eemed to cause his death, the neighbours would
remember how he had before been haunted. Then, in any case, what more
natural than to disinter the body of a supposed visitant, to know why he
is unquiet in the grave? Then, if once a body so disinterred were found
in the fresh and undecomposed state, the whole delusion would start into
existence. The violence used would force blood from the corpse; and that
would be construed into the blood of a victim. The absence of a scar on
the throat of the victim, would throw no difficulty in the way to the
vampyr theory, because vampyrs enjoyed the ghostly character, and all
its privileges. Supposing, again, that at any time chance had brought to
light a body interred alive, and lying still in this fit, the whole yarn
of superstition might again have been spun from that clue.

Do you want more than this? I shall begin to think you at heart
superstitious. I tell you it is contrary to the rules of inductive
logic, to look for, or to use more principles than are sufficient for
the reasonable explanation of phenomena. Yet you urge, do you, that it
is no less unphilosophical, in an obscure and unsettled inquiry, wholly
to exclude the consideration of unlikely possibilities?--Well! it is
nothing to me. Have it your own way: suppose, if you like, that the man
in the grave _had_ something to do with spreading the disease, and that
his nervous system, in its abnormal state, could put itself in relation
with that of another person at a distance. If you like it, have it so.
In one sense, it simplifies the matter. But though I cannot deny your
supposition to be possible, you will excuse me if I profess to hold the
solution, which I have myself given, to be sufficient.

Well! _there_ is an end of the subject, at all events; and I accept your
thanks for having told you all I know about vampyrism. I deserve them
more than you are aware. At the churchyard in Meduegna, my dear Archy, I
had you thoroughly in my power. I saw how your curiosity was raised, and
that an picture I had drawn would have been accepted by you with
avidity; and I must confess it did at one moment occur to me, to
describe to you the exact dress and deportment of the three regimental
surgeons, or Feldscherers, (a handsome word signifying field-barbers),
John Flickinger, Isaac Stegel, and John Fredrick Baumgartner, as well as
the behaviour and remarks of a drummer boy, who held the instrument case
during the _intermortem_ examina