Jones put the pistol to his temple and
once more pressed the trigger with his finger. But this time there was no report. Only a little dead click answered the
pressure, for the secretary had forgotten that the pistol had only six
chambers, and that he had used them all. He threw the useless weapon
on to the floor, laughing a little out loud, and turned, without a
struggle, to give himself up. "I _had_ to do it," he said quietly, while they tied him. "It was simply
my duty! And now I am ready to face the consequences, and Thorpe will be
proud of me. For justice has been done and the gods are satisfied." He made not the slightest resistance, and when the two policemen marched
him off through the crowd of shuddering little clerks in the office, he
again saw the veiled figure moving majestically in front of him, making
slow sweeping circles with the flaming sword, to keep back the host of
faces that were thronging in upon him from the Other Region. *       *       *       *       *




_The Man Who Found Out_

(A Nightmare)

1


Professor Mark Ebor, the scientist, led a double life, and the only
persons who knew it were his assistant, Dr. Laidlaw, and his publishers. But a double life need not always be a bad one, and, as Dr. Laidlaw and
the gratified publishers well knew, the parallel lives of this
particular man were equally good, and indefinitely produced would
certainly have ended in a heaven somewhere that can suitably contain
such strangely opposite characteristics as his remarkable personality
combined. For Mark Ebor, F.R.S., etc., etc., was that unique combination hardly
ever met with in actual life, a man of science and a mystic. As the first, his name stood in the gallery of the great, and as the
second--but there came the mystery! For under the pseudonym of "Pilgrim"
(the author of that brilliant series of books that appealed to so many),
his identity was as well concealed as that of the anonymous writer of
the weather reports in a daily newspaper. Thousands read the sanguine,
optimistic, stimulating little books that issued annually from the pen
of "Pilgrim," and thousands bore their daily burdens better for having
read; while the Press generally agreed that the author, besides being an
incorrigible enthusiast and optimist, was also--a woman; but no one ever
succeeded in penetrating the veil of anonymity and discovering that
"Pilgrim" and the biologist were one and the same person. Mark Ebor, as Dr. Laidlaw knew him in his laboratory, was one man; but
Mark Ebor, as he sometimes saw him after work was over, with rapt eyes
and ecstatic face, discussing the possibilities of "union with God" and
the future of the human race, was quite another. "I have always held, as you know," he was saying one evening as he
sat in the little study beyond the laboratory with his assistant and
intimate, "that Vision should play a large part in the life of the
awakened man--not to be regarded as infallible, of course, but to be
observed and made use of as a guide-post to possibilities--"

"I am aware of your peculiar views, sir," the young doctor put in
deferentially, yet with a certain impatience. "For Visions come from a region of the consciousness where observation
and experiment are out of the question," pursued the other with
enthusiasm, not noticing the interruption, "and, while they should be
checked by reason afterwards, they should not be laughed at or ignored. All inspiration, I hold, is of the nature of interior Vision, and all
our best knowledge has come--such is my confirmed belief--as a sudden
revelation to the brain prepared to receive it--"

"Prepared by hard work first, by concentration, by the closest possible
study of ordinary phenomena," Dr. Laidlaw allowed himself to observe. "Perhaps," sighed the other; "but by a process, none the less, of
spiritual illumination. The best match in the world will not light a
candle unless the wick be first suitably prepared." It was Laidlaw's turn to sigh. He knew so well the impossibility of
arguing with his chief when he was in the regions of the mystic, but at
the same time the respect he felt for his tremendous attainments was so
sincere that he always listened with attention and deference, wondering
how far the great man would go and to what end this curious combination
of logic and "illumination" would eventually lead him. "Only last night," continued the elder man, a sort of light coming into
his rugged features, "the vision came to me again--the one that has
haunted me at intervals ever since my youth, and that will not be
denied." Dr. Laidlaw fidgeted in his chair. "About the Tablets of the Gods, you mean--and that they lie somewhere
hidden in the sands," he said patiently. A sudden gleam of interest came
into his face as he turned to catch the professor's reply. "And that I am to be the one to find them, to decipher them, and to give
the great knowledge to the world--"

"Who will not believe," laughed Laidlaw shortly, yet interested in spite
of his thinly-veiled contempt. "Because even the keenest minds, in the right sense of the word, are
hopelessly--unscientific," replied the other gently, his face positively
aglow with the memory of his vision. "Yet what is more likely," he
continued after a moment's pause, peering into space with rapt eyes that
saw things too wonderful for exact language to describe, "than that
there should have been given to man in the first ages of the world some
record of the purpose and problem that had been set him to solve? In a
word," he cried, fixing his shining eyes upon the face of his perplexed
assistant, "that God's messengers in the far-off ages should have given
to His creatures some full statement of the secret of the world, of the
secret of the soul, of the meaning of life and death--the explanation of
our being here, and to what great end we are destined in the ultimate
fullness of things?" Dr. Laidlaw sat speechless. These outbursts of mystical enthusiasm he
had witnessed before. With any other man he would not have listened to
a single sentence, but to Professor Ebor, man of knowledge and profound
investigator, he listened with respect, because he regarded this
condition as temporary and pathological, and in some sense a reaction
from the intense strain of the prolonged mental concentration of many
days. He smiled, with something between sympathy and resignation as he met the
other's rapt gaze. "But you have said, sir, at other times, that you consider the ultimate
secrets to be screened from all possible--"

"The _ultimate_ secrets, yes," came the unperturbed reply; "but that
there lies buried somewhere an indestructible record of the secret
meaning of life, originally known to men in the days of their pristine
innocence, I am convinced. And, by this strange vision so often
vouchsafed to me, I am equally sure that one day it shall be given to me
to announce to a weary world this glorious and terrific message."