"At length we gave up the task of finding them as utterly hopeless. I looked at the porter and shook my head; the porter looked at me and shook his head in return, as much as to say, 'It is a very strange affair!' At that moment a voice, coming from God knows where, for it seemed to issue neither from above nor below, in the house or out of it--a hollow, half-pathetic, half-cynical voice, echoed our unspoken thought--'_It is a VERY strange affair!_' The horror-stricken porter crossed himself devoutly, and, falling on his knees, began to pray, while I in the meanwhile undid the bolts, opened the port, and rushed into the open street.
"The thing was altogether of so weird a character, that I almost doubted the evidence of my senses; yet, on recalling all the circumstances from first to last, the testimony affirming the events was altogether too strong, overpowering and direct, to be doubted for an instant.
"In books of ancient lore; in the old Black letter volumes of antiquity; in the recital of the exploits of Appolonius of TYANÆ; in the Life of Darwin; in the story of Grugantus, and in the 'Records of the Weird Brethren of Appulia,' I had read of Magic Marvels, almost too wonderful for the belief of those ignorant masses contemporaneous with the authors and heroes of the various legends. But in the light of modern learning, all these things had been resolved into three primitive elements, and these were: 1st., and principal. Ignorance of the Masses. 2d. The clouds of superstition which for long ages hovered over the world. And, 3d. The amazing skill possessed by the various arch-impostors of antiquity. Thus I accounted for much that was reported to have taken place in 'ye Olden Tyme;' but how to explain away what myself and several others had just witnessed, on the same easy and general hypothesis, was a task altogether beyond achievement. To attempt to get rid of the difficulty on the supposition of mere 'Fancy,' was simply ridiculous: and yet, while one does not feel at liberty to admit the idea of Magic, here were circumstances of such a tremendous character, as to utterly forbid and defy explication upon any other ground whatever.
