EIGHTEEN CENTURIES. Chapter the Eleventh. "The Templar-Trial." "The Alarms of the Desert." Chapter the Thirteenth. "The Battle of Hastings." Chapter the Fourteenth. 3 "Pictures from the Portfolio of Adam, Rouge-Dragon Herald to King Arthur of Glorious Memory; with a strange display of the fatalities of the accursed Piece of Silver." Farther traverse of the Silver Piece to BOOK THE FIFTH, In which is contained the "Earlier Story of the Piece of Money." "The Temple at Jerusalem in the Year 33." BOOK THE SIXTH, AND FINAL. "A DREAM OF ETERNITY.” (Close of the present record of the LEGEND, and of the ORIGIN of the HISTORY.) مع ONE OF THE THE THIRTY, BOOK THE FIRST. The Story commences with Events in London in the Year 1871, and opens with the Narrative called HELENA FIELDING. IN INTRODUCTION. N the first place I wish to give an explanation of the means whereby I, Engel De Lara, press-writer, student of old literature, and contributor for many years to newspapers and to periodicals published in England, became connected with these singular facts; which are either detailed as coincident with my own experience, or commented upon as having been heard of in my attention to all interesting matters talked-of as going forward in London. With regard to this now immediately coming strange history, I may mention, as the introduction of myself, that I am respectable. This one word "respectable" embodies a world of information, but the party to whom the assurance of respectability is made must become satisfied of its truth. I shall offer no laboured attempts to supply my history—that is, my precise personal history. A recapitulation of business-events occurring in my sad struggle through life would not enlighten or satisfy. I wish these few introductory remarks to stand for no more proof, and to be accepted as no fuller explanation of myself or of my purpose, or of the means at my disposal to establish, than they may be at first sight taken as carrying. I hope that I am an honest man-I have tried to be so; and I trust that the clearness with which I now ignore all fraud, and the emphasis with which I reject it, and the reluctance with which I should, spite of temptation, use tricky flourishes in my narration, may be appreciated as vehemently as I should wish. I hope that, spite of this wonderful history thus now laid before him, the reader may at last exclaim—“ At all events, he who has come forward to introduce these marvels to us, readers, seems plain-speaking and a plain-dealing man, anxious to put what he has to say in as few words as he can command, and to shrink, when done, behind his curtain as quickly as he canboth good acts." "This quiet self-control, in this selfassured and impertinent age, proves that he is impelled to come on, rather than that he desires this particular platform." The reader will add this as his conclusion. This is true. I desire not this particular platform; and yet I find myself upon the public stage compelled to speak. All do this when they have eager, questioning faces before them, desirous to know. But, my readers and dear friends, I am not mysterious; though my history is most mysterious. I am no miracle-monger. I am a man of simple habits and common-sense belief living in London, used to the pen in the plain sense, mingling miscellaneously in the world; "cutting and shuffling," pardon the familiarity, with "high, low, Jack, and the game.' I am no hermit. I am a clear-headed, ordinary person; not given to rhapsody, hating superfine writing as I dislike fine clothes. I am a man insisting on his change with scrupulous exactness. I have something to lose in the world-most of all, the possibility of losing my character.* For truly, as I am thoroughly respectable, I * Which, if I lost it, somebody else, perhaps, would pick up. value most the "respect of the respectable"-that is, the respectable. How the following account, which deals wholly of London, came into my hand, I shall not impart. But I begin my singular (and singularly romantic) true narrative with a description of occurrences—domestic occurrences-contemporaneous with all the people and the facts and forms which are about us now, at this moment, in London. Therefore the reader must not be astonished if I speedily relate some very surprising and bewildering circumstances. Mine is surely a most uncommon relation of facts, and one very difficult to reconcile with everyday truth. Believed or not believed, however, this is the record of real events occurring in this familiar London of ours in the summer of 1871. For we have in this town of our daily life not quite got rid yet of wonderful things, simple as we think ourselves, and very ordinary and commonplace as we consider not only the affairs which happen every day about us, but also the people that, "in our walks abroad," we are constantly meeting. In truth, we are very ignorant; and we are sadly disposed to disregard things that concern us very nearly. But if our guides are blind, is it surprising that we are blindly led, embracing "posts" as "pillars of truth" occasionally; not thinking that the index-finger is of wood? |