"Then the vision I see is a portion of a human soul about to leave its earthy tenement?" asked I.
"By no means," replied the sage. "The owner of that limb has yet some years of material life before him, although, I observe, he is aged. The reason that you see but the leg and not the rest of the body, is that that portion of the physical body is wanting. You cannot perceive his corporeal body because you are now in the spirit, and the spirit can only see that which is spiritual, as likewise the material eye only that which is material. You are sufficiently spiritual to see spirits who are yet encumbered with clay, but not enough so to see spirits perfectly disembodied. On the other hand, being withdrawn from the body, you are not yet sufficiently material to descry material bodies."
"Then in fact," I observed, "the vision that I see before me is the spirit leg of someone who in my world has lost his material leg?"
"Precisely so," the sage replied, "for mortals live in two worlds at the same time; in the material world as to their bodies, in the spiritual world as to their spirits. I should imagine," added he, regarding the vision fixedly, "from the way in which it seems to approach you that it belonged to some friend or relation of yours. Have you no relation in the world who has lost a leg?" he asked.
"A relation who has lost a leg?" I exclaimed, for instantly my uncle, the admiral, flashed across my mind.
"Exactly so, your uncle, the admiral," he replied, reading my thoughts.
There was an individuality about the limb that from the beginning seemed familiar to me. It was a right leg, too, the very leg that my uncle had lost. There could be no mistake about it.
Then said I to my guide, "I recognise the leg, sure enough, but is its appearance now a sign that he is near me in the body?"
"If not so, at least in thought," responded the sage.
By this time my companion told me that we had already arrived on earth, and said that he must now leave me, so we embraced, and he vanished from my sight. Then the mist around me suddenly cleared away, and I was surprised to find myself once again in my laboratory, seated in the same old carved arm-chair, and surrounded by several persons.