“Then it would undoubtedly have cost me more trouble to ascertain the personality of your companion—and I should have performed other miracles.”
“How did it happen that the candelabra around were lighted when you raised your wand?”
“Their stands are hollow. The lamps are already burning very low within the columns. A thick wire screen shuts off the reflection they would otherwise cast on the ceiling. When I raise the wand, my assistant behind the curtains turns an iron wheel which moves machinery that pushes the lamps up from the floor, opens the screens, and turns up the wicks.”
“Go on!” said Bononius. “The metallic sound your wand drew from the altar...?”
“Was produced by a copper basin concealed inside. A boy sits in front of it with an iron rod.”
“I supposed it was something of the kind. But now: the sudden fall of the victim! Does the hidden boy have a hand in the game here, too?”
“Here, too!” replied the magician. “In the side of the altar is a small movable plate, which is covered with a thin layer of common salt. As soon as the animal finds its head near this plate, it begins, according to natural instinct, to lick it. When I give the sign, the boy, with a sudden push, drives the plate into an opening of the same size made in the marble, the space it formerly occupied being filled with a second plate, also covered with salt, which, however, is mixed with a poison whose action is instantaneous. The results you have seen.”
“But suppose the lamb doesn’t accommodate you?” said the centurion. “Suppose it should be tired, or satiated, or obstinate?”
“That is provided for. The animal is deprived a long time of its favorite dainty. At the worst I incurred no risk. If the trick failed, it remained a secret; the animal could then be killed as every priest slays his victim.”
“You took out the heart and liver,” Bononius continued, “I watched you with the utmost care. You held the wand in your right hand all the time that the entrails were in your left; so the writing that so completely robbed Rutilius of his self-command could not have come from the staff. Far less could the animal have had a liver ready inscribed in its body. How did this incredible thing occur?”