into the Egyptian Mysteries.

He and Alcyone had many a time discussed religious matters and Alcyone had learnt much from him, being especially struck by the identity, according to Sarthon’ s explanation, of two religions which exteriorly differed as much as did the Egyptian and the Hindu.

On this last night of his life Sarthon, who was now passing through the town on his way back to Egypt, called upon him, and after condoling with him, gave him a peculiar message which he said was communicated to him by One who was of far greater power in the Mysteries than himself. It was to the effect that although his condemnation seemed unjust, in reality it wan not so, for this death was not for the alleged murder of an old man(who indeed was still alive), but for other actions committed far back in the past; that he should make cheerfully and bravely this final payment of that ancient debt, since by it his way should be cleared of much that obstructed it, and hereafter the Path to the Hidden Light and the Hidden Work would lie clear before him; and, said Sarthon: “I myself to whom you have shown hospitality, shall take your hand and conduct you along it; for this work is given to me by

Him whom none can disobey. Therefore have no fear, for all this is well, though it seems so ill; and those whom you love will not suffer through your death.”

Saying this he left him with a gesture of farewell, and next morning at sunrise Alcyone was duly beheaded. Not three days had passed before the supposed victim of the murder was captured by some of the Raja’ s officers, and brought before him. Then the whole plot was revealed; but the old uncle declared to the last that this was no act of his, that the rejected suitor had appeared before him to hide himself, and to arrange everything so as to throw the blame of his disappearance upon his nephew.

The Raja (Orpheus), hearing this, ordered the arrest of all the witnesses, yet did not put them to death because, though examined separately, they all without connivance agreed in the same story, every one of them bearing witness that he had been forced into the part he took by the dead man, who was well known to them all. The Raja, however, made, special offerings to the Gods in atonement for having put an innocent man to death, and decreed a large pension to the wife of the man who had been unjustly executed, with a special grant to the daughter in connection with whom all this difficulty had first arisen. So Mercury’ s prophecy came true, and as far as money went, those whom he loved did not lose by his death; but it was a terrible affliction to his sons, who held the family of the dead ravisher responsible for it, and commenced a bitter feud against them in consequence, which lasted for many generations.

The other part of Mercury’ s prediction has also been fulfilled, for from the life which closed with this undeserved decapitation began the rapid progress along the Path of the Hidden Light and the

Hidden Work which has culminated in this present life in the’ entry upon the stream’, which has made Alcyone a member of the

Great White Brotherhood which exists but for the helping of the world. And Mercury leads him still, in fulfilment of that promise made thousands of years ago.

Orpheus, the local King, owed allegiance to the overlord Rama, the grandson and Successor of Mars. Rama had married Alcyone’ s aunt Osiris, so that it is probable that by appealing to family influence Alcyone might have obtained some further consideration of his case; but he had a feeling that as a matter of principle such influence should not be used. Also his father Albireo had in youth seriously differed in opinion from the other members of the family on certain points, and had gradually withdrawn himself from them. So Alcyone felt that it would be improper to claim relationship now just because he happened to be in undeserved trouble.

At the same time some of our characters are born in Egypt where they worked under the leadership of Mercury. Ulysses, a Hyksos chieftain, married Mercury’s sister Fides. Rhea was born in one of the Greek islands, but was captured by pirates and carried away into slavery, but fortunately for herself she fell into the hands of Alces, who was kind to her, and when the latter married Vajra she became a sort of secretary to him.

Orion was born in the kingdom of Persia in the year 1879. He was the son of a rich merchant, who was killed in attack by a band of robbers when the child was about seven, Orion and his mother being captured. While the fight was still in progress another sma -ll caravan appeared on the scene, and its leader Sirius, the hereditary chief of an Arab tribe, seeing what was happening, hurried his men forward to the assistance of the travellers who were being attacked. He was too late to be of any use, for the fight was over before he could reach the ground, and the robbers got away with most of their booty, but left the orphan Orion behind-for his mother had been killed in trying to protect him. Sirius adopted the child and carried him with him on his travels which were undertaken for purposes of study. They had a happy life together for about ten years, but were then killed in a fight with some bedoin Arabs.

Life XLVI

We come now to the most momentous lives of this long series—the lives to which all the others have been leading up. Even in these we will see much of suffering—the final clearing away of such karma as remains; but the Great Ones come once more into close and constant touch with our hero—never more to part from him through all the ages that lie before us, for he who joins the Great White Brotherhood can never again be alone. In this forty-sixth life and in the next we find him playing a humble part in the foundation of two of the great religions of the world; and so incidentally in studying his lives we obtain fascinating glimpses of some of the most important periods of human history.

The remnants of the great Persian empire, which had lasted for so many years, had been overthrown by the Mongol tribes, and the land which it had occupied had been devastated. But another Aryan tribe—the speakers of Zend—descended from the hills of the Susamir district and occupied the wasted territories, drawing round them such refugees as had escaped the massacre which had followed the victory of those savage Tartar tribes. In this country, still in quite an unsettled condition, Alcyone was born at a place called Drepsa, in Bactria, in the year 1528 B.C. His name was Maidhyaimaongha. (I may say that the names habitually used by this nation are the most extraordinary that I have encountered—more formidable even. I think, than those of the Atlanteans, which we had previously supposed to bear away the palm for length and unpronounceability.) He was the son of a man of high family, named Arsati (Hector), who was the brother of Purushaspa (Siwa).

His mother (Bee) died while he was still young, so that he was chiefly in the care of his aunt Dughda (Vajra), who was the wife of Purushaspa, and had much to do with his upbringing. His chief companion was her son Zarathushtra, who was two years older, and Alcyone admired him immensely. Both families seem to have been wealthy—that of Arasti perhaps more so. They possessed wide lands, which were mostly devoted to agriculture. Religion was a strong factor in the lives of both of families. We may say that Dugdha and Zarathushtra were the principal influences in modelling the boy’ s life, adding thereto their tutor Barzinkarus(Uranus), a man of strong character and wide learning.

The local king was named Duransaran (Aurora), but the King of all Bactria was Loharsp. The prime minister of the latter was a man named Jamaspa (Castor), who with his brother Phrashaostra (Aldeb) exercised great influence in the country. They were intimate friends of the brothers Siwa and Hector—indeed they all belonged to the same great family or clan.

The condition of affairs in the country was rather peculiar. A large part of it seems to have been only half-settled; there as a certain number of agriculturalists, but also large tracts were still given over to nomadic tribes. The interests of these two sections of the community were often opposed, so that as time went on they tended more and more to separate.

It seems that even their religious beliefs differed considerably.

Both had developed curiously in opposite directions from a common origin. Centuries before it would seem that some of the primitive Aryans, perhaps offshoots from the original first sub-race of our fifth Root-Race, had worshipped or reverenced two classes or types of entities, which they called respectively Daevas and Asuras. The Asuras were clearly at first regarded as higher and more spiritual, and Varuna, who was their head, as the principal of all their deities.

The tribes of the great migrations which turned eastward into India gradually changed or modified these ideas, and they began to apply the title Daeva to all kings of non physical entities, but on the whole in a good sense, while they thought of the Asuras as turbulent and on the whole evil. They gradually allowed Varuna to sink into the background, and substituted Indra for him.

The tribe which, after centuries of seclusion in the Susamir Valley descended and occupied Persia, on the contrary preserved their reverence for Varuna and the Asura, and they presently began to think of the Daevas as evil spirits, or at any rate as comparatively low and materail. It would seem that the lower side of the Daevas became emphasised until they were mere personifications of the powers of nature, and were worshipped with animal sacrifices.

Unquestionably in Persia at this period with which we are now dealing, the Asura-worship had amalgamated with what remained of the teaching given by the original Zoroaster thousands of years before, and included far more spiritual conceptions than did the creed of the Daeva worshippers. The latter were at this time represented in Persia chiefly by the nomad tribes who killed and ate cattle, while the

Asura worshippers were mostly settled agriculturists, who regarded the cow as a sacred animal, and its destruction as a serious crime. They themselves seem to have offered fruit, flowers, oil or butter, and curious cakes. Here in Persia the Indra conception was distinctly the more materialistic, and the Varuna the more Spiritual. The Asura worshippers said that the Daeva men were degrading the idea of deity, while the Daeva men on their side said that the others were refining it to a mere abstraction, and so were atheistic. Thus a bitter theological struggle was raging, to intensify the opposition created by the wide divergence of interests.

Loharsp’ s hold over his country does not seem to have been very definite, and Aurora was practically independent. Lohrasp’ s son Vishtaspa (Ulysses) was of about the same age as Alcyone, and as he often lived upon a big estate which Lohrasp had at Drepsa, he was an intimate friend of the two cousins, over whom he rather domineered. A lovely little girl, a small orphan cousin, Thraetaina (Mizar), came to live with Alcyone, and of course all three boys at once fell in love with her. Ulysses was imperious and thought nobody could resist him because he was the son of the overlord; Zarathushtra was impulsive, eager, poetical, flaming with ardour, yet often, by reaction, in the depths of despondency; while Alcyone was shy and retiring, loving perhaps more unselfishly than either of the others, but far less able to express it. they all felt great respect and affection for the tutor, Uranus, and Alcyone idolised Zarathushtra with all the devotion which a small boy can feel for one who is a little older.

Zarathushtra was handsome, forceful, striking in every way— full of vitality, yet also a boy of trances and dreams. From earliest childhood he saw constantly in these dreams a man of commanding presence and of more than mortal power, surrounded always by glowing fire—the great original Zoroaster, the founder of SunWorship, and the head of one of the great lines of human evolution.

He frequently inspired and directed Zarathushtra, and on at least one occasion He so far materialised Himself that Alcyone also saw Him, and was profoundly impressed, taking Him for one of the great Star-angels about whom their religion taught them. This confirmed him more than ever in the conviction that his cousin was destined to be one of the greatest of men, and the sight gave him a burning enthusiasm for the higher work, and a living certainty of the reality of the unseen world which he never afterwards lost.

As they grew up together Alcyone’ s reverence and love for Zarathushtra steadily increased, and they talked for many an hour over the religious problems of the time. Zarathushtra was an enthusiastic supporter of the spiritual Asura-worship as against the more materialistic followers of the Daevas; and though Alcyone was disposed to see good on both sides, he always ended by agreeing with Zarathushtra. It is small wonder that even as a youth the latter’ s fiery eloquence obtained a reputation for him as a coming power among the priestly families; small wonder also that he captured the heart of the young Mizar.

Deep down Mizar really loved Alcyone best as a mere human being, but the greatness of Zarathushtra dazzled her and attracted her, even while it half-frightened her. She had had something of a preference for Ulysses, based frankly on his commanding worldly position; and something might have come of it if his father had not heard of it. As Lohrasp had other plans for his son, he at once withdrew him from this dangerous fascination, and as soon as possible married him to a princess of his own selection named

Hutaosa (Bella), a woman also beautiful but haughty, who at first reserved, but evidently soon realised the many good points in her husband, and wisely overlooked his faults and become deeply devoted to him.

Thus Mizar was reduced to two suitors; she was half-sorry and half-glad, for though she had coveted the position of Queen of Bactria she had really liked Ulysses least of the three. One day Zarathushtra, in a burst of confidence, told Alcyone how deeply he loved Mizar, and to poor Alcyone this open avowal came like a sentence of death. His heart was bound up with Mizar, yet he loved and adored Zarathushtra. He contrived not to show how severely the news wounded him, and went away and fought it all out with himself.

He knew deep down within himself that Zarathushtra’ s mind was so full of mighty ideas, that for him love and marriage were in reality secondary matters, so that he did not really love Mizar as wholeheartedly as Alcyone himself did; but after a long and bitter struggle, he resolved to do at all costs what he thought to be his duty to his friend; so he withdrew himself entirely and went away on a visit for two months, and by the time he returned, the marriage of Mizar with Zarathshtra had been arranged.

The marriage took place in the year 1510, and turned out happily enough; for Mizar was altogether dominated by the vivid personality of Zarathushtra, admired him intensely, and lived only to look after him, and make his life smooth for him. Soon she had a beautiful boy (Ajax), whom she called Isatvastra, and later on three daughters in succession, the last being Purochista (Demeter).

Unfortunately, in connection with the birth of Purochista in 1505 she contracted an illness which proved fatal, so that the wedded life of

Zarathushtra was at this time but short, and he was left with four young children upon his hands. He turned them over to the care of his mother Dughda (Vajra), which of course was exceedingly, fond of children, and spent a good deal of time over these, especially over the baby Puruchista.

Zarathushtra seems to have felt his wife’ s death somewhat acutely, but he was becoming ever more and more engrossed in his religious ideas and theories, and was full of projects for the reforms of the old Iranian religion. Feeling himself to some extent set free by his wife’ s death, or perhaps accepting it as a divine intimation to him, he betook himself to a hermit-life in a cave in a desert place, and set himself to most marvellous life for some ten years, a life which seems to have been an almost continuous succession of wonderful visions and ecstasies.

During this period he was under the constant, the almost daily instruction of the original Zoroaster, and was guided by Him as to the truths which he was to place before the people. He still maintained quite definitely his support of the Asuras as against the Daevas; in fact, as time went on, he tended to exalt the idea of the Asuras, or Ahuras, more and more, and indeed the title which he used for the supreme deity is made from their name, with the addition of the word Mazda, which appears to signify wisdom. Thus he obtained the name Ahura-Mazda, which mean the SupremelyWise Spirit, or the Spirit of Supreme Wisdom.

It does not appear that at this period he had the conception of the personification of evil called Ahriman, which now holds so prominent a place in the Zoroastrian religion. He did to some extent personify evil, or at least the idea of opposition, such as showed itself in the actions and worship of the Daevas; but to this extent Dhruj seems also to have represented matter, for it was a part of his theory that Spirit and matter as it were fight for man, and that every action of man counts on one side or the other. The contrast between his theories and those of the Daevas worshippers seems not unlike that between the philosophy of Phythagoras and the popular worship of such deities as Apollo and Diana.

He recognised the existence of good spirits, whom he called Ameshapentas, but there was some haziness about the conception, and they appear to have been partially personifications of the ethical ideals or principals. He quite understood reincarnation to be a fact, but seems not to have dwelt upon it, the practical side of his scheme being almost entirely the foundation or promotion of some sort of holy community, or agricultural State, in which thrift and settled tillage of the soil were the great social virtues.

During his ten years’ sojourn in the desert Alcyone went out often to see him, and saw to it that his wants were regularly supplied. Zarathushtra was grateful for this, and on one occasion told Alcyone that he had seen him in a prophetic vision acting as his lieutenant in the preaching of his reform. Alcyone brought him frequent news of his children, and even sometimes took them to see him, but Zarathushtra was so entirely absorbed in his gorgeous series of visions that he scarcely noticed them, and they soon came to cling far more to Alcyone than to their own father.

