e basket trick and the mango, have never been
explained. Our conjurers at home can do something like them, but then
that is on a stage, where they can have trapdoors and all sorts of
things, while these are done anywhere--in a garden, on a road--where
there could be no possible preparation, and with a crowd of lookers on
all round; it makes me quite uncomfortable to look at it."

"Well, I must be off now, Mrs. Hunter; it is nearly time for uncle to be
back, and he likes me to be in when he returns."

CHAPTER IX.

Dr. Wade was sitting in the veranda smoking and reading an English paper
that had arrived by that morning's mail, when Isobel returned.

"Good morning, Doctor. Is uncle back?"

"Not yet. He told me he might be half an hour late, and that I was to
come round and amuse you until he came back."

"So in my absence you have been amusing yourself, Doctor. I have been
round at Mrs. Hunter's; she is going to have a juggler there this
evening, and we are all to go."

"Yes, I got a chit from her this morning. I have seen scores of them,
but I make a point of never missing an exhibition when I get the chance.
I hate anything I don't understand, and I go with the faint hope of
being able to find things out, though I know perfectly well that I shall
not do so."

"Then you think it is not all quite natural, Doctor?"

"I don't say it is not natural, because we don't know what all the
natural laws are, but I say that some of the things I have seen
certainly are not to be accounted for by anything we do know. It is not
often that the jugglers show their best tricks to the whites--they know
that, as a rule, we are altogether skeptical; but I have seen at native
courts more than once the most astounding things--things absolutely
incomprehensible and inexplicable. I don't suppose we are going to see
anything of that sort tonight, though Mrs. Hunter said in her note that
they had heard from the native servant that this man was a famous one.

"There is a sect of people in India, I don't mean a caste, but a sort
of secret society, who, I believe, claim to be able by some sort of
influence to suspend altogether the laws of nature. I do not say that
I believe them--as a scientific man, it is my duty not to believe
them; but I have seen such things done by some of the higher class of
jugglers, and that under circumstances that did not seem to admit of
the possibility of deception, that I am obliged to suspend my judgmen