but to retreat would be to avow himself
vanquished, a confession of his weakness;
the man whose muscular vigour had hitherto
been respected, must acknowledge himself
no stronger than a child. This thought
made him almost mad. Deriving fresh
energy from the encouragements which his
friends addressed to him by voice and
gesture, he replied by a look which seemed
to say, "You shall see what a son of the
desert can do." He stooped once more to
lift the box; the wiry fingers of both his
hands were twisted in the handle, his legs,
planted on each side like a couple of pillars
of bronze, served as supports to the supreme
effort he was about to attempt. No one
doubted that, under the powerful strain,
the box would be broken into a hundred
pieces.

Prodigious! The champion so strong and
haughty only a minute ago, now bows his
head; his arms, riveted to the box, are
violently contracted towards his chest; his legs
totter; he falls on his knees, uttering a cry
of pain.

An electric shock had been sent from the
back of the stage, at a given signal, to the
handle of the box. Hence the contortions of
the baffled Arab. To prolong his sufferings
would have been barbarous; the electric
current was therefore immediately
interrupted. The strong man, released from his
terrible bondage, raised his hands above his
head, exclaiming in terror, "Allah! Allah!"
Then hastily wrapping himself in the folds of
his burnous, as if to conceal his shame, he
rushed through the rows of spectators, and
darted out of the house. The audience, grave
and serious, whispered the words, "Shitan!
Djenoun! (Satan, Genie)," and seemed to
wonder that Robert-Houdin did not display
the physical characteristics usually attributed
to the Prince of Darkness.

One of the means employed by the
Marabouts to increase their importance in the
eyes of the Arabs, and consequently to
confirm their domination, was their pretension
to invulnerability. One of them, amongst
others, used to order a gun to be loaded, and
then had it fired at him at a short distance.
In vain the gun-flint scattered its sparks;
the Marabout uttered a few cabalistic words,
and the gun missed fire. The mystery was
shallow enough; the charge failed to explode
as usual, because the Marabout had previously
stopped the touch-hole.

The French authorities had urged the
importance of discrediting these self-styled
miracles, by meeting them with a more
masterly marvel. Robert-Houdin had his affair
for that. He announced to the Arabs that
he was gifted with a talisman which
rendered him invulnerable, and that he
challenged the best shot in Algeria to hit him.
Scarcely had he spoken the words, when an
Arab, who had been remarked for the attention
with which he watched the performance,
strode across four rows of stalls, rushed
through the orchestra, hustling flutes, fiddles,
and clarinets in his passage, climbed on to the
stage regardless of burns from the
footlights, and said in French, "I mean to kill
you."

An immense burst of laughter was the
general answer given to the excited Arab
and his murderous intentions, at the same
time that an interpreter informed the
wizard that his unamiable customer was a
Marabout.

"You mean to kill me?" replied the artist,
imitating his accent and his tone of voice.
"Very well. I tell you that, sorcerer as
you are, I am a still more potent sorcerer,
and that you will not and cannot kill me.
Take this horse-pistol; examine it, and make
sure that it has not been tampered with,
nor undergone any preparation."

The Arab blew into the barrel several
times, and then into the touch-hole, taking
care to feel the puff of wind with his hand,
to be certain that there existed a proper
communication from one to the other. After
examining the weapon in all its details, he
said: "The pistol is good, and I will kill you
with it."

"Since you make such a point of it, to be
doubly sure, put in a double charge of
powder, and wadding upon it."

"I have done so."

"Now take this leaden bullet; mark it
with a knife so as to know it again, and put
it into the pistol, covering it with more
wadding."

"I have done that."

"You are quite sure now that your weapon
is loaded, and that it will not miss fire. Tell
me; do you feel no scruples, no unwillingness
to murder me in this way, although I
authorise you to do so?"

"No; because I wish to kill you," replied
the Arab, coldly.

Without answering, the intended victim
stuck an apple on the point of a knife, and
stepping back a few paces, ordered the Marabout
to fire. "Take aim at the heart."

His adversary took aim, without manifesting
the slightest hesitation. The shot was
fired; the projectile buried itself in the
middle of the apple. The talisman was
presented to the Arab, who recognised the
bullet which he had marked with his own
hands.

It is doubtful whether the general
stupefaction was greater than that caused by the
preceding trick; the spectators, under the
influence of surprise and alarm combined,
looked at one another in silence, and seemed
to ask in mute language, "Where, the devil,
have we got to?" But a laughable scene soon
unbent the majority of the countenances
present. The Marabout, stunned as he was at
his failure, had all his wits about him
nevertheless. Taking advantage of the
opportunity when he returned the pistol, he laid