"Yes, if he knows the method of controlling his spirit to affect his object," Croft replied.
"May go to other places while his body remains where he leaves it—and see and know, and return again?" Zud said. His eagerness struck Croft as almost pathetic. It was like that of a child.
"Yes," he repeated again.
"It is hard to believe," said Zud.
"Would you like to have proof?" Croft decided to convince the high priest now and at once.
"Proof?" Zud queried.
"Yes. Would you like to leave this body of yours, Zud of Zitra, under my direction, learn I have spoken the truth?"
His words were followed by a widening of the high priest's eyes. In them waked something like a startled desire, combined with a cautious hesitation. His whole expression was that of one who falters on the brink of the unknown, longing to dare it yet deterred by the very fact that it is the unknown.
"Thou canst bring that about?" he questioned at length.
"Yes, if you obey me wholly." Croft held him with a steady regard. To him that which he meant to do was no more than play. To cast this old man into a cataleptic sleep by his own consent and project his astral consciousness, whither he willed, was naught for one who by his own volition had spanned the gap of interstellar space. Yet to Zud the venture seemed to appear very vast, and he hesitated yet a moment briefly before: