Illusions depending on the ear—Practised by the ancients—Speaking and singing heads of the ancients—Exhibition of the Invisible Girl described and explained—Illusions arising from the difficulty of determining the direction of sounds—Singular example of this illusion—Nature of ventriloquism—Exhibitions of some of the most celebrated ventriloquists—M. St. Gille—Louis Brabant—M. Alexandre—Capt. Lyon’s account of Esquimaux ventriloquists.

Next to the eye, the ear is the most fertile source of our illusions, and the ancient magicians seem to have been very successful in turning to their purposes the doctrines of sound. In the Labyrinth of Egypt, which contained twelve palaces and 1500 subterraneous apartments, the gods were made to speak in a voice of thunder; and Pliny, in whose time this singular structure existed, informs us, that some of the palaces were so constructed that their doors could not be opened without permitting the peals of thunder to be heard in the interior. When Darius Hystaspes ascended the throne, and allowed his subjects to prostrate themselves before him as a god, the divinity of his character was impressed upon his worshippers by the bursts of thunder and flashes of lightning which accompanied their devotion. History has of course not informed us how these effects were produced; but it is probable that, in the subterraneous and vaulted apartments of the Egyptian labyrinth, the reverberated sounds arising from the mere opening and shutting of the doors themselves afforded a sufficient imitation of ordinary thunder. In the palace of the Persian king, however, a more artificial imitation is likely to have been employed, and it is not improbable that the method used in our modern theatres was known to the ancients. A thin sheet of iron, three or four feet long, such as that used for German stoves, is held by one corner between the finger and the thumb, and allowed to hang freely by its own weight. The hand is then moved or shaken horizontally, so as to agitate the corner in a direction at right angles to the surface of the sheet. By this simple process a great variety of sounds may be produced, varying from the deep growl of distant thunder to those loud and explosive bursts which rattle in quick succession from clouds immediately over our heads. The operator soon acquires great power over this instrument, so as to be able to produce from it any intensity and character of sound that may be required. The same effect may be produced by sheets of tin-plate, and by thin plates of mica; but, on account of their small size, the sound is shorter and more acute. In modern exhibitions an admirable imitation of lightning is produced by throwing the powder of rosin, or the dust of lycopodium, through a flame; and the rattling showers of rain which accompany these meteors are well imitated by a well-regulated shower of peas.

The principal pieces of acoustic mechanism used by the ancients were speaking or singing heads, which were constructed for the purpose of representing the gods, or of uttering oracular responses. Among these, the speaking head of Orpheus, which uttered its responses at Lesbos, is one of the most famous. It was celebrated not only throughout Greece, but even in Persia; and it had the credit of predicting, in the equivocal language of the heathen oracles, the bloody death which terminated the expedition of Cyrus the Great into Scythia. Odin, the mighty magician of the North, who imported into Scandinavia the magical arts of the East, possessed a speaking head, said to be that of the sage Minos, which he had enchased in gold, and which uttered responses that had all the authority of a divine revelation. The celebrated mechanic Gerbert, who filled the papal chair A.D. 1000, under the name of Sylvester II., constructed a speaking head of brass. Albertus Magnus is said to have executed a head in the thirteenth century, which not only moved but spoke. It was made of earthenware, and Thomas Aquinas is said to have been so terrified when he saw it, that he broke it in pieces; upon which the mechanist exclaimed, “There goes the labour of thirty years!”

It has been supposed by some authors, that in the ancient speaking-machines the deception is effected by means of ventriloquism, the voice issuing from the juggler himself; but it is more probable that the sound was conveyed by pipes from a person in another apartment to the mouth of the figure. Lucian, indeed, expressly informs us, that the impostor Alexander made his figure of Æsculapius speak, by transmitting his voice through the gullet of a crane to the mouth of the statue; and that this method was general appears from a passage in Theodoretus, who assures us, that in the fourth century, when Bishop Theophilus broke to pieces the statues at Alexandria, he found some which were hollow, and which were so placed against a wall, that the priest could conceal himself behind them; and address the ignorant spectators through their mouths.

