be supplied with the vegetables and fruit on which he was accustomed to
live--for meat never passed his lips; and now he was talking with the old
man, and Caracalla sat up and laid his hand to his ear.

The Indian was absorbed in the study of a bookroll in his own tongue,
which he carried about him. "What are you reading?" asked Adventus.

"A book," replied Arjuna, "from which a man may learn what will become of
you and me, and all these slaughtered victims, after death."

"Who can know that?" said the old man with a sigh; and Arjuna replied
very positively:

"It is written here, and there is no doubt about it. Will you hear it?"

"Certainly," said Adventus eagerly, and the Indian began translating out
of his book:

"When a man dies his various parts go whither they belong. His voice
goes to the fire, his breath to the winds, his eyes to the sun, his
spirit to the moon, his hearing becomes one with space, his body goes to
the earth, his soul is absorbed into ether, his hairs become plants, the
hair of his head goes to crown the trees, his blood returns to water.
Thus, every portion of a man is restored to that portion of the universe
to which it belongs; and of himself, his own essence, nothing remains but
one part what that is called is a great secret."

Caracalla was listening intently. This discourse attracted him.

He, like the other Caesars, must after his death be deified by the