He paused, and for a moment, so bewildered was I by the strangeness of it all, that I sat speechless, my brain in a whirl.
Thinking to overcome my amazement, I reached for the wine decanter, which was on the table before me, and into the glass nearest me I poured some of the strong wine which Sayres always kept at hand. After draining it, I looked up to see a gleam of satisfaction flit across his countenance.
“Thornton,” said he, “in that glass of wine there was enough of the drug to render you temporarily dead for two hours, as I can best calculate. In five minutes you will be unconscious. I want you to undergo the same experience which I have safely passed through, so that we may later exchange ideas on the subject.”
In spite of his assurance, a deadly fear took possession of me, and I swore and expostulated at his unfair treatment. With undisturbed calm, he again spoke to me, endeavoring to dispel my fears, and assuring me that he would be conversing with me again at the end of the two hours.
Even as he was speaking his words became indistinct, and an overpowering dizziness seized me. Then came a moment of which I have no recollection, after which, by the fact that I stood, or seemed to stand, within a few feet of the chair in which I had been seated, gazing at myself, even now in the same position, I knew that my body was without a soul, even as Sayres had said, and that I was the soul standing there!
I looked about me, and in place of the invisible atmosphere which I was accustomed to, the room seemed filled with a constantly moving, pulsating vapor, dense, gray and foglike, but through which I could discern objects with as much ease as ordinarily.
I saw my friend lift my body from the chair, lay it on a bench and place a cushion under the head. Then he began pacing to and fro, up and down, back and forth, and I found that I could move about at will and follow him.
I attempted to speak to him, but now there was no sound; I reached forth my hand to grasp a chair, but it offered no resistance, and I realized that I indeed occupied no space, but was nevertheless in space and a part of space. I saw my friend’s lips move as though he were speaking. I heard no sound, but was able to understand his words, although he did not address me.
The glare of the lamps gave me a sensation which, had I been in my physical form, I should have termed pain, and I much preferred to keep in a dark corner. By a direct mental communication, of which I was not at the time aware, I was able to signify this fact to Sayres, and he at once turned out all the lights, leaving the laboratory lighted only by a low fire in the grate at the end of the room. I was then astonished to find that the absence of light had no effect upon my visual powers, and that I could see in the dark as well as before.