Mirrikh, or, A Woman from Mars/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
A PLANETARY MAUSOLEUM.
Morning! Morning among the mountains! The rising sun gilds the snow-clad peaks of the lofty Himalayas, they throw back its rays like so many huge reflectors, the plain below us glitters as though strewn with gems.
Standing in the embrasure of one of the tower windows of that ancient shrine of Buddha, I contemplated the scene in silent reverence. As the world’s natural Creator rose to view, I seemed seized with some measure of my friend Mirrikh’s enthusiasm, filled with the thought that it was but a reflection of the spiritual Creator of heaven and earth, whose existence in a less enthusiastic moment I would have denied. Instinctively I removed my hat and bowed my head before it, a mocking laugh echoing through the tower as I did so. The Doctor had caught me in the very act.
“Good! Very good, my bold agnostic!” he exclaimed in his most sarcastic tones. “So we have turned sun-worshiper, have we? What is there in the atmosphere of this strange land that transforms sensible fellows like my friend Wylde into soft-pated fools?”
I reddened, and only with difficulty restrained the lie which sprang to my lips. Something seemed to prevent me from denying the act, as I would have done.
“Pshaw! It was only a passing fancy, Doctor. I was thinking of sun-worshippers, I own, and I have the habit sometimes of acting out my thoughts.”
“Flimsy, ” he retorted. “Wylde, your excuse is gauzy in the extreme, it won’t wash! You are tarred with the same stick as our friend De Veber. The next I shall hear you will be in the clutches of that precious humbug, Mirrikh, and fancy yourself on the road to Mars.”
“By the way, have you seen Maurice this morning?” I asked anxiously, and not without good reason, for since we rose from the frugal meal spread by the young lama who had received us, I had seen nothing of Maurice. Mr. Mirrikh had taken him by the arm and departed immediately after our arrival.
There had been trouble about Walla, also.
The rule of the lamasery admitted no females. At Mr. Mirrikh’s earnest solicitation it had been disregarded, but poor Walla was conveyed away to some remote part of the great enclosure, and I had spent a sleepless night in consequence of it all, the Doctor and I occupying a small room together, lying in our blankets upon the hard stone floor, for even here I saw no sign of beds.
“No, I have not seen Maurice,” replied the Doctor, “and upon my word I begin seriously to wonder if we shall ever see him again.”
“For God’s sake what have you learned?” I exclaimed, grasping his arm.
“Nothing, nothing!” he replied hastily, and then speaking quite seriously for once, he continued:
“The fact is, Wylde, I like this business less than ever, and for the first time begin to feel serious alarm as to what may be our fate. Of course, so far as I am concerned, I have no one but myself to blame. I have traveled everywhere; Thibet is an unknown land and I was anxious to see it. Moreover, I confess to you I had some curiosity to follow up our man of mystery and see the end of his preposterous claims; yet, now that I am here, I tremble for our safety. We are in a country governed by a religious hierarchy of the most tyrannical description. Intelligent as these lamas are in some things, they are still but half savages. Let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that Mirrikh really possesses some occult knowledge of which the world is ignorant. Are we to witness the display of this knowledge and afterward be permitted to leave this place alive?”
“God knows!”
“Nobody knows but the powers which control this lamasery. Don’t let the glamor of our strange journey throw you back into the trammels of superstition. Speak as you believe, man, and say nobody knows.”
“But what are we to do?”
“God knows—plague on it! You see how catching it is. No matter though, your question brings me back to my object in seeking you. Come, Wylde, we are sent for, and, as our only safety lies in appearing to chime in with these people, we must respond at once.”
“Who has sent for us?”
“I cannot say. That young lama—the only one we have seen so far—came to me directly you got up from breakfast, before Ah Schow had cleared away, and told me to call you at once. I’ve had a great hunt for you, old fellow, until at last I thought of your predilection for towers and sunrises, and here I am.”
“And you saw no one on your way through the courtyard?”
“Not a soul. How is it with you?”
