As for Dick, he found himself confronted at the outset by a very serious difficulty. His patient's condition was such that he could not possibly do what was necessary without inflicting upon the unfortunate man an amount of suffering that in his low and exhausted condition threatened to result in collapse and death. The man was too far gone, indeed, to justify the use of anaesthetics, yet without them Dick feared to proceed. What was he to do? Suddenly he bethought himself of hypnotism. Yet, how hypnotise a man whose language he could not speak? Then he remembered a very remarkable statement which Humphreys had made when discussing this same subject of hypnotism. "It is not the actual words which you address to a patient," Humphreys had asserted, "but the commands which your will imposes on him that produce the desired effect, which can be obtained without the employment of words at all, if your will be strong enough. And remember, also, that no abnormal strength of will is needed if your patient be passive, unresisting." "Surely," thought Dick, "that ought to meet the present case, and at all events it is well worth trying; so here goes." Therewith he bent over his patient and, fixing the man's gaze in the peculiar manner which Humphreys had taught him, silently willed him to sink into so deep a sleep that he should feel nothing of what was about to be done to him. Almost immediately the man's eyelids fluttered, closed, and he sank into a profound sleep, breathing slowly and deeply, as could be seen by the regular rise and fall of his bare, brawny chest. "_Wao! 'mtagati_--_'mkulu 'mtagati_ (a wizard--a great wizard)!" murmured the astonished crowd of onlookers behind their hands, gazing wonderingly in each other's eyes.