"A spiritist would say that her guides were insisting on the most rigid test. The account goes on to say that the psychic, when entranced, was not satisfied with the grasp of two of the spies; she frequently asked, in a faint voice, for a third or even a fourth hand in order that there could be no question of her freedom from connection with the phenomena. As in the case of our own psychic, Mrs. Smiley co-operated to the utmost with us. She never refused to permit any test." Miller here remarked: "I can't but think that our control of Mrs. Smiley was complete, and yet I could not (under the conditions) assert that she was not the author of the acts we witnessed in my library. I cannot bring myself to entertain, even for an instant, the spirit hypothesis, but in Bottazzi's theory I glimpse an alternative." "Yes, Bottazzi plainly hints at his conclusions by saying: '_The invisible limbs_ of the psychic explored the cabinet.' He repeats, 'I am convinced that these _"mediumistic limbs" are capable of being taught unfamiliar duties_, like pressing an electric button of squeezing a rubber ball,' and this he proceeded patiently to exemplify. At the third sitting Madame Bottazzi was present (Lombardi and Jona being absent), and the 'force' was much greater and more active than before, probably because of the psychic's growing confidence. A small table floated in the air '_while we watched it in amazement_,' he says. One levitation lasted long enough to count fifty. 'We all had time to observe that the piece of furniture was quite isolated,' he adds. Furthermore, a big black hand came from the curtain and touched Madame Bottazzi on the cheek, and frightened her from her place beside the medium." "I can understand that," said Mrs. Cameron. "Think of being touched by even one's own dead!" "Professor de Amicis was not only touched on the arm but forcibly pulled, as if by an invisible hand. The curtain of the cabinet then enveloped him as if to embrace him, and he felt the contact of another face against his, and a mouth kissing him--" The women cried out at the thought, but I hurried on to make Bottazzi's point: "_'At the same time Eusapia's lips moved as if to kiss, and she made the sound of kissing, which we all distinctly heard.'_ Here again, you see, is that astounding synchronism which Maxwell and Morselli observed between the movement of objects and the contraction of the muscles in the medium's arms and legs. Bottazzi pauses to generalize: 'Whatever may be the mediumistic phenomena produced, there is almost always at the same time movement of one or several parts of the medium's body.'" "What does he mean? Does he mean that Eusapia performed all these movements with her 'astral hands'?" asked Mrs. Quigg. "That is precisely his inference. 'Mysterious hands,' Bottazzi calls them." "But how will he account for the difference in size between Eusapia's hands and the _large black hand_ that she saw and felt?" asked Fowler.