10. THE STOLEN BODY
Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart, andBrown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was well knownamong those interested in psychical research as a liberal-minded andconscientious investigator. He was an unmarried man, and instead ofliving in the suburbs, after the fashion of his class, he occupied roomsin the Albany, near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested in thequestions of thought transference and of apparitions of the living, andin November, 1896, he commenced a series of experiments in conjunctionwith Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibilityof projecting an apparition of one's self by force of will throughspace.
Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At apre-arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in theAlbany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each thenfixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Besselhad acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could, heattempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself as a"phantom of the living" across the intervening space of nearly two milesinto Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this was tried withoutany satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth occasion Mr. Vinceydid actually see or imagine he saw an apparition of Mr. Bessel standingin his room. He states that the appearance, although brief, was veryvivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's face was white and hisexpression anxious, and, moreover, that his hair was disordered. Fora moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation, was toosurprised to speak or move, and in that moment it seemed to him asthough the figure glanced over its shoulder and incontinently vanished.
It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph anyphantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence of mind tosnap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, and when hedid so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even by this partialsuccess, he made a note of the exact time, and at once took a cab to theAlbany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result.
He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open to thenight, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary disorder.An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor; its neck hadbeen broken off against the inkpot on the bureau and lay beside it.An octagonal occasional table, which carried a bronze statuette anda number of choice books, had been rudely overturned, and down theprimrose paper of the wall inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed forthe mere pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chintz curtains hadbeen violently torn from its rings and thrust upon the fire, so thatthe smell of its smouldering filled the room. Indeed the whole place wasdisarranged in the strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, whohad entered sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him,could scarcely believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at theseunanticipated things.
Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at theentrance lodge. "Where is Mr. Bessel?" he asked. "Do you know that allthe furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?" The porter said nothing,but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's apartment to seethe state of affairs. "This settles it," he said, surveying the lunaticconfusion. "I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's gone off. He's mad!"
He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour previously,that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's apparition in Mr.Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed out of the gates ofthe Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with disordered hair, and hadvanished into the direction of Bond Street. "And as he went past me,"said the porter, "he laughed--a sort of gasping laugh, with his mouthopen and his eyes glaring--I tell you, sir, he fair scared me!--likethis."
According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh. "Hewaved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing--like that.And he said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that one word,'LIFE!'"
"Dear me," said Mr. Vincey. "Tut, tut," and "Dear me!" He could thinkof nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised. He turnedfrom the room to the porter and from the porter to the room in thegravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably Mr. Bessel wouldcome back presently and explain what had happened, their conversationwas unable to proceed. "It might be a sudden toothache," saidthe porter, "a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping on himsuddenly-like and driving him wild. I've broken things myself before nowin such a case..." He thought. "If it was, why should he say 'LIFE' tome as he went past?"
Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last Mr.Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having addresseda note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous position on thebureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind to his own premisesin Staple Inn. This affair had given him a shock. He was at a loss toaccount for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane hypothesis. He tried toread, but he could not do so; he went for a short walk, and was sopreoccupied that he narrowly escaped a cab at the top of Chancery Lane;and at last--a full hour before his usual time--he went to bed. For aconsiderable time he could not sleep because of his memory of the silentconfusion of Mr. Bessel's apartment, and when at length he did attain anuneasy slumber it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressingdream of Mr. Bessel.
He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white andcontorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggestedperhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency to act. Heeven believes that he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter callingdistressfully to him, though at the time he considered this to be anillusion. The vivid impression remained though Mr. Vincey awoke. For aspace he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed with thatvague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out ofdreams upon even the bravest men. But at last he roused himself, andturned over and went to sleep again, only for the dream to return withenhanced vividness.
He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was inoverwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longerpossible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some direcalamity. For a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but atlast he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas, anddressed, and set out through the deserted streets--deserted, save for anoiseless policeman or so and the early news carts--towards Vigo Streetto inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned.
But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre someunaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street towards CoventGarden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He saw themarket in front of him--a queer effect of glowing yellow lights and busyblack figures. He became aware of a shouting, and perceived a figureturn the corner by the hotel and run swiftly towards him. He knew atonce that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel transfigured. Hewas hatless and dishevelled, his collar was torn open, he grasped abone-handled walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his mouth was pulledawry. And he ran, with agile strides, very rapidly. Their encounter wasthe affair of an instant. "Bessel!" cried Vincey.
The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey or ofhis own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with the stick,hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye. Mr. Vincey, stunnedand astonished, staggered back, lost his footing, and fell heavily onthe pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel leapt over him as hefell. When he looked again Mr. Bessel had vanished, and a policeman anda number of garden porters and salesmen were rushing past towards LongAcre in hot pursuit.
