“You will understand, Chebron, that what I have told you is not in its entirety held even by the most enlightened, and that the sketch I have given you of the formation of all religions is, in fact, the idea which I myself have formed as the result of all I have learned, both as one initiated in all the learning of the ancient Egyptians and from my own studies both of our oldest records and the traditions of all the peoples with whom Egypt has come in contact. But that all our gods merely represent attributes of the one deity, and have no personal existence as represented in our temples, is acknowledged more or less completely by all those most deeply initiated in the mysteries of our religion.
“When we offer sacrifices we offer them not to the images behind our altar, but to God the creator, God the preserver, God the fertilizer, to God the ruler, to God the omnipotent over good and evil. Thus, you see, there is no mockery in our services, although to us they bear an inner meaning not understood by others. They worship a personality endowed with principle; we the principle itself. They see in the mystic figure the representation of a deity; we see in it the type of an attribute of a higher deity.
“You may think that in telling you all this I have told you things which should be told only to those whose privilege it is to have learned the inner mysteries of their religion; that maybe I am untrue to my vows. These, lads, are matters for my own conscience. Personally, I have long been impressed with the conviction that it were better that the circles of initiates should be very widely extended, and that all capable by education and intellect of appreciating the mightiness of the truth should no longer be left in darkness. I have been overruled, and should never have spoken had not this accident taken place; but when I see that the whole happiness of your life is at stake, that should the secret ever be discovered you will either be put to death despairing and hopeless, or have to fly and live despairing and hopeless in some foreign country, I have considered that the balance of duty lay on the side of lightening your mind by a revelation of what was within my own. And it is not, as I have told you, so much the outcome of the teaching I have received as of my own studies and a conviction I have arrived at as to the nature of God. Thus, then, my son, you can lay side the horror which you have felt at the thought that by the accidental slaying of a cat you offended the gods beyond forgiveness. The cat is but typical of the qualities attributed to Baste. Baste herself is but typical of one of the qualities of the One God.”
“Oh, my father!” Chebron exclaimed, throwing himself on his knees beside Ameres and kissing his hand, “how good you are. What a weight have you lifted from my mind! What a wonderful future have you opened to me if I escape the danger that threatens me now! If I have to die I can do so like one who fears not the future after death. If I live I shall no longer be oppressed with the doubts and difficulties which have so long weighed upon me. Though till now you have given me no glimpse of the great truth, I have at times felt not only that the answers you gave me failed to satisfy me, but it seemed to me also that you yourself with all your learning and wisdom were yet unable to set me right in these matters as you did in all others upon which I questioned you. My father, you have given me life, and more than life—you have given me a power over fate. I am ready now to fly, should you think it best, or to remain here and risk whatever may happen.”
“I do not think you should fly, Chebron. In the first place, flight would be an acknowledgment of guilt; in the second, I do not see where you could fly. To-morrow, at latest, the fact that the creature is missing will be discovered, and as soon as it was known that you had gone a hot pursuit would be set up. If you went straight down to the sea you would probably be overtaken long before you got there; and even did you reach a port before your pursuers you might have to wait days before a ship sailed.
“Then, again, did you hide in any secluded neighborhood, you would surely be found sooner or later, for the news will go from end to end of Egypt, and it will be everyone’s duty to search for and denounce you. Messengers will be sent to all countries under Egyptian government, and even if you passed our frontiers by land or sea your peril would be as great as it is here. Lastly, did you surmount all these difficulties and reach some land beyond the sway of Egypt, you would be an exile for life. Therefore I say that flight is your last resource, to be undertaken only if a discovery is made; but we may hope that no evil fortune will lead the searchers to the conclusion that the cat was killed here.
“When it is missed there will be search high and low in which every one will join. When the conclusion is at last arrived at that it has irrecoverably disappeared all sorts of hypotheses will be started to account for it; some will think that it probably wandered to the hills and became the prey of hyenas or other wild beasts; some will assert that it has been killed and hidden away; others that it has made its way down to the Nile and has been carried off by a crocodile. Thus there is no reason why suspicion should fall upon you more than upon others, but you will have to play your part carefully.”