“Just the same. The place seems utterly deserted.”
“That’s what Ah Schow says. He slept in the stable with the mules, but, as you say, has not seen a soul.”
It was certainly very mysterious. A vague sense of uneasiness oppressed me as I descended from the tower, and, in company with the Doctor, crossed the open courtyard with its flanking of low, white buildings, toward the door from which I had emerged.
But let me pause a moment in description before I proceed.
The lamasery of Psam-dagong, as my memory serves me, must have covered a space a thousand feet on the line of the slope by perhaps five hundred feet across.
Somewhere near the centre of this enclosure was the temple, which was but a small affair built of a greyish stone, with the tower into which I had penetrated unmolested separated from it; all around the sides, backed up against the high wall which surrounded the place, were low-roofed buildings of what I, as an American, should call adobe, dried mud whitewashed, really quite Mexican in their appearance; each had its door and single window made up of innumerable little panes of glass of fantastic shapes. Scattered through the enclosure were a few trees of enormous proportions and immense age evidently, but their species was quite unknown to me.
As we crossed this court the Doctor remarked on the general deserted aspect, and called my attention to the fact that I had previously noticed, namely, that up against the doors of almost all these detached buildings the snow lay banked.
It was quite obvious that Psam-dagong was no densely populated lamasery such as the good Abbe Huc, the only explorer who has given us a substantial record of his Thibetan experiences, tells about.
Afterward I came to know that ten souls were all those walls encompassed, but on that morning when the young lama conducted the Doctor and myself back across the court and into the temple, all was mystery, and I felt that the unknown lay before us. Since then, though years have passed, I can truthfully say that the happenings in the lamasery of Psam-dagong are enveloped in a veil of mystery still. But to return.
Through the low stone door way, above and about which wound a trailing dragon, carved in bold relief; through a dark and narrow passage, paved and musty smelling; through another door, and then into a large apartment, dimly lighted and shadowy, the “joss house,” the Doctor called it, for there was a huge gilded Buddha rising at the back with tall candles burning before the altar, which was laden with offerings of the faithful, gifts of the wild tribes of the adjacent mountains who, at certain seasons, seek the lamasery to prostrate themselves before this image, the representative of their God.
Now I do not know what I expected to find upon entering this place and still less am I able to record the Doctor’s thoughts, What we found was Maurice De Veber and the mysterious Mr. Mirrikh awaiting us. I beheld my friend with a sense of indescribable relief.
They were standing upon the tesselated pavement before the image talking in low tones together, while beside them, upon his knees, with his head bent until it touched the pavement, crouched a man, wearing the yellow dress of the order which controlled this shrine, a man of great age evidently, for his features were as dried and wrinkled as a withered apple, and the ring of hair which surrounded his tonsure, snowy white.
This is what I saw upon the occasion of my first visit to the temple.
And while speaking of the temple I want to say that I never met with the slightest opposition on the part of the lamas to my penetrating any part of the shrine. If there exists any holy of holies at Psam-dagong I never discovered it. Though firmly set in their own belief, I invariably found the lamas most charitable toward the belief of others. They knew perfectly well what and who I was—there was never any secret made about it. I know that as a race the Thibetans have no wish to be exclusive; it is their Chinese masters who have built up and maintain the wall of mystery which surrounds this strange people—that the day is not far distant when it will be broken down I believe as firmly as I do that the breaking will be of vast benefit to Thibet.
No sooner had we crossed the threshold than Maurice rushed toward me with open arms.
“George! My dear fellow! How contemptibly shabby you must think me for deserting you!” he exclaimed, “and I owe you an apology too, Doctor. The fact is, I”
He paused suddenly, for Mr. Mirrikh’s eye was upon him. I shuddered as I saw its steady gaze transform Maurice, for the moment at least, into a being as cold and emotionless as himself.
“Gentlemen, good morning,” said the adept, extending his hand to each of us in turn. “Mr. De Veber, I must inform your friends of the object of this meeting. If we are to start for Mars at midnight there is no time to waste.”
