ted buoyantly out of the
city, retracing the circuitous path by which I had entered it. When I
had attained that point of the ravine in the mountains at which I had
encountered the hyena, I again experienced a shock as of a galvanic
battery, the sense of weight, of volition, of substance, returned. I
became my original self, and bent my steps eagerly homeward--but the
past had not lost the vividness of the real--and not now, even for an
instant, can I compel my understanding to regard it as a dream."

"Nor was it," said Templeton, with an air of deep solemnity, "yet it
would be difficult to say how otherwise it should be termed. Let us
suppose only, that the soul of the man of to-day is upon the verge of
some stupendous psychal discoveries. Let us content ourselves with this
supposition. For the rest I have some explanation to make. Here is a
watercolor drawing, which I should have shown you before, but which
an unaccountable sentiment of horror has hitherto prevented me from
showing."

We looked at the picture which he presented. I saw nothing in it of an
extraordinary character, but its effect upon Bedloe was prodigious. He
nearly fainted as he gazed. And yet it was but a miniature portrait--a
miraculously accurate one, to be sure--of his own very remarkable
features. At least this was my thought as I regarded it.

"You will perceive," said Templeton, "the date of this picture--it
is here, scarcely visible, in this corner--1780. In this year was the
portrait taken. It is the likeness of a dead friend--a Mr. Oldeb--to
whom I became much attached at Calcutta, during the administration of
Warren Hastings. I was then only twenty years old. When I first saw you,
Mr. Bedloe, at Saratoga, it was the miraculous similarity which existed
between yourself and the painting which induced me to accost you,
to seek your friendship, and to bring about those arrangements which
resulted in my becoming your constant companion. In accomplishing this
point, I was urged partly, and perhaps principally, by a regretful
memory of the deceased, but also, in part, by an uneasy, and not
altogether horrorless curiosity respecting yourself.

"In your detail of the vision which presented itself to you amid the
hills, you have described, with the minutest accuracy, the Indian city
of Benares, upon the Holy River. The riots, the combat, the massacre,
were the actual events of the insurrection of Cheyte Sing, which took
place in 1780, when Hasting