THE POWER OF HE.
Next day Leonora, the Boshman, and I returned to the home of the mage.
He stood before us, a tall thin figure enwrapped in yellowish, strange
garments, of a singular and perfumed character--spicy in fact--which
produced upon me a feeling which I cannot attempt to describe, and
which I can only vaguely hint at by saying that the whole form conveyed
to me the notion of _something wrapped up_.[23]
[23]
The public will say, so is your meaning.--PUBLISHER.
Don't give it away, but that's what I mean.--ED.
With a curious swaying motion which I have never seen anything
like--for he seemed less to be walking than to be impelled from behind
like a perambulator, or dragged from in front like a canal-boat--he
advanced to the table, where lay some pieces of a white substance like
papyrus, all of the same size and oblong shape, which showed on their
surfaces, some of them antique-looking figures and faces curiously
stained, and others red and black dots, arranged, as it seemed to me,
in some sort of design, although at first sight they looked jumbled
enough. Near to these lay a book bound in brown, but with heavy black
and gold lettering, amid which I thought I could make out the words
_Modern Magic_, and the name _Hoffmann_. The swathed figure poised
itself a moment, resting one thin hand on the table, and then spoke.
'There is naught that is wonderful about this matter,' it said, 'could
you but understand it. Prestigiation itself is wonderful, but that its
phases and phrases should be changed is not wonderful. Not now, I ween,
is the _gibeciere_ of the Ancient Wizard seen; not now the "Presto,
pass!" of the less ancient conjurer heard. Nay, all things change, yet
I change not; that which is not yet cannot yet have taken place--at
least not its proper place; that which shall not be may yet come to a
bad pass, and the blind race of man watches helpless the trammels it
could shake off did it but greatly dare. My business, ladies and
gentlemen, now is, as I have just explained to you, to attempt to
puzzle your eyes by the quickness of my fingers. Yours, on the other
hand, will be to detect the way--or _modus operandi_, as old Simon
Magus used to say--in which I perform my little wonders--if you can.
Will any gentleman lend me a helmet--I mean a hat?'
As the only male person present was the Boshman, this appeared to me a
futile question, and even the stately Magician seemed to be struck by
some dim idea of the kind, for I could discern a pair of mysterious
eyes peering anxiously through his swathings, and I heard him mutter to
himself in several languages, 'Ought to have thought of that. No hat
present. Don't know any trick to produce one. Nothing about it in the
book.'
But he recovered himself quickly, and went on in clear cheerful tones,
'Ladies and gentlemen, as no person present has a hat, I will proceed
to another of the tricks on my little programme. Will any lady oblige
me by drawing a card? Will you, madam?' he said, bowing with infinite
grace to Leonora.
Her hand touched Asher's as she drew a card, and I saw a shiver pass
over the veiled figure.
'Will the lady on your left now oblige me?' he continued, turning to
me, who was indeed standing on Leonora's left hand, though how he knew
it is a thing I have never been able fully to understand.
'Now, please,' he continued, 'look well at your cards, but do not show
them to me or to each other. _Basta. Assez._ [Greek: Konx Ompax]. Now,
please, still hiding the cards from me and from each other, exchange
them. Now,' he continued, his form dilating with conscious power, 'see
how true is it that change is perennial, even so far as magic and
Nature herself can be perennial. For she who held the King of Hearts
now holds the Queen of Spades, and she who held the Queen of Spades now
holds the King of Hearts. Thus much among the shifting shadows of life
can I, the wizard, see as a sure and accomplished fact. Is it not so,
my children?'
We bowed in silence, overawed by the wonder of his presence, although
Leonora whispered to me, 'He has got the cards wrong, but we had better
say nothing about it.'
'And now,' he continued, 'look upon this glass (it was an ordinary
wineglass) and on this silver coin,' producing a _stater_ of the
Eretrian Republic. 'See! I place the coin in the glass, and now can I
tell you by its means what you will of the future. There is no magic in
it, only a little knowledge of the secrets, mutable yet immutable, of
Nature. And this is an old secret. I did not find it. It was known of
yore in Atlantis and in Chichimec, in Ur and in Lycosura. Even now the
rude Boshmen keep up the tradition among their medicine-men. Vill any
lady ask the coin a qvestion?' he continued, in a hoarse Semitic
whisper, for all currencies and all languages were alike to him. 'Sure
it's the coin 'll be afther tellun' ye what ye like. Voulez-vous
demander, Mademoiselle? Wollen Sie, gnaedige Signora?'