At the end of ten years, in 1495, Zarathushtra was ordered by the Great One who appeared to him in his visions to return to the world, to take up the office of the priesthood, and to deliver to the people the truths which had been taught to him. It was prophesied to him that he should spread the faith over the whole of the mighty kingdom of Persia, but that before he began to travel abroad he must await the arrival of one who should come to him from the West,, and certain signs were given to him by which he was to recognise this illustrious stranger. Meantime he was to return to the priestly life in his own country of Bactria. His re-entry was somewhat dramatic, for just as he had left his cave a volcanic outburst took place which destroyed it, and the flames of the eruption and the accompanying earthquake were taken by the people as in some way connected with his return to ordinary life.

By this time Lohrasp had abdicated in favour of his son, Zarathushtra’ s old friend Vishtapa (Ulysses). After the death of his first wife, vishtaspa quarrelled with his father, and left the country in a fit of anger. He travelled into the western part of Persia, made friends with a local King there, married his daughter, and came back home at the head of an army. He practically forced his father into abdication, and then made many changes in the administration of the kingdom. He had, however, the wisdom to retain his father’ s prime minister Jamaspa(Castor), and this gave the people a feeling of safety which reconciled them to some of his proceedings, to which they might otherwise have objected.

Ulysses eagerly welcomed Zarathushtra, and soon appointed him to the office of Zaohta, and later gave him the title of Dastur-IDastur. This gave him great influence, and he preached his reforms with splendid eloquence and fiery zeal. Since he had the vigorous support of the King, crowds of disciples gathered round him, and he had already a considerable following when the expected visitor from the west arrived in 1489.

Though Zarathushtra had returned to priestly work, he had by no means resumed family life. All this time his children had been growing up under the care of Alcyone, who was indeed now the recognised master and administrator of the household. All of Zarathushtra’ s children had turned out well under Alcyone’ s fostering care, and most of all his love had always gone out towards the youngest, Puruchista, who was now sixteen years of age, in the first flush of dawning womanhood, and physically the exact image of her mother. Indeed, just as in years gone by he had loved Mizar, so did Alcyone now enfold within his heart her daughter Puruchista. He yearned to make her his wife, but was restrained by the consideration of the great difference in their age. Her beauty brought her many suitors, but she rejected them all, telling Alcyone that she could never love anyone but him.

For some time he put from his mind these avowals, fearing lest he should be tempted to take advantage of her youth, her gratitude, and her inexperience; but at last one day his feelings were too strong for him, and he asked her in faltering tones whether she really meant that she would be willing to line her fair young life with that of a man so far advanced towards middle age as himself. She eagerly and joyously accepted him,, and it seemed as though at last his happiness was assured; yet even now the strange karma which hung over him for so many lives overtook him once more, for when they went hand in hand to Zarathushtra, hoping to receive his blessing, he calmly told them that he had just arranged for the marriage of Puruchista with Jamaspa Kherami (Mira), the son of the old prime minister Castor, and that this marriage was absolutely necessary for the interests of his reform and the success of its propaganda.

This was of course a terrible blow to both the lovers; they at first had wild thoughts of rebellion, yet for both of them submission imaged as a religious duty and they felt that this sacrifice was required of them by Ahura Mazda. Under such circumstances there could be but one end to the struggle, and Puruchista dutifully became the wife of Mira, though with little expectation of happiness.

Her young husband, however, who had at first been attracted merely by her unusual beauty, soon learnt to love her for herself, and proved a brave, honourable and devoted man; so that her lot, after all, was by no means as sad as she had expected, and after a time she became able to return at least to some extent her husband’ s deep affection.

Alcyone, however, had no such comfort, and for a long time he suffered keenly. Comfort was brought to him by Mercury, the stranger from the West, who had been handed over to his care by Zarathushtra. This stranger had been a great surprise to them in many ways; instead of appearing as a reverend preacher, he came to them in the guise of a young man in the dress of a Greek fisherman; instead of partaking freely of the princely hospitality which Alcyone was more than ready to offer him, he insisted upon earning his own living, and worked daily at the trade of a goldsmith.

A wondrous tale, too, he told them: how, until a year ago, he had been chief priest of a temple—the temple of Pallas at Agade, in Asia Minor; and now, when his city was ravaged by barbarians, that body of his had been killed, and in its place he had entered into this vehicle of a young fisherman of the place, who had been drowned in attempting to escape the massacre.

By the arrival of Mercury Zarathushtra seemed doubly inspired, and they began to make arrangements for the preaching tour which had been so long foretold, Zarathushtra had, all this time, maintained the closest relations with the king Vishtaspa (Ulysses), and the King was now as eager as Zarathushtra himself that his prophet, as he called him, should be the leader of religion for the while of Persia. Zarathushtra subordinated everything to what he considered the needs of his work, and by no means neglected to make all possible use of worldly links that he thought might be of value to him. Not only had he in this way married his daughter to the son of the prime minister, but he himself in turn, and for the same reason, had married Kavihusrava (Achilles), a cousin of the King, and by her had already two sons, named Hvarechithra and Urvatatnara. This second wife, however, did not live very long, and eventually Zarathushtra married a third time, still further cementing his alliance with the family of Castor by taking to wife Hvoghvi (Pindar), the youngest sister of the premier.

So deep was the grief of Alcyone at his second terrible disappointment, so entirely was he filled with despair and weariness of life, that he thought seriously of suicide, and had all but decided upon it when Mercury’ s arrival changed the face of the world for him. Even at first he felt for Mercury a combination of affection and reverence, which from a proud Persian noble to one who was apparently a humble Greek fisherman was indeed passing strange.

Almost at once Mercury spoke to him of the sorrow which so evidently sat heavily upon him, and drew forth from him the whole story of his life. Then Mercury rose from his seat, and for the moment his figure changed, and he stood before Alcyone in radiant glory in that gracious form that we know so well, and spoke with glowing words of deepest love: “Great indeed had been your sorrow, not this time only, but many times; and even yet some sorrow remains, for he who moves swiftly must pay for his swiftness. But great in proportion shall be your joy. Yours shall be the bliss which no tongue can utter, for through you shall the nations of the world be blessed. This life of sacrifice is the culmination of many sacrifices; and because of this, even in the next life, your reward shall begin, and you shall take the vow which can never be broken. The path lies open before you, and upon it my hand shall guide you, and my blessing shall be with you in life and in death, until we stand in the presence of the King.”

So profound was the impression created upon Alcyone by this tremendous prophesy that from that moment his moment his despair was gone, and though sometimes he thought sorrowfully of the mother and daughter whom he had loved so dearly, he turned always from that to the promise that through that sorrow they and all the world should one day be helped. In that faith he lived and worked through all that troublous time—through all the wars of King Vishtspa; through the Tartar invasion which Prince Isgandehar (Deneb) repelled; through the reign of Vishtaspa into that of his grandson Baman; through the forty years of Zarathushtra’ s preachings, wanderings and administrations. That faith sustained him even when after ten years of arduous labour Mercury left them and passed on into India, leaving behind him the legend of Paishotan, the teacher who never dies, but shall return to found a new race and to lead his people to paradise. It helped to keep him brave during the dark periods of despondency which came not infrequently to the soul of Zarathushtra, when the prophet bewailed the lukewarmness of his followers, admitted doubts as to the success of his mission, or even the truth of his visions, and talked of flying the country because of the opposition of Prince Bendva, or the Grehma Clan, or other adherents to the older teaching; and it sustained him even under the news of the murder of his lifelong hero Zarathushtra, while officiating at the altar of the great temple at Balkh, when the city was stormed by the Tartars in 1449.

Some two years before this, Alcyone had given up constant journeyings and public preachings, finding himself scarcely equal to the strain of them. During the last ten years of his life he was well cared for by two of the children whom he had so loved—Phrem and Thrity (Regel and Betel), the widowed daughters of Zarathushtra and Mizar—the sisters of Ajax and Demeter. Demeter had died soon after her husband Mira had been killed in battle fighting against the Tartars; but one of her daughters, Haoshyagha (Fomal), also wonderfully like the long-dead Mizar, the love of his youth, came constantly to see and to cheer him. She was at his bedside when he passed away in 1441, and at the moment of his death Mercury once more stood visibly materialised before him in that same radiant form, smiling on him in tender love. He joined his hands in reverent greeting, and the last words upon his lips were the concluding words of the prophesy: Until we stand in the presence of the King.”

And in the present life has that prophesy been fulfilled.

We must now go back for a few years in time and turn our faces westward, to examine the great gathering of our characters at Agade in Asia Minor, the city whence Mercury had come. This city was situated in Asia Minor, the city whence Mercury had come. This city was situated in Asia Minor on the shores of the Dardennelles, somewhere near the town of Lampski now is. It was built around a cresent shaped harbour, with two little peaks rising behind it, on one of which stood the great white marble temple of Pallas athene,of which stood the great white two little peaks rising behind it, on one of which stood the great white marble temple of Pallas Athene, of which Mercury was then the Chief Priest. The ruling race of the city was Greek, of the old Ionian type, and it was to this white race that the temple of Athens belonged. The actual administration of the government of the city was in the hands of Yajna and Arcturus, two elected officials, who were called archons. The greater part of the population were of a much darker reddish race, probably Hittites, who had held the country before it was conquered by the early Greeks some centuries before. These Hitties were worshippers of Tammuz, and of the veiled goddess Tanais or Ishtar (the Ashtaroth of the Bible) and dawn in the city they had a great temple, of which Liovtai was a priest, where the religion was of a corrupt character and many undesirable magical ceremonies were performed.

In the temple of Athene the Divine Wisdom was worshipped, and a high and pure type of teaching was given. At the secret meetings of the initiated priests Dhruva, an Indian Adept who was the Master of Mercury, sometimes materialised and gave instruction. Many years before he had come over from India and settled in Agade, marrying Calyx, a Greek lady; Saturn, Corona and Naga had been his children, and the High Priest Mercury was his gradson. As he had taught them during life, so he continued to teach them after the death of his physical body. A curious and powerful magnetic centre had been established there. A spherical cavity had been hollowed out in the living rock, deep down directly under the alter. This cavity had no entrance whatever–no physical communication withanything else; yet floating in the midst of it there burnt always a steady electric looking glow or flame.

Above upon the floor of the temple, beside the altar stood a crious stone throne, which had been hollowed out of a huge meteorite and was regarded with great veneration as having fallen from heaven. There were some vestal virgins attached to the temple (Her akles and Rhea were amongst them) and at certain services the vestal virgins on duty used to sit I this great stone chair and pass into a trance condition under the influence of the tremendous magnetic force from below. When in this state the virgins delivered sermons to the people, or rather, sermons were delivered through them by the Adept Teacher or others. During these trances the High Priest always stood close by the chair to watch over the body of the virgin and see that no harm came to her. Frequently also special messages were given through the entranced virgin to individuals among the worshippers, and to receive such a message was considered a high honour.

There were ten of these virgins, though usually five were in active service, taking turns at the work, while the other five were younger girls who were being trained. These girls were bound by no permanent vows, and could leave the temple whenever they wisshed, though while there they were obliged to conform to strict rules. All had to leave on reaching a certain age, and it was custom ary for them then to marry and enter ordinary life. It was however open to them, if they chose, to return to the temple after a certain time and attach themselves to it permanently, and many did this. While they were in office the highest honour was paid to these vestals, and they seem to have been quite a power in the city; for example, they had the curious privilage of remitting judicial sentences if they thought fit, when appeal was made to them.

Orion was the son of Muni, a rich and dignified merchant and town councillor, good and indulgent, but not specially a religious man. The mother Helios was an eager, keen-faced woman, intensely interested in philosophy. Her children were well educated, though the curriculum was different from ours. They all learned modelling in clay and the making of pottery, which was very effectively ornamented with figures of animals. They were taught various elaborate forms of writing, and the making of pottery, which was very effectively ornamented with figures of animals. They were taught various elaborate forms of writing, and the illumination of bo oks was carried to a very high level. The books were usually parchment scrolls rolled on ivory sticks, and the writing was archaic Greek, but running from right to left. The children played many games, especially a ball game which they called sphairike. They wore light and graceful linen garments in summer, and furs in winter, with an under-garment of soft leather. The poorer wore chiefly a kind of gray felt. Among the wealthy merchants were Camel. Hebe and Dolphin.

Orion was at quite an early age much interested in his mother’s philosophy, and in the services held in the temple of Athene. He had unusual veneration for the High Priest Mercury, and the High Priest often noticed him and spoke kindly to him.

As he grew up he began to assist his father in the business; he took it up keenly and seemed rather avaricious, but he liked best the more adventurous part of the work–assisting in the loading of the strange-looking ships with bright blue sails, and sometimes even sailing in them to some neighbouring port. Proteus was then the controller of the port, and his son Selene, though four years younger than Orion, was his friend and frequent companion on such little expeditions, and they constantly discussed the philosophy which attracted them both so deeply. The interest in this continued steadily to increase, and at last quite overpowered Orion’s business instincts, so that he went to the High Priest and asked whether he might resign worldly affairs and devote his life altogether to study and to temple work under him. A few days afterwards Orion was called up during one of the services to the meteorite throne,, and one of the highly prized messages was delivered to him.

“Not yet,”it said,”Can you have your desire. Once before your Master called you, and you would not come. There will come a time when He will ask you again; work now that you may be ready to answer then, so that through you the world may be blessed.”

Orion was tremendously impressed, and resolved that, though he might not enter the temple service, he would at least devote the greater part of his time each day to the study of philosophical truths.

In a way his life was eventful, yet it developed self-control and self-reliance, for it was on the whole a distinctly good life, though lived amidst much of corruption and temptation. He had reached the age of thirty-one when the city of Agade was destroyed by an incursion of warlike barbarians from the interior, probably Scythians, and he was killed in the general massacre of the inhabitants. The priests of the temple of Athene were warned through the sybils of the impending catastrophe, and Mercury and Venus were ordered to send their sons (with their wives and families) to a city twenty miles away in order that they might escape it. But they were not allowed to tell the ordinary members of their flock; of course they might have saved themselves, but they preferred to stand with their countrymen to the last. The priests of the temple of Tammuz had been privy to the barbarian invasion, which was secretly invited by the Hittites in the hope that it might enable them successfully to revolt against the Greeks; but when the attack came, the savage instincts of the robber hordes were too strong for them, and they slaughtered and plundered both races indiscriminately.

Orion’s mother contrived to fly from the barbarians, and hid herself in a cave for a while, but unfortunately the roof of the cave collapsed and crushed her, so that she died with great suffering. The High Priest Mercury was killed with the rest, but his power was sufficient to enable him to take the body of a young fisherman who had been drawned in the effort to escape, and in that body he made his way by degrees to India, staying for some time in Persia en route, working there as a goldsmith, and taking a prominent part in the founding of the modern form of Zoroastrianism, as has already been described. In India he joined in the physical body his Master, who had already reincarnated there. There also he found his cousin Brihat, who had already reincarnated there. There also he found his cousin brihat, who had departeed from agade long before in search of Dhruva’s physical abiding-place-an event which happened in this wise.

