e wind. But I knew
that he was there. So I waited until the moon shone out for a while
between the edges of two ragged clouds, the shapes of which I can see to
this hour. It showed me Jorsen, looking just as he does to-day, for he
never seems to change--Jorsen, on whom, to my knowledge, I had not set
eyes before.

"Even a year ago," he said, in his strong, rough voice, "you would not
have allowed your mind to be convinced by such arguments as those which
you have just heard in the Voice of the river. That is one of the worst
sides of drink; it decays the reason as it does the body. You must have
noticed it yourself."

I replied that I had, for I was surprised into acquiescence. Then I grew
defiant and asked him what he knew of the arguments which were or were
not influencing me. To my surprise--no, that is not the word--to my
bewilderment, he repeated them to me one by one just as they had arisen
a few minutes before in my heart. Moreover, he told me what I had been
about to do, and why I was about to do it.

"You know me and my story," I muttered at last.

"No," he answered, "at least not more than I know that of many men with
whom I chance to be in touch. That is, I have not met you for nearly
eleven hundred years. A thousand and eighty-six, to be correct. I was a
blind priest then and you were the captain of Irene's guard."

At this news I burst out laughing and the laugh did me good.

"I did not know I was so old," I said.

"Do you call that old?" answered Jorsen. "Why, the first time that we
had anything to do with each other, so far as I can learn, that is, was
over eight thousand years ago, in Egypt before the beginning of recorded
history."

"I thought that I was mad, but you are madder," I said.

"Doubtless. Well, I am so mad that I managed to be here in time to save
you from suicide, as once in the past you saved me, for thus things come
round. But your rooms are near, are they not? Let us go there and talk.
This place is cold and the river is always calling."

That was how I came to know Jorsen, whom I believe to be one of the
greatest men alive. On this particular night that I have described he
told me many things, and since then he has taught me much, me and a few
others. But whether he is what is called a Mahatma I am sure I do not
know. He has never claimed such a rank in my hearing, or indeed to be
anything more than a man who has succeeded in winning a knowledge of his
own powers out of the