“So! you are agitated and alarmed!  Unbelief is easily scared!”

I looked up and met the calm eyes of Heliobas.  He appeared to be taller, statelier, more like a Chaldean prophet or king than I had ever seen him before.  There was something in his steady scrutiny of my face that put me to a sort of shame, and when he spoke again it was in a tone of mild reproof.

“You have been led astray, my child, by the conflicting and vain opinions of mankind.  You, like many others in the world, delight to question, to speculate, to weigh this, to measure that, with little or no profit to yourself or your fellow-creatures.  And you have come freshly from a land where, in the great Senate-house, a poor perishable lump of clay calling itself a man, dares to stand up boldly and deny the existence of God, while his compeers, less bold than he, pretend a holy displeasure, yet secretly support him—­all blind worms denying the existence of the sun; a land where so-called Religion is split into hundreds of cold and narrow sects, gatherings assembled for the practice of hypocrisy, lip-service and lies—­where Self, not the Creator, is the prime object of worship; a land, mighty once among the mightiest, but which now, like an over-ripe pear, hangs loosely on its tree, awaiting but a touch to make it fall!  A land—­let me not name it;—­where the wealthy, high-fed ministers of the nation slowly argue away the lives of better men than themselves, with vain words of colder and more cruel force than the whirling spears of untaught savages!  What have you, an ardent disciple of music, to do in such a land where favouritism and backstair influence win the day over even the merits of a Schubert?  Supposing you were a second Beethoven, what could you do in that land without faith or hope? that land which is like a disappointed, churlish, and aged man with tottering feet and purblind eyes, who has long ago exhausted all enjoyment and sees nothing new under the sun.  The world is wide—­faith is yet extant—­and the teachings of Christ are true.  ‘Believe and live; doubt and die!’ That saying is true also.”

I had listened to these words in silence; but now I spoke eagerly and impatiently, remembering what Zara had told me.

“Then,” I said, “if I have been misguided by modern opinions—­if I have unconsciously absorbed the doctrines of modern fashionable atheism—­lead me right.  Teach me what you know.  I am willing to learn.  Let me find out the reason of my life.  Set me free!”

Heliobas regarded me with earnest solemnity.

“Set you free!” he murmured, in a low tone.  “Do you know what you ask?”

“No,” I answered, with reckless fervour.  “I do not know what I ask; but I feel that you have the power to show me the unseen things of another world.  Did you not yourself tell me in our first interview that you had let Raffaello Cellini ’go on a voyage of discovery, and that he came back perfectly satisfied?’ Besides, he told me his history.  From you he has gained all that gives him peace and comfort.  You possess electric secrets undreamt of by the world.  Prove your powers upon me; I am not afraid.”