It was a small swivelling sheet of polished silver no bigger than a florin, which caught the light and concentrated it on the lesser hole. John adjusted it without the Friar’s proffered help.
“And now to find a drop of water,” said he, picking up a small brush.
“Come to my upper cloister. The sun is on the leads still,” said the Abbot, rising.
They followed him there. Half way along, a drip from a gutter had made a greenish puddle in a worn stone. Very carefully, John dropped a drop of it into the smaller hole of the compass-leg, and, steadying the apparatus on a coping, worked the screw in the compass-joint, screwed the cylinder, and swung the swivel of the mirror till he was satisfied.
“Good!” He peered through the thing. “My Shapes are all here. Now look, Father! If they do not meet your eye at first, turn this nicked edge here, left or right-handed.”
“I have not forgotten,” said the Abbot, taking his place. “Yes! They are here—as they were in my time—my time past. There is no end to them, I was told.... There is no end!”
“The light will go. Oh, let me look! Suffer me to see, also!” the Friar pleaded, almost shouldering Stephen from the eye-piece. The Abbot gave way. His eyes were on time past. But the Friar, instead of looking, turned the apparatus in his capable hands.
“Nay, nay,” John interrupted, for the man was already fiddling at the screws. “Let the Doctor see.”
Roger of Salerno looked, minute after minute. John saw his blue-veined cheek-bones turn white. He stepped back at last, as though stricken.
“It is a new world—a new world and—Oh, God Unjust!—I am old!”