"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, Señor 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, Señor Silva?" I questioned.
He took a step nearer to me.
"By becoming a disciple of the Holy One," he said, most earnestly.