Max Pemberton

“ What said the Seven Men with the Seven Hands?
"Rise and go, or be for all time as we are."
For all time maimed and a servant in that prison! The thought tortured me. I swore that I would fight for my limb as none had fought there before. And I took the cimeter, which lay at my right hand. It was a weapon superb to see, shaped as the short swords of Japan, sharper than any razor of the
West; and upon the gold that bound the shark-skin of the scabbard I read the words:
"FREE THYSELF—OR BE FREED."
"Free thyself—or be freed." ”

“ I judged so, for no man would keep such a watch at such an hour if madness did not lead him. The thought begot my sympathy for him. I had seen his face on other nights, and knew that he could hope for nothing, for his was the face of a wizened old man, long-drawn in solitude and bitterness; and the black locks which fell upon his shoulders seemed a mockery of time. I called him "The Raven," and for many nights we watched each other as beasts that would quarrel, but lack the courage. ”

“ I opened his casket and found that it contained a great opal, and a scroll whereon these words were written: "Son, what is all is not all; and what is not all is all." But the meaning was hidden, as the meaning of the other fable; and I began to laugh at the warning as the wine exhilarated me, and to lose inclination to leave the garden of delights and the draught which was life. Indeed, for some while I lay upon the couch of silk and skins, listening to the hours as they were chimed upon a great, sphinx-like clock above me ”

“ What madness took me I know not, but the bath seemed to have fatigued me, and I drank of the wine, and ate of the fruit; yet I had scarce put it to my lips when another man with one hand stood before me, and laid a casket upon the table as the other had done. He, too, cried with doleful voice, saying:
"Son, three days are numbered and three nights are numbered. Rise, and go hence, or be for all time as I am." ”

“ You are Roderick Connoley, a barrister, with little money and with less employment; your life, for what it is worth, is a dream mostly dreamed in tobacco-smoke; and what you lack in performance at the moment you find in promise for the future. As a so-called man about town, you are condescending enough to patronize the vices, for which you care little, but in the true pleasures of living you remain a child. ”

“ To be for ever amongst the halt and the maimed, the scoff of whole men, the jeered of women! And to be so by an act of self! No mad terror of night was as this terror, no phantom dream as this reality. Hours must have passed—days, perchance—and still I lay chained, the cimeter in my right hand, the other bound. ”

“ That there was danger in my position I did not doubt in my cooler moments, for, if all were well, for what object had my long-eyed host thus isolated me! I knew that I had been in the house at least three days, and a great longing came upon me to be out in the world again. I remembered that there would be many to ask for me, that engagements awaited me, that I had my pretence of business to attend to; and, above all, I began to long to fly from these rooms of darkness, from the perpetual night, from the perfume-laden atmosphere. ”

“ I had come out of the bath, and wrapped about me one of the robes of linen which hung upon the rail of ivory, when I saw beneath a canopy of silver cloth another cup of wine, standing upon a table, and a couch spread under the leaves of a tree whereon luscious fruit was hanging. ”

“ Because, my friend, the only serious thing that man does discuss is woman. Since the world began he has discussed her; since the day that there was chaos and she sat a star in the heavens; and he will discuss her when the world is no more. ”

“ In this respect you are as other men, for how many of the thousands who drift on the sea of enjoyment in this city know any thing of those treasures which Life can give to him who understands her? I have watched you as I have watched others, and have been moved to pity for you. ”

“ There was silence for some minutes before he spoke again, and then it was with another voice, as though one had put ice upon his tongue.
"One fool often makes two," he said, as he called for a second bottle of wine. " Forget that I have spoken, for I am but the servant of the Master, and how shall the servant speak when the Master has not spoken? ”

“ Bright faces they were for the most part—the faces of girls moved by all the curious romance of the theatre, moved to desire of excitement, in some cases to desire of shame; a merry throng of irresponsibles, who would die peeresses or paupers, in old family mansions or in the gutter. ”

“ When you shall know how to live you shall know also that man, who has labored two thousand years and more to learn the things of life, has given not one year to learn of those things which are of the essence of life. ”

“ He remains as the beasts, taking the fodder of the field, and where food should be his idol be has no reverence for it. Eat you, then, as the wise who have found light."
But I was satisfied, and could eat no more. The drink in the goblet, too, swayed me in a paroxysm of sensuous ecstasy. The room seemed a very bower of rose light. The jewels sent myriads of rays dancing toward me and blinding the eyes. Again the music arose, again he who ate touched the knob at his side, and the door in the wall of tapestry flew open. I saw the figure of a woman pass in, she veiled as the others had been ”

“ Now, at the moment when I rose, a curious thing happened, for the curtain of blue in the right corner of the chamber, which had seemed a perfect whole, divided in half, and a man with one hand stood before me. ”

“ I found that so much as one mouthful had satisfied my hunger, but had produced a prodigious thirst, slaked only in many draughts from the goblet, which was deep and long- bodied. It was new tome thus to dine, and I asked him whose guest I was and what kind were the meats which he had set before me.
"Son," he said, "the guest asks not of the host, What do I eat with thee? Nor does he who would dine waste his moments on words which have been said by others, and better said. As you are a stranger, I make light of your fault ”