Even in modern times, speaking-machines have been constructed on this principle. The figure is frequently a mere head placed upon a hollow pedestal, which, in order to promote the deception, contains a pair of bellows, a sounding-board, a cylinder and pipes supposed to represent the organs of speech. In other cases these are dispensed with, and a simple wooden head utters its sounds through a speaking trumpet. At the court of Charles II., this deception was exhibited with great effect by one Thomas Irson, an Englishman; and when the astonishment had become very general, a popish priest was discovered by one of the pages in an adjoining apartment. The questions had been proposed to the wooden figure by whispering into its ear, and this learned personage had answered them all with great ability, by speaking through a pipe in the same language in which the questions were proposed. Professor Beckmann informs us that children and women were generally concealed either in the juggler’s box or in the adjacent apartment, and that the juggler gave them every assistance by means of signs previously agreed upon. When one of these exhibitions was shown at GÖttingen, the Professor was allowed, on the promise of secrecy, to witness the process of deception. He saw the assistant in another room, standing before the pipe with a card in his hand, upon which the signs agreed upon had been marked, and he had been introduced so privately into the house that even the landlady was ignorant of his being there.

An exhibition of the very same kind has been brought forward in our own day, under the name of the Invisible Girl; and as the mechanism employed was extremely ingenious, and is well fitted to convey an idea of this class of deceptions, we shall give a detailed description of it.

The machinery, as constructed by M. Charles, is shown in fig. 37 in perspective, and a plan of it in Fig. 38. The four upright posts A, A, A, A, are united at top by a cross rail B, B, and by two similar rails at bottom. Four bent wires a, a, a, a, proceeded from the top of these posts, and terminated at c. A hollow copper ball M, about a foot in diameter, was suspended from these wires by four slender ribands b, b, b, b, and into the copper ball were fixed the extremities of four trumpets T, T, T, T, with their mouths outwards.

The apparatus now described was all that was visible to the spectator; and though fixed in one spot, yet it had the appearance of a piece of separate machinery, which might have occupied any other part of the room. When one of the spectators was requested by the exhibitor to propose some question, he did it by speaking into one of the trumpets at T. An appropriate answer was then returned from all the trumpets, and the sound issued with sufficient intensity to be heard by an ear applied to any of them, and yet it was so weak that it appeared to come from a person of very diminutive size. Hence the sound was supposed to come from an invisible girl, though the real speaker was a full-grown woman. The invisible lady conversed in different languages, sang beautifully, and made the most lively and appropriate remarks on the persons in the room.

This exhibition was obviously far more wonderful than the speaking heads which we have described, as the latter invariably communicated with a wall, or with a pedestal through which pipes could be carried into the next apartment. But the ball M and its trumpets communicated with nothing through which sound could be conveyed. The spectator satisfied himself by examination that the ribands b, b, were real ribands, which concealed nothing, and which could convey no sound; and as he never conceived that the ordinary piece of frame-work AB could be of any other use than its apparent one of supporting the sphere M, and defending it from the spectators, he was left in utter amazement respecting the origin of the sound, and his surprise was increased by the difference between the sounds which were uttered and those of ordinary speech.

Though the spectators were thus deceived by their own reasoning, yet the process of deception was a very simple one. In two of the horizontal railings A, A, Fig. 38, opposite the trumpet mouths T, there was an aperture communicating with a pipe or tube which went to the vertical post B, and descending it, as shown at TAA, Fig. 39, went beneath the floor f f, in the direction p p, and entered the apartment N, where the invisible lady sat. On the side of the partition about h, there was a small hole through which the lady saw what was going on in the exhibition-room, and communications were no doubt made to her by signals from the person who attended the machine. When one of the spectators asked a question by speaking into one of the trumpets T, the sound was reflected from the mouth of the trumpet back to the aperture at A, in the horizontal rail, Fig. 38, and was distinctly conveyed along the closed tube into the apartment N. In like manner the answer issued from the aperture A, and being reflected back to the ear of the spectator by the trumpet, he heard the sounds with that change of character which they receive when transmitted through a tube and then reflected to the ear.

The surprise of the auditors was greatly increased by the circumstance, that an answer was returned to questions put in a whisper, and also by the conviction that nobody but a person in the middle of the audience could observe the circumstances to which the invisible figure frequently adverted.

