Said he to me one day, “Do you remember laughing at me when I first began to talk about the Rosicrucians? and you asserted that, if such a fraternity existed, it must be composed either of knaves or fools, laughing heartily when informed that the order ramified extensively on both sides of the grave, and, on the other shore of time, was known in its lower degrees as the Royal Order of the Foli, and, towering infinitely beyond and above that, was the great Order of the Neridii; and that whoever, actuated by proper motives, joined the fraternity on this side of the grave, was not only assured of protection, and a vast amount of essential knowledge imparted to him here, but also of sharing a lot on the farther side of life, compared to which all other destinies were insignificant and crude. I repeat this assertion now.” CHAPTER VI. NAPOLEON III. AND THE ROSICRUCIANS--AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN AND AN EXTRAORDINARY THEORY. Beverly continued his very singular narrative, saying:--“You have already been informed of the singular doom that hangs over me--that I am condemned to perpetual transmigrations, unless relieved by a marriage with a woman in whom not one drop of the blood of Adam circulates--and even then, the love must be perfect and mutual. Thus my chance is about as one in three hundred and ninety-six billions against, to a single one for me. This doom has brought around me, as it did around others before me, certain beings, powers, influences, and at length I became a voluntary adept in the Rosicrucian mysteries and brotherhood. How, when, or where I was found worthy of initiation, of course I am not at liberty to tell; suffice it that I belong to the Order, and have been--by renouncing certain things--admitted to the companionship of the living, the dead, and those who never die; have been admitted to the famous Derishavi-Laneh, and am familiar with the profoundest secrets of the Fakie-Deeva Records; and through life have had ever three great possibilities before me: one of these--I being a neutral soul--is that of becoming after death a chief of a supreme order, called the Light; or of its opposite, called the Shadow--to which I am tempted by invisible, but potent agencies; and the third of which is the one I dread most--the perpetuation of the doom to wander the earth for ages, in various bodies, as the result of the curse pronounced by a dying man ages ago, as you already have been told, unless I be redeemed by a true marriage with a woman in whom not one drop of the blood of Adam circulates. I desire to avoid all three if possible, and to share the lot of other men.