Naga the daughter of Dhruva was a girl of transendental beauty, and two brothers Jupiter and Lyra simultaneously fell in love with her. Though she felt most kindly towards them both, she preferred Jupiter, the elder, and they became man and wife. In a year’s time a son was born to theml-Brihat, a handsome boy; but soon after his birth Jupiter died suddenly, in order that he might reincanate over in India. Before he left Naga, he called to his bedside his brother Lyra, and solemnly commended her to his care, telling him to marry her as soon after his own death as custom permitted. Though Naga understood and willingly offered the sacrifice asked from her, she suffered much from the parting; but Lyra was assiduous and loving, and presently there came other children to occupy her attention. They saw a great deal of their grandfather Dhruva, and all of them loved and admired him; but Brihat was drawn to him in an especial manner. He attached himself to his personal service even at quite an early age, and would not leave him for any consideration. When Dhruva died, Brihat was inconsolable, and felt that he himself would die too unless he could find him again. He told his mother quite frankly that this was the case, and represented to her that as he had already resolved to devote to a celibate life, she might just as well allow him to depart at once for the mysterious and far-away country of which Dhruva had often spoken so lingingly as his home. This was an additional trial for Naga, but she faced it bravely, and persuaded Lyra that it was best to let the young man have his way. So he departed for India, and his place at Agade knew him no more.

Selene was also killed in that massacre at the age of twenty-seven and took birth next near Benares in the year 593 B.C. as Chatta Manavaka, but lived only for thirteen years, so that he was ready to return with the rest of out characters to the next life in Greece.

A group of our characters appear somewhat unexpectedly in the Hittite Empire of King Separer(Theo), who then ruled over Syria, a considerable portion of Asia Minor, and also part of Mesopotamia, having his capital at Damascus. This is the only time in which any group taken from our band of servers has been known to enter into the Hittite nation. They were a strange-looking people, different from all others whom we have encountered-brachycephalous, with dark eyes and dark hair, and long aquiline noses, showing a curious mixture of Aryan and Man golian characteristics. Their architure was low and heavy, and they built their walls enormously thick. They were clever people in many ways, at metal work of all kinds, and it is noteworthy that their inscriptions were all carved in relief instead of being cut into stone. They wrote in clumsy hieroglyphics, which read backwards and forwards in alternate lines–the top line running from right to left, the next from left to right, and so on.

Separer was a mighty king, who treated on equal terms with the Pharoah of Egypt, and concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with him. The connection of our group with him and his race is practically confined to one family–four brothers, cousins of the king, and their children–some forty people altogether. The speed work for which they appeared in this incarnation is not clear, though there can be no doubt that they were good citizens, and eminently useful to the nation of which they forme a part.

…

Life XLVII

In the forty-sixth life of our list Alcyone had much mental suffering, but yet he had remarkable advantages in his close association with Mercury and Zarathushtra. In this forty-seventh life, which we have now to consider, his advantages were to be greater even than those; yet his birth was by no means a favourable one. It took place in the year 2472 of the Kaliyuga (630 B.C.), the fourth year of King Kshattranjas, near the town of Rajgriha.

It is true that his father Jagannadha was a Brahman and a rich man, bur his character left much to be desired. He was a grasping man, who had all kinds of ways of making money, some of which came perilously near to the verge of dishonesty.

With some other Brahmans he owned a temple, and the arrangement was that each of these joint owners took sole charge of the temple in turn and managed it for a certain specified time, and during that time all the offerings made by pilgrims and others came to him, and were his private property. This curious system led to a great deal of sharp practice on the part of these Brahmans; for example Jagannadha had agents along the main tracks in all parts of India, who were instructed to warn him far in advance when any rich pilgrim, or any specially large party of pilgrims, was setting out.

When he received the news, he tried to arrange it so that such pilgrims should arrive during his period in charge of the temple, and he directed his agents to contrive some pretext for hurrying or delaying them so that this might be managed. It was in this way that he had succeeded in amassing much wealth, though its possession was, strictly speaking, contrary to the rules of his caste. He also owned a good deal of land, and stood well in the favour of the King, to whom he now and then made politic presents. Jagannadha was by no means unkind, and he gave his children a good education; but unfortunately, as soon as they were old enough, he also trained them zealously in his own peculiar methods of increasing the family fortunes. The mother was a kindly and gentle woman, careful and thorough in fulfillment of her household duties, but with little interest in anything beyond them—religious as far as the punctual performance of ceremonies went, but not capable of comprehending metaphysics or philosophy. She had had several children, but only Alcyone (whose name this time was Shivashankara) and his sister Muli survived. Jagannadha had also adopted another boy, Mizar, who was the son of a cousin of his, and had been left an orphan at an early age. Mizar’ s name this time was Nirvana, and he was two years younger than Alcyone. The affection between the boys could not have been stronger if they had been brothers, though their dispositions differed widely. Alcyone was dreamy and romantic, with high ideals, while Mizar was keen and practical. But not always scrupulous. While they were still young their mother died, and they were left much to their own devices, as Jaganndha was always occupied with his schemes, or at least so full of them that he could talk of nothing else, which made Alcyone think him rather an uninteresting companion. Mizar entered much more fully into them, and even sometimes made ingenious suggestions, whereby the gains could be increased.

At the age of eighteen Alcyone married Irene, a good and spiritually-minded woman, and in a year’ s time a son was born to them. A year later his father died, and Alcyone consequently became the head of the family, and inherited the father’ s duties and possessions. He had therefore to take his place in turn in the administration of the temple and its sacrifices. He strongly disliked the sacrificial work, tough since the duty came to him he did it for a time as a matter of course, as his father had done. It involved a large amount of slaughter, as the offering of animals to the deity was supposed to be meritorious. The sacrifice of a horse was thought to be in some way especially pleasing; goats were even more frequently offered, but were not considered so acceptable.

All Alcyone’ s feelings revolted this wholesale slaughter and he inwardly doubted whether it could be pleasing to any good God.

Also, he further disliked intensely his father’ s methods of attracting pilgrims to the temple. He quite understood the advantage of the arrival of large parties of rich people during his tenancy of the office; but his father had frequently resorted to direct trickery and shameless falsehood in order to produce this result, and Alcyone felt a strong repugnance for this; in fact, he absolutely declined to engage in it. He therefore made by no means so good a thing out of the temple revenues as his father had done.

His cousin Mizar did not at all agree with him on these points.

The father’ s teaching had deeply impressed him, and he watched all this with a somewhat jealous eye, regarding Alcyone’ s scruples with some contempt, and often telling himself how much better he could manage affairs if he were the head of the family. He often urged Alcyone to follow in his father’ s footsteps, and intimated that not to do so amounted to a kind of disrespectful criticism of the father which ought not to be possible for a well-regulated Brahman.

Alcyone could only reply that Mizar might do what he liked in these matters, but that he himself did not feel that he could carry on the old customs. He cared little for money or for ostentation, but was much engrossed in domestic affairs, while Mizar on the other hand, though equally well intentioned and kindly in disposition, still thought it a duty to carry put the plans of Jagannadha, and so set it before himself as a paramount object to have as much money as possible in the family.

About this time Mizar married Thetis, and unfortunately his wife was not at all the right kind of woman. She exercised a great fascination over him, and much increased his growing discontent, for she was essentially a schemer—an ambitious woman, who longed intensely for wealth and power. The young couple often discussed these affairs, and they both felt that if only they were at the head of the family they could contrive to accumulate wealth much more rapidly. Naturally Alcyone’ s wife Irene always had to take precedence, and Thetis was distinctly envious of this, and as time went on felt more and more that she could not bear it, and that she was not finding a opportunity to show what she really could do and be, though Irene was always kind and gracious to her.

Another point was that Thetis has a son, and she wanted so to arrange matters that he should in due course inherit the temple and its revenues, instead of the son of Alcyone. She brooded over all these until at last she began to plot and plan to bring about her wishes. A vast amount of intrigue was always going on in the Court, for the King could give or take away property as he chose, and everything depended upon his favour. Thetis therefore began cleverly to set afloat rumours of different kinds against Alcyone and Irene, her hope being to undermine them in the favour of the King.

She also caused a great deal of trouble in various ways in the household, managing by various ingenious schemes to cause friction between the two cousins, and even sometimes to get them an open quarrel.

The other Brahmans who shared the charge of the temple with Alcyone were not especially well-disposed towards him, because of the attitude which he took both to their sacrifices and to their methods of squeezing money from the pilgrims; so that they were quite prepared to accept the rumours which Thetis set afloat, and when the King, hearing these over and over again, began to think there must be something in them to make enquiries, these Brahmans were quite ready to express their doubts, and to give Alcyone a somewhat indifferent character. All this plotting was cleverly managed by Thetis, and such a net of constant intrigue was woven round Alcyone and his wife that finally this child were all banished from the court and the city. This was in the year 598, when Alcyone was already thirty two years old.

Thetis was exceedingly triumphed over this result. Mizar was not in the secret of her plans, and was much distressed at his cousin’ s exile; but he certainly did think that he could manage the temple and its revenues much better than Alcyone, so that as far as that went he was half glad of the opportunity which was afforded to him by the latter’ s disgrace. He had to take Alcyone’ s place, and he and his wife thus gained the fulfillment of their long-cherished desires, and were happy in the opportunity thus given to them, though Mizar never ceased to regret Alcyon’ s banishment, and presented several petitions to have him recalled.

Alcyone felt that he had been badly treated, especially as the country house to which he was banished was an unhealthy and malarious place. His son caught a bad fever here and was ill for a long time. He finally recovered, but was never really strong again, as the disease had left a weakness of the chest. Alcyone and Irene always blamed Mizar and Thetis for this, and Irene at least bore a grudge against the latter for it, and never ceased to think of it secretly.

Four years later, in the year 594, King Kshattranjas died, and Bimbisars came to the throne. Alcyone, who had known him well when he was a young prince, immediately applied to be restored to favour. The new King at once granted this, so Alcyone was once more put in charge of his share of the temple, returned to his town house, and took his original position. There was then a great scene between the two cousins, and Mizar for the first time came to know some of the things which his wife had said and done, and they shocked him terribly. The feeling between families was somewhat softened for the time, and Alcyone permitted Mizar and his wife to continue to live with them in the town house. Though the ladies were still to some extent distrustful of one another, and even Alcyone could not quite forget that Thetis had been instrumental in procuring the banishment which led to the ill-health of his son.

Thetis, however, was still dissatisfied, and continued to try secretly all sorts of plans for the purpose of securing the succession for her own son in place of Alcyone’ s. She hoped that the latter would die but as he did not oblige her, she formed a scheme to kill him gradually by slow poisoning so that she should not be suspected. She therefore, began to introduce the poison very cautiously into his food, increasing the dose little by little. Before the nefarious plot had fully succeeded, Alcyone one day discovered it, and was violently angry. His first instinct was to expose the whole affair, and deliver Thetis to his friend the King for judgement, but Mizar, though much horrified at the discovery, begged him earnestly not to do this. Eventually Alcyone consented to say nothing about it, but declared that he could never again feel safe in the same house with Thetis, so he stipulated that Mizar and his wife and child should retire to their country house, to which he himself had previously been banished. Mizar thankfully accepted this as a comparatively satisfactory arrangement, and at any rate more than he could have expected after Thetis’ s treachery. Unfortunately the discovery had come too late to save Alcyone’ s son, who lingered on for some time, but could not be cured by such physicians as were then available, and eventually died in the year 590. Alcyone was inconsolable, full of despair, and sometimes almost of hatred for Thetis, he seemed to lose his hold on life, and no longer cared for anything.

In the first year of the reign of King Bimbisara the Lord Gautama came to Rajgriha and was asked by the King to preach; but He would not then do so, and went on His way to attain Enlightenment. After He became Buddha the Lord Gautama remembered King Bimbisara’ s kindly request, and came and preached at Rajgriha in the year 588. He was then thirty-five, having been born in the year 623. Alcyone went to hear Him, and was immensely impressed, and lifted clear out of his hopelessness and depression. The Lord Buddha preached about sorrow and karma, and much of what He said exactly fitted Alcyone’ s case and wonderfully relieved his aching heart.

He went again and again to hear those wonderful sermons, and one day the Lord spoke strongly about the necessity of kindness and compassion. The man who wished to enter upon the Path must put away from him even the slightest shadow of anger and of hatred, and must show nothing to friend or enemy but allembracing love. Alcyone thought long over this, ad the result of it was that he went out to the country house to fetch back Mizar and his wife and child. He spoke to Thetis, whom before he had refused even to see, and told her that he regretted his hard feelings towards her, for he knew that in all that she had done she had been only the instrument of his own karma. She was utterly overcome by his unexpected kindness, and thus it happened that both she and Mizar were brought back again to share the home which she had desolated.

Alcyone on the first opportunity took Mizar to hear a sermon of the Lord Buddha. The scene was one never to be forgotten.

Perhaps two thousand people were gathered there among the trees, most sitting on the ground, some leaning against the trunks, men and women together, and little children sitting with them or running about between the outlying groups of people. The Lord sat on a slightly raised platform—a grassy bank in the midst of the garden, sorrounded by a band of His monks in their yellow robes, and with His glorious musical voice made all that crowd hear without an effort, and held them entranced day after day as they came to listen to Him. Of Him it was indeed emphatically true, as was once said of another prophet, that”never man spake like this man”.

The influence of His magnetism upon the people was incalculable. His aura filled the whole garden, so that all the vast crowd was directly under its influence—actually within Him, so to speak. The splendour of the aura attracted vast hosts of the higher devas of all kinds, and they also helped to influence the audience, so that we cannot wonder when we read in the sacred books that often at the close of a single sermon hundreds or even thousands attained the Arhat level. Many of the people then born in that part of India were those who had followed Him in previous incarnations in far-away lands, and were especially born in India in order that they might have this inestimable advantage of direct contact with Him after His enlightenment had been gained.

Those whose vision was confined to the physical plane saw only a gracious Prince of commanding appearance and of winning manner, who spoke to them with a clearness and directness to which they were not at all accustomed from their brahman teachers.

The latter had for many years taught little but the necessity of frequent offerings to Brahmans, and of constant sacrifice to the Gods, which of course always involved heavy fees to their priests.

But now came this far mightier Teacher, who told them in the simplest and most direct language that the only sacrifice pleasing to the Gods was that of a pure and gentle life—that not animals but vices were to be destroyed and cast out, and that the great necessity was not gold for the temples, but purity and kindliness of life among the devotees.

On this occasion when the two cousins went to hear Him, he took for His text the subject of fire. He pointed out to a fire which was burning near, and told them how it was no inapt symbol of delusion, in that the flame looked like what it was not; it seemed solid while it was not so, and it burned the man who touched it. Then He explained how all passion and all desire were like the burning flame—how with them, as with it, no half-measures were useful, since the fire was never safe until it was utterly stamped outnever certain not to reappear and cause devastation until there was no single spark of it left. So, He said, must anger, passion, desire, delusion, be stamped out of the human heart. Only then could peace be attained, only then could man enter upon the Path.

