“You could not injure me,” I said to him, “but you shall now see that my aim is more dangerous than yours. Look at that wall.”
I pulled the trigger, and on the newly whitewashed wall appeared a large patch of blood, exactly at the spot where I had aimed.
The Marabout went up to it, dipped his finger in the blood, and, raising it to his mouth, convinced himself of the reality. When he acquired this certainty, his arms fell, and his head was bowed on his chest, as if he were annihilated.
It was evident that for the moment he doubted everything, even the Prophet.
The spectators raised their eyes to heaven, muttered prayers, and regarded me with a species of terror.
This scene was a triumphant termination to my performance. I therefore retired, leaving the audience under the impression I had produced. We took leave of Bou-Allem and his son, and set off at a gallop.
The trick I have just described, though so curious, is easily prepared. I will give a description of it, while explaining the trouble it took me.
As soon as I was alone in my room, I took out of my pistol-case—without which I never travel—a bullet mould.
I took a card, bent up the four edges, and thus made a sort of trough, in which I placed a piece of wax taken from one of the candles. When it was melted, I mixed with it a little lamp-black I had obtained by putting the blade of a knife over the candle, and then ran this composition in the bullet-mould.
Had I allowed the liquid to get quite cold, the ball would have been full and solid; but in about ten seconds I turned the mould over, and the portions of the wax not yet set ran out, leaving a hollow ball in the mould. This operation is the same as that used in making tapers, the thickness of the outside depending on the time the liquid has been left in the mould.