Kalliboas now took us back to the courtyard, and across to another building, from which came a subdued hum of voices. On entering the hall we discovered a large gathering of youths seated on low benches, and a tall greyheaded old man not unlike Kalliboas in appearance addressing them. This, it seemed, was the tutor. At a sign from Kalliboas the lecture went on, and although this elder spoke a good deal less measuredly than our old guide, I found I could understand him with a fair fluency. He was explaining to his students the secrets of the human mind; from time to time he would call out a pupil, hypnotise him with astonishing ease, and demonstrate to the rest the strangely exaggerated powers of a person in hypnosis. Then students were set to hypnotise one another, the most skilful being greeted with acclaim by their fellows, and the least accomplished, whose laborious long-drawn efforts reminded me acutely of performances I had seen on the public stage in Europe, witheringly derided for their clumsiness. A youth Kalliboas described to us as leader of the school succeeded in reducing no less than six of his fellows simultaneously--an amazing exhibition; he seemed to retain absolute control of their minds, plunging them just as deeply into the sleep as he chose, and toying with his power as a child may play with a coloured balloon. So lightly hypnotised was one boy that I thought the operator had failed to put him to sleep at all, and I remarked as much to the tutor, who shot me a curious little glance, half amused, half malicious, and requested me to question the youth. This took me distinctly by surprise. I had imagined that all that was claimed for the youth was that he had been successfully hypnotised by his fellow student, in which case he might obey any command given him by the latter, but wouldn't necessarily be susceptible to any words of mine. Now it seemed the tutor wanted to represent him as not only hypnotised, but clairvoyant. I felt Poyning jog my elbow. 'Ask him,' he whispered in English, 'what the ground is like near the tomb on the southern foothills.' As I put the question I knew the eyes of both Kalliboas and the tutor were on me very keenly. The boy hesitated for fully a minute, then murmured that streams were pouring swiftly down the slope. 'I see also men working,' he added.