THE EQUINOX
morality, which could be transmitted as a new gospel for the
special use of the Men-Covers of future times, I opened the
second book to put down in it some equally useful aphorisms.
But as I took my pencil the white, immaculate page appeared
covered with brown characters. I had scarcely time enough
to read and they had vanished. But I remember what I saw.
“You must leave the study of the oyster-shells in order to
perceive the invisible, to refine your senses and escape the
delusions caused by them.”
“The duty of man is not to believe other men. They
speak either truth or untruth; but if they speak truth, even
then is it a falsehood.”
“ All men are not necessarily obliged to kill their opponents
or those who doubt them, or who are not of any use to them ;
but some men are—all Men-Covers are.”
I was interrupted in the profound meditation that followed
this discovery by the approach of a strong party of natives.
My heir-apparent, if I may be allowed to use that expression
in regard to a Man-Cover, was absent; and our two other
companions had also made themselves scarce.
These black men seemed to be frenzied with pugnacity, a
very unusual disposition. After rapidly taking advice of the
skull (the two books failing on the matter), I lay down in my
usual place, protecting the lofty thoughts from impure contact,
resolved to be pierced through and through rather than to let
these black devils brush the holy books. To be pierced
through could not do me much harm; and the holes would
soon be stopped up by the skilful hand of my worthy under-
study.
Evidently my attitude of passive resistance surprised the
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