“It’s true, sar,” he said, when I had finished, “I could find it for you.  I could find it for you, sure enough; and I’m de only man in all de islands dat could.  But I should have to go wid you, and it’s de Lord’s will to keep me here in dis chair wid rheumatics.  O!  I don’t murmur.  It is de Lord’s doing and it is marvellous in our eyes.  De rods has turned in dese old hands many a time, and I have faith in de Lord dey would turn again—­yes.  I’d find it for you; sure enough.  I’d find it if any man could—­and it was de Lord’s will.  But mebbe I can see it for you widout moving from dis chair.  For when de Lord takes away one gift from his servants, he gives dem another.  It is His will dat dese ’ere old legs are stiff and can carry me round no more.  So wot does de good Lord do?  He says:  ’Nebber mind dem ole legs; nebber mind dem ole weary eyes; sit jus’ whar yuh are,’ says de Lord, ‘nebber min’ no movin’ round.’  De Lord do wondrous things to his faithful followers; He opens de eyes of de spirit, so, having no eyes, dey shall see.  Hallelujah!  Glory be to de Lord!—­see down into de bowels of de earth, see thousands of miles away just as plain as dis room—­”

He had worked himself up to a sort of religious ecstasy, as I had seen the revivalist sect he belonged to, known as the Holy Jumpers, do at their curious services.

“Do you mean, brother, that the Lord has given you second sight?”

“Dat am it!  Glory to His name, Hallelujah!” he answered.  “I look in a glass ball—­so; and if de spirit helps me I can see clear as a picture far under de ground, far, far away over de sea.  It’s de Lord’s truth, sar—­Blessed be His Name!”

I asked him whether he would look into his crystal for me.  With a burst of profanity, as unexpected as it was vivid, he cursed “dem boys” that had stolen from him a priceless crystal which once had belonged to his old royal mother, who, before him, had had the same gift of the spirit.  But, he added—­turning to a table by his side, and lifting from it a large cut-glass decanter of considerable capacity, though at present void of contents—­that he had found that gazing into the large glass ball of its stopper produced almost equally good results at times.

He said this with perfect solemnity, though, as he placed the decanter on top of his Bible in front of him, I observed, with an inner smile, that he tilted it slightly on one side, as though remarking, strictly to himself, that, save for a drain of dark-coloured liquid in one corner, it was painfully empty.

Then, with a sigh, he applied himself to his business of seer.  First, he asked me to be kind enough to shut the door.

We had to be very quiet, he declared; the spirit could work only in deep silence.  And he asked me to be kind enough to close my eyes.  Then I heard his voice muttering, in a strange tongue, a queer dark gobbling kind of words, which may have been ancient African spell-words, or sheer gibberish such as magicians in all times and places have employed to mystify their consultants.