Mr. Curtis then announced that not only could he project his ethereal body from his material body in the manner he had already demonstrated, but that with his ethereal body he could amalgamate with inorganic matter. He bade those on the stage approach the table in convenient numbers, _i.e._ two or three at a time, and listen attentively. He then took his stand on one side of the stage, about fourteen feet from the table; and the audience approaching the table and listening attentively, first of all heard it pulsate as with the throbbings of a heart, and then breathe with the deep and heavy respirations of some one in a sound sleep. The table then raised itself some three or four inches from the ground and moved round the stage; at the conclusion of which feat Mr. Curtis informed the audience that "table-turning"--when not accomplished through the trickery of one of the sitters--was frequently performed by the work of some earth-bound spirit--usually an Elemental--that could amalgamate with any piece of furniture, in precisely the same way as his own projection had amalgamated with the table in front of them. "Elementals," Mr. Curtis continued, "are responsible for many of the foolish and purposeless tricks performed at seances; and for the unintelligible and useless kind of answers the table so often raps out. The best you can hope for, from an Elemental, is amus.e.m.e.nt--it will never give you any reliable information; nor will it ever do you any good."

With these words Mr. Curtis's share in the entertainment concluded. He retired to the wings, whilst Mr. Kelson stepping forward--begged those several gentlemen who, on Mr. Curtis's exit, had reseated themselves among the audience, once again to step up on to the stage.

"Be good enough," he said addressing them in his most polite manner, "to observe me very closely. I am about to give you a few further examples of what intense mental concentration can do, thus proving to you to what an unlimited extent mind can gain dominion over matter.

You all know that will-power can overcome any of the internal physical forces; for instance, when you have tooth or ear ache--you have only to say to yourselves: 'I shan't suffer'--and the suffering ceases. But what you may not know--what you may not have realized, is that will-power can over-rule external forces and principles--as for example--gravity. As a matter of fact, airships and aeroplanes are absolutely superfluous--and the time, money and labour they involve is a prodigious waste. Any man with strong mental capacity can fly without the aid of mechanism. He has only to will himself to be in the air--and he is there. Look!" And to the amazement--the indescribable, unparalleled amazement--of all present, Mr. Kelson knit his brows, as if engaged in intense thought, and, jumping off his feet, remained in the air, at a height of some four feet from the floor.

At his request members of the audience came up to him, and pa.s.sed their hands under, over and all around him, to make sure there were no wires. He then struck out with his hands and legs after the manner of a swimmer, and moving first of all round the stage, and then over the stalls and pit, gradually ascended higher and higher, till he reached the level of the boxes, to the occupants of which he spoke.

Such an extraordinary spectacle--which apparently gives the lie to all our preconceived notions of gravity--has certainly never before been witnessed, and the effect it had on those who saw it, baffles description. When Mr. Kelson returned to the stage, and the terrific applause that greeted his arrival there had subsided, he gave the audience a few valuable hints as to how they, too, might accomplish this feat.

"Practise concentration," he said, "and develop your will power, if only by a very little, every day. Jump off a stool to begin with, saying to yourself as you do so: 'I will remain in the air. I won't touch the ground,'--and though you may fail for the hundredth time, if only you keep on trying you will eventually succeed. To keep your equilibrium on a bicycle is a feat which would have been p.r.o.nounced utterly impossible by your ancestors of two hundred years ago; but just as that power came to you--after many futile efforts, all at once--so, in the end, will flying come to you. See, I am now going to rise to the highest point in the building. Gravity pulls me back, but I say to myself: 'I will rise--I will fly there'--and fly there I do!"--and, springing off the ground, he struck out with his arms and legs, flew swiftly and easily to the dome of the hall, which he touched--and then flew back again to the stage.

This completed the evening's entertainment. If only on the strength of its first performance, the Modern Sorcery Company, in our opinion, has more than justified its name; and although we understand they will give no more performances gratis, we feel confident in prophesying that, for many a long night, there will be no falling off in the attendance.

CHAPTER XIV

SHIEL TO THE RESCUE

Gladys did not feel too happy when she read notices such as these; she could not do other than see in them destruction to her father, and the worst of it all was she could do nothing to help him. Who could? Who could possibly invent anything as wonderful as the marvels of the Modern Sorcery Company Ltd.? And yet unless John Martin gave up altogether, that is what he must do. Nay, he must do more--he must not only equal the Modern Sorcery Company's marvels, he must eclipse them.