With the assistance of several passers-by--for the whole street wasspeedily alive with running people--Mr. Vincey struggled to his feet.He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see his injury. Amultitude of voices competed to reassure him of his safety, and then totell him of the behaviour of the madman, as they regarded Mr. Bessel.He had suddenly appeared in the middle of the market screaming "LIFE!LIFE!" striking left and right with a blood-stained walking-stick, anddancing and shouting with laughter
at each successful blow. A lad andtwo women had broken heads, and he had smashed a man's wrist; a littlechild had been knocked insensible, and for a time he had driven everyone before him, so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then hemade a raid upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare throughthe window of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning theforemost of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him.
Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit ofhis friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence of theindignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had half stunnedhim, and while this was still no more than a resolution came the news,shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded his pursuers. Atfirst Mr. Vincey could scarcely credit this, but the universality ofthe report, and presently the dignified return of two futile policemen,convinced him. After some aimless inquiries he returned towards StapleInn, padding a handkerchief to a now very painful nose.
He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to himindisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midstof his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make himappear with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed a problembeyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain this. It seemedto him at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but the order of thingsmust be insane. But he could think of nothing to do. He shut himselfcarefully into his room, lit his fire--it was a gas fire with asbestosbricks--and, fearing fresh dreams if he went to bed, remained bathinghis injured face, or holding up books in a vain attempt to read, untildawn. Throughout that vigil he had a curious persuasion that Mr. Besselwas endeavouring to speak to him, but he would not let himself attend toany such belief.
About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed andslept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested and anxious,and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news ofMr. Bessel's aberration--it had come too late for them. Mr. Vincey'sperplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added fresh irritation,became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless visit to the Albany,he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart, Mr. Bessel's partner,and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest friend.
He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing of theoutbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very vision that Mr.Vincey had seen--Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled, pleading earnestlyby his gestures for help. That was his impression of the import of hissigns. "I was just going to look him up in the Albany when you arrived,"said Mr. Hart. "I was so sure of something being wrong with him."
As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided toinquire at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend. "He is boundto be laid by the heels," said Mr. Hart. "He can't go on at that pacefor long." But the police authorities had not laid Mr. Bessel by theheels. They confirmed Mr. Vincey's overnight experiences and added freshcircumstances, some of an even graver character than those he knew--alist of smashed glass along the upper half of Tottenham Court Road, anattack upon a policeman in Hampstead Road, and an atrocious assault upona woman. All these outrages were committed between half-past twelve anda quarter to two in the morning, and between those hours--and, indeed,from the very moment of Mr. Bessel's first rush from his rooms athalf-past nine in the evening--they could trace the deepening violenceof his fantastic career. For the last hour, at least from before one,that is, until a quarter to two, he had run amuck through London,eluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him.
But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up to that hour witnesseswere multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him orpursued him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter totwo he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards Baker Street,flourishing a can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flametherefrom at the windows of the houses he passed. But none of thepolicemen on Euston Road beyond the Waxwork Exhibition, nor any ofthose in the side streets down which he must have passed had he left theEuston Road, had seen anything of him. Abruptly he disappeared. Nothingof his subsequent doings came to light in spite of the keenest inquiry.
Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincey. He had found considerablecomfort in Mr. Hart's conviction: "He is bound to be laid by the heelsbefore long," and in that assurance he had been able to suspend hismental perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined to addnew impossibilities to a pile already heaped beyond the powers of hisacceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory might not haveplayed him some grotesque trick, debating whether any of these thingscould possibly have happened; and in the afternoon he hunted up Mr. Hartagain to share the intolerable weight on his mind. He found Mr. Hartengaged with a well-known private detective, but as that gentlemanaccomplished nothing in this case, we need not enlarge upon hisproceedings.
All that day Mr. Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly activeinquiry, and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion inthe back of Vincey's mind that Mr. Bessel sought his attention, and allthrough the night Mr. Bessel with a tear-stained face of anguish pursuedhim through his dreams. And whenever he saw Mr. Bessel in his dreams healso saw a number of other faces, vague but malignant, that seemed to bepursuing Mr. Bessel.
It was on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincey recalled certainremarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attractingattention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her.She was staying at the house of that well-known inquirer, Dr. WilsonPaget, and Mr. Vincey, although he had never met that gentleman before,repaired to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help.But scarcely had he mentioned the name of Bessel when Doctor Pagetinterrupted him. "Last night--just at the end," he said, "we had acommunication."
He left the room, and returned with a slate on which were certain wordswritten in a handwriting, shaky indeed, but indisputably the handwritingof Mr. Bessel!
