“It is unwritten, master,” he said, in a voice that seemed to be no louder than the croak of a frog. “When after twenty years of devout preparation I took up the pen, I found that Nature had denied the strength to my right hand.”
The old man recoiled from the gaze of the boy’s father with a cry of dismay.
“I should have known it,” he said; and then, with strange humility, “let us not reproach her, Isocrates; she, too, must obey the decree.”
“By which human sacrifice is offered on her altars,” said the boy’s father, with a gaunt gaze. “What new abortion shall she fashion with our blood and tears?”
“The issue of our loins,” said the aged man, with a kind of gentle passion.
“In order that our humiliation may re-enact itself,” said the boy’s father; “in order, dear master, that we may mock ourselves again.”
“Nay, Isocrates,” said the old man, “is it not written that if by our fortitude we sustain the Dynasty to its appointed hour, Nature will grant it a means to affirm itself?”
Speaking out of a simple faith the old man turned for the first time to the boy, who, throughout this interview, had stood timidly at his father’s side. The old faded eyes seemed to devour the delicate and shrinking face of the child with their surmise. Suddenly he took the boy by the hand.
“It is by this that the Dynasty will affirm itself,” said the old man, enfolding the frail form in a kind of prophetic exaltation.
The boy’s father seemed to cower at these words of his old preceptor.