"The Spot of Life," repeated Sir Henry. "Is that--"

"Yes; the Blind Spot, as it is known from the other side. It overtops all your sciences, embraces every cult, and lies at the base of all truth. It is--it is everything."

"Explain!"

Watson turned to the head upon the pillow. He ventured to touch the cheek, with a trace of tenderness in his action and of wistfulness near to reverence. It was not love; it was rather as one might touch a fairy.

In both spirit and substance she was truly of another world. Watson gave a soft sigh and looked up at the Englishman.

"Yes, I can explain. Now that I know she is well, I shall tell you all I know from the beginning. It's certainly your turn to ask questions.

I may not be able to tell you all that you want to know; but at least I know more than any other person this side of the Spot. Let us go down to the library."

He glanced at a clock. "We have nearly five hours remaining. Our test will come when we open the Spot. We must not only open it, but we must close it at all costs."

They had reached the lower hall. At the front door Watson paused and turned to the others.

"Just a moment. We may fail tonight. In case we do, I would like one last look at my own world--at San Francisco."

He opened the door. The rest hung back; though they could not understand, they could sense, vaguely, the emotion of this strange man of brave adventure. The scene, the setting, the beauty, were all akin to the moment. Watson, stood bareheaded, looking down at the blinking lights of the city of the Argonauts. The moon in a starlit sky was drifting through a ragged lace of cloud. And over it all was a momentary hush, as though the man's emotion had called for it.

No one spoke. At last Watson closed the door. And there was just the trace of tears in his eyes as he spoke:

"Now my friends--" And led the way into the parlour.

XXIX

THE OCCULT WORLD

"In telling what I know," began Watson, "I shall use a bit of a preface.

It's necessary, in a way, if you are to understand me; besides, it will give you the advantage of looking into the Blind Spot with the clear eyes of reason. I intend to tell all, to omit nothing. My purpose in doing this is that, in case we should fail tonight, you will be able to give my account to the world."

It was a strange introduction. His listeners exchanged thoughtful glances. But they all affirmed, and Sir Henry hitched his chair almost impatiently.

"All right, Mr. Watson. Please proceed."

"To begin with," said Watson, "I assume that you all know of Dr.

Holcomb's announcement concerning the Blind Spot. You remember that he promised to solve the occult; how he foretold that he would prove it not by immaterial but by the very material means; that he would produce the fact and the substance.

"Now, the professor had promised to deliver something far greater than he had thought it to be. At the same time, what he knew of the Blind Spot was part conjecture and part fact. Like his forebears and contemporaries, he looked upon man as the real being.

"But it's a question, now, as to which is reality and which is not.

There is not a branch of philosophy that looks upon the question in that light. Bishop Berkeley came near and he has been followed by others; but they all have been deceived by their own sophistry. However, except for the grossest materialists, all thinkers take cognizance of a hereafter.

"No one dreamed of a Blind Spot and what it may lead to, what it might contain. We are five-sensed; we interpret the universe by the measure of five yardsticks. Yet, the Blind Spot takes even those away; the more we know, it seems, the less certain we are of ourselves. As I said to Mme.

Le Fabre, it is a difficult question to determine, after all, just who are the ghosts. At any rate, I KNOW"--and he paused for effect--"I know that there are uncounted millions who look upon us and our workings as entirely supernatural!

"Remember that what I have to tell you is just as real as your own lives have been since babyhood.

"It was slightly over a year ago that my last night on the earth arrived.

"I had gone out for the evening, in the forlorn hope of meeting a friend, of having some slight taste of pleasure before the end came.

"For several days I had been labouring under a sort of premonition, knowing that my life was slowly seeping away and that my vitality was slipping, bit by bit, to what I thought must be death. Had I then known what I know now, I could have saved myself. But if I had done it, if I had saved myself, we would never have found Dr. Holcomb.

"Perhaps it was the same fate that led me to Harry, that night. I don't know. Nevertheless, if there is any truth in what I have learned on the other side of the Blind Spot, it would seem that there is something higher than mere fate. I had never believed in luck; but when everything works out to a fraction of a breath, one ceases to be sceptical on the question of destiny and chance. _I_ say, everything that happened that night was FORCED from the other side. In short, my giving that ring to Harry was simply a link in the chain of circumstances. It just had to be; the PROPHECY would not have had it otherwise."

