Several bright green chameleons from Alexandria, which were perpetually crawling about this altar, and turning from their natural colour to red, blue, and white, according to the hue of anything they approached, added to the _diablerie_ of this scene, which soon became rather exciting. My own share in this adventure was so remarkable, that I came away with but a slight recollection of the part borne in it by my companions. Indeed, I was the second person on whom he attempted to impose, if his singular mode of summoning, or spirit rapping, could be termed an imposition. The first to whom he addressed himself was the Turkish soldier with whom we had found him in conversation. The onbashi wished to know if his mother, Ayesha, widow of Abdallah Ebn Said, who dwelt at Adramyt, was well, and gave the hakim his fee—ten piastres—a large sum, no doubt, for the poor Osmanli warrior, who gazed about with considerable uneasiness, though the unabashed bearing of the Frenchmen might have reassured him; and I heard Jolicoeur whispering to Baudeuf that he had a dozen times seen just such a magical tableau at the Mabille and Porte St. Martin—_diable—oui!_—and had hissed it off, that he might have Mogador or Fleur d’Amour on with their dances. "Ayesha, widow of Abdallah Ebn Said," muttered the hakim. "A lucky name—it was borne by one of the four perfect women who are now in Paradise." Opening a gilt door in his little cabinet or altar, the hakim brought forth a large clam-shell and two phials of a dark liquid. He wrote that verse of the Koran which I have quoted from chapter xvii., concerning the spirit, on a strip of parchment; then, pouring pure water over it, he washed it into the hollow of the shell; thus its sentiment and spirit were supposed to become a component part of the charm about to be wrought. He then desired the onbashi to turn to the east, and pray (for religion evidently bore a great part in all his mummery), and next he summoned me to look into the shell, which he held in his left hand, while waving over it his bronze rod seven times—the mystical number. I steadily gazed into the liquid, which a few drops from the phial had turned to a pale purple tint, but saw—nothing. She did not appear. Thrice she was summoned, but in vain. The hakim tugged his beard, frowned, and reddened with vexation, and emptied his shell, pouring the liquid carefully through a hole in the floor. "My poor mother, then, is dead?" said the corporal, sadly, crossing his hands on his breast. "Stafferillah! nay, do not think so," said the hakim, kindly. "Why, effendi?" "Because, in that case, the liquid would become as black as the holy Kaaba." "But she did not appear?" "This is an unlucky day, my son." "Why so for me, if not for others? I never omit to wash and pray; and yesterday, O hakim, you showed strange things to the Franks, filling all their khans and coffee-houses with wonder."