Then I learned an important feature of this mind language. A hundred or more interrogations came flying at me in thick confusion. At once the chairman or leader of the meeting gave restrictive orders which actually prohibited my audience from further communication with me, although I might address them. The chairman bid me commune with him and he thereafter acted as the spokesman of the whole assembly. It was no more difficult for these philosophers to keep their minds closed to me than it is for us to keep our mouths closed in an excitable meeting or debate.
The chairman, looking with increasing curiosity at my strangely shaped face and head, interrogated me thus:
"Are you an angel of light, or one of darkness?"
"I am neither."
"What then can you be?"
"I am a created being from a far-off region of space. I was born on a world which revolves around a star untold millions of miles distant."
"If you are not a spirit, how could you have traveled such incredible distances?"
"That is yet a mystery to me," I admitted. "The power of my flight is much like the mode of your communication, for each is alike mysterious to me."
By this time the excitement was intense. No one attempted to grasp me or even approach toward me. I saw by the perplexing mental atmosphere of the chairman that he was being besieged by a host of questions and suggestions; so I relieved the situation by continuing my words:
"No one need consider my appearance as an evil omen. I am not empowered to curse or bless your world except by what may flow from my immediate conversation with you."