Without stopping to explain what he meant by the word "prophecy," Watson went on:

"That's what makes it puzzling. I have never been able to understand how every bit has dovetailed with such exactness. We--you and I--are certainly not supernatural; and yet, on the other side of the Spot, the proof is overwhelmingly convincing.

"I was very weak that night. So weak that it is difficult for me to remember. The last I recollect was my going to the back of the house; to the kitchen, I think. I had a light in my hands. The boys were in the front room, waiting. One of them had opened a door some yards away from where I stood.

"Coming as it did, on the instant, it is difficult to describe. But I knew it instinctively for what it was: the dot of blue on the ceiling, and the string of light. Then, a sensation of falling, like dropping into space itself. It is hard to describe the horrifying terror of plunging head on from an immense height to a plain at a vastly lower level.

"And that's all that I remember--from this side." [Footnote: NOTE.--In justice to Mr. Watson, the present writers have thought it best at this stage to transpose the story from the first to the third person. Any narrative, unless it is negative in its material, is hard to give in the first person; for where the narrator has played an active, positive part, he must either curb himself or fall under the slur of braggadocio.

Yet, the world wants the details exactly as they happened; hence the transposition. EDITORS.]

Watson opened his eyes.

The first thing was light and a sense of great pain. There was a pressure at the back of the eyeballs, a poignant sensation not unlike a knife-thrust; that, and a sudden fear of madness, of drivelling helplessness.

The abrupt return of consciousness in such a condition is not easy to imagine. After all he had gone through, this strange sequel must have been terribly puzzling to him. He was a man of good education, well versed in psychology; in the first rush of consciousness he tried, as best he could, to weigh himself up in the balance of aberration. And it was this very fact that gave him his reassurance; for it told him that he could think, could reason, could count on a mind in full function.

But he could not see. The pain in his eyeballs was blinding. There was nothing he could distinguish; everything was woven together, a mere blaze of wonderful, iridescent, blazing coloration.

But if he could not see, he could feel. The pain was excruciating.

He closed his eyes and fell to thinking, curiously enough, that the experience was similar to what he had gone through when upon learning to swim, he had first opened his eyes under the water. It had been under a blazing sun. The pain and the colour--it was much the same, only intensified.

Then he knew that he was very tired. The mere effort of that one thought had cost him vitality. He dropped back into unconsciousness, such as was more insensibility than slumber. He had strange dreams, of people walking, of women, and of many voices. It was blurred and indistinct, yet somehow not unreal. Then, after an unguessable length of time--he awoke.

He was much stronger. The lapse may have been very long; he could not know. But the pain in his eyes was gone; and he ventured to open the lids again in the face of the light that had been so baffling. This time he could see; not distinctly, but still enough to assure him of reality.

By closing his eyes at intervals he was able to rest them and to accustom them gradually to the new degree of light. And after a bit he could see plainly.

He was on a cot, and in a room almost totally different from any that he had ever seen before. The colour of the walls, even, was dissimilar; likewise the ceiling. It was white, in a way, and yet unlike it; neither did it resemble any of the various tints; to give it a name that he afterward learned--alna--implies but little. It was utterly new to him.

Apparently he was alone. The room was not large; about the size of an ordinary bedroom. And after the first novelty of the unplaceable colour had worn off he began to take stock of his own person.

First, he was covered by the finest of bed clothing, thick but exceedingly light. There was no counterpane, but two blankets and two sheets; and none of them corresponded to any colour or material he had ever known. He only knew that their tints were light rather than dark.

Next, he moved his hands out from under the coverings, and held them up before his eyes. He was immensely puzzled. He naturally expected to see the worn, emaciated hands which had been his on that dramatic night; but the ones before him were plump, normal, of a healthy pink. The wrists likewise were in perfect condition, also his arms. He could not account for this sudden return to health, of the vigour he had known before he began to wear the ring. He lay back pondering.

Presently he fell to examining his clothes. There were two garments made of a silk-like textile, rather heavy as to weight, but exceedingly soft as to touch. They were slightly darker than the bed clothing. In a way they were much like pyjamas, except that both were designed to be merely slipped into place, without buttons or draw-strings. That is, they were tailored to fit snugly over the shoulders and waist, while loose enough elsewhere.

Then he noticed the walls of the room. They were after a simple, symmetrical style; coved--to use an architectural expression--or curved, where the corner would come with a radius much larger than common, amounting to four or five feet; so that a person of ordinary height could not stand close to the wall without stooping. Where the coved portion flowed into the perpendicular of the wall there was a broad moulding, like a plate rail, which acted as a support for the hanging pictures.