“That’s enough! That’s enough!” the remonstrant elderly gentleman in the audience admonished him, and he dropped the blade and came forward to beg indulgence for the unseemly and pitiable position in which he found himself placed. He had barely turned his back for a moment, when this juggler whom he had taken so much pains to secure, in order to protect the kind and considerate audience from further deceits of a treacherous art, mysteriously disappeared, and whither he was sure he could not imagine. He hesitated for a moment and looked a trifle embarrassed, for this was the point at which the basket should begin to roll along the floor. He gave it a covert glance, but it was motionless where he had left it. Raising his voice, he repeated the words as with indignant emphasis, thinking that the juggler had not caught the cue. He went on speaking at random, but his words came less freely; the audience sat expectant; the basket still lay motionless on the floor. Seeing that he must needs force the crisis, he turned, exclaiming with uplifted hands, “Do my eyes deceive me, or is that basket stirring, rolling on the floor?” But no; the basket lay as still as he had left it. There was a moment of tense silence in the audience. His face grew suddenly white and chill, his eyes dilated--fixed on something dark, and slow, and sinuous, trickling down the inclined plane of the stage. He sprang forward with a shrill exclamation, and, catching up the bowie-knife, severed with one stroke the cords that bound the basket. “Are you hurt?” he gasped in a tremulous voice to the silence beneath the lid, and as he tossed it aside he recoiled abruptly, rising to his feet with a loud and poignant cry, “Oh, my God! he is dead! he is dead!”