There sat the affrighted guests staring at one another with pale faces.
But, to the amazement and horror of all, the little table in the centre stood empty—not a single gem, not a fraction of the gold that had lain upon it was left. All had disappeared.
The truth seemed to burst upon everyone at once. There was no doubt of what had happened.
The gold and the jewels had been deastralized. Under the occult power of the vision they had been demonetized, engulfed into the astral plane along with the vanishing Buddha.
Filled with the sense of horror still to come, somebody pulled aside the little screen. They fully expected to find the lifeless bodies of Mr. Yahi-Bahi and the faithful Ram Spudd. What they saw before them was more dreadful still. The outer Oriental garments of the two devotees lay strewn upon the floor. The long sash of Yahi-Bahi and the thick turban of Ram Spudd were side by side near them; almost sickening in its repulsive realism was the thick black head of hair of the junior devotee, apparently torn from his scalp as if by lightning and bearing a horrible resemblance to the cast-off wig of an actor.
The truth was too plain.
"They are engulfed!" cried a dozen voices at once.
It was realized in a flash that Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd had paid the penalty of their daring with their lives. Through some fatal neglect, against which they had fairly warned the participants of the seance, the two Orientals had been carried bodily in the astral plane.
"How dreadful!" murmured Mr. Snoop. "We must have made some awful error."
"Are they deastralized?" murmured Mrs. Buncomhearst.