Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/252

 in our world, I would proceed to tell a story of interest to chemists. These Zikites have formed gases and solids unknown to us, and naturally they are capable of performing experiments more wonderful than anything ever known in our world. When I saw their wizard-like performances I thought that the marvelous feats of the Orient were being performed on a scale more mysterious and magnificent.

To see a man play with red hot irons and dance in a seething furnace, makes one believe that his eyes are deceiving him.

I saw a man draw the birds from heaven and dormant reptiles from the soil, but ask me not to tell how. A few of these Zikites have discovered some wonderful secrets of nature and will not disclose them except to certain ones of their own lineage. One of these secrets is the art of embalming the dead so perfectly that human features are retained forever unless destroyed by fire or human effort. The embalming fluid contains some of the elements not found in our world, but this is not the total secret. The body must lie in an air-tight receptacle into which