Professor Quinn and I were consumed with curiosity while this contrivance was being set up and made ready. We put a question through our word-boxes, but were only smiled at mysteriously.
Presently I was made to sit down, Turk fashion, while one of Ocou's attendants came to me and passed the silver disk over my head. One end of Ocou's baton had a black tip, the other a white.
As the disk passed over my head, Ocou rested the white tip of the baton on the pedestal. Instantly a slide flew out of the shaft's top bearing a painted ideograph.
The professor and I were not "up" in the Baigol ideographs, and were very much surprised at the actions of Ocou and his companions when they looked at the slide. They recoiled, stared at me suspiciously, and moved about me with caution.
I grabbed my word-box.
"What's the matter, anyhow?" I asked.
"We have just discovered that you are a robber," said Ocou.
"I am no robber here," I answered, "no matter what I was in the place I came from."
"Once a robber always a robber," retorted Ocou, "unless you touch the Bolla."
"Well, well!" murmured the professor, rubbing his hands delightedly over the pedestal and giving little heed to Ocou's remark. "What do you call this machine, Mr. Ocou?"