Within his quiet pipe the while.”
Our rope would open for us a path through the mountains of captivity, and we too had our Mayor and Corporation—Kiazim and our escort—to leave gaping behind.
On the second day out from Yozgad the Spook began to prepare Moïse for the “suicide.” It was, of course, out of the question to use the spook-board, or to hold regular séances, because privacy was impossible, and we did not wish the sentries to see Moïse in his rôle of “sitter,” lest they report the fact to the Constantinople authorities. The Spook had therefore announced at one of our last séances in Yozgad that we were now so well in tune, and so amenable to “control” that the use of the board could be dispensed with (though we were to take it with us), and after leaving Yozgad messages would be delivered through either Hill or myself, as Moïse desired. Moïse suggested that the messages should be delivered through me, and asked for some sign by which he might know “whether it is Jones himself who is talking or whether it is the Control speaking through his voice.” The Spook said that the sign of my being under control would be that I would start twisting my coat-button. Whatever was said while I twisted the button emanated from the Spook, and not from myself, and neither Hill nor I would be conscious of it or remember anything about it. The Pimple was overjoyed at this advance to more speedy means of communication; for the glass and board method had been painfully slow, a séance taking anything up to six hours. The great merit of the Ouija or of table-rapping, from the mediums’ point of view, lies in this very fact of slowness, for spelling out an answer letter by letter gives us psychics plenty of time to think. When an inconvenient question is asked, an unintelligible reply can easily be given, and while the sitter is trying to puzzle out what it means the mediums can consider what the final reply is to be. But when the Spook uses the medium’s voice question and answer follow one another with the rapidity of ordinary conversation, and there is less opportunity for deliberation. Because of this danger we had never trusted ourselves to use the “direct speech” method in Yozgad.[[48]] But on the road to Constantinople we used it freely, for we knew exactly what we wanted, and were quite sure of our man.
Early in the morning on the second day, the drivers asked us to lighten the load by walking. The Pimple, Hill, myself and the two sentries took a short cut up the hillside, while the carts followed the winding road. The Pimple began giving us a lesson in French, for the Spook had told him to teach us some French words and a few simple phrases in order to enable us to ask for things in hospital. Ever since Constantinople had been fixed upon as our destination Moïse had spent an hour a day in giving us a French or Turkish lesson. He was an excellent teacher, but he found us rather slow pupils.
“Your Turkish,” he said to me as we walked together up the hill, “is much better than your French. Now—say the present tense—je suis.”
“Je suis, tu as, il a——”
“No, no, no,” said the Pimple, “you mix with avoir! Perhaps I have tried to make you go too fast. Do you remember the numerals?”
I got as far as “douze” and stuck.
“You, Hill?”
Hill struggled on to twenty in an atrocious accent.