Semaphore

“ One or two of the oldest, including Major Jones, and a Mr. Batley, who was young, but a new-comer and unacquainted with the ways of the house, advanced into what seemed to be looked on as the women’s end.
Miss Prudence Semaphore moved her skirts slightly, so as to give a chance to anyone wishing to sit beside her. No one came. Pretty Miss Fastleigh and her sister, with an unconsciousness born of experience, had thoughtfully taken places as near the men as possible. Soon they were deep in conversation with the more courageous of the advanced guard. ”

“ Necessity is a hard taskmaster, who makes people capable of feats hitherto undreamt of by them.
89Miss Semaphore’s first move, therefore, was to find a small stationer’s shop, where she obtained permission to write a letter. The letter was to Mrs. Geldheraus, marked “Urgent and Private.” In it she detailed the horrible accident that had happened to her sister, and implored the explorer’s widow to write or wire particulars of an antidote, if there was one, and in all cases to let her know exactly how the Water of Youth worked, and how long its effects were likely to last in such a case. ”

“ The workhouse matron deposed to their condition when admitted.
Finally, it was announced that the names and addresses of parents or other relatives of the children had been found, some of them people of good position, and that they would be brought forward to swear to their condition when delivered over to the prisoner.
There was a thrill of excitement in court, anticipative of scandals. People of good position do not hand over babies to a Sal Brown without strong reason. To the rustle and stir succeeded a strained silence as the usher called the name of “Prudence Semaphore.” ”

“ AT THE ARROW STREET POLICE COURT. Nervous people are generally too early, and on the fatal Monday morning Miss Prudence Semaphore, who was still weak and ill, but meantime had found comparative repose in her quiet and obscure lodgings, presented herself at the door of the Arrow Street Police Court almost as soon as it was opened. She was dressed all in black, and with her white face and long veil looked like a newly made widow.
The baby farming case had excited great interest in the neighbourhood, where “good Mrs. ”

“ In the days of the king whose name was Semha, the type and the Reality met together, the king and the King, Semha and Denha. His Cross upon His shoulders, was the sign of His Kingdom. Blessed be He Who bare it. ”

“ The High Priest shook his head.
"'Twould seem," he ventured, "that one covenant dissolved would bind its maker's faith to the second covenant, and thereby lift the troublous mists of doubt."
"True," the monarch nodded; "true, to the feeble mind of man; yet, mayhap, in the judgment of the gods, this matter hath a deeper trend. Shammuramat, not Menon, was the conqueror; and albeit he stood before me on the citadel, his vantage was won by trickery!—by his servant who cast me down the stairs, in the cause of his master's evil selfishness!" ”

“ Her beauty was for him—the master of men—the lord of a woman's yielding soul—the love-mad king who groveled at a shrine of craft.
So Semiramis suffered the King's caress, smiling her smiles of promise, while she hushed the curses of her fury-throated hate. She waited now, even as the tigress stalks her kill, patient, tireless, crouching till a shifting wind had passed, to rise again and steal toward the pouncing-point. King Ninus she might have slain by day or night, and there were moments when her fingers clung to a weapon hungrily; yet the King was King, and his nation might not be slain. ”

“ Sempronio, a confidential servant, understanding the cause of his master’s trouble, advises him to apply to an old woman, with whom the unprincipled valet is secretly in league, and who is half a pretender to witchcraft and half a dealer in love philters. ”

“ A Semo was a kind of inferior god, of an earthly character and office, so low as to unfit him for a place among the great gods of heaven, Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, &c., and was accordingly confined in his residence entirely to the earth; where the Semones received high honors and devout worship, and were commemorated in many places, both in city and country, by statues, before which the passer might pay his worship, if devoutly disposed. ”

“ His couch had been set beside a fountain's edge, beneath a trellaced arbor whereon a vine of Syria climbed, the great black grapes in clusters peeping from their leaves and set apart for the lips of the King alone. At his hand were a jeweled flagon and a dish of fruit on which he regaled himself from time to time as he waited for Semiramis, while at his head stood a eunuch who waved a fan of feathered plumes and watched lest a buzzing insect rest upon his monarch's skin. ”

