Part 16 (1/2)

They then returned to the study of the isingla.s.s, which they were able to split into extremely thin sheets. Suddenly a cloud pa.s.sed over the table, and almost immediately disappeared, and then a sharpened pencil with which Ayrault had been writing began to trace on a sheet of paper, in an even hand, and with a slight frictional sound.

”Stop!” said Bearwarden; ”let us each for himself describe in writing what he has seen.”

In a moment they had done this, and then compared notes. In each case the vision was the same. Then they looked at the writing made by the invisible hand. ”Absorpta est mors in Victoria,” it ran.

”Gentlemen,” began Bearwarden, as if addressing a meeting, ”this cannot be coincidence; we are undoubtedly and unquestionably in the presence of a spirit or of several spirits. That they understand Latin, we see; and, from what they say, they may have known death. Time may show whether they have been terrestrials like ourselves. Though the conditions of life here might make us delirious, it is scarcely possible that different temperaments like ours should be affected in so precisely the same way; besides, in this writing we have tangible proof.”

”It is perfectly reasonable,” said Ayrault, ”to conclude it was a spirit, if we may a.s.sume that spirits have the power to move the pencil, which is a material object. n.o.body doubts nowadays that after death we live again; that being the case, we must admit that we live somewhere. s.p.a.ce, as I take it, can be no obstacle to a spirit; therefore, why suppose they remain on earth?”

”This is a wonderful place,” said Cortlandt. ”We have already seen enough to convince us of the existence of many unknown laws. I wish the spirit would reveal itself in some other way.”

As he finished speaking, the rays of the distant and cold-looking sun were split, and the colours of the spectrum danced upon the linen cloth, as if obtained by a prism. In astonishment, they rose and looked closely at the table, when suddenly a shadow that no one recognized as his own appeared upon the cover. Tracing it to its source, their eyes met those of an old man with a white robe and beard and a look of great intelligence on his calm face. They knew he had not been in the little grove thirty seconds before, and as this was surrounded by open country there was no place from which he could have come.

CHAPTER II.

THE SPIRIT'S FIRST VISIT.

”Greetings and congratulations,” he said. ”Man has steadfastly striven to rise, and we see the results in you.”

”I have always believed in the existence of spirits,” said Cortlandt, ”but never expected to see one with my natural eyes.”

”And you never will, in its spiritual state,” replied the shade, ”unless you supplement sight with reason. A spirit has merely existence, ent.i.ty, and will, and is entirely invisible to your eyes.”

”How is it, then, that we see and hear you?” asked Cortlandt. ”Are you a man, or a spectre that is able to affect our senses?”

”I WAS a man,” replied the spirit, ”and I have given myself visible and tangible form to warn you of danger. My colleagues and I watched you when you left the cylinder and when you shot the birds, and, seeing your doom in the air, have been trying to communicate with you.”

”What were the strange shadows and prismatic colours that kept pa.s.sing across our table?” asked Bearwarden.

”They were the obstructions and refractions of light caused by spirits trying to take shape,” replied the shade.

”Do you mind our asking you questions?” said Cortlandt.

”No,” replied their visitor. ”If I can, I will answer them.”

”Then,” said Cortlandt, ”how is it that, of the several spirits that tried to become embodied, we see but one, namely, you?”

”That,” said the shade, ”is because no natural law is broken. On earth one man can learn a handicraft better in a few days than another in a month, while some can solve with ease a mathematical problem that others could never grasp. So it is here. Perhaps I was in a favourable frame of mind on dying, for the so-called supernatural always interested me on earth, or I had a natural apt.i.tude for these things; for soon after death I was able to affect the senses of the friends I had left.”

”Are we to understand, then,” asked Cortlandt, ”that the reason more of our departed do not reappear to us is because they cannot?”

”Precisely,” replied the shade. ”But though the percentage of those that can return and reappear on earth is small, their number is fairly large. History has many cases. We know that the prophet Samuel raised the witch of Endor at the behest of Saul; that Moses and Elias became visible in the transfiguration; and that after his crucifixion and burial Christ returned to his disciples, and was seen and heard by many others.”

”How,” asked Bearwarden deferentially, ”do you occupy your time?”

”Time,” replied the spirit, ”has not the same significance to us that it has to you. You know that while the earth rotates in twenty-four hours, this planet takes but about ten; and the sun turns on its own axis but once in a terrestrial month; while the years of the planets vary from less than three months for Mercury to Neptune's one hundred and sixty-four years. Being insensible to heat and cold, darkness and light, we have no more changing seasons, neither is there any night.

When a man dies,” he continued with solemnity, ”he comes at once into the enjoyment of senses vastly keener than any he possessed before.

Our eyes--if such they can be called--are both microscopes and telescopes, the change in focus being effected as instantaneously as thought, enabling us to perceive the smallest microbe or disease-germ, and to see the planets that revolve about the stars. The step of a fly is to us as audible as the tramp of a regiment, while we hear the mechanical and chemical action of a snake's poison on the blood of any poor creature bitten, as plainly as the waves on the sh.o.r.e. We also have a chemical and electrical sense, showing us what effect different substances will have on one another, and what changes to expect in the weather. The most complex and subtle of our senses, however, is a sort of second sight that we call intuition or prescience, which we are still studying to perfect and understand. With our eyes closed it reveals to us approaching astronomical and other bodies, or what is happening on the other side of the planet, and enables us to view the future as you do the past. The eyes of all but the highest angels require some light, and can be dazzled by an excess; but this attribute of divinity nothing can obscure, and it is the sense that will first enable us to know G.o.d. By means of these new and sharpened faculties, which, like children, we are continually learning to use to better advantage, we constantly increase our knowledge, and this is next to our greatest happiness.”

”Is there any limit,” asked Bearwarden, ”to human progress on the earth?”