"Ah! you can't look me in the face," exclaimed Michael, almost savagely. "Where are you going to get that money from?"
"From a client—for whom I am to do business—of a certain nature," faltered Tomlinson.
"Certain nature, indeed! What is it?"
"Merely professional. Michael," was the answer.
"Professional business in one evening, that will produce five hundred pounds," said the old man, dwelling emphatically upon every word: then, after a pause, he added abruptly, "I don't believe it."
"I declare most solemnly that I am telling you the truth," cried Tomlinson, somewhat hurt by Michael's manner and observations.
"So much the worse for you, then," rejoined the old man, laconically. "The business you are to perform for that sum is not honest."
Tomlinson was about to make some excuse to put an end to the topic by an evasive reply, when Michael Martin raised himself to a sitting posture in the bed, and, fixing his eyes upon his late master, exclaimed, with strange emphasis of manner, "Have you not seen enough—experienced enough—and suffered enough, to render you timorous in re-embarking upon the great ocean of chicanery, duplicity, and crime? Be you well assured that though the currents of that ocean may float you prosperously along for a season, they will sooner or later dash you against a sunken rock, and shipwreck you beyond redemption. Oh!" he continued, his ghastly countenance becoming animated with the ruddy tinge of excitement, and fire once more sparkling from his glassy eyes,—"Oh! if you had only passed through all that I have within these last few days, you would not neglect so terrible a warning! Do you know,"—and his utterance became rapid and eloquent,—"do you know that I have passed the limits of the tomb, and have wandered in the worlds beyond? Do you know that I have learnt the grand—the sublime—the supernal secret of eternity? Yes—when the breath left this mortal clay, my soul winged its flight into the regions of infinite space! With the rapidity of a whirlwind I was hurried away from the earth; and, although I was nothing but a spirit, and could not touch myself, yet had I ears to hear, and eyes to see, and organs to receive sensations. I was permitted to wander amidst the regions of eternal bliss, and to penetrate into the mysteries of hell. O God! I tasted of the joys of the former, and was equally compelled to submit to the torments of the latter—each for a little space! Ah! sir, can you not divine wherefore the Almighty from time to time plunges mortals into a trance—submits them to the dominion of death for a season? It is that he may snatch away their souls, to lead them into the celestial mansions, and precipitate them into the depths of Satan's kingdom,—so that, when restored to their mortal clay, they may teach their fellow-creatures the grand truths of eternity—they may announce to them that there is a heaven to reward, and a hell to punish! And the Almighty made choice of me,—of me, a grovelling worm, one of the most obscure and humble of his creatures,—He made choice of me, I say, to become the means through which His warning voice might speak to you and others! What the pleasures of heaven are, or of what the torments of hell consist, I dare not say: suffice it for you to know that there is a heaven, and there is a hell—and the former exceeds all idea which man can conceive of bliss, while the latter surpasses every thing which he can imagine of horror! Be warned, then, by me, James Tomlinson—be warned by one who for four days was snatched away from earth, and, during that period was initiated in the mighty secrets of Eternity!"
The old man fell back in the bed, exhausted.
Tomlinson had at first listened to him with sorrow and alarm: he trembled lest the delirium of a fever had suddenly overtaken him—lest his brain was wandering. But as he proceeded—in a style of galvanic force and eloquence of which the listener, who had known him for so many years, deemed him incapable,—in a manner so inconsistent with all his former habits, so strangely at variance with his nature, his character, and his disposition,—the stock-broker became afraid, for it seemed to him as if those burning, searching, searing, scorching words were indeed an emanation from a source belonging to the mysteries of other worlds.