Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/152

 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