"I say!" he said at last, just as I was fishing for an ember from the wood fire to lay upon the Taduki in the bowl, "I thought this job was a joke, but you seem jolly solemn about it, Allan. Do you really think it dangerous?"
"Yes, I do, but more to the spirit than to the body. I think, to judge from my own experience, that anyone who has once breathed Taduki will wish to do so again. Shall we give it up? It isn't too late."
"No," answered Good. "I never funked anything yet, and I won't begin now. 'Lay on, Macduff'!"
"So be it, Good. But first of all, listen to me. Move that armchair of yours close to mine, but not quite up against it. I am going to place the brazier just between and a little in front of us. When the stuff catches a blue flame will burn for about thirty secondsat least, this happened on a previous occasion. So soon as it dies away and you see the smoke begin to rise, bend your head forward and a little sideways so that it strikes you full in the face, but in such a fashion that, when you become insensible, the weight of your body will cause you to fall back into the chair, not outward to the floor. It is quite easy if you are careful. Then open your mouth and draw the vapour down into your lungs. Two or three breaths will suffice, as it works very quickly."
"Just like laughing gas," remarked Good. "I only hope I shan't wake with all my teeth out. The last time I took it I felt"
"Stop joking," I said, "for this is a serious matter."
"A jolly sight too serious! Is there anything else?"
"No. That is, if there is anybody you particularly wish to see, you might concentrate your thoughts on him"
"Him! I can't think of any him, unless it is the navigating lieutenant of my first ship, with whom I always want to have it out in the next world, as he is gone from this, the brute."
"On her, then; I meant her."
"Then why didn't you say so instead of indulging in pharisaical humbug? Who would breathe poison just to meet another man?"
"I would," I replied firmly.
"That's a lie," muttered Good. "Hullo! don't be in such a hurry with that coal, I ain't ready. Ought I to say any hocuspocus? Dash it all! it is like a nightmare about being hanged."
"No," I replied, as I dropped the ember onto the Taduki just as Lady Ragnall had done. "Now, play fair, Good," I added, "for I don't know what the effect of half a dose would be; it might drive you mad. Look, the flame is burning! Open your mouth and arrange your weight as I said, and when your head begins to whirl, lean back at the end of the third deep breath."
The mysterious, billowy vapour arose as the pale blue flame died away, and spread itself out fanwise.
"Aye, aye, my hearty," said Good, and thrust his face into it with such vigour that he brought his head into violent contact with mine, as I leant forward from the other side.
I heard him mutter some words that were better left unsaid, for often enough Good's language would have borne editing. Then I heard no more and forgot that he existed.
My mind became wonderfully clear and I found myself arguing in a fashion that would have done credit to the greatest of the Greek philosophers upon all sorts of fundamental problems. All I can remember about that argument or lecture is that, in part at any rate, it dealt with the possibility of reincarnation, setting out the pros and cons in a most vivid manner.
My mind became wonderfully clear and I found myself arguing in a fashion that would have done credit to the greatest of the Greek philosophers upon all sorts of fundamental problems. All I can remember about that argument or lecture is that, in part at any rate, it dealt with the possibility of reincarnation, setting out the pros and cons in a most vivid manner.
Even if I had not forgotten them, these may be passed over, as they are familiar to students of such subjects. The end of the exposition, however, was to the effect that, accepted as it is by a quarter of the inhabitants of the earth, this doctrine should not lightly be set aside, seeing that in it there is hope for man; that it is at least worthy of consideration. If the sages who have preached it, from Plato downand indeed for countless ages before his time, since without doubt he borrowed it from the Eastare right, then at least we pure human creatures do not appear and die like gnats upon a summer's eve, but in that seeming day pass on to life eternally renewed, climbing a kind of Jacob's ladder to the skies.
It is true that as our foot leaves it, each rung of that ladder vanishes. Below is darkness and all the gulf of Time. Above is darkness and we know not what. Yet our hands cling to the uprights and our feet stand firm upon a rung, and we know that we do not fall, but mount; also that, in the nature of things, a ladder must lean against some support and lead somewhere. A melancholy business, this tread mill doctrine, it may be said, where one rung is so like another and there are so many of them. And yet, and yetis it not better than that of the bubble which bursts and is gone? Aye, because life is better than death, especially if it be progressive life, and if at last it may lead to some joy undreamed, to some supernal light in which we shall see all the path that we have trodden, and with it the deep foundations of the Rock of Being upon which our ladder stands and the gates of Eternal Calm whereon it leans.