"Yes,
that's just the way I felt about it," he murmured.
"But this was only a few paltry years ago, perhaps a hundred. It passes
from my view. I am led back, away from it--far back--the cries of those
you slaughtered echo but faintly--the scene changes--"
The professor paused. Bean had cowered in his chair, wincing under each
blow. He wiped his face and crumpled the moist handkerchief tightly in
one hand.
"Perhaps the name may come to me now," continued the professor. "But
your superior personality overwhelmed me at first; you are so
self-willed, so dominant, so ruthless. The name, the name!" He cried the
last words commandingly and snapped his fingers at the delinquent
control. "There! I seem to hear--"
"Never mind that name," broke in Bean hastily. "Let it go! I--I don't
want to know it. Go on back farther!"
Again the professor's look became trancelike.
"Ah! What a relief to be free from that blood-lust!" He breathed deeply
and his eyes rolled far up under their lids.
"What is this? A statesman, still crafty, still the lines of cunning
cruelty about the mouth. The city is Venice in the fourteenth century.
He is dressed in a richly bejewelled robe and toys with an inlaid
dagger. He is plotting the assassination of a Doge--"
"Please get still farther back, can't you?" pleaded Bean.
The seer struggled once more with his control.
"I next see you at the head of a Roman legion, going forth to battle.
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