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 depths of the dark that lies behind us. Of course
I mean out of his past in other incarnations long before he was Jorsen.
Moreover, by degrees, as I grew fit to bear the light, he showed me
something of my own, and of how the two were intertwined.