"How did you get this?" said Mr. Vincey. "Do you mean--?"
"We got it last night," said Doctor Paget. With numerous interruptionsfrom Mr. Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had beenobtained. It appears that in her seances, Mrs. Bullock passes into acondition of trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange way under hereyelids, and her body becoming rigid. She then begins to talk veryrapidly, usually in voices other than her own. At the same time oneor both of her hands may become active, and if slates and pencils areprovided they will then write messages simultaneously with and quiteindependently of the flow of words from her mouth. By many she isconsidered an even more remarkable medium than the celebrated Mrs.Piper. It was one of these messages, the one written by her left hand,that Mr. Vincey now had before him. It consisted of eight words writtendisconnectedly: "George Bessel... trial excavn.... Baker Street...help... starvation." Curiously enough, neither Doctor Paget nor the twoother inquirers who were present had heard of the disappearance ofMr. Bessel--the news of it appeared only in the evening papers ofSaturday--and they had put the message aside with many others of a vagueand enigmatical sort that Mrs. Bullock has from time to time delivered.
When Doctor Paget heard Mr. Vincey's story, he gave himself at once withgreat energy to the pursuit of this clue to the discovery of Mr. Bessel.It would serve no useful purpose here to describe the inquiries of Mr.Vincey and himself; suffice it that the clue was a genuine one, and thatMr. Bessel was actually discovered by its aid.
He was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which had been sunk andabandoned at the commencement of the work for the new electric railwaynear Baker Street Station. His arm and leg and two ribs were broken.The shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly 20 feet high, and over this,incredible as it seems, Mr. Bessel, a stout, middle-aged gentleman,must have scrambled in order to fall down the shaft. He was saturated incolza oil, and the smashed tin lay beside him, but luckily the flamehad been extinguished by his fall. And his madness had passed from himaltogether. But he was, of course, terribly enfeeb
led, and at the sightof his rescuers he gave way to hysterical weeping.
In view of the deplorable state of his flat, he was taken to the houseof Dr. Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a sedativetreatment, and anything that might recall the violent crisis throughwhich he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second day hevolunteered a statement.
Since that occasion Mr. Bessel has several times repeated thisstatement--to myself among other people--varying the details as thenarrator of real experiences always does, but never by any chancecontradicting himself in any particular. And the statement he makes isin substance as follows.
In order to understand it clearly it is necessary to go back to hisexperiments with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel'sfirst attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey,were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all ofthem he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting out of thebody--"willing it with all my might," he says. At last, almost againstexpectation, came success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that he, being alive,did actually, by an effort of will, leave his body and pass into someplace or state outside this world.
The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. "At one moment I was seatedin my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping the arms ofthe chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind on Vincey, and thenI perceived myself outside my body--saw my body near me, but certainlynot containing me, with the hands relaxing and the head drooping forwardon the breast."
Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes in aquiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced. He felt hehad become impalpable--so much he had expected, but he had not expectedto find himself enormously large. So, however, it would seem he became."I was a great cloud--if I may express it that way--anchored to my body.It appeared to me, at first, as if I had discovered a greater self ofwhich the conscious being in my brain was only a little part. I saw theAlbany and Piccadilly and Regent Street and all the rooms and places inthe houses, very minute and very bright and distinct, spread out belowme like a little city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vagueshapes like drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a littleindistinct, but at first I paid little heed to them. The thing thatastonished me most, and which astonishes me still, is that I saw quitedistinctly the insides of the houses as well as the streets, saw littlepeople dining and talking in the private houses, men and women dining,playing billiards, and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and severalplaces of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching theaffairs of a glass hive."
Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he toldme the story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a spaceobserving these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped down,and, with the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of, attempted totouch a man walking along Vigo Street. But he could not do so, thoughhis finger seemed to pass through the man. Something prevented his doingthis, but what it was he finds it hard to describe. He compares theobstacle to a sheet of glass.
"I felt as a kitten may feel," he said, "when it goes for the first timeto pat its reflection in a mirror." Again and again, on the occasionwhen I heard him tell this story, Mr. Bessel returned to that comparisonof the sheet of glass. Yet it was not altogether a precise comparison,because, as the reader will speedily see, there were interruptions ofthis generally impermeable resistance, means of getting through thebarrier to the material world again. But, naturally, there is a verygreat difficulty in expressing these unprecedented impressions in thelanguage of everyday experience.
A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon himthroughout all this experience, was the stillness of this place--he wasin a world without sound.