But after the affair of the challenge, it seemed to Gladys that there was no help for it--the Hall would have to be closed for a time. Now that d.i.c.k Davenport was dead, there was no one to take her father's place. On the night succeeding the catastrophe, she had persuaded one of the Indian attendants to undertake the role of operator, but his skill was not equal to the tax upon it, and the audience--a poor one--was very lukewarm in its applause. The following day she talked the matter over with her father. The latter was in favour of keeping the show on at any cost; Gladys, for closing it temporarily.

"A bad performance is worse than no performance," she said, "much better to close till you have invented some new tricks."

John Martin groaned. "I fear my days of invention are over," he muttered. "If I can read the papers and write letters, that will be about as much as I shall be able to do."

"Couldn't you retire?"

"I would if I were not a Britisher," John Martin replied, "but being a Britisher I'd sooner shoot myself than give in to a d----d Yank!"

And Gladys, in terror lest her father should over-excite himself, promised she would see that the entertainment was carried on as usual, and that the Indian continued in the role of operator.

But when out of her father's presence, Gladys gave way to despair. How could she--a woman--hope to cope with such a difficult situation? And she was racking her brains to know how to act for the best, when Shiel was announced.

A wave of relief swept over her. She could explain her difficulties to Shiel, in a way that she could not to any one who had no knowledge at all of her father's affairs--and she told him just how matters stood.

"Look here!" he exclaimed, when she had finished, "why not let me take your father's place at the Kingsway? I have done a little amateur acting, and am not nervous at the thought of appearing in public. Your father confided in you so much--you must know all his tricks by heart--couldn't you coach me!"

Gladys looked at him critically.

"It wouldn't be half a bad idea," she said. "Supposing you come with me to the Hall, I can explain the tricks better if I show you the apparatus at the same time."

Shiel thoroughly enjoyed that journey up to town. He knew it was wrong of him to think of his own pleasure, when the affairs of his companion were in such a critical condition. He knew he ought not to look at her in the way he did--as if she was the most precious thing in the world, and he would give her his soul if she wanted it--he knew that he--a penniless artist without any prospects--had no right to behave thus.

But her beauty appealed to him with a force he was entirely incapable of resisting, and he went on looking at her in the way he knew he ought not to look at her, simply because he couldn't help it.

He lunched with her at her club in Dover Street, and then they taxied to the Kingsway.

The door-keeper, the only living creature in the building, saving themselves, seemed to share in the general depression hanging over everything--the great, empty front of the house with its gloomy, cavernous boxes and grim, grey gallery--the dark, dismal flies--the chilly wings--all hushed and still, and impregnated with the sense of desertion. But with this man beside her, who, she knew, would do anything he could to help, the place did not look quite so bad to Gladys as it had done the day before. There was a ray of light now where, before, ebon blackness had prevailed.

Without delay Gladys rang up the Indian attendants on the telephone, and occupied the time prior to their arrival by describing to Shiel how each of the tricks was done.

Her pupil proved far more able than she had antic.i.p.ated. After several rehearsals he was able to go through the whole performance without a hitch.

When they had finished, Gladys stretched out her hand impulsively. "I don't know how to thank you enough," she said. "You are a brick, and if only you do half as well this evening as you have done now, we shall get on swimmingly--that is to say, as well as we can expect, until we can arrange a fresh programme. If only you were an inventor!"

"If only I were. If only I had money!"

"Why, what would you do?" Gladys asked curiously.

"Give it to you! Give you every halfpenny of it!--But as I haven't any, I mean to give you all the energy I possess instead."

"Why me? My father you mean!"

"No, you!" Shiel said impulsively, "both of you if you prefer it, but you first."

"Me first! That doesn't seem very lucid--but I can't stay to hear an explanation now, for if I miss the four-thirty train I shall miss my dinner, which would indeed be a calamity!" And slipping on her gloves, she hurried off, forbidding Shiel to escort her further.

Left to himself, Shiel strolled along the Strand into the Victoria Gardens, where he bought an evening paper, and sat down to read it.

