Page:Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904).djvu/80

 that they were on their way to the tent, he mesmerized them before they appeared, so that they both entered in a clairvoyant state. Rossetti's surprise at this was great. Not long after, Bergheim asked him to act in an improvised little drama that he had thought of. Rossetti was to be a sailor, and act with the medium selected as though he were going to join his ship, which was about to sail on a long-service cruise. So, taking his cue, he told her a prettily-concocted tale of his being ordered away that night on Her Majesty's service, which the girl listened to with the greatest emotion. Another of the party then came forward, and represented himself as a naval officer sent by the captain to take him aboard; the anchor having been weighed, the captain was anxious to set sail. When this was told her, and she found her sailor must leave her, she got into a terribly excited state, and threatened to stab the man who would separate them. At last, however, she allowed Rossetti to be taken away, and as soon as he had disappeared through the tent awning and could no more be seen, she fell to the ground in a fit of hysterical weeping.

Another of the party, a somewhat heavy man, was then asked to lie down on the ground, which he did. The mesmerist directed the medium's attention to him, scolding her as if she were a careless nursemaid in charge of a small child, and telling her that there was a carriage and a pair of runaway horses galloping down a supposed lane, and that unless she could rescue the child in time it