master.

He turned to his friends when the song was ended, and invited them to
be seated on the divan at the western end of the room.

"You have come to-night," said he, looking around the circle, "at my
call, as the faithful scholars of Zoroaster, to renew your worship and
rekindle your faith in the God of Purity, even as this fire has been
rekindled on the altar. We worship not the fire, but Him of whom it is
the chosen symbol, because it is the purest of all created things. It
speaks to us of one who is Light and Truth. Is it not so, my father?"

"It is well said, my son," answered the venerable Abgarus. "The
enlightened are never idolaters. They lift the veil of the form and go
in to the shrine of the reality, and new light and truth are coming to
them continually through the old symbols."

"Hear me, then, my father and my friends," said Artaban, very quietly,
"while I tell you of the new light and truth that have come to me
through the most ancient of all signs. We have searched the secrets of
nature together, and studied the healing virtues of water and fire and
the plants. We have read also the books of prophecy in which the future
is dimly foretold in words that are hard to understand. But the highest
of all learning is the knowledge of the stars. To trace their courses
is to untangle the threads of the mystery of life from the beginning to
the end. If we could follow them perfectly, nothing would be hidden
from us. But is not our knowledge of them still incomplete? Are there
not many stars still beyond our horizon--lights that are known only to
the dwellers in the far south-land, among the spice-trees of Punt and
the gold-mines of Ophir?"

There was a murmur of assent among the listeners.

"The stars," said Tigranes, "are the thoughts of the Eternal. They are
numberless. But the thoughts of man can be counted, like the years of
his life. The wisdom of the Magi is the greatest of all wisdoms on
earth, because it knows its own ignorance. And that is the secret of
power. We keep men always looking and waiting for a new sunrise. But we
ourselves know that the darkness is equal to the light, and that the
conflict between them will never be ended."

"That does not satisfy me," answered Artaban, "for, if the waiting must
be endless, if there could be no fulfilment of it, then it would not be
wisdom to look and wait. We should become like those new teachers of
the Greeks, who say that there is no truth, and that