"I picked up seven white pebbles, and drew out a beautiful cross."
"What did the cross matter to him?"
"Matter to him! why, Chanito, he knows well that we are Christians, and yet he bewitches us. Wait a bit, I'll match him."
And rearing himself up against the trunk of a tree, standing on his head, with his legs in the air, l'Encuerado kicked about with all the frenzy of one possessed. He fell sometimes to the right, and sometimes to the left, but raised himself after every fall, and resumed his clown-like attitude. Not one of us could keep a serious countenance while looking at his contortions. Lucien laughed till he cried, especially because the Indian, as if on purpose to render the scene more comical, accompanied his gestures with invectives against the genius of the cave and invocations to St. Joseph.
At last I told him to resume his natural position, and to keep quiet.
"Do you really think that I have done it enough?" he asked, addressing me with imperturbable gravity.
"Yes," I replied; "from the way in which you have shaken him, I should say he must have come out either through your mouth or ears."
"Then it's your turn now, Chanito!"
Lucien, delighted at having to execute this feat of skill, tried several times to keep his balance while standing on his head; but overcome by laughter, he was not able, so he fell, to rear himself up again. The more l'Encuerado cried out to him, urging him to persevere, the louder the boy laughed. The brave Indian, who was under the full belief that an evil spirit must necessarily abandon a body placed upside down, seized the legs of his young master and shook him violently as if he was emptying a sack. Sumichrast at last put an end to this scene by declaring that he was sure the spirit must have taken flight. L'Encuerado then came up to my friend and proposed to assist him into the same position as he had helped Lucien.
