g which
he undoubtedly never took off himself? Throughout the whole of his
narration the Sicilian has labored to persuade us that while he was
endeavoring to deceive Lorenzo, Lorenzo was in reality deceiving him.
Would he have had recourse to this subterfuge if he had not been
sensible how much he should lose in our estimation by confessing himself
an accomplice with the assassin? The whole story is visibly nothing but
a series of impostures, invented merely to connect the few truths he has
thought proper to give us. Ought I then to hesitate in disbelieving the
eleventh assertion of a person who has already deceived me ten times,
rather than admit a violation of the fundamental laws of nature, which I
have ever found in the most perfect harmony?"

"I have nothing to reply to all this, but the apparition we saw
yesterday is to me not the less incomprehensible."

"It is also incomprehensible to me, although I have been tempted to
believe that I have found a key to it."

"How so?" asked I.

"Do not you recollect that the second apparition, as soon as he entered,
walked directly up to the altar, took the crucifix in his hand, and
placed himself upon the carpet?"

"It appeared so to me."

"And this crucifix, according to the Sicilian's confession, was a
conductor. You see that the apparition hastened to make himself
electrical. Thus the blow which Lord Seymour struck him with a sword
was of course ineffectual; the electric stroke disabled his arm."

"This is true with respect to the sword. But the pistol fired by the
Sicilian, the ball of which we heard roll slowly upon the altar?"

"Are you convinced that this was the same ball which was fired from the
pistol?" replied the prince. "Not to mention that the puppet, or the
man who represented the ghost, may have been so well accoutred as to be
invulnerable by sword or bullet; but consider who it was that loaded the
pistols."

"True," said I, and a sudden light broke upon my mind; "the Russian.
officer had loaded them, but it was in our presence. How could he have
deceived us?"

"Why should he not have deceived us? Did you suspect him sufficiently
to observe him? Did you examine the ball before it was put into the
pistol? May it not have been one of quicksilver or clay? Did you take
notice whether the Russian officer really put it into the barrel, or
dropped it into his other hand? But supposing that he actually loaded
the pistols, what is to convince you that he r