hall live and be a god, I
shall stand oblivious and indifferent to the centuries as they stalk
by.'

"'You don't mean to tell me ...'

"Ombos looked up, his red-green eyes gleaming as he answered,

"'Most certainly I do ... my soul will pass into that bronze statue when
I am ready to give it up.'

"'The war, Mr. Ombos,' I thought as I looked at his shrivelled fearsome
figure, 'has turned your head. There are certainly a few bats in your
belfry. You will find your way into an asylum before many weeks have
passed.'

"You must understand, I didn't realize what kind of a chap I was dealing
with then, I didn't know that he was all cold and calm and apart from
life ... very clever and--philosophical, _but not human_.

"'Nonsense! How can a man's soul pass into a bronze statue?' I asked
rather testily. 'Good heavens, man, do you realize that you're trying to
make me believe that which is beyond the pale of all human possibility!'

"'Human possibility! What is human possibility? I tell you that all this
is fact; simply.' Ombos rose and began to pace to and fro over the
Persian rugs like a tiger. 'I'm not given to imagining things.'

"'Bah!' he grunted. 'Every child will tell you that the tendency of
spirits to return to the old haunts of bodily life is almost universal.
The universal laws apply ... there is no escape from the great law, the
attraction of environment.'

"'The rest is merely every-day knowledge. Have you ever heard of ancient
formula by which the grosser factors of the body may be eliminated,
leaving the ethereal portions to retain the spirit? Do you not
understand that the body may be preserved from absolute disintegration?
The old alchemists all knew that death could be indefinitely deferred
in this way. Professor Vaini left among his papers a work of two
thousand pages in which he clearly demonstrated that it was possible for
a spiritualized body to retain a modified life practically for ever. Any
doctor will tell you the hair and nails of a dead person will often grow
for years after....'

"Ombos turned his glittering eyes on me a moment inquisitively.

"'Oh, tell me all that kind of stuff if you like,' I protested
good-humouredly. 'It makes no impression on me. I'm a normal man, Ombos,
and I object to having my free imagination harrowed over things that
don't count. Behind that curtain is a bronze statue, and it never can or
will be anything else but a bronze statue, and that's about the sum and