The first thing that caught his eye was--

"MAGIC IN LONDON"

"This morning the West End received a shock. About twelve o'clock, a gentleman, fashionably dressed, turned into Bond Street from Piccadilly, and when opposite Messrs. Truefitt's prepared to cross over. The street happened just then to be blocked by a long line of taxis. The gentleman, however, had no intention of waiting till they had pa.s.sed. Measuring the distance from one pavement to the other with his eyes, he jumped about fifteen feet into the air and cleared the intervening s.p.a.ce without the slightest apparent effort--a feat that literally paralysed with astonishment all who beheld it. On being remonstrated with by a policeman, who was highly perplexed as to whether such extraordinary conduct const.i.tuted a breach of the peace or not, the gentleman calmly leaped over the policeman's head, and striking out with arms and legs swam through the air.

"Continuing in this fashion, the cynosure of all eyes--even the traffic being suspended to watch him--he pa.s.sed along Bond Street into Oxford Street, where he once more alighted on his feet. On being questioned by a representative of the Press, it transpired he was Mr. Kelson, one of the partners in the Modern Sorcery Company Ltd., whose wonderful performances at their Hall, in c.o.c.kspur Street, have already been reported in these columns."

"I should well like to know how that flying trick is done," Shiel said to himself. "According to Kelson it is entirely a question of will power. I'll see if I can't develop my concentrative faculty and introduce a few of the same performances in our show. I'll go to the Hall and try them now."

But his preliminary efforts were certainly far from successful. He jumped off chairs saying to himself, "I'll fly! I will fly," and he struck out heroically each time, but the result was always the same--gravity conquered--he fell.

Had he not been so much in love with Gladys, he would have desisted; as it was, the more he b.u.mped and bruised himself, the more determined he was to go on trying. In fact, flying with him became a mania; and according to the daily journals, his was by no means the only case.

All over England people were trying to fly. An old lady, in Gipsy Hill, appeared in the Police Court to answer a charge of causing annoyance to her neighbours by practising flying, from off her bed, at night. Her bulk being large and her will power apparently small, she yielded to gravity and landed on the ground with prodigious b.u.mps, which set everything in the room vibrating, and which could be plainly heard in the adjoining houses, through the thin brick walls on either side of her room.

An old gentleman in Guilsborough had an extremely narrow escape. Being warned on no account to practise flying in the house or garden, lest his grandchildren should see him and want to do the same, he retired to the seclusion of an old, disused and dilapidated coach house. Here, in the upper storey, he practised by the hour together. He climbed on to a stool which he had taken there for the purpose, and when he fancied he had acquired the right amount of concentration, he sprang into the air, arriving, presumably through want of will power, on the floor. For two whole days he practised--b.u.mp--b.u.mp--b.u.mp--and the more he b.u.mped, the more he persevered. At last, however, the floor gave way, and with loud cries of "I will! I will!" he fell on the ground floor, ten feet below! He was unable to go on experimenting, owing to a broken leg and a fractured collar-bone.

In Aylsham, Norfolk, there had been a perfect epidemic among the children for trying aeronic gravity. Rudolph Crabbe, aged five, after listening to an account of the performances at the Modern Sorcery Company's Hall, which his father had read aloud, sprang off the dining-room table crying out "I will fly! I will stay in the air."

Fortunately, he fell on the tabby cat, which somewhat broke the shock of concussion, and he escaped unhurt.

In College Road, Clifton, Bristol, an octogenarian thinking he would add novelty to the Jubilee celebrations at the College, leaped off the roof of his house, crying, "I'll fly over the Close! I will fly over the Close!"--and broke his neck.

In St. Ives, Cornwall, where the treatment of animals is none too humane, a fisher-boy threw a visitor's Pomeranian over the Malakoff saying, "You shall fly! You shall remain in the air;" whilst at Bath a girl of ten, s.n.a.t.c.hing her baby brother from the perambulator, leaped over Beechen Cliff, calling out, "We will fly together! We will fly together!"

These are only a few of the many similar cases Shiel read in the paper, and which he narrated afterwards to Gladys Martin.

"I am quite convinced," Gladys said, "that Kelson does his flying through supernatural agency. His a.s.sertion that it can be done through mere will power, is sheer humbug. It wouldn't be a bad idea to consult a clairvoyant. What do you think?"