“What do you see?” inquired Westcott. His own eyes were shut and he appeared to be undergoing a fierce mental reaction.
“See,” said the boy.
There was a pause while the wind soughed softly in the trees and bushes and the infrequent spatter of great raindrops fell in the shadows. The boy’s mouth opened and closed speechlessly. He half-raised one arm. His throat throbbed. Then, in the same clear tone in which he had spoken throughout, he said:
“The bones move together. The dust assembles. I see a skeleton. Flesh comes out of darkness like an army of white ants and clusters upon the bones. A body lies beneath the rock. It opens its eyes and lifts its hands. It is the body that is speaking to me.”
He paused. The farmers waited expectantly. The boy’s lips moved again. This time the startling voice of a deep-chested man issued from his mouth. It was like a great voice calling from a tomb and it struck upon Dreeme’s ears with dismay.
“At Dagon we set the Rock for our children’s children’s children. We marched through deep trees and the feathered men watched our fires from the darkness beyond the rings of light. We caroused and danced through the virgin land and the Master walked before us with a smiling face. We raised our rooftrees in the valley without doors and our fires went up to an alien sky. When the moon walked on the farthest hills we traveled the long path to the Rock and danced before the Master. We beat upon cymbals and drums. We whistled and cried lewd words to the naked women who laughed in the bushes. We felt the fever of life in our veins and knew that it was well with us. We were unhumbled and proud and possessors of time. We devoured our enemies for the Master’s will was our will. We set no bounds to life for all life was within our bounds. We bowed only to one law and that was the law of the Master and though the pale faced priests harried us we existed beyond them in a free land of the Master’s conceiving. The Master took us up to the mountain top and showed us the riches of the world and the cities of the plain and we said ‘yes’ to him and all those things became our own. Our farms prospered in the valley without doors and the rain came and we saw that it was well with us. And we knew the Master to be the living god of the free will, the voice that spoke in the darkness to us and said, ‘do so-and-so,’ and we did these things and we prospered and lived long years and the sun shone upon us.”
The great voice died away and the boy fell back limply upon the stone, his head resting upon the black book. Westcott lifted him quickly and bore him to a side of the circle where he placed him upon the wet ground. The farmers stood motionless now. They were like figures in a trance. They made no gestures as Westcott walked slowly back to the rock and mounted to it. His dark eyes swept over the gathering and from where Dreeme lay he thought that he could see the thin ghost of a smile flit across the farmer’s determined mouth.
“You have heard,” he said. “You have heard the voice from the bones, the voice of your ancestor, speaking. You have heard how good life was when the children of the Master first came into this valley. And how have you fallen away from that high estate! How have you lost that greatness when you walked like the sons of the morning! The years have come between you and the Master and you have fallen away from that source of all power. You bend weary backs over meager farms and live from hand to mouth and your heritage is just beyond you in the shadow of Time. You have but to reach out your hands and take it. Instead of this, you deny the impulses that are in your blood and avoid the final gestures that would liberate you from the entangling bonds of fear and superstition and false gods. There is no other god but the Master! He, alone, exists and he, alone, is the tower of your strength. The Master sums up all things in himself. He is the will, the invulnerable will, the will to power, the will to happiness, the will to self-realization. It is only by symbols and liturgies and ceremonies that you may induce the Master to enter into you. I bring the Master to you. I bring the key to the door, the lantern to the darkness, the will to the deed. I am the Black Man. I am the prophet possessed by the Master. I do not bring you a god that you may see, a god that you may touch. I bring you an essence, an invulnerable essence that speaks through the mouths of living people, that rises in trances, that permeates time, that joins the dead with the living, that is called evil but is yet beyond evil, a god that is strength and food and determination and skill and craft and understanding and self-realization and power. This is the god I bring you and because he has no other name you may call him what you will, Asmodeus, Janicot, Beelzebub, Satan, Lucifer, any name that stands for the opposite of the cold power that destroys the eternal will within you. He is a jealous god and he will endure no other rivals. He speaks in thunder and he walks upon the mountaintops by night. His face is hidden in darkness and his hands hover over the cities of the plain. The brightness of his face is turned only to the adept. If you desire that complete emancipation
