"Shookier Allah! May God reward you!"
Again he produced his clam-shell, the surface of which I carefully surveyed, while with great alacrity he wrote a verse from the Koran. The shell was clear and pure; no picture, line, or drawing could be detected on its pearly surface. Again he went through his mummery with the phials, and washed off the ink into the shell; again, as before, the liquid grew purple, and again he waved his rod of bronze.
"You wish to see her you love?" he whispered, with something of a licentious leer in his keen black eyes; "she who is to be your hanoum (wife or lady)?"
"Yes, effendi," said I, blushing like a great schoolboy, in spite of myself, all the more that I saw Jack Studhome's handkerchief at his mouth.
Fixing his keen eyes with something of sternness upon Jules Jolicoeur, whom he had suddenly detected in the act of mimicking him, the bearded hakim summoned him forward, and desired him to look into the shell, and tell us what he saw.
Abd-el-Rasig then turned to the east, and proceeded to pray and invoke in an inaudible voice.
I was four paces from the Zouave lieutenant, whose eyes, as he gazed into the shell, became dilated and fixed with astonishment, while his whole features, which were handsome, expressed something akin to fear.
"Merveilleuse! mon Dieu! merveilleuse!" he exclaimed.
"Do you see anything, monsieur?" I asked, with growing excitement.
"Yes—yes—oui, peste!"