CHAPTER XIX.

Meantime the earl and Hawkins were holding a troubled and anxious private consultation.  The earl said: 

“The mystery that bothers me, is, where did It get its other arm?”

“Yes—­it worries me, too.  And another thing troubles me—­the apparition is English.  How do you account for that, Colonel?”

“Honestly, I don’t know, Hawkins, I don’t really know.  It is very confusing and awful.”

“Don’t you think maybe we’ve waked up the wrong one?”

“The wrong one?  How do you account for the clothes?”

“The clothes are right, there’s no getting around it.  What are we going to do?  We can’t collect, as I see.  The reward is for a one-armed American.  This is a two-armed Englishman.”

“Well, it may be that that is not objectionable.  You see it isn’t less than is called for, it is more, and so,—­”

But he saw that this argument was weak, and dropped it.  The friends sat brooding over their perplexities some time in silence.  Finally the earl’s face began to glow with an inspiration, and he said, impressively: 

“Hawkins, this materialization is a grander and nobler science than we have dreamed of.  We have little imagined what a solemn and stupendous thing we have done.  The whole secret is perfectly clear to me, now, clear as day.  Every man is made up of heredities, long-descended atoms and particles of his ancestors.  This present materialization is incomplete.  We have only brought it down to perhaps the beginning of this century.”

“What do you mean, Colonel!” cried Hawkins, filled with vague alarms by the old man’s awe-compelling words and manner.

“This.  We’ve materialized this burglar’s ancestor!”

“Oh, don’t—­don’t say that.  It’s hideous.”

“But it’s true, Hawkins, I know it.  Look at the facts.  This apparition is distinctly English—­note that.  It uses good grammar—­note that.  It is an Artist—­note that.  It has the manners and carriage of a gentleman—­ note that.  Where’s your cow-boy?  Answer me that.”

“Rossmore, this is dreadful—­it’s too dreadful to think of!”

“Never resurrected a rag of that burglar but the clothes, not a solitary rag of him but the clothes.”

“Colonel, do you really mean—­”

The Colonel brought his fist down with emphasis and said: 

“I mean exactly this.  The materialization was immature, the burglar has evaded us, this is nothing but a damned ancestor!”

He rose and walked the floor in great excitement.

Hawkins said plaintively: 

“It’s a bitter disappointment—­bitter.”

“I know it.  I know it, Senator; I feel it as deeply as anybody could.  But we’ve got to submit—­on moral grounds.  I need money, but God knows I am not poor enough or shabby enough to be an accessory to the punishing of a man’s ancestor for crimes committed by that ancestor’s posterity.”