"May it be accursed, and may he who believes therein hang thereon! It has no power; but even if it had, according to the tale of that white liar, such things as I would do have been done beneath its shadow.

By it the dead have been raised--ay! dead kings have been dragged from death and forced to tell the secrets of the grave.
Come, come, let us to the work." "What must I do, husband ?" "You shall sit you there, even as a corpse sits, and there for a little while you shall die--yes, your spirit shall leave you--and I will fill your body with the soul of him who sleeps beneath; and through your lips I will learn his wisdom, to whom all things are known." "It is terrible! I am afraid!" she said.

"Cannot this be done otherwise ?" "It cannot," he answered.

"The spirits of the dead have no shape or form; they are invisible, and can speak only in dreams or through the lips of one in whose pulses life still lingers, though soul and body be already parted.

Have no fear.