cloth and look inside the basket one
would see the boy lying something like this.

[Illustration]

The performer takes away the lid which the boy has allowed to sink
into its proper place after the terrible blow with the big stick, and
to show the emptiness of the basket, puts his feet into the basket,
between the body and bent up legs of the boy, and sits down on top of
the assistant. By doing so he pushes the cloth down close on to the
boy.

He then gets out again, replaces the lid and thrusts the sword through
the hole in the lid twisting it in all directions. Were it not for the
thickness of the cloth, which is by now close to the body of the boy
by reason of the performer having pressed it down by sitting in the
basket, the sword would certainly hurt the little chap. Incidentally
the sword is none too sharp.

The sword is withdrawn and pushed through the sides, above the body of
the boy.

The basket is proved undeniably empty.

If my readers doubt this explanation, let them offer the Jadoo-wallah,
at this stage of the game, two thousand rupees to be allowed to fire a
No. 8 cartridge from a 12 bore gun from a range of thirty yards at the
empty basket. The performer will not accept the offer unless he values
the boy at less than two thousand rupees and has a good chance of
escaping arrest for murder. I have offered it twice with impunity.

The trick divides into two endings. One can always tell which ending
it will have by a glance at the basket. If it has two ropes which pass
underneath it, permanently attached, the betting is that the boy will
appear from the end of the garden. The reason of this is that after
the re-appearance of the boy--a duplicate of the one in the
basket--the permanent ropes on the basket allow it to be hitched up
on the shoulder pole and carried away, with the disappeared boy still
inside it. When the Jadoo-wallah gets round the corner, the little
assistant gets out while his impersonator goes a round about way into
the next compound ready to re-appear at the end of the next
performance of the trick.

If the basket has no ropes attached to it, odds are on the performance
ending by the magician apologising profusely to his Gods who restore
the boy from the depths of the basket again. The performer in this
case has no duplicate, and the trick if well presented is almost as
effective as the other, with the more elaborate ending.

CHAPTER IX

THE INDIAN ROPE TRICK

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