'Then,' said Leonora, in trembling accents, 'I demand to know if I
shall find that which I seek.'
The figure, drawing itself up to its full height, passed its hand with
a proud, impatient, and mystic gesture across the glass, and then stood
in the attitude of one who awaited a response. 'Should the coin, my
daughter, jump three times,' he said, 'the answer is yea. Should it
jump but once, nay.'
We waited anxiously. The coin did not jump at all! The wizard took up
the glass, shook it impatiently, and put it down again. Still the coin
showed no sign of animation. Then the wizard uttered some private
ejaculations in Hittite, but still the coin did not move. Then he
affected an air of jauntiness, and said, 'I remember a circumstance of
a similar kind when I was playing odd man out ([Greek: tritos
anthropos] dear old Sokrates used to call it) with Darius the night
before Marathon. Darius was the Mede. _I_ was the Medium.' Then he
seemed about to work another wonder, when he was interrupted by the
harsh cackling laughter of the Boshman, who advanced with careless
defiance and observed in his own tongue, which we all knew perfectly,
that he 'could see all the tricks the wizard could do and go several
better.' I waited, horror-struck, to see what would follow this
insolence.
Asher made a movement so swift that I could scarcely follow it; but it
seemed to me that he lightly laid his hand upon the poor Boshman's
head. I looked at Ustani, and then staggered back in wonder, for there
upon his snowy hair, right across the wool-white tresses, were five
finger-marks _black as coal_.
'Now go and stand in the corner,' said the magician, in a cold inhuman
voice. The unhappy Boshman tremblingly did his bidding, putting his
hands to his head in a dazed way as he went, and, incredible as it may
seem, thus transferring--as if the curse carried double force--some of
the black mark to his own fingers.
'I will now,' continued the wizard, who had regained his ordinary
polished, if somewhat swaying and overbalanced, manner--'I will now,
with your kind permission, show you a little trick which was a great
favourite with the late Tubal Cain when we were boys together. Observe,
I take this paper-knife--it is an ordinary paper-knife--look at it for
yourselves. I will place it on my down-turned hand. It is an ordinary
hand--look at it for yourselves, but don't touch it; the consequences
might be disastrous.'
I, for my part, having seen the consequences in the case of Ustani's
hair, had no desire to do so.
'You see,' continued the sorcerer, 'I place the paper-knife _there_! It
falls. Why? Because of gravity. What is gravity? Newton, as you know
well, invented the art; but what of that? Did he find that which did
not exist? No, for the non-existent is as though it had never been. But
now, availing myself of the resources of science, which is ever old and
ever young, I clasp my wrist--the wrist of the hand on which the
paper-knife rests--with the other hand, and--you see.'
As the sorcerer spoke, he deftly turned his hand palm downwards, and
the paper-knife fell with a crash and a clatter on the floor. It was
terrible to see the dumb wrath of the swathed figure at this new
defeat.
Even in this moment the Boshman glided like a serpent among us, picked
up the paper-knife, and triumphantly performed the very miracle in
which the wizard had failed. A harsh cackle of laughter announced his
success. But the mage was even with him, or rather he was 'odds and
evens.' Rapidly he drew his forefinger across the Boshman's face,
perpendicularly and horizontally--
[Illustration:
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On the skin of Ustani, azure with terror, appeared the above diagram in
lines of white! The mage then made the sign of a +, thus--
[Illustration:
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]
and challenged Leonora to a contest of skill in 'oughts and crosses.'
But the Boshman, catching a view of his own altered aspect in a mirror,
exclaimed, 'You 'standy Ustani? Him no standy He! Him show hisself for
tin! Adults one shilling, kids tizzy. _Me Umslopoguey!_' And he sloped;
nor did we ever again see this victim of an overwhelming Power
(limited).
We presently took our leave of the mage, promising to call next day,
and bring a policeman.