The impression produced upon both the cousins was indescribable. At once Alcyone announced his intention of giving up everything in the world, and devoting himself entirely to following the Lord. His wife Irene immediately agreed with him, and he proposed to turn over to Mizar his share in the temple, the headship of the family, and all his worldly wealth. Mizar, however, refused to receive this, and declared that if Alcyone devoted himself to the religious life he would do so too, and even Thetis approved of this, though she said that she could not dare to offer herself for it, after all that had happened. Alcyone thought that the family should be perpetuated and the office of manager of the temple should be carried on, because of their promise to the father Jagannadha; and finally they went together to the Lord Buddha, told Him all that had happened from the beginning to the end, and put themselves unreservedly in His hands. The Blessed One heard their story, and to Alcyone He said:

“Are you sure that there remains now no taint of hatred in your heart—that you forgive to the uttermost, even the death of your son, and that for all created beings you can feel nothing but love evermore,, even for those who have injured you?”

And Alcyone replied: “Lord, this indeed is so; if my cousin’ s wife has injured me, I have forgotten it. I give him freely all my wealth, for I need it no longer. I have now in life only one desire, and though it take me a thousand lives, I vow here at Thy feet that I will never cease the effort until I shall have accomplished it. I vow to follow Thee, to give myself as Thou hast done to help the suffering world. Thou hast freed me from my sorrow, and brought me to eternal peace. To that peace also will I bring the world, and to this I consecrate my future lives, even until I shall be as Thou art, the saviour of the World.”

And the Lord Buddha bowed His head and answered: “As thou sayest, so shall it be. I the Buddha, accept that vow which can never be broken, and in the far distant ages it shall be fulfilled.”

And so He stretched out His hand and blessed him, and Alcyone fell prostrate at His feet.

Then turning to Mizar, He said: “You also shall follow me, but not yet. There is still much for you to do. Take up this charge which my new pupil has laid upon you. Take this which he gives you, for he needs it no longer, for the riches of the good Law excel all other wealth. Do justice and be merciful, and forget not that your time also shall soon come.”

So He dismissed him with a blessing, but Alcyone remained with Him, and followed Him thereafter in all His wanderings up and down that fair northland of India.

Mizar after this returned home to fulfil his duties, as the Lord Buddha told him to do; but because of the Buddha’ s teaching of mercy to all he steadfastly refused ever again to kill any animals for sacrifice, or to adopt any of the mean tricks by which. Jagannadha had amassed so much wealth. Thus he lost much money, and made himself very unpopular with the other temple Brahmans, especially as he several times publicly announced his adhesion to the Buddha’ s saying that a Brahman, who does not live as a Brahman should, is not in reality a Brahman at all, no matter how high his birth may be, whereas even a Shudra who lives the life of a true Brahman is worthy of the respect accorded to a Brahman. The other Brahmans therefore plotted against him, and reduced his revenues still further. Nevertheless, the King being pronouncedly Buddhist, they could not procure his depositions, though they often lodged complaints against him.

He had a good reputation among the people for humanity and kindliness, in spite of all the stories which the Brahmans were constantly circulating against him, so as years rolled on he grew richer in popularity, though poorer in pocket. It was a great triumph for him when King Bimbisara, moved by an eloquent sermon from the Lord Buddha, decreed that there should be no more slaughter for the sacrifice. The other Brahmans, though greatly incensed by this order, dared not disobey it, and because of the determined propagation of these ideas in earlier days Mizar stood well in the King’ s favour. Still there were many who distrusted him, because the hostile Brahmans had somehow come to hear a distorted version of the story of the poisoning of Alcyone’ s son and of course they made the most of it.

Mizar still used some part of Jagannadha’ s organisation to bring large bodies of pilgrims into his period of management of the temple, not now in order to make money out of them, but in order to save them from the rapacity of his compeers—which naturally increased the hatred of the latter for him. His position was therefore always a precarious one, for though he had the favour of the King and the gratitude of many people, he had to face ceaseless intrigue and scarcely veiled malevolence in all sorts of small every-day matters. Still, for more than twenty years he contrived to carry on the work, and in that time introduced many useful reforms into the administration of the temple, in the teeth of much opposition. He was all the while quite openly and professedly a follower of the Buddha, and was living according to His teaching, though still remaining an orthodox Brahman; and in this he was by no means singular,, for the Buddha did not take people away from the older religion, and no one except those who actually assumed the yellow robe attached themselves exclusively to Him.

The end of Mizar’ s life was from a worldly point of view unfortunate. In 566 Bimbisara was murdered by his unnatural son Ajatshatru, who thus seized upon the throne. His plot had been carried out by the aid of the Brahmans, and he therefore favoured them and their religion, and was openly opposed to Buddhism. So, when the Brahmans of the temple preferred a complaint against Mizar, the new King readily gave ear to them and deposed him, and confiscated most of his property. He still had a little land, and he retired and lived upon this in comparative poverty and obscurity until his death in 562 at the age of sixty-six.

Meanwhile Alcyone had attached himself to the Lord Buddha, and never again left Him until death, but travelled with Him up and down the ganges valley for many years, drinking ever more and more deeply at the fount of His wisdom, and partaking in the private teaching which He gave only to His monks. He formed a close but reverential friendship for an older monk named Dharmajyoti, who was very kind to him, and helped him much along the road to perfect peace. This monk Dharmjyoti is known to us as Uranus; he was later Aryasanga, and is now the Master Djwal-kul. The name selected by Alcyone upon assuming the yellow robe was Maitribaladasa, which means”the servant of the power of kindness” ; and the Lord said to him: “You have chosen well; that name is prophetic.”

For Maitreya is the name of the Bodhisattva who succeeded the Lord Buddha in His office—the Christ who is to come; so the name may also be rendered” the servant of the power of

Maitrey”. Followinng thus in the train of the Lord Buddha. Alcyone naturally bore part in many interesting and historical scenes; for example, he was present when, in the year 580, Chatta Manavaka (Selene) was called up by the Lord and taught the beautiful verses immortalised for us in the sacred books. Whenever the great Master’ s travels took Him to Rajgriha, Mizar invariably came to welcome Alcyone, and the affection between the cousins grew ever stronger as the years rolled on. Alcyone died in 559 at the age of seventy one, sixteen years before the death of the Lord Buddha in 543. The latter part of his life was passed in unalloyed peace and happiness.

A year after Alcyone’ s death came the great King Mars to hear the preaching of the Lord. With him he brought his son Herakles, who listened to the Lord and followed Him thenceforth, and after His death became one of His great missionaries, carrying His Law into Burma and the East. Herakles in his turn had many enthusiastic disciples—his own son the disputatious Capri, and his nephews, the eager, earnest Polaris and Capella, the impulsive and blundering Gem ini, and the ever smiling Adrona. The latter was, however, drawn away from him by the arguments of a wonderworking brahman, Cetus, who had been acting as chief-priest at the court of another Raja, Orpheus, whose daughter Herakles had married. An entire breaking up of the religious arrangements of that little State followed, for, after Adrona had pledged himself irrevocably to Cetus. Herakles succeeded in converting King Orpheus and his sons Siwa and Myna. Cetus was very angry about this, and eventually he had Adrona left the country with a small band of followers, and took up their abode in a neighbouring State, which they tried unsuccessfully to stir up into war against Orpheus. The first and closest follower of Herakles was his nephew. Ivy, with whom he had always a peculiarly strong sympathy, born of intimate relationship in the far-off past.

King Orpheus himself would have followed the Lord, but that the latter told him that he had a primary duty towards his Kingdom, and that he must hold it on His behalf. The two kings, Mars and Orpheus had an agreement between them that their children should intermarry, and they carried this out as far as possible, as will be seen from the accompanying chart. In this combined royal family it was not only Herakles who was so deeply affected; his brother Rama and his sister Naga were moved as profoundly, and both desired to offer to the Lord as followers not only themselves but their entire families—all their sons and daughters. Rama’ s wife Diana heartily agreed with him in this, but Naga’ s husband Myna hung back and was unwilling to make so great a sacrifice. Eventually the burning love of his wife overbore his scruples, and the two families were left entirely free to throw themselves at the feet of the Lord, Mars stipulated only that his grandson Theo should be left to succeed to his throne, and the Lord ordered that this should be so.

The effect of this life upon the characters of Alcyone and Mizar was enormous—as well it might be when they had earned so great a favour as to be born upon earth at the same time as the Buddha, and to come under His benign influence. Every vestige of anger and revenge was wiped from the heart of Alcyone, and the qualities of compassion, forgiveness and true affection were developed in him to the utmost. How deep and essential in its nature was the result produced by this most fortunate of lives may be seen by the fact that the average interval between his lives has been entirely altered by it. Before this the average was about seven hundred years and since then it has been twelve hundred. Mizar too was powerfully affected, for in the beginning he had had some scheming and selfishness in his character. Now most of that had disappeared for ever, and much of earnestness and love had taken its place, while valuable links had been formed, the result of which lies yet in the future. In his case, however, the average interval was not changed, and he therefore does not appear in the forty-eight life.

After the Lord Buddha resigned His physical body, the office of World Teacher passed to his xuccessor, the Lord Maitreya. Taking advantage of the tremendous outpouring of magnetic power left in the world by the Lord Buddha, he soon incarnated himself in the person of Sri Krishna in India, and almost simultaneously he sent Lyra to appear in China as Laotze, and Mercury to teach the Greeks as Pythagoras. A little later still he sent Pallas to Greece as Plato.

…

Erato and Ausonia appeared in the Persian Empire in the year 573, as twins, the children of wealthy and influential parents. They lived on the shores of a lake on which they frequently sailed in a curious flat bottomed boat with a lateen sail. Unfortunately one day when they were twelve years old a sudden squall upset the boat, and the children and the boatman were thrown into the water. They were about a mile from the shore and the water was very rough, so that although the boatman made a determined attempt to swim ashore and carry the children with him, he found the task impossible. Erato then persuaded him to make the effort with his sister alone, alleg-

Many members of our group took birth among the families of the Eupatriadae at Athens at a troublous and exciting time of Greek history about the year 500 B.C. Orion, for example, was born in the year 499. His name was Theodoros; his father was Kleomenes(Sirius) ; his mother Philippa (Koli) ; his eldest brother Philalethes (Selene) ; his younger brother Kleon (Mira) ; and his little sister Agatha (Fomalhaut).

They were an especially happy and united family, and the ties of affection between them were strong. The only weak spot was the second son Anaximandros (Ursa), who did not seem quite to be one of them, had spasms of dislike for his home, and gave a good deal of trouble in various ways. Sirius took his share in the politics and fighting of the period, but his greatest interest was the Pythagorean school of philosophy. In his youth he had seen the great Pythagoras himself, and had been specially helped and instructed by his pupil Kleinias (Uranus), who afterwards came and settled in Athens and founded a school of philosophy there, of which allour characters were earnest students.

Uranus himself had as wife Vesta, and Agathokles (Erato), the uncle of Orion, married Demeter, one of his daughters, so that he families were practically one family. Erato was a celebrated sculptor, and has been mentioned in exoteric history; he attached to most of his works the assumed name of Kalamis. He had married Demeter, daughter of the philosopher Uranus, and his boys and girls were naturally prominent in the life of Orion, though most of the were a good deal younger than he. The girl Vega, for example, was nine years younger than Orion; she was an exceedingly beautiful child and all the brothers were forn of her. Some grandchildren of Uranus were also among their playmates.

In spite of the constant wars and turmoils their life was a gree and happy one, filled with a joy of living in the sunlight which it is difficult for us in these modern days to realise. The Greek race was a beautiful one, and great attention was paid to physical culture. Orion was handsome and graceful, full of life and vigour, and good at sports and games. He had a fine intellectual head, and learned quickly and easily. The education of the period was curiously different from ours, limited in certain directions but excellent in others. There was not much actual book learning, and but little was known of the laws of nature as exemplified in such sciences as chemistry or astronomy. The endeavour was to wake up the faculties of the children rather than to load them with dry facts–to make their daily life bright, happy and to appreciate the best in art and poetry, to sing and to play upon the lyre and the double flute, and Orion did well in all these lines. The maxims of philosophy were directly taught, but great reliance was also placed upon the influence of surroundings, and beautiful pictures and statues were always kept before the eyes of the children, and they were encouraged to try to reproduce them.

Orion excelled in clay-modelling, and was very often in his uncle’s studio across the court. He studied under him later, and did some good work, making copies in marble of some of his uncle’s statues–notably of the boys upon horseback which Kalamis added to the great bronze group of Onatas at Olympia. These specially attracted him because he himself had taken parts in the games at Olympia. He was successful in these games, both as a boy and as a young man, and once he won the crown of wild olive which was the greatest honour Greece had to give. He was a kind hearted and sympethetic child, always anxious to relieve any suffering he saw; wayward and contrary sometimes, but capable of a glorious wealth of affection.

An unfortunate accident in early boyhood produced a considerable effect upon his character. He was always a peaceable child, and shrank from seeing anyone hurt, but on one occasion he lost his temper in some little quarrel and gave an angry push to a playmate when they were standing at the top of the steps in front of his father’s house. The other child fell over the side of the flight of steps to the ground beneath, and was seriously hurt, so that he was lame for some years. The grief and remorse of Orion were great, and he vowed again and again that he would never strike a blow in a personal quarrel, no matter how great the provocation might be.

He kept his vow, though in later years he had to take part in the defence of his country like the other nobles. He was only nine years old at the time of the battle of Marathon, in which his father and uncle took part, so he naturally had no share in that great feat of arms, in which an army of over a hundred thousand Persians, under one of the best generals of the time, was defeated with great loss by a body of ten thousand Greeks. Many thousands of the Persians were slain, but fewer than two hundred of the Atlanteans, and Greece was left in peace for a short time.

The occasion on which Orion won the olive crown was of course one of great rejoicing for his family–the more so as it coincided with his initiation into the Mysteries of Eleusis. There was a splendid procession in which the handsome boy, covered with garlands of flowers, was the prominent figure. His mother Phillipa, who was always gentle, tender and sympethetic to her children, watched with keen delight and pride. With her was Fomalhaut, and also Helios and Achilles (the two granddaughters of Uranus) who had both fallen deeply in love with the young athelete. He quite reciprocated their affection, and might have found it difficult to choose between them, but presently the elder sister died, and when he was twenty-two he married the younger.

Before this, however, he had borne his part in some stirring events. His father was one of the Atlantean delegated to the celebrated Congress at Corinth in 481 B.C. and both Selene and Orion accompanied hhim on this historic occasion. In the next year Xerxes advanced upon Athens with his mighty army of a million men–drawn, he boasted, from forty six nations; and as successful resistance was impossible all the Athenians had to withdraw from their homes, and take refuge on beautiful mansion, and no doubt the thought of it made them fight with additional valour at the great naval battle of Salamis. In this the Persian fleet was totally defeated, and Xerxes hurriedly marched his army back into Asia, leaving, however, thirty three thousand men under his general Mardonius. Orion was brave enough in the battle, though horror se-

After the battle the family returned home, and were relieved to find that the Persians, though they had destroyed much of the town, had not reached their quarter. The same good fortune attended them next year when Athens had once more to be abandoned before the advance of Mardonius; and Orion played a noble part in the great battle of Plataea, when the Spartans under Pausanias at last came to the help of the battle, but when the Asiatic soldiers were at last surrounded in their camp and the final massacre had commenced, which destroyed for ever the power of Persia, he turned sick at the awful carnage and had to leave the field.

