As I was yet in two minds, thinking that perhaps after all I was being deceived by works of the devil, yesterday, when my assistant was absent, I conjured the spirits in the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost to appear and tell me whether they knew of a certain Bartlett Greene and whether he had been found worthy to be called their friend and companion. First I heard a strange whistling laughter in the air, which perplexed me, but straightway after the spirits appeared and repudiated such a suggestion with great uproar and all around me from the walls and floor curious metallic voices rang out, ordering me to to abjure any companionship with that selfsame minion of Black Isaïs, and later they told me in the presence of my old friends, Harry Price and Edmund Talbot, as a token of their omniscience, a secret known only to myself and that I had even kept hidden from my wife Jane. They spurned all suspicion against the inhabitants of the world beyond and told me that my relationship with Bartlett Greene could only be dissolved if I disposed of the coal scrying-glass that he had given me in the Tower. And in the Name of God they ordered me put this stone or coal crystal from me straightway and to consign it to the fire as a sign of my contrition.
This was a glorious triumph over the doubts of my assistant Gardner, who said not a word when I told him what the spirits had ordained; in my innermost heart I renounced him. As my chief desire was to break with everything which might remind me of Bartlett Greene, or even bind me to him, early this morning I took the coal out of its hiding place and burnt it before Gardner’s eyes in a fierce fire in the alchymical furnace. I was no little astonished – Gardner showed no sign of surprise and observed the whole matter earnestly – to see the cool, smooth stone flare up in a green blaze without smoke and disappear, leaving no trace of ash or cinder.
Since then a day and a night have passed and in that night the head of Bartlett Greene appeared with a mocking grin; I presume he was grinning to conceal the fury he must have felt that I had consigned his coal scrying-glass to the flames. Then he disappeared in green smoke which distorted his features so that for a moment it seemed they had been transformed into those of a face I did not recognise – the face of a man, unknown to me, whose hair lay so close upon his cheeks that it almost seemed he had no ears. But that must have been my imagining. Thereupon I dreamed I saw the tree on Gladhill once more and heard its voice that said:
“Seek to further the healing process: matter must be mortified that the elixir of eternal life shall be extracted from it.” That filled me with trepidation and a melancholy which continued long after I awoke, so that I felt a great urge to ask Gardner’s counsel, whether he thought I was threatened with some misfortune; I felt it would be fickleness in me to turn to the man whom I had already repudiated in my heart but strangely my fear outweighed my pride. I went to our laboratorium. But instead of Gardner I found a polite but brief letter from him in which he bade me farewell “for a long, long time, if not for ever”. – – –
I was no little surprised when, at about the hour of ten in the morning, my servant announced a visitor and an unknown man entered the room who, as I could see straightway, had had both ears cut off. The scars around the earholes told me that this mutilation must have taken place but a little while ago, perhaps for some crime against the laws of the land. As I knew that in these days all too often it is innocent people who are condemned to this punishment, I determined not to condemn him out of hand for it. I was strengthened in this by the fact that his features bore no similarity to those of the face I had dreamed of during the night. I presumed it must have been a prognostic dream for the following day. The stranger was taller than I, broader and of coarser features, which suggested no very noble parentage. His age was difficult to determine, for his almost chinless face with a receding forehead and impudent, beak-like nose was in part concealed by long hair and a full, somewhat unkempt beard. He seemed to be fairly young and I guessed he was in his late thirties. He later confided in me that he was not yet twenty-eight; that would make him younger than my wife, Jane Fromont. And yet at such an age this man claims to have travelled throughout these islands and undertaken many journeys to France and the Dutch provinces. His features bear witness to the truth of this: his expression is of a restless adventurer and one, to judge by his furrowed face, who has suffered cruelly under the plough of fate.
He came up close to me and said in a low
