In order
to make sure that there was no collusion, I despatched my servant to an
intimate friend and asked him to send me his son. While we waited, I
prepared by the magician's direction frankincense and coriander-seed,
and a chafing-dish with live charcoal. Meanwhile, he wrote forms of
invocation on six strips of paper. When the boy arrived, the sorcerer
threw incense and one of the paper strips into the chafing-dish, then
took the boy's right hand and drew a square and certain mystical marks on
the palm. In the centre of the square he poured a little ink. This formed
the magic mirror. He desired the boy to look steadily into it without
raising his head. The fumes of the incense filled the room with smoke.
The sorcerer muttered Arabic words, indistinctly, and this he continued
to do all the time except when he asked the boy a question.
'"Do you see anything in the ink?" he said.
'"No," the boy answered.
'But a minute later, he began to tremble and seemed very much frightened.
'"I see a man sweeping the ground," he said.
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