Herrick looked at him with a disdainful smile. "I know you are not a good man Santiago, nor do you wish to be thought one. But I credited you with more intelligence than to believe in hallucinations."
Don Manuel not at all offended laughed. "True I am not a good man," he said, "and more is the pity. I am afraid to go where that lad can go--into the astral plane. You do not understand? No! you are as I said before, a materialistic being. But I am not a fool Dr. Herrick, and I can tell you that I know something of the psychic faculty. In Mexico I have seen the most wonderful things."
"Tell me all about it," said Jim humouring the man, "I am a sceptic you know. All the spiritualism I have ever seen is humbug."
"This of which I talk is not spiritualism," rejoined Manuel coldly, "it is the occult science. What is the good of my explaining anything to you? You would only laugh, you cannot see, you never will see. The prison of the flesh is too strong for you to break through."
"I am a healthy man if that is what you mean," retorted Jim, "but about this boy? He is queer, I admit."
"Ah you can see that!" said Manuel sarcastically. "I congratulate you. Eh! he foretold the death of Mrs. Marsh. Is it not so?"
"Yes! But that was a coincidence."
"Of course. These things are always coincidences--to you. But to me it is a proof that the boy can enter the astral plane. He does not know what it is; he is not instructed but he can go."
"I don't know what it is myself."
"It is another world that is all around us," said Manuel waving his hand, "it interweaves itself into our world but having only limited senses we cannot see it. That boy has senses finer than ours and he can see. If you gave him a crystal, a blob of ink, any shining surface with depth, he would see the most wonderful things. Have you read Zanoni, Señor?"