At first Mr. Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder. Histhought chiefly concerned itself with where he might be. He was out ofthe body--out of his material body, at any rate--but that was not all.He believes, and I for one believe also, that he was somewhere out ofspace, as we understand it, altogether. By a strenuous effort of willhe had passed out of his body into a world beyond this world, a worldundreamt of, yet lying so close to it and so strangely situated withregard to it that all things on this earth are clearly visible both fromwithout and from within in this other world about us. For a long time,as it seemed to him, this realisation occupied his mind to the exclusionof all other matters, and then he recalled the engagement with Mr.Vincey, to which this astonishing experience was, after all, but aprelude.
He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body in which he foundhimself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachmentto his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body ofhis simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed with hisefforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link that boundhim snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by what appeared to bewhirling spheres of dark vapour, and then through a momentary gap he sawhis drooping body collapse limply, saw his lifeless head drop sideways,and found he was driving along like a huge cloud in a strange place ofshadowy clouds that had the luminous intricacy of London spread like amodel below.
But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was somethingmore than vapour, and the temerarious excitement of his first essaywas shot with fear. For he perceived, at first indistinctly, and thensuddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by FACES! that each rolland coil of the seeming cloud-stuff was a face. And such faces! Faces ofthin shadow, faces of gaseous tenuity. Faces like those faces that glarewith intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the evil hours of hisdreams. Evil, greedy eyes that were full of a covetous curiosity, faceswith knit brows and snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutchedat Mr. Bessel as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but anelusive streak of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never asound from the mouths that seemed to gibber. All about him they pressedin that dreamy silence, passing freely through the dim mistiness thatwas his body, gathering ever more numerously about him. And the shadowyMr. Bessel, now suddenly fear-stricken, drove through the silent, activemultitude of eyes and clutching hands.
So inhuman were these faces, so malignant their staring eyes, andshadowy, clawing gestures, that it did not occur to Mr. Bessel toattempt intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms, theyseemed, children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden the boon ofbeing, whose only expressions and gestures told of the envy and cravingfor life that was their one link with existence.
It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud of thesenoiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey. He madea violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how, stoopingtowards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert in hisarm-chair by the fire.
And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all thatlives and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voicelessshadows, longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life.
For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend'sattention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects inhis room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected, ignorant ofthe being that was so close to his own. The strange something that Mr.Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated them impermeably.
And at last Mr. Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that insome strange way he could see not only the outside of a man as we seehim, but within. He extended his shadowy hand and thrust his vague blackfingers, as it seemed, through the heedless brain.
Then, suddenly, Mr. Vincey started like a man who recalls his attentionfrom wandering thoughts, and it seemed to Mr. Bessel that a littledark-red body situated in the middle of Mr. Vincey's brain swelled andglowed as he did so. Since that experience he has been shown anatomicalfigures of the brain, and he knows now that this is that uselessstructure, as doctors call it, the pineal eye. For, strange as it willseem to many, we have, deep in our brains--where
it cannot possiblysee any earthly light--an eye! At the time this, with the rest of theinternal anatomy of the brain, was quite new to him. At the sight ofits changed appearance, however, he thrust forth his finger, and,rather fearful still of the consequences, touched this little spot. Andinstantly Mr. Vincey started, and Mr. Bessel knew that he was seen.
And at that instant it came to Mr. Bessel that evil had happened to hisbody, and behold! a great wind blew through all that world of shadowsand tore him away. So strong was this persuasion that he thought no moreof Mr. Vincey, but turned about forthwith, and all the countless facesdrove back with him like leaves before a gale. But he returned toolate. In an instant he saw the body that he had left inert andcollapsed--lying, indeed, like the body of a man just dead--had arisen,had arisen by virtue of some strength and will beyond his own. It stoodwith staring eyes, stretching its limbs in dubious fashion.
For a moment he watched it in wild dismay, and then he stooped towardsit. But the pane of glass had closed against him again, and he wasfoiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and all about him thespirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked. He gave way to furiousanger. He compares himself to a bird that has fluttered heedlesslyinto a room and is beating at the window-pane that holds it back fromfreedom.
And behold! the little body that had once been his was now dancing withdelight. He saw it shouting, though he could not hear its shouts; he sawthe violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling his cherishedfurniture about in the mad delight of existence, rend his books apart,smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged fragments, leap andsmite in a passionate acceptance of living. He watched these actionsin paralysed astonishment. Then once more he hurled himself against theimpassable barrier, and then with all that crew of mocking ghosts abouthim, hurried back in dire confusion to Vincey to tell him of the outragethat had come upon him.
But the brain of Vincey was now closed against apparitions, and thedisembodied Mr. Bessel pursued him in vain as he hurried out intoHolborn to call a cab. Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel swept backagain, to find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious frenzy downthe Burlington Arcade....
