"How can you see?"
"_Day and night are all the same to me._"
Miller held up his right hand. "Prove it; touch my knuckles!" he
commanded.
After a moment's silent soaring the cone struck his left hand, which was
farthest from the psychic, and a voice followed it with laughter,
asking: "_What made you jump?_"
Before Miller had recovered from the surprise of this, the table seemed
to be grasped and shaken as if by a man of giant strength--and yet the
cone and the books did not shift position. Hands patted the pillows on a
sofa at Miller's right, and one of these cushions was flung against his
chair. The room seemed to swarm with tricksy Pucks. At last the cone
took flight again, and moved about freely among the heap of books and
over Miller's head, while a variety of voices came successively from it,
some of them speaking to Mrs. Miller and some to me. Several of the
names given were known to Mrs. Miller, and a few were recognizable by
me. They all claimed to be spirits of the dead with messages of good
cheer for friends on "the earth-plane," but they were all rather vague
and stereotyped. Once I thought I could see the cone passing between me
and the window, high above the table. It seemed to float horizontally as
if in water. Some of the spirits were too weak to raise the cone--so
"Wilbur" said; too weak, even, to whisper.
During all this time the psychic remained in trance--deathly still; but
"between the acts" her troubled breathing and low moans could be heard.
So far as hearing could define, she was still at the end of the table,
where she had been placed at the beginning of the sitting. None of
these movements occasioned the slightest rustling of the newspaper.
When the cone was moving no sound was heard. The floor was of hard-wood,
and, as one's hearing becomes very acute in the darkness, I am certain
the psychic did not rise from her chair. She was, for the most part,
silent as a dead woman.
The force expended on the table was very great, almost furious, and even
if the psychic had been able to extend her foot or release a hand she
could not have produced such movement, and if she had done so we could
have detected it. Intelligent forces were plainly at work on the table,
and writing was going on. So far as I was concerned, I was convinced
that the psychic had externalized her power in some occult fashion, and
that it was she who was speaking to us. It was as if she were able to
_will_ the cone to rise and then to project her voice into it, all of
which seems impossible the moment it is stated.
At length "Wilbur" said: "Good-night." I rose, and Miller, eagerly,
expectantly, turned the light slowly on. _Mrs. Smiley sat precisely as
we had last seen her. Her eyes were closed, her head leaning against the
back of her chair. Her hands were fastened exactly as we had left them,
and, strangest thing of all, the table was pushed away from her so that
the silk threads were tight._
"Do you see that, Miller?" I exclaimed. "Will you tell me how that
final movement was made? 'Wilbur' has given us an unexpected test. Even
if she had freed her hands, she could not have tied the threads and
returned to her bonds; and if she first returned to her bonds, how could
she, then, have pushed the table away? The two things are mutually
exclusive. Her feet are nailed to the floor, and the newspaper still on
guard. Are we not forced to conclude that the table was moved by some
supernormal expenditure of force? Her hands were here, the table there.
Does it not seem to you a case of the 'psychic force,' such as Crookes
and Richet describe?"
Miller was confounded, but concealed it. "She may have shoved the table
with her feet."
"How? Your newspaper is unbroken. Not a tack is disturbed. But suppose
she did! How about the books? Did she get the books with her feet? How
about the broad hand which I saw? How about the candy-box which was
moved from a point seven feet away? How could she slip from her bonds?
See these threads, actually sunk into her wrists!" I continued. "No, my
conviction is that she has not once moved."
"I cannot admit that."
"You mean you dare not!"
Mrs. Miller was indignant at our delay. "The poor thing! It is a shame!
Unfasten her at once! You are torturing her!"
"Wait a few moments," said Miller, inexorably. "I want to make a few
notes."
Meanwhile I took the psychic's pulse. It was very slow, faint, and
irregular. It was, indeed, only a faint, sluggish throb at long
intervals, and each throb was followed only by a feeble fluttering. Her
skin was cold, her arms perfectly inert and numb, and she came very
slowly back to consciousness. I had a conviction at the moment that she
had been out of her body.
While I rubbed her hands and arms, Miller took notes and measurements.
There were more than two dozen books on the table, and some of them had
come from shelves three feet distant and a little above the psychic's
shoulders. It was true she could have reached them with a free arm, but
she had no free arm! The pad in the middle of the table was scrawled
upon. "Wilbur" was written there, and short messages from "Mr. Mitchell"
and other "ghosts." Therefore, it is of no value to say we were
collectively hypnotized.
As she came to life, Mrs. Smiley complained of being numb. "My arms are
like logs," she said, "and so are my feet. My 'guides' say that if you
will put one palm to my forehead and the tips of your fingers at the
base of my brain it will help me to liven up."
I did as she requested, and was at once conscious of great heat and
turmoil in her head. It appeared to throb as if in receding excitement.
I thought of Richet's observations (that in cases of materialization the
psychic seemed shrunk and weakened), and narrowly scanned the helpless
woman. She seemed at the moment small and bloodless.
"Were you conscious of groaning and gasping?" I asked.
"No, I have no recollection of anything. I am told I do make a great
fuss, but I don't know it. Did anything happen?"
"A very great deal happened," I answered.
She smiled in quiet satisfaction.
"I'm glad. Mr. Miller has been good and patient; it would have been a
shame to disappoint him. If you will only keep from being too anxious
you'll get anything you want."
"That's what 'Mitchell' said."