As Scorpio rises in the eastern sky, Orion vanishes in the west.
Ah, thought the Consul, that sinister Scorpion of his had much to answer for. Besides imagining it had slain the mighty hunter, had it not, also, stung the horses that Phaeton drove on his disastrous ride in the chariot of the sun? Scorpio, sign of the death god, Scorpio of the tribe of Dan, who would be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path. Presage of the reign of Typhon, of the death of Osiris, beloved of alchemists, accursed constellation!
An admirable evasion of the whoremaster man, he quoted to himself, to lay his goatish disposition to the stars! Nevertheless, it was an evasion to be glad of. And, not to be forgotten also were the Scorpii, b, d, and p, of the Tree of Life, phase of the cherubim set in the Garden of Eden! And sullen Antares, eternal mnemonic in the brain of God of the persistence of death.
Staggering all over the path, the Consul, who was on a slight eminence in a clearing, watched the Scorpion set beyond the horizon ruled through the trees.
