The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5993]
"Drink this," he said, and I swallowed it obediently.
It had a pungent, unpleasant taste, but I could feel it running through my veins, and it cleared my mind and steadied my nerves as though by magic. I sat up and looked at the crystal. The other lights in the room had been switched on, and the sphere lay cold and lifeless. I passed my hand before my eyes, and looked at it again; then my eyes sought Silva's. He was smiling softly.
"The visions came," he said. "Your eyes tell me that the visions came. Is it not so?"
"Yes," I answered; "strange visions, Senor Silva. I wish I knew their origin."
"Their origin is in the Universal Spirit," he said, quietly. "Even yet you do not believe."
"No," and I looked again at the crystal. "There are some things past belief."
"Nothing is past belief," he said, still more quietly, "You think so because your mind is wrapped in the conventions amid which you exist. Free it from those wrappings, and you will begin really to live. You have never known what life is."
"How am I to free it, Senor Silva?" I questioned.
He took a step nearer to me.
"By becoming a disciple of the Holy One," he said, most earnestly.
But I was myself again, and I rose to my feet and shook my head, with a smile.
"No," I said. "You will get no convert here. I must be going."
"I will open the gate for you," he said, in another tone, and led the way down the stairs, through the library, and out upon the gravelled walk.
After the drugged atmosphere of his room, the pure night air was like a refreshing bath, and I drew in long breaths of it. Silva walked beside me silently; he unlocked the gate with a key which he carried in his hand, and pulled it open.
"Good-night, Mr. Lester," he said. "The sphere is at your service should you desire again to test it. Think over what I have said to you."
"Good-night," I answered, and stepped through into the road.
The gate swung shut and the key grated in the lock. Mechanically I turned my steps toward Godfrey's house; but I seemed to be bending under a great burden--the burden of the vision.
CHAPTER XXII
THE SUMMONS
I was confused and shaken; I had no idea of the hour; I did not know whether that vision had lasted a minute or a thousand years. But when I blundered up the path to Godfrey's house, I found him and Simmonds sitting on the porch together.
"I had Godfrey bring me out," said Simmonds, as he shook hands, "because I wanted another look at those midnight fireworks. Did you come up on the elevated?"
"Yes," I answered; and I felt Godfrey turn suddenly in his chair, at the sound of my voice, and scrutinise my face. "I had dinner in town and came up afterwards."
"What time was that?" asked Godfrey, quietly.
"I got up here about eight o'clock. I had an engagement with Miss Vaughan."
"You have been with her since?"
"With her and Silva," and I dropped into a chair and mopped my face with my handkerchief. "The experience was almost too much for me," I added, and told them all that had occurred.
They listened, Godfrey motionless and intent, and Simmonds with a murmur of astonishment now and then.
"I'm bound to confess," I concluded, "that my respect for Silva has increased immensely. He's impressive; he's consistent; I almost believe he's sincere."
"Have you considered what that belief implies?" asked Godfrey.
"What does it imply?"
"If Silva is sincere," said Godfrey, slowly; "if he is really what he pretends to be, a mystic, a priest of Siva, intent only on making converts to what he believes to be the true religion, then our whole theory falls to the ground; and Swain is guilty of murder."
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.