y reason of my condescension,
it was absolutely certain that I should become a Lieutenant-Governor
while my hair was yet black. Then we talked about the weather and the
state of my health, and the wheat crops, for fifteen minutes, in the
Huzuri Bagh, under the stars.

Suddhoo came to the point at last. He said that Janoo had told him that
there was an order of the Sirkar against magic, because it was feared
that magic might one day kill the Empress of India. I didn't know
anything about the state of the law; but I fancied that something
interesting was going to happen. I said that so far from magic being
discouraged by the Government it was highly commended. The greatest
officials of the State practiced it themselves. (If the Financial
Statement isn't magic, I don't know what is.) Then, to encourage him
further, I said that, if there was any jadoo afoot, I had not the least
objection to giving it my countenance and sanction, and to seeing that
it was clean jadoo--white magic, as distinguished from the unclean jadoo
which kills folk. It took a long time before Suddhoo admitted that this
was just what he had asked me to come for. Then he told me, in jerks
and quavers, that the man who said he cut seals was a sorcerer of the
cleanest kind; that every day he gave Suddhoo news of the sick son in
Peshawar more quickly than the lightning could fly, and that this
news was always corroborated by the letters. Further, that he had told
Suddhoo how a great danger was threatening his son, which could be
removed by clean jadoo; and, of course, heavy payment. I began to see
how the land lay, and told Suddhoo that I also understood a little jadoo
in the Western line, and would go to his house to see that everything
was done decently and in order. We set off together; and on the way
Suddhoo told me he had paid the seal-cutter between one hundred and
two hundred rupees already; and the jadoo of that night would cost two
hundred more. Which was cheap, he said, considering the greatness of his
son's danger; but I do not think he meant it.

The lights were all cloaked in the front of the house when we arrived. I
could hear awful noises from behind the seal-cutter's shop-front, as if
some one were groaning his soul out. Suddhoo shook all over, and while
we groped our way upstairs told me that the jadoo had begun. Janoo and
Azizun met us at the stair-head, and told us that the jadoo-work was
coming off in their rooms, because there was more