day, when I am tired of the world, I shall go to India and become a
mahatma, solely for the pleasure of receiving proof during life of this
independent relationship."

"Suppose you were not sealed up properly, and returned after one of your
astral flights to find your earthly part unfit for habitation? It is an
experiment I don't think I should care to try, unless even juggling with
soul and flesh had palled."

"That would not be an uninteresting predicament. I should rather enjoy
experimenting with broken machinery."

The high wild roar of water smote suddenly upon Weigall's ear and
checked his memories. He left the wood and walked out on the huge
slippery stones which nearly close the River Wharfe at this point, and
watched the waters boil down into the narrow pass with their furious
untiring energy. The black quiet of the woods rose high on either side.
The stars seemed colder and whiter just above. On either hand the
perspective of the river might have run into a rayless cavern. There
was no lonelier spot in England, nor one which had the right to claim so
many ghosts, if ghosts there were.

Weigall was not a coward, but he recalled uncomfortably the tales of
those that had been done to death in the Strid.[1] Wordsworth's Boy of
Egremond had been disposed of by the practical Whitaker; but countless
others, more venturesome than wise, had gone down into that narrow
boiling course, never to appear in the still pool a few yards beyond.
Below the great rocks which form the walls of the Strid was believed to
be a natural vault, on to whose shelves the dead were drawn. The spot
had an ugly fascination. Weigall stood, visioning skeletons, uncoffined