“To prevent your perjuring yourself, they shall instantly go to the sexton, and learn the truth.”
Saying this, the colonel went out to give the necessary orders. He returned an instant afterwards, saying:—
“Here is another strange phænomenon. The sexton is in this house, but is not able to answer my questions. Anxious to enjoy the spectacle I was giving my friends, he mixed with some of my servants, who, possessing the same degree of curiosity, had softly opened the door through which the chaffing-dish was conveyed. But at the moment of the conjurer falling on the floor, the same insensibility overcame the sexton; who even now has not recovered his reason, although they have used every possible method to restore him.”
One of the party said, that, being subject to fainting himself, he constantly carried about him a liquor, the effect of which was wonderful in such cases, and that he would go and try it now on the sexton. They all followed him: but this did not succeed better than the methods previously resorted to.
“This man must indeed be dead,” said the person who had used the liquor without effect on him.
The clock in the tower had just struck one, and every person thought of retiring; but slight sym-