Although the performances of speaking heads were generally effected by the methods now described, yet there is reason to think that the ventriloquist sometimes presided at the exhibition, and deceived the audience by his extraordinary powers of illusion. There is no species of deception more irresistible in its effects than that which arises from the uncertainty with which we judge of the direction and distance of sounds. Every person must have noticed how a sound in their own ears is often mistaken for some loud noise moderated by the distance from which it is supposed to come; and the sportsman must have frequently been surprised at the existence of musical sounds humming remotely in the extended heath, when it was only the wind sounding in the barrel of his gun. The great proportion of apparitions that haunt old castles and apartments associated with death, exist only in the sounds which accompany them. The imagination even of the boldest inmate of a place hallowed by superstition, will transfer some trifling sound near his own person to a direction and to a distance very different from the truth, and the sound which otherwise might have no peculiar complexion will derive another character from its new locality. Spurning the idea of a supernatural origin, he determines to unmask the spectre, and grapple with it in its den. All the inmates of the house are found to be asleep—even the quadrupeds are in their lair—there is not a breath of wind to ruffle the lake that reflects through the casement the reclining crescent of the night; and the massive walls in which he is enclosed forbid the idea that he has been disturbed by the warping of panelling or the bending of partitions. His search is vain; and he remains master of his own secret, till he has another opportunity of investigation. The same sound again disturbs him, and, modified probably by his own position at the time, it may perhaps appear to come in a direction slightly different from the last. His searches are resumed, and he is again disappointed. If this incident should recur night after night with the same result—if the sound should appear to depend upon his own motions, or be any how associated with himself, with his present feelings, or with his past history, his personal courage will give way; a superstitious dread, at which he himself perhaps laughs, will seize his mind; and he will rather believe that the sounds have a supernatural origin, than that they could continue to issue from a spot where he knows there is no natural cause for their production.

I have had occasion to have personal knowledge of a case much stronger than that which has now been put. A gentleman, devoid of all superstitious feelings, and living in a house free from any gloomy associations, heard night after night in his bed-room a singular noise, unlike any ordinary sound to which he was accustomed. He had slept in the same room for years without hearing it, and he attributed it at first to some change of circumstances in the roof or in the walls of the room, but after the strictest examination no cause could be found for it. It occurred only once in the night; it was heard almost every night, with few interruptions. It was over in an instant, and it never took place till after the gentleman had gone to bed. It was always distinctly heard by his companion, to whose time of going to bed it had no relation. It depended on the gentleman alone, and it followed him into another apartment with another bed, on the opposite side of the house. Accustomed to such investigations, he made the most diligent but fruitless search into its cause. The consideration that the sound had a special reference to him alone, operated upon his imagination, and he did not scruple to acknowledge that the recurrence of the mysterious sound produced a superstitious feeling at the moment. Many months afterwards it was found that the sound arose from the partial opening of the door of a wardrobe which was within a few feet of the gentleman’s head, and which had been taken into the other apartment. This wardrobe was almost always opened before he retired to bed, and the door being a little too tight, it gradually forced itself open with a sort of dull sound, resembling the note of a drum. As the door had only started half an inch out of its place, its change of position never attracted attention. The sound, indeed, seemed to come in a different direction, and from a greater distance.

When sounds so mysterious in their origin are heard by persons predisposed to a belief in the marvellous, their influence over the mind must be very powerful. An inquiry into their origin, if it is made at all, will be made more in the hope of confirming than of removing the original impression, and the unfortunate victim of his own fears will also be the willing dupe of his own judgment.

This uncertainty with respect to the direction of sound is the foundation of the art of ventriloquism. If we place ten men in a row at such a distance from us that they are included in the angle within which we cannot judge of the direction of sound, and if in a calm day each of them speaks in succession, we shall not be able with closed eyes to determine from which of the ten men any of the sounds proceed, and we shall be incapable of perceiving that there is any difference in the direction of the sounds emitted by the two outermost. If a man and a child are placed within the same angle, and if the man speaks with the accent of a child without any corresponding motion in his mouth or face, we shall necessarily believe that the voice comes from the child; nay, if the child is so distant from the man that the voice actually appears to us to come from the man, we shall still continue in the belief that the child is the speaker; and this conviction would acquire additional strength if the child favoured the deception, by accommodating its features and gestures to the words spoken by the man. So powerful, indeed, is the influence of this deception, that if a jack-ass, placed near the man, were to open its mouth, and shake its head responsive to the words uttered by his neighbour, we should rather believe that the ass spoke than that the sounds proceeded from a person whose mouth was shut, and the muscles of whose face were in perfect repose. If our imagination were even directed to a marble statue or a lump of inanimate matter, as the source from which we were to expect the sounds to issue, we would still be deceived, and would refer the sounds even to these lifeless objects. The illusion would be greatly promoted, if the voice were totally different in its tone and character from that of the man from whom it really comes; and if he occasionally speaks in his own full and measured voice, the belief will be irresistible that the assumed voice proceeds from the quadruped or from the inanimate object.

