ou done?" I exclaimed.

"Sh! Be still," he whispered turning to me his now quite blanched face.

With a few strokes of the knife he opened the chest of the Mongol and
I saw the man's lungs softly breathing and the distinct palpitations of
the heart. The Lama touched these organs with his fingers but no more
blood appeared to flow and the face of the shepherd was quite calm.
He was lying with his eyes closed and appeared to be in deep and quiet
sleep. As the Lama began to open his abdomen, I shut my eyes in fear and
horror; and, when I opened them a little while later, I was still more
dumbfounded at seeing the shepherd with his coat still open and his
breast normal, quietly sleeping on his side and Tushegoun Lama sitting
peacefully by the brazier, smoking his pipe and looking into the fire in
deep thought.

"It is wonderful!" I confessed. "I have never seen anything like it!"

"About what are you speaking?" asked the Kalmuck.

"About your demonstration or 'miracle,' as you call it," I answered.

"I never said anything like that," refuted the Kalmuck, with coldness in
his voice.

"Did you see it?" I asked of my companion.

"What?" he queried in a dozing voice.

I realized that I had become the victim of the hypnotic power of
Tushegoun Lama; but I preferred this to seeing an innocent Mongolian
die, for I had not believed that Tushegoun Lama, after slashing open the
bodies of his victims, could repair them again so readily.

The following day we took leave of our hosts. We decided to return,
inasmuch as our mission was accomplished; and Tushegoun Lama explained
to us that he would "move through space." He wandered over all Mongolia,
lived both in the single, simple yurta of the shepherd and hunter and in
the splendid tents of the princes and tribal chiefs, surrounded by deep
veneration and panic-fear, enticing and cementing to him rich and poor
alike with his miracles and prophecies. When bidding us adieu, the
Kalmuck sorcerer slyly smiled and said:

"Do not give any information about me to the Chinese authorities."

Afterwards he added: "What happened to you yesterday evening was
a futile demonstration. You Europeans will not recognize that we
dark-minded nomads possess the powers of mysterious science. If you
could only see the miracles and power of the Most Holy Tashi Lama, when
at his command the lamps and candles before the ancient statue of Buddha
light themselves and when the ikons of the gods begin to