The lunatic makes a dash at the retreating form of his visitors, and, as the door closes upon him, sinks with a yell upon the floor.

A week later the lifeless body of Brown, the medium, is found suspended from the gas bracket in his cell.

How clearly one sees it all!  How forcible and direct the style is!  And what a thrilling touch of actuality the simple mention of the ’gas bracket’ gives us!  Certainly The Vasty Deep is a book to be read.

And we have read it; read it with great care.  Though it is largely autobiographical, it is none the less a work of fiction and, though some of us may think that there is very little use in exposing what is already exposed and revealing the secrets of Polichinelle, no doubt there are many who will be interested to hear of the tricks and deceptions of crafty mediums, of their gauze masks, telescopic rods and invisible silk threads, and of the marvellous raps they can produce simply by displacing the peroneus longus muscle!  The book opens with a description of the scene by the death-bed of Alderman Parkinson.  Dr. Josiah Brown, the eminent medium, is in attendance and tries to comfort the honest merchant by producing noises on the bedpost.  Mr. Parkinson, however, being extremely anxious to revisit Mrs. Parkinson, in a materialised form after death, will not be satisfied till he has received from his wife a solemn promise that she will not marry again, such a marriage being, in his eyes, nothing more nor less than bigamy.  Having received an assurance to this effect from her, Mr. Parkinson dies, his soul, according to the medium, being escorted to the spheres by ‘a band of white-robed spirits.’  This is the prologue.  The next chapter is entitled ‘Five Years After.’  Violet Parkinson, the Alderman’s only child, is in love with Jack Alston, who is ‘poor, but clever.’  Mrs. Parkinson, however, will not hear of any marriage till the deceased Alderman has materialised himself and given his formal consent.  A seance is held at which Jack Alston unmasks the medium and shows Dr. Josiah Brown to be an impostor—­a foolish act, on his part, as he is at once ordered to leave the house by the infuriated Mrs. Parkinson, whose faith in the Doctor is not in the least shaken by the unfortunate exposure.

The lovers are consequently parted.  Jack sails for Newfoundland, is shipwrecked and carefully, somewhat too carefully, tended by ’La-ki-wa, or the Star that shines,’ a lovely Indian maiden who belongs to the tribe of the Micmacs.  She is a fascinating creature who wears ’a necklace composed of thirteen nuggets of pure gold,’ a blanket of English manufacture and trousers of tanned leather.  In fact, as Mr. Stuart Cumberland observes, she looks ‘the embodiment of fresh dewy morn.’  When Jack, on recovering his senses, sees her, he naturally inquires who she is.  She answers, in the simple utterance endeared to us by Fenimore Cooper, ’I am La-ki-wa.  I am the only child of my father, Tall Pine, chief of the Dildoos.’  She talks, Mr. Cumberland informs us, very good English.  Jack at once entrusts her with the following telegram which he writes on the back of a five-pound note:—­