‘It is a point of view I do not sympathize with,’ said Arthur.

‘Yet I cannot be sure that it is all folly,’ pursued the Frenchman reflectively.  He looked at Arthur with a certain ironic gravity.  ’Do you believe that I should lie to you when I promised to speak the truth?’

‘Certainly not.’

’I should like to tell you of an experience that I once had in Alexandria.  So far as I can see, it can be explained by none of the principles known to science.  I ask you only to believe that I am not consciously deceiving you.’

He spoke with a seriousness which gave authority to his words.  It was plain, even to Arthur, that he narrated the event exactly as it occurred.

’I had heard frequently of a certain shiekh who was able by means of a magic mirror to show the inquirer persons who were absent or dead, and a native friend of mine had often begged me to see him.  I had never thought it worth while, but at last a time came when I was greatly troubled in my mind.  My poor mother was an old woman, a widow, and I had received no news of her for many weeks.  Though I wrote repeatedly, no answer reached me.  I was very anxious and very unhappy.  I thought no harm could come if I sent for the sorcerer, and perhaps after all he had the power which was attributed to him.  My friend, who was interpreter to the French Consulate, brought him to me one evening.  He was a fine man, tall and stout, of a fair complexion, but with a dark brown beard.  He was shabbily dressed, and, being a descendant of the Prophet, wore a green turban.  In his conversation he was affable and unaffected.  I asked him what persons could see in the magic mirror, and he said they were a boy not arrived at puberty, a virgin, a black female slave, and a pregnant woman.  In order to make sure that there was no collusion, I despatched my servant to an intimate friend and asked him to send me his son.  While we waited, I prepared by the magician’s direction frankincense and coriander-seed, and a chafing-dish with live charcoal.  Meanwhile, he wrote forms of invocation on six strips of paper.  When the boy arrived, the sorcerer threw incense and one of the paper strips into the chafing-dish, then took the boy’s right hand and drew a square and certain mystical marks on the palm.  In the centre of the square he poured a little ink.  This formed the magic mirror.  He desired the boy to look steadily into it without raising his head.  The fumes of the incense filled the room with smoke.  The sorcerer muttered Arabic words, indistinctly, and this he continued to do all the time except when he asked the boy a question.

’"Do you see anything in the ink?” he said.

’"No,” the boy answered.

’But a minute later, he began to tremble and seemed very much frightened.

’"I see a man sweeping the ground,” he said.

’"When he has done sweeping, tell me,” said the sheikh.

’"He has done,” said the boy.