dream or a trance. Nature may build a beautiful door and hang it
with many a gauzy and shimmering curtain to make an entrance to
the new life for our wondering souls. In all my probings of the
actual, I have always found wisdom and kindness at the core; and
if ever the frightened mortal needs tenderness, it is surely as
he makes the passage perilous from life to life. No, Summerlee,
I will have none of your materialism, for I, at least, am too
great a thing to end in mere physical constituents, a packet of
salts and three bucketfuls of water. Here--here"--and he beat
his great head with his huge, hairy fist--"there is something
which uses matter, but is not of it--something which might
destroy death, but which death can never destroy."

"Talkin' of death," said Lord John. "I'm a Christian of sorts,
but it seems to me there was somethin' mighty natural in those
ancestors of ours who were buried with their axes and bows and
arrows and the like, same as if they were livin' on just the
same as they used to. I don't know," he added, looking round the
table in a shamefaced way, "that I wouldn't feel more homely
myself if I was put away with my old .450 Express and the
fowlin'-piece, the shorter one with the rubbered stock, and a
clip or two of cartridges--just a fool's fancy, of course, but
there it is. How does it strike you, Herr Professor?"

"Well," said Summerlee, "since you ask my opinion, it strikes me
as an indefensible throwback to the Stone Age or before it. I'm
of the twentieth century myself, and would wish to die like a
reasonable civilized man. I don't know that I am more afraid of
death than the rest of you, for I am an oldish man, and, come
what may, I can't have very much longer to live; but it is all