CHAPTER XV.
ALIVE OR DEAD.
“Granted for argument’s sake that it was all true,” said the Doctor; “admitted that the stupendous claims of this man rest on a solid foundation; that the ravings of Swedenborg are cold facts; that the re-incarnation theories of Reynaud and Kardec have a leg to stand on; that spirits exist, invisible and intangible, bobbing about like so many shuttle cocks in the insuperable abysses of interplanetary space; admitting it all, even at the expense of making a pair of blooming idiots of ourselves, what are we going to do about it, George Wylde? That’s what I want to know.”
And in very truth the Doctor had propounded a weightier question than any of the astounding propositions of my man Mirrikh.
What were we going to do about it, sure enough?
“We can’t pick Maurice up bodily and run away with him, don’t you know,” continued the Doctor. “If the thing were possible why I’d be the first to do it, but the rub is, Maurice is a man and he won’t go.”
“And a very positive one, let me tell you.”
“Aye! Don’t I know it? By the living Cæsar! I pity him. I never realized the power of this hypnotism business as I do now.”
“You would, if you could have seen yourself, Doctor—you acted like a man clean gone with paresis.”
“Thank God I remember nothing at all about that part of it.”
“But you saw the bodies—you heard our talk.”
“In a half dazed way, yes. It is all a blur in my mind, Wylde; like a dream a fellow wants to remember and can’t, don’t you know? Heavens and earth! If we could only get away from this infernal place. What do you say to you and me”
“Don’t you suggest leaving Maurice!” I interrupted, frowning darkly. “If you have any plan to propose which will rescue that poor boy from Mirrikh’s clutches, why out with it; otherwise”
