“Ha, ha!” laughed the doctor, and making his beard wag with enjoyment. “Yes, that would startle them. White man’s magic. Fancy, Fred, old chap, a wounded man with a bullet in him, and I at work with my black slave, Frank, here, to help me, in a dark tent, while I made the poor wretch transparent to find out where the bullet lay.”
“Yes, or broken spear-head,” said the professor eagerly. “I say, Bob, there’d be no gammon over that: the savage beggars would believe that they had a real live magician come amongst them then.”
“Yes, ha, ha! wouldn’t they? I say, old fellow, I’m beginning to think it ought to be worked.”
“Worked, yes,” cried Frank excitedly. “I could take a few odds and ends from my laboratory, too, so as to show them some beautiful experiments—fire burning under water, throwing potassium on the river to make it blaze; use some phosphorescent oil; and startle them with Lycopodium dust in the air; or a little fulminating mercury or silver.”
“H’m, yes, you might,” said the professor thoughtfully. “You could both of you astonish them pretty well, and all that would keep up your character.”
“But of course it’s all impossible, isn’t it?” said Frank, smiling.
“H’m! I don’t quite know,” said the professor slowly.
“Look here,” said the doctor rising, to seat himself upon one end of the hearthrug, where he began trying to drag his legs across into a comfortable sitting position, but failed dismally; “I’m afraid I should never manage this part of the business. My joints have grown too stiff.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said the professor sharply; “it only wants a little practice. Look here.”
He plumped himself down upon the other end of the hearthrug quite in the native manner, and seemed perfectly at his ease, while Frank sat watching them both with his eyes twinkling in his delight.