Once more they all returned home, this time not to leave it again, and Orion began to take part in political life. At this time there were two great parties in Athens, which might be described as in some sense corresponding to Conservatives and Liberals. Aristides was the head of the Conservative section; he wished to keep everything as in the ancient days, and had vehemently opposed even the building of the fleet that had saved Europe at Salamis. Indeed, he had made so much trouble that he had been exiled a few years before that battle, though he patriotically cast aside all differences of opinion and returned to help in it.

The Liberal party on the other hand said that the world was changing, that the old feudal times of the landlord’s domination was passed, and that Athens must develop her commerce and have ships to protect it.

The leader of this party was Themistokles, and to him Orion attached himself with great admiration for his clever plans. Themistokles was an exceedingly clever man, and did much for the good of his country, but he was unfortunately unscrupulous in his methods. His ideas were usually excellent, and Orion believed in him, supported him hotly, and would hear no evil of him. Orion’s first public speech, which he delivered before he was twenty, was in favour of Themistokles’ scheme of fortifications for Athens and the Piraeus. He spoke well and forcefully, with an admirable choice of words, and putting a great deal of feeling into what he said. He also spoke several times in favour of the foundation of the Confederacy of Delos two years later, just about the time of his marriage in 477 B.C. He had six children, the sweetest of them being Anastasia (Theseus).

Themistokles was at the height of his power during the six years after Orion’s marriage, and Orion was useful to him in many ways, though never in any of his doubtful transactions. However, degrees the boastfulness and injustice of Themistokles made the Athenians hate him, and he was ostrasised, and went to live at Argos. Orion was indignant at this, and voluntarily shared his exile; but it was gradually forced upon him that his hero was not faultless, and it was a great sorrow to him to discover it. When, four years later, the complicity of Themistokles in the disgraceful conspiracy of Pausanias was clearly proved, Themistokles fled to Persia, and Orion returned home.

Meanwhile Aristides had died, and Kimon, the son of Miltiades, had succeeded him as leader of the Conservatives; while in place of Themistokles the Liberal leader was now a noble named Perikles. For the first few years after the return of Orion the Conservative party had the advantage, but presently there was a change of policy, and Perikles came into power. With slight intermissions he retained his position until his death thirty-three years later, and during all that time Orion served and supported him faithfully. He came to have great weight in the councils of Athens, and was regarded as one of the finest orators of a peculiarly brilliant type. He was of great assistance to Perikles, because of his thorough-going support of all the reforms introduced. Perikles seems to have been fully worthy of this devotion, not only in his eloquence and wisdom, but also in the nobleness of his character. His central idea was to develop intelligence and good taste in every Athenian citizen, and then to trust them to govern themselves. He encouraged art, poetry and music to the utmost, and Orion did well along all these lines. He avoided taking any part in the numerous foreign wars, but he fought beside his father along with the”boys and the old men”at Megara against the Corinthians; he was put by Perikles in charge of the building of two tremendous walls, four miles long and two hundred yards apart, which connected Athens with the Piraeus.

The next twenty-five years was a time of great progress for him, for though he still spoke frequently upon political subjects, he devoted himself mainly to the study of preaching and philosophy, his discourses upon which were considered most ennobling and successful. After the death of Uranus, Sirius had become one of the leaders of the schools, and when he died in 454 B.C., Selene and Orion took his place, and his own death thirty-one years later. He and his wife, though both then old people, distinguished themselves greatly by the active and untiring help that they gave when the plague devastated Athens in the year 430 B.C.

A particularly close tie of affection bound him to his brother-in-law Aldebran, and also his younger brother Mira, both of whom worked nobly with him in his efforts to relieve the sufferings of the plague stricken and to prevent the spread of the disease. He finally passed away peacefully in the year 423 B.C. at the age of seventy-six, thus ennding an exceedingly useful life, in which much talent had been developed in more than one direction. The mere company of such men as tose among whom he moved was in itself a great help to evolution. Not only was by the teaching of the great master Pythagoras (Mercury). It was the study of this philosophy and of the inner side of the Mysteries which, together with his splendid power of affection, gave him his long heaven-life of two thousand and twenty years. The chief caracteristics of Greek life weere its keenness and quickness, its love of knowledge and of beauty, its power of creating beautiful things, its joy in life and sunlight; and all these had their part in the production of surroundings so exceptionally favourable.

One of our characters attained some renown in history, for Apollo is known as Simonides of Ceos, who is generally considered one of the most accomplished men of antiquity. He was the son of Neptune and Osiris, and had for his brother Uranus, who was afterwards the most

There are points of interest in the lives of his sons Sirius and Erato, whose names in this birth were Kleomenes and Agathocles. They were deeply attached to each other, and grew up together joyously, spending much time in the practice of gymnastics, running, leaping, wrestling and throwing the quoit. Their studies, however, were by no means neglected; the boys were thoroughly interested in them, and took a keen delight in learning. They took up history (not always very exact, by the way) and mythology; they read about the Trojan War, and got much excited over it, making up mimic battles and playing the part of all the heroes in turn.

The religious education given seems to have consisted chiefly of maxims, which were to be learnt by heart; no one seriously believed the strange stories about the Gods, but they were regarded as fairy tales with a symbolical meaning which only those who were initiated into the Mysteries could thoroughly comprehend. The boys were placed under the protection of Pallas Athene, and were taught to call upon her when in danger or difficulty. She was rightly regarded as a real person–the tutelary spirit of that noble race. They believed in a future life and in inexorable justice, but were quite happy about it all, and had no fear of death. Unquestionably the facts which bulked most largely in their boyish lives were the public games; these and the training for them were the supreme interests of their existence.

Their family was in good circumstances, and they had good opportunities. The most important event in their boyhood–important in view of its after results–was that a relation offered to take them for a voyage in a ship of which he was part owner. It was a trading voyage among the Greek islands and over to the Asiatic shore, and with the leisurely methods of those days it occupied about a year, during which they visited many places, and saw not only much beautiful scenery but many temples adorned with exquisite sculpture.

Among other islands they called at Samos, where they came into touch with the great philosopher Pythagoras, who then a man of advanced age, and near his death. Some historians have thought that this sage perished when his school at Crotona was wrecked by popular prejudice; others, recoginsing that he survived that catastrophe, believe that he died much later at Metapontum. But neither of these ideas is correct; wh en quite old, he left his school in Magna Graecia, and returned to his patrimony in Samos to end his days where he had begun them, and so it happened that our young travellers had the great privilege of seeing him in the course of their voyage.

His principal desciple at that time was Erato’s uncle Kleineas(now the Master Djwal Kul); and Kleineas (whom we know as Uranus the elder brother of Apollo) was exceedingly kind to the young wanderers, and patiently answered all their eager questions, explaining to them the system of the Pythagorean philosophy. They were at once most strongly attracted towards the teaching expounded to them, and were anxious to join the school. Kleineas told them that a branch of it would presently be opened in Athens, and meantime he gave them much instruction in ethics, in the doctrine of reincarnation and the mystery of numbers. All too soon their vessel was ready for sea (it had fortunately required refitting) and they had regretfully to take leave of Pythagoras and Kleineas. To their great and awed delight, when they called to bid him adieu, the aged philosopher blessed them, and said with marked emphasis: “Palin sunestathesomtha –we shall meet again.”Within a a year or two they heard of his death, and so they often wondered in what sense he could have meant those words; but when in this present incarnation, one of those brothers had for the first time the privilege of meeting the Master K.H. the latter recalled to his memory that scene of long ago, and said: “Did I not tell you that we should meet again?”

Soon after the death of Pythagorous, Uranus fulfilled his promise to come and set on foot a school of the philosophy took a high place in the thought of the time. It was however a troublous time, by no means ideal for the study of those higher problems. The difficulties with Persia were just commencing, and the air was full of uneasiness. At last came the Persian invasion, culminating in the celebrated battle of Marathon in which both the brothers took part, as they did also ten years later in the great naval engagement of Salamis. Later still, the brothers thought it their duty to go and assist the Greek colonies in Asia Minor against the Persians; they were present also at the battle of Plataea, so that there was a great deal of fighting before they could really settle down.

Another result, however, had followed upon that faateful voyage which changed for them so many things. The many beautiful sculptures which they had seen in the course of their travels had aroused in Erato the latent artistic faculty, and with his brother’s fullest approval he had resolved to devote his life to the pursuit of art in that form. Not that he ever neglected the philosophical side of life; he was initiated into the Mysteries of Elensis, and gave much time to their study, especially to the doctrine of karma, or readjustment, as it was then called. Except for the management of the family estate, Sirius gave the whole of his life to philosophy, while Erato divided his between philosophy and art.

He produced some excellent statues, usually attaching to them the assumed name of Kalamis. One of the most important was an Apollo in Bronze, which must have been nearly fifty feet in height. It was executed as a commission for one of the cities on the Black Sea; but some centuries later it was removed to Rome. Another Apollo was perhaps even more celebrated, though it was only life-size; it was erected in the Kerameikos, from some fancied power of warding off pestilence which was attributed to it. This statue was largely copied by pupils, and one such copy is now in the British Museum, where it is called the Apollo of the Omphalos. It is much injured, and it seems that various

A temple to Athena Nike was erected at Olympia from the plans and under the supervision of our hero; and the statue of Athena which it contained was the work of his own hands. For some reason he chose to make it a copy in marble of an ancient and sacred wooden image called the Xoanon, which was preserved at Athens. This statue was commonly called Nike Apteros, and held in its left hand a helmet, and its right a pomegranate.

Another work which brought him much fame was a statue of Aphrodite (called the Sesandra) which was placed at the entrance of the Aeropolis at Athens. The face of this figure was particularly charming. It was executed to the order of a rich man named Kallias, who offered it to the Goddess in fulfilment of some vow connected with his marriage. His name appears, curiously written, at the head of an incomprehensible inscription on the base. In at least two cases Agathokles seems to have collaborated with other sculptors: once with the elder Praxiteles (grand father to the better known artist of that name) the latter supplying the figure of the driver for an elaborately worked bronze quadriga or chariot executed by Kalamis, and set up in the Acropolis in memory of the victory of the Athenians over Chalcis; and on another occasion with a man named Onatas, who received a commission for a bronze chariot-group at Olympia–a group which our hero completed by adding on each side a race-horse with a naked boy as rider. These boys and horses remarkably graceful, and altogether surpass the work of Onatas. Some other figures of boys in an attitude of prayer–also at Olymmpia–are specially beautiful.

Another remarkable work of which some traces may still be found in a statue of Hermes erected at Tanagra, and popularly called Kriophores because the God is represented as bearing a ram upon his shoulders–the idea being perhaps suggested by an archaic and roughly exeimage in which the same deity is seen bearing a calf in similer fashion. This Hermes Kriophoros was largely copied, numbers of smaller reprductions being made,, not only in marble but in terracotta or some similer substance, and even still smaller images in gold, silver or ivory, which were used as amulets. A copy of this exists in the British Museum–It was also stamped upon the coins of Tangra.

At the same town Kalamis also produced a statue in marble of Dionysos or Bacchus. At Thebes, too, they had two of his works, collossal figures of Zeus Ammon and Herakles (the former commissioned by the poet Pindar), both in his best style, and each remarkable for the wonderful success with which it expresses the special characteristics of the Great Ones–in the first case serene dignity and consciousness of power, and in the second, the easy self-confidence and joyousness of youth in perfect health and strength. He seems to have been specially fond of sculpting horses, and was always successful with them; he often represented his subjects driving chariots, and occasionally as riding.

Among his less celebrated statues may be mentioned an Alkmene, a Hermione at Delphi, and an Asklepios (Aesculapius) in gold and ivory holding a pine-cone in one hand and a staff in the other; also a gilded Athena, standing on a bronze palm-tree at Delphi, holding a staff, and attended by an owl. This was erected to commemorate a victory over the Persians.

He is mentioned in an encyclopaedia as a contemporary of Phidias, but this is somewhat misleading. Certainly they were on earth at the same time, but Phidias was twenty or thirty years younger than Kalamis, and studied under him for some time. Kalamis himself studied art under Antenor, having for his fellow-students: Nestiotes and Kritias among others; but none of these attained the fame of Kalamis. He really held a peculiar and important place in the history of Greek art, for it was he who first ventured to break through the stiff conventional methods of the archaic school. His work shows in this respect a marked improvement over that of his master Antenor, though it still bears obvious traces of the latter influence. Still, to our hero belongs the honour of initiating that reform in sculpture which culminated so gloriously in the works of his successor Phidias. Praxiax was another successful pupil of Agathokles.

Both of the brothers married, and brought up their families in opposite sides of the origial paternal house, in which there was plenty of room for all. Indeed they formed a wonderfully united household, and their residence was quite a centre both for philosophers and artists. Stormy though the times were, there was much in them that was noble and elevating; and our hero took his part in the vivid life of Athens at its best even though his art and his higher studies always came for him before political considerations. The death of Sirius left a gap in their knowledge of what death meant, and in their certainty that in a future existence they would meet again. Erato survived Sirius by some five years, and when he in turn shuffled off this mortal coil he passed through the astral plane with great rapidity, and had a long and elevated sojourn in the heaven-world.

Ulysses was born in the early part of the third century before Christ in a huge city in northern India, called Palibothra. The city was in six miles square, and had eight gates in each of its four sides. The foundation of its wall was built of wood carefully embanked. The empire was a great one, and inclined the whole of India down to the level of Pondicherry, and included also Nepal and Bhutan. This empire had been largly built up by Chandragupta who was the grandfather of Ulysses. Ulysses had an older brother Susina, who was heir to the throne, but while they were still quite young he met with a serius accident. The two boys were out on hunting; a wounded tiger sprang upon the heir; the younger defended him and threw a javelin which struck the tiger in the eye and killed him. Susina did not die, but he never recovered from his injuries, and was always lame. Later on a palace intrigue drove Ulysses away from Palibothra, and he became Governor of Ujjain. During his stay there a certain woman of bad character obtained great influence over him, and even induced him to dismiss the teacher Kanishka, who was a pupil of Mars. Later on he transferred his activities to the Hindu Kush, and we find him there fighting victoriously against Greek soldiers. A false heir had been put forward by on of his father’s old ministers; but in the course of the fighting he was killed by an arrow through his throat. Hearing that his father Vidusara was dying Ulysses returned to his bedside, but the father fell into such a rage at the sight of him that he burst a blood vessel and died atonce. Ulysses being on the spot took possession of the throne. The woman of evil influence tried to reassert her power over him, but as he was now married to a pure and noble wife she found herself unable to do so, and in her impotent rage she allowed herself to be instigated by Phocea, a pariah-hanger on of the palace, to make an attempt to poison Ulysses then recalled his teacher.

