Then on a sudden the youth shivered, fell forward with his face over the brazier, and rose again to a sitting posture with eyes closed and every muscle in his body taut as though stricken by a sudden paralysis.  “The spirit has entered,” whispered my friend, and even as he spoke I saw the youth’s throat working as if an unseen hand were kneading the muscles, and forth from his lips echoed the words “La illaha illallah illahi laho.”  He was deep in a trance, the curtains of his eyes half-dropped, looking as one that is dead; and the voice with which he spoke was not the voice of Fateh Muhammad, “La illaha illallah illahi laho”! and as the words died away one that was present passed two green limes into his left hand and asked for a sign.  “I am fain to journey to Lahore, starting on Tuesday next.  Will it be well,” he said; and after a pause came the answer “Set not forth on Tuesday, for the stars be against thy journeying; but send thine agent on Thursday and go thyself, if need be, two days later.”  As the message died away, the trap-door in the floor was slowly tilted upwards and through the opening crawled an obvious member of the Dhobi class.  He slid forward almost to the feet of the dreaming youth and, placing as before two green limes in his hand, spoke saying “Master, my wife hath written from our country, bidding me to go unto her nor tarry by the road.  But there is work toward here and the purse is light.  Is it that I should go?” “La illaha illallah illahi laho!” “Aye, go unto her, lest evil haply befall thee; for much is there that is hid from thine eyes.”

Thus the seance went forward.  For twenty minutes or more odd waifs and strays of humanity crawled in through the trap-door, obtained their message of good or ill, and departed into the shadows as silently as they had come.  Among them were several women, one of whom sought a cure for her sick child, whimpering over the symptoms of his malady.  “Meningitis, I expect,” muttered my friend the doctor; but the answer came swift and sure “Bind thou the ‘tawiz’ round his brows and carry him to the shrine of Miran Datar, whence cometh thy help.”  “La illaha illallah illahi laho!”

The end came suddenly.  After the last visitor had vanished through the floor there was dead silence for three minutes, while Fateh Muhammad wrestled with the spirit within him; and then with chest heaving and hands convulsively grasping the heavy air, he fell prone upon his face and lay still.  The two old women moved forward and commenced making passes over his body, murmuring the while some charm, and as they waved the seven-knotted handkerchief above his head he regained consciousness and sat slowly up, “breathing like one that hath an evil dream” and bearing upon his features the signs of deathly fatigue.  By this time the attic was almost clear of smoke; the guttering wick of the only oil-lamp was nearly burnt through, and Fateh Muhammad was fain to sleep.  Wherefore we thanked him for permitting us this glance behind the curtain of his daily life, then crawled through the trap, slid down the reeking staircase and gained the street.  One last glance, as my eyes reached the floor-level of the trap, showed me that the room was untenanted, save by the prostrate form of the visionary, above whom the eyes of the peacock still glinted with something of mockery in their blue depths.