“ From great to small his influence ran; from the expulsion of Tom Loring to the christening of the Omofaga mantle. Semingham had an acute sense of the absurdity of it all, but he had seen absurd things happen too often to be much relieved by his intuition. And when absurd things happen, they have consequences just as other things have. And the most exasperating fact was the utter unconsciousness of the disturber. ”

“ When affairs stood thus, one whose name was Sameas, 16 a righteous man he was, and for that reason above all fear, rose up, and said, "O you that are assessors with me, and O thou that art our king, I neither have ever myself known such a case, nor do I suppose that any one of you can name its parallel, that one who is called to take his trial by us ever stood in such a manner before us ”

“ The restless energy and domineering mind of the man wearied Semingham's indolent and dilettante spirit, and he hailed the end of the season as an excellent excuse for putting himself beyond the reach of his colleague for a few weeks. Yet, the more he quailed, the more he trusted; and when a very great man, holding a very great office, met him in the House of [pg 111] Lords, and expressed the opinion that when the Company and Mr. Ruston went to Omofaga they would find themselves in a pretty hornets' nest, Lord Semingham only said that he should be sorry for the hornets. ”

“ So people, who are obscured by the darkness of ignorance, stray into the evil paths of their vices, and not setting in front of them the lamp of sound treatises, of a surety stumble. When the royal sage had said this, Somaśúra begged him to instruct him further,and Vinítamati, in order to train him aright, said, " Listen, my son, I will teach you in due order the doctrine of perfections,"
Story of the generous Induprabha.:— There lived a long time ago in Kurukshetra a king of the name of Malayaprabha. One day the king was about to give money to his subjects in a time of famine. ”

“ SEM. Marry, sir, that is a spice of heresy.
CAL. Why so?
SEM. For ye speak like no Christian man.
CAL. I would thou knewest Melibaea worship I:
In her I believe, and her I love.
SEM. Ah, ah, then,
With thee Melibaea is a great woman;
I know on which foot thou dost halt on:
I shall shortly heal thee, my life thereupon!
CAL. An incredible thing thou dost promise me.
SEM. Nay, nay, it is easy enough to do;
But first, for to heal a man, knowledge must be
Of the sickness; then to give counsel thereto.
CAL. What counsel can rule him, Sempronio,
That keepeth in him no order of counsel? ”

“ Thou hast also with thee Semei, the son of Gera, the son of Jemini, of Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse, when I went to the camp: but because he came down to meet me when I passed over the Jordan, and I swore to him by the Lord, saying: I will not kill thee with the sword:
2:9. Do not thou hold him guiltless. But thou art a wise man, and knowest what to do with him, and thou shalt bring down his grey hairs with blood to the grave. ”

“ And last of all, the multitude of eunuchs, ranging in age, from old men to boys, pale and hideous from the twisted deformity of their features; so that, go where one will, seeing groups of mutilated men, he will detest the memory of Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first to emasculate young men of tender age; thwarting the intent of Nature, and forcing her from her course. ”

“ The young men are then made to live in the woods for twelve months, and are supposed to be at liberty to kill any one who approaches and does not understand the language of the semo.... It is said, when women are so unfortunate as to intrude upon the semo, they kill them, cut off their breasts, and hang them up by the side of the paths as a warning [pg 262] to others. ”

“ Now it chanced that when the King was gone Semiramis held council with her lord, and in that council wrought more woe unto herself than in all her other days since she lay, a deserted babe, among the rocks of Ascalon.
"Menon," said she, "'tis well that thou and I bask always in the light of uncommon things. Mayhap our works may oft' times fret the King to jealousy; yet, even so, we win the homage of Assyria and Babylon. Go, therefore, thyself and, leaving Huzim here to guard my tent, point out the way to the Bactrians' secret place." ”

“ Thus Semiramis awoke from her lethargy of grief, and, albeit, she sorrowed still, her blood ran quickly through her veins, while laughter rose upon her lips and was not stayed; whereat the King was glad, and in his gladness begged that she choose a gift from out the riches of this marvelous land. ”

