"'It is coming, it is coming!' she cried. 'Take me, take me, take me!' And then from speech to song seemed a natural transition, as she sang in a silver-sweet soprano—
"'Angels ever bright and fair,
Take, oh take me to your care.'
"As that lovely melody floated through the room, the slender, girlish form was wafted slowly upward with steady, gradual motion, until it hovered halfway between the ceiling and the floor, the long white robe flowing far below the feet, the golden hair falling below the waist. Nothing more like the conventional idea of an angelic presence could have offered itself to the excited imagination. The figure remained suspended, the arms lifted, and the semi-transparent hands scattering flowers, while we gazed, enthralled by the beauty and gracefulness of that strange vision, and for the moment the hardest of us, even the sea-dog at my side, was a believer.
"Nothing so beautiful could be false, dishonest, ignoble. No; whatever the rest of the séance might be, this at least was no vulgar cheat. We were in the presence of a mysterious being, exceptionally gifted—human, perhaps; but not as the common herd are human.
"I was weak enough to think thus. I had abandoned myself wholly to the glamour of the scene, when the sea-dog started to his feet, as the girl gave a shrill cry of fear. She hung for a moment or two over the table, head downward, and fell in a heap between two of the seated spectators, her head striking against the edge of the table, her long hair streaming wide, and faint moanings as of acute pain issuing from her pallid lips.
"In an instant all was noise and confusion. The sea-captain struck a match, Mr. Ravenshaw produced an end of wax candle, and everybody crowded round the girl, talking and exclaiming unrestrainedly.
"'There, now; didn't I tell you so? All a cheat from beginning to end.'
"'He ought to be prosecuted.'
"'Nobody but fools would have ever believed in such stuff.'