Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/263

 “Stop! This is idle. You know it is so!”

“But the other? Is Maurice’s claim true? Is there actually within that body another soul than his?”

“It is true. Behold!”

“Not the soul!”

“No, no; not the soul! No man, no spirit, none but God himself can see the soul. Look at the Doctor and you will understand what I mean.”

Again his hand passed before my eyes and they rested upon the Doctor. To my astonishment I saw that he was not alone. Above him stood a man’s form, dim and shadowy, with wolfish face and hideous bulging eyes. He held his hands above the Doctor’s head.

“It is the spirit which holds him in control,” said Mirrikh. “It is a spirit which is ever with him, ever will be until he rises out of his sphere of intense selfishness, if happily that times ever comes; but this is not what I would have  you see. Look at the Doctor himself.”

Again I looked. I could see the whole internal organism of the Doctor’s body, but not singly, as I should have supposed. I could see the heart busy with its ceaseless toil; I could detect every rise and fall of the lungs; I could look  into his stomach, perceive its emptiness, and even feel its  cravings; more wonderful than all, I could see the mysterious workings of each convolution of the brain, from which  seemed to dart myriads of tiny sparks. At a single glance my eyes seemed capable of following these through the extension of every nerve in his body, and at the same time  seeing that everything upon which they rested had its duplicate. There were two Doctors; one gross and material, the other thin, airy, most highly refined; but there was no  other difference between them. If one was a man, then so also was the other. Not an organ, not a muscle, not even the most minute fibre which was not perfectly reproduced.

“It is the spiritual man you behold,” said Mirrikh. “Until the heart ceases to beat, it remains enchained. Its life is eternal, it destruction as impossible as for you to tear one of  yonder stars from heaven; and as it is with the Doctor, so  also is it with every man on earth. But look now at Maurice and behold a mystery unfathomable to your Western schools of thought.”

Instantly my eyes were upon Maurice.