“I must confess that I have neither heard nor seen any thing of him since we left him in his cell. I hope Hiermanfor’s return will be the period of his taking possession of the throne. Perhaps he intends to introduce him in triumph in Port**al.”
“It seems, at least, that they are very intimately connected. Do you recollect how Hiermanfor appeared at night, in a manner equally mysterious and surprizing, when he was summoned by the royal Hermit?”
“O! as for that juggling trick---”
The Duke started from his chair. “A juggling trick---this too should have been a juggling trick?”
“How can you be surprized at this discovery?”
“The incident was indeed wonderful enough for giving reason to think it supernatural.”
“You are right. That artifice could not but produce an astonishing effect on an uninformed spectator. The Hermit pronounces some unintelligible words while he kisses the picture three times; the lamp is extinguished and lighted again, as if it were by an invisible hand; a sudden noise is heard, and a flame flashes over the picture. All this is very surprising. However, if one knows that the altar, on which the picture is placed, conceals a machine, that the Hermit’s finger touches a secret spring, and this puts the wheels of the machine in motion, that the wick in the lamp is connected with it, and pulled down and up again through the tube in which it is fixed; if one knows how Hiermanfor entered the cell, then the whole incident will be divested of its supernatural appearance.”
“But this very appearance of Hiermanfor is entirely mysterious to me.”
(To be continued.)