Page:Isis very much unveiled - being the story of the great Mahatma hoax (IA b24884273).pdf/45

Rh What did the Colonel want the seal for? Let him explain himself:—

An odd idea, this “playful present” of the Colonel’s. Had the seal been intended for use by an ordinary person—by “H.P.B.” herself, for instance—there would have been some sense in it. But the Mahatma, of course, who “precipitated” his letters and his signature psychically, might just as well “precipitate” the latter in the shape of a seal impression as otherwise, if he wanted to; and where, then, should the use of a brass seal come in? However, as the Colonel says, the present was merely “playful.”

Back went the Colonel to Madras, where Madame was, and presented the seal to her, with a “jocular remark” (I am again quoting his own account). Madame’s keen eye dwelt on it a moment, and then she pointed out that the Colonel, in his jocularly playful mood, had made a slight mistake. “The Master’s cryptograph was not correctly drawn,” according to the pattern already familiar to recipients of his precious missives. There was a twiddle too much, or a twiddle too little, in it. The Colonel himself saw the blunder when it was pointed out, and he now declares that he would know it anywhere.

For this sufficient reason the “playful present” was not sent on to the Himalayas (Heaven knows, by the way, by what astral form of parcels-post service the Colonel had expected it to be sent); neither did it appear in any of the communications vouched for by Madame.

It went into Madame’s despatch-box, along with a lot of other mystical odds and ends, properties of the occult stage; and among these it was remarked, as late as 1888, by the Mr. Keightley already mentioned, who was then living with her in Lansdowne-road.

This gentleman asked the prophetess what the little brass seal might be? Madame Blavatsky’s answer—a characteristically racy “fragment of her prophet voice”—was:—