on the shores of the same vast sea,—­ the most marvellous discoveries are after all mere child’s play compared to the tremendous secrets that must remain forever unrevealed; and the poor and trifling comprehension of things that we, after a life-time of study, succeed in attaining, is only just sufficient to add to our already burdened existence the undesirable clogs of discontent and disappointed endeavor.  We die,—­in almost as much ignorance as we were born, . . and when we come face to face with the Last Dark Mystery, what shall our little wisdom profit us?”

With his arms folded in an attitude of enforced patience and complacent superiority, the other listened.

“Curious, . . curious!” he murmured in a mild sotto-voce,—­“A would-be pessimist!—­aye, aye,—­’tis very greatly the fashion for young men in these days to assume the manner of elderly and exhausted cynics who have tried everything and approve of nothing!  ’Tis a strange craze!—­but, my good sir, let us keep to the subject at present under discussion.  Like all unripe philosophers, you wander from the point.  I did not ask you for your opinion concerning the uselessness or the efficiency of learning,—­I merely sought to discover whether you, like the silly throng that lately scattered right and left of you, had any foolish forebodings respecting the transformed color of this river,—­a color which, however seeming peculiar, arises, as all good scholars know, from causes that are perfectly simple and easily explainable.”

Theos hesitated,—­his eyes wandered involuntarily to the flowing tide, which now with the fully risen sun seemed more than ever brilliant and lurid in its sanguinary hue.

“Strange things have been said of late concerning Al-Kyris,—­” he answered at last, slowly and after a thoughtful pause,—­“Things that, though wild and vague, are not without certain dark presages and ominous suggestions.  This crimson flood may be, as you say, the natural effect of purely natural causes,—­yet, notwithstanding this, it seems to me a singular phenomenon—­nay, even a weird and almost fatal augury?”

His companion laughed—­a gentle, careless laugh of amused disdain.

“Phenomenon! ... augury! ...” he exclaimed shrugging his shoulders lightly ...  “These words, my young friend, are terms that nowadays belong exclusively to the vocabulary of the uneducated masses; we,—­and by we, I mean scientists, and men of the highest culture,—­have long ago rejected them as unmeaning and therefore unnecessary.  Phenomenon is a particularly vile expression, serving merely to designate anything wonderful and uncommon,—­whereas to the scientific eye, there is nothing left in the world that ought to excite so vulgar and barbarous an emotion as wonder, . . nothing so apparently rare that cannot be reduced at once from the ignorant exaggerations of enthusiasm to the sensible level of the commonplace?  The so-called ‘marvels’ of nature have,