'Oh, rather, yes! I'm getting quite a dab at this job. If all else fails, I shall try for an engagement with Maskelyne.'
Juan laughed, showing his white teeth. He brought out a set of billiard-balls, coins and other conjuring apparatus, palming and multiplying them negligently as he went. The other took them from him, and the lesson proceeded.
'Hush!' said the wizard, retrieving a ball which had tiresomely slipped from his fingers in the very act of vanishing. 'There's somebody coming up the path.'
He pulled his robe about his face and slipped silently into the inner room. Juan grinned, removed the decanter and glasses, and extinguished the lamp. In the firelight the great eyes of the lemur gleamed strongly as it hung on the back of the high chair. Juan pulled a large folio from the shelf, lit a scented pastille in a curiously shaped copper vase and pulled forward a heavy iron cauldron which stood on the hearth. As he piled the logs about it, there came a knock. He opened the door, the lemur running at his heels.
'Whom do you seek, mother?' he asked, in Basque.
'Is the Wise One at home?'
'His body is at home, mother; his spirit holds converse with the unseen. Enter. What would you with us?'
'I have come, as I said--ah, Mary! Is that a spirit?'
'God made spirits and bodies also. Enter and fear not.'
The old woman came tremblingly forward.
'Hast thou spoken with him of what I told thee?'
'I have. I have shown him the sickness of thy mistress--her husband's sufferings--all.'
'What said he?'
'Nothing; he read in his book.'
'Think you he can heal her?'
'I do not know; the enchantment is a strong one; but my master is mighty for good.'
'Will he see me?'
'I will ask him. Remain here, and beware thou show no fear, whatever befall.'
'I will be courageous,' said the old woman, fingering her beads.
Juan withdrew. There was a nerve-shattering interval. The lemur had climbed up to the back of the chair again and swung, teeth-chattering, among the leaping shadows. The parrot cocked his head and spoke a few gruff words from his corner. An aromatic steam began to rise from the cauldron. Then, slowly into the red light, three, four, seven white shapes came stealthily and sat down in a circle about the hearth. Then, a faint music, that seemed to roll in from leagues away. The flame flickered and dropped. There was a tall cabinet against the wall, with gold figures on it that seemed to move with the moving firelight.
Then, out of the darkness, a strange voice chanted in an unearthly tongue that sobbed and thundered.
Martha's knees gave under her. She sank down. The seven white cats rose and stretched themselves, and came sidling slowly about her. She looked up and saw the wizard standing before her, a book in one hand and a silver wand in the other. The upper part of his face was hidden, but she saw his pale lips move and presently he spoke, in a deep, husky tone that vibrated solemnly in the dim room:
The great syllables went rolling on. Then the wizard paused, and added, in a kinder tone:
'Great stuff, this Homer. 'It goes so thunderingly as though it conjured devils'. What do I do next?'
The servant had come back, and now whispered in Martha's ear.
'Speak now,' he said. 'The master is willing to help you.'
Thus encouraged, Martha stammered out her request. She had come to ask the Wise Man to help her mistress, who lay under an enchantment. She had brought an offering--the best she could find, for she had not liked to take anything of her master's during his absence. But here were a silver penny, an oat-cake, and a bottle of wine, very much at the wizard's service, if such small matters could please him.
The wizard, setting aside his book, gravely accepted the silver penny, turned it magically into six gold pieces and laid the offering on the table. Over the oat-cake and the wine he showed a little hesitation, but at length, murmuring:
'Ergo omnis longo solvit se Teucria luctu'
(a line notorious for its grave spondaic cadence), he metamorphosed the one into a pair of pigeons and the other into a curious little crystal tree in a metal pot, and set them beside the coins. Martha's eyes nearly started from her head, but Juan whispered encouragingly:
'The good intention gives value to the gift. The master is pleased. Hush!'
The music ceased on a loud chord. The wizard, speaking now with greater assurance, delivered himself with fair accuracy of a page or so from Homer's Catalogue of the Ships, and, drawing from the folds of his robe his long white hand laden with antique rings, produced from mid-air a small casket of shining metal, which he proffered to the suppliant.
'The master says,' prompted the servant, 'that you shall take this casket, and give to your lady of the wafers which it contains, one at every meal. When all have been consumed, seek this place again. And remember to say three Aves and two Paters morning and evening for the intention of the lady's health. Thus, by faith and diligence, the cure may be accomplished.'
Martha received the casket with trembling hands.
'Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore,' said the wizard, with emphasis. 'Poluphloisboio thalasses. Ne plus ultra. Valete. Plaudite.'
He walked away into the darkness, and the audience was over.
'It is working, then?' said the wizard to Juan.
The time was five weeks later, and five more consignments of enchanted wafers had been ceremoniously dispatched to the grim house on the mountain.
'It is working,' agreed Juan. 'The intelligence is returning, the body is becoming livelier and the hair is growing again.'
'Thank the Lord! It was a shot in the dark, Juan, and even now I can hardly believe that anyone in the world could think of such a devilish trick. When does Wetherall return?'
'In three weeks' time.'
'Then we had better fix our grand finale for today fortnight. See that the mules are ready, and go down to the town and get a message off to the yacht.'
'Yes, my lord.'
'That will give you a week to get clear with the menagerie and the baggage. And--I say, how about Martha? Is it dangerous to leave her behind, do you think?'
'I will try to persuade her to come back with us.'
'Do. I should hate anything unpleasant to happen to her. The man's a criminal lunatic. Oh, lord! I'll be glad when this is over. I want to get into a proper suit of clothes again. What Bunter would say if he saw this--'
The wizard laughed, lit a cigar and turned on the gramophone.
The last act was duly staged a fortnight later.
It had taken some trouble to persuade Martha of the necessity of bringing her mistress to the wizard's house. Indeed, that supernatural personage had been obliged to make an alarming display of wrath and declaim two whole choruses from Euripides before gaining his point. The final touch was put to the terrors of the evening by a demonstration of the ghastly effects of a sodium flame--which lends a very corpse-like aspect to the human countenance, particularly in a lonely cottage on a dark night, and accompanied by incantations and the 'Danse Macabre' of Saint-Satins.
