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A few hours of this establishment sufficed for most of the passengers, who promptly went up country or on the river; but Miss Greenlow and I were obliged to spend three or four days in Rangoon, and Dr Gröne was at first our only companion. So, of course, we spoke to each other in self-defence.
In the maze of buildings, and owing to the swiftly falling darkness, we could not at once locate this temple; and most unfortunately for me, with the stupid persistence which such a failure sometimes brings, both Miss Greenlow and I were determined to find it out before leaving the Golden Temple. At last a joyous exclamation warned me that my friend had been successful in her quest.
I have had several falls in my life, but never one other where there was absolutely no preliminary warning or sense of slipping, however swift. The experience was exactly that of being suddenly hurled down the steps by some outside force. I can only add that I deeply deplored my unguarded words to Miss Greenlow, when I told her I was sure there was some malignant spirit in the joss-house.
The first time I had seen this joss-house I had run up the steps heedlessly, but felt such an unpleasant influence on entering it that I came away at once, and only regret not having been equally prudent a second time. Miss Greenlow was gazing at some grotesque carvings in one corner of the temple, still dimly visible, and called out to me to come and look at them also.
Miss Greenlow was next called up by the spirit of a young man who wished to embrace her, but who was finally proved to be the departed friend of the lady who sat next to her. Miss Greenlow returned to her seat, furious, declaring that it was a horrible, coarse-looking creature, unlike anyone she had ever seen in her life.
She was sleeping next door to me, with an intervening door between us. I hammered loudly upon this, and finally opened it. I knew she always locked her outer door, but feared she might go into the passage, not realising the danger in the moment of waking, and might fall into the murderer's hands. So I called out: "Wake up wake up, Miss Greenlow! but don't open your door.
From Russia we returned to Stockholm and Christiania, where Miss Greenlow took the steamer for Hull, and I went up into the Dovre Feld Mountains to join a Swedish friend, already mentioned in my chapter on India.
The sittings were held, generally after dinner, in either my cabin or that of my "stable companion" Miss Greenlow. So far as I remember, we three were the only sitters, and I am bound to confess the sittings were sometimes very monotonous, even viewed from the indulgent perspective of a sea voyage. In fact, I can now recall only one incident of any real value.
But it had taken her two hours of failure to be absolutely convinced that they came straight from the devil! One sign also birds appeared to me on one occasion only. We had returned to Denver, where Miss Greenlow and I were to separate after a year's constant travel together.
Miss Greenlow was evidently the only person in the hotel who had slept through the horrors of that night, for small groups were gathered together at various points along the corridor, and at every door some scared man or woman was looking out, anxious, like myself, to solve the dreadful mystery.
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