In this connection, however, I will mention something which, if it be true,
throws a new and strange light upon his psychological condition. There is
reason to believe that he visited the secret chamber in a somnambulistic
state. The evidence on which this supposition is founded appears, at this
distance of time, rather imperfect; but it is certain that a few weeks
after the boy's entrance upon his unintelligent state, the silver rod was
lost sight of; and it is almost certain that during the time of its
disappearance it was lying in its hidden receptacle under the floor beside
the mantelpiece. But in that case, who but Archibald could have put it
there? and when could he have put it there save in his sleep? It is known
that he was a somnambulist during his unenlightened period, though never
in his alternate state; and if he, as a somnambulist, remembered the
hiding-place of the rod, it follows that he must also have remembered the
rod's use, and visited the secret chamber. Thus it would seem that only in
the boy's waking hours was he oblivious and stupid; in his dreams he
truly lived and was awake! Here, then, is a complication of absorbing
interest, which I will leave for physicians and metaphysicians to fight
out between themselves. For my part, I can only look on in respectful
bewilderment.

But we must leave Archibald for the present, and occupy our minds with the
proceedings of the other personages of this drama. An era of disaster was
in store for most of them. It is curious to note how the proverb that
misfortunes never come single was illustrated in the case of these people.
Fate seems to have launched its thunderbolts at them all at once, as if
making up for lost time; or like a playwright, who clears his stage of all
secondary and superfluous characters, and leaves a free field wherein the
two or three principal people may meet and work out their destiny
unimpeded.