"
"I, also, know what it is." declared Colonel Menendez, grimly. "But
tell me what to you it seems like, Mr. Harley?"
Paul Harley's expression was compounded of incredulity, wonder, and
something else, as, continuing to stare at the speaker, he replied:
"It is the wing of a bat."
CHAPTER II
THE VOODOO SWAMP
Often enough my memory has recaptured that moment in Paul Harley's
office, when Harley, myself, and the tall Spaniard stood looking down
at the bat wing lying upon the blotting pad.
My brilliant friend at times displayed a sort of prescience, of which I
may have occasion to speak later, but I, together with the rest of pur-
blind humanity, am commonly immune from the prophetic instinct.
Therefore I chronicle the fact for what it may be worth, that as I
gazed with a sort of disgust at the exhibit lying upon the table I
became possessed of a conviction, which had no logical basis, that a
door had been opened through which I should step into a new avenue of
being; I felt myself to stand upon the threshold of things strange and
terrible, but withal alluring. Perhaps it is true that in the great
crises of life the inner eye becomes momentarily opened.
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