MENIPPUS LACHESIS, sitting in his turret chamber, was poring over a parchment. You may be very sure this was not the name with which his parents had started him in life. It was with one simpler. I have heard it rumoured that once on a time he was known as Thomas Herdman,—a good honest appellation truly. That time, however, was now many years old, and rumour can easily go astray; indeed, rumour wandering from the mark more often than not, there is little credence to be put in that quarter. At all events it is sufficient for our purpose that he was now known as above set forth,—Menippus Lachesis, the Sage, reader of the riddle of the stars, gazer of crystals, philosopher of numbers, and penetrator into the secrets of life. Many men sought his wisdom, and if they left him little the wiser, through the multiplicity of his words or the brevity of his cryptic utterances, either of which was given them according to their needs as figured by Menippus, that doubtless was due to their own lack of receptiveness.

The turret chamber was a circular room hung with twelve blue curtains. To the north the curtains were indigo; they then passed through shades of sapphire to a clear light blue at the south, and back again through sapphire blue to indigo. Here you have shown the darkness of the winter months, lightening through spring to summer, and back again to the darkness of winter. Each curtain was embroidered in gold with its own sign of the Zodiac, from the Ram, through the rest of them to the Fishes.

On the table near him, lying on black velvet the better to avoid reflections, was an egg-shaped crystal. A pretty enough thing it was, with its smooth surface clear and very luminous, true rock crystal, wherein your least initiated may gaze with advantage, so termed. For my part, I will take leave to question the advantage. By the crystal stood a gold vessel, cup-shaped, quaintly wrought with devices, of which the most obvious was the pentagram. It held a purplish liquid of the consistency of ink.

The room had no windows. At all times it was lighted by a small hanging lamp, two gold wings bearing between them a red glass holding oil and a burning wick. For the better lighting of the place when the Sage was at his studies, there were a couple of candles set in bronze candlesticks.

Menippus, reading from the parchment, paused now and again to peer into the gold cup, or look a moment towards the crystal. That some weighty matter was under consideration might be judged by the wrinkling of his brow, and the tapping of his clawlike finger on the table. A tall man, this Menippus, he looked the part himself, or Fate, had given him exceeding well. His hair, white and plentiful, fell straight on either side his face, and to the nape of his neck. His moustache and beard were of glossy silkiness. The latter, pointed, touched the third button of his black gown fashioned not unlike a priest’s cassock, the sleeves only being somewhat wider and looser. Round his neck hung a gold chain, and from it a gold device. The centre thereof was a small cross set within a triangle. Without the triangle was a circle, and without the circle a second triangle.

On the forefinger of his right hand he wore a large seal ring, the setting blackened silver, the seal itself very ancient, reddish stone, carved with devices as follows: Man in his potential divinity (I give the reading Menippus would have given you) before the Fire Altar, backed by the Pillar of Truth, and looking towards the Trinity (Pagan), Man, Woman, and Child: these three surmounted by the Supreme,—a Woman crowned with the Sun; behind her, the Cornucopia, before her, the Caduceus; behind the Pillar of Truth, the Crescent Moon, horns pointing upwards; above it, a seven-pointed star. About his head he wore a thin gold fillet, in the centre was placed a Rising Sun. To those versed in such matters the sun, the ring, and the symbol at his breast showed him as belonging to the Ancient Order of Lux. An exceeding ancient Order this, Egyptian, and dating from far beyond the time of Solomon.

Where and how Menippus received his initiation into this Order was a mystery, but that his initiation was more than the mere wearing of the symbols of the Order, he proved in vastly more ways than one. The few who came to his tower to leave it with greater knowledge than was contained in multiplicity of words and brief cryptic utterances, left it with sealed lips, but with hearts wherein awe and dread were strangely intermingled. Such power as Menippus showed them was unquestionably power, but whence it came was another matter.

A high-nosed, thin-lipped man he was, his face yellow like the parchments he studied. His eyes, black as sloes, and very piercing, were set beneath shaggy eyebrows. The lids of them folding far back at his will, left them at times staring and unblinking. This gave them an hypnotic power. At other times, when in deep thought, they cut across the pupil of the eye; then you saw the eyes heavy-lidded. This alteration of the eyelids’ form was a marked characteristic of his. It set the hearts of curious women—those who sought his wisdom—a-beating; more than once sent them scuttling like frightened hens to the door, and adown the stairs, while Menippus sat chuckling cynically. Weak enough to desire his power to be sought and acknowledged by all men, mere curiosity bored him vastly. You may judge that he was more often bored by his visitors than not. Vanity alone made boredom worth the enduring. It was a strange quality to find in a man of his age and power. Pride and unscrupulousness one might well expect; but here was a strain of weakness running through his strength, one which had endured from his earliest years. It is perchance needless to say that but for it he would have been greater than he was, and he was no small man intellectually no more than physically. This same vanity had led him into works no man dare even name with impunity.

Turning now from the parchment before him, he fetched a deep sigh, let his gaze rest ardently on the crystal. Now you see the heavy lids cutting the pupils in a straight line. An’ you had seen more, had seen with those same heavy-lidded black eyes, you would have seen the crystal cloud to milkiness, first a mere drop in its clearness, spreading gradually across the whole. The cloudiness gave way to light, sudden and brilliant, at first many-hued as a rainbow, then turning to a clear whiteness. Across the whiteness rode a ship full-sailed. Here was the definite signal of on-coming vision. Next, and you must take the vision with what credence you may, he saw a man struggling through a snowstorm, blinded, dazed. He watched more closely. Could you have read his mind, you would have known the sight not unexpected. It held the interpretation to certain cryptic utterances in the parchment spread before him. I do not pretend to understand how these things may be; I but give you as plainly as I am able all that chanced on that night of snow and storm, and that which followed after. With the powers that leagued together in the handling of the matter I desire no dealing. An’ the whole happening had not close bearing on the history of Peregrine it might well be omitted. Being, however, close bound with him at the moment, and with that which was to befall him later, it is incumbent on me, and I would be a fair chronicler, to set it plainly forth. In the crystal, then, Menippus saw a man struggling through the snow, saw him coming ever nearer, saw him sink at last as we have seen him. At this the vision was obliterated. Returning to concrete surroundings, he saw the crystal lying on the black velvet, catching the glow from the hanging lamp, naught else pictured within it.

Menippus got quickly to his feet, made his way to the door.

“Castrano,” he called.

A huge negro came silently from behind a curtain.

“Come on the instant,” said Menippus. “I need your aid. A man lies in a snow-drift without.”