The Undiscovered Country. William Dean Howells
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a start, involuntarily laying hold of the ring, and Dr. Boynton said instantly, " He cannot have it. The ring was her mother's." This drew general attention to Miss Boynton's ring: it was what is called a marchioness ring, and was set with a long black stone, sharply pointed at either end.
"All right; beg pardon, doctor," said Hatch, respectfully; but the hand, after a moment's hesitation, sank through the aperture, as if in dudgeon, and was heard knocking off the rings against the table underneath. This seemed a climax for which the familiars of the house had been waiting. The ladies who had lent their rings to Mr. Hatch, and had joined their coaxing voices to his in entreating the black hand to be quiet, now rose with a rustle of drapery, and joyously cackled satisfaction in Jim's characteristic behavior.
"That is the last," Mrs. Le Roy announced, and withdrew. Someone turned on the light, and Hatch began to pick up the rings under the table; this was the occasion of renewed delight in Jim on the part of the ladies to whom Hatch restored their property.
"Would you like to look under the table?" asked Dr. Boynton of Ford, politely lifting the cloth and throwing it back.
"I don't care to look," said Ford, remaining seated, and keeping the same impassive face with which he had witnessed all the shows of the seance.
Dr. Boynton directed a glance of invitation at Phillips, who stooped and peered curiously at the underside of the table, and then passed his hand over the carpet beneath the aperture. "No signs of a trap?" suggested the doctor.
"No, quite solid," said Phillips.
"These things are evidently merely in their inception," remarked the doctor, candidly. "I wouldn't advise their implicit acceptation under all circumstances, but here the conditions strike me as simple and really very fair."
"I've been very greatly interested indeed," said Phillips, "and I shouldn't at all attempt to explain what I've seen."
"We shall now try our own experiment," said the doctor, looking round at the windows, through the blinds and curtains of which the early twilight was stealing. "Mr. Hatch, will you put up the battening?" While Hatch made haste to darken the windows completely with some light wooden sheathings prepared for the purpose, Dr. Boynton included Ford also in his explanation. " What we are about to do requires the exclusion of all light. These intelligences, whatever they are, that visit us seem peculiarly sensitive to certain qualities of light; they sometimes endure candles pretty well, but they dislike gas even more than daylight, and we shall shut that off entirely. Yes, my dear," he said, turning lightly toward his daughter, who, apparently relieved from the spell under which she had sat throughout the seance, now approached him, and addressed him some entreaty in a low tone, to which the anxiety of her serious face gave its effect. Ford watched them narrowly while they spoke together; she evidently beseeching, and her father urging with a sort of obdurate kindness, from which she turned at last in despair, and sat listlessly down again in her place. One might have interpreted the substance of their difference as light or weighty, but there could be no doubt of its result in the girl's reluctant obedience. She sat with her long hands in her lap and her eyes downcast, while the young man bent his glance upon her with a somewhat softened curiosity. Phillips drew up a chair beside her, and began to address her some evening-party conversation, to which, after her first terrified start at the sound of his voice, she listened with a look of dull mystification, and a vague and monosyllabic comment. He was in the midst of this difficult part when Dr. Boynton announced that the preparations were now perfect, and invited the company to seat themselves in a circle around his daughter, from whose side Phillips was necessarily driven. Mrs. Le Roy re-entered, and after a survey of the forming circle took her place with the rest. Dr. Boynton instantly shut off the gas, and several of the circle, led by Miss Merrill, began to sing. It was music in a minor key, and as the sound of it fell the air was suddenly filled with noises of a heterogeneous variety. Voices whispered here and there, overhead and, as it appeared, underfoot; a fan was caught up, and each person in the circle was swiftly and violently fanned; a music-box, placed on Phillips's knee, was wound up, and then set floating, as it seemed, through the air; rings were snatched from some fingers and roughly thrust upon others, amidst the cries and nervous laughter of the women.
Through all, the mystical voices continued, and now they began to be recognized by different persons in the circle. The mother of one briefly visited him, and exhorted him to have faith in a life to come; the little sister of another revealed that she could never tell the beauty of the spirit-land; a lady cried out, "Oh, John, is that you kissing me?" to which a hollow whisper answered, "Yes; persevere, and all will be well." Suddenly a sharp smack was heard, and another lady, whose chubbiness had no doubt commended her as a medium for this sort of communication, exclaimed, with a hysterical laugh, "Oh, here's Jim, again! He's slapping me on the shoulder!" and in another instant this frolic ghost had passed round the circle, slapping shoulders and knees in the absolute darkness with amazing precision.
Jim went as suddenly as he came, and then there was a lull in the demonstrations. They began again with the voices, amidst which was heard the rhythmic clapping of hands, as Egeria beat her palms together, to prove that she had no material agency in the feats performed. Then, one of the circle called out, "Oh, delicious! Somebody is pressing a perfumed handkerchief to my face!" "And mine!" "And mine!" came quickly from others.
"Be careful," warned the small voice of Mrs. Le Roy, "not to break the circle now, or someone will get hurt."
She had scarcely spoken, when there came a shriek of pain and terror, with the muffled noise of a struggle; then a fainter cry, and a fall to the floor.
All sprang to their feet in confusion.
"Egeria! Egeria!" shouted Dr. Boynton.
The girl made no answer. "Oh, light the gas, light the gas!" he entreated; and now the crowning wonder of the seance appeared. A hand of bluish flame shone in the air, and was seen to hover near one of the gas-burners, which it touched; as the gas flashed up and the hand vanished, a groan of admiration burst forth, which was hardly checked by the spectacle that the strong light revealed.
Egeria lay stretched along the floor in a swoon, the masses of her yellow hair disordered and tossed about her pale face. Her arms were flung outward, and the hand on which she wore her ring showed a stain of blood, oozing from a cut in a finger next the ring; the hand must have been caught in a savage clutch, and the sharp point of the setting crushed into the tender flesh.
Ford was already on his knees beside the girl, over whose insensible face he bowed himself to lift her fallen head.
"I told you," said Mrs. Le Roy, "that someone would get hurt if anybody broke the circle."
"It has been a glorious time!" cried Dr. Boynton, with sparkling eyes, while he went about shaking hands with one and another.
"It has surpassed my utmost hopes! We stand upon the verge of a great era! The whole history of supernaturalism shows nothing like it! The key to the mystery is found!"
The company thronged eagerly about him, some to ask what the key was, others to talk of the wonderful hand. Egeria was forgotten; she might have been trodden under foot but for the active efforts of Hatch, who cleared a circle about her, and at last managed to withdraw the doctor from his auditors and secure his attention for the young girl.
"Oh, a faint, a mere faint," he said, as he bent over her and touched her pulse. "The facts established are richly worth all they have cost. Ah!" he added, "we must have air to revive her."
"You won't get it in this crowd!" said Hatch, looking savagely round.
"We had better carry her to her room," said Mrs. Le Roy.
"Yes, yes; very good, very good!" cried the doctor, absently trying to gather the languid shape into his arms. He presently desisted, and turned again to the group which Hatch had forced aside, and began to talk of the luminous hand and its points of difference from the hands shown in the box.
Hatch glanced round after him in despair, and then, with a look at Ford, said, "We must manage it somehow." He bent over the inanimate girl, and with consummate reverence and delicacy drew her into his arms, and made some steps toward the door.
"It won't do; you're