Ten months later I went with Mary to the Agricultural Hall to see the "Orient in London." She had promised after my visit to spend a day with me at the Franco-British Exhibition, a bargain which to my mind was never fully ratified, as she resolutely declined free seats in the Scenic Railway and Flip-Flap.
I was glad I had gone as I met two acquaintances I should not otherwise have seen, Captain Carter, of my old regiment, who had taken orders and was going out to China as a missionary, and Sambo. The latter seemed to be superintending operations in an African village, and was very much at home. There was a label tied to his arm. On it I read:
"This undoubtedly genuine African idol was found in a compartment in the Bakerloo tube. Nothing is known as to the circumstances in which it was placed there, but it was probably stolen from some museum. This idol affords an interesting example of the gods that were worshipped in the childhood of our race."
The childhood of our race appeared to me a particularly appropriate phrase as I thought of Janey.
The abbot of Ursperg, in his Chronicle, year 1123, says that in the territory of Worms they saw during many days a multitude of armed men, on foot and on horseback, going and coming with great noise, like people who are going to a solemn assembly. Every day they marched, towards the hour of noon, to a mountain, which appeared to be their place of rendezvous. Someone in the neighbourhood, bolder than the rest, having guarded himself with the sign of the cross, approached one of these armed men, conjuring him in the name, of God, to declare the meaning of this army, and their design. The soldier or phantom replied, "We are not what you imagine; we are neither vain phantoms nor true soldiers, we are spirits of those who were killed on this spot a long time ago. The arms and horses which you behold are the instruments of our punishment, as they were of our sins. We are all on fire, though you can see nothing about us which appear inflamed." It is said that they remarked in this company the Count Emico, who had been killed a few years before, and who declared that he might be extricated from that state by alms and prayers.
