one of the deceitful...'

'You knew the jugglings of that impious craft,' answered Apaecides; 'why
did you disguise them from me?--When you excited my desire to devote
myself to the office whose garb I bear, you spoke to me of the holy life
of men resigning themselves to knowledge--you have given me for
companions an ignorant and sensual herd, who have no knowledge but that
of the grossest frauds; you spoke to me of men sacrificing the earthlier
pleasures to the sublime cultivation of virtue--you place me amongst men
reeking with all the filthiness of vice; you spoke to me of the friends,
the enlighteners of our common kind--I see but their cheats and
deluders! Oh! it was basely done!--you have robbed me of the glory of
youth, of the convictions of virtue, of the sanctifying thirst after
wisdom. Young as I was, rich, fervent, the sunny pleasures of earth
before me, I resigned all without a sign, nay, with happiness and
exultation, in the thought that I resigned them for the abstruse
mysteries of diviner wisdom, for the companionship of gods--for the
revelations of Heaven--and now--now...'

Convulsive sobs checked the priest's voice; he covered his face with his
hands, and large tears forced themselves through the wasted fingers, and
ran profusely down his vest.

'What I promised to thee, that will I give, my friend, my pupil: these
have been but trials to thy virtue--it comes forth the brighter for thy
novitiate--think no more of those dull cheats--assort no more with those
menials of the goddess, the atrienses of her hall--you are worthy to
enter into the penetralia. I henceforth will be your priest, your
guide, and you who now curse my friendship shall live to bless it.'

The young man lifted up his head, and gazed with a vacant and wondering
stare upon the Egyptian.

'Listen to me,' continued Arbaces, in an earnest and solemn voice,
casting first his searching eyes around to see that they were still
alone. 'From Egypt came all the knowledge of the world; from Egypt came
the lore of Athens, and the profound policy of Crete; from Egypt came
those early and mysterious tribes which (long before the hordes of
Romulus swept over the plains of Italy, and in the eternal cycle of
events drove back civilization into barbarism and darkness) possessed
all the arts of wisdom and the graces of intellectual life. From Egypt
came the rites and the grandeur of that solemn Caere, whose inhabitants
taught their iron vanquis