And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel'sinterpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being whosefrantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury and disasterhad indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr. Bessel. It was an evilspirit out of that strange world beyond existence, into which Mr. Besselhad so rashly ventured. For twenty hours it held possession of him, andfor all those twenty hours the dispossessed spirit-body of Mr. Besselwas going to and fro in that unheard-of middle world of shadows seekinghelp in vain. He spent many hours beating at the minds of Mr. Vincey andof his friend Mr. Hart. Each, as we know, he roused by his efforts. Butthe language that might convey his situation to these helpers across thegulf he did not know; his feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlesslyin their brains. Once, indeed, as we have already told, he was able toturn Mr. Vincey aside from his path so that he encountered the stolenbody in its career, but he could not make him understand the thing thathad happened: he was unable to draw any help from that encounter....
All through those hours the persuasion was overwhelming in Mr. Bessel'smind that presently his body would be killed by its furious tenant, andhe would have to remain in this shadow-land for evermore. So that thoselong hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever as he hurried to andfro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable spirits of that worldabout him mobbed him and confused his mind. And ever an enviousapplauding multitude poured after their successful fellow as he wentupon his glorious career.
For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things ofthis world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch, covetinga way into a mortal body, in order that they may descend, as furies andfrenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses, rejoicing in thebody they have won. For Mr. Bessel was not the only human soul in thatplace. Witness the fact that he met first one, and afterwards severalshadows of men, men like himself, it seemed, who had lost their bodieseven it may be as he had lost his, and wandered, despairingly, in thatlost world that is neither life nor death. They could not speak becausethat world is silent, yet he knew them for men because of their dimhuman bodies, and because of the sadness of their faces.
But how they had come into that world he could not tell, nor where thebodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about the earth,or whether they were closed forever in death against return. That theywere the spirits of the dead neither he nor I believe. But Doctor WilsonPaget thinks they are the rational souls of men who are lost in madnesson the earth.
At last Mr. Bessel chanced upon a place where a little crowd of suchdisembodied silent creatures was gathered, and thrusting through themhe saw below a brightly-lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen and awoman, a stoutish woman dressed in black bombazine and sitting awkwardlyin a chair with her head thrown back. He knew her from her portraits tobe Mrs. Bullock, the medium. And he perceived that tracts and structuresin her brain glowed and stirred as he had seen the pineal eye in thebrain of Mr. Vincey glow. The light was very fitful; sometimes it was abroad illumination, and sometimes merely a faint twilight spot, and itshifted slowly about her brain. She kept on talking and writing with onehand. And Mr. Bessel saw that the crowding shadows of men about him,and a great multitude of the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were allstriving and thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As onegained her brain or another was thrust away, her voice and the writingof her hand changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confusedfor the most part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now afragment of another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies of thespirits of vain desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she spokefor the spirit that had touch of her, and he began to struggle veryfuriously towards her. But he was on the outside of the crowd and atthat time he could not reach her, and at last, growing anxious, he wentaway to find what had happened meanwhile to his body. For a long timehe went to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that it must have beenkilled, and then he found it at the bottom of the shaft in Baker Street,writhing furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and an arm and tworibs had been broken by its fall. Moreover, the evil spirit was angrybecause his time had been so short and because of the painmaking violentmovements and casting his body about.
And at that Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the roomwhere the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust himselfwithin sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood about themedium looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance shouldpresently end. At that a great number of the shadows who had beenstriving turned away with gestures of despair. But the thought that theseance was almost over only made Mr. Bessel the more earnest, and hestruggled so stoutly with his will against the others that presently hegained the woman's brain. It chanced that just at that moment it glowedvery brightly, and in that instant she wrote the message that DoctorWilson Paget preserved. And then the other shadows and the cloud of evilspirits about him had thrust Mr. Bessel away from her, and for all therest of the seance he could regain her no more.
So he went back and watched through the long hours at the bottom ofthe shaft where the evil spirit lay in the stolen body it had maimed,writhing and cursing, and weeping and groaning, and learning the lessonof pain. And towards dawn the thing he had waited for happened, thebrain glowed brightly and the evil spirit came out, and Mr. Besselentered the body he had feared he should never enter again. As he didso, the silence--the brooding silence--ended; he heard the tumult oftraffic and the voices of people overhead, and that strange world thatis the shadow of our world--the dark and silent shadows of ineffectualdesire and the shadows of lost men--vanished clean away.
He lay there for the space of about three hours before he was found. Andin spite of the pain and suffering of his wounds, and of the dim dampplace in which he lay; in spite of the tears--wrung from him by
hisphysical distress--his heart was full of gladness to know that he wasnevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men.