For Louis Brandon is known to have fallen overboard from the ship Java, during a tremendous monsoon, several hundred miles away from any land. How could he possibly have escaped death? The Captain, whom Courtenay Despard found out and questioned, said he threw over a hen-coop and a pail. These could not save him. Despard also inquired for months from every ship that arrived from those parts, but could learn nothing. The next ship that came from New South Wales foundered off the coast of Africa. Three passengers escaped to Sierra Leone, and thence to England. Despard learned their names, but they were not Brandon. The information which one of them, named Wheeler, gave to the ship-owners afforded no hope of his having been found by this ship, even if it had been possible. It was simply impossible, however, for the Falcon did not pass the spot where poor Brandon fell overboard till months had elapsed.
All these things I knew, and they came to my mind. She did not notice my emotion, but after a pause she looked at me again with the same earnestness, and said,
“My brother Frank is not dead.”
This surprised me as much as the other.
“Are you sure?” said I, reverently.
“I am.”
“How did you learn this? All who have inquired say that both of your brothers are dead.”
“They told me,” said she, “many times. They said that my brothers had not come among them to their own place, as they would have had to come if they had left the earth.”
She spoke solemnly and with mysterious emphasis. I said nothing, for I knew not what to say.
On going home and thinking over this, I saw that she believed herself to have the power of communicating with the departed. I did not know whether this intelligence, which she believed she had received, had been gained in her trance, or whether she thought that she had recent interviews with those on high. I went to see her again, and asked this. She told me that once since her recovery she had fallen into that state, and had been, as she called it, “in her home.”