The vampire nemesis and other weird stories of the China coast Read Online Free PDF

time to a science a little more positive, one at least in which I could study the resultant phenomena of the mind's action without being basely cheated by blatant charlatanism, so I turned my attention with renewed zeal to the sister branch—metaphysics.
    Here at least I was not unsuccessful in my investigations, and may claim, as the issue of my speculations on mind as related to matter, the authorship of two or three treatises, which the schools have been pleased to look upon with approval, while lauding their depth of research and perspicuity.
    It was shortly after the issue of the last pamphlet

    that I left London for Shanghai, to take up my duties on the staff of the journal from which I have been so lately torn.
    But I still retained my interest in metaphysics, reading eagerly every fresh book that appeared to cast a new light on this most elusive of subjects. With hypnotism I, however, declined to have anything more to do. My awakening from the dreams of the supernatural had been thorough and complete, and I was resolved never again to allow myself to be duped by specious appearances, however plausible.
    In justice to myself, I must add that I was not unwilling to admit a certain modicum of truth in the experiments of Mesmer and Braid. I still believed it possible to throw the human mind into a mesmeric sleep by keeping the eye strained on a black wafer stuck on a blank white wall. But I emphatically denied all psychic influence, explaining the phenomenon by the theory of the mind being thrown into a state of morbid activity through the abnormal strain on the attention and the reflex action of an excited imagination.
    The next time I met Rawdon was out at the race-course. Ethel and I had been to see the review of the volunteers. After it was over, and the people began to move from their seats in the direction of Nankin Road, she slipped away for a moment to speak to a friend whom she had spied among the crowd, begging me to sit still till she came back. I was idly watching the coolies gathering the pennons that were stuck about the field, when someone, squeezing his way between the benches in front of me, trod heavily on my toe. As he turned to apologise, I recognized Rawdon.

    I saw him glance swiftly round as though in search of someone, and it needed no intuition to know he was looking for Ethel.
    " She is over there," I said in answer to his glance. " Sit down."
    He dropped into the vacant chair beside me and made a few commonplace remarks on the review, while the people filed out in front of me, asking carelessly, " How is Mrs. Keith ? "
    "Very well, thanks—I might say exceedingly well, in both mind and body."
    I could not help letting a small note of triumph creep into my tones, but Rawdon seemed not to notice it, or at least he ignored it.
    " Pray give her my kind regards," he said absently, as though about to rise.
    " Don't go away yet," I pleaded with a malicious grin, stung by his apparent indifference. " Ethel will be back in a moment, and 1 'm sure she'll be awfully pleased to see such an old friend."

    He swung round on me then, a curious light in his shifty blue eyes.
    " Keith ! " he said with suppressed vehemence, "you shall both suffer for this!"
    I was more amused than angry, as I inquired in mild surprise—
    " Suffer for what, my dear fellow ? "
    He had suppressed the flash of feeling he had shown, which I regretted, as he sneered—
    " You are exceedingly dense if you require me to recapitulate the insult you two put upon me! "
    " Insult !" I scoffed. " What a very curious view you take of it, Rawdon! "
    " You will take a very serious view of it!" he retorted significantly.
    I could not help smiling at his vagaries.
    " My dear man ! " I said impatiently, " spare me your idle threats. What is it ? Immolation at the stake ? or perhaps chains and the stool of repentance in your castle dungeon ? What a pity it is," I mused, " that Shanghai can boast of no bastille!"
    But he remained unmoved by my