human
Well, said the latter,
gpt
If I could only tell you!
human
Surely, you remember something--there is some clew----
gpt
Nothing! Just--darkness.
human
Some faint flashes here and there--glimpses of people, scenes, a house, a street--the sound of voices, a word----?
gpt
Nothing!
human
Try to remember.
gpt
No use. I've tried it too often. It's all a blank. I thought, for an instant, that in your psychometer test the veil would be lifted. Instead--as you know--I went to pieces.
human
Very well, said Leighton reassuringly,
gpt
Wait, said David slowly.
human
The explosion was on the ninth of May. The date was indelibly fixed in my mind; I have verified it since. When I recovered consciousness----
gpt
You mean, your normal consciousness,
human
Very well. When I came to myself, then, it was on the morning of the fifth of August.
gpt
Nearly three months afterwards, ruminated the old man.
human
You found yourself----?
gpt
Seated in a chair, in a room in a strange house in Bogota.
human
Alone?
gpt
Raoul Arthur was with me. He was bending over me, his eyes fixed on mine, making passes with his hand before my face.
human
You were in a hypnotic trance.
gpt
I was coming out of one apparently.
human
It would be hard to define your condition. Of course, after the explosion you had been picked up and carried to this house in Bogota, where you had remained, suffering from a severe nervous shock--perhaps concussion of the brain--for three months.
gpt
I had been in that house scarcely an hour before my memory was suddenly revived.
human
How do you know that?
gpt
The rainy season was on in August in Bogota. I found myself in my riding dress. My rubber poncho, dripping with rain, was on the floor. My boots, the spurs still attached to the heels, were caked with mud.
human
And Arthur told you----?
gpt
At first, I was bewildered, as one is when suddenly aroused from a long sleep. With full return of consciousness, I asked Raoul how I came to be there. He said he didn't know.
human
He must have given some explanation.
gpt
Very little. What he said mystified me more than ever. He declared that a short time before a messenger had come saying that I was in the house, waiting for him.
human
Whose house was it?
gpt
Raoul's. He had rented it two months before and was living in it alone with two servants who were running it for him.
human
And this messenger----?
gpt
An Indian, whom neither of us saw or heard of again, although we inquired high and low.
human
The servants must have had information to give?
gpt
On being questioned they said I had arrived that morning on horseback, with an Indian, who left me there. This Indian was probably the messenger who informed Raoul of my arrival, and who afterwards disappeared. My horse was tethered in the courtyard.
human
The clews seem to have been pretty well obliterated, remarked Leighton sarcastically.
gpt
But Arthur must have been able to shed some light on the affair.
human
He said that when he found me, I did not recognize him and was in a sort of dazed mental state. Then he tried hypnotism. He had often hypnotized me before that, and was thus familiar with my condition while in a trance. Well, as soon as he saw me, after my long disappearance, he declared that I showed every symptom of hypnotic trance. So, he at once tried the usual method for bringing me back to a normal condition--and with complete success.
gpt
In his report Arthur emphasizes that as the singular feature of the case. His account, so far as it goes, agrees with yours. It gives the facts of the explosion, how you were supposed to be killed, how you disappeared for three months, and how, when you were found, you were in a trance from which he awakened you.
human
Does he say that, on coming out of the trance, I could remember nothing that happened during those three months?
gpt
Yes.
human
Well, there's the whole case. You know all that I do about it.
gpt
All that Raoul Arthur knows?
human
All that he says he knows.
gpt
Ah, then you have your doubts?
human
Just a suspicion. I have a feeling that he could tell more about my disappearance than he chose to tell.
gpt
Why did you leave him?
human
I left Bogota the day after I came out of the trance. My distrust of Raoul and the horror that I felt for everything connected with my mysterious experience, made my stay there more than I could stand. But we parted friends, and I've sent him money to go on with the excavations. How he's getting on I can't tell you. I've lost my interest in El Dorado. I won't visit Bogota again.
gpt
Our course is plain,
human
I've tried everything; there's nothing to be done,
gpt
David, you've missed the obvious thing, was the emphatic reply.
human
We must go to Bogota.
gpt
Go to Bogota!
human
You and I will face Arthur together. If he knows anything more about this matter, he's bound to tell us. If he doesn't know--if your suspicions are groundless--we'll solve the mystery of those three months some other way. And perhaps we'll stumble upon your Gilded Man at the same time,
gpt
And Una----?
human
She has a way of deciding things for herself. For all I know she may want to go with us.
gpt
Would you consent?
human
There's no reason against it. In a ghost hunt a woman's wit may help.
gpt
Very well, then,
human
You agree?
gpt
I am entirely in your hands.
human
Then we'll take up our interesting little experiment again in the land of El Dorado--and this time we'll run it out to the end.
gpt
Without a psychometer, I hope,
human
fellow-citizens; or else, scornful of compliment,