'TWIXT EARTH AND HEAVEN
Nothing had been disturbed. Everything was as he had last seen it, save that a layer of dust had collected, thanks to the absence of Mrs. Goss, and that due to the difference of the length of the Palosian day. Nine terrestrial days had passed since Croft had lain his body on the couch.
Rising slowly, he ignited the flame of a small alcohol-lamp and quickly brewed himself a cup of strong beef-extract, which he drank. The hot beverage and the food put new physical life into his sluggish veins, as he knew it would. Seating himself in a chair, he gave himself over to a consideration of the thought he had brought with him from Palos—a thought more weird than any of which he had ever dreamed.
Briefly, Croft had conceived of a way to acquire a physical life on Palos. That was his unheard-of plan, the possibility of which had wakened in his consciousness as Jadgor announced the formal betrothal of Naia to Kyphallos at the end of the month. It was that that had sent him back here to his study and his books.
And after a bit he rose and drew a volume from a case and brought it back to the desk. It was a work dealing with obsessions—that theory of the occultist that a stronger spirit might displace the weaker tenant of an earthly shell, and occupy and dominate the body it had possessed.
He read over the written page and sat pondering once more while the night dragged past. Even as he had gone a step farther in astral projection, carrying it into spirit projection as a further step, so now he was considering a step beyond mere obsession, and questioning whether or not it were possible for a spirit, potent beyond the average ego of earth, to enter and revivify the body laid down by another soul.
His thoughts were of Jasor as he sat there wrapped in thought. The young Nodhurian was dying, unless Croft's medical knowledge was all at fault. Yet he was dying not from disease in the physical sense. His body was organically healthy. It was his soul which was sick unto death. And—here was the wonderful question: Could Croft's strong spirit enter Jasor's body as Jasor laid it aside and, operating on the still inherent and reasonably sound cell-energy still contained within it, possess it for its own?
It was an amazing thought—a daring thought—yet not so far beyond the spirit which had dared the emptiness of the unknown in the adventure which had brought Croft to his present position, thereby inspiring the thought itself. Day broke, however, before Croft made up his mind.
He realized fully that he must remain on earth for a day or two to provide his present body against another period of trance. He realized also that in the experiment he meant to make he might lose that earthly body and fail in his other attempt at one and the same time. But he made up his mind none the less.
Should he succeed, he would live as an inhabitant of Palos—would be able to physically stand between Naia—the one woman of his soul—and her fate—and, winning, be able perhaps to claim her for himself. Against the possibility of such a consummation to his great adventure no argument of a personal peril held weight.
Croft sent for Mrs. Goss, telegraphing her shortly after it was light. He spent the day waiting her arrival in feeding his body with concentrated foods. He met her when she came, and for a week life went on in the Croft house as it had gone on before. Then Croft summoned the little woman and bade her sit down in one of the library chairs. He told her he was engaged on a wonderful investigation of the forces of life. He made her understand dimly he was doing something never attempted before, which, if it succeeded, would make him very happy. He explained that he was about to take a long sleep—that it would last for three, and possibly four days. He forbade her to disturb his body during that time, or to touch it for a week. Then, if he was not returned and in his sane mind, she might know that he was dead.
With quivering lips and wide eyes and apron-plucking hands, she promised to obey. Croft sensed her anxiety for himself, and tried to be very gentle as he saw her from the room.
But with the door closed behind her, he moved quickly to the couch and stretched himself out. For a moment he lay staring about the familiar room. Then into his mind there came a thought of Naia—and of Jasor—of love for the one and pity for the other. He smiled and fastened his mind on the object of this present attempt. And suddenly his eyelids closed and his body relaxed. Once more time and space suffered annihilation, and he knew himself in Jasor's room.
It was full. The nurse was there, and the physician. And there was another—a young man with a strong, composed face, clad in a tunic of unembroidered brown, whom Croft recognized as a priest.
He stood by the couch on which Jasor lay, pallid as wax, with closed lids, and a barely perceptible respiration. He held a silver basin in his hands, and as Croft watched he sprinkled the face of the dying youth with his fingers dipped in the water it contained. A quiver of emotion shook Croft's spirit. He had returned to Palos none too soon.
