This done, he placed the saucer right upon the centre of the symbolical chart, if I may so term it. Then, unfastening the coils of wire, he laid one along the laps of the gentlemen on one side, and fastened it by means of a link and hook to two others, which passed in front of the other two sections of the human trine. The wire held by the ladies (for we all were directed to grasp the wire before us with one hand, and the hand of the next neighbor with the other) was common iron, wound with silver foil; the one before myself was steel, wound with gold wire; and the other was of solid gold, wound, as were the others, at intervals, with floss silk. The ladies grasped with the _left_ hand, and joined their right, while with the gentlemen this order was reversed. The next proceeding on the part of Mai, was to place half of the gum into the saucer; upon this he emptied the vial of colorless liquid, and set fire thereto. It burned with a clear and steady bluish flame. The gum was gradually consumed, and a peculiar and most delightful fragrance floated through the room. “During the burning process, the operator sat upon the stool, and gazed fixedly and intently upon, or rather toward, the open sash, while the rest of us were chatting merrily, and wondering what would be the result of all these weird and curious preparations. “I said the rest of us were merrily chatting, but must qualify that observation by excluding from this employment one person, and that person was--myself, for I found it utterly impossible to mingle in the conversation with that abandon and unreserve which characterized the others. It was altogether beyond my power to forget the tremendous experiences of that very day, which I had undergone. A weight was on my spirit that could not be lifted off. The ‘Ghost of Ravalette’ seemed to be invisibly hovering over me, and although unseen, his presence seemed to be palpably felt by me. The events at Belleville constantly obtruded themselves before the eye of the mind; the affair at the gardener’s, the singular result of his impromptu wager, the woman at the _Barrière_, and, above all, the frightful occurrences at the Rue Michel le Compte, with its sure--absolutely sure--termination on the Guillotine--the miserable and ignominious death of D’Emprat, and the unearthly means whereby his deed of crime--the crime a horrible murder, committed thirty-seven years before--the unearthly and mysterious means, I repeat, by which his guilt was brought to light--this, all this, so oppressed me that I could not take a present interest in what was transpiring about me. Indeed, I cared little for either Mai or his tricks--which, from observing the method of his preparations, I had already not only despised, but put down to the score of legerdemain--clever and surprising, but still nothing more than legerdemain.