The afternoon on The Mountain was still uppermost in his mind.  Of course he knew the common stories about fascination.  He had once been himself an eyewitness of the charming of a small bird by one of our common harmless serpents.  Whether a human being could be reached by this subtile agency, he had been skeptical, notwithstanding the mysterious relation generally felt to exist between man and this creature, “cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field,”—­a relation which some interpret as the fruit of the curse, and others hold to be so instinctive that this animal has been for that reason adopted as the natural symbol of evil.  There was another solution, however, supplied him by his professional reading.  The curious work of Mr. Braid of Manchester had made him familiar with the phenomena of a state allied to that produced by animal magnetism, and called by that writer by the name of hypnotism.  He found, by referring to his note-book, the statement was, that, by fixing the eyes on a bright object so placed as to produce a strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and to maintain a steady fixed stare, there comes on in a few seconds a very singular condition, characterized by muscular rigidity and inability to move, with a strange exaltation of most of the senses, and generally a closure of the eyelids,—­this condition being followed by torpor.

Now this statement of Mr. Braid’s, well known to the scientific world, and the truth of which had been confirmed by Mr. Bernard in certain experiments he had instituted, as it has been by many other experimenters, went far to explain the strange impressions, of which, waking or dreaming, he had certainly been the subject.  His nervous system had been in a high state of exaltation at the time.  He remembered how the little noises that made rings of sound in the silence of the woods, like pebbles dropped in still waters, had reached his inner consciousness.  He remembered that singular sensation in the roots of the hair, when he came on the traces of the girl’s presence, reminding him of a line in a certain poem which he had read lately with a new and peculiar interest.  He even recalled a curious evidence of exalted sensibility and irritability, in the twitching of the minute muscles of the internal ear at every unexpected sound, producing an odd little snap in the middle of the head, that proved to him he was getting very nervous.

The next thing was to find out whether it were possible that the venomous creature’s eyes should have served the purpose of Mr. Braid’s “bright object” held very close to the person experimented on, or whether they had any special power which could be made the subject of exact observation.

For this purpose Mr. Bernard considered it necessary to get a live crotalus or two into his possession, if this were possible.  On inquiry, he found that there was a certain family living far up the mountain-side, not a mile from the ledge, the members of which were said to have taken these creatures occasionally, and not to be in any danger, or at least in any fear, of being injured by them.  He applied to these people, and offered a reward sufficient to set them at work to capture some of these animals, if such a thing were possible.