"'Nonsense! How can a man's soul pass into a bronze statue?' I asked rather testily. 'Good heavens, man, do you realize that you're trying to make me believe that which is beyond the pale of all human possibility!'
"'Human possibility! What is human possibility? I tell you that all this is fact; simply.' Ombos rose and began to pace to and fro over the Persian rugs like a tiger. 'I'm not given to imagining things.'
"'Bah!' he grunted. 'Every child will tell you that the tendency of spirits to return to the old haunts of bodily life is almost universal. The universal laws apply ... there is no escape from the great law, the attraction of environment.'
"'The rest is merely every-day knowledge. Have you ever heard of ancient formula by which the grosser factors of the body may be eliminated, leaving the ethereal portions to retain the spirit? Do you not understand that the body may be preserved from absolute disintegration? The old alchemists all knew that death could be indefinitely deferred in this way. Professor Vaini left among his papers a work of two thousand pages in which he clearly demonstrated that it was possible for a spiritualized body to retain a modified life practically for ever. Any doctor will tell you the hair and nails of a dead person will often grow for years after....'
"Ombos turned his glittering eyes on me a moment inquisitively.
"'Oh, tell me all that kind of stuff if you like,' I protested good-humouredly. 'It makes no impression on me. I'm a normal man, Ombos, and I object to having my free imagination harrowed over things that don't count. Behind that curtain is a bronze statue, and it never can or will be anything else but a bronze statue, and that's about the sum and total of it all.'
"'I was merely telling you a few cold and scientific facts,' returned Ombos argumentatively.
"'Now, if I wished to impress you it would be easy enough. I would like to test that sensitiveness which you boast that you don't possess. I think I could give you a severe shaking-up! And I will begin by telling you that I will employ mere vulgar trickery ... the trickery of any mountebank who fools people at a country fair!'
"He looked at me with that slow smile of his—the smile of the mystic—mocking, mysterious.
"I answered him with a weak laugh. 'You may try some of your tricks, wizard; but you will fail to impress me, I think!'