Why did I bear it thus tamely? Why did I not launch forth my real sentiments against that man? Why had I ever remained silent? Why was the Doctor as dumb as myself?
God knows! All that I can say is that it was ever so from the first moment his will took that of Maurice De Veber under subjection.
He seemed to know when we were about to speak, to read our thoughts and in a measure control them. While we were with him these things did not strike me as they strike me now. I look back in wonder and ask myself the why and the wherefore, but no answer comes.
Now he checked Maurice in his intended communication, and equally we were checked in asking him further for it.
Maurice drew his arm through mine and pressed it affectionately. As for Philpot, he stood there looking absolutely stupid.
Such was the power of this man Mirrikh over minds sane at the least. It was not the first time he had exercised it on mine nor was it to be the last.
Just then the old lama before the altar arose and bowing low, speaking words of salutation not intelligible to me, approached the spot where we stood.
Mirrikh took upon himself the ceremony of introduction and I am free to admit that he performed it in an entirely graceful way.
Now we knew that this was the Lama Superior of Psam-dagong, Padma by name. According to Mr. Mirrikh his years numbered more than a hundred, nor do I doubt it; certainly he bore all the appearance of a man of unusual age.
“Children, I greet you. Welcome to Psam-dagong!” he said in Hindustanee, and for the first time I heard that gentle voice which later I grew to love so well.
There was something inexpressibly sweet in the old man’s very presence. A sphere of love, truth and purity seemed to surround him, yet to our eyes he looked simply a very old and ugly specimen of a Chinaman.
I noticed, however, that Philpot was not affected by him as I was; while to me his presence was pleasing, the Doctor drew away his hand in ill-concealed disgust.
Our adept saw it also and began in English immediately.
“Listen Mr. Wylde, and you too, Doctor;” he said, “the time has now come when we must have a definite understanding. We are at what you may justly consider the most remote corner of the earth. We are here for a distinct purpose. I need not tell you what that purpose is.”
“We are here because we are fools” the Doctor began, when he was suddenly checked by that same mysterious influence which Mr. Mirrikh seemed to possess the power to exert by the mere raising of his hand.
“Argument being quite useless, I have determined to put a stop to it,” he said; “that I have power to do so you are probably both aware by this time. Wylde you shall do the talking in this matter. Doctor, I beg your pardon, but do you see that fine piece of carving above the Buddha?”
Involuntarily the Doctor raised his eyes in the direction indicated, the adept with a movement of the hands quick as thought itself, making a pass before his face.
After that the Doctor’s eyes were never lowered, never wavered a hair’s breadth until we were ready to leave the shrine, and the will of our strange conductor removed the hypnotic spell.
“I am sorry, Mr. Wylde, to have to resort to such means,” he said, “but time is precious, and you know what the Doctor is. I don’t even dare to allow you full freedom of mental action. I presume you perceive that your will is to a certain extent in subjection to influences over which you have no control.”
“I do,” I answered simply, wondering at the supreme quietude which seemed to have seized my soul.
“You attribute it to the action of my will, doubtless?”
“I do.”
“You are mistaken. Let me impart a truth. I am exercising no control over you whatever, nor am I over your friend Maurice, as you believe.”
“If not you, who then?”
“Intelligences in whose existence you do not believe; the immortal souls of men once clothed with a material body like your own.”
I found myself incapable of reply.
Evidently he expected none, for he immediately continued:
“Have no fear. Nothing shall be done to injure you. As for De Veber, he consented to this step of his own free will. I am quite powerless to prevent him from carrying it out; indeed I have even urged him to withdraw.”
“And I have refused, George, utterly refused;” spoke Maurice. “I would not back out under any circumstances; I am going to Mars.”
“You hear,” said the adept, “and this is what our chance meeting at Panompin has done for our friend. Pity the spiritual side of your nature is a blank page, Mr. Wylde; were it otherwise I could tell you so much that would interest you.”
