“Seeking knowledge, Red Cloud. Can you show what you can do?”
“I try. Wait a little. Do all I can.”
Again there was a long hush of expectancy. Then the novices were faced once more with the miraculous.
There came a dull glow in the darkness. It was apparently a wisp of luminous vapour. It whisked across from one side to the other and then circled in the air. By degrees it condensed into a circular disc of radiance about the size of a bull’s-eye lantern. It cast no reflection round it and was simply a clean-cut circle in the gloom. Once it approached Enid’s face and Malone saw it clearly from the side.
“Why, there is a hand holding it!” he cried, with sudden suspicion.
“Yes, there is a materialised hand,” said Mailey. “I can see it clearly.”
“Would you like it to touch you, Mr. Malone?”
“Yes, if it will.”
The light vanished and an instant afterwards Malone felt pressure upon his own hand. He turned it palm upwards and clearly felt three fingers laid across it, smooth, warm fingers of adult size. He closed his own fingers and the hand seemed to melt away in his grasp.
“It has gone!” he gasped.