The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1907-02-01


fusion and Dexterity These Masters
said to Perform.
"Stoppedy'
In the sudden stiffness that pervades
the great liners saloon everybody
pauses without knowing it and looks
at the captain.
This gentleman merely settles to his
luncheon more comfortably than be-
fore, while anchor chains rattle out
and the steam whistle blows and the
passengers hasten on deck to feel a
heavy, tropical wind blowing off a low
shore, along which tigers and alliga-
tors may creep to the waters edge by
night, but where now noon sun lies
yellow on the huts and rice fields
which are the strangers first glimpse
of Calcutta.
The liner swings we'll out in the
stream
Presently flashes through the brown
ripples of the Hoogly river a dusky
body, and up the anchor chain nimbly
as monkey scrambles man, clad
only In loin cloth and having a tiny,
tight rolled red bundle fastened at the
back of his neck out of reach Of the
water.
The mans first action is to pick up
from the deck a ball Of Irvine with
which a sailor is mending a pawlin
and unwind the string, which goes
straight up in the air in defiance of
the law OF gravitation which should
have trailed it along the deck.
AS the fakir passes another sailor
who has bought cocoanut and Is
cracking 1t open, he gently takes from
the mans hand half of the still full
shell, holds 1t high above ships buck
ct. into which water streams from the
cocoanut until the bucket has been
twelve times filed and emptied. Next
the juggler asks for large earthen
dish, pours into it gallon of water,
raises it aloft in his left hand-his
right being laid against his forehead.
The dish grows smaller by almost i'm
perceptible degrees of shrinkage until
it completely disappears. Then, after
a pause, tiny brown speck Is seen
in the juggler's hand. 1t grows larger
and larger until the dish Is visible as
at first. filed to the brim with water,
which the juggler pours out and which
runs down into the deck cutters.
A little aloof from the eager circle of
spectators sits a young American wo-
man, her baby swinging in a ham,
mock, her hve-year-old daughter on
cushion at her feet. The juggler stands
perfectly still, his eyes fixed absently
upon the group, apparently concentrat-
ing his forces upon some fresh wonder.
The American shrinks backward with
a movement of repulsion, which the
juggler evidently notices, for he turns
his gaze upon an English miss of if
teen who stands on the opposite side
Of the semicircle.
Suddenly the young mother sees the
English girl begin to rise from the
deck and float across the space be-
tween her and the hammock in which
rests the sleeping baby. To her hor-
ror. the girl stoops over and takes up
the infant. Then the girl rises from
the deck, higher and higher, until she
is lost In the clouds.
The mother is helpless to cry out or
to move. She is in sort Of waking
Tiki Oh rfa 0h ma
ceives a spot in the fieecy cfouds-near-
err, nearer it comes-she discerns the
form Of her baby-safe In the arms Of
the English girl, who gradually de-
scends to the deck and lays the infant
back In the hammock.
With q frantic effort the mother
bursts the spell that binds her and
snatches up the child to find it sound
asleep. Glow could you let that
strange girl take your little brother
awayr' she screams to her, startled.
daughter, who sits quietly on the cush-
ion.
'Why, mamma" replies the child,
"brother has been asleep in his ham
mock all the time. No one has touch
ed him."
1t was but one more trick Of the
senses played by the holy man from
India. 1t was utterly inexplicable.
The fellow came over the ships rail
dripping wet after long swim from
shore. The liner has just dropped an
Choir after a voyage of several thou
sand miles. A confederate Is an Inn
possibility. An audience of about 500
skeptical persons crowds close around
the juggler. There is no chance for
deception.
Now the Hindoo unties the bundle
from behind his neck. opens square
: Of red cloth. passes it to the audience
for Inspection and then spreads it fat
on the deck. His eyes turn inward
and become fixed. He mutters to him
self, and, after walking three times
around the square, he thrusts his bare