"Oh, rotten!" said Sidney.
"Your soul?" Astry laughed mockingly. "My dear fellow, I haven't a doubt of it, but we shan't investigate it without invoking the gods. I got that wand with its mystic sphere from an old West Indian sorcerer, a coal-black negro of Jamaica, and he taught me its secret. Touch it with but the finger-tip and it reveals the innocent; it declares the guilty."
"What a delightful thing is an imagination," said Van Citters. "On my soul, Astry, I believe you love these idiotic stories."
"Astry ought to have been an Indian medicine-man," said Colonel Sedley. "I remember one who was tremendous. He and Chief Rain-in-the-Face led a charge once in a fight out by the Little Big Horn. I saw him as a very old man about to be gathered to his fathers,—the biggest Indian I ever saw and the most remarkable; he could make you believe in the black arts."
"So can Astry," retorted Dr. Macclesfield.
Astry was standing by the table, his cigar between his fingers, his head thrown back, and a singular expression on his pale face.
Something in the atmosphere disturbed Sedley, who was a good-natured man. "Suppose we go and join the ladies," he suggested.
There was an assenting movement, but Astry held up his hand. "Shall we test the Red Sphere?" he said lightly. "According to the sorcerer who gave it to me, he who touches it is revealed. I have a whim—I invite you all to test it."
"See here, Astry," said Colonel Sedley bluntly, "what are you driving at?"
"Oh, hang it all!" said Van Citters, "let's touch it. Johnstone's off the bat to-night."