nside my pocket. Now, really, Bolter had some mystic power of seeing
in the dark."

"Hyperaesthesia!" said I.

"Hypercriticism!" said the Beach-comber.

"What happened next _might_ be hyperaesthesia--I suppose you mean
abnormal intensity of the senses--but how could hyperaesthesia see
through a tweed coat and lining?"

"Well, what happened next?"

"Bolter's firm used to get sheep by every mail from ---, and send them
regularly to their station, six miles off. One time they landed late
in the afternoon, and yet were foolishly sent off, Bolter in charge.
I said at the time he would lose half the lot, as it would be dark
long before he could reach the station. He didn't lose them!

"Next day I met one of the niggers who was sent to lend him a hand,
and asked results.

"'Master,' said the nigger, 'Bolter is a devil! He sees at night.
When the sheep ran away to right or left in the dark, he told us where
to follow.'"

"He _heard_ them, I suppose," said I.

"Maybe, but you must be sharp to have sharper senses than these
niggers. Anyhow, that was not Bolter's account of it. When I saw him
and spoke to him he said simply, 'Yes, that when excited or interested
to seek or find anything in obscurity the object became covered with a
dim glow of light, which rendered it visible'. 'But things in a
pocket.' 'That also,' said he. 'Curious isn't it? Probably the
Rontgen rays are implicated therein, eh?'"

"Did you ever read Dr. Gregory's Letters on Animal Magnetism?"

"The cove that invented Gregory's Mixture?"

"Yes."

"Beast he must have been. No, I never read him."

"He says that Major Buckley's hypnotised subjects saw hidden objects
in a blue light--mottoes inside a nut, for example."

"Rontgen rays, for a fiver! But Bolter said nothing about seeing
_blue_ light. Well, after three or four seances Bolter used to be
very nervous and unwilling to sleep alone, so I once went with him to
his one-roomed hut. We turned into the same bed. I was awakened
later by a noise and movement in the room. Found the door open; the
full moon streaming in, making light like day, and the place full of
great big black dogs--well, anyhow there were four or five! They were
romping about, seemingly playing. One jumped on the bed, another
rubbed his muzzle on mine! (the bed was low, and I slept outside).
Now I never had anything but love for dogs of any kind, and as--n'est-
ce pas?--love casts out fear, I simply got up, t