'You have even now seen our wise ones at work,' said Kalliboas. 'They induce the false sleep, and while the body lies on the couch, the soul goes wandering forth over the world. The sleep affects different of our wise ones in different ways. In some there is what we call the shadow soul, which goes abroad while the brain which gave it birth remains in relation to it at home, active, causing the lips to speak. A recorder is always beside those wise ones during their sleep. Others, who are the more numerous, only at the awakening know what they have seen, and record for themselves. Every day our wise ones are at work in those halls. Their visions are collected and compared; thus we build up a complete picture of the world. Not that the picture'--the old man's words rang out in scorn--'is often to be looked upon with profit, save as a warning to ourselves. Well we know how your peoples have lived and died in a squalid turmoil of cruelty and hatred and intolerance; how you have spurned and persecuted your wise and noble, and exalted your knaves; how jealousy and suspicion are rife among your races, how far you yet stand below the ideals our great founder held. But not wholly profitless are the soul-wanderings of our wise ones. Through them we learn of the few discoveries made by your few philosophers--though in truth there is little you discover which was not already known to us many centuries ago.' 'Tell me, Kalliboas,' I said, 'are only your wise ones skilled in mind-projection?' 'Indeed, no,' he replied. 'Only those judged to possess strength, however, are elected novices at the Hall of Wandering Souls, to become eventually our wise ones, our scouts over the rest of the earth.' 'And when one of your wise ones has projected his soul,' I inquired, 'could he be seen by any person of the outer world?' 'Only to the eyes of the soul can the soul be visible. How many of your outer world possess such vision? Yet to one possessing it, the vision must seem as real as an actual bodily presence.' 'And could any other person see it?' I said, concealing my eagerness with an effort. The old man's glittering puce-black eyes were looking clean through me. 'The point is an obscure one,' he said, 'and our wise men hesitate to pronounce upon it. We have strange evidence both for and against.' There was again that unmistakable hint in his manner that to question him further would be useless, and so far as solving the mystery of the queer episode at Nanking went, I had to be content then with what I had heard. I was determined to find out, however, how this people explained Philipson's advent to them from the outer world. It was too much to suppose that men so astonishingly advanced in exact knowledge would base their expectations on the mere traditional prophecy of Alexander before his death.