either did
their hair become entangled. Their souls' welfare, they therefore
reasoned, might well be equally secure.

The grain was, in fact, the best ever reaped in Brandenburg. The
Russian Government had had it shipped for their northern ports. That
year so many grain-laden vessels had gone on the rocks beneath the
Tower of Dago, that its inmates had soon no more room to store the
booty. Thus it was that they came to exchange it with the islanders
for earth.

Earth! But for what purpose could the Destroying Spirit require earth?

To create!

[Illustration]

There was a little hollow on the south side of the tower which was
sheltered from the wind on every side. This hollow the Master filled
with the earth, and planted the little plot all over with flowers. In
this way he soon had a perfect flower-garden laid out.

There was, then, one human being in the tower who took pleasure in
flowers.

But did the terrible doctrines professed by the Master permit him to
act thus kindly towards any living creature?

Alas! Nothing in creation is flawless--not even the Satanic confession
of faith. Even Satan is sometimes tricked by his disciples, and
unbelief itself has its hypocrisy.

To his own thinking, this man had succeeded in banishing every human
feeling from his heart--but this one still remained. He had, he
thought, been able to renounce every virtue in favour of its opposite
vice--but this one he could not renounce. He could not fight down the
kindliness that filled his heart for the poor girl, Mashinka, who had
saved his child, who had accompanied him into exile, and who had
become a loving mother to his boy and a devoted companion to him. So
he felt grateful to her.

But that was surely a heresy against the religion he professed and
preached--a positive breach of the all-denying dogma! For Gratitude is
itself a virtue and closely related to Love. Gratitude being merely a
tyranny of the soul over the body, how could the body, which had now
become master, admit it? And if the body be indeed the ruling lord,
the right of thought also belongs to it. Its philosophy must, then,
determine the course of both action and feeling. Was it not plain that
this one contradiction in the Master's principles might--nay, must,
overturn the whole edifice of Babel?

Nevertheless, the Master found it impossible to shut his heart against
this one feeling. With the most painstaking art he had laid out this
garden--bought at a hig