I was only permitted to ask one question, and I asked would my quest be successful. I received an unequivocal answer that it would fail, but not through my fault, but because of the will of the spirits of the departed and the curse of the dead that hung over the city. Incidentally this discounted the advice given by other spirit communicants before the expedition was undertaken,--but later proved true. The ritual of re-dissolution was shorter but far more terrible. Again the sorceress made passes. The objects were taken from the hands of the dead and slowly the life left the body, which swelled and twitched as it returned to its original state of terrible decomposition. A thin wailing chant seemed to symbolize the flight of the spirit back to its own realms. * * * * * I pressed unsuccessful inquiry concerning the details of this astounding piece of necromancy which was neither more nor less than that terrible old mystery, the raising of the dead in the flesh. I could obtain no details of the objects placed in the man’s hands or the material used to produce the astonishing outpouring of blue, luminous matter. So far as I could ascertain, the life force of the sorceress herself entered the body, but the ceremony of creating it was essential in combination with the charms in the hands before the spirit could return. Neither could I ascertain that it was the soul of the departed or some other spirit that entered into the reanimated corpse. Some powerful communities are able, it is said, to despatch these dreadful reanimated dead on missions of evil. But their power only lasts throughout the night and fails at sunrise. Here there is an undoubted suggestion of the practical possibility of vampirism, but I could not learn that these folk possess the lost art of imprisoning a human or spirit soul within the body of an animal.[54] I am nevertheless convinced that among the Berbers of North Africa will be found the key to many legends that have come down to us from our ancestors in Great Britain, and above all I counsel those good folk who read the pleasant little fake stories of pretty little fairies in some of the magazines of what passes for popular occultism to abandon the delusion. The term good folk is a paradox. They were the demons or spirits of the unholy aborigines working in contact with the savages themselves, and it is good, exceedingly good, that there are no fairies loose in Britain to-day and that the art of summoning them is well-nigh lost. * * * * *