The priest drew back. The doctor approached the bed. He lifted the wrist of Jasor and set his fingers to the pulse. In a moment he laid it down, and bowed his head. And as he did so, Jasor sighed once deeply like one very tired.
"He passes," the physician said.
Priest, nurse, and physician all saw it. But Croft saw more than they. He saw the astral form, the soul-body of Jasor, rise from the discarded clay. And swiftly casting aside all other considerations, he willed his own consciousness into the vacant brain.
Thereafter followed an experience, the most terrible he had ever known. He was within Jasor's body, yet he was chained. For what seemed hours he fought to control the physical elements of the fleshy form he had seized. And always he failed. In some indefinable way it seemed to resist the new tenant who had taken the place of the old. Croft describes his own sensations as those of one who presses against and seeks to move an immovable weight.
He suffered—suffered until the very suffering broke down the bonds in a demand for some outward expression. Then, and only then he knew that the chest of the body had once more moved, and that he had drawn air into the lungs. Encouraged, he exerted his staggering will afresh, and—he knew he was looking into the faces above him—through Jasor's physical eyes!
"He lives!"
With Jasor's ears he heard the physician exclaim:
"This passes understanding, man of Zitu. He was dead, yet now he lives again!"
"The ways of Zitu oft pass the understanding, man of healing," said the priest, advancing to the bed. "What is man to understand the things that Zitu plans?"
Croft thrilled. Coordination between his conscious spirit and the body of the man of Palos was established. He had won again—won a visible, material existence on the planet with the woman he loved. The thought brought a sense of absolute satisfaction; he closed the lids above Jasor's eyes, and slept.
For several hours he lay in restful slumber, then awoke refreshed. His deductions had been correct. Jasor's body was healthy, aside from the weakening influences of his spirit. Given a strong spirit to dominate it now, it responded in full tide.
He glanced about. It was night. By the dim light of an oil-lamp he saw two persons in the room. One was the nurse. The other was the priest. They appeared to converse in lowered tones.
"Man of Zitu," Croft spoke for the first time with his new-found tongue.
The priest rose and hurried to him. "My son."
"I am much improved," said Croft. "In the morning I shall be almost wholly well."
"It is a miracle," the priest declared, holding his forearms horizontally before him until he made a perfect cross.
A miracle! Croft considered the words. They carried a sudden meaning to his mind. Truly the priest had spoken rightly. This was little short of a miracle indeed, did the other know the facts. Swiftly Croft formed a plan. "Father, what is your name?" he inquired.
"Abbu, my son."
Croft turned his eyes. "Send the nurse away. I would talk with you alone."
The priest spoke to the woman, who withdrew slowly, her face a mingled mask of emotions, chief among which Croft read a sort of awed wonder.
"Why does she look at me like that?" he asked.
The priest seated himself on a stool beside the couch. "I said your recovery was a miracle, my son," he replied. "I am minded that I told the truth. You have changed, even your face has changed while you slept. You are not the same."
Croft felt his muscles stiffen. He understood. The new spirit was molding the fleshy elements to itself—uniting itself to them, knitting soul and body together. The experiment was a success. He smiled. "That is true, Father Abbu," he replied. "I am not the same as the Jasor who died."
"Died?" The priest drew back. His eyes widened.
"Died," repeated Croft. "Listen, father. These things must be in confidence."
"Aye," Abbu agreed.
Croft told what had occurred.
Abbu heard him out. At the end he was seized by a shaking which caused him to quiver through body and limbs.
"Listen, father," Croft said. "I am not Jasor, though I inhabit his form. Yet I know something of him, and of Tamarizia as well. Jasor had a father."
"And a mother." The priest inclined his head.
Croft had gained information, but he did not make a comment upon it then. "To them I must appear still as Jasor," he returned.
"They are looked for in Scira," Abbu declared. "We hoped for their coming. Why have you done this thing? Are you good or evil?"
"Good, by the grace of Zitu," said Croft. "I come to help Tamarizia. Think you I could have come had not Zitu willed?"
Suddenly the face of the young priest flamed. "Nay!" he cried, and rose to stand by the couch. "Now my eyes are open and I see. This thing is of Zitu, nor could he save by his will. It is as I said, a miracle indeed." Again he lifted his arms in the sign of the cross.
