Dr Nikola Returns | Page 8

is only because I have
subjected him to a curious form of education. There is a power latent in
animals, and particularly in cats, which few of us suspect. And if
animals have this power, how much more may men be expected to
possess it. Do you know, Mr. Brace, I should be very interested to find
out exactly how far you think the human intelligence can go; that is to
say, how far you think it can penetrate into the regions of what is
generally called the occult?"
"Again I must make the excuse," I said, "that I do not follow you."

"Well, then, let me place it before you in a rather simpler form. If I may
put it so bluntly, where should you be inclined to say this world begins
and ends?"
"I should say," I replied--this time without hesitation--"that it begins
with birth and ends with death."
"And after death?"
"Well, what happens then is a question of theology, and one for the
parsons to decide."
"You have no individual opinion?"
"I have the remnants of what I learned as a boy."
"I see; in that case you believe that as soon as the breath has forsaken
this mortal body a certain indescribable part of us, which for the sake of
argument we will denominate soul, leaves this mundane sphere and
enters upon a new existence in one or other of two places?"
"That is certainly what I was taught," I answered.
"Quite so; that was the teaching you received in the parish of High
Walcombe, Somersetshire, and might be taken as a very good type of
what your class thinks throughout the world, from the Archbishop of
Canterbury down to the farm labourer's child who walks three miles
every seventh day to attend Sunday school. But in that self-same
village, if I remember rightly, there was a little man of portly build
whose adherents numbered precisely forty-five souls; he was called
Father O'Rorke, and I have not the slightest doubt, if you had asked
him, he would have given you quite a different account of what
becomes of that soul, or essence, if we may so call it, after it has left
this mortal body. Tobias Smallcombe, who preaches in a spasmodic,
windy way on the green to a congregation made up of a few enthusiasts,
a dozen small boys, and a handful of donkeys and goats, will give you
yet another, and so on through numberless varieties of creeds to the end
of the chapter. Each will claim the privilege of being right, and each

will want you to believe exactly as he does. But at the same time we
must remember, provided we would be quite fair, that there are not
wanting scientists, admittedly the cleverest men of the day, who assert
that, while all our friends are agreed that there is a life after death--a
spirit world, in fact--they are all wrong. If you will allow me to give
you my own idea of what you think, I should say that your opinion is,
that when you've done with the solid flesh that makes up Wilfred Bruce
it doesn't much matter what happens. But let us suppose that Wilfred
Bruce, or his mind, shall we say?--that part of him at any rate which is
anxious, which thinks and which suffers--is destined to exist afterwards
through endless aeons, a prey to continual remorse for all misdeeds:
how would he regard death then?"
"But before you can expect an answer to that question it is necessary
that you should prove that he does so continue to exist," I said.
"That's exactly what I desire and intend to do," said Nikola, "and it is to
that end I have sought you out, and we are arguing in this fashion now.
Is your time very fully occupied at present?"
I smiled.
"I quite understand," he said. "Well, I have got a proposition to make to
you, if you will listen to me. Years ago and quite by chance, when the
subject we are now discussing, and in which I am more interested than
you can imagine, was first brought properly under my notice, I fell into
the company of a most extraordinary man. He was originally an Oxford
don, but for some reason he went wrong, and was afterwards shot by
Balmaceda at Santiago during the Chilian war. Among other places, he
had lived for many years in North-Western China. He possessed one of
the queerest personalities, but he told me some wonderful things, and
what was more to the point, he backed them with proofs. You would
probably have called them clever conjuring tricks. So did I then, but I
don't now. Nor do I think will you when I have done with you. It was
from