The Argosy — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Cruse of the Reserve Squadron. 48 How different the scene from the silence and grandeur, the solemn beauty and repose of those wonderful halls and courts of the Alhambra! Here crowds moved about; gas and torches were flaring ; the ordinary occupations and vulgar amusements of life had full play. It was coming back to earth, and the things of earth with a reality that only an hour ago had seemed impossible. Yet—sad to record of human nature, so influenced by exteriors and surround- ings—we enjoyed the crowd and the excitement ; and whilst content- ing ourselves with the outside of the seductive booths and shooting galleries, found it difficult not to be in a degree infected with the spirit, energy, and strong enjoyment of those who streamed and struggled in to devour some drama full of murders and duels and gushing love scenes—if one might judge by the outside canvases—or those who more soberly waited to test their skill at hitting the bull’s-eye. And in one booth, somewhat apart from the rest, as being of a more elevated tone, there dwelt a fortune-teller: a seer: grave and hoary ; dignified, venerable, and zzfal/zble, asserted the guide: a patriarch, whose years were unnumbered, but who was supposed, like the Wander- ing Jew, to bear a charmed life. His age, at the very least, must be a hundred and fifty. The entrance to his mysterious, mystic chamber led through a long passage, lighted with a rosy glow that promised well as a beginning, and for what was to be heard within those portals of Fate. Beyond the rosy passage, heavy curtains, of which the innermost was com- posed of leopards’ skins sewn together, admitted you into a small, square chamber, just sufficiently lighted for its purpose, where sat a sage in a velvet robe that swept around him, his long white hair streaming thick and abundant over his shoulders, his white beard almost reaching to his knees. On entering, he fixed upon you a pair of large, piercing dark eyes that seemed to read into your very soul. Near him was a crystal globe, suspended in some apparently invisible manner from the ceiling, so-placed that he could consult it without moving. He bid you approach and take a low seat in front of him, sufficiently near for him to examine your hand when he bid you stretch it forth. And in spite of the rosy passage that lured you on, he was uncompromising, this wizard: consulted his crystal, and examined your palm, and spared neither man nor maid. Some would depart superstitiously impressed, cheeks blanched and limbs trembling, as one who has just received his death warrant at the hands of a skilful leech ; whilst others, on whom fortune had smiled, would leave in a species of mental intoxication: perhaps, on the strength of glowing promises, to pass to the physical stage at the first favourable opportunity. Reader, I am sorry to say for your curiosity—and perhaps for our Own also ; since we are often deceived by our own hearts—we did not consult the wizard. I can but tell you about him as he was described to me. We resisted the temptation of peering into the connicloooks (C(@)