Instinctively we gathered our chairs into a circle round Mr. Trelawny, who had taken the great armchair near the window.  Margaret sat by him on his right, and I was next to her.  Mr. Corbeck was on his left, with Doctor Winchester on the other side.  After a few seconds of silence Mr. Trelawny said to Mr. Corbeck: 

“You have told Doctor Winchester all up to the present, as we arranged?”

“Yes,” he answered; so Mr. Trelawny said: 

“And I have told Margaret, so we all know!” Then, turning to the Doctor, he asked: 

“And am I to take it that you, knowing all as we know it who have followed the matter for years, wish to share in the experiment which we hope to make?” His answer was direct and uncompromising: 

“Certainly!  Why, when this matter was fresh to me, I offered to go on with it to the end.  Now that it is of such strange interest, I would not miss it for anything which you could name.  Be quite easy in your mind, Mr. Trelawny.  I am a scientist and an investigator of phenomena.  I have no one belonging to me or dependent on me.  I am quite alone, and free to do what I like with my own—­including my life!” Mr. Trelawny bowed gravely, and turning to Mr. Corbeck said: 

“I have known your ideas for many years past, old friend; so I need ask you nothing.  As to Margaret and Malcolm Ross, they have already told me their wishes in no uncertain way.”  He paused a few seconds, as though to put his thoughts or his words in order; then he began to explain his views and intentions.  He spoke very carefully, seeming always to bear in mind that some of us who listened were ignorant of the very root and nature of some things touched upon, and explaining them to us as he went on: 

“The experiment which is before us is to try whether or no there is any force, any reality, in the old Magic.  There could not possibly be more favourable conditions for the test; and it is my own desire to do all that is possible to make the original design effective.  That there is some such existing power I firmly believe.  It might not be possible to create, or arrange, or organise such a power in our own time; but I take it that if in Old Time such a power existed, it may have some exceptional survival.  After all, the Bible is not a myth; and we read there that the sun stood still at a man’s command, and that an ass—­not a human one—­spoke.  And if the Witch at Endor could call up to Saul the spirit of Samuel, why may not there have been others with equal powers; and why may not one among them survive?  Indeed, we are told in the Book of Samuel that the Witch of Endor was only one of many, and her being consulted by Saul was a matter of chance.  He only sought one among the many whom he had driven out of Israel; ’all those that had Familiar Spirits, and the Wizards.’  This Egyptian Queen, Tera, who reigned nearly two thousand years before Saul, had a Familiar, and was a Wizard too.