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There was a pause, and the blackness seemed to grow blacker still, whilethe yellow-green fog swirled and smoked upon the table.
“Any questions you would like to ask, Moir?” said Harvey Deacon.
“Only this—do you pray in your world?”
“One should pray in every world.”
“Why?”
“Because it is the acknowledgment of forces outside ourselves.”
“What religion do you hold over there?”
“We differ exactly as you do.”
“You have no certain knowledge?”
“We have only faith.”
“These questions of religion,” said the Frenchman, “they are of interestto you serious English people, but they are not so much fun. It seems tome that with this power here we might be able to have some greatexperience—_hein_? Something of which we could talk.”
“But nothing could be more interesting than this,” said Moir.
“Well, if you think so, that is very well,” the Frenchman answered,peevishly. “For my part, it seems to me that I have heard all thisbefore, and that to-night I should weesh to try some experiment with allthis force which is given to us. But if you have other questions, thenask them, and when you are finish we can try something more.”
But the spell was broken. We asked and asked, but the medium sat silentin her chair. Only her deep, regular breathing showed that she wasthere. The mist still swirled upon the table.
“You have disturbed the harmony. She will not answer.”
“But we have learned already all that she can tell—_hein_? For my part Iwish to see something that I have never seen before.”
“What then?”
“You will let me try?”
“What would you do?”
“I have said to you that thoughts are things. Now I wish to _prove_ itto you, and to show you that which is only a thought. Yes, yes, I can doit and you will see. Now I ask you only to sit still and say nothing,and keep ever your hands quiet upon the table.”
The room was blacker and more silent than ever. The same feeling ofapprehension which had lain heavily upon me at the beginning of theséance was back at my heart once more. The roots of my hair weretingling.
“It is working! It is working!” cried the Frenchman, and there was acrack in his voice as he spoke which told me that he also was strung tohis tightest.
The luminous fog drifted slowly off the table, and wavered and flickeredacross the room. There in the farther and darkest corner it gathered andglowed, hardening down into a shining core—a strange, shifty, luminous,and yet non-illuminating patch of radiance, bright itself, but throwingno rays into the darkness. It had changed from a greenish-yellow to adusky sullen red. Then round this centre there coiled a dark, smokysubstance, thickening, hardening, growing denser and blacker. And thenthe light went out, smothered in that which had grown round it.
“It has gone.”
“Hush—there’s something in the room.”
We heard it in the corner where the light had been, something whichbreathed deeply and fidgeted in the darkness.
“What is it? Le Duc, what have you done?”
“It is all right. No harm will come.” The Frenchman’s voice was treblewith agitation.
“Good heavens, Moir, there’s a large animal in the room. Here it is,close by my chair! Go away! Go away!”
It was Harvey Deacon’s voice, and then came the sound of a blow uponsome hard object. And then ... And then ... how can I tell you whathappened then?