"Then," said Croft, striking quickly while the man was lost in the grip of religious fervor. "Will you help me to do that for which I came—will you help me to help Tamarizia should the need arise?"
"Aye." To his surprise Abbu sank before him on bended knees. "How am I to serve him who comes at the behest of Zitu, in so miraculous a way?"
"Call me Jasor as in the past," decided Croft. The name was near enough to his own to fit easily into both his ears and mouth. "Yet think me not Jasor," he went on. "Jasor was a dullard, weak in his brain. Soon shall I show you things such as you have never dreamed. Think you I am Jasor or another indeed?"
"You are not Jasor," said the priest.
"Nay—by Zitu himself, I swear it," said Croft. "Go now and send back the nurse. Say nothing of what I have told you. Swear silence by Zitu, and come to me every day."
"I swear," Abbu promised, rising, "and—I shall come, O Spirit sent by Zitu." He left the room backward and with bowed head.
Croft let every cell of his new body relax and stretched out. He closed his eyes as he heard the nurse return, and gave himself up to thought. It appeared to him that he had made a very good beginning and won an ally in Abbu, into whose astonishment he had woven a thread of the man's own religion to strengthen his belief. Now it remained to gain utter control of the body he possessed—to master it completely, and make it not only responsive to his physical use, but to so impregnate it with his own essence that he might leave it for short times at least in order to return to the earth.
And to accomplish that he had just four days. Lying there apparently asleep, he sought to exercise that control he possessed over the body now lying on his library couch. And he failed. Strive as he might, he could not compass success. In something like a panic he desisted after a time and sought to fight back to a balanced mental calm.
Was he trapped? he asked himself. Was he a prisoner of the thing he had sought to make his own? Reason told him the question was folly—that already the body was responding in a physical sense. In the end he decided to take a longer time in his endeavors, and so at last fell into a genuine sleep.
From that he awakened to the sound of voices, and turned his eyes to behold a woman past middle age, with graying hair, and a man, strongly built, with a well-featured face, in the room.
Working swiftly, his mind recalled Abbu's words concerning Jasor's parents. The priest had said they were expected in Scira. This woman, then, must be the Nodhurian's mother.
He opened his lips and called her by that word.
She ran to him and sank her knees by the couch. "Jasor, my son!" she cried in a voice which quavered, and as the man approached more slowly, turned her face upward to meet his eyes. "He knows me, Sinon—he knows me," she said.
"Aye, Mellia, praise be to Zitu. Jasor, my son, dost thou know me also?" the Nodhurian's father said.
"Aye, sir," said Croft, marking his parents' names. "But—how come you in Scira?"
"Did we not write that we should arrive and take you with us on our return?" Sinon asked.
Croft saw it in a flash, and the slip he had made. This explained Abbu's assertion that they were expected. The tablets hurled to the floor by Jasor had been deciphered after his illness, it appeared. "Aye," he admitted somewhat faintly. "But—I have been ill."
"And are recovered now," he who was to be his father said.
"Aye. Had I my clothing I could rise."
"We shall return then at once," Sinon declared.
But Mellia, the mother, broke into protests, and Croft became much more cautious, spoke for delay. He did not wish to undertake a trip to Nodhur before he had returned to earth. That was necessary if he was to protect his earth body from Mrs. Goss at the end of the week, since now he knew he must have more time. He determined to make another attempt at escape from his new body, when he would appear merely to be asleep.
And he succeeded late that night, freeing himself and once more rousing on the library couch. He did several things at once. He examined his own body and found it sound. He wrote a note telling his housekeeper he had returned and gone away for at least a month. He knew many a body had been kept entranced for longer periods by the Indian adepts of the East, so did not fear the attempt.
Next he crept up-stairs to his former bedroom and packed a suitcase, carrying it to one of the several spare rooms seldom used and always kept closed. Locking himself into this room, he opened the window slightly to assure a supply of air. He had told Mrs. Goss to remain at the house or go to her daughter's, as she preferred, until his return. He felt assured he would be undisturbed. Laying himself on the bed, he once more satisfied himself that all was as he wished it, and returned to Jasor's room.