which you recognize presented the greatest marvels daily to your eyes;
nay the Supreme One does not disdain sometimes to break through the
common order of things, in order to reveal to that portion of Himself
which we call our soul, the sublime Whole of which we form part--Himself.
Only today you have seen how the heart of the sacred ram--"

"Man, man!" Nebsecht interrupted, "the sacred heart is the heart of a
hapless sheep that a sot of a soldier sold for a trifle to a haggling
grazier, and that was slaughtered in a common herd. A proscribed
paraschites put it into the body of Rui, and--and--" he opened the
cupboard, threw the carcase of the ape and some clothes on to the floor,
and took out an alabaster bowl which he held before the poet--"the
muscles you see here in brine, this machine, once beat in the breast of
the prophet Rui. My sheep's heart wilt be carried to-morrow in the
procession! I would have told you all about it if I had not promised the
old man to hold my tongue, and then--But what ails you, man?" Pentaur
had turned away from his friend, and covered his face with his hands,
and he groaned as if he were suffering some frightful physical pain.
Nebsecht divined what was passing in the mind of his friend. Like a
child that has to ask forgiveness of its mother for some misdeed, he went
close up to Pentaur, but stood trembling behind him not daring to speak
to him.

Several minutes passed. Suddenly Pentaur raised his head, lifted his
hands to heaven, and cried:

"O Thou! the One!--though stars may fall from the heavens in summer
nights, still Thy eternal and immutable laws guide the never-resting
planets in their paths. Thou pure and all-prevading Spirit, that
dwellest in me, as I know by my horror of a lie, manifest Thyself in me--