About this time he undertook a war of conquest against the Kalingas, who inhabited the country extending a considerable distance along the shores of the Bay of Bengal. In this he was entirely successful, and he annexed the country to his Empire, thus extending it clear across India from sea to sea. But what he saw then of the horrors of was impressed him so forcibly that he determined to undertake no more conquests, except absolutely in self defence. Consequently he sent out an embassy to a Bactrian Greek king with whom there had been some quarrel, and concluded peace with him on advvantageous terms. Although the woman of bad character had removed herself from his life, her evill influence still remained, for her father had taken up a feud against thee king in consequence of the suicide, and he was supported by a number of the priests who were perpetually plotting against Ulysses.

About this time his teacher Kanishka took him with much ceremony and after long preparation to a cave in which the Master Mars appeared to him, told him of his relationship to him, and showed him a picture of a birth long ago in Atlantis in which the connection between them was first formed. He further told him that although he had still much trouble and suffering in front of him he should yet work under him for all time, as the tie which had been formed could not be broken. This interview changed the life of Ulysses, and he began now to put all his energy into works of utility–the making of roads and the founding of colleges. About this time there was an outbreak of plague, and when it was suppressed he issued an edict that henceforth stores of medicine should be kept at certain specified places, so that they should never again be taken unawares by such an epidemic. In the zeal of his new resolutions he attacked the Brahmans vigorously with reference to their many corruptions: he deported many of them, and eventually openly declared himself a Buddhist, and issued edict after edict proclaiming his new faith.

The people began to murmur against him, and the Master Mars appeared to him again and instructed him to use greater tact in the carrying out of his reform. He called together a council of Buddhist monks, sending out his edicts with a procession of elephants to carry them. All the way through he was fighting against the priests, and doing his best to weed out, both from among the Brahmans and the Buddhists monks, all who were unworthy of their position.

He had a beautiful son and daughter. Mahinda and Sanghmitta. All through this period the Master Mars appeared to him now and then in visions, and in one case at last he had a long interview with him, during which the Master promised that as reward for what he was then doing he should on his retur have the opportunity of doing further great benefit to his beloved country India.He also told him that from biirth to birth he should continue to work under him, andended the interview with a solemn blessing. Ulysses was so deeply affected by this that he abdicated in favour of his son and retired to a country house near the cave in which the Master had appeared to him, and spent his remaining

It is evident that the tie between Alcyone and Mizar is of an unusual character; for in almost every life they have been associated. They were were together in the presence of the Lord Buddha, and after the wonderful events which characterised that incarnation, they separated for a time because the regular interval between their lives was entirely altered in Alcyone’s case by the tremendous influence exerted over him by the Lord Buddha. Mizar was undoubtedly influenced also, but apparantly not to the same extent or perhaps in a less fundamental manner.

We find that he retaiinde the ordinary seven hundred years’ interval which was so largely extended in the case of Alcyone; so that while the latter next appears in A.D. 603, Mizar was born in the year A.D. 222, at a place called Kaveripattanam in the Chola country in the south of India.

Mizar’s name –most unexpectedly–was Lucius Fabius Coculus,a patronymic which it is difficult to associate with the south of India. Equally remarkable id the fact that he was the son of Roman Senator named Caius Fabius Lentulus. This apparent incongruity had a fairly simple explanation. Some years before, this Roman Senator had been enjoying position and dignity in his own land; but at this period there were constant internecine wars between barious claimants for the imperial purple, and Lentulus was unfortunate enough to espouse the losing side in one of these contests. Claudius Albinus had been proclaimed Caeser by his Legions in Britain, almost at the same time that the same honour was conferred upon Septimius Severus by those who fought under his standard. Now Septimius Severus was a man of a rough soldier type while Caludius Albinus was far more aristocratic and refined both in character and in bearing. As Lentulus had been a friend of his, and indeed was himself a man of similer type, he naturally took his side and openly maintained his rights. After some years of diplomatic fencing the rivals came to open warfare, and Albinus was defeated and overthrown in a great battle in France. Septimius Severus then thoroughly established his authority and showed little mercy to those who had been prominent in their support of his defeated rival.

Fortunately for himself, Lentulus succeeded in escaping from Rome and took ship for Alexandria, where he remianed for some little time. Prsently he discovered that the emissaries of the conqueror were upon his track. Once more he saved himself from them with difficulty, and this time being thoroughly frightened he determined to fly so far that even the power of Imperial Rome should be unable to reach him. He took ship down the Red Sea and eventually crossed to India where he landed at this port of Kaveripattanam. This place seems to have been the principal port of Kaveripattanam and the fugitive was fortunate enough to find a little colony of Roman merchants who were rapidly making fortunes in this far-away land.

Now Lentulus, though a patrician (or perhaps because he was a patrician) had a fair idea of the relative value of gems and rare silks, and he also knew precisely what wass the taste of his countrymen in such matters. He was wisse enough to see that in this foreign land it was useless to stand upon his birth and dignity; so he placed at his disposal his special knowledge and his undoubted good taste. He quickly became a person of importance among them; he soon entered into partnership with one of them, proved himself indispensable to him and rapidly raised the profits of the firm to perhaps ten times their former amount. Instead of peddling cautiously and making frequent mistakes, he launched out into much larger speculations, but always guided them with a sure hand and unerring judgement. In a few years he was one of the richest men of the kingdom, and his previous acqquaintance with politics enabled him to use wisely the influence which his wealth gave him. He married Glaucus, the daughter of Iphigenia, an official who held a high position in the Chola court, and our present hero, Mizar, who held a high position in the Chola court, and our present hero, Mizar, was his first born son. His father gave him the name of Coculus, but his mother gave him the name of Coculus, but his mother gave him the nickname of Manikyam-which is perhaps after all only a translation into her language of the pet name given by the father.

Mizar was a precocious child, and seemed to combine within himself the good qualities of both the races whose blood was intermingled in his veins. He lived in an atmosphere of politics, and it is little wonder that, as he grew up, he began to take a keen interest in them. The country was in a disturbed condition; for its King, Chenkuddeva, was perpetually at war with a neighbouring King, Ugraperuvalathi, who reigned over the Pandya country and held his court at what is now Madura. Although there was this constant state of warfare, the common people of the country were affected by it than one would suppose possible, and the merchants succeeded in procuring their goods and despatching their vessels almost as regularly as though the land had been in a condition of profound peace. For example, Madura was the seat of a Kind of University, or perhaps rather a great school of poets and philosophers, which had a wide reputation over the whole of the south of India, and was considered far better than anything that existed in the Chola Kingdom. In spite of the frequent wars, it never seems to have occurred to anyone that there was the slightest danger or difficulty in Mizar’s attaching himself to the Madura University, which he accordingly did, and even apparantly took part in certain Court functions in that town, being a person of some consideration in consequence of his wealth as his father made him an unusually large allowance.

At that court he met the poet Tiruvalluvar, the writer of the Kural, and was present on the occasion when the latter received the public honour which was adjudged to him because of the excellency of his poems. Tiruvalluvar seems to have been born at Mylapore, within a couple of miles of our Headquarters, but was a man of low caste–a weaver or something of that sort. Consequently he was not at all well received by the authorities of the University, and, at first, they declined to allow him to present his poem for the competition which was taking place. He contrived, however, to persuade one of the authorities to read it before condemning it; and this man was so much struck by its excellence, that he somehow managed to get it accepted. The judges pronounced it by far the best that had been sent in, but still the terrible caste prejud ice prevented its author from receiving full recognition. It appears to have been the custom that the successful competitiors should the occupy an elevated seat where they were the observed of all observers. Because of his low caste, Tiruvallur was not allowed to take his place with the other victors, but the manuscript of his book was put upon the elevated seat in his place. When however the successful composition came to be read in public, it was so emphatically the best that it took the popular fancy by storm and in spite of his caste he was called by acclamation to occupy the seat which his work had earned. Much interested by all this, Mizar made friends with the poet, saw a good deal of him and kept up a correspondence with him after his return to Mylapore.

Mizar was distinctly an able young man and distinguished himself at the Madura University–so much so indeed, that King Ugraperuvalathi offered him the opportunity of entering his service and of residing permanently in the Pandya Kingdom, instead of returning to his own country. He was wise enough to decline this dangerous honour, and indeed he lost nothing by doing so; for when his own King, Chenkddeva, heard of it, he at once offered him an equivalent position in his own court, which Mizar promptly accepted. He had a keen delight in the exercise of diplomacy and even when quite young he had developed, to a high degree, the art of persuading and managing people, so that he was useful in politics, though he was much disgusted with some of the political methods which he encountered. His father, Lentulus, took eager interest in all this work, though he himself, being of foreign birth and besides fully occupied with the business which he had taken up, bore no direct part in it, but only advised and guided his son..

Beofre he was thirty years of age, Mizar had already been sent on several important missions to arrange delicate matters with neighbouring monarchs, and in all these cases he was able to carry through his negotiations with success. About this time, he married the daughter of a high official, and this further established the position which he had already gained through his own cleverness and through the wealth of his father. On the occasion of his marriage his father bought for him, as a wedding present, a large and beautifully situated estate, and the King presently gave him a title of nobility in acknowledgement of the services rendered. Thus he was actually the founder of what afterwards became one of the great families of the country. On the whole his career was smooth and fortunate. His rapid advance brought upon him a certain amount of envy and jealousy, but his adaptability seems to have enabled him presently to disarm all those who had at first looked askance at his progress.

When his father Lentulus died, he was accorded a public funeral just as though he had been a noble of the country. Mizar still just as though he had been a noble of the country. Mizar still nominally carried on the business, but had in reality nothing to do with it as his time was entirely taken up with the work of his political office. He was fortunate enough, however, to have a very capable manager in the son of one of he colony of Roman merchants, among whom his father had originally settled. He left the commercial part of his affairs entirely in the hands of this man, and eventually took him into partnership.

Mizar was a man of cheery disposition–not especially religious in type, although he gave liberally to various temples and considered religion an important factor in the well being of the State. A detailed history of the latter part of his life would be simply a record of the various operations in which he was engaged and the various posts which he held, which would be scarcely helpful for our purpose. Let it suffice to say, that though his career was so successful, he made wonderfully few enemies, and that the experience in dealing with men, which this life gave him, was distinctly valuable as preparing him for the part which he will have to play in future history. He died, much respected and lamented, in the year 293, at the age of seventy one.

The story of the life and death of Hypetia is too well known to need repetition here. But it will be well to link out chart to the history of the period by mentioning the names of a few of our characters. Neptune appeared this time as lamblichus, the author of a book on the Mysterious he married Naga, one of the fivee daughters of Vulcan and Nestor. Tripos was a pupil of his, named Aedesius. Apollo was Theon, the father of Hypetia, and Lutea was the Roman prefect Orestes, whose friendship was at the same time valuable and tiresome to her. Most of our characters were slain along with her. Her cousin Yajna married Osiris, and their eldest son was Venus, who in this incarnation was known to history as Proclus. Yajna and his wife loved travel, so it happened that their eldest son Venus was born not at their home in Alexandria, but in Constantinople in the year 411. Later on they lived for a time at Xanthos in Lycia, then, after returning home to Alexandria, they spent a considerable time in Athens. All these somewhat erratic movements played their part in the training of the young Proclus, and helped to make him what he was, the last great exponent of Neo-Platonism–the man whose influence overshadowed the whole mideaval Christian Church.

Arcor was born in Norway, about A.D. 250, among the Vikings, and after many adventures, in the course of which she met Markab in Byzantium, she at last went to India, and finally died from wounds inflicted upon her by a tiger. On several occasions in the course of this life a white lady(Herakles) appeared to her in times of difficulty.

Life XLVIII

The wonderful influence of the Lord Buddha changed for Alcyone the length of the interval between his lives, but it in no way affected the tendency to spend these lives in India. Once more we find him in the sacred land—born in the nineteenth year of the reign of King Harsha (3726 Kali Yuga, or A.D. 624), near Kanyakubja, now Kanauj, on the Ganges. King Harsha was also called Siladitya; he came to the throne in the year A.D. 606. Alcyone was the son of a brahman named Jayasekara (Ant); the family was Buddhist by religion, though Brahman by descent.

Large numbers of people of all castes had at this period definitely embraced Buddhism as their religion, and they did not therefore recognise caste as such; but notwithstanding this, those among them who were Brahmans by descent were still socially recognised and treated as Brahmans by the others who held their ancestral religion. The bonds of caste were strong, but yet the restrictions were not so irksome as at present, because these Brahmans who became Buddhists certainly did not in any way lose caste by doing so, even though it involved receiving and eating with men of other castes who also professed Buddhism. The Brahman families who still held the Hindu religion intermarried quite freely with those Brahmans who embraced Buddhism, each party to the contract keeping to his or her religion without interfering with the other. However, those Brahmans who because Buddhists do not seem, as far as I can see, to have intermarried with people of lower castes, although socially they received them quite freely.

The period was a somewhat curious one, for in many ways it had the marks of an effete and worn out civilisation. Everything was highly specialised, and there was a great deal of luxury, while the virility which had characterised the race so markedly in the time of the Lord Buddha seemed to be absent. Everybody lived by rule down to the minutest circumstances of daily life; the civilisation was still a good and a noble one, but the people were doing things far more because it was the custom to do them then because they felt strongly moved towards goodness themselves. King Harsha was a man of tremendous energy and a great conqueror; he tried to reconstitute the empire of Ashoka, but succeeded only very partially.

He was, however, a great patron of Buddhism, and gave huge donations to its monasteries and temples.

Alcyone’ s name in this life was Upasena, though he was far better known by that of Dhammalankara, which he took afterwards, upon assuming the yellow robe. His mother was a good and pious woman, and he owed much to her early training. He had a strong religious sense, and as a boy he was always planning what he would do for Buddhism in the future. Another side of him which seemed somewhat incongruous was that he had a curious mechanical genius, and invented for the use of the household several useful little machines.

It was the fashion of the time for fathers to talk about dedicating their sons to the monastic life, and greatly to applaud any young man who adopted it; but the strange artificiality of the period showed itself again in the fact that though almost every boy born of

Buddhist parents put on the robe for a year or two, and lived during that time in the monastery as did the others, the number who really made this permanently their life was comparatively small. In Alcyone’ s case, however, the pious mother was eagerly enthusiastic for the life of the Order, and at an early age she fired her son with the same enthusiasm, so that he promised her to make this his vacation.

That promise stood him in good stead in a time of trial, for he was scarcely more than fifteen when he fell deeply in love with Ajax—an unusually lovely young lady who was some sort of cousin of his. The girl reciprocated his feelings, for he was strikingly handsome boy. Their affection was deep and true and passionate, and after their mutual confession of it and their pledges of undying love it would certainly have followed the usual path, but for the boy’ s recollection of that promise to his mother.

