“Then you may safely advance to the first stage of your initiation!” said the old monk, but, to my surprise, his face was now very grave. “Don’t be alarmed at what is going to happen, but be warned in time, for many men, I must tell you, have been just as keen and as loyal, apparently, as yourself and have failed to be worthy of the name of Englishmen—have miserably failed!” And he gave a great sigh.
I should have liked to ask him what he meant, but dared not.
Already I was conscious of extraordinary things happening about me, and it was as much as I could do to stand still and to keep my courage from oozing through my hands.
Chapter Twenty.
More Mystery.
Slowly, very slowly, the walls of that hermit’s cell seemed to fade out of sight.
The darkness of the place did not appear to grow more profound, but the light became greyer in tone, more misty in character, so that at length I felt I was standing in a kind of opalescent vapour, which would not let me distinguish objects more than two or three feet distant from the point where I stood, lost in profound amazement at the changes that came upon me from every quarter.
Something went moaning and sighing past me with eyes so huge and luminous that they gleamed like lamps of fire. Then I caught the sound of a woman crying—not with heartrending sobs that would tear to atoms the grief that had caused that outburst of emotion—but slowly, regularly, resistlessly, as though sorrow had touched the centre of her being and her tears flowed with every single throb of her heart.