it was shaped into a rectangular trough
thirty feet long by ten wide. That trough--there was no guessing how
deep it might be--was filled almost to the brim with white-hot charcoal,
so that obviously there was a means of forcing a draft into it from
underneath.

"Now," said the Mahatma, turning to King as usual and ignoring me, "your
friend may submit to the test if he wishes. He may walk on that furnace.
He shall walk unscathed. I promise it."

King turned to me.

"What d'you say?" he asked. "I've seen this done before.[2] It can be
done. Shall we try it together?"

[Footnote 2: See the newspaper accounts of fire-walking in the presence
of the Prince of Wales and about a thousand witnesses mostly European.]

I did not hesitate. There are times when even such a slow thinker as I
am can make up his mind in a flash. I said "No" with such emphasis that
King laughed. The Mahatma looked at me rather pityingly, but made no
comment. He invited the two of us to sit down, so we squatted on the
floor as close to the trough as we could go without being scorched.
There were no screens or obstructions of any kind, and the only
appliance in evidence was an iron paddle, which the man who had admitted
us picked up off the floor.

He took that paddle, and without any preliminary fuss or hesitation
walked straight on to the bed of white-hot charcoal, beginning at one
end, and smoothed the whole glowing surface with the paddle, taking his
time about it and working with as little excitement as a gardener using
a rake. When he had finished the end of the paddle was better than
red-hot--a good cherry-red.

The hairs on his legs were unscorched. The cotton cloth of which his
kilt was made showed not the slightest trace of burning.

As soon as he had sat down the other twelve advanced toward the fire.
Unlike him, they were stark naked. One by one they walked into the fire
and traversed it from end to end with no more sign of nervousness than
if they had been utterly unconscious of its existence. Then they turned
around and walked back again.

"Is it the men or the fire?" King demanded.

"Neither," the Mahatma answered. "It is simply knowledge. Any one can do
it, who knows how."

One of the men approached the fire again. He sat down on it, and went
through the motions of bathing himself in the white-hot flame, turning
his head repeatedly to grin at us. Then, lying down full-length, he
rolled from end to end of the furnace, and wal