CHAPTER II.
THE LAW OF THE LAMP.
One morning, soon after Calladon's seventh birthday, the Master called him to him and said:
'My dear Calladon, you have now arrived at the age when I must leave you for awhile, to think your own thoughts, and do your own deeds. I am going away, and it is uncertain when I may come back. Before I go I shall tell you a few things which I hope you will remember.'
'But I should like to go with you,' said Calladon.
'That may come to pass hereafter,' the Master replied, 'but not now, and it will depend upon what you do and think while I am parted from you, whether or not it comes to pass at all.'
'What is it that I must do?' inquired Calladon.
'I cannot command you either to do or not to do anything,' the Master said, 'for I shall not be here to enforce obedience. But I have already taught you many things, and, if you have studied them with your whole heart and mind, they will direct you as well as I could direct you myself. All I shall do, therefore, is to tell you what you had best avoid doing, and then leave you to follow my advice or not, as you choose.'
'Oh, there will be no trouble about that!' exclaimed Calladon cheerfully, 'for will not my golden sash press against my heart whenever I go wrong, and remind me to turn back?'
'No, for you will not wear the golden sash any more,' replied the Master. 'You are no longer a little child, and you must no longer depend on what touches your heart from the outside, but on what moves it from within.'
'Well, I think I shall like that better, on the whole,' said Calladon. 'It will make me feel more like a man. But what is it that I ought not to do, dear Master?'
'You ought not to lose faith in the lamp,' answered the Master, 'for it gives you all you have, and all you are. And you ought not to leave Abra, for Abra only is Abracadabra. And you ought not to light a lamp of your own, for it would lead you into darkness.'
'Is that all?' asked Calladon.
'That is all I need tell you now,' said the Master; 'for if you obey these three rules, you will not need to know more, and if you disobey them, nothing more that I could say would help you.'
'I would have done all that without being told,' said Calladon; 'and the only thing I don't like is having nobody to see or to speak to.'
'I have taken care about that,' replied the Master, with a smile, 'and you will not be left entirely alone. When you wake up to-morrow morning, you will find a little girl beside you. She is to be your playmate and companion. She can help you to be happier and better than you have ever been before; but she can also make you worse and more miserable than if you were left by yourself. It will be according as you treat her.'
'Perhaps I had better not have her,' said Calladon.
'You must run the risk; for without risk nothing that is really good can be got,' replied the Master. 'She will not suggest either good or evil to you; but if your thoughts are good she will know it, and will help you to carry them out; and if your thoughts are evil, she will think evil too, and will give you the means of doing it.'
'Does she know all this?' Calladon asked.
'She will know nothing except from you, and as long as you are obedient to what I have told you, she will be obedient to you. But if you become disobedient, she will sooner or later begin to rule you; and whenever that happens you will be sure to suffer.'
'Then it all depends on me?' said Calladon.
'If harm comes, you will have no right to blame her,' the Master answered; 'but if good comes, you will have no right to take the credit to yourself.'
'Well,' said Calladon, after thinking awhile, 'the safest thing will be not to think of myself at all.'
'There is one thing more,' said the Master, before taking leave of him. 'You will find, hanging round Callia's neck (Callia is the name of your playmate), a little mirror, set in a frame of precious stones. This mirror will always show you an image of yourself, not as you think yourself to be, but as you really are. If you trust to what the mirror tells you, you will not know trouble; but if you disregard it, you will be in danger. The mirror is the only thing that will always tell you the truth.'
'I will always believe it,' said Calladon; and then the Master bade him good night, and Calladon fell asleep.