“I am,” stated Watson, and met the other’s keen scrutiny without flinching.

Would the game work?  At least it promised action; and now that he had the old feeling of himself he was anxious to get under way.  Any feeling of fear was gone now.  He calmly nodded his head.

“Yes, it is so.  But sit down.  I have still a bit more to tell you.”

The Rhamda resumed his seat.  Clearly, his reverence had been greatly augmented in the past few seconds.  From that time on there was a marked difference in his manner; and his speech, when he addressed Chick, contained the expression “my lord”—­an expression that Watson found it easy enough to become accustomed to.

“Did you doubt, Rhamda Geos, that I came from the Jarados?”

“We did not doubt.  We were certain.”

“I see.  You were not expecting the Jarados.”

“Not yet, my lord.  The coming of the Jarados shall be close to the Day of the Judgment.  But it could not be so soon; there were to be signs and portents.  We were to solve the problem first; we were to know the reason of the shadow and the why of the spirit.  The wisdom of the Rhamda Avec told that the day approaches; he had opened the Spot of Life and gone through it; but he had not sent the fact and the substance.”  Watson smiled.  There was just enough superstition, it seemed, beneath all the Rhamda’s wisdom to make him tractable.  However, Chick asked: 

“Tell me:  as a learned man, as a Rhamda, do you believe in the prophecy implicitly?”

“Yes, my lord.  I am a spiritist; and if spiritism is truth, then the Jarados was genuine, and his prophecy is true.  After all, my lord, it is not a case of legend, but of history.  The Jarados came at a time of high civilisation, when men would see and understand him; he gave us his teaching in records, and imposed his laws upon the Thomahlia.  Then he departed—­through the Spot of Life.”

And the Rhamda Geos went on to say that the teachings of the Jarados had been moral as well as intellectual.  Moreover, after he had formulated his laws, he wrote out his judgment.

“What was that?”

“An exhortation, my lord, that we were to give proof of our appreciation of intelligence.  We were to use it, and to prove ourselves worthy of it by lifting ourselves up to the level of the Spot of Life.  In other words, the spot would be opened when, and only when, we had learned the secrets of the occult, and—­had opened the Spot ourselves!”

Watson thought he understood partly.  He asked: 

“And that is why you doubt me?”

“You, my lord?  Not so!  You were found in the Temple of the Bell and Leaf; not on the Spot itself, to be sure, but on the floor of the temple.  You were, both in your person and in your dress, of another world; you had been promised by the Rhamda Avec; and, in a sense, you were a part of the prophecy.  We accepted you!”

“But I speak your language.  Account for that, Geos.”