第27章 CHAPTER VI EXPERIENCES(1)

"Let us sit round the table and talk," said Madame Riennes.

Thereon the whole party moved into the recess where was the flower-pot that has been mentioned, which Miss Ogilvy took away.

They seated themselves round the little table upon which it had stood.

Godfrey, lingering behind, found, whether by design or accident, that the only place left for him was the arm-chair which he hesitated to occupy.

"Be seated, young Monsieur," said the formidable Madame in bell-like tones, whereon he collapsed into the chair. "Sister Helen," she went on, "draw the curtain, it is more private so; yes, and the blind that there may be no unholy glare."

Miss Ogilvy, who seemed to be entirely under Madame's thumb, obeyed.

Now to all intents and purposes they were in a tiny, shadowed room cut off from the main apartment.

"Take that talisman from your neck and give it to young Monsieur Knight," commanded Madame.

"But I gave it to her, and do not want it back," ventured Godfrey, who was growing alarmed.

"Do what I say," she said sternly, and he found himself holding the relic.

"Now, young Monsieur, look me in the eyes a little and listen. I request of you that holding that black, engraved stone in your hand, you will be so good as to throw your soul, do you understand, your soul, back, back, /back/ and tell us where it come from, who have it, what part it play in their life, and everything about it."

"How am I to know?" asked Godfrey, with indignation.

Then suddenly everything before him faded, and he saw himself standing in a desert by a lump of black rock, at which a brown man clad only in a waist cloth and a kind of peaked straw hat, was striking with an instrument that seemed to be half chisel and half hammer, fashioned apparently from bronze, or perhaps of greenish-coloured flint.

Presently the brown man, who had a squint in one eye and a hurt toe that was bound round with something, picked up a piece of the black rock that he had knocked off, and surveyed it with evident satisfaction. Then the scene vanished.

Godfrey told it with interest to the audience who were apparently also interested.

"The finding of the stone," said Madame. "Continue, young Monsieur."

Another vision rose before Godfrey's mind. He beheld a low room having a kind of verandah, roofed with reeds, and beyond it a little courtyard enclosed by a wall of grey-coloured mud bricks, out of some of which stuck pieces of straw. This courtyard opened onto a narrow street where many oddly-clothed people walked up and down, some of whom wore peaked caps. A little man, old and grey, sat with the fragment of black rock on a low table before him, which Godfrey knew to be the same stone that he had already seen. By him lay graving tools, and he was engaged in polishing the stone, now covered with figures and writing, by help of a stick, a piece of rough cloth and oil. A young man with a curly beard walked into the little courtyard, and to him the old fellow delivered the engraved stone with obeisances, receiving payment in some curious currency.

Then followed picture upon picture in all of which the talisman appeared in the hands of sundry of its owners. Some of these pictures had to do with love, some with religious ceremonies, and some with war. One, too, with its sale, perhaps in a time of siege or scarcity, for a small loaf of black-looking bread, by an aged woman who wept at parting with it.

After this he saw an Arab-looking man finding the stone amongst the crumbling remains of a brick wall that showed signs of having been burnt, which wall he was knocking down with a pick-axe to allow water to flow down an irrigation channel on his garden. Presently a person who wore a turban and was girt about with a large scimitar, rode by, and to him the man showed, and finally presented the stone, which the Saracen placed in the folds of his turban.

The next scene was of this man engaged in battle with a knight clad in mail. The battle was a very fine one, which Godfrey described with much gusto. It ended in the knight killing the Eastern man and hacking off his head with a sword. This violent proceeding disarranged the turban out of which fell the black stone. The knight picked it up and hid it about him. Next Godfrey saw this same knight, grown into an old man and being borne on a bier to burial, clad in the same armour that he had worn in the battle. Upon his breast hung the black stone which had now a hole bored through the top of it.

Lastly there came a picture of the old sexton finding the talisman among the bones of the knight, and giving it to himself, Godfrey, then a small boy, after which everything passed away.

"I guess that either our young friend here has got the vision, or that he will make a first-class novelist," said Colonel Josiah Smith. "Any way, if you care to part with that talisman, Miss Ogilvy, I will be glad to give you five hundred dollars for it on the chance of his integrity."

She smiled and shook her head, stretching out her hand to recover the Gnostic charm.

"Be silent, Brother Josiah Smith," exclaimed Madame Riennes, angrily.

"If this were imposture, should I not have discovered it? It is good vision--psychometry is the right term--though of a humbler order such as might be expected from a beginner. Still, there is hope, there is hope. Let us see, now. Young gentleman, be so good as to look me in the eye."

Much against his will Godfrey found himself bound to obey, and looked her "in the eye." A few moments later he felt dizzy, and after that he remembered no more.

When Godfrey awoke again the curtain was drawn, the blinds were pulled up and the butler was bringing in tea. Miss Ogilvy sat by his side, looking at him rather anxiously, while the others were conversing together in a somewhat excited fashion.

"It is splendid, splendid!" Madame was saying. "We have discovered a pearl beyond price, a great treasure. Hush! he awakes."