He said nothing of the matter to his father and mother, but he had a long and terrible struggle with himself, principally because though he felt clear as to the direction in which his duty lay, inclination was clear to point out to him that perhaps he had no right, even though prepared to make the sacrifice himself, to force similar sacrifice upon Ajax. It cost him much to make his decision, and caused him many days of great mental anguish; but at last he decided that at all costs to himself his true vocation must be followed, and the promise to his mother must be kept, and that against the disappointment of his cousin, if he took one course, he must set the even greater disappointment of his mother, if he took the other.

So he spoke to Ajax and told her all; and though at first with many tears she tried to shake his resolution, when she found that it was unalterable she also rose to the height of the sacrifice, and declared that since he intended to join the Sangha she also for his sake, since she could never forget him or love another, would take up the religious life and become a nun. This she did, and she faithfully kept her vow.

Young as he was, this love affair had an enormous influence in his life. In many ways it made a man of him, there and then; and when the scene was over, and vows of eternal fidelity—yet also of eternal separation—had been exchanged, he went straight to his mother, told her the whole story from beginning to end, and announced that he could keep his vow only if he were allowed instantly to become a samanera, or probationer, and so were permitted to enter the monastery. The mother understood, and though she wept for the suffering through which her son had passed, she at the same time rejoiced that he had been strong enough for this great act of renounciation, and that now he was really resolved to dedicate his life to the noblest of all objects. So the boy went with her to his father, and rather announced his intention of assuming the yellow robe than asked permission to do so. The father applauded the idea, though he himself was far from wishing to imitate it, and the great ceremony of the upsampada, or consecration, took place as soon as possible.

It was very different in its ornate ritual from the simple yet most impressive ceremony by which the Lord Buddha Himslef had received him during his previous birth. Then he had simply bowed before the Lord, had answered searching questions, and made some promises; he was then taken aside by Dharmajyoti, and he cast off his ordinary dress and put on the yellow robe of those that help the world. Then, dressed in that symbol of his new life, he returned and prostrated himself at the feet of the Lord, who blessed him solemnly as His new pupil, and told him to see to it that his life proved worthy of the robe which now he wore.

That was the custom of the Lord, but by this time the whole affair had become an elaborate ritual and the occasion for a great feast, to which all friends of the family were invited. The candidate was dressed with the greatest magnificence, all the family jewels being heaped upon him; he wore the crown of a prince, and robes made in imitation of the state dress of the King. In all this uncomfortable finery he held a kind of final reception, at which all his friends came and congratulated him and offered him presents, he presiding for several days over the feasting, and all honour being paid to him.

Upasena went through all this because it was expected of him, yet in the midst of all this apparent triumph he had no feeling but utter boredom and the keenest impatience for the time when all should be over. One feature which caused him much of suffering was that the cousin whom he loved so dearly was compelled by family custom to take part in all this entertainment, and to offer her congratulations with the rest.

At last came the day of the ordinance ceremony, when he appeared before the head of the monastery. Aldebran who sat to receive him with all his monks mustered around him. One by one he took off all his jewels, his crown and his gorgeous robes, and cast them at the feet of the chief abbot, announcing that he had done with them for ever and with all that they symbolised. Bending before the abbot, clad in one simple white robe only, he then had to submit to a long and weary catechism, and to hear the recitation of a great number of texts; but at last the vow of the Order was solemnly administered to him, and he was allowed to go with his chosen teacher (for every applicant must choose one among the elder monks for his responsible teacher) into a sort of vestry, where he cast off even his white robe and put on instead the beautiful robe of the Sangha.

That dress at least had been unchanged through all the centuries of his sojourn in the heaven world; and even as he endued himself with sojourn in the heaven-world; and even as he returned himself with the three robes which were henceforth to represent all his worldly possessions, the act seemed somehow strangely familiar to him, and there came to him a half-memory of the glorious Presence in which ones before he had performed the symbolical act.

Then he went out again into the great hall of monastery, and prostrated himself at the feet of the chief abbot, even as twelve hundred years before at the feet of the Lord Himself, and so once more he took upon himself the life of the ascetic, though this time at the age of fifteen instead of forty-two.

He plunged into his new studies with ardour, in order to help him to forget his love—or rather, not to forget but to sanctify it, and to raise it to a higher level. The monastery to which he belonged was a great and rich one, and among other things it was noted for its magnificent library. Dhammalankara devoted himself to this, even beyond the studies that were expected from him. He seemed to have a love for the books, and applied to the librarian for permission to arrange them and keep them in order, and in a surprisingly short time he knew the title and the exact place of every book in that vast library.

So passed some years of eager work, his mother coming often to see him and to talk with him, though now as a monk he might not even touch her hand. Some natural maternal sorrow she felt, that she could no longer embrace her boy; yet this was far outweighed by the solemn joy that now he had entered upon his upward course, and that her richest hopes had been fulfilled. Once it had been she who blessed him and breathed her vows over him; now she rejoiced to receive a blessing at his hands, and loved to recite her daily precepts at his dictation.

Though she might no longer embrace him, there was no law to prevent her from looking at him when he passed through the streets unconscious of her fond regard. She watched him then with a joy and pride which had perhaps a certain amount of justification, for he was certainly by far the handsomest monk in the monastery, and the beautiful primrose colour, though as that fades with constant washing and they are dyed again and again, they become a rich deep orange, and eventually if not renewed, a rather dirty brown. His father too came occasionally, but had little to say except platitudes, though he also was gratified at the appearance of his son, and at the reputation for diligence and sanctity which he had already acquired.

Unfortunately others besides his mother were attracted to his handsome face, and among them

Scorpio—a woman of considerable notoriety in her own line of life and of doubtful—well, no, scarcely doubtful—reputation. She saw him passing in the street, and was smitten by an unholy affection for him; she came to hear him preach and tried to catch his eye, but without success.

Then she came to consult him privately and to seek for advice, for which however he referred her to older monks, not seeming to observe the various obvious hints which she threw out.

Finding this ineffectual, she invited him to her house to recite the texts of blessing for a sick person—a call which he could not refuse to obey; and while there she tried in various ways to entrap him, contriving to expose herself before him as a temptation to break his vows. The young man, however was filled with disgust, and made his escape at the earliest convenient opportunity, so that Scorpio’ s lust was turned to hate, and she vowed to compass his disgrace and overthrow. Many men were in her toils, and were quite ready to help her in her schemes, so she worked out an exceedingly ingenious plot, inducing a certain girl to accuse him, and herself (with every appearance of reluctance) bearing false witness against him, and bringing several men to support the charge from different sides.

Alcyone of course indignantly denied the whole thing, but the case was pressed, and brought before the chief abbot. He however, being an astute man, and somewhat shrewd questions, which exposed contradictions in the story of the accusers. He soon discovered sufficient to warrant him in laying the matter before King Harsha, who promptly enquired into it, laid bare the whole nefarious plot, and banished the woman and her fellow-conspirators, confiscating all their wealth and transferring it to Alcyone’ s temple.

The chief abbot, though thus entirely convinced of Alcyone’ s innocence, still thought it desirable to remove so handsome a young monk for a time from the place where such plots were so easily possible, and so he sent him out upon a pilgrimage to the great Buddhist shrines, which occupied him for more than a year.

A year or two before this, when he was just twenty years of age, his monastery had entertained a celebrated Chinese pilgrim.

Hiuen Tsang, who had been received as a distinguished visitor, to whom every possible honour was paid. On that occasion Alcyone was one of hundreds of monks who joined in a great procession which was arranged by the King himself—an extraordinary procession, many parts of which must have seemed to the spectators in no way religious. Although the monks and the gorgeously caprisoned temple elephants took part in it, there were also men dressed as wild beasts, and others dancing and showing a curious sort of sword-play with long sticks, at which they were extremely clever. Still others were dressed to imitate aboriginal tribes, hillmen and foreigners, some apparently being intended for Greeks or Romans, with faces painted white.

The great procession was undoubtedly effective, though the rejoicings of the occasion came near to being marred by an appalling accident, for some Hindu fanatic (probably insane) rushed at the King and attempted to kill him. He was however seized and disarmed before he could effect his nefarious purpose, and King Harsha at the time took no notice whatever, but ordered the cortege to proceed as though nothing had happened. Afterwards, however, he made strict enquiry into the affair, and banish a number of Brahmans who were accused of complicity in the plot.

The King went in great state to Prayag (now Allahabad), and there went through a curious ceremony of renounciation, or extravagant charity, giving away to the poor or to the temples all his jewels, his crown, and even his royal to the poor or to the temples all his jewels, his crown, and even his royal robes. Unfortunately, only a few years later, in the year 648, King Harsha died, and the great Empire, which he had built up so labouriously and at the cost of so much bloodshed, fell rapidly to pieces.

Immediately after his death his prime minister, a man of the name of Arjuna, seized upon the supreme power. He was, however, able to assert it over only a small part of the country that had owned Harsha’ s sway; and in less than two years he was summarily suppressed by a Mongolian army. After that there seem to have been several claimants to sovereignty, and presently a prince named Vasudharman ruled for some tithe—not, however ever Harsha’ s Empire, but over a far smaller state or subdivision, or it called Panchala. Through all this disturbance the city of Kanyakubja seems to have been strangely little affected; its temples at any rate were entirely uninjured, and experienced no greater trouble than certain fluctuations in revenue, the Buddhist or the Hindu temples reaping the greatest profit according to the religion of the ruler who happened to be uppermost at the time.

When Alcyone was sent on his pilgrimage he visited all the important Buddhist shrines in the north of India, and therefore naturally to a great extent retraced the steps of his previous incarnation, though he knew nothing of this. Twice, however, he had a curious vision which involved the recollection of some of the more striking scenes of that previous incarnation. The first time was at Buddha Gaya itself, where, meditating in devotional ecstacy under the Bo-tree, he had a very clear and vivid presentment of the wonderful scene of the Illumination. The other occasion was in the garden near Rajgriha, where on two successive days he was able to recall two pictures from the past—his own solemn pledge of future attainment given to the Buddha, and that scene in the garden when first he took his cousin Mizar to hear the teaching of the Lord. He visited Sarnath also, and found there a magnificent grey granite lion pillar erected on the spot where the great Master used to preach.

This pillar was at the centre of a huge semicircle of other pillars facing towards the great dagoba, while behind them, outside of the curve of the semicircle, were arranged the enormous and thickly populated monastery buildings.

Alcyone regretted the death of King Harsha, who had been a good friend and patron of his monastery; but, as I have said, the political troubles and disturbances of the next few years made wonderfully little difference to the temples or the monasteries. It is true that they missed the active patronage of the King, but the crowds of pilgrims came and went in spite of the wars, and even the Mongolian army felt as deep respect for the temples of the Buddha as did the ordinary inhabitants of the country. Some six years after King Harsha’s death, Alcyone’s old friend and helper

Dharmajyoti visited the monastery, but this time he was the celebrated teacher and preacher Aryasanga. He remained for some time in Kanyakubja, attracting huge crowds by his eloquence.

Indeed they would fain have had him settle there altogether, but he had set his heart upon carrying the purer teaching of the Buddha into the highlands of Tibet, and so he would not tarry on his way.

Naturally the old tie at once reasserted itself, though however it may have been with Aryasanga, Alcyone at any rate did not know the reason of the compelling attraction which instantly and at first sight drew him to the feet of the great revivalist. Aryasang smiled upon the younger man and drew him quickly into close relations with himself, and when in a few months the time came for his further journey towards the hills, Alcyone was one of those whom he chose to accompany him. The good abbot Aldebran also thought much of Alcyone, but was quite willing to let him go upon an expedition as this.

For many days they travelled, far up into the mountains, in the leisurely fashion of those days, making halts of weeks in duration at various monasteries on the way, Aryasanga always preaching to the monks and the people, and inspiring them with his own fiery zeal and enthusiasm. Many a time on such occasions he appointed Alcyone to speak to the people, and he always aquitted himself well.

Their first long stay was at a monastery in a beautiful valley in Nepal, and here Aryasanga and his band remained for nearly a year, teaching the monks, organising the religion generally over a large section of the country, and making this monastery a kind of headquarters for their reformed faith. It was at this monastery a kind of headquarters for their reformed faith. It was at this monastery that Arayasanga left to his successors that wonderful book of extracts which he called The Book of the Golden Precepts, which commenced with the Stanzas of Dzyan, and included many quotations from the writings of the great Nagarjuna included many quotations from the writings of the great Nagarjuna included many quotations from writings of the great Nagarjuna (Mercury), of whom in an earlier life in Greece he had been so devoted a follower when he was Kleineas, and Nagarjuna was Pythagoras.

Then after staying there for nearly twelve months he went on over the mountains to Lhassa, he left Alcyone at the Nepalese monastery to help and direct the studies of the community which he had reorganised; and it was Alcyone who prepared and added to that book the reports of the discourses of Aryasanga, three of which Madame Blavatsky has translated for us in The Voice of the Silence, so that we owe that priceless volume to his care in reporting, just as in this present incarnation we owe to him our possession of the exquisite companion volume, At the Feet of the Master.

For some two years he remained there, and then returned to his own monastery at Kanyakubja, in 657. The old abbot was unfeignedly glad to see him and received him with great honour.

Though still quite a young man, he was regarded with great respect because of his close association with the revered Aryasanga. He gradually acquired a considerable reputation of his own, both for learning and for intuition. People came even from great distances, and after hearing their stories (if the case was difficult one and beyond his own judgement) he would pass into a condition of deep meditation, from which he always emerged with some inspiration as to what he should say to the people. The advice which he gave was always sound and wise, and it produced a great impression upon the minds of his visitors. He retained still his early love for books, and in addition to his other work he held for some years the post of librarian to the monastery.

In 667 there came to him an embassy from the temple in Nepal, praying him to return thither and become abbot of that monastery, since there was no one among the monks who felt himself worthy to take his place. Alcyone was much divided in mind, and hesitated long with regard to this matter; he loved his work and his books in Kanyakubja, and he could not but feel that he was of use to the many who came thither to consult him. But at the same time the temple in the hills represented the work of his great friend and teacher Aryasanga, and to help that also seemed a duty. After long consultation with the chief abbot, who had always remained his firmest friend, he decided to accede to the summons. The old abbot blessed him sorely, but yet that he thought on the whole that it was his duty to go.

So once more he entered the wonderful hill country, and dwelt for ten years in that lonely monastery, directing the work, keeping alive the organisation of Aryasanga, and guiding and stimulating the faith of a great mountain district. All this time, however, one of his chief objects was to train the Nepalese monks to manage their own monastery; from the first he selected Phoenix, the man whom he thought most suitable, and prepared him to take his own place and to set him free to return to India as soon as might be. There was much work, however, to be done, and it was not until 677 that at last he turned his face southward again. Even then it was only upon receipt of an urgent message from Aldebran, his own chief abbot at Kanyakubja, who was by this time ninety years of age, and wrote that he found himself no longer able to administer the complicated affairs of that great monastery, and that there was no one into whose hands he could so confidently deliver his charge as those of his dearly loved pupil.

