CHAPTER IX.
THE BRIGAND'S CONSPIRACY—THE ARAB ASTROLOGER—HARVEY'S FIRST
APPEARANCE AS A MESMERIST.
"They are making fresh efforts to get Mathias out," said Dick Harvey to his friend Harkaway.
This was the beginning of a conversation which took place at the residence of the Harkaway party just three days after the daring and audacious attack on the hotel.
Mathias had been captured by the patrol while endeavouring to escape, and thrown in gaol again.
"Hang their impudence!" said Jefferson. "Will nothing daunt them? I wish one of them had entered my room the other night; I would have held him faster than it seems the prisons here can."
"These two restless vagabonds are up to their games again," exclaimed Dick.
"You mean Toro?"
"Aye, and Hunston."
"What have they done now?" demanded Jefferson.
"They have been trying to tamper with the gaolers."
"How was it discovered?"
"The traitor, whoever he may be, let fall a letter that he was carrying to Mathias."
"That's lucky. Well, did they discover any thing?"
"No; it was written in cypher."
"The cunning rascals!"
"Now, I've got more news for you," Dick went on to say.
"Out with it, then."
"You have heard of the Arab who tells fortunes in the town?"
"Mehemed Sadan, the great necromancer?"
"Yes. Would you be surprised to learn that he is one of Mathias' band?"
"Why, those scoundrels have a finger in every pie."
"True," said Harvey. "Now, I have a notion to offer you. I propose that we go there and test the truth of what I say."
"How?"
"I'll tell you that as we go. Are you agreed?"
"I'm willing," said Harkaway; "any thing for a little excitement."
Off they went.
Mehemed Sadan, the Arabian magician, carried on his occult practices in a house in the best part of the town, and all his surroundings tended to show that the "black art" had proved a most profitable commerce to him.
When Harkaway, Jefferson, and Harvey arrived there, they were ushered into the presence of the magician by a negro fancifully attired, wearing silver bands round his wrists and ankles, from which dangled chains with small bells attached.
Mehemed Sadan was seated on a high-backed chair, close by a long table, on which was a long cloth of black velvet, covered with mystic signs and letters, which were all so much Greek to the visitors.
The room was filled with all kinds of things calculated to impress the vulgar with superstitious awe.
The effect was altogether lost upon Dick Harvey, for he made a point of nodding at the Arab astrologer in the most familiar manner.
"Morning to you, old fellow," he said, cheerfully.
"Salaam, sahib," responded the necromancer, gravely.
"Hullo!" said Jefferson, opening his eyes, "why, this Arab talks Hindustani."
"Leave it to me," said Dick Harvey, in an undertone.
The Arab then said some few words to the company generally, which the company generally could make rather less of than if they had been addressed in Chinese.
"He's talking no known language under the sun," said Harkaway. "It's my opinion he has got the cheek to talk regular right-down gibberish to us."
It was true.
The words, or sounds, let us say, which the necromancer was uttering, only sounded but too much like "hokey-pokey kickeraboo abracadabra," and the rest of the mysterious sounds with which the conjurer at juvenile parties seeks to invest his performance with additional wonder, for the benefit of his youthful audience.
Dick was in a rage.
"Confound his impudence," he exclaimed; "I'll give him one."
So he let out in this wise—
"Chi ki hi-u-thundrinold umbuggo—canardly keep my thievinirons off your wool—I should like to land you just one on the smeller and tap your claret."
At which, to the surprise of the magician, the visitors burst out laughing.
The Arab necromancer now asked them, in very good Greek, the object of their visit.
"We shall not understand much if we are addressed in Greek," said Harkaway; "try him in Italian."
And then they found that the conjurer spoke Italian as well, or better, than any of the party.
"Can you tell me," said Jack Harkaway, by way of beginning business, "if I shall succeed in the present object of my desires or not?"
The magician bowed his head gravely.
Then he opened a large volume covered with mystic characters.
For a minute or two he appeared to be lost in deep study, and then he gave his reply.
"Your desires tend to the downfall of some lawless men, I find," he said, watching them keenly, as if he expected to see them jump up in surprise at his words.
"They do."
"And you will not succeed."
"Does your art tell you where I shall fail?" asked Jack.
"No; I only see disappointment and trouble for you and yours."
"Dear, dear, how very shocking," exclaimed Harkaway, winking at Harvey.
"Dreadful!" added Dick, with a terrified look, and putting his tongue out at the magician.
"What else does your art tell you?" demanded Jefferson, who was anxious to know how far the necromancer would venture to try and humbug them.
"I see here," said the conjurer, drawing his finger along a line of something on an open "book of fate," that looked like Arabic, "I see here that your lives are menaced, one and all, through the keeping of a wretched man under restraint."
The visitors looked at each other and exchanged a smile.
"Your art is at fault," said Jefferson; "we have no one under restraint."
"You are in some way connected with it."
"Wrong again."
The wizard looked uncomfortable at this.
"Strange," he said, "and yet I read it here as clearly as you might yourself if it were written in a book."
"You are mistaken," said Jefferson; "we are in no way concerned in any thing of the kind."
