“Well, what now?”

“Why, he’s in the train, and it’s started, it is.”

“Do you know where he’s going?”

“No.”

“But he has a ticket; can’t you see it?”

“Course I can’t.  It’s in his pocket, and I can’t see through the cloth, I can’t.”

“And what’s he doing now?”

“Why, he’s in for makin’ hisself comfortable, he is.  He’s got a piller, and he’s stretchin’ hisself on the seat and layin’ his head on the piller.  There, he’s closed his eyes—­he’s off to sleep.”

The professor turned to me.  “I am afraid we can do no more to-night,” he said.  “Evidently he is on a journey, and we must wait until he arrives at his destination.”

“But can’t Slowden remain as he is and watch him?”

“The thing would be at once cruel and preposterous, sir.  No, you must come again in the morning; then, perchance, he will have finished his journey;” and accordingly he proceeded to awake Simon.

After all, it did not matter so much.  It was now ten o’clock, and I could do nothing that night, in any case.

“I do not know but that I am glad that things are as they are,” continued the professor.  “This second sleep will enable him to see more clearly to-morrow.  Meanwhile, consider yourself fortunate.  If the Egyptian stops anywhere in Italy, it will be possible for you to reach him and bring him back within the time you mention.  Take heart, my friend.  Good-bye for the time.  I shall expect you early to-morrow.”

No sooner were we in the street than Simon began to ask me what he had told me, for I found that he was entirely ignorant of the things he had said.

“Who’d ’a thought it?” he said musingly, when I had told him.  “Who’d ’a thought as ‘ow I should hassist in a waccinatin’ business like this ’ere!  Tell ’ee, yer ’onour, I shall believe in ghosts and sperrits again soon.  Fancy me a-seein’ things in Italy and tellin’ ’em to you without knowin’ anything about it!  Well, but ’twill be grand if we can find ’im, yer honour, won’t it then?”

I spent a sleepless night, harassed by a thousand doubts and fears.  There, in the quiet of my room, all this mesmerism and clairvoyance seemed only so much hocus-pocus, which no sensible and well-educated man should have anything to do with.  Still, it was my only hope, and it only wanted eight days to Christmas Eve.  Only one little week and a day, that was all, and then, if I did not produce Kaffar, all was lost.  It would be no use to go to Miss Forrest’s house in Kensington and tell her that Simon Slowden had, while in a mesmeric sleep, seen Kaffar in Italy.  No, no; that would never do.  I must produce him, nothing else would suffice.

We were early at the professor’s the following morning, and found him waiting and almost as anxious as we were.  Again Simon submitted to the influence of the little man, and soon answered his questions far more readily than he had hitherto done.