“But suppose the lamb doesn’t accommodate you?” said the centurion. “Suppose it should be tired, or satiated, or obstinate?”
“That is provided for. The animal is deprived a long time of its favorite dainty. At the worst I incurred no risk. If the trick failed, it remained a secret; the animal could then be killed as every priest slays his victim.”
“You took out the heart and liver,” Bononius continued, “I watched you with the utmost care. You held the wand in your right hand all the time that the entrails were in your left; so the writing that so completely robbed Rutilius of his self-command could not have come from the staff. Far less could the animal have had a liver ready inscribed in its body. How did this incredible thing occur?”
“It was not done with the right hand which carried the wand,” replied Olbasanus smiling, “but with the left, in which I held the liver.”
“Understand me correctly. Before you entered the hall the word ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ was written in inverted characters on the palm of my left hand with a black fluid specially prepared for the purpose. The moist liver eagerly absorbed this fluid and when I laid it on the plate, the miracle was accomplished.”
A long pause ensued. The ridiculous simplicity of this apparently incomprehensible marvel, and the bold assurance displayed by the Chaldean produced a startling effect. Even Lydia now felt ashamed of having so long shared poor Hero’s terror and of only having given her consent after much fear and hesitation to the plan which was to unmask the magician.
“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.”