Beyond the limits of the city arose, in frequent majestic groups,
      the palm and the cocoa, with other gigantic and weird trees of
      vast age; and here and there might be seen a field of rice, the
      thatched hut of a peasant, a tank, a stray temple, a gypsy camp,
      or a solitary graceful maiden taking her way, with a pitcher upon
      her head, to the banks of the magnificent river. “You will say now, of course, that I dreamed; but not so. What I
      saw—what I heard—what I felt—what I thought—had about it nothing
      of the unmistakable idiosyncrasy of the dream. All was rigorously
      self-consistent. At first, doubting that I was really awake, I
      entered into a series of tests, which soon convinced me that I
      really was. Now, when one dreams, and, in the dream, suspects
      that he dreams, the suspicion never fails to confirm itself, and
      the sleeper is almost immediately aroused. Thus Novalis errs not
      in saying that ‘we are near waking when we dream that we dream.’
      Had the vision occurred to me as I describe it, without my
      suspecting it as a dream, then a dream it might absolutely have
      been, but, occurring as it did, and suspected and tested as it
      was, I am forced to class it among other phenomena.”

      “In this I am not sure that you are wrong,” observed Dr.
      Templeton, “but proceed. You arose and descended into the city.”

      “I arose,” continued Bedloe, regarding the Doctor with an air of
      profound astonishment “I arose, as you say, and descended into
      the city. On my way I fell in with an immense populace, crowding
      through every avenue, all in the same direction, and exhibiting
      in every action the wildest excitement. Very suddenly, and by
      some inconceivable impulse, I became intensely imbued with
      personal interest in what was going on. I seemed to feel that I
      had an important part to play, without exactly understanding what
      it was. Against the crowd which environed me, however, I
      experienced a deep sentiment of animosity. I shrank from amid
      them, and, swiftly, by a circuitous path, reached and entered the
      city. Here all was the wildest tumult and contention. A small
      party of men, clad in garments half Indian, half European, and
      officered by gentlemen in a uniform partly British, were engaged,
      at great odds, with the swarming rabble of the alleys. I joined
      the weaker party, arming myself with the weapons of a fallen
      officer, and fighting I knew not whom with the nervous ferocity
      of despair. We were soon overpowered by numbers, and driven to
      seek refuge in a species of kiosk. Here we barricaded ourselves,
      and, for the present were secure. From a loop-hole near the
      summit of the kiosk, I perceived a vast crowd, in furious
      agitation, surrounding and assaulting a gay palace that overhung
      the river. Presently, from an upper window of this place, there
      descended an effeminate-looking person, by means of a string made
      of the turbans of his attendants. A boat was at hand, in which he
      escaped to the opposite bank of the river. “And now a new object took possession of my soul. I spoke a few
      hurried but energetic words to my companions, and, having
      succeeded in gaining over a few of them to my purpose made a
      frantic sally from the kiosk. We rushed amid the crowd that
      surrounded it. They retreated, at first, before us. They rallied,
      fought madly, and retreated again. In the mean time we were borne
      far from the kiosk, and became bewildered and entangled among the
      narrow streets of tall, overhanging houses, into the recesses of
      which the sun had never been able to shine. The rabble pressed
      impetuously upon us, harrassing us with their spears, and
      overwhelming us with flights of arrows. These latter were very
      remarkable, and resembled in some respects the writhing creese of
      the Malay. They were made to imitate the body of a creeping
      serpent, and were long and black, with a poisoned barb. One of
      them struck me upon the right temple. I reeled and fell. An
      instantaneous and dreadful sickness seized me. I struggled—I
      gasped—I died.”

       “You will hardly persist _now_,” said I smiling, “that the whole
       of your adventure was not a dream. You are not prepared to
       maintain that you are dead?”

      When I said these words, I of course expected some lively sally
      from Bedloe in reply, but, to my astonishment, he hesitated,
      trembled, became fearfully pallid, and remained silent. I looked
      toward Templeton. He sat erect and rigid in his chair—his teeth
      chattered, and his eyes were starting from their sockets. “Proceed!” he at length said hoarsely to Bedloe. “For many minutes,” continued the latter, “my sole sentiment—my
      sole feeling—was that of darkness and nonentity, with the
      consciousness of death. At length there seemed to pass a violent
      and sudden shock through my soul, as if of electricity. With it
      came the sense of elasticity and of light. This latter I felt—not
      saw. In an instant I seemed to rise from the ground. But I had no
      bodily, no visible, audible, or palpable presence. The crowd had
      departed. The tumult had ceased. The city was in comparative
      repose. Beneath me lay my corpse, with the arrow in my temple,
      the whole head greatly swollen and disfigured. But all these
      things I felt—not saw. I took interest in nothing. Even the
      corpse seemed a matter in which I had no concern. Volition I had
      none, but appeared to be impelled into motion, and flitted
      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.