12. CHAPTER TWELFTH.
THE INVISIBLE HEAD OF THE ORDER.
The Invisible was alone.
Alone, in the centre of the gloomy place, with the hanging lamp shining
down over his cowled head and white hand, resting on the massive
volume. Around him, all was gloom; the walls of the place were lost
in the darkness.
The light only served to illumine that solitary figure, seated beside the
table, with the cowl over his face, and the marble-like hand extended
from the black robe. We may not see his face, but a deep sigh breaks
on the silence, and the white hand trembles in every slender finger.
And while the hour passed, this unknown being, shrouded not only in
his cowl and robe, but in the shadow and secresy of the cell, which was
sunken in the bosom of the hill, remained seated by the table, under the
light of the hanging lamp, with his pale hand placed upon the Book.
And all the while, he talked aloud, as though conversing with his own
soul, in the words of audible language.
“Fools! They pretend to sneer while they bind the Initiate's eyes,
and laugh in scorn as they lead him to his work. They affect to despise
this Organization, which they think is known to them in all its complications
of Mystery and Power! And all the while, the humblest Initiate
of the humblest Lodge, is not more the dupe of the Master of that Lodge,
than Peter Dorfner and his friend are mine. Yet, they sneer and
grimace, ha, ha! They fancy that they share my power, and partake
with me, in a perfect knowledge of the incredible Machinery of the
Order. They, indeed! it is a pitiable delusion. Both stained with
cowardly crimes, both urging the Woodsman to this deed, because the
life of Madeline may be their death, while I, in the rough granite of that
rude Hunter's soul, already can trace the outlines of a Man of Genius.
“In my hands, he will control the Order on this Continent; in my
hands he will go forth to his great work, prepared for every extremity, by
this night's trial, which will cut him off forever from all sympathy or
fellowship with Man.
“And yet they dream—those creatures of an hour, who have no
thought beyond the gratification of an appetite, or the gorging of an insatiate
avarice—that the Order is but a cunning trick, invented yesterday,
to cheat and bewilder baser men than themselves!
“That Order has flourished for thousands of years, its very name unknown
to history, while its symbols—the Altar, the Ark, the Urn—have
been stolen by all forms of religion, and adapted to the childish mummeries
of all shapes of Secret Organization.
“Far—far back into the Night of Ages, we can trace the Order. It
arose in the dawn of the World, when Man, putting on the name of Priest
or King, first began to crush his Brother. Back, farther than the era of
Babel's Tower, back even farther than the Deluge, even into those dim
ages, whose memory is now called a fable, we may surely trace the
Great Secret Order.
“At first, it was, in a word, the expression of Natural Religion—which
had been lost among Altars and Thrones—by the multitude of Mankind,
in the forms and with the solemnities of symbolic worship. A symbol
was the earliest form of an Idea, and therefore, the symbols of the Order
are few, distinct and natural. They address themselves alike to the
civilized man and the savage who is only one grade above the brute.
They have been received alike by the Egyptian among his pyramids, by
the polished Grecian under the clear skies and by the waveless seas of his
beloved clime, by the warlike and practical Roman, the half-naked Briton
in his Druid rites, and the Hindoo, entangled among the mazes of
castes,
and ridden to the dust by a ferocious Religion.
“All ages, all nations have known this Order. Moulded anew by the
intellect of Moses, it appeared in the elaborate ceremonial of the Jewish
Religion; to his People of a later day, in the apparently unintelligible
dreams of the Cabalists. The Greek beheld it in the mysteries called
Eleusinian; its rites were observed in the camp of the Romans; it
became manifested to Europe in the Middle Ages, under the form of
Chivalry, and now, in Europe, in the year 1774, it is called Masonry; a
ridiculous Fable of Solomon and Hiram takes the place of the Great
Truths of the Order; and its simplicity of form and serene grandeur of
ceremonial, are lost in a maze of childish observances.
“Shall I not revive the Order, and bid it live again in a stronger and
bolder life than ever? For Good or for Evil?
“Behold the Eternal Wisdom manifested in its laws and ritual! This
Grand Master, who now awaits his doom in the next chamber, did not
dream, one hour ago, that there was such a Power in the world as the
Supreme Lodge. Yet, at his Initiation, he had sworn fealty to that
Lodge; he had bound himself to recognise it, when it appeared in a
certain form, and by a minutely described symbol, and to-night he beholds
the form and the symbol for the first time. At first, he hesitates;
but, bewildered by the conception of a secret and incomprehensible
Power, beyond and above him, he yields like a slave to the master's rod.
“And this band of Pirates and Robbers—not only the Pirates of the sea,
but of the counting-house; not merely the Robbers of the highway, but of
the desk and counter—become subject to my control. I hold their immense
organization in the palm of my hand.”
The Invisible stretched forth his white hand, and the light revealed his
eyes, dilating with inexplicable emotion.
“Shall it be for Good?” his voice broke in musical cadence upon the
breathless stillness of the cell—“or for Evil?”
His head drooped; once more his cheeks, unnaturally pale, rested within
his hands, while his eyes, almost shadowed by his hair, which fell over
his projecting forehead, shone with a fixed and dazzling light.
In this posture, without a word or gesture, to indicate that there was
life or thought in him, he remained for the space of an hour.
No human hand may dare to picture the dark wilderness of his thoughts.
