A truly
wonderful case! I have just written to Marini about it.'
He seemed so much interested in his case, that he aroused a certain
interest in me, though at that time the word 'hysteria' conveyed an
impression to me of a very uncertain and misty kind.
'Where did it occur?' I asked.
'Here, in your own town,' said Mivart. 'A most extraordinary case. My
report will delight Marini, our great authority, as you no doubt are
aware, on catalepsy and cataleptic ecstasy.'
'Strange that I have heard nothing of it!' I said.
'Oh!' replied Mivart, 'it occurred only this morning. Some fishermen
passing below the old church were attracted, first by a shriek of a
peculiarly frightful and unearthly kind, and then by some unusual
appearance on the sands, at the spot where the last landslip took
place.'
My pulses stopped in a moment, and I clung to the back of my chair.
'What--did--the fishermen see?' I gasped.
'The men landed,' continued Mivart,--too much interested in the case
to observe my emotion,--'and there they found a dead body--the body
of the missing organist here, who had apparently fallen with the
landslip.
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