“I glanced enquiringly at Captain Strong, whom I knew to understand many Chinese dialects.
“‘He’s a conjurer and wants to show you a trick,’ he explained, contemptuously, adding a curt word and nod of assent to the native.
“The Annamite beamed idiotically and stretched out his skinny hands over the little table.
“‘_Vous--regarder_,’ he said, evidently making the most of his French, and grinned insinuatingly at me.
“With a slow, snaky motion of his skeleton-like hands he commenced to make passes in the air about six inches above my glass. I watched him, at first idly, but gradually more and more fascinated as my eyes followed the sinuous movements of his hands. Presently, to my astonishment, I saw the glass, tall and fairly heavy--a typical absinthe glass, commence to rock slightly on its base. The direction of the passes altered to a vertical, up and down, as though his hands were encouraging the glass to rise. And sure enough, it detached itself from the table and, swaying a little unsteadily, rose into the air under the hands still some distance above it. It ascended slowly, as though he were drawing it up by a magnetic attraction, to an appreciable height from the table, say three or four inches. Then, as he changed the character of the passes again so that they seemed to press it down, it sank slowly once more to the table. The native, childishly pleased with this successful exhibition of his powers, grinned ingratiatingly at us both.
“Captain Strong threw a coin upon the marble top of the table. The fawning smile still upon his ugly face, the conjurer looked straight into the skipper’s eyes as he gabbled some native words of thanks. Then, instead of picking up the coin, he suddenly seized his benefactor’s hand in his skinny grasp and, using the captain’s forefinger like a pen, traced upon the table-top a large ellipse which commenced and finished at the coin. The action was performed so unexpectedly, and with such swift strength, that Captain Strong had no time to resist. The ellipse completed, he flung aside the captain’s finger and held both his hands outstretched above the invisible tracing. If I was astonished before, I was amazed now. Where the finger had passed over that marble glowed a flexible reddish-gold snake holding in its mouth, like a pendant on a chain, not the coin--but a brilliantly flashing jewel of precious stones fashioned into a curious pattern. I heard a startled exclamation break from my companion, but before either of us could utter an articulate word, the conjurer’s hand had descended swiftly upon the table. A second later both jewel--or coin--and the conjurer had disappeared into the throng of watching Annamites.