“Here, take this weapon, and assure yourself it has undergone no preparation.” The Arab breathed several times down the barrel, then through the nipple, to assure himself there was a communication between them, and after carefully examining the pistol, said: “The weapon is good, and I will kill you.” “As you are determined, and for more certainty, put in a double charge of powder, and a wad on the top.” “It is done.” “Now, here is a leaden ball; mark it with your knife, so as to be able to recognize it, and put it in the pistol, with a second wad.” “It is done.” “Now that you are quite sure your pistol is loaded, and that it will explode, tell me, do you feel no remorse, no scruple about killing me thus, although I authorize you to do so?” “No, for I wish to kill you,” the Arab repeated, coldly. Without replying, I put an apple on the point of a knife, and, standing a few yards from the Marabout, ordered him to fire. “Aim straight at the heart,” I said to him. My opponent aimed immediately, without the slightest hesitation. The pistol exploded, and the bullet lodged in the centre of the apple. I carried the talisman to the Marabout, who recognized the ball he had marked. I could not say that this trick produced greater stupefaction than the ones preceding it: at any rate, my spectators, palsied by surprise and terror, looked round in silence, seeming to think, “Where the deuce have we got to here!” A pleasant scene, however, soon unwrinkled many of their faces. The Marabout, though stupefied by his defeat, had not lost his wits; so, profiting by the moment when he returned me the pistol, he seized the apple, thrust it into his waist-belt, and could not be induced to return it, persuaded as he was that he possessed in it an incomparable talisman. For the last trick in my performance I required the assistance of an Arab. At the request of several interpreters, a young Moor, about twenty years of age, tall, well built, and richly dressed, consented to come on the stage. Bolder and more civilized, doubtlessly, than his comrades of the plains, he walked firmly up to me. I drew him towards the table that was in the centre of the stage, and pointed out to him and to the other spectators that it was slightly built and perfectly isolated. After which, without further preface, I told him to mount upon it, and covered him with an enormous cloth cone, open at the top. Then, drawing the cone and its contents on to a plank, the ends of which were held by my servant and myself, we walked to the foot-lights with our heavy burden, and upset it. The Moor had disappeared--the cone was perfectly empty! Immediately there began a spectacle which I shall never forget.