"Suppose you give us an example of your powers?"
The suggestion came from the doctor. The Major exploded.
"Don't talk stuff and nonsense! Give the man three days' bread and water. That is what he wants."
"You do not believe in magic, then?" Mankell turned to the Major with his laughing eyes.
"What's it matter to you what I believe? You may take my word for it that I don't believe in impudent mountebanks like you."
The only reply Mankell gave was to raise his hand--if that might be called a reply--in the way we sometimes do when we call for silence, and there was silence in the room. All eyes were fixed upon the prisoner. He looked each in turn steadily in the face. Then, still serenely smiling, he gently murmured, "If you please."
There still was silence, but only for a moment. It was broken by Warder Slater. That usually decorous officer tilted his cap to the back of his head, and thrust his hands into his breeches pockets--hardly the regulation attitude in the presence of superiors.
"I should blooming well like to know what this means! 'Ere have I been in this 'ere jail eleven years, and I've never been accused before of letting men out of their night-cells, let alone their beds and bedding, and I don't like it, so I tell you straight."
The chief warder turned with automatic suddenness towards the unexpectedly and unusually plain-spoken officer.
"Slater, you're a fool!"