The wizard pored over the mystic tome again.
"I can say no more then," he said, "for here you are clearly indicated. You especially are mentioned as being the immediate cause of his downfall."
"How am I indicated?" demanded Jefferson.
"By the letter J."
"Which you take for?"
"Your initial."
"Humph! not far out. What an audacious humbug the fellow is," said Jefferson to Jack.
Now, during the foregoing scene, young Jack and Harry Girdwood had joined the party, and Dick Harvey was observed to be in close conversation with them.
At this point Harvey turned from the two lads towards Jefferson.
"The astrologer is right," he said, gravely.
"What the devil do you mean?" exclaimed Jefferson.
"You are right, sir," added Dick to the magician himself.
The latter bowed.
"I doubt it not," he said; "the stars do not speak falsely."
"No, no."
"And so you may convince your friend that I say no more nor less than the truth."
"I can," said Dick, in a voice as solemn as that of the necromancer himself, "for I am a mesmerist, and I have here with me a clairvoyant of great power."
The conjurer started.
"Where?"
"Here."
He held out his hand to young Jack and led him forward.
Harkaway and Jefferson stared again.
"Hullo!" ejaculated old Jack; "what the deuce is madcap Dick up to now?"
"Can't hazard a guess," said Jefferson.
"Mesmerism can not read the future as my art does," said the necromancer.
"It can," said Dick; "it corroborates all you have said. I'll give you a proof of it before our friends here."
And then, before he could object, Dick made a mesmeric pass or two across young Jack's face, and immediately it appeared to take effect.
Young Jack's eyes were closed, and for a moment there played about his mouth a merry smile of mischief, and then he appeared to be in a state of coma.
Never was mesmerism effected with such little trouble.
"Now tell me," said Dick, with all the tricks of manner of the professional mesmerist, "tell me to what this person alludes?"
"He speaks of Mathias, the brigand chief."
"True," said Dick; "and will Mathias escape?"
"No."
"You hear," said Dick, turning towards the necromancer.
"I do."
"And therefore it is useless to try and effect the liberation of this Mathias?"
"Quite," returned young Jack. "The wizard here is trying all he can himself, but he will be discovered by the police and thrown into prison."
"Hah!" exclaimed Dick, "do you hear that?"
"I do," returned the necromancer, "but it is false."
"It is true," said Dick. "So beware."
[Illustration: 'SPEAK,' SAID DICK, MAKING MESMERIC PASSES ACROSS
JACK'S FACE"—ADV. IN GREECE, VOL. II PAGE 64.]
"Ask him more," said the wizard, eagerly. "Ask him more."
"What shall I ask?" demanded Dick.
"Ask him—yet, mark me, I don't believe a word of it—ask him, for curiosity, what follows."
"Follows what?"
"What he said last."
"You mean what follows being thrown into prison?" he said, deliberately.
"Yes."
"Do you hear?" said Dick.
"Yes, master," responded young Jack.
"Speak, then."
By this time Harkaway the elder and Jefferson began of course to see what they were driving at, and they became just as much interested as the wizard himself in what young Jack was going to say.
"What follows," said young Jack, "is too dreadful to look at."
"Speak," said Dick, with a furious pass across the lad's face. "Speak, I command you. What follows?"
"I see the wizard hanging by the neck—there," and young Jack pointed straight before him.
The necromancer looked as unhappy as possible when he heard young Jack's words.
"Do you know enough," asked Dick Harvey, "or would you learn more yet?"
The wizard essayed to smile, but it was a sickly attempt, and it died away in a ghastly manner.
"I can not believe a word of what you say, but still let him speak on."
Dick frowned.
"If you are a scoffer," he said, sternly, "my clairvoyant will not speak."
"I am no scoffer," returned the necromancer; "speak on."
"What would you know?"
"When is my danger to begin? Let him say that."
"Speak," said Dick, making mesmeric passes across Jack's face.
"He need fear nothing at present," said young Jack.
The wizard drew a long breath of relief.
"The police are below," continued young Jack, "but for ten minutes there is no danger."
"Ten minutes!"
"Yes."
"And after?" gasped the wizard, breathlessly.
"Then he is doomed," said young Jack, in sepulchral tones. "The wizard will be numbered with the dead."
Thereupon, the necromancer was taken suddenly queer, and he retreated with a few confused words of excuse.
"He's gone," said Dick, laughing.
They pushed aside the curtains where the magician had disappeared, and found that there was a back staircase.
"There he goes, there he goes!" cried Harry Girdwood, excitedly.
"Yes, and he has left his skin," said young Jack.
Upon the stairs was the long black velvet robe covered with tin-foil ornaments, with which the necromancer was wont to frighten the ignorant and superstitious peasants who came to consult him out of their wits.
"I'll frighten old Mole with this," said young Jack.
"I don't suppose that they'll try to frighten us again into helping Mathias, the brigand chief, out of prison," said Harkaway, laughing.
"He shall hang as high as Haman," said Jefferson, sternly. "Of that I am so determined, that if there were no one else, I would willingly fix the noose myself. But hang he shall for murdering my poor and noble friend Brand."