“Is that all you can say, old Brassy-head?” he asked. “‘Time is,’ did you say? Well, that would be fine news to carry to a scholar like Friar Bacon. You will have to tell a better secret than that before I waken him to hear it.”
Again the thunder rolled, and a brighter flash of lightning filled the room. Again the mouth opened, the lips moved, and a voice like the rattling of a brass kettle muttered,—
TIME WAS!
Miles put one hand on the door latch and with the other shook the cudge at the image.
“Only to think,” he said,“that my master and Friar Bungay should spend seven years in making a head which can tell no other secret than that!Why everybody knows that TIME WAS. Fie upon you for a brazen fraud, old Brassy-head! If you would only speak a little Hebrew or Latin, I should begin to think that you really have a secret to tell, and I should waken my master to hear it.”
Scarcely had he spoken when the room was lighted up with the brightness of day. The face of the image was no longer smiling, but it bore a dreadful frown. The floor swayed and trembled. The head appeared to lift itself from its pedestal, and in a voice of thunder it cried,—
TIME IS PAST!
Miles in his great fright fainted and fell in a senseless heap by the door. There was a dreadful crash, a blinding cloud of smoke, and then all was still. Friar Bacon, roused by the noise, rushed into