Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/225

 He was going down! Slowly his form sank before my eyes until nothing but the head remained visible on the sand.

“Good-night, dear papa! Good-night!”

Then the head vanished like a puff of smoke!

“By the immortal Cæsar! I’ve nothing to say after that!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Have you a son dead? Say yes, and I’m a Spiritualist from this moment.”

“I have.”

“And his name—but look! Look!”

He paused suddenly and pointed to Padma, who had arisen and drawn nearer to us.

The cause was plain enough. Between the old lama and the fire stood two hideous forms. They were men of low stature, with enormous heads, ugly and misshapen, great  bulging eyes and fearful mouths. They kept moving round and round in a circle, darting towards us glances of malignant hate.

Immediately Padma produced his prayer wheel and began grinding it furiously, calling out unintelligible sentences in  Thibetan. After a moment the two forms sank down and vanished, upon which the old lama gave a sigh of relief.

“They are the spirits of the ancients,” he said; “once dwellers in this cavern, where they still linger near their  bones. They saw their opportunity and seized it, but we cannot profitably converse with such as they, so I bade them  begone.”

“Whence comes this wonderful gift, father?” I asked. “Explain something of the nature of the phenomena. Was that indeed my son with whom I spoke?”

“The gift comes from heaven, as do all the gifts we possess, my child. As for your son you should be the best judge. I do not even know that you have a son.”

“I lost a son—an infant.”

“Nothing is lost. If you ever had a son you have him still; the mere fact of his being unable to control the material  body is nothing. What can annihilate a human soul? Nothing; not even the will of Buddha. He can absorb, it is true, but I say again, nothing is lost.”

“But my son was but an infant when he left me—it is not so long ago.”

“Infants born of intelligent parents soon become men and women in the realm of spirit. A few years at the most almost always suffices. Often it is but a few months.”