ks on my little programme. Will any lady oblige
me by drawing a card? Will you, madam?' he said, bowing with infinite
grace to Leonora.

Her hand touched Asher's as she drew a card, and I saw a shiver pass
over the veiled figure.

'Will the lady on your left now oblige me?' he continued, turning to
me, who was indeed standing on Leonora's left hand, though how he knew
it is a thing I have never been able fully to understand.

'Now, please,' he continued, 'look well at your cards, but do not show
them to me or to each other. _Basta. Assez._ [Greek: Konx Ompax]. Now,
please, still hiding the cards from me and from each other, exchange
them. Now,' he continued, his form dilating with conscious power, 'see
how true is it that change is perennial, even so far as magic and
Nature herself can be perennial. For she who held the King of Hearts
now holds the Queen of Spades, and she who held the Queen of Spades now
holds the King of Hearts. Thus much among the shifting shadows of life
can I, the wizard, see as a sure and accomplished fact. Is it not so,
my children?'

We bowed in silence, overawed by the wonder of his presence, although
Leonora whispered to me, 'He has got the cards wrong, but we had better
say nothing about it.'

'And now,' he continued, 'look upon this glass (it was an ordinary
wineglass) and on this silver coin,' producing a _stater_ of the
Eretrian Republic. 'See! I place the coin in the glass, and now can I
tell you by its means what you will of the future. There is no magic in
it, only a little knowledge of the secrets, mutable yet immutable, of
Nature. And this is an old secret. I did not find it. It was known of
yore in Atlantis and in Chichimec, in Ur and in Lycosura. Even now the
rude Boshmen keep up the tradition among their medicine-men. Vill any
lady ask the coin a qvestion?' he continued, in a hoarse Semitic
whisper, for all currencies and all languages were alike to him. 'Sure
it's the coin 'll be afther tellun' ye what ye like. Voulez-vous
demander, Mademoiselle? Wollen Sie, gnaedige Signora?'

'Then,' said Leonora, in trembling accents, 'I demand to know if I
shall find that which I seek.'

The figure, drawing itself up to its full height, passed its hand with
a proud, impatient, and mystic gesture across the glass, and then stood
in the attitude of one who awaited a response. 'Should the coin, my
daughter, jump three times,' he said, 'the answer is yea. Should it
jump but once, nay.'