So Alcyone solemnly installed as abbot of the Napalese monastery the successor whom he had been so carefully training, and giving them all a final and solemn benediction, he turned his back for the last time upon that wonderful snowy range, and journeyed into the warmer country of the plains below. He was received with a popular ovation, and treated with the greatest reverence by all. The chief abbot welcomed him with tears of joy, and would have delivered at once into his hands the insignia of office. Alcyone, however, preferred to arrange that though he himself would do all the work and take all the responsibility, his old teacher should retain the nominal position as long as he lived. The old man lingered on for some happy years, but Alcyone practically ruled everything, and ruled it wisely and well, so that when Aldebran died there was really no break in the continuity of the management.

Alcyone in his old age remained as enthusiastic as ever, but was gentler than in the days of his youth, and though he preached constantly against the great luxury of the times, he contrived to do so without alienating his audience, because he never attacked it fiercely or characterised it as wickedness, as did so many other reformers, but simply gently and persistently reminded his hearers that all this also would pass away, and that attachment to objects leads always to sorrow. He established and extended the influence which his old patron Aldabran had gained for his temple, and he made it distinctly a powerful factor for good, not only in the town, but in the whole of this Kingdom of Panchala. The times were troubled and there was much disturbance, but the influence of Alcyone and his predecessor aided much to hold steady a large proportion of the more influential of the people of the city.

Often the leader of some of the rival factions would come to him to plead the justice of their cause and ask for his blessing upon their warfare; but his answer was always the same—that no cause however good, could make wrong right or justify slaughter and oppression; that the teaching of the Buddha was clear, that men should live together in peace and in love, and that it mattered little who bore the burden of ruling the country, so long as its inhabitants lived according to the precepts of the Good Law. So he died at last in the odour of sanctity in the year 694, and though in the line of his successors there were few men who were not more worldly than he, the prestige which he and his teacher had given to the monastery clung round it like a halo for some centuries to come, and even the barbarous invaders from the north usually respected the lives of its monks, though sometimes they robbed it of its treasures.

In this present life Alcyone was again born in the south of India, and at thirteen years of age was brought under the fostering care of the President of the Theosophical society. Soon after this the Master admitted him as a probationary pupil, and after only five months (the shortest probation yet known) passed him on to the second stage–that of accepted discipleship. After only a few days in this degree he was received into the still closer union of the third stage, and became a’son of the Master’; and at the same time he took the most important step which an ego can take, for he’entered upo the stream’-he attained that first of the Great Initiations which not only makes a man safe for ever, but also admits him as a member of the Great White Brotherhood that rules the world. What shall be the future of a life which opens thus? The Theosophical Society may indeed rejoice that it has been counted worthy to receive such an one into its Headquarters.

The faithful Mizar is his younger brother this time, as he has so often been before. Many of those whose names have been mentioned in this chronicle have gathered round him to help and to be helped; and though in this life but few of them are related to one another by cosanguinity they are drawn together by the far closer tie of their common love for Theosophy and for him. Wences appeared in Bohemia about A.D.800 as King Wenceslass. Aurora was his Prime Minister.

Spica appeared as a Saxon in Kent in A.D. 825 and again in A.D. 1278 in India, in each case in a female body.

Time does not permit us to do more than glance at the last life of Mizar, though there is much connected with it that would repay more detailed investigation. He was born at a city called Kanchi (now Conjiveram) in the south of India, in the year A.D.1070 just after King Kulottanga came to the throne. His father was Telema, a statesman high in favour of the monarch, and his mother was Soma. His childhood seems to have been a happy one, as his parents were more sensible than most, and xonsulted his comfort rather than their own prejudices.

He grew up into the atmosphere of an Indian court nott the best school, perhaps, for so receptive a mind. But the father and mother were people of remarkable probity, honest among a host of intriguers, so that the home influence, at any rate, was always good and pure. His great friend during school and student days was Gluck, the son of Ivy, a neighbouring chieftain, almost independent, although nominally owing allegiance to the same King. The two friends were inseparable until a matter of religion divided them –not that they ever quarrelled on religious subjects, but that Gluck was absorbed into the circle which gathered round the great new preacher Ramanujacharya, while Mizar, though admiring him immensely and feeling nothing but the deepest friendliness and reverence for him, yet would not leave the Shavite form of worship in which he had been brought up.

For a long time this made no difference to the two friends, but presently King Kulottunga, stirred up by his family priests, became violently hostile to Ramanujacharya, and the latter found it politic to retire to Srirangam, whither his devoted disciple followed him, and thus for the first time the friends were separated. Mizar inherited his father’s political genius, and held important positions both under King Kulottunga and under his son Vikram Chola who succeded him after his death in the year 1118. He had to conduct some delicate negotiations with ceylon, whose King at that time was one Wijayobahu, who had undertaken a great war against the Tamil invaders of his country, and had finally driven them back to the mainland.

Mizar was entirely successful in the mission which he undertook, and gained great reputation and substantial reward as the result of his skill.

He married, though not early in life, and his wife was gentle and unobjectionable–a careful helpmate and a good mother to the six children whom she bore him.

Mizar died in the year 1148 at an advanced age. Having spent the last few years of his life in retirement from active service, though occasion ally advising his successor when special difficulties arose. These two administrative lives may be regarded as probably intended to serve as a preparation for the far more important executive work which seems likely to fall to his share in this present life.

We find a small but important group of our characters gathered in Central France towards the end of the eleventh century, Colossus, who in that life bore the name of Tecelin, was a man of distinguished family, a knight and vassal of the Duke of Burgandy, living at Fontaines near Dijon. He married the Lady Aleth (Vesta) who was also of a noble family of the name of Montbard. This couple had six children, all of them characters in our story. There were five brothers: Nicos, Pavo, Naga, Crux and Quies, and one sister Algol. Colossus was killed in the First Crusade while his children were still yong, and some ten years after Vesta also passed away, though not until she had ineffaceaby stamped herr piety, her fiery religious zeal and her wonderfully loving nature upon her young family. Her two elder sons had taken up the profession of arms as a matter of course, and had married; but the mother’s devotion found its fullest reflection in the third son Bernard, who in our history is called Naga.

He was born in the year 1090, and from an early age declared his intention of consecrating himself absolutely to the service of God in the world, through the endeavour to guide humanity towards Him. He devoted much of his time to meditation, chiefly out in the woods, for his love of nature was only less a passion with him than his love for humanity. In later life he wrote: Experto crede; aliquid amplius invenies in silvis quam in libris; ligna et lapides docebunt te quod a magistris audire non possis.”Trust one who knows; you will find something wider in woods than in books; the forests and the rocks will teach you something which you cannot learn from the professors.”His great ideas as to the means of helping humanity were: first, to set them the example of a stainless life, and secondly to become a monk and preach to them, and preach to them, and he began expounding this doctrine to those nearest and dearest to him with such wonderfully persuasive power that his whole family followed him; his two elder brothers Guido and Gerard made provision for their wives and children, gave up the profession of arms, and joined him in the monastic life, while his younger brothers and his sister adopted it from the first.

He spoke with such effect to neighbours of his own rank that at the age of twenty two he was able to present himself at the little ruined monstery of Citreaux with thirty young men, alll of noble family, and all burning with anxiety to take the severest monastic vows, and to devote themselves to God’s work in the world. The head of this humble monastery was at this time an Englishman, named Stephen Harding, a monk from the Abbey of Sherborne in Dorsetshire, and he naturally welcomed with enthusiasm this important accession to his obscure little community. Naga continued to exercise his marvellous persuasive power, and it is said by a contemporary writer that”mothers his their sons, wives their husbands, comanions their friends, because none could resist him.”

The accommodation of the humble building at Citeaux proved entirely inadequate, so in 1115 Naga was sent out with twelve others to seek a site for a daughter establishment. He went northward and presently decided upon a wild and thickly wooded valley, where he founded the monastery of Clairvaulx, the fame of which was later to spread through Christendom. Young as he was, he was appointed abbot of this mon astery, and the number of its novices increased with startling rapidity. The young abbot was at this time scornfully impatient of the ordinary desires and emotions of humanity, and he demanded from himself, though not from others, an impossibly rapid rate of progress in their subju gation. His austerities were so extreme that he speedily fell ill and would probably have brought himself and his work to a premature end but for the interference of a wiser and much older friend, William de Champeaux, who was enough of a doctor to understand that ascetism may very easily be overdone, and that when it is, it inevitably leads to disastrous results.

His senior’s counsel prevailed, and Naga re-established his health; and his renewed vigour speedily showed itself both in his speeches and in his writings. His high character and his absolute unselfishness gained him very wide influence, and the fame of his zeal and of his sanctity spread over the whole of France. He began to be invited to the Synods and Councils of the Church, and it was he who secured official recognition for the order of the knights Templars, and drew up for them their table of regulations. His extraordinary power of persuation resulted from the unselfish depth of affection in his nature; but he regarded it as his duty to direct this entirely along the lines of love for humanity as a whole.

The tenor of his teaching was always that men could attain salvation only by being filled with the spirit of Christ, and therefore becoming Christlike. He held that heretics shold be brought into the fold not by force of arms but by force of argument, and that faith was to be produced from within by persuation and not to be imposed upon men from without. The spirit of the age, however, was strongly in opposition to those milder doctrines, and it was not entirely without its influence on him, so that he was sometimes betrayed into expressions and actions incosistent with these high ideals. Whatever cause he espoused, he identified himself with it whole heartedlly, and ran some danger of becoming fanatical in its advocacy.

When Pope Honorius II died in 1130 there sprang up two claimants to the Papal Throne–Innocent and Anacletus. The cardinals favoured the latter, and he was established in Rome, while Innocent fled to France. King Louis of France espoused Innocent’s cause, and called a great Council of archbishops and bishops to decide upon the matter. To this Council Naga was summoned, and he thought it his duty to go, though it was with considerable reluctance that he abandoned his quiet literary life at Clairvaulx. After much debate and careful examination as to the claims and character of the two Popes he pronounced in favour of Innocent, and his eloquence carried the whole Council with him.

He then travelled with Innocent over a good deal of France and Germany, and he was everywhere successful in bringing men to his position in Rome, all the rest of Europe acknowledged Innocent. Indeed, Naga so stirred up the Emperor Lothair that he took up arms in order to assert Innocent’s claim, and finally obtained his coronation in Rome, Anacletus being shut up in the Castle of St. Augelo, where he shortly

At the council at Sens in 1140 he was put forward to argue with the great Schoolman Abelard, who, however, retired from the contest.Naga however, presented so ably his case against the alleged heresies of Abelard that he obtained a condemnation of them from the Pope. It was against his will that he was drawn into these wranglings, and later into political complications; but he regarded it as a duty thrust upon him and so he did it to the best of his ability, even though it outraged his own nature of love and gentleness. It was entirely against his better feelings that he was persuaded to harshness against Ableard, and also on another occasion against Bishop Gilbert of Poietiers. He was undoubtedly in a very difficult position; the Pope and all the eccliastical authorities of the time thought that severity against heretics was absolutely necessary for the welfare of the Church, and they therefore took it as a matter of course, and were inclined to be doubtful of the orthodoxy of any who disapproved it. Naga held strongly to the hierarchical theory of the duty of full obedience to authority, and felt that he had no right to set his opinion against theirs; yet the intense inherent affection of his nature was constantly at war with these outer requirements. Sometimes it triumphed altogether, as in the case of his stern rebuke to the Christians who attemped to set on foot a persecution against the Jews in Mayence.

It has been mentioned that Colossus was killed in the First Crusade and naturally enough Naga’s youthful entusiasm had been strongly excited by the account of the doughty deeds of the Christians in the endeavour to wrest the Holy Sepulture from the hands of the Paynim. So when the Pope decided upon a Second Crusade, Naga was the man whom he chose to preach it, and once more he thought it his duty to take up the work, though with many misgivings as to whether even the sacred object which was to be gained could be worth the terrible slaughter which it entailed–whether the work of the Lord of Love could ever be furthered by the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of His creatures.

But when he decided to take up this mission, throwing the responsibility for his coins so entirely upon the command of the Pope, he threw hiself into it with characteristic vigour and tenacity of purpose. His preaching was attended by its usual success, the people followed him with such enthusiasm that it is said that whole districts were depopulated, as their inhabitants set out for the East full of religious fervour, but with remarkably little idea of the practical side of the expedition which they were undertaking.

As history tells us, the Second Crusade was a disastrous failure, and when this became generally known, Naga was widely blamed for his share in promoting it. He felt his responsibility bitterly, and there is no doubt that the last part of his life was much saddened by the feeling that he was to some extent responsible for such a tremendous amount of fruitless slaughter. Many of his own personal friends were killed in this futile expeditions; and in this way also he suffered greatly, since he had always been especially ardent in his sympathies and friendships.

It was probably partly in consequence of this emotional suffering that at this period his health began to fail him, though it is undoubtedly also true that he had undermined his constitution by the excessive austerities of his youth.

More and more in his later years he took refuge in the inner rapture of mystic devotion which had always had a keen attraction for him, though all through his earlier life he intentionally repressed that side of his life in order to devote himself without interruption and with utter selfish ness to what seemed to him the work of God in the world. He passed away eventually in the year 1153, and when in the astral world he reviewed with clearer vision the course of his physical life, he saw sometimes the very thoroughness of his self renunciation and obedience had led him into error. He realised now with the clearness of that more impartial sight that the gospel of love can never be spread by disputation or by war, and he prayed earnestly for another opportuity to serve God more acceptably–by using the compelling power of his love in har mony with the Eternal Love of which it is a part. In this present incarnation that opportunity is given to him; may the blessing of the Lord of Love descend upon him in his use of it!

Erato was born in the year 1503, at the city of Ratisbon in Bavaria. His father was an etcher and engraver, a pupil of Albert Durer–also a painter and an architect. The boy watched his father at work and rapidly acquired artistic knowledge and skill, and by the age of fifteen was able to do work indistinguishable from hiss father’s. The religious views of the family were those of the Quietists. The life, however, was but a short one, as at the age of nineteen Erato was carried off by one of the epidemics which so frequently raged in mideaval Europe.

In the latter part of sixteenth century Vajra appeared in India as Abul Fazl, prime minister of Akbar. Herakles appeared in Italy in a male body. Achilles and Helios also were born in female bodies in Italy.

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Orion was born in 1597 as the second son of a Venetian nobleman. His father and mother, though kind, were worldly people, and he was left almost entirely to the care of an old nurse (Gamma) who filled his mind with wild stories of Knights and dragons, and of fights against the infidel for the sake of the faith. He fell in love at the first opportunity with Egeria, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. He was a postulant, and she was supposed to be seeking information on religious subjects from him; but the relations between them went further than their friends expected, and there was a great disturbance. The young lady was treated so harshly by her parents that she threw herself into the canal and was drowned, and Orion was hurried off in disgrace and placed in a monastery in Padua, where he soon pined away and died at the age of twenty three.

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