“George!” burst out Maurice, with something like his old enthusiasm; “it would amaze you. I am wild with anxiety to see this experiment tried. I”
Again he suddenly paused and was dumb, and yet Mirrikh never looked at him, but I thought I saw old Padma make a slight pass in his direction. Possibly this was imagination, for Padma could not have understood his words.”
“You see,” said the adept, “they will not let him speak.”
“Who do you mean by they?”
“The pitries—spirits as you call them. I employ the Hindu term.”
“I call them nothing, for I deny their existence.”
“Your denial of the world of causes falls flat with one whose vision is so constituted that he sees that world and its inhabitants all around you, as plainly as you see me.”
“Meaning yourself?”
“Meaning myself, of course.”
“I deny it utterly. I am willing to admit your powers as an adept; to allow that you understand Nature’s laws as I do not, but further than that I will not go.”
He smiled pityingly; a smile which at another time would have driven me furious but had no power to disturb me now.
“No, no; it is useless,” he said. “Your Western minds cannot grasp it. A few to some slight extent are in the effort, and what is the result? Your scientists berate them furiously and dub them lunatics. Yet the time is at hand—close at hand.”
“The time for what?”
“The time, sir, when men shall know that there is a living God who through His spirit messengers rules the existences of His creations. Shallow thinkers, blinded by the vaporings of their own conceit, alone can teach a world without a Creator; a universe without an ever-existing primal cause. But come, enough has been said. What interests you is how I came from the planet Mars, or rather how I propose to return to it. Follow me now and you shall be told.”
The spell was broken, I rubbed my eyes like a man awakened from a dream.
He recalled the Doctor by a slight movement of the hand, and—but I cannot dwell upon this. Philpot assured me afterward that to him those moments were moments of utter oblivion, and that covers the ground.
“Lead the way, good Padma,” said Mr. Mirrikh in Hindustanee.
The lama smiled in his gentle way; lighting a bronze lamp of antique pattern, he led us by a trap door behind the gilded Buddha, down a flight of stone steps to a large, square apartment under ground, a room which occupied the entire space of the temple walled up on all sides, save one, with stone.
“This,” said the adept as we entered, “is the gate through which we depart for Mars.”
We did not discuss it, the Doctor and I—we could not.
For the next half hour we were content to let Mr. Mirrikh do the talking, translating for the lama most of the time, for old Padma was acting as master of ceremonies. I believe now that the adept rendered his words truly, although at the time I could scarcely credit it.
It was a wonderful place, that underground chamber, and yet at first glance there was nothing to be seen except a huge, oblong block of marble as white as the snow above, occupying a central position on the stone floor.
It was seven feet long and three feet four inches wide, in one side there was set a little door of solid gold; but for this it was an unbroken block.
I have alluded to the three blank walls and hinted that the fourth was different. It was to this fourth wall that Padma directed our attention first.
This was divided into square spaces and reminded me much of the public vaults in the cemeteries at New Orleans. Filling each space was a section of hard, polished wood—ligum-vitae, I think, at all events it was intensely black and very heavy—into which was fixed a bronze handle with a gilded Thibetan character above. There were eighty of these sections altogether, and space left for fully twice as many more. Padma, laying his withered hand upon one of the gilded characters, proceeded to explain.
“These, my children, are the resting places of the bodies of those souls who seek to visit us from the planets in our solar system. In former years when this lamasery was first consecrated for that holy purpose, we scarcely had three bodies in at a time, but now there are only two out. Ah, they care not for this world, these planetary spirits. It is inferior to all others of our system, so what wonder? Behold!”
He grasped one of the handles and pulled, seeming to exert more strength than I believed him capable of. Slowly an oblong box moved forward, working on stone rollers. One glance sent me back with a shudder, for there, reposing in the box, was a human body wrapped in cloth, swathed about like an Egyptian mummy. Only the head was visible, and what startled me most was the face, which, though that of a middle-aged man, and by no means unhandsome, was of a color decidedly greenish, or perhaps I had better say greenish-yellow. If I had been told that it was the face of a man who died of jaundice, I would have found it easier to believe than Padma’s next words.
