Perhaps Doc's Bagalla had been lame and halting, but there was no one there who did not perfectly understand the wondrous powers of his great magic, nor fail to see that his medicine was much stronger than that of Intamo, for it is very true that we are all convinced by what we think we see, quite as surely as by what we actually do see.
Galla Galla was nonplussed. Intamo was furious. Being an unscrupulous old fakir, himself, he was convinced that Doc had done no more than play a clever trick upon them all—a trick by which he, for one, did not intend to be fooled. But now he knew that Doc had beaten him at his own game and perhaps in the bottom of his ignorant, savage brain there was enough natural superstition to half convince him that perhaps, after all, here was a real, genuine witch-doctor who commanded demons and controlled their supernatural powers. His fear and hatred of Doc were increased a hundred fold by the happenings of the past few minutes and within his evil heart there crystalized the determination to rid himself as quickly as possible of this dangerous competitor.
Had he known what was coming, he would have used his knobkerrie to that end upon the instant, for Doc had been smitten by another of those brilliant ideas that had made him famous and feared at school as a practical joker—though it is only fair to record that his jokes had always been harmless and good-natured ones until he had met Intamo. He wheeled suddenly toward that portion of the ring where the greatest throng was gathered, and held the two knives out upon his open palm.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he cried. "We have here two ordinary pocket knives." The fact that he spoke English and that none of his auditors understood him, but added to the impressiveness of his words, since all the tribe was quite convinced that he was about to make big medicine.
"Step right up and examine them! Feel of them! Bite them!"
Some of his hearers began to show evidences of growing nervousness.
"You see that they are gen-u-ine. You will note that I have no accomplices. Now, ladies and gentlemen, watch me closely!"
As upon the other occasions, he placed his left palm over the knives, clasped his hands, blew upon them, raised them above his head.
"Abacadabra!" he screamed with such sudden shrillness that his audience fell back in terror.
"Allo, presto, change cars and be gone!"