Then his faculties asserted themselves. He sat up, alertly. The Indian!—had he put something in the cocoa? Had he used the same methods Garry had seen in stage demonstrations, to get a person into a helpless state in which they did as they were told and answered questions in a dreamy, far-away fashion?
He looked around.
Through an open door he saw the tall, red-skinned man putting some objects into a small, dark-looking little pouch. The strings of its mouth he drew together as he returned to nod pleasantly at Garry.
“Feel all good?” he asked. Garry nodded.
“I——”
The man did not allow him to go on.
“You troubled by ghost in the sky,” he said. “You not think right answer about why! You take this.”
He held out the small pouch, several inches long, a little more in depth, apparently filled with some unrevealed contents, its string of rawhide tightly knotted to hold the mouth puckered, and a small, very odd wax seal in red, showing a swastika-cross, covering the top.
“Take,” he repeated. Garry held out his hand, hesitatingly, lost in wonder that the man knew about the spectral visitations that mystified the Airlane Guard. “Hear, now. Put over head.” He gestured. Garry, widening the strings, slipped the pouch over his head. “Keep inside coat. Go home. Put in box for seven day! Not touch! Then—open!”
“Why?” demanded Garry, surprised but suspicious.