“This, my children, is the body used by the dwellers on the planet Mercury, the character you see here imprinted indicates that fact; and here in this compartment we have one from the planet next nearest to the sun.”
“Thought Mercury was nearest the sun,” groaned the Doctor helplessly.
Padma pulled the next handle above, returning the unfortunate Mercurian to his place.
I looked again. Maurice, who still held my arm, displayed the most intense eagerness as the coffin came out.
“I saw all this last night, George,” he whispered. “Ain’t it wonderful? What is there that man cannot accomplish after this?”
“What indeed?” I thought. “If man can wipe out the vast distances of interplanetary space, who is to say that his ambition shall pause even there? That it shall not aspire to a similar extinction of the stupendous breaks between our solar system and its neighbors. Clearly nothing! The thought, however, was paralysing. Was I yielding to the influences about me and becoming a believer in the claims of my friend Mirrikh? Not yet!
But to the second coffin—I might almost say sarcophagus, for it was as heavy as stone.
The adept had the lamp now, and he held it in such a manner that its light fell full upon the still, cold face before us. The heavily bearded features were of a deep bronze tint, verging toward that reddish patination which one sometimes finds on the coins of ancient Greece and Rome. The nose was aquiline and very prominent, the mouth large and sensual, while the forehead was contracted in a curious manner, giving the head a pointed appearance, strongly reminding one of the heads on the mysterious monuments in the ruined palace at Palenque.
“Of this race we have admitted none for many years,” said the old lama quietly. “They are a fierce and vicious people. The last that occupied this body wrought so much evil that our gracious lord, the Tale Lama, sent imperative orders that they should in future be prohibited from taking on the earthly form.
He pushed the coffin back into place and moved to the next handle beyond.
Now we were shown the body of a young man whose face was white and of surprising beauty.
“Saturn is the meaning of that character, friend Wylde,” said the adept, pointing to the gilded criss-cross of lines on this coffin.
“And each contains the body of a man from a different planet in our solar system?”
“Yes, and no. Each contains a body inhabited at some time by a human soul whose dwelling place was on a different planet. These bodies, however, are entirely of this earth.”
“But how are they preserved?”
“You shall soon know. Let us finish our inspection first.”
“I say, look here!” broke in the Doctor, “how many planets do you make? There are coffins enough here to do the business ten times over.”
“You forget the asteroids,” said the adept. “Besides, there is your own and other moons.”
“All inhabited?”
“All inhabited or destined for inhabitants. God creates nothing in vain.”
“This is madness! Driveling idiocy!” Philpot murmured.
No attention was paid to him, however. Our singular inspection went straight on.
Coffin after coffin was opened.
We were shown men from Venus, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, the asteroids, many moons, and other planets still further distant from the sun than the last named, for which our astronomers will ever search in vain.
This is according to Mr. Mirrikh, of course. For my part I neither assent or deny. I simply record what happened.
All were in human form. All were perfect men, and though all differed in appearance, the differences were no greater than those of men on this earth.
One, said to be of our moon, was dwarfish with an enormous head and a great deal of black, shaggy hair. Another, in a box labeled Venus, was just the reverse, being of huge proportions with a face as black as a Jamaica negro, and cruel, repulsive features; but there were two from this planet, the other being a man of ordinary appearance and white.
One thing I observed, namely, that the further removed from the sun the planet, the more refined and intellectual appeared to be the face. I spoke of this to Mr. Mirrikh and his answer confirmed my observations.
“It is so,” he said; such is the rule. The sun is the centre of all planetary life, but it is at the circumference of every solar system that the highest intellectual development is found.”
But there was one handle which the old lama had thus far left untouched. Odd, too, that not until now did I think of it. We had been shown no man from Mars.
I moved forward and touched it.
“And this—why was this one omitted?” I asked.
The adept smiled and said something to the lama in Hindustanee.
Approaching my side the old man pulled the coffin forward. It came easily and no wonder, for it was empty.
“My place, gentlemen,” said Mr. Mirrikh, calmly; “thank God this body will soon be in it. This is for Mars!”
But there was but one other empty. None of the planets, however, were unrepresented. The vacant coffin bore characters which the adept claimed indicated one of the asteriods, he could not speak its English name.
“And is the body which should fill it now animated by a soul and walking about this earth?” I inquired.
He answered that it was so.
Impossible, indeed, will it be for those who may read this part of my narrative to comprehend the reluctance with which it has been penned.
Believe it no one will, of course; but believe me when I say that had it been possible to have left it unwritten and still rendered intelligible that which is to follow, it would never have been told.
It was over. We stood beside the altar; my friend Mirrikh had begun to speak.
“Mr. Wylde, after what you have seen you have an undoubted right to the explanation which yours or any other intelligent mind will naturally demand. Here are your questions—I know them before they are uttered. The agent which is capable of producing this separation of the spiritual and the material, of the soul and the body; what is it? Is not that the first?”
“It is,” I replied. “You have stated it correctly.”
“You have seen those bodies—they are not phantasies—they are facts?”
“Either facts or I am hopelessly mad.”
“You are the same level headed American you were when I astonished you at Panompin, my friend. Now what you most wish to know is why those bodies do not follow the law of nature and decay?”
“You have said it.”
“And know you shall. Listen. You, in that truly liberal spirit which I have from the first admired; have been willing to admit the existence of natural forces of which your western science may be ignorant.”
“I have never denied the possibility of such forces.”
“No; more liberal than the so-called learned of your race you never have. Mr. Wylde you now stand face to face with the workings of just such a force. It is an invisible, imponderable gas; as elementary as oxygen, but utterly unknown outside of adept lore. This gas is generated under certain natural conditions within the earth itself, and is of such rare occurrence on this particular planet that the knowledge of its existence has hitherto been confined to the few. In fact it occurs in two places only, so far as is known, the cavern within which we are now standing being one.
This aroused the Doctor whose dazed condition had scarcely changed.
“You are speaking of the unknown and deadly gas mentioned by Huc, as occurring in the valley of Bourhan-bota,” he exclaimed suddenly.
“It is the same,” replied the adept. “That is the other place referred to; doubtless it is but another outlet for the same deposit—at least it is so believed. The good Abbe heard of it, but by the common people its peculiar properties are quite unknown. Whoever ventures near that valley dies to all appearance. In truth the unfortunate is in the same condition as those bodies we have just seen.”
“Alive?” I cried. “They cannot be alive?”
“They are not alive nor are they dead. They are the bodies of lamas who have inhaled the gas during the centuries the lamasery has been consecrated to this lofty purpose. The souls which left them to seek other planets have long since passed beyond the realm of matter into the realm of spirit—they will never return. Since then most of these bodies have many times been animated by other souls. One may be thus animated at any moment and spend years on this earth, subject to all natural laws, you understand; even the inevitable law of death.”
“Should such a thing happen how would the soul make its presence in the body known?”
“Padma would know.”
“But how?”
“How did I know the girl was perishing in the snow that night? Mr. Wylde I think I have answered all your questions now.”
“But your answers only call up a thousand more,” I exclaimed. “Why have these bodies not decayed? That still remains untold.”
“Once this gas is inhaled the body never decays until it is buried in the earth—sometimes when certain chemical properties are lacking in the soil, not even then.”
“Its name?”
“In Hindustanee, Zambri.”
“Meaning nothing to me.”
“Of course not. How can it?”
“And once this gas is inhaled, the spirit can leave the body?”
“It must leave it in obedience to a natural law as inexorable as that which brings a stone thrown upward back again to the ground. The spirit then seeks the point upon which its mind was last fixed, but it can return at will after a few hours have passed, for in that time the fumes of the gas lose their full effect; or, on the other hand, it can remain absent for years and still return. All rests with the will. The body will not decay unless the gas is either recombined or expelled. Does this open your eyes?”
“It opens a train of thought simply incomprehensible. But suppose the spirit wills to go to Mars, for instance, what”
“What will it do for a body there?”
“You anticipate my question.”
“I anticipate because you are treading on ground which I cannot permit you to enter. It is sufficient for you to know that you earth dwellers alone of all mankind are ignorant on this subject. On no planet in our solar system to which a spirit thus freed might project itself, are such transmigrations not of common occurrence. The spirit is guided by God’s loving forethought, incarnated or disincarnated. A receptacle will be provided for it; once at its destination it will walk that earth in a body precisely similar to the one it left behind—made so, in fact, by its own will.”
“And it would be otherwise were it to project itself to a distant point on this earth?”
“Unfortunately, yes. The same conditions do not here obtain.”
“And does this explain the different appearances of these bodies? None of them resemble Thibetans.”
“You have hit it. Originally all were Thibetans. They have been transfigured by the planetary spirits who in turn have occupied them. This act causes pain and takes time; therefore the bodies are kept separate ready for use of spirits from each inhabited earth or moon. I took this body just as I found when I came from Mars. You begin to understand?”
“My amazement only increases. Do not ask me to believe.”
“It would be useless to expect it.”
“One question more.”
“Ask it.”
“Why is all this kept a secret? Why is this place practically abandoned? Why is not all the world made to share
in this alleged wonderful knowledge? Why”
“Stop—stop! Don’t multiply your questions so! Know, my friend, that he who pronounced a little knowledge a dangerous thing, was the very king of kings among philosophers. The adepts learned the truth of this maxim by sad experience. The secret was put to evil uses, and for excellent reasons Psam-dagong stands to-day the deserted shrine it is.”
“And this is your great secret!” I cried. “This is the fate toward which you have been gradually drawing that innocent boy by your devilish arts! Could I admit the existence of spirits at all, I”
“Stop, George! For God’s sake stop!” interposed Maurice. “It is all my own doing, not his.”
“You are mad, Maurice!”
“No, no! I have weighed all the consequences. I am going, George; you will wait for me and I shall return!”
“But these are the ravings of a lunatic! Be sensible, Maurice! Be yourself. These bodies are nothing but the embalmed remains of poor fools, who, like ourselves, have been inveigled into this place for some hellish purpose beyond our comprehension. Delusion! delusion! What else can it be but delusion? Granted a soul, is it yet in the nature of things that such a journey could be accomplished. God help me! I shall hear next that we can migrate to other planetary systems—that we can fly to the end of the universe”
“Which,” interrupted the adept with that same immeasurable calmness, “has, like the God who made it, neither beginning nor end!”
“I am the alpha and the omega!” muttered the Doctor, “the beginning and the end!”
He was staring at us helplessly, picking a shred of cloth into little pieces. As he pronounced these words he began humming one of those grand old Gregorian chants which, no doubt, he had listened to in his own pulpit a thousand times.
What ailed the man?
I shuddered as I looked at him. He was worse even than before,
The adept seemed to read my thoughts.
“Don’t be alarmed. It is nothing,” he said. “It is necessary to keep his tongue still—that is all.”
“Hypnotized? ”
“If you like the term. The truth is he is controlled by a spirit, at my request.”
“God help us all!” I murmured. “I wish some spirit at my request would pick us up bodily and throw us in the middle of the Sahara, rather than we should stay one instant longer under your cursed influence, my heathen friend!”
But it was not to be that I could arouse his anger.
As toward myself, truth compels me to say that the man never appeared different than the calm philosopher of the Nagkon Wat, nor did he outwardly toward Maurice. And, although God alone can read in their entirety the intentions of any man; although I may wrong the adept most grievously, I believed then, and I believe it still, that his was the will which drove Maurice forward to his fate.