“Experiments have been made with toads which have been imprisoned in porous rock where they could get the necessary air.  They have lived for months in a stupor.  In impervious rock they have died.  Frozen fish can revive; bears and other animals hibernate.  There are all gradations from ordinary sleep to the torpor of death.  Science can slow down almost to a standstill the vital processes so that excretions disappear and respiration and heart-beat are almost nil.

“What the Indian fakir does in a cataleptic condition may be duplicated.  It is not incredible that they may possess some vegetable extract by which they perform their as yet unexplained feats of prolonged living burial.  For, if an animal free from disease is subjected to the action of some chemical and physical agencies which have the property of reducing to the extreme limit the motor forces and nervous stimulus, the body of even a warm-blooded animal may be brought down to a condition so closely resembling death that the most careful examination may fail to detect any signs of life.  The heart will continue working regularly at low tension, supplying muscles and other parts with sufficient blood to sustain molecular life, and the stomach would naturally react to artificial stimulus.  At any time before decomposition of tissue has set in, the heart might be made to resume its work and life come back.

“Phelps had travelled extensively.  In Siberia he must undoubtedly have heard of the Buriats, a tribe of natives who hibernate, almost like the animals, during the winters, succumbing to a long sleep known as the ‘leshka.’  He must have heard of the experiments of Professor Bakhmetieff, who studied the Buriats and found that they subsisted on foods rich in glycogen, a substance in the liver which science has discovered makes possible life during suspended animation.  He must have heard of ‘anabiose,’ as the famous Russian calls it, by which consciousness can be totally removed and respiration and digestion cease almost completely.”

“But—­the body—­is gone!” some one interrupted.  I turned.  It was Dana Phelps, now leaning forward in wide-eyed excitement.

“Yes,” exclaimed Craig.  “Time was passing rapidly.  The insurance had not been paid.  He had expected to be revived and to disappear with Anginette Phelps long before this.  Should the confederates of Phelps wait?  They did not dare.  To wait longer might be to sacrifice him, if indeed they had not taken a long chance already.  Besides, you yourself had your suspicions and had written the insurance company hinting at murder.”

Dana nodded, involuntarily confessing.

“You were watching them, as well as the insurance investigator, Mr. Andrews.  It was an awful dilemma.  What was to be done?  He must be resuscitated at any risk.

“Ah—­an idea!  Rifle the grave—­that was the way to solve it.  That would still leave it possible to collect the insurance, too.  The blackmail letter about the five thousand dollars was only a blind, to lay on the mythical Black Hand the blame for the desecration.  Brought into light, humidity, and warmth, the body would recover consciousness and the life-functions resume their normal state after the anabiotic coma into which Phelps had drugged himself.