Interface administrators, Administrators (Semantic MediaWiki), Curators (Semantic MediaWiki), Editors (Semantic MediaWiki), Suppressors, Administrators, trusted
5,959
edits
Changes
mLine 8:
Line 8: − + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
no edit summary
{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |Materialization of a Ghost|7-10}}
{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |Materialization of a Ghost|7-10}}
...
{{Style P-No indent|There’s 2,000 of them now within a radius of 100 feet on the end of this pier.”}}
“What! can you see them?”
“See,” said Blathersky. “Ive no need to see them: I possess the inner consciousness of the spiritual, only granted to those who have faith in Osiris and the Pasth of Kameses-Pi-Pe-Pop-Si-Wopsy. I feel them. They commune with me. They draw near unto me. They beseech me to infuse and incense them with a portion of my own immortal essence.”
“Then all ghosts are not immortal?”
“Of course not—”
“Now, madam, that is a point,” remarked the Hierophant.
“Shut up, Hierophant Coldcutt!” said Blathersky. “I am speaking. You see things only from the subsidiary or inferior plane, anyway. No. All ghosts are not immortal. After the change you stupids call death, a large proportion linger for a time about their haunts until they gradually dissipate, fade away and return to their original elements. It’s only knowledge which may retain and use this subtle essence of the elements which will make us immortal. This, once known to be in the possession of a person, either on the earthly or spiritual plane, causes him or her to he eagerly sought for by these elementary or primary spirits, who fell themselves evaporating away. They will crowd around and settle down upon one possessed of this invaluable elixir and, if not prevented, draw it all away from them. Away! Away! Shi-ko-kee-mo-ki-da-ro-ware heme-a-hawn-fol-de-riddle-di-do!”
“What language is that, madam?”
“That spoken by the Cryptogamarians who flourished on this continent 5,000 years before the Egyptians. It is a form of invocation I use to keep the elementaries off.”
“Possibly Old Shep himself is looking for this immortal essence with his lantern?”
“Or he may be seeking an honest ghost,” said a bystander, in a voice resembling that of H. W. Beecher.
“Honestly,” said Blathersky, contemptuously, “is mere idea. All things, qualities and sentiments are relative. In the spirit—or more properly ozonic plane of existence—there’s no such thing as honesty.”
“But the Spiritualists say that in the summer land, over the river, it’s all bliss and purity,” said one.
“Bah! The Spiritualists are as big fools as the church people. Got hold of some vague, flimsy ends of the truth and distorted them. Things are very miserable in the other world—worse than here, far worse.”
“Do you think Old Shep will appear to-night with his lantern?” said a bystander muffled up in a cloak. I recognized the voice as that of the Rev. O. B. Makeyourgame.
“Of course he will,” said Blathersky. “He’ll materialize about two o’clock. Can’t do it sooner on account of the air. Too moist. Spirits like dry air and the moon just out of Apogee and Sirius, in conjunction with Pollux.”
Don’t the stink from the bone-boiling factories at Hunter’s Point rather knock ’em?” I inquired.
“No,” replied Blathersky. “It helps ’em. Gives the coarse order of spirits like Old Shep more elements to materialize with. When I want to get good manifestation at my house I generally have Limburger cheese and garlic for lunch.”
“Yes, and a dead rat in the wainscoting will often make a live ghost,” said Hierophant Coldcutt, with a faint chuckle.
“Shut up!” said Blathersky. “Can you repeat the rag-phi-le-ter from the Post Pliocene Sanscrit vet?”
“No,” said Hierophant Coldcutt.
“Well, you’ll never take the Crystalliphic degree unless you do. I tell you, Hierophant, if you want to he immortal, you must hurry up your cakes. You’re not off the elementary plane yet.”
“There’s the light! There’s the light!” exclaimed several voices.
Sure enough, there it was. It was near one o’clock in the morning. The night was still; only the swash of the tide rushing past the pier was heard, and the occasional creak and groan of a vessel rubbing against the wharf. Every voice was for a moment hushed. Seemingly guided by some invisible hand, the strang light was seen directly in the centre of the river, rising and falling, and at times momentarily obscured in the trough of some higher wave, but never swerving from its course, and headed directly for the Narrows. I must own I felt a strange sense of awe and a ghostly chill. I doubt not out that others were similarly influenced. Their silence and occasional deep sighs proclaimed it. All but Blathersky and Coldcutt. They looked at and talked about the awesome thing like old stagers to whom ghosts were every day affairs and as common as the butcher or the baker.
“It’s a tolerably fair materialization,” said the Hierophant, in an indifferent tone.
“Pshaw! I saw a globe of fire on the mountains in Tartary as big as the sun. It was the soul of a Gbengis-ku-ru-bu—”
“It’s coming toward us!” I recognized that voice, also, despite the muffings of several comforters. It was that of rhe Rev. Mr. Algal.
The corpse candle was, indeed, coming toeard us. Nearer and nearer the strange brilliancy advanced. Something black and indistinguishable loomed up on the water just ahead of it.
“I’m going up the pier a moment,” remarked Hierophant Coldcutt.
“Stay where you are, Hierophant, and don’t be a coward.” Said Blathersky. “Are you afraid of a poor, pining Elementary? It feels my presence here and seeks to commune with me. I may possibly help the spirit. She-ram-a-ta-tu-tuuk-ah-zon-ram-but-ta!”—and the brave old lady maintained her ground like a veteran grenadier of the Guard, while the three policemen in a row boat lifted a wooden image on the pier with a lighted kerosene lantern attached.
“The ghost has materialized to wood,” I said. “How do you explain that, madam?”
But she had vanished, Hierophant, ditto. I caught but a glimpse of them, and they too melted into the night.
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|P.M.}}