The Chambers meet in apartments
concealed within the dwellings of individual members. When we meet the
doors are guarded, and can be passed only by those who give a token
and a password. And if these could become known to an enemy, the
appearance of a stranger would lead to questions that would at once
expose his ignorance of our simplest secrets. He would learn nothing,
and would never tell his story to the outer world." ...
Opening the door, or rather window, of his private chamber, Esmo
directed our eyes to a portrait sunk in the wall, and usually
concealed by a screen which fitted exactly the level and the patterns
of the general surface. It displayed, in a green vesture not unlike
his own, but with a gold ribbon and emerald symbol like the cross of
an European knighthood over the right shoulder, a spare soldierly
form, with the most striking countenance I have ever seen; one which,
once seen, none could forget. The white long hair and beard, the
former reaching the shoulders, the latter falling to the belt, were
not only unlike the fashion of this generation, but gave tokens of age
never discerned in Mars for the last three or four thousand years.
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