“She was not the one.”
“Then indeed you have beheld a spirit. Did she not inform you who she was?”
“No,” replied the Doctor, so savagely that Padma sighed and resumed his drumming, nor did I attempt to interfere, or even to ask what had become of the form which walked away with him and failed to return.
Ten minutes more elapsed and then the light again appeared hovering about the slumbering lama; the drumming came faster and faster and the end was the same as before, but this time it was a young man who rose up, and to my intense excitement I saw that he wore a black dress coat and trousers, with snowy shirt front and polished boots. In short he was in European dress, when no such clothes, let it be remembered, were in the possession either of the Doctor or myself.
We watched him breathlessly. For a few seconds he seemed to totter, his hands went up and he began to rub his eyes.
Presently he moved forward with uncertain step, as a man might walk when treading on thin ice, and extending his hands toward me, repeated in that same sepulchral voice, a single word:
“Papa! Papa!”
I was upon my feet in an instant; every drop of blood in my veins seemed turned to fire. I was expecting spirits, I had even thought of several of my defunct friends whom I should have been pleased to see, but I had never thought of this.
“Who—who are you?” I gasped. “In God's name tell me—can it be”
“Can it be that I am your boy, papa? Yes; I am no one else!”
He caught both my hands and held them. His were icy cold, but they were flesh and blood.
“Willie!” I murmured.
“Yes, Willie—your son. I am ever with you, papa. This trial is soon to pass. Do not fear.”
“But you are a man; my Willie was but a baby!”
“Has time ceased, papa? Think of the years?”
“Yet not enough for this change.”
“Enough and more than enough in the realm of spirit. Good-night, papa. Think as kindly of mama) as you can!”
