“How is he to tell which is the Third Ray that falls, among a fleeting thousand?” asked El-Râmi dubiously.
“It will be difficult of course, but he can try,” returned the monk.—“Let him first cover the disc with thick, dark drapery, and then, when it is face to face with the stars in the zenith, uncover it quickly, keeping his eyes fixed on its surface. In one minute there will be three distinct flashes—the third is from Mars. Let him endeavour to follow that third ray in its course on the disc, and probably he will arrive at something worth remark. This suggestion I offer by way of assisting him, for his patient labour is both wonderful and pathetic,—but,—it would be far better and wiser were he to resign his task altogether. Yet—who knows!—the ordained end may be the best!”
“And do you know this ‘ordained end’?” questioned El-Râmi.
The monk met his incredulous gaze calmly.
“I know it as I know yours,” he replied. “As I know my own, and the end (or beginning) of all those who are, or who have been, in any way connected with my life and labours.”
“How can you know!” exclaimed El-Râmi brusquely.—“Who is there to tell you these things that are surely hidden in the future?”
“Even as a picture already hangs in an artist’s brain before it is painted,” said the monk,—“so does every scene of each human unit’s life hang, embryo-like, in air and space, in light and colour. Explanations of these things are well-nigh impossible—it is not given to mortal speech to tell them. One must see,—and to see clearly, one must not become wilfully blind.” He paused,—then added—“For instance, El-Râmi, I would that you could see this room as I see it.”
El-Râmi looked about half carelessly, half wonderingly.
“And do I not?” he asked.
The monk stretched out his hand.