“ And for an instant Lord Semingham, still feeling that load upon his shoulders, fancied that it would be far from his heart to prefer such a request. There might be things less just and fitting than that Willie Ruston and those savage tribes of Omofaga should be left to fight out the quarrel by themselves, the civilised world standing aloof. ”

“ The fourth and fifth Sephiroth, i.e., Mercy (‏חסד‎) and Justice (‏פחד‎) , are the two arms of the Lord, the former the right arm and the latter the left, one distributing life and the other death. And the sixth Sephira, Beauty (‏תפארת‎) , which unites these two opposites and produces the second triad, is the chest; whilst the seventh and eighth Sephiroth,—i.e., Firmness (‏נצח‎) and Splendour (‏הוד‎) , of the third triad,—are the two legs; and Foundation (‏יסוד‎) , the ninth Sephira, represents the genital organs, since it denotes the basis and source of all things. ”

“ And now, when her soul could bear no more, she loosed one long-drawn, quivering scream—the cry of the tigress to her stricken mate.
CHAPTER XXIX
WHEN A WOMAN RULED THE WORLD
In the palace of the King there was revelry unstinted, for a change had come upon Semiramis. Through the score of years when she reigned with Ninus, she had paid the tribute of a wife, in sufferance of love which she gave not back again, bearing his son, while her heart roved ever through the hills of Hindu-Kush. She graced his throne and added to his kingdom's power; she ruled his house and gave obedience to her lord ”

“ Semler was one of those minds which fall short of the highest order of originality, but by their erudition and appreciation of the wants of their time institute a movement by giving form to the current feeling of [pg 221] their day. Nurtured in pietism, he always retained signs of personal excellence; and his Christian earnestness is said not to have been destroyed by his speculations. His autobiography furnishes us with the means for the full comprehension of his character, and shows him to have been keenly alive to the difficulties which the English literature had suggested. ”

“ Would Semiramis dare to crown this hideous thing?—this mockery of man who swayed in weakness as he sat on high? Nay, better to set a prince of liars on the throne! Better to crown a graven effigy! So the people howled their wrath and surged toward the palace steps, seeking to tear the idol from a woman's shrine and stamp it in the dust. ”

“ Ah, if he could but bend her pride, how simple would be the rest!
"Listen," he begged, with deep humility. "In the hour of stress we stoop to many things. What harm if the lady Shammuramat conceal her beauty beneath an humble cloak and fare with Kishra to the river bank? By boat we may cross, returning ere the night is old, and none would be the wiser, for the city gates are free to me."
"No!" declared Semiramis, with a gesture of disdain. "I trust you not, nor will I leave the palace mound, though you prayed till dawn." ”

“ Sem. (Withdrawing and kneeling to him, her hands upraised)
O king, leave me my brother! Nin. Nay!
Did you not have your choice? You ask too much.
Sem. (Rising) Ah, so I do! I should demand, not ask!
Nin. Demand!
Sem. Ay, king! ... ’Tis true I ’m not alone. ”

“ He was a slave, frightened beyond even the wont of slaves entering the royal presence. The king had a reputation or having people—and slaves in particular—flayed, hanged, crucified or boiled in oil if they offended him or sought to interfere with his plans, and this slave was very sure he was near the end of his span of life. His message was that his mistress, the imp from Syria, was displeased because when the wind came from the east dust from the work of the city blew out to the tents in which her suite reposed and not only annoyed her suite but Semiramis herself. ”

“ And there Samara immediately gave, with due rites, his daughter Anangaprabhá to the Vidyádhara king, Madanaprabhá. And Madanaprabhá went with that beloved, whose curse had been cancelled, to his own city, and there he dwelt at ease.
" Thus divine beings fall by virtue of a curse, and owing to the consequences of their own wickedness, are incarnate in the world of men, and after reaping the fruit appropriate to their bad conduct, they again go to their own home on account of previously acquired merit." ”