Yet the sight I had to witness
was horrible, almost beyond the power of human conception and the most
fearful fantasy; something pushed out from the body there on the floor,
and stretched forth, a slimy wavering tentacle, across the room, and
grasped the bust upon the cupboard, and laid it down on my desk. When it was over, and I was left to walk up and down all the rest of the
night, white and shuddering, with sweat pouring from my flesh, I vainly
tried to reason with myself; I said, truly enough, that I had seen
nothing really supernatural, that a snail pushing out his horns and
drawing them in was but an instance on a smaller scale of what I had
witnessed; and yet horror broke through all such reasonings and left me
shattered and loathing myself for the share I had taken in the night's
work. There is little more to be said. I am going now to the final trial and
encounter; for I have determined that there shall be nothing wanting,
and I shall meet the "Little People" face to face. I shall have the
Black Seal and the knowledge of its secrets to help me, and if I
unhappily do not return from my journey, there is no need to conjure up
here a picture of the awfulness of my fate. Pausing a little at the end of Professor Gregg's statement, Miss Lally
continued her tale in the following words:--

Such was the almost incredible story that the professor had left behind
him. When I had finished reading it, it was late at night, but the next
morning I took Morgan with me, and we proceeded to search the Gray Hills
for some trace of the lost professor. I will not weary you with a
description of the savage desolation of that tract of country, a tract
of utterest loneliness, of bare green hills dotted over with gray
limestone boulders, worn by the ravage of time into fantastic semblances
of men and beasts. Finally, after many hours of weary searching, we
found what I told you--the watch and chain, the purse, and the
ring--wrapped in a piece of coarse parchment. When Morgan cut the gut
that bound the parcel together, and I saw the professor's property, I
burst into tears, but the sight of the dreaded characters of the Black
Seal repeated on the parchment froze me to silent horror, and I think I
understood for the first time the awful fate that had come upon my late
employer. I have only to add that Professor Gregg's lawyer treated my account of
what had happened as a fairy tale, and refused even to glance at the
documents I laid before him. It was he who was responsible for the
statement that appeared in the public press, to the effect that
Professor Gregg had been drowned, and that his body must have been swept
into the open sea. Miss Lally stopped speaking and looked at Mr. Phillipps, with a glance
of some enquiry. He, for his part, was sunken in a deep revery of
thought; and when he looked up and saw the bustle of the evening
gathering in the square, men and women hurrying to partake of dinner,
and crowds already besetting the music-halls, all the hum and press of
actual life seemed unreal and visionary, a dream in the morning after an
awakening. "I thank you," he said at last, "for your most interesting story,
interesting to me, because I feel fully convinced of its exact truth." "Sir," said the lady, with some energy of indignation, "you grieve and
offend me. Do you think I should waste my time and yours by concocting
fictions on a bench in Leicester Square?" "Pardon me, Miss Lally, you have a little misunderstood me. Before you
began I knew that whatever you told would be told in good faith, but
your experiences have a far higher value than that of _bona fides_. The
most extraordinary circumstances in your account are in perfect harmony
with the very latest scientific theories. Professor Lodge would, I am
sure, value a communication from you extremely; I was charmed from the
first by his daring hypothesis in explanation of the wonders of
Spiritualism (so called), but your narrative puts the whole matter out
of the range of mere hypothesis." "Alas, sir, all this will not help me. You forget, I have lost my
brother under the most startling and dreadful circumstances. Again, I
ask you, did you not see him as you came here? His black whiskers, his
spectacles, his timid glance to right and left; think, do not these
particulars recall his face to your memory?" "I am sorry to say I have never seen any one of the kind," said
Phillipps, who had forgotten all about the missing brother. "But let me
ask you a few questions. Did you notice whether Professor Gregg--"

"Pardon me, sir, I have stayed too long. My employers will be expecting
me. I thank you for your sympathy. Good bye." Before Mr. Phillipps had recovered from his amazement at this abrupt
departure, Miss Lally had disappeared from his gaze, passing into the
crowd that now thronged the approaches to the Empire. He walked home in
a pensive frame of mind, and drank too much tea. At ten o'clock he had
made his third brew, and had sketched out the outlines of a little work
to be called _Protoplasmic Reversion_. INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR. Mr. Dyson often meditated at odd moments over the singular tale he had
listened to at the Café de la Touraine. In the first place he cherished
a profound conviction that the words of truth were scattered with a too
niggardly and sparing hand over the agreeable history of Mr. Smith and
the Black Gulf Cañon; and, secondly, there was the undeniable fact of
the profound agitation of the narrator, and his gestures on the
pavement, too violent to be simulated. The idea of a man going about
London haunted by the fear of meeting a young man with spectacles struck
Dyson as supremely ridiculous; he searched his memory for some precedent
in romance, but without success; he paid visits at odd times to the
little café, hoping to find Mr. Wilkins there; and he kept a sharp watch
on the great generation of the spectacled men without much doubt that he
would remember the face of the individual whom he had seen dart out of
the Aerated Bread Shop. All his peregrinations and researches, however,
seemed to lead to nothing of value, and Dyson needed all his warm
conviction of his innate detective powers and his strong scent for
mystery to sustain him in his endeavors. In fact, he had two affairs on
hand; and every day, as he passed through streets crowded or deserted,
and lurked in the obscure districts, and watched at corners, he was more
than surprised to find that the affair of the gold coin persistently
avoided him; while the ingenious Wilkins, and the young man with
spectacles whom he dreaded, seemed to have vanished from the pavements. He was pondering these problems one evening in a house of call in the
Strand, and the obstinacy with which the persons he so ardently desired
to meet hung back gave the modest tankard before him an additional touch
of bitter. As it happened, he was alone in his compartment, and, without
thinking, he uttered aloud the burden of his meditations. "How bizarre
it all is!"