With a sigh that was all but a whisper, Jeanne took one long, full breath.
She closed her eyes for an instant, then opened them.
To her astonishment she saw no dark-faced one in a white robe. The musicians, too, were gone.
“And the Chinaman!” she exclaimed aloud. “He has vanished also!”
“What has happened?” It was Erik Nord, the man from China, who spoke to her. He had just come up. “You must have seen a ghost.”
“No. I—I saw a Chinaman go up a rope that was fastened to nothing but air.”
“There was no rope,” Erik Nord laughed, “at least not in air, and no Chinaman.”
“Oh, yes! I saw him!”
“Well, perhaps. But he did not go up the rope.
“That man in the white robe,” he explained, “was India’s cleverest conjurer. With his weird music and wild whirling he cast a spell over you. You saw what he wished you to see. Perhaps you were hypnotized. Who can say?”