"
I shivered a little, but I saw that Godfrey was right.
"We are in this dilemma," Godfrey continued, "either Silva is a fakir
and charlatan, or Swain is a murderer."
"I wish you could have witnessed that horrible scene, as I did," I
broke in; "it would have shaken your confidence, too! I wish you could
have seen his face as he glanced back over his shoulder! It was
fiendish, Godfrey; positively fiendish! It made my blood run cold. It
makes it run cold now, to remember it!"
"How do you explain all that crystal sphere business, anyway?" asked
Simmonds, who had been chewing his cigar perplexedly. "It stumps me."
"Lester was hypnotised and saw what Silva willed him to see," answered
Godfrey. "You'll remember he sat facing him."
"But," I objected, "no one remembers what happens during hypnosis."
"They do if they are willed to remember. Silva willed you to remember.
It was cleverly done, and his explanation of the origin of the vision
was clever, too. Moreover, it had some truth in it, for the secret of
crystal-gazing is that it awakens the subjective consciousness, or
Great Spirit, as Silva called it. But you weren't crystal-gazing,
to-night, Lester--you were simply hypnotised.
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