al that it strikes us with
terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a
piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain chemical
coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to
be totally invisible. It is not _theoretically impossible_, mind you, to
make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of light--a glass so
pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun will pass
through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We
do not see the air, and yet we feel it."

"That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances.
Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. This thing has a heart
that palpitates--a will that moves it--lungs that play, and inspire and
respire."

"You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of late,"
answered the doctor gravely. "At the meetings called 'spirit circles,'
invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round
the table--warm, fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal life."

"What? Do you think, then, that this thing is----"

"I don't know what it is," was the solemn reply; "but please the gods I
will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it."

We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside
of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently
wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it
slept.

The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on
the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had
to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary
prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could
be induced to set foot in the apartment.

The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in
which the bed-clothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was
something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand
indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty
which themselves were invisible.

Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to
discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general
appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our
hands over the creature's form, its outlines and lineaments were human.
There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which,