294 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



view. The man had begun by saying that he could com- 

 municate the source of his power, but that he knew it could 

 never be used by the English Sahib, who, though now 

 offering such a fortune to learn the poor juggler's secret, 

 would, he believed, gladly give double afterwards to unlearn 

 it, and he warned him earnestly against pressing for it. 

 Nevertheless, Major M. said, he was foolish enough to persist, 

 and the dread knowledge was now his. He was also free 

 to speak of it to his English friends if he chose, and this was 

 it : The juggler had sold himself, long years before, to the 

 Shaitan, who was a cruel master and made his own con- 

 ditions — the hoary old legend of the compact betwixt man 

 and the Evil One told in Goethe's drama, a legend, like 

 others, with its substratum of truth, ancient, before History 

 was cradled, amongst all races that ever existed. 



That was the man's belief ; the horrifying part to the 

 Englishman being his unmistakable sincerity in regarding 

 the bargain as irrevocable and abhorrent, as shown by his 

 reiterated warnings to the other to beware of knowledge so 

 accursed. 



At the time this occurred we were away in the wilds as 

 usual, but we heard about it afterwards from Major M.'s 

 son, who was one of the privileged witnesses of the mystery. 

 Hypnotism again, undoubtedly, and this juggler perhaps not 

 so highly trained or so susceptible as the Lahore man, who 

 had got beyond searching on the physical plane for a key 

 to the psychic — a sort of knowledge his which comes not 

 by the light of nature. 



An example of a somewhat different kind may be given. 

 It was on this wise. The juggler was asked the same ques- 

 tion or favour as in the last case — Would he leave the beaten 

 track for something else that might be proposed ? — and 

 returned the same unhesitating, unconditional answer, that 

 he would. The inquirer was a collector of coins. He went 

 into the house and brought out a pocketful gathered from 



