"Take it away," the wonder-worker said, "and let me rest a little before I try anything more. You will find the tree to-morrow, and I think you will concede that it is too bulky to have been concealed under these fleshings. If you think it only an optical delusion or the result of hypnotism, try to-morrow by the senses of persons who do not know how it was produced."
He sat for some moments with his head bowed in his hands. Then at his direction a globe about a foot in diameter was filled with clear water and placed on the table. The lights were then turned down so as to leave all the room in shadow except the platform.
"I must ask you to be as quiet as possible," the magician requested. "The experiment is a difficult one, and from living in the atmosphere which surrounds my daily life I am out of the proper condition."
Putting his hands behind him, he sank downward on the slab to his knees, and so reached forward as to press his thumbs upon his great toes. The position was a singular one, and earlier in the evening might have raised a smile. Now all was breathless silence for a couple of moments. Then the stranger sprang suddenly to his full height, and directed his forefinger with a violent movement toward the globe. A spark of violet light not unlike that from an electric battery flashed from the outstretched finger to the globe, and was seen to remain like a star in the midst of the water.
From this violet centre, with slow, sinuous movement, numerous filaments of light grew out in the liquid, until the globe was filled with tangled and intertwined threads like the roots of a hyacinth in its glass. Slowly, slowly, the nucleus rose to the surface, dragging the threads behind it. Then above the water began to form a faint haze. With gradual motion it mounted, absorbing by degrees the fire from the phosphorescent fibres which served for its roots, until a faintly luminous pillar of dully glowing mist four or five feet high showed above the mouth of the globe.
The magician made strange gestures, and a slow rotary motion was discerned in the cloud. Without abrupt or definitely marked alteration the pillar was modified in shape until more and more plainly was evident a resemblance to the human form. He rose to his full height, and extended both his hands toward the figure. Slowly it detached itself from the water and from the globe, and floated in the air, the perfect shape of a woman, transparent, faintly luminous, but with a lustre less cold than at first. One of the men drew in his breath with a deep and audible inspiration. The shape wavered, and another spectator impulsively cried "Hush!" The word seemed to break the spell. The wonderful visionary form trembled, shivered, and its exquisite beauty melted in the air.