Book Two Chapter 7 The Sleeping Sibyl

As he mounted Simeon's steps he observed that awnings covered the adjacent carriage-block, and that some young people, all in party dress, were entering--a merry, chattering group--whereas the Pratt mansion towered gloomily, unlighted, unalluring as a prison.

He was about to touch the bell when the door opened and a porter softly greeted him. "The meeting has begun, sir. Step right in, sir. This way, sir. Softly, please."

Before he was fairly aware of his attendant's meaning Serviss found himself thrust through a heavily curtained archway into a large room dimly lighted by a single lamp at the farther end. It contained about twenty people, and he hesitated in embarrassment and some amazement at the threshold.

Beneath the light, on a reclining-chair, lay a woman with closed eyes and folded hands. Beside this figure stood Clarke in the midst of an address, every word of which was made dramatically effective by a forced calmness, an elocutionary trick.

"Some of you, my friends, may never have seen any of these mysterious things. So many people say to me, 'Nothing supernatural ever happens where I am.' To you I repeat my answer to them. Have you ever tried to enter the right conditions? Here is a caravan of Arabs on the desert. The road, hard-beaten, is wide and dusty, the necks of the camels sway, the drivers shout, there is the smell of sweat, of leather, of oil. The alkaline dust blinds and blisters. Physical weariness and suffering shut out all else. This is no place to look for heavenly visitors. You would be a fool to expect a demonstration there. But at night when the beasts are at rest, when the cool, starry sky bends close, when the tent-flaps are closed, then the old men sit about and commune with their dead--as all primitive, natural peoples do.