its earthly tenement, and so transferred itself or was transferred by a Higher Power to its present one.'
Pardon my inquisitiveness. I feel that I am stepping on ground that must be sacred to you. Can you tell me anything about what we call death, seeing that you have evidently undergone it?'
'I can tell you but little. For some years I suffered from a painful cancer, and grew weaker and worse, until I had to give up my occupation. I longed then for death, as it is termed, although I knew that I was living elsewhere. One hot day I sat weakly gasping and longing for a cool breath when I felt a strange fulness at the heart, a spasm of pain, and then a sweet sleep stole over me, a feeling of calm and perfect rest. I woke here feeling fuller of life than ever, and perfectly happy. You now know all that I do. Birth and Death appear to me very much alike in some respects. One brings us from we know not whence into life and consciousness, and the other lets us lapse into unconsciousness, and we go we know not whither. Possibly life is a day and death a night, and the real life the life of an immortal is a succession of such changes taking place at longer or shorter intervals.'
'And death as we usually know it; not the transference that you have undergone and that I may undergo—what think you of that?'
'I regard it as a natural change, and although I know nothing of its results, nothing of what will become of me when it again takes place, I do not fear it, for the Master of Life and Death is on both sides of the grave, and what He has appointed must be the best thing possible. But to return to the subject. I think we were speaking of life not death.'
'Yes; I was about to ask you if your consciousness or lack of it was similar to my own.'
'In some respects it was, but I was born younger than you. I commenced life on Mars when about thirty; you were evidently about forty-five. I had lived here ten Martial years before I became fully conscious I had dim perceptions of some life outside, and some ideas came from the lower world, but I did not know of the dual life. Probably such knowledge would have been bad for me: imagine a baby, having even in the form of dreams, the experiences of a man. The baby would surely die; his brain would not endure the strain of double consciousness.'
'Then I may become conscious of earthlife at any time?'
'You may, and when you do so there will be a period of great mental confusion. I would like to have you near me then, for having gone through it I can help you to put the two classes of ideas in order.'
'Do you think the earth-dwelling half of me is conscious?'
'I know he is: he has kept a record of his actions in your body and may reveal them to his earth peers. I was conscious in the same way, at first thinking that I had strange dreams. I kept a sort of cursory record, but it has been lost long ago.'
