"And yet—you aren't sure about the denial even while you make it." He laughed without any sound. Insane in a mild way he might be, but he certainly seemed to know what he was saying and to be enjoying the somewhat puzzled expression which I fancy must have shown upon my face. "Murray, you're both right and wrong. You've never seen this body, so far as I know, but I hardly think you've forgotten Jason Croft."
"Croft! Good Heavens!"
The words dribbled off my lips. I gasped. Now I knew what it was about those eyes that held me. Croft I had not forgotten, but—so far as earth was concerned—he had died; I had pronounced him dead myself; had seen his body consigned to the grave. And it had been the body of a splendidly proportioned man—no such pitiful physical wreck as this figure in the bed.
But it had been Jason Croft who had given to me what as nearly amounted to a proof of spiritual life apart from the mortal body as any man might have—who had told me, shortly before his death occurred, the most remarkable tale my ears had ever heard, a tale incredible in itself, and yet one which, despite all arguments against it, I had always felt myself inclined to believe. In addition to that, when his story was ended he had announced that he was forsaking his earthly body for life on another planet; had told me that some day I would receive a call and find his earthly body dead, but that on that other star, Palos—a world in the system of Sirius the Dog Star—he would be possessed of another body and Naia, Princess of Aphur, as wife.
Unbelievable? Of course it was unbelievable. And yet Croft's earth body died, just as he said it would. And if any one could have heard his story as I did when he told it, I think the auditor would have been moved to credence just as I was myself.
Croft was a physician even as I am. He was a scientific man. In addition, he was a student of what most of us call the occult—the science of the mind, the spirit, the soul. So much I know, not only from his words but material evidence. His former home had contained the greatest private collection of works on the subject I have ever seen. According to his own statements, he had advanced so far in his investigations of the subject that he could project his own astral body anywhere at will. And by anywhere, I mean to be understood in the literal sense.
Many men have acquired the ability of which he was master, as applying to the earthly sphere; Croft, however, had carried it to its ultimate degree and had shaken off or entered the atmospheric envelope of our planet at will. In our conversation, which ended with his announcement that he was going back to Palos to wed Naia and live out his life in that other world, he had explained the whole thing to me—largely as I felt at the time and after, because I had dabbled in the occult to some extent, and he knew I would understand, in part at least.
In making clear his motives he had even broached the subject of twin souls—the doctrine that each spirit is originally dual, but incarnates as two individuals—a male and a female in the flesh. He alleged that since a child he had felt a vague prompting toward the Dog Star, which he could not understand until he went there in the astral form, once he had gained the power, and found on Palos a woman—his true counterpart, his twin soul, as he declared his belief.
But, to accomplish his mating with her, Croft declared further that he had done a most remarkable thing. Discovering a man dying from a mental rather than a bodily condition on the other star, he had waited until his death occurred and then appropriated the still physically viable body to himself; and he explained the thing in a very comprehensible manner at the time, describing the whole procedure in a scientific way, until unbelief faltered and one felt that the thing had been done.