on the little table. Some discussion seemed to follow, an animated conversation as I thought, with certainly a rapid pantomime accompaniment.
Then a very strange thing happened. As the first man stooped towards the table his mask fell off. My glass was so good that I saw it quite plainly come loose at one side, and I saw the man's hand lifted up to catch it. But before he could reach it, it fell off as I have said. Then in a moment the man's body became a mass of rapidly seething fluid, and the fluid became a dark cloud of smoke, which spread into the air and disappeared. Just so I had seen Signor Davelli's body transformed and disappear the day before. The second man at once caught up the mask and stood apparently waiting. Presently a diffused vapour appeared. This became denser and denser, until it assumed the appearance of a seething fluid, as before. This quickly became consolidated and assumed the form of a body, the body of the man who had just disappeared. Then the other man, who was standing ready with the mask in his hand, fitted it again upon the first man, and both men proceeded to examine the substance before them, and to converse, as if nothing had happened to interrupt them. All this time (which, however, was a very short time, although the change
