t elevation when, to my astonishment, I saw in the tiny plateau
beneath, three extraordinary shapes. Standing not more than two feet
from the ground, they had the most perfectly proportioned bodies of
human beings, but monstrous heads; their faces had a leadish blue hue,
like that of corpses; their eyes were wide open and glassy. They glided
along slowly and solemnly in Indian file, their grey, straggling hair
and loose white clothes rustling in the breeze; and on arriving at a
slight depression in the ground, they sank and sank, until they entirely
disappeared from view. I then descended from my perch, and made a
thorough examination of the spot where they had vanished. It was firm,
hard, caked soil, without hole or cover, or anything in which they could
possibly have hidden. I was somewhat shocked, as indeed I always am
after an encounter with the superphysical, but not so much shocked as I
should have been had the phantasms been bigger. I visited the same spot
subsequently, but did not see another manifestation.

To revert to trees--fascinating, haunting trees. Much credulity was at
one time attached to the tradition that the tree on which Jesus Christ
was crucified was an aspen, and that, thenceforth, all aspens were
afflicted with a peculiar shivering. Botanists, scientists, and
matter-of-fact people of all sorts pooh-pooh this legend, as, indeed,
many people nowadays pooh-pooh the very existence of Christ. But
something--you may call it intuition--I prefer to call it my Guardian
Spirit--bids me believe both; and I do believe as much in the tradition
of the aspen as in the existence of Christ. Moreover, this intuition or
influence--the work of my Guardian Spirit--whether dealing with things
psychical, psychological, or physical has never yet failed me. If it
warns me of the presence of a phantasm, I subsequently experience some
kind or other of spiritual phenomenon; if it bids me beware of a person,
I am invariably brought to discover later on that that person's
intentions have been antagonistic to me; and if it causes me to deter
from travelling by a certain route, or on a certain day, I always
discover afterwards that it was a very fortunate thing for me that I
abided by its warning. That is why I attach great importance to the
voice of my Guardian Spirit; and that is why, when it tells me that,
despite the many obvious discrepancies and absurdities in the
Scriptures, despite the character of the Old Testament God