"What on earth are you talking about? I can understand a man attended by black dogs that nobody sees but himself. The Catholics tell it of John Knox, and of another Reformer, a fellow called Smeaton. Moreover, it is common in delirium tremens. But you say Bolter didn't see the dogs?" "No, not so far as he told me, but I did, and other fellows, when with Bolter. Bolter was asleep; he didn't see anything. Also the Hand, which was a good deal worse. I don't know if he ever saw it. But he was jolly nervous, and he had heard of it." The habits of the Beach-comber are absolutely temperate, otherwise my astonishment would have been less, and I should have regarded all these phenomena as subjective. "Tell me about it all, old cock," I said. "I'm sure I told you last time I was at home." "Never; my memory for yarns is only too good. I hate a chestnut." "Well, here goes! Mind you I don't profess to explain the thing; only I don't think I did wrong in telling the young woman, for, however you account for it, it was not nice." "A good many years ago there came to the island, as a clerk, un nomme Bolter, English or Jew." "His name is not Jewish." "No, and I really don't know about his breed. The most curious thing about his appearance was his eyes: they were large, black, and had a peculiar dull dead lustre." "Did they shine in the dark? I knew a fellow at Oxford whose eyes did. Chairs ran after him." "I never noticed; I don't remember. 'Psychically,' as you superstitious muffs call it, Bolter was still more queer. At that time we were all gone on spirit-rapping. Bolter turned out a great acquisition, 'medium,' or what not. Mind you, I'm not saying Bolter was straight. In the dark he'd tell you what you had in your hand, exact time of your watch, and so on. I didn't take stock in this, and one night brought some photographs with me, and asked for a description of them. This he gave correctly, winding up by saying, 'The one nearest your body is that of ---'" Here my friend named a person well known to both of us, whose name I prefer not to introduce here. This person, I may add, had never been in or near the island, and was totally unknown to Bolter. "Of course," my friend went on, "the photographs were all the time inside my pocket. Now, really, Bolter had some mystic power of seeing in the dark." "Hyperaesthesia!" said I. "Hypercriticism!" said the Beach-comber. "What happened next _might_ be hyperaesthesia--I suppose you mean abnormal intensity of the senses--but how could hyperaesthesia see through a tweed coat and lining?" "Well, what happened next?" "Bolter's firm used to get sheep by every mail from ---, and send them regularly to their station, six miles off. One time they landed late in the afternoon, and yet were foolishly sent off, Bolter in charge. I said at the time he would lose half the lot, as it would be dark long before he could reach the station. He didn't lose them!