When the sounds which are required to proceed from any given object are such as they are actually calculated to yield, the process of deception is extremely easy; and it may be successfully executed, even if the angle between the real and the supposed direction of the sound is much greater than the angle of uncertainty. Mr. Dugald Stewart has stated some cases in which deceptions of this kind were very perfect. He mentions his having seen a person who, by counterfeiting the gesticulations of a performer on the violin, while he imitated the music by his voice, riveted the eyes of his audience on the instrument, though every sound they heard proceeded from his own mouth. The late Savile Carey, who imitated the whistling of the wind through a narrow chink, told Mr. Stewart that he had frequently practised this deception in the corner of a coffee-house, and that he seldom failed to see some of the company rise to examine the tightness of the windows, while others, more intent on their newspapers, contented themselves with putting on their hats and buttoning their coats. Mr. Stewart likewise mentions an exhibition formerly common in some of the continental theatres, where a performer on the stage displayed the dumb-show of singing with his lips and eyes and gestures, while another person unseen supplied the music with his voice. The deception in this case he found to be at first so complete as to impose upon the nicest ear and the quickest eye; but in the progress of the entertainment, he became distinctly sensible of the imposition, and sometimes wondered that it should have misled him for a moment. In this case there can be no doubt that the deception was at first the work of the imagination, and was not sustained by the acoustic principle. The real and the mock singer were too distant, and when the influence of the imagination subsided, the true direction of the sound was discovered. This detection of the imposture, however, may have arisen from another cause. If the mock singer happened to change the position of his head, while the real singer made no corresponding change in his voice, the attentive spectator would at once notice this incongruity, and discover the imposition.

In many of the feats of ventriloquism the performer contrives, under some pretence or other, to conceal his face, but ventriloquists of great distinction, such as M. Alexandre, practise their art without any such concealment.

Ventriloquism loses its distinctive character if its imitations are not performed by a voice from the belly. The voice, indeed, does not actually come from that region; but when the ventriloquist utters sounds from the larynx without moving the muscles of his face, he gives them strength by a powerful action of the abdominal muscles. Hence he speaks by means of his belly, although the throat is the real source from whence the sounds proceed. Mr. Dugald Stewart has doubted the fact, that ventriloquists possess the power of fetching a voice from within: he cannot conceive what aid could be derived from such an extraordinary power; and he considers that the imagination, when seconded by such powers of imitation as some mimics possess, is quite sufficient to account for all the phenomena of ventriloquism which he has heard. This opinion, however, is strongly opposed by the remark made to Mr. Stewart himself by a ventriloquist, “that his art would be perfect, if it were possible only to speak distinctly without any movement of the lips at all.” But, independent of this admission, it is a matter of absolute certainty, that this internal power is exercised by the true ventriloquist. In the account which the AbbÉ Chapelle has given of the performances of M. St. Gille and Louis Brabant, he distinctly states that M. St. Gille appeared to be absolutely mute while he was exercising his art, and that no change in his countenance could be discovered.16 He affirms, also, that the countenance of Louis Brabant exhibited no change, and that his lips were close and inactive. M. Richerand, who attentively watched the performances of M. Fitz-James, assures us that during his exhibition there was a distention in the epigastric region, and that he could not long continue the exertion without fatigue.

The influence over the human mind which the ventriloquist derives from the skilful practice of his art is greater than that which is exercised by any other species of conjuror. The ordinary magician requires his theatre, his accomplices, and the instruments of his art, and he enjoys but a local sovereignty within the precincts of his own magic circle. The ventriloquist, on the contrary, has the supernatural always at his command. In the open fields as well as in the crowded city, in the private apartment as well as in the public hall, he can summon up innumerable spirits; and though the persons of his fictitious dialogue are not visible to the eye, yet they are unequivocally present to the imagination of his auditors, as if they had been shadowed forth in the silence of a spectral form. In order to convey some idea of the influence of this illusion, I shall mention a few well-authenticated cases of successful ventriloquism.

M. St. Gille, a grocer of St. Germain-en-Laye, whose performances have been recorded by the AbbÉ de la Chapelle, had occasion to shelter himself from a storm in a neighbouring convent, where the monks were in deep mourning for a much-esteemed member of their community who had been recently buried. While lamenting over the tomb of their deceased brother the slight honours which had been paid to his memory, a voice was suddenly heard to issue from the roof of the choir bewailing the condition of the deceased in purgatory, and reproving the brotherhood for their want of zeal. The tidings of this supernatural event brought the whole brotherhood to the church. The voice from above repeated its lamentations and reproaches, and the whole convent fell upon their faces, and vowed to make a reparation of their error. They accordingly chanted in full choir a De Profundis, during the intervals of which the spirit of the departed monk expressed his satisfaction at their pious exercises. The prior afterwards inveighed against modern scepticism on the subject of apparitions, and M. St. Gille had great difficulty in convincing the fraternity that the whole was a deception.

On another occasion, a commission of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, attended by several persons of the highest rank, met at St. Germain-en-Laye to witness the performances of M. St. Gille. The real object of their meeting was purposely withheld from a lady of the party, who was informed that an aËrial spirit had lately established itself in the neighbourhood, and that the object of the assembly was to investigate the matter. When the party had sat down to dinner in the open air, the spirit addressed the lady in a voice which seemed to come from above their heads, from the surface of the ground at a great distance, or from a considerable depth under her feet. Having been thus addressed at intervals during two hours, the lady was firmly convinced of the existence of the spirit, and could with difficulty be undeceived.

Another ventriloquist, Louis Brabant, who had been valet-de-chambre to Francis I., turned his powers to a more profitable account. Having fallen in love with a rich and beautiful heiress, he was rejected by her parents as an unsuitable match for their daughter. On the death of her father, Louis paid a visit to the widow, and he had no sooner entered the house than she heard the voice of her deceased husband addressing her from above, “Give my daughter in marriage to Louis Brabant, who is a man of large fortune and excellent character. I endure the inexpressible torments of purgatory for having refused her to him. Obey this admonition, and give everlasting repose to the soul of your poor husband.” This awful command could not be resisted, and the widow announced her compliance with it.

As our conjuror, however, required money for the completion of his marriage, he resolved to work upon the fears of one Cornu, an old banker at Lyons, who had amassed immense wealth by usury and extortion. Having obtained an interview with the miser, he introduced the subjects of demons and spectres, and the torments of purgatory; and, during an interval of silence, the voice of the miser’s deceased father was heard complaining of his dreadful situation in purgatory, and calling upon his son to rescue him from his sufferings by enabling Louis Brabant to redeem the Christians that were enslaved by the Turks. The awe-struck miser was also threatened with eternal damnation if he did not thus expiate his own sins; but such was the grasp that the banker took of his gold, that the ventriloquist was obliged to pay him another visit. On this occasion, not only his father but all his deceased relatives appealed to him in behalf of his own soul and theirs; and such was the loudness of their complaints, that the spirit of the banker was subdued, and he gave the ventriloquist ten thousand crowns to liberate the Christian captives. When the miser was afterwards undeceived, he is said to have been so mortified that he died of vexation.

The ventriloquists of the nineteenth century made great additions to their art, and the performances of M. Fitz-James and M. Alexandre, which must have been seen by many of our countrymen, were far superior to those of their predecessors. Besides the art of speaking by the muscles of the throat and the abdomen, without moving those of the face, these artists had not only studied with great diligence and success the modifications which sounds of all kinds undergo from distance, obstructions, and other causes, but had acquired the art of imitating them in the highest perfection. The ventriloquist was therefore able to carry on a dialogue in which the dramatis voces, as they may be called, were numerous; and when on the outside of an apartment, he could personate a mob with its infinite variety of noise and vociferation. Their influence over an audience was still further extended by a singular power over the muscles of the body. M. Fitz-James actually succeeded in making the opposite or corresponding muscles act differently from each other; and while one side of his face was merry and laughing, the other was full of sorrow and in tears. At one moment he was tall, thin, and melancholic, and after pausing behind a screen, he came out “bloated with obesity and staggering with fulness.” M. Alexandre possessed the same power over his face and figure; and so striking was the contrast of two of these forms, that an excellent sculptor, Mr. Joseph, has perpetuated them in marble.

This new acquirement of the ventriloquist enabled him, in his own single person and with his own single voice, to represent upon the stage a dramatic composition which would have required the assistance of several actors. Although only one character in the piece could be seen at the same time, yet they all appeared during its performance, and the change of face and figure on the part of the ventriloquist was so perfect, that his personal identity could not be recognized in the dramatis personÆ. This deception was rendered still more complete by a particular construction of the dresses, which enabled the performer to reappear in a new character after an interval so short that the audience necessarily believed that it was another person.

It is a curious circumstance that Captain Lyon found among the Esquimaux of Igloolik ventriloquists of no mean skill. There is much rivalry among the professors of the art, who do not expose each other’s secrets, and their exhibitions derive great importance from the rarity of their occurrence. The following account of one of them is so interesting that we shall give the whole of it in Captain Lyon’s words:—

“Amongst our Igloolik acquaintances were two females and a few male wizards, of whom the principal was Toolemak. This personage was cunning and intelligent; and, whether professionally, or from his skill in the chase, but perhaps from both reasons, was considered by all the tribe as a man of importance. As I invariably paid great deference to his opinion on all subjects connected with his calling, he freely communicated to me his superior knowledge, and did not scruple to allow of my being present at his interviews with Tornga, or his patron spirit. In consequence of this, I took an early opportunity of requesting my friend to exhibit his skill in my cabin. His old wife was with him, and by much flattery and an accidental display of a glittering knife and some beads, she assisted me in obtaining my request. All light excluded, our sorcerer began chanting to his wife with great vehemence, and she in return answered by singing the Amna-aya, which was not discontinued during the whole ceremony. As far as I could hear, he afterwards began turning himself rapidly round, and in a loud, powerful voice vociferated for Tornga with great impatience, at the same time blowing and snorting like a walrus. His noise, impatience, and agitation increased every moment, and he at length seated himself on the deck, varying his tones, and making a rustling with his clothes. Suddenly the voice seemed smothered, and was so managed as to sound as if retreating beneath the deck, each moment becoming more distant, and ultimately giving the idea of being many feet below the cabin, when it ceased entirely. His wife now, in answer to my queries, informed me very seriously, that he had dived, and that he would send up Tornga. Accordingly, in about half a minute, a distant blowing was heard very slowly approaching, and a voice, which differed from that at first heard, was at times mingled with the blowing, until at length both sounds became distinct, and the old woman informed me that Tornga was come to answer my questions. I accordingly asked several questions of the sagacious spirit, to each of which inquiries I received an answer by two loud claps on the deck, which I was given to understand were favourable.

“A very hollow, yet powerful voice, certainly much different from the tones of Toolemak, now chanted for some time, and a strange jumble of hisses, groans, shouts, and gabblings like a turkey, succeeded in rapid order. The old woman sang with increased energy; and as I took it for granted that this was all intended to astonish the Kabloona, I cried repeatedly that I was very much afraid. This, as I expected, added fuel to the fire, until the poor immortal, exhausted by its own might, asked leave to retire.

“The voice gradually sank from our hearing as at first, and a very indistinct hissing succeeded; in its advance it sounded like the tone produced by the wind on the brass chord of an Æolian harp. This was soon changed to a rapid hiss like that of a rocket, and Toolemak with a yell announced his return. I had held my breath at the first distant hissing, and twice exhausted myself, yet our conjuror did not once respire, and even his returning and powerful yell was uttered without a previous stop or inspiration of air.

“Light being admitted, our wizard, as might be expected, was in a profuse perspiration, and certainly much exhausted by his exertions, which had continued for at least half an hour. We now observed a couple of bunches, each consisting of two stripes of white deer-skin, and a long piece of sinew, attached to the back of his coat. These we had not seen before, and were informed that they had been sewn on by Tornga while he was below.”17

Captain Lyon had the good fortune to witness another of Toolemak’s exhibitions, and he was much struck with the wonderful steadiness of the wizard throughout the whole performance, which lasted an hour and a half. He did not once appear to move, for he was so close to the skin behind which Captain Lyon sat, that if he had done so he must have perceived it. Captain Lyon did not hear the least rustling of his clothes, or even distinguish his breathing, although his outcries were made with great exertion.18