“Could I have any suspicion—­and here Serapion addressed himself to me—­ which god he forced to obey him when he uttered the words, ’Abar Barbarie Eloce Sabaoth Pachnuphis,’ and more like it!  I have only remembered the first few words.  But, he continued, it was not enough to be able to pronounce these words.  The heavenly spirits would submit only to those mortals who shared in some of their highest characteristics.  Before the Magian dared to call them, he must purify his soul from all sensual taint, and sanctify his body by long and severe fasting.  When the Magian succeeded, as he had done in these days, in rendering himself impervious to the allurements of the senses, and in making his soul, as far as was humanly possible, independent of the body, only then had he attained to that degree of godliness which entitled him to have intercourse with the heavenly ones and the entire spirit-world as with his equals, and to subdue them to his will.

“He exerted his power, and we saw with our bodily eyes that the spirits came to his call.  But we discovered that it was not done by words alone.  What a noble-looking man he is!  And the mortifications that he practices—­these, too, are heroic deeds!  The cavilers in the Museum might take example from him.  Serapion performed an action and a difficult one.  They waste their time over words, miserable words!  They will prove to you by convincing argument that yonder lion is a rabbit.  The Magian waved his hands and the king of beasts cringed before him.  Like the worthies of the Museum, every one in this city is merely a mouth on two legs.  Where but here would the Christians—­I know their doctrines—­have invented that term for their sublime teacher—­The Word become flesh?  I have heard nothing here,” he turned to the deputation, “but words and again words—­from you, who humbly assure me of your love and reverence; from those who think that their insignificant persons may slip through my fingers and escape me, paltry, would-be witty words, dipped in poison and gall.  In the Circus, even, they aimed words at me.  The Magian alone dared to offer me deeds, and he succeeded wonderfully; he is a marvelous man!”

“What he showed you,” said the high-priest, “was no more than what the sorcerers achieved, as the old writings tell us, under the builders of the Pyramids.  Our astrologers, who traced out for you the path of the stars—­”

“They, too,” interrupted Caesar, bowing slightly to the astrologers, “have something better to show than words.  As I owe to the Magian an agreeable hour, so I thank you, my friends, for a happy one.”

This remark had reference to the information which had been brought to Caesar, during a pause in the incantations, that the stars predicted great happiness for him in his union with Melissa, and that this prediction was well-founded, was proved by the constellations which the chief astrologer showed and explained to him.