All eyes were on the dark curtain now, but if they expected it to rise or to be drawn aside they were disappointed. Instead, it parted silently and Karkotaka, George, glided through, dressed not in the costume of a Brahman, but of a mediæval prince of India. Instead of a turban he wore a high jewelled headdress. A single piece of cloth, dark blue in colour and gemmed with small gold stars, was draped about him, leaving one arm and shoulder bare, and descending to his feet, which were encased in jewelled sandals. Even Ruth, who had expected something extraordinary, gasped as he stood bowing before them. The dignity that had shown even through his servant’s dress was now one hundred times more apparent. He moved with a lithe grace as became the king of the serpents, slowly moving his bare bronze arms until it seemed to Ruth they coiled and writhed like living snakes. Under his headdress his eyes gleamed more brightly than the jewels above.
He had come upon the stage with nothing in his hands, and except for the piano it was empty, certainly empty of all the paraphernalia of legerdemain. Then, suddenly he held in his hand a small brass bowl. He made a sign to some one in the back of the room, who had evidently been detailed to help him, and a servant gave him a carafe of ice water. This he set down beside the bowl. Then he offered the bowl to the spectators for examination. Ruth noticed that he was so close to them that it was not even necessary to step down from the low stage. Two or three men who “Never saw a trick yet I couldn’t see through” examined the bowl with sceptical eyes and pronounced it quite ordinary. Then George poured ice water from the carafe into the bowl and again offered it for inspection. Several people touched it with their hands and pronounced the water with which it was quite filled to be ice cold. Then George set the bowl down before him and covered it with a small silk handkerchief. He waved his hands over it three times, removed the handkerchief, and they saw steam rising from the ice water. Again George offered the bowl for inspection. Terry dipped his fingers into the water and as quickly removed them with an exclamation of pain. The water was almost too hot to touch.
Then from nowhere appeared the little mound of sand and watering pot indispensable to any self-respecting Indian fakir. Several people whispered, “The mango tree—that’s an old one.” Throughout George had not spoken one word. He seemed to be unconscious of his audience except when he asked them to examine something. To Ruth there seemed in his studied leisure a conscious effort to disguise haste. He bent now over the sand, pouring water on it and pressing it up into a little hillock of mud; then he covered it with a cloth, beneath which his hands were still busy. Then he moved away and seemed to be muttering charms. When he returned and removed the cloth there was the little mango sprout with its two leathery leaves. Again the plant was covered, next time to appear several inches tall with more leaves, and so on until it had reached a height of more than a foot.
It was all very wonderful, as was also the fountain of water that sprang from the tip of his index finger, until he seemed to chide it, whereupon it disappeared from his hand and was seen spouting from the top of the piano. Dissatisfied, he lit a candle and, calling to the water, made it spring from the candle flame itself. Then he called again, spread out his arms, and the stream, leaving the still lighted candle, separated and sprang from his five outspread fingertips.
In an ordinary music hall the people who watched would doubtless have conceded that it was clever, but here in an ordinary drawing-room in an ordinary country house in the Berkshires on Christmas Eve, the performance became something more than legerdemain. It bordered on the supernatural and they sat silent and fascinated.
Suddenly with an annoyed gesture he threw up his hands, apparently throwing off the water, which instantaneously began to flow in myriad streams from his headdress, reminding Ruth of Shiva, who, with his hair, separated the flow of the sacred river when it came down from the Himalayas. George removed his headdress, disclosing a close white turban beneath, and the flow of the fountain died as unceremoniously as it had begun.
The servant who was standing nearby waiting for his signal now handed George an ordinary walking stick, which George silently offered for inspection. After some examination it was agreed that it was a very ordinary walking stick indeed. George whirled it about his head and dropped it before his feet—it was a writhing snake. Several women screamed. Fountains were pretty, but they were in no mood for snakes. George picked up the snake again and whirled it around his head. It was an ordinary walking stick, though the men hesitated to re-examine it for proof.
George balanced the stick on his finger, holding his arm out straight before him, and it began to writhe and twist, a snake with open, hissing mouth and darting tongue. He dropped it—the same women screamed again, then laughed hysterically as they saw the common piece of wood before them.
“This sort of thing is all very well from a distance, but I don’t really care for snakes at such close quarters,” Ruth heard some one whisper.
Ruth glanced at Professor Pendragon beside her, but his eyes were fixed on George. There was an eager light in his eyes as if he, too, were waiting, and his firm set lips were curved in a smile. Again her hand sought Terry’s gift. If all these people here were the victims of hypnotic illusions, she at least must keep one corner of her brain free and untouched. Pendragon’s presence there was proof that he had decided to fight, and she must help him. In the semi-darkness of the room she could not see Gloria, but she heard her laughter like thin bells over snow-covered hills—it seemed to echo round the room, and she fancied that George, bending over the task of clearing away the things with which he had been working, winced as he heard it, as if the frost of her mirth had bitten into his heart.