round guns stood, a drummer had
laid down his drum close beside him, with the drumsticks leaning over
it, when he suddenly perceived the two drumsticks begin to move of
their own accord over the tightly drawn skin of the drums as if some
invisible hand wished to beat a tattoo. The drummer cried out at this
marvel, and fancied that a _dzhin_ was in the drum.

Gaskho Bey would not believe it till he had himself gone to the
barracks and seen with his own eyes how the two drumsticks vibrated
with sufficient force to tap the drum pretty loudly, moving in a
spiral line backward and forward across it, tap-tap-tapping as they
went.

"It is very marvellous!" cried the bey; and he immediately summoned
the imams to drive the _dzhin_ out of the drum.

The imams set to work at once. They fetched their fumigators and their
sacred books, and they fumigated the drum with nose-offending odors
and recited over it drum-expelling exorcisms in a shrill voice. And
certainly if the devil was in that drum, and had anything of a nose or
ears, he would have been obliged to escape from that noise and stink.
So long as the drum was in any one's hand the drumsticks did not move,
but when it was put down on the ground the mysterious tap-tapping
began again.

The imams went on howling, and horribly they howled.

The chief of the observatory was present during this scene. As a
French renegade he was a man of some education, and therefore he did
not accept the theory of the _dzhins_. When he perceived that the
imams were not successful in expelling the evil spirits, he called
Gaskho Bey aside and whispered in his ear:

"I know nothing about your _dzhins_, and don't understand what you are
driving at with all this noise and stench, but I can tell you that
this beating of the drum is a sign that invisible hands are at work
here."

"What?"

"It means that we ought to get away from here, for they are digging
mines beneath us, and that is why the ground trembles and the
drumsticks vibrate."

Gaskho Bey began smiling. He had as little idea of sapping and mining
as the French renegade had of Turkish monsters.

"How superstitious thou art, my brave moosir!" said he, shrugging his
shoulders and looking down upon the Frenchman.

The latter, however, did not remain there much longer, but hastened as
quickly as he could to the summit of the Lithanizza.

After about an hour and a half's more hubbub the imams succeeded in
expelling the _dzhin_. The