“A masterpiece certainly!” said Bononius almost furiously. “It ought not to surprise me now if I should learn that your talking skull was a vision of mist or smoke! To be sure, things are not simple until they are understood. But we’ll keep to the regular order of events! I don’t ask about the peals of thunder and flashes of lightning; such things may be heard and seen, though far more imperfectly, even at the performances of foolish pantomimes. But how do you explain the ghostly motion that arose in the brazier of coals? It was an amazing phenomenon.” “In the bottom of the brazier was a sheet of alum, which, melting and bubbling from the heat, imparted its own movements to the coals.” “Now for the skull. Its speech was deceptive--as distinct as your own voice is now.” “It was the voice of an assistant. A tube led from the floor into the skull. The assistant spoke into it below, so the words seemed to proceed directly from the skull.” “And its disappearance?” “Was caused by melting. The skull was modelled of wax and the plates of the niche were heated from below.” “But it was not seen....” “You saw nothing distinctly,” interrupted Olbasanus. “Unperceived by you, a curtain of thin Coan gauze shut off the niche, thus rendering the illusion less difficult. A similar effect was afterwards produced outside in the grounds by the interlaced network of the branches behind which the fire-showering Hecate passed across the sky.” “Explain this flaming Hecate!” The Chaldean laughed heartily, then said in a tone of strange sarcasm: “Pardon me; but it is a singular fatality that my most effective masterpiece always arouses my laughter. I have seen hundreds of credulous folk prostrate themselves on the circle of turf in my grounds and, covering their faces, moan and groan aloud as the horrible phenomenon rose in the dark sky. And yet--or perhaps it is for that very reason--the contrast is too sharp. This Hecate, who apparently passes with frantic haste across the firmament, is nothing but a poor kite wrapped in blazing tow. One of my assistants looses the unfortunate creature,--which is prevented from screaming by a tightly-drawn leather strap,--through a huge pipe, twenty ells long. The tortured bird thus keeps the direction it has taken. Before the tow goes out, the kite has reached the place where it ceases to be visible. Deceived by the branches of the numerous trees, the awed beholders imagine the fiery image is far away in the realms of air and attribute to it gigantic size and supernatural speed--just as the eye, when gazing into vacancy, mistakes a fly buzzing close by for the dimly-seen shadow of a huge bird. This, oh! Bononius, is Hecate, the Ruler of us all, the Princess